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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Month: April 2007

GOP 2008: Big Mess or Desperate Measures?

As a follow-up to my recent post on the Democratic presidential race, I would say there really isn’t any dominant conventional wisdom about the Republican contest at this point.Some observers think the field is a big mess, with the Big Three candidates (Giuliani, McCain and Romney) all sporting gigantic liabilities that could theoretically take them down before Iowa, but with no one else emerging or likely to emerge from the weak second-tier pack to win the nomination and unite the GOP.Yet some observers (in both parties) think the biggest of the Big Three, Rudy Giuliani, can pull off a miracle by winning the nomination despite his rich history of ideological heresies and marital issues, and then win the general election based on his personal charisma and his reputation and “America’s Mayor” on and after 9/11. And a few think a dark horse–most recently Fred Thompson–can snuff all the front-runners.The Giuliani issue is indeed fascinating. He’s totally kicking butt in the polls. Real Clear Politics’ average of GOP polls since March 21 shows Rudy up in the 30s, while McCain has collapsed into the teens, with Romney (the other member of the Big Three) stuck in the single digits, actually trailing Thompson and barely ahead of Newt Gingrich.But Giuliani’s manifold liabilities, especially on cultural issues, seem to be multiplying, given his recent reiteration of support for public funding of abortions (his lame-o follow-up pledge that he wouldn’t try to repeal “current law” radically restricting such funding was cold comfort to Right-to-Lifers, whose main raison d’etre is to overturn the “current law” making abortion legal in the first place). Now some analysts seem to think that cultural conservatives will look at Rudy’s overall record and platform and give him a pass on issues like abortion and gay marriage and immigration. But as I never tire of pointing out, these aren’t negotiable issues to culturally conservative voters, many of whom think legalized abortion is a second Holocaust; that gay marriage is a fundamental threat to the institution of the family; and that current immigration policies threaten the basic cultural integrity of the nation. At a minimum, Giuliani is going to face a nasty, scorched-earth demonization effort far more intense than the one that brought down John McCain in 2000, while providing a lot more raw material to work with than McCain ever did. You can count on it.An alternative argument, made most persuasively by Mike Tomasky, is that Rudy’s mastered dog-whistle politics, and might well, in office, give the Cultural Right whatever they want, despite his public positions. That may be true, but I doubt it will do him much good in running for the nomination, since (a) Rudy built a long record of untrustworthy behavior towards conservatives in New York, and (b) the Cultural Right has repeatedly been gamed by past Republican presidents, including those who publicly agreed with their demands, making conservatives vastly less likely to accept bare promises, much less dog whistles.The final argument you hear is more basic: today’s Republicans, like Democrats accepting Bill Clinton in 1992 or even GOPers Liking Ike in 1952, are simply so desperate to hang onto the White House that they’ll plunk for Rudy simply because he might win the general election.The analogy to Clinton is reasonable in one respect: like Clinton, Rudy faces a very weak field. Many people may have forgotten the grand irony of the 1992 nominating process: the same New Hampshire primary that threatened Clinton’s campaign and ultimately made him “the Comeback Kid” also croaked the candidacies of Tom Harkin and Bob Kerrey, leaving Clinton to face two underwhelming rivals, Paul Tsongas and (later) Jerry Brown. It’s possible that Giuliani could win the nomination in 2008 simply because no one is strong enough to beat him, though this outcome would run a high risk of creating a conservative third-party candidacy. Indeed, as Tomasky pointed out in his (above-cited) article, there’s no way that Clinton was as far from the Democratic mainstream on major issues in 1992 as Giuliani is today. As for Ike–well, aside from the fact that the GOP was far less ideologically conservative in 1952 than it is today, there’s this small matter that Eisenhower, having supervised the defeat of Nazi Germany, was vastly more popular than anyone in public life in this day and age, definitely including “America’s Mayor.”Meanwhile, Rudy’s strength in the polls has fed the other boom, the otherwise unlikely effort to catapult Fred Thompson into the role of the “true conservative” in the race. The Thompson proto-candidacy really does make you wonder if George Allen might be headed towards the nomination if he hadn’t disgraced himself en route to losing his Senate seat last year. He was a lot more acceptable to conservatives than Thompson has ever been, and had at least an arguable record of accomplishment as governor of Virginia, whereas ol’ Fred warmed a chair in the Senate between stints as a mediocre character actor and a lobbyist. Maybe he’ll manage to run a campaign that strikes a chord stronger than “I’m not those other guys,” but until then, it appears his sudden double-digit position in the polls is simply a sad reflection on the field.There is a pretty firm CW about two other candidates: Romney and McCain. Despite his powerful fundraising numbers, it’s almost universally accepted in GOP circles that the Mittster has flunked his first audition as “the true conservative candidate,” mainly thanks to those toxic videotapes of his earlier protestations of cultural liberalism, along with exceptional hostility in conservative evangelical circles towards his Mormon faith. He may get a second audition before it’s over, but he’s so far shown no reason to believe it will go better than the first. Unlike Giuliani, he doesn’t have the positive national image that makes him look good in general election trial heats. He’s actually afraid to talk about his main policy achievement, his role in Massachusetts’ health care plan. So it’s hard to see what, exactly, would convert his money and on-paper strengths into actual votes.And there’s also general agreement that John McCain is in deep trouble. He’s lost about half his early GOP support in the horse-race polls; he’s actually running behind Thompson in at least one. And his one big gambit to regain conservative support, his increasingly visible support for the “Bush surge” in Iraq and his abrasive slurs on the patriotism of Democrats who are opposing it, may help him with the GOP base, but only at the price of all but eliminating his already-decimated positive image among independents and Democrats. And given just about any alternative, few conservatives really want to support McCain if he looks like a weak general election candidate harnessed to the GOP’s worst issue.Little needs to be said about the GOP’s other candidates. Tancredo will continue his bid to become the new Pat Buchanan of presidential politics, probably forcing other candidates to get shrill on immigration, which will help solidify the Democratic advantage among Latinos in the general election. Sam Brownback will serve a similar destructive function on abortion and gay marriage. Gingrich, if he runs despite a very late start, will be the ultimate fallback candidate, sort of Bob Dole with a lot of baggage, offering the party the option of just taking a dive in 2008. And Mike Huckabee doesn’t have two nickels to rub together. Nor does Tommy Thompson. Hagel shouldn’t be mentioned unti
l he acts like he’s running.And don’t forget this: Republicans don’t have some Ultimate Savior out there who could run a credible campaign if push came to shove. In the extremely unlikely event that all of the Democratic Big Three crashed and burned, the party still has Al Gore, who would probably accept a real draft. The only person on the GOP side that could theoretically offer that is Jeb Bush, whose last name is almost certainly a disqualifier.So count me as a member of the “big mess” faction when it comes to an analysis of the GOP field. Rudy makes no sense; Fred’s got no game; Mitt’s stuck in neutral; John’s mired in a lose-lose relationship with the conservative base; and the rest of the candidates seem to be going nowhere fast.


Kurt Vonnegut RIP

The novelist Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday at 84. Like a lot of baby boomers, no doubt, the news made me feel sad and very old, and perhaps wondering what Vonnegut had been up to during the decades after we all read his early stuff like Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle, and Breakfast of Champions. I’m sure a lot of people who grew up in the 60s and 70s remember Vonnegut as part of a group of fiction writers who were considered de rigour at the time– a group that at least for my classmates at Emory University included Richard Brautigan, Thomas Pynchon, Tom Robbins, Joseph Heller, and probably many others whose names and works I have completely forgotten. (Their non-fiction counterparts included radical writers like Herbert Marcuse, Norman O. Brown, R.D. Laing, and Emory’s own Thomas J.J. Altizer).Vonnegut was already an “old guy” back then, and it was his distinctive contribution to connect the cultural, political and literary preoccupations of the day with older traditions of pacifism, anti-authoritarianism, science fiction, and sheer anarchic whimsy. With the possible exception of Slaughterhouse-Five, which audaciously challenged (like Heller’s Catch-22) the morality of “The Good War,” Vonnegut’s work probably hasn’t aged as well as he did. But as he might have himself put it, “So it goes.”As it happens, I owe a small personal debt to the man: he made my surname cool, via his strange science-fiction-writer character Kilgore Trout. So I pray that Vonnegut may rest in peace, in whatever dimension he now occupies.


Suburban Poverty Growth May Alter Dem Strategy

Eyal Press has an article in The Nation, “The New Suburban Poverty,” noting a demographic milestone that should elicit the attention of Democratic campaign strategists:

For the first time ever, more poor Americans live in the suburbs than in all our cities combined.

The implications for political strategy in federal, state and local elections are substantial. In terms of policy, it means elected officials and political aspirants will have to rethink the delivery of needed social services to less dense areas. Funding those services adequately will be an increasing concern in the years ahead, especially for the growing number of middle class families who have fled the cities, expecting lower property taxes.
In terms of election strategy, Party leaders and candidates will have to rethink everthing from redistricting to GOTV logistics. It also requires some mental housecleaning regarding existing stereotypes of suburban life, as Press notes:

Stories of downward mobility in America’s suburbs have not exactly cluttered the headlines over the past decade. Gated communities of dream homes, mansions ringed by man-made lakes and glass-cube office parks: These are the images typically evoked by the posh, supersized subdivisions built during the 1990s technology boom. Low-wage jobs, houses under foreclosure, families unable to afford food and medical care are not. But venture beyond the city limits of any major metropolitan area today, and you will encounter these things, in forms less concentrated–and therefore less visible–than in the more blighted pockets of our cities perhaps, but with growing frequency all the same.

And it’s not just the inner ‘burbs, as Press explains:

Last December the Brookings Institution published a report showing that from Las Vegas to Boise to Houston, suburban poverty has been growing over the past seven years, in some places slowly, in others by as much as 33 percent. “The enduring social and fiscal challenges for cities that stem from high poverty are increasingly shared by their suburbs,” the report concludes. It’s a problem some may assume is confined to the ragged fringes of so-called “inner ring” suburbs that directly border cities, places where the housing stock is older and from which many wealthier residents long ago departed. But this isn’t the case. “Overall…first suburbs did not bear the brunt of increasing suburban poverty in the early 2000s,” notes the Brookings report, which found that economic distress has spread to “second-tier suburbs and ‘exurbs'” as well.

Savvy demographic and polical analysts have seen this trend coming for a while. Still, the milestone should ring a few bells in the war rooms of Democratic political campaigns. We’ll resist the temptation to quote more of Press’s excelent article — a must-read for those who want a more realistic vision of America’s political geography.


Suburban Poverty Growth May Alter Dem Strategy

Eyal Press has an article in The Nation, “The New Suburban Poverty,” noting a demographic milestone that should elicit the attention of Democratic campaign strategists:

For the first time ever, more poor Americans live in the suburbs than in all our cities combined.

The implications for political strategy in federal, state and local elections are substantial. In terms of policy, it means elected officials and political aspirants will have to rethink the delivery of needed social services to less dense areas. Funding those services adequately will be an increasing concern in the years ahead, especially for the growing number of middle class families who have fled the cities, expecting lower property taxes.
In terms of election strategy, Party leaders and candidates will have to rethink everthing from redistricting to GOTV logistics. It also requires some mental housecleaning regarding existing stereotypes of suburban life, as Press notes:

Stories of downward mobility in America’s suburbs have not exactly cluttered the headlines over the past decade. Gated communities of dream homes, mansions ringed by man-made lakes and glass-cube office parks: These are the images typically evoked by the posh, supersized subdivisions built during the 1990s technology boom. Low-wage jobs, houses under foreclosure, families unable to afford food and medical care are not. But venture beyond the city limits of any major metropolitan area today, and you will encounter these things, in forms less concentrated–and therefore less visible–than in the more blighted pockets of our cities perhaps, but with growing frequency all the same.

And it’s not just the inner ‘burbs, as Press explains:

Last December the Brookings Institution published a report showing that from Las Vegas to Boise to Houston, suburban poverty has been growing over the past seven years, in some places slowly, in others by as much as 33 percent. “The enduring social and fiscal challenges for cities that stem from high poverty are increasingly shared by their suburbs,” the report concludes. It’s a problem some may assume is confined to the ragged fringes of so-called “inner ring” suburbs that directly border cities, places where the housing stock is older and from which many wealthier residents long ago departed. But this isn’t the case. “Overall…first suburbs did not bear the brunt of increasing suburban poverty in the early 2000s,” notes the Brookings report, which found that economic distress has spread to “second-tier suburbs and ‘exurbs'” as well.

Savvy demographic and polical analysts have seen this trend coming for a while. Still, the milestone should ring a few bells in the war rooms of Democratic political campaigns. We’ll resist the temptation to quote more of Press’s excelent article — a must-read for those who want a more realistic vision of America’s political geography.


Early Democratic Presidential CW

It’s become a commonplace observation to note that the 2008 presidential race, particularly on the Democratic side, is already achieving an unusually frantic pace. And perhaps the best evidence of that hypothesis is the fact that each of the Big Three Democratic candidates, Clinton, Obama and Edwards, has already been described, by the Conventional Wisdom of the Washington chattering classes and key elements of the blogosphere, as undergoing a potentially fatal “swoon.”HRC was the first to be thusly described, especially when Barack Obama entered the race and predictably started building support among the African-American voters who had previously tilted heavily to Clinton, erasing much of her early, big lead in the polls. The fact that this trend coincided with a MSM and blogospheric obsession with her refusal to apologize about her vote for the Iraq War resolution, compounded by her lukewarm appeal to independent voters, led some smart people to predict her early demise.Just a few weeks ago, of course, John Edwards had to put up, however briefly, with reports that he was actually about to drop out of the race, and/or would be capsized by public concerns about his wife’s health, and/or couldn’t raise any money.And now Barack Obama is suffering from a bit of a drop in support in the polls, explained by many as the result of his refusal to get specific on policy ideas, and/or to give Democratic audiences the red meat they expect. As a new and relatively balanced New Republic article by Noam Scheiber reflects, the emerging CW is that Obama’s buzz factor is fading (just as many Obama-skeptics in the punditocracy had long predicted), leaving him in a downward trajectory unless he changes course.Taking all these “trends” together, the lesson is that you shouldn’t pay much attention to the early CW on any of these three candidates. The best bet is that the Big Three are all viable and tightly bunched, which is mainly bad news for the Little Three (Richardson, Dodd and Biden) who need some oxygen to get taken seriously by the media, the activists, and the money folk.What’s more interesting to me is the extent to which the Big Three have taken varying courses in laying out a rationale for their candidacy.When you boil it all down, our last two presidential nominees, Al Gore and John Kerry, were rich in policy proposals and Shrumian “fighting” rhetoric, but largely bereft of any overarching message (Gore, to be more precise, had several messages, but couldn’t settle on one for any length of time).Nobody needs Bob Shrum any more to convey an intention to “fight” Republicans. Obama is all message (the same message of beyond-polarization and reform that John Kerry rejected and Wesley Clark botched in 2004), and part of his early appeal is that he scratches a long-standing itch among message-starved Democratic and independent voters. It also enables him to simultaneously run to the left and right of his main rivals.HRC, so far, stands in the Gore-Kerry all-policy, no-message tradition, assuming that “I’m in it to win!” is a short-term, tactical slogan designed to deal with doubts about her electability.Edwards is the one candidate so far to put together both a clear message (an updated version of his “Two Americas” theme from 2004) and a lot of policy detail. But I strongly suspect that Obama and Clinton will soon catch up on that front, and then we’ll begin to see some real and congruent competition. The other thing that’s likely to happen is that George W. Bush will find a way to make moot the current tactical arguments among the Democratic presidential candidates over Iraq, which will make their opinions on other topics more visible and politically relevant.Each of the Big Three has a distinctive set of strategic issues to navigate.HRC is clearly the least vulnerable to mood swings, media narratives, or gaffes; she’s already suffered the most important setback, the loss of her overwhelming African-American support. She’ll be fine if none of her rivals, Big or Little, catch fire.Obama needs to overcome the current negative buzz about his campaign; continue, through heavy and broad-based fundraising and competitive poll numbers, to solidify his status as a national candidate who doesn’t have to win early; and unfold a policy agenda that satisfies the critics without pigeon-holing him ideologically.And Edwards, aside from getting past the rumors about the impact of his wife’s health on his candidacy, needs to continue his interesting tandem strategy of becoming the preferred choice of the activist Left, while maintaining his appeal as a regional Southern candidate, which could be very important after New Hampshire. So far, he seems to be pulling it off, as evidenced by his recently unveiled and impressive endorsement list in South Carolina (no, endorsements aren’t all that important in themselves, but in this case they do show he hasn’t in any way become toxic in his home region. He should say a prayer every night in thanks for Mark Warner’s noncandidacy). Unlike HRC and Obama, Edwards really does need to win or at worst finish a strong second in Iowa, but if he does, he could be in very good shape.This post does obviously reflect the CW in focusing on the Big Three, as opposed to Richardson, Dodd and Biden. But in this case, the CW may well be accurate, given the front-loaded caucus and primary schedule, the strength of the Big Three in the early states, the Little Three’s money disadvantage, and the absence of any issue on which the Little Three–with the possible exception of Biden’s relative hawkishness, which doesn’t look like a winner among Democratic voters in 2008–could distinguish themselves.The most likely dark horse is Bill Richardson. The good news for Richardson is that all the rumors over the decades about his alleged “zipper problem” are probably just bunk; we’d have almost certainly learned otherwise by now if it were otherwise. The bad news for Richardson is that he almost has to win in Nevada to have a prayer, and even then, he’s not well-positioned to win in Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina.So: get used to the idea that the Democratic nominee will likely be named (to list them alphabetically) Barack, Hillary or John, and that you can ignore a lot of the daily buzz about the Big Three until people start voting, which will be soon enough.


Motes and Beams

Maybe some people think that mocking Tom DeLay is a matter of shooting fish in a barrel, but insofar as The Hammer has fantasies of becoming the Big Fish of the right-wing blogosphere, it’s worth the effort to fire a few rounds when he lifts his gills from the water.Via Jonathan Schwartz, we have this snippet transcribed from a recent DeLay radio interview, wherein he compares himself to Holocaust victims:

I am so outraged by this whole criminalization of politics. It’s not good enough to defeat somebody politically. It’s not even good enough to vilify somebody publicly. They have to carpet bomb you with lies and made up scandals and false charges and indicting you on laws that don’t exist. … It’s the same thing as I say in my book, that the Nazis used. When you use the big lie in order to gain and maintain power, it is immoral and it is outrageous…It’s the same process. It’s the same criminalization of politics. it’s the same oppression of people. It’s the same destroy people in order to gain power. It may be six million Jews. it may be indicting somebody on laws that don’t exist. But, it’s the same philosophy and it’s the same world view.

It’s breathtaking, eh? I mean, really, is there anyone in American politics who has done more to demonize political opponents, and encourage–big hint: the endless investigation of, followed by the impeachment of, Bill Clinton for “high crimes and misdeameanors”–the criminalization of politics? And while I know people like DeLay consider any legal restrictions on campaign financing some sort of totalitarian assault on the power of money, is it possible he really believes he’s been indicted on “laws that don’t exist”? Given his amazing inability to see the beam in his own eye, it’s probably not that surprising that DeLay is willing to go right over the brink and commit an offense that ranks right up there with Don Imus’, not only cheapening the Holocaust by comparing it to his battles with the Texas justice system, but judging his loss of power as equivalent to the sufferings of those in the death camps. Imus has, at least, apologized repeatedly. DeLay seems determined to compound his disgusting behavior, and confirming its premeditated nature, by reiterating it on every available occasion.


Dems Gain in ’08 Congressional Vote, Security Image

Republicans hoping that their long slide into public disfavor had hit rock bottom have been sorely disappointed by a DCorps survey of LV’s conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner 3/20-25. The DCorps poll found that Dems now enjoy a 14 point advantage among LV’s asked to state their preference “if the election were held today” for a named Dem congressional candidate vs. a generic GOP opponent. This is the highest margin recorded since November and double the margin reported in 2006. And, in districts that switched parties in ’06, the margin favoring Dems was an astounding 35 percent.
The GOP’s image as the best party for “keeping people safe” is looking a little ragged as well. Asked which party “you associate more” with “security and keeping people safe,” respondents chose the GOP by a margin of 6 percent — down from 17 percent.
The DCorps survey, which was conducted between the House of Reps passage of the Iraq Supplemental Spending Bill and the Senate’s version, also found strong support for troop reductions. But respondents were “fairly divided” on the pace of withdrawall, with 49 percent concerned that Republicans will “wait too long” and 45 percent worried that “Democrats will leave Iraq too quickly.”


Dems Gain on ’08 Congress Vote, Security Image

Republicans hoping that their long slide into public disfavor had hit rock bottom have been sorely disappointed by a DCorps survey of LV’s conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner 3/20-25. The DCorps poll found that Dems now enjoy a 14 point advantage among LV’s asked to state their preference “if the election were held today” for a named Dem congressional candidate vs. a generic GOP opponent. This is the highest margin recorded since November and double the margin reported in 2006. And, in districts that switched parties in ’06, the margin favoring Dems was an astounding 35 percent.
The GOP’s image as the best party for “keeping people safe” is looking a little ragged as well. Asked which party “you associate more” with “security and keeping people safe,” respondents chose the GOP by a margin of 6 percent — down from 17 percent.
The DCorps survey, which was conducted between the House of Reps passage of the Iraq Supplemental Spending Bill and the Senate’s version, also found strong support for troop reductions. But respondents were “fairly divided” on the pace of withdrawall, with 49 percent concerned that Republicans will “wait too long” and 45 percent worried that “Democrats will leave Iraq too quickly.”


Will ‘Identity Voters’ Decide ’08 Outcome?

Jeffrey Feldman’s post “Frameshop: The Identity Voter” at his website frameshopisopen.com sheds light on an elusive group Democratic campaigns may need to consider in developing strategy. Feldman defines the identity voter thusly:

A person who chooses to support a political candidate primarily for the social and cultural aspects of the person (e.g., gender, race, geography, class, etc.), and only secondarily if at all for the policies of the politician.

It would be difficult to come up with a meaningful estimate of how many identity voters there are in the U.S., since many would not like to admit that issues and policy are not their top priorities. Yet we probably all know a few identity voters.
It’s not as simple as supporting candidates who have the voter’s background, as Feldman explains:

Being an identity voter does not mean, of course, voting for a candidate who is the same identity as oneself. Blacks vote for blacks, women for women, whites for whites–this would be more a form of mechanistic political tribalism than identity voting.
…There are, in other words, plenty of white identity voters, for example, who will support Barack Obama “because he is African-America” and plenty of male identity voters who will support Hillary Clinton “because she is a woman.”

Feldman could have added middle class liberals who support Edwards because they like his working class background, or WASPs who like Richards because they want to see more Hispanic leadership. Feldman sees both good and bad sides to identity voting — good that more Democratic voters are open to greater diversity of candidates, but bad that issues and policy are subordinate or worse, distant priorities.
Because of the diversity of the field of Democratic presidential candidates, Feldman believes that identity voters may play an unprecedented role in determining the ’08 outcome. If he’s right, the Democratic ticket will be challenged to craft an appeal to identity voters that doesn’t alienate those who vote for different reasons — not an easy task. (The first chapter of Feldman’s new book “Framing the Debate,” appears in today’s New York Times Sunday Book Review and a review of the book appears here.)
Meanwhile, Dems should vigorously deploy a grand strategy directed at all voters. In his book “Being Right Is Not Enough,” Democratic strategist Paul Waldman argues, for example, that Dem candidates must above all communicate character and values to voters, with policy and “framing” serving as tools to support this greater goal. Candidates who master this challenge will likely win the support of most identity voters, since good character and values are respected in all cultures.


Will ‘Identity Voters’ Decide ’08 Outcome?

Jeffrey Feldman’s post “Frameshop: The Identity Voter” at his website frameshopisopen.com sheds light on an elusive group Democratic campaigns may need to consider in developing strategy. Feldman defines the identity voter thusly:

A person who chooses to support a political candidate primarily for the social and cultural aspects of the person (e.g., gender, race, geography, class, etc.), and only secondarily if at all for the policies of the politician.

It would be difficult to come up with a meaningful estimate of how many identity voters there are in the U.S., since many would not like to admit that issues and policy are not their top priorities. Yet we probably all know a few identity voters.
It’s not as simple as supporting candidates who have the voter’s background, as Feldman explains:

Being an identity voter does not mean, of course, voting for a candidate who is the same identity as oneself. Blacks vote for blacks, women for women, whites for whites–this would be more a form of mechanistic political tribalism than identity voting.
…There are, in other words, plenty of white identity voters, for example, who will support Barack Obama “because he is African-America” and plenty of male identity voters who will support Hillary Clinton “because she is a woman.”

Feldman could have added middle class liberals who support Edwards because they like his working class background, or WASPs who like Richards because they want to see more Hispanic leadership. Feldman sees both good and bad sides to identity voting — good that more Democratic voters are open to greater diversity of candidates, but bad that issues and policy are subordinate or worse, distant priorities.
Because of the diversity of the field of Democratic presidential candidates, Feldman believes that identity voters may play an unprecedented role in determining the ’08 outcome. If he’s right, the Democratic ticket will be challenged to craft an appeal to identity voters that doesn’t alienate those who vote for different reasons — not an easy task. (The first chapter of Feldman’s new book “Framing the Debate,” appears in today’s New York Times Sunday Book Review and a review of the book appears here.)
Meanwhile, Dems should vigorously deploy a grand strategy directed at all voters. In his book “Being Right Is Not Enough,” Democratic strategist Paul Waldman argues, for example, that Dem candidates must above all communicate character and values to voters, with policy and “framing” serving as tools to support this greater goal. Candidates who master this challenge will likely win the support of most identity voters, since good character and values are respected in all cultures.