I've generally given up on the New Republic, and am gearing up to launch an anti-TNR campaign. Not just because of its rampant anti-Deanism (though that's a huge part of it), but also because I'm sick of having the magazine represent itself as a center-left publication while having names such as Andrew Sullivan and Charles Krauthammer on its masthead.
TNR desperately seeks relevance, even as the world passes it by. Championing Joe Lieberman and mushy centrism (or center-rightism) may or may not sell magazines (I won't pretend to know), but it's increasingly out-of-touch with our polarized and increasingly partisan nation. It's noteworthy that Daily Kos matches the traffic received by TNR. And given that most of that site is now subscription only, I am now more read than most of TNR's writers. Heck, many of the dKos diarists are better read than they are.
Though I wouldn't say size is everything. The American Prospect receives quite a bit less traffic than Daily Kos or TNR. It's magazine circulation is at 50,000, less than TNR's reported 90,000 (Daily Kos's weekly visits currently stand at around 300,000). Yet I would argue that TAP is increasingly relevant in today's partisan atmosphere. And hiring Matthew Yglesias certainly didn't hurt them (let's hope they make the hire permanent).
So that's a preview rant of my upcoming anti-TNR campaign (cancel your subscriptions!). But ironically, it's also the lead-in to a TNR piece I want to highlight, by one of the very few TNR contributors that I actually respect -- Noam Scheiber.
[W]hile Southern red states, like Kentucky and Tennessee and Georgia, have probably only gotten redder since the 2000 election, East and West coast states like California, Oregon, Washington, New York, Connecticut, and Maine have probably only gotten bluer. Bush, after all, is a highly polarizing figure. Particularly to the 50-odd percent of the country that either consistently expresses misgivings about the war in Iraq or outright opposed it--a 50 percent that's highly concentrated in these states. Throw in the fact that Ralph Nader probably won't be siphoning of three, four, five percent from a Democratic candidate in these states in 2004, and the various culture-war issues, like abortion, religiosity, and gay marriage, which Republicans plan to have a field day with in the South, and, well, you get the idea.
Now, here's the kicker: When analysts look at George W. Bush's yawning advantage in the South, the reason they tend to conclude that Democrats are screwed come November 2004 is not that Democrats need many Southern states to win the election (or even any, with the possible exception of Florida). It's that Democrats need to at least put up enough of a fight to make Bush spend time and money there--the thinking being that otherwise he'll be able to take these states for granted and park himself and his $200 million in Florida and the Midwestern swing states from August straight through to November. But what they ignore is that a Democrat--particularly one who excites culturally liberal blue-state voters (please send suggestions about who that might be to Deanophobe@tnr.com)--will enjoy a similar advantage: Because the blue states have by and large gotten bluer since 2004, a Democrat will more or less be able to take many of these states for granted, similarly parking himself and his $100 million (at least if his name rhymes with Boward Bean)--not to mention the couple-hundred million dollars liberal 527s are going to spend on his behalf--in the Midwest and Florida and go blow for blow with Bush.
Moreover, unlike the South, where a strategy of appealing to moderates on the basis of economics while ignoring cultural issues is unlikely to be successful (as a few of &c.'s distinguished colleagues have hastened to point out), that strategy seems highly likely to succeed in the old industrial Midwest, where voters tend to vote their economic interests when times are tough, and their cultural predilections when times are flush. (In fact, it's not just the industrial Midwest. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has reported repeatedly on Howard Dean's surprising popularity in the economically depressed but cultural conservative eastern half of Washington state.)
This piece, I think, marks the debut of this argument:
Sure, many Red States (mainly in the South) are getting redder, but many Blue States are as well. With Nader mostly out of the picture, we're talking a lot bluer.
That means the battle for the presidency will not be fought in Alabama or California, Georgia or New Jersey, or Kentucky or New York. It will be fought in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, West Virginia, and a couple more states. We may very well see $500 million or more spent by both sides on just a dozen states.
Let's look at it another way: I count 72 electoral votes in what I would consider the "solid Red" south -- KY, TN, NC, SC, MS, AL, and GA. For argument's sake, I'll throw in AR, LA and VA (all three winnable for the Dems), for a total of 100 electoral votes.
Now take the equally solid blue states CA, NY, and NJ, and we get 101 electoral votes. Gore didn't spend much on those three very expensive states, and neither will Dean (or Clark).
So while it's true that Bush may be freed from competing in those Southern states, the Dems are just as freed from spending money on their base states.
Which leaves one argument on the table -- that abandoning the South could doom Democrats in Senate, House and local races. Which would be a concern if either Dean or Clark were going to abandon the South. But neither will. Clark has geography (which may or may not help -- witness Gore). Dean has his grassroots army.
