Reinventing the Formula: a model for Democrats [View All]

[brooklynite]

It’s difficult to imagine Bernoulli’s Equation as a political strategy — primarily because hardly anyone in politics knows what it is. And yet, in an odd sort of way, it has already helped to transform the politics of a major American city and an entire state, and may be pointing the Democratic Party toward a posture of competitiveness on a much larger field.

Bernoulli’s Equation, the discovery of an 18th-century Swiss mathematician, is a complex proof of a very simple idea: that friction and turbulence block the flow of water through a pipe. The movement of the water, and the overall effectiveness of the system, increase in exact proportion as the friction is reduced.

...snip...

In effect, laminar flow and Bernoulli’s Equation have been the secret weapons of the Democratic Party in Colorado over the past few years. Following Hickenlooper’s lead, Democrats have steadily reduced their level of friction with all sorts of previous antagonists: the business community, the affluent Denver suburbs, and even the conservative Republican governor. They have taken on more and more disparate elements, kept them moving forward and avoided having them break apart.

Here are some of the results: In November 2004, Democrats seized control of the Colorado legislature for the first time in 30 years. The same month, they also won passage of a $13 billion regional transportation bond issue that will create one of the nation’s largest rail transit systems. This past November, they campaigned successfully for Referendum C, a ballot proposition suspending TABOR, the state’s previously sacrosanct tax limitation law, in order to maintain state funding of education, transportation and health care.

http://governing.com/articles/2demo.htm