Texas Blue Mailbag: Week of 9/23/2007

Hey, look at that — Josh got himself some fan mail! Apparently he's on informal greeting terms with Barack — er, I mean, Senator Obama. Who'd have guessed?

Barack says:

Josh says:
I got this email and it just seemed really weird. I have never gotten a political email with such a personal, informal subject line. Does it work? Do I think I am friends with Barack? I don't know yet, but I definitely noticed the tone was non-standard. It's just so weird. "Hey. I'm one of the brightest stars in Democratic politics. Hey."

Sorry. Guess it's a Friday.

Joe asks:

in our current political climate, how do you dispute the assertion that progressive just means "not what we currently have" and that liberal just means "not republican." why do these movements seem to have such a lack of originality and activism, as opposed to reactivism? There doesnt seem to be an actual "liberal" agenda whereas the conservative set seem to have their agenda very set.

George answers:

Well, Joe, the way we normally dispute the idea that we don't have an agenda is by bombarding the questioner with issues positions. We're a big tent party, after all, and we have a lot of members that are passionate about a variety of things. Sadly, this often leads to the opposite effect of what one would expect — in the din of ideas, there is no cohesive message that rises to the top and loudly says, "This is what it means to be a Democrat."

We often tell the story around the office of the much-hypothesized meeting of the Republican Party elite in the mid-70's, where representatives of all the major policy players in the Republican Party were locked in a room and told, "OK, everybody, we are going to come up with three clear, one-sentence policy stances that we can win on, that we will all run on for the next thirty years. Everybody duke it out for your place in those three; we don't leave until we're all decided. And once we leave this room, we don't care if you're the NRA or the Citizens for a Free Militia, Montana Chapter, everyone will talk about these three and only these three issues. Once we're elected, sure, we'll work for everybody's issues. But the only thing we talk about to the public is these three issues." And they did, and they came out of that room with a simple, consistent message that they've used to beat us upside the head for the last thirty years. (If you're curious, the popular guess on what those three topics were is "God, guns, and gays," but my money is on swapping guns out with abortion on that diddy.)

The day that Democrats do this sort of thing, I'll probably faint with surprise. If we were to try to do the same thing that the Republicans did, and effectively say, "don't push your message until we're actually elected," there would likely be some fatalities in that back room. Even if we were to manage that sort of meeting, we would probably spend more time picking message based on what was most ideologically important, as opposed to what we could win on. A common mantra around our office is, "you can't govern if you don't win." Much like the Republicans, once we have an strong power base, we can start moving legislature that represents our party platform; until then, we're stuck debating Republican talking points. Fortunately for us, the R's decided to implode on themselves under their current leadership, so we have a chance to turn the tables. But without that sort of message consensus that they had, we will continue having to answer to the claims that you state. We have too many important ideas battling for attention for any to stand out as "what the party stands for," and until we get that clear message, we will be seen by some as "the party that isn't the Republicans." With their clear message, they get to define us on their terms. We need a counter to that.

Someone I know has started calling me the "Message Man." This is probably why.

Skee asks:

News reports suggest the Bush Administration takes global warming seriously now... should citizens take these reports at face value?

Josh answers:

I imagine you're referring to this sort of thing. To be honest, I don't know. Is he making an honest attempt to clean up his image on the environment? He and Rice have gone out of their way to assure the United Nations that the big polluter's conference on climate change they've had this week wasn't meant to undermine UN efforts, but I don't know. Bringing together Kyoto and non-Kyoto countries? Good! Coming up with a framework for international action on the environment when there's already a body for that? Hmm! I'm not sure!

It seems to be both a stab at changing the image and also a slight to the UN. I could be wrong, and I will say that it honestly caught me by surprise. As for whether you can trust anything the administration says, well, that's a different story altogether.

Will asks:

Knowing that the Democrats lack the support to successfully impeach Bush, would there at least be any symbolic benefit to beginning impeachment proceedings anyway, if only to give news coverage to some of the administration's more egregious offenses?

George answers:

Oh, it would definitely have some symbolic benefit. It just wouldn't benefit us, is all.

I think "giving news coverage to some of the administration's more egregious offenses" is akin to putting out a press release on how shocked — SHOCKED! — we are that Sylvia Starlet or Heidi Hotel-Heiress is not comporting herself in a ladylike fashion. (No, we're not naming names; we're not haters here at the Blue.) Really, as far as political news goes, I'm not sure there's a lot more coverage there to get. The attorney scandal got tons of play, Gitmo got tons of play, Walter Reed, the overtones toward Iran — and let's not forget the lack of WMD's in Iraq — in the world of political news, you can't throw a rock without hitting a story on what Bush's screwed up this time.

So, do you think that a failed impeachment attempt would somehow be played up as the cliche, "Hey, everybody, look at how bad Bush is" story? Or do you think it would more likely be spun as the much more recently popular, "Hey, everybody, look at the 'ineffectual' Democratic Congress and how they lost yet another battle against President Bush?"

My money's on the latter. And I'm about up to here with those stories. I'd rather not see how the impeachment story would play out. I think it would end up being the sort of crowning achievement of the 'ineffective Congress' folks. My vote: No, thank you.