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A
Losing Strategy
Every
election year, political consultants counsel
politicians to play to the middle. But what wins
elections is voter turnout spurred by sharp,
issue-driven campaigns.
Virginia
Republicans can't afford to forget what Democrats at
the national level are now recognizing. Blandness
doesn't win elections. Sharp, issue-driven campaigns
do.
Even
with their recent successes, Republicans shouldn't
be smug about elections this year and beyond. The
voters have shown that they will respond to a hard
message, often confounding political pundits in the
process.
Candidates
who listen to consultants' advice that they pursue
the "safe" course of playing to moderates
may regret that strategy. In an election year
without a statewide election, it is particularly
important for candidates to think about turnout.
Turnout is a function of many factors, but the most
important is message.
Campaigns
that don't deal with controversial issues aren't
likely to generate high turnout. On the other hand,
what are perceived as nasty, negative campaigns are
usually low-turnout elections.
The
important point for a candidate is not whether
overall turnout is high or low. The key is whether
that candidate's supporters turn out in sufficient
numbers to assure his or her victory.
In
developing a turnout strategy, most candidates
continue to think of politics and elections as a
left-right continuum. The very resort to such an
image inclines political types to search for the
mid-point between the two extremes on the left and
right.
The
flaw in the continuum image is that it no longer
reflects — and probably never reflected — the
complexity of the electorate. There is no left-right
continuum in politics today.
Successful
campaigns tend to identify a cluster of issue
positions likely to draw a majority. Principled
candidates don't pick and choose issue positions
merely to win elections, but they may emphasize some
positions over others depending on the political
climate at the time.
People
who believe a particular election will settle an
issue that is important to them are apt to become
voters in that election. If an election is about
nothing more than power and who wields it, many of
these people won't show up on election day.
Republicans
have discovered that taxes, guns and abortion draw a
crowd. In Virginia, most of that crowd will support
a Republican who opposes raising taxes, abortion on
demand and gun control. It is a waste of time to
debate whether these candidates are conservative,
extreme or right-wing. Those are mind-stopping
labels that don't contribute to thoughtful
discussion.
Some
Republicans think the best strategy in 2003 and
beyond is to turn down the heat, to moderate, to
look for the comfortable middle. This obviously
assumes erroneously that politics is a left-right
continuum. Worse, it leaves the GOP without
coherence and an agenda for governing. Has anyone
ever described the moderate philosophy? It's an
oxymoron.
Once
voters begin to sense that politics and governing
are nothing more than a power and ego game for
Republicans, the Republican hegemony will be on the
wane. Sooner or later, politics is about issues and
choosing. It's about resolving conflict — not by
making everyone happy, but by picking one side over
the other.
In
a book review more than a decade ago, The
Washington Post's Thomas Edsall described the
fundamental difference between Ronald Reagan and
George Bush the Elder. Recognizing that Americans
were deeply split on issues, Reagan was content to
have the support of a bare majority. Bush thought he
could moderate the Reagan message and gain support
from 75 percent. We know which was right. Must
Virginia Republicans learn this all over again?
June
2, 2003
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