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In 1988, George H.W. Bush, Reagan’s vice president, and Michael Dukakis, three term Massachusetts governor, ran for president. Bush was a moderate Republican who moved to the right when he became Reagan’s running mate in 1980. Dukakis fit neatly into the New England liberal Democratic mold.

In 1987, during an interview with New York Magazine, Dukakis referred to himself as “a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union.” The “card-carrying member” phrase was Dukakis’ attempt at wry humor. He was poking fun at people who thought he was a “scary liberal” by making an ironic reference to the “card-carrying communist” accusation used by Joe McCarthy during the Red Scare of the 1950s.

During the campaign, Bush bludgeoned Dukakis with the quote. “He calls himself a card carrying member of the ACLU,” Bush repeated at every opportunity. When Dukakis tried to defend himself by talking about the good work the ACLU does protecting our constitutional rights, Bush replied, “You’re the one who called yourself a card carrying member of the ACLU.”

The ACLU attack was amplified by the Bush campaign’s repeated assertion that Dukakis was “too liberal.” The charge was leveled with such venom, “liberal” became a dirty word which Democrats have avoided ever since. It dropped out of the Democratic lexicon after Dukakis’ defeat. Democrats floundered around until they hit on the word “progressive” as a replacement.

The final nail in Dukakis’ political coffin, other than some self inflicted wounds, was the infamous Willie Horton ad. Horton, a black man, was released on furlough when Dukakis was governor, and he went on to commit rape and murder. The ad, with an image depicting Horton as the embodiment of evil, implied others like him would run rampant if Dukakis was elected president.

The Bush campaign’s go-for-the-jugular attack style was the creation of Lee Atwater, Bush’s campaign manager, and has continued to be used against Democrats with great success. It was taken up by Fox News founder Roger Ailes, who created the Willie Horton ad together with Atwater, Karl Rove, who began his political career around the same time as Atwater, and hoards of Atwater wannabes who have run Republican campaigns ever since.

After the Dukakis debacle, Democrats not only shied away from the word “liberal.” They ran from issues which focused on social welfare or on blacks and other minority communities, for fear of the beating they would take from Republicans. Of course, the beatings continued.

During Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, he inoculated himself against looking soft on crime and black people by taking time off from his campaign to return to Arkansas so he could oversee the execution of a black man, while asserting his strong support for capital punishment. He also condemned hip hop artist Sister Souljah for her lyrics and statements. When Clinton played his saxophone on the Arsenio Hall Show, he chose “Heartbreak Hotel.” He may be Elvis, but he’s not Little Richard or Chuck Berry. As president he signed the tough-on-crime “Three strikes and you’re out” bill. Later, he signed legislation which, he bragged, “ended welfare as we know it.” Clinton triangulated his way out of any number of potentially “liberal” positions and ended up being pilloried for his affair with Monica Lewinsky, not his policies.

Barack Obama did as much as a black candidate could do to neutralize racial issues during his 2008 presidential campaign, with reasonable success. He somehow weathered the charge that he was a secret Muslim born in Kenya, which persisted throughout his presidency. As a centrist Democrat on most issues, Obama wasn’t likely to take many stances that leaned far to the left. But when he used the word “redistribution” in an off-the-cuff videotaped conversation during a campaign event, Republicans jumped on the term. That one reference to redistribution created Joe the Plumber, the iconic common man who Republicans claimed would be hurt by Obama’s — a word was dragged back into the political arena for the first time in years — Obama’s “socialist” policies. From that point forward, “socialist” became the label Republicans hung on any Democrat who dared advocate for programs aiding the poor or supported universal health care.

When Henry Louis Gates, a black Harvard professor, was arrested for “breaking in” to his own home during Obama’s first year as president, Obama had to recalibrate his original statement about the incident which was critical of the police response. He held a congenial “beer summit” with Gates and the arresting officer on the White House grounds to prove he wasn’t attacking the police, or defending a black man.

Republicans kept up a steady stream of vitriol against Obama, which he took in stride whenever possible, without responding in kind. He walked a fine line between advocating for the progressive parts of his agenda and compromising with the Republican-majority Congress. In his statements, he mostly following Michelle’s adage, “When they go low, we go high.” His approach didn’t stop Republicans from going lower.

Here in Arizona, Democrats in the legislature voted against the anti-immigrant bill SB 1070 in 2010, but Democratic candidates were urged to avoid the issue as much as possible in their campaigns, except to say they stood firmly against illegal immigration. Their fear of taking a stand didn’t help them in the election.

Since the devastating attacks on Dukakis in 1988, Democrats have been called liberals, socialists, immigrant lovers, degenerates, atheists — any epithet they can think of to hurl at their opponents — by Republicans whenever Democrats take strong stands on controversial issues. More often than not, Democrats cower and back down. When they try to dance around the issues to stay out of trouble, they’re accused of not standing for anything. Given a choice, most Democrats have chosen to play it safe, sacrificing their message in a vain attempt to protect themselves from Republican attacks. Of course, the attacks continued.

It took an outsider, Bernie Sanders, to break through the “play it safe” barrier in 2016. He proudly called himself a Democratic Socialist. He advocated for Medicare for All and free college. He made the problem of income inequality his signature issue. Instead of hurting him, his positions turned him into a folk hero. Democrats learned it was possible to take strong stands on contentious issues and be applauded for their courage.

During the current campaign season, a growing number of candidates are following Bernie’s lead and speaking their minds, then standing up to Republican assaults. Many of them have been successful in the primaries, to the Democratic establishment’s surprise. We’ll have to wait until November to see how they fare in the general election.

A major battle is raging inside the Democratic Party. Should candidates make strong statements which may alienate some of their potential supporters but energize other voters? Or should they make safe statements which don’t offend anyone — except people who are furious at Democrats for running away from a fight and refuse to vote for no-message candidates? The battle won’t be over any time soon.

A “What Happened to Lee Atwater?” Note: Lee Atwater died of brain cancer in 1991, at age 40. When he knew he was dying, he apologized for the tactics he used against Dukakis.

“In 1988,” Mr. Atwater said, “fighting Dukakis, I said that I ‘would strip the bark off the little bastard’ and ‘make Willie Horton his running mate.’ I am sorry for both statements: the first for its naked cruelty, the second because it makes me sound racist, which I am not.”
. . .
“In part because of our successful manipulation of his campaign themes, George Bush won handily,” Mr. Atwater said. He conceded that throughout his political career “a reputation as a fierce and ugly campaigner has dogged me.”

“While I didn’t invent negative politics,” he said, “I am one of its most ardent practitioners.”

Ailes, Rove and the Republican party shrugged off Atwater’s apology and continued with their “fierce and ugly” style of news manipulation and negative campaigning. Democrats are beginning to understand that cowering and apologizing in the face of Republican attacks only makes their opponents stronger, fiercer and uglier.

This article appears in Jul 26 – Aug 1, 2018.

15 replies on “When Democrats Turned Tail, And Kept Running”

  1. Thanks for bringing to light the Clinton/Gore “triangulation” to the right that ended up giving us Trump by saddling us with the second-worst candidate in history, Hillary. Her pro-Chevron-fracking, pro-war, pro-Wall Street policies didn’t happen by accident.

    Bernie like FDR before him knows what the people want. Democrats can win over and over again on the actual issues. Medicare-for-all has polled at over 60% for years now.

  2. It polls at 60% because those in the 60 percentile think somebody else is going to pay for it. The ACA has made health care worse, So why not totally destroy it? Is that the progressive plan?

  3. Interesting. But in attributing Democratic failure to promote a labor-supportive agenda mainly to the effect of negative Republican campaign techniques, you forgot to mention some all-important shifts in campaign FUNDING.

    Per Nader: “Im going to give you millstones around the Democratic Party neck that are milestones. The first big one was in 1979. Tony Coelho, who was a congressman from California, and who ran the House Democratic Campaign treasure chest, convinced the Democrats that they should bid for corporate money, corporate PACs, that they could raise a lot of money. Why leave it up to Republicans and simply rely on the dwindling labor union base for money, when you had a huge honeypot in the corporate area? And they did. And I could see the difference almost immediately. First of all, they lost the election to Reagan. And then they started getting weaker in the Congress. At that time, 1980, some of our big allies were defeated in the so-called Reagan landslide against Carter, we lost Senator [Gaylord] Nelson, Senator [Warren] Magnuson, Senator [Frank] Church. We had more trouble getting congressional hearings investigating corporate malfeasance by the Democrat [congressional committee] chairs. When the Democrats regained the White House [in 1992] you could see the difference in appointments to regulatory agencies, the difficulty in getting them to upgrade health and safety regulations.”

    https://theintercept.com/2017/06/25/ralph-nader-the-democrats-are-unable-to-defend-the-u-s-from-the-most-vicious-republican-party-in-history/

    It would be great if choosing the right message and implementing the right policy agenda were just a matter of courage and knowing that it’s possible for candidates like Sanders and Ocasia-Cortez to connect with the base, have grass-roots funded campaigns, and win elections. Unfortunately, there’s also that little matter of WHO BENEFITS from blocking the implementation of labor-supportive policies. (You know, the folks who’ve funded the campaigns of most of our current “representatives” in BOTH parties.) There are a few candidates like Sanders and Ocasia-Cortez who say the right things on the campaign trail and have the campaign finance structure which may make it possible for them to continue supporting the right things once elected. Then there are the politicians who look a lot like Sanders and Ocasia-Cortez while campaigning, but do not, when it comes to REAL allegiances and actual ACTIONS-IN-OFFICE, turn out to be on the right team.

    That’s why reporting on governance records is always more important than reporting on campaign messages. People who look away once election day is over and assume they can trust politicians to govern in a way that is congruent with the platform they campaigned on do so at their own risk and usually to their own disappointment.

  5. “Democrats in the legislature voted against the anti-immigrant bill SB 1070 in 2010”
    Uh, you mean anti-illegal-immigrant? Democrats oppose any and all immigration enforcement laws. They want a completely open border with unlimited immigration and demonstrate it with their votes. Among other crazy positions, I can only feel that my party has left me. Republicans are about as bad.

  6. Somebody else is going to pay for military, government education, law enforcement, legal system, Platforms for caucus, elections, hundreds of city state county beauracracies, emergency relief & so much more. Medicare for all is a bargain in comparison.
    The real problem is math doesnt lie, unless liars do the math.
    Im sure more women in office will negate the ugliness .

  7. “Since the devastating attacks on Dukakis in 1988, Democrats have been called liberals, socialists, immigrant lovers, degenerates, atheists any epithet they can think of to hurl at their opponents by Republicans whenever Democrats take strong stands on controversial issues.”

    Ah, yeah, but Democrats don’t do that to Republicans, do they? They don’t call them racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes, etc., do they? Nope, nope. Clean as the driven snow.

  8. Reply to “There’s MESSAGING, and then there’s FUNDING.” You’re absolutely right about the importance of campaign funding and funders. For me, it’s not either/or, it’s both/and. Democrats’ cowardice in the face of Republican political assaults is more than listening to big money supporters, it’s an almost visceral reaction to run away when they’re attacked. Along with the power of money, it compounds the problem of Democrats being dragged to the new “center,” which is what we used to call moderate-to-conservative Republican.

  9. Political assaults while socialists in Portland promote street violence for tomorrow?

    And then to quote Koch Bros stats here makes me think my bacon just flew the Koop.

  11. Well, David, you have been watching the national scene for longer than most and you have an inside view of the decision making of local Democrats. As a report from a kind of native informant on the tribe, your observations on some of the factors contributing to How We Got Here are good data.

    From an Independent rather than a party-insider angle, a Democratic defensive posture that focuses on specific cohorts rather than system-wide labor protections seem misguided and short-sighted, and with 2016 in the rear view mirror, it looks like this type of advocacy fuels resentments that divides what should be a unified base backing labor-protective policy.

    Theres one thing that seems to show up clearly through any lense or from any position one might want to take up in the field: those who step forward to participate in or comment on the policy wars had better be prepared to thicken their skin and hold their ground.

    Neither side plays nice.

  12. Kathleen DeBoer, if politics is war we will have to defund it and shrink it down to a manageable size. It has become unable to govern because of ALL special interests. Including the poor who one party uses continually to raise money off of.

  13. Ah yes, the Democrats just love to “keep their powder dry”. But they can never find a fight where they think it is worth using it. Lloyd Bentsen, Dukakis’ running mate, told Dukakis that politics is a “contact sport”. But Dukakis wouldn’t play by those rules. And lacked charisma. B. Clinton and Obama had charisma and knew how to talk the populist talk. Remember when Obama said he would support Card Check and “put on a soft shoe” and support striking workers, and then did nothing at all to help labor? Good times.

    Did you hear that Fox & Friends (those notorious liberals) did a poll about whether the benefits of Medicare for All outweighed the cost, and 73% of the 32K+ respondents said yes? So who exactly is “dragging” the Democrats to the center? (Hint: their donors).

  14. Republican voters don’t understand wry humor, and they don’t like the appearance of smug superiority when a Democrat exhibits it. Many Democrats, OTOH, don’t understand that, to Republicans, electoral politics is tantamount to a blood sport.

    The most effective way for Dems to fend off Republican attacks is to employ the Socratic method – ask them to provide proof of their assertions.

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