Parallel Processing - Blogger's Gathering

Written by: rich^kolker on Jul 20, 2006 8:58 AM EDT

This is not a blog entry intended to replace the main thread but as "parallel processing" on a single topic which has been under discussion on BFA and HEP (and maybe other places) since DFest, the idea of having an informal bloggers' retreat somewhere. Little or no programming, isolated location, cooler temperatures :), heavy on the interaction and networking.

Let's use this thread to discuss the idea, propose locations, ideas, and perhaps down the road volunteer to organize.

Depending on the size and what we're trying to do, here are some interesting location possibilities:

WVa: www.aceraft.com/pages/lodgingata...

DC area: www.nvrpa.org/cottages.html...

Red State, Blue State, No State, New State?

Written by: rich^kolker on Jul 19, 2006 8:52 AM EDT

There is nothing more frustrating than being a blue stater in a red state, or, I would guess, vice versa. Or a blue county person in a red state, where no matter how hard you work, successfully, locally it has no affect on statewide politics. It is the underlying cause of lack of voter turnout and political participation, the idea that "no matter what I do, it means nothing." The blatant gerrymandering by both parties, from the GOP in Texas to the Democrats in Pennsylvania, in order to produce safe seats, just adds to that citizen frustration and non-participation.

So let me throw out for discussion an idea, at least for the state level frustrations. Is it time to redraw the states? After all, they are arbitrary, based on everything from 17th Century land grants to the results of various minor wars. They vary in population by a factor of 70 and physical size by a similar factor. They are much larger in population than any "founding father" could have imagined in 1789 when the Constitution was approved. They are often dysfunctional: Northern Virginia nothing like the the rural southwest, upstate New York very different from New York City (which is very different from the Long Island suburbs).

There is nothing magical about the number 50 or the borders of most states. The only thing that worries me about this idea is that the people who would implement it are the same gerrymandering partisans who have screwed up the system, but it's something worth thinking about.


So might be eliminating states altogether. As I said, they've become much larger than anything imagined at the founding of the country. It's an interesting question whether the degree of "middle management" they provide is worth the costs, but the Constitutional challenge that would pose is probably too great, even if we concluded it was a good idea.

More States? No States?

Crossing the Lines

Written by: rich^kolker on Jul 6, 2006 2:33 PM EDT

"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

I quote Paine because quoting Sorkin's "American President" might be considered shallow, if just as apropos, "We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious men to solve them."

The most serious of those problems isn't Iraq, isn't terrorism, isn't the cost of gasoline or the supply of oil or education or jobs; the most serious of those problems is that the United States is in danger of losing its Unity. We are all in danger of losing something that existed even before we were a nation, before 1776 and which that Declaration only reflected, our identity as Americans.

This is not to say we have not faced division before: Federalists and Republicans, Jacksonians and Whigs, the North and South, native and immigrant, white and black. But each of those divisions were underlaid with a common sense of America even as they fought over their uncommonalities. That is missing today.

The other side is no longer the opposition, it has become the enemy. The concept of a "loyal opposition" is gone, you are either loyal, or you are anti-American, and that goes whether you look from the right, or from the left, or even within the Democratic Party where DLC battles liberal base. The goal in elections is no longer to defeat your opponent, it is to destroy him. There is no faith in the system, the Constitution which has guided us, the world's most successful revolutionary democratic republic, for over 200 years.

Where is the person who can speak across these boundaries as Robert Kennedy once did? What can that person say?

A Reason to Vote

Written by: rich^kolker on Jul 5, 2006 8:41 AM EDT

In the deep dark distant past, Saturday Night Live did a sketch about a game show called "Common Knowledge". The joke was, the way to win was not by giving the correct answer, but the one that was common knowledge. For example, the capital of New York is New York City. One of the contestants, getting all the answers correct, slowly burned as the other contestants scored by giving the commonly accepted, but wrong, answers.

Folks, it is common knowledge that conservatism is on the rise. It is common knowledge that only by pandering to the selfishness and fear of the voters, using simple slogans like "No Tax" can one hope to win. It is common knowledge that Democrats cannot win in the South and the West unless we become more like Republicans, hiding our Democratic values behind slogans that make us sound like Republican Lite.

Common Knowledge, today just like years ago on that Saturday night, Live from New York, is wrong.

You can't beat something with nothing and, as Harry Truman said nearly 50 years ago, if you run a Republican against a Republican the Republicans will win. We can win if we give the citizens, young and old, those voting for 50 years and those voting the first time in 2007 to vote for us, and that reason is that we stand with them.

It is the greatest danger in the history of this nation that the largest group of the electorate is not the Republicans or the Democrats but the non-voters. The scandal of the 2000 election is not so much that George Bush got the Supreme Court to declare him President without counting all the votes in Florida but that neither he nor Al Gore could motivate enough people to vote to make that question moot.

Voter turnout of less than 50 percent, even in Presidential elections isn't due to voter laziness. It's because for election after election, at all levels of government and both parties, we have been worried more about not offending voters than motivating them. We have been more concerned with driving up the negatives of our opponent than our own positives. "Inside the Beltway" this is called suppressing turnout and turning out your base, letting that loyal and controllable group hold the reins of the election.

That may be smart politics, but I doubt it, and it most certainly isn't good government. America is not just a place but a process, and if we corrupt and short circuit that process then the result isn't the nation set on a path of freedom 200 odd years ago.

For the victory of democratic ideas and the future of this nation we must reject the politics of depressing turnout. We must reject the politics of not standing for anything because of the risk of offense. We must reject the politics of playing the game and pandering to those who can afford to write the big checks and playing to people's fears instead of hopes. And we must not shrink from big ideas, because we are the party of big ideas.
Public Schools, Social Security, Equal Rights at the lunch counter and the hotel counter and the polling place, these are big ideas and they are part of America because Democrats lead and convinced the people they were worth having.

Most important we must speak to all the people. Too often we divide the electorate into "constituencies". Labor is ours, the churches are theirs. We get the African Americans, they get the angry white males. If we are to win this must stop. We must speak not to groups but to people, not to labels but to individuals. Not just to the likely voters but to the unlikely voters. We need to speak to the young, unlikely voters who feel no stake in a political system that in its crusade to appeal to likely older voters shows no concern for the issues important to those in College, or starting work, or starting a family. We need to speak to the single, unlikely voters who see politicians talk endlessly about tax cuts and services for families with children and wonder, why don't they care about me, I'm a family too! We need to speak to the unlikely voters who see a system dominated by the people and organizations who can bundle big money contributions and after the election get their views heard in Washington and the state capitals in a way you and I and the unlikely voters never can.

Democrats should proudly stand up and say, we are the party that feels that attracting voters, not campaign contributions, should be the first task of a political candidate, and serving the voters, not the campaign contributors, should be their first obligation in office.

Democrats and the nation have prospered when we have spoken to our fellow citizens, opened the gates, and grown our Democracy. We represent the idea of America, the idea that freedom is not dangerous but strengthening, that cooperation is not a sign of weakness but an acknowledgment of the power of bringing together disparate ideas, that patriotism isn't mindlessly following the flag, but standing with the generations who have defended the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, to make that flag the symbol of liberty throughout the world.

Democrats: The speech I didn't give...

Written by: rich^kolker on Jul 3, 2006 8:56 AM EDT

...at the first Loudoun County (VA) Democratic Committee meeting after the November elections. There are some parts that are specific to Virginia, or even Loudoun County, but there are also some larger issues that effect everyone.

---

Ed Murrow once told his fellow journalists "This just might do nobody any good. At the end of this discourse a few people may accuse this reporter of fouling his own comfortable nest, and your organization may be accused of having given hospitality to heretical and even dangerous thoughts." Here I go.

We meet tonight in the wake of celebrations of success. Loudoun County Democrats have helped elect a Delegate, a State Senator, a Governor. Why would I have any reason to be dissatisfied? We are winning!

But what are we winning?

Our Governor is ready to approve a change to Tom Jefferson's Constitution that would restrict the rights of the people, because he believes marriage is only between a man and a woman. We run candidates who talk of their business friendliness, but not their plans to protect the consumers, the regular taxpayers of Loudoun.

Don't get me wrong. Tim Kaine, Dave Poisson and Mark Herring are good men, much better than the Republicans they ran against, but merely being better than what the Virginia Republican Party has become is not good enough.

I was standing outside a campaign event for Mark Herring when one of the organizers said that if he had lived in Maine, he'd be a Republican. Well, I lived in Maine, and I was a Democrat then, and I was a Democrat when I lived in Tom DeLay's district in Texas. My question is, if we are going to run candidates whose positions sound more like New England Republicans then why am I a Democrat in Virginia?

I can hear the answer already...that's what we need to do to win in Virginia. If we run as DEMOCRATS, we will lose. That if we state our principles clearly and loudly, we will lose. That what we stand for as Democrats has to be hidden, or messaged or avoided, during a campaign. But don't worry, once we get Democrats in, they will govern as Democrats.

But why would that be so? If they can't get elected based on the principles and positions of the Democratic Party then why would they think they could get RE-elected on those principles.

If we win just by playing the game, then what is a Democrat except a person with a D next to their name on a ballot.

For the victory of the Democratic Party and of democratic ideas and the future of this nation we must reject the politics of depressing turnout. We must reject the politics of not standing for anything because of the risk of offense. We must reject the politics of playing the game and pandering to those who can afford to write the big checks and playing to people's fears instead of hopes. And we must not shrink from big ideas, because we are the party of big ideas.
Public Schools, Social Security, Equal Rights at the lunch counter and the hotel counter and the polling place, these were big ideas and they are part of America because Democrats lead and convinced the people they were worth having.

I joined the Loudoun County Democratic Committee because I believed in the principles and positions of the Democratic Party and I felt governing based on those principles and positions was best for Loudoun, best for Virginia, best for the United States. Today I see the party, at the national level, at the state level, and here, afraid of stating clearly and strongly the ideas that brought me to it. I don't think this is because those ideas are wrong, and I don't think it's because all Democrats have left behind the principles that built the party of Roosevelt, the party of the people.

Democrats are not the party of fancy dinners and candidacy announcements at country clubs, we are the party of pancake breakfasts and announcements in public parks. We should be the party of widening freedom, not restricting it. We should be the party working for reform and change of the political system for the benefit of the citizen voters, not learning to play the money game as well as the Republicans do. We shouldn't be hiding what we believe from the voters merely in the name of winning elections. Because if we can't win as Democrats, how can we govern as Democrats. And if we can't govern as Democrats, what have we won?

Why the Poll Disconnect?

Written by: rich^kolker on Jun 30, 2006 1:00 PM EDT

You may be wondering why only a dozen or so Senators would vote for withdrawal of US troops from Iraq within a year when polls seem to show that is the opinion of a plurality and depending on the poll, even a majority of Americans.

The answer is, you're not reading the same polls they are.

The numbers we see on CNN or in the New York Times are gross, overall numbers, easy to understand, but ultimately not very helpful, which is why paid pollsters are willing to give them away to the media.

The REAL numbers are the detailed breakdowns. These talk about demographics, they measure the intensity of feeling on an issue and whether it is a "voting decider", they reflect where the convincible voters are.

I would guess, without access to the detailed polling numbers, but based solely on what I see in Washington, they show the intensity of feeling of the "don't leave" people is much higher than the "leave now or within a year" people. If that wasn't true, we'd see a different result, since Rule #1 of Washington is "Do nothing that will keep you from reelection."

Here's a simple example. Any poll taken will show most Americans support spending on the space program, perhaps even spending more, depending on how the question is phrased. So why don't politicians have strong "pro space" planks in their platforms (unless their district has a NASA Center in it)? Because nobody votes for or against a candidate based on their space position, except when it is a "jobs" vote. This is why the NRA is more powerful on election day than Jim and Sarah Brady.

What's the common thread through most of the intense single issues that drive voters?

More on that later.