Where Have I Been?
Nowhere. Well, not really nowhere, because that's impossible, because to the extent that I exist I have to be somewhere, and if I didn't exist, then I couldn't type this, now, could I? No, I've been here, but very busy with work, teaching "on the side," running, and went to the theater last night to see Measure for Measure at the Folger. Which was excellent, as was the dinner and dinner conversation with friends of ours. I'll write down some thoughts on MFM later.
The conversation turned, as it so often does in my company, for some reason, to the electoral prospects of the Democrats in 2006 and 2008. One of these friends, who works for a well-known polling outfit, in a position of responsibility (his title has "director" in it), thinks that it's pretty unlikely that the Dems will retake one or both chambers of Congress in 2006, despite the mess the GOP finds itself in and despite the Democratic lead in the generic congressional poll. I agree to the extent that the drawing of congressional and state boundaries advantages the GOP greatly in congressional races. He also thinks that the Dems have problems heading into 2008.
There is plenty of time to blog the 2008 election. But I think that 2006 should be interesting. More on that to come.
posted by Number Three @ 7:17 AM
16 Comments:
Given the last three congressional election cycles and pervasive gerrymandering, it's hard for Dems to have much hope of taking back a chamber. Membership swings have gotten miniscule over the last generation, making a sizable shift seem highly unlikely.
But it also has to make you wonder. In the past, there have been major swings in the electorate itself. Gerrymandering can hide these for a time, but can it really kill them altogether? You'd think not, since there doesn't seem to be a plausible causal relationship flowing FROM the gerrymanders to partisanship in the electorate. What gerrymanders do is to concentrate opposition voters in a few heavily Dem districts, creating a larger number of marginally GOP districts. But if the electorate itself were to shift dramatically from its current 50-50 split, wouldn't gerrymanders slow things down at first, but then create the possibility of a sudden and unexpected Tsunami--a bit like a low and poorly built levee that no one expects to actually break? I can't say I know much about either election data or Congress itself, but I know we've got a bona fide expert in the hizzie. What's the thinking on this, Frannie?
I've also been wondering idly about another scenario. Say the Dems are as politically stupid as the Dems tend to be and we nominate HRC. Meanwhile, the GOP, scared crapless that Bush's mid-20s approval ratings in 2008 will end the corporate gravy train, decide to hold their noses and nominate the favorite man-crush of every red-blooded American moderate, John McCain, to prove that they're the real "reform" party. Obvious result: McCain wins in a landslide despite the fact that Bush and his entire administration are being fitted for prison jumpers.
To cut to the chase, doesn't that make 2008 start to look a lot like 1928, with McCain as the present-day Hoover? It's not hard to see Bush as Warren Harding on steroids (or, Harding meets Mussolini), and our era as very 1920s, with its moralistic culture wars and its corporate excess. McCain is the Graft Ol' Party's one smart, honest, decent leader, and voters want to believe he'll clean things up without forcing them to change their basic assumptions about the two parties or government itself. The problem is that his party's absurdly incompetent policies have created a building crapstorm, and that while things look bad now, what's coming down the pike is a lot worse. If you look at the budget, the national savings rate, the situation in the Middle East, emerging environmental problems, etc., you could make a case that we've got a line of category 4 hurricanes heading for the coast and that Rove has made sure that the levees will hold until roughly February of 2009. God help whoever is in charge when that happens.
OK, so no two historical eras are ever exactly the same. Yet there are some marked similarities, and the boys in charge seem rather oblivious to the lessons from last time down this road. "Doomed to repeat"?
"Crapstorm" is a funny word.
2006 will be interesting here in Ohio. The GOP gubernatorial primary race is super. Kenneth Blackwell's political character assassin unearthed some good old fashioned patronage dirt on rival Jim Petro and released the story last week. Petro, in a blaze of unparalleled genius, countered that Blackwell's tax proposal would take an unspecified but large sum of money out of the Ohio State University football budget. Yikes!
Has anyone noticed their favorite candidates blogging? Both Blackwell and Petro have already posted. It's an interesting testament to the growing influence of the medium.
Well, the democrats can't win the hearts of a majority of Americans on the issues of:
1. NSA spying (More Americans afraid of terrorists than Bush administration)
2. Corruption (Most Americans think both parties are corrupt)
3. Government incompetence (this plays to Republicans, who always argue this anyway)
4. Taxes & Budget Deficit (Majority might be concerned, but this won't change their vote and they don't want to pay taxes anyway)
5. War (while majority may feel Iraq a mistake, they're still scared and Republicans can hide behind patriotism)
6. Cultural values (school prayer, abortion, intelligent design, patriotism... these all favor the Republicans, especially the heartland)
I could go on an on.
As Aristotle tells us, if you're going to persuade someone, you can do it in only 3 ways:
1. Argument to Ethos (character): "I am a good person, because of x,y,z, so vote for me". Or, "X is an authority because he has a Ph.D., so believe him." Or Because of cultural values, this argument favors Republicans, because a majority of Americans puts more trust in character than expertise and the Republicans talk a better game of character.
2. Argument as to pisteis (facts/proofs): Just state the facts. While Aristotle feels this is the most honest type of argument to make and should be the most effective, the truth is, it is the least effective. People do not listen to reason (primitive part of brain is still most influential) and also, you can state contradicting facts to confuse them. So, while the facts of illegalities, corruption, incompetence...may favor Democrats, this is the least effective of all appeals.
3. Argument to pathos (emotional appeal, suffering). While Aristotle feels this is the least honest, it also happens to be the most effective (again, primitive part of brain is most powerful). The problem with this for Democrats, is that the Republicans are holding most of the cards on this one: war on terror, big government.... and guys like Karl Rove know it.
Bottom line: the democrats will only take back House, Senate or Presidency because of pathos in the sense of suffering. If a majority of Americans feels they are suffering, then they will be open to the other arguments (as Aeschylus says, pathei mathei -- we only learn by suffering) and a majority will seek a change. The only kind of suffering that I can see that will affect a majority of Americans, is economic hardship. On the near horizon, the only thing I can see that will inflict economic hardship is gasoline prices. Prices stay under 3 bucks, and the Republicans hold. Prices go over 3 bucks, and it's a 50/50 ball game. Prices go over 4 bucks, and the democrats have a 75% chance to win House/and or Senate back. With problems in Nigeria, Iran and with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and the change over to cleaner buring fuels this Spring, 4 bucks is not impossible. In the longer run, the economy runs on a cycle so it will have to head into recession at some point. With the trade imbalance, deficits, oil prices, currency imbalances... this could be a big correction. If this happens or begins to happen before 2008, the Dems will get the White House back. If it doesn't, they probably won't, unless they can find a guy like Bill Clinton who can speak to the Bubbas of America. Bill's wife won't do. It looks like that Warner guy from Virginia would make a solid run.
Stephanie, an Ohio question: how's the Paul Hackett pull-out dust-up playing up there?
Obviously, this is more a concern for the Dems. Left Blogostan seems to have been confirming many of its negative stereotypes through its knee-jerk angry response, but I'm curious how it's being reported in more traditional media.
The tenacious one asks, about the local media response to Hackett's pullout. I heard a local (Cleveland) NPR piece on this last Thursday. They just reported the incident and laid the blame or credit for Hackett's pullout at the feet of Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid, who, at the behest of Ted Strickland, are throwing democratic party money at Sherrod Brown (Congressman from 13th district in northeast Ohio). My personal impression is that the larger cities of Columbus, Cleveland and Toledo would have voted democratic no matter whom they fielded, but Hackett's personality and style of speech (from Cincinnati) would have done a much better job reaching the voters in the rural and southern areas of the state, and hence Schumer's and Reid's loyalty to a party regular was a huge blunder. Ohio is a perfect microcosm of the country -- unless the Dems begin to field more candidates that talk like ordinary folks from rural, southern and middle America, then it will keep losing, because like likes like and kind is kind to kind.
I agree in part with Paul's account. Sherrod Brown has a lot of useful connections and, frankly, it is his turn to run. Hackett, as a newcomer, doesn't fit neatly into Ohio's political machinery. There have also been rumors that Hackett was close to unspecified "atrocities" in Iraq and that their eventual revelation would have tarnished his campaign.
Paul, I grew up in a small Ohio town. People don't talk differently. They aren't bumpkins. And the democratic party's problem isn't one of talking the talk. There is a serious ideological gap. People in my home town, and people in other small Ohio towns want to preserve their way of life, minimize government intrusion and live in security. Many of them (I am included) believe that private institutions are better, more efficient providers of charity and that our unduly large welfare state is a really bad idea. And now everyone in the country sees how disastrous unionization has been. What do the dems have left to offer my family and friends? It isn't a problem that talking can fix.
Stephanie,
The majority of people in rural and most other parts of Ohio do talk much differently from the way John Kerry does and most people in the NE. If you would like, I could give you a pile of data on various linguistic traits of various American regions, but I think it unnecessary because I'm sure you yourself can distinguish a Bostonian, Brooklyn, Southern, upper Midwestern city.... just as easily as everyone else. I also stand by the implied claim that this affects voting patterns. I made no special claim for Ohio -- it is for this same reason why John Kerry and Ted Kennedy are the Senators of MA. That is to say, if John Edwards had run in MA and advocated more or less the same policies as Kerry, I doubt he would have been elected in MA because of his accent. While we like to think that a majority of people, be they in Boston or small town Ohio, are swayed by reason and policy (logos), not identity, this is simply not true. Studies have shown that most people decide if they like a speaker (and hence will be swayed by him), no matter what he says, after only 2 seconds. That's right, after only two seconds -- and identity plays a crucial role. If it were true that people were really more swayed by reason, then advertisers would spend more money on that sort of appeal, but they don't, because they know it is not as effective: "Three out of four doctors trust Tylenol, shouldn't you?" (= argument from ethos/authority); "'O, please help my baby is hurt!' Buy Onstar now!" (= pathos). In each of these intances, advertisers target their audience and they create a charachter who speaks, looks, acts, and says the sorts of things someone from that demographic segment they are trying to persuade. And it works.
Your comments that folks in the small towns of Ohio want "to preserve their way of life, minimize government intrusion and live in security" is great, but I would say your comment proves my point. In short, what about the behavior of the Republican party lately makes you think they, in their deeds and not their rhetoric, do a better job of this? I mean, really, what have they done lately to deserve this credit? Has the outlay in resources for the Iraq War really made the folks of Ohio safer or has it made Iran and radical clerics in Iraq safer? Was that a wise use of limited resources to protect Ohioans? Has Bush's reading of executive authority to authorize widespread use of wiretaps protected Ohioans from government intrusion? Have the Republicans' economic policies better preserved small-town Ohio's way of life? I am interested to hear how -- I really mean it. How in reality? Many polls often show that most Americans, including those in Ohio, favor the Democratic party's policies, but this doesn't mean that a majority will vote democratic. I understand this situation to be a result of the fact that the Republican party's way of talking and the sorts of appeals they make are more persuasive to more Americans/Ohioans, not their actual policies. That's why Bill Clinton won Ohio, even though his policies were mostly "liberal" -- he spoke in a manner that a good portion of non-urbanites could relate to and this was far more persuasive than anything he actually said, or did for that matter.
As for your public/private, effeciency comments, I say they prove my point again. The belief that, say health care, is "charity" and should thus be private is of course a legitimate belief/feeling to have, but it is not true to say that statistcially in monetary terms that private health care is more effecient than public health care. I can cite a host of national and international data that conclusively show that America spends far more on health care than any other country in the world and yet it reaches less of our population. Such a situation is not what I understand the term "efficient" to mean, unless of course we want to limit our discussion to the wealthier set, in which case it is probably true to say that America's system is the most efficient at providing health care to the haves. But again, you "BELIEVE that private institutions are better, more effecient providers" and no amount of data will probably change this view. So this is an ideological position -- happens to be one that a majority of Americans outside large urban centers shares. My point isn't to criticize you for it or to call you a bumpkin if you believe it, wrong though I think it is, but what I am saying is that the democrats have to understand that they cannot change your mind by citing statistics -- you will put little trust in those statistics or them if they do. If they want to change your mind, they have to accomodate your ideaology. They're not doing this -- they're talking like eastern urbanites to eastern urbanites. They can perhaps sway you by framing their own policy in a manner that appeals to your sensibility, for instance, by pointing out that charitiy is a virtue, public or private. Feed the poor, help the sick, as a people not just as individuals. This is the sort of appeal Bono made when he got Jesse Helms to help join the fight in AIDS -- he compared folks with HIV to the lepers of the Bible, he did not cite statistics of all the bad things the diasease could do. The Democrats need to do more of this, and they could still keep most of their policies if they did. But their chosen leaders must also be a good percentage of the genuine article. Howard Dean, for instance, given the rest of his personality, will do little to persuade hunters that he's one of them. Niether will John Kerry.
Hello again, Paul. A quick response before I get back to work-
First, pardon me if I suggested that dialect plays no role in national politics. I thought that we were discussing the success of Ohio politicians in Ohio. I hope you agree that, were that the case, any argument you might make based on dialect would be silly, assuming that most politicians here are mid-westerners.
Second, I didn't claim that the Bush administration has protected the interests of my friends and family in small towns around the state. In my opinion, the president has failed in many respects. My claim was not that he is effective, but rather, that the democratic party does not incorporate the concerns named above into the national agenda. The republican party does. You seem to concede this point toward the end of your prior post by noting that democrats need to change their ideology if they hope to appeal to voters like my parents and grandparents.
Finally, as you know, health care has only recently come to the fore as an overly burdensome part of the welfare state. It is generally not charitable in the United States (unless you are referring to state or IRS ruling policies on tax exemption). Nonetheless, I cannot help but think that those portions that are, such as medicare and the new prescription drug benefit, are not efficient. Of course, there are no statistics on the drug benefit yet (other than those suggesting that it will bankrupt the government by the time that you and I retire).
Medicine is more expensive here because, as leaders in the field, we bear the brunt of research and development costs, not only for drugs but also for modern procedures and education.
I hope that you are not suggesting the government as an efficient purveyor of anything medical. Ask any Canadian for an opinion on the subject. (Another thing that I am privy to as an Ohioan is medical tourism by our neighbors to the north.)
When I wrote about charity above, I intended to use the word in its traditional sense. In other words, the City Mission does a better job caring for the homeless than Cuyahoga County. No one can argue with that statement. But the point is really a minor one, meant to illustrate only that I speak in the same manner as you do.
I realize that I'm the irritating raging yin to Stephanerd's calm yang, but sometimes I just have to call bullshit. PI is quite possibly the biggest jackass I've ever had the misfortune of being vaguely familiar with. Listen you patronizing assclown, quit dodging points with your pedantry and actually say something sound. Oh, you can provide a pile of data on various linguistic traits? Even Stephanie herself can tell the difference between a southern and a Brooklyn accent? Ah, thanks for patting the hick on the head and letting her know how smart she is.
Telling the difference between accents was clearly not the point of your post, so don't spend 10,000 words trying to convince us it was. But I won't address this pathetically sad contortion of your original argument because the Nerd already did that. (Though, she didn't say this: if you want to hear country, just listen to Stephanie Tubbs Jones talk. And she sure ain't from Licking County.)
And I won't tell you that Emery disagrees with your point about midwesterners not liking Kerry's 'identity' as encapsulated in his speech, "hunting" and windsurfing (I know this because he told me that his hick parents - his accusation, not mine - are not at all bothered by Kerry's windsurfing and faux cammy bird-hunting jacket. In fact, his parents appreciate a man who also enjoys water-related sports and guns.)
My real, solid, can't-be-denied point is addressing your claim about John Edwards and his cracker accent not playing in Massachusetts. In fact, it didn't play in North Carolina (Nort Cackalacka to us hicks), either. That guy and his pretty boy hair was a one-termer and everyone who knows anything about NC politics knows it. He was a fluke, a dud, a lame duck and all the y'alls and ma'ams and stories about his poor-ass, factory father (did you hear that one?)in the world amounted to nothing but a small pile of vinegary barbecue sauce. Dan Quayle and John Edwards are living proof that people can see through the veneer of good looks and lilting accents to the vacuum beneath.
On the other hand, Bill Clinton and his white trash vocal stylings could get elected head of the Social Democrats in Lille, the Executive Secretary of the John Birch Society of Alabama and the President of Venezuela, all in the same week.
Your statistics are wrong. There's more to it than they can tell you. Unless, of course, that's what they're telling you.
Assclowns of the world, unite!
Paul, although I don't doubt that your basic argument ("culture and identity matter in political rhetoric"), we've got a good counter-example in Tennessee. Our current Democratic governor, Phil Bredesen, is a carpetbagging New Yorker with a whiny voice and a headful of wonky stats who had previously been mayor of Nashville (this may be his biggest strike; the Nash-Vegas mayor-->gov jump was, I believe, unprecedented). In 2002, he beat a serious GOP opponent who ran on a platform of his southern accent, his Bush-lovin', rock-ribbed conservative values, and his NASCAR endorsements. Today, Bredesen's popularity is still high enough that the politically dominant GOP can't find anyone to run against him. Now, it doesn't hurt that he's a self-made health care tycoon and that the previous GOP adminstration was bogged down and unpopular. But sometimes freaky things happen to cancel out the identity issues you cite.
On John Edwards, I have to interject here, as someone who went to college in NC, worked there, return there every year to see old friends, and grew up just a few miles from the NC border in SC. John Edwards is generally well liked down there. He may not be a perfect ideological match for the region, but people do appreciate what he says, and he's got strong constituencies in both urban and rural areas (although less so in the east, which is old Jesse Helms territory). NC is less rural than it used to be, and Edwards can usefully claim both simple roots and a meritocratic rise. The only reason he flamed out in the Dem primaries is b/c of front-loading in IA and NH. Stretch it out or put the southern primaries up front, and he wins that race. In a general election for prez, he may not win NC or the south generally, but he puts several states in serious play in a way that Kerry could not (NC, VA, FL, AK, TN, KY, LA). He was not a fluke.
Correction: AK should have been AR.
Wow,
Come into the office at 11:30 AM to find that I've been called a jackass and, my personal favorite, "patronizing assclown". Anywho, Stephanie your point is well taken. I was bouncing back and forth between Ohio and national in ways not always clear. The differences in the accents between Hackett and Brown, if there are any, would be marginal in any Ohio statewide race. However, while I focused on accent, that was not my only point -- they way one talks and mannerisms and also important. Hackett's use of soldier-speak (which is what Hackett has) would have been more effective in my opinion around the state, but naive poor fool that I was, I did not imagine nor had I heard that his war record was being pilloried. So, he too would have been swift-boated for questioning the war, and probably would have suffered the same fate as Kerry for it. In Ohio and most of the Midwest, the big linguistic and cultural divide falls more between urban and rural rather than north and south (although north and south still are different here in Ohio). The folks of Circleville, Ohio certainly do talk a lot differently, in almost every way, than those just 30 miles north in Columbus, and candidates who speak more like them would do better there and in other rural areas of the state, but naturally there can and will always be other factors in play that can tip the balance. Such, apparently, was the case in Nashville. The differences in speech patterns between the suburbs of Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus are, however, negligible.
Lex, for your invectives directed at Edward's "cracker accent" and his "pretty boy hair", are they not consistent, if not proof, of my point against your own (if in fact that was the bug up your bum), that people really do care about style over substance? How else could one explain your comparing Edwards to Quayle? Unlike Quayle, Edwards actually does have something between the ears. Finally, your comment that "Your statistics are wrong. There's more to it than they can tell you. Unless, of course, that's what they're telling you" encapsulates well my point that an argument from logos/pisteis won't work to persuade most people, so why bother? That is to say, while at the end of your clause you leave open the possibility that a statistic might tell you something, the fact is up front you've already dismissed it as wrong without seeing it (for how could you, since I gave no source or figures for any statistic).
As for unionization, privatization, healthcare, that will have to wait another day. In the meantime, I think I'll join the thousands of other Americans and even some US states and head up to that broken down, terrible public health system in Canada to buy some affordable drugs because their government, unlike ours, will bargain with drug companies such as Merk, Sherring-Plough, Glaxo-Smith-Kline...(not all of which are American and all of which do research and testing around the globe, not just in the US, and have no problem selling their wares at lower cost to other countries).
PS Extra:
If it is true that
Tiajuana is nice too, senor.
I think I made it clear that I was talking about John Edwards getting re-elected in NC, not winning the Dem nomination. I think he could be the Dem nominee (maybe should be the Dem nominee, if you believe Emery), for the very reasons we're discussing: prettiness, supposed authenticity, bumpkin roots, meritocracy. But he was not going to get re-elected in North Carolina. You know it, I know it and all his friends all over the state know it.
If you're going to argue with me about, make it a justification of that awful NC BB(B)Q.
CL, how can a man who hates NC BBQ claim to know anything about the tastes of the tarheel state?
We'll never know what would have happened if Edwards had run for re-election rather than for Prez, but my money would have been on him winning rather handily. He's exactly the kind of Dem that North Carolinians traditionally love--a telegenic, self-made man with a moderate technocratic agenda built for the research triangle, the university towns, and even the Mayberrys. NC kept electing Jim Hunt governor over and over again, at spaces decades apart, and Hunt doesn't have half of Edwards's charisma.
I know that conservatives want to believe that Edwards is some lefty version of Dan Quayle, but wishin' don't make it true. Really, do they have anything in common aside from the "pretty boy" thing?
No argument from me on the difference between DQ and JE. I'm no Quayle apologist either. (Interesting note. The fiance and me (sorry FFB ladies, the CL is taken) were driving through Huntington, Indiana, once and spotted the Dan Quayle VP Library and Museum sign. After a laugh we speculated on exactly what the ratio of ironic to actual visitors to that place is.)
DQ and JE are similar (and included in this argument) only because both are pretty boy smiles and hair as a shell for their vacuity. Still, in a race of who I hate worse - priviliged pot-head frat boy or plaintiff's attorney - I just think it's too close to call.
As for the BBBQ, sorry. Last summer me and the fiance (I'm really hitting that hard, no?) had some of that crap. My nose is still scarred from getting a snout full of vinegar. Though I have to say that Pierce's just north of Williamsburg (I know, I know, it's not NC, but it's on that side of the country) is really really good.
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