Brother Marshal
gives us the word:
Again, this is not a Pollyannaish post. The Kerry campaign needs to get
control of the debate back from the president. And they need to start
hitting much harder. But Democrats themselves need to be a lot tougher and
hardier about the cycles campaigns go through. And that applies to
self-serving Democratic 'insiders' too.
Josh is right that one of the most annoying weaknesses of the Democrats is
their habit of going into full panic mode whenever things start to look a little
bad. This latest round of white-knuckling didn't start with the Swift Boat ads.
It started with the release of an LA Times poll that showed a slight
shift towards Bush. The Democrats, looking for a sign that the Swift Boat ads
were hurting Kerry, latched onto this result as if it fully vindicated their
fears.
But the polls over the course of this general election seasons have shown
similar fluctuations, sometimes of even greater degree, in both Kerry's and
Bush's favor, and on multiple occasions. There was nothing in that LA
Times poll that justified the kind of full blown panic that it produced within
Democratic circles.
Let's be clear about something: when it comes to policy the Democrats and the
American people are in remarkable sync and the Republicans are way
outside of the mainstream. But when it comes to message discipline the
Republicans leave the Democrats in the dust. It's not the content of the message
that matters in politics as much as the attitude behind it.
The Republicans are resolute in their message presentation while the
Democrats are constantly second guessing themselves. When things start going bad
for Republicans (and the last two years have been very bad for Republicans), it
is rare for you to hear comments from anonymous Republicans about how their
leadership is doing it wrong. But there is no shortage of fretting Democrats for
reporters to quote, even when things are going well.
This is the reason why Democrats lose. The American people pick up on that
lack of self-confidence. Even though they don't agree with the Republican
policy, they still give them the power. Why? Because they don't want to give it
to a bunch of wimps.
And yes, I am aware that this post might qualify as yet another example of
self-critical Democratic white-knuckling. It's just one of those ironies that I
have to criticize Democrats in order to get them to stop criticizing themselves.
Have some confidence people! Your on the right side! Your on the side of the
American people! They want to vote for you! They just need the confidence
to feel that doing so is the right course of action. Squealing in fright at
every shift in the polls isn't helping.
