Over at Rebunk, Tom Bruscino has a fine essay about the celebration of the 4th of July in Bristol, Rhode Island, which has the oldest Independence Day celebration traditions in the United States. If you are not reading Rebunk, you should be.

The new Common-Place offers a cornucopia of goodies: B. Scott Crawford, who posts occasionally at HNN, discusses the use of John Singleton Copley's art in the classroom, Richard Bell writes about researching suicide in American history, Stephen Mihm surveys campaigns against counterfeit money, Mia Bay reviews Edward P. Jones, The Known World, and, ah-h-h, Andrew Epstein, cough, says, gag:"History Took Hold Of My Throat"!

If you survived that last one, don't miss Scott McLemee's article for the Chronicle of Higher Education on the National Endowment for the Arts' report on the fairly dramatic decline in reading in the United States. The story is covered less adequately in the Washington Post. The decline in reading appears to affect all age groups, ethnicities, and social classes. At Critical Mass, Erin O'Connor hosts lively discussions of the findings here and here.

Finally, Reid McKee at Moteworthy and David Beito at Liberty and Power report a scandal in Mississippi Democratic Party politics. The state Insurance Commissioner and the Secretary of State apparently sought a white person to take over as chairman of the state's Democratic Party. Via a link Beito and McKee provide, you can hear the Insurance Commissioner acknowledging in a radio interview that they intended to select a white person to chair the committee and an African American to be its vice chair. I am less inclined than McKee and Beito (and my colleague, Jonathan Dresner, in comments at Liberty and Power) to be outraged by this. I suggested to Beito that there is nothing any more insidious going on here than what you used to find in ticket balancing in New York's Democratic Party. The logic was that if you had an Irish candidate for Governor, an Italian and a Jew would be nominated for Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General. It isn't pretty. It isn't any longer legal to operate openly that way. But the reality is that, if the Democratic Party cannot make inroads into the Republican monopoly of white male voters in the deep South, it will continue to be a minority party for years to come. As recently as 20 years ago, Georgia's congressional delegation was made up exclusively of white male Democrats. In the 1990s, white male Democrats disappeared altogether from Georgia's congressional delegation. That's progress, of course, for African American and female representation, but the trade-off was a congressional delegation that was heavily white, male, and Republican. The question really is, do you want a competitive two party system in the deep South?

After the 1998 elections, the Illinois GOP had captured its seventh straight gubernatorial election, when George Ryan was elected governor. A young, moderate, wealthy candidate, Peter Fitzgerald, had ousted Democratic senator Carol Moseley-Braun. The Republicans had taken control over both houses of the Illinois legislature, ensuring that they could pass a GOP-friendly redistricting--as occurred. And an Illinois Republican, Dennis Hastert, had just become Speaker of the House.

It's been all downhill from there. Gore crushed Bush in the state in 2000, after which a corruption scandal seemed to indict every major figure in Gov. Ryan's administration, ultimately including the (by then former) governor himself. In reaction, Democrats won every statewide election in 2002, and took back the legislature. Fitzgerald, after a first term in which he seemed to build as many enemies among Republicans as among Democrats, decided not to run for reelection. Then, in the race to replace Fitzgerald, the Democrats nominated a star candidate in Barack Obama, while the GOP selected a first time candidate, Jack Ryan, who, as we all know, imploded.

The party now seems to be struggling to find anyone at all to serve as its standard-bearer. In the last week, the party leadership's two preferred choices, former Chicago Board of Ed president Ronald Gidwitz and State Sen. Steve Rauschenberger, both opted out--lest a crushing defeat to Obama spoil their gubernatorial chances in 2006.

Three candidates are now getting the most attention. Dairy magnate Jim Oberweis, the second-place finisher in the Republican primary, would be the logical candidate--except the Bush administration doesn't want him. Oberweis based his primary bid on a critique of Bush's immigration policy that would make former California governor Pete Wilson's policies look moderate by comparison.

Dr. Andrea Grubb just resigned her position as deputy drug czar to make the bid, with the curious argument that, as an African-American woman, her candidacy"removes the race card from consideration." (Obama is African-American.) About the only advantage the Illinois Republicans has left is that it's tougher for blacks to win statewide elections because of a hidden racist vote. Asked about her chances, Hastert replied,"Who? Don't know her."

The last option--which seems to have excited Hastert, a former wrestling coach--is a movement to draft former Bears coach Mike Ditka. When reporters yesterday attempted to reach him, Ditka was unavailable for comment. (He was on the golf course!) His wife, however, remarked,"If he decides to do it, I'd divorce him."

So, as the Senate debates the Federal Marriage amendment, will the Illinois GOP undermine the sanctity of marriage by urging Ditka to run?

I had a chance to see Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911 while I was away. My overall reactions to it are not particularly unique, and are pretty much how I’ve felt about everything Michael Moore has ever done. I think he’s got a good comic touch, which helps distinguish him from the schoolmarm left (though I’m fascinated with how he doesn’t get attacked by the schoolmarms for some of what he does—his montage on the “Coalition of the Willing” in Fahrenheit uses loaded racial and ethnic imagery, for example). If he was content to be a humorist, he wouldn’t annoy me so much. But he’s not content, and habitually insists on sticking in every cheap shot, misleading claim, exaggeration, simplification, and agit-prop sleight-of-hand that he can get away with while pursuing very serious, accurate, important and substantial political arguments. Even when I substantially agree with much of what he has to say, as I do about the Iraq War and the Bush Administration, he still manages to irritate me.

What I find equally grating is the defense of Moore’s work as “fighting dirty” because the other side is doing so. I agree that many of the critics of Fahrenheit are astonishing hypocrites, applying standards that they systematically exempt their own favored pundits and politicians from, but the proposition that one has to play by those degraded rules to win the game repels me. If it's true, then God help us all.

Worse still is the lauding of Moore’s work as effective and therefore desirable agit-prop. The most powerful material in Fahrenheit are the images that the American public has not been permitted to see or hear, and when Moore shows those images and otherwise shuts the hell up, the film is hugely effective. When he insists on dragging the narrative line of the film to all the favored mental habitats of the most ideologically incoherent lineage of the contemporary American left, or when he unconvincingly pretends to great enthusiasm for the rapid and aggressive use of American military power in Afghanistan, or great sympathy for the young men and women in the military, the effectiveness of the film sags. Because the measure of effectiveness in this case has to be not how well the film speaks to those who are already convinced—who the hell cares if it moves me and others like me or not about Iraq or Bush, given that I’ve had deep, intense feelings on both subjects for three years—but whether it can reach those who are potentially reachable. Not the zombies and lickspittles who would apparently laud Bush as their political savior even if he ordered every ship in the Navy to sink itself, but those Americans who are wavering, uncertain, fearing terrorism but also desperately wanting to do the right thing. I believe such an audience exists, and I believe that Michael Moore’s film can’t possibly reach them, except for those few, precious, powerful moments when he has the accidental grace and wisdom to shut the fuck up. The rest of the time he insists on mugging for his usual peanut gallery, and gets the expected applause from them.

This made me think a bit about the modern history of attempted political mobilization through popular culture in the United States, about what was both effective and a memorable work of art. There’s not a lot of work that can occupy both categories, some that occupies one, and much that occupies none.

What makes a work of culture effective in this sense? That it reaches an audience which was previously unmobilized or unconcerned by an issue and crystallizes or focuses their attention on a concrete issue in a way that produces an outcome that plausibly might not have occurred but for a particular film, book, television show or other cultural work. That might be a large public audience, or some segment of the public, or it might be a particular group of politicians, bureaucrats or institutional actors. The Jungle is an obvious and prototypical example. The China Syndrome would be another. Sometimes effectiveness is less a measure of changing future policy and more a matter of changing popular consensus about a past event or policy. Roots clearly made many Americans, both black and white, intensely aware of slavery as a legacy.

What would be examples of ineffectiveness? The John Wayne film The Green Berets might be one—the crudely irrelevant, stock-character patriotism of the film could only have convinced the already-convinced about Vietnam, and probably not even them.

This is a long and complicated history to consider, but when I try (however haltingly) to take a step back from my nearly instinctive dislike of Moore’s grandstanding to evaluate the claim that he is legitimate because he is effective, I can’t help but wonder whether he persuades anyone who is not already persuaded—the only measure of historical effectiveness that I think matters, past or present. I am prepared to find out that he does persuade and thus does matter, and belongs in the class of other creators who have mattered in the past, but my gut says not. What I fear is that he reinforces instead the self-referential insularity of one particular strand of the American left, which is not excusable even though it is mirrored by a vastly more grotesque, powerful and destructive form of the same behavior on the right.

Am I the only person who is really, really annoyed that the Bush campaign is using Kerry's consideration of John McCain for the VP slot as an opportunity for attack? Not because I'm a Democrat; because I'm a moderate in favor of creative and cross-party approaches. It was a bold and creative move for Kerry to even consider a Republican, particularly one with such a strong conservative record. It was remarkable that the idea lingered into the short-list phase, which means that Kerry was serious about it.

Everyone whines about polarization and the importance of bipartisanship (or multi-partisanship, if like me you consider two parties not nearly enough, or non-partisanship, if you're trying to be ecumenical), but Kerry made a stab at it. Yes, there's electoral politics at work as well, which makes you wonder a little bit, but you don't make a move like that unless you are dead serious about it precisely because of the backlash if it fails (or if it succeeds!). Of course, trying to create ideological diversity on a ticket is the kiss of death, but the willingness to actually cross parties in a meaningful fashion is something to think about.

Maybe it'll take a more moderate pairing to make it work: a Democrat who votes with Republicans sometimes and a Republican who votes with Democrats sometimes.... Perhaps forming their own moderate party.... McCain-Lieberman in '08? Seriously, though, the near-deadlock between the two big parties could paralyze us, policy-wise, unless we do something about it.

The case, covered in detail in last week’s Chronicle, involved journalism adviser Ron Johnson, who oversaw the school’s newspaper, the Collegian, which had just received an award as the best daily college newspaper in a national competition, the latest in a series of awards it has won. Johnson received glowing praise from student journalists with whom he had worked over the previous 15 years, and he comes across in the article as both a sensitive and knowledgeable figure—seemingly the ideal for the position. And he upheld the school’s clear policy that the journalism adviser should have no say regarding the content of the newspaper, since doing so at a public university like Kansas State would violate the First Amendment.

His offense? He ran afoul of the school’s diversity coordinator, associate provost Myra Gordon. At Virginia Tech, Gordon had overseen a controversial faculty diversity initiative that built off the writing of Cathy Trower, who has argued that “merit is socially constructed by the dominant coalition” and that white male (and only white male) job candidates should be required to demonstrate a commitment to diversity before being hired.

At K-St., Gordon backed the president of the school’s Black Student Union, Natalie Rolfe, who complained after the Collegian failed to cover the Big 12 Conference on Black Student Government, which Kansas State hosted in February 2004. (The article doesn’t mention whether the BSU issued a press release before the event, but it appears that the organization did not.) In response to Rolfe’s complaint, the newspaper’s editors publicly apologized for not covering the event, developed a new system for reporting to ensure that all campus events received proper coverage, and planned “additional diversity training.”

These moves did not satisfy Rolfe, who said that she wanted"a system to make sure the paper's more friendly to the campus” (interesting conception of a newspaper’s role). She then organized a protest march, with 50 students wearing T-shirts reading “W.W.R.G.?,” for “When Will Ron Go?” Gordon, meanwhile, told Rolfe,"I'm backing you all the way,” and publicly stated that Johnson should be fired. (Gordon refused to comment for the Chronicle story.) Johnson then was removed from his position, after the college dean issued a report accusing him of a poor attitude in dealing with students—even though the dean hadn’t interviewed any of the students on the newspaper’s staff, and has refused to say with which students he did speak.

Imagine, for a moment, that the following occurred: a state university newspaper received several national awards, and its journalism adviser, an African-American female, had developed a warm long-term working relationship with the students under her charge. The paper then failed to cover a conference bringing together campus affiliates of, say, the Center for Individual Rights, after which the newspaper editors publicly apologized and agreed to undergo ideological diversity training to ensure they were more sensitive to conservatives in the future. Nonetheless, the student leader of the campus CIR demanded the dismissal of the journalism adviser.

Does anyone think that Associate Provost Gordon would have backed the CIR in such a dispute? Or that the university’s president would have gone along with the dismissal? Perhaps you might want to tell Gordon or President Wefald yourself.

I take heart in Volokh's and David Bernstein's patient explanations to Cramer that: a) the Supreme Court held flag burning a form of protected speech; b) Justices Scalia and Thomas provided two crucial votes to sustain that position, while Justice Stevens voted to uphold bans on flag burning; and c) burning flags and spreading manure are not comparable acts of speech. When the Court breaks along lines our stereotypes do not expect, there is still hope for our polarized polis.

Back in November I wrote an article for HNN arguing that, over the last two decades, ideological unity was essential for a presidential ticket to succeed. At the time I concluded that:

The incumbent Bush-Cheney ticket, one of the tightest pairings in recent presidential politics, can and will trounce any Democratic challenge that attempts to unify the party and appeal to the electorate through political diversity rather than ideological focus. It will be particularly obvious if the vice-presidential candidate comes from the pool of failed presidential candidates, because the primary campaign sniping will be replayed immediately in the press and by the other side. To overcome the Bush/Cheney advantages of unity and money will require near-perfect candidates running a better-than-perfect campaign and some luck to boot.

Money, going by the euphemism" campaign finances," is the elephant in the living room of all political analysis. The candidate with the most money (usually the incumbent, whose fundraising begins as soon as the election ends) wins elections in the US so often that it's almost not worth talking about anything else, though like the mystics who reject the utility of language to describe the true nature of reality, we can't seem to stop. Since 1984 (some sources say 1976) the candidate with the most money one year before the general election has won their party primary; money isn't the sole factor in presidential elections, but gross disparities usually show up in the final results.

What will determine the outcome of the 2004 election? Vietnam War historian Fredrik Logevall once wrote on the H-Asia list,"It's not enough merely to list x number of causes. It is the task of the historian to reduce a given list of causes to order by establishing a causal hierarchy, and to relate the items in this hierarchy to one another." [Note: see our discussion of causality in comments here] As important as ticket unity is in recent history, the history of the 1960s and 1970s demonstrates that ticket unity can be overwhelmed by other issues. Confidence in the economy is a powerful influence on moderates and swing voters, but it will only matter if it moves out of its ambiguous"jobless recovery" into either collapse or sustained job growth. The situation in Iraq could become more polarizing or more positive, and another terrorist attack on the US is a true wild card, impossible to quantify or even guess at this point. It is worth noting however, that foreign policy will play a larger role in this election than in any other since 1980. There could always be a devastating scandal, either within the Bush administration or regarding a poorly screened Democratic challenger. [I also alluded to rumors of Cheney's replacement on the ticket, but I thought those had died down: Instapundit suggests otherwise]

I hope that I'm wrong: I'd love to see Kerry/Edwards beat Bush/Cheney without having to outspend them or on the backs of some economic or military or terroristic tragedy. I'd like to see voters making decisions based on long-term issues and policy and future needs rather than their current financial status (which the president has very little control over anyway) or in a panicked reaction to some immediate crisis. Most of all, I'd like to see an election won fairly and clearly, so that I can stop worry about the future of American democracy. [However, this {via Big Tent} might be going too far]

According to the AP,"Post editor in chief Col Allan said in a statement that he made the decision to go with the Gephardt story based on information that turned out to be inaccurate." Really??

Early reaction to the choice has been mostly positive--and for good reason. While I still think Kerry would have been well served to have at least considered thinking outside the box (Mary Landrieu, for one, was someone I thought would get more attention than she did), Edwards seems to me a much better fit for the ticket than either Gephardt or Vilsack--Vilsack because he was poorly known and hasn't ranked as one of the nation's top governors in any case, Gephardt because, in both the 2002 midterm elections and then his 2004 presidential bid, he didn't exactly demonstrate a widespread appeal.

The interesting question: will Democrats, as occurred in 1968 with Humphrey-Muskie and in 1988 with Dukakis-Bentsen, conclude the campaign wishing that the order of their ticket was reversed?

Update: Ogged at Unfogged agrees that Ehrenreich's first two columns have been excellent, but holds that New York Times columnists should rotate regularly rather than holding tenure.