Anthony Lane’s review of the Da Vinci Code should be your first stop in this week’s New Yorker. I was a bit disappointed in his review of Cruise and MI3 a few weeks ago. I though he could have been a lot ruder. But Lane has reinstated himself as my favorite literary crush after this: “There has been much debate over Dan Brown’s novel ever since it was published, in 2003, but no question has been more contentious than this: if a person of sound mind begins reading the book at ten o’clock in the morning, at what time will he or she come to the realization that it is unmitigated junk? The answer, in my case, was 10:00.03, shortly after I read the opening sentence…”
heh. But this post isn’t about Lane. It’s about Jeffrey Goldberg’s article “Central Casting: What is the Democrats’ Best Way to Win.” (The article isn’t on line, but an interview with the author is.)
Despite a huge opportunity landing on their lap, Goldberg says that the Democrats show every sign of fucking it up. It could be 1964 all over again. In ’64, huge, new class of freshman Democratic congressmen was elected, which gave Johnson the chance to push through the Great Society program. 1964, people. And instead, we’re already making mistakes like that Lamott thing and Pelosi keeps making an ass of herself and the best we’ve got is Hillary. Okay, back to the article.
Goldberg cited some very useful numbers:
In 2004, 61% of church-going voters said they voted for Bush; 39% went to Kerry.
59% of voters with kids supported Bush; 40% for Kerry.
21% of Americans self-identify as liberal
34% as conservative
45% as moderates
In order to win, Democrats have got to pull almost 2/3rds of moderate voters. They also have to get those church-going voters with kids.
Even Howard Dean gets this. I didn’t realize that he was so strong on national security issues, until I read this article, but he is. And this is one of the issues that is important to middle America.
Democrats also have to play nice with religious folks. Respect. You may not agree with their positions on things, but stop that sneering. We aren’t going to get elected that way.
Dean has tried to reach out to, among others, evangelical Christians, and he doesn’t like what he suggests is the Party’s gradual abandonment of the socially conservative but economically liberal working class. ‘The Democratic Party was built on four pillars — the Roosevelt intellectuals, the Catholic Church, labor unions, and African-Americans,” he said not long ago. “But we had stopped communicating with the Catholics and with labor, and so all you have left was the Roosevelt intellectuals and the African-Americans.”
My man, Obama, comes out of the article shining. He’s not ripe enough for 2008. Too bad, because he’s the man. He gets middle American more than anybody else in the Democratic leadership. Not like Pelosi, who wants to waste time by subpoenaing Bush for two years. I’m past that. Bush is roadkill. We have to step over his dead body and get some work down, rather running him over with the car again and again.
Goldberg spends some time interviewing Democratic candidates in Missouri. They say they don’t want Hillary down there campaigning for them. The red states hate her, even if she is trying to be the moderate.
But it all comes down to respect. The former Virginia Governor said that it would be dumb to nominate Clinton who would only have appeal in 16 states. “Part of this is just showing respect. Respect for culture, faith, values. You know, not everybody wants to live in a big city…. I don’t think it’s only about faith; it’s about values and respect. It’s about being comfortable at a NASCAR race as wellas in a boardroom.”
Goldberg writes, “The Democratic Party of 2006 bears little resemblance to the party that dominated American politics from 1932 until 1964. But if the New Deal coalition has dissolved, there is a persistent desire to revive it — and to modernize it — especially among those who feel estranged from the Party’s national leadership. ‘We used to be the party of the big tent, Montana’s Governor Schweitzer said. “We have to respect regional differences. A Democrat in Montana looks a little different from one from Massachusetts. You don’t have to agree with my idea about gun control, but you’ve got to respect it.”
It’s a damn good article. I have no patience with people who have no interest in getting elected. No common sense or vision. No interest or sympathy for the people who enter the voting booth. Too bad that Obama isn’t ready yet.
Apt. 11d 
Yes, yes, and yes. But the party machine is almost certain to bring us down, as it did last time. Squabbling over who has seniority, whose turn it is, whose megalomania is too big to think outside the ego.
And Pelosi, Feinstein, and Boxer — together they make me embarrassed to be a Californiana.
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I heart Dean : )
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How about an Obama/Lieberman ticket? I’d vote for it in a second.
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Respect inside the Democrats’ Big Tent
The Kabuki dance between Democrats and white people of faith raises some interesting questions about espect, as blogger 11D points out. How do Democrats approach religious folks in general, but specifically those who may not agree on issues like abortion
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But, what does it mean to respect churchgoing people with families? I mean, that’s me: exurban, traditional two-parent hetero family, weekly church attendance (twice weekly come fall). And usually I read this whole “respect their values” language as code for abortion and gay marriage. But is that really why more of the folks in the pews with me are voting Republican? Because they think gay marriage and abortion are the most pressing issues facing them, so pressing that they shouldn’t vote for candidates whose agendas for the economy, national defense, and the environment line up with their own?
And if people DO believe that — that abortion and gay marriage are important enough to tilt their votes — then WHY do they believe that, and what do the Democrats do to convince them to change their minds? Talk more about “sharing your values,” which is more than mildly hard to sell? Or talk more about why the other things are more important?
I thought what made Obama (and to some extent Edwards) so compelling was their relentless focus on economic arguments, about re-phrasing “American values” in terms of fairness and opportunity, and not the culture wars at all.
Watching Hillary Clinton try to talk values lately has been an exercise in cringe-inducing stomach-churning pain. No wonder the Democrats keep losing “moderate” and “church-going” voters. With her in the lead, we Democrats look like idiots.
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I think that Goldberg and his interviewees are saying that “respect” doesn’t have to mean pandering, which is what Hillary comes off as doing, or selling themselves out. It’s pretty much doing what I talked about in a recent post. Just saying you go your way and I’ll go mine on cultural stuff. I think a lot of religious people would still vote Democratic, if the leadership said, “I disagree with you, but I see where you’re coming from. You aren’t a hayseed. You aren’t an idiot. Now let’s talk about your health care bills.”
Someone at the end of the article said that Democrats just have to acknowledge that abortion is a morally tricky thing without proposing any roll backs, and they would clean up.
Yes, Jody. I want candidates who like Obama stress the economic stuff and just drop the whole culture war crap.
Mac — Dean comes off very well in the article.
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I’ve read the article now, and mostly it reads to me like a subtle, well-done argument against nominating another New England/Northern California elitist to the presidency. Or, to put it another way, an argument against Hillary Clinton and her $78 million war chest. Which is all to the good, and quite convincing to me (here in this “Red State” with its Democratic governor, state house, and state senate — not to mention some of the largest military bases on the east coast), but still a little — muddled. Do we believe the first Missourian quoted, who says candidates should proclaim that they don’t support abortion, or the actual Missourian candidate, who doesn’t disavow her pro-choice beliefs but doesn’t get bogged down in them, either?
I’d apply some of the same problems facing mainline churches here — mainline Protestant churches have been losing members steadily, and the argument is made repeatedly that they should make themselves over in the image of evangelical megachurches. The problem is, mainline Protestant christianity doesn’t really come by the theology of the megachurches naturally, and often mainline churches look (generalizing extensively here) stupid trying to do megachurch worship. They run away from their strengths, which are legion, and then look desparate, confused, not to mention imcompetent. Also, there’s an open question as to whether American Christian churchgoers particularly like the specific theology of megachurches, or whether they’re simply looking for a church that knows what it believes, whatever that might be. Meanwhile, mainline Protestantism celebrates nuance and it’s-hard-to-be-sure and disavows or soft-pedals what it does believe. Sound familiar?
At some point, I think most Americans respect the institutions that quite beating around the bush (ack, bad and unexpected pun) and take a stand already. Say what’s important, and stick with it. Stop trying to imitate the other guy, and at least respect yourself. None of which would rule out listening to the Democrats who manage to win state support from Bush voters.
And yes, obviously, stop being condescending idiots when it comes to the electoral-college majority. Then again, what does it say about the Democrats in 2004 that Teresa Heinz’s foolishness regarding organic pork production somehow becomes emblamatic of the party’s problems? I think the problems run a lot deeper than whether you know how to shoot a gun or can identify the major NASCAR events.
Regardless, though, not Hillary. Please, not Hillary.
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Democrats also have to play nice with religious folks. Respect. You may not agree with their positions on things, but stop that sneering. We aren’t going to get elected that way.
I’m sorry – I missed the sneer. From candidates? Really? When?
Sure, I’m nominally a democrat and I sneer almost constantly at the religiously minded. But I hadn’t noticed a candidate for national / state office doing this. Can you think of an instance?
I think you’re repeating talking points. And I think whoever came up with those talking points means by “not sneering,” yes, pandering.
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I’m not reading talking points. I was reading an article in a liberal journal interviewing leaders in the Democratic party who all said that Democrats aren’t reaching middle America.
I don’t think that the candidates themselves are sneering. No one is that stupid. I think the candidates have trouble speaking to middle America without coming out preachy or as know it alls. I think that the sneering is elsewhere, including in some of my favorite blogs. I think the sneering isn’t because anybody is an asshole; it’s just that we need to unify behind that one good candidate with the great ideas and we don’t have it yet, so we’ve gotten lost.
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“I think the candidates have trouble speaking to middle America without coming out preachy or as know it alls.”
I think this is Republican spin which Goldberg seems happy to push.
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As far as elections go, I think conservatives (which is to say of the “small government, state’s rights” variety) are going to help Democrats this time around — at the least, they’re not going to vote for the Republican/Christian-Socialist Party, perferring to show their disgust by either voting Democrat or third-party and splitting the GOP’s traditional base. It’d take some major league fuck-ups by the Dems not to clean up big in November (so, of course, having said that, the GOP’s got a pretty good shot at it).
I’ve heard some things about Al Gore making a reappearance in two years.
And I think I might’ve said it here before — who cares if the Republicans keep control of the White House in ’08? Better to have control of Congress.
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