Where are the Democratic Populists?

American Prospect writer Matt Yglesias poses an interesting question: have we seen a large-scale collapse in support for economic populism inside the Democratic Party? The answer, unfortunately, isn't clear - but the fact that there is even a concern is a troubling sign for the party's efforts to regain the majority.

Yglesias points to the failed candidacy of House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt in the 2004 Democratic primaries as an indication that we have. I would disagree that Gephardt is a good example - whereas in 1988 he ran a serious, populist campaign on his trade record (and almost pulled off an upset victory), this time around he sadly seemed a bit scared of his own shadow on these economic issues, and wasn't nearly the firebrand he had been before. As Ezra Klein notes, "we don't know how the party feels about populism because we haven't run a populist for quite awhile." My only problem with that statement is that, in a way, we have: his name was Bill Clinton. He ran successfully as a rhetorical economic populist, but unfortunately did not GOVERN that way.

That said, Yglesias is onto something. Why is the Democratic Party defined exclusively on its orthodoxies on social issues, but not on any orthodoxy on middle class economic issues? Why hasn't anyone made an issue of the fact that all of the leading contenders for the Democratic nomination for president (with the fortunate exception of John Edwards) by-and-large all free trading economic "moderates?" If they were, for instance, all pro-lifers, you'd hear a huge outcry (and rightly so). But on economic issues, national Democrats are basically permitted to be Republican-lite with little question from the media and many Democratic primary voters.

Why is that a problem? Well, consider that in the last election, 55 percent of white working-class voters trusted President Bush to handle the economy, while only 39 percent trusted Sen. John Kerry. That means people simply don't have much faith that either party (and especially the Democratic Party) is standing up for ordinary people's economic interests, and thus people vote on intangibles like "moral values" (whatever that means). Also consider that, as I described in an earlier American Prospect piece, the Democrats who do manage to win in red regions usually do it with serious, old-school economic populism. In Montana, for instance, a major tenet of the successful Schweitzer for Governor campaign was serious, gutsy talk about corporations who are ripping off average people - not empty Tom-Friedman-esque platitudes about the wonders of the "new economy" that so many corporate politicians parrot. That posture not only showed that the candidate would stand up for the middle class, but also showed he had guts - a key intangible for any Democrat in an age where people too often see Democrats as lacking conviction.

If Democrats are to truly compete in those ever-growing "red" regions, they need to re-evaluate this destructive pattern of being defined only on social issues, and not on economic ones. And Democratic primary voters need to start prioritizing those issues when they choose their candidates. Otherwise, we continue to cede that vast swath of persuadable Ross-Perot-supporting Lou-Dobbs-watching voters who are key to bringing Democrats back to the majority.