Edwards has most persuasive platform - David Brooks column

[Bombtrack]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/21/opinion/21BROO.html

NEWTON, Iowa — In the current issue of The Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes argues that we have seen the birth of a Republican majority. In 1992, Barnes points out, Republicans held 176 House seats. Today, they hold 229. In 1992, the G.O.P. controlled 8 state legislatures; now it controls 21. In 1992, there were 18 Republican governors; now there are 27.

But the really eye-popping change is in party identification. In Franklin Roosevelt's administration, 49 percent of voters said they were Democrats. But that number has been dropping ever since, and now roughly 32 percent of voters say they are. As Mark Penn, a former Clinton pollster, has observed, "In terms of the percentage of voters who identify themselves as Democrats, the Democratic Party is currently in its weakest position since the dawn of the New Deal."

<snip>

"John Edwards has the most persuasive theory. He argues that most voters do not place candidates on a neat left-right continuum. But they are really good at sensing who shares their values. They are really good at knowing who respects them and who doesn't. Edwards's theory is that the Democrats' besetting sin over the past few decades has been snobbery."
............................

[RichM]

1. Even though I like Edwards, you're distorting the sense of the article.

The article is mainly (& predictably) an attempt to denigrate ALL the Democrats, using standard rightwing BS. Even in the snippet you quoted, one can only be dumbfounded by the lame assertion that BUSH, of all people, "respects" the voters & their values.

The last few sentences are:

"...When I interviewed people during the 2000 campaign I found many voters preferred Democratic policies to Republican ones. But they didn't trust Al Gore because they thought he looked down on them. They felt Bush could come to their barbershop and fit right in.

Except for Bill Clinton, Democrats have nominated presidential candidates who try to figure out Middle American values by reading the polls, instead of feeling them in their gut. If they do it again, the long, slow slide will continue."

All this is just crap. David Brooks is an enemy, & anything he has to say can very safely be disregarded.

[mlawson]

2. That one sentence, "bush could come to..."

the barbershop and fit right in", I think is on the mark. I also believe that is why Ronnie got two terms.

But I can not believe that GWB got enough votes to steal the election, because of his policies (whatever they were), and his credentials to be president (which were laughable). It was a personal thing that voters LIKED, tragically for the rest of us.

I do not know if Edwards would fit right in at every barbershop, but he stil has the common touch that could swing the election for him. I do not think that any candiate without that 'touch' could win nowadays.

[PATRICK]

3. Brooks is incapable

of doing any good even when he 'repents' the effective mudslinging he participated in. Even as a turncoat he has too much of the conservative antipathy to do anything but sneer at the dems he praised for being blameless of the smears he others laifd on them in the 90's.

I think Edwards special charactersitcs and background don't need this kind of backhanded praise.

There is another post on DU about snobbery and the wine and caviar lunchpail Dems. Again there is a hidden taint in there to help one candidate at the exp
Government in general has systematically gravotated to its large and growing richer classes, elitism by virtue of sophisticated robbery. Still the Dems by and large are intelligent,open minded dedicated public servants and most suffer only by virtue of adaptations to the diseased state of politics and the triumph of materialism.

It is the Bush Plan to raise himself(or his clique) up by knocking all others down. Not to be imitated by decent humans at peril of their soul.

[Qutzupalotl]

5. Are you thinking of David Brock?

"Blinded by the Right"

[maha]

20. David Brooks.

Sorry, I started to disagree with you, then I noticed the other poster was talking about David Brock.

[RichM]

6. Yes, as NRK said, I think you're thinking of David BROCK, not BROOKS.

Easy mistake to make.

FWIW, there are 2 rightwing whackjobs in the Bush administration with near-identical names, as well. One is US Undersecretary of State John Bolton; the other is director of OMB Josh Bolten!

[maha]

22. Brooks v. Brock

This is David Brooks, idiot columnist:



This is David Brock, who saw the light:

[DemDogs]

7. He really believes Edwards has the key

And Brooks is a neo-con but he is the most straight-up of the neo-cons and by far the brightest.

And the thrust of the column is that Edwards reaches the voters Democrats need to reach in a way that the other Democrats do not. Anyone who is curious which reading is right should read the article. <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/21/opinion/21BROO.html>

[maha]

18. Oh, please

This is a back-handed compliment to Edwards at best, and if Brooks is "bright," I'm the Pope.

Link to other thread on this article:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=17370

[not systems]

4. Yikes. Talk about one endorsement not to get.

David Brooks makes me ill.

So sorry that he complements your man.

[DemDogs]

8. Compliments?

Think you mean compliments, but he has good and bad to say about Edwards, but the good is very, very good: that he has the key to getting the voters to beat Bush.
And, think about it, is he wrong? No. He's right.

[not systems]

10. compliments

Yep, that is what I intended.

I don't like Brooks.

If he likes the "good old boy" act, that is very nice for him.

I'm sick of it.

The meaning with "complements" may be accurate also for Edwards and Brooks:

"Either of two parts that complete the whole or mutually complete each other."

[AP]

9. This article has enough jabs to make you wonder what Brooks is on about.

" Edwards came by this outlook autobiographically. On the campaign trail, Edwards will mention — every five minutes or so — that his father worked in a textile mill and his mother retired from the post office. He didn't grow up poor. But he does say that his parents were not treated with the respect and dignity they deserved."

Brooks is probably trying to redeem himself for this Awful piece in the New York Times which you now have to pay to read the full text, but was available for free last week when I posted extensively about how sick it was. In that article, Brooks argues that Dean and Bush were bred to lead America, thanks to their blue blood bording school backgrounds.

This article about Edwards is the opposite of this other article lauding Dean for his blood line and privilege, and he's probably biting his tongue over having to be honest.

[AP]

11. Here's Mr Hyde, I mean Mr Brooks on the advantages of privilege.

Decide for yourself which Mr Brooks is the real Slim Shady. Does he believe what he wrote in this article, or does he believe what he wrote in the Edwards article?

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/13/opinion/13BROO.html?ex=1066622400&en=b7b0d5ed2a15179f&ei=5070

Bred for Power
By DAVID BROOKS

If you were to pick a presidential candidate on the basis of social standing — and really, darling, who doesn't — you'd have to pick Howard Brush Dean III over George Walker Bush...Both seemed to have sensed early on that their class, the Protestant Establishment, was dissolving. While Dean was at St. George's, the school admitted its first black student, Conrad Young, who, the official school history says, left after two years. By the time Bush and Dean got to Yale, a new class of striving meritocrats was starting to dominate the place.

Both, impressively, adapted to the new society... And for both, those decades of WASP breeding were not in vain. If you look at Bush and Dean, even more than prep school boys like John Kerry (St. Paul's and Harvard), Al Gore (St. Alban's and Harvard) and Bill Frist (Montgomery Bell Academy and Princeton), you detect certain common traits.

The first is self-assurance. Both Bush and Dean have amazing faith in their gut instincts. Both have self-esteem that is impregnable because it derives not from what they are accomplishing but from who they ineffably are. ...Both are bold. Bush is an ambitious war leader, and Dean has set himself off from all the cautious, poll-molded campaigns of his rivals. Both were inculcated with something else, a sense of chivalry. Unlike today's top schools, which are often factories for producing Résumé Gods, the WASP prep schools were built to take the sons of privilege and toughen them into paragons of manly virtue. Rich boys were sent away from their families and shoved into a harsh environment that put tremendous emphasis on athletic competition, social competition and character building.

... those who thrived...believed that life was a knightly quest to perform service and achieve greatness, through virility, courage, self-discipline and toughness.. that culture, which George Bush and Howard Dean were born into, did have a formula for producing leaders. Our culture, which is freer and fairer, does not. 

[Bombtrack]

14. I really didn't find that article offensive

it's really an explanation of why people like Bush and Dean are so naturally unrelatable to most people.

He's not saying that America should only elect WASP's, he's illustrating how much more likely it is for people like them to end up continuing the aristocratic cycle.

I really don't know enough about the author to respond to the charges people have put out about Brooks

I know some people have him confused with David Brock, who I know a little about.

I just got an e-mail from an Edwards group about the article and I posted it. I'll have to do some more research about Brooks

[AP]

17. That Bush-Dean article read like soft porn.

It was absoutely fawning over the notion of privilege. Read it closely. He's saying some people are BRED FOR POWER (it's the title of the article. It is a notion that is antithetical to democracy (and antithetical to the same author's argument in the Edwards article, which makes you wonder if he's trying to make amends for what should have been damage credibility over that sick Dean-Bush piece.

The bottom line is that Brooks is saying something true about Edards, but four weeks ago, he was more in character, jacking it to ideas that help Republicans win elections.

[charlie]

13. The "Bred For Power" article

is reprinted here:

http://arizona.indymedia.org/news/2003/09/12328.php

[AP]

12. Did you like it better when he was complimenting Dean for the EXACT ...

...OPPOSITE reason? (see below)

Will the real Slim Shady please stand up.

[not systems]

16. hell no.

I thought it was stupid.

I think Brooks works against all Dems at all times.

[maha]

15. We already demolished this article earlier today...

in the "editorials" forum. It's a typical brainless Brooks op ed that isn't even worth discussion.

[AP]

19. When you say "we" you're being generous.

It looks like you were doing most of the work! :)

[AnnabelLee]

21. Locking

Rule #3 violation

3. If you post an article or other published content which is from a conservative source or which expresses a traditionally conservative viewpoint, you must state your opinion about the piece and/or the issues it raises.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=463744

Thank you
AnnabelLee
DU Moderator