Anger and Progressive Populism

by: Mike Lux

Tue Jan 15, 2008 at 11:10


While Chris could be right that it is too soon to write off Edwards (although a win for him in Nevada would truly be a miracle), I have been thinking a lot about the failure of Edwards' message in this campaign, especially in Iowa where he was in a must-win situation. People are making a lot of excuses as to why he didn't win, and it is certainly true that he was way outspent, and the traditional media didn't like him. But I don't think those valid points are the reasons he lost.

Remember, John Edwards has been campaigning in Iowa a great deal, basically since 2001. He has been spending tons of time and tons of money in Iowa for seven years, and has been well-known and well-liked by Iowa Democrats for a long time. Even though he was outspent, he had more than enough money to get his message out, and he had a good core of field staff and Iowa supporters to run his campaign. And Iowa is one of the most populist states in the country.

The other thing that bothers me about the Edwards excuses is that they basically consign progressive populists to losing all of their campaigns, because such candidates will almost always be both outspent and disliked by the traditional media. I just do not believe that our side will always lose elections, in great part due to the winning progressive populist campaigns I have seen over a great many years (from folks like Tom Harkin and Paul Wellstone all the way to the 2006 victories by people like Sherrod Brown, Jon Tester and Jim Webb.)

I think it is important for those of us who advocate a strongly progressive populist message and politics to ask ourselves why only 19% of the folks walking in the door of the Democratic caucuses voted for John Edwards.

Edwards' message was one of pure, undistilled anger at the big corporations who are dominating our country's politics: he was angry at those corporations, and he was going to "fight them," "beat them and beat them and beat them some more," and "stand up to them." That message certainly resonates with me, and probably does with most of the OpenLeft.com community. And there is no doubt that Democratic primary voters, and voters in general, are angry at the special interest elites. But it didn't lift Edwards past 19% among first choices. I think the problem has been that the anger is the only thing that voters were hearing. The lesson of the Edwards failure to me is that anger alone is not enough: that we have to combine the righteous anger we feel with telling people about the new ideas we have. Edwards had produced a bunch of great policy papers earlier in the campaign, but his core message in debates and advertising felt like it was all about the anger. If we can give people a sense of how we are going to change things and solve problems, and combine it with our anger at injustice, then we can win elections.

Progressives need to run on, and project more than just our justifiable anger at big business and conservative policies. We also need to be, in the words of Matt Stoller, an "ideas factory." We need to show people that we have the ideas and ability to really change things for the better. Populist anger alone doesn't win elections.
Mike Lux :: Anger and Progressive Populism

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Anger and Progressive Populism | 53 comments
bad messenger (4.00 / 1)
Edwards didn't do good coalition building and was not a good candidate.  It's easy to pretend it's a failure of the messaging, but I never got the half-assed way he went about projecting his message.  Why put up a mandate plan instead of single payer if you truly want to get rid of insurance companies?  Why condemn Moveon, or worse, let your wife do it for you?  Why say the war on terror is a political slogan and then put out a plan to keep troops in Iraq?

I knew Edwards was a mediocre candidate when his political director told me a year ago that his strategy to deal with poverty had as messengers in the House Al Wynn and Bobby Rush.  It just didn't make sense.

Agreed (0.00 / 0)
I would have been a lot more into a campaign if it had the same rhetoric, but a different messenger. The fact is, he was running as a firey, radical progressive, when his record was anything but.

I know that someone on this site did a clever analysis of how is progressive conversion was real, but when you're defending the authenticity of the candidate's positions at this late date, it's already over.

Unfortunately for Edwards, I never bought his act. My problem with him wasn't that he was too populist, it was that I just never believed him.

If Dennis Kucinich (or hell, Ralph Nader) ever got the kind of following that Edwards had built up at his peak, I would have been behind it 100%. I would have considered quitting my job to work for the campaign. But, I think that a lot of die-hard progressives just saw through Edwards' shtick.

[ Parent ]
Whoaa! (0.00 / 0)
None of the candidates are perfect. . . far from it. There are things about all of them that justify our rejecting their candidacies.

Edwards has been on a learning curve just like the rest of us, connecting the dots to realize how corporate dominance of government and our economy have spoiled our democracy and compromised our livelihoods.

Progressive candidates like Kucinich and Edwards are trying to figure out how and where they can join up with the American population in electorally overturning the past three decades of a plutocracy that has brought the country to the brink of insolvency on both personal and governmental levels.

Edwards has been the most successful in figuring out how to do this. He has honed and polished his message, due to his own learning curve and, I believe, Joe Trippi's influence and Howard Dean's initial attack on the invasion of Iraq and corporate influence that first put him on the political map. He has moved from decrying poverty to championing the middle class, which is now on the ropes economically and politically as corporations call more and more of the shots in every aspect of American life.

But not all the voters have been on the same learning curve as Edwards and still do not connect the dots with respect to the damage that has been caused by the plutocracy and the politicians that have served as its handmaidens in government. They are easily distracted from the core challenges to their livelihoods and political sovereignty by the flamethrowers who thrive on contriving political fights about hot button culture war issues like gender, race and religion; patriotism and American military might; immigration, etc.

That Edwards is not doing better in the polls is less a reflection on his campaign than it is an indicator of the evolving political wisdom of the body politic.

The electorate has largely embraced progressive policies, but the party structure and control of the electoral process, combined with the dominance of campaign financing by wealthy individuals and large corporations, has prevented them from being able to find articulate spokespersons like Edwards, nominate progressive candidates at all levels of government and kick out turncoats like Al Wynn and Lipinski.

In this light, Matt, I strongly urge you to keep your eye on the Big Picture of the coming progressive takeover of American politics instead of minor details like those you cite above in your premature obituary of Edwards' political fortunes.

My view is that Hillary or Obama will become the Democratic candidate, win the presidency and run the country from a DLC pro-corporate centrist position for the next eight years. Soon after their true political colors become apparent, I strongly suspect that the progressives will find it necessary to get to work to build their own political party in order to throw off the twin yokes of the two party duopoly and corporate dominance of government. 

[ Parent ]
New Party? (0.00 / 0)
Why form a new party when the old party is fine. There's no problem with the Democratic Party, only a problem with the Democratic Party leadership.

Why make the problem more complicated to solve than it needs to be?

[ Parent ]
How do we do this? (0.00 / 0)
How do we get rid of the Democratic Party leadership within the next decade, assuming that we have a centrist Democratic in the White House?
[ Parent ]
Organize (4.00 / 1)
Organize, of course ;)

That is obviously easier to say than do, but getting the organization together to get good leadership in an existing party is what I think a lot of people are going for here.

If you want to set up your own party, then you're basically saying that you want to organize to form the party, publicize the party, make people care about the party, sign up enough people for the party so that its numbers are comparable to the existing Democratic and Republican parties, and then *also* make sure that this new party has good leadership.

So, if you think that getting good leadership in the Democratic Party is too daunting of a task, then surely getting good leadership in the new party, while also doing all those other tasks would be 10 times as challenging.

[ Parent ]
I am not recommending this (0.00 / 0)
You are correct about the difficulties of starting a new political party.

And I certainly share your hope that we can replace the current centrist leadership of the Democratic Party with progressives.

However, creating a new party may become the only alternative if and when all else fails.

That day may come upon us sooner than we might imagine if we get hit with a lasting recession or depression, the Chinese call in their chips and imposes "structural adjustments" on the U.S. economy, the dollar falls into oblivion, and we can't borrow any more money from abroad.

Then voters will realize that the two political parties who got us into this mess are incapable of getting us out of it.

[ Parent ]
Eat Your Greens (0.00 / 0)
And anyway, some people already are trying your idea. They formed the Green Party. They're not having too much luck. Do we really need yet *another* alternative party?

The Green Party has a great platform and inspiring leadership. Unfortunately they're bad at a political party's main job, which is winning elections.

So, I think you have two options. Fix the Democratic Party's leadership, or fix the Green Party's inability to win anything. Starting yet another new party seems to me to be biting off more than you need to chew.

[ Parent ]
Alternative Parties are needed (4.00 / 1)
But, in my humble opinion, I think we need to open up the political system FIRST.  It is obvious that any alternative party in the US will either founder, or replace one of the MSPs because ours is a TWO PARTY system. The first, small, baby step toward this is to develop and implement Instant Run-off Elections that allow voters to cross party lines in each race. 

However, progressives do not have to wait for that - they can take the more traditional approach and try to shatter the Democratic Party and work to replace it as the the political players re-sort themselves between the GOP and the Progressive Party.

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
Learning curve... (4.00 / 1)
While I would like to agree with you, it seems hard to see how we are going to get corporations out of our party when they already run the show.  A lot of our grassroots efforts get spent on candidates who are quick to forget us when it comes to voting on specific legislation.  The grassroots can get out the vote and maybe energize people on a key issue here and there.  What it can't do is put a legislator or president on the hot seat on every vote and every bill that comes up like the corporations can with their lobbyists.  I would prefer to salvage the Democratic party but with the current structure and leaders of our party favoring the corporations it hard not to think that it might be easier to start from scratch.
[ Parent ]
Getting to work (4.00 / 1)
"I strongly suspect that the progressives will find it necessary to get to work to build their own political party in order to throw off the twin yokes of the two party duopoly and corporate dominance of government."

Yes.  Again, thanks for this excellent observation.

It is inevitable that there would be a collision between the operative assumption of this list-i.e. that progressive change can be realized through the DP-and the likely reality of a Clinton or Obama presidency.

On a somber note, it's worth mentioning that the necessity for developing a left electoral alternative to the Democrats should have been recognized a generation ago. 

We can simply no longer tolerate the blind corporatist ideology which will be continue to dictate policy for the next decade. 

The consequences, while dreadful in previous decades, will now be catastrophic as  C02 levels rise to render much of the planet uninhabitable.

[ Parent ]
And a difficult campaign (4.00 / 3)
Obama and Clinton are huge rockstars. Edwards may have struggled, but throughout this campaign only Al Gore and John Edwards have shown any ability to even dent their overwhelming support among Dems. So, maybe he didn't do very well, pending Nevada, but he did better than anyone else could have against this field (except, possibly, Al Gore).
[ Parent ]
Excellent point about populism (0.00 / 0)
If you run a populist campaign, you can't expect to have corporation-owned media to give you a lot of free press.  Concurrently, you can't expect to have a lot of independently wealthy people give you maxed out donations so that you stay even or ahead in the money game.

If there was a counterbalancing force to populism against the deficits in money and free press, then no one would run as a populist.

19% ? (0.00 / 0)
why only 19% of the folks walking in the door of the Democratic caucuses voted for John Edwards.

Didn't he get 30% in Iowa?

miasmo.com

Doh! (0.00 / 0)
I shouldn't post before reading the whole article:

But it didn't lift Edwards past 19% among first choices.

Never mind.

miasmo.com

[ Parent ]
Edwards had it all in terms of substance and leadership (4.00 / 1)
The man has clearly been the (progressive) leader in setting the agenda, showing incredible strength and foresight in his policies, and he has a natural talent to inspire people and lead and yet I, too, agree he failed to truly showcase all his breadth and depth.

I still think the fatal flaw came from early on when he failed to distinguish himself from Obama who was also presenting himself as the anti-Hillary candidate.  He had time earlier this summer when Obama was drifting low, where he could've picked up some much needed funds and, thus, presented himself to voters as a much more viable national candidate (I do believe people liked Edwards as is but money was also a factor in their decision; people wanted a winner).

God, I hope he somehow wins Nevada (I know, I'm a dreamer).  He's the only one I actually believed in.

Donate this Friday if you're an Edwards supporter:
https://www.johnedwa...

This seems as likely a reason as any... (0.00 / 0)
I remember being excited about the initial Obama wave.  But when the policy came out later and centrist the rhetoric just lost its punch.  If Edwards had stepped in took on Obama as being all talk and no policy when it came to change it might have put him as the top 'anti-Hillary' candidate.  I guess there was a moment in time when he had a chance to steal some media spotlight and he missed it. 

Of course, if he had taken over as the 'anti-Hillary' I think the media would have ridden the Clinton 'inevitability' train and ignored Edwards unless he said something distasteful or made some gaffe and he still wouldn't have gotten his message any farther than he and his groundstaff could deliver it.

[ Parent ]
If ifs and buts were candy and nuts... (0.00 / 0)
Before Obama got into the race, the corporate media narrative was Clinton's inevitability. After he got in, it was the two way race between Obama and Clinton. Edwards was simply written out of the script. I am not necessarily arguing with your analysis of some of Edwards' weaknesses as a candidate, but...

does anyone think that Edwards might have won Iowa if the press behaved in a neutral and objective way? I guess we'll never know for sure, but it sure does seem likely to me.

miasmo.com

When has the press behaved in a neutral and objective way, ever? (4.00 / 1)
"The press screwed us" stopped being a valid excuse sometime around 1988.
[ Parent ]
1998? (0.00 / 0)
I would have said that counting on the American press to be unbiased and neutral would have become obviously absurd sometime around 1739.
[ Parent ]
I <b>did</b> say 19<b>88</b> (0.00 / 0)
they seemed to kick it into hyper mega-stupid around the dukakis campaign
[ Parent ]
Hyper! (4.00 / 1)
I would call it "hyper-mega-stupid" to call the New Deal a communist plot, as it was called in many papers, as well as calling it "hyper-mega-stupid" to literally say that a Thomas Jefferson presidency would result in children being raped in the streets, which also happened.

Television amplified stupidity, but it didn't invent it. Humans, and even Americans have been stupid for a long time.

[ Parent ]
remember Hearst? (4.00 / 1)
He started the Spanish-American War when a Navy vessel blew up in Havana's harbor due to an accident with the ammunition storage area.

His papers went ballistic claiming the spanish did it.

We went to war in a clear case of empire building, and won Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Phillipines, and other colonies as a result.

Then we gave Cuba and the Phillipines their "independence," propping up banana republic dictators. 

And we turned Puerto Rico into a weapons testing site for about 50 years.  Until Castro took over Cuba and caused the US gov't to say "oh shit" and change policy toward Puerto Rico, lest another Castro rise.

[ Parent ]
It was a hypothetical question. (0.00 / 0)
The comment makes clear that the question is not a realistic one. (Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the expression, "If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a good Christmas."

miasmo.com
[ Parent ]
That's Pretty Much Why I Never Declared For Edwards (0.00 / 0)
I kept waiting for either him or Obama to crystalize a compelling message that connected to a concrete plan.  It didn't have to be deeply detailed, but it had to have the major architecture in place, so that a basic argument was being made (A) is wrong, and we need to do (B) in order to achieve (C), that kind of thing.  And it needed to be right there in their main messaging, not buried in position papers somewhere.

So far, neither one has delivered.  And this is understandable in a way.  They are simply reflecting and accepting the degraded standards of political argument-making that's become standard in post-1994 America.  (Also, as far as Edwards is concerned, it's really all you need to do as an attorney.)

Long-winded way of saying I agree completely.

"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

So Who Are You Supporting? (0.00 / 0)
So am I to take it that now that all three of you have come down against Edwards that you, Paul, and Matt and Mike, have decided to support another candidate?

If so, who are  you supporting, Paul?

Who is Matt supporting?

Who is Mike supporting?

[ Parent ]
I'm Not Supporting Anyone (0.00 / 0)
But I am supporting Edwards' message, his narrative, and I will probably vote for him.  But he hasn't stolen enough of Denis Kucinich's ideas to get me to the point of fully endorsing.

For me to endorse someone, I would have to feel a strong confidence in their ability to govern and their clear superiority to any other candidate, I would have to feel good with myself, taking their side in debates.  And I would have to feel that I was doing more good overall by doing so than I could by remaining an unaffiliated critic.  Other people have other standards, but those are mine.

"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

[ Parent ]
Good Enough (0.00 / 0)
Remember the discussion we had last year at this time on MyDD about the iterative nature of electoral politics? If memory serves, you were in on that discussion.

As I recollect, many of us came down on the side of process, and the back-and-forth interaction that takes place between candidates and voters as they articulate their positions and endeavor to move closer together. Edwards is clearly doing this albeit not as quickly as one might hope, but at least he is not triangulating like Obama and Clinton are doing and wandering off into insipid word wars and identity slurs.

With respect to your point about "their clear superiority to any other candidate", Edwards is clearly superior in my view to both Obama and Clinton.

I rejected Obama pretty much once and for all as far as the primary is concerned when I heard him argue that Social Security is in trouble and we need to fix it by scaling back its funding and payments to retirees. Everybody knows that it is not in trouble except to the extent that Congress keeps spending the funds that workers pay into the Social Security Trust Fund and refuses to pay back the $2 trillion it owes the Fund.

I rejected Clinton pretty much once and for all vis-a-vis the primary when she supported the Kyl-Lieberman amendment and gave the Bush/Cheney junta the green light to attack Iran. She has not changed a bit since she voted to give Bush the authorization to invade Iraq.

That said, I intend to vote in the general election for the Democratic nominee, provided Bloomberg does not get in the race with a thoroughly progressive platform (which would be a miracle, I admit).

But I do not think it serves any useful purpose to write off Edwards and castigate him for minor inadequacies in the midst of a primary in which he faces two centrist pro-corporate adversaries and is consistently pulling upwards of 20% in the polls and primaries.

[ Parent ]
You Make Good Points (0.00 / 0)
And as I said, I will probably vote for him.

But I'm still in the place where I feel most comfortable as an unaffiliated critic.

"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

[ Parent ]
WTF? (4.00 / 1)
Wowie-zowie is it ever a bad idea to regurgitate the corporate media's script on Edwards, that he's just so angry. They did it to Howard Dean; that's why the so-called "scream" moment worked so well to eliminate him from the 2004 race. Are you sure you want to go along with labeling someone who advocates for your way of thinking totally irrational, dude?
Anger. (0.00 / 0)
I have never thought of anger as a bad thing in politics. In fact, my own righteous anger at what's wrong in the world is a big part of what motivates me to go to work in the morning. And I don't think we should be defensive about our anger toward the establishment and big business for the way they screw things up. What I am suggesting is that anger alone is not the way to go.
I do believe Edwards message was very angry, in a way I happened to like. If Obama's operative word was hope, and Hillary's was experience, then Edwards was fight. Him being a fighter- fro the middle class and against big business- was central to virtually every ad and speech in the campaign.
[ Parent ]
Is Anger a Necessary Part of Populism? (4.00 / 3)
Ignoring the question of whether or not Edwards or Democrats should be angry or act angry, is it possible for a populist candidate to come across as something other than angry?  Is there such a thing as a non-angry populist?

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both
MIchael Moore (4.00 / 2)
People will call any populist "angry," it's just part of the stereotype.  And I think Mike is using it more as a signifier in this case.  I think it's obvious that a lot of the time what Edwards is showing is passion, more than anger.  But when that passion is not joined specifically to solutions in a consistent manner, then there's a problem, even if the media does vastly exaggerate it.

But when people call Michael Moore angry, they're just projecting, pure and simple.  What's more, there's a very long tradition of populist humor to back him up.  Will Rogers, of course, is the classic example.

But It's A Wonderful Life is one of dozens, if not hundreds of populist American movies that can hardly be called angry, though it does have moments of anger in it, along with a whole range of other emotions.

Roseanne and The Simpsons are recent examples that show populist humor hasn't gone out of style.

"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

[ Parent ]
It's necessary to get my vote. (0.00 / 0)
The way I see it, if you're not angry, you're not paying attention. I don't like to hear people spout bullshit, and if you can't or won't accurately describe the problem, it just sounds like bullshit to me. Perhaps I'm suffering from the Audacity of Cynicism.

miasmo.com
[ Parent ]
Have to combine with optimism (4.00 / 2)
Anger is often a great motivator and unifier for the already converted, but it isn't a great persuader.  It has to be used strategically, in combination with hope.  See Franklin Roosevelt, for example.

Paul is absolutely correct above that what is lacking today is someone with a clear vision of what's wrong, where we ought to be going and how we can get there.  I see more of that in Obama, but that's because I like the call to idealism and the common good; but others don't. 

Think about King's vision of the promised land that he set out in the "I Have A Dream" speech.  Or Kennedy's visions of a generation prepared to give back through service and putting a man on the moon in 10 years.  The latter many thought was a hokey goal, but if you were alive and aware in 1968 during the assassinations and the war and chaos at home, when it finally happened, it was a hopeful, unifying event at a very dark time.

The problem with anger (and this is why I don't want angry Dems so much as really resolute and crafty ones) is that it just provokes anger in listeners.  It is hard to really hear what anyone else is saying if one is full of anger at the speaker (or even with the speaker, in which case one misses the nuances, if there are any), and so it doesn't really help solve problems or articulate goals.

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

[ Parent ]
Anger does not persuade. Ever. (0.00 / 0)
My point exactly.

Anger doesn't persuade. It only works to motivate the converted - it can do this well.

Have you ever seen an angry TV commercial for a product?  It would never test.  This is an instructive example.

[ Parent ]
Political Advertisements and Commercial Advertisements (0.00 / 0)
We are not selling shaving lotion here so I am not sure the analogy works.

But I am sure that the more people get shafted by the plutocracy the angrier they are going to get on the political front and the more like they are to kick the rascals out of elective office who suck up to it. It is only a matter of time.

The anger felt by middle class and working class Americans whose livelihoods have been ruined by the plutocracy is going to be a lot more sophisticated and action-oriented politically than that of the poor and working poor who have little education. And there are going to be tens of millions of them popping up as the plutocratic conveyor belt siphons off their earnings via price gouging on gas and oil, health insurance and pharmaceuticals, for example; holding the line on labor costs, shifting tax burdens downward, etc.

So far, much of what we are seeing in the way of unenlightened voters is the result of what George Soros calls in his book The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror "Feel Good America".

Many naive Americans who understand little about the intersection of politics and economics are easily distracted by the propaganda and demagoguery that both political parties use to create a false sense of security in order to dupe people into voting for them. Huckabee's candidacy is evidence that both political parties are in for quite a populist realignment.

As more and more people stop feeling good because they see their livelihoods, political power and hopes and dreams crumble, the more confrontational our politics are going to become.

But this transformation is going to take time because people who have been spoon fed their political philosophies are now going to have to craft new ones based on their own experiences rather than the phony political rhetoric we are hearing from Obama and Clinton, and of course most of the Republican candidates.

Over the holidays, I heard a middle class conservative railing about how the unions have ruined the country. When I asked him what percent of the labor force is unionized, he claimed it was a substantial part of the total, not the less than 10% that it actually is.

So it is going to take some time before reality sets in. Unfortunately, financial and economic ruination may well turn out to be the most effective teacher for "feel good" Americans who have yet to face reality. By that time, Edwards and his successors will have no trouble getting progressive messages to resonate with the majority of the electorate.

[ Parent ]
Good point (4.00 / 1)
about the same time my husband & I started getting f*cked over by the economy (housing market, having a small business, gas & food prices etc) was also when we really started educating ourselves regarding politics.  We are pissed AND angry and have good reason to be.  I am disgusted with the Democratic Party and horrified with the Republican Party.

(The political junkie in me is not angry, just excited)

But the middle-class citizen in me is angry and voting for Edwards.....just waiting for my peers to catch up.  It probably won't happen this election.

but I am still going to try as hard as possible to have my voice heard.

[ Parent ]
disagree with all your premises (0.00 / 0)
I think you are fundamentally off by saying Obama and Clinton are assuredly different.  You are taking the campaign literally.  I think all of your distinctions are incorrect.

You are making all of these assumptions about who is truly progressive and what can realistically be achieved politically. 

Edwards is really no different except on the surface. We cannot know what any candidate will really do *unless* they run on a single issue and recieve an overwhelming mandate.  That is not at all apparent now.

All of campaign rhetoric is symbolic.  Economic, social, and political circumstances are extremely complex and dynamic.  Nobody knows what will really be happening in 2009. 

You're right about one thing: when an overwhelming number of people want something, political pressure can be generated.  But the focus is not really there right now.  Maybe in the future, you're right.  But another political party?  Unless you find a billionaire to bankroll it, or that magical massive focused public pressure for reform appears, it's a pipe dream.

[ Parent ]
The peoblem is how to pitch the message (0.00 / 0)
See my comments below.  This insn't the 1890's.  These days you can't make people feel like they were duped.  Sometimes they just shut the message off rather than accept how they have been screwed.  And those who still think they can do well don't want to identify with a populist message, they want to identify with the plutocrats.  This is the secret of Libertarianism (Latin for selfish) and Republicanism.

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.
[ Parent ]
While I want John to do more --hahaha (4.00 / 2)
I think this piece is (sorry) crap. It is merely an almost progressive attempt to cast JRE as they did with the 'Dean Scream.'

It's bizarre and almost Rovian to say these three things in the same breath:

"making a lot of excuses as to why he didn't win"

"though he was outspent" (six to one!)

"the traditional media didn't like him" (erased him coverage is more accurate, and I think we call it corporate media now)

This reminds me of "Gore can't win, he lost." which covers over that 1, he actually won, and 2 -votes were stolen in many ways. So does this also mean we need candidates that win despite stolen elections, and candidates that the corporate media does like? We have always been outspent, and win despite it, and we have been ignored, we win by sticking together and spreading the truth.

NO.

Progressives are in the position we are in now because of the new media systems, and because more people are involved, people who disbelieve the "popular" (MSM) narrative.

Edwards would do much better, therefore, if two things happened; 1] spread his message, in our words, to get around the popular/traditional/MSM/corporate Media, i.e. by defeating their narrative. That means we have to continue the same work we have done to expose the lies of Iraq, the lies of NAFTA, the lies of a "conservative America", the lies of the Health Insurance" industry. We did that with our blogs -our discussions our commitment and the fact that we suported each other, and,
2] If 'dispassionate' "reporter-like" progressives actually got involved. and stopped repeating the MSM message. Make a commitment. Get into it! Step up take the year off, spend some money.

Another reason to do this is because the Edwards campaign is a huge consciousness raising group. Shared experience, common recognition of the real problem we have to solve if we are to move forward. That is the concentration of power in the hands of a wealthy elite. This isn't a campaign message, this truth to power in it's most revealing form.

I'm not going to answer each why he lost here, I think we could spend more time examining why we ( you and me ) let Iraq happen in the first place. Our failures are more important to me right now, partly because they piint back to doing what will help JRE get elected the Democratic nominee.

I don't need to talk about how to get JRE elected, in the general, because in repeated polls he beats all Republicans by wide margins, including McCain, who both Obama and Clinton are barely neck and neck, if in front all. Get up off your asses. Stop whining you would have done it better. (Oh boy have heard that argument too much.) And go be the harbingers of a new age in America.

I would love to see a set of blogs examining the hatred of the popular press for FDR as he took on the entrenched powers to restart America, to gear up to defeat fascism.  I'd love to see John walk about Washington explaining who Teddy Roosevelt was and the breaking of the Robber Baron Trusts who controlled America, and almost destroyed democracy.

I am really tried of "friendly trolls" who sadly let us know  we don't have a chance.

Go John, ignore triangulation, ignore trolling, fight for America.

Change
"We must break up the banks and never again let them get so big that they distort our politics and take down the economy.

Subliminal Narratives (0.00 / 0)
The media pushed the themes that John Edwards is about Anger, Barack Obama is about Hope, and Hillary is about Experience.

Whether the candidates intended these to be their overriding messages or not, these are what stuck.

On PRI's Marketplace, a spokesman for the DLC's Third Way Institute analyzed the income statistics for the middle class. He made the very salient point that if you exclude the very young and the very old heads of households, the median middle class income is over $60k per year, instead of the $40k cited in the undifferentiated statistics. His point was that Americans are more affluent than the economic cohort John Edwards aimed his message at, and that's why it fell flat.

He went on to make another point -- on all levels, Obama's message is Aspirational. Whether it is rising above partisanship or looking to a better future, Obama speaks to our hopes and dreams -- and that's why he won in Iowa. In New Hampshire, his rhetoric waxed eloquent to the point that  it was about him, and We The People were left behind.

At any rate, the MSM approved subliminal narratives:

Obama is Aspirational --

Edwards is Confrontational --

Hillary is Transactional --

Whoever can adapt and incorporate the best of the three approaches, will make the best nominee.

I Agree (4.00 / 2)
I basically agree with this.  I was sure really since early 2006 that Edwards was going to win the nomination and the White House.  My reasoning was that he completely owned the economic anxiety argument based on his "two americas" theme from 2004 and I thought that argument would be much more powerful after four more years of Bush's economic policies.

The problem with my prediction, in my opinnion, is that Edwards never ran on the economy per se.  For the first half of the year, Edwars ran on poverty.  Then, he ran on being against corporate and lobbyist influence.  These decisions have amazed me because polls show that even before the current recession started, economic anxiety topped the concerns of voters. 

I am not saying Edwards ignored the economy as an issue.  My understanding is that many of his anti-lobbyist commercials tied into economic worry.  Yet, he put the cart before the horse.  He should have made "two americas" or some version of that front and center, offered some bolerplate language on how he was going to creat One America, and ran on that platform.  In the context of creating One America, he could have talked about lobbyists, but the emphasis should always have been how his policies would lead to higher middle and lower income wages and more affordable health care, tuition, energy prices, etc.

Critical issue is where to draw the line btw us and them (4.00 / 1)
During LBJ's "War on Poverty" in the late 1960s and for several years after, the Dems did really try to do something about poverty.  But too many (white) people felt that special benefits were being given to the "undeserving."  Rightly or wrongly, the GOP portrayed the Dems as putting the line between the bottom 20% or so and the rest.  This is why the DLC Dems tried to shift their pitch to the middle (and even upper middle) class.

Now that things have gotten so skewed towards the sliver at the top, one can construct a credible populist argument on behalf of the whole bottom 90%.  But it requires being out front about how so much of the economic gains have gone to the top 1%, and how the economic escalator has stalled or shifted into reverse.  And the top few will really, really fight back, using their surrogates and accusing the populist of class warfare. 

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

[ Parent ]
The Progressive Problem (4.00 / 1)
The main problem with the message of truly progressive candidates like Edwards is that being progressive or liberal has been so demonized in this country over the past thirty years that no candidate can declare him or herself a progressive and expect to win. Most Americans understand the basic meaning of conservative, and since the label is not considered a negative, when a candidate runs as a conservative, voters inherently understand the basis for their ideology. However, since progressivism has been so neglected, most voters don't know what a true progressive program looks like anymore. As a result, someone like Edwards appears "angry" because his outrage does not connect to a larger progressive philosophy in most people's minds.
Interesting dialogue. (0.00 / 0)
I appreciate all the thoughtful responses.
The points re the traditional media making this the Hillary and Obama show are right, and that could explain some of what's going on here, although the media has ignored lots of other darkhorses over the years who have still done well in the early states because their message took hold (including McCarthy, McGovern, Carter, Hart, and Kerry and Edwards last time).
I don't disagree with all the folks who talk about Edwards as a flawed candidate with a flawed campaign, but I would argue that most candidates and campaigns have their flaws- certainly Hillary and Obama did. But I think it's important for progressives to look at results and really be honest with ourselves in analyzing things when the most progressive campaign message ends up on the losing end of things. There were 3 relatively strong, sustained campaigns with well known and reasonably well liked candidates in Iowa, and with strong field and precinct captain operations capable of turning out their vote and winning the caucuses. The one with the most consistently progrressive/populist message finished 3rd in terms of the first choice voting. We need to ask ourselves why.
Why? Because the candidate is a few steps ahead of the voters (4.00 / 2)
Mike, we have posted dozens of comments taking on the premise of your post here.

But you still end up where you started.

I strongly urge you to read the post immediately preceding yours by Robert Lasner. He sums up our arguments quite eloquently, in my view.

Taking back the country after 30 years of plutocratic rule supported by both parties is not an overnight transformation.

Your obituary for Edwards, which assumes he did something wrong just because the progressive tide of history is coming in at its own rhythm, is extremely disheartening.

[ Parent ]
Politics is also about who we think we are (4.00 / 1)
Above I commented about where one draws the line between us and them in a populist message.  I think this is crucial.  One of my favorite quotes is from historian David Potter in "People of Plenty":
Few Americans feel entirely at ease with the slogan 'Soak the rich', but the phrase 'Deal me in' springs spontaneously and joyously to their lips."

The book came out in 1954, in the midst of post-war prosperity, but it is just as true today in the era of state lotteries, proliferating casinos and 24-hour poker tournaments and stock markets.

Huckabee is a populist, but as an evangelical he has a dual message, so his target audience feels that he is preaching a social gospel, not promising to give government programs to someone poorer than them.  Part of the GOP secret has been to capitalize on people's beliefs that they are higher on the income scale than they really are, and that the big strike is just around the corner so they better not support higher taxes on the very rich.

Until some Dems learn to package populism in a way that doesn't make the target audience feel like losers, it won';t have the power it potentially could have.

 

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

[ Parent ]
It Ain't That Hard (4.00 / 1)
Clinton did it in 1992.  If only he'd governed the way he ran.

The formula is simple: you tell folks the truth: you work hard, and you're deserving, but the system is rigged against honest hard work.

Clinton's precise formulation was "folks who work hard and play by the rules."

Doesn't sound like a loser to me--except in a system that doesn't deserve to stand.

"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

[ Parent ]
media ignored darkhorses (0.00 / 0)
the media has ignored lots of other darkhorses over the years who have still done well in the early states because their message took hold (including McCarthy, McGovern, Carter, Hart, and Kerry and Edwards last time).

I'm not old enough to comment on McCarthy or McGovern. Carter genuinely was unknown outside Georgia and Iowa when he won Iowa, so I don't know what you can read into that about media bias. But Kerry and Edwards definitely got favorable treatment from a media that was doing everything it could to sink Dean. I quite distinctly remember being endlessly "informed" of how sensible Democrats were coming to their senses and supporting the very electable War Hero Guy and Johnny Sunshine over the "angry" and "unelectable" Dean. The pre-Iowa media bias was statistically confirmed by a media watchdog group and it was shockingly blatant. So please don't try to rewrite history.

miasmo.com

[ Parent ]
Kerry (0.00 / 0)
Also, Kerry and Lieberman were both dubbed "frontrunners" early in the process by the media, and as soon as Kerry's polling showed a hint of renewed viability in Iowa, he was suddenly getting plenty of media attention again.

miasmo.com
[ Parent ]
To Try To Be A Little More Specific (4.00 / 2)
then in my first post.  Mike asks why the candidate "with the most consistently progressive/populist message finished 3rd in terms of the first choice voting.  We need to ask ourselves why.

I think you basically nailed the answer in your first post.  The pure anti-corporate, anti-lobbyist message has never been a winner in American politics.  It did not work for Harris in '76, Brown in '92, nor did less pure versions work for Gephart in '88 or Dean in '04.  I think the general reason why this is true is that the vast majority of Americans: (1) accept that there will be some pro-corporate lobbying; and (2) dont really care about this issue on its face.  In other words, if there lives were getting better, they would not care about corporate influence and if there was no corporate influence in DC and their economic opportunities were shrinking, they would still be unhappy.

Thus, the most important thing for progressives is to directly address the issues of economic justice in  ways that the voter can understand and appreciate.  Again, I go back to how well Edwards did that in 2004.  In that race, in which he was relatively unknown and underdunded, he also had the most progressive economic message and he came very close to winning.  Nor is Edwards' 2004 the only example of the power of a progressive, economic populist campaign.  Sherrod Brown won in 2006 with that message and to a lesser extent so did Claire McCaskill.  Again though, they did not center their campaign on being anti-lobbyist, though that was probably in the mix.  They centered their campaigns on a direct critique of Bush-Reagan budgetary, fiscal and trade policies, particularly how these policies were driving down wages.

What I am taking an awful long time to say is that ultimately, a message centered on lobbyists and corporations is one focused on the process not the results, the means not the ends.  Ultimately, I think Americans are pragmatic, ends oriented voters.  Progressive politicians should focus on the ends that our policies will deliver and speak less about what special interest favoring factors will have to be overcome to achieve those ends.

[ Parent ]
Iraq Vote (4.00 / 1)
I appreciate all these thoughtful comments -- there are some really smart insights here.

However, no one has mentioned that Edwards voted for the invasion of Iraq. There are a lot of populists who can't forgive Edwards for that stupid vote. Edwards argues that he will support poor people and he has a history of fighting for poor people. But he obviously flip-flopped on Iraq -- how do we know where he will actually come down on other issues? And that makes his mansion a lot more problematic -- it hints at another contradiction.

I have wanted to support Edwards, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I couldn't honestly say that I knew that he had learned his lesson on foreign policy.

I'll probably vote for him, but I cant' bring myself to work for him.

Anger and Progressive Populism | 53 comments
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