People who say 'DU does not reflect Dem voters' are right. [View all]

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

But probably not in the way they mean it.

I keep seeing that statement used to attempt to proclaim that 'liberals' are 'too far left', and that the Party needs to be much farther to the 'right' to win elections. But the reality isn't a matter of 'left' or 'right'. It's a matter of what folks consider when they vote.

People who are more 'active' politically, more 'wonky', are more issue driven, and usually not 'single issue' even then, even if they strongly believe in prioritizing the issues the country faces.

But your run of the mill voter just isn't. They're not choosing who they vote for based upon some imaginary 'right-left spectrum'. They don't go to the polls and say 'I'm going to vote for the most liberal candidate' or 'I'm going to vote for the most conservative candidate'.

In large part, they first go to the polls and vote for incumbents. An incumbent, no matter how godawful they may be, has proven that they were able to get elected, which gives them a major advantage, both in primaries and generals. In the primary, no matter what they did while in office, they already can say 'I can win, I did it before'. Not to mention they're going to start off with more name recognition and probably a decent sized 'warchest' to help them outspend opponents. So it's no surprise that a Mary Landrieu can win her primary, both against more conservative or more liberal opponents. Her primary win doesn't really have much to do with her degree of 'conservativeness' or 'liberalness'. In the general, they still have several advantages - name recognition and money being the biggest ones, but they've already run the campaign before - they know what helped and what hurt.

But the people who can vote, who might vote, who will vote... Vote for a variety of reasons. Some do indeed vote on a scale of 'right vs left', but they're not the only voters out there by far, and you can't consistently win elections simply by chasing that one subset of voters. You have to also win the votes of voters who aren't wonks, who aren't activists, who aren't, in fact, largely 'issues driven'. People who vote based on personal charisma, personality, apparent confidence and competence, and all the other factors that go into the 'optics' of politics. The voters who can be drawn into voting against their own best interests by a warm smile, a line of patter about 'compassionate conservatism' or other non-issue, non-reality based reasons.

And this is where the 'We've got to run more conservative candidates in these districts/states' people simply miss the boat. They're focused solely on the 'left/right' spectrum, and don't think optics actually matters much. They think "progressives" 'can't win' because they're 'too far left', and completely ignore all of the voters who vote for reasons other than issues. But every election, voters come out and vote for people who are, on the issues, absolutely lousy in terms of representing those voters.

Why? Because those winning candidates actually cared about optics. They presented themselves as strong-willed, firm in resolve, willing to stand behind their beliefs. It doesn't matter that some of those beliefs are totally insane. They're actually willing to embrace them, and to proclaim that they'll DO something. Even if that something is going to hurt the same people who turn around and vote for them.

So sure, they'll lose the votes of 'issues voters' who disagree with them on the issues, but they'll win the votes of those voters who may disagree with them on issues, but see them as having the better 'character', not being a wishy washy type who weasels around and doesn't actually believe in the very things they say they're for.

So no, DU doesn't really reflect the voting public, not because 'We're too far left', but because we focus a lot more on issues and the 'left-right spectrum' than the average voter.