Just Which Party is Working to Polarize America?
Back in 2005, Chris Bowers wrote about what he called the “Equal Polarization Myth,” which is basically the idea that Democrats and Republicans are both equally responsible for polarizing America–that both parties are running to their base, rather than reaching out to the middle. As he goes on to show, it was the Republican party which went farther to its extreme than the Democratic Party.
The first, and perhaps most obvious, reason that Democrats and Republicans are not engaging in an equal amount of polarization comes from the fact that polarization and base turnout was the main strategy in the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign, while it most certainly was not the strategy for Democrats in 2004. From Mathew Dowd, Chief strategist of the campaign:
…And what came from that analysis was a graph that I obviously gave Karl, which showed that independents or persuadable voters in the last 20 years had gone from 22 percent of the electorate to 7 percent of the electorate in 2000. And so 93 percent of the electorate in 2000, and what we anticipated –93 or 94 percent in 2004, just looking forward and forecasting –was going to be already decided either for us or against us. You obviously had to do fairly well among the 6 or 7 [percent], but you could lose the 6 or 7 percent and win the election, which was fairly revolutionary, because everybody up until that time had said, “Swing voters, swing voters, swing voters, swing voters, swing voters.”
And so when that graph and that first strategic imperative began to drive how we would think about 2004, nobody had ever approached an election that I’ve looked at over the last 50 years, where base motivation was important as swing, which is how we approached it.
By their own admission, in 2004, Republicans ran to their base far more than any previous campaign had done…
And, as has been shown, Independents are much closer to Democrats in their disapproval of Bush than Republicans. On Iraq, the problem Democrats have faced has never been one of the popularity of opposing funding for the war, simply the political will to stand up to Republicans.
I think Kos’s opening remarks on Meet the Press really help sum up what I want the Democratic Party to be:
It’s worth noting two things about this video. He’s simply saying we need to be proud to be Democrats and stand up for our values. Second, he’s not saying that means we should be more ideologically liberal — the netroots support moderate candidates all the time. Instead we should find candidates which fit their districts. We need to find candidates that fit their districts, but who are proud to be Democrats. I would argue that this helps show that it’s not the “far left” netroots which are polarizing America, just as it’s not the Democratic Party, either.
The truth is, America is much less divided than we might think. And it’s Republicans, not Democrats or even “liberal” Democrats, who are moving to their ideological base.
What are we polarized about?
Paul Rosenberg over at Open Left has a series of posts about this supposed polarization. All of his posts are worth a read, and they’re in part what has inspired this blogpost. Using data from the 1990s, he showed that even conservatives supported expanding social programs during the period of time when the “era of big government,” was “over.” He effectively argues that
On any issue you chose, on any question you chose, you will find more net agreement between liberals and conservative than you will find disagreement. This includes both liberals taking “conservative” positons and conservatives taking “liberal” positions, though the later is by far more common. Still, both forms of overlap count toward reducing the degree to which liberals and conservative are polarized over the issues.
There is, however, one well-known area in which the liberal/conservative overlap drops significantly-voting for President. In the 2004 election, liberals favored Kerry by 85-13, while conservatives favored Bush by 84-15. The overall difference: 70 percent.
I’ve done a lot of describing of his posts already, but the long and short of it is this: incredibly often, Bush supporters simply did not know what Bush’s actual positions were on the issues, whereas in general Kerry’s supporters were more informed of their candidate’s positions.
Going back to the argument that KBusch introduced. Please let me know if I’ve misinterpreted the argument. What she introduced was the notion that your individual vote is essentially insignificant. The amount of effort it takes to become a well informed greatly outweighs the impact of that well informed vote. Therefore, the marginal cost of becoming a well informed voter is greater than the marginal benefit of such an action on an individual level. The problem? In aggregate, this yields an entire populace of low-information voters, who can be persuaded to vote against their values, interests, wishes, etc. Because of the series of Open Left articles, I would add to that list that an ill-informed electorate also has helped make it seem that the electorate is overwhelmingly ideologically polarized.
The polarization of our system is best represented by the fact that, as I’ve argued before most voters are partisan. But perhaps voters are partisan without being polarized ideologically. All this yields that more purple map of America, rather than the red-state/blue-state divide.
So what are we polarized about? We’re polarized about the individual candidates, we’re polarized about party, and we’re polarized about a small subset of the values we all seem to share.
Is there hope?
I started thinking about polarization because of Sabutai’s post. He said:
We’re not going to a post-partisan or bi-partisan moment. There is no utopia of friendliness across party lines awaiting us, and furthermore, none ever existed. I tire of pundits and spinners saying that this or that candidate is going to unite the nation, and bridge the divide. About the only time the “divide” has ever been bridged in American history was during Washington’s presidency. We are being sold a bill of false goods — the idea that the “right” person will end confrontation and partisanship in Washington. Even our greatest past leaders couldn’t…
I’m compelled to agree. We need to stand up and be proud of being Democrats, and we shouldn’t shy away from a fight. But we should also remember that the nation isn’t nearly as divided ideologically as we might think, and that’s where I find hope. Sabutai is absolutely correct to say that we’re not backing down from the partisan bickering any time soon. But if a leader can successfully find common ground ideologically, then perhaps there is hope to work past the partisan gridlock. It’s not going to be easy, it’s not going to be pleasant, and it most likely won’t work. But I think it’s possible, and if Obama’s rise is any indication, it’s appealing to a lot of Americans.
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I started this post referencing religion. I
just want to also add that we cannot write off evangelicals. I don’t know how many of you follow Revolution in Jesusland, but I do and I think it’s a fantastic blog. From the About page:
Most secular progressives are comfortable with mainline liberal Christianity. But when it comes to evangelicals, many can only think of anti-gay ballot initiatives, clinic bombers, street preachers with megaphones and corrupt televangelists. And they tend to be confused and disturbed by a movement that reads the Bible “literally” as the “inerrant word of God.”
This blog is a plea to the progressive movement, to take another look and get to know the diverse and complex world of evangelical Christianity in its own terms. Here you’ll find interviews, commentary, analysis and other dispatches from all over “Jesusland.” This tour will explore everything from the workings of the local church, to the evangelicals’ vibrant, decentralized national leadership training infrastructure to theological questions such as, “How in the world DO they read the Bible literally?” and “Do they really think I’m going to hell?”
There are two really big reasons to come along on this tour:
First, progressives will never achieve their goals as long as they are hostile toward and ignorant about the faith of 100 million of their own people who are born again Christians.
Second (and we know how difficult this is to believe) there is an incredibly large and beautiful social movement exploding among evangelicals right now that stands for nearly all of the same causes and goals that secular progressives do. Those goals include: eliminating poverty, saving the environment, promoting justice and equality along racial, gender and class lines and for immigrants-and even separation of church and state.
By learning to work together with “progressive” evangelicals, secular progressives will stand a better chance of achieving their goals and also learn an enormous amount from these remarkable people and their organizations that will help secular progressives strengthen their own movement.
I’m inclined to agree with Sabutai: we’re not working toward a post-partisan moment, but perhaps we can work for the end to this narrative that America is so split, one citizen to another.
To conclude: We must recognize that the nation is perhaps not as polarized as we might think, that we can find allies in unlikely places, and that to win we must stand up and be strong Democrats. We should call out Republicans for being hyper-ideological without fearing that they’ll say the same about us. I hope I haven’t rambled or contradicted myself too much. As we go into the new year, I hope that even deeply partisan Americans can start to find common ground with those we feel so alienated from.
What a tremendous amount of work you’ve put into this. I can’t wait to read it, but will have to come back to it after I’m finished cooking for the fam.
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p>I’m hopeful it will land on the front page so it won’t scroll off, too.
You say:
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p>There are few notions I take issue with. First, standing up and being a strong Democrat–if you’re in Stephanie Herseth’s district or Jim McGovern’s–means entirely different things. What’s the point of being a Democrat if Democrat means entirely different things in different parts of the country? What happens is that candidates get elected with a D after their names in areas of the country where they most closely resemble Rs and the shit hits the fan when we need to vote on the Patriot Act or in the Senate on a Supreme Court justice. We have Roberts and Alito thanks to Democrats. How is that supposed to square with standing up and being proud to be a Democrat? I’m proud to be a Democrat so long as I vote like a Republican more than half the time?
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p>Moreover, the Democrats who do stand up for more liberal values, like McGovern or Kennedy, are demonized and marginalized by a media that is in control of the message. Of course Stephanie Herseth doesn’t want to be associated with Jim McGovern; he has liberal cooties. Where is the strength in that when important votes must be taken and politicians go their separate ways? All that ensures is that disciplined Republicans and Blue Dog Dems will carry the day and that means business as usual.
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p>As for the Evangelical Christian thing, I can’t even begin to go there. Their desire to deem this nation a Christian nation and to blur the lines between the separation of church and state are a complete nonstarter. They already have too much power in this nation, and I’m all for reining it in, not understanding their desire to have it.
First, there are many Republicans who get elected in more moderate districts. The problem on things like the confirmation of Alito wasn’t that being a Democrat in different part of the country means different things, it’s that Democrats had no real strategy. That particular problem wasn’t electorally oriented so much as a problem that we have had when it comes to whipping the members of Congress once they’re in. Look at Hagel — he’s a guy who’s been out on Iraq saying that we’re doing the job wrong for a very long time. And, overwhelmingly the entire country disagrees with the Administration. Or McCain — he argued that we needed more troops than the Bush Administration initially sent into Iraq. Yet they pretty much always vote the Republican line. The issue isn’t where their constituents are, the issue is party discipline. If you recall, it was the coalition of moderate Democrats and Republicans who were pushing to end the showdown in the Senate. We have Alito because we didn’t stand up as proud Democrats, we didn’t have a strategy, and anybody looked good after Harriet Miers (sp?).
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p>Second, you’ll get no argument from me on the media. It’s extremely biased against Democrats, but more importantly, it’s extremely biased against anything more complex than a 30 second soundbite. But guess what-that’s the situation we find ourselves in. There are a number of ways to deal with this, all of which there are various initiatives which have been underway for awhile. 1st, work for a better media. 2nd, we’ve gotta get better at dealing with the media. But getting savvier with regards to the media doesn’t mean giving up progressive values, it means selling it better.
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p>As for the Evangelical Christian thing, I think we’re bound to lose elections in the future if we don’t pay attention to one of the largest groups of Americans there is. I agree that fundamentalists have too much power in this nation, but that doesn’t mean ceding religious language to them. And there are points where we can work together. Increasingly, evangelicals care about what happens to the environment. I wouldn’t want to cut them out of a global warming campaign simply because we don’t agree on other issues. And using religious language and institutions is a powerful tool. What would Martin Luther King be like if he didn’t use religious language? How could the civil rights movement have happened without organizing through the Churches?
through churches is what I consider a serious problem in this country in regard to politics. I know from religious people that I’ve worked and spoken with that certain churches in my town were part of a campaign seemingly aimed against John Kerry. Since when are sermons on political candidates condoned and acceptable? I think our friend and fellow poster Fred Clarkson might be able to add a few thoughts on that subject.
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p>I live in an area where a large billboard was put up comparing a Democratic elected official to Judas in regards to his vote on the gay marriage amendment. That’s a problem that is growing in this area, and I’m thinking I’m not going to approach these people successfully on environmental issues, but heck I’ll give it a try and see what happens. Comparing the times of MLK to now, he had very few avenues to reach his audience. It’s not a fair comparison to today.
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p>We also have to be aware of a lot of other factors regarding politicians. Some Democrats will seem to stand up proudly for Democratic principles to appeal to an entire spectrum of those who feel disenfranchised and angry, but is it real or memorex (sorry, showing my age).
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p>One thing that I think all of us will agree on is that a true leader is going to stand up and stick to his or her positions (unlike Romney for example). Someone who does this will have wide appeal, even for those who may not entirely agree.
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I think political sermons are totally acceptable. What you cannot do is name a political party or a candidate for office — if you do, you should lose your tax-exempt status. I don’t see why a rabbi couldn’t make a sermon supporting marriage equality. I don’t see why a reverend or preacher or minister can’t talk about how God made us stewards of the environment, and how we’ve got to be more sensible about the climate crisis. There’s no reason why clergy can’t talk about the moral imperative of expanding stem-cell research to help cure diseases. And I can’t imagine going to a synagogue where the rabbi didn’t talk about poverty, and how we citizens, and our government, need to do more about that.
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p>That’s what I’m talking about. Reaching churches and talking about the issues, not advocating for a particular candidate.
usually spoils that possibility. Although I wasn’t in attendance, I’ve been told that the candidate was described to the extent that there was no question as to whom the sermon was about (and whom should not receive a vote). There are many ways to sway perishoners to a certain viewpoint and to vote according to church doctrine (whatever church, whatever doctrine). Is that the role of the clergy? If it is, we should all take a step back in time and forget about the concepts of separation of church and state and the principles of the founding fathers of this country. I can understand the promotion of concepts in a religious environment, and dear god, dear goddess, dear deity, dear non-deity or dear nobody, please let’s hope that is still possible after the politicalization of religion once again.
As I understand it, legally a member of clergy can get away with something to the extent of “I believe we ought to elect somebody who served his country in war, who was a Senator, who…” etc. without explicitly saying John Kerry’s name. And they can do similar things with regards to the person they do not support. As I understand it, as long as a member of clergy does not specifically endorse or say the name of a candidate, they won’t lose non-profit status. Somebody with legal experience will have to chime in on that one.
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p>Lolorb, you ask, “Is that the role of the clergy?”
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p>I would answer that the role of the clergy is to help their communities lead moral lives. Part of a moral life is civic participation. It is a moral duty for us to participate in civic life because participating in a democracy helps prevent the rise of tyrants. Again, somebody should correct me if I’m wrong, but I think I remember hearing Elie Wiesel speaking about how participation in a democracy is a moral duty since not to do so produces fascists. I tend to agree.
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p>I don’t really understand the last sentence of your comment.
sentence referred to the constructs that have already been breached in this country. I’ve asked Fred Clarkson to intervene and give perspective. Hopefully, he’s watching his email. This is a subject that requires his perspective after so many years of investigative reporting.
such as marriage equality, racism, poverty, etc., then it’s a sign that religion
has been injected into politics to some degree or other, and, when it’s taken too far, it can become extremely dangerous, as conflicts in various parts of the globe amply demonstrate.
what is acceptable re organizing through churches (including TV preachers) than just to see how totally widespread it is. My cousins came to visit after church the day after Sharon had his stroke. This is a little New Hampshire fundamentalist church. They were saying he deserved it by interfering in the Holy Land—this was simultaneous with Pat Robertson saying the same thing. These people are organized.
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p>I disagree. Because Democrat means different things in different parts of the country, Democrats were unwilling to say no, give us another candidate. Instead, they dithered and blathered about Alito not being so bad. Well, he’s freakin’ terrible if you’re a liberal Dem, maybe not so bad if you’re a conservative Dem. The upshot, Dems voted for him. A strategy wasn’t necessary: send him down in flames and ask the President for another more acceptable nominee. But the Dems will never do that because they can’t agree on what that is.
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p>It is electoral in etiology because the office holders are elected by constituents who share their views. Look at Mary Landrieu in Louisiana. She’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about.
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p>Hagel isn’t running again. He can afford to do what he wants. And McCain is a lunatic maverick. He doesn’t know what end is up.
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p>Neither Hagel nor McCain tell us anything about the Republicans other than they can tolerate a couple of dissenters and still toe the party line. They are like automatons; they do what they’re told. Not so with Dems, and that’s the problem.
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p>There are no proud Democrats because being a Democrat does not mean the same thing down south that it means here. Pride in what? The Democrats’ inability to demand party loyalty is the problem, not pride in party.
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p>This all presumes that the media has a) some integrity and b) a desire to do its ethical job. In reality it has neither. It doesn’t matter what the message is or how it’s packaged with the media ownership configured the way it is. The corporate media is beholden to Republican interests. They are joined at the hip. It won’t matter what Dems say or how they say it because it is not in the media’s interests to report it accurately.
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p>I categorically disagree. We will never have that voting block–ever. And I’m not interested in shredding the Constitution to attract an increasingly militant voter block. The correct course of action is to educate them and make them understand that their Christian nation does not exist Constitutionally, not to find a way to whitewash their agenda or ignorance.
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p>As for the civil rights movement, I do not agree that it was a church movement that turned the tide. Federal law and its enforcement combined with nonviolent solidarity of purpose turned the tide, some were Christian but many were not. There were plenty of non-church going people involved in it, as well, who were there because the notion of equality had merits on its own. The MLK of the 1950s and 1960s doesn’t exist in any form in this nation anymore, anyway. The last of a kind. Plus, he knew the appropriate limits of the application of his faith while he pursued his goals.
That’s not a strategy, that’s the goal. A strategy is figuring out a way to (1) Find the rationale to filibuster (2) Whip enough senators to block cloture (3) Have a list of alternative nominees who would be acceptable (4) Figure out the narrative/spin for the media, etc. etc. Such a strategy would include various tactics including trades for other bills, stirring up grassroots support in the form of rallies, lobbying, petitions etc. and so on.
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Not sure I know the reference. Also, you don’t think there were Republican Senators who went against their more moderate districts on this vote? I think the Republican ideologues are way out of step with the rest of America, and I think Alito is, too. Republicans just did a good job of boxing us in.
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Building the Democratic brand in the south is a long term problem. And, yeah, getting elected in the south is different from the north. But so what? They’ve chosen, for whatever reason, to be Democrats in the south, so they ought to take pride in that choice. If it’s so much easier to be a Republican and vote Republican in the south, why wouldn’t they just choose to be a Republican? They’re Democrats for some reason, and whatever that reason is, they ought to take pride in. Look at Ford down in Tennessee. He narrowly lost in a Democratic year. I don’t think he lost because he was too liberal — he was taking conservative positions on anything. But he shot himself in the foot repeatedly because he downplayed the biggest thing he had going for him: he was a D in an anti-Republican year.
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Just the opposite. I said 1st that we need a better media. I’ll add to that now: we need a better media because it lacks any semblance of integrity and it doesn’t seem to have any desire to do an ethical job. So we have to put pressure on media outlets, like they’re doing over at media matters or with that great Fox Attacks series. Corporate media is attacked to Republicans, but they’re more attached to corporate profits. If it’s true that the media is a bunch of corporate whores, then that means they’re slaves to the demands of the capitalist market. And if that’s true, then our job as activists is to get viewers to demand better reporting. We can work to poison the brand of awful media outlets (which Fox Attacks has done to some success). And more, our job is to promote alternative media (like what we’re reading here at BMG). That doesn’t presume the media has integrity, but rather presumes the opposite: that the media has no integrity and will do what its consumers demand of it.
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We won’t win the far right-wing ideological branch of the evangelical movement, ever. You’re right about that. But we can make inroads with evangelicals who aren’t so far right wing. Wouldn’t it be amazing to fight poverty without getting into the paternalism of “I’m here to help you?” There’s a fascinating post in the blog I mentioned called, “I’m doing this for God, not you” . In it, we learn about people who are moving to poor areas to work on issues of poverty and how they are grappling with that choice.
I’m talking about more than just winning elections, I’m talking about figuring out new ways to actually solve the 21st century’s problems. And guess what? When progressive evangelicals establish these connections, they’ll be better able to make a case to support Democrats because personal connections wins votes, not explaining why an entire segment of our population’s viewpoint is wrong. And by the way, even Howard Dean recognized that we’ve got to court evangelicals and find where we have things in common.
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p>As for the civil rights movement, it might not have been the Churches which turned the tide, but it couldn’t have happened without them. And I’m not trying to compare the civil rights movement to voting Democratic. But I will say this: the biggest social movements in history have all had a religious component to them. Anti-war activists have always tried to partner with churches who support peace. Churches were central to the civil rights movement. And so on. MLK may have been the last of his kind, but I don’t see why conservatives get to partner with churches for their social movements, but progressives can’t. Surely we can fight for the separation of church and state while recognizing the importance of church in so many people’s daily lives? Certainly we can acknowledge that it’s at Church where so many people form their political decisions. So why can’t we build our movement there too?
Lightiris I am afraid if you dismiss a 1/3 of the country and demand that moderate Dems join teh GOP then you will be part of a permanent minority that cannot govern. Again a vote for Ralph Nader can be principled but it can also leave us with far worse options. The majority of people in this country are moderate, about a fourth are liberal, and a fourth conservative. But because conservatives have had better messages, have utilized and radicalized traditionally apolitical groups like evangelicals, and have appealed to populist independents and libertarian-moderates they have assembled a perverse governing coalition. We cannot stop that by being a secular, atheist, socially liberal, socialist party. We can stop that by being an open governing coalition that stands firm on several core issues.
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p>Listen we need all the Dems we can get in the House, yes this House has been disappointing sure, but it beats having a rubber stamp Congress like we have had the past few years. The Minimum Wage was raised, the patriot act was curtailed, patriot act II was stopped, torture stopped, and yes with a few Republicans voting with us along the way. That to me is better than voting Green or voting only for progressive Democrats that can’t win.
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p>We dont have true political parties in this country and we never have, at least in the ideological/European sense. What we have is coalitions. The Republicans tend to be more fiscally and socially conservatives the Dems more liberal, and thats the way it will be. So again feel free to join the greens, the socialists, or a more progressive party, but dont bitch about Bush or the next Republican President when you had the power to stop him but didnt.
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p>This is patent nonsense. I’m not demanding moderate Dems joing the GOP. I’m not dismissing 1/3 of the country, either, which is just plain bizarre. Each party has a natural constituency, to lesser and greater degrees. The evangelical Christians are not a natural fit for Dems. Get over it. I don’t even know how to respond to the first statement about moderate Dems because I have no idea what you’re talking about.
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p>Also, I’ve never voted for Ralph Nader in my life. I’m an elected member of the Democratic Party in this state. The notion that I would vote for anyone who is not a Dem is absurd.
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p>Okay. I don’t know where you live, but the society I live in is not and never will be a “secular, atheist, socially liberal, socialist party.” No one here is advocating for that either; I know I’m not. And no party is a bigger tent than the Dems, as has been pointed out to you myriad times in the past. Ad hom warning: you are, bar NONE, the worse abuser of the straw man argument of anyone on this site.
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p>You are arguing with yourself. Who said anything about voting Green? Are you drunk?
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p>Progressive and liberal Democrats are welcome in the Democratic Party. Didn’t you know that? We have a big tent, remember?
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p>Why is this relevant to anything? Who cares what they have in Europe. No one is talking about what they have in Europe. And your fancy footwork with the word “coalitions” is meaningless. All groups of disparate backgrounds and varying interests who work together for a common organization or goal are coalitions. The point is irrelevant. The point that is relevant and has been made by many here is that the Dems are not as organized and disciplined in their objectives and goals as Republicans. Such is life at times in a very big tent. This diversity of viewpoints is also what presents the problem when trying to organize a response to Republican lock-step political maneuvering.
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p>This is factually wrong. Republicans are not fiscally conservative, they are anti-tax, a subtle distinction you fail to appreciate. You are a victim of the Republican talking points about fiscal responsibility, all of which is writ large at the moment if you are paying attention.
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p>I’m surprised you don’t ask my why I hate ‘murka and invite me to move to another country. And I’ll “bitch about Bush” to my heart’s content because this is still America, I think, and I don’t need to pass your test in order to do so.
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p>I don’t know why I bother to respond to you since the quality of your thinking, at times, is so poor and your manner so incredibly offputting. Your immature bravado and bullying are certainly never going to win you a single argument, despite your verbose intensity.
Only in Massachusetts, I wouldnt be surprised if you were on my own city council in Cambridge.
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p>Anyway you did basically say Herseth should start voting with the Dems or leave the party did you not? She is a moderate Dem, call her a DINO all you want, but we need those votes. You mentioned ditching Lipinski before as well, thats a cause I actually support because he is a DINO in a fairly blue district. Kind of like our own Steve Lynch in the 9th. I have nothing against ditching DINOs but do it where it wont hurt the party and wont waste money. Herseth we need.
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p>Lastly the evangelical vote is 1/3rd of the country you are dismissing. And yes they broke Dem before 1980, broke big for Carter and most of those people were and still are “Regan Democrats”. Clinton won them back in 92′ and it could definitely be done again. Speaking the language of faith and saying God does influence my political positions as a candidate would not in my view violate the constitution which you think it would. Clearly you support a secular state where religion is not in the public sphere, you mentioned that in your own post its not a straw man.
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p>Lastly that is the party you would create without the moderates, a socialist, populist, secularist party that would not win elections. Frankly that is what Republicans are hitting us on now and I feel that is counterproductive. We had an evangelical candidate for Gov in Mississippi get outspent 5 to 1 and still come within 5%. Granted he is anti-tax, pro-life, and pro-gun unlike say you or I up here in MA but I would much rather a Dem than a GOPer run Mississippi. Their current governor is a corrupt GOP neo con crony, whereas even though youd call this Dem, Jim Evans btw, a DINO he in fact supports expanding anti poverty programs, had a much better environmental record, etc.
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p>I just want to win elections, clearly in Cambridge or MA you can win elections holding your leftist views (thats not an attack btw you are a self described leftist) but the rest of the country is not there, and frankly it never will be, so why no bother trying to win elections. And no its not a big tent party if you call me a sexist or a DINO for being pro-life or if you want to kick Stephanie Herseth out or ban our nominees from using religious language.
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p>No, I don’t live in Cambridge.
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p>Find where I say she should leave the party. I do wish she’d vote with the party, but never said she should leave.
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p>I never uttered the name Lipinski in my life because I don’t know who that is. Before I thought you were just lazy; now I suspect you are a liar. You have lied about things I have said in the past about abortion and were called out on it. You never admitted you were wrong then. Every time you tell a lie about me or what I’ve said, I will expose it.
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p>Dems are winning elections, thank you. Stop telling me what “I would create,” too. Your desire to construct straw men is amazing.
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p>Your worldview is so narrow and your desire to construct your own reality so obsessive that there’s nothing to be gained by arguing with you, but I will continue to point out your inaccuracies and lies.
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p>I am not the gatekeeper of the big tent. There are a lot of sexist anti-choice DINOs in the Democratic party, but I’m not in charge of their, um, getting in the club or issuing a “ban” once their in. I am, however, flattered at the power you cede me.
I’ve been beating the drum to get people to contribute — and in jconway’s case — help out Mark Pera who is running against Dan Lipinski in the Democratic primary to represent a district outside Chicago. Lipinski has voted wrong on both FISA and Iraq. Given that this is a heavily Democratic district, as jconway points out, there’s no reason to have such a Democrat representing it. Direct your contributions to Pera here.
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p>If both jconway and I are supporting the same guy, he’s got to be good.
As for the Herseth connection: If Pera should win, a side effect will be to put pressure on other January Democrats not to stray.
I’ve ever heard of is this one. Who knew?
The Bush Dog campaign at Open Left knew. That’s who.
The other thing I dont like is that Lipinski was wholly unqualified for the office, a high school gym teacher who just happened to be the son of the previous office holder.
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p>While I agree with him on abortion I wholly disagree with him on Iraq, the death penalty, and his fiscal policies are to the far right of most Democrats, and whats shocking is its a fairly liberal district in terms of state legislators.
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p>Herseth is different though because she lives in the reddest state in the Union (at least in terms of 2004 percentage for Bush) and its better to get people comfortable with Dems out there, if that means losing a few votes here and there so be it.
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p>Also the way to beat DINOs is not with money, its with door to door campaigning, Ive talked to the Pera campaign and they realize that and hopefully an Obama victory by Feb 5th will free me up to work on his campaign. Contribute not to Lamont of even Pera but to candidates in must win areas.
Only in Massachusetts, I wouldnt be surprised if you were on my own city council in Cambridge.
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p>What exactly is that supposed to mean? One of the lamest things about MA conservatives is the constant Mass. bashing. If you actually live in Cambridge, you know that we have proportional representation; it’s designed to bring minority view points such as yours to the table. To imply the Cambridge City Council is one big liberal cardboard cutout is to demonstrate you know nothing about it.
…and particularly MarKos’s (of DailyKos.com) support for her in 2004 is yet other reasons why I have no use for the national Democratic party.
the return of our secular messiah Otto von Bismarck, then, as the Democrats — and everyone else — are useless. Perhaps we can induce him to run for SD-AL.
I found Thomas Schaller’s book Whistling Past Dixie to be very much worth reading. He argues that the Democratic Party (or its leaders and consultants) hasn’t gotten over the loss of the South. Trouble is the libertarian Mountain states are much more open to the Democratic message than the evangelical South. So appeals to the South undercut the Democratic message or they thwart the party from developing messages that would appeal in Colorado and Arizona.
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p>Two notes here:
Evangelicals have to deal with their own mess first, before we should go courting them. Right now, anyone in their movement who’s going out on the limb to argue for the environment is doing exactly that: going out on the limb. They’re targets by more powerful members of the evangelical movement and not enough ‘good’ evangelicals are doing enough to change things.
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p>Furthermore, there’s too much institutional support to keep evangelicals voting the same way for me to start arguing that we take up courting evangelicals as a serious cause. On the contrary, I think it’s both much easier and fruitful to turn the Republicans into a regional party who’s only branches outside of the south exist in evangelical circles. A few more years of Iraq and fiscal absurdity by Republicans will only help ensure more people switch Party ID to D. A regional GOP is not only a party we can defeat year in and year out, but completely have our legislative way with them.
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p>As an added bonus, they’ll be able to continue to rail against social issues that they have absolutely no hope in changing. It’s what their party leaders like to do best! It keeps them in power and their base from questioning anything…
(Also the Senator Pryor problem and the Senator Nelson problem.)
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p>What seems odd to me is that representatives like Herseth will vote for telecom immunity, Mukasey, and the Iraq occupation. Some conservative Democrats will even vote with the credit card industry on bankruptcy.
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p>None of these positions are particularly popular in their districts. The argument that they have to vote that way is not supported by the polling.
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p>This is why I think Chris Bowers is spot on when he tries to dismantle myths about public opinion. Persistent and pernicious myths about public opinion seem to keep Blue Dog Democrats voting for stuff that they shouldn’t be voting for.
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p>A second reason Herseth’s votes seem baffling is that Republicans are going to treat her like a liberal anyway. No matter how she votes South Dakotans will be treated to photo montages of Nancy Pelosi and San Francisco. Even if she voted with Bush every time, they’d still hear about how she was a member of the “Defeatocrat” party. I don’t get this. The timid votes buy precious little protection. Since people expect her to vote against Iraq occupation funding, voting for it doesn’t look brave. It just plain looks like trying to hide her “true” beliefs. In short, these votes buy Democrats nothing.
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p>A final reason this is disturbing is that part of why Stephanie Herseth is a U.S. Representative to begin with is that she got substantial out of district support from Democrats like me (in fact, including me). Why the heck isn’t she hesitant to undermine that support?
That’s one of the things I’ve been trying to say, but I wasn’t sure how.
Your post said stuff I’ve been trying to say better than I have. Thank you.
Explanations aside, the Herseths of the world a huge problem for the Democrats. Indeed, they most likely stand in the way of progress and the status quo. I gave her money, too. Geez. This is where Kos gets it wrong, I think. The D after the name doesn’t mean that individual is going to vote like a D when it counts. Remember how he was bullshit about Sheldon Whitehouse? Who was that anti-choice Dem again???? Oh yeah.
These folks are Democrats in January when the leadership is elected. After that, they freely wander off on their own.
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p>Getting Waxman and Leahy their chairmanships was worth it to me, but I’d wish we could find a way to turn Herseth into a February Democrat as well as January one.
My comment was somewhat garbled, but I guess you got the gist.
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p>This is where Pelosi and Reid need to go, imo. If there’s one thing we can take from the Repub playbook it’s the fine art of subtle and overt pressure. The Republicans understand that there’s a price to pay for straying off the reservation. The Dems would do well to figure out how to make similar pressure work for them.
Media bias remains a significant problem and I don’t think Keith Olberman’s ratings alone are going to bring about an improvement. Ownership plays too large role.
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p>Republicans also play the game better than Democrats. I hear a lot about their fax machines pumping stories into newsrooms. Their providing the press with so much material enables them to shape the narrative in a manner the Democratic Party has never learned to do.
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p>They did such a good job that a substantial amount of speculative and fictitious about Whitewater, travelgate, and Foster received substantial play in the media. The media even continues to report on Clinton as an “unpopular” President. Bush would be lucky to be so unpopular.
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p>Can’t the DNC invest in some fax machines? Democrats could win more of these battles if we tried to shape the narrative. It is the reluctance to put out a message that makes the Democratic Party look like a loose election club rather than something that actively pushes its positions.
element behind the GOP influence on media, which is of course money. Beyond Roger Ailes or Murdoch and Fox, there is a whole industry dedicated to promoting GOP agitprop, whether it’s paying Armstrong Williams or Jeff Gannon, or paying “scientists” to write stories questioning global warming.
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p>Filtering out or countering the massive amount of disinformation is extremely difficult, and reluctance has nothing to do with it. Fund raising from “private” sources drives it, from both ends, macro & micro.
Corrente recently condensed a little history:
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p>So yeah, Dems don’t “play the game” of paying big money to promote lies or buy grassroots allegiance as well as the GOP does, and when they do, I’m out.
Yes, yes, money is a big part of that. With Democratic fundraising outpacing Republican fundraising this year, one could hope that this might be our chance to saturate the airwaves.
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p>And I also linked to the Corrente post by Lambert myself! Paul Krugman links to it on his blog. It’s a great essay.
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p>Follow mojoman’s link if you haven’t already.
A quick browse through the catalogs of Regenry and Mapletree is eyeopening and I’m not talking about their respective Romney publications.
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p>From the Regnery catalog it appears that the conservative appetite for incredibly spiteful books on the evils of liberalism is unbridled. Mapletree is nicer, but devoted to books about unfulfilled career women and the social benefits of homeschooling.
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p>I can’t think of a liberal/progressive equivalent for either.
The best thing we can do for most evangelicals now is to get them not to vote.
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p>Open Left had a post up a week or so ago about what does this: Republican corruption. Happily Republican corruption keeps conservative evangelicals demotivated and non-voting.
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p>Think about it. The narrative aimed at them is that Republicans are Good, Righteous People unlike their opposites in the Democrat Party who sponsor fornication and abortion. Voting for the upright will lead to an upright nation.
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p>As good fortune would have it, the Republicans have provided a cornucopia of data showing that they are not even slightly upright. Blackwater anyone? Rep. Cunningham? Senator Stevens? How about Republicans refusing to investigate the corruption in Iraq.
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p>It’s enough to keep one home curled up with the letters of Paul.
Shorter version: our appeal to conservative evangelicals should be to disgust them.
Candidly, I think there’s merit in that POV. As I said earlier, they are never going to be a constituency Dems can court with any integrity. I like the idea of forcing them into either staying home or running a third-party candidate. Huckabee would have made the perfect TPC for the evangelical right. I am still amazed it took them so long to figure out that Huck really is their guy. I know that tax thing is hard to swallow, but, hey, nobody’s perfect, as Sam Brownback has figured out.
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p>What’s more amazing, however, is that a guy like Huckabee could even be considered a serious candidate for president. If ever there was prima facie evidence that this country has a fetish with the bible, it’s that.
of the GOP/Evangelical relationship, has been the use of our taxpayer money to fund “Faith Based Initiatives”.
While I agree that Abramoff, Blackwater etc. should be enough to discourage anyone considering a vote for the GOP, well, there’s right and wrong, and there’s this:
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p>
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p>The separation of what & what?
Those liberal, socialist, Green Party moonbats don’t answer Evangelical prayer$ the way that the GOP does!
There’s a lot to digest in this post.
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p>One question is about the size of the middle.
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p>Is Rove right that 7% of the nation is “persuadable?”
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p>Is Jconway right that “half” the nation is “moderate”?
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p>(I realize they’re not the same thing. But which is closer the mark?)
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p>Bush’s approval ratings were once 71%. Now they stand at 35%, and touched 30%. Doesn’t that mean that a lot of people were persuaded that he’s a bad leader?
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p>Clinton’s low was 43%, and when he left office they were 65% (the high point was 69% — during impeachment).
and you reproduced my reproduction of Bryan Caplan’s argument correctly. This hits a lot of the key issues and I think having a more nuanced view of the evangelicals is at least helpful.
I finally get why we sparred over that issue on Sab’s thread. You weren’t arguing that voters ought not waste their time learning about the issues, only that it sort of makes sense for them, at an individual level, to do it. Here’s where I either misread or misinterpreted what you were saying however, that at the aggregate that doesn’t make sense and hurts the country. I missed the fact that you were trying to make that argument and thus tried to take you to task. Sorry. LOL.
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p>As a further aside, this same argument can be applied to many things. One of those being public planning, especially when it comes to housing. For example, on a personal level it makes perfect sense for individuals to move out of the city and into suburbs and exurbs: cheaper housing, better housing, real yards, plenty of parking and better public schools. All for the cost of a similar commute, just using highways instead of public transit.
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p>Yet, at the aggregate level, we’re screwing over our environment, taking many of the brightest students out of cities (thereby hurting city school systems), preventing the wide use of public transportation, running out of drinkable water (we have to keep those lawns green somehow) and doing a whole host of other damages…
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p>It’s interesting how something that may make sense at a personal level can have disastrous consequences if every person decides to go that route.
I didn’t think I was saying something you disagreed with. Thanks for decoding my message!
Man, I should’ve invited you to my party in Brookline. I even made a Lasagna LOL.
No, I went to a party later on in the evening. Saw the ball drop and all that good holiday stuff.
really burned by the way we were manipulated after 9-11. It will take some force of personality to change this. The Eagle Tribune had an editorial supportive of the adversarial nature of our body politic.
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p>Our view: 2007’s questions carry over into 2008
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p>Eagle-Tribune
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It has been a contentious 2007.
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p>That is no surprise, given the debates, advertisements and analysis of a U.S. presidential campaign that increasingly dominated the national consciousness for the last half of the year. After all, the caucus/primary season begins in just two days – the earliest start in history.
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p>But the struggle between Republican and Democratic presidential contenders is not the only way we have been divided this year. We are an argumentative people. We claim to abhor division, but we embraced it this year with passion, joy and fury. We show no sign of changing in 2008. You could count the ways.
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p>We are divided over the size and reach of government. For some of us, it is already much too large and intrusive. For some of us, it is not nearly large enough – witness demands for universal health care, universal pre-kindergarten, and for vast increases in spending on education, public safety and infrastructure.
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p>http://www.eagletribune.com/pu…