Go west, young man

Alternately, go north. Note: also applies if you are a chick. As many of you have probably noticed, there are a whole bunch of election campaigns going on right now. As you may have also heard, things are looking pretty good for the Democrats. As you may also know, there are a couple hot races right here in Chicagoland (a term, incidentally, that I love - makes me think of Legoland): one to the West, Tammy Duckworth vs. Pete Roskam, and one to the North, Dan Seals vs. Mark Kirk.

It's time to get out of Chicago and go out into the provinces - we're so close, and having people knocking on doors is one of the single most effective campaign techniques. As Marx tells us,

[M]ankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve...[I]t will always be found that the task itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation.

The material conditions were not so much at hand for Democrats until the Republicans started imploding, but now the task is eminently soluble. Also, let's bring in Jack Handey to help us understand what Marx may have meant when he referred to "mankind":

Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: "Mankind". Basically, it's made up of two separate words - "mank" and "ind". What do these words mean ? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind.

Moving right along, one of the criteria you may want to consider when choosing which of these candidates you help out is each one's politics. I canvassed for Duckworth yesterday, and although I found her likable and supported many of her policies, she seemed a tad more conservative than I would otherwise like. For example, she's pretty into tax cuts, which aren't something I see as a pressing issue, but more importantly her message is more conservative. You can tell because she keeps referring to her opponent, Roskam, pejoratively as a trial lawyer - a frame promulgated by the right since most trial lawyers are Democrats. This is bad for the progressive movement as a whole, even if it helps her win right now. Although I'm really not that surprised, since Mr. Win Right Now Instead of Planning for the Long Term (local boy Rahm Emanuel) basically forced out a more progressive Democrat who nearly beat long-term GOP rep, Clinton antagonizer, and alumnus of my very own undergraduate alma mater, Henry Hyde in 2004 anyway.

I met Seals today at a DailyKos event at some stupid bar, and he was both charming and had a somewhat more appealing policy list. But more importantly, his message was a lot stronger. He talked about accountability first and foremost, and I think that is the single most coherent and potent message Democrats can use this election cycle. Plus, if this is really going to be a message to the establishment election, the more progressive the Democrats we send to Washington are, the better off we are. However, that said, Duckworth is still totally worth supporting, and more importantly, she will pick you up in a bus and provide you with an incentive to work for her. My understanding is that the Seals campaign, in that it wasn't hand-picked by Lord Rahm, doesn't have the money to do that. Either way, get involved through UC Dems!

Promised Daily Show Clip

The Fox News spinfest is detailed at the end the segment. Oh goodness what a mess.

People Always Want You to, Like, Do Stuff

Part of a general trend in media coverage of politics over the last 25-30 years has been to cover the various salvos in the political battle rather than the substantive issues at stake. It's basically the collusion of beltway insiders who all agree that talking about what you should talk about if you want to win is more interesting than exercising actual leadership...words, in this world view, speak louder than actions. But George Lakoff, hero to many progressives for his books such as Moral Politics, has actually produced one of these pieces that is worth looking at.

As Jacobs and Shapiro chronicle in their book Politicians Don't Pander (which I understand to be considered a rather definitive tome on political discourse in general), at some point major news organizations really started focusing their coverage on the machinations between politicians and the ramifications of same on the eventual chances of a policy being enacted. While political junkies like me sometimes find this interesting, it is frustrating as it comes at the cost of covering the actual implications of policies. In essence, journalism has largely stopped being about providing information and context for responsible democratic citizens to make up their minds and started being mindless "he said-she said" stenography.

For me, this really hit a low point in the early days after 9/11 when the Republicans were ramming through the first of their ludicrous tax cuts. I remember news coverage of that process consisting of a recounting of each side's spin: "Democrats challenged the tax cuts on the basis that they were disproportionately weighted to favor the wealthiest 1% of Americans," a typical story might go. "Republicans then accused Democrats of class warfare and insisted that the majority of the benefit would go to the middle class." Then nothing. No mention of how, if you actually took two seconds to look at the bill, the tax burden was being shifted disproportionately off the super rich and onto everyone else, no mention of how how one side was actually right while the other one was just lying.

So, I would argue that as an outgrowth of this same trend, we are now subjected to unwanted advice on what steps we need to take at every turn. The DLC, for example, might was well change its mission statement to "Telling everyone what Democrats need to start doing" - to quote from an actual speech by their chair, Tom Vilsack, "In order for us to strengthen the American community, I think we...need a very compelling vision of a different America." OK, great Tom, how about you just skip the part about the purpose of the vision and get right to it. Then there are the non-partisan efforts to tell all comers which switches to throw in their quest to run the political machine, such as the new book by a couple national political editors for major news operations.

Then there is George Lakoff, who has produced a much more interesting piece, not coincidentally aimed much more squarely at actual people instead of wannabe beltway hacks.
Another key to this being more interesting is that he is not giving it as a policy address or an insider book, he is delivering it as a resource on a website for people who may be interested in taking a more active part in strategy. It is not, in other words, substituting for actual policy ideas. That's what really separates it from the DLC.

At any rate, I would especially like to draw attention to point #3, the Laundry List Trap. The idea here is that whenever anyone asks a Republican how to address a problem, she has some snarky three word answer. Whenever that same question is put to a Democrat, she has a ten sentence answer that revolves around nuance, caution, and incrementalism. (On a side note, I would assert that this pussyfooting is what makes Democrats look weak, not the substance of their policies.) So I would ask every Democrat out there to do one thing: come up with one sentence describing why you are a Democrat. If your answer involves any specific policy, you already got it wrong; we're focusing on values here. Got your answer yet? Here's mine: because Democrats get that we all need each other. That's it. That creates a whole narrative for any further depth you get into and an easy fall-back for anyone to remember. All the idiotic pundits who try to get Democrats to talk about values to recapture Republican "values voters" would do well to just concentrate on something like this. Our values are never going to be the same as Republican values, so it's time we establish ours firmly.

Excuses Excuses

What really disgusts me about the Foley thing is how the Republican leadership and spin machine are handling this scandal. Jon Stewart skewered the Republicans last night for their buck passing: it was the booze talking, Foley was molested by a priest, Democrats have sex scandals too, and my personal favorite: Mark Foley IS a Democrat.





















As shown above, during the O'Reilly factor clips featuring Mark Foley had captions labeling him as a Florida DEMOCRAT!

Welcome to the bizzaro world. Up is down. Right is left. And Saddam Hussein organized 9/11 and has WMDs.

I'll post the Daily Show segment when it goes up on Youtube.

Fear the Voices

Fear the voices - no, not the Alice in Chains song. Fear the political voices. Fear seems to drive everything in politics these days. You probably noticed this phenomenon getting under way a couple years ago. Anecdotal evidence abounds of tactics of bullying and intimidation by Republicans to get themselves elected and to get their extremist agenda pushed through: my personal fave was when Bush took crass advantage of the horror and tragedy of 9/11 to weaken his political opponents, the unions. But this isn't just fear-mongering, it is certified authoritarianism.

Researcher Karen Stenner (a/k/a the #1 Stenna) has done some interesting development recently of the already formidable literature on the political psychology of authoritarianism. An essential contribution of hers is the notion that authoritarian tendencies lie somewhat dormant in individuals until they are activated by threats to the things that unify us: common authority and shared values. As we all know, preservation of unity around these elements is butter on the authoritarians' bread, and nothing gets them riled up faster than the fear of erosion of authority and values.

A couple of first-rate fellows recently examined how authoritarianism might apply to our current electoral situation. The astute academics looked specifically at levels of authoritarianism in the electorate, the levels of participation in elections by authoritarians, and the nature of that participation. And guess what they found? Over the last ten years, participation by authoritarians in elections increased dramatically, despite no increase in prevalence within the population overall. Moreover, that participation was funneled almost exclusively into support for Republicans.

In other words, Republicans have sewn fear as a way to strengthen their coalition of authoritarians. Looking back, we see a threat to our shared values was introduced on 9/11/01, bringing on a period of deliberate unity. Gradually that threat faded, but as it did, other threats were introduced to prolong the gain for Republicans. Most of the country eventually figured out that they could resume use of their critical faculties, but some 30% + of people still support Bush. This percentage must be composed primarily of people who like authority more than sound policy, so the plan to scare authoritarians into unwavering support must be working on some level.

But thank goodness the winds are now at the Democrats' backs. Surely that means fear is now overcome, right? Well, there is one more group that remains fearful: beltway insiders. Joe Lieberman is afraid he might be held accountable, the Republican leadership is so afraid of losing one seat that they completely sold themselves out, the right wing echo chamber is afraid of competition from the left, and the punditry is afraid of the democratization of information gathering. All this fear on the part of insiders is due to the democratization of democracy that the internet (and blogs in particular) has brought on. Whereas once we had to fear terrorists or Bush's latest caprice or endless Republican domination, now we've got the insiders on the run from us common citizens. Today the last thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Illinois, Credibility, and Touching Little Boys

Just when you think you have the Republicans in a hole, they go and dig themselves deeper. By now most have probably heard about the criminal behavior of Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) in soliciting teenage page boys in the House of Representatives over the internet. Unfortunately, most didn't hear out about it until well after the House Republican leadership did (as early as five years ago), and that is going to be the real issue that comes out of this.

And, lucky us here in Chicago, when we're talking about despicable misconduct by Republican leadership, it all comes back to Illinois! That's right, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was well aware of the problem going way back, as was some guy named Shimkus, who I guess is from downstate somewhere in Illinois. On a side note, many people have heard of Howard Dean's "50 State Strategy", and I would observe that this is why you run a candidate in every district. At the beginning of this cycle, few expected Foley's seat in Florida (let alone the seat of the sitting speaker!) to be a close contest, but by gum it's a lucky thing we have someone in those races now: Laesch in Illinois and Tim Mahoney in Florida. The Illinois connection continues, since local boy Rahm Emanuel is the foremost opponent of this strategy as a whole.

The irony is that the age of consent in Washington, DC is actually 16, so technically a Congressman having sex with a 16-year-old page wouldn't have been illegal. But those fun-hating Republicans, champions of the buzzkill, defenders of the moral order, had to go and pass a bill specifically targeting the solicitation of minors under 18 over the internet - oh wait, it wasn't just Republicans, it was Mark Foley's bill! So despite the legal acrobatics of the case, Foley has still joined some pretty elite company (8-year-olds, Dude.). It's interesting, however that few of the moralizing right wing groups we have come to know and love have come out with any harsh language condemning Rep. Foley or the Republican leadership to date.

So the question for right now, as far as I can identify it, is how discredited are Republicans really becoming? They've always told us that they are strong on national security/defense and moral values, so now that they have f***ed up Iraq, the hunt for Bin Laden, and moral values, who believes them any more? I would guess nobody, but then again one of my faults has always been an unshakable lack of faith in the sagacity of anything Republicans say.