I won’t do a full post on the Monday session of the DLC’s National Conversation in Columbus until the transcripts and video of the major speeches are up on our web page, so I can link to them and you can figure out if I’m spinning or truth-telling. But I will offer a few quick observations. And you can check out some of the media reports on the event here.I guess the most notable common threads at the event were: (a) a very sharp and often angry critique of the Bush administration and the GOP; (b) a sense of agreement that security, opportunity, values and reform are the four big issues where Democrats ought to focus their work and their message; and (c) a concern that Democrats must soon begin to offer positive alternatives to the Republicans so that their pain will produce our gains (which isn’t much happening yet, according to most polls). Evan Bayh, generally considered a national security hawk, offered a truly acidic critique of the administration’s handling of the war on terror, concluding: “That’s not strength, that’s incompetence.”Tom Vilsack systematically decimated the GOP’s fidelity to values, especially that of community. Hillary Clinton squarely accused Republicans of trying to return the country to the policies and political practices of the 19th century. And Mark Warner scorned the Bushies for choosing to intervene in the medical decisions of the Schiavo family while choosing to do nothing about the 45 million Americans without health insurance. But the same speakers consistently warned that Democrats can’t simply offer negative critiques or counter-polarize, even if that makes unity a bit easier. Bayh described the need for positive alternatives as a party responsibility to the country. Vilsack suggested it’s the only way to truly contrast Democratic with Republican values. And Clinton argued that we need to remind voters Democrats did govern the country in a vastly better manner in the 1990s, and can do it again. I can tell you authoritatively that the DLC did not script these speeches at all. Their consistency on both the positive and negative aspects of the Democratic message are mainly attributable to objective reality, and the common conclusions that smart and principled pols tend to reach from their different perspectives. It’s a very good signpost for our political future.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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March 6: Trump Job Approval Again Underwater, Where It Belongs
As an inveterate poll-watcher, I have been waiting for the moment when Donald Trump’s job approval numbers went underwater, his accustomed position for nearly all of his presidential career. It arrived around the time he made his speech to Congress, as I noted at New York:
Even as he was delivering the most partisan address to Congress maybe ever, Donald Trump’s public support seemed to be regularly eroding. An updated FiveThirtyEight average of Trump’s approval ratings on March 4 (released just as news broke that ABC was shutting down the revered data site) showed him going underwater for the first time since reoccupying the White House, with 47.6 percent approval and 47.9 percent disapproval. That puts Trump back in the same territory of public opinion he occupied during his first term as president, where (per Gallup) he never achieved more than 50 percent job approval, and averaged a mere 41 percent.
Perhaps Trump will get lucky and conditions in the country will improve enough to validate his agenda, but it’s more likely that the same sour public climate that overwhelmed Joe Biden will now afflict his predecessor and successor.
The Reuters/Ipsos survey that pushed Trump’s numbers into negative territory showed a mood very different from the 47th president’s boasts about a new “golden age” for our country:
“Thirty-four percent of Americans say that the country is headed in the right direction, compared to 49% who say it is off on the wrong track. When it comes to several specific issues, Americans are more likely to say things are off on the wrong track than going in the right direction: cost of living (22% right direction / 60% wrong track), the national economy (31% right direction / 51% wrong track), national politics (33% right direction / 50% wrong track), American foreign policy (33% right direction / 49% wrong track), and employment and jobs (33% right direction / 47% wrong track).”
So all the hype about Trump being a popular president who was in the midst of engineering a major realignment of the American electorate is already looking more than a bit hollow. Trump has a solid Republican base of support and a solid Democratic opposition, with independents currently leaning towards the Democratic Party on most issues. Perhaps Trump’s agenda will gain momentum and support, but since he’s not trying to reach out beyond his party’s base at all, he’s going to need a lift from Americans who only voted for him in 2024 as the lesser of evils and may not vote in the 2026 midterms at all.
At present Trump has lost whatever presidential “honeymoon” he initially enjoyed after his return to the White House, and needs to find new converts to return to genuine popularity. He’s not off to a great start.