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Archive for the 'Rhetoric' Category

Hate is a Strong Word

Published by William Beutler on December 11, 2007 in George W. Bush, Instapundit, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, Netroots, Polling and Rhetoric. Closed

Via Digg this morning, I came across a provocatively-titled story:

The Troops Hate Bush And Want Out of Iraq.

The article, number two in all categories for the moment, turns out to be a brief jeremiad by Firedoglake contributor Blue Texan. The full title there is

The Troops Hate Bush And Want Out of Iraq. Will Glenn Reynolds And Michelle Malkin Still “Support” Them?

and it quotes from a poll-driven Los Angeles Times story, as summarized by Blue Texan:

*Nearly six out of every 10 military families disapprove of Bush’s job performance and the way he has run the war.

*Among those families with soldiers, sailors and Marines who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, 60% say that the war in Iraq was not worth the cost.

*Nearly seven in 10 favor a withdrawal within the coming year or “right away.”

There are a few things wrong with this. Most importantly — and misleadingly — the LAT poll did not exclusively query members of the U.S. military. The fine print says:

Included are 631 military family members and 152 respondents who are serving or have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, or who have family members who have done so. … The margin of sampling error for all adults is plus or minus 3 percentage points; for military families, it is 4 percentage points; for military families who served in Iraq, it is 8 percentage points. For certain sub-groups, the error margin may be somewhat higher.

My emphasis, of course.

Now, I’m not trying to spin this poll around the other way and say these are good numbers for Bush; they’re not. Even if just half of military families disapprove of the president, that speaks poorly of his leadership. I am not even saying that family members think that Iraq was a good idea or would support a war that continues indefinitely. Nobody wants to keep large numbers of troops there longer than necessary.

What I am saying, however, is that the poll is far from definitive, with an MoE north of 8 percent in the critical group, and it certainly shouldn’t be mistaken for a poll of “the troops.” Even taken at face value, the results are more nuanced than Blue Texan — or even the LAT — make it sound. If you combine “bring home within the next year” and “Stay as long as it takes,” you likewise get around 70 percent. Considering the reduced violence in Iraq since the so-called surge, withdrawal upon an acceptable situation and withdrawal in a year are not mutually exclusive. That may or not be not be realistic, but it’s not unreasonable to think that may be what some meant. Not that Blue Texan was keeping an open mind about it.

Nor do I think Blue Texan read it all that closely; the FDL post actually seems more of a screed against conservative bloggers activists than Bush or even the war:

One of the most disgraceful tactics of the pro-Bush right is the way they’ve exploited the troops politically. … And they’re still doing it. Loyal Troop Bush Supporter Glenn Reynolds, who’s practically made a career linking to garbage like this, just called the TV ad promoting Freedom’s Watch — a right-wing partisan neocon slush fund — a “pro-troops” ad.

Watch the Freedom’s Watch ad for yourself; it is unequivocally a pro-troops advertisement, free of any political content. It does not mention Iraq or Afghanistan, only that some members are away from their families right now — but this is true of those merely stationed abroad in Europe or East Asia. Heck, the organization might even be a “right-wing partisan neocon slush fund” — the wording is all subjectively negative — but it doesn’t change the ad’s content.

And that subjectivity betrays the fact that in fact Blue Texan is the one politicizing the troops, and from the boggled mindset that considers a yellow ribbon on the back of a city vehicle a partisan political statement. One wonders if they believe that personally thanking a member of the armed forces for their service while the Iraq war continues is also a de facto expression of support for the Republican party. Even if not, one wonders why they would willingly cede so much ground.

But even without any poll analysis, Blue Texan loses all credibility — and the anti-war netroots reveal their arrogance — with the extreme rhetoric. Hate is a strong word. The LAT poll most certainly shows disappointment and disapproval of President Bush and the war, but at no point did this poll — or any other one that I’ve seen — ask whether they “hate” Bush or the war.

Since the Iraq war turned unpopular, anti-war bloggers have been claiming that the American public agrees whole-heartedly with them. This opinion surely led to their surprise at John Kerry’s loss in 2004. This probably also explains much of their frustration now that Democrats control Congress but can’t end the war. They might be less distressed if they didn’t think the American public was in lockstep with their thinking.

I’d really like a respectable pollster to ask the question: “Do you hate President Bush?” Pollsters usually stick to cautious wording like “right track/wrong direction” and “approve/disapprove” — which makes it possible to compare questions over time — but just once, I wish they would measure the extent of this disapproval.

Heck, the netroots themselves have paid for their own polls before. Why not ask? Probably because they know the answer would be disappoint them. They might even hate it. But it would also save them some trouble.

Blog P.I. Gets Results! Plus, More Thoughts on GOP Online Fundraising

Published by William Beutler on December 9, 2007 in Midterms '10, Online Fundraising, Religion, Republicans, Rhetoric, Terrorism and White House '08. 1 Comment

In a post evaluating the three competing GOP online fundraising tools last weekend, and I criticized the “Defeat Radical Islam” issue badge on Slatecard for overlaying the Star and Crescent with the Universal No symbol. This weekend, Slatecard’s David All has updated the badge. Replacing Islam’s holy symbol is now a pair of crossed AK-47s. Old and new:

Old “Defeat Radical Islam” badge               New “Defeat Radical Islam” badge

I suppose it is possible the good people at Izhevsk Mechanical Works will object, but I doubt it would matter if they did. Not that the old badge necessarily ran the risk of inciting politically-motivated riots in the Arab street (although one never knows) but it sent the wrong message. The new one is also unlikely to move the NRA. Good thing they have a sense of humor, and good thing All made the change.

Meanwhile, during the week I discussed the three utilities — Slatecard plus Rightroots and Big Red Tent with a smart conservative who argued that a) the movement needs to settle on just one, b) social features are not all that important, and c) what does matter is enabling state-level fundraising.

To take the last point first, I couldn’t agree more. Just as building state-level blogs is crucial to conveying information, so too is it important to lower the barriers to making financial contributions. State governments rarely make news here in DC, but decisions that matter to most people’s lives occur at that level, there are simply more of these races, and winners of those campaigns often go on to compete in federal elections. Making this happen 50 times over is a formidable challenge. ActBlue didn’t always do this, but now they do. My guess is that whomever on the right does this first will emerge as the go-to website.

Moving backward to the second point, it’s a fair point that people are unlikely to visit these sites with money burning a hole in their pocket, just looking for a candidate to support. Including a great deal of information about the candidates is not the most important thing these websites do. Those decisions will be made offline and influenced by bloggers who already command an audience. Yet I still think a fundraising widget would make such donations more likely, that good information and cross-referencing between issues and candidates can encourage more political giving. If you are primarily motivated by winning the Iraq war or promoting federalist solutions, you may be likely to throw a bit of money at candidates you hadn’t planned on — but only if you know to do so. How about a feature, similar to Amazon.com’s “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” feature? How about “Donors Who Gave to This Candidate Also Gave To”?

First point last: I said before that I think different mechanisms could be adopted by different segments of the party, but I cannot deny the logic of consolidating support behind just one of them — efficiency matters, and I think reinforces my second point. That said, I do not think there need be any rush to get behind just one. Competition among them should eventually produce one that’s better than the others. Maybe that happens in 2008, but I think the separation will occur during the ‘10 midterms.

Does Markos Moulitsas Need President Bush?

Published by William Beutler on December 9, 2007 in Barack Obama, Daily Kos, Hillary Clinton, Instapundit, Internecine Battles, Lamont v. Lieberman, MSM, Netroots, Rhetoric and William Beutler. Closed

A couple weeks back, I covered first-week reaction to the twinned Newsweek columns by Markos Moulitsas and Karl Rove. The early returns showed that Newsweek.com readers were much more interested in Rove than Kos. I ventured a few guesses why — among them Markos’ uninspired prose and unintriguing arguments — but as Roy Edroso pointed out in the comments, another reason is that Rove, as a former White House adviser, would simply be a more interesting read. Indeed, he led with a compelling anecdote, even as the rest of the piece was fairly unsurprising.

But even before Moulitsas’ column debuted, I think another blogger nailed the risks inherent in Markos’ accepting the assignment in the first place. That blogger was Kenton Kelly, mild-mannered Ohio accountant turned wild-mannered critic of Pajamas Media, better known as Dennis the Peasant. From his post on November 19:

I have difficulty believing Markos can pull off the very difficult task of reconciling the requirements of expressing himself as a movement partisan to two very different audiences: Netroots members and undecided voters. Each is going to have differing expectations as to what they will get out of those columns. Netroots are, I’ll wager, looking for what they’ve come to expect out of Markos; fire-breathing, uncompromising, take-no-prisoners advocacy of progressive policy positions. Understand that what I am not suggesting here is that his Netroots audience expects him to drop f-bombs and excoriate progressivism’s enemies by name as he does at DailyKOS. What they will be expecting, however, is that Markos not give an inch on issues because of any sort of tactical considerations. Expressing open contempt for triangulation and compromise on the issues is, after all, a large part of Markos’ modus operandi.

Walking that fine line between staying uncompromisingly true to Netroots’ core ideals and supporting whomever the Democrats nominate is going to be a difficult task. Unless the Republican candidate flames out immediately after receiving his party’s nomination, it is a certainty that at some point in the race the Democratic candidate is going to have to tack from left to center to gather enough votes to win. This is the precise point in time when things are going to get dangerous for a movement partisan. That’s because Markos has been quite explicit in his distain of the centrist strategies of the Democratic “establishment”. The much reviled Bob Shrum would be just the sort to swallow such a centrist shift as a matter of practical political necessity. How can Markos approve of such a shift when it comes (and it will) without drawing the ire of his supporters?

If Markos chooses to explicitly reject a centrist shift by the Democratic candidate in his Newsweek columns, how does he do so without alienating undecided (i.e., centrist) voters? At some point the decision is going to have to be made by members of the Netroots movement, and by Markos, as to whether there will ever be a time where ideological purity can coexist with the practical needs of daily politics. By this I simply mean that at some point – and I would argue that point is very close at hand – the Netroots movement will have recruited all they can recruit, and converted all they can convert, using the message and tactics they now employ. When the moment arrives where a decision between continued purity and continued growth, what will be Netroots’ response?

Now, I don’t really think Markos matters that much to undecided or moderate voters. Of the factors that will determine their ‘08 vote, Moulitsas’ pronouncements will be very far down the list, even as he’ll be in the relatively high-profile pages of Newsweek. But it will certainly be fascinating to see how individual lefty bloggers and their adherents, including the Kossacks, will react when the nominee inevitably stakes out positions problematic (even anathema) to the activist base. Brooking no compromise is a key identifying feature of the capital-N netroots; some will go along and others will protest. And Moulitsas, with his new perch, will bear the brunt of this scrutiny.

We’ve already seen a bit of this as Matt Stoller, Glenn Greenwald and Jane Hamsher have put pressure on the so-called “Bush Dog Democrats” (i.e. Blue Dogs) — especially on Iraq — while other prominent bloggers have largely avoided the specific accusation. A year from now, this cleavage will be much more apparent.

The whole Dennis — er, Kelly — post is worth reading, and I won’t quote the whole thing here (à la the late Steve Gilliard) and so deprive him of what meager traffic Blog P.I. directs (we’re nothing if not not Glenn Reynolds), but I must address his penultimate paragraph. As he wrote,

the events of the last two years have brought into question widely held assumptions about how much political influence Netroots and Markos Moulitsas actually wield. His attempt to unseat Joe Lieberman ended in spectacular failure, with Lieberman waxing Ned Lamont by 10 percentage points in a three man race. And for all the proclamations of victory after the congressional elections of 2006, what has become very clear is that many of the newest congressional Democrats have absolutely no interest in backing a Netroots agenda. It is not hard to come to the conclusion, after watching Speakers Pelosi and Reid suffering repeated defeats trying to push an explicitly progressive agenda, that perhaps assumptions of Netroots’ influence have been, shall we say, unduly optimistic. This impression was reinforced when most of the Democratic presidential candidates chose to skip 2007’s YearlyKOS convention. [Note: He's wrong about this, especially as the candidates avoided the DLC meeting entirely, but it doesn't negate his overall point.] You could certainly draw the additional conclusion, after listening to the exasperation voiced by congressional Democrats from David Obey to Steny Hoyer, that many Democrats view Netroots as much an impediment as an ally in advancing Democratic policies. How a column in Newsweek helps Markos in convincing the political class of the Democratic Party that he can deliver the goods (and is worth the trouble he causes) is beyond me.

Although Markos is no longer slagged by conservatives as going electorally “oh-fer” (despite Lamont’s loss to Lieberman, Kos et al. did back a slate of winners in ‘06) it’s very much an open question as to whether netroots issues are succeeding among Democrats. It’s not so much an open question as to whether elected Democrats are implementing their policy vision (such as it is), hence the anti-”Bush Dog” activism.

Another outstanding question is how Moulitsas and his fellow “progressives” will keep the coalition together past — and even into — the 2008 race, regardless of the policies adopted by the eventual nominee (i.e. Clinton, who never had them, or Obama, who has not always impressed them but has seen a surge (so to speak) among Kossacks recently).

As someone who reads Daily Kos much more often than non-leftroots bloggers, I can attest that a not-insignificant number comprise those who are not necessarily traditional liberals, let alone leftists, but have joined the community based on their opposition to Bush and the Iraq war. The effort in/occupation of Iraq will obviously continue beyond Bush’s presidency, but even the war has receded as an issue — at least in the general population if not on Moulitsas’ website. No wonder, as Dennis/Kelly pointed out afterward, Moulitsas insisted in his first Newsweek column that the imperative for Democrats in 2008 is to make Bush the issue.

Without Bush to kick around anymore, Markos will have a much harder time keeping his constituency together.

Red States and Blue States: Why the Vice Versa Could Never Be

Published by William Beutler on September 23, 2007 in Charts and Graphs, Democrats, George W. Bush, Howard Dean, Language, MSM, National Politics, RedState, Republicans, Rhetoric and William Beutler. 3 Comments

Here’s a thought that’s been kicking around the back of my head for awhile: the assignment of “red” and “blue” to describe right-leaning and left-leaning political factions in the United States has stuck in part because it contradicts these two colors’ previous connotations, and to the benefit of the left and right alike.

Red States and Blue States reversed... just looks wrong, doesn't it?Ahead of me already?

For most of the 20th century, the color red was associated with Communism, and for reasons that scarcely need explaining, it carried a decidedly negative association in the West: Better dead than red, after all. The American left certainly had its share of Stalinists, and anti-Communists on the right didn’t hesitate in extending the term. When I lived in Eugene, Oregon, the town daily Register-Guard was sometimes referred to as the Red Guard.

Likewise, the color blue is sometimes associated with nobility in Europe and the upper class in America, particularly in the Northeast — I refer to the term blue blood. The stereotype of rich, right-wing industrialists who cannot identify with regular Americans has probably been used against every Republican candidate since Lincoln. The recognition that this can be a political liability is what led Mike Huckabee to recently descrbe himself as “a blue-collar Republican, not a blueblood Republican.”

Meanwhile, witness the rapid adoption of the terminology. One of the rightosphere’s best-known websites is RedState; an online political firm founded by former Howard Dean staffers is called Blue State Digital.

It’s worth remembering that in elections prior to 2000, the colors were not standardized across the television networks, and they also switched colors between the parties. In 2000, chance might have had red assigned to Democrats and blue to Republicans. The prolonged attention to the electoral map might have given rise to opposite definitions for the terms, but would they have stuck?

I don’t think so. The vice versa could never have become political shorthand in this country because neither side would allow it. Reversed, the colors would draw attention to negative aspects of each party’s intellectual and sociological histories.

Therefore, the switch is serendipitous — by adopting the other side’s derogatory colors, each cancels out the other, and in the 21st century can accrue all-new (and perhaps more positive) political connotations.

In-Cohen-rent

Published by William Beutler on September 4, 2007 in Blogs vs. MSM, MSM vs. Blogs and Rhetoric. Closed

I’ve sometimes wondered if Beltway/MSM columnists include derogatory references to political bloggers merely to get a rise and, from that, some linkage. After reading this morning’s Richard Cohen column, I no longer wonder:

A survey of political bloggers showed that 94 percent of them had never been out of the country or read anything other than a Harry Potter book.

Unfortunately for Cohen, it doesn’t necessarily work.

P.S. Yes, I realize the headline of this post is, itself, in-cohen-rent.

At Least it Pays the Bills

Published by William Beutler on May 24, 2007 in National Politics, Rhetoric and White House '08. Closed

In today’s Politico, analyst Roger Simon throws water on the media-invented boomlet for potential presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg. He makes a few smart observations, the best of which explains why self-funding his campaign may actually be an impediment to building a base of support:

[W]hen voters give you money, they often protect their investment by voting for you. When you finance your own campaign, you don’t build that base of support.

And while I tend to agree with the overall point of his column — Bloomberg is too smart to blow a billion dollars on a hopeless candidacy — it does contain this bit of unmitigated silliness:

We have elected people from all kinds of professions to the presidency. George Washington was a surveyor, Abraham Lincoln was a rail-splitter, Andrew Johnson was a tailor, Harry Truman was a haberdasher, Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer and Ronald Reagan was an actor. But we have never elected a mayor.

Say what? Simon deliberately cites early, pre-political vocations by these former presidents and, tongue presumably in cheek, compares them favorably to Bloomberg’s current place of employment, Manhattan’s City Hall. Except Washington also was a wartime general, Lincoln was a lawyer and member of the House, Johnson was a member of the House, Senate and a governor before becoming Vice President, Truman was a farmer, judge and senator, and both Carter and Reagan were both governors.

Simon is correct that a mayor has never been elected president, though that is the highest public office attained by Giuliani as well. Citing Bloomberg’s pre-political career, as a businessman, would keep the symmetry, although it surely doesn’t sound as goofy as “rail-splitter” or “haberdasher.”

On the other hand, it would put Bloomberg in the company of Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush. Not exactly exalted company — which might have been a slightly better argument, without the contrived goofiness of reducing presidential employment histories to caricatures.

Too Soon, Too Late: Gun Commentary After Virginia Tech

Published by Olly Ruff on April 18, 2007 in Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, Rhetoric and Virginia Politics. Closed

In the wake of the Virginia Tech murders, the inevitable wave of commentary about gun ownership in America continues to roll in. Associated to it there is a (perhaps more interesting) meta-argument: who is most tastelessly dragging politics into the somber aftermath of a national tragedy? As usual, the answer appears to be absolutely everyone on the left/right; so far, the only person staking out territory in the impending meta-meta-debate over the propriety of tastelessly politicizing the aforementioned tasteless politicization is Matthew Yglesias.

Tasteless politicization is in the eye of the beholder, however. To an advocate of concealed carry, the observation that a legally armed student or faculty member might have made a huge difference on the day in question is nothing more or less than common sense. To an advocate of gun control, the observation that Cho Seung-Hui’s actions were expedited by his ability as a resident alien to legally purchase handguns is similarly uncontroversial. Of course, common sense is another thing that is liable to be interpreted rather differently from blog to blog. In that spirit, former Suckster Chris Bray has some worthwhile things to say.

Meanwhile, there’s something muted and occasionally plaintive about most of the pro-gun-control commentary — even the Brady Center seems to have acknowledged that the issue is not really in play at the moment. (Alex Koppelman bemoans this state of affairs in Salon today.) Affiliated websites like Stop the NRA define the problem as follows:

…it is much too easy for the wrong people to get high-powered, deadly weapons and our leaders fail to do anything about the problem. [Emphasis removed.]

As always, it is extremely easy to determine who the “wrong people” are after the fact, and rather harder to do so in advance. Stop the NRA’s website doesn’t contain anything more specific than the organization’s name.

It should be noted that this kind of magical thinking is hardly confined to the anti-gun movement. Roy Edroso links to this wonderful thing, for instance:

And I’m sorry, some will really think me foolish, but I don’t think dorms should be co-ed, so that crazed, jealous boyfriends can enter their girlfriends’ dorms and kill them and the innocent young men who come to their aid. If it had been a single-sex dorm, the killer might not have been able to enter so readily.

Call me a pessimist, but I don’t think a rule forcing crazed, jealous boyfriends to loiter outside the dorm instead of waltzing right in would necessarily have the desired effect. Any prediction tailored this specifically is vulnerable to reductio ad absurdum – after all, if Virginia Tech refused to admit Korean students as a matter of policy, Cho wouldn’t have been in a position to murder 32 people there. (If anyone has seen this argument being made with a straight face, please let us know in comments.)

The endless wrangling can be construed in a light that is at least vaguely positive. A hope that there might be a way, in principle, to somehow prevent mass murders from happening in the future is a fundamentally decent, abstract human impulse. In order for it to be articulated as policy, though, it must be tempered by other human impulses, such as the suspicion that this is all the fault of the bastards on the other side.

Did Ann Coulter Just Undo the Damage Done by Amanda Marcotte?

Published by William Beutler on March 3, 2007 in Democrats, Howard Dean, John Edwards, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, National Politics, Netroots, Rhetoric, Web video and White House '08. 6 Comments

David Bonior dispatched for e-mail response to Ann Coulter's slur on John Edwards

The last few weeks have not been good ones for the Edwards campaign, with professional blowhard Bill Donohue shouting the unfortunate comments of short-lived Edwardsville blogress Amanda Marcotte into the New York Times and Washington Post — and Marcotte herself prolonging the story in Salon and the Austin Chronicle. Nor were they helped when Lindsay Beyerstein of Majikthise filed her own Salon column confirming Elizabeth Edwards’ involvement in blog strategy and claiming she had warned Edwards staffers of how a netroots hire could go wrong.

One reason the incident has been so bad for the Edwards campaign is that it turned an asset — his widespread support among liberal bloggers — into a liability. While few among the netroots actually abandoned him, it exposed the possibility that a wedge could be driven between them — and his campaign hasn’t regained its footing since.

Until now, that is, and John Edwards has none other than Ann Coulter parody Ann Coulter to thank as the leftosphere is working overtime this weekend to turn this year’s CPAC — where Coulter referred to Edwards as a “faggot” — into the political equivalent of this year’s NBA All-Star weekend in Las Vegas (Pacman Jones or no). Call it a reverse Perlstein: the leftosphere always liked Edwards. Now they finally have a reason to rally around him again.

The incident won’t necessarily help him with Beltway handicappers who fault the campaign’s decision-making, although they should be reassured that Edwards quickly released an e-mail letter from campaign chairman David Bonior, pictured below, and worked it into a fundraising pitch, asking for “Coulter Cash”:

John Edwards fundraising pitch for Coulter Cash

Note that they are making the video available on their own site — this is to their credit, as traditional campaign wisdom holds that you don’t want to keep a negative story going. But this attack was so meanspirited and witless and obviously saying far more about Coulter than Edwards that there is virtually no downside.

The rightosphere can denounce her all they like — calling her a “verbal suicide bomber” and likening her to David Duke and Michael Moore — but they can’t make up for the YouTube-ready audience laughter and applause that greeted Coulter’s remarks.

For the same reason, Howard Dean’s call for the GOP frontrunners to denounce Coulter’s remarks was pretty smart, too. He got his presidential denunciations on short order, but some conservatives refocused their ire on him and effectively defended Coulter. Liberal bloggers may have painted a picture of the conservative blogosphere as a mere appendage of the right-wing establishment, but there’s no way Glenn Greenwald will let Ed Morrissey speak for the movement on this one.

Only CPAC can do that now. Will the conference organizers announce that Ann Coulter will not be invited next year? Her post-9/11 “invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity” column got her axed from NRO, so they would even have the cover of precedent. Or are they too fearful losing Coulter’s College Republican fan base?

P.S. What do we make of the fact that PoliPundit blogger and Duncan Hunter campaign paid staffer Michael Illions is one of the few conservative bloggers publicly standing by her, while this same week the Hunter campaign cut loose two South Carolina operatives for making bigoted statements? Just asking.

P.P.S. Beyerstein got at least one thing wrong in her Salon column — Matt Stoller, whom she cited twice as a better potential hire than herself or Marcotte, missed the boat entirely as this was breaking last night:

I called a contact at the Edwards campaign for a response. Nothing yet. It would be stupid to respond to Coulter, but it’s a good idea to hang Coulter around Romney and Giuliani’s neck.

Right. Certainly nothing you’d want to use to solicit campaign contributions…

What the Media Can’t Do for Mitt Romney

Published by William Beutler on February 25, 2007 in George W. Bush, Internecine Battles, MSM, Mitt Romney, Oppo Research, Primary fights, Republicans, Rhetoric, Rudy Giuliani and White House '08. 4 Comments

The Romney campaign has to be pretty happy with liberal historian Rick Perlstein this week, or about as happy as they could be with anyone accusing them of winking at anti-Semitism. On Wednesday TNR Online published an article in which he argued that media reports highlighting complaints about Mitt Romney’s Henry Ford Museum announcement speech will help him connect with skeptical conservatives.

The thrust of Perlstein’s argument is that identity, or “tribal” issues, matter in partisan politics, and the more critical stories about Romney that appear in the elite media, the better he is likely to do with the Republican base. As he summarizes: “Get branded such a villain by our liberal elites, and you also might win a Republican primary.” The logic is sound enough, but Perlstein ascribes too much power to this phenomenon. Just because the “liberal media” is antagonistic toward a Republican candidate is not enough to change the fundamentals, and Romney’s fundamentals are bad.

Let’s start with this passage from his article, where Perlstein turns to the Internet to substantiate his point:

Consider the sarcastic reflection of this denizen of the right-wing website Free Republic:

    Allright, an AP hit piece! The MSM has more acute RINOdar than we. Real RINO’s don’t get rinky-dink MSM hit pieces such as this. This proves that the MSM believes Romney is a conservative, and therefore must be roughed up.

Translation: I used to suspect that Romney was only a “Republican in Name Only.” But now I realize: He bugs the liberal media. By the tribal logic of right-wing identity politics, that is enough–Mitt Romney now can be called a conservative.

This interpretation is overly reductive — even Newtonian. As Perlstein would have it, for every action on the part of the media, there is an equal and opposite reaction from the conservative base. Leaving aside the fact that the Henry Ford story is less a flap than a blip — only the National Jewish Democratic Council made an issue of it, and Media Matters has pronounced the story “ignored” — it assumes that conservatives are captives of their distrust of the mainstream media.

Perlstein’s suggestion that dubious media attacks on Romney could bolster his support on the right almost certainly gets it backward: politicians who enjoy notable support in this regard have already bonded with their base. Presidents are frequent recipients; as the headlines got worse for Clinton and Bush through their two terms, the base rallied around them (although Bush seems to have exhausted that reserve of goodwill). Galvanizing candidates, such as Howard Dean, also can receive this kind of support. Unfortunately for Romney, he is neither.

Perlstein buttresses his case by comparing Romney’s announcement to a controversial 1980 campaign speech by onetime liberal Ronald Reagan. According to Perlstein, Reagan benefited from “all that outrage” over the location: Philadelphia, MS, site of the infamous 1964 Klan murders of civil rights workers. But there are several problems here. As noted above, the outrage about Romney’s speech was very limited and even treated like a joke. As even Perlstein admits of Ford’s Nazi sympathies, “Those memories no longer exist–except to the hair-trigger sensitivities of the likes of the NJDC.” Additionally, those Klan murders are the only reason anyone outside of Mississippi has heard of that particular Philadelphia, whereas the Ford musesum is pure Americana — technological innovation and nostalgia for what technology has made obsolete. And by 1980 Reagan was already a conservative hero, which of course Romney is not.

Perlstein also misses a few things about conservative “tribal” identity. Early in the article he asks:

Some observers wondered if perhaps [spotlighting noted anti-Semite Henry Ford] wasn’t intentional: If you want to prove to conservatives you’re no liberal, what better way than to announce on the former estate of a man who, as the NJDC also pointed out, was “bestowed with the Grand Service Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle by Adolf Hitler”?

“Nazi” is an epithet hurled at Republicans by liberals; it’s not a badge of honor and not a term that is available to be “reclaimed” like “bitch” or “queer.” Considering evangelical Christians’ close alliance with conservative Jews, their support of Israel above the Palestinians, and the growing perception that the “new anti-Semitism” is a liberal disease, there’s no percentage (in the polls or otherwise) in such a strategy. Bank shots are risky; bank shots that contradict your own beliefs are doubly so. Bank shots opening oneself up to charges of bigotry are dangerously stupid.

Not to mention, I’m not even sure that the Free Republic quote really says what Perlstein thinks it does. The comment at once suggests that the AP can accurately identify fake conservatives, and then implies that the media thinks Romney is a true conservative. Perhaps this commenter agrees with the media, but most Freepers do not. At best, Romney’s conservative credentials are a matter of debate. For example, check out the Free Republic thread responding to this exact same Perlstein article, where one finds a few Romney apologists, but others saying things like:

Strange that he was really pro life after professing to be pro-choice since 1970. And that he thought since Roe V wade was already decided, we should “sustain and support it”.

Plus he’s a gun grabber who is now trying to kiss the NRA’s butt.

At least with rudy you know you’re getting a liberal. With romney you’re getting a used car salesman who will say whatever it takes to get elected. In 2004 we called that ‘flip flopping’ when a certain democrat did it.

Flip-flopping is a charge Democrats would love to be able to throw back at Republicans in 2008, and Romney is the most susceptible. Romney has made the mistake of trying to persuade social conservatives that he is one of them, despite well-publicized past statements to the contrary. Like John Kerry, he may have flopped in the “correct” direction — but also like John Kerry, he can’t find the words to adequately explain why.

Contrast this with Giuliani’s approach: he too was elected by a left-leaning electorate, is openly pro-choice, and has similar hurdles to overcome. But so far at least, he isn’t trying to sell himself as a Bush-style social conservative. By downplaying his personal beliefs while promising to appoint strict constructionist judges, he’s selling himself as an ally of Bush-style social conservatives.

Even if we do accept Perlstein’s Newtowian politics, there’s so much more dirt out there about Giuliani that all those negative stories would surely generate more reactive reactionary reinforcement for him than Romney. And unlike Romney, Giuliani has never publicly disavowed Ronald Reagan. Among tribal issues, that will matter much more than anything the MSM can say.

When IC is Just PC

Published by William Beutler on February 11, 2007 in Democrats, Language, Republicans and Rhetoric. 2 Comments

As both a political junkie and the recipient of a degreee in English, I’ve been a longtime observer of the Republican tendency to use the noun “Democrat” as an adjective, as President Bush recently caught flak for doing in (what was supposed to be) a conciliatory State of the Union address.

In almost every case, it’s not a mere courtesy to append an -ic to the end of the word — it’s proper English. But Arnold Zwicky at Language Log points out one case where the Democratic usage is probably something besides good grammar. From the Feb. 6 New York Times:

Politicians are weighing in on the subject as never before, especially with the advent of a Democratic-led Congress.

Upon which Zwicky went to work:

My first reaction was that with “Democratic-led” the paper was bending over backward in its attempt to avoid things like “the Democrat Party” for “the Democratic Party” (a Republican practice we’ve commented on a number of times on Language Log, most recently here). And maybe it is. But “Democratic-led” actually beats out “Democrat-led” by a fair margin, despite the fact that “X-led” ‘led by X(s)’ normally requires a noun in the X slot (as do “X-V-ed” ‘V-ed by X’ compounds in general). So if this is a formation motivated by political politeness, there’s a lot of politeness going around.

Zwicky goes on to demonstrate what he means by “X-led” and the like, with the parties Democrat, Republican and Labour as examples — handy not just for language geeks but for partisans familiar with the practice but unfamiliar with the functional linguistic differences between those party names.

I certainly try to keep my “Democrat” and “Democratic” usage in order, although in speech I sometimes get it wrong. On the other hand, a few times I’ve been called out for what I believed was correct usage — so I find Zwicky’s post is all the more interesting. And woe to the commenter at a liberal blog who accidentally types “Democrat Party” in the middle of a thread.

But there is no doubt that the Republicans who would rather antagonize their loyal opposition rather than express themselves correctly have won this one, much as they have persuaded liberals that they should call themselves “progressive” instead. Not only do Democrats have to nitpick a matter of linguistics, but they’re reduced to asserting themselves as an adjective rather than as a noun. That might seem an esoteric distinction, but in politics even subtle suggestions and inchoate feelings have an impact on voters.

If I didn’t know better, I would wonder what Frank Luntz would say about that. But late last month, in (what was supposed to be) a conciliatory entry at the Huffington Post, the Republican wordsmith deployed “Democrat” as an adjective, and much like with the president, the usage was like nails on a chalkboard to Democratic ears.

Whoops! Maybe using the phrase “Democrat Party” doesn’t always redound to the benefit of conservatives.