― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 20 January 2006 03:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 20 January 2006 03:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 20 January 2006 03:46 (eighteen years ago) link
Kerry did not lose for that reason. Kerry lost (and maybe didn't lose at all) because he was a mediocre candidate running against an incumbent in time of war with a position that wasn't in any way distinctive. On foreign policy there wasn't a difference and Bush had the advantage of holding office already.
― TRG (TRG), Friday, 20 January 2006 04:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 20 January 2006 04:34 (eighteen years ago) link
I think this comparison highlights the Democratic party's huge disadvantage. MoveOn members aren't exactly meeting every Sunday to network and soak up the latest party propaganda. Without a strong, organized union base, what social networks still exist that can bring liberals together to discuss issues and provide an organizational foundation for party politics?
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Friday, 20 January 2006 06:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 20 January 2006 07:05 (eighteen years ago) link
This is a common error in the way the left thinks about the conservative movement; if we were to look at a 'hinge' moment, most historians are starting to see the nomination of BARRY GOLDWATER - yes, BG - as the moment in which conservative politics grabbed a foothold. Sure he lost, but he lost representing a conservatism that was essentially presumed dead, and he did it working with grassroots orgs. Despite the historical noise about the rise of the left's grassroots organizations in the early 60s, the right as we know it now was basically born in the 60s with the Goldwater campaign and the alignment of a bunch of different strands of social + economic conservative thought.
― deej.. (deej..), Friday, 20 January 2006 07:41 (eighteen years ago) link
...alignment of a bunch of different strands of social + economic conservative thought powered by grassroots organizations - PTA groups, john birch society, Phyllis Schlafly, Ayn Rand. Everything came together with the parents of the baby boomers.
― deej.. (deej..), Friday, 20 January 2006 07:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― deej.. (deej..), Friday, 20 January 2006 07:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― deej.. (deej..), Friday, 20 January 2006 07:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 20 January 2006 07:49 (eighteen years ago) link
and also worth remembering that our culture -- as opposed to our politics -- is still largely trending liberal. the culture is globalizing and multiculturizing a lot faster than our politics. politics will catch up.
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 20 January 2006 07:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 20 January 2006 07:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 20 January 2006 08:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 20 January 2006 08:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 20 January 2006 08:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 20 January 2006 08:22 (eighteen years ago) link
ideologically, yes. attitudinally, no.
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 20 January 2006 08:36 (eighteen years ago) link
So how can Democrats compete with a powerful top-down structure like the church? Without unions how can Democrats organize supporters and potential supporters in a social situation that meets regularly? Can MoveOn and Dean-style internet "activism" really mature into effective replacements for genuine grassroots organizations that meet in the flesh?
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Friday, 20 January 2006 08:40 (eighteen years ago) link
Without unions how can Democrats organize supporters and potential supporters in a social situation that meets regularly?
what would be the purpose of meeting regularly?
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 20 January 2006 08:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― TRG (TRG), Friday, 20 January 2006 14:27 (eighteen years ago) link
The Christian Coalition may be a "top-down organization," but you have to understand that the power of the church comes from the fact that people actually get together and meet. In many non-urban places in America, the Church is THE place for social and family life -- it's the only game in town.
― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 20 January 2006 14:32 (eighteen years ago) link
they're an essential part of the chicken. their reach is very much real.
― don weiner (don weiner), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:10 (eighteen years ago) link
The thing about the Goldwater 'hinge' is that it would likely never have resulted in a conservative revolution if a genial front man like Reagan hadn't emerged. To win the presidency, the Dems need someone who can recast their attitude/ideology/wotdafuck in positive terms, and who doesn't sound like inauthentic and grating with every breath like Gore and Kerry.
RWR was inaugurated 25 years ago today. To update the smartest thing I've heard Michael Moore say, we're entering the second quarter-century of the Reagan Administration.
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:11 (eighteen years ago) link
Well, even if all he manages to do is to get two conservative justices on the Supreme Court (thereby shifting the swing vote to the right) who will likely be there for the next 30 years, he's already been quite effective from the right's perspective.
― o. nate (onate), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:32 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.ourtenwords.com/about
About OurTenWordsThe idea for OurTenWords.com came from a post by Michael Faris on the community blog at HeartlandPac.org.
Michael asked, "What ten words should Democrats use to define their message?"
Tom Vilsack responded with his own ten words, and challenged others to submit their own ten words.
Since then over 500 people have responded to the challenge, making it one of the most active discussions at HeartlandPac.org.
Tom Vilsack found the discussion so promising that he asked the project to be expanded.
His idea was to get as many people as possible to submit their ten words and to discuss them with others. To accomplish this goal Heartland PAC has launched OurTenWords.com to encourage more discussion and ten words from many different Americans.
OurTenWords.com
This site is designed to start a discussion about the Democratic Party’s message by obtaining as many ideas as possible. This is a conversation that everyone needs to participate in -- it must not be limited to certain members of the party, whether they be the grassroots, elected officials, or policy experts. This effort matters so much that we cannot afford to leave anyone out of the process...
Tom's initial suggestion: "Here is my first effort at meeting the challenge and over time I expect my words may change: meaningful opportunity, personal security, individual responsibility, sustainable communities, progressive alliances."
― kingfish kuribo's shoe (kingfish 2.0), Friday, 20 January 2006 16:55 (eighteen years ago) link
That's the point: people attend church anyway for a multitude of reasons and have strong ties to their religion that can date back into childhood. On the other hand a person's connection to a strictly political organization like MoveOn is much more casual and fleeting. People come and go around election time or when they feel a small victory has been won but apart from a small number of dedicated activists, most people don't shape their entire social life around these groups.
Unions used to be a similar constant presence in people's work lives in the way that the church shapes their private lives but this traditional Democratic base is vanishing with nothing similar to take its place.
and little if any of what I'd consider political organizing - at least of the electoral sort - goes on there.
Perhaps not political organizing in a direct sense but politicians certainly use the church as an ideologically organizing force to rally voters around issues like abortion, gay marriage and other "values." In other words they may not neccessarily be "organizing" in the sense of registering voters or canvassing but they use the church as a way to conceptually organize a group of issues and ideas around an existing group of potential voters.
In fact, if it did go on there, they'd be in danger of losing their non-profit status.
Um...
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Friday, 20 January 2006 17:40 (eighteen years ago) link
Midway through the meal, I innocently asked how the "Big Brother is listening" issue would play in November. Judging from his pained reaction, I might as well have announced that Barack Obama was resigning from the Senate to sell vacuum cleaners door-to-door. With exasperation dripping from his voice, my companion said, "The whole thing plays to the Republican caricature of Democrats -- that we're weak on defense and weak on security." To underscore his concerns about shrill attacks on Bush, the Democratic operative forwarded to me later that afternoon an e-mail petition from MoveOn.org, which had been inspired by Al Gore's fire-breathing Martin Luther King Day speech excoriating the president's contempt for legal procedures...
― kingfish kuribo's shoe (kingfish 2.0), Friday, 20 January 2006 19:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― TRG (TRG), Friday, 20 January 2006 19:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Friday, 20 January 2006 20:10 (eighteen years ago) link
Fire the consultants, I say!
― TRG (TRG), Friday, 20 January 2006 20:19 (eighteen years ago) link
The problem with a consultant-driven overreliance on polling data is that it is predicated on the assumption that nothing will happen to jar public opinion out of its current grooves. As Elaine Kamarck, a top advisor in the Clinton-Gore White House and a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, argued, "These guys [the consultants] just don't get it. They don't understand that in politics strength is better than weakness. And a political party that is always the namby-pamby 'me too' party is a party that isn't going to get anyplace." Kamarck also shrewdly pointed out that if leading Democrats follow the consultants and abdicate the field on the NSA spying issue (Hillary Clinton, please call your office), "They're going to leave the critique open to the far left. And that will exacerbate two problems the Democrats have: one, that they look too far out of the mainstream, and the other, that they don't believe in anything."
Kamarck also shrewdly pointed out that if leading Democrats follow the consultants and abdicate the field on the NSA spying issue (Hillary Clinton, please call your office), "They're going to leave the critique open to the far left. And that will exacerbate two problems the Democrats have: one, that they look too far out of the mainstream, and the other, that they don't believe in anything."
― kingfish kuribo's shoe (kingfish 2.0), Friday, 20 January 2006 20:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 20 January 2006 20:23 (eighteen years ago) link
"If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."
The key word there is "consider". Yes, why shouldn't Congress at least consider it? No one except die-hard Republicans would probably disagree with that. But that's still a ways from saying, yes, he should be impeached.
― o. nate (onate), Friday, 20 January 2006 20:25 (eighteen years ago) link
Kamarck's analysis is self-contradictory. How could the Dems simultaneously be "too far out of the mainstream" and not "believe in anything"?
― o. nate (onate), Friday, 20 January 2006 20:27 (eighteen years ago) link
Just like last year -
Carville went on to point out that on the day the U.S. Census Bureau announced an increase in poverty and millions more Americans lacking health care, what did Kerry do? "The event they did," said Carville, "was credit-card debt . . . because someone in a focus group must have said something."
― TRG (TRG), Friday, 20 January 2006 20:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 20 January 2006 20:35 (eighteen years ago) link
because different people can dislike the Dems for different reasons? I don't see anything contradictory in that statement - she isn't saying people simultaneously hold both positions (altho, that too is possible - people pass contradictory judgments all the time). The public is obviously not monolothic in its thinking.
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 20 January 2006 20:40 (eighteen years ago) link
It seems that Kamarck's basic argument is that the moderate Dems shouldn't be afraid of embracing issues that seem "lefty" because if they don't then the leftists will embrace them, make a lot of noise about it, and basically be seen as the voice of the party, which will reinforce the perception that the Dems are out of the mainstream. And meanwhile, the moderates will stand around looking weak and conflicted as they hem and haw and beat around the bush, which will reinforce the perception that they don't stand for anything.
Unfortunately, this scenario is not implausible. A lot of the blame for this should lie with the news media, which tends to prefer confrontation and controversy over subtlety and nuance - but the Dems still need to figure out how to deal with it. But I don't think the Dems should give up the ability to pick their battles. If they let the GOP and the news media dictate the playing field, then they've already lost. I think the Dems need to identify the issues that they want to stake their campaigns on and force the media to acknowledge those issues. If they don't think that wiretap spying is the right issue, then I think they need to figure out how to change the topic of conversation.
― o. nate (onate), Friday, 20 January 2006 21:24 (eighteen years ago) link
This is exactly right. You guys need to stop talking about "ideas" and platforms and the like as if they mattered! As I said upthread you need an amiable demon of boundless charisma – a Nixon, Clinton, a Reagan – who can look citizens in the eye, convince them that their mother was a man, and lock their votes for the next election.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 20 January 2006 21:38 (eighteen years ago) link
This is exactly right. You guys need to stop talking about "ideas" and platforms and the like as if they mattered! As I said upthread you need an amiable demon of boundless charisma
Wrong! Once again, this is kicking the can down the road. Yes, the charismatic demon is very important, but you can't conjure him out of thin air. Ideas and platforms don't matter, attitudes do. Demons are charismatic, because they have the right attitudes or know how to simulate them. It's very important to find candidates who come as close as possible to fitting the bill, but the attitude also has to be expressed in the party's language and programs and supporters as well. When the right succeeds at taking down candidates by comparing them to their less attitude-appropriate fellow-travelers (which the GOP is currently trying to do to everyone prominent in the party), you have a problem that even a charismatic devil may not be able to solve.
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 20 January 2006 21:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 20 January 2006 21:53 (eighteen years ago) link
"Republicans have a post-9/11 view of the world. And Democrats have a pre-9/11 view of the world," Rove told Republican activists. "That doesn’t make them unpatriotic, not at all. But it does make them wrong — deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong."
from http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10946712/
I don't think that nitpicking the Republicans on specifics of the "War on Terror" is a winning strategy for the Dems. The wiretap spying issue would fall into this category. Yes, Congress has an obligation to investigate the legal justification of this, but I don't think that Dem candidates should seize on it as their road to victory in November.
― o. nate (onate), Friday, 20 January 2006 22:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 20 January 2006 23:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 20 January 2006 23:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 20 January 2006 23:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― kingfish kuribo's shoe (kingfish 2.0), Friday, 20 January 2006 23:09 (eighteen years ago) link