I finally got around to reading Michael Tomasky’s much-discussed article in The American Prospect arguing that Democrats should make “the common good” an overarching theme of progressive politics, reigning in the interest-group particularism and individual and group “rights”orientation that have largely dominated liberal thinking since the 1960s. There’s little in Mike’s long piece I would dispute, and it’s heartening to note that it echoes a critique of the interest-group approach that has recently spread, often quite dramatically, from “centrist” precincts into segments of the party normally identified with the Left. Ted Nordhaus and Michael Schellenberger’s now-famous essay, The Death of Environmentalism, forms a big chunk of the analysis of the Democratic Party in Jerome Armstrong and Marcos Moulitsas Zuniga’s netroots manifesto, Crashing the Gate. Less surprisingly, it (along with “The Reapers'” later research on voter values) has been much discussed and praised in DLC circles as well. It’s important to remember how central the interest group/group rights framework was to the Left until just this juncture of history. Back in 1988, one of the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s best known prerorations invoked his grandmother’s beautiful quilts as a metaphor for the Democratic Party, and then proceeded through a litany of “the groups” (everyone from small business people and farmers to gays and lesbians), addressing each with the warning: “Your patch is too small.” I can remember listening to this powerful litany on the floor of the 1988 Convention in Atlanta and thinking: “Is that who we are? Just a bunch of groups linking arms to protect their stuff?” Aside from the fact that this “sum of the parts” orientation eroded any sense of genuine overall purpose, it also led Democrats for decades into the trap of bidding for votes based on encouraging Americans to conduct a personal cost-benefit analysis of their relationship with government, parrying “their” tax cuts with “our” juicy new public benefits. And you know what? We never have, and probably never will, beat Republicans in a competition based on selfishness, because they don’t really give a damn what government does while we, as Tomasky so rightly notes, are really motivated by something higher than the crass appeals to material interest our politicians have too often relied upon. The one important historical note that Mike either missed or decided not to mention is that the debate he is calling for among Democrats was actually the central internal struggle of John Kerry’s presidential campaign of 2004. The argument for a “common good” candidacy was eloquently laid out by Stan Greenberg in his book, The Two Americas, written just as the campaign got underway. Kerry’s campaign book, A Call To Service (disclosure: I had a hand in this little-read book) was heavily based on the very themes and analysis Tomasky talks about. And as Joe Klein details in his new book, Politics Lost, Kerry’s whole nomination campaign was set to revolve around the communitarian theme of “New American Patriotism” (a theme powerful enough that Wes Clark picked it up when Kerry discarded it), until the Shrum/Devine consultant team prevailed on the candidate to go with a more conventional programs-and-sound-bites-that-poll-well approach. Kerry won the nomination without the “common good” theme, but I’m not the only one who thinks he would have won the presidency if he had stuck to it. As Tomasky explains, there is tangibly a deep craving in the electorate for leadership that appeals to something other than naked self-interest and the competing claims of groups. And no matter who our nominee is in 2008, he or she should seize the opportunity to unite the party, and perhaps begin reuniting the country, with an appeal to the very impulses that make most of us progressives in the first place.

I don’t share the WaPo Hatred of some folks in the progressive blogosphere, partially because I don’t think hundreds of thousands of votes move towards the GOP upon every Fred Hiatt editorial, and partially because I grew up reading some really bad newspapers and appreciate the Post‘s general excellence.But I was bemused today at how totally the Post’s editors seem to have bought the “Fall of Rove/Major Shakeup” line about yesterday’s White House personnel announcements. “ROVE GIVES UP POLICY POST IN SHAKE-UP” screamed the banner in the print edition, with the subhed reading: “McClellan Resigns; New Chief of Staff Moves Quickly To Change West Wing.” Such drama! Such dynamism! Such aggressive steps by W.’s team to turn things around! The Post even managed to display a photo of Rove and McClellan–fellow losers in the “shake-up”–dismounting a plane in Alabama, with ol’ Karl looking mighty unhappy at his Paradise Lost-style expulsion from the sandbox of policymaking.I guess I wasn’t the only one who hooted in derision at the Post‘s bait-taking; if you look at the WaPo web page as of mid-day, the breathless tale of Josh Bolten striding like a colossus across the Washington landscape has been demoted to a minor sidebar to a more jaundiced analysis by Dan Balz.Actually, the Post identified the most tangible impact of the “shake-up” in yesterday’s edition, in a Business Section piece by Paul Blustein about U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman’s sudden shift from USTR to OMB:

By switching his chief trade negotiator yesterday, President Bush sent a gloomy signal to many trade experts and policymakers about the prospects for achieving significant gains in trade talks with foreign countries anytime soon….[T]he personnel change comes as global trade negotiations are in serious trouble, with a major deadline just weeks away. The loss of Portman leaves the talks without a chief U.S. negotiator whose genial manner, combined with his political skill and mastery of detail, has impressed counterparts from other nations.

To put it more bluntly, as a knowledgeable colleague of mine did this morning: “This means the Bush administration has shut down trade policy for the foreseeable future.”And for what? Well, according to Robert Novak’s column today, it’s all about getting a budget through the rebellious House Republican Caucus. Quoth the Prince of Darkness:

Control of the budget is necessary for Republicans to restore credibility, as signaled by the appointment of the highly regarded Rob Portman as budget director. Indeed, passing a budget will be Portman’s first task.

The funny thing about this story-line is that the current budget mess developed and blew up on the watch at OMB of the very Josh Bolten who is now being described as the administration’s new mover-and-shaker. Thus goes the latest game of musical chairs in Bushland.

There is no political subject quite so perennial, and sometimes tedious, as the endless debate within each major political party about the relative importance in any given election of “base” and “swing” voters, reflecting in turn choices about “mobilization” and “persuasion” strategies.I’ve always thought these debates create much more heat than light, and also lead to the Mother Of All False Choices: the suggestion that candidates have to pick a “base” or “swing” focus and stick with it to the bitter end. Most successful candidates in highly competitive races have done both, and frankly, unless there’s some deep and unavoidable conflict between what candidates do to “mobilize” or “persuade,” it would be, well, kinda counter-intuitive to insist on a choice.Among Democrats, the current “base” versus “swing” debate, such as it is, mainly emerges from those preferring a “base mobilizaton” strategy, revolving around two arguments: (1) today’s climate of partisan polarization has shrunk the size of the true “swing” vote to practical irrelevance, and (2) since the GOP has wholeheartedly committed itself to mobilization efforts, Democrats must do so as well or their base will turn out better than ours.Chris Bowers of MyDD has been an especially active proponent of the idea that the 2006 midterm elections will be a “base turnout” contest, and his latest post on the subject makes an interesting twist on the old argument: right now Independents are leaning heavily D, but since they turn out in midterm elections at lower rates than partisans, Democrats should not pay them much attention. (According to Chris’ own estimates, however, Indies will represent at least one-quarter of the electorate, somewhat undermining the title of his post: “The 2006 Elections Will Not Include Many Independents.”).Now I understand that the number of true “swing voters”–whom I would define as voters who are both persuadable and very likely to vote–is much smaller than the universe of self-identifying Independents, just as Chris understands that the “activist base” he urges Democrats to focus on is much smaller than, and arguably different from, the universe of reliable partisan voters. But however you slice and dice the numbers, there’s one enduring fact about the base/swing debate that is incontrovertible:When you “mobilize” a partisan voter, you pick up at most one net vote. And if your mobilization strategy (e.g., inflaming partisan tensions so that your “base,” drunk with passion at the promise of victory, snake-dances to the polls to smite the hated enemy) directly or indirectly helps the other party mobilize its own partisan voters, the net effect will be smaller. But when you “turn” a true swing voter, you pick up two net votes, by gaining a vote and denying it to your opponent as well. So even if you believe the number of “mobilizable” partisans is more than twice as large as the number of “persuadable” swing voters, this “swing multiplier effect” means ignoring them is perilous in close elections.The bottom line is that I really wish we’d all avoid the temptation of labeling the 2006 elections as “about” any one category of voters, and pursue a strategy of mobilization and persuasion aimed at winning every achievable vote. If we want to take back Congress and win a clear majority of governorships, we’ll probably need every one of them.

I don’t watch much television, but my colleague The Moose informed me this morning that he had viewed an advertisement for a retirement plan that featured “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” as its soundtrack. I made some lame response about Iron Butterfly rebranding itself as Iron Lung Butterfly, but not two hours later, as I picked over the offerings at the Super Buffet near my office, I realized I was listening to what must have been a Sarasota Strings muzak version of “Strawberry Fields Forever.” I dropped a couple of decidedly non-hallunicogenic mushrooms on my plate and felt very old.It’s been inevitable for a while, I guess, that the Youth Culture of the baby boom generation would ripen, mellow, and then rot, despite the atypical abilities of a few Mick Jaggers to sell their Sympathy for the Devil for eternal muscle tone and dancing feet. A couple of weeks ago I was at a social event in Florida at a “blues bar,” surrounded by twenty-somethings mocking the forty- and fifty-somethings who were doing the White Man Shuffle on the dance floor. “It’s hard to shake that booty when the booty’s gone,” I observed, more in sorrow and sympathy than derision, keeping my own booty out of sight on a bar stool.But far worse than that scene is the prospect of hearing the rebellious and hormone-driven songs of one’s youth reformatted for the different rigors of old age. Will hip-replacement ads for women soon feature a soothing version of Jimi Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady”? Is it a matter of time until Senior Mall Walks are spurred on by Easy Listening takes on the MC5’s “Kick Out the Jams”?I dunno. I try to stay semi-hip, with songs on my Ipod dating all the way up until the late 90s.But when a young friend recently reminded me that I was listening to music recorded before she was born, I could only respond that her generation’s remakes didn’t sound any better than the originals.I remain haunted by the prospect of being wheeled into Snack Time at the Assisted Living Center to the strains of “Free Bird.” I hope I have the energy to raise a fist in protest.

The New York Times reported yesterday that Iran pledged to give the new Hamas-controlled Palestinian government 50 million smackers, to help offset the billion or so being frozen by the European Union and the United States until such time as Hamas renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel, and agrees to abide by treaties signed by its predecessor government. The Iranian pledge was made at a conference of Palestinian “militants” in Tehran, a site that shows Hamas and its supporters really don’t understand how to make friends and influence people in the West.But here’s the real news of the conference, in two sentences:

The exiled Hamas political leader, Khaled Meshal, said Saturday at the conference that his government would never recognize Israel.He also said that the government needed $170 million a month, out of which $115 million would go toward paying salaries. But, Mr. Meshal said, the government has not only inherited an empty treasury, but also $1.7 billion in debts.

Don’t get me wrong: I take no pleasure whatsoever in the suffering of the Palestinian people. But for the Hamas government to expect continued subsidies from the EU and US while maintaining a determination to exterminate Israel and to unilaterally abrogate treaties is laughable.Live by the sword, die by the pocket book.

To my co-religionists, I wish you all a very happy Easter today. And to everyone else, I express the hope that I and my fellow Christians will exhibit the unconquerable love we celebrate today. My favorite priest, Fr. Richard Downing of St. James Episcopal Church on Capitol Hill, always likes to remind parishioners they have a holy obligation to feast during Eastertide, ending each Sunday sermon during the season with the admonition to “keep feasting.” While my diet doesn’t allow me to follow this guidance very literally, the idea that the greatest miracle in human history is grounds for continuing celebration seems sound. And that’s true if you celebrate at a liturgically oriented church like mine, or at a Protestant megachurch, or just at home. Eastertide is a season that has long been overshadowed, particularly in this country, by Christmas and its attendant commercial and familial power. But it remains, as Fr. Downing puts it: “the principal feast of the Christian Year.”

I spent a good part of this Good Friday in various airports trying to return from a short trip away from Washington, and without benefit of services, prayerbook, or the Gospel accounts of the Passion, I wound up reading a very different and painful (if profane) story: Cobra II, Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor’s extraordinary military history of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. I’m less than half-way through reading Cobra II, but it’s very clear the prime villain of the book is Donald Rumsfeld, whose folly was illustrated by (a) pushing for an invasion of Iraq as a simple illustration of American power, not as a response to genuine threats to our security; (b) deciding from the get-go, as a matter of ideology, against any nation-building responsibilities for post-Saddam Iraq; and (c) obsessively opposing any troop deployments that might undermine his determination to prove all the military planners wrong.It’s not surprising that the publication of this insider account of the Iraq war has coincided with an ever-growing cascade of retired military officials, including several top leaders of the Iraq invasion itself, demanding Rummy’s firing. But as David Rieff explains in a review of Cobra II in The New Republic, Rumsfeld’s apparent invulnerability to the manifest consequences of his sins reflects the Bush administration’s stunning inability to learn from mistakes or adapt to objective reality–and perhaps a broader post-Cold-War American elite habit of believing that our “sole superpower” status makes us Supermen. Good Friday is a pretty good time for reminding ourselves–especially those of us whose Christian heritage includes a messianic role for the United States of America–that while our country has enormous responsibilities and opportunities for bringing order, justice, democracy and freedom to the world, we are not immune from the consequences of human fallibility, or of the folly of proud men who wield power without accountability.

Speaking of The New Republic, can somebody tell me what’s up with the cover art lately? I missed this at first, because I typically read TNR online, but then a female friend from the conservative heartland drew my attention to the matter and suggested, since I know a few of the worthies there, that I had an obligation to “keep them straight.”Upon examination of the evidence, I realized she did not mean encouraging TNR to burnish its heterosexual credentials. The latest cover features a strange, computer-enhanced image of a nearly naked young woman dripping in jewels (supplemented by an additional bikini-clad woman in the background), ironically hyping Michelle Cottle’s indictment of The New York Times for succumbing to “Luxury Porn” in its fashion and advertising policies. The previous cover was dominated by a grotesque caricature of Anna Nicole Smith with prodigious breasts spilling out of an inadequate bodice. And going back still one more issue (and at least decisively tipping the balance from the erotic to the grotesque), the cover art for Damon Linker’s article on Richard John Neuhaus inexplicably includes an image of Pat Buchanan in his skivvies, along with the less-surprising if unappetizing figure of Ann Coulter in her trademark miniskirt.Is there some sort of magazine version of Sweeps Week? And is TNR’s flirtation with becoming known as T ‘N’ A its bid to outflank staid publications like The American Prospect, which during the same period has obliged its bloggers to conduct an NPR-style subscription campaign with every post?I dunno, but I am pleased this trend has not yet infected the DLC’s own Blueprint Magazine, unless I’ve somehow missed the memo describing our upcoming “Nude Democrat” campaign.

Despite my regular perusal of The New Republic, I somehow missed a massive cover article a couple of weeks ago about one of the most fascinating figures of the American Religious Right, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. It was penned, moreover, by Damon Linker, who until fairly recently was editor of the central vehicle for Neuhaus’ vast torrent of commentary, First Things magazine.Styled as a review of Neuhaus’ latest book, Catholic Matters, Linker’s piece is actually more of an intellectual biography of the influential Lutheran-turned-Catholic, and utlimately an indictment of Neuhaus’ contributions to the Religious Right assault on liberal pluralism in politics.I will not greatly indulge my hobby of amateur theological hairsplitting here, beyond noting that Linker views Neuhaus as offering a rigorous (if ultimately circular) natural-law justification for a coalition of conservative Catholics and conservative envangelical Protestants who agree for different reasons that fidelity to religious truth requires militant political action against legalized abortion, same-sex unions, feminism, and church-state separation. And Linker also rightly draws attention to the (literally) revolutionary implications of Neuhaus’ thinking as reflected in the famous colloquouy published by First Things in 1996, entitled “The End of Democracy? The Judicial Usurpation of Politics,” which challenged a host of conservative luminaries to respond to the proposition that they had a overriding obligation to think of “the current regime” and its “secularist” judges much as German Christians thought of Nazi Germany.I urge you–especially those among you who deplore the attempted hijacking of Christianity by the Cultural Right–to read the whole thing, but do want to quote Linker’s conclusory statement about Neuhaus:

[T]he America toward which Richard John Neuhaus wishes to lead us [is] an America in which eschatological panic is deliberately channeled into public life, in which moral and theological absolutists demonize the country’s political institutions and make nonnegotiable public demands under the threat of sacralized revolutionary violence, in which citizens flee from the inner obligations of freedom and long to subordinate themselves to ecclesiastical authority, and in which traditionalist Christianity thoroughly dominates the nation’s public life. All of which should serve as a potent reminder–as if, in an age marked by the bloody rise of theologically inspired politics in the Islamic world, we needed a reminder–that the strict separation of politics and religion is a rare, precious, and fragile achievement, one of America’s most sublime achievements, and we should do everything in our power to preserve it. It is a large part of what makes America worth living in.

While I’m less worried than Linker about maintaining “strict” separation, he’s right that people like Neuhaus pose not only a threat to America’s liberal heritage–but also to the religious freedom and religious creativity that continue to make this country the most observant and believing of advanced societies. Can I get an amen on that?

Via McJoan at Daily Kos, I was amused but not surprised to learn that Dick Cheney did not exactly elicit a hero’s welcome upon throwing out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals’ home opener today. In the best tradition of statistics-obsessed baseball fans, McJoan noted that Cheney took the mound sporting an 18% approval rating, which is the equivalent of a 9.50 ERA. And true fans understand that ERA’s should be adjusted for home fields; Cheney’s approval rating is undoubtedly lower than 18% in metropolitan Washington, and is probably well down in the single digits in the District proper. The funniest comment I’ve heard about the choice of Cheney to inaugurate the Nats’ season was on this morning’s Tony Kornheiser show, where one of his sidekicks suggested that fans show up wearing orange hunting vests.