We have discussed at length the Mainstream Media Megaphone, and its counterpart in the disproportionate funding of Democratic candidates and causes from a few cities in America. The powerful combination of money and media reach does the Democrats and the Left no favors, since they are seduced into thinking that they represent majority opinion in the country. This is not the case, as EJ Dionne notes this morning:

Criticisms of the Democrats are usually personalized: this or that leader is said to be inadequate, or the party as a whole is said to lack “guts,” “gumption” and “clarity.” But the party’s problems are structural and can be explained by three numbers: 21, 34, and 45. According to the network exit polls, 21 percent of the voters who cast ballots in 2004 called themselves liberal, 34 percent said they were conservative and 45 percent called themselves moderate.

The number of conservatives is over 50% higher than the number of liberals in the United States. Shouting louder will not change this, more 527′s will not change this, calling Bush the evilest, chimpiest, worstest president ever will not change this. And above all: calling conservatives stupid, racist, sexist, bigot homophobes will definitely not change this.

For the record, Dionne offers two strategies that he says Democrats are currently struggling with:

The core difficulty for Democrats is that they must solve two problems simultaneously — and solving one problem can get in the way of solving the other. Over time, Democrats need to reduce the conservative advantage over liberals in the electorate, which means the party needs to take clear stands that could detach voters from their allegiance to conservatism. For some in the party, this means becoming more moderate on cultural issues such as abortion. For others, it means full-throated populism to attract lower-income social conservatives. Some favor a combination of the two, while still others worry that too much populism would drive away moderate voters in the upper middle class. The debate often leads to intellectual gridlock.

With all respect, the Democrats’ problem is much deeper than this. The core problem is that the intellectual energy, money, and media power of Democrats come from the Left. The Left’s positions on abortion and business are deeply unattractive to the vast majority of conservatives, and clever packaging isn’t likely to change that. And the problem is even deeper still. Conservatives know that they are, by and large, not respected by the Left.

The MSM contributes mightily to the Democrats’ problems by creating an illusion and comfort zone. In that bubble, liberalism is still a majority viewpoint. We are reminded of what TIME Magazine wrote about Powerline in its Blog of the Year award:

How can a blog that caters to the right, the political majority who in fact run this country, make Republicans feel as if they’re part of a proud, persecuted minority? The villain here isn’t the political opposition. It’s the left-leaning Mainstream Media, a looming specter….

The Democratic and liberal MSM would far better serve their strategic objective of returning to power in government by recognizing that they are part of the 21% liberals in the country, and that they are far outnumbered by the 34% conservatives. Such humility would have a greater chance of being appealing both aesthetically and politically than their current approach.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 27th, 2005 at 7:54 am and is filed under Democrats, General, MSM, Polling, Republicans, business, radical chic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.