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A Long Hot Summer
By Horace Cooper
August 2, 2004

The Kerry campaign faces political headwinds that make electoral success difficult and yet by all accounts the campaign is doing little to correct itself.

The United States is a nation in the midst of political realignment, and yet the Boston convention may be the culmination of a very risky political maneuver -- running an astonishingly left-wing ticket nationally.

Most political theorists suggest that political competition causes the two parties to converge on the center. Bill Clinton's New Democrat themes and George Bush's compassionate conservatism are examples of this. On the other hand, Ronald Reagan's 1980 successful challenge from the right threw this accepted wisdom out the window. Whatever the case, his election and subsequent re-election represented a sizeable rightward shift in the U.S. electorate.

Not since LBJ has an openly leftwing presidential ticket been successful. The next time a hard-left run was tried it was 1972 and George McGovern was the nominee. The results of that political fiasco led to the rise of the Democratic Leadership Council and the promotion of southern moderates within the party like Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Al Gore. But as Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis demonstrate, even the threat of losing isn't sufficient to stop the party from flirting with countercultural liberalism. And today it seems that the activist wing of the party is willing to roll the dice again.

A casual view of the convention in Boston might lead you to conclude that the centrist "new Democrat" platitudes were really taking root in the party. But platitudes can't undo a lifetime record.

The National Journal rated Kerry as the most liberal senator of 2003 and his running mate John Edwards was No. 4. Keep in mind that this Senate includes arch-liberals Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton. And rather than repudiating his leftist past, Kerry was forced during the primaries to accentuate it as a shield against progressives in the party like Howard Dean and insurgents out of the party like Ralph Nader.

Settling on this ticket is quite a gamble for the Democrats. Republicans gambled in 1980, but in Reagan's case at least the silent majority was apparently awaiting his arrival. There's no similar sign of liberal unrest in the United States. As British authors John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge demonstrate in their engaging study of U.S. politics, "The Right Nation," conservatism is the dominant philosophy in U.S. politics today.

Whether leaders in the party have abdicated their duties or are actively trying to push the party over the edge isn't clear. What is clear is that while the United States is undergoing a significant political realignment, the oldest political party in the United States has nominated a ticket significantly out of step with the beliefs of that electorate.

Consider: Nearly nine in 10 people in the United States support requiring welfare recipients to work in order to maintain eligibility. Kerry has voted consistently to oppose this measure.

Three quarters of Americans say that religious organizations should be allowed to participate in taxpayer anti-poverty programs. Kerry disagrees.

Even though a staggering 85 percent of voters say that a criminal should be punished for killing both a pregnant woman and her unborn child, Kerry refuses to budge from the NARAL-Pro Choice America view. And while 91 percent of Americans see no problem with keeping the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, Kerry sides with the ACLU in opposition.

And even on seemingly well settled issues, this ticket is out of step with the political mainstream. Take capital punishment. If there is a capital punishment reform afoot in the United States it is more likely to expand its application to states like Massachusetts and New York rather than to restrict it.

After a lifetime career of opposing the death penalty, Kerry can only muster belated support for the death penalty for terrorists like Osama bin Laden.

Being saddled with this record is more than even a battle-tested war hero can overcome. With a lifetime Americans for Democratic Action rating of 92, his record is more liberal than either Mondale, Dukakis or McGovern. And while many Americans may disagree with specific Bush administration policies, the differences in many instances can be transcended. This just isn't so with the Democrat ticket of 2004.

Ironically, Democrats and their handmaidens in the East Coast media argue that the party is in its strongest position in decades. As former Majority Leader Dick Armey used to say, "You can't be that wrong by accident." Despite assertions to the contrary, Kerry's party is not united. Survey after survey reveals that Republicans are solidly behind George Bush winning nearly nine out of 10 of their votes.

Kerry's support is significantly less committed with an average of only two-thirds of self-described Democrats on board. And tellingly barely 50 percent of Democrats confidently predict that Kerry will win in November. Also, just under half of the Democrats say that the party does a poor or fair job standing up for its traditional positions on such things as helping minorities, the poor and representing working people.

When you're an insurgent ticket running against the mainstream, it is essential that you keep your core supporters on board. And it's especially true as the Democrat registration has shrank. In many of the key battleground states GOP registration is steadily surpassing the Democrats and nationally the GOP is clearly the party on the move in terms of growth.

Even in 1980 this ticket's agenda would have been out of sync with the center. But notably, the United States today marches onward in a rightward shift that makes such truculence more than just risky; it approaches destructive.

Consider: today's political consensus recognizes that incentives matter; that markets work; that teacher testing and accountability are necessary education reforms; that time limits for welfare are essential, that the "era of big government is over" and that severe punishment reduces or eliminates criminal behavior.

Today's Democrats don't just disagree with this consensus; the Boston ticket turns the "agree to disagree" principle on its head. But such effrontery is politically costly as it was in 2002 in Georgia, Missouri and Minnesota. In each case the out of step leftist was defeated by his more conservative GOP opponent.

Any party's ticket which embraces needle exchange programs, expresses a remarkable level of ambivalence about the exercise of U.S. military might in an age of global terrorism, and is stridently hostile to issues involving faith will have significant hurdles in its quest for electoral success.

Post-election analysis will likely confirm that this year's campaign was stillborn before it ever began. Slapping on a uniform and talking tough about the war on terrorism is barely a pretense of centrism. This year's Presidential ticket represents a sharp veer to the left and has marginalized its prospects for success and may in fact hasten the realignment already underway.

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.