Al Gore’s trickle-down populism

Has the Bush campaign been crippled by the Gore freight train? I
think not, but Gore’s temporary convention bounce should serve as a
wake-up call and an antidote for overconfidence for the Bush camp.

Last week’s events in Los Angeles were very odd, to say the least.
Granted, people have short memories, but, regarding the Democrat
convention, we’re talking wholesale amnesia. Throughout the week leading
up to the main event analysts were almost unanimous in declaring the
convention a flop — especially when compared with the nearly flawless
Republican one a few weeks earlier. Then Gore gave his speech.

My reaction was that it was an insultingly populist rant. Surely not
that many people are going to fall for this, I thought to myself. I
noticed that most talking heads were initially unimpressed as well.

The first post-convention polls revealed no significant bump for
Gore. Then, things started to change. New polls showed an astronomical
bounce for Gore. One pre-convention poll had Bush ahead by 16 points.
Afterwards, another one had him behind by 6, representing a 22-point
swing. That’s amazing, particularly for such a lackluster convention.

As the polls evolved, so did many pundits’ opinions — retroactively,
no less. They wanted us to believe that they had adjudged Gore’s speech
effective all along. They said Gore needed to hit a home run, and he
did. What an insult to Mark McGwire.

I’ve read some of the poll analyses, and they strike me as
unintelligible. They say that Gore finally carved out his own niche by
distancing himself from Clinton and emerging as his own man. I’m not
buying it. That’s way too sophisticated an analysis.

The commentators’ initial reaction (the negative one) was that Gore
made a mistake by appealing to the Old Guard, the extreme left wing of
the party. They said that as much as he needed to break away from
Clinton in certain areas, i.e., integrity, he should have emphasized
centrist, New Democrat themes to reach swing voters.

Without question, Gore blew off the center and went straight for his
liberal base, but when we focus on this New vs. Old Democrat distinction
I believe we’re missing the boat.

On closer inspection, Gore did not stray far from the Clinton
reservation. Forget the New Democrat thing. Clinton’s political magic
has never been in the substance of his policy proposals, but in
marketing himself and the issues. The issues themselves have always been
secondary. The common denominator between Clinton’s campaigns and the
new Gore campaign is the class-warfare theme. Clinton-Gore called it
trickle-down economics. Gore-Lieberman are calling it the powerful
versus the people. It’s the same old divisive tune, and it works.

Democrats were using this strategy way before Clinton, but Clinton
and Gore have taken it to a new level. It used to be a device mainly
geared to campaigns. Now it is also a credo for governance. That’s the
scariest thing about the Clinton-Gore legacy and the most compelling
reason that Gore must be defeated. America simply cannot long survive as
a republic — at least not as a great one — with this relentless
pitting of people against people. It is a guaranteed formula to complete
our transformation from a harmonious melting pot to a balkanized nanny
state.

Because swing voters are politically impressionable, Bush is going to
have to do some educating. He should continue to stress themes of
freedom and self-reliance (with a touch of compassion — “every willing
heart”) because he’s never going to out-promise Santa Gore.

The campaign is going to get dirty, and the media will mainly blame
Bush. Gore will continue to tell his tall tales and trumpet polarizing
themes. The further behind he falls — he’ll revert to being behind when
his “bounce” settles — the nastier he will become. When Bush calls him
on it (because the “watchdog” media won’t) he will be characterized as
the one who drew first blood. Bush is just going to have to deal with
it. The alternative would be to let the misrepresentations go unchecked.

One thing the major poll shifts do show is that neither candidate’s
support is very deep at this point, so the election will probably go
down to the wire. As long as Bush stays the course and doesn’t allow
himself to be unduly ruffled by Gore’s tactics and the media’s
inevitably uncritical portrayal of them, he should win quite handily in
November.