2004 Elections: Democratic Party Contenders

"Some One Else"polls consistently high, but GWB vs any named Democrat is, [..] notably to GWB's favor. Folks may be displeased by Bush, but they don't seem thrilled by any of the alternatives offered.

via
Democrat Dean to urge global anti-terror WMD fund

By Patricia Wilson

Newsweek Poll: Dean Rising

[..] Meanwhile, neither good news on the economy, the passage of a Medicare bill nor his surprise Thanksgiving visit to Baghdad seem to have boosted President George W. Bush’s approval ratings among all registered voters: with 51 percent approving and 42 disapproving, his ratings are the lowest in the NEWSWEEK poll’s history.

[..] A full 34 percent of all voters give Dean little or no chance of winning in a face-off against Bush [but] a majority (53 percent) of all registered voters think Dean has at least some chance of beating Bush in a hypothetical two-way election against Bush next year.

[..] A majority of the voters (54 percent) report that the cost of rebuilding Iraq is making them less inclined to re-elect the president, a statistic that is up from 48 percent as recently as October. Nearly half (44 percent) of all voters say Bush’s handling of the post-war situation in Iraq makes them less likely to vote for him, versus 34 percent who find it makes them more likely to.

[..] But Dean’s virulent opposition to the war is not necessarily appealing to voters, more of whom say Dean does not represent their views on Iraq (34 percent) than say he does (26 percent). [..] The man most Democrats (27 percent) consider best suited for the role of leader in Iraq is Clark; only 16 percent consider Dean the most qualified Democrat for that role and even fewer (12 percent) Lieberman.

[..] perhaps exuberance over the improving economy has been tempered by lagging job growth and indications that the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates. Thirty-seven percent of all voters think the current state of the economy will still make them less likely to vote for Bush; 30 percent it would make them more likely while almost the exact number (29 percent) doubt it will have any effect on how they vote. The president’s ratings on the economy have actually improved, but remain almost evenly split with 45 percent approving and 46 percent disapproving.

[..] The controversial Medicare overhaul and prescription-drug benefit that passed with Bush’s backing, meanwhile, seems to have had little effect on his ratings. Thirty-six percent of voters say they approve of the way Bush is handling health care, up just 2 percentage points from one month ago. And more voters overall report being less likely to vote for Bush’s reelection because of the bill (36 percent versus 27 percent who say it will make them more likely).

[..] 37 percent of voters think Dean cares about blacks and other minorities (versus 16 percent who disagree).

The Anti-Democrat - Washington elites are terrified that Dean will disrupt their power base

[..]The Clintons are frozen on the sidelines. She can't speak out against Dean, and she doesn't dare endorse Wesley Clark. Clinton, as a former president, is beholden to the tradition of staying mum. But their operatives are out in force fueling the doubts about Dean. Even though he started as an asterisk in the polls and has run circles around the other candidates all year, they say Dean's the one who can't be elected. The Clintonites shudder when Dean says voters shouldn't pick a president based on "God, gays and guns."

Cultural issues have animated our politics for the last forty years. A new book by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, "The Two Americas," points out that 17 percent of the electorate--almost one in five voters--are white Evangelicals. About 72 percent of them vote Republican, making them as loyal a political base for the GOP as African-American voters are for the Democratic Party. Greenberg outlines the likely Republican strategy for 2004 in an imaginary power point presentation by Karl Rove to President Bush. The GOP's reelection strategy attempts to capitalize on the nation’s cultural polarization. "Every day, to some degree, we give them what they want: faith, lower taxes, smaller government, and less regulation," Rove tells Bush. "We let them keep their guns, and our pro-business policies prove to them that we're the party that wants them to get rich."

Greenberg has long tracked the cultural issues. His 1985 research in Macomb County, Mich., coined the term "Reagan Democrats" when he discovered working class voters had abandoned the Democratic Party because they thought it catered to liberal elites and minorities at their expense. Greenberg's research played a significant role in crafting Clinton's middle-class message in '92. Just as Clinton proved his centrist bona fides by supporting the death penalty and publicly chastising a black soul singer, Sister Souljah, for racist lyrics, there is a high premium on next year's Democratic nominee coming across as respectful to family and religion.

Clinton, for all his moral failings, talked comfortably about religion, and Jimmy Carter was a born-again Christian. Dean is puzzled why minimum-wage workers who have no health benefits would vote Republican. The answer he'd rather not hear is they care more about God, gays and guns than health care. "Our challenge is to raise the cultural armies in our America while not waking the sleeping giant in their America," Rove tells Bush in Greenberg's fictional account. [..]

But the Internet doesn't reinforce the parties -- instead, it questions their very rationale. You don't need a political party to keep the ball rolling -- you can have a virtual party do it just as easily.

And that's what Howard Dean has done. Nor is Dean alone. The same forces make the evangelical right a powerful force in the Republican Party. With its TV stations, membership lists and money, it is a party waiting to happen. When Republicans of more moderate stripes express concerns about the evangelicals "taking a walk" on the party, they are recognizing that underlying reality.

The ability to have "virtual political parties" is the greatest challenge the two parties have ever faced. There are strategies available to them, of course -- deft positioning allows them to preempt competitors, as it does in every industry, and they can use the same technology, although Internet culture doesn't seem readily amenable to either Democrat.com or Republican.com. Being a Democrat or a Republican isn't enough of an advantage anymore -- there are simply too many other places where people can get political information and find political bedfellows in an age of low information costs.

No Will to Win?

The observation of "The Democrats [having] totally lost touch with not only America but with their historical core constituency" does not involve alleging incompetence?

As it stands, its just another gratuitous dig you're childishly slipping in (and defending with the argument that "the other side does it too"). Context is everything.

Here's a Gallup poll from December, 1991, two months after Clinton officially declared he was running for president:

Mario Cuomo - 33%
Jerry Brown - 15%
Douglas Wilder - 9%
Bob Kerrey - 8%
Tom Harkin - 7%
Bill Clinton - 6%
Paul Tsongas - 4%
Undecided/Others - 18%


In December of 1991, 12 years ago, the Florida straw poll gave Bill Clinton a decisive victory over Tom Harkin and Bob Kerrey (54%-31%-10% respectively), but nationally, Clinton was not polling above 6%. Cuomo then dropped out, which shows how the Gallup numbers didn't pan out for him in some regions. Clinton received a major boost from his Florida showing.

Then later in December, one poll showed Clinton trailing Paul Tsongas 23% to 21% in New Hampshire. Only 2 points, not bad.

Then in January, the Gennifer Flowers and ROTC letter/draft issues reared their Scaifian heads against Clinton. Iowa did not look good for him. In fact, all of the candidates save Harkin passed over Iowa, and Harkin received 77% of the vote. By this point, Clinton trailed Tsongas by 20 points in New Hampshire. Big drop from that 2 point gap a few weeks earlier.

Clinton fought back hard, with relentless campaigning in New Hampshire. He came in second behind Tsongas, 33%-25%. This was enough to earn him the "Comeback Kid" sobriquet.

We all know the rest. But there's a lesson here, no matter who you support. The early primaries STILL don't determine by default who the nominee will be. ANYTHING can happen. Anything usually does.

Quote:

As it stands, its just another gratuitous dig you're childishly slipping in (and defending with the argument that "the other side does it too"). Context is everything.

"The other side does it too" is very damn relevant. The point being that it's duplicitous of you to spend all your time criticizing one party and to bristle at the very same act when it's reversed.

His observation was a simple opinion, very much like this one:

The Republican party is straying from it's roots, their convervatives aren't (conservative) anymore.

watching [The Wellstone Memorial Service] assured me The Democrats had totally lost touch with not only America but with their historical core constituency. [..] So far, though, nobody has tied Amelia Earhart's disappearance to anyone in The Current Administration. Probably only because most Democrats are to young to have any familiarity with it.

First off, I don't spend all my time criticising one party - as you know. Last time I got angry about this kinda thing was at Tartarin. And I don't much bristle at merely being criticised either - just ask fishin' or pdiddie or georgeob1 or ... etc

Secondly, the point wasn't about not criticising another party - duh - the point was about "childishly slipping in a gratuitous dig". And that can't be defended with the argument that "the other side does it too" - if only because if we all start doing that, there will be no end to it! But basically because the kettle being black doesnt make you any less so as pot.

Now - if we agree on that - we may of course still disagree about whether the post I picked up on here was indeed an example of such a "dig". You say, "no":

<looks up, reviews it> well, you may be right - maybe not the very best example I could have picked up on. There's many random three-word references to "blind Bush-bashers" and the like, slipped in regardless of what the topic of discussion may be, that I would have been more justified in picking up on. Its not quite the sanitized version you make of it either, 'fcourse - its all sarcastic and snide- and so they are, all the time. Which was my whole bloody, tired, over-chewed point, of course.

Wouldn't you agree that there is a difference between submitting a post to make the actual argument that conservatives/republicans are x or liberals/democrats are too much of y - and slipping in some few-word depreciatory remark or adjectives connotating the same, but without making any of the argument about it, in some sideline of your post? Not really effecting more than kinda showing off one's disdain for the people you're making the remark about (which just happen to be the people you're talking with, in fact)? Cause that's the "context" I was talking about ...

Now if you consider it justified for us to have called Tartarin on that kind of thing (again and again), then so is it re: Timber. But I'm definitely done "Timber-bashing" for a looooooooooong while, this post being already one too MANY. Its a tired discussion by now.

I never once called Tartarin on anything remotely similar. I called her on advocating that people come up with names to insult members here

I think my point could best be summed up in the "not the best example" part. I ahve agreed with you in the past on some of the observations but on this one I really do think the level of sarcasm was very slight.

if being only slightly sarky in one's criticizm of a political party is "childish dig" then we all have to watch out.