The Knowledge
Magnetic scans show that London cabbies, like homing pigeons, have extra-developed navigation centers in their brains. Perhaps it's a stretch, but might not professional politicians have similar built-up brain cells to tell them which way the political wind blows and further, might not Democratic brains point one way and Republican brains another? Running to the center may mean entirely different things depending upon the mental political geography of party. The conventional wisdom of always running to the center to win being almost certainly wrong.
When Mondale, Dukakis, Gore and Kerry ran to the center, they lost. When Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush ran to the center, they won. (Bill Clinton should be considered an anomalous outlier since his first election was decided by Ross Perot's strong third party bid and his second election, against Bob Dole, was impossible to lose.)
For either party to win it needs all or most of its base plus most undecideds. When Democrats run to their center, however, they lose important parts of their base. When Republicans run to theirs, they don't.
Running to the center for Democrats means running toward the political center of the entire public, toward a national median political view of things and far away from the heart of the party, toward — in effect — the absurdity of Republican policy. For Republicans, the party of authority, the center means the base plus whoever can be duped into joining, but excludes those truly independent minded. Thus Republican constraints on maximum duping efficiency, compared to Democrats, are fewer. Republican campaigns resemble a well-run cattle rustling raid. Democratic campaigns, an ass kicking convention of one-legged men.
Obama's polls weakened early this summer when he started his pivot to the center. Going along with FISA immunity. Pandering to Israel. The death penalty. A softer position on troop withdrawals from Iraq. NAFTA. Relations with Cuba. Offshore drilling. Joe Biden. What's next? Progressives within the Democratic Party could see the writing on the wall: Obama's intention is to govern, once in office, from the center. Except that the Democratic center does not make sense to an intelligent person who has a dispassionate policy perspective.
So Obama lost critical energy from the Democratic base. Meanwhile, ordinary undecided voters (that sorry lot) see the choice increasingly as being between a real Republican and a Republican-lite. They may not understand the differences but they do understand a certain quality of authenticity. They'll go for the gusto every time.
If Obama loses this election — which is still his to lose — Democratic party leaders should be required to take classes in remedial political orienteering.
Posted by George Kenney on September 14, 2008 11:49 AM 
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Comments
I couldn't agree more George. I've been thinking about this lately as the polls are showing McCain, almost unbelievably to me, in the lead. Would a better strategy for Obama not be one of sticking to his progressive side and spending the energy (and money) on campaigns aimed at getting more people out to vote, instead of pandering to those who can't decide? At this point, don't you think most people who can't decide will go for that which they already know (an old white guy) rather than someone offering change, however watered down that change may seem to us?
With the pathetic proportion of the population actually voting every four years, it seems to me that if everybody who likes Obama and the Democrats better actually got out and voted, it would make a decided difference. I'm worried that with Obama's swing to the center, many, many, MANY young people and visible minorities who were all fired up, and possibly getting ready to vote for the first time, will now become resigned to the fact that the change being promised has become change-lite at best, and simply not make the effort.
The Republicans certainly know how to get their people out. No matter what we think of Sarah Palin, she certainly has got millions of evangelical voters all excited — the same evangelicals who aren't so hot on McCain.
I really think the only way for the Democrats to get lots of new voters to get excited enough to register and vote is to be truly progressive and offer REAL change. Imagine the excitement a single payer healthcare system, for example would generate. And imagine how many people would vote for the first time if promises were made to truly investigate and prosecute the suspected war criminals in the white house! And, as you have suggested, cut the military budget in half. And....and....
Cheers,
Mark
Posted by: Mark Laver | September 14, 2008 8:30 PM
Part of Obama's problem (and that of Democrats in general) is that they really don't have an alternative economic program. As long as they continue to worship the free market and make a fetish of balancing the budget, they will never be able to fund the kind of "change" that the party base would find exciting. (I suggest James Galbraith's The Predator State which is very clear on this point.)
Until we have a candidate who has the guts to forget about budget balancing, be honest about the need for a 50% cut in military spending, and restore the income and corporate tax rates of the Eisenhower era, the promises will be empty rhetoric.
Posted by: Democracy Lover
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September 15, 2008 9:19 AM
"...but might not professional politicians have similar built-up brain cells to tell them which way the political wind blows and further, might not Democratic brains point one way and Republican brains another?"
The answer is no. I think you are forgetting, George, that politicians' brains don't blow — they suck. It is up to our brain cells to figure out which way they suck.
Posted by: 8isis8
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September 16, 2008 8:34 AM