Rick Perlstein has a good piece in The Rolling Stone. It comes in the form of a Wisconsin post-mortem, but the lessons are about us and our situation. The night Scott Walker survived his recall,
…Democratic candidate Tom Barrett gave a concession speech even though there were still votes to be counted. His supporters in the room were livid, according to reports: they had devoted their blood, sweat, and tears to what they saw as a fight for all they held dear, and believed the man to whom they had pledged themselves was quitting before the fight was even over. One of them approached him and said she’d like to slap him. Mayor Barrett said he’d rather be hugged. He leaned down for said hug. And got slapped instead.
You gotta love it. President Clinton had gone to Wisconsin to support the guy, and
He would follow the Bill Clinton strategy, triangulate against his own side. If swing voters hate union cronyism, he would prove he wasn’t a union crony. “I’m not the union guy,” he would say on the campaign trail – he was the guy the unions didn’t want; they even tried to talk him out of running.
In an election about unions, he tri(strang)ulates them. Talk about a buzzkill. This is a guy who tries to prove himself on his honeymoon by bragging to his new wife about his old girlfriends.
And that’s half the problem according to Perlstein: Democrats, not respecting their base. In his campaign, Obama gave his base the props, even if there were signs that he wasn’t what he appeared to be. Since then, he’s treated us like we’re lucky to have him.
Our second problem is the Republicans.
Republicans win because Republcians cheat. They cheat in each and every election, systematically and predictably. They crap out last-minute turnout-killing lies: in this last, for instance, that people who signed recall petitions automatically had their vote recorded against Walker and so didn’t have to go to the polls; and in 2006, in at least fifty different congressional races, an overwhelming volume of calls that appeared to be from the Democratic candidate, dozens in a row, designed to so anger potential Democratic voters that they’d stay home from the polls.
They render Democratic phone lines useless: In 2006, pundette Laura Ingraham did it by telling her radio listeners to deluge a voter protection hotline with calls; this last week by blasting out text messages inviting the same for Tom Barrett’s campaign headquarters. They intimidate voters on Election Day in minority precincts, wearing scary uniforms and warning those with outstanding warrants to stay away if they don’t want to be arrested. They push out horror-show media – like the Scott Walker TV commercial with the baby who was beaten to death, a crime somehow laid at Tom Barrett’s feet; or the mailers the Republican National Committee sent out in 2004 to Arkansans and West Virignias that the Bible would be “banned” if “you don’t vote.” More prosaically, they retail statistical lies: in 2000, that Bush’s proposed tax cuts would not predominantly benefit the rich; last Tuesday, that the federal government said Wisconsin added 30,000 jobs.
This kind of stuff doesn’t really get reported, or noticed: it happens too late to get into the news before the polls open (that’s the point of the tactics), and then, once the polls close, all the media oxygen is taken up with horse-race stuff (the bad guys know that too). Bringing this stuff up also violates a sort of unspoken faux-macho journalist code: “That’s politics,” they say; “both sides do it” (they don’t); and if the victimized campaign brings it up, they’re just whining. The bad guys work with this bias very effectively, for instance keeping a handy mental file of isolated, occasional Democratic abuses – the one incident you hear about over and over was the tire-slashing of Republican get-out-the-vote vehicles in Milwaukee eight years ago, for which four Democratic campaign workers including the son of a congresswoman went to jail – to feed journalists’ both-sides-do-it brain-deadedness.
Someday, some clever political scientist might figure out a way to quantify just how many points on election day Democrats have to make up to bring things to square. Until that point – or probably even after that point – we can expect the usual Wednesday morning diet of earnest reflections on what the polling just past “says” about the electorate. Republicans will keep pushing, pushing, pushing their vision for what kind of world they want to live in – union and public-employee free. Democrats, free of any particular vision for society at all, will go into “battle” retailing themselves as the nicer fellows in the contest, and earnestly hope the electorate goes along.
The answer is not for Democrats to cheat. But it begins with the Democratic establishment doing business in a way that doesn’t make their most devoted partisans feel like slapping them upside the head.
Most of this comes as no surprise. We have a senate campaign to win. We face a well-run “Republican” campaign.The question is, what do we do about it? We have a good candidate. How do we prevent a Wisconsin?
The real danger to the unions wasn’t ending collective bargaining, it was eliminating automatic deductions of union dues. The majority of public employees stopped contributing dues and effectively quit their own union.
Unfortunately you have the habit of posting utter nonsense so I can’t just take your word for it. I’m pretty sure those were rank and file union members protesting in Madison for months on end.
it would be nice to have more to go on than a Wall Street Journal piece referring to an unnamed source, though the source could be involved someone involved in the leadership struggle that the Journal fails to mention. Leaving one union for another union also happens. When I was in grad school, I was part of the United Auto Workers. I had nothing to do with making cars, but the grad students’ previous union didn’t cut it. If union members want to leave, then that’s the union’s problem.
Over the last year, the MTA has been setting a communication structure, which is harder than it seems because we can’t use work resources such as email, copying, or even teacher mailboxes. That prohibition is not only the law, but the way it should be; however, it makes union communication in a school system difficult. Employers have the communications advantage because they own the channels of communications and that advantage makes organizing labor very difficult, particularly in hostile employer environments.
As an active union member, I can say that most members don’t really understand or, in my opinion, appreciate what our union does. Without MTA involvement over the last 2 years, teachers would find their working conditions significantly worse with student learning none the better. I have my doubts about how many teachers know this, but I can say that our union involvement in education is seeing an uptick.
Republicans win some and Democrats win some, that’s it. Why do people have to assign blame, guilt.. when their guy loses. Scott Walker won, simple. Obama won, simple. Neither stuffed ballot boxes, neither cheated, they won. Some can blame ACORN others will blame robo-calling, some will blame Walker bought the election while others will claim Obama spent ~$750 million vs McCain’s ~$250 million. Either way, more people voted for the winning guy so stop complaining. Sometime the winners just won. How about the gigantic election of Republicans in 2010, more cheating??? How about the Democrats crushing victories in 2008, any cheating?
Nothing to see here, move on…
to simple minds. Yeah, Walker won. You saying “plain and simple” is saying “shut up” in other words. You don’t like, don’t read it.
Give me your address and I’ll send you some cheese and crackers.
Why can’t you simply admit that sometime your guy loses? Why not say the people voted for the person they liked better (Scott Brown over Martha Coakley, Obama over McCain…) and be done with it?
Was it Freud who said “Sometimes a cucumber is just a cucumber”.
…a cigar is just a cigar, but i agree with your summation.
nt
I don’t think anyone’s denying that. Rick Perlstein isn’t denying that. The question is, why?
It’s pretty interesting, what happened. Barney Frank and Ed Rendell say it was a fight that shouldn’t have been fought. Tom Barrett was a clown. People were against the idea of a recall. Union members didn’t all vote the way they were thought they were going to vote. The DNC didn’t support the recall. A lot of people like or support Scott Walker. A lot of people don’t like unions. And Republicans “cheat” or more precisely frequently employ dirty tricks.
Aside from coming up with a post talking about something other than Scott Brown, these things are valuable for our side to discuss because there might be something to learn.
Your Freud allusion is irrelevant because that’s for interpreting alleged symbols, i.e. finding meaning in something that may not have meaning. Unless you think the results were completely random, there were causes to what happened in Wisconsin.
BostonShepherd supplied information I was unaware of. That exchange made the whole thread worthwhile to me.
I’m glad Lodger agrees with you, but to me, your point makes absolutely no sense. You don’t want to talk about it. Fine. Take your cigar and go home.
Honestly, I can’t really think of a reason for telling anyone “Nothing to see here, move on…” And I don’t mean just you guys. I mean our guys too.
…when Republicans cheat. It is well-documented for example that calls were made suggesting petition signers did not have to vote in the recall. Plus, haven’t you complained about ACORN before? Nice that you can be forgiving of them now that they have been decimated based on phony evidence.
he brings up the phony ACORN complaint as his counter argument. Reality based johnd, this ain’t Republican radio.
conservatitis simplex.
The difference is I am not blaming McCain lose on ACORN. More people chose Obama, plain and simple. I’m not blaming Obama outspending McCain 3-1, not blaming Union money or muscle…
If things are so well documented then why don’t they get persecuted? Republicans can’t claim “Executive privledge”… until maybe November 2012.
…is that ACORN didn’t do anything wrong. By bringing them up, you only perpetuate a Breitbart/O’Keefe lie – ACORN did nothing but help poor people exercise their rights as citizens. Breitbart and O’Keefe used deceptively edited videos to smear that organization and those smears got them defunded. That’s plain and simple – why you continue to believe people who lie to you is the difficult question.
Shouldn’t you be moving on!
Perlstein’s rhetoric goes a bit over the top. What he means by cheating has always been a big part of the GOP playbook. He’s talking about dirty tricks, as I said on my previous comment. Perlstein walks himself back a bit here:
It is like moral courage on behalf of those running for office is ALMOST extinct. I vote for perceived integrity, courage, honor, fortitude, self discipline – NOT espoused positions. When I find out I am fooled as to these qualities, I am done supporting that candidate with my time and treasure and it has become nauseating to “hold my nose” and vote for a candidate I don’t admire, I don’t trust, that doesn’t have the courage to fight for democracy, for good government (HOW I hate the fact Beacon Hill, is immune from Open Meeting laws) and that I am certain has lied to me. Totally disgusting.
with Ernie who’s bitching about Scott Brown threads elsewhere.
I know, however, that you are a woman of principle.
Right now the President looks good, but I have no idea if there will be anything to complain about at this point. If it comes down to FL again and he does end up losing I’ll be very tempted to blame Governor Scott’s voter-purging.
You may recall that much of the blame we assigned over losing to Scott Brown we actually assigned to our side, which is a little different.
You continue to blame ACORN? Interesting since they are no longer around. As for the phone calls, unfortunately I’m not sure they violated any law, though I certainly think there should be laws about lying to tamper with an election.
Finally, I’m pretty sure Freud talked about cigars!:)