While mulling some recent material from The Bulwark, I thought I’d explain something to the converted “Never Trumpers” the outlet represents, and did so at New York:
For a while now I’ve had a guilty-pleasure reading habit: The Bulwark, that semi-official outlet of Never Trumpers who view themselves as having definitively broken with the GOP thanks to their former party’s thralldom to Donald J. Trump. I share its contributors’ belief that they (the tribe usefully described by Miller as Red Dog Democrats) represent not just a self-promoting claque of elite scribblers but a real if marginal faction of the Democratic Party, having burned a lot of bridges on their way out of the GOP. Their views appear to parallel those of a significant number of suburban Republicans and independents who voted Democratic in 2018 and 2020. And given the very close balance between voters of the two parties, as reflected most recently in 2020, Democrats really can’t afford to contemptuously reject any potential adherents, however alien or even repugnant they might find their backgrounds.
So it’s understandable when Bulwark co-founder Charlie Sykes expresses frustration that Democrats refuse to consider their pleas for policy concessions on grounds of holding old grudges:
“The spending. The wokeness. The repeal of the Hyde Amendment. I could go on …
“These are difficult times for folks on the center-right, who’ve tried to join Democrats in a loose alliance to protect the Republic from Trumpism …
“Litmus tests are applied: it’s not enough to be pro-democracy, NTers are also expected to embrace the elements of the progressive agenda — from free community college, to abortion, rent moratoriums, police funding, transgenderism, CRT, social spending, and the candidacy of Greta Thunberg for sainthood.”
Sykes fears it’s all very personal, and warns, “If you cancel moderates/conservatives for their past sins, you don’t have a coalition.”
Here’s the thing, though: It’s not really about the Red Dogs. Yes, I’m sure it’s been tough for them to watch Democrats largely come together around a legislative program that’s significantly more progressive than the one advanced by the Obama administration. But Democrats have been coalescing around the basics of the Build Back Better agenda for some time now. That the famously moderate Joe Biden now embraces it is a sign of how the party has slowly evolved, not some sort of betrayal or surrender to the left. And anyone who paid close attention to the 2020 presidential primaries should have understood that there is less distance between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders than between Joe Biden and the Joe Biden of the 1990s.
Part of what has happened is simply a resolution of internal conflicts among Democrats that left them defensive and at times incoherent. A classic example is one that Sykes mentioned: abortion policy. For years, Democrats claimed to value reproductive rights even as they accepted significant limitations on them: e.g., the Hyde Amendment, which made abortion services, unlike any other medical services, ineligible for any sort of federal support. That amendment, along with acceptance of some largely symbolic restrictions on rare late-term abortions, and the whole “safe, legal, and rare” messaging introduced by Bill Clinton, represented concessions to a significant bloc of Democratic voters and Democratic pols who did not recognize reproductive rights at all.
That has changed over time. Anti-abortion Democratic politicians are a rare and shrinking breed, and there are now significantly fewer anti-abortion Democratic voters than there are pro-choice Republicans. Most Democrats, including Joe Biden, have made the leap into a more coherent and unified position. They aren’t going to turn back the clock to satisfy ex-Republicans, but they aren’t insisting on a “litmus test” just to annoy or exclude them, either. The same could be said for other policy tenets once beloved by a significant number of Democrats — from fiscal hawkishness to armed interventionism to an openness to “entitlement reform” — that remain attractive to the newest proto-Democrats. As for the idea that Democrats are some sort of rigid ideological cult: Come on, seriously? Look at what’s going on with the attempted enactment of the Build Back Better reconciliation bill. If this is an intolerant and exclusive political party, I’d hate to see a loosey-goosey one try to function. It may just be that the issues Red Dogs fret about may lie outside the still relatively loose bounds of party unity.
This doesn’t mean Red Dogs should despair, but it may mean another painful reevaluation of priorities, recognizing that most have already had to sacrifice a lot of old allegiances and even the habitual language used to make sense of the political world. In many respects, the Never Trumpers resemble their spiritual (and in some cases biological) predecessors, the neo-conservatives. These were people who broke with the Democratic Party out of a conviction that Democratic views on national security made continued party loyalty impossible. But most of them retained many views that horrified their new Republican allies until they accepted the inevitable role of a factional minority and grew to accommodate or even share the policy positions and ideological language of the GOP, which was increasingly dominated by conservatives with their own ideological-consistency demands.
Most Red Dogs have no illusions about the party they’ve left and understand their constituencies are too small to form a third force or demand concessions from a position of strength. Most, I suppose, will get used to the strange and sometimes lurid landscape of the Donkey Party. Others will embrace the posture of the gadfly, the people of no party or coalition. But it’s really not personal. It’s just politics.
Stephen,
I wish I could say. I know that they lean conservative as a site. I believe that they use a pretty consistent rule for deciding what poll gets included. I found it somewhat unsettling that the ICR poll got included only when it showed Bush leading more than any other concurrent poll. I read their site, http://www.pollingreport.com, http://www.race2004.net, http://www.electoral-vote.com, http://www.electionprojection.com, and http://www.cookpolitical.com, as well as this site. Then I try to come to a common conclusion across these sites. It’s clear that all show the race to be close. Jeff’s point on another thread about turnout seems right on target. Beyond that, I think there are others here far more expert than I on such matters.
In the meantime, enjoy a pint of someone’s best bitter for me. There’s nothing quite like it.
A question from London. Watching your polls in the Us with great interest. Can you give me an assessment of the way in which the realclearpolitics website posts polls. Are they, as they say, ‘seekers after truth’, or are they biased, conscious or not?
Best,
Steohen H.
It’s a conservative site, but realclearpolitics has a nice analysis of the state of the electoral vote.
For Kerry, it’s all about Ohio, with New Hampshire and Nevada as secondary targets. They miss Colorado, either by outright win or by referendum getting him 4 votes.
For Bush, the targets of opportunity are Wisconsin, Iowa, New Mexico, and Maine’s more conservative district.
They given Florida to Bush and Pennsylvania to Kerry, for now.
Per this analysis, for Kerry, losing Ohio means he has to get New Hampshire, Nevada, and some Colorado votes, while holding New Mexico, Iowa, and Wisconsin.
If he wins Ohio and New Hampshire, even if he loses Wisconsin and the Maine district, Kerry wins, if he can hold Iowa and New Mexico.
So…it seems time to focus on Ohio, New Hampshire, Nevada, Colorado, Wisconsin, Iowa, New Mexico, and Maine.
In the back of my mind, I see some opportunity for Kerry in Missouri, Arkansas, West Virginia, and Florida, and some danger in Minnesota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
All I am going to say is that in doorknocking and registering voters. I have reached and registered people without phones who are adamantly opposed to Bush.
If the dems turn those voters out to vote GWB should be very very afraid on Nov 2……
Gallup would never try to develop a model to sample the phoneless…
Post Debate 2: We did well enough to keep the Big Mo’ so let’s keep at it. GOTV is crucial. So enjoy the post debate glow, and if you have not done so already, sign up for GOTV drives.
SJ-
Sorry, I fail to see the problem with choosing a sampling from people who watched the first debate. Anymore than I fail to see the problem with sampling only people who watched either one of the debates, no matter what the outcome of either one. It’s just as valid an assumption that people who watch the debates are likely voters than any criteria Gallup is using. What seems to be your main gripe is not the methodology, it’s that it shows Bush doing worse than all of the other polls (except those you arbitrarily dismiss as “partisan”).
But all of the polling shows that even a majority of Republicans felt Kerry did better in the first debate, so it does not defy reason that Kerry would score somewhat higher with the subset of people who watched that debate. Likewise, if Bush did better in that debate it would likely show him doing better overall than other polls that did not only sample that subset. I doubt that Ipsos knew going into their polling that Kerry would “win” the debate, but conspiracy theorists might believe that.
ARG and Zogby are Dem polls? I must’ve missed that. BTW, go ahead and ignore the AP poll if you want. Every other poll shows the race basicallly tied and Kerry with all the momentum. Tracking polls have him gaining, and even the Time poll that had Bush up 12 a month ago has it tied.
As for state polls, that poll for Colorado you dismiss is by Gallup, which is hardly pro-Dem. And most of the states Mr. Abramowitz cites have multiple polls, which he averages, hardly a Dem conspiracy tactic to boost Kerry.
The race is far from over, but Kerry’s debate performance has changed the dynamic, at least in the short term. Anyone who can’t see that is in denial.
Smooth: I suppose you also wouldnt change a thing about Iraq and that the economy is turning a corner. Are all of you in complete denial?
What happened to MO, NV, OR, & WV? These four states also appear to be swinging.
Jazz’s comments are somewhat valid, but let’s limit the reposting of an entire link.
-DS
There is no question, despite the protestations of Smooth Jazz to the contrary, that Kerry is on a roll. Smooth Jazz discounts as partisan polls that give him bad news like Zogby. Smooth Jazz should be aware that Zogby called both the 96 and 2000 elections accurately. While showing Kerry ahead in the battleground states Bush has a 1 point lead in the popular vote. Instead of trying to go to great lenghths to debunk polls that he doesn’t like he should go back to the right wing web sites and figure out what to do about it. It seems to me there is only one valid point to make about these polls and it comes out on the Democratic side: If the reports about new registrations are accurate in Democratic areas of battleground states and a reasonable number of these new voters turn out, pollsters just may be UNDERESTIMATING support for Kerry. Whatever the argument we will find out for sure on Nov. 2nd providing ALL legitimately cast ballots are counted this time.
Jazz, there’s some food for thought here. However, one word: hyperlink. Learn it. Live it. Embrace it.
Smooth Jazz-
That’s potentially interesting news on Ipsos. I went to the website, but would have to pay to actually use it.
As you point out, there report comes from a Bush partisan, so perhaps should be taken with of salt, though I’m sure he worked very hard at it.
It’s particularly interesting to me that he only selected 6 polls to look at as the non-Ipsos. At the RealClearPolitics site, I see 10 polls conducted post-survey, using a 3-way race. From these, I get a Bush lead of 48.0-45.9, which is a bit closer than the author’s 49.2-45.5. He wouldn’t by any chance be inclined toward cherry-picking would he? I’m perfectly willing to believe that Bush is up by 2.1% at this point. In fact, if I add in the two Ipsos polls (using two-way numbers from the AP one, since they seem not to have gone three-way), only narrows it to 47.6-46.3. If he’s interested in fighting over a difference of less than a percent in the Bush lead, he should be my guess. Seems like a sign of desparation to me, though.