This analysis should serve as a warning to Democrat Presidential candidates like Howard Dean who still believe moving radically left is a recipe for success.
Recall Revisionism
Will the press fool Dems into taking heart from Schwarzenegger's victory?
opinionjournal.com
Saturday, October 18, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT
Having missed the magnitude of California's populist revolt, our media sages are now describing Arnold Schwarzenegger's gubernatorial landslide as a sign that there's a general anti-incumbent mood in America that threatens President Bush. Our advice to the Democratic Presidential candidates is that they heed this spin at their peril.
If there is any national political lesson out of California, it is that Democrats are delusional if they think they can win by moving left in order to mobilize and turn out their liberal base. This is precisely the strategy that Gray Davis tried in a desperate attempt to save his governorship, and it managed to sew up all of 45% of the electorate.
Governor Davis started out as a centrist, but as his and California's troubles compounded, he turned sharply leftward to gin up core supporters. To please the trial lawyers, he signed a workers' compensation "reform" bill that encourages frivolous litigation. To please Big Labor, he increased the minimum wage and signed legislation requiring even small businesses to provide health insurance or pay a tax. To please the environmentalist lobby, he approved limits on auto emissions that will make cars more expensive.
The more Mr. Davis's poll ratings dropped, the more liberal he became. Last summer he caved to the legislature and tripled the state's vehicle license fee--handing Mr. Schwarzenegger one of his best issues. And last month he bowed to Latino activists by giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.
The strategy didn't work, alienating even many centrist Democratic voters. Exit polls show that 25% of Democrats voted to oust Mr. Davis, as did half of union households. Among black voters, who comprise one of the party's most loyal constituencies, 30% voted for the recall and 23% voted Republican. Forty-one percent of Latinos also sided with the GOP. Only a tremendous degree of wishful thinking in the press could spin these results as nationwide anti-incumbent sentiment rather than see them for what they are: an utter repudiation of liberal governance.
This is a warning to Democratic Presidential candidates, most of whom have been falling for the mobilize-the-angry-left strategy. Dick Gephardt has made a huge new health care mandate his campaign centerpiece. John Kerry is attacking Howard Dean because he once thought of pruning Medicare. And every candidate has vowed to repeal some or all of the Bush tax cuts (read: raise taxes) to fund their spending proposals. Making the "rich" pay their "fair share" is all it will take, they tell us.
That sounds a lot like California Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante's recent "tough love" tax-hike platform, the one that resulted in him losing to Arnold by 17 percentage points.
The recall lesson for Dr. Dean & Co. is that tacking left to oppose President Bush is dangerous. Trade protectionism, new entitlement programs and abandoning support for the war in Iraq may well win someone the nomination. But it's not likely to win anyone the White House. If the recent voter revolts in Seattle, Alabama and now California tell us anything, it's that tax hikes are especially suicidal.
Democrats have gotten used to a friendly Fourth Estate, but they shouldn't believe everything their friends tell them. A revolt against liberal policies, not some general anti-incumbent wave, defeated Gray Davis. The press doesn't do Democrats any favors by pretending otherwise. |
