MACHO DEMS. The estimable Ryan Lizza had a piece in yesterday's New York Times Week in Review section about "the return of the Alpha Male Democrat" -- the trend this past election cycle of Democratic candidates boasting "carefully crafted masculinity." Back in June, Francis Wilkinson wrote a cover story for the print Prospect on the same trend but with more swear words. There are more serious things one could say about both pieces, but I remain a bit skeptical that there's any real trend to speak of here. How many of these guys actually bear substantive views that might put them at real odds with other, "girlier" parts of the party? This strikes me as another example of folks making poor Heath Shuler bear more weight of representation and significance on his shoulders than is really warranted.
There's a fickleness to trend pieces, particularly ones based on somewhat airy male/female dualisms: I recall the New York Times trend piece from last March, "Women Wage Key Campaigns for Democrats," about how the midterms would mark "the revenge of the mommy party" and how "Democratic strategists are betting that the voters' unrest and hunger for change -- reflected consistently in public opinion polls -- create the perfect conditions for their party's female candidates this year." (One of the strategists named and quoted in that piece was Rahm Emanuel, the same guy now pegged, and quoted, by Lizza as an "architect" of the concerted macho Dem recruitment strategy.) Now, it's true (as Lizza points out) that the Democrats' female candidates ended up doing comparably poorly in November, but I still think the evidence for any serious dynamic here one way or another is skimpy.
--Sam Rosenfeld
