Comments on: Would Gephardt have won ?

By: Adam Kotsko

Adam Kotsko — Sat, 06 Nov 2004 03:18:50 +0000

Or here’s another counterfactual—would Bono have won?! I know he’s not a citizen, but just pretend.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Fri, 05 Nov 2004 00:45:01 +0000

A couple of thoughts, from a non-Democrat midwesterner: 1. As noted above, Gephardt has never run statewide in MO. He wouldn’t have helped carry MO, a state that is now firmly and reliably Republican. (How Republican? So Republican that a 33-year non-entity, a man who looks like he’s in high school and who is scared to speak publicly, is now the governor-elect.) Kerry wasn’t going to carry MO. 2. But Gephardt would have hurt. How did John Edwards help? Is there any evidence anywhere that he did? Heck, even Vilsack might have been more useful. At least, I could think of scenarios where his support would be useful, even if in the end IA didn’t matter. 3. “angry moderate” reveals a lot about the Democratic party. The Republican party is a coalition, and very few get everything they want. For example, think of all those foes of gay marriage and of abortion who turned out in OH. Kind of remind you of Pat Buchanan? Do you think that maybe they’re not crazy about the war in Iraq? You’d probably be right. Similarly, the Wall Streeters aren’t particularly worked up about gay marriage. It’s a coalition. Is there anything in “angry moderates” platform that he’d be willing to throw overboard? If not, feel comfortable where you are, because you’re likely to be there awhile.

By: Cryptic Ned

Cryptic Ned — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 21:40:56 +0000

I don’t think Gephardt would have had any chance of delivering Missouri for the ticket. He isn’t a Senator, he’s the Representative from part of St. Louis. I don’t think he’s ever run for statewide office. It’s a completely different situation from somebody who’s been building up supporters statewide for decades. He’s probably viewed as the liberal extreme of Missouri politics. Plus, he has no eyebrows.

By: roger

roger — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 21:02:38 +0000

Oops, lot of mis-typings there. Sorry.

By: roger

roger — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 20:55:49 +0000

“angry Moderate:You are the problem with the Dem party. Unless you can make sure the livelihood of the workers in America are protected, they will never vote for you. They will vote on social issues instead. Why shouldn’t they?” Well, hmm, let’s think of some reasons. Perhaps because the people who are the most enthusiastic about free trade have bwen the Republicans? And perhaps because they’ve publicized this fact? And perhaps because the imnpoverished who you mention can, actually, read. So they know who got the tax breaks. THey know perfectly well where the money is going. And they have been operating like classic free-riders. That is, using a social welfare system that they can depend on to be defended by the people they vote against because of the ‘values” issue. To defend this behavior, you first have to remove agency and intelligence from the class you are defending. In other countries that have social welfare systems, it is true, there are party/union organizations that defend them, while in this country the unions have been cut to naught. That still doesn’t address just what values the workers are voting for. What were they again? I forget. Wasn’t it extending the blessing of liberty and civil rights to their fellow men and women, regardless of sexual preference? Oh, sorry. That was the opporessive free traders. They were defending making civil unions legally null and void. A real display of the Internationale spirit, there.

By: angry moderate

angry moderate — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 20:37:15 +0000

Angry Moderate:You are the problem with the Dem party. Unless you can make sure the livelihood of the workers in America are protected, they will never vote for you. They will vote on social issues instead. Why shouldn’t they? And you wonder why Dems lose elections? Improverishing one set of people to (supposedly help another group of people and I could argue with you on this-read One Market Under God or Wealth and Democracy) is a morally bankrupt and stupid idea and rightly deserves the contempt of the working class voter. I’m glad that you get to redistribute any wealth we middle-class Americans have built up on our own, what makes you any different from King George? Please leave our party and take DeLong with you

By: roger

roger — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 17:31:53 +0000

Jet—check out the civil unions legislation passed in Ohio. This is the first election, I’d say, since the Civil War to be won on promising less freedom for a selected group of people. I couldn’t stand Reagan’s politics, but he did appeal—as has every Republican and Democratic president—to expanding freedom (making more money, defeating Communism, etc.) While he might have played with segregationist fire, he never tried to repeal the Civil Rights acts. This president appealed to restricting people’s freedom—moreover, going across state lines and restricting people’s freedom. That hasn’t happened since the Fugitive Slave Act. Yeah, this was a different presidential race.

By: Angry Moderate

Angry Moderate — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 14:52:24 +0000

This is exactly one of those questions that needs to be asked. And not just counter-factually about 2004, but very pragmatically about 2008. After all, it is not Gephardt who is the likely nominee in 2004, but Edwards; it is not Gephardt who mobilized protectionist rhetoric most effectively in 2004, but Edwards. Should we cosmopolitans abandon the Rubin/Summers/DeLong, etc. orthodoxy on free trade, which for many of us cosmopolitans is not rooted so much in arguments about economic efficiency, but rather in the moral necessity of keeping the American market open to horrifically impoverished developing economies, since that appears the only way we’ve seen for such economies to grow (and yes, it’s worked in a distressingly small number of cases but does appear to be working now for 2 countries with over 1/3 of the world’s poor). Should we give this up? I don’t know, but if we want the Democratic coalition to include a sizable percent of the white working class – more specifically, whites without a college degree – we have to give them SOMETHING they want, and something the Republicans are not giving them. We think we’re giving them the New Deal programs, but those are now taken for granted, or they don’t believe Democrats will protect them any more than republicans (as unions weren’t protected). Protectionism clearly is something with broad appeal to this section of voters; it’s still there for the taking; and Edwards has shown he can talk that language. Should we cosmpolitans support this? Accept it? Tolerate it? I don’t know, but we cosmopolitans also do not want the US to pursue an actively imperialist foreign policy. We don’t want it to wreck the international order established by Roosevelt and Truman. And we have to face that fact that American is an extremely nationist country, dangerously so since 9/11. It was that nationalism that put Bush over the top despite great concerns over the incompetent way in which he has pursued his goals. The Democrats face a great nationalism deficit. We cosmpolitans do not want to have to appeal to nationalism, because we’re anti-nationalist; and for many, many good reasons. But it the choice is between adopting a nationalist idiom through protectionism or through imperialism, which do we choose? If that’s the choice…

By: Cranky Observer

Cranky Observer — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 14:33:27 +0000

You would need to talk to some people who live in Missouri. Gephardt is reasonably well-respected statewide, for a flag-burning liberal, and liked in some areas of the City of St. Louis. But the reaction of every Missourian I talked too – liberal or conservative, Demo or Repub – to the news that Gephardt was going to run again was laughter. He is basically a 1950s machine Democrat who has survived into the oughts. Problem being there is no longer a machine or a union base to support him. Cranky

By: Ken Houghton

Ken Houghton — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 13:41:57 +0000

Thank you. I was about to send a note saying that I plan to go around for the next four years saying the Dems don’t appeal to worker and small businessmen who make more than $100K a year, and then fully expect Kieran and Eszter to come all over themselves talking about how I was a Visionary. And since Tyler Cowen has now confirmed that the “populist concern for limitations” cited by Russell Arban Fox above are accurate (http://tinyurl.com/43874), the Dems should work in areas where the memes already run near their favor.

By: jet

jet — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 13:00:24 +0000

Okay, I think I’m missing something. How exactly has the US turned into a religious theocracy in the last 2 days? Public funding of religious charity organizations and a lot of political rhetoric. That’s what you are basing your decision on. When the laws concerning morality start getting more repressive than they were 15 years ago, maybe then you should start worrying. But so far, there is no evidence that the sky is falling. But then again, maybe I’m missing something.

By: Russell Arben Fox

Russell Arben Fox — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 12:43:56 +0000

You miss out on one potentially important consideration: protectionism and the religious values so common throughout the red states share a populist concern for limitations. The former says there are only so many jobs, so much opportunity, so much wealth to go around, and so we owe it to ourselves to hold onto it, distribute it fairly, and respect (and protect) those working people who have carved out a little economic space for themselves. The latter says there is only so much diversity and so many choices that God can tolerate; beyond a certain point, we’ve got to be able to hold to our identity and submit to divine law. To a person whose vision of both the economy and the moral life is truly open-ended, both of these positions are anathema. But to a working-class Catholic in St. Louis, or a rural Baptist in Arkansas, they go together, even if not one in a hundred could articulate them this way. (See Christopher Lasch for more of this.) Gephardt knows this language, because it’s his; he respects it, and has voted in accordance with it all his life (trade, partial-birth abortion, the works). It’s not a rigorous philosophy, it’s filled with flip-flops and inconsistencies and is easily mocked. But it could have pulled in for Gephardt some thousands of white Christian voters in Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, West Virginia and Arkansas. That would have made all the difference.

By: Russell Arben Fox

Russell Arben Fox — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 12:42:55 +0000

You miss out on one potentially important consideration: protectionism and the religious values so common throughout the red states share a populist concern for limitations. The former says there are only so many jobs, so much opportunity, so much wealth to go around, and so we owe it to ourselves to hold onto it, distribute it fairly, and respect (and protect) those working people who have carved out a little economic space for themselves. The latter says there is only so much diversity and so many choices that God can tolerate; beyond a certain point, we’ve got to be able to hold to our identity and submit to divine law. To a person whose vision of both the economy and the moral life is truly open-ended, both of these positions are anathema. But to a working-class Catholic in St. Louis, or a rural Baptist in Arkansas, they go together, even if not one in a hundred could articulate them this way. (See Christopher Lasch for more of this.) Gephardt knows this language, because it’s his; he respects it, and has voted in accordance with it all his life (trade, partial-birth abortion, the works). It’s not a rigorous philosophy, it’s filled with flip-flops and inconsistencies and is easily mocked. But it could pulled in for Gephardt some thousands of white Christian voters in Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, West Virginia and Arkansas. That would have made all the difference.

By: John

John — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 12:37:29 +0000

I’m starting to lean towards that viewpoint too. Well, my military service continues until 2007, so I’m onboard the sinking ship at least until then. Hopefully after that I can hide out in my home state of Illinois for 4 more years before taking two bachelors degrees and 7 years of military experience up to Canada to see if they have a place for me.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 11:55:17 +0000

Rove was able to make Kerry look like a flip-flopper. Imagine what he could have doen witha real one like Gephardt. Gephardt’s policies would have been one thing, but Gephardt the man has serious limitations.