NYT book review: The Republican Collapse May Not Be So Imminent

[DeepModem Mom]

Books of The Times
The Republican Collapse May Not Be So Imminent
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Published: September 12, 2006

BUILDING RED AMERICA
The New Conservative Coalition and the Drive for Permanent Power
By Thomas B. Edsall

Despite lots of talk about President Bush’s dismal poll numbers, corruption scandals involving Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff and the toll that the war in Iraq and the administration’s mishandling of Hurricane Katrina may take on the Republican Party in this fall’s midterm elections, the veteran political reporter Thomas B. Edsall has some bad news for Democrats. While such developments “may take the G.O.P. down in individual elections,” he writes in “Building Red America,” the Republican Party “holds a set of advantages, some substantial and some marginal,” that have enabled it to “eke out victory by slim margins in a majority of closely contested elections” and that will probably give it an edge in the foreseeable future.

For that matter, neither party is likely to be happy with the findings of this provocative though in many ways familiar book. Mr. Edsall, who covered national politics for The Washington Post from 1981 to 2006, accuses the Republicans of using their closely contested victories to advance a conservative agenda that “does not have the decisive support of the people,” of further polarizing the electorate and cynically forcing it “to pick between extremes,” and of using “the slimmest of political margins” to try “to remake America — as well as America’s role in the world.”

As for Democrats, he depicts them as hapless, unfocused and reeling from self-inflicted wounds. He contends that “the social-issue left overwhelmingly sets the agenda of the Democratic Party,” often to the detriment of its candidates in general elections. He takes the party to task for its “lack of credible policies” in the areas of globalization and education. (He curiously has little to say about its internal schisms over foreign policy and national security.)

And he argues that “Democrats and liberals have shown little interest in maintaining and sustaining institutions designed to produce majorities in Congress and to win the White House.” He says that progressives tend to make project-specific grants instead of building party infrastructure and that “the mainstay organizations of the left,” which were created when liberals were in power, aim to influence “sympathetic decision makers,” not “to wrest power from adversaries,” as many of their counterparts on the right so aggressively do.

Unless the Democratic Party makes fundamental changes in its structure, tactical operations and long-range strategic planning, he writes, the odds are that the Republicans “will continue to maintain, over the long term, a thin but durable margin of victory.”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/books/12kaku.html?_r=1&oref=login

[Ignacio Upton]

1. 2004 was a 50%+1 Republican victory

Based on fear of another 9/11. And yet Rove wrongly interpreted that as a "mandate" to privatize Social Security and to intervene in people's private medical lives (see Schiavo.)
Idelogically, with the exception of gay marriage and late-term abortion, the American public agrees with DEMOCRATS on every issue, especially economic ones like Social Security and the minimum wage.

[brentspeak]

2. It's true that the Democratic party has shot itself in the foot

these past 30 years, but not because it hasn't uniformly accepted a neoliberal view of globalization. This Edsall guy is clueless if he thinks the Democratic party should get any more involved in the "outsourcing is good for you!" B.S. any further than some of its members already have.

[Nozebro]

5. The mistake was not making elections publicly financed. Now, they're

as beholden to the corporations and wealthy class as every run-of-the-mill Republican anywhere.

[CarlVK]

11. True. Which is why it needs to be re-made from the top down.

And yes, that means moving the failed culprits out to a nice house in the country while we get some fresh blood in there to turn the party back into a fighting force for its ideals.

[Warpy]

3. “the social-issue left overwhelmingly sets the agenda of the Democratic

Party" just about says it all. The coalition of the Wall Street Dems and the DLC have made it absolutely certain that no candidate will talk about the kitchen table issues of jobs, wages and single payer health care that Americans really care about, thus ensuring that most will stay home on election day once again.

We have to come to terms with the fact that we have a party leadership that is quite comfortable staying out of power as long as the money keeps rolling in.

[rodeodance]

4. I do think the Repugs have a big powerful infrastructure that is in place

that is important.

[theoldman]

6. The Democrats need to learn to play dirty.

All of the Republican presidents won the election by ruthlessly demonizing their opponents. As long aa Democrats play the part of the nice guy, they do not have a chance. If I were running for office, I would check every available record on my opponent. Everyone makes mistakes and they are all recorded.

[opihimoimoi]

7. In Addition, we Dems gatta be Smarter than they..its too easy....

Unify.

[MissMarple]

8. The American people will kick the "bums" out, not the Democratic Party.

They may use the party structure, as the neocons, corporatists, and fundamentalists have used the Republican Party, but the Democratic Party, as we know it, will change, as will the Republican Party, once more. That will happen or this country is pretty much over.

[sandyd921]

14. It's up to all of us to

take over the Democratic party and move it resoundingly in a progressive populist direction. If that doesn't happen then the party and maybe the country is kaput.

[FrenchieCat]

9. One of the biggest mistake made by Democrats is when Clinton

signed the "Telecommunications act of 1996". After that, it was a quick downhill plunge for Democrats, as Corporate powers including much of the media sided with the Republicans due to the financial interests in store for them....and new media companies were formed solely to combat what conservative termed "liberal media".

[AZBlue]

10. I have to agree. We do ourselves a great disservice by assuming

anything.

[Demeter]

12. The Whole Nation Will Have to Collapse, First

and when the fundies, the ignorant, and the easily distracted are starving in their drought-stricken, pestilential hovels, then the GOP will be no more.

[July]

13. Nothing is permanent.

We would have to have zero rights, not the somewhat circumscribed ones we have now, before there could be a "permanent" party domination. I'm not saying the right wouldn't love that setup, but we're not there yet. When change comes, it can be very swift. At least, that's what history tells us.