Kos Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Pundit
Newsweek has a Q & A with our ol’ buddy Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos fame on the 2006 races. Some excerpts, along with some helpful translation for those not familiar with Kosspeak:
NEWSWEEK: What will be hottest political contest of 2006?
Markos Moulitsas Zúniga: The Pennsylvania Senate race between incumbent Rick Santorum and Bob Casey Jr. Santorum is an extremely conservative senator in a state that’s not as conservative as he is. And the Democrats have what may be the most popular politician in the entire state, who is the son of a man who was possibly the state’s most popular politician ever. Casey is trouncing Santorum in the polls. Santorum is raising a lot of money because the grass-roots religious right groups love him, but the Republican Party is more likely to write him off. He’s in serious peril.
Translation: I’m going to ignore your question, and take a shot at Rick Santorum, who, according to my own analysis, is getting trounced.
NEWSWEEK: Tom DeLay, the Republican congressman from Texas, is running for re-election while fighting off an indictment for money laundering. How is that race looking?
Kos: DeLay is a power-hungry individual. Even now, when he’s no longer [House] majority leader, he’s still essentially pulling the strings. I don’t think DeLay is going anywhere, but he is under a lot of pressure from multiple sources. Obviously, he’s got the [Travis County District Attorney] Ronnie Earle indictment against him to worry about, but he’s also got the [indicted lobbyist Jack] Abramoff investigation nipping at his heels. I think the Abramoff stuff is going to be more damaging to him legally.
Translation: The Earle indictment is bogus and DeLay will walk.
NEWSWEEK: Do you think the Democrats can win back the majority in either the House or the Senate?
Kos: I think Democrats will make gains, but it’s 2008 we need to think about. I’m hoping that as we build our machine and repair the Democratic brand, people will start voting for Democrats because they want to vote for Democrats and not just because they want to vote against Republicans.
Translation: No.
NEWSWEEK: Looking forward to 2008, what do you think of Hillary Clinton’s presidential chances?
Kos: The person to watch on the Democratic side for president is not Hillary Clinton, but [former Virginia governor] Mark Warner. He showed that not only could he win in Virginia, a Red State, but he had the coattails to help his successor win. He is one of the most popular governors in Virginia history—he has a 70 or 80 percent approval rating. He’ll be the anti-Hillary. Hillary is at the top now because of name recognition. She’s where Joe Lieberman was last time [in the 2004 Democratic presidential primary]. Her advisers span the entire spectrum of the party, and that seems like a good thing for coalition-building, but as soon as the campaign hits some rocky shores it’s all going to bust out in infighting. Ask me what Hillary Clinton’s position on the war is, and I still can’t tell you. She has every position. John Kerry had the same problem. Voters look at that and say she’s taking every position, so in other words, she stands for nothing—that’s why “NetRoots” don’t like Hillary.
Translation: Hillary has taken a principled stand on the war, but it doesn’t match mine, so I pretend to be confused about where she stands. Also, I really hate Joe Lieberman.
NEWSWEEK: It looks like GOP Sen. John McCain is planning another run for the presidency.
Kos: McCain is definitely running, but I don’t think he’ll get out of the Republican primaries. He’s hated by the GOP. They consider him a traitor on any number of issues. He fought the White House on the torture issue. He’s like the Joe Lieberman of their party. We [Democrats] hate Lieberman. Lieberman is going to get a primary challenger for his Senate seat next year if me and a lot of grass-roots groups have our way.
Translation: Did I mention I hate Joe Lieberman?…
Newsweek interviewing Kos – sounds like the definition of an echo chamber here.
He slams Hillary for not having a defined position on the war (never mind that I think it’s a lot more defined than he seems to believe, but we’ll go with his theory for now). If this is such an Achilles’ Heel, why does he have such love for Mark Warner? I very well might be wrong, but I haven’t heard Warner opining much about the Iraq War.
This whole “Warner can win a red state” argument is the same thinking that led to “John Kerry served in Vietnam, therefore no one will have nation security qualms about him because they’ll be mesmerized by his shiny medals.” It’s all about nakedly obvious tactics and not about the ideas behind hawkish and dovish positions that lead people to actually vote a certain way.
There was a recent episode of The West Wing where Josh, the campaign manager for the Santos campaign, made some reference to the fact the Democrats poll weakly on national security. All the underlings seemed to befuddled by this news, but he wrote it off with a comment along the lines of “Yeah, I know it’s ridiculous, but it’s something we’ve got to deal with.” Now aside from the dopiness of Democratic professionals being shocked to find this out, I was most intrigued by the notion that such a polling weakness is just crazy, and addressing why there might be a weakness wasn’t important. Instead, it was time to roll out the cheap stunts. Make sure Santos is seen doing his weekend Air Force Reserve training, looking macho in his flight suit!
Considering the Democrats are quick to mock President Bush for his martial show-pony tactics like landing on an aircraft carrier, they seem strikingly determined to do the same thing (Let’s stick Dukakis in a tank! Let’s have Kerry salute!). Until they get beyond this kind of tone-deaf approach, this kind of “Gosh, Warner threw some mysterious magic dust we don’t understand in the faces of red staters, so let’s support him” approach, they’ll continue to have trouble getting voters to choose them if national security remains an issue.
Dennis-
For the West Wingers and much of the national party, that’s true. But if they genuinely nominate a true GOP-state democrat, their nominee will bring quite a bit of understanding.
In general, I think West Wing is fascinating — it’s very well written, and the assumptions and errors are themselves fascinating insights into the other side of the political spectrum. One of the more jarringly inaccurate scenes, which seems relevant here, was when President Bartlett was talking with his VP — a Texas democrat who is, among other things, against gun control. Bartlett asks Hoynes why on Earth anyone would be in favor of concealed-carry laws, and Hoynes admits that he has no idea why anyone would think that concealed weapons have any value as a deterrent to crime. It seems very unlikely to me that there’s any major politician in Texas who doesn’t at least know what the argument on this issue looks like, even if he or she doesn’t agree with it.
If the Democrats really do nominate a GOP-state democrat, like Governor Warner, he won’t be Alan Sorkin’s version of a conservative democrat — he’ll bring along an actual understanding of conservative voters and their issues and values. Evan Bayh actually does understand midwestern voters, and Mark Warner actually does understand southern voters, in a way that a California or Massachusetts politician probably doesn’t.
Thinking that most Americans would buy Kerry as strong on defense because he served was a deep miscalculation — a geographic electoral strategy probably wouldn’t be, so long as Bayh or Warner doesn’t have to swerve too far to the left to get the nomination. And it could work even if Kos-types and Sorkin-types support one of them for all the wrong reasons.
I was expecting that the left wing would feel disgusted with “electability” arguments this time round, given the failure of the “electable” Kerry, and that they’d go for a “true believer” instead. That Kos is supportive of Warner at this point is interesting.
[...] If we know one thing about our good friend Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, it’s that he hates Joe Lieberman…I mean seriously, with a passion. Why, he said so himself: We [Democrats] hate Lieberman. Lieberman is going to get a primary challenger for his Senate seat next year if me and a lot of grass-roots groups have our way. If there’s a second thing we know, it’s that the candidates Markos supports have never, and never will, win an election. [...]