“Democratic Victory Task Force”: Grifters Put the Bite on Eric Schmidt?

[KoKo]

“Democratic Victory Task Force”: Grifters Put the Bite on Eric Schmidt?
Posted on February 23, 2015 by Lambert Strether

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

A kind reader sent me a PDF copy of the first deliverable of the Democratic Victory Task Force (DVTF), their preliminary findings. We’ve already looked at the big brainwave the DVTF had, the “National Narrative Project,” so today, I’m going to put on my yellow waders and trudge through the sludge, lookly more deeply into the report. I’ll look at the language of the report, the paradigm for the party that the report (still) supports, and finally the makeup of the committee, and what that might imply.

So, to language. Here’s a Wordle of the most words the DVTF uses most frequently (larger is more):




I’ve helpfully added yellow highlighting to a few of the smaller, less frequently used words; the algorithm fits them in between the most frequently used words, so some of them are vertical, and hard to find. These smaller words are, from left to right:

activists
voter
citizen
class
working

One might urge that a document designed to get people to vote for Democrats would give those voters themselves a little more prominence in its text; instead, institutional words dominate: “Democratic,” “Task Force,” “Democrats,” “Party.” To be fair, this is a preliminary deliverable, and perhaps that’s when the institutional should dominate. From page 5 of the preliminary findings:

In May of 2015 the Task Force – in partnership with the Democratic National Committee – will release a strategic plan to guide the Party’s efforts through the 2022 elections.

So we have many more reports to look forward to! Perhaps in future there will be more focus on voters — as opposed to “strategists” and donors and consultants and message crafters and pollsters and meeting facilitators and “grass roots organizers” and SEO weasels and Beltway site builders. And report writers.

Next, the DVTF’s paradigm for the party. From page 8:

In order to win elections, the Democratic Party must reclaim voters that we’ve lost including white Southern voters, excite key constituencies such as African American women and Latinas, and mobilize the broadest coalition of voters possible to not only recapture state houses but also Congress.

In other words, the New Politics is still firmly in place, with tweaks. Michael Lind describes this paradigm as follows:

Today’s Democratic Party … took shape between 1968 and 1980. Although George McGovern lost the 1972 presidential race to Richard Nixon in a landslide, the McGovernites of the “New Politics” movement wrested control of the Democratic Party from the old state politicians and urban bosses of the Roosevelt-to-Johnson New Deal coalition. Robert Kennedy’s aide Fred Dutton, one of the architects of the disempowerment of the old New Deal elite, called for a new coalition of young people, college-educated suburbanites and minorities in his 1971 book “Changing Sources of Power: Politics in the 1970s.” Sound familiar? That’s because, nearly half a century later, the same groups are the core constituents of today’s Democrats.

Basically, then, the DVTF’s thinking is that they want to add another minority to their portfolio coalition: “Southern whites.” (And never mind why, after having been the focus of Democratic party attention from the dear dead days of McGovern, African-American women and Latinas aren’t already “excited”; could it be that the Democrats never actually deliver them concrete material benefits, as the old Roosevelt coalition did?)


THERE'S MUCH MORE with excerpts of the Dem Report (including those involved in writing it at:


http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/democratic-victory-task-force-grifters-put-the-bite-on-eric-schmidt.html

[Cosmic Kitten]

1. DNC is selling used cars

We need a "new car smell"

A Populist coupe, please ;~)

[aspirant]

2. Southern whites?

Do you mean the ones who will vote for the Blue Dogs, now that's progress.

[KoKo]

3. It sounded like a "Desperation Campaign" ....to NOW target Sourthern Whites?

What Message could Dems give to the RW Faux News Whites which would convince them to vote for Dems?

Look there are Southern Dems who are besieged with the RW Fundamentalists who can't even talk to those folks because they are so CRAZY and full POCKET with Koch and Other Interests Money filling their Coffers that they think they are RIDING HIGH and NO One can defeat them...

We aren't going to all pile into Duck Dynasty and NASCAR and pretend we understand what is going on there.

YET....that we DEMS couldn't reach with a strong inclusive message to counteract theRW...(that Poverty Line of People who find "Faux News" speaks for THEM) as it drags them more and more into supporting Racism when all are driven into Poverty by Wall Street Bankers and THINK TANK Messenging Ops and even Wall Street Supported MSM blaring Pro Business Crookedness supporting misinformation to them Daily says more about who Controls the Dem Party than how many "Think Tank Advertising Groups" can make money doing reviews as to how Dems can get a BETTER MESSAGE out to the "Uneducated Masses."

On "Travel Laptop"....so my typing stuff might have multiple typo's/errors...sorry...for that....