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Talking Points – McCain’s Jeremiah Wright

Update: more on Hagee and McCain here.

We’ve all heard about how Barack Obama’s relationship with the controversial pastor, Jeremiah Wright, hurt Obama’s numbers in Pennsylvania, and how it may hurt his chances of being elected should he be the Democratic nominee.

But what of the Republican nominee? Is Barack Obama the only one with specious religious friends?

No. Despite calling the big names of the Christian Right (Falwell, Buchanan, Robertson) “agents of intolerance” in 2000, McCain spent a good deal of time actively seeking, successfully, the support of one of the Religious Right’s true hatemongers, John Hagee. This is a man who blames homosexuals for Hurricane Katrina, and the Jews for anti-semitism (it’s their fault for rebelling against God, apparently).

Obama has been forced to “reject and denounce” Farrakhan, and had to endure being called a black racist. Why none of this scrutiny for McCain’s morally dubious religious friends and supporters, bigoted men whose support McCain sought, with full knowledge of their controversial positions?

This is rather like Holmes’ dog barking in the night. The fact that the media didn’t seize on this story is more telling than McCain’s association is, itself. Is it that we expect our Republican candidates, given the stellar past seven years, to associate with bigots, hatemongers, and charlatans, so long as those individuals dress themselves up in the clothes of pious “Christian” men? I certainly hope not, but that seems to be the case. Christianity is not a shield behind which bigotry is entitled to hide – not for Wright, not for Hagee.

If we’re going to scrutinize the Wright & Obama relationship with a fine-tooth comb, the Hagee & McCain connection deserves the same attention. And it may deserve more: if Obama’s relationship with Wright allegedly signified his tacit approval of Wright’s radical views, McCain’s active courtship of Hagee is either explicit approval of Hagee’s views, or at least gives the lie to McCain’s “maverick” identity. Hagee was a political ally, not a long-term friend, and McCain’s attempts to back away from Hagee should be viewed with due suspicion.

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.

The Good News from Pennsylvania

To the left, you see the New York Times’ estimates of the votes in last night’s Republican Presidential Primary. Now, we’re all focused on the Democratic results, and what it means for the party. I’m worried, and I hope that the Democratic leadership is, too. But if you look at the Republican results, 27.2% of Republican voters did not vote for their presumptive nominee. Now, going to the polls for a foregone conclusion is already an act of abnormal party loyalty, but going to the polls for a foregone conclusion to vote against said conclusion is an outright expression of protest. While the Democratic Party has yet to unify the troops, what we may be looking at here is the unwinding of the Christian-right backed, unstoppable Republican bloc.

Let’s consider this alongside record jumps in Democratic party growth in the Pennsylvania suburbs, which (although some of it may be chalked up to die-hard Republicans switching temporarily to game the system) bodes very well for the Democrats in November. Combined with the Democrats’ record fundraising, there’s every reason to think this switch is indicative of a larger trend. All we need to do now is unify the party, and kick the attack machine into gear, and…

Why Intelligent Design Isn’t Science

Factual relativism – loosely defined as the idea that facts are subject to your “point of view” – is one of the gravest problems plaguing modern America. Stephen Colbert parodied this idea in his first show, remarking on America’s descent into “truthiness,” but really it’s no laughing matter – the conflation of opinion with objective fact signifies a deep problem in the nation’s political discourse. Neither political perspective nor religion can forgive the ignorance of one’s duty to act rationally and acknowledge facts in confronting public policy problems.

The cause of creationism – which has experienced an upsurge under Bush’s endorsement in recent years – is a symptom of this larger plague. It finds part of its genesis in the error of extending American anti-elitism (“justice for all”) to assume that the common man is equally skilled in expert matters (rather than equally entitled to aspire to that goal), and compounds this error with a cherry-picking of the factual record.

That explanation, in a nutshell, sums up my bizarre fascination with creationism, and in part justifies the below post, reprinted (with some modification) from an e-mail to a creationist with whom I’ve debated in the past. The e-mail replied to the assertion that “Darwinists” (is that even a word?) “expel” creationists, without cause, from the echelons of academia.

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I stand corrected

It’s been known to happen before, but I was wrong – Hillary held on to 5% more than I expected, and the press is actually being fairly responsible on this result. While noting her victory (at the Times and Fox News), the New York Times at least is sounding the alarm about what this means for the race as a whole – namely, that it’s going to go on, and on, and on. I’ve posted previously about the problem of scorched earth campaigning, and I have to say, now more than ever, we can’t afford to use tactics which weaken us any more than the mere fact of the race will continue to do.

I try to make this site focus a lot on strategy – my stated goal with this site is to highlight how politics have to change, and for politics to change, we need to win in November first – and this point is the most vital issue of strategy of all. We can’t afford to be divided for much longer. It’s time for the leadership to put the heat on the candidates as a whole: not on one of them to quit, but on both of them to reconcile and create a ticket. However that happens, it needs to happen now.

How Ben Stein Destroyed Intelligent Design

Now, I’m no big city lawyer. But, while the scientist/rationalist side of me could not object more strenuously to Ben Stein’s “documentary,” Expelled, the lawyer side of me is giggling like a schoolgirl. And here’s why.

(Author’s Note – this is a long post! Skip to “Now, until Ben Stein came along…” if you know what intelligent design is.)

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Scorched Earth Primaries

So, here’s the problem. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are stellar candidates, and the Democrats are lucky to have them. The protracted primary campaign season may not even be all that bad – after all, America is being saturated with pictures of individuals, one of whom we hope will win in November. And all publicity is good publicity, right?

Wrong. I’m all for a vibrant primary debate, but it strikes me that some of the partisans on either side of the Clinton/Obama divide are taking the struggle a little too personally, and losing sight of the eventual victory we hope to secure. In short, there’s a right and a wrong way to campaign: if we hope to win in November, neither Democratic candidate should be attacking the other on an issue that may hurt that person, if he or she wins the nomination, in November. We do not want to hand ammunition to John McCain.

Let’s examine some of the rhetoric. Recently, Barack Obama commented that McCain would be a better president than the most recent George W. Bush. Hillary quickly fired back, calling into account Obama’s liberal credentials, and holding him accountable for failing to hit upon what must be a Democratic mantra – that McCain is just an older Bush.

Good. Primaries ought to be about refining our image, and putting our differences with the Republicans on show. But, simultaneously, Hillary has been pounding Obama for his (notably numerous) verbal gaffes. Bad. Yes, this increases Hillary’s chances of victory, but it also increases McCain’s chances of victory if Obama gets the nomination.

Hillary needs to be looking far enough ahead to stay off topics that make Obama look unelectable. It ought to be a general rule of thumb that, in a closely contested, important election, candidates from the same party ought to stay away from subjects that wound their fellow Democrats viz. the Republicans. While this may narrow the field of attacks, it’s a matter of party discipline, one of the key components of national victory (as Karl Rove has taught us all).

So, to Mrs. Clinton (and her supporters) – your victory over Obama may be important to you, but is it important enough to jeopardize a Democratic victory in November? The answer ought to be a resounding “no.” Scorched earth primaries are bad for the Democrats, and consequentially, bad for America.

P.S. The picture is from a site a friend and I drew up, called “Pollcats,” which “lolcaptioned” pictures of political candidates. I’m still a fan.

The Pennsylvania Primary: Predicting the Spin

Throughout the campaign, a very hyperactive press has tried to affirmatively predict and steer the nomination process. The unity has been remarkable. Prior to Hillary’s win in New Hampshire, she couldn’t win; she was finished. Then she was the inevitable victor… until Obama’s winning streak, when Hillary’s retirement was either imminent or (in my eyes at the time) overdue.

Obviously, reality has been no barrier to the 24-hour news networks trying to talk the future into existence by repetition. I’m expecting no less after today. The message for a long time has been that, not only must Hillary win Pennsylvania, but she has to. Now, it’s looking like she will, but not by a huge margin, and not by the margin predicted so long ago. So what will the news networks do with that? Without a decisive event, either way, what will the spin be?

If I had to bet – and I just may – I think the spin will be for an Obama victory. After all, if he stays at or around 45% in Pennsylvania, he’ll have shown he can fend off serious gaffes and still maintain his appeal. He’ll have his massive war chest intact. And he will have “beat the spread.”

But that leaves us precisely in the status quo. With time slipping away until the general election, an increasingly divisive primary, and Hillary, who has said time and again that she won’t quit. There will be no resolution in sight, and no impetus to make one happen.

If that’s how the media goes, it’s time for a behind-the-scenes deal to wrap this up.