A WALLAROO AND A GOAT?
Just read it. No explanation necessary, or possible.
Monday, November 22, 2004
Thursday, November 18, 2004
OHIO RECOUNT WITNESSES NEEDED
The Green and Libertarian parties have raised enough money for the Ohio recount. Now they need volunteers to observe the process. If you can volunteer, do so.
Monday, November 15, 2004
THE ENVIRONMENT AND WESTERN POLITICS
Kos discusses how Democrats have become governors in such Republican bastions as Montana and Wyoming by raising issues that join environmentalists and ranchers (groups often at each others' throats out west) together where they have common ground. Here, again, historians may be able to provide opportunities for future bridge-building. Patrica Nelson Limerick's Center for the American West at the University of Colorado at Boulder often invites such non-Boulderite speakers as James Watt and manufactuered gas company officials in discussing problems concerning consumption and the environment. Limerick's activities jibe with political trends in these ostensibly Red states, and an enterprising political party -- be it Democratic or Green -- would do well to pay attention to how Limerick frames issues and speaks to people who might not be caught dead in the same room as an environmental historian from Boulder.
FREE AT LAST
The manuscript is in the mail, so what do I need to catch up on? The Green Party's demand for a recount in Ohio is here, and people who voted for Bush have the blood of 38 US soldiers, six Iraqi troops and more than 1,200 insurgents and counting on their hands now. (Sleep soundly, Responsible Voters, as you know this is what you voted for.) Nebraska football coach Bill Callahan called Oklahoma fans "fucking hillbillies" after a skirmish in the NU-OU game. Before OU fans protest, they should recall that they voted to put this guy in the Senate. On second thought, the people who should be outraged are the hillbillies. Ah, ain't it a grand nation?
Thursday, November 11, 2004
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Friday, November 05, 2004
THE MESSAGE, FAR AS I CAN SEE
If the Democratic National Committee appointed me chair, these two phrases would be hammered into the national discourse in every white paper, press conference, and interview any member of the party gave in the next couple of years.
1) Stop stealing from the people.
Advocate economic responsibility and hold the Republican party responsible for redistribiting wealth upwards.
2) Stop killing our children.
This message will sadly resonate with more people over the coming months as Iraq claims the lives of more troops. Again, holding the Republican party responsible for the war is crucial, and this rhetoric may be expanded to include anti-violence initiatives (such as reinstating the assault weapon ban) and environmental initiatives at home. We need to re-frame what Pro-Life means in American political discourse and use it to attack the other side.
For too long the Democrats have played defense on the culture wars, and it has killed the party in the south, the plains, and the interior west. Instead of defending mealy-mouthed responses to "abortion is murder!" and "homosexuals destroy marriage!" the proper response is to reframe the morals issue as an attack on Republican values. Who can argue that killing our children is wrong? That's the brilliance of the "Pro-Life" rhetoric -- any dissent is inherently defensive. Who can argue that stealing from the people is wrong? Republicans may scream "class war," but they will be put on the defensive -- in moral terms -- for their economic policies in a much more visceral way than has been attempted since the 1930s. Keep it simple, strong, and paint the people of this country as victims of the Republican agenda. Americans love seeing themselves as victims. That's how the Republicans amassed so much power over the past forty years. As more people slide into poverty, die in the war, and get sickened by environmental ills, there's ample reason to accuse the right of victimizing the nation.
Fight fire with fire. There's plenty of fuel.
1) Stop stealing from the people.
Advocate economic responsibility and hold the Republican party responsible for redistribiting wealth upwards.
2) Stop killing our children.
This message will sadly resonate with more people over the coming months as Iraq claims the lives of more troops. Again, holding the Republican party responsible for the war is crucial, and this rhetoric may be expanded to include anti-violence initiatives (such as reinstating the assault weapon ban) and environmental initiatives at home. We need to re-frame what Pro-Life means in American political discourse and use it to attack the other side.
For too long the Democrats have played defense on the culture wars, and it has killed the party in the south, the plains, and the interior west. Instead of defending mealy-mouthed responses to "abortion is murder!" and "homosexuals destroy marriage!" the proper response is to reframe the morals issue as an attack on Republican values. Who can argue that killing our children is wrong? That's the brilliance of the "Pro-Life" rhetoric -- any dissent is inherently defensive. Who can argue that stealing from the people is wrong? Republicans may scream "class war," but they will be put on the defensive -- in moral terms -- for their economic policies in a much more visceral way than has been attempted since the 1930s. Keep it simple, strong, and paint the people of this country as victims of the Republican agenda. Americans love seeing themselves as victims. That's how the Republicans amassed so much power over the past forty years. As more people slide into poverty, die in the war, and get sickened by environmental ills, there's ample reason to accuse the right of victimizing the nation.
Fight fire with fire. There's plenty of fuel.
MORE ON THE FUTURE
I guarantee that if, say, a centerist such as Evan Bayh is the Democratic nominee in '08, he will be called a liberal and a flip-flopper, tarred with the same brush Kerry was. Whether that dog will hunt in West Virginia and Missouri, I don't know, but I am not optimistic. We need a counterattack, some sort of "they're so right they're wrong" rhetoric to paint the entire party as wild-eyed radicals bent on enriching their buddies and killing our kids in a way that will cause the old guard fiscal conservatives, small-government advocates, and a lot of the jus' folks to worry about the fate of the nation in this party's hands the way almost half the country does. Things will get worse for most people in this nation, but if they don't hold the Republican party accountable, nothing will change.
I didn't vote for Dean this year, but I love the idea of him as DNC chair, where he can use his invective to keep the Republicans on the defensive...and build grassroots efforts the way his Democracy For America organization has tried in the months since he left the presidential race. He's taking plays out of the playbook the Republicans developed fifteen years ago, and that helped them take the House and a lot of state legislatures...we're overdue to get the pendulum swinging back.
I didn't vote for Dean this year, but I love the idea of him as DNC chair, where he can use his invective to keep the Republicans on the defensive...and build grassroots efforts the way his Democracy For America organization has tried in the months since he left the presidential race. He's taking plays out of the playbook the Republicans developed fifteen years ago, and that helped them take the House and a lot of state legislatures...we're overdue to get the pendulum swinging back.
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
WHAT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CAN DO
I cannot put the loss of the Presidency on Kerry, on his senate record, or on his northeastern liberal image. Nor can I put it on the Democratic party, which unified in ways I have not seen in my lifetime. Turnout for the Democrats was fantastic; as I mentioned yesterday, I had never seen so many people so energized for an election as I did in northern Ohio, and I thought that that kind of force was unstoppable.
What stopped it was there are simply more people on the other side. Bush calculated that would be the case and made no attempt to move to the middle because he knew his base would come out in sufficient numbers to protect a strong, moral leader. Ridicule that rhetoric or the hypocrisy of the policies he uses that rhetoric to enact, but it is very effective.
It did not matter who the Democrats picked as the nominee, the nominee would have lost. So few of the attacks on Kerry rose beyond the generic attacks Republicans have made on Democrats for the past thirty years. (Anyone watching the Saturday Night Live presidential special surely was struck by the reference to Gerald Ford calling Jimmy Carter a flip-flopper in 1976.) Had Bob Graham, Wesley Clark, Tom Vilsack, John Edwards, Evan Bayh, or any candidate from a more rural or southern or western state run, they would have been subject to the same kind of attacks. The attacks would have stuck, for the Republican party has done a stupendous job of identifying Democrats as Others. That was borne out in the senate races, where moderates like Tom Daschle and Brad Carson met the same fate as lefties like Joe Hoeffel. Too many people identify Democrats as not sharing their values.
The problem is morality. Exit polls indicated that Bush voters found morality to be a crucial element in their decision. It does not matter that millions of Americans find Bush’s economic and foreign policies to be immoral; what matters is Bush can convey a sense that he shares and protects the moral sensibilities of millions of Americans living between the two coasts. Same is true of the senate candidates who won yesterday, so it is not simply a matter of Bush’s good old boy personality. The Republicans have found an effective conduit to allow many people – many generally good, honest, sincere people – to trust their words despite the calamitous consequences of their deeds. (And, as the PIPA studies indicate, to trust Bush despite having ideas about security, the environment, and the economy that drastically differ from theirs.) A losing war, a stumbling economy, and polls that show a majority of the nation thinks we’re headed in the wrong direction is invariably electoral death. The Republicans preside over all those conditions yet consolidated power in both the White House and Congress.
Why is this so? That issue of trust. One could write a book about the seeds and results of the cultural campaigns Republicans have developed over the second half of the twentieth century, and so I won’t be redundant, I’ll recommend Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter With Kansas? as a spectacularly informative argument over how these appeals can separate millions from voting their specific interests. Republicans have been particularly successful at securing support from devout Christians to the point where they can rack up large majorities of the faithful against Democrats who are practicing Christians (including a Catholic in this election and a Baptist Sunday school teacher in 1980). Wedge issues from gay marriage in 2004 to Robert Novak’s tarring of McGovern’s Democrats as the party of abortion, acid, and amnesty in 1972, Republicans have done a superb job of pitting a large chunk of the nation against dozens of moderate and thoughtful candidates. The personal backgrounds of the Democrats don’t matter; if not for Ross Perot, who knows if Clinton could have succeeded against the Republican machine?
The major problem is how can Democrats articulate that they are moral beings and share many of the moral concerns of the electorate? Millions of Americans genuinely believe the Democratic party is radical and amoral. Many are fundamentalists who have grown frightened of secular society over the past forty years, many have understandably grown frightened of the outside world after 9/11. Promises of resolute, moral leadership and security resonate for these people, especially since they have come to trust the Republicans to fight for these ideas over the years.
I don’t know what will change this dynamic, but the Democratic party needs to find a way to express the strong moral fibre that is evident in the platform and sincere beliefs of the bulk of the party. Leaving a healthy environment to our children is moral. Providing ways of making sure families have the health care and economic support to keep them together and thriving is moral. Developing a foreign policy where the USA works with the rest of the developed world against seething fundamentalists who view themselves as victims of us is moral. Reducing poverty and social injustice is moral. Many of Bush’s voters, if pressed, would honestly agree with these statements; many believe Bush and his party is fighting for those ideas despite graphic evidence to the contrary.
Perhaps the evidence needs to be starker. Forty years ago, an incumbent won re-election and majorities in both houses of Congress, pursuing a mandate to re-shape the government. Lyndon Johnson did that, forming the Great Society. After his election, Johnson also intensified American commitment to the Vietnam war, a commitment that destroyed his presidency. Many more bodybags carrying the loved ones of people in Ohio, Kansas, New York, California, Alabama, and Texas will come home over the coming months; whether that will break the trust those people have in this president, I cannot say. There is precedent. Sad, terrible precedent.
There is also hope. Watch Barack Obama’s keynote address at the convention in Boston. He gets it. His name may be unusual and his skin may be darker than what we assume Americans are willing to vote for, but his ideas and rhetoric are a start at engaging Kansans and perhaps starting the process of leaving blind faith behind and walking towards hope. Regardless of what Democrats do in the political arena, fighting this front on the culture wars is vital for the health of the nation.
What stopped it was there are simply more people on the other side. Bush calculated that would be the case and made no attempt to move to the middle because he knew his base would come out in sufficient numbers to protect a strong, moral leader. Ridicule that rhetoric or the hypocrisy of the policies he uses that rhetoric to enact, but it is very effective.
It did not matter who the Democrats picked as the nominee, the nominee would have lost. So few of the attacks on Kerry rose beyond the generic attacks Republicans have made on Democrats for the past thirty years. (Anyone watching the Saturday Night Live presidential special surely was struck by the reference to Gerald Ford calling Jimmy Carter a flip-flopper in 1976.) Had Bob Graham, Wesley Clark, Tom Vilsack, John Edwards, Evan Bayh, or any candidate from a more rural or southern or western state run, they would have been subject to the same kind of attacks. The attacks would have stuck, for the Republican party has done a stupendous job of identifying Democrats as Others. That was borne out in the senate races, where moderates like Tom Daschle and Brad Carson met the same fate as lefties like Joe Hoeffel. Too many people identify Democrats as not sharing their values.
The problem is morality. Exit polls indicated that Bush voters found morality to be a crucial element in their decision. It does not matter that millions of Americans find Bush’s economic and foreign policies to be immoral; what matters is Bush can convey a sense that he shares and protects the moral sensibilities of millions of Americans living between the two coasts. Same is true of the senate candidates who won yesterday, so it is not simply a matter of Bush’s good old boy personality. The Republicans have found an effective conduit to allow many people – many generally good, honest, sincere people – to trust their words despite the calamitous consequences of their deeds. (And, as the PIPA studies indicate, to trust Bush despite having ideas about security, the environment, and the economy that drastically differ from theirs.) A losing war, a stumbling economy, and polls that show a majority of the nation thinks we’re headed in the wrong direction is invariably electoral death. The Republicans preside over all those conditions yet consolidated power in both the White House and Congress.
Why is this so? That issue of trust. One could write a book about the seeds and results of the cultural campaigns Republicans have developed over the second half of the twentieth century, and so I won’t be redundant, I’ll recommend Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter With Kansas? as a spectacularly informative argument over how these appeals can separate millions from voting their specific interests. Republicans have been particularly successful at securing support from devout Christians to the point where they can rack up large majorities of the faithful against Democrats who are practicing Christians (including a Catholic in this election and a Baptist Sunday school teacher in 1980). Wedge issues from gay marriage in 2004 to Robert Novak’s tarring of McGovern’s Democrats as the party of abortion, acid, and amnesty in 1972, Republicans have done a superb job of pitting a large chunk of the nation against dozens of moderate and thoughtful candidates. The personal backgrounds of the Democrats don’t matter; if not for Ross Perot, who knows if Clinton could have succeeded against the Republican machine?
The major problem is how can Democrats articulate that they are moral beings and share many of the moral concerns of the electorate? Millions of Americans genuinely believe the Democratic party is radical and amoral. Many are fundamentalists who have grown frightened of secular society over the past forty years, many have understandably grown frightened of the outside world after 9/11. Promises of resolute, moral leadership and security resonate for these people, especially since they have come to trust the Republicans to fight for these ideas over the years.
I don’t know what will change this dynamic, but the Democratic party needs to find a way to express the strong moral fibre that is evident in the platform and sincere beliefs of the bulk of the party. Leaving a healthy environment to our children is moral. Providing ways of making sure families have the health care and economic support to keep them together and thriving is moral. Developing a foreign policy where the USA works with the rest of the developed world against seething fundamentalists who view themselves as victims of us is moral. Reducing poverty and social injustice is moral. Many of Bush’s voters, if pressed, would honestly agree with these statements; many believe Bush and his party is fighting for those ideas despite graphic evidence to the contrary.
Perhaps the evidence needs to be starker. Forty years ago, an incumbent won re-election and majorities in both houses of Congress, pursuing a mandate to re-shape the government. Lyndon Johnson did that, forming the Great Society. After his election, Johnson also intensified American commitment to the Vietnam war, a commitment that destroyed his presidency. Many more bodybags carrying the loved ones of people in Ohio, Kansas, New York, California, Alabama, and Texas will come home over the coming months; whether that will break the trust those people have in this president, I cannot say. There is precedent. Sad, terrible precedent.
There is also hope. Watch Barack Obama’s keynote address at the convention in Boston. He gets it. His name may be unusual and his skin may be darker than what we assume Americans are willing to vote for, but his ideas and rhetoric are a start at engaging Kansans and perhaps starting the process of leaving blind faith behind and walking towards hope. Regardless of what Democrats do in the political arena, fighting this front on the culture wars is vital for the health of the nation.
THE DAILY SHOW HAD IT RIGHT
...when they called their election special Prelude to a Recount. Ohio is the new Florida, Bush's campaign chair is the secretary of state, and there's considerable discrepancy as to how many absentee and provisional ballots are out there. It looks like turnout across the state for both parties was very high. We will wait for the provisional and absentee ballots and hope.
Ohio is not the only state to focus on on The Day After. From the NY Times article on Florida:
So, sit and wait. The presidential race is not settled. Sadly, the senate lurched to the right yesterday and a couple of gains in the house were offset by the Texas redistricting, so we have to hope that the absentee and provisional ballots in one of these two states brings some checks and balances to a troubling government.
Ohio is not the only state to focus on on The Day After. From the NY Times article on Florida:
In a lawsuit filed late Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union asked that voters who received absentee ballots at the last minute get more time to mail them back.
Officials in Broward County, one of the state's most populous and heavily Democratic, mailed thousands of replacement ballots as late as Saturday after the originals never reached their destination. Palm Beach County also mailed several thousand ballots Saturday, and postal officials warned it was dangerously late.
"These are people who applied for absentee ballots weeks ago and got them today," said Howard Simon, executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Florida. "If they were denied an opportunity to vote through no fault of their own but more through the negligence of election officials, that's a pretty serious problem."
A preliminary hearing in the suit, filed in federal court in Miami, was scheduled for Wednesday morning.
Absentee ballots have traditionally benefited Republican candidates in Florida, where late-arriving ballots from overseas helped seal Mr. Bush's victory in 2000. But many Democrats, still wary of voting machinery after the electoral chaos of 2000, chose absentee ballots over voting in person this year. One high-ranking Democratic official said the party was confident that absentee ballots would help Mr. Kerry more than Mr. Bush, though Republicans were putting stock in them, too.
Republican Party officials warned that due to the large number of absentee ballots this year, some counties would probably not finish counting them on Election Night. More than 250,000 absentee ballots were mailed out in Miami-Dade and Broward counties alone.
"If these are not counted tonight, we will seem far behind," Mindy Tucker Fletcher, a senior adviser to the Republican Party in Florida, wrote in an e-mail message to reporters. She said that Miami-Dade County, one of the state's most populous, might not finish counting tens of thousands of absentee ballots until Thursday, leaving the winner here in question if the race was tight.
So, sit and wait. The presidential race is not settled. Sadly, the senate lurched to the right yesterday and a couple of gains in the house were offset by the Texas redistricting, so we have to hope that the absentee and provisional ballots in one of these two states brings some checks and balances to a troubling government.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
IF YOU HAVEN'T VOTED....
..vote! And if you're in Ohio, bring an umbrella and be prepared to chat with hundreds of other, very excited voters.
THIS MORNING
An impatient phone call from us jumpy prospective voters revealed that long lines greeted the opening of polls in Oberlin at 6:30 this morning. We got to our polling place at about quarter to eight, in a church with about a mile of hallways. The hallways were completely full of a snaking line, with students on their cellphones calling friends, family, and acquaintances saying "I'm voting! Have you voted yet? After I'm done here I'm going into Cleveland to help out." I heard at least a dozen such conversations.
The mood was festive despite (or maybe because of) the lines. Lots of laughing and giddy anticipation, and volunteers came through regularly offering water, pastries, and instructions. If there was anyone trying to bog down the process, they weren't doing a good job, as the lines moved rapidly and I could see no signs of interference. Some people read, but most of the line that I saw we were all social and just talking about how amazing the turnout was.
As it turned out, the poll had two precincts voting, and those of us in the less populated precinct got to go in a much shorter line and avoid the big wait. The woman in front of me exclaimed, "damn, it's good to live on the wrong side of the tracks!" Us and most of the African Americans in line got to save a lot of time (though our line was still substantial -- I was the 82nd voter in the comparatively tiny precinct at about 8am...the other precinct had at least ten times the line, and I'm being conservative), so the opposite of interference was at play in our area.
Got in the booth with my old-fashioned ballot and punched it through to make sure the holes were clean and unambiguous. Looked at it for probably a minute afterwards, not so much to check that it was right, but just to appreciate my ability to make that little card count. Then I dropped it in the box and before leaving exchanged comments of awe to the kindly senior citizens who were running the table. None of them had ever seen turnout like this before -- not in '92, not in '60, never.
We wandered around town for a bit to look at the other polling places. Every single one of them had the same long lines snaking around buildings, with the public library's line coiling in on itself around the block. I am hearing similar stories in Cleveland, as people in line on their cell phones communicated with friends and volunteers up there. All this in drizzling to moderate November rain.
I cannot express how wonderful it is to see so many people engaged in the process this year. Several of my students, for whom this is their first election, have been a combination of jittery and giddy anticipating their vote. A few voiced worries about being challenged at the polls, but it is comforting to know just how many people are volunteering to help voters get through any interference...if the poll watchers are aggressive at all. (We had no signs of interference in our location.) The people from my block, which is largely African American, looked so happy to be there and see the turnout...well, I was the same, grinning from ear to ear the entire time.
I voted in Chicago in '92, in a Hyde Park line that was one big Clinton-lovin' party of exuberance and until today that election stood out as the greatest outpouring of civic participation I'd ever seen. It pales compared to what I saw today.
The mood was festive despite (or maybe because of) the lines. Lots of laughing and giddy anticipation, and volunteers came through regularly offering water, pastries, and instructions. If there was anyone trying to bog down the process, they weren't doing a good job, as the lines moved rapidly and I could see no signs of interference. Some people read, but most of the line that I saw we were all social and just talking about how amazing the turnout was.
As it turned out, the poll had two precincts voting, and those of us in the less populated precinct got to go in a much shorter line and avoid the big wait. The woman in front of me exclaimed, "damn, it's good to live on the wrong side of the tracks!" Us and most of the African Americans in line got to save a lot of time (though our line was still substantial -- I was the 82nd voter in the comparatively tiny precinct at about 8am...the other precinct had at least ten times the line, and I'm being conservative), so the opposite of interference was at play in our area.
Got in the booth with my old-fashioned ballot and punched it through to make sure the holes were clean and unambiguous. Looked at it for probably a minute afterwards, not so much to check that it was right, but just to appreciate my ability to make that little card count. Then I dropped it in the box and before leaving exchanged comments of awe to the kindly senior citizens who were running the table. None of them had ever seen turnout like this before -- not in '92, not in '60, never.
We wandered around town for a bit to look at the other polling places. Every single one of them had the same long lines snaking around buildings, with the public library's line coiling in on itself around the block. I am hearing similar stories in Cleveland, as people in line on their cell phones communicated with friends and volunteers up there. All this in drizzling to moderate November rain.
I cannot express how wonderful it is to see so many people engaged in the process this year. Several of my students, for whom this is their first election, have been a combination of jittery and giddy anticipating their vote. A few voiced worries about being challenged at the polls, but it is comforting to know just how many people are volunteering to help voters get through any interference...if the poll watchers are aggressive at all. (We had no signs of interference in our location.) The people from my block, which is largely African American, looked so happy to be there and see the turnout...well, I was the same, grinning from ear to ear the entire time.
I voted in Chicago in '92, in a Hyde Park line that was one big Clinton-lovin' party of exuberance and until today that election stood out as the greatest outpouring of civic participation I'd ever seen. It pales compared to what I saw today.
VOTE!
Go out there! Bring a book, bring (if you're in northern Ohio) an umbrella, bring friends and loved ones. Wait as long as it takes, we can make a difference.
Monday, November 01, 2004
MICHIGAN & OHIO ON THE FINAL WEEKEND
Been offline working in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Bush held a rally Saturday. Grand Rapids is in the heart of his base in that state, and judging by the lawn signs, Bush is not really as close as a couple of polls indicate. Kerry signs are just about as common as Bush signs (though Bush has plenty of billboards), and if that's the case in Grand Rapids, I can only imagine what Wayne and Oakland counties look like.
Back in Ohio now, where more good news greeted me. The last Dispatch poll was a dead heat, and it's now up to the ground game. Up in the northeast part of the state, the Kerry machine is fired up and I cannot remember the last time I was so eager to get to the polls. Maybe not even 1992.
Go vote!
Back in Ohio now, where more good news greeted me. The last Dispatch poll was a dead heat, and it's now up to the ground game. Up in the northeast part of the state, the Kerry machine is fired up and I cannot remember the last time I was so eager to get to the polls. Maybe not even 1992.
Go vote!
