Moderate Democrats need a unique brand

by | Nov 16, 2020 | Politics | 6 comments

The worst political candidates resemble items you can buy at the supermarket. Prepackaged, carefully tested, and easy to predict, they operate on an often gimmicky level and try to travel well-grooved paths to electoral victories that many want for their own sake. Sometimes it works. But more often, these focus-group candidates fall flat with the voters and contribute to the public’s growing cynicism about politics.

If it sounds like I’m talking about Cal Cunningham, well….yes, I am. The one-term, Bush-era state Senator and Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate possessed all the worst qualities of a Generic Democrat or Republican. As Thomas Mills quipped, Cunningham was a “walking talking point.” Thom Tillis emphatically did not deserve to get reelected–a judgment shared by thousands of North Carolinians who refused to cast a vote for either Senate candidate–but Cunningham’s defeat was hard to lament on its own terms. His narrow losing margin testified to the extraordinary weakness of the incumbent, not any leadership qualities.

Like Cunningham, supermarket candidates simply have little to offer voters. This is not a case for ideological rigor, “bold pastels not diluted watercolors,” but rather an indication that winning moderates need a unique and appealing brand. Across the country in Montana, two Democrats provide a compelling model. Both Jon Tester, now a third-term Senator, and former Governor and presidential candidate Steve Bullock have owned a distinctive populist persona. They both offer themselves to voters as People’s Champions who understand the anxieties center-right Montanans have about the sweeping expansion of activist government. It has worked well for them: even in defeat, Bullock ran 4.4% ahead of the national ticket.

A similar story has played out in recent decades for North Carolina Democrats. When the Donkey Party’s candidates eschew any flavorful persona in favor of weak-tea blandness, they usually lose. There’s no shortage of examples in this category. But successful candidates, many of them gubernatorial hopefuls, have mastered a unique niche as educational boosters and champions of a robust economic-development strategy. Voters want candidates with vision and energy, which come when a politician engages in thoughtful consideration of who they are and what they aspire to do for the people. In this state, they also tend to want moderates–and there is no contradiction between centrism and political creativity.

For the foreseeable future, North Carolina Democrats will need to win over voters who do not agree with a down-the-line progressive agenda. Indeed, many of the voters they need have come to loathe the Democratic Party’s brand. In practice, that means Democrats need candidates who can command the center of the political spectrum. The winners will be moderate politicians who know what they stand for.

6 Comments

  1. Drayton

    I’d add that more progressive Democrats need a unique brand too. For instance Sherrod Brown has a very special brand that really works in Ohio.

  2. Ruth Bromer

    Chuck Schumer chose Cal Cunningham and made it clear that the DNC didn’t want anyone else to run. They did it with Hillary in 2016. It’s time for them to let NC voters have a choice that we like.

  3. Norma Munn

    With all due respect, I have yet to see “centrism and political creativity” in the same candidate in quite a long time. At a local level, decades and rarely at a national level.

    Some of this is exacerbated by the press, which seems to frequently equate better health care for all, or seriously increased funding for public education, or substantive challenges to any part of the status quo as far left thinking. We have reached a point in our public discourse where all these things are quickly relegated to the trash bin, not fit for real examination., simply by naming them “left.”

    Add racism, sexism and homophobia to this mix and the person seeking public office in much of this country cannot even begin to address the most essential problems we face and expect to be listened to. Take a careful look back at the primary presidential candidates in 2019. Left = socialism = government running our lives. Is that a shorthand — yes, but I heard it every day from Democrats and worse from Republicans. NC was, is and apparently still intends to be, a part of the South forever.

    Creativity is not a substitute for a backbone, intelligence and substantive knowledge. We really should ask ourselves much more seriously why we had two candidates of the caliber of Tillis and Cal Cunningham. And the problem was not just in that race.

    • Tom Magnuson

      NC moderate Dems already have a rubric; “Republicans.”

  4. j bengel

    Never mind branding, the equation is far simpler than that. If you want to command the center, find the issues that people across the spectrum can agree on and run on that. You’d be amazed now many issues are nowhere near as controversial as the lobbyists and hyper partisans would have us think. A majority of Americans are pro choice to e extent or another. They support common sense gun regulations – by a single rprisingly large margin. A majority support marriage equality and LGBTQ rights. A majority even support the Movement for Black
    Lives. The list goes on and on. And I keep waiting for the candidate that takes those bullet pints and turns them into a campaign. Not a campaign that demonizes one side and deities the other, but one that says, “These are the points on which we are in violent agreement. These are the things that people from all of the points on the curve say they’re concerned about. How about we focus on what we have in common? Because if embracing these positions makes me a liberal, then there are a whole lot of liberals that don’t realize they’re liberals. Because most of the people that were asked about these issues agree with me. That’s not a partisan argument, it’s not a liberal argument or a conservative one. It’s the position of X% of everybody.”

    The self-described “centrists” were the ones that lost in this election, mainly because they didn’t offer an alternative to what you could get from the other guy. They just offered a subtly different low-carb version of the same nihilism and prejudices. If you want to stand out from the field you have to offer the voter something he or she can’t get from the other guy. And you might lose anyway, but if you’re not prepared to lose on principle, then you’re probably not as convinced about the validity of your positions as you think you are.

  5. David Joyner

    Well stated, pretty accurate perspective. Why don’t you run?

Related Posts

GET UPDATES

Get the latest posts from PoliticsNC delivered right to your inbox!

You have Successfully Subscribed!