Thursday, March 17, 2005

Bush Senior thinks his son is 'nutty'

Political Wire has the quote

Interesting Rumblings

Good news on the 'nationalize the 2006 races' front:

House Democratic leaders "are casting about for squeaky-clean congressional candidates -- even if they're long shots -- to challenge prominent GOP incumbents who have been tainted by news reports of their allegedly unseemly connection to lobbyists," The Hill reports.

Meanwhile, Roll Call notes Democratic operatives "are digging into their archives for photos of Republican officeholders and candidates" with House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX).

In 1996 the Democrats did a good job of using Newt Gingrich as the face of the GOP (remember the "wither on the vine" commercials?) Winning will require more than just a Republican version of Emmanuel Goldstein. But it doesn't hurt to put a face on the reckless wing of the Republican party.

Living with losing

Many people are rightly upset about the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. As were many people upset about the (Moral) Bankruptcy bill, the confirmations of Rice and Gonzalez, etc., etc. I understand the despair many are feeling at these actions, but there is something everyone in this fight needs to keep in mind: we are going to lose a lot more of these battles in the next two years.

When we can stop some particular bit of perfidy we should do so (such as the Bush's plan to gut Social Security or the nomination of extremist judges), but we shouldn't let despair be our primary response to the fact that we are going to lose many of these votes. Our mission today is not simply to win a particular fight. It is to lay the groundwork for taking back the mechanisms of power.

Liberal Oasis addresses this point today with respect to the oil drilling in Alaska:

And as nice as it is to stop bad things from happening, in the long-run, we�ll be able to stop Republicans from continually doing bad things if the public sees what they�re up to and demands a change in direction.

The public hasn�t really seen what the GOP is up to on the environment, because they have learned to be relatively cagey about their anti-environment platform.

This wasn�t always so.

After the GOP took over Congress in �94, the House passed a number of overtly destructive environmental bills.

But the public backlash was strong, and Senate didn�t follow suit.

By 1996, Newt Gingrich found it necessary to repair the party�s image on the environment, convening a study group to publish a �vision statement� with calmer language.

The lesson: don�t get suckered by polls that put the environment low of people�s list of political priorities.

Please note that I am not advocating that we simply sit back and wait for the Republicans to step in the shit. We must fight these battles, even if we are going to lose, if for no other reason then we can use the fact that we did fight them to prove that we offer the voters an alternative. The loss on individual battles is bad in the short-term. But these losses can be turned to our advantage in the coming election cycle (at least they can as long as certain Democrats don't give the Republicans bi-partisan cover). There's nothing like have a Republican's vote on the record to use as a weapon against them in a future election. It worked against Kerry didn't it?

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

The power of repetitive images

I attended several anti-war rallies in the lead up to the war in Iraq. They were thrilling experiences, but ultimately they were futile because they really didn't persuade anyone who wasn't already leery about the coming conflict.

Oliver Willis makes a good point about why these kind of protests don't work:

I've been thinking about that as well. I'm not a huge fan of protests, but the reason protests as of late have been so horribly done is that they're just a stew of competing issues. Why, at a protest against the Iraq war, are people talking about AIDS and Freeing Mumia? And puppets - WTF is up with all the puppets? It makes no sense. I've discovered in the past couple years that movements on the liberal side of the aisle need to throw out these desire for "consensus" and replace it with unified purpose. 500,000 people sporting a single color or logo would make news and some think.

It really comes down to perception. Many liberals look at 100,000 people marching in the streets of New York city and see a powerful force of people. But many moderates and conservatives look at the same picture and just see a disorganized mess. The numbers impress liberals. The chaos of the rallies turns off middle America.

You know what makes an impression on people like that? Images like this:

or this:

or this:

or this:

Liberals need to learn the power of repetitive imagery. The Republicans love to swim in a sea of red white and blue. Democrats should as well, but they shouldn't use the colors of the flag as just a prop but as a way of sending a message.

GOP favors deep benefit cuts and massive increases in debt

The first vote on Social Security reform has taken place in Congress and 50 Republicans just voted in favor of deep benefit cuts and massive increases in debt. Five Republicans (Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvannia) broke ranks with the reckless wing of their party and voted for sensible Social Security reform.

Who's asking for ideological purity?

A thing of beauty from Chris Bowers

Seriously, does Jonathon Chait really expect not to receive heat from Dean supporters when he repeatedly characterizes them as fanatics?

Atrios puts it well:

I'm sure [Chait] got lots of nastyness from Dean supporters, but he did sort of invite it by thinking that the best use of his time was to devote himself to fanatically nuking his candidacy on the internet.

Trumping Bush on Taxes

John Podesta, head of the Center for American Progress, is out with a plan for how Democrats can pre-empt Bush's tax reform plans with their own tax reform package. The CAP plan is based on three principles:

  • A commitment to fairness
  • Rewarding hard work
  • The belief that a good tax system must be easy to understand

Sounds good to me.

Check out the details.

Talking Points Tuesday: Framing the GOP

Check out this article over at TomPaine.com for a good discussion of possible frames to be used against the Republicans in the coming months. Here are some suggestions:

  • Describe the current Republican leadership as members of "the reckless wing of the Republican Party". Message: the Republican agenda is out of the mainstream and can't be trusted.
     
  • Attack them for masking their bleak agenda behind feel-good language. Message: You can't take the Republicans at their word. Wouldn't it be nice to have leadership you could trust to "walk the talk"?
     
  • Assert that Republicans control everything so they should have no reason to fight amongst themselves. Then highlight any signs of dissent within the ranks. Message: even Republicans are uncomfortable with what the "reckless wing" is doing.
     
  • Say that it is "payback time" for the extremists in the party who now want something for all the hard work they put into getting Republicans into office. Message: Who will the Republicans sell us out to?

All of these frames have to be asserted repeatedly and consistently. We must create a narrative within the voter's minds and it is only through repetition that we can do so. Only then will we be allowed back into the public debate. Only then will the people re-consider their support for the GOP and begin to take a second look at the Democrats.

Best summary so far...

courtesy Phoenix Woman of Mercury Rising:

Washington Democrats emulate Republican policies, but not Republican strategy, when they should be emulating Republican strategy, but not Republican policies.

Monday, March 14, 2005

More Lieberman

Paul Krugman gives us a specific example of what I'm talking about:

Let's start with the case of the bogus $600 billion.

In his Jan. 15 radio address, President Bush made a startling claim: "According to the Social Security trustees, waiting just one year adds $600 billion to the cost of fixing Social Security." The $600 billion cost of each year's delay has become a standard administration talking point, repeated by countless conservative pundits - who have apparently not looked at what the trustees actually said.

In fact, the trustees never said that waiting a year to "fix" Social Security costs $600 billion. Mr. Bush was grossly misrepresenting the meaning of a technical discussion of accounting issues (it's on Page 58 of the 2004 trustees' report), which has nothing to do with the cost of delaying changes in the retirement program.

The same type of "infinite horizon" calculation applied to the Bush tax cuts says that their costs rise by $1 trillion a year. That's not a useful measure of the cost of not repealing those cuts immediately.

So anyone who repeats the $600 billion line is helping to spread a lie. That's why it was disturbing to read a news report about the deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration, who must know better, doing just that at a pro-privatization rally.

But in his latest radio address, Mr. Bush - correctly, this time - attributed the $600 billion figure to a "Democrat leader." He was referring to Senator Joseph Lieberman, who, for some reason, repeated the party line - the Republican party line - the previous Sunday.

My guess is that Mr. Lieberman thought he was being centrist and bipartisan, reaching out to Republicans by showing that he shares their concerns. At a time when the Democrats can say, without exaggeration, that their opponents are making a dishonest case for policies that will increase the risks facing families, Mr. Lieberman gave the administration cover by endorsing its fake numbers.

The push to privatize Social Security will probably fail all the same - but such attempts at accommodation may limit the Democrats' political gain.

Krugman then goes on to talk about the Bankruptcy bill.

Let me repeat: when Joe or any other Democrat uses Republican talking points they give them validity they don't deserve. When they use them they give the Republicans cover they don't deserve. When they use them they make it that much harder for Democrats to make the case for choosing Democratic leadership over Republican leadership.

If you are a centrist Democrat then argue your case. But argue it based on Democratic principles. Don't argue it using the Frank Luntz playbook. That's just shooting your friends in the foot.

Take it away Paul:

It isn't always bad politics to say things that aren't true and claim to support things you actually oppose: just look at who's running the country. But Democrats who engage in these tactics right now create big problems for a party that has been given a special chance - maybe its last chance - to remind the country of what Democrats stand for, and why.

Joe Lieberman: Fox News Democrat

Earlier today I took Marshall Wittman, aka The Moose, to task for his lame defense of Joe Lieberman against the "lefty" bloggers.

Atrios does a better job of it and comes up with an excellent term for Holy Joe: Fox News Democrat.

Any political party should look askance at any of its members when they become the person that the opposition party likes to push as their go-to guy. Being a favorite Democratic guest of the conservative pundit pap shows is as clear a sign as any that that Democrat is viewed as a convenient chump for the Republican cause.

Joe Lieberman is just such a chump.

It's not a question of whether Lieberman means well or isn't ideologically pure enough. It's simply a fact that the Democrats are worse off, as a party, for having Joe as one of their primary spokesmen.

Democrats, The Press and the Nice Guy Syndrome

Josh Marshal does a grand dissection of this bit of nonsense by Sebastian Mallaby that appeared in today's Washington Post. I won't try to summarize it. But I would like to hilight this part of it:

One of the Democrats' greatest problems -- far more insidious than many realize -- is their desire to gain the approval and approbation of establishment Washington and its A-list pundits. The habit or inclination is rooted in a political world that ceased to exist 20 or 30 years ago, and even then was wrong-headed. Republicans, on the other hand, have long seen the relationship as fundamentally antagonistic (if not necessarily unfriendly) and have acted accordingly. On balance, that's led to better press treatment because, though they are loathe to admit it, the mix of editors and pundits and talk show hosts respect the treatment.

Democrats, from top to bottom, would do themselves no end of good if they simply acted on the assumption that the Washington establishment is not a constituency they are trying to appeal to or cultivate.

That doesn't mean they should ignore the Washington press. Far from it. They should state their views and demand they be fairly covered. But they should not act on the ingrained assumption that these people are basically like-minded people of shared assumptions and beliefs who can be appealed to on that basis.

All of that is another way of saying they should act like Republicans.

I would change this to say that Democrats should act like Democrats, not like wimps. Other than that this is spot on.

There is an odd dynamic going on between the major parties and the establishment press. The Republicans treat them like crap with all their talk about Liberal Bias and what-not. Yet the press generally treats them well. The Democrats, on the other hand, go out of their way to try to appease the beltway opinion mafia, and they get nothing but grief in response.

Case in point: one of the primary reasons Gore chose Lieberman as his running mate in 2000 was to win over the opinion mafia. Lieberman was a darling of the press ever since he went to the Senate floor and criticized Clinton for his behavior with Lewinsky. By selecting Holy Joe, Gore may have calculated that he could win a little bit of that good feeling by osmosis.

And it worked.

For about two weeks.

That's how long it took for the GOP to roll out another smear campaign against Gore. A smear campaign the press immediately ran with.

The lesson: the press doesn't like "Nice Guys", they just say they do. What they really want is the "Bad Boy" who will put them in their place, whether they deserve it or not.

The reason Democrats get criticized when they start to show backbone is because the press just isn't used to it. It doesn't fit their model for the way things are and so they squawk. But if the Democrats don't back down the press will eventually get used to it and maybe, just maybe, start treating Democrats as equal partners in the political debate.

Here's a hint to the Dems: when the press says they "just want to be friends", their lying!

The sins of Joe Lieberman

The Moose comes out with a defense of Lieberman and tells "lefty" bloggers to "grow up". What The Moose doesn't get is that the attacks on Lieberman are not about ideology. If they were then how does he explain the plaudits that Harry Reid, an avowed pro-life Democrat, has received from the very same "lefty" bloggers that The Moose is criticizing?

The case against Lieberman has little to do with ideology and much to do with political strategy. The Republicans love Lieberman because the GOP can always rely on good old Joe to step up to the plate and knock out a few pieces of Luntz-style newspeak. The problem with Lieberman is that he uses Republican frames that were specifically designed to keep Democrats down.

Lieberman is very good at promoting himself. He is for shit when it comes to promoting Democrats and the Democratic party. He weakens us by repeatedly giving aid and comfort to the opposition.

It is Lieberman and The Moose that need to grow up and realize they are being played for chumps by the Elephant.

Sunday, March 13, 2005

'Protect the vulnerable' vs. 'Own your own fate'

There's an in interesting WaPo analysis of the 'anachronisms' of the current Social Security system and how they are contributing to the current fight. I was particularly struck by this passage:

Social Security is riddled with other anachronisms and oddities. The biggest is that the early retirement age has been set at 62 ever since 1961, without any adjustment for rising life expectancy. As a result, ever-larger shares of total benefits go to people who have probably another 10 or 20 years to live. If people today were to live in retirement for the same number of years as they did when Social Security was young, they wouldn't start receiving benefits until their early seventies, not 63, which is the average retirement age today. Thus, Social Security has morphed into a middle-age retirement system even though the very old have greater healthcare needs, can work less, and are more likely to have no spouses to help out.

That's why those Bush foes who insist on protecting the Social Security program exactly as it is are misguided. By the same token, Bush has not made the original Social Security mission -- protecting the vulnerable -- his primary one. The president has focused instead on giving Americans "ownership" over their retirement benefits by creating private accounts, which simply give back the most to those who pay in the most.

There are some interesting points here. The first is that the biggest 'problem' with Social Security, the one that none but the bravest politicians wants to address, is the retirement age. Yet it is one of those solutions that makes sense based on the original intent of the program.

But the second paragraph is even more interesting. It correctly points out that Bush has not made 'protecting the vulnerable' his primary mission. But the reason he hasn't is because Bush fundamentally does not believe that the government should be involved in 'protecting the vulnerable'. For him to adopt that as his mission would be inconceivable. 'Protecting the vulnerable' is a frame that would play to Democratic strengths.

Finally, the analysis is off the mark when it suggests that defenders are 'misguided' by not allowing for changes to the program. I don't know of anyone who says that Social Security is perfect. But the battle as it is joined right now is an assault on the fundamental nature of the program and, as such, this requires its defenders to be resolute in their defense. Once the programs future is secured from the attack of those who want to destroy it, then we can begin talking about correcting some of its real problems. Maybe we could even begin to discuss the troublesome issue of the retirement age.