A Winning Idea

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES, who say everything in just the perfect way and actually do nothing, know in their bones how vacant their words are and cling to the one poll-tested and focus-group ratified act that cannot be reasonably challenged: they profess faith.

This really only works for Republicans. Democrats do it, but they just don't do it as well, and, as we've repeatedly seen, they cannot make it work on the national stage. Republicans do faith in national politics better than Democrats because Republican politics allow for talk of faith to be matched up with actual policy, while Democrats, because of Democratic politics, can really only talk--a big problem when voters crave and recognize authenticity.

Take, for example, help for families that pay tuition for K-12 private and religious schools. Such plans, though despised and challenged by the leadership of public school teachers' unions, are constitutional when properly drafted. A Republican presidential candidate could propose such a plan and be celebrated for supporting faith coupled with common sense policy. Rudy Giuliani has. A Democratic presidential candidate, no matter how insistently devout, would have a hard time embracing such a plan when nearly one-in-ten delegates to the Democratic National Convention is either a public school teacher or married to one--a statistic used to bludgeon candidates into a cooperative stupor. Hillary Clinton, recently endorsed by the American Federation of Teachers, will probably not be talking about helping tuition paying parents any time soon. Education reform advocates still hope that Barack Obama, who has come close to offending the National Education Association with talk of accountability and reform, will take a leap of faith and shift the Democratic discussion.

And of course race matters. In supporting deductions or credits for families that spend on K-12 education, there is an opportunity for the Republican party to attract greater support from socially conservative African-American, West-Indian, and Hispanic families that make heavy use of Catholic and Christian schools in must-win states. Alternatively, the Democratic party can, through this issue, stop running top-down presidential campaigns that insist on temporary alliances and instead build a sturdy coalition that wins elections on ideas. For the Democrats it may mean angering the heads of public school teachers' unions, but it would attract key constituencies in important states and show editorial boards that winning ideas of national importance are more important than tired relationships.

Further, supporting education policies that benefit families who send their children to Yeshivas would provide candidates with something worthwhile and productive to speak about in committed Jewish communities other than the usual and predictable comments on Israel and the Middle East.

In education and faith we have an issue through which Republicans can solidify and expand their successful national vote-getting strategy or through which Democrats can make a bold and sincere move towards capturing constituencies that have eluded their often cultish message machine.

Michael Tobman, a former senior aide to Senator Charles Schumer of New York, is a lobbyist and communications consultant who lives in Brooklyn, New York.