Low Democratic poll #s have LITTLE to do with current Dem Leaders

[Stinky The Clown]

I posted this in reply to another thread, but on following that thread, see this as a whole different view of the basis for any low Democratic Party poll numbers. Instead, consider that it might be a legacy we have to live with ... and overcome.

The title of this thread says our current leaders have little to do with our low polls. That's not entirely consistent with my hypothesis. If one holds the hypothesis to be true, then one could conclude that our current leaders are not effective in countering the 'legacy' we've been saddled with.

Am I just nuts to think this or is it a theory with some merit?

Anyway, here's what I posted in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2615254

It has very little to do with any of the current crop of leaders and spokesmodels for our side and everything to do with long-hammered, and now long-held, perceptions of Democrats in general.

It goes back (at least) the Viet Nam War era, really, when my generation was coming of age. The divide then was almost as wide as it is now. Not as wide as now, in my opinion, but nearly so. In any case, that divide had the 'clean-cut' people with a more or less 50s life view and the 'hippies' with a more or less liberal life view. Neither group was monolithic, but the lefties - the 'hippies' - far less monolithic than the others. The whole group of groups on that side were easy to identify - long hair, love beads, love-ins, smoke-ins, be-ins. Many saw them as self-indulgent and amoral, at best, immoral at worst. And most of them were on the left. Charles manson conflated with Jane Fonda conflated with John Kerry conflated with George McGovern conflated with Abby Hoffman conflated with my next door neighbor, innocent, really, wearing her sandals, love beads, peace symbol button and a picture of Ringo on her collar. All conflated by the reverse telescope effect of long ago memories. All conflated to ...... Democrats.

Fast forward to Reagan. America Love it or Leave it. Blue collar, former Democrats went with Reagan, the Great Throwback to the 50s. Hard hat steel workers sitting on I-beams four stories above 6th Avenue catcalling sexual profanities at the hippie chicks walking by and throwing lunch wrappers on the long haired man in a tiedye t-shirt, laughing all the time as they did it. The start of family values. The demonization of the word 'liberal'. This attitude was built on the foundation from two decades earlier. Weak, wussy, immoral liberals were the enemy. This brought the racists and other misbegottens to the right. In an unholy alliance with the religiously insane who were just getting their footing back then. The 700 Club was all the rage and was even seen, for a short time, as an alternative to Johnny Carson.

Eight years of Reagan. Four years of Bush. Then Clinton. The embodiment of all that was culturally 'evil' from the 60s was now at the height of power. A saxophone and briefs on Arsenio. His 65 Mustang convertible back in Little Rock. His 'hippie' wife. Oxford and Russia and never inhaling. Talk about fomenting hate among haters. That galvanized all the disparate groups on the right into the more or less monolithic bloc we saw when Clinton went through his agony in what was to be our rock opera based on the story of Gethsemane.

Junior came to the scene as the 'clean cut', 50s icon, Richie Cunningham type kid from the early hippie era, all grown up. Everyone wanted to be his Fonzie. Sure, he wasn't what he purported himself to be and sure, they packaged him differently, but that was the underlying subtext. The antihippie. The counter - the remedy - to the counterculture all grown up and still immoral.

Over the 40-some years since the start of this, popular culture absorbed and played out this essential yin and yang. Movies. Teevee shows. Race relations. Big government vs no government. John Birch vs Karl Marx. Slim Pickins riding the missile at the end of Dr. Strangelove. Archie Bunker and Alex Keaton. The Big Chill and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. M.A.S.H. The Movie and M.A.S.H. the teevee show. It all played out. And it all reinforced what were already old and tired stereotypes.

But they stuck.

And here we are. Today. Cultural bias working against us.

I think the pendulum is coming back to the low point, just before it arcs up gracefully ........

......... to the left.







..... and isn't it funny? At the end of this nearly half century epic, we're the ones who have proven out to be moral. We're the ones who have proven out to be patriots. We're the ones who have proven out to be .... right.

For people of my age, now is the time to claim the legacy we built. To DEMAND it, goddam it.

For our kids ...... build on what we've given you. We haven't made it perfect. But that foundation from 40 years ago? Tear down that hideous gargoyle *they*ve built on it and build a shining new castle. You'll do your parents proud.

As you always do.

[Bandit]

1. A good analysis

Especially your "start of family values" line. I think Liberals just felt they were a strong majority and nothing would ever change that. They are shocked to the core that their values were no longer America's values. Liberals who valued respect, peace, and love, compared to Conservative values of me me me me me me me me and fuck everyone else...

[mike_c]

2. hmmm-- not sure I agree with the central premise that current leaders...

...are not responsible for their own problems, but beyond that it's especially hard to swallow that anyone is still fighting the culture wars of the sixties. Maybe it's because I live in such a liberal area of the country, but even here the community is relatively polarized along liberal and conservative lines, it's just that liberalism is well respected by most.

Anyway, your premise that there is a deep negative cultural connotation attached to the democratic party because it became associated with the sixties counterculture movement, the antiwar movement, and with "hippies" strikes me as over simplistic. However, by the same token one might argue that the Republican party represents greedy industrialists, slumlords, heavyhanded gunboat diplomacy, police cracking heads, personal repression and social oppression, and so on-- hmmm, that sounds pretty accurate.... Maybe you're on to something after all.

Still, many democrats and other liberals are angry with dems in congress too, and it's hard to explain their anger as cultural bias against hippies. I'm surrounded by the remnants of the sixties counterculture and its modern spawn-- that's the baseline social norm for me-- so again, it's difficult for me to see that movement inspiring much cultural disdain, and having been a part of it myself, I can understand some of the self-indulgence that transpired.

[Stinky The Clown]

4. mike, you're right in using the term 'simplistic' .......

.... in fact, it *is* simplistic as I set it out. As simplistic your self-described simplistic overview of the right. But both simplifications are also excellent summaries of where we are today. And yes, I *do* think this is continuation of the 60s culture wars. Morphed, matured, and in some cases on tangent or parallel tracks, but a continuation nonetheless.

As racism is as much inherited as learned anew, so is the culture war ... and on which side of it one finds oneself. Out your way, and nearly to the same degree back east here, liberalism and the matured counterculture of the 60s have become an accepted and in many ways respected life view. But in other parts of the country (I've lived in Ohio, both Carolinas, and both East and West Tennessee) not so much.

[Supersedeas]

11. yep, i'm with you on this one mike

[welshTerrier2]

3. agree and disagree

Kerry is in the mid twenties in one recent poll ... Gore? mid twenties ... Congress overall? mid twenties ... bush? 31 ... he's actually doing better according to this spin than most of the others ... it's bullshit ... the polls are right but as you stated, they're based on hype, spin and nonsense and not on the merits ...

but still there is a very dangerous situation brewing for Democrats ... i worry they just don't hear the message ... the public is sick of bush because they're sick of the problems ... that bodes well for Dems as an alternative ...

BUT, and it's a big BUT, "feeling good" about bush's low poll numbers places too much dependence on the Dems being able to nationalize the election in November ... the idea would be that Dem X versus republican Y won't matter as much as the fact that Dem X isn't in bush's party ... i worry that's a long shot strategy ... you have to win on the merits ... all politics are local ... and far too often, the campaign doesn't really focus on meaningful issues ... this guy cheated on his wife; that guy got campaign money from abortionists - it's all crap ...

STILL, Democrats should be able to push at least some of the national Party's themes down to local races ... and here's where the Dems are not doing well at all ... it's like shooting fish in a barrel ... Dems don't speak with one voice ... there are no centralized party themes ... there is no message discipline ...

and Iraq is a huge issue ... voters hate what bush has done ... but Dems didn't stand up to bush and fight for a different path ... they haven't shown leadership on the issue ... it's easy to blame the media - they certainly aren't our friends ... but that doesn't change the voters' perception ... it might be an excuse but it doesn't change a thing ...

as long as the public sees Dems as "just partisan and anti-bush" and can't see where the Party stands and what solutions to problems we offer, the next elections are going to be a bit more of a "roll the dice" than they should be ... the Dems' message needs to be sharpened and it needs to be communicated more effectively ... time is growing short ...

[mike_c]

5. IMO dems missed an historic opportunity in 2003...

...when they acquiesced with the war against Iraq. Had they done otherwise, they could simply sit back and let public anger about Iraq sweep house. Having failed to do it, they now find themselves with little to run on other than "not being republican."

I've said before and I'll say again-- dems are missing another historic opportunity by going along with Bush's "war on terror." By accepting the basic premise that such a "war" is possible they've undercut themselves yet again and given the republican party a signature issue. Dems should be CONDEMNING the WOT as part and parcel of a faltering international strategy, one that is causing the U.S. to lose any semblance of leadership position in the world community and become simply despised and feared by much of the rest of the world.

[Stinky The Clown]

13. What I was talking about was the 'legacy' component of any polls

As TheMagistrate said so well, below ..... its about branding and the perceptions of the brands.

If you choose to accept my hypothesis, then it could be said that each Dem - and the party overall - gives away a few points to the repubs even before any current news/event/perception even gets measured.

And as mike_c suggested (quite correctly) the whole theory is an oversimplification. But starting even from that perspective, it still seems to me we're almost always starting out in any poll with that prestablished bias against us.

[The Magistrate]

6. You Are Quite Right, Sir

Politics can be thought of as marketting with much profit, and much of what passes for political thought is analogous to expressions of brand loyalty, and cultivation of same. Once brand loyalty is established, the actual attributes and performance of the branded product are almost immaterial. Once the brand is thought of as "mine", and identified with as an expression and enhancement of one's own personality, it will be perceived as "good" and "the best" regardless. Even should poor performance be perceived, it will be rationalized as a fluke of some sort in an individual item, rather than a reflection on the whole body of the brand, and the loyalty will remain unshaken, with satisfaction anticipated certainly on the acquisition of the next item made available under its aegis. Competing claims by another brand will just be ignored, as the decision has already been made it is "not as good" as the favored one, and it will still be viewed as "not my kind of thing".

[mike_c]

7. while I suspect you're correct, M...

...that is SUCH a depressingly cynical view of human nature! But yes, you've described the phenomenon that drives the engines of commerce and politics alike, I fear. Brand loyalty, often to the bitter end.

[Stinky The Clown]

8. Yup ... and that gets to the core of it .....

Brand Democrat (bad, wussy, liberal, girlie <insert perjorative du jour>)

Brand Republican (rich, strong, manly, tough <insert compliment du jour>)

[The Magistrate]

9. One Of My Favorite, And Most Depressing, Quotes On That, Mr. C

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicsim by those who have not got it."

[mike_c]

10. LOL-- George Bernard Shaw is SUCH a font of good quotes!

:rofl:

[The Magistrate]

12. He Is Indeed, Sir