Political Tornados

As my last post was about the difficulties the Republican party is dealing with, I found it fitting that this opinion pointed out the problems within the Democratic party.

 The critique was one of the top articles in the Opinion section of the Wall Street Journal, and was published today. The author is Peggy Nooman, who writes a regular column for the newspaper. She is a credible source, and seems to know what she is talking about enough to form opinions with a base in fact. Her intended audience is anyone who regularly reads the newspaper, and is up to date enough in politics to have a basic knowledge of the background information surrounding her argument. (I am neither of these, but I was nonetheless able to understand her clear and well-written arguments.)

In her opinion, entitled The Twister of 2010, Nooman argues that the Democratic party is dealing with just as much, if not more, issues as the Republicans. I was previously unaware of the internal trouble the Democrats were facing, but I did know that Obama's presidency had not gone as well as some of those who had originally supported him had hoped, and with this backround idea I was not surprised to learn that there are some internal conflicts within the majority party. She uses a variety of facts and quotes as well as other techniques to convince her audience (including succeccfully convincing me) that the Democratic party is headed for a breakdown and the Republicans are on the rise. For example, I love the title of her article; she compares the tensions that might potencially break up the now-unstable world of politics to the rapid, destructive force of tornados. Now that she has my attention, she proceeds to provide evidence and logic to lead me to her major claim: that the Democratic party is ready to fall apart. Her evidence includes quotes from President Obama in which he is accusing his former supporters of abandoning him. This only further encourages dislike toward him. She also refers to the Democratic party's recent use of "wedge-issues" (social issues meant to appeal to a wider voter audience, such as abortion) and negative advertising (in which one party talks bad about the other instead of promoting its own ideals). Both of these techniques, she states, suggest a certain desperateness on the part of the Democratic party to keep itself together and try to increase its voter popularity. Nooman then asserts that not only will these attempts not be effective, but that the party will continue to not just split, but splinter, as opinions continue to differ and Democratic politicians continue to dissagree with even Obama himself. overall, her opinion convinced me that the Democratic party definitly has problems of its own, and that they are not getting any closer to resolving them, which is good news for Republicans! By the way, I was having issues myself with adding an embedded link, (urg...computers...sorry) so here's the addess of the article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704483004575524340160716872.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_BelowLEFTSecond