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March 04, 2006

Countering Conservative Populism With Progressive Populism (John Edwards) and Reform Populism (Kinky Friedman)

This Sunday on Meet the Press:

a pair of one-time vice presidential candidates -- Democrat John Edwards and Republican Jack Kemp -- have teamed up to co-chair the Council on Foreign Relations' Independent Task Force on Russian-American Relations. The two political veterans will join us exclusively this Sunday to preview their upcoming report . . .

This is pretty funny - more like the "independent task force on finding ways to make two populist presidential wannabes sound more credible on national security."

But more power to Edwards. I still have this fantasy where he rises up as the great Southern hope who bridges populism and progressivism - the cross between Clinton and RFK who succeeds in reaching "red staters" in the polling booth just as he does in the courtroom. God knows how Hillary could manage that one - although, more power to her if she finds a way.

Somewhere out there there's room for at least reformist populism, if not progressive populism. That's why I think Kinky Friedman's campaign to be the first country-singing Jewish governor of Texas is actually going somewhere - if they don't get shafted by a bogus Texas law that requires independent candidates for governor to get 45,000 signatures from people who didn't vote in the primaries.

Conservative populism - the stuff Thomas Frank writes about in What's the Matter With Kansas - has been a very effective Republican ploy to appear to be the party of the people while serving the interersts of the rich and powerful.

But there has to be an opening for an inspiring speaker with Oprah-style interpersonal chops who can make the case for a populism of substance rather than empty "values" rhetoric - populism that supports popular initiatives such as universal health care, progressive taxation, workers' rights, environmental protection, electoral reform, and media reform.

Maybe it'll be Edwards. Maybe Hillary will rise to the challenge, though as a Southerner desperate for somebody who can play below the Mason-Dixon line, I'm exceedingly doubtful. Same goes for Russ Feingold, I'm sad to say.

But my real fear is that the Dems will go with yet another candidate who can't speak to the South the way Clinton could. National Dems seem to have written off large chunks of the South as "red states." They didn't bother to campaign here in 2004 - Georgia wasn't a "swing state." As the New Yorker's always-brilliant Hendrick Hertzberg argues here, this way of reifying shifting political allegiances into monochromatic absolutes does damaging things to our democracy. If we ever want real progressive change in this country, it's got to happen acrosss the whole red, white and blue.

Posted by tedf at March 4, 2006 09:57 PM

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