Nation-Building

a rather public announcement in a diary at DailyKos confirms the news. This is going to be fun. I detect the hand of Joe Trippi at work!

(yup, there's a campaign blog - the O-blog, if you will...)

Continue reading/discuss Chris Bell is running for Gov ...

I have yet to see Tom Tancredo (R-CO) denounced by mainstream leaders of the Republican party for his comments about bombing Mecca. In fact, Tancredo went on the Savage Nation radio show to talk with Michael Savage and promote himself. It seems that Tancredo also harbors Presidential ambition:

 

ELECTION 2008
Tancredo considers
White House bid
Congressman to run if no other Republican takes on border issue
Posted: March 28, 2005
8:35 p.m. Eastern

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., fresh from victory in three online presidential straw polls over formidable candidates, told Joseph Farah's radio audience today he would run for president in 2008 if no other Republican candidate takes the border issue seriously.

"I'll tell you what," he said, "if no one else does it, I will do it."

Tancredo is the head of the House Immigration Reform Caucus and has challenged his own party's president on the issue of an insecure border and his proposed "guest worker" proposal.

Longshot? nope. Polling by a firm that worked for Bush-Cheney '04 suggests that Tancredo has large conservative Republican grassroots support:

In an inventive online straw poll of 64 possible Republican presidential candidates, Tancredo has blown away three high-profile opponents and is heading to the final eight showdown matching up Haley Barbour, Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert, Bill Frist, Jeb Bush, Condoleezza Rice and J.C. Watts.

In earlier contests, Tancredo knocked off former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain in the first round, talk-radio king Rush Limbaugh in the second and Sen. John Thune in the third round. He now faces Barbour to make it to the final four.

The poll is organized by a St. Louis Republican survey company that specializes in automated polling. Survey Saint Louis has been commissioned by Bush-Cheney '04, the Republican National Committee and several statewide candidates in Missouri.

Continue reading/discuss unapologetic Tancredo for President ...

The link goes to a discussion thread at DailyKos where I posted a diary indicating why Dean's comments were boneheaded. Unfortunately, the responses to the diary increased my suspicion that the polarization of our politics has produced all too many people on the left who simply want to replace the GOP, not defeat the underlying dynamic of poisoned politics.

Defeating GOP extremism is indeed the paramount concern. In that respect, I fully understand Matt's and Jeremy's prioritizing. But Republicanism is today's problem; Democratism is potentially tomorrow's. I will be looking in 2008 for a leader who will eschew the path that leads to Democratism rather than the one who is saddled with its baggage.

Howard Dean spoke during the campaign of a unified politics, based on principles and honesty, and promised that such a course would lead to electoral success. It is deeply ironic that Dean's defenders today are the ones who explicitly disavow those principles - and don't even appreciate the irony.

Continue reading/discuss Democratism ...

as reported by Townhall.com:

He also said the president was partly responsible for a recent Supreme Court decision involving eminent domain.

"The president and his right-wing Supreme Court think it is "okay" to have the government take your house if they feel like putting a hotel where your house is,"

assuming that Dean's words are reported accurately, Townhall does the fact-checking for him:

 

Dean said, not mentioning that until he nominated John Roberts to the Supreme Court this week, Bush had not appointed anyone to the high court.

Dean’s reference to the "right-wing" court was also erroneous. The four justices who dissented in the Kelo vs. New London case included the three most conservative members of the court – Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was the fourth dissenter.

The court’s liberal coalition of Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer combined with Justice Anthony Kennedy to form the majority opinion, allowing the city of New London, Conn., to use eminent domain to seize private properties for commercial development.

"We think that eminent domain does not belong in the private sector. It is for public use only, " Dean said.

unlike with previous Screams, I don't have a reason to doubt the incident in this case. Dean is simply shooting off his mouth, and pulling this out of his arse, which makes sense since he probably has his head up his... oh, nevermind.

Look, there's a legitimate point to be made. That point is that last bit: eminent domain does not belong in the private sector. I support the general principle of eminent domain if and only if (iff) it is excercized in the common trust. The argument that the public will benefit from increased tax revenue is simply too "trickle-down" for my liking.

Dean had an opportunity to score a point by emphasising a principle to which bopth Democrats and Republicans could find common cause. He chose instead to fire possibily the lamest ever partisan attack. That's the first time his rhetorical excess has damaged his broader goals of grassroots renewal rather than simply masking them. This snafu therefore counts more against his record and does a great deal of damage to my esteem of him. Perhaps Dean hasn't emerged fully unscathed from the 2004 election, with principles intact, as when he began. That's a shame, because Howard Dean in 2003 inspired me to move mountains. Howard Dean 2005 is making me angry. And not with him. At him.

Continue reading/discuss Dean scream # 001100110 ...

After all, who would surrender to the Dread Pirate Edith?

I think it's premature for this. The best thing we could hope for is for a normal, sane human being to be appointed to government, especially since this appointment doesn't affect Roe vs Wade. I think the best attitude to take is as follows:

 

I'm willing to hear the guy out. We're not going to get a Ginsburg, but I'd be happy with an O'Connor-style moderate conservative. For all we know (and for all the religious-right knows), Roberts might be that sort of guy.

But he has to be honest and forthcoming, unlike his previous confirmation hearing. The Senate must take its time deliberating over the nomination. And this is something that all sides should want, not just ours. For all the right wing knows, this guy may be the next Souter who simply pretended to be virulently anti-privacy.

As Roberts answers all questions posed, we can then decide whether it's worth opposing or not.

And the importance of giving Roberts a genuinely thorough confirmation hearing can not be over-emphasised. This isn't a political appointee who serves at the request of the President. This is a lifetime appointment to the third Branch of government. The President gets no free pass on this, but neither should Roberts be vilified without any reason.

Also see Jeralyn's comments at Talk Left and Armando's follow-up post.

Continue reading/discuss The Dread Justice Roberts ...

Conservatives, or perhaps I should better define them as Republicanists, define liberalism thus:

Liberalism is simply the political expression of the opinion (one cannot refer to it as philosophy in the classical sense of that term) that all political and social questions are open questions, that a nation and a people have no, or ought to have no, doctrines, principles, laws or traditions which are, or are taken to be, expressive and determinative of the essence of their culture and common life

Utter nonsense. Read on..

 
I reject this definition. He may be thinking of post-modernism; he may be extrapolating overmuch from Progressivism; but ultimately, such a thing does not exist as a mainstream philosophy on the American Left.

I challenge anyone who subscribes to this definition of liberalism to articulate one piece of legislation signed into law by any President in the 20th century, whose basic motivation draws from the straw-man characterization of liberlaism above. I will then provide the true motivation, based upon the following true definition of liberalism:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Yes, the above is all the motivational and founding principle you need to fully explain affirmative action, social security, and labor unions, to name but a few. Are there any takers?

Continue reading/discuss liberalism ...

I was reflecting on my post from last week about how the latest incarnation of this blog, an attempt at forging a "purple politics" identity on the web, had never really taken off. Here's an attempt at a post-mortem.

The problem is that there are very few genuinely purple voices in politics today. Even Dean himself, whose candidacy was as purple as could be, was never able to sell that message to the red aisle - and in so doing let itself be co-opted by the determinedly blue. In other words, Dean never really succeeded in selling the concept of Purple to the Blues. The voice of the Deaniac movement was always the Blue/Progressive one, whereas the actual bulk was ordinary purple folks who just were unable to reclaim the movement from the further left in the eye of the public media. As a result, the large population of Democratic voters who were genuinely receptive to a purple message could not discern what purple there was to be had, and rejected Dean for a more purple-marketed candidate.

I supported Dean for DNC Chair because I think he can rebuild the structure of that party in a way that even he won't be able to really predict - the infrastructural changes will allow the ordinary purple folks to exert their will, and enable a genuine grassroots revival. The Dean campaign offerred much hype about this - "people-powered Howard" after all - but in retrospect, far removed from the energy and wild enthuiastic optimism of the campaign, it's clear that a true revolution of that sort is years in the making. Possibly, the revolution will even be partially stilled should a Democrat win national office. It's a fragile thing, this Dean Nation legacy.

However, as DNC Chair, Dean himself has become compromised by the need to be the Chair for all Democrats - and at present, the Blues still control the discourse on the left. Dean is still an enigma to me, but it is clear that he could not now be President. Had he won, thing smay well have been different - but Dean is done. I recognize the irony of me of all people declarinf Howard Dean's presidential ambitions dead, but there it is. Once he became Blue, the purple mantle was laid aside, and Dean's legacy will have to be be at his own ambitions' expense from here out.

What a purple revolution needs is not to be hitched to a popular figure's wagon. The decentralization of party politics and the purple-ization of political discourse are two neccessary and complementary forces, both of which must operate in tandem. As long as we wait for our knight in shining armor to rescue us, we will fail, even if that knight is named Obama or Clinton.

Here's where things have to go. A return to general principles - an articulation of what our common ground is, in such a way that every American feels a sense of ownership and camraderie to the ideas being put forth. Maybe He is against privatization of Social Security, whereas She is for it; but both should in general be for the right of Americans to grow old with dignity after a lifetime of labor, without fear of financial and social armageddon, as so characterized the experience of aging in this nation before FDR's New Deal. How we get there is one thing, but we should at least agree on first principles. Let us seek those principles.

Shouldn't abortions be rare? Shouldn't entrepeneurs be encouraged to take risks? Shouldn't employees be judged on merit rather than skin color? Shouldn't consenting adults retain privacy over their affairs? Shouldn't sovereignity of the self remain free of external imposition? Shouldn't we have a right to the fruits of our own labors? Shouldn't we be free? Shoudn't all of mankind be free?

These are the questions that we should be asking of each other, across the red-blue divide. Such a dialouge is impossible however, when conducted under the purview of that dated framework. Instead, we have to conduct the debate as neighbors, as friends, as co-workers, as Americans. Leave your party ID at the door and take this colorblind map of the states with you - we need policy, not ideology, to be the driving force of our discussions, for our own benefit and that of future generations.

Why couldn't this blog be the vehicle for such a debate? Partly because out of a sense of history, I have kept the name Dean Nation. That name refers to an idea, the one that drew me to Howard Dean and the one that all Americans would ultimately agree with was worthwhile, given the chance. But with the name comes baggage, and Dean's present role as DNC Chair ensures that he himself can no longer be the focus of a genuinely Purple dialog. Such a dialog has to occur in a blue/red vacuum, a achromatic void which we ourselves fill rather than begging the latest savior to fill it for us. My attempts at recruiting Red voices such as Bird Dog and Adam C only exacerbated the color divide rather than bridged it, as both sides talked past each other. If they talked at all.

The other reason that this blog could not serve as a medium for Purple debate was that it lacked the ability to provide a truly interactive forum. This is a technology issue, one that could be better addressed by a Scoop-style kind of forum. Daily Kos remains the best blog success story of all time, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But DailyKos is hyper-partisan, a raw energy of one-sided ferocity that is as much the antithesis of Purple politics as is the GOP's hierarchical rigidity. There's no give and take, only take. The new TPM Cafe is promising, but still distinctly Blue - Rovegate and Republicans get equal time as abstract policy debates, with the inevitable politicization that accrues.

What is needed is a means of facilitating a community without the partisanship - which requires immense self-control. How do you talk about politics without getting sucked into the gotcha game? I think it is possible. What is needed is a scoop-style site, with an active diarist community and a front-page crew who are committed to maintaining a dialouge at a higher level. Probably, anyone with a membership in a political party would not be suitable for front-page material, as they are compromised by it. It would have to be focused on facts and references, not personalities and agendas. It would need a common set of definitions for terms such as "liberal" and "freedom" and the like, and the comunity would have to be vigilant in self-policing againt the kind of demonization of the Other that occurs so routinely elsewhere.

If such a site could be established, it would mesh well with the emergent grassroots revolution that Dean is fostering. But it would neccessarily be independent as well - and as such would have to be open to participation from politicians on both sides of the aisle. Nay, not just open, but actively recruit. How many regulars at either Dkos or Red State can name a member of the opposing party whom they can genuinely and sincerely praise?

Republicanism is dangerous, and destroying the fabric of our national unity from the edges inward. So too a threat would be Democratism; though right now the emergence of the latter is less a concern. We need a short-circuit of both - to create something new. The future of the political discourse in our nation may well depend on it.

Continue reading/discuss the future of American political discourse ...

Meet The Press, Sunday July 17th:

MR. RUSSERT: You would not be pouncing on a Democratic White House for leaking the identity of a CIA agent?

MR. MEHLMAN: It is unthinkable for me to imagine that a leading member of the Republican Senate leadership, like Charles Schumer, would hold a press conference with the equivalent of a Joe Wilson, a major press conference, where they repeated allegations that have been proved wrong. I can't imagine they would do that. I can't imagine that Bob Dole and Republican leaders would go on the floor of the Senate to call 100 percent of Republicans, to revoke somebody's security clearance, who's cooperating fully with the investigation, and who evidence has been vindicating toward. I can't imagine that would happen.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Podesta.

MR. PODESTA: I think my Republican friend slept through the 1990s.

Continue reading/discuss Republicanism ...

Yes, things have been pretty quiet around here :) I'd like to thank everyone who has been posting recently, especially Brian. I think the brief experiment in "purple politics" hasn't succeeded, however, despite my best efforts (including recruiting genuinely conservative voices to post). That's likely because we are in a polarized atmosphere, and ignoring that fact isn't enough to change it.

Dean Nation therefore enters a new phase - planned obsolescence. I am not sure if Dean Nation will be completely shut down or not yet, but there will definitely not be regular content for a while. I'll be cross-posting stuff here that I write for TPMCafe and for other sites, until I figure out where we go from here. I am of course blogging more regularly at City of Brass, so if there's anyone here who actually is interested in what I've got to say, do visit :)

Continue reading/discuss Administrative notes ...

There's a lot of conservative teeth-gnashing about the possibility that Alberto Gonzales will be nominated to the Supreme Court. The reason for this is that he isn't suitably conservative by their estimation. Note, of course, that "conservative" in this context means "religious conservative" (I don't like the "religious right" moniker because it feeds the perception that religion is solely the Right's purview). When we refer to the GOP's "base", that's who we really are speaking about: the conservative Republican voters who are strongly pro-life.

But does the GOP really need the Base? No, because they have Al Qaeda. Here's why ...

 
The GOP enjoys near-total dominance in government at the federal level today. The party got there by leveraging the Base as part of it's GOTV efforts, turning the 2000 and 2004 elections into an arms race of volunteer foot soldiers. Arguably, Ohio was delivered to the GOP by virtue of a superior ground operation, but ascribing the President's re-election victory solely to the Base is short-sighted. From Day 1 of the post-9-11 era, this Administration has immersed its rationale in the war on terror, arguing that terrorism is an existential threat to us, and making that the bedrock of its argument for continued governance. I don't think conservatives themselves would disagree on this point: the main argument against John Kerry was that he could not be trusted on this front. In fact, the overwhelming selection of Kerry by Democratic primary voters themselves also suggests that they shared the same perception of the war on Terror as being central to the election outcome. Howard Dean's electability, the Swift Boat veterans, the overwhelming 9-11 references during the GOP convention - all served to underline national security as the central issue for the election.

And arguably, it was indeed the war on terror that delivered the votes, not gay marriage or any other social issue on which the GOP Base would theoretically be motivated by.

The GOP leadership surely realizes that embracing the most extreme elements of the Base is a surefire ticket to electoral loss. The writing on the wall after the Schiavo case was clear: the majority of Americans didn't appreciate federal level intrusion into a private medical affair. The Base however has become even more agitated since Schiavo, and are publicly demanding that their time has come. Meanwhile, the war on terror delivers GOP votes consistently and eats into the Democratic base as well - but more crucially, is a far less threatening message with which to outreach to the "moderate" voter (defined as someone who doesn't particularly think of themselves as liberal or conservative, but just formulates opinions on issues based on their personal experiences and whatever media exposure they have access to).

Ultimately, viability of a party's power status hinges on a sustainable majority. The GOP can't maintain its dominance with the backing of an increasingly demanding Base who are still a numerical minority with respect to the mainstream. Given that 49% of registered voters are clearly not the Base, and some lesser fraction of the remaining 51% are, the long-term outlook is negative.

I think that we will see the true long-term GOP strategy reveal itself in the judicial nominations to SCOTUS. If two conservatives, vetted by the Base, are appointed, then I am wrong and the GOP will be committed to trying to maintain power with the Base at the helm.

However, if the President appoints one moderate, or two (unlikely), then its clear that the GOP is hedging its bets. The outcry and backlash from the Base will be furious if anything less than two anti-Roe judges are appointed; so the SCOTUS appointments are essentially a toe in the water to see how far that anger will go. By 2006 will that anger have cooled? It's a question that the GOP can probably best afford to answer now rather than later, with the midterms rather than a Presidency at stake.

Continue reading/discuss Does the GOP need it's base? ...