This bit from William Galston and Elaine Kamarck’s Third Way report strikes me as fairly important:
Jimmy Carter captured only 72 percent of the liberal vote in 1976 and won the presidency. John Kerry captured 85 percent of the liberal vote and lost. Carter captured 77 percent of registered Democrats and won; Kerry
captured 89 percent and lost. In fact, no Democrat in modern history captured a greater percentage of both self-identified liberals and registered Democrats than Kerry, yet he lost.
So, for Democrats who think that we just need to follow a strategy of base mobilization, the numbers just don’t bear you out. Kerry also won 54% of moderates, but lost because a slight majority among Independents and huge base mobilization still turned out a smaller number than the Republican base. Now, I think Kamarck and Galston get something wrong when they assume that these numbers and, more importantly, the ideological values that underpin them, are fixed, and I’ll be saying more about that soon. But they are quite right that mere Democratic/liberal turnout, if it doesn’t also mobilize across the rest of the political spectrum, will not win us any elections.
