I know a lot of lefties hate Joe Klein, but I’ve never paid him much attention. On first reading, I thought this op-ed by Klein in Time was all right:
In early 2003, I had dinner with several of the consultants who advised Al Gore in the 2000 presidential campaign. I asked them why Gore, a passionate environmentalist, had spent so little time and energy talking about the environment during the campaign. Because we told him not to, the consultants said. Why? I asked. Because it wasn’t going to help him win….
Gore… lost an election he should have won, and he lost it on intangibles. He lost it because he seemed stiff, phony and uncomfortable in public. The stiffness was, in effect, a campaign strategy: just about every last word he uttered…even the things he said in the debates with George W. Bush…had been market-tested in advance. I asked Devine if he’d ever considered the possibility that Gore might have been a warmer, more credible and inspiring candidate if he’d talked about the things he really wanted to talk about, like the environment. “That’s an interesting thought,” Devine said.
But apparently not as interesting as all that: Devine, Bob Shrum and Mike Donilon fitted Senator John Kerry for a similar straitjacket in the 2004 campaign.
I think Klein has a good point. The “stand for nothing” approach used by both Gore and Kerry has been given more than an adequate chance – and, for Democrats, has been a dismal failure. In particular, the decision of most Senate Democrats to become unprincipled “yes” men to President Bush in the decision to invade Iraq has crippled the ability of the Democratic party to credibly provide a principled opposition to the invasion and occupation.
Klein’s best point, I think, is his critique of Kerry’s decision to not once mention Abu Ghraib, not even in the debates with Bush. By bowing to the pollsters, Kerry abrogated the chance to provide moral leadership to Americans. If he hadn’t chickened out, who knows – maybe that could have changed the polls. Is it any wonder that so few Americans see Abu Ghraib as a morally important issue, when even the Democratic candidate for president isn’t willing to articulate a case against what happened at Abu Ghraib?
The problem with Klein’s op-ed is that Klein seems to halt critical thinking at his own front door. Although his criticism of the Gore and Kerry campaigns rings true, Klein doesn’t seem to appreciate how much fault lies with the media (and not only TV). It’s hard to blame politicians for constructing simplistic, poll-driven campaigns rather than talking substantively about issues, when the media is unwilling to report policy issues in any depth. The overwhelming focus of the media, in elections, is on simplistic storylines and horserace analysis. It is that environment which has created the market for the pollsters and consultants Klein decries.
Klien is a mugger complaining that purse snatchers and carjackers have ruined the neighborhood.
For further (and considerably harsher) criticism of Klein, check out this post on Lawyers Guns and Money.
(This post has been cross-posted to Creative Destruction.)
Pingback: Winds of Change.NET
Pingback: A blog doesn't need a clever name
Pingback: feminist blogs
I only know Klein from two of his books (Primary Colors, and his biography of Woody Guthrie – which incidentally I wrote about just the other day, although not to praise it). I thought both had a lot going for them. I’m disappointed he’s a centrist. But don’t really understand enough of American media politics to get the critique.
Calling for Democrats to believe in something seems to me a worthwhile call (although a completely futile one, but that’s a different matter).
The “stand for nothing” strategy was actually made a campaign issue by the Republicans, who accused the Democrats of only expressing opposition to GOP strategies, without having any kind of coherent message as to what they were for. The Democrats certainly do need to say what they oppose, but if they don’t have a vision that they can clearly express of what they are for, and how to get there, they’re going to have a hard time winning Congress and the Presidency.
Is it any wonder that so few Americans see Abu Ghraib as a morally important issue, when even the Democratic candidate for president isn’t willing to articulate a case against what happened at Abu Ghraib?
I wouldn’t have advised Kerry to make a huge deal out of Abu Ghraib, either. Not that it wasn’t an immoral thing to have happened – it was. But I think an overwhelming majority of Americans view it as an isolated incident, not generally reflective of the military or of American policy. They also have the impression that the guilty were punished. While many people, upon reflection, would think that the accountability hadn’t gone high enough, they would consider that means Generals, not politicians.
The bottom line is that making a case against Abu Ghraib (which is now a hospital, by the way) wouldn’t distinguish a Democratic candidate from a Republican one. I don’t recall any candidate coming out in favor of what happened there once all the facts were known.
The problem is, had either Gore or Kerry actually stood for something he would have been accusing them of “strident class warfare” or “being trapped in industrial age politics” or something. To Klein, only Republicans are ever actually allowed to stand on principle…
(And I think had Kerry actually mentioned the torture scandals, Klein would unquestionably attacked him for playing politics with national security, just as he did to Dean…)
Do I have to point out what Daily Howler would say about this?
Digby’s post titled “Common Goodness” has some interesting points to make on the topic of standing for something. Here is one of the best passages, but I urge you to stop by Hallabaloo and read the entire post.
“I don’t mean to be dismissive. I think it’s important to embrace big ideas and big philosophy and reach for some inspiration. The Democrats have been issuing stultifying laundry lists for as long as I can remember and I couldn’t be happier that people are thinking in these terms. But I can’t help but feel that we always end up back at the same spot somehow. The unions, the womens groups, the civil rights groups, trial lawyers, consumer advocates — the whole array of narrow special interests being held responsible for the fact that half of this country really resents the hell out of minorities, women and working people getting a fair shake. And the Democrats continue to pay the political price for that resentment.
I’m all for finding our way out of it. Tomasky’s message has real resonance; I like it very much. But I think that if the party stopped trying to figure out ways to get the “special interests” to shut up and started giving them some respectful assurances that they aren’t going to be the sacrificial lambs in whatever the new paradigm turns out to be, they might find a little bit more cooperation. “
“The unions, the womens groups, the civil rights groups, trial lawyers, consumer advocates … the whole array of narrow special interests ”
don’t forget old people, the working class, students and whoah, oh my god. Those narrow special interests! Why, they look like all the interests held by actual people. the majority of people, even! And those national interests… my god! They’re all corporate interests!
Clearly, American citizens are all narrow special interests and should be quiet and let the corporations rule.
This is true and when it comes down to get the often-unacknowledged elephant in the room is that the only group that the Democrats have trouble voting for them are white people, particularly white men (honkies like me:)), and especially whites who are regular church goers, and many of these whites are (stupidly) voting directly against there own class interest. For some reason whites are never considered an interest group, although this probably because whites represent a majority of the voters and because white men represent the vast majority of the power players both in the corporate world and the media. I often wonder maybe the reason whites vote Republican is that either feel that because Republicans are mostly white that they will better serve their interests or is it that they just fear the diversity of other people
At this point, it doesn’t really matter whether the next Democratic bit o’balsa is HRC or Feingold or Miller or Lieberman. It doesn’t matter because
A) The hardcore base has proven it will vote for anything called a Democrat, no matter how neanderthal said Democrat is and
B) The Democrats either don’t realize or don’t care about the manipulations borner of Bush’s oh-so-cozy affair with Diebold. Therefore, nobody the Democrats will be President because the Democrats have surrendered control over the voting process.
Fuck ’em.
“borne.” Feh. :o
I am so dead set against the various forms of electronic voting that have no paper trail as backup that I can’t adequately express it.
Me too. Paper and pen balloting is the way to go.
Not just yes, but hell yes. Nail on the head. I could cite lots of examples of this just from my own observation, but since we’re talking John Kerry, there was an article in the Washington Post during the summer of 2004 “about” a speech he gave on energy independence. There was more information about the content of the speech in the photo caption than in the actual article.
You also saw people constantly ranting on the blogs about how “Kerry should talk about THIS!” and “Kerry should talk about THAT!” I agreed. Until I went to a rally and heard his stump speech, and lo and behold, he was talking about ALL those things that people were so incensed that he wasn’t talking about! It’s just that if you say something and the media doesn’t report it… did you make a sound? Guess not.
If we all woke up tomorrow morning and none of our televisions worked, the world would immediately be a better place.
Maybe politicians fail because they try to pander and avoid controversy rather than speak authentically. But maybe the causation runs the opposite direction. Maybe politicians who appear inauthentic and vague fail regardless of whether they speak authentically or not. True, if a politician is not a good enough actor to lie convincingly, then he might do better to speak from his heart. But ultimately a politician that cannot lie convincingly will be at a disadvantage against a politician who can lie, regardless.
Who exactly do we see as a successful politician who “stands for something”? Arguably Bush stood for cutting taxes, putting conservatives in courts, and talking about values. Arguably, Bush succeeded in this matters. Arguably Bush stood for reducing the size of government, fiscal prudence, avoiding international entanglements and nation-building, preserving the Social Security “lock box,” reforming Social Security and other entitlements, simplifying the tax code, sealing our boarders and clamping down on illegal immigration. Arguably he has failed on all these fronts. Even his Faith-Based Initiative has been reduced to window-dressing. I’m not saying that he hasn’t accomplished a lot; I’m just saying that most of what he has accomplished has been done covertly, not through proud pronouncements.
John McCain has been trumpeted as an independent-minded, authentic politician. He was down on the tax cuts. Down on the conduct of the war. Down on the religious right. And he can’t get his party’s nomination. But McCain is running again. And suddenly he’s ok with the tax cuts, supporting of the war, and cozying up with the religious right.
Here in Minnesota we’ve had two famously authentic politicians recently, Jesse Ventura and Paul Wellstone. They were populist, and both won their elections by narrow margins. Ventura only won due to a split vote among the Dems, Repubs and Greens. He spoke authentically, he appointed a lot of good people, and he accomplished almost nothing legislatively. (Admittedly, that’s largely because the legislature was controlled by other parties.) Wellstone was quite authentic when he was first elected, and in “Conscience of a Liberal” he describes how he learned to surrender some of his views to get along. Notably, he supported the Defense of Marriage Act.
“Standing for something” is great for populists, especially if you want to appeal to people’s resentments. It’s easy to stand for “defending marriage”; it’s hard to stand for defending tolerance. It’s easy to stand for God and morality; it’s hard to stand for pluralism and the separating church and state. It’s easy to stand for tax relief; it’s hard to stand for fiscal discipline. It’s easy to stand for Victory in Iraq; it’s hard to stand for admitting your mistakes and cutting your losses. Many politicians railed against Viet Nam; how many got to be president?
So I resign myself to duplicity. Good policies do not equal good politics. I agree that people can be inspired by a bold, authentic persona. But I think we flatter ourselves to think that we can distinguish the authentic from the inauthentic politician based on seeing TV adds and debates. Rather I suspect we merely distinguish between an actor with lines well-tailored to his talents and an actor with a less-well tailored role.
Any actual elected officials in this discussion? I’d be curious to hear some real-world experience.
Actually, Robert, here in Illinois we used the punch cards for years; you know, the ones that for some reason people couldn’t figure out in Floriduh in 2000? They were convenient, quick, and leave a paper trail. I used them for 20 years and we never had a problem with them that I ever heard of. They should still be using them.
Ron, I resist the encroachment of machinery on what ought to be a fully human-mediated process. The more organic and personal the connection between voter and vote facilitator, the less chance there is for fraud. Every machine represents a mechanical thief-in-training.
1) Ron, “Floriduh” is not only an uglyism, its use in this context is the opposite of reasoned debate. Please avoid using that expression here again.
2) Unless there’s been a neck-and-neck presidential election whose outcome hung on an ultra-close vote recount in Illinois within the 20 year time period you describe, the comparison you make is apples to oranges.
3) The punch cards people in Florida couldn’t figure out were associated with the “butterfly ballots.” I doubt very much that’s the design used in Illinois.
4) The other punch cards people in Florida “couldn’t figure out” were ones in which the card was clearly punched for Al Gore, and Al Gore’s name was written in the write-in spot. Somehow, Republican lawyers and leaders couldn’t figure out if those cards were clearly intended to be votes for Al Gore or not, and so conspired to have all those votes thrown out. That’s why Bush won the election in 2000. Do you agree that those votes should have been thrown out?
[Edited to add: “Conspired” was a poor word choice on my part, because it implies a secret conspiracy, rather than arguments openly made in the media and in court. “Successfully prevented such ‘overvotes’ from being counted” is what I ought to have said. –Amp]
Actually, Amp, Illinois did in fact use the butterfly ballot, at least in densely-populated Cook County, for judicial elections. This caused Gore chairman Daley some embarassment when he went on the air and attacked the butterfly design as undemocratic, only to have it noted that Cook County (Daley’s home) had used the same ballot design in the election.
I’m not sure that you can credibly claim that Republicans “prevented” overvotes from being counted. USA Today’s comprehensive study of the Florida mess indicates that the only scenario where Gore could have achieved victory would have involved a hand count of overvotes (as you said) – but Gore didn’t ask for that, he asked for something different. If he’d gotten what he asked for, he would have lost the recount. Hard to see what that mistake has to do with us naughty Republicans.
“Floriduh” is indeed a rude way to phrase it. It’s also inaccurate. The evidence is painfully clear: it was the inability of Democratic voters to correctly handle the ballots that caused the debacle, not anything particularly Floridian. (Illinois had more spoiled ballots than Florida, but the race wasn’t close there.) Overvotes ran 3:1 for Gore. Republican voters apparently had much less difficulty navigating the ballots; unless you want to advance a theory of Republican hyperintelligence, the intrinsic problem can’t be that the ballot design was so horrible that ordinary Floridians couldn’t handle it, because millions of ordinary Floridians handled it just fine. It was just one group that had issues. We could maybe say “Dim-ocrats”, instead – but it would be rude, like you said, so never mind.
The USA Today report, which seems fair-minded to me, points out that it is indubitably true that more people in Florida intended to vote for Al Gore than intended to vote for George Bush. Unfortunately for the Democrats that year, our voting system does not measure the intentions of people, it measures their actions.
Fortunately, the Rice/Romney ticket in 2008 will be an absolute blowout, and all of this will be completely moot.
Funny thing about that, Robert. The way Greg Palast tells it, Florida had machines that automatically spit out ruined ballots and wouldn’t let you mess up your vote. Some counties had them, others did not.
Furthermore, the way I heard it, Florida law did in fact require measuring people’s intentions. And probably none of this would have mattered had Florida officials followed court orders to let certain groups vote.
I’m not sure what the Greg Palast story indicates. Yeah, different counties use different equipment. And…?
Florida law specifies that overvotes should be counted as part of a general recount. Gore didn’t want to follow that law, because he thought (advised by his people on the ground) that he would lose such a recount. So he instead asked the courts for a particular, narrow recount that he thought would change the outcome in his favor.
I haven’t seen any credible report of any “group” being blocked in its effort to vote, so again, not sure where you’re going with that.
1) Ron, “Floriduh” is not only an uglyism, its use in this context is the opposite of reasoned debate. Please avoid using that expression here again.
O.K. Sorry. I just got annoyed at the whole thing when it happened. I looked at that ballot and said, “What’s the problem? We’ve been using those for years.”
2) Unless there’s been a neck-and-neck presidential election whose outcome hung on an ultra-close vote recount in Illinois within the 20 year time period you describe, the comparison you make is apples to oranges.
There have been some neck and neck elections during that time period, but not Presidential ones. Same ballot design, though. If there were significant irregularities, they’d have come out.
3) The punch cards people in Florida couldn’t figure out were associated with the “butterfly ballots.” I doubt very much that’s the design used in Illinois.
Don’t know why you’d doubt it. That’s exactly the design that was used in Illinois. Why would you assume the opposite?
4) The other punch cards people in Florida “couldn’t figure out” were ones in which the card was clearly punched for Al Gore, and Al Gore’s name was written in the write-in spot. Somehow, Republican lawyers and leaders couldn’t figure out if those cards were clearly intended to be votes for Al Gore or not, and so conspired to have all those votes thrown out. That’s why Bush won the election in 2000. Do you agree that those votes should have been thrown out?
Heck, no. If the voter’s intent was clear, the ballot should be counted. I do have to wonder why on Earth a voter would both punch a ballot for a candidate AND write the candidate’s name in, but it still passes the “clear intent” test. But it’s my understanding that there were other problems as well, such as people punching the wrong hole, or not getting the hole completely punched. I’m not holding any brief for how those votes were counted, or for any particular political party. I’ve voted for both in my lifetime. And the political party platforms here in Illinois can be … convoluted. Heck, my Democratic Congressional representative (Lipinski) is more conservative than a lot of Illinois Republican office holders.
Just to give you an idea of how Democratic politics can work here in Illinois: my district was represented for years by William O. Lipinski. It got to the point that he really didn’t do a lot of campaigning. Then, after the 2004 primary and an easy win (he may have been unopposed), he announced his retirement! Since it was after the primary, the voters had no chance to weigh in and the choice for a new candidate was up to the Democratic Party. After a search, they nominated … Daniel Lipinski, his son. What a surprise! The guy was a professor in another state, but so what? He moved into the district, ran, and was elected. Now he’s been renominated and I expect that he’ll be re-elected without any trouble.
Note I said Democratic politics, not democratic politics. People in Illinois may not like what’s going on in the White House, but don’t expect them to jump on the Democratic party bandwagon with enthusiasm.
Robert, the butterfly punch card ballot in Cook County was used for all elections, not just the judicial ballot.
I don’t know what we were supposed to use this year, but when I went to vote the machine that was supposed to count them was broken. So we used a ballot that was about 14″ by 24″ with boxes on it that you had to draw “X”‘s in. An inability to color in the box damn near flunked me out of kindergarden, but I managed.
I haven’t seen any credible report of any “group” being blocked in its effort to vote
Yes, you have. You just don’t classify felons as people who deserve to vote. The courts told Florida they had no right to stop voters who (supposedly) committed crimes in other states.
I’m not sure what the Greg Palast story indicates. Yeah, different counties use different equipment. And…?
And Palast claims that mostly white counties got the machines while mostly black ones didn’t.
As for Gore’s mistake, Life Is Not A Debate.
And Palast claims that mostly white counties got the machines while mostly black ones didn’t.
Then Palast needs to review causality – or stop being dishonest. (Although in fairness, I don’t read him, so I’m just going off of your report of what he’s said.) Counties don’t “get” machines – they go out and buy or rent them. Counties control the voting process in Florida (and in most states). The mostly-black counties in Florida are almost all controlled by Democrats.
Is it Palast’s (or your) contention that the Democrats went out and crippled their own voting efforts by deliberately selecting machines which would lead to the most problems?
The courts told Florida they had no right to stop voters who (supposedly) committed crimes in other states.
This is not an honest or accurate description of what happened.
In 1998, an appeals court ruled that Florida must respect the actions of other states that restored legal rights to their felons, in the context of Florida attempting to block a weapons permit for a felon who had been convicted in Connecticut.
In 2000, Florida decided to require these felons to demonstrate with physical documentation that they had received restoration in their states of origin. This is a legitimate ministerial role for the state, but they later decided that this was a mistaken approach, and it is now the case that felons who cannot provide documentation of their clemency status will have their cases investigated by the state.
As for Gore’s mistake, Life Is Not A Debate.
But our court system, for good historical reasons, is not a pro-active system. Judges do not go out looking for causes to advance; jurists do not appear on the scenes of controversy waving orders. Parties to issues must bring requests for action to the court, which then acts on them. Gore failed to do this; yeah, life isn’t a debate, but the political-legal system works in a certain way and follows certain rules, and does so for good reason. Gore’s foul, Gore’s harm. You’re in the position of the baseball fan who argues that the player should have run left instead of right, and that if he had run left he would have caught the ball, and therefore the other team didn’t really win. OK, that’s your opinion – but if we did things your way, it wouldn’t be baseball. And most of us want it to be baseball.
hf, if those machines worked for Florida punch card ballots the same way they work for Illinois punch card ballots, what they catch is if you either fail to vote for one candidate in every contest, or if you vote for two or more in any one contest.
The machine always spits back my ballot, since in uncontested races I don’t bother to vote. That doesn’t mean I didn’t make a mistake; it doesn’t say which contest you failed to vote for a candidate in, or how many times you did it. So people might have gotten their ballot spit out and simply said, “Run it, it’s O.K.”, not realizing that one of the contest they had not voted in (at least as far as the machine was concerned) was one that they had meant to vote in.
Additionally, the machine doesn’t catch when you voted for the wrong candidate by mistake, which IIRC was an issue in Florida.
Why my email list is just too much fun…
Ben: Sometime last week, I encountered for what must have been the one millionth time the tiresome complaint that our president ignores dissent. I like to dissect and analyse, so I got to thinking, what does it actually mean, to……