Think of this as Volume 12, Number 49 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.
You win elections by playing offense.
This is especially true if you're the governing party. And especially if you represent a new Thesis, a new set of myths, values and assumptions you want to drive politics for decades.
In the years before a new Thesis attains power, it is so desperate for allies that it will support anyone who puts the label next to their name. Once it is in power, loyalty to the leadership and (more important) to the myths, values and assumptions of the leadership, becomes more vital.
The Nixon Thesis was sustained by this in its early years. And one of its chief instruments was James L. Buckley (right). Buckley, a lawyer and William F.'s brother, was the smiling face behind the New York Conservative Party in 1968, and with Nixon's election engineered a coup against the New York Republican leadership, the "Rockefeller Republicans."
That's Rockefeller as in Nelson. Nelson Rockefeller was part of the Eisenhower coalition, a true AntiThesis to the Roosevelt Thesis of Unity, because (like Bill Clinton a generation later) he accepted the premises of that Thesis and sought mainly to moderate it, lean against it, show it could be managed more efficiently.
As Dean would lead to Obama, so Goldwater led to Nixon. The Goldwater movement was the "Netroots" of the 1960s — highly energized volunteers, grassroots activists with firm principles, seeking not to moderate the Roosevelt Thesis but to overthrow it (as the Netroots would help overthrow the Nixon Thesis.
Nixon approved of this. He wanted loyalty to what he was doing, and the best way to gain that was to eliminate the Rockefeller Republicans. So Buckley, who only had the Conservative line in 1968, was given a second line in 1970, and this became the instrument through which national Republicans funneled millions to defeat Rockefeller's man, Charles Goodall, and neuter Rockefeller himself.
Flash forward 40 years. The lesson of 1970 should be clear. Clintonism must die. The game of triangulating between liberal Democrats and Republicans must be replaced, by loyalty to the President, if the 2008 result is to become transformative.
Throughout 2009 Republicans have been on offense, so reporters assume they have momentum, and will continue to have it. This is partly because a thesis of consensus is a bit mushy by definition.
Right now most attention is being paid to conservative Republicans seeking to primary what they call RINOs. Efforts by Netroots Democrats to primary conservative Democrats are mostly going under the radar. This is partly because the movement is split, with some bloggers becoming insiders and pushing back against any offensive move, because it's conflict and thus uncomfortable.
But it's important work. Loyalty to the principles of the Obama Administration must replace mere party loyalty. For the party to stand for something those who stand for something else have to go down, and go down hard.
So the most important Democrat right now is Jane Hamsher (above). She's not Jim Buckley but she has the best chance of finding him (or her), of funding him (or her) and of pushing the Democratic Party, through its Democratic wing, into standing for what it stood for in 2006 and 2008.
Hamsher runs Firedoglake, which is becoming the National Review of the netroots. Daily Kos is too big, Atrios is too flip, and most everyone else is too flip for the job.
Without Hamsher taking on the old Clintonites, Democrats will have to play defense, and the results could be brutal. Liberals dissatisfied with Obama's accommodations to the Clinton wing would stay home, conservatives desperate to overthrow the new Thesis will come out in droves, and the stage could indeed be set for a Bushite restoration that will destroy what's left of America's wealth, power, and moral authority.
The best target for Hamsher is Blanche Lincoln. First elected during the Clinton impeachment, she has been triangulating ever since, seeking a middle ground between Bushism and her own base. That made sense when Republicans were in power. With Democrats in power you're triangulating between yourself and the enemy.
The costs of triangulating between yourself and the other side are clear when you look at opinion surveys. All year House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been more popular across the country than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. This is because Democrats want Democrats, especially now that they're in power, to be Democrats.
The chattering classes think Hamsher is disloyal, but in fact she's far more loyal than Obama's closest allies, like Rahm Emanuel. That's because Hamsher is loyal to what Obama believes, what he professes, while Emanuel is only loyal to the man and the party.
Right now Hamsher seems more interested in challenging Reid, and (believe it or not) that's OK too. Democrats have to learn the lesson Republicans did 40 years ago, that voters need you to stand for something if you're going to lead them for a generation.
Standing for nothing is fine if you're in opposition, because there's no difference in that case between something and nothing. But if you're in power, and you want to stay there, you have to be loyal to principles.
So who will be James L. Buckley now? It could be this man, Arkansas Lt. Governor Bill Halter. If Halter runs as a loyal Democrat, and as a supporter of the public option (which polls show Arkansans support) he can beat Lincoln, and destroy the Clinton myth once and for all. (He even has Buckley's smile.)
And if Halter then won the general, in what is supposedly one of America's reddest, most anti-Obama states, maybe even Politico will get the message.
If you want to win stand for something, and play offense. And if you want to know what politics is all about, and what people really feel, stay outside the Beltway.
