Jeff Golden got criticized yesterday. Lucky him.
In politics sometimes your best assets are your critics.
Some rookie politicians think that criticism is bad and pleasantries are good. They have it backwards.
Politicians communicate in order to build networks of support. A lot of it is worthless social pleasantries.
1. Nicey-nicey waste of time talk. Rookie politicians say things they know voters like to hear. They confuse politics with polite dinner conversation. They say they value hard work. They want ethics in government. They want good things.
Comments like that are a total waste of time for everyone, except to prove the politician has nothing to say. Everyone likes hard work, ethics, etc.
Rah-rah for the home team talk. Rookie politicians seek cheap mini victories, saying things that the home team likes but others would not. A Republican who says, "There's something about Hillary I just don't trust" is doing that. Same with a Democrat saying Trump is a "dangerous loudmouth." Statements like that don't distinguish one politician from another in their party. They, too, are a waste of time. ("How are you?" "Fine, thank you.")
Political speech is only meaningful if one is saying something that someone would disagree with. Only then is the politician staking out political turf.
Political speech is only meaningful if one is saying something that someone would disagree with. Only then is the politician staking out political turf.
Criticism is the magic elixir to build support.
A politician has to show he stands for something by doing something costly, e.g. by risking votes and being criticized and standing firm for something some people won't like. Then voters can infer what you really stand for, because you took heat for it.
Jeff Golden, in his public persona, is an authentic archetype of old school Baby Boomer college town liberalism.
He matured out of 1960's student radicalism into a suite of unsurprising opinions and interests familiar in places like Ashland: progressive, anti-GMO, anti-war, pro-diversity, pro-women, anti-pipeline, pro climate stability, tax the rich, anti-corporate, anti-PAC, pro health care expansion, pro renewable energy, anti-fossil fuels. He had a talk show on public radio, and he has a public TV show, Immense Possibilities, that give heartwarming examples of citizen involvement for a better world. He has written books about better civic engagement, conspicuous for their earnestness.
Jeff Golden is consistent. He has a brand. Golden has nurtured the votes of college town liberals for a lifetime. He should win a vast majority of that constituency because he has earned them. His problem politically is not that those votes are at risk. It is that is brand is so powerful that it appears that he is a narrow archetype of that college town consciousness, and nothing else.
Golden can win a primary election among Democrats, but lose everywhere else in a general election. This isn't guesswork; this is history. Golden has twice lost elections to Republicans when running in districts larger than Ashland.
Yesterday Golden got his sweet blessing of sharp criticism. He got it from where he needed it, from the left, for not being a knee jerk college town liberal, for not being doctrinaire enough.
The critic is angry Golden did something unexpected. Lucky Jeff.
He matured out of 1960's student radicalism into a suite of unsurprising opinions and interests familiar in places like Ashland: progressive, anti-GMO, anti-war, pro-diversity, pro-women, anti-pipeline, pro climate stability, tax the rich, anti-corporate, anti-PAC, pro health care expansion, pro renewable energy, anti-fossil fuels. He had a talk show on public radio, and he has a public TV show, Immense Possibilities, that give heartwarming examples of citizen involvement for a better world. He has written books about better civic engagement, conspicuous for their earnestness.
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| Click: Sharp Criticism of Golden in yesterday's post |
Jeff Golden is consistent. He has a brand. Golden has nurtured the votes of college town liberals for a lifetime. He should win a vast majority of that constituency because he has earned them. His problem politically is not that those votes are at risk. It is that is brand is so powerful that it appears that he is a narrow archetype of that college town consciousness, and nothing else.
Golden can win a primary election among Democrats, but lose everywhere else in a general election. This isn't guesswork; this is history. Golden has twice lost elections to Republicans when running in districts larger than Ashland.
Yesterday Golden got his sweet blessing of sharp criticism. He got it from where he needed it, from the left, for not being a knee jerk college town liberal, for not being doctrinaire enough.
The critic is angry Golden did something unexpected. Lucky Jeff.
The bandwagon of attaboys Golden gets from supporters do as much harm as good. (As I was drafting this post another one came into this blog's Comments file, saying "If you think Golden hasn't championed progressive issues, you have not been paying attention.") His friends and allies may rally to his side, assuring each other and the world that Jeff is solidly predictable in his typecast role. His friends will damage him, but with the best of intentions.
More useful to Golden is the criticism that he is not always on the leading edge of every progressive issue and not locked into meeting the expectations of a tight knit political community, not a caricature.
He needs more critics, complaining loudly he isn't doctrinaire enough.
3 comments:
The problem Democrats are having is that by attempting to start any policy debate from a nonexistent "centrist" position they give up not only the moral high ground, but set themselves up to be pushed further into Regressive territory, thereby losing both more principled supporters but also independents who, failing to see the difference, vote Republican. Hillary, and Obama for that matter, could have been an FDR or Truman style Progressive had it not been for the pressure from well financed and vocal Regressive opposition. I shudder to think how The New Deal would have fared if a Fox news had held sway at the time.
I think it's wishful thinking that Regressive voters will be charmed into supporting a Democrat. It's inherent in the Regressive mind set to evade gray areas and nuance as even a consideration of such threatens their dogma. For example, Roe vs Wade was a compromise that satisfied Progressives, but was seen by Regressives as only another battle in their war to continue the subjugation of women.
Bravo, Rick Millward. I couldn't have stated it better myself. Having been both an eastern Oregon and southwestern Oregon resident, I know something of the voters there. So many want what the author here disparages; support for the working class, for true democratic values. Thank you.
Interesting comments.
I didn't take Golden's response to be entering the debate at all, yet. I took it as responsibly needing more information before entering the debate. I admire a leader that takes that approach over one that follow a particular ideology simply for the sake of that ideology.
That said, having listened to him on the radio for years, watched his TV show, as well as having followed some of his politics over the years, I am confident at the end of the day his decisions are going to lean solidly to the progressive side.
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