“No matter who was right, though, the whole debate was premised on a fundamental assumption about politics that no one on either side seemed to question—that money and tactics alone could revive the party” (Bai, 174).
Matt Bai’s compelling read, The Argument, provides a look at the anatomy of Democratic party politics between 2004-2007. The book is about the fight for the “soul” of the party and offers arresting views of the inner workings of party politics. Most importantly, the book reveals that no amount of radicalized communications will lead to a cogent "argument" that unifies the party. What is needed is not new strategies, but new ideas.
Bai is an excellent writer, and his book reads like an expert treatment for a movie script—I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been optioned. He details each character in the drama from his personal experience of them, and then sets them up for fantastic conflict. One particularly striking conflict was that between Rob Stein and Erica Payne, two key players in the seedling days of The Democracy Alliance, the progressive response to the withering Democratic party after the dismal 2004 election returns.
With a slide show, Stein and Payne had energized a sea of big money Democratic donors disillusioned with the establishment. Stein illuminated how Republicans had so effectively won elections over the years. Payne fundraised some of the biggest donors in New York and California. Their implicit proposal was to replicate what the GOP has done and take back the electorate.
Once they had amassed millions for this project, Payne and Stein saw very different visions of how to best use the money. This came to a head during the election for the first chairmanship of the young organization. Using backchannels, Payne out-foxed Stein and convinced a majority of the donors to elect a complete political outsider from SOHO to the chairmanship.
These type of mini-dramas abound throughout Bai’s book and provide key insights into a shifting tide in the Democratic Party—from big-money maneuvering to mass-interest influence--but still bereft of broad galvanizing ideas. The new chairman, Steven Gluckstern was “a guy almost no one in Washington power circles could remember meeting [and] a sense of severe anxiety began to set in among the party elite” (107).
Bai uses these type of shifts to highlight how the party was moving away from its past into a new unknown. Who knew what would happen if you empowered millions over the Internet.
Well, we have an idea now that Obama has been elected. However, it’s interesting to note that the old and the new blended together in the end. The new internet political movement certainly helped thrust Obama into the White House, but once he got there, he promptly set up a team of old school democratic operatives, including Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. And remarkably, as Bai suggested, even now, there remains few ideas that democrats can really stand behind.
In the end, Bai’s book is an excellent history of a specific moment in time documenting the inevitable adoption of digital political strategies to win elections. However, I think it’s yet to be seen how powerful the internet will be to shape policy. Bai does give some interesting examples of this, such as when MoveOn pressured Sen. Salazar (D-Col.) to vote the right way on the Supreme Court compromise. But this example is much like a presidential election—they’re highly charged and everyone seems to care. Washington insiders, on the other hand, have always made their keep by mastering the unsexy side of politics, and then welding that mastery to fit whatever they are advocating.
I don’t see these insiders going anywhere. Particularly since any powerful Washington insider knows that as long as you don’t get bogged down in abortion, guns, or God, you have a pretty good run of the place—internet or no internet.
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