Simplicity, etc.

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

I'm burned out and mildly nauseous this morning, for obvious reasons. So I'll do what I always do in these circumstances, and try to rationalize it all away.

William Saletan has some quick but thoughtful words on the failure of the Kerry campaign. Kerry was constitutionally unable to be simple. That is not a backhanded compliment of his intelligence. Bill Clinton (bless his heart!) was at least as smart, but he could carry a message better than anyone. Remember "It's the economy, stupid!"?

Read more!

Bush is a very simple man. You may think that makes him a bad president, as I do, but lots of people don't?and there are more of them than there are of us. If you don't believe me, take a look at those numbers on your TV screen.

[...]

Now look at your candidate, John Kerry. What quality has he most lacked? Not courage?he proved that in Vietnam. Not will?he proved that in Iowa. Not brains?he proved that in the debates. What Kerry lacked was simplicity. Bush had one message; Kerry had dozens. Bush had one issue; Kerry had scores. Bush ended his sentences when you expected him to say more; Kerry went on and on, adding one prepositional phrase after another, until nobody could remember what he was talking about. Now Bush has two big states that mean everything, and Kerry has a bunch of little ones that add up to nothing.

This race brings back the bad memories of the last French presidential election. There were only insignificant differences between Jacques Chirac—the Gaullist candidate—and Lionel Jospin—the Socialist. The result was an uninspired electorate, a record low Socialist turnout, and an unexpected and alarming second place finish for the neo-fascist Jean-Marie LePen. France was apalled at LePen's victory and saw it as a harbinger of a far-right surge in future polls, but that concern was misplaced. LePen did not get a larger number of votes; rather, Socialist absenteeism—wholly blamable on Jospin's centrist electoral strategy—pushed up LePen's percentage of the vote to record levels.

The lesson? The politics of the median voter may work in any given election, but they must be dispensed with in order to effect a realignment. And if a country is tightly and rigidly divided, the minority party cannot afford to continue losing per sæcula sæculorum, albeit by ever closer margins. Wasn't that the lesson of Barry Goldwater?