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This past week a genuine full-blown tempest broke out in blogdom. It represented one of those moments that makes blogdom such an interesting, novel and important place and yet also illustrates how far we have to go. The main point of the discussion focused on whether the Democratic Party should center this term’s campaign on the economy or the Iraq War. The outburst apparently was triggered by a Roll Call article that began, “Forced to play defense on national security for the third election year in a row, Congressional Democrats have been huddling in recent days to sharpen their attacks on the one issue they believe puts the Republicans on the run: the economy.”
Arianna Huffington wrote “The Dems are like a bunch of crack addicts who know that the stuff is killing them, but keep reaching for the pipe. The closer they get to Election Day, the more they desperately crave a hit of ‘It’s the economy, stupid!’. Repeat after me: It’s NOT the economy, stupid!” Mathew Yglesias added, “Pardon me while I go vomit. I mean, look, people who feel their economic circumstances are super-dire are going to vote for the Democrats one way or the other. They will, that is, unless they’re convinced that voting Democratic will get their family killed by terrorists.” Finally came Kos himself, “For the record, we heard this in 2002. We heard it in 2004. I gave the argument the benefit of the doubt those years. I think I actually bought it in 2002. But apparently our vaunted leadership in DC is incapable of learning lessons.”
All three of these are bloggers I respect. Their work first showed the Democratic Party–and the mainstream media– that there were people out there who were not being heard. But having said that, the past does not make them immune to criticism.
First, let’s remember our history. Have we forgotten that John Kerry elbowed his way onto the 2004 platform because the party bigwigs thought this war hero could take on the GOP on the war? Oh yes, please let’s also get our facts straight before popping off. The September 25th CNN poll shows: “The economy topped the list of respondents’ concerns, with 28 percent calling it the most important issue when deciding how to cast their ballots. Coming second was Iraq at 25 percent, followed by terrorism (18 percent), moral issues (15 percent) and immigration (14 percent).” and pardon me while I go vomit, but in my neck of the woods we don’t condescendingly make statements like “people who feel their economic circumstances are super-dire are going to vote for the Democrats one way or the other.” I’d suggest you give my fellow Minnesotan Winona LaDuke a call on that one up at the rez at White Earth–or just read her 2000 Vice Presidential acceptance speech. Taking people for granted is how you not only lose elections but people’s respect!
The more I blog the more it reminds me of high school with its cliques who talk only to each other and don�t even make eye contact with the rest of us passing in the hallways. So I decided to see what other bloggers were saying�the ones who don�t appear on talk shows or have big budgets or the right connections.
I decided to use Technorati–a service I have mixed feelings about–which ranks us all the way the Q index tracks the popularity of Hollywood stars and other public figures. It at least provided me with a doorway to find fellow bloggers, although it took awhile to find some of them because like the average high school student they don�t have long lists under their yearbook pictures. Here are two samples–and believe me–there are more out there.
In Iraq or The Economy: Stupid Edition chicago dyke wrote, “Honestly, I don�t know why it’s so hard to walk and chew gum at the same time. I think the strategy should be the economy sucks because the Republicans have spent all your money on a failed war at the expense of every domestic issue you can imagine, but what do I know.”
“Smart, Sassy, and Liberal,” definitely showed she is all three. She wrote, “No one in the Democratic party is saying what we should be: Iraq is not an easy answer. Removing troops is not an easy task and while we hope for a quick resolution, we must work to resolve the situation so that it doesn’t become a nightmare in the near future. That is why the Democratic party has no message. No one in this party wants to say what is unpopular within the party. No one wants to have the guts to stand up and say, this is wrong and we should fix it, fix it correctly, and then move on.”
In essence neither the Roll Call Democrats nor the royalty of blogdom have it right-the Democrats have lost every national election since 2000 because of one thing–values! People like George Lakoff and Thomas Frank and myself have written books trying to get the Party to see this, but it keeps passing over the heads of some bloggers. The GOP does well because you can pick any issue and probably guess what they will say because you know their values. You can’t do that for the Democrats. As long as the Party keeps “triangulating” what it thinks will win, it will look like opportunists without principles.
What do we stand for? I told someone who had a conniption about my characterization of Ned Lamont that I could write a paragraph in less than half an hour that would link the war, the loss of civil liberties and, yes, the economy with the values outlined in The Strange Death of Liberal America.
Now here is where I am going to get red-faced. In all those posts about the war I did not see anything about values. My son’s best friend is in Iraq right now. We don’t know if he has adequate body protection or armor for his Humvee. We don’t know what he is supposed to be doing or why? He doesn’t know why he is stationed where he is and what place that has in our larger strategy about the war. In short, he has no idea what his mission is other than making sure he and his unit get back alive. If you are going to evoke the war in Iraq then for God’s sake talk about it human terms, not as some “issue.” If you want to read what I think is a masterpiece about values and the war read Liberal Jarhead’s post “The Nature of the Job” in Bring It On!
George Lakoff deserves the lion�s share of the credit for putting the values issue on the table. Now Democrats need to have a serious conversation about values–all of us.
Technorati Tags: Kos, HuffPo, the economy, values, Iraq War, The Strange Death of Liberal America , John Kerry, George Lakoff, Democratic Party, CNN, Democrats, Republicans, GOP, Arianna Huffington, 2002 election , 2004 election , it’s about values, stupid!
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