Dallek also seems to miss an important point: conservatives didn't just sit around articulating principles and figuring out "which buttons to push," they worked out actual, testable solutions to visible failures of liberalism: deregulation, tax cuts, broken-window theory policing, welfare reform, etc. One big problem the left has these days is that they are out of new ideas.

Your summation tells the story - the Democrat party isn't a party of ideals or shared policies, it's a party of divergent minority interests that are bundled together in a mutual interest fascio that doesn't support any particular end except the acquisition of power. The acquisition enables them to do collectively what they could otherwise never do individually...

The Democrats' current problem really dates back to the period from 1967-72. Where Buckley in the mid-1950s was saying conservatism "stands athwart history, yelling 'Stop,' at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it." the Democrats at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s were taken over by a group of people who believed in the inexorable movement of politics to the left, even when those goals fell outside mainstream popular support.

Combined with a symbiotic relationship with the mainstream media, which supported their goals and publicized them as the wave of the future along with overstating their popular support, the result was initially the 1972 McGovern campaign debacle. Since then, the only time the Democrats have been able to win the presidency is when they've run a candidate who have gone against the party's ever-further-left image, with Carter and his evangelism in 1976 and Clinton and his "new Democrat" DLC strategy in 1992.

Carter's religous beliefs were mocked during the '76 campaign within the media, and were it not for Ford's gaffe on Poland and the post-Watergate effect on the election in general he probably would have lost. Clinton won because by 1992 the Democrats had been out of power long enough so that the far left of the party that controlled its operations were willing to shut up for the five months of the main part of the campaign, from Clinton's Sister Soljah moment through Election Day.

That's the gAme play they're going to try and use again in 2004, which you can already see with Kerry's tax cut proposal from last Thursday. But barring some major event between now and November it's going to be tough for it to work. The candidate hasn't spent years building up his DLC ties to the more centerist members of the party, the way Clinton did, and the body of Democrats hates Bush so much they can't help themselves from attacking his record on the war on terror, but without providing any alternate policy of substance other than "Let's do what Jaques and Kofi want us to so everyone wil like us more."

This might be a good strategy for the husbands of rich ketchup heresses who don't want their friends getting nasty glances in fancy European restaurants just because they're American, but it's unlikely to be very effective for the general population as a whole. Kerry still does have room and time to run to Bush's right on some of the war on terror issues, since most people still aren't paying attention, but to do that would require the left wing Democrats shutting up for 6-7 months until Election Day, they way they did with Clinton. Hard to see thet kind of self-discipline within the party as of now.

Kerry can't run to the right on the war on terror, he's already said it's not as important as W thinks it is and it's a criminal issue.

The interesting question to me is whether they'll work up a new philosophy from within or just be hijacked by some coherent group. The Greens probably think it'll be them, but I'm guessing libertarians.

mike:

Can't be. It's only transfer payments that keeps the coalition together now. Libertarian views on taxes and social programs would leave them with only the most socially permissive on board.

John:

But they already blew their shot at the Third Way when Clinton blinked. Their best hope lies not to the center but to the Left. Just promise 51% that they need never pay taxes again nor workj much, that the other 49% will be dunned to provide them with welfare.

Sandy --

Seven-plus months out there's still plenty of time for multiple Kerry flip-flops on the terrorism issue, depending on how hte internal polling is going. If the pollsters tell him to say it is important in the fall, he will.

OJ --

That would work, if they can get those in the 51 percent group to think they're never going to be in the group with upper 49 percent, and therefore have no stake in keeping upper income bracket tax rates down. Hence the mantra over the worst economy since Hoover, because America is fundamentally an optimistic country. It's in the Democratic Party's interests to turn the population into morose characters out of an Ingmar Bergman movie (just so long as they vote before they kill themselves...)

John:

But that assumes that the work ethic prevails here permanently, rather than our going the way of Europe. I hope you're right, but don't count on it.

Mr. Dallek didn't say "Democrats", (at least in the excerpt), he said "the Left".

As mike earl notes, that sets the stage for the Greens, at least in some states.

oj:

Repealing death taxes was wildly popular, although most people are completely unaffected by federal estate taxes.

The difference between '92 and '04 has a name : Nader. If Kerry campaings the way Clinton did back in '92, Nader gets 5 or 6 % of the vote, thus re-electing Bush.

What Kerry stands for doesn't matter much in this election : it's a referendum on Bush. If Bush loses the referendum, the candidate of the other national party wins, provided that he keeps his base happy.

Kerry is the ideal candidate for the Dems this year : he can tell anything that needs to be told because he has not one guiding principle. When demented screeds of a Deaniac nature were all the rage, Kerry out-Deaned Dean. If need be, he'll out-Nader Nader.