I would argue that Democrats and progressives in other parties ought to run honest campaigns in which they fight for what they believe. Voters respect honesty, and dislike politico-speak. So - campaign as a "fighter".

Governing is different. The art of getting what you want when governing involves nuance and compromise. Govern in a way that gets you results that are close to what you campaigned for.

I see the DLC as a conduit for corporate money. A reliance on corporate donations has hurt the ability of Democrats to fight for the interests of working families, be they economic, environmental, or otherwise. The recent trend in increasing grassroots fundraising among Democrats has the potential to change the Democratic Party by allowing Democrats to run for office on working-family-friendly platforms without worrying about fighting for good, popular policies that are opposed by wealthy corporate interests.

triangulater or fighter? tough call. post-election, I asked myself the same question. now that the Dems were in the minority- what did they have to lose by taking a firm stance and battling bloody tough n' nail battles for the priorities the Dems believe in. on the other hand, what if the Dems, citing "changes of the wind" and all that, jumped at the chance to beat Repubs at the hands they like to play- cut all taxes, including income; cut all public schooling; taking public stances against health insurance for the elderly & children, etc...

would that cause the Repubs to come to bat for income taxes, public schooling, and health insurance? doubtful. in conclusion, I guess it would make sense to have both triangulaters and fighters. Barbara Boxer, obviously, is a fighter, and luckily she's in a position that she can. other Dems- such as those from Southern or mid-west States- may have to be more of a triangulator, but only due to their constituencies. and jsut as long as they don't become lying turn-coats a la Zell Miller...

I think the combination approach is best--say what you stand for, fight for what you believe in, but don't give unnecessary offense or claim that all must agree--"all good Democrats believe..." has never been successful in winning elections.

An old friend from a campaign in a previous decade said recently that it is better to belong to Democrats because they believe in fighting and debating among themselves than to belong to a party which doesn't allow debate.

That said, do "the Republicans" view Wayne Scott or Ted Ferrioli as more of a true leader? I think Ferrioli deserves credit for being more positive, more open to public input, and more interested in public debate than Scott or Minnis.

I like the joke that was present at the foundation of the DLC, but which fits the Al From types more than the elected officials involved--that DLC stands for Democrats Leaning Conservative.

I don't think "liberal" and "conservative" mean much anymore. The labels don't describe people who vote for some members of both parties or who register outside major parties. They don't fit those who can say why they admire members of both parties.

I have always thought it was a mistake to claim to know "what people want" without asking them. Not just Blue Oregonians, but those Ohio Democrats campaigning for Paul Hackett in that special congressional election. If Hackett wins or even gets 45% of the vote, how will DLC explain someone doing so well in a Republican district without following DLC orders?

I know the value of soundbites (like "tired of partisan bickering? vote for the nonpartisan ballot measure") but the DLC seems to forget that generalized 10 point plans with no discussion of the details IS NOT the way to win elections.

You'd think to hear some talking that Kerry lost the way Mondale lost. But I seem to recall a statistic that Kerry got more total votes in 2004 than Reagan got 20 years earlier.

I have found it more successful to campaign for candidates who have taken specific stands (He supported the bill to..., he opposed CAFTA, etc., or "I really like what she did when...")than to campaign for generalizers which is what the DLC types are. Yes, Kevin Mannix came close in 2002, but it could also be said that the voters rejected the slogan "Tough on crime no new taxes". And what I hear from various sources is that "soft on details" may be an effective attack in the next election, esp. given how some House members voted in this current session the way their caucus told them to vote--did they actually read all of those bills or just vote as they were told?

There is no one tactic that will win votes from everyone. Willie Brown was once asked "which campaign tactic works best--public speaking, mailers, phone banks, broadcast ads?". He gave a wise answer, "Do it all, and hope you have done enough".

I also think Democrats should return to their roots and give more credence to the wisdom of the voters in the district involved (or the whole state in statewide races) than to a consultant or lobbying group telling them what voters want.

But then I think a focus group of 20 reflects the views of those 20 people, no matter how many pundits and politics professionals say "according to this focus group, the public believes..."

Lately I've been wondering what would happen if Democrats joined the Republican party en masse, to vote for progressive or middle-of-the-road Republicans in primaries, and then vote for whomever they pleased in general elections. It would be interesting to see what would happen if the knee-jerk ideologues of the ultra-right who have co-opted the Republican party were forced to drift center just to get enough votes...

Interesting stuff, all that. It's a tough question and, one week later, I'm still mulling Waldman's thesis.

With regard to the general thread - a combination of both - it's worth wondering if this isn't precisely the problem afflicting the Democrats. The bigger the tent, the blander and more muddied the rhetoric. If there's been one thing that has so far served the GOP well - on both the national and local levels - it's the lock-step unity. It's hell on earth to make these guys split. There's just this comfort level among elephants with talking the party line and it works on the same level that McDonald's works for food - it's not necessarily good for you, but you pull the lever for the GOP and you know what you're getting (some exceptions exist, sure, but they're mainly confined to the Northeast and, for all the policy differences, they still speak from the same sheet).

There are signs the Democrats want to shift over - a drift I'm viewing with some suspicion. Over on the Washington Monthly's blog there was think piece about Nancy Pelosi's pledge to crackdown on the Dems who voted for CAFTA. For what it's worth, Kevin Drum makes a good argument in favor of party discipline:

"...there's another thing that Democratic unity on CAFTA would have accomplished: it would have forced Tom DeLay to put the screws to a dozen more of his people than he otherwise had to. This would have forced him to use up political capital, and it also would have forced some Republican congressmen in weak districts to vote for CAFTA whether they liked it or not. If, instead, they had been forced to vote for it, they would have been more vulnerable in 2006. This is Politics 101, and Democratic congressmen who don't understand this really shouldn't be in politics. "

As much as I get what Drum's saying, these aren't free bargains: a party can easily find themselves on the "wrong side" of history. Given political trends in globalization, this may not be much of a risk. But with the mainstream conventional wisdom on trade generally supportive, this one has risk of turning.

Fighting, of course, like Howard Dean. And Barbara Boxer. And Ed Schultz. And Thom Hartmann.

I agree with the person above who said it's not conforming to a fixed set of beliefs, but standing up for what you believe in, and speaking plainly. It's not about triangulating and trying to be Republican lite and trying to talk out of both sides of your mouth and please everyone with wishy-washy equivocation. It's standing up proud as a liberal Democrat.

I'm so thankful not to be a Republican robot, but there has to be some improvement in the party as far as simplifying our message. How many people read the well-meaning but meandering policy statements on Kerry's website? I like Multnomah Dems' tagline: Democrats make people's lives better.

If the oh-so-successful R. message is "less government, lower taxes, strong defense and family values," what is our 10-word message?

I like what Pres. Bartlett said in the West Wing debate "Once in awhile there is an absolute right and an absolute wrong but those days usually include body counts.....10 word answers are the tip of the sword in a country way too big for 10 word answers" and then he challenges his opponent to come up with the 2nd 10 words, "and if you can come up with a 3rd 10 words I will quit the race.

"Making people's lives better" is a dandy slogan if you then have a list of how you propose to do it.

I found this news item on the Cincinatti Enquirer website while looking for Paul Hackett Congressional election results (with maybe 1% of the vote in and some counties not yet reporting, he has 46% of the total vote and is winning a county---in an overwhelmingly RED cong. district which hasn't had a serious Dem. challenger in years!).

Friday, July 29, 2005 Anti-tax group, liberal PAC airing 'don't vote' message

By Howard Wilkinson Enquirer staff writer

It is odd enough that Cincinnati's most conservative, anti-tax, anti-spending organization has teamed up with an Oregon-based liberal political action committee to run a radio ad in Ohio's 2nd Congressional District, but the message the two groups are delivering is even stranger.

They are telling people not to vote in Tuesday's special congressional election.

Citizens Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes, which generally supports Republican candidates, is using money provided by Frontier PAC, a Portland, Ore., organization that generally helps Democratic candidates, to run radio ads on WKRC and WLW radio.

In the ad, voters are urged to not vote for Republican Jean Schmidt, saying she supported tax increases as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives and will do the same if elected to Congress.

But the ad goes even further - COAST president Jim Urling is heard at the end of the ad urging voters to "stay home" Tuesday.

"The ad may have the unintentional consequence of helping get Paul Hackett get elected," Urling told The Enquirer. "But we think it will be easier to remove a Democrat next year than an incumbent Republican posing as a conservative."

Urling said that if Schmidt wins Tuesday's election she will "absolutely" face a Republican challenger in next spring's primary.

One COAST leader, Cincinnati attorney Chris Finney, contacted Frontier PAC and obtained money for the radio ad, Urling said.

"We've formed a temporary coalition with them; and we know that they have their own interests which are not ours," Urling said. "We're making a temporary deal with the devil."

Schmidt campaign manager Joe Braun called the ad campaign "disingenuous."

"It shows clearly that COAST is not really united with the Republican Party," Braun said.

(And with regard to Rs sticking together--how much have Ferrioli and Minnis/ Scott worked together? If the S. Coast airport doesn't get voted on, will Krieger say "my leadership right or wrong" or fear for his political future and be angry with Scott?)

What did Paul Hackett do to nearly win OH-2, a heavily Republican district? It seems to me he was a fighter (aside from being a fighter in the military.) After all, he called Bush a "chickenhawk SOB" in a district that went 72% for Bush last November, but Hackett still got 48% of the vote.

It seems to me that Hackett's ingredients for sucess were: 1)A dynamite story 2)A fighting spirit 3)Inspiring ordinary people to get involved (in a interview today he told of a Marine who was out of the service and working until grad school started, who quit his job and came to work for the campaign), even if they have never been involved before. 4)Personal connections (go to the Cincinatti Enquirer and look at the "election night photos" where he was going to visit people in the various counties--generated lots of enthusiasm). 5)Excellent website --don't know how much longer they will keep it up, but the URL is http://hackettforcongress.com/ 6) Newspaper endorsements 7) A state GOP facing tough times due to scandals with the Gov. and that guy NOE whose job I forget. 8) Help from Democrats all over the country incl. blogs.

This is what Howard Dean was talking about--part of the campaign effort is just showing up. This is the first time in a long time for that district that a Republican has barely won--usually it was close to 70%.

This should be the end of "Democrats must re-examine their values". Paul Hackett was obviously a man fit to his district. Maybe there are Democrats in other parts of the country who don't like Hackett's views on guns or the Iraq War or something. But just a few more points and Ohio 2nd. Cong. Dist. would have been known as the "Hackett District".

A loss by such a small margin in an "impossible" district is not due to "lack of message and values" or any such rot. Things almost came together (was that 4 counties he won?) but not quite. He won newspaper endorsements but was attacked by the Fraternal Order of Police because they didn't like some of the cases he took as a lawyer. Like others who almost won in one election, it is possible that he or someone else could win in the next election. The 2nd District now has to be called a purple district rather than red or blue.

But the flip side is also important. Is it a worthwhile use of resources to run bland candidates without a fighting spirit or people skills just to be running someone in each district? Or would resources be better used supporting the excellent candidates (as Hackett was an excellent candidate)? Hackett was obviously a man driven to win, a leader in war who wanted to serve in elective office. No one in some central planning office dreamed him up--he's the genuine article. None of this nonsense about a consultant planning his every move.

It is like that scene from the beginning of the second season of West Wing where Leo tells Bartlett why he believes in his campaign for president. "Because I am tired of it, year after year, trying to get excited about someone who can speak in complete sentences--setting the bar so low that I can hardly look at it".

Maybe this is a sign that we should be looking for quality candidates. I once met a legislative staffer who was excited about some politicians in both parties. His criteria: What have they accomplished in their lives, where is the proof they can inspire people? Sounds like excellent criteria for evaluating candidates in 2006.

Paul Hackett obviously inspired lots of people to work on his campaign. He said people poured in these last few weeks to volunteer on his campaign. And that it was spontaneous and unplanned.

It is tough finding candidates who inspire that sort of loyalty, but they are better campaigners and more likely to be successful than the candidates chosen by a caucus (legislative, DCCC, etc)or groomed by consultants. You never know without asking individuals, but my guess is that more people are likely to vote for the individual who inspires them than for party or for slogan or for what some political professional tells them is important.

That's very lucid, Adam. Good one.

"...what kind of politicians should Democrats be, triangulators or fighters?"

Spend one hour in any working-class bar and the answer to that one becomes crystal clear.

I spend more time than I ought in working-class bars. My only response to that is you'd get more answers than you'd think - about as many as there are ways to frame a given question. There isn't a mobilized "working-class" opinion anymore.

Seems to me that the triangulation that worked so well for B. Clinton has been a general disaster for other Dems. The R's have done well by going way right. It would please me if D's went the opposite way.

"I spend more time than I ought in working-class bars."

You can never spend more than you ought to.

"My only response to that is you'd get more answers than you'd think - about as many as there are ways to frame a given question. There isn't a mobilized "working-class" opinion anymore."

Forest for the trees. Gotta see the big picture, the common theme. Like the trees, all the individual answers may be different. But put them together, and like the forest a common theme emerges.

"It would please me if D's went the opposite way."

Too far, and that would be the in the domain of the Greens, something that traditional working-class liberals (i.e. 90% of the rank-and-file) find quite horrifying.

I subscribe to the idea that the purpose of the Democratic Party is to win elections. And on that note, I was glad to see this on MSNBC:

In announcing their fall meeting late next week in Phoenix, the Democratic National Committee notes that Iraq veteran Paul Hackett, who narrowly lost that early August special election in a GOP stronghold of Ohio, will address the meeting's general session.

Hackett won 4 rural counties in Ohio. When was the last time you heard Republicans brag that only they have "rural values"?

In this state I hope we pay more attention to the Rural Caucus than we do to Portlanders telling us they know our districts better than we do.

Hackett's website is still up and contains a lot of wisdom.

http://hackettforcongress.com/