Archive for the 'Political Parties' category

Rob Portman’s (Opportunistic?) Reversal on Gay Marriage

Mar 15 2013 Published by under Candidates, Conservatism, Elections, Politics, Polls, Republicans

So many people are chattering wildly about Rob Portman’s conversion to a pro-same sex marriage (SSM) position.  ”Game changer” and “this changes everything” are just two of the Facebook updates I have seen on this.  While I appreciate him coming around, I just can’t get all that excited about the news.

Don’t get me wrong. I agree that the sands are shifting (and that is a very, very good thing) to a place where SSM is starting to be seen as a winning issue for GOP candidates, rather than an unquestionably losing one. Portman, however, seems to be someone who is opportunistically exploiting that.

In 2004 Portman supported a Constitutional ban on SSM; not just a ban against it. He wanted it enshrined in the Constitution.  He has defended DOMA. In 2009, he opposed a law that would have allowed gay couples in DC the right to adopt.  He has actively opposed gay rights for a decade at least.  But then there is this:

“[W]hat happened to me is really personal. I mean, I hadn’t thought a lot about this issue. Again, my focus has been on other issues over my public policy career.”

Huh?  You were that active in voting on an issue you really hadn’t thought a lot about? So your default position on issues you don’t think about is to deny people rights?  Really?

Reconciling his past opposition to SSM and his current conversion is almost impossible. His explanation is that his son Will came out two years ago and that profoundly changed his mind.

But less than two years ago, at a speech to the University of Michigan law school, a full third of the school got up and walked out of his speech in protest of his positions on gay rights.  That was, if his timeframe is to be accepted, after his son came out.

Granted I am a reliable cynic, but it seems to me that Portman, who is bandied about as a potential POTUS contender in 2016, is seeing the writing on the wall.

A poll out last week notes that Republicans oppose gay marriage 69-23.  There is a relatively small wing of the GOP that will support candidates who are openly in favor of SSM.  However, if properly aligned, that small minority could be enough to win a fractured primary field.  Getting a base of 23%, and being able to cobble together enough support among the remaining 77% to provide a winning coalition – especially in a field of 6-10 candidates – could be winning math.

Portman’s dramatic reversal may be real.  I sincerely hope it is. Even if it’s not, it is certainly cause for those in the GOP that think like me to be happy. The party is, slowly but surely, being dragged toward its stated position of personal freedom on this issue.

But I have seen enough in politics to be more than a tad jaded.  I suspect that Portman may be looking at electoral calculations, more than personal or moral ones, in announcing this dramatic reversal at the beginning of a Presidential cycle.

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How Would The Cast of Friends Vote?

Sep 16 2009 Published by under Political Parties, Politics, Pop Culture, Television

A couple of weeks ago, I posed the question “How Would Gilligan’s Island Vote?”. The discussion it generated here, on Facebook, and via my inbox was kind of interesting. The outcome was:

  • Skipper – 83% GOP
  • Gilligan – 69% Dem
  • Mary Ann – 61% GOP
  • Ginger – 83% Dem
  • Professor (the only “near tie”) – 47% Dem 41% Libertarian
  • Mr. & Mrs. Howell – both at 72% GOP

The outcome made me wonder what the result would be if I looked at other classic TV series. As I discussed the idea with some friends, one that drew a lot of discussion was “Friends”. It seems there is a lot of disagreement about how Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Phoebe, Joey and Monica would cast their ballots.

Now here’s your chance to tell me what you think.



How Would “Friends” Vote?
Ross Geller

Monica Geller

Chandler Bing

Rachel Green

Phoebe Buffay

Joey Tribbiani





View Results

You’ll notice I added “Green” as an option for Phoebe as a number of people indicated their thought that she’d lean that way.

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How Would Gilligan’s Island Vote?

Sep 03 2009 Published by under Miscellany, Political Parties, Politics, Pop Culture, Television

This was originally going to be a straightforward post. I wanted to look at the Gilligan’s island characters and make the case for how each character would vote. My original concept was simple enough:

  • The Professor – This would normally be an easy lift. He’d likely be the typical liberal academic. Definitely a Democrat.
  • The Skipper – Former Navy man, the guy everyone looks to for tough leadership. He’s definitely a Republican.
  • The Millionaire and Lovey – They’re unabashedly rich, and have no qualms about it. They’re Republican.
  • Ginger – Like the prof, she’s the typical Hollywood starlet. She may not actually be liberal, but that’s the trendy thing, so she goes along. That’s a Democrat.
  • Mary Ann – A girl from the heartland with mid-western values. She probably digs God, Guns, Country, and country music. She’s a Republican.
  • Gilligan – He’s kind of clueless and rarely gets anything right. He’s a Democrat.

Like I said, that was easy enough. Until, that is, I started talking to my friend Paul about the list. He’s a liberal, so he views the world through a skewed perspective, but he had some interesting thoughts.

For instance, the Professor, he argues, is a dedicated academic, but also has a heavy lean toward technology. That may indicate he is more Libertarian. Ginger, he suggests, strikes him more as a Patricia Heaton type. He thinks she would actually lean GOP. What about Mary Ann? She may be a farm girl, but she also comes across as a bleeding heart. Could she be a closet lefty? Could “means well, but usually gets it wrong” be applied equally to paint Gilligan as a Republican? While we agree on the Howell’s, could they actually be limousine liberals?

So I decided to change the focus of this post. Rather than declaring how the Island would vote, I’m asking. I’d love to get your thoughts. I’ll tabulate it all and report back on the consensus (if there is one) view.



How Would Gilligan’s Island Vote?
The Skipper

Gilligan

Mary Ann

Ginger

The Professor

Thurston Howell

Mrs. “Lovey” Howell





View Results

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The RNC’s Health Care Bill of Rights?

Aug 24 2009 Published by under Craziness, Pandering, Politics, Republicans

WTF?

The RNC’s Health Care Bill of Rights for Seniors

Specifically distressing is the second point:

PROTECT MEDICARE AND NOT CUT IT IN THE NAME OF HEALTH CARE REFORM: President Obama and Congressional Democrats are promoting a government-run health care experiment that will cut over $500 billion from Medicare to be used to pay for their plan. Medicare should not be raided to pay for another entitlement.

Since when are we about “protecting” medicare? It’s a bloated program full of fraud and abuse. If we guarantee it won’t be “raided to pay for another entitlement”, we’re essentially demanding that government create two conflicting and somewhat duplicative health programs – both of which will likely be full of fraud and abuse.

To a cynic’s eye, this ‘proposal’ is the “let’s rile and confuse seniors so they’ll get even more flummoxed” plan. It’s disgusting to me that the party of small government is pushing a plan that would guarantee bureaucratic longevity simply to curry favor with seniors.

I’ve got a better idea for a plan. Why don’t we make the government fix Medicare and Medicaid – thus demonstrating they have a clue – before we let them create yet another program. If they can’t be fixed, then let’s figure out how to dismantle them.

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Why Twitter Matters & The Left Should Be Nervous

May 05 2009 Published by under Bloggers, Candidates, Craziness, Democrats, Elections, Miscellany, Politics, Republicans, Technology, The Internet, Twitter

I realize I’m inviting much ridicule from my friends on the left, but I’m going to write this post anyway, and I’m going to leave the title intact – Why Twitter Matters & The Left Should Be Nervous. It’s no doubt going to generate some giggles among the online intelligentsia in the Democratic Party. That’s ok with me.

I have, for several months now, seen a string of posts and tweets from these same lefty friends that are either mocking or dismissive of the Conservatives nascent efforts on Twitter. Here’s one example courtesy of TechPresident’s own Micah Sifry.

It’s positively quaint to listen to Republicans murmur optimistically about their “dominance” on Twitter. #polc09, #tcot, #p2

The very first time I saw one, it reminded me immediately of comments I had seen and heard before. They were the openly dismissive comments directed by complacent and cocky Republicans at the Democrats efforts online.

I specifically remember more than a few people, myself included, who watched the rise of the online left with initial derision. As late as 2004 and 2005, I heard things like, “The Democrats and their blogs. How’s that working out for them? All that effort and how many wins has it resulted in?”

Beginning with Conrad Burns and George Allen, we began to quickly see the results of “those blogs”. It’s a lesson we failed to heed early on, and it contributed greatly to our demise.

What we failed to recognize was the infancy of an effort to use new technology to mobilize. It was an effort to build a new network and the infrastructure to disseminate a coherent message.

I have argued that the reason the Democrats never mastered talk radio was very simple – they never had to. In modern politics, the insurgent party will adapt to the most interactive (and the most real-time) technology available at the time. In 1992, having lost the White House, House and Senate, the GOP gravitated toward talk radio. Despite it being a broadcast medium, it was the most interactive medium available. It was adapted to facilitate the conversation about the direction of the party and the country.

The Democrats, rising out of the loss in 2000, had to coallesce around a platform. Talk radio, had the Internet not been available, would likely have become the staging area and the rise of the left on talk radio would have been a near certainty. But a funny thing happened on the march toward the AM dial.

With the Internet, blogs and Meetup became the new polis for the exiled Democrats.

Now you could argue that two data points is hardly enough to qualify my central thesis – the adaption of interactive forums by the out party. But keep in mind that Americans detachment from one another and from in-person communities really didn’t explode until about this same time. Prior to that, most people who were politically active simply turned to their party and its structures. It’s just the last 20 years that have split us from our parties and each other, so we can only look at the data available.

That brings us back to the present day and the Republicans.

Now that we are the out party, we are turning to the Internet to discuss, debate and strategize the party’s future. It is no longer, however, simple enough to label “The Internet” as a monolithic thing the way we did with the Democratic use of the medium. The Internet is no longer about websites as it was with blogs and Meetup. The Internet, as it exists today, is more a generic platform for advanced communication services – whether they are site based, text messages, cellular applications, or anything else.

In the world of converging technologies, Twitter represents the single most interactive, most real-time, tool available. Twitter is mobile. Twitter is rapid. Twitter facilitates deep content (via linking) and fast action (via retweets and viral distribution).

For the Democrats that dismiss Republican testing of many and various models of activism on Twitter, you should watch very closely what’s going on, rather than simply mocking it. Complacency and satisfaction with your status quo is a slippery slope and it’s very easy to fall into the “yes, but what has it gotten them” mindset.

It is likely, I would even say certain, that Twitter, or some next generation concept that builds upon Twitter’s framework, will be a central component of the GOP resurgence. It most certainly won’t happen overnight. However, I guarantee you will – when you find yourself out of power again – be able to trace the roots of your downfall to this earliest of efforts.

Until then, to my friends on the left, let me say two things. First, we’ll keep using Twitter, and you can keep cracking jokes. Second, as long as you do, we’ll see you on the other side, soon enough.

Update: Based on further conversation (via Twitter) about this post, I need to clarify a point. I’m not claiming the GOP is currently “dominant” on Twitter. That was Micah’s reference. I’m simply looking at the tendency for conservatives to adapt to Twitter faster and easier than they have other online venues.

The left’s attitude (represented by Micah’s comment) seems to me to be that the GOP is putting all its eggs in the Twitter basket without doing all the other things that the left did to be successful. My argument is that’s a false assumption. It requires that the GOP mimic the left to advance online. Just as the left bypassed the right’s use of talk radio and went straight on to a different model, I think the right may be able to skip directly past the duplication of the left’s infrastructure by simply making use of what are currently the most advanced communications and mobilization tools. I see evidence that many in the right are developing new models in an effort to do just that.

Those new models have not yet become “dominant”. My central premise is, however, is that many on the left and right seem to believe we must embrace the left’s status quo. I, on the other hand, believe our salvation will not come in duplicating their model, but in creating a new paradigm for our own activism.

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