Conventional wisdom (or at least the self-proclaimed sages of political conventional wisdom, the Washington punditry) has been telling us that the 2008 presidential election is going to be The Most Important Election In Modern Times (if not actually In History), and that (of course) the electorate is More Polarized Than Ever -- which explains not only how incredibly early the contest started, but also the fierce battles for the primaries now being waged.
But what if this conventional wisdom turns out to be wrong? What if the 2008 election is a real snooze-fest, and voters are barely motivated to go to the polls?
Now, I'm not predicting this is going to be the case, but I found two things interesting in the past few weeks. The first is an fascinating essay here at Huffington Post by RJ Eskow. He writes of a danger to Hillary's campaign that I hadn't previously heard espoused: What if Hillary doesn't energize the Democratic base and her biggest problem is getting voters excited enough to go to the polls next November to elect her? What if the hard leftists, the anti-war types, and the unionists aren't all that impressed with Hillary as a nominee? While they may not vote for a Republican, they could indeed stay home in droves.
From the Republican primary race comes a very similar story of the Christian right threatening to vote for a third-party if the GOP nominates someone they deem not sufficiently attuned to their agenda (while they don't name him, they're talking about Rudy). This may turn out to be an empty threat from the Christian right base (unless Ron Paul runs as a Libertarian and they decide to throw their weight behind him); but even if they don't actually vote for a third-party candidate (or -- the horrors! -- a Democrat), they may also decide they have better things to do on election day than go down to the polls.
Also contradicting the convention wisdom, the primary campaigns on both sides have been unbelievably tame and boring. Can you name a single difference between any of the top four Republicans in the race, about how they'd go about tackling foreign policy, domestic policy, taxes... anything? Can you explain to me the difference between Clinton, Obama, and Edwards' stance on Iraq? Or health care? In one sentence? While there are differences between the frontrunners and the second tier, the frontrunner group in both parties have almost identical language (barring small differences) on the major policy issues of the day. Democrats, for the most part, are content enough with their field of candidates, but (tellingly) Republicans are talking in the same worried tones about the same worried subject that was on the lips of all Democrats last time around -- "electability." They're getting on board with Giuliani because he'd be the "best chance" to beat Hillary, not because they're particularly enthusiastic about Rudy.
So while national polls are not how the nomination process actually works, poll-watchers are beginning to talk openly of a Clinton-versus-Giuliani race for president next year. I'm not saying it's inevitable, but you've got to admit it's certainly within the bounds of possibility. Both Clinton and Giuliani have topped the nationwide polls by a fairly comfortable margin for a fairly long time now. While this doesn't guarantee success, it does show that both their respective campaigns have enjoyed a large degree of success at courting voters up until now. While many other matchups exist for the 2008 general election, Clinton v. Giuliani is the strongest possibility so far.
So could it become a race for who depresses the vote the least? There's already a large group of "the base" from both parties actively dissatisfied with both Clinton and Giuliani.
Hillary's problem is with the anti-war crowd and from the anti-DLC crowd in the Democratic Party. Voters put off by the Clinton mantra of "triangulation" and voters upset that Hillary seems to be hedging her bets on the war (and almost every other issue she addresses) may decide they simply can't vote for her. They will be torn between feelings that ANYone would be better than another Republican, and feelings that they didn't get as strong a progressive candidate as they were hoping for, so why bother?
Rudy's problem is with the churchgoing set. He's had several divorces (the last one quite public and messy), he's on his third wife, and his children barely speak to him. Not exactly "pro-family" -- but if that were his only problem, the religious right might still be OK with Rudy (Saint Ronald of Reagan, remember, was the first divorced president ever). Unfortunately, there's all that history of Rudy supporting gay rights (he lived with a gay couple while having aforementioned messy divorce problems, while he was still mayor), gun control laws, and abortion rights. This is the Republican Christian Conservative trifecta of God, guns, and gays -- and Rudy scores zero-for-three. This may be too much for the religious base of the GOP, and will cause the same anguish Democratic voters may be feeling with Hillary: ANYone would be better than Hillary (shudder) Clinton; but he's not even a real conservative... he's barely a Republican, so how can I vote for him?
The conventional wisdom in any presidential election is that the candidates preach to their base during the primary season, and then once they've locked up the nomination, they tack back to the middle and court the undecideds and people who don't pay much attention to politics, since that's where the race is won or lost.
This election cycle, though, Hillary seems to be running as a centrist already in the Democratic nomination race. Rudy is less obvious about his centrism, but he hasn't completely flip-flopped on every issue in a bid to win the nomination (as Romney has so obviously done) -- he still admits that his record in New York City is what it is. He speaks in coded language about judicial appointments in the hope of convincing the anti-abortion wing of the party that he would continue the tradition of packing the Supreme Court with staunch right-wingers, but they may not be completely convinced of his sincerity. When you add in his marital problems, it may mean an extremely light turnout in the areas where "family values" (as defined by the GOP) reign.
If this scenario actually comes to be, I have no idea who would win such a contest, although I'd probably bet on Hillary to pull it off. But what if today's conventional wisdom turns out to be wrong? Wouldn't it be strange if both nominees' biggest problem turns out to be energizing their base? After years of talk of "how polarized and divided" each election has become? What if all the partisans stay home, and the election is completely decided by the big squishy group in the middle of the American electorate?
[Technical note: I refuse to use the term "CW" for "Conventional Wisdom" as some are wont to do. For me, personally, "CW" means something else entirely. Sorry about that.]
Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com