Kevin Drum makes the case that liberals might be better off having had Kerry lose in 2004 than they would be had Kerry won and it were now 2008 under a Kerry administration beset by the same sorts of problems that we currently face.
This is an argument that pops up now and again, sometimes under the guise of ‘keeping the powder dry': we’d be better off losing, because then things would be even worse, we wouldn’t get the blame, and then we could sweep to victory in four years’ time. I hereby dub this the ‘maybe it will confuse the rabbit if we run away more’ strategy of electoral politics, and explain why it bothers me, particularly in this specific case:
- For the argument to even get off the ground, you have to make the case that Kerry would have not done measurably better than Bush. I think it is reasonable to suppose that this is false. (Supreme Court. That’s one. We could make a list.) But suppose this is true; suppose that the various problems facing the country are too big for set of liberal policies to make a meaningful difference. Then what was the argument for voting for Kerry as the Democrats wanted us to do? (Will the same hold true for Obama? All these people seem to be supporting him strongly now. If he loses, am I going to hear how great that is, because in 2012 things will really suck which will be awesome for liberals?)
- Ah, Dana, but maybe it’s a different sort of “meaningful difference.” Maybe Kerry’s presidency would have made things better, but not better enough such that a relatively uncharismatic candidate such as he would have been assured of victory as incumbent. But this is the sort of consideration that might make sense if one is a high-level Democratic party strategist, because it is easier to win elections against incumbents when the country is faltering. But Drum says “liberals”, not “high-level Democratic party strategists.”
- This is an important distinction. I am not a high-level Democratic party strategist. Nor are most pundits or Democrats or voters or Americans. The liberal agenda means bupkus to me if it doesn’t ever get enacted. I’m sure if McCain gets elected Palin will be easy to beat in 2012. I don’t really care. I am not the party.
- The argument only makes sense, of course, if one assumes that once one is elected following years of running away from the rabbit, that the reforms one would like to achieve will be achievable in an election term (or likely to lead to long-time control of the government.) I am skeptical. Moreover, I am skeptical that issues that become known as losing issues always become winners with time.
- This mild rant would not be worth the ink if it were just an attempt to find a silver lining in a Kerry loss. But it seems to be to more than that, this idea that politics for liberals should be largely a game of scoring points, like it’s an academic debate or a game of Civilization played as the Americans. It seems like it’s meant to be something that should be informing grand strategies, or something that should be a consideration for the average liberal.
I cannot describe fully the visceral reaction I have to this argument, because it’s complicated, about one-third “I can see your point….” and two-thirds “… but to endorse that point, I’d have to think we were playing a game, and we’re not, and if you think we are playing a game, then you’re in the relatively fortunate position of being personally indifferent to the outcome of the election because of the security of your station and finances, and maybe you should think about those who don’t have that luxury.”
14 comments
November 2, 2008 at 7:01 pm
blueollie
Huh? Can we get in a time machine and change things so that Kerry would have won? :)
November 2, 2008 at 7:17 pm
dana
No, of course not. (See my #5.) The danger is that it turns into an argument for not pursuing liberal ideals in the short term (vote for AUMF, keep that powder dry) in the hopes that bigger electoral victories wait if the Republicans get blamed for things going badly. That might be a good way for an operative to think, but not for the guy who wants his interests represented by the operative.
November 2, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Baaaa
Thank you! This “argument” or line of thinking has been raising its head since 2000 when it was clear that Nader was sucking up some of Gore’s support and I started hearing “well, if the Ds are out of power for a few years, then maybe the party will be energized by their time in the wilderness and come back stronger in 2004. Besides, how much damage could Bush do in just four years?” As we’ve seen, quite a bit. And, 2004 was not the great year for Dems, and I think if we were to continue down this same path for another four years…. well, I don’t even want to go there.
This line of thinking pisses me off almost as much as people wanting someone just like them to run the country. No! I want the next person to be scary-smart, and I want every one they hire to be just as scary-smart. Running a country is a big freaking job, and complex, and takes smart people. Heck, if I am having an operation, you had better believe I want the smartest, most skilled doctor working on me, not the doctor with whom I would prefer to have as company whilst ingesting fermented grain products.
Anyway, thank you for showing that I am not the only person who finds this line of thinking irritating.
And since I seem to have a firm grip on this soap box, I’ll bring up something else that has been rattling around my brain- there’s a little piece of me who knows that when the Dems manage to get the country back on the right path, people are going to go back to voting based on the “culture war” stuff rather than who makes everyone’s life better. It’s a pattern I’ve seen over and over- Dems make policies that allow for people to get well-off enough to feel like voting for Republicans.
November 3, 2008 at 3:57 am
Martin Wisse
Apart from practical objections, the idea that it’s better to have a moron as president rather than somebody at least marginally competent while the country goes to shit because it will fit your party politically and otherwise you might be blamed for these problems is just vile.
November 3, 2008 at 9:06 am
wades
Though I voted for Kerry and wanted to see him win, I was less disappointed than I might have been by his loss. Had he won in ’04, the GOPers would have spent the next 30 years banging the drum with how we lost Iraq, whereas if we’d just left ol’ George in charge everything would have come up ponies.
Also: it is kind of sweet to see the blame for outcome of Reagan’s economic policies winding up where it belongs. Probably Kerry could not have headed that off anyway.
November 3, 2008 at 9:21 am
Drew Robertson
The NPV of winning an election four years from now is close to zero. Republicans know that and act accordingly.
November 3, 2008 at 9:26 am
politicalfootball
You win by winning. I’ve heard it plausibly argued that had Al Gore won, he would have been impeached after 9-11 and we would have ended up with President Lieberman.
But I’d bet that still would have saved a few thousand American lives and a few hundred thousand Iraqi lives. (And, of course, there’s a non-negligible possibility that 9-11 wouldn’t have happened in a Gore administration.)
Or, what Martin said.
November 3, 2008 at 9:45 am
kid bitzer
“The danger is that it turns into an argument for not pursuing liberal ideals in the short term (vote for AUMF, keep that powder dry) in the hopes that bigger electoral victories wait if the Republicans get blamed for things going badly.”
yeah, that’s a crap argument.
on the other hand, i’ve got no problem with taking the advice on some issues, in some circumstances, while ignoring it in others.
if obama does not push hard for health-care, on the grounds that he wants to get re-elected, then i’ll be pissed.
on the other hand, i do not mind the fact that he has avoided picking certain fights during this election that might have hurt his chances of getting into office.
i guess what i’m saying is: yeah, the argument to defer action in order to act later is bad, as a universal argument. but it’s a *plausible* bad argument because at least sometimes the advice it gives is good advice. it would be just as bad to argue that we should always stand up for exactly what we believe, electoral consequences be damned (not that you are saying that).
this is just an area where wisdom and judgment are needed, rather than arguments with universal quantifiers in them.
at the same time, given that kerry *did* lose: i am **so** goddamn glad that the financial house of cards fell down when it did, rather than three or four months later. there is no way that bush will ever be able to extricate himself from blame for this financial crisis. four months later, it would have been blamed on obama (assuming he’ll win).
and i am **so** glad that the bush administration has signed onto deadlines and timetables for withdrawal from iraq. in the same way, it gives obama a free hand to wind it down, and those who want to complain about ‘losing’ iraq will have to face the fact that bush had already lost it.
hilzoy has a smart post, following spackerman, which argues that this is the best reason to keep on bob gates at defense: let the republican wind down the iraq war. he has the confidence of the military leaders, as it happens. and he and his party will continue to take the rap for the actual troop pull-outs. (‘take the rap’ among the wingers inclined to think it is a tragedy, that is.)
November 3, 2008 at 9:55 am
bitchphd
The thing I love best about this kind of argument is that you can just extend it ad infinitum. It’s a good thing Kerry didn’t win–and it might be an *even better* thing if Obama doesn’t win, given that the economy’s in the shitter and it might be pretty difficult to fix–and hey, there’ll probably be some imperfections in another four years, so it’ll be a good thing if we let Palin win that one…..
It’s the sort of “I’ll save dessert for later” logic where you end up letting the chocolate go bad. Or the “don’t use the good china” logic where it just sits and gets dusty. Stupid.
November 3, 2008 at 10:28 am
John Emerson
The Socialist Labor Party has had dry powder continuously for 132 years. I’m not sure that they’ve ever won an election, but they’re playing a long game.
Unfortunately, baking soda has never been produced by the SLP, even though they use the Arm and Hammer logo. Armand Hammer Apparently really was named after the logo, though he never owned the baking soda company.
November 3, 2008 at 10:36 am
The Modesto Kid
Roy is chewing over the grapes just in case they turn out to be sour.
November 3, 2008 at 10:57 am
AEP
I hear this argument all the time from Democrats, but only from the gut-voters (which seems sort of ironic considering how complicated the reasoning is) who seem almost desperate for a party win. One great thing about being a historian is that you can see how people and events fit together: was it necessary to have the Great Depression in order to get the SEC or the SSA? Did WWII have to happen before higher education and home ownership created a new middle class? At first glance, it seems so. This way of thinking really screws you up! Are the fiasco in Iraq and the meltdown on Wall Street necessary for a Democratic victory? Why do we want Democrats in office anyway!? To claim the win? Or to pay attention to things like U.N. weapon proliferation reports and industry deregulation so that we can AVOID these big history-making “events.” I’m with Kid–maybe Gore would have prevented 9-11. He certainly COULD have. I’m against historical determinism: history is made by actors; actors do not merely react to events. I assume that Kerry would have seen the economic crisis coming and acted intelligently; I assume this rather than merely being grateful that this inevitable (HA!) recession happened on a Republican’s watch. I’ll vote for the progressive any day–I’d like my own history to be as disaster-free as possible!
November 3, 2008 at 11:55 am
kid bitzer
“I’m with Kid”
i think the more idiomatic phrase is:
i’m with child.
and congratulations!
November 4, 2008 at 8:02 am
JRoth
I dunno – these responses seem overwrought to me. I don’t see the claim as a strategic statement so much as an alt-history one – where would we be if Kerry had won?
Part of the reason electing Kerry seemed so critical in 2004 was that it seemed so certain that Bush’s 2nd term would be even worse than the first – among other things, it was more or less a given that he’d attack Iran. And he seemed likely to damage, if not destroy, Social Security. Instead, neither of those happened. He did replace 2 conservative Supremos with 2 more conservative Supremos. Presumably Kerry would have our troop presence drastically reduced by now. Katrina response would have been better, of course, and maybe Kerry’d handle the financial meltdown better. But I don’t think Kerry would have gotten anywhere with an active liberal agenda.
Whereas Obama, with huge Congressional majorities (that Kerry can’t be assumed to have enjoyed), seems poised to enact the most far-reaching liberal agenda since Johnson. America would, no question, be better off in 2008 had Kerry won in 2004. But I can’t say that I think the same statement will be true in 2012.
To me (and presumably to Drum), it’s easier to see how, as of 2016, we have a much more liberal America under our current path than we would have with a Kerry win. I would never argue about how to vote based on such alt-history – vote Dem down the line, every time, or the ghosts of FDR, LBJ, and Wellstone will rain fire on your head – but I don’t see why we can’t ponder such things.