according to Nate Silver 538 : “One thing I don’t think people get is that even among Democrats slightly more voters ( 49% to 41% – September 5 – 9, 2019) are worried that the party will nominate someone too liberal than someone not liberal enough.”
My greatest fear is that we repeat the 1972 debacle which saw the nomination of the more liberal McGovern over the moderate Muskie, thus assuring Nixon’s landslide victory winning 49 states.
Please share widely!
Christopher says
I have definitely noticed a bubble vs. average voter dynamic. I’m with Biden on experience, but appreciate a lot of Warren’s plans. I don’t think we have anything to fear nominating either one.
fredrichlariccia says
As a supporter of Senator Edmund Muskie over Senator George McGovern during the 1972 cycle, this is starting to feel like deja vu all over again for me.
And the rest is history.
doubleman says
Ummm, but memories of 2016 and 2004 are not coming to mind?
bob-gardner says
“It is difficult to over-estimate the critical role Biden played in making the tragedy of the Iraq war possible…. In his powerful position as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he orchestrated a propaganda show [in summer 2002] designed to sell the war to skeptical colleagues and the America public by ensuring that dissenting voices would not get a fair hearing.”
– Middle East Studies professor Stephen Zunes, University of San Francisco, Foreign Policy in Focus
(8-24-08)
bob-gardner says
“I really like Dick Cheney for real. I get on with him, I think he’s a decent man.”
– Joe Biden, speaking at George Washington University
(October 2015)
doubleman says
In other words, a slight plurality of Democratic primary voters are worried we are going to nominate someone who they view as too liberal for independents and republicans (!!!) to accept??? It’s tough to overstate how bad this thinking is. If you’re concerned about appealing to Trump voters, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.
Among the polling available in 1972, Nixon was leading McGovern consistently by about 20 points from about 9 months before the election. They didn’t do as much polling then. Today, we have way more polls, including direct matchup polls for Sanders v. Trump going back to 2015, and they’ve consistently shown Sanders tying or beating Trump. New polls are showing Sanders beating Trump in red states like Texas. New polls are also showing many Dem candidates beating Trump nationally.
Your headline says that more Democrats are closer to Biden than Warren/Sanders on the issues. What is your evidence for that? Your quoted polling point is not evidence of that. On issue after issue, Americans (and especially Democrats) support more progressive positions on issues.
We all know this is how the campaign is going to go down. Biden supporters are going to have to scare Democrats into supporting him because his policies and record aren’t going to get it done.
The last two times a Democrat lost the White House we said that challengers were too liberal and risky. How’d that work out?
2016 and 2004 seem a lot more instructive than 1972.
SomervilleTom says
I agree with pretty much everything you offer here, and uprated it.
I do want to quibble with your sketch of the 2016 contest. It is true that a few Democrats argued that Mr. Sanders was too liberal and risky in comparison to Ms. Clinton. My recollection is that far more Democrats argued that Ms. Clinton was more competent, more articulate, more experienced, and more qualified than Mr. Sanders. The two candidates had very different temperaments and Democratic voters chose Ms. Clinton. The 2016 primary campaign was not close. The outcome was obvious from very early on, and most supporters of Mr. Sanders argued that the benefit of him remaining in the race was to influence the agenda.
Regarding 2004, I’m not sure I see any comparison at all. Are you casting Howard Dean in the “grassroots upstart” role? He was never a serious contender at all. Mr. Edwards self-destructed, and Mr. Clark was a bit player. I just don’t see anybody in the “anti-establishment” role in 2004 other than perhaps Mr. Dean.
I have different memories of 1972 from my friend Fred. The voting age had JUST been lowered to 18 the previous summer — a hard-fought victory that many of us (including me) were bloodied to obtain. That was my first election (I was 20 at the time), and George McGovern was my clear and hands-down favorite. I lived in MD at the time, and I also want to remind us that segregationist George Wallace was a serious national contender. His assassination attempt happened just a few miles away from where I lived, and he won the MD primary in spite of his severe injuries.
I think it’s important to emphasize that Watergate was not an issue during the 1972 primaries. The Watergate burglary itself happened in June 1972, and was ignored by virtually everybody until James McCord submitted his now-famous letter to the judge in early 1973. The assassination attempt on George Wallace occurred on May 15, 1972 — the day before the MD primary and a month before the Watergate break-in.
Richard Nixon was a skilled politician and an even better media manipulator. He was VERY popular in 1972, MUCH more so than Donald Trump. We know, in retrospect, that he intentionally cultivated the anti-war protests of 1972 in order to motivate his “silent majority”. He astutely recognized that for every voter swayed against him and the war by the protests, he would gain ten or a hundred voters by the televised images of uniformed police beset and outnumbered by “angry mobs”.
It was an incredibly cynical media and political strategy (like the Watergate break-in) and was devastatingly effective. Mr. Nixon used the passion and enthusiasm of the “younger generation” to crush them politically.
Mr. Trump in 2019 is therefore not comparable to Mr. Nixon in 1971. The cultural and generational clash of 2019 is not comparable to 1971. Young people are not being drafted to fight in an illegal war today. Today’s young people have grown up knowing they could vote at 18 — too many of them ignore that privilege and obligation.
My recollection is that the single biggest issue of 1972 was the Vietnam War and the intense generational conflict that resulted. In retrospect, racism was nearly as important — it was my own then-unconscious white privilege that led to my discounting of it (to me, the issue had been solved by the 1965 civil rights bill). I viewed George Wallace as a minor disruptor and I remember being astonished at the strength of support.
More importantly, the “establishment candidate” in 1972 was Hubert Humphrey — Ed Muskie was a minor player who withdrew in April 1972 after being savaged by a despicable media attack led by the infamous Manchester Union Leader. The closest analog to Bernie Sanders in the 1972 campaign was Gene McCarthy, who withdrew in May of 1972 and cast his support to Mr. McGovern.
Hubert Humphrey won more primary votes (4,121,372) than George McGovern (4,053,451). George Wallace came in a very close third (3,755,424) despite his near-fatal injury — racism was alive and well in America of 1972 even among Democrats,
If we are going to compare 2016 to 1972, then I think Bernie Sanders plays the role of Gene McCarthy, Hillary Clinton plays the role of Hubert Humphrey, and the most important role of all — George McGovern — was left unfilled by the primary process.
Most importantly, in 2016 the role of George Wallace was played by none other than the GOP nominee — Donald Trump.
THAT is my view of why Democrats lost the general election of 2016. We ignored racist and bigoted voters in 2016 just like I naively ignored them in 1972. Ms. Clinton tried to address this with her comments about “deplorables” and was absolutely crucified for it, even by Democrats (including here on BMG). We are all now paying the price.
I’m not sure what the learning is for 2020. As I’ve said before, I view Elizabeth Warren as the candidate most likely to reflect all the learnings of our history, including our history in 2016.
I think the most important political question of the moment is whether or not Joe Biden will maintain his enthusiasm among black and minority voters. Of all the Democratic candidates, polling suggests that he is the candidate most favored by black and minority voters.
betsey says
Yup, Fred has no evidence. Here’s MY evidence to completely refute his post!
See here, here, here, and here.
SomervilleTom says
Heh. Fred, surely you remember a guy named Hubert Humphrey?
You know, the guy that beat George McGovern in the primaries and still didn’t get nominated?
The sad fact is that I’m pretty sure that Richard Nixon would have won the 1972 general election whoever we nominated. Maybe not by a 49-state landslide, but still enough to claim a mandate.
I am STILL proud to say that my very first vote in my life was for George McGovern in the MD primary of 1972. I am still proud to say that I voted for him in my first presidential election. I moved to Massachusetts two years later — to spend the rest of my life here — in no small part because of that election.
Besides, if we had not been on the losing end of the 49-state landslide, the universe would have been denied the best bumpersticker ever:
“Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts”
fredrichlariccia says
I do remember that guy, Hubert Horatio Humphrey,.
If he had been elected in ’68, there is no doubt in my mind that he would have ended the Vietnam War which dragged on for five more years under – “I have a secret peace plan’ _ Nixon.
fredrichlariccia says
Nixon feared Muskie’s nomination most. That’s why he unleashed dirty trickster Dick Tuck to take him down with the infamous ‘Canuck letter’ purporting to show that Muskie was prejudiced against French – American voters.
jconway says
Nixon never had 36% approval rating until the last two months of his presidency. I think we forget how strong his support was and how weak Trump’s is by comparison.
jconway says
Also the McGovern bogeyman is a right wing trope we should retire. It’s always been used to bully progressives into submitting to more conservative nominees. We heard his name constantly invoked by hawkish Democrats in 2004 and it turned out the doves were vindicated in 2006 and 2008. Voting for the war kept Hillary from becoming president and speaking out against it helped Obama become president. Even though the conventional wisdom was to vote for it. Joe Biden has followed that conventional wisdom his entire career and it led him away from progressive priorities on trade. consumer finance, health care, criminal justice, abortion rights, and foreign policy.
bob-gardner says
“. . . away from progressive priorities on trade. consumer finance, health care, criminal justice, abortion rights, and foreign policy.”
Other than that Joltin’ Joe is doing just fine.