Dan Balz writes at the Washington Post:
Five months after midterm elections that demonstrated the rising power of independent voters, conservative and liberal activists continue to drive the presidential campaign dialogue, deepening the red-blue divisions that have defined national politics for more than a decade.
The huge gulf between the two parties’ candidates is most evident on Iraq — a division reinforced last week by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who excoriated his Democratic rivals on the war. The top Republican contenders uniformly support President Bush’s troop buildup strategy; Democrats just as forcefully argue for starting to withdraw U.S. troops and a timetable for eventual removal of virtually all combat forces.
But the war is not the only area in which the candidates are at opposing poles of the debate. On issues such as taxes and spending, health care, and education, candidates are mostly taking their cue from — or trying to cozy up to — their respective ideological bases. In doing so, they risk embracing positions that could complicate later efforts to win the support of independent voters, whose votes will be crucial in November 2008.
Right now, that problem appears more acute for Republicans. At this point, polling indicates that independents do not fall at some midpoint between the parties; rather, they are far closer in their views to Democrats than Republicans, particularly on the dominant issue, the Iraq war. Their shift away from Bush was critical in the Democrats’ victories in November, and independents give no sign of moving back to the GOP.
Now, that looks good for the Democrats, but the Democrats have to be careful as well.
Key party strategists warn that the candidates are flirting with problems in the general election if they are not careful, particularly on the war. The intensifying standoff between congressional Democrats and the White House over funding for the war threatens to make that worse.
William A. Galston of the Brookings Institution, a Clinton administration domestic policy adviser and an early opponent of the Iraq war, said his party should note that voters appear just as worried that Democrats would withdraw from Iraq too quickly as they are concerned that Republicans would stay there too long.
McCain pollster Bill McInturff explained why both parties try to appeal to the base, at this stage, and not to independents: “I’ve been in primaries where they have looked ahead to the general election; they tended not to be very successful.”
The two issues that could bring the democrats into trouble: as already mentioned Iraq and… health care.
As Balz (and his sources) points out, one should also remember that most candidates haven’t really formulated a domestic policy yet.
It will be interesting to see how and whether the Democratic candidates will be able to keep the base in check while they move a bit to the center. Furthermore, it will also be interesting to see how the Republican candidates try to distance themselves from Bush, without launching “a personal assault on the president” which the White House won’t tolerate.
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