Part 2 of 3.
Part 1
The great baseball analyst Bill James, believes in numbers. He draws conclusions based on numbers. For example:
The largest variable determining how many runs a team will score is how many times they get their leadoff man on base.
True shortage of talent almost never occurs at the left end of the defensive spectrum.
Rightward shifts along the defensive spectrum almost never work.
[<Snark>]
Seriously though, I draw on James, a thinker I do admire, because of his belief in certain absolutes. Not to mention because he writes stuff like this:
A certain amount of this book is personal. . . most of what I write reflects my attitude not only about the subject but about stuff in general. I tell jokes. I swear. I relate the lessons of baseball to the lessons of my own life . . . If you're offended by what I write or the way I write, I'm sorry but I'm not going to change to accommodate you.
An asshole to be appreciated. But I want to follow James' example on applying leesons learned in other contexts, and , to disagree with him as well. Thus, I want to apply some lessons on relativity, uncertainty, time and Runs Created to the issues of Spine, Fighting Dems, Big Tents, Single Issue Groups and the Politics of Contrast.
Full disclosure. I am not a scientist and no doubt I am misusing and/or misunderstanding much or the physics involved. But my use is semiotic, or metaphorical, not literal. On the flip.
Stephen Hawking wrote:
Einstein's postulate that the laws of nature should appear the same to all freely moving observers was the foundation of the theory of relativity, so called because it implies that only relative motion is important. Its beauty and simplicity were convincing to many scientists and philosophers. But there remained a lot of opposition. Einstein had overthrown two of the Absolutes (with a capital A) of 19th century science: Absolute Rest as represented by the ether, and Absolute or Universal Time that all clocks would measure. Did this imply, people asked, that there were no absolute moral standards, that everything was relative?
And of course, connecting gravity and relativity, Einstein discovered space-time curvature:
in 1912 Einstein had a brainstorm. He realized that the equivalence of gravity and acceleration could work if there was some give-and-take in the geometry of reality. What if space-time--an entity Einstein invented to incorporate the three familiar dimensions of space with a fourth dimension, time--was curved, and not flat, as had been assumed? His idea was that mass and energy would warp space-time in some manner yet to be determined. Objects like apples or planets would try to move in straight lines through space-time, but their paths would appear to be bent by a gravitational field because space-time is curved.
I want to introduce my own concept of political space time curvature to help us better understand the Politics of Contrast (or Definition, as Texeira and Halpin call it) and the need for a Big Tent Democratic Party. Earlier, I wrote:
Texeira and Halpin are not writing a specific proposal for the 2006 election -- they have properly idenitfied one of the key long term problems of the Democratic Party, the ability to shape its image and brand has been hijacked by the Republican Party and Democrats have allowed Republicans to completely control the branding of their own party with no resistance from the Democratic Party.
Texeira and Halpin have identified the problem and, in my opinion, provided very good and workable proposals for attacking the problem. Full disclosure, much of what Texeira and Halpin talk about are ideas I have endorsed for 18 months. Those who know my work from daily kos will no doubt find some of these ideas familiar - The Politics of Contrast, Lincoln 1860, The Party of Dobson, Extremist Republicans. Those themes have been central to much of my writing on Democratic Party politics.
I would like to expand on this idea, incorporating "political space-time curvature." Let's recall T&H's 5 postulates:
(1) The starting point for all political organizing and campaigns should be: "What are my core beliefs and principles and how do I best explain them to supporters and skeptics alike?"
(2) Every political battle, both proactive and defensive, should represent a basic statement of progressive character and present a clear, concise contrast with conservatives. Do not blur lines.
(3) All issue campaigns and agenda items are not equal. Progressives should focus their efforts on issues that can simultaneously strengthen the base and appeal to centrist voters. Progressives must be willing to make sacrifices and tradeoffs -- in terms of coalition building and budgetary concerns -- to achieve their most important agenda items.
(4) Escalate battles that expose the extremism of the right or splinter their coalition. [Follow-up: When confronted with the right's social, cultural, or national security agenda, the absolute worst response is to fail to combat these caricatures or to explain one's position directly to voters, regardless of the popularity of the position.]
(5) Every political action should highlight three essential progressive attributes: a clear stand on the side of those who lack power, wealth or influence; a deep commitment to the common good; and a strong belief in fairness and opportunity for all.
As general themes and principles, these postulates can be applied in every region of the nation. But they will not lead to uniform specific issue positions for Democrats everywhere. The political gravity or, "political space time curvature" in Nebraska or Mississippi is different from that in say, Rhode Island. But the progressive or Democratic position in each of these locations can clearly be discerned and is the position for Democrats to follow in each of them.
So how do we determine what the political gravity is in the locales and how do we determine the "progressive position?" How do we determine how far progressives can push? What is the velocity of progressivism and where does it stand across the Nation?
Uncertainty:
. . . [T]he Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle named after Werner Heisenberg who first formulated it in 1927. The name was chosen for the simple reason that the more an observers knows about the location of a particle, the more uncertain they can be of the velocity and vice-versa.
. . . The Uncertainty Principle was at first disheartening to physicists. It knocked the idea of an elegant Newtonian Universe unfolding with clockwork precision for a loop. Upon first hearing of Uncertainty, physicists figured if they could never know for sure the position and speed of a particle, they could never predict what it will do or how it will react with other particles. In fact, if a particle has no location in time or the location is highly uncertain, cause and effect themselves can become meaningless.
Einstein himself criticized Uncertainty saying "God does not play dice with the universe!"
Well, politics is, I posit, not something God is averse to playing dice with. And I think we have to live with that uncertainty. However, we can, like Bill James, make observations and analysis based on the information at hand.
It is important that Democrats, Single Issue Groups, citizens, all make these judgments. And argue their points of view. How far can we push Dems in Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Mississippi, etc? We have a wonderful POSITIVE mechanism for making these determinations - primaries.
Time, Effect and the Now
Single Issue Groups have a special problem - a belief in a static political universe. T&H and Moulitsas and Armstrong have laid the case out beautifully. The Single Issue Groups' event horizons are today and, at most tomorrow. They do not weigh the long or even medium term effects of their actions. Many have defended NARAL, Sierra Club and others for their endorsement of Chafee based on one or two actions by Chafee yesterday or today and have not considered what keeping Chafee means for tomorrow. They must broaden their view or become irrelevant.
Part 3 will explore these issues in further detail.