Blog For Arizona

Of Yellow Dogs and a Burning Bush

There is a meme circulating among Democrats that is unusually virulent and destructive. This is how it works:

Bush is nearly unbeatable + any Democrat is an acceptable alternative to Bush (even a yellow dog, as the saying goes) = the candidate who seems able to defeat Bush should be nominated x Bush is best able to be defeated by overshadowing his strengths and exploiting his weaknesses = the best candidate must be measured primarily against Bush's qualities and policies.

The result of this sick obsession with Bush is that the Democratic nomination has become a contest to be the Anti-Bush, instead of a decision about who would make the best Democratic President for the United States. The obsessive focus on Bush plays into the Bushistas' hands in the same fashion that the obsessive focus on Dean by many of the major Democratic candidates has only tended to benefit Dean. Attention is power in modern America. It doesn't always matter if the attention is good is bad.

The Bushies set loose the meme of Bush invulnerability in the months immediately following the invasion of Iraq. With Bush's approval numbers (a nearly meaningless metric) in the stratosphere, a seemingly plausible case was sold to the media that Bush is all but unbeatable. The media's echo chamber proceeded to repeat it so often that it became the Conventional Wisdom. Bush has reaped enormous benefits from it, and nearly every Democrat has come to believe it implicitly. But Bush's reelect numbers never climbed very high and have fallen into the low 40s, indicating that he is very vulnerable. Other major polling indicators of confidence in and agreement with Bush also have been below plurality levels for some time now. The public's lack of confidence in the Bush Administration is likely to further decline as the problems he has created for himself grow more severe: the Plame affair, the 9/11 investigation and report, transparent WMD lies, mounting deaths and disorder in Iraq. There are also continuing problems with the economy, despite signs that the hundreds of billions of deficit spending Bush has thrown at the problem are having some isolated stimulative effects.

Simple common sense indicates that Bush is vulnerable. Very few people who voted for Gore in 2000 are likely to vote for Bush. The outrage people felt at being disenfranchised by the Supreme Court is still very real. The policies the Bush Administration has pursued at the expense of consumers, the elderly, children, veterans and military personnel, the environment, and workers, are not likely to be outweighed by the pittance of tax relief his tax policies have given most people. Anecdotally, I constantly meet Republicans who are switching parties or plan to vote for anyone other than Bush in the general election; whereas I have yet to meet a single Democrat who has decided to vote for Bush. It is true that the 2000 census has shifted 7 additional electoral votes into 'Bush' states, but that is still far from the total needed for victory; he will need to keep all the states he won last time, including Florida. His very narrow margins of victory in several states, his alienation of several key states with his politically opportunistic trade policies, and the over-all economic malaise and job loss in industrial states of the Northwest, along the Great Lakes and the Mississippi river, add up to a very dark electoral picture for Mr. Bush in 2004.

In short, the idea that Bush is nigh on invulnerable is complete hogwash. In fact, for a sitting President he's enormously vulnerable. It is time for Democrats to publicly and forcefully declare that Bush is a man of straw, not a man of steel. Bush is not only beatable, he will need considerable good luck and seismic political changes to win. That is what the polling shows, the mood of the country indicates, and the crows now circling Bush's homestead, looking for a place to roost, actually indicate.

The myth of Bush's invulnerability has twisted the discourse of the Democratic nomination away from who has the combination of policies, record, and personal attributes to make the very best President of the United States the Democratic party can offer. Instead, the nomination has become an empty argument about who is best equipped to take Bush on in November. How many times have you heard the refrain, "But Candidate X is not electable against Bush! We mustn't nominate him!" The harmful aspect of this folderol is that by focusing mainly on the attributes and positions needed to take on Bush, the national agenda of the Democratic party and the person who will be the Democrats' standard bearer are being shaped more as a reaction to, and a negation of, Bush, than as a vision for governing America. This is not to say that important themes aren't being established; they are - universal health insurance, multi-lateral foreign policy, cooperative defense policy, tax fairness, preservation of Great Society programs, and civil rights for all have emerged as major themes in nearly all the Democratic candidates platforms - but the nominee will not be able to articulate a real vision for America until he is freed of talking only about Bush.

A conundrum, illustrating the falsity of Bush's strength, is seen in the Bush-reciprocal policy choices of some candidates. If Bush is so strong, then why are those who most often craft their positions as a mirror-image of Bush's leading in the polls? If Bush were indeed hugely popular, one would expect those candidates who have adopted many of Bush's positions and have carefully chosen only certain areas in which to differ to be the leading contenders. Instead, Dean and Clark, who have consistently pulled their policy positions from the set of 'Not Bush', are the current frontrunners. Those who have been compromised by supporting or consenting to Bush's policies have faded, or been reduced to desperate one-state comeback strategies. There are exceptions, of course. Graham, who opposed the Iraq war resolution, has already thrown in the towel, and Kucinich, who has always been diametrically opposed to Bush's policies, and has consistently voted against them in Congress, remains a very dark horse. Personality, gravitas, political talent, and money all weigh into the equation, but evidence is present that Democratic voters want a clear contrast between Bush's GOP and their nominee and party. This indicates that Bush's policies are not generally popular. And if his policies are not popular, no amount of 'favorable feeling' or 'approval' will get him reelected.

But what appeals to the primary voter may not be what appeals to the general electorate. Many Democrats clearly think that primary voters are part of the problem. Primary voters are considered more partisan, more loyalist, and more liberal than mainstream voters of the general election. Then how on earth did centrist, third-way, starched polo shirted, corporation approved Al Gore make it through the primary process against the more dynamic, more liberal, and more folksy Bill Bradley? It's because the primary voters, with millions of minds at work, are collectively smarter and more in synch with the mood of the nation than the smarmy, conformist "experts" in the media and inside the Beltway. Bush was advertised as a well-financed establishment moderate, a "compassionate conservative," and a uniter. In response, the voters ultimately chose someone best equipped to fight for the middle. They chose correctly, Gore won the popular vote, and were it not for the clearly illegal manipulation of the Florida voter rolls under the pretense of expunging felons, or even the spineless acceptance of hundreds of clearly illegal military ballots, Gore would have won the electoral vote as well.

Now voters see Bush as he really is: a radical corporate tool, far to the right of much of his own party, willing to shed American blood for lies and mad theories of American dominance, bankrupt his nation for the advantage of his wealthy contributors, and attack and destroy the very social contract that has built the nation we love. The voter's reaction is to select someone who is passionate, articulate, smart, and inspiring to champion the values and the policies of liberalism in a manner that is unapologetic, unashamed, uncompromising, and appropriately angry about the damage Bush is doing. Voters are favoring candidates who have a complex and nuanced record, which includes experience in real life professions, and who embrace the common sense of conservatism, the high goals of liberalism, and the bedrock convictions of civil libertarianism. Democrats think they need someone who isn't afraid to buck the media's issue frames and tell it like it is, someone who will bluntly tell America the truth as he sees it, even if the media howls with outrage at his temerity. They know that this is the only way to overcome the rhetoric, lies, and fear-mongering the Bush campaign will use to dupe moderates into voting for him. They will choose a candidate who thoughtfully chooses positions based on their merits, without regard to their ideological purity, and thereby has the potential to appeal to both moderate and liberal voters, rather than a candidate who simply snuggles up to Bush's left flank. The nominee will be someone who can lead the Democratic coalition not from a single point on the political continuum, but by occupying and appealing to the entire political spectrum to the left of Bush. The Democratic party must be forced to govern not by pandering to narrow interests, but by creating a mix of policy, rooted in its best traditions, which most can accept. Only two candidates, Dean and Clark, have demonstrated the potential to be such a leader, but the contest between them must be carried out free of the destructive and paranoid influence of the meme of Bush the unconquerable.

The unbeatable Bush meme has engendered near panic among Democrats and created a free-for-all atmosphere in which any incivility is excusable in the name of beating Bush. Democratic candidates roll out terrible and vacuous attack ads against each other, misrepresent and flat-out lie about each other's records and positions. They are not only emulating the worst aspects of the GOP, but are doing much of the GOP's dirty-work. The only predictable result of such negative campaigning is to suppress turn-out among the partisans of both the attacked and the attacker. This is the very thing Democrats cannot afford: Democrats causing Democrats to sit this election out.

Wide recognition that Bush is now very vulnerable may not eliminate the attacks, nor improve the tone of the race markedly, but it may at least stop the meaningless and misleading electability comparisons. It seems likely now that Dean and Clark both fit the profile that Democratic voters are looking for, and the battle for the nomination will be between these two men. The nominee should not be chosen on the basis of who is perceived to be able to beat Bush, because either candidate ( and likely even several of those now struggling to remain in the race ) can do so, but based on who has the better policies, experience, character, and political ability to be the most effective President for the people of the United States. Democrats must come to understand that we do not face a vital, deeply-rooted tree come November, just a little burning Bush. Surely, a pack of Yellow Dogs have the means to deal with that.

posted by Michael Bryan @ 1/10/2004 11:49:00 PM