End of the Conservative Ascendency

McCain, The Fallen Hero

As I wrote earlier this week, the central drama of the Republican Convention was not the emergence of Governor Sarah Palin, but could Senator John McCain adequately distance himself from this terribly disapointing era of GOP governance to give himself a shot at winning this thing?

As of this morning while I think McCain and his team tried very hard and had a strong last 2 days of the Convention I'm not sure they pulled it off. Hurricane Gustav did its part, knocking Bush and Cheney off the stage without disrupting the rest of the Convention. And Sarah Palin did her part, and has now arrived on the national stage as a powerful new part of the GOP's future. We also saw all sorts of GOP moderates, not normally associated with hard right conservative politics. We were bombarded with iconic American images, mostly from a time gone by. We heard about the virtues of small town life and the dangers of cosmopolitianism. We saw large and attractive families, strong and articulate women, and a never ending stream of American flags. What we almost never heard about was George Bush.

While Palin was a glimpse of the GOP's future, most of what we saw was an evocation of the GOP's and America's past. After all John McCain was born a long time ago. He is the oldest man to be the nominee of either Party. He is very much a man of the 20th century, of its battles, struggles and culture. The problem for him is that past includes the GOP's recent Washington ascendency a period which has without doubt been among the worst periods of goverance America has ever seen.

In his speech last night John McCain acknowledges his disapointment with his Party in recent years, and while he does his best to spread the blame the thrust of his remarks are clear:

I fight to restore the pride and principles of our party. We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us. We lost the trust of the American people when some Republicans gave in to the temptations of corruption. We lost their trust when rather than reform government, both parties made it bigger. We lost their trust when instead of freeing ourselves from a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, both parties and Senator Obama passed another corporate welfare bill for oil companies. We lost their trust, when we valued our power over our principles.

And in watching him last night, this aging warrior, I got the sense that he knew that it was unlikely that he was going to win this election and lead this fight in restoring his Party. That he could craft a road map, and promote the leaders - like Palin and Ridge and Whitman - whom he hoped would carry on this important fight. But that the damage done by the recent conservative rise was too great, too fresh and that too many of its leaders were still in positions of power; that he, by adopting so many of the core arguments of this era to win the nomination was no longer the man of virtue he once was; and that he at the end of the day simply does not have a big enough vision, enough energy, enough understanding of the moment to be the one who can lead this post Bush-DeLay-Abramoff Party forward.

Which is perhaps why this Convention spent so much time talking about him and his past - it was in essence a validictory event rather than the beginning of a winning campaign. And that it did achieve something very important to McCain - the beginning of the liberation of the Party he loves from the grips of corrupt, weak and ineffective leaders. That my friends is no small accomplishment, and one that McCain seems to be in the process of pulling off. Whether however he can do the next thing - make a more compelling argument about the future than his opponents - remains to be seen. The task of doing so became almost impossible when McCain sacrified his own beliefs and principles to win the GOP primary, and in my gut I think he knows this.

More than anyone else John McCain knows that the mythical character he has become is not the successful aging warrior, but the fallen hero, overwhelmed by events much greater than him. And that his year he will do his part and fight the good fight all the while knowing that it will be others who end up carrying on and winning the battle that he began waging in St. Paul.

Last Night in St. Paul: Déjà Vu

Déjà vu. In 1992, while managing economic policy for Bill Clinton's campaign, I recall watching the Republican Convention in happy disbelief. For days, the gabfest had veered sharply and angrily to the right; and then, when George H.W. Bush accepted his renomination, it took him 26 minutes to get to the economy, the central issue of that campaign, which he talked about for perhaps five minutes. He didn't get it, and neither did John McCain last night. It took him even longer to get to the deep, economic concerns of a majority of Americans, and then devoted about three minutes to jobs, wages, the housing bust, globalization, trade, debt, and the rest. He doesn't get it either.

Another aging, career politician out of touch is hardly news. But another president who doesn't understand or much care about what's happening to most people in our economy would have serious long-term consequences for the real prospects of tens of millions of American families. And deteriorating conditions for most could well undermine public support for the measures that a responsible president will have to take over the next generation - including broad based IT training for all workers; universal access to post-secondary education; a major national commitment to 21st century infrastructure, including universal broadband and climate-friendly light rail system in most major metropolitan areas; a national commitment to aggressively support and promote R&D in climate friendly technologies and fuels, and support to broadly deploy the new technologies and alternative fuels; new cost-control provisions to slow rising health care costs as we provide universal access to health care insurance; and more.

Somehow, none of this made its way into John McCain's acceptance speech, which is only the most recent evidence that he doesn't have what we need in our next president.

RNC Convention - Straight Stalk, or Straight Up Lies?

Always fact-check - I appreciate the AP's efforts in correcting the "errors" in several RNC speeches:

Attacks, praise stretch truth at GOP convention

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press WriterWed Sep 3, 11:48 PM ET

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.

Some examples:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families. He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 Presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.

Following on Simon's post, it's clear that the RNC not only has a flare for drama, but will straight up lie if necessary. Throughout the RNC Convention we have heard eloquent stories, partisan attacks, but no real solutions. The RNC is doing exactly what they criticized Barack Obama for doing: giving nice speeches with no substance. While during the DNC Convention, not a single speaker focused on the RNC - they might have made differences known on issues, but at no time were speakers condescending or snide about Senator McCain.  Instead, they focused on presenting their candidate and on Barack Obama's specific proposals in the areas of Energy Reform, Immigration, the Economy, and Health Care. Stories can be entertaining for awhile, but in the end, voters will ask for substance. As Gov. Sebelius stated in the Huffington Post, hockey moms may be moved by speeches, but in the end they want to know exactly how the next President will make health care affordable, increase their wages, or improve schools. As Barack Obama pointed out at Mile-High Stadium, "it's not about me" - this election should be about the American people, but the GOP strategy is precisely to make it about stories and characters. Rep. Wasserman-Shultz put it best: "Where is the beef? Where is the evidence? Sarah Palin is not a reformer...If her best example of being a reformer was trying to sell a plane on E-Bay, that is not my definition of reform." Reform is not found in the usual stretching of the truth in politics. To be successful tonight, John McCain will have to shift from this strategy of making it about Barack Obama and instead focus on how he proposes to pay for the pipelines, nuclear power, solar, and expensive alternative energy sources that Gov. Palin spoke about. He will have to explain the incentives to businesses to conserve energy, to have acessible health care for employees, and how he will make the U.S. competitive in a global, 21st century, marketplace.

What World Does The Republican Party Live In?

I have watched the coverage of the Republican Convention for three days now and I have two main observations: 1) they have not presented a single proposal, just snide remarks (clever ones, but merely snide remarks all the same) and 2) the crowd is older and all white. Such a homogenous crowd is simply not reflective of the reality of the United States of America - watching and listening to the Convention makes one thing abundantly clear: the Republican Party is so very, very out of touch with the country they claim to put first.

The Washington Post's Eli Saslow and Robert Barnes note in a piece published today:

Only 36 of the 2,380 delegates seated on the convention floor are black [which is 1.5 percent of those present, while blacks make up over 12% of the U.S. population], the lowest number since the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies began tracking diversity at political conventions 40 years ago. Each night, the overwhelmingly white audience watches a series of white politicians step to the lectern -- a visual reminder that no black Republican has served as a governor, U.S. senator or U.S. House member in the past six years.

The lack of diversity is out of sync with the demographic changes in the United States. Twenty-four state delegations at the Xcel Energy Center have no black members at all. A few weeks ago Simon wrote about the Census Bureau reporting that racial and ethnic minorities will make up a majority of the country's population by 2042 -- almost a decade earlier than what the bureau predicted just four years ago. Two-thirds of Americans are non-Hispanic whites, 12.4 percent are black and 14.8 percent are Hispanic,according to 2006 census numbers. Not only is the party out of sync - it appears Republicans are making a concerted effort to ignore the multiplicity of nationalities and races in the United States, as they propose to eliminate all non-citizens from being counted in the next Census.

Only a few years ago, Republicans talked publicly about the party's aspirations to diversify -- So what happened? As in so many other areas, the Republican Party has no record and no proposals to offer any particular demographic. The party made a concerted effort to court Hispanics in 2004, but NDN has tracked how the GOP's electoral gains under George W. Bush have been diminished by the hard-line stance many Republicans have taken on immigration.

A black Republican delegate from Texas, Tony Leatherman agreed, "You see what Obama has done, and it's a reminder of what's possible." But the Republicans have proven that they are too cynical to consider what's possible, they're too busy trying to glorify the past in order to avoid dealing with the reality of today and the very real challenges of tomorrow. They demonstrate this by focusing on putting down their opponent - a product of the bi-racial, multi-cultural society in which most of America lives - instead of developing solutions that can appeal to the wide array of Americans. As Sally Quinn wrote, describing how the two parties are worlds apart: some people might want to live in McCain's or Sarah Palin's world, "but I believe that we live in Obama's world."

The Palin Speech, Part 1 - On TV, narrative and the GOP

Two weeks ago, I wrote:

While a great deal has been written about the lessening impact of TV, I think the McCain campaign is demonstrating its lingering power and influence. What is the McCain campaign other than a series of TV ads and videos (that then get played again and again on TV)? Their candidate has receded. They have been speaking through a much more reliable set of messages - edited video, which unlike their candidate, doesn't have that nasty habit of getting way off message. And it has worked - the race has tightened now, and we appear headed into the two Conventions pretty close to tied.

As we look forward to the VP picks of both parties I get the sense that given the way the McCain campaign is being run now, they will attempt to pick a new spokesman for their campaign - someone good looking, telegenic, articulate. Their current spokesman, McCain, has, let us say, lots of limitations. So let him be that vague presence at the end of the ads, show up for the debates and Convention heavily scripted, and let the new guy do a great deal of the heavy lifting.

As television, last night's speech was pretty powerful, and Sarah Palin established herself as a potent political weapon in the GOP's aging arsenal. There was great art in that speech - the small town girl up from the bootstraps narrative, the crisp text, strong lines, her confident delivery, and her overall just plain good looks and likeable personality. It was just an awfully good show, and reminded all of us just how good the Republicans can be at this game of politics.

It also reminded me of how differently modern conservatives view political candidates than those on the left. Starting with Reagan, there has been this consciousness on the right that a candidate can be a vehicle, a spokesperson, a figurehead for a set of ideological arguments; that there is artifice, theater, story-telling at the core of politics; that because of this, the modern GOP has excelled at the marketing, television side of the business; but as we found out this decade, all this rhetoric, ideology, powerful TV and well-rehearsed speeches by good looking people have not left American better off than these conservatives found it. They have been long on marketing and advertising and short on governing. And it is this inability for the conservative movement to mature into a powerful governing force, moving beyond its immature rhetorical stage, that in many ways is the story of the election. Those who argue each day that government is the problem have turned out not to be very good at the governing part.

So Sarah Palin arrived last night on the national scene, the latest and most modern character from conservative central casting. But like so many other elements of today's conservative movement, her story, however compelling, is more fiction than fact - she raised taxes, has had very little responsibility for governing, supported the Bridge to Nowhere, lied repeatedly about Obama's record. So even that self-proclaimed straight talker, John McCain, has been unable to liberate his Party from the very worst of its traditions - the deep and profound belief that they should never let facts get in the way of a good story.

 

 

The "Nuevo Dia" Continues

As we have noted on this blog many times, the views of South Florida's Cuban American community are changing, giving the area's GOP incumbents their most serious challenge in nearly 20 years. (You may recall that one of the Democratic challengers is former NDNer, Joe Garcia.) What is allowing this to happen? As Time recently wrote in its article, Big Trouble in Little Havana, there are two reasons: More younger Cuban Americans are becoming eligible to vote, and the Cuba issue is viewed in relation to other issues like the economy, all of which affect South Florida and are believed to have been mishandled by the GOP.

On the New Generation of Cubans and related issues:

But the Miami challenges have caught the GOP off guard. Democratic voter registration in Miami-Dade County, as in other places, is up, and Republican registration is down. Some of the shift stems from elderly voters like Coto, but younger Cuban Americans are restless too. Like their elders, they want to liberate Cuba, but they also want to get by in Miami, where the middle class is shriveling and home foreclosures are soaring. "I'm not running for President of Cuba," says Martinez. "Cuban Americans finally see themselves as part of the wider U.S.A., and they care about other issues." 

On Cuba:

Still, a likely decisive issue in these races involves Cuba. In 2004, as a gift to conservatives, President Bush tightened restrictions on travel and remittances to the island. Cuban Americans--only those who have immediate family members in Cuba--can now visit just once every three years and send only $300 each quarter. The move backfired: most Miami Cubans oppose the new rules, according to an FIU poll, and they have been particularly unpopular among younger Cuban Americans. That was a big reason Miami computer programmer and lifelong Republican Joe Infante, 47, who has relatives in Cuba he can no longer visit, is now a registered Democrat. The regulations, he says, "have kept Cuban families separated but haven't put a dent in the Cuban regime." The move suggests that leaders of Florida's anti-Castro movement may have lost touch with the region's changing demographics. What would have worked in 1985 to deepen GOP support had the opposite effect in today's more diverse Miami. Says Garcia, sipping a café cubano in Little Havana: "Bush succeeded in dividing what was once a monolithic vote for his party." 

All of this will make sense to those familiar with NDN's work on Cuba. In fact, the views represented above are consistent with what we found in our poll from October of 2006. They are also consistent with U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's stance on Cuba, which Fareed Zakaria wrote about a few months ago. (You can see two examples of our coverage of Obama's position here and here.)

For more, check out a forum we held in February of 2007 where we discussed what a Post-Castro Cuba could look like.

Making the Struggle of Every Day People the Central Focus of the National Debate

In today's New York Times Week in Review, Bill Keller has a thoughtful look at recent events in China and Russia, and what might be called the end of the end of history. I thought Fareed Zakaria captured this sentiment best in his recent book when he described this new era of geopolitics with a simple powerful phrase - Americans are witnessing what he calls "the rise of the rest."

Perhaps after eight years of talk of Basra, Kabul and tax cuts, we will look back at this month as the month that Rip Van Winkle-like Americans woke from their conservative-induced slumber and began to see the 21st century as it is, not as portrayed by the Rovian/Chenesian fantasy of the last eight years.

Perhaps in no area is this new pragmatism more important than on what it means for our people here at home. The next President faces one domestic challenge more important than all the others - how to get wages and incomes rising again.

For most of the Bush era, the American economy performed well by traditional metrics. GDP, productivity, corporate profits and the stock market were strong. But despite this period of growth and strong productivity gains, the typical American family saw its annual income drop by about a $1,000 a year and the rate at which new jobs were created has been slower than any other recovery since the Depression. According to the laws of economics, it was not supposed to be possible to see robust growth in GDP and productivity and see incomes drop. In fact. it has never happened before in the modern economic history of the United States.

Every day Americans figured all this out long before coastal elites did. Our 2007 analysis of public opinion and the 2006 exit polls shows that it was the economy that drove the GOP from office much more than the war. As has been reported in many places, the American people are more unhappy with the state of the nation than anytime since the 1930s. The American people have understood for years that the people running their government has not turned their attention to the most important challenge they face in their own lives - making ends meet in a much more competitive globalized world. And small-bore solutions to this enormous challenge - off shore drilling, children's health insurance, raising the minimum wage, middle class tax cuts - will be treated as they have been treated by the American people these last few years - "that's nice, but where is the long-term, sustained, comprehensive plan big enough to actually improve our lives and the lives of our families?"

Led by Dr. Rob Shapiro, figuring all this out has been the primary focus of NDN's Globalization Initiative these last four years. I won't repeat the major recommendations from our project now, but offer three general observations:

1) It is critical that our political leaders explain to the American people that if we want to maintain our place in the world, and our standard of living, that we will have to "try harder." The rest of the world is rising, catching up, learning our game - as was the goal of foreign policy these last 60 years - and no longer can be seen as characters from an Indiana Jones movie. To compete in this world, this emerging world of the 21st century, we will have do more; invest more; modernize our infrastructure; lessen our dependence on expensive and dirty energy sources; make pensions and health care more portable and accessible; do more to equip our workers and kids with the modern skills they need to compete; accelerate innovation and the formation of "new businesses;" make our global economic liberalization strategies smarter and more modern...this new era must be seen as one of "investment" in a better future, and calls for an anachronistic politics of austerity must be rejected....

2) This economic and public opinion dynamic developed before the recent slowdown, credit crunch, housing crisis and energy/commodity price surge, and thus will not be solved by focusing on these recent developments in the economy. Because incomes went down during a period of sustained growth, the solutions offered by our leaders in the next few years must recognize that the traditional way we help Americans get ahead - by creating macroeconomic growth - is no longer guarenteed to improve the lives of every day people BECAUSE IT DID NOT WORK SO FAR IN THIS DECADE.

3) Given the enormity of this challenge, we here at NDN hope that helping Americans get ahead in this much more competitive world becomes the central focus of the elections this year. In several recent interviews, Senator Obama has said that his three priorities are Iraq, health care and climate change. Not so sure this is the best answer. He needs to be able say that he wants to be judged on whether he can raise Americans' standard of living, and then make doing so the central organizing principle of his campaign and Administration. I think a better response would be "I want to improve the lives of every day Americans who have worked so hard and gotten so little these last few years, and bring the troops home from Iraq." Or something like that.

A risky strategy some might say. For what happens if incomes don't rise? I think we already know the answer to that, as the GOP has shown us in recent years. If the standard of living of Americans don't improve in the next few years, the Democrats should expect to suffer the same fate as the GOP in this decade, and find themselves out of power. Unlike China and Russia, we still are a democracy, and as such, must make the fate of the people of the United States the central focus of our politics...

More Evidence of a Sustained Progressive Revival

At the recent Netroots Nation conference in Austin, Texas, the Obama campaign put on a panel about its on and off line organizing. Moderated by New Media Director Joe Rospars, it was a compelling presentation, and I, for one, am still thinking about it a great deal all these weeks later. What was most striking to me was the persistent use of the term "community organizing," and how the campaign, had from the beginning, set out not just to win an election, but to create a lasting progressive movement capable of bringing real change to the country. While these are words spoken by many over many years, you got the sense that the Obama people meant it, and actually have the money, the organization, the candidate, the moment and the determination to do it.

I've been working in politics for two decades now, and for the past five years, I've been involved in various efforts to "build progressive infrastructure" to combat the conservative ascendancy by competing with the right's think tanks, leadership schools, candidate training centers and other organizations. I was an early advocate of the blogs and netroots, which have involved millions of people in politics as never before, and helped bring much-needed vibrancy and debate to left-of-center politics. I was instrumental in launching the Democracy Alliance, a consortium of funders who have channeled hundreds of millions of dollars into progressive organizations. I've also helped provide direct support to several of these groups, including Media Matters, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Democracia USA and what we now call Netroots Nation.

I strongly believe we will look back at this decade and see it as one of extraordinary progressive revival. It has been a time of tremendous institutional entrepreneurship on the center-left, but has also been a time when millions of Americans awakened politically. Dozens of new organizations have been started. Hundreds of new candidates have been elected to office, and once there, they have hired thousands of new staff. Thousands of blogs and bloggers have sprung up, creating a whole new class of thinkers, writers, analysts and powerful voices. The Internet has allowed millions of people to become engaged in a much more meaningful way in the life of their nation. All of this is creating a much larger, more dynamic ecosystem of progressive politics, with millions more activists, making the movement much bigger but also creating a much larger pool of future elected officials, writers and leaders of all kinds. All of this is very exciting to watch.

And into all this comes Barack Obama and his inspirational campaign. Unprecedented crowds, money, volunteers, viral activity, votes and enthusiasm - a sense all along in this campaign that he was summoning something deep inside himself to help inspire us to - as they say - have the "courage to change." He has told us all along that we are the change that we seek, that this campaign is not about him, but about us and our desire to bring about a better America. But is all of this just talk, tactics to get elected?

After listening to the Obama team in Austin, I was convinced that this historic campaign is trying to do much more than win an election. They are going to do everything in their power to unleash the passion of Democrats, progressives, indepenendents, Republicans - Americans - across the country and wage a truly national campaign, hiring staff in all 50 states, unveiling a national voter activist tool, opening up an unprecedented number of field offices, working to expand and redraw the Electoral College map and elect Democrats up and down the ballot in every state and prepare for redistricting in 2010. It is a bold and audacious vision, and one that I now know they intend to work to pull off.

But what made this presentation so powerful was their argument that this vision could only work if they could identify, train and develop a whole new generation of community leaders - in every community - who would become bottom-up advocates for a better nation long after past this election itself. They told a story of one of their community leaders from the South Carolina primary who used the network he built in the primary to run for office for the first time - and amazingly, he unseated a 13-year incumbent by a single vote. They talked as if they understood that this election, and the Obama campaign, was just one piece of a much larger battle to bring change to America itself. They have invested in training thousands of these new leaders in every community across the country - firemen, nurses, teachers, veterans, college kids, moms - who are the foundations of their communities and have become highly trained community and political activists. They will be working this cycle for Senator Obama, but many will continue on to help pass the Obama agenda, elect future Democrats, get involved in local politics and even run for office themselves.

The staff, including a very inspiring Steve Hildebrand, argued that this was Barack and Michelle's vision from the very first day of the campaign - that this was not a fight for him, but for us, for our country, and that if it went well, they needed to build a national movement for change that would long outlast the Senator and that would leave behinds millions of new activists and tens of thousand of new leaders capable of fighting future battles beyond 2008.

As someone who has worked to improve our nation for more than 20 years, I was, simply, blown away by this presentation. For reasons I still don't really understand, the campaign has not talked about all of this work very much, and I felt lucky to have been in the room. I hope that it will be up on the Netroots Nation Web site soon, and I would strongly recommend watching it online if you can.

The Obama effort, coming on top of the already incredible work being done through the progressive movement, makes one believe that a sustained period of progressive dominance, led by many new, emerging leaders across the country, is truly possible now. The ecosystem necessary to build a long and sustained movement for change is rapidly coming together, and it just may be that the Obama campaign's historic organizing effort - the marriage of the grassroots and the netroots -- will become seen as a critical "tipping point" for the long-term success of a new 21st century progressive politics.

NDN will be continuing this important conversation at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. On Tuesday, August 26, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., join us for Two Million Strong, and Growing. During this discussion, I, Internet pioneer Joe Trippi and Google's Peter Greenberger will lead a lively discussion of how a new set of media and technology tools are creating a much more decentralized, people-based model for campaigns and advocacy in the 21st century. Two Million Strong is at the Westin Tabor Center, 1672 Lawrence St., Tabor Auditorium, 3rd Floor Mezzanine Level.

On Thursday, August 28, at 11 a.m., I will take a closer, in-depth look at where American politics is heading in the 21st century in my presentation, The Dawn of a New Politics. The presentation, seen by many progressive leaders and groups across the country, focues on the big changes in media, technology, demography, race and governing agenda which are making the politics of the 21st century very different from the one just past.

So join us at the Hilton Garden Inn, 1400 Welton St., in the Titanium & Zirconium Rooms, 5th Floor on Thursday, August 28.  To learn more about these and other NDN events at the Convention, or to RSVP (recommended) go here

Voter Rolls Forecast Bad News for Conservatives

I wrote last week of the youth vote and voter registration patterns in Connecticut, predicting that the striking increases in Democratic registrations nationwide would impact not only the presidential race but also the rest of the ballot this November. Jennifer Steinhauer wrote on the same theme in Monday’s New York Times. The change is substantial; buried in the article is its long-term significance:

Swings in party registration are not uncommon from one year to the next, or even over two years[…] But for a shift away from one party to sustain itself — the current registration trend is now in its fourth year — is remarkable, researchers who study voting patterns say.

Since 2005, the number of voters registering with the Republican party has decreased while the numbers of Democrat-affiliating voters and unaffiliated voters have increased. Of the 29 states that register voters with a party affiliation, over half have seen an increase in share of the population identifying as Democrat. NDN has been making this case -- on these terms -- for quite a while now. In fact, my favorite part of the article was when Steinhauer reinforced NDN’s argument that the country’s shift to a more Millennial and more Hispanic demography favors progressives:

In many states, Democrats have benefited from a rise in younger potential voters, after declines or small increases in the number of those voters in the 1980s and ’90s. The population of 18- to 24-year-olds rose from about 27 million in 2000 to nearly 30 million in 2006, according to Census figures.

Dowell Myers, a professor of policy,planning and development at the University of Southern California, also noted that a younger, native-born generation of Latinos who have a tendency to support Democrats is coming of age.

Further, young Americans have migrated in recent years to high-growth states that have traditionally been dominated by Republicans, like Arizona, Colorado and Nevada, which may have had an impact on the changing registration numbers in those places.

Let’s take a look at what NDN has been saying.

First, we’ve noted that the Millennial generation has consistently displayed progressive values and has voted more heavily Democratic than other generations in their first few elections. New Politics Institute friends and collaborators Morley Winograd and Michael Hais argue that the Millennial generation represents a fundamental shift in American politics, a prediction reflected in these registration statistics, in their book Millennial Makeover. Moreover, in their NPI paper Progressive Politics of the Millennial Generation, they observed the striking disparity between Republican and Democratic Party identification among Millennials.


Secondly, NDN has been on the forefront of understanding how America's Latino population is changing American politics. Andres has been following Latino preferences for the presidential race consistently on our blog. (For full coverage, see McCain has a Latino Problem, Gallup Poll Finds Obama Continues Leading McCain Among Hispanics, and McCain struggling with Hispanics.) As early as March, invoking data from our major report Hispanics Rising II, Andres wrote:

The findings of our research confirm trends in the Hispanic community that we saw emerge in 2006 – Hispanics are trending very Democratic and voting in much higher numbers. So far this year, 78% of Hispanics who have voted in Presidential election contests have voted Democratic. In those states where Hispanics are tracked, results have shown a dramatic increase in their share of the overall vote, skyrocketing 67%, from 9% of the overall vote in 2004 to 15% in 2008.

Steinhauer even cites evidence for NDN’s argument that progressives can succeed in taking their case to exurbs. In 2006, NDN argued that the increasing diversification of the exurbs would challenge their trend of conservativism.

In many major metropolitan areas, suburbs that were once largely white and Republican have become more mixed, as people living in cities have been priced out into surrounding areas, and exurban regions have absorbed those residents who once favored the close-in suburbs of cities.

These changes in voter registration patterns forecast what could happen this fall. The New York Times included a handy graphic that's worth checking out. Observe that among the seven states experiencing the most dramatic increases in the Democratically-affiliated share of voters, two are states which voted Republican in 2004 – two of 2008’s top swing states – Iowa and Nevada. Also note that perennial swing states Pennsylvania and New Hampshire made the list.

How is it playing out already? Democrats’ 2006 state-level victories in Colorado, Iowa, and New Hampshire may forecast additional gains in states NDN sees as highly competitive this fall. I thought also of freshmen Senators like Claire McCaskill (MO) and Jim Webb (VA), potential bellwethers for November’s Electoral College map. These voter registration numbers are more in a series of indications that conservative ascendancy has ended and a political shift is underway.

All I'm sayin' is that you heard it here.

McCain Don't Know Much About Geography

As Simon has commented, U.S. Sen. John McCain's ads exceedingly reflect a new Rovian approach to this election, and he's not limiting himself to attacking in one language...this latest ad in Spanish, called "The World According to Barack Obama" intends to promote the notion among Hispanic voters that according to Barack Obama, Latin American countries somehow "don't count" in the world because he didn't discuss Latin America during his trip to EUROPE ("but entire nations were forgotten.."), by asking voters: "and where is Latin America?", "and what about Latinos?", "Did he forget about us?" The ad is flawed in that Barack Obama's trip through Europe, and his speech in Berlin, was intended to discuss issues related to joint U.S. and EU policy.  As Jake and I were discussing, there's this thing called the Monroe Doctrine that would make it unseemingly to say the least for the U.S. to invite European nations to strategize over Latin American policy. But since when have Rovian tactics had any regard for honesty and accuracy?  

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