What do you do when you call someone to get their vote and they scream down the phone that Obama wants to “kill little babies” without pausing to consider his stance on abortion?

You hang up the phone and try another number?

So basically you’re saying Obama has got it right but his party hasn’t got the memo? Hmm, I’m not so sure. Reading the diaries on Daily Kos and the analysis on HuffPo seems to me that they are fighting hard this year. Think about all the Obama volunteers, phonebankers, GOTVers, and small-donors.

“For Democrats this is key because they have been obsessed by polls more than trying to build an enduring story about their candidacy” I think that is clearly not the case with Obama himself. And in hindsight, for more than just avoiding the tags of being “angry”, I think his decision to play it cool and not destroy his opponents when it would be so easy to do, has made him look much more presidential in the eyes of the American people.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081110/berman

“unlike the timid Kerry campaign (which didn’t initially hit back hard against SBVT), the Obama campaign has aggressively countered the attacks, urging TV stations not to run them, challenging the legality of certain organizations, debunking false charges on the website FightTheSmears.com and launching response ads of its own. Obama’s ability to shape the political landscape–through an unprecedented amount of money and a sophisticated organization–has forced the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee to carry out the dirty work themselves, risking a significant public backlash.”

2000 was a slap in the face. 2004 was a kick while we were down. 2008…. to be determined. If Democrats are in any way complacent, I really believe that the republicans will win the election. Obama hasn’t been elected yet. There’s a danger in getting too caught up in all the press about it being a fait accompli. Unfortunately, Democrats have such a strong tendency to talk big and act little. If it happens again this time, well, that will be sad. But they only have one group to blame if it does: themselves.

2000 was a slap in the face. 2004 was a kick while we were down. 2008…. to be determined. If Democrats are in any way complacent, I really believe that the republicans will win the election. Obama hasn’t been elected yet. There’s a danger in getting too caught up in all the press about it being a fait accompli. Unfortunately, Democrats have such a strong tendency to talk big and act little. If it happens again this time, well, that will be sad. But they only have one group to blame if it does: themselves.

http://thetruthkills.wordpress.com/

I still think this analysis is fundamentally flawed as political strategy. A large part of the Republican strategy is to generate the sort of response that Sunny advocates. Your fighting fire with fire strategy misses the big thing the Dems have learnt – that so much of politics is about framing, and so much of the point of the Republican strategy is about goading the Democrats into fighting within their frame, and throwing as many news cycles as possible onto here today/gone tomorrow talking points (however trivial) with a cultural flavour, and off the Bush record and the economy. The Dems didn’t get sucked into fighting too much of 1992 or this election on the culture wars, and that was part of why the Republican attempt to do so was less successful than in 1988, 2000 or 2004. (The point of Palin was the biggest play of all to try to change the subject; the antidote was to ignore her, let the comedians and bloggers go for it, and let the voters decide for themselves on the evidence in front of their eyes, as they have).

Why do the Republicans win if the Democrats respond in the way you advocate?

Firstly, this allows a further escalation of the politics of personal destruction: after all, everybody is doing it. And there are structural reasons why the Republicans benefit from it (which doesn’t depend on the idea that they are nasty enough to do it properly). While the Republicans can suffer some blowback from potential supporters for negativity (as they are doing in this cycle), a gutter fight of that sort is more likely to put off prospective Dem voters than Rep voters (because they are more liberal; because it cuts off opportunities to eg engage younger demographics who will lean Democratic, but for whom ‘politics as usual’ is a major barrier).

But the much bigger reason is that the Republican right in particular is fundamentally interested in driving an anti-government, anti-politics message. If they can get the public into the position of thinking “I don’t like it, but they are all pretty much the same” then this serves their agenda much more than that of the progressive left, because it limits severely the possibilities of politics and government. EJ Dionne covered this well in “Why Americans Hate Politics” quite a while back. So progressives have an assymetric interest in keeping politics/government as legitimate and hopeful endeavours. The right much less so. You risk throwing that away.

I don’t anyway buy the idea that this is a winning electoral strategy. (It isn’t working so well for the right, and it suits them a lot better). If we look at the UK, the progressives have done well only at moments of hope and optimism (1906, 1945, 1966, 1997) and have always done worst in a pessimistic, angry moments or moods (1930s, 1980s). Much the same is true of the US. But, if it did work, it would make it much more difficult to govern effectively for progressive purposes, especially in a system like the US. It would lose in my view, but any victories would be pyhrric.

There is a legitimate politics (on both sides) of tough attacks and scrutiny. There is a legitimate progressive ‘fear’ politics – for example, demonstrating the consequences or implications of a particular policy or philosophical agenda for voters (eg social security, public spending). But fighting fire with fire simply destroys the possibilities of political change on which progressives depend.

(Your point that I agree with is in recognising that this sort of hyper-partisan commitment and anger is good to mobilise the base – which is very very very fired up; almost uniquely so – while candidates adopt a more inclusive strategy to build the broad coalitions needed … But that is good as long as we don’t make the category error of saying ‘why isn’t the party/the campaign as furious and fired up as the blogosphere and the 110% activists’ … there are quite different roles, which are potentially complementary IF that is recognised, and difficulties when it is not. So, yes, there is a necessary tension. But if that is recognised, the question has to be: what on earth is the problem with the Democrat campaign, the party, the movement of 2008?

… I don’t really understand the idea that the Dems could have had a different strategy to be in a fundamentally different or better place than the one they are in. It seems to me to be rooted in a ‘why doesn’t everybody agree with us’ instinct.

Sunder almost touches on the important point.

This analysis is flawed because it is based on the false premise that the parties exist in the same way as they do elsewhere.

Every presidential bid is essentially built from scratch and the party platform is hardly any more than a vehicle for certain interests in a similar way to which the Whigs and Tories were a couple of centuries ago in this country.

What is interesting is that electoral necessity is gradually forcing a restructuring of the party organisation into something more coherent which is starting to create practical political legacies, though I doubt we shall see the full membership model adopted any time hence.

What Sunder said

This is a good — and important — debate.
I think Sunder makes some good points about the dangers of not being careful about how one does what Sunny urges. BUT I think nevertheless that what Sunny urges is what is needed.
Sunder mentions the 1930s: Hang on a minute, progressives were pretty successful in the States in the 1930s! Remember the New Deal, anyone? … Roosevelt harnessed popular anger brilliantly. Check out the excerpts from Roosevelt’s speeches in Drew Westen’s THE POLITICAL BRAIN — the book that more than any other backs up Sunny’s analysis.
The same anger is needed now: anger against the injustice of socialism for the rich and barbarism for the poor; and anger at the Republicans’ smears and lies. Firm rebuttal, drawing attention to how this stains McCain – and THEN always switching the topic back to finance, the economy, the environment, etc.