July 26, 2004

THEY WIN WITH WALLACE, LOSE WITH McGOVERN:

Loony Over Labels (Michael Kinsley, July 25, 2004, Washington Post)

It is an odd notion that the Democratic Party is about to flicker out and, like Tinker Bell, can be saved only if all the delegates chant, "We do believe in moderation. We do. We do." An especially irritating variant, usually from conservative commentators, holds piously that the Democratic Party must save itself because two parties are essential to democracy or because competition is good for the Republicans.

These themes have reverberated around Democratic conventions since the first post-McGovernite election year of 1976. By now the word "McGovernite," never exactly filled with schismatic drama and romance, must be about as meaningful to the average voter as "Shachtmanite" or "Albigensian." George McGovern, children, was a senator from South Dakota (a region of the upper west side of Manhattan in the geographical mythology of Democratic Party critics) and the Democratic presidential candidate in 1972. He was, and is, a left-liberal. The Republican offering that year was Richard Nixon (with Spiro Agnew for dessert), but it is the Democrats who have been apologizing for their choice ever since.

You would not know from the Democrats' three decades of defensiveness about themselves and the label liberal that the Democratic candidate got more votes than the Republican one in each of the past three presidential elections. Another way of putting this is that the candidate the world labeled a liberal, whether he admitted it or not, got more votes than the candidate who proudly labeled himself a conservative.


Liberal? The candidate in those three elections was quite specifically a DLC Southerner.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 26, 2004 7:49 PM
Comments

Even more to the point, the Republican nominee in the first two of those three elections had no real base.

Posted by: jim hamlen at July 26, 2004 9:14 PM

George or Henry?

Posted by: Raoul Ortega at July 26, 2004 10:16 PM

"An especially irritating variant, usually from conservative commentators, holds piously that the Democratic Party must save itself because two parties are essential to democracy or because competition is good for the Republicans."

Actually my theory is that the two party system is a structual feature of the system. The current Democrat Party will collapse. and the Republican party will fission into libertarian (the Jeffersonians) and traditionalist (the Federalists) groups that will form separate parties.

Posted by: Robert Schwartz at July 26, 2004 11:27 PM

Libertarians can never be a party because it's espoused only by single white males under thirty.

Posted by: oj at July 26, 2004 11:35 PM

Don't forget the cranks over 30.

The parties will probably remain together for quite a while yet - their stranglehold on election law assures this. In addition, party leaders will arise who can take the 'factions' and herd them together. Johnson did it (for a couple of years), Nixon did it (again, for a short time), Carter did it (same), Reagan did it, and even Clinton almost did it. A truly alternative election would be one that approached 33-33-33, and was based on something real (instead of Perot's quirky appeal). Plus, things would have to carry to the next cycle, and that hasn't really happened since WWI.

Posted by: jim hamlen at July 27, 2004 12:00 PM

I wasn't aware of this either, but apparently Libertarianism is dead.

Posted by: David Cohen at July 27, 2004 3:24 PM

Libertarians are good allies when it comes to defeating whatever current administration is in power; but when that goal is achieved, Libertarians go right back to opposing their former allies and aligning themselves with their former enemies until the cycle repeats itself, never winning anything. It is like that old saying, "Always a bridesmaid, never a bride."

Posted by: Vince at July 27, 2004 5:55 PM

Orrin, I think you are right. Young people are stereotyped as being liberal, but I think they are actually more libertarian; they are materialistic, immoral and way too idealistic. I have always thought that the Libertarian Party simply took teenage rebellion and turned it into a political philosophy and party.

Posted by: Vince at July 27, 2004 6:13 PM

Flags and Fags is not an especially moderate campaign either. It is the season of immoderation.

And the Republicans will wind up just as unhappy with their immoderation as the Democrats will be with theirs.

Posted by: M. Simon at July 29, 2004 12:40 AM

M:

Why?

Posted by: oj at July 29, 2004 6:51 AM
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