Barack Obama would have been the perfect Presidential candidate for 1992 (if you put aside the issue of race and whether he could have won 16 years ago). Bill Clinton was good for that political environment but Obama would have been an even better fit. Obama's signature line, the one that catapulted him to political stardom: "...there's not a Red America and a Blue America...just the United States of America" would have resonated even more then. Coming off the bitter 1988 Presidential race, there was a large political "middle," people unhappy with both parties. Ross Perot exploited this opening and at one point led both Clinton and Bush 1. Perot was a flawed vessel for this movement and after his temporary withdrawal from the race Clinton-Gore quickly co-opted his deficit-cutting themes. In the 1990s the DC crowd was obsessed with the political "middle." Mustn't Upset the Middle! Will it Appeal to the Middle? What Will Moderates Think? When health care failed and Republicans won big in 1994 conventional wisdom said Clinton had overreached and was being punished by moderate voters. Maybe. Maybe he was punished for failing to deliver a needed reform. Today, most traditional media pundits are stuck in this 1990s middled-obsessed thinking. For the latest example, see Adam Green's post on Mark Halperin below. Halperin believes Democrats in purple-ish states should vote against health care reform. He's wrong for reasons Adam points out (the public option is popular in those states) and for another reason I'll describe below. Times have changed. The media environment has changed. The middle is shrinking. Yes, the number of voters describing themselves as Independent has risen in 2009 but that temporary trend obscures the broader reality. At the end of a pitched Presidential election battle the number of people sitting on the fence is almost always at a low point. That number is bound to rise some the further away from election day we get. And there are people who lean conservative who are now embarassed to describe themselves as Republicans. But, I would argue, the main political lessons we've learned from 2006-2009 are these: 1. The political middle is shrinking. The Democratic party is becoming more progressive and the Republican party is full of crazy loons becoming more conservative. Fox News is very popular with Republicans; MSNBC has become very popular with Democrats and CNN is in the middle and struggling. Conservative blogs do well; Democratic blogs do better; very few successful blogs are "bipartisan." Democrats hate the moderate Joe Lieberman (and I wrote that before today's Lieberman news - perhaps despise is a better word). Republicans hate the moderate Olympia Snowe. John McCain became more conservative to enhance his popularity in his party. Harry Reid has embraced a public option more robust than one Obama would have accepted. Need I say more? Very few moderates are politically viable these days. Obama is one, or at least plays one very well, even if the crazy loons right portrays him as a socialist-Communist-Nazi-enemy-of-humanity. 2. Republicans are very unpopular and could be for a very long time. Evidence for the first half of the assertion is clear: Republicans were trounced in the 2006 and 2008 elections. What's happened since then? Republican party ID has fallen to further depths. Staunch Republicans like Newt Gingrich are now in the same hated moderate category that Republicans put Olympia Snowe. As the base moves to the right and gets smaller there is little opportunity for growth. Demographic trends will not be kind to them either as the country gets less white, less homophobic, less religious and as young voters, overwhelmingly Democratic in 2008, make up a larger share of the voting population (see Chris Bowers series on this at the previous link). So, if you accept that the terrain has changed what are some likely outcomes?: 1. Democrats such as Harry Reid can only win elections if they energize the large Democratic base to work for them and/or donate. This is what Halperin doesn't get. In the past, perhaps, Reid would have to win "the middle" while holding onto his base. Today such a strategy would fail because the middle is small and the base is big. See Creigh Deeds for more on how to screw up a race by using rules written in the 1990s. 2. Conservative Democratic Senators can keep their jobs only if they don't piss off the base. The base has proven itself to be very motivated and vocal on the public option. It has simply become a bill you can't oppose and expect to survive your next election. You'll get challenged from the left and, if you eke out a victory there, you'll have an angry unmovitated base for your general election match-up. If you're in a "red" state how can you beat a Republican challenger (sure to be well funded by the insurance industry) under those circumstance? Let me make this point more clearly: Middle Small. Base Big. Big wins more elections than Small. Especially a motivated Big. 3. Republicans in blue districts (there are still some of those) will vote for Democratic bills. People assume Olympia Snowe can do anything she wants because she has been popular in the past. They are wrong. Her favoribility ratings are higher right now with Democrats in Maine than among Republicans. Her new base is Democrats. She's had a long run and maybe she doesn't care about winning another term. If so, she can do what she wants. But a vote against the health care bill will bring a strong challenge from the left, a possible loss right there, or a weakened candidate with an unmotivated base. The same dynamic applies for Sen. Collins and GOP representatives of blue districts. 4. Kill The Bill to Save The Bill. More progessive legislation will pass (and more easily). The light bulbs have gone on in some Congressional offices. The Alan Grayson phenomenon helps. But the public option victory would be huge. Progressives who band together in the House and Senate can block bills that are too weak. The key must be a willingness to "kill the bill to save the bill." Only the credible threat from the progessive caucus in the House (and the loud support and activism from the netroots) to vote "no" on phony health care legislation, coupled with Nancy Pelosi's non-stop repetition of "The House cannot pass a health care bill without a public option" kept this legislation going when so many though it would die. And so the ground has shifted. There is reason for hope. Cliches apply here. You must first envision success in order to achieve it. We limit our potential when we dream too small. That is the lesson I take from the public option fight. Update in light of Lieberman's filibuster statement: I don't think Lieberman has any intention of running for reelection which gives him the power to do whatever he wants. And by the way, keeping with my theme of optimism, I expect him to ultimately concede on this, perhaps after he's given something minor. |
