Burnt Orange Report

Conventional Wisdom

By Nathan Nance

Conventional Wisdom about President Bush holds that like him or hate him, at least you know where he stands. That image is one of the many things Democrats have had to come to terms with, along with our recent candidate's inability to be decisive.

Like so often before, conventional wisdom may be wrong.

A recent PIPA poll (I know, are we trusting polls now?) shows that many of President Bush's supporters don't actually know where he stands on a wide range of issues.

Bush supporters also have numerous misperceptions about Bush's international policy positions. Majorities incorrectly assume that Bush supports multilateral approaches to various international issues--the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (69%), the treaty banning land mines (72%)--and for addressing the problem of global warming: 51% incorrectly assume he favors US participation in the Kyoto treaty. After he denounced the International Criminal Court in the debates, the perception that he favored it dropped from 66%, but still 53% continue to believe that he favors it. An overwhelming 74% incorrectly assumes that he favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements. In all these cases, majorities of Bush supporters favor the positions they impute to Bush. Kerry supporters are much more accurate in their perceptions of his positions on these issues.

Say what you will about Kerry being too nuanced or, dare I say, flip-floppish, but at least his supporters correctly knew where he stood on the issues.

This poll was conducted in September and October, so I think we can correctly assume that these numbers reflect the minds of the voters in November. That's actually a little bit heartening. The next to last line in that graf says that Bush supporters favored the stances that they incorrectly attributed to him. In other words, they favored our positions. This is just one poll, but we need to think about this and we need to conduct our own.

It also means that the future isn't as bleak as some people think for the Democratic party. We may not have to fundamentally alter our positions. This may be as simple as learning how to market ourselves better. Part of that marketing is going to come from making clear and concise statements about what we are for and against. "This is what I, a Democrat stands for. This is what my Republican opponent stands for." This is obviously pretty simplistic, but an effective blueprint, and I think Sen. Harry Reid understands this, which is I applaud his efforts with laying out our own agenda.

So there is hope. Hat tip to Digby.

Nate is a sports/news clerk at the Waco Tribune-Herald and writer/editor of Common Sense a Texas-based Democratic Web log. He can be reached at nate_nance@yahoo.com.