A Troubling Poll - The Enthusiasm Gap

It Will Take More Than Bill White (0.00 / 0)

The "enthusiasm gap" is at least half explained by right-wing activism:

That is self-indulgence that costs those promoting it nothing. It would be less effective, if there was a majority party that actually governed responsibly, instead of bargaining with the minority party, appeasing the extremists.
I call that a Strong Party. Texas needs one.

Depression of the center-left is the other half of the gap but more profound, general, and worrisome: For one thing, it is not just Democrats in Texas and the US. It is Labour and Britain and the SPD in Germany.

The main explanation for right-wing ecstasy and center-left misery is our version of post-Soviet political and economic dysfunction. It is twenty years after seventy-five years of Great, World, and Cold War and the victors are still congratulating and rewarding themselves with scarcely a thought for post-war generations or challenges.

The seventy-five years were marked in the US by a bi-partisan coalition dominated by the Anglo-American overclass. That coalition began to decline in 1964 and ended in 1994-2002. Intrestingly, it ultimately took the form of Texas Democrats promoting George W. Bush to to the White House, so sure they were that he would maintain the sort of bi-partisan concession-tending they were used to.

In any case, it is hard to say who the victors really were: The Soviets lost, but the Red Chinese did not.

Ronald Reagan took full credit for winning the Cold War, but the end for the Soviet Union and East Germany actually came on George H. W. Bush's watch. And, the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union was probably during the Carter administration.

With a war fought largely in secret, it will be a very long time before there is a good understanding of the end game. Military historians are still sorting out World War I.

In any event, political blame and economic credit are not a plan for "moving forward" as our empty-suit politicians love to say about the Seinfeld-like politics of nothing but whining and deals.

Today, there is precious little discussion of political and economic fundamentals that were set-aside over the course of the Great, World, and Cold Wars. They have to be put back in place or replaced with something stronger than one flimsy deal after another.

There will always be political deals.

Increasingly, they need to be deals within a majority party that governs responsibly, not accommodations between two minority parties that do not govern responsibly, now that they perceive no national or global threat and, indeed, are populated by individuals who think they can get away with anything so long as they are sufficiently clever and discreet.

That is how a leaderless coalition works or, in our case today here in Texas, increasingly does not work.  

 

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by: JRBehrman @ Sat Nov 28, 2009 at 14:34:48 PM CST

It will take Bill White and a formidable grassroots (4.00 / 1)

organization in Texas much like that created by President Obama on a national basis.  Obama had the charisma and eloquence to attract formerly politically apathetic college students, voters in their 30's and Independents. To be perfectly frank when I heard that Obama declared his candidacy for President I thought, oh come on, you are too young and inexperienced.  Wait another 8 years.

At the time my husband and I lived on a college campus (as mentors to undergrads) and we quickly saw the enthusiasm Obama had generated. Our own son informed us, 2 Thanksgivings ago, that he'd be leaving Texas to work on the Obama campaign in NH during his Christmas break. We could not believe it.  But then we did.

I saw Bill White speak to the Rice Young Democrats on the eve of Hurricane Katrina.  He urged the young and the bright to go into public service.  Days after Katrina hit, after hundreds of thousand evacuees arrived, quite a few Rice students went to Reliant to volunteer.  I had ridden the light rail with several students to Reliant and when we were turned away b/c there was too much help, we head over to Autrey House where we peeled potatoes, chopped veggies, did whatever to help.

White lit a fire.  And he can continue to light fires. But he can't do it alone.  Texas will be a long and tough slog.

I'm ready to do whatever it takes to help.

We'll get health care reform, by the way, whether the Republicans like it or not.  One reason the Republican enablers of the insurance industry are screaming and spending millions on attack ads is b/c Obama is moving too fast for them.  The morons can't keep up with fast paced change.  Screw the lot of them.

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by: Libby Shaw @ Sat Nov 28, 2009 at 16:50:56 PM CST