Liberalisms

Walter Russell Mead:

"'Liberal' and 'progressive' are two of the noblest and most important words in the English dictionary. They describe essential qualities of the American mind and essential values in American politics in a country born in reaction against oligarchy and concentrated autocracy. They sum up in a nutshell what this country is all about. A liberal is someone who seeks ordered liberty through politics—namely, the reconciliation of humanity’s need for governance with its drive for freedom in such a way as to give us all the order we need (but no more) with as much liberty as possible. In this sense, liberty isn’t divided or divisible into freedoms of speech, religion, economic activity or personal conduct: Genuine liberals care about all of the above and seek a society in which individuals enjoy increasing liberty in each of these dimensions while continuing to cultivate the virtues and the institutions that give us the order without which there can be no freedom."

Now this is a conversation worth having. What exactly is the future of liberalism?

I don't agree with the whole article. Mead tries to break down the barriers of right versus left, but things get muddled when you call the size of government a "blue" issue given the growth under both Democratic and Republican control. And characterizing Tea Partiers as a reaction to taxation without a guarantee of a safety net sounds more like wishful thinking than reality. Beyond that, it paints a pretty stark picture of where things are and why the notion of liberalism is in dire need of an update.

There is a liberalism emerging today that tends to focus a bit more on outcomes than ideologies and cherry picks from both the traditional right and left. It has a laissez-faire attitude towards social differences and a favoritism towards market-based ideas.  This class believes a social safety net and open education are needed to create equality of opportunity and a conservative approach to the environment is probably more pragmatic. Militarily, 'speak softly, but carry a big stick' seems a more effective use of power than just frantically waving around the stick.

Markets are best at keeping costs low while spurring progress, regulations work when they secure fairer competition rather than enshrining entrenched interests and the safety net is a mechanism to create the structural stability people need to change jobs, start businesses and climb the economic ladder. Reduced spending doesn't necessarily mean reduced services, investments aren't the same thing as costs and defense is still viewed as discretionary. The question isn't big versus small, tax or no tax - but bringing the right toolset given the nature of the problem.

"Americans want to believe that all four goals work together: that defending their security, promoting their prosperity, preserving their freedom and equality and fulfilling their global mission are all part of an integrated package and worldview—and that the commonsense reasoning of the average American can understand the way the pieces fit together. They are, in other words, looking for more than a set of unrelated policies that accomplish certain discrete goals: They want those policies to proceed from an integrated and accessible vision that meshes with their understanding of traditional American values and concerns."

The future of "freedom through order" won't be fought between big government Democrats and economically small government, socially conservative Republicans. Who knows where the parties shake out. The challenge ahead is to bring durability in a belief system that unites the mix of these ideals, then chart a path that doesn't rely on traditional party structures to disseminate them.

Anyway - read the article.

photo via Michael Ignatieff

The Problems of Prop 8

On the day Americans removed one enormous barrier to equality, we also erected another. And the two might even have been interconnected. It does seem like some rather sick joke that the increased black turn out that resulted from having Obama on the ticket helped to shift enough crucial votes to reverse a California Supreme Court decision to allow gay marriage. (To be clear, 70% of blacks voted Yes on Prop 8 according to exit polls, but it took a lot of people voting to pass this bill).

As we celebrated American progress Tuesday night, a majority in one of our most liberal states were still willing to accept the tenets of "separate, but equal" while denying rights to some citizens that are available to others.

That said, the marketing of No on Prop 8 seemed, at least from Texas, to be far too scared to say what they were really fighting for. From a reader of Andrew Sullivan:

"I worked for both the No on 8 campaign and the Obama campaign this year and cannot tell you how far apart those two were in style and substance. One was top down, the other bottom up. Ironically, it was the presidential campaign that was the grassroots model, not the state-level proposition campaign. As soon as I started working for the No on 8 campaign I was amazed at the level of scripting: "don't say 'civil rights,' don't say 'constitution,' don't say 'gay.'" I couldn't believe it. 

One of the most brilliant things about the Obama campaign was that they didn't expect callers and canvassers to be policy wonks. They just said "tell your story, let people know why you're voting for him. Connect with people." I can't help but feel at this point that if the gloves were taken off we could've helped people get a grip on the real issues at stake here, which I happen to think is a matter of soiling the state constitution.What was even more confounding was the No on 8 campaign's decision to stay away form polling places at churches and schools. First of all, most polling places are at churches and schools, and second, that mentality buys right into the Yes on 8 brainwashing campaign that same sex marriage is going to corrupt our morals and our children. This idiocy was obvious to everyone that I worked with on the campaign. What was going on with the leadership upstairs?!!!"

More from Rachel Maddow:

Unwilling to make the argument with those that disagreed while shying from the moral equivalence of the civil rights movement in the sixties, the group allowed the heavily funded opposition to vilify gay people. Given the past of the Mormon religion, it does seem rather odd that they would provide the main funding for Yes on Prop 8, but I guess irrationality and hypocrisy make for good playmates. (Again, not to trying to indict the entire religion, just those behind the disinformation campaign).

Take a look at one of the many fear-mongering ads implying that gay marriage would be taught in schools. (Is that a class or something? Math, Science, History, Marriage? Ugh...)

What has become clear after the passage of proposition 8 is that the group didn't attempt outreach in churches. They didn't draw the clear comparisons with the historical shamefulness of making any minority group a second class citizenry. It was three years after the civil rights act that whites were even allowed to marry non-whites in Loving vs. Virginia. Just over 40 years ago, largely on the basis of the same religious fundamentalism that denies gays the right to marry today, marriage was also used as a crude tool to divide. And the failure to bring the populace to those conclusions may have doomed the ability to squelch the bill.

On a related note, too many times I've been hit with the "what do you care?" defense, which I would doubt is just a Texas problem. The majority of straight people probably fall into either the indifferent camp or the against it camp, which proves further problematic for the cause of equality. Not sure how to solve that problem, but I would again think that drawing those historical comparisons might flip on a few light bulbs that oppression isn't only a problem for those who are oppressed.

Where will my.barackobama.com Go?

We don't yet know. But, thankfully, it seems that it will be somewhere...

From Facebook founder and Barack Obama online organizer Chris Hughes:

"Over the past 21 months, millions of individuals have used My.BarackObama to organize their local communities on behalf of Barack Obama.  The scale and size of this community and its work is unprecedented.  Individuals in all 50 states have created more than 35,000 local organizing groups, hosted over 200,000 events, and made millions upon millions of calls to neighbors about this campaign.  There can be no question that these local, grassroots organizations played a critical role in Tuesday's victory.

What has made My.BarackObama unique hasn't been the technology itself, but the people who used the online tools to coordinate offline action.  My.BarackObama has always been focused on using online tools to make real-world connections between people who are hungry to change our politics in this country.

And the site isn't going anywhere.  The online tools in My.BarackObama will live on.  Barack Obama supporters will continue to use the tools to collaborate and interact.  Our victory on Tuesday night has opened the door to change, but it's up to all of us to seize this opportunity to bring it about.

In the coming days and weeks, there will be a great deal more information about where this community will head.  For the moment, let's celebrate this victory and know that the community we've built together is just the beginning."

POST HERE.

Missouri - (or ah)

Took some time out of the busy schedule to hit the streets in a state a little less, well, poorly decided. 

So, a trip to Missouri, with most my time in Missourah...

The St. Louis Office.

The St. Charles Office.

Out on the streets, puns win the political day. (Keep Faith in Government)

From the Arch (and a night photo).

And the creepiest manufactured city ever, "New Town" in Saint Charles. When we turned onto New Town Dr. from New Town Blvd (or Ave.), my first remark was, "this freaks me out. I feel like I'm in the Truman Show." Turns out, the developer is the same guy who created the surreal city in the Truman Show, Seaside, FL.

From their website.

And, sort of related, a team red office in Dallas. Since when do VP's get their own signs?

What you should do.

Just a couple more days, then we can stop being so pol-centric round here...

This Was a Good Day

It's been a long electoral season. And I think I've made it as clear as possible that I'm an unrepentant Obamacrat. But I've got to say, that felt pretty good. Less than two weeks left, and there's no shortage of work still to do (if you're in Colorado the 1st-4th, hit me up). But, if he pulls this thing off, let's take time for two things (1) No matter your political leaning, no matter your vote, we can be pretty proud that we will have done something that no other western country has done, elect a man of color to our highest office. And we can be even prouder that he got there, not because of it or despite of it, but because he deserved it. (2) It will be time to demand that every last thing we've hoped for has follow through, particulary making us leaders in new energy, health care and technology. Hopefully we haven't used up too much of our contrarinism on the current President. It's our job to force him to be the President we expect him to be.

Last thing, no, he hasn't won. And I don't really care what the polls look like today, democrats have screwed up worse before, and they'll screw up worse again. No time for counting chickens.

Now, at least there are some Hollywood directors still fighting for McCain...

Back to the Slime and Grime of Politics

After nearly a couple years of following this campaign, and now with only about 50 days left, it's easy to forget the point. It's easy to get dragged down into the muck of derisive and ugly politics. The calls from democrats for Obama to start hitting back harder and harder have grown louder, mainly because of the level of voracity with which the McCain campaign has sought to make this an election about identies, not issues. Joe Klein of Time went as far as calling one of McCain's ads the "sleaziest" he'd ever seen.

But I just saw this video, and it reminded me why HOPE meant so much to all of his supporters during the primary. It's been turned into a derogatory statement by the right, and of course the left ran from it. But running from that central theme has left Obama without one. Change we need, change we can believe in, whatever, that's fine. But this was about us standing up together to do the right thing, and sinking to their level further muddies that message.

And sure, you do need to defend yourself, and yes you need to hit back. But to no longer be true to the message or true to the goal, only because the opposition takes glee in mocking it, is shameful. It's the same sort of thinking that made "liberal" a dirty word.

So bring back hope. I miss the campaign that was about all of us moving forward together, not just defending our turf.

With a slew of stories being written and commentators noticing the level McCain has gone to in stretching the truth in his advertisements, and this election spiraling into a pile of half-truths on both sides, maybe it's time to rise above it. I'd like to see a national buy, maybe the 2:30 minutes of this is too long, but even a roadblock across multiple networks might be enough of a re-introduction. Instead of announcing to the press that your plan is to get tougher before releasing ridiculous ads about email, maybe it's time to get back to the things that inspired so many to begin with. Contrary to popular belief, I do think it's possible to win without destroying your integrity and solidifying that this will be a deeply divided 51/49 country on November 5th. 

Time to get back on message.

Destroying the Country First Brand

First - this is a very political post. Buyer Beware. And for the record, this is a copy and paste of sorts from an email exchange with Alan and CK, as well as an facebook rant from a couple days ago, so with that out of the way, let's get to it...
Not surprisingly, the blogosphere has been abuzz with talk of the political after John McCain’s shocking decision to dub the mooseburger eatin’ VPILF "reformer" as his running mate for the election turned Soap Opera that is the 2008 political season.

Whether you agree with team red or not, the bulk of the conversation has been in agreement: Genius. At least, strategically speaking. We’ve heard the run down, conservative-as-can-be, card-carrying lifetime NRA member, mother of 5 including 1 special needs child and 1 about to ship off to Iraq, husband in the union, former beauty queen and high school super-athlete, dubbed Sarah Barracuda.

This is a strategic blunder of the highest order, and one that may destroy John McCain’s chance to become our next President. No question from the moment the choice was leaked, Palin would rile up the conservative base and add the first shot of energy into a McCain campaign that’s relied solely on attack ads and the daily news spin cycle to remain anywhere close.

But more to the point of why this was the wrong choice.

The one effective line of argument against Barack Obama was the question of experience. The McCain argument against Obama is basically that he’s an empty suit that will put the entire country in danger in these perilous times, as evidenced by the ad below.

But by putting Palin next in line for the presidency, he ruined the entire argument. They may charge otherwise, or make the absurd argument that she’s more experienced than Obama, but that argument rings true mostly with ideologues and 4th graders.

And you can see the issue already in his surrogates now. They're forced to say things like - "Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia, so it’s not as if she doesn’t understand what’s at stake here," (Cindy McCain and fox news) which is obviously ridiculous, or "[she] took on Ted Stevens, if she can take him on then she take on the Russians" (Lindsey Graham) which exposes the fact that she was the director of good ol' Ted's 527 group, or, possibly the most absurd, she's the commander and chief of the Alaska National Guard (although she doesn't have any say, nor is she even briefed, on foreign deployment).

So, Obama puts us at risk, but Palin doesn't? It puts himself and all of his surrogates in a terrible position, and one that will have journalists throwing their own words back at them throughout the remainder of the campaign. Also, it's put the age issue front and center (which actually had the most affect on polling over both race and gender).

But that’s not the most damning piece of this. John McCain threw his “Country First” brand out the igloo window by making a pick clearly marked more by politics and nothing to do with governing or keeping the country safe from the very same scary world that McCain presented.

One time. That’s it. That and one five-minute phone call was the entire extent of the McCain – Palin relationship before the pick was made. And apparently that is enough for John McCain to believe that she has the leadership skills to run this country during two wars, a feistier Russia, and an Iranian threat that caused the recent fear mongering ad from the McCain camp. One time.

Is he merely playing politics or is he choosing a qualified candidate to lead our country in the very real possibility that something happens to this 72 year-old, 2-time cancer survivor. The bulk of her political experience is derived from her time as the mayor of the town of Wasilla, Alaska and its 6,000 residents. 6,000. During that time she ran up a 20 million dollar debt, more than $3,000 per resident, because she wanted to build an ice rink. Literally. And one that brought the raising of city sales taxes and cost the city millions extra because of the mishandling of the land buy and ensuing lawsuits. And yes, then she became Governor of Alaska’s 600,000 people. That’s less than 1/3 the size of my hometown Dallas, TX.

And while there, in March of last year she had this to say about Iraq:

 “Alaska Business Monthly: We've lost a lot of Alaska's military members to the war in Iraq. How do you feel about sending more troops into battle, as President Bush is suggesting?

Palin: I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq. I heard on the news about the new deployments, and while I support our president, Condoleezza Rice and the administration, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place; I want assurances that we are doing all we can to keep our troops safe. Every life lost is such a tragedy. I am very, very proud of the troops we have in Alaska, those fighting overseas for our freedoms, and the families here who are making so many sacrifices.”

Haven’t really focused on it? The centerpiece of McCain’s foreign policy, this surge, and you haven’t focused on it? And while she hasn’t taken much of an interest in Iraq, we’re supposed to trust her to face down Ahmadinejad in Iran, chase Bin laden into Pakistan, lead our military in Afghanistan, negotiate and back down Putin in Russia, and defend Israel and referee conflicts with Palestine. Yeah, thanks, but no thanks.

That’s the fundamental problem with McCain’s choice for VP, but add that to her ethics investigation, misrepresentation of her involvement in the bridge to nowhere (for it before she was against it?), her disbelief of both evolution and man-made global warming and her vetoes of wind power and clean coal projects in Alaska. Put that against her raising money for the politicians she portends to be against and firing employees of the city of Wasilla when she didn’t get her way, like the librarian who didn’t bend to Sarah’s call to ban books.

And maybe if McCain did more vetting, he may have found her husband’s registration with the Alaska Independence Party from 1995-2002, whose dinner plate issue is the secession from the United States. 

Now obviously, he didn’t pick someone he knew was ready to lead because he didn’t know her at all. So why pick her? It could be charged that in his contempt for Barack Obama and obsession with winning at any cost, it was more important for him to score political points. It can be said that he did the very thing he charges Obama with doing by putting his ambition in front of the country’s need for real leadership on the cynical notion that women are so dumb and politically unaware that they were voting for Hillary merely because of a chromosome rather than her stance on the issues. And this, this is the most offensive thing of all.

No question, Palin is a likeable figure and it’s good to see a woman on any ticket. But the biggest problem with the pick isn’t about Palin. It is clearly more reflective of the McCain temperament rather than any kind of that good judgment he’s attempted to sell. And in this time in our country, with huge economic hurdles to cross and foreign policy issues to tackle, the country will likely see this choice for what it is, a transparent ploy for a few votes, a meme that has the potential to destroy every bit of the brand McCain and his Rove protégés have worked to build into his country first imagery. And frankly, Obama is just too good of a politician to be defeated by these kinds of tactics.

Well, helpfully none of you take too much offense. I tend to get a little worked up by these sorts of things. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

*Post updated to reflect that NY Times is now reporting that only Sarah's husband, Todd, was a member of the AIP. It's unclear to what extent Sarah is related to the party.

Participatory Media and Government

From the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder:

Obama clearly intends to use the Web, if he is elected president, totransform governance just as he has transformed campaigning. Notably, he has spoken of conducting “online fireside chats” as president. And when one imagines how Obama’s political army, presumably intact, might be mobilized to lobby for major legislation with just a few keystrokes, it becomes possible, for a moment at least, to imagine that he might change the political culture of Washington simply by overwhelming it.

What Obama seems to promise is, at its outer limits, a participatory democracy in which the opportunities for participation have been radically expanded. He proposes creating a public, Google-like database of every federal dollar spent. He aims to post every piece of non-emergency legislation online for five days before he signs it so that Americans can comment. A White House blog—also with comments—would be a near certainty. Overseeing this new apparatus would be a chief technology officer.

Sounds fantastic, no? The web has already expanded our freedom of information, but as our leaders become more technologically savvy, it may also expand our freedom participate and be heard.

Obama in Dallas

Although I can hate me some politicians with the best of 'em, I find politics to be one of those fascinating subjects I can still talk endlessly about. Unfortunately, being a Texan, I haven't really gotten to see the presidential process happen in a meaningful way. The race is generally long decided in the primaries and the state too deeply red to go blue in the general. But not this year.

And as such, I got to see the frantic, absurdly exciting scene when a candidate in one of our most historic elections came to Dallas yesterday. I caught some moments on my little flip video and I thought some of you may be interested.

It is a truly moving moment when a black man and a woman are vying to end the old, white man punchline of the American Presidency. At a time when our standing in the world is so obviously diminished, it looks like the American people are coming through. Or we just got lucky enough to have a person with the enviable ability to unify and energize.

You'll see video of the walk five floors up the parking garage to the end of a line that wrapped around for miles, people screaming and doing the wave as if Barack just happened to pass through in the middle of a Mavericks game in the late 80's, the introduction by Emmitt Smith and then Obama himself delivering his speech, although one I've heard mostly before (even if it was given without a prompter). But it had new meaning with the 17,000 screaming "fans" in attendance, not including the thousands more the fire marshal shut out of the building.

I don't want to drone on here, but it did have that intense feeling of something I'll still be talking about 30 years down the line. It's not just a matter of the man, but what he represents. I must say, it feels good to be for something in a time when it'd be so much easier to just be against someone else.

Sorry to get all political, just thought you guys may be interested.