Obama Closes Daou's Triangle On Electoral Strategy
One of the reasons there is so much angst over what Obama said about Democrats and religion today is that, in Peter Daou's formulation, Obama's comments lend tri-partisan support (Democrats, Republicans and the media) to a narrative that Democrats are hostile toward people of faith. This tri-partisan support will result in a "closing of the triangle" against Democrats where it become conventional wisdom that Democrats are hostile to people of faith. This has been how the DLC has managed to reify ever anti-Democratic narrative it likes within the national discourse. So thanks Senator Obama, for reifying this Republican-driven talking point about Democrats. Now almost everyone will think that Democrats are hostile to people of faith. Well done. Your mentor, Joe Lieberman, would be proud.
Being someone who is preoccupied with electoral strategy, I want to focus on how this narrative is perhaps even more dangerous to progressives than the rather simple "Democrats are hostile to faith" narrative it engenders. In a national environment where both parties must focus their electoral strategy on courting the most conservative and pro-Republican voter in the country, we end up with a Congress that is only responsive to the most conservative, pro-Republican voters in the country. In the electoral strategy Obama reifies with his comments, progressive don't matter. Moderates don't matter. Swing voters don't matter. Independents and Democrats don't matter. Many Republicans don't even matter. The only people who matter are the most conservative people in the country. A Congress that is only responsive and responsible to those voters will, no matter who is in charge of Congress, end up producing the most right-wing legislation imaginable.
As an electoral strategist I respect, Tom Schaller, wrote to me in an email today:
This is how the "all powerful conservative base" narrative after the 2004 election was not a success for Democrats. Whatever impact it had on making Republicans seem extreme (which I am sure has helped to drop their support among Independents below 30%), when this narrative is reified by Democrats it helps create a permanent conservative governing structure in America no matter which party is in charge. All of the recent media about the rise of the progressive movement, specifically in relation to the Connecticut Senate primary and the netroots, had gone a long way toward convincing Democrats and the media that in order to govern, it is necessary to pay attention to progressives. This is the sort of narrative that will help produce progressive legislation. However, when Democrats start wallowing in post-2004 Republican talking points like Obama did today, we wipe all of that good work away. We will never get progressive legislation in this country unless politicians think they have to be responsive to the progressive movement.
It is particularly frustrating and disgusting that Senator Obama, whose candidacy succeeded largely because it was supported by the nascent progressive movement in Illinois back in 2004, does not believe he has to be responsive to the people who helped put him in office in the first place. I was in Illinois during the 2004 primary when Obama was still single digits in polls. I saw the progressive movement, including the local Chicago netroots, rally behind him. I read that his strategy was to court African-Americans and white liberals. However, now he has tossed many of those progressives aside. I guess that is what happens when soon-to-be ex-Senator Lieberman becomes your mentor. Hopefully, after August 8th, Obama can start taking lessons on how to be a progressive from someone else besides Lieberman.
Being someone who is preoccupied with electoral strategy, I want to focus on how this narrative is perhaps even more dangerous to progressives than the rather simple "Democrats are hostile to faith" narrative it engenders. In a national environment where both parties must focus their electoral strategy on courting the most conservative and pro-Republican voter in the country, we end up with a Congress that is only responsive to the most conservative, pro-Republican voters in the country. In the electoral strategy Obama reifies with his comments, progressive don't matter. Moderates don't matter. Swing voters don't matter. Independents and Democrats don't matter. Many Republicans don't even matter. The only people who matter are the most conservative people in the country. A Congress that is only responsive and responsible to those voters will, no matter who is in charge of Congress, end up producing the most right-wing legislation imaginable.
As an electoral strategist I respect, Tom Schaller, wrote to me in an email today:
Imagine for a second that, after the 2000 election in which his candidate finished second, the main media narrative was that Karl Rove needed to figure out a way to reach out to, say, unmarried, professional, college-educated women of color living in cities and suburbs of blue states. He'd have been laughed out of his party and DC.
Yet somehow, conversely, the prevailing narrative that people like Obama are ratifying is that if Democrats don't bow and scrape to white, evangelical, married, non-college educated white males in the south and rural communities---well, then they're tactically stupid, myopic, and out-of-touch. (And, because women, seculars, urban-surburbanites, college grads, and minorities are an increasing share of the electorate with each passing cycle, the "jessica alba vote" is at least a growth market, whereas the bubbas are a shrinking market.)
Rove loses an election, surveys the situation, and concludes that the GOP left 4 million evangelicals off the table and they need to find and mobilize them. We lose four years later and conclude that, um, we need to talk to evangelicals. In other words, they lose and turn to their base, but we lose and turn to...THEIR base! Am I losing my mind or is this about as absurdly upside-down ass-backwards as possible?
Obama has not only helped close the triangle on the notion that Democrats are hostile to religion, he has closed the triangle on who Democrats should appeal to in order to win elections. This danger of this is that in a nation where the only voters who matter to both parties are conservative evangelicals, then the only legislation we will ever get will be of the sort that appeals to conservative evangelicals. This will be the case no matter which party is in charge of Congress. Thus, closing the triangle on electoral strategy in this manner completely obliterates progressivism itself.Yet somehow, conversely, the prevailing narrative that people like Obama are ratifying is that if Democrats don't bow and scrape to white, evangelical, married, non-college educated white males in the south and rural communities---well, then they're tactically stupid, myopic, and out-of-touch. (And, because women, seculars, urban-surburbanites, college grads, and minorities are an increasing share of the electorate with each passing cycle, the "jessica alba vote" is at least a growth market, whereas the bubbas are a shrinking market.)
Rove loses an election, surveys the situation, and concludes that the GOP left 4 million evangelicals off the table and they need to find and mobilize them. We lose four years later and conclude that, um, we need to talk to evangelicals. In other words, they lose and turn to their base, but we lose and turn to...THEIR base! Am I losing my mind or is this about as absurdly upside-down ass-backwards as possible?
This is how the "all powerful conservative base" narrative after the 2004 election was not a success for Democrats. Whatever impact it had on making Republicans seem extreme (which I am sure has helped to drop their support among Independents below 30%), when this narrative is reified by Democrats it helps create a permanent conservative governing structure in America no matter which party is in charge. All of the recent media about the rise of the progressive movement, specifically in relation to the Connecticut Senate primary and the netroots, had gone a long way toward convincing Democrats and the media that in order to govern, it is necessary to pay attention to progressives. This is the sort of narrative that will help produce progressive legislation. However, when Democrats start wallowing in post-2004 Republican talking points like Obama did today, we wipe all of that good work away. We will never get progressive legislation in this country unless politicians think they have to be responsive to the progressive movement.
It is particularly frustrating and disgusting that Senator Obama, whose candidacy succeeded largely because it was supported by the nascent progressive movement in Illinois back in 2004, does not believe he has to be responsive to the people who helped put him in office in the first place. I was in Illinois during the 2004 primary when Obama was still single digits in polls. I saw the progressive movement, including the local Chicago netroots, rally behind him. I read that his strategy was to court African-Americans and white liberals. However, now he has tossed many of those progressives aside. I guess that is what happens when soon-to-be ex-Senator Lieberman becomes your mentor. Hopefully, after August 8th, Obama can start taking lessons on how to be a progressive from someone else besides Lieberman.
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