California Conservative

Al Quindlan is the latest to take a shot at figuring out why Democrats don’t win as many elections as they used to. His RCP op-ed offers some solid advice. It also points out what Democrats’ problem is. Let’s take a closer look:

We stopped being the party of the people, and only for the people. The public came to view us as “the Government Party” that was more interested in being part of government than in connecting with regular people. We stopped sharing our personal beliefs and only shared our policy proposals. We stopped giving people a reason to trust us and voters began to doubt our convictions. And we stopped believing that giving voters a sense of who we are and where we come from was a critical part of communicating. It never stopped being important to voters, but somehow it stopped being important to Democrats.

That’s actually a pretty good observation, one well worth following. That’s also where their problem lies. It’s obvious that the far left fringe of the party wants Democrats to express their message more aggressively. The problem is that the party’s agenda is old and uninspiring. Democrats have been fairly characterized as pro tax increases. Just look at Jon Corzine’s budget that he recently submitted. According to Rush, New Jerseyites pay more in taxes on a pack of cigarettes than Floridians pay for a pack of cigarettes.

It’s one thing to tell people what makes you tick. It’s another to tell them what makes you tick while espousing compelling policies. I suspect that Democrats spend so much time not being specific about their higher taxes, more spending agendas that they can’t relax and be themselves. The truth is that Democrats lose big when they talk about taxing the rich. The average American doesn’t worry about ’soaking the rich’ with the fervor that Congressional Democrats do. Talk about a disconnect.

Elections are not won based on issue checklists; they are won by candidates, real people. Candidates who are parents and trying to spend more time with their kids, not just policy experts on the deficit. Candidates who cannot sit down and watch a ballgame with their kids because of the racy drug ads and the violence, not just experts on tax policies for the middle class. Candidates who pray when their parents get sick, not just experts on health care. Candidates who worry about their neighbor down the street fighting in a war, not just another politician with a plan to win it.

This should tell us a couple things: (A) It should tell us that candidates like Hollarin’ Howard Dean, Frantic Al Gore, Haranguing Hillary Clinton and Nondescript John Kerry shouldn’t be considered as a presidential nominee forever because they simply don’t connect with real people. (B) We can ignore all polls that tell us that people prefer Democrats’ views on the issues. I remember Brit Hume talking about how Walter Mondale led Ronald Reagan on the vast majority of issues, something like 11 of the 13 listed issues, the day before Reagan’s 49-2 state romp of Mondale. (Of course, the two issues that Reagan led were national security and the economy so that might’ve tilted things somewhat.)

Democrats can’t be themselves because they’d turn people off. What would happen if they came out with a ‘Contract with America’ type thing and the first few items were (a) to raise taxes on the “richest 1 percent”; (b) spend even more on the Medicare drug plan than Republicans spent; and (c) start removing the troops from Iraq within six months and have them completely out within a year?

I’d predict that things would get awfully bloody this November. I’ll also predict that they won’t espouse these values in public.

Technorati Tags: 2006, 2008, Democrats, Senate, Party of the People, A National Party No More

Cross-post at LetFreedomRing

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006 at 4:41 pm and is filed under Author: Chris Short, Author: Gary Gross, Election 2008, Elections, Liberals, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.