It Worked Out Just As Planned (Almost)

by: Chris Bowers

Sun Feb 03, 2008 at 01:30


I don't entirely trust poblano over at Daily Kos, because the way s/he uses numbers sometimes reminds me as much of a partisan as it does of an electoral analyst. However, I still think poblano put together an incredibly salient bit of analysis on the composition of the Obama coalition this season:

What follows is a multiple regression analysis that attempts to predict a candidate's 2008 vote share based on the 2004 vote shares of candidates in the same city.  I've run the regression on all New Hampshire towns that had at least 100 Democratic voters in 2008, weighting larger towns more heavily.

This regression produces a number of coefficients that represent how much support was transferred from one candidate to another.  For example, if the coefficient between John Kerry and Hillary Clinton is .73, that means that for every percentage point that Kerry had in a district in 2004, Hillary tended to pick up .73 percentage points in 2008.(...)

Liberman
.66  Clinton
.15  Obama
.05  Richardson
-.16 Edwards

It might also be helpful to turn these numbers around and look at where each of the '08 candidates' support is coming from.(...)

Obama
.93  Dean      
.45  Clark      
.38  Edwards '04  
.15  Lieberman  
.09  Kerry

Poblano's analysis means that Barack Obama is winning virtually all Dean voters from 2004, and a plurality of Clark voters from 2004. In other words, Barack Obama has combined the coalitions of the two main netroots fueled candidates in 2004. It certainly shows, too, given that Obama has raised more money from small donors than Dean and Clark combined from four years ago, and that he is drawing crowds even larger than the ones for Dean that caused the media to ooo and aaahhh four years ago.

So, let's see here: a campaign that uses extensive internet organizing, huge campaign rallies, heavy youth and creative class support, a record breaking number of small donors, a fulfilled promise of record turnout, and combination of Dean and Clark voters to force the best possible candidate the Democratic establishment could offer down to the wire?. Correct me if I am wrong, but in terms of structure, that seems to be exactly what the emergence of the progressive blogosphere suggested could happen in a Democratic Presidential primary in 2004. Just because the campaign in question was not, seemingly, single-handedly plucked from relative obscurity by a few prominent bloggers does not mean the Obama campaign is not using the exact same energy and exact same new, political trajectory that the blogosphere was riding back in 2003-2004.

Barack Obama's campaign is the manifestation of the contemporary progressive movement after it exploded from its original early adaptors and disseminated widely into American culture at large. What Obama is doing would simply not be possible without the explosion of new progressive activism that started in the late 1990's with such seemingly disparate events as the founding of MoveOn.org, the Seattle WTO protests, and the multiple outrages over the 2000 Presidential election. Hell, no matter the problems we have with him at different time, Obama was really the first netroots candidate to be elected to the Senate. In Chicago in early 2004, I saw him use the Dean coalition plus African-Americans (and a colossal, timely, flame-out by a self-funded front-runner) to win his Senate primary. Obama was also the only top-tier candidate who opposed the war from the start this time around, and I don't think you will find Obama's campaign is to the right of Dean's on pretty much anything.

It feels like the butterfly effect, the Frankenstein monster, or some sort of self-mutating computer virus. The political zeitgeist that the progressive blogosphere first seized upon five or six years ago was released into the population at large and came back, unexpectedly, as the Barack Obama campaign. That energy certainly didn't turn out with the same rhetorical approach it started with, but otherwise it is nearly structurally identical. In other words, the whole people-powered thing turned out exactly the way we planned it would, only that it sounds a little different. It is like a bunch of loose molecules forming a cloud, once the energy that started almost ten years ago grew, it took on a like of its own, reached a critical mass, and seized onto the first available nucleus. Soon enough, we will find out whether that could covers the Democratic Party in a flood.  
Chris Bowers :: It Worked Out Just As Planned (Almost)

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It Worked Out Just As Planned (Almost) | 73 comments
Hope (0.00 / 0)
After NH I had to reign myself in. I thought it was over but his staying power is remarkable. Yesterday I spoke with a former Hillary supporter: 60 year old, white  woman. Still undecided she suggested that she is being influenced not only by the momentum but by the deep desire of so many people to turn the page. She does not want to stand in their way and will vote for Obama in Maryland's primary.
a constant line of new leaders (4.00 / 1)
I think it is unremarkable that such a system would be constantly changing to meet the needs of today and thus would constantly have new leaders.

Thats kind of the point.

Leaders Are Slower Than Followers (4.00 / 1)
Hence Ghandi's crack--"There go my people, I must run and catch up with them, so I can lead them."

"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 ]
Interpreting these results! (0.00 / 0)
This kind of data analysis is certainly better than no data analysis at all, but some cautionary words are also in order.

Properly speaking, drawing conclusions about the voting behavior of individuals from this kind of analysis involves what statisticians call the "ecological fallacy."  It is a model in which the units are towns, not people, and so it is only generating estimates about towns.  Now its still interesting to think about the implications regarding people, but there are many examples in social science where ecological inferences concerning individuals have been shown to be pretty faulty.  Basically its interesting, but conclusions should fall well short of "Poblano's analysis means that Barack Obama is winning virtually all Dean voters from 2004, and a plurality of Clark voters from 2004."  You just can't conclude that.  

It's more like "Poblano's analysis shows that there is a very, very strong relationship between the amount of support Dean won in NH towns and the amount of support Obama won.  There is also a strong relationship between Clark support and Obama support."

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

Also (0.00 / 0)
I really have not idea what he means by "turning this analysis around", but it has me cringing a little bit.

John McCain: Health insurance for low income children represents an "unfunded liability."
[ Parent ]
He Just Means Correlating The Other Way (0.00 / 0)
We all have our idioms we like, and those we don't.  That's why they's called idioms, don'cha know!

"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 ]
To clarify (0.00 / 0)
To clarify the problem you are saying is that the dean voters in NH could largely be voting for clinton and the Kerry ones for Obama and this wouldn't necessarily pick up on that trend?

It seems like the main problem with it is that towns tend to not win by overwhelming margins so a 10% win would seem like a lot, but not be enough to draw any individual conclusions with this method.

[ Parent ]
Right (0.00 / 0)
Basically the analysis looks at the close statistical relationship between the proportion of the town voting for Dean in 2004 and Obama in 2008, across 100 towns in NH.

With a relationship this strong, its almost certain that a decent chunk of it is explained by Dean voters becoming Obama voters.  But there are other reasons why this kind of relationship might hold too.  Maybe the two campaigns placed similarly disproportionate emphasis on some towns and not others in their ground games, for example.

Basically, the model supports the general point that Dean voters are almost certainly tending toward Obama but you really can't say that nearly all Dean voters are now Obama voters or that half of Clark voters are Obama voters or anything like that.

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

[ Parent ]
But You Can Say They Are Drawing Support From The Same Areas (0.00 / 0)
And, furthermore, your alternate explanation:

Maybe the two campaigns placed similarly disproportionate emphasis on some towns and not others in their ground games, for example.

is itself not really an independent explanation.  After all, the campaigns would be highly likely to concentrate their attention precisely where they expected to get the best return.

It's good that you are explaining the problems here in more detail.  But it's important to keep in mind that the issue here is really that of confusing heuristics that point to a likely relationship with proof that one exists.  This sort of statistical analysis is good to have, it's not garbage--but only if you clearly understand its limitations, and the need for information before anything conclusive can be said.

"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 ]
mirrors my experience (0.00 / 0)
When I lived in NH - 12 years through 2005, I lived in the SW portion of the state and saw a consistent voting pattern that matched the Obama town wins v Clintons. Dean won our town but also our area, as did the more progressive gubernatorial candidates. Why this is so was always hard to sort out - the state party seemed much more entrenched in Manchester and Nashua but the mid state towns were also more likely to have residents who had fled MA over tax load and liberal policies so the breakdown was also seen in more interference with school curriculum, etc. For a very small state, the lack of cohesion was pretty fascinating.
[ Parent ]
This Is True, But... (0.00 / 0)
It's true that you can't reliably make such inferences.  The ecological fallacy is basically related to the fallacy of division--both point to errors of reasoning from wholes (populiations in the first case) to parts (individuals).

However, as with most fallacies, the ecological fallacy is actually sound as a hueristic.  It's a fallacy only because a valid hueristic is taken as proof, rather than as a good piece of evidence pointing to a probable truth.

What makes this analysis more than just a fallacy is the existence of reinforcing independent evidence, which points toward the same conclusion.

As wikipedia exaplins:

The term ["ecological fallacy"] comes from a 1950 paper by William S. Robinson.[1] For each of the 48 states in the US as of the 1930 census, he computed the literacy rate and the proportion of the population born outside the US. He showed that these two figures were associated with a positive correlation of 0.53 - in other words, the greater the proportion of immigrants in a state, the higher its average literacy. However, when individuals are considered, the correlation was ?0.11 - immigrants were on average less literate than native citizens. Robinson showed that the positive correlation at the level of state populations was because immigrants tended to settle in states where the native population was more literate. He cautioned against deducing conclusions about individuals on the basis of population-level, or "ecological" data.

So, by analogy, if there were some systemic effect--such as where immigrants tend to locate--affecting voter behavior, it could well give us this sort of "false positive."  But in this case, we have other indications--DKos straw polls over many months, the MoveOn endorsement, etc. supporting the same conclusion.

This is similar to the situation in Florida 2000, where there were a number of different problems that could be seen in group data that correlated with annecdotal reports and very plausible causal mechanisms (such as misleading voter information, kinds of devices and modes of operation used, etc.).  If one has two or more factors pointing in the same direction, and no obvious contradictory explanation that can account for them all, then it becomes highly likely--though still unproven--that the conclusion is correct.

"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 ]
Agreed but (4.00 / 1)
I never was really claiming that this was a false positive.  I would bet my last dollar that voting for Dean in 2004 is a significant predictor of voting for Obama in 2008.  Its really a question of not being able to interpret the size of the effects or the meaning of the coefficient estimates the way the diarist did, which is also a function of the ecological inference problem.

John McCain: Health insurance for low income children represents an "unfunded liability."
[ Parent ]
Right (0.00 / 0)
I just wanted to make sure that we got as much clarity as possible here.  Looks like we're both on the same page, just stressing different things.  Which is good, since it gives a fuller picture.

"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 doesn't feel that way (4.00 / 2)
to me it has not seemed that Barack comes out of the resurgent progressive movement. Seems to me the progressive movement, online, is dominated by hard nosed policy positions and aggressive politicing. When I read about Obama, when I read why people like him, I don't hear any of that. I don't here about him fighting for (past or future) tough particular issues, or framing the good guys vs the bad guys. That was the Edwards campaign, and the Edwards supporters. And I think we saw that online; Edwards was the overwhelmingly popular candidate on progressive websites. To me Obama is like its own independent online manifestation - and I think in a way its a very private one - happing in community groups, not out in the open on grassroots progressive sites. I've heard mostly happening in Facebook - and that would make sense to me for why he is pulling so much youth support. And I don't get the sense that College students are as vested in the current progressive resurgence. I would like to see some statistics on issues college students care about. More than any candidate in the Dem field I think Obama is the "cult of personality" candidate. And this to me explains much more of his support among youth than it being derived from the online progressive resurgence.  

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare
You Make Good Points, But I Think You're Arguing At A Different Level (0.00 / 0)
This is a very good caution, I think, but not a direct contradiction to Chris's argument.

Think of it this way--early adapters vs. average consumers.  The two populations are quite different in various ways, yet they are obviously related in others.  The early adapters are a crucial factor leading to the existence of the mass market.

Chris is making an argument about a trajectory from early adapters to mass market success, and you are saying, "Wait a second, today's early adapters aren't really into X, they're into Y."  But that doesn't really contradict the main thrust of Chris's argument.

Sure, it's a stronger argument if it turns out that "today's early adapters aren't really into X, they're into X 2.0," but the trajectory argument still makes sense, and could be further strengthened if the mass market adopts Y a couple of years down the road.

"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 ]
umm... (0.00 / 0)
I see what you're saying Paul, but taking volunteers in and using a national network is a far cry from what we're looking for if, at the end of the day, the candidate and campaign can successfully be all things to all people, including the supporters.  And I'm not really sure if it shows movement in the right direction, either, if the aspects of people-powered campaigns that are supposed to connect our candidates' politics to our own can be so easily sidestepped.

Of course, I could be wrong, and Obama could really be a full-bore progressive, and I'm judging a lot of Obama partisans unfairly.  I totally admit I could be way off-base here.

[ Parent ]
Oh, I ABSOLUTELY Share Your Concerns (0.00 / 0)
And I know that Chris does as well.

But we both realize that there's always going to be gaps between what hard-core activists see, and the response of masses of people, who don't spend hours a day thinking about politics.

Bottom line: The depoliticization of politics is big problem so far as the likes of us are concerned.  OTOH, Obama says it's the solution, and the masses agree.

One might hope the masses wise up before Great Depression 2.0.  But hope is not a plan.

"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 ]
Kennedy Upside Down (0.00 / 0)
This analysis would make Obama sort of the inverse of JFK.

There were definite seeds of an activist renewal in the late 1950s--heck, much more than seeds in the black community, that's for sure.  But most of the dynamism, to be frank, was cultural--the first bloom of rock 'n roll, the stirrings of a new generation not yet politicized--and Kennedy helped politicize them, as well as speaking to his own contemporaries who felt that something had been lost from the WWII idealism of their youth.  But Kennedy gave impetus to movements that went well beyond anything he had in mind, in part pulling him along (as with King, the Freedom Riders and the civil rights movement generally) and in part really exploding only after his death.

In contrast, as you note, these movements have been building for ten years now (MoveOn founded in 1998) and seem to have culminated in support for Obama, who is similarly more timid than them, but much more obviously the effect, rather than the cause of them.

One more thing, since you mention the WTO protests. Ironically, I wrote this diary about yesterday about Obama and digniatarianism.  But someone who's been a lot more specific in articulating a dignitarian philosophy is--of all people--the Seattle police chief at the time, who has come to see the actions at the time (many taken by other forces, but he rightly takes responsibility for them all) as fundamentally mistaken for not enabling protesters to be heard.

The deeper irony here is that had he realized this then, and acted accordingly, Seattle may not have had anything like the impact it actually did have.  He played his part by doing the wrong thing, but has grown since then, while many others have not.

"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

Mistakes in history (0.00 / 0)
Mistakes and chance have often played a major role in history. And yes, not doubt, had there not been such a violent crackdown on Seattle, it would not have led to the wave of left-wing protests across the country over the next few years (which did impact the growing the progrssive movement, and fed it from the other direction that MoveOn.org was feeding it).

And yeah, Obama is definitely not the cause. This has been building for some time, and he happens to be who people are organizing around right now. That will change, too.  

[ Parent ]
Obama video (4.00 / 1)
Via Atrios, this video is a powerful manifestation of the draw of the Obama campaign:

http://www.dipdive.com/

Having said that, I have to come down to Earth and say this is politics as it would be run by Werner Erhard (and Obama supporters remind me eerily of Erhardites).

Yes we can WHAT?

yes we can: (0.00 / 0)
stand together rather than apart.

respect each other despite our differences.

recognize that we live in a multi-cultural world.

follow the lead of the young as well as the old.

see our connections rather than our divisions.

break the barrier of 51% vs. 49%.

prove beyond doubt that America is not racist.

look toward the future and let go of the past.

reject polarization and triangulation.

vote for change.

[ Parent ]
And then what? (4.00 / 2)
And, please don't say live happily ever after.  Those are all great feel good slogans, but they don't tell me what he plans to do about trade, our jobs, health care, the US debt, China, impeachment for the crooks who stole everything but the kitchen sink, and a whole host of other things that keep the peace, feed the kids, and prevent the old folks from ending up out of the streets.  These slogans and sentiments may be enough for 20 somethings with little to no responsibilities, but they aren't enough for the parents in whose basements they live.  When I heard Caroline Kennedy say she did it because her kids were geeked, she sounded like an over indulgent mom giving her kids a President for Christmas.

I pour over this site looking for some scrap of analysis that shows Obama to be the "progressive" everybody claims he is.  So far, I'm not finding it.  

They're asking for another four years -- in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20. ~~ Dennis Kucinich  

[ Parent ]
you could look at Obama's web site under "issues" n/t (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
I have... (4.00 / 2)
He's a Rosack test. I have resolved myself to the fact that whatever happens now it up to the gods.  Me and my vote don't matter beyond me.  I hope the gods will be good to us.  

They're asking for another four years -- in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20. ~~ Dennis Kucinich  
[ Parent ]
That should be Rorschach....sorry. n/t (0.00 / 0)


They're asking for another four years -- in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20. ~~ Dennis Kucinich  
[ Parent ]
you have 3 or 4 choices: (4.00 / 1)
Obama, the Clintons, McCain, or abstain.

You have 3 or 4 choices. I have decided. Now its your turn.

[ Parent ]
I'm chewing on it & could see myself doing any of them. (0.00 / 0)
Before MI got to vote in 04, the Democrats undercut and took away Dean, my presidential candidate.  In 08, they improved upon that and took away my candidate and my vote.  So to give my maimed vote some value, I crossed over to vote for Romney.  Figure if the Republicans and Independents get to vote in ours, it is only fair to turn the tables.  

They're asking for another four years -- in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20. ~~ Dennis Kucinich  
[ Parent ]
hmmn (0.00 / 0)
"reject polarization and triangulation."

Obviously no contradiction here...

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

[ Parent ]
Couldn't agree with you more (4.00 / 3)
I've been complaining to friends for a while now that the whole Obama phenomenon reminds me of est's Hunger Project from a while back, which had the objective not of actually doing anything about hunger but just getting as many people as possible to buy into the idea that hunger is a bad thing and should go away, with the idea that when some sort of attitudinal tipping point was reached, people and institutions would go do whatever was necessary to eliminate it.

OK, I'm willing to admit that maybe I'm an old fogey who spent too much time in the wars of the past to "get it."  I haven't seen so far a single thing that gives me a hint of what Obama actually plans to do if he gets into office.  Maybe he knows and just doesn't want to tell us.  And if that's the case, how does that fit into the idea of empowering the people and transparency in government?

I have no clue.  I wish I had more confidence that he has a clue.

And for whatever anecdotes are worth, I and every one of my Dean-supporting friends are for either Edwards or Clinton this time around.  I literally know no Dean voters who are now Obama voters.  Means nothing at all except that the flat statement that virtually all Dean people are voting for Obama is false.

[ Parent ]
All candidates have an element of support (0.00 / 0)
from people who are inspired by personality and not deciding on issues.  Clinton is no exception.  It's possible that Obama has a larger share of this type of supporter.

But it is deceitful to paint him as just an inspiring guy with no substance.  (not saying you're doing this but the Clinton campaign has tried to.)  It is not that hard to see his record and positions.

Obama would drive a wedge between the Republican politicians addicted to big money lobbyists and their constituencies.  It is going to get done by making the money deals (including earmarks) more transparent and enabling citizens to hold their representatives accountable.  (See FairEconomist's remarks below)

[ Parent ]
No, he's an inspiring guy who's *not campaigning* on substance (4.00 / 2)
Personality has been a major part of every candidate's appeal at least since television allowed us a glimpse.  That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm not even talking about position papers, although the fact you have to go look it up on a Web site to know what his positions are tells its own story.  I'm talking about how "hope" and "change" and "unity" are supposed to translate into action.

As has been said here repeatedly, the way Obama's campaigning, if he wins, even in a landslide, he will have virtually zero mandate for anything specific other than his own magnificent self.  And he will certainly not be able to frighten instransigent Republican politicians into signing onto some progressive policy for fear of being defeated back home.  Intransigent Republican politicians are in office because intransigent Republican voters elected them.  Their constituents aren't going to forgive them for agreeing to something they're against just because their neighbors in the next district voted for Obama for president.  It doesn't work that way.

If he were campaigning vigorously on even just a couple of substantive issues, he would then absolutely have a mandate for carrying those things out if he won.  But he's not doing that.

This whole style of virtually substanceless campaigning is clearly intended to avoid broadcasting a commitment to anything that would turn off the large numbers of Republican and independent votes he's hoping to get.  Pretty standard politico behavior, if you ask me, although carried to incredible new heights.  As we've seen pretty vividly, it's also a great way to insulate himself from any criticism because the only thing available to criticize is the man himself, and then everybody grabs the smelling salts in horror at the disrespect.

It's brilliant, really.

Only then what?

I don't doubt his progressive values, I doubt the character of somebody who holds those values and is afraid or unwilling to campaign directly on them.  I doubt the good sense of somebody who thinks they can win that way and then be able to accomplish anything.  And I seriously doubt the genuineness of the commitment to openness and empowerment and all that good stuff when they're running this kind of a campaign.  I read recently Obama apparently won't even talk to reporters, hasn't since the beginning of the campaign, outside a formal interview (despite the fact the press only yells publicly about HRC's similar level of inaccessibility).

Obama's not going to be driving any wedges between anybody except progressives if he wins on this kind of campaign.

And as for accountability-- how can the voters hold a President Obama himself accountable for anything if he hasn't campaigned on anything much?

Call me crazy, but I have a visceral dislike and distrust of smoke and mirrors, whether it's coming from the right or the left.

[ Parent ]
The Obama framing experiment and Reagan (4.00 / 1)
Lakoff has weighed in on the controversy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

There is a reason that Obama recently spoke of Reagan. Reagan understood that you win elections by drawing support from independents and the opposite side. He understood what unified the country so that he could lead it according to his vision. His vision was a radical conservative one, a vision devastating for the country and contradicted by his economic policies.

Obama understands the importance of values, connection, authenticity, trust, and identity.

But his vision is deeply progressive. He proposes to lead in a very different direction than Reagan. Crucially, he adds to that vision a streetwise pragmatism: his policies have to do more than look good on paper; they have to bring concrete material results to millions of struggling Americans in the lower and middle classes. They have to meet the criteria of a community organizer.

The Clintonian policy wonks don't seem to understand any of this. They have trivialized Reagan's political acumen as an illegitimate triumph of personality over policy. They confuse values with programs. They have underestimated authenticity and trust.

And I Have A Diary Coming Out About That Piece In A LIttle Bit (4.00 / 2)
So watch for it.

"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 (0.00 / 0)
I read the Lakoff piece and said to myself I hope Paul R. takes a crack at this.  You're becoming a must read.
[ Parent ]
Thanks! (0.00 / 0)
It's up now, after a fruitless hour-long struggle to get the Soapblox upgrade to like a couple of my links.

Grrr! Argh!

"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 ]
There are similarities (0.00 / 0)
Which is not surprising, but I think the Obama campaign is fundamentally different, starting from a different place than the Dean campaign. It seems to be using some of the same tools (internet organizing and fundraising, so on), but not as a main strategy.

The main strategy that brought success in Iowa and almost a tie in NH, from being very behind, beyond inspiring people with words and rallies, seems to be the tremendous organizing going on on the ground. The blogs, the internet, MoveOn and all that, instead of being the mainstay are instead tendrils that can, if they wish, attach themselves to the center - which is not actually Obama (in my view) but the people who are taking advantage of the feelings of inspiration and wanting to do something that his words engender and who are training people to be effective, long term on the ground organizers and activists.  

right on target Nanette (4.00 / 1)
Obama is a community organizer but now his community is just larger.  For me Obama's campaign style started on the streets of Chicago with classic organizing (see Paul Alinsky).

The technical tools that arrived in more recent years are just tools to him.  And as you say in classic organizer style, he empowers others, provides vision, shows targets to organize against and steps back to observe and redirect when necessary.  There is a whole new group of progressive activists now ready to apply skills they learned at Camp Obama and in the campaign.  Regardless of the election outcome, he has changed politics.

One of the best things about the Obama organization is that it is not exclusively dependent on tech tools and extends far beyond where the netroots go.

[ Parent ]
alinsky versus sierra club (4.00 / 1)
A lot of the complaint about Obama seems to me to come from discomfort with the Alinsky model which is very different from the white middle class "interest group" model of NOW and Sierra Club.
[ Parent ]
interesting (0.00 / 0)
can you expand on that a little?  Any examples?  It seems plausible but I missed it from my little corner of the campaign.
[ Parent ]
models (0.00 / 0)
Sierra club: is to obtain a consensus of some segment of the political elite on a compromise interest group plan.
Alinsky: generate a popular movement that moves the debate.

This is what Lakoff is getting at:
The third is interest group politics: Hillary looks at politics through interests and interest groups, seeking policies that satisfy the interests of such groups. Obama's thinking emphasizes empathy over interest groups. He also sees empathy as central to the very idea of America. The result is a positive politics grounded in empathy and caring that is also patriotic and uplifting.

and
First, triangulation: moving to the right -- adopting right-wing positions -- to get more votes. Bill Clinton did it and Hillary believes in it. It is what she means by "bipartisanship." Obama means the opposite by "bipartisanship." To Obama, it is a recognition that central progressive moral principles are fundamental American principles. For him, bipartisanship means finding people who call themselves "conservatives" or "independents," but who share those central American values with progressives. Obama thus doesn't have to surrender or dilute his principles for the sake of "bipartisanship."

[ Parent ]
Thanks (0.00 / 0)
That's good stuff in this context.

I guess I am a little to close to Obama's way of thinking to see why people have discomfort with the "Alinsky model".  But I'm guessing that it demands "too much" of some people.  It makes us all responsible for the country's future.  It doesn't let us just take it easy, enjoy the fruits while our big friend Government cleans all these nasty serious problems for us.

[ Parent ]
hmmn (0.00 / 0)
I buy that the organizing model is different from what you call the "interest group model."

But do you think Obama's base of activists and organizers is really not overwhelmingly constituted by the white upper middle class?

It sure looks like it to me.

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

[ Parent ]
What's More, Alinsky Is TOTALLY Interest-Group Based (0.00 / 0)
Alinsky's model is not based on any fixed ideology or program.  It's all about letting the organized group determine its agenda.  And thus it is interest group-based with a vengeance.

The difference is that once you've won a battle, you strive to bring the other side on board as your partner for future struggles.  This produces very different results if it means inclding them in your base as opposed to a secondary status as coalition member.

This mattered much less in the original Alinsky model, where it was all about the neighborhood level, than it does when you're talking about a national stage.

"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 ]
Yes, exactly (0.00 / 0)
I find Obama's rhetorical style moving (and, of course, it helps that he can move and inspire) but mostly I ignore all that. I find the underlying organizing absolutely fascinating, though, and definitely hopeful.

It just baffles me, though, how much his way of doing things freaks out people who, you would think, would be natural allies. I think the poster up above, on the Alinsky vs the Sierra Club type models may be on to something.

[ Parent ]
Clinton and Alinsky (0.00 / 0)
Not much to add to this discussion except to note that Clinton claims to have been influenced by Alinsky and her senior thesis at Wellesley was titled: "There Is Only the Fight...': An Analysis of the Alinsky Model". This is the one thesis withdrawn from public view at the Wellesley archive for a time, prompting B. Olson, Noonan, and other right-wingers to assert her thesis was the 'Rosetta Stone' for understanding her core beliefs and that would prove her Marxist leanings. Clinton a Marxist. That's funny.
[ Parent ]
What's frustrating (4.00 / 5)
to me is that this has been obvious (to me) for 6-7 months.  That didn't mean I became an Obama advocate.  I was perfectly willing to see whether Edwards could get traction with a more overtly progressive message.  But the almost unremittent quibbling by my fellow bloggers has worn on me.  You've done lasting damage to Obama for, what I consider, no good reason or purpose.  

But I have always detested the idea that we lose to Republicans because we don't 'frame' things better or stay 'on message'.  We've lost because we exude weakness and uncertainty, not because we weren't cynical enough to call our health care program "Free shit for those that deserve it".  

As you note, there is no issue where Obama is to the right of Howard Dean's 2004 campaign.  You'd never know it by reading the blogosphere, where Obama is portrayed as some kind of stalking horse for Harold Ford Jr. (hint: that's the other candidate).  

The idea that you would even consider Clinton over Obama is roughly like you fretting over whether Gephardt might be better than Dean.  I can't understand it at all.

same here (4.00 / 3)
months of being lectured about the supposed right-wing message buried in Obama's rhetoric and how a super-smart black man who worked as a civil rights lawyer and whose major accomplishments in the Illinois legislature were around police brutality, believed that you could solve problems by holding hands and singing kumbaya, have driven me to near despair.
[ Parent ]
You're Right, You CAN'T Understand It (4.00 / 1)
I think it's quite understandable.

It comes from Obama's relentless commitment to equivocation and blurring.

It's like he's wearing that suit from A Scanner Darkly.

"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 ]
use occam's razor (4.00 / 3)
Either millions of people, including a number of very hard headed activists and politicians with long progressive records are naive bumblers who lack your perceptive talent, or you are missing something.
[ Parent ]
Let's face it (4.00 / 1)
a lot of top tier bloggers get their information about candidates from a 2 sentence clip.  They don't always take the time to analyze long speeches or legislative actions.  And most certainly don't take the time to read something like Audacity.

Jerome Armstrong has missed the Obama bus completely.  I'm not sure why but he frequently misrepresents Obama's stand on things.  And it is not because the material is not available.

Big Tent Democrat at Talk Left (an intellect I admire) recently posted a line from a Clinton attack ad about Obama's Reagan comment and proceeded to blast Obama about it.  Problem is the clip did not even include the full sentence.  It was completely out of context.  When I pointed this out to BTD, his response was that the full context wasn't available then.  This is happening too much in the "progressive" blogosphere.  There are two problems with what BTD did.  First of all we should recognize when we don't have the full context and delay the diary writeups until we have it.  Second, the full context was available on video (but not text) and we have to do that little bit of extra work if we are going to push information and not misinformation in the blogosphere.

It is not so difficult to understand Obama, but one has to read and not just get material from debates.  

[ Parent ]
occam's razor? (4.00 / 2)
Many politicians prefer to be all things to all people if possible.  They wouldn't do it if it wasn't workable.  There, Occam's Razor's satisfied.

Look at us.  Chris Bowers is writing up the Obama campaign as the second coming of Howard Dean, when Obama's sided with the DC crowd against progressives in primary fights (Illinois-6, CT-Sen), he's to Hillary's right on most policy, his campaign did oppo work on Krugman...

The Obama campaign has shown they learned from 2004, and it looks like the Dean campaign from a volunteer's-eye-view.  But take a look at who his staff is, who his heavyweight backers and allies are (the establishment types that didn't go for Hillary?).  I'm not convinced.

And like Paul said, his talent for equivocation bothers me.

[ Parent ]
"Millions of People CAN'T Be Wrong!" (0.00 / 0)
Always a lame argument.

Particularly given that you're a true believer trying to mount it against a skeptic.  Not an oppositional true believer--in which case I'd just be your mirror image--but a true skeptic, who, BTW, notices how you--and other true believers--never seem to show up when I write a diary about how Obama might really prove himself to skeptics like me.

"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 ]
you got my argument wrong, no surprise (4.00 / 1)
I don't say millions of people can't be wrong, I say that the odds of millions of people plus people like Barbara Lee and Jesse Jr. and Lakoff all being stupidly naive about something Paul Rosenberg can easily see through is pretty damn low.
[ Parent ]
Obama cannot prove himself to you (4.00 / 1)
Because your conditions are that he turn himself into "laundry list" candidate who abandons the core of his appeal.
[ Parent ]
In 1993... (4.00 / 1)
....Bill Clinton passed tax raises that helped close the Reagan deficits and led to the economic growth of the 90s.

He did that without a single Republican vote.  Not one.  The Republicans predicted economic disaster because of the tax increases.

What would Obama do in the same situation?  Have the economy muddle through with the national debut increasing and interest rates stifling economic activity?

We now know that Republicans plotted to kill healthcare reform in the 90s because they knew that if the Democrats were successful, Republicans would face another 40 years in the political wilderness.

A prominent example of "bipartisanship" was the Greenspan Commission's fix to Social Security.  The bipartisan solution was to raise a highly regressive tax to build the SS trust fund (which was then raided by  politicians to pay for tax cuts).

Obama's message of "post-partisanship" just doesn't square with political reality.  This country is fiscally doomed without a major reform of healthcare, yet one of the two major political parties has a vested interest in preventing any meaningful reform.  What is Obama's post-partisan approach to dealing with that?  Adopt the Republican solution which would have grandmothers using the internet to shop around for the most cost-effective healthcare (this is a serious proposal that the healthcare industry is pushing)?

Apparently I am supposed to ignore all of this and just believe that he has some secret masterplan to destroy the political opposition to the reforms this country badly needs.  If this masterplan involves Obama intimidating the opposition with his public support, I do not see even an attempt to build a mandate for these kinds of reforms.  Quite the contrary, his framing on Social Security is disastrously wrong (the last thing it needs is another regressive tax increase to pay for more tax cuts) and he is pretty much AOL on the necessity of healthcare reform.

[ Parent ]
totally mystifying (0.00 / 0)
Paul Krugman, who is a strong critic of Obama, says

[L]ast week Barack Obama ... finally delivered a comprehensive health care plan. ... First, the good news. The Obama plan is smart and serious... It also passes one basic test of courage. You can't be serious about health care without proposing ... to help lower-income families pay for insurance, and that means ...[a] tax increase. Well, Mr. Obama is now on record calling for a partial rollback of the Bush tax cuts.

And Obama's plan for Social Security is to raise the cap - making it less regressive. In fact, Edwards attacked Clinton in the debates for her position on SS which he explicitly compared to the position that Edwards and Obama have taken.

So your point eludes me.

[ Parent ]
Obama and RW framing (4.00 / 2)
First, healthcare.  Quoting Krugman:

Imagine this: It's the summer of 2009, and President Barack Obama is about to unveil his plan for universal health care. But his health policy experts have done the math, and they've concluded that the plan really needs to include a requirement that everyone have health insurance - a so-called mandate.

...

But Mr. Obama knows that if he tries to include a mandate in the plan, he'll face a barrage of misleading attacks from conservatives who oppose universal health care in any form. And he'll have trouble responding - because he made the very same misleading attacks on Hillary Clinton and John Edwards during the race for the Democratic nomination.

Second, social security.  Listen to Greenspan  being questioned about the money being wasted in the war:


AMY GOODMAN: Alan Greenspan, the issue of whether we have enough money in this country, do you think that that also calls into question the war in Iraq, how the US can afford to continue this war?

ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, the issue is, basically, the question of the commitments of Social Security, relative-and Medicare, I might add-relative to the costs of the war. There is no question that a significant amount of money is being wasted in war. That is what happens in war. And that's-clearly we're talking hundreds of billions. The issue here is that-

AMY GOODMAN: I believe the figure is in the trillions.

ALAN GREENSPAN:-even if the war spending were not there, we would have these problems. So it's true that there's a good deal of waste going on. But the problems to which I'm referring to existed before the war and will continue after the war.


Got that?  The problems with our national finances aren't to do with the trillions of dollars being spent on the Iraq war, or the Bush tax cuts that Greenspan supported.  These are just trifles.  The real long term problem is social security, completely ignoring that the fact that the tax cuts and war spending are being partially supported by raiding the SS trust fund (Gore's "lock box").  Obama's rhetoric buys into the same frame.

The reasons for his taking these positions is understandable.  On healthcare for example he doesn't want to alienate his young base by telling them they'll have to eat spinach for the good of the whole country.  But in doing so, he's establishing the grounds for attacking any realistic healthcare reform that he or anyone else tries to introduce.  And it's this undermining of progressive frames for political expediency that I find most troubling, because I believe he's smart enough to know what he's doing.

We have an example of a president who ran on one issue (security), then after the election claimed a mandate for another (privatizing/eliminating social security).  This is the very real danger that I see with an Obama presidency.  That is one hell of a risk, given the economic and fiscal precipice that the country is dangling over.

[ Parent ]
I'm still missing your point (4.00 / 1)
Obama's plan for Social Security is to remove the cap. That's a progressive proposal. Hillary Clinton's response was to say that removing the cap was a "trillion dollar tax increase." That's "repeating a republican talking point."

Krugman doesn't prefer Obama's proposal, but admits it to be a good and smart one. So, again, Obama has a solid progressive proposal that even a liberal critic admits is good.  The debate is over mandates, and I think Obama is 100% correct - mandates are the political weak point of the proposal. Once there is a nationally available subsidized health plan, the insurance companies will lose power and not be able to block extensions. Until then, insisting on mandates is insisting that the plan will fail.

These are open to debate, of course, but what I do not get is the reason for reiterated insistence that Obama has no plan on these issues or accepts Republican framing.

[ Parent ]
You're misunderstanding Obama's tactic (4.00 / 3)
The unity message isn't supposed to sway Republican legislators. Obama believes that Congress is all about power structures and deals. The unity message is about swaying a large group of Republican voters to Obama's side. Then Obama will go to a dozen or so Republican Senators from swing states and give them a choice (veiled politely but this is the real message):

One: play along with me and support my programs and you may keep your job in the next election.

Two: fight me and I'll blow you out of office. Oh, and I'll get my programs passed anyway because most of the other dozen Republican Senators I've got by the throat just like you are going to give in. Don't forget I took away those cushy lobbying jobs too.

On a personal level, the unity message will let the yielding Senators feel better about themselves too. But it's being at the wrong end of a majority coalition that will make them give in.

[ Parent ]
See my comment above.... (4.00 / 1)
....about Bush and SS elimination.
[ Parent ]
been tried? (4.00 / 1)
Those of us who live in New York have spent the last year and change watching Eliot Spitzer try that in NY.  So far, it's worked terribly.

Of course, even if NY is comparable, that's a sample of N=1.  Maybe extrapolating a universal conclusion is unfair =P

[ Parent ]
You're Doin' The Ink-Blot Rag (4.00 / 1)
There's little more than wishful thinking to support this view.  Neither Obama's record nor his policy proposals indicate a strong progressive who would even want to do this sort of thing.

Sure he'd bend people's arms the way all politicians do.  But go to heroic lenghts to pass something he really, truly, deeply believes in, like LBJ and the Great Society?  Where's the evidence for that???

"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 ]
wow! (0.00 / 0)
Sure he'd bend people's arms the way all politicians do.  But go to heroic lenghts to pass something he really, truly, deeply believes in, like LBJ and the Great Society?  Where's the evidence for that???

The answer is that we are discussing which of the two centrist moderate Democratic party candidates will do better in election and governance. The existence of a plausible alternative who is assured of going to heroic lengths for progressive politics is a surprise to me.

And, please remember  that LBJ sacrificed the Great Society to the not-so-Great war in Vietnam.

[ Parent ]
You're changing the subject (4.00 / 1)
I'll argue Obama's goals elsewhere. In this subthread, let's stick to means and not change the subject in response to a point. My point, here, is that Obama is pushing bipartisanship not as a negotiating tactic but as a political tactic to undermine the Republicans. What he will choose to do afterwards is a different subject: he could pursue either moderate or progressive goals, largely at his choice, with the political support he's building. Do you agree that Obama's is reaching out to voters, not the Republican leadership? If not, can you provide reasoning on how moderate rhetoric in combination with a hard-line Democratic voting record is reaching out to the Republican leadership (who really don't give a toot about rhetoric) and not the voting public (who are not well informed on detailed positions and respond primarily to rhetoric)?
[ Parent ]
I've been reading (0.00 / 0)
...your analysis of what Obama was doing, and how, and thought some of it was very good (at least as I understand what he is doing), but I also think that it was important that he not be seen as a creature of, or creation of, the blogs, at least at first. With his appeal to younger voters there was too much of a chance that he would have been dismissed as another Dean (who did, in fact, lose), instead of someone forming a completely different movement, campaign and strategy.

So, in that, the antipathy shown by the major bloggers for his campaign sort of did him a favor. As well as harm, of course, but I guess it's a tradeoff.  

[ Parent ]
We've changed, too (4.00 / 2)
I know I have. I want a lot more now than I wanted in 2003. Part of that comes from a series of successes that have put progressives in a much better position now than we were in America five years ago.

I don't think we have done any lasting damage to Obama. About the only thing that did seem to do lasting damage to Obama's campaign was New Hampshire. Without us, who would he have to triangulate against? And then the netroots went and broadly endorsed him anyway.

Universal health care was not a demand in the primaries four years ago. Iraq withdrawal was not a demand. Energy plans beyond Warner-Lieberman were not demands. Internet policy didn't even factor into a broader media policy.

John Edwards gave us most of the policy and rhetorical positions we were looking for, and Edwards then pushed the other candidates to the left. If anything, I think we strengthened Obama through Edwards.  Both he and Clinton are better candidates for having to deal with Edwards, and with us. We hcanged--we want more, and we are looking for ways to get more. .And, as I said, we shouldn't be expected to stay the same either.  

[ Parent ]
Change--The First Derivative (0.00 / 0)
Acceleration--the second.

I'm talkin' calculus, not finance.

"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 ]
A view from NH (4.00 / 1)
I've written about this in a couple of places (not w/ numerical analysis), but FWIW:

There are really two very different brands of Democrats in NH, depending largely on region:

1) The small towns of CD2 along the Connecticut River Valley, from Keene in the south to the Upper Valley in the north and stretching slowly in-state, which identify more with progressive D Vermont politics.

These people in the main went for Bradley '00, Dean '04, and Obama '08 (the latter having by far the most success).

2) The large, voter-rich, mostly CD1 (except CD2 Nashua) towns/cities of the eastern southern NH, which identify with more centrist Democratic politics, and are more influenced by MA.

These folks in the main went for Gore '00, Kerry '04, and Clinton '08.

Obama's close margin, despite smaller numbers of voters per town in the first group, point to his greater strength toward getting the nomination than Dean or Bradley had.

Yet I'm not sure this phenomenon necessarily correlates nationwide.

One thing is clear: if the Obama people could do one thing over in NH, it would be to put Kerry's endorsement out pre-NH primary.  That would have made a difference, possibly the difference in Manchester/Nashua and thus the win.

Blue Hampshire - Defeating Republicans since 2006.

Thanks For Info (0.00 / 0)
I said as soon as Kerry's endorsement came out that it was a huge mistake to hold it back.  It seemed like a total no-brainer, with him being an institution in the Boston media market.

Glad to hear a more knowledgable on-the-ground affirmation, along with the other info.

"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 ]
Obama's opposition to the war in 2002 (0.00 / 0)
cannot be minimized.  I constantly find people that say they made a promise to themselves in 2002 they would never vote for any political candidate that backed the AUMF.

I've heard some bloggers say that vote is history and that by backing Kerry in 2004 the Dem party "purged its demons" over that vote and thus was beyond it.

But the metaphor is exactly upside down.  The Dem party in 2004 embraced the demons by backing a candidate who voted for the AUMF.  Sadly the Dem party appears to be ready to do it again.

There are a number of Clinton supports who were upset at Obama's recent comments that he did not think some of his supporters would support Clinton in the GE.  But he was right.  There are many progressives who cannot bring themselves to vote for someone who enabled Bush via the AUMF and who can't be counted on to break the power of lobbyists undercutting our democracy.

The Kerry Argument Is Silly (0.00 / 0)
but that hardly proves the converse.

"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 ]
Chris Dodd (0.00 / 0)
said of the 2004 Dem Convention, "It is a mistake to make this look like a VFW convention."  The eagerness with which the Dem party has embraced militarism will continue to erode the progressive side of the party base.  
[ Parent ]
finding this data (0.00 / 0)
Does anyone know if this dataset is readily available somewhere?  It's an interesting analysis, but I suspect it's fundamentally flawed by not accounting for 2004 non-voters
It Worked Out Just As Planned (Almost) | 73 comments
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