Review of "Take It Back' By Paul Begala and James Carville

[WinterBybee]

‘Take It Back’ won’t ease looming
civil war among Democrats

By Roger Bybee

Beware of Washington Beltway insiders masquerading as streetfighting men.

While attempting mightily to deliver a road map to victory, Democratic consultants Paul Begala and James Carville, in Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future,” offer a souped-up version of the same tepid, timid, Clintonesque politics that has left the Democratic Party wandering in the wilderness. The book’s key bit of strategic advice is highly revealing:”We’re asking interest groups—some of the most powerful organizations on the left—to back off a bit.”

In reality, Begala and Carville’s term “interest groups” is code for the majority of rank-and-file Democratic voters who stand far to the left of most Democratic congressmen and recent presidential candidates in opposition to US imperial adventures like Iraq, the outsourcing of US jobs, and for a single-payer healthcare plan. By slyly suggesting that the party’s Left is simply composed of impatient unions, feminist, civil rights, anti-war, and environmental groups who insist on weighing the party down with unpopular baggage, Begala & Carville seek to avoid dealing with the gulf between corporate-funded Democratic officeholders and their constituents eager for a party that fights for their interests.

Seeking to enforce artificial unity in the name of electing Democrats—whether it is a principled progressive like Russ Feingold or a conservative, contributor-appeasing Joe Lieberman—to defeat the Republicans’ collection of money-grubbing moralizers and neo-con war-mongers, Begala and Carville continually slide over difficult questions in their book. As Carville recently told Newsweek, “The American people are going to be ready for an era of realism. They’ve seen the consequences of having too many ‘big ideas.’”

Clearly, readers of Take It Back will not be overwhelmed with “too many big ideas.” Yes, Take It Back contains much useful material on the stunning greed, arrogance, and incompetence of the Bush administration. But it largely comes up empty on the basic choice facing the party: will it continue to play to big campaign contributors on issues like job outsourcing and privatization of public services, or will it seek to re-bond itself with an increasingly restive and alienated base that seeks a party of conviction and commitment?

Because of Carville’s involvement in tenaciously promoting the job-exporting North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993 and more recently as a consultant in behalf of elite forces seeking to overturn the democratic election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and promoting an unpopular pro-privatization candidate in Bolivia (recorded in the documentary “Our Brand is Crisis” by Rachel Boynton) , the book loses a substantial amount of credibility. Carville’s tough-talking populism appears to be a smokescreen for a deeply-rooted affinity for the powerful that is especially apparent on issues of global injustice.

On the positive side of the ledger, Carville and Begala, veteran Democratic advisors who remained on the outside of the hapless Kerry campaign machine, must be credited with offering some sage tactical advice, if not a grand strategy. Moreover, they forcefully denounce the Iraq War, which is something that cannot be said of leading Democrats like Hillary Clinton, the increasingly disappointing Barack Obama, Joe Lieberman or Rahm Emmanuel.

But one of “Take It Back”’s biggest deficits is its unwillingness to confront the fact that the Democrats are really two very different parties seemingly headed on a collision course. The conflict between the corporate-based Dems and the grass-roots forces may not sharpen fully by this year’s mid-term elections, but seems certain to flare up into a civil war by the 2008 presidential primaries.

On the one hand, there is the party of the Clintons, Wall Street bankers like Robert Rubin and Roger Altman, the corporate-funded Democratic Leadership Council, and Rubin’s new Alexander Hamilton Project, appropriately named after the thoroughly anti-democratic first treasury secretary They remain steadfast in pushing for more corporate-style globalization (translation: outsourcing of family-supporting US jobs with nothing remotely comparable to replace them) regardless of the impact on the Democrats’ most loyal, bedrock constituencies—working people, African-Americans and Latinos.

This wing of the party remains content to passively watch the Bush Administration in the hope that it will choke itself on its own greed, with the Dems doing no more than decrying a “culture of corruption” (despite plenty of Democrats like Rep. William Jefferson plaguing beleaguered New Orleans). They imagine themselves being bold when they invoke the less-than-inspiring call for “competence” (recall how effective that was for Michael Dukakis in 1988). They maintain disciplined and cowardly silence about the morality of the Iraq war, torture, “special rendition,” and massive civilian deaths.

But at the grass-roots and fast-growing“net-roots” (activists connected by the Internet) level of Democratic voters, there is enormous outrage at the Iraq War, “preventive war,” outsourcing and the crushing of middle-class dreams, and America’s lack of a sensible health systemthat cuts out the insurance companies so central to the Clintons’ defeated plan. This wing of the party has a few heroes in Congress: Sens. Russ Feingold, Dick Durbin, and Barbara Boxer, Reps. John Conyers, Cynthia McKinney, Tammy Baldwin, Barbara Lee, and Gwen Moore, among others. But with the exception of Feingold, the party leadership has joined with the prestige media in marginalizing these critical voices in favor of choosing Democratic spokespeople like Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman, and Hillary Clinton.

Fueling the grass-roots’ huge frustration is the Washington Democrats’ unwillingness or incapacity to articulate these grievances with any force or sincerity. The canyon between the Washington wimps and the grass-roots warriors seems to grow day by day. Only the mounting outrages of George II’s rule sustains a tenuous alliance between the two wings of the Democrats, in the hope that the 2006 mid-term elections will create a Democratic majority in at least one house.

At moments, Carville & Begala take the DC Democrats to task for their utter unwillingness to stand up and fight, on any issue and at any time. They note, for example, that most key Democratic leaders remained silent when the Republican tax plan rendered some nine million children’s families ineligible for child tax credits while heaping $13 billion in new breaks on corporations. “Too many Democrats—indeed, most Democrats—went along with screwing poor kids and sucking up to corporations. What the hell use is it to have a political part if you’re not going fight something like that? What the hell were the Democrats waiting for, some thing more important? What the hell does this party stand for, anyway?”

For one thing, the party doesn’t stand for universal health care, an issue of staggering importance to American families and with immense political stakes. ”Health care is more than a moral issue; it’s an economic issue, it’s a jobs issue, and it’s a competitiveness issue,” they correctly argue. Healthcare for US autoworkers amounts to about $4 per hour per worker, which increasingly drives production out of the US. Despite paying roughly twice what France does on a per-capita basis, the US ranks just 37th in overall health system efficacy.

Yet the party has continually failed to unify on the obvious rational solution—a single-payer system that eliminates the enormous cost, frustration, and inefficiency wrought by placing insurance corporations at the heart of the healthcare system. While offering some solid political advice—simplicity in offering an alternative and making health a “values issue”—Carville & Begala themselves shy away from the only clear-cut solution of a single-payer Canadian-style system and instead tepidly call for an expansion of Medicaid to cover all children and the working poor, along with allowing businesses to gain tax credits for buying into the federal workers’ group health plan.

Along with failure at the level of strategy and program, Democrats have been out-fought at the most fundamental level, Begala & Carville argue persuasively. “Democrats have failed at the basics: defining their message, attacking their opponents, defending their leaders, inspiring their voters.” The Kerry team’s ineptness provides a distressingly rich trove of examples: the absence of any memorable message from the campaign; the strict commandment against attacking the Bush administration during the Democratic convention; the painfully slow response to the Swift Boaters’ slurs; the shallow retort to the Republicans’ outrageous claim in Arkansas and West Virginia that Kerry intended to outlaw the Bible, and the decision to focus on a litany of issues rather than a consistent “narrative” about Bush’s America and an alternative vision. As Carville once put it, the Kerry campaign operated “a perpetual committee listening to a perpetual focus group.”

Despite Bush’s seemingly insurmountable tide of issues going against him in 2004—a wave of job outsourcing, soaring health costs and growing numbers of under-insured, and mounting revelations about the Bush team’s determined and deceptive effort to draw the US into an increasingly ill-fated war in Iraq—Kerry and his band of insular campaign advisors managed to still lose the election. Carville and Begala assert convincingly that the lack of an over-arching message for Kerry prevented him from taking advantage on these and other compelling issues. “Having a message allows voters to make sense of the specific issues,” they write. “Not having a message causes issues to lose their resonance.”

Thus, Kerry lost a Democratic state like West Virginia by 13 points, with contrived social issues like gay marriage and gun control filling the vacuum created by the absence of a distinct, compelling message from Kerry and the Democrats.

Take It Back provides thus provides some valuable insights. But it falls far short of its promise to help ordinary Democrats “take back their party.” Apart from urging a slightly surlier tone toward Bush from Democratic congressmen, Begala and Carville seem basically content to leave the party in the hands of its current owners.

Roger Bybee is a Milwaukee-based writer and activist. He can be reached at [e-mail]

[SteppingRazor]

1. One place where Carville definitely got it wrong...

was in that quote you mentioned:

"The American people are going to be ready for an era of realism. They’ve seen the consequences of having too many ‘big ideas.’”


No, James, The American people have seen the consequences of having too many "wrong ideas." Big ideas, and big dreams, are the only reason we have an America in the first place, ya rube.

[WinterBybee]

8. Reply to Stepping Razor

Love your name as a long-time fan of "the Harder They Come"--film and music.

The Democratic leadership's unwillingness to put forth big ideas--even any ideas--could really result in much smaller and shallower gains for the Dems this fall. Not only may they win fewer seats than they potentially could, but they may wind up electing another corps of Democratic congresspeople who stand for nothing except getting reelected thanks to corporate contributions. The Democrats truly need something analagous to the Republicans' 1994 "Contract With America." The Contract was of course a cynical excercise in bait-and-switch (pollster Frank Luntz selected titles for each section that tested at least 70% positive with the public (Eg. "job security"), but then the actual content was a collection of far-Right proposals drawn from the Shining Path wing of the Republican Party.

Traditionally, the biggest shifts in support for the Democrats have stemmed precisely from big ideas like the New Deal, Social Security, Medicare, the GI Bill, and other programs that concretely improve people's lives while establishing a set of economic and social rights. Ultimately, I think the Dems and progressives should consider updating Franklin Delano Roosevelt's notion of an "Economic Bill of Rights." This could serve as an overall umbrella for a set of programs to preserve and extend economic security at a time when all that was once solid (pensions, health benefits, family-supporting wages, a corporate commitment to expanding domestic buying power a la Henry Ford and a detente with unions) is melting into air. Best, Roger Bybee.

[NoPasaran]

2. Take it back!

From Carville, Begala, and the rest of the consultocracy!

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

3. When Carville stops being Dick Cheney's personal quote machine...

I'll start taking him seriously again.

[Vincardog]

4. Begala and Carville seem basically content to leave the party in the hands

of its current owners. The consultants and Business interests. They are in favor of the Democrats continuing to follow their ( Begala and Carville ) advice. What Kerry did wrong was listing to the consultants and not being true to his own beliefs.

[WinterBybee]

9. Begala, Carville, and future of Dems

Absolutely. Just think of how Kerry moved the nation in 1971 with his testimony about the pointlessness of more deaths in Vietnam, and then consider his refusal to make the same point about Iraq in 2004. His position on Iraq was so nuanced (a polite term for muddled) as to render the most loyal Democrats of repeating it immediately after they heard it (I know I was incapable of doing so!) Kerry's notion of involving other nations in training Iraqi troops simply wasn't credible and utterly failed to distinguish him clearly from Bush on Iraq.

Moreover, he dropped his most memorable and effective piece of rhetoric about "Benedict Arnold CEOs" in the face of advice from Wall St. wiseguys like Roger Altman. (See our earlier post-election DU pieces that responded to the 2004 election and Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas?).

Best, Roger Bybee.

[karynnj]

21. Another point was that as they complain that Kerry listened to consultants

Begala and Carville complain that he didn't listen to them. That is more likely the root of their real distress. They also ignore that by many accounts the reason Clinton did not run is that it looked unwinnable in 2003 when the decision had to be made.

It is true that Kerry did listen to the consultants - but they were considered the experts in running a national race. If he runs again, I would guess that the main people running things would be the Kerry people considered to be too inexperienced last time. One interesting observation is that the Kerry primary campaigns run by his people and some borrowed from Kennedy won an upset victory. The addition of the Clinton people added people who understood a "Bill Clinton" candidate but not John Kerry, who is a very different candidate. I think this mix of cultures likely caused a lot of the problems. (then amplified by the disgruntled Begala and Carville.

Iraq was a difficult issue to run on in 2004. The majority of likely voters still thought it was a good idea. Kerry could not have won with a clear cut - the war was wrong message. He had to get the anti-war people and enough of the people who thought the war was reasonable but that it was going badly. He also had to signal that he would defend a traumatized America.

Some of Carville's positions are eye brow raising. If these are the people the Clintons want around them, the Clintons have changed since 1992 - or I never really knew them. As to Kerry blindly taking advice, he was principled enough (and I think astute enough) not to take Bill Clinton's advice that he endorse all the gay bashing amendments.

[Just-plain-Kathy]

40. Vincardog...You are soooo right!!!

Ditto everything you said. I think Kerry would have won by a landslide, if only he followed his "own beliefs".

As far as Begala and Carville goes, I partly blame these two talking heads for our '04 failure. On shows like Cross-fire, they were the face and voice of Democrats. I don't know how many times I found myself yelling at the television, 'WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY THIS, WHEN THEY SAID THAT!'.

...(I'm not crazy, I don't usually yell at the television...but I did when these two were on). Peace. ...:patriot:

[Ninga]

5. My take is that their approach is careful, cautious, contrived, and

careless........and I do mean care less.

I am willing to take a stand for those who ride the bus, work in hospitals, clean houses, pick our crops, work 2 jobs, are single household earners, raise their grandchildren, get their meds from Canada, take unpaid leaves to care for family, have catastrophic illness..........on and on.

I will not stand with Carville and Begala because they are from the middle, which by the way, economically, is disappearing.

[WinterBybee]

10. Begala, Carville, and the disappearing middle

Well-stated. Let me begin by giving Begala and Carville due credit for 1) opposing the Iraq War; 2) denouncing Dems who failed to oppose outrageous Republican tax giveaways to the rich and takeaways from the poor; and 3) providing an up-to-date account of Bush's most recent failures like Hurricane Katrina and the destruction of perhaps America's most culturally-rich city.


But you are absolutely right about C & B's distance from the people that Jesse Jackson unforgettably called those "who catch the early bus." Carville and Begala are engaged in a game of political calculation that instantly turns off working Americans who pick up the whiff of cynicism and utter lack of commitment that C & B give off. Best, Roger Bybee.

[oc2002]

6. Begala and Carvel ARE the Diseased old Clinton Corporate DLC.

They are what is wrong with the DNC and the democratic party that Dean is hoping to change, but is strugling.

Why are these two monkeys always the 'liberul' or 'democratic' consultants on the shows like Tweety?

[WinterBybee]

11. Why do Begala & Carville wind up as our spokesmen?

Good question. There are lots of Democrats (and Independents like Bernie Sanders) who are more articulate, more passionate, and actually have substance to offer. But these folks like Russ Fengold, Tammy Baldwin, and Barbara Lee fall outside the image that the Democratic leaders want to project and also are located outside the spectrum of opinion that is considered
"thoughtful" and acceptable on the various talking-head programs, especially the execrable
"Lehrer Newshour," whose heavy conservative bias has been well documented by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Best, Roger Bybee.

[wryter2000]

7. To which I say

”We’re asking interest groups—some of the most powerful organizations on the left—to back off a bit.”

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. These assholes would have asked the "special interests" to back off a bit on that notorious socialist plot -- Social Security.

[WinterBybee]

12. The horse Carville rode in on, minus big ideas

Yes indeed! Carville & Begala try to conflate narrow legislative proposals that
every group has with the broader progressive agenda they seem to fear.

In fact, about 2/3 of Americans want single-payer health care; 2/3 want an end to job-outsourcing deals like NAFTA (including 57% of Americans earning more than $100,000 a year, according to a University of Maryland study); and 2/3 want full public funding of elections so that we can break the link between those who write the big checks and those who write our laws. Moreover, about 60% (and rising fast) want us out of Iraq as soon as possible (meanwhile, 72% of the US troops (Zogby poll) and 80% of Iraqis (secret British poll)also want a US withdrawal.

There is a strong mandate for a forceful, compelling "big ideas" progressive program. But those favoring, for example, single-payer healthcare, assume that they are isolated and powerless because none of the major Democratic leaders are advocating this. At the same time, the Bush Administration has systematically worked to create the image that they are utterly impervious to criticism and social protest. Bush and his crew have cleverly tried to establish, in the words of a veteran unionbuster, "an environment of complete and total futility" for those challenging their power.

As progressives, we need to 1) articulate a broadly-popular program that will concretely make a difference in people's lives (health care, job security against outsourcing, pension security, etc.); 2) through our media and leading spokepeople, to assure Americans that a majority supports progressive ideas; and 3) through our focused activism, to break through the sense of powerlessness that holds so many people back. We should remember that on Feb. 15, 2003, just prior to the Iraq War, 6 to 10 million marched in the streets across the world in the hope of heading off the war. We need to re-kindle that optimism. Best, Roger Bybee.

[brainshrub]

14. Amen! Amen! AMEN!

And a big Hallelujah!

[TankLV]

24. Not only a "fuck you" but a hearty FUCK YOU!

I couldn't agree more, only I am angrier and would do it LOUDER!

And there are those crybabies and repuke-wannabes HERE who say WE are trying to tell those who don't agree with us to "shut up".

Well, here is yet ANOTHER in and endless string of DLC trolls who would just as soon WE disappear and sit down and shut up!

Well, since THEY threw down this "issue" - I heartily agree - except it is THEY who should either get on board with US - the "democratic wing of the democratic party" or SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP - STEP ASIDE!

YOU "trolls" may have started this fight, but WE will finish it!

I wil NOT tolerate any more of the "repuke-lite" crap that is being touted by far too many HERE!

And I am talking about posting HERE, which is FAR from equal to the NATIONAL MEDIA EARS that these DINOS manage to garner!

And a belated "WELCOME" to DU!

[KoKo]

13. Interesting Review of their Book, thanks. When I heard James Carville

on Tim Russert with Begala pushing their Book and Russert revealed that Carville had a deal with Russerts College Sophomore son to co anchor a sports radio show...I finally had to give up my faith that he was a believeable spokesperson for Democrats any longer. The discussion about Begala and Carville's Virginia farms close to each other and Carville's marriage to Mary Matalin who is a constant spokesperson for Dick Cheney is also worrysome in that their "inside the beltway" connections has made them part of the "problem" we have in America. As great a job their did for Clinton with his War Room ...it seems they have now passed their prime in being able to bring fresh strategy to these times when our party is in desperate trouble ideologically.

I'm focusing on David Sirota who speaks to many of us who feel a Populist Message is what our "Left" of the party is really supporting and it's a message whose time has come once again and looking forward to reading his book,"Hostile Takeover" which would seem (from what I heard him say in discussions promo's) is a blueprint for Democrats who feel we must break away from the now failing Democratic Leadership Council's stale ideas and create a new direction for Dems by recognizing how the Corporate interests have worked to undermine both parties.

Again, thanks for the review. I'm sure Begala and Carville will find a campaign they can work on for '08 in some capacity and I welcome their participation only in that they are still the best attack voices we Dems have so far. But, whether they are a help or a hindrence in appearing on the Pundit shows remains to be seen in these coming hard times.

[Rose Siding]

15. Like Cohen, they long for apathetic, disengaged, uninformed silence

-and they wonder, Why all the anger?

[SoonerShankle]

16. Lots of negativism here...

While I agree that our party's salvation lies in the grassroots activism, I do agree with Carville and Begala that message is important.

Reporting and taking the authors' biases into account, democrats should still be able to hear what they have to say with open, yet informed, minds. I do not wish to "eat my own" here. The Democratic Party is a diverse group. And yes, I do see the two sides, and I know that Carville and Begala come from the more moderate corporatist side of the party. But is there not room for both in our party? Do we all have to agree 100% of the time? Should we all fall in line like the Republicans?

The message of the book is simple: HAVE A MESSAGE (the loudest, most often repeated theme in the book)! fight the republicans in the media (work the refs, as they put it). don't tolerate the put-downs in the media (call the reporters and commentators on it -- and lock out those that don't tow the line). tell the country what we stand for. don't be elitist -- be populist (sorry, gang, I'm a populist at heart too).

They say these things time and time again through out the book. Within the party there may be disagreement as to what the message should be, or what the party stands for, but leadership has to happen. Their harsh criticism on that count is right on the money.

[WinterBybee]

33. 'Negativism' and the importance of a message

Dear SoonerShankle:
First, I agree that Carville and Begala should be given credit when they are right, as on the absolute centrality of a simple, powerful message. Developing and disseminating such messages has been a major focus of my own work, and I attempted to give C & B due rewards for that point.

At the same time, the Democratic message will be very hollow indeed unless we stand up to the
Democratic Leadership Council, the Hamilton Project, and the Clintons who would abandon those
Americans most in need: displaced industrial workers and single mothers.

In my view, the DLC and the Clintons alienated much of the most hard-core Democratic base by ramming through the NAFTA job-outsourcing deal and appeasing the Republicans by amending FDR's Social Security Act to enact "welfare reform" which has been largely a disaster for single mothers.

Moreover, James Carville's role in Venezuela and Bolivia has been a shameful sellout of the most vulnerable people in the hemisphere, and deserves full exposure. My intent is not to be negative, but rather to frankly and honestly confront the barriers we face in seeking to replace the Bush-Cheney regime with a genuinely progressive alternative. To be blunt, many of the Democratic leaders we now cling to in a time of crisis are actually part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Ultimately, I think we need to be drawing more on FDR's non-imperialist "Good Neighbor Policy" as a model for international relations instead of Clinton-style neo-imperialism and an updated version of his "Economic Bill of Rights," rather than the fictitious, non-existent "free markets" worshipped by Bill Clinton and Mark Warner, as the foundation for our domestic policy.

Best, Roger Bybee.

[DinahMoeHum]

17. Methinks we'd be better off reading 2 other books here. . .

Foxes in the Henhouse - Steve Jarding/Dave "Mudcat" Saunders
www.foxesinthehenhouse.com

Crashing The Gate - Markos Moulitsos Zuniga/Jerome Armstrong
www.crashingthegate.com

Also, here's the Washington Monthly's take on these books, plus David Sirota's "Hostile Takeover"
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0604.schmitt.html

:kick:

[glitch]

18. Well done and welcome to DU! nt

[robbedvoter]

19. Thanks for this. Gave up on Carville when he stated torture may be OK

once as a host of Crossfire....When you lack basic decency, nothing else you say is believable.

[Joe Chi Minh]

20. You've nailed it.

[karynnj]

22. I am so glad I didn't hear that

no wonder he could marry Matalin.

[TankLV]

26. My bottom line, too. Absolutely INEXCUSABLE.

Unfortunately, there are some idiots HERE who agree with him on this.

[blm]

23. WHY on EARTH do you believe Carville and Begala's BS when you WANT to

and not when you DON'T want to?

They are wrong about alot of things, including about Kerry.

Kerry did nothing so spectacularly wrong except not realize how cravenly COMPLICIT the mainstream media is. I don't see ANY Dem consultant or left COLUMNIST who takes on the media for their role, and instead choose to put the target solely on Kerry - the one guy who WON all his matchups against Bush.

How many left columnists or left media effected the campaign positively on a DAILY BASIS compared to how many RW columnists did their best every day for BushInc?

Pick up a mirror left media - YOU SUCKED AND FAILED EVERY SINGLE DAY up against the RW message machine.

[wisteria]

31. Well said and you are absolutely right. n/t

[Dr Ron]

25. Carville and Kerry represent different sections of the party

It isn't that Kerry didn't have a message (although his message was often distorted when heard thru the mainstream media) but that Kerry and Carville represent different views within the Democratic Party.

This is an oversimplification, but Carville is more of a leftist/populist on economic issues and conservative on social issues, while Kerry is more liberal on social issues (even if not far left, leading to some disagreements with the netroots) and fiscally conservative. (I mean conseravative in a good sense here, distinct from the type of conservativism/extrmism seen in the GOP). Similarly I'd place Dean on the same side in terms of being socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Despite their primary battle the two are actually fairly close on most issues.

One example of how Kerry differs from the Clinton/Carville wing. During the campaign Bill Clinton advised John Kerry to support the anti-gay marriage amendments in states where they are on the ballot, arguing that this would help win those states. Kerry refused to compromise principles in this manner. No doubt Carville would have taken the Clinton line, opposing concern for a "contrived social issues like gay marriage." Kerry understood the basic principles while Carville and Clinto do not.

One area where both Carville and Kerry do agree is in their denouncing the Iraq war. As I said, drawing the lines as I did above between Kerry and Carville is definately an over simplification.

[mom cat]

27. Welcome to DU and thanks for your brilliant analysis. I look forward to

hearing more from you in the future. :yourock:

[WinterBybee]

34. Thank you!

Dear Mom Cat, Thanks so much for your encouraging remarks. We actually have done quite a few dU articles. BEst, Roger.

[bocotton]

28. Carville lost me

when he said he wouldn't shake hands with Ralph Nader if he ran into him at a cocktail party. What? He sleeps with Mary Matalin and he won't speak to Ralph Nader? What's wrong with this picture?

[Warren Stupidity]

29. Great post, screw carville and begalia

The blogs need to take the whole Democratic message thing into their own hands. Obviously the DC crowd is full of shit and corrupt. The media is approximately 90% RNC controlled stenography. The election machinary is suspect.

The blogosphere has to take responsiblity for getting the message out and we have to win by such large margins that the fraud will either be a) ineffective, or b) so damn obvious that we have civil disorder.

Its up to us folks. We are the Democratic Party.

[wisteria]

30. He loses me after the first paragraph. After that it all seems more

like a personal opinion with no real proof to back up the claims.
He talks about message, well I still remember, Wrong War, Wrong Time. He blames Kerry for long standing party weaknesses and fails to mention any of the obstacles Kerry faced such as, Bush being a war time President, the color codes terror alert warnings, the media complicity, the timing of the Bin Laden tape. Yet he mentions nonsense like the rhetoric about banning the bible, now tell me, who except for the kool-aid drinkers would buy that and he blows this out of proportion to make his point about Kerry not fighting back. Also, did he really want us to have a convention similar to the classless, insulting cesspool of a convention the Republicans had? I like our convention, it had meaning and vision. The Republicans were all about spit balls and purple heart bandages and the awful Bush girls.
I am going to e-mail this guy just to disagree on the points he makes about Senator Kerry. Gee, everyone a critic and knows how it should of been done when you lose.

[WinterBybee]

32. Kerry and the Dems' failures

Dear Wisteria:
As I understand your post, you perceived my review of Take It Back as a one-sided criticism of Kerry while neglecting the Republicans' astonishingly sleazy and negative campaign.

Yes, Kerry was the target of a disgusting attack on his military record. Yes, the GOP campaign was shameless in its outrageous claims about banning the Bible and the imposition of rigid gun control, among many other groundless assertions.

But the sad truth remains that Kerry lacked a distinctive, compelling message that would have separated him from Bush on the Iraq war. The Kerry position of trying to win the Iraq War by training troops from other nations was simply not credible, and was an attempt to avoid offending supporters of the war while sending a signal to his anti-war base. Moreover, Kerry should have elevated a set of class-based issues like outsourcing, pensions, and and healthcare far above the contrived social issues championed by the Republicans. But his Wall Street-based brain trust demanded that he stay away from attacking "benedict Arnold CEO's" and focusing his campaign on the war and inequality.

To get a better sense of how I analyzed the Kerry campaign, see my "Kansas, Conviction, the Future of the Democrats" which was a DU article in March, 2005 and reprinted on other sites as well.

Best, Roger Bybee.

[blm]

35. Did Bush? NO. What Bush had was a TEAM of spokespeople and RW journalists

who kept his fullofshit messages out there for him EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Kerry had a great message of being a stronger and safer America who worked WITH allies and stronger and safer because we work together TOWARDS energy independence, job security and healthcare for all.

What Kerry didn't have was an organized Dem party infrastructure and a left media that were able to counter the RW message machine.Left media is too full of egoists who want THEIR voice singled out and remarked upon as UNIQUE and clever while ignoring the most basic messages from the candidate they should have been supporting.

Kerry WON all his matchups with Bush. How did the DNC and the left media do?

The RW media could lie more effectively than the left can deliver the truth. Helps when you OWN the microphones and the newsroom's editting rooms.

[SoonerShankle]

36. While I agree that...

the Democratic Convention showed far more class than the Republican Convention, I do want to point out that entire sections of the book talks specifically about the media, about religion, and the war on terror.

If you don't like Carville and Begala, you can always opt not to read the book. But I do like to be one to read and hear what others of differing beliefs have to say on the issues even if I don't agree. It gives me a more complete overview of the issues. Just take for instance the following points from their chapter on the media.

C & B on the media:
1. Work the refs (i.e. respond to the media about their bias, write letters to the editor, circulate the media prejudice to others and gain their support, i.e. call them on it).

2. Support the Watchdogs (I am partial to FAIR, but C & B mention three of my faves, Eric Alterman (from The Nation and msnbc.com's Altercation Blog), David Brock (from mediamatters.org), and Bob Somerby (from dailyhowler.com). I always have my high school journalism students do an analysis of media watchdog groups, and they are always amazed that watchdogs are slanted too -- think aim.org, aka Accuracy in Media, a far right watchdog group compared to fair.org, the left's watchdog.
Watchdog Critiques Here's the URL incase the link doesn't go through--I sometimes have problems with it: http://www.utexas.edu/coc/journalism/SOURCE/j363/watchdogs.html
or google "media watchdog critiques" and it will be the top link.

3. Be a Populist, not an Elitist.

4. Engage on the Battlefield of Ideas.(C & B are big fans of the Center for American Progress, John Podesta's progressive think tank. They are also fans of liberals/progressives starting more think tanks to engage in developing ideas.)

5. Develop Our Own Echo Chamber. (C & B lavish praise on liberal talk radio and net-roots organizations -- "Net-roots activists are properly disgusted when D.C. Democrats cave in to corporate lobbyists on tax cuts, or on the new bankruptcy that screws the poor, or on cuts in programs that help the working poor lift themselves up to the middle class." (p. 225))

6. Challenge Corporate Concentration of the Media (I like this one best!The monopoly on ideas has got to end!If you want the scary info on this, just go to cjr.org's journalism tools for a list of who owns what corporate media owners

[WinterBybee]

37. Facing up to reality not same as demonizing

Dear SoonerShankle:
1) My point was not to express my personal like or dislike about Begala and Carville , but to confront the structural problems facing those of us who want to transform the Democratic Party into a fighting force for economic justice at home and a human-rights-based foreign policy.

If you don't think we face some serious problems, just consider Hillary Clinton's fundraiser with the ultra-odious Rupert Murdoch.

2) As you outline Carville & Begala's 6-point strategy on the media, it is obvious that this section is one of the book's best features. But while the book has some valuable components, it still leaves a major vacuum on the big ideas needed to weld together the party into a cohesive, powerful force to take on the corporate/Christian coalition.

Best, Roger Bybee

[SoonerShankle]

38. My point was directed more to...

Wisteria's comments rather than yours.

I do not believe that any one book will solve all the problems of the Democratic party. I see too much division in the party in my own local area to be content with the musings of one book. I would hope that readers don't just discount the good ideas in the book because they dislike James Carville and Paul Begala.

To build a cohesive message and a cohesive platform for the party is a massive undertaking when the party itself is divided. Finding ideas from many sources from both sides of the party is imperative as well -- at least if the party is to survive without dividing into a third party. And to be honest, I don't think Americans are quite ready for that. They had the chance in 2000, and resoundly stuck to the two party system. Does this mean it won't work in the future? No. But I tend to be for working with our brothers in arms, because we can agree on far more than we can disagree. Coming together, despite our differences is the only short-term way to deal with the "corporate/Christian coalition." While the "corporate/Christian coalition" may have power right now, their days are numbered. Just how long before more corruption scandals land the Ralph Reeds of our world in jail?

Most of the information in the book seems to target grassroots and the activist side of the party rather than the D.C. leaders. The way I read the book, was that it was up to us to pressure the D.C.ers, and then it was up to the D.C.ers to get their acts together in dealing with the right and the media and the corporate interests and moral values and ....

But it is just one book... and only two people's ideas. Let's see if we can add their ideas to a host of others in the near future.

[Name removed]

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