Amy Sullivan and I have something in common. Dr. Randy Brinson, the Chairman of Redeem the Vote, calls each of us periodically. Sullivan, in a piece called “When Would Jesus Bolt?” depicts Brinson’s disenchantment with the current leaders of the national conservative movement and asks whether Democrats could “change the entire electoral map” by attracting members of Redeem the Vote, thereby “peel[ing] off a few percentage points” from the GOP’s religious-conservative constituency. Sullivan is especially interested in Brinson because “Redeem the Vote registered more voters than all of the efforts of the Christian Right heavyweights–Focus on the Family, the Southern Baptist Convention, American Family Association, and the Family Research Council–combined.”

To put my reaction bluntly: Sullivan wants to use Brinson and his people just as the Republicans have: strategically. Like Karl Rove, she wants to have some conservative evangelical voters in her column (although she’d settle for a smaller proportion). She’s thinking about what shifts in rhetoric, emphasis, and actual policy the Democrats could make to “peel off” some evangelical Christians.

Strategy is necessary in politics. If you think you have good ideas and core principles, then you should try to win elections to implement them. In order to win a national election, you need an ideologically diverse majority coalition. And to get to 51% or higher, you need to win over some strange bedfellows by making political compromises or by finding partially overlapping goals. To shun all strategic thinking is simply to cede the field.

Nevertheless, strategic thinking can corrupt. Winning can become an end in itself. Any tactic or position that builds the coalition becomes desirable. Anyone not already on your side becomes a target who should be talked into joining for any reason that works. You may listen to opponents to find openings, but not to learn new ideas and perspectives.

It’s precisely this kind of corruption that has made Brinson mad at the Republicans (who are indeed very strategic at this late point in the “conservative revolution”). If Brinson gets the same treatment from Democrats, he’s not likely to admire them either. So let me suggest an alternative ….

I start with the assumption that there are principled conservatives who basically disagree with principled liberals about some core issues. Their differences cannot just be compromised away but must be contested in elections. Nevertheless, it is very valuable for liberals and conservatives to address issues that do not divide them. Brinson models such collaboration when he works with civil-libertarian groups to promote a Bible course that is truly appropriate for public schools.

Moreover, liberals and conservatives can work together to improve the political system and the political culture in which they both operate. Again, Brinson is a model: his form of voter mobilization increases turnout without manipulating new voters into lockstep support for any one party. He is enlarging the base of genuinely active, independent voters. That’s a goal that many principled progressives share, and there would be ways to coordinate their efforts.

Brinson also expresses sincere respect for liberal groups like People for the American Way. Such displays of respect are important. Many Americans shun politics because they dislike conflict, especially when it seems petty, unnecessary, or personal. I’m convinced that our highly conflictual political culture suppresses participation. If evangelical conservatives sincerely respect their liberal opponents, politics will seem more constructive and will draw in more citizens. But the converse is equally important. Liberals like Amy Sullivan must sincerely respect people like Randy Brinson. Respect means not using others as means to one’s own ends. (Compare this subtle argument about why one should usually overlook one’s opponents’ hypocrisy.)

As I mentioned earlier this week, the New Voices project is making a second round of grants to citizens (all kinds of people who are not professional journalists) to produce news in various media. Here are some of my favorite grantees from the first year:

The Forum, from Deerfield, NH, an online newspaper created by a co-op of citizen journalists. Coincidentally, at about the same time that The Forum was launched, Deerfield voted to end its town meeting. The website is the substitute public space.

Hip-Hop Speaks, with very nice flash animations that take serious (but engaging) looks at issues facing hiphop culture.

The Twin Cities Daily Planet from Minnesota, which aggregates good stories from the mainstream media and adds some citizen journalism to produce a website that rivals many metropolitan dailies.

And I already mentioned the Madison (WI) Commons. The Commons provides citizens with journalism training in order to generate a lot of hyper-local stories. Its curricular materials are also online and free.

It’s pretty common to compare (or contrast) Bush II and Wilson, because the Bush neoconservatives are seen as Wilsonian internationalists, at least in their rhetoric. We could note more similarities. Viz.,

Wilson ran on a platform of staying out of World War I, but he took the US into a conflict that killed about 8 million people, including 126,000 Americans. He justified our entry on the allied side as a way to make the world safe for democracy, to end all wars, and to punish Germany for attacking American civilians at sea. George W. ran on a platform of resistance to “nation-building,” but he invaded and attempted to remake a foreign country, saying that he wanted to punish terrorists, expand democracy abroad, and reduce the chances of future wars in the region. In both cases, critics of the war said that the real motivations were economic.

Each man represented the party then based in the South and West, with a tradition of distrusting eastern elites and the federal government. Both ran on platforms of decentralization and localism. Yet both dramatically expanded the power of the federal government: Wilson through the Federal Reserve Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, and child labor laws; Bush through No Child Left Behind and the Patriot Act.

Both presidents spoke in favor of personal freedom, but each was responsible for undermining civil liberties. Wilson’s Espionage and Sedition Acts (respectively, of 1917 and 1918) were the worst legislative assaults on free speech since 1800. Wilson’s government also deported immigrants who held radical views and jailed Eugene V. Debs–who had run against Wilson in 1912 and won six percent of the vote–for speaking against the war. I must say that Bush’s assaults on civil liberties, although egregious, do not compete with Wilson’s Red Scare.

Both consistently disparaged Congress and, once in the White House, attempted to expand presidential power. (As a political scientist, Wilson had argued strenuously against checks and balances.) Both employed “heavies” to enforce presidential and federal power (A. Mitchell Palmer and J. Edgar Hoover; John Ashcroft and John Yoo).

Clearly, there are differences. Wilson was a brilliant academic, one of the founders of the modern research university. Bush was a mediocre student. Wilson was a true racist, but I don’t think that’s a fair criticism of GWB. Wilson was a multilateralist in principle (although he took America into the Great War as an “associate” power, not part of the Western Alliance); Bush is a unilateralist.

Still, the similarities are interesting and raise important questions about why we produce such leaders. The comparison that supposedly serious people make between Bush and Hitler is not only profoundly offensive; it’s also obfuscating. I see no evidence that our political culture or system favors the likes of Adolph Hitler. But we do generate zealots in the cause of democracy whose moral certainty leads them to expand their own power at home and abroad.

My friends at Civic Enterprises recently released a report, funded by the Gates Foundation, on high school drop-outs. It’s based on a survey of 467 recent drop-outs plus focus groups. This research addresses the very serious problem that one third of all American students, and half of all African American and Latino youth, withdraw before they receive high school diplomas. The consequences are very dire, as the report explains. For instance, drop-outs are eight times more likely to be incarcerated than those with high school diplomas; they are also sicker and poorer.

Some of the survey results are at least somewhat surprising. For example, while about one third of the drop-outs had been struggling academically, 70 percent were confident that they could have graduated. Many said that school was too easy and that they would have worked harder if more had been asked of them. They complained about boredom in class and the feeling that course content was irrelevant.

It is possible for students to find a worthy topic boring and irrelevant. However, I think we should at least consider increasing the rigor of school for some students who are at risk of dropping out because they feel unchallenged. Of course, the point is not to make school harder, but to make it more intellectually challenging. This wouldn’t work for all kids (not for the roughly 35 percent who had trouble keeping up or passing). However, as the report wisely says, there should be different schools and curricula for different students–and there’s a substantial group that needs more of a challenge, along with appropriate guidance and support. (This guidance must include teachers who know them individually–something that many say they lacked.)

A substantial group of drop-outs (38 percent) complained of “too much freedom.” I have argued that we give young people too much choice among courses, extracurriculars, and social networks. The stakes are too high, and the kids who lack family support are prone to make bad decisions. However, that’s not what “too much freedom” means in the new report. The drop-outs complain that they were excessively free not to attend class or indeed to withdraw from school. Almost all conveyed “great remorse for having left school and expressed strong interest in re-entering school with students of their own age.”

As mentioned earlier, this page is up for “best expert blog.” If you are so moved, you may vote for it by putting a comment here or emailing the authorities. In the “best new blog” category, I voted for Phronesisiacal (twice, but that was by accident).