Paulie, I challenge the moral force of your comment as follows:

Identity politics of privilege, particularly when the group in question is a diverse majority of the electorate that is now disempowered primarily because of an internal class-based dysfunction, no longer have a place in Democratic party politics in Oregon.

I think we see in the behavior of Snowe, Collins, Hutchinson, Landrieu, Lincoln, Murray, and Cantwell, etc. in this health care reform debate why little political virtue can be claimed for this type of (largely white, economically-privileged) identity politics, and why there is an argument, morally, to not support candidates and political interest groups, Democratic or otherwise, who make it a core principle of their campaigns.

Now, if you want to actually talk about identity politics of non-majority groups or of socio-economic class, that is a different matter entirely.

Your counter-argument?

So what is your alternative? Choose not to invest in Democratic women candidates from across the racial and socio-economic spectrum from all over the state of Oregon in lieu of having long philosophical blog discussions about the theory of true progressive politics? Please.

Great post Paulie, great program. Hope all can attend.

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Democrat---

When we first moved to Salem, our State Rep. was Norma Paulus---one of the great moderate Republicans. She might have been Gov. but she decided to listen to consultants who said she had to turn into another person to win. People who would have voted for the woman they admired as state rep. decided not to vote for that person.

Darlene Hooley was the opposite---the woman elected to Congress was exactly the same person who was a state legislator. Once elected, she remained in office until she retired.

Many women incl. Bev Clarno and Margaret Carter have distinguished themselves in positions of leadership.

Never forget Barbara Roberts--excellent legislator, Sec. of State, and Oregon's first woman Gov.

There have been very strong women in Congress and in the Oregon State Legislature. If you never knew Vera Katz, Ruth McFarland, Nancy Ryles, Nancy Peterson, Jane Cease, Joyce Cohen and many others, you really missed something.

My current state legislators are women. My state rep. is condescending and reminds some people of "remember how those popular girls in high school treated the rest of us?". Intellectual content in her communications with constituents? Don't hold your breath!

My state senator is a senior member of Ways and Means who has made great contributions as a member of that body. Agree with her or not, she is a model of how strong women in politics can accomplish great things.

Paulie:

Great post. But one correction:

The Legislature (with the recent additions of Reps. Margaret Doherty and Val Hoyle) now has ONE MORE woman than 20 years ago. Still not enough, but heading in the right direction!

This question seemed interesting when it was asked on your similar post, three weeks ago, and it never got a response, so I'm reposting it now (apologies to Rudy V).

The Brits have a proposal that is getting brought up more seriously all the time, of enforcing demographic pro rata among candidates, starting with women. I'm curious to hear American reactions to that. Seems like this is more "American", but the proposed approach does get 'er done!

I think he's saying that some councils are requiring that whatever the percentage of woman voters is in the district, that the same percentage of candidates must be women. (Correct me if I'm wrong). I find this interesting because it seems to be a step towards a true non-representative, Athenean style democracy. Ultimately one could imagine a "bot" voting each person's interest. The in-between stage would be enforcing the districts' demographics on the candidates.

Identity politics of privilege, particularly when the group in question is a diverse majority of the electorate that is now disempowered primarily because of an internal class-based dysfunction, no longer have a place in Democratic party politics in Oregon.

So, exactly one year back, Portlanders decided to keep a lying callous rude career pol in office as mayor because they don't mind any of that, and not because the gay communitty had "got one" and wasn't going to lose one of theirs at the top? Wasn't the last Blueoregon contributor to be on the slate for elected office, before Cornett, the "identity politics" editor?

Oh, what are we talking about? "Kevin" has informed us that there is no such thing as identity politics. No, all the blacks that still think Obama is great really were hoping for a big knee in the crotch to environmentalists!

Paulie,

Emerge Oregon is to be congratulated on your success. A program such as this has been needed for a long time.

Your counter-argument?

She's another of these "post and run" types. You'll get no response.

Democrat - I would say that, while the goal of Emerge Oregon is to prepare women to run for office (with the ultimate goal of having more female elected politicians), the organization's mere existence does not mean that they are promoting the type of identity politics you describe.

The organization's purpose is simply to encourage more women to run (because women are less likely to be candidates) and to equip them with the skills and knowledge needed. They don't tell women to make their gender the "core principle of their campaign". In fact, I think that would be pretty bad advice, given that in this day and age, most women (and men) with a thinking head on their shoulders prefer to vote for the best candidate, whether they are male or female (hence why Palin didn't win over former Hillary supporters).

So, you're right in that that kind of identity politics shouldn't have a place, but wrong in assuming that it does have a place at Emerge. I think there's a difference between saying that women are inherently more qualified or that you should vote for or support someone just because they are a woman (which is not Emerge's philosophy) and saying that there is value generally in in having more female elected officials (which is their philosophy).

If you really think there is no value whatsoever in having more women in office, then I suppose that's a much longer conversation...

It's been my experience- perhaps too limited- that women don't follow through on the whole identity politics thing, even when they want to! My mother-in-law in Texas swore, about 3 years ago, that she would never vote for another man. Period. I was curious what she would do in the last cycle. She started out trying to be for Hillary, and switched to Obama after about a week. I've seen it a number of other times. No matter how much a woman decides to vote female, issues always win the day.

Besides, there're lots of other stupid reasons for why people vote as they do, more stupid even than identity politics. My fav was from the 2004 election, vis a vis Shrub and Kerry. A very liberal (self-assessed) person I know said, "Well, Kerry, I don't know. I just could never vote for anyone that looks like him". Think that's extreme? I knew a poli sci prof in 1973 that used to take all bets that, within 10 years, Ronald Reagan would be President. "It's simple", he said. "Go home and ask your mother if she would vote for him".

Thankfully things like Emerge make those days seem long, long ago. Now if only Reagan's fiscal wisdumb seemed as far off...

This is a great opportunity for women to address some issues that up until now is still unresolved.
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