The 'make it up as you go' Democrats

Although I am a proud Democrat -- for universal health care, against dumb wars and hopeful of what happens when we let realism instead of jingoism guide policy -- something I have never appreciated about our party is the lack of structure when it comes to campaign strategy.  Yes, I understand that our party is much more single-issue-driven than the GOP, and therefore it can be difficult to reign in support from all sides.  However, every Democratic candidate since 1980, with the exception of Bill Clinton, has not been as 'by the book' as they should have.

In 2004, John Kerry's campaign was in disarray, partly because he sought and implemented the advice of outside consultants, many of which did not even meet with his campaign staff.  One of the most notable was James Carville, who was not even on the payroll.  Not only is that a slap in the face to those that did work for Kerry, but it underscored the noticeable lack of structure as a whole.

In addition to choosing a Democratic nominee with both the ethics and progressive vision to change this country, we have to think about which ones are prone to the same faults that previous candidates failed to realize until it was too late?  And which ones are capable of stepping beyond those tendencies, running a strictly structured campaign with a charismatic vision and letting it rip.

Comments

[S.W. Anderson]

I read this twice and still am not sure what you mean by structured campaign. Democrats picked John Kerry in '04 because he had sterling credentials, the fire in his belly and struck them as electable. By any rational measure he was a good choice.

Kerry made a couple of minor missteps. Republicans, with help from their noise machine and media friends, blew those out of all proportion. The Kerry campaign compounded the damage by either failing to respond or only doing so when it was too late to do any good.

As a central strategy, Kerry and his manager decided Americans would be turned off by a strongly negative Bush-bashing campaign. That was a fatal mistake.

If you're talking about having a consistent message and staying on message, Kerry actually did well with that. Gore did fairly well, if one doesn't confuse shifting personas and styles with shifting messaage.

[Chief Editor: Todd]

Kerry definitely had a consistent message about Bush -- any candidate could have done that. But when it came to defining himself to voters, we got a different message all the time. First it was Kerry the soldier. Once Bush's people smeared him on that, instead of hold his ground, Kerry backed down. Then it was Kerry the straight-talker. Once his opponent harped on the "I voted for it before I voted against it" attack, Kerry again backed down. Then it was Kerry the hunter in Iowa....and we all know how that went. You get the idea.

When it came to defining himself and his vision for the country, his campaign did not seem as disciplined as Bush's.

[S.W. Anderson]

Reading your response, I think we're actually close together on this. What you frame as inconsistency, I have down as missteps (e.g. the hunting stunt) and failure to respond quickly and strongly to attacks.

[Chief Editor: Todd]

Yeah, very true. Maybe I should have used the word 'discipline' instead of structure or inconsistency.