Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Book reading: What's the matter with Kansas?

Politics & Prose advertised the event like this:

Monday, December 6, 7 p.m.
Thomas Frank
What's the Matter With Kansas? (How Conservatives Won the Heart of America)
(Holt, $24)
Why do the people of Kansas, who openly embraced abolition, populism, and socialism, now vote conservative? "Even as Republican economic policy laid waste to the city's industries, unions, and neighborhoods, the townsfolk responded by lashing out on cultural issues..." Frank blames many factors, including Democratic fundraising objectives that target affluent professionals.

Several hundred people all packed in the bookstore - standing room only. Lots of Dems wanted to know how the heck they lost the last election. Frank was very entertaining.

And the usually-liberal and talkative question-makers in the crowd were, as per usual, outrageously self-absorbed in their diatribes-posing-as-questions to Frank. Un-fucking-believable, these people.

This event was supposed to have been filmed by CSPAN, but I didn't find a link for it on the CSPAN site. I did, however, find this CSPAN link to Frank's appearance on Washington Journal.

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