Hey Berkeley graduated Republicans in the 60s!
I once came home and told my Dad I was a Republican in 1964. He asked me to go outside and think a little more and then come back in.
But seriously, my parents are among the people I think about when I get excited about a Warner candidacy. They are Reagan Democrats who actually held on and never actually voted for Reagan. They were nervous about America's place in the world, they were uncertain about seismic cultural shifts in the 60s, and their son (me) was driving them nuts with counter-culture dabbling. Yet despite the crumbling of the old new deal coalition, and despite their moral conservatism, and even despite their fear of the Soviet threat after Cuba, they were simply constitutionally incapable of ever voting for Nixon or Reagan. The civil liberties and civil rights tradition of the party was something they couldn’t let go of.
So they wandered around, always voting Democratic, but adrift after RFK. They never stopped thinking that there was no inherent contradiction between a compassionate state committed to civil liberties and a kick ass national defense. Bill Clinton brought them back, and they were so thrilled with him that they were among the Dems who forgave him his personal shortcomings. They had their party back. They had a President with the guts to bomb Kosovo to avert genocide and also support the rights of racial and sexual minorities, the right to choice. In fact, they were so happy that they hardly noticed when their President used up his political capital for personal defense rather than national defense.
So here is what worries me. These eminently decent people, these loyal Democrats who resisted temptation and frustration and stuck with Carter and Mondale and Dukakis, who could never vote Republican because they instinctively detested the conservative hostility toward helping the needy and powerless, are now at risk. They are the same decent people, but they are mortified at having lived through a Presidency that has left us less safe, less powerful, more detested.
They think back and wonder: "Hey, wasn't it sort of an implied contract we had with our President that, while the world might be dangerous and while no President could control the evil actions of others -- that even our Clinton couldn't control events on the ground in Mogadishu -- that at least we could minimally expect that we wouldn’t be the ones to make the world less safe.
And then the deluge. The unilateralism. The deaths. The lies. The US as a pariah.
Where does this lead them? Well, the answer is not great for the Democrats.
For the first time, their concern about the shattered world our President is leaving us with has them thinking. This McCain guy is truly decent, truly courageous. He speaks his mind. He's tough. They excuse his little charade with the extreme right as just part of the script. His compassion comes through even when he tries to look like a jerk. Maybe he is the way back to safety. And most disturbingly, while they aren't thrilled about positions on choice and other civil liberties issues, for the first time I see them thinking about suspending concern about domestic issues and voting their concern for the world. We are talking core loyal Dems.
I deeply believe that Mark Warner is their way back this time. They don't know everything about him that they need to know yet, but they have this sense that this governor back east seems to have avoided all the California budget nonsense, that he is viscerally concerned about the world he will leave for his children, and that he seems to embody the idea that you can be morally conservative and still believe in a woman's right to choose, a person's right to a job, and not feel that the first response to an external threat needs to be a self-destructive attack on our own liberties. They like John Edwards, and they also care about poverty, but the campaign hasn't even started yet and they see him as one-dimensional.
Even at 75 years of age, they are desperate to be called on again by a President for sacrifice by someone they trust. They are especially desperate for their grandchildren, my kids, to have a world safer than the one we have now. (Yes, they talk about this.)
I know my parents and I know people like them, people on the brink of jumping parties for McCain or the first time because of how unsafe they feel, because of how they resent the dishonoring of the Presidency by Bush. I know that my generation shares a lot of this confusion. And I'm telling you, Mark Warner -- with his competence and humility and intellect, his moderation and sanity, his absolutely un-California governorship -- is perhaps the only guy who will pull them back.
By Steve Gorelick
Feel free to send your comments to Steve at sgorelick@gc.cuny.edu
But seriously, my parents are among the people I think about when I get excited about a Warner candidacy. They are Reagan Democrats who actually held on and never actually voted for Reagan. They were nervous about America's place in the world, they were uncertain about seismic cultural shifts in the 60s, and their son (me) was driving them nuts with counter-culture dabbling. Yet despite the crumbling of the old new deal coalition, and despite their moral conservatism, and even despite their fear of the Soviet threat after Cuba, they were simply constitutionally incapable of ever voting for Nixon or Reagan. The civil liberties and civil rights tradition of the party was something they couldn’t let go of.
So they wandered around, always voting Democratic, but adrift after RFK. They never stopped thinking that there was no inherent contradiction between a compassionate state committed to civil liberties and a kick ass national defense. Bill Clinton brought them back, and they were so thrilled with him that they were among the Dems who forgave him his personal shortcomings. They had their party back. They had a President with the guts to bomb Kosovo to avert genocide and also support the rights of racial and sexual minorities, the right to choice. In fact, they were so happy that they hardly noticed when their President used up his political capital for personal defense rather than national defense.
So here is what worries me. These eminently decent people, these loyal Democrats who resisted temptation and frustration and stuck with Carter and Mondale and Dukakis, who could never vote Republican because they instinctively detested the conservative hostility toward helping the needy and powerless, are now at risk. They are the same decent people, but they are mortified at having lived through a Presidency that has left us less safe, less powerful, more detested.
They think back and wonder: "Hey, wasn't it sort of an implied contract we had with our President that, while the world might be dangerous and while no President could control the evil actions of others -- that even our Clinton couldn't control events on the ground in Mogadishu -- that at least we could minimally expect that we wouldn’t be the ones to make the world less safe.
And then the deluge. The unilateralism. The deaths. The lies. The US as a pariah.
Where does this lead them? Well, the answer is not great for the Democrats.
For the first time, their concern about the shattered world our President is leaving us with has them thinking. This McCain guy is truly decent, truly courageous. He speaks his mind. He's tough. They excuse his little charade with the extreme right as just part of the script. His compassion comes through even when he tries to look like a jerk. Maybe he is the way back to safety. And most disturbingly, while they aren't thrilled about positions on choice and other civil liberties issues, for the first time I see them thinking about suspending concern about domestic issues and voting their concern for the world. We are talking core loyal Dems.
I deeply believe that Mark Warner is their way back this time. They don't know everything about him that they need to know yet, but they have this sense that this governor back east seems to have avoided all the California budget nonsense, that he is viscerally concerned about the world he will leave for his children, and that he seems to embody the idea that you can be morally conservative and still believe in a woman's right to choose, a person's right to a job, and not feel that the first response to an external threat needs to be a self-destructive attack on our own liberties. They like John Edwards, and they also care about poverty, but the campaign hasn't even started yet and they see him as one-dimensional.
Even at 75 years of age, they are desperate to be called on again by a President for sacrifice by someone they trust. They are especially desperate for their grandchildren, my kids, to have a world safer than the one we have now. (Yes, they talk about this.)
I know my parents and I know people like them, people on the brink of jumping parties for McCain or the first time because of how unsafe they feel, because of how they resent the dishonoring of the Presidency by Bush. I know that my generation shares a lot of this confusion. And I'm telling you, Mark Warner -- with his competence and humility and intellect, his moderation and sanity, his absolutely un-California governorship -- is perhaps the only guy who will pull them back.
By Steve Gorelick
Feel free to send your comments to Steve at sgorelick@gc.cuny.edu
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