Start Governing From The Left

One of the biggest lies that their consultants tell the Democrats is that there's some ill-defined but absolutely extant group of "middle" voters to whom the Democrats must appeal in order to win elections. For some reason, the Republicans know better than to listen to twaddle like this, but both the media and the professional election gurus constantly warn the Democrats not to act "too liberal" for fear of alienating this crucial group of "middle-of-the-road" voters.

Today's WaPo has an interesting column, indicating as clearly as possible that what the consultants know just isn't so.

The Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) surveyed more than 24,000 Americans who voted in 2006. The Internet-based survey compiled by researchers at 30 universities produced a sample that almost perfectly matched the national House election results: 54 percent of the respondents reported voting for a Democrat, while 46 percent said they voted for a Republican. The demographic characteristics of the voters surveyed also closely matched those in the 2006 national exit poll. If anything, the CCES respondents claimed they were more "independent" than those in the exit poll.

The CCES survey asked about 14 national issues: the war in Iraq (the invasion and the troops), abortion (and partial birth abortion), stem cell research, global warming, health insurance, immigration, the minimum wage, liberalism and conservatism, same-sex marriage, privatizing Social Security, affirmative action, and capital gains taxes. Not surprisingly, some of the largest differences between Democrats and Republicans were over the Iraq war. Fully 85 percent of those who voted for Democratic House candidates felt that it had been a mistake to invade Iraq, compared with only 18 percent of voters who cast ballots for Republicans.

But the divisions between the parties weren't limited to Iraq. They extended to every issue in the survey. For example, 69 percent of Democratic voters chose the most strongly pro-choice position on the issue of abortion, compared with 20 percent of Republican voters; only 16 percent of Democratic voters supported a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, while 80 percent of Republican voters did; and 91 percent of Democratic voters favored governmental action to reduce global warming, compared with 27 percent of Republican voters.

When we combined voters' answers to the 14 issue questions to form a liberal-conservative scale (answers were divided into five equivalent categories based on overall liberalism vs. conservatism), 86 percent of Democratic voters were on the liberal side of the scale while 80 percent of Republican voters were on the conservative side. Only 10 percent of all voters were in the center. The visual representation of the nation's voters isn't a nicely shaped bell, with most voters in the moderate middle. It's a sharp V.

The evidence from this survey isn't surprising; nor are the findings new. For the past three decades, the major parties and the electorate have grown more divided -- in what they think, where they live and how they vote. It may be comforting to believe our problems could be solved if only those vile politicians in Washington would learn to get along. The source of the country's division, however, is nestled much closer to home.

Alan Abramowitz is a political science professor at Emory University. Bill Bishop is a journalist in Austin who is writing a book on political segregation.

The way for Democrats to win elections is to fire up their base and to explain, in clear, forceful language, why their policies are better for Americans than those of the Republicans. The way for Democrats to win elections is to govern from the left and let Americans see what that looks like. If that means that we spend two years with the Republican President vetoing everything from health care to college aid to environmental clean-up, so be it. His party can explain that to the voters in the fall of 2008. The way for Democrats to win elections is for them to quit listening to twaddle such as that peddled by the Unity08 weenies and to start to act like Democrats.