It's The War, Stupid

Chris Cillizza writes up an interesting Third Way study aiming to understand the demographic and opinion profile of the voters who backed Democrats in 2006 but not in 2004. This turns out to be a fairly Third Way-ish group of people -- whiter, maler, and richer than average.

What's interesting, is that they say Dems won these people over not primarily by moving right on economics or on culture, but on the strength of hostility to the Iraq War. To me, at least, this continues to be the key to the 2008 election; Democrats need to put forward a credible national security message that doesn't let the GOP nominee weasel away from things and just distance himself from Bush personally. The opposition party needs to be able to make the case that Iraq has turned out disastrously because it was the consequence of a disastrous strategy for the country, a strategy Republicans favor and that Democrats propose to replace with a different, better strategy.

Comments

Democrats are often advised to cede national security to the Republicans and focus on domestic issues, where they supposedly have an advantages. Be the Mommy Party and let the Republicans be the Daddy Party.

Well, I won't support a party that isn't strong on national security. The Democrats need to be both the Daddy Party and the Mommy Party. I hope someone in the party has the guts to confront this squarely, especially since the Republicans' actual record on national security is a "heckuva-job-Brownie" record. It's mostly empty spin to cover up failure.

This is a gold mine for the Democrats if they would only seize on it.

Posted by Mister Go | May 14, 2007 12:17 PM

The DNC's generic slogan should probably be something like: "Do you really want 4 more years?"

Posted by Matt B | May 14, 2007 12:19 PM

That sounds great to me, MY, but I wonder how many Democratic Presidential candidates actually favor a different, better strategy rather than simply being against the war now because a) it failed and b) it's unpopular?

Posted by Ron | May 14, 2007 12:22 PM

Ron might be right. A lot of those whiter, maler, richer vote-switchers might not want a whole new stratgey. They just want a president who isn't a stubborn pea-brain, and knows how to cut the country's losses once an expensive policy has been shown to be a clear failure.

Personally, I'd like a whole new foreign policy. But that seems like a tall order given the very mainstream predilections of most of the candidates now running.

Posted by Dan Kervick | May 14, 2007 1:21 PM

I think people underrate the extent to which "the Iraq War" is simply a handy way to refer to a general unease of the sort discussed by KF Monkey in the "I miss the real Republicans" (or whatever) post. I think this lines up pretty nicely with Bowers's commenter's description of the "netroots" as a party of people who feel betrayed but who see the problem as a temporally constricted one rather than a durable structural problem. That is, in some sense the Iraq War and determinations about the feasibility and good sense of pursuing it are generalizable "shares our values" issues as much as anything else.

The point isn't that the current Republican Party is bad on national security. It's that it's pretty bad on everything, and "everything" includes national security. Iraq is just the problem blown up large and obvious.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | May 14, 2007 1:22 PM

"To me, at least, this continues to be the key to the 2008 election"

In '06, the electorate was repudiating Bush.

In '08, dramatically different dynamics are afoot.

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"The opposition party needs to be able to make the case that Iraq has turned out disastrously because it was the consequence of a disastrous strategy for the country"

I believe you have fallen victim to the Pundit's Fallacy.

Posted by Petey | May 14, 2007 1:52 PM

The opposition party needs to be able to make the case that Iraq has turned out disastrously because it was the consequence of a disastrous strategy for the country, a strategy Republicans favor and that Democrats propose to replace with a different, better strategy.

Making the case that Iraq flowed out of the strategic errors of the neocon/Jacksonian strategy of the Bushies is the easy part. The hard part is coming to some form of consensus as to what a "better strategy" looks like.


Wilsonians think that the unilateralism and knee-jerk militarism of the Bushies has to be discarded, but that many of the rhetorical goals espoused by Bush, such as spreading democracy are essential.

Hamiltonian/Realists want to return to the "sensible" policies of Bush the Elder and the alliance between the authoritarian Arab regimes and reprioritizing stability.

Globalists want to restore the old Clinton foreign policy which tried to split the difference between the realists and the Wilsonians (building on NAFTA, NATO expansion and Kosovo).

Jeffersonians want a complete reevalution of the American foreign policy, from addressing "imperial overstretch" to curtailing free trade.

The more explicit the Dems new strategy, the more likely it is to alienate one of the various groups that currently reject the Republicans. In order to be sucessful in 2008, the Dem candidate has to hold that coalition together.

Posted by mhp | May 14, 2007 2:32 PM

Can someone explain to me why I am not hearing the following terms repeated ad nauseum?

* Bush Republican
* Loyal Bushy
* Bush War
* Republican War

Posted by David Helms | May 14, 2007 7:03 PM

Since when are Jeffersonians against free trade?

As a self-identified Jeffersonian, I certainly am not.

Posted by David Tomlin | May 14, 2007 7:30 PM

This, I think, is the main problem with HRC's inability or unwillingness to say she made a mistake in her vote to authorize military action in Iraq.

Regardless of whether there exists a parsing which makes her refusal principled and correct (and there may well be), such a parsing is inevitably so complex that she can't make the case you've described with any clarity.

Posted by ask | May 15, 2007 12:08 AM

As your president, I will not have my minions trump up bogus connections between country X and terrorists. Members of my administration will not flood the airwave to lie about the military capabilities of our enemies. When I am Commander-in-Chief we will not wage war on countries who are not a threat to us or our vital national interests. If God forbid, I need to take the country to war then I will mobilize all the resources of our great nation to bring the battle to a quick and decisive end. Furthermore, when I send troops into battle they will be fully equipped and will receive the proper medical treatment should they be wounded in service to our cause. My first act as president will be to increase the size of our armed forces by 50,000 troops including 1000 specially trained teleporting and time freezing ninjas and samurai.
I have lead the fight in Congress increase our R&D funds for developing the necessary numbers of indestructable cheerleaders and flying men we will need to defeat the alliance between Al Qaeda, Sylar and the Linderman Syndicate.

Posted by Petrelli 2008 | May 15, 2007 4:41 AM