There are several schools of thought on what Democrats should do to win elections in the south, and about what Northern Democrats should think about those strategies. I mean, we know we don’t need to see these southern strategies in Pennsylvania and Connecticut, but what about in Oklahoma and Arkansas. My answer to the question involves moving away from DLC pro-corporatism towards a much more populist brand of politics. Not anti-Wall Street exactly, just pro little guy. But, even then, it ain’t so simple. What if they ask you about gay adoption for example? I mean shit. Should you be honest and say who the fuck cares? Let’s see what an Arkansas liberal has to say.
Modern Republican cultural values tend to fall in line with the values of rural conservatives, who still decide Arkansas elections. But rural conservatives in Arkansas will still vote Democratic out of habit and from a personal connection. That’s true, though, only if the Democrat doesn’t get strung out placating liberals. Thus the Democrat must finesse.
Republicans enjoy the advantage of being themselves on cultural values. If rural conservatives are going to vote against them, it will be for other reasons…
…The Democratic candidate’s challenge is to connect with rural conservatives while taking the liberal base for granted without appearing too much to be taking it for granted.
Something may be implicit. It is that the Democrat is more supportive of liberals than he is comfortable saying. Or it may be explicit. It is that at the very least, the Democrat is better for liberals than the Republican.
Clinton, both Pryors, Bumpers, Lincoln, Marion Berry, Mike Ross – that’s how you do it.
The Democrat doesn’t mind if liberals are mad at him. He just doesn’t want them to get too mad. Clinton in the ’80s, Mark Pryor in 2002 – that’s the perfect balance. You want liberals to curse you as they vote for you. What you don’t want is for them to become unable to tell the difference between you and the Republican.
Mike Beebe had been doing very well on the finesses of his Democratic gubernatorial bid until he stepped in it the other day with gays. He got caught finessing, which is not to finesse at all.
Now he’s doing only all right. He’s still all right, frankly, because you can’t really go wrong with rural conservatives by having the gays mad at you.
But Beebe could go very wrong if he slips up on his calibration to the point that liberals get so mad at him that they choose the tactically insane thing and vote for one of the alternative candidates. That would raise the prospect that Beebe could get Naderized by independent Rod Bryan or the Green Party’s Jim Lendall. That would send the man from Bob Jones University, that’d be Asa Hutchinson, to the Governor’s Mansion.
Beebe got a contribution from a gay group called Stonewall Democrats. He thought he ought to give it back lest Asa make something of it with church-going rural conservatives. But he wanted to tell the Stonewall Democrats personally, thus shoring up the implicit or explicit understandings. He got asked in this meeting about gay foster parents, and, depending on the version, either he said he would resist a ban or he Clintonized that he would resist a ban so long as the resistance was constitutional.
Then the state Supreme Court took any abstraction away by overturning a state administrative ban on gay foster parents. Beebe first responded with a moderate course, saying we must honor the court. The next day, after Hutchinson and Mike Huckabee gay-bashed, he thought better of his moderation and added that he, too, would support legislation enacting such a ban. Some gays say they’ve been lied to.
Honest to goodness: Beebe couldn’t very well run for governor as the only politician in sight wanting gays to be foster parents. That would be a loss of calibration reminiscent of Clinton’s when he began his presidency by championing gays in the military.
Rule of thumb: When liberals are praising a Democratic candidate for courage, the Democratic candidate is losing.
Now, Brummett maybe engaging in a lot of ugly truth here, or he might be totally full of shit. It’s hard for me to say. I want him to be full of shit, but my gut tells me, unfortunately, that he is pretty dead on in his analysis here. I don’t live in Arkansas.
I’d like to believe that Beebe can be unambiguously for gay adoption and make up for it with other parts of his message. What say you?
Also up for disucssion on a Saturday night, the DLC’s conference this weekend where they seek to marginalize us and save the country for corporations.
Well the corporations do pay the DLC’s bills . . .
Yeah, cause they have such a great record winning elections that they can afford to focus some of their fire on members of their own party. Brilliant. I don’t think it’s entirely coincidental that the DLC’s rise to party hegemony occurred a few years before Dems lost control of the House for the first time in half a century.
I think he’s mostly right about what it takes, though I favor the honest representative approach. This entails telling the truth about your personal beliefs while also stating that your public votes/positions will always be inline with the majority of your constituents (thru polling or some other means). Offhand, I can’t think of anyone who has ever won with that approach so it might be a non-starter politically.
Kennedy and Catholicism?
Other Catholics who are pro-choice?
i just realized that I confused gay adoption with gay foster parents. Sorry, it’s been a long week and I’m worn out.
The answer, as far as I can see it after being here for eight years, and in Missouri for 13 before that, is the old line associated with the Clinton campaign: “It’s the economy, stupid.” Just don’t go there, and if someone tries to force the issue, change the topic back to bread-and-butter economics issues. Sound like a stuck record; it’s OK with this crowd. They’ll go home saying “I know where he stands,” even though you didn’t address that issue, because the issues 90% of the working class Southerners care about are economic although they’ll say otherwise to a pollster, to their buddies in the barbershop, and at Church on Sunday. Some examples:
Lines like these will win you respect from the working people who might disagree with you on specifics because you are showing them respect with your populist tone. This is how Bill Clinton worked – he was a natural at this. Al Gore, apparently unlike his father (from what the locals tell me) could not do this convincingly, when he tried it at all, which is the A#1 reason Tennesseans did not vote for him in 2000.
If I had a dime for every person down here who told me “He’s forgotten where he came from” I could buy out a year’s worth of blogads for you, Boo.
that’s awesome Knox. Now are there any candidates doing that in the Volunteer state, cuz K/O wants to know?
Glad you liked it. But it’s small change compared to what SusanG has up over at Big Orange right now along the same lines (although hers is more the Pennsylvania version, I think). It may be the most intelligent thing I’ve read there in ages – other than Jerome a Paris and cross-postings from here, of course… 😉
As far as identifying someone(s) for K/O, I’m working on that – y’all are shaming me into doing my homework on local politics that I should have done already.
I like your framing a lot! This should be ‘Kick ’em in the nutsack 101′ for Progressives running for office everywhere.
It’s pretty dumb to play on the ReThug side of the field. Just ignore their attacks and mount your own attack on their very obvious weaknesses.
I have no tolerance for the Southern stereotypical Goober but I’d be willin’ to bet that even he/she cares less about ‘gay marriage’ than the price of gasoline and how to make the mortgage payments.
I think in rural Oklahoma Main Street vs Wall Street could be a huge wedge issue that could work in our favor. In my little town, population about 10k, when the Walmart moved from being one of the anchors in the shopping center to a Supercenter on the edge of town, the shopping center dried up in a couple of years. Then people noticed that downtown was drying up too. People used to talk about saving money at Walmart. Now when they say Walmart it sounds like a four-letter word.
And I don’t think there is any way to finesse any question involving gays in Oklahoma. Whenever the subject comes up, the wingnut has already won.
I mean, we know we don’t need to see these southern strategies in Pennsylvania and Connecticut, but what about in Oklahoma and Arkansas.
The attempt to shove Casey down liberal’s throats in PA to try and placate rural conservative potential Dems is very much like this Oklahoma-Arkansas strategy. The liberals may hate Casey’s views on women’s rights, but will they vote for Santorum or not vote? This is matched against the potential large number of socially conservative ?Dems in PA that may now vote for Casey. Same strategic thinking IMO!
Should you be honest and say who the fuck cares?
I realize this is harsh, but, I’ll care about gay rights when all people start caring and acting on disability rights.
This is a recipe to create a situation in which people whose central issue is gay rights get to say that they’ll start caring about disability rights when everyone cares about and acts on gay rights, and so on down the line of people’s issues, i.e. you have to do something about my rights before I’ll even consider yours. It leads to balkanization on our side and the loss of everybody’s rights, and it’s simply bad politics.
If I am repeatedly told to wait until 2008, why can’t gays?
I would like to know one non-disability organization that is currently actively advocating for disability rights, other than the disability population.
I sure as hell don’t see it here.
And this refutes my point how?
It comes across like you mean that disability rights aren’t good politics, but gay rights are.
That makes no damn sense.
Isn’t it all really human rights? Isn’t that the common ground for all of us? Doesn’t that include disabled, gays, woman’s right to choose, racial issues, elders’ issues, etc. etc. When we all care and fight for the human rights and make then very inclusive of all those parts of us that don’t get the attention or action they deserve, isn’t that when we make it viable and valuable?
I fail to see why each of these parts aren’t equally important. The ones that don’t get or haven’t gotten enough attention need more attention, but all of it needs attention.
Just asking because it seems so self-evident to me. But I have been wrong plenty of times before.
Hugs
Shirl
Here’s what I live with: a tbi and epilepsy on SSI, Food Stamps, Medicare D, a Section 8, Medicaid. All of which were cut by a Democratic governor (Graholm).
And gays cry because they can’t marry! News flash: In MI, neither can I w/o losing the Medicaid!
Fact of the matter is that everything has been cut to balance the budget and gays are still whining about not being able to marry, instead of doing anything for anyone else, except themselves.
And gays expect me to be sypmathetic to their not being able to marry when they don’t do a damn thing for tbi survivors!
Know what it’s like to live w/a tbi?
What is wrong with this picture?
And, before anyone asks, how do you know that I am online at my apartyment, on my computer?
I understand your outrage. . .
I also understand the situation with the gays and it is not so much that THEY are screaming about getting married, it is about the hundreds of wacko preachers, preaching from their pulpits EVERY Sunday about the mere idea of gay marriage. As well as the dozens of Mega Churches with there 20,000 attendees, as well as the TV preachers with their 5 to 10 million viewers. And actually it is far more than preaching about the gay marriage stuff, it is that gays are an abomination, that in fact they don’t deserve to live, and in fact if they were all killed (and the sooner the better)they and their God would be really happy.
Think it isn’t happening today? You would be mistaken. It is there every day from someone with access to The Christian wacko Network on TV and on thousands of Radio Stations and also mentioned endlessly on Talk Radio.
(I could see and hear it somewhere every day if I could stomach watching it)
It is about being thrown out of your job because you exist as a gay person or even a suspected gay person. It is about being refused housing because you exist as a gay person or a suspected gay person. It is about being thrown out of your family because you are who you are.
Think there are laws about these things? Very few and harder to get enforced than for you to get the necessary help and assistance you should be getting.
It’s about being seriously beaten by gangs of “gay bashing” Christian soldier baby-boys out on their Friday and Saturday night drunken round up of who is leaving gay bars. “Let’s go smash us some Fag and dyke heads in,” as they look for their baseball bats.
It’s about your gay friend being murdered by someone and if the police should happen to get around to paying any attention to it, they will do less than nothing to find the murderer because the “fag” got what he deserved.
It’s about a media that loves this kind of shit because it is “high drama” and they can and do play it over and over and over again. And it somehow involves SEX, so that is rating producing sensationalizing news to them.
There has been not ONE demonstration in my state, or even one call for there to be gay marriage in my state and yet our state legislature has had to RUSH to make laws about gay marriage, and gays in other aspects of life, it is soon to be put up for an amendment to the constitution although they have made the laws to prevent it. It is so damn important! FOR WHOM AND BY WHOM? The goddamn republican agenda wackos, and the media wackos that love to create something that isn’t there.
It is about this state that 50 years ago put 3 gay men in prision for life for being GAY. And they haven’t moved much forward from that attitude.
This has been an assault that has gained momentum since before I became aware of it in the 1950’s. It is louder and longer and more vicious now than it ever was.
Is it equal to your very difficult situation? I don’t know. . .maybe it comes close with the reality that a gay persons physical safety is up for grabs every day. Or even their life is on the line every day. Maybe not. I am sure you feel your life is threatened every day as well, just not by a violent attack.
I understand the marriage issue seems very frivolous compared to your very real situation. But it is not really about marriage, it is about something much deeper and more difficult for most to see.
There may be some gay organizations in the 4 or 5 Mega Cities in this country that are out there trying to counter all this crap by demonstrations and such, but in most of America, there are no demonstrations about this and no one even speaking to counter all the vile crap that is being thrown at gays in the newspapers, TV and radio.
For the most part, what you are hearing is the Republican-Evangelical Wacko Propaganda Machine making as much noise as possible on a non-issue, fabricated bunch of crap.
Should there be organizations, or congress critters and Senators, your Governor, your State reps all standing up and screaming about those affected by Disability? You’re damn right there should be. Where are they? Freakin making sure they get their pockets stuffed with $$ and perks and giving those who supply those $$ their paybacks by this stupid Gay Marriage stuff. They don’t want to spend any of that precious money on you and all those who need it. . .that just isn’t a concern of theirs.
If we can ever get someone who isn’t a wholly owned subsidiary of Corporate America in office in the House and the Senate and in the Presidency, then maybe. . .just maybe we can get someone to do something about it.
I am very sorry for your situation and I wish there was something SOON that would help it. But this administration is willing to let SR citizens, poor people and blacks, die for lack of medicine and medical care (about to be slashed some more) and enough money to buy food, then they are certainly willing to turn a deaf ear to you and the thousands like you. It is just damn wrong!!
Peace and Hugs
Shirl
that in fact they don’t deserve to live, and in fact if they were all killed (and the sooner the better)they and their God would be really happy
Same is said about people with disabilities.
It is about being thrown out of your job because you exist as a gay person or even a suspected gay person. It is about being refused housing because you exist as a gay person or a suspected gay person. It is about being thrown out of your family because you are who you are.
People with disabilities face the exact same thing, assuming someone will even HIRE them. Do you know how many people with disabilities live in unaccessable housing, assuming they even HAVE a place to live? And most families feel that having a disability is an embarrassment to them and want nothing to do with the person with a disability.
harder to get enforced than for you to get the necessary help and assistance you should be getting.
If that were the case, I would be GETTING the what I need, instead of being told to file appeals, and then when I win one, am told, “There is no funding.” When was the last time that you ever read something on this blog about disability rights that I did not write? On the other hand, people go on and on about gay rights. No one tells gays to wait until 2008, where people with disabilities have been told that REPEATEDLY, by some on this blog!
And, for the matter, a breakdown of all money spent by the state voc rehab agencies shows that for every $10.00 that is spent on people with AIDS, $2.50 is spent on people with traumatic brain injuruies. That is a NATIONWIDE statistic. (Source: The Advocate, cited by the President of the Brain Injury Foundation at a conference.)
this administration is willing to let SR citizens, poor people and blacks, die for lack of medicine and medical care (about to be slashed some more) and enough money to buy food
I wonder why didn’t you include people with disabilities, seeing as you claim to be concerned. That is what I live with. Are there any gay rights groups speaking out about that? No, but, that sure as hell didn’t stop gay rights groups from demanding ADA protection for people with AIDS and then running from others who were concerned about disability rights as fast as they could.
If we can ever get someone who isn’t a wholly owned subsidiary of Corporate America in office in the House and the Senate and in the Presidency, then maybe. . .just maybe we can get someone to do something about it.
And what are people with disabilities supposed to do in the meantime? Drop dead to balance the budget while gays are parading for gay marriage and others speak out in favor of it for the sole purpose of conning people into believing how liberal they claim they are.
I am very sorry for your situation
Yeah, right. Your words show otherwise. And I’ve heard that one before.
I hear you loud and clear, Street Kid. You are right on about how people with disabilities fall through all the cracks. I am disabled AND gay AND elderly AND poo, so am painfully aware of all the various sharp angles of this whole damned thing.
In your words I hear the collective anquish of ALL “forgotten Americans”, Street kid. You scream for all of us, who are not the white mainstream wealthy, who hold all the power and all purse strings. Thank you for screaming out loud and clear for all to hear.
But if ever, all “forgotten americans” need to hang onto each others hands, it’s now. Heres mine, wanting to hold yours, and that of my old neighbor who can’t afford her blood pressure medication, and that of my own beloved daughter who was courageous enough to bring a child into this world who has two mommies, who cannot protect that child through marriage, and that of the homeless vet who stands on the street corner near here with a sign that says “Will work for food”, who nobody every stops to talk too because he is one scary looking dude.
You are NOT alone, Street Kid..you are not. All of us forgotten americans have indeed been tossed aside by that powerful white elite that runs this nation, but we have…each other..and we have all the good poeple who CAN see beyond out external labels, to the valuable human beings we truly are.
If you are one who enjoys hugs, here is a big one from this disableld old gay grandma!
My car has a very serious front end problem–I can move one of the wheels with my hands, and cannot afford repair. Still, I could not even get any assistance w/transportation to a doctor’s appointment (in another county) because there is no funding for that for single adults. But there is for women with kids, women who are pregnant and senior citizens. I have lost count of the number of state employees who have told me to get pregnant so I would be eligible for more. Hell of a reason to have a kid! Talk about falling through the cracks–that is what I get for living responsibly!
And, I have my doubts about that “homeless vets” crap. If I received what a vet who is 100% disabled received, I wouldn’t have any financial problems. (So am I–traumatic brain injuries don’t know the difference between vets and civilians.)
Gays have been told the same thing since the begining of the gay movement in 1969. So have all the other people with dire situations and certainly disabled people. We are all told to wait and the wait is endless. . .an illusion of something that someday will be done.
It seems to me, we have more in common than we have differences. Only your situation and I am sure others with disability and senior citizens needing medicine and medical care are more URGENT.
I’m sorry you do not feel my sincere concern and regard for your situation, the conditions of your day to day life. They are very sincere and heart felt. I have disabled friends and some in my own family, I understand as best I am able considering I am not disabled, the unending frustrating and difficult things you must endure.
Shirl
comment
Yeah, waiting since 1969 takes priority over being executed during the Holocaust.
It seems to me, we have more in common than we have differences.
My point exactly! Gay rights groups expect everyone else to follow their lead. And, gay rights groups ran from other disability organizations when AIDS was included in the definition of disabilities that received ADA protection.
In other words, they got what they wanted and said the hell with everyone else. And, NO gay rights group does anything for any other disability population. Now, if that isn’t self-centeredness on the part of gay rights groups who are crying because they can’t get married, I don’t know what is!
As I said earlier, others can’t. So why the hell don’t they shut up and deal with it? Or assist others w/resolving more serious issues, like getting thier medication? Or adequate amounts of food stamps? The list is endless. If gay rights groups did, they would definitely have more allies. After the ADA stunt that they pulled, many disability groups sure as hell don’t trust them. Especially since their funding/grants were cut in favor of gay rights groups.
Oh come on SK
JEWS, GAYS GYPSIES, DISABLED, BLACKS, RETARDED, the list of those who died in those ovens is endless, and you know it. So the wait has been long for many.
I’m not fighting you. Seems your fight is with some gay organization or other. I suggest you take it there.
I have been trying to get gay organizations active in the Medicare D group that I am part of. Do you honestly think they care? Hell no! Guess gays don’t get old!
How do you think I know so much of the history/politics/grievances between gay rights groups and other disability organizations who are now underfunded?
Knox’s frame is pretty much how Mary Landrieu beat two nutcases for senate. The problem is when the nutcases seem reasonable (remember “compassionate conservative”?): David Vitter is positively evil but he’s smart enough to seem reasonable; Bobby Jindal is even worse because he’s more of a theocrat (and, yes, I’m a Catholic too, but not the Opus Dei variety), but he works hard at convincing people that he’s so smart he can solve every problem notwithstanding the fact that lots of his solutions are to his constiutents’ disadvantage (What’s wrong with Kansas could just as well be what’s wrong with Louisiana).
Knoxville Dem pretty much stole my thunder.
As a person whose grown up in the MidSouth, Arkansas is very familiar to me. Beebe made a mistake by changing his mind over and over. If he’d read Clinton’s biography and taken it to heart, he wouldn’t have been so foolish as to “run around like a chicken with his head cut off” as I heard one Arkansan say, who wasn’t even terribly upset by the original donation.
And you shouldn’t be distressed by KD’s response – just rethink it a bit. Southern style, Booman, the response KD suggests IS saying “who the fucking cares?” Aside: (I hope my mother isn’t reading this, I’ve never written the f-word even semipublicly in my life, being a good daughter of the South! That gives you an idea of how you need to talk in the South, too, if you want to be listened to and you aren’t local.)
There are many similar ways to handle other issues. I agree with KD that it is good to refer freely to the scriptures if you can, e.g.
“This issue is a distraction from what’s truly important, which is caring for the poor. We have them in abundance here in ___(name of state), most of them working hard every day at jobs that just don’t bring in enough to make ends meet. There are more than 300 pages in the Bible referring to the poor and needy, strongly suggesting where God-believing folks should put their priorities. I haven’t seen (name of Repub) do anything for working poor folks except (name of blatant pulicity-hogging goes here, such as going down and getting his picture taken at the food kitchen once). Instead, he’s voted for (put name of odious bill here, e.g. Medicare D, bankruptcy bill, patriot act’s worse aspects, ending the inheritance tax,etc.).”
And as to the latter, as another example:
“Oh, Sen. Soandso calls it the ‘death tax’. Did you know that the only people who will benefit from ending that inheritance tax are those who will be leaving more than 2 to 5 million dollars after they die? And they’ll only pay about 20% at most of that. I think we have about 5 of those folks around here. But the money we will all lose by ending that program will mean our roads won’t be repaired, Medicare will be more expensive, veterans will get less of what they need when they come home sick and wounded, our kids won’t get the help they need with college. Why, I could name a dozen more things!
That’s why the Democrats want to focus on the important things. Ask Sen Soandso what he’s going to do about those issues – they are the real ones.”
Frankly, some of those wedge issues aren’t that much of a wedge, once you get people behind closed doors, or in smaller groups, and away from where they are seen in groups. I’ve seen my mother sit quietly in church settings where abortion was being run down, and then seen her an hour later, with 10 women from the same church, with virtually all of them agreeing that the government has no business telling them what to do with their bodies! However, they are too polite to speak up in church, and indeed, in some settings, e.g. some churches, they really aren’t allowed to as a matter of doctrine. Although I don’t think the head count would be as strongly progressive, I think adoption by gay couples would also be seen positively by some of the group.
My point is not to decry the churches, but rather to note that people are highly influenced to speak up or not by whether it is a public or private setting, and whether they are put on the spot by thinking that no one else shares their opinion.
At minimum, most Southerners will respond positively to a “Yes sir/ ma’am, I hear what you are saying. There are things you and I may not agree on. However, as fellow Americans who care deeply about our country and our citizens, I’d like to talk with you about what we do have in common, and hear what you have to say about those things, too.”
They will respect and admire you for coming to be with them, facing them in disagreement, but listening. And for trying to find areas of agreement. That shows caring, and respect, and even liking. And if you can find some aspect of the local culture to admire, that doesn’t hurt anything either.
Make no mistake: The Repubs make it their business to show Southerners every kind of egregious insult that Democrats and others rain down upon the South. These insults are hurting the chances of winning in the South bigtime – they help the the churches drive wedges across the country along the Mason-Dixon.
Frankly, if I were advising a national candidate, I’d be getting them to political events like the Fancy Farm Picnic in KY this summer, and similar types in other states.
Southerners do still vote reflexively for Democrats, but they have learned to vote more deliberately for Republicans. However, they don’t like to be insulted, or overlooked (like in the last election).
My apologies for the length.
Oklahoma and Arkansas? Piffle. The little states.
What can we do to get Texas?
Texas is the motherload of Electoral votes (after California.) It is the core of America’s political problems. As Texas goes, so go Oklahoma and Arkansas and much of the South. Texas is the center of the red-state infection that is making America ill.
I live here. You guys can ignore Texas and work around the edges, or go to the source of the problem and cure the disease.
The problems in Texas are religion, racism, a very recent change from primarily rural to over 50% urban, and the fact that Texas for all its’ size and population does not seem to be able to keep up economically. The government is the weak one that was installed when the Yankee troops left after Reconstruction, and this is remembered.
So what can be done to modernize Texas? It will make America so damned much better you wouldn’t believe it. Don’t forget that Texas is becoming more Hispanic rapidly. But it is also a Right-to-Work state. That needs to be corrected.
Think about it. Texas is the largest state giving the rest of the U.S. its current problems. Correct Texas, and America gets one whole Hell of a lot better.
Thirty five years ago at the small liberal arts college that pretty much framed the kind of person I have become, one central theme ran through all of the core courses.
Get used to the idea of change. You’re going to see a lot of it. Your life will be one of continual adjustment to accelerating change. Much of it will be quite uncomfortable. You can learn to adjust to change or you can be overwhelmed by it. One thing you cannot do is avoid it.
A subtext that came up again and again was, if you want to know where the country as a whole is going, watch Florida, California, and Texas. What is happening now in those three states is a pretty good predictor of what will happen nationwide in coming decades.
I have thought of that often as I’ve watched what has happened in Florida and Texas over the past decade or so.
Thirty five years ago at the small liberal arts college that pretty much framed the kind of person I have become, one central theme ran through all of the core courses.
Evergreen? (way OT. sorry to all)
Oklahoma College of Liberal Arts. For a brief shining moment, the Enlightenment came to Oklahoma.
A couple of questions/thoughts on this issue.
First, what is the non-voting rate in the Southern states and has the Democratic party ever done a serious analysis of who they are and why they don’t vote? I recently saw “The Power of Nightmares” a BBC production that contends that the republicans started making huge electoral strides when they tapped into a large pool of people who tended not to vote at all — namely Christian conservatives. Although I consider the framing that Knoxville outlined above to be deft and quite possibly effective in achieving slim victories now and again (which could in turn pave the way for more), why not go for the people, the large number of people, who see no benefit in voting and who can smell bs a mile off.
Secondly, it seems quite curious to me that Republicans win when the placate their base and Dems feel the can win only by dissing theirs.
Welll, he should stop being a weenie about adoption.
He should say, more than one good man has been raised by two women without anyone asking those women why they were together.
Because “gay adoption” in rural states translates to “NMBLA”. OK, you and I know this is insane. But the trick is to do two things:
1. Change the subject
He should care less about who picks kids up off the street and more about not putting them there.
2. Reframe the issue.
Frame the issue about two women who want to raise a child. Are they going to prove they aren’t having sex? Why does the government have to sniff around their bedroom if they want to mother a motherless child? If MY VIRGIN SISTER AND MY SAINTED MOM want to adopt a child, why should they have to prove that they just want to love a child?
Like the mythical estate tax/family farm give people a story. Why is the government sniffing around your sister anyway? One single case of two fine women being denied motherhood by the government would be a good thing.
Don’t be for male gay sex, be for sexless motherhood. Because it is scary to be hysterical. Give people an excuse to relax.