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How the machine works
You hear a lot about political machines - for example, my friend Roatti on Albany Project writes about the subject - and at the risk of acid commentary from machine-owned bloggers, I have some thoughts on it as well.
Machines exist in what is essentially an apolitical space, which is surprising, given that they operate on the field of politics. But the deep relationships that seem to enmesh the machines of both parties, especially in the outer boroughs and in some regions upstate, suggest that they exist mainly for the maintenance of jobs and revenue to a selected group of insiders. It is, essentially, the professionalization and unionizing, if you will, of the exercise of political power. Machines are, literally, a closed shop.
It's worth pointing out that the results aren't all bad. For example, some machine politicians have a sterling record on affordable housing. That's not a small thing. In minority communities, machines have proven an effective mechanism for guaranteeing disadvantaged ethnicities a seat at the table.
The downside of machine politics is equally clear: in a system that consists of, essentially, a professional class supported by carefully chosen voters, the central systemic benefit of the democratic process, of a feedback loop between the people and their representatives, erodes.
Machines rely on one core principle: manipulating voter turnout to achieve desired electoral results. This is why, in true machine districts, again on a completely bi-partisan basis, you seldom if ever see voter registration drives. The process is simple: if only the right people vote - and the turnout ratios in machine districts indicate that they're quite successful in the enterprise - the results are fore-ordained. This provides a reliable income stream for those associated - staff jobs, legislative jobs, member items to favored non-profits, and so on. The jewel in the crown is the judicial system. Courts appoint witnesses, executors, and distribute other benefices to favored insiders. Since judges do the distributing, and are usually elected or subject to appointment by an elected commission, determining who sits on the bench provides multiple income streams.
It's worth pointing out that all of this is strictly legal, and that, again, the results are not all bad. The system works well enough to meet the basic needs of affected districts, which you can deduce simply from the longevity these arrangements have demonstrated. New York has been a machine state since the 19th century, so the system does seem to function adequately enough.
The problem lies elsewhere. It is that, simply, the distribution of public jobs to insiders doesn't universally guarantee a high level of competence, and that emerging or new interests, be they ethnic, ideological, issues-based, are not represented. From a process perspective, the idea that turnout at the polls must be low defies the central premise of a small-d democratic system.
The results are visible in the Albany legislature, itself set up in such a way as to impede the feedback loop between legislators and their constituents. For example, despite widespread public displeasure over the project, neither chamber has had hearings on the development project at Atlantic Yards, nor is any hearing likely.
None of this is really new information. This state of affairs is over a hundred years old. Nor is it, judging by that history, likely to change. What will be worth watching in this cycle is the interplay between the Obama campaign, premised as it is on attracting new voters and pushing turnout, and the Democratic machine counties with their historically poor voter turnout.
machine-owned bloggers also
machine-owned bloggers also seem to forego acid when presented with articulate, reasonably-stated, non-bombastic, theories on government (like the one you present). but they seem to do not so well with implicit or explicit threats (usually wrapped-up grade-school trash-talk).
keep in mind, you guys--especially guys like your buddy--declared unconditional war. machine-owned blogs are just giving him what he desires. (besides, where's it written that every machine doesn't deserve a blog of its very own?)
btw: we've been doing this thing before you guys. you've just never noticed. you really think we just dropped out of the sky one day?
Heh.
btw: we've been doing this thing before you guys. you've just never noticed. you really think we just dropped out of the sky one day?
Well, I've been doing this since 2005, and along with Liza, Mole, Phil and Roatti, I'm one of the pioneers of blogging in political New York. So yes, I do think you just fell out of the sky, right around the time a certain primary heated up.
Of course, you're welcome to prove me wrong.
Heh. Heh.
who am i to argue with pioneering braintrust like that? i admit, you got me dead-to-rights. i mean you guys really are *the* hotbed of blog originality, all the way down to your trademark "heh." (but of course you probably pioneered that long before instapundit did.)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=heh+instapundit&btnG=Search
not to worry though, i'll go away forever now, and leave you guys with your world views still intact.
Heh. Heh. Feh!
Well, there's also the fact that machine types tend to rely on almost no substance and extensive insults, threats and payoffs to get their way. That applies online and on the streets. Perhaps our orginial idea vis a vis the machine owned blogs was to actually argue from facts and ideas rather than simply writing lie-filled attack pieces for pay.
A machine per se isn't necessarily bad. But a machine that generates little but corruption and cronyism looks too much like how Republicans operate for my taste. Now on issues I may agree more with a Democratic machine than a Republican one, but when the Dem machine starts behaving like a Ted Stevens or Roy Blunt it tends to piss me off. I like to maintain my illusion (which isn't really an illusion) that Dems are better than that.
"at the risk of acid commentary from machine-owned bloggers"
I assumed you were calling me out, but there wasn't much to disagree with, and that which I disagreed was mostly technical.
I think the pheneomena you speak of is most intense in areas which are politically non-competitive in general elections. Republicans don't register new voters in Bed-Stuy because even though the existing pool of registrants does not advantage them, making that pool larger is only likely to make things worse, so why bother.
In competitive areas, both parties have some motivation to maximize registration, at least among those demographics in which they are the strongest--not that they always do so (although I'd attribute much of this to laziness), but such efforts can be sold to them as advantageous.
In one-party areas, those who hold office rarely see any reason to change the lay of the land--although, unless you define "machine" broadly enough to take in all incumbents (and I'm not saying you shouldn't--there is a compelling argument to do so), it is not strictly a "machine" phenomena--I very much doubt that Eric Schniederman expends much effort searching out every nook and cranny of Inwood looking for newly naturalized Dominican-Americans so he can register them to vote--the existing lay of the land serves him much better.
While incumbents, or if you insist, "the machine" does register voters, it is only when it is to their advantage--although I'd have to say this holds true for challengers as well. In the City, most turnover of electeds is the result of of retirement or ethnic evolution of neighborhoods--challengers, as well as incumbents, hunt where their ducks are. Former Assemblywoman Adele Cohen's opponents conducted voter registration drives among the Russian community, while she generally made such efforts in areas dominated by African-Americans.
This was not always so--in days gone buy, the old time machines used to show up at every new resident's apartment with a bucket of coal, a basket of groceries and a voter registation form. Machines which were intricately involve in the mechanics of everyday government could do that, knowing that service delivery would win over most voters. The changes in our society, whether the New Deal/Great Society, Civil Service, or the ages of TV and computers--I dare say, changes mostly for the better, have elimainated the intitmate realtionship between the machine and most government service delivery. It is only the rarest of local political organizations which is so comfortably enmeshed with being able to deliver so well that it sees broad-based voter registration efforts to be to its advantage.
There are times when machine pols will engage in broad based efforts--albeit, usually targetted to a particular cohort or cohorts. The 1980s fight for black empowerment, most manifiested here by the Jesse Jackson/David Dinkins campaigns, lead even the most unregenerate Harlem hacks to enroll new voters. Sometimes less racial, but partisan, efforts at achieving Statewide or Citywide power, or in targetted districts, lead to similar efforts.
As a "machine-owned blogger", I believe that voter registration efforts are best targetted to those who are likely to buy what I'm selling--if I'm Tom Udall (or is it Mark?) in Colorado, I'm registering new voters in Denver and Boulder. Let the Republicans (except in carefully targetted precincts) worry about waking up the sleeping Evangelicals in Colorado Springs!
Ha!
Sorry, I'm seeing a bunch of New Yorkers poundning the pavement in Colorado and scaring the locals. That said, I may just join you in the exercise; we have a large contingent flying out on the 25th.