See Tent, Big .:. grubbykid.com

See Tent, Big

So I wanted to string together some smart people's observations in order to form a coherent thought about the current reflective mood Democrats find themselves in. As memes are wont to propagate, today's topic which continuously reared its' head was, the question of what kind of Coalition can (and should) form in order to,

Win elections through message and/or framing
Govern
Operate as the opposition party

Kevin Drum starts us off with a recap of George Lakoff's book, Don't Think of an Elephant (which I am currently reading along with What's the Matter with Kansas) and makes a case that merely creating catchy phrases will not change the direction of the discourse. Rather, the substance of the underlying message combined with artful framing of the debate will help liberals recapture the debate edge. I can't agree more - we lost in 2004 because we lacked framing and a coherent political message. The ideas were there, but we did not do a good enough job (for example) explaining why merely relying on armed forces rather than a lethal combination of everything in our arsenal was a bad idea. Yes, gay marriage had a mobilizing effect on single-issue voters, but we did not lose by gay marriage alone. I think it is important to stress the fact that we lost by many different factors (albeit not all had the same effect weight).

Next up Matt Yglesias chimes in with a very good point about party focus on issues where the party members themselves lack internal cohesion. Issues such as Heath Care and Civil Rights (read equal marriage rights) are natural trajectories of liberal compassion and empathy. Other issues such as education and most notably, national security. These are issues which need clear ideas which Kevin (and Matt) believe need to be found before the party can regain governance.

It is important that we also think of how the GOP is handling their current legislative and executive power. The beauty of the GOP is that, while there are coalition members from Wall Street, the small business sector, fundamentalist Christians, Neo- Conservatives and allied think tankers, party leadership has got the party in a pretty good lockstep. There are fissures showing in the GOP's internal dynamo as groups try to assert control of the spoils. Most notably is the spectacle Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) was forced to go through on his way to Judicial Committee Chairmanship, and the combination of the Hastert Rule and the Pentagon killing the Intelligence Reform bill. These fissues caused by internal groups who believe they were the single cause of Bush's victory (see Falwell, Jerry).

James Dobson thinks that God opened the sky and rained votes for the president:

In your re-election, God has graciously granted America�though she doesn't deserve it�a reprieve from the agenda of paganism. You have been given a mandate. We the people expect your voice to be like the clear and certain sound of a trumpet. Because you seek the Lord daily, we who know the Lord will follow that kind of voice eagerly.

Don't equivocate. Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ. Honor the Lord, and He will honor you.

Well, I'm no man of God, so I won't even begin to think that I have any clue to what God thinks. Because, well God is... God. I think it shows much vanity and hubris to try to pretend that they know the designs of the most holy. But this faction is a very strong, and vocal minority which holds the ear of the President with a force many magnitudes greater than its' actual size. This factions vocality (???), who seem to have no problem getting on tv, is where they gain their strength.

Okay, so we need to form a more coherent message, produce a useful frame, and exploit the fractures in the rulling partie's armor. Is this possible? The Left Coaster brings us an article entitled, How Big is the Democratic Party's Tent?, asking whether or not it is possible to form a coherent coalition with more conservative Democrats. Should we abandon lean Democratic states (ie: Democrats in conservative leaning districts) or grin and bear it. I advocate grin and bear it. With a legislative majority we would at least have a seat at the table, right now the GOP is not content at placing the Democrats at the kiddie table, but they are trying to light the table on fire and be done away with. Either way, we can't be like the GOP, whose members state:

Well the fact that he's a gay Republican means he should join the Democratic party.
-- The Rev. Jerry Falwel/

We can find a way to work with the coalition we have, and we can welcome any Senator from Rhode Island or Connecticut. On the same issue of party coalition, Ruy Teixeira takes on the issue of Old Democrats, New Democrats, Newer Democrats. The ray of hope Ruy brings is that the current internal party debate has been fairly civil because the labels "Old Democrats" and "New Democrats" are being replaced by simply Democrats. Whether united as a coalition by distaste for the current GOP-ruled government, or simply a return to reform minded progressive values, the older paradigms are (hopefully) no longer valid. With Howard Dean becoming a front runner for head of the DNC, the party can work for the next two years as a true opposition party.

Finally, there is much talk about "fixing" our message in order to tailer it to specific regions and tastes. I think this is a mistake because it dilutes our message (remember the first point?) which dilutes any power of frame making. Matt Davis agrees with me for many of the same reasons.But Matt makes the case that our agenda has lost any sort of pro-active stance to it. I agree with this (to a point) - part of this is because Democrats do not control the levers of Congress and the legislative agenda and the Bush Administration does a great job of burying its' opponents in bull shit that it is hard to swim through. But the fact remains that we have ceded (and the media complied) what it means to be a liberal and a Democrat are, to external forces. It is time to take the term liberal back.

Finally, it is important that we continue this sort of introspection, but we also must urge our leaders to become the true party of opposition. And that means staking out a firm opposite stand from the current power structure. Luckily we can shoot high in the sky, because we do not have to deal with compromises of the legislative process because there is no chance in hell of any Democrat-backed legislation passing this Congress. It is our time to remake the Democratic Party by supporting policies and agendas which compliment the natural empathetic and compassionate nature of Democrats (more coming on that).

See Tent, Big

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