Politics

It’s not entirely unexpected, I suppose.  My suggestion that Democrats should moderate their views generated a bit of heat from the readership (including this thoughtful response by our own Hilzoy) — most of it from Democrats, and most of it against me.  However perilous, though, I’m gonna continue the fight because I think I’m right:  Democrats need to turn to the right in order to have a chance in the next election.  Here’s why:

1.  "Turn to the right" is often taken to mean a turn to the right on social issues — a problem compounded by the visibility of the gay marriage issue this time around.  But social issues are only a part of it (and not the largest part).

(cont.)

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I’ve been off doing non-political things since I last wrote (psychological coping mechanisms at work.) Now that I’m back, I’d like to add my voice to the chorus of those who say that Democrats should not try to move further to the right. I think this for several reasons.

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Lotsa folks seem to think this missive applies mostly to the Bush administration; if y’all want to keep your "reality-based" hats on after the election, though, you’ll see that it applies equally (if not moreso) to the Democrats.

This, it seems to me, would go a long way to admittin’ the mistake and startin’ the correctin’ process.  He’s the guy who gets it.  What’s "it"?  Well:  Republicans win when they run to the right.  Democrats win when they run to the right.  See a pattern? 

Update:  Our loyal commenteers are politely, but persistently, telling me to shove it.  The general objection (but by no means the only objection) is that if Democrats become Republican-lite, Republicans will become Republican-heavy.   I don’t think that should be much of a concern, however.

First, if you stop by RedState, you’ll see that Republicans are already well on their way to heavy-dom.  They want to purge Specter.  Chafee can go to Hell.  They’re calling Richard Lugar, R-Ind., a RINO.  (Perhaps they’re unaware that, until January 2004, Lugar voted with President Bush 100 percent of the time.)  The swing to the hard right has already begun, and it’s starting to get really uncomfortable for Republican-sympathancs such as myself.

Second, always keep in mind that most of the country is not hard-right.  It’s center-right — and that includes most RedStates.  Case in point:  Tom Coburn couldn’t win a schoolboard seat in most Indiana counties, and this is a state that the networks called for Bush while the polls were still open.  The right kind of Democrat — a moderate — does quite well here,* and even better elsewhere in the Midwest (like, say, Ohio.  And Missouri.  And Iowa.  Et al.).

A Democrat will not sweep the Old South or the Rocky mountain states in our lifetime, just as a Republican won’t sweep the Northeast or California.  The Midwest (of which, bizarrely, Florida seems a part) is the battleground.  For better or worse, the battleground leans right.  Until Democrats figure that out, they’ll have trouble.

Finally, I’m sympathetic to the notion that this may considered "selling the party’s soul."  (Not too sympathetic, though, since I’m not a member of the party and thus not overly enamoured with the soul in question.)  I don’t think it need be taken that far.  Semantics and procedure are your friends here.  You support "civil unions" that are "legislated," not "gay marriages" dictated by "activist judges."  You want to keep abortion "safe, legal, and rare" — and you’re prepared to legislate as much.  (Really, must you fight for an unfettered right to late-term abortions?)  These are simple, swallowable changes that will attract the swing voter — and start swinging elections your way.

But, then, what kind of advice did you expect from ObWi’s putative "centrist"?

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Under the belief that if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, I’m hereby launching a campaign to strengthen and secure the sanctity of marriage in the United States. I’m calling for an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States that will protect this cornerstone of civilization and ensure its definition as found in Judeo-Christian tradition. Under this amendment, marriage in the United States will be defined as between one man and one woman AND it will be binding. As Jesus noted, quoting the Jewish tradition:

What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate….And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 19:3-9)

Therefore, once passed, this amendment will enforce that all Americans live up to their vow before man and/or God to remain married until death do them part. This, and only this, can protect this tradition we hold so important. This, and only this, can end the mockery that passes for marriage in our society today. Nothing threatens our very way of life in this country more than divorce and it must end. Therefore, I’m asking all Americans to join me in this effort. Write your congressmen, write your senators, call your local radio stations, write your local newspapers. Join me in stomping out this modern-age scourge that tears families apart and in the end benefits only the litigious divorce lawyers.

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It has been absolutely clear since my first post that I would vote for the Democratic nominee for President. I would guess most of you also made up your own minds long ago—I would be a little upset with you if you hadn’t. But this is almost certainly the most important election in my life to date, and I find I can’t keep my mouth shut.

I’ve never been able to figure out George W. Bush. I couldn’t figure him out in the 2000 campaign. Here was this man who proclaimed his own compassion, who spoke of his Christian faith with all apparent sincerity—and presided over the Texas capital punishment system, a well-oiled execution assembly line that makes a mockery of equal protection of the law, the right to counsel, and due process of law, and which has probably killed at least one innocent person.

This is the quotation that explains the Bush administration for me, better than any other:

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made”–The Great Gatsby

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As if the nation were not divided enough, Will Collier over at Vodka Pundit goes where angels fear to tread:

For all of us who were repulsed by yesterday’s insufferably-cutesy NY Times bit on catblogging, here’s the indispensible Lileks to remind us that real Americans have dogs.

In all fairness, Kevin Drum did call this upon himself.

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I love a good insult. I’m a bit thicked skinned about them so long as I’m free to fight back with the drunken-sailor language that rolls quite naturally off my tonuge. Given license to let loose, I even enjoy a good gutter-level war of words. I’ve had exchanges in the streets of New York that would make Howard Stern blush. But, as with everything in life, there are times and places such actions are inappropriate.

Back when Arnold Schwarzenegger mocked the California legislators who wouldn’t pass his budget as “girlie men,” I understood the uproar among some folks in the gay community, but never really felt it myself. (In fact, if anyone should have been insulted by that it was women, who in my experience are just as tough negotiators as men and don’t deserve the slur.) Even his RNC taunt to not be “economic girlie men” was more embarassing (must he run every one-liner his writers hand him into the ground?) than insulting.

Of course Arnold’s overall record on gay rights comes into play here, buying him some benefit of doubt that he wasn’t slurring the gay community (again, not everyone will agree with me here), but Arnold’s words may have had an unfortunate side-effect in that they lowered the bar of acceptable rhetoric.

Cut to the Kentucky US Senate race between Republican incumbent Jim Bunning and Democratic challenger Daniel Mongiardo. Top state Republicans campaigning for Bunning have been pushing the envelope on acceptable insults, with regards to slurs generally insinuating homosexuality (via Marshall):

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Now, it seems, is as good a time to get our cards on the table. Not to waver, Cuomo-style. (Or “Hamlet-style” for the Romeo+Juliet under-25 set.) Not to analyze. Not to add, subtract, account, or discourse. Not, especially, to caveat or bemoan or argue. But simply to state, pith-like, our choices.

Here’re mine:

President: John Kerry, Democrat. I prefer the idiot restrained by a Republican Congress over the incompetent enabled by a Republican Congress; and, yes, I may have to get drunk before I can cast my vote.

As for the provinces (and having successfully made the transition from Chicago and Indiana*):

Governor: Mitch Daniels (with 527’s apparently on the brain, I initially typed “McConnell”. Aaargh.) Republican. Over a dozen years of Democrats in the Governor’s mansion, and all Indiana has to show for it are discarded jobs, determined scandals, and a dirty campaign from a guy who should know better (Kernan, the Democratic nominee). Time for a change.

Senator: Evan Bayh, Democrat. A social moderate, fiscal conservative, and foreign policy hawk. My kind of Democrat: the kind who would’ve been a Republican in Chicago.

Congressperson: The libertarian — either the one who’s running as a Libertarian, or the former one who’s running as a Republican. But let’s face it: The race is a lock for Julia Carson (D-Indianapolis), despite her heart troubles. (Indeed, it’s such a lock that I’m considering running as a liberal Republican the next time ’round . . . .)

State Representative: In a race between a guy named Mort Large and another named David Orentlicher, I may pencil in a vote for a “Large Orentlicher.” Failing that, I’m tempted to vote for Orentlicher, the incumbant and Democrat, if only because Orentlicher seems a decent enough chap and Large hasn’t yet given me a reason to change my mind.

So, have at it. This is your “it’s a free country” open thread.

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