Is that all there was?

[barking_iguana]

With Obama's probable nomination, will come a 'generational' changing of the guard of the behind-the-scenes Democratic leadership. The people who've been there for a long time are like a cohort of singles bar aficionados, who pride themselves on being masters at sealing the deal. But their obsessive focus on the mechanics of seduction always ends up preventing the sex from being as satisfying as they imagine it will be.

An effective political party is not merely a vehicle for individual candidates who happen to share some policy goals. The party must be an instrument of a movement that brings together people who share some values, then determines what policies will best represent those values in government, and recruits and elects candidates who will support (and ideally, further develop) those policies.

The Democrats knew that in the 1960s, but got torn apart over foreign policy. So when a coherent* movement took over the GOP in the late 1970s, it dominated the political landscape for a generation.

The 50+1 orientation is the epitome of focusing on the mechanics rather than the relationship. It's not that you should never pay attention to knowing exactly how much you have to achieve to win. But when you forget why you're interested in the first place, the losses do more damage and the wins aren't nearly as rewarding.

*organizationally and sometimes philosophically coherent, but not intellectually so

Comments

[avram]

So what you're saying is that the Democrats have been trying to screw us for the past three or four decades?

[tayefeth.livejournal.com]

If not trying, then at least succeeding.

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

I think it’s pretty clear in how Nancy Pelosi and even more so Harry Reid have been behaving, that they are playing a bait-and-switch game.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

"Connect" would be a more polite term, except every time we invite them home, we end up with morning-after regrets. So we (the voters as a whole, not you and I) go back to our abusive ex, the GOP.

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

Who wants to team up with people who seem to have no conviction about anything, and who again and again try to show they are ‘strong’ by hanging out with your vicious ex and licking his boots? Either way you are stuck with your vicious ex, so whose boots are you going to lick?

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

That's about it. The last vestige of respect that the insiders had for principle went out the window when they blamed Mondale's loss on his saying we needed a tax increase. And it didn't start to turn around until the Dean campaign and the netroots came along.

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

I think Al Gore is more fundamental than Howard Dean. I, for one, was ‘radicalized’ by the attack of 12/12/2000, which was instigated by Al Gore, and then Al Gore made himself into, not a charismatic leader, but a teacher.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

Gore had that effect on many people, I think, though I never got why. But in any case, he had no direct impact on Washington Democrats. He couldn't start seeing straight until he repudiated the inside life, and then he was regarded by them the way the father in Beetlejuice was regarded by his former colleagues.

However, I can see that Gore likely seeded the ground so that Dean, the bloggers, and now Obama have more outsiders who are ready to hear them. And it's those movements that have been big enough to challenge the orthodoxy.

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

The key thing is that the aftershock of 12/12 was when the on-line Democratic politics phenomenon got moving, and 12/12 occurred because Al Gore retracted his concession. The netroots movement was already there when Dean came along; I know because I was there and involved in some ways from the beginning.

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

Note also that people looking for a known quantity to run for president in 2008 have sought Al Gore and not Howard Dean.

Howard Dean is mythical, like Paul Wellstone. Dean is a personification of netroots. The actual Dean is a bumbling guy who won only his home state (if I remember correctly), despite having been labeled by the MSM as a sure thing. (The MSM made him, more than they tore him down. The silly reaction to The Scream, for instance, came after Dean was already defeated by voters.)

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

We need a generational name. The people we are trying to kick out are pre-Baby-Boomers and some early-Baby-Boomers. I say we call them ‘Them’. The new generation we can call ‘Us’. :P

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

I put "generational" in single quotes above, because age only approximates the division. Those born in the 1940s and early 50s who didn't get involved in politics until later in life are among 'us.' OTOH, I, who was born in 1960 but was politically precocious and got involved in 1972, would have ended up among 'them,' had I been an overachiever.

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

If you were an overachiever, you would have been bored and become an underachiever.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Jones

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

I prefer the name Generation You Idiot Reagan Voters. :)

My mom showed all signs of membership in the Me Generation of the 1970s. I’m not sure that was actually generational, however.