Where Are the National Democrats on Ferguson?

There is something very strange about the national political reaction to the protests in Ferguson, Mo., (and nationally) over Michael Brown's shooting. The protesters are angry, and they're not aimlessly angry. They have a specific set of policy grievances about policing and criminal justice that are shared by a large slice of the electorate, particularly the Democratic primary electorate.

Yet no national Democratic politician, nobody of the sort who is likely to mount a presidential run anytime soon, has risen to give voice to the anger we're seeing in Ferguson. Nobody seems eager to make police abuses or racial injustice a key issue in a national campaign, even though an awful lot of Democratic voters could be activated on those issues.

Why not? African-Americans are a hugely important Democratic Party constituency. Gallup data suggests 22 percent of self-identified Democrats are black. Exit polls showed black voters made up one-third of North Carolina primary voters in 2008 and a majority in South Carolina. If there were an incident of similar salience to a group that made up such a large share of the Republican base, you can bet a number of Republican politicians would be lining up to associate themselves with the protesters.

There are answers to the 'why not?' question, but I don't think they make the quiet on this issue sustainable.

You can start with the fact that blacks and whites tend to view the situation in Ferguson very differently. According to a poll conducted this month by the Pew Charitable Trusts, 80 percent of black respondents say the shooting 'raises important issues about race,' but just 37 percent of whites do. Whites are much more likely than blacks to have confidence in the police investigation. A New York Times/CBS poll on Ferguson released Thursday finds a similar divide.

Democrats win elections by building coalitions of white and nonwhite voters, and for decades, Democrats have used 'tough on crime' stances as a way to build support with whites. The Missouri governor, Jay Nixon, spent 16 years as his state's attorney general as a strong proponent of capital punishment.

Democrats have bad memories of the Willie Horton ad and other Republican campaign messages that used 'law and order' issues to consolidate white voters. So faced with a policy issue that places a crowd of angry black people on one side and the police on the other, it's not surprising that Democratic politicians would be wary of siding with the crowd.

Democrats also haven't had to fear that not taking up this issue will cost them black votes. 'Up until the last few months, there really hasn't been any serious competition for the black vote on a policy level,' said Jeff Smith, a white Democrat who represented a racially mixed St. Louis district in the Missouri State Senate from 2006 to 2009. Even with Senator Rand Paul taking up the issues of over-incarceration and the drug war, Republicans remain too far from the median black voter on a swath of issues from economics to voter ID to make a serious general election play.

So there is a good general election logic for Democrats to give short shrift to the issues raised in Ferguson. But if the Tea Party has taught us anything, it's that a base can force its party to take stances that won't be popular in a general election. Black voters, and other Democratic voters who care about issues of policing and racial justice, don't have to flex their political muscle by being willing to leave the party. If these issues are of importance to much of the electorate - and this month's protests suggest they are - then a politician should be able to build a credible Democratic primary campaign by focusing on them.

Indeed, that's roughly what Bill de Blasio did to win last year's Democratic mayoral primary in New York. The fact that Democrats had lost the last five mayors' races in part because of perceived weakness on policing issues did not stop Mr. de Blasio from winning the primary or the general elections easily while saying the New York Police Department's policing tactics had gone too far. Mr. de Blasio was able to see that the sharp decline in violent crime in New York had changed the politics of policing, and made a softer touch more politically palatable.

The nationwide slump in violent crime should mean that trend isn't limited to New York. The declining threat of crime and the cost of imprisoning so many people has created space for politicians, especially Republicans, to endorse policies aimed at reducing incarceration.

The decline of crime should change the calculus with black voters, too: Reduced crime makes aggressive policing look less justifiable and more gratuitous. Combine the favorable crime trend with the declining share of the Democratic primary electorate that consists of white voters, and there should be room for a candidate who takes Mr. de Blasio's message on racial inequities in policing national.

Back in June, Matt Yglesias of Vox wrote that Democrats are 'more unified than ever,' and policy unity is what forestalls a serious primary challenge to Hillary Clinton. On the issue set he discussed, he's right. Democrats broadly agree on issues like taxes and spending, the safety net and bank regulation.

Mr. Yglesias's article didn't discuss policing and criminal justice issues, and didn't describe the Democratic coalition as divided over questions like whether the police have too much power and whether we imprison too many people. That lack of division may be only because no ambitious candidate has emerged to push the party leftward on criminal justice - yet.