Some really cheap advice for the Big Three / p m carpenter's commentary

[Demeter]

http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2007/11/some-really-che.html

If there's anything instructive in the latest data dump from the New York Times/CBS News polls, it's that the collective Democratic mind is now concentrated more on issues than electability, while the reverse holds true for its Republican counterpart. We're speaking in terms of the broadest possible interpretation here, which often admits the broadest possible flaw, but, at any rate, that's what the numbers seem to suggest.


If true, it's a surprising turnabout. Democrats are usually fixated on the electability question, while Republicans, secure in their moral superiority, coronate early and firmly. But after two terms of the Destructor Guy, the latter are now panicking -- and signaling that they're willing to sell off a piece of their supreme orthodoxy if that means holding onto the White House.


GOPers are saying one thing, while expressing a readiness to do another. According to the Times/CBS polls, "Large majorities of Republicans in New Hampshire and Iowa said they wanted the next president to be as conservative or more conservative than President Bush." Without getting into the modern-day definitional problems of conservatism, that, in itself, is a mind-bender, leaving one wondering how any candidate could be "more conservative" than Bush, sans the public display of an armband.


But the polls also found that "two-thirds of New Hampshire Republicans and one-half of Iowa Republicans said they were open to voting for candidates who did not share their view on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage." Simply put, electoral pragmatism is edging out ideology, at least for now through Nov. 2008. Anything to win -- and a lot of something will be required. They know it, and accept it.


Since roughly the post-McGovern era, however, this has been the defining characteristic of the Democratic mind, given the party's recurrent difficulties in seizing the White House. But change may be in the air. The polls are suggestive: "By contrast, 50 percent of New Hampshire Democrats said they would not be prepared to vote for a candidate who wanted to keep troops in Iraq 'longer than you would like,' even if they thought the Democrat had a good chance of victory in November."


The conclusion to be drawn, albeit gingerly: This time around, issues are somewhat more important to Democrats than electability. In short, we may be seeing the ascendancy of a progressive ideology over electoral pragmatism (which, to thoughtful progressives, is roughly one in the same). It's about time.