Politics of Hope is "a tactic...of subverting and breaking the unified conservative power structure"

[ClarkUSA]

Mark Schmitt at the American Prospect reports on his view of the different candidates "theories of change" and how Obama's "Politics
of Hope" is more than you might think:

Perhaps we are being too literal in believing that "hope" and bipartisanship are things that Obama naively believes are present and possible,
when in fact they are a tactic, a method of subverting and breaking the unified conservative power structure... The public, and younger
voters in particular, seem to want an end to partisanship and conflictual politics, and an administration that came in with that premise
(an option not available to Senator Clinton), would have a tremendous advantage, at least for a moment... So how might the Obama
theory of change work? I'll give two answers, one entirely mundane and one a little cosmic. The mundane answer is just congressional
math. The most important fact about the next administration is nothing about the president's character or policies, but simply how
many Democratic Senators there are. To get health care passed in 2009, we'll need 60 votes in the Senate. There won't be 60 Democrats.
So a Democratic president will need to, first, get within range by bringing in Democratic senators from Arizona, Colorado, Virginia,
and several other red-trending-purple states. And then, subtract the total number of Democrats from 60, and that's the number of
Republicans you'll need. If that number is two or three, almost anything is possible. If it's five, it will be much harder. If it's eight,
impossible.

This is the math of bipartisanship. It's not a matter of sitting down with thugs like John Boehner and splitting the difference, but winning
over just a few Senate Republicans from outside the South. And if the number is small enough, that's entirely possible. This is not 1993,
when the Republicans could see that a majority was just around the corner, and the conservative takeover had given it a coherence and
enthusiasm. It will be a party in some internal crisis after losing both houses of Congress and the presidency in short order, and the
sense of a "party establishment" will be weaker. There will be an effort to hold the party together in united opposition, but the ties
holding a Senator Snowe, Voinovich, Grassley, Lugar or Specter to a strict party line -- as they contemplate retirement, legacy, and
their own now-Democratic states -- will be much weaker than in either the Clinton or Bush eras.

Obama's approach is better positioned to take advantage of this math. First, I think (though if I tried to prove it, I'd be relying on useless
horse-race polls) that Democratic Senate candidates in red/purple states will do better with Obama's national-unity pitch at the top
than with Senator Clinton. I worry about the Senate seats in Colorado (where she polls poorly) and Arizona with Clinton at the top of
the ticket, and I think the opportunity to take out Mitch McConnell in Kentucky would be lost. And after the inauguration, I think that
opposition to Hillary Clinton will remain a galvanizing theme for Republicans, whereas a new face and will make it harder to recreate
the familiar unity-in-opposition.

Now for the cosmic explanation... What I find fascinating about his language about unity and cross-partisanship is that it is not premised
on finding Republicans who agree with him, but on taking in good faith the language and positions of actual conservatism -- people
who don't agree with him. That's very different from the longed-for consensus of the Washington Post editorial page...Perhaps I'm making
assumptions about the degree to which Obama is conscious that his pitch is a tactic of change. But his speeches show all the passion of
Edwards or Clinton, his history is as a community organizer and aggressive reformer (I first heard his name 10 years ago because he was
on the board of the Joyce Foundation in Chicago, which was the leading supporter of real campaign finance reform at the time), and he
has shown extraordinary political skill in drawing Senator Clinton into a clumsy overreaction. If we understand Obama's approach as a
means, and not the limit of what he understands about American politics, it has great promise as a theory of change, probably greater
promise than either "work for it" or "demand it," although we'll need a large dose of hard work and an engaged social movement as well.

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_theory_of_change_primary

[K Gardner]

1. Thanks, Clark. Enjoyed the article ! n/t

[emilyg]

2. *

[killbotfactory]

3. Good article

I am wary of anyone who thinks they can just sideline corporations and republicans and get anything done. It doesn't work that way. We need to find support wherever we can get it, from conservative democrats to republicans. It sounds good, but we are in no position, currently, to ram anything through congress with just democratic support. I fear that any efforts to try and pass healthcare reform this way will end up in failure, like when the Clinton's tried it. Corporations have too much money, and they flat out own the media. We have to devise a strategy to pit one corporation against another, one republican against another, one powerful anti-progressive interest against another. We have to divide our opposition, like they have done to us. If we go in, guns blazing, they will put their guard up and unify to try destroy any reform efforts. The result could be gridlock for the next two years, and then we might lose our advantage in congress, leading to another decade of broken promises.

[killbotfactory]

4. There is an interesting discussion going on in the comments section

This isn't simply theorizing. As a political on and around the Hill during the 80s and a Clinton Admin. appointee during the 90s, I've seen this at work to resolve some apparently gridlocked issues when it was done right, and in other cases where the stakeholders weren't given the pen (i.e., allowed to participate and contribute fully to the deal, and be bound be the negotiated result), get to a good answer but by an inadequate process that let those stakeholders walk away from the deal because they were never made responsible for it.

And that's the point that I think many folks -- especially those who've seen politics only as a one-sided, bad faith attack and destroy mission from the 1990s-2000s Republican Party -- don't yet see. Negotiations can't work where the convening party doesn't have the leverage to follow through unilaterally with at least some bad consequences for the bad faith participants who would want to blow them up, or for non-participants. But if you do have enough of that leverage to get everyone to the table, negotiations aren't a favor you do for the powerful, want-to-be-but-can't-get-away-with-being-seen-as-bad-faith interests you bring to the table. It's a favor you do for yourself, because it is the only way to get all interests to take public responsibility for the positions they put forward. It's the only way to get those interests, if you can strike a deal that all have to sign onto to get their pieces of it, to accept responsibility for ALL parts of that deal (not just take the parts that work for them and attack the rest). In other words, it's not enough to be able politically to get to the "right" answer, you have to get there in the right way to make that answer fully effective and durable.

Obama's approach is not only profound from a policy-making/legislative politics perspective, it may be the only means that can work for progressive Democrats in this era of the deceitful, narcissistic Versailles Village corporate media. If you think the media high school Heathers' mistreatment of Gore in 1999-2000 so effectively documented by Bob Somerby was bad, just think what their treatment of him as President would have been. (A situation obviously infinitively preferable to the eight catastrophic years we've gotten, but extremely painful and destructive for the country nonetheless.) As you noted, Mark, and as Atrios and Digby have often predicted, the media and the Wurlitzer will team up immediately against any Democratic President in 2009. You can't win, unfortunately, by going right in their faces, much as that would be viscerally satisfying to all of us and called for by Paul Krugman (a great economist and courageous columnist/political critic, but not as perceptive a political strategist). I'm convinced that Al Gore concluded not to run when the Heathers instantly trashed his recent book (e.g. Heather Gwen Ifill's first question to him, "Isn't this just an extended rant against George Bush?"), which made all too clear to him what he would have faced from them once again.

also, kick

[killbotfactory]

5. Another comment

Actually, your second thought on Obama is nail on head. This is exactly what he did here in Illinois. He disarmed the republicans while getting most of what he wanted in his progressive agenda.
He drove the republicans crazy. But, they always gave in.
And he is using community organizing principles. He taught Alinsky to new organizers and he taught about power, ect.
He applies alot of what he learned as a community organizer to his politics and in this campaign. His Camp Obama was run by former associates of his from his organizing days and they are also on his ground game.
That is how he built up this fearsome organization in the early states in a matter of months.
It is fascinating to watch him doing this an no one has a clue. The pundits are their usual brain dead selves in not seeing what is goingon. The bloggers are too angry to step back and see what he is doing and how he manages to work with republicans but, has one of the highest progressive records in the Senate.
They don't understand, you don't have to shout.
And this is partly how he has managed to run rings around Clinton and her fearsome machine.
I certainly hope many bloggers read this and do some introspection. Obama has a much better chance of getting progressive policies passed than Edwards does.
Clinton is simply not progressive.

[ClarkUSA]

6. Excellent thoughts.

Thanks for kicking this thread throughout last night, posting the thoughtful replies and bringing to our attention the comments
following this article. :hi:

[alteredstate]

7. K & R!