By Jeremy D. Rosner
This is shaping up to be the third consecutive election that will turn on national security. Yet 2006 looks very different from 2002 and 2004. President Bush and his party have succeeded in raising the salience of terrorism and Iraq; yet they appear to be in deep electoral trouble, and possibly heading for watershed losses. What gives?
To be sure, the answer goes beyond national security, which is hardly the only issue at play, and in many ways and many races, not even the dominant issue. Polling by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for Democracy Corps shows that a 55-40 percent majority are more interested in hearing what the candidates say about the financial pressures on average voters than about security and terrorism. Moreover, recent visits to various states with key campaigns confirm the conclusion of a recent Washington Post article, that local rather than national issues are dominating the debates in a number of congressional races.¹ And it appears that the Foley scandal will have a major impact in the closing weeks, further souring feelings about the Republican Congress to all-time lows.
Yet, apart from the scandals and domestic issues, there are genuinely different dynamics at work on national security this cycle, and Democrats need to get them right if they are to win back Congress and — even more important — the public’s confidence that we can be trusted to protect the country.
The GOP’s efforts to define this race around national security could not have been more forceful or blatant. The extended 9/11 commemorations. Bush’s series of high-profile speeches on terror and Iraq. Tagging Democrats as “cut and run” and “soft.” Forcing pre-election votes on partisan-styled legislation on terrorist interrogation and surveillance. And a slough of GOP ads in key races attacking Democrats on those two issues, including swift-boat-like attack ads in the Ohio Senate race from the shadowy Republican “527” group Progress for America.
Republicans aren’t wrong to pin their hopes on the national security card; as they well understand, it’s about the only card they have left to play. And it is having an impact in some races. For example, Rep. Nancy Johnson (CT-5) has run ads on the terrorist surveillance program that test strongly in our recent focus groups.
Yet mostly the Republican focus on national security seems to be falling flat. For every Nancy Johnson, there are other Republican candidates, such as her Connecticut colleague Rep. Chris Shays (CT-4) who have distanced themselves from the President on Iraq. Key GOP hawks like Rep. Curt Weldon (PA-7) and Republicans with solid security credentials like Rep. Heather Wilson (AZ-1), appear to be in real trouble. And a range of public polls show that Democrats have closed most of the gap they suffered in recent years on national security, and on some more recent measures have fully drawn even with the GOP.
Five related factors are most responsible for blunting if not wholly foiling the Republicans’ national-security-centered strategy.
First, and above all, Iraq. The Administration’s incompetence on counter-insurgency and reconstruction has moved the conflict to the brink of civil war, while its serial deceptions have emptied the reserves of public trust they once enjoyed. Iraq is now the public’s top voting concern, and those who are focused on the issue lean sharply Democratic. The leaked National Intelligence Estimate and Bob Woodward’s new book, combined with the continuing carnage on the ground, helped renew public outrage and erase the President’s post-9/11 bump. In many ways, this year’s congressional election is shaping up to be a public referendum on this deeply troubled war.
Second, the President’s effort to conflate Iraq with the war on terror backfired — in part by succeeding too well. Democracy Corps polling shows that the more the President talked about terror in September and October, the more the public became focused on Iraq, while the level citing terror as the key issue actually fell. By lumping the war on terror and Iraq together, the President actually diminished his edge on the former, rather than strengthening his position on the latter.
Third, partisanship. Voters increasingly recognized and resented that the President was trying to use a real concern, the threat of Islamic jihadists, in a phony, divisive, partisan way. That Republican tactic worked pretty well in 2002 and 2004, but voters have now tired of it and begun resenting it. An August Democracy Corps poll revealed this was the second strongest complaint about Bush and the GOP on national security, and voters respond strongly to Democratic arguments that Republicans set up their late-session bills on wiretapping and interrogation in ways that were needlessly partisan and divisive.
Fourth, Republican divisions. The Bush/Cheney/Rove plan was to use the weeks after Labor Day to frame Democrats as weak on security. Instead, those weeks became defined by Republicans divided on security. As Sen. John McCain, Colin Powell, and a parade of other Republicans and military leaders criticized the original Bush bill on detainee interrogation — for abrogating the Geneva Conventions, endangering our troops, and undermining our moral standing in the war on terror — all contrasts between Republicans and Democrats faded into the background. Although the White House finally caved to many of McCain’s demands (even as McCain also dropped his principled objections in indefensible ways) and finally got the mostly-party-line vote it wanted, it left Republican candidates hard-pressed to argue that only Democrats had reservations about the Bush direction.
Fifth, the Democrats did a better job than in past cycles of recruiting candidates with strong national security credentials. Rep. Rahm Emanuel and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee he chairs recruited dozens of candidates with strong security credentials, such as Tammy Duckworth, an Army helicopter pilot who lost both legs in Iraq, and retired Vice Admiral Joe Sestak, who has pulled even with Pennsylvania’s Weldon. The same is true on the Senate side; witness the gains by Vietnam War hero and former Navy Secretary Jim Webb in his race against incumbent Virginia Sen. George Allen. (OK, “macaca” and Allen’s string of other weird revelations played a role here, but Webb’s military credentials helped.) Not all the vets Democrats recruited made it through the primaries, and in some cases their military service has been less important than pure voter anger over Iraq, but in a few cases having veterans in the race was a major factor, and the move generally reflects a newfound Democratic confidence around associating the party with the military.
These factors create an historic opportunity for Democrats to get heard on national security issues and to transform long-standing perceptions of how the two parties compare. Yet, like all opportunities, this one contains some big dangers. If Democrats are going to win in 2006 and beyond, here are some challenges they need to confront.

• Don’t duck national security; welcome the debate and engage it. Some Democratic consultants argue that Democrats should avoid talking about national security as much as possible. Echoing advice that some other Democratic consultants have pushed, pollster Vic Fingerhut recently argued in the Washington Post that Democratic candidates should “stay away from foreign policy in favor of domestic economic issues.”² This is stunningly and dangerously bad advice. It is akin to saying that you shouldn’t kick the one remaining leg out from under an offending table because it’s obviously the strongest one. Think how much stronger shape Democratic challenger Chris Murphy might be in in his CT-5 race against Nancy Johnson if he had not let her sharp attack ad on the terror surveillance issue go unanswered for over a week. Moreover, recent polling shows that Democrats only gain when they engage on these issues; in the August Democracy Corp poll, after voters were led through a long and balanced national security debate, the Democrats’ lead expanded, from a 5 point margin to an 8 point lead. This year, Democrats should be welcoming the national security debate and jumping on every opportunity to engage it — not to the exclusion of domestic and economic issues, but with the confidence it can supplement their efforts on these traditional areas of Democratic strength.
  Fortunately, more and more Democrats seem to understand this, as evidenced by the strong criticisms of the Bush Administration by a range of Democratic leaders after North Korea’s claim to have conducted its first nuclear test. Our latest Democracy Corps poll shows their instincts are right: even in the 49 most competitive GOP-held districts, more voters see the North Korean claim to be a sign of problems with the Bush national security policy, rather than evidence that we need the Republicans running our national security in the face of a dangerous world.

• Don’t just attack performance on Iraq; also show we have a better way to fight terror. Democrats gain ground when they strongly critique the administration for “mis-managing” Iraq and letting us become “bogged down” in a religious war with no plan and no end in sight. But voters really open up when Democrats combine this with a positive sense of how we offer “a better way to fight terror.” Tangible ideas like implementing 100 percent of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations resonate strongly and create a clearer sense that this is about protecting the future, not just re-litigating the past. Most powerful of all, in many ways, is a longer-sighted Democratic commitment to slash America’s dependence on foreign oil, which voters correctly see as lying at the intersection of the country’s national security, economic, and environmental problems.
• Don’t let anti-Bush reflexes undermine Democrats’ heritage of internationalism. Over the longer term, Democrats can only retain national leadership and the public’s trust if we promote a strong, idealistic, and outward-looking vision of America’s purposes in the world. Anti-Bush passion may be enough to drive big gains in 2006. But Democrats cannot afford to let anti-Bushism morph into anti-internationalism. For example, it is troubling that, according to a poll conducted by the German Marshall Fund, a majority of Democrats — the party that helped bring down apartheid in South Africa and Pinochet in Chile — now rejects the idea of promoting democracy abroad. Similarly, there are worrisome signs that many Democrats now doubt our ability to improve the world; in the August Democracy Corps survey only a 49-46 percent plurality of Democrats agreed that “America’s power is generally a force for good in the world,” and fully 60 percent of liberal Democrats chose the alternative statement, that “America’s power generally does more harm than good when we act abroad.” As The New Republic’s Peter Beinart and others have argued, it will be important for Democratic leaders over the coming months and years to push back against such beliefs and to mobilize support within the party’s base for a serious international agenda that includes combating jihadist ideology and violence, stemming WMD proliferation, strengthening NATO and our other alliances, supporting the spread of liberal democracy and human rights, and tackling global environmental and humanitarian challenges.

If Democrats follow these steps, 2006 could well be remembered as not only the year when the Bush politicization of national security finally fell flat, but also as the year when the Democratic Party began to convince voters they offer a better path for securing America in a world full of new dangers and opportunities.

Jeremy Rosner is Senior Vice President at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a Democratic polling and political consulting firm; he served as a senior staff member on the Clinton National Security Council, and as Special Adviser to President Clinton and Secretary of State Albright for NATO Enlargement Ratification.

¹Jim VandeHei and Chris Cillizza, “In Close Races, Local Issues Still Dominate,” The Washington Post, September 29, 2006, p. A1.

By Thomas Riehle
The size of the Democratic majority in the 110th Congress will alter the shape of American politics for the remainder of President Bush’s term, into the 2008 Presidential contest, and beyond — and because of the demographics of the districts electing all those new Democrats to Congress, it will alter the character of the national Democratic Party as well. Majority Watch conducts polls of 1,000 or more voters (margin of error ± 3.1) in each contested House race, and if current trends continue, Democrats will hold 222 to 230 seats in the 110th Congress (218 is a majority).
Whether that new Democratic House majority extends beyond 230 seats — and more importantly, whether that majority extends beyond the 110^th Congress — depends on how well Democrats adapt themselves to the new demographic realities of the party’s broadened geographic base. Democratic House members will represent constituencies and trends that will force the House Democratic Caucus and the national Democratic Party to put up a wider tent than it has housed itself in these past six years.
Democrats will win:

• Suburban seats that are home to corporate managers, where one-third or more of the voters have a bachelor’s degree or better. In Majority Watch (MW) polls conducted by RT Strategies and Constituent Dynamics in October, the Democratic candidates had solid leads outside the margin of error, and in many cases already claimed 50% of the vote or more, in places like Ohio 15^th near Columbus, where 38% of households boast adults in managerial positions, and Pennsylvania 6th and Pennsylvania 7th, where more than 40% are managers. Democrats are making competitive races in other places where managers make up 40% or more of the electorate: Washington 8th south of Seattle, and in suburban seats bracketing New York City on all sides (New Jersey 7th, New York 3rd on Long Island, and Connecticut 4th). The Chicago suburbs (Illinois 6th, 8th and 10th) have not swung as enthusiastically to the Democrats, however, and remain no better than close contests.
• Small-town, working-class seats where half or more of the adults pursue their goals in life with, at best, a high school education. In MW polls, Democrats had leads of 7 points or more in races in both central and western North Carolina, in small-town upstate and western New York and northeastern Pennsylvania, both northern and southern Indiana, and in southeastern Ohio. Across the Ohio River, Democrats are giving Republican incumbents all they can handle in Kentucky’s northern House seats, where adults are about twice as likely (or more) to have a high-school education than a college degree; districts with similar educational patterns in northern Wisconsin, and in West Virginia, Iowa and Texas are all either easy Democratic elections in Democratic seats once deemed potentially vulnerable, or close races where Democrats are trying to take over Republican seats.

The appeal of Democratic House candidates in some places will transcend barriers that have kept Democrats locked in the House minority since 1994:

• The marriage gap, where married people vote Republican and singles vote Democratic, cannot persist if Democrats hope to hold onto their gains. In MW polls in October, Democratic candidates were leading by 7 points or more in only one seat where 63% or more of the adults are married, but if the Democratic victory expands in the final weeks beyond the 222-seat majority MW polling projects today (with Democratic leads outside the margin of error), it will be because of victories in many places where 63% or more of adults are married (and the races are within the margin of error in MW polls today): Wisconsin 8th (Green Bay), Illinois 8th (a Democratically-held district), New York 3rd (Rep. Peter King’s Long Island district), Illinois 6th (Retiring Rep. Henry Hyde’s district), Florida 16th (Rep. Foley’s former district), Minnesota 6th (where the Democratic candidate’s background led her to focus on what the Foley scandal says about the commitment of Republican leaders in Washington to protect children from predators), and New Jersey 7th and Washington 8th, suburbs south of New York City and Seattle, respectively.
  The Democratic Party’s northeastern base will be solidified, while in-roads will be made in other places as well.

• The blue tide is a northeastern tide, with strength all down the Ohio River and in scattered places out West as well. This blue tide rises in Connecticut, where Democrats will take at least one and maybe as many as three Republican seats, carries across New York, where Democrats will win at least three and possibly as many as six Republican seats, through far northeastern Pennsylvania (a state where Democrats will see at least two and possibly three pick-ups), then down the Ohio River where almost every contiguous seat on both sides of the river clear down past Indiana is an open seat or a vulnerable Republican-held seat and Democrats could win most of them (at least on the river’s northern bank, and very possibly on the southern bank in Kentucky, as well). It does not stop there: Democrats are competitive in northern Wisconsin, southern Minnesota, central and eastern Iowa, as well as in the suburbs of Denver and Seattle and in the New Mexico 1st House district.
  Most importantly, in Florida, North Carolina and New York, Republicans say they will cross over to vote for the Democratic House candiCATEGORY: Editor’s Corner

• The Democratic takeover is a reaction against Bush, Bush policies, and the Republican majorities in Congress that enabled Bush. Voters in the first 74 MW House polls (a total sample of 74,448) disapprove (53%) rather than approve (39%) Bush’s job performance. Since all but 7 of those 74 polls were conducted in seats held by Republicans, the failure of Bush to score better than his weak national numbers for job performance indicates why these particular seats are the most vulnerable for Republicans.
• In some House races, the weakness of a Republican candidate or incumbent in a Republican-held seat is in part a reaction of Republican voters against the national Republican Party. Disaffected Republican voters in those districts will send a message to the national Party by voting against the Republican candidate in their House election. Overall, across the 74 polls, 67% of Republican voters approve but 22% disapprove of Bush’s performance. Among those Republican voters who disapprove of Bush, only 41% will vote for the Republican House candidate, 53% the Democrat. The districts where disaffected Republican voters who disapprove of Bush are most likely to vote Democratic in their House election are North Carolina 8th (69% of Republicans who disapprove of Bush will vote for the Democratic House candidate), North Carolina 11th (70%), Florida 13th (85%), Florida 16th (70%), Florida 22nd (69%), New York 26th –the home of NRCC chairman Reynolds (75%), and New York 24th –the open seat of departing Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (64%). In New York, North Carolina and Florida, Republican disgust with national Republican policies or behavior will benefit the 2006 House candidate — then it will be up to that Democratic winner to retain the loyalties of some of those disaffected Republicans (and Democrats are significantly ahead in MW polls in the New York and North Carolina races).
  Politics (beyond the organization of the 110th Congress under a Democratic Speaker) will resonate to the sound of this political earthquake for years to come.

• Politics will be altered by the ability or inability of political leaders to help themselves by helping others. Sen. Hillary Clinton in New York will get credit for an assist when a handful or more of new Democratic House Members arrive from New York (and National Republican Congressional Campaign Chairman Tom Reynolds of New York will prove, if proof was needed, that it is a bad omen for a party when the congressional campaign chairman’s own race is irretrievably lost before the trees in the mid-Atlantic forests even turn colors for the fall). Sen. Evan Bayh will be more plausible as a national Democratic candidate in 2008 if three of his state’s nine House seats change hands from Republicans to Democrats in 2006. Republican Presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain of Arizona will not be strengthened as Arizona 8th became a hopeless cause for Republicans in early October and two other Arizona seats (1st and 5th) are in play as well.

In the final three weeks of the campaign, longtime leading Democratic strategists such as Stan Greenberg and James Carville urge the party to maximize the once-in-a-generation opportunity the 2006 election offers Democrats by reaching out for every seat that is even conceivably contestable. Netroots newcomers, however, are not so ambitious, preferring to see the Democrats focus their attention on locking in their potential gains rather than reaching too far and “blowing it.”
That reflects an ironic turn of events for internal Democratic Party strategic debate. Netroots newcomers, throughout 2000, 2002 and 2004, complained bitterly about the cautiousness of Democratic campaign insiders in Washington. Now the tables are turned. Political guru Charlie Cook calls it a generation gap in perceptions of what is happening in 2006. Old-timers who lived through 1974 and 1994 have felt all year that 2006 could develop into an enormous, earthshaking Democratic sweep—they’d seen this kind of thing before, and this felt like that. Netroots activists, in contrast, have not seen that kind of sweeping election victory before — their experience has been largely a series of narrow, nail-biting elections with winners and losers determined by a handful of seats in a 50-50 political world.
Because of their different experiences, netrooters have dismissed talk of a sweep as so much old-timer mysticism. Old-timers have been unable to believe the netrooters do not see what is clearly before their eyes. As a result of their different experiences, netrooters are also more focused on carefully bringing home every victory that’s clearly in reach and leaving nothing to chance in any race, while the old-timers are wondering whether a bank would loan the DNC $5 million or $10 million against future contributions to expand their reach from 30 targeted seats to 50. Old-timers are also speculating about whether they should count as won the top ten prospective take-overs and shift resources from those seats to the Tier 3 opportunities.
Whichever direction the party takes in the final weeks — whether a cautious, button-down strategy designed to make no mistakes and lose no birds in the hand, or a more “all-in,” go-for-broke strategy that seeks every possible bird in every possible bush — one outcome is certain: A very different, more mainstream, more suburban and small-town, greatly expanded House Democratic caucus will present a new face of the Democratic Party to the country as the 2008 Presidential election gets underway on November 8.

Thomas Riehle is the co-founder of RT Strategies, a bipartisan polling firm in Washington D.C. Majority Watch is a joint project of RT Strategies and Constituent Dynamics, a non-partisan automated recorded-voice polling firm in Seattle Washington. Majority Watch is designed to track trends in the fight for control of the U.S. House of Representatives by means of polls of 1000 or more likely voters in each contested House race.

By Jim Kessler
In any election, the key to winning comes down to this: In the final weeks of the race, are you generating news on the subject of your choosing or of your opponent’s choosing? In Virginia in 2005, the subject in the closing weeks was on illegal immigration. That was not where Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Tim Kaine wanted it to be.
The latest sequel to America’s continuing love-hate saga with immigration kicked off, of all places, in the affluent bedroom community of Herndon, Virginia in 2005. Fueled by a massive building boom, illegal immigrants flooded northern Virginia seeking work. They gathered in front of the local 7-11’s each morning hoping to be selected by construction managers to work for a day rate. As the numbers grew, the town leaders of Herndon decided to spend taxpayer dollars to create a day-labor center where immigrants could congregate to seek work away from public view. This ignited a political firestorm as angry residents demanded to know why their tax dollars were being spent to help lawbreakers find jobs that many Americans wanted.
Republicans, predictably, framed the issue succinctly and effectively. Virginia Republican Jerry Kilgore launched an ad campaign accusing Tim Kaine of abetting the “growing illegal immigration crisis” in the state. “And Tim Kaine?” the announcer asks. “Kaine favors taxpayer-funded job centers and supports in-state tuition discounts for illegals. Taxpayer benefits for illegal immigrants? What part of illegal does Tim Kaine not understand?”
Democrats, predictably, reached for their base and played the empathy card. Kaine didn’t so much respond as demur. At a bilingual center in neighboring Falls Church, Kaine accused Kilgore of “grandstanding” and voiced tepid support to Herndon officials for “trying to solve a local problem.”
In the end, illegal immigration did not close the sale for Kilgore. But Kaine pollster Pete Brodnitz of the Benenson Strategy Group admitted that they had dodged a bullet. “We were flying a little bit blind.” Republicans took notice and so did some Democrats. “This is going to be the gay marriage of 2006,” said Nathan Daschle of the Democratic Governors’ Association.

In May 2006, we hired Brodnitz to conduct Third Way’s polling and to help us solve the impending immigration wedge. Our task was to devise a message to win over moderates while supporting progressive principles for immigration reform that included a path to citizenship. We sought to de-claw this issue and give guidance to progressive elected leaders and candidates who wanted to preserve their Hispanic base but feared alienating middle-class white voters in the process.
After analyzing our results, we came to believe that not only could this issue be neutralized, it could and should be won.
Let’s start with some demographic facts. On October 17th, the United States population hit 300 million. 37 million people — one out of every eight residents — were born in another country. 12 million people — one–third of the foreign–born population — are illegal. This is not a pretend issue.
Partial birth abortion, for example, affects at most 8 out of every 10,000 abortions. It may have symbolic meaning to quite a few Americans, but it has no practical meaning in the number of abortions that occur each year. Illegal immigration affects practically every community. Unlike the last major immigration law overhaul debate in 1986 that affected almost exclusively the border states of California, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, today’s illegal immigration population has exploded in states like Wisconsin, Georgia, Massachusetts, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Arkansas, and even Alaska.
Progressives are playing with fire if they relegate those who express deep reservations about illegal immigration to the categories of intolerant, anti–Hispanic, or mean–spirited. People are concerned because they have a right to be.
We conducted a poll of 1,236 likely voters with an oversample of Hispanics and African-Americans. From the results of this poll, we advised progressives that there were three arguments they must win in order to command the immigration debate and two lessons that they should heed.
Lesson one is don’t confuse support with popularity. By an 83-15% margin, voters support immigration reform that provides illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. However, 60% of these same voters believe that “deporting all 12 million illegal immigrants back to their home countries would be a good goal.”
This is not a contradiction, but a complexity. Voters are torn on this issue. They believe illegal immigrants are hard working, decent people and they are willing to grant them the full rights that come with citizenship. At the same time, they believe they are a burden to the taxpayer and lawbreakers. This complexity is the key to solving the immigration wedge and winning the three arguments necessary to do so.
Lesson two is to understand that Democrats enter the debate with baggage. We read statements to voters and asked them whether they thought this was something a Democrat, Republican, neither or both parties would say. I don’t care if they broke the law, illegal immigrants deserve the same rights and privileges as American citizens. By a margin of 30-points, Independents said that’s a Democrat. We should help illegal immigrants get a job even if it costs an American citizen a job. Again, by 30-points, Independent voters said that’s a Democrat.
Understanding these preconceived notions is critical when it comes time to choose the right messages. Democrats are always inclined to stress fairness, compassion and justice to illegal immigrants — it’s simply in their nature. But voters already expect Democrats to be fair, compassionate, and just — to a fault. An effective Democratic message must, in this case, challenge voters’ preconceived notions, not reinforce them.
With these lessons in mind, here are the three arguments that must be won to control the terrain:
Argument #1: Fairness to taxpayers — Voter compassion toward illegal immigrants ends where their taxpayer interests begin. By a two to one margin, voters believe that illegal immigrants are a burden to taxpayers. Their number one goal for reform is fairness to taxpayers.
That means progressives must frame all of their positions as the fairest to taxpaying Americans. For example, citizenship must be earned by paying back taxes and a fine. Citizenship will turn illegal immigrants into taxpayers and force businesses to pay the taxes they now avoid by hiring illegal labor. Immigration reform will eliminate the shadow economy that allows workers and employers to evade taxes.
Argument #2: Why are they here — If voters believe that illegal immigrants are in their town, county, state, or country to get government benefits like in-state college tuition, drivers’ licenses, or Social Security, progressives lose. If voters believe they are here to get jobs from unscrupulous businesses that turn a blind eye to the law, progressives win.
Voters will believe that immigrants came here to get jobs, but only if they are reminded. If the other side wins the framing debate over benefits, it will be a death-by-a-thousand-cuts result for pro-reform progressives.
Argument #3: Who is to blame — Under President Bush, enforcement of illegal immigration laws at the border has declined by 31%. And under Bush a person is more likely to be eaten by an alligator than to be prosecuted for hiring illegal labor. Republicans have a fatal vulnerability on enforcement that progressives must exploit.
Their failure to enforce the law can be explained in any of three ways: sheer incompetence, linking the conservative philosophy of smaller government to failure to man the border, or a conspiracy of failure between an Administration that chooses to ignore existing laws in order to benefit the business interests that bankroll their campaigns and hires illegal labor.
We wrapped these arguments and lesson together into a simple message that we urged progressive candidates and elected officials to use to describe their position on illegal immigration: tough, fair and practical. Tough on the border, fair to taxpayers, and practical in terms of restoring the rule of law and dealing with those already here. We advised progressives to define the opposition as ineffective, expensive, and impractical.
These are not incendiary words to describe conservatives, but they are the most effective. When we asked people how they would describe the House Republican enforcement-only plan, the overwhelming word they chose was impractical. Mean-spirited and anti-Hispanic measured far behind.
Is tough, fair and practical too tough for Hispanics and immigration advocacy organizations? It’s not. First, Hispanics are not monolithic on this issue. 51% of Hispanics said that deporting all 12 million illegal immigrants back to their home countries would be a good goal.
Second, Hispanic goals for reform are the same as those of whites: fairness to taxpayers, restoring the rule of law, finding a practical solution, and securing the border were the top four for both. In fact, it is fair to say that voters overwhelmingly support the path to citizenship because Hispanics and whites both feel it is the most practical solution to a problem they view as out of control.
No message will work unless it is used and used often. Third Way was invited by congressional campaign chairs Chuck Schumer and Rahm Emanuel to brief all of their challengers. We were asked to lead a conference call to political consultants, pollsters, and campaign managers. We traveled to Charleston for the National Governors Association and spent an hour with nine Democratic governors. And the Service Employees International Union convened a meeting of all the immigration advocacy organizations to hear our presentation.
As expected, Republicans went on the offensive first on immigration, hammering Democrats for supporting “amnesty” and providing generous benefits to those who don’t deserve it. This time, however, Democrats were ready. Tennessee Senate hopeful Harold Ford, Jr. ran an ad excoriating his opponent for hiring illegal labor and for supporting a Bush policy that fails to enforce the laws on the books. Pennsylvania candidate Bob Casey turned the tables on Rick Santorum on enforcement and called his own plan tough and fair to taxpayers. Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill blamed Republican incumbent Jim Talent for America’s immigration problem and for “allowing prosecution of employers for illegal hires to drop by 99%.” Even in Arizona where 1,000 illegal immigrants enter every day, Democrat Jim Pederson has so effectively neutralized the issue that the Los Angeles Times reported that “[immigration] isn’t likely to decide the state’s closely watched Senate contest.”
A funny thing happened to the Republican strategy of turning illegal immigration into this year’s gay marriage. Democrats have outflanked them and threaten to not only repel the immigration wedge but to win it.
With the clock ticking toward November 7^th, here are the races where the immigration issue has been especially hot. In most of these races, the Republican candidate has run ads attacking his opponent on illegal immigration, and the Democrat has responded with messaging based on the tough, fair and practical framework.
• Colorado Governor: Democrat Bill Ritter versus Republican Bob Beauprez
• Arkansas Governor: Democrat Don Beebe versus Republican Asa Hutchinson
• Wisconsin Governor: Democrat Incumbent Jim Doyle versus Republican Mark Green
• Pennsylvania Senate: Democrat Bob Casey versus Republican Incumbent Rick Santorum
• Missouri Senate: Democrat Claire McCaskill versus Republican Incumbent Jim Talent
• Tennessee Senate: Democrat Harold Ford, Jr. versus Republican Larry Corker
• Arizona Senate: Democrat Jim Pederson versus Republican Incumbent John Kyl
• Colorado House (7): Democrat Ed Perlmutter versus Republican Rick O’Donnell
• South Carolina House (5): Democrat Incumbent John Spratt versus Republican Ralph Norman
• Ohio House (1): Democrat John Crowley versus Republican Incumbent Steve Chabot
• North Carolina House (11): Democrat Heath Shuler versus Republican Incumbent Charles Taylor
• Indiana House (2): Democrat Joe Donnelly versus Republican Incumbent Chris Chocola
• Arizona House (8): Democrat Gabrielle Giffords versus Republican Randy Graf
• Indiana House (8): Democrat Brad Ellsworth versus Republican Incumbent Joe Hostettler
• Pennsylvania House (6): Democrat Lois Murphy versus Republican Incumbent Jim Gerlach

Jim Kessler is Vice President for Policy at Third Way

By Andrew Claster
The Foley scandal may be only the latest in a series afflicting the Republicans, but it could have a greater impact on the 2006 election than the Abramoff, Plame and DeLay scandals that had already wounded the GOP.
THE STATE OF THE UNION IS ANGRY
Even pre-Foley, voters were angry and ready for change. Net Congressional approval (approval minus disapproval) has been negative 30 or worse in most major polls since March, and now stands at negative 42 in the latest AP/Ipsos poll.
President Bush’s approval, having recovered briefly to over 40% in September, is now back in the 30s. The primary reasons for the latest drop appear to be the National Intelligence Estimate noting that the Iraq war has made the US less safe, together with the Administration’s support for Dennis Hastert in light of the Foley scandal.
Meanwhile, the Democrats’ double-digit lead in the generic Congressional ballot is holding steady in October for the first time in several disappointing cycles. Crucially, the Democrats lead by double digits even in polls that survey only likely voters, as opposed to all registered voters.
2006 is the Democrats’ best opportunity to retake control of Congress since the Republicans put them out of power in 1994.
FOLEY SCANDAL
The nature of the Foley scandal makes it particularly difficult for the Republicans to resort to their traditional pre-election attacks on moral values to turn swing voters and mobilize their base. Congressional Republicans are seen as having placed partisan politics ahead of the welfare of the adolescents in their care.
As a result, the support of married parents, a key Republican constituency in recent elections, is now in jeopardy. And efforts to turn out Christian conservatives for the Republicans will likely be less successful in this environment.
Worse for the GOP, the timing of this scandal, on top of all the others, gives them little time to address the matter and move on to other subjects, particularly if there are new revelations between now and November 7.
Informed months ago of Foley’s inappropriate communications with an underage page, the GOP leadership chose not to open a full investigation. Apparently, based on a conversation with the boy’s parents, House leaders calculated the matter should and could be kept quiet.
They ignored the possibility, even the likelihood, that Foley presented a threat to other pages, that he might have had inappropriate communications or contact with other pages, or that this evidence might find its way into the hands of the media, which takes its duty to educate the public particularly seriously when sex is involved.
In this role, the media have not disappointed: 78% of voters are aware of the Foley scandal in the latest TIME poll. By contrast, only 57% were aware of the Abramoff scandal in a January Fox poll.
As a result, the Democrats now lead the Republicans by 6 points on moral values in the latest Newsweek poll, a remarkable reversal from the previous month, when Republicans led Democrats by 13 points on this question.
And because Republican voters are more likely to say they care most about “moral values” when casting their votes, a sex scandal involving a minor can be particularly devastating for GOP turnout. In the latest CBS/New York Times poll, 42% of Republicans said they are less enthusiastic about voting this year than usual -– up from 33% in September.
In addition to helping Democrats and hurting Republicans nationally, there are several specific races where ethics issues could affect the result, and therefore, potentially, control of Congress.
REPUBLICANS UNDER FIRE
Florida 16 – Republican Mark Foley’s late resignation means that his name remains on the ballot. Foley’s votes will be awarded to his replacement, state Representative Joe Negron, but Democrat Tim Mahoney seems likely to win a seat that Democrats had little hope for just a couple weeks ago.
New York 26 – Republican Tom Reynolds’ involvement in the Foley scandal may cost him his seat in Congress. The race was already a tough one for him – he’s running against Jack Davis, a self-funded millionaire who won 44% of the vote two years ago. The remarkable weakness of this year’s statewide GOP ticket in New York could compound Reynolds’ troubles by depressing Republican turnout even further.
Texas 22 – In the seat Tom DeLay was forced to give up, Democrat Nick Lampson has a strong lead. The GOP isn’t helped by the fact that DeLay’s name is still on the ballot, forcing supporters of Republican Shelley Sekula-Gibbs to write in her name.
Montana Senate – Republican Conrad Burns’ connection to the Abramoff scandal has made this seat, in which Burns won re-election with only 51% six years ago, a top Democratic target. Democrat Jon Tester maintains a narrow but consistent lead.
Ohio
When it comes to corruption, the Ohio GOP is in a class of its own. Not only did Governor Taft’s approval rating drop into single digits last year after a scandal involving investment of public funds in rare coins, but Bob Ney’s guilty plea to Abramoff-related charges has further tarnished the party’s image statewide, affecting even those Republicans who have not been directly implicated in either scandal.
Ohio 18 – Bob Ney’s involvement in the Abramoff scandal has given a leg up to Zack Space, the Democrat taking on Ney’s replacement on the ballot, state Senator Joy Padgett.
Ohio Senate – Republican incumbent Mike DeWine is doing his best to distance himself from the Bush Administration, GOP House leaders and the Ohio Republican Party, but it may not be enough. Sherrod Brown retains a narrow lead.
Ohio Governor – Democrat Ted Strickland has a double-digit lead over Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. Many voters still harbor hard feelings towards Blackwell over his 2004 decision not to provide more polling stations in a presidential election where Ohio was crucial and high turnout was anticipated. Many blamed Blackwell’s negligence–as the most charitable might put it–for the long waiting lines, especially in urban neighborhoods dominated by minority voters.
DEMOCRATS WEATHERING THE STORM
In the current political environment, Democrats who have been touched by scandal seem likely to hold on to their seats, in part because they were easier to defend in the first place.
Louisiana 02 – William Jefferson is likely to hold this seat, even in the face of a bribery scandal. In his latest FEC filing, Jefferson reported more than $300,000 cash on hand. No word on how much of this is being stored in his freezer.
West Virginia 01 – Alan Mollohan has given up his seat on the House Ethics Committee, but seems likely to win re-election in spite of a federal investigation into allegations that he funneled money to non-profit organizations to which he was connected and thereby managed to enrich himself by several million dollars.
VOTING FOR CHANGE
Voters’ appetite for change in Congress has not been this strong since 1994 when the Republicans won control of both houses and gained 52 seats in the House of Representatives alone.
This year, both houses are again in play, and Democrats stand to make major gains. But a 52-seat swing is unlikely this time. First, current district lines reflect more sophisticated and effective gerrymandering techniques than in 1994. Second, in 1994, Democrats were defending many Southern seats through incumbency advantage that had been trending Republican for decades. The 1994 election dislodged many Southern Democrats from seats that quickly became solid Republican seats. No such mismatch between districts’ partisan leaning and the party of the incumbent representative affects a large number of seats in 2006.
This time, Democrats need to win 15 seats to take control of the House and 6 seats to win control of the Senate.
If Democrats do win a majority, they will do so with a mandate from voters to address corruption. We can expect a full investigation of the Foley affair, new efforts to curb lobbyist influence, and new investigations of the relationship between lobbyist influence and some of the Bush Administration’s questionable decisions on energy, environmental protection and military procurement.
In Congressional races, ethics and corruption often have little impact beyond the affected incumbents’ races. But this cycle is different. First, because of the number of scandals and their varied nature — from sex, child endangerment and a possible cover-up to influence-peddling affecting the highest reaches of the majority party’s Congressional leadership. This suggests an endemic problem — not one which can be easily blamed on a couple of bad apples. Second, these scandals have greater impact because they come at a time of exceptionally low approval for the Administration’s policies.
In almost every cycle since 1994, Democrats have had good reason to think the next election would be the one in which they retook control of Congress. But 2006 is the first time that the numbers have looked this promising as late as mid-October. A lot can happen in just three weeks, but if current numbers hold until November 7, the Democrats will take control of Congress for the first time in a dozen years.

Andrew Claster is a Vice President with Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates working on Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s re-election campaign. Prior to joining PSB, Andrew worked for the World Bank. Andrew has a Master’s degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Yale University. He studied European economic and political integration at the University of Barcelona, Spain.

By David Rieff
It is a measure of just how far to the right the country has swung that the authors of the “Progressive Battle Plan for National Security” can on the one hand insist that “we are Democrats because we are inspired by the values of the left” and on the other name their group after President Truman–a man who can be described as a leftist only if graded on a curve of mainstream American politicians of the Cold War era. Yes, President Truman was to Richard Nixon’s left, but what of it? It reminds me of the old English comedy routine in which three Englishman try to explain American politics to a fourth who is about to travel there. “You have the Republican Party,” one of them says, “which is the equivalent of our Conservative Party, and you have the Democratic Party…which is the equivalent of our Conservative Party.”
I am certainly not competent to judge what the most effective durable strategy is for Democratic Party victories, and I defer to the Truman Project writers on the matter. But what I do know is that calling Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and, of course, Harry Truman men of the left is to perpetrate a falsehood. Roosevelt, at least, instituted at least some programs that could be described as left of center (though certainly not leftist), even if at least arguably his motivation was at least in part to stave off the demands of the actual American left. In the case of Truman and Kennedy, however, the historical record is one of ‘national greatness’ Cold War Democrats whose bedrock assumptions were that the world was best served when ‘led’ by the United States of America. John Kennedy, as John Judis reminds us in his post, ran to the right of Richard Nixon on national security issues. As for President Truman, well, here I have a question: does the name Nagasaki ring a bell?
To me, it is extraordinary (well, grotesque if I am being honest) that one could name a foreign policy group after the only political leader ever to authorize the use of the atomic bomb. And the inappropriateness and moral deafness inherent in such a decision is compounded by the authors’ reference to an Iran that threatens “to destroy millions of lives in a war or a nuclear accident” should it acquire atomic bombs. All the warranted denunciations of the barbarity of the Iranian regime cannot change the fact that we are in fact the only nation ever to have used nuclear weapons.
My suspicion is that these remarks will make little sense to the authors of the paper. A world in which a group of like-minded Democratic Party foreign policy experts can call their blog ‘Democracy Arsenal’ in the apparent belief this only has echoes of FDR’s famous speech and not, precisely, of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of the overthrow of Mossadegh and Arbenz, and the war in Vietnam that the Republican Eisenhower warned against and the (leftist?!) Kennedy embroiled us in, is one in which the sensibilities, historical memories, and opinions of much of the rest of the world–one might even say, the decent opinion of mankind–apparently count for very little.
In all candor, I cannot see what differentiates the justifications for the so-called Global War on Terrorism put forward by the authors of this ‘progressive’ [sic] battle plan from that regularly advanced by the Bush Administration. The President has himself repeatedly emphasized all the issues that supposedly would distinguish a Democratic Party approach to fighting the jihadis from the insistence that the struggle is one for hearts and minds within Islam, to the moral obligation to combat the oppression of women, to the need to champion values of “freedom, tolerance, and respect for others.” It is one thing to claim that the Bush Administration has acted incompetently; that can be justified. But it is simply false to claim that the Administration has not, from the invasion of Afghanistan forward, emphasized all these points. Again, I am not competent to speak as a political strategist, but it seems to me that commonsense would suggest that the anxieties the American public apparently feels over the Democratic Party’s national security bona fides will not be assuaged by repeating the White House’s talking points of the past six years.
Rather than accept the authors’ contention that the problem “is that Republicans have controlled the national security narrative,” surely a strong case can be made that in the American mainstream there is only one national security narrative–the national greatness narrative. To me the authors’ paper buttresses such a contention rather than dispelling it. And indeed, an objective reading of the Cold War suggests that, apart from a diminishing isolationist rump within the Republican Party, the narrative of Harry Truman was not that different from that of Dwight Eisenhower, just as the narrative of John
Kennedy was not that different from that of Richard Nixon. Were this not the case, why has it been a cliché for decades that, during the Cold War at least, partisan politics stopped at the water’s edge?
In my view, what has really happened is that the Republican Party under Ronald Reagan, and, even more successfully, under George W. Bush succeeded in writing the Democratic Party out of this bipartisan narrative–not least by appealing, just as the authors of the paper do, to Harry Truman. Republican support for Senator Lieberman is another emblem of this narrative in which Democrats have strayed from this consensus and no longer know how to protect the country.
In all candor, I do not really see all that much light between the Republican position and the position the Truman Project advocates here. That does not make the authors wrong, but it does call into question their contention that their ‘Stand Principled’ position can be the silver bullet Democrats have been searching for. An equally important practical difficulty with the paper is its persistent implication that Democrats have principles and Republicans don’t. The Islamists, the authors write, “refuse to tolerate the very diversity of opinion that makes us Democrats and Americans.” I hold no brief for the Republican Party but this is pure demagoguery. And it will convince no one, reassure no one, and do nothing to usher in a new period of Democratic Party success.

David Rieff is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine. He is the author of seven books including, most recently, At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention..

By John B. Judis
Let me make some brief comments on this paper from the Truman National Security Project:
1. I think the authors are absolutely right in defining the political question about foreign policy. Foreign policy only becomes an issue in national politics when Americans either feel their security threatened or when they think the government is wasting resources or lives on issues that don’t threaten our security. But to say this is implicitly to acknowledge two less pleasant facts about foreign policy and politics: first, that American voters decide foreign policy questions on what are sometimes narrow and unenlightened grounds, and second, that these choices don’t necessarily reflect what is best for them and the country. Good politics don’t always make good policy. There are two obvious examples, both from Democrats. In 1936, Franklin Roosevelt was forced by popular will to accede to isolationist sentiments that would hamper the American response to the war in Europe. In 1960, John F. Kennedy successfully ran to the right of Richard Nixon by decrying a non-existent missile gap and promising sterner action on Cuba. Kennedy’s positions in that election, while popular, would later get him and the country in a lot of trouble, and it would take him until his American University speech in 1963 to reverse course rhetorically from the framework of discourse that he established during the 1960 campaign.
2. Democrats face two different questions about foreign policy this year and in the future: first, what to do; and second, what to say we should do. They are not the same (see above). But one should have some relation to the other. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson had already pretty much decided to escalate the Vietnam War when he was telling voters he would not. That contradiction laid the basis for public disillusionment with government and hatred of Johnson himself by many voters who supported him because they thought that he (unlike Goldwater) would find a way to get the U.S. out of Vietnam.
What bothers me about this Truman statement is the absence of any discussion of what should be done. Should one assume that Democrats know what to do about Iran, or about extricating the US from Iraq, but simply face a problem of how to sell these policies to the American people? I don’t think that’s the case. If one reads, say, the Truman people’s statement about Iran in this light, it sounds particularly hollow. When candidate X is at the debate and is asked, “Well, it is clear you don’t like Iran having nuclear weapons, but what should the US actually do to prevent it?” the authors “stand principled” alternative doesn’t suggest any answer at all. Perhaps this is too harsh, but my feeling is that this is too much one of those Lakoffian exercises that reflect the policy elite’s preoccupation with marketing ideas that they don’t yet have.
3. My own feeling, too, about foreign policy questions is that Americans, and Democrats in particular, have to be careful at times not to subordinate their convictions of what the country should do to their wishes to be re-elected, be elected, or gain control of Congress. The 2002 election was a perfect example. There were a group of former Clintonites who were convinced that the nation should go to war against Iraq, but many Democrats on Capitol Hill, while thinking otherwise, hoped that the issue would go away. I was at one Democratic retreat in 2002 where I had to broach the issue myself, because the participants were utterly convinced that the election could be fought entirely on grounds of Enron and unemployment. I think in retrospect most Democrats would agree that it would have been better to go down fighting in 2002 (many lost anyway) than to have allowed the looming disaster in Iraq to be ignored. But we can’t know whether we have to make that kind of sacrificial choice until we know what we think should actually be done. I think that’s the prior question that needs to be addressed before we try to figure out how to sell our policies.

John B. Judis is a Senior Editor at The New Republic, a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and author of The Folly of Empire: What George W. Bush Could Learn from Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

By Anne-Marie Slaughter
The Truman Project is a shot in the arm for the Democratic Party: a group of super-smart, ambitious, and savvy young people challenging all of us to articulate why it is that we are Democrats, what we stand for, and how we would actually govern. Let me begin by agreeing with the basic distinction that Grinberg, Kleinfeld, and Spence make between foreign policy and national security and with the point that Americans care far more about national security — what keeps themselves and their families safe — than foreign policy more generally. This is the same message that Kurt Campbell and Michael O’Hanlon are sending in their new book HARD POWER. That said, it is equally important that we define national security broadly enough to address all the major threats we face as a nation, as opposed to seeing all national security issues through the lens of terrorism, even nuclear terrorism.
On 9/11 many in the Administration were focused on China as the next enemy; al Qaeda came out of a clear blue sky. While we have been focusing on Iraq, we neglected the threats brewing in both North Korea and Iran. Last winter avian flu suddenly hit the headlines, a threat that could kill many more millions of Americans than even the detonation of a nuclear weapon in a major city. And responding to the challenges to the international system created by the rise of China and India as major powers on the one hand, and the widening inequality between haves and have-nots fueled by globalization on the other, are both major issues for any national security strategist monitoring global trends.
In the Princeton Project on National Security final report, written by John Ikenberry and me and released on September 27^th, we defined national security in George Kennan’s terms, as “the continued ability of the country to pursue the development of its internal life without serious interference, or threat of interference, from foreign powers.” We argued that presenting Islamo-Fascism as the heir to Naziism and Communism is addressing a 21^st century world with a 20^th century mindset — trying to return to a simpler age with one big enemy and one big response. Keeping America safe in the 21^st century absolutely requires countering the threat posed by global terrorist networks — a global insurgency with a criminal core that must be countered not by a “war on terror” that dignifies terrorists as holy warriors, but rather by a sophisticated counter-insurgency strategy combining intelligence, law enforcement and special operations. But it also requires having an affirmative, proactive strategy to counter nuclear proliferation, to bring peace between Israel and Palestine and stabilize the entire Middle East, to prevent and protect against a global pandemic, and to safeguard America’s energy supplies. These are not issues of foreign policy, but of national security — of our day-to-day ability to live our lives.
The challenge of selling this vision is the challenge of countering one big idea — the war on terror — with what might first appear to be a number of smaller ideas. That is where Grinberg, Kleinfeld, and Spence’s recommendation about “Standing Principled” comes in. Americans must be reminded that focusing our national security strategy on one issue is simply not going to make us safe, but that neither can we run in every direction at once. We instead need a positive agenda, a plan for how to build an infrastructure of capacity and cooperation that will give us the ability and the partners to turn on a dime and address whatever threat is most menacing at any given point while at the same time working on long-term effective strategies to resolve outstanding conflicts, lock down nuclear weapons and provide states with incentives not to pursue nuclear capacity, offer a comprehensive peace plan for the Middle East, etc.
That agenda couples long-standing American principles with partners who share them and are willing to work with us to advance them. The Princeton Project report advocates a vision of a world of liberty under law — a world in which we would promote democracy effectively over the long term not simply as a answer to terrorism but as the realization of the universal values this country was founded on; in which we would reform old institutions and create new ones to ensure that we have rules, procedures, and capacity to address crises regionally and globally, not alone as a global policeman; and in which we would build our security together with like-minded countries who are willing to integrate their militaries with ours and rethink the international rules governing the use of force together with other nations.
Finally, standing on America’s principles, and promoting them not as our values, but as universal values, is the best long-term answer to the terrorists’ message. We will not accept a world divided along religious, geographic, or civilizational lines. We should stand tall for our principles and ensure that we live up to them at home as well as abroad. If we do that, we will find friends again to help us counter our enemies; we will be able to draw on the full spectrum of American power — hard and soft, public and private; and we will have both might and right on our side.

Anne-Marie Slaughter is the Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and co-convener, with John Ikenberry, of the Princeton Project on National Security

By Heather Hurlburt
We’re at an extraordinary moment in the political life of the Democratic Party. The Truman Project is joined by partisan and non-partisan advocacy groups as diverse as Democracy Corps, National Security Network, the Peace and Security Initiative, The White House Project, Third Way, and US in the World in offering national security messaging advice whose basic thrust is:

“The key is to both stand up for strong national security, while highlighting our values – including a core value that we must keep Americans safe.” (“A Progressive Battle Plan for National Security.”)

These groups span the spectrum from Lieberman staffers to MoveOn activists. Yes, their advice differs on many important details, and some would probably object violently to my lumping them in with others, but compared to 2004 or even 2005, the convergence is real. I can actually tell a candidate that there’s general agreement that he or she should come out strong on national security, not avoid the topic; present a specific, positive, new policy direction that draws on core American values; and then critique his or her opponent for being satisfied or complicit with the Administration’s incompetent, ineffective, unrealistic approach.
So why aren’t we hearing more hallelujahs? I’ll posit three reasons, some of which the Truman writers point out, all of which I’d like to see them – and their colleagues at other institutions – focus more on.
1. Democrats are deeply suspicious of messaging guidance.
An irate left-wing respondent on DemocracyArsenal.org, where I blog on these topics, recently compared me to a Nazi. That would be laughable if I didn’t often hear the same sort of thing, in politer terms, from my academic and activist friends who happily inhabit the left end of the Democratic base. We have a large group of core supporters who reflexively equate being thoughtful about how we frame our positions with being dishonest about our core values.
But that view is shared by the left and right wings of our party. One of the megastars of the Democratic foreign policy establishment blew up a strategy meeting earlier this year by declaring, more or less, “You can’t poll foreign policy. We just need to keep doing what we’ve always done.” I have had national security experts whom I respect deeply tell me that you simply cannot use metaphors of daily life to explain foreign policy to non-expert audiences – even as I see folks from Dick Cheney to Barack Obama do exactly that, sincerely and to great effect.
And it doesn’t seem that the campaign consultant community is convinced: even as we all churn out these great ideas for communicating effectively about security, I hear reports from the field that candidates are in fact being advised to turn away from national security and go back to an economic message.
So we have much more work ahead of us over time, to help our crack national security professionals, our base voters across the spectrum, and our political professionals understand what good journalists, novelists, artists and ad executives take for granted: that communication is only effective if your audience hears what you intended them to hear. Most of us have had the experience of an email, seemingly so straightforward in black and white, conveying the opposite nuance of what we intended. And it’s clear every day in politics that media and citizens alike often hear what they expect to hear.
That’s where research-based messaging guidance comes in – as one tool for helping candidates, national security experts and advocates do a better job of getting the message across.
On this, we could learn from each other: the actual language proposed in “A Progressive Battle Plan” would benefit from a scrub that asks smart communication questions like: do these phrases inadvertently direct listeners’ minds back to the positions of our opponents? Where there’s a wide choice of synonyms, do they use words and phrases that recent testing shows voters react to well? Does the order in which concepts are introduced help open voters’ minds to an alternative approach, or close them? In each of those areas, there’s good open source data and even more closely held data to draw on. (For some examples of what’s publicly available right now, click here or here.)
2. It’s a long-term problem.
This brings me to a point that Grinberg, Kleinfeld and Spence perceptively make: This is a long-term problem. They rightly note that their solution, offering an alternate “story line,” can’t be accomplished in one election cycle.
That’s not because Democrats aren’t good storytellers; it’s because we need to change the terms of the conversation so our story gets heard. Our target audience – independents, potential swing voters, disaffected voters and non-voters – has firmly established mental “shortcuts” about Democrats and national security. The media reinforces them because they are easy and evocative. A regular diet of local TV news and shout radio also reinforces conservative mental shortcuts: Government is ineffectual abroad as at home, the world beyond our shores is a dirty and dangerous place, the US is the only country that does anything, other countries and international institutions with a very few exceptions are fundamentally untrustworthy.
Any alternate story about the United States, our place in the world, and the safety of our citizens that stays true to our progressive values is going to bounce off those shortcuts until we start putting long-term effort into replacing them with other images, not just bombarding the ramparts with strategy after strategy.
In this longer-term arena, we need a broader strategy than the one Grinberg, Kleinfeld and Spence propose. We need to go back and pick up the foreign policy concerns – working with allies, leading with American values on issues such as poverty, genocide and the environment, building coalitions to solve problems from disease to trade – where the public agrees with Democrats but gets distracted by highly charged short-term talk of safety and threats. In between electoral cycles, Democrats and progressives can be building genuine links in the public mind between competence on the whole sweep of our involvement overseas and progress on the hard issues – instead of avoiding these issues and relying on spurious links at election time, and then wondering why they seem to favor Republicans (e.g. “draining the swamp.”)
With more time and oxygen, Democrats need to be crafting effective policies and smart messaging about the other insecurity voters feel – their place in the global economy. And there’s still more to do to back up the short-term national security machine Democrats have put in place in the past few years with a deeper bench of folks thinking equally interesting, but less politically tuned, thoughts that can be tossed around for years at a time.
The long-term challenge is to deny conservatives their monopoly on words, images and ideas surrounding national security. Democrats could do “everything right” for the next six weeks and still get beat by gas prices, terror alerts, and some quick progress in Baghdad that lets troop withdrawals be foreseen. Over the long term, we must aim to create a national environment where those Republican trump cards will be worth less, where we have more pathways into voters’ minds – a better campaign story on national security but also a better background story about how national security and international involvement fit into the lives of Americans.
3. It’s a systemic problem – voters are disillusioned with everyone.
Finally, I worry about a more fundamental problem. Voters are disillusioned with the Republican story line, no question, but there’s some evidence that they are preemptively disillusioned with the Democrats as well–that in fact the experience of watching most of our political class support a war that has gone so badly has soured Americans on the whole notion of principled US activism, whatever the principles, outside our borders. That is how I read the Pew Research Center/Council on Foreign Relations and other polls reporting American “isolationism” rising to levels previously seen at the end of Vietnam and at the end of the Cold War. Both of those times, public discontent produced a short period of policy retrenchment. But both times, the longer-term effect came when it was the forces of the right that came up with the new ideological and policy arguments that reengaged a plurality of Americans with the right’s own ambitious international projects.
While the folks whose job it is to win elections are right to worry about “standing on principle” today, we are in dire need for the best progressive minds – and the deepest-pocketed progressive funders – to start looking a decade or more down the road and talk to Americans about what our principles will look like and how they will be tested once Iraq is over, the next compromise on immigration has been reached, and the challenge of Iran and other non-status-quo powers has reached its next level. If we don’t start now to get the politics right, in the long run there simply won’t be the intellectual space to get the policy right.

Heather Hurlburt is Senior Advisor to the US in the World Initiative, consults as a political speechwriter and national security strategist, and blogs at democracyarsenal.org

By Gary Hart
The Democratic Party has reached a stage in its evolution where it must re-identify its core principles, ideals, and beliefs. Taken from four great Democratic presidents of the 20th century, those are:

1. We are a national community based on a commitment to social justice (Franklin Roosevelt);
2. America’s national security must be based on democratic alliances and the security of the global commons (Harry Truman);
3. As a republic, our citizens owe a duty of participation in the public life of our nation (John Kennedy);
4. Our party is committed to equality and justice for all (Lyndon Johnson).

Whether liberal or not, these ideals and principles are distinctly different from those of the Republican Party which does not share them.
Democrats should base their national security policy on these and several other principles:

1. Our government must be willing to justify its military activities and conduct its pursuit of security before the American people in the court of public opinion;
2. We must properly understand what security means, what our objectives are, and how they are to be achieved, or all the military spending in the world will not make us more secure;
3. Security means more than safety from attack, and each of us is more secure when all of us are more secure;
4. To be able to finance our future security, we must fundamentally realign our lifestyles, replacing consumption with production, and invest in the elements of a strong economic base.

Our new security structures must include:

1. An international peace-making force;
2. An international consortium to control proliferation of weapons of mass destruction;
3. Reorganization of our intelligence community to emphasize human collection and collaboration on intelligence sharing;
4. Creation of a fifth military service which combines all Special Forces;
5. Creation of a separate constabulary force and a civil affairs structure within the Pentagon to build and rebuild failed and failing nations;
6. Reorganization of the “big Army” into smaller, lighter, swifter units;
7. Adoption of military reform principles of unit cohesion and officer promotion;
8. Recognition that we are now confronted with fourth generation warfare;
9. Adoption of the policy that Democratic presidents will strike preemptively only where a threat is imminent and unavoidable;
10. Assurance that Democrats will answer four questions before committing troops abroad: Who is going with us?, How long will we be there?, How much will it cost?, and What are the estimated casualties?

Gary Hart represented the State of Colorado in the United States Senate from 1975 to 1987. In 1984 and 1988, he was a candidate for his party’s nomination for President. During his 12 years in the Senate, he served on the Armed Services Committee, where he specialized in nuclear arms control and was an original founder of the military reform caucus. Since retiring from the United States Senate, Gary Hart has been extensively involved in international law and business, as a strategic advisor to major U.S. corporations, and as an author and lecturer.
He was co-chair of the U.S. Commission on National Security for the 21st Century. The Commission performed the most comprehensive review of national security since 1947, predicted the terrorist attacks on America, and proposed a sweeping overhaul of U.S. national security structures and policies for the post-Cold War new century and the age of terrorism.
He is currently Senior Counsel to Coudert Brothers, a multinational law firm with offices in twenty-seven cities located in eighteen countries around the world, and is the author of fourteen books.

By Marc Grinberg, Rachel Kleinfeld, and Matthew Spence
With two months before elections, Democrats are in high spirits. As the Republican-controlled White House wages a war in Iraq that a majority of voters believe was a poorly run mistake, the Republican Party’s favorability rating has slipped to eight points below Democrats’ and falling. Polls for individual Congressional candidates are putting Democrats as many as ten points ahead of their Republican opponents.¹ Americans feel our nation’s image in the world has fallen, and the country is headed in the wrong direction.² Some are already referring to the Democratic House leader as Madame Speaker.
But this is not a description of the run-up to this November’s election. It is a troubling flashback to two years ago. At this point in the last election cycle, Democrats appeared poised for victory. But three months later, on November 3, 2004, Democrats awoke to find a government with even more Republicans in power than the day before. George W. Bush became the first presidential candidate in 16 years to win a majority of the popular vote. The GOP gained four seats in both the House and the Senate, leaving Democrats ten seats down in the Senate and twenty-nine seats short in the House.
What happened? Why did 2004 not produce the return to Democratic power that so many expected? And given that today’s poll numbers and predictions are eerily similar to those of two years ago, what can we learn to ensure that 2006 is not a return to 2004?³
In 2004, it turned out that national security was a litmus test. Voters may have expressed strong concerns about traditional Democratic issues such as jobs and health care, but when alone in the voting booth, they cast their ballot for the Democrat only if the candidate met the national security acid test–that is, if they were convinced the candidate would keep them safe. In 2004 exit polling, 49% of voters said Bush was the only one they trusted to handle terrorism–and nearly all of those (97%) voted for the President. In other words, only 1.5% of voters didn’t trust Kerry to handle terrorism but voted for him anyway. If voters listed terrorism as their most important issue, they voted for George W. Bush 86% of the time.⁴ Even when voters disagreed with specific Republican foreign policies, they trusted Republicans to ensure their safety. They did not trust Democrats.
Democratic leadership in the House and Senate–as well as future Presidential contenders–recognizes that it must address this national security gap, and is trying to do so. Last spring, Congressional Democrats introduced “Real Security,” a Democratic alternative to Republican policies.⁵ On September 7, 2006 Senator Harry Reid and nine other Democratic Senators introduced a 600-page bill, the Real Security Act of 2006. The emerging conventional wisdom is that Democrats have already begun to overcome their security deficit. A Wall Street Journal cover story earlier this month read recent public opinion data to proclaim as much. Polls put support for the Iraq War at a mere thirty percent and give Democrats an eight-point lead when asked which party will lead better both on Iraq, and in foreign policy more broadly.⁶ A majority of Americans feel that it is time for a change of course in the Bush Administration’s foreign policy.⁷
Foreign Policy Is Not the Same As National Security
But a deeper problem persists. Surprisingly, while Americans disagree with Republicans on specific policies, such as Iraq, and believe that Republican foreign policy is wrong-headed, Democrats are still not winning their trust on national security. While voters favor Democrats on “soft” issues that Democrats see as tied to good national security, such as “building respect for America,” “strengthening relations with our allies,” and “advancing human rights and democracy abroad,” the American public does not trust us on the “hard” issues that many Americans see as the core of national security. When asked which party they trusted to “ensure a strong military,” “combat terrorism” and be “decisive in a national security crisis,” respondents to a recent Democracy Corps poll thought Republicans would do a “much” or “somewhat” better job by 34, 14, and 11 points, respectively.⁸
In other words, it is not enough to be trusted on “foreign policy.” Foreign policy might seem to be synonymous with national security to the policy elite, but voters view foreign policy issues as peripheral and cerebral–not core to their personal security.⁹ It is thus important that Democrats do not fool themselves into thinking our problem is solved when we see public opinion, like a recent poll by the Mellman Group, finding that 55% of Americans believe it is time to change the course on Bush’s foreign policy. Progressives should not be comforted by polling that shows 60% of Americans think it is better to work through the United Nations to share burdens and risks than to act unilaterally, and that 61% believe that other countries have begun viewing the U.S. more negatively over the past few years.¹⁰ Those beliefs are real, but they are beside the point. It is security–the vital question of who will keep Americans safe–that is the decisive issue at election time.
The Problem: Democrats’ National Security Story
The problem, in a nutshell, is that Republicans have controlled the national security narrative. They offer a simple security story: America is beset by evil enemies who are willing to use despicable tactics, abhorrent to any civilized person, to kill regular Americans. Decisive action, a strong military, and a willingness to use the greatest force possible against these enemies will protect America. Alliances are only helpful if our allies are equally decisive and willing to use force exactly as we would–and the vast majority are not. Even when Republicans give a nod to diplomacy, foreign aid, and other tools, their basic story line equates security with military action. According to this story, alliances are fine and so is a good international reputation–but neither, in and of themselves, is tied to American safety.
Democrats will not be able to capitalize on voter support for their policies until they break the Republican story line, and create an equally simple and convincing story for how their strategy will keep America safe. The test for voters is not which party can give us better and smarter foreign policy. It is far more direct: how will these policies make Americans more secure today.
Therefore, no matter how Democrats fare in this November’s election, our work will not be done. Even a decisive win in taking back Congress will not be the end, or even the beginning of the end. Rather, successfully attacking the Bush Administration’s policies is only the end of the beginning. Democrats need to ensure that the public’s increasing support for the Party on national security issues is not solely a reaction to the war in Iraq. Such support is thin and short-lived. Support for Democrats increased after past Republican failures, such as the Iran-Contra scandals–only to fall soon after it faded off the front pages.¹¹ Republican losses do not necessarily mean Democratic gains. Rather, Democrats need to begin the long, difficult work of convincing voters that Democrats can keep Americans safe. To do so, it is not enough to attack specific policy failures. Democrats need to attack the Republican story line, while proving to America that they want, and can be trusted, to keep them safe.
Two Current Solutions
So what is our battle plan? How do we reclaim the mantle of national security leadership? Two opposing approaches have been fighting to shape Democratic political strategy–but both get us only halfway there.
In one camp, some in the Party argue we should “Stand Tall as Democrats”–that is, Democrats must adopt a national security strategy that amounts to nothing less than a complete reversal of the Bush Administration’s policies. Standing tall against the Administration is the only way to give Americans the alternative national security vision they crave and drive Democratic turnout on Election Day. For these strategists, Democrats have been losing elections since September 11th because they do not offer a clear enough alternative to Bush’s disastrous policies. Instead, Democrats who try to talk as tough as Bush on national security alienate the Party faithful and undecided voters, who see a bland choice between Republican and “Republican lite.” These voters, the thinking goes, want to see a Democratic Party that stands up for its beliefs, and comes out swinging.
This camp rightly recognizes that turning out that activist base is crucial: the last two presidential elections prove that a few thousand votes in a few key swing states can be the difference between winning and losing.¹² In a political environment where the labels “elephant in donkey clothing” and “DINO (Democrat in Name Only)” are readily hurled at moderate Democrats, we cannot assume that activist voters will turn out for Democrats simply because we claim not to be Republicans.¹³
The second camp–those advocating we “Stand Strong on Security”–declares that the Democratic activist strategy misses a key part of the problem. For these strategists, the current national security gap was borne out of the Vietnam War. At that time, the country–even though it largely agreed with the Democrats’ policy toward Vietnam–began to lose faith in the ability (and willingness) of the Democratic Party to stand up and fight to keep them safe. In 1967, the public trusted Democrats and Republicans equally to handle national security. By 1974, over half of Americans preferred Republicans, while just over 20% preferred Democrats. A 30 to 40 point gap continued through the 1990s.¹⁴ Today, the American public still believes that Democrats care less about their safety than Republicans do.¹⁵ Democrats must face this “Vietnam hangover” which equates Democratic anti-war stands with a lack of strength on national security. Democrats cannot just attack the Administration–they must address the public’s long-term lack of confidence in Democratic strength.
If being anti-war or anti-force has become conflated in the public mind with being anti-security, the “Stand Strong for Security” school offers a clear solution: Democrats must take tough-minded security positions, and avoid “changing the subject” to Democratic mainstays like civil liberties, human rights and domestic issues. To convince Americans that our party will also keep them safe, Democrats must adopt conservative language on hard security issues like the War on Terror and the military, and must overtly oppose those in the party that shun tough-minded national security policies, particularly the use of force.
The “Stand Strong for Security” camp, however, misses a key part of credibility: passion and perceived sincerity. Certainly, it is essential to prove to the American people that we take national security seriously and that we will do whatever is necessary to defend the country. But what the strategy ignores is that, given the Democrats’ history and the emotional center of the progressive movement, when Democrats “stand strong,” voters see Democrats as pandering and insincere, speaking from poll numbers rather than their guts.¹⁶ Instead of instilling confidence, these policies ring hollow–Americans doubt that Democrats believe what they are saying, and are left wondering what Democrats would do if elected. Instead of gaining the trust of the American public, the “Stand Strong” strategy fails to resonate with security-minded voters. And in the meantime, it alienates crucial Democratic activists.
A Way Forward: “Stand Principled”
Faced with these two strategies, some have wrongly concluded that the Democratic Party is on the brink of civil war. But crafting our national security battle plan does not mean tearing the Party apart. There is a way for Democrats to overcome the security deficit without alienating our activist base.
The key is to both stand up for strong national security, while highlighting our values–including a core value that we must keep Americans safe. A “Stand Principled” strategy would bring Democratic values back into our political discussion, allowing us to develop a national security strategy and story that resonates with Democratic voters, while convincing the public that Democrats can be trusted with the country’s security.
The Truman National Security Project has begun to develop such a strong, smart, principled narrative that connects a tough-minded Democratic approach to national security with core Democratic values.
This strategy goes to the heart of who we are as Democrats. And it offers Americans more than a technocratic implementation mantra like “we will do it better.” We did not become Democrats simply because we were better practitioners of foreign policy, or smarter at getting the job done. We are Democrats because we are inspired by the values of the left. Democrats should not shy away from promoting these values. Supporting economic opportunity is a Democratic vision at home that can also create more stable and secure countries around the world. Freedom from oppression is a core liberal belief. It grounded the Democratic fight against apartheid under the Reagan Administration–we should not let the Bush administration claim the mantle of defending liberty.
A “Stand Principled” strategy can inform how we think–and talk about–the most vexing national security issues before us. Take three politically-laden security issues that come immediately to mind: keeping Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, fighting terrorism, and illegal immigration. On all three, Democrats offer policies that resonate with Americans. Our challenge is to learn how to talk about them in a way that conveys both strength, and a conviction in our values.
What does it mean to bring values into our political strategy?
In the recent immigration debate, congressional Republicans immolated themselves with a self-created wedge issue, while Democrats watched the flames rise. But on the campaign trail, Democrats had to address constituents who raised immigration as a security issue. A “Stand Tall as Democrats” approach might have candidates declaring “no person is illegal” while proclaiming that the immigration issue is a political red herring that has nothing to do with security. “Stand Strong for Security” might look at the poll numbers and favor the popular notion of building a wall across our southern border because “America is a nation of laws, and we must prevent immigrants from entering illegally”.
A “Stand Principled” approach would stand against building the Berlin Wall in our backyard, and would instead suggest a position conveyed in candidate talking points such as:

Illegal immigration must be stopped. We must know who is coming into our country, and people must come in legally. But make no mistake about it–Democrats, at our core, believe that America grows stronger when we are a magnet for the best, brightest, hardest-working people in the world to come and make our nation great. For our security, we must know who is in our country. For our success as a nation, we must provide legal paths for hard-working people to come, integrate, and become a part of the American Dream.

Or take Iran, an issue on which some on the left see it as the right of Iran to gain nuclear weapons like any other country, while others on the left believe it to be one of the most dire national security threats we face. A “Stand Principled” approach might suggest a position reflected by messaging such as:

If any issue should arouse the passion of Democrats, it is the spread of nuclear weapons to a radical Iranian government. Iran is a nation that stones women, publicly executes homosexuals, suppresses its minorities, and has violated the most basic human rights we fight for as Democrats. Allowing Iran to build a nuclear weapon would strengthen this government’s hand against their own people. And nuclear proliferation–which would spread from Iran to the rest of the region–poses the greatest human rights abuse of all: threatening to destroy millions of lives in a war or a nuclear accident.

Finally, take the fight against radical Islamist terrorists. A candidate taking a “Stand Principled” position might use language such as that used regularly by Tony Blair.
For instance, in his speech to the Labour Party National Conference:

What we are confronting here is an evil ideology. It is a global struggle and it is a battle of ideas, hearts, and minds, both within Islam and outside it. This is the battle that must be won, a battle not just about the terrorists’ methods, but their views. Not just their barbaric acts, but their barbaric ideas. Not only what they do, but what they think and the thinking they would impose on others…
We don’t have to wonder what type of country [fundamentalist] states would be. Afghanistan was such a state. Girls put out of school. Women denied even rudimentary rights. People living in abject poverty and oppression. All of it justified by reference to religious faith…
We must be clear about how we win this struggle. We should take what security measures we can. But let us not kid ourselves. In the end, it is by the power of argument… that we will defeat this threat. That means not just arguing against their terrorism but their politics and their perversion of religious faith. It means exposing as the rubbish it is the propaganda about America and its allies wanting to punish Muslims or eradicate Islam. It means championing our values of freedom, tolerance, and respect for others. It means explaining why the suppression of women and the disdain for democracy are wrong.¹⁷

In an American sound bite, that could boil down to:

Radical Islamist terrorists don’t only threaten American lives. They destroy the values we believe in most deeply. They oppress women under medieval laws. They declare death to homosexuals, religious dissenters, and any free thinker under their sway. They refuse to tolerate the very diversity of opinion that makes us Democrats–and Americans. When we fail to fight them, we fail to fight for the dignity of our very humanity.

Standing on principle is hardly a new strategy–it is grounded in the tradition of the Democratic Party. Under Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy, Democrats were the party that Americans looked to for national security leadership. These Democratic presidents took the threats of the day seriously–while voicing strong Democratic values and projecting inspiration, not fear, about the future. They convinced the country that they believed deeply in the nation’s safety and in the core values of the American left.
Ultimately, Democrats do have to establish a baseline perception that we recognize that America has dangerous and depraved enemies, and we are willing to use force against them. But we also need to do something ever harder, which is to tell a national security story in which force is only one tool that we use to protect the American people. It should be a narrative that focuses on the results of American actions, rather than the tools used to achieve those results. The use of force, after all, is a tool, which can sometimes make us safer and sometimes not. As mentioned above, the American people trust Democrats on foreign policy, but not national security. The task, then, is to convince them that the two are deeply intertwined.
Democrats can revive the Truman legacy in national security. A political strategy can both convince Americans that Democrats can keep them safe, and offer an alternative vision that can rally the party faithful–and swing voters–to action. That strategy is realizing that strength and values are not in opposition, but rather two sides of the same coin. Putting them together is central to winning not just in November–but for decades to come.
Of course, this is far from the final answer–it is instead the beginning of the debate. To kick off this conversation, the Democratic Strategist has invited responses to these ideas from some of the most serious and creative thinkers in the Democratic Party. What would a strong and principled Democratic response be to the issue of wiretapping? To promoting freedom and democracy? To Guantanamo?
We think Harry Truman might have put it best himself: “Carry the battle to them. Don’t let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don’t ever apologize for anything.” We should welcome the national security battle with Republican. Bring it on.

Marc Grinberg is a graduate student in political theory at Oxford University. He previously served as Congressional Fellow for the Truman National Security Project, leading its efforts on Capitol Hill and coordinating the activities of the Democratic Study Group on National Security.
Rachel Kleinfeld is the founder and co-director of the Truman Project. Rachel previously served as a Senior Consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, where she worked on information-sharing across the military, intelligence, and law enforcement communities, homeland security, and trade and security issues. She has also been a consultant to the Center for Security and International Studies on biosecurity and bioterrorism response issues.
Matt Spence is the co-director of the Truman National Security Project. He is currently writing a book on lessons learned from American democracy promotion in the former Soviet Union. Matt has been a Lecturer in International Relations at Oxford University, a Visiting Fellow at the Stanford Center on Democratization, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and an elections monitor in Kosovo.

¹Polling from: CNN/Gallup/USA Today, August 1, 2004 (Conducted 7/30-31/04; surveyed 1,011 adults, margin of error +/-3%); Newsweek, July 31, 2004 (Conducted 7/29-30/04; surveyed 1,190 adults; margin of error +/-3%).
²According to a Newsweek Poll from September 4, 2004, 60% of registered voters believed that the “policies and diplomatic efforts” of the Bush Administration have damaged America’s image and “led to more anti-Americanism around the world,” (Conducted 9/30-10/04; surveyed 1,013 registered voters; margin of error +/-4%). An Annenberg Public Policy Center Poll from September 2, 2004, showed that 52% of registered voters believed that “things in the country are…seriously off on the wrong track,” compared to only 39% who believed things “are generally going in the right direction.” (Conducted 8/9-29/04; surveyed 5,146 registered voters; margin of error +/-1%).
³According to recent polls, Democratic favorability ratings are nine-points higher than those of the Republicans and generic congressional polls give Democrats an 8-point lead. Polling from: Gallup/USA Today, August 1, 2006 (Conducted 7/28-30/06; surveyed 1,007 adults; margin of error +/-3%); Zogby, August 16, 2006 (Conducted 8/11-15/06; surveyed 1,018 likely voters; margin of error +/-3.1%). To be sure, there are key differences between today and the run-up to the 2004 elections. Ethics scandals (largely on the Republican side), a stronger anti-incumbent sentiment sweeping the nation and, of course, the increasing discontent with the war in Iraq may swing the election for the Democrats.
⁴Exit Polling from ABC News Polling Unit and Stanford Institute for Research in the Social Sciences at Stanford University, November 9, 2004.
⁵This plan, released in March by House and Senate Democrats as well as the DNC, is available at: http://www.democrats.org/a/2006/03/real_security_t.php.
⁶Polling by CBS News/New York Times, July 26, 2006. (Conducted 7/21-25/06; surveyed 1,127 adults; margin of error +/-3%). Also see, Jackie Calmes, “Republican Advantage on Issues of National Security Erodes,” Wall Street Journal, September 1, 2006, sec. A. Polling cited in article from NBC/Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2006 (Conducted 6/9-12/06; surveyed 1,002 adults; margin of error +/-3.1%).
⁷According to an August 25, Mellman Group Poll, 55% of the country believes it’s time to change the course of the Bush Administration’s foreign policy, compared to 39% who believe the Administration’s foreign policy is taking us on the right track. (Mellman Group Poll, August 25, 2006, cited on ThinkProgress, the Center for American Progress blog: “New Poll: Americans View Bolton As Symbol of Foreign Policy Failures” ).
⁸Polling by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, September 7, 2006 (Conducted 8/23-27/06; surveyed 1,000 likely voters; margin of error +/-3%). There were a handful of polls conducted in the spring of 2006 that disagree with these findings. A Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted in April 2006, found Democrats one point ahead in polling asking who respondents trusted more in the campaign against terrorism. The poll of 1,229 adults, however, had a sampling bias towards those over 65. A Garin-Hart-Yang poll for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in April 2006 found that respondents, when asked who they would vote for if they were voting solely on national security, favored Democrats over Republicans by 41 to 39%. We find these numbers encouraging, and suggest here a strategy to capitalize on this growing voter sentiment. But to date, we have found more polling that points to voter disillusionment with Republicans than voter trust for Democrats on this issue, suggesting that a need to bolster our story line still exists.
⁹The September 7, 2006, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll for Democracy Corps found that Democrats poll 12 points better on foreign policy than they do on national security.
¹⁰Mellman Group poll, August 25, 2006.
¹¹Loren Griffith, “What Went Wrong,” Truman National Security Project, May 2005, drawing on data collected from national polls conducted by more than 10 organizations, chiefly Gallup, ABC News/Washington Post, CBS/New York Times, NBC/Wall St. Journal, Harris Poll, and Fox News as well as data gathered from three proprietary databases: Gallup Brain, iPoll, and Roper Center.
¹²Kerry lost by less than 1% in both Iowa (10,000 votes) and New Mexico (6,000 votes), by 2% in Ohio (118,000 votes) and by only 20,000 votes in Arizona (less than 3%).
¹³For example, in an article in the American Prospect, “Put a Face on Your Fears,” the authors referred to Senator Max Baucus–who should be lauded as a success story of a Democrat winning in a culturally red state–as a “Democrat in Name Only.” Keith Ellison, the Democratic candidate for Congress in Minnesota’s 5th district, recently argued, “Republican-lite has failed us as Democrats,” referring to retiring Democrat Representative Martin Sabo.
¹⁴Griffith, 2005.
¹⁵A January 31, 2006 Democracy Corps poll asked which party likely voters associate more with “security and keeping people safe.” Forty-eight percent said Republicans care “much more” or “somewhat more.” Only 31% said the same of Democrats.
¹⁶An unfortunate example of this is how Jon Stewart, of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, portrayed political strategists in its skit with Paul Hackett. In the skit, a passionate Hackett is drained of conviction by handlers, pollsters, and consultants who were portrayed as the mainstream Democratic Party. The skit’s widespread circulation on the internet and blogosphere suggest that it touched a nerve.
¹⁷Tony Blair, speech to the Labour Party National Conference, July 16, 2005.