Post-Partisanship As Code

by: Chris Bowers

Fri May 02, 2008 at 11:43


People say that policy matters more than identity. Democrats in particular argue this:

Fifty-two percent (52%) of voters nationwide say that it is more important to understand a candidate's specific policy proposals rather than the candidate's character. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 36% disagree and believe that it is more important to understand a candidate's character.

Democrats, by a 2-to-1 margin, say it's the policy options that matter most. Republicans, by a narrow 49% to 43% margin, disagree and say that character counts. Among unaffiliated voters, 49% say the policies need to be understood while 32% say character is more important.

Yeah, policy really matters to Democrats:


All of this reminds me of "post-partisanship." Clearly, many Democrats like to believe that they are engaged in a disinterested contemplation of the issues without regard to party, or character. As such, it is easy to see why claims of post-partisanship are appealing to Democrats. However, voting patterns in the Democratic primary reveal deeply seated identity based voting patterns that are not only partisan, but are partisan in a particularly base and unpleasant fashion. In other words, post-partisanship is ultimately a claim that we can move beyond identity, except that it is being made in a Democratic primary season with particularly gaping identity gaps.

Still, it is worth considering how Obama's post-partisan claims are actually a coded appeal asking voters to move beyond identity in their voting patterns. Specifically, it might be code for "it's OK to vote for me no matter who you are," which certainly is an important message for an African-American presidential candidate to make. While we here at Open Left have repeatedly detailed the many ways that Obama's claims of post-partisanship don't make any sense on the surface, perhaps we should consider that there is an underlying code to the message.  

Chris Bowers :: Post-Partisanship As Code

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Post-Partisanship As Code | 58 comments
Post-partisanship and populism (4.00 / 5)
One interesting lens for thinking about post-partisanship and, perhaps, Obama's whole campaign is Laclau's analysis of populism.  This is from a review of his On Populist Reason (published in 2005).  Sound a bit familiar (words in bold caps are my additions)?

The distinctiveness of populism is that it gathers together disparate ideological positions or political demands, and stresses their equivalence in terms of a shared antagonism to a given instance of political power or authority. In other words, populism should be defined by its form rather than its content: it tends to divide (and so simplify) the social field into two distinct camps, championing the "people" over what Laclau variously terms "the dominant ideology," "the dominant bloc" (1977, p. 173), "the institutional system" (2005, p. 73), "an institutionalized 'other'" (2005, p. 117), or even "power" itself (2005, p. 74) "OLD POLITICS" "WASHINGTON SYSTEM". The disparate and heterogeneous demands that constitute any given populist movement are unified and stabilized, Laclau adds in his most recent book, not merely by their opposition to the status quo, but also by the emergence of an "empty signifier," a concept or name ("freedom," "Perón", "CHANGE", "POST-PARTISANSHIP," "HOPE") that loses its own specificity as it stands in for the other specific demands to which it is seen as equivalent.

Somebody at Open Left could write a really interesting diary looking at On Populist Reason and the Obama campaign, especially the concept of the "empty signifier" (which is not entirely pejorative, although it sounds bad).  Strangely, "populist" is not often a term applied to Obama in the media or the blogosphere but, at least according to some definitions, it fits pretty well.

John McCain: Health insurance for low income children represents an "unfunded liability."

I gave you +4 just because I like your name :) n/t (4.00 / 1)


End this war. Stop John McCain. Cindy McCain is filthy rich.
[ Parent ]
Thanks! :) (0.00 / 0)


John McCain: Health insurance for low income children represents an "unfunded liability."
[ Parent ]
Rhetoric (4.00 / 4)
We don't know what Obama means. It's campaign rhetoric. I wish we knew what he meant, because we may hate it. But on the other hand, he may govern by trying to pick off a few Republicans here and there while sticking to broadly progressive principles. It's not something I can get worked up about because most politicians running for President say these types of things. Bush claimed to be a uniter.

In any case, if he wins the White House we'll have to closely monitor what he does and push back hard when goes against us.

Yes, rhetoric (0.00 / 0)
One reason I can't get at all exercised by Obama's rhetoric is because I firmly believe that it makes political sense.

In a general election, I have no doubt that - in this day and age - people prefer someone who sounds reasonable and accommodating.  

[ Parent ]
accomodating (0.00 / 0)
Yeah, especially the Republicans.  When a Democrat talks about overcoming partisanship, what they hear is "Have I bent over far enough?"
[ Parent ]
i dont understand the comparison (0.00 / 0)
you need to compare candidates with strong identities AND with very different policy positions. and then compare votes for those to votes for another pair of candidates with similar difference but where identity was clearly not a factor at all and see if the voting patterns were the same, or where shifted by identity. Looking at O v H you can easily draw the conclusion that people are voting on identity because there is no policy distinction.

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare
no policy distinction? (0.00 / 0)
How about health care mandates vs. no health care mandates?  That's a pretty significant distinction.  Will meet with Iranian politicians, won't meet with Iranian politicians.  Voted for the AUMF, spoke against the AUMF.  And so on.

The distinctions are subtle (in some cases), and go largely unaddressed by the news sources that many Americans use as their primary sources for political information.

I would argue that we make these choices on identity because we - the larger we, voters and media together - don't have the inclination or the patience to study differences in policy which are often shaded and complex.

[ Parent ]
despite Krugman (0.00 / 0)
i think the healthcare thing is pretty blown out of proportion. Hillary hasn't spoken with real substance about how she intends to enforce mandates because she has no courage to do so. But we need not get into that debate. I agree with you that whatever the issue is people likely do not get into studying more subtle differences. So I would say that on differences there is some threshold at which identity starts to dominate. But maybe the American people are savy enough to know that subtle differences are not meaningful when it comes to seeing campaign pledges transformed into reality. eg. they expect that the implementation will not be the same as the pledge and therefor conclude that shades of gray just don't matter.

Suffice it to say, i think as differences increase, identity politics drops for the majority of Americans. But we have no evidence either way really so its just a speculative debate.

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare

[ Parent ]
some threshold at which identity starts to dominate (0.00 / 0)
Okay, but I'll argue that it's a threshold of perception of differences, not of actual policy differences.  I submit as evidence Bush v. Gore (election, not court).

the American people are savvy enough to know that subtle differences are not meaningful when it comes to seeing campaign pledges transformed into reality

Good assessment.

[ Parent ]
Bluntly... (4.00 / 4)
Yeah -- "post-partisanship" is code used by the emerging Democratic coalition to signal that its members/adherents are not the old Democratic coalition. The indispensable cornerstone of the old coalition was the working class, itself code for "non-privileged white people." The contemporary low wage working class in this country is no longer white. This is a shock. Those members of the old "working class" who can deal with this reality, and the new working class itself, are the bedrock of the new Democratic coalition, along with Chris' "creatives" -- members of the middle class who enjoy some security in the struggle not to sink into the low wage working class.

Since we aren't allowed to discuss class in the country in any way, we discuss a lot of other stuff. Race remains key to how we mix and match ourselves, but it interacts differently with class in the contemporary economy than it did in the past. Remember, in 2050, if current racial categories survive, whites will no longer be a majority in this country. Quite a shake-up. And will we still be unable to speak realistically about class?

Can it happen here?

What? (0.00 / 0)
"The contemporary low wage working class in this country is no longer white"

Are you saying non-white, low wage workers are a new thing in America?

Montani semper liberi

[ Parent ]
Demographic trend is new (0.00 / 0)
I am saying that non-white, low wage workers make up a growing fraction of the working class, well on their way to being a majority of people in those positions. That is new. At present 58 percent of low wage workers are white; the other 42 percent are of color. A lot of this depends on geography. In California, where white people are no longer a majority (the trajectory of the country), low wage workers are overwhelmingly of color.

Can it happen here?
[ Parent ]
I was under the impression (0.00 / 0)
that people of color had always been the majority of the low-wage working class in America, but maybe that's only true for where I live.

Montani semper liberi
[ Parent ]
The more I think about this (0.00 / 0)
the more I think it can't be true. Go to any city in this country -- any one, and look around. Who is cooking the food, watching the children, cleaning the bedpans? Not white people. Or only a very few white people.

It's so much a fact of everyday life that it's invisible, something you notice only in its absence. For example I happened to be in Gatlinburg Tennessee last year (don't ask) and I noticed the staff at my hotel was all white. Fair enough, it's in East Tennessee, right? Then one young man opened his mouth and this thick Slavic accent comes out.

I'm like WTF? Then this guy next to me in the buffet line notices my surprise and says, "have you talked to any of the staff here? They are all Eastern Europeans. Poles, Russians, Ukrainians." And it made sense. The hotel management knows their customers feel more "comfortable" surrounded by white people. But where are you going to get white people who can/will work for the wages they pay? Enter the Eastern Europeans.

Montani semper liberi

[ Parent ]
i don't think this is quite right (4.00 / 1)
I think the more pertinent change is that the ELITE is no longer all White, and that's what Obama represents.  There is a new multiculti elite (e.g. see stuffwhitepeoplelike.com and then ask upwardly mobile or upper middle class east asians, south asians, mixed race people, etc., whether or not they connect to it or not...I know I do...sadly :)).

The working class in the U.S. has always had large swathes of people of color, non-citizens, etc.  Who do you think built the railroads and farmed tobacco?

[ Parent ]
That's what I was thinking, too. (0.00 / 0)
The elite in America has always been lily-white -- not even just white but Northern European and Protestant. No Jews need apply, and no Catholics either.

But that is definitely changing with the advent of yes, the "multi-culti elite" is probably a pretty good word for it.

Montani semper liberi

[ Parent ]
the interesting thing (0.00 / 0)
is whether 'White' will continue as a category or be replaced by some other term like my unwieldy one :)  I think citizenship is being used to substitue for race in a lot of settings now, but it seems hard to imagine American social and political culture completely breaking the White-Black binary that it's constructed.
[ Parent ]
Whiteness (0.00 / 0)
Very much agree with you: historically in the US, white has been an elastic category, generally meaning folks who are perceived to be rightfully full citizens, part of the rightful population expected to run the show.

Once upon a time, Irish immigrants were "not white." In general, folks have gotten to be "white" when they've learned to dump on Blacks. The big demographic question ahead for the country is whether Latinos get to become "white" -- and possibly whether Eastern European migrants become "not white."

Can it happen here?

[ Parent ]
backwards (4.00 / 2)
In my mind Obama's post-partisanship rhetoric is precisely a privileging of character over policy.  Until she got so far behind that she turned to "electibility," Clinton campaigned on policy issues.  Obama's appeal was always that he incarnated in his person the possibility of a new, different, post-partisan (and in principle post-racial) politics.  Personally I think this is a fundamentally false vision, which makes Obama's campaign either deeply naive or deeply Machiavellian (or both at the same time, which is the most likely).  I will vote for the Democratic nominee.  But this is the reason why I cannot become enthusiastic about Obama.  
addendum (4.00 / 2)
I also consider post-partisanship to be the ultimate right-wing talking point and the purest form of triangulation.  It accepts the fundamental premise of the right, namely that government (politics) is the problem.
[ Parent ]
politics or politicians? (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Both (0.00 / 0)
they are one in the same.

Politician is the noun - the 'who'.

Politics is the verb - that 'what' - it is what politicians practice.

[ Parent ]
One and the same in the minds of voters? (0.00 / 0)
Obama has rallied an army of young people who are excited about politics but hate politicians.
[ Parent ]
But Obama is (0.00 / 0)
just a another politician. He may be delivering a message that the young eat up but that message has been promised thousands of times before. They are just too young to know that.

Obama can't change who republicans are. Republicans will only join you if your idea is their idea. That is the problem.

[ Parent ]
Republicans aren't zombies (4.00 / 1)
"Republicans will only join you if your idea is their idea."

That really just isn't true.  Talk to a Republican supporter of Obama and watch this shallow demonization of your opponents explode in your face.

[ Parent ]
Problem is (0.00 / 0)
there are enough that are Zombies.

And in the Senate it takes 60 total votes to get an agenda passed and the surest way to that is to get 60 Democrats who are not Ben Nelson's.

Now with Obama out courting Republican voters and Republican politicians on Fox the reality of getting 60 Democrats is minimal. Why? Because if Obama says it is OK to sleep with Republicans and get Republican votes then by extension it is OK by him if on the down tickets people vote for Republicans. How can Obama say it is not OK to vote for down ticket Republicans when he himself says it is OK to court Republicans?

Think about that. People like to say he has long coattails but who can ride them coattails? According to him anyone because there are no Blue States or Red States there is just the United States and people can vote for who they wish according to him. It funny that I have never read that posted on a blog before but it is the truth. If he truly wants to bring about post-partisanship then he has to agree that voting for Republicans, in the same way that he courts Republicans, is alright because after all he says they have good ideas.

If you are Obama - IOKIYAR.

[ Parent ]
I think its saying that the constant squabbling bewtween the two parties creates a problem. n/t (0.00 / 0)


End this war. Stop John McCain. Cindy McCain is filthy rich.
[ Parent ]
It's really (4.00 / 1)
different "ideologies" that cause the problem. the Parties are only gathering place for those different ideologies.

And differing ideologies will never change. That is why post-partisanship is a fantasy.

[ Parent ]
Differing ideologies will never change? (0.00 / 0)
Are you kidding?  Are you honestly arguing that political ideology is totally immutable?

Here you go - ideologies do change, and people do change their minds.  Look at history, look at all the ideologies and movements that have come and gone.

Independent of any discussion of this campaign, your premise that "differing ideologies will never change" is false.

[ Parent ]
The evolution of the word 'liberal' is a decent example. n/t (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Yeah Right (0.00 / 0)
the ideology of Conservatism that is almost as old as man himself will be changed by Obama. Sure thing.

I take it you don't understand not only the history of conservatism but also don't understand that it is naturally inherent in much of mankind. Perhaps you don't know that there are conservatives all over the world.

To suggest what I said is false without even offering a factual argument is hilarious and is a typical blog post proclaiming insight without providing any.

Frankly I'm surprised anyone even challenged what I said because most knowledgeable people understand that conservatism (better known today in America as the Republican Party) is something rooted in the man himself. The Republican Party/Conservatives and it's predecessor's may take different paths from time to time but the nucleus of conservatism stays the same.

[ Parent ]
You seem to mean conservatism as a mindset (0.00 / 0)
As opposed to an ideology.  There are conservatives all over the world, but I wouldn't consider them all united under a single ideology.

What I mean is, for example, the evolution of the ideology of socialism, beginning as a utopian vision of the future and evolving into the current state of Social Democrats.  That's what I mean by ideology changing over time.

Or Communism beginning as a rejection of tyranny and evolving into a different kind of tyranny.

I take it you don't understand not only the history of conservatism but also don't understand that it is naturally inherent in much of mankind.

Pretty hilarious that you would say something that broad and unsupported and then get mad at me for saying something broad and unsupported.

[ Parent ]
No I mean conservatism (0.00 / 0)
as an ideology just like I said. Although if you bother to look up the word ideology you will see it is almost synonymous with the word mindset. So trying to play word games won't get you far.

And as I said "the nucleus of conservatism stays the same". so you can talk about different paths as i said but the the nucleus of any ideology stays the same because if it didn't it would be a new ideology.

As for your "unsupported" comment - try reading about conservatism and you will find what I said is plenty supported in books and articles, in radio discussions, and encyclopedias, etc. Thought you would already know that so I didn't include footnotes for you. My error.

[ Parent ]
I've always thought of politics (0.00 / 0)
as the way people solve problems without killing each other.

So naturally conservatives would hate that.

Montani semper liberi

[ Parent ]
there's another way to construe it (0.00 / 0)
which is that the political discourse has gone so far to the "right" (you might as well just put in 'crazy' here) that arguing about details in specific policies is to miss the forest for the trees.  Whatever ideas any politician has go through a political process which is discursive, elctoral, power-brokering, etc.  Which is why I do support Obama, though I think he's lucky, in a sense, that what he believes, more or less, is what actually needs to happen now--we first need to restore some faith in the idea that something actually can happen that's positive, rather than alwyas relying on the not negative.

This is very different from the Bill Clinton post-1994 strategy which always relied on the argument that "we have to do X because if we don't do X the Republians will do X in a far worse way."  THAT didn't fundamentally challenge things (and perhaps pre-Bush the American electorate wasn't ready to do so...to be charitable to Clinton, who signed some really horrible legislation into law against poor people, women, LGBT people and other disempowered groups, regardless of what anyone says).

[ Parent ]
Post-Partisanship As Code (4.00 / 3)
Chris,

Perhaps you are familiar with generational theory. Without going into all of the details, most generational theorists believe we are on the cusp of a civic realignment. During any realignment, old partisan coalitions disintegrate and new ones form. Obama gets that we are in the process of a civic realignment, and I interpret his post-partisanship message as a call for voters to be open to building a new kind of coalition in the Democratic Party.

Obama's call for post-partisanship is not a call to end partisanship per-se, but rather to end partisanship as we have experienced it during the idealist era of the past 40 years...in other words, partisanship with a polarized electorate, with large numbers of independent voters and ticket-splitters, with weak political parties, with the focus on wedge issues and character assassinations, and where one political party is dominant but only my a narrow margin.

Obama is asking us to move beyond this form of partisanship into the kind of partisanship that is more typical of a civic era...a partisan atmosphere characterized by one party totally dominating the American political landscape. In a civic era, the electorate isn't polarized or split almost evenly. Rather, it is largely unified--behind a single party.

In the transition from an idealist to a civic era, a leader has to fundamentally alter the coalition that defines his or her party in such a way so as to achieve long-term demographic dominance. (Think FDR's New Deal coalition.) Obama's call for post-partisanship is an invitation to build a new kind of Democratic Party, both to existing Democrats AND to new, previously untapped demographic groups who will form the dominant Democratic coalition for the next 40 years.

What of the General Election? (4.00 / 1)
You are highlighting the impact of race on the election, which seems recently to have given Clinton a net of 10 percent more support among whites. In a campaign in which there are few major differences between the candidates (I know, there are major differences, but not on policy so much), the issue of character and identity may loom larger, as it clearly has in this election.

However, if Obama is the Democratic nominee, history shows that 90 percent of Clinton supporters wll vote for Obama in November, meaning that policy will generally be more important than identity. The reason is that people have multiple identities, as shown, for example, by white union members being significantly more Democratic than comparable nonunion white workers. The general election, in other words, will be the true test of the policy versus identity issue.

I think what you say about Obama appealing to post-partisanship as a way to blunt the race issue is important. I also think it has other roots: (1) in his community organizing experience in drawing all the stakeholders together, as Mark Schmitt pointed out; a genuine belief that this will be better for governing, in other words; (2) a genuine belief that values matter, as the right has shown; (3) a genuine desire to get beyond the paralyzing partisansip of the last twenty years (and more), which is not only his desire but generational; (4) a desire to expand the Democratic coalition and to create a realignment in American politics; (5) as he has said, it's genuinely rooted in who he is, as a multiracial person.

There is a fine postpartisan tradition of progresives/the left and social movements that have used support for "American values," which in one sense is simply an appeal to a larger, more inclusive identity. Progressives will not succeed unless their values and goals are those of the majority.

Like that tradition, postpartisanship is contradictory and it has its dangers, as the blogosphere has been right to point out, but so does any large project like the one Obama is attempting. It also has a lot of power and potential. These realities ought to simply be acknowledged.

I think what must be considered seriously, once Obama is the nominee, is the mising element in his strategy--and that is the progressive movement. His strategy will only work if there is a strong progressive movement.

All that said, I do think you ought to explore the findings of that poll more, especially the showing that Democrats and independents care more about policies and issues than character. How can that be strengthened from now on? Is the Republican focus on character a genuine stand (e.g., a focus on personal responsibility) or is it because the issues are trending so strongly against them, now and in the past (e.g., patriotism is the last refuge of scoudrels)?

On to something Chris (4.00 / 4)
There are two ways I understand Obama's "post-partisanship" and what Chris describes is one way.  I know people who are nominal Republicans, from the corporate tech) world, who like and will vote for Obama because he does not demonize business and and because of his message of inclusiveness--he is, in effect, saying to these kinds of weak GOPers who despise Bush that they can vote for him without having to admit error or renounce their past.  I think we sometiomes overlook how powerful that kiond of subtle message is in winning over indies and noiminal GOPers.  This may offend partisan Dems who want a sharper message, but he is trying to win an election, and this approach to GOPers/Indies in open primaries and in the general is effective.  Plus, it seems to be the way he thinks.

The second is his willingness to listen to a variety of ideas and a willingness to try different things to see what owrks.  I do think Obama like many others of us is fed up with the horrendous mismatch between our politics and our problems.  I'm not dissing politics as such at all.  It is vitally necessary.  But the reduction of everything to soundbites, the hardening of positions, the rejection of policy for pandering and positioning, the enmslavement to moneyed interests, the preference for ideology over science and on and on is really, really keeping us from addressing some very serious, even society-threatening and life-threatening problems.  Granted the GOP has been mostly responsible for this trend.  But as Joe Andrews said, it is much easier to go along with this game than try to propose real solutions.  Hillary and the gas tax is a perfect example.

This is where Fuzzy's point above comes in.  Obama's post-partisanship is a strategy not a goal in itself.  The goals and values are what he has outlined in speeches and on his website--moving toward more energy sustainability, reducing inequality, real security etc etc.  He's running against the "old politics" and offering "hope" of something better partly as a political strategy and a code, but it also identifies an approach to problems that he believes in.  And he does have concrete policy goals too.  

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.

We flatter ourselves (4.00 / 1)
We like to idealize the reasons for making decisions that we make.  Normal human stuff.

Also, like it or not, the onus is on Obama to proactively prove that he is not another Al Sharpton.  Hence the generally non-confrontational tone.

Absolutely (0.00 / 0)
That's basically a much more succinct version of my (way too lengthy) comment below.
[ Parent ]
synergy (0.00 / 0)
I believe it's called synergy.
[ Parent ]
Most interesting thread I've seen in a long time! (4.00 / 2)
Putting aside any sophisticated notions, here's my gut response to the race:

Obama being Black is a plus.  Hillary being a woman is a plus.  I call that a draw.

Healthcare?  Energy?  NAFTA?  Global warming?  I think the outcome on those will depend on ability to manage Congress, and I'm too lazy to get worked up about the differences in detail.  The possibility that Obama can take office with a broader mandate is a plus.  Hillary might be a better tactician a la Lyndon (how many kids have you killed today?) Johnson, a plus.  Another draw.

On foreign policy, I think Obama better suited to managing a post-imperial U.S. foreign policy.  Score 1 for Obama.

And populist appeal?  Obama.  His big race speech broke the rules so flagrantly that I see possilibities (not necessarily probabilities) beyond anything in decades.

That's my gut reaction.  Whatever pseudo-sophisticated stuff I might spew on any given day, I'm voting my gut.  I think that applies to many more here than will admit it.  Per the Hulk:  All I know is that they try to kill me, and for that they must pay.

Full Court Press!  http://www.openleft.com/showDi...

some identity, some policy (4.00 / 2)
Let's try another way:
1) Obama is winning an overwhelming percentage of the African-American vote on an identity basis.  (NB: I do not think this is a problem.)
2) Clinton is winning a difficult to determine percentage of non-black women's votes on an identity basis.
3) Clinton is winning a slim racist vote on an identity basis.

Among other voters,
4) Obama is winning a strong majority of the votes of those for whom foreign policy  and good government issues are most important.
5) Clinton is winning a strong majority of the votes of those for whom economic issues are most important.

The distinction between 4 and 5 is picked up most strongly in the demographics by the education factor, but also by income factors (what we used to call class), and to a certain extent by age.  The important point here is that demographics have a lot to do with which issues are most important to you.

How would Black voters vote (0.00 / 0)
if it had been Alan Keyes in the primary against Clinton rather than Obama?

Full Court Press!  http://www.openleft.com/showDi...
[ Parent ]
How would Black voters vote (0.00 / 0)
if candidate X had the same strategy, positions, charisma, oratory, etc., as Obama, but was white? or Latino?  Both are different scenarios.  We know pretty conclusively that Black voters won't vote for right-wing Black candidates in large numbers.  But you don't get to 90% on issues alone.  And as I said, I think this is entirely justifiable voting behavior.
[ Parent ]
interestingly (0.00 / 0)
you left out people so ensconced in the patriarchy that they won't vote for Clinton unless she plays an 'approved' role for a woman.

p.s.  i'm an obama supporter.

[ Parent ]
indeed (4.00 / 1)
I tried to write a sentence about white men having to choose between their sexism and their racism but I couldn't figure out where to place it.  Sexism, in this race, is more difficult to analyze, and I suspect that may mean it's operating at a deeper level.  I have tried to think about whether it might be more important to support a woman or a person of color, both in terms of the respective roles of racism and sexism in America today and in terms of the likelihood of an equally compelling candidate appearing in the near future on either side.  A president of color or a woman president would be of crucial importance for our country in ways that go far beyond policy.  But I am incapable of prioritizing race and gender here.  
[ Parent ]
racism and sexism (0.00 / 0)
i think the role of sexism is more difficult to analyze because there hasn't beeen an entire industry (i.e. the media) devoted to it.  Occasionally you hear things here and there--e.g. the role of wommen in New Hampshire in allowing Hillary Clinton to remain viable, but you don't see anything like what happens with race.

This isn't that surprising, given that that's the United States that exists today, but it's really tragic.  Looking at voters, candidates, and others in their stances towards sexism/patriarchy would be really useful in clarifying a lot of what's going on and help contextualize both Democratic candidates.

But, stuck as we are with shallow debate on  identity politics (which then leads to the completely false conclusion that all politics that involves identity is shallow), this is where we are.  And I suppose we'll never get up to the generational divide, let alone class politics :)

[ Parent ]
Certain constraints cannot be overlooked (4.00 / 4)
Chris writes:

Still, it is worth considering how Obama's post-partisan claims are actually a coded appeal asking voters to move beyond identity in their voting patterns. Specifically, it might be code for "it's OK to vote for me no matter who you are," which certainly is an important message for an African-American presidential candidate to make.

Does anyone think that if Obama was more Edwards-esque (I use this more for perception's sake, as it seems to be perceived that Edwards was the most liberal serious candidate, with which I disagree, slightly), he would be getting the same amount of support?  The road to (relative) political irrelevance is paved in no small way by Shirley Chisholm, Barbara Jordan, Jesse Jackson,  Carol Moseley-Braun (just thinking of a few who ran for President) - not to say that they lost specifically because they were black and liberal (because context matters), but it didn't help.  Simply remember how dismissive Bill Clinton was of Jesse Jackson in this election - he portrayed a liberal black candidate who had unprecedented success in his time (among whites and blacks) as a relative nobody propped up by identity politics.  

If everyone thinks the smear campaigns and the rumors about black nationalism and Louis Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright and everything else are bad now, imagine if Obama really came out swinging in the ways some of us would love.  Single payer.  Across the board 25% cut in defense expenditures.  Free public university education for every qualified American student.  Increases in the marginal income tax for those above $500,000, capital gains tax, and estate tax.  Massive new investments in alternative, renewable energy, and infrastructure.  An approach that openly and powerfully recognizes the malevolence of Republican government, and a promise to clean house and inaugurate a new government in defense of the marginalized.  

Even if he didn't go half as far as I've proposed, he'd be lucky to get 10% of the vote, and if he did, can you imagine what the talking heads would be saying about him then? Can you imagine how much more Jesse Jackson would have been invoked then, or that Obama was the second coming of Stokely Carmichael, of Huey Newton, of Bobby Seale.  He would just be another crazy black radical, like the one before, and the one before.  

I can't speak for anyone else when they say why they did or did not choose Barack Obama.  I chose him because he was against the war from the beginning, and that he undertook serious outreach to my generation (I'm almost 21) and all generations, instead of just paying the 18-30 age group its usual lip service.  But the fact remains that Barack Obama operates under a different set of constraints than I do.  I'm an upper middle class white college student.  If I propose those ideas, I might be called a borderline socialist every now and then, but that's about the worst of it.  If Barack Obama proposes those ideas, he's a dangerous, separatist black radical.  

I'm not saying he's right or wrong to appeal to a post-partisan, post-racial America as a central theme of his campaign, but in an age where the burden of proof for a black 'mainstream' candidate is completely different, if not much higher, than that of a white 'mainstream' candidate, the political constraints he faces cannot be ignored.

Was this really the first time you thought that? (4.00 / 2)
'Cause the moment I first heard Barack Obama signaling how he could appeal to 'both' sides etc. I thought it was a pretty clear sign that he was saying "Do Not Be Afraid Of Me White People Who Fear Angry Black Ultra Liberal Politicians".

Did you really just think he was talking about making Reagan Democrats feel good about themselves?

Really?

Post-Partisanism (0.00 / 0)
Nice work if you can get it.

Can we agree that Post-Partisanism was used as a MARKETING TOOL by the Obama campaign?  After all, it's a construct, a theory, an idea, a goal.  Not a policy.

Obama's braintrust, Plouffe and Axelrod sat down and tried to devise a campaign that would tap into focus-group tested avenues to election.

One of the things they probably found is that many people were dismayed by the virulence of the Conservative v Liberal rhetoric, and were very uncomfortable with it.

They knew that one way to tap into that dismay was by offering a candidate who claims to have found a way that sidesteps that ugly conflict, by offering "hope" and "change", as an alternative to "politics-as-usual".  AT the time, Obama is 25 points down in every demo to Clinton, even in the Black Electorate who stay on the sidelines looking to see if Obama is legit and has cred.

Marketing works:  The message clicks, the checkbooks open, and the campaign is awash in cash.

But where's the actual policy?  Where's the mechanism, the way it's actually going to work?  No one wants to ask that question, and deflate the Obamalloon.

So a challenge comes in that rocks the marketing: Obama has to decide whether he is going to be a politician-as-usual, or a friend to his mentor, Rev. Wright.

The Obama team's response to the first real challenge of the foundation of their marketing, politician-as-usual, has alienated fundamentally large parts of the Democrat base.  His Black base has closed ranks and remained united behind him, but it has cost him 5-25% in every other demo.

Uh-oh.  Damaged brand.  Leaking supporters in almost every demo to the dreaded Hillary.  Axelrod and Plouffe now have to figure out a way to rebuild and remarket their brand, and regenerate momentum and forward progress once again.  

Gonna be tough.

I look for more desperate testing, as in yesterday's Vieira interview trying to "personalize" Mr & Mrs, Obama, and more "new directions" as they try to salvage the brand from its near-lethal blow.  Axelrod is a VERY smart marketer, but he is running out of time, and Hillary is moving fast.

Obama has been looking flat, weary, out-of-sorts, lacking passion, conviction, and energy, and that's because the foundation for his persona is now gone.  He will crawl into June 3 leaking badly, having lost Indiana, Kentucky, WV, Puerto Rico, having barely survived NC, and will probably be  losing in the popular vote.

I predict that the DNC will put out a FL-MI resolution that will cost him his lead in pledged delegates as well, and he will have a hard time making a case to the SD"s.

I am a Hillary supporter, and I approve this analysis.

- (0.00 / 0)
One of the things they probably found is that many people were dismayed by the virulence of the Conservative v Liberal rhetoric, and were very uncomfortable with it.

if you happen to run across a genuinely liberal idea that's being proposed by someone in this campaign like universal, single-payer, health care fully funded by the government, complete with prescriptions that charge a nominal fee even for branded drugs (which I currently get in Britain as a foreign citizen ;) or the writing off of mortgages of everyone earning under $100,000 a year who's about to be in default or easing the bankruptcy laws or the legalization of marijuana, please let me know.

;)

[ Parent ]
Something is wrong with the crosstabs (0.00 / 0)
Clinton can't be ahead among those making less than $50k and those making more than $50k and still be behind overall.
You're right, but for a different reason (4.00 / 1)
There are 462 people in those two subgroups combined, compared with 651 in the entire sample.  So either they left out a higher income category, or they still included people (who didn't identify themselves within every subgroup) within the total sample.
[ Parent ]
I have seen this as well (0.00 / 0)
In the early polls and exits, I gave myself fits of outrage listening to the analysis of poll after poll, broken down by demographics. The blacks are voting for the black guy. The whites are voting for the white guys. The women are voting for the woman and the men are voting for the men. "Aren't we beyond this yet?" I shouted at my media devices.

Well, since Ohio/Texas, it's been clear we're not. People seem to be voting more and more by looking in the mirror and picking the candidate that looks like them. Which is frankly the stupidest way to pick a candidate, but you can't argue with the cross-tabs. Black voters are almost unanimous for Obama, and whites are fleeing him. Women have waited all their lives to vote for a woman and they're not going to miss their chance. The only women not voting for Clinton seem to be black women.

I keep thinking these days about David Sirota's piece, posted here, about the race canyon -- that states with lots of African-Americans and states with almost none are going for Obama, but states with mid-size AA populations are going for Clinton. I wish he'd update that post with new data of some sort, but it looks like it played out in PA and will soon play out in NC and IN too.

Obama's message of coded post-partisanship is really what our better selves should embrace. If we're really not racist, we should see white voters choosing him, or black voters choosing Clinton. If we're really not sexist, Clinton should be drawing her support evenly among genders and Obama as well. But we are racist and sexist, and the longer the campaign runs and the more anxious people get, the more racist and sexist we seem to be becoming (as an electorate).

It truly does not bode well for either candidate in the general. Poll after poll shows that respondents don't think they're racist or sexist, but know someone who is. It may well be that the country is not yet ready for a black president, or a woman president. We prefer a white man, even a crappy corrupt warmonger rage-case white man, just because he's white and he's a man. And that's really sad.

you totally misundersatnd race (0.00 / 0)
People seem to be voting more and more by looking in the mirror and picking the candidate that looks like them. Which is frankly the stupidest way to pick a candidate, but you can't argue with the cross-tabs.

This is such a liberal fantasy.  Race or gender are one of several factors for many of us who admit taking this into account, not the only one (and I would add the identity of gender is important also).  As a South Asian American citizen, I think Bobby Jindal is a political embarrassment, but that doesn't mean that if I see a Black man with the chance to be President who I don't totally disagree with, I won't include that as a factor, given the history of race in the United States and my own racial identity.  It's almost insulting to be told that it's silly to, as so many people have (mainly White).  If you feel like yelling at the media, sometimes I feel like yelling at the collective attempts of White people as they try to figure 'us' out.

Racialization (and gendering) is not a reality that you just 'decide' that you're beyond--it's a lived experience, and has very little to do with looking in a mirror and then deciding "okay that person looks like me, i must mindlessly support them."  And there are things that trigger a more polarized electorate - like coded messages from campaigns, or the media, or a lot of other things ;)

After all, how much more press does the race divide get than the generational divide, which is AT LEAST as significant a factor for my voting preference and also 'absurd'--unless you attempt to understand these types of things like race and gender and age as having more content than being mere sociological categories.

[ Parent ]
Identity != character (0.00 / 0)
The poll says nothing about identity.

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