Not Your Father’s Democrats
Consider the Chevrolet Caprice. In the mid-1980s, according to a recent news story, General Motors decided to continue making this bulky sedan instead of phasing it out in favor of smaller, more fuel-efficient models.
The company decided to update the Caprice, however. According to an industry analyst, “What they did was take the old Caprice, put it on a computer screen and wrap a new skin around it.” GM designers loved the car.
But consumers who were asked to evaluate the prototype were not so impressed. They thought it was ugly. GM ignored
the criticisms. Modifying the design would have been too expensive. Anyway, designers are supposed to know what consumers really want.
The new Caprice was introduced at the end of 1990. Sales in 1991 were half of what had been projected. The car is selling even more slowly this year. The Caprice, known to car buffs as “the beast,” is probably the ugliest automobile ever made. And it is one of the biggest flops in automotive history. GM, which lost $7.5 billion on its North American operations last year, is planning to shut down 21 factories by 1995, including one of the two making the Caprice.
Now consider the Democratic Party. It is the GM of American politics. For years, it has been making things that nobody wants. But it is so big, so old and so inflexible that it can’t adapt to the marketplace. It keeps putting up candidates that the party believes in (Walter F. Mondale, Michael S. Dukakis). But the voters are not so impressed. The party ignores them, however. After all, smart Democratic operatives are supposed to know what voters really want.
Thus the big issue facing the Democratic Party this week as it convenes to nominate its 1992 ticket: Is Bill Clinton the sleek, efficient, sporty new model the voters will find irresistible? Or is he the Democratic Party’s latest Caprice?
What voters are looking for this year is change. The Democrats claim to have a shiny new model, but the voters are not convinced it’s any different. What the Democrats will be trying to say at their convention is, “Take another look. We are not who you think we are.” They might do well to borrow one of GM’s recent advertising slogans: “This is not your father’s Democratic Party.”
Clinton is hoping the convention will persuade voters to take another look at him, too. The first time they took a look at Clinton was during the New Hampshire primary campaign. That’s when the sex, drugs and draft stories came out. A lot of voters concluded, “Another politician, another sleazebag.”
No sooner did that happen than Clinton was faced with another problem. He was trying to position himself as the new model Democrat. He pitched his message to the “forgotten middle class.” He talked about more personal responsibility and less government responsibility. He supported the Gulf War. He favored welfare reform and the death penalty.
So what happened? Paul E. Tsongas won in New Hampshire, and he turned out to be a more authentic centrist than Clinton. Tsongas ended up getting the young, affluent, suburban, independent vote that Clinton coveted. To defeat Tsongas, Clinton had to mobilize the party base--union voters, minorities, poor people and old people--by promising tax cuts and spending programs. Clinton ended up looking like the son of Mondale. A lot of voters concluded, “Another Democrat, another taxer-and-spender.”
Clinton beat Tsongas. The sleazebag rap didn’t keep him from winning the nomination. But he is not out of trouble. He will have to face both problems again in the general election. The Republicans say they are going to run against him on “values.” The implication is: Clinton’s a sleazebag.
Ross Perot will come at Clinton from another direction. He’ll say Clinton is part of the political Establishment that got us into this mess. He has already dismissed Clinton’s economic program. Perot will say Clinton is too much of a politician and a compromiser to get anything done. The implication is: Clinton’s a Democrat.
That’s Clinton’s dilemma. He has to compete with Bush on values and compete with Perot as a problem-solver.
Can he do it? He sure intends to try, starting with the convention. The party platform, for instance, is filled with un-Democratic-sounding sentences like this one on family values: “Governments don’t raise children, people do.” It has problem-solving buzzwords like “entrepreneurial economics” and “market forces.” It calls for “more decentralized, more flexible and more accountable” government. It abandons the middle-class tax cut.
But the platform also calls for higher taxes on the wealthy and on corporations. It endorses higher spending on education, health care, transportation and the environment. It talks about a “Rebuild America Fund” to stimulate investment. In his economic plan, Clinton advocates $200 billion in new government spending for public works and infrastructure. He also calls for more than $50 billion in additional defense cuts. A lot of people are going to say, “What they did was take the old Democratic Party, put it on a computer screen and wrap a new skin around it.”
Can the Democrats use the convention to make their party look fresh and new? Party conventions have become as ritualized as Kabuki theater. Rolls will be called. Speeches will go on and on. Quayle’s spelling will be ridiculed. Balloons will drop. After all, the Democratic Party is 200 years old. It’s hard to teach a 200-year-old donkey new tricks.
Nonetheless, they are determined to try. A lot of ordinary people will be featured on the program--unemployed workers, small-business owners, people without health insurance, working women, retirees, even a person with AIDS. There will be fewer middle-aged white men in suits. That’s important, because Clinton-Gore looks like the all-Yuppie ticket. Of the 54 scheduled convention speakers, 20 are women and 17 are racial minorities. A multiscreen video-projection wall will be featured behind the podium. The new populism meets the new technology. Credit Perot.
The convention is critical for Clinton. He wants the voters to forget everything they heard about him in February. Clinton claims he got a bum rap from the press, that the scandalous figure portrayed in tabloids was a gross misrepresentation. Now’s his chance to correct that impression.
We’ll hear a lot about Clinton’s life story. How he struggled for everything he got. People who know him well will talk about the real Clinton, as opposed to the press’ caricature.
Clinton will try to give a deeply personal and emotional acceptance speech outlining his vision for America. That will play up the contrast with Bush. He may also try to do something he rarely does well--give voice to the anger and frustration most Americans feel about the way things are going. That will give him a leg up on Perot. Finally, he will avoid talking about 10-point programs. That will play against his own reputation as a boring policy wonk.
In his choice of Sen. Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee, as his running-mate, Clinton is also making a statement: The Democrats have changed. Clinton did not make a conciliatory gesture toward the party’s liberal wing, as Jimmy Carter did in 1976 when he picked Mondale. The 1992 ticket doesn’t have balance. It has direction.
Gore is a moderate Southerner in the Clinton mold. He is a baby boomer, which sharpens the ticket’s generational appeal and its message of change. He has an issue, the environment, that appeals to younger voters and suburbanites. He has run for President, so he has been through “the big frisk” of a presidential campaign. And he served in Vietnam, which balances Clinton--and counters Quayle.
Will the new Democratic model sell? In the end, Clinton isn’t selling anything much different from what Dukakis had to sell in 1988 (“competence, not ideology”). Nonetheless, the Democrats have reason to be optimistic. Their 1992 model is tougher and more resilient. The Republican model has lost its drawing power. There’s a third car in the field, so the results are more uncertain.
And there is evidence that over the past four years, the country’s tastes have changed. More people are looking for domestic rather than foreign models.
