The Tightrope:Balance and Situational Politics

The first in a series of posts on long term strategy for the democratic party

Intro

Conflict between the net roots and Democratic party insiders has reached a fever pitch.  With the loss of fan-favorites such as Illinois' Christine Cegelis and the conflagration surrounding Paul Hackett's exit from his Ohio race, it has become abundantly clear that, while ostensibly playing for the same team, the netroots and the halls of Democratic party power are perhaps not playing the same game.  It was perhaps inevitable that these divergent interests would show up, since in the end we are interested in putting a lot of potential short-term allies out of long-term jobs.  With this in mind, is there a way to simultaneously maximize our interests and those of the party?

Our enemy plays football, what are we playing?

How many of you are football fans?  Ever seen the big, menu-sized cards head coaches are always looking at?  They represent sets of scripted plays to be applied in particular contingencies and situations.  While not an exhaustive map of what to do in every situation in a game, coaches will often swear by them.  Football is a game conducive to this kind of scripting.  In contrast to the situational planning of football, other sports are much more, "fly by the seat of your pants".  Certainly situational planning happens in every competitive arena, but football has made it the cornerstone of game strategy.

It's long been acknowledged that Karl Rove attempts to think several moves ahead with his political gamesmanship, while Democratic strategists are almost always focused on the current environment.  Rove attempts to create policies that not only help the current Republicans environment, but that create future environments that will likely be favorable to Republican candidates and ideology.  We allow ourselves to be buffetted back and forth by fast moving events, changes in political possession, without attempting to integrate our actions into an evolving context of planned or prepared for situations.

The tightrope

Any successful political strategy is going to have a two-fold focus.   First, taking over the machinery of the Democratic party and replacing its non-functional mechanisms and ideologies with ideas and structures better suited to today's political environment.  Second, providing critical support to the Democrat party as-it-exists-today in the context of electoral competition.  The first focus is long term, and is primary.  Whatever happens, whether the party's electoral prospects rise or fall, the point should be to make sure that netroots praxology (our version of ideology...the set of practices accompanying an ideology that make for a successful politics) is firmly implanted within the institutional Democratic party.  With that in mind, we need to develop situational strategies to effect this implantation no matter what the electoral outcome, no matter who is in office.  

The second focus is making sure that the Democratic party maximizes political outcomes in the short term.  This is an important goal, but must always be balanced with the first.  Short term success means nothing if it isn't built on a philosophy designed to make us a long term majority party once again.  So netroots activists need to focus a considerable portion of their energy into making sure that the Democratic party reminds a viable vehicle for our long term strategy.  This is what the Goldwaterites did throughout the 70s: voting for moderate Repubs when they had to (to keep the party alive), all the while culling and replacing other moderates from within the GOP media and political apparatus.  However, electoral support for the Democratic elite, essential as it is, is also dangerous for the netroots ideology.  Electoral outcomes must be such that they do not validate status-quo approaches to politics against the interests of our agenda.  The forces of the status quo must understand that we are integral to their success.  And we must understand that their success is integral to our long terms plans.  That, my friends, is the tightrope we must walk.

Situation Rheum

    Any such strategy is needs to view long term action in terms of contingencies.  Rather than particular ends, we need to focus on the creation of situations.  The republicans have been particularly skilled at this sort of thing.  The Democrats war vote was one such application at the creation of environments.  The issue ecology at the time the authorization for the use of force was passed by our timid allies was such that many Democrats felt the need to vote for the resolution.  The consequences of this vote were profound.  It created an environment in which most Democrats, and certainly most Democrats who were viable electoral candidates, could be painted as responsible for the Iraq outcome, however it turned out.  It hamstrung democrats like Kerry.  It also helped to define the "conventional wisdom" that was used to paint those who did not support the war so strongly (see Dean, Howard) as unelectable crazies.  This is Issue Stickiness...the notion that issues should be selected on the basis of how long their effects stick around and maintain favorable situations.  The stickiness of the Iraq war resolution created a consensus of paralysis for several years and only now is that consensus breaking down.  

It is vital for us to include this approach in our strategizing.  When the netroots tries to promote a particular issue, say illegal immigration reform, we must ensure that this reform not only benefits the country long term, but also creates an environment favorable to our party in the future, perhaps through the influx of potential voters who may be sympathetic to netroots activism.  We must also ensure that potential issues actively disempower our enemies both within the party and withou.  Using the immigration example, how would increased immigration of potential democratic base members to "red states" shift the electoral map in our (and by our I mean not just Democrats, but the netroots) favor, long term?  

If the republicans have taught us anything, it's that EVERYTHING is politics.  Take this knowledge to heart, feel the power of the dark side and let's beat them at their own game.

    Next in Series:  Some Practical Applications of Situational Strategy to Several Political Issues In-depth.