partisanship

A very simple but powerful reminder the other day from Open Left's Mike Lux:

Look, this should be obvious, but apparently it's not: when some big piece of our economy is really messed up, but some major corporate interest is making lots and lots of money off the system, if that corporate interest doesn't object to the "reform" being proposed, whatever legislation being proposed will not solve the actual problem. The 98-0 votes that folks like David Broder love and extol, the bipartisan bill signing ceremonies that thrill the hell out of everyone in DC - they don't actually solve or resolve anything important.

If Democrats take the easy path, and get that big bipartisan love fest on the White House lawn, health care will still be messed up in all the ways it's messed up now: health care costs (and the federal budget deficit) will still be spiraling up and up, the number of uninsured will keep going up as well, people who lose their jobs or have pre-existing conditions will still be priced out of the ability to get insurance. And instead of congratulating us for our great bipartisan compromise, voters will be pissed. President Obama and Congressional Democrats need to grit their teeth and stick to the business of comprehensive reform. It will make the insurance companies, and the Republicans, really mad. But failing to actually solve the problem AGAIN is a train wreck. Stick with it, folks, put your noses to the grindstone, and do what needs to be done.

Emphasis is mine. I think this piece of writing is interesting, especially when eyed through the lens of generational traits.

Scholars usually see millennials as resisting ideology in politics. Their parents -- the boomers -- make up a generation usually identified as the stubborn, "prophet" generation, championing a values-driven politics to the utmost degree. Millennials, on the other hand, are driven to finding the consensus opinion on issues. This might lead you to think that the latter would be demanding bipartisan discussions and consequently resist anything that would not be agreeable to the inside-the-Beltway-based punditry, Blue Dog Democrats, and/or the GOP.

But that isn't happening. Winograd and Hais explain why:

Millennials are not interested in letting ideological posturing stand in the way of "getting stuff done," as Obama likes to say, especially in an area as crucial as health care. Like the members of other generations, virtually all Millennials (90%) believe that it is time that health care is made more accessible and affordable for all Americans. However, only a third of Millennials, in contrast to about half of those in older generations, are concerned about the impact of greater governmental involvement in the health care system (36% vs. 47%). And, Millennials are far less likely than older generations to prefer once again deferring health care reform to avoid higher taxes or larger deficits.

The millennial value of problem-solving trumps collaboration here. The concerns that the pundits, Blue Dogs, and the GOP continue to raise (that government would be doing too much and have too much control over our lives should a public option be included) simply aren't concerns for today's youth. Millennials have always championed government activism if it means improving quality of life. And so, to us, any call for compromise based on a fear of too much government isn't going to get much credence.

The bottom line is that Health Care Reform with a public option is good policy, and it's what America needs now. Echoing Lux's point above, you can be sure that if the insurance industry is opposed to anything in this debate, it's probably a positive thing for the common good (including young people).

"But do you want to be non-partisan and get nothing? Or do you want to be partisan and end up with a good health care plan? That is the choice." -- Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Charleston Gazette, 6/25/2009

Sen. Rockefeller's framing of the choice should be instructive for his fellow Democratic senators (whether they listen is surely up in the air).

In a way, the problem Rockefeller speaks of here is the opposite of something we often see among our lawmakers. Usually, lawmakers refuse to cooperate, often turning the process into an ideological battle that holds good policy hostage, resulting in little progress. Unfortunately, since we've gotten control of the Congress in 2006, Democrats are obsessed with making sure the GOP is happy with any legislative victories we might achieve. Yet, Republicans couldn't care less about what Democrats feel. So we face a different outcome, though still frustrating -- policy IS passed, but it's nothing but mush, or Republican-lite.

Here we are, debating health care, faced with yet another opportunity to pass critical and historic legislation, this time with a Democratic president in the White House, and too many Democrats are afraid of hurting the Republicans' feelings.

Repeat after me: PARTISANSHIP IS NOT A BAD THING. Yes, the arguing and ideological tactics can produce a toxic political process. But just as well, empty legislation can produce toxic policy, still leaving millions of Americans without health insurance, while handing the GOP a bone. The fact remains that Democrats have nearly 60 percent of the seats in both chambers, having won the majority of congressional races in 2008 despite the Republicans' frequent attempts at linking the party and its presidential candidate with socialism. The presidential candidate ran on "change" and won. People want to see something different.

What's more, the American people in poll after poll trust the Democrats to handle nearly all issues, with health care being one of the issues the public trusts Democrats with the most. A large Washington Post poll released this week produces similar results, though the poll pits Obama against the Congressional Republicans instead of both parties. Obama won big. Borrowing from Greg Sargent's post on the Post's poll at The Plum Line:

• On health care, 51% of indys trust Obama, and 26% trust GOPers in Congress.
• On the economy, 51% of indys trust Obama, and 31% trust the GOP.
• On the budget deficit, 52% of indys trust Obama, and 30% trust the GOP.

Even though Barack Obama is on record as supporting a public option as a part of health reform, the majority of independent voters still support him -- twice as many than the number supporting Republicans.

Youth are relying on the Democratic Party to produce some results after supporting them by a 2-1 ratio in 2008. We're waiting for good policy (read - health reform WITH a public option) that's passed and signed into law because we WANT and NEED it to be passed, not because we want to make sure the Republicans aren't mad and don't hold a grudge.

If the GOP wants to work with Democrats in good faith, fine. If not, Democrats have marching orders from Americans. And they don't include kissing the feet of the GOP.

While President Obama's inauguration was an obvious sign this week that the country will be getting more progressive in the coming years, there was some quiet foreshadowing accompanying the festivities that bore witness to just how progressive the nation can be.

In the 2008 CIRP (Cooperative Institutional Research Program) Freshman Survey, an annual survey of the nation's incoming college students administered by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA, respondents identified themselves as "liberals" at a rate not seen in several decades. But, as we know, they're not sitting on the political sidelines -- far from it. This group of freshmen is more politically engaged than any other freshman class in the last 40 years.

From the survey's website:

College freshman [sic] are more politically engaged today than at any point during the last 40 years, with 89.5 percent reporting that they frequently or occasionally discussed politics in the last year, according to UCLA's annual survey of the nation's entering students at four-year institutions.

The portion of incoming freshmen who frequently discussed politics in the last year - 35.6 percent - surpasses the 33.6 percent level recorded in 1968, itself a 40-year high mark of student political engagement. The 2008 level was also higher than in other recent presidential election years, including 1992 (29.7 percent), when Bill Clinton was elected, the survey found.

[...]

An increase was also seen in the proportion of students who characterize themselves as liberal, which reached its highest level in 35 years in 2008, at 31.0 percent. The percentage of incoming students who characterize themselves as politically middle-of-the-road, however, has seen a steady decline and in 2008 reached an all-time low of 43.3 percent, roughly the same percentage as in 1970. One in five students (20.7 percent) identified themselves as conservative in 2008, down from 23.1 percent in 2007.

These numbers seem to indicate that parties are headed toward another golden age. The "party period" in American history sets the standard:

The period from 1840 to 1890 has been labeled "the party period" and "the golden age of parties" because the major political parties (Democrats and Whigs until the mid-1850s, then Democrats and Republicans) were the strongest they have been in American history. Party leaders used patronage and campaign practices that aroused partisan enthusiasm to gain wide membership and keep them loyal and active. It worked. Voter turnout during this period was the highest in American history: between 70 and 80 percent for presidential elections and sometimes higher in state and local contests.

Throughout history, we've learned that increased polarization leads to increased participation. While this particular survey only includes college students, history has proven the survey's accuracy in representing political trends over the years. And so, with polarization and engagement up big among the young people questioned in this survey, political participation should stay sky-high for quite some time, given polarization's connection with participation and the stickiness of youth voting habits.

However, we can't solely rely on trends to be successful at shaping the future electorate. And this is where Tim Kaine's chairmanship becomes so important. The "Party Period" described above was crafted by political machines, or local parties on steroids. In order to cultivate the partisanship that breeds participation, Tip O'Neill's localism was channeled from the future. Community picnics, socials, and rallies were prevalent, all organized by the local party. Politics invaded many areas of everyday life; many citizens couldn't avoid it even if they wanted to -- and they didn't. Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy, while certainly not a machine, made the Democratic Party more tangible to people. Suddenly Democrats were being locally organized everywhere, and whether citizens agreed with them or not, they couldn't keep these newcomers from increasing the amount of political rhetoric and debate in their communities. Consequently, many more people were forced to process political ideas, leading to some sort of political identification that wouldn't have been there prior to Dean's chairmanship.

With the party four years into a transformational strategy and with a titanic generation sympathizing with liberalism at a record rate, the stage is set for the Democratic Party to define politics for a generation. But the party needs to milk this trend for all that it's worth. Dean's localism should be strengthened, incorporating increasing numbers of people into the party by becoming socially active, whether it's through volunteer work, sponsoring community events, maintaining a presence at as many small-town fairs and parades as possible, and of course, continuing to allocate dollars to regional parties that atrophied during the last third of the 20th Century.

Finally, Democrats (especially the Obama administration) need to avoid at all costs the idea that youth should be relegated to service; youth should be heavily involved in the party's strategic planning and day-to-day operations. More on that to come soon.

Some Sunday reading:

• The New York Times reports that President Obama may have to give up his blackberry. It certainly is nice to have a technologically-engaged president in the White House who is at least pushing the envelope on these issues.
• Meanwhile, Obama's not procrastinating at staffing his White House. Some more roles have been filled today.
• An examination of young voters' preoccupation with merit and what that meant in the Minnesota senate race.
• A panel discussion on "Generation We" will be held tomorrow at Noon at the First Amendment Lounge at the National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor, in Washington, DC. Sponsored by Eric Greenberg, author of the book "Generation We: How Millennial Youth Are Taking Over America And Changing Our World Forever," and moderated by The Politico's Ben Adler, the panel will include the following confirmed panelists: Ruy Teixeira, Senior Fellow at both The Century Foundation and American Progress, who will present new findings on the youth vote this election cycle; Alexandra Acker, national executive director of Young Democrats of America; Michael Moschella, director of outreach at the Truman National Security Project; and Kat Barr, political outreach director at Rock the Vote.
• Bruce E. Cain, a professor at UC Berkeley, offers his thoughts on the GOP's demographics problems. He discusses youth and their current politics and nails it:
  

  Finally, there is the new generation. Even before this election, the Generation Y kids were participating in public life at higher levels than their Generation X predecessors. What strikes me as I read their resumes and talk to them at the university is that they are more service-oriented (partly because community service is a requirement at many schools), technologically oriented (they have been running computers and electronics for their parents for years) and world-savvy (they intern as a way of testing out the world). Generation X was the "me" generation; Y seems to be the "us" cohort. Republicans may want to think about what that means for them.

• An examination of the new electorate in American politics.
• The Nation has a "You Voted. Now What?" post-election guide for young voters on how to stay engaged. Check it out.
• Young Australians are also politically engaged at record levels.
• "Liberal" just isn't pejorative with young voters. Deal with it.

At Newsweek, Anna Quindlen writes about the youth vote and produces a succinct explanation of shifts we are seeing this year and their long-term implications:

The bottom line is that the net effect of young people's enthusiasm about Obama is likely to outstrip his candidacy. There's data suggesting that once people vote they will vote again, making it a civic habit, and that party affiliation tends to remain unchanged from a relatively early age. The young Democrats voting today will be the middle-aged Democrats voting tomorrow. As Norman Ornstein wrote more than 20 years ago, the party that secures the youth vote secures the power for the next generation.

Hell yes. This is what I've been writing about for over two years now, beginning with this piece, one of my first to make the front page of MyDD: The First of Many Thirds.

What Quindlen is referring to is research suggesting that partisanship is a habit (pdf) that forms early in life, usually during the first three major elections in which someone votes. From 2004 - 2008, young voters have increasingly chosen the Democratic Party over the GOP. Tuesday may mark the day when the Democratic Party first began to lock-in permanently the partisan allegiance of America's largest generation.

But the work doesn't stop there. In fact, it never stops. There are always more young people who will need to be brought into the political process. After Obama's success in engaging young voters this cycle, I hope to see Quindlen's words become a mantra for future campaigns, local candidates, and state parties alike.

A story in The New York Times notes that drastic changes in the partisan make-up of the voter rolls bodes well for Democrats this year and may produce - dare we say it - a political realignment.

In several states, including the traditional battlegrounds of Nevada and Iowa, Democrats have surprised their own party officials with significant gains in registration. In both of those states, there are now more registered Democrats than Republicans, a flip from 2004. No states have switched to the Republicans over the same period, according to data from 26 of the 29 states in which voters register by party. (Three of the states did not have complete data.)

In six states, including Iowa, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, the Democratic piece of the registration pie grew more than three percentage points, while the Republican share declined. In only three states — Kentucky, Louisiana and Oklahoma — did Republican registration rise while Democratic registration fell, but the Republican increase was less than a percentage point in Kentucky and Oklahoma. Louisiana was the only state to register a gain of more than one percentage point for Republicans as Democratic numbers declined.

What's happening here? A number of things, according to the article. First, there is an increase in Democratic registrations, but more significantly, there is a huge decrease in Republican registrations (and a corresponding increase in "independent" registrations). These changes are already having an impact up and down the ticket:

In the 26 states and the District of Columbia where registration data were available, the total number of registered Democrats increased by 214,656, while the number of Republicans fell by 1,407,971.

The unsettled political ground has manifested itself in state and local elections. Twenty-three state legislatures are controlled by Democrats and 14 by Republicans, with 12 states with divided chambers (Nebraska has a nonpartisan legislature). After the 2000 election, 16 state legislatures were dominated by Democrats, and 17 by Republicans, with 16 divided.

It is a similar story in governors’ mansions. After the 2004 election, there were 28 Republican governors and 22 Democrats; those numbers are now reversed. After the 2000 election, there were only 19 Democratic governors.

Young people are playing a roll as well, and it's great to see a major political story get the story right - this is about more than excitement over Obama's candidacy:

In many states, Democrats have benefited from a rise in younger potential voters, after declines or small increases in the number of those voters in the 1980s and ’90s. The population of 18- to 24-year-olds rose from about 27 million in 2000 to nearly 30 million in 2006, according to Census figures.

Mr. Obama’s candidacy has drawn many young people to register to vote, and some of the recent gains by Democrats have no doubt been influenced by excitement over his campaign. But even before Mr. Obama’s ascendancy among Democrats, younger voters were moving toward the Democratic Party, demographers said.

Dowell Myers, a professor of policy, planning and development at the University of Southern California, also noted that a younger, native-born generation of Latinos who have a tendency to support Democrats is coming of age.

Further, young Americans have migrated in recent years to high-growth states that have traditionally been dominated by Republicans, like Arizona, Colorado and Nevada, which may have had an impact on the changing registration numbers in those places.

This is all great news, but one word of caution. Let's remember that the vast majority of these new young voters are college students. There's still a lot of work to do registering non-college students. These numbers should be a lot higher come October.

Still no word on data from CIRCLE . . . sorry. Waiting on them for my post-election recap.

• Rolling Stone skewers the Senate in The Senate Caves.
• Peter Levine - Director of CIRCLE - splashes some cold water on the idea that party identification forms early and hardens for life. Yikes, let's hope not.
• In the past I've had real disagreements with Courtney Martin's reading of today's youth activism, but she does us all proud in this op-ed for the Women's Media Center.
• The RNC tried to pull ahead of the DNC in the race for Facebook friends. It backfired hilariously. Full story at Tech President.
• Campaigns and Elections has released a list of Rising Stars Under 35. A few are familiar. Most are not. What do you think of the list?
• Apparently, in his quest to craft a "better" GI Bill than the one offered (and recently passed) by Jim Webb, John McCain didn't actually consult many veterans. You stay classy, McCain.

I'm a partisan. I confess, the reason I've been an Edwards rather than an Obama supporter is that I believe there are real differences between the parties, that those differences matter, and that there can be no bipartishanship when the other party operates in bad faith, as the GOP has for the last 7 years.

So I found this opinion piece by Stanley Fish in today's New York Times to hit the nail on the head (and bear in mind that I write this as a New Yorker who voted for Nader in 2000

Against Independent Voters:

Floating independently above the fray and inhabiting the marketplace of ideas as if were a shopping bazaar rather than a battlefield is an unnatural condition. The natural condition is to be political. To be political is to believe something, and to believe something is to believe that those who believe something else are wrong, and after all you don’t want people who believe (and would do) the wrong things running your government. So you organize with other like-minded folks and smite the enemy (verbally) hip and thigh. You join a party.

What do independent voters do? Well, most of all, they talk about the virtue of being an independent voter. When they are asked to explain what that means, they say, “I can’t stand the partisan atmosphere that has infected our politics” (forgetting that politics is partisan by definition); or “we like to make up our own minds and don’t want anyone telling us what to do (as if Democrats and Republicans were sheep eager to go over whatever cliff the leadership brings them to) or (and this was a favorite of those interviewed in Iowa and New Hampshire), “We vote the person rather than the party.”

Now, voting the person rather than the party is about the dumbest thing you can do for a reason I elaborated in an earlier column (“Parties Matter”). The party affiliation of a candidate tells you what kind of appointments he or she is likely to make. Do you think that regulations of industry stifle productivity and damage the economy, or do you think that unregulated industries endanger the environment? Do you think that illegal immigrants are just that – illegal – and therefore should be deported when detected, or do you think that we should figure out a way to legitimize their status and make the best of what has already happened? Do you think that Iran poses a threat that must be countered before it is too late, or do you think that military action should be resorted to only after every avenue of diplomacy has been exhausted, even if it takes years or decades?

If you feel strongly about these and other matters, it is incumbent upon you to take into consideration the positions of the two major parties, for the successful candidate can be counted on to appoint to the offices responsible for answering these questions men and women whose views reflect the party’s platform.

Read the whole thing. I'm not asking anyone to change their vote, but I would like "post-partisans" to at least think about why partisanship in and of itself can be important and not evil in-itself.

Matt Singer is the CEO of Forward Montana, a home-grown non-profit that trains, mobilizes, and elects new progressive leaders in Montana. This isn't his assigned guest-posting topic, but he can't help himself.

The New York Times has a new poll of young voters available. The poll was done in partnership with CBS and MTV.

Some of the news is wholly unsurprising. Young voters "are more likely than the general public to favor a government-run universal health care insurance system, an open-door policy on immigration and the legalization of gay marriage." In other words, we're all a bunch of dirty, f*cking hippies.

Until you read the next sentence: "The poll also found that they are more likely to say the war in Iraq is heading to a successful conclusion."

wHa?!?!?

Cross posted at MyDD and DailyKos. Recs. appreciated.

The Democratic Strategist has an interesting piece in this month's issue on how the Democrats can capture the partisanship of the "MySpace Generation."

From an historical standpoint, its a great article. Lots of information about partisan ID of young voters between 1976 and 2006. Watching the youth vote swing from Democrat, to heavy Republican, and back again is fascinating (yes - in the 1980's, the Republicans owned the youth vote). It also reiterates a few key points that have been made before on Future Majority:

• Most political activity by youth comes through contact with nonprofits, not the Democratic Party
• A lot of the progressive swing we are seeing among young voters is do to Bush and the war, and may evaporate post 2008. There is no Millennial Ideology with which Democrats can forge a longterm connection with young voters.
• We are approaching the first of many thirds, but partisanship is not yet a lock, even among this first wave of Millennials. This is a rolling process that must continue beyond any one election.

At the end of the article, the authors pose a series of questions asking how Democrats can reach out to and capture the partisanship of the Millennial Generation. Here are my answers to those questions, as well as a question of my own that I pose to the authors: