Political Strategy: 2006

I and some of my co-bloggers have been spending some time discussing what the Democrats' political strategy should be during this election year and continuing into the 2008 presidential campaign. I suspect we will have a number of things to say about this in the next few months. For now, however, Publius as usual, has some ideas to offer which make sense to me:

Now that we’re officially in an election year, I guess it’s time to start thinking about political strategery. Ironically, I believe that one of the Democrats’ biggest problems will be the excess of things to complain about. After all, there are so many potential issues to both justly criticize and to demagogue – Schiavo, Social Security, DeLay, Katrina, Plame, Iraq, corruption – that it will be difficult for the Dems to combine them all into a coherent line of attack. So they shouldn’t even try. They need to keep it simple and stick with one – just one – theme. And that theme is the “culture of corruption/above the law” critique. That’s it. Nothing else. Pound it home again and again. Let the other issues (especially Social Security) be demagogued on a local level as necessary, but nationally, the corruption theme is the way to go. It should be one-year media blitz about one thing. There shouldn’t be a single Democrat on TV at any point in 2006 speaking on behalf of the party who doesn’t bring it up. Corruption. Corruption. Cronyism. Cronyism. Above the law. Above the law. Every single day – all year.

... By forcing a debate over corruption and cronyism, Democrats necessarily win. Just look at how the GOP has responded so far – “well, Dems are corrupt too” or “Dems got dirty money too.” Those are horrible arguments. For one, they implicitly concede that the GOP has been misbehaving. For another, they (at best) generate disgust toward the status quo, which can only hurt the party in power. The only way for the GOP to win this debate is by not having it. If they’re having it, they’re losing it.

Another strength of the “corruption/above the law” criticism is that it’s the simplest theme that ties together the most politically damaging stories. First, it ties together a lot of individual bad actors such as Libby, Rove, Abramoff, DeLay, Ney, Frist, Safavian, Cunningham, Norquist, and Reed even though these individuals’ misconduct isn’t necessarily related. Second, it’s a good critique of the pathetic joke that the money-grubbing Congressional Republican leadership has become – especially in the House. The corruption theme ties together things like holding votes open, voting in the middle of the night, abusing the conference committee process, not swearing in oil executives, and so on. Corruption’s first cousin – cronyism – ties together Miers, Brownie, Katrina, and the administrative state’s incompetence more generally. Finally, the corruption theme resonates nicely with the “above the law” critique that can be applied to Bush’s king-in-wartime theories and actions.

I'm not sure I agree that we have to limit discussion to one issue alone, but it's certainly important to "keep it simple, stupid." Virtually anyone can tell you off the cuff what Republicans (say they) stand for -- small government, low taxes, personal responsibility, balanced budget, national security. I don't know anyone who can say quickly what the Democrats stand for. We need a simple, but compelling message. Clinton tried that with the "medicare, medicaid, education and the environment" MMEE theme, but I think the Dems need something less program oriented and more value oriented to define themselves around. It's both more compelling and has more staying power. Just think how long the Republicans have managed perpetuate the myth they are the party of small government despite all the evidence to the contrary.