Are the Democrats in such big trouble (losing 7 of the last 10 presidential elections) because of poor organization or bad policies? Markos Moulitsas Zuniga thinks it’s all just a matter of organizing:
Moulitsas, known as the king of the Daily Kos website, sought to dig himself out of a hole today by attacking the Hill newspaper for misrepresenting his remarks: “I was not ‘dismissive’ of existing progressive think tanks. They have their role and are key components….However, what I said is that all the policy papers in the world won’t do us any good unless we can figure out ways to actually win elections. Republicans have a machinery in place focusing on using technology and other tools to win elections in addition to their policy think tanks, we don’t.”
The Hill misrepresented nothing. Actually, “all the policy papers in the world” is exactly what a party in the wilderness needs. If Democrats want to change the country’s direction, they better know where they want to go and why their answers are superior. Kos’s enthusiasm for mechanistic solutions to the Democratic party’s soul-sickness is yet another example of present-day leftist philistinism and provincialism.
This is really sad for the country. The emphasis on mechanism is a reflection of a defensive posture toward the idea gap, which the Dems are clearly losing. Traditional social security and welfare + foreign policy isolationism and gay marriage doesn’t equal 50.1%.
emphasis on mechanism
Sad??? You’re sad because of a focus on mechanics? I’m sure I’m not using the word in the sense that you intellectuals mean it, but mechanics is PRECISELY what you, sir, have been demanding MORE of. You reject, whole-heartedly and with great vigor, any hint of spirituality in public life. Big Pink Bunnies in the Sky.
Well, you and Markos keep working on bridging the idea gap. I think you’ve got at least one generation’s worth of work to do, considering you’ve spent the last two generations mocking the religous who walk among you.
You can be religious without being stupid, Scott.
You’ve obviously put your finger on it, Richard. The funny thing is that you can tell these folks that until you’re blue in the face but they won’t listen. They cling to a cherished fantasy: their ideas are the REAL ideas that everyone would agree with if they weren’t too stupid/brainwashed/apathetic to see the truth.
That’s why all the money in the world spent on new organizations and new initiatives won’t do a damned bit of good. They look at what the conservatives and the libertarians have created and they think it is the institutions that have helped win all those elections, and not the animating ideas.
It’s sad really. Sort of like 1930s and 1940s Republicans.
Here’s the much more interesting question:
Is it inevitable in our system that one party will always be the idea party and the other will always be the grouchy reactionary party? The more time goes on the more I suspect so.
“Traditional Social Security” that is well funded is overwhelmingly favored by the majority of Americans; it’s Bush’s privatization scheme that’s layed an egg with the American people.
It’s the Repubs that are unilateralist; I can’t imagine that appointing a perv like Bolton really is all that popular with the American people.
And it’s kind of a smear to say that Dems are “pro-gay marriage.” They’re pro-human rights, and pro-liberty, not just in talk, but also in legal enforcement.
It’s really a simple matter of positioning a message and delivering it to the ‘burbs, and it’s not all that difficult, actually.
If that’s all it takes to win elections, John, Democrats would be doing a lot better than they have. Tony Blair just won an unprecedented (for Labour) third term in office despite using the same campaign consultants as John Kerry – it’s the first national election Bob Shrum has ever won.
The fact remains that the Democrats haven’t had a new idea since the 1930s except for gay marriage, so effectively they’ve become the party of tradition and the Republicans are the party of Bold New Ideas. Granted, not all new ideas are all that great, but at least the Reeps arein the creative side of the game and aren’t just recycling the same tired old mantras.
Tony Blair saved the life of the Labour Party with ideas, not tactics.
Blair has a the weakest margin of victory since…something, of which I forget.
Actually, you’re wrong on lack of new ideas since the ’30s from Democrats; among other things, fixing the drug benefit so it’s not a giveaway to Big Pharma is not a Repub idea, it’s a Dem idea, going to the moon was a Dem idea, civil rights legislation was a Dem idea, Medicare was a Dem idea,…
“Big” ideas are needed only if they make things largely better: the Repubs’ “Big ideas” also happen to be pretty bad ideas when the numbers are crunched.
Tony Blair saved the Labor party? Nah, the Tories imploded (and even they support gay rights in the UK), and the Dem Libs are irrelevant. Labor won despite Blair, not because of him.
Tony Blair saved the Labour Party back in the Thatcher days when the party had become a relic with its dysfunctional socialist program. Blair’s New Labour philosophy (the DLC with tea and crumpets) took the party out of irrelevance gave it three consecutive victories for the first time in its history. The last victory margin – 66 seats – was better than the 40 Thatcher got in her first election. The percentage of popular vote was low, but when you have three parties it tends to work that way. Lib Dems had their best showing ever this time around.
The drugs and medicare are simply extensions of the social welfare net in obvious areas, and were foreshadowed in the rest of the world by a generation. Those aren’t New Ideas, they’re simply new applications of the One Idea that the Democrat Party has, re-distribution of wealth.
And if you want to talk about Civil Rights, let me introduce you to the founder of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln, and the enemies of civil rights, the Southern Democrats.
It all comes down to higher taxes, more giveaways, and gay rights. Whoopee.
Both parties talk about re-distribution of wealth. The Dems from the rich to the poor, the Repubs from the middle class to the rich.
Take you pick.
Nobody is redistributing wealth from the middle class to the rich.
re-distribution of wealth…
This is one of those shibboleths that really need to be debunked, and fortunately, it’s quite simple to do that:
1. Any economic policy is likely to redistribute wealth…simply because the flow of wealth is not static.
2. The Republicans want to change the status quo on economic policy.
3. Hence the Republicans -as well as the Democrats- want to redistribute wealth.
The simple difference is that for years Repubs want to redistribute wealth from poor and working people to those that don’t have to work for a living, and the Dems want either the status quo, or to do what the Repubs want, albeit at a slower rate, or, in the most left-wing parts, to actually have it move more in favor of people with jobs. Which is actually, from the thousands of years of experience civilization has in this area, the best way to promote prosperity, peace, and social stability.
Nobody is redistributing wealth from the middle class to the rich.
You want to bet? Have you seen the drop in income reported?
Do you know why the savings rate of the US is close to zero?
Hint: it’s not because everyone’s a shop-a-holic, and it’s not because everyone’s been laid off, either. But it is due to policies that will have no other effect than to transfer wealth from the middle class to the wealthy when it’s all played out.
“Free enterprise for the poor, socialism for the rich” may be a leftist cliche, but, like all cliches, there’s an element of truth to it.
“Wealth re-distribution” refers to government action that takes money from one class by taxation and gives it to another class as a government benefit. The natural tendencies inherent in life are outside the scope of this concept, but farm subsidies and welfare are not.
I hope that clears things up.
And before somebody jumps on farm subsidies, I’ll just point out that they’re a bi-partisan boondoggle.
“Wealth re-distribution” refers to government action that takes money from one class by taxation and gives it to another class as a government benefit. The natural tendencies inherent in life are outside the scope of this concept, but farm subsidies and welfare are not.
Nope. They’re not “outside the scope.”
It’s just that the Repubs want to define terms of the debate to eliminate the more general concept so that people aren’t so aware of all the things that govenments do in this regard, such as the Fed’s Repub lapdog monetary policy which is pumping up the housing bubble.
And, I might add, even with your arbitrary limited concept, it turns out that the Repubs have and do use tax policy to redistribute wealth from the poor and middle classes to the rich: payroll tax policy, the removal of the estate tax (have you checked out the fine print on that baby? it’s actually a middle class tax increase on proceeds form estates) and proposed VATs – and calculated inaction on the AMT – are all ways of redistributing wealth from the middle class to the wealthy.
The income tax is progressive in America and it certainly doesn’t disadvantage the middle class to the benefit of those paying higher rates.
Richard, could you elaborate on “the natural tendencies inherent in life”?
People with more capital, brains, and drive tend to end up with more money than those with less. This is practically a law of nature.
That’s patently absurd.
So you have some counter-examples of people with no capital, drive, or intelligence amassing great power and influencein the world?
Just thinking about such paragons of brains & drive as George W. Bush, Joseph Stalin, Nelson Rockefeller to name a few.
You question Stalin’s intelligence and drive? And you misunderestimate W? And you didn’t know about Rockefeller’s fortune?
Dude, you spent too much time in India.
W’s “intelligence & drive”–minus 1) Daddy 2) the boys that performed his makeover back when it was decided he’d be useful to them 3) the junta that surrounds him now–are plainly on the record for all to see.
Do I “misunderestimate” him?
Lots of liberals have misunderestimated W: Ann Richards, Al Gore, John Kerry for example. What are they doing now?
He’s got a good brain for politics, access to all the capital he needs, and plenty of drive.
Yes, I agree. He’s got a good brain for politics. It’s name is Karl Rove.
Access to all the capital he needs. His “base.”
Plenty of drive, or should I say “drivers”.
While Ronald Reagan always reminded me of Chance the gardener in Hal Ashby’s great film “Being There”, GWB is a somewhat different animal. Still “hand picked” though.
Richard, I know you as a man with brains & drive. I’ve always admired those qualities in you. That’s why I feel you do yourself a diservice when you express admiration for someone like GWB. I can understand your approval of the neocon “vision”. That’s something else entirely. But what surprises me is that so many intelligent conservatives attribute wisdom & achievement to men who are basically performers & mouthpieces (okay, at best, “symbols” or “figureheads”) such as Bush Jr & Reagan.
Kim, underestimating your opponents is the height of stupidity. You also said Stalin lacked drive and brains, when nothing could be further from the truth.
W. has left the corpses of his enemies all over the political graveyard, so you folks who do this “he’s so stupid” song really should wake up to his talents. You don’t have to like his policies to acknowledge that he knows how to win elections and get things done.
But the larger point was about the system we live in and whether it discriminates against brains and drive or for them. Blowing away the W. smokescreen, do you disagree with this?
I think you misunderstood me, Richard.
Bush is a man of little native intelligence or talent. His pre-Rove record attests to that. His handlers are responsible for his “success”.
This IS part of the larger point.
Our has become (hopefully unintentionally) a system that rewards hucksters, con men, profiteers, gamblers, sleight of hand artists, well-heeled thieves, shape shifters, bullies, toadies, & psychopaths.
Of course that’s not the whole picture. But it’s part of the drama.
What’s the source of your insight into W’s “native intelligence”, Kim? Test scores? Business success or failure? Political success?
Can you apply the same yardstick to yourself and come out with flying colors?
Books.
I’ll list titles if you like.
Books are always true.
Blogs too.