Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

First Woman Prez

Jenny Greenleaf, who’s blogging the convention for The The American Street has an interesting post up today reporting on the Revolutionary Women meetings of yesterday. At a panel discussion on women in the political media featuring Eleanor Clift, Renee Loth from the Boston Globe, and Helen Thomas there was a discussion of when there would be a woman president.

Clift said that women don’t have the powerbase or the money right now and Renee Loth quoted Frank Luntz as saying that the first woman president would have to be a “sister-mister” — a woman holding more traditionally male beliefs. I translate that to mean Republican and I fear that Luntz is right.

The problem for women presidential candidates in America is national security. After all, even Democratic war heroes have a hard time getting past the “soft” image on this and the Republicans work it to perfection. If there are national security issues on the table a Democratic woman would have to fight not only the normal cultural stereotypes but a vicious onslaught from the Republicans with a plethora of hints and innuendo about being “shrill, hysterical, unbalanced” etc. A Republican woman, on the other hand, would be blessedly free of such character assassination because the Democrats would never stoop that low.

Once the barrier is broken, however, I think all that falls away and a woman of either party can run on her own terms. But, sadly, considering the much greater talent available on the Democratic side, I do think our first woman president is likely to be a fairly conservative Republican.

On the other hand, if it fails to happen in the next 20 years then I think that formulation may very well be wrong. I don’t sense that young people hold as many stereotypical views of gender as those of forty and over, so if it’s 2022, this entire argument may very well seem completely archaic. I hope so, anyway.

The Conservative Convention

Andrew Sullivan apparently hasn’t been listening to Democrats much in the last few years. I suppose it’s not surprising. It’s so much more entertaining to listen to Republicans and the media talk about Democrats than to actually listen to them. And it’s rare to hear Democrats give speeches unfiltered by the yammering of pundits and stooges who tell you what you are supposed to think about it before it’s even delivered.

But, for at least a decade — and certainly in this election cycle — Democratic rhetoric has been hitting all the themes you are hearing at this convention. Sullivan notes self-reliance, opportunity, hard work, an immigrant’s dream, the same standards for all of us — and seems surprised that Democrats would say such things. (I would add tolerance, fairness, and compassion, among others.) Perhaps he never heard the phrases “…those who work hard and play by the rules,” or “our families have values. But our government doesn’t.” How about, “it’s time for a new approach that trusts people to make the most of their own lives and gives them the chance to do so.”

Some politicians do it better than others, to be sure. Those lines above are from Clinton and Edwards. Obama was very skillful at it also, as Sullivan notes. But, the themes are not new; they’ve been the staple of Democratic appeals since the early 90’s. It’s been many a year (if ever) since Democrats were standing on a stage anywhere shouting “bring down the state!”

Sullivan’s ongoing theme is that this Democratic convention is actually “conservative.” He seems to be preparing for the inevitable “I didn’t leave my party, it left me” rationale so perhaps it makes him feel better to think this. But, he is, of course, using the wrong word. This convention isn’t “conservative.”

It is mainstream.

RIP Blogspot

It appears that the glory days of blogging are over. It is now the domain of those who are paid to write and the rest of us mooks are no longer relevant.

Ah well. It was fun while it lasted.

I knew I should have gone to that damned convention…

Thank You Jesus

The great Neal Pollack is blogging the convention. Well sort of. He’s across the state line somewhere holed up in a motel. But, he’s got the stories and he’s got the feel and he’s got the inside track.

This, my friends, is convention blogging at its best:

Greetings From BAHS-TON

Boston. City of Light. The Big Easy. Hog Butcher to the World. At last, then, it’s come to this. I suppose you could say, technically, that I’m not in Boston. Or in Massachusetts, for that matter. The Democratic National Committee, which, I want to interject, has been nothing but accommodating toward my fellow bloggers and me, couldn’t get me a hotel room closer than Connecticut. But I’m staying right on the state line, close enough to smell the Democratic process, and my credentials allow me to cross into the Granite State whenever I want. So what are my thoughts on the convention thus far? Pretty minimal. My laminates instruct that I’m only supposed to watch the first 15 minutes of every televised hour on MSNBC. But I can say that I’m very impressed by Barack Obama, the senatorial candidate from Illinois. For many years now, I’ve been saying to myself that the Democrats need a strong black leader who isn’t really black. Obama strikes me as our Colin Powell, without the military record or the history of lying to the United Nations. Hang on. I’m getting an Instant Message from a friend of mine blogging live from the convention floor. Max Cleland just wheeled by! Incredible. [10:52 a.m. ET, July 26, 2004]

There’s more. He saw Wonkette, too. And he’s asking the big questions, like why in the world isn’t Michael Moore getting more attention?

Will She Play In Peoria

Dear Gawd.

On Matthews right now, Andrea Mitchell is defending Teresa saying that women can relate to her statement that she dreams of the day when women are not called opinionated but are called smart and well informed like men are. Joe Scarborough says that it won’t play in Peoria and that many people who know and love John Kerry are “horrified” by Teresa. Mitchell says that’s why there’s a gender gap. Willie Brown says people are looking for a breath of fresh air. Fineman(of course) splits the difference and says she’s been a great philanthropist but that she’s “too complicated” for many people.

Look for the Scarborough line tomorrow: she’s an enigma, wrapped in a riddle. A freak. Stay-at-home moms hate her. The Dems will come back with “you go girl.”

On CNN Aaron Brown is recapping the day with the view that Democrats are afraid to deal with the issue of Iraq and Teresa is strange but kinda sexy (in a European actress sort of way.)

On Fox (I’m guessing) they are still burning Hillary in effigy.

It’s time to turn off the television.

Da Man!

Well now. I just felt the hair on the back of my neck stand right on end. Obama is the real thing. His speech was moving, articulate and exciting. He looks great, he sounds great — he is great. The Republicans needn’t bother finding a replacement for their swinging millionaire. We have seen the new face of the Democratic party. If his political skills are as good as his rhetorical skills he is an automatic contender for president someday.

Makes me proud to be a Democrat.

Oh, and his wife is beautiful, too.  Bring up their two little girls and I’ll probably start blubbering.  

 

Can They Eke Out A Win With This Tired Junk?

Go for Wedge Issues, Gingrich Tells Lawmakers

One GOP lawmaker told The Hill that Gingrich encouraged Republicans to pick issues such as school prayer, strengthening work requirements for welfare recipients and barring the United Nations from monitoring U.S. elections, which all polled at higher than an 80 percent rating.

“There’s a consensus developing among activists that new issues are emerging where [the polling] is decidedly with us,” the lawmaker said. “We can show a contrast.”

Gingrich spelled out his views at a meeting last week organized by House GOP Conference Chairwoman Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio), the fourth-ranking member of the GOP House leadership.

Lawmakers who attended Wednesday’s session expressed excitement about Gingrich’s policy proposals and political tactics.

Rep. Phil English, a Republican who represents Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge’s old district in northwestern Pennsylvania, said: “It is extremely useful in depicting Kerry’s position on the political spectrum to raise issues like welfare reform where he’s been on the far-left extreme.”

He added, “We have a very good wedge issue. … It’s worth asking why he is part of a rear-guard action blocking the permanency of welfare reform. Is he not out of touch with cultural issues of the rest of the country?”

Luckily, they have William Schneider on CNN today warning everybody that there’s some “bad news” about Kerry.

SCHNEIDER: The other polls that we’ve seen nationally, all of them show Kerry slightly ahead, all within the margin of error. This is the first poll we’ve seen in some time that shows Bush even slightly ahead. Again, within the margin of error. This could be bad news for John Kerry. The first bad news, because it seems to suggest that all that money that Bush has spent on negative advertising, some of those points are sinking in and voters are paying attention to Kerry, knowing that he’s going to get the nomination, and beginning to say, wait a minute, is this guy really a flip-flopper, is he really a Massachusetts liberal? This could be bad news.

WOODRUFF: We’ll continue to see the other polls that come out. We always look at a collection of them and see what they mirror…

SCHNEIDER: This is an outliner right now, but the question is, will this be the beginning of bad news?

Gosh, what’s he talking about? Is there some bad news about Kerry? Is he a flip-flopping liberal who loves cross dressing welfare queens? There’s must be something wrong…

The Right Man To Head The Party Redux

“This is not a roomful of Democratic party regulars,” Dean opened, and the crowd roared its agreement. So he introduced them to Will Rogers’ standard party punchline, ‘I’m not a member of any organized political party, I’m a Democrat.’ But Dean didn’t play it for laughs. ‘Everybody always laughs at that, but we’ll laugh ourselves right out of existence,’ he warned, if Democrats and progressives don’t do the serious work of organizing a base.

“It’s not enough to vote, I want you to run for office,” he told the crowd. ‘If you can’t run for office, if you’re a single mother, give three hours a week to someone else’s campaign. Cough up five, 10, 25 dollars.’ He stopped short of former campaign manager Joe Trippi’s call for John Kerry to abandon the public financing system and rely on a small-donor Internet base, but he did say “the best campaign finance reform is raising money from small donors. That’s how we take this country back.”

[…]

In his second speech, Dean whipped the crowd into a cheering frenzy by noting that “Bill Clinton was the only guy to balance the budget. If it takes a liberal to balance the budget, well then we need a liberal in the White House, because you can’t trust this government with your money.” And it was hard not to marvel at this lefty crowd cheering over a balanced budget.

But Dean also respected the group’s desire to build its own infrastructure, not merely become foot soldiers for the Kerry-Edwards ticket. He lauded both men, and asked the crowd to “put your heart and soul into electing them,” but he also insisted they do more than work for the top of the ticket. “We have to undo 20 years of neglecting the Democratic party infrastructure,” he said.

I truly believe that if Howard Dean can be persuaded to take over the chairmanship of the Democratic Party he could change everything. He is really a wholesale politician and as such can actually make the party be more responsive to the grassroots, but even more importantly in my book, he can begin the necessary liberal education project that can change the way this country thinks about politics.

If politicians can win as liberals they will run as liberals. We have some serious work to do to make that possible and it’s going to take more than just saying words that we liberals all like to hear. If Dean can persuade people to run for office at the local level and the state level and begin to change the cultural identification so many Americans feel toward conservative “values based” politics then he will have more long term influence than he would have had as president.

Imagine

Here’s a thought experiment. If Michael Moore had just been dumped by USA Today for writing the words hirsute, somewhat fragrant, red-state pie wagons they call “women” at the Republican National Convention” and was replaced by Al Franken who was all over television as a “commentator,” do you think the Republicans would insist that the mediawhores ask him about it every single time he appeared? Would they demand that he denounce and disavow Moore’s comments and require him to apologize constantly?

Yeah. I thought so.

Stale Re-Runs

I am starting to get the strong feeling that the Republicans have run out of steam. They seem to be reduced to reaching for smear campaigns from the past — Teresa as Hitlery, JFK as Dukakis. Not a lot of creative character assassination going on here and that’s their stock in trade. Do you suppose they’ve just run out of ideas on how to destroy a Democrats’ record and personal history?

This is weak:

GOP Aims to Pull a ‘Dukakis’ on Kerry:

The GOP effort to pull a ‘Dukakis’ on Kerry is shifting into high gear.

In 1988, Republicans were able to turn Michael Dukakis from a Democratic presidential front-runner into a caricature soundly beaten by President Bush (news – web sites)’s father.

Key elements of that transformation were a constant drumbeat of criticism of Dukakis’ alleged ‘liberal record’ as governor of Massachusetts and a photo of Dukakis riding in a tank while wearing a helmet. At the time, Republican strategists for Bush’s father compared the governor in the tank helmet to ‘Rocky the Flying Squirrel.’

Asked the significance of the photo of Kerry in the anti-contamination suit, Republican chairman Ed Gillespie smiled broadly and said, ‘We just thought it was a great photo.’

[…]

“We had Michael Moore in the presidential box, someone who said Americans are stupid,” Coleman said. “Michael Moore sits with President Jimmy Carter in his box. Is that the foreign policy coming out of this convention? Does that demonstrate the party’s commitment to make tough decisions?”

While Republicans praised Clinton’s speech Monday night, they turned on the Democrats Tuesday and claimed they were making false statements about the Bush White House record. The Republicans said Democrats are exaggerating the threats to Social Security (news – web sites), Medicare and a federal program that put extra police on the streets.

“You can say these things with a smile on your face, sound like you have a positive message,” said Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, adding that statements distorting Bush’s record are “still a falsehood.”

Republicans say Clinton’s successful Monday night speech will make things harder for Kerry on Thursday when he accepts the nomination.

“It’s going to be difficult for Kerry to wrest control of these folks from the thrall of Bill Clinton (news – web sites),” said veteran GOP strategist Rich Galen.