This is a reply to an earier, and
outstanding thesis by Chris Bowersabout the "material" problems facing the Democratic party, and how Dean with Jessie Jackson Jr. can shift the party and work towards addressing these longer term systemic problems facing the Democratic party.
Most of Chris' thesis is brilliant and insightful, and on the whole shrewd and deep analysis. The response of mine addresses the specifics of Jackson's collaboration with Dean and how that would change things for the party in Chris' Part Four: ... to Jackson.
Chris writes:
However, no matter how strong his organization is now, assuming that he wins the nomination, in the general election Dean will be going up against the Mighty Wurlitzer. Even though his material strengths will be even stronger by next summer, the image-controlling foe he will face, the Mighty Wurlitzer, will be exponentially more difficult than what he currently is up against in the primaries. This problem is exasperated even further because, as I already conceded, Dean will have more problems in the south than would a southern candidate, such as Clark or Edwards, and he will have more difficulty presenting an appealing image to "swing" voters than would Clark, Edwards, Lieberman and possibly Kerry. This would suggest then the best bet for Dean, should he become the nominee, would be to combine his material advantages with the advantages in image offered by either Clark or Edwards (and Clark might offer some significant material advantage as well). In fact, I believe Dean/Clark, Dean/Edwards and Clark/Dean are the three most popular tickets among posters on this board.
However, in the same way that I feel shifting from material strength to strength in image has damaged the party in the past when it comes to choosing a nominee, I feel that the selection of a vice-presidential candidate must be based upon the degree to which a candidate is able to improve both the short and long term material position of the party. This rules out Edwards, and while it does not rule out Clark I feel that there is an even stronger candidate whose organizational strength and long-term, pragmatic vision for progressive politics in this country make him the clear number one choice for any Democratic ticket this year. I am thinking of Jesse Jackson Jr.
During the 1980's and 1990's Jesse Jackson Jr. was a field organizer for his father's Rainbow Coalition. Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition employed a political strategy based entirely in material organization and increasing the size pro-Democratic voter constituencies. In a very real sense, Jesse Jackson's strategy during his 1984 and 1988 campaigns for the nomination was the exact opposite of the DLC's. While the DLC moved to change their image to appeal to swing voters, the south, and big donors, Jackson ran a campaign in which the basic strategy was to change the electorate itself. Through a massive grassroots organization and voter registration drive, in 1988 Jackson almost won the nomination despite being woefully under-funded. Even though he lost, however, through his voter registration drives he succeeded, however briefly, in shifting the politics of the country at least somewhat to the left. In particular, due to his efforts in the south, it is entirely possible that Jackson made the Mary Landrieu's and Blanche Lincoln's of the party possible.
By adding the extremely capable, energetic, forward thinking, well-connected and well-organized Jesse Jackson Jr. to the ticket could potentially solve many of the problems currently facing the Dean campaign and the Democratic Party itself, including the shrinking voting clout of African-Americans. Conversely, the Dean campaign has discovered a way to solve the biggest problem that plagued Jackson's run for President in the 1980's: a way to raise large amounts of money without caving in to the demands of big-money donors. A Dean-Jackson ticket would be an organizational juggernaught that, win or lose, would significantly improve the material strength of the Democratic Party across the nation for years to come. It would bring in tens, if not hundreds, of millions of new dollars to the party while simultaneously lessen the need to bow to corporate interests. It would bring in millions of new voters who previously had never registered. It would create billions of new volunteer hours of the party. In short, win or lose a dean-Jackson ticket would shift the center of politics in the country to the left and make future gains for Democrats all the more possible.
Right Idea but not 100% on JJjr as VP on an 04 ticket.
He brings a lot to the table, both in your "material" sense by pulling in the AA vote and actually making the GOP re-commit efforts on the south to, in effect, counter and suppress the AA vote. Doing it indirectly and through smoke and mirrors to cover their tracks.
And I think Jackson it is certainly viable but has, unfortunately, negatives on the image side because of his father, which I think is a sad commentary on political life in our country, but there it is.
However.
I don't say the following to mean that this in any way indicates that we should marginalize or dismiss one ethic/racial group advocacy and champion another because of political expediency. I know it can certainly read as political opportunism, but that is not the motive beyond it. So, with that caveat in place, I would also point to another, and demographically pivital constituency, and one the GOP already knows is crucial, and is a demographic Tsunami...
Latinos.
This is where bill Richardson could be a more beneficial long-term strategic, and short-term tactically better choice. The demographics of the Latino population dwarf all other ethnic racial and ethnic groups. They are already the majority in CA, and are approaching that in Texas and the entire southwest and moving up into the mountain states and the pacific states. There is also the FLorida and some rust-belt enclaves (Chicago and MI auto/heavy manufacturing regions metro region. for example).
Within the next decade they will have eclipsed all other ethnic groups by healthy margins, and trend out over the next half century as rivaling any group, including whites as a plurality of the population.
This is also where regaining on the economic policies of middle and lower income demographics come back into play, and can hold substantive sway with reframing global trade issues (particularly in this hemisphere) and would be a need foundation to even address many of the intractable social (domestic and hemispheric) and international (hemispheric) issues.
Immigration and the war on drugs.
This could, if viewed properly allow a transition to reframe those issue, in cooperative, mutually beneficial sea change positions. Re-negotiate NAFTA and hemispheric trade polices and moving the War on Drugs into a social and medical (and trade hemispheric stability) issue from the absurd, utterly failed criminal and interdiction model.
If we tie equitable trade policy in areas of labor standards, environmental standards, we improve economic conditions across borders in this hemisphere.
That in conjunction with the radical" change in drug policy would also ease stability issues in many latin american countries, along with economic improvement through non-narco traffic black markets improve international relations within the hemisphere, but also re prioritize resources from the least effective, most costly social intervention programs and we reap (beyond the social benefits from reduce drug abuse and the criminal damages caused by the activities being treated and a criminal justice matter) but get far more bang for our public dollars, which would ease sustainability the resource drain on state AND federal resources across the board.
The key is, you would have to move massively on trade, drugs and migration simultaneously.
Because all three in concert are what gives mutually beneficial interlocked incentives to make it palatable for all sides.
Mexico and Latin America in general would get more trade, but also more domestic security and help in fighting corruption if we work on our end (demand) by removing the underling draw and pressures of the criminal aspect of ti, which undermines institutions in latin America, and the domestic social spending problems on our end.
This would help balance out the needed upward wage and cost of industrial output pressures which renegotiating NAFTA and hemispheric trade agreements to include wage and environmental standards. This would improve their domestic wages and livability issues. Which reduce undocumented immigration issues, which slows the hemorrhaging in entry level wages here as well, and would slow (hopefully stop) the hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs to a large extent. This would help low wage earners segements domestically, and wold improve economic consumer based spending, which would flow up into the supply-side of the equation by raising demeaned to soak up the excess in capacity on the production side.
These would also ease HUGE strains on the budgetary issues, which would allow use to fix the systemic hemorrhaging in social program and entitlement programs long term since we would:
- - not be wasting billions on the least effective social intervention programs.
- - would be redirected to social service programs in the health delivery sector, which would also help domestic spending as the boomers draw ever increasing demands not he healthcare system. allows reshuffling of domestic spending priorities to better fund other social programs (education) strengthens our first responder infrastructure because of the spending on healthcare delivery which improves out homeland security responsiveness.
The increase in more hemispheric trade on a equitable trading basis would also require more spending on our transportation infrastructure, which would increase spending in livable wage jobs through such public spending, which also feeds back into the gains on the production (i.e. "supply-side") of the economy because of improved infrastructure systems being more cost effective, less on the bottom line. etc.
I see it systemically reversing trends into a positive, broad-based, across the board (multi-sector) improvement.
