Politics is at its heart a battle for control of language and symbols. Now that the president has nominated Judge Sotomayor, [insert name of political party or faction here] will seek to [support | undercut] that nominee through [messaging | framing | "truth"]. Ideological control of mainstream, a word signifying ownership of the core values of a majority of Americans, is at stake.

From Scott Reed, manager of the 1996 presidential campaign of Bob Dole:

The G.OP. has to make a stand. This is what the base and social conservatives really care about, and we need to brand her a liberal with some out-of-the-mainstream positions.

From Burt Neuborne, legal director of the New York University Brennan Center for Justice:

I have reviewed Judge Sotomayor’s judicial record, and it is undoubtedly well within the judicial mainstream.

From a list of talking points released in error by the GOP and printed in The Hill:

Republicans look forward to learning more about Judge Sotomayor’s legal views and to determining whether her views reflect the values of mainstream America.

Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com on Judge Sotomayer’s comments on gender and ethnicity informing judicial rulings:

It’s possible to take that view too far to the point where it becomes troubling, and Sotomayor should (and certainly will) be asked about it, but the comments themselves are entirely mainstream and uncontroversial.

From David Limbaugh at Human Events:

Even though the nation is mostly conservative and “liberal” is still a dirty word, President Obama is moving us leftward at a breakneck pace by disguising his actions through smooth rhetoric and slick salesmanship. Obama is a consummate practitioner of presenting his extreme leftist agenda as moderate and mainstream.

And even from George W. Bush in 2005:

My nominee will be a fair-minded individual who represents the mainstream of American law and American values.

Imagine a political spectrum from as far left as possible to as far right as possible. (Given the press’s framing of what “far left” and “far right” has been for the past quarter century, left vs. right isn’t as distinct as it used to be. But let’s leave that for another post …)

Where is mainstream? Is it where the Democratic Party used to be before Bill Clinton transformed it into Centrist City? Is it where various progressive groups say they now populate the mainstream? Is it where evangelical Christians say the base of the Republican Party is? Is mainstream more at home with social conservatives or fiscal conservatives?

I don’t know. But it will be fun watching them all attempt to remake mainstream within their own ideological images.

Last week, McCain attempted a stunt for the ages, announcing that he was “suspending his campaign” so that he could rush back to Washington, where he was apparently desperately needed in order to pull together an economic bailout package. He called on Sen. Barack Obama to stop stomping the shizzle out of him on the campaign trail join him in pursuing a non-partisan solution that would ease the suffering of his cronies on Wall Street the American people.

Needless to say, the plan fizzled, and for a variety of reasons.

• For starters, McCain has been absent from Washington for so much of this year (and most recent years, for that matter) that when he showed up, most people didn’t know who he was.
• By the way, he’s not really on the committees charged with these kinds of economic matters.
• While he told America he was suspending his campaign, he apparently forgot to tell the people who, you know, run his campaign.
• Once he insinuated himself into the process, he actually managed to derail what progress had already been made – and this was according to a key Republican lawmaker, House Minority Whip Roy Blunt.
• In Friday night’s debate at the University of Mississippi, the consensus seems to be that it was either a tie or a slight Obama win. Most importantly, though, it seems that the all-important independents thought Obama won. Given that Obama has “no experience” (compared with McCain’s “ample experience,” mostly at getting us into shit like Iraq), even a tie equals an Obama win.

As it turns out, the inside story of what happened is even worse for McCain.

Pelosi said Obama would speak for the Democrats. Though later he would pepper Paulson with questions, according to a Republican in the room, his initial point was brief: “We’ve got to get something done.”

Bush turned to McCain, who joked, “The longer I am around here, the more I respect seniority.” McCain then turned to Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to speak first.

Boehner was blunt. The plan Paulson laid out would not win the support of the vast majority of House Republicans. It had been improved on the edges, with an oversight board and caps on the compensation of participating executives. But it had to be changed at the core. He did not mention the insurance alternative, but Democrats did. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, pressed Boehner hard, asking him if he really intended to scrap the deal and start again.

No, Boehner replied, he just wanted his members to have a voice. Obama then jumped in to turn the question on his rival: “What do you think of the [insurance] plan, John?” he asked repeatedly. McCain did not answer.

One Republican in the room said it was clear that the Democrats came into the meeting with a “game plan” aimed at forcing McCain to choose between the administration and House Republicans. “They had taken McCain’s request for a meeting and trumped it,” said this source.

Congressional aides from both parties were standing in the lobby of the West Wing, unaware of the discord inside the Cabinet room, when McCain emerged alone, shook the hands of the Marines at the door and left. The aides were baffled. The plan had been for a bipartisan appearance before the media, featuring McCain, Obama and at least a firm statement in favor of intervention. Now, one of the leading men was gone.

As Josh Marshall puts it, McCain was “humiliated.”

Adding insult to injury, of course, was last night’s Saturday Night Live, where Tina Fey continued the beatdown on Sarah Palin. SNL has always had fun with presidents, but this is the worst number they’ve done on any pol since Chevy Chase more or less destroyed Gerald Ford’s career over 30 years ago.

The upshot is that we’re here on Sunday, facing down what is guaranteed to be one of the most monumentally important weeks in the last century of our nation’s history. The looming financial crisis is potentially epic; the deal that will be reached to address it may work or it may make things worse, depending on who you believe; and it’s hard to imagine that what happens in the next five to seven days won’t go a long way – a long way – toward deciding our next president.

And given the predicament we’ve allowed the kleptocrats to create over the past 8-40 years (depending on where you like to draw the line), the outcome of the 2008 elections, now just over four weeks away, could shape the course of America’s history in ways that historians will still be wrangling over hundreds of years from now. I know that probably sounds like hyperbole, but I think it’s more than a little plausible.

So, on deck: a big week for Johnny McSame and a big week for the country. McCain pulled a transparent political stunt so he could ride the Circular Talk Express into DC and look like a hero, but when he arrived he got punked left, right, upside down and sideways. I can’t say for sure how this looks to your average undecided voter, but it can’t possibly have helped, can it?

Meanwhile, regardless of what the realities of the bailout turn out to be, Obama walks away looking very … presidential – at least for the moment.

Not that I ever count on American voters paying attention or having the wits to parse even the simplest events, but we could be looking at a real turning point. McSame needs to have a very good week, and unless somebody has pics of Obama fellating Osama, I’m not sure where the good news is going to come from.

Obama: “I think the job of the Democratic Party is to be so compelling that a few percentage [points] of the vote going to another candidate is not going to make any difference.”

Clinton: “Obviously it’s not helpful to whoever our Democratic nominee is, but it’s a free country. …I don’t know what party he’ll run on. Where did he run on last time? Does anybody remember? … Was it on the Green Party? Well, you know, his being on the Green Party prevented Al Gore from being the greenest president we could have had, and I think that’s really unfortunate. I think we paid a big price for it. … This time I hope it doesn’t hurt anyone.”

Guess which one gets it?

1: Sam “Dr. Slammy” Smith, Independent (14)
2: Cynthia McKinney, Green (10)
- Ralph Nader, Independent (10)
4: Cris Ericson, Marijuana (3)
- Gloria LaRiva, Peace & Freedom (3)
- Other independent or 3rd party candidate (3)
7: George Phillies, Libertarian (2)
8: Brian Moore, Socialist USA (1)
- Wayne Allyn Root, Libertarian (1)

Candidates receiving zero votes:

Gene Amondson, Prohibition
Orion Karl Daley, Balanced
Charles Jay, Personal Choice

Our new poll, up now in the column to the right, asks S&R readers to identify what they see as the most important issue of the 2008 presidential election cycle.

Ahem. So those of you who thought Ron Paul was going to go away once the big boys got serious have probably been surprised by his staying power so far. He’s polling in the high single digits (something Ronald Reagan Fred Thompson can’t say) and one pollster thinks his actual numbers are in the double digits. He says he’s raised $19M this quarter. His supporters are insane courageously enthusiastic, and he seems to be showing strength among some groups that you wouldn’t expect – progressives, younger voters, etc.

And of course, he’s left the rest of the pack for dead in the highly scientific S&R reader poll, where at the moment of this writing he has over twice as many votes as the rest of the GOP candidates put together (unless you count “other”).

Election watchers in both parties are trying to better understand Paul’s appeal and what it means for their candidates’ chances. Based on what I’m reading lately, I’m not sure which party is more concerned about a potential 3rd-party run by the representative from TX-14. Probably the GOP, although some Dem strategists are paying closer attention than you’d expect. In fact, I’ve even seen some very smart progressive analysts working through early primary scenarios whereby Paul becomes a legit power past South Carolina.

A good part of Paul’s popularity seems as obvious as the reasons why both parties should be nervous. To put it simply – which is how we Americans like our issues – Ron Paul is right about some very important things. He’s balls-to-the-wall against our little misadventure in Iraq. He likewise opposes hostilities against the region’s other Ira, Iran. And he managed to see the Patriot Act for the blatant assault on our liberties that it is. He’s distressed by our nation’s move toward a “soft” fascism (although I’m damned if I can find much in his actual voting record that’s consistent with his concern that “corporations [are] running the show” and “big government [is] in bed with big business”; more on this below). There are others, but these are the high spots for a lot of his supporters, I suspect.

There are also a number of issues where Paul is wrong. Way wrong. Tragically wrong. And if you find my use of the word “wrong” arrogant, then let me see if I can put it more objectively: Ron Paul holds positions on many issues that likely run counter to the beliefs of many of his supporters. It’s this segment of voters – disaffected progressives and moderates who’ve had enough of the GOP – that I’d like to address. Short version: I feel your pain, but I fear you’re letting your pain lead you into barking idiocy short-sightedness and counterproductive anti-thinking.

For instance, what about that nasty racism issue that won’t seem to go away? Let’s look at some of his own words:

The professional blacks may have cowed the elites, but good sense survives at the grass roots. Many more are going to have difficultly avoiding the belief that our country is being destroyed by a group of actual and potential terrorists — and they can be identified by the color of their skin. This conclusion may not be entirely fair, but it is, for many, entirely unavoidable.

Indeed, it is shocking to consider the uniformity of opinion among blacks in this country. Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty, and the end of welfare and affirmative action…. Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the “criminal justice system,” I think we can safely assume that 95% of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.

If similar in-depth studies were conducted in other major cities, who doubts that similar results would be produced? We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, but it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings, and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.

We should note that Paul later attempted to back off of these words a bit by explaining that he didn’t say them, they were the product of the people who wrote his newsletter for him. So that absolves him of responsibility and guilt, I guess.

But then there’s this bit, attributed to the American National Socialist Workers Party Web site:

Comrades:

I have kept quiet about the Ron Paul campaign for a while, because I didn’t see any need to say anything that would cause any trouble. However, reading the latest release from his campaign spokesman, I am compelled to tell the truth about Ron Paul’s extensive involvement in white nationalism.

Both Congressman Paul and his aides regularly meet with members of the Stormfront set, American Renaissance, the Institute for Historic Review, and others at the Tara Thai restaurant in Arlington, Virginia, usually on Wednesdays. This is part of a dinner that was originally organized by Pat Buchanan, Sam Francis and Joe Sobran, and has since been mostly taken over by the Council of Conservative Citizens.

Is Ron Paul a racist? I don’t know what lurks in the man’s heart, but I don’t think it unreasonable to suggest that he’s given us ample reason to wonder, do you? He’s certainly abandoned any presumption of innocence in an electoral context.

This is hardly the only point where an educated, thoughtful, progressive-minded voter might pause to reflect on Congressman Paul. For instance:

• He’s ardently anti-choice, which makes me question whether he’s even a real Libertarian. He has managed to concoct a rationalization around the rights of fetuses, but it strikes me as labored (and his invocation of Terri Schiavo doesn’t help here, either)..
• He’s earned a 76% rating from the Christian Coalition. I hate to get too ad hominem, but this is an organization that makes a point of opposing all things socially progressive.
• He voted NO on allowing embryonic stem cell research. (May 2005) This doesn’t tell you all you need to know, but it tells you a lot that it’s helpful to know.
• Voted YES on banning Family Planning funding in US aid abroad.
• Voted NO on requiring lobbyist disclosure of bundled donations. (May 2007) Because, you know, he’s worried about corporatism.
• Voted NO on campaign finance reform banning soft-money contributions. (Feb 2002) Because he’s terribly concerned about politicians being in bed with the big money.
• Voted NO on banning soft money and issue ads. (Sep 1999)
• Voted YES on building a fence along the Mexican border. (Sep 2006)
• Voted NO on increasing the minimum wage to $7.25. (Jan 2007) You can really begin to sense his rage at exploitative big business here, can’t you?
• Voted NO on “network neutrality.” (Jun 2006)
• Voted NO on allowing telephone monopolies to offer Internet access. (Feb 2002)
• He supports a Constitutional Amendment for school prayer. Because there’s nowhere left in America where you can go to pray, I guess.
• YES on “protecting” the Pledge of Allegiance.
• YES on vouchers for private & parochial schools.
• He’s rated at 5% by the League of Conservation Voters, indicating a strongly anti-environment record.
• NO on raising Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards and incentives for alternative fuels.
• NO on prohibiting oil drilling & development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Source)

Now, I get that no candidate is perfect. Very few people are lucky enough to have a candidate on the ballot for any office who agrees with him or her 100% of the time. We all have to decide which candidate comes closest to representing our views on the issues that matter most to us. I’m no different from Paul’s supporters on this. If I vote for Edwards, I’ll do so because his views on critical class issues outweigh his views on gays and the fact that, apology notwithstanding, he was once dumb enough to fall for Dubya’s lying and warmongering. If I vote for Obama I’ll have to find a way past the fact that he’s way too willing to issue high-sounding pronouncements from a safe distance while actual leaders are back doing the dirty work of standing up for the Constitution. If I vote for Hillary I’ll have to overlook just about everygoddamnedthing and hold my nose while I vote for bad over evil. If I vote for Huckabee or Giuliani I’ll have to find a way to deal with the fact that somebody lobotomized me in my sleep.

Yes, there are a number of issues where Paul isn’t just right, he’s probably the most right of all the candidates. And yes, I understand how your rage over two or three major issues can dominate your thinking.

But backing Paul, when we consider the full range of issues? That isn’t cutting off your nose to spite your face. It’s stuffing your entire body into a wood chipper to spite your face. The truth is that once you get past Iraq and the Patriot Act, he’s worse than the Busheviks on most other issues.

• He’s iffy on race – at best.
• His Fundie Right anti-abortion leanings are so strong they’re the one thing that compels him to abandon Libertarian dogma. In fact, he’s been known to express a baffling degree of Christian paranoia.
  

  “We hear bleats about homophobia, but it is actually religiophobia that afflicts America. The government is starting with the fringe, but it won’t stop there. All Christians have much to fear.”

  Right. Because since only 85%+ of Americans and an even higher percentage of our political leaders are Christians, there’s a real risk that the 10% Satanic/Liberal minority is going to overrun the place any day now.

• He’s a corporatist’s wet dream and an environmentalist’s worst nightmare.
• He places the rights of stem cells that are never going to be used to conceive a fetus above those of actual human beings with serious illnesses.

America has more than one or two problems. And nothing creates more and worse problems than a lot of one-issue voting. So for those of my fellow citizens who are in love with Ron Paul, I ask you to step back, take a deep breath, and think about the fact that it does us little good to get out of Iraq if the cost is further annihilating the home front. Please, think about the big picture.

And for our other presidential candidates, especially the Democrats who are allegedly about progress, all I want for Christmas is for you to stop making a pro-corporatist, anti-environment, anti-choice Jesuscrat with a disturbing record on race look viable.

I don’t think that’s asking too much. Do you?

Science-fiction author Jerry Pournelle fired back at Doctorow in a series of responses that basically boiled down to “You’re taking food out of my baby mamma’s my mouth!” The SFWA has agreed to stop its e-piracy campaign and review the list of works posted on Scribd in light of the complaints from Doctorow and other authors who were inadvertently harmed by the move.

There are two things I want to address about this.

First, this sort of carpet-bombing copyright attack is the exact same sort of thing Viacom did to YouTube–sending out threatening DMCA takedown notices based in generally inaccurate understanding of copyright law, and ending up removing tons of legitimate, non-infringing content as well. One could also make the argument that it’s similar to LiveJournal’s own en masse takedown of many communities and LJs due to (often mistaken) accusations of pedophilic content. But this is always what happens when the fear of legal liability wrought by a terrible law like the DMCA takes hold. It stifles free expression, harms the work and livelihood of innocent people, and actually makes it harder to legitimately protect copyright–lack of real understanding of the law either gets these cases tossed out of court or ended in paying agreements between the content creator and the aggrieved party, which instills the idea that it’s okay to get away with this as long as you give the media money machine its cut. Lawrence Lessig has written exhaustively and definitively on the failures of modern copyright law and intellectual property hegemony–read this as a brief example–and I strongly recommend to anyone who thinks this is a simple issue to read his works. It’s anything but. I also strongly recommend visiting the Electronic Frontier Foundation and studying their regular efforts to challenge the DMCA and explore its many abusive ramifications.

Second, I am reminded of my first encounter with the SFWA in the form of this insanely Luddite-esque rant by the organization’s former VP, Howard Hendrix. As I’m not an SF writer, I had no idea the organization existed, but if these kinds of attitudes are what is prevalent among the members it claims to represent, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to join–and the copyright takedown attack is another example of that. Of ALL people, in ALL groups, you would think science fiction writers would be among the first to jump on the train of new technology and new ideas–new ways of sharing content. And I’m sure that’s still very much the case, judging by the heated responses to Hendrix’s screed in the comments. But like any group with such a vast potential membership as sci-fi writers, you’ll find more than your share of right-wing reactionaries and retarded middle-aged adolescents, and that seems to be infecting the SFWA to an alarming degree.

It’s depressing to see that even in a field like SF writing–which is all about imagining the possible, the exploration of the new frontier, and the usage of a fantastic setting as a metaphor to explore real-world issues–that the all-too-real banality of legal liability has caused this kind of backlash, and provided an already beleaguered organization with more bad publicity.

A good (and presumably fair) evaluation means, you hope, that you get that raise and you keep that job or you get promoted. But suppose you had a job in which the most common means of evaluation don’t seem to have much to do with assessing the job you were hired to do?

We elect 535 members of Congress (representatives every two years and senators every six years). But do we vote to keep them in their jobs based on a sensible, formal evaluation of what we hired them to do?

Perhaps an election is the only evaluation needed. Flick a switch, touch a screen, punch out a chad to indicate yea or nay. But the re-election rate (or recidivism rate, if you’re a cynic) for members of Congress is somewhere north of 90 percent. That suggests that voters aren’t applying a rigorous assessment of how members of Congress perform their jobs. Perhaps voters are merely listening to (gasp!) political ads or (double gasp!) political pundits and deciding how to vote based on those decidedly flawed assessment tools.

What is the job description of a member of Congress? The Constitution of the United States says a member of the House must be at least 25 years old, a citizen for at least seven years and a resident of the state from which he or she is elected. Senators must be 30, a citizen for nine years and a resident of their states. Collectively, they may propose and concur on legislation. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution details their powers — laying and collecting taxes, regulating commerce, coining money, declaring war and so on. They offer advice and consent to the executive branch on appointments of Cabinet members, ambassadors, judges and other positions.

How many of us carefully assess members of Congress on their performance of tasks assigned them by the Constitution?

One “evaluation” tool often used is the public-opinion poll. At the moment, polls don’t reflect a high opinion of the Congress. But polls don’t always test performance. Many polls examine the ideological divide: If you were going to vote today, would you pick a Democrat or a Republican? How does that meaningfully assess performance? Others examine popularity or “approval.” Why this? Does the constitutional job description for members of Congress include “being popular”?

Another assessment tool is simply determining whether they show up for work. The 110th has met for 111 legislative sessions this year, well ahead of the 109th’s 87 days (a dismal record).

Is it fair to fault members of Congress based on the number of days in session? Damn right it is. They’re getting a base pay of $165,200 and a whole bunch of nice bennies.

Okay, they do other things besides sit in session — attend hearings, conduct investigations, all that stuff outlined in the Constitution. But they spend so little time doing their constitutionally assigned tasks because they’re so busy fundraising to remain members of Congress. I don’t see where the Constitution’s job description for Congress includes time spent back in the district for the sole purpose of raising money so members can keep their jobs. A work week in Congress may begin Tuesday evening (after returning from the district) to Thursday morning (to return to the district). Members I’ve spoken with say they spend more than 60 percent of their time raising money to get re-elected.

Is that what we hired them to do? Spent more time on the task of staying in office than performing in office?

Maybe it’s time to get someone in Congressional Human Resources to crank up a Job Evaluation Rubric for Kongress (JERK) form. That’s what we need — a good scorecard that differentiates, on an articulated scale such as a Likert scale, performance in the behaviors required in the job description in the Constitution.

The New York Times took a shot at that today with this “op-chart” comparing the 110th Congress with the 103rd, 104th and 109th Congresses.

The chart details measures passed, oversight hearings conducted, markups completed, laws passed and earmarks used (and their cost!). That’s a beginning.

We shouldn’t vote for members of Congress based on their deceitful use of all that money they raise while they’re supposed to be working on the public’s business to buy ads to shape the public’s perception of them as actually working for the public.

Let’s begin building that JERK. Suggestions, folks?

Giuliani has described himself as a backer of civil unions and is frequently described that way in news reports. But he began distancing himself from civil unions in late April, when his campaign told The New York Sun that New Hampshire’s new law goes too far because it is “the equivalent of marriage,” which he has always opposed for gays.
–Boston Globe, August 13, 2007.

Rudy Giuliani is definitely the “Teflon Don” of the current presidential campaign, in that even as more and more evidence surfaces about how deeply right-wing his politics actually are–or worse, that he’s pandering to gain traction with the GOP base–I still run across a baffling number of people who insist that they’d vote for him because of his socially liberal positions, or because he “cut taxes and stopped crime in NYC,” or because he looked authoritative and in command on 9/11.

Now, a lot of this is just pure mythos. Wayne Barrett of the Village Voice authored a devastating takedown of Giuliani’s supposed leadership during 9/11, citing as an example his insistence on building a command center for future terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center–the site of the infamous previous attack in 1993:

The mayor was so personally focused on the siting and construction of the bunker that the city administrator who oversaw it testified in a subsequent lawsuit that “very senior officials,” specifically including Giuliani, “were involved,” which he said was a major difference between this and other projects. Giuliani’s office had a humidor for cigars and mementos from City Hall, including a fire horn, police hats and fire hats, as well as monogrammed towels in his bathroom. His suite was bulletproofed and he visited it often, even on weekends, bringing his girlfriend Judi Nathan there long before the relationship surfaced. He had his own elevator. Great concern was expressed in writing that the platform in the press room had to be high enough to make sure his head was above the cameras.

In addition to the many instances of Giuliani’s disinterest in his actual work that I’ve cited (from having a campaign director who sells coke to ignoring Iraq Study Group meetings in order to collect hefty paychecks for speaking engagements), Giuliani’s foreign policy expertise and experience seems to be rooted in the idea that George Bush–one of the most unilaterally aggressive and militaristic presidents in our country’s history–just hasn’t pushed hard enough:

“We are all members of the 9/11 generation,” Rudy’s subtle first sentence reads — something that tells you quite a lot about what Rudy’s policies and campaign themes are. Rudy goes on to make some startling policy pronouncements — such as suggesting that we expand and redefine NATO into a worldwide alliance for pursuing more foreign adventures, and that running New York City as Mayor is very similar to handling the global foreign policy challenges associated with being President.

Meanwhile, his domestic policy platform is tepid at best, with his recently-announced health care proposal basically boiling down to a lot of weaksauce “market-oriented” programs and excuses to call single-payer health care plans “socialized medicine.”

And then there’s the point of Rudy’s notorious philandering and carousing while he was in office, leading to some very bitter and ugly scenarios as he continued to trade laterally for more palatable wives. Giuliani’s latest model, Judith Nathan, apparently is taking full advantage of the high-toned life Giuliani leads:

Today she and Giuliani, when they are not boarding private Gulfstream IV jets to Europe or trying to woo voters, shuttle between a $4 million Hamptons house and a $5 million nine-room Upper East Side apartment near Madison Avenue, its dining room walnut-paneled and crammed with crystal, china, and linen from Scully & Scully. Her annual salary has also improved: $125,000, evidently for helping to write some of the speeches Giuliani likes to give (for which he received $11.7 million between January 2006 and March 2007). This comes as a surprise to at least one of Judith’s acquaintances. Asked if he knew Judith was writing speeches, one former Giuliani aide replied, “Holy cow! God forbid!”

It doesn’t bother me that Giuliani slept around any more than it did Clinton. What bothers me is how ugly and vile his behavior was during and after each episode–how obviously entitled Giuliani felt to get away with something we nearly impeached a President for. That’s a very telling aspect of Giuliani’s personality–the sense that he is somehow innately better than the people he is supposed to serve.

I think, actually, that explains his appeal to people who should, frankly, know better. Giuliani’s image as the tough, commanding leader resonates with those who desperately want an authority figure–a “Daddy”–to tell them what to do and make them feel safe. No matter how fragile the reality is, the image provides comfort to those who desperately want it–and who are looking for an excuse to vote Republican to avoid the horror of (gasp) Hillary Clinton.

There’s also the “single-issue” voter complex that the progressive blogosphere has railed against for years–the idea that it doesn’t matter how a candidate or elected official votes on everything else, as long as he’s on the right side on your particular issue. In this case, Giuliani’s (until now) progressive stance on gay rights and abortion has softened him sufficiently to make him palatable to middle-of-the-road types who’re socially liberal but conservative on almost everything else. Meanwhile, it’s earned him unending hatred and scorn from the wingnut world– which may explain his gradual but noticeable shift to the right on these issues. Gotta keep the rabid dogs fed, after all.

Images are easy to sell and perceptions are hard to shake. People are essentially simple, and want to boil complex issues down to simple points that they can understand and relate to them. Just as Bush’s “guy you want to have a beer with” demeanor masked the already-evident destructive flaws in his personality until it was too late, Giuliani’s social moderate views and impressive post-9/11 political theater have solidified him in the eyes of many as the LEADER people want. But dig a little deeper and you’ll see that not only is he the absolute opposite of what a leader should be, but that his leadership style echoes and amplifies everything we have come to loathe about the Decider.

And we can’t have another four years of that sort of leadership messing up the country.

In a nutshell, I want to argue here that they do so because the GOP has, through a long-term and exceptionally effective messaging campaign, drawn around itself the ideology of hope. Forgive a brief over-generalization, but they’re the party that preaches wealth and that tells people they can join the club (never mind that the message is a lie, given our current economic policy structure). In the popular frame, the Republicans are often seen as being about getting and having money while the Democrats are about taking your hard-earned money and giving it to people who didn’t earn it. The GOP would have you believe that they are dedicated to creating wealth while their opponents are committed to redistributing wealth. This is a powerful message in a nation framed by the Puritan work ethic.

The Democratic party does not at present have an effective counter-message that offers hope in ample measure. Their policies and promises paint a picture of a comparatively flat economic landscape. In essence, the party seems to say “if you want to have enough, we can help you.” This is a viable and valid message for a rational population, but in America’s media-saturated, hyper-consumerist culture “enough” is a glass ceiling message that doesn’t parse as “you can have X” – instead, it parses as “you can only have X.” People want to be well-off and if nothing else in the world is clear to us, it should be that hope trumps rationality every time. Successful political action must appeal to the public’s aspirations, because psychologically Americans are unwilling and unable to let go of the American Dream they’ve been fed since they were toddlers.

This must change. Now. If other constituencies are to have access to genuine power and opportunity, the GOP wealth lie must be exposed for what it is and the parties that legitimately favor the creation of wealth instead of the hoarding of wealth must begin crafting messaging that fosters truth and policies that engender a new economic reality for the 99% of Americans on the outside looking in. In a pragmatic sense, this task falls most immediately to the Democrats. However, all parties are implicated in the mission, as are all independents, because the Republican economic disenfranchisement project is aimed at the entirety of the culture. In a very real sense this isn’t about Republicans vs. Democrats, it’s Republicans vs. America.

Messaging: Framing wealth and opportunity

If all the people who would like to be rich vote for you, you’ll win every election by a landslide. The trick is capture the hearts, minds and imaginations of this key demographic.

The first step along this path is to internalize a core assumption: “it is not the GOP, but those who oppose them, who stand for wealth in America.” And that word “wealth” is key – we should never be ashamed to use it, because it speaks directly to the aspirations of those we’re addressing. Wealth is not bad – you can do bad things with it, of course, as legions of Republicans have demonstrated. But you can also do tremendously good things with it, like assure the health and welfare of your family and community.

When thinking, talking and writing about economic subjects, keep the following things in mind:

• GOP policies favor the hoarding of wealth by an elect few. Those who oppose them promote the creation of wealth by providing opportunity for the many.
• The GOP promotes a rigged game where wealth is inherited and business is done via secret deals; those who oppose them insist on a level playing field where wealth is achieved via a fair process.
• The old frame of haves vs. have-nots is counter-productive, since people tend to identify with aspirations and identification with “have-not” is defeatist. Even as we may hate them, we also want to be them (or at least, we want to have the freedom and possibility that attends having what they have). Instead, the message of hope that will end GOP ownership of the wealth frame revolves around the haves and the will-haves. Although it’s less catchy rolling off the tongue, another way to frame the haves is to emphasize that they’re the “keeps” or “keep-aways,” which focuses on their greed and selfishness.
• When possible, we should point to the idea that at its core we’re seeing a struggle between old money and new horizons. They’re inbred and rule by downward pressure, while we leverage the inherent creativity bound up in America’s birthright of diversity.
• GOP policies build walls between people and the opportunity to attain wealth through their innovation and hard work. Those who oppose the Republicans are building bridges to the American Dream.
• The GOP-dominated establishment is a system of exclusion that prevents people from earning their way up the ladder of success. Our system is one of inclusion where people are free to achieve their destiny.
• Conservative-dominated businesses are obsessed with cutting costs, which is a code-word for “people.” Those who oppose the GOP are committed to investing in the value of human ingenuity. While they seek to offshore opportunity, we promote policies that onboard American talent.
• They work to preserve a small, clutching aristocracy. We believe in promoting a meritocracy where the only limits on human achievement are the abilities of the individuals or teams involved.
• Despite the cynical language they use to talk about “entitlements,” no class of people in the history of the world act as entitled as those who were born to privilege. The fat and happy feel entitled to power and money. Those of us who are lean and hungry seek nothing more than the chance to earn it through our abilities.
• Existing, pro-GOP policies are a lock on the gate of opportunity. We promote policies that are a key to universal opportunity.
• When you look hard at the GOP-enabled lobbying culture that has taken over Washington, it becomes painfully clear that they’re about special interests. We’re about the public interest.
• The GOP acts like a gang. We promote policies that bring talented individuals together as teams.
• The GOP talks a lot about free markets, where people excel by working in their own self-interest. However, as their policies suck the chance for real profit out of the market they foster stagnation. As we replace their policies with those that truly do allow people to reap the rewards of their work, we promote a new golden age of innovation.
• The GOP divides us against each other, knowing that artificial notions of red vs. blue distract us from the real issues. We unite all Americans in the pursuit of prosperity for all.
• In GOP Land people succeed depending on how well they’re plugged into the old-boy network. Those of us who oppose them believe in creating productivity networks.
• GOP policies are patently and exclusively self-serving. Our vision replaces self-serving with self-sufficient.
• It’s ironic that those who scream the loudest about taxes because they allow others to leech off your hard work are the ones who profit massively off of the work of others. The truth is that it’s the GOP hoarding class that leeches off of those who actually produce.
• The GOP favors a world where decisions are made in a smoke-filled back room. We believe democracy and free markets work best when conducted in an open forum.
• One of the most important ways that the GOP has gamed the system is through a long war to transform our schools into institutions of indoctrination. We’re not afraid of ideas – good ones can be adopted and bad ones defeated by smart minds. We understand that universal wealth flows from an open system of education that encourages every person to be as brilliant as possible. Ignorance serves the GOP. Genius serves us all.

I suspect these linguistic tools are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, but they should serve to get us started in our mission to create a new vocabulary around wealth. If we win the battle over over the vocabulary, we will win the war. Here’s a more complete list of paired opposites for you to consider and integrate into your own vocabulary.

(I don’t see this list as comprehensive or complete; I fully expect this list to grow and evolve over time, so feel free to add your own ideas.)

Policies to support the promise

It’s obviously important that we deliver on this bold new promise. At every turn, the policies proposed by Democrats, Libertarians, Greens and Independents must ask a simple question: “in what way are we creating wealth?” I don’t have the time or expertise to address all possible policy ideas here, but I will toss out what I think is an important starting point.

For starters, we have to make sure that people can afford the education they need to fuel their innovative and productive capabilities. As it is now, the GOP is conducting an appalling War on Education that, among other things, makes sure that only the rich can get a college degree without going into hock until retirement age. This system does not promote education as a way of climbing to the mountaintop. It promotes education as a way of digging a very deep hole. This is counterproductive in every way imaginable. Instead of a system of financial aid that promotes permanent debt, we need a system that assures universal education.

But that’s expensive. No, talking about its expense is a manifestation of doomed cost-based thinking. Instead, we have to understand that education is an investment not only in the future of the student, but in all our futures. When that student becomes a brilliant entrepreneur, he creates hundreds, even thousands of jobs. When she becomes the next Nobel-winning researcher, she innovates a solution to our burgeoning energy problems and ushers in a new age of prosperity for the whole world. When she becomes a doctor, she finds new and better ways of improving our quality of life. When he becomes a teacher he inspires a new generation to greater heights than they could have dreamed of. And so on. Every dollar spent on education is an investment that generates tens to hundreds to thousands of dollars in returns – something a business-savvy conservative ought to know, but oddly seems not to.

Talk the talk, walk the walk

It has always been true that good thinking leads to good writing and speaking. However, it is also true that effective language drives better thinking – language is a tool by which the mind engages and changes the reality around it. This is why we have to begin reframing the language around wealth – when we look at it closely, it’s not hard to see how a cynical, corrupt Republican vocabulary has led a lot of people to believe and act on ideas that are pure silliness. To the extent that we can capture the linguistic terrain on which these important wars of ideas are fought, we assure that from here on out the language the public uses to think and decide about economic matters will be dictated by truth and productive, pro-social goals.

As always, I welcome comments on how we can improve these ideas.

But many Americans didn’t know. Three years ago, when I was canvassing for John Kerry in the conservative western suburbs of St Louis, one angry woman stood on the steps of her mobile home and told me that she was voting for Bush because Teresa Kerry planned to force all states to make gay marriage legal. She knew it was true because she had read it in four different places on the internets, and Teresa had enough money that she would have been able to get if off the internets if it weren’t true. We did not have a productive conversation. Despite my best efforts, in that trailer park and elsewhere, Bush won the 11 electoral votes of Missouri.

But times change. Since 2004, the drip, drip, drip of information has opened many an eye to the administration’s mendacity and incompetence, and a few big-picture events have broken through the media camouflage protecting Bush. The abandonment of New Orleans, increasing chaos in Iraq, and now the unfair release of a criminal from prison because he is the president’s friend—each of these stories has awakened a few more oblivious voters from their slumber, and if Bush were running for office today, he would not find enough friends in Missouri to host a barbecue at any trailer park in the state.

Well, perhaps I exaggerate. But not by much. All you’ve got to do is consult the internets. I ran across some really interesting information about the state of Missouri voters’ minds in 2007 at an unlikely website called Lake Expo Online, which exists mostly to carry ads for harmonicas and fishing boats and clothing-challenged boat parties around Lake of the Ozarks, in the deeply conservative south-central part of the state. Steve Thomas, a very good writer who describes himself as a loyal, lifelong Republican, has reached the end of his rope, and he tells the story of his disillusionment in a column titled “The way it is: Typewriters hurled over Scooter Libby fiasco.” Loyal no more. “When the New Orleans levees gave way,” he writes,

I didn’t want anything more to do with the Republicans. So I declared myself an Independent and have been so since. It was hard for me to walk away from a party that had been my political home since my youth.

Now Bush has commuted the jail sentence of former aide Scooter Libby.…

Libby should have gone to jail, period. He was found guilty, sentenced by a judge and his bid to put off his jail time during appeals was rejected by a panel of judges.…

Unless all men are equal before the bar of justice, no man is equal before the bar of justice. The commutation of Libby’s sentence undermines the faith of the American people in the system of justice, underscoring a growing perception that this nation is increasingly unequal, that there is not one American dream but instead many American nightmares, that we are no longer a nation where competition and compassion can coexist in a unique if sometimes uncomfortable fashion.

Instead we are faced with some ugly questions and answers.

Thomas goes on to pose some tough ones about Iraq, the military, trade policies, the working poor, and the fairness of the legal system. And he quotes Theodore White on the idealistic myth that has bound Americans together: “that all men are equal before the law and protected by it; and that no matter how the faith may be betrayed elsewhere, at one particular point—the Presidency—justice will done beyond prejudice, beyond rancor, beyond the possibility of a fix.” No more. That myth is kaput.

Thomas also quotes Hunter Thompson, who considered seriously, on a similar occasion—when he heard that Gerald Ford had pardoned Richard Nixon—that he should fling his typewriter through the nearest politician’s front window and “flush the bugger out with an act of lunatic violence then soak him down with mace and run him naked down Main Street in Aspen with a bell around his neck and black lumps all over his body from the jolts of a high powered ‘Ball Buster’ cattle prod.” Hunter Thompson reconsidered, and though Thomas is tempted too as he checks the heft of his old Selectric, he thinks a lot of his neighbors around Lake of the Ozarks, even the politicians, might agree with him:

Mob bosses will admire Bush’s loyalty to a closed-mouth soldier and petty criminals may well want to do better than small crime because they’ll realize that big crime pays big dividends.

Pass a bad check and go to jail. Attempt to subvert the justice system and never see the inside of a cell. Thanks a lot, George Bush.

Yet a small part of me won’t give up on our country. I think it can be brought into a better future with a healthy application of more democracy via the ballot box. I don’t know who will get my vote in the future, but I won’t surrender to the anger and cynicism that grip me right now.

Having said that, I will confess that I plan on cleaning my old Selectric. I want to rid it of the dust and grime acquired by sitting unused on a shelf. That way I can be prepared for whatever else may come because I cannot, in good conscience, hurl a dirty typewriter.

It’s all about fairness. If people feel the government is cheating them, or treating other people better, they don’t like it. That’s as true in Missouri as it is in Massachusetts, and Bush’s Republican Party is on the wrong side of the equation. It’s also true in Virginia, as Tim Craig and Jennifer Agiesta write in the Washington Post today. The Old Dominion, which has not supported a Democrat for President since 1964, is now ready to do just that by a margin of 40 to 33 percent. They add: “When asked to name the worst president since 1960, 46 percent of the state’s independents cited Bush. No other president was mentioned by more than 15 percent of independents,” and the president’s disapproval carries over to the GOP in general.

This erosion of Bushophilia in formerly red states has been going on for some time. (Last year, SurveyUSA showed that Bush had a net positive approval rating only in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Oklahoma.) That’s why so many Republican incumbents lost in the 2006 congressional races, and that’s why Harry Reid is beginning to think the Senate may now be ready to pass a bill to force withdrawal from Iraq. Drip, drip, drip. Perhaps they will even be ready to override a veto. Carl Hulse and Jeff Zeleny report in the New York Times:

In the first round of debates about the war, there was Democratic anxiety about appearing unsupportive of the troops, and Mr. Reid sought to keep a tighter rein on his colleagues who were pushing for the strongest antiwar legislation. But in the shifting environment, Democrats are newly emboldened.

Mr. Reid said he now saw ending the war as a moral duty, and even if the Senate again falls short, he said, he would turn again and again to Iraq until either the president relents or enough Republicans join Democrats to overrule Mr. Bush.

“I think that each time these people vote to continue what’s going on in Iraq it is a bad, bad move for them and a worse move for our country,” Mr. Reid said.

When the voters in Lake of the Ozarks are mad enough to hurl their typewriters, those Republican senators may decide it’s time to commence some real deep soul-searching. Let’s hope so. We could use a little more fairness in the US of A, and the threat of a ballot-box revolution may turn out to be even more powerful than a flying typewriter.

[Cross-posted at Rubicon]

Probably not much. American troops are likely to still be in Iraq. Nearly one out of every six Americans will still be without health insurance. Attempts at immigration reform (whatever that means) will still have been eroded by more objections by many more interests with particular beefs. No coherent, consistent, effective American policy that begins to undo climate change will exist. American school children will continue to lag far behind other nations in math and science — and still have decreasing abilities as critical thinkers. Spending by lobbyists to influence federal regulators and members of Congress will be on its way to passing $3 billion for 2011.

What will be different? Very little.

The income disparity between the top 1 percent of Americans and the rest of us — the other 99 percent — will have widened. The continual tension between those who demand increased security and those who fear erosion of civil liberties and constitutional rights will continue unabated. The debates and difficulties involving voting fraud and reform will have been heightened by the 2008 election as election foes bicker endlessly in courts about outcomes. And, figuring a 10 percent increase per election cycle, the top 50 industries will be en route to shelling out $850 million to just members of Congress alone in political contributions for the 2012 election cycle.

President X will have his or her hands full. By July 4, 2011, he or she will probably be facing a primary challenge. With so many candidates running for president in 2008, it’s likely a few will be bitter losers (or their financial and ideological backers will be) and want big donors to ante up so they can grab another chance to pick the desk in the Oval Office.

In mid-2011, President X will have serious financial problems. He or she — and his or her assigns — will have spent pretty much a half billion dollars getting elected in the first place. Elections — and the TV ads through which “debate” is conducted — are pricey.

So he or she will have to find another half billion, which sounds like a full-time day job. Running the country and pushing meaningful legislation through Congress might be relegated to nights.

Because so much money is tied up in presidential and congressional elections, how is he or she going to find the time, energy and (presumably) talent to cause the glacier known as the American political system to turn away from the governance fiasco that exists now to a better one in the future? It could be one operated by a president from Party A or Party B. Don’t care. Party A might control Congress. Maybe Party B does. Or A gets the House and B the Senate. Won’t matter. Members of Congress will be looking for money, too, for the same reason as President X. They might differ in ideology, but they’ll all be united in the pursuit of the political dollar. The bulk of those political dollars — the hard and the soft — do not come from individuals like you or me. They’ll be looking for fat-walleted folks — or PACs or corporations — with really big checkbooks.

It’d be nice if, by July 4, 2011, health care had become more equitable and affordable, if more school children had become competent critical thinkers, if more women had received equitable pay, if climate change had slowed, if voting had become fraud-proof, equitable and honest, if no more Americans had died in Iraq, all because President X had done something. But he or she will have been too busy raising money.

So nothing will change. And stop screaming about meaningful campaign finance reform, because I’ll no longer be listening — or doing the screaming. (I’ve lost sight of what meaningful really means, anyhow.)

Any future attempts at campaign finance reform that restricts corporate political donations were preemptively eviscerated last month by the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision.

The Court, in Wisconsin v. Right to Life, “establishe[d] a constitutional regime in which corporations are entitled to the same First Amendment protections as individuals.” That means campaign-finance restrictions designed to lessen the influence of corporate contributions that constitute political speech are unlikely to pass court muster.

That means far more corporate money is likely to flow into politics despite the current limitations on campaign contributions.

So President X of Party A or Party B will be preoccupied with what officeholders have always been preoccupied with — obtaining power and retaining power. And he or she will know where to turn for help in paying the campaign bills.

Come July 4, 2011, nothing will have changed.

xpost: 5th Estate

The one thing media talking heads agree upon is that the center prevails. Turn on almost any of the nation’s political talk shows and pretty soon somebody will say how crucial it is for politicians to appeal to registered independents and self-described moderate voters.They conjure for us an image of the distribution of the American electorate as that of a dromedary’s single hump with a large, vital center of thoughtful citizens in the middle, flanked by a downward-sloping share of shrill, radical liberals on one side and grumbling, reactionary conservatives on the other.

In fact, the American electorate has for some time been bifurcating into two rather distinct camps, with fewer centrist voters. The true image is that of the two-humped camel.

On a panel at a Chicago convention of political scientists recently, Emory University’s Alan Abramowitz explained what’s happening.

“Independents made up 35 percent of the 2006 voters, more than either Democrats or Republicans,” Mr. Abramowitz said, based on his analysis of data from the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study. “But most of these independent identifiers were not true swing voters – most of them leaned toward one party or the other, and these leaning independents voted overwhelmingly for their preferred party.”

Mr. Abramowitz added this key point: “Moreover, Democratic leaners were just as liberal as other Democrats, and Republican leaners were just as conservative as other Republicans.” (Story.)

This is an interesting posit, and I think Schaller is largely right. I’m probably a member of that leftmost hump, in fact, and much of what he says rings true from personal experience.

I can’t speak for others, but I’ve always felt like I was something of a “true moderate,” whatever that is, until the last few years. My views range far and wide enough that I never felt like I really mapped onto the conventional left/right model (the 2×2 Political Compass frame is a little better, at least). On average I guess that makes me a moderate.

Lately, though, I’m having to openly admit to a “leftward” lean. What’s frustrating is that if I am on that left hump it’s not because of my own proclivities – it’s more reactive. The GOP has put me on that hump.

So I’m not sure whether my case is the rule or the exception. I don’t think this is good news, though. For years the possible salvation of the center has been one of my fondest hopes. This suggests that the power-elite’s divide-and-conquer strategy has worked far better than I had feared.

I wonder what eight years of a really centrist government would do? Say there were a contemporary analogue to Howard Baker – would the humps re-merge?

Maybe. Just maybe….
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