"Oceans of White Hands"

"OCEANS OF WHITE HANDS"

the how-do express rolls on. he's up 38%-17% in new hampshire over kerry. he's in the middle of his "sleepless" tour and, according to the new york times is drawing "staggering, "protest-size" crowds. he's raised $10.3 million, more than any democrat EVER except president clinton in '95.

dr. do-little is running, literally, all over the country. he's on the cover of time, newsweek and twice this week on the front page of the new york times. boob herbert has written an op-ed column on him and even joe klein, who has his clear-headed moments, is impressed. dean's democratic opponents seem stunned, deer-in-the-headlights paralyzed. and the green mountain green is emboldened by new polls showing support for bush DOWN, support for his handling of the iraqi war--how-do's signature issue-- DOWN.

when how-do gets the nomination he will be the most unqualified major party nominee in history. he is a one-term, former governor, with no foreign policy experience, even extra-governmentally, has never served in the congress or senate or in anyone's cabinet and his day job is being a doctor.

the state he was, for one term, governor of is one of the smallest (three electoral votes) and least representative in the country. it is as homogenous (92% white) as utah, rural (largest "city" burlington: 40,000), and has the only socialist member of congress.

for the republicans this is a god-send. i heard the chariman of the republican national committee being asked what he thought of bush running against dean. he actually had to swallow a chuckle and then got his game face on and in practiced seriousness said, "i think the democrats should nominate dean. i think they need to get back to their roots."

i have mixed feelings. to the right of bush on foreign policy, i wish we had a democrat like pat moynihan or scoop jackson or jfk who had the credentials and gravitas to debate HOW aggressive we should be--not whether we should be aggressive or not. hell, even bill clinton ran to the right of bush-1 on china policy.

but on the other hand my devilish humorous side that likes to see fools made fools of wants this guy to win the nomination SO bad. just for the fun of watching the train-wreck and seeing the body parts of the birkenstock men and ladies in sensible shoes, lying about. i admit i've watched an episode or two of real tv.

and maybe some good will come of it. i'm hopeful that after the general election debacle to come, one in a string stretching from mcgovern, to carter, to mondale, to dukakis and now dean, i'm hopeful that some kind of party realignment occurs. i don't think it will actually, historically that has taken a major national trauma like a depression, not just nominating some dippety-do, but maybe something along the lines of the creation of the dlc can occur, which came into being after "mike" dukakis' razor-thin 45-5 loss in '88. it's time to dismantle the democrats "big tent." there are too many tweety birds flying around inside and they're killing the party.

the new york times, aug. 27:

"the feisty crowds were filled with birkenstock liberals..."

"the folks buying 'the doctor is in' buttons were mostly aging flower children and the tongue-studded next generation."

"there were few union members, african-americans or immigrants [at the dean rallies]..."

"holding oceans of blue dean placards at every stop were nearly all white hands, a homogeneity the campaign tried to counter with a rainbow of supporters on stage, which only drew more attention to the lack of diversity in the audience."

that's the problem of the democrats elitism in a nutshell. they don't share the values of african-americans or union members or immigrants, the values of hard work, love of country, faith and material prosperity. the tongue-studded students don't work, the aging flower children are still stoned and "work" as librarians or writers or professors, the birkenstock liberals fled the "material culture" for back-to-the-earth places like vermont, 92% white. they fled the diversity of real america for all-white vermont just as they despise and label as racist the middle class for having fled the cities for the suburbs.

elitism is exclusion. there are no african-americans at dean rallies because these "liberals" don't champion diversity, they don't want to live with african-americans, they want the "simpler" life, the all-white life of vermont. the people who support howard dean are elitists and in this sense they are racists. they are high-i.q., cultural, intellectual, or intellectual wannabes, who reject and ridicule the middle class and its values. their coin-of-the realm is being "bright," one of the least relevant characteristics for leadership. "bush is so dumb! dean is SO smart." listen to them, it won't take five minutes before they say something like that. "mike" dukakis' campaign slogan when he ran for governor was "michael dukakis SHOULD be governor." has there ever been a more elitist campaign slogan in modern history? he's ENTITLED to be governor see, because he's SO "bright" and went to harvard and is an intellectual like us!

"[dean's] not running a campaign, he's running a movement," the new york times quotes a person as saying. "but it is unclear what the movement is for."

his "movement" is about anger, frustration and hatred. his supporters are angry because they are so bright but have accomplished so little in their lives. they are frustrated at seeing themselves ignored by more sensible people. "pay attention to me! i'm smart!" and they hate, they hate the middle class, they hate those who work hard and achieve, they hate the material rewards of that hard work, and they hate america for letting it all happen. it's not about bush, it's not about iraq. it's about them. it has always been about them.

last march, as the iraqi war began, my son's 8th grade class went on a trip to spain. at a concert in madrid the tufts university choral conductor shocked the audience by turning to them before the start of the concert and saying "today, i'm ashamed to be an american."

"for the second time in my life, i'm ashamed of my nationality," said karin overbeck at a dean rally. " i was born in germany and i was ashamed; now i'm ashamed to be an american."

so run howard run. "take back america," take your delusions and your delusional supporters back to 92% white vermont and leave your membership in the democratic party behind. better yet, leave the country you despise and are, as karin is, ashamed of. go somewhere else where you won't be "ashamed."


-benjamin harris.

just heard on npr that the expected cost of reconstruction in iraq is now at $16 billion "and will likely be much higher."

what the f*** is this? we did not do 16 bill worth of damage to iraq. we should repair what we damaged, give them a copy of the federalist papers and be done with it. $16 billion? what, are we putting gold leaf on all the mosques?

jfk told a joke about going to his father late in the 1960 campaign for more money and the old man replying, "i'll pay for a victory but i'll be damned if i'm going to pay for a landslide."

no landslides here, no shining cities on a hill.

OFTEN WRONG, ALWAYS CERTAIN

howard dean, or whomever, will lead bush in the polls after the democratic convention.

bush will lead after the polls close on second tuesday.

OFTEN WRONG, ALWAYS CERTAIN

ohio state will NOT repeat as national champions of college tackle football.

yeah, they have 17 starters back, blah, blah, blah. they won something like 5 games last year by 7 points or less. they won't be that lucky this year. they'll lose and they'll lose early.

Adieu Adu?

ADIEU Adu?

article yesterday in nyt on freddy adu, the lebron james of american soccer, no, no the embryonic michael jordan of american soccer. even scouts from european teams like juventus and manchester united pronounce him a possible a once-in-a-generation talent.

made me recall a conversation i had with a soccer fan friend of mine a few weeks ago. i said what i said above, that mls should sell the farm to keep this kid home. my friend said, "i hope he goes to europe so he can develop.

the sentiment was so foreign to me that i paused, not knowing quite what to say, then just essentially repeated myself. the THOUGHT that freddy adu would wind up with manchester united or someone had crossed my mind, as it has that of every soccer fan in america, but the SENTIMENT that an american soccer fan wuld WANT freddy to go to europe had not.

sometimes exposure to an opposite point of view can be mind-expanding. there's no doubt that adu would see better competition in the epl or serie a or the bundesliga than in mls, and because of that he would probably devlop more. i go on that assumption anyway.

the issue for my friend was the individual's interest, what's best for freddy. my interest was the opposite, or at least different, what's best for american soccer. soccer has always clung to life on the american sports scene. mls has always augmented its meager coffers by loaning or selling tis best players abroad--joe-max moore, brian mcbride, casey keller, etc. this deligitimizes mls and is something every league official and every american soccer fan recognizes, as does fifa, which looks askance at mls anyway.

if mls got freddy adu, and if that increased league revenues to the point where mls could stand of its own without loaning/selling its best players, soccer might gain a football in the u.s.

those are a lot of "ifs" and "maybes," too many for my friend, but not for me. i want american soccer to grow. i want to see the adus and zindanes and beckhams on AMERICAN fields, not have to go to some soccer bar to see them. maybe that's selfish. maybe even jingoistic. "boycott french wines!," "keep freddy adu home!"

these opposing values are not exclusive of course. i think my friend wants mls to succeed, i certainly hope adu develops to his potential, but the "equities" of this case, the point on the continuum where this case lies between "best for freddy" and "best for american soccer" are so skewed toward the latter that my friend's position seems as incomprehensible to me now as it did then.

america has got some great futbol players, our world team is ranked 10th or 11th depending on the week (we flip flop with england, by the way). conceedingly mls is not anywhere near as strong as the epl but it is major league, given the "first division" imprimatur by fifa. it's not like i'm wanting adu to stay home and play in the a-league for the pittsburgh riverhounds. freddy would develop just fine in mls.

and on the other side you have the enormous potential benefit to american soccer vs the drop-on-the-ocean effect he would have in europe. freddy adu would do nothing for man-u or real madrid compared to what he would do for mls. sometimes exposure to an oppositie point of view can be mind-expanding. sometimes not.

alas, my friend will probably get his wish. the times article also reported that adu is being pursued eagerly by...manchester united.

-benjamin harris

Things that You'll Like and that Are Good for You Too

Things that You'll Like and that Are Good for You Too

-Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius. Roman emperor, one of the founders (along with a slave) of stoicism, Aurelius had absolute power over the then known world. He exercised that power justly, with reflection before and after, and with restraint. There's a saying that the best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship, it being thought impossible. Marcus Aurelius was a benevolent dictator and the Meditations are his philosophical diary. He was the greatest human being who ever lived. This is Public Occurrences.

there was an op-ed piece in the times recently that cautioned against using the internet as a model for governmental regulation of the media because dominance by the few there is even more pronounced than in the convential media. something like the top three websites have as many hits as the next fifteen combined while the top three conventional media conglomerates are as big as the next ten.

the article noted that part of the reason for this on the internet is that search engines like google list websites according to popularity within their category, which of course, just reinforces their prominence.

is this a valid metaphorical use of the heisenberg uncertainty principle. the original applies to the bizarre contingency of quantum material. here a thing is a piece of matter, here an energy wave and the principle says that the act of observing affects the state we're seeing.

i once read that principle was analgous to an attempt to take the temperature of a glass of water by sticking a thermometer in it. the act of doing that changes the temperature of the water at some level far to the right of the decimal point, but still changes it so that ontologically we can never really know the "real" temperature of the water.

obviously the usage as applied to google is by no means precise but itsn't it true, isn't it the point of that op-ed piece that google's act of measuring affects the measurement?

-benjamin harris

certainly i am not the only one who thought it odd, uh curious, off-putting, dare i say, unpatriotic that our de facto national newspaper, the new york times used it's lead editorial to give political advice to tony blair, to mend fences with his british constituents he should decouple england from american and emphasize where the two countries disagree. does the "gray lady" now aspire to be the "gray Lady?"

don't suppose this is making the rounds in republican salons as another example of liberal "treason," do you?

throughout colonial history there were those in leadership, jefferson and franklin prominently, who viewed religion negatively. not just anglicanism or catholocism but the claim of any religion to a position of moral or temporal power. religion was associated with oppression obviously, but also with illogical mysticism that was counter to the tenets of the enlightenment.

however private they might keep their views, the religious-based arguments against paine that man was inherently "bad" and therefore the masses were unfit to govern was viewed dismissively. they were not egalitarians but they were empiricists and they saw that the common man was doing exceptionally well by contemporary standards in america. the idea that the aristocracy MUST consume and not work, and the common man MUST work and not consume,and that this was the natural and only way that society could be ordered flew in the face of their experiences in america. as did the idea of a materially "disinterested" aristocracy, much less the need for one. increasingly, and by the time of the constitutional convention, predominantly, it was interests, many of them, that seemed in need of balancing, not the three anachronistic post-medieval estates.

paine's "common sense" did not carry the day but it did survive to live another day that was soon coming. in the meantime a constitution was drafted and ratified and the meager nod to the need of an aristocracy was an appointive upper legislative chamber. society was not divided three ways, but power was, to make sure that power of the new, emerging and clamoring interests of different groups in society did not capture the whole of government.

despite all of this history however modern republicanism, elitism, aristocracy was not dead. the federalist party led by alexander hamilton worked for the establishment of an american aristocracy all over again in post-independence america. they made the same old arguments and this time they were opposed by jefferson and the republicans (the ancestor of today's democratic party).

A LETTER FROM A FARMER IN PENNSYLVANIA, CONTINUED


contemporary politics seems so stale to me. geo-politically the world changed after 1989 and then again after 9/11. domestic politics has changed too. the old divisions between the parties over civil rights, taxes, the size of government and crime don't exist anymore.

the civil rights struggle is over. that is not a contradiction with my earlier suggestion that we should hammer the gop on it forensically but that was a tactical point over a matter of legitimacy. no republican supports repeal of civil rights legislation so SUBSTANTIVELY, if not tactically, the issue is dead.

bill clinton ended, for now at least, the split over taxes. taxes were THE issue in the '80's: prop 13, "tax and spend" and so on. clinton cut taxes, giving the republicans apoplexy because it took away their issue. my sense is bush's recent tax cut largely fizzled with voters, not that they don't want more money in their pockets, but as a rallying cry. i think voters thought it was sort of stale old-school.

clinton also innoculated the democrats from the charge of being the party of big government. he "ended welfare as we know it" and bush, the republican, has created a new cabinet department, drastically increased military spending and driven up the deficit.

and finally, the decline in the crime rate in the last 10 years has wiped that issue off the political map, and i don't think voters give either party credit for it, clinton for the economic boom or the republicans (giuliani) for the "broken windows" theory.

i think all of the above is beyond dispute. the world of american politics, domestically and abroad, is vastly different than it was 14 years ago. but politics is still being practiced according to the same paradigm it has been since the '60's.

when pollsters ask people to explain their party affiliation they still get the answers they did 40 years ago. people say they're democrats because the party represents the working class or the little guy. republicans say their party stands for smaller government, lower taxes, and more individual responsibility, but those are not wedge issues anymore.

the terms of the debate between the parties will change eventually of their own weight but what the democrats need to do is to force that change so that it is on terms favorable to us. "he who defines the terms of the debate wins the debate."

ignoring the specifics of the old divide, there is still a generalization that can be made that is still true: the social referrent of the two parties was and continues to be different, in emphasis at least. the republicans referrent is the individual, the democrats is some larger social unit.

these referents, the individual and the community, have been at the center of american politics since before the revolution.

"tocqueville came to the conclusion that there was an inherent
struggle in america between two opposing impulses: the spirit
of rugged individualism versus the conflicting spirit of community..." (1)

that explains a lot about american politics in the last 200 years and of the ideological differences that voters still see between republicans and democrats. walter isaacson wrote though that,

"franklin would have disagreed. a fundamental aspect of franklin's life
AND OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY he helped to create was that individ-
ualism and communitarianism, so seemingly contradictory, were inter-
woven." (2)

those two traits certainly can be in conflict and often have been in our political history but they NEED NOT BE and franklin was the proto-american who embodied this synthesis. it's my argument that it is the republicans today who are, in the main, responsible for keeping these two in conflict and that the democrats are positioned to resynthesize them into the unique american character that franklin embodied. if the democrats do this and let the synthesis guide their policies, as they have not done in the last 40 years, then they will recast the modern political debate to their advantage.

republicans are proud to "conserve" things, especially traditions and values from other eras that have a nostalgic patina and a presumption of correctness for "having stood the test of time." they wear their little adam smith ties to their federalist society meetings and urge fealty to the "original intent" of the framers and a return to the values that inspired "our founding fathers." i believe that our entire heritage is consistent with a democratic vision of america and that the PART of our heritage that republicans want to conserve is the defeated elitism that their federalist party stood for.

the republicans should be engaged on this claim they have to conserving the "best" of america, not in a political campaign, but doctrinally and historically. the history of elitism, wealth, work, privilege and politics in america is an intense history.

by the mid 18th century the common man, today and then the man republicans wish to ignore and demean, and his interests dominated american politics. but it did not start out that way.

the peopling of the colonies began with englishmen who had just overthrown and executed the last of the stuart kings in the glorious revolution. that revolution did not just replace one king with another. it devolved power from the monarchy to parliament. this institutionalized monarchical weakness which made it distinctive from the monarchies of europe. the greater freedom that this created for the average englishman was celebrated by all aspects of english society, including the crown.

the institutional increase in the power of commoners also resulted in a de facto blurring of class distinctions in everyday life, in dress, in manner of speaking to members of higher classes and so forth. criticism of government in the press and on the street became more common. all these aspects of this new anti-authoritarianism were accelerated by the rationalism of the enlightenment. both in everyday life and in the intellectual tenor of the times man was given more say over the conditions of his life and the society he found himself in. as concomitant to all of this, and probably owing something to inherent character, englishmen were notoriously hard to govern and insolent

the religious feelings of the early settlers contributed here also. a society's dominant religious institution normally reinforces the legitimacy of the social order but the pilgrims left anglicism behind also as a dominant, legitimizing institution. from the earliest days there were religious conflicts etween the colonies and great britain.

secondly, the pilgrims viewed man as inherently corrupt and the goal of society to protect man from himselv, by avoiding concentration of power and by promoting only thoroughly vetted virtuous men to occupy positions of power.

finally, the pilgrims thought that they had a divine responsibility to recreate english man in a purified form in america and to establish a government that reflected all of these principles and brought god's kingdom to earth.

this then was the legacy brought to america by the earliest settlers.

the new world the pilgrims settled was by definition one without a governmental structure or social hierarchy. whatever form of local government and class system was going to occur would be determined by the colonists themselves.

the nature of north america also was important here. wild, untamed, dangerous, it called on all of the rugged individualism a man could muster BUT it also demanded committment to community. no matter how self-sufficient an individual was he was unlikely to survive long in the difficult this difficult territory and if he did would revert to hunter and gatherer status without helping and being helped by others.

in the minds of many contemporary historians, all of these factors made the revolution to come almost socially and historically pre-determined. and independence may have been. but the nature of the new country was not and its eventual character would have been an unbelievable and horrific site to the earliest colonial leaders.

the english were proud of their distinctive monarchy and the pilgrims, viewing themselves as a purified version of english man, were also a concentrated version. they were more loyal to the crown and more hard to govern at the same time. they accepted the social hierarchy of english society without question and literally could not conceive of an alternative. to the eve of lexington they wanted to preserve some kind of affiliation with england that would preserve monarchical authority in america.

intense as their devotion was to the crown it was exceeded by reverence for the english constitution, that "perfect" instrument, in john adams' description, that exquisitely preserved the power and rights of the three post-medieval estates, the monarchy, nobility and commons.

even putting aside slavery and the status of women, colonial society, by modern standards or those of objective anthropology, was obviously hierarchical, but the important point for history is that it was less so than in europe and the trend line was distinctly, maybe inexoraly, less hierarchical.

from the beginning the colonists tried to order their new society along english lines. they already had a monarchy and the commons estate but they didn't have an aristocracy and this caused great concern because that meant that the only alternative was republicanism, which was a slippery slope to dreaded democracy. a concentration of power was a concentration of power was a concentration of power whether that power was concentrated in the monarch, the nobility or the common man. of the three, democracy was most feared because of the presumed unsuitability of the common man to govern.

there was no inherited nobility of course in america and so there were proposals to create an american aristocracy, as was actually done in canada. naturally, the wealthy landed gentry was an inviting talent pool for these proto-repbulicans.

the (republican) thought behind this was that only a man with no individual interests could be virtuous enough to hold power. so in england the nobility were of such great wealth that they didn't have to work and therefore they didn't have monetary interests. it was also thought that a life free from workaday concerns was necessary to provide the dedication to advanced learning necessary to govern.

these were socially complex attitudes toward work and wealth. the protestant work ethic was firmly in place, but only for commoners. wealth was necessary and was in that sense "good" but the pursuit of it (i.e. work) was not, and so in THAT sense the emerging merchant class was looked down on more than the base worker because he was seen as having social pretensions based only on the greater amount of money he had.

although there were some fabulously rich people in colonial america, rich enought that they didn't have to work there were not enough of them to create a "class" and in a version of the adage "no man is a hero to his valet" there was a lack of mystique about these noveau riche that the ancient families of england had going for them. five years prior today's man of leisure might have been a cobbler, so great was social mobility and the opportunity to acquire wealth in america.

in the end the idea of an american aristocracy was hooted down, helped along immensely by the publication of thomas paine's incindiary "common sense" which for the first time dared argue passionately the idea that common people (i.e. non-republicans) could govern themselves.

john adams was a conspicuous opponent of paine's idea and their debate reflected the differences that existed between the views of the original settlers and that of paine and his new american man on issues of religion, society, government and man himself.

came over tonight to try to write. couldn't. too tired. just wasted time. just as well. god, when i try to write something "serious", i sound STUpid. there's almost nothing i've ever written that i've thought is interesting, or good, or intelligent. it's like nicholson's batman leafing through michelle pfeiffer's photograph portfolio, "crap, crap, crap."

having a weblog is to writing what singing in the shower is to recording. everybody sounds good in the shower, but then you hear a recording of your voice singing, in the background on a video or something, and it's awful. same with writing here. i'm actually considered to be decently intelligent. then i read what i write. it's hopeless, you know? we're all given a certain amount and you just can't break through that intellectual ceiling. you're doomed.

-benjamin harris

OFTEN WRONG, ALWAYS CERTAIN

gray davis will remain as california governor.

-benjamin harris

OFTEN WRONG, ALWAYS CERTAIN


this isn't new but howard dean will be the democratic presidential nominee.

-benjamin harris

why is howard dean in my life? 9/11, islam, divorce, michelle, now this tweety-bird. oh well, like front row seats to a train wreck you see coming. if you can't enjoy the show, enjoy the view.

-benjamin harris

HOWARD DEAN: DESTINY OR DISASTER

newsweek cover story. better, howard dean: destiny AND disaster.

-benjamin harris

A LETTER FROM A FARMER IN PENNSYLVANIA, CONCLUSION


oh god, i just read the first half that you posted. "a democrat should emphasize domestic issues." that's new. i thought i was saying something more original than that. maybe my thoughts aren't fully formed and that's why it sounded so banal (maybe i have banal thoughts) so i'll go back to basics and try to organize my thoughts better. it's this idea of theme that prompted me to write in the first place.

first, contemporary politics seems so stale to me. geo-politically the world changed after 1989 and then again after 9/11. domestic politics has changed too. the old divisions between the parties over civil rights, taxes, the size of government and crime don't exist anymore.

the civil rights struggle is over. that is not a contradiction with my earlier suggestion that we should hammer the gop on it forensically but that was a tactical point over a matter of legitimacy. no republican supports repeal of civil rights legislation so SUBSTANTIVELY, if not tactically, the issue is dead.

bill clinton ended, for now at least, the split over taxes. taxes were THE issue in the '80's: prop 13, "tax and spend" and so on. clinton cut taxes, giving the republicans apoplexy because it took away their issue. my sense is bush's recent tax cut largely fizzled with voters, not that they don't want more money in their pockets, but as a rallying cry. i think voters thought it was sort of stale old-school.

clinton also innoculated the democrats from the charge of being the party of big government. he "ended welfare as we know it" and bush, the republican, has created a new cabinet department, drastically increased military spending and driven up the deficit.

and finally, the decline in the crime rate in the last 10 years has wiped that issue off the political map, and i don't think voters give either party credit for it, clinton for the economic boom or the republicans (giuliani) for the "broken windows" theory.

i think all of the above is beyond dispute. the world of american politics, domestically and abroad, is vastly different than it was 14 years ago. but politics is still being practiced according to the same paradigm it has been since the '60's.

when pollsters ask people to explain their party affiliation they still get the answers they did 40 years ago. people say they're democrats because the party represents the working class or the little guy. republicans say their party stands for smaller government, lower taxes, and more individual responsibility, but those are not wedge issues anymore.

the terms of the debate between the parties will change eventually of their own weight but what the democrats need to do is to force that change so that it is on terms favorable to us. "he who defines the terms of the debate wins the debate."

ignoring the specifics of the old divide, there is still a generalization that can be made that is still true: the social referrent of the two parties was and continues to be different, in emphasis at least. the republicans referrent is the individual, the democrats is some larger social unit.

these referents, the individual and the community, have been at the center of american politics since before the revolution.

"tocqueville came to the conclusion that there was an inherent
struggle in america between two opposing impulses: the spirit
of rugged individualism versus the conflicting spirit of community..." (1)

that explains a lot about american politics in the last 200 years and of the ideological differences that voters still see between republicans and democrats. walter isaacson wrote though that,

"franklin would have disagreed. a fundamental aspect of franklin's life
AND OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY he helped to create was that individ-
ualism and communitarianism, so seemingly contradictory, were inter-
woven." (2)

those two traits certainly can be in conflict and often have been in our political history but they NEED NOT BE and franklin was the proto-american who embodied this synthesis. it's my argument that it is the republicans today who are, in the main, responsible for keeping these two in conflict and that the democrats are positioned to resynthesize them into the unique american character that franklin embodied. if the democrats adopt this as their "philosophy" and let it guide their policies, as they have not done in the last 40 years then they will recast the modern political debate to their advantage.

republicans are proud to "conserve" things, especially traditions and values from other eras that have a nostalgic patina and a presumption of correctness for "having stood the test of time." they wear their little adam smith ties to their federalist society meetings and urge fealty to the "original intent" of the framers and a return to the values that inspired "our founding fathers."

by the mid-19th century the society produced by the american revolution was one where the common man and his interests dominated. (3) it was at this time that tocqueville wrote "democracy in america." this society was "unlike any that had ever existed anywhere in the world." (4) but mid-19th century america was as different from colonial america as it was from england itself.(5) in colonial times the hierarchical ordering of society was considered to be the natural ordering of things.(6). it was unquestioned doctrinally and unchallenged as the practical basis for government and social order.

common people, those who worked for a living, who were uneducated and ill-mannered, were seen as demonstrably unsuited for any other status in life and singularly unsuited to govern.(7) until the 1770's the colonists maintained a desire to remain subjects of the english crown(8) so long as they could get some relief in parliament on taxation and representation. their social philosophy was far, far from the philosophy of the common man that was to dominate in just a few decades and which almost all colonial thinkers gegarded as the ultimate governmental horror.(9)

above even the filial loyalty to the english crown the colonists revered the english constitution(10) whose "perfection," in john adams description, was due to the exquisite balancing of power among the three post-medieval social estates, the monarch, nobility and commons.(11) in fact, the colonists tried to put the cart before the horse. so convinced were they of the benefits of the english system that, when independence became foreseeable, they tried to create the three estates in america than an english-based constitution would then be employed to balance.(12), and in fact this was precisely what was done in canada. if some sort of federal or commonwealth arrangement could be worked out with britain then they would have their monarchy and would only have to find a way of creating an american aristocracy.

one of the potential talent pools for this aristocracy was the wealthy as proposed here by andrew oliver the provincial secretary of massachusetts in 1773:

"a way must be found 'to put a man of fortune above the common level
and excempt him from being chosen by the people..."the best
solution...was to create 'an order of patricians or esquires...to be all
men of fortune or good landed estates."(13)

colonial attitudes toward wealth, work and society were complex. the work ethic was exalted, but only as it applied to the rabble.(14) gentlemen did not work AS IN NOT WORK AT ALL, not just not work in what we would call blue-collar jobs.(14)

independence from the workaday world was necessary for a gentleman to pursue gentlemanly pursuits, like philosophy, science, war, and governing. ideally one inherited one's wealth but there was no such extensive class in america, so second-best was to have a source of "passive income" from real estate or money lending for instance.

if one had to work then it was best to make a lot of money quickly and retire early. benjamin franklin did that and retired at age 42 to the gentlemanly pursuits of philosophy, science and governing. and this has continued to be an american tradition from franklin to andrew carnegie to the dot.com millionaires to bill gates.

this "distribution of labor," if it can be called that, was also considered beneficial to the dull, untalented common worker who would revert to a criminal, drunken, slothful state of nature if he was not working.

attitudes toward spending followed a similar "logic." since gentlemen shouldn't work, and commoners should, it followed that only the wealthy should consume, and that they should do so prodigiously to keep a ready market for the goods produced by the common man, who by contrast should practice the virtues of frugality and thrift.

this arrangement, i am not making this up, DID NOT HAVE TO BE ENFORCED, it was actually accepted by people, workers included.

TO BE CONTINUED

A LETTER FROM A FARMER IN PENNSYLVANIA, CONCLUSION

oh god, i just read the first half that you posted. "a democrat should emphasize domestic issues." that's new. i thought i was saying something more original than that. maybe my thoughts aren't fully formed and that's why it sounded so banal (maybe i have banal thoughts) so i'll go back to basics and try to organize my thoughts better. it's this idea of theme that prompted me to write in the first place.

first, contemporary politics seems so stale to me. geo-politically the world changed after 1989 and then again after 9/11. domestic politics has changed too. the old divisions between the parties over civil rights, taxes, the size of government and crime don't exist anymore.

the civil rights struggle is over. that is not a contradiction with my earlier suggestion that we should hammer the gop on it forensically but that was a tactical point over a matter of legitimacy. no republican supports repeal of civil rights legislation so SUBSTANTIVELY, if not tactically, the issue is dead.

bill clinton ended, for now at least, the split over taxes. taxes were THE issue in the '80's: prop 13, "tax and spend" and so on. clinton cut taxes, giving the republicans apoplexy because it took away their issue. my sense is bush's recent tax cut largely fizzled with voters, not that they don't want more money in their pockets, but as a rallying cry. i think voters thought it was sort of stale old-school.

clinton also innoculated the democrats from the charge of being the party of big government. he "ended welfare as we know it" and bush, the republican, has created a new cabinet department, drastically increased military spending and driven up the deficit.

and finally, the decline in the crime rate in the last 10 years has wiped that issue off the political map, and i don't think voters give either party credit for it, clinton for the economic boom or the republicans (giuliani) for the "broken windows" theory.

i think all of the above is beyond dispute. the world of american politics, domestically and abroad, is vastly different than it was 14 years ago. but politics is still being practiced according to the same paradigm it has been since the '60's.

when pollsters ask people to explain their party affiliation they still get the answers they did 40 years ago. people say they're democrats because the party represents the working class or the little guy. republicans say their party stands for smaller government, lower taxes, and more individual responsibility, but those are not wedge issues anymore.

the terms of the debate between the parties will change eventually of their own weight but what the democrats need to do is to force that change so that it is on terms favorable to us. "he who defines the terms of the debate wins the debate."

ignoring the specifics of the old divide, there is still a generalization that can be made that is still true: the social referrent of the two parties was and continues to be different, in emphasis at least. the republicans referrent is the individual, the democrats is some larger social unit.

these referents, the individual and the community, have been at the center of american politics since before the revolution.

"tocqueville came to the conclusion that there was an inherent
struggle in america between two opposing impulses: the spirit
of rugged individualism versus the conflicting spirit of community..." (1)

that explains a lot about american politics in the last 200 years and of the ideological differences that voters still see between republicans and democrats. walter isaacson wrote though that,

"franklin would have disagreed. a fundamental aspect of franklin's life
AND OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY he helped to create was that individ-
ualism and communitarianism, so seemingly contradictory, were inter-
woven." (2)

those two traits certainly can be in conflict and often have been in our political history but they NEED NOT BE and franklin was the proto-american who embodied this synthesis. it's my argument that it is the republicans today who are, in the main, responsible for keeping these two in conflict and that the democrats are positioned to resynthesize them into the unique american character that franklin embodied. if the democrats adopt this as their "philosophy" and let it guide their policies, as they have not done in the last 40 years then they will recast the modern political debate to their advantage.

republicans are proud to "conserve" things, especially traditions and values from other eras that have a nostalgic patina and a presumption of correctness for "having stood the test of time." they wear their little adam smith ties to their federalist society meetings and urge fealty to the "original intent" of the framers and a return to the values that inspired "our founding fathers."

by the mid-19th century the society produced by the american revolution was one where the common man and his interests dominated. (3) it was at this time that tocqueville wrote "democracy in america." this society was "unlike any that had ever existed anywhere in the world." (4) but mid-19th century america was as different from colonial america as it was from england itself.(5) in colonial times the hierarchical ordering of society was considered to be the natural ordering of things.(6). it was unquestioned doctrinally and unchallenged as the practical basis for government and social order.

common people, those who worked for a living, who were uneducated and ill-mannered, were seen as demonstrably unsuited for any other status in life and singularly unsuited to govern.(7) until the 1770's the colonists maintained a desire to remain subjects of the english crown(8) so long as they could get some relief in parliament on taxation and representation. their social philosophy was far, far from the philosophy of the common man that was to dominate in just a few decades and which almost all colonial thinkers gegarded as the ultimate governmental horror.(9)

above even the filial loyalty to the english crown the colonists revered the english constitution(10) whose "perfection," in john adams description, was due to the exquisite balancing of power among the three post-medieval social estates, the monarch, nobility and commons.(11) in fact, the colonists tried to put the cart before the horse. so convinced were they of the benefits of the english system that, when independence became foreseeable, they tried to create the three estates in america than an english-based constitution would then be employed to balance.(12), and in fact this was precisely what was done in canada. if some sort of federal or commonwealth arrangement could be worked out with britain then they would have their monarchy and would only have to find a way of creating an american aristocracy.

one of the potential talent pools for this aristocracy was the wealthy as proposed here by andrew oliver the provincial secretary of massachusetts in 1773:

"a way must be found 'to put a man of fortune above the common level
and excempt him from being chosen by the people..."the best
solution...was to create 'an order of patricians or esquires...to be all
men of fortune or good landed estates."(13)

colonial attitudes toward wealth, work and society were complex. the work ethic was exalted, but only as it applied to the rabble.(14) gentlemen did not work AS IN NOT WORK AT ALL, not just not work in what we would call blue-collar jobs.(14)

independence from the workaday world was necessary for a gentleman to pursue gentlemanly pursuits, like philosophy, science, war, and governing. ideally one inherited one's wealth but there was no such extensive class in america, so second-best was to have a source of "passive income" from real estate or money lending for instance.

if one had to work then it was best to make a lot of money quickly and retire early. benjamin franklin did that and retired at age 42 to the gentlemanly pursuits of philosophy, science and governing. and this has continued to be an american tradition from franklin to andrew carnegie to the dot.com millionaires to bill gates.

this "distribution of labor," if it can be called that, was also considered beneficial to the dull, untalented common worker who would revert to a criminal, drunken, slothful state of nature if he was not working.

attitudes toward spending followed a similar "logic." since gentlemen shouldn't work, and commoners should, it followed that only the wealthy should consume, and that they should do so prodigiously to keep a ready market for the goods produced by the common man, who by contrast should practice the virtues of frugality and thrift.

this arrangement, i am not making this up, DID NOT HAVE TO BE ENFORCED, it was actually accepted by people, workers included. isaacson quotes "an aged farmer" as urging his fellows to stop complaining





i've been reading a bio of ben franklin and the author, walter isaacson, related that de tocqueville had written that there was a conflict in the american soul between rugged individualism and community.

and there's no doubt we do have those two traits. individualism needs no further explanation but he was absolutely right about the committment to community too. americans are notoriously a society of joiners. we have civic groups like the kiwanis, shriners and optimists; we have ethnically or religiously based associations like the knights of columbus, sons of italy, and the american jewish federation; interest groups like the sierra club, hobby and recreation-based clubs. it's really almost humorous when you think of how extensive it is. what de tocqueville wrote IN THE 18TH CENTURY could be written about us today: "americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of dispositions are forever forming associations. hospitals, prisons and schools take shape this way."

but, and this is the key point here, isaacson said that de tocqueville was wrong that it was a CONFLICT in the american soul: "franklin would have disagreed [with de tocqueville]. a fundamental aspect of franklin's life, AND OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY HE HELPED TO CREATE, was that individualism and communitarianism, so seemingly contradictory, were interwoven."

franklin was the in persona refutation of the idea that this conflict existed. he was a defiantly common man though his extensive talents made him the most uncommon of the founders. he was a scientist, statesman, author, successful businessman, diplomat and charming recantour who was honored and courted by the social and intellectual elites of europe, but he would disarmingly appear in parisian salons wearing a fur tradesman's hat and to the end of his life he signed his name as simply "b. franklin, printer," though his oxford honorary degree would have entitled him to sign as "doctor franklin," his monumental scientific accomplishments would have permitted "scientist" as a suffix and his political positions would have entitled him to "the honorable" or "ambassador" as the prefix. this aspect to franklin was not just eccentricity or affectation. his relationship with his son william was always strained because of the latter's social pretensions.

franklin's civic achievements were just as long and impressive as his personal achievements. he started the postal service and made it in some ways as efficient as it is today, he was forever starting up this or that municipal improvement group, to pave the streets, to put a street light in front of every house. he started the american philosophical association, philosophy in those days referring to natural and scientific exploration, which exists to this day. he started the first lending library in america and THAT exists to this day.

all of these things were examples of franklin's committment to a social unit more extensive than the individual and he vigorously opposed anyone or any manner of thinking that atomized or attempted to justify the atomization of man's purpose on earth, yet his communitarianism did not impede him from doing well for himself. he never missed an opportunity to make a pound and made enough of them to retire at age 42. there was no conflict between the two american traits for him.

franklin's philosophy, as written in "poor richard's almanack" and in his newspapers was just a collection of aphorisms and adages and advice on how to live well and do good. although he explicitly disavowed theory as a young man, which kept him from achieving as much in science as newton did or in metaphysics as kant did his practical approach to man's purpose became the antecedent of a distinctly american brand of formal philosophy, so different from that of europe, the "pragmatism" of william james, john dewey, and richard rorty.

from franklin's extraordinary example you don't just extrapolate to all of american society and history but in fact the combination of--not conflict between-- individualism and communitarianism was characteristic of american society and is the template on which our political history was written and, which provides a contemporary paradigm for discourse between the two parties to the democrats advantage.

in explaining how the unity of these two traits occurred in america isaacson wrote that "the frontier attracted barn-raising pioneers who were ruggedly individualistic as well as fiercely supportive of their community." bernard bailyn, whose book "the ideological origins of the american revolution," is unsurpassed in it's field wrote thta social hierarchy never really had a chance in america: "circumstances...pressed harshly against [it]. the wilderness envioronment from the beginning had threateded the maintenance of elaborate social distinctions."

not that the colonists didn't try. they believed in the perfection of the english constitution and believed that it's perfection was based on the balance created among the three post-medieval estates, the crown, the aristocracy, and commons.

right up until the 1770's the colonists believed that they could form a federation with britain where they would continue loyalty to the crown but be responsible for their own legislation domestically. but that assumption still left america without the second estate, an aristocracy.

this was of enormous concern to the colonies planners. bailyn quotes richard henry lee of virginia writing to his brother in 1766 that "that security therefore which the constitution derives in britain from the house of lords is here entirely wanting, and the just equilibrium totally destroyed by two parts out of the three of the legislature being in the same hands."

i emphasize this point here because there was a lot of discussion about creating an aristocracy in america and naturally one of the proposals was to select the class from the wealthy. andrew oliver, the provincial secretary of massachusetts, proposed this: "to put a man of fortune above the common level and exempt him from being chosen by the people into the lower offices." bailyn writes, "the best solution, as he saw it, was to create 'an order of patricians or esquires...to be all men of fortune or good landed estates' appointed for life." reactions to this kind of proposal varied. this particular one was met with "inflamed public opinion in massachusetts." john adams opposed it. franklin expressed the view of many that considerations of mere wealth were not sufficient to get the right kind of men in the aristocracy.

none of these early american leaders were socialists, but opposition to an aristocracy based on wealth was shared even by some of the privileged. bailyn says that "...richard bland--that least egalitarian of revolutionary leaders---..." argued that the accumulation of wealth in america was " 'unavoidable to the descendants of the early settlers' since the land, originally cheap, had apreciated naturally with the growth of settlement." he quotes bland as saying that "perhaps it iw owing to this accidental manner of becoming rich that wealth does ot obtain the same degree of influence here which it does in old countries. rank, at presetn, in america is derived more from qualificatio than property; a sound moral character, amiable manners, and firmness in principle constitute the first class..."

obviously views like this carried the day in colonial and we got no wealth-based aristocracy. but the larger point here is that even with so pressing a felt need as the creation of an aristocracy, the founders of our political system eschewed wealth. there was to be no elevating of one group of americans above another based only on wealth. there were other qualities equally or more important even for one who was the "least egalitarian of revolutionary leaders." in the end, quite deliberately in the framer's intent, the goal of our constitution was changed to secure "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," rather than "life, liberty, and property."

let me repeat so that there is no accusation of misinterpretation. it is not contended here that the colonists were egalitarians, populists, or democrats at heart. in fact just the opposite. they wanted an aristocracy, they thought seriously about creating one, they, franklin among them were to a man deeply afraid of the common rabble and they like to make make money. a lot.

that is important for democrats to keep in mind. homo americanus from the earliest days has liked wealth. we are not egalitarians to this day. we believe in and accept that money is going to make life much more pleasant for some than for those who don't have as much of it.

the point related back to how this historical exegesis here began, with de tocqueville's claim that there was a CONFLICT in the american soul between the interests of the individual and those of the community, of franklin's life being a living refutation of it, and isaacson's belief also that the claim was wrong. our revered colonial leaders didn't believe that nor do we today, nor have we ever believed it. any political party in american history, including the two today, that put those two traits into conflict was not going to do well.

the argument here is that although democrats have had "issues" with this union in the past, it is the republicans, by their unbridled elevation of wealth above all else, who are the real traitors of this historical legacy and that properly framed this can recast the current political debate onto favorable grounds for the democrats. but to do that democrats have to recognize a principle that is more deeply embedded in the american soul than either individualism or communitarianism.

what unites individualism and communitarianism in america is effort; that is why there has never been a conflict in our collective soul.

we have a social security net now, but not one as extensive as do other liberal democracies. because you CAN make it here, with effort, it is required that you MAKE the effort. american society, government and private sector, provides a helping hand but never, in our philosophy, "a hand out." that goes against our committment to effort.

democrats got away from the effort requirement in the last couple of decades. we gave welfare benefits without adequately, in the electorate's mind, means-testing them. we gave people guaranteed positions of employment and in higher education through affirmative action and quotas.

we gave people who commit crimes excuses for their behavior.

we demeaned the middle class' quest for financial prosperity and capitalism generally. each political party disjoined the two strains of the american character by giving undo importance to wealth, the democrats too little importance to it, the republicans too much. we made wealth and it's pursuit, an indicator of selfishness and social unworthiness. they elevated it as the preeminent indicator of social--and moral--worth.

in the end of course, not being able to divide society into three parts, the early americans divided power, it two into three parts. the best they could do as an approximization of an aristocracy was an appointed upper body of the legislature.

A LETTER FROM A FARMER IN PENNSYLVANIA


BELOW IS AN ESSAY SENT BY A FRIEND AND REFERENCE TO THE SUBJECT THAT PRECIPITATED IT.-BH


you provoke me.

after our most recent e-mail "discussion" i jumped up from my chair, stormed past susan, spitting "nothing!" to her question, "what's wrong?", pushed open the screen door and stormed outside.

one of j.d.'s baseball bats was lying on the ground and in a flash i grabbed it and hit the apple tree with it.

the aluminum bat did not break, nor did the tree and so the energy of the blow could not be dissipated and was displaced back into me. my hands went numb, i got stingers in my elbows and shoulders and i strained my rib cage muscles.

dropping the bat, macintosh falling around me, and my wife at the door, hands on hips, glaring, a calm came over me and i had a political epiphany.

the democrats need spokespeople or candidates who are me mean, partisan, attack-dog provacateurs. assholes. in other words, people like you, benjamin. i went back to the computer and began to write.

having decided on the democrats tactical approach i started thinking strategically about what we could bash the republicans on, and happily there was no shortage of material.

finally i started thinking thematically, about what message a democratic uber-candidate could craft together and how it could be presented and packaged for maximum electoral appeal.

maybe this can provide some common ground between us.

--------------------------------------------------------

the democratic liability on foreign policy is undeniable. for 30+ years public opinion polls have shown that the voters overwhelmingly trust the republicans more than the democrats on the issue. but i think there are 3 aspects to this issue with different electoral consequences for the demos.

you are right that when the country is engaged abroad it is electorally unhelpful for democrats to oppose the engagement. that is bad manners at the least, and in the democrats particular case, raises again all the public doubt about our spine and so forth.

it is NOT unwise politically however to criticize a foreign adventure that is going or has gone bad PROVIDING that you don't get too far out in front of the electorate on it. i agree that we are not there on iraq nor may we ever be there and hence making opposition to the war the centerpiece of your campaign, as howard dean has done, or making questions about the stated justification for the war preeminent, as bob graham has done, are unwise and recreate negative stereotypes of the democrats in the public's eye.

however i DON'T think a democrat has to have at the ready a list of countries he wants to invade to avoid the stereotype. americans don't WANT war and a democrat doesn't have to prove his manhood with the voters by saying, "syria is next," or "iran is next."

if we are not in a shooting war, then the only time a democratic candidate needesan aggressive foreign policy platform is when the country sees a clear and present danger, as it did with the soviet union and it was wrong politically for the democrats to have pooh-poohed that threat in the '60's and 70's.

YOU however are out of step in the current context. the public does not believe that we are at war with all of islam and would in fact reject as alarmist any candidate that said so, and therefore i think a democratic candidate who didn't criticize the iraqi war and just said normal tough stuff about fighting terrorism would pass muster with the public. kerry, liberman and edwards would fit that bill.

we both agree that if we are engaged in a serious conflict abroad around the time of the election then the public will not change presidents unless they are decisively against
that action.

and that's all i'm going to say about foreign policy.


in thinking about ann coulter's treason charge, there were several tactical ideas that came to mind.

first, the charge is so outrageous hat it holds no appeal to the electorate so it is substantively irrelevant.

second, she is not the only extremist in the gop and we should try to link all of them to bush and make him either guilty-by-association or force him to deny the charge and thus defuse the issue.

third, we need to attack as aggressively as the republicans do. clinton vowed never to let a political charge go unanswered for more than one news cycle. that is playing defense wisely but i think we should go on the offense more.

if it was fair game to ask bill clinton what, as a 20 year old, he did during the vietnam war, why was it not fair to ask george h.w. bush what he was doing during the civil rights war (answer: voting against the voting rights act while a congressman)?

the republicans were on the "treason" side of that war on issue after issue and those issues are not just of historical interest, as is vietnam, they are still important today.

we should not let them get away with even PRESUMING to speak about social issues that we are right on and always have been right on, and they are wrong on and always have been wrong on. tom delay's outrageous claim that republicans played a "pivotal role" in the civil rights struggle is like the kansas board of education saying that it played a pivotal in desegregating the public schools.

why do we let them get away with crap like that? maybe bush can decouple himself from ann coulter's views but delay is a leading politician in his own party!

press conference in my dreams:

ink-stained wretch: "mr. president majority whip tom delay recently said that
republicans played a 'pivotal role' in the civil rights struggle,
do you agree with that and if so could you tell us what that role was?"

bush: "#%hg&*(*^h*&%"

wretch: "if i could follow up, you have said that you have always been committed
to civil rights, what did you do to advance civil rights, for example, when
you were at yale during the height of the struggle?

bush: "well, when i was cheerleader i cheered for our negro athletes, i uh, used
colored tennis balls very early on, i mean..."

what is he going to say? we should force him and the republicans to account for their ugly past just as they make us accountable over vietnam.

they call themselves the party of lincoln which only proves that a muddy river can have snow at its source. the fact is they haven't had an original idea since they opposed slavery. they bitterly fought every single piece of new deal legislation--social security, unemployment compensation, progressive taxation, the minimum wage, the right to unionize, the 40 hour work week, the abolition of child labor.

they fought every aspect of the great society--desegregation, anti-discrimination, black voting rights--and later equal rights for women and equal access for the handicapped.

and yet we have let them get away with selling their tepid, post-hoc me-tooism as strong consistent support! their vulnerability doesn't end with their past. on every current domestic issue that is meaningful to voters--the enviornment, gun control, abortion--they are on the treason side. what's the matter with us? attack! attack! attack!

second, we need to preempt any attempts to link us to our coulters and delays. sharpton is the obvious example today. the conventional wisdom is to avoid a row with a figure who represents a major part of your base in the primary and then distance yourself in the general.

first, that presumes sharpton is representative of anything other than sharpton which i would vigorously dispute. i also think it would actually be beneficial to a primary candidate to do it early, it would set him or her apart as a courageous non-panderer. to hear kerry refer to tawana brawley's spokesman as "rev. al" makes me nauseous. but whenever it's done, the distancing must be done and done forcefully.

clinton was brilliant, one hesitates in calling him courageous or principled in anything, in his criticism of sister soljah in the '92(?) election. it conferred the patina of independence and courage AND, inoculated him from any insinuation of pandering to a constituency no matter how outrageous a member of that constituency is.

negative campaigning has always been shown to be the most effective with voters even as they say they don't like it. humor can take the edge off of negative campaigning while not blunting the substance of the attack. humor is the canary in the coal mine in american politics. a candidate is in trouble to a metaphysical certainty if he becomes the subject of jokes on the late-night talk shows.

the brilliance of humor is that it is demeaning without being mean. it is particularly effective in politics because to win a candidate has to be taken seriously but humor is the antithesis of serious and someone who is the butt of a joke is being laughed at, not taken seriously.

it's also disarming. if the object of the joke responds seriously he appears petulant. "what, you can't take a joke?" if he doesn't, the underlying attack goes unrebutted.

everyone loves to laugh so humor is popular and more memorable than a serious attack ad. because we like it, it sticks in our minds longer. because we know other people like it, we repeat it and so give it more exposure.

"where's the beef," crystallized the vague discomfort the electorate had with the guarded man born gary hartpence and ended his candidacy.

"there you go again," revealed reagan at his most affable, de-demonizing him and making carter look dour and stale.

humor is "positive negativity"

the other, related, tactical thought i had was the need for the democrats to stay positive. i guess it's hard to resist being negative when you're in opposition but being negative doesn't mean being sour and grumpy. humor can avoid that.

joe klein wrote a perceptive piece in the times recently where he made the "democrats as grumps" point. he recaled an anecdote from the 1988 campaign and reagan's "morning in america" theme. now that certainly was a syrupy bit of nothingness but the point klein made was, it was positive and uplifting at a time when voters needed a psychological break from the economy, and the severe hangovers of vietnam, watergate and gas lines.

dick gephardt was running for president that year and his response to reagan's theme was, "it's not morning in america. it's closer to midnight."

goodness gracious, who was gephardt's speech writer, soren kirkegaard? what a bleak view of the country for a wannabe president to have. who wants to hear that? what constituency was gephardt aiming at besides those who have the suicide hotline on their speed dial?

even during the great depression fdr's campaign song was "happy days are here again." gephardt should have used humor to respond, to ridicule "morning in america" with something that pointed out how out of touch the republicans were but you have to stay positive "high hopes," that was jfk's campaign song; "don't stop thinking about tomorrow," was clinton's.

IF there is no foreign policy crisis, IF we stay on the offensive and IF we stick to our issues and not get "off message" we can then maximize our chance for success, if there is a chance. but we also need a theme, a mneumonic that will remind voters of what we stand for and how we are distinguished from the gop.

-john dickinson

I WILL BREAK UP JOHN'S ESSAY AT THIS POINT AND POST HIS THOUGHTS ON THEME LATER--BH