Getting Out the Vote and the Myth of the Stupid Voter

An important, highly intelligent and well-argued blog post at Open Left discusses the myth of "stupid voters" and the weaknesses of the Democratic Party in getting out the vote in elections. This is highly recommended reading. I would love to hear a response from an official Democratic Party official on it.

Key points made in the article:

Year in and year out, voter-discouragement is an important part of the ongoing Republican campaign.

The Democratic Party seems to fall asleep between elections, and it has been historically very poor at the kind of message development and dissemination done by think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Foundation, the Heritage Foundation

Democratic voter-registration and get-out-the-vote efforts have been spotty at best, and it’s notable that the individuals and groups doing the best job of this (ACORN recently and Jesse Jackson a couple of decades ago) have been very little appreciated by the ruling group in the party.

Key quote:

The Democratic Party is a business like any other, and just as newspapers get their money from advertisers, and not from readers, the Democratic Party gets its money from donors rather than from voters. Bringing new voters from the lower orders into the party would almost certainly require policy proposals which would negatively impact the big-money people, and even if the Democratic Party started winning elections that way, the boodle coming in would be reduced, and boodle is what pays the mercenary pros at the party headquarters.

In large part this explains the constant refrain from the Democratic leadership: we’d like to do the right thing, but political realities make it impossible. The truth is that the Democratic leaders are very happy with the political realities and don’t want to change them. If it were "politically possible" to pass single-payer, for example, the Democratic Party would lose incredible amounts of money from key donors in the medical biz. Single-payer might make the voters ecstatically happy, but these happy voters are not at all likely to replace the money the party lost.

Some food for thought the next time you hear someone invoke the theme of "we agree with what you say in principle but what you want is politically impossible."

Progressives and Independents

I: Kicking the Left with Impunity

There was an interesting discussion at the Open Left blog today in the wake of Barack Obama picking conservative evangelical pastor Rick Warren to say the convocation at his Presidential inauguration:

[T]here are clear benefits for Democrats who are able to generate public, left-wing outrage against their actions…This is a widely held view, and is openly shared by Democrats as high ranking as Rahm Emanuel. As long as the generation of public, left-wing outrage toward their actions is understood to be politically beneficial to Democrats, then many Democrats will continue to undertake actions that have the direct or indirect goal of generating public, left-wing outrage at their actions. This is pretty straightforward. As long as the cost of annoying progressives is not only zero, but actually a net positive, then Democrats will continue to annoy progressives ad infinitum.

For a solution, the article argues:

Progressives must make the political cost of such actions unacceptable to the Democrats who are willing to undertake such actions for political benefit. At the congressional level, I accept kos's premise that the only means of holding Democrats accountable for angering progressives are primary challenges (sitting on your hands or supporting third-party candidates just doesn't work). Or, to be a bit more accurate, the only way for outsiders like us to engage in progressive accountability for Democrats in Congress is to spend actual resources attacking a member of Congress in his or her district.

The commenter “leftvet” observes:

The only accountability that works for politicians are political consequences. The left is currently unable to exact political consequences on any politician, so we are, of course, ignored or vilified. Chris has summed it up very well. Progressives have no real choice but to continue to support mainstream Democrats, no matter how many times they f**k us over, because there is no other electoral option available to us. The Dems know it, and continue to exploit that situation.

This conversation is fascinating to me on so many levels. As someone who self-identifies as a Progressive, it is truly maddening to witness case after case after case of Democrats kicking Progressive values and politics to the curb once they get elected even after they ran on the promise and symbolism of Progressive idealism. It is as if once elected, the best way to gain political credibility is to take gratuitous potshots at liberals and left-wingers who supported them in elections.

The discussion at Open Left, although it hits upon many of the right points, completely misses a very big point -- not everyone agrees the best strategy to enact a Progressive agenda is to elect Democrats into office. Many people who are potential supporters of any Progressive movement are NOT Democrats, have absolutely no intention of being Democrats, and do not have any particular loyalty to the Democratic Party given the party’s record on many issues Progressives care deeply about.

No one seems to be seriously talking about appealing to and bringing Independents into the fold -- and this comes at a time when satisfaction with government is at an all-time low and the number of people who are self-identifying politically as anything other than Democrats and Republicans is at an all-time high. I don’t claim to be an all-knowing political guru but I am tired of Progressives getting their asses kicked by Democrats in the process of playing by the rules of the game of American electoral politics.

Is the only viable goal for Progressive activism to elect Democrats into office (even if they are better Democrats)?

II: The Fight for Open Primaries

Here’s an idea: how about Leftist Progressive activists join Independents in efforts for radical structural reform? One effort they can join very easily right now is the effort by Independents for Open Primaries. A petition is circulating right now to ask President Barack Obama to:

• Initiate and support federal legislation to create open primaries for election to federal office in all 50 states that guarantees full access for independent voters;

• Establish a Presidential Task Force on Political and Electoral Reform that includes representatives of the broad movement of independent voters to consider sweeping nonpartisan reform of the electoral process and its administration;

• Use the bully pulpit to speak out on the importance of open primaries and the inclusion of independents in all aspects of the electoral and political process.

They are trying to reach 1,000 signatures by Inauguration. This is one way Progressives can get themselves introduced to the burgeoning movement among Independents who, increasingly, are becoming aware of their political potential. It is one way Progressives can form a bridge with Independents to join in an effort they care about (and which stands to benefit voters and political parties who seek a viable alternative to the Democrats).