An interesting notion, opening PUP. One assumes that might mean wide open. Having it semi-open -- doing its exotic dance behind a translucent sheet -- seems... novel.
But the nanny approach is wrong, I think. As is your need for a whipping boy (so to speak!).
What you are asking for here is a kind of respect-for-the-institution which I don't think has been earned yet, in spite of the fact that so many of us appreciate the time and effort you've put into the technical side of keeping A2K going.
Why don't you just take a rest from playing the Bad Guy, as you put it?
Let the fray be the fray. Read through some of the less popular, more thoughtful political threads sometime. Except for occasional intrusions from the Gotcha Guys, they have been pretty neat.
i was thinkin' about ten weeks, bill - what, with new year's eve an' all, could be the occasion for a good party ...
Better not be!
Echoing something Bill Clinton has been talking about lately, Clark seems to be trying to set up a debate between ideology and pragmatism. Clinton put it this way: "They--Republicans--believe in government by ideology, enemies, and attack. We believe in government by experiment, evidence, and argument. We actually think we might be wrong now and again, we might have to change." Clark's speeches are filled with similar references. "Traditionally and ideally, we Americans meet our challenges by starting with the facts, analyzing the problem, and reasoning toward a solution--in as public a manner as possible," Clark said in one recent speech. "This administration does things in reverse. They start with a solution, cast about for a problem that 'requires' their solution, and mold the facts to make their case--in as secret a manner as possible." [..] "I don't oppose the president's policies because they are Republican policies," he said recently. "I oppose them because they don't work."
The campaign's real clash [..] closely resembles the fights that defined Democratic primaries in the 1980s and 1990s, and its main protagonists are Gephardt and Dean. The media often depict the Democratic primary as a battle between liberals and centrists. But those terms don't capture the real divide within the party: between yuppie reformers and working-class party regulars.
The yuppies are culturally liberal and fiscally conservative. They deride President Bush's tax cuts as unaffordable but suspect we can't afford big new spending programs either. And, reflecting a middle-class, progressive tradition that dates back a century, they are skeptical of anything that smacks of machine politics. They like anti-politicians who tell hard truths. Alienated by quintessential party man Walter Mondale, they flocked to aloof outsider Gary Hart. Alienated by all-things-to-all-people Bill Clinton, they flocked to Paul Tsongas, who equated fiscal belt-tightening with moral virtue. Alienated by packaged, scripted Al Gore, they flocked to introspective, idealistic Bill Bradley. And, this year, they have made a religion of Howard Dean.
The party's working-class regulars, while hostile to the Christian Right, are more culturally traditional and a bit more hawkish (though less so in pacifist Iowa). But, more important, as the people who bear the brunt of cuts in entitlement spending, they don't view fiscal belttightening as morally bracing. The term "reform" is as likely to fill them with anxiety as enthusiasm. And, while the yuppies want to shift power to disinterested individuals (i.e., themselves), the regulars see latter-day political machines (i.e., unions) as their protectors. It is no surprise that the candidates who appeal to these regulars--Mondale, Gore--thrive in blue-collar, union-heavy Iowa. The yuppie candidates--Hart, Tsongas, Bradley-- do best in white-collar, individualistic New Hampshire.
The central political story of the first nine months of 2003 was Dean's eclipsing of Kerry as the yuppies' standard-bearer. [..] Gephardt, on the other hand, has emerged as Dean's perfect foil. With his roots in ethnic, Catholic St. Louis, he has experience appealing to culturally traditional blue-collar voters. And no national politician since Mondale has such deep ties to the labor movement. [..]
Dean, as the national media is discovering, is the most committed fiscal conservative to contend for a Democratic presidential nomination since Tsongas. In Vermont, which isn't constitutionally obliged to balance its budget, Dean nonetheless made balancing the budget his top priority, repeatedly spurning calls for greater social spending and winning praise from the libertarian Cato Institute. [..]
If Dean embodies the fiscal conservatism of yuppie Democrats, Gephardt embodies the regulars' passionate commitment to preserving entitlement programs. He voted against Clinton's 1997 deal, which cut Medicare to reduce the deficit, saying the budget need only be in "rough balance." His health care plan is much bigger than Dean's and tailored to win union support.
In appealing to unions and defending entitlements, Gephardt is pursuing roughly the same strategy that Mondale, Clinton, and Gore used to defeat outsider deficit-hawks. But that strategy is far harder now than it once was, because, over the years, the balance of power in the Democratic Party has been shifting: Dean supporters have been moving in, and Gephardt supporters have been moving out. Non-college-educated men have been drifting into the Republican Party. [..] Conversely, a 1998 National Journal study showed that the wealthiest 100 American communities, alienated by the GOP's fiscal irresponsibility and evangelical moralizing, were growing steadily more Democratic. This infusion of wealth into the Democratic Party means candidates with yuppie appeal can raise far more money than they could in the past. [..]
Dean, who learned fiscal conservatism from his investment-banker, Republican father, embodies today's Democratic Party better than Gephardt, the son of a Teamster from working-class St. Louis. Perhaps nothing explains the fight for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination better than that.
