> As far as his party's strategists are concerned, the name of the game
> is combining Zionist campaign funds with Black votes, and then
> fighting tooth and nail against Bush for every blessed Southern white
> Protestant voter.
I suspect there's a bit more to the strategy than those elements, but that's certainly the kind of sophisticated, cutsey strategy that computer-assisted number-crunching has made possible. Whether such a strategy works or not, I think, is mostly a matter of luck and a lot of work turning out the voters on Election Day. With a country as divided as this, the most knowledgeable political observers seem to think that the winner will be the one who has the better turn-out drive.
> Modern 'mainstream' politics can no longer officially pander to
> racism, so the 'consultants' of both parties have fallen back on
> religion.
Interesting point. Both appeal strongly to voters who haven't a clue about the real issues at state in an election, but can be fired up enough to make a trip to the polling place. And they're a lot easier to demagogue about than a detailed tax policy.
> Dean has two kinds of liberal supporters. Naive college kids are the
> foot soldiers of his campaign. They lack the experience to grasp what
> he is doing with all his crap about the Dixie flag and Jesus. But the
> editorial hacks at the New York Times and The Nation know exactly what
> it means: President Dean won't change anything important when it comes
> to race relations, and he won't be found in the trenches when it comes
> to resisting right-wing assaults on Jefferson's "wall of separation
> between Church and State." This troubles them. But what choice do
> these do nothings have? They don't have a party of their own. Wool
> sellers know wool buyers. The Democratic hustlers understand that, as
> long as Dean stays an inch to the left of Bush on Iraq, he doesn't
> have to give liberals a damned thing. He can get caught in bed with an
> underage, unconsenting lamb and they will vote for him, some even
> voting for him because of the little beast.
The whole Dean thing looks more and more to me like a replay of 1960 (though not, of course, in all respects). I was a naive college kid that year (though I didn't work for JFK) -- I was as starry-eyed about him as these Deansters. Meanwhile, the real politics, of course, produced a win for him based on the solid seg South and Daley's tombstone vote.
> The other grouping consists of serious doers who organize rallies and
> marches. They have been inspired by the wave of anti-Iraq war demos,
> here and world wide. But now they, like the liberals, are confronted
> with the fact that this year is an election year. Who is their
> candidate?
The Demo candidate (whoever it is) will be running with one eye focused on what is currently happening in Iraq and the other on the domestic economy. If either one is going badly for Bush -- or both -- you can bet that whoever the candidate is will be a staunch war-hater and/or economic populist; if neither one is, said candidate is sunk anyway. So the candidate had might as well come out swinging for W, which is the best thing that can be said about Dean.
> It is impossible to see a left candidate winning. But Dean's gallop
> into unblushing demagoguery opens up serious possibilities of
> educating the youth and other healthy elements, in the anti-war
> movement and beyond. Ossified liberals will denounce us if we tell
> people that a vote for Dean is unprincipled, even if he were to win,
> and there is no assurance of that. But so what? We will go on building
> the anti-war movement. And we remind people, now, that the Vietnam era
> movement did get us out of the war, even though the Democrats lost the
> 1968 and 1972 elections.
"Ossified liberals" (if I understand precisely who Brenner is referring to) will go to their graves convinced that any candidate deserving their support needs to be principled, when in fact those of us in at least slight touch with reality are aware than principles have as much relationship to US politics as ships do to sealing wax. But it's comforting to some extent to have folks around who remind us that principles should not be completely forgotten.
However, I don't quite agree with the Vietnam era parallel. It's true that '68 and '72 showed that the world doesn't end if the Dems lose elections (though I wonder if that will be true this year). But the Bushies have one foot out the Iraq door already; the purpose of the anti-war movement at this point, I think, is not to focus narrowly on the "in or out of Iraq" question, but to educate the public on the broad issue of the US position in the world. The Bushies are eager to get out of Iraq because they don't want to be tied down there when the time comes to invade the next country; unless the public understands what's going on, either Bush *or* the Democratic president (yes, even Bush) will in fact invade another country.
> And maybe, just maybe, they could also begin to discuss building a
> serious party, opposed to the bipartisan demagogues and imperialists.
All of the groups Brenner mentions, and more, are already trying to do just that, I would have thought. I think a fruitful topic of discussion (not that I expect all of those groups to ever sit down together at one table and hold it) would be: why have all of these efforts failed, and can anything be done about that?
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ When I was a little boy, I had but a little wit, 'Tis a long time ago, and I have no more yet; Nor ever ever shall, until that I die, For the longer I live the more fool am I. -- Wit and Mirth, an Antidote against Melancholy (1684)