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May 19, 2004
We've heard a lot this
We've heard a lot this year about "angry Democrats". "Angry" usually being accompanied by "unified." We are meant to think that this gives the Democrats an advantage in the upcoming presidental election.
Allow me to dissent.
Let's take a trip through some recent history and see what we find. It is my contention that candidates who run an "angry", or "against something" campaign lose. Those that project a positive, "for something" message, generally win.
In 1964 Barry Goldwater ran against Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs. Goldwater was the first modern conservative and ran against what he saw as an unwarranted, large, expansion of government. To steal a phrase from William F Buckley Jr, he "stood athwarts history yelling stop". He also lost the race in one of the biggest landslides to date.
George McGovern made the same mistake in 1972 but from the opposite end of the political spectrum. Arguably the most liberal candidate of the century, he ran as the "peace" candidate against the war in Vietnam. He, too, lost in a landslide.
Ronald Reagan was as conservative as Goldwater but presented his message in a completely different way. Rather than simply present a laundry list of the Carter policies that he opposed, he offered words of hope, spinning adages such as "every day is a new beginning...for this is the land that has never become, but is always becoming...America is the Land of Tomorrow." and that "our best days are yet to come." Reagan offered a vision of hope, not a message of gloom.
Bill Clinton took a page from Reagan and in both 1992 and 1996 told us what he was going to do. His campaign theme was "it's the economy, stupid." He could "feel your pain" and would do something to alleviate it. Bush '41 didn't know what he stood for, only saying that he had good foreign policy experience so would be handy to have around in case of another international crisis. Bob Dole was in favor of ...running, since it was his turn to run.
Certainly Goldwater and McGovern at times said what they were for, and Reagan and Clinton said what they were against. But the point is one of emphasis. Goldwater and McGovern stressed what they were against, Reagan and Clinton what they were in favor of doing.
Polls show that most Democrats who support John Kerry do so because he's not George Bush. They are about as excited about him as Republicans were about Bob Dole in '96. So far Kerry has mainly spent his time telling us what a great war hero he was and criticizing Bush for various alleged failures. But he has not told us what he would do in, say, Iraq, other than call in the UN. Until he is able to generate true excitement in the Democratic base for him, as well as outline coherent plan of action on everything from economics to Iraq, he's going to have a hard time beating George W Bush.
Posted by Tom at May 19, 2004 3:09 PM
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