This is a brief tour of some cherished American leaders in the past, and how well they rose above the politics of personal confrontation and partisan baiting:
- Jefferson’s campaign said that John Adams “has neither the force nor firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman,” with Jefferson’s full approval. Adams in turn labeled Jefferson a coward.
- Andrew Jackson called JQ Adams a “pimp”, while the Adams camp labeled Jackson a “jackass.” (oddly enough, one source for this information is the US Dept. of State.)
- How about the Burr-Hamilton political rivalry, when Aaron Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel?
Needless to say, tensions ran hotter in the 19th century:
- In the run-up to the Civil War, Charles Sumner of course was beaten on the floor of the Senate. On the other hand, he gets a tunnel named after him.
- Even the semi-deified Lincoln wasn’t immune. His campaign newspaper had great stuff, spreading rumors that Stephen Douglas was (gasp!) a Catholic. During his debate with Douglas, Lincoln sought to connect him with the radical Congressman Thomspon Campbell, though fully aware that such connection was fragile, at best. Of course, he closed with a speech laced with racism in Charleston.
- Teddy Roosevelt was direct as usual. He labelled eventual President Howard Taft a “pizzlewit” and a “fathead”. Taft replied that at least he knew the difference between fact and fiction, “and there are some people who I don’t think do.”
Nor did Bush invent the strategy of implying that electing one’s opponents is a sure path to defeat:
- FDR’s 1938 keynote speech was a listing of Republican votes in Congress, which he labeled “a record of timidity, of weakness, of short-sightedness”. He went on to compare their attitude to that of recently defeated France.
- As for the Kennedys, well, a family with the semi-official motto “we don’t get mad, we get even” probably needs no more explanation. (There are some witnesses who report Robert Kennedy as saying to slacking campaign workers “that’s not true…I get mad, and Ethel gets even!”)
Now, I don’t see anyone on the trail who’s a better person than Abe Lincoln. All of these fine men delved into bitter attacks, and not only accepted the politics of division, but they participated as well. So please, David Brooks, Joe Lieberman, and company stop mewling about a need to find a path out of this partisanship.
Republicans and Democrats aren’t going to sit down for tea anytime soon. Even when given an historic opportunity to bridge a divide in the wake of 9/11, Republicans sneered at it, and beat Democrats using the flag as their weapon of choice.
I’ve seen little in the last seven years to think that all the Republicans are awaiting is an embossed invitation to be nice. When Democrats start being nice, we are labeled as weak by media, operatives, and yes voters. Clinton was right when he said Americans would “rather have somebody who is strong and wrong than someone who’s weak and right.”
So forgive me if I don’t think niceness is they key to winning in 2008, and forgive me for my dislike of candidate who try to spin it otherwise. We’re in a fight, and I want a true fighter.
the term “pizzlewit”. If it was a common term in the past, it should be revived and used in political campaigns more often! Just did a search for the meaning:
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p>I agree with you. Being nice and agreeable has a place, and certainly not so much in politics. I think the Karl Rove years have forced a false and misleading idea that bi-partisan politics requires niceness and agreement in the opposition party. Thank you for the historical references — very heartening to hear that Teddy stood his ground with “fathead” and of course, “pizzlewit”.
One difficulty Democrats have is that Republicans have the corner on the angry white men demographic. (Talk radio anyone?) Mocking Kerry with fake band-aids at the Republican Convention seems to have lost Republicans no votes. The partisanship of Wellstone’s funeral, on the other hand, was Shockingly Tasteless and seemed to be part of what handed Senator Coleman his seat.
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p>Democrats, unfortunately, have to tailor their appeals to the Niceness Faction. (No Democratic Tancredos or Giulianis, please.) In doing so, though, Democrats have completely lost the clarity in their message.
The double standard you correctly identify is not about having to kiss the ring of some Niceness Faction, it’s about how the news media and collateral engines of opinion have become a highly centralized instrument of right-wing propaganda.
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p>It’s naive to suppose that Republicans would express outrage at their own partisanship, equally so to suppose their outrage at their pet rocks (Clinton’s blow job! War on Christmas! Gay marriage!) is anything other than a kind of cathartic Nuremburg-rally collective grunt. Sometimes calculated, sometimes not.
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p>I mean that the emotion may be genuine but it is not based on reality. The politics I hope for are not particularly “nice” but entail an asymmetrical struggle against precisely that; we can’t dabble in it and win.
[Well-written comment, by the way. I enjoyed “pet rocks”.]
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p>Yes, the media re-enforce this. A lot. It probably is the case that the media hold the Democrats to a different standard than Republicans. (Republicans are “hard-hitting” or “tough”; when Democrats do the same things, they’re “partisan” or “shrill”.) You’re correct in adjusting my comment. I think Democrat leaders play to the media more than they do to voting blocs.
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p>That said, I think that polling even bears out the existence of a Niceness Faction among Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independents. Here as well, I can think of one Democratic-leaning independent who finds Democratic partisanship distasteful. (He and I have had an exchange on this before, so I’m not picking on him. I find his responses interesting and useful.)
controls the perception of the message. Media has a tremendous role in shaping how we view the message. Your characterization of tough Repubs/shrill & partisan Dems is spot on. And that is an enormous, perhaps, at this point, insurmountable problem. The state of journalism–or what passes for it–in this nation is truly a bellwether measuring the relative health of our democracy. We’re in deep shit. Journalism has been subsumed by entertainment and infotainment; consequently, it is no longer interested in doing its job. What are the chances that a scandal will ever bring down a presidency in this nation now? What are the chances we’ll ever see another Watergate? George Bush has proven such an occurrence is not currently possible, and there is no indication that the integrity of our media will be improving any time soon.
But I also think that it’s a tactic by Obama more than an end goal. Frankly, I don’t think Obama is so naive as to believe we’ll ever stop name-calling and attack ads and all of that. But by using the “politics of hope,” he boxes in his opponents. It’s possible that one of the reasons you don’t see attack ads like the one I’ve embedded below is that very rhetoric. Thinking back to the Patrick campaign, every time a newspaper criticized Patrick’s idealism, he successfully labeled such criticisms as “cynical.” When Kerry Healey attacked Patrick with her ridiculous ads suggesting that Deval is gonna let people mug you in a shady garage, he successfully used that against her to show how craven she is. Similarly, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that really the toughest thing I’ve heard repeatedly out of the Clinton camp is that Obama is “irresponsible,” or “inexperienced.”
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p>The same might be true against the Republicans. Imagine, for example, that right out of the gate Kerry had made his entire campaign about how attack politics is bad. It would have been much, much easier to turn the Swift Boat Vets into an example that underscores why his campaign’s message is correct, rather than having the results it did. By making attacking attack politics right out of the gate, anything the Republicans throw at Obama can, conceivably, be used right against them. I don’t know anybody who sees a negative ad and responds positively to it. The question is how the attacked campaign reacts to it. So when Huckabee or Romney or whoever throws some dirt at Obama which they inevitably will do, he can use that to say, “This is exactly why you need ME as president. I will transcend this type of politics.”
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p>They say that when you’re not on message, you’re off message. So when you respond to a negative attack, you’re by definition off message. Unless your entire message is predicated on the idea that attack ads are bad.
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Here’s an attack ad against Howard Dean. No matter what Obama, Edwards, or Clinton may have lobbed at one another, I challenge anybody to find me an ad this cycle that’s even close.
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v. the “do-nothing” Republican congress
I thought the 2004 Democratic convention was the wimpiest most pathetic PR event ever. On the other hand, the Republican hate-fest could have helped them lose the election if it had been better exploited by the Democrats. The fact is the 2000 and 2004 elections were very close. The margin of defeat was incompetent candidates and incompetent campaign management, in my opinion.
of reconciliation merely makes me angry. Here’s what it is, no matter who is spewing the “let us unify America” or “heal the partisan divide” or “build a bridge”: it’s pablum. Pablum designed to appeal to disengaged, ill-informed voters who are merely cognizant of the fraying around the edges of Life in America. They sense that something is wrong, that nothing is getting accomplished–timeless concepts, those–but what they want is for someone ELSE to fix it for them in a painless fashion. They don’t want to have to engage, work, call, lobby, join an activist group, visit their congresscritter during office hours, they just want some magician to come along and FIX it so s/he doesn’t have to do anything.
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p>So, the code in all of this “I’m a bridge builder” bullshit is this: if you are a lazy, disengaged voter who watches too much TV, who reads People magazine cover to cover while subscribing to Time and Newsweek so you will actually look like you are reading something else, who watches “60 Minutes” to stay informed, I’m the candidate for you. You will call me refreshing, despite my hackneyed message; you will say I speak to your values, which in this case means you avoid conflict and/or you are perfectly willing to impose your belief structures on others; you will say we need a change, despite the fact that nothing I offer represents change in any way whatsoever. In fact, what I represent is the status quo warmed over.
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p>There is no change at hand; we are simply choosing a candidate we feel will steady this foundering ship of a nation so that exactly not too much change will happen at all. We need to have the same old fights about taxes, abortion, the economy, the price of gas/oil, bad guys du jour (communists? terrorists?) because having any other discussion that actually involves meaningful change is too much work.
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p>We hate change in America because we’ve been conditioned to believe that American exceptionalism is actually something real and invincible. If that weren’t the case, this election would look like an entirely different beast. Instead it looks like every other election in which an unpopular president is ousted and a new unpopular president gets elected to file down the edges the previous president created.
which is why I adore Mike Gravel for at least saying something meaningful about what’s wrong and what needs change (and Kucinich, although not as much). I still wish Al Gore was running. Although I don’t believe in apathy and am willing to work very hard for a candidate, there is just nobody who inspires me enough to work for them. On the issue of H1B visas, which has become a litmus test for me because candidates don’t think anyone cares of pays attention and they go on record, Clinton, Edwards and Obama have supported increasing the numbers. I don’t see any leaders nor a lot of hope in this pack. I will grudgingly go along again with whomever is nominated and hope for better than I expect. Add pitbulls to the bad guys du jour please.
Have you headlined this issue on Blue Mass Group? Given the reaction of people in the Commonwealth to the proposal to grant children of non citizens in-state tuition, I think there is an audience waiting to hear more about this with both the POTUS candidates and Governor Patrick’s stance.
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p>How many student visas do you suppose will be granted to non-US citizens for the proposed casino jobs that will not go the MA citizens as is the practice in other states?
in another comment, I’m not anti-immigrant, anti-corporation or any of the anti’s associated with H1B’s. I’m pro civil rights on this one. I am following up, and I will be posting further on the issue. There is currently bi-partisan legislation sponsored by Grassley and Durbin that addresses some of the problems with H1B’s. Student J-1’s are distinct from H1B’s, and I do not believe there as the same limits placed on them. Thanks for the link to the casino hiring of J1’s, good information to have in the research process.
It’s really, really good rhetoric that in the end means little. I also have to agree that it’s the sort of rhetoric that appeals to a lazy, disengaged voter. One who has not been paying attention to the Republican attack machine, and has internalized many Republican narratives.
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p>And isn’t that exactly the type of voter we wanted Senator Kerry to be able to appeal to? Weren’t we all cringing when candidate Kerry was unable to appeal to the uninformed, disengaged electorate? Weren’t we the ones shaking our heads when we saw how the media hated Dean, hated Kerry, and basically didn’t puff up the Democrats the way they puffed up Republicans? So, now there’s a candidate who appeals that voter group. Obama has somehow charmed the pants off the media (he is, almost by his own admission, a product of the media’s cult of personality) to the point where I wonder if they’ve built him up just to tear him down.
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p>I feel like I should naturally be in the Obama camp. I’ve long felt that Obama should have been a natural extension from my work for the Patrick campaign. But I never have been able to get on board. I think part of it is simply because his whole campaign is based on, well, as you put it, a bunch of BS revolving around bridging the partisan divide.
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p>I believe most voters (maybe not most Americans) are partisan. There is the 33% who will always support Bush, pretty much no matter what he does. There are the 33% who will probably always support Bill Clinton or whoever is the next Democratic President no matter what s/he does. That’s 66%. Then there’s probably another 5% on each side which will, no matter what, vote for their political party. That’s about 76% of voters. Meaning that a vast minority, somewhere around 1/4 of voters who makes up the “swing” or the people who want to be “unified.” Now, it may very well be the case that since only about half the country votes, a much larger percentage of people do in fact love the rhetoric about bridging the divide, “post-partisanship” and all of that stuff. But they haven’t voted, so they don’t really count in our electoral system, and it’s hard to measure that anyway. If those estimates are anywhere even close to correct, then this whole rhetoric about a “post-partisan world” or bridging the partisan divide simply doesn’t speak to most voters, and it doesn’t represent where we are as a nation, politically.
At base, by having someone like Obama talk about how we need a unifier, it’s almost tantamount to saying that Democrats are a part of the problem. They’re only a part of the problem insofar as they’ve done nothing to stop the Republican attack machine and have been tame dogs to the Alphas on the block. To me, Obama’s message is one of increasing tameness, so not only is it suggesting we’re a part of the problem, but he’s only further propogating it through his rhetoric.
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p>You can’t be serious. Democrats are and have been and will continue to be part of the problem. The term “Democrat” does not mean the same thing in certain parts of the country that it means up here. Indeed, in the southern states and the midwest, “Democrat” is tantamount to moderate Republican. There is no uniform branding of “Democrat” that relieves the current cadre of responsibility. They ARE the problem, in all their permutations. They have always BEEN the problem, in all their permutations. There is nothing new under this sun.
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p>We are part of the problem, and Obama is simply more of the same. If we weren’t part of the problem, the change I mentioned here:
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p>would be taking place and this election would be entirely different. But it isn’t–and that’s because Democrats and Republicans alike aren’t interested in real change because the American people aren’t interested in real change–and they are the ones who are voting.
Other than the fact that you think Obama represents more of the same, whereas I think he’s actually exacerbating the problem.
This is an argument from The Myth of the Rational Voter by Bryan Caplan.
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Your vote has a vanishingly small chance of affecting the outcome of any election. How you vote — or even whether you vote — therefore has a very small effect on how the country is run. Therefore, your time is better spent learning about things that you can affect. (Read about parenting, study plans on kitchen remodeling, get training to improve your job performance, research your brother’s chronic illness.)
A different way of looking at this is thinking of the cost of having a dysfunctional ideology. (Think of Thomas Frank’s Kansans.) Voting for your dysfunctional ideology feels very good. It is morally pleasing. It is uplifting like Reagan’s Morning in America.
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p>The dysfunctional ideology will get us into a costly war in Iraq but the costly war is amortized over all the people that voted for it. So instead of you being responsible for this debacle, you’re only responsible for a small part of it, a debaclette. That might not be too large a price for you to pay to enjoy the nice feeling you get from voting for your dysfunctional ideology.
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p>(Have you guessed this book was written by an economist yet?)
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p>This is a grim calculation, no? Perhaps it explains why our world is stocked with people who can accurately quote you sports statistics but have no idea where Qatar is located or what two Senators represent Vermont.
Certainly would go far to provide cover to the “If you’re a band from Norway, are you British?” set. I actually know an adult who asked me that question. I would bet my last dollar she doesn’t vote, doesn’t read, but watches lots and lots of TV that reinforces her values and her lifestyle.
Remember, if everybody was as passionate about politics as all of us are, this site would be a hell of a lot bigger than it is.
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p>The sad truth is that the vast majority of voters (never mind citizens) are not anywhere nearly as well informed as the average BMGer. That’s why it’s silly to decry the fact that a campaign seems to have a message targetted at the ill-informed. If a politician wants to win, she needs the most votes. And if the largest block of voters is the ill-informed, guess where the winners will be targetting her message?
If he’s concerned about people making the greatest impact possible, maybe he should be urging people to learn about local/state elections and vote on them more often than federal elections. Not only will the outcomes of local elections have a greater impact on someone’s life than who they vote for US Senator, but a few votes in a local election really can make a huge impact. Furthermore, by getting better quality people elected into the smaller positions, we’re investing in our future – because many of them will eventually seek higher positions.
This book is more about analysis than it is about messaging. I haven’t finished it. In fact, I’ve barely started it. However, I’d be surprised if it offers prescriptions for either politics or policy.
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p>The argument I gave is an interesting one. It’s tempting to think that non-voters and low-information voters are sort of dumb or sort of contemptible, that they’re not attending to what’s important. The argument I’ve reproduced might explain why perfectly intelligent people trying to make the best use of the limited time life makes available to them would choose to ignore politics.
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p>Thought experiment: under what conditions might you take a day off of work because you realized there was a political issue about which you needed to become better informed and you needed the day to research it? Under what conditions might someone else do that?
There aren’t many situations where you have to take an entire day off to learn something about politics. Simply picking up the paper or turning on the internet can often do the trick. People have a choice of watching E! for 3 hours a day, or just watching it for 2 1/2 and maybe learning a little bit about who they ought to vote for every 2 years.
I don’t think I’ve communicated the point here in a manner that makes sense to you. I’m guessing you are reading this as prescriptive rather than descriptive, but I’m not sure.
Perhaps a winning coalition is this:
Habitual Democrats: 45%
+ Idiots: 10%
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p>55% of the electorate. If I understand you correctly, Obama is trying to appeal to that 10%. Using rational arguments didn’t work in 2000 or 2004, so maybe he just need to nominate ourselves someone who’ll be seen as chummy by mouth-breathers in southern Ohio.
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p>Seriously though, how anyone could be a swing voter in October 2008 is beyond me — heck, once/ if the candidates are set, I’ve no idea how one could be a swing voter, especially one in a swing state.
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p>The Republicans may have an idea, after all: if the swingies vote based on who they’d like to have a beer with instead of who’d be a good president, just nominate people you’d like to have a beer with.
No, using rational arguments in our current political environment hasn’t seemed to work.
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p>You know, with all this bashing of Obama, I have to say, I’m not pleased with Clinton’s rhetoric either. I find the way Obama speaks to be inspirational — it calls us to get re-engaged in electoral politics, and asks us to vote for our aspirations. The way his campaign has been run is solidly of the grassroots. And it does that in such a way which sets him up to weather negative attacks in the future and helps frame the debate today. I think it’s smart, important, and most of all right on.
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p>Clinton’s rhetoric, by contrast, is much less empowering. Her Christmas ad, I thought, was pretty telling. (I’ll embed it below.) In it, things like Universal Pre-K is Clinton’s gift to bestow upon America. The idea is that when she’s elected, this is what she’ll give to Americans, rather than inspiring us to demand it for ourselves. Another example: in the beginning of the campaign she talked about how in the eyes of the current administration, “you’re invisible,” especially if you’re poor or middle class. And when she’s president, you won’t be. The implication is somehow that you have to rely on her to be President to get heard, you shouldn’t demand to be heard yourself. When Howard Dean ran, his message was fully empowering. His message? “You have the power.” That’s an empowering message I could get behind.
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p>So, I guess I just wanted to clarify. I love Obama. And I think he’s gamely playing to both people who want to be activists as well as those who hardly pay attention.
While afertig is correct that this is not empowering, it is witty and shows a light touch. To overcome the negative bilge pulsing from right wing propaganda organs, such an approach may be very necessary.
But I challenge you to go through all of Clinton’s videos and find me one example of when her message empowers the citizens.
It’s not her role, sadly. And any politician who is selling “empowerment” is selling snake oil, so, to her credit, I give her a couple points for not even bothering to pretend that’s what she offers.
I think that it can be the job of the politician to help empower the people. And if they do it right, it ought to help them. Howard Dean showed us you could do it. Gov. Patrick did, too. Whatever criticisms you may have of them, I think the biggest ones boil down to not staying true to that message of empowerment. To the extent that Dean failed, he failed because his message of empowerment was derailed by negative attacks on him and his attacks on others. To the extent that Gov. Patrick hasn’t lived up to expectations, I think it’s mostly because he hasn’t truly tapped into the grassroots network to govern that be built to win. To the extent that both Clinton and Obama are both running campaigns about their personality, Obama as successfully made his campaign of, and perhaps about, his grassroots support.
I was one of the original Dean supporters going back to his Fund for a Healthy America days, back when no one knew who he was. He failed for a lot of reasons, including the fact that messages of empowerment from a single politician cannot override the myriad contradicting messages and pressures of daily life, of influential media, and of short attention spans. Yup, a lot of people got involved because of Howard Dean. I was one of the first people to actually get elected to a public office because of his urging to do so. I also sought out and joined my DTC and have now been chairing it for several years, all because of Howard Dean’s influence.
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p>But the realist in me knows that very few people remain empowered or engaged. So my point is that Clinton or Dean or Patrick can motivate people for short periods of time to become involved in their civic communities, but, ultimately, such involvement is ephemeral. Indeed, the politically naive who jump in with both feet often get burned so badly that they jump right back out, leaving with a frustration and anger that actually results in their becoming so disenchanted that they refuse further participation. Not good, but all too common.
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p>So, the naive among us, imho, can believe that politicians can “empower” people if they want, but real empowerment doesn’t come from politicians. It may get people in the door, but that doesn’t guarantee anything. Empowerment comes from good civic education, it comes from activism in the high school and college years, and it comes from realistic expectations.
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p>I advise the Young Politicians club at the high school where I teach. I founded the club three years ago, and we’ve been very active in every election since. I’m also the service learning coordinator for my school and the “queen” of introducing First Amendment School principles to our governance. This is where empowerment occurs, not from the lips of slick politicians. Young people need an appreciation of the art of managing expectations. Our kids ran a campaign for a 2.5 override–and won. They ran candidate forums for local office, they address their school committee during public address, they campaign for their pols of choice. Are they inspired by some candidates? Yes. Are they empowered by them? No.
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p>In my view, those who believe any politician is going to “turn things around” based on the quality of his or her rhetoric are bound for disappointment. Real change requires more–and there isn’t a single politician worth his/her salt out there who doesn’t know that before s/he opens his/her mouth and starts with the platitudes and cliches.
or, if blessing doesn’t work for you, thank you for pointing out what happens to people in campaigns.
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p>I talk about this phenomenon every time I talk to a candidate. People get hurt and become disenfranchised by politicians who spout rhetoric but don’t believe in it. If someone is going to represent themselves as a “grassroots” candidate, they had better be one or they will do permanent damage to the party and the concept if they are not. Having worked very hard to encourage people to participate for many years, as you have so obviously done as well, this is my pet peeve. Walking the talk is critical to not losing people permanently. Candidates may not be able to globally empower, but they sure as hell can do a lot in their campaigns by providing opportunities for grassroots participation that is meaningful and productive. That applies to the party as well. If you’re going to use the term, make sure you know what the consequences are when not practicing what you preach.
Are you saying that no President or presidential candidate can empower us? I guess I want to hear more about this line of thought.
here, just below.
but Howard Dean lost. So maybe people do not want to be “empowered” (whatever that means)… or maybe they saw through the slogan and realized Dean was not going to be the guy who could do the empowering. BTW, Dean lost in Iowa because despite all the yakkity yak about the people having the power, the Deaniacs brought in a lot of outsiders to Iowa rather than connect with actual Iowans to run his campaign there. As one of my friends in Iowa, who is very politically connected and active, said, “They pissed alot of people off.” You do not want to make Iowa caucus goers mad before they are supposed to caucus for you. And another BTW, if empowerment is what everyone is looking for, then we should all move to Iowa and caucus. Talk about a small number of people being able to decide the fate of the world (at least according to the all the newspapers etc.) My final BTW— I do not subscribe to the herd mentality’s view that the 2008 nomination rests on what people in Iowa and NH decide, particularly since it will only be three weeks until the next round of primaries.
nominating people for any other reason, in reality, are we? Let’s be honest. Flavor du jour has nothing to do with painful and necessary change.
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p>It all boils down to The Beer Factor. TBF. Since most people don’t want any change–they need their signifying issues to inform their identity–what they want is someone who looks like good change without being too disruptive. It has always been thus and always will be.
Sorry to put it so baldly, but Obama is running from the grassroots, and his campaign is counting on engagement from its supporters, not passivity. Uplifting and unifying rhetoric by itself doesn’t make change, sure, but it does motivate people – witness his large corps of active volunteers and the record-setting numbers of small donors. Obama’s entire career has been about getting people to join activist groups, call their representatives, lobby, and band together to improve their lives.
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p>I might have some sympathy for this analysis if it were directed at Clinton’s insider campaign, where the change message is more cynical.
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p>Fair enough. I can see where you would feel that way, but I don’t believe that Obama offers anything new. This is not an insult to his supporters but a characterization of my view of Obama.
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p>Motivating people to what exactly? What? What you describe is feel-good politics at its most elemental, most visceral. What exactly is going to occur if Obama is elected? All those divides I mentioned magically disappear? If you think that, then, sorry….
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p>Well, that may be true, but the rhetoric needed to rise to power at the local level is a different rhetoric that’s needed at the national level from which entirely different interest group species arise. What we’re seeing is the attenuation of a localized message to the point of worthlessness.
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p>Oh, please. Save your Hillary Hate for someone else. She’s likely to be the nominee anyway. I’m not voting for either one in the primary.
Although those who practice it seem particularly prone to the self-delusion that they possess some special enlightenment.
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p>I don’t see politics as a sort of New York art scene, where a candidate has to offer something “new” to be worth supporting – rather, I’m concerned that a candidate’s platform conforms with my own values and that the candidate has both a genuine impetus to public service and the ability to communicate ideas and inspire support.
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p>As to platform, all of the Democrats have a reasonably good set of policy proposals. Obama’s – what he’s seeking to motivate people for – are on his website. I’ve given Obama extra credit for early opposition to the Iraq war and refusal to accept contributions from lobbyists in my decision on who to support in the primary, but from a platform perspective, the Democrats aren’t all that different, and I’ll support whoever is nominated in the end without holding my nose. Your complaint about “attenuation of message” is ridiculous – it sounds like a judgment about the policy content of Obama’s campaign based on its political commercials.
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p>In terms of ability to communicate and inspire support, Obama has been quite remarkable. I was impressed by his books, and I like his experience as a community organizer, his success in building a viable national grassroots campaign from nothing, and his record in Illinois, where he was instrumental in brokering compromises that resulted in significant legislation under difficult conditions (the NYT had a good article about his Illinois accomplishments that I’ve posted about here on BMG.)
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p>We live under a system of government that’s designed for incrementalism and change only when broad consensus exists. Partisanship doesn’t go away, and forward movement isn’t certain if we elect a candidate who’s a consensus builder, but I fail to see how any positive movement is possible without respect for horse-trading and consensus-building. Even assuming we get a larger Democratic majority, the Congressional caucus is anything but monolithic – they range from progressives to blue dogs.
is another man’s reality.
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p>Your characterization of me as some sort of “practitioner” of cynicism doesn’t wash, I’m sorry. What, because I don’t particularly like your candidate’s message or style makes me a “practitioner of cynicism”? That’s broadbrush bullshit of the worst order. As is the case with most internet interactions, you know nothing about who I am or what I’m about, so save your packaging requirements for another time.
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p>Art scene? Conjuring straw men and bizarre characterizations of my point of view doesn’t really help matters. I don’t view politics as an art scene, for what that’s worth. Been involved for too long to find anything remotely artistic about it.
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p>Every candidate that comes along offers the same message. They all offer values that appeal to a broad constituency of voters. They all offer meaningful change. They all offer some plans to carry out their vision that never quite gets off the ground. They all admit it won’t be easy. Public service–and I’m a public servant, myself–is admirable and fulfilling. That doesn’t mean, of course, that it’s also hugely problematic, unfulfilling at times, and utterly unproductive at others.
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p>Your support of Obama is evident. My complaint isn’t ridiculous, but it surely doesn’t comport with your views. And that’s okay–don’t get so defensive. You should note, too, that I’ve hardly mentioned Obama’s name because I don’t view his shortcomings to be any worse than any other candidates.
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p>What you fail to grasp is that we have been consensus building forever and a day. And it’s a dismal, rotten failure.
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p>Thanks for making my point. You should recognize it from my earlier comment to Ryan on this post.
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p>You conveniently ignore the very real differences among Americans in this nation as if they can be eradicated with some nice bridge-building consensus. Such a world view, imho, is naive and irresponsible. This nation faces real problems. Pretty talk doesn’t fix real problems.
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Me:
You:
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p>You can claim I ignore differences, call me naive, etc. I don’t think you’re right, but say what you want if it entertains you – it’s just so much name-calling unless you have some alternative approach to offer.
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p>Put me with Churchill on this one: “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”
Of course there will always be name-calling and petty insults… and dirty politics. It’s a tough battle to win, with a lot at stake, so it’s inevitable.
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p>That said, the Karl-Rove types have been willing to play politics to a far greater degree than others on the list. For example, they’ve been all too willing to play partisan with what should be nonpartisan issues. For example, Bush has sought the worst, most right-wing judicial appointments he could get. Clinton, on the other hand, paid more attention to diversity than partisanship. Bush Sr. has famously installed a few judicial picks who’s moderate nature has kept the crazy conservative base riled up ever since. Better examples of this can be seen with what Bush has done to the DoJ, FEMA and all sorts of other government agencies.
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p>All that said, I’m right there with you. Democrats don’t need to play nice, as the legislative branch clearly thinks necessary, we need to win what we’ve promised the country – an end to the war in Iraq, health care access and affordability for all and quality public education that everyone can be proud to use. Those are the biggest reasons people vote for Democrats and it’s well past time we delivered, even if it means putting Republicans in their place in not-so-nice ways.
keeps saying about why Obama’s Unification Church is wrong: now is the time for partisanship.
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p>If Obama’s bridge-building talks suckers in the electorate to voting for him, well, I guess more power to him. But we have to stop acting like kumbaya can win the day.
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p>Republican philosophies, such as they were, have proven bankrupt. They may have power, but we have the best responses to today’s situation. Talk of bridge building should come after the decisions are made and everyone is smiling nice for the camera. Working together, etc. has led us into the mess this country is in. Working together is kind of like the Democrats approach to the budget: the Republicans cut taxes and increase spending into record deficits and the Democrats promise to work toward a balanced budget.
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p>Boy, am I grumpy today.
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p>Mark
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when grumpy. Not a bad thing. 😉
I’m curious as to why you downrated this comment.
Thought I gave it a five.
My mistake. Sorry.
PS – are we gonna have a Pats open thread or what?
I had just posted an open thread diary, and then I saw your comment. “Great” minds think alike. Lolorb, glad that they decided multiple posts are OK.
could successfully interject politics into an open thread on the Pats. 😉 It’s a very rare talent indeed and so appropriate on BMG.
Obama’s message to the masses sounds to you like capitulation in the name of bi-partisanship, but if you read his speeches and books you’ll see something wholly different. He’s not interested in capitulating until both sides can live with the result, no one wins in those cases. He just wants to start with the issues that both sides agree, at some level, need fixing. The message I take home is why spend so much time on hot-button issues (abortion, same-sex marriage, should we be in Iraq) where partisanship blocks progress, when we could be focusing on issues everyone agrees need to be improved AND in many ways Democrats currently have the more popular ideas for a resolution (education, budget reduction, children’s health care, fastest way to get the troops home). Once people see progress on the workable issues, they start to listen better to all your other ideas. Right now there is no progress, no one cares, and no one is listening.
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p>To say Democratic ideas are the only ones that every make sense is folly, and it makes you sound like the Republicans you love to hate, only with a different bent. The previous republican congresses and this republican president took the approach that their way was the only way, and look how that worked out. Apparently average Americans are foolish because they don’t want to repeat the same mistake under a banner of a different color.
If we didn’t really believe our ideas, we wouldn’t have them.
The worst problem with Bush has been his imperviousness to facts that don’t support his chosen position; he believes he is correct.
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p>A great risk is that Democrats learn the wrong lesson from these last few years: that Bush is wrong and that anything that is the opposite of a Bush policy is therefore correct. Bush wants to “stay the course”? We want the troops out, ASAP, even if that means disorderly withdrawal. Etc.
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p>I don’t want someone to change everything. I just want someone who wont screw up, or will at least make adjustments when they do.
Since so many appointees in a Democratic Administration will come from the Brooking Institute and no one is likely to come from the Rockridge Institute, you can safely reserve your insomnia for more worrisome matters.
Completely parenthetically, I offer that I, too, for many years called it the Brookings Institute, as you do here. Now whenever I hear it referenced on NPR and elsewhere, it’s the Brookings Institution. A quick trip over to the front page of their web page offers what? Brookings. Just Brookings. You have to go to their about page to get the tution, never mind the tute.
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p>As Uncle Rico would say, what’s the dealio? Did I sleep through a wrinkle in time?
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p>Notice the phrases I’ve emphasized. They are the same issue. People in America disagree about important stuff. You might want us all to get to work on the stuff we agree about, thinking that will help the important stuff, but it won’t. The right wing will bog us down arguing about that stuff, and will get its way, preventing universal health coverage, and maintaining 100,000plus troops in Iraq.
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p>And I, for one, am sick and tired of the minority (the Republicans) getting its way on staying in Iraq and preventing health coverage for all. This is a republic, and it is long past time for the government to follow the will of the majority on these issues. No one’s rights in the Constitution will be trampled by extracting our military from Iraq, nor by funding health coverage for middle class and poor people.
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p>The right wing are bullies, and flowery rhetoric might make you feel better about acquiescing to them, but it will not make the world a better place.
The current debate over whether we should have ever gone into Iraq is purely partisan now, and trying to declare who was right is a waste of time. Bringing the troops home, however it is done and however long it takes, is something both parties should agree on as a goal and a responsibility. That you see them as the same issue is exactly what I’m trying to get at, and I guess its why some don’t understand why Obama is different. I agree with you that the right are bullies, but I disagree that it’s “acquiescing to them” to forget the former and focus on the latter. The approach doesn’t solve every problem, not even some of the biggest, but its a start. Your convinced the right will halt any progress with false rhetoric and stonewalling, but the proof is in the pudding… THEY’RE LOSING. It takes a while for the public as a whole to see things for what they are. The will of the majority should be followed, but until we are represented fairly and led honestly I can’t say whose views are correct.
what separates us. The choice is issue is huge, sorry. Not an easy fix by any means. The tearing down of the Wall of Separation? Huge. The war? Huge. Immigration? Huge.
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p>What exactly are the easy issues to fix that will create an environment such that we can work together on the hard issues?
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p>If you reflect, I think you will find that there aren’t any easy issues, as I noted upthread.
I am disappointed by the idiom some here have espoused that I am somehow disengaged or stupid because I want a candidate who will get things done and govern to the middle instead of a candidate that pisses people off and allows for massive partisan gridlock. I am definitely an engaged voter, I keep track with the campaigns everyday through a variety of internet and first hand sources, I get mailings from a few of the campaigns, I even watch the debates which the average American has ignored.
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p>Frankly I understand that after getting beaten down by the Republicans for eight awful years that have included a war that has chewed and spat our our fellow citizens, including a 1984 esque era in American history when any dissent was considered active disloyalty against America, when anti-war protestors were lumped together as terrorist supporters, that there is a yearning for a “progressive Bush”, someone that will govern for 51% of America and really. I was mad as hell in 2004 and my support for Dean and I suspect the current support for Edwards reflects that people want a candidate who will fight the Republicans.
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p>But also its important to understand that Bush fought Democrats and rarely worked with them hence bi-partisan proposals on Iraq such as sanctions, getting UN approval, and the Iraq Study Group recommendations were rejected, hence bi-partisan opposition to right wing judges, Gauntanamo Bay, torture, etc. were rejected. Great ideas that would have significantly improved the American position both domestically and abroad were rejected by this administration because they were ideologically opposed to solutions they didn’t like.
I do not want a President who will reject the Republicans ideas merely because they come from the other party, I want a President who approves or rejects ideas based on whether they are good for the country. And I think most Americans especially after a foreign policy tailored to win elections and entrench a permanent majority are yearning for that as well.
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p>Also Sabutai’s historical analysis is flawed, Lincoln had Democratic Vice Presidents and in fact he ran on the so called Union Party in 1864 instead of the Republican Party which included a lot of pro-Civil War Democrats. Truman worked with Republican Senators to draft the Marshall Plan, NATO, the UN, the Truman Doctrine,and fight the Korean War . Ike veteoed more Republican legislation than he signed. The Kennedy and Johnson Civil Rights Act were opposed by the majority of Congressional Democrats and supported by a majority of their Republican peers. Nixons foreign policy and other initiatives like the EPA, OSHA, and healthcare reform were approved by the same Congress that eventually impeached him because they knew these initiatives even if Nixon thought them up for good for the country.
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p>I agree that the media inspired Broderism that the good ole days of bi-partisanship is a myth, partisanship did continue throughout the political history of the US, but to say that bipartisanship when it counted most did not occur or was bad or is not needed today is a flawed inaccurate assumption.
Here’s one of Paul Krugman’s quotes. He’s roughed up Obama quite a bit. Ignore that, if possible, and look at what he says at the end of “Played for a Sucker”:
Bipartisanship is, in some cases, a ticket to nowhere. Obama’s gestures toward drug companies or unmandated health care or social security reform, Krugman argues are tickets to nowhere.
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p>Who knows where the Republicans will be after the 2008 election? Maybe they’ll be in the mood to work with the Democrats, though it’s doubtful. On some issues, however, Democrats can’t afford much compromise. These include social security.
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p>Mark
Krugman nails it here–thank you so much:
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p>but what’s an even more trenchant observation is the fact that American politics has arrived at the Continental Divide. The Mid-Atlantic rift (to harken back to my geology days) of sociopolitical discourse. No prisoners, playing for keeps. No. Common. Ground. Exists Anymore. We are a Balkanized nation, and it’s getting worse, and no politician of today’s manufacture is going to remedy that.
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p>What would it take for this nation to feel collective pain? What would it take for this nation to eschew liberal/conservative, anti-choice/pro-choice, atheist/believer, wealthy/poor, immigrant/native-born, white/non-white, dove/hawk, straight/gay–the list is endless?
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p>Sadly, I suspect the “whatever” that may be would be of such catastrophic proportions as to be inconceivable.
do you attribute the divide and why is it so different today (I have a few ideas, but would like to hear your opinion)?
I really have to say I don’t know. I think the rise of the uber-Whitmanian Self in the late 20th century probably contributed. The breakdown in a sense of community. The income divide that separated winners from losers, the touch from the wimpy. The media. A failure of leadership, both nationally and locally. The rise of the religious and political right. The rise of the Bible and its applications in American political discourse. I’m sure there are many more, but, in short, that’s a start.
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p>(Said with a Bronx-like Hollywood accent of unknown geography) What we have heeah is a confluence, a perfect storm, of values, opinions, goals, and motivations that have eroded our sense of national identity. What’s an American anymore? Who can answer that? I know I can’t. Because the American from rural Georgia and the American from the bunker in Montana and the American from the 56th floor of some highrise in Chicago have nothing in common with me beyond what constitutes basic human needs. And we probably couldn’t agree on what those are, either,
You hit upon the ones that I feel have most strongly impacted the divide: rise of the religious right and media. I’m still investigating the pitbull frenzy (thousands of web pages later). One of the questions I’ve been trying to answer is where did the myths originate and who has been responsible for the perpetuation. It sounds like that would be easy to trace, but for the most part, it’s underground. Media has contributed heavily, but where have they pulled the myths from? What is the true source? They are so prevalent, yet there’s very little documentation on where they began. There are some links that provide evidence of religious organzation backing and of politicians who jump on the bandwagon (and resulting benefits to those religious organizations). It’s not just Republicans who jump on the bandwagon though. Fear based decisions and reactionism can be traced to Dems as well. It’s been an interesting slog.
it might be worthwhile to divide the nation into its constituent parts, if you will, on the most general of terms. New England? The South? The Mid Atlantic states? The Mid West? The Pacific North? California?
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p>One could probably come up with a half dozen or so identifiable cultural, social, and political differences that are the result of these amorphous influences. IOW, it’s a little like the UBD (Understanding By Design) we use in school, which is basically working backwards. Time consuming, though, and it would require someone with a fairly broad understanding of the various areas of the nation.
First off, jconway, it’s not “your” arguments to which I am responding, but the stated raison d’être of the Obama (and yes, often Edwards) campaign. It’s just more dancing to the Republican tune.
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p>You argue for “a candidate who will get things done and govern to the middle instead of a candidate that pisses people off and allows for massive partisan gridlock.” Don’t take Republicans at their word, jconway. Republicans have done aplenty with Mrs. Clinton, as much as they enjoy fuming on talk shows. If “we’re so awesome that all differences will subside before us” is the positive spin of Edwards and Obama, “Mrs. Clinton is a Republican in disguise” is their negative spin. I wish they’d pick one.
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p>Senator Clinton spent 2000-2004 ingratiating herself with Senators on both sides of the aisle. She has lead co-sponsorship on bills with Wayne Allard, Pete Domenici, Lindsay Graham, and a whole host of things with John McCain. Unless I misunderstood you, and you’re thinking that Joe Biden just drives Republicans nuts, that argument doesn’t carry.
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p>Secondly, I don’t really know how to answer the charge that Richard Nixon represents this fictional bipartisan past to which we need to return. If your argument is that things are so bad that Nixon looks good, then you’re making my argument for me — there’s no reaching Republicans who are so partisan that they make Nixon seem approachable. Or, that Lincoln represents this utopia, Lincoln who worked with the parts of the political establishment that did not organize a massive armed revolt. I am not blaming Lincoln for the Civil War at all, but let’s not pretend that the civil war happened because Lincoln united the country.
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p>I just think it foolish to blow this election on a wild goose chase for something that has never existed.
Either make substantive responses or dont respond to me at all. I hate straw men and pedantic responses.
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p>First of all you say my argument is invalid because I brought up Nixon, but yes he signed Democratic bills into law. Yes Ike veteoed more Republican bills than he signed. Kennedy and Johnson got more GOP support for the Civil Rights bills than the did in their own parties. Moreover Truman and FDR and Lincoln all crafted bipartisan foreign policies and military strategies. All of them had bi partisan cabinets.
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p>If you read Team of Rivals you will see that Lincoln had men of very different ideological persuasions Radical Republicans in Chase and Seward, Democrats like Edwin Stanton and Edward Bates, and Southern Republicans that werent so fond of emancipation including Simon Cameron. But they worked together to solve the problems facing the country.
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p>You brought up several out of context quotes of politicians calling each other names throughout history to somehow prove that bipartisanship never existed. I have brought up several historical examples where it did both in my initial post which you refused to respond to instead creating a Nixon straw man to beat around, and more detailed examples in this very post. Clearly bipartisanship has occured and worked in the past and you have yet to refute that. The Broderism myth that bipartisanship was the rule instead of the exception is false, and I totally agree with you on that. But to say it didnt occur during exceptional times when it was needed, and arguably these are those times since we are at war in two nations, our international prestige has plummeted, and we need to address issues of globalization, global warming, and the rise of China. This is the time for a real uniting leader.
Bush has signed Democratic bills into law — bills passed by a Democratic Congress. A Democratic Congress has given Bush his Attorney General and several other appointees. They have funded his war. They overhauled the American education system on his plan. They wanted to give him his immigration reform — the Republican crazies killed that. The War on Iraq is bipartisan, given the steady bipartisan funding and vote to authorize. Patriot Act? Bipartisan. Of course, that’s non-sensical, but if all you see are vote counts, that’s what you get. Just like we get that when we look at Ike and JFK.
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p>On FDR, I summarized an entire speech…you’re welcome to try to find how my summary’s inaccurate. If you think the JQA/Jackson or Jefferson/Adams quotes are out of context, you’re off. And I don’t think Nixon signing a bill rather than signing no bill outweighs a break-in into Democratic HQ.
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p>If you want to believe that this is an historically unprecedented time that requires an historically unprecedented leader, who just happens to be your candidate, you’re welcome to do that. I’ve been oversold on fear too much lately for it to work.
How was France recently defeated in 1938? You mean 1940?
…France was essentially defeated in 1936, when Hitler re-militarized the Rheinland and neither France nor Britain lifted a finger to stop him from doing so. That was the precipitating factor in WWII in the European theater.
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p>NB: WWII had been going on in the Pacific theater since 1933.
Your essential thesis was that there is no bi partisan consensus on anything in Washington and saying bi partisanship existed was a myth, you just mentioned several examples of bi partisanship this very session. So either you contradicted yourself or your actual point is that bipartisanship is bad?
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p>And yes several speeches of politicians calling each other names is not substantive evidence that bi partisanship does not exist.
My thesis is that there’s been lots of bad talk on the campaign trail, that isn’t reflected in what politicians do. Naive people talk the current bad talk as something more than posturing, and claim that these horrible times require a messiah, whether it be on some facile “unity ticket” or someone who proclaims himself a “uniter” who is beyond such things.
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p>There’s always partisan talk and bipartisan action. The partisan talk has gotten out of hand, as has the partisan action — particularly on one side. I don’t believe that the solution is to hope that talking about it will remove it. I believe you attack the partisan wing, and that takes someone who has shown the ability to do that, and do it well.
This is the attitude in the conservative movement.
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p>That attitude is in charge of the Republican Party. When they are in the majority, they will force what they want on the Democrats. When they are in the minority, the Democrats will get nothing from them, unless the Democrats take it.
But the question is, how best to get it.
Overall, a good post, Sabutai.
But are you sure about FDR’s France comment? WWII didn’t start until September of 1939, and France didn’t fall until June of 1940. Unless FDR thought that the Franco-Prussian War was a recent event, a 1938 reference to French defeat is a year or two early.