This story in today’s Washington Post — which is pointedly and beautifully deconstructed by Ken Silverman — purports to even-handedly review the likely mode of attack that will be taken by Republicans in teh fall should Barack Obama hold on and win the nomination.
The question is whether Obama is too liberal or, at the very least, he can be painted as being too liberal. Silverman says we can expect more of this during the general election campaign, and I think he’s right.
But I also think the Democrats over the years have allowed the question to be framed for them, allowed the word liberal to be turned into an epithet.
The Post story points to “liberal” losers — Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, John Kerry — ignoring important elements of those campaigns. Mondale may have been a liberal — the only one of the three that fits the traditional definition, I would argue — but he also was running against one of history’s most popular presidents. To ignore this is to ignore history and to alter the meaning of the 1984 election.
The Dukakis loss came about because of a combination of factors: the shadow of the Reagan era, Dukakis’ inept campaign (remember the tank?), Willie Horton and, yes, his being painted as a liberal governor of a liberal state. Did he lose because he was liberal? I’ll let the reader decide.
As for John Kerry, he ran a disasterous campaign, frittering away any chance he had by not addressing the Swiftboat controversy and by attempting to out-Bush Bush on the war. And he still managed to get within a couple of percentage points.
I think Blue Texan, writing on Firedog Lake, offers an interesting take on this. Writing about Hillary Clinton’s use of the liberal slur, Blue Texan writes
When was the last time you heard a Republican accuse another of being “too conservative”? For that matter, when was the last time you heard a Democratic candidate use that as an attack on a Republican? Right, never. There’s a reason for that, and it’s not an accident. It’s the result of years and years of a disciplined and sustained branding effort by the GOP.
The thing that amazes me is that nearly every public opinion poll on the issues shows that voters support what are considered to be traditional liberal policies — on health care, on the economy, etc. And yet, we still have one side running away from its own base, allowing the other to frame the campaign’s talking points and establish the general rhetorical tone.
My advice: The Democrat should run as a Democrat and the Republican as a Republican. Let Obama — or Clinton — push universal healthcare, (an unfortunately limited) withdrawal from Iraq, a bailout for homeowners, public works and a rollback of the Bush tax cut; let McCain call for a thousand-years war, offer nothing on healthcare and push tax cuts as the sole solution to the economy.
Basically, stop running from the liberal label.
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Hank Kalet 