Archive for April 24, 2008

Talking Points – Focus on the Family

In politics, a “valence issue” is something that everybody agrees upon; either they love it or they hate it. Valence issues are often either extremely specific – “I will fight breast cancer!” – or so broad as to be meaningless without further explication. One of the broader, positive valence issues, which typically has a good deal of traction in America, is the idea of the “family.”

Politicians are well-served by defining themselves in relationship with valence issues, and opponents are ill-served by allowing this definition to go off without a contest. For the better part of three decades, the “family” has been a valence issue seized upon by the Religious Right and, since the 1990s “Republican Revolution,” the Republican party. Groups like “Focus on the Family” define themselves as “defenders of the family” – which means that they oppose gay rights, oppose a woman’s right to choose, and oppose competent sex education. As you can probably tell from my description, I think there’s room to argue this label.

The only way in which Republicans are “defenders of the family” is through their myopic defense of archaic notions of gender roles and norms. They do very little to actually support the family itself, beyond dictating its subjective & unflinchingly Christian morality. Democratic candidates would do well to try to seize the “family” mantle for themselves, and they plenty of ammunition with which to do so. The war in Iraq tears families apart – by seeking to end it, and reunite families, the Democrats are practically “pro-family.” Democrats tried to push for an expansion of the State Child Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), over Bush’s veto, and McCain’s opposition. It’s hard to be more “pro-family” than that.

For Republicans, the “family” is an ideological battleground. But Democrats want to do something to help your family now. Doesn’t that have the ring of good spin to it?

Talking Points – Can America Trust the Republicans?

Last Thursday, NPR’s Terry Gross interviewed, inter alia, Senator Lincoln Chaffee, the former Senator from Rhode Island (2000-2006). Chaffee talked about his time as a moderate Republican, how the tone of the Senate changed immediately upon Bush’s ascendancy to the Oval Office, and the immediate results thereof.

The message is one that every American ought to hear, and that the Democrats ought to ensure is being played on every channel in the run-up to the general election – the simple fact is that the George W. Bush we elected is not the George W. Bush that we got. A man who ran as a “uniter, not a divider,” with a “humble” foreign policy, was already, by the day after the Supreme Court decision, plotting how to divide the nation.

Now, faced with a “moderate” Republican, with a moderate record, the Democrats would do well to remind America how George W. Bush campaigned and acted before he ascended to the presidency. Can we trust another moderate Republican to continue to be a moderate Republican?

The Politics of Fear

Hillary Clinton has been criticized recently, for this advertisement, which the New York Times called an attempt to “wave the bloody shirt of 9/11,” “torn right from Karl Rove’s playbook.” I’m not convinced it’s everything that the New York Times thinks it is – Rove’s talking points tend to be much more explicit, warning of direct causation, rather than Hillary’s ad, which seems to be more of an attempt to play up the consequences of inexperience, rather than to suggest impending doom lest she be elected.

Still, the small controversy bit of controversy over this ad raises an important point, for me. I think that, if the Democrats are to win and restore some meaning to politics (rather than the never-ending parade of empty symbols which we’ve all enjoyed for the past seven years) we may need to stoop to the Rovian level of using those empty symbols first, just to ensure that we have a chance to remake that system. So I’m fine with the Democrats kicking an attack machine into gear… against McCain… and I’m fine with them playing dirty. In fact, I encourage it, and will later suggest some tacks that might be taken in this direction.

But, there’s a fine line between using your opponent’s strategies, while maintaining your pure goal, and becoming what you hate. If the Democrats were to use the politics of fear to win in 2008, I think we would have crossed a line. We may need to buy into the spin cycle to win the election, but delving into fearmongering would be to sell a little too much of our souls. It would also be politically compromising. After all, if Hillary is facing flak for vaguely invoking 9/11 here, imagine what a Democratic candidate would face, especially Obama, if he or she all of a sudden went down that lonely road. By all means let’s play dirty, but using fearmongering is too far.