Wednesday, August 07, 2002

Invaluable poster Tresy documents Saletan's real-time campaign criticism, as opposed to the revisionism he's engaged in now.


Here's Saletan talking about his beloved Joe Lieberman, 8/15/00:

"If it works, this integration of cultural conservatism with economic progressivism [earlier referred to as "populism"] will convince independent voters that Gore and Lieberman are serious about battling cultural rot, while reassuring mainstream Democrats that this battle is guided and limited by the party's values. Explaining the connection will take some time. Lieberman made a good start yesterday by appearing on all five weekly talk shows."


Next week Saletan had this to say
about Bush:

"By portraying Gore as a [class] warrior and associating his warfare with the major policy battles of the past six years, Bush undercut his whole game plan on the most important weekend of the campaign....

"This is a debate Bush can't win. Politically, the Clinton position has beaten the Gingrich position every time... They thought "class warfare" was another character issue. It isn't. It's about class. And the Bush people themselves have unwisely identified it with all the health-care and retirement-security debates on which Democrats keep whipping Republicans. " )


(Recall that Saletan this week sneers at Gore's alleged misappropriation of Clinton rhetoric.)


More Saletan of Yore on Gore's "losing populist strategy":

On a Gore campaign commercial: "It's an aggressive pitch to the center: economic populism tempered by cultural conservatism. ...

"Gore is no big-government liberal. He wants tax cuts, but he wants them for you, not for the rich. How does he propose to achieve these goals? Fight, fight, fight....

"The formula is interesting: Attract conservative Democrats by embracing military patriotism, family values, and welfare reform. Meanwhile, pry them away from the GOP by championing Social Security, confining tax cuts to "working families," and assailing polluters and "big drug companies." Repudiate the counterculture in order to rekindle the politics of economic justice. "

And the last Slate piece by Saletan that discusses Gore's populism: "I'm struck by the weird triangular dynamics among these commercials. The DNC ad is obviously trying to polarize the issue. It draws two battle lines: populism and universality. ...This is consistent with Gore's general strategy of exaggerating policy differences in order to focus voters' attention on issues where Democrats hold the advantage."


Yeah, it was all so clear that Gore was going to lose (by negative 600,000 votes) even then. Why didn't Gore listen to Saletan? How different history would be today.