Weekend Open Thread

   

"Slack Motherfucker" - Superchunk

Hey there.  I saw "Lincoln" last night, which I thought pretty compelling.  It has its moments of Spielbergian sentimentality, but Lincoln is such an extraordinary character -- being played by an extraordinary actor -- that it feels like quibbling to point that out.  Daniel Day Lewis makes you believe every minute he is on the screen.  I don't know enough about the nuts and bolts of the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment -- the focus of the film -- to judge its historical accuracy in that regard, but the broader picture strikes me as pretty scrupulous in its detail.  It's a bit of a throw back in a way to old-fashioned political potboilers like "Advise and Consent."  People who have been critical of the movie for its "wordiness" -- imagine, a movie about Lincoln in which words are important -- need to stick to Marvel comic movies and let we adults have our pleasures.  Well worth seeing, for Day-Lewis alone, although the remaining cast is excellent as well. 

- I was disappointed to see how much the exit polling had been scaled back for this year's election. A huge number of states -- nineteen -- were omitted from full exit polling, leaving big gaps in the available demographic data -- stuff that I really love. I was trying to do a comparison of the states in which Obama had carried the white vote in 2008 versus his 2012 performance and several states were omitted.  I also wanted to look at gender gap information as well.  I will definitely do a post on this, but I am really saddened that the full data is not available.

- Watching the current disaster unfold in Gaza, I can't help but think that Benjamin Netanyahu is not understanding the way in which the world has changed in the Middle East and just how perilous his present course could be.   The emergence of some kind of popular government in Egypt, along with a moderate Islamist government in Turkey, has altered the landscape of the region in unpredictable ways.  Egypt, in particular, has the ability to really complicate the situation in Gaza and I think the appearance the other day of the Egyptian prime minister in Gaza should be setting off alarm bells in Israel regarding just how different things may be with Mubarak gone.  Egyptian President Morzi is already signalling that he cannot sit by and watch another ground invasion of Gaza without taking some steps in response.  Israel has benefitted immensely from the lack of threat on its Egyptian border.  Does Netanyahu really want to jeopardize thirty-five years of peace -- however cold -- at precisely the moment that he is also trying to focus world pressure on Iran?  It seems like folly to me.

- Nancy points out in comments this excellent essay by Rick Perlstein regarding the folks who put the "con" in the conservative movement.  It's a fascinating read.  Perlstein probably knows more about the conservative movement as it has existed over the last 50-60 years in the United States than anybody.  I think that the concerted devotion to untruth that characterizes the right wing (and those who make their living off of them) is going to make it very difficult to make the kind of changes in response to demographic realities that have been much discussed in recent weeks. 

What's on your minds? 

Comments

[kathy a.]

there is still some good news trickling in from the elections! ron barber, aid to giffords, finally won in AZ. and in california, dan lungren and other GOPers finally lost, for a total of 5 house seats gained by democrats. (lungren was a particularly nasty state AG, so there is some joy in mudville.)

[beckya57]

I read the Perlstein essay, and it was indeed very good. However, he didn't put as much emphasis as I would have on how the televangelists have been fleecing their (mostly lower income) flocks for decades. I think this may have been the laboratory for the development of right-wing political scams. The terminology, including the suggestion of shadowy all-powerful threats, is eerily similar. I agree with you Sir C that these trends will be very hard for the GOP to change. Demographic changes are finally making the appeal to older white resentment a technique that has large costs. Back when Lee Atwater was talking about evolving n****r, n****r to forced busing etc. whites were the large majority of the electorate, and that's not true anymore. The party would have done well to heed Bush and Rove and made an attempt to reach out to Hispanics, rather than empowering the Tom Tacredo wing (probably the only issue on which I will ever agree with that loathsome pair). My understanding is that people's party ID is usually pretty well set by age 30, and that means the GOP has probably lost this generation of Hispanics--and Asians, too, apparently.

[kathy a.]

good point, becky, about the money-grubbing, soul-fleecing, televangelical wing, which has been promoting its toxic snake-oil for as long as i can remember. more mainstream religious traditions kinda sneared at these grifters, but the race-baiting and holier-than-welfare-queens themes hit a note in larger society.

[kathy a.]

so very off-topic -- whatcha doing for thanksgiving? traditionally, i cook 8 times more food than we need, and the day moves from brunch to snacks to midafternoon feast to dessert to leftovers, with small breaks for other activities.

this year, we're going to my son's girlfriend's parents' house, which is great! it means i can postpone high-grade housecleaning until next month, and i can do some cooking instead of LOTS of cooking. yay! i'm testing a stuffing recipe right now, something i normally do not do in advance. but we won't have leftovers, and the stuffing-oriented person here will still be able to indulge.

[beckya57]

One of my girlfriends is having us over. She's a fantastic cook, and creates healthy masterpieces. She also indulges my vegetarianism. No turkey or ham for me. Also no leftovers or clean-up. ;-)

[nancy]

fleecing their (mostly lower income) flocks for decades.

Perlstein:

The strategic alliance of snake-oil vendors and conservative true believers points up evidence of another successful long march, of tactics designed to corral fleeceable multitudes all in one place—and the formation of a cast of mind that makes it hard for either them or us to discern where the ideological con ended and the money con began.

Those tactics gelled in the seventies—though they were rooted, like all things right-wing and infrastructural, in the movement that led to Barry Goldwater’s presidential nomination in 1964.

Small story: My husband's late grandmother was a child in the then Oklahoma territory; she once recalled the Holy Rollers arriving to much ado for their tent meetings. Fire and brimstone, speaking in tongues, testimonials -- the whole inspirational show leading to the attendees "rolling" across the grounds. Each morning following she saw the tent-show folks carefully combing the grounds and collecting all of the change that had fallen out of the pockets of the rolling-inspired the night before.

Well before Goldwater in 1964, much less the seventies.

We're just seeing the updated and far more lucrative version of this con. The money 'falling' out of those pockets keeps that gravy train running nicely. Plus a little IRS tax-exemption for security.

[kathy a.]

nancy, your description of the old tent meetings reminded me of a novel i read a few years back -- but i can't remember what novel or author. grr. i was thinking barbara kingsolver or anne lamott, but probably it wasn't either of them.

julie smith has a couple of novels featuring a character somewhat based on jim jones -- same kind of charismatic snake oil. jones had a political presence, too [but on the left], before he took his followers off to guyana.

grifters were mark twain's beat. but his contemporary, herman melville, also wrote a novel called "the confidence-man." i suppose none of the very proudly confident GOP losers remember much that "con" is shorthand for "confidence."

[nancy]

Private jetster, Franklin Graham, who absorbed the family business, at work only today: God may have to cause "a complete economic collapse to save the nation from Obama." Channeling The Man.

Oh Armageddon.

Plenty of jet fuel leftover for Franklin's 'blessed' cause though I guess. Amen.

[Sir Charles]

kathy,

Hopping the train on Thanksgiving up to suburban NYC to my brother in laws -- get to see the lad, who will pop over from college and nieces and nephews and their pretty new offspring, which is enjoyable.

nancy and kathy,

I believe that the quintessential novel of evangelical grifters is Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_Gantry

From way back in 1926.

[kathy a.]

becky -- that sounds lovely! re "indulges" -- i remember my mom feeling panicky if a vegetarian came to dinner. i guess it was the "meat at every meal" mindset of the day. also, her idea of vegetables was popping a can of green beans. gastronomically, we have come a long way. ;)

SC -- what a lovely family get-together! it will be good to see the lad, i bet. and the others.

my son and his girlfriend have been together for many years, and they are finally moving in together in a couple months; i'm starting to think of them as the in-laws. previously, son + GF tried to accomodate both families by having an early dinner with us, and a later dinner with her family. there comes a time in a young person's life when two feasts is one too many.

[kathy a.]

some interesting articles. first, how the FEC can stop the tidal wave of secret political cash. this seems like a good time to shake things up with a regulatory agency that isn't regulating very well. the purpose of these super-PACs and secret-money campaign surrogates is to influence the vote. so, catch this: "Enabled by this kind of ruling [keeping donors secret], about half of all television advertising supporting Romney’s campaign was paid for by groups that do not disclose their donors." it's kinda sweet that the GOP secret money got so little bang for its buck this round, but i'd also like to see less of the secrecy, thank you.

i thought that regulatory agencies typically have to put proposed regs out for public comment, so i'm a bit mystified by this: "Things are so bad at the FEC that the commissioners have deadlocked three times in the past year over whether to even accept public comments about changing the inadequate disclosure regulations." isn't there something like the APA (administrative procedures act) for the feds?

in other news, AARP has been after me for 6 years (since age 49), and i haven't felt like self-identifying as an old person yet. but i'm all behind keeping cuts to social security and medicare off the table during upcoming budget discussions.

there has also been talk of means-testing for these benefits, but in the end, i don't favor that because [a] people have paid in, with certain promises; and [b] this will only end up harming people who are not in the fabulously-wealthy category. so instead -- and in addition to getting rich people to pay their damned fair share of taxes, already -- i think we should promote a voluntary program of rich people declining their SS checks and medicare coverage, for the betterment of the country. patriotic, no? one of my college professors actually did this; he was still working well past the qualifying age, and didn't figure he needed the extra check.

[oddjob]

it's kinda sweet that the GOP secret money got so little bang for its buck this round

Unfortunately, from what I've read online and heard on Bill Moyers' show over the weekend the money donors noticed, and next time around (& thereafter) will probably instead focus on down-ballot races where this time around they were much more successful at getting the election results they wanted.

:(

[Bill H]

I think exit polling should be eliminated in its entirety, along with all of the detailed polling that allows campaigns to know who will vote and how they will do so. GOTV campaigns now know voters likely voting habits right down to individual persons by address, and go door-to-door campaigning with lists in hand, calling on voters inclined for their candidate to assure that they are planning to go to the polls, offering to give them a ride if needed. This borders on vote buying, since they use their lists to skip the ones not voting for their guy.

Likewise with ethnic and such polling which allows campaigners to "tailor" the campaign "message" and talking points to appeal to special interest groups and diminishes the discussion of larger issues. One of the things that has soured me on the election process is the endless discussion of what "so and so can do to appeal to such and such a group."

Not bashing one side or the other, here, the process itself has been corrupted beyone belief, and not just by money but by the kust for power.

[paula]

Bill--I have to agree, even if for selfish reasons. I don't really want Republicans to come up with devious ways to appeal to those who don't buy into their message. And, I resist being pigeon holed. I prefer to believe that I weight the message before I make a voting decision, if you don't mind, knowing full well I'm probably as predictable as everyone else.

re: Thanksgiving. We're off to DC to spend a few days with family and friends. Will probably stop off at one or two spots in NJ, just to check in on others. I, for one, have much to be thankful for this year: six healthy grandchildren, seven employed adult children/spouses w/roofs over their heads, the re-election of a president who might be able to extricate us from some incredible messes, and my own unforeseen wisdom to move far from the Atlantic coast 12 years ago. Who could ask for anything more? Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

[kathy a.]

hi, bill. i dunno. i don't think that offering a person a ride to the poll is "vote buying," unless there is actual vote buying.

my campaigning this season was for a ballot measure -- something way down the ballot, crowded amongst other ballot measures. i participated in 2 kinds of targeted GOTV actions -- one was calling registered "decline to state" voters in LA county; the other was precinct walking, but we only went to targeted households (doing only certain households was a giant PITA). i also did several rounds of NOT-targeted campaigning at transit stations, which was my favorite.

in all those circumstances, it made a difference when we actually got to talk to someone. many voters were lost about the various propositions -- so a common question was, "which one is this?" when i was walking the precinct, we ran into people who saw our t-shirts and asked what the proposition was about. same with making the pitch and passing literature at the transit stations.

i think it does make sense to find out what moves people on a particular issue. on the issue of concern to me (the death penalty) -- people may reach the same conclusion for a lot of different reasons. i have a long and deep understanding of the broken-ness of the system; my cousin has a strict moral position; my neighbor worries about executing innocents; a friend worries about unreliable evidence; and others worry about this huge cost for no public safety benefit.

agree, though, about all the pundit bloviating about doing such and such to appeal to whozits. i mean, that led to crap like making ann romney the reach-out person for all the ladiez.

[oddjob]

Why the Dems. should not blink during "fiscal cliff" negotiations, but will be sorely tempted to.

[janinsanfran]

I suppose I should comment on the campaigning question since refining such efforts in service of progressive causes has been my life's work.

From a campaign point of view, there are only two kinds of voters it is worth expending energy ($$ and human) on reaching: persuadable voters who might vote your way if you can talk with them and people who you trust will vote your way if you can find them and turn them out. Everyone else is simply a citizen who is (momentarily) irrelevant to your efforts.

This stuff usually amounts to the search for needles in a haystack. And the second category is easier to identify than the first, though the model builders and marketeers have made it a little easier to find the persuadables. But not much.

In the campaign kathy was working on (ending death sentences in Cali), we knew there were probably only about 1000 people in the state who might not plan to vote but could be turned out on our issue. And there was no way in the world for us to find them. So we needed a mix of persuasion and taking advantage of other people's turnout while making our initiative "part of the package" of "yes" initiatives for many voters. We did what we could on both fronts.

Something that has not, yet, been much remarked is that overall turnout was not very high in California (no statewide races or concern about the Presidential vote) and we may have been hurt by that. I'm still doing analysis.

[kathy a.]

jan, you are awesome! there are a lot of layers of strategy on an issue like this, and especially in such a big unruly state as ours.

one of the truly impressive things about this campaign is that so many leaders, and so many newspapers all around the state, stepped up to endorse replacing the death penalty. (virtually all the major papers; lots and lots of local papers, too.) that cannot have happened accidentally -- the default position on crime-related measures is "we don't approve of crime, so we're tuff on it," and each of these endorsements meant that somebody understood and evaluated the advantages of the proposition, then publicly spread the word. go, team!

i think a danger with down-ballot candidates and issues is that people who are voting either [a] abstain because they don't know enough, or [b] vote for knee-jerk reasons, without being informed enough.

despite these obstacles, yes on 34 did pretty darned well -- certainly, this vote put to rest the idea that 85% favor the death penalty, or somesuch. it also moved the debate well into discussion of substantive issues, and away from the hyper-emotional rhetoric of times past.

[Sir Charles]

Bill,

I'm sorry, but the exit polls are a treasure trove of information and are fascinating in and of themselves. Looking at the make up of the electorate and how difference slices of it vote is to me just an inherently interesting thing.

And I hardly think giving someone a ride to the polls is vote buying. It is a way to see that people who may otherwise be disenfranchised due to a lack of mobility get a chance to exercise the franchise. I would think that this would be an almost universally appealing thing in our democracy.