The sport of politics. The politics of sport.

by A.F. Cook © 2007

[This article has been edited from the original book chapter, by the author, for length.]_____________________________________________________

“When you’re playing for the national championship, it’s not a matter of life and death. It’s more important than that.” — Duffy Daugherty

The political red zone

Every football fan in America knows about the “red zone” — the area on the playing field from the twenty-yard line to the goal line, beyond which lies the end zone. It’s bad enough when a team doesn’t score a touchdown or field goal from somewhere on the remaining eighty yards of the field. But if it fails to score when its offense first gets inside the red zone, its coaches and players get frustrated.

When repeated trips to the red zone don’t lead to points, fans start to boo and — especially if it’s the second half of the game — leave the stands. Meanwhile, the sports announcers start making barely veiled comments suggesting the team could be a bunch of losers. On the opposing sideline, players grin and give each other high fives; while those on the short end of the score sit dazed on the bench, some hanging their towel-covered heads in shame. It ain’t pretty.

Let’s face it: most people can’t have confidence in a team that has trouble scoring. But by making adjustments to its game plan, even the most unlikely team can prove fans, commentators, opponents — and anyone else who thought it couldn’t win — wrong.

In the National Football League, it can take decades to earn the respect that comes with a winning record. That’s the story of the pro football team I’ve loved since I was a kid — the longtime underdog New England Patriots.

Before they became known for winning, the Patriots racked up year after year of losing seasons. They were the Rodney Dangerfield of the NFL — couldn’t get no respect. But in 1985, the team cast off its negative image and, after a respectable 11–5–0 season, overpowered three of its American Football Conference nemeses during the playoffs in an on-the-road display of guts and unity. The New York Jets, Oakland Raiders and Miami Dolphins fell to a scrappy, determined Patriots team that included quietly heroic personalities such as veteran quarterback Steve Grogan, offensive lineman John Hannah and coach Raymond Berry. They were AFC champs.

Sure, in Super Bowl XX the team was convincingly mashed into the turf of the New Orleans Superdome by Mike Ditka’s Chicago Bears. But despite that humiliating loss, the Patriots had overcome an important hurdle: they had shown they could win the “away games” during the playoffs, with their backs against the wall, and actually become Super Bowl contenders. It was the beginning of hope.

For a while, it looked like that 1985 season was a flash in the pan. It took the team another decade or so to become regulars in the playoffs and consistent contenders for the Super Bowl’s Lombardi Trophy (named after famed Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi). The missing links for the Patriots had been a coach with a brilliant strategic mind — and who would stick around for a while — and a QB who had what it took to help the team win big games on a regular basis. By the time the millennium rolled around, owner Bob Kraft had those missing links: Bill Belichick and Tom Brady.

Belichick, who took over the reins of the team from his mentor, Bill Parcells, redefined the concept of teamwork. Despite the high profile of charismatic individuals such as Brady and defensive captain Tedy Bruschi, the coach worked to counter the idea that the Patriots had “stars” whose achievement counted more than anyone else’s.

Belichick took a creative approach to employing the talent at his disposal, using key players at various positions on offense, defense and special teams. His motto has been to “play everybody.” In one memorable moment, he even gave former Boston College Eagles star Doug Flutie — who joined the team as a backup QB toward the end of his pro career — the green light to drop-kick an extra point.

Brady, who wasn’t even a top draft pick, eventually took over the QB spot from an inconsistent Drew Bledsoe. He then developed into the driven, pumped-up team leader that is every coach’s dream — the kind of guy who helps get the best out of every player on every play. Great QBs infuse their teams with that all-important sense of unity, which is crucial to carry players through losses as well as wins and inspire them to fight another day.

The Patriots have had so many great players at all positions over the team’s history, it’s hard to keep track of them all. Each player along the way helped the Patriots become Super Bowl champions. In the process, the team gained fans far beyond the borders of New England. The Patriots won the Big Game in 2002, 2003 and 2005; and as the 2007 season began, many sports pundits were picking them to go all the way once more. They’d come a long way, baby.

The way I see it, the Democratic Party has faced the same uphill battle in the game of politics the Patriots did for years in the NFL. I think most of the Democrats’ problems have to do with their inability to control how the Party and its constituencies are perceived by key voting blocs.

Dems have lost too many big elections by failing to score points in the political red zone — the area on the field where the thorniest social issues are in play. Related primarily to morality and race, those issues tend to generate the greatest division within the American electorate. It is in debates over social issues that voters’ perceptions of each other are most apparent, and where prejudices can be the most easily manipulated. Yet judging by which battles they choose to fight and how they choose to fight them, Democrats always seem to think more voters agree with them on social issues than actually do.

What I have to say might sound radical, but I don’t think most voters cast ballots based on solid information about issues; I think most of us cast ballots based largely on how we view other people.

For example, using rhetoric that appeals to voters’ racial prejudices has worked well for the Republican Party, which has a more homogenous — mostly white and mostly social conservative — base.

To neutralize the Republican edge with white voters, Democrats must emphasize values that unify their party with mainstream, “traditionalist” values and stop giving the impression that they’re always signing onto quixotic quests for perfect justice, which has become a hallmark of their disparate constituencies.

Winning ways

Like winning football teams, winning political entities combine solid performance with heroic personalities to keep voters excited, tuned in and invested in the outcome of an election. Democrats can learn a lot about how competition works from Belichick’s creative thinking on the sidelines and Brady’s leadership on the field. But they can also learn from the Patriots about grace under pressure and how to turn adversity into a competitive advantage.

The Patriots have had plenty of experience turning challenges into opportunities. That invaluable trait has contributed to their winning attitude, which is the mark of all true competitors — what sports aficionados call “heart.”

Apart from sheer talent and determination within the team structure, other factors contribute to success on the football field. First, it’s a general rule in sports that when a team has home-field advantage — hosting the game on its own turf, surrounded by its own fans — it has a psychological edge over its opponent. Home teams are also better rested at game time, because their players don’t have to spend time traveling into enemy territory. The home team might not always win, but the odds are in its favor.

Then there are the fans. Over the course of the NFL season, fans fill stadiums, those stadiums fill with cheers and the noise of the crowd helps drown out the opposing QB’s play calls. Football teams are comprised of eleven players, but the fans are collectively known as “the twelfth man” because of the impact they can have on team morale, and therefore on the outcome of a game.

Every team needs fans to show up at home games and root for its players. But fans become demoralized by underperforming teams, which can lead to empty seats. Advertising, ticket and merchandise sales suffer, giving the team fewer resources to work with. Some fans may even switch their loyalty, at least temporarily, to another team.

In the game of political perception, the goal is to inspire the voting majority and gain greater electoral market share. This means Democrats must inspire not only their largely liberal fan base, but millions of voters who are not so liberal. Just as many fans of other NFL teams admire the Patriots, I have no problem rooting for teams and individual players that demonstrate character and put in great performances (except, of course, when they’re playing the Pats).

If you love the game, you admire great players no matter who they play for. For the Democratic Party, the lesson is to make sure they have as many candidates as possible who appeal to voters who don’t necessarily consider themselves Democrats, not to mention conservative-leaning Democrats disenchanted with the Party.

After all, voters who don’t agree with the entire Republican Party platform may vote for Republican candidates they like individually. I don’t generally vote for Republicans because their party’s agenda is just too scary. But I’ve admired individual Republicans who aren’t ideologues; who know to make common sense, people who favor policies to protect the environment and preserve individuals’ right to privacy, especially in matters of health and family planning. I consider such people “traditionalists,” because they tend to hold certain basic values that include making practical decisions in the interest of the greater good and respecting the principle of individual choice as long as those choices do not harm other people.

The Democratic Party is my political home team because I’ve spent most of my life rooting for Democrats. But because of my frustration over the Party’s lack of a coherent winning strategy and its candidates’ inability to present an appealing portrait of themselves to voters, I became an Independent after the 2000 election. It didn’t have to be this way.

I want Democrats to reflect on what football represents in American culture. Why? Because the values that bond football fans together offer Dems an antidote to their own tired delusions of liberal grandeur and clues on how to address social issues in a more voter-friendly way.

The goal for Democrats must be to a) make better decisions about which issues to focus on and b) devise more effective ways of promoting their views to key voting blocs.

Take the hot topic of religion, where Democrats have had such trouble gaining the confidence of the voting public: in the NFL, some players wear their faith on their sleeve, and that’s just fine with many of us. Sportswriters have informed me that it became customary for some players to pray at midfield around 1982, right after the NFL players’ strike, as an expression of solidarity. While NFL management may not have liked such fraternization between opposing teams, over time it seems to have become an accepted ritual.

So what do pro football players pray for? “They give thanks for getting through the game, they pray for continuing to be able to play the game [and] they also pray that the visiting team makes it back safely,” Boston sportswriter Karen Guregian told me.

Most fans have seen players from both sides kneel together and pray when a player is seriously hurt during a game. “The players who join in are essentially saying that while they take part in a violent game, they still have their beliefs and their desire to give thanks,” Guregian explained.

Friends who play football in semi-pro leagues have confirmed this. To me, the way NFL players express their personal religious faith on the public forum of the playing field is no threat to the principle of separation of church and state; rather, it’s an appropriate expression of individual liberty.

Just as NFL players do, many voters pray as a matter of spiritual practice whether they are adherents of an established religion or not. That commonality offers Dems a guide on how to make peace with religion as a topic of political conversation.

Living dangerously — a tale of turnovers

What usually makes the difference in whether a team wins or loses, despite the number of rushing and passing yards it amasses, is turnovers. When a team hands the ball over to its opponent through either a fumble or an interception, it gives that opponent momentum.

Whether or not the opposing team converts that turnover into points, the biggest impact on the team that loses the ball is usually psychological. Turnovers can deflate players’ confidence and cause them to make more mistakes, sealing the team’s fate. Teams prone to turnovers don’t win Super Bowls — unless they’re very, very lucky. And no team worth its salt relies on luck.

Democrats have committed far too many perception turnovers in the political red zone over the past several decades. Those turnovers have come in the form of poor word choices, bad photo ops and even bad hair (or, in the case of John Edwards, hair that’s too good).

Every presidential election season, a new slate of usual and unusual Democratic suspects emerges. Each new group commits a range of perception blunders that provide negative reinforcement of the Party’s image.

For example, it’s hard to take candidates seriously when their hair carries its own comical message. In this respect, 2004 primary contenders Al Sharpton and Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) were clearly hair challenged. The two candidates were already in popularity deficit with the voting majority thanks to their left-of-center platforms. Sharpton’s below-the-ears perm with white sideburns was an apparent style nod to soul singer James Brown, but it didn’t translate into a presidential image. Meanwhile, Kucinich’s side-parted do looked nerdy, to say the least. (Kucinich threw his hat in the ring again for the 2008 race, apparently using his long-shot status to act as the Democratic Party’s voice of conscience. But he couldn’t escape his own image. Bill Maher gave a blunt assessment of Kucinich’s situation in August 2007, when he told Larry King that the candidate “looks like an elf.”)

Democrats generally commit more perception turnovers than Republicans. But in 2006, they got a rare break when Republican lawmakers and loyalists were caught flagrantly exposing their own moral hypocrisy. First, there was Florida Congressman Mark Foley, a self-appointed protector of children and member of the anti-gay marriage brigade who turned out to have a penchant for male congressional pages.

Then, one of the Republicans’ conservative lieutenants in the “culture war,” evangelical church leader Ted Haggard, was outed by his boy-toy for living a closet, methamphetamine-fueled homo-sex life.

The Republicans sustained additional collateral damage in 2007, when Louisiana Congressman David Vitter’s phone number appeared in the records of a Washington madam and Idaho Senator Larry Craig was caught in a gay sex solicitation sting in an airport bathroom. (Craig initially resigned over the incident. He later reversed his decision and decided to serve out his term, despite a judge’s ruling that he could not withdraw his guilty plea in the case.)

But despite that slew of morality mess-ups, Democrats can’t expect Republicans and their cultural allies to make those kinds of mistakes on any kind of regular basis. They should expect them not to, and proceed accordingly.

The Dems’ QB problem

I grew up thinking Democrats were the good guys, because they were the political descendants of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who helped rescue America from the Great Depression and the world from the Nazis during World War II; and John F. Kennedy, the handsome prince of politics who asked us to consider what we could do for our country more than what our country could do for us. But as I’ve watched Democrats in more recent years, those good guys have looked more and more like 90-lb. weaklings.

The first presidential campaign I remember was in 1972, when Democratic contender George McGovern challenged Republican incumbent Richard M. Nixon. I was in the fifth grade, but even then I understood how perception influenced politics. McGovern seemed pale and timid, even physically weak.

Nixon’s five o’clock shadow gave an impression of swarthy mean-spiritedness, but he also seemed more vigorous than McGovern. Nixon’s temperament also suggested an unwillingness to back down, a typical winning stance for a wartime president. In the end, McGovern won only Massachusetts and D.C. — the worst presidential election defeat in modern history.

I think Jimmy Carter’s victory in 1976 was something of a fluke, the result of a temporary backlash against the corruption of the Nixon regime. I say this because Carter’s demeanor was so gentle it verged on effeminate, and I don’t think American voters equate gentle men with the role of president.

When Carter’s backbone was dramatically tested, voters were all too willing to cut him loose. Just prior to his reelection bid, in November 1979, 66 people were taken hostage in the American embassy in Iran’s capital, Tehran, by militant Islamic students. The crisis lasted 444 days, with the U.S. initiating a failed rescue effort that resulted in the deaths of five Air Force airmen and three marines. The ordeal contributed to Carter’s image — and by association the Democratic Party’s — as weak in the face of America’s enemies.

When Republican challenger Ronald Reagan came strutting along with his California cowboy decisiveness, determined to free the Iranian hostages and bring the Cold War to an America-friendly conclusion, he blew Carter off the beach. In the 1980 election, Carter won just six states and D.C., a defeat mirroring the Patriots’ 46–10 demise at the hands of the Bears in the 1986 Super Bowl.

Let’s examine the Democrats’ actual draft choices for presidential QB over the past six election cycles:

1984: In a game that depends on personality, the Democrats nominate the plodding, bureaucratic-looking Walter Mondale, Carter’s former vice president. With his gray pallor and dark eye pouches, Mondale is perhaps the least inspiring team captain Dems could have asked for to challenge the over-popular Reagan. Even Mondale’s spunky vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro can’t liven up the ticket, which emulates McGovern’s 1972 tally by winning only Mondale’s home state of Minnesota and D.C.

1988: Second-stringer Michael Dukakis allows himself to be caught in a goofy photo op, sitting in a military tank sporting what looks like an oversized headset. Political cartoonists have a field day. And, of course, there’s that “Willie Horton” thing1 and some comment about endive, a vegetable too many of us haven’t heard of that also sounds foreign (not good). Dukakis loses a huge lead in the polls on his way to conceding the election to Vice President George H.W. Bush. He at least hits double digits, carrying ten states and D.C.

1992: Bill Clinton is an unknown quantity from training camp with a reputation for off-the-field sexcapades. He impresses Democratic coaches, who hold their breath hoping they aren’t taking a huge gamble. Clinton wows Democratic fans in the primaries with his ability to get right up after taking some big political hits. He carries the Dems to their first presidency in a generation with the help of a “giant sucking sound” — the candidacy of Ross Perot — that is incumbent George H.W. Bush’s game plan headed South.

1996: After winning a second presidential term, superstar QB Clinton is called for a personal foul after messing around with practice cheerleader Monica Lewinsky. Nearly yanked from the Oval Office by Republican opponents on an impeachment crusade, he limps into the sunset of his presidency with a groin injury.

2000: They say a superstar is a tough act to follow. Clinton VP Al Gore makes a valiant attempt to take the helm of the Party, but voters find it hard to get excited. Everyone later agrees Gore should have let a rookie step in because he never learned to run “out of the pocket” and avoid pressure from the Republican defense. Gore would have done better to join management and stay off the field altogether, pundits suggest. As the presidential contest runs into triple sudden-death overtime, the Dems are destined to lose on a series of official calls courtesy a Supreme Court whose 5–4 vote in favor of George W. Bush mirrors the partisan loyalties of its conservative Republican appointees.

2004: Veteran benchwarmer John Kerry is called in to try and win one for the Dems. Fans hope he’ll take back the presidential trophy from a Republican team millions of voters believe won ugly in 2000 thanks to biased Supreme Court referees. But Kerry has a tendency to freeze in the pocket and is repeatedly sacked by a Republican defense bent on diminishing his status as a war hero. Some wonder why sunny WR John Edwards isn’t put in more often to help the Dems make big plays. Kerry gets the team to the four-yard line, but blows the drive on downs.

It really annoyed me that Kerry was the only guy the Democratic Party could come up with in 2004 to challenge the underhanded politics, deception and nearly visionary stupidity of the Bush White House. Kerry’s public persona — the “flip-flopping,” the vagueness, the apparent lack of conviction and his gentleman-stuck-in-the-wrong-century aura — had all been part of his demeanor as a senator. Democrats knew what kind of image Kerry would project, so it should have come as no surprise when that image spelled failure for the Party in its bid to regain the presidency.

In contrast to Kerry, Howard Dean initially looked like a worthy contender. The former Vermont governor came with conservative-friendly positions such as fiscal restraint and an established respect for the concerns of gun owners. He supported civil unions for gay couples, a position that could have neutralized attacks from Republicans on gay marriage. He was also capable of delivering a sentence in plain English. I thought Dean was the Democrats’ best chance to pull in Republican crossover votes.

But while Dean’s campaign team raked in cash from small donors over the Internet, it didn’t prepare readymade rebuttals to critics who were sure to point out Dean’s long career trail of awkward and counterproductive comments. (He had earned a reputation for “shooting from the lip.”)

Not surprisingly, by the time the Iowa caucuses rolled around, Dean had found a way to blow his chances for the nomination. Cautious Iowa Democrats decided Kerry’s record as a war hero was their best chance to counter Bush’s macho pro-war role playing; and few could have foreseen the Swift Boat Veterans for “truth” looming on the horizon (see Chapter 4).

With Kerry as the primary victor in Iowa, I knew Democrats would have a tough go of it that November because U.S. senators — especially those who have been in the Senate for a while — generally don’t make good presidential candidates (see Chapter 17). The perception of public figures is also influenced by how those figures perceive themselves.

Kerry seemed to take himself so seriously that he came across as aloof; he just couldn’t connect with average citizens. Candidates with more potential appeal such as General Wesley Clark might have led to Democrats to victory — if only Clark’s campaign hadn’t been torpedoed in embryo thanks to allies such as Michael Moore (see Chapter 6). Iowa caucus voters in 2004 were obviously trying to do the best they could with what they had.

Wanted: Big Picture thinkers

So how do you pick a winning QB? One role in football that doesn’t get a lot of airplay is that of general manager — the guy who works with coaches to find and sign the best players available.

Congressman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), who was elected to chair the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2005, filled that function with some success in 2006 by ensuring the Party drafted candidates that could win in more conservative districts.

One thing is clear: in the unruly, undisciplined and short-sighted exercise that is the presidential primary season, too many cooks keep spoiling the Democrats’ soup. First, Democrats need to convince more candidates not to run. Secondly, the Party’s base needs to be disciplined into accepting candidates who can actually win in a red state — or five.

Much has changed since the consciousness-raising events of the 1960s from which the contemporary Democratic Party has drawn much of its presumed moral authority on social issues. You can’t win elections if you’re playing with outdated rules. If Democrats keep giving Republicans the opportunity to make them look bad, they will keep botching their chances to attain the presidency.

The Dems always seem to be playing defense and that performance has been mediocre, at best. Their offense, more often than not, has been an outright disaster. The Party needs a great head coach who will devise a master plan and put in place a focused and effective staff of coordinators to execute it. The goal must be to inspire the Party’s players — from local school board officials, to members of Congress, to governors, to presidential candidates — to carry that plan out as a team.

As a result of the 2006 midterm elections, Democrats achieved majorities in the House and Senate — but those majorities, especially in the Senate, were not significant enough for them to effectively challenge President Bush on his continued campaign in Iraq, among other things. This left voters who elected Democrats based largely on antiwar sentiment frustrated, and it didn’t take long after the Dems’ victory celebration for polls to reflect a level of voter dissatisfaction with the Democratic Congress on par with Bush’s low numbers.

If achieving the support of a greater number of voters is the Democrats’ biggest problem, why aren’t they doing something truly in their own best interest and that of the nation — something they should have done decades ago as the majority party, something truly democratic: pushing for the enactment of legislation that will make the day American citizens exercise their most sacred constitutional duty — voting — a national holiday?

The Democratic Party as a whole needs to submit itself to a very different strategy: button down, get in sync and — to use a term that defined congressional Republicans in the post-Gingrich era — march (more) in lockstep. They need to get their priorities straight, and in order. All of this in service to one goal: winning.

My purpose is to connect the dots of perception as a way to encourage Democrats to look at the game of politics from more of a cultural than academic perspective. In the stadium of American politics, the field is comprised of cultural events. How voters perceive those events affects voter beliefs. Voter beliefs drive voting patterns. Voting patterns determine which party will prevail.

Studying the game of football — its culture, its intelligence and its language — should help Democrats appeal to more voters beyond their base. That “football logic” goes beyond mere intellect. It comes in various modes, from management to coaching to playing. Each mode requires particular skills and reflexes, insights and actions, all of which are crucial to a team’s chances of success.

To become winners on the political playing field, Democrats should consider that multi-layered approach to strategy as they work to control and protect the ball of perception.

The bottom line? Who controls perception controls the game.

*We all know how that 2007 season worked out for the Pats. In a terrible example of “What goes around, comes around,” after an undefeated regular season of 16-0 (the first such regular-season record in history) they were beaten by the underdog New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII by a measly three points; a reverse mirror image (or whatever you want to call it) of the Patriots’ own upset of the St. Louis Rams in 2002. I am not recommending that the Democratic Party presidential contender, Barack Obama, emulate that spectacular fall from grace by the Pats last year, although America’s lingering cultural disease of racism may hurt his game. Let’s hope the American citizenry has more sense than to allow a rare opportunity of electing a truly viable candidate who HAPPENS TO BE BLACK to pass in November.

Senator Barack Obama has taken a lot of heat for his “bitter” statement, but I, for one, am very bitter about what has happened to our country. This bitterness may not be driving me to buy a gun or start going to church again, but it exists nevertheless. I also feel betrayed — by the Bush Administration, the Republican Party, the Democrats in Congress, the candidates for President, and the news media.

1. I’m bitter about the way that the Bush Administration, with the support of the Republicans in Congress, has violated the basic constitutional rights of American citizens and the human rights of captured prisoners. I don’t dispute the need for additional security procedures following 9-11, but you must never do things in the name of security at the expense of the rights of human beings.

Even prisoners have basic human rights, and that includes people whom our government has labeled “terrorists” in order to justify its inhumane treatment of those prisoners. When you become like your enemy in order to defeat your enemy, then your enemy has already won, because you have sacrificed the very qualities that have made your country unique and special.

2. I’m 67 years old, and I’m bitter about the fact that the gains made by my generation and the ones that followed during the 1960s and 1970s in such areas as equal rights, environmental safety, and consumer protection have been watered down and, in many cases, totally ignored by the Bush Administration. It almost makes me cry. What will we have to do to stop this erosion and regain the progress we had made?

3. I’m bitter about the fact that the Bush Administration has led us into a war that never should have been fought in the first place and that in order to justify this war, they have lied to the American people and needlessly wasted the lives of thousands of American citizens.

I mourn for those lives, and I feel the pain of the families who have lost loved ones in that needless war. I also feel the pain of the tens of thousands of young Americans who have been maimed and injured, both physically and mentally, in Iraq and will have to go through the rest of their lives in suffering. Finally, I cry for the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians who have been killed and injured. Let’s not forget that they, too, are human beings.

Moreover, the drain that the Iraq War has put on our economy has helped to cause the present recession. The only companies profiting from the war are the ones doing business in Iraq. Meanwhile, many small businesses are going under because the money to buy their products and services isn’t there anymore. If the money that the federal government is pouring into the Iraq War were spent on critical needs such as efforts to reduce global warning or social programs to help needy American citizens, we would all be much better off.

4. I’m bitter about the fact that the American people were naive enough to reelect George W. Bush in 2004, even after it had become evident that they had been lied to in the buildup to the war. President Bush should have been impeached, not reelected.

5. I’m bitter about the failure of the Bush Administration to take the problem of global warming seriously. We have lost eight valuable years. I can only hope and pray that the next president will initiate a serious effort to make up for that lost time.

6. I’m bitter about the fact that none of the candidates for president have come forward and been honest with the American people about the need to make major sacrifices in the areas of both global warming and energy independence. Diverting resources to the development of ethanol is a dead end that does nothing to solve the problem. The new Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards are just a drop in the bucket.

We need a major effort of the scale of the Manhattan Project, which led to the development of the atomic bomb, or the effort to send men to the moon in the 1960s. As a nation, we achieved both of these goals. There is no reason to believe that we cannot achieve energy independence and take major steps to reduce global warming, but we have to set our minds to it and we need strong leadership from the top.

6. I’m bitter about the failure of the Democrats in Congress to deliver on the promises they made in the 2006 congressional elections. I’ve been just barely getting by for years, yet I donated every penny that I could to support the election of Democrats to Congress. I now feel that the money was wasted, and I refuse to donate any more to their cause. Despite the fact that they control both houses of Congress, they have failed to accomplish anything in terms of stopping the war and blocking the excesses of the Bush Administration.

7. I’m bitter about the failure of John McCain and other so-called moderate Republicans to reject the failed policies of the Bush Administration. How could they justify continuing to support the policies of a person who will probably go down in history as our worst president? Why would they even want to support them? Are they so afraid of President Bush and his people that they don’t know when to abandon a sinking ship?

8. I’m bitter about the ugly, negative turn that the Democratic primary elections have taken. In the early stages of the primaries, I was encouraged by what I saw at the debates. Candidates were actually attempting to explain their beliefs and intended policies, and the discourse was relatively civil. Even in the middle stages, when it came down to Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, the candidates emphasized their ideas rather than attack each other.

Unfortunately, at about the time of the Texas primary, things got ugly and negative. I blame Senator Clinton for starting this trend, and I have lost every bit of respect I had for her. She seems to be so intent on winning the nomination that she is willing to tear the Democratic Party apart even if it means ruining the chances of the eventual Democratic candidate to win the general election. I even read a recent comment that her strategy was to wreck Obama’s chances so that she could get the nomination in 2012.

If I were to speak with any presidential candidate, I would say this: “I am sick and tired of negative campaigning. I want to know not only your ideas, but also how you would achieve them. I don’t want to know why I shouldn’t vote for your opponent. I want to know why I should vote for you.”

9. I’m bitter about the failure of the news media to do their job in reporting on the primary election process. I started out 43 years ago as a newspaper reporter and editor, and I covered the Maryland General Assembly and governor’s office for part of that time. Then and now, my idol and role model was Edward R. Murrow, the father of broadcast journalism. Given the state of broadcast journalism today, Ed Murrow must be turning in his grave so often it’s making him dizzy.

The middle-round debates on CNN and MSNBC were a refreshing change from the past. The moderators were competent and the candidates had ample time to explain their positions. However, the most recent debate on ABC was the most embarrassing piece of journalistic incompetence that I have seen in a long time, if not ever.

I have subscribed to the Washington Post for many years, and I’ve been shocked by the loss in the quality of its political coverage in 2008 in comparison with 2004. Recently I subscribed to the RSS feeds from the New York Times, and I have found a disturbing similarity in the two papers’ political coverage. At times, even the headlines have been almost identical. I can’t prove this, but I believe that in many cases reporters are simply rewriting the press releases handed out by the candidates’ communications people.

This may be closer to the truth than we realize. A few months ago, one of the reporters who was covering the Democratic primaries was a guest on Bill Maher’s show on HBO. He showed a video illustrating how the press is handled at the debates. The reporters are not allowed into the auditorium itself. Instead, they are herded into an adjoining room with large television screens. Campaign workers are stationed around the room with placeholder signs showing where the various spin doctors will be after the debates. The reporter said that many of the other reporters covering the debate simply parrot back what the spin doctors tell them.

As a newspaper reporter, I would have found this situation intolerable. There is no substitute for being in the auditorium and seeing things for yourself. You don’t just watch the candidate who’s speaking. You watch the other candidate and observe that person’s body language, and you also watch the reactions of the audience. If you can’t get into the auditorium, you might just as well go back to your hotel room and watch the debate on television.

The so-called post-primary “analysis” articles I’ve read in the newspapers have been equally disappointing. In most cases, all the reporter has done is quote the spin doctors, offering very little of his/her own perspective. I’ve felt like shaking the reporter and saying, “You were there. You’ve been covering the campaign. You have a brain. What do you think?”

The bottom line seems to be this: Reporters aren’t reporting on what has happened and what they have seen with their own eyes. They are reporting what the spin doctors have told them has happened.

Furthermore, one comment I hear all the time is that people would like to learn more about the candidates’ positions and plans for achieving their goals. Both Clinton and Obama have given major speeches dedicated to single important issues. But the news media simply hasn’t covered them. When reporters were asked why they didn’t cover these events, they said their editors didn’t want to cover them. If you want to read the candidates’ position papers, you have to go to their Web sites.

Finally, I cannot forgive the media for making former Senator John Edwards a non-candidate by simply not covering his campaign. I have been an Edwards supporter since 2002, before he became a declared candidate, when I read a feature article about him in the Washington Post. There were many days while he was still a candidate in the current campaign when I picked up the paper hoping to find out what he was doing and could find nothing at all. I didn’t expect the Post to give him the same number of column inches that it gave to Clinton and Obama, but I at least expected something. It wasn’t there.

It’s time American citizens took back their country.

Robert E. Simanski
Sterling, VA

To my readers and friends:

Red Zone Blogitics is taking a short hiatus from the blogosphere until the Democratic nomination process for president is decided. Basically, with all of the hot-air speculation around the election, I got tired of hearing my own writing — along with everyone else’s. But I offer a few nuggets here in brief:

Who’s TRULY ‘Elitist’? The PRESS – Even the Comedians

In the wake of the recent clutsy rhetoric by Barack Obama to a San Franciso donor audience that exposed the candidate to accusations of “classism,” I think it’s important to acknowledge the cultural cluelessness of the most frustrated elitist brigade of all – NOT the politicians, but the PRESS. This includes the so-called “parodists” — those who lace their punditry with the sweet skepticism of comedy.

For example, Bill Maher says he’s “bitter” about the decision by some embittered blue-collar whites in this great nation to subject the rest of us to the George W. Bush administration. Yet Maher has had every opportunity to gain an understanding into the perceptual strategy Democrats should have been adopting for YEARS. Why? Because I sent him my book, “Democrats in the Red Zone.” But he obviously hasn’t read it, because he remains as self-righteous in his indignation and as mystified at the “way things have played out” (my emphasis) as any diehard liberal in his/her culturally insular cocoon. It doesn’t have to be this way, Bill. You ACTUALLY can get some relief from your terminal frustration by ACTUALLY READING SOMETHING THAT IS NOT BY ONE OF YOUR FAMOUS OR TRENDY FRIENDS IN THE PANTHEON OF CULTURAL SELF-CONGRATULATION.

To be  fair, I don’t know if Maher ever got my book, because his “people” apparently don’t have the courtesy or the political common sense to return phone calls from people who aren’t on their social radar. In any case, Maher made a rare and confusing comment the other night when — while seemingly trying to paint Obama as a truthteller for his comments about “bitterness” in the so-called Heartland — he insisted that the people who were truly clueless were “the hopeful,” even as he projected an image of Obama, who has used “hope” as one of his overriding themes. For someone who prides himself on sharp, witty double entendres, it was unclear what his point was.

In my view, the whole spinning of the “hope” ideal comes down to whether American voters will continue to buy into false hope (the promotion of pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking that can be the province of certain religious sects and that is often used to excuse cultural prejudice) versus active hope (promoting actual compassion and right-thinking actions).

Then there’s Jon Stewart, who I generally think of as a smart rebel but who seems to be suffering from an acute lack of imagination when it comes to his choice of guests (for example: authors from the political establishment versus the politically independent arena — which is why I haven’t bothered to send him my book). For all his anti-establishment humor, Stewart is as culturally timid as the next liberal media host in terms of who he invites onto his show: i.e., only “famous” personalities from the belly of America’s social establishment.

Like Maher, Stewart last week made his own blooper, and what was even more embarrassing is how blind he was to how clueless he looked. Here’s what I saw: In an apparent attempt to help cover Obama’s back on the “elitism” thing, he ended up exposing his liberal blind spot to football fans across America — the most fertile of hunting grounds for Democrats looking for inroads into the “guy vote.”

So what did Stewart do? He asked his audience whether they didn’t, in fact, WANT a president whose theme song is the stately “Hail to the Chief” instead of the theme to Monday Night Football (”Are you ready for some football?”). For both examples, he played a clip of President Bush walking into the House of Representatives to deliver one of his State of the Union addresses. The implication was, of course, that the kind of people who equate the Commander in Chief to a glorified quarterback are idiots.

Here’s the problem with that assumption, Jon: Football is the all-American team sport. It brings America together in ways that liberal hand-wringing over issues we SHOULD care about never will. Barack Obama gave the intro to Monday Night Football two seasons ago. JFK made sure his handlers got pics of him playing touch football with his brothers, and they made sure voters SAW those pictures. You see, Jon, we football fans do not equate our game and the men who play it with a lack of smarts. The game is about “action” and the unique permutations of intelligence that come with understanding how to play that game. To many voters — especially those who decide elections, including the men who Democrats seem to have been in terminal popularity deficit with over the years: men — the president IS a glorified QB.

If you want to get a clue, Jon, get one of your helpers to pick up my book for you. It actually might be useful to your audience because it was NOT written by one of the typical insiders you have on your show.

‘Patriotism’ on the Cheap

Here’s some food for thought, which you or anyone you see fit to send this to should feel free to comment on by going to the site and making your voice heard: How do YOU define “patriotism”? Is it slapping an American flag symbol on your house, your car, or your lapel — which, for some reason, Obama gets a lot of grief for NOT doing while neither Clinton and McCain seem to wear one on a regular basis EITHER — or is it a bit deeper than that?

Steelers’ CEO Endorses Obama

The owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Dan Rooney has endorsed Barack Obama and the team has been hosting rallies for the biracial candidate. To read Rooney’s endorsement letter, go to http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/owner_of_pittsburgh_steelers_e.php.

We do politics AND football here, so with the NFL draft approaching April 26, it may be fun to compare where NFL teams need to beef up their offense and defense to how the presidential candidates’ respective teams have performed. Feel free to comment.

Signing off for now,

A.F. Cook

In an online version of article in TIME, titled “Obama Plays Catch-Up in Pennsylvania,” posted March 25, the editors note that the Clinton campaign initially informed the reporters that their Pennsylvania state director, Mary Isenhour, was the granddaughter of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Between Hillary Clinton’s apparently hallucination about sniper bullets whizzing over her head on a trip to Bosnia to her insistence that she was an active policymaker during the Clinton White House, exaggeration and embellishment of the facts seem to be in the process of becoming standard operation procedure for the Clinton folks.

Red Zone Politics wonders who gave TIME that erroneous info about Eisenhower’s granddaughter - gee, I wonder which voting demographic THAT little “misremembrance” was supposed to attract? We also wonder how far up in the the Clinton campaign’s chain of command they were. If anyone can find out, feel free to let us know.

Read the TIME article at http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1725397,00.html?imw=Y.

All this talk of “Hillary’s” voters and “Obama’s” voters threatening to abandon the Democratic ticket in November if “their” gal or guy doesn’t get the nomination makes me wonder, yet again, if the Democratic Party is EVER going to be ready for political prime time.

I’ll admit that, as an Obama supporter and Hillary skeptic, I’ve had moments where I’ve pointed my finger at the tube – after hearing about yet another desperate ploy by the Clintons to undercut Obama so they can grab the nomination they feel Hillary is ENTITLED to – and said out loud “which is why I could NEVER vote for someone like YOU!”

But would I actually go over to a Republican presidential candidate who wants to keep us in Iraq indefinitely and who drags with him all of the trappings of a party steeped in right-wing logic and religious fundamentalist delusion? I might not like Hillary Clinton or her methods for trying to impose herself on America, but I’m NOT STUPID.

Threatening NOT to vote for a Democrat in November when the fate of our nation depends on having a president and a congressional majority that are willing to behave progressively is CHILDISH. It is an attitude grown men and women, the voters of America, have no business adopting. It is irresponsible, just the way the reckless words and actions of teenagers are often irresponsible. And it only makes Democrats look like fools determined to squander their own chances for victory.

The Democrats have made an absolute mess of their primaries in Florida and Michigan, with state leaders warning that the party could lose those states come November if their delegates aren’t seated at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this summer.

Hillary Clinton has pressed ahead with what increasingly seems to be a grand exercise in futility: winning the Democratic nomination. Barack Obama, who was sailing along on a pink cloud of swelling, multiracial support since Iowa, had to contend with a “pastor eruption” related to the subject Dems seem to be the most in denial about – the cultural mindset of black separatism – and all of the perceptual consequences that come with it.

These candidates are imperfect human beings who have taken on the arduous task of convincing tens of millions of people to trust them ENOUGH to allow them to take on the mantle of the presidency. Surely, ANYTHING will be better than what Americans chose to go with over the past eight years.

Yet some Democratic voters are apparently more than happy to turn the country over to an aging (albeit relatively decent), out-of-touch Republican war hero and Bush yesman (does anyone still have illusions about McCain’s “independence”?) – just because they don’t like the way the campaign game is played when both Democratic contenders are actually … well, CONTENDERS.

We’ve had a seat at the most exciting political show in most of our lifetimes. Here’s my message to Democratic voters: Don’t confuse the excitement of the show with the actual mission at hand. If you are thinking like grownups, you will make the right decision for the NATION when you step into that booth in November – not a decision based on pouty resentments toward the guy, or gal, who beat your guy or gal.

Yours Truly,
A.F. Cook

My dear friends and fellow Americans:

Barack Obama’s “big speech on race” was great, but it won’t erase the negative impressions of the black separatist mindset inspired by the words and images of Wright and even of all-black congregations generally. People are rightly asking why the candidate would want his young, impressionable children exposed to Wright’s invective. Those of us who believe Obama is a true integrationist are mystified that he and his family do not belong to a more diverse congregation that reflects his public persona.

It’s really annoying to write a book about this stuff and not even be able to get a publisher to pick it up, when it cuts to the chase in a way that gets as honest as a frustrated white integrationist can be. Can we get real, here???

Bluntly — and it’s quite clear from the Tuesday evening quarterbacks on the airwaves – white people don’t get black separatist culture, or the paranoia that seems to accompany much of its rhetoric. And, perhaps even more importantly in terms of the Dems’ overall game plan, blacks don’t get the fact that perceptions of their cultural separatism may now be THE political Achilles’ heel for Democratic candidates. That perception bomb has just blown up in the Dems’ faces. The chatter may die down, but this cold splash of reality is not going away. Sorry.

Even if black cultural self-segregation has its basis, appearing to accept it as “normal” or “healthy” is POLITICALLY UNWORKABLE for the Democratic Party, because many non-blacks, especially whites, do not appreciate or respect it. I don’t know how you spin this in a way that will allow it to make sense to non-blacks in general — but it will take a genius. Obama is genuine, but he is not a genius. If he was, he might have moved his family to a more diverse congregation before he began his run for president. That’s called strategic smarts — and understanding the perception playing field.

The BEST STRATEGY FOR BARACK OBAMA moving forward is TO TURN AWAY HIMSELF FROM THE RACE ISSUE ALTOGHER, AND:

a) Let his BLACK surrogates GET OUT THERE AND EXPRESS/DEMONSTRATE THEIR OWN INTEGRATION INTO THE LARGER CULTURE — as a PERCEPTUAL ANTIDOTE to the stubborn insistence by too many that buying into black separatism is a politically valid stance. (For example: OBAMA SHOULD GET SOME ATHLETES TO GO TO BAT FOR HIM — I mean, football teams are comprised of 53 men of all races. Why doesn’t he employ sports heroes to take the discussion beyond race?? He’s a football fan — he should USE that!); and

b) Get his WHITE surrogates to express their own experiences with race; and he must let it be known he supports their right to be honest. Some cultural backbone is called for here. I’m an integrationist, but the guilt trip doesn’t even work on ME anymore.

NOBODY should be judging others by the color of their skin (remember MLK?) — or, if they do, then EVERYONE should admit they do, including blacks, who many whites see as being racist themselves; and, even worse, who see black racism as excused by Democrats.

You can’t sell unity by acting like that’s OK. More importantly: You can’t expect to have credibilty as the torch-bearers for the civil rights legacy.

Yours Truly, A.F. Cook

I don’t know about you, but I still don’t understand how the Democratic Party could have allowed itself to fall into a situation where presidential primaries in two major states, Florida and Michigan, would be rendered null and void. I mean, how dumb can Party leaders be?

Really dumb, it seems. There seems to be a general consensus among people I’ve polled that if either party is capable of botching its election process, it’s going to be the Dems. This just points to the overall perception issue of the Party as incapable of putting together a disciplined, winning political game plan. Because the Bush administration has made such a mess of the country, the Democratic ticket this year may ultimately be able to overcome that perception. But the fact remains that the Party should never have put itself in this position.

From what I’ve heard, this is what happened: both Democratic and Republican state lawmakers got tired of Iowa and New Hampshire getting all the limelight as the first two states to hold caucuses and primaries.

But while most of the other states accepted existing rules, some more grudgingly than others, party leaders in Florida and Michigan decided to literally make a federal case out of the situation by moving their primary contests to earlier dates. In direct violation of party rules, Florida lawmakers moved their primary to Jan. 29 while their Michigan counterparts moved theirs to Jan. 15.

The Republican and Democratic National Committees punished Florida and Michigan, but the Republicans were a lot more savvy and less draconian about it (i.e., they didn’t take a “scorched earth” approach; i.e., they were SMARTER about it). The RNC allowed half of their Florida and Michigan delegations to be seated at their convention. This meant Republican candidates could campaign in those states and emerge with primary results reflecting a fair sense of those candidates’ respective popularity levels; only based on a smaller delegate pool. As a result, the Republicans don’t need to worry about redoing their primaries in these two HUGELY IMPORTANT GENERAL ELECTION STATES.

The DNC, on the other hand, decided to punish these two HUGELY IMPORTANT GENERAL ELECTION STATES by insisting that none of their Democratic Party delegates would be seated. The DNC also forbade its candidates from campaigning in either state, which the candidates agreed to. Barack Obama went a step further in Michigan and had his name removed from the ballot.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign, in what seems to have been a move intended to create trouble — demonstrating, in my view, Clinton’s tendency to put personal ambition over the interests of the Democratic Party — left her name on the ballot in both states and encouraged people to vote for her. The Obama campaign countered by encouraging voters who favored him to vote “Uncommitted” in Michigan to counter the Clinton moves.

More than one million people cast votes for Clinton in Florida, where she went, in essence, uncontested. And now she insists that primary was “fair.” This has only confirmed in the minds of many of us that Hillary Clinton is perfectly willing to NOT play fair. And that’s a big turnoff.

Now the Democratic Party is scrambling to fix its own mess. The clock is ticking on primary re-dos, and it looks like Michigan might have its act a bit more together on this than Florida. (Who is surprised about that?) Someone needs to pay for these sequels, and it had better not be the taxpayers, who had no reason to expect such a botched process by the people they pay to spend their tax dollars wisely.

Florida State Sen. Steve Geller on Sunday insisted that he had pled with the candidates to campaign in his state, which sounded to me as though he was perfectly happy placing them between a rock and a hard place — challenging them to defy the DNC. Then he issued a not-so-veiled threat that the Democratic Party could kiss Florida goodbye in the general election if the votes already cast were not recognized.

Geller also said that DNC Chairman Howard Dean had never contacted him. That seems pretty counterproductive, I thought. All in all, the debate between state leaders, their “executive committees” and the DNC is shaping up to look like the worst kind of (childish) sibling rivalry.

I just wonder what the Democratic Party is learning from this debacle. Part of the reason I became an Independent was over frustration with my former home team’s strategic amateurism. The mess Democrats made of their 2008 primaries in Florida and Michigan have only confirmed my sense that they remain unready for political prime time.

It’s unclear to me whether Florida and Michigan voters intending to vote Democratic really understood the injury done to them by their own state lawmakers. I mean, they were basically disenfranchised by the egotistical aims of their party leaders. And for what? Now those delegates are up for grabs. If state Party leaders aren’t kicking themselves, they should be. Practically every state in the Union, at least in the Democratic contest, is having its say this year. Who woulda thunk it?

Yours, Truly, A.F. Cook
 

With the resignation of Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the ascension of Lieutenant Gov. David Paterson to the governorship of New York, the state government moved quickly beyond former Spitzer’s spectacular fall from grace after the now former governor was caught indulging in regular services from a high-priced call girl affiliated with an upper-echelon prostitution ring.

What made the Spitzer saga so dramatic was that he had stormed into office as a reformer with a reputation for attacking corruption on Wall Street and the intention of cleaning up the state government in Albany. Spitzer had few friends, thanks apparently to an uncompromising attitude that was about setting superhuman ethical standards for colleagues as well as opponents.

The most ironic aspect of the whole thing was that Spitzer was caught because of flagged bank transactions — namely, withdrawals of several thousand dollars at a time — thanks to a highly intrusive database that tracks citizens’ banking activities, looking for evidence of suspicious activity. That database has reportedly become a prime tool of the U.S. government as it seeks to detect terrorist financing activity in the aftermath of 9/11. Spitzer was apparently a big advocate of the system. I guess we should all be gratified to know just how much deeper our government is digging into our private affairs based on the excuse of “national security.” (The system apparently tracks small as well as large transactions.)

At this point, Democrats and Republicans seem to basically be even on the scoreboard of illicit activity. While some in the press briefly speculated that Hillary Clinton would pay a perceptual price for Spitzer’s transgression because of his support for her, this story is less likely to have an impact beyond one man’s personal tragedy.

As we’ve seen with other public figures, the thrill of a double life more often than not ends in the agony of public and private humiliation. Hiding the truth from the light of day is a difficult balancing act for most people to sustain. What have we learned from the Spitzer story? There are always new ways to get caught. And, we would ask the protagonists in any of these scenarios: Was it worth it?

Yours Truly,
A.F. Cook

Barack Obama took a big perceptual hit this week, as videotape came to light showing his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, in full inflammatory, “fire and brimstone” mode. Obama has catapulted himself to the front of the Democratic presidential primary race on his strength as a black candidate who transcends race. As one white male voter told me at an Obama rally in New Hampshire, in contrast to personalities such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, Obama “doesn’t shove the race issue down your throat.”

But the rantings of Wright, now retired, present the voting majority — especially whites — with a particular brand of black America that does not translate well beyond the black “choir:” the rageful indignation of cultural victimhood. As I discuss in my book, “Democrats in the Red Zone,” that attitude is politically counterproductive for both blacks and the Democratic Party.

In the videotape, Wright is a poster child for that rageful indignation that comes across to many mainstream voters — white, black and everything in between — as over-the-top and even critical of the American government to the point of seeming unpatriotic.

Addressing one churchgoing audience (which Obama apparently was not part of that day), Wright blasted an American government he paints as dominated by privileged white people whose mission is to keep blacks down:  “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God bless America’?” Wright rages in the video. “No, no, no. Not God bless America. God damn America.”

It doesn’t matter whether Wright’s words may have spoken to painful truths more Americans should consider. The fact is that his vehement tone — which is apparently standard in black churches, another cultural perception issue that Democrats must deal with — is understood by many people beyond those congregations and communities as incendiary, and therefore threatening.

The airing of this tape, which right-wing talk radio and talk cable are having a field day with — and will no doubt carry on about as long as Obama is a viable candidate — comes on the heels of Michelle Obama’s clumsy statements that she has only recently become “proud” of her country and that America is “downright mean,” among other defects.

Enough about Hillary needing to reign in Bill and Geraldine. Now it’s Obama who needs to reign in his cultural allies — including his wife. By “reigning in,” this is what I mean: Get them behind closed doors and explaining to them the perceptual impact of their words and actions. In any case, many of us might wonder why Obama didn’t switch churches long ago, as soon as he realized that fraternizing with the black victimhood brigade would place his political aspirations at risk. If he underestimated the perceptual liability that association would present, then, much as I hate to admit it, he was being naive.

What a lot of white Obama supporters are telling me is that they don’t understand why he was so close to Wright in the first place. I mean, the guy married the Obamas and baptized their kids, so it’s not like they didn’t know what he was about. Maybe they just got too comfortable in their congregation and, as many of us have done in our personal and professional lives, stayed too long in a counterproductive relationship. The worst part of this issue for Obama is that it goes right to the heart of his biggest selling point: the soundness of his judgment. (OMG — Just as I finished typing that, I heard Juan Willaims say exactly the same thing on Fox News Sunday!)

As a result, Obama now finds himself with a setback on his hands. Not only are whites who support him questioning the wisdom of his personal associations, but whites less inclined to rise above their own prejudices — such as those in Ohio and Pennsylvania who are supporting Clinton in the primaries but who may also plan to support Republican John McCain in the fall — could give Obama even less of a window in which to make his case.

Obama has distanced himself from Wright. He told Keith Olbermann recently that he hadn’t been aware of Wright’s comments in that particular videotape and that he rejected Wright’s sentiments. But the biggest challenge now for the candidate will be to craft rhetoric that openly denounces the kind of black victim mentality that has placed blacks in a perception box against their own, and the Democratic Party’s, broader political interests.

Apart from individuals who are potential political Kryptonite for Obama, those who actually presume to speak for him on the campaign trail need to be given a script and instructed to stick to it under penalty of being yanked from the stage. Michelle Obama, sophisticated as she may be, has shown she’s got some things to learn about the underlying cultural perceptions within the greater American electorate.

This is where the rubber meets the road for the Obamas: individually, as a couple and as a family, they are well aware of the adverse experience that life in America has represented for many black people. Yet they cannot afford to carry the banner of that dissatisfaction with them on the broader American highway.

Obama needs whites to believe he represents a new paradigm — a paradigm that combines optimism, shared responsibility and fairness. This will mean holding blacks equally accountable to whites for their own racism and cultural failings — IN PUBLIC.

It is imperative for the values divide between black and white to be addressed so that the Democratic Party will cease to be hamstrung by those divisions. At the same time, the shared values between blacks and whites must be highlighted. If Obama has the courage to confront blacks on their need not just to demand equal treatment but to behave as equals — with all of the respect for their white fellows that implies — then he can turn the lemon of the Rev. Wright issue into (relative) lemonade.

For more on what drives racial perceptions and how candidates like Obama can help move the country beyond the counterproductive racial status quo, check out my next posting, “Getting’ Real: the Racial Reality Dems Must Face to Change the Political Tide.” This posting features excerpts on race from my book, “Democrats in the Red Zone: an Independent voter’s take on the game of political perception.”

Yours Truly,
A.F. Cook

In honor of the racially-charged dynamics of the Democratic presidential primary, I offer this series of excerpts from my book, “Democrats in the Red Zone: an Independent voter’s take on the game of political perception.” I hope people will feel inspired to comment as we all consider the challenges facing the Democratic Party in general, and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in particular, when it comes to the political impact of race-based perceptions in America.

The excerpts are as follows:

Race, especially the perceptions whites and blacks have of each other, may be the hardest part of the Democratic Party’s overall game plan to manage. As I see it, there are three sides to the racial equation that diminish the Democratic Party’s chances for success: Democrats haven’t convinced enough traditionalist whites they should be concerned about racism; Democrats have failed to appreciate that many racial and ethnic minorities, including some blacks, are more socially conservative than they’re given credit for; and not enough blacks have taken responsibility for the failure of their broader community to adapt and integrate into mainstream culture as Americans first and foremost. (By mainstream culture, I’m not referring to the entertainment and sports industries, where blacks have achieved the kind of social belonging that comes with success. I’m referring to the social values culture that plays itself out off-camera in American neighborhoods every day.)

More often than not, white-black relations represent an uneasy truce, not unity. The Democratic Party needs to confront that reality if it wants to strengthen and expand its base. Whites who are willing to acknowledge their lack of understanding of the black experience need to be more visible in the national dialogue. But blacks need to be willing to have that dialogue and stop lapsing into the role of automatic victim as a way to avoid acknowledging their part in interracial dysfunction. What is lacking more than anything, on both sides, is honesty.

It’s important for each of us to look at our own interactions at the local level if we want to emerge from our national dysfunction on race. Many whites have black friends, lovers and professional acquaintances. But others have had their overtures of friendship toward blacks rejected. Blacks often treat whites as if we owe them our trust. Yet many feel little obligation to treat us with respect, much less kindness. This is a political problem.

Unfortunately, sympathy for the black cause seems to have diminished, even among integrationist whites, since civil rights activists forced America to develop a national conscience on race. And while white resistance to racial equality continues to be a roadblock to progress in many regions, blacks are also responsible for creating their own obstacles. What few people are willing to say out loud is this: a lot of black people have an attitude problem, and it’s making them weaker, not stronger.

White people are the voting majority, so even if blacks can’t stand the idea, white people’s opinions matter. But a lot of fair-minded whites are frustrated. Slavery has been over for a long time, we say to ourselves. Blacks have the same constitutional rights we have. The government has made it possible for them to have greater access to educational and employment opportunities. They even benefit from affirmative action, with educational and job slots set aside for them — opportunities that aren’t available to us because we’re white.

… The face that has the greatest impact on white voters’ perception of blacks is a low-income, undereducated, primarily urban face. Most importantly for the Democratic Party, that black America is seen as an example of how Democrats tolerate cultural attitudes and behaviors that are antithetical to mainstream values.

In her book “Uncle Sam’s Plantation: How big government enslaved America’s poor and what we can do about it,” black conservative Star Parker describes those mainstream, or “bedrock,” values (which she calls “virtues”) as self-reliance, a positive attitude, loyalty, honesty and a respect for moral principles. Parker condemns what she calls liberal “social engineers” for destroying the black family through anti-poverty programs.

Here’s the problem for Democrats as I see it: while on paper they are in favor of helping poor black people, they also seem to accept the cycles of counterproductive behavior in poor black communities … Some argue, with increasing validity, that such inner-city living was made possible by the wishful “Great Society” programs that were part of Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty.” The perception seems to have grown in recent years that Johnson’s domestic war ultimately hindered blacks from moving out of poverty, and may have actually kept people stuck in the ghetto. (Strangely, I hear very little about the impact of Ronald Reagan’s policies and politics on black America, where I suspect much of the damage was done. This may be because so many whites worship Reagan’s memory and will jump down the throat of anyone who has something negative to say about him. I still don’t think that should keep Democrats from trying to make the case for the cynicism and essential immorality of some of Reagan’s domestic policies.)

Star Parker’s take on the well-meaning white liberalism that was supposed to save black America is as follows: “This kind of compassion … does not take human nature into account and is therefore ignorant of the most volatile part of the equation: uninformed compassion often hurts more than it helps.” The conflict between Johnson’s vision and Parker’s reality check points to the nature of the conflict between liberals and conservatives on social issues, especially as they relate to race. Liberals believe people will do the right thing if you offer them support (generally financial), while conservatives believe that the ability to do the right thing is taught by the imposition of strict parameters (generally moral). I’d like to know who thinks Democrats are winning the argument.

Whites may be impatient with the perpetual black demands for equality and justice, but if they want to be honest about racial politics they must also be willing to look at reality. The impact of racism on blacks is like Chinese water torture, consisting of many small drops of denigration that add up to one big, uphill battle just to feel equal. For example, I once witnessed a well-dressed black female friend followed around a department store by a young white salesgirl who had apparently been advised to keep an eye on black customers in case they might steal something. Plenty of black men — even professionals dressed in suits — are used to white people crossing the street when they walk toward them. How many whites know how it feels for the color of their skin to make them an eternal suspect in the eyes of their fellows? The answer: None. So we need to show particular respect for those who deal with that reality every day in the “land of the free.”

The Davis assault [in New Orleans] had one highly publicized precedent. In March 1991, a group of cops from the Los Angeles Police Department brutally “contained” a black man named Rodney King. That incident led to the infamous L.A. riots, which helped further the idea that blacks can’t control their emotional natures. How could having an emotional nature be considered a bad thing? If it’s in the form of nationally broadcast rage and destruction of property — the assets of a community — it creates two primary perceptions about the people involved: they can’t be trusted to behave like adults, because they’re likely to throw a tantrum if something upsets them; and they don’t respect their own community’s businesses and individual property, which suggests they’re all too willing to lay waste to what others have built. Such judgments are extremely harmful to the image of blacks within America’s white-dominated culture. They are also a perception setup, because the behavior that leads to those judgments is often a response to injuries inflicted on blacks by whites.

The issue of how black America is portrayed by the press comes up regularly on black talk radio and blogs. Many blacks feel that, despite the advances of the civil rights movement, the perception cards are still stacked against them — and they’re still right. Negative media portrayals of black people work in favor of a Republican Party whose constituency is primarily white and socially conservative; and I believe Republicans rely on those images to reinforce their covertly segregationist agenda.

… Negative representations of whites are few and far between. This is probably because most of the daily local news is recorded in urban areas where black crime is visible rather than in majority-white, rural areas. One of the most insidious problems in rural white America is the drug culture associated with methamphetamine, or “meth,” which fosters a lifestyle of addiction and violence that mirrors that of crack cocaine. But while the meth phenomenon has begun to appear on the news radar, it hasn’t achieved anywhere near equal billing with the coverage of drug use and drug-related criminality among blacks.

After all the American history of innocent blacks who had met violent ends at the hands of whites … Simpson’s acquittal was a racial day of reckoning. It was a rejection of white society’s presumption that justice would always tip in its favor, regardless of the facts on the ground. In their general jubilation over the verdict, I think what blacks were actually celebrating was the knowledge that whites were finally experiencing how it felt to have the cards — in this case, a majority-black jury — stacked against them. “Now you know what it feels like,” blacks screamed with elation, as they reveled in the karmic confirmation that “what goes around, comes around.” But the tragedy for the people who openly celebrated Simpson’s acquittal was this: they knew they were being watched by the rest of America, especially the white voting majority, and they didn’t care. As the video and audio tape rolled, they acted out their self-justified sense of vengeance before the media’s unrelenting spotlight. This allowed the voting majority to come up with its own verdict: that blacks were just as willing as whites to put racial identification with a defendant above justice. In that one cultural moment, blacks relinquished their automatic right to be deferred to as a people victimized by racism. Somewhere in America, I’m sure white racists were celebrating, too.

The unhappy knowledge that racism is an equal opportunity state of mind has probably made it easier for whites to detach themselves from the kind of sympathy for blacks that is based primarily on racial guilt. This means black leaders can’t milk white guilt the way they used to, and it puts added pressure on blacks to address their own racism. Individuals of conscience regardless of race are the key to diminishing the power of racist, even tribalist, thinking … To gain the confidence of white voters … and therefore to actually help black Americans — Democrats must have the moral courage to take the issue of black marginalization out of its context of race victimization and address it as a cultural dilemma requiring changes in the black mindset. They must also take a more creative approach to policymaking as it relates to the links between black poverty, black culture and the inability of many black children to succeed in school. That will mean holding black parents and leaders more accountable.

On today’s political perception field, Democrats can’t count on white voters to have automatic sympathy for black people based on historical injustices. There’s just too much water under the bridge, and too much awareness that America’s problem with race is a cultural two-way street.

In my view, the best hope for blacks to achieve socioeconomic power and political respect is to commit themselves to philosophical integration with non-blacks — dedicating themselves to the greater, not just the black, good. This means aligning themselves with people and causes based not on racial loyalty but on positive, universally shared values … The values divide — the perception among voters that some people hold more mainstream values than others — exists within black culture itself. Many blacks understand that black values need to at least look like they’re aligned with mainstream values, if for no other reason than ensuring the social and political survival of blacks themselves. Yet those people are often accused by other blacks of being “Uncle Toms” who kowtow to whites.

Low-income blacks somehow didn’t get the memo on what was expected of them, according to Cosby, who suggested that too many black parents weren’t raising their kids right. Pointing to the fear among black people of having their “dirty laundry” exposed to the prying eyes of whites, Cosby informed his audiences that black lower-class children were their dirty laundry and that it was pointless to try and hide it from anyone … “There’s a time when we have to turn around the mirror and look at ourselves,” Cosby told NPR, adding that self-empowerment is linked to education. Echoing remarks by Barack Obama at the 2004 Democratic Convention, Cosby noted with disgust that black children who studied were often accused of “acting white.” (The counterproductive mindset of people who equate education with whiteness was also apparent when rumors circulated during the 2008 presidential campaign pre-season that Obama himself wasn’t “black enough” for some people.)

The most unproductive aspect of the whole Cosby flap for blacks is this: when you try to hide your problems from other people, it’s called “denial.” Denial doesn’t make your problems go away; it just makes you look foolish for not confronting them. Ultimately, it’s self-defeating to condemn individuals from your own racial group who are being progressive by pointing out what needs to change … It might be sobering for Cosby’s critics to realize that celebrities speaking from the comfort of their own thrones aren’t the only ones who think self-defeating black attitudes are getting old. In a letter to the Washington City Paper, one D.C. resident observed that too many blacks “equate accomplishment and the desire to be comfortable with ‘acting white’ or ‘putting on airs.’” Some blacks are like “crabs who know we are destined to be cooked” and try to prevent others from escaping the bucket. The woes of the black community are “often — usually — our own,” she said.

Even if they don’t want to admit it out loud, I think more black voters agree with Cosby than don’t. In fact, I’ve heard increasing frustration from working-, middle- and upper-class blacks about the attitudes and behavior of their low-rent brethren — frustration that Democrats need to pay attention to. In case anyone hasn’t noticed, the black vote has started to fragment because race alone can’t hold it together.

Before Cosby issued his call to conscience, no prominent black leader since the days of Martin Luther King “had dared to stand apart from the civil rights groupthink and ask ‘Where do we go from here?’” says Juan Williams. “Where are the black leaders who are willing to stand tall and say that any black man who wants to be a success has to speak proper English?” Williams asks. “Isn’t that obvious?”

Yet some of those leaders continue to feed the fires of self-justified separatism, which many of their constituents continue to believe makes sense. From listening to the speechifiers at the “Millions More March” in October 2005, I concluded that black leaders on the Left had learned little about the perception factor in black political impotence.