Karl Rove & the Permanent Campaign: Part II of a Response to MIFF

Read Part I

Yesterday I had a revelation that little Ralphie Nader was right about something in 2000. There is some sense in which both major parties are th same: both are, for the most part, too busy trying to win elections to actually have time to govern. Too bad he thought he had an actual solution to this problem.

I came to this revelation after floating an argument to MIFF about why I thought the Bush Adminstration was seeking 'total and permanent control over the government.' My argument was basically, well, it's no big secret that Karl Rove says that's the goal.

It is widely reported, from sources across the political spectrum, that Karl Rove's ambition is, in the words of a Time magazine profile of him, "creating a locked-in Republican majority".
Especially apropos to the general theme of this blog right now is this statement by Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard, which he made in the course of an article attacking Howard Dean:

Dean's false statements included this: "Karl Rove and others have talked about going back to the McKinley era before there was any kind of social safety net in this country." Not true. What Rove has talked about is how the McKinley presidency touched off a Republican era in American politics. Rove would like Bush to begin a new era of Republican dominance--but he never said this should be done by removing the safety net.

MIFF was unimpressed with this argument, and wrote:

If you mean that Rove seeks Republican dominance by some sort of force -- such as by outlawing Democrats and suspending elections -- I would again ask that you present some type of evidence to that effect. If you mean it more figuratively -- such as Rove desires Republicans to win every presidential election from now until eternity -- then I would submit that that is the goal of every political group, e.g., Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, Libertarians, etc. Is Terry McAuliffe, or any other Democrat (including yourself), now plotting to win seven out of the next eight elections (roughly a generation) but to lose one of the eight because otherwise it would unpermissably mean "Democratic dominance for at least a generation."

In this post, I'll address MIFF's second objection. I do believe that the Bush Administration is increasingly showing itself willing to ally itself with undemocratic elements and strategies to solidify its dominance, but let's leave that for another post. Assume that Rove just wants to win, forever and ever. If that's the goal of every political group, as MIFF claims, then who am I to use it against the Bush Administration?

Well, I would like to think that the goal of a political group is not simply to win, but to govern. If the focus is on winning, when exactly does the governing part come in? I'm not the only person to have this wild and crazy idea -- I refer you to the year-old Esquire article, again, in which a senior administration official told Suskind "Don't you understand?…We got into the White House and forfeited the game. You're supposed to stand for something . . . to generate sound ideas, support them with real evidence, and present them to Congress and the people. We didn't do any of that. We just danced this way and that on minute political calculations and whatever was needed for a few paragraphs of a speech." Here's another official, talking to Suskind (this quote comes off Google's cache of Suskind's article, as sometime in the last week or two Suskind has made the article unavailable except to users with passwords) right after the midterm elections:

"Maybe the last two years wasn't just a case of benign neglect," says this source, with whom I spoke extensively throughout October. "Maybe it was brilliant neglect."

He went on to explain: From early on, Rove may have been focused on energizing the core, the far Right, for the midterms. An attempt to push centrist policies through a divided Congress would have done anything but that, and it would have violated the prime strategic directive: don't alienate the right wing like the first President Bush. Karl's remedy: co-opt the policy-creation process; put it in a lockbox until after genuine Republican control is established.

"Now the troops are ready to march," the source says. "The question is, What will we do? Will we finally put together a thoughtful policy team to create a coherent plan for America's future, or just push through one political favor after another dressed up like policy? I guess it's really for Karl, Karl and the president, to decide."

Apparently there's a name for this kind of politics dressed up as policy: The Permanent Campaign. The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, published a book in 2000 about it. A summary of the book on their website notes:

At least three implications of the permanent campaigning on issues deserve attention. First, organized interests often campaign a lot more on issues than on electoral politics. Second, the infusion of permanent campaign tactics and funding into interest-group politics contributes to the decline of deliberation in Congress. If the stakes are high and interests have "invested" a great deal in both politicians and the framing of issues, why would they encourage deliberation? Finally, the permanent campaign on issues favors those interests that can bring the most resources to bear in a context in which the disparity in resources is usually immense. The very power of constructed narratives allows moneyed interests to make the case that they are acting to benefit citizens and consumers as part of their overall argument on a given policy.

The Permanent Campaign is not the fault of either the Republican or the Democratic parties, and Karl Rove, much as I'd like to blame him for it, did not invent it, though some have argued that the problem has gotten much, much worse in the current administration. So MIFF is right to ask whether the Democrats are any different from Republicans in wanting to win. There appear to be structural problems in society right now, and I certainly wouldn't pretend to know the solution to them (I'm not Nader). But the fact that neither party has the time or inclination to formulate and enact real policies doesn't mean there's no difference between them.

If all I'm going to get out of government is political favors, who would I rather those favors go to? People who are already fabulously wealthy and the corporations they run, plus Jerry Falwell? Or, say, everyone else?

Sure, I wish there were something behind door number three, but there ain't. So, Bob, I guess I'll go with door number two.