As part of his series on the "achilles heel" of the presidential candidates, John Dickerson of Slate argues that Rudy Giuliani's strategy of attacking the Democrats "risks damaging his chances in the general election by alienating moderates and independents."
Something tells me that they're not really worried about this at Giuliani headquarters.
What Dickerson is doing is recycling the age-old cliche about presidential candidates "playing to the base" in the primaries and then changing tack to appeal to "moderates and independents" in the general election.
However, the cliche desperately needs to be updated if it's going to apply to the 2008 election.
Because things have changed.
Most importantly, the partisans in both the Democratic and Republican parties have become much more ideological over the last six years. Given that Dickerson's writing about Rudy Giuliani, let's just consider the Republicans here. Republicans have become much more conservative than they were in 2008 and demand that their candidates toe the conservative line. In other words, conservatives want to hear that the Iraq War is good, torture is appropriate, global warming is a myth, the Bush administration is not conservative enough, and the Democrats are effeminate and ineffective if not treasonous.
The activist Republican base wants to try Giuliani on for size as a result of his performance during 9-11 but also have major doubts as a result of his divorces, pro-choice stance, and basic social liberalism. If Giuliani is going to maintain his 25-27% support among Republicans, he therefore needs to deepen his support among activist conservatives. And that's what Giuliani's baiting the Democrats is about. Every time Giuliani throws some red-meat to the base by bashing the Democrats, he solidifies his support with the right-wingers who already like him and makes himself more credible with other Republicans.
Otherwise, Giuliani has no chance of winning the Republican nomination.
What about appealing to moderates in the general election?
There's several reasons that's not going to happen.
First, there aren't that many people who are genuinely independent. As Matthew Dowd established while he worked in the Bush White House, most moderates and independents vote for one party most of the time and the real number of voters who have to make a decision is something like 7 or 8%.
There could be an argument for the number of independents increasing for 2008. Given the tremendous unpopularity of the Bush administration, a percentage of Republican-leaning independents might have moved over into the "undecided" category. But it's also likely that a number of formerly undecided voters have moved over to the Democratic-leaning camp. So, I'm not sure that argument pans out either.
Second, the media is heavily focused on the "consistency" and "authenticity" of presidential candidates. Of course, partisan bloggers keep a close eye on the consistency of candidates and criticize them heavily for wavering. But the mainstream media also likes consistency stories. Because such stories involve so little reflection, they're an attractive way for hard-working political reporters to punch out articles on deadline.
As a result, it's much harder for candidates to get away with changing their story line for the general election.
Not that this particularly bothers the Republicans. What the Republican Party has often done is mount smear campaigns against Democratic candidates during the general election campaigns. The Swift Boat campaign and the Willie Horton ads were vicious, hyper-partisan, and successful because they convinced enough independent voters that the Democratic candidate could not be a credible president.
It turns out that Republicans like to "appeal to the middle" by being even more viciously partisan than when they're appealing to the base.
That's one reason why Giuliani's focused on his current put-downs of the Democrats. If he wins the Republican nomination, he'll have to rev the partisanship up further.
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8 comments:
I suppose that you are referring to algore making Willie Horton a political issue?
Re-writing history seems to be a forte of the esteemed Professor.
What a quick comment!
Of course, you know that the Republicans ran the Willie Horton ad as a smear device during the 1988 campaign.
You don't really think that the GOP is going to let the 2008 campaign go without an extended effort to smear Hillary or Obama do you?
They ran an ad about it sure, but who injected the issue of Willie Horton into the race? Algore. That ad may have been fairly hard hitting, but if memory serves, it was factual, and a result of the policies implemented by Dukakis.
Smear Hillary and Obama. Sure thing. And I am sure that the Democrats would never stoop so low so as to smear a Republican.
I can hear you practically getting the vapors every time someone criticizes the Dem nominee. Oh no, they are smearing me. Kerry tried that woe is me act, and looked like a clown. Disagreeing with someone and smearing someone are drastically different.
Iraq War is good - conservatives want to hear that we are committed to seeing it through. The appropriateness of the action, from the conservative perspective is well established and not a major issue.
torture is appropriate - Conservatives, if I may continue characterising them, want to know that we're getting everything we can out of the people we have caught in the act of attempting to kill us. Since those captured do not adhere to any requirement of the Geneva Conventions, they could be summarily shot on the battle field without the soldiers incurring penalty under international law. The fact that they are alive at all is because Americans feel compelled to treat as many people humanely as possible. That includes GW and conservatives. Having said all that, interrogation, even harsh, is not necessarily torture, though the line can be extremely thin and vary by the interpretation of the observer. Conservatives are opposed to REAL torture and defining it down trivializes the experiences of people who really were tortured.
global warming is a myth - Anthropogenic Change, most likely, but conservatives, unlike libs, seem to be able to come to grips with a climate that varies greatly between decades, centuries, millenia and futher even in the absence of human influence. The existance of man does not prove man to be a causal agent.
the Bush administration is not conservative enough - Many conservatives are indeed upset at his active efforts to expand government entitlements and his lack of action on secure borders.
and the Democrats are effeminate and ineffective if not treasonous - Speaks for itself really.
the Republican Party has often done is mount smear campaigns against Democratic candidates during the general election campaigns.
Nothing says smear like using someones whining, snivelling, America-bashing against them.
ef - I like your style.
JD
Careful JD. That's bordering on homoerotic.
"First, there aren't that many people who are genuinely independent."
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3374167
Self identification by party is not a very reliable predictor either, michael. Just look at the number of people that self identify as conservative, as compared to the number that will actually admit to being liberal. Generally, the liberals self identify as moderates and centrists, or left of center, while conservatives are more than willing to identify themselves as same.
ef - No need to be careful. The esteemed Professor will use anything you say to make you into a weenie-boy, homo, racist, sexist, etc ...
JD
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