As sort of a follow-up/expansion of my previous fumbling thoughts regarding the Democrats stumbling towards permanent minority party status, Tristero, a guest blogger at Hullabaloo writes, in part:
Hullabaloo: The Third Way And The Highway
...Let's not argue with their stats for now. What they fail to take into account is that perhaps liberals may not be a dependable base for the Democratic Party.Come 2006 and 2008, therefore, I will be donating not a dime directly to any Democratic candidate, but rather to organizations that advocate liberal causes - not radical causes, but liberal ones, I'm no revolutionary - who will then donate to candidates that they believe are both viable and liberal. If my money ultimately goes to Democrats, fine. But my money will go only to groups that are unequivocably liberal. If they funnel my money to candidates from other parties, that's fine, too.I suspect I am far from alone.
If the Democrats tack right, they may find that their liberal base is more mythological than real. The Third Way authors fail to take into account how thoroughly disgusted many of us are. We're not disgusted with politics (and Republicans are beyond disgust). We're disgusted with the Democratic leadership and their failure both to win and to articulate a compelling platform. Sure, Dean's head of the party, but it remains to be seen whether that is more than a merely ornamental appointment. So far, I'm not that excited about what I've seen.
The authors fail to understand that liberals are not, in their dismissive phrase, “Michael Moore Democrats.” I, for one, am eminently practical. I'm perfectly aware that a national politician needs to take numerous positions I disagree with if for no other reason than to appeal to people who are quite different than me. But the party hasn't done that. They've advocated positions and implemented strategies that appeal to no one except their marketing consultants. The Third Way authors assume liberals will just pony up as usual even if the party chooses a platform carefully tailored to offend no one, and therefore excite no one. Well this liberal won't saddle up for that ride. I want to see a genuinely winning strategy. But as Joe himself proved, twice, Liebermanism is not a winning strategy on a presidential ticket. It never will be. Ominously, however, that is what the authors of “The Politics of Authorization” suggest Democrats adopt.
The second flawed assumption is structural. The authors of “The Politics of Polarization” take as a given that political parties in the United States are, first and foremost power clusters, a core of pure energy onto which one slathers a gooey, sticky sweet collection of endlessly replaceable causes. Therefore, what Democrats need to do in order to win is simply pick whatever they want - hot fudge values, melted marshmallow values, walnut sauce, and sprinkles - provided marketing research certifies that enough people find them yummy.
This is not how voters perceive political alignments, at least not in modern times. Parties are perceived as comprising of people with shared social and political values. Their values are inextricably wound up in their desire to obtain political influence; a will to power analysis won't cut it, it's far too crude (as crude as a purely “idealistic” analysis would be).
My personal view is that following the DLC, centrist, Republican-lite advice is simply a blueprint for losing election after election. There is a reason that the Democrats have lost every major election since 1992 (with the exception, of course, of the Presidential election of 96 where Clinton ran against a dream candidate of snoozy-Dole), the Dems, at the leadership level, have tried morphing into Rockefeller Republicans, with predictable results. Now, Gore may have actually barely won in 2000, before the massive voter fraud, but if he had run as a liberal sooner than he did, the election might not have been close enough to steal.
