Over at Newsweek/MSNBC, Howard Fineman lays bare another problem for the Ds. It's this: the party is split between its political pros in Washington and its activists on the internet. While Ds, especially Hillary, try to look moderate to get elected in 2008, the folks who raise the money at MoveOn.org and such are demanding a more militant tone and radical agenda.
Fineman's notion, rather fuzzily stated but still provocative, is that a candidate will need to get the favor of the dot-organizers to get the dot-org money. But beltway Ds are seen by the dot-organizers as corrupted by compromise with the vicious, immoral Rs, like the Vichy French government's cooperation with the Nazis. So Hillary will have find a way to get the dot-organizers to look past her vote to authorize the Iraq War and her various recent statements that have tacked to the left.
But SWNID insists that this problem lasts only until a candidate has enough committed delegates to be nominated by the Ds in their 2008 convention, likely now being planned by MoveOn.org to be held in the condemned New Orleans Superdome. At thatpoint the problem becomes getting a candidate with views radical enough to satisfy the dot-organizers more than 38% of the vote in the general election.
Fineman doesn't say this, but his piece makes it palpable. The left wing in this country lives with the myth that most people think as they do. They explain their failure at the polls as a consequence of demagoguery or lies from the right, or violation of voters' rights, or mass discouragement in the political process because no one is really articulating the radical agenda that ordinary Americans favor.
It's necessary for the left to hold to this myth not just to excuse lousy performance in elections but to persist in the rhetoric of its ideology. "Progressive" (we're not liberal!) politics is all about the empowerment of the little guy, addressing the needs of "working families" who are allegedly by the millions destitute, starving, dying without even an LPN to take a pluse. They're out there for sure, but they're obviously not voting as they should. And heaven knows it's not their fault!
Listen up the next time you hear someone speak of the party that "naturally" represents the interests of the "working class." You're hearing the myth at work, and you're probably hearing it from some TV "reporter" or "analyist."
Of course the fallacy here is that most Americans are doing pretty well overall, demonstrably better than their parents. They have some concerns about the future but no major grievances. Their concerns are addressed by such matters as improvement in public education, protection against crime, maybe some progress on health insurance (not health care: they like their doctor just fine, thank you), and, when they're paying attention, keeping the Islamo-Fascists at bay. They've got no desire at all for a socialist makeover of the republic.
So if the Ds are captured by the myth, as Fineman's argument assumes, the Rs may be able to win in 2008 running the corpse of Harold Stassen.
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