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I was delighted to see in Sunday's Washington Post that senior operatives for McCain seem to have convinced themselves that ideologically this is the same kind of center-right country that Republicans have thought it to be for the last 40 years. Given that Republicans won seven of ten Presidential contests in those years, that the three Democrats who won were Southern moderates, and that the GOP had control for both houses of Congress for a 12-year run before the 2006 elections, it's easy to understand why they believe that. Many D.C. Democrats secretly or not-so-secretly believe it, too.
I'm less sure about that view of recent history, but it's not my intent here to argue whether it's true, because even if the country has been center-right these past four decades, one thing I am certain of is that it no longer is.
I make this case at length here, but if you don't want to check out all those facts and figures, my premise is this: the country made a fundamental shift in their views of conservative ideology in 2005, and is now substantially more progressive ideologically than it used to be. The Iraq/Katrina/Social Security privatization/Terri Schiavo toxic swamp of the summer of 2005 caused a tectonic plate shift in our politics, as more and more voters realized how flawed conservative policies are.
In terms of a partisan basis, the country essentially moved from about a third Democratic, a third Republican and a third Independent in 2004 to a ten point-plus margin for the Democrats now, and that partisan edge is also reflected in where voters are at on most of the major issues.
If McCain's people truly believe that this is a center-right country in 2008, we will win this election easily. Their best hope is not to portray McCain as a maverick conservative, but as a maverick reformer instead, independent of conservative philosophy. The problem with that, of course, is what that does to his base vote, but I still think it's his only hope. Right now, though, he is apparently trying to project himself as a center-right candidate, and I think he will suffer for it.
Conversely, our best shot- both for Obama and for winning sweeping margins in Congress- is not to shy away from bold contrasts with Republicans, but to make an ideological case. That goes against the instincts of those of us who came of political age in the disappointments of the law few decades, but right now I'm convinced that being bold in our positioning is exactly the way to go. The complicated thing for us is that Obama's post-partisan message makes for a complicated fit with a strong contrast in ideologies, but I still think it can be done by emphasizing the out-of-Washington nature of his message- wanting to move beyond the stale battles of the past, but to do it in a way that clear, strong progressive policies are achieved. He is using that formula in many of his speeches- talking a lot about universal health care and getting us out of Iraq and McCain's embrace of Bush's policies- and I think that kind of message is the best way to go.
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