Democrats "could profit from Blair's Labour"

[dazzleman]

Politics is always a conflict between satisfying one's base, and drawing enough swing voters to create a majority.

The right formula depends upon the size of the base, and the distance of that base from the mainstream of politics.

I think that the party with the base closer to the mainstream generally wins the majority.

This is why the Republicans were a minority party for so long, and this is why the Democrats are currently a minority party.  The Democrats' base is further from the mainstream that the Republican base, and it is therefore more difficult for the Democrats to satisfy their base, while reaching for swing voters, than it is for the Republicans.

Right now, it's a very near thing, and different future circumstances could this situation without a real change in the overall political alignment.  Each party has vulnerabilities, and the biggest one for the Democrats is their dependence on receiving 90+% of the black vote in order to win nationally, thereby putting them in a position of having to pander to blacks, which alienates non-black voters.  Republicans have a similar vulnerability with the religious right, though it's not quite as extreme.

[dazzleman]

Dazzleman,

You should go and check out the link Vorlon posted analyzing the 2004 election. A few of things, followed by conclusions for the Dems in bold:

1. There is no fixed "mainstream" because there is no such thing as fixed public opinion. Other than responding to objective events, public opinion responds to signals by political elites such as presidents, government officials, senators, and media pundits and editorials. This is why public opinion shifts so much during the nominating conventions, because for 3-4 days, all of the elite messages coming to the public are one-sided.

Think about how to manage public opinion rather than only reacting to it.

2. Bush also won the 2004 election by consolidating his demographic base. While white evangelical Christians are a much higher proportion of the population than blacks, the pollster compares white evangelicals to all racial minorities as roughly equivalent proportions of the population, and finds that the former gave Bush a much higher margin than the latter gave Kerry. Bush and Kerry basically split the rest of the white vote 50-50.

Consolidate your demographic base, while diffusing your opponent's.

3. Bush won the 2004 election by consolidating his partisan base. Although  both parties were tied at 37% for party identification, only 6% of Republicans voted for Kerry whereas 11% of Democrats voted for Bush.

Consolidate your partisan base, while diffusing your opponent's.

4. The 2004 election was decided on foreign policy. Adding up terrorism and Iraq composed the largest proportion of the "most important issue" for respondents, and adding up the economy and health care composed the second largest proportion. Moral issues was far less important in 2004 than they were in 2000, and only the third most important issue. Bush's advantage among key marginal groups was built on his percieved advantage on the terrorism issue.

Be John Kennedy (or Harry Truman, or FDR) on foreign policy: place yourself to the right of your opponent

That's a pretty good analysis, but your last statement in a way corroborates my view regarding how far a party's base is away from mainstream public opinion.  While mainstream opinion is not fixed, it usually takes time to move public opinion on major issues.  The fact is that a Democratic today could not take a Kennedyesque or Trumanesque approach to foreign policy without losing a good chunk of the Democratic base.  This is the Democrats' central problem.  The Democrats' best hope is to move their base closer to majority public opinion, particularly on foreign policy and defense, rather than the other way around.

[dazzleman]

That is true, though when Clinton campaigned as a third way Democrat in 1992 he lost almost none of his base despite the strong Perot candidacy. I think the key is to be able to balance a move towards centrism in certain areas with strong prospective proposals in other areas that your base cares about the most.

The difference is that national security was not a salient issue in 1992.  That's what I meant when I said that the political calculus can shift depending on circumstances, even without any re-alignment of the party positions.

Personality also matters.  Reagan was able to smooth over differences between hard-right conservatives and moderates, while GHW Bush really wasn't.  Clinton was able to do the same as Reagan, while those who have run after him have not been able to.