The purpose of this diary is three-fold. First, to re-state and expand upon my basic thesis. Second, to address some recurrent mistakes in responding to the polling data and arguments presented in part 2. Third, to present new information from the cross-tabs in the SUSA polls.
The premise of my argument is that Edwards is particularly strong VP candidate because he helps accomplish historically important tasks for the Democratic Party, which Chris has previously illuminated. The SUSA polls are cited to reinforce the larger argument, but they are not the foundation for it.
(1) The liberal/Democratic coalition and the conservative/Republican coalitions were relatively evenly matched for a long period of time, with a balance of power held by reformers whose primary orientation was outside vs. in, rather than left/right.
These reformers were most historically visible via the record of repeated third party efforts over the course of a century, in which the ostensible ideology varied significantly, but the outside vs. in orientation did not. The strongholds were in the less populared regions of the Northeast (Maine, rather than Massacusettes), the Midwest, Great Plains and Mountain West. The South was notably absent.
The right successfully wooed the bulk of these people from the Perot coalition from 1994 onward. However, as the GOP consolidated power and showed itself to be increasingly insular and corrupt, the potential for a realignment mushroomed for bringing the reformers over into an alliance with the Democrats.
(2) Barack Obama unexpectedly emerged as a candidate representing the reformers, and his record in the primaries and caucuses reflected the characteristic geography. His orientation had distinct parallelsd with the classical Progressives of the early 20th Century. At the same time, though he could not raise the money to compete nationwide, polling showed that Edwards was a powerful general election candidate who scored well with traditional Democratic constituencies, and registered as a populist-styled outside vs. in reformer. Thus, the two candidate had the potential to run together as reinforcing candidates-which Chris has argued is a more powerful way to structure a ticket.
(3) While the DC establishment remains fundamentally hostile to outside-in reform, the country as a whole strongly favors it-as seen most strikingly in the 80%+ "wrong track" numbers. Not surprisingly, DC-favored VP candidates are not particularly strong. Although Survey USA did not pick a good field of Democrats, the two strongest VP picks were both Southern populists of a sort-Huckabee and Edwards. Edwards strength in the VP matchups thus does not exist in a vacuum, but is a confirmation of large-scale trends that have been at work for some time.
Despite the weakness of the Dem VP field polled, the only major figures who conceivably might do as well or better than Edwards are Gore, who clearly will not run and Clinton, whose bitter attacks on Obama and politically powerful husband make a VP slot for her decidedly problematic, as well as a far cry from a reinforcing ticket. Thus, flawed though it is, the Survey USA VP polls provide unique and valuable insight into the continued validity of the above theoretical reasons to see Obama/Edwards as the superior choice for building the Democratic Party's future.
In Part 1, Chris Bowers, Psychic Pundit!, I argued that Obama's candidacy had fulfilled a need that Chris had pointed to within a few weeks of the 2004 election--the need to supplement the Democratic base with an appeal to those who were non-ideological in the traditional liberal/conservative sense, but rather, were ideologically committed to reforming government to make it more responsive to the people. I further showed that the geographic distribution that Chris had found for such sentiments, stretching back over 100 years was also present in Obama's pattern of primary victories.
I now want to turn to Chris's more recent writing about choosing a VP as a reinforcing, rather than a balancing candidate, an idea that he clearly developed in his diary,
[R]ather than choosing a running mate to create balance on a ticket for the purpose of shoring up perceived weakness in the Presidential nominee, it would be best to choose a running mate whose qualities reinforce the rationale behind the candidacy of the person at the top of the ticket.
Whatever people here may think of the Clinton Presidency, I think that Clinton's selection of Al Gore was the best running mate choice a nominee from either party has made in decades. Clinton ran on a dual platform of change, arguing that the country needed a shift away from Republicans and an older generation, and that the Democratic Party needed to shift away from traditional liberalism. He was a young Democrat proposing sweeping health care reform and a shift away from a Cold War national security budget, but he was also a DLC southerner who sought to make the party more "business friendly." Further, he won the nomination in 1992 largely on the strength of southern support on Super Tuesday and an electability argument that he could do the same in the general election. So, instead of "balancing" the ticket to compensate for his flaws by, say, selecting a member of the old, northern, liberal establishment as his running mate, he picked another young, white, DLC southerner who had run a virtually identical campaign four years earlier. Selecting Al Gore reinforced the message at the center of Clinton's campaign, rather than selecting someone who would balance and compensate for the qualities that Clinton lacked.
I've written before about extending Chris's argument, following up the above quote with the following argument...
Writing about potential Vice-Presidential selections is one of the more absurd realms of political speculation. Nonetheless, I wanted to present an idea that I hope will take Democratic approaches to selecting Vice-Presidents in a different direction than we have seen in most recent elections. Specifically, rather than choosing a running mate to create balance on a ticket for the purpose of shoring up perceived weakness in the Presidential nominee, it would be best to choose a running mate whose qualities reinforce the rationale behind the candidacy of the person at the top of the ticket.
Whatever people here may think of the Clinton Presidency, I think that Clinton's selection of Al Gore was the best running mate choice a nominee from either party has made in decades. Clinton ran on a dual platform of change, arguing that the country needed a shift away from Republicans and an older generation, and that the Democratic Party needed to shift away from traditional liberalism. He was a young Democrat proposing sweeping health care reform and a shift away from a Cold War national security budget, but he was also a DLC southerner who sought to make the party more "business friendly." Further, he won the nomination in 1992 largely on the strength of southern support on Super Tuesday and an electability argument that he could do the same in the general election. So, instead of "balancing" the ticket to compensate for his flaws by, say, selecting a member of the old, northern, liberal establishment as his running mate, he picked another young, white, DLC southerner who had run a virtually identical campaign four years earlier. Selecting Al Gore reinforced the message at the center of Clinton's campaign, rather than selecting someone who would balance and compensate for the qualities that Clinton lacked.
