Advice Overload for the Democrats

This is the main conceit of Goldberg's article; it starts with Teresa Heinz Kerry urging a group of Missouri farmers to go organic. "It's a tone thing," Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Claire McCaskill (D) told Goldberg. "It's the 'We know better' thing." Another centrist complained that Democrats try to persuade New Hampshire voters to support income taxes, instead of recognizing that they hate income taxes and campaigning accordingly. Then again, one man's condescension is another man's leadership; centrists loved it when Bill Clinton criticized rapper Sister Souljah in front of a black audience. They didn't attack Clinton for disrespecting black values. And liberals didn't praise his "straight talk."

Democrats don't always provide ideologically self-serving advice; for example, liberal Michael Tomasky's recent American Prospect article urging Democrats to adopt a "common good" philosophy echoed some centrist frustration with single-issue interest groups. But it's usually moderates who want Democrats to be less elitist, less negative, more respectful of red-state values, more . . . moderate. It's usually liberals who want Democrats to be less apologetic, less wishy-washy, more willing to speak truth to power, more . . . liberal.

There's a telling example in Joe Klein's new book "Politics Lost," which skewers consultants in general and Shrum in particular. Klein hates the way consultants drain the humanity out of their candidates, forcing them to repeat poll-tested platitudes; Klein, a journalist, assumes voters share his journalistic aversion to hearing the same pablum over and over. He especially hates Shrum's "the people vs. the powerful" riff; the centrist Klein assumes voters share his centrist aversion to class-war politics.

Instead, he yearns for a more spontaneous politics, and he thinks America does, too. His most prominent example is Al Gore's passionate make-out session with his wife before his convention speech in 2000: "It said to the world that maybe Al Gore wasn't such a stiff after all." Klein notes that Gore's poll ratings quickly shot up 12 to 17 points, and quotes a Shrum rival attributing the bounce to the kiss.

It makes sense to be skeptical of Shrum's influence on the Democratic Party; he has an unblemished record of advising failed presidential candidates, and making buckets of money doing so. But though Klein rejects the notion, it's possible that voters may have noticed the content of Gore's speech as well as the smooch that preceded it.

Its main theme: the people vs. the powerful.

It's understandable that moderate pundits want moderate policies, liberal pundits want liberal policies, and Democratic candidates find it hard to choose. In a nation evenly split along partisan lines, anything they do to mobilize their base could alienate the center, and vice versa. But Republicans face the same quandary. And they're the ones in trouble.

So here's a radical thought: Maybe there's nothing wrong with the Democrats, politically speaking.

They've won the popular vote in three of the past four presidential elections. Their one outright loser was Sen. John F. Kerry, who had the liberal voting record that moderates warn about and the inability to take a stand that liberals warn about. Voters -- even his supporters -- told pollsters they didn't like him. But they weren't turned off by his entire party; Democrats won Senate races in red states such as Colorado and Arkansas in 2004, and ran far ahead of Kerry in South Dakota and Kentucky.

So how did Kerry become the party's standard-bearer? Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire, liberal and moderate, thought a military veteran had the best chance to beat Bush. They analyzed the political landscape, tried to imagine what the American people wanted in a president and voted accordingly. Their analysis just happened to be wrong.

They voted, in other words, like pundits.

Maybe that's what's wrong with the Democrats.

grunwaldmr@washpost.com

Michael Grunwald is a Washington Post staff writer.