Gop still has no clue where they are going.

Matt Taibi has a piece in rolling stone on the McCain campaign that is classic Taibi. Biting, sardonic and generally painfully true. It lays open the GOP of 2008 as party without a plan and without a clue.

They lost in every way imaginable, on every political front. The symbol of their anti-gay crusade, Colorado congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave, was beheaded. The party that had made so much hay running against Mexicans saw noted anti-immigration crusader Bill Sali of Idaho ousted along with several other members of the Immigration Reform Caucus. The GOP's grasp on the so-called "moral values" issue likewise went up in roaring flames, with Rep. Vito Fossella of Staten Island the poster child — his morals were once so perfect that he refused to be seen with his gay sister, and now he's a national joke, bounced after being caught drunk driving and having unprotected, babymaking sex with a married Air Force officer.

The ironic thing is that the destruction of the Republican Party was a two-part process. Their president, George W. Bush, did most of the work by making virtually every mistake possible in his two terms, reducing the mightiest economy on Earth to the status of a beggar-debtor nation like Pakistan or Zambia. This was fucking up on a scale known only to a select few groups in history, your Romanovs, your Habsburgs, maybe the Han Dynasty, which pissed away a golden age of Chinese history by letting eunuchs take over the state. But John McCain and Sarah Palin made their own unique contribution to the disaster by running perhaps the most incompetent presidential campaign in modern times. They compounded a millionfold Bush's legacy of incompetence by soiling both possible Republican ideological strategies going forward: They killed off Bush-style neoconservatism as well as the more traditional fiscal conservatism McCain himself was once known for by trying to fuse both approaches into one gorgeously incoherent ticket. It was like trying to follow the recipes for Texas 10-alarm chili and a three-layer Black Forest chocolate cake in the same pan at the same time. The result — well, just take a bite!

I witness the whole pathetic mess summed up a week before the election, on a baseball field in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. The campaign has scheduled an outdoor rally, with a joint appearance by McCain and Palin, at this crucial moment in the race. But now there is driving snow and sleet, trees downed on roads all around, and the campaign — with no alternate indoor plan — is forced to cancel the event at the last minute. I watch as locals keep pulling up to the field, looking for the candidate, a lonely, rain-soaked "Country First" banner whipping back and forth above the stage. The whole scene captures the essence of the McCain run perfectly: Instead of a plan, they had an endless succession of dumb ideas scrapped at the 11th hour in favor of even dumber ones.

It was like that all election season. McCain kicked off his campaign with a stump speech that emphasized his inspirational personal story and experience. Then he picked someone even less experienced than Obama as his running mate and switched to a strategy of attacking his opponent's relationships with people like Bill Ayers. When that petered out, he switched to a new line of attack, trotting out the socialism business and claiming Obama was running for the office of "redistributionist-in-chief." The McCain camp tried running against the press, they tried running against Washington, they tried running against the Bush administration, they even tried running against the "liberal feminist agenda" — the latter just a few weeks after Sarah Palin called herself a feminist.

That was then and this is now. Certainly the GOP must have learned from the disaster that was for them the 2008 election. Umm well no. When democrats went out of power many of them said it was because they acted too much like republicans. they sacrificed core beliefs for some ill defined belief that america is a center right country that hates everything the dems stood for. These people were right that acting too much like republicans was a bad idea because the american people already agreed with the dems position on issue after issue. the dems were literally taking the less popular stances out of fear.

Republicans have a different problem in that the vast majority of americans dont agree with them or their core beliefs. still that has not stopped people from advocating the purge like Katon Dawson, the chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party,

Renew our commitment to our Party’s timeless principles...by reconfirming our commitment to be the party of smaller government, lower taxes, individual freedom, strong national security, respect for the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, the importance of family and the exceptionalism of America.

How many more elections must one party lose before it makes a real change? we might have a chance to find out.

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The Future of the Republican Party pt 1.

I am a democrat but i am also a political junky. I find it intriguing to think about a way to guide the GOP to victory that is not based on the politics of division. I tend to think it would be fairly easy given how cowardly the Dems run typical campaigns. The key is that lying is not punished. This allows you to try and co-opt any Democratic positions you might want and try to explain why they are actually GOP positions. Also, when i engage in this idle speculation i try to imagine ways to realign the electorate. Is there a way to grab a significant chunk of the population away from the other side without losing your voters, or at least not so many as would not be covered by additions?

It is with this in mind that i turn to the piece in the NYT entitled, The vanishing Republican Voter by David Frum. Frum does work for the conservative think tank, American Enterprise Institute but that does not mean he could not have some interesting insights into the GOP mindset and the possible future of the Republican Party. There are two basic premises to his thinking.

1. As a general rule, the more unequal a place is, the more Democratic; the more equal, the more Republican.
2.There is a widening equality gap.

These two things lead to the conclusion that the GOP is in some serious trouble in the future. He lays out the case that the GOP needs to be much more concerned about inequity, not from a moral perspective, but from a political one. They just wont have voters unless they make a fundamental change in how they approach elections. His suggestion seems to be that they do something about the inequity, just enough so that people feel they can vote with their social values and not the pocketbook.

Resentment of “elites” is a major theme of conservative talk radio. “Who’s looking out for you?” demands Bill O’Reilly, as he excoriates “media elites” who vacation in the Hamptons, Aspen and the Virginia horse country.

But O’Reilly’s question has recoiled upon its onetime beneficiaries. Who is looking out for the Fox-viewing public? For most of the Bush administration, G.D.P. grew strongly, the stock market boomed, new jobs were created. But the ordinary person experienced little benefit. The median household income, which rose in the ’90s, had only just caught up to its 2000 level when the expansion ended in 2007.

there is a major issue that goes unaddressed here. The big money interests support the GOP precisely because they give them the best policies. The gearing of their focus towards the rich and the corporate is what gives them a media advantage. To suddenly start throwing that, and the money that comes with it, away seems far fetched. To his credit Frum finds a way around actually paying employees more. In true Republican fashion he goes supply side. If we dont pay more we will lower supply costs.

What the middle class needs most is not lower income taxes but a slowdown in the soaring inflation of health-care costs.

It is very true that helping get everyone health care. Frums proposal of eliminating employer based health care and shifting totally to a market approach similar to car insurance is not something i really favor. Over all it is an interesting approach to the problem.

Personally i just do not think that this is enough. Frum makes assumptions about inequity that i dont know hold true. He basically says that no one would vote democratic if people were more equal. I think the better point is that the dems would lose a lot of voters if people were making more money related to expenses. Frum is saying that if prices had not gone up no one would have cared about the fact that the rich make a whole lot more. The problem is that prices always go up. they dont stay the same so predicating your argument on that is specious. That is frums idea about how to keep the party alive. My own will be part II.

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Democratic Party as a Social Institution

Diary titled 5th of November was rescued on Daily Kos last night. The diary makes an interesting suggestion about what could be done with the Democratic Party to increase not only electoral effectiveness but make it a more cohesive and unified organization. The author makes five suggestions about what could be done.

First: We must make every Democrat know that they are full members of the Democratic Party.

Second: We must police ourselves. It should be a privilege to run as a Democrat.

Third: The party itself needs to be more responsive to local issues.

Forth: we need to work on more projects with Republicans.

Finally, how do we pay for the outreach and larger permanent organization? I think it could be done in a couple of ways. One, we could allow people to contribute money to pay for some of it

These suggestions generated a positive response (from myself included) and caused me to think about them more deeply. After some thought i believe that there are some good ideas here and some problematic ones. I will address each suggestion one at a time.

First: We must make every Democrat know that they are full members of the Democratic Party. We need to act more like a club - why aren't new members of the Democratic party contacted and invited to join activities? Why aren't we asked to come to meetings? Why aren't we asked our opinions (where and when to have meetings, etc.). Even things that seem silly, like calenders and newsletters for members, helps to make people feel that they are part of a organization that exists and wants their participation even when there isn't an election.

This is actually my favorite of the group. People may not realize but socialization is a very important part of determining how people vote. Many people are socialized into a particular party and take on the ideology and thought process of that party only after joining. The are introduced to political parties by their parents and their friends. It is these groups that help people determine where they stand in the political world.

Building a party infrastructure that is active all the time and not at peak times during elections would help to cement the socialization of voters. People are less likely to drift away from a party when they are constantly exposed to the party and other people they relate to in the party. Regular meetings and newsletters and such are a good way of helping build a democratic community. It creates party cohesion and unity. It will also help in getting more people to volunteer and get involved. Having people you already know around when starting an activity for the first time makes that activity much easier. Simply involving people making them feel included is important. This first idea is one that should be implemented as soon as possible.

One good thing about this is that Obama has already done a great deal of the work for us. He has built a huge database of email lists and his site is designed to help organize and to get dems in touch with each other. Obama has made the first steps toward a real and sustained dem community.

Second: We must police ourselves. It should be a privilege to run as a Democrat. It would be wonderful if the next story of a politician gone bad started out with: The Democratic party announced today that congressman "fill-in-the-blank" is being kicked out of the party and that documents obtained through an internal investigation are being turned over to the Justice Department blah blah blah....

If people knew that we didn't let people who were unpatriotic, criminals or morally bankrupt run as Democrats, we wouldn't have to defend our candidates when the Republicans attack them. We could spend our money on presenting the issues and building the party.

This one is a little bit problematic. I understand why the diarist wants this. I just see real problems with implementation. What are the criteria to judge who is allowed to run? Could John Edwards run? How about Lieberman? What are the lines we draw that prevent one person from running versus another because if we get into a situation where we stop some one from running because they dont fit a certain ideological purity that is a real problem. It is also something that i could see happening especially if the decisions are made higher up.

Imagine a scenario where there is an insurgent candidate and an establishment candidate. If we have a solidified party that cares about party dictates the establishment could kill off candidacies it did not like. Many would be forbidden the chance to run because they have not earned the privilege. We should definitely make sure that any criminal who tries to run with a D next to their name is labeled a criminal and a DINO in the eyes of the public. In addition there are 1st amendment issues in play when dealing with elections, nominations, and political parties.

There is actually a good deal of Law dealing with the situation where a candidate is representing themselves as a party but the party is actually opposed to them. The controlling case law holds that,

The First Amendment does not give political parties a right to have their nominees designated as such on the ballot. See Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party, 520 U. S. 351, 362–363 (1997) (“We are unpersuaded, however, by the party’s contention that it has a right to use the ballot itself to send a particularized message, to its candidate and to the voters, about the nature of its support for the candidate”). Parties do not gain such a right simply because the State affords candidates the opportunity to indicate their party preference on the ballot. “Ballots serve primarily to elect candidates, not as forums for political expression.”

This means that you are allowed to self identify as a dem, run and win in the primary and keep a d next to your name and the party cannot do anything about it.

Third: The party itself needs to be more responsive to local issues. Ex: An elderly person has a problem with their social security. They should be able to call a local member of the Democratic party (a volunteer) who will help them make the phone calls to social security or get them a volunteer who can help them through the bureaucracy. Another ex: neighborhood and homeowners association meetings should have someone at their meetings who represents the Democratic party -- this could be someone who lives in the neighborhood who has volunteered to take on the responsibility of being a liaison between the neighborhood and their elected officials.)-- Sort of like Tammany Hall without the corruption.

This is an idea i think we could get to work with a few conditions. The first of these is that the services need to be open to everyone regardless of political affiliation. We cannot have a situation where we compel people to join because Dems have started to control basic services. We are not Hezbollah and should not look to be the shadow government of the neighborhoods. There is always a danger in these types of situations for a quid pro quo to develop. We cannot be seen to barter services for votes or donations. Constituent service operations as an arm of the dem party could be very useful in dealing with the elected officials of both parties so long as they are free to everyone. You can see the potential problems here if we start privileging these services?

It is not that i am opposed to the dems becoming more involved in community issues but i do not want to see the rise of local bosses. It is also likely that the republicans would develop rival set ups to ours and if it is not handled right we could see a hyper partisan system where dems help dems and reps help reps. There is always the danger that party's become too powerful as institutions and start to lock out those with the smaller voice. The more solidified we make the Dem party the more likely this becomes.

Forth: I know that this is going to get some folks going - we need to work on more projects with Republicans. We could work on a park project together or school projects - as Democrats and Republicans, but together. I think this is a way of implementing Obama's call to find common ground. It would be a way to reduce some of the "politics as usual" - less demonizing, less negative advertising and more dialogue that can help to get us to a deeper and more productive working relationship.

One of the reasons that i was concerned about this idea is that i think instead of doing what it is intended, bring us all together on common ground, it is creating division. I may be wrong but i get the feeling that this would solidify the identities of the two groups. The more people hang out with the one group, like the theorized dem party, the less likely they are to have friends from the opposite spectrum. I think that the best way to carry out the Obama message of less partisan gridlock is through everyday interactions. Meeting as solid blocks seems less effective to me than interacting in other, non politically tinged, settings. By adding a political focus to all of these events i think it would be hard to avoid and increase in partisanship.

Finally, how do we pay for the outreach and larger permanent organization? I think it could be done in a couple of ways. One, we could allow people to contribute money to pay for some of it (it's not like we don't ask them to donate money every couple of years to pay for massive amounts of advertising - advertising that would be less necessary if we had a stronger grassroots organization). Also, much of the work can be done by volunteers - many of us volunteer our time now - why wouldn't we volunteer on a regular basis if it meant that things we cared about like better schools and the environment were improved?

I am fine with this. Donations must be totally optional though. They cannot become dues that must be paid to belong.

One thing to consider is that not everyone is going to want to be interested in joining. There are always people who are not interested in politics. We should not pressure these people into joining. Can you imagine our country where the Dems and the Republicans are competing at every level for everything? There is something to be said for a more abstract party system where the structure is not so rigid. Moving too far down the path of a club risks alienating the non members, whose votes we need.

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