election demographics

[Justin Schwartz]

That's tricky. I'd submit that there are two things in play. One is 
cultural: Ol' George came off as one of them noblesse oblige liberals, annd 
folks jut hate to be condescended to and done good for. What we need is a 
rabble rousing Huey Long type liberal or progressive, at least in 
presentation. Enough of these tweedy, thoughtful, Adelai Stevenston 
types.Second, there's racism. George ran at a time when the Repugs were 
playing the race card to great advantage in a way that, as we used to say, 
split the working class. That hasn't entirely ceased to be an effective 
play, but the evidence of increasing racial tolerance over the last 30 
years, which real and substantial, suggests that it might be less effective 
today. But I don't think it's because George was "too liberal"--the poll 
data show that most people want more spending on the environment, more 
safety regulation of industry, higher wages, better pension benefits, in 
short, the Great Society and the New Deal. I think a noncondescending 
proud-to-be liberal politician who happy trump-eted that he was in favor of 
those things would do pretty well. He would have to beat off pretty savage 
propaganda attacks. but why haven't the conservatives? The liberals have 
been running scared--no wonder people think they have something to be 
ashamed of. --jks


>From: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb at jmu.edu>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>Subject: Re: election demographics
>Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2000 13:11:24 -0500
>
>Justin,
>       Well, how about George McGovern?  Couldn't
>even take his own state.  Just another wanker, eh?
>       I was not here then, but his run triggered the shift
>of the Byrd machine from the Demos to the Repugs,
>who now control not only the legislature, but all the
>top offices in the state without having gone Demo
>for prez since LBJ.  Lot more of that went on.
>        Now, this did not keep me from being a policy
>adviser for old George when he ran again in 1984 as
>the "conscience of the Democratic Party."  For those
>who remember his debate performance in Iowa that
>year (came in third in the caucuses), I was the author
>of his proposal to cut the DOD budget by $ 63 billion
>that he trumpeted then.  Oh well....
>Barkley Rosser
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Justin Schwartz <jkschw at hotmail.com>
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>Date: Wednesday, November 08, 2000 5:26 PM
>Subject: Re: election demographics
>
>
> >I still haven't provided the figures, but there is an obvious hypothesis 
>to
> >explain your puzzle. It's not that people have preferred more 
>conservative
> >candidates. It's that they haven't been offered more liberal ones. Why
> >Reagan over Carter, Bush Sr over Dukakis, you ask? The thing is, these
> >liberals were fleeing liberalism instead of trumpeting it--they treated 
>it
> >as something to be ashamed of, and in fact, bought into and reinforced 
>ana
> >ggressively conservative rhetoric. There is an old (1960s, I think) book 
>on
> >what Americans really think that I liked, can't remember the authors or
> >title, have it around here somewhere, that argued that Americans go in 
>for
> >conservative global rhetoric and liberal concrete policies. --jks
> >
> >>
> >>Here then is the puzzle: how is it a gradually more liberal electorate
> >>prefers to elect increasingly conservative candidates?  There's got
> >>to be some additional dimension here that slice and dice the meanings
> >>and
> >>causes of liberalism and conservativism into contradictory fragments.
> >>
> >>If the electorate now is more liberal than the ones electing Johnson
> >>or Kennedy, which helps explain how or why Nixon expanded the social
> >>welfare state, how is it that a Democratic President feels compelled
> >>to latch onto something like welfare reform because it's seen consistent
> >>with the mood of the people?
> >>
> >>Dennis Breslin
> >
> >_________________________________________________________________________
> >Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
> >
> >Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
> >http://profiles.msn.com.
> >
> >
>

_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at 
http://profiles.msn.com.