The Newer Democrats

When Howard Dean ran for chairman of the Democratic Party, I wrote: “A low profile choice, I think, is a mistake for the party at this time of reconstruction. Howard Dean, the only candidate with a national reputation, is the bold, daring, risky choice. At this time, I believe the Democrats need to take the risk.” (1) Much to my delight, the Party took the risk. After the demoralizing defeat in 2004, we needed energy and an infusion of new ideas. Howard Dean, a flawed and sometimes very strange man, represented the first wave of a rising tide within the Democratic Party, a new movement toward modernization.

I call the new upstarts the “Young Turks”, though not all of them are especially young. Dean, George Lakoff, Barack Obama, and even John Edwards to an extent, are the highest profile members of the movement. Even those that come from the older generations appeal to the younger, post-Vietnam Democrats who are tired of fighting the battles of the 1960s. They are forward-looking, and they are not afraid to reach out to moderates and Independents. Their goal is to build a deep, long-lasting Democratic majority with a progressive agenda. Why would any Democrat be opposed to that? It’s not that the Old Guard is against broadening the base per se, but the methods the Young Turks use take power away from traditional Democratic allies. Any time the system changes, someone’s ox will be gored.

The Young Turks should not be confused with the New Democrats, as embodied by the Democratic Leadership Council. The DLC rejects populism and progressivism (at least, the commonly understood version of progressivism). The New Democrats shamelessly pandered to big business, barely distinguishing themselves from Republicans when it came to digging into the deep pockets. Bill Clinton is their hero, and it is easy to see why: he ran on a populist platform, promising all manner of reforms and investment in the American people. When he got into office, he abandoned the progressive agenda and instead focused on balancing the federal budget. A balanced budget is a perfectly laudable goal, but all his centrism and friendliness to big business didn’t save him from the onslaught of Republican attacks that bogged down his presidency. Clinton’s success was short-lived, as evidenced by the two terms of George W. Bush.

In the long run, Bill Clinton did not fundamentally change the trajectory of the country. We remain as divided as ever, with Independents feeling more left out and disenchanted with the political system. The tactic of the Old Guard is to make the voters angrier at the Republicans than they are at the Democrats, and thus make the Democrats look like the least-bad option. For the Young Turks, this is unsatisfactory. It will ultimately doom the Progressive movement and allow the Republicans to win the war, if not all the battles.

When Barack Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Party Convention, it was more than just the introduction of a new rock star in the Party. It was the signal of the rising tide of the new movement. The Young Turks had arrived. They might not be ready for prime time yet, but they were learning fast. What the Young Turks always lacked was political savvy. They could generate a lot of excitement among college students, flooding arenas with light and noise, but they didn’t have the experience to win national races. Though Dean was able to raise a lot of money from small donors and build a huge network of supporters, he was not able to turn that support into votes on Election Day. Ultimately, John Kerry’s establishment credentials carried more water than Dean’s flash and fury. The establishment candidates knew all the right buttons to push, all the right hands to shake, and all the right money wells to tap.

New ideas are great, but without the experience to implement them, they remain as vague notions in the minds of dreamers. Until the Young Turks learned how to play the game, they would never win.

George Lakoff deserves a medal for his patience and perseverance. His 2004 book, Don’t Think of an Elephant, explained precisely why the Democrats were losing in the great national discourse. It also contained a blueprint for winning. The key was “framing.” Democrats were not using language in a way that appealed to voters. The Democrats’ failure to successfully frame the debate allowed Republican frames to take hold. In effect, the Democrats were fighting under the Republicans’ rules. It was a stacked deck. Lakoff contends that progressive ideals, if framed properly, are more appealing to voters than regressive conservative ideals. Since Lakoff’s book was published, he has been largely ignored by the establishment. The Old Guard is reluctant to give up their old methods and messages. After all, it worked in 1964.

The Young Turks have already shown themselves to be innovators, as seen in their extensive use of the Internet in the 2004 campaign. They have started to catch on to the power of framing. Lakoff’s organization, the Rockridge Institute, cites John Edwards as effectively using the institute’s suggested framing. John Tester, who managed to defeat an incumbent Republican in his race for the U.S. Senate, openly credited Lakoff’s writing as a key to his success. If only Howard Dean had the benefit of the Rockridge Institute during his presidential bid.

Along the way, the Old Guard has been fighting to maintain its supremacy. As the 2006 mid-term elections came around, the Republican Party was a disaster. Scandal after scandal had tarnished their public image. Chairman Dean, in the meantime, was working on a 50-state strategy, by which he sought to bring the Party’s message to traditionally Republican territory. This, I believe, is the right strategy for long-term success, but it is an expensive way to go about things. Howard Dean is an extraordinary fundraiser, but his investment in states that are considered Republican strongholds has drained the fund pool almost as quickly as he can refill it.

The Old Guard was content to play to their old base rather than reach out to new voters, all the while letting the Republicans self-destruct. They were depending on public dissatisfaction with their opponents to carry them to victory. Dean sparred with Rahm Emanuel, the man in charge of electing Congressional Democrats, over the Party’s mid-term plan. Emanuel won, as did the Democrats in 2006. They took back both the House and the Senate.

The 2006 election does not vindicate the Old Guard approach. Though they were careful not to promise much, the American people expected them to deliver big changes, especially in Iraq. There was no way the Democrats could hope to end the war with the slim majority they gained, and with Bush’s veto looming, but voters did not want excuses. They wanted results. The failure of the Democrats’ agenda has increased cynicism among the electorate—just the sort of cynicism that a Michael Bloomberg or a Ralph Nader might transform into a vote-splitting independent presidential bid.

The Old Guard victory illustrates why the Young Turks want to modernize the Party’s campaign tactics. They are afraid that the long-term success of the Party may be sacrificed for short-term gains. There is no guarantee that the public anger at the Republicans will carry over to 2008. The Democrats are not a lock to win the White House.

Along came Barack Obama. Obama was favorably mentioned in the Rockridge book Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision. Throughout Obama’s presidential campaign, he has refused simple categorization, and has spoken directly to Independents on their wavelength. His use of framing to make the progressive message appeal to a broader spectrum of voters has been reflected in the number of Independent voters who have supported Obama in the early caucuses and primaries. Obama’s use of effective frames represents the Democrats’ best shot at beating the Republican nominee in ’08. Unfortunately, what wins in the general election does not necessarily win in the primaries. He still has the Old Guard to contend with.

What is most important to note about Obama is that he is not Howard Dean. Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, has learned from Dean’s mistakes. The Obama campaigned has created an organization that can take grass roots excitement and transform it into votes. Obama supporters are less scattered than Dean supporters were. They are becoming more savvy in the world of political organization. The Young Turks are coming of age.

Even with all the organization in the world, Obama needs the support of the Democratic Party establishment to win. Recently, he received the endorsement of John Kerry and practically the entire Kennedy clan. Even Toni Morrison, the author who referred to Bill Clinton as the “first black president”, has endorsed Barack Obama rather than Hillary Clinton. In the case of Kerry and the Kennedys, these are establishment figures. Maybe they are only endorsing him out of exasperation with the Clintons’ bitter attacks, but the benefit for Obama is enormous. He has shown that he can build alliances with the establishment, which legitimizes his candidacy.

Hillary Clinton is the Old Guard candidate. She began her campaign by seeking to create a sense of “inevitability”, to discourage other candidates from making serious efforts to win the nomination. To the Young Turks, this was a challenge, and they did not back down. Barack Obama’s win in the Iowa caucuses shattered Clinton’s “inevitability”, so she has had to change gears. She has fallen back on old campaign tactics and is depending on the old Democratic alliances to carry her through. She has openly attacked Obama, trying to link him to corrupt elements in Illinois (there are corrupt elements in Illinois? Surely not!). In the height of irony, she has not blushed at “Whitewatering” Obama.

The Clinton attacks are getting absurd. She has allowed surrogates to take up the race issue. Bill Clinton, normally the most politically savvy player in the game, has been so inflammatory in his anti-Obama speeches that some of his wife’s staffers wish he would stop.(2) Worse yet, Obama opponents seem to be depending on the racism of others to derail his campaign. Of course they are not racist, but supposedly there are other racists (wink wink, nudge nudge to the South), that will not vote for a black president. It is not a black president that the Clintonites fear, it is a Young Turk president who will validate the new methods and diminish the power of the Old Guard.

It is silly to attack either Clinton or Obama’s “electability”. They would not have gotten this far if they did not have some broad appeal. Both of them have the potential to defeat the Republican nominee, but I believe it will be much harder for Clinton than she thinks it will be. She is still a divisive figure, and her campaign thus far has only reinforced that image. She touts her experience and her toughness in the face of Republican attacks, but these will not be assets in the general election. The Republican attacks she has endured were mostly not attacks on her, but on her husband. She ran for the Senate in a relatively safe state, where the Republicans were not strong enough to land a solid punch. The war machine the Republicans will unleash on Hillary Clinton will be unprecedented in modern American politics. And her experience? If she runs against McCain, he will have the edge in that category. She can still win, but without the appeal to Independents that Obama possesses, it will be an uphill slog.

I believe it is vital to the Progressive movement that the Young Turks win the struggle for the heart of the Democratic Party. In four years, they have gone from an incoherent mesh of university rallies to a legitimate candidacy for the President of the United States. Since the 1980s, Republicans have been winning the battle of ideas—not because their ideas are better, but because they know how to deliver them. The only hope for the Democrats in the long term is to reach out to independent voters, and frame their message in a way that brings them back into the fold. They must stop ignoring the millions of Americans who feel that neither party speaks to their needs. If they can win that battle, they can build a solid majority that will carry through a progressive agenda for decades to come.

© 2008 Bryan Lower

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