Like Tony Blair, Bush pisses on base.
Anybody who has followed British politics knew that Blair has had it coming to him. In 2001, Blair was riding high. He had just won a landslide election victory, securing a second term. The economy was booming, and voters decisively rejected the old worn-out ideas of Thatcherism.
But there were ominous warning clouds on the horizon. Even then, it was starting to become clear that whenever one of his Labour MP's had a problem with George Bush, Blair would always back George Bush over his Labour MP. Just check the Prime Minister's Questions.
Now, things have come to a head. Blair has sacked a bunch of his ministers and reassigned others. More and more people are demanding his scalp after a disastrous 3rd-place showing in the municipal elections.
In an escalation of the power struggle between New Labour's two creators, Andrew Smith, a former cabinet minister and an ally of Mr Brown, identified Mr Blair as the problem on the doorstep in the elections. He said: "We have uncertainty over the transition and it has to end very soon. It gets worse with every month that passes and reinforces the lack of trust in this government."
Ominously for Mr Blair, backing for the prime minister to agree an "orderly transition" soon is also coming from former Blairites such as Nick Raynsford and John Denham. Mr Raynsford said: "I now think it's going to be necessary to set out a timetable for the change of leadership, though I do not think we should be specific or seek to impose one. But the objective of stability for ministers to deliver on key policies will not be possible if there is uncertainty over the leadership. Ministers will be continually looking over their shoulders."
If Mr Blair does not bow to the pressure backbench MPs intend to publish a letter, possibly by the end of next week, with as many as 75 signatures calling on him to agree the transition or face a formal challenge. Mr Brown called the election result - Labour lost 306 seats and 18 councils - a "warning shot" that showed the party needed to renew itself in the same way as it had in the 80s. His aides said he would be speaking to Mr Blair over the weekend about the need for renewal and an orderly transition.
But the Conservatives have not benefitted from the turmoil. Instead, support for Labor is hemorraging to the Liberal Democrats:
The Lib Dems have risen by three points to 24%, a remarkable improvement for a party mired in scandal at the start of its own leadership election two months ago. But Labour will be anxious that the slide comes as the government is being battered on the NHS. Mr Blair was forced to use his monthly Downing Street press conference yesterday to appeal for greater balance in reporting, as well to defend the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, who was given a hostile reception while addressing delegates from the main public sector union, Unison.
And the Lib Dems were in the mid teens at the height of their turmoil before the ouster of Charles Kennedy for his alcohol addiction problems.
This is a prime object lesson on why you should listen to your people. If you recruit people, ask them to give up several years of their lives to public service, and win elections for you, you need to listen to them, or you might as well not have them aboard at all.
In the same way, Bush has pissed off his base by closing FSA offices in rural areas, causing farmers to drive miles to the nearest office for service and causing losses in income, wages, and gas money.
Converse County, Wyoming is about as red as you can get -- Bush got 78% of the vote there in 2004. Yet people are fuming at Bush:
FSA State Director Lois Van Mark wants to close the Converse County office to satisfy demands she says are being placed on her from her Washington bosses.
As always, there are many sides to the argument and each side will lose something if they don't get their way. Van Mark will lose face with her bosses if she doesn't close this office and might possibly damage any political or career aspirations for which she may be using this as a stepping stone.
If Converse County loses, locals will have added to their growing list of financial expenditures even more costs involved in accessing the FSA services which were originally put in motion to help them. It is more than just the increasing number of dollars it takes to fill up a gas tank to make the long drive to Casper for services; it is also the time missed from work to make the trip. The inconvenience may be nothing more than just that, but the financial factors hit some harder than others.
For Converse County residents, this is a crucial character issue:
The price will be paid, again, by those who can least afford it. The inconvenience being extracted from them by the Van Marks of the world - who were put in their offices and their jobs not to harm but to serve.
Everyone in the Bush Administration who has anything to do with the decision - a very small one the grand scale of things - will be proud to have balanced the budget, made the cuts, pleased their bosses, took the credit and moved on to the next slash-and-burn episode they advance their careers on. It's all about the numbers, and numbers don't have faces.
Back at home, those who pay the costs for those actions will get up and go on, like they always have. They will order their lives around one more wrong action that causes them inconvenience, at the least, and they will still get the job done.
A word came to mind during that meeting every time a producer spoke. It highlighted the way the meeting was conducted, and the way in which Van Mark was treated with respect, the way the producers conducted themselves and, in finality, the way the producers exited the meeting. That word was so alive in those people that it filled up the room and soothed the impact of yet another wrong - possibly - about to be done to them. It is a word that I will always associate with that meeting. A word less used now than it used to be and far too often not what we see in action. But with the group of people in that meeting, the room was thick with it.
That word is honor.
People like these all over the country voted for Bush. But now, his biggest strength -- the perception that he makes a lot of mistakes, but is basically a decent person -- is gone. He is pissing on their way of life, and they are not happy with it. He is doing nothing about the skyrocketing gas prices, choosing to let his vice-president's oil cronies pocket billions in record profits off the backs of the poor.
I am reminded of Jesus' rant against the Pharisees where he accuses them of shutting the doors of heaven against people who wanted to come in. In OrangeCloud115's diary, she writes about the creative destruction that happens in all societies and their need to change. But not only is Bush making it hard for Wyoming residents to live off conventional fuels, he is making it impossible for them to change to new through such stuff as cutting funding for solar energy to 22 of Wyoming's 23 counties.
As Democrats, we ignore these lessons at our own peril. If we piss on our base by instituting massive deportation of immigrants and shutting the borders up, not only will it not work, it will piss off our base, probably triggering the formation of a powerful third party that would deny us electoral votes in once-safe states such as California and permanently stopping us from competing in New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. We would be creating the same kind of police state that we were so much against when opposing Alito and the Patriot Act.
And we cannot piss on our base by supporting laws denying a woman's right to choose. That is why the candidacy of Bob Casey is so troubling -- he refuses to come out and state his positions on abortion on his website so that people can make up their own minds.
This is why we must actively listen to the fears and concerns of our base even as we seek to build new coalition partners who allow us to win elections.