Bisbort: This brings me back to the language that one uses now to frame political debate. Orwell often used phrases like "common decency" as his yardstick. I always thought that the idea of common decency is really what they're saying is "liberal." That's essentially what it boils down to. Is there some way to resuscitate the word "liberal," finding a new way of saying it or should we just ditch it altogether?
Scher: This is actually Chapters 1 through 4 in the book. Chapter One is embrace the L word and win the center. It makes the case that liberal and conservative are the words that define our discourse. Whether you like it or not, these are the words. People have tried for 10+ years to stop saying "Liberal." You can stop using it but the papers are still going to say, ‘the liberal Senator from New York" or "the liberal proposal to save Social Security." You don't hold the ink, they do. They use word that are embedded in the lexicon and always will be as far as I'm concerned. And when you give up a bedrock word like "liberal," you have signaled to the rest of the country that there is something bad about it, there is something to run away from here. That just leaves it wide open for conservatives to define it on their terms and just bludgeon it into the ground, and they are not even subtle about it. They've actually refined a way to advance the cause of mis-defining it, whereas it used to be just about ‘big government.' With the Kerry campaign, they expanded and merged the flip flop on top of the liberal stuff. Then they say, "these liberals don't trust you to tell you what they really believe." Thus, they can make the essence of liberalism today appear to be a dishonest disingenuous ideology. That's an incredibly dangerous place for us to be.
Scher: They say, "You've called me a conservative and I'm proud of it" Can you name me one Senator who will say I'm a liberal and proud of it? I believe Ted Kennedy will say it if asked.
Scher: No question. It's not something you're going to do in a day. The word is in such incredibly bad shape. It's going to take an organized serious concerted effort, but a necessary one. There is no way you're going to get around using this word. Because whether you like it or not they're going to use it. Right now, the word is in such bad shape that all they have to do is say the slur and the damage is done. It's an easy move for them to do. We have to make it harder for them.
Scher: Lamont, interestingly, was asked if he was a liberal and he said yes and then he defined it on his own terms. It's not how I'd define liberal, meld it with his background as an entrepreneur and then segue into good government, which I do talk about in the book.
Scher: What I argue about in the book is that the media has proven to be accessible to grassroots pressure. That's what the right wing has successfully done. Email goes around, "did you know all these great things about Iraq…why haven't you heard about this? The Bush hating media won't tell you." Reporters are bombarded with this. The implied message that reporters get is, "You are ignoring the people, hurting the bottom line, not serving your audience" and this has gotten to the media in a second-guessing mindset. So they bend over backwards to pander to the right. Because that pressure is working some way, we have to counter it. We don't want to do it in an identical symmetrical way by telling the media, "You're being conservative, stop being so conservative, etc.," because at that point the media will say, "I guess we're doing this just great because both sides are mad at us." We have to find a way to call attention to things that are factually wrong and appeal to their desire to be good journalists. Framing it this way: "This piece of information is factually inaccurate, and as a service to you I'm pointing it out to you, BEFORE you print it." Also we need to let them know there's a consumer base that wants more aggressive investigative reporting. The right has scared them off investigative reporting, which is expensive anyway, because it takes more time and money, as opposed to just printing a wire story. Just inundate them with queries for more investigative pieces, make it a consumer decision.
Bisbort: Maybe this election cycle will answer a lot of questions about what works and what doesn't work. The Lamont campaign is a prime example of staying on message, hammering that message. He's got room to pull votes in. Lieberman has all he's going to get and those are slowly trickling away from him as he is shown to be toxic to other Democrats.
Scher: There should be a national Democratic Party approach for this election but the fact is that there isn't. A lot of Democratic candidates, even those with great potential, like Jack Carter of Nevada, still are reluctant to portray themselves as being liberal, and even if the Democrats take over Congress there's still this nebulous thing. What's a Democratic Congress going to do? I don't think they've figured that part out yet. There are a lot of competing ideas swirling around the party that might have to be hashed out on the floor of Congress, which might not be so great. Hopefully, if guys like Lamont and Tester can get in there and tell them that they're doing this from a far more principled or ideological approach, and then lay out those principles for the rest of the Congressional Democrats, they'll earn trust with the electorate. They both have different tricky political terrains. Montana is libertarian state, though it does have a very popular Democrat governor who ran on a principled populist message.
Bisbort: The most incredible thing about some of these Western states is that it doesn't take that many voters to swing an election one way or another from election to election.
Scher: And they like Schweitzer and Tester who don't call themselves liberal but they certainly don't shy away from promoting good government. Lamont is different. Here's an electorate that's 22% Republican, 33% Democrat and 44% unaffiliated, with a moderate Republican governor. What Lamont has to do is convince the self-described moderates of Connecticut that what he is doing is in line with their principles. Frame it as "Don't believe the hype or slur of what liberal is, just look at what I'm proposing to do, and we can get more done if there are more Democrats like me in Congress."
Bisbort: My point is I think it's going to be virtually impossible to get self-described moderates to embrace the word liberal. It's going to have to take another generation to get there. Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-CT5) has for God knows what reason has been labeled a "moderate." Well, what does that mean anymore? She's a complete shill for corporations, taking more money than anyone in Congress from pharmaceuticals and insurance. Sure, she's OK on the environment and a few little things but she's a major driver behind Medicare scam, a cheerleader for Bush's war, and the embodiment of crony. She already owns the "moderate" label, so you can never beat her by being more "moderate" than her. It's not that you have to go negative, but you have to find a way to separate her from her label. You have to equate her with Bush and Cheney, who are loathed in the state. The case is easy to make. She's a rubber stamper for Bush's agenda. Just look at her "yes" votes for the energy and bankruptcy bills.
Scher: That's how you win. Find three or four key votes like that and focus on them. And then frame it this way: "This is someone you call moderate? If this is moderate, I don't want any part of it."
is a columnist for the Hartford Advocate. His book, "'When You Read This They Will Have Killed Me': The Life and Redemption of Caryl Chessman, Whose Execution Shook America," will be published this fall by Carroll & Graf.
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