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.

During the lastest Iran War Scare, a number of bloggers have indirectly alluded to the 1979 “novelty” song, “Bomb Iran,” by Vince Vance and the Valiants. For those of you too young to remember this jingo-pop classic (much beloved of “wacky” drive-time disc jockeys during the Iranian Hostage Crisis), here are the full lyrics.Bomb Iran (to the tune of “Barbara Ann” by the Beach Boys)Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, BOMB IRAN! Let’s take a stand, bomb Iran. Our country’s got a feelin’ Really hit the ceilin’, bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. Went to a mosque, gonna throw some rocks. Tell the Ayatollah…”Gonna put you in a box!” Bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. Our country’s got a feelin’ Really hit the ceilin’, bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. Ol’ Uncle Sam’s gettin’ pretty hot. Time to turn Iran into a parking lot. Bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. Call the volunteers; call the bombadiers; Call the financiers, better get their ass in gear. Bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. Our country’s got a feelin’ Really hit the ceilin’, bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. Call on our allies to cut off their supplies, Get our hands untied, and bring em’ back alive. Bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. Our country’s got a feelin’ Really hit the ceilin’, bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, BOMB IRAN!Let’s take a stand, bomb Iran. Our people you been stealin’ Now it’s time for keelin’, bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. In terms of compelling political lyrics, it sure ain’t Dylan, eh? Predictably, ol’ Vince and the boys did a 2002 retake of this song, redubbed “Bomb Iraq,” which I never heard but that probably made a few Clear Channel playlists. And to show that this band’s strange connection to the right-wing zeitgeist wasn’t limited to foreign affairs, Vince Vance and the Valiants penned a song in the 90s entitled “I Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans.” Well, no, you didn’t really know what that means, did you, Vince?I used to have a theory, back before the WWF turned rasslin’ into a slick entertainment empire, that you could get a good insight into American fears by checking out the latest villains of the pro wrestling circuit. When I was a child growing up in the Jim Crow Deep South, the reigning bad guy was a Yankee named Freddie Blassie (later the protaganist of Andy Kaufmann’s peculiar takeoff on My Dinner With Andre, entitled My Breakfast With Blassie), who would stand on the ropes at Southern wrestling venues and call the howling crowds “a bunch of grit-eaters.” Later came the pseudo-Commie wrestler Sputnik Monroe. During the 70s there were “Arab” rasslers, and in the 80s, various Asians.But jingo-pop has always produced a more efficient glimpse into American hostilities. The early 1980s-era tensions with Libya generated one of the best, or worst examples: a “song” called “Pluck Khadaffy Duck”, by someone named Roger Hallmark. I can’t find the lyrics, but I do recall from its high popularity on Atlanta stations at the time that after several verses of chortling about what “Uncle Sam” was going to do to kill Libyans, Hallmark, in his best redneck voice, concluded: “I ain’t afraid ‘a no Chicken Shi-ite,” exhibiting a bit of confusion about the religious orientation of Libya.All in all, this is a bit of Americana I would be happy to leave behind, if it didn’t keep coming back.

Kevin Drum has an astute comment up at Political Animal about the brouhaha over Sy Hersh’s New Yorker piece on Pentagon planning for a possible nuclear air strike against Iran:”The United States military has contingency plans for everything, they say, so it’s hardly a surprise that the military has contingency plans for Iran. William Arkin even tells us their names: CONPLAN 8022 and CONPLAN 1025.”You’d think maybe the President of the United States would make this point, if he addressed the topic at all. But here’s what Bush actually said at an appearance at Johns Hopkins’ SAIS today:

… We hear in Washington, you know, “prevention means force.” It doesn’t mean force necessarily. In this case, it means diplomacy.And by the way, I read the articles in the newspapers this weekend. It was just wild speculation, by the way. What you’re reading is wild speculation. Which is, kind of a — you know, happens quite frequently here in the nation’s capital.

Maybe it’s just me, but given the elaborate recent revelations of the extent to which the administration secretly and systematically planned its Iraq campaign, and its manipulation of Congress and the public to secure the right to pursue it, the “prevention doesn’t mean force” and “wild speculation” arguments, coming from George W. Bush, aren’t terribly credible, are they?But it gets worse the more you think about it. Kevin Drum raises the possibility that a little buzz about the possibility of military action might encourage the Iranians to take negotiations to rein in its nuclear program seriously, and observes: “A subtle and well orchestrated game of chicken might be appropriate here. But please raise your hands if you trust this crew to play a subtle and well orchestrated game of anything.”And that gets right to the heart of one of the great under-acknowledged blows to national security created by this administration’s behavior in going into and prosecuting the war in Iraq. Its mendacity, secrecy, recklessness, disregard for world or regional opinion; its defiance of military and diplomatic advice about the consequences of an undermanned invasion and a cavalier, let’s-make-some-money occupation; and its perverse, election-driven determination to divide the American people by deliberately misrepresenting almost every fact about its reasons for going into Iraq and for staying there: all these decisions have undermined this country’s credibility in facing future national security threats, including that posed by Iran.Let’s just say for the sake of argument that it becomes necessary a few years down the road to seriously rattle sabers at Iran. I don’t think there’s much doubt that a Democratic administration would have far more credibility and support in rattling those sabers convincingly, and in convincing others to rattle sabers as well.My colleague The Moose suggests today that the Bush administration’s reputation for impulsive international behavior might help deter Tehran. That’s one way of looking at it. But the other way of looking at it is that threats–especially empty threats–from this administration provide Iran with the comfortable assurance that any overt move towards military action under George W. Bush will meet a firestorm of protests not only throughout the Middle East and in Europe, but in the United States itself.These guys have blown the one opportunity they had to demonstrate that unilateral U.S. military force is the indispensable source of security and stability for a troubled world. I doubt they will be vouchsafed a second chance. The case for a regime change in Washington must include the argument that true national security requires different leadership.