Elections matter a little. For instance school board elections, local community board elections, and the like matter a lot more as far as a person's effect on her community than an election to the office of U.S. Senate or the President.
As far as I can remember nobody on this list ever writes about the kinds of elections that we can actually make a difference in . Why? Because presidential elections are part of our star culture and school board elections are not , and thus they are not important enough for important intellectuals to pay attention to. We would rather talk about the stars and celebrities of politics, and the stars and celebrities of other television dramas because they are part of the inculcation of ideological branding of our culture and that is what it matters. Doug and Dennis and the rest who think that this kind of star "politics" is important are simply indulging in the same kind of thinking as personality cultists around Obama. It is the same kind of politics of "branding" and the politics of "star" hierarchy and the politics of celebrity worship.
Elections mean something to those of us who oppose our ruling class and their managers and kept elites. But the meaning of elections is not in the "horse race" or the "electoral process" or in the faux debates about non-issues that the candidates engage in. All of these phenomena we should be seeking to expose as shams and as subversions of democracy, not paying attention to as if the difference between Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola, Burger King and McDonald's, really mattered. To believe that the difference between Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola really matters and your choice between these two products really matters is to buy into consumerist branding that loses a portion of your mind in the struggle against oppression.
To believe that the difference between the Obama-brand or the Clinton-brand is something that we should worry about is to miss what is important about the election. To concentrate on something like the Electoral College is to miss what is important about regionalism. I have tried to explain in previous what people, especially leftists, are missing when they concentrate on such things. as if they are important, but neither Doug or Dennis or Marvin actually engages the debate on this level.
Take Doug's statement: "Elections don't necessarily change much, though they make some difference on some things - yet they shape the way that most people think about politics?"
The first part of this statement is a truism, and as I said in my arguments against the Obama-ites I agree with it. The second statement doesn't follow. About half the people don't vote in elections. Very few people care about the primaries. In this elections season of "huge" turn-outs in primaries most people are not voting at all. Most people think that who is president or senator is irrelevant to their daily lives. To the extent that most people think about the "non-politics" of electoral politics most people just react to the game of "selling" and "branding" or simply would rather not pay attention at all. And they may not be right in not being "involved" but they are certainly right in being apathetic.
Who are "most people" Doug? Are these "people" only the people that matter and the rest of us are not people at all? Practically everyone I knew when I was working as a taxi driver and before that as a steelworker, did not vote and would never vote for president. Why should they?
But to concede your point I think you are correct. Our selling of elections does shape what most people think about politics and most people just think it is another cynical exercise in advertising and so don't vote at all.
All that Doug does is avoid the question. Why is Rove-like demographic analysis important? Why? Exactly why? Why is it important except as marketing research? Why is concentrating on "who" the candidates "are" important except as a form of branding? (Note we both agree, I think, that both Clinton and Obama are more Atlanticist than the Republicans and thus, to some extent, represent different sectors of the ruling class. But caring about the selling points for each candidate has very little to do with trying to understand ruling class maneuvering and has everything to do with branding.) Why is the Electoral College itself and what Rove thinks about it important?
Jerry