The New Political Compass Version 7.5.5*

The New Progressives are In-Front, Deep Green, and Beyond Left vs. Right

By Paul H. Ray, Ph.D. Integral Partnerships LLC

The New Political Compass

In Front On Big, Emerging Issues: Cultural Creatives, New Progressives (Calling All New Social Movements!) Wisdom Culture Paradigm Est. 45% of Voters

Longing for the Old Ways 36% Cultural Conservatives Radical & Religious Right Southern Politics Paradigm 20% Est. 21% of Voters 12% Alienated 19% Standing Pat on the Left Modernist Liberals Conventional Left Politics 14% Big Government Paradigm Est. 15% of Voters Profits Over Planet and People Business Conservatives Economic Growth/Globalization Big Business Paradigm Est. 19% of Voters

*This is a condensed and non-technical edit of Version 7.3, of April, 2002, adding a strategic analysis of the situations of both political parties, and supporting strategic surveys. It is missing most statistical tables and graphs of Version 7.3, but has more practical conclusions and an FAQ. For more detailed evidence, download version 7.3 from www.culturalcreatives.org

© Paul H. Ray, 2003 [email protected] Table of Contents page

Executive Summary...... 3 Action Points for Action People ...... 4 Beyond the Demographics: A New Subculture in America...... 7 Beyond Left vs. Right: The New Political Compass ...... 8 Two Dimensional Politics Makes a Political Compass Image ...... 10 Going Forward, or North, are the New Progressives ...... 15 The Inadequacy of the Muddled Middle...... 16 Unmet Political Demand...... 16 The Biggest Theme is Danger to Our Children’s Future...... 17 The Great Wave of Change Points to the Political North ...... 18 Six Dimensions of the Wave of Change Analysis...... 19 The Practical Political Implications: 1. A New Strategic Analysis (Mapping strategies onto the Political Compass) ...... 21 A Map of the Strategic Landscape...... 22 Comparing the Strategic Maps...... 23 Ten Strategic Imperatives: What Republicans Now Do and Democrats Need to Do ...... 25 • Core Constituency Strategies of Republican and Democratic Parties (list+map) .....25 • Edge Strategies of Republican and Democratic Parties (list+map)...... 27 Emerging Issues and Edge Strategies ...... 29 Three strategic maps for Democrats Edge Strategies: • Global Ecology Issues...... 31 • National Health Care Issues...... 32 • National Education Issues...... 33 2. A Frequently Asked Question: Why hasn’t politics already adapted to the change? The Social Change Analysis ...... 34 3. More FAQs: So, is George Lakoff right? (Mostly, and so are a lot of other writers) How do we make all this real and practical for getting out the vote?...... 38 Distinctive Values and Opinions of Political North’s New Progressives (tables) 39

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 2 Executive Summary to springboard to a values-based way to exactly identify who and where these Executive Summary: voters are, both for fund-raising and How can progressives actually win in the precinct walking. This new approach, face of the right wing political juggernaut, GeoValueGraphics, overlays political composed of big money, big media and values on the geo-demographic analysis religious right shock troops? This article of small area data (Zip+4 areas are very shows two of the necessary pieces that have fine-grained: 5 to 15 households). Once to be set up to win: we have this, it really would support 1) It connects values data to political people power: old-fashioned retail attitudes to show a clearer picture of politics could come back again, with politics than just left vs. right. It looks high tech support. like a political compass, and the four

sides are described in detail. People power is coming back as a theme of 2) Once you look through the lens of values the Democratic Party, and as a theme of research, the new picture also leads to a awakening progressives, and the rise of new and very practical way to do Howard Dean is one of the results. It’s high political mapping for issues development time, because the party has concentrated for and campaign strategies. The article far too long on being Republicans-lite, and shows striking strategic imperatives for on being friendly to the money of big each party: the Republicans seem to business contributors. This has been a losing have figured their own imperatives out, strategy that Clinton’s temporary success and the Democrats haven’t. You can papered over. But the answer is almost actually see pictures of wedge-driving certainly not to go back to the liberal verities and bridge-building strategies. of the 1930s to 1960s. The general public

has moved on, and what they want is not This clearer picture has 3 big consequences: being described by conventional pollsters, or 1) It points directly at bringing back people by the corporate-controlled news media. power in progressive strategies, because They want the politics to catch up to their there is a big, untapped voter population own concerns, and to speak to them in ways out there that is not in the mushy middle, they can believe in. and it looks like a potential for a new

kind of progressive. This north-pointing Voters really do want politicians they can direction on the New Political Compass trust, and they really do want values more has twice the voters of any other than policy-wonk stuff—just not the values direction. We can win! A new political of the far right, and certainly not the world is possible. stripping away of the protections of middle 2) However, we need to acknowledge that class and working class Americans. What even though this big population accepts they want is more and better focus on the basic progressive ideas, 83 percent of real values of real people, not the narrow them reject any identification with the and intolerant values focus of the Religious left, or its language, or its tight focus on Right. Most who are somewhat conservative programmatic ideas. religiously, are nevertheless for quite a few 3) This analysis leads directly to a way to progressive values. develop a new voter mobilization database: with a new, updated Political Here’s an action summary of Political North Compass survey, we could use its results constituency on the New Political Compass:

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 3 Action Points for Action People 10% ‘Beyond Left-Right’ Political North reflects a change in • 37% Democrat vs. 29% Republican, political culture: 27% Independent, 3% 3rd Party • Identify much less with Left or Right A low marginal cost to mobilizing them: • Planetary more than nationalist interests • Volunteer more often and more hours • Ecological sustainability, not sentimental • Give more money to good causes environmentalism/resource management • Want to get actively involved • Feminism rather than heroic models • Involved in more New Social Movement • Personal growth over personal ambition constituencies, and believe their views • Condemn corrupt, globalizing mega- • Care more about changing the culture corporations • Want politics to deal more with the real • Get big corporate money out of politics emerging problems threatening our • Protect a positive future for our children future • Their most important issues are all Political North = “New Progressives” ‘outside the box’ to Washington politics 1. They’re unimpressed with conventional • None of their big issues were in the last politicians: 4 national election campaigns • Inauthentic, psychologically primitive: too much blaming, shaming, posturing, • It’s a kind of political market failure. hatred/conflict-driven, violence imagery Both Left and Right can call the Political • Bereft of innovative, or win-win ideas North’s issues the issues of the Left, but • Macho, not women-friendly, emotion- 83% of North don’t identify with the Left. ally undeveloped, spiritually empty We need a new way of speaking to them, • Nationalistic rather than planet-oriented and about them. “New Progressives” might not be a name they’d agree with. 2. They don’t like Left or Right political meetings or literature. Complain it’s all: Key Demographics of Political North • Crummy group dynamics, factionalism • 36%=70 Million Adult Americans • Vicious infighting and power struggles • 56% Female • Doctrinaire positions and rhetoric • More in Northeast, Upper Midwest, • Self-justifying, psychologically naïve, Pacific Coast, fewest in Mtn States projecting one’s evil onto the other side • 15% people of color and denigrating others • 9% Hispanic • Old rhetoric no one believes any more • Same as National distribution on Age, • Not interested in rebuilding community Income, Education, Occupation • Left’s favorite solutions look ineffectual, Important Political Facts: and the Right’s look harmful Among Likely Voters, Political North is: 3. What they want: Big themes • 45% of Likely Voters = 55 Million • Good hard news political coverage • 56% of all Swing Voters (and Swing • More psychological maturity in politics Voters are 53% of Political North) and in the media • 17% self-identify as Liberal vs. 33% as • Promote ecological sustainability Conservative,The rest is 39% ‘Center’, • Better education for all the children

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 4 • Better health care; cleaner food, air and We are also looking at the demise of the left, water; less risk of environmental illness since only about fifteen percent of voters • Get big corporate money out of politics identify with it any more. Big business is • Beyond moralizing and economic distrusted by over 70 percent of Americans payoffs, to serve their new concerns and with only 19 percent of voters, they • New rules of the game, & better players depend on money power to maintain control. Politicians rate with used car salesmen as an The New Political Compass occupation. Voting is still at an all time low. Introduction: A new political constituency is emerging, whom I call New Progressives. We are entering into a time of Take a look at the diagram on the front of transformation, i.e., changing shape and this paper: they are at right angles to the function, of many of our institutions. Our Liberal left and Social Conservative right, political institutions are very much in need and they are directly opposed to Big of repair or replacement, and this paper Business Conservatism. That means that shows how to look at the emerging culture politics really has two dimensions, but we of our time as a support for positive change. have not recognized it yet. What has been It says that political culture, which is the called the political center is too small to run substrate politics rests on, has already been to: all that is in this center are the politically changing for some decades now. At this alienated and ignorant who don’t vote. The point in history, it leads to new kinds of second dimension pits globalization and big political demand. Today’s politics is dismal business interests against ecological in part because of its rigidity, its corruption, sustainability, women’s issues, consciousness and its inability to supply what people want. issues, national health care, national We are looking at the political equivalent of education, and an emerging concern for the what would be called market failure in planet and the future of our children and economics and business: the breakdown of grandchildren. supply and demand. Our democracy is at great risk of turning into a plutocracy: rule Beyond Left and Right: New by and for the benefit of Progressives are 45% of the rich. Every few hundred years in Western likely voters. They’re more likely to be volunteers and In partisan politics, history there occurs a sharp give money to good causes, we are looking at a slow transformation. Within a few short are likely to have been in decline of both left and decades, society — its world view, its half a dozen social right, and both political basic values, its social and political structures, its arts, its key institutions — movement constituencies, parties. The term rearranges itself. And the people born and care more about “center” doesn’t then cannot even imagine a world in changing the culture, than communicate anything, which their grandparents lived and into the rest of society. They are and my research which their own parents were born. We at the intersection of all the suggests it is a fiction. are currently living through such a movement constituencies, Social conservatism is transformation. and the marginal cost of slowly declining as its —Peter Drucker, Post-Capitalist Society mobilizing them should be underlying culture small. If they are mobilized slowly dies off: In the under a single banner, as a big political tent last fifty years, Traditionals have shrunk from that contains the movements, they may wind about half the population to under a quarter. up replacing one of the political parties and

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 5 dominating American politics for the next candidates and favorite political processes, generation or more. When we look at their are no longer able to bring masses of voters values, attitudes, opinions and issues, we see into the polling booths, much less into they want politicians to start dealing with demonstrations. Both our national elections the real emerging problems that threaten our and our national governance process have planet and our children’s future: These are fallen prey to big money. The electoral global warming, globalization threats, global process depends heavily on big money to mega-corporations and global competition buy TV ads on stations controlled by the diminishing our level of life not raising it, same corporate interests as the business info- tech and biotech out of control, conservatives, and the governance process is violence around the world, and new fears being tilted to give preferential access to the about the future of their children’s health same corporate and wealthy interests. care and education,. This has two disastrous aspects: First, The good news is that as left vs. right the business conservatives can buy elections grows ever less helpful to define our so long as voter turnout stays low, and they politics, a wave of change is going through have succeeded in forcing liberals to copy Western culture. A more helpful image than their money-driven politics. The stinkier left-right is a political compass that includes politics looks, the more the average voter four directions: east vs west, north vs south, shies away from it, and the greater the and a compass lets any position be defined advantage to corporate interests. as an angle: northwest is green + liberal left. Second, between the election cycles, This image of a compass heading the think-tanks of the right are massively points the way to helpful redefinitions of supported by foundations that fund only who constituencies are, and what they stand their far-right causes, whose original donors for, and offers the possibility of a new stand to reap enormous corporate profits democratic politics. from key positions. Those think-tanks are cranking out position papers by the gross to Today’s politicians and government feed favorable media coverage of their officials often react to 21st century issues issues, and favorable consideration from the with 19th century categories, because that’s politicians whose votes are already half- when most of our political institutions and bought. Conclusion: Our democracy is mechanisms were set up. Those categories include our favorite concepts and rhetorics. nearly a plutocracy: rule by, and for the benefit of, the rich. “Normal governance” is still inside a 19th century conceptual box. Political scientists However, my research shows that when have been saying for decades that the old you look at the movements and the values left vs. right is breaking down. Low voter that gave rise to the subculture, called turnout shows disgust with politics as usual, Cultural Creatives, which has been emerging few good ideas and the dominance of big for the last 40 years, you can immediately money. Without salient choices, electorates see that there’s both an explanation for the hunker down. It’s not because they’re happy decline of the Left, and a way out. It with what they’re getting. Survey upon requires facing up to change in the cultural survey shows over 70% of voters unhappy basis of our politics, and then adapting the with politics and politicians . Progressive movement, and much of the Center as well, to that cultural change, doing The concepts, solutions and rhetorics of our political business in new ways. An the conventional Left, not to mention their

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 6 immense opportunity is being created by a Street Journal. In this clash, the business vast, unsatisfied demand in the electorate for right often lines up on the same side as the politicians to get out in front on the big liberal left, and the big media. This fault line emerging issues of our time, rather than is a cultural clash between the values and finessing them. worldview of small town America, religious conservatives and many elderly people The point is that while what’s emerging versus the getting ahead, getting and may be claimed as progressive issues, the spending, materialist worldview of the conventional Left no longer “owns” these dominant institutions of the 20th issues. Once we look at the cultural changes century. that emerged with these issues, we can However, something crucial is missing explain the decline of the left, and show from this picture, though the big corporate where its missing constituency went. In media who feast on these conflicts won’t short, the culture, and consciousness, of own up to it. It’s the emergence of a third what could have been Left constituencies side to these political food fights, the same has outgrown the culture and consciousness side that gave rise to all the new social of most Left political experts and leaders. If movements, and consciousness movements our cultural reality is unfolding in new and of the last forty years. And they don’t different ways, and yet our political identify with either the Traditionals or the institutions really depend on left-right as the Moderns, and least of all with the big media. only distinction that matters, then perhaps I call them the Cultural Creatives, because none of our conventional political imagery, they are part of most of the creative new parties or practice, are even competent to aspects of an emerging culture — not just deal with the world around us today. the U.S. but across the Western world . To the question: “Is all this practical?” In the U.S., Traditionals are about 24-26% we answer, “Yes, but you’ve got to change of the adult population (approx. 48 million), your ways…” People will do more for their Moderns about 47-49% (approx. 95 million) children than for themselves, and what the and Cultural Creatives are about 26-28% data shows is that 80% of these people are (approx. 50 million). Across Western worried about what kind of world their Europe in the EU, the Cultural Creatives are children will live in. Yet they don’t believe about 30-35% of the adult population — the politicians or big business will respond. wave of change seems to have gone further and faster there than here. That is a major opportunity, and this paper shows some of the strategies that go Cultural Creatives are at or just slightly with seizing this opportunity. above the national average on all demographics but one. Take age, education, Beyond the Demographics: income, occupation, region, religion, race, A New Subculture in America ethnicity, and they scarcely differ from the Everybody knows the protagonists in national profile. But they are 60% women the Culture Wars. We saw them vividly in overall, and in the most active Core Group the abortion issue, gay rights, the Clinton they are two to one women, 67%. The new impeachment. It’s the world of Traditionals culture comes with new values, lifestyle and vs. Moderns, the world according to Jerry worldviews, and these cannot be predicted Falwell and Tom DeLay vs. the world by demographics, because they are deeper according to Time Magazine, The New York than demographics. Times, but also Mother Jones and The Wall It’s easy to find a typical Modern

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 7 family and a typical Cultural Creative family Beyond Left vs. Right: who are essentially identical on all the The New Political Compass demographics, but they will live in two different worlds. What they want from life, A century ago, Left vs. Right meant what’s important for the future of the progressives and unionists vs. big business country, and how they live, are all distinctly and maybe the Ku Klux Klan. But that was different. They may seem superficially before nuclear weapons could destroy life on similar on liberal-conservative, Democrat- the planet, before Vietnam and the peace Republican surveys as well, but ask what movement, before the civil rights movement really matters about politics and social and women’s movement, before the issues and you will hear a very different insurgent radicals of the religious right came vocabulary, and a different list of concerns. back into politics, and before saving the These are concerns about our children’s planet from ecological destruction and future, about equality for children’s globalization became a huge issue. Both the opportunities, about health and education, issues and the constituencies of the U.S. about the ecology of the whole planet, about have evolved, but our political rhetoric has the inner dimensions of life, about the stayed frozen in century-old lingo and overweening power of big business, and the metaphors, and so have our political parties role of big money in politics. To a very large and our politicians. So we need to face the extent, this is about women’s values and possibility that our one-dimensional left- concerns coming forth into the public right image of politics needs to evolve too. domain for the first time in history. The common belief is that the shape of

left vs right is simply a bell-shaped curve, with an enormous uninterested and passive Center in between left and right. (See Figure 1) The left is fading down to about one voter in six, and the right has about one in three locked up, while the mushy middle is about half the population. The far right is now working to redefine the center. When we add new data about values and political positions it becomes obvious that this image of our politics is beyond inadequate, it’s hopelessly wrong and misleading. In fact, political scientists have been talking about the demise of left vs. right for about 20 years. What every social researcher will tell you is that if there’s a big undefined middle in between the extremes of a bell-shaped curve like Figure 1, that means there’s a mass of unexplained attitudes, behaviors and values that aren’t being captured by a distinction like left vs. right. It’s called specification error, which says the theory needs to be improved—and so do our working images.

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 8 demographics and a couple of dozen other political questions. But we will see there are also deeper, nastier reasons why this occurs, such as not wanting to give legitimacy to the unfolding conflict of social movements and citizens politics versus the interests of the big campaign funders. So, what if a realistic Researchers will tell you that whatever map of the electorate is really more that unexplained stuff in the middle is, it complex? Then the campaign advisors and probably goes off at right angles to left vs. instant pollsters have a big expensive right, describing something else that’s also problem: their polling might become important. That’s what is currently missing expensive and slow. And the corporate- from the conventional wisdom of the dominated media would have to tell a new campaign advisors, the pollsters and the story, instead of the old left vs. right—one lobbyists. In fact, that “mushy middle” that their paymasters would not like. In fact, reflects a refusal of politicians and political the new story looks a lot like the anti-WTO analysts to look at the full variety of values, demonstrations, and every other new social concerns and kinds of consciousness that are movement and consciousness movement really operating in the political culture that that has come down the pike over the last supports American politics-as-usual. forty years. The new story goes right back to We are in the midst of a change in the the Sixties . political culture that supports and holds our political institutions, but we are not looking “outside the box” to see what is going on. Imagine politics-as-usual as a tightly knit ball of ongoing conflict that is supported by the cupped hands of the political culture. Without the continual support those webs of agreements, norms, values, social interpretations, worldviews and daily practices, no institution can survive. What happens next if the culture moves on, and the politicians and institutions are so preoccupied with power and locked in the mutual paralysis of their conflicts that they rigidly refuse to change? Probably that they fall out of those cupped hands, splat on the floor! That is, legitimacy and confidence are withdrawn from politics. Isn’t that precisely why politics looks so dismal today? One reason we have been misled is simply the mechanics of the way quickie telephone polls are done, because it’s simple, cheap and easy to ask “are you liberal or conservative?” and “are you Republican or Democrat?” along with

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 9 Two Dimensional Politics Makes a population, and 15% of voters? Political Compass Image What if the Liberal Left’s values and world view are primarily opposed to Social Conservatives on the Right? It turns out that social conservatism is defined neither by the rich ultra-conservatives such as William Buckley or Richard Mellon Scaife, nor by real traditions. It was formed by the kind of pseudo-traditionalism we learned in the John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart movies, by the mythic image of small town America, circa 1870-1920, and by religious conservatism that also cannot trace its origins before the early 19th century. Though its purported spokesmen are the likes of Jerry Falwell and Tom DeLay, its people are mostly the elderly, the less educated, those with below Instead of left vs. right, today’s average incomes, with a tiny upscale politics is better described as having a leadership who are the ultra conservatives. second dimension that captures most of what They’ve actually shrunk over the past 50 has been misnamed as the Center. That years from nearly half the population to 19% second dimension gives a whole new picture of people and 21% of likely voters. of how American culture is changing, and changing our politics with it. Our political Today, an emerging, unrecognized institutions depend on the rest of American New Progressive constituency is 36% of all culture, and are changing with it. Just as the adults and 45% of likely voters. They economy is really imbedded in the culture can’t be categorized by the left vs. right and institutions that support it (contrary to political spectrum we have lived with for the ideology of economists, financiers and just over 200 years, and many already insist big business ideologues), so the polity is that they aren’t in the mushy middle either. also imbedded in our culture and institutions Indeed, what if they say, like the German (also contrary to a ruling ideology: that of Green Party, “We’re neither Left nor Right. lobbyists, politicians, and pundits). Once we We’re In Front,” or Going Forward? In fact, grasp that cultural change has affected not only their issues, but favored messaging, political constituencies, but the political and group processes show a new direction at animals have refused to acknowledge it right angles to “politics as usual.” What because of the way they play with shifting happens to conventional politics if they see coalitions, then we can use what we already women’s and planetary perspectives, and the know to see more clearly: psycho-spiritual interior of our lives, as What if the past generation’s culture relevant to our national politics? wars have succeeded in defining the The crucial opposition to these New American Liberal Left as a liberal rump Progressives turns out to be Big Business group consisting of little more than unionists Conservatives with 80% of the money in and secular intellectuals, whose fortunes politics and only 19% of likely voters. It’s have declined drastically over the past 50 the plutocrat faction of both political parties, years so they’re down to 12% of today’s and the politicians whom big business buys.

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 10 You know them: the ones who are degrading data for the New Political Compass comes our lives in the name of selling progress, from a values survey of 1995 (supplemented taking us Backward from what our children by a 1999 survey) that included just enough and grandchildren need to survive. political information to do this analysis. It’s not current, and it doesn’t have all the issues There really are four distinct political and voter behavior we might ideally want; cultures. Big Business Conservatives can’t so all the analyses given here are first really be lumped with Social Conservatives, approximations. except for their coalition purposes within the Republican party. They overlap the Social Rigorous statistical analysis (principal Conservatives on a short list of emotionally components factors) shows the underlying held political issues. But they resemble the structure of the data is in fact the two Liberal Left a very great deal on cultural dimensions described. I chose the following issues—for both are Modernists through and nine measures for analysis precisely because through. Business Conservatives are distinct conventional politics says they’re all clearly from Social Conservatives because large “nothing but” left vs. right. Such a view can majorities on both constituencies oppose now be seen as obsolete, because in fact many values and political issues most they make that compass picture. Each of important to the other side. Republicans these constructed measurement scales work diligently to hold these political bases combined several questionnaire items for together by using symbolic politics. So the greater reliability. So even though they look stances of the two kinds of conservatives like one dimension to the conventional remain independent of each other even when wisdom, in fact they fall into the following they are allied. two statistical dimensions: In reality, the opposition of the 1. Social Conservative vs. Liberal Left: Business Conservatives and the New • Religious Right, pro & con Progressives shows both have beliefs and • Civil Liberties, don’t care & for life priorities quite distinct from the • Traditionalism, pro & con conventional opposition of Liberals vs. • Conservative/Liberal, self-declared Social Conservatives. 2. New Position vs. Business Conservative This new opposition does not resemble • Ecological Sustainability, the strong a “political center” or a “mushy middle”: It version, pro & con has highly defined and emotional positions • National Health Insurance, pro & con representing distinct self-interests and very • Big Business, against and for opposed views on the future of humanity. • The Limits to Growth position, pro & con It’s become a live bomb for our politics, ticking away—as the business elites who • Feminism, pro & con That new position now needs to be meet at Davos are intensely aware. If they unfolded. I call them New Progressives are aware of it, why aren’t the rest of us? because that new position seems to be at the Unlike conventional left vs. right, a North- convergence of all the new social South opposition does encompass half of the movements into one position. In fact it the U.S. population, and 60% of likely voters. opposite ends of the vertical scale are pro- That says it’s far more important, because it globalization and Big Business vs. anti- is where our future is headed. globalization, the peace movement, womens This is not just speculation or playing movement, ecology movement, jobs and with imagery, it is what the data shows. My social justice, etc. What the survey shows is

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 11 that they are all grouped in together in the culture in many parts of the world, see Ronald Political North because their constituencies Inglehart, Culture Shift, Princeton University Press, 1990. As I’ve said to anyone who will listen, if you overlap so much (from 40% to 80% for any study values you’ll see the appearance of new pair of movement constituencies). And all culture, and Clark and Inglehart do include values in those movements oppose the big corporate their studies of the changing political culture. interests. And yet, why isn’t it right vs. left? In the U.S., political North is 36% of There hangs the tale. the population, though it may vary from

In effect, we’re searching for a name, or a concept, that fits this phenomenon. And it does not follow that New Progressives is a name that they would agree with, even if such astute politicians as Teddy Roosevelt and Bill Clinton adopted that term in two different eras. In fact New Progressives are not only a cultural change, but are in part a reaction to two similarly corrupt Gilded Age periods of domineering robber barons and Big Money.

New Progressives: 45% of Likely Voters “North” Means “Being Out In Front”

As a new culture emerges, some of its 20% to 45% depending on the issues. They rhetoric resembles that of the German are 39% Democrat, 28% Republican, and Greens: “We’re neither left nor right, we’re 27% Independent. in front!” or “We’re going forward!” So put them where the emerging issues are: at the Only 18% are self-identified as liberal, north quadrant of the political compass. If 49% say center or neither left nor right, and we take seriously what political scientist 32% say they are conservative. Yet look at Ron Inglehart has been telling us for years their stands on the issues! The issues used to about the role of values in the evolution of identify the North from the survey are given political culture, at least 1/3 of any Western with percent agreeing: nation looks to be available for an “out in Want national health insurance coverage 93% front” set of policies, programs and rhetoric, Anti Big Business 81% i.e., dealing with the real issues that threaten Pro Ecological Sustainability 78%* our own future and our children’s futures.* Feminism 74% Against Social Conservatives 52% *If you haven’t seen the really interesting Identify with Neither Left nor Right 50% development of the idea of “new political culture” in Want action for positive social change 36% political science, then you may want to look at Terry (highest among all sectors) Nichols Clark and Vincent Hoffmann- Martinot, The Believe there are limits to growth 35%** New Political Culture, Westview Press, 1998, for the Identify with the Left 18% key concepts. It also has an interesting finding that *In the 1999 EPA survey a more accurate big city mayors seem to be part of the new political sustainability measure put this at 90% for Cultural culture more than national politicians. For an Creatives amazing amount of cross national comparative data **In the 1999 EPA survey a more accurate limits to documenting the appearance of a new political

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 12 growth measure put this at 70% for Cultural The issues used to identify the Left from the Creatives. survey are given with percent agreeing: We’ll come back to a further discussion of the Political North, or New Progressives, Want national health insurance coverage 93% after comparing them to the other points of Against Social Conservatives 88% the Political Compass. Anti Big Business 77% Against the Religious Right (+pro-choice) 76% Pro-Civil Liberties 66% The Liberal Left: 15% of Likely Voters Feminism 69% The West Part of the Compass Pro-Immigrants 60% Identify with Left 61% Given the above, it may be clearer why Anti-Private Enterprise (Main Street) 44% the Left is in disarray. It’s partly due to the Believe there are limits to growth 27% Right’s success in identifying them with ineffectual big government and taxes, and Business Conservatives: 19% of Voters partly due to the collapse of socialist and The South Part of the Compass welfare state economics worldwide. And it’s Directly opposite the North, going partly due to being out of tune with the new Backward, are the Business Conservatives. social movements that have been crucial to Their views are in the ascendant, making cultural change that came prior to political plutocracy the dominant political rulership of change. As the summary up front shows, it the planet, not either democracy or has everything to do with cultural style. authoritarianism. Their ideology says sacrifice Pragmatic Americans want what works, and everything for economic growth and corporate it doesn’t look like the Left works. In the profits. U.S. the Left gets the loyalty of about 12% Polls show that by over 2:1 Americans of the population, though issue by issue it don’t trust big business. The lives of our will range from 10% to 15%. Because of children and grandchildren are at risk because low voter registration and turnout they are of them, and 70% of Americans know it. about 15-17% of voters. Since progressives cannot call upon the money that the Right The big reason for distrust is big business commands, they are nowhere without the has gotten control of American life by money people power they have lost. power: colonializing the political sector the way they are colonializing the Third World, So, those liberals in Congress who gave by buying up anyone of importance, and in to the blandishments of big money are manipulating the laws to suit themselves. losing out, and their numbers shrink to a Capitalism as a system of markets has pitiful few. We need to look at how a new triumphed, in part because markets are more form of progressive political forces can efficient than command economies, and in revive the fortunes of the people who care, part because of the accumulated, and rapidly and whether they can improve their political growing, money and power of corporations. culture to win back this critical new cultural constituency who have wandered away in This is all about money power, counting search of a better politics, or no politics at dollars instead of votes, since the Business all. Color them pretty in pink, for they are Right were never numerous. They are 69% no longer the healthy blood red of the Republican. In the U.S. they get the loyalty of communists or socialists. Amazingly enough about 14% of the population, and issue-by- they are only 51% Democrat and 22% issue are 10-15% of the population. Color Republican with 23% Independent. them black, for the death of the planet.

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 13 The issues used to identify them from the power of modernism, especially in its the survey are given with percent agreeing: capitalist form. But in the U.S. all that is really necessary is for those in the North to Pro Big Business 78% For-Private Enterprise (Main Street) 74% get organized, and this rear-guard of the Against Limits to Growth 64% electorate will be dwarfed in importance. Anti Social Conservatives 63% Some 47% are Republican, but the sum of Identify with Right 61% Democrats and Independents equals that. Anti-Social Change 59% Anti-Feminism 59%* The issues used to identify them from (their leaders are stronger on this) the survey are given with percent agreeing: Anti-Sustainability 41%* (their leaders are stronger on this) Anti Big Business 91% Anti-National Health Insurance 36%* For Religious Right (anti-abortion) 77% (their leaders are stronger on this) Anti-Civil Liberties 77% For Social Conservatives 76% Anti-Immigrants 68% Social Conservatives: 21% Likely Voters For-Private Enterprise (Main Street) 63% The East Part of the Compass Identify with Right 60% Anti-Feminist 54%* Social Conservatism wants to rule out most (their leaders are stronger on this) changes in society by fiat, and to roll back Against Social Change 51% changes from the past generation, to keep social codes unexamined and unchanged. Many of their favorite social codes are precisely the ones that have been challenged over the past 40 years by new social movements: discrimination against people of color, against women, against gays, against women wanting abortions (unless they are well off), against the poor, etc. The Religious Right (whether authoritarian Catholic, or Jewish, Muslim or Protestant fundamentalist or evangelical) is still numerous, and can still pack a wallop, but they are slowly declining in the U.S. Color the general population of cultural conservatives true blue for patriotism, and singing the blues, because their culture has slowly declined from half to under a quarter of the population since World War II. Today political social conservatism is 19% of the population, ranging from 18- 24% from issue to issue. (Many who agree with them have no politics.) It is also the Southernization of American politics: the manipulation of ethnic hatreds and xenophobia by an exploitative political over- class. Worldwide, fundamentalism is still gaining in power and influence in reaction to

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 14 The True Middle: 0% of Likely Voters not. What is striking is how many of these A Muddle: Alienated and Ignorant New Progressives have become less vocal about being on the Left, or have emerged There are 20% of Americans who don’t from the Left, or never identified with the know or care about politics, take no stance, Left in the first place and are trying to and don’t participate at all. Many are express a new, more complex stance. These migrants, and many are poor and people also identify with issues that the Left uneducated, and just as many are alienated claims, but don’t identify with the Left at all. from politics. Some could be brought back They are the Left’s lost constituents, and into the process, but most of them you indeed their issues have been ignored in wouldn’t want, because they are ignorant, recent national elections. I estimate that they often willfully so. may be about 45% of voters.* Color them gray. They call themselves (*Since most survey respondents don’t admit it Democrat or Independent, but if you look at if they didn’t vote in the last election, we have to estimate their probability of voting from what we their place on the political compass, they know about voting behavior, a less than satisfactory lean to the North and East. In fact they tend solution, and one that has a fairly wide error band. to be alienated Americans. So I give the percent of voters with a big caution flag. It’s a really rough calculated number that gives a Their strong positions on the issues are sense of how this translates into vote counts, and I worth noticing: cannot guarantee its accuracy. But all indications are that the North on the political compass has by far For National Health Insurance coverage 87% the most people who are likely to be voters. See the Anti-Big Business 73% statistical appendix for how the estimate was made.) Pro-sustainability 58% Pro-Feminist 54% It’s a change in political culture, Anti-Immigrant 53% outside the conventional political boxes: Given the size of these numbers and the issues represented, this suggests that our recent history has been, not just a “failure of Going Forward, or North, the Left with voters,” but also a substantial success — at the level of change in political are the New Progressives culture. There has been a change in the hearts and minds of many Americans to At 36% of adults this emerging accept many viewpoints the Left wants to political stance is the largest segment of the claim. However, I also want to suggest that polity, and they’re basically unrepresented while the broad progressive constituency has by politicians, for their issues are the evolved into more sophisticated interests, emerging ones that haunt today’s politics: many progressive leaders are often trailing for ecological sustainability, with limits to behind with obsolete rhetorics, perspectives growth and against the dominance big– and political culture. They have simply business and globalization; plus what are failed to keep track of the evolution of the often seen as women’s perspectives on political culture that supports everyday children, health, education, natural products politics. New progressive leaders would use and personal growth (both psychological a new compass reading to get their bearings, and spiritual). to get past secular modernism and an unsatisfying political culture . ‘But isn’t this just part of the Left?’ you may ask with some incredulity. Apparently To get our bearings we all may need to

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 15 look at a new values compass. The new middle position voters in “the center” for world view and values of the Cultural timid politicians to run to. That’s about Creatives include women’s perspectives on refusing to see all the data about values and politics, an emphasis on better political emerging issues in politics, ignoring the process, and an open-minded concern for the possibility that if they see a bulge in interior-life side of politics, including both between left and right, that reflects spirituality and culture. something their favorite pollsters didn’t measure, and reality is going off at right [Perhaps more psychologically and angles to left-right. It’s a reality shaped by spiritually-minded progressive theorists like 40 years of the new social movements re- Michael Lerner (Politics of Meaning, Spirit educating Americans on a host of issues and Matters), Corinne McLoughlin and Gordon world views. Davidson (Spiritual Politics) and Marianne Williamson (The Healing of America) have Instead of the conventional wisdom, this a better philosophical compass heading than says political culture has evolved, and taken do today’s secular left leaders.] up new concerns, seriously held. And we immediately see what the old left-right [Perhaps former senator Mike Gravel’s rhetoric won’t tell us: The 2000 election had constitutional amendment for citizen no huge mushy mass of voters in the Center initiatives is bold enough to interest this worth running to, not for Gore or Bush. Bush population who want to get out of the old could get by playing at being a wink-wink boxes, to create new kinds of political “compassionate conservative.” But when culture and new institutions, beyond playing Gore took the advice of the K Street lawyers with policy alternatives.] and ran away from his own book, Earth in The Inadequacy of the Muddled Middle: the Balance to “the center” that was a loser’s The cross hairs of the compass show us strategy. He ignored issues he could have something equally important—what’s not won with: Ecological sustainability to rescue there. Where’s the Clinton “mushy-middle”? their children’s future, and a host of related Anthony Downs’s “Economic Theory issues in health, education, feminism, the of Democracy” thesis says that “rational (lack of) personal authenticity of candidates politicians will run to the center from either and the style of politics-as-usual. These are wing, because that’s the high ground that all the keys to understanding the North’s gets a majority and wins.” That thesis strong, general desire for politicians to deal dissolves, because there is no such one- with emerging issues. dimensional center to lust after, or run to. Unmet Political Demand What remains after the North’s New At 36% of adults, the North has 70 Progressives and the South’s Big Business million people: a huge unmet political Conservatives is a different “center” where demand! If it does turn out to be 45% of the we have to put the apolitical, fed up and voters, they can win any election easily. Yet, alienated part of the population who refuse firmly focused on the past, neither political to deal with politics, at 20% of the U.S.— party was paying attention in the 2000 and practically no voters. campaign. In American politics this is an Given this picture, we have to abandon inherently unstable situation. A new our obsolete imagery of political positions as progressive has emerged who is far out in a simple bell shaped curve on a left-right front on the issues, values planetary rather spectrum with a huge number of inattentive than nationalistic interests, wants strong

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 16 action for ecological sustainability not just ineffective old ways, and it directly points to sentimental environmentalism or managing a dream constituency — huge numbers who problems better, feminism rather than heroic have a background of interest in the models, personal growth more than personal movements, and a tendency to get engaged ambition, and condemns globalizing mega- in the issues. Once we clean up the way corporations more than the religious right. citizen participation works in the new And that new progressive has been politics, then we can use a constituency- effectively invisible for a host of reasons. based structure for sorting out any number of new programmatic ideas for national It’s very likely that if the Al Gore who politics. It gives a way of ordering wrote Earth in the Balance had shown up in promising new changes, such as those the 2000 campaign, he’d have gotten enough proposed by Ted Halstead and Michael Lind of this emerging constituency to now be in The Radical Center or by Andrei Cherny president. Here is my strong qualitative feel in The Next Deal. We just won’t want to call for what happened, though I have no survey our constituency “the radical middle,” data to back it up. “radical center,” or any other such inept and Over and over again, in the 2000 misleading image. The actual center is not campaign I heard a “none of the above” radical, it’s apolitical, alienated, and response from Cultural Creatives. They just ignorant. The true constituency for change is couldn’t find the energy to get into this savvy about interpersonal relations, about campaign, and were sitting on their hands, what is happening across the planet, and not liking anything they heard. They felt: about many aspects of the need for real a) Gore was “completely inauthentic, Mr. change. Plastic,” or “why doesn’t the real Gore The Biggest Theme is show up?” Danger to Our Children’s Future b) Nader “isn’t one of us,” or else “what’s Ralph doing running for president?” “Out in Front” on the Issues Means Dealing With Our Children’s Future: What c) “Bush is an idiot,” or else, “Bush’s most upsets the people of the North part of compassionate conservatism is a lie.” the Compass is that politicians are not The people expressing these unhappy dealing with the issues that affect their views were about two to one women. children’s future. Historically, these have Because they are also the biggest volunteers been seen as women’s concerns. No longer. in American life, and opinion leaders on My 1999 survey showed that a full 60 anything environmental, they normally percent of all Americans, and it now would carry lots of others along with their appears, 80 percent of Political North, are enthusiastic participation. Not this time. A very worried that their own children and dead heat campaign is supposed to raise grandchildren will inherit a worse world voter turnout by 5% to 15%. Did you notice than they themselves grew up in. that the 2000 voter turnout didn’t rise at all? This is a complete flip from That was the effect of the New Progressives Americans’ historical optimism. It is a deep — mostly Cultural Creatives, and mostly anxiety, but it has no present focus. Though women — sitting back unhappy. it is important, it is easily pre-empted by The very idea of a new compass whatever is more urgent. In that respect, it’s heading beyond left and right can give a rather like buying life insurance, indefinitely better way of talking about departing from postponable until some crisis comes along to

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 17 remind us how risky life really is, and how A Wave of Change analysis shows transitory. It is easily arguable that our inept that the 14% who are most like the Core and corrupt politics is about to harm us. The Group of Cultural Creatives are the farthest West is about to face a cascade of crises that along in changing toward a new culture, and political business as usual cannot handle, that an additional 24% of the U.S. are in whether it is led from the right or the left. late transition toward full blown CC values Our most recent big crisis, 9/11/2001, has and worldview. Thus, a loose definition of already brought that latent pessimism about who has changed politically along lines like the future to the surface. the Cultural Creative subculture says about 38% of Americans are far along in accepting The Great Wave of Change the new culture that gives rise to the political Points to the Political North compass. That’s about 73 million adults in the U.S. And it is they who account for the The key to understanding the North New Progressives in the North of the quadrant of the New Political Compass is in Compass. Some 56% of New Progressives seeing the wave of change that has been are in the Late Transition Group or are like passing through our culture. It is a change in the Core group of Cultural Creatives. And values and worldviews has been going on in turning it around, 44% of the Late Transition the Western world for 40 years. It is possible Group are in the North, and 70% of those to simply say that by this point, every person like the Core Cultural Creatives group are in in the Western world has been affected by the North. the various new social and consciousness movements that have re-educated the West Wave of Change: Total, New Progressives, Liberals since the Sixties. One result has been the 30% emergence of the Cultural Creatives as a 25% distinct subculture. But another result has Total US 20% been the creation of the North’s unfulfilled political demand for a new set of political 15% institutions, not just some new political New Progressives 10% programs. The new demands are seen as “outside the box” by politicians and pundits, 5% Liberals and are therefore ignored by Moderns 0% How much people accept these changes toward Cultural Creativity varies, so it’s not

just a matter of belonging to a subculture, or No Change Reactionary Transitional Small Change political group. Most in the West have some Like Core CCs exposure to these new values, lifestyles and The Wave of Change analysis shows the worldviews. The more extreme Business effect of new social movements and Conservatives and Social Conservatives are consciousness movements giving rise to the in strong reaction against these trends, but new political agenda that can be represented the rest of Western culture were affected by as people going Forward, or North. It shows them. There is no need for an “us vs. them” not only where this new political direction conflict of Cultural Creatives or New has come from, but why it has the peculiar Progressives with the Traditionals and the character that it does. Moderns, because there is considerable In our 60 in-depth interviews with overlap of worldviews, values and lifestyles. Cultural Creatives we saw they averaged

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 18 about 10 years (from 5 to 15 years) to bring One particularly valuable use of the six their lives into alignment with their dimensions of the Wave of Change analysis professed values. They didn’t just change is to guide the creation of themes for their minds one day, and make a quick and speeches, direct mail, and advertising easy crossing of a line, but a lloonnngg, addressed a) to Cultural Creatives and b) to ssllooww change of values, worldview and people in motion toward the Political North. lifestyle — without much social support. Anti-materialism: This is the revulsion Therefore, most people I originally against “doing it just for the money,” classified as Cultural Creatives in my success-driven behavior, materialistic status surveys were still in transition at any given display, over-spending, over-consumption. It point in time, and so, most likely are a whole comes partly from egalitarian rejection of a lot of other people whom I’d classified as status-and-money-driven society by both the not-Cultural Creatives. Left and the hippies, and partly from That’s because my earlier estimates did movements like voluntary simplicity and not take social change into account. They ecological sustainability that worked more gave a careful, lowball estimate, with tight, from concerns for ecological sustainability good-predicting clusters, to be sure about and go beyond Left vs. Right. In effect, it is the estimates of who was in each subculture. an emerging rejection of the personal success projects used to create support for I now suspect it’s better to show where the Modernist culture, and to justify Modern people are in that slow-moving wave of life to the average person. Status marker change, more than just clean boundaries goods and material success projects can be among groups. Rather than show justified as not only improving their own life boundaries, we should show degrees of chances, but those of their children. change from “being in reaction against any change since the Sixties,” to “no change at This measure shows a mutual rejection all since the Fifties” to “small changes” to between Cultural Creatives versus Moderns “lots of change to toward the Core Cultural who aspire to what the corporate media are Creatives” to the Core Cultural Creatives. selling. The negative side of this dimension is of course, pro-materialism, status display, When you think of cultural evolution over-spending and consumerism. It tends to this way, we don’t need an “us vs. them” run North-South on the political compass. boundary between Cultural Creatives and the rest of the society, because many more Pro-civil-liberties + anti-Traditional: people have been affected to some degree by This can reflect an older ACLU progressive the Great Wave of Change than just the position on civil liberties and personal Cultural Creatives population. This new freedom found on the Left throughout the understanding shows gradual degrees of 20th century, coupled with a newer rejection departure from the late Fifties position, on of the backlash, authoritarianism, six broad measures that are roughly intolerance and racial bigotry of social independent of each other. conservatives. It can also reflect new positions drawn from the civil rights movement, women’s movement, gay lib, animal rights, which are usually claimed by the Left, but whose adherants also can go Six Dimensions of the Wave of beyond Left vs. Right. It also draws from the Change Analysis: post-Sixties parts of the consciousness

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 19 movements that are for new spiritualities, rejection of these inner concerns, both of oriental religions, and innovative lifestyles which are strong among Traditional and rejected by the Right. In effect, this Modern men. There’s a slight tendency to be dimension shows a mutual rejection by North or West vs. South or East. many New Progressives and the Religious Futurist, Planetary Progressive: This Right. It runs Northwest-Southeast and its dimension directly reflects feminism, negative pole is in Social Conservatism. concern for the long-term effects of our Ecological Sustainability: This actions (and our childrens’ futures) and wide dimension is a much stronger view than planetary concerns. conventional feel-good environmentalism, These are additional “outside the box” which focuses on managing environmental concerns beyond ecological sustainability or problems better. This emerging post-80s person-centered dimensions. It is that wider dimension wants outright prevention of synthesizing view characteristic of many ecological destruction, slowing economic Cultural Creatives. The opposite side, with growth for saving the environment, concern negative scores, can be seen as conventional, for planetary ecological problems in all narrowly focused, acceptance of short term domains, changing the way we do business and nationalistic goals and concerns, typical to save the ecology, and it’s also an anti-big of the conventional wisdom. It tends to be business, anti-globalization position. It is a Northwest vs. Southeast. key to the emerging North-South political dimension, reflecting the mutual rejection of Neither Left Nor Right: This is the many Cultural Creatives and Big Business surprising last dimension, and apparently it Conservatives. The negative side is Business is independent from the others because it is Conservatism explicitly political. On the new and positive end of this scale, it amounts to rejecting the Person-Centered: This dimension is standard expression of political differences largely unchanged from variables that that Modern nations have used since the originally created the Cultural Creatives French Revolution. Some of this large classification. It is not especially New Age, population are genuinely independent of but rather a mainstream concern for parties and positions and focus tightly on the relationships, altruism and idealism, plus a merits of particular candidates. But others concern for personal development over the are alienated from the policies, the analyses whole adult lifecycle that includes both and positions, and the political processes of psychology and spirituality. both Left and Right. While it certainly can include many While many seem quite unconscious New Age adherents, they would be a tiny about the sources of their dissatisfaction, minority of those who score positive on this others want new political parties to choose dimension. Many aspects of this dimension from, and some even want a new, more reflect women’s concerns going public for democratic politics. Many would agree with the first time in Western history, which the statement, “I’d just like to see a Second notably, are quite accepted by Cultural party,” feeling that both parties have been Creatives men, eliminating the gender gap bought by the same big money interests. within Cultural Creatives. Many Traditional and Modern women also share these views. Negative scores on this dimension Negative scores on this dimension reflect show those who still identify with either male-dominant attitudes and materialist conventional liberal or conservative self-

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 20 definitions, that is, with politics as is. This is an instant overview of the political part of what makes the North-South political landscape. The fact that these territories dimension. reflect important values, or life priorities, and political beliefs means that this map You can see detailed statements from directly shows us how our campaign rhetoric the questionnaires in the Appendix, and and our dealing with issues must shift for these will help media strategies. More various blocs of voters. details are also in the longer v.7.3 online. Map Of New Political Compass Now, on to the practical political Ten Strategic Imperatives implications you’ve been waiting for! For Both Political Parties 1 Core Constituency Strategies Edge Strategies 6 The Practical Political Implications 1 1. A New Strategic Analysis: 6 New Progressives 8

New Political Strategies Can be Seen Contested Contested Better if They Are Mapped onto the Region Region Landscape of the New Political Compass:. 7 What this strategy mapping section of the Political Compass suggests is that from 2 NonVoters 4 the Reagan Eighties on, the Republicans Liberal Left 3 Social have already adapted their strategies to key Conservatives aspects of operating in this changing political landscape. Using lots of money for Contested Contested Region Region effective strategies of holding their base 9 10 together and driving wedges between parts Business Conservatives of the opposition, they have overcome what 5 should have been a weak voter base. On the first strategy map, the four colors On the other side, the Democrats show four kinds of values and beliefs of haven’t adapted as successfully to these voters. The Republicans are working to get cultural changes or these new strategies. and hold voters in their natural constituency Let’s look at the Political Compass as in the purple and blue territories, and to a strategic map of the political landscape. bring voters across the contested boundaries The advantage of these new political over to their side. Democrats should be compass strategy maps is that they make it doing the same for their natural easy to see grand strategy. That’s because constituencies in the red and green both emerging issues and well-established territories. Their big problem is that they issues can be mapped onto it, to contrast can’t see enough of what’s needed within how various known constituencies react. It the green territory of the New Progressives. will sharpen up our view of both social The way the map looks reflects the categories. like race, ethnicity, or gays, and measurement scales we used: The biggest of well known demographic populations, numbers are toward the outer edge, showing like the college-educated, because we now the most intense interest in political issues. are showing basic political beliefs. Both old That often shows those who have a lot of and new strategies can be mapped onto this intensity or energy, or are even the zealots picture of the various constituencies, to give on whatever cause is represented. At the

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 21 map’s center is zero: showing the least A Map of the Strategic Landscape interest in these political issues. And the It’s easier to see strategies if we put Nonvoters are there because they tend to be them on a map that looks like the Political both ignorant about political issues and Compass. Ever since the first kings and alienated from politics. barbarians squared off with swords over On the maps, the closer a point is to a conquering or holding land, politics has vertical or horizontal axis, and the farther been seen as getting or holding territories, away it is from a diagonal marking the edge and getting and holding constituencies. The of a group, the more it is likely to be in the picture of the Political Compass suggests core of a group, and be part of a main that there are four kinds of constituencies in constituency. The colors are more intense politics, not two or three. I’m showing this there and paler toward the diagonals, which mapping of strategies onto voter blocs as are contested regions. Those are marginal territories because it is so intuitively obvious constituents open to appeals from both to our political minds. We can get an instant neighboring regions, if they are specifically gestalt picture of the overall situation. designed for marginal groups. Points inside We can best see the big picture by the center circle have low or inconsistent looking at the New Political Compass as a readings, which usually means that they kind of election gameboard, because most don’t care much, or are confused and strategies and tactics can be located there in ignorant, or are cross-pressured by terms of which constituencies they affect. competing concerns. This map shows where your loyalists and If you have a marketing background, your potential constituents are located you will immediately recognize this as compared to where your competitors have similar to mapping consumer preferences, to theirs. Winning elections grows out of give a better picture of where your markets strengthening and holding your own are, or could be, and how that compares to constituency and political territory, and your competition’s markets. weakening the other side’s. This becomes crucial when grand strategies must be We will pick up on a concept used in changed to adapt to the changes we’ve seen consumer product preference maps: Each in political culture. If the culture changes, big issue or political topic will need its own the game board must change. strategy map. The last 2 maps show that unmet demand for national education issues A good map shows the strategically and for global ecology issues comes from important features of the landscape. It will many of the same voters. It says the New suggest natural strategies, ones adapted to Progressives (but not Liberals) can go the shape of the overall strategic terrain. poaching among the Social Conservatives, Very different strategies may be needed for and can drive a wedge on these issues different parts of the landscape. To guide between Social Conservatives and Big campaign message strategies, it’s helpful to Business Conservatives. show how voters on each part of the map react to any particular issue. In such cases each important issue or theme should have its own separate map. For an overview of any campaign’s strategy, a special map can be made to show all the strategies that are in play at a given

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 22 time. Some maps can show how a campaign imperatives because both Republicans and should unfold over time, or compare the Democrats need to develop strategies that differences in different locales. Different apply to each part of the terrain. election campaign strategies can more easily Flipping back and forth between the be compared and contrasted, often showing list of Strategic Imperatives in Table 1 how to improve strategies. and the four strategic maps, you can see a Comparing The Strategic Maps powerful result for today’s politics: Map Of New Political Compass Republicans have succeeded in all Ten Strategic Imperatives ten strategic imperatives. For Both Political Parties 1 Core Constituency Strategies Edge Strategies 6 Democrats are not successfully countering Republicans in any of these 1 same strategic areas. 6 New Progressives 8 Core strategies are shown as numbers

Contested Contested 1 through 5. They work by strengthening the Region Region solidarity and energy of your political base 7 or core constituency, or by weakening your opponent’s political base. You cultivate and hold the loyalties of those who ought to be 2 NonVoters 4 in your own territory, or main constituency Liberal Left 3 Social (the kinds of voters, or customers, who most Conservatives like what you have to offer, or get the most benefit). Politically, this requires being able Contested Contested Region Region to energize constituents at helpful times. 9 You can depress turnout and contributions Business Conservatives 10 for the other side by alienating them from 5 your opponent’s stances, and by weakening their morale, integration, or energy level The first map shows ten examples of within their territory, or constituencies the kinds of strategic imperatives that are (voter blocs, or kinds of customers, who suggested by the shape of the landscape. It could never be yours, even if you appeal has 5 “core” strategic imperatives, directly to them). Core strategies require designed to hold one’s own constituency, to defense of your main constituencies from weaken the other side, to draw nonvoters the other side’s depredations. Core strategies into voting, or to induce the other side’s also require Get Out The Vote efforts both marginal voters not to vote. It also has 5 for main constituents and for nonvoters. “edge” strategic imperatives that try to The Political Compass statistics say ‘poach’ votes from the other side, try to the Number One strategic imperative is to drive wedges between conflicting groups create a core constituency strategy for the within the other side, or defend against New Progressives. Democrats desperately wedge attacks. need to recognize and recruit this 45% of All ten strategic imperatives come in likely voters. Unifying and mobilizing this matched pairs for Democrats and relatively unorganized population is the Republicans: a gain for one side is a loss single biggest gain the Democrats could for the other. These are strategic

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 23 make in politics. New Progressives should splits over limited resources, or offering become their new political base. other benefits in place of ones they can’t have, in order to hold conflicting voter That means Political North is also the groups together; or it may be damage repair, biggest future battleground in politics. This “sewing back together” groups that have ought to be the leading effort and central been wedged or split. Such strategies strategy for both parties. Democrats have operate at the margins of natural groupings, everything to gain if they can pull it off, but you don’t always gain votes, even if the while Republicans have everything to lose other side loses them. if the Democrats succeed. Republicans will try to weaken, dishearten, fragment and b) “Poaching” strategies are shown as even try to recruit from the Political numbers 7 and 9 for both Democrats and North—and they are already succeeding Republicans. They are designed to attract with media disinformation campaigns. marginal constituent populations to your side from those areas toward the edge of Edge strategies are shown as numbers your territory, which usually means they 6 through 10. They work in the contested share some beliefs or interests with your regions along the diagonals. They are core group but disagree on others. You try to designed for less loyal swing voters and for take marginal voter groups away, by moving marginal constituencies. Again, these are into the territory that the other side holds, matched pairs: a gain for one side is a loss often by reframing your appeal, or by for the other. adopting some key positions or programs of a) Driving a “wedge” between voter the opposing party as your own, or by groups who are natural allies on some issues directly buying off some groups with pork and opposed on others, often depends on or other bribes. The mirror opposite is hatreds and prejudices that grow out of old defense of your constituents from the ethnic and racial conflicts, or out of past blandishments of the other side, by offering rivalries for the same economic benefits. them multiple program benefits, rather than They are shown as numbers 6, 8 and 10 for just one, or offering purely symbolic both sides. Republicans play the race card, benefits (flag burning laws, prayer in while Democrats need, say, wedge tactics schools, etc.) and by trying to shore up a between vested interests that divide Wall cultural identity of “our side versus theirs,” Street and Main Street. A wedge’s mirror so one would never think of going over to opposite is ameliorating internal conflicts “the other side.” among your constituents, papering over old

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 24 Table 1. Ten Strategic Imperatives: What Republicans Now Do and Democrats Need to Do Core Strategies: For Own Political Base, Against Other Side’s Political Base (Five Pairs of Examples: What gains for one side loses for the other) 1. New Progressives in the Political North: Republicans: Split, neutralize and dishearten them with disinformation through the ultra-right’s media campaigns, to lower turnout and reduce a collective identity. Democrats: Create a Big Tent strategy to unify and mobilize them, with: • New issues and strategies that respond to their pent-up political demand • New messaging, highly adapted to their preferred issue framing and language • New retail politics outreach programs, using people power, better group process • New candidates who more clearly reflect this constituency and its values 2. Liberal Left in the Political West: Republicans: Work to dishearten Liberals and demonize them in popular culture Democrats: Improve Liberals’ language, political style, messaging, psychological and symbolic stances, and their appeal to women 3. Non Voters in the Apolitical Center Republicans: Lower overall campaign turnout of moderate to liberal voters by the skunk effect of negative campaigns, to grow the Democrats’ NonVoter population Democrats: Increase people power, using Get Out the Vote campaigns, reduce NonVoters 4. Social Conservatives in the Political East Republicans: Unify and Mobilize the Religious Right, by fomenting anger vs ‘secular liberals’ often using hate radio. Abortion issue is one of their few unifiers Democrats: Use a potential of Moral Politics frame from Political North (Lakoff style) to neutralize Religious Right. Don’t arouse by demonizing them: dishearten them 5. Business Conservatives in the Political South Republicans: Milk Big Business for ever growing campaign money, in exchange for crony capitalism. Roll back the 20th century’s social legislation to re-establish primacy of property Democrats: Learn to use people power to rely less on Big Money politics, distancing party and politicians from it, to be able to attack BizCons and impress anti-big-Biz Political North Note: There are undoubtedly many more Core Constituency Strategic Imperatives

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 25 Map Of New Political Compass Core Strategies The Republican Party Already Uses to Develop its Main Constituencies

New Progressives 1 Split, Neutralize & Dishearten With Disinformation Ultra-Right Media Campaigns servative n Dishearten and Demonize Liberals

Lower Campaign Turnouts cial Co

2 Grow Dems' Non Voters 4 So By Skunk Effect of 3 ft Negative Campaigns Unify and Mobilize The Religious Right l Le

ra Anger vs Secular Liberals Milk Big Business for Abortion as Unifier

Libe Bigger Campaign Money Hate radio in Exchange for Crony Capitalism 5

Business Conservatives

Core Strategies for the Democratic Party Needed to Develop its Main Constituencies New Progressives

1 Create Big Tent Strategy Unify and Mobilize with: • New Issues Strategies • New Messaging

• New Retail Outreach servative

Improve Language, n • New Candidates Style, Messaging, Psychological and

Symbolic Stances cial Co

4 So Appeal to Women Use GOTV 2 Reduce Dem Use Political North's Non Voters Moral Politics Frame to ft Neutralize Religious Right

l Le 3 Dishearten Not Demonize ra

Libe Distance Dem Party & Politicians from Big Money Politics. Attack Biz Cons & impress Political North 5

Business Conservatives

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 26 Table 1. (Continued) Ten Strategic Imperatives Edge Strategies: Exploit/Prevent Wedge Issues, Poach in Other’s Territory (Five Pairs of Examples: What gains for one side loses for the other) 6. Edge Between Liberals – New Progressives in the Political Northwest Republicans: Exploit Wedge Issues: Play the race card. Prevent a Blue-Green alliance. Democrats: Hold together vs Republican Wedges. Create a big tent linking Liberals and New Progressives: e.g., Make Blue-Green alliance with Apollo Alliance. 7. Edge Between New Progressives – Social Conservatives in the Political Northeast Republicans: Use the Culture Wars and demonizing new culture to recruit wavering parts of Political North back to the Social Conservatives Democrats: Draw recruits from SocCons by using a new Political North moral politics frame 8. Edge Between New Progressives – Social Conservatives in the Political Northeast Republicans: Exploit Wedge Issues: Play the Race Card, Property vs Environment. Anti-Women. Anti-Gay Democrats: Sew back together Clinton’s big tent by seeking issues that connect more moderate Social Conservatives with New Progressives: e.g. national health care, national education funding and standards, global environmental issues. Prevent Republican Wedges. 9. Edge Between Liberals – Business Conservatives in the Political Southwest Republicans: Big Money buys off and corrupts progressive politicians (and businesses) Democrats: Expand political role of Green Business and CSR movements. Draw moderate business executives to Political North from the edge of Business Conservatives politics. 10. Edge Between Social Conservatives – Business Conservatives in Political Southeast Republicans: Hold together the Nixon Southern Strategy and Reagan Big Tent. Prevent a Democrat Wedge between Business Conservatives and Social Conservatives Democrats: Exploit historically potent Wedge Issues between Business Conservatives and Social Conservatives, e.g. Wall St. vs Main St. Exploit new Wedge Issues that divide more moderate Social Conservatives from Business Conservatives: e.g. national health care, national education funding and standards, global environmental issues Note: There are undoubtedly many more Edge Constituency Strategic Imperatives

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 27 Map Of New Political Compass Edge Strategies the Republican Party Already Seems to be Using with Success New Progressives Exploit Wedge Issues • Property vs Envt 6 • Anti-Women 8 • Anti-Gay Exploit Wedge Issues 7 • Play Race Card Recruit to SocCons • Envt vs Social Justice Demonize New Culture

ft NonVoters l Le ra 9 Libe servative

Buy Off & Corrupt n ProgressivePoliticians Hold Together and Businesses Nixon's Big Tent Southern Strategy & 10 cial Co Prevent Dems Wedge So Between BizCons & SocCons Business Conservatives Edge Strategies for the Democratic Party Needed for Swing Voters and Marginal Constituencies New Progressives Sew Back Together Clinton's Big Tent 6 Prevent Republican 8 Hold Together Wedge Create Big Tent Prevent Republican Wedge • Apollo Alliance

7 servative ft Draw Recruits to n

l Le NonVoters Political North's New ra Moral Politics Frame cial Co Libe So Exploit Wedge Issues Biz Cons vs Soc Cons 9 Wall St. vs Main St. Expand Role of Green Biz and CSR Movements. 10 Draw execs to North from edge of BizCon Politics Business Conservatives

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 28 Emerging Issues and Edge Strategies driving a wedge between Big Business Conservatives and some of the more open, So how does this translate into maps less ideological Social Conservatives. of the kind of winning issues I mentioned at the beginning: ecological sustainability, The ultra-conservatives’ success over national health care and national education? the past 25 years is not luck, it’s about their The last three maps all show the same kind skillful adaptation to “facts on the ground,” of support. They are major opportunities to their ability to create grand strategies for introduce both new constituency-building structural change and to pursue them for strategies and new “wedge issues” into the long periods of time. After the 1964 campaigns. Emerging political demand for Goldwater debacle, they needed to learn global ecology issues, national health care, how to hold their social and business and national education could be a winning conservative coalition together. By the coalition unified across the Political North. Reagan era they’d taken over the Republican party, depriving many of its own moderates You should read these maps like of power. Conservative strategists developed geophysical contour maps, where the darkest a host of wedge issues to weaken the more part of the map is the highest point. Each of numerous Democrats, starting with that old the three maps shows a ridge going east- reliable Southernism, the race card. They’ve west across the upper middle. That’s where done that successfully for 20 years. the largest concentration of population is. There are far fewer people where the colors That far-right success also reflects their are lightest, and out toward the edges, where willingness to invest in large think tanks to you see the original colors of the four pump new ideas and rhetoric into their party, sectors, there’s practically nobody. to follow a disciplined conservative party line in all of those media that their The maps show how to re-connect and supporters have bought, and to maintain a mobilize not only Liberals and New strong party organization between elections Progressives but also more moderate Social using a corporate management style. Conservatives. If Democrats build programs around new issues and new messaging in the The Political Compass is mapping not New Progressive language, it’s a platform to only some large opportunities to link voters create a new core constituency. Strong edge all across the Political North, for it also strategies are obvious with this kind of shows how to drive strong wedges into the mapping: For example, a Blue-Green jobs- heart of the Conservative alliance. That big and-energy program such as Apollo Alliance opportunity makes it essential to develop a makes allies of unions, Liberals and New whole platform for Political North. This Progressives. And it can also re-unify the political mapping uses easy-to-visualize and Northeast for the Dems, letting culturally easy-to-create strategizing to support such conservative New Progressives connect with strategies. It will help research show what moderate Social Conservatives who share meaningful issues will work, and for whom. the same concerns. Taken together, ecology, It can support people power as well. health and education programs can re-build But to do all that requires creating our the linkage that Bill Clinton made in this own New Progressive think-tanks to quadrant. It will require some very careful counter the far-right’s on strategies, tactics framing for ads to different groups, but that and messaging. It is a great first step to have is not hard. All three can be paired with

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 29 started up Podesta’s new think-tank, the driving changes in the Economy and the Center for American Progress. The Center Polity, and that more can be done to enhance for American Progress will almost certainly citizen participation in all three sectors. be entirely focused on inside the Beltway, From this view, the New Political Compass short-term tactical public relations and also analysis is a vital part of creating a more strategic moves for immediate election and participative society, and the cut-and-thrust legislative wins for progressives. In short, of elections is secondary. From this view, well within the old left-right consensus. This some of the most important gains will be is all necessary. And this analysis says it is from substituting people power for money probably not enough to do the job, any more power, enhancing democracy as process as than the ultra-conservatives could succeed well as a political result. with just the American Enterprise Institute, Such think tanks could concentrate on or only the Heritage Foundation, or only the creating and enhancing networks among Cato Institute. It’s too much inside the box. civil society organizations, new social Today we are seeing an attempt of the movement organizations, some new politics Economy (with large corporations, financial groups, socially responsible business, green institutions and global markets as major business and the citizens of the Political players) to create a hostile takeover of the North. New conferences could help activists Polity (government and political parties as create responses to the emerging national major players), and Civil Society objecting and planetary problems that would speak to (with social movements, nonprofits, NGOs, Political North, both in the form of social churches, charities, schools as major actors). inventions and new public policies. This could go very badly without more help. Part of the very reasonable political Just as necessary, a complementary demand from the voters of Political North is kind of strategic think-tank needs to be for a new kind of politician who appeals to created: outside the Beltway, long-term- them. In the longer run, the new think-tanks strategic, concerned with structural changes must help educate a whole new generation in the system and the social, cultural and of progressive politicians, just as the right business innovations that go with the wing think tanks educated a whole emerging politics. It must include a focus on generation of regressive politicians. And unfolding the implications of the emerging they must feed those new politicians a culture. The appearance of Political North is steady stream of programmatic ideas to a large extent about the new role of civil couched in appealing imagery and framing society, the new social movements in particular, in creating a new culture that also affects politics. That may be just as important as affecting the details of politics inside the old institutional box, because there is every possibility that these new developments will upend the old structure. We need new strategic think tanks that focus entirely on creating positive structural changes in American society, and not on political elections, candidates or parties. My view is that changes in Civil Society are

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 30 Map Of New Political Compass For Democrats' Edge Strategies Global Ecology Issues "I'm concerned about problems of the global environment: global warming, destruction of the rainforests, destruction of species, loss of the ozone layer"

New Progressives 3 2

Liberal Left Social Conservatives

1 Business Conservatives

Global Ecology Issues offer Democrats three opportunities: 1) Drive a wedge in the Political Southeast between greener Social Conservatives and negative Business Conservatives 2) Repair the split in the Political Northeast between New Progressives and greener Social Conservatives 3) Strengthen the alliance in the Political Northwest between greener Liberals and the New Progressives

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 31 Map Of New Political Compass For Democrats' Edge Strategies National Health Care Issues "America needs a health insurance plan that covers everyone, rich or poor, for all illnesses"

3 2 New Progressives

Liberal Left Social Conservatives

Business Conservatives 1

National Education Issues offer Democrats three opportunities: 1) Drive a wedge in the Political Southeast between positive Social Conservatives and negative Business Conservatives 2) Repair the split in the Political Northeast between New Progressives and positive Social Conservatives 3) Strengthen the alliance in the Political Northwest between positive Liberals and the New Progressives

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 32 Map Of New Political Compass For Democrats' Edge Strategies National Education Issues "America needs a single set of educational standards, and national funding of education"

3 2 New Progressives

Liberal Left Social Conservatives

Business Conservatives 1

National Education Issues offer Democrats three opportunities: 1) Drive a wedge in the Political Southeast between positive Social Conservatives and negative Business Conservatives 2) Repair the split in the Political Northeast between New Progressives and positive Social Conservatives 3) Strengthen the alliance in the Political Northwest between positive Liberals and the New Progressives

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 33 2. An FAQ (Frequently Asked Question): “If this change has been building up Political supply could be found in the for so long, then why hasn’t politics form of promises, programs, laws, appealing already adapted to it? Where are the New potential leaders and a direction for the Progressive politicians?” And close on the country (or state or locality) that fits a heels of that is, “If this analysis works, then certain sense of public identity. These why do so many corporate sponsored “political goods” are offered by politicians candidates continue to be elected?” and parties to us citizens at a “price” — an acceptable level of taxes, legal constraints on behavior. But here the analogy departs The Social Change Analysis from an economic market. Nothing happens Let’s start by giving this some context. until there are political mobilization efforts Really big cultural change never happens trying to induce people to act as public- instantaneously, but over decades. And for interested citizens, not merely as consumers, any institutions to change in response, it so that they’ll participate in politics. takes a lot of planning and visible effort, especially in practical politics. A change in Part of the political supply process is the underlying culture that supports political naming and articulating important general action won’t show up as new programs, public issues and values that constitute the laws, and elected officials until the new public interest. But it’s also aiming to satisfy political demand has been publicly each voter group’s particular and often very articulated, and recognized by officials, and self-centered interests. The six dimensions then addressed with expensive political of change show there has been continuing strategies in elections. change in their underlying values, perceptions of what’s publicly important, You haven't seen Cultural Creatives or and “what’s in it for me, or for my kids.” Political North politicians getting into office, because this way of perceiving political In the face of all that change, then reality is a new research finding that is just political supply must change to match those starting a political change process among new wants, or specific groups no longer progressives. You are getting to see it early. respond to offers. Failing to change what is supplied is failing to keep up with changing Progressive and socially innovative times. It loses elections: just a few at first, politicians and political analysts need to and then it can be part of long term political learn how to take advantage of what I've just decline. That’s happened to Republicans in written. And when they talk with me about the Thirties, Forties and Sixties, and to the this research, they're very clear that they Democrats in the Eighties and Nineties. need new strategies and tactics like the above to do it. Some have already taken up Political demand is not effective this problem. This historical change analysis demand if it stays at the level of personal complements the strategies above. views privately expressed among friends. Unlike economic demand, political demand Here’s an analogy for how changing must become part of a publicly expressed political demand is actually turned into position. It must be spoken out in public by changing political results. It’s as if there someone, and be articulated in terms of has to be a match of political supply and recognizable public themes and voters’ self demand before potential voters will “spend” interests. But with these cultural changes, their vote with a party or its candidates. three political demand problems emerged:

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 34 a) The conventional political distinctions, emerging new political demand cannot be rhetoric and imagery used in public often recognized by an election process until it is stop working for many voters, so more energized and turned into activity centered conventional campaigns start failing to on candidates and the election. arouse enthusiasm, and can’t speak to The ability of the Religious Right to the new issues many voters want to see generate election volunteers gives it an addressed. Distrust builds up when outsize role in the Republican party. The voters see political officials as no longer failure of new social movements to give the representing their interests. Negative same gift to the Democrats is a major failure campaigns often heap disgust on distrust. on their part. Movements can also try to b) During the process of governance in influence, or sling sharp elbows, in the between elections, the old hard-fought ongoing daily governance process, by some consensus among political animals about new kind of lobbying or vocal citizen what’s up for negotiation and what isn’t pressures that are able to counteract big will define many emerging issues as money lobbyists. Legislatures and governors “outside the box” of practical politics — seem far better at recognizing big money, as practiced within the old consensus. the well-connected law firms it hires, or big When millions start seeing things the organizations, however. way the movements do, which is exactly One of the few new examples of what has happened, then they become successful citizen pressure is MoveOn.org’s frustrated disbelievers in politics. Internet activities, both in fundraising and in c) The decline of retail politics and the rise barraging governmental offices with new of TV-based politics means that more email appeals. Though it’s the fundraising and more, the elected officials get out of that has impressed politicians far more than touch with major segments of the the emails, both show a growing power. population, and allow their issues to go Social movement activity can only be untended. They simply lack the needed turned into effective demand in two kinds of face to face contact, and chances to hear ways: people power and money power. emerging issues. And with the growing People power gathers votes, protests, and money chase, they also lack the time. To energizes citizen volunteer efforts. Money many voters, the Democrats and the power uses professional campaign efforts Republicans seem to resemble wings of paid for by contributions/bribes, usually the same party. So it is that many originating in the corporate world, but also frustrated citizens come to disbelieve all in the conservative donor world. The growth politicians’ rhetoric and promises. of advertising expenditures for campaigns All of these show precisely why we’ve had put the Democrats in a bind, because they 40 years of new social movements: the could not do without the same big money movements are ‘politics by other means.’ flows from the same sources that supported Republicans. The money chase has grown so Theoretically, adding up the votes in an large that it leaves both parties in a position election will result in someone getting of having to pay more attention to lobbyists elected who approximates the views and than ever, and all the time, not just in getting desires of a majority of voters, if not all ready for campaigns. citizens. But not if too many citizens dissent because of the way political supply has When new citizens’ views flowed from failed to keep up with the times! The new social movement concerns from the

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 35 Eighties on, that had the potential to aid the politicians that turned out to create a longer Democrats. But their obligations to big term decline for the party as a whole. money lobbyists and contributors separated Much of the reason for this decline, as them from their natural movement allies. we’ve seen, is that the “center” evolved The Democratic party neither mobilized the beyond merely being confused, independent movements, nor responded as well as it or cross-pressured swing voters. To speak to might have in the Eighties and Nineties. the culture of the Political North may well Many of their problems grew out of the mean reformulating many issues in new 1972 reforms that weakened central party language, using strong, definite views that control over funding. Individual politicians oppose the business conservatives and their were hamstrung from recognizing the people big corporate money. Will the current crop power potential of movements because they of Democratic politicians take that risk? were far too busy chasing campaign dollars in an ‘every man for himself’ process. And Conservative think tanks crank out a the more they locked in on the money chase, full set of ideological rationales for the the less they could ally with the movements. collection of issues Big Money will benefit from, and hand them off to Republicans. Big Money’s clout was crucial to the They in turn take direction from Big Money opponents of social movements, when many in all elections and seasons of governance. corporations used the Reagan-Bush political It’s both looting the treasury and weakening support to fight off movement demands. Big of democracy. Republicans work hard on Money acquired the power to declare the symbolically placate social conservatives, movements’ alternative views as ‘outside but we are fast becoming a plutocracy, the box’ in two ways: In the Nineties, the far where Big Money votes its dollars. right foundations spent one billion dollars on developing new ideologies, concepts, For Democrats to successfully appeal programs and legislation for the Republican to Political North’s voters will take a lot of conservatives to use, aided by their creation effort. Winning elections requires them to of new far right media. Right wing think create and overmatch whatever capability tanks have been rising in inside-the-Beltway the Republicans created, in a kind of arms influence for 20 years. race. For example, Clinton’s “fast response” campaign capability was mimicked and Second, Big Money not only owned improved upon by the Republicans. That is the Republican party, but bought off many now simply a ticket to play in the game. Democratic politicians. In effect, the New Democrats made it official that most of the Democrats have not yet copied the far party was “friendly to big business” and its right’s network of think tanks, but it’s now a money. Individual Democrats felt they had necessity. The Political Compass may let the to match Republican money power at Democrats get the lead for a while if it is election time to stay competitive for TV ad matched up with new think tank strategic time. Meanwhile they lost track of people research and analysis, and better messaging. power in retail politics, and lost track of the Strategic research isn’t quickie polls. emerging politics of Political North. And the Everyone recognizes the dysfunction of the role of the New Democrats by no means system, but can’t yet see its links to change gave a central strategic focus to the party. in the political culture, because slow motion What looked like a strategic move to ‘the changes can’t be seen in quickie polls. Until center’, turned out to be only short term those pollsters develop values-sensitive palliatives: survival strategies for individual

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 36 measures they can’t show this picture of the analysis is seen by new potential candidates, Political Compass. Meanwhile, the current new leaders will then come forth. This New generation of Democrats gets ever farther Political Compass article can give underdog out of alignment with many of their candidates a new way to see their potential constituents, and tend to talk from, constituents, and a new way to pose their and defend, an ever more obsolete stance. campaign arguments. As they succeed, a tipping point effect will take over, and an Getting out of alignment can make avalanche can occur. Either a new wing of earthquakes in both the political and the Democratic party takes power, or it falls geological worlds. Earthquakes are the result apart, and some new political party appears. of two great plates of the earth’s crust slowly moving past each other, often where The second strategic issue is the role one is moving and the other is not. One set of big money in campaigns. It is now of rocks has tried to slide past the other but dominant for both parties: I’d guess 80% of has gotten stuck. After a huge amount of the money in politics comes from the strain piles up, finally the rocks crumble and Political South, business conservatives, the energy is suddenly released, making the which is a major factor in the conservative shock of an earthquake. The worst of the big tilt of our political landscape. TV ads sop quakes are subduction quakes where one up most of that cash. The fairness doctrine layer of rock strata is moving under another, has been scrapped, and yet TV stations have so that truly huge shock waves are set off a charter allowing them to use the public when the strain gets unstuck and the earth’s airwaves for free. If for example, we crust lurches to a new position. Isn’t that our required stations and networks to carry a under-over stuckness in politics? Unheard large percent of all political debates and voters are under political and money elites. campaigns for free or a nominal charge, as The stuckness of our present political nearly all European democracies do, a lot of system is reinforced by the fact that over that money power would be unnecessary. 90% of legislators are in safe districts, using In fact TV ads are starting to go down the power of incumbency to rig the game in value, because people are turned off by their way and avoid change. Most got there them. But the entire machinery of political by kowtowing to big donors and articulating parties and political fundraising is built the (incorrect) conventional wisdom. Few around a money politics that serves that will change until they are directly reality. Big Money will dominate until that challenged in a campaign, then they'll try to changes. Today, more expensive (if hired) play catch-up. Only a few will then learn methods are being reinvented to update 50 fast enough. Political change will be a big year old retail politics approaches. It’s still lurch, and often somebody’s catastrophe. not enough. Retail politics had more impact, The first strategic issue in political because you talked to people, face to face, change is that until the issues of Political one-on-one. People-power politics favors North are aggregated and argued in national Political North, because volunteers become political campaigns, privately held personal important. This is why, historically, the opinion has not been turned into public unions were so powerful in the Democrat opinion that gets debated in public forums. party — lots of volunteer labor. People- That probably won’t happen until we power approaches bring back 'retail politics,' mobilize the Political North through a one-on-one contact, as opposed to political party. As that occurs, and/or this 'wholesale', TV ads.

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 37 3. More FAQs: justice and environmental stewardship So, is George Lakoff right? into account. Many ethnic Catholics and This article’s empirical data supports several protestant evangelicals are actually political writers: cross-pressured in what they care about, • Alan Wolfe (One Nation After All) and simply need a good values-laden is right that middle class Americans are reason to go back with the Democrats. actually quite tolerant. They also want a government that continues to do what it And how do we make all this real has done for the last half century, and do and practical? it automatically, and efficiently. Most Ah, my favorite question! Americans, most of the time, want a The Need: The Compass’s current model government that does right by all the and analysis are based on 8-year-old survey people, not one that panders to the right. data. Therefore, it is essential to update it • George Lakoff (Don’t Think of an with a new survey, to help citizen Elephant) is right that most people need mobilization campaigns in 2006. However, to be addressed in different language, to apply its strategy mapping in today’s using different frames for reality, in political terrain, we need to add new order to highlight to them what’s really questionnaire items to show the big new important. (But Lakoff’s emphasis on developments since the previous surveys: values growing out of family styles is • Development of the anti-globalization way too narrow.) movement, including anti-WTO protests, • John Vasconcellos (The Politics of • The Bush administration’s questionable Trust) is right that we need to restore policies, with a continuing loss of trust in politics. It has been eroding for political trust, over forty years, through the baneful • Effect of the stock market meltdown, concentration on political advertising on recession and jobs problems, TV at the expense of face-to-face retail • Effect of 9/11 fears, followed by the war politics. We need to restore the honest on terrorism, and Iraq War, rhetoric of good citizenship, not the • Effect of the revived peace movement, phony rhetoric of TV ads. and anti-war campaigns by public • Rabbi Michael Lerner (The Politics figures, of Meaning) is right that a large portion • Effect of continuing corporate corruption of Americans feel deprived of meaning- scandals like Enron, Tyco, etc., values and spiritual values by the secular • Scientific confirmation that global left, and by the emphasis on money and warming is human-caused and a real power in American life. So by default danger in our lifetimes. many of them go along with the right, • All of these will intensify trends that because it feels less objectionable, if you were already built into the Political don’t look too close, and hold your nose Compass, but the effect of the wars, a bit. But in fact, they are closer to what patriotic surge and peace movements are this article calls Political North, or the back in politics for the first time in 15 New Progressives. years, and change the political • Jim Wallis (God’s Politics) is right landscape. that lots and lots of religious conservatives, including evangelicals, Once the Compass builds the above want a politics that takes peace, social events, it will be dynamite in 2006 politics.

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 38 Table 2. Distinctive Values and Opinions of the North’s New Progressives (This table should be quite valuable for message and program development to the New Progressive constituency. Note that the Political North is by definition more heterogeneous than the Cultural Creatives, who are a bare majority of that political category, which includes many people identified in earlier research as Moderns. Showing “distinctive” values and opnions means they take stronger stands than the other 3 sectors. This table excludes those items where New Progressives are stronger than average, but not as strong as other groups, or differ from Total U.S. by only a couple of percentage points.) Actual Values Items in Questionnaire: Percent saying, “very important” or “extremely important” How important to your life is… New Progressive Total U.S. helping other people 83.47% 76.25% the belief that every person has a unique gift to offer 75.88 66.80 having something to show for your efforts 74.25 67.18 developing more self-awareness–that is, not sleep-walking through life 73.17 65.73 getting out of debt 70.19 65.93 getting better control over your finances 69.11 62.36 creating better relationships with friends and co-workers 68.56 60.52 having your work make a contribution to society 66.94 54.25 living in harmony with the Earth 66.12 53.28 knowing that you've made a difference in the world 59.62 45.85 finding your purpose in life, rather than making money 57.45 47.30 discovering new things about yourself 57.18 47.39 developing deeper relationships with your friends 56.64 48.5 wanting to be involved in creating a better society 53.66 41.12 desire for a new way of life in America 51.22 42.66 needing to express your own creativity 49.86 42.57 optimism about new developments in our culture 46.88 38.71 involvement in volunteer work 34.69 26.35 putting more time and effort into your psychological development 32.79 24.52 looking for ways to create social change 28.46 18.34 Values statements in Agree/Disagree Format Percent Agreeing “Somewhat” or “Strongly” We need to treat the planet as a living system 91.06 86.97 Corporate greed and shortsightedness are harming our country 87.80 81.47 Business corporations make too much profit 76.15 65.64 Government should shut down industries that keep polluting the air 69.11 62.55 It’s better to protect jobs than endangered species and forests (% DISAGREE) 59.89 50.97 I'd pay more taxes to help solve our environmental problems 51.49 41.60

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 39 (Table 2 Cont.) Note: Opinions on issues are more open to new information, and thus change faster than values, because they are not as deepl y rooted, nor set life priorities as strongly. Actual Opinion Items in Questionnaire: Percent saying, “very important” or “extremely important” How important to your life are these fears or concerns? New Progressives Total U.S. getting, or keeping, health insurance that covers your needs 96.48% 91.41% getting all the health care you and your family may need 96.21 89.19 that we spend too much time “fixing things”after the fact, instead of finding the source of our problems 92.41 81.18 that we spend too much time “fixing things” after the fact, instead of doing more to prevent our problems 92.14 82.63 violence against women and children 92.41 83.11 how much child abuse there is 89.97 80.60 that you may not have enough to live on in retirement 89.70 81.76 dealing with long term, or chronic, illness 89.16 81.56 that our children are getting low quality education 89.16 83.98 that family life is declining 88.89 82.53 that pollution may destroy farmlands, forests and seas 87.80 73.65 that women and men don’t get equal pay for equal work 85.37 68.05 that our politics is getting too polarized, nasty and gridlocked 82.93 73.46 that traditional values are declining 82.66 75.58 problems of the global environment: global warming, destruction of rainforests, destruction of species, loss of the ozone layer 81.84 67.95 that the quality of government services is low 78.86 71.81 pollution that may affect your health 77.78 66.41 that our current way of life is not sustainable ecologically 71.27 53.19 whether you or your spouse can keep a job 70.46 63.51 whether you or your spouse can get another job 66.67 60.71 that more women should be top leaders in business and government 65.58 47.59 that multinational corporations increasingly control our fate 65.58 53.67 that America is not competitive enough economically 65.58 58.49

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 40 (Table 2. Cont. ) Opinons on Social and Environmental Issues. Actual Opinion Items in Questionnaire: Percent Agreeing Which of the following statements fits the way you see things? New Progressives Total U.S. Americans should have more respect and reverence for Nature 92.68% 83.20% We need to rebuild our neighborhoods and small communities 89.16 83.40 Humans are meant to be stewards over nature and preserve it 87.26 82.05 Humans are part of nature, not its ruler 83.47 75.39 America needs a health insurance plan that covers everyone, rich or poor, for all illnesses 81.30 68.82 We live in a time when our need for healthier communities has become critical 80.76 70.08 I feel a need to live in a city that works for me, not against me 79.67 74.23 Business needs to do more to clean up its environmental messes 79.40 71.91 We must change the way we do business to save the environment 76.15 62.64 I want us to return to a simpler way of life with less emphasis on consumption and wealth (slightly less than Social Conservatives) 75.34 67.66 Americans need to consume a much smaller proportion of the world’s resources 71.54 61.29 I’d pay 10 percent more for consumer goods if I could know this would save the environment 69.65 53.86 America needs a single set of educational standards, and national funding of education 67.21 56.95 Business is already asked to pay too much for cleaning up the environment (DISAGREE) 67.21 58.78 All of life needs to be preserved, even species we don’t have a use for 66.94 54.92 We need to develop a whole new way of life for long run ecological sustainability 66.67 52.80 I’d pay 20 cents more per gallon for gasoline if I were sure it would pay for environmental cleanup 66.67 52.80 Workplaces would be less stressful if employees had more control over their own work 65.31 59.36 I agree with those ecologists who see Earth as a giant living organism 64.50 52.90 Most people have too many possessions 62.87 55.79 Health insurance is the responsibility of the individual; government should keep out of it (DISAGREE) 60.70 45.66 Most pollution problems are already being cleaned up by business (DISAGREE) 60.16 51.80 I’d pay 25 cents more per gallon for gasoline if I were sure that it would stop global warming 58.81 42.76 Managers who measure “productivity” don’t see what really makes business work 56.10 47.20 There is no way that economic growth can go on forever in a finite world 53.66 43.24 Redwood groves are sacred 48.51 36.00 People waste too much of their lives at work 42.28 36.10

The New Political Compass © Paul H. Ray, 2003 41