We at Political Strategy are a group of concerned citizens outraged by recent events that have threatened our rights as U.S. Citizens. In response, we created this website to unify and strengthen the progressive community, to encourage an aggressive defense and assault on all things that continue to threaten our freedom and sensibility, and to ensure that progressives have a powerful, consistent and clear message that rivals the propaganda machine of the conservative establishment.

Politicalstrategy.us exists to stress the practical strategies needed to win in the current political environment and to use those strategies to promote the progressive ideology. 

Tuesday, December 17, 2002

 
Coming Soon!

As we all know, there is plenty of blogging material out there. Unfortunately, in order to get the rest of this site up and running, the blogging is on hold for the next couple of weeks. Please check back then.

Thank you and Happy Holidays!

posted by Thomas Ball 8:00 AM

Wednesday, December 11, 2002

 
In Addition

To supplement yesterday's post on ridding the world of Trent Lott, today the New York Times reports:

After a fiery speech by Mr. Thurmond at a campaign rally in Mississippi for Ronald Reagan in November 1980, Mr. Lott, then a congressman, told a crowd in Jackson, "You know, if we had elected this man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are
today."

Idiot.
posted by Thomas Ball 8:34 AM

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

 
Lott Must Go!

By now it is well known that incoming Senate Majority Leader, Trent Lott (Racist) Mississippi recently spewed forth with his true feelings while praising fellow racist Strom Thurmond. This was followed quite appropriately by a pitiful non-apology aimed at deflecting some of the criticism he received soon after the imbecilic statement.

The catharsis: "I want to say this about my state," Lott said last Thursday. "When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it," he said to applause. "And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either."

The apology: "A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embrace the discarded policies of the past," Lott, a Mississippi Republican, said in a statement Monday. "Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement."

Of course, this is not the first open window into the workings of Lott's hatred-obsessed mind:

"In 1998 and 1999, Lott was criticized after disclosures that he had been a speaker at meetings of the Council of Conservative Citizens, an organization formed to succeed the segregationist white Citizens' Councils of the 1960s. In a 1992 speech in Greenwood, Miss., Lott told CCC members: 'The people in this room stand for the right principles and the right philosophy. Let's take it in the right direction, and our children will be the beneficiaries.'"

So where do we go from here? Al Gore called for him to be censured by the Senate. Daschle wimped out by saying, "[He's sure Lott wishes he could take back what he said]" - (C-Span Dec 09,2002). Even Right wing journalists Andrew Sullivan and Bill Kristol expressed outrage over such lapses in brain functioning. (Note: Sullivan also notes the unexpected turnout of African-American voters for Senator Landrieu (D) Louisiana in a run-off Senate election the day after Lott's confession.)

Okay, so some people are letting Lott have it. Fine. My concern is how to rid our government of him and his ilk. Let's look first at the make-up of Mississippi. African-Americans account for 36.3% of Mississippi's population . Compare this to the percentage of blacks nationwide at only 12.5%. Indeed, they are a particularly powerful political force in Mississippi. So you might ask, "How could one of the states most densely populated by African-Americans produce one of the most transparent racists as a multi-term senator?" Paul Krugman suggests that suppression of the black vote is one reason:

"Indeed, this year efforts to suppress nonwhite votes were remarkably blatant. There were those leaflets distributed in black areas of Maryland, telling people they couldn't vote unless they paid back rent; there was the fuss over alleged ballot fraud in South Dakota, clearly aimed at suppressing Native American votes. Topping it off was last Saturday's election in Louisiana, in which the Republican Party hired black youths to hold signs urging their neighbors not to vote for Mary Landrieu."

The Fact of the matter is that African-Americans nationwide tend to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats (traditionally in the 85-90% range). Thus, if the black population in Mississippi were sufficiently motivated to vote and simultaneously protected from republican lies and other disenfranchisement techniques, Democrats would be unbeatable in this state and others in the south. (Those states are Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina. More on this later.)

Tactic: Looking forward, here's what has to take place. C-Span was kind enough to put the entire "Lott's an admitted racist" debacle on videotape. The next time Lott is up for reelection, a clip of his "support for segregation" speech should be played ad nauseum in regions of the state dominated by African-Americans. The same tactic should be used within various African-American strongholds across the nation. The ad should have a tagline asking if this is the person that [the targeted voters] want determining the agenda for the US Senate and specifying that this will be the case if republicans are voted back into the senate. And don't worry about stirring up the racist white vote with this tactic either. They will vote regardless. We have to concern ourselves with motivating our base and not with the possibility of motivating the opposition's. Once again Paul Krugman remarks:

"And yes, there are political implications. In the midterm elections, Democratic candidates carefully avoided doing anything to mobilize the black vote, fearing that this would just encourage turnout by rural whites. But the rural whites turned out anyway, while blacks didn't. In Louisiana, black turnout — the result of a determined get-out-the-vote operation, perhaps helped by Mr. Lott's remarks — was the key to Ms. Landrieu's unexpected victory. Might I suggest that this tells us something?"

In addition, If republicans refuse to take away Lott's position as Senate Majority Leader, thus implicitly showing support for Lott and his agenda (Since the Majority Leader is the primary force that sets the Senate's agenda), then that could be used in conjunction with the nationwide, anti-republican ads. And don't forget that such vitriol also tends to tip independents/undecideds in the opposite direction.

posted by Thomas Ball 10:52 AM

Monday, December 09, 2002

 
Become United, Save the Courts

Two of my favorite pundits in the blogsphere (Kos and Matthew Yglesias) recently suggested a couple of political strategies. Let's take a look.

To get right to the point and with all due respect, I thought that these particular ideas simply missed the fine points (i.e. they could stand as icons for the current progressive political strategies in America.)

Matthew Yglesias suggests that moderate republicans would do well to disband from the GOP and start their own regional party, one more reflective of their moderate values.

"I do wonder, though, what keeps northern moderates like Collins, Snowe, Chafee, Pataki, Giuliani, Romney, etc. in the southern-fried GOP. I can see why they don't want to cross the aisle and become Democrats, but why not just, well, pull a Strom Thurmond and start a regional party that would compete in the Northeast. It would hardly be worth it for the GOP to mount candidates against them, and America's single-member constituencies are ideal for this sort of regionalist appeal. Of course, anyone joining such a party would never get elected President, but none of these people are ever going to get elected president anyway. And they'd hold the balance-of-power in the House and Senate and be able to steer a course between both the Confederate nostalgia of the Republicans and the union-backed governmentophilia of the Democrats. I'd still (usually) vote for the Democratic candidate against my hypothetical third party, but politics would be more interesting and I think this strategy would definitely serve the interests of GOP moderates better than their current plan."

Later in his post he notes that such an opportunity would also exist for southern Democrats but that it would not be in their best interest to separate from the national party since African-Americans are such a power in their core constituency and are also beneficiaries of the national Democrat's agenda. So, I can only assume that if African-Americans were not a large part of southern Democrat's voting base, then he would encourage them to splinter form the national party.

On its face, this reasoning seems both logical and prevalent within the progressive community, "If you have a different agenda, form a different party." What this reasoning seems to miss (or avoid) is that we live in a nation with a 2-party political system. It has been that way for most of its history and will probably remain that way for some time to come. If Collins, Snowe, Chafee, Pataki, Giuliani, Romney, etc decide to create a regional party of their own, they will be ensuring several things, 1) Republicans will always lose, 2) Their new "Moderate Conservative" party will always lose, 3) Democrats will always win. True the "Moderate Conservative" party will draw over some moderate progressives but in general the two conservative parties will be competing for the same votes. The story is the same with every 3rd party run, Greens suck voters from Democrats and Libertarians suck votes from Republicans. (Note that Greens suck millions more votes from Democrats than Libertarians suck from republicans).

The idea of a moderate conservative party is not a new one. It exists even today as a shell of what it used to be. It's called the "Reform Party". Indeed, the "Jesse Ventura" Reform Party was theoretically centrist (socially liberal, fiscally conservative) but the fact of the matter is that the party leaned conservative. The "Ross Perot" Reform Party was far more conservative and drained many more republican votes than democratic votes. This conservatism was highlighted with the Pat Buchanan nomination for President in 2000 that ultimately put the party's viability at zero. Wisely, most viable political candidates avoided an alliance with this splinter group, thus the nomination of Buchanan.

The Bottom Line: What republicans seem to recognize better than progressives is that it is necessary more often than not to sacrifice some details of your ideology in order to promote your overall personal agenda. You know. Forest and trees type of stuff. This is illustrated with great clarity in the republican's "loyalty statistics" (e.g. Whenever polls are taken about voters preferences for a given set of candidates, the result is invariably something like this: republican candidate receives support from 87% of republicans and 22% of Democrats while the Democratic candidate receives support from 71% of Democrats and 4% of republicans with the rest undecided. In any case, republican voters are far more reliable sources for the republican vote than Democratic voters are for the Democratic vote.) An interesting benefit to party loyalty is that, if a candidate can rely on his or her party's core vote, perhaps s/he wouldn't feel that s/he has to present such a centrist position in order to draw in the republican moderates (who will inevitably vote for the republican candidate anyway.) Only then could they push a truly progressive agenda.

Of course we all have distinct personal agendas infallibly differing in some respects from our political party of choice. So why do we vote for that party even if we disagree on some very important issues? Answer: Because we know that such a candidate would bring us closer to our goals than would the other candidate. Although it sometimes feels like we're selling-out our principles by voting for a candidate that we might think is too tied to corporate interests or too supportive of Bush or pro-war or pro-gun, etc., we still have to unite and understand the political machinations of the U.S. In this country we need majorities in the House, Senate, governorships and courts if for no other reason than to counter the agenda of the opposition. Some say it's choosing the lesser of two evils and that's okay as long as they realize that the lesser of two evils will do more for them than will an "ideal" candidate with absolutely zero chance of being elected. (Read: Ralph Nader).

Strategy: Unite. Make ideological sacrifices in order to promote a wider progressive national agenda. Choose the best candidate that has a genuine chance at taking the elected position at stake. Any other vote or non-vote can only be against your best interest. Republicans know this. They live it and it works. Idealism is necessary for a positive vision of the future and, as a political strategy, works very well in fairy tales. We, however, live in a practical world that needs practical actions to bring about practical results.

Meanwhile from the pages of "DailyKos", we find this one in reference to an imminent announcement by Tom Daschle (FYI: The announcement turned out to be the naming of John Corzine as head the 2004 Democratic Senate campaign effort):

"I REALLY hope it's not the defections of one or two Republican Senators. I don't want Bush and Republicans to rant about a "stolen" Senate again and use the Senate as a foil for their own failures. Ideally, everyone stays put while Chaffee, Collins, Spectre, McCain, etc., vote with the Democrats to stop some of Bush's more heinous acts."

First, let's get one thing straight. Regardless of the circumstances, republicans will attempt to use the Democrats as a foil for their own failures…but admittedly, such a move would give the GOP an easy target. With that said, on a personal level, I couldn't agree more with Kos. From a political perspective, I couldn't disagree more…primarily because I have little confidence that any republicans will stand in the way of Bush's judicial nominees while they are still using the "republican" moniker. When it comes to ANWR or working with the UN or women's rights, etc. They will certainly (I hope) vote for what they believe in. When it comes to judicial nominations (including perhaps as many as two Supreme Court vacancies) no republican will vote Nay. In the long term, I perceive this risk to be one of the greatest threats to the freedoms that we enjoy (at least Pre-bush) as Americans. Defections are welcome.

Without the judicial issue, I agree with Kos. Indeed, I am hoping that the republicans overreach and seriously put off the American public as Newt Gingrich did in the mid-nineties. If a couple of republicans "save" the Democrats then the Senate will be the whipping boy/scapegoat for the administrations' failed policies (Read: Obstructionists). If all branches of government remain republican (God help us all) then all problems are their problems for which to take responsibility and our problems for which to suffer.

Summary: 1) Become United as progressives in support of our "Best Hope" candidate and 2) Pray for anything you can think of that will shut-down Bush's extreme judicial nominees.

posted by Thomas Ball 8:10 AM

Friday, December 06, 2002

 
Pro-Growth Team

It's true. Now Harvey Pitt, Paul O'Neill and Lawrence Lindsey are kaput. The market's reaction? Buy dollars and stocks. That makes sense. Any resignation from the Bush Administration seems positive on its face. Think about it. Harvey Pitt promised a "kinder, gentler" SEC while Paul O'Neill spent most of his time blaming traders for his problems. Larry? I don't even know what he did. Don't really care. Funny thing is that some claim to be bullish now because there is a "strong likelihood" that Bush will put in a "Pro-Growth Team"...as opposed to the "Pro-Shrinkage Team" that was in there before. Ah, we can all rest easy! So my question is, given that the "all-star" choice of the "Pro-Shrinkage Team" was such an unmitigated disaster, what on Earth makes anyone think that the Bush Administration will now bring in anyone who will do anything differently? Answer: Nothing.

This is what we can expect: The new SEC head will, in contrast to lobbyist Harvey Pitt, speak loudly against corporate malfeasance and other related fraud, but like Pitt will continue to provide a " kinder, gentler " SEC. The new Treasury Secretary will have market savvy and probably the intelligence not to publicly insult market-makers at every God-given chance. Nevertheless, the replacement's policies (or lack thereof) will clone O'Neill's. Lindsey's replacement as Economic Advisor will no doubt be some supply-side loser insistent on once again proving that the trickle-down theory "really does trickle down" (of course history shows it does not).

The Bottom Line: The replacements will be better PR people but will still march to the same old, worn-out drum. Don't expect any policy revelations from the new crew.

Political Strategy: One idea that was tossed into the fray is that Bush-puppet-master Karl Rove will install a Democrat into one of the positions (probably the SEC post) in order to supply a whipping boy for the administration. How clever. First, the administration can claim bipartisanship. Second, they will have an instant scapegoat in the event that the markets, consumer confidence, etc. do not turn around by the 2004 elections. The administration would do this knowing full well that the economy-paralyzing policies that they plan to enact in the coming two years will inevitably crush the economy, consumer confidence and the markets. What could that possibly be? How about further over-reaching in upper bracket tax cuts. Outside of tax cuts, I come up dry since republicans' answer to everything is to cut taxes. Of course that can only go so far since the nation does need tax revenues to maintain, build and protect its infrastructure. And, let us not forget that the cuts will benefit cronies only. So if you're not a crony then tough sh_t.

posted by Thomas Ball 12:01 PM

Thursday, December 05, 2002

 
Left leaning Cojones?

An interesting development since the November 05 debacle (talk about a day late...) First there is Senator Daschle calling a pig a pig (Limbaugh that is). Then the mainstream media castigates Roger Ailes of Fox News for a letter that he wrote to the White House. Next, Gore spills the "secret" that Fox News might, maybe, perhaps, possibly be tied hoof-and-neck to the GOP. What else? Oh yea, "Talk Back Live" on CNN had an entire show devoted to revealing the umbilical cord between republicans and the Fox News Network. Finally, last night I was flipping through the cable news banter when I came across Brian Williams on CNBC. He was interviewing Pulitzer Prize winner Suskind, the author of the "Rove is Dictator. Bush is Pawn" Esquire piece due out on newsstands soon. In addition, a senior person from Salon.com was there. The three of them had a field day bashing the Bush Administration and speculating about the implications of the article and the fact that the story has legs...and it hasn't even been released yet. All this without the filibustering hot air of any right-wing blowhards.

Now, of course none of this stuff is new to us. The point is that I personally have not seen the left take such a revealing stand against the Bush Administration and its propaganda network since...well forever. When was the last time you saw CNN or any high profile political figures call Fox News what it is…a propaganda network for the Fourth Reich. When was the last time you saw any cable news channel offer a forum for any sort of Bush-Bashing?

This is one positive development from the frustration caused by the 2000 and 2002 election fallout. Lets hope it continues to grow. On a personal level, we should do everything we can to ensure that such "revelations" are not simply swept under the rug by the right-wing. Always refer to Fox News as a right-wing propaganda network and tag the administration as the most politically-minded, policy-free administration in the history of the United States. A little Hyperbole goes a long way.

posted by Thomas Ball 2:09 PM