He's Lost 10 Points over the Past Month (4.00 / 1)

He's lost 10 points over the last month. I just graphed the past month today, and it's crazy:

http://demockracy.com/tracking...

What else should we expect considering this free fall?

You make some good points. I think a lot of us don't know how to act now that we're up. Now that these attacks apparently aren't working, what's next?

What about the GOP--does it move to the right or become more centrist? For the Dems chances, I hope the former. However, considering they'll eventually be back in power (hopefully not for more than a decade), I hope the latter for the future of our country.  

Demockracy.com

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by: kvandyke @ Sat Oct 11, 2008 at 15:24:43 PM CDT

carving up the elephant - future disintegration of the GOP (4.00 / 1)

    Within each party there are several factions. Within the GOP, there seem to be three main groups: the Religious Right, the free-market libertarians, and the Red State Rednecks.
   I wrote a diary a few months ago about one strategy for defeating the Republicans: pitting the Social Darwinism of the free-market libertarian Republicans against the pro-charity ideals of Christianity.
   Now we are seeing another split within the Republican Party: the pro-Palin redneck faction vs. the educated, less-bigoted Republicans.
   We can hope that these factions keep fighting one another, in ways that keep the Republicans divided and weak. And we can try to encourage these divisions.
   One major sea-change seems to be under way. Reagan's famous statement that government is the problem and not the solution is being re-examined, in light of the financial crisis that has resulted from Phil Gramm-style deregulation. Think of Barney Smith at the Democratic convention. He said that the government needs to give more help to Barney Smith, and less to Smith Barney. His message was more than a clever play on words. It was also a sign of how Democrats can win back middle-class Republican voters. We need to make voters aware that economics is not just a choice between "the free market" and "socialism". We need to make the case for a "fair market", in which innovation can flourish and individuals can achieve the American Dream of rising prosperity, all under the watchful eye of appropriate government regulation.
   So... "What's the matter with Kansas?" The problem with Kansas used to be a lack of Obama. That problem is now being solved.

1 Corinthians 13:1 (KJV) - "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."/ GOP = Greedy Old Privatizers or Greedy Old Privateers?

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by: Christian_Dem_NY @ Sat Oct 11, 2008 at 16:14:33 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Pitting the GOP factions (4.00 / 1)

against one another is a good idea. What's going on right now, with the white trash base rising to the surface, is a good example in that the financial base can't afford to have the entire party tarred and feathered with this rhetoric. It's becoming ever more likely that Obama will be the next President, WITH control of both houses. At that point it won't be good to be the ones calling him a n****r, especially since he's going to have to completely redesign the regulatory structure of the government. So, it's a shoe in that the money is going to sit on the red necks.

What I think you miss is that there is little to no chance of splitting the party along Christian lines. All the religious base considers important is their social agenda. Enforcing morality is the be all and end all of this group, and as long as the Dems refuse to give up the idea of tolerance these folks ain't going to vote Dem. And on the day when the Dems do agree to enforce the religious morality measures, that's the day most of us leave the party.

My point is that trying to split the GOP along religious lines and claim our brethren who agree with us about almost everything but disagree with us about the tolerating of variance will never work. They see our tolerance as a betrayal of God, and nothing we can do short of becoming the enemy will change this in enough minds to make any appreciable difference. What's going on right now is almost a best possible scenario.

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by: Silence Doesnogood @ Sat Oct 11, 2008 at 16:38:13 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

"2 commandment" Christians (0.00 / 0)

     You may be right. But I hope not.
    I honestly do not understand how someone can embrace an every-man-for-himself, "wild west" style free market Social Darwinist view on economics... and then attend a church every Sunday and listen to the message of the Sermon on the Mount.
    It seems to me that there are two types of politically active Christians today: "smite the sinner", Jerry Falwell-style Christians, and "help the needy", Bono-style Christians. I am a Bono Christian, and the Falwell's of the world make no sense to me. From what I can tell, the Falwell Christians believe in just 2 commandments: "Thou shalt assume that life begins at conception" and "Thou shalt smite homosexuals".
    Even though we cannot silence the Falwell's of the world, we can use the power of Christianity to help advance the progressive agenda. Martin Luther King, Jr. was not an atheist; he was a Baptist minister. Before Michael Moore was a filmmaker, he was a divinity school student. I think that there are many swing voters (such as suburban soccer moms) that would be more inclined to vote for the Democrat if it was more clear that a vote for the Democrat is a vote for Christian principles such as charity and brotherhood.
    At the convention, Obama said that the flag is not a Republican flag, it is an American flag. Christians who are Democrats and/or progressives need to make it clear that the cross does not bear the label "property of the Republican party".

1 Corinthians 13:1 (KJV) - "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."/ GOP = Greedy Old Privatizers or Greedy Old Privateers?

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by: Christian_Dem_NY @ Sat Oct 11, 2008 at 18:37:58 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Another commandment (4.00 / 1)

Another commandment that I hear from the "Christian" Right is a very Old Testament one: Smite thy enemies. These "Christians" seem to believe that they are right about everything and everyone else in the world is wrong and God gave them money and military power to self-righteously enforce their will on everyone else. This is where the overlap with the Neo-Cons comes in. Also: the assumption that the poor are deserving of their poverty because they are either godless or lazy. I can't imagine how anyone who has read even a few of Jesus' words in the New Testament could believe this and/or consider themselves a Christian, but so it goes...

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by: RandomNonviolence @ Sat Oct 11, 2008 at 21:09:45 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I'm not referring to or criticizing good faith mainstream followers of Jesus (4.00 / 1)

Hell, I'm not even going to criticize the nutwad element too much, there are good well meaning people in there.

The problem with "reclaiming" this crowd is that they see the enforcement of their morality as pleasing to God. It's non-negotiable. While their morality is not being enforced, we are displeasing to God and invoking His wrath. Tolerance is wrong BECAUSE it's displeasing to God. Everything that goes wrong in this world is a result of our not pleasing God. Our only reason for existing is to please God. Therefore, they ARE NEVER going to embrace tolerance. Our only hope is to work around them.

That's my point. They're not coming over to us until we give up tolerating Wicca and Buddhism and Socialism and Islam and Judaism (except in eschatology, they want Jesus to return to vindicate them more than anything in the world.). Until they can be shown the virtues in tolerance, they're lost to the Democratic party. Outreach is useless. A few of them are moving towards tolerance, and if a bit more history was taught in the schools it might help. Tell them that the English Revolution was about Cromwell trying to force religious tolerance on the Puritans, early American history was about Virginia trying to force tolerance on New England, and all that. This is a VERY old battle.

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by: Silence Doesnogood @ Sun Oct 12, 2008 at 11:57:01 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

marketing our message - Christians for religious tolerance (0.00 / 0)

     When Martin Luther King, Jr. led his fight to end segregation, he did not say that he was leading blacks against whites. He said that he was leading all of God's children to work for justice. Obviously, Governor Wallace and many others did not accept King's claim that desegregation was justice and that God was on the side of desegregation. But King's marketing of his message did attract some support by whites, and furthermore persuaded some southern redneck types to have mixed feelings and not want to take sides.
    In creating political and cultural change, it is important to use persuasive language as well as to fight for the right goals. (One of my favorite books on this is George Lakoff's "Don't think of an elephant!")
    There will always be a few narrow-minded Christian supremacists who would love put every Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu in jail purely on religious grounds. I am not naive enough to think that all religious intolerance can be abolished tomorrow. But I do think that when a Democrat or progressive is also a Christian, he should say so. It might seem tacky to wave a dozen flags or wear a dozen crosses, but there are some low-information Christian voters who will assume that every person who speaks up in favor of religious tolerance is some sort of atheist. Whenever possible, we need to prove that assumption incorrect.
    The fact that the struggle for religious tolerance will not be won by us tomorrow, does not mean that we should surrender today.

1 Corinthians 13:1 (KJV) - "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."/ GOP = Greedy Old Privatizers or Greedy Old Privateers?

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by: Christian_Dem_NY @ Sun Oct 12, 2008 at 18:41:12 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

In defence of Gergen... (0.00 / 0)

...he called the implicit racist subtext of McCain's campaign several weeks ago, on whatever the ABC Sunday morning gasbag show calls itself.  The others on the panel were fluttering their lace handkerchiefs at the very idea of it.  

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by: Taylor @ Sat Oct 11, 2008 at 15:30:20 PM CDT

Picking a fight with John Lewis (0.00 / 0)

http://www.politico.com/blogs/...

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by: BHL @ Sat Oct 11, 2008 at 15:35:59 PM CDT

John McCain is a Villager. . . (4.00 / 1)

McCain grew up in D.C., and he comes from an elite Navy family.  And if there's anything that the villagers hate, its mob-based politics.  Sure they're happy to exploit the mob, but McCain was attempting to ride a conservative populist wave with near disastrous results.  So, I'm not surprised that the word got back to him that he needed to control this.  

So, I don't think he stepped up because McCain wanted to reclaim his honor - McCain stepped up because he knew he was falling into George Wallace territory - and George Wallace was a pariah in D.C.

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by: jim_treglio @ Sat Oct 11, 2008 at 15:39:47 PM CDT

Why is he turning on John Lewis then? (0.00 / 0)

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by: BHL @ Sat Oct 11, 2008 at 15:41:04 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

It's Not That I Disagree So Much With the General Argument (4.00 / 3)

In fact, I've made the general argument myelf on numerous occassions.  But I think that McCain's got his own set of issues on top of all that.  McCain really doesn't want to attack Obama, because it's at odds with his own, highly mythologized self-image.  He want's Obama attacked, all right, but he doesn't want to be the one to do it.

Thing is, Palin--who was supposed to be this rabid, but charming, attack dog--was a total bust in making the attacks for him.  She became more of a story herself than anything else in the campaign, first in a good way, then quickly not good at all.

Either way, her attacks on Obama couldn't just go out there and echo around on their own.  They all came from an address: Sarah Palin, which in turn reflected back on his judgment, his diminished status, his age, etc., etc., etc.

In short, he found himself incapable of positioning himself where he was accustomed to being with respect to Versailles, in an exalted sphere all his own, untouched by any consequences for the attacks he wryly tossed off on others.  And he'd been in that hallowed zone for so long, he was utterly incapable of functioning once he suddenly found himself outside of it.

Once that happened, he was just another generic Republican, with the added handicap of not really knowing how to play that game, just as the brand was tanking more than ever.


"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sat Oct 11, 2008 at 15:52:04 PM CDT

won't it be great (4.00 / 1)

when we don't have to resort to psychoanalysis to predict, or even understand, what our leaders can do? I'm not making fun of you, we've been doing this for eight years now ("perhaps he invaded Iraq... because he... fears ego annihilation from a paranoid object-relation?").

Whatever Obama does, I think we can safely say that it will make reasonably immediate sense -- even if we disagree with him.

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by: sdedeo @ Sat Oct 11, 2008 at 19:48:37 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

So, on Gergen (4.00 / 2)

I'm a course assistant for a class he's teaching right now -- "Driving Forces in American Politics" at the JFK School at Harvard. (He's joint-teaching it with Elaine Kamarck).

I will say that Gergen has consistently talked, at least in class, about the McCain campaign failures in reaching out to minorities -- notably criticizing Republicans for their heinous policies regarding immigration over the last few years. While I haven't seen all his CNN appearances, I think he's actually much more reasonable/logical than most I've seen on TV.

Just an observation. If you have any question you'd like me to ask him, let me know.

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by: Phillip Martin @ Sat Oct 11, 2008 at 18:20:29 PM CDT

I would ask him (4.00 / 1)

why Sarah Palin's confirmed "abuse of power" in Alaska isn't a bigger issue. I'd think that if the Senate ethics committee just confirmed that Joe Biden abused his power as Senator, it would quite a big issue and very dangerous for the Democratic ticket.

Hell, yesterday I expected McCain to consider tossing Palin from the ticket even though it's late in the game. She was found guilty of abusing power, for goodness sake, this is huge news.  Yet it's already being smothered by the John Lewis nonsense and McCain's apologies.

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by: existenz @ Sat Oct 11, 2008 at 20:18:31 PM CDT

[ Parent ]