- Tom

GSD @ 26

kathleen @ 18

Four years ago I knew I was in trouble when Pat Buchanan started sounding like he was in the middle.

It is funny but I felt the same way. I remember reading Buchanan in the 80’s on the op-ed pages of the Manchester Union Leader and he seemed so far to the right he was scary…

Nowadays he sounds like a moderate centrist on many issues when compared to the Bill Kristols, Michael Savages and Michelle Malkins of the day.

-GSD

We,ve gone a long way in the wrong direction sense then…

Pat Buchanan hasn’t changed at all. He’s still the extreme right wing populist nationalist he’s always been. What you’re hearing nowadays are the beefs he has with the neoconservatives. He’s an isolationist, and they aren’t.

Is there a higher power than Rove?

Though fired by (for being caught?) Papa Turd, there would be Papa Turd, who is part and parcel of Council of Foreign Relations which in turn is controlled by The stellar big money families (Rockefellers, Morgans, Mellons, etc.). Read America Rules by Tom Hannahoe, obtainable through http://www.amazon.co.uk

Terribly EPU’d, by multi-time zones

Seems to me it’s not the center that’s disappeared: there is no Left. Conservatives have moved the discourse very far to the right while simultaneously attacking “liberals” who had to move to the center or be defined by the Great Right Wing Noise Machine as “the far left fringe.” The Left represents stuff like socialism (gasp!): that’s strictly off-limits in today’s media atmosphere. (Maybe because the media are controlled by large-monied interests, ie, capitalists?)

Being loving and supportive, as Dems tend to be, can help bring more people to the polls, but don’t expect much more than that.

(Slightly O/T):

A horse is a horse, of course, of course...

The secretary for Monica Goodling’s lawyer moonlighted as an escort for the D.C. madam.

Oh SWEET Justice!!!!!

I can’t wait till it comes out that the ReThuggery Wimmen’s used the same services, too . . . . ya NEVER get to hear racy tales of ReThug Lesbian Lust!!!! And you KNOW, it’s out there.

Getting them outed will pretty much wipe out the Family Values Joke options, and kill the theo’s.

Be nice to find, they are just like the REST of american and the world!!! NORMAL!

Let’s face it — most who read this and other progressive blogs are people who vote in virtually every election. We are high-information voters — know the issues, and understand process and how candidate choices might impact those issues.

Let’s be honest — we don’t know a whole lot about younger non-voting women — so what needs to be done is to study this part of the population, try to find out what would motivate greater information gathering followed by a response of registering and voting Democrat.

We don’t need this information universally, but we do need to get good information about various demographic indicators. Rural/Urban/Suburban, 4 year college/voc-tech 2 year program/High School only/didn’t finish High School. Lives at parents home/lives independently. Income levels.

Then we need to know something about alienation from existing politics — what kind of Campaign presentations turn off or disinterest this group. What issues do they believe should be addressed that would interest them? Do they have a sense of what is a political issue and what is not something that can be addressed politically? There are more questions — but this is a start.

I think we should talk to Howard Dean about putting together a small study of this sort — find some good Democratic Sociologists who could design the study, design an interview schedule, and then perhaps train and use women in College Democrats to actually do the interviews. It does not have to be a national study — in fact it should be done in a selection of states where we already are developing good data bases, and where we can find professional volunteers who could process and do an analysis of the data. Then state parties where we really need these votes can construct a more intelligent outreach campaign that is finely concentrated on this under represented voter pool. If I were selecting states right now, I would look at the purple ones — Ohio, Virginia, maybe Kentucky, West Virginia, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado.

To be effective, we have to know why these women do not participate in politics — and we need to be honest and recognize we don’t know. It may be that assumptions we make in campaign design actually turn this group off.

We also don’t know how to organize among them, do we? My guess is we have to find people recognizable as part of this group to take up the organizational work. We may need several strategies — the same approach to Urban non voting women may be inappropriate to Rural non voting women. I suspect many in this group are single mom’s raising children alone — what are our candidates across the ticket saying that might attract these women? I doubt if family values talk attracts them if it is presented in Ozzie and Harriet terms — and if they decided to have a child alone, they would be turned off by Reproductive Choice talk. But discussion of Day Care, Health Care for Kids, and Family Leave might be very salient. In otherwords, if we don’t understand this culture — or set of sub-cultures, we aren’t going to get the message right.

I think Howard Dean is savey enough that he would see the point of this, but could also see how it should be “spun off” to an independent group to research the potential voter segments. Then it would be just appropriate to organize within targeted states, the approach to outreach. It might also be necessary to connect with Campaign officials so as to help them understand how to focus the message.

But right now we need to understand that as activist bloggers and voters — we really don’t know this population well — and if we want to mine it as a source of potential voters, we need to learn why they are turned off politics.

. . . . Ledeen’s recent stool sample turned up with large amounts of brain tissue…..Ledeen is one warmongering son of neo-con.

-GSD

In keeping with the John Wayne imaging:

“The Sons Of Leo Strauss”

Three more indictments – these of current, not former AK legislators – rumored to be coming out any minute. One, Vic Kohring (Corrupt Bastards’ Club – R – Wasilla), is a longtime adversary and friend. Friday afternoon legislator dump…

tip of the iceberg.

TPM is ALL over this. Check them out.