Is Moderation Necessary?

In an article for the American Prospect, Scott Winship weighs in on the debate over whether the "netroots" (i.e. liberal bloggers and activists) are ideologues intent driving the Democratic party leftward or pragmatists intent on helping the party win. Winship writes:

Reading the major blogs oriented toward the netroots
community, it is difficult to discern issue priorities or positions
that are shared and emphasized by a strong majority of
netroots members, with two important exceptions to which I
will return later. In this sense, the netroots really are
non-ideological. Moulitsas and others have repeatedly described
themselves as primarily concerned with winning and building a
majority. Hence, they will generally support relatively moderate
candidates in red states. Their only litmus test, they claim, is
that Democrats must not shy away from or undermine the party.

That pretty much squares with my sense of what animates the netroots, and it flies squarely in the face of know-nothings like David Brooks and Marshall Wittman who insist that the liberal bloggers are a bunch of far-left "McGovernites with modems."

Winship then describes the two "exceptions":

As noted, while the Pew data indicates that the netroots is
almost uniformly liberal, there are few specific issues that
serve as ideological litmus tests. However, the more time one
spends on the major community-oriented political blogs, the
more clearly two shared orientations emerge: opposition to the
Iraq War and to the ongoing occupation, and a pervasive
populism expressed in both their attitude toward economics and
their grassroots, anti-establishment orientation. These two
characteristics go a long way toward clarifying the patterns of
support and opposition the netroots display toward Democratic
politicians and candidates.

I think this is generally right as well, though totally unremarkable. Having a populist (as opposed to corporatist) economic outlook is pretty much the defining feature of modern liberalism. Pretty much anyone who is even a potential democratic voter subscribes to this ideology. As for Iraq, I'd argue it has less to do with ideology and more to do with a willingness to face reality. To avoid the wrath of the netroots, all you have to do is admit that our current policy in Iraq isn't working and concede that maybe it wasn't such a great idea to invade Iraq in the first place. At this point, most serious people should be able to meet this very modest "litmus test."

Toward the end of the article, Winship raises an important question (though I think he gets the answer wrong):

And here, finally, is where the ideological nature of the netroots
becomes crucial to understand. The netroots generally believe
that down the line, the progressive agenda is fully compatible
with winning presidential elections and achieving and maintaining
a congressional majority. Indeed, many in the netroots doubt that
ideology is important at all, believing that campaign tactics,
messaging, and political discipline and backbone count for much
more than issue positions. Of course, if that were true, there
would be no need to run moderate candidates in red states.

This really is the crux of the debate between the netroots and the DLC types. And I think the netroots has this one right. It's not that positions on issues don't matter at all, it's that they matter far less than conventional wisdom would have us believe. The DLC types are convinced that in order to win, Democrats must stake out the illusive ideological center. As a result, they are engaged in a perpetual quest to find the perfect centrist position all the issues of the day.

But this approach makes a number of dubious assumptions. First, it assumes that people's opinions are generally static, that whatever the "center" is today will more or less be the center tomorrow and the day after that. But as the GOP has demonstrated over and over again, public opinion is highly dynamic and volatile. There are any number of ways to turn a fringe position into a mainstream one in a very short period of time.

The second dubious assumption the DLCers make is that people actually have coherent ideological views. They generally don't. Most people hold an idiosyncratic collection of views, some conservative, some liberal, some neither. Swing voters are not a homogeneous group. In other words, they don't swing because they are in the "center". They swing because of their perceptions about the character of the candidates or because one particular issue suddenly became more important to them than others.

The Republicans don't win by endorsing a platform of positions each designed to appeal to a majority of people. Any number of planks on the Republican platform are extreme and would never garner majority support on their own. But through selective emphasis, focus on character, and general framing of issues, the Republicans still manage to win. And they've done so without ever trying to move to the center.

What Republicans long ago realized is that voters don't vote for a platform. They often vote for a person. Sometimes they vote for a single issue. But generally, they have little understanding of the parties' platforms and aren't all that interested in policy. Republicans understand this and try their hardest to turn elections into referendums on someone's character or on a single hot button issue.

Meanwhile, Democratic strategists spend all their time tweaking the party's platform, trying to make every position perfectly moderate. The fact is, there is more than enough red meat in the progressive agenda to sell to America. So rather than trying to jettison any position that isn't approved of by over 50% of the country, Democrats need to spend a lot more time on the art of politics, on framing and selective emphasis. They need to spend less time studying Republican positions and more time studying Republican strategy.

This, in a nutshell, is what the "netroots" is trying to accomplish. It really isn't about ideology.