For once Ramesh Ponnuru is making sense. Those who are making a big deal out of the absolute accurate Dean comment forget the the Southern GOP has civil war re-enactments (sic).... and there is deep sympathy for confederacy in the south. Shouldnt that tell something to the Black republicans (???) something. Or may be they are just like Armstrong Williams, out to make a buck taking money from white house to talk about their policy on TV.

"...Or may be they are just like Armstrong Williams, out to make a buck..."

It's not like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton work for free. Has Rainbow PUSH done anything accept bully political parties and corporations for money? And Al Sharpton still has not paid his hotel bills from last season's primaries.

the Southern GOP has civil war re-enactments

and there is deep sympathy for confederacy in the south

But I do agree that Ramesh makes a good point.

African Americans have traditionally found a home in the Democratic party. But what about South Asians? There are few, if any, high ranking South Asians in either party. We can complain about how racist the Grand Ole Party is, but they have Representative Jindal, without a doubt the most influental Indian-American politician right now.

The point that I'm really trying to make is that I don't think either party is conducive towards South Asians - each has its own inertia that needs to be overcome. But that doesn't mean we South Asians should stop trying in either party.

And to claim that the GOP is racist is patently false, at least using your above arguments.

I don't think civil war re-enactments have anything to do with the price of tea in China.

Social issues. Economic values. Kinda the two biggies. Some people see them as inexorably linked, and other people choose one party b/c of their position on one of the two big areas. That would be why there are Log Cabin Republicans, etc, etc.

-D

I too absolutely hate to say that I agree with Ramesh Ponnuru. I think we make too much of this political correctness business. yesterday, in a letter to Romanesko on the subject of repulsive jokes on holocaust movies, one Howard Altman articulated much better (http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=8875) than I could - my views on the subject of politically incorrect jokes.

If these were off limits, most Indians will have not be able to open their mouths.

I think it was Voltaire who said that "I do not agree with you. But I de

It would be strange for the Republicans to stage a civil war re-enactment as the South, after all, they had the Presidency at that time.

just to play devil's advocate, howard dean was the one that said that the Democratic Party needs to appeal to White guys in the South with "confederate stickers on their bumper" or something to that effect.

"straightshooters" like Howard Dean or John McCain (who used the word "gook" during his campaign) just show who's running the country--overwhelmingly White straight Protestant men (with some token Jews, Catholics, Blacks, Gays, Women, Hispanics thrown in). Was Dean's point true (and clever)? Yes. Was it the most well thought out thing to say for someone in the leadership of a national political party? Arguable. Is the Republican party the party of institutional racism? Yes.

"Is the Republican party the party of institutional racism? Yes."

So, I guess college admission boards are bursting at the seams with Republicans as they implement ever more bizarre affirmative active programs. After all, they are institutions which take into account an applicant's race. I still remember when I applied to UPenn undergrad (granted, this was 15 years ago), and they had two categories of Puerto Ricans - those living in Puerto Rico, and those living in the US. And, they were considered separate from other Hispanics.

Oh, who were the memorable black members of Clinton's cabinet? Have the Dems elected a black person as their party leader in either the House or Senate? If the Reps selecting JC Watts as one of their top guys in the House is tokenism, that makes the Democratic failure to promote black Congressmen all the more glaring.

Have the Dems elected a black person as their party leader in either the House or Senate?

Methinks you're forgetting Ferraro, Lieberman and the very Greek Dukakis.

Both parties have built in racist attitudes. Just depends on what agenda they have decided to promote.

The Republican party was the party of Lincoln, had a civil rights background. In the 60s with Southern Democrats defecting to the Republican party, the balance shifted. The very fact that both parties jockey around attempting to collect votes of communities based upon enthnicity and by making claims that they 'represent' that community stinks of politicians saying what people want to hear.

As far as politics is concerned, both parties would drop their positions in a dime if they felt it would give them more votes and a better chance to win.

JC Watts is a genuine guy, but he definitely got railroaded by the old boys club in his own Rebulican party. Democrats have their ol boy club too. Only reason why Hillary has been able to make inroads or alteast not feel threatened by the dems ol boys club is her last name, Clinton. No John Kerry would try taking a swipe at that.

When minorities align themselves with a particular party, it only makes their position weaker. By keeping politicians honest and focusing/campaigning/lobbying on issues, both sides jump up and work harder for YOUR votes.

When a Democrat like Hillary blabs ignorantly, its looked upon as a mistake. When a Republican would do that, they get torn to shreds as racist.

Similarly when a Republican voices a pro-choice/pro-gay marriage position, he/she is simply ignored or considered a moderate. When a Democrat says it, the right jumps up and down declaring said Democrat to be satan's messenger.

Both parties are full of hypocrites.

I concur with Blank! Even though Blank is an odd name!

"Methinks you're forgetting Ferraro, Lieberman and the very Greek Dukakis."

Okay, while I was somewhat narrow in my use of "minority" to focus on how the parties court black voters, even these three are not shining examples of Democratic "inclusivity". Ferraro was the running mate on a ticket that lost 49 states to 1. The Dems knew they were gonna get blown out of the water, so why not come across as a pioneering ticket?

Since 2000, Lieberman has been sidelined by most Democratic power-brokers, cause he was deemed too close to Bush on Iraq. He is the one Democrat who did not go back and try to reword his support for invasion, and it cost him in the 2004 primaries. With Lieberman's name often bandied about as a possible replacement for Rumsfield at Defense, his future in the party is dim.

Dukakis is an ethnic minority, but Greeks were never treated with the same venom as blacks, Jews, or even the Irish for that matter. Those groups were the targets not just of discriminatory cultural practices, but of discriminatory law as well. The Japanese internment is another example.

Look, the Republicans are not choir-boys - far from it. But the unchallenged notion that Democrats have been in the forefront of advancing minority interests is simply not true.

Becoming beholden to one party is not in the interests of any group, whether ethnic, religious, or economic. A competitive marketplace is as important at election time as it is for laundry detergent.

Ferraro was the running mate on a ticket that lost 49 states to 1.

This is the winner-take-all canard. Dukakis won 46% of the popular vote.

Since 2000, Lieberman has been sidelined by most Democratic power-brokers...

But in 2000, he was the first Jewish VP nominee.

...Greeks were never treated with the same venom...

Not even Greeks with big noses, bushy eyebrows and difficult-to-pronounce last names? Sure they were. They just weren't in the U.S. in large enough numbers to be written into the history books like the Irish.

Becoming beholden to one party is not in the interests of any group...

Couldn't agree more. Yo, white people! Come to the darker side ;)

The debate is about whether Howard Dean's remark warrants the outpouring of "racist!" from Republicans, however, it seems more important that Democrats, not Republicans, worry about the remark.

The GOP has minorities, the majority of which are African-American and Latino. Okay. One could make the obvious argument that those two groups are the ones most affected, altered and dependent on institutionalized racism and therefore, it makes better sense to include & use them in the institution than to exclude and have them upset the apple cart, i.e. give more power to sedate the symptom and increase the problem.

But what's worse: Republicans of the above ilk being outraged or Democrats not taking a member of their own party to task for essentially admitting that he too tends to believe that unless they're in that hotel room with him, most minorities in that hotel would or could only be staff.

It's a bad comment, it's not political correctness to correct him and its the Democrats' responsibility to do it. The GOP can deal with itself and the Democratic Party needs to deal with it's limp-wristed approach to standards (any kind) because it's this kind of remark followed by the party's usual silence that makes everyone think the party doesn't know what it thinks.

Yes, politics is gross, hypocritical, racist, and inherently demagogic to a certain degree. Yes, both parties suck (in terms of race representation and other, in my opinion, more important issues). They're two sides of the same coin: predominantly White, staright, Protestant men who have run this country since the beginning. This does not amount to a claim that both parties suck equally.

With all that said, if you read nothing else I say, read this, on the infamous "Southern Strategy" of the Republicans over the past few decades. Recent (i.e. last 40 years) of history demonstrates without a doubt that the Republicans have used scapegoating of disempowered groups to appeal to poor White folks to build their coalition. If you don't believe me, check out what they've done with the spectre of gay marriage over the past few years, what they did with "Welfare moms" (i.e. scary single black women, to their voters), what they did in pushing "tough on crime", "war on drugs", "the death penalty", and "felon voting"--i.e. jailing young black men for longer and more severe sentences and then denying them the vote, and, most of all, the Southern Strategy--using racist codewords to appeal to conservative White southerners to peel them off of a Democratic coalition. That's what the sucess of the rightwing of their party is built on--scaring the shit out of White working class people so they'll vote with the rich and the crazy.

If there's one thing you can criticize the democrats for (who, in fairness, have thus far been the only major party post 1900 to run a Black man as a candidate for Senate, the only party to run a woman as a Vice Presidential canidate, and the only party to have a Black woman in the Senate), it's for abandoning the poor--White, black, straight, queer, etc. The reason they did so is (in my opinion) a misguided effort to try and compete with the Republicans on the Republicans' terms.

The Republicans stopped being a Civil Rights party in 1876.

sorry for the addon--that should have said--"have a black man compete strongly for the Presidency within their party i.e. jesse jackson"--not "run a black man for the Senate."

-s

Ugh. I'm sorry to hog so much space, but I just have to respond to something that Santhosh said:

The debate is about whether Howard Dean's remark warrants the outpouring of "racist!" from Republicans, however, it seems more important that Democrats, not Republicans, worry about the remark....

It's a bad comment, it's not political correctness to correct him and its the Democrats' responsibility to do it. The GOP can deal with itself and the Democratic Party needs to deal with it's limp-wristed approach to standards (any kind) because it's this kind of remark followed by the party's usual silence that makes everyone think the party doesn't know what it thinks.

There's a big difference between saying that all racial minorities should do is service work and acknowledging the reality that the role you're most likely to see racial minorities in (besides the tokens "giving the keynote speech":)) at a Republican event is in service staff.

The first is a comment on the worth and capacities of racial minorities (i.e. racist) and the second is a pointed empirical description, made in a somewhat humorous style that critiques the Republicans. It should be obvious to anyone who's paying attention that Howard Dean was not putting down minorities--he was putting down Republicans for not having sufficient minority representation.

The best critique I can come up with against Dean, as a registered Dem (although i might be moving somewhere more progressive soon) is that Dean's comment is somewhat hypocrticial given where the Dems are today and could be construed as insensitive if you misread it. I'd hold him to a stronger standard on race if I felt it was not part of a pileon to undermine someone unfairly.

That some people might try to put Dean's comment in the same category as Trent Lott's "we would have been better voting for segregationists like Strom Thurmond" is the real outrage.

Okay, much of what you’ve written is simply flat out wrong.

No black Republican candidate running for the U.S. Senate? What about Alan Keyes in Illinois and Maryland? Granted, he’s a grade A moron – but it clearly proves that Dems do not have a lock on running black candidates in Senate races.

Carol Mosely Braun may have been the first black woman in the U.S. Senate, but she was a one-termer, who received almost no help the Dem party leadership in her reelection bid – which was a smart move on her part, considering how unpopular she was with Illinois voters by that time. She got caught up in the DC power lunch lifestyle, and forgot about the people who sent here there.

Republicans stopped being concerned about civil rights in 1876? This will come as a surprise to those Republican members of Congress that voted en masse for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Keep in mind – the primary opposition to that law was from Southern Democrats. It would not have passed with Republican votes, which were in the political minority in both the House and Senate at the time.

As for “tough on crime” being a code-word for being tough on black people – bear this in mind – black people are more likely to be the victim of a violent crime than any other group. When you factor in the high rate of recidivism among the criminal population, it follows that the more criminals you lock up, the fewer victims you will have. There are fewer black people suffering from violent crime time than there would have been had there been no crack-down. A crack-down which was supported by Republican and Democratic governors alike. In 1990 – there were over 2,000 murders in NYC. That’s about as many people killed in 25+ years of violence in Northern Ireland up until that time. Now, it has fewer than 700 a year, for a city of over 8 million – an astonishing figure. That means several thousand more black people and other minorities are alive today than would have been had there been no crack-down.

Attacking welfare queens? Well, considering that the most vigorous reform of welfare came under Clinton, and there was no subsequent social disorder among poor people, it seems that welfare was not the glue that holds the poor together that it’s advocates claimed to be. The comic Chris Rock put it better, “Black people don’t give a f*** about welfare. N****** are shaking in their boots! A black man that got two jobs, going to work every day, hates a N**** on welfare. N**** get a job! I got two, you can’t get one?!”

Then there is the matter of city public schools. The Democrats have always put the interests of teachers unions and the school administrators over that of black and brown children. If education is called the “new civil rights movement”, which party is standing in front of the doorway, blocking reform?

It’s understandable if black voters are suspicious of Republican candidates. The Southern Strategy is all too true – but it’s not going help to focus just on 1972 – and think that is the end all and be all of minority voting patterns.

Two corrections

" which was a smart move on her [should read their] part, considering how unpopular she was with Illinois voters by that time. "

" It would not have passed with [should be without] Republican votes,"

Great points Saurav !!!
I want to add that those who dont think that Republicans are racist. Let me give you a couple of examples.
- George Bush at Bob Jones University.
- Trent Lott saying "We voted for you Mr. Strom Thurmond when you ran for president". Well, the sole platform on which that racist Thurmond ran was segregation. Trent Lott had to be removed from the majority Party leader post as a result of his "candor".
- In the primary in 2000 George Bush people called SC voters that John McCain has a "black Baby". (Because McCain has an adopted Bangladeshi baby)

If the above doesnt convince you that Republican party is party of institutional racism then ... I think you have your head in sand.

KXB- where do you find the time to write these posts?

And I love it when people of your ilk quote Chris Rock regarding African-Americans, as if Rock is the king of Black people in America. Homie, you are sooo down with the peeps ;)

That's my 1000 yen for today. The designated Black chick on the Sepia Mutiny watch is out!

Ohiogozaimas Ms. World,

Rock the king of all black people? I thought the self-professed "King of all Blacks" on Howard Stern had that title? ;)

No one person can be a spokesperson for an entire ethnic group. I liked that Rock quote, cause it's a handy check on those who go around telling other groups what is best for them. Just give people all the information that is available, instead of mere rhetoric and choice sound-bites, and let them decide.

As for me being down with the peeps, I'm a bit too old to keep up with trends. I think it was Lenny Bruce (another comic) who said, "There is nothing sadder than an aging hipster."

Okay, much of what you’ve written is simply flat out wrong.

Before taking up the argument further, let me concede a few things: Without much other evidence than a Wikipedia article, I'll say you're right about your specific point on the votes on the 1964 Civil Rights Act. So I overstated my case; the Republicans have been the party of institutionalized racism for about the last 35-40 years. Make you feel better about voting Republican?

Most of the rest of your arguments are specious at best, racist at worst (particularly in the language you choose to use). "Welfare queen" is an incredibly derogatory term. And this cuts to the heart of the matter--regardless of the specifics of the policy, from "states rights" to "getting tough on crime" to "welfare queens"--Republicans for almost two generations used coded words to communicate one message to their narrow and impassioned base of deepseated hatemongers and another to unsuspecting mainstream America. This isn't about talking about 1970; this is about talking about 1970-2004.

As far as I could tell, your argument about "getting tough on crime" is that locking up a lot of Black people through racist practices (like disproportionately longer sentences for Black people, death penalty more frequently applied to Black people, racial profiling, etc.) will keep other Black people from getting killed. I'm pretty speechless, so I'll let people make up their own minds. Let me know if I presented your views unfairly.

You also consistently mix up what an individual politician does in a specific instance without looking at who the prime movers were or what the context was. Nixon put affirmative action in place; that doesn't mean he wasn't a flaming racist--similarly, Clinton signed welfare reform into law; it was what an opportunistic politician would do given the times. He didn't CREATE the drive for welfare reform. He appropriated it for political power and as a defensive measure; it was a concession on the war of ideas on welfare to the largely racist largely anti-poor Republicans in government that were pushing it (Reagan onwards) and winning rhetorically. Further, the plan that Clinton originally started with was very different from what you came out with after being put through the ringer of the Republican Congress. By the way, "welfare queen" is extraordinarily offensive.

Similarly, Carol Mosely Braun could be this or that, but the fact is that the Democratic Party consistently generates more politicians from disempowered communities who actually stand up for the interests of their community and other disempowered communities than the Republican Party does. That's why JC Watts, Alan Keyes, Condoleeza Rice, and Bobby Jindal don't mean shit. They're "minorities" all right--they're just not decent.

Where I will agree with you is that if people who feel disempowered on the basis of their membership in certain social groups (poor people, including WHITE people, Black people, women, queers, immigrants, workers, others) feel taken advantage of by a particular political party (as I do by the Democrats), they should consider bolting. Where i disagree is that this means they should support the Republicans; other alternatives are to build another party to replace the Democrats; to take over the Democratic party; or to work outside the electoral sphere and try to hold the Democrats as accountable as possible.

It's a little silly to say that the way to move forward is to proudly vote for the people who led the drive for 40 years to fuck over you, your family, and friends, for the interests of community.

“Before taking up the argument further, let me concede a few things: Without much other evidence than a Wikipedia article, I'll say you're right about your specific point on the votes on the 1964 Civil Rights Act. So I overstated my case; the Republicans have been the party of institutionalized racism for about the last 35-40 years. Make you feel better about voting Republican?”

Well, considering that the U.S. is 228 years old, and for most of that history, it was the Dems that supported slavery and Jim Crow, and the most egregious example of Republican racism you came up with was Nixon's 72 campaign and a Trent Lott quote, I’m not going to feel too bad.
_________________________

“Most of the rest of your arguments are specious at best, racist at worst (particularly in the language you choose to use). "Welfare queen" is an incredibly derogatory term. And this cuts to the heart of the matter--regardless of the specifics of the policy, from "states rights" to "getting tough on crime" to "welfare queens"--Republicans for almost two generations used coded words to communicate one message to their narrow and impassioned base of deepseated hatemongers and another to unsuspecting mainstream America. This isn't about talking about 1970; this is about talking about 1970-2004. “

There was once a time that the left in America actually trusted the public. In it’s place, modern-day leftists hold the public in contempt. They notion that the public is easily hood-winked by code words is one of their biggest canards. Rather than try to form a platform which will appeal to various groups, the left instead send out warning about code-words. Rather than propose effective ways of dealing with welfare and crime, the left was content with arguing about the wording of the issues.
_____________________________

“As far as I could tell, your argument about "getting tough on crime" is that locking up a lot of Black people through racist practices (like disproportionately longer sentences for Black people, death penalty more frequently applied to Black people, racial profiling, etc.) will keep other Black people from getting killed. I'm pretty speechless, so I'll let people make up their own minds. Let me know if I presented your views unfairly.”

Well, I don’t recall ever discussing the race of the assailant in my earlier post - I guess it must have been coded. However, I did discuss the race of the victims, which are disproportionately black. In a nation of unlimited demands upon limited means, yes, I do believe it is more important to look after the welfare of victims that their assailants. Yes, longer sentences are being handed down than 20 years ago, but crime is also down compared to 20 years ago. The two are related.
________________________________

“You also consistently mix up what an individual politician does in a specific instance without looking at who the prime movers were or what the context was. Nixon put affirmative action in place; that doesn't mean he wasn't a flaming racist--similarly, Clinton signed welfare reform into law; it was what an opportunistic politician would do given the times. He didn't CREATE the drive for welfare reform. He appropriated it for political power and as a defensive measure; it was a concession on the war of ideas on welfare to the largely racist largely anti-poor Republicans in government that were pushing it (Reagan onwards) and winning rhetorically. Further, the plan that Clinton originally started with was very different from what you came out with after being put through the ringer of the Republican Congress. By the way, "welfare queen" is extraordinarily offensive.”

Thankfully, our government does not depend on the character of its officeholders in order to be effective. If good character was a requirement to hold office, then we would never be able to hold elections. Thankfully, we have a system of checks and balances, that limits the amount of damage anyone with bad intentions can do.

As for being anti-poor, what right-thinking person would ever want to describe themselves as pro-poor? Being poor is, generally speaking, not a good thing. So, thanks to a growing economy over the past 20 years, there are fewer poor people (when accounting for population growth, and removing illegals from the mix) in 2004 than in 1980. This is to be lauded, not criticized.
____________________________

“Similarly, Carol Mosely Braun could be this or that, but the fact is that the Democratic Party consistently generates more politicians from disempowered communities who actually stand up for the interests of their community and other disempowered communities than the Republican Party does. That's why JC Watts, Alan Keyes, Condoleeza Rice, and Bobby Jindal don't mean shit. They're "minorities" all right--they're just not decent.”

Again, I do not profess to have some skill in looking into a person’s heart and seeing if they are decent. Aside from the clownish Keyes, what exactly is indecent about Watts, Rice, and Jindal? That they do not know their place? I guess running against the grain is a luxury reserved for good ole’ white folks.
___________________________________

“Where I will agree with you is that if people who feel disempowered on the basis of their membership in certain social groups (poor people, including WHITE people, Black people, women, queers, immigrants, workers, others) feel taken advantage of by a particular political party (as I do by the Democrats), they should consider bolting. Where i disagree is that this means they should support the Republicans; other alternatives are to build another party to replace the Democrats; to take over the Democratic party; or to work outside the electoral sphere and try to hold the Democrats as accountable as possible.”

Good luck with that.
__________________________

“It's a little silly to say that the way to move forward is to proudly vote for the people who led the drive for 40 years to fuck over you, your family, and friends, for the interests of community.”

Pride is not a factor. Both parties are selling a good – if one fails to deliver, you take your business elsewhere.

There was once a time that the left in America actually trusted the public.

The wisdom of the crowd applies when people's individual money is at stake. When it comes to political issues that few people track between jobs and raising families, it's hardly grandstanding to note that people act like idiots. The simplest example is fiscal conservatives' greatest frustration, that people behave like socialists (wanting lots of gov't services without paying for them).

They notion that the public is easily hood-winked by code words is one of their biggest canards.

So all those manuals on framing sent out by groups like the Heritage Foundation are b.s., and Dubya's insistence on not calling it 'privatization' is merely 'arguing about the wording of the issues.'

The notion that how you say something doesn't matter will come as a surprise to the entire marketing profession and to anyone with a love life.

See, your position was just reframed.

longer sentences are being handed down than 20 years ago, but crime is also down compared to 20 years ago. The two are related.

Hardly, the economy is the prime factor. Most criminals, those who aren't of the coolly analytical heist caper variety, don't do hardminded cost-benefit analyses. The difference between a 20- and 30-year prison term is academic to young men who won't even quit smoking, a guaranteed killer.

Thankfully, we have a system of checks and balances, that limits the amount of damage anyone with bad intentions can do.

Which the current GOP party leadership has been busy dismantling (e.g. trying to let the indicted stay party leader, weakening the filibuster ability...) The current leaders are hardly system designers, they're raw muscle flexers.

Good luck with that.

Actually, some kind of proportional voting is sorely needed. Otherwise you get stuck with idiotic binary choices between blowhards and weasels or social/fiscal liberals and social/fiscal conservatives (a true party of strength would support financial muscle and social tolerance).

Pride is not a factor.

Self-respect is.

Robert C. Byrd, Senator (D) was a one time Kleagle of the Klu Klux Klan (I would link the Wikipedia website, but apparently the *neutrality* of that article is disputed (it's what is says at the top). Anyway, this is well established by many sources and admitted to by the senator (and the good senator has apologized for his youthful "indescretions.")

Does this mean the entire Democratic party is racist? No.

See how easy it is to cherry pick one person out of a party and make something of it? Whatever. I'm still glad I voted for Bush, I'll vote for whomever I dam* well please in the future, regardless of party and I'll look at all comers equally: whether you are an avowed secularist, evangelical Christian, devout Muslim, or devout Hindu (or any combination of the preceding).

Tell me how you will govern and I'll judge for myself.

“The wisdom of the crowd applies when people's individual money is at stake. When it comes to political issues that few people track between jobs and raising families, it's hardly grandstanding to note that people act like idiots. The simplest example is fiscal conservatives' greatest frustration, that people behave like socialists (wanting lots of gov't services without paying for them).”

Even if people do behave like idiots, the best thing to do is having them operate in an area where they are balanced out by idiots of a different variety.

_________________________---
“So all those manuals on framing sent out by groups like the Heritage Foundation are b.s., and Dubya's insistence on not calling it 'privatization' is merely 'arguing about the wording of the issues.' See, your position was just reframed. “

But was it effective? No amount of clever marketing will compensate for a bad product. Exhibit A – New Coke. If people do not believe Bush’s Social Security program will work, Madison Avenue will not be able to help him.
___________________________

“Hardly, the economy is the prime factor. Most criminals, those who aren't of the coolly analytical heist caper variety, don't do hardminded cost-benefit analyses. The difference between a 20 year and 30 year prison term is academic to young men, who won't even quit smoking, a guaranteed killer.”

Sorry – the old poverty causes crime slogan is bunk. During the Great Depression, the U.S. had a 25% unemployment rate, and that lasted for over a decade. Yet, there was no notable crime rampage. During the prosperous prohibition era, you had plenty of crime. And the length of a sentence has nothing to do with deterring crime, but has plenty to do with punishing it. A criminal may not care about the difference between serving 20 or 30 years, but his victim will much prefer the 30 year sentence. Again, my sympathy lies with the victim.

_________________

“the current GOP party leadership has been busy dismantling (e.g. trying to let the indicted stay party leader, weaking the filibuster ability...) The current leaders are hardly system designers, they're raw muscle flexers. Actually, some kind of proportional voting is sorely needed. Otherwise you get stuck with idiotic binary choices between blowhards and weasels or social/fiscal liberals and social/fiscal conservatives (a true party of strength would support financial muscle and social tolerance).”

I’d prefer removing the ability to draw legislative districts from elected office-holders – talk about a conflict of interest.

See how easy it is to cherry pick one person out of a party and make something of it?

The smear against McCain was done by the sitting president's campaign team.

More of that team's handiwork:

Some of Kennedy's campaign commercials touted his volunteer work, including one that showed him holding hands with children. "We were trying to counter the positives from that ad," a former Rove staffer told me, explaining that some within the See camp initiated a whisper campaign that Kennedy was a pedophile. "It was our standard practice to use the University of Alabama Law School to disseminate whisper-campaign information," the staffer went on....

The 2000 primary campaign, for example, featured a widely disseminated rumor that John McCain, tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, had betrayed his country under interrogation and been rendered mentally unfit for office. More often a Rove campaign questions an opponent's sexual orientation. Bush's 1994 race against Ann Richards featured a rumor that she was a lesbian...

But was it effective? No amount of clever marketing will compensate for a bad product.

You be the judge on whether framing works:

"For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on," Wolfowitz was quoted as saying.

That's a $300 billion win, and rising.

I’d prefer removing the ability to draw legislative districts from elected office-holders – talk about a conflict of interest.

Amen! It's the key issue in the sclerification of Congress.

the old poverty causes crime slogan is bunk... the length of a sentence has nothing to do with deterring crime, but has plenty to do with punishing it...

I've got plenty of sympathy for crime victims, but that doesn't prevent crime. NYC's Compstat works, waiting out the young male demographic bulge works, putting them to work works. Long sentences did not work. Poverty doesn't uniquely cause crime, it's an interaction between genes, environment and what's easily available, like everything else; but employment absolutely reduces crime-- 'idle hands.'

Sorry Manish. Given the sorts of things that are thrown around in a campaign I need better proof than one staffer saying the word came from high on up. But we've already had this argument before on the previous thread and I doubt either one of us is going to change his (or her) mind.

"The independent campaign of Ralph Nader and Peter Miguel Camejo showed that Senator Kerry and Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe are directly responsible for the anti-democratic dirty tricks attempting to keep Nader/Camejo off the ballot."

http://www.votenader.org/media_press/index.php?cid=211

(Don't worry, there's lots of stuff about Republican perfidy, too......)

Have a good weekend guys :) (Listen to auntie and don't party too hard - party too hard? Oh, that dates me completely, doesn't it?)

I need better proof than one staffer

Anna said she heard of the McCain smear from insiders when she was working on a Republican primary campaign. As I said, most times the only proof you'll get of a dirty tricks team is when the campaign refuses to condemn when directly asked to. That's the nature of any competent campaign hit team. Slander and libel win campaigns, but it rarely rises to the level of a criminal offense where you can use police and the subpoena power to prove a case:

According to someone who worked for him, Rove, dissatisfied with the campaign's progress, had flyers printed up—absent any trace of who was behind them—viciously attacking See and his family. "We were trying to craft a message to reach some of the blue-collar, lower-middle-class people," the staffer says. "You'd roll it up, put a rubber band around it, and paperboy it at houses late at night. I was told, 'Do not hand it to anybody, do not tell anybody who you're with, and if you can, borrow a car that doesn't have your tags.' So I borrowed a buddy's car [and drove] down the middle of the street 
 I had Hefty bags stuffed full of these rolled-up pamphlets, and I'd cruise the designated neighborhoods, throwing these things out with both hands and literally driving with my knees."

It's hilarious, btw, that people vote for Dubya precisely because they think he'll be a mean, dirty bastard against terrorists (of the A Few Good Men variety), but then suspend disbelief when that plays out in the campaign. It's like being blind to the faults of your kids.

Yep, the Nader stuff is totally anti-democratic (little d). Bad shit. That's why we need proportional voting. You do have to wonder, though, what Nader is doing taking funding from right-wingers.

Well, since it's coming from Anna, who seems fair and reasonable, and not like a complete and utter partisan for her side, I do find this troubling. Had I voted in the primaries, I might have taken this into account.

And yes, that is exactly why I voted for Dubya: cause I thought he would torture prisoners. Thank you for assuming the very worst of me as a person. Awfully sporting of you.

We are all more likely to be blind to the faults of 'our' side, Manish. All of us.

"The e-mails popped up this past spring and have been have been circulating at an increasingly furious pace. Their unsettling message: The Bush administration, bogged down in Iraq, has made a secret pact with a lame duck senator and a liberal congressman to resume the military draft.....Democractic Presidential nominee John Kerry last week feuled the concern, perhaps in a bid to improve his standing with women, who may be particularly sensitive to the potential costs of the war and that the draft might return in a second Bush term. 'If George Bush were to be re-elected, given the way he has gone about this war and given his avoidance of responsibility in North Korea and Iran and other places, is it possible? I can't tell you' "

http://www.tn9thdemocrat.com/News?DRAFT/draft.html

I listened to that snippet of John Kerry's speech , where I can't remember. But I remember it shocked me at the time. Charles Rangel (D) proposed that legislation which quickly died. The administration never said it supported a draft. Is this type of innuendo ok?

I'm not excusing what might have happened in the McCain campaign: two wrongs don't make a right. But it seems like we don't have angels and saints as our choices in government and proportional representation won't make it more so.

Apologies if I seemed upset with the last post. I have always admired and respected the different points of view represented on Sepia Mutiny and have never felt that supporters of either Kerry or Bush were stupid. I supposed they were people of good faith who disagreed on key issues.

In closing, a comment on something Saurav said:

"I'd hold [Dean] to a stronger standard on race if I felt it was not part of a pileon to undermine someone unfairly."

And thus supports the point stated earlier (e.g. paraphrased: "Democrats need to deal with their flexible approach to standards"). Why lower the bar (or "standard") just because Republicans are throwing low-blows? If a spade's a spade then call it a spade.

No pun intended.

And yes, that is exactly why I voted for Dubya: cause I thought he would torture prisoners.

No, no, you misunderstand. I'm a hawk on terrorism. We need to be capturing bin Laden and twisting the arms of Saudi and Pakistan. Dubya needs to be the ODB on terror. But not to the point of locking people up at will, sans trial, and not on the campaign trail.

The administration never said it supported a draft. Is this type of innuendo ok?

First, it's an absolutely legitimate policy issue given that the army is stretched thin. Second, are you seriously saying discussing the draft and calling a candidate a pedophile are morally equivalent?!

I supposed they were people of good faith who disagreed on key issues...

I've never doubted your intelligence and good faith, dear MD.

When I was in College, I had the misfortune of attending an event which was basically a gathering of conservative journalists in colleges from all over the country. Reading Dean's comments reminded me of that meeting where almost all the participants were whites. Look at the percentage of minority delegates in the respective parties Presidential nominations. I also think its undeniable that even though all Republicans are not racist, the people who vote for the Republican Party have a higher chance of being a racist, than if you vote for the Democratic Party.

AL Mujahid:

Based upon your assumption, the logical conclusion would be only whites are racist. In the past, this was probably true. However, today racism can permeate from different groups as well. Statistics/hard facts on something like this are hard to come by, therefore I personally refuse to make such assumptions.

They notion that the public is easily hood-winked by code words is one of their biggest canards.

Dubya said:

Preparing to meet Christian leaders in September 1998, Mr. Bush told Mr. Wead: "As you said, there are some code words. There are some proper ways to say things, and some improper ways." He added, "I am going to say that I've accepted Christ into my life..."

Straight from the horse's, err, mouth. Your canard is a canard, sir!

This is exasperating. As was aptly pointed out by someone who supports someone or another, you can cherrypick from either side and say that they're this or that. The point is to look at the sum of the actions done by either side and then seek to address the actions appropriately based on your value system.

We can argue all day about whether Robert Byrd was a segregationist (which he was) or Trent Lott is a racist (which he is) but the point is that we're talking about institutions driven by social forces with agendas. Roughly speaking, the social forces increasingly driving the Republicans for the past thirty-forty years have been: the Christian fundamentalists, the big business elite. Also included are disgruntled White working class men reacting against the changes of the 60s (i.e. reagan democrats). This has led to an agenda that pushes policies to benefit those consitutencies. A partial list: "faith based intitiaves"; huge and repeated tax cuts for the rich; the end of welfare; the end of social security; the end of, in short the New Deal; the end of affirmative action; unfair sentencing; the Death penalty; enormous debts brought on primarily by defense spending in order to "starve the federal government" into cutting social programs; opposition to further social programs that would benefit primarily the working class--like health care, ending legalized abortions; securing oil sources; cherry picking foreign workers while cracking down on lower-wage workers, etc. Racism is very much a part and parcel of this (like sexism, classism, and all those other fun things). It's not about 1 campaign in 1972 and a trent lott quote--it's about the sum of their policies and strategies (and the "southern strategy" continues today in different forms--what did you think the gay marriage amendment is about?).

If you choose to ignore all that, that's your prerogative, but in my opinion, you're choosing to be politically illiterate. I would love to be corrected and I expose myself to thoughtful points of view whenever possible, from Richard Clarke on national security to Amartya Sen and Paul Krugman on economics. If you're a Republican supporter, I would love to hear a systematic analysis that shows that I'm wrong about the above.

I haven't voted for a Democrat in the last two presidential elections (I voted for Nader in New York in 2000 and I voted for Camejo in New York in 2004). That's because I think they don't effective represent the interests of the disempowered either--because, nationally, they've chosen to respond to the Republicans by trying to coopt their issues--they're conservative by the standards of when I was growing up (the 80s), and that includes not doing enough on race, but more importantly to me on poverty and class and other issues that matter to me (welfare reform, the Defense of Marriage Act, etc). It was strategically the best way to use my vote to push the Democrats towards my values. I'm reevaluating constantly, which I think everyone who actually cares about politics should.

-s

They notion that the public is easily hood-winked by code words is one of their biggest canards.
Dubya said:
Preparing to meet Christian leaders in September 1998, Mr. Bush told Mr. Wead: "As you said, there are some code words. There are some proper ways to say things, and some improper ways." He added, "I am going to say that I've accepted Christ into my life..."
Straight from the horse's, err, mouth. Your canard is a canard, sir!
______________

Actually, you don’t disprove my statement. I focused on the public’s reaction to code-words, not the willingness of politicians to use them. Secondly, for Bush to mention the word Christ in front of a group of evangelical Christians is not code – it’s their focus. Just as I would expect him to say the word “guns” in front of the NRA, or Kerry to say “diversity” in front of Rainbow PUSH.

This is exasperating. As was aptly pointed out by someone who supports someone or another, you can cherrypick from either side and say that they're this or that. The point is to look at the sum of the actions done by either side and then seek to address the actions appropriately based on your value system.

We can argue all day about whether Robert Byrd was a segregationist (which he was) or Trent Lott is a racist (which he is) but the point is that we're talking about institutions driven by social forces with agendas. Roughly speaking, the social forces increasingly driving the Republicans for the past thirty-forty years have been: the Christian fundamentalists, the big business elite. Also included are disgruntled White working class men reacting against the changes of the 60s (i.e. reagan democrats). This has led to an agenda that pushes policies to benefit those consitutencies. A partial list: "faith based intitiaves"; huge and repeated tax cuts for the rich; the end of welfare; the end of social security; the end of, in short the New Deal; the end of affirmative action; unfair sentencing; the Death penalty; enormous debts brought on primarily by defense spending in order to "starve the federal government" into cutting social programs; opposition to further social programs that would benefit primarily the working class--like health care, ending legalized abortions; securing oil sources; cherry picking foreign workers while cracking down on lower-wage workers, etc. Racism is very much a part and parcel of this (like sexism, classism, and all those other fun things). It's not about 1 campaign in 1972 and a trent lott quote--it's about the sum of their policies and strategies (and the "southern strategy" continues today in different forms--what did you think the gay marriage amendment is about?).
____________________

“ending legalized abortions” – with 1,370,000 abortions performed annually in the U.S., where’s the threat? [Thanks to Shanti at Dancing with Dogs (www.madhoo.com)] With 48 million abortions from 1973-1996, is the problem that they are too few? Why is aborting girl fetuses in India to be condemned, but American Amy Richards can abort 2 fetuses when she is expecting triplets, cause having triplets would mean moving out of the city to the suburbs and having to shop at Costco (“When One is Enough, New York Times, July 18, 2004). Personally, I am pro-choice, but am embarrassed by the hysteria and self-absorption of the “Abortion – anytime and anywhere” crowd.

http://womensissues.about.com/cs/abortionstats/a/aaabortionstats_2.htm

“Racism is very much a part and parcel of this” – how many lynchings were there in the South went it voted solidly Democrat? And how many since the South went Republican. The last lynching, James Byrd, in Dubya’s Texas – the two men were sentenced to death. How many lynch mobs were brought to justice while the Dems had full control of the South?

Sexism – with women now accounting for 50% of law school students, near that in med school, with boys dropping out at rates far exceeding girls, sexism is not a problem. When sexual harassment law, which in all honesty applies only to one segment of the population, allows for an accuser to pore over ever interaction a man had with woman from the age of 18 onwards – it doesn’t stop to consider that maybe the way a guy deals with women at 40 is going to be different from the way he treated them at 20. For all the talk of how the Right was out to “get” Clinton – consider the Paula Jones was using the tools sexual harassment law permitted her. So all of his foibles, which should have stayed private, were dragged out into public. If they could do it to Clinton, what chance does an Average Joe have?

It’s odd - for a guy who is so adamant about returning power to the people, you seem awfully anxious to disregard large groups of people who do not share your views. I don’t much care for the Christian right and their selective promotion of the Bible, but I am in no position to state that they cannot use their faith as a guideline to lead their lives. For all the hue and cry about the power of the right, how many on this board have actually had their freedom infringed by the Jesus-freaks? Did anyone wake up one morning and find their religion outlawed? Anyone forced to pray to Jesus in school? I feel more the encroachment from the state, through a sizeable tax bite in my paycheck, than someone silently thinking I am going to hell for worshipping a false god. If you believe that having “In God We Trust” on our currency is an abhorrent mingling of church and state, just use your Visa.

For all the criticisms of business, how do you propose to improve the lot of the poor you profess to care about? Trying to reduce poverty without generating wealth is a lose-lose proposition. India tried that for 40 years, and all it did was chase out the most talented people, oppress the weakest segments of society, and promote the interests of a bureaucracy that is peerless in its greed.

I do not know how old you are Saurav, but I do remember gas lines and double-digit inflation of the late 1970s. Air travel was expensive and infrequent - trips to India were out of the question. Calling India – well, someone better be dying before you made that call at those rates. Plus, with interest rates exceeding inflation, my dad’s hopes of buying a home were put on hold for awhile. I can assure you that as tough as those times were on a young immigrant family aspiring towards the middle class, they were much harder on the poorer families that had worse prospects than us.

Now, being concerned about such things as home-ownership, affordable air-travel, and cheap phone calls may strike you as hopelessly bourgeois – but for the majority of voters, such things are important. They are also important to the millions of foreigners who line up American embassies around the world, or risk swimming across the Rio Grande.
_________________

If you choose to ignore all that, that's your prerogative, but in my opinion, you're choosing to be politically illiterate. I would love to be corrected and I expose myself to thoughtful points of view whenever possible, from Richard Clarke on national security to Amartya Sen and Paul Krugman on economics. If you're a Republican supporter, I would love to hear a systematic analysis that shows that I'm wrong about the above.

This is probably the weakest portion of your argument. Richard Clarke was a nobody, and remains so. Angered that Rice passed him over to head the new Department of Homeland Security, he ran off and penned a tell-nothing new screed. In his own testimony to the 9/11 Commission, he said that if either the Clinton or Bush administrations followed every last bit of advice he gave it would not have prevented 9/11. This marks him as the worst bureaucratic stereotype – to engage in unproductive activity, simply for the sake of doing something.

Most of Sen’s economic work has focused on alleviating poverty in the Third World. Not surprisingly, the biggest cause of much of their poverty is corrupt, inefficient government involvement. He does recommend that the West remove trade barrier to agricultural goods and other industries in which developing nation have a comparative advantage, but then, that may harm the “working-class” groups you urge us to focus on. And while I respect Sen for his academic achievements, he would be more credible if he left the cushy world of academia, and tried to put his policies into practice, from helping a government reform its policies to even advising a worthy NGO.

As for Krugman’s skills as an economist, he had this to say about his abilities on Tim Russert’s CNBC show back in August 2004, “Compare me 
 compare me, uh, with anyone else, and I think you’ll see that my forecasting record is not great.”
http://www.jimgilliam.com/2004/08/krugman_vs_oreilly_full_transcript.php
Would you trust a doctor who said his record was not that great? How about the deli guy making your sandwich?
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I haven't voted for a Democrat in the last two presidential elections (I voted for Nader in New York in 2000 and I voted for Camejo in New York in 2004). That's because I think they don't effective represent the interests of the disempowered either--because, nationally, they've chosen to respond to the Republicans by trying to coopt their issues--they're conservative by the standards of when I was growing up (the 80s), and that includes not doing enough on race, but more importantly to me on poverty and class and other issues that matter to me (welfare reform, the Defense of Marriage Act, etc). It was strategically the best way to use my vote to push the Democrats towards my values. I'm reevaluating constantly, which I think everyone who actually cares about politics should.

You are allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Progress in democracies is piecemeal. If you choose to remain intransigent, and wait for everyone else to change their minds, you may make yourself feel good, but you will have not accomplished much. In which case, you are letting down the very groups you claim to care about.

While I appreciate your willingness to get Clintonian in parsing... ;)

for Bush to mention the word Christ in front of a group of evangelical Christians is not code – it’s their focus.

You're failing to decode. 'I've accepted Christ into my life' is in fact a coded way of saying you're a born-again Christian. The group he was addressing was mainstream Christians, not evangelicals, as far as I can tell. He was appealing to their orthodox elements.

I focused on the public’s reaction to code-words, not the willingness of politicians to use them.

Denying framing won't get you anywhere. There's a world of difference between the 'Surveillance Act' and the 'PATRIOT Act,' 'I'm canceling this treaty' and 'I'm canceling this threat to our national security.' Especially when only the headline will be read by a public pressed for time.

They've focus-grouped this to death in both politics and marketing, and you'll find it's true in both love and work.

Manish, The USA PATRIOT act example you gave is a little different from the kind of coding you're talking about in the "I have accepted Christ blah blah blah". The beauty (from a communications standpoint) of the Bush quote you gave is that the hardcore evangelist gets a totally different message than your middle-of-the-road voter while Bush gets to argue that he's being consistent because he's literally saying one line.

the hardcore evangelist gets a totally different message than your middle-of-the-road voter
Yes. You WOULD make it a point to say "I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Saviour" - and JUST LIKE THAT - to your evangelical bloc. If you're talking to a bunch of Episcopalians, you may not phrase it quite that way, and if you're talking to Jews/Muslims/Hindus/etc. you definitely wont play up the Jesus angle at all.

The beauty (from a communications standpoint) of the Bush quote you gave is that the hardcore evangelist gets a totally different message than your middle-of-the-road voter...

He's done this several times with hardcore Christians vs. less religious Christians and non-Christians: his speechwriters quite often weave in phrases which sound innocuous but are directly lifted from passages in the Bible which are meaningful only to evangelicals.

He's free to quote from wherever he wishes, of course, but not attributing it feels sneaky and exclusionary. How that's different from poets and novelists who use obscure allusions: writers don't have to represent all of America, and artistic comprehension is fungible: if you get just 80% of the fictional work, it's probably still all good; whereas the chief of a nation may be poetic but above all must be both representative and clear.

If you expect a politician to be "both representative and clear", I've got some bad news for you :)

What I expect is for them to not continue to degrade and/or completely demolish the baseline standard, which is what Rove, et. al. seem to base their approach on. For instance, this quote from a Ron Suskind article:

"In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''"

Hey look! Here's a dead horse. Let's beat it.

wow...you're a jerk.

An interesting history of the Republican Party. Of course, you will have to back a bit further than 1972 to truly appreciate the Republcian constribution to civil rights:

"Grand Old Party"
http://nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock200502180737.asp

Among the choice bits:

May 22, 1856: Two years after the Grand Old party's birth, U.S. Senator Charles Sumner (R., Mass.) rose to decry pro-slavery Democrats. Congressman Preston Brooks (D., S.C.) responded by grabbing a stick and beating Sumner unconscious in the Senate chamber. Disabled, Sumner could not resume his duties for three years.

July 30, 1866: New Orleans's Democratic government ordered police to raid an integrated GOP meeting, killing 40 people and injuring 150.

September 28, 1868: Democrats in Opelousas, Louisiana killed nearly 300 blacks who tried to foil an assault on a Republican newspaper editor.

February 28, 1871: The GOP Congress passed the Enforcement Act, giving black voters federal protection.

February 8, 1894: Democratic President Grover Cleveland and a Democratic Congress repealed the GOP's Enforcement Act, denying black voters federal protection.