If the presidential race came down to which side of the aisle backs up its ideas with details, it would be a landslide.
The Democrats who are running for president are flush with policy proposals, position papers and fact sheets. The leading Republican contenders, not so much.
Rudy Giuliani has his “12 Commitments.” Mitt Romney has his “Strategy for a Stronger America.” John McCain still serves up his “straight talk.” But, whether by design or default, they leave far more to the imagination than do the Democrats in discussing the big issues.
For the Democrats, it is as if one candidate lays out a plan and others feel compelled to answer with their own. In contrast, the Republicans are more inclined to hold their fire.
“Democrats are trying to prove who’s the most committed,” said Steven Smith, a political scientist at Washington University in St. Louis. “Vagueness is seen as a sign of weakness.”
It’s almost embarrassing. Dems don’t just talk about issues important to them; they offer detailed policy proposals that flesh out how they’d tackle the issues if elected. The most high-profile policy is healthcare, but it also includes education, Gulf Coast recovery, and the environment. No can accuse these candidates of making pie-in-the-sky promises.
Republican candidates, in contrast, stick to vague generalities. They mention some of the issues important to them, repeat some poll-tested soundbites, and tell voters they can see the details after the election.
I think Dems clearly have the more admirable, respectable approach. I’m just not sure if it matters.
As Dems see it, they can impress voters with specificity, and then claim a mandate once elected. As Republicans see it, voters don’t read policy proposals, don’t care about details, and the media won’t call the candidates on it, anyway.
I’m not sure Republicans are wrong about this. When a GOP candidates says, “Vote for me — and I’ll work out the details later,” I’d love for there to be consequences. There never are. In 2000, Bush’s vague and ambiguous tax plan didn’t make any sense. Al Gore tried to make it a campaign issue, but the media ignored it and voters didn’t care. In 2004, Bush said more than once that he could privatize Social Security without raising taxes, raising the deficit, cutting benefits, or raising the retirement age. How did he propose to pull that off? He didn’t — he just mentioned ideas and goals without any details. There were no political consequences.
In fact, American voters don’t seem to care all that much about the details in advance. A candidate talks about what he or she finds important, and how he or she would approach the issue if elected. Voters either agree or disagree. If a candidate were to make some kind of outlandish campaign promise — free ice cream for everyone, every day, for four years — there would probably be a higher expectation to explain how that might work, but a more general policy prescription needs a lot fewer support materials.
I’d love to be wrong about this, and I’m delighted Dems are serious enough about policy to offer the public details everyone can scrutinize, but I’m looking for a political upside to being the Party of Details. So far, I don’t see one.