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YEAR SIX BEGINS |
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McFadden WITH US SINCE YEAR ONE |
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VOTERS OUT THERE
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Voters love the Demos,
but ignore their candidates
By CHUCK McFADDEN
of TheColumnists.com
Democrats, deck the halls. Cue the carolers. Break
out the eggnog. ‘Tis the season to be jolly. How can the
Dems be jolly after the train wreck of Nov. 2, you ask? Well,
the Democratic Party has been handed a gift during this holiday
season, ho, ho.
Here’s the gift: The Democratic Party is more popular than the Republican Party.
According to a New York Times/CBS poll taken about two weeks after the Democrats got lumps of coal in their stockings, 54 percent of those polled said they had a favorable view of the Democrats, while only 39 percent had an unfavorable view. On the Republican side, 49 percent of the respondents had a favorable view of the party and 46 percent had an unfavorable view.
The voters may have handed Dubya another four years and strengthened the GOP’s hold on both houses of Congress, but they sure do like those Democrats they just dumped on. At a five percent favorability margin, it’s not an overwhelming advantage, but the affection is there. Maybe the Republican triumphs over the beloved Democrats are a new form of tough love.
The poll had other mystifying findings. A little more than half the poll respondents said they didn’t think President Bush would ensure that Social Security benefits were going to be there for people like themselves. Most people expect Bush to appoint judges who would lean toward outlawing abortion, even though a majority of Americans favor abortion rights.
Same thing with a proposed constitutional amendment to outlaw gay marriage--most people are opposed to such an amendment, Bush campaigned in favor of it. A majority of Americans believe the country is going in the wrong direction, disapprove of the president’s handling of the war in Iraq and don’t like Bush’s handling of the economy. So let’s give him another four years.
One theory about these contradictions is that despite their misgivings over many of Bush’s policies, voters trusted him more than John Kerry to protect the country against terrorist attacks and that trumped everything else.
A second theory goes like this: “It’s the candidate, stupid.”
A great many voters in economically troubled swaths of the Midwest, who might be expected to be solidly Democratic, felt they “connected” with George W. Bush and not with John Kerry. Never mind that Kerry favored economic policies that would benefit them more than would the policies favored by the president. Bush had a down-home comfort level that raked in the votes, even though he is a multi-millionaire son of a multi-millionaire. Bush, like the Democrats, seemed to have a likeability factor that gave him victory. Why didn’t the Democrats’ likeability edge give them more votes? It’s the difference between individual, flesh-and-blood candidates vs. an abstract entity such as a political party.
Still, if people like them better and they are in a more advantageous political position on most issues, why aren’t the Democrats doing any better?
The answer is: Forget the issues. Find a candidate who “connects.”
Who’s that?
The most commonly mentioned candidate (What, you thought there would be a post-election moratorium on such speculation? Hah!) is Hilary Clinton. Smart. Knowledgeable. Respected by her senatorial colleagues. But would Sen. Clinton connect with all those voters in the Red States who worry about their guns and their Bibles? Not likely. Besides, she’s from New York, which is a turnoff for a lot of men who have gun racks in their pickup trucks. And, of course, she’s a woman. I’d bet that loses her 10 percent right there, and not just among male voters. She’d be a victim of the “There’s just something about her I don’t like” factor.
How about John Edwards? To at least some degree, he’d connect more with voters in the South and Midwest than would Sen. Clinton, but he’d have to find a way to stay in the public consciousness for the next three-and-one-half years. As a private citizen, he won’t have a platform to make it any easier. His wife has breast cancer, and he will spend a great deal of time being supportive of her. Most likely course of action for Edwards: Make the rubber-chicken rounds, collect political chits, watch for your opportunities and see what happens.
Evan Bayh, former governor of Indiana and now senator: A new face. Midwesterner. Does he have the spark that turns voters on? Can he, would he, “connect” nationally? Well, he’s an engaging fellow who has never been known to miss a TV opportunity. He’s from a Red State but he’s not corn-pone, which in the minds of some calculating Democrats might make him more likely to win in the Midwest and South while hanging onto the West Coast and the Northeast. If he could find a cause that would get him in the media even more, he’s a possibility.
Those are three of the already most-mentioned possibilities in the commentariat. There will be more. In three years, these three could be Who? All of them are either sitting senators or former senators, and senators don’t usually do all that well in presidential elections. The last time it happened was almost 45 years ago, in 1960, when John Kennedy went from the Senate to the White House.
Anyway, Democrats, take
comfort. You’re loved, even if you’re not elected.
©2004 by Charles M. McFadden. The McFadden caricature is
©2001 by Jim Hummel. The illustrations are from IMSI's Master
Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506,
USA.
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