The Democrats
To the Editor:
Joshua Muravchik’s analysis of the 2004 election makes a good deal of sense, but I disagree with his suggestion that the endorsement of “liberalism” has spelled defeat for Democratic presidential candidates going back to 1980 [“Why the Democrats Keep Losing,” January]. Matters are more complicated than that.
For example, what undid Jimmy Carter in 1980 was less his liberal “true colors” than his ineffectiveness in dealing with problems like the Iran hostage crisis and rampant inflation. Ronald Reagan projected a forceful image, portraying himself as someone who could get things done. He was elected despite his perceived anti-liberal views on domestic matters, not because of them.
The 1988 election, in which the first George Bush beat Michael Dukakis, also did not reflect a rejection of liberalism. Had Mario Cuomo run, as many expected him to do, he almost certainly would have beaten Bush.
In 2000, George W. Bush’s victory over Al Gore hardly signaled the public’s rejection of “liberalism.” Despite running a weak campaign and being burdened with the legacy of Bill Clinton’s misconduct, Gore was still able to win a clear popular majority, and only the votes siphoned off by the more liberal Ralph Nader denied him the electoral victory.
In the 2004 election, as Mr. Muravchik notes, national security made the difference; Bush’s unwavering response to terrorism is what earned him a national majority. The swing in popular votes to the Republicans should not be interpreted as a rejection of liberalism or any kind of harbinger for the future.
Ernest B. Hook
University of California
Berkeley, California
To the Editor:
I cannot argue with most of Joshua Muravchik’s analysis, but he does not stress the one element that has been common to all Democratic losses in postwar presidential elections: from Adlai Stevenson in 1952 to John Kerry in 2004, all of the unsuccessful nominees were perceived as weak on national defense.
If the Democrats wish to regain the White House, they must decide to be the pro-defense party of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Henry “Scoop” Jackson instead of the party of Jimmy Carter and Michael Moore. Since the Afghanistan campaign, the Democratic base and its elected officials have shifted strongly to the Left. The selection of Howard Dean as chairman of the Democratic National Committee only furthers this trend.
Gil Borman
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
To the Editor:
Despite his obvious partisanship, Joshua Muravchik has written a probing analysis of the Democrats’ defeat in the November election. Indeed, many of his observations echo those of Democrats who are reexamining their party’s ideas, policies, and electoral strategies.
At least twice in his article, however, Mr. Muravchik embraces the lowest of the Republican attacks on John Kerry. The campaign by the Swift Boat Veterans group was an indefensible assault on Kerry’s undeniably courageous war record. Even if one accepts that Kerry had engaged in some slight exaggerations of his service, the contrast with the military record of George W. Bush is so striking that one might have thought the Republicans would want to avoid the subject altogether. I agree that the antiwar activities of Kerry were legitimate subjects of debate and discussion. Mr. Muravchik characterizes these activities as the “more important part” of the Swift Boat Veterans’ case, but their television commercials and the publicity given to them by the press largely focused on John Kerry’s service in Vietnam rather than on his later opposition to the war.
Mr. Muravchik’s article is also marred by his embrace of the obscene claim of many Republicans that John Kerry was in some sense Osama bin Laden’s “candidate.” To establish this charge, Mr. Muravchik cites remarks by bin Laden before the election as published by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
But the accuracy of MEMRI’s translation may be questioned. Bin Laden’s promise that “any state that does not toy with our security guarantees its own” makes sense if, as the media initially construed it, the word “state” is understood as “nation.” Bin Laden was offering peace to countries that abstained from the fight against al Qaeda. MEMRI’s claim that “state” referred to one of the 50 states of the Union—which were thus being offered an incentive to vote for Kerry—is hard to accept. Does Mr. Muravchik really believe that, the 9/11 attacks notwithstanding, bin Laden was granting immunity to a “blue” state like New York that was sure to vote for John Kerry, and that any future acts of terrorism will be directed against, say, Montana and other states that voted for Bush?
Howard E. Negrin
New York City
To the Editor:
In his election post-mortem, Joshua Muravchik accuses Mark Halperin, the political director of ABC News, of displaying a pro-Kerry bias. The basis of the charge is a memo from October 2004 in which Halperin urged his staff to inform the public of the Bush campaign’s use of outright lies to attack Senator Kerry.
What exactly is objectionable about that? The Bush campaign falsely claimed that Kerry advocated a government take-over of the health-care system, and ABC’s coverage offered corrective insight and context.
Similarly, when the Kerry campaign warned duplicitously about a possible military draft and a flu-vaccine shortage, ABC called them on it. Where is the bias?
It seems that many right-wing partisans complain about media bias as a strategy to advance their cause. They hope to pressure news organizations into giving their candidates more favorable coverage, while at the same time stirring up their base by promoting the idea that liberal media elites are trying to foist their views on America.
Seth Seifman
Washington, D.C.
To the Editor:
Joshua Muravchik’s “Why the Democrats Keep Losing” is one of the most accurate and insightful political commentaries that I have read in a long time. I am a registered independent, one of a bloc of voters increasingly disenchanted by the politics of the major parties. I did not object to the war in Iraq, only to its abysmally poor prosecution. I had concluded that the Democrats would be hard pressed to muck things up as badly as the Republicans had.
I was thus prepared to vote for a Democrat, almost any Democrat, who could convince me that he would commit himself to a responsible prosecution of the war in Iraq. I hoped for someone of the stature and integrity of a Joseph Lieberman. Alas, the Democrats gave us John Kerry, who still had both of his feet firmly planted in the mire of Vietnam. As a Vietnam veteran myself, I tried very hard to ignore my initial revulsion, recognizing that my feelings were tied up with my hostility to the antiwar movement that Kerry once led. I wanted to believe that he had grown wiser with time. But, as Mr. Muravchik so adeptly points out, Kerry consistently reminded us of his true self. The tired old story of his Cambodian sortie on a long lost Christmas Eve, after it had been debunked repeatedly by a reluctant mainstream press, was only one of the many ways in which Kerry showed his almost Clintonesque aversion to the truth.
I voted for Bush because of my deep sense that, were Kerry to win, the Europeans (particularly the French) would wink behind smug Mona Lisa smiles and in supreme condescension declare that they had “told us so.” I voted for Bush because a vote for Kerry would have provided aid and comfort to our mortal enemies. I voted for Bush, ultimately, because Kerry could not convince me that he would do a better job with the war on terror than the arrogant knuckleheads with whom Bush has surrounded himself. In short, I voted for Bush because I had to.
Ron Adolph
Sanger, California
To the Editor:
Joshua Muravchik errs in stating that no Democratic presidential candidate has won an absolute majority of the popular vote since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. In fact, Jimmy Carter won the 1976 election with 50.1 percent of the total vote.
Patrick Reddy
Santa Monica, California
Joshua Muravchik writes:
Ernest B. Hook seems to hold the view that everything matters in presidential races except political substance. This makes no sense to me. Sure, Ronald Reagan’s persona was more appealing than Jimmy Carter’s. But to believe that voters saw him only as someone who would “get things done” without caring what it was that he would get done is to paint a very odd picture of the electorate. As for Dukakis, 37 percent of the electorate told an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that they found Dukakis “too liberal to be a good President” (as against 25 percent who found the elder George Bush too conservative). The Democrats have run well when their candidates seemed to be centrists (Carter in 1976, Clinton, and Gore). When their standard-bearers have come across as liberals (McGovern, Carter in 1980, Mondale, Dukakis, and Kerry), they have been beaten, and often by a good margin.
Howard E. Negrin is just plain wrong with respect to the two issues on which he accuses me of making low attacks. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ran nine ads during the campaign. Only one challenged Kerry’s war record. The other eight were about his antiwar activities. As for bin Laden’s statement in effect endorsing Kerry, Mr. Negrin finds MEMRI’s translation “hard to accept,” but he offers no linguistic grounds for this judgment. I do not speak or read Arabic, and neither, apparently, does Mr. Negrin; but I have checked with people who do, and they verify MEMRI’s version. Bin Laden referred to wilayat, a word often used specifically for American states. The word for state as a synonym for country is ammah or dawlah.
In his directive to the ABC staff, Mark Halperin wrote:
Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win. We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn’t mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides “equally” accountable when the facts don’t warrant that.
I’m sure many of you have this week felt the stepped-up Bush efforts to complain about our coverage. This is all part of their efforts to get away with as much as possible with the stepped-up, renewed efforts to win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions.
Exit polls found that many more voters thought Kerry had attacked Bush unfairly than the other way around, but in Halperin’s judgment Bush’s distortions were somehow worse than Kerry’s. Therefore he ordered ABC to make stronger efforts to rebut Bush than Kerry. If that is not bias, I would be interested to hear Seth Seifman explain what is.
My thanks to Ron Adolph for his very kind words and his interesting comments. With Gil Borman I have no argument. Finally, to Patrick Reddy I say . . . oops (and thanks for correcting the record).
