How to stop being an opposition party

The Bonassus, Daniel Geffen, actually turns to the research….

a) Adjust your policies to be more like the other (more successful) party’s?
b) Stick to your guns and maintain the same policy positions (or move farther away from the other party)?
c) Innovate: find a new set of policies to champion?

….So what does history tell us? The most rigorous attempt to answer this question that I’m aware of is a 2001 paper by Kenneth Finegold and Elaine Swift (you can find it here if you have access to the British Journal of Political Science). Their result? Despite the impressive arguments mustered by proponents of each option, none of the strategies stands out as superior, at least in the US presidential context. Each strategy has produced a statistically similar won-lost record. A more sophisticated test (examining the size of deviations from predicted vote totals) returns the same result: even when controlling for the non-policy factors (national economic performance, personal popularity of the incumbent) that typically go into vote-prediction formulas, the out-party hasn’t done any better or worse when it has chosen to move toward, away, or in a different direction from its incumbent opponent.

Daniel concludes, correctly in my view, that the best lesson to be drawn here is that we ought to approach reasoning by historical analogy with a sizable grain of salt. Obviously, we ought to look for similar circumstances if we can find them to learn from; but we need to be a bit more aware that there is probably another historical case than works against our preferred case, we just don’t know anything about it. Furthermore, those who advocate strongly for their preferred choice on the list need to operate with a bit more humility. I’ve seen far too much exasperation-heavy “we’re being the grown-ups here” posturing from advocates of option A, and a bit too much “they’re the old losers who never do anything right, they don’t understand the ‘netroots’ who changed political reality forever” posturing from some of their opponents. Frankly, I have no idea whether a, b, or c is most likely to succeed at this point. And, in all likelihood, neither do you.

Update: To be clear, I’m not saying we never have any idea what to do, ever. Only that it’s a mistake to think one of these three approaches ought to be our default mechanism. Scott has done a fine job of showing why option (a) isn’t particularly wise as a course on reproductive rights. We (and many others) have argued that option (a) isn’t a bad idea on gun control. There are good, specific reasons for each of these positions. Other issues are harder to figure out. But neither a, b, or c should be assumed to have some sort of unique political wisdom behind them in a general, abstract sense.