Dems' Plan to "Poach" Religious Voters

It just might work. Over at Inside Catholic, I reviewed Amy Sullivan's book. 

Vox Nova's Review

Over at Vox Nova,  Jonathan Jones reviewed WTDAB. I appreciated his kind words. Yet I was miffed by his remark that "there is not much new" in the book. To his credit, he posted my response in full.

Quick survey: How many of you had heard of John M. Bailey and David L.Lawrence? (Don't answer all at once.) 

Our Debate was Televised (the Revolution was Not) 

In case you did not hear already, at blogginheads.tv Amy Sullivan and I debated whether Obama will win over religious voters.

August 1968 and the Roots of the Liberal Coup 

Sorry for the lack of posts. For those hungry (desperate!) for some content, you're in luck. Over at Inside Catholic, I wrote a story about the subject above. Here is how the story begins:

"What Goldwater was to Reagan, McGovern was to Obama," New York Times writer Sam Tanenhaus wrote about the 2008 election, in reference to the two fathers of America's modern political movements. The first story, about the conservative ascendancy in the Republican Party, has been told. The second, covering the liberal ascendancy in the Democratic Party, has not. (That is, until my book came out last fall.)

 

In earlier columns, I wrote about the late Fred Dutton's liberal vision for the Democratic Party. Dutton sought to build a Democratic coalition made up of young people, African-Americans, and college-educated suburbanites -- three key constituencies of Obama's campaign.

 

So how did Dutton do it? How did he destroy the old Roosevelt coalition (Catholics, labor, African-Americans, intellectuals, and white Southerners) and create the McGovern coalition?

 

In my book, I show how antiwar liberals overthrew what Lyndon Johnson called "the Catholic bosses" in a coup d'état. Here's how it all began.

Obama might be the Liberal Reagan … of 1968

Bob Beckel makes the now familiar claim that Obama is the liberal Reagan:

Barack Obama's current political circumstance is eerily similar to that of Ronald Reagan in his 1980 campaign for president. Both Obama and Reagan, from the beginning of their insurgent campaigns, were viewed as transformative political figures. Both enjoyed passionate grassroots support.

Both men had defeated centrist establishment candidates for their party's nomination. Reagan defeated George H.W. Bush, who was viewed by the growing conservative base of the Republican Party as too moderate. Obama beat Hilary Clinton whose husband had been elected twice by moving away from his party's traditional progressive roots and running as a centrist, a path Clinton herself followed (at least at the beginning of her campaign).

To which, Blake Dvorak counters:

the reason the example gives Obama too much credit is because Reagan, even in 1980, was a known commodity. He was 68 years old, a two-term governor of California and, before that, a Hollywood celebrity very much involved in politics. For all the so-called "risk" Americans were taking with Reagan, it wasn't really a blind risk. Moreover, Reagan was very clear on the kind of change he was offering. Obama? He still disputes being called a liberal.

Dvorak, I think, has the better of the argument: Obama is not the liberal Reagan of 1980. Reagan had a lot more significant experience than Obama has, so he wasn’t as much of a roll of the dice; he had been governor of the nation’s biggest state for eight years, while Obama has been a U.S. Senator for only three years and a state senator for six years.

Yet both Dvorak and Beckel overlook the possibility that Obama is the Reagan not of 1980 but of 1968. Besides the fact that both men were skilled orators and led an ideological movement, both lacked experience when they first ran for president. Reagan had been governor for only a year and a half when he ran for president. And he nearly won the party’s nomination. (Clymer got this right, while Powerline did not. See the best book on the 1968 campaign). If Nixon had not made a deal over Supreme Court nominees and enforcing desegregation with Strom Thurmond, he likely would have lost to Reagan. (“I love that man,” Thurmond said of Reagan. “He’s the best hope we’ve got.”)

To wax counterfactual, imagine Reagan had won the GOP’s nomination in 1968. Would he have beaten poor old Humphrey? Well, he had about as good of a chance as Obama.

(Photo by user Barack Obama used under a Creative Commons license.)