Not Enough to Show Up

In an opinion piece in Newsweek, titled Perception is Everything, Eleanor Clift comments that due to the fumbling of the Bush administration on several issues, scandals in congress, and the resulting low approval ratings for the Bush administration, all that may be necessary for the Democrats to sweep congress would be just to show up. “But when a party is in as much trouble as the Republicans, the Woody
Allen line takes hold: ‘Eighty percent of success is showing up.’ For
the Democrats, that may be enough.”

I tend to agree with her about the problems that the Republicans are having. In many cases, such as the ports deal, I actually agree with the Bush administration’s stance, but it is hard to see how a reasonably competent White House staff could have failed to realize that this would be massively controversial and somehow manage to handle it better. The handling of aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has also been a major disaster in itself, both on the ground and in terms of public relations.

As a moderate, I have some policy issues with the administration, but I also have some issues with the Democrats. (I’m an independent–very independent.) But what I would expect of an administration of either party is the ability to govern. The Bush administration is beginning to look rather weak on that point. But I don’t see the Democrats looking any better, and I don’t agree that it will be enough for the Democrats “just to show up.”

I believe that if John Kerry had managed to convey some sort of plan to deal with terrorism, and some sort of determination to carry it out, he would have beaten Bush in the last election. President Bush’s numbers were low then (though not as low as they are now), and people were questioning his leadership and his competence. The problem was that people also questioned whether Kerry was going to do any better, and he failed to be convincing where he needed to be. Going just on my non-scientific survey of friends and folks I talk to about politics, their question was just what would electing Kerry mean to the war on terror. He was going to use the military, though less than Bush, but how much less was not defined. He was going to use more diplomacy, but just how that worked was undefined.

I really suspect political advisors who were telling Senator Kerry to stay undefined so he couldn’t be attacked on the issue. But when you’re trying to get fearful people to swap out who is in charge, you’ve got to do more than protect yourself from criticism. You have to make them feel that you can make them safer. And politicians should be aware that, whatever someone says about priorities, terrorism can jump out to become the #1 issue in a moment.

The same thing is likely to apply in November, with an added problem–incumbency. Polls generally show that while people really despise congress, they generally like their congressman. Republicans have the majority of incumbents. To change that, some people will have to be convinced that the Democrats running in their districts will do a substantially better job. And that’s going to require something that is both substantial and is well sold, such as the Contract with America in 1994 that Swift mentions. The Democrats will have to come up with something that will bring not only their base, but new voters and those who are undecided.

Politicians should know that there are a substantial number of voters like me–independent and moderate. You can’t get our votes by scare tactics about the other side. You can’t get our votes by just showing up. We’re waiting to be convinced.

Right now, neither party is being very convincing.

UPDATE:  Added link to Eleanor Clift’s Newsweek article.