Thoughts on Political Strategy and Obama's Transition.

gcomeau

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Tue Dec-23-08 04:44 PM
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Thoughts on Political Strategy and Obama's Transition.

Disclaimer: This post contains lots and lots of words, sentences, and even the dreaded paragraphs. If any collection of the printed word more verbose than your average movie poster or amusing bumper sticker is too much for you to navigate then I invite you to go away now. Do not post a reply just to tell me the OP was too long for you to read. The opinions expressed here are not actually intended for those with the attention spans of radishes so if that is you, by all means go play elsewhere.

That little detail covered (and yes, recent experience did tell me that was probably called for) my rambling take on some of the principles involved in building a durable and lasting Democratic majority that can steadily advance a progressive policy agenda.

Point One - The Composition Of a Nation

This is one of the painfully obvious details that shouldn't require explaining or discussion... yet is clearly either forgotten or ignored by a great many people as soon as elections end. This nation is, very generally, divided into thirds. You have the third who identify as Liberal, you have the third who identify as Conservative, and you have the third of the nation sandwiched in between them who identify as moderate or independent (don't nitpick the numbers with the latest polls please... I know they shift around within a certain range). Moderates and independents dictate the outcome of elections in this country. It is just that simple. Basic math. Try to argue otherwise all you like, you're getting nowhere. Almost everyone seems to have no trouble grasping this when it's election time. While a campaign is going on the necessity of having the moderates/independents on your side is widely accepted as a self evident fact of life.... but as soon as the polls close on election day and the results come in I am astounded by how many individuals come out of the woodwork (and I'm talking about when either Democrats OR Republicans win) thinking that the next step is to say "THEY voted for US so that's what they're getting!" and then try to push through every wish list policy proposal from their side of the political spectrum they can as fast as they can... no holds barred, no pretenses, all systems go. "We Are Liberals, Hear Us Roar!"

Actually folks, the plain reality of the matter is that they didn't vote FOR "us". They voted WITH "us". And they did it because "we" convinced them we were more in line with their desires than the other guys. Their desires being... by freaking definition... MODERATE.

Now right about now I'm sure I've got a hundred people gearing up to curse me for arguing for a centrist policy stance and getting all revved up to start characterizing me as "DLC" or something. Guess again folks, not why I'm here. I don't have centrist policy goals any more than most people here do, what I do have is a healthy dose of realism in how... say... a Democratic president might best achieve the policies I DO want to see enacted and make them stick... and it does NOT involve ignoring the reality of the political composition of the nation and just hoping you get away with it for as long as possible before it kicks your ass. That's the thing about reality, it doesn't go away just because you pretend it isn't there... deal with it or it WILL deal with you. Bush didn't think so, and he just managed to obliterate the national viability of the Republican party in eight years. And now the forum is crawling with people who appear to seriously think it's a good idea to follow his example now that we have the ball... astounding really.

But we could you know. We have the numbers to do it right now. We have the House, we have the Senate, we have the Presidency... the Democratic party could hammer through policy after policy after policy as fast as we could write them up and introduce them, steamroll all opposition and dismiss them as irrelevant to the process, and create an absolute tidal wave of Democratic legislation representing the entire progressive wish list across the spectrum. Swing the nation so hard left it wouldn't know what hit it!

Except... it WOULD know. And in exchange for having a few years of an unrestrained legislative bonanza we'd get annihilated in the next rounds of elections when the moderates said "screw you guys, you're obviously NOT in line with us" and went right back to the Republicans to undo almost everything we had just done. Not because they think the Republicans have better policies, just because that's the only option available to them to tip the scales back after we pushed on them too damn fast for their comfort from our side. And they WILL do it. People who think they won't because they'll obviously remember how bad the Republicans are when they're in power are either delusional, or lack the ability to recall history any further back than the last election or two.

So, how do I think it should be done? Getting to that...

Point Two - Moderation Is A State Of Mind

Way too many people here don't pay attention to this either. Most probably know it... in the back of their minds somewhere.... but it is ignored on a day to day basis while they are discussing political strategy. And that's a shame because it's really the key to pretty much everything here. Any time the idea of needing to take the center of the political spectrum into account when governing is raised the instant reaction from a large contingent around here is inevitably to lash out at the "DLC types" and assume that the only way to keep the center in play is to abandon the policies of the left. It isn't. There are actually TWO ways to hold tight to the center. First option is to go to them on policy, just do things they already want then say "look, I'm your guy". Second option is you can bring them to you on perception. Get them to think the policies you want are the same thing as the policies they want. The "mountain to Mohamed" approach is harder, but it can be accomplished and the payoffs are absolutely huge.

There is no objectively defined and measurable criteria that tells people if a policy is "Liberal" or "Centrist" or "Conservative". There is no pre-existing scale upon which the moderates of the nation weigh an idea and see "Ahhh, that idea is a 3.768 on the Liberalism scale. Thus it is not quite moderate enough for us to agree with it". The perception of what represents a conservative, liberal, or moderate legislative policy agenda is an exercise in relative appraisals independently performed by millions of individual members of the voting public. So how do you get your "Liberal" agenda implemented without pissing off the moderates? The best way is you convince them your agenda IS moderate. Then you don't just get the policies you want, you shift the political perceptions of the entire country in your direction. What once was Liberal is centrist. What once was radically Liberal is now just "to the left". What once was Conservative is now "Far right". And you get to KEEP GOING after the next election because as far as the moderates are concerned you just spent your time governing for them so they're not sending you anywhere but right back into office. This approach is slower. It's harder. It takes more patience. It takes more discipline. But it is self sustaining and has a far larger effect over the long term than just trying to make a blatant bald-faced grab for everything you can get away with whenever you find yourself with your hands on the policy reigns for a moment. Too many people think just getting a law passed changes the nation. It doesn't. Getting a law embraced changes the nation. If you don't achieve the latter the law is just going to be easily reversed in a few years.

Point Three - Marketing Strategy and Basic Psychology

Now there are a lot of ways to go about managing perceptions here. There are arguments to be made purely on the merits of various policy proposals, there's message management, etc... but one big one seems to have people here all up in arms for no particularly good reason. The easiest way to convince moderates your policies are theirs is to convince them YOU ARE moderate in the first place then let that influence their perception of every proposal you make. I'll guarantee you right now, if you sent two people out into the street to present the EXACT SAME policy proposal using the EXACT SAME sales pitch to 100 people... and if one of those people you sent out to do that was some random unknown person and the other one was Dennis Kucinich (and the people he was talking to knew who he was)... then you polled the people they talked to and asked them if they had just been asked to support a liberal, moderate or conservative idea... the people Dennis talked to would be climbing over each other to register the "Liberal" votes. Dennis is advocating it... everyone knows Dennis is a huge raging Liberal... of course that was a Liberal proposal. What else could it possibly be?

Why does everyone here really think the Republicans try so very, very, very hard to label any prominent Democratic legislator as being the most Liberal person on the entire planet? Think they're doing it for no reason? Because they think it's fun?

Think it's a coincidence that when Kerry was running all of a sudden he was http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0204/022704nj1.htm">"the most Liberal Senator in the entire country"?

Then four years later when Obama was the nominee all of a sudden he was http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/01/31/politics/horserace/entry3775451.shtml">"the most Liberal Senator in the entire country"?

How clueless do we really want to be about this? They do it because the more successful they are making that association in the minds of the general electorate the more easily any future proposal that "Most Liberal Person In The Universe" tries to advance is to characterize as NOT moderate. NOT mainstream. NOT in line with the desires of the average independent middle of the road tiebreaker in the electorate... regardless of the merits of the proposal itself. You create the association with the person, then you use it to discredit any idea that that person becomes associated with in turn.

So what has Obama been doing since he got elected? Driving Republican Political Strategists Absolutely Nuts... that's what. He puts Gates at Defense. He makes Jones his National Security Advisor. He sits down and had a long public non-confrontational chat with McCain. He invites freaking Warren to give the invocation. He's making it the next best thing to impossible for the Republicans to make the "Liberal" label stick. Every time he pulls one of these maneuvers it amplifies and reinforces the public perception that he is a moderate. And it's HARD to discredit policy proposals from someone perceived to be a moderate. You have to work at it. A lot. And it's more dangerous to even make the attempt because if you screw it up you're perceived as railing against the mainstream instead of just arguing with those people on the "left", and railing against the mainstream instantly defines you as out of touch with the majority of the nation. The credibility necessary for you to raise any viable opposition to any future policy proposals to follow is eroded. You get progressively more and more marginalized.

Now let me make this clear, the fact that Obama is doing all this is not by any means a guarantee that he will then employ that "I'm really a moderate" public image to adjust public perception of which policies are "moderate" and which aren't and place the nation on the path to a nice steady slide leftward while implementing truly progressive policies on a regular basis. It's entirely possible that he will actually just abandon a progressive policy platform completely and never push for anything that isn't already perceived as being neither left nor right. That could happen. I don't read minds and I don't tell fortunes. But it is at least equally possible that Obama is setting himself up to be the most effective force for a shift to the left in the political stance of the entire nation that he could possibly be. His actions are entirely consistent with that hypothesis also... his stated policy goals, which I have been given pretty much no reason to doubt so far, are firmly in line with it... and I'll be damned if I'll complain about that. NOTHING he has done so far during this transition tells us he is planning on turning his back on the goals he campaigned on.... and I for one am not in the habit of complaining at the top of my lungs when I see Obama taking action after action that from where I'm standing could hardly be more effectively designed to accomplish everything I want to see accomplished.

If when Obama had appointed Gates he had accompanied it with a statement like "and I'm doing it because he makes a compelling argument that we should stay in Iraq" then started making plans for extending the occupation indefinitely then that would be one thing. But he didn't do that. What HAS happened is that overnight Gates became a spokesman for the idea that an Iraq pullout was suddenly a completely middle of the road moderate idea instead of something coming from those partisan peacenik Liberals... and when that's coming from Bush's SecDef what the hell can the Right do about it? They're boxed in. They've got nothing. "Liberal" became cemented as "Moderate" on Iraq in the public perception pretty much instantly. And you don't argue against "moderate" ideas without almost certainly paying a price.

If Obama had invited Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation with a statement like "because I think he has some worthwhile ideas about these gay rights issues" that would be one thing. Light the torches and break out the pitchforks by all means. But, again, nothing of the kind occurred. What he actually did was specifically, explicitly, and publicly state that he thought Warren was wrong on that issue. He removed any justification to rationally argue that the invitation represented any kind of endorsement or validation of Warren's gay rights stance. The invocation itself is an empty ceremonial event. It has no policy impact at all. He hasn't actually given away anything on the policy front but he has nevertheless created an extremely strong impression that he stands firmly in the center of the political divide just by virtue of having extended the invitation at all. It's damn hard to attack the guy who is taking flak for making a gesture towards the religious right as being a godless Liberal now isn't it? He can get mileage out of this for months. Maybe years. And it costs him nothing. Don't tell me it costs him the support of his base on the left because that's pure crap. If he delivers on policy this will be forgotten completely so he only pays a price there if he doesn't deliver on policy... and as I've been laying out we have no grounds for jumping to the conclusion he won't based on his actions to date. It's just a bunch of baseless hand wringing at this point.

Etc...

So, is Obama playing a deep game or is he abandoning progressive policy goals? Me... I think Obama is a chess player. I think he knows all of this. I think he's most certainly not an idiot. And I think he has Plans.

But hey, if people want to assume he's playing checkers I can't stop them.