Say that quickly, ten times in a row! I know I can't in my current state of queasiness.
There were two significant elections yesterday--one for governor of New Jersey and the other for governor of Virginia. And there was a clear contrast in viewpoints. In both races, the candidates were either conservative or liberal--no "moderates."
The results couldn't be more startling (unless one had tracked the poll numbers over the last six months). In moderate Virginia, the conservative went down in flames at the hands of a DC insider, at time when anything associated with DC is radioactive. In liberal New Jersey, the conservative not only won, but decimated his opponent, taking virtually every demographic category (including young voters, women, and latinos) and garnering a respectable 20% of African American voters.
How in the world could a conservative crush the opposition in NJ while another conservative lost by a narrow, yet significant, margin in VA?
Short answer: The virtue of political pragmatism in public persuasion.
In other words--and this is something both Tea Party conservatives and MoveOn.org progressives miss--voters don't care as much about ideological principles as they do about the ability of that ideology to meet their needs and those of society at large. Our country didn't vote for Ronald Reagan because he was a straight-line conservative, nor did they vote for Barack Obama because he is a straight-line liberal. They voted for these figures because they thought their ideas would work.
Now, don't get me wrong--I am not a fan of pragmatism and the idea of "getting government to work." Policies should be evaluated first and foremost by their moral quality and and economic wisdom. (In other words, "What should we do?" should be asked before "What can we do?")
But the reality is that pragmatism--reducing everything to practicalities--is the original and now-predominant American philosophy. As much as I hate the language that reduces debates to "what works," such language is incredibly effective from a political perspective.
From this perspective, then, evaluate the two conservative candidates who ran yesterday. One has spent four plus years arguing for his policies from a dinner table perspsective. He tied every idea of clear societal changes and reforms. When Superstorm Sandy struck, he didn't get lost in the ideological forest, but worked hand in hand with the President to bring about quick relief.
The other candidate constantly argued in terms of abstrations. People knew where he stood on the issues, but not how his positions would help them. It is one thing to talk about the moral quandaries and economic fallacies of Obamacare, for example, and quite another to talk about the hundreds of thousands who are currently being kicked off their insurance plans, leaving them without an economic safety net in the event of a medical crisis. People care about the practicalities.
So one conservative crushed the opposition in a blue state, while another lost in a purple state. As the post mortems begin, remember the value of political pragmatism in public persuasion.
