Lots More Mr. Nice Guy

Yet another interesting article from The New Republic. Who knows? Maybe they're ditching the "all DLC all the time" format we've been seeing since the 2004 election. They've had some harsh words for the GOP lately, and it's long overdue.

In this piece, Noam Scheiber points out what you might call a 'Rove tactic.' By that, I mean a way of circumventing actual debate and policy discussion in favor of maudlin appeals to emotion. Sure, we've seen it over and over (and we've seen it in a big, big way during the Alito hearings), but it's good to see TNR start talking sense again.

What's going on here should be pretty obvious. The Bushies have decided to focus on character (whether the president is humble) in order to address substance (whether the war is winnable). This is hardly surprising, of course. The Bushies have excelled at nothing if not reducing substantive matters to issues of character. The question is whether it can work when it comes to public opinion on Iraq.

(. . .)the major innovation of the two Bush campaigns has been to use policy chiefly as a way to inform opinions about Bush's character. In 2000, for example, Bush's massive tax cut demonstrated he was a regular guy who trusted "the people" to make decisions about their money, while Al Gore, he claimed, wanted a bunch of overeducated Washington bureaucrats to spend it for them. Bush's proposals for education and faith-based initiatives showed that, unlike other Republicans, he was a compassionate and tolerant man. And, as my boss, Peter Beinart, has noted, Bush used Iraq to highlight his inner strength, resolution, and force of will in 2004. Bush, by making the unpopular decision to invade, demonstrated that he had these qualities. John Kerry, by criticizing the war, demonstrated that he did not.

The flaw in the Bushies' preoccupation with character is that, while you can use policies to shape voters' opinion of your character, it's much more difficult to do the reverse--use character to shape people's views of otherwise unpopular policies. The reason is that voters do, in fact, care about policy. They just don't care much about it as a hypothetical proposition--i.e., during elections. But they get very interested after elections, once it looks like the policy might affect their lives. At that point, characterological appeals fall flat. This single fact may explain why the Bushies are so good at campaigning, but so bad at governing.

It's pretty obvious stuff, but it illuminates an important point-- the hunger for power that dominates the GOP today. I wouldn't call it a must-read, but it's worth a look for the analysis of what happens when a political party devotes 90% of its time to winning and 10% to governing.

However, Scheiber should pay more attention to the fact that the last time a majority of the public supported Iraq policy was in December, 2003. That's when Hussein was captured. More than two years of of the two faces of Bush later-- the aw, shucks goober and the macho poseur-- the numbers are only getting worse.