Full Disclosure: The interview linked to in this diary was conducted by a friend of mine. I hope that's not against any rules, but Jerry Meek--profiled in "Crashing the Gate", apparently--is an interesting political figure for a number of reasons and says some revealing things about the 2008 election.
For those of you who don't know, Jerry Meek is the current chair of the North Carolina Democratic party, and hence a superdelegate to the DNC. Like Howard Dean, the then-34-year-old Meek was not the choice of the major figures who traditionally name the chairman, but, like Dean, Meek won by appealing directly to the anonymous lower-level officials who typically defer to the biggest names of the party, promising to pour money and attention into what he saw as long-neglected infrastructure ("No county in this state is going to be ignored anymore," he said. "The bottom line is, we cannot continue to win statewide races if we continue to ignore county commissioner races, register of deeds races, and sheriff's races."). With a history like that, it's no surprise Meek came to Dean's defense, when Dean was attacked by Clinton surrogate and Dkos favorite son James Carville after the 2006 election for some fucking reason:
As the Chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, I cannot disagree more strongly with your recent comments regarding Governor Dean. For the past 20 months, we have benefited from having regional field directors across this state, organizing, building, and implementing
ground plans. The results here in North Carolina were tremendous. While your focus seems to be exclusively upon congressional and senatorial races, I'm concerned about all of the races-- including down ballot races...
There is no institution-- other than the DNC-- that is charged with the task of building the Party in the long-term (rather than focusing exclusively on the current election). Howard Dean understands,
correctly, that we need to have an infrastructure in place that creates continuity between elections, allowing for the Party's expansion.
Given Meek's perspective, you'd think he'd be a natural endorser of Barack Obama--the candidate committed to a 50-state registration drive, who organized from Idaho to Alaska to become the Democratic front-runner and whose success has hinged on traditionally-neglected states. (Since Obama's probably going to win North Carolina anyway) But he hasn't, and the interview my friend conducted with him (in, of all places, the Providence Phoenix) gives some hints as to why:
MS: In the May 1, 2006 Philly Inquirer you said:
"In the South, voters think strongly in terms of values. We haven't had presidential candidates lately who can really speak about that from the heart. And the fact is, there's no way you can write off the South if you really want to be president." Having said that, which values were you referring to when you said that? In your opinion, what values does southern political culture uniquely prioritize and why is it the case? In other words, what are the Democrats getting wrong?
JM: I think you need to speak in moralistic terms. We are not very good at that. For example, when we speak about education we will argue it is important to have the opportunity to succeed and to have a good economy. We talk very pragmatically and, for example, the GOP, if they cared about education, would couch it in much more moral terms (i.e. it is wrong for anybody to be denied the ability to develop their god-given ability).
Another example is how we talk about the environment. We talk in very technical terms about the environment in terms of personal health consequences instead of saying that it is wrong to rob our children’s inheritance. A lot of southern voters think in more value laden terms than voters in other areas of the county, to use a gross generalization. Bill Clinton was able to speak in much more value laden terms than other Democrats
[later]
MS: Given these comments, Does Barack Obama need to give a major speech about what America means to him? In other words, about how he defines and lives patriotism in his own life? Similar to his race speech last month
JM: Well, you know, I think the race speech was effective with a very small group of people I think he was able to communicate his views on race very clearly in a cerebral way and, in a way which spoke only to a small segment of the population.
I don't know if this is an accurate characterization of Obama's rhetorical style, but Meek seems to think Obama isn't comfortable with the empathetic, moralizing, broad language needed to appeal to rural and downscale voters. It's odd where the campaign has taken us--at another point, Meek says "[T] he key for Democrats is how do we reach white-working class and white-rural voters? There are two ways to do it – one is the DLC [approach to] move to the right and the other is to develop an alternative which is economic populism. I happen to think the danger of moving further right is to lose the ability to differentiate ourselves from our GOP adversaries. If there is no clear message of difference from the GOP, many of these voters are going to vote Republican." Clinton, of course, is a major figure in the DLC, but ever since John Edwards was around she's appropriated populist language and strategies (however nonsensically).
When asked specifically about populist campaigns:
MS: Can you discuss the southern regional appeal of economic populism as seen in the campaigns of Texan Jim Hightower; Virginian Howell [69] and North Carolinians Hobby [72] and Edwards [99]?
*JM: I would add Kissell in the 8TH district of North Carolina and, Schuler. There tends to be a very populist strain in the south, especially, in rural areas. If you can put together coalition of rural Democrats who ascribe to economic populism with the traditional coalition of African-Americans and high-income, well-educated urban voters then you can put together a pretty strong coalition. It worked pretty well for Kissell in his race against Hayes. He ended up losing but by 300ish votes despite being overwhelmingly overspent. For example, when Kissell’s campaign bank account fell, to, I think it was $82, he would send a press release proclaiming that his account looks like the account of the average North Carolinian.
If you look at his particular phrasing there--putting together rural Democrats with the "traditional coalition of African American and high-income" voters, he seems to implicitly refer to what have come to be known as Hillary Clinton voters and Barack Obama voters, which is probably why he speaks warmly of a joint ticket elsewhere in the interview.
So there you have it. I would have thought Meek would be the world's most natural Obama endorser, but he seems to buy the conventional perception that Obama's appeal skews too upscale and elite to build a winning Democratic coalition. My answer to that is along the lines of "more people have voted for him, if you count Michigan in any sane way", but I suppose that is a different question. I wonder if the same worry is holding back other superdelegates, who would otherwise be drawn to the implications of Obama's clearly-superior organizational chops.