WP, Dionne: Tip O'Neill's adage no longer true -- all politics not local

[DeepModem Mom]

Nationalizing Politics
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, September 15, 2006; Page A19

BALTIMORE -- This year's elections may turn the Tip O'Neill adage "All politics is local" not so much upside down as sideways: In 2006 all local politics is national, and all national politics is individual.

The United States is witnessing a centralization and nationalization of politics unprecedented in our history. This trend is rooted in the rise of the political consulting industry, vast changes in the technology of campaigning, and the intense competition between the two major parties for control of Congress.

There is, as well, the concentration of political money at the national level as Washington-based interest groups, associations and lobbyists not only raise large amounts in political contributions within the capital but also mobilize campaign money from their allies around the country.

The blogosphere has created central repositories of political information -- including news of very local developments that would otherwise go unnoticed on the national level -- that can speed the flow of intelligence to activists across the nation. And the recruitment of candidates is ever more the job of national party committees, not local officials or organizations.

The result is that the conventional debate about whether congressional elections are primarily local or national in character is both irrelevant and misleading. Even apparently local developments are often orchestrated from afar, and even personal attacks on individual candidates are largely the work of a cadre of Washington-based researchers....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/14/AR2006091401416.html

[longship]

1. This is one of the two big political trends this year.

The other is that public opinion polls are now missing enough people and drawing enough incorrect conclusions that they are increasingly becoming irrelevant. The framing of issues is often wrong enough that they are skewing their own results. Cell phone users aren't even touched. The days when polls were done with shoe leather on pavement are long gone.

The Tip O'Neill principle is doubly irrelevant today. Not just because of the Internet. ChimpCo's incredible incompetence has also totally nullified whatever local politics remained pertinent. This election is solely and exclusively about the Repukes retaining absolute power, or not. I kind of wish that some prominent Democrat would have the guts to stand up on the dais and actually say so out loud. It would be a brave statement and it might change the dynamics of this autumn's campaign.