my brother is cooler than yours
my brother dave wrote this wednesday afternoon. it made me a little embarrassed at the time, but now, it's more like a rallying point than anything else. the more people who read it the better.
Without a Net
by Dave Chapman
November 3, 2004
"When will people learn? Democracy DOESN'T WORK!"
- Homer Simpson
What the hell happened?
Bush’s approval rating was below 50%, his most recent poll numbers were below 50%, turnout was high everywhere, he lost all three debates - these things should all have favored John Kerry going into Election Day. And yet Bush somehow managed to not only squeak by in the electoral vote, he amassed a lead of nearly four million in the popular vote.
If 2000 left Democrats feeling cheated and angry, when all is said and done 2004 will have left us…confused. These results seem pretty clear. Nobody of any prominence is challenging them. And yet, they just don’t make sense. The “incumbent rule”, the “turnout rule”, all the polls - every indicator was wrong. I heard an evangelical Christian on NPR about a month ago say she hoped God would intervene with people in the polling booth to change their votes from Kerry to Bush. That’s as good an explanation for what happened as any, I suppose.
Why didn’t the high turnout favor Kerry? I’m not sure. It’s possible that Karl Rove’s strategy to mobilize the Christian Right paid off. I’d consult the exit polls, but why would they suddenly be correct now? Maybe the better question is this: why did (apparently) so many Democrats stay home after all? And I think I may know the answer to that one.
There once was a president, not too long ago, who was practically revered by his party. They didn’t like everything he did, necessarily. In fact, he made some mistakes that really ticked off even his most loyal supporters. And yet, they never stopped believing in him. What the Democrats had in Bill Clinton, the Republicans have in George W. Bush. They believe in him, even when he screws up…and doesn’t admit it. When it looked like he might lose, conservatives made damn sure to go to the polls.
Democrats had a candidate that a lot of people believed in (some former governor from New England), but they dropped him like a hot rock when they decided John Kerry was - do you remember? - more “electable”. Never mind that he had a twenty-year Senate career, and that senators very rarely win presidential elections. It’s just too easy for the opponent to cherrypick unfortunate looking votes. But no, Kerry was clearly the most, er, “presidential” looking of all the candidates. And in these difficult times, his experience and war hero status would surely look awesome when compared to Bush’s reckless, valorless, destructive actions both before and after his election.
“Anybody but Bush,” we said. And the less partisan segment of the public said, “That’s not good enough, you idiots. It’s bad enough you can’t find a candidate to excite us, but you can’t even find a candidate to excite yourselves.” Look, John Kerry and his staff didn’t run the nation’s most effective presidential campaign. It would have been nice if he’d spent some time in those states where we lost Senate seats. It’s hard to have coattails in states you don’t win, after all. But when you get right down to it, the man probably did the best he could do. He’s a boring man without much charisma, which makes him perfectly suited to the United States Senate. But you’re not going to win the hearts and minds of would-be Democratic voters if you can’t connect with them, get inside their heads and lives, and charm them to the polls with some magic flute action. If you want to blame someone, blame the primary voters that coronated John Kerry - the political sluts that went all the way with the rich kid on the first date. See what we have now, nine months later?
Look at that electoral map. Look at all those red states. I know, I know, most of the population centers are blue. But most of the nation is red. People in Idaho are not identical to people in South Carolina, and people in Oklahoma are not identical to people in Virginia. Liberals are all too willing to concede that the people living in these states are backward, bigoted, uneducated rednecks. If that’s really what we think, we deserve to lose. But the Democratic Party is the party of labor. It’s the party of social justice. It’s the party of equal rights and equal opportunities. Jobs, affordable health care, social services, the environment. People in the red states care about these issues as much, if not more, than people in the blue states. We must bring them back into the fold.
Which means we have to get around the wedge issues. We have to convince that voter in Tennessee that by voting to condemn abortion, gay marriage, affirmative action and whatever other social ills he worries about, he sacrifices his own welfare. Liberals often think it’s just a matter of education, but that’s condescending (and exactly why we’re rejected in these states). Red-staters aren’t stupid; they just feel threatened. The task at hand is not to convince Kentucky voters that gay marriage is good - regardless of what we think about it - but rather to show them why it’s not a threat to them or their way of life.
The Bible Belt is not more religious today than it used to be. The contrasts are just sharper now. And the Republicans are using those contrasts to depict us as Godless wimps and themselves as persecuted warriors. The grand mistake we continue to make, though, is to believe that everyone in the red states is buying that bill of goods. And we have to stop, because we’re not going to unify the country if we let the crimson in these states continue to deepen.
Look to the future, my friends. We’ve been fighting the war of the 2000 election for four years. If we’re still fighting this year’s battles in 2008, we’re doomed. Yeah, it really sucks that we lost. And don’t fool yourself, we lost big. Those Senate losses are going to loom large for at least two years. But it’s over now. We’ve got to prepare for the next round. And that means we need someone - and something - we can all believe in.
And for God’s sake, when we find those things - when we know what we believe, when a candidate excites us, when we feel like we want to be passionately, emphatically for something - let’s not be afraid. This election was a big game of chicken, and we flinched in a big way. Hedging our bets, making the “safe” choices simply won’t work. Let’s raise our banners high and yell from the highest peak, “Yes, yes, yes! This is who we are, and if you don’t like it, by God, climb up here and say so to our faces.”
It’s a long way down, but you can’t fly if you’re afraid of heights. Take a deep breath and grab hands.
We’ll all leap. Together.
sometimes i really feel like the little brother. check out his site, http://www.hystericalleft.com. and when you see his picture at the bottom, remind me that i am, after all, the cute one.
Without a Net
by Dave Chapman
November 3, 2004
"When will people learn? Democracy DOESN'T WORK!"
- Homer Simpson
What the hell happened?
Bush’s approval rating was below 50%, his most recent poll numbers were below 50%, turnout was high everywhere, he lost all three debates - these things should all have favored John Kerry going into Election Day. And yet Bush somehow managed to not only squeak by in the electoral vote, he amassed a lead of nearly four million in the popular vote.
If 2000 left Democrats feeling cheated and angry, when all is said and done 2004 will have left us…confused. These results seem pretty clear. Nobody of any prominence is challenging them. And yet, they just don’t make sense. The “incumbent rule”, the “turnout rule”, all the polls - every indicator was wrong. I heard an evangelical Christian on NPR about a month ago say she hoped God would intervene with people in the polling booth to change their votes from Kerry to Bush. That’s as good an explanation for what happened as any, I suppose.
Why didn’t the high turnout favor Kerry? I’m not sure. It’s possible that Karl Rove’s strategy to mobilize the Christian Right paid off. I’d consult the exit polls, but why would they suddenly be correct now? Maybe the better question is this: why did (apparently) so many Democrats stay home after all? And I think I may know the answer to that one.
There once was a president, not too long ago, who was practically revered by his party. They didn’t like everything he did, necessarily. In fact, he made some mistakes that really ticked off even his most loyal supporters. And yet, they never stopped believing in him. What the Democrats had in Bill Clinton, the Republicans have in George W. Bush. They believe in him, even when he screws up…and doesn’t admit it. When it looked like he might lose, conservatives made damn sure to go to the polls.
Democrats had a candidate that a lot of people believed in (some former governor from New England), but they dropped him like a hot rock when they decided John Kerry was - do you remember? - more “electable”. Never mind that he had a twenty-year Senate career, and that senators very rarely win presidential elections. It’s just too easy for the opponent to cherrypick unfortunate looking votes. But no, Kerry was clearly the most, er, “presidential” looking of all the candidates. And in these difficult times, his experience and war hero status would surely look awesome when compared to Bush’s reckless, valorless, destructive actions both before and after his election.
“Anybody but Bush,” we said. And the less partisan segment of the public said, “That’s not good enough, you idiots. It’s bad enough you can’t find a candidate to excite us, but you can’t even find a candidate to excite yourselves.” Look, John Kerry and his staff didn’t run the nation’s most effective presidential campaign. It would have been nice if he’d spent some time in those states where we lost Senate seats. It’s hard to have coattails in states you don’t win, after all. But when you get right down to it, the man probably did the best he could do. He’s a boring man without much charisma, which makes him perfectly suited to the United States Senate. But you’re not going to win the hearts and minds of would-be Democratic voters if you can’t connect with them, get inside their heads and lives, and charm them to the polls with some magic flute action. If you want to blame someone, blame the primary voters that coronated John Kerry - the political sluts that went all the way with the rich kid on the first date. See what we have now, nine months later?
Look at that electoral map. Look at all those red states. I know, I know, most of the population centers are blue. But most of the nation is red. People in Idaho are not identical to people in South Carolina, and people in Oklahoma are not identical to people in Virginia. Liberals are all too willing to concede that the people living in these states are backward, bigoted, uneducated rednecks. If that’s really what we think, we deserve to lose. But the Democratic Party is the party of labor. It’s the party of social justice. It’s the party of equal rights and equal opportunities. Jobs, affordable health care, social services, the environment. People in the red states care about these issues as much, if not more, than people in the blue states. We must bring them back into the fold.
Which means we have to get around the wedge issues. We have to convince that voter in Tennessee that by voting to condemn abortion, gay marriage, affirmative action and whatever other social ills he worries about, he sacrifices his own welfare. Liberals often think it’s just a matter of education, but that’s condescending (and exactly why we’re rejected in these states). Red-staters aren’t stupid; they just feel threatened. The task at hand is not to convince Kentucky voters that gay marriage is good - regardless of what we think about it - but rather to show them why it’s not a threat to them or their way of life.
The Bible Belt is not more religious today than it used to be. The contrasts are just sharper now. And the Republicans are using those contrasts to depict us as Godless wimps and themselves as persecuted warriors. The grand mistake we continue to make, though, is to believe that everyone in the red states is buying that bill of goods. And we have to stop, because we’re not going to unify the country if we let the crimson in these states continue to deepen.
Look to the future, my friends. We’ve been fighting the war of the 2000 election for four years. If we’re still fighting this year’s battles in 2008, we’re doomed. Yeah, it really sucks that we lost. And don’t fool yourself, we lost big. Those Senate losses are going to loom large for at least two years. But it’s over now. We’ve got to prepare for the next round. And that means we need someone - and something - we can all believe in.
And for God’s sake, when we find those things - when we know what we believe, when a candidate excites us, when we feel like we want to be passionately, emphatically for something - let’s not be afraid. This election was a big game of chicken, and we flinched in a big way. Hedging our bets, making the “safe” choices simply won’t work. Let’s raise our banners high and yell from the highest peak, “Yes, yes, yes! This is who we are, and if you don’t like it, by God, climb up here and say so to our faces.”
It’s a long way down, but you can’t fly if you’re afraid of heights. Take a deep breath and grab hands.
We’ll all leap. Together.
sometimes i really feel like the little brother. check out his site, http://www.hystericalleft.com. and when you see his picture at the bottom, remind me that i am, after all, the cute one.