Update x2: Bob Kinzel sees Mark Johnson’s Martha Abbott and raises him one Anthony Pollina on VPR’s Vermont Edition tomorrow (Friday). The focus looks to be on the “three criteria” rather than the failing grade collectively and unceremoniously handed out to Susan Bartlett and Doug Racine. It’ll be interesting to see if he stays on that message.
Update: Mark Johnson asked all the right questions during his interview with Progressive Party Chair Martha Abbott. From Abbott’s tone, I’d say the collective what-were-they-thinking vibe that their action seems to have elicited from the political classes has reached her ear, as she sounds very much like she’s in damage control mode, waxing victimized by the Dems only briefly a couple times. She does a pretty good job, too, all things considered. Some questions still to ask, but I recommend listening to the full interview. It’s not too long (there are ads, though). Podcast widget is below.
Well, nobody’s ever accused the Progressive Party of finesse.
As more news of the Progressive “review” (thumbs down) of candidates Doug Racine and Susan Bartlett, and associated electoral ultimatum (yet again) to the dreaded Democrats comes clearer, it’s looking even more unpleasant than I’d feared. In fact, it is being received as a full-on smackdown.
There’s no question of the immediate effects of the Progressives’ self-defeatingly premature rejection of Susan Bartlett and Doug Racine, and the accompanying ultimatum. First, they have, ironically empowered primary candidate Deb Markowitz. Rejecting Racine and Bartlett out of hand so quickly gives the whole affair a weird air. What looked like an exercise in bridge-building now, in hindsight, looks like Racine and Bartlett bending over with a “kick me” sign and the Progs happily taking advantage. At a glance, the Progressives would seem to have made Markowitz’s point for her – that Progs will be Progs and its not worth approaching them (maybe its even a little degrading). Fairly or no, it seems as though Racine and Bartlett thought they were walking into a diplomatic summit, while their hosts saw it more akin to a voluntary courtroom appearance.
Bartlett and Racine can still get a lot of mileage on the “at least we tried” argument if they play it right, but Progressives as a collective institution have, for now, removed themselves as a factor in the Democratic primary.
Which gets to the self-defeating angle. Why? Why now? Even if this was to be the Progs’ ultimate response, why not stretch it out a few months and use the attention and deference to build credibility and influence? If nothing else, it would’ve made their ultimate smackdown that much more effective when it did come. Instead, such impatience and rhetorically inartful dismissals of the very Dems who showed them the respect they were looking for simply add another bit of evidence to the persistent narrative that the Progs only exist to knock down and belittle Dems whenever possible, however possible, and as often as possible.
As I’ve said on many occasions, I do think there’s truth to the idea that some Progressives get more fired up about Dem-bashing than anything or any issue, even to the point of cutting off their noses to spite their collective face at times. But I think it would be a mistake to assume that’s all that’s going on here, and a bigger mistake still to dismiss the Progressives or count them out of any hope of coalition-building after this ultimatum. That would still be cutting off our Democratic noses to spite our collective face (more after the flip).
Collectively, the Progressives behave very impulsively. Oh, I’m sure the denials will be forthcoming in the comments and will be sincere, but the history of collective Progressive political action is replete with impulsive action – even when, shall we say, that impulsive action is sometimes… er… chronologically deferred… meaning that an impulsive response is no less an impulsive response if you can make yourself hold off acting on it for a bit.
So my point is that this diss of Bartlett and Racine and the accompanying ultimatum strike me as typically impulsive. And although both Bartlett and Racine can’t afford not to back way off after being so roundly dismissed, all the campaigns should keep the back doors to discussion open, even while not making the mistake of being so trusting publicly. Rank and file, too, should double up on efforts to build bridges even as this institutional door has so roundly been closed. Believe it or not, there is still light shining through the cracks of the door we just saw slammed.
Very simply, when Progressives take a two-by-four to your head, it doesn’t mean the same thing as when anybody else does. That’s because, while you and I may see a two-by-four as a two-by-four, Progs sometimes think of it as a telephone. It just might not be as bad as it all sounds. It may be frustrating to put up with what sounds like a potentially abusive dynamic, but sometimes its simply practical. We in the rank and file – all of us, Dems and Progs alike – need to be smart enough to tell when our dear leaders are simply acting out in this way.
My point, then; to my fellow rank and file Dems, don’t give up the Progs yet. To rank and file Progs, don’t assume this rejection is gospel.
The dynamic this shows us, once again, is how the fractured left in this state so often mirrors itself. If the Democrats collectively have a problem with being too process-oriented, getting caught in the back and forth of negotiation and losing site of the big picture, the Progressives collectively are just as bad at being too goal-oriented, at times showing outright contempt for the process that makes up the straight line between the twin points of where-we-are and where-we-want-to-be.
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