If the unemployment rate was rapidly dropping, real income was increasing, and health care was more affordable, does anyone really think Democrats would be facing any electoral worries whatsoever?
The biggest flaw in the post-election spin is the tendency of politicians and pundits to consider most swing voters ideologically-driven news junkies, instead of the results-oriented, low-information participants in the political process that they are. This paragraph in the Washington Post is a good example of the flawed conventional wisdom emanating from both wings of the Democratic Party:
But moderate and conservative Democrats took a clear signal from Tuesday's voting, warning that the results prove that independent voters are wary of Obama's far-reaching proposals and mounting spending, as well as the growing federal debt. Liberal lawmakers, meanwhile, said the party's shortcoming came in moving too slowly on health-care reform and other items that would satisfy a base becoming disenchanted with the failure to deliver rapid change in government.
Since there are never singular causes to electoral outcomes, there are kernels of truth in both claims. Some voters probably are upset with government spending and deficits. Some Democratic voters did probably drop out of the electorate in 2009 because they are frustrated with the lack of change in governmental policy. However, both viewpoints posit winnable Democratic swing voters, whether those who defect to Republicans or those who defect to their couch, as primarily concerned with the abstract machinations of Congress instead of the economic conditions they face in their daily lives.
A better assumption is that most of these swing voters defected to not-voting or to another party because Democrats are in charge and the economy still sucks. Since it does not appear as though what Democrats have done while in power over the past year has improved the situation in the country, fewer people are willing to vote for Democrats.
When most voters believe their lives are getting better, then the party in power will benefit politically. Ideological abstractions about the size of government or appealing to the base don't matter quite as much. It really is, as Mike argued yesterday, about delivering the goods.
I happen believe that progressive-left policies are the best way to make most people's lives better. Even if you disagree with that assessment, the smart post-election political argument for a governing party should be about what policies they can pass that will improve people's lives, not about how to appeal to voters on a more abstract level. |
