Life, and politics, is never as simple as the sloganeers suggest.
One of the constant frustrations I have when debating political ideas, or political strategies, has to do with the sloppy way people form their ideas.
If the object of the exercise is to simply rant and rave about all the things that bother you, then actually understanding the issue being discussed is not an essential criteria. Like our friends on the Left, all you need to do is express your feelings about something you believe strongly — tossing in a few opinion-driven weblinks here and there to bolster your position — and there you have it. Instant "analysis", which is supposedly indistinguishable from actual analysis, because the person offering the opinion has no real idea what they are talking about, and can't recognize the difference between the two.
This is the kind of deep, meaningful discussions we've been treated to in the past where people conflate a discussion about the existence of God with the individual tenants of a particular religion. Disprove some aspect of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc. faith-based teachings about God, and you've now supposedly said something profound about whether God in fact exists.
This month, instead of God/religion occupying our thoughts, with the impending mid-term elections we've all become focused on politics. And like the previous example, we're seeing too many supposedly thoughtful people blending and melding concepts that have only surface relationships to one another, so that all that results is angst-driven opinion instead of actual, informed-understandings which lead to actual, real-world strategies.
Without pointing to anyone in particular, let me remind everyone of a few straightforward things that are not emotion based, and actually impact the real world as politics is played out in the United States of America.
- "Political Parties" are not sentient human beings.
Political parties are institutional frameworks. They have internal rules and procedures that allow them to interact with centers of public power (i.e. government institutions) in institutionalized, definable ways.
The political party structure is inhabited by human beings who operate within these frameworks and rules. These human beings are not monolithic. They have different motivations, goals, aims and interests. Depending upon their place in the party structure (local chairman, national chairman, committee member, elected official in charge of X function, etc.), they have different degrees of power and influence.
Like the "Democrat Party", The "Republican Party" is a collection of these institutionalized pockets of power and authority occupied by individuals with varying degrees of competence, motivations, public and hidden agendas, and on and on. In some cases these people come together to rally around candidates for office, as well as put together platforms that express generalized, non-binding ideas about what these individuals believe their party stands for.
Occasionally, as with the Tea Party movement, people outside the party structure can exert influence on people inside the party structure. But if a local, state or national party leader has the institutional power to resist or re-shape these pressures, then he/she may exercise their power in different ways.
All of which leads to the understanding that this is a dynamic, not static process, where institutional power is influenced and exercised in different ways depending upon a variety of factors. It's always a fluid process, with the institutional parameters of party politics the field in which all this plays out.
For those of you who think I've been overly pedantic or deliberately talking down to you by reminding you of these facts, how many times have you used the phrase "The Republican Party is/does/believes X" as if it's (a) an entity, not a structure, and (b) a philosophy, not an institution?
There is no "Republican Party" (or "Democrat Party") apart from everything I described above. It's not a philosophy. It's a vessel with institutionalized power — the power to slate candidates without having to start from scratch in every district in every election, the power to receive public and private funds, the power to organize collectively to express the power its candidates receive in an election, and so forth. Pretending it's an "is, does, or believes" the way an individual or church is, does or believes takes you out of the game, not places you in the game.
And like it or not, politics is a high stakes game, not a romanticized version of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which leads to point #2.
- Power comes through elections, not ideas.
The U.S. system of government is not organized along ideological lines. There is no Conservative or Liberal authority in government: there are elected Republicans, Democrats, and occasional Independents who immediately ally with Republicans or Democrats.
Leaders of the Majority Party will hold political philosophies. Some are reflections of their personal beliefs, others are "forced" upon them by party members, supporters, or reading the tea leaves of public opinion. These individuals who occupy the top rungs of institutional power have the ability to set legislative agendas and otherwise influence the
expression of political power, just as other elected officials can work together to bolster or inhibit the expression of that power.
Again, not to be insufferable about pointing out the obvious, but it does no good to ignore these facts when looking at the political process. Nancy Pelosi has the institutional power to ram a lot of her legislation through the Congress. Not all of it, but a lot of it. This is because she occupies the top slot in the majority party.
To get to that position Nancy was willing to accept the entry of "conservative" Democrats into her party to knock off conservative Republicans in conservative districts. She didn't support these people in liberal districts. She supported liberals in districts that would elect liberal candidates. Instead, she used a few key races to knock off enough Republicans to gain institutional power, and thus implement her agenda.
This is what the chief bureaucrat of the Republican Party Michael Steele has proposed as a strategy for the Republican Party. Elect moderate, even liberal Republican candidates that will not elect conservative candidates. To do this he has to appeal to moderate, even liberal voters in those districts. He isn't trying to pervert an otherwise pure ideology. He's trying to win elections to shift the institutional power in Congress away from the Democrats.
Once the Republican leadership regains power, then all the forces that go into making a party's philosophy come to bear on guiding, reinforcing, or pushing the elected leadership of the Party in a given direction. This is because a party's ideology is the sum total of the people who use that party to gain institutional power; voters and elected officials alike. It isn't written in stone, and it certainly isn't decided by a party platform.
- Elections have consequences
The third lesson of American politics, learned only too well in 2006 and 2008, is that elections have consequences. Ignoring the institutionalized parties to support an ideological candidate is a prescription for electoral defeat, just as pretending that parties are something than what they really are leads to inevitable defeat.
A sound electoral strategy requires one to understand where power is actually located and how it is actually acquired, and then use that knowledge to "play the game" according to real world rules to achieve electoral success. Without success at the ballot box, your ideology is impotent.
- Relating to the Real World
Those who stopped reading a few paragraphs above because you've concluded erroneously that I care nothing about ideology and only want to win elections to gain power are invited back into the discussion, if for no other reason than to apply what I said to two real world examples: the upcoming 2009 special election of a New York State congressman, and the gubernatorial race in New Jersey.
Let's take New Jersey first.
As I write this article, the Republican and Democrat candidates are locked in a virtual dead heat. An independent candidate with no real hope of election is in third, with enough votes to swing the election.
People who vote "ideology" in New Jersey, and do this by supporting the Independent, will deny a vote to the Republican Party challenger. If enough people ideologically opposed to Governor Corzine follow this path, Corzine will be re-elected.
Not only this, an "ideological" vote for the Independent candidate will possibly give the election to the candidate (Corzine) with the most ideologically reprehensible views compared to their's. Reagan specifically rejected this approach, preferring to take over the Republican Party rather than run against the two institutionalized parties. He failed in 1976 to gain the party's nomination, and succeeded in 1980.
Put simply, Reagan knew that institutional power lay in the Democrat and Republican parties. He had to capture one or the other not only to win the election, but to govern. It was also not lost on Reagan that a man who couldn't win his own party's primary was unlikely to convince the voters of that party, and the other main party, to elect him in November.
Parties control power in Washington. Ignoring the institutionalized party structure and running an ideological campaign is a prescription for defeat — not only for your candidacy, but for anything close to your ideas. If Ralph Nader was not on the ballot in Florida in 2000, Al Gore would have received that state's electoral votes, and been elected President of the United States.
Which brings us to the 23rd Congressional District in New York State.
The main feature about this election, apart from being a special election, is that there was no primary battle for the nomination. Doug Hoffman did not have the opportunity to run as a Republican, so he ran as an independent.
Remembering what I said above about conservative candidates in liberal districts, NY 23 is not a liberal district. Whatever reason local party leaders had in selecting a liberal Republican to run against a liberal Democrat, it wasn't because the district was left-oriented. Hoffman has tapped into an existing conservative base that is giving him a real chance of electoral success.
Should Hoffman succeed, he has indicated that he will organize with the Republican Party, and in all probability run for re-election as a Republican. Hoffman, in effect, is Joe Lieberman — who was denied his party's nomination through an institutional sleight of hand, and won as an Independent who immediately sided with his former party.
The only real curiosity about the New York Congressional race is that electing the Republican nominee will add to the Republican Party's numbers. But since it is a special election, and the Republicans need more than one seat to regain institutional power, this addition is meaningless. If it was 2010, and this election could mean the difference between Republicans regaining power and Nancy Pelosi retaining power, as odious as it would be to elect Scozzafava, that might be the strategic choice. Scozzafava would be our Blue Dog Equivalent, a liberal who made conservative leadership possible. This would mean, however, that Hoffman had run and lost in the Republican primary, which means that Republican voters in that district would be moderate or liberal, thus making Hoffman's candidacy counterproductive. Context matters.
Just looking at the 23rd District in New York and the gubernatorial race in New Jersey, it's evident that the actual process of politics is infinitely more complex than dwelling on whether the Republican party is "conservative enough", and insisting as some have that all Republican candidates for office must be "conservative" regardless of the district they run in.
We'll never elect a Sam Johnson Republican in Massachusetts, but we could elect a Rudy Giuliani Republican. With enough Rudys in otherwise moderate or liberal districts, the Republicans will regain institutional power, which means deposing Nancy and Harry and everything they stand for.
It is true that with enough Rudys in Congress, the Republican leadership will never institute a fully conservative agenda. But I'd settle for 80% today, instead of the 20% we get through the Democrat Blue Dogs who keep Nancy in check.
And then, in between election, as the Tea Parties have shown, we can use that time to help create a more favorable terrain in moderate and liberal districts to elect better candidates to maintain the Republican majority, and help push the conservative agenda to 85 or 90%.
All of which leads to the final point in understanding American politics.
A party's philosophy is not the product of some bureaucrat like Michael Steele broadening the base to win elections we'd otherwise lose running a conservative candidate. Steele's job isn't to formulate political philosophy, it's to craft a winning electoral strategy.
The Republican Party philosophy comes from the activists in the party who make their voices heard at the ballot box in primary elections, at Tea Parties and other events in between elections, and through donating funds to candidates running for office.
It is a constantly changing, constantly fluctuating, constantly evolving thing which can be steered but never dictated. You demand ideological purity at your own risk of losing the very thing you aspire to achieve: the ability to influence the creation, and exercise, of national policy.
Note to all: I wrote this last Thursday before Scozzafava withdrew. Although the specifics of that race have changed (as life often does), the principles I spoke about are essentially unchanged. NY 23 is not a liberal district, so there’s no need to support a moderate Republican candidate to add to the party’s numbers.
Phillip,
I agree with your overall premise that political parties are not sentient and are driven by ‘institutionalized’ frameworks. As such; these parties have platforms, but not ideals. Having said that; I also believe that Republicans are more easily ‘kept-on-the-reservation’ so to speak because the ‘composite institutionalized expression’ of those ‘pockets-of-power’ are a little more closely aligned.
The opposition however; is an amalgamation of single interest, self described, ‘victim’s groups’; none of which have any compunction over throwing any and all other groups to the wolves in order to achieve their personal vision.
This is proven out by the difficulty both the House Speaker and the Senate Majority Leader are having with their fellow Democrats over health care legislation. They care not what the costs are to individual candidates in 2010; the only interest is moving the country so far leftward with single payer health care that recovery of the original agreement between the government and the citizen will be impossible to re-introduce.
My theory is that this party ‘institutionalization’ is subject to the inverse square law. The farther downstream from Washington you get, the less effect it has; and conversely the greater the effect of groups of concerned citizens may be.
People are much more apt to vote straight tickets in national elections than they are in off-year contests. Front runner or not; there are coat tails of a certain length that belong to all ‘national’ candidates. If one enters the ballot booth during a presidential contest, that person is more likely to vote to give party support to his favored candidate.
In an off-year election I believe people to be more circumspect and therefore more likely to subject a candidate’s record to detailed scrutiny. This would tend to explain the majorities won by Democrats in 2008; and why those majorities stand an excellent opportunity of eroding in 2010.
This is why I believe; that while the T.E.A. Party activists will have a slight discernable effect on the Halls of Congress; their collective influence is more likely to be felt in 2010 in the races for the Governorships, State Houses, and County Boards. I believe that the results of the Governor races in Virginia and New Jersey bear this out.
So while such a situation leaves one with little opportunity to immediately influence institutionalized political power on the national level; such a ‘grass roots’ movement may, during an off-year election, bring to light change of such significance that the ensconced party power groups will be forced to take note and alter course accordingly before the next general election is contested.
Bill: I agree completely. What is happening today has a great chance of influencing the course of things in 2010. This is the time a party rebuilds, or reinforces, its collective ideology to give dominance to one view or another.
The outcome of the elections yesterday will send a strong message to the Democrat rank and file that there is great dissatisfaction in the country with their governance. It’s also a wake up call to some segments of Republican party leadership that are fighting this trend instead of capitalizing on it. The NY 23 fiasco is good illustration of the people overturning the local Republican party leadership’s decision by voting with their feet. Even though Hoffman didn’t win, he clearly struck a responsive chord in that district. It’s now up to the citizens of that district to compel the existing leadership to change their ways, or change that leadership by replacing them with more sympathetic voices. Hoffman will be back in 2010 as the Republican nominee, and I think he’ll stand a good chance of winning then.
With enough “Hoffmans” ready to challenge the old guard in these still-conservative areas, we can increase the number of conservative Republicans in Congress. For the liberal and moderate districts, I still say we’re better served by electing someone there who can take the seat away from the Democrat instead of focusing on ideology If the TEA parties do their job right, those districts will begin to change (like the states of Virginia and New Jersey changed), and we’ll be able to field stronger conservative candidates in the future.
Change comes from the people, not the parties.
This falls hand-in-hand with the Democrats who in the same breath say that the recent elections in Virginia and New Jersey don’t matter while continuing to try to influence the future positions of their opposition.
They have little chance to reconcile the glaring separations between their own constituencies; so the obvious ploy is to attempt to create the same disruptive separations within the opposition.
Reference Virginia Representative Jim Moran’s recent attack aimed at the Republican candidates for both governor and attorney general in Virginia. He referred to them as the ‘Taliban Ticket’.
Consider NYT Columnist Frank Rich’s comments about the ‘Jacobin’ nature of the Republicans in NY-23 for failing to accept Dede Scozzafava as their standard bearer. He called them ‘Stalinists’ who had joined a ‘putsch’.
And senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett told ABC’s “This Week” that the grassroots conservative-vs.-GOP leadership battle over NY-23 showed that the Republican Party leadership was “becoming more and more extreme, and more and more marginalized.” And believe me, she is an expert on marginalized extremists.
Progressive associates of our current president and their accomplices in the MSM are missing no opportunity to try to drive home a point; that conservatism cannot succeed. That there is no room for any but ‘moderate; (read beatable) Republicans. When extremists such as Valerie Jarrett start pigeon-holing as yet unnamed conservatives as to ‘extremist’ to win, you can be certain they are deeply concerned about their continued political existence if such candidates do indeed appear.
There is another phenomenon that I haven’t heard discussed regarding these races: low voter turnout usually favors the Republican candidate. In 2008 in New Jersey, there were 3.9 million votes cast for president; there were just over 2.3 million votes cast in the Christie/Corzine/Daggett race – 40% fewer.
The story is the same in Virginia where in 2008, there were 3.7 million cast for president; in the McDonald/Deeds race, only 2 million votes were cast, a whopping 47% fewer.
It appears the question might still be open as to whether these latest elections are a bad omen for the Democrats in general.
sedonaman,
Presidential elections almost always draw far more voters than off-year local and state elections. So I think a more fair comparison would be the previous off-year election turnout to the present. It may not be that lower voter turnout favors the Republicans, but simply that the then-popularity of candidate Obama with independents combined with the higher voter turnout typical of a presidential election combined to create an unusually favorable environment for Democrats.
I hate to just repeat the same old arguments that we’ve had here a million times before, but while I agree with Phil’s pragmatic view of the obtainment and exercise of political power, I have to wonder at what point you stop getting a large enough return on your investment to continue supporting a party that isn’t reflective of your ideals. From a purely utilitarian standpoint, getting 5% of your agenda is better than getting 0% of your agenda, but the difference at that point is so negligible that it seems pointless to even engage in the process. Of course, in reality this isn’t quite the case yet, it’s just interesting to contemplate the limits of utilitarian ideological horse trading in party politics.
Patrick. The problem is, in an institutionalized two party system, there are only two real choices.
If neither party meets the needs of the voters, then the only option is for the people to rally behind new leaders (like Reagan between 1976-80) who will “take over” one of the two parties. Any other strategy (i.e. supporting or creating a third party) won’t be successful on a national level.
If the best you can get from this exercise is 5% of your agenda, you either need to work harder between elections to convince more people that your ideology is the correct one, or re-think your ideology. 5% is a lot different than 75% — which still isn’t 100%. But in the real world, no one ever gets everything they want.
Sedonaman,
Allow me to offer my take on the recent elections. I’d like to focus on NY-23.
Nancy Pelosi, when asked about the election results said; “As far as I know, in special elections in those states, Democrats secured two congressional seats, expanding their majority in congress. These victories would help Democrats pass health care reform this year.”
David Axelrod said; “… The New York contest for the 23rd Congressional District was the one race that was really a microcosm of the national debate A Democrat hasn’t held that seat for 140 years. … I think that sends a strong message.” They are both wrong and what’s more, they know it.
NY-23 was a microcosm alright, a microcosm of the current democrat strategy to marginalize stalwart conservative candidates. Democrats were overwhelmingly successful in selecting their national opponent in 2008. John McCain was touted as a conservative that democrats could actually work with, a maverick who bucked the party line, and no great friend of George Bush. They sold him as the ‘Anti George Bush’ and the electorate bought into it. This went hand-in-hand with the democrat strategy that said that far-right conservative values have ceased to be relative. McCain was the republican candidate, and lost convincingly.
Democrats said “Conservatism equates to Fascism. It is a tired position of the past and no longer a winning strategy. Conservatives must moderate their message or they will continually lose.”
NY-23 proves exactly the opposite. This district is overwhelmingly conservative. The Republican Party did not hold a primary here. Instead they instituted the ‘democratic’ playbook for conservative candidates. The Republican Party apparatus sought to “lead” by following, and chose the extremely liberal Republican Assembly Woman Dierdre Scozzafava to run for the seat. By running a pro-abortion, pro-gun control, pro-deficit spending Republican; they sought to prove the democrat talking points correct.
Conservatives were outraged. Doug Hoffman, a true conservative chose to run as an independent but campaigned openly on his conservative values and never passed up an opportunity to ridicule the current Washington Administration. 96 hours before the election Dierdre Scozzafava couldn’t take the heat any longer and withdrew from the race. 24 hours later, at the behest of Rep. Steve Israel, a Long Island Democrat, she actually endorsed her opponent, Democrat Bill Owens over the conservative Doug Hoffman.
Owens went on to win the election; 49% to 45%, a 4 point margin. This race, in a nutshell actually proves the direct opposite of what democrats have been saying for years. An unabashed conservative runs, without party support, in a staunchly conservative district: And after being thrown under the bus by the declared republican ‘powers-that-be’, still manages to close the margin to 4 points in a special election.
If I were Bill Owens, I wouldn’t be signing any long term apartment leases in Washington DC. Hoffman will be back in 2010 and Owens is toast.
This is the dirty little secret that democrats don’t want us to learn: Conservatism works every time it’s tried! If we stick to our guns, they lose. It’s when we compromise with them that they win.
Do you have to nuance the message to appeal to independents? Of course you do. The trick is to engage them in conversation as often as possible. Emphasize the common ground. This current administration’s affinity for ‘social justice’, income distribution, entitlement expansion, and deficit spending, is a ‘death knell’ to independent voters.
The results of the elections of 2009 equate almost exactly to the election results recorded in 1993: And we all know what happened in 1994.
As I understand it, the NY 23 seat has switched parties a number of times in the past century.
Nancy can have this “victory”, which as Bill said was no victory at all. The trend is fast moving away from the dangerous policies of the fanatical Left, which she and Obama represent. If conservatives continue to stay focused on winning elections instead of becoming consumed by occasional distractions about who is (or isn’t) pure enough to be a Republican, 2010 will indeed be like 1994.
All politics is local. The constituents of NY 23 will sort it out in 2010 and elect Hoffman as a Republican. If we’re smart about how we organize and proselytize in other districts as well, we can see a massive shift in the balance of power in Washington. But again to point out the obvious as the broken record I am on this subject, we can’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good. I’ll take a Rudy Giuliani Republican in a moderate or Liberal district any day over another Barney Frank or that dufus in Orlando who’s been in the news lately.
Patrick:
Re: “So I think a more fair comparison would be the previous off-year election turnout to the present.”
Here I disagree because the question as I understand it, is, has support for 0bama declined? Therefore, in order to determine that, you would have to compare races in which 0bama was either a candidate or a factor of some sort. Comparison of these with off-year elections would not be comparing apples with apples in this case because there is no previous off-year election in which he was a figure of national influence.
Re: “It may not be that lower voter turnout favors the Republicans, but simply that the then-popularity of candidate 0bama with independents combined with the higher voter turnout typical of a presidential election combined to create an unusually favorable environment for Democrats.”
Sounds like you are saying, in a roundabout way, that lower turnout does favor Republicans.
Bill:
Only 96 hours before the election was undoubtedly too late to remove her name from the ballot. I wonder how many voted for her not knowing she dropped out.
Political parties may be institutional frameworks, but they’re also businesses – or, at a minimum, they function like a business. The Republican Party, couched as a business, isn’t a perennial winner like General Electric, they’re more like General Motors and pragmatists need to recognize that business models can go off track and going off track can have undesirable consequences. Like political parties, businesses also engage in rhetoric laced with high flowing sound bites and flowery verbiage (see the recent Chrysler news conference). However, underlying the rhetoric, it’s always about revenue and cash flow – survival depends only on those two variables. The marketing plan of any well-run business attempts to steer the firm toward favorable revenue and cash flow as high level strategic goals, the talk of market segments, new products or services, differentiation, branding, etc. are all tactics used to serve the strategic goals.
Analyzing political parties as businesses, there are two classes of customers who use these businesses, the “special interests” willing to put their money where their mouth is and the spear carriers, those who vote but aren’t major contributors. The Wall St. Journal’s Michael Barone reports, for example, that unions contributed $400 million last year to the Democrats, $60 million alone from the Service Employees Intl Union. The Democrats respond to their major customers with engineered bailouts for GM and Chrysler (aka the UAW) and major TARP charity to state governments and education in their ill disguised rescue attempt to undo consequences of the 2008 financial meltdown the majority blamed on Bush. The revenue and cash flow sources are no secret, money is all important to the Parties – and the Parties understand they must respond. For the spear carriers, it’s a Democratic Party mixed bag of freebies ranging from extended unemployment benefits to govt. paid health care. The spear carriers don’t contribute, they don’t pay to vote either but they do provide the numbers needed to bring about the all important victory and keep the special interests contributing to the Party’s coffers – the fat cats provide the fuel, the spear carriers provide the engine.
Turning to the Republicans, it’s hard to define their marketing plan in actionable terms. Saying: “Vote for us, at least we’re not Democrats” isn’t an unknown marketing tactic (see, for example, drink California wines, at least we’re not French) – but it lacks a positive message the spear carriers can embrace at any emotional level beyond base anger at and fear of what the Democrats might do. American senior citizens have occupied a ring side seat witnessing the leftward drift of American government over the past 60 to 70 years. Any talk the Republicans will actually reverse this decades long trend is absurd. So, what’s left to offer as market differentiation to the voters?
What’s left is to go with the flow, as the center of political gravity moves left, the Republican Party also moves left in an effort to maintain dominance over the center. “Compassionate conservatives”, bringing minorities into the party, etc. are ways to attract new customers. But such a long term strategy ignores the short term – and the short term is what pragmatists say matters the most. Given power by the electorate, each Party contains the seeds of their own destruction. That the Democrats under Obama will self-destruct due solely to their own actions is a given, the question is merely how soon. If Conservatives should vote Republican because they have no other pragmatic choice, the same is true for angry Democrats as well. But “voting for the other guy” isn’t a positive marketing strategy, it’s simply a fact of human nature – whimsical and hard to control.
In the business world, you don’t reward companies dying due to lack of competent management and moribund marketing plans. You change leaders, you change marketing plans – sometimes it doesn’t work, it can’t slow the downward spiral. Customers sense the desperation and overall cluelessness of the floundering business and begin to look favorably on the competition. But, unlike the markets, our two political parties won’t simply wither away without a fight, they hate any change in the political landscape’s status quo, they fight to preserve the familiar enemy who forms the basis of both their philosophical and pragmatic actions. Somehow the Republican Party must develop a marketing plan with a positive ring – “at least we’re not Democrats” will only take you so far. If the money stops flowing to the Republicans, the music also stops and the dance is over.
Pat: Good addition to the discussion. I’d offer one caveat, though.
These “businesses” (the Dem and Rep parties) are not just businesses, they’re monopolies. Moreover, they’re 19th century monopolies, like the railroads were.
If you need to get from point X to point Y, you have only two choices. Choice #3 isn’t ‘build a new railroad’. And since there aren’t any real competitors, the only other real world option is walk or ride a horse the 5000 miles across country.
In other words, as monopolies, we the public have limited ‘vote with our feet’ options. We either accept what we have as the best we can get in each individual (think “District”) situation, or we organize collectively (think the TEA parties), or individually (think Reagan), to reshape the party.
This is the kind of deep, meaningful discussions we’ve been treated to in the past where people conflate a discussion about the existence of God with the individual tenants of a particular religion.
I think I remember some of those discussions, if I am thinking about the same ones that you are. Probably not, because I don’t think I ever made the conflation you describe above.
In the ones I am recollecting, I (and others) simply pointed out that your various beliefs about God’s mind and behavior (i.e., that He instilled into all humans, at birth, some type of specific moral code) seemed quite religious in nature, albeit a rather idiosyncratic religion.
But I’m probably attaching too much importance to my meager contributions to IC’s community. I imagine you were thinking of something else entirely. My apologies if I am being overly self-referential.
Best regards,
Ozzie
By the way, once we get past the non sequiturs about religiosity and Dr. Jackson’s pet theory (presented again with no supporting evidence) that Liberals rely upon ‘feelings’ to a greater extent than Conservatives in formulating political positions, this essay makes a good deal of sense.
Oz
Oz:
No proof? In case it hasn’t been mentioned before, Phil’s series, “The Loony Liberal Chronicles” begins here:
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2006/the-loony-liberal-chronicles-chapter-1/#comments
Ozzie is back and as clueless as ever. First thing he does is go off-topic about religion. Hmm, I guess that exchange must have really uncovered some deep-seated issues? Classic defense mechanism.
Phil:
You’re right, although 19th century railroads may not be an apt metaphor, there was a 3rd choice in travel, invent an automobile or an airplane. But there are no technologocal breakthroughs with human beings, we remain unchanged over the centuries and must cling to the status quo during the good times and lead bloody revolts during the bad times.
In politics, Americans will steadily gravitate toward socialism, following our elder brothers and sisters in Europe; psychologically, we have no choice in that regard. Republicans and Democrats will remain beloved enemies, protecting each other from the chaos of “populist” movements and upstart political parties.
Unless some political Napoleon can mobilize the spear carriers in their vast millions to vote for his or her handpicked candidates, the fat cats among the special interests won’t contribute the money to grow a new Party. Without the money, a New Party can’t reach the spear carriers with the call for a peaceful revolt at the ballot box.
It’s a vicious circle that guarantees the continuation of the status quo, but I think voters are starting to recognize this dismal reality and resent both parties equally. Yes, protect us from Pelosi and Reid, they’ll raise our taxes and re-distribute the money to those Democrats who don’t pay taxes. But, then again, the Republicans made our 401-K’s disappear, an application of dark magic which caused the spear carriers to wonder just how much the Republicans are in thrall to the special interests. Or, was it a case of Larry, Moe and Curly Republicans playing pocket pool while the Wall St. “playahs” looted the economy? Each interpretation is equally disturbing.
But as long as the current system maintains a semblance of rational govt. and carefully avoids the economic catastrophes which lead to angry and desperate revolutions, you’re absolutely correct – the monopolies will continue their Yin vs. Yang hold over the voters.
This is a little off topic, but has anyone been following the recent man-made disaster in Texas? I understand thirteen people where killed, and a number of others hurt. Somehow the object responsible for the man-made disaster (who was shouting Allah Akbar when the man-made disaster occurred) didn’t die, which I guess is a good or bad thing depending upon how many disappointed virgins there are in Heaven or Hell — depending upon where he was actually going vs. where he thought he was headed.
But anyway, given the fact that it’s a “man-made disaster” (not a terrorist act) that was responsible for killing all those people, I guess we should start checking all our man-made bridges and dams to make sure they’re not responsible. I mean, it’s only been 8 years from 9-11, and I wouldn’t want to draw any hasty, stereotypical, bigoted conclusions about the type of man that causes these man-made disasters.
Mountain Man snarls:
Ozzie is back and as clueless as ever.
Oh, you’re terribly mistaken, MM. I’m even more clueless than ever before.
(Yet still, I seem to win every round.)
Oz
Ozzie,
When you’re done boxing your religious straw man, let me know.
You must live in the same dream world as Pelosi: “From our perspective we won last night,” Pelosi told reporters…
From my perspective you have yet to act like an adult.
Phil:
I once heard a MSM news reporter make the politically correct statement, “This family was a victim of domestic violence” as though it struck from the sky as lightning would, and therefore no one was responsible. And so, since liberals* have promulgated the idea that no one is responsible for their actions, I wonder where their* idea of “man-made” disasters came from.
* This assumes that MSM reporters are liberals.
An accusation from Mountain Man:
When you’re done boxing your religious straw man, let me know.
Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to be in the position of using straw man arguments!
That would make me a hypocrite, since I’ve gone as far as renaming this site “Intellectual Con-STRAW-vative” — due to the preoponderance of that particular fallacious tactic on this board. In my opinion, of course.
So, help me out of this jam, Mountain Man. Explain in what way I have employed a straw man argument, and I shall promptly correct it, if true.
Oz
Religious straw man is what I wrote. I did not say you made a straw man argument. The point is that you have a caricature of religious people that has little basis in reality.
Your persistent immature tactics (“No I’m not, you are!”) Are diversionist and puerile. You do nothing to advance the debate. You fail to adress the substantial points of others’ arguments.
You have already said that you are making this up as you go along, whereby I conclude that nothing you say carries any weight or validity.
And with a self-satisfied wave of your hand you conclude that you have “won.”
Fantastic. Go home.
Mountain man complains as follows:
The point is that you have a caricature of religious people that has little basis in reality.
I do? I don’t recall saying anything about religious people that could be reasonably called a ‘caricature’. I may have said some dismissive things about certain types of religious fundamentalists (ie, young earth creationists, evolution-deniers), but in general, I have nothing against religious people and don’t believe I’ve caricatured them or have a straw man construction of them. Where did I do that?
The distinction between having (and presumably describing) a ‘religious straw man’ and ‘making a straw man argument’ seems as thin as homeopathic soup to me. But perhaps I just lack the capacity to make fine distinctions.
You’ve previously accused me of failing to address the substance of arguments. I’ve asked for an example sixty times now, at least, and yet you remain oddly reticent. Probably it’s doomed to ask you again to substantiate it once again, but I am nothing if not a cock-eyed optimist.
Oz
Being lectured about “the capacity to make fine distinctions” by a man so stupid or incapable of comprehension that he read an article about pragmatism in electoral strategy as it relates to a political party and took half a sentence of it which was intended to be nothing more than a passing comparative reference and tried to turn it into a serious point of debate is ironic beyond hilarity. The best advice that can be offered as it relates to Oz is don’t feed the trolls
the question as I understand it, is, has support for 0bama declined? Therefore, in order to determine that, you would have to compare races in which 0bama was either a candidate or a factor of some sort.
In that sense, yes, your comparison would probably be the better one. I was thinking in terms of whether, as a demographic matter, in absolute terms, lower voter turnout generally favors Republicans.
Sounds like you are saying, in a roundabout way, that lower turnout does favor Republicans
What I meant is better understood given the context I was thinking in – which I mentioned above. What I was saying was that Obama may have been a “spoiler” in the 2008 elections, such that the phenomenon you observe (lower turnout favoring Republican candidates) may have been the exception and not the rule. That is why I said it may be more instructive to observe this trend over a longer historical electoral timeline.
If neither party meets the needs of the voters, then the only option is for the people to rally behind new leaders (like Reagan between 1976-80) who will “take over” one of the two parties. Any other strategy (i.e. supporting or creating a third party) won’t be successful on a national level…If the best you can get from this exercise is 5% of your agenda, you either need to work harder between elections to convince more people that your ideology is the correct one, or re-think your ideology.
I understand that, but my fear is precisely the consequence you observe: “If the best you can get…is 5%, you need to work harder…or re-think your ideology”. If, indeed, a demographic shift, such as what Pat Skurka describes, takes place and we find conservative/limited government/individual rights/constitutionalist ideology in an absolute minority such that we cannot convince either party to represent it any better than, say, 5%, our only option is to “re-think our ideology”. That, for me, is not a real option at all. The ideology is either good or it isn’t, regardless of whether or not it is popular. If we get to such a point, we are stuck with the tyranny of the majority and are essentially unable to participate in the traditional political process. As I said, this obviously isn’t the case… yet. But if it did get to that point, it would test the theoretical limits of pragmatism in this area.
Patrick Mulligan fulminates:
Being lectured about “the capacity to make fine distinctions” by a man so stupid or incapable of comprehension that he read an article about pragmatism in electoral strategy as it relates to a political party and took half a sentence of it which was intended to be nothing more than a passing comparative reference and tried to turn it into a serious point of debate is ironic beyond hilarity.
Hi Patrick! My stupidity and incapacity of comprehension is legendary, I admit. As far as you know, anyhow.
The reason I responded to Dr. Jackson’s non sequitur about religion is because it is the only part of the article that seemed even vaguely interesting.
By the way, Patrick, remember that thread where you claimed that I and “my friends” despised David Petraeus?
And then, I asked you to provide the slightest evidence of that? And then you waited a long time, and then said nothin’? Any luck yet substantiating your baseless accusation?
I’m drawing the conclusion that my actual arguments are so bullet-proof that you guys are reduced to making random, baseless accusations that you can’t back up in any way. That’s why I’ve renamed you ‘Intellectual Con-Straw-vative’.
Because you have to make up stuff. In case that’s not obvious. I’m probably over-explaining now, sorry.
Thanks Patrick!
Oz
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2009/04/06/danners-fury/
On ‘Danner’s Fury’, Patrick hurtfully inquired:
Is that the same “General Betray Us” who Ozzie and friends have scapegoated as the warmongering master of torture? Curious choice for a new spokesman.
And Ozzie Mandies responded:
Hi Patrick!
Kindly provide the slightest evidence of your claim that I have scapegoated Petaeus as a ‘warmongering master of torture.’
If that is too challenging, please provide any evidence that I have ever criticized the General in any way whatsoever. Or that any of ‘my friends’ have.
My goodness, Patrick, I hope this is not yet another example of the dominant debating style on Intellectual Con-straw-vative: being unable to cope with the actual arguments of your opponent, instead attribute extremely asinine views to your opponent and argue against THOSE views–the ones that you’ve just confabulated. Because that’s a lot easier, I imagine.
For the record, I think General Petraeus is a brilliant military leader. From what I’ve seen, I’m proud as hell of him. And so are all of ‘my friends’.
Moveon.org is no friend of mine, sorry.
Oz
And then Patrick responded:
ERROR#54 At GoSub RespAccusation
DIV by Zero Error
FATALERR EndProg
Oz,
Do you remember in the same discussion when I asked whether you had been abducted by extraterrestrial aliens? And Oz responded:
ERROR#003 At RespTroll
INVALID_INPUT
TROLLERR /troll
Yes, I think I DO recall that, Patrick. It was really funny, both times. Good one.
Oz