Hatching new Democrats

There’s already been some response to a new report by Dem analysts William A. Galston and Elaine C. Kamarck (the latter of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government), which says that Dems need to "move to the center" — wherever the hell that is these days — to achieve majority status.

On defense and social issues, "liberals espouse views diverging notonly from those of other Democrats, but from Americans as a whole. Tothe extent that liberals now constitute both the largest bloc withinthe Democratic coalition and the public face of the party, Democraticcandidates for national office will be running uphill."

… Their basic thesis is that the number of solidly conservativeRepublican voters is substantially larger that the reliably Democraticliberal voter base. To win, the argument goes, Democrats must make muchlarger inroads among moderates than the GOP.

Well, the Republicans are having trouble with their own grassroots wing at the moment — the religious right. And those folks don’t have any more claim to ideological majority status than I do, on any number of issues, abortion rights being the most prominent.

As for the importance of making inroads among moderates, I think that’s undeniably true. But you can do that two ways:

1. Grow your coalition through ideological compromise, as Galston, Kamarck, and DLC-types recommend, or;
2. Grow your ideology, with these means:
   1. real and substantive leadership on issues, including and especially Iraq/defense for national leaders
   2. Opinion-media (hell, it’s propaganda — call us what we are): blogs, Air America, etc.
   3. Social capital and one-on-one relationships: Leading by example in one’s own neighborhood: participating responsibly and compassionately in PTAs, churches, civic groups, etc. In other words, making it cool to be liberal.

I don’t share the mechanistic view of the DLC hackocracy that you always have to follow the voters. Voters will accept strong, well-spoken and principled progressives: Look at the success of Russ Feingold, Paul Wellstone and Barack Obama over the years.

And when it comes to Massachusetts, I think Deval Patrick could well fit in that mold. I’m skeptical of my co-blogger David’s skepticism about the Patrick campaign — I still think things are way too fluid to evaluate what his poll numbers "should be" right now. As Michael Forbes-Wilcox comments on Fred Clarkson’s blog, Patrick is starting a major publicity push on October 17, at which point we might expect to see the name recognition numbers nudge upwards.

But David properly wonders "whether his campaign is gainingany traction outside the small circle of activist/progressive types whoare the core of his campaign." Indeed, that is the question that all Democratic activist types should be asking themselves. In ’04 we didn’t have enough to get 51% nationally, or in any number of critical races nationwide.

Patrick’s campaign manager has said, "Give me a couple thousand volunteers and I can beat the money." Mike Dukakis has railed against the national and local weakness of the party on the ground; hopefully Howard Dean’s 50-state grassroots-tending will bear fruit in ’06. But just as one can waste money, the ’04 election showed that volunteerscan be wasted, too, if they’re not put in a position to succeed.

So, Howard Dean and Deval Patrick have a similar strategy: They are cultivating the grassroots first. How do they then grow throughout our state and nation?

Please share widely!

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