[lbo-talk] Karl Rove's Strategy

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Marvin Gandall marvgandall at rogers.com, Thu Nov 4 07:42:32 PST 2004:
>  > [lbo-talk] a vision..., Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com, Thu Nov
>>  4 06:20:51 PST 2004:
>>  >Essentially, Rove seems to have shown that the entire previously
>>  >existing logic of American party politics no longer holds (or at the
>>  >very least can be and has been temporarily suspended): the idea that
>>  >heating up your base loses you more votes in the center than you
>>  >gain on the wing.  His argument was that you can use your base
>>  >issues to split the electorate and then win purely on turnout
>>
>>  That's precisely the strategy that leftists should use: use the
>>  issues that matter to your base -- class issues like the Iraq War,
>>  universal health care, public works jobs with living wages for the
>>  unemployed, shorter workweeks, etc. -- to split the people and then
>>  win on turnout -- except that leftists can't do this through the
>>  Democratic Party.  We have to do this primarily through social
>>  movements and secondarily third-party campaigns that serve as the
>  > movements' electoral expressions.
>
>But if you can't, as you suggest, mobilize Democrats about "the Iraq 
>war, universal health care, public works jobs with living wages for 
>the unemployed, shorter work weeks, etc.", who in heaven's name can 
>you fire up? Who are you talking about when you refer to your 
>"base"? Republicans? Those who don't vote? Students and left 
>intellectuals on the Internet? The 200 activists you turned out for 
>a demo yesterday? An idealized working class which exists only in 
>your imagination?
>
>Or are you saying you'll restrict your efforts only to those 
>Democrats you meet at or in the course of organizing demonstrations, 
>and not look for other opportunities to influence the rest?
>
>MG

You will get my point when you learn to discard the filter through 
which you read my postings.  As long as you think that I am thinking 
of "[a]n idealized working class which exists only in [my] 
imagination," you will gain nothing from talking with me, because you 
have already dismissed me as someone not worth listening to.  You may 
very well dismiss me -- that's your choice -- but in that case you 
have no reason to respond to my postings.  Respond only to those 
whose opinions you think of as worth debating.

Kerry's share of the 25% of voters who said they voted against his 
opponent was 71%.  That means that those who voted for Kerry only to 
remove Bush from the White House, rather than because they agreed 
with Kerry on key issues, was roughly 18% of the popular vote. 
That's part of the base for organizing for a pro-working-class 
political agenda.  Students and intellectuals on the left, too, are 
part of it, and so are the activists who came for the demonstration 
in Columbus yesterday and similar ones elsewhere.  Democrats whom 
organizers meet in the course of mobilizing for demonstrations and 
other political activities -- from letter writing to electoral 
campaigns -- are also part of the base.  A large part of those who 
couldn't -- due to felon disenfranchisement, immigration status, etc. 
-- or didn't vote on November 2, 2004 are part of the base.

We also want to win roughly a fifth of those who think they are 
Republican or conservative but whose minds are open to the 
pro-working class agenda, but we can only do so once the base 
mobilizes.
-- 
Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
* Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/>
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
* OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/>
* Calendars of Events in Columbus: 
<http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, 
<http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
* Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
* Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
* Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>