As long as I’m tying things together, here are two more things I just read that seem to fit together well.
Over at Political Animal, Amy Sullivan has a whip-smart post that sets out what I also think the Democrats need to do – to position themselves as a party of reform.
The real concerns of Americans go much deeper than gay marriage or abortion–even if they have a hard time articulating them. Americans are very anxious about the idea that people will do whatever they can get away with, and their perception is that Democrats are the ones who let people get away with things. But Democrats can gain the advantage if they craft a consistent message. Some people certainly are opposed to abortion on principle; but many are simply offended by the idea that some people might rely on abortion as a means of birth control. But who else can you think of who has done something simply because they could get away with it? Do I hear, Ken Lay? Tom DeLay? All sorts of unregulated industries? Tie these into a consistent call for responsibility and Democrats have a better chance of claiming some moral ground.
Now, there are some problems in making this happen. Jim Moran, and his sweetheart $400K loan from MBNA (just before he introduced anti-consumer bankruptcy legislation); Nancy Pelosi, who appears to be as junket-happy (and also has a child on the campaign payroll); Harry Reid, whose children are a mini-lobbying empire, and so on.I titled a blog post in 2002, “Why My Ostensible Party, the Democrats, Will Not Be Able To Use Bush’s Corporate History Against Him,” and the point holds.
The GOP are massively vulnerable on issues of conflict-of-interest. But to capitalize on those issues, the Democrats will have to clean up their act first, lest we see what we’re seeing now – “if you attack DeLay, we’ll attack Pelosi.”
Sullivan also ties the issue to the culture clash shown by the Democrats –
Also, don’t miss Dan Gerstein’s op-ed in today’s Wall St. Journal (if someone has a link that doesn’t require registration, could you please send it to me?) Here’s a taste:
The cultural elites are guilty of the very of silly oversimplification of which they frequently (and rightly) accuse conservatives. Not all parents who are concerned about the avalanche of crud crushing their children every day are obsessed with SpongeBob’s sexual orientation. Nor are they seeking to shred the First Amendment. Most are just looking for a little cooperation from the captains of culture to make the hard job of raising children in a fully-wired universe a little easier….
One can only imagine how insulting our elitism is to the average mother in the exurbs of Georgia or Colorado who might be uncomfortable with open talk of threesomes on “Friends” at 8p.m. Well, actually, we don’t have to imagine too hard, not after John Kerry openly embraced Hollywood and went on to lose married women voters by a margin of 55% to 44%….
But that is not a discussion the entertainment industry or its Democratic defenders want to have. In fact, most of the time they actively work to squelch it. Their first move usually is to deny that the culture has any influence on attitudes and behavior….Part of this response is clearly motivated by profit margins. But it also flows from a profound aversion to making moral judgments. And that’s the nub of the values problem for Democrats today. We don’t hesitate to judge people’s beliefs, but we blanch at judging their behavior. That leaves us silent on big moral issues at a time of great moral uncertainty, and leaves the impression that we are the party of “anything goes.”
These last few points are especially critical. In recent talks–including one this morning–I’ve been telling people that voters find it odd when Democrats bash big business and oil companies but turn a blind eye to the entertainment industry. Wouldn’t their Hollywood funders rebel if Democrats spoke up?, someone asked this morning. Frankly, it wouldn’t exactly hurt the party to have Susan Sarandon stand up and denounce the Democrats.
And also points out their vulnerability to a narrow wedge of wealthy political investors.
This has come about, in no small part, because of their neglect of the real roots of local organizing as they (and the GOP, to a lesser extent) have become an increasingly media-driven institution.
I got a spam for a publication called The Boston Review (yes, spam works sometimes…),which caught my eye with an article by Ari Lipman of the greater Boston Interfaith Organization called “Losing Faith: The Democrats called, but they didn’t call back.”It’s a nice piece of commentary that pretty well nails the issues the Democrats will have to climb through to win.
A week before the Democratic National Convention, I got a call from an organizer of one of the convention’s largest delegate caucuses. He was struggling to find a local member of the clergy to open a Sunday meeting. Apparently the Democratic Party had few connections within the Boston faith community, so he called me, a staff person of a local nonpartisan interfaith organization, for help.
“Are you looking for someone from a particular denomination or with particular experience?” I asked.
“We want a minister of color.”
“I see. It will be hard to find a minister of color who is available on Sunday, because he is likely to be in, you know, church. How about a rabbi?”
“We really want a black minister.”
I should have hung up the phone, but I was caught up in the excitement of the convention.
He finds one – a Haitian Seventh-Day Adventist, and puts the Party staffer in touch with him.
On the Friday evening before the convention I received a frantic call from another convention staffer. “We forgot to call Elder Benoit, and now we can’t reach him. We don’t have anyone confirmed to give the opening prayer! Can you call him for us?”
“It’s his Sabbath now,” I explained. “He won’t answer the phone until Saturday evening.”
“Oh.”
I staked out Elder Benoit at his church that next morning. “What’s going on with the DNC?” he asked me, disappointed. “Have they found someone else?” No, I assured him, they indeed wanted him to offer the prayer.
…
The next day, when we arrived at the Hynes Convention Center, we found that Elder Benoit’s first and last names were both mangled beyond recognition on the caucus program: “Elder Erdy Dinot.” What first had seemed like simple incompetence was now revealing itself as a pattern of neglect. We notified an event organizer of the mistake. We wrote out the correct spelling of his name, along with a phonetic pronunciation. She promised to pass along this note. The emcee then mispronounced Elder Benoit’s name three times.
Elder Benoit responded to the disrespect graciously and offered a powerful prayer. I was livid and embarrassed. We were given two credentials to the convention for our trouble, and that is the last we heard from the Democratic Party.
Read the whole thing. But I have to close by copying his conclusion, because it’s perfect, and I couldn’t say it any better.
It was clear that Elder Benoit’s role had been ornamental—a prayerful black face for a photo opportunity. The Democrats had no interest in recruiting or cultivating Elder Benoit as the talented leader of a significant constituency that might associate its diverse social and economic interests with either party. (my emphasis – A.L.)
The reality of American democracy is that religious assembly has always been a primary entry point for citizens (such as Elder Benoit) into public life. We transform our private religious values into public action at the ballot box. As the Democrats are now discovering, parties ignore this fact at their peril.
Engaging religious Americans does not necessarily mean altering the fundamental values and platform of the Democratic Party. After all, I would venture to say that many Haitian Seventh-day Adventists who vote Democratic do so even though they hold the same views on same-sex marriage and abortion as white evangelicals in Ohio—they just have, at least for now, a different analysis of their interests, priorities, and allies.
But Democrats need more than a pious new vocabulary. Party leaders must drop their thinly veiled scorn for religious Americans and seek to engage them sincerely around common interests, both in houses of worship and on convention floors. Treating potential leaders like Elder Benoit with simple respect would not be a bad place to start.
No kidding.
Read these two articles, Democrats, and pay some attention.
Except that DeLay is the only one of those people who may be implicated in a criminal investigation.
Having seen the inside of a DA’s office, might I suggest that that’s not as notable a fact as you might think?
A.L.
You can suggest it. But I think DeLay is a crook through and through.
“You can suggest it. But I think DeLay is a crook through and through.”
On this I agree. But he is far from alone. Both red and blue have their share of crooks.
Now this I gotta see.
Let’s watch the “Party of Reform” (ha ha ha ha ha ha) set out to reform Social Security … whoops, the bandwagon crashed on the very first turn.
Anybody up for Tort Reform instead? Just kidding.
How about reforming Medicare? It will involve working with the White House … okay, forget it. How about pushing for UN reform by appointing a tough ambassador? How about reforming rotten Democratic administrations in the Rustbelt Cities and the District of Columbia? Immigration reform?
I guess the Party of Reform will have to limit itself to reforming Tom DeLay. But what if DeLay gets hit by a bus, and the party becomes instantly obsolete?
Reforming DeLay out of active politics will be as effective for the Democrats as reforming Gingrich out was.
And that’s the nub of the values problem for Democrats today. We don’t hesitate to judge people’s beliefs, but we blanch at judging their behavior.
Well said, AL. That’s indeed the corner that the progressive side of the house has painted itself into. (dangling participle deliberate to emphasize how ACTIVELY they’re doing it).
When stated beliefs are praised without reference to their actual motivation, execution or outcome what is being peddled is empty ideology.
I wish it weren’t so — but I can only think of one or two Democrats who I see exercising real values leadership. And look at the attacks coming from the ‘progressive’ people on someone like Joe Lieberman.
Nail on the head AL, great articles.
The Dems have a great opportunity, should they choose to take it. It will require staking out the middle, and despite what Gore and Kerry supporters assumed that doesnt mean getting photo ops holding a shotgun as they breeze through flyover country. Dems need to nominate somebody outside of Washington, preferably from the South (if anyone is left), who will _first of all_ lace into the corrupt and cynical marriage the Democrats have with _their_ special interests. Americans simply tune out one side bashing the other these days because it is ridiculously obvious that each side is chained to its own, right or wrong. Its hard to blast the Republicans business connections when the NEA runs the Democrat education strategy, utterly. Attacking the incest on his or her own side will allow the candidate to break loose with new ideas (which is critical) as well as gain some standing as truly centrist. Then he or she will be well suited to take on the Right. No one (and I mean no one) of any consequence in the Democratic party has had the courage to do that since Clinton took on welfare. So much for the party of the open minded.
I’m not so sure the Dems refuse to judge people’s behavior. Someone known as “Armed” Liberal probably knows a few lefties who are happy to judge his decision to be armed, or to hunt.
My big problem with the Left is its insistence on judging (negatively) behavior which I consider central to the success of our society (such as church attendance or joining the military) while refusing to judge destructive behavior, e.g. by making excuses for criminals, especially when they happen to be minorities.
It’s not a failure to judge, it’s a reversal of proper judgement. Which, I need hardly say, is both worse and more difficult to reverse, since it shows not a lack of values but an active embrace of the wrong ones.
While I agree with Mark B. above that declaring independence from the D’s special interests – especially the NEA – would be a good step towards gaining interest from those who have written them off, doing so without also dealing with the national security issue is fraught.
You only get one chance to declare independence, and you must win. Making the try without resolving the perception by the middle (based on real evidence) that the D’s are feckless on the war is a recipe for disaster, as it’s now the high-order-bit in voting for many. (Someone said this better on another thread.) Until that issue is faced squarely, the D’s are still in denial.
The Dems are finding out what the limits of Elite Progressivism are, which is essentially Prohibition. The Democratic Party is full of folk who know better than you and want to tell you how to live a moral life, in detail.
This is what happens when Progressivism is not leavened with Populism. The Klan is what happens the other way around.
Every party needs BOTH to prevent the negative social tendencies (elitism vs. the mob, basically) from getting out of control.
Right now by a small but growing margin the Republicans are more balanced with Populism balanced by significant Progressivism elements. This is why the party is more successful.
bq. It’s not a failure to judge, it’s a reversal of proper judgement. Which, I need hardly say, is both worse and more difficult to reverse, since it shows not a lack of values but an active embrace of the wrong ones.
Yes, killing babies good, killing the disabled good, death penalty for killers bad, and christians who dare oppose nazi Euthenasia are “scary”.
Freedom and Liberty bad, control regulation and cohersion at the point of a govt thugs gun to impose “social justice” on you, good.
Good and evil are defacto, inverted.
This is content problem, not a marketing problem.
It examples their war agaisnt reality. their war against the judgement of history.
Leftism is proven wrong, but instaed of turning away from wrong, they have embraced being wrong, this has real effects you your ongoing ability to judge, good from evil, explains the emergence of the moral senses replacment by political calculation.
There are few choice of ends where this leads, and historically, have been horrific.
It is boiling down to a contest between good and evil. a contest between those who can no longer judge, and those that already have.
bq. Right now by a small but growing margin the Republicans are more balanced with Populism balanced by significant Progressivism elements. This is why the party is more successful.
It isnt the company listed on the peoples fav brand of toothpaste that chafes americans these days, but a school district that sucks the food out of the mouths of their children under a rather tranaparent ruse of “educating” them, with the overheanging threat to confiscate the roof over your kids heads if you refuse to fund the brainwash and sexualzation of your kids, who are taught about condoms and hatred of america but nothing about math.
Go down the list of the forcces arrayed against the familly these days, and they are all comming from leftist politicians and leftists interst groups, none of who share your values or have anything but demostrated contempt for everything you value.
And they support the perverse and the profane, and want to force it on you and your kids.
This has more to do with core principles than fashion.
In Nazi euthanasia the government decides for you: live or die.
The American version is better: can we figure out what you wanted to happen under such circumstances?
The rhetoric is getting crazy and unconnected to reality.
Some on the left are calling for the killing of Bush. Some on the right prefer to kill judges.
Is it possible to have differences of opinion on serious subjects without wanting to kill each other. I mean really.
How can we confront the Islainazis with an uncivil war at home?
I’m kind of a centerist – Bush/Obama was my ticket.
But you know both parties are looking quite ugly to me. I’m getting to the point where I don’t like either side.
Not all the forces against the family are on the left.
Drug prohibition is a pet project of the right and hurts millions every year.
Despite the fact that we are learning that drug use is a marker for PTSD. Now how do kids get PTSD in America? Child abuse and living in a drug war zone are two of the major ways. The drug war is in fact punishing people in pain.
The fact is the drug war promotes the very conditions likely to induce some kids to use drugs. So the kids self medicate for the problem of living in a war zone.
Now of course we wreak all this havoc mostly in minority neighborhoods. Why? White folks would never stand for a drug war in their neighborhoods.
So don’t give me crap that the Rs are more family friendly. There is an element of unconcious racism here that stinks and is very ugly.
The saddest part is that prohibition is almost always a moral crusade from the right that ends in disaster. Of course the right learned nothing from alcohol prohibition. Neither have they forgotten anything.
You do not solve substance abuse problems by turning neighborhoods into war zones.
Alcoholics now get treatment without being caught in a police dragnet. Why can’t we do the same for other substance abuse problems?
So the left has contempt for your values and the right has contempt for mine.
This is the cost of living in a free country. Not everything (or even much) will be to your liking.
The alternative would be to have one side or the other totally trumphant. i.e. no more liberty.
Sure it is tough raising kids in a free country. You have to teach them right from wrong because you can’t depend on the government to do the job. Kids will need to be taught the practice of virtue in the midst of vice (which is which of course depends on your beliefs).
The right is no more willing to deal with liberty than the left.
Both sides are sucking mugwumps (see the movie “Naked Lunch” if you want the videos).
This all comes about because both sides have no doubt about their position. Of couse this is the path to civil war.
True goodness is sticking to your principles without an assist from government guns. Is that possible?
We shall see.
M. Simon said: “Alcoholics now get treatment without being caught in a police dragnet. Why can’t we do the same for other substance abuse problems?”
Though certainly abused by a small minority, alcohol is used safely by millions (billions counting the rest of the world) in social situations every day. Why? Because it can be used ‘safely’ – due to its nature. Many other drugs, having different effects on the human body, can not.
Clearly, all drugs are not the same. Alcohol is not the same as heroin or cocaine in its effects on the person or society. There is good reason that even outside the US (France for instance, France isn’t run by the republican party – right?) alcohol is legal and cocaine is not. Heroin/meth/crack/cocaine/etc. can not be used safely (in terms of both individual and societal safety) even within fairly liberal boundaries, due to their effects on the human body and mind. To ignore the different effects and side-effects of drugs when comparing them leads to a superfluous and weak argument at best.
Alcohol should not be used as a staw man argument for legalizing other drugs. It hasn’t been an effective argument for decades in the US and world-wide, and I bet it won’t ever be.
Also, your statements:
“Now of course we wreak all this havoc mostly in minority neighborhoods. Why? White folks would never stand for a drug war in their neighborhoods.
So don’t give me crap that the Rs are more family friendly. There is an element of unconcious racism here that stinks and is very ugly.”.
Gross sterotyping and over-generalization about an ethnic community. Unfounded attribution of racism with no evidence presented to back it up… Very, very ugly indeed. Those kind of statements don’t exactly buttress your position, nor do they demonstrate intellect that may or may not be there in actuality. I can point you to mirror image statements by those on the other side having exactly the same weight and value as yours…
Statement of the obvious for today: It is possible to both be against dangerous drugs, and not be racist.