Free Advice

A few days ago I wrote about the problem with the American Left, namely, it's too conservative, and in that vein I'll give John Kerry some foolproof advice on how to win the election. In a nutshell, my advice is do something liberal.

Liberals are always reformers. We want to reform society's great institutions, if not eliminate them entirely. When was the last time you heard a mainstream Democrat offer to reform anything? All they propose is to increase what we already have, give us more government education, more government funded healthcare, and more unemployment benefits.

While I think of it, those are all things George W. has given us, but I digress.

Offering the same, but more of it, isn't reform. It's just electoral pandering. What Kerry should do to win the election is to steal the Republicans' liberal ideas and adopt them as his own liberal programs. There is some precedent for this. Clinton fought welfare reform until he figured the Republicans couldn't be beat on the issue, and then he adopted a welfare reform program of his own. He later claimed it as a great accomplishment of his administration.

Here are a few candidates for adoption by an open-minded Democrat:

Social Security liberalization. Just go ahead and create some sort of beneficiary controlled plan. The traditional (as opposed to modern) liberal position on governmental issues is to give individuals more freedom. Everyone knows SS won't survive in its current form, so go with it.

Government school reform. It hardly matters what kind of reform, whether it be charter schools, vouchers, or some other invention. At some point you have to make the somewhat painful decision to break away from the ultra-conservative teachers unions and side with the students and parents instead. It's becoming increasingly obvious to swing voters that those are two opposing factions.

Liberalize business regulation and the tax code. By now it should be plain that big business can buy its way around burdensome red tape. They can afford lawyers and accountants and pass the expenses to consumers. It's the small businesses that suffer. More and more Americans are in business for themselves, and the liberal thing to do would be to give the little guy a break. Trust me on this one, I have some experience.

I'm sure you could think of some other liberal ideas the Democrats could steal from Republicans, and the beauty of it is there's no risk for Democratic candidates to do so. The anybody-but-Bush crowd isn't going to care, and there's a wealth of swing voters out there who do care about these issues, and who are looking for a reason to go to the polls this November.

N.B. None those of things are pro-freedom enough to be called libertarian, and they don't go nearly far enough for my taste. It's just crass (but effective) election year strategy.