Elections for grown ups; we can do better

As we wait to see how high profile votes in New York City, New Jersey, and Virginia turn out on Tuesday, Philip Bump, data guru formerly of the Bezos Wapo and now out on his own at pbump.net, offers some sensible observations on the thousands of elections he has seen come and go. Professional consultants peddle their snake oil (usually promoting "moderation") to Democrats, but this is what he sees.

Politics has become nationalized and that national conversation benefits the right. So if your campaign recommendations center on meeting Americans where they are, you’re often going to be arguing for acquiescence to right-wing policies and rhetorical frames. You’re going to be agreeing to battle the right in the right’s stadium in a game where the right empowers itself to change the rules. And you’re going to reinforce the idea that Democrats don’t have core beliefs of their own.

Zohran Mamdani

What if, instead, Democrats ran on what they believe in, in terms that sincerely reflect those beliefs? There’s still the problem of the national environment and its accompanying media universe, but by taking this approach candidates can at least better avoid charges that they’re simply pandering or using poll-tested rhetoric. Sincerity can be an affect, certainly, but it’s a lot easier to come off as sincere if you’re actually sincere.

Advocates for following public opinion polling might counter that this approach means endorsing ideas that aren’t popular. 

And, yes. It sure does. But public opinion is not static. We’ve seen, even just this year, how views of major issues like immigration have shifted in response to sincere rhetoric about what’s happening. 

The job of an elected official is to represent their constituents but the job of a candidate isn’t simply to tell those constituents what they want to hear. It’s to make a case as a prospective leader, not a dutiful follower. 

Don't any of these commentators remember Obama -- a Black man forced by skin color to "run on what he believed in"? That the consultant admonition to try to soft pedal what candidates actually think the country needs keeps recurring is testament to the greed of campaign consultants and the timidity of too many Democrats running for office. 

And yet, the Republican Congress is showing itself to be even more vacuous. Do they believe in anything? Perhaps their own inflated importance, though if they don't meet, not even that.

Naturally there is room for any actor with conviction -- even if that conviction is something like "I'm a deserving imposter who wants to steal your country blind." Sigh.