We’ve probably all had the experience of reading or watching something broadcast to the world, and wondering: “How big an audience could that have?” I remember having this sensation distinctly when I saw the movie “The Rapture” back in the early nineties. This flick, featuring Mimi Rogers and David Duchovny, is roughly one-half very graphic sex and one-half Book of Revelation. I mean, how many sex-addicted premillenial fundamentalists could there be out there?I had a similar reaction today to a TPMCafe post by Max Sawicky. Ostensibly (and eventually) a negative reaction to Mike Tomasky’s “common good” cover essay in the American Prospect, Max seemed mainly agitated by a brief reference to the famous 1960s New Left group Students for a Democratic Society, which, as “an SDS alumnus,” he considered very off-base. But the fun thing is that Sawicky in passing took shots at several SDS factions.I immediately buzzed my colleague The Moose, who shares my hobby of Marxist esoterica, and got him to read the post. Then, like the Hardy Boys on a mystery adventure, we spent twenty minutes trying to figure out from Max’s angry words which SDS faction he might have belonged to. We decided it had to be either (a) RYM II (for Revolutionary Youth Movement), created when RYM I morphed into the Weathermen, or (b) the Draperites, a Trotskyist offshoot of the better-known Schactmanites (the Moose’s own college fraternity).As we stood in the hallway feeling smug about our sleuthing work, I finally said to the Moose: “You realize what a couple of dorks we are?” He agreed. But thanks to Max Sawicky for an inadvertant bit of Friday afternoon entertainment.

Ramesh Ponnuru and Cass Sunstein have conducted an interesting colloquoy over at The New Republic site about the political implications of a hypothetical overturning of Roe v. Wade in the near future. National Review‘s Ponnuru took on the increasingly popular view that returning abortion policy to the legislative branches of the federal and state governments will be a boon to pro-choice progressives and a blow to the GOP. His main argument was that in a post-Roe world, pro-lifers may well be smart enough (and, if Roe is only partially overturned, may be forced) to focus on popular abortion restrictions rather than the kind of frontal assault on abortion rights that could produce a pro-choice backlash. Sunstein responded that losing Roe would give the pro-choice movement the kind of energy and determination that Roe itself has supplied for abortion opponents over the last thirty-three years.Both arguments have merit, but the debate itself makes an important point that should give pause to those progressives who sunnily forecast happy days in a post-Roe America: nobody knows exactly what would happen, but the one thing we do know is that a reversal of Roe would not create some sort of one-time national referendum on basic abortion rights. As Ponnuru suggests (and as I argued last fall in a public discussion with two leading pro-choice-but-anti-Roe experts, Stuart Taylor and Jeffrey Rosen), barring some highly unlikely preemptive action by Congress, the issue would play out in fifty state legislatures over an extended period of time, on a messy and complex landscape. Abortion would become a perennial, 24-7 issue in many states, dominating political discourse in ways that are easy to envision but hard to exactly predict. Perhaps elevating abortion policy to an overrriding national obsession will ultimately create the kind of decisive pro-choice consensus that Sunstein and others so confidently expect. But I wouldn’t bet the farm (or, if I were a woman, my rights) on it, or look with equanimity at the very real possibility that a lame-duck Republican president will soon give the Supreme Court a fifth vote to overturn Roe.

It’s one of those things you are aware of generally, but it’s amazing to consider, via Sam Rosenfeld at TAPPED, the sheer number of major issues on which the Republicans who control the legislative and executive branches of the federal government are gridlocked: immigration reform, lobbying reform, the budget, and the supplemental appropriations bill funding the Iraq and Afghanistan engagements plus Katrina recovery. Beyond Sam’s list, Republicans are battling over how to deal with gas prices and oil company profits, with most opposed to any measures to claw back past subsidies to the energy industry, much less take more aggressive steps.For ol’ folks like me, “gridlock in Washington” is a theme that goes back a very long time. Lest we forget, the two parties shared control of the federal government for 27 out of the 34 years between 1968 and 2002. But the current disarrray within the all-powerful Republican Party in Washington–a party that took power with an extraordinary degree of partisan discipline and ideological unity–is really remarkable.

Y’know, one of the reasons I treasure my friend Josh Marshall is that he’s willing to trade a bit of his popularity now and then for the opportunity to indulge in a bit of pointy-headed esoterica. Sure, he spends most of his time down in the trenches raking the muck and correcting the record and agitpropping with the best of them. But today, in a post on James Baker’s selection by George W. Bush to lead a “fact-finding” tour of Iraq, Josh manages to work in references to both Karl Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, and Friedrich Nietzsche’s theory of “eternal recurrence.”Kinda reminds me of the scene from Fearing and Loathing on the Campaign Trail when a McGovern staffer in Nebraska quoted Virgil to Hunter Thompson, leading Thompson to wonder for a moment if Virgil was the advance man for Scotts Bluff.Best I can muster in tribute to Josh’s virtuosity is a reference in the title of this post to a relatively obscure Jefferson Airplane album.

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.”