The New Political Compass™

New Progressives are In-Front, Deep Green,
Against Big Business and Globalization,
and Beyond Left vs. Right

By Paul H. Ray, Ph.D. Forum for a Wise Civilization

Edited by Joe Magid
Executive Director, Grassroots for America
May, 2004

© Paul H. Ray, 2004
paulhray-at-aol.com
paul-at-culturalcreatives.org

Table of Contents

Executive Summary
Information For Action
Beyond Demographics
The New Political Compass
New Political Geography
Wave of Change
Practical Implications
Epilogue
Appendix A - Sample Issue Maps
Appendix B - Ten Strategic Imperatives
Appendix C - Frequently Asked Questions
Appendix D - Data on the New Political North

Executive Summary

We are in the midst of a transformation, a changing of shape and function, of many of our institutions. The nature of the political landscape has similarly been changing and the mental models we’ve used for tens, if not hundreds of years to makes sense of it no longer accurately describe today’s political realities.

Political culture, the substrate politics rests on, has been changing for some decades but the constructs we use to think about this culture have not changed and the mechanisms by which we “do” politics have yet to adapt to meet the realities of the new political culture.

Today’s dismal state of political affairs stems in part from its rigidity, its apparent corruption, and its inability to supply what people want. We are heading towards the political equivalent of market failure in economics and business; the breakdown of supply and demand. The resulting alienation of large numbers of voters is placing our democracy at great risk of turning into a plutocracy; rule by and for the benefit of the rich.

Characteristics of the changing landscape include a slow decline of both left and right as well as the dominant political parties. The term “center” no longer communicates anything of value or substance. Social conservatism is slowly declining as its underlying culture dies off. The demise of the left is apparent as only about fifteen percent of voters still identify with it. Meanwhile, big business is distrusted by over 70 percent of Americans, holds the direct support of only 19 percent of voters and deploys money power to maintain control. Politicians, scrambling to fund the insatiable demand for campaign funds, rate right up with used car salesmen as an occupation. The percentage of eligible voters going to the polls is at an all time low.

Every few hundred years in Western history there occurs a sharp transformation. Within a few short decades, society — its world view, its basic values, its social and political structures, its arts, its key institutions — rearranges itself. And the people born then cannot even imagine a world in which their grandparents lived and into which their own parents were born. We are currently living through such a transformation. —Peter Drucker, Post-Capitalist Society

The last and most important element of the changing landscape is the emergence of an entirely new political constituency, the New Progressives. This segment of the electorate is at right angles to the Liberal left and the Social Conservative right, directly opposed to Big Business Conservatism. Understanding the “at right angles” relationships among these four blocks requires a two dimensional view of the political landscape, the New Political Compass™. Corollary to the existence of four blocks represented by North/South, East/West is that there really is no uncommitted center for timorous politicians to chase. Instead, the center is populated by the politically alienated and ignorant who don’t vote. Revealed in the adding of an up/down second dimension is the dichotomy of globalization and big business interests vs. ecological sustainability, women’s issues, consciousness issues, national health care, national education, and an emerging concern for the planet and the future of our children and grandchildren on it.

The New Progressives of the political North are 45% of likely voters.

They are more likely to be volunteers, give money to good causes, to have participated in multiple social change movements, and care more about changing the culture than the rest of society. They are at the intersection of all the movement constituencies and the marginal cost of mobilizing them should be small. If they were mobilized under a single banner they could even end up supplanting one of the political parties and dominating American politics for the next generation or more.

The values, attitudes, opinions and issues of New Progressives show that they want politicians to deal with real emerging problems threatening our planet our children and their future: global warming, globalization, health care, education, global corporate competition diminishing quality of life, info-tech and bio-tech out of control and violence rampant around the world. As the prototypical left vs. right model grows ever less helpful in understanding political realities, the New Political Compass™ model offers far greater strategic insight and flexibility in political party and campaign development.

Political scientists have been saying for decades that the old left vs. right is breaking down. Low voter turnout shows disgust with politics as usual, a dearth of good ideas and the dominance of big money. Lacking worthy choices, the electorate hunkers down – and it’s not because they’re happy with what they’re getting. Survey upon survey shows over 70% of voters unhappy with politics and politicians.

Our national elections and our national governance process have fallen prey to big money with disastrous effects. Business conservatives can buy elections so long as voter turnout stays low, and they have successfully forced liberals to play their money-driven game. The dirtier politics looks, the more voters it chases away, and the greater the advantage to corporate interests. Meanwhile, the think-tanks of the right receive huge sums from foundations funding only far-right causes pushing policies that, when implemented result in enormous corporate profits devolving to those funding the foundations. These dynamics have already pushed us to something approaching a plutocracy.

Based on New Political Compass™ statistics, the Democrats Number One strategic imperative is to create a core constituency strategy for New Progressives. Democrats desperately need to recognize and recruit this 45% of likely voters. Unifying and mobilizing this relatively unorganized population is the single biggest gain the Democrats can make in politics.

Fortunately, all is not lost. Research shows an immense opportunity in the vast, unsatisfied demand in the electorate for politicians to get out in front on the great emerging issues of our time.

While the emerging issues are progressive issues, the conventional Left no longer “owns” them. Gaining an understanding of the cultural changes from which these issues have emerged, offers an explanation of the decline of the left, and reveals what has happened to its missing constituency. In short, the culture, and consciousness, of what could have been Left constituencies has outgrown the culture and consciousness of most Left political experts and leaders. As our cultural reality unfolds in new and different ways, so must our political institutions adapt if they are to remain viable and able to sustain the essence of our republic.

There is huge opportunity in the fact that people will do more for their children than for themselves, and the data shows that 80% of New Progressives are worried about what kind of world their children will live in. They don’t believe politicians or big business will respond to their concerns. Politicians able to communicate their understanding of these fears, demonstrate their readiness to do battle with Business Conservatives to address them and, most importantly, walk this talk, will draw significant new support to their campaigns.

The next section and the appendices offer key data to guide efforts to engage New Progressives and peel off supporters of the opposition.

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Information for Action

Political North reflects a change in political culture:

• Identify much less with Left or Right
• Planetary more than nationalist interests
• Ecological sustainability, not sentimental environmentalism/resource management
• Feminism rather than heroic models
• Personal growth over personal ambition
• Condemn corrupt, globalizing mega-corporations
• Get big corporate money out of politics
• Protect a positive future for our children
• Their most important issues are all ‘outside the box’ to Washington politics
• None of their big issues were in the last 4 national election campaigns
• It’s a kind of political market failure.

Both Left and Right can call the Political North’s issues the issues of the Left, but 83% don’t identify with the Left. We need a new way of speaking to them, and about them.

Key Demographics of Political North

• 36%=70 Million Adult Americans
• 56% Female
• More in Northeast, Upper Midwest, Pacific Coast, fewest in Mountain States
• 15% people of color, 9% Hispanic
• Same as National distribution on Age, Income, Education, Occupation

Important Political Facts:

Among Likely Voters, Political North is:

• 45% of Likely Voters = 55 Million
• 56% of all Swing Voters (and Swing Voters are 53% of Political North)
• 17% self-identify as Liberal vs. 33% as Conservative, the rest is 39% ‘Center’, 10% ‘Beyond Left-Right’
• 37% Democrat vs. 29% Republican, 27% Independent, 3% 3rd Party

A low marginal cost to mobilizing them:

• Volunteer more often and more hours
• Give more money to good causes
• Want to get actively involved
• Involved in more New Social Movement constituencies, and believe their views
• Care more about changing the culture
• Want politics to deal more with the real emerging problems threatening our future

Political North = “New Progressives”

1. They’re unimpressed with conventional politicians:
• Inauthentic, psychologically primitive: too much blaming, shaming, posturing, hatred/conflict-driven, violence imagery
• Bereft of innovative, or win-win ideas
• Macho, not women-friendly, emotionally undeveloped, spiritually empty
• Nationalistic rather than planet-oriented
2. They don’t like Left or Right political meetings or literature. Complain it’s all:
• Crummy group dynamics, factionalism
• Vicious infighting and power struggles
• Doctrinaire positions and rhetoric
• Self-justifying, psychologically naïve, projecting one’s evil onto the other side and denigrating others
• Old rhetoric no one believes any more
• Not interested in rebuilding community
• Left’s favorite solutions look ineffectual, and the Right’s look harmful
3. What they want: Big themes
• Good hard news political coverage
• More psychological maturity in politics and in the media
• Promote ecological sustainability
• Better education for all the children
• Better health care; cleaner food, air and water; less risk of environmental illness
• Get big corporate money out of politics
• Beyond moralizing and economic payoffs, to serve their new concerns
• New rules of the game, & better players

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Beyond the Demographics: A New Subculture in America

The apparent protagonists in the culture wars of the 90’s dramas over abortion, gay rights and the Clinton impeachment are Traditionals vs. Moderns, the world according to Jerry Falwell and Tom DeLay vs. the world according to Time Magazine, The New York Times as well as Mother Jones and The Wall Street Journal. The fault line in this cultural clash is between the values and worldview of small town America, religious conservatives and many elderly people and the getting ahead, getting and spending, materialist worldview of the dominant institutions of the 20th century.

Missing from, and purposefully kept out of this picture by big corporate media, however, is a third side in these political food fights, the side that gave rise to all the new social and consciousness movements of the last forty years. The people on this side identify neither with Traditionals nor Moderns nor least of all with big media. These “Cultural Creatives” are part of most of the creative new aspects of an emerging culture — not just in the U.S. but across the Western world.

In the U.S., Traditionals comprise 24-26% of the adult population (approx. 48 million), Moderns about 47-49% (approx. 95 million) and Cultural Creatives about 26-28% (approx. 50 million). Across Western Europe Cultural Creatives make up 30-35% of the adult population — the wave of change being further along and moving faster than in the US.

Cultural Creatives are at or just slightly above the national average on all demographics but one; they are 60% women overall, 67% in the most active core group. The new culture comes with new values, lifestyle and worldviews. It is easy to find a typical Modern family and a typical Cultural Creative family who are essentially identical on all the demographics, yet live in two different worlds. What they want from life, what’s important for the future of the country, and how they live are all distinctly different. They may appear similar on liberal-conservative, Democrat-Republican surveys, but ask what really matters about politics and social issues and you will hear a very different vocabulary, and a different list of concerns. These are concerns about our children’s future, about equality for children’s opportunities, about health and education, about the ecology of the whole planet, about the inner dimensions of life, about the overweening power of big business, and the role of big money in politics. To a very large extent, this is about women’s values and concerns coming forth into the public domain for the first time in history.

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Beyond Left vs. Right: The New Political Compass™

A century ago, Left vs. Right meant progressives and unionists vs. big business and perhaps the Ku Klux Klan. But that was before the specter of nuclear annihilation, Vietnam, the peace movement, the civil rights and women’s movements, before the rise of insurgent radicals of the religious right in politics, and before saving the planet from ecological destruction and globalization became a huge issue. Both the issues and the constituencies of the U.S. have evolved, but our political rhetoric has not. To respond effectively to today’s cultural and political landscapes a new model is needed.

The view of left vs right as a bell curve, with an enormous uninterested and passive Center in between left and right does not accurately describe reality. (See Figure 1) The left is fading down to about one voter in six, the right has about one in three locked up while the mushy middle is nearly half the population. When new data about values and political positions is taken into consideration, it is obvious that this long-standing image of American politics is wholly inadequate, if not wrong and misleading.

Social researchers will tell you there is a big undefined middle in between the extremes of the bell-shaped curve of Figure 1, with a mass of attitudes, behaviors and values the left vs. right model does not explain. Relying on this model, conventional political wisdom incorrectly labels what the model leaves unexplained as a pliable, “mushy” center up for grabs by the party and politicians best able to gloss over their true proclivities.

Unless and until conventional political wisdom and the model on which it is based is replaced with a model that properly explains the nature of an electorate that is neither traditional left nor traditional right, we will continue the slide into plutocracy.

If this is so obvious, why hasn’t a new, more accurate model already been adopted? There are two reasons. First is that current cheap and easy quickie telephone polls asking “are you liberal or conservative?” and “are you Republican or Democrat?” along with demographics and some number of other political questions meet campaign financial and turnaround time limitations. Second, and more insidious, is that the status quo serves the purposes of the money behind the curtain, the Business Conservatives. A new model gives legitimacy to the unfolding conflict of social movements and citizen-based politics versus the interests of big campaign funders and threatens all who believe that their livelihood depends on the existing, easy to work with, left-right construct.

Two Dimensional Politics vs. The New Political Compass™

Instead of left vs. right, today’s politics is better described with the four poles of a compass. The second, North/South dimension captures most of what has been misnamed as the Center of a one dimensional model. The second dimension gives a whole new picture of how American culture is changing, and changing our politics with it.

The culture wars of the past generation appear to have succeeded in defining the American Liberal Left as a liberal rump group whose fortunes have declined to the point where they comprise 12% of today’s population, and 15% of voters.

The Liberal Left’s values and world view are primarily opposed to Social Conservatives on the Right. Social conservatism has been defined by a pseudo-traditionalism derived from John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart movies, the mythic image of small town America, circa 1870-1920, and by religious conservatism whose origins trace back only to the early 19th century. It should be noted that social conservatism is not defined by rich ultra-conservatives such as William Buckley or Richard Mellon Scaife. Social conservatives purported spokesmen are the likes of Jerry Falwell and Tom DeLay, but is in reality comprised mostly of the elderly, the less educated, those with below average incomes, with a tiny upscale leadership who are the ultra conservatives. While the voice of their leaders is quite loud, their numbers have actually shrunk over the past 50 years from nearly half the population to 19% of people and 21% of likely voters.

Today, an emerging, unrecognized New Progressive constituency is 36% of all adults and 45% of likely voters. They can’t be categorized by the left vs. right political spectrum nor do they reside in a waiting to be swayed middle. Their issues, favored messaging, and group processes are in fact at right angles to “politics as usual.”

The crucial opposition to New Progressives is Big Business Conservatives with 80% of the money in politics but only 19% of likely voters. This is the plutocrat faction of both political parties, viewed by New Progressives as the ones who are degrading our lives in the name of progress, taking us backward from what our children and grandchildren need to survive.

Big Business Conservatives are really distinct from Social Conservatives but work in tandem as a coalition within the Republican Party. They overlap the Social Conservatives on a short list of emotionally held political issues yet resemble the Liberal Left on many cultural issues. Business Conservatives are distinct from Social Conservatives because large majorities on both constituencies differ on many values and political issues. Republicans work diligently to hold these political bases together by using symbolic politics.

In reality, the opposing beliefs and life priorities of Business Conservatives and New Progressives are quite distinct from the conventional opposition of Liberals vs. Social Conservatives.

These opposite constituencies do not in any way resemble a “political center”. They have highly defined and emotional positions representing distinct self-interests and very different views on the future of humanity. This opposition has become a live bomb for our politics, ticking away—as the business elites who meet at Davos are intensely aware. The North-South opposition encompasses half of the U.S. population, and 60% of likely voters.

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The New Political Geography

New Progressives: 45% of Likely Voters Political North

The U.S., political North is 36% of the population, though it may vary from 20% to 45% depending on the issues. They are 39% Democrat, 28% Republican, and 27% Independent.

Only 18% are self-identified as liberal, 49% say center or neither left nor right, and 32% say they are conservative. The survey issues that identify them from are (percent agreeing):

Want national health insurance coverage	93%
Anti Big Business	81%
Pro Ecological Sustainability	78%*
Feminism	74%
Against Social Conservatives	52%
Identify with Neither Left nor Right	50%
Want action for positive social change	36%**
Believe there are limits to growth	35%***
Identify with the Left	18%

*In the 1999 EPA survey a more accurate sustainability measure put this at 90% for Cultural Creatives

**Highest among all sectors

***In the 1999 EPA survey a more accurate limits to growth measure put this at 70% for Cultural Creatives.

The Liberal Left: 15% of Likely Voters Political West

Given the above, it may be clearer why the Left is in disarray. It’s partly due to the Right’s success in identifying them with ineffectual big government and taxes, and partly due to the collapse of socialist and welfare state economics worldwide. It’s also partly due to being out of tune with the new social movements that have been crucial to cultural change preceding political change. Pragmatic Americans want what works, and it doesn’t look like the Left works. In the U.S. the Left gets the loyalty of about 12% of the population, though issue by issue it will range from 10% to 15%, and, due to low voter registration and turnout they make up 15-17% of voters. Since traditional progressives cannot call upon the money the Right commands, they are nowhere without the people power they have lost.

As a result, Congressional liberals forced to adopt the blandishments of big money are losing out, their numbers shrinking to but a few. The question they face is can they employ a new form of progressive politics to revive the fortunes of those who cares. Their challenge is to renew their political culture to win back the cultural constituency that has wandered away in search of a better politics, or no politics at all. Color the Liberal Left in pink, for they are no longer the healthy blood red of the communists or socialists. Somewhat surprisingly they are but 51% Democrat, the rest 22% Republican and 23% Independent.

The survey issues that identify them from are (percent agreeing):

Want national health insurance coverage	93%
Against Social Conservatives	88%
Anti Big Business	77%
Against the Religious Right (+pro-choice)	76%
Pro-Civil Liberties	66%
Feminism	69%
Pro-Immigrants	60%
Identify with Left	61%
Anti-Private Enterprise (Main Street)	44%
Believe there are limits to growth	27%

Business Conservatives: 19% of Voters Political South

Directly opposite the North, are the Business Conservatives. They are in the ascendant seeking to and in fact making plutocracy the dominant politics on the planet. Their ideology promotes economic growth and corporate profits above all else.

Most polls show that, by more than two to one, Americans do not trust big business. The lives of our children and grandchildren are at risk because of them, and 70% of Americans know it.

Nevertheless, Business Conservatives have the most money to spend and exercise enormous control as a result. They have colonized the political sector just as they are colonizing the Third World by buying up anyone of importance, and manipulating the laws to suit themselves. Capitalism as a system of markets has triumphed, in part because markets are more efficient than command economies, and in part because of the accumulated and rapidly growing money and power of corporations.

This is all about money power, counting dollars instead of votes, since the Business Right was never numerous. They are 69% Republican. In the U.S. they get the loyalty of about 14% of the population, and, issue-by-issue, are 10-15% of the population. Color them black, for the death of the planet.

The survey issues that identify them from are (percent agreeing):

Pro Big Business	78%
For-Private Enterprise (Main Street)	74%
Against Limits to Growth	64%
Anti Social Conservatives	63%
Identify with Right	61%
Anti-Social Change	59%
Anti-Feminism	59%*
Anti-Sustainability	41%*
Anti-National Health Insurance	36%*

*their leaders are stronger on this

Social Conservatives: 21% Likely Voters Political East

Social Conservatism wants to prevent changes in society by fiat and roll back the changes of the last 40 years. Their favorite social codes are precisely the ones that have been challenged by new social movements: discrimination against people of color, women, gays, women seeking abortions (unless they are well off), and the poor.

The Religious Right (whether authoritarian Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, fundamentalist or evangelical Protestant) while still numerous and politically powerful, is 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.

Social Conservatives comprise 19% of the population, ranging between 18-24% from issue to issue, also representing 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 power of modernism, especially in its capitalist form. In the U.S., however, if the Political North can get organized then this rear-guard of the electorate will be dwarfed in importance. Some 47% of Social Conservatives are Republican, the rest split between Democrats and Independents.

The survey issues that identify them from are (percent agreeing):

Identify with Right

Anti Big Business	91%
For Religious Right (anti-abortion)	77%
Anti-Civil Liberties	77%
For Social Conservatives	76%
Anti-Immigrants	68%
For-Private Enterprise (Main Street)	63%
	60%
Anti-Feminist	54%*
Against Social Change	51%

*their leaders are stronger on this

The True Middle: 0% of Likely Voters: Alienated and Ignorant

20% of Americans don’t know or care about politics, take no stance, and don’t participate at all. Many are migrants, many poor and uneducated, and just as many are completely alienated from politics. Some could be brought back into the process, but most you wouldn’t want, due to their all too often willful ignorance.

Color them gray. They call themselves Democrat or Independent, but if you look at their place on the political compass, they lean to the North and East. Their strong positions on the issues are worth noticing:

For National Health Insurance coverage	87%
Anti-Big Business	73%
Pro-sustainability	58%
Pro-Feminist	54%
Anti-Immigrant	53%

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Going Forward - or North, the New Progressives

At 36% of adults this emerging political group is the largest segment of the polity, at best underrepresented, at worst entirely unrepresented by politicians. Their issues are emerging ones that haunt today’s politics including ecological sustainability coming from limits to growth and actions against the dominance of big–business and globalization, and women’s perspectives on children, health, education, natural products and personal growth (both psychological and spiritual).

Seen as part of the Left by conventional political thinking, New Progressives are ever less vocal about being on the Left, many having emerged from the Left, or never identified with the Left in the first place. They seek to express a new, more complex stance. They identify with issues that the Left claims, but they don’t identify with the Left itself. They are the Left’s lost constituents, and indeed their issues have been ignored in recent national elections and they are estimated at 45% of voters.*

(*Since most survey respondents don’t admit it if they didn’t vote in the last election, we have estimated their probability of voting from what we know about voting behavior resulting in a wide error band, so this value should be used with caution. That said, all indications are that the Political North has by far the most people who are likely to be voters and the recent experience of the Dean and Edwards campaigns provides anecdotal evidence at least in support of this supposition. See the statistical appendix for how the estimate was derived.)

The size of these numbers and the issues represented suggests that recent political history has been a substantial success at the level of change in political culture much more than a failure of the Left with voters. There has been a change in the hearts and minds of many Americans towards acceptance of many viewpoints the Left would claim but has failed to capture. Classic progressive politicians have failed to keep pace with the evolution of political culture and have been badly outflanked by Business and Social Conservatives.

To recapture the initiative progressive politicians must get their bearings using the New Political Compass™. The new world view and values of the Political North include women’s perspectives on politics, an emphasis on better political process, and an open-minded concern for the interior-life side of politics, including both spirituality and culture. To recapture the initiative the language and themes of progressive campaigns must change. While necessary for success, rhetoric alone is insufficient. It must be accompanied by truth-telling and followed by deeds consonant with the rhetoric.

It is also critical to note what the center of the compass reveals — that there really is nothing there. Anthony Downs’s “Economic Theory of Democracy” thesis says that “rational politicians will run to the center from either wing, because that’s the high ground that gets a majority and wins.” In the light of the Compass, this thesis dissolves - there is no one-dimensional center to chase or to run to.

What is left over from the North’s New Progressives and the South’s Big Business Conservatives is a different “center” populated by an apolitical, fed up and alienated segment of the population, 20% of the citizenry — and practically no voters.

Recent political events taken together with a more effective analysis of political survey data make a compelling case for tossing the simple bell shaped curve of a left-right spectrum with its mass of inattentive voters in “the center” waiting for likable but seemingly insincere politicians to win them over.

Political culture has evolved, taken up new seriously held concerns reflected in the data about values and emerging issues. The new reality requires a new model to describe it and a new model to guide progressive politicians moving forward.

A New Political Compass™ based assessment of the 2000 election shows that it did not revolve around a huge easily swayed mass of voters in the Center worth running to. Bush was able to finesse the Political North with his compassionate conservative gambit. When Al Gore ran away from his personal core ensconced in his book, Earth in the Balance, to “the center”, he in effect ran away from the North headlong into a losing strategy. He ignored the issues he could have won with, Ecological sustainability, healthcare, education, feminism, the (lack of) personal authenticity of candidates and the style of politics-as-usual. These are all the keys to the North’s strong, general desire for truth-telling politicians ready and able to deal with emerging issues.

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The Opportunity

At 36% of adults, the North has 70 million people hungering for a new kind of politician, one truly and honestly responsive to their issues and concerns. If the estimate of New Progressives as 45% of voters holds and the group is mobilized to vote as a block, it will win any election easily.

A new progressive has emerged who is far out in front on the issues, whose values are planetary rather than nationalistic, looks for strong action towards ecological sustainability not just sentimental environmentalism or managing problems better, is disposed to feminism rather than heroic models, seeks personal growth over personal ambition, and condemns globalizing mega-corporations more than the religious right. This new progressive has been politically invisible for a host of reasons.

It’s very likely that if the Al Gore who had shown up for the 2000 campaign had been the Al Gore of Earth in the Balance, he’d have attracted more than enough of this emerging constituency to now be President. Sans survey data to confirm, a qualitative feel for what happened emerges from anecdotal evidence.

Over and over again, in the 2000 campaign “none of the above” was the response from Cultural Creatives populating Political North. They couldn’t find the energy to get into this campaign, and, not liking anything they heard, sat on their hands. They felt:

1. Gore was “completely inauthentic, Mr. Plastic,” asking “Why doesn’t the real Gore show up?”
2. Nader “isn’t one of us,” and “what’s Ralph doing running for president?”
3. “Bush is an idiot,” or else, “Bush’s compassionate conservatism is a lie.”

On the order of two of every three people expressing these views were women. Because they are also the biggest volunteers in American life, and opinion leaders on everything environmental, they typically bring many others along with their enthusiastic participation; but they did not. A dead heat campaign should, by all rights, raise voter turnout by 5% to 15%, yet voter turnout in 2000 was flat. Listen to the sound of millions of New Progressives — mostly Cultural Creatives and mostly women — sitting this one out.

The concept of Political North unveils a dream constituency comprised of huge numbers of likely progressive voters steeped in the various progressive movements and a tendency to get engaged in the issues. The concept provides a gateway to promising new changes, such as those proposed by Ted Halstead and Michael Lind in The Radical Center or by Andrei Cherny in The Next Deal. The terminology does need to migrate away from things like “radical center,” since, as stated before the actual center is apolitical, alienated, and ignorant, hardly radical. The true constituency for change, the Political North, is savvy about interpersonal relations and global events and recognizes multiple imperatives that demand real change.

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Key Theme: Danger to Our Children’s Future

A major force driving the Political North away from political engagement is the inability of politicians to deal with the issues they see as negatively affecting their children’s future. Historically, these have been seen as women’s concerns, but no longer. A 1999 survey showed that 60 percent of all Americans, including on the order of 80 percent of Political North, fear that their children and grandchildren will inherit a worse world than they themselves grew up in. This is a complete reversal of Americans’ historical optimism. It is a deep anxiety, but without a focus and as a result somewhat easily pre-empted by more immediate issues. Our most recent crisis, 9/11/2001, has brought the latent pessimism about the future to the surface. The question now is whether or not security concerns will trump the wider and deeper discontent come November 2004.

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A Great Wave of Change Points to the Political North

To better understand the genesis of the Political North and be better able to develop effective political themes and messages it is helpful to see its appearance as a result of waves of change that have been passing through our culture. These waves of change in values and worldviews have been washing through the Western world for 40 years. It is reasonable at this point to say that every person in the Western world has been affected by the various new social and consciousness movements that have re-educated the West since the Sixties. A key (for us) result has been the emergence of the Cultural Creatives as a distinct subculture and, more importantly, the creation of the Political North’s unfulfilled political demand for a new set of political institutions, not just new political programs.

People throughout the West have integrated these changes to varying degrees, so it’s not just a matter of belonging to a subculture, or political group. Almost everyone has some exposure to these new values, lifestyles and worldviews, though the more extreme Business Conservatives and Social Conservatives are in strong reaction against these trends. The rest of Western society has adopted these changes to a greater or lesser degree.

We can look at these societal changes as something like ocean waves causing swimmers to slowly drift down the shoreline. Analysis shows that a Core Group of Cultural Creatives, 14% of the population, has drifted the farthest along in changing toward a new culture, An additional 24% are in late transition toward full adoption of the values and worldview of Cultural Creatives. It is this aggregate 38%, about 73 million adults, who have drifted far enough along to give rise to the Political North.

Six Dimensions of the Waves of Change

Analysis of the cultural waves of change using six dimensions can be used to guide the creation of themes for speeches, direct mail, and advertising addressed both to the core of Political North as well as to those still in motion toward the Political North.

Anti-materialism: A revulsion against “doing it just for the money,” success-driven behavior, materialistic status display, over-spending and over-consumption. This dimension is a rejection of what the corporate media are selling and runs North-South on the Compass.

Pro-civil-liberties & anti-Traditional: Reflects an older ACLU progressive position on civil liberties and personal freedom coupled with a newer rejection of the authoritarianism, intolerance and racial bigotry of social conservatives. In effect, this dimension shows a mutual rejection by many New Progressives and the Religious Right and runs Northwest-Southeast on the Compass.

Ecological Sustainability: This dimension is a much stronger view than conventional feel-good environmentalism that focuses on better management of environmental problems. This emerging post-80s dimension wants outright prevention of ecological destruction, slowing economic growth in order to save the environment, concern for planetary ecological problems in all domains and changing the way we do business to save the ecology. It is anti-big business and anti-globalization position, a key to the emerging North-South political dimension, reflecting the rejection of Big Business Conservatives.

Person-Centered: This dimension is largely unchanged from variables that originally created the Cultural Creatives classification. It is not especially New Age, but rather a mainstream concern for relationships, altruism and idealism, plus a concern for personal development over the whole adult lifecycle that includes both psychology and spirituality. Many aspects of this dimension reflect women’s concerns going public for the first time in Western history and are shared by many Traditional and Modern women. There’s a slight tendency for this dimension to be North or West vs. South or East on the Compass.

Futurist, Planetary Progressive: This dimension directly reflects feminism, concern for the long-term effects of our actions on our children’s future and wide planetary concerns.
These are additional “outside the box” concerns beyond ecological sustainability or person-centered dimensions. It is a wider synthesizing view characteristic of many Cultural Creatives. This dimension tends to run Northwest vs. Southeast.

Neither Left Nor Right: This is the surprising last dimension, and apparently it is independent from the others because it is explicitly political. On the new and positive end of this scale, it amounts to rejecting the standard expression of political differences that Modern nations have used since the French Revolution. Some of this large population are genuinely independent of parties and positions and focus tightly on the merits of particular candidates. But others are alienated from the policies, the analyses and positions, and the political processes of both Left and Right.

While many seem quite unconscious about the sources of their dissatisfaction, others want new political parties to choose from, and some even want a new, more democratic politics. Many would agree with the statement, “I’d just like to see a Second party,” feeling that both parties have been bought by the same big money interests.

Negative scores on this dimension show those who still identify with either conventional liberal or conservative self-definitions, that is, with politics as is. This is part of what makes the North-South political dimension.

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Practical Political Implications - A New Strategic Analysis

New Political Compass™ based strategy mapping suggests that from the Reagan Eighties on, the Republicans have already adapted their strategies to key aspects of the political landscape revealed by the New Political Compass™ . Using lots of money for effective strategies to hold their base together and drive wedges between parts of the opposition, they have overcome what should have been a weak voter base.

On the other side, Democrats have not yet successfully adapted to cultural changes and the GOP’s strategies. See Appendix B - Ten Strategic Imperatives for a detailed discussion.

Political Compass™ strategy maps make it easy to see grand strategy by allowing both emerging issues and well-established issues to be mapped onto it, contrasting how various constituencies react. The model sharpens our view of both social categories such as race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation and demographic populations such as college-educated and blue-collar because we now are showing basic political beliefs. Both old and new strategies can be mapped onto this picture of the various constituencies, providing an instant overview of the political landscape. Since the territories displayed reflect important values and life priorities as well as political beliefs the map clarifies how campaign rhetoric and core issues must shift for various blocs of voters.

On the strategy map below, the four colors depict four sets of values and beliefs of voters. Republicans are working to get and hold voters in their natural constituency in the purple and blue territories, and to bring voters across the contested boundaries over to their side. Democrats should be doing the same for their natural constituencies in the red and green territories. Their greatest challenge is to respond to enough of what’s needed within the green territory of the New Progressives.

The map is laid out to reflect the following measurement scales: survey values increase moving out from the center toward the outer edges, indicating increasing intensity of interest in political issues. Those with the greatest intensity or energy, the zealots on whatever cause is represented fall at the periphery, while at the map’s center is zero, those with the least interest in political issues – the home of Non-voters.

Color intensity reflects affinity with the group, with the group core nestled around the vertical and horizontal axes reflected by more intense color and marginal constituents toward the diagonals reflected by paler color - the contested regions open to specifically designed appeals from both neighboring regions.

Those with a marketing background will recognize this map as similar to maps of consumer preferences that provide a clear picture of your current and potential markets compared to that of your competition.

As with consumer product preference mapping where the markets for each product are mapped, each major issue or political topic should similarly be mapped. The maps in Appendix A – Sample Issue Maps demonstrate such mapping, in this case that unmet demand for national education issues and global ecology issues comes from many of the same voters. They highlight that New Progressives (but not Liberals) can poach from Social Conservatives and can drive a wedge using these issues between Social Conservatives and Business Conservatives.

A Map of the Strategic Landscape

As we have scene, the picture drawn by the New Political Compass™ suggests four kinds of constituencies in politics, not two or three. Mapping campaign strategies onto voter blocs as territories gives an overall picture that is intuitively obvious to the political mind.

In bringing the big picture into focus, these maps offer a kind of election game-board, locating strategies and tactics in terms of the constituencies they affect along with descriptors of the nature of the intended effect. The location of your loyalists and potential constituents compared to those of your competitor becomes increasingly clear. Elections are won by holding and strengthening political territory and weakening your opponents.

A good map shows the strategically important features of the landscape and will suggest natural strategies, ones adapted to the shape of the overall strategic terrain. Yet very different strategies may be needed for different parts of the landscape. To guide campaign message strategies, it’s helpful to show how voters on each part of the map react to any particular issue and therefore, as stated previously, each important issue or theme should have its own map.

For an overview of any campaign’s strategy, an aggregate map can be made to display all the strategies in play at a given time. Other maps can show how a campaign should unfold over time, or compare the differences in different locales. Different election campaign strategies can more easily be compared and contrasted, often showing how to improve strategies.

Top Ten Strategic Imperatives

The map above displays ten strategic imperatives that are suggested by the shape of the landscape. Appendix B - Ten Strategic Imperatives provides the details of the initiatives as well as maps of both Republican and Democratic strategies based on these imperatives. The map shows 5 “core” strategic imperatives, designed to hold one’s own constituency, weaken the other side, draw nonvoters into voting and induce the other side’s marginal voters not to vote. It also shows 5 “edge” strategic imperatives to ‘poach’ votes from the other side, drive wedges between conflicting groups within the other side, and defend against wedge attacks.

All ten strategic imperatives come in matched pairs for Democrats and Republicans; a gain for one side is a loss for the other. These are strategic imperatives because both Republicans and Democrats need to develop strategies that apply to each part of the terrain.

Reviewing the list of Strategic Imperatives and the four strategic maps in Appendix B - Ten Strategic Imperatives, will bring forth a powerful truth of today’s politics:

Republicans have succeeded in all ten strategic imperatives and Democrats are not successfully countering Republicans in any of these same strategic areas.

The Core strategies are depicted as numbers 1 through 5 on the map above. They work by strengthening the solidarity and energy of the political base or core constituency, and weakening your opponent’s political base. They are designed to cultivate and hold the loyalties of those who ought to be in your territory - the kinds of voters, or customers, who most like what you have to offer, or get the most benefit. Politically, this requires being able to energize constituents at helpful times. You can depress turnout and contributions for the other side by alienating them from your opponent’s stances, by weakening their morale, integration, or energy level within their territory - voter blocs, or kinds of customers, who could never be yours, even if you appeal directly to them. Core strategies also require defense of your main constituencies from the other side’s depredations. Core strategies also require Get Out The Vote efforts both for your main constituents and for nonvoters.

Based on Political Compass statistics, the Democrats Number One strategic imperative is to create a core constituency strategy for New Progressives. Democrats desperately need to recognize and recruit this 45% of likely voters. Unifying and mobilizing this relatively unorganized population is the single biggest gain the Democrats can make in politics.

New Progressives must become the Democrats new political base and this means Political North will be the biggest battleground in politics moving forward.

This ought to be the leading effort and central strategy for both parties. Democrats have everything to gain if they can pull it off, while Republicans have everything to lose should the Democrats succeed. Republicans will try to weaken, dishearten, fragment and even try to recruit from the Political North—and they are already succeeding with media disinformation campaigns.

Edge strategies are shown as numbers 6 through 10 on the map above. They work in the contested regions along the diagonals. They are designed for less loyal, potentially swing, voters and marginal constituencies. Again, these are matched pairs: a gain for one side is a loss for the other. Edge strategies seek to drive a “wedge” between voter groups who are natural allies on some issues while opposed on others. These strategies often depend on hatreds and prejudices that grow out of old ethnic and racial conflicts, or past rivalries for the same economic benefits. They are shown as numbers 6, 8 and 10 for both sides. Republicans play the race card, while Democrats need economic wedges aimed at vested interests that divide Wall Street from Main Street. A wedge’s mirror opposite is ameliorating internal conflicts among your constituents, papering over splits over limited resources, or offering other benefits in place of ones they can’t have to hold conflicting voter groups together; or it may be damage repair, “sewing back together” groups that have been wedged or split. Such strategies operate at the margins of natural groupings, and may not result in a gain in votes, even if the other side loses them.

“Poaching” strategies are shown as numbers 7 and 9 for both Democrats and Republicans. They are designed to attract marginal constituent populations to your side from the edge of your territory, which usually means they share some beliefs or interests with your core group but disagree on others. Such strategies seek to take marginal voter groups away from your opponent by moving into the territory they hold, often by reframing your appeal, by adopting some key positions or programs of the opposing party as your own, or by directly buying off some groups with pork or other bribes. The mirror opposite is defense of your constituents from the blandishments of the other side, by offering them multiple program benefits, rather than just one, or offering purely symbolic benefits (flag burning laws, prayer in schools, etc.) and by trying to shore up a cultural identity of “our side versus theirs,” so one would never think of going over to “the other side.”

Emerging Issues and Edge Strategies

Issues such as ecological sustainability, national health care and national education, discussed earlier as key issue for Political North are major opportunities to introduce both constituency-building strategies and wedge issues into the campaigns of progressive Democrats. Emerging political demand for global ecology issues, national health care, and national education can be leveraged to form a winning coalition unified across the Political North.

The maps in Appendix A – Sample Issue Maps offer examples of how to re-connect and mobilize not only Liberals and New Progressives but also more moderate Social Conservatives. Platforms, programs and messaging built using New Progressive language offer Democrats a path toward creation of a new core constituency. Strong edge strategies are obvious with this kind of mapping: For example, a Blue-Green jobs-and-energy program such as Apollo Alliance (http://www.ApolloAlliance.com) makes allies of unions, Liberals and New Progressives. It can also re-unify the Northeast for the Democrats allowing culturally conservative New Progressives to connect with moderate Social Conservatives who share the same concerns. Taken together, ecology, health and education programs can re-build the linkage that Bill Clinton made in this quadrant. It will require very careful framing with ads to different groups, challenging, but eminently doable. All three issues can be paired with initiatives to drive a wedge between Big Business Conservatives and some of the more open, less ideological Social Conservatives.

The ultra-conservatives’ success over the past 25 years is not luck, it’s the result of skillful adaptation to “facts on the ground;” an ability to create grand strategies for structural change and to pursue them for long periods of time. After the 1964 Goldwater debacle, the political and religious right needed to learn how to hold their social and business conservative coalition together. By the Reagan era they’d taken over the Republican party, depriving many of its own moderates of power. Conservative strategists developed a host of wedge issues to weaken the more numerous Democrats, starting with that old reliable Southernism, the race card. They’ve done this successfully for 20 years.

The success of the far-right also reflects their willingness to invest in large think tanks to pump new ideas and rhetoric into their party, to follow a disciplined conservative party line in the media their supporters have bought, and to maintain a strong party organization between elections using a corporate management style.

The New Political Compass™ not only maps the opportunities to link voters across the Political North, but it also shows how to drive strong wedges into the heart of the Conservative alliance. These opportunities make it essential to develop a complete platform based on the Political North. The model offers easy-to-visualize and easy-to-create political campaigns and programs to support such strategies and it will help research identify meaningful issues to further the effort.

Progressive Democrats have already begun to match some of the techniques of the opposition by funding new think tanks such as Podesta’s Center for American Progress (http://www.americanprogress.org) and media outlets such as Air America Radio (http://www.AirAmericaRadio.com).

There is also tremendous opportunity in the grassroots organizing foundation laid by the Dean for America campaign and being nurtured by it successor organization, Democracy for America (http://www.DemocracyforAmerica.com) as well as a range of progressive non-profits including ACT (America Coming Together - http://www.americacomingtogether.com), 21st Century Democrats, (http://www.21stcenturydems.org), America Votes, (http://www.americavotes.org), My Vote is My Voice (http://www.myvoteismyvoice.com), Progressive Democrats of America (http://www.pdamerica.org/) and Grassroots for America (http://www.grassrootsforamerica.us).

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Epilogue

We are today in the midst of an attempt by Business Conservatives at a hostile takeover of the Polity being opposed by New Progressives. Things could go very badly should Political South succeed in this attempt. There is truly no time to lose in our efforts to turn the tide and regain the initiative. The New Political Compass ™ offers a valuable aid enabling us to reframe the challenge and take definitive action towards restoring balance to our political institutions and our democracy.

While a somewhat unsatisfactory dry-run, the Presidential campaigns of both Howard Dean and John Edwards provide ample evidence that there really is something here. Gov. Dean’s campaign in particular motivated large numbers of self-reported apolitical volunteers. Posts to the Dean for America Blog were replete with comments such as “I’ve never contributed to a campaign before…” and “this is the first time I’ve felt like voting matters.” If anything, the Dean and Edwards campaigns’ ability to tap into the long-suffering, unsatisfied demand of Political North, is all the more impressive as they did so without the benefit and clarity of the New Political Compass™.

Moving forward, progressive Democratic candidates and progressive political organizations have a huge opportunity to learn from the successes and shortcomings of the Dean and Edwards campaigns and take advantage of the concepts and model presented in this paper - as well as the people behind it - to stop the hostile takeover of our democracy.

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Appendix A – Sample Issue Maps

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Appendix B - 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

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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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

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Appendix C - Frequently Asked Questions

“If this change has been building up for so long, then why hasn’t politics already adapted to it? Where are the New Progressive politicians?” And close on the heels of that is, “If this analysis works, then why do so many corporate sponsored candidates continue to be elected?”

The Social Change Analysis

Let’s start by giving this some context. Really big cultural change never happens instantaneously, but over decades. And for any institutions to change in response, it takes a lot of planning and visible effort, especially in practical politics. A change in the underlying culture that supports political action won’t show up as new programs, laws, and elected officials until the new political demand has been publicly articulated, and recognized by officials, and then addressed with expensive political strategies in elections.

You haven't seen Cultural Creatives or Political North politicians getting into office, because this way of perceiving political reality is a new research finding that is just starting a political change process among progressives. You are getting to see it early.

Progressive and socially innovative politicians and political analysts need to learn how to take advantage of what I've just written. And when they talk with me about this research, they're very clear that they need new strategies and tactics like the above to do it. Some have already taken up this problem. This historical change analysis complements the strategies above.

Here’s an analogy for how changing political demand is actually turned into changing political results. It’s as if there has to be a match of political supply and demand before potential voters will “spend” their vote with a party or its candidates.

Political supply could be found in the form of promises, programs, laws, appealing potential leaders and a direction for the country (or state or locality) that fits a certain sense of public identity. These “political goods” are offered by politicians and parties to us citizens at a “price” — an acceptable level of taxes, legal constraints on behavior. But here the analogy departs from an economic market. Nothing happens until there are political mobilization efforts trying to induce people to act as public-interested citizens, not merely as consumers, so that they’ll participate in politics.

Part of the political supply process is naming and articulating important general public issues and values that constitute the public interest. But it’s also aiming to satisfy each voter group’s particular and often very self-centered interests. The six dimensions of change show there has been continuing change in their underlying values, perceptions of what’s publicly important, and “what’s in it for me, or for my kids.”

In the face of all that change, then political supply must change to match those new wants, or specific groups no longer respond to offers. Failing to change what is supplied is failing to keep up with changing times. It loses elections: just a few at first, and then it can be part of long term political decline. That’s happened to Republicans in the Thirties, Forties and Sixties, and to the Democrats in the Eighties and Nineties.

Political demand is not effective demand if it stays at the level of personal views privately expressed among friends. Unlike economic demand, political demand must become part of a publicly expressed position. It must be spoken out in public by someone, and be articulated in terms of recognizable public themes and voters’ self interests. But with these cultural changes, three political demand problems emerged:

1. The conventional political distinctions, rhetoric and imagery used in public often stop working for many voters, so more conventional campaigns start failing to arouse enthusiasm, and can’t speak to the new issues many voters want to see addressed. Distrust builds up when voters see political officials as no longer representing their interests. Negative campaigns often heap disgust on distrust.
2. During the process of governance in between elections, the old hard-fought consensus among political animals about what’s up for negotiation and what isn’t will define many emerging issues as “outside the box” of practical politics —as practiced within the old consensus. When millions start seeing things the way the movements do, which is exactly what has happened, then they become frustrated disbelievers in politics.
3. The decline of retail politics and the rise of TV-based politics means that more and more, the elected officials get out of touch with major segments of the population, and allow their issues to go untended. They simply lack the needed face to face contact, and chances to hear emerging issues. And with the growing money chase, they also lack the time. To many voters, the Democrats and the Republicans seem to resemble wings of the same party. So it is that many frustrated citizens come to disbelieve all politicians’ rhetoric and promises.

All of these show precisely why we’ve had 40 years of new social movements: the movements are ‘politics by other means.’

Theoretically, adding up the votes in an election will result in someone getting elected who approximates the views and desires of a majority of voters, if not all citizens. But not if too many citizens dissent because of the way political supply has failed to keep up with the times! The emerging new political demand cannot be recognized by an election process until it is energized and turned into activity centered on candidates and the election.

The ability of the Religious Right to generate election volunteers gives it an outsize role in the Republican party. The failure of new social movements to give the same gift to the Democrats is a major failure on their part. Movements can also try to influence, or sling sharp elbows, in the ongoing daily governance process, by some new kind of lobbying or vocal citizen pressures that are able to counteract big money lobbyists. Legislatures and governors seem far better at recognizing big money, the well-connected law firms it hires, or big organizations, however.

One of the few new examples of successful citizen pressure is MoveOn.org’s Internet activities, both in fundraising and in barraging governmental offices with new email appeals. Though it’s the fundraising that has impressed politicians far more than the emails, both show a growing power.

Social movement activity can only be turned into effective demand in two kinds of ways: people power and money power. People power gathers votes, protests, and energizes citizen volunteer efforts. Money power uses professional campaign efforts paid for by contributions/bribes, usually originating in the corporate world, but also in the conservative donor world. The growth of advertising expenditures for campaigns put the Democrats in a bind, because they could not do without the same big money flows from the same sources that supported Republicans. The money chase has grown so large that it leaves both parties in a position of having to pay more attention to lobbyists than ever, and all the time, not just in getting ready for campaigns.

When new citizens’ views flowed from new social movement concerns from the Eighties on, that had the potential to aid the Democrats. But their obligations to big money lobbyists and contributors separated them from their natural movement allies. The Democratic party neither mobilized the movements, nor responded as well as it might have in the Eighties and Nineties. Many of their problems grew out of the 1972 reforms that weakened central party control over funding. Individual politicians were hamstrung from recognizing the people power potential of movements because they were far too busy chasing campaign dollars in an ‘every man for himself’ process. And the more they locked in on the money chase, the less they could ally with the movements.

Big Money’s clout was crucial to the opponents of social movements, when many corporations used the Reagan-Bush political support to fight off movement demands. Big Money acquired the power to declare the movements’ alternative views as ‘outside the box’ in two ways: In the Nineties, the far right foundations spent one billion dollars on developing new ideologies, concepts, programs and legislation for the Republican conservatives to use, aided by their creation of new far right media. Right wing think tanks have been rising in inside-the-Beltway influence for 20 years.

Second, Big Money not only owned the Republican party, but bought off many Democratic politicians. In effect, the New Democrats made it official that most of the party was “friendly to big business” and its money. Individual Democrats felt they had to match Republican money power at election time to stay competitive for TV ad time. Meanwhile they lost track of people power in retail politics, and lost track of the emerging politics of Political North. And the role of the New Democrats by no means gave a central strategic focus to the party. What looked like a strategic move to ‘the center’, turned out to be only short term palliatives: survival strategies for individual politicians that turned out to create a longer term decline for the party as a whole.

A big part of the reason for this decline, as we’ve seen, is that the “center” evolved beyond merely being confused, independent or cross-pressured swing voters. To speak to the culture of the Political North may well mean reformulating many issues in new language, using strong, definite views that oppose the business conservatives and their big corporate money. Will the current crop of Democratic politicians take that risk?

Conservative thinktanks crank out a full set of ideological rationales for the collection of issues Big Money will benefit from, and hand them off to Republicans. They in turn take direction from Big Money in all elections and seasons of governance. It’s both looting the treasury and weakening of democracy. Republicans work hard on symbolically placate social conservatives, but we are fast becoming a plutocracy, where Big Money votes its dollars.

For Democrats to successfully appeal to Political North’s voters will take a lot of effort. Winning elections requires them to create and overmatch whatever capability the Republicans created, in a kind of arms race. For example, Clinton’s “fast response” campaign capability was mimicked and improved upon by the Republicans. That is now simply a ticket to play in the game.

Democrats have not yet copied the far-right’s network of thinktanks, but it’s now a necessity. The Political Compass may let the Democrats get the lead for a while if it is matched up with new thinktank strategic research and analysis, and better messaging.

Strategic research isn’t quickie polls. Everyone recognizes the dysfunction of the system, but can’t yet see its links to change in the political culture, because slow motion changes can’t be seen in quickie polls. Until those pollsters develop values-sensitive measures they can’t show this picture of the Political Compass. Meanwhile, the current generation of Democrats gets ever farther out of alignment with many of their potential constituents, and tend to talk from, and defend, an ever more obsolete stance.

Getting out of alignment can make earthquakes in both the political and geological worlds. Earthquakes are the result of two great plates of the earth’s crust slowly moving past each other, often where one is moving and the other is not. One set of rocks has tried to slide past the other but has gotten stuck. After a huge amount of strain piles up, finally the rocks crumble and the energy is suddenly released, making the shock of an earthquake. The worst of the big quakes are subduction quakes where one layer of rock strata is moving under another, so that truly huge shock waves are set off when the strain gets unstuck and the earth’s crust lurches to a new position. Isn’t that our under-over stuckness in politics? Unheard voters are under political and money elites.

The stuckness of our present political system is reinforced by the fact that over 90% of legislators are in safe districts, using the power of incumbency to rig the game their way and avoid change. Most got there by kowtowing to big donors and articulating the (incorrect) conventional wisdom. Few will change until they are directly challenged in a campaign, then they'll try to play catch-up. Only a few will then learn fast enough. Political change will be a big lurch, and often somebody’s catastrophe.

The first strategic issue in political change is that until the issues of Political North are aggregated and argued in national political campaigns, privately held personal opinion has not been turned into public opinion that gets debated in public forums. That probably won’t happen until we mobilize the Political North through a political party. As that occurs, and/or this analysis is seen by new potential candidates, new leaders will then come forth. This New Political Compass™ article can give underdog candidates a new way to see their constituents, and a new way to pose their campaign arguments. As they succeed, a tipping point effect will take over, and an avalanche can occur. Either a new wing of the Democratic party takes power, or it falls apart, and some new political party appears.

The second strategic issue is the role of big money in campaigns. It is now dominant for both parties: I’d guess 80% of the money in politics comes from the Political South, business conservatives, which is a major factor in the conservative tilt of our political landscape. TV ads sop up most of that cash. The fairness doctrine has been scrapped, and yet TV stations have a charter allowing them to use the public airwaves for free. If for example, we required stations and networks to carry a large percent of all political debates and campaigns for free or a nominal charge, as nearly all European democracies do, a lot of that money power would be unnecessary.

In fact TV ads are starting to go down in value, because people are turned off by them, but the entire machinery of political parties and political fundraising is built around a money politics that serves that reality. Big Money will dominate until that changes. Today, more expensive (if hired) methods are being reinvented to update 50 year old retail politics approaches. It’s still not enough. Retail politics had more impact, because you talked to people, face to face, one-on-one. People-power politics favors Political North, because volunteers become important. This is why historically, the unions were so powerful in the Democrat party — lots of volunteer labor. People-power approaches bring back 'retail politics,' one-on-one contact, as opposed to 'wholesale', TV ads.

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Appendix D - Distinctive Values and Opinions of the North’s New Progressives

The data below 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 opinions 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 (Somewhat or Strongly) /Disagree	Agree	Disagree
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%

Note: Opinions on issues are more open to new information, and thus change faster than values, because they are not as deeply 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%

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%

(03/20/05 - More data will be added to this document shortly....)

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