"D.C. is still trapped in 1970s thinking. It is hard for them to realize [the Democratic Party] really [is the] minority party. What they have to understand is that Republicans became a majority party only by being a really effective opposition party."
- Markos, August 2005
What makes you a Democrat? . . . Shuler replied . . . "[a] Democrat helps people that cannot help themselves." What about fiscal responsibility? Earmarks like bridges to nowhere are irresponsible, Shuler replied; instead we should be spending money on education, social security, universal health care, preserving the environment, and renewable energy. In short, what Shuler really cares about, what he was running on, and what he got elected on were progressive policies . . .
George Lakoff
So what did we learn?
Will we be returning to this in 2008?
Obama is doing something pretty rare in latter-day American politics: . . . He's a liberal, but not a screechy partisan. Indeed, he seems obsessively eager to find common ground with conservatives. . . "Obama is reaching out. He's saying the other side isn't evil. . .
In May 2005, I talked to Jim McDermott about The Common Good:
Armando:I tell you right now that just hearing that, I am not someone who is really focused on the health care issue, but your description just now really got to me and it makes me wonder why we have gotten away from that issue -- Democrats, and this is in the context of a clearly political calculation on my part here, and I know what you spoke from was heartfelt and absolutely correct, it's just not an issue that I fought about or is something I have focused on, because I'm selfish just like everybody else, I'm lucky. I have my job, I have my health care and haven't thought about it but your description of it just now really got to me on and it makes me wonder if Dems are using it properly.
McDERMOTT: But you are absolutely right and, you see, I mean, by the way if there's anything that's lost, that we've lost in the last for awhile, it's being the sense of the common good. You are honest enough to tell me that that's exactly how you thought. You are thinking about yourself. I've got a job, I've got health care, I've got, you know, I'm doing OK, so it's not a problem. Well Reagan started us down the road, not that he was the first, but he was the one that articulated best when he said: "are you better off this year than you were last year or four years ago?" The question should be are we better off than we were four years ago and the fact is that as a country and as a people and as a middle-class, we are not. Our salaries aren't going up, are ability to buy a house, you realize if we have any kind of financial problem in this country and we suddenly have to deal with rising interest rates, all those young people out there who have a house with an adjustable mortgage on it, you could have this thing jump 3%. I'm fixed rate, I'm not going to change but if you are young person and you have to take an arm to get into the house, you are in real danger, and jumping interest rates plus $2.50 gasoline, health care problems, job problems - and that's why I think the biggest thing that's missing in the democratic party is that we have lost the idea of the common good. That's what Franklin Delano Roosevelt was going with social security, he's saying look, this is the worst that's ever been in this country but we would get together and we will find the way to help our old people in this country get back on their feet and we've driven down the poverty among senior from 50% to 10% and it's not all gone, is not perfect, is not the best system in the world, but it's going in the right direction and herein comes the President who says "we have to get rid off that, we want to put you on in the ownership society." What he means is that we want to put you out on your own and that's splitting again the idea of the common good. We put Social Security together, he wants to put us back on our own dealing with the stock market and from my point of view, my 401K tells me that I ain't smart enough to get rich investing, so, maybe somebody else, but I don't want to take the chance, I want to know that if everything goes to pieces, I'll always have my Social Security.
Armando: I have to tell you my first reaction ... you talk about the theme of the common good, it is very powerful, I think you really hit on something there congressman. It is powerful ...
McDERMOTT: The more you live, the more you become wary of the guy selling snake oil and ... I always tell a story about my grandfather, you know, my grandfather back in the 20s the big thing was electricity and there was a guy named Sam Insull in Chicago, where I was born and raised. He was putting together all his electrical conglomerates and he ultimately put together Commonwealth Edison, but they were selling stock for this stuff and they came down in central Illinois where my grandfather, who had a second-grade education, and his wife came over and she said Jim, we've got to buy some of that Sam Insull's stock, my brother is getting rich and they are going to be millionaires, we are not going to have anything, and he said well Jane I'll tell you what, go out to the State Bank, we've got $500 down there, half of it is yours, you can buy that stock. He said, while you're walking down there, just remember or ask yourself the question, why are those tycoons from Chicago down here selling that stuff in the cornfields to people like you and me? She never bought any stock and her brother went broke.
Jim McDermott communicated more Democratic core values in that short ramble than Barack Obama has in all his speeches combined. And he did not search for common ground with extremist Republicans. And that won the election in 2006. Ezra Klein wrote:
So the Obama hype has been a bit puzzling to many. Myself, at times, included. But watch this video of the speech he gave in New Hampshire. Just watch five minutes of it. It's one of the most remarkable addresses I've ever seen, and, in its soft and irresistible way, it explains the whole of the buzz. In possibly the most telling section, he gives a great riff on health care, which manages to totally inspire while not actually saying anything sweeping or controversial. Watching it, you'd swear he just promised the stars, the sky, and universal insurance, when he really just committed to electronic records. And yet, you scarcely mind, if you even noticed. That's some powerful political mojo.
Perhaps. But what did it say about Democratic values? And what will it say when Republicans start tearing him to pieces? Will there be common ground then?
I am a broken record on this:
And that is FDR's lesson for Obama. Politics is not a battle for the middle. It is a battle for defining the terms of the political debate. It is a battle to be able to say what is the middle.
And I believe Hofstadter recognized this as well. Hofstadter understood what was liberalism's triumphs and how they were achieved and how they could be defeated. Hofstadter would have understood so well that the Republican triumphs since Goldwater are not ideological "ideas" victories but rather victories of the psychological paranoid style - the "What Is The Matter With Kansas" question.
FDR governed as a liberal but politicked like a populist. When LBJ rightly and to his everlasting credit removed one of the Dem pillars of paranoia - racism, the GOP co-opted populist racism, added the Jeffersonian notion of government and institutional hatred, throw in a dash of paranoid Red scare, now terrorism scare, and you get political victories.
The lesson of Hofstadter is to embrace liberal governance and understand populist politics. It may sound cynical, but you must get through the door to govern. Lincoln knew this. FDR knew this. Hofstadter knew this. I hope Obama can learn this.
This was the intellectual battle the Netroots, led by one Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, has fought with the DC Establishment for 4 years:
While Brownstein is right about the belief from most of us that the right politics demands confrontation with Bush and contrast with the Republicans, I think he is wrong to believe that this approach alienates independent swing voters. If anything, the alignment that Indys are having with Dems in most polling shows that it is exactly the opposite. That this approach is ATTRACTING swing voters. This is where the fundamental divide between the DLC Centrists and us lies. Where we think the swing voter will land. Take my friend Ed Kilgore of the DLC for instance. Ed is a sharp thinker and writer, but Ed lacks confidence in our Democratic ideals:
[S]everal other centrist party strategists worry that the hyperpartisan turn-out-the-base strategy that many online activists demand won't work for Democrats, because polls consistently show that more Americans consider themselves conservative than liberal.
"We are more of a coalition party than they are," says Ed Kilgore, the policy director for the DLC. "If we put a gun to everybody's head in the country and make them pick sides, we're not likely to win."
Ed, this is simply not true. And once you realize that, you will see why we are right and you are wrong. When we make folks pick sides agains the GOP Extremism of Dobson and the committed support to a policy of making sure the government leaves you alone in your private decisions advocated by Liberals, they will pick our side, in droves. Don't fear that fight.
And that is the real lesson, at least for me, of Markos and dailykos.
Are we forgetting these lessons? I fear we are. The Netroots must not forget this fight, how we won it and how we must continue to win it in our Democratic Party. Let me end with this reminder of some excellent basic principles that Ruy Texeira and John Halpin provided last year for Democratic political strategy:
The politics of definition is grounded on five postulates that we believe can serve as the basis for making sound decisions about how best to organize progressive campaigns and present a coherent identity to voters. We then provide an overview of core progressive values and beliefs that can serve as the organizing principles of long-term campaigns and then sketch out how a politics of definition approach would like in terms of economic, social, and national security policy.
The five postulates for the politics of definition -- the guideposts, questions, and "lines in the sand," so to speak, that need to be drawn out in order to craft better politics -- are as follows:
(1) The starting point for all political organizing and campaigns should be: "What are my core beliefs and principles and how do I best explain them to supporters and skeptics alike?"
(2) Every political battle, both proactive and defensive, should represent a basic statement of progressive character and present a clear, concise contrast with conservatives. Do not blur lines.
(3) All issue campaigns and agenda items are not equal. Progressives should focus their efforts on issues that can simultaneously strengthen the base and appeal to centrist voters. Progressives must be willing to make sacrifices and tradeoffs -- in terms of coalition building and budgetary concerns -- to achieve their most important agenda items.
(4) Escalate battles that expose the extremism of the right or splinter their coalition. [Follow-up: When confronted with the right's social, cultural, or national security agenda, the absolute worst response is to fail to combat these caricatures or to explain one's position directly to voters, regardless of the popularity of the position.]
(5) Every political action should highlight three essential progressive attributes: a clear stand on the side of those who lack power, wealth or influence; a deep commitment to the common good; and a strong belief in fairness and opportunity for all.
If we can follow these guidelines in 2008 I am confident we can win another smashing victory in 2008.