Kaus on the Democrats' Dilemma

Mickey Kaus over at Slate has a very perceptive analysis of the institutional problems facing the Democratic Party. In response to Bill Bradley's NYT editorial calling for Democrats to work within their constituent institutions to generate new ideas or new ways to sell old ideas Kaus writes:

The problem, of course, is that the Democratic party's most stable institutional elements are also its most problematic elements: 1) unions; 2) the civil rights and Latino lobbies; 3) the senior lobby (AARP); 4) institutional feminists (NOW); 5) trial lawyers; 6) Iowa-caucus style "progressives;" and 7) Hollywood emoters.

These constituent elements of the Democrat coalition work to block any solution to national problems that would threaten their own interests, leaving the Democrats unable to respond effectively to a wide range of national issues.

Such issues are:

competitiveness, for example, or public education, or entitlement reform. If the Dems' permanent institutional base is what gets to "develop" and "hone" the ideas to be adopted by the party's presidential nominee, then the Democrats will in perpetuity be the party of union work rules, lousy teachers, mediocre schools, protectionism, racial preferences, unaffordable entitlements, amnesty for illegals and offensive rap lyrics! That winning collection gets you, what, 35%?

What the Democrats need, he argues, is a candidate willing to tell the party's institutional base to "shove it" and to fashion an appealing platform that ignores their interests.

It sounds good. Certainly the Democrats have been paralyzed by their core constituencies in recent elections, but I would argue that Kaus's prescription is unrealistic.

He looks for a decisive leader who can stand up to core constituencies and win, but the only examples he can cite are Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

These are the only two Democrats to win the Presidency since the Vietnam era, but their willingness to trample on traditional Democrat constituencies was by no means the key to their success. Both men benefited from Republican crackups. Carter was elected in the wake of Watergate and Ross Perot opened the gates for Clinton's entry into the White House. Remember, Clinton won in 1992 with only 43% of the popular vote.

And, if you look at the popular vote totals Democrats have not done markedly worse playing to their base than they did repudiating it. Al Gore and John Kerry achieved numbers pretty much the same as Bill Clinton's best effort and within a percentage point or two of Jimmy Carter.

No, the problem with the Democratic Party is structural, not institutional or ideological. Since WWII only two Democrats have won a majority of the popular vote and both times the elections were conducted under abnormal conditions [following the assassination of JFK and in the wake of Watergate]. The Democrats' best, perhaps their only, chance in 2008 is to hold their base and to hope for a Republican crackup [which is a very real possibility as Dubya tramples willy-nilly over his constituents' interests].

Note: this says nothing about 2006 where the Democrats stand an excellent chance of picking up a few seats in Congress.