New Progressive Politics

NPI Event Today: Next Wave of Tools for Progressive Politics

The technology and media worlds are in the midst of a transformation that is profoundly affecting politics. In the next few years we can expect to see the accelerating demise of the 30-second television commercial as the main form of political communication. Already, the 2006 election was marked by a spirit of experimentation in new tools and new media.

Understanding the way forward in this new environment is critical to all the work we do as progressives. That is why I hope you'll be able to join the New Politics Institute for a lunch next Tuesday, December 5th, as we gather leading experts and practitioners of these new tools to evaluate what worked best this fall and what we can expect to make an even greater impact in the future. Panelists will include:

  • Julie Bergman Sender (bio), filmmaker and progressive media strategist on Viral Video in the post YouTube world
  • Tim Chambers (bio), Co-Founder of the Media 50 Group and former Sony VP on Mobile Media
  • Will Robinson (bio), Partner at MacWilliams Robinson and Partners on the Evolution of Television through Cable, Satellite and TiVo
  • Laura Quinn (bio), Democratic Operative and Co-founder of Data Warehouse on Data-driven Politics

The event will be held in Washington, DC TODAY from noon to 2:00pm at the Phoenix Park Hotel at 520 North Capitol Street, NW.

For more information on the event or to RSVP, contact Tracy Leaman at 202-842-7213 or tleaman@ndn.org

Feel free to spread this announcement around. The more progressives who understand the powerful new tools and new media we now have at our disposal, the better.

This event is one of a series presented by the New Politics Institute, a think tank helping progressives master today’s transformation of politics due to rapid changes in technology, media and the demographic makeup of America. NPI is building a working network of top technology, media, and demographic professionals who want to help move best practices and innovations into progressive politics. Read our developing body of reports and view exclusive video content at: www.newpolitics.net

Conservatives, Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

I am writing this from Rootscamp DC, a gathering of about 350 progressives involved in the last campaign who could be broadly categorized as part of the netroots. It really was an amazing group of people from all over the country and from many different groups. There also is a healthy number of people from organizations of the progressive establishment, like the DNC, House and Senate staffs, unions, America Votes, etc.

The conference takes the form of what has been called an “unconference,” one that has none of the sessions or speakers set before the start of the conference. Those who gather propose sessions that they stick on a grid on the wall that lines up rooms and times. In the Rootscamp case, there were slots for about 180 sessions over two days, which, remarkably, have all been filled out.

The New Politics Institute ran two of these sessions. Simon and I did a version of a talk we give, this time on Defining the Overarching Narrative of this Election. It took a big picture look at the overall strategic terrain and made our argument that this is the beginning of a new politics. The election only validated that thesis that we have been pushing for the last year.

The feeling and energy at this Rootscamp conference also bolsters the New Politics frame. Everyone here is extremely energized and excited about transforming government and politics for the long run. One session is about carrying out the progressive revolution for the next 50 years. Most of the people here are relatively young and have a long career ahead of them.

For a sense of who is here check out the stream of photos coming out of flickr, posted there by random participants.

If I were part of the conservative moment, I would be worried. There is a structural, generational development going on here. This group is going to make a difference for a long time.

Peter Leyden

EJ Dionne on the new Democratic House majority

In his Friday column, EJ Dionne makes an important observation about the emergence of a new 21st century set of leaders, policies and strategies for the Democrats.  It begins:  

"The most important tension within the new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives is not between liberals and conservatives or free traders and fair traders. It is between older members who once enjoyed the power and perks of majority status, and their younger colleagues who will experience real power for the first time."

This piece should be read along side our "New Politics" argument, Matt Bai's recent piece in the NYTimes magazine, Sidney Blumenthal's excellent new essay in Salon, Tom Schaller's new book and our recent 2006 election analysis.

There is a growing sense that we are entering a new political era, one no longer dominated by the conservative movement, one that offers progressives a tremendous opportunity to take our values, our vision and our ideas and apply them, ably, to the great emerging challenges of the 21st century.  It is an exciting time my friends.

Blumenthal on Generation Dem

Sidney Blumenthal's new essay in Salon is a must read.

NPI Event Tuesday - The Next Wave of Tools for Progressive Politics

Peter Leyden, the Director of our New Politics Institute, just sent this out. This is going to be a great event, so come on out!

-----------------------------------

The technology and media worlds are in the midst of a transformation that is profoundly affecting politics. In the next few years we can expect to see the accelerating demise of the 30-second television commercial as the main form of political communication. Already, the 2006 election was marked by a spirit of experimentation in new tools and new media.

Understanding the way forward in this new environment is critical to all the work we do as progressives. That is why I hope you'll be able to join the New Politics Institute for a lunch next Tuesday, December 5th, as we gather leading experts and practitioners of these new tools to evaluate what worked best this fall and what we can expect to make an even greater impact in the future. Panelists will include:

  • Julie Bergman Sender on Viral Video in the post YouTube world
  • Tim Chambers on Mobile Media
  • Will Robinson on the Evolution of Television through Cable, Satellite and TiVo
  • Laura Quinn on Data Driven Politics

The event will be held in Washington, DC on Tuesday, December 5th from noon to 2:00pm at the Phoenix Park Hotel at 520 North Capitol Street, NW.
This event is one of a series presented by the New Politics Institute, a think tank helping progressives master today’s transformation of politics due to rapid changes in technology, media and the demographic makeup of America. NPI is building a working network of top technology, media, and demographic professionals who want to help move best practices and innovations into progressive politics. Read our developing body of reports and view exclusive video content at: www.newpolitics.net For more information on the event contact Tracy Leaman at 202-842-7213 or tleaman@ndn.org Feel free to spread this announcement around. The more progressives who understand the powerful new tools and new media we now have at our disposal, the better.

CAP's Plan for the First 100 Days

Our friends over at the Center for American Progress have released a legislative plan for the new Democratic Congress that aims to pick up where Nancy Pelosi's First 100 Hours plan leaves off:

The Center for American Progress Action Fund offers our recommendation for new ideas and policies that the 110th Congress should take on and enact before the August recess, after the first 100 hours. In the weeks and months after those first hours, Congress will have an opportunity to demonstrate progress on fixing the problems Americans face. Indeed, we argue that instead of following the traditional Congressional course of an initial burst of activity followed by weeks and months of less action, the Congressional leadership can show the American people it continues to work to meet their needs by continually passing legislation in the spring and summer.

CAP's First 100 Days' Policy Agenda includes priorities for foreign and domestic policy.  While NDN does not agree with the CAP plan for an 18-month phased withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, they do have a number of other  innovative and important proposals, such as demanding an updated, unbiased National Intelligence Estimate, assigning a special Inspector General to weed out mismanagement and corruption in Iraq and Afghanistan security and reconstruction projects and the complete restoration of military equipment damaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, in order to bring the armed forces up to full readiness.

On the domestic policy side, their are compelling arguments for expansion of the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit, plans to reward good teachers and encourage them to teach in high-need areas, targeting of specific corporate subsidies that are overdue for elimination, creation of a universal 401(k) system, public health reform, a more aggressive approach to renewable energy and (dear to our hearts here at NDN) comprehensive immigration reform.

By now, it shouldn't be a surprise that the myth that progressives don't have any ideas, only criticism, is just that, a myth.  CAP's plan joins other ideas and proposals coming out of an energized progressive movement.  And should give us all confidence that the 110th Congress, working closely with its progressive allies off the Hill, is going to be one we can actually be proud of.   

Game time for the Democrats

I hope Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are resting up this weekend.  With Iraq and perhaps the Middle East slipping further and further into chaos, an Administration still running our foreign policy that has little credibility abroad or at home, and no easy or good options for our occupation in Iraq, our two new Congressional leaders are about see the early days of their tenure overwhelmed by a truly momentus foreign policy challenge. 

Like Bush, their time in office may end up being defined by how they manage the worsening Middle East crisis.  Did their involvement lead to a better outcome? Worse? Has America benefited from their leadership? Do they have the staff and organization to manage a crisis of this magnitude? Are they prepared to let other parts of the job go as they work on the central challenge of our day, one that now appears to dwarf all others?

Important questions all.  No matter what our new Speaker and Majority Leader believed they would be doing for the next few months, it is now clear that dealing with our failure in Iraq will be the defining issue of their early days.

The role of independents in the 2006 elections has been overstated

On Saturday the New York Times ran an op-ed from a Duke professor named David Rohde which ran hard against the early conventional wisdom coming from the elections:

..."THE midterm elections have been widely viewed as a sudden change of direction, with Democrats seizing the wheel from Republicans. While that may be true, the big electoral news — news that has gone largely unnoticed — is this: After decades of weakness, after sideswipes from independent candidates, the two major parties are back. Indeed, they are more potent and influential than at any time in the past century."

There are really two pieces to this argument.  The first is the role of the Parties themselves in relation to other organizations and leaders in the political firmament.  I will not tackle that argument today, though I do agree with him, and a lot of it has to do with the way the internet allows people to have a much more intimate and direct relationship with their parties.  What I do want to write about is a related trend, the increased partisanship of the electorate. 

In the last two elections, 2004 and 2006, 74% of all voters identified themselves as a partisan, either a Republican or Democrat.  Only a quarter, 26 percent, identified themselves as independent.  These ratios did not change from 2004 to 2006. 

In 2004 37% of the electorate described themselves as Democrat, the same Republican.  In 2006 Democrats picked up a point as a share of the electorate, Republicans lost a point, leaving it 38D/26I/36R.  Remarkably stable ratios given that the vote changed from 51/48 R to 52/46 D.  

The early storyline then is that the shift from 2004 to 2006 came about from how independents swung.  They did swing 17 points, from 48R/49D to 39R/57D.  But a far greater shift happened inside the two parties, where there was an 8 point shift within the Democratic electorate, and a 4 point shift inside the Republican electorate, or a total of a 12 point shift. The Democratic vote went from 89/11 to 93/7, and the Republican vote 93/6 to 91/8.   

While less in percentage terms this 12 point shift happened in what is 3/4 quarters of the electorate, and this 18 point shift happened in what is 1/4 of the electorate.   So this means a far greater number of votes shifted in the last two years between and among the parties than shifted with independents - meaning that Democrats owe their victory much more to gains with Democratic and Republican partisans than they do to the gains they made with independent voters. 

This reduced role for independents was evident even in 2004.  John Kerry did what every Democrat was told was necessary to do win the Presidency - he won independents - and yet he still lost the election.  Why? Because the Rove machine pushed the percentage of the electorate that was Republican to an all time high, 37%, equalling the Democratic share, and they kept 93% of these Republicans.  Kerry while winning independents, only won 89% of Democrats.  This difference - between Rove's 93 and Kerry's 89 within their own parties - cost Kerry the election. 

Tim Kaine, writing about his impressive win in Virginia in 2005 in the DLC's magazine recently, described his "Democrats first" strategy, one that seems very much in touch with the notion that winning elections in this more partisan era starts first with expanding and holding one's own partisans:

"Just as Warner had done in 2001, I had to accomplish three things to win in a red state. First, I had to find and energize Democratic voters. Second, I had to share my story with the voters. Third, I had to reach out to independent and Republican voters in a strategic way. And that's exactly what we did."

I'm in no way suggesting that winning with independents was not an important part of how Democrats won in 2006.  Of course the big swing with independents was impressive and critical.  But with so few people considering themselves independents these days, we have to be careful not to overstate their impact.  It is clear from the exit poll data of the last two years that what has been far more important in determining the outcomes of the two elections is what has happened within and between the two parties, which is today about three-quarters of all voters. 

Additionally, Democrats should not discount the power of what Rove, Mehlman and his team did and have left behind. Despite their epic collapse this year, the Republicans only lost a single point of market share as a percentage of the electorate, and today almost 40 percent more Americans consider themselves Republicans than independents, an historically very high number.  As Mehlman said after the 2004 elections, they spent a great deal of money persuading Republicans to vote and to vote Bush.  Their "Republicans first" strategy was actually very successful in many ways, as this investment they made in creating more Republican voters has changed the nature of the American electorate, dimished the influence of traditonal independents, and has indeed made more Republicans than there used to be. 

The problem they had this year wasn't these voters becoming independents and fleeing the party, which one would have expected.  They may have voted Democrat this time, but in this year's exits they still consider themselves Republicans.  To repeat, independents did not gain a single point as a share of the electorate despite the tremendous collapse of the Republican brand.  

Update: Blogger James Hupp has challenged my math in a new post.   He was right about one thing, I had the change in independents to be at 18% when it was 17%.  I changed that above (thanks James).  But in reviewing his calculations, his raw numbers still indicate what I wrote above: it still seems that a 12 point net shift in 74% of the electorate is greater than a 17 point net shift in 26% of the electorate (add the two point net shift for Democrats and away from Republicans)  Hey, if I am wrong with my numbers here I will chuck it.  In reviewing his math this morning am still not convinced (and James of course I had these numbers weighted - a little unfair there.  If we can talk of a 17 point shift with indies you can talk 12 with partisans).  Open to your thoughts. 

The diversity of today's Democratic Party is a great strength

Our government was designed to be a contentious, dynamic, messy, ineffecient thing.  A system where people with diverse views could come together, debate, argue and hash out a rough consensus on the best course for the nation.  By designing a system that allocated power in such a diffuse manner, our Founding Fathers respected the rights of an individual, and protected these rights.  To work, our government requires a diversity of views, and requires that those views are not transformed or subsumed into a single national path.  Tolerance, an early and vital American ethic, becomes the paramount ethic for leaders in such a system and for the system itself to succeed. 

To succeed in such a system, a political party must then best understand how to encourage and manage diversity, finding again and again a dynamic and ever changing consensus on the major issues of the day.  To that end Steny Hoyer's election as majority leader seems to be a good thing. 

The new Democratic Congressional Majority is a diverse lot.  There is great generational, regional, racial, ethnic, gender, and ideological diversity in this new group.  There is no "majority way."  There are liberals, blacks, moderates, Hispanics, conservatives, Southerners, Mormons, moderates, Westerners, business people, Midwesterners, farmers, Asians, cityfolk, Northeasterners, ranchers, surburbanites, Catholics, immigrants, vets, countryfolks, the first woman Speaker and even a Muslim.  Sure sounds like 21st century America to me. 

From this diverse Party, The Democratic Congressional Leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will have to craft a rough consensus of the major issues of the day.  But this is what our system requires - negotiated and hard fought settlements.  The more diverse Nancy's leadership team is the more likely they will be able to manage this process of finding rough consensus in Congress, something the Republicans were so unable to do.  Wherever you came down on the Murtha/Hoyer battle, it feels to me as if the Hoyer win was somehow the best outcome for a Party right now that has no settled path forward on the big issues of the day, but will have to hash them out, together, in a respectful way, in the days and months ahead.  Having Steny there, who clearly comes from a different part of the Party then Nancy, will make it much more likely that the Democratic rough consensus is more representative, and thus more durable, than perhaps it would have been under a Murtha tenure. 

As America itself grows more racially and ethnically diverse, this capacity to show tolerance, manage diversity and find consensus will become even more essential for political success.  The events of this week show the Democrats seem comfortable with this type of the politics, the Republicans not.  Their new RNC Chairman, a minority himself, is lambasted for his support of immigration reform, and Trent Lott, a leader with a history of racism, is elevated up in his Party.  As we move further into the 21st century, it is increasingly clear that this comfort with diversity - ideological, regional, ethnic, racial, generational and gender - will be one of the Democratic Party's greatest stengths. 

Mulling the Impact of Tech Tools on the election

I’m in an all-day meeting in San Francisco at Working Assets where progressives from around the country are comparing notes on what tools worked in the 2006 campaign. (New fellow Michael Kieschnick is the head of Working Assets and running the show.) Many of them are nuts and bolts tools that helped voters register, or identified progressive voters and got out the vote, but many groups tried to experiment on new media tools too.

I was at the first of a series of RootsCamp conferences this weekend in San Francisco too. This was a gathering of Netroots and blogger types who are leveraging a “new tool” of sorts in the form of a new kind of “unconference” called “barcamps.” These are self-organizing conferences that came out of the Silicon Valley tech scene, and are described here. But they have been adopted for political purposes by the Netroots crowd in the form of rootscamp. The regional barcamps will culminate in a big gathering in DC on Dec. 2-3 where Simon and I will be speaking too.

In the meantime, many places are compiling their own lists of what worked best in this cycle. Just today the Personal Technology Forum came up with a list that is worth perusing. The Forum’s executive director, Micah L. Sifry, is going to be driving yet another all-day post-election gathering in San Francisco this Friday that I will be attending too.

The lessons of best practices as well as disasters are coming together in various ways and the New Politics Institute hopes to do our own gathering in DC in early December that will lay out what we are finding. Stay tuned.

Peter Leyden

Syndicate content