Liberal Talk Radio

Steve Benen makes the important point that tone is more important than substance when courting the Democratic base:

Murtha is highlighting the fact that the Democratic base frequently responds more to tone than policy positions. Activists and many progressive bloggers are more than willing to put aside issue differences they have with Murtha because he doesn’t take any nonsense from the administration and will not suffer fools kindly. He’s willing to go on Meet the Press and say what many of us are thinking.

Murtha’s voting record may make him an ‘unlikely liberal hero,’ but his willingness to stand up and say what needs to be said about this war should make the admiration so many on the left have for Murtha easy to understand.

That’s exactly right, and it helps pull together a couple of points that have been swirling around in my head on the idea of “winnerism.” Winnerism has been described s the political philosophy of Kos and other Democratic activists. The idea is that it’s all about the partisanship: Kos wants more D’s in more seats. Ideology is a second-order concern. That is, it’s great to elect pro-gun, anti-abortion Democrats in “red” states, because that’s the only way to get more D’s. Then, later, you purge the conservative Dems in safely “blue” states (like Joe Lieberman).

But there’s a second component to Winnerism, and that’s attitude, which is what Benen highlights above. John Morrison and Jon Tester were both pretty moderate Dems in Montana vying for the Senate seat, but Tester won over the netroots with his attitude, which was more aggressive and hard-charging partisan than Morisson’s moderation.

In fact, if there’s one thing that unites the current crop of outside-the-box netroots favorite candidates, it’s their aggressive posturing and moderate politics: former Reganite Jim Webb, Iraq War vet Paul Hackett, and Montana Guv Schweitzer are all relatively moderate candidates who get the liberals to swoon more with their rhetoric than with their policies.

This is the point that Mickey Kaus misses when he says:

Almost by definition, the issues on which Democrats are least likely to win become the litmus tests of character. If the American people actually support something (like welfare reform) it immediately becomes suspect–”a little hateful shotglass of Dick Morris triangulation,” in the memorable phrase Palmer uses to describe Bill Clinton’s willingness to execute Ricky Ray Rector.

Kaus thinks that the Dem base is crying out for unpopular positions, like support of gay marriage, etc. But what the Dem base is actually interested in is more full-throated defense of moderate positions.

This is one reason that Howard Dean, the ur-candidate of the netroots, first became popular. Remember that Dean was a moderate Dem who was elected to 5 terms in part because Vermont Republicans (all 5 of them) liked him enough that they didn’t even field a candidate. Dean supported civil unions, not gay marriage, and the gay-rights movement in Vermont derided him for it (he “signed it in the closet” they said). It’s worth noting, vis-a-vis Kaus, that civil unions legislation enjoys majority support nationwide, but gay marriage doesn’t. The base was mad at, say, John Kerry because he was always playing defense rhetorically on the issue instead of leading with support of civil unions.

And, to be sure, the Dem base does have certain litmus tests, but I’d argue that they’re much more benign: support for education, the environment, social security, universal health care. Nothing that even the most “DLC” Democrat would fail to support in some form or another.

Finally, there’s a big caveat to all this, which is that “winnerism” has it’s limits. I don’t think the netroots is prepared to concede the fact that the country is culturally conservative. That is, they’re willing to field a moderate in, say, Montana, where conservatives outnumber liberals. But it’s not clear that they’re willing to admit (yet) the same thing about America itself, a country where conservatives outnumber liberals 3 to 2. Presidential candidates are still expected to be more liberal than you’d think logical for a country this conservative.

Update: Kaus makes more sense today:

This observation–and the parallel, more common claim that Kos followers are actually free-floating reformers conspicuously un-anchored to any of the traditional Democratic interest groups (e.g. unions)–might be two keys to winning a large majority for a non-warlike, centrist, candidate, no?