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Crashing the Gate
Posted by Kevin

markkas Zuniga and Jerome Armstrong probably don’t need an introduction - anyone reading this blog is likely to already know that they created two of the largest political blogs with the most active communities on the web. Both men have been active in trying to change the way the Democratic Party goes about trying to win elections, and both men have been instrumental in helping win special elections and helping dean win the DNC chair. And now they have taken what they do on the web and written a book to explain it and offer a way forward. Unfortunately, the book’s arguments are somewhat mixed and not convincing in some important respects.

Before I get to the review, just a quick bit of disclosure. Back when Kos was switching Daily Kos from Moveable Type to Scoop, I did a little bit of technical work for him. Kos then encouraged his readers to buy things from my wishlist, encouragement several of his readers acted upon.

The book itself, while short, is well written. Markos and Jerome have a voice that is sharp and direct and a prose style that is uncluttered and accessible. They where their opinions on their sleeves, and it makes for a refreshing read, but its is also based on the experiences of people at all levels of the Party. It seems sometimes that they personally talked to every member of the Democratic Party during their research for the book. The first section of the book, detailing the state of the GOP and the state of the Democratic party are the books strongest sections. Markos and Jerome don’t pull any punches, laying out GOP corruption, the GOP’s effective campaigning tools, and, most importantly the failing of the Democratic party in clear terms, even acerbic, terms. The discussion of the failings of democratic consultants is enlightening and infuriating. The same cast of characters keeps recycling through Democratic campaigns and losing those campaigns. There is no accountabilities and no penalty for failure. Even the financial incentives seem designed to reward losing: consultants get a percentage of the media buys as payment, meaning that the incentive is not to do a comprehensive job, but to buy as much traditional media as possible. The Democrats are at an enormous disadvantage when it comes to running campaigns, and it shows. It is obvious that Kos and Jerome understand the new media and political environment well, and their suggestions for dealing with the structural problems in the manner in which democratic campaigns are conducted are the strongest parts of the book.

But they also highlight my first small problem with the book. The remedies for the campaign problems in Crasing the Gate are essentially to swap out one group of managers with another. That is undoubtedly a good idea; the authors are exactly correct that the Democratic party needs people who understand modern methods of communication and voter identification and who are not tied, financially, to only one means of communication. But that is hardly revolutionary in any reasonable sense of the word. The book’s subtitle is “Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics”, but the book never really focuses on any of that, not really. Their solutions and the solutions they advocate are largely top down in nature. One of the ways they advocate for dealing with special interest groups is the Colorado model. In Colorado, the top donors to progressive causes established a system by which the special interest groups coordinated their fund raising and activities in such a manner that no group was compelled to give any of its money to a Democrat that did not meet their needs and yet the groups were able to still pool their resources. But that solution was the brainchild of the top four donors and was imposed by the threat of withheld donations. That is not what I would consider an example of people-powered politics, whatever its merits. This lack of emphasis on the dynamics of true grassroots powered change is particularly evident in their treatment of special interest groups and the place of ideology.

Kos and Jerome state outright that they decided to not discuss ideology. They contend that, at least in certain respects, ideology is not central to their purpose: laying out where the Democrats have gone wrong and what they need to do to correct those deficiencies. But I think this neglect of ideology leaves them with a few blind spots that manifest themselves most clearly on the issue of special interest groups. They hate ‘em, to put it mildly. Kos and Jerome see single issue groups as a cancer on the Democratic party. They argue that the single issue groups have ruined the party’s brand and that there focus on their own issues is destroying the Democratic Party. That raises several questions, though, starting with: is that a correct view? Kos and Jerome present several examples of how individual interest groups have worked against their own long term interests, such as NARAL’s support of Chafee over the pro-life Dem who appeared to be a lock to beat him in 2006’s Senate race. The Dem dropped out of the race, the seat went form a sure Dem pick-up to a much closer race and Chafee voted for Alito anyway. They have other examples, from various other interest groups. On the surface, the case looks compelling, especially in comparison to the behavior of Republican special interest groups. They tell the story of how the Christian Coalition backed the GOP’s Contract with America, despite the fact that the Contract had no mention of abortion or anti-gay rights or any of the other hot button issues for the Christian Right. After the GOP won, though, they backed the Christian Coalition’s own version of a Contract with America. The inference in the book is pretty clear: GOP special interest groups go along and get along, Democratic special interest groups tear the party apart.

Except that, recently, the Democratic Party has not delivered for the special interest groups. Labor got a NAFTA with no labor protections. Environmentalists got a half hearted effort behind global warming efforts and a retreat from the principles of sustainable development and renewable energy. Women’s groups got a welfare reform package that forces more and more hours of work on single mothers but does little to help pay for decent daycare for their children. Abortion rights groups got a pro-life Senate Minority Leader a rhetorical strategy - “safe, legal, and rare” - that tried to fight the battle on anti-choicers’ terms. This list is not meant to suggest that the Democrats have been bad for their constituent groups, only that they have not been as good as the GOP has been to theirs. The quid pro quo for the individual groups that make up the Democratic coalition has been absent. Lately, it would be hard to blame the members of those groups for feeling as if the Democratic party has nothing to offer them but an admonishment to sit down and shut up. Why would any of those groups trust that the dancer would generally do the right thing for them without an enormous amount of pressure?

The normal answer should be ideology. One of the reasons that the GOP has an easier time maintaining internal cohesion is because it has a public ideology that generally maps well across different interest groups. The Christian Coalition can be sure that the GOP will do right by it, even if the corporate faction is getting its issues worked upon. The Democrats used to have a similar set up, but it has broken down over the last couple of generations, in part because of the civil rights revolution, but also in part because of the triangulation strategies of the DLC. There is no assurance to an environmentalist or women’s right advocate or a labor organizer that the Democrats, once in power, will eventually try to advance their portion of the agenda. Without that overriding ideology there can be no trust and the only thing that the special interest groups can be sure of is that they need to look out for their interests themselves. In that situation, it only makes sense for the special interest groups to try and create the ideological environment outside of the party structure. The NRA did something very similar, completely changing the ideological landscape in large portions of the country and, in the process, making the GOP its handmaiden in the process. While groups like NARAL may have made tactical mistakes in their attempt to become like the NRA, they theory itself appears sound. In the absence of ideological assurances, the democratic special interest groups have little reason to be team players.

Obviously, Cashing the Gate packs a lot of ideas into its 182 pages, and I could probably right a book in response. I am glad this book was written, and I hope it is not the last of its kind. Markos and Jerome have started, hopefully, the kind of argument that is long overdue in Democratic party and progressive circles. Whatever I think of their arguments, the debate needs to happen. I would recommend the book for just that reason - Markos and Jerome have staked out their turf and started the fight, so to speak. If you want to be engaged with the changes and struggles the Democratic party and progressive movement are going to be facing in the next five years, this is a good place to start. You may not agree with everything they have to say, as I clearly did not, but they are tackling the important issues and problems in a way designed to get peole thiking and arguing.

March 20th, 2006 Politics, Reviews, Books | one comment