President Obama has struck a new ideological tone, albeit without a wholesale revision of his policies. Now he must find a new label, since a Rasmussen poll released last month showed the popularity of the tag "progressive" sinking like a stone.
His search will be complicated by the long, tortuous history of rebranding on the left. As the Cold War dawned, American Communists, who were still a formidable force, sought a rebirth by christening themselves "Progressives," a moniker usurped from the reform movement of the Teddy Roosevelt era. They created the Progressive Party, which ran former Vice President Henry Wallace for president on a platform blaming America for the Cold War.
During the years when Communists appropriated the "progressive" label, left-of-center anti-Communists called themselves "liberals." In New York, they formed the Liberal Party as an explicit alternative to the Communist-controlled American Labor Party, which was part of the Progressive Party. In labor unions and numerous cause groups advocating civil rights, civil liberties and social welfare measures, these "liberals" battled against the Communists and their fellow-travelers, the self-styled "progressives."
When the Communists precipitously lost popularity in the 1950s, the word "progressive" fell into desuetude. A New Left emerged in the 1960s that at first boasted of being "radical." But most of the movement's adherents learned that this term was self-defeating, so they took to calling themselves "liberals." This tactic paid off handsomely in 1972 when their hero, George McGovern, a delegate to the Progressive Party convention in 1948, won the Democratic presidential nomination.
By the late 1970s, these activists had seized control of the Democratic Party and most of its cause groups. Meanwhile, they branded the older-style liberals "neoconservatives" (a term seemingly coined by the socialist philosopher Michael Harrington in 1973), and they succeeded in capturing sole control of the "liberal" banner.
It was a glorious victory on all fronts except one—the electorate. Americans had always been more likely to call themselves "conservatives" than "liberals." But from the 1930s to the early '60s, the poll margins were narrow. The conservative advantage was usually in a ratio of 4 to 3 or 5 to 4. In the late '60s, though, with the left's takeover of liberalism, the differential spiked. The ratio became 2 to 1. This was reflected between 1968 and 1992 in Republican victories in five out of six presidential elections.
This quarter-century of Republican momentum was reversed finally by Bill Clinton, who called himself a "New Democrat," code for "not a liberal." But "New Democrat" was a term of limited shelf-life: How long can something be new?
Moreover, most Democrats felt the need for some kind of ideological identity, but "liberal" remained an anathema. So they took "progressive" out of mothballs. The taint that the Communists had put on the term in the 1940s and '50s had faded. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both took to calling themselves "progressives," and the word came into general currency.
It was a smashing success. Rasmussen asked likely voters in July 2007 which labels would make them more or less likely to vote for a candidate. "Conservative" was viewed favorably by a margin of 32% to 20%, while liberal was viewed unfavorably by 39% to 20%. But the big winner was "progressive." Thirty-five percent viewed it favorably and only 18% unfavorably, although many confessed they were not sure what it meant.
Gradually, though, they caught on. With Obama and Clinton exemplifying progressivism, by September 2009 Americans' attitude toward the term had shifted from strongly positive to mildly negative. And by now, per Rasmussen, only 22% have a positive association with "progressive" while 34% view it negatively.
With "progressive" discredited almost as badly as "liberal," where is the left to turn next?
Here's a suggestion. In 2004, Ronald Reagan's passing occasioned invidious comparisons with the incumbent. In execrating George W. Bush, left-wingers discovered virtues in the Gipper that had escaped them during his life. This prompted the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz to wonder aloud at "the largely gushing obits" and "the way [Reagan] is being revered today."
By chance, the same 2007 Rasmussen poll that recorded such popularity for "progressive" also asked voters what they would think of a candidate described as "like Ronald Reagan." The responses were overwhelmingly positive, 45% to 24%.
How could voters simultaneously approve "progressive" and Ronald Reagan? Because most voters aren't political scientists or political junkies, and these terms can be interpreted many ways.
In any event, the implication is tantalizing. The banner is there for Mr. Obama or some other candidate of the left to grasp "Reaganite." Sure, once the voters grasp that "Reaganite" is just a new bottle for the old wine, they will turn against it. But that might take a couple of years—long enough to get through the next election.
Mr. Muravchik is a fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.