As people who read the comment's in Armando's posts on the Roberts nomination may know, I strongly believed in a "stand on principle" rather than a "keep our powder dry" strategy on this issue, in order to properly frame and set up for the fight over Justice O'Connor's replacement. Since I believe that positive reinforcement is as important as negative, below is my letter to Sen. Feinstein, who is regarded as a swing vote on these issues but today voted against Roberts in the Judiciary Committee. Hopefully this indicates that she will be willing to take a principled stand on the next nominee as well, and support efforts to block this nomination if necessary. And hopefully her Democratic colleagues will do the same.

Below is the letter I sent to my local weekly paper. Have to wait till tomorrow to see if they decided to print it. Most people here can see the connections between Fallujah and New Orleans, and look at the events of the past week in a global context; I was trying to encourage others to make these connections as well.

Yesterday goldberry wrote an eloquent recommended diary about his formerly right-wing mother's moment of difficult enlightenment after witnessing the Bush administration's murderously negligent response to Katrina. After recounting her story, he wrote:

She is royally pissed off, people.  And she blames Bush.  Did you GOP lurkers read that?  You guys are toast.  You lost one of your most ardent supporters and very likely more.

So I replied to him recounting my own traditional-minded, struggling, cynical and mostly apolitical Democratic mother's possibly equally difficult eye-opening. (Which I hope might offer some insight to any actual or potential Democratic leaders out there ...)

In his latest column ("The Secret of Our Sauce" ),

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/opinion/07FRIE.html?hp

professional patriot Tom Friedman tells that the US will always be the leading economic powerhouse no matter how many jobs are shipped to India or China or anywhere else because of its exceptionally advanced educational system and consequent capacity for perpetual innovation in all things.  For some reason, this sounded eerily familiar:

I thought that this might primarily be of interest to folks such as those who expressed last week that they could no longer support Herseth after her FMA comments (as opposed to those who said that they were willing to give her a pass considering her situation, a pragmatic position that I respect and have no argument with in this instance).  I had suggested that rather than abandon her entirely, people email her with their concerns and promises of future support conditional upon further clarification of her position in the right direction.  This was my own attempt to do so; I'm sorry that it got a little long, but I haven't yet gotten over the illusion that substantive personal appeals of this sort might sometimes possibly have some effect:

Dear Ms. Herseth,

I am writing to express both my support for your campaign for South Dakota's seat in U.S. House of Representatives and my disappointment over your recent comments on the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (Aberdeen American News, 2/24).  These comments seemed to imply that you supported and would vote for such an amendment, and the statement subsequently released by your campaign and posted on the popular Daily Kos political website (2/26) only added further confusion to the issue.  As you I'm sure you're aware, these statements caused quite an uproar on this and other Democratic websites -- many of which are listed on your campaign's own home page -- and seriously alienated a very large number of people who had either been potentially willing or actually planning to contribute financially to your campaign and encourage others to do similarly, as well as some who have already done so.  I myself had been planning to make a modest contribution after the end of the moth, but I find myself very reluctant to do so in the wake of these statements.  At the same time, I have tried to the best of my ability to encourage readers of the Daily Kos site to carefully consider your situation and the realities of South Dakota culture and politics before writing you off entirely, and to be patient with you pending further clarification of your stance on this important and contentious issue.  I believe that there are strong moral reasons to oppose such an amendment, which I'm sure you're aware of, and I also think that there might be some solid political arguments for backing away from it at this time.  While I know that you don't need advice from me on the political aspect of this issue, before you disregard this letter entirely, please allow me to share a little bit about my own background and reasons for feeling as I do about its substance, as well as make a conditional commitment to your campaign.

I grew up in a family of lifelong Democrats on a small farm outside of [XXX], ND, just a few miles from the South Dakota state line:  to give you a sense of how Democratic, my grandparents had pictures of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy on their mantle, and I remember my grandfather explaining to me the meaning of his "Don't Blame Me -- I Voted For McGovern" button when I was a small child; later, my grandmother took me to meet then-Rep. Byron Dorgan, and my mother explained to me who then-Rep. Tom Daschle was when I saw one of his campaign signs as we drove through Aberdeen.  "He's one of the good guys," she said, or something to that effect.  So, even though I now reside in [XXX], CA, I'm sure you can see why I have taken a personal interest in and favorable disposition toward your candidacy, on the assumption that you would represent your state and the American people in the tradition of the fine Democratic Congressional delegation that the two Dakotas are currently blessed with.

At the same time, I also grew up with the very typical prejudices toward non-heterosexuals that I'm sure you're all too familiar with from your own experience growing up in the same area.  I called other boys "faggot" on the playground and was called the same by them years before I knew what the word actually meant.  Unfortunately, there was also serious abuse in my family, and my father did not make a secret of his view that I was not sufficiently masculine and would never grow up to be a real man.  "Sissy" and "pansy" are words that I heard from him too often.  Equally unfortunately, I took some of these prejudices with me, if only half-consciously, when I left the state to attend [college in CA].  It was there that I first met and in some cases became friends with openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual people.  I was there with other friends through their sometimes lengthy coming out processes, and witnessed very closely the painful emotions and struggles that this sometimes involved.  These experiences, together with the insights that I gained from conversations with a variety of GLBT people, helped me a great deal in gaining a better perspective on myself and my own background and the issues that I struggled with because of it, even though I was and remain a heterosexual myself.  Later, I was fortunate enough to live for several years in San Francisco and then Oakland, and experience firsthand how psychologically and spiritually refreshing it is to live in environments in which gay relationships are completely normalized and part of everyday life for heterosexuals and non-heterosexuals alike.  During these years, I became (and I remain) convinced that a great deal of the reflexive wariness, prejudice and even bigotry toward non-heterosexuals that both you and I are familiar with would disappear very quickly if everyone had the opportunity to have such an experience, and that the enforcement of overly constricting gender roles for all people would be relaxed.  I should add that more recently I was able to share the joy of two good female friends who were married in a beautiful Quaker ceremony in Pennsylvania.  While it is frustrating to know that their relationship receives no recognition in their home state, I am certain that only the hardest-hearted people could witness their love and commitment firsthand and retain an animus against such relationships -- and that only the hardest-headed people could continue to believe that they somehow imperil heterosexual marriage or the foundations of civilization.

I understand that there are many reasoned and nuanced positions that people can take on the issue of same sex marriages, civil unions, and domestic partnerships.  Given your positions on other important issues, I want to believe that your heart is in the right place on these matters.  As I am sure that you are already familiar with the many compelling moral arguments against writing discrimination into the United States Constitution -- fixing it in stone for all states and all people -- I do not need to recite them to you.  And given your legal expertise, I do not need to recite to you the potential ramifications of the "or the legal incidents thereof" clause in Rep. Musgrave's proposed amendment, which as you undoubtedly know would be used to challenge not only civil unions and domestic partnerships but in all probability other anti-discrimination measures as well.  Assuming that your heart is in fact in the right place -- on the side of fundamental human dignity and the foundational American principle that all men and women are created equal and deserve equal protection under the law -- the only questions that should remain are whether and how and how strongly one should oppose such an amendment during a special election in which the GOP machine has apparently targeted you for defeat.  While I cannot pretend to give you sound pragmatic advice on these questions, I want to call your attention to the numerous persuasive arguments that can actually be made against such an amendment in a state such as South Dakota.  The relatively straightforward position of Sen. John Edwards -- that he doesn't believe in gay marriage but thinks that question needs to be left to the states -- is one.  The statements of Senators Daschle and Johnson -- essentially, if I read them correctly, that changing the Constitution is an extremely weighty matter and that there is nothing that makes such an amendment necessary at this particular time -- suggest another.  This could of course be expanded upon by pointing out that it would be imprudent to rush an amendment through in a political season and that it would be wrong to exploit this issue for political gain.  More interestingly, I read that SD House Republican Leader Bill Peterson believes that an amendment is unnecessary and that all states should be allowed to define marriage by themselves, as provided for in the 10th Amendment (Aberdeen American News, 2/24).  As I'm sure you know, there are a variety of other arguments against such an amendment made by other prominent Republicans as well as moderate and conservative Democrats nationwide.  From everything I've heard so far, I suspect that the state's rights argument will be a particularly strong minimum position at this particular moment in our history:  e.g. "We don't want people from Massachusetts or California dictating what we can and can't do here in South Dakota -- on issues like gun control, for example -- and we shouldn't try to dictate to them on this, either."  Or:  "The federal government shouldn't be getting involved in these kinds of issues.  They're issues for states, churches and other religious communities to decide on their own."  Within the context of arguments of this sort, opposing the "legal incidents" clause of the current Musgrave Amendment for the sake of respecting other states' civil union and antidiscrimination laws -- while refraining from taking a position on other, purely hypothetical amendments -- could be a wise move.  (Obviously, a higher risk but potentially higher benefit strategy would be to appeal to people's basic notions of fairness and defend the right of same sex couples to be free from egregious forms of discrimination, thereby forcing your opponent to risk appearing unfair and discriminatory, which no one really likes except the most bigotted of bigots.  But I strongly doubt that you're going to get the bigot vote anyway.)  I'm sure you can think of other approaches still, but whichever position you ultimately chose to take, I trust that you have the ability to articulate it in principled moral terms that will resonate with the best values shared by the majority of South Dakotans.

The final thing I want to say is that I remain willing to contribute to your campaign, provided that you take some clear steps to distance yourself from the implication that you are ready to support the Musgrave Amendment or any similar Constitutional amendment at this particular time.  I would gladly make such a contribution today if not for this seeming implication of your previous statements (you would be only the second candidate I have ever directly contributed to; after retired Gen. Wesley Clark); unfortunately I simply cannot contribute in good conscience to a candidate who might be likely to alter the United States Constitution in a way that would humiliate and adversely affect millions of American citizens (or any American citizens, for that matter), and further the cause of intolerance rather than tolerance.  This is a defining historical moment, and I appeal to your own conscience to stand on the right side, or at least not stand on the wrong side.  The financial contribution that I can make will necessarily be modest, since I currently live on a graduate student's budget, but if you do the right thing I will encourage other readers of Daily Kos and other websites to make contributions of their own, along with my own friends.  [...]  Whatever decision you make, I wish you the best of luck in your campaign and thereafter, and I remain hopeful that you will handle this issue in a way that is consistent with the basic values and principles that have guided our nation's progress from the beginning.

Sincerely,

[XXX]

I turned the following thread post into a diary entry (with apologies) because I wanted to get this suggestion out there to as many people as possible, given the conflict many people feel about this issue and the controversy it has engendered.  Please skip this if you already read it in the threads.  It is simply my own suggestion; it is directed primarily to those people who are uncomfortable financially supporting a cadidate who appears to possibly support or at least doesn't clearly oppose a FMA (such as myself).  I still don't think she has a fixed position on this issue, however, and I will post a copy of my own letter to her here tomorrow if circumstances allow.  People can of course take or leave the suggestion, but I want to thank those people who are able to give it consideration:

I grew up in North Dakota about 5 miles from the SD state line.  I lived there for 17 years and currently reside in CA.  The first candidate I ever made a direct financial contribution to was Wesley Clark at the end of 2003; I've been seriously thinking about making Ms. Herseth the second after the end of this month, with the $.01 attached.  It was sad to see her lose to the lying, scheming, demagouging, racist political vermin (and probably worse) Bill Janklow in 2002 and nice to see her get a second chance, despite the tragic circumstances involved.  A win would give the two Dakotas a solid Democratic Congressional delegation.

As I'm sure most people here agree, the FMA is an abomination against the Constitution, against the principles upon which it is based, and against humanity.  If I could think of a stronger word in English, I'd use it.  That being said, many people who might be inclined to reflexively support it certainly do not see it at all as a hate amendment and would take strong exception to the implication that their inclination might be due to hate.  In places like the Dakotas, there are very large numbers of people who might be so inclined not out of fundamentalism or commitment to any hard-core reactionary ideology, but simply out of traditionalism, or true cultural "conservativism" in the old-fashioned sense of the term as opposed to the kind the real haters peddle.  These states are simply not places that are anywhere near the cutting edge of cultural progress, and most people there are skeptical toward ideologues of all stripes and toward people who seem to be pushing any kind of radical change.  Thus otherwise decent people might initially be swayed by GWB's claim that he is simply trying to defend tradition and the foundations of civilization against all of these radical activist judges and renegade local officials (with smooth smiles and fancy suits and slicked-backed hair) and in-your-face gay rights militants who are trying to overthrow it all against the will of the majority.

That being said, on the other hand, there are ways that you can argue effectively against this kind of right-wing abomination in these kinds of places, so I have no idea what Ms. Herseth is trying to do right now.  I'm still not clear what exactly her position is.  Has she unequivocally stated that she would vote for some kind of FMA or for the Musgrave Amendment in particular?  I don't see this kind of solid declaration in the statements that kos posted; on the contrary, there seems to be a whole lot of wiggling going on.  Maybe she simply hasn't settled on a public position yet; she's a rookie, she knows that the eye of Sauron is on her, and the election is coming up fast.  This can't be a comfortable position to be in.  Maybe she's still feeling out various kinds of statements and word choices to see what kinds of reactions she gets.  Maybe she needs to be encouraged to move in the right direction.

So maybe people here could help do so by sending her some emails explaining why she should do the right thing.  And maybe everyone who was considering donating to her should make an explicit commitment to actually do so provided she back away from the amendment.  This is what I plan to do today.  She'll probably never go nearly as far as some people would like, and whatever backpeddling statements she might be persuaded to make may seem incredibly weak-kneed to many people in NYC or the SF Bay Area (e.g. Daschle's statement), but please try to understand where she is and what kind of position she's in.

But the important thing is that if people do this, please don't send her anything that could even be interpreted as a moralistic screed or denunciation or a threat to withhold support (as opposed to a conditional promise of support).  I want to believe that her heart is in the right place; if this is so, what she needs to hear are the principled, value-based reasons for not supporting this awful thing, articulated in as generous and well-reasoned a manner as possible, and perhaps also suggestions as to what kinds of arguments can be used to mainstream and traditionalist audiences.  Appeal to her heart and her brain, her sense of decency as well as her sense of pragmatism.  If you don't know enough about SD culture or politics to give sound advice on the latter point, speak from whatever roughly analogous experience you might have.  Be kind and respectful.  And the offer of conditional financial support couldn't hurt.

The argument that kos made in support of Edwards on the main page last night has almost persuaded me to vote for him on March 2, despite the fact that kos said he was not trying to convince anyone.  Though I still think that it is unlikely that Edwards will actually win the nomination, I am a former strong Clark supporter who has been weighing whether to vote for Clark in order to make a statement, or vote for Edwards because he is still running and could at least conceivably win, and in order to make a statement of a different and somewhat weaker kind.  I do not think that Kerry needs my vote in the primary; he is likely to win anyway, and -- despite Clark's endorsement and generally sound rationale for it -- I still have serious concerns about both his ability to win in November and about the potential damage that he could do the party over the next four years in the event that he is able to.  Whatever his strengths, he remains -- apart from his war record -- the walking embodiment of all of the negative cultural stereotypes that Republicans have been successfully running against for the last 36 years.

That being said, I do not think that electability is a bizarre notion, as kos asserts; I simply think that many voters have a bizarre notion of what it actually consists of.  I do not think, for example, that winning pluralities in multicandidate partisan contests in Iowa and New Hampshire is a reliable predictor of a candidate's ability to unseat the sitting President in a national election.  Very roughly, I would define electability as a candidate's potential ability to win the necessary percentage of swing voters in swing states to win an electoral college majority, which means a Democrat's ability to hold all of Gore's states and pick up the necessary minimum of ten additional electoral votes from red states in 2000, states such as OH, MO, WV, NV, NH, and possibly AZ or AK.  Having spent the greater part of my own life in the red zone, it is my strong impression that the majority of true swing voters in these states normally look more than anything else for candidates who seem to be "one of us", or at the very least to "understand people like us".  It is my even stronger impression that at this particular moment in history, the majority of voters in these states and in the country as a whole still believe, on a very fundamental level, that we are a nation at war, and will be looking for someone who they can picture as a strong and credible Commander in Chief before anything else.

To simplify only a little, Kerry is extremely vulnerable in terms of the first of these two criteria; Edwards remains quite vulnerable on the second.  I should mention that when all of this began, I personally found Edwards to be the least attractive of all of the serious candidates other than Lieberman.  Since I believed that Bill Clinton had done more harm to the party over the past decade than any Republican ever could have hoped to, I thought that the last thing we needed was another smooth-talking, finger-to-the-wind, DLC-style candidate touting his Southern creds.  After 9/11 and Bush's skillful self-transformation into an American Caesar figure chosen by the Almighty to protect us from the terrorists, I was sure that Edwards would be doomed due to his wet-behind-the-ears appearance and lack of national security and foreign policy experience.  By Nov. 2002, I was in such despair about the field and about the probable consequences of another four years of the Bush Administration that I put a considerable amount of time into a predictably futile attempt to persuade another well-known Democrat to enter the race; after this effort failed, I resigned myself to the probable Kerry nomination and hoped -- but didn't expect -- that his war stories might insulate him from the onslaught that was certain to rain down upon him.  I was of course thrilled by the rise of Dr. Dean, but continued to have serious concerns about whether he would be able to win a sufficient number of red electoral votes due to his own lack of national security and foreign policy experience.  I know that some people disagree with me about the importance of these issues, but I watched the Democrats try to sidestep them in 2002 and run almost entirely on domestic policy -- which the polls told them was more important -- and get slaughtered.  These are visceral issues to many people, and don't necessarily register adequately in telephone polls.

I'm sorry for reciting all of that personal history; the point is that I started out thinking very little of Edwards.  Having said all of that, however, it is clear that he has become a stronger candidate than he was; more importantly, it is also clear that some of Bush's chickens (turkeys?) have started coming home to roost sooner than I had expected, and the would-be Emperor seems to have been damaged on both the foreign and domestic fronts -- at least for the time being -- by both the unanticipated absence of WMDs and the failure of the much-anticipated jobs to materialize.  (His warrior charisma has been additionally diminished -- I think -- by Clark's presence in the race and especially by Kerry and Clelands' well-publicized attacks on him during Kerry's media honeymoon period.)  Because of all of this, it is now starting to seem to me like a tossup between the last two Democrats left standing in terms of electability, depending upon how foreign and domestic events play out between now and November.  This being unpredictable, however, I find kos's reasoning in favor of Edwards to be persuasive.  The main thing that he leaves out, I think, is the continuing salience of the national security/foreign policy issue.  Perhaps Edwards could cover for this weakness by not only selecting a running mate who is unassailable in these areas, but also by surrounding himself very tightly with a shadow cabinet/NS-FP team consisting of figures that are equally so.  (In my first late-night and probably little-read diary entry, I already made an argument for a coherent group of prominent, mainstream Democrats essentially running as a team to an extent that has rarely been attempted, partly in order to cover the weaknesses of the nominee.  I assumed that this would be Kerry, but it applies equally to Edwards.)  I'm not going to change my tagline until it becomes clear that Edwards has a solid chance of winning the nomination, but because of recent developments and kos's cogent argument, he now at least has a solid chance of winning my own individual, meaningless vote in California.

I wrote this for an open thread, but I wondered if it might be appropriate as a diary entry:

As most people are aware, Kerry has innumerable vulnerabilities going into the general.  Even if his fans are upbeat today, the armies of Sauron are still waiting behind the gates of Mordor (Drudge appears to have been some sort of trial shot), and I think I can hear a few million orcs rhythmically pounding their axes back there somewhere.  Due to the political skill he has demonstrated, lots of good luck, and a little help from his friends in high places, Kerry has won the right to lead us against them, and I hope that he has the humility to realize that he's not going to win by just charging at them like a lone ranger, shouting out tough talk.  Not that he's asking my advice, but I think he would increase our odds by surrounding himself very closely with a team of allies who could cover his weak flanks -- e.g. Edwards, Clark, Dean, Gephardt, and Moseley-Braun, all of whom have recently become national celebraties and who collectively have the ability to appeal to different though overlapping constituencies that will all be crucial in November.  Yes, I know, the primaries are still going, but I'm assuming that all of these Democrats and most of their supporters will have the maturity and sense to put the bad blood behind them after it's over and focus on the real war ahead.  Kerry could informally designate them members of a cabinet in waiting, make very public appearances with all of them together, and send this team out around the country to vigorously take on Bush, defend Kerry to various audiences, and get out the message of the Democratic Party.  This would be a dream team because each of these individuals has different sets of strengths, and composing such a team of former contenders would be a very clear display that Democrats are capable of working together toward the common good, which would be a good symbol of their ability to run the country.  It needs to be a relatively small number, though, in order to have some identity and coherence, as opposed to the usual laundry list of "important Democratic officeholders".  Kerry may choose Edwards, Clark, Gephardt or someone else entirely as his running mate; he could either signal the positions that each of the others will be likely to occupy (as Bush did with Powell) or simply say that "each one of these great Democrats will play a very important role in the Kerry Administration."  (Since most of them are white men, many of the other top slots would need to be filled by women and people of color, and this would of course have to be acknowledged up front.)  Why these five and not the others?:  First of all, because the number needs to be kept down and because it needs to consist of people from the mainstream of the party. Also, since Lieberman and Kucinich will still have jobs, I assume that they will be otherwise occupied, but they can still make their convention speeches and campaign as much as they are willing.  (I don't know what to do about the Rev. Al, but maybe he could sort of be designated ambassador to the Maldives or somewhere else small and far, far away.)  Here are some ideas about what positions could tentatively be offered to who, leaving the VP choice aside for the moment:

Secretary of State:  Clark (too bad about Defense)
Secretary of Health & Human Svcs:  Dean
Secretary of Labor:  Gephardt
Attorney General:  Edwards

Does anyone know what CMB's cabinet-level area of interest and expertise would be?