Dems Need a New Battle Plan

After the Democrats lost the 2000 presidential election, Clinton advisors Paul Begala and James Carville published “A Battle Plan for the Democrats” in The New York Times in which they proposed demonizing President George W. Bush as their party’s chief political strategy. Begala and Carville advised fellow Democrats, “First, call a radical a radical. Mr. Bush’s agenda is neither compassionate nor conservative; it’s radical and it’s dangerous, and Democrats should say so.”

As evidence of the “radical and dangerous” Bush agenda, Begala and Carville pointed to factually suspect examples such as “tax cuts for the rich;” in fact, middle-class working Americans received substantial tax relief under Bush’s new fiscal policies. They also accused Bush of “[handing] over Americans’ retirement benefits to the vagaries of the stock market,” however, Bush’s plan to rescue Social Security through limited privatization was dismissed outright, without analysis of stock market performance or potential safeguards against “vagaries.” Additionally, Begala and Carville lambasted Bush’s right-wing “judicial nominees” (left-wing Clinton nominee Judge Frederica Massiah-Jackson, opposed by Philadelphia’s district attorney for “deeply ingrained and pervasive bias against prosecutors and law enforcement officers,” apparently demonstrated the impartiality characteristic of a more praiseworthy judicial pick).

Begala and Carville’s battle plan, to “call a radical a radical,” has not worked. Republicans swept midterm elections nationwide in Nov. 2002, prompting Washington Monthly editor-in-chief Paul Glastris to offer this clear explanation for why the Democrats got spanked: “They had no message.” Specifically, the Democrats’ mantra that “Bush is a radical,” supported with tired and trite examples, did not resonate with centrist voters. Glastris suggests that Democrats should have instead focused their campaigns on alternative fiscal policies, homeland security and multilateral intervention in Iraq—all platforms more substantive than “Bush is a radical,” and all part of a potentially inspiring Democratic “message” to voters.

The Begala-Carville battle plan did not work, precisely because voters recognized then, as they recognize now, that Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” is not radical. Certainly, tax cuts and limited privatization of Social Security are conservative practices, in that they reflect classical liberal values such as limited government and the primacy of individual decision-makers within the framework of law.

But these measures are also, as Bush emphasizes, compassionate. Tax cuts have been designed to give working families more disposable income, Social Security would be privatized with the welfare of future retirees in mind and Bush’s philosophy of a limited government role in the oversight of social welfare respects the autonomy of individuals. Concern for the welfare of others and respect for individual liberties are comfortably mainstream values in American society. Such is the extent of Bush’s radicalism.

Today, however, the Begala-Carville strategy of branding Bush as a “radical” continues in the candidacy of current Democratic frontrunner Howard Dean. In a Sept. 23 speech in Copley Square—a speech replete with anti-Bush pejoratives but surprisingly light on evidence to substantiate claims that, for example, the President “doesn’t understand defense”—Dean attempted to cast the present administration as one completely out of touch with the values of voters: “What’s at stake in this election is democracy. Either we take action now and come together to restore a politics of participation and a politics of the people, or we allow the Washington insiders and the special interests to continue to make the back room deals that are destroying people’s faith in our government.”

Technically, if we are having an election at all after three years of what Dean compares to oligarchic tyranny, it is unlikely that democracy is at stake. But in his rhetorical posturing, Dean makes a specific assumption that is unreasonable, that “Washington insiders and special interests” dominate policy decisions.

A study by scholars at Stanford and the University of Chicago challenges the assumption that corporate special interests wield substantial influence over policy. Stanford Business School economist Timothy Groseclose and his co-researchers analyzed the 1998 election cycle and found that less than 10 percent of total campaign contributions came from corporate political action committees. Examining corporate lobbying expenditures, the researchers found that in 1998, corporations donated six times as much to charities as they spent on lobbying.

Dean does not take into account a more plausible influence on policy decisions: voter preferences. Of the $560 million that the researchers estimate came from “soft money” sources, most of this represented the contributions of single-issue advocacy groups. These groups build up influence through membership and private donations—both factors that are the consequence of support from American voters. The Stanford Business School’s online newsletter, using the National Rifle Association (NRA) as an example, makes the point that a politician may vote for NRA-approved legislation, not because of an NRA contribution, but because his constituents approve of it. The NRA contribution reflects the will of voters.

In light of these observations, it is difficult to take seriously Dean’s assertion that special interests hijack the will of the people. A Sept. 22 Pew Research Center poll refutes Dean’s second claim that people’s faith in government has eroded. Fifty-five percent of respondents approved of “the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president,” roughly equivalent to the fifty-three percent who responded similarly in the Pew Research Center’s first poll after Bush took office. If we Americans do, as Dean says, “want our country back” from Bush and his “insiders,” we are not saying so.

What should emerge from the stark contrast between Dean’s rhetoric and a more careful consideration of special-interest politics and voters’ general approval of Bush is that the Democrats need a message. Dean may succeed in the primaries by eschewing substantive platforms in favor of wearisome Bush-whacking, but that same strategy from a Democratic candidate in the general election will not win the party the White House.

Luke Smith ’04, a Crimson editor, is an economics concentrator in Quincy House.