Not Gay ENough for the Softball Team

[Kanastrous]

Is there some kind of primordial need in Humanity to just find someone to discriminate against?

I think it's the chickenish need to exist within a pecking order, scaled up to primates. Gotta have someone under you, that you get to peck.

[Simon_Jester]

-The average member of the House needs the support of 130,000 voters in their district to win re-election. Any 130,000; votes from the left wing of their party and the right wing are interchangeable. Obviously, this is even higher for other political figures.

Just a little bit of a nitpick, but in a two party system the centrist voters are worth more than the left (or right) wing ones.

Good argument, but... as you say, it's a nitpick. The critical point is that, as a stark bare minimum, they need those 130,000 votes. How they get the votes is immaterial. If they can trade 2000 LBGT votes to peel 1500 "traditional family values" votes away from their opponent, they will do that. If they have to trade 4000 LBGT votes to get those 1500 "traditional family values" votes, they won't.

The problem then being to convince the congressman that they actually can lose those 4000 votes. Which is where your calculation comes into play.

A well organized LBGT movement might be able to force politicos to make this calculation by boycotting people from both parties who don't move on issues important to them. A poorly organized movement, regardless of its issue of choice, isn't going to stand a chance of doing it.

[Teebs]

A well organized LBGT movement might be able to force politicos to make this calculation by boycotting people from both parties who don't move on issues important to them. A poorly organized movement, regardless of its issue of choice, isn't going to stand a chance of doing it.

I do agree, I just wanted to point out that given the choice between 2000 voters who have no realistic alternative or 2000 swing voters the politician would be mad not to choose the swing voters. Of course real life is more complicated than that and I'd be inclined to think that the voters who would be swayed by dicking on gay people are unlikely to be voting Democrat anyway.

[Kanastrous]

With the apparent rise of Blue Dog Democrats I'm not sure that's true, any more.

[Simon_Jester]

I do agree, I just wanted to point out that given the choice between 2000 voters who have no realistic alternative or 2000 swing voters the politician would be mad not to choose the swing voters. Of course real life is more complicated than that and I'd be inclined to think that the voters who would be swayed by dicking on gay people are unlikely to be voting Democrat anyway.

That was a factor that came to my mind, yes. The problem with swing voters is that it's too easy for the opposition to swing them back by doing something else. I mean hell, they can probably hold a promotional barbecue or two and undo all your efforts to woo "centrists." All that carefully planned backstabbing of your party platform goes down the drain, and you're right back where you started.*

Whereas single-issue ideologue voters are very easy to please, and you can win them quite reliably if the opposition party has decided to abandon them. The only reason they aren't courted more actively is that they're taken for granted. And the only answer to that is to organize.

*I suspect this is going to be a problem for the Blue Dogs in the next few years: they're depending on a very fickle support base. Once the Republicans manage to recover from the Bush Effect, they'll be competing with Republicans for voters that already have one foot in the Republican tent anyway... with effectively no way to reach out and mobilize more support from the left to make up for their losses on the center.

[Ritterin Sophia]

With the apparent rise of Blue Dog Democrats I'm not sure that's true, any more.

Ummm... what? Dixiecrats, Boll Weevils, Bourbon Democrats there is no 'rise' about it, there have always been conservative democrats.

[Kanastrous]

I've gotten the impression from the Blue Dogs' excising abortion coverage from the health care package that their influence has increased over the last couple decades. I could very well be mistaken.

[Ritterin Sophia]

I've gotten the impression from the Blue Dogs' excising abortion coverage from the health care package that their influence has increased over the last couple decades. I could very well be mistaken.

You seem to be under the impression that the Democratic Party is a liberal party.

[Kanastrous]

Their liberal wing seems to be the noisiest. I agree that it's not the same thing.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Their liberal wing seems to be the noisiest. I agree that it's not the same thing.

No, the noisiest part is the Center-Right part, which is their base.

[Kanastrous]

And now, predictably, tighty-righty characters like Medved, Prager, etc are seizing on this to slam the Gay Rights movement. Nice going, guys, just keep on handing them ammo.

[Simon_Jester]

Their liberal wing seems to be the noisiest. I agree that it's not the same thing.

No, the noisiest part is the Center-Right part, which is their base.

Again, this is a risky strategy for them. The Democrats could be a liberal party if they wanted, or at least a center party by world standards instead of center-right. But by choosing to compete with Republicans for narrower and narrower slices of the territory between the two camps, they play into the Republicans' hands. A competent Republican candidate can so easily undo all their work in softpedaling their own platform. All he has to do is put on a cowboy hat and suddenly that house-of-cards majority the Blue Dog of the week has put together collapses, because he's trying to appeal to people who would honestly prefer a Republican.

[Ritterin Sophia]

The Democrats could be a liberal party if they wanted, or at least a center party by world standards instead of center-right.

I honestly don't believe a viable liberal base exists in America.

[eion]

The Democrats could be a liberal party if they wanted, or at least a center party by world standards instead of center-right.

I honestly don't believe a viable liberal base exists in America.

Certainly not one dedicated enough to vote for a more liberal party to spite the Democrats and swing that party left. The teabaggers on the other hand seem to have no problem excising anyone they view as a traitor to the Republican Party and ruin their chances of actually winning elections.

[Simon_Jester]

I honestly don't believe a viable liberal base exists in America.

Certainly not one dedicated enough to vote for a more liberal party to spite the Democrats and swing that party left. The teabaggers on the other hand seem to have no problem excising anyone they view as a traitor to the Republican Party and ruin their chances of actually winning elections.

That may be a product of asymmetric organization.

The teabaggers have spent years being fed and encouraged by the far right of the Republican Party, to the point where they have an exaggerated confidence in how many "silent majority" Americans feel exactly the way they do. They have their own TV news network dedicated to promoting this idea. The left has nothing like this; all they have is a party that, against all odds, they still believe actually gives a damn about them.

The teabaggers are mobilized; the American center-left is not. We saw flickers of what such organization would look like during the 2008 presidential nomination (you don't think those two million people in DC on Inauguration Day were Republicans, did you?), but then it died. I'm not a good enough analyst to put my finger on the exact problem, and maybe I'm dead wrong, but I strongly suspect that this is a part of the issue.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Certainly not one dedicated enough to vote for a more liberal party to spite the Democrats and swing that party left.

I don't mean getting them to vote, I mean I don't think there are enough liberals in America for a viable party. America has two conservative parties, the Democrats are more conservative than Canada's conservatives and I don't doubt proximity to the US has skewed Canada's politics farther to the right than most of western Europe.

[eion]

Certainly not one dedicated enough to vote for a more liberal party to spite the Democrats and swing that party left.

I don't mean getting them to vote, I mean I don't think there are enough liberals in America for a viable party. America has two conservative parties, the Democrats are more conservative than Canada's conservatives and I don't doubt proximity to the US has skewed Canada's politics farther to the right than most of western Europe.

Oh I didn't mean for them form any sort of viable party, just that the liberal wing lacks what could either be described as intestinal fortitude or utter stupidity to spoil their vote by casting it for a true liberal candidate, thus stealing votes from the Democrats and electing a Republican in his place. The Democratic Party might then realize if they don't cater to this new mobilized, and militant liberal wing of their party they'll never win an election again.

Sound familiar?

[Simon_Jester]

I don't mean getting them to vote, I mean I don't think there are enough liberals in America for a viable party. America has two conservative parties, the Democrats are more conservative than Canada's conservatives and I don't doubt proximity to the US has skewed Canada's politics farther to the right than most of western Europe.

When I talk about the US getting a center-left party, I mean by... call it a hybrid of American and world standards. By world standards it would be centrist or nearly so, but palatable to the left; by American standards it would be left.