You've heard about the tea party.
Now you're hearing about the occupy Wall Street group.
Both have garnered more publicity than they deserve in my view, but that's what national broadcast media gravitates to: a good visual and people angry at the government. It's an easy, uncomplicated story and it gets ratings.
Ultimately, though, I think the same people who've influenced and in fact turned dozens of elections in the past will do it again in the next two years: the independents.
You won't find them at tea party rallies: (they don't go for the extreme radical stuff) and you won't find them at the occupy Wall Street stuff (they don't do much grass roots stuff, pseudo or not).
Nope. They're just average Americans, well educated, who vote for ideas instead of ideologies. They vote for people instead of political sound bites.
It's a lot like The Free Press editorial board if you ask me, but that's not the point here.
I'm no political consultant, but here's my take on how the next president will win the election. They'll appeal to independents on a number of issues as follows.
Deficit reduction long-term, bolster the economy with smart stimulus short-term. Don't take tax increases off the table, make taxes more fair at the same time. Eliminate corporate welfare to big oil as well as farmers.
Don't try to talk these folks into the idea that tax breaks for the rich will create jobs. They know a lo t of rich people, and they haven't seen them creating many jobs. There is not one iota of evidence that these folks have seen anywhere that will convince them of that fallacy and they are not the kind of people who believe a lie, even if you tell it to them 16 times.
But don't also propose ridiculous spending or regulatory ideas in the middle of one of the most prolonged worst economy in decades. Making unemployed workers a class for discrimination is just not going to fly with these folks.
Restricting Tony the Tiger as a longtime brand on cereal boxes to prevent childhood obesity is also not going to fly. It's way too liberal an idea. Besides, parents should be in charge of childhood obesity.
If anything, we should allow insurance companies to charge health insurance rates based on how many obese children in a family.
Ultimately, the independents are not going to be won over with slogans from left or right. They're smarter than that. They need meat behind the ideas. They need substance.
The party that provides it will come out on top.
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I would agree that independents have been deciding recent elections. While your description of independents, (“They're just average Americans, well educated, who vote for ideas instead of ideologies. They vote for people instead of political sound bites.”), might describe some independents, let’s be more careful here. Independents can also be persons who have less interest in politics and are therefore less informed, are thus more easily disgusted by party political disputes because they have a more superficial understanding of what is at stake, and consequently are more subject to political sound bites. This can lead to quite fickle independent voters, as shown by the vast difference between the 2008 and 2010 elections.
ReplyDeleteOne example: How many independents understood that—with the cloture rule, 60 Democrats, and 40 Republicans (voting as a block against the Democrats’ bills)—any one of four relatively conservative Democratic Senators—Landrieu, Lieberman, Lincoln, and Nelson—had the power to veto the votes of all the Democrats in the House, the votes of 59 other Democratic Senators, and the plans of a Democratic President? Without that understanding, it was easy to judge the Democrats as being ineffective. “Cornhusker Kickback” though made for an easy sound bite.
Aside: Why not write an editorial that starts with the special problem of the long term unemployed—that their livelihoods, the careers they love, and their sense of well-being are all at stake—when they are automatically excluded from consideration for a position because they haven’t worked in the field for a period of time? Then consider possible solutions to the problem. Maybe “these folks,” the independents, might then be less quick to reject an anti-discrimination law for the unemployed or at least would consider some alternative solutions to the problem.