From John O’Sullivan of the Chicago Sun-Times:
What makes this internal paralysis so dangerous to the Democrats is that they are even more out of touch with ordinary Americans than they or the pundits realize. There are two political spectrums in America today — an elite spectrum and a popular spectrum.
The elite spectrum has the Democrats in the center, the voters on the center-right, and the Republicans on the far right. No one ever outlines this structure of opinion as clearly and explicitly as that. But it is regularly implied by the establishment media or centrist pundits in the course of their commentaries.
The popular spectrum of political opinion has the Democrats and liberal elites on the left, the Republicans in the middle, and the voters further out to their right.
Of course, not all issues fit into the popular spectrum comfortably. On some economic issues, for instance, the elite spectrum represents reality better. Thus, the voters are instinctively closer to the Democrats than to the Republicans on Social Security — which is why the congressional Republicans are distinctly nervous about the reform program proposed by the Bush administration.
What makes the Democrats’ task of recovery so difficult is that many of the issues that most concern voters — for instance, national security and gay marriage — fit into the popular spectrum better. But because the Democrats think in terms of the elite spectrum — and are encouraged to do so by elite institutions such as Hollywood and the media — they never realize their vulnerability.
