William A.  Franklin
            “THE POLITICAL BRAIN” 

I just read "The Political Brain" by Drew Westen.  I read it in about 7 hours, in one sitting (well, almost one).  This is the most concise and informative look at the Democrats plans and procedures for losing the past 30 years by addressing "issues, resolutions, etc." and failing to have one common theme based on feeling, emotion.  Westen backs up his thesis with documentation and work on the problems set.  And yet well meaning but dumb candidates and office holders keep hauling out the Will Rogers canard about not being organized as Dems.  What a crock - says something long enough and folks believe you can campaign every two or four years by throwing a staff together like a pickup basketball team at the Y on Friday afternoon. 

Any Democratic politician that does not read this book within the next six months should be flogged, pilloried and run out of town on a rail, with full complement of tar and feathers.  This book addresses my frustrations with the Democrats and their stupid ways of losing the past 10-14 years. And, despite this miserable record, they keep using the same damned worthless consultants (Shrum comes to mind) and the same failed strategies.  I came unglued when first Gore and they Kerry did not address all attacks, 15 minutes after they happened, or even pre-empted them -- they were predictable.  In 2004, I could not understand why in the hell Kerry did not blister Bush for incompetence and corruption, day and night, up and down and all around --or Gore for that matter-- put on ads with lots of logic but no emotional appeal.   

This book tells why and how the Dems have turned into a group of wimps, listening to losers, consultants with no skin in the game and even fewer ideas that related to reality.  Just as they did not let Gore attack and attack, be himself, they allowed Kerry to be savaged on his strongest suit, his service to his country--why, they decided to not attack back.  The Republicans have smashed the Democrats repeatedly with (1) profound organizational skills and (2) uses of technologies.  2006 was, far as I can tell, was the ordinary people getting sick of the Dem elites losing, and losing, and losing----.  Now we have a permanent disaster far as the eye can see. 

Westen looks at all this and builds ways in which the Dems can in fact get their act together.  One observation I made some years back, was that the influx of women and African Americans into positions of power in the Democratic Party in the 1980s and 1990s gave the white middle class men, many of whom are manning the Republican ranks today the excuse to leave and go to the right - part of the Southern Strategy that Nixon got from Wallace and Reagan used extremely well.  Well, sez these professional white men, used to managing projects, people, money -- "we are not sitting here and listening to idiots and futher waste our money here, we have other fish to fry."  This is a simple statement of truth, not a slam at women and African Americans who are really coming into their own in the past few years, but after years of loss.  So, went the white middleclass management talent which could have helped the Dems not get so clobbered.  Add to that fear of something intangible which seems to drive Democrats to not even put stickers on their cars, no matter how ardent they might be in County, District and State meetings.  So, how do we get this managerial talent back, or developed?  It surely is not by using Schrum and other dolts who cannot find the door.   

Perhaps it is time for DNC to smarten up and conduct leadership and management seminars, mandatory before any person is elected to any Party officership or committee--no excuses.  I see that program lasting up to four months, two weekends per month.  And, this is just patching holes; the real reconstruction has to occur during and after these stop gap measures.  And no, lawyers don't count all that much, they usually only manage office staff, nice folks but no cookie. 

Run, pedal, drive, fly to the book store and get "The Political Brain."  It says with convincing passion what our party leaders have not said for so many years as we allowed the elites to run the ship in return for crumbs.  These crumbs don't taste so good now, do they?  Want to see how it happened and how to fix it?  Read the book.   

Another thing Westen points out:  Republicans resort to principles and Dems resort to (1) buckets and buckets of fact, most of which are never noticed by voters and (2) workers who are instead steeped in illogic and liturgical exercises like GOTV.  If in fact we want change, we have to have some clear, concise, firm principles -- top down-- not hogwash I have seen so far, but talking points which elicit passion, presented in a coherent pattern, scheme, framing pattern.  Barring that, Dems campaigning still sound like they are trying to break into the third grade when Republicans passionately, to a sufficient extent, speak to principles.  Read the damned book.  It is about as good as it gets in examining the root causes of the Dem Dilemna.    

Got to stop being wusses.

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