For Hillary, a siren song from the right

Conservative pundits Ramesh Ponnuru and Ross Douthat argue cogently in today's NYT that Hillary Clinton is yielding nothing on policy grounds to Republican-leaning voters who might consider voting for her because they're appalled by Trump.

That's true. On abortion, on crime, on federal spending and taxes, Clinton is leading, and speaking for, a Democratic party moved well to the left. Nonetheless, there are good reasons why Clinton is not, and arguably cannot, "run to the center" for the general election, as nominees in normal elections do.

1. All other things being equal, Clinton does not need to win over more ideological conservatives than Obama did. Enough habitual Republican voters will likely be disturbed enough by Trump to stay home to put her ahead of Obama on that front. And Obama, temperamental moderate and pragmatist though he is, was cast as radically liberal by conservative media.

2. Trump has revealed that an awful lot of Republican voters have no allegiance to core Republican economic policies like massive tax cuts and social spending cuts.  Clinton is to his right on trade, more willing to acknowledge that "fair" trade deals have value.

3. In this moment of ideological fluidity, well-articulated left-side populism might win more white working class voters than centrism.  See Trump's siren song to Sanders supporters. In my view, Elizabeth Warren has a more compelling economic narrative than Sanders'.  It's this: since the 80s, monied interests, via the Republican party, have knocked out three pillars of postwar middle-class prosperity: union and employee leverage, tax fairness, and effective regulation. Hence the 1% has grabbed all the growth. As I've suggested in prior posts, Clinton could reverse-engineer this story to explain how she'll boost middle class incomes and security, with policies designed to 1) increase workers' share of profits, 2) invest new tax revenue to increase shared prosperity via investments in education, healthcare, infrastructure, etc., and 3) rein in banks and the shadow banking system, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect employee rights, etc. Clinton name-checks a host of specific policies that fit this agenda but, to my ear, does not explain how they all fit together.

A prophet not without honor save in his own party

How many political prognostications hold up well nearly five years later?  Give Republican Cassandra David Frum credit for seeing the landscape clearly in February 2008:

John Mitchell, Richard Nixon’s attorney-general, predicted in 1970: “This country is going so far right you won’t recognise it.” His prophecy was vindicated. Now its time is up: 2008 is shaping up to be the first decisive Democratic victory since 1964 – a 1980 in reverse...

In 2002, equal numbers of Americans identified as Republicans and Democrats. In the six years since, Republican identification has collapsed back to the level recorded before Ronald Reagan. The decline has been steepest among young voters. If they eat right, exercise and wear seatbelts, today’s 20-somethings will be voting against George W. Bush deep into the 2060s. Most ominously, US polls show an ideological sea change: a desire for a more activist government, a loss of interest in the tax question and a shift to the left on most social issues (although not, interestingly, abortion).

Conservative debate watchers have a point, but...

On one hand, I am pissed that Republican spin on the last debate is getting some credence in the media -- Politico and ABC both retailed the hypothesis that the debate might strengthen Romney's position, since he came across as credible an unscary -- and the electorate doesn't much care about foreign policy.

On the other hand, I think that the conservative analysis digested by the Dish -- by Douthat, Levin, Lowry and Ponnuru -- has some validity. Lowry summarizes their collective take well:

I think Romney executed what must have been his strategy nearly flawlessly: reassure people that he’s not a bomb-thrower; project strength but not bellicosity; go out of his way to say how many Obama policies he agrees with to create a sense of his reasonableness; focus on the big picture of a world that seems out of control; get it back to the economy as much as possible; and communicate a real passion for the future.

In fact, my own reaction to Romney's performance, taken by itself, was somewhat similar.  I disagree, though, with this from Levin, and in that disagreement lies hope:

Maybe I shouldn't do debate assessment, cont.

If you'll forgive a bit of navel-gazing: I am nonplussed by my anomalous debate reactions.

For Democrats, the Biden-Ryan debate was plainly balm to the gaping wound in confidence ripped open by Obama's performance last week. My feelings, until I checked others' responses, were more in tune with this right-wing spin sampled on the Dish -- no doubt sincerely felt, since of course we partisans feel hostile to the opposition:

True conservatives to the Randians: you're devouring the base

Serendipity.  In today's Times, Cass Sustain showcases a social science finding: the best way to puncture confirmation bias, our tendency to hear only our own side of an argument, is to recruit a "turncoat"from the other side:

People tend to dismiss information that would falsify their convictions. But they may reconsider if the information comes from a source they cannot dismiss. People are most likely to find a source credible if they closely identify with it or begin in essential agreement with it. In such cases, their reaction is not, “how predictable and uninformative that someone like that would think something so evil and foolish,” but instead, “if someone like that disagrees with me, maybe I had better rethink.”

Coincidentally, it strikes me this morning that in the torrent of well-informed criticism of the crude Randianism expressed by Romney in that leaked fundraiser, the best, the most conceptually comprehensive responses have come from thoughtful conservatives.