From: egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Elizabeth G. Levy)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Re: THE CLINTON CABINET
Date: 15 Dec 92 19:46:09 GMT
Reply-To: egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Elizabeth G. Levy)
Organization: Columbia University

In article <738@blue.cis.pitt.edu> psg+@pitt.edu (Paul S Galvanek) writes:
>In article <1992Dec14.212440.14324@cs.wisc.edu> michaell@snake28.cs.wisc.edu (Michael Lee) writes:
>>
>>If "conservative" is the mainstream, why do Democrats now control all of the
>>federal government, and most state and local governments as well?
>
>Simply because people like Clinton run campaigns dedicated to convincing people
>that they're conservative, or moderates, whether it's true or not.  If you want
>to see what happens when straight up honest liberals run open campaigns against
>admitted conservative look at Reagan/Carter Reagan/Mondale and Bush Dukakis.
>After those race you will never again see a presidential candidate self 
>identify as a liberal.  Being honest about being a liberal is politcal suicide
>and deception works so well anyway.

Paul, please restrict yourself to about 70 characters/line, so we
can do follow-ups.  Thanks.

Let's consider local races.  Candidates have run as liberals
throughout the country, and won bigtime.  Consider Concord, CA during
the 1980s.  The city council was unabashedly liberal, and they were
able to carry a relatively conserative city for most of the decade
(then they suffered from a bit of hubris, but everyone who's been in
power for a long time is vulnerable to that.  Look at Bush.)  Congress
is controlled by Democrats (who may or may not be liberal), as are
most state houses and governorships.

One possible explanation that I believe Alan Ehrenhardt puts for thi
in _The United States of Ambition_ is that liberals and Democrats have
been able to campaign extremely effectively on the local level.  They
go into politics knowing that they want to go into government
positively, and hence have more stamina and drive.  Local Democratic
parties are extremely good at campaigning.  Liberals do not
necessarily have to hide their ideology as you suggest to get elected.
As said, consider Concord.  Local conservatives simply could not
compete with the liberal campaigners.  Further, the liberals have been
able to maintain their hold on the local level because they have been
able to do good for the community, with liberal policies.  As said,
they generally have not had to hide their stripes.

On the national level, in terms of Presidential elections, the
Democratic party, especially since '68, has been less of a national
party than a collection of local parties.  The GOP has been quite
organized at the national level, and this is one explanation for their
presidential victories.

>
>BTW you might also want to note that in this year of Clinton's "mandate"
>conservative Republicans gained more seats in Congress and made major gains
>in state legislatures.  

This is in part because of redistricting.  In New York, for instance,
we lost a couple of fairly powerful Democratic Congressmen because
they had to campaign against each other.  The projected losses in
House seats were much higher than what actually occurred.  In fact,
the R's thought they could win back a working majority in the House
(GOP & conservative Dems).  This didn't happen.

Also, did "conserative Republicans" gain their seats at the expense of
moderate Republicans?  This may be the case for some seats: the
Christian Coalition has the local level organizational skills to take
seats away from R's they don't like.




--
The insane fear of socialism throws the bourgeois headlong into the
arms of despotism.
			-- Tocqueville, 1852
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton