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Re: Political Culture: How Specter Screwed the Democrats

Ted — Sat, 02 May 2009 14:02:52 -0000

Part of the reason Carter's presidency was seen as ineffective was that he was an outsider from the South whose political views were much more conservative than the congressional Dems. Plus, he had the great misfortune of trying to manage stagflation, and, of course, the hostage crisis in Iran.

Clinton was also more conservative than congressional Dems, but his problem was that the strength of the Democratic Party in terms of people who identified themselves as Dems was pretty low, so he had to campaign and govern not as a Democrat but as "The Bill Clinton Party." The political culture at the time (i.e., Ross Perot, AM talk radio, Reps still having traction with their base) made Clinton's political capital pretty slim, so he had to tack right more often than not to save his own political ass.

It's quite a bit different nowadays: http://www.gallup.com/poll/...

Party ID among Dems is certainly strong (35%) but people without a party affiliation is just as strong, too. So for Obama not to suffer similar fates as Carter and Clinton, a center-left agenda ("Progressive pragmatism?") will be needed that addresses bread and butter issues more often than not. The Right will use culture war issues as much as they can to bait Obama, but so far he's been very careful not to take the bait -- and I think that's what a large slice of the electorate likes about him.

Re: Political Culture: How Specter Screwed the Democrats

JonCummings — Fri, 01 May 2009 18:07:58 -0000

Wish I could say I made it up; H.L. Mencken actually did, ironically (since he was a conservative), though he was referring to the uncultured masses, not the right-wing punditocracy.

Re: Political Culture: How Specter Screwed the Democrats

edmur — Fri, 01 May 2009 15:45:01 -0000

"booboisie" - I like that.

Re: Political Culture: How Specter Screwed the Democrats

standing damaged — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:26:45 -0000

While I agree that Spector is nothing to crow about, I tend to think the ignoring of populist rage over bailouts that haven't done anything and the allowing of 'bonuses' while DEMANDING auto unions give concessions etc is going to do nore damage.
And then we have the torture memos and 'looking forward' and proof from those memos that LIES started an ILLEGAL war and 'looking forward' etc etc.
THERE is where the damage will come. I still think we may see a Balkanization of this country before it's all said and done.
Hope I'm wrong, but I was telling folks an economic collapse was coming - back at the assend of the Clinton era.

Re: Political Culture: How Specter Screwed the Democrats

DwDunphy — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:16:05 -0000

Specter, while hardly a "sticker" as you have pointed out, at least doesn't fill me with Lieberman-sized rage... at least, not yet. However, as a fairly level-headed fellow, I have to say that if I was a Republican and suddenly found myself on the diminished aisle full of rabid acolytes chanting how they plan to "Take back America," although it had only been taken away from them 100 days previous, abandoning ship seems almost reasonable.