swing voters

During the majority years, the GOP did not endear itself to either the base or the swing voters from which majorities are made; this much is clear.

The base was unhappy with the Medicare prescription drug benefit, NCLB, immigration and earmarks.  The swing voters on the other hand,  did not like the way the Terri Schaivo matter was handled, turned against the Iraq War and got tired of hearing how every single domestic problem could be solved by tax cuts.  

Thinking as a member of the base and talking with members of the base about the party's problem will lead you to focus on base issues, which is fine if they generally track with what the wider electorate thinks.  To a great extent, corruption and transparency are issues everyone can get behind - so-called valence issues.  Investigating Chris Dodd et. al. and purging similar types from our own ranks makes everyone happy and should be a no-brainer.

The DeMint, Limbaugh, RedState et. al. strategy is "inside out," based on the idea that voters are fungible and making your most reliable voters happy will improve a party's standing with marginal voters down the scale.  In other words, they say that an ideological purge applauded by some Freeper with a bookshelf that spans from Sean Hannity to Ollie North will appeal to a low information swing voter who has two or three core issues that he cares about when (and if) he pays attention.

This is insane.

Attempting to gain a majority by addressing base concerns will get you a happy base and DeMint's 30 Senators in perpetuity.

Of course a happy base means happier door-to-door volunteers and more generous donors.  However, this makes party goals into one big game of inside baseball.  Instead, an "outside in" strategy focuses on growth over purity.  If you look at where the otherwise ascendent Democrats are flailing, it is because of unpopular or incompetent personalities like Govs. Corzine and Patterson.  Instead of an endless series of litmus tests, no-tax pledges and vote-my-way-or-you're-dead-to-me votes, the GOP and conservatives should recruit candidates who are personally appealing, collegial, not gaffe-prone and ethically clean.  Just because some state senator voted for an increase in the beer tax a decade ago shouldn't doom him in a Senate primary.  The same thing goes for any manner of social and fiscal issues.  The vast majority of voters choose between individuals, not between ACU or NRA scores.  Pick good individuals and you win, even in unfriendly districts.

This may be anathema to some, but I truly think that most conservatives would be happy with a majority that votes their way 75% of the time than an ineffectual minority that votes in lockstep but can walk into CPAC with their heads held high.   You make the call.

Before the Independence Day weekend, I received my emailed version of Campaigns and Elections Maganize, and noticed an interesting article by John Zogby, CEO of the namesake polling firm. Here are some snippets of how he describes swing voters throughout recent electoral history:

We're also working to identify the hallmarks of two new kinds of voters. We call them the Equinox Voters, because they fall into two distinct groups: the "Spring-Aheads" and the "Fall-Backers." The Spring-Aheads are the economic winners in America today, who largely reside in regions that have turned themselves around. These are areas growing in diversity and in the population of the "creative class." And, for the Democrats, these areas are the antidote to other areas mired in economic decline.Those are the areas populated by many Fall-Backers, who have suffered from changes in the U.S. economy over the past 15 years. They have not been able to recover from the movement from a manufacturing to an information economy.

This might be true now, but is it true for past generations? The Spring-Ahead and Fall-Back explanation works with the economy we have now. But what about economic shifts we've seen in the past? Have we seen similar and parallel political shifts? (I haven't started to read the Douthat and Salam book, but so far I've heard that they provide a good historical context. Maybe I'll find the answer there.)

The Equinox voters carry with them a political irony. The Fall-Backers used to be Democrats, because Democrats are supposed to be the party of the people, of the working class. But now, they are identifying in greater numbers with Republican ideas and proposals. Meanwhile, the Spring-Aheads would traditionally be Republicans-entrepreneurs and burgeoning voters on the move.

So what's behind this flip? What's making the Republicans more attractive to the economic losers and the Democrats the party of the economic winners? With an economy that's still in transition, Republicans have still not quite adjusted. In many ways, this is old economy vs. new economy.

I've seen past posts on the pseudo-populism that some politicians like Huckabee and Pawlenty have been making to help transition the Republican Party to attract Fall-Backers, and I've seen other posts that look at the enormous amount of money coming out of Silicon Valley to the Barack Obama campaign and to other Democrat candidates.

In the short term: How can the next conservative movement continue to attract the Fall-Backers? We saw some cues from the Clinton campaign in their late surge of Appalachian state victories, but her campaign was based on the same old liberal rhetoric of trying to stick it to the big guy. I remember Pat Buchannan once saying that the three biggest fears in a democracy are Big Business, Big Labor, and Big Government. Attacking big business has been the M.O. of the Democrats, and attacking big government has been the M.O of conservatives. Attacking big labor has not worked as effectively as we would like. What else can we do?

In the long term: Can the next conservative movement build a coalition of Spring-Aheads and Fall-Backers in an "information economy" or "new economy"? What message can we send, without being inconsistent or "flip-floppy", that will attract both groups?

Or maybe we should critique Zogby's analysis of what he considers the historical swing voters. Maybe it has nothing to do with the economy, stupid. Or does it?

- MM

The news out of the McCain camp today...the launching of a new organization specifically to encourage non-partisan support for McCain. The group is to be chaired by...who else...Senator Joe Lieberman.

http://citizens.johnmccain.com/

My favorite part:

Tell Us About Yourself

Political/Campaign Experience
If so please describe:
Role with Clinton Campaign
If so please describe:

 So, "our" man McCain continues to cozy up to the left and now Clinton supporters in particular. Is there any love for the right? Since when did conservative voters become chopped liver? I had originally thought McCain would go with a conservative (or at least a faux conservative) VP, but now I'm wondering if he's not just going to go middle-of-the-road all the way and hope to score the win with help from Hillary's fans.