on tactics and risk management

PUMA people: do not think that just because you really, sincerely can't support what the Democratic party has done and is doing, that therefore the Republicans had nothing to do with what is happening now.

Get this straight: when it comes to strategy, they really are smarter than you*.

Remember earlier? How Rush Limbaugh bragged about "Operation Chaos"? This is Operation Chaos in action, folks.

The good news is that it might be the best thing that ever happened to the Democratic party.

What happened:

1. There was a pre-existing split between two sides of the Democratic party.
   
   
2. Someone not only widened that split, but actually used the wing consisting of young people and uber-liberals to attack the rest of the party.
   
   There isn't enough information available yet to really know exactly who did what to whom. But it's naive to think the Republicans merely stood by and watched**.
   
   Black voters were really used as pawns here - they should be on our side, but Democratic identity politics games are reaching their absurd yet logical conclusion....
   
   
3. Now that one half of the party has attacked the other to get what it wanted, the half of the party that was attacked is furious and won't stop fighting back.
   
   The side-that-was-attacked recognizes (in a way that the attacking flank does not) that the integrity of the party has been breached - and the damage is severe. It's really severe.
   
   
4. Where we are now: it is not clear that anyone should stop fighting back, because the split in the party really does need to be resolved now. It is too late to paper it over. Also, the tactics that were used genuinely cannot be legitimized. These tactics must be put down. They are tactics that cannot be tolerated.
   

Does all of this lead to the conclusion that shutting up and getting behind Barack Obama the right thing to do? No, it doesn't. Obama is a terrible candidate, and there really is something rotten in the state of the Democratic Party.

The real correct thing to do is to stop and examine and think. Don't just join a crowd and do whatever that particular leader tells you to do. Don't just worship a particular idol - whether it's Barack, Hillary, or a blog site owner. Don't just follow that idol's belief. Democracy means you have to follow your own belief.



In the absence of trustworthy leaders, we are running around like mad, looking for someone to follow. What is needed is to recognize that an excessive tendency toward obedience is the problem. Finding someone new to be obedient to is not going to solve anything.

This is why it bothers me when I see people trying to apply the old ways of doing things to the first new leader that rises up***.

It is natural and normal for people to follow their leaders. They have to, because there are too many issues and too many decisions for any of us to make an informed decision on each one. So we learned to rely on 'voter guides' - and, until Bush, that system worked (?). But the "voter guide" approach is how lots of good Republicans got fooled, and got their party stolen away. Bush pretended to be a moderate and he pretended to be a moderate "compassionate" Christian, even while he also sent out special signals to the far right Christians. Both moderates and Evangelicals were betrayed. We will see the same thing (already are starting to see the same thing) in Barack Obama, who has been taking the same moves straight out of the Karl Rove playbook. Obama has fooled many people into thinking he is what he isn't.

This brand of politics must stop. It stops when we, the voters, rise to the challenge. Think of it as coevolution.

Somehow, we have to learn to navigate the reality that it's impossible for us to be well-informed on every issue - and yet the old ways we used to measure how we should give out our vote has failed.

One thing that would help is to recognize that words do matter. And so do symbols. The Democratic party has long ridiculed most of America for paying too much attention to symbols. The Democratic party is wrong to do so - those symbols matter. That flag pin matters. That Michelle Obama said for the first time in my life - that matters. These things matter far more than promises about filibustering FISA legislation.

You can't guarantee that people who give off the right signals will be good leaders - but you can quite safely assume that a politician who gives off the wrong sort of signals during the election is not going to be a good leader. The reality is, it all hinges on trust.

What we as voters need to do is recognize that we need to develop skills we don't currently have in a thing called risk management. We need to add to our political awareness a skill set that involves being able to make reasonable estimates of the probability of - I will not say a politician's sincerity, because quite honestly I don't care if my politician is sincere or not. I just care:

• whether s/he gets done the things I expected him to
• whether s/he refrains from doing things I don't expect him to and don't approve of

That's what we all need to learn to measure.

In a nutshell, the reason the Clinton supporters I know preferred her to Obama (and that preference grew much stronger over time) has to do with signals. Specifically:

• Clinton's signals were consistent with past performance and past record.
  
  Obama's showed increasingly upsetting contradictions - eventually reaching "bait and switch" proportions.
  
  
• Clinton's signals focused on us - stories about people like us, discussion of what issues confront people like us.
  
  Obama's focused on himself - who he is, why he's marvelous. His story - over and over again.
  
  
• Clinton's signals suggested that, like Bill before, she intends to derive her real political power from the voters. She courted us and the level of detail in her discussions about issues reveal that she has actually put in the time to work on these issues and formulate opinions. She made it clear that she was willing to commit to specific positions on issues we care about.
  
  Obama does not talk about issues. When he does, he is vague, contradicts himself, and - well, it's clear there is a reason why his supporters repeat the lie that he is "virtually identical to Clinton" - and now that his actual votes and his endorsements have proved that is anything but the case (so much so that those who are still repeating the lie are either really ignorant, reeeeaaally naive, or downright crooked), the new talking point is that whatever Obama votes for is somehow excusable because he's gotta win! (Why does he gotta win? Because he's virtually identical to Clinton on issues?)
  

Obama signals loud and clear that voters are irrelevant. Whatever the source of his power, I say we should be very afraid of that source of power, because it is totally indifferent to democracy. If we have any power left as voters, we should use it to restore democracy - even if that means voting against the Democrat.

Obama's anti-corporate, left wing rhetoric appears to be nothing more than the left-wing version of the same pandering Bush did when he pretended to be a staunch conservative Christian. The far left will end up as screwed over and disillusioned as Bush's far right evangelicals were. It's part of a duel strategy: part one is fool the moderates and part two is fool the extremist fringes. And if you think Rev. Wright isn't or shouldn't be a problem for Barack Obama, consider two very troubling facts:

1. One of the central premises of Trinity involves opposition to 'middleclassness' and 'white man's greed'
   
   
2. Rev. Wright's new house

Just one of soooo many examples of the sort of contradiction that indicates fraud is taking place.



And sorry, boys, but Obama has no intention of taking us out of the war. If you're afraid of the draft, you're probably actually better off voting for McCain, because Obama and McCain are both going to expand the military - but McCain actually has knowledge and experience, whereas Obama has the same sort of experience that gave us Bush In Iraq and Bush Responding To Katrina.

(For what it's worth, I don't want to see you drafted either. I want the killing in Iraq to stop. I want torture to stop. I want peace in Palestine. And I am absolutely certain that Obama is the worst of the three candidates on all of these issues. Yes, I seriously believe that.)

Also, if McCain is elected, we might actually get some opposition from Congress. Especially if we show them that we are now not going to vote for any Democrat who does not uphold our agenda.
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*It isn't something to feel bad about - they are professionals. This is what they do. And never forget this: they do it very well. Very very well.

And they do it together - starting with a think-tank, and then following orders all down the hierarchy.

** Did Republicans vote more for Hillary? Would Obama be the uncontested nominee if Republicans hadn't interfered? Or do they just run circles around our tiny brains and laugh while they're doing it? They are smart enough to realize (even if we aren't) that by making a big deal of how they are keeping Hillary in the race, they are in fact suggesting that Hillary is not in the race (except through our intervention).

Look at the same question from a different angle: which candidate earned the most Democratic votes? That is, if you eliminate all the crossover voters, which candidate won?

*** at PUMA sites, it is already possible to see people all but swooning because the new PUMA-gods are emerging. People are excited at the idea of being invited into a discussion or a conference call. Or at (gasp!) actually being on the receiving end of a compliment.

It's absolutely horrifying.