The University of Michigan’s preliminary March reading of consumer sentiment shows consumer confidence dropping again, just as it did in February. All the more reason to pay heed to the findings of the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll which indicate economic anxiety is likely to play a large role in the November election, and all to Bush’s detriment.
The poll has Bush’s approval rating on the economy at 45 percent approval/51 percent disapproval, down from 49/45 in January. In addition, the poll now shows more saying the economy has gotten worse in the last year (35 percent) than say it has gotten better (33 percent). That’s a substantial shift from January when 43 percent said the economy has gotten better and only 23 percent said iit had gotten worse.
And economic issues, such as jobs and economic growth, will be most important, according to respondents, in deciding their November vote (36 percent), followed by domestic issues, such as health and education (27 percent) and only then by national defense issues, such as Iraq and the war on terror (18 percent). That’s 65 percent saying they’re going to vote on the basis of Bush’s two weakest areas.
Ah, but do they hold Bush responsible for the state of the economy? After all, his favorite mantra these days is that continuing economic problems are just the lingering effects of 9/11 and the situation he inherited from the Clinton administration. This poll indicates those pesky voters may hold him responsible, despite his efforts to wiggle out of it: 30 percent say his policies are mainly responsible for the state of the economy and another 50 percent say they are partially responsible.
But the really bad news for Bush is has to do with the kinds of economic problems people are upset about and their attitude toward his tax cuts. The poll presented people with six controversial elements of the US economy and the three people said were most important to their evaluation of the economy were “the number of jobs moving overseas”, “jobs for lower-paid workers that lack health and retirement benefits’ and the budget deficit, all areas of very serious weakness for Bush. Moreover, when asked for their feelings about these economic elements and presented with four choices about that, ranging from very cheerful to very gloomy, only 4 percent selected the cheerful option (these elements don’t represent a problem today and in the future and America has the same economic security it always has had), compared to 47 percent who selected the gloomy option (these elements are a major problem today and in the future and America no longer has the economic security it had in the past).
As for the tax cuts, 59 percent still say they have either hurt the economy (23 percent) or had no real effect (36 percent). And, by 55 percent to 39 percent, people say the tax cuts are too large and should be repealed for those with over $200,000 in income (Kerry’s position), rather than that the tax cuts are the right size and should all be kept and made permanent (Bush’s position).
OK. That’s the playing field. But how can the Democrats take maximum advantage of Bush’s vulnerabilities in this area? As the typically insightful Ronald Brownstein put it in his latest Los Angeles Times column:
Many Democrats agree Kerry has to flesh out his own ideas for stimulating job growth (which now center on tax credits for manufacturers, grants to states, a tougher line on trade and reducing employers’ healthcare costs).
But even if Kerry holds up a blank piece of paper as his recovery plan, it will be tough for Bush to win an argument about the economy unless job growth revives.
He may be right about that blank sheet of paper. But I’d like to think we can do better. I’ll offer my thoughts on how to do this tomorrow. In the meantime, the floor is open for suggestions: how exactly should the Democrats address the jobs/outsourcing issue?

Yesterday, I cast a skeptical eye on the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll horse race result that had Bush over Kerry 2 points. It just did not match up plausibly with roughly contemporary results from Gallup and ABC New/Washington Post. Today, there’s additional confirmation that the NBC News result is probably more an outlier than a trend.
The new ARG poll, conducted March 9-11, has Kerry over Bush by 7 points (50-43) among registered voters, including a very nice 9 point lead among all-important independent voters. It’s also worth noting that, with Nader thrown in, Kerry’s lead is still 6 points (48-42), with Nader only drawing 2 percent.
The ARG poll also registers Bush’s approval rating at a mere 45 percent, which I believe is the lowest ever in this poll.

The new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll is out and it has some very interesting findings about the role economic anxiety may play in this coming election. I’ll cover those findings and provide some thoughts about how Democrats should approach the issue in tomorrow’s post.
But today I thought I’d say a word or two about Bush’s relatively strong horse race showing in this poll (2 points ahead of Kerry), compared to other recent public polls, which has occasioned some comment. Josh Marshall, for example, noted this and wondered whether the result was “an outlier or a trend” or perhaps was due to the NBC News question being asked of all adults, instead of registered or likely voters.
The all adults hypothesis doesn’t seem to fit. Gallup and ABC News (see my March 9 post) do provide figures for all adults, in addition to registered/likely voters: in the Gallup poll, Kerry of Bush is ahead by 5 points among all adults and in the ABC News poll, Kerry is head of Bush by 11 points among all adults.
So we can safely reject the all adults hypothesis. What about time frame? Is the NBC News poll much more recent, so perhaps they’re catching a shift in the public mood? Seems doubtful. The NBC News poll was conducted March 6-8, the Gallup poll March 5-7 and the ABC News poll March 4-7. That seems too close to account for the difference unless you believe March 8 was a very special day indeed.
So, to answer Marshall’s question, it seems more outlier than trend. We’ll see what other polls have to say as they come out, but that’s the way it looks right now.
Actually, there were some other interesting horse race results in this poll that are at least as worthy of attention, if not more so. The poll had two tickets matched up against Bush-Cheney. The first, Kerry-Edwards, runs dead even with Bush-Cheney. The second, Kerry-Gephardt, runs 6 points behind Bush-Cheney. Interesting.
The poll also asked people whether they preferred that the Democrats or Republicans control Congress after the next election. By 4 points, they said they preferred that the Democrats wind up in control of Congress. That may not sound like much, but in this poll, that question has not returned a pro-Democratic margin since December, 1999. Now there’s a result to conjure with.

Yesterday, I mentioned the Gallup finding that Kerry is doing even better in “purple”, swing states (the margin of victory for Gore or Bush was less than 5 points) than in “blue” states (Gore’s margin of victory was more than 5 points). I got curious about how Kerry’s current performance compared to the actual vote in 2000, using the red, blue and purple categories defined by Gallup. Here’s what I found.
In 2000, Gore lost the Gallup red states by 57-41, carried the Gallup blue states by 55-40 and the purple states (Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Wisconsin) were a dead heat, at 48-48. Today, the Gallup data (using likely voters and throwing in Nader to make the comparison more exact) show Kerry also losing in the red states, though by less (51-45), running about the same as Gore in the blue states (55-42) and running way ahead of Gore in the purple states (52-39).
What this means is that Kerry’s overall lead in the Gallup poll is in no way traceable to running up the vote in the blue states; he’s simply holding the Gore lead in those states. Instead, Kerry’s lead over Bush is driven by exactly what you’d want it driven by: strongly improved performance, relative to Gore, in swing states and whittling down Bush’s lead in the red states.
In light of this analysis, it’s interesting to look at a Barron’s analysis by John Zogby of state-by-state polling (both his own and others) that shows Kerry holding 85 percent of the blue state (defined here in the traditional way as states Gore carried, no matter how small the margin) electoral votes plus New Hampshire, Bush holding only 63 percent of the red state electoral votes and 136 electoral votes “in play”. The in play electoral votes, in Zogby’s analysis, are distributed over 12 states (Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin), 8 of which were carried by Bush in 2000 and only 4 by Gore, meaning the Republicans have much more turf to defend than the Democrats.
The beauty part, of course, is that turf may be very difficult to defend if the Gallup purple state calculations are any indication of how voters in this very similar group of “in play” swing states are leaning. It’s a long way to November, I’ll grant you, but you’ve got to be happy with how this election campaign is starting out.

DR reports. You decide.
Here are the most interesting results from the latest Gallup/CNN/USA Today and ABC News/Washington Post polls.
1. In the ABC News poll, Kerry is leading Bush by 9 points (53-44) among registered voters. With Nader thrown in, he still leads by 4 points, with Nader drawing 3 percent. In the Gallup poll, Kerry leads by 8 points (52-44) among likely voters. He also has more “hard” support (those who say they are certain to vote for him) than Bush (45-38). With Nader thrown in Kerry still leads by Bush by 6 points (50-44), with Nader at just 2 percent.
Note that these two polls measure Nader support at 2-3 percent, while the much-publicized Ipsos/AP poll had his support at 6 percent. I suspect the Gallup/ABC News figures are better measures of his current support.
Update: Gallup has issued a report on their new poll. In the report, they break down states into red (Bush won by 5 percent or more), blue (Gore won by 5 percent or more and purple (the margin of victory for Gore or Bush was less than 5 percent; this includes of course almost all the swing states the current campaigns are likely to focus on). In blue states, Kerry is ahead of Bush 55 percent to 42 percent among likely voters. Not unexpected. But in purple, swing states, he is ahead of Bush by even more, 55-39.
And for those fretting perhaps more than they need to about Nader, here are the analagous figures with Darth Nader in the mix: 55-42 in blue states and 52-39 in purple states.
Not so bad, huh? So relax (at least about Nader).
2. Bush’s overall approval rating in the ABC News poll is 50 percent, with 48 percent disapproval (his highest ever). His rating in the Gallup poll is 49 percent, with 48 percent disapproval (tied for his highest ever).
3. Bush’s approval ratings in the ABC News poll are only above 50 percent in two areas: the US campaign against terrorism (63 percent) and protecting Americans constitutional rights and freedoms (61 percent). Significantly, his rating on the economy has now dipped below 40 percent (39 percent approval/59 percent disapproval). His other poor to very poor ratings are, in descending order: education (50 percent approval/45 percent disapproval); taxes (50/47); the situation in Iraq (46/53); the issue of same-sex marriage (44/52!); creating jobs (43/54); prescription drug benefits for the elderly (41/49); Social Security (38/55); the cost, availability and coverage of health insurance (32/62); and the federal budget deficit (30/65).
4. In the ABC News poll, Kerry is now 5 points ahead of Bush (49-44) on who would do a better job coping with the main problems the nation faces ove the next few years. He has also now caught up with and surpassed Bush on who would do a better job handling the situation in Iraq (48-47). And he has widened his lead over Bush on dealing with the economy to 12 points (53-41).
5. Also in the ABC News poll, here are voters’ choices for the single most important issue in deciding their vote for president: economy/jobs (36 percent); terrorism (17 percent); Iraq (10 percent); education (8 percent); Medicare/prescription drugs (7 percent); and health care (6 percent). And here are Kerry’s leads over Bush on dealing with these issues: the economy (+12); terrorism (-21); Iraq (+1); education (+12); Medicare/prescription drugs (no data available but a reasonable guess is that Kerry would have a substantial lead); and health care (+20).
6. In the ABC News poll, 41 percent say they want to keep moving in the direction Bush has been taking the country, compared to 57 percent who want to elect a president to take the country in a different direction.
7. Kerry beats Bush on every characteristic ABC News tested except “is a strong leader”. On “tolerant of different points of view”, he beats Bush 73 percent applies/17 percent doesn’t apply to 47/51. On “honest and trustworthy” he beats Bush 59/30 to 54/45; on “understands the problems of people like you” he beats Bush 58/34 to 41/57; and on “stands up to special interests” he beats Bush 54/30 to 51/44.
And even on “strong leader”, Kerry is virtually tied with Bush, 61/29 to 63/36.
8. In the ABC News poll, just 26 percent say Bush cares more about protecting the interests of ordinary working people, compared to 67 percent who say he cares more about protecting the interests of large business corporations. That’s his worst rating ever, including during the summer of corporate scandals in 2002. In contrast, by 60/23, the public says Kerry cares more about the protecting the interests of ordinary people.
9. In the Gallup poll, by 66/30 people say it is inappropriate for political candidates to run camapign ads using images depicting the 9/11 terrorist attacks. When asked specifically about Bush’s use of such ads, people still say by 54/42 that it is inappropriate.
10. In the Gallup poll, 40 percent of likely voters now say that they usually, almost always or always vote Democratic, compared to 36 percent who they typically vote Republican. Two months ago, Republicans had the advantage on this question, 44/37.

A month ago, I remarked on how Kerry’s candidacy seemed to have the potential to unite all wings of the party, including its traditionally feuding New Democrat and liberal wings. Since then we have indeed seen much closing of the ranks among Democrats, including in the polls, where Kerry is losing very few Democrats to Bush. Here’s another sign of that emerging Democratic unity: two op-eds in The New York Times today, one by Stan Greenberg, associated with the liberal wing of the party and one by Bruce Reed, president of the DLC.
And here’s the shocker: they didn’t attack each other or their respective wings of the party in any way! Instead, Greenberg recommends that Kerry not counter the Republicans’ narrow culture war strategy with an equally narrow class war strategy of his own, but rather with an expansive John F. Kennedy-style vision of an opportunity society that works for all Americans. I agree! And Reed recommends that Kerry swipe Bush’s “reformer with results” label, since Bush has compiled an abysmal record as a reformer (from education to domestic security), while Kerry has shown a solid commitment to reform throughout his Senate career. I agree!
Of course, putting these insights together presents some problems–“reformer with results for the opportunity society” seems a bit long for a bumper sticker. But it’s nice to see Democrats from formerly warring factions of the party concentrating on strategy against the Republicans rather than why the other side of their own party is wrong.

There has been quite a bit of consternation lately about an Ipsos-AP poll that showed Nader receiving 6 percent of the vote in a matchup against Kerry and Bush. Obviously, if Nader received support in this range in November it would be very bad indeed for the Democrats.
To which I say: relax everybody. Nader’s not going to get that kind of support and he’s unlikely to even match the support he received in 2000. In fact, I think his fate is more likely to be like that of Pat Buchanan in 2000, who also drew some early support in polls, but would up with very few votes (.43 percent) because his candidacy had no real constituency or plausible rationale.
Consider these data. In late 1999, when Buchanan, like Nader today, was the only third party candidate being tested in polls, he was drawing anywhere between 5 and 10 percent support when matched up against Gore and Bush. Then, in late spring, when horse race polling resumed and Nader was also included in the matchup, he dropped considerably, but was still drawing 3-5 percent support. Of course, by the time the election rolled around, even that support collapsed and he wound up with less than half a percent of the vote.
Obviously, almost all of that early Buchanan support was extremely soft and very easy for Bush to peel away once push came to shove and Republicans who were supporting Buchanan focused on taking back the White House. That’s going to be Nader’s fate in 2004: he may pull the early 4-6 percent here and there in polls (though hopefully most pollling organizations will choose to exclude this peripheral candidate without a party or likely ballot access in many states from their questions) but that support will be very, very soft, declining as the election gets closer and essentially disappearing on election day. In the end, a candidacy that lacks a distinct constituency and a rationale that even passes the laugh test (Kerry and Bush: no difference!) will receive the support level it so richly deserves–almost nil.
Actually, another finding from the Ipsos-AP poll is of more political signficcance than Nader’s 6 percent. Right now, just 35 percent of Americans say the country is going in the right direction, while 60 percent say it is off on the wrong track. That’s down from 44 percent right direction/52 percent wrong track last month and puts Bush in the serious danger zone for incumbents. And this poll was taken before Friday’s incredibly bad jobs report (just 21,000 new jobs).
In short, forget about Ralph and keep your eyes on the prize.

It’s been lurking at the top of the right-hand nav bar, but I thought I’d draw people’s attention more directly to a piece I recently published in the British magazine, Prospect.
I think it’s a useful summary of where we’ve been and where we’re going, so I offer it as an aid to thinking through political prospects for 2004 and beyond.
To whet your appetite, here are some excerpts:
In 2000, Al Gore and George W Bush divided the popular vote almost evenly (Gore led by a scant half percentage point) and Bush gained the presidency only after some controversial intervention by the supreme court. The Senate was divided 50:50 (until the defection of Jim Jeffords from the Republicans in 2001). And the House of Representatives was divided between 221 Republicans (50.8 per cent) and 212 Democrats plus 2 independents (49.2 per cent).
After the election, John Judis and I argued in our book The Emerging Democratic Majority that, despite currently being a 50:50 nation, America was changing in ways that were likely to produce a Democratic majority within a decade. Here are the trends we thought were leading in that direction.
Professionals Professionals are college-educated white-collar workers who produce ideas and services. They worry about the quality of their product and service, rather than simply whether it produces a profit, and tend to be socially liberal. They include doctors and nurses, software programmers, actors, teachers, engineers and fashion designers. In the 1950s, professionals made up 7 per cent of the working population and were the most Republican of all occupational groups. But as the US economy has changed – as the production of ideas and services has displaced the production of things – professionals in the workforce have more than doubled to 16 per cent. They are even more heavily represented among voters, comprising about a fifth of the electorate nationally; more in some northeastern and far western states. And a majority of them are now Democrats. In the past four presidential elections, professionals on average voted Democrat 52 to 40 per cent.
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These are the long-run trends that we believed were reshaping US politics. In the short run, however, things have turned out differently. In the 2002 elections, the Republicans did very well (especially given that the president’s party usually loses seats in the first election of his term), gaining two seats to take back control of the Senate, and six House seats to bolster their majority there. And of course, George W Bush’s presence in the White House gave them unified control of the government – something they had not achieved even during the Reagan conservative revolution.
How did this happen? Start with this: if the elections had been held not in November 2002, but on 10th September 2001, the Democrats would have made impressive gains, increasing their one-seat advantage in the Senate and perhaps winning back the House. At the time, Bush was seen as a weak and ineffective leader, who was most comfortable reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar to schoolchildren. His approval ratings, as low as 51 per cent in some polls, were poor for a president in his first year. In addition, the Clinton boom had given way to an economic slowdown. Combine these factors with popular support for Democratic positions on social security, healthcare, the environment and the economy, and you had all the elements for a Republican disaster.
Instead, 11th September happened. Bush res-ponded by abandoning his indifference to world affairs. His initial performance, leading to the ousting of the Taleban regime in December 2001, strongly enhanced his reputation. Bush’s approval rating hit 90 per cent in late September and did not fall below 80 per cent until March 2002. The rising approval of Bush, along with the importance attached to national security, increased support for the Republicans. In August 2001, a Harris poll had found only 37 per cent of voters thought the Republicans in congress were doing an excellent or pretty good job; by mid-October, that number had soared to 67 per cent.
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Taking their cue from the White House, Republican candidates repeatedly charged their Democratic opponents with ignoring the war on terror and national security. In the Georgia Senate race, Republican Saxby Chambliss, who had never served in the military, attacked incumbent Max Cleland, a war hero who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam, for not supporting the Republican plan for the homeland security department. The Republicans even went so far as to run an ad linking Cleland to images of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
Nevertheless, with three weeks to go before the election, Democrats were leading in polls and many of the races. It looked as if they would hold or increase their margin in the Senate while winning seats but failing to take back the House. During those last weeks, Bush undertook a whirlwind national tour that highlighted the threat from al Qaeda and Saddam. In the last week alone, Bush made 17 stops in 15 states. At each stop, after briefly trying to allay voters’ fears about Republican economic policies, he would launch into a jeremiad about the threat from abroad. As he put it during a stop in Charlotte, North Carolina: “You’ve just got to understand there’s an enemy out there that hates America… No longer can we assume oceans will protect us… We must assume that the enemy is coming, and we’ve got to do everything we can to protect the homeland. That’s why I started talking about the issue of Iraq.”
Bush’s final tour turned a dead heat into victory for the Republicans and generated a pro-Republican surge. Republicans had trailed Democrats by three points in Gallup’s poll of likely voters on 21st-22nd October. By election weekend, 12 days later, the Republicans led by six points.
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After the election, GOP pollster Matthew Dowd argued that the Republicans had won not because of Bush’s response to 11th September, but because voters trusted them more to improve the economy. If that were true, the election might have augured a new political era. But the war on terror completely overshadowed and in the end defined the terms of the campaign. The key factors in the Republicans’ success were all traceable to the peculiar post-11th September circumstances of this election.
These factors are no longer so strong and will weaken further, which is why November’s election should be very competitive.
Instead of the splendid little war that the president’s advisers thought would ensure his re-election, the invasion of Iraq is threatening to turn into a liability for Bush, despite Saddam’s capture. Bush’s approval ratings have returned to about the level they were before 11th September. Support for the war and Bush’s handling of it have dropped sharply.
January was the second deadliest month for US troops since combat operations were declared over (November was the worst). And then there was the claim made by David Kay, former chief of the US search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that there were no such weapons in Iraq, either now or before the US attacked.
According to recent polls, the US public believes that Bush does not have a clear plan for handling the Iraq situation and considers the level of casualties to be unacceptable.
They believe strongly that the results of the war have not been worth the costs in lives and dollars. They also strongly oppose the extra $87bn that congress allocated in November for the occupation and are very sceptical that they were told the full truth about Iraq and its WMD before the invasion. Most significantly, the public overwhelmingly believes that the war with Iraq has not made the US safer or reduced the terror threat, and that capturing Osama bin Laden and crushing al Qaeda should be the main purpose of the war on terror.
While Iraq may become a liability, Bush continues to enjoy high approval ratings for the broader war on terror. Still, the idea that the GOP will enjoy a long-lasting advantage on foreign policy looks less plausible with every passing month. The public now gives Bush rather poor ratings in the umbrella categories of foreign policy or foreign affairs.
Bush’s problems do not stop with Iraq. The economy refuses to catch fire, despite a 8.2 per cent growth rate in the third quarter of 2003. While growth should be respectable this year, relatively high unemployment and low levels of job creation, and sluggish wage and income growth, are likely to persist. The Bush administration may wind up presiding over a net loss of jobs (particularly in the manufacturing sector), something that no administration has experienced for 70 years.
In contrast, when Clinton was running for his second term in 1996, the economy was firing on all cylinders: strong growth, low unemployment, high levels of job creation and strong wage and income growth. Bush will not have such a record to run on. That will make it more difficult for him to defend his gigantic tax cuts ($3 trillion over the course of the decade), which were sold on the basis of their economic benefits. The public has never been particularly enthusiastic about these tax cuts, seeing them as having little positive effect on the economy and as benefiting the wealthiest. Those views seem unlikely to change.
Intimately linked to these tax cuts is the ballooning federal budget deficit. The idea that it is out of control is sinking in with the US public, and polls indicate that Bush has lost all credibility on fiscal responsibility. His declaration, made as he presented his budget for fiscal year 2005, that he would cut the half-trillion dollar budget deficit in half while also occupying Iraq, reducing taxes by another trillion dollars, increasing defence and homeland security spending, and travelling to the moon, bordered on the bizarre.
Even the two big domestic achievements of the Bush administration – the No Child Left Behind education reform act in 2002 and the Medicare prescription drug act at the end of last year – are proving to have mixed results. The first act, which mandates continual testing and sanctions against low-performing schools, was supposed to give the GOP a “tough love” image on the issue, without much additional spending. But the inflexible testing-based regime has developed a bad reputation as an “unfunded mandate” that fiscally-strapped states have to find the money for. State legislatures are in open revolt against the act; Republican-controlled Virginia, Utah and Ohio have threatened to opt out of it entirely. As a result, the political advantage that the GOP hoped to open up on schools has vanished; Democrats now run double-digit leads on the issue in public polls.
The prescription drugs act was intended to steal a traditional Democratic issue by providing a new drug benefit for senior citizens through Medicare. The provision of such an expensive new entitlement, GOP strategists believed, would burnish Bush’s “compassionate conservative” credentials and immunise him against the charge that he is only willing to spend money on the rich. It hasn’t worked out. The act is expensive (an initial estimate of $400bn over ten years has been increased to $540bn), though not because it is particularly generous. A senior citizen with $5,000 in annual drug costs will still pay about $4,000 out of his own pocket. The government declined to use its bargaining power with pharmaceutical companies to reduce drug prices. Not only did the act include no cost containment provisions, it actually makes it more difficult for US citizens to buy drugs from Canada, where prices are substantially lower. Bush’s approval ratings on healthcare, Medicare and even prescription drugs for seniors remain abysmal.
The two signature achievements, therefore, have done little to alter the perception that Bush and his administration are out of touch with ordinary Americans and tilted towards the interests of the rich – a sentiment that polls regularly record. This is only reinforced by a legislative and executive record that, apart from these acts, is one long effort to promote business interests through tax breaks, deregulation and rolling back environmental protections.
In every area reviewed above – including the invasion of Iraq – Bush has overplayed his hand and is out of step with public opinion. He started his presidency acting as though he had won a landslide in a country that was thirsting for a radical anti-government agenda. That misinterpretation of the public mood was fuelled by 9/11 and its aftermath when Bush benefited from the largest and longest “rally effect” the US presidency has ever seen. In effect, Bush took it as a licence to ignore public opinion and pursue the agenda dearest to his heart, the hard-right agenda of the base of the Republican party.
This is a bizarre strategy for a party that wants to build a new majority in the mode of William McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt 100 years ago. Usually, majority-building involves moving towards the centre, not hard right (or left) to pick up moderates and independents. Instead, the Bush team seems intent on firing up its most resolute partisans and assuming that the rest of the voters they need will just follow.
This approach is oddly misguided, given what we know of the leanings of independent voters – the true centre of US politics. Recent opinion data shows clearly that the political views of Democrats and independents (two thirds of the electorate) are converging and pulling away from the Republicans. Democrats and independents are converging in their declining support for an aggressive foreign policy, in their increasingly sceptical attitude towards business and in their increasingly liberal and relatively secular social attitudes. In each case, they hold views much closer to one another than to Republicans.
Some argue that the real divide in the US is cultural. There is modern, secular, socially liberal “blue” America and there is traditional, religious, socially conservative “red” America and that is what political conflict in America is now about. A cultural war has replaced the struggle between economic interests. This is an exaggeration. Conflict around traditional policy issues remains intense. And political divisions by income, occupation and education are still a central part of the political landscape.
However, it is true that cultural divisions are also a key driver of voting behaviour. In the presidential election of 2000, whether a voter owned a gun and how often he or she attended church were good predictors of how that person cast their ballot. According to exit polls, Bush won the support of voters who said they attended church more than weekly by 63 per cent to 36 per cent, and voters who said they attended church weekly by 57 per cent to 40 per cent. These voters made up 43 per cent of the electorate, according to opinion polls.
What makes less sense is the idea that these cultural divisions favour the maintenance of a 50:50 nation or, still less, somehow favour the Republicans. Delving into the church attendance example, start with the point that the exit poll estimate that 43 per cent of US voters attend church weekly or more than weekly is too high, according to more reliable sociological surveys of church attendance. Move on to the fact that the groups in the less observant three fifths of voters in the exit polls – those who said they attended church a few times a month, a few times a year or never – preferred Gore over Bush, with support particularly strong among never-attenders, who gave Gore a 61 to 32 per cent margin.
Most critically, in surveys conducted over the last 30 years, it is the ranks of non-churchgoers that have grown the most. Those who said they never attended church or attended less than once a year grew from 18 per cent in 1972 to 30 per cent in 1998. This group is about twice the size of those who identify themselves as members of the religious right, and tends vigorously to support Democrats.
Much the same story could be told about other cultural divisions separating red and blue America: abortion rights, attitudes towards sexuality, women’s rights and feminism, civil rights and ethnic diversity and gay rights. The trend over time is towards more liberal views on all these issues, so the influence of vociferous opponents will wane and the influence of supporters will increase. Cultural divisions are not a stable basis for a 50:50 nation or a new Republican majority. They signal instead a Democratic majority that accepts and builds on these social changes.
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Click here to read the entire article.

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article today by John Harwood and Jacob Schlesinger titled “Kerry Finds Himself in Enviable Position” with the subtitle “Democrat Begins Big Race with Party Unity, a Positive Image and Lead over Bush in the Polls”. It’s worth reading just to remind yourself how exceptionally well the primary process has worked out for the Democrats.
In the article, Democratic pollster Paul Maslin remarks about the shape Kerry is in at this point:
I don’t think there’s ever been anyone healthier.
Democratic pollster Geoff Garin adds:
You probably have to go back more than 50 years to find a nominating process less divisive. There is no meaningful group of disaffected Democrats coming out of this process.
And conservative, but always fair-minded, opinion analyst Karlyn Bowman summarizes:
It is rare that a primary campaign strengthens the nominee. This campaign has clearly done that.
The article also provides some useful data on where recent presidential races were at similar times in the election year. The most striking datum is from 1992, when Clinton was trailing Bush 50 percent to 44 percent in an early March Gallup poll and losing about one-quarter of Democratic voters to George H.W. Bush. In contrast, Kerry is ahead of the current George Bush 51 percent to 46 percent and is losing only 7 percent of Democratic voters to his Republican opponent.
Party unity. It’s a wonderful thing.
But it’s not just that Democrats are more united than many thought they’d be–there’s also more of ’em. This is the trend I’ve written about quite a bit: the return of the Democratic advantage on party ID. Significant numbers of voters are rethinking the wisdom of being Republicans and switching (or switching back) to being Democrats. Of course, most of us were Democrats before it was cool, but we certainly welcome the newcomers (or returnees, as the case may be).
Here are some recent data that confirm the emergence of this trend. According to the Harris Poll, the Democrats averaged a 5 point lead on party ID over the course of last year, a 2 point gain over 2002. And a just-released Kaiser Family Foundation poll gives the Democrats an 8 point lead in party ID, before leaners are factored in. With leaners factored in the Democrats have a nice 10 point lead in party ID, 47 percent to 37 percent.
And here’s a related shocker: in the same poll, 28 percent say they’re liberals, compared to 35 percent who say they’re conservatives. Pretty close! Now this result probably has something to do with the way Kaiser asks the ideology question:
Would you say your views in most political matters are very liberal, somewhat liberal, moderate, somewhat conservative or very conservative?
Possibly what’s going on here is that being able to say you’re “somewhat liberal” instead of just “liberal” leads a number of moderates who actually are fairly liberal, but are normally afraid liberal really means “very liberal”, to accept the liberal label. Interesting, if true.
Which leads me to say: Closet liberals, we don’t care if you’re only “somewhat” liberal! We’ll take everyone we can get.

Well, the voters have spoken: Kerry’s the one. And they’re probably right. On balance, Kerry was–is–the best candidate of those available. Richard Gephardt was old news and would have been chopped up for his positions on tax cuts and health care. Howard Dean was an undisciplined campaigner who was easy to typecast as being too extreme. Wes Clark was not ready for prime time. And John Edwards lacked the gravitas, experience and national security street cred to beat Bush.
So that leaves John Kerry. And that’s what we got. I agree with Josh Marshall: Kerry is a very solid candidate and he will–very importantly–not give up on beating Bush until the last dog dies. The guy’s a fighter and we’re going to need that in this election. Someone who fades down the stretch would be disastrous. Kerry won’t.
What should we do now? Get and wear your Kerry buttons, sign up as volunteers, etc. And (very important!) send money. As LiberalOasis argues, the “$100 revolution” started by Howard Dean shouldn’t stop; it should continue as Kerry faces off against Bush. Kerry needs both the money and the type of grassroots politics those small donations promote. Click here to make your contribution. (I did!)
What should Kerry do now? I had some advice for him awhile ago that still seems reasonable. And my post from yesterday tells him what his target should be: independent voters, who are ripe for the picking. Democrats and Republicans are likely to be about equally polarized for their candidates, so it’s up to the independents. Think of it as the national equivalent to the Ohio test. Just as Kerry is very likely to win the election if he can win Ohio, so is he very likely to win the election if he can win independents nationally.
In 1992, Clinton won independents by 6 points and in 1996 he carried them by 8 points. Kerry doesn’t need to win by that much. A couple of points should be more than adequate. Given how fed up independent voters seem with Bush these days, that hardly seems an insurmountable obstacle.