Here’s a fascinating story about Allen Raymond, one of the guys who was convicted in the 2002 New Hampshire GOP phone-jamming scandal. He grew up in a liberal Democrat family, and sounds like an ex-Republican penitent, a la David Brock. He’s got a few choice quotes for the campaign culture of the GOP these days:
“A lot of people look at politics and see it as the guy who wins is the guy who unifies the most people,” he said. “I would disagree. I would say the candidate who wins is the candidate who polarizes the right bloc of voters. You always want to polarize somebody.
… “Republicans have treated campaigns and politics as a business, and now are treating public policy as a business, looking for the types of returns that you get in business, passing legislation that has huge ramifications for business,” he said. “It is very much being monetized, and the federal government is being monetized under Republican majorities.”
Wow. To say the least, this sounds like a guy who has really come a long way from where he was four years ago.
So this is what we’re up against. There’s not much difference in the attitude that produces the illegal things the GOP does and the legal things — like associating your opponents with child molesters and Osama bin Laden.
That kind of thing can really drive one to despair: What’s an effective moral response to standard-issue campaign lying, bullying and ruthlessness? Our nostalgia for the supposedly Golden Age of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite notwithstanding, the media today are not at all interested in “refereeing” the political conversation: fact-checking, or even in contributing to civic dialogue. They want a food-fight, because people watch, and they make money. Politics as WWE Smackdown is fun for them. There is no “authority” to which one can appeal. The practice of electoral politics has long since left the gravitational pull of fact, or governance.
Can the Democrats simply “polarize” their own set of voters — and win back Congress? Who would be our “polarized”? And is that really what we want? Is there a better response?
And I just don’t know. How do you raise thet discourse? And more importantly, how do you do it without offending the very people we need to be paying attention? People do like Fox News, people do like watching Crossfire, people do like watching the “food fight,” as you put it. We can’t just go to them and say that what they like is garbage and eat your vegetables/listen to NPR. It’s paternalism, which is not what people want or need.
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Actually, I think Deval Patrick does a pretty good job at this. On the one hand, he talks about not cramming people into “ideological boxes,” and not “governing by gimmick.” He talks about how the media uses soundbytes and how salesmanship is not leadership. On the other hand, all those things I’ve rattled off, are, in fact, soundbytes and a way to sell his candidacy. And, in a weird way, Deval’s big gimmick is his call to end governing by gimmicks.
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Opponents of Deval’s are going to say that’s his duplicity; that it’s a cynical move that plays on our aspirations. I don’t think so and later down this comment I’ll explain why.
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Jon Stewart does something very similar on The Daily Show. He uses the current framework of most mainstream media to criticize the mainstream media. He gives one liners (some of the best, in my opinion), uses flashy graphics, has his crop of “correspondents,” and so on. His show is easily watchable, and funny, even to those with short attention spans and who don’t really care about politics. And if you look at his interviews with Bill Bennett a few weeks ago and Rick Santorum several months ago, I think you actually see a true dialogue and a real debate.
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To me, Deval and Jon aren’t the thing they are trying to destroy. Instead, they acknowledge where our society is now — a nation of soundbytes and “food fights” — but still knowing that we want to move away from that direction. And they do move us away from that general direction. If you watched his Santorum interview, Jon started with a joke about finding something we can all agree about first.
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Ultimately, I think that’s the model we have to use. Know that we’ll have to go on the talking head shows, know that we have to campaign and campaign hard, knowing that we’ll need to go negative at some points, but always calling for a higher vision and a better discourse.
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Sorry I didn’t have time to make this short.
You nailed it. Satire. Do the Dems just hire away folks from Comedy Central or The Onion?
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I would love to see some political ads that are actually genuinely funny. The ones that try to be satirical are always so stupid, so nasty and predictable — like the SEIU’s ads against Healey. Yuck.
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Says Dryden (yes, I’m remembering from high school):
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But I don’t think that Deval is satire or needs to be.
it’s the mindset. Getting a larger point across in the media by using the same shortcuts they do. It’s a presentation thing.
Dems also deploy underhanded, sophmoric and often illegal tactics too, so drop the holier than thou attitude.
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How many times have I endured over-the-top political ads accusing Republican of terrible acts — causing child deaths because of a budget cut comes to mind — when in fact it’s just some policy beef? Plenty of times. Not that Republicans are innocent of this behavior, but your posts sound, well, naive in their weight-of-the-world “This is what we’re up against” tone.
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Negative advertising works, for both parties. Who goes first, who has the most … these are silly metrics. It’s a given both parties will bring out the ads sooner or later. The moral high ground isn’t won just because you don’t sling the mud first.
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Besides, one man’s negative advertising is another’s political response to their opponent’s deeply held political beliefs, policy platform, or ideology. Willy Horton “Revolving Door” ad … legit. Swift Boat ads … legit. Big Oil/Halliburton ads … legit.
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Each of these ads are grounded in a political difference of opinion. “Willy Horton” reflected Dukasis’s poorly conceived prison furlow program. “Swift Boats” challenged Kerry’s resume puffery. “Big Oil” criticizes Bush/Cheney for being too close, and perhaps too influenced by commercial interests.
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Tire-slashing, dog feces, and phone jamming are illegitimate tactics for which the perpetrators deserve jail time.
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I know it’s difficult for progressives to give credit to the average Amercian voter, but they’re pretty savvy. I have confidence that the public can — and do — separate the wheat from the chaff no matter what’s said in a political ad (which is why some negative ads backfire; they insult the voter’s intelligence and common sense.)
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Unlike us political junkies, the average voter begins listening to campaigns only in the last few weeks or months and so are less effected emotionally by the constant negative accusations both sides hurl.
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In the meantime, you’d fare better at election time if you lose the hurt sensibilities.
“Willy Horton” reflected Dukasis’s poorly conceived prison furlow program.
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Actually the Willy Horton ad slammed Dukakis for former governor Sargent’s furlough program, which dated from 1972. Sargent, who signed it into law, was a Republican. Dukakis initially supported the furlough program he had inherited in the 1970s, but by the time it became a campaign issue in 1988, it was gone. The Willie Horton incident happened in 1987. The furlough program was abolished by the legislature in April of 1988.
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Exptrapolate from that to a general comment about what these kinds of ads to in politics. (And also, a more general comment about failing to answer attacks in a campaign)
When a member of Congress says upon the occasion of her son’s sentencing on vandalism charges for slashing the tires of 100 GOTV cars the GOP had rented, “I’m proud of him.”, it realy makes this sanctimony hard to take.
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BTW – I’ve heard about the phone jamming scheme on WBZ at least a dozen times – has anyone heard about the tire slashing in the New England media? Ever?
A more complete quote: âI love my son very much. Iâm very proud of him,â Moore said. âHeâs accepted responsibility.â
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Did you expect no one to click through to the article that Shepherd linked? Is that why you deceptively implied that Rep. Gwen Moore supported her son’s crime?
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One key difference between the phone jamming story and the tire slashing story for the New England media: One of them took place in New England.
Abject laziness or intentional deceit.
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Not the sort of thing one would expect on a site like this; live and learn.
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I hope Peter Porcupine comes back and explains himself.
When my son is sentanced, I would say – I love him very much. He has made a huge mistake. I will get him professional help, I will help him move to another state and change his name, I will make restitution.
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Under NO circumstances would I say – I am proud of him.
takes responsibility for wrongdoing and takes his/her punishment like an adult, there’s something to be proud of.
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One can be proud of the responsibility the son or daughter assumes without being proud of the act at all. The subsequent behavior can be separated from the act itself.
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I notice you did not address your misrepresentation of the facts of the story, which is the point of my post and LL’s.
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Abject laziness or intentional deceit?
Shep, are you really comparing tire-slashing and bags of shit — definitely disgraceful and bad, both — to a phone-jamming operation in a very close election in a small state, perpetrated by the national party’s regional director (Tobin)? Let’s have a sense of scale.
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You’re wrong about the Swift Boat guys: they’re liars. The flip-flop thing, on the other hand, Kerry richly deserved. Absolutely fair game.
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“Just a policy beef”? Isn’t that, like, the whole point of politics — that someone gets to make policy? And yes indeed, lives are at stake, constantly. We should have more such discussions. I’ll echo Atrios: This stuff matters.
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But anyway, the point of the post is not to portray Dems as constant victims — it’s merely to ask what’s the proper response to dishonesty. That goes for all candidates and parties, and I wish I knew the answer. It always seems to me that there is very rarely any blowback for making outrageous accusations against an opponent. Perhaps Jerry Kilgore’s “No Death Penalty, even for Hitler” ad against Tim Kaine in VA is such an example … but we don’t see it too often.
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I’ll just paste a quote that I find fascinating and challenging:
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My original post may well have seemed like a plea for sympathy, but I don’t mean it that way at all. I’m all for hitting back hard — factually, and in a way that represents one’s true values.
Here’s the link.
There’s a scene in the Empire Strikes Back where Luke asks Yoda, “Master Yoda, is the dark side stronger?”
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“No. Faster. Easier. More seductive,” Yoda replies.
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I always think of that bit of dialogue when I think of the moral and ethical problem presented in the ever-present struggle in the mind between doing things the easy way, and doing them the right way.
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I think it’s EASIER to alienate people than to unite them. I think its EASIER to be cycnical than to be hopeful or even constructive. I think if you look at people who are operating that way, there might be a reason they would choose to alienate rather than unite – it’s just easier and they don’t have the talent to do it any other way.
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So really, it all comes down to talent. Here in Massachusetts, we have at least two candidates for governor that are more talented than the Republican candidate. I don’t think we’ll have to resort to alienating the “right block of voters” to win. But we will have to be more organised, better prepared and more unified than the other side to win in November. In short, we’ll have to work harder. I’d rather do that than turn into someone I can’t stand in order to win.
Democrats can’t win by campaigning like Republicans.
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That doesn’t mean there aren’t things to learn from watching what they do. Let’s be sure to draw the right lessons, though.
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Generally, Democrats win by mobilizing different forces and exercising power of a different kind than Republicans.
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Democratic candidates who try to win elections using Republican power start at a significant disadvantage (recall Harry Truman’s aphorism on the subject), and if they do manage to win anyway Democrats still lose.
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Another way to put this is that the struggle between the two parties is asymmetrical. We have different strengths and weaknesses.
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Recall the myth of Antaeus, who could not be beaten as long as his body was in contact with the ground. Hercules defeated him by holding him in the air until he weakened.
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That’s us, folks.