Are we . . . neo-liberals?

According the Kenneth Pollack (author of The Threatening Storm), yes, we are neo-liberals.

Maybe we should work to claim that label in the blogosphere. It will distinguish us from the others.

The New Republic calls itself a neo-liberal magazine, and I agree with them nearly 100 percent of the time on almost everything, so I guess I'm pretty firmly in their camp.

I don't suppose this really matters, but from what I've read about Saddam's boys, they were even worse than Dad. Hard to believe.

I still wish there had been some way to get them alive, though. Hard to believe they couldn't have produced some good intel for us. Oh well.

"Thing is, opinion surveys have been done of the Democratic Party that show an astonishing split between rank-and-file party members and activists, to the point where the Washington Post said that 'Democratic activists and rank-and-file might as well have come from different parties.'"

Not that astonishing; I've been referring to the activist-organizational-contributor base as opposed to, say, blue-collar and I-have-a-day-job-and-a-family Democrats. The problem is, except perhaps for the bloggosphere folks you identify, the latter are too passive; people who "want my Party back" but are, in too many (but not all) cases waiting for someone else to take it back for them.

Meanwhile, the activists referenced in the WaPo article set the tone; they fill the audience at speeches so the lines they like get "buzz", spreading their "memes", and the ones they disaprove of get removed from the next speech or downplayed.

Contributions from them fill the coffers of Democratic candidates - and since Democrats are typically the people who percieve how money distorts politics, the cashy-wheel-gets-oiled, average Democrats tend to be (some exceptions exist) oblivious to or sanguine about the impact this has on their Party. At least less concerned about the fact that the funding of Candidates comes disproportionately from a rather - um - unrepresentative-of-the-country segment of the Party than one might otherwise expect from people who in other contexts worry about how money influences the political process.

But behind all that is the fact that it is the activists who, duh, being activists, are disproportionately the campaign organizers, vollenteers, show up at conferences and State Conventions and the like; the people that candidates need to do the ground work for them, who they have to appeal to in order to build a solid grass-roots campaign going.

Being activists, where the others are more passive, they also disproportionately form the membership of interest groups, NGOs, and the like which are the most effective lobbying groups that command the attentions of Democratic politicians.

Some *ahem* of the people commenting in this thread (last name begins with "D" and ends in "rum") may dismiss all this as unimportant, not anything to be concerned about, and prefer to respond with a tu quoque than face this, but an clear-eyed observer would have to admit it's a problem.

Porph: Yeah, I guess you're right. I mean, sure it's a problem, but it's always been a problem -- and for both parties. It's a truism for Dems that you run to the left in the primaries and then jog to the center for the general election. Same for Republicans in the opposite direction.

If this were some brand new phenomenon I'd be more worried, but I think it's been true pretty much forever.

By the way, did I actually say anything in my previous post to trigger that comment? Just curious.

I've noticed that you can be relied upon to dismiss or minimize any example of excesses of the Left and its impact on your side of the spectrum with a shrug and a "nothing to see here, move along"; it's one of the things that distinguishes you from, say Armed Liberal.

This runs from things like this to your indifference over the fact that the anti-war movement was organized by Stalinists and, sorry tell you, but the crowds, rather than not being in line with that, gave their most vocal reaction to the lines of speakers that had little to do with sincere concern for peace and everything to do with dislike for American institutions and practices and its role in the world.

And a tu quoque is non-responsive; one either has a concern over whether bad elements in a political movement have too much influence, or not; I for one have considerably more respect for Republicans who made Pat Buchannan feel like he and his no longer had a role in the party and for those who were critical of Trent Lott or Pat Robertson than those who respond with a "they all do it" and reserve their outrage for when something erupts on the other side.

Yes, the Parties have their fringes; I think a failure to recognize that the one which had no problem having as their House Whip for such a long period someone who was more sympathetic to dictators with a dislike for America than with us, that Party has a big problem.

For reasons I've explained in posts on my site over the last couple weeks and in comments here during the same period, I think that Liberals - including yourself - who are not themselves part of this fringe should, for their own partisan good, not for my partisan good (though IMO for all our good as Americans), be less indifferent to this than they are.

I mean, let me put it this way, setting asside the arguments I've made elsewhere for the moment; for years and years and years, for as long as I can remember going back to the time I myself was a Democrat and as far as I know to the time before I was aware of politics (since this is something that has been around for as long as I have been into politics), Liberals and Democrats have wondered why people they think should vote more Democratic haven't and don't. They scratch their heads, wonder, come up with theories, try to fix it, but the problem remains and they're left scratching their heads each time.

IMO, this is in no small part explained because of the divide here; you might not see the effects the Left have on things as much different than the hard Right or the Religious Right on the Republicans, but a lot of people look over and feel "well, I'm a blue-collar guy, I think the Dems are more with me on my job, but I care for the country that base of their party blames for the world's ills, and damn it, I think we've done a good turn for everyone, I remember when I served and was stationed in Korea or Germany or Southeast Asia and the like, we weren't there to impose our will like these guys say, we were there to help others defend themselves. All these guys taking trips to Havana to tell Castro how great he is and how bad we are - not just the politicians and celebrities, but some of the people my daughter knows in college who signed up with a junket sponsored by a professor to go down there like it was some sort of holy pilgrimage ["true fact" as they say; when I was at Uni in the late '80s, one year the two co-Presidents took a junket, using student funds, to go to North Korea and praise the Dear Leader]; all those courses taught by the Left, some of which are required "ethnic studies courses" that are one-sided accounts of how bad we are, all that stuff. . .and the Democratic politicians seem unconcerned if they aren't friendly with these guys who are doing this stuff. I may like their economic platform better, but I can't trust them to safeguard the country if they can't even tell who the good guys are and have to pander to these guys."

So you lose elections that, "objectively", you might win - if it wasn't for the fact that your party sux on these issues, which are considered more significant to more people than the latest Pat Roberson rant. I mean, there may be sympathy for Robert Tailor among a few Right-Wing moonbats like Robertson, but it's not nearly as widespread as the kindred feelings for Castro among all too many Democrats.

I'm frustrated with you because you don't see that. I'm frustrated because that attitude is too pervasive than it should be. It lets these folks run amok in ways that, sorry, IMO their counterparts on the Right really don't.

Let me add this:

1) A lot of people, IMO, have the opinion that could work for Democrats if they didn't cater to these fringe people who never saw an American defense program they liked and who's idea of "peace" was we disarm and give into the demands of the other side; they believe that sure, the Democrats may care more about their job, but life and limb come first and anyhow smoking craters in our cities are bad for job security.

Whatever else one may say about the Right's fringe, they tend to be, if anything, even stronger on defense issues than the rest of the Democratic Party - unlike the "progressives".

If the Dems ever solved that, the Republicans could be in serious trouble.

(Now, I don't agree with this assessment of who's strongest on the economy and jobs - not anymore. But I know the attitude very well, because my family background is Democratic; rural-Wisconsin Democratic. I also grew up in Madison, myself, so when I talk about the Left and how pervasive they are, I'm not just doing it out of theory, but experience - and, frankly, experience that includes the fact that the worst excesses of my lifetime weren't in Madison).

2) Someone like yourself, invoking a "they all do it" thesis, should see this not as an excuse for indifference, passivity, and ennui on the issue, but as an opportunity to seize - hey, if we work to reduce the influence of the fringe in our party, it'll give us a key advantage over them if they're still playing that game.

Btw, I also assert that it goes well beyond electoral politics, "tacking left in the primaries and right in the general election" - it affects policies (once in office, those who tacked in a certain direction for the primaries tack back to their donor, activist, and organizational base).

So even if you don't share my assessment, expressed elsewhere (in posts and comments) about the potentially (IMO grave) damage that this poses not for the Democratic Party or the Republican Party but for the country, IMO you'd ve advised to be less shoulder-shrugging about it simply because, in acting to counter this better, perhaps you could better attract those votes that Democrats think they should have been getting all these years and scratching their head in disbelief that they are not getting.

Just something to ponder the next time you see ostensably moderate Democratic candidates earning their next Pander Bear by catering to elements that, frankly, aren't even Liberal, they're Leftist.

Porphyrogenitus:

One question to ask- In the distant past (1940-1960s?) wasn't it the other way around?? A politician would attract followers/campaign workers based on his policy--IOW, the politician drove the followers, rather than the followers driving the politician, as we see happening today.

Arguably it was; political parties were a lot stronger than they are - the essential changes came more in the '70s when a number of changes, some to party rules, some to election rules (the growth of the primary process) that minimized the "smoke filled room" effect, and some to campaign finance laws - which moved power from parties who had held stronger influence over who became a candidate, to individual candidates who could win support of contributors and of organized interest groups (funding them through PACs).

Arguably this was one of the things that made the '68 Democratic Convention so bitter and explosive, the cultural clash extended to contempt on the part of those "outside" the Convention for the Daly Machine (a "Establishment" institution of the era you're talking about) that ran things "inside".

By '72 those who had been outside were in control, had re-written party rules to "democratize" things, thus shifting the balance as you describe.

Ultimately this shift ended up affecting both Parties, but the Republicans arguably somewhat less - after all, their Party rules weren't re-written by the forces that re-wrote the Democratic Party's rules. Still, though, both Parties lost much control over who ran under their name. This is not to say they lost all influence, but the balance shifted.

IMO it hasn't really been good to "democratize" who the Party's candidates are; I'm not sure any other country uses this system. The "smoke-filled room", for all its flaws, tended to weed out charismatic flakes and produce candidates more likely to appeal to a broad public than raise the excitement of narrow but motivated ideological groups - those forces tend to have disproportionate impact in primaries and especially caucuses, and certainly in the Money and Organization Game.

So the irony is that these "democratic" processes tend to produce candidates that aren't as appealing to a majority of the electorate (what matters in general elections) than the candidates that a cabal of cigar-smoking political hacks and their Machines tended to produce.

Of course there are exceptions - one can point to flakes who ran in the past and solid people who run nowdays; this shift is a matter of degree, not kind, but that doesn't mean it lacks significance.

Somehow I accidentally ended up posting the below to the wrong thread; I meant to have it here:

(IIRC, the bylaws of the Democratic Party got re-written at the '68 Convention as a concession to those protesting its make up - one of many concessions made by the Establishment in this era - which was why the forces that were "outside" in '68 were firmly in control "inside" in '72; I just wanted to clarify that before anyone corrected the omission).

I don't feel like it's all that productive to do a lot of lefty bashing. After all, we've got conservatives to do that for us.

However, I do address this issue on my blog regularly. Just the other day I wrote a post about the Greens and whether the Dems should start attacking them more strongly, for example. I took a shot at the NAACP a few days before that.

But....although I agree with you about perceptions (that is, that public perception of the liberal extreme is worse than public perception of the conservative extreme), why are you so sanguine about the Christian right wing of the Republican party? Do you do your best to read them the riot act and get them out of the party? Or are they OK just because they're solid on defense?

Or is it that you think there's nothing wrong with them? Because to me they're every bit as scary as the academics in Berkeley beavering away on their latest theory of critical analysis.

Kevin:
Extremists of all political axes are dangerous. IMO the Left wing extremists seem to get far more air time than the RWE.

Christian Right- IMO if they didn't like most of what the Republican party has to offer, the CR would walk away. The CR seems to be a multi-issue group, not 100% focused on abortion, and can support the Party despite not getting their Holy Grail. Would the Pro Choice movement walk from the Democrats without choice a major plank in the platform?

I figured that

1) You would ignore what I said about the castigation of Buchananites and Pat Robertson and his ilk.

so that you could

2) Turn this back into a tu quoque and sidestep the issue, again.

But it does make your response interesting when you convert it into "bashing" of poor, put-upon Lefties, and the Conservatives are to do that and also bash their Hard Right - which, indeed, is done.

That's why there's all that whining, to remind you again, from various elements on the extreme Right over how influential moderate and neo-Conservative elements are compared to themselves; and how, as someone else pointed out in another thread, it is the Lefties who purge your movement, while the Buchananites et al purge ours.

If you want to remain a Sgt. Shultz type (although I'm starting to think Officer Barbrady may be a better analogy), wondering why it is most people agree with your side on "the issues" that are commonly polled and yet won't vote for your candidates - yes, most people consider security more important and won't trust their safety to a gang that defends those inimical to American defense by responding with a "oh, well, the Religious Right exist and haven't been driven from politics. Until then, we can't make asserting ourselves against the wackos among us."

By the by, I've begun wondering of late why the Religious Right extemists are so bad, but the Religious Left extremists (who are just as pervasive on your side of the isle as the Religious Right is on mine, if one looks at things honestly rather than simply through the lense of media driven hype that emphasizes only one side of the equasion) are not that important.

But, yah; if you wonder why I tend to at best treat your reactions to things as something to poke fun at, it's precisely the attitude that you and me should both go after the hard Right, but you'll leave going after the hard Left to me and shrug it off yourself.

(Officer Barbrady speaks.)

(each word in "Officer Barbrady Speaks" is a separate wav link).

On Religion In Politics

When people wring their hands about the influence of theocrats on politics, they never mean the Rev. Al Sharpton or the Rev. Jackson and their like. Nor do they mean that to encompas nuns who vandalize missile silos, or the Berrigan Brothers, or the Mary Knoll Nuns, or Bishop Sprong, or the Druid now leading the Anglican Church towards a Brave New Leftist Future, or the various Councils of Churches issuing edicts on the immorality of America and its policies

I've encountered people practicing politics from the pulpit at many times throughout my life. But interestingly, it has always been Leftist politics. From when I was in middle school and they had people come to talk to us about the importance of Nuclear Disarmament and the Nuclear Freeze - memorable to me because one ninny blathered about some theory, critical mass theory, whereby if 5% of the population (starting with us children) grooved on an idea, eventually they would persuade more, and once it reached 20% of the population supporting the issue, well, it would just as a matter of course eventually become a majority opinion.

Even then I thought that was lame - for one thing, that could apply to the rise of the NAZI Party (uh-oh; I just broke Whatever's Law. Sue me; I was 12 at the time, mmmnkay?); this was also the Church where they wanted to declare the Church a "nuclear free zone", but my mother - bless her practical soul - asked if that meant that they would keep someone around all the time to monitor when our city was getting power from the Nuke plants along Lake Michigan and then turn out the lights.

I'm not sure anyone had ever punctured such banal feelgoodism so easily and almost accidentally, but that idea died at our Church - though it spread elsewhere.

That was a Lutheren Church, we shared facilities (and Sunday School classes & retreats and the like) with a UCC congregation.

Then years later when I was a Senior in High School, we had moved across town by that point and were going to a different Lutheren Church, and they had people who had just come back from a junket to hang out with the FMLN, who were presented before us to tell us how great The Marxist Revolution in El Salvador was and how misunderstood their commrades, the Sandanistas in Nicaragua were.

I should at some point get my mother to write a guest blog on why she felt unwelcomed at her Church in Colorado and left it; the constant political harangues from the pulpit overcame her and she dispaired of feeling welcomed there, even after having tried to discuss her feelings with the Pastor (a woman who's name slips my mind; I hadn't attended this Church). This was post-Sept 11th, and the continual sermoning on how wrong we were got to her. Got to my mother, the lifelong Democrat.

I have left out my early youth because I don't so much remember the content. But I remember as a young lad sitting in Catholic Church (my father was Catholic, my mother Lutheren), in the early '70s, singing leftist folk songs.

All the Churches I have ever been a member of have always been political, seeming to put politics ahead of faith. However, they have always been Leftist - never "Religious Right". But those who speak of the pernicious influence of theocrats on political discourse in this country are blind - as usual - to the vast influence of mainline, non-evangelical Churches in this regard; because whether they are Episcopalian, or mainline Catholic or Lutheren, or just about any other denomination considered mainstream, when they issue political statements and take political positions and contribute to political movements, participate in NGOs and the like, it is invariably from the Left.

Are the Evangelicals often extreme? Yes. But Mr. Drum is quite revealing in being concerned - as is typical - with only one sort of religious intrusion into politics.

It's part of the whole I'm talking about; in this, Kevin Drum would rather "see nothing. . .nothing" and the rest of us "nothing to see here, move along. Nothing to see here."

Do I think the utterances of Pat Robertson and his ilk are lame and their mitts best kept off policy? Sure. Just as I was vocal in getting Trent Lott removed from the leadership - but no Democrat ever insisted that David Bonior might not be suited to serve as their Whip (he stepped down on his own), or that Tom Hayden may have been elected but that doesn't mean the California Democratic politicians as a whole should make him their leader, or Ron Dellums chair the Armed Services Committe, and they might reconsider whether a man who characterizes the death of two senior enemies in a firefight during a war as us committing an "assassination" as fit to be a Chairmen if and when they recover the House, and, well, the list goes on and on. . .

When they're running the State Universities, be it in Wisconsin or Berkeley or CUNY or Michigan and the like, then Kevin will have a point in comparing their influence to that of the tenured professors paid by the same country they denounce to call in speakers, pay them speaking fees out of funds derived from the same source, to talk at great length about how their dissent is being stiffled in faschist Amerikkka.

Kevin Drum also reveals just where he ranks as a priority the defense of the country by rather minimizing it in his response; this is really the attitude that affects even most mainstream Democrats that has been discussed here (and which Kevin disaproves of so strongly) - the attitude that ranges from expressions of indifference and low priority to outright opposition to defense-related issues, from spending to troops (the attitide of "don't question our support for the troops" anti-war types to people they encounter who are married to or a parent of a soldier and don't try to hide that in shame has been chronicled in a number of accounts, linked to in posts here and on other blogs such as mine).

To Kevin, this is a factor but not anything worth getting stirred up about; he'd rather reserve his energies for more important matters, I suppose.

Others think that this is the most important matter we face today. Thus the distinction. And the problem for the Democrats, where his is the majority opinion and with only a few exceptions, it goes from moderately bad to extremely worse from there.

Now, because I'm open minded and tolerant of other perspectives, for another view, here's officer Barbrady's opinion of this comment post

Btw, I spelled Spong's name wrong by mistake.