After an initial post-election obsession with the phenomenon of "values" voters, more liberals seem open to the idea that improving the Democratic Party's image on national security could prove a more fruitful vein for electoral success. This, I think, is right. The share of the electorate telling exit pollsters that moral values drove their vote was, in fact, significantly smaller than the combined share citing terrorism and Iraq.
Needless to say, a minority party seeking to regain majority status ought to explore all avenues available. But while voters who think that maintaining traditional sexual norms should be a primary purpose of government have a serious disagreement of principle with most liberals, voters who think that the government ought to keep them safe from terrorism do not. Liberals and conservatives alike agree that this is an important and legitimate role of the state. Indeed, in many ways it is the area in which ideological disagreement per se is at its narrowest. It should be possible to persuade national security voters to back the Democrats, if the right combination of policy and politics can be found.
But how to do it? The first step is simply to recognize that the task will be a hard one. The Democrats burned a lot of credibility during the Vietnam War, did themselves no good during the Carter years, then had to sit and watch from the halls of Congress as Republican chief executives presided over the successful conclusion of the Cold War. After a rocky first term, Bill Clinton did much better in the second half of his administration but never got much credit for it -- in part because he didn't seek much credit and never made a serious effort to outline a liberal vision of national security for the 21st century. As a result, even though it was fairly absurd to think that George W. Bush was more personally competent to handle national security than was Al Gore, Bush took a clear majority of the "world affairs" vote in 2000, essentially on the strength of the much stronger Republican brand.
In 2004, the Democrats elected to try to overcome their branding problem by pushing harder on the biographical front. Primary voters accepted John Kerry's contention that his status as a decorated veteran would effectively immunize him from Republican attacks on national security. This mentality reached its high point at the party's bizarre Boston convention, which became a weeklong paean to combat service in a war most liberals regard as unwise and unjust. And they might have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those meddling Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and their "independent" financing.
In many ways, though, Kerry was fortunate to face off against such a dishonest and unprincipled opponent, for a campaign strategist less inclined than Karl Rove to reach for the lie could have come up with a much stronger line of criticism. Kerry's record on national security -- one that largely reflects the larger trajectory of the Democratic Party -- was not a very impressive one. From over-the-top opposition to the Vietnam War (as a congressional candidate in the 1970s, he favored deploying U.S. troops only with UN approval -- this at a time when the veto-wielding USSR was America's main strategic rival), to advocacy of the "nuclear freeze" in the 1980s, to opposing the first Gulf War (despite UN approval), to favoring the Kosovo War (despite a lack of UN approval), to making his stance on the Gulf War sequel contingent on UN approval, it's safe to say that mistakes were made. His signature policy proposal on Iraq -- to somehow get European allies to pony up more troops to provide security -- was patently unrealistic; it had European political leaders privately dreading the prospect of a Kerry win, and it would likely have done no good were it to be implemented.
Bush, as the Prospect has been arguing in exhaustive detail, has made his share of catastrophic errors himself. But he still possessed the strong Republican brand handed down by Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and his own father, and that was enough to deliver him victory.
Democrats looking forward need to do better. A continued reliance on biography-driven candidates -- combat veterans, in essence -- unduly restricts the number of possible nominees. Rebuilding the brand means focusing on national security right now and not simply waiting until the next presidential campaign. One good place to start, ironically enough, would be where the Kerry campaign left off: by picking up some proposals that his political team inexplicably failed to emphasize. Expanding the size of the regular Army by adding new special forces and civil affairs personnel is good policy, strong politics, and even something that might pick up Republican support. More special forces are precisely what the country needs if it wants to retain a capacity to use military power against terrorist groups without committing to a massive, Iraq-style operation every time we do so. Iraq has also taught us that as the military is currently configured, so-called post-conflict reconstruction operations place an intolerable burden on Reserve and National Guard units, where almost all the civil affairs troops are located.
Democrats could also push for more congressional oversight of ongoing operations in Iraq, an area where it's perfectly clear to most voters that not all is well. The Senate's committees on foreign relations and armed services both contain a disproportionately large number of rational Republicans, so there's some hope here for bipartisan cooperation. More oversight might improve policy; even if it doesn't, greater oversight would serve as a way for liberal ideas about national security to stay in the public debate even without a presidential campaign.
Neither of these ideas, of course, would be a silver bullet. The point, however, is that there is no silver bullet. Rebuilding the Democratic brand on national security to the point at which its strength is comparable to that of the party's brand on health care or education will require hard work and a lot of time. But a political party simply can't be a major force in national politics if it doesn't stay competitive on the primary responsibility of the federal government. Fortunately, there are plenty of smart liberals with ideas about improving America's security. The task for the party's politicians is to start focusing on those ideas and communicating them to the public.
Matthew Yglesias is a Prospect staff writer.
