The South Park one, yes.
To be clear:
The rules of South Park Roshambo are very simple.
You stand in front of me, with your legs slightly spread.
I knee you in the balls as hard as I can.
I then stand in front of you, with my legs slightly spread, and you get to knee me in the balls.
First one to fall over loses, and the game ends.
(Needless to say, Cartman always goes first, and always wins with the first kick.)
It is my opinion that for Democrats to move left and posit a strong, liberal image is to stand in front of the Republicans, legs slightly spread, and state “You go first.”
Republicans can win elections by rallying the base because their base is bigger than the Democrats’, and if their hardcore ads get 20% of Republicans to show up in support and 20% of Democrats to show up in protest, they win.
To believe that Democrats can do the same, you have to believe that every poll of “Are you a liberal, moderate, or conservative?” and “Are you a Democrat, Independent, or Republican” is wrong, because either
*a mass of moderates are liberals as well, but so scared of being thought of as liberal that they not only refuse to identify themselves anonymously to pollsters as liberal, but they also anonymously vote moderate or conservative because they’re so scared of being considered “liberal”; or
- there is a huge mass of liberal/leftist voters out there who are outside of the process; they never vote, and are therefore completely written off in all polls. If the Democrats ran left, they could energize this populace and win easily. Of course, Ralph Nader ran in 2000 and 2004 on the very same assumption and couldn’t get more than 5% of the vote either time, but that must be because of spooky evil Republicans manipulating the ballot and the spooky evil conservative MSM never talking about Ralph Nader, and therefore those poor liberals outside of the process never even knew they had a champion.
Look, every poll shows that there are more self-identified conservatives than liberals and more Republicans than Democrats in this country. As much as you hate to hear it, you are in the minority. And a minority of votes does not win the election. To win, you have to get more votes, and that means moderating views.
Cite? I’m fairly certain registered Dems outnumber registered Pubs. For the rest, I guess it depends on how the poll questions are phrased, but there is some evidence you’re wrong. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press has done several extensive “political typology” studies since the late ‘90s. Their most recent findings show the American people, politically, fall into the following nine groups:
ENTERPRISERS
9% OF ADULT POPULATION
10% OF REGISTERED VOTERS
PARTY ID: 81% Republican, 18% Independent/No Preference, 1% Democrat (98% Rep/Lean Rep)
BASIC DESCRIPTION: As in 1994 and 1999, this extremely partisan Republican group’s politics are driven by a belief in the free enterprise system and social values that reflect a conservative agenda. Enterprisers are also the strongest backers of an assertive foreign policy, which includes nearly unanimous support for the war in Iraq and strong support for such anti-terrorism efforts as the Patriot Act.
SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES
11% OF ADULT POPULATION
13% OF REGISTERED VOTERS
PARTY ID: 82% Republican, 18% Independent/No Preference, 0% Democrat (97% Rep/Lean Rep)
BASIC DESCRIPTION: While supportive of an assertive foreign policy, this group is somewhat more religious than are Enterprisers. In policy terms, they break from the Enterprisers in their cynical views of business, modest support for environmental and other regulation, and strong anti-immigrant sentiment.
PRO-GOVERNMENT CONSERVATIVES
9% OF ADULT POPULATION
10% OF REGISTERED VOTERS
PARTY ID: 58% Republican, 40% Independent/No Preference, 2% Democrat (86% Rep/Lean Rep)
BASIC DESCRIPTION: Pro-Government Conservatives stand out for their strong religious faith and conservative views on many moral issues. They also express broad support for a social safety net, which sets them apart from other GOP groups. Pro-Government Conservatives are skeptical about the effectiveness of the marketplace, favoring government regulation to protect the public interest and government assistance for the needy. They supported George W. Bush by roughly five-to-one.
UPBEATS
11% OF ADULT POPULATION
13% OF REGISTERED VOTERS
PARTY ID: 56% Independent/No Preference, 39% Republican, 5% Democrat (73% Rep/Lean Rep)
BASIC DESCRIPTION: Upbeats express positive views about the economy, government and society. Satisfied with their own financial situation and the direction the nation is heading, these voters support George W. Bush’s leadership in economic matters more than on moral or foreign policy issues. Combining highly favorable views of government with equally positive views of business and the marketplace, Upbeats believe that success is in people’s own hands, and that businesses make a positive contribution to society. This group also has a very favorable view of immigrants.
DISAFFECTEDS
9% OF ADULT POPULATION
10% OF REGISTERED VOTERS
PARTY ID: 68% Independent/No Preference, 30% Republican, 2% Democrat (60% Rep/Lean Rep)
BASIC DESCRIPTION: Disaffecteds are deeply cynical about government and unsatisfied with both their own economic situation and the overall state of the nation. Under heavy financial pressure personally, this group is deeply concerned about immigration and environmental policies, particularly to the extent that they affect jobs. Alienated from politics, Disaffecteds have little interest in keeping up with news about politics and government, and few participated in the last election.
LIBERALS
17% OF GENERAL POPULATION
19% OF REGISTERED VOTERS
PARTY ID: 59% Democrat; 40% Independent/No Preference, 1% Republican (92% Dem/Lean Dem)
BASIC DESCRIPTION: This group has nearly doubled in proportion since 1999. Liberal Democrats now comprise the largest share of Democrats. They are the most opposed to an assertive foreign policy, the most secular, and take the most liberal views on social issues such as homosexuality, abortion, and censorship. They differ from other Democratic groups in that they are strongly pro-environment and pro-immigration.
CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRATS
14% OF ADULT POPULATION
15% OF REGISTERED VOTERS
PARTY ID: 89% Democrat, 11% Independent/No Preference, 0% Republican,(98% Dem/Lean Dem)
BASIC DESCRIPTION: Religious orientation and conservative views set this group apart from other Democratic-leaning groups on many social and political issues. Conservative Democrats’ views are moderate with respect to key policy issues such as foreign policy, regulation of the environment and the role of government in providing a social safety net. Their neutrality on assistance to the poor is linked, at least in part, to their belief in personal responsibility.
DISADVANTAGED DEMOCRATS
10% OF GENERAL POPULATION
10% OF REGISTERED VOTERS
PARTY ID: 84% Democrat; 16% Independent/No Preference, 0% Republican (99% Dem/Lean Dem)
BASIC DESCRIPTION: Least financially secure of all the groups, these voters are very anti-business, and strong supporters of government efforts to help the needy. Minorities account for a significant proportion of this group; nearly a third (32%) are black, roughly the same proportion as among Conservative Democrats. Levels of disapproval of George W. Bush job performance (91%) and candidate choice in 2004 (82% for Kerry) are comparable to those among Liberals.
BYSTANDERS
10% OF ADULT POPULATION
0% OF REGISTERED VOTERS
PARTY ID: 56% Independent/No Preference, 22% Republican, 22% Democrat
BASIC DESCRIPTION: These Americans choose not to participate in or pay attention to politics, or are not eligible to do so (non-citizens).
Enterprisers, Social Conservatives, and Pro-Government Conservatives, all together, total 29% of the general population, 33% of registered voters.
Liberals, Conservative Democrats, and Disadvantaged Democrats, all together, total 41% of the general population, 44% of registered voters.
So, neither side really has a majority, but the Dems have a plurality. The battles would be fought for the votes of the independent-leaning Upbeats and Disafffecteds – and such of the Bystanders as are legally eligible to vote and might be persuaded to get involved.
The Third Way Middle Class Project (Warning! PDF!) states “34% of Americans self-identify as conservatives, while only 21% of Americans self-identify as liberals” according to their polls.
As for your cite - again, it’s how it’s phrased and how it’s divided. You claim that there are less “conservatives” than “liberals”, but that’s only by how Pew labelled their categories - notice that you’re not including “Upbeats” as conservatives, even though they have hawkish foreign policy views and voted for Bush 63-14 in the election. And again, the labels given are by Pew, not by the voters themselves.
As for which party has more registered members, I thought I had heard recently that Republicans were starting to outnumber Democrats, but I certainly could be wrong, and await someone with better google-fu than I to prove me such.
But still, you seem to be agreeing with my point, which is that the battle for winning 2006 and 2008 elections will be for the independent and the moderate.
Not necessarily. That’s it mainly, but the Liberal category almost certainly includes a great many voters who don’t bother to vote because both parties’ candidates are corporate shills. The kind who voted for Nader in 2000. That might not be the hugest bloc in the field, but it could easily be enough to decide a close election.
Yes, but the problem is trying to have your cake and eating it at the same time. You certain can gain votes from liberals who otherwise wouldn’t bother voting if you move left. But at the same time, you lose votes from people who are in the middle. And since the middle is larger than the left (via both your cites and mine), it seems logical that you’ll lose more votes from the middle than you gain from the left if you move that way.
Not necessarily. I believe Ralph Nader announced, at some point in 2004, that if Dean got the Dem nomination, Nader would withdraw his own candidacy (implicitly endorsing Dean). I think Dean would have had a broad enough appeal to pick up all Nader’s potential support without alienating the centrists. Sometimes you can have your cake and eat it.
I would put forth that the political environment has swung so far to the right, that what would have been viewed as an extreme right wing ideology before Reagan has become mainstream. In fact I think that it’s only starting to dawn on some Republicans and even Democratic moderates what they’ve actually voted for and that many people still don’t recognize it as such. I also posit the possibility of it swinging left over the next few years beyond current common political wisdom if Democrats stand up for their traditional values. RTFirefly presented the case nicely in this earlier post .
In fact, I have become convinced that George W. Bush, far from being a bumbling idiot is one of the most successful presidents in history. Look at what he’s established: Three primary tenants of neo-conservatism have been put on steroids and into place: a)dismantling social programs through an extreme number of tax cuts, b)a unitary Presidency, c) and consolidating political power through corporatism, especially with the usage and profits of warfare. The realization of the consequences of such an ideology is only now becoming clear to some conservatives that hadn’t thought them through.
It’s created a occupation in Iraq that Americans become more and more uncomfortable with while Afghanistan goes undermanned. We have an economy that despite the trumpeting of Wall St. is not finding its way into the pocketbooks of most Americans and has always been two steps forward and one step back at best under this conservative agenda. There is the unitary Presidential attempt of usurping the powers of the legislative and judicial branches of the government with unwarranted domestic data mining on a national scale. Time was conservatives would have an itchy trigger finger if the government pried into their private effects without court approval. And the justice dept.’s approval of torture, suspension of habeas corpus, and widespread Republican corruption are starting to sink in as more abuses are revealed. Nor are the neoconservatives the most states rights friendly people you’ll find out there. Lastly the consolidation of corporate power, allowing it to buy up the government via K street to write their own laws is at cross purposes with the American consumer.
Americans may not in general be the most politically astute folks on the face of the Earth, but nevertheless they are starting to get it. Even despite a media that I’ve noticed undergoing Republican cooption via corporatism since the Reagan years.
I’d wager that the economy is likely to go south before ’08 with the number of storm clouds circling it and that will be the definitive wake up call to Americans that the neoconservative ideological agenda is fatally flawed. On the other hand, liberal Democrats are finding themselves championing fiscal responsibility based on the Clinton model, defending against governmental abuses of illegal power, and standing against laws written by and for corporations. Of course, there are a number of moderate Democrats who hem and haw and hedge on some of these issues. They do not present a clear choice from the neoconservative status quo, as Lieberman and Hillary Clintons lackluster support show. Catering to those in power does not look like a decisive position to anyone whatever their political stripe. I think such a stance will come to haunt many of them in time.
As for gay marriage, the Democratic party has yet to argue that it is the new separate but equal. That gays are being shown the back of the bus even by Democrats, and any blocking or removing of civil rights can only be a slippery slope used to start undoing other recently gained by many minorities. Unbigoted conservatives would probably have to come to realization of this fact as well if it were presented as such.
Let’s not forget, the main argument is that marriage is ‘sacred’, that the bible prohibits such a thing. Was it not the bible that was used to claim that a mixing of the races was wrong and that slavery was God’s will? It’s a dichotomy that most Americans will ultimately find unacceptable. Rather un-Christlike I would say, as was slavery.
You can think that, but do you have any proof? Any polls, perhaps, which show more or as many Americans being willing to vote for Dean as Kerry? Anything at all that says “this has valid backing, and isn’t just my pipe dream”?
See, I have at least some level of proof. The only Democrats to win national election in the last forty years have been those able to present themselves as moderates and conservatives. Those who got tarred with the brand “liberal” all went down to defeat, sometimes humiliating defeat.
Go ahead and try. I’m pretty sure you’ll somehow end up with neither- ask Gore and Kerry.
What about LBJ? And JFK?
Kennedy was moderate. He took moderate positions on labor issues (union reform in particular) and cold war issues, and he was criticized by the left for failing to attack McCarthyism.
Here are a couple of quotes from Kennedy which may be relevant to the discussion in this thread:
All sounds pretty “liberal” by today’s standards! Liberal-elitist, yet! “Now they deal with questions which are beyond the comprehension of most men.” Technocracy, anyone?
Out of a field of about a dozen candidates he decisively won chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee hands down despite not being particularly well favored at the start. That didn’t happen by accident. He has made some real changes as to how the party will run candidates including a focus on having a long-term presence in all 50 states. He basically sent the consultants and advertisers packing, started raising record amounts of money for the DNC, and is spending it on infrastructure.
Furthermore he is touting real accountability and transparency in Washington, real security against terrorism, energy independence, a healthcare system that takes care of everyone, raising the minimum wage, preserving all retirement benefits for everyone. That may sound liberal to some, but probably common sense to most people and nothing like the Republicans are doing.
It’s the same stuff he campaigned on, and while he got pushed out of the primaries the folks who voted him in as the de-facto head of the Democratic party obviously sensed it was time for a change from triangulation. He promised doing things differently and in part it’s going to pave the way for candidates who take less than so-called moderate views.
All of which makes him an excellent chairman – but why would it have made him an electable nominee in 2004? (I think he would have been, but that’s more a matter of gut instinct.)
I agree that he was electable. The reasons I stated above tell me that a lot of Dems were eager to get behind a candidate like Dean. Again, the things he points out as the party platform in his role as chairman are what he campaigned on in the primary for the presidency. He was ahead of the curve then.
But he wasn’t giong to get the nomination because a bunch of people who kept losing elections at an ever greater rate since 1994 where running the show. And while he made some mistakes as well, to be honest the DLC factions were bound to do everything they could to take him out. He didn’t want to follow the path they had laid out for themselves. Not to mention that the Republicans came at him with both barrels. You didn’t see them go to those lengths again until Kerry got the nomination.
I don’t buy that the Bob Shrum / Terry McAuliffe / Al From crowd put Clinton into power. Clinton was the reason Clinton became president, perhaps despite their efforts. Whatever one thinks of him, he was a politician’s politician. He won the office and despite some errors in judgement - not counting Monica - he ran the office effectively despite a hostile congress and finished eight years with polls showing his favorability in the low 60 percentages.
And that’s the problem with the moderate model of Democratic campaigning. They thought they were the kingmakers when they couldn’t have done it without Clinton, and they wouldn’t face up to it. I doubt that any other potential candidate could walk the political tightrope that he walked, often coopting Republican proposals, reconfiguring them, then leaving them no choice but to vote for them since they were basically their ideas in the first place. Man, that must have pissed them off.
Once he left office though, following that script has been a disaster for Democrats. Rather than adapting to what the GOP had been doing since '94 and effectively countering it with bold alternatives, they just focused on their little clique of election loss specialists and paid them handsomely no matter despite becoming more and more out of touch with public.
Well, I agree with you pretty much. As it is, gay marriage and gun control issues aren’t going to go away though because the Republicans need them as push button issues to get their base to the polls for the purpose of getting re-elected. In fact, the Democratic party is not putting those issues anywhere in their primary agenda.
I’ll stand on what I stated about gay marriage. Until recently I was for approving civil unions and letting the marriage thing work itself out later. But I’ve heard Gavin Newsom make the point that it’s a civil rights issue and I’m convinced that we head back on the path to pre-1960’s civil rights if we allow discrimination against any citizen. It will create a legal wedge that could be used over time to begin undoing other civil liberties especially when tied in to attempts to overturn Roe v. Wade which would then be followed by assaults on Griswold v. Connecticut prohibiting rights to contraception and other privacy rulings. Yes, that is where I expect they will go next after Roe v. Wade. Observe their obstructions to the morning after pill. They hate social programs but love social engineering.
But then again, when they bring up gun control or flag burning and such, they should be dismissed as paling in importance compared to health care for everyone, minimum / living wages and energy independence in order to fire up the economy and create jobs. I’d love to see the Democratic leadership simply change the subject to the important things when Republicans bring up their hot button fluff issues.
When I first read about the Webb campaign in the news last winter, I looked at its web site to find out Webb’s positions on the issues. I saw nary an issue mentioned. It seemed to be all “Wow, what a snazz-ola candidate!” So what?
I wrote to them asking “what about the candidate’s positions on the issues?” They put me on their mailing list and sent blurbs saying essentially, “Look what a cute and sexy guy!” So I wrote back and said “I asked about the issues, but instead you promote the candidate’s cuteness, that is patronizing. You will lose the votes of thinking women that way.” From then on they had a woman campaign staffer sending me actual policy positions, so I applauded their (eventual) responsiveness.
Shortly before the primary, they sent out an attack message accusing Harris of being a “liberal.” I wrote back to tell them I didn’t like to see Webb talking just like a Republican, unsubscribed from their mailing list, and voted for Harris. I’ll vote for Webb in November, faute de mieux. I don’t believe Allen is invulnerable at all.
I agree with Rabbi Lerner and the Network of Spiritual Progressives that the biggest weakness of Democrats and liberals is their disconnect from spiritual America. There are so many churches out there in the heartland able to connect with liberal voters, this hasn’t been tried since the days of Martin Luther King. The other issue Democrats need to claim for their own is personal liberty, as Hentor the Barbarian said. Winning issue or not, if someone doesn’t stand up and struggle for liberty, our democracy is sunk.
A Virginia-born U.S. citizen, Ehsanul Sadequee, was picked up off the streets of Bangladesh by unidentified armed men, while shopping with his new wife. For days the family had no idea where he was or who was responsible. In apparent violation of Bangladeshi laws regarding treatment of citizens and non-citizens, Ehsanul was kept in custody at unidentified locations for several days, while the law enforcement authorities denied having any knowledge of his whereabouts. Ehsanul was then handed over to the US government, a process called “rendering”, which was only revealed after the US news media broke the story. The circumstances of the transfer to the US, and Ehsanul’s treatment in the course of the transfer, remain unclear. Ehsanul is currently in custody in the Eastern District of New York facing one criminal count of making a false statement to a federal official. His family doesn’t have the money for legal defense. I am deeply outraged that U.S. citizens can be stripped of their rights this way. America is supposed to be all about liberty; when it destroys liberty, where does that leave it?
Why did they arrest him (in Bangladesh) in the first place? Link doesn’t say.
He and somebody else (Syed Haris Ahmed) met three suspected terrorists in Canada and discussed possible targets for a terrorist strike in the US. He’s been charged with making a false statement to the FBI, because he claimed he had never gone to Canada or met with the people.