Wednesday Dec. 3 # 13
Status of Vampire Politics
RC session 8 AM to 9AM
1. Realignment election? Pro--evidence? Con---evidence?
Peter Leyden on The Obama Moment and America's Coming Transformation (22:42 Min.)
Pollsters Debate America's Political Realignment
By Robert G. Kaiser
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 23, 2008; A02
The 2008 election is history, but the battle over what it meant has just begun.
Conservative analysts have insisted that although the Democrats achieved a sweeping victory, it does not indicate a fundamental change. "America is still a center-right country," as Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), the House Republican leader, insisted soon after the votes were counted. Liberals call that argument nonsense. The election, wrote John B. Judis in the New Republic, heralds the arrival of "America the liberal," provided that the Democrats play their strong new hand effectively. This election was "the culmination of a Democratic realignment that began in the 1990s, was delayed by September 11, and resumed with the 2006 election."
The notion of a center-right America took hold in the quarter-century after Ronald Reagan won the presidency in 1980, and was firmly entrenched right up to Election Day. Newsweek magazine declared on its last preelection cover that the country remains "America the Conservative." The election results, the exit polls and the polling since Election Day all provide evidence for the liberals' refutation of this conventional wisdom, but the argument is complicated by the fact that it is conducted by ideological commentators and concerns a country that has never been very ideological.
"There's no indication that ideology drove this election," said Andrew Kohut, a dean of American pollsters. "It was driven by discontent with the status quo" -- a pollster's formulation of the venerable slogan "Throw the bums out."
The argument is further complicated by dubious terminology. What does "center-right" or "liberal" mean to ordinary citizens who do not usually participate in debates involving the likes of Boehner and Judis?
The National Election Pool exit poll of 17,836 randomly selected voters, conducted by Edison-Mitofsky, shows how shaky the jargon of political analysis can be. Twenty-two percent of those polled identified themselves as "liberal," 34 percent as "conservative," 44 percent as "moderate." Such numbers are cited by proponents of the "center-right country" argument. But one in five of the self-styled conservatives voted for Barack Obama, and one in 10 liberals voted for John McCain. The moderates were overwhelmingly for Obama, by 60 percent to 39 percent. Those self-identifications obviously meant different things to different people.. . .
In one respect the future is already coming into view -- in the attitudes of the Millennial Generation, voters younger than 30. This group was completely out of step with its elders. They voted overwhelmingly for Obama, by 66 percent to 32 percent. They are much more likely to call themselves Democrats (45 percent do) than does the population as a whole (39 percent). Only among the young do self-identified liberals outnumber conservatives (32 percent to 26 percent). By contrast, among voters 65 and older, conservatives outnumber liberals 40 percent to 17 percent.
"The young people bolted in majorities that we have never seen in past elections -- coast to coast, rural and urban, border to border, educated and uneducated, wealthy and poor, evangelical and nonbelievers," said Peter D. Hart, a Democratic pollster who helped conduct the NBC-Wall Street Journal polls this year. "To have one group of voters in that kind of majority is amazing."
In fact, the outpouring of support for Obama and the Democrats from young voters was consistent with long-standing trends in public opinion. They could be found in the annual survey by the University of California at Los Angeles graduate school of education, a poll of more than 270,000 first-year students.
In the 2007 survey, three-fourths of the students said the United States needs "a national health care plan . . . to cover everybody's medical costs." Nearly 57 percent favored legalized abortion. Six in 10 said they thought "wealthy people should pay a larger share of taxes than they do now." Two-thirds said they believed "same-sex couples should have the right to legal marital status." Eighty percent said "the federal government is not doing enough to control environmental pollution."
These students may be more liberal than their contemporaries who are not in college, but findings such as these suggest that the Nov. 4 results are part of a broader phenomenon. Hart said that "this was a transformational election. Whatever used to be true is not going to be true for the future. We are headed towards a potential center-left nation of tomorrow. From every element of this election, we learn that these young people are very, very different."
The difference goes beyond attitudes. Sixty-two percent of voters age 18 to 29 identify themselves as white, while 18 percent are black and 14 percent Hispanic. Eight years ago, in 2000, 74 percent of young voters were white.
Judis of the New Republic and Ruy Teixeira of the Center for American Progress have been arguing for years that the changing attitudes of young voters and Hispanics, coupled with increasingly Democratic voting patterns among highly educated and wealthier professionals, was producing an "emerging Democratic majority." Judis noted in his post-election analysis that the stage is set for a meaningful realignment of American politics that could last for many years.
Yet realignments are often predicted and rarely occur. One reason is that they can occur only if the least political Americans, the swing voters who consider themselves independents (though they often lean toward one party), have to participate.
2. Hyperpartisanship? Change? evidence? (rule of three's)
From the moment Newt Gingrich arrived in the House of Representatives
in 1979, he was overflowing with ideas. Pudgy, prolix, and
prematurely gray, Gingrich tossed offpolicy proposals (government
bonuses for poor children who learn to read, tax credits to help lower income
families buy computers); management theories ("There is a model I work
off," he told one interviewer: "visions, strategies, projects, and tactics"); legislative
strategies ("It is my tactic to confront them so hard they have to respond");
and projections ofthe future ("My interest is in creating a positive,
,dynamic, high-tech, self-governing, free-market, future") in a torrent of
words that suggested either a touch of genius or T ourette's. He sometimes
resembled a human PowerPoint presentation. Gingrich's whirling activity
and tireless proselytizing touched on almost every conceivable subject of
policy and political debate. But at its root was a simple injunction: Republicans
must sharpen their differences with Democrats in every possible way
and create clear, bright lines of division between the parties. "John Stewart on "Partisanship" (3:39 Min.)
3. Campaign strategies: David Axelrod (Obama); Rick Davis (McCain)
Obama's home stretch strategy Keith Olbermann David Axelrod
Rick Davis and David Axelrod Square Off on Fox News Sunday
4. Mellennials arrive: who, why, who cares. What did they do?
Millennials part 1 (6:50 Min.)
Millennials part 2 (5:57 Min.)
5. Presidential Debates What was important?, What were the greatest attributes? What were the greatest errors?
2nd Presidential Debate Analysis by TJ WALKER
In a study of the 1960 and 1976 debates, political communication
researchers Marilyn Jackson-Beeck and Robert G. Meadow identified
the «triple agenda" of presidential debates: the conflicting constituencies
of campaigns, journalists, and the public that these programs are called
on to serve. «It is possible for all three parties to the debates to be concerned
with entirely different issues:' the professors wrote, «while engaging in what
would seem to be trialogue:' Jackson-Beeck and Meadow concluded that in
this three-way division of interests, it was candidates who derived the greatest
benefit.1
Today, after a nearly forty-year tradition of presidential debates, candidates
still hold the upper hand. By controlling every important aspect of debates,
the political pros exercise their muscle in ways that run contrary to the ideals
of participatory democracy. «Whose campaign is it?" asked David Broder at a
1990 symposium on presidential debates. «We have accepted, I think, far too
passively the notion that it is up to the candidates and their advisers to deter mine what takes place and what's talked about and how it's talked about in a
presidential campaign. This campaign belongs to the public:'2
From Kennedy-Nixon to Clinton-Dole, political handlers have staked
out debates as their exclusive territory-and have protected their interests
accordingly. This has been a defining characteristic, perhaps the defining
characteristic, of the staging of televised presidential debates. But as the
institution matures, changes are at hand. With debates gaining status as a
public entitlement, and with media technologies promising greater audience
interactivity, the power equation of the triple agenda may be due for a
realignment.
Let us close our analysis of presidential debates by looking at each of the
three constituencies and examining how the role of these debates is evolving
as they enter their fifth decade.6. Political Satire: Samples Anti Obama, anti McCain; Important? How? Why? Who does it influence?
Time for Some Campaignin' (2:30 Min.)
The power of political satire (6:53 min.)
Political Satire Or Tasteless Cartoon? (6:53 min.)
Drawing Inspiration: The Art of Editorial Cartoons (4:53 min.)
7. How will he govern? How did he manage? Primary experience? Campaign experience? Transition experience? evidence (rule of three's)
Obama: Open Source President? (1:24 min.)
For the individual and election team that prevail in this long, grueling process,
victory requires a sudden change in focus. The successful candidate realizes that
winning is the means to an end, not an end in itself. Making that transition is sometimes
difficult. It involves putting together a team of political executives to staff the
new administration as well as establishing a list of program and policy priorities.
Much of this is accomplished during the transition, the period between election
and inauguration. Many other tasks are tackled during the administration's first six
months. Governing, however, offers a new set of problems. Frequently, the techniques
that proved successful during the election are simply transferred to those
challenges, but such methods are seldom sufficient to ensure success. In the modem
presidency, governing involves some of the same activities as getting elected,
but the two are far from identical, a lesson some incumbents are slow to learn.
The burning question for everyone is how effective will the president be in leading
the nation. Presidents vary along a wide range of dimensions-abilities, interests,
personality-even as the office exhibits certain commonalities over time. In chapter
4, we tum to the problem of understanding the ways a president's personal characteristics
influence performance in office, and subsequent chapters focus on presidents'
political success. First, however, we examine their relationship with the public
between elections, a relationship that has increased in importance in modem times.8. Viral videos: the role of new technology Other new technologies? what? So What? Real Impact? evidence
McCain's YouTube Problem Just Became a Nightmare (3:14 min.)
How is Technology Changing Politics? (10:41 min.)
Peter Leyden on Today's Technology Paradigm Shift in Politics to YouTube staff (1:02:13 min.)
9. Election results: Geographic patterns?, Voter blocs? , key issues?, generational patterns, racial patterns, religion?, class differences,
demographic patterns?
10. Issues of the past Why absent this cycle?
527 org
Swiftboat Veterans Ad on John Kerry - Sellout (2004)
influence of religious right?
Rod Parsley on the "War on Christians" (2:08 min.)
Vampire Politics
Ann Coulter Crazy On The Today Show (2:32 Min.)