michelle and hillary

In 2004, my friends in Virginia Beach and I made a pact to watch all four nights of the Democratic National Convention, where we watched the good (Barack Obama's meteoric liftoff) and the bad (John Kerry "reporting for duty"). Due to the peculiarities of W&M's fall schedule, I watched all four nights of the Republican National Convention in my dorm. I plan to do the same thing this year.

I'm watching Joe Biden's speech right now. Matt just called his great teeth "the cliffs of Dover." Brilliant.

The first two nights of the 2008 DNC were marked by two fantastic, but very different speeches by remarkable women. Will said Tuesday night that he was going to read the transcript of Michelle Obama's speech and I told him to find the video online. I didn't find the text of her speech particularly amazing. What blew me away was her delivery. Apart from politics or my voting behavior, I think back to when I was an actor in school, or on my high school forensics team. Public speaking is really hard. The stage fright is no big deal for me, but delivering a written speech naturally and convincingly is another matter altogether. I'm not sure if I can articulate exactly why I liked her speech so much. Maybe that's the best endorsement of all.

A very different speech was the next night, from one Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Maybe you've heard of her. I am no Hillary fan. She has such high negative ratings among independents and Republicans that I think she would have undone a lot of Obama's appeal in those areas had she been the VP. But man, can she talk. I often criticized her for being robotic and cold, and she blew those concerns away. Only Clinton could speak to her supporters, and she made a strong case for not voting for McCain, if not a strong case to vote for Obama (her husband did that tonight, quite well I might add). The "were you in this campaign just for me?" line was well done, and her delivery was as good as it could have been -- which is to say, better than I expected.

The risk a good Clinton speech carries is the notion that it only reminds her supporters how bad they wanted her to be the nominee instead. What Bill did tonight, by telling people how a successful presidency should be conducted, is complete the speech that Hillary started. She made the case against McCain and thanked her supporters, and Bill made the case for Obama as president. After all, who would know better?

an issue i care about, part one

Devan made a great point in the comments a little ways back: the shame of our system is in the people who work to maintain the status quo. So let me introduce you all to one of my favorite topics, and one of the few issues I really care strongly about (which almost necessitates it being one of the many not discussed in the typical political campaign):

Redistricting reform.

This is neat, because it combines my hatred of partisan politics with my deep love for maps. Behold: the 3rd Congressional District of Virginia:


This is a textbook example of Republicans in the Virginia state legislature carving out the Democratic strongholds in their home districts (the 2nd, the 1st, the 4th in particular) and duct-taping them together, leaving one seat for the Democrats and several safe seats for the Republicans. In this case, you have Bobby Scott representing the inner cities of Norfolk, Portsmouth, Hampton and Newport News, the poor rural areas of Charles City and Surry counties, and the east and south ends of Richmond. The area highlighted is predominantly African-American, which correlates strongly with Democratic votes.

Meanwhile, Randy Forbes (R, 4th) represents mostly white, affluent Chesapeake all the way up to mostly white, affluent Chesterfield County, and Thelma Drake (R, 2nd) represents all of affluent Virginia Beach, the rural Eastern Shore and parts of Norfolk and Hampton. It's cherrypicking in order to minimize the opposition seats, and everyone does it. Tom DeLay of Texas got into a bit of trouble for doing the same thing in his state. And since you can only redistrict after every census, it allows for a long period of partisan stability, plus accounts for the high reelection rate of incumbents. Barring scandal or tragedy, Bobby Scott probably won't ever lose his seat in the 3rd to a Republican. And he should have to worry about that, just as much as Thelma Drake ought to (please God) lose her seat to a Democrat. But the system is set up to prevent that from happening. If there is one thing Democrats and Republicans can agree on, it's how to keep themselves in power, to the exclusion of all others.

Fun fact: it is said that if you drive down I-85 in North Carolina's 12th Congressional District with both your car doors open, you can kill everyone in the district.

party hard

Tonight the three housemates got embroiled in a quick and dirty political discussion, in which one of us said things that he firmly believes, one of us said a bunch of things in the hopes he might believe in at least one of them, and the third just tried to rile the other two up.

What, exactly, is "post-partisanship?"

I'm not sure I know. I said something tonight to the effect of: Partisans want to pull the entire country, to their "correct" way of seeing and doing things. Post-partisans (or non-partisans) seek compromise.

I think I believe that, but it's not a fully fleshed-out concept yet. On one hand, yes, it's good that people believe in some things and want to see policy enacted in one particular way. On the other hand, forcing that viewpoint on everyone else seems to be anti-pluralist, even if majority rules. Reasonable people, after all, may disagree.

There's been a lot of talk in the house about Thomas Frank's books. Mike is working on The Wrecking Crew, the new one, and I have been a fan of What's the Matter With Kansas?" for a few years now. In Kansas, Frank writes about the culture of conservative victimization. Even while holding all three branches of national government, as they did in the mid-aughts, many conservatives felt victimized by the liberal media and the liberal ideals taking hold in society. They elected far-right social conservatives as a way to combat those evil forces at work. They had an agenda.

Meanwhile, on the East Coast, or West Coast, or Third Coast, or wherever those dastardly folks drink their lattes, liberal Democrats were feeling victimized/oppressed by Bush administration policies. I mean, we had eight years of Bush, right? He screwed lots of stuff up, so why not give the DEMOCRATS a try for a change? They had an agenda, too.

Now, I have no interest in deciding whose victimization is "correct." The pendulum swings right, and then it swings just as far left, and onward and onward to eternity. The liberals pushing history forward as hard as they can, and Bill Buckley sitting on top of it, yelling "STOP!" But the net motion of a pendulum is zero.

There's never much talk about the people in the middle, the "post-partisans" or "non-partisans" who aren't part of the two gravity wells pulling the future of America apart by pulling in two separate directions. (Admittedly: this is extremely self-serving to believe my still-coalescing viewpoint is better than the well-vetted platforms of ancient political movements)

That said, I don't think politics is a battle that can be won in the aggregate -- even throughout the 20th century, liberal ideas slowly took hold and were accepted as truth, only for the conservatives to retreat and find a new foothold in something else. There will be no surrender and there can be no victory. So why is our system set up so, as the article says, there is no centrist party in the United States? Don't give me the "our Democratic party is still well to the right of most European political parties" business. What's so great about the Democratic or Republican parties that they deserve to be celebrated (as they will in their conventions in these next weeks) or even maintained at all?

And here's a homework question: What exactly is a partisan, and how can you tell?

the tale of bill clinton

When I was in high school, the President was impeached. Many of you have probably had similar experiences.

This came amidst night after night of the NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw and my parents. Each night I would hear the Republicans beat up on Clinton, followed by my parents beating up on Clinton and me wondering what was so bad about the guy. Then I got up in the morning for AP Government (which I took in 10th grade thanks to a special quirk of the program I attended in high school).

My friends at the time were (and still are) more political than I am. So for all the Clinton-bashing I got at home, I sat among 15-year-olds who bashed Republicans at school. Long story short, I felt bad for the guy. How could anybody (whether you are talking about Clinton or his detractors) be as bad as they were saying? Clinton was the first president I really grew up with -- I have no memories of Reagan and only remember the 1988 election and Bush's inauguration in '89. So while most people follow the political viewpoints of their parents, I heard so much of my folks' opinion that I bounced in the other direction out of sympathy.

This loosely relates to what was going to be the original topic of this post: my much-maligned and all-too-frequent statement that "I don't care about the issues." I wish those months of my adolescence (not to mention my political ideology) hadn't been soured by the acrimony I saw on TV, at school and in my living room. Ever since then, save for the pause after Sept. 11, it's been nothing but screeching, howling and fingerpointing. I'm sick of it. It's why I've never ever had any desire for the Republican, Democrat, liberal or conservative labels. I initially thought Obama was finally a Democrat who was going to put America before the Democratic party; now, I'm not so convinced. More on "postpartisanship" and my always-changing views on Barack Obama some other time.

What started back in 10th grade and remains today is this: the problems I care about are more cultural, more psychological, more sociological than political. Policies, after all, come and go. We have to live in this culture every day.

purple states

illustration courtesy of ed mullen at purplestates.org

I don't care much for the color purple, with apologies to Oprah. The image above illustrates rather nicely, if slightly misleadingly, the problem with political dialogue and the way we approach elections. Lately I have been thinking that those are the things I care most about in politics: not the substance of the debate but the manner in which it is conducted.

There's a book I want to read very soon called The Big Sort by Bill Bishop. My inspiration for this is a great little piece in The Economist, which I make no claims on reading regularly. The idea: Americans, for some time now, have been choosing to live among like-minded neighbors. The exchange in the Economist article is telling: the blue Marylanders don't know any conservatives; the red Virginians have no understanding of liberals. It's a choice they made, either consciously or unconsciously.

So let's look at that purple state map at the top again, and compare it to these. Nearly the entire American West is self-segregating, and look at Indiana and Pennsylvania in particular. I don't think these maps really tell the whole story (better told in anecdotes, unfortunately for the argument's sake), but the point that hits home for me is, we don't seem interested in different viewpoints anymore. What fun is a political discussion if everyone spouts the same opinions in different ways? In some ways, this is why I'm glad I live in a town with plenty of conservative old folks, and plenty of liberal younger folks: it gives me something to push against. America has never been about homogeneity; why start now?

At the end of all this, I ask myself two questions: one, are Americans on the whole more alike, or are we more different? Two, are we already at the point when we give up on compromise and retreat to our respective corners? Nationally, are we going to be minglers or wallflowers?

political scientist

Good evening, folks.

The last time I blogged, I was following the 2004 election as closely as I could. I have a vivid memory of sitting alone in Ian's living room into the wee hours, waiting for the Ohio results to come in. I was disappointed, to say the least.

In talking with people about the 2008 elections, I am starting to realize how much that experience has changed the way I look about politics. Before, I styled myself as an impartial observer. Since then I seem to be more disappointed in everything. I saw the Republicans as unfit to lead; I saw the Democrats as unable to capitalize on their weak opponents. But most of all, I found myself increasingly alienated by the political scene.

I grew up with a great deal of Republican influence; nearly all my relatives are conservative, and now many of my coworkers, too. Traditionally, though, nearly all my friends are Democrats, or at least liberal. I consider myself a left-leaning moderate trying to see both sides. It's amazing to me how similar the mindsets are, and how each side seems completely oblivious to the other. I want to be equally comfortable in both worlds, but trying to understand both sides almost necessitates holding conflicting views in my mind simultaneously. I'm finding it exhausting.

This blog is an attempt to hash out what I think about politics, in an effort to have a less exhausting political life. More to come.