MyDD :: Bush strategist: People voted against own interests

Bush strategist: People voted against own interests

by Super G, Fri Jun 03, 2005 at 10:27:10 AM EST

This morning, NPR's Morning Edition ran a story about the reformulation of strategies in the Democratic and GOP leadership. In it, Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd lets the truth slip out during an interview with Steve Inskeep. Here's the lead-in to the interview:

STEVE INSKEEP: Like many Democrats, Howard Dean contends that Republican rhetoric has distracted working Americans. He said so-called "values issues" kept people from embracing Democratic efforts to improve their jobs or their lives. What's surprising is that Republican strategist Matthew Dowd offers a similar analysis.

I transcribed the key portion of the interview below the jump.

MATTHEW DOWD: People, I think, have a tendency to think that voters vote in their self-interest. And I think that was some people's assumption about blue-collar voters, that people thought, "Well, the economy's not as good as it should be and it could be better under a Democrat." But people were weighing things for the national interest and what they thought was in the best interest nationally or for their state. It's much more about national interest.
STEVE INSKEEP: The author Thomas Frank got a lot of attention last year by pointing out that many Americans seemed to be, as he put it, "voting against their own economic self-interest". He thought that was a bad thing. I assume you don't, but it sounds like you would agree with him.
MATTHEW DOWD: Yeah, I agree with–that people voted against their own self-interest but I think it's a very good thing.

Fast-forward to 3:20 for the above excerpt.

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Is he laughing at the American people? (none / 0)

Translation: We can screw you economically, but you'll vote for us anyway because of the other issues.

The scary part is that this means the Republicans now believe that they can do whatever they want with economic issues without any electoral consequences. To a certain degree they are right. Jim DeMint told South Carolina's hard hit manufacturing and textile workers to "quit whining about job losses", and championed a national sales tax scheme that would be a true disaster for one of the poorest states in the union. He won by 10 points.

The election was not about any of these things, but about who would support President Bush more, who wasn't a "big Government liberal", and abortion.

by wayward on Fri Jun 03, 2005 at 06:31:47 PM EST

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