For the West Wingers and much of the national party, that’s true. But if they genuinely nominate a true GOP-state democrat, their nominee will bring quite a bit of understanding.

In general, I think West Wing is fascinating — it’s very well written, and the assumptions and errors are themselves fascinating insights into the other side of the political spectrum. One of the more jarringly inaccurate scenes, which seems relevant here, was when President Bartlett was talking with his VP — a Texas democrat who is, among other things, against gun control. Bartlett asks Hoynes why on Earth anyone would be in favor of concealed-carry laws, and Hoynes admits that he has no idea why anyone would think that concealed weapons have any value as a deterrent to crime. It seems very unlikely to me that there’s any major politician in Texas who doesn’t at least know what the argument on this issue looks like, even if he or she doesn’t agree with it.

If the Democrats really do nominate a GOP-state democrat, like Governor Warner, he won’t be Alan Sorkin’s version of a conservative democrat — he’ll bring along an actual understanding of conservative voters and their issues and values. Evan Bayh actually does understand midwestern voters, and Mark Warner actually does understand southern voters, in a way that a California or Massachusetts politician probably doesn’t.

Thinking that most Americans would buy Kerry as strong on defense because he served was a deep miscalculation — a geographic electoral strategy probably wouldn’t be, so long as Bayh or Warner doesn’t have to swerve too far to the left to get the nomination. And it could work even if Kos-types and Sorkin-types support one of them for all the wrong reasons.

I was expecting that the left wing would feel disgusted with “electability” arguments this time round, given the failure of the “electable” Kerry, and that they’d go for a “true believer” instead. That Kos is supportive of Warner at this point is interesting.

This whole “Warner can win a red state” argument is the same thinking that led to “John Kerry served in Vietnam, therefore no one will have nation security qualms about him because they’ll be mesmerized by his shiny medals.” It’s all about nakedly obvious tactics and not about the ideas behind hawkish and dovish positions that lead people to actually vote a certain way.

There was a recent episode of The West Wing where Josh, the campaign manager for the Santos campaign, made some reference to the fact the Democrats poll weakly on national security. All the underlings seemed to befuddled by this news, but he wrote it off with a comment along the lines of “Yeah, I know it’s ridiculous, but it’s something we’ve got to deal with.” Now aside from the dopiness of Democratic professionals being shocked to find this out, I was most intrigued by the notion that such a polling weakness is just crazy, and addressing why there might be a weakness wasn’t important. Instead, it was time to roll out the cheap stunts. Make sure Santos is seen doing his weekend Air Force Reserve training, looking macho in his flight suit!

Considering the Democrats are quick to mock President Bush for his martial show-pony tactics like landing on an aircraft carrier, they seem strikingly determined to do the same thing (Let’s stick Dukakis in a tank! Let’s have Kerry salute!). Until they get beyond this kind of tone-deaf approach, this kind of “Gosh, Warner threw some mysterious magic dust we don’t understand in the faces of red staters, so let’s support him” approach, they’ll continue to have trouble getting voters to choose them if national security remains an issue.