Why the Democrats Are Losing Ground As Obama Is Gaining It

While the President is off being the leader of the free world and trying to restore prosperity at home, someone needs to manage the blind trust of the Democratic Party before its assets dwindle like shares of Citigroup. President Obama's approval ratings have continued to break records, and with good reason. In less than 3 months, he has already proven himself remarkably capable as a leader, in getting a stimulus package passed (while learning some hard lessons about splitting the difference in policy with the people who created the mess); steadfastly refusing to jettison health care, energy, and education reform from his budget in tough economic times; beginning to heal the deep wounds left by his predecessor in the U.S.'s relationship with the rest of the world through both his mastery of foreign affairs and his emotional intelligence as diplomat-in-chief; and even signaling his intention to take on comprehensive immigration reform. All of this has happened as Republicans have seemed increasingly impotent, ideologically inflexible, and oppositional, none of which endears them to anyone but the 30% who still think Bush was a great president (and apparently remain off their medication).

Yet at the same time, something else is happening under the radar: the fortunes of Democrats more generally are starting to wane. March was a good month for Barack Obama but a bad month for the Democratic Party. As the latest Rasmussen polls show, in March the percent of voters who consider themselves Democrats dropped by 2 percent--four times the rate of decline among Republicans (even as the Republicans were publicly flailing, producing numberless budgets, and unwittingly branding themselves as the party of old ideas and the party of "no"). More ominous, the margin of voters supporting a Democrat over a Republican in a generic ballot for Congress dropped to its lowest point since both the Iraq War and the economy had clearly gone south by 2006: one percent (40 vs. 39%).

So how could it be that President Obama's standing in the polls is holding steady or improving while Democrats' standing in the polls is falling? And does it matter, so long as he is able to get his agenda passed through a heavily Democratic House and Senate?

Let's start with the second question first. It does matter. The President's ability to stay on the path he has charted requires not only Democrats holding or increasing their majorities in 2010 but on their holding onto public support for sweeping change. It also requires moderate Democrats and those from conservative states and districts to feel comfortable voting for new spending, and likely a second stimulus package, knowing that they will be attacked in the next election with the familiar refrains of big-government tax-and-spend liberals (if not socialists).

And as for the first question, the paradoxical popularity of the new President while the fortunes of his party are waning, not only makes sense but is predictable from an understanding of the psychology of public opinion and "branding." Any marketing executive will tell you that a good product is certainly a big help for sales, particularly if the competition is producing lemons. That's the situation we have now in American politics, where the Democrats are producing solutions where Republicans manufactured problems, and where the Republicans are now trying to re-sell "pre-owned" ideological vehicles that have a bad habit of running into ditches.

But the best products fail without good branding. In politics, you don't win on ideas alone. Comprehensive energy reform was a no-brainer after OPEC began embargoing oil 35 years ago, but the percent of our energy we are importing from overseas has only skyrocketed since then, and Americans were buying Hummers until gas hit $4.00 a gallon. Health care reform made good sense in 1993, but last I looked, it hasn't happened. Successful branding requires two things: creating positive associations to your own brand, and differentiating it from competing brands. In politics, that means offering voters a clear, memorable, emotionally compelling narrative about your party's core principles, while presenting them with an equally clear, memorable, and evocative story about the other party that would not make anyone want to be associated with it. If there were ever a time Democrats could offer both stories, this is it.

But the failure of Democrats to brand themselves has been a perennial problem since the breakdown of the New Deal coalition in the 1970s, and it remains a major problem today, leaving Republicans the opportunity, once they get their ideological chops back, to start branding both parties again, as they have for the better part of thirty years. Democrats stand for spending our way out of a looming Depression--a sound policy when no one else has the money or chutzpa to spend or invest--but how does that differ from the fiscal irresponsibility with which Ronald Reagan branded the party of "tax and spend" 30 years ago? Democrats stand for shifting to clean, safe 21st century sources of energy rather than relying on the fossil fuels of the last two centuries, but then why is the Secretary of the Interior waxing poetic about expanded offshore drilling?

It's hard for people to hear your message when you aren't speaking. I suspect few Americans even know that Governor Tim Kaine is the new DNC chair, while his RNC counterpart, Michael Steele, is at least busy publicly humiliating himself. And the President has inadvertently chosen to keep his popularity to himself. Whereas Bill Clinton rebranded himself--and by extension, his party--as a "different kind of Democrat" than the voters had repeatedly rejected in national elections, President Obama has branded himself as above partisanship--as the Un-Democrat. That may be a laudable goal--the same laudable goal, in fact, that the Founders had in mind for the Presidency--until President Washington, who won the office by universal acclamation, chose to step down, at which point partisan politics erupted, and we have been largely a two-party nation ever since.

Perhaps President Obama will succeed where Adams and Jefferson could not, and America will become not only a post-racial society but a post-partisan one. But if he does not succeed in turning a broken economy around substantially by the summer of 2010 and reminding the American people on a regular basis (repetition is essential psychologically, neurologically, and empirically to branding) that he and his fellow Democrats are trying to pull the nation out of the ditch the Republicans left us in by the side of the road, his administration will gradually become associated in voters' minds with the economic crisis he inherited, and he will find himself working with a Congress far less friendly to progressive reforms in two years.

Under similar circumstances, FDR trumpeted the failures of the Republican leadership and ideology that created the Great Depression while still managing to unite a terrified nation around not only his own charismatic presence but around New Deal reforms--reforms he could never have enacted if he had not contrasted the failed ideology that had led the nation over the economic cliff with the radically different solutions he and his party were offering. Roosevelt's consistent branding of the Republicans as inflexible ideologues at the same time as he showed what progressive, pragmatic action and Democratic leadership could offer led to a political realignment that lasted 40 years.

That is not President Obama's style. He prefers to say that mistakes "were made" (but not by whom). He is comfortable attacking "greed" as long as he doesn't have to attribute it to anyone in particular. (He did fire one man in Detroit for the failings of the American auto industry, but he retained all the corrupt, greedy, and incompetent executives on Wall Street who made it impossible for anyone to get a loan to buy a car.)

The hope, of course, is that voters will see improvements in their lives and connect them to the party in power even if it doesn't make terribly strenuous efforts to take credit for those improvements. And perhaps that will translate to a shift in partisan affiliation that will sustain the President's agenda long enough for it to work or even beyond. But it is a risky strategy to refuse to brand the other side for the problems they created and to refuse to brand your own side for the solutions you offer and the principles that underlie those solutions. The President often speaks of principles, and in so doing has taken Democratic rhetoric to precisely where it needs to be, in the realm of values (as in his stirring lines about parents turning off the television set and reading to their kids when talking about education reform). But the average American associates those principles with Obama, not with the Democratic Party, because Democrats outside the Oval Office remain long on policies and short on clearly, colloquially stated principles.

It may well be that this President is temperamentally unwilling, unable, or uninterested in speaking unpleasant truths about people who did unpleasant things to a lot of people. And it may be that that's a good thing. Our politics have certainly been unpleasant for a long time, and he's trying to change that.

But the reality is that millions of Americans are out of work, and most hard working Americans have lost nearly half of their wealth, and many their homes, because of the way George W. Bush and the radical Republican ideologues who enabled him ran the government--and ran it into the ground. The reality is that we had a surplus when Bill Clinton left office, and the only reason President Obama inherited a $1.2 trillion deficit that now constrains him is that George W. Bush and the radical Republicans believed in handing out suitcases full of cash to their wealthy friends with no strings attached and no transparency. Personally, I think that bears saying, and I think it particularly bears saying every time those same Republicans preach fiscal discipline, heap scorn on government "bailouts" they both necessitated and engineered, or offer their quasi-religious answer of "the free market" to every problem the market has created or failed to solve, from the crisis in the housing industry and the lack of regulations on Wall Street that took down our economy (and the world economy along with it) to the fact that most working Americans are now afraid of changing jobs for fear of losing their health insurance. Republican politicians would certainly be a little less quick to step up to the microphone if they knew that every time they talked about fiscal discipline, a Democrat would be there to remind them that they were the ones who went on a 6-year spending spree with our children's money and then handed the better part of a trillion dollars out to Wall Street bankers and speculators, sacrificing the American taxpayer at the altar of their free-market extremism.

It may be that the President is not the right messenger for this message (although FDR had no trouble being both an inspirational and transformational leader while also leading his party, and the Republicans became the "Party of Lincoln" after the gangly leader from Illinois not only said a few choice things about those who wanted to hang onto their slaves but actually sent an army after them). And it could be that he is right to stand above the fray. It could also be that House and Senate Democrats need to be more forceful with the media about covering their statements, since their leadership has been less reluctant to talk in partisan tones.

But someone needs to be in the fray other than the GOP. The worst thing to be in politics is silent, because it allows the other side to shape public sentiment uncontested. It wouldn't hurt to have a Southern voice like Tim Kaine's behind a megaphone with a "D" written on it. But whether it's Kaine or someone else with credibility and charisma, somebody needs to start saying what Democrats and Republicans stand for other than Newt Gingrich, John Boehner, and Richard Shelby. That's a lesson we should have learned a long time ago.

In politics, there is nothing so deadly as silence.

Drew Westen, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University, founder of Westen Strategies, and author of "The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation."

Comments

[masher]

What does the Democratic party stand for?

Based on what Obama and Pelosi spend their time on its on US workers. Trillions in bailouts for the richest people in the world but they can't bring themselves to end H-1B ( a federal regulation that hurts US workers). And their immigration policy doesn't put US workers first either.

Why do US workers have to stand in line behind failed bankers and the rest of the world? Why can't the democratic party just say "American workers first!"?

[burndtdan]

Funny, the bailout was created and shoved through Congress by the Republican administration.

[Dalpine]

With Obama leading the charge for the Dems. We had a Democratic congress, remember?

[LinuxDude]

Because the Democrat Party never puts the American people first.

[mollybeejay]

Like the Republican party has done this? How the heck do you think the country got into this mess in the first place? By osmosis?

[loveu2]

It sure does seem that way, doesn't it!

[ywcachieve]

WE need banks, so they have to bailed out, and revamped. Get over it folks.

[masher]

I need a house in Malibu. Get over it, give me my home.

This is such a fatuous argument. Your biggest mistake is to assume that capitalist seek efficiency. Your mistake is to assume that capitalist seek competition. But its far more profitable, less risky, and easier to use market domination to restrict competition and in the case of these "too big to fail" banks its better to just keep failing and keep receiving trillions in bailouts. Get it?

If you knew that the federal government or the fed (and thus the taxpayer) would bailout all your bad investments then you would be smart to buy the biggest house in the world. If fact you would be failing to care for your investors if you *didn't* make a crazy risky investment.

I hope that makes sense. The current banking system is a broken ponzi scheme and no matter how much money you pump into it the system will still be broken. Where is the regulation Obama promised? There isn't any. It was just rhetoric. I'll eat this blog if Obama actually puts in real regulations without loopholes.

[iblogleft]

Yes, we need banks. The roughly 8100 solvent banks can more than compensate for the banks that need to fail. The ONLY reason we do not let them fail is the wealthiest people in the world would lose billions. It has absolutely nothing to do with mom and pops 401k.

[ywcachieve]

People, when you post these huge posts, your readability goes down. People don't want to read all that stuff. I skip over large posts. Keep it brief, and keep it moving.

[gdogs]

Everybody got that? ywcachieve would prefer that you write to the lowest common denominator, namely himself.

[WKR]

Well, how about this: COMPANY'S THAT ARE TOO BIG TO FAIL ARE TOO BIG TO EXIST. (I think that's attributable to Matt Taibi from the Rolling Stone.)

[johnsonc20]

Obama is has a lot of support because that is what happens when we elect a new President. Americans love to love their President, and Obama isn't doing anything to discourage them. Congress has to vote on actual bills and be held accountable, which is always disadvantageous. Look at how Dodd fared versus Obama on the executive compensation flap. Dodd had an amendment to limit compensation. Geithner and Summers told him to take it out, which he did. Who gets blamed when it blows up later? They guy who voted to take it out - while the President and his economic "advisers" walked away and left him.

Obama can make this work for a long time. That doesn't mean what he is doing is necessarily good governance. Don't forget that Bush was popular for a long time and was able to get reelected. Obama needs to use his popularity to benefit the people, not to trick them, as our last President did.

[carsntrucks]

I agree with this article to an extent. But I think it stepped over a lot of the problems people have with Dems. I think what happened is, whether Republicans have come out publicly or not and said it, they were just as disappointed with Bush as we are. The RNC convention was noticeably dry of Bush/Cheney memorabilia, and people aren't trying to sacrifice Obama at the altar of Bush's foibles.

The thing is, Obama won to a big extent because Republicans voted for him. But they're still fiscal and social conservatives who dread the Democratic agenda, in large part. They may like Obama because he seems like a smart guy who wants to do the right thing, but they're not big fans of the Democratic party.

[JohnFromCensornati]

Yes, we're all aware of the GOP obsession with gays and abortion.

[carsntrucks]

Because at the last RNC, they mentioned gays and abortion how many times? Oh, right.

I think we're all aware of the Dems wanting to believe all they care about is gay marriage and abortion.

[middleoftheroad]

Only Kool Aid drinkers want to hear over and over again about Bush and how we got here. There is an arguement that the campaign IS over right now, and the governing part has kicked in. WE WON...NOW GOVERN. You can define your enemy, fine, thats politics 101, but you have to run things when in office. The reason why Dems are not as popular as Obama, is because we are a center/center right country...like it or not. Pelosi is NOT popular...if you think she is you are blind. People are freaking about spending. To simply say the GOP spent heavy so that gives the Dems to spend what they want wont work...WE ARE WAY PAST THAT LEVEL OF SPENDING!!! And say what you want, but the stimulus was All the Dems...it was NOT bi-partisan...nobody even had a chance to read the damn thing...largest piece of spending in history and nobody knew what was in it???? And for those who think the GOP is dead, I’ll just remind you that 2002/03 was NOT that long ago...I seem to remember the Dems thinking it was all over. If the stimulus fails, if they need more bailout money, if the 3.5 trillion budget goes through, and things don’t get better...You will see a very different 2010 and 2012...this country goes back and forth...it's hubris to think the other side is over.

[DanBest]

How can you have a handle called "middle of the road" and then claim this is a center-right country? (that statement is nothing more than wishful thinking on the part of republicans. Like the notion of "liberal bias" it all depends on who is judging the bias). You don't sound middle of the road. You sound like a slave to republican talking points particularly when we are only a few months into a new administration. But I'm sure you, being "middle of the road" were equally critical of Bush at this point in his administration? Right?

[iblogleft]

If I hear the term "Kool-Aid drinkers" again in this lifetime, I am going to throw up on you. :-)

[loveu2]

I realize the country goes "back and forth", but it use to depend on having a smart candidate to put on the ticket, maybe even 2 smart candidates. Now it looks like the GOP is a little short in the "smart" department.

[iblogleft]

In all honesty, Obama may be playing a good game of Chess, again.

I am starting to think that the only way change will occur on the scale that is needed, is if certain actions and policies fail. Only when failure is seen, and felt, will Obama have the real power he needs to do things the right way.

After this "bailout" fails, nationalization and sell off of these large banks and investment firms will be easy to sell. He can then say "we tried the centrist approach, and it failed. so this is what we are going to do now". When the half-baked - see centrist - stimulus fails to boost the economy (which it will), he will step in and tell Americans that we tried that approach, and it too failed, so this is what we will do.

Obama may understand that even with all of the momentum progressives have in this political environment, with all of the failures of the past to show us the road to success, the entrenched wealth and power of this system cannot be removed or even re-directed without absolute, tangible failure.

It's a he77 of a way to get things done, but it may be the only way.

[masher]

So Obama wants the country to fail to save it? If that's the case then he is crazier than Bush. People are suffering. There is real suffering right now in the nation and worse in other nations. And there is very little chance of such a gamble working. Too many variables.

So again, if this is a crazy chess move by Obama then I might rather have regular old crazy republicans. At least with the GOP we know they are nuts and we know what kind of nuts they are.

[J-Rome]

Will you vote republican next year and in 2012?

[iblogleft]

Not the country to fail, the policies that the very wealthy and very powerful have created.

I know it sounds nuts, but in absence of utter policy failure, the powerful will maintain policy control out of sheer monetary fortitude. No matter how you slice it, laws are made through very well funded politicians, by very well funded corporations and PAC institutions. There is no way, short of physical overthrow, that real people will have real decisions designed to make things better for everyone if this system is maintained.

Obama is too smart to allow the most wealthy, and the most powerful to continue on this path. So the question is, how do you take away the benefits of having so much monetary influence on lawmakers?

In other words, without huge, systemic changes in how we finance and run elections, I cannot see how anything can change without policy failures being headline news.

Unless you believe he has sold out, which would be arguable, there is another explanation for his actions and lack of actions, and I am just trying to figure it out.

[Gonzorunner]

Obama is gaining in the polls??? Where did that come from? The exact opposite is true in most polls and people, both Dem's and Rep's are wondering if BHO was a really bad idea. His liberal agenda is going to crush our country and the democrats are behind the curtains pulling his puppet strings. He is a one termer, thank God!

[ywcachieve]

You obviously are looking at Faux Network polls.

[LinuxDude]

See above response.

[Fremon]

Get your brain in gear. Too much Limbaugh and Beck et al. I guess if it is said enough times you will believe it. How many times will it take to offer you the Brooklyn Bridge before you will buy it?

[Dalpine]

Bush spending turned off conservatives and moderate Democrats. With Obama spending we are looking at a 3 Trillion dollar budget deficit and a 14 Trillion dollar national dept. It's very scary stuff.

[LinuxDude]

The polling data is coming from many sources, not from Rush or Beck.

This is called Research and has nothing to do with the Brooklyn Bridge.

Acerbic comments, ad hominem attacks and red herrings are tools commonly applied by people who cannot respond logically to the assertion that is on the table. I cannot prove it, and do not claim to, but I suspect that the parent falls into that category.

Note that it's intellectually honest to distinguish the things you surmise from the points you allege.

[J-Rome]

Name the polls you cite in your post please.

[hasheville]

Westen's words are so on the money in so many ways. The Dems need to find some courage and remember what their jobs are. Hope LIves post is also on the money. First thing is to contact the blue dog Dems repeatedly. We've got one in western NC - Shuler. He is a new congressman and had the nerve to go against Obama right away on the stimulus, like he is so much smarter than all the other Dems on the issues? His excuse was that the majority of calls he received were in favor of him voting against Obama. That is crap because everybody knows the republican party pays people to call in radio shows AND particular congressmen. When you call your representatives office do they ask if you are a Dem -- no! So I wrote Shuler and said he is listening to republicans and I didn't believe that there were many, who actually voted for him, calling in during the first 2 wks of Obamas presidency and asking him to vote against Obama, who the people of NC voted for. During Clinton's term the same thing happened and those Dems that didn't stand with the president weakened the president and their party and guess who else - themselves - so they lost in the next elections. Write your Blue Dogs -- tell them this and that you won't be voting for them for sure and if you'd wanted your representative supporting the Rep party you would have

[ktodack]

I'm simply amazed at how many responders to this blog are completely off subject and just spew out the usual bullshit. The point is is that the Democrats have been since Kennedy a completely undisciplined party with each elected official doing their own thing with no real party focus. The GOP in contrast has had for most years strong leadership and think tanks that have pressured every Republican to speak with one common voice. This has worked very well over the years allowing them to define themselves as the "true" Americans and the Democrates as weak and somehow "European" meaning socialist. This is not rocket science, Drew is just pointing out that the Democrates need to be better disciplined and be able to define the other side and themselves just as the GOP had learned to do long ago. I'm amazed that the Democratic party has not hired Drew Westen, they would be hard put to find a better way to make themselves more competitive.

[vippy]

After all, don't forget, the DEMOCRATS were Bush Enablers.

[ywcachieve]

They were not Bush enabler, they just didn't have the power. And when they did gain some power the the last 2 years of Bush's presidency, Bush vetoed everything.

[Flavor]

Thank you, ywcachieve, your so wise and intelligent. Love to see you debate, even if on some bloggs we don't agree your a great debator. That's why I love the huffpost, we leaders already in the making.

[Flavor]

Let me say this, overall I will give President Obama a b+, he is only a few months in office and he is showing he is very capable of leadership. Now we the people have to watch and allow him to do his job, were Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Bush Jr., perfect absolutely not, if we go back in history on all we would find flaws, am I saying we should not critique our president of course not I'm simply saying he is a man that appears so far to be able to do the job. Will you have the nay sayers, it comes with the territory. President Obama, is not perfect nor is he saying he is, when he took the seat of Commander and Chief he knew what he was coming into. I believe, with time we will survive and there will be change but I'm also aware it's going to take time. Sometime, man assume's that because your not loud and boistorous that your weak. I have found in my young life that the strongest people were not the ones who were loud but they were the one's who appeared to be quiet, and when they spoke everyone listened. I say the best is yet to come out of this leader, also he invites views from all, this is a leader that knows he needs help in order to succeed.

[freelyb]

Does anyone here see evidence that ex-Repub/current "centrists" are trying to infiltrate and dilute meaningful Democrat dialogue?

[Kassandra]

I just don't even know what to say about this post as so many of the Bush years policies are still firmly in place. The main thrust of Obama's presidency so far has been to bail out the mega corporations and figure out how to get US more firmly in the tar baby of the middle east wars.
Leader of the Free world? I'm wondering what latitude and longitude that "Free World" would be on. I'd like to move there.
As far as I can see, Obama has done a 180 on virtually everything he promised except the dog.

The Democrats "message" is unclear because they have the same message as the Republicans with maybe a few more crumbs to be swept off the table for unwashed masses below their exaltedness.So, if you're confused about why it's getting so much WORSE instead of better for us mere citizens, there's your answer.
We'll find out when it's way too late while Fox Noise lies to all those poor people that Obama is going to raise their taxes and get them teabagging for the rich!
There's no communication but the "Trust Me" meme all over again. There's no message because it's the same damn policies all over again. I seriously don't know why the right wingers are so upset with Obama, he's doing Bush on steroids.
Wake me up when you see some "Change" especially if it's coins on the ground!

[procrustes]

Kassandra, he's not bailing out the banks, he's bailing out us! The diabolical modus to the financial crisis was to purposely become too big to fail and thereby drive risk to zero. The plan worked fabulously until it didn't.

There..is...no...way...to...save...the...people...without...benefiting some who should not benefit.

Zero, zilch...no...way.

It's a really c r a p p y situation, but that is where we are. Thank goodness our President is pragmatic enough to focus on getting us out of deep trouble with the minimum of damage and not on mob calls for nooses. Nooses might make us feel a little better for a while, but a whole lot worse when the world's financial system melted.

There is no good solution to this problem. The best we can hope for is to escape with our economy in working order and the ability to rebuild.

[freelyb]

Good post..lol!

[Marlyn]

Jimmy Carter was and is an honest man. THAT is why I voted for him. It is hard to find honesty in a politician.

[Tena]

"That is not President Obama's style. He prefers to say that mistakes "were made" (but not by whom). He is comfortable attacking "greed" as long as he doesn't have to attribute it to anyone in particular."

I disagree. He's said over and over that the Republicans got us here. He has not been coy about that at all. Just ask the Repugs - they know what he's said. They jump immediately when he says it, every time.

I remain as amused as I was during the campaign at people's interpretations of Obama. So many people have this idea he isn't tough, which I find almost rolling around on the ground funny. Yeah, the first AA president isn't tought - that's how he got there. [rolls eyes]

He's laid it on the line more than once and so have other Democrats - they've said repeatedly that the party that made this mess has a lot of nerve criticizing the Democrats for trying to fix it.

[Kassandra]

OK then...where are the investigations that would prove to America once and for all that this stuff isn't going to continue?

[Tena]

Well all I can say about that is this:

Demanding to know exactly how this happened right now is tantamount, IMO, to being shot with an arrow and spending the next 30 minutes looking for who shot you instead of taking the damn arrow out.

That's a good way to die.