You Can't Beat Policy with Politics

The Democratic strategy thus far is heavily reliant on polling, not common sense, playing politics instead of advocating clear, and appealing, policies. Daniel Henninger says that that won't work and I agree with him.
After the White House released the NIE summary late Tuesday afternoon, reporters reading it for the first time on the Web undoubtedly kept hitting the Page Down button on their PCs. This is it!? Three crummy pages that anyone could have boiled down from a Foreign Affairs "Wither Iraq?" symposium.

The Democrats' problem is this: They are trying to beat policy with politics and weaken belief with polls. This may work for Social Security. I don't think it works with war. Don't be surprised if come November, Democrats are still on message, Iraq as failure, and still in the minority.
It's telling that the Democratic Party has hitched its wagon so closely to such a nothing report. I'm guessing that they're still thinking that their media allies will carry the ball after they've made the initial allegations. For that strategy to work, they have to rely on you not thinking for yourself, instead taking the word of the NY Times, Washington Post and CBS. That strategy worked before people tied into the internet but it's an obsolete strategy now.
But at this late stage of the campaign, Iraq-as-failure has become the central narrative in the Democrats' strategy. A memo sent out to Democrats last week by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a strategy group led by former Clinton pollster Stan Greenberg, discusses Mr. Bush's "failure in Iraq, which energized Democrats and dispirited Republicans." It urges Democrats: "On Iraq, stress Bush/GOP 'mismanagement' and need for a 'new direction.'"
Not only have the Democrats hitched their electoral successes to the NIE report but they've also hitched their wagon to the hope that lots of people agree with their confusing menu of 'Get out of Iraq' policies. There's a big chance of people voting Republican because of the Democrats' increasing unseriousness on the terrorism issue. People might disagree with President Bush's Iraq war policy but they don't doubt that he's serious in fighting terrorists. The same can't be said about Democrats.


Posted Saturday, September 30, 2006 4:16 PM

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