Well-p, here we go again! The binary attitudes of Democratic politicians are noted by Ryan Lizza.
No sooner are the grandchildren herded away from the Speakeress's podium than we go looking for a counterbalance, a male Democrat. And here they are -- the "Macho Dems":
...The swearing-in ceremony on Thursday was notable for another milestone in gender politics: the return of the Alpha Male Democrat. The members of this new faction, which helped the Democrats expand into majority status, stand out not for their ideology or racial background but for their carefully cultivated masculinity.
They didn't just run for office, they were recruited by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
"We went to C.I.A. agents, F.B.I. agents, N.F.L. quarterbacks, sheriffs, Iraq war vets. These are red-blooded Americans who are tough.”
Like Nancy Pelosi has palish pink blood and isn't, like, tough?
Lizza's glimpse of the values of the Democratic Party leadership lays out the disillusionment on the part of Americans who maybe don't have grandchildren or biceps, clear gender and race identification, and who don't speak a language reflecting adherence to the either/or standards of contemporary America. And what about those of us who are dead scared of the combined power of the military and American corporations?
At least some of these Macho Dems, Lizza writes, don't embrace the party line.
It remains to be seen whether they will create as many problems for Democrats as they solved. After all, these new Democrats have heterodox political views that could complicate Democratic caucus politics, and their success may raise uncomfortable questions for those Democrats who don’t pass the new macho test.
They're independent intellectually but they have been recruited by the Party for their stereotypes, damn it, and some of them sound like pretty egotistical Macho Men.
Senator Schumer is so aggressive and demanding that he has a reputation as one of the most difficult people in the Senate to work for...
I don't like the elevation of military service as a prime indicator of "integrity."
Patrick Murphy, the son of a Philadelphia police officer, was a West Point professor, a prosecutor and an Iraq war veteran... Chris Carney was a lieutenant commander in the Navy Reserves... Joe Sestak is a former Navy vice admiral whose last job was commanding 15,000 sailors and dozens of ships and aircraft for operations in Afghanistan...
John Lapp of the DCCC who recruited these guys sounds quite nutty: “Joe Sestak — that guy’s muscular! He’s a vice admiral..."
Then we have:
Tim Walz, an Army national guardsman... Brad Ellsworth, an Indiana sheriff... Heath Shuler, a former N.F.L. quarterback from North Carolina.
Fortunately, Lizza's conclusion is right on target when he questions "the implications of the Macho Dem theory for the 2008 presidential campaign." He reminds us that this past round of elections has left many Democratic women out in the cold.
In general it looks as though -- once again -- the Democratic leadership is playing image vs. image rather than substance vs. substance. The Democratic Party will tend to lose more of us as we see it as a self-deluded, insubstantial copycat of the ridiculously rigid, corporatist, and militarist Republican Party.
If a party measures its candidates by whether they wear a uniform, carry a gun or simply look tough — does it invite the public and press to apply that standard to all the party’s leaders? The leading presidential candidates — Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — may not score that high on the Alpha meter. And in the past, when Democrats believed their candidate was a true hero — well, just remember how the Republican Party was able to portray John Kerry. It could be a warning sign for Democrats: live by the Macho Dem creed, die by it.
"Die by it" is probably the outcome. For more than four years, I've been convinced that the Democratic Party is in a suicide fall, pushed by a faction of Party leadership which emerged, sad to say, during the Clinton era.
