Michael Tomasky's theory that the Democrats lose because they fight campaigns on issues, as opposed to character, makes a lot of sense. Presumably, the Democrats could win if they could campaign on personality the same way Republicans can.

http://www.prospect.org/web/printfriendly-view.ww?id=8490

So why can't the Democrats campaign on character? One reason the last two Democratic presidential nominees - Gore and Kerry - couldn't run on character was that they couldn't use their own biographies as explanations for their policy stances.

Gore and Kerry come from privileged backgrounds, they can't say "I want to help the needy because I and my family were once needy ourselves." To some people, their concern for the less well off must smack of condescension. Thus, their characters/biographies don't drive their political ideologies.

"Liberal" is a pejorative in American politics, but the term has a class meaning. To many non-Democrats, the word implies upper-class know-it-allism. For some reason, a working class person who is pro-union, pro-universal health care isn't a liberal, an actor or writer with the same stances is. (don't believe me? Do a Lexis-Nexis search, the expression "blue collar (or working class) liberal" is almost never used. "blue collar (or working class) conservative" does come up)

I think this goes a little way towards explaining the success of Bill Clinton. Clinton was born poor, so the "liberal" label was a little less damaging to him. The label didn't really stick to John Edwards or Dick Gephardt either.

- posted by jsbennett70 @ 1:35 PM