Stanley Fish on Identity Politics

Distinguished academic Stanley Fish came out last night with another thought-provoking post on his New York Times blog, Think Again, about the use and abuse of identity politics. As both the Clinton and Obama camps sling mud at each other for playing the gender and race cards, the topic seems particularly relevant to the current state of political discourse.

Fish, typically, uses some slippery logic to make his argument that voting according to the race, religion or gender of the candidate is not very much different from voting for a candidate based on a particular interest such as the candidate's stance on abortion. This "interest" conception of identity politics is, to quote Fish, "based on the assumption (itself resting on history and observation) that because of his or her race or ethnicity or gender a candidate might pursue an agenda that would advance the interests a voter is committed to." Well, okay, but why assume this if it's not the stated policy of the candidate? As almost everyone knows, there are stronger forces at work shaping a candidate's policy than his ethnicity, race or creed. And what are these special identity-dependent interests? He gives the example of American Jews supporting a candidate who wants to maintain strong ties with Israel. Of course, this has nothing to do with the ethnicity of the candidate and in fact most Republicans and Democrats support Israel to varying degrees without being Jewish. Jewish votes for a pro-Israel candidate are policy votes for what amounts to a special interest group; this isn't identity politics as Fish defines it or as it is commonly understood. Finally, is it acceptable that people vote solely on issues that affect their group? What about the common interest?

But that's just my opinion.

Stephen Colbert's Op-Ed Column

Of Interest to the Colbert Nation:

Stephen Colbert struck again with his October 14 Op-Ed piece in the New York Times entitled I Am An Op-Ed Columnist! (And So Can You!). As usual, there are some great passages that arrive at sharp criticism through Bill O'Reilly's looking glass:

Well, suddenly an option is looming on the horizon. And I don’t mean Al Gore (though he’s a world-class loomer). First of all, I don’t think Nobel Prizes should go to people I was seated next to at the Emmys. Second, winning the Nobel Prize does not automatically qualify you to be commander in chief. I think George Bush has proved definitively that to be president, you don’t need to care about science, literature or peace.

And of course there's plenty of Colbert's signature comic word-play; he pushes his metaphors, like his conservative punditry, to their extreme but logical conclusions:

Our nation is at a Fork in the Road. Some say we should go Left; some say go Right. I say, “Doesn’t this thing have a reverse gear?” Let’s back this country up to a time before there were forks in the road — or even roads. Or forks, for that matter. I want to return to a simpler America where we ate our meat off the end of a sharpened stick.
Let me regurgitate: I know why you want me to run, and I hear your clamor. I share Americans’ nostalgia for an era when you not only could tell a man by the cut of his jib, but the jib industry hadn’t yet fled to Guangdong. And I don’t intend to tease you for weeks the way Newt Gingrich did, saying that if his supporters raised $30 million, he would run for president. I would run for 15 million. Cash.

All this comes as a telephone poll conducted by Rassmussen Reports shows that 13 percent of Americans would support Colbert if he were a third party candidate pitted against Hillary and Giuliani. A facebook group called "1,000,000 Strong For Colbert" has more than 1,000,000 members, while an equivalent Obama group has some 390,000.
All harmless fun, except for a bit of a snafu about campaign finance laws that may have had some bearing on Fred Thompson's campaign had it not been discovered that he is actually a toaster oven.
Still, what does this show about the electorate? Isn't 2008 supposed to be the year the Dems strike back, take the presidency and right our capsized ship of state? Aren't we liberals supposed to be angry and determined to find a political solution to horrendous political problems? Yet in the first poll that included Colbert 2.3 percent of Democrats said they would vote for the comedian in the primaries--more than for Dennis Kucinich or Mike Gavel.
You could say the polled Dems are just being ironic in that effete urban elitist way that conservative pundits, real and fake, love to hate. Or they just don't care that much about polls. But do you think that anyone in the 1968 election would have had enough time to be ironic when it was widely felt that the nation was off course? Actually, there was a comedian write-in candidate: Pat Paulsen, who ran in five presidential elections between 1968 and 1996 and actually got 200,000 votes in the 1968 election. It therefore can't be the seriousness of the times that deters people from voting for throwaways.
What can be the meaning of Paulsen and Colbert's numbers? People who voted for Paulsen and declare their support for Colbert can't be wholly joking. I think they are rather venting their frustration about the critical lack of choices in politics. And I tend to agree with them. It's way past time to seriously consider third party options. I simply don't think either party will deliver exactly what many people want.
On the upside, I'm pretty confident that we'll at least have a Democrat in the oval office, since the Christian Right appears splintered. With the loss of that major voting bloc, I don't think a Republican candidate has a serious chance. Any thoughts?

Let's not forget Obama, especially when he's in Greenwich Village

Of interest to the young and politically savvy:

Some said 4,000 college students, some said 30,000, some just said a shit load. Whatever the exact number, "a shit load" is as good a description as any for the number of people gathered in Greenwich Village for the Barack Obama rally -which is being called a mini political Woodstock. On top of that, the "shit load" was in Hillary's backyard. Moments like that make it hard to believe that she's so far ahead in the polls. One has to wonder, are the polls accounting for Generation Y?
Today's college student -Generation Y- is no different than any other age group of voters, at least on the Democratic side. There are Obama supporters, Hillary supporters, and Edwards supporters -even a few Kucinich fans. They're also similar in that a large amount of them feel a dead tortoise is better than Hillary (except the Hillary fans). But if that's the case, how is it that she's so far ahead in the polls? All three of the leading candidates have their appealing qualities. Edwards is the handsome populist, Obama the sparkling newcomer, and Hillary the wizened leader -or that's what she wants us to think. Gail Collins pointed out in her latest column that Hillary capitalizes on generalities. She waits to let everyone else declare a side and then just promises that what she has to offer is the best idea, even though her "idea" is commonly yet to be revealed -not always though. Hillary is sneaky like that. She's trying to gain the nomination not by her own opinions or merits -which can be perilous- but by denouncing the other candidates. According to the polls, hers is an effective strategy. Her appeal is experience and a "maturity" above those other flawed politicians who have "platforms" (snicker) and plans for what they'd do in the White House.
Well, Generation Y, at least, is visibly skeptical. That crafty defensive stance of advertising an opponent's failures works, as it did in the last election, but also says something about the candidate.To her credit, Hillary has shared her own policy plans but has spent less time on that compared to the hours she's put in candidate bashing. It's a good way to get to the White House, George will tell you. The polls indicate that a lot of Democrats either don't realize that Hillary's doing this or don't care. That may be true, but a few Greenwich Village goers will tell you that they aren't fooled twice.