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Do Dems Have To Capitulate On Policy To Be Politically Succesful?

By Big Tent Democrat

Yesterday, Matt Yglesias wrote:

Democratic Party politicians can win if and only if they secure large majorities of the vote from self-identified moderates, and then self-identified moderates have different opinions from liberals about several important issues. I really strongly recommend the paper as a dose of Real Talk for folks (myself included) who are more inclined to take the liberal side of these issues[.]

Today, Ezra Klein writes:

[M]ost Americans don't have terribly strong views on policy and figure people of good faith could fairly easily come to agreement on the nation's major problems. When that's not happening, people get scared.

Put these two thoughts together and you have a recipe for arguing that "Dems have to move to the 'Center' to win in politics." Indeed, that was the DLC mantra (and now it is The Third Way's) for years.

The problem with this theory is that it is bogus. There is scant elections-based evidence to support it. The DLC and others would propose that Bill Clinton is their Exhibit A to support this view.

I think that depends on your view of the Bill Clinton campaign of 1992 and the Bill Clinton Presidency. Was it really all about moving to the Center, or was it more pretending to "move to the Center" on marginal issues (school uniforms anyone)?

In any event, that was then, a period of Republican Presidential ascendency, and this is now, a period following the worst Presidency in history.

My view is that the main object of Democratic politicking on issues should be to forward the acceptance of policies that will render good results. Because in the end, whatever a poll results says, the electorate responds to results, especially on job creation and the economy. If "moving to the Center" rendered good policy results, then it would make perfect sense for the Democrats to do this (see Clinton, Bill.) If "moving to the Center" renders poor results (see, The Deal and the slashing of government spending in an economic downturn), then that will lead to bad political results.

Finally, if in fact, Yglesias and Klein are right in declaring the DLC/Third Way approach a must for Dems, then progressives and liberals must consider approaches that force Democrats to be more liberal and progressive.

Yglesias particularly assumes a unity of interest between the Democratic Party and progressives and liberals, when he appears to be arguing that in fact their interests have a significant divergence.

The fact is that if Yglesias and Klein are right that the DLC/Third Way approach is a must for the Democratic Party, then in fact progressives and liberals must then create distance between themselves and the Democrats in order to evaluate the best way to effectuate outcomes closer to their interests.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 25, 2011 (boomark / email).