August 07, 2004

Now Get 50 Big Donors to Do This

Last week, I noticed that my father had gotten a letter from Senate Majority Leader Sen. Bill Frist, M.D. Dad has gotten so much mail from the national GOP lately that he ignores half of it and only troubles himself with the local races. Besides, he takes a more active interest in his homeland's battles, and his party's recent defeat seems to have discouraged him about politics generally.

This envelope included an official SURVEY DOCUMENT, assigned to Dad as a REPRESENTATIVE of ALL REPUBLICANS living in his voting district. Sen. Frist's letter asked his Friend (Quakerish address a Nixon throwback?) to fill out the survey, or if the Friend did not wish to do so, to return it unanswered, at which point presumably someone else would become REPRESENTATIVE of ALL REPUBLICANS living in his voting district. Quite incidentally, it also asked for Dad's "most generous contribution to the NRSC of $500."

Since I knew that Dad never would take the time to fill out such a thing, much less stuff it in an envelope and put it in the mail, I thought I'd do the NRSC a favor and fill out the survey. Admittedly, the results probably don't represent the Republicans in our district very well, but I figure that with Republicans in most state-wide offices, a majority in House, Senate and Supreme Court, and controlling the White House, they were represented much better than I in all important respects. Thus I rationalize having my views represented in the Republican Party and breaking laws against mail interference and misrepresentation.

Whoever reads it likely will be puzzled by what a person who agrees with more taxes, no additional tax cuts, and more humanitarian aid to foreign countries -- and disagrees with the ban on partial birth abortion, a ban on therapeutic (non-reproductive) cloning and the GOP's interpretation of Second Amendment rights -- is doing in the Republican Party.

If enough impudent liberals get their hands on these surveys [2], the GOP would have to recognize another kamikaze constituency along with the Log Cabin folks: the Democratic Republicans. Such a state of affairs seems far more likely to "throw them off their game," or at least make them worry about the loss of some $500-level donors if they continue down their current road, than some weirdos dancing in the street [3].

[1] Out of curiosity, what are the Republican-rich zones of Manhattan? My first reaction was to assume that it would be Tiffany's and other places where wealthy people might congregate, but that doesn't necessarily seem true, as NYC liberals are about as likely to be rich as NYC conservatives. Of course, what Barlow assumes is that there are sufficiently significant differences in the lifestyle and tourist preferences of Republicans and Democrats that people from one party would congregate in places where people from the other party would not.

Though the majority of my friends trend liberal, particularly on social issues, one could not distinguish between the Democrats and Republicans based on their preferred hangouts. Did Barlow get his idea of Republican zones from having to change his venues after switching parties? and doesn't this sound like something from Sex and the City? ("I had to ask myself: was Manhattan politically segregated territory?")

[2] If you lack access to a Republican donor's mail, but would have been able to participate in Barlow's plan, might I suggest an alternative that likely would have a more useful and effective influence on conservatives? Find a person of the same sex and roughly the same age. Take your child, or borrow a friend's, and go to these Republican rich zones. Stroll around presenting yourselves as a family: discussing the child's education, friends or extracurricular activities, making plans for y'all's next vacation, etc., while being affectionate but not demonstrative with your "partner."

If the Republicans in town take notice, perhaps it will assuage some lingering belief that same-sex unions are actually intended to legalize child molestation, or that gay couples are incapable of the parental impulses that straight people harbor. These ideas -- phobias, in their ignorant remove from reality -- are a far more problematic aspect of Republican puritanism than is any dislike of random dancing.

[3] What bothers me most about Barlow's idea is that it purports to return joy to revolution, yet the whole goal of it is not to encourage community and creativity in Our Side, but to spread discomfort and fear among the Other Side. Everyone in this country is sufficiently paranoid, about dark-skinned passengers and politicized announcements and media biases, without being troubled by each others' terpsichorean outbreaks.