One phrase stands out in Democratic speeches this campaign season.
Ned Lamont uses it in his Connecticut Senate race. Former President Bill Clinton spoke on the idea. Bob Casey Jr., Pennsylvania candidate for Senate, put it in the title of his talk at the Catholic University of America – then repeated the phrase 29 times.
The term is “common good,” and it’s catching on as a way to describe liberal values and reach religious voters who rejected Democrats in the 2004 election. Led by the Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C., think tank, party activists hope the phrase will do for them what “compassionate conservative” did for the Republicans.
“It’s a core value that we think organizes the entire political agenda for progressives,” said John Halpin, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. “With the rise of materialism, greed and corruption in American society, people want a return to a better sense of community – sort of a shared sacrifice, a return to the ethic of service and duty.”
Republicans have used the phrase, too. GOP Sen. Rick Santorum, who faces Casey, a fellow Catholic, in Tuesday’s election, wrote a book last year titled “It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good.” But liberals say that Republican policies promote a “radical individualism” – advocating individual retirement accounts above Social Security, health savings accounts over affordable insurance, and tax cuts that Democrats say benefit only the rich.
“We really feel that it speaks to the central moral challenge of our time,” said Alexia Kelly, executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, an advocacy group that formed two years ago.
“Our religious traditions call us to that deeper vision of caring for all, being in it together, not a go-it-alone culture,” said Kelly, who has worked for the U.S. bishops and served briefly as a religious adviser to 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. “I think it’s important that it crosses faith traditions.”
Tom Perriello, a co-founder of the Catholic Alliance, said the approach would help end what he sees as a self-defeating practice among liberals – treating religious Americans as a constituency that needs special handling, instead of crafting a message meaningful to all voters.
But he acknowledged that the strength of the “common good” as a unifying theme also is a weakness. The term is so broad it’s hard to define and can be misinterpreted as a call for “big government,” Perriello said. “The question right now is who is going to define it.”
Advocates say they don’t want to tie the phrase to a laundry list of narrow policies, but intend to convey a broad philosophy of governing with a positive appeal.
It won’t be easy. Under Roman Catholic teaching, promoting the “common good” would include opposing abortion – a position both Santorum and Casey embrace – and opposing gay marriage to protect human dignity and the family. “Common good” Democrats are generally changing how they talk about abortion, calling it a tragedy to avoid, rather than a private issue. But most have not come out against the procedure.
“I would argue that the conservative evangelical and traditional Catholic stands on same-sex marriage and abortion are stances in favor of the common good,” said Richard Land, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention and a supporter of President Bush.
“We believe that traditional marriage is the basic building block of society.”
The “common good” theme came up in meetings among Democrats and faith groups after the 2004 election, when the party felt blind-sided by the values vote and was frantic to solve its religion problem. Exit polls showed 78 percent of white evangelicals voted for Bush. Bush, a Methodist, also won the Catholic vote 52 percent to 47 percent over Kerry, who is Catholic.
Around the same time, The American Prospect, a liberal policy magazine, ran articles by its editor Michael Tomasky, and by Halpin and analyst Ruy Texeira, urging the Democrats to develop a clear vision of the “common good” so Americans know what Democrats stand for.
Tomasky drew on political philosophers, and Presidents James Madison and Franklin D. Roosevelt, among others. But the term also conveniently tapped into a guiding concept in Catholic and some Protestant traditions. It can be found in many papal encyclicals – a pontiff’s most authoritative declaration.
The twin sources of the idea can be seen in who’s adopting it.
From the political left, the Campaign for America’s Future, which has worked with MoveOn.org and the AFL-CIO, released an “Agenda for the Common Good” in June.
Mara Vanderslice, a religious outreach director for Kerry’s presidential campaign, formed a political consulting firm last year called Common Good Strategies to “help Democrats reframe the national religious debate.” The Casey campaign in Pennsylvania is a Vanderslice client.
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