Comments on: The Permanent Campaign http://gonepublic.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/the-permanent-campaign/ www.gonepublic.wordpress.com Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:05:17 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Joshua Miller http://gonepublic.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/the-permanent-campaign/#comment-1786 Joshua Miller Sun, 31 May 2009 14:13:38 +0000 http://gonepublic.wordpress.com/?p=288#comment-1786 You're right about Clinton's health care efforts: I think what I meant was that there was an unguided public deliberation going on while the closed-door negotiations on the task force occurred. Instead of entering office with a plan, Clinton actually tried to figure it out while in office. This rarely works: the pace of the Executive Branch leaves little time for serious thought. As a result, the Clinton plan ended up competing with alternative plans from within the Democratic Party and a whole set of Republican talking points that were formed in the absence of a public proposal and had little to do with the actual plan. I'm sure you know Jim Bohman's work. I think his recent call for more deliberative forums with open-ended goals, in which issue recognition and selection up for grabs rather than pre-assigned, captures the difference between top-down and bottom-up organization. As you say, the office of citizen requires broader attention than the office of president. You’re right about Clinton’s health care efforts: I think what I meant was that there was an unguided public deliberation going on while the closed-door negotiations on the task force occurred. Instead of entering office with a plan, Clinton actually tried to figure it out while in office. This rarely works: the pace of the Executive Branch leaves little time for serious thought.

As a result, the Clinton plan ended up competing with alternative plans from within the Democratic Party and a whole set of Republican talking points that were formed in the absence of a public proposal and had little to do with the actual plan.

I’m sure you know Jim Bohman’s work. I think his recent call for more deliberative forums with open-ended goals, in which issue recognition and selection up for grabs rather than pre-assigned, captures the difference between top-down and bottom-up organization. As you say, the office of citizen requires broader attention than the office of president.

]]> By: Noelle McAfee http://gonepublic.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/the-permanent-campaign/#comment-1785 Noelle McAfee Sun, 31 May 2009 13:53:15 +0000 http://gonepublic.wordpress.com/?p=288#comment-1785 What sunk the Clinton healthcare campaign was something else altogether: meeting behind closed doors and then unveiling a policy on people who had no opportunity to weigh in or work through the choices. It was take it or leave it, giving the right an opportunity to exploit people's concerns. The Clinton campaign is now a model of what not to do. I'm not arguing for the opposite, at least not for the administration to try to orchestrate a long series of deliberative forums. I agree with Josh that the administration can't organize the public. That's why I'm really uncomfortable with the President's "Organizing for America" arm. People see right through that. They know they are being mobilized -- or at least there's an attempt to do so -- not organized. I wish the administration would just call it what it is: an attempt to create a permanent campaign for not just Obama but the Obama agenda (an agenda I largely support). But notice that this process treats citizens as public interest lobbyinsts, a nice job, but much narrower than the office of citizen, an office that is about making choices about what should be and developing public will and civic capacity for change. What sunk the Clinton healthcare campaign was something else altogether: meeting behind closed doors and then unveiling a policy on people who had no opportunity to weigh in or work through the choices. It was take it or leave it, giving the right an opportunity to exploit people’s concerns. The Clinton campaign is now a model of what not to do.

I’m not arguing for the opposite, at least not for the administration to try to orchestrate a long series of deliberative forums. I agree with Josh that the administration can’t organize the public. That’s why I’m really uncomfortable with the President’s “Organizing for America” arm. People see right through that. They know they are being mobilized — or at least there’s an attempt to do so — not organized.

I wish the administration would just call it what it is: an attempt to create a permanent campaign for not just Obama but the Obama agenda (an agenda I largely support).

But notice that this process treats citizens as public interest lobbyinsts, a nice job, but much narrower than the office of citizen, an office that is about making choices about what should be and developing public will and civic capacity for change.

]]> By: Joshua Miller http://gonepublic.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/the-permanent-campaign/#comment-1784 Joshua Miller Sun, 31 May 2009 13:21:15 +0000 http://gonepublic.wordpress.com/?p=288#comment-1784 The administration has a tough job: they're trying to steer a bureaucracy. They -can't- spend six months on deliberative forums, risking radicalization and polarization of both right and left, only to conclude for economic or strategic reasons (Senate votes against a filibuster, for instance) that their original plan is the only one that will work. If anything, that's the model that sunk the Clinton campaign for universal health care. So if that's true then we need to walk back some of the rhetoric around the kinds of change that a president, even a black president with community organizing experience, can achieve from the top. I've said this before and I'll say it again: President Obama can't organize us, because that's a contradiction in terms. We've got to organize ourselves. The administration has a tough job: they’re trying to steer a bureaucracy. They -can’t- spend six months on deliberative forums, risking radicalization and polarization of both right and left, only to conclude for economic or strategic reasons (Senate votes against a filibuster, for instance) that their original plan is the only one that will work.

If anything, that’s the model that sunk the Clinton campaign for universal health care.

So if that’s true then we need to walk back some of the rhetoric around the kinds of change that a president, even a black president with community organizing experience, can achieve from the top. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: President Obama can’t organize us, because that’s a contradiction in terms. We’ve got to organize ourselves.

]]> By: Shane Ralston http://gonepublic.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/the-permanent-campaign/#comment-1779 Shane Ralston Sat, 30 May 2009 16:21:21 +0000 http://gonepublic.wordpress.com/?p=288#comment-1779 Noelle, I agree with you that the conflation of organizing and mobilizing is counterproductive. Having elites decide ex ante what the decision is that the public should reach in their deliberations and endorse ex post seems disingenuous to the deliberative process, as well. Also, didn't former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan warn against the perpetual campaign? Isn't that what got us into the mess in Iraq? Even though the ends Obama has chosen are more commendable than Bush's (i.e., universal health care and confirming an Hispanic woman to be a Supreme Court Justice versus global security through unilateralism and governance without transparency), the means--as Dewey reminds us in "Democratic Ends Need Democratic Means for their Realization" (1939)--should nevertheless be democratic. Though we tend to associate electoral campaigns with democracy, elites propagandizing the public, whether during or in between presidential elections, surely is not. Noelle,
I agree with you that the conflation of organizing and mobilizing is counterproductive. Having elites decide ex ante what the decision is that the public should reach in their deliberations and endorse ex post seems disingenuous to the deliberative process, as well. Also, didn’t former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan warn against the perpetual campaign? Isn’t that what got us into the mess in Iraq? Even though the ends Obama has chosen are more commendable than Bush’s (i.e., universal health care and confirming an Hispanic woman to be a Supreme Court Justice versus global security through unilateralism and governance without transparency), the means–as Dewey reminds us in “Democratic Ends Need Democratic Means for their Realization” (1939)–should nevertheless be democratic. Though we tend to associate electoral campaigns with democracy, elites propagandizing the public, whether during or in between presidential elections, surely is not.

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