General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: In 18 years since Naders run, what has been accomplished by attacking the Dem party from the left? [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)It's just as likely that Bill Clinton won in '92 because of his personal charisma and excellent speaking skills, rather than his anti-welfare, pro-death penalty stands.
And as I pointed out, neither Carter, Mondale, nor Dukakis, actually ran as liberals in the fall campaigns in '80, '84, and '88. Each of them was the candidate of the ultra-cautious party insiders, not the activists. Each of them ran a campaign that was pitched to voters to the party's right...voters we likely wouldn't have taken in '84 if our nominee had been John Glenn, Fritz Hollings, Chuck Robb or Sam Nunn, or in '88 had we nominated Al Gore, who pulled out of the Iowa caucuses that year because he was offended that peace and justices activists would actually have the right to ask him questions on foreign and domestic policy-and each of them, while fully qualified for the office, appeared to the electorate as bleak, depressing figures with no positive vision for the future, which is exactly the sort of challenger that can never defeat any incumbent for any office.
Clinton, by contrast, came off as positive and charming, even fun. He'd have improved on Dukakis' showing on any possible platform-and in fact, his most popular campaign pledge was not any of the conservative proposals he adopted but his promise to introduce universal healthcare-the one proposal Clinton made that was to the left of Dukakis' platform.
Our vote increased that year because voters were moving away from conservatism. If they weren't moving away from that, they wouldn't have defeated ANY Republican candidate. It was that public move away from conservativism, rather than the appeasement of poorbashers and death penalty freaks, that has kept our presidential vote at about 50% since then and pushed it up to 54% in '08 and 52% in '12. Had we embraced Sanders ideals(which we could have done even with our actual nominee)this year in the fall campaign, we would likely have at least stayed at 52% and maybe gone much higher had we done so convincingly enough to boost turnout.
It was the rigid insistence on anti-left centrism that likely depressed our vote in '94(costing us Congress), that held us under 50% presidentially and likely kept us in the minority in Congress in '96(after the government shutdown, we should have been able to count on at least retaking the House in '96), and that at least partially created the Nader phenomenon in '96 and '00.
And I say all of that as a person who wants this party to prosper at the polls-something we are most likely to do by fighting unapologetically and proudly for our core values in the fall campaigns, rather than by saying little, promising little, and hoping to somehow win by default.