Why the Democrats Keep Losing

One of the differences between the two political parties over the past ten years is that the Republican presidential candidates forget many things; the Democrats only one. On a range of questions small and large—the date of Pearl Harbor Day, whether nuclear missiles can be recalled, their own whereabouts in the shipping of arms to Iran—the Republicans are remarkably unretentive. Democratic candidates, by comparison, are masters of detail.

Their memory lapses are of a highly rarefied type. They forget only the raison d’être for their candidacy —why they wish to be president. Michael Dukakis was only the latest in a line of Democratic nominees to flounder in search of a theme. Before Walter Mondale flung himself into th...