Hullabaloo

Thursday, January 08, 2009

 
Valued Voters

by digby

Since I've rudely called out the Democrats and the Republicans today, it seems unfair for me not to call attention to their uber-enablers.

Today, before the Tim Kaine announcement:

Nora O'Donnell: This is significant in many ways. This is the political apparatus of the Democratic Party. Obama is the head of the Democratic Party. Why do you think he chose Virginia's Governor for this position?

Mark Whittaker, Washington bureau Chief NBC news: It is about control and traditionally the president does want to have control over the party apparatus. He chose him, first of all, because he's a friend and a loyalist and an early supporter, and somebody who's also very close to the president elect personally.

But also because of what Kaine stands for politically. He somebody who in Virginia, has been very successful in reaching out to independents and moderate Republicans, as well as Obama did in this election. He, like all good politicians wants to expand his base even further, not only in terms of looking already to the 2012 reelection fight, but also right now in terms of getting the maximum support and patience across the board politically for what is going to be a very difficult year ahead on the policy front.

O'Donnell: In 2005 when Governor Kaine won a red state, a blue governor, he was one of the bright spots for the party winning there. He's one of those who talks about faith, those "value voters" that we've talked about that the Democratic Party's got to reach more of and talk more about their faith. Do you think that changes the Democratic Party, and given that Tim Kaine is a Catholic who is pro-life?

What an unusual insight. Where ever do these come up with such original observations?

Jonathan Capehart said that Kaine was chosen more because of his temperament and commitment to helping Obama pass his agenda. Norah asked whether Obama would share "the golden list" with the DNC and then they all sniffed about how Obama is snubbing Howard Dean. (They did this while repeatedly mocking Howard Dean, mind you.)

But Norah couldn't let go of the most important and ubiquitous piece of political analysis the world has ever known:

O'Donnell: I want to go to Mark Whittaker ... Uhm... faith. Governor Tim Kaine has reached out to people of faith, he talks about these value voters. How do you think they handle this now, the Democratic National Committee? Will this be a larger type of courting new types of voters?

Whittaker: Well, we see it not only in the Kaine selection to run the party committee, but we also in Rick Warren, the evangelical pastor who's been invited to be part of the inauguration. Very controversial because of his position on gay marriage and other issues, but another sign that Obama in looking at where he can enlarge his base politically, is looking at evangelicals, particularly younger evangelicals, the people we saw in this election that there is a bit of generational split and older evangelicals who are very much part of the Republican base over the last 30 years, a movement among younger evangelicals who care about green issues and so forth that makes them perhaps open to moving more in the Democrats' direction and Obama wants to pick some of them off.

As you know, I think this is total crap. But even if it weren't, the idea that Rick Warren represents some sort of enlightened evangelism still just amazes me:

While Warren says he opposes torture, he doesn't treat the subject with anything like the zeal he accords gay marriage and abortion. As he recently told Beliefnet.com, he never even brought up the subject with the Bush administration, where he had considerable access. Just before the 2004 election, he sent out an e-mail to his congregation outlining the five issues that he considered "non-negotiable". "In order to live a purpose-driven life – to affirm what God has clearly stated about his purpose for every person he creates – we must take a stand by finding out what the candidates believe about these five issues, and then vote accordingly," he wrote. The issues were abortion, stem-cell research, gay marriage, cloning and euthanasia. Torture, apparently, is something that decent Christians can disagree on.

The two "non-negotiable" things the new head of the Democratic National Committee and Rick Warren agree on is abortion and gay marriage. I would guess that in order to become the purpose driven party, those are the issues that will have to be "resolved" --- and I have a good idea in which direction that's going.

If it happens it will be interesting to see if it becomes a zero sum game for the Dems. I don't know how many people vote for the Democrats on the basis of those issues, but I suspect it may be more than a few, simply because on so many other issues the differences between the parties are very hard to discern.


Finally, Whittaker said something that just sounded strange:

Whittaker: One of the things that I've heard about all of these appointments --- he knew Kaine already --- but I've heard that with all these appointments that he sat down with people. And I've heard that the personal chemistry between Obama and the people he's been considering for these positions has been very important. Among other things, he trusts his gut about people. And that there are some people who walked into those interviews being expected to get jobs and didn't get them and vice versa.

I don't actually believe this. If anything Obama seems to be almost overly analytical, so it's hard to believe that he makes decisions based on his gut. Maybe Whittaker was just distractedly recycling Bush conventional wisdom out of habit. But I hope this isn't true. I don't think president's should trust their gut about people. It leads to insular thinking --- the gut is always telling you to validate your own assumptions. You actually need to fight it, not trust it.


Update: Obama should check his gut about Warren, especially. This is just horrifying.


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digby 1/08/2009 05:00:00 PM |