Looking Left in '92

TODAY, the political "spin doctors" begin their most delicate operation of the year--trying to determine the "big picture" of the 1988 presidential election. They will likely lay the foundation for a new "Conventional Wisdom" which will say that Gov. Michael S. Dukakis lost because he was a liberal.

In truth, Dukakis lost not because he was "out of the mainstream" as Vice President George Bush contends, but because he failed to explain why liberalism is part of the mainstream. To make matters worse, he refused until almost the very end to energize those voters sympathetic to his cause.

Throughout most of the general election campaign, Dukakis didn't even offer the voters a choice. Only when he faced incredibly long odds, did Dukakis find his voice--a liberal voice--and begin to ignite the passions of the electorate. It was his last-ditch populist crusade of "I'm on your side" which fueled hopes of a long-shot victory. It was his long-awaited defense of liberalism which began to bring the Democrats back home.

WITHIN a month, the battle for the soul of the Democratic Party will begin. The Rev. Jesse Jackson will try to get his point man, Washington, D.C. lawyer Ron Brown elected to the chair of the the Democratic National Committee. Conservative Democrats, lamenting the Republican electoral lock on the South, will fight for a more moderate alternative. The result of this election will be a key indication of how the Democratic Party's future will be charted over the next four years.

Conservative efforts to draw the Democratic Party to the right are foolish and ill-considered. They will begin to speak of Dukakis as though he never had a shot at appealing to moderate and conservative voters, and blame his nomination on liberal special interests within the party.

But the Democratic National Convention in July was a Dukakis love-fest. There was talk of waging a 50-state campaign, the Duke was up by 17 points in the polls, and Democrats gave thanks to the Republican Party for nominating wimpy George Bush.

By any reasonable account, Dukakis was the ideal Democratic nominee, even for the party's more liberal elements. After the 1984 election, pundits and strategists consistently called on the Democrats to nominate one of their young, pragmatic, popular, technocratic governors, and to shy away from the tired liberalism of older Democrats.

Dukakis also had other selling points: he was bland enough not to offend anyone, unknown enough to reformulate his character throughout the course of a national campaign, and had a financial war chest that could rival the fundraising abilities of any Republican.

The conservative elements in the party will still blame the loss on liberalism. But any true Democrat will be characterized as a liberal--that is the strength and heritage of the Democratic Party. Dukakis tried to run away from this heritage and posed as a moderate; as he learned, fudging a resume doesn’t sell in presidential politics.

Even when Dukakis finally gave his lukewarm endorsement of liberal principles, he had to qualify it--I might be a liberal, he said, but I can balance budgets. That argument reinforces the idea that liberals are sappy but warmhearted people incapable of competent fiscal management--an unusual accusation to shy away from in light of the Reagan-Bush administration's incredible fiscal irresponsibility over the past eight years.

TO win the White House, the Democratic Party needs to move left, not right. The heir-apparent to the Democratic nomination in 1992 is now Jesse Jackson, who refuses to hide his liberalism. In a radio interview last week, Jackson proclaimed that if Bush were to win the election, the next political season would begin in earnest the following morning.

Jackson understands that liberalism is still relevant to American politics. One of the greatest ironies of this election has been that while George Bush was bashing and mischaracterizing liberal principles, he kidnapped the mainstream liberal positions of the Democratic Party--daycare, education, the environment and defense of the middle class. Bush said he wanted a "kindler, gentler" nation and he realized his more conservative side--which grants tax breaks to the rich and wages negative campaigns--couldn't bring that about.

Pundits like the New Republic's Morton Kondracke, a once-liberal Democrat, speculate that Jackson will win the 1992 nomination, lose miserably, and transform the Democratic Party into an American version of the British Labor Party--a strong liberal voice permanently locked out of the nation's highest office.

This analysis ignores the fact that many Americans prefer to have a choice between candidates. To annoint Sam Nunn, Bill Bradley or Lloyd Bentsen as the party's standard-bearer is tantamount to telling the electorate, "Well, sure, we're the Democratic Party, but we're the Democratic Party, but we're going to try to adopt the Republican Party's ideals, and try to convince you that we can do a better job at being conservative that they can."

It wasn't until Ronald Reagan came along, waving pistols on horseback, that the Republicans embraced conservatism and made liberalism the political philosophy that dares not say its name. Republican congressional candidates who have embraced conservatism have been largely successful, while even in the wake of the Reagan 1980 landslide popular incumbent Senator Charles Percy, a moderate Republican, lost to liberal Democratic candidate Paul Simon in Illinois.

Once the Democratic party learns to articulate a progressive voice, they must reconstitute the New Deal coalition and expand it. Liberal policies are still more beneficial to women, minorities and labor--but they are only a base on which to build a wider constituency.

About half of all eligible voters chose not to cast ballots in this election. The Democratic mistake--made in the wake of their convention with Dukakis ahead in the polls--was to believe that they could win without tapping into the disenfranchised elements of the silent electorate. Millions of Americans feel that there was little difference between the two candidates or parties, and the political process has no relevancy to their lives.

But there was a difference between the two candidates. Dukakis was simply too inarticulate to express that difference until the waning days of the campaign. He could have won this election, but like most politicians he lacked the fortitude to tamper with the electorate, and take his chances with a volatile group of new voters with no prior allegiences.

Granted, it will take a politician with rare courage to reach out and inspire these non-voters. It will take more than a boring technocrat, or a mean-spirited candidate who appeals to our cheapest instincts. It will take a principled and committed liberal strong enough to express his love for the people, and bold enough to challenge them.