As I said here before, some things fly all over me and Bradley Gitz article Sunday flew all over me like stink on doo doo.

Bradley Gitz is yet another Republican talking head that just doesn’t get it. He likens the defeat of the Republican Party and it’s brand of “conservatism” to deceit by the Democratic Party and media bias. Well, that certainly works for me, having these “conservative” columnist continue to blame their catastrophic loses to something other than the failures of their leaders, message and management of the office’s and policies they once held, rather than face the realities of the Republican Party’s failures will guarantee a bright future for the more grounded Democrats.

 
America is not, as the current version of conventional wisdom claims, a centrist nation. It is an essentially conservative nation, or at least conservative in the way such terms are defined these days and in comparison to other affluent democracies. Roughly twice as many Americans identify themselves as “conservative” compared to “liberal,” and there is reason to believe that most of those who say neither actually tilt rightward in terms of basic values. Few candidates run for political office in America as unrepentant liberals; almost all claim to be in some way conservatives. To the extent that post-New Deal American liberalism has gradually become indistinguishable from a broader leftism, American liberalism has become an increasingly difficult sell in America. The central organizing principle of leftism / liberalism is socialism, but America has long been the symbol and epicenter of socialism’s great enemy, global capitalism. Leftism / liberalism is also identified with a set of increasingly progressive and permissive social values largely drawn from opposition to religious belief, but Americans are more religious than the citizens of other advanced democracies and still attached to the traditional values that religion encourages. All of which makes it hard to explain how Democrats do it; how, that is, they continue to remain politically competitive as a liberal party in a conservative nation, to the point of winning the popular vote in three of the last four presidential races and now taking control of most governors mansions, most state legislatures and both houses of Congress.

Let me help out here. The vast majority of Democrats in this country are Christian American’s whose brand of “conservatism” blends harmoniously with Christianity. Feeding the hungry and caring for the poor, sound fiscal management, separation of Church and State, less governmental interference in America’s daily lives and the protection of Middle America from the Right’s elitism.  Over the past 6 years of Bush – i.e. Republican Conservatism, more of our countries wealth has moved into the top 1% of the pockets  – as G.W. has said…his base.

A carefully cultivated political ambiguity helps to explain part of it, since almost all Democrats present themselves in campaigns as more conservative than they actually are and actually vote in Washington.

Here’s the rub between Republican Conservatism and Democratic Conservatism. Republican’s feel that the bread and butter issues for their movement is abortion and gay rights/marriage – their family values. Well boys, you can’t win on that anymore (see November 7th), and you underestimate the intelligence of the American people, and are so out of touch with the common man and his “family values”; food, clothing, security, education and good jobs, that you left them behind for the Religious Right’s causes. Well, they caught up and called you on the hypocrisy of your Parties message. And there is no “ambiguity” about the Democratic message; good government means a healthier America and stay out of my personal life, that’s between me and my God.

Such deception works fairly often in a country whose voters, while mostly conservative, are also conservative in a somewhat inattentive and imprecise fashion. America may be the most conservative advanced nation, but it probably is the least ideological and most pragmatic of nations, too.

Again, there was nothing “inattentive” you should of heard that message on Nov. 7th.

The left’s ability to set the issue agenda of politics through its control of the media, publishing, Hollywood and academia also helps. If the American public as a whole tilts modestly to the right, our chattering classes tilt dramatically to the left and display the kind of near ideological unanimity that produces an echo-chamber effect.
Set the agenda? What’s Gitz smoking? For 12 years the Republican Party has controlled the message and Washington. As well, for the last 2 years they’ve had all three branches of our government held in its iron grip. If there was an agenda, it was the Republican Party’s. It just was a failed agenda and it caught up with them.
The stranglehold that the left has on what can be called elite opinion produces a disparity between elites and mass public in America that is greater than that found in other democracies. This helps to explain why, although the public generally displays conservative tendencies, American conservatives usually are on the defensive when it comes to “the issues.”

I am not sure if this guy would recognize a democracy if it bit him in the ass. If anybody thought the “left” had a stranglehold on the message or the media all they have to do is re-read the opinions and the blank check that was given this Administration as it rushed to war on lies.

The Democrats for their part, failed this country by not standing up and demonstrating what a real democracy looked like, you know checks and balances. A well, the media has been two-dollar whores for the Republican Party for 12 years. The November election is also a wakeup call for the Democrats…get to work and get it right. If they do this, the Right will be left behind for decades.

That to be politically correct in America is also to be rigidly liberal tells us something about who really gives the approval to approved opinion. But in the end one senses that there is at least one other less frequently remarked upon factor that makes Democrats competitive in a country where they mostly shouldn’t be—that they are simply better at politics than Republicans, in large part because politics comes more naturally to the party of government than to the party that opposes it. Democratic candidates go into politics at an earlier age, inspired by an idealistic desire to change the world around them. Consistent with the pro-government philosophy of the party they represent, they seem to actually like the idea of public service. In sharp contrast, the typical Republican enters political life when he is older, usually after a career in the private sector and often as a result of becoming fed up with government in some way. As the party of the private sector, Republicans simply aren’t as good or experienced in running for public office. Nor, as the recent performance of the Republican Congress so amply demonstrates, are they as effective as Democrats in furthering their political interests when holding such offices. One instantly thinks of the difference in career trajectory here between the three men who have won re-election to the presidency over the past 30 years, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Of the three, it was Clinton who never held a “real” job, never wanted to be anything other than president from his teen years on and who spent his entire adult life carefully guarding his political viability. Clinton was, from the beginning, a natural politician. Perhaps the biggest problem for Republicans is that lots of Democrats are.

So here’s what Gitz doesn’t git. Democrats are conservative about the things that really matter to the masses, the bread and butter issues. This economy and its debt have awakened the sleeping giant. As well, Gitz contends that Democrats are “pro-government”, hell yes, but good and accountable government. Since G.W. Bush the CEO of the Republican Party took office government has almost doubled. And lastly, Gitz contends that Democrats win because they are natural politicians, like Clinton. No, Clinton won because he was a “natural person”.  And I am sure that most feel that 12 years as the Arkansas governor was a “real job”.

Gitz is right here; Democrats are going to continue to win because we continue to put up folks like Clinton, real people. The center has come back home to the Democratic Party and there are dark days ahead for the Republican Party…and they earned it. I might suggest that Gitz gets out of his office of comfortable academia and go to the coffee shops and places Democrats hangout. Start a conversation; what he’ll find is conservatism, but not the self-serving brand of the Republican Party. Unfortunately that may well constitute an unnatural act.