At Salon, Andrew O’Hehir tries to figure out where Barack Obama may fit in the tradition of Democratic losers dating back to Adlai Stevenson — and examines the cyclical battles between “establishment” and “insurgent” candidates – concluding that the fault lies not in the candidates, but in the party’s members:
It isn’t flippant or metaphorical to describe the Democratic Party as schizophrenic. The ugly flame wars conducted between Obama and Clinton supporters all over the blogosphere, and not least on Salon’s letters pages, reflect a deep pathology at the core of the party’s identity.
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In my darker moments, I suspect that one side would rather lose a battle fought on the narrow ground they see as pragmatism and realism, rather than risk discovering that their starry-eyed opponents have a fairer and more generous vision of the country than they do. Conversely, the other side might actually prefer to go down in the flames of idealistic self-immolation, McGovern-style, rather than suffer through another Clintonian era of perennial compromise and constant dissatisfaction.
There certainly is an element of that dynamic, but I think the reason people are having trouble analyzing this campaign cycle is that the bipolar analysis breaks down with the emergence of Obama as the first truly viable black presidential candidate.ÂÂ
Earlier this month, John G. Caulfield offered the first analysis of Democratic party politics that demonstrates how Obama scrambles the traditional analysis. Better still, he does so by personifying the three main factions of the current Democratic party so that the analysis is a much easier read than the one I would write. RTWT.
Tell the truth, Karl. If the Obama wins they’ll be plenty of green collar jobs and we’ll all just piss ethanol straight into our gas tanks.
O!
Ethanol? Ethanol?
Ethanol has become to me as a red flag to a bull. It just really PISSES ME OFF!
Isn’t it enough that gas prices are already too high? And is it rational for the STUPID, STUPID, STUPID government to simultaneously stick food prices up our butts, too?
Sometimes I think the idiots in Washington are playing Russian Roulette with us measly little peons. I mean, what else is there to do once you get tired of stuffing your pocket with other people’s money?
Like the first Caulfield piece commenter says, Mrs. Waslewski is the key. I’m just not sure Captain Queeg has the stomach to tell her about Obama’s contempt for her traditional values on American exceptionalism, God, and individual liberty. That’s the only thing that’s going to trump her traditional Democratic economic values and her doubts about the Iraq war.
OK. OK.
I am going to work, and will try to get my ethanol induced anger under control.
This will be tough, but I realize that I am a much more fun human when I am not TOTALLY PISSED OFF ABOUT THIS ETHANOL HORSESHIT!!!
I guess it wouldn’t bother me so much if I wasn’t paying $3.80 a gallon for gas. Yes. You read that right. $3 fucking 80 a gallon where I live….
…And rising by the minute.
One last comment.
Why should we eat food when we can double it’s price and then BURN IT in our cars?
Friggin’ asshats….
Obama is doomed. He’s a vanity candidate what some people really like having a sticker for on their car, but these are the same people that hate things what become too popular. They’re really shitty evangelists. It’s like how you can’t think of ever hearing an enthusiastic movie review on NPR that made you actually want to go see the movie.
Schizoid? No, it is far more primitive than that. Factions and coalitions of factions within a larger entity are fighting for the title of first among equals. It is very nasty, it will lead to much bitterness (though not likely to religion or guns, strangly enough), and will eventually lead to a reordering of that greater entity, for a time.
Robert Fripp called. He wants his song back
Mikey’s right – this is just the latest chapter in a 40-year insurgency by the Left that has waxed and waned. The Left is animated now, because they finally have a candidate that isn’t outwardly a seething, scowling, fist-clenching idealogue. They sense victory, but they also sense it can all be snatched away.
Jeffersonian is partly correct, but they’ve also shot themselves in the foot. For the same forty years they’ve been emphasizing identity politics, and have succeeded in producing factions each of which considers itself possessed of THE TRVTH; if you have THE TRVTH no compromise is possible, because it’s an acceptance of lies.
American political parties have to be schizoid, it’s part of the system. A big tent has enough space to throw hand grenades, and people do. Deliberately turning that into out-and-out howling schizophrenia seems to me a mistaken tactic.
Regards,
Ric
It’s also a marketplace. You and your faction may be willing, for a time, to give up the top spot so long as a little love comes your way – in the form of jobs, sinecures, programs, cash, etc. After a time though new people come in and they aren’t satisfied with the old arrangement, they want more – more than other factions are willing to give (I haz bucket! U kin not haz mah bucket!). The fighting begins, the bitterness seeps in and either a group actually overpowers another, or another (usual) negotiated settlement takes place.
My observation of intra party hullaballoos puts them at generational lines, the guys and gals coming up challenge the old order because they want power now, and either they buy in pretty quickly, or they sense the weakness of the old order and start really making waves.
Well a lot I think to varying degrees they’re slowly realizing that Bush isn’t running. It’s a lot startling I think for many of them.
Ric: You’re right about that but I’m wondering how the end game will play out. We are in vastly uncharted territory here.
Whether it is a reflection of identity politics or the perceived difference in ideology the large gap in polls concerning each candidate’s “party loyalty” jumpers is, while interesting, hard to believe. Almost double the number of Hillary supporters say they will jump ship and vote for McCain as oppossed to Obama’s. Yet Hillary continues to run significantly higher negatives nationwide than Obama, suggesting that her nomination would not greatly benefit from crossover Obama supporters. Is this all to be believed, that the far leftoids clinging to hopey would pull a Religious right like fit and stay home come election day? Are we, at this point in the game, being mislead by these “loyalty” polls and will see an entirely different dynamic?
The great irony was the cackling hordes suggesting that conservatism was dead and, by default, the entire Republican party. Having based this upon the supposition that social/religious cons would give McCain the metaphorical middle finger and choose to stay home come election day, it is delicious to consider the possibility that the same might hold true for either older white women (Obama nomination) or blacks/activists (Hillary nomination.)
I just don’t know if all of that is a scenario that will play out in that way.
The Left may claim that now, BJ, but I suspect that their hatred of their ideological opponents is greater than their hatred of their political opponents.
– I think the Left has finally met the enemy, and they are them.
This really was only to be expected when the leaders of all of those ‘isms’ in the late 1960’s-early 1970’s finally became the elders of the party. Each wants his or her own little pet project taken to its conclusion. Of course, to do that means to exclude someone else’s little pet project.
Decisions, decisions…
If by that you mean I’ll be drinking more, you could be right.
Deep down a lot of them are still hoping Bush will cancel the election.
There seem to be two kinds of people that write for Big Media these days — those that express all their thoughts in Manichean black and white dichotomies and those that don’t.