Eaves: Thanks for the thoughtful response. I find listening to Dem strategists like Gergen interesting because it shines a light on the somewhat disconnected thought processes that many on the Left employ. That isn’t meant as a put-down, either. I work with academics quite regularly, and I see much of the same behavior. I happen to know more than a few profs at UCSD who haven’t physically been out of La Jolla in years. No exaggeration. What the election showed, in stark red and blue, were the liberal/Left strongholds on the east and west coasts, and a vast chasm between. This chasm isn’t just geographical, its also philosophical, too.
Listening to Gergen try to get his head around what happened was quite illustrative. He is like a lot of his fellow Dems in that he doesn’t understand why America just doesn’t seem to get it. Someone like Brian might ascribe this lack of understanding to a poor upbringing or education (hence his mockery of the Tea Party, without fully understanding the true import or power of this group), but it isn’t that. There is a fundamental disconnect with what is simplistically called the “Liberal Elite” and the rest of the country. Just like the prof who doesn’t leave La Jolla, you have large elements of the intelligentsia that don’t leave Manhattan (except to go to their summer homes in the Hamptons).
As you correctly pointed out, Rove DOES get it and he rams it down the Dem’s throats repeatedly, while the Dems fail to grasp the underlying strategy. Your comment about Obama’s allowing the disintegration of that massive, well-funded and well-organized operation was the same one I made, too. He had an incredible resource at his disposal, and simply allowed it to fade away. Think for a moment the huge counterweight that movement would have provided to the “enthusiastic” and “energized” GOP/TP.
Brian can hold forth on Festung Kalifornia, but the barbarians are already at the gates. And, in two years, they’ll be inside.
