Principle
I've been thinking and reading about the Democratic filibuster attempt the other day and something has been bothering me about it. The consensus on the left was that garnering 25 votes, some of them from DLC leaning Senators, was a huge victory. The consensus on the right, naturally, was that it was a colossal failure and red meat into Karl Rove's cage at the White House circus.
My own feelings were mixed. I touched on this earlier, but John Kerry jumping in from his listening post in Davos at the last minute tainted the whole thing from the start. And that is the reddest of meat for Karl and Company. And, the management of the process reminded me of the Republicans and Terry Schiavo, and we all know how that helped the Republicans. It helped start their precipitous downfall that leaves us on the verge of an enormous power shift.
But despite the crumbling facade - and it is just a facade of "family values" and "fiscal restraint" and "devolving power to the states" in front of the most morally corrupt, big spending, power hungry group of weasels that have ever made the big jump to DC - of the Republican party, we can't seem to get any traction.
Of course, from my view it's simple. It's a James Carville sort of "We're Right and They're Wrong" thing. It's just that about 35 to 40% of the population are, for whatever reason, devoted to the current insanity. Another 35 to 40% see it as clearly as I do. Which leaves us with the swing voters, the ever elusive middle. And these are the people who, in the last few election cycles, seem ready to join us but fade at the last moment.
Why?
I don't think, as Bob Shrum and company would have you believe, that you need to play to the middle to capture the middle. John Kerry played to the base and I bet most dKos readers would vote for Caligula before they voted for him. Because he played to them. He looked around and decided that, at this moment, with this environment, a filibuster made political sense.
As Democrats, liberals, progressives - whatever the label, we do stand for things. And, given the right information, we stand for things that the majority of the American people agree with. I've listed them before, so I'll spare you the populist laundry list.
But our representatives, the public face of our policy ideas, never seem to stand hard enough. In the face of withering assaults from the Right Wing Noise Machine and bizarro world coverage from the "liberal media", they compromise, back down, ease off. They play to the middle, and the middle sees it as just that. And away they go.
Your principles don't have to be perfect to gain the respect of the electorate (See Bush, George W.). They need to be explained and appropriately contrasted, and then they need to be backed to the end. Stand for it. Fight for it. Even when you know it's going to lose. And, when it does - which will be almost always given the current political landscape - proudly explain to the American people why you stood for them.
The noise machine is going to make noise no matter what we do, and Karl and Company will impugn our patriotism as the Democratic Caucus takes up arms and ships off to Iraq. You can't win by compromising or backing down with these people. They'll screw you if you do and screw you if you don't.
But the people outside the vortex recognize a principled stand, and they respect it. They might not agree entirely, but once you win their respect you can bring them along the rest of the way.
My own feelings were mixed. I touched on this earlier, but John Kerry jumping in from his listening post in Davos at the last minute tainted the whole thing from the start. And that is the reddest of meat for Karl and Company. And, the management of the process reminded me of the Republicans and Terry Schiavo, and we all know how that helped the Republicans. It helped start their precipitous downfall that leaves us on the verge of an enormous power shift.
But despite the crumbling facade - and it is just a facade of "family values" and "fiscal restraint" and "devolving power to the states" in front of the most morally corrupt, big spending, power hungry group of weasels that have ever made the big jump to DC - of the Republican party, we can't seem to get any traction.
Of course, from my view it's simple. It's a James Carville sort of "We're Right and They're Wrong" thing. It's just that about 35 to 40% of the population are, for whatever reason, devoted to the current insanity. Another 35 to 40% see it as clearly as I do. Which leaves us with the swing voters, the ever elusive middle. And these are the people who, in the last few election cycles, seem ready to join us but fade at the last moment.
Why?
I don't think, as Bob Shrum and company would have you believe, that you need to play to the middle to capture the middle. John Kerry played to the base and I bet most dKos readers would vote for Caligula before they voted for him. Because he played to them. He looked around and decided that, at this moment, with this environment, a filibuster made political sense.
As Democrats, liberals, progressives - whatever the label, we do stand for things. And, given the right information, we stand for things that the majority of the American people agree with. I've listed them before, so I'll spare you the populist laundry list.
But our representatives, the public face of our policy ideas, never seem to stand hard enough. In the face of withering assaults from the Right Wing Noise Machine and bizarro world coverage from the "liberal media", they compromise, back down, ease off. They play to the middle, and the middle sees it as just that. And away they go.
Your principles don't have to be perfect to gain the respect of the electorate (See Bush, George W.). They need to be explained and appropriately contrasted, and then they need to be backed to the end. Stand for it. Fight for it. Even when you know it's going to lose. And, when it does - which will be almost always given the current political landscape - proudly explain to the American people why you stood for them.
The noise machine is going to make noise no matter what we do, and Karl and Company will impugn our patriotism as the Democratic Caucus takes up arms and ships off to Iraq. You can't win by compromising or backing down with these people. They'll screw you if you do and screw you if you don't.
But the people outside the vortex recognize a principled stand, and they respect it. They might not agree entirely, but once you win their respect you can bring them along the rest of the way.
posted by John at 2:30 PM
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