MAYBE WE NEEDED TO ENGAGE IN ELEVEN-DIMENSIONAL HIPPIE-PUNCH INDUCING
Given the Democrats' complete capitulation on Bush's tax cuts for the rich, I think today was a perfect day for this expression of frustration -- though it's got me thinking about what we may have done wrong the past two years:
Top Obama adviser David Axelrod got an earful of the liberal blogosphere's anger at the White House moments ago, when a blogger on a conference call directly called out Axelrod over White House criticism of the left, accusing the administration of "hippie punching."
... [The] tension burst out into the open when [Susan] Madrak [of Crooks and Liars] directly asked Axelrod: "Have you ever heard of hippie punching?" That prompted a long silence from Axelrod.
"You want us to help you, the first thing I would suggest is enough of the hippie punching," Madrak added. "We're the girl you'll take under the bleachers but you won't be seen with in the light of day." ...
In the past, I've argued that the Obama White House screwed up in its battles with Republicans by not staking out positions very far to the left -- for example, demanding a stimulus twice the amount Paul Krugman was recommending -- so the "centrist compromise" would still be something genuinely progressive.
But I'm thinking now that maybe I was wishing for that from the wrong people. Maybe we lefties were the ones who should have been making demands very, very far to the left of even what we would have been satisfied with (which we know was far to the left of what the White House wanted). That way, the White House could have the exquisite satisfaction of punching us hippies, thwarting our non-negotiable demands for, say, a health-care system run by Castroite Cubans and financed by a 99% tax on all investment income over $1 million a year, or the death penalty for anyone caught engaging in mortgage fraud.
Maybe if we all agreed on that strategy we'd have been rebuffed and punished, as the administration, calling us crazy, settled for a health-care system that "merely" had a public option, or a mortgage program that actually helped some struggling mortgagees, or a stimulus program that actually created enough jobs and wealth to get unemployment to tick down a tenth or two of a percent, while concluding with satisfaction that we crazy hippies had been well and truly punched.
It's just a thought.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
THE TAX-CUT BATTLE IS OVER, AND THE RICH WON
Because Democratic Blue Dogs are blithering idiots, the Senate and the House have given up on the idea of voting now on extending the Bush tax cuts for just the middle-class and not the rich. Jonathan Chait calls this "the Curl Up In A Fetal Position Plan" as well as "political suicide," and he's right, obviously, on both counts.
But it's more than that. It means the battle to try to end the tax cuts for the rich is over, right now, and the GOP won.
Why? Because a partial extension of the cuts is not going to pass in a post-midterms lame-duck session, either. That's because the races for Democratic Senate seats in Illinois, West Virginia, Colorado, Delaware, as well as Kirsten Gillibrand's race to hold her seat in New York, are all special elections -- which means that the winners will all be seated for the lame-duck session, not in January 2011. Delaware looks solid for the Dems now, but Illinois, West Virginia, and Colorado are all tough races -- and Gillibrand's race might be tight as well. It's quite likely that the GOP's 41-59 "superminority" will be up to52 or 53 42 or 43 for the lame-duck session.
And beyond that, what do you think -- that terrified, cowardly Blue Dogs are going to develop more political courage after an election cycle in which their party suffers losses than they have now? Give me a break. Even if Republicans fall short and fail to gain either house, they'll spin what wins they have as a huge victory and a huge mandate -- and Beltway conventional wisdom mongers will concur. And that will weaken Blue Dogs' spines even more.
So forget it. It's over.The rich won.
****
In comments, Chris asks:
So if nothing happens, the rich's taxes go up more than anyone elses. How'd they win?
But that's not what will happen. Obviously the GOP is going to shout and scream and throw feces and demand what it will deem one of two acceptable options: a permanent extension of all cuts or a one- or two-year extension. And one of these will pass. And if it's the temporary extension, the renewal will come up before the very Congress these midterms are going to elect, meaning it will be an even more Republican Congress than the one in the lame-duck session. So the tax cuts for the rich will be made permanent then.
Because Democratic Blue Dogs are blithering idiots, the Senate and the House have given up on the idea of voting now on extending the Bush tax cuts for just the middle-class and not the rich. Jonathan Chait calls this "the Curl Up In A Fetal Position Plan" as well as "political suicide," and he's right, obviously, on both counts.
But it's more than that. It means the battle to try to end the tax cuts for the rich is over, right now, and the GOP won.
Why? Because a partial extension of the cuts is not going to pass in a post-midterms lame-duck session, either. That's because the races for Democratic Senate seats in Illinois, West Virginia, Colorado, Delaware, as well as Kirsten Gillibrand's race to hold her seat in New York, are all special elections -- which means that the winners will all be seated for the lame-duck session, not in January 2011. Delaware looks solid for the Dems now, but Illinois, West Virginia, and Colorado are all tough races -- and Gillibrand's race might be tight as well. It's quite likely that the GOP's 41-59 "superminority" will be up to
And beyond that, what do you think -- that terrified, cowardly Blue Dogs are going to develop more political courage after an election cycle in which their party suffers losses than they have now? Give me a break. Even if Republicans fall short and fail to gain either house, they'll spin what wins they have as a huge victory and a huge mandate -- and Beltway conventional wisdom mongers will concur. And that will weaken Blue Dogs' spines even more.
So forget it. It's over.The rich won.
****
In comments, Chris asks:
So if nothing happens, the rich's taxes go up more than anyone elses. How'd they win?
But that's not what will happen. Obviously the GOP is going to shout and scream and throw feces and demand what it will deem one of two acceptable options: a permanent extension of all cuts or a one- or two-year extension. And one of these will pass. And if it's the temporary extension, the renewal will come up before the very Congress these midterms are going to elect, meaning it will be an even more Republican Congress than the one in the lame-duck session. So the tax cuts for the rich will be made permanent then.
Remobilizing the Demobilized
This is basically a comment I made over at Balloon Juice but as I was writing it I realized it was something I've been meaning to write about for a very long time. The picture to accompany it, oddly enough, was alluded to today over at Atrios' place. I always hated it for what it seemed to be telling the electorate, but I hadn't quite worked out why. But here it is: Obama and the Dems demobilized their troops and sent them home before the job was half done, hell--before it was even begun. And we are paying for it now. Over at BJ the conversation springs off of the question "Tea Party: Real or Fake?" I think that's an interesting question principally because I have wondered for a long time how to get real progressive issues and people in front of the camera long enough for an actual, real, progressive version of a third party--or hell even of the Democratic Party--to get some traction with the media. But it never seems to happen--I mean not since Haymarket or the Wobblies or the old Union strikes. There are a gazillion reasons for this historically having to do both with our media markets, corporate interests, and etc...but at the present moment it definitely arises from two phenomena: the media and the Democratic Party.
REVOLT OF THE HAVES (WITH PENISES)
Another poll -- this one from SurveyUSA and a couple of media outlets in western New York State -- shows Andrew Cuomo with only a single-digit lead over id-driven racist Carl Paladino. But Paladino's numbers aren't improving evenly across all groups:
The poll shows Cuomo with 49% of the vote. Paladino has 40%. Eight percent said they would vote for another candidate and three percent were still undecided....
Lower-income voters account for all of Cuomo's lead.
The contest is effectively even among middle-income and upper-income voters....
Consistent with SurveyUSA polling in other statewide races: men in 2010 are voting Republican, women in 2010 are voting Democrat; there is a 34-point gender gap for Governor.
So the tea party movement is all about economic anxiety ... except that in this case, the actual poor aren't drinking the tea.
And I'm not the least bit surprised at this huge gender gap. There's a 23-point gender gap in the much-discussed Quinnipiac poll of this race, the one that shows Cuomo's lead shrinking to 6. And over in Jersey there's a 40-point gender gap in the approval ratings of the loutish, Paladino-esque governor, Chris Christie -- men dig him, 63%-27%, while women disapprove, 40%-44%, according to Quinnipiac.
I know I'm wildly oversimplifying if I lump middle-class men (who obviously have legitimate reasons for economic anxiety) in with rich men (who, in this society, never suffer no matter how bad things get) -- but I can't help thinking that this is similar to the "Wall Street is peeved at Obama" phenomenon, which is an overwhelmingly male phenomenon, deriving from an overwhelmingly male culture. Hey, Obama, you disrespected us!
I can't help thinking that, if Sarah Palin loses her mojo somewhat, or if she starts showing a lack of interest in political office, the "Mama Grizzly" thing might be relegated to the right's scrap heap and the GOP might start running blatantly macho, trash-talking louts all over America, blowing off female voters and not giving a crap.
****
UPDATE: Or maybe the gender and personal style of the candidates don't matter -- in Delaware, I see that (according to CNN's pollsters) Democrat Chris Coons, the guy who's running against perky, girly Christine O'Donnell,
holds a nearly two to one advantage among female voters, and takes 49 percent of the male vote to O'Donnell's 46 percent.
So that's about a 30-point gender gap. I don't know if that means O'Donnell is stirring up male teabaggers on a hubba-hubba level; I think it's more that the rage-against-the-socialist-machine message is the kind of metal that men love to crank up.
****
UPDATE, 9/28: Welcome, Balloon Juice readers. I just want to add that Quinnipiac is reporting another gender gap: in the Connecticut Senate race, Democrat Richard Blumenthal leads by 17 points among women, while wrestling queen Linda McMahon leads by 8 among men. That's a 25-point gap.
Another poll -- this one from SurveyUSA and a couple of media outlets in western New York State -- shows Andrew Cuomo with only a single-digit lead over id-driven racist Carl Paladino. But Paladino's numbers aren't improving evenly across all groups:
The poll shows Cuomo with 49% of the vote. Paladino has 40%. Eight percent said they would vote for another candidate and three percent were still undecided....
Lower-income voters account for all of Cuomo's lead.
The contest is effectively even among middle-income and upper-income voters....
Consistent with SurveyUSA polling in other statewide races: men in 2010 are voting Republican, women in 2010 are voting Democrat; there is a 34-point gender gap for Governor.
So the tea party movement is all about economic anxiety ... except that in this case, the actual poor aren't drinking the tea.
And I'm not the least bit surprised at this huge gender gap. There's a 23-point gender gap in the much-discussed Quinnipiac poll of this race, the one that shows Cuomo's lead shrinking to 6. And over in Jersey there's a 40-point gender gap in the approval ratings of the loutish, Paladino-esque governor, Chris Christie -- men dig him, 63%-27%, while women disapprove, 40%-44%, according to Quinnipiac.
I know I'm wildly oversimplifying if I lump middle-class men (who obviously have legitimate reasons for economic anxiety) in with rich men (who, in this society, never suffer no matter how bad things get) -- but I can't help thinking that this is similar to the "Wall Street is peeved at Obama" phenomenon, which is an overwhelmingly male phenomenon, deriving from an overwhelmingly male culture. Hey, Obama, you disrespected us!
I can't help thinking that, if Sarah Palin loses her mojo somewhat, or if she starts showing a lack of interest in political office, the "Mama Grizzly" thing might be relegated to the right's scrap heap and the GOP might start running blatantly macho, trash-talking louts all over America, blowing off female voters and not giving a crap.
****
UPDATE: Or maybe the gender and personal style of the candidates don't matter -- in Delaware, I see that (according to CNN's pollsters) Democrat Chris Coons, the guy who's running against perky, girly Christine O'Donnell,
holds a nearly two to one advantage among female voters, and takes 49 percent of the male vote to O'Donnell's 46 percent.
So that's about a 30-point gender gap. I don't know if that means O'Donnell is stirring up male teabaggers on a hubba-hubba level; I think it's more that the rage-against-the-socialist-machine message is the kind of metal that men love to crank up.
****
UPDATE, 9/28: Welcome, Balloon Juice readers. I just want to add that Quinnipiac is reporting another gender gap: in the Connecticut Senate race, Democrat Richard Blumenthal leads by 17 points among women, while wrestling queen Linda McMahon leads by 8 among men. That's a 25-point gap.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
WHAT?! NO PLEDGE TO TEAR ACORN MEMBERS LIMB FROM LIMB?
Some of the reaction on the right to the GOP's "Pledge to America" is surprisingly negative. And I don't mean just Erick Erickson, who was bashing the damn thing even before it came out ("what will be missing will make it a wasted exercise by a party that still shows little sign of getting exactly why it lost power in 2006") and now declares it "Perhaps the Most Ridiculous Thing to Come Out of Washington Since George McClellan" ("it is full of mom tested, kid approved pablum that will make certain hearts on the right sing in solidarity. But like a diet full of sugar, it will actually do nothing but keep making Washington fatter before we crash from the sugar high"). This Freeper laments that the text of the Pledge wasn't literally taken from Barry Goldwater. Commenters in this Freep thread grumble:
Just pieces of paper. I don't care what it says, only what they do.
****
This is encouraging, but the real way to go is what Mark Levin said (pretty sure it was him), which was that the pledge to Americans should simply be to uphold the Constitution as intended by the framers.
****
Strikes me as establishment pandering......gives Dems a moving target at wrong time....
Doug Ross echoes Levin in responding to the tedious document:
21 pages? How about starting with two words: THE CONSTITUTION?
(Sudden thought: When do we start calling this "constitutional fundamentalism"? It almost seems as if right-wingers have substituted this for religious fundamentalism -- namely, an interpretation of a sacred text, formerly the Bible, now the Constitution, that jibes with their political prejudices, but which they think is a strictly literal reading.)
Oh, and Ross goes on to demand a more red-meat version of the dull manifesto:
• We will repeal the Democrat health care bill and, if vetoed by the President, will de-fund every aspect of that bill until such time as the American people have input into a sensible health care reform process.
• We will slash the size of the federal government bureaucracies (Commerce, Education, Energy, the EPA, Labor, etc.) by 20% in 2011 with a goal of reducing each by 50% over the next three years, thereby saving hundreds of billions of dollars.
• We will secure the border with physical fencing suitable to repel drug smugglers, human smugglers, and terrorists, while encouraging legal immigration and enforcement of the law.
• We will confront the entitlement crisis -- Social Security and Medicare -- by preserving benefits for those who depend upon them and moving to privatized options for younger workers. Anything less condemns future generations to mountains of debt and economic catastrophe.
• We will strengthen our armed forces, space and missile defense programs to retain our unparalleled superpower status.
• We will begin the process of paying down our debts, spending within our means every year.
• We will ban public sector unions, which exist solely to wage war against the taxpayers who fund their operations.
That's not as bloody as the usual winger red meat, but at least it talks about hurting people (unions, border crossers, etc.). The real Pledge seems to promise hurt only to Obama and Democrats. Real conservatives hate way more people than that!
I think substitute Pledges are going to be generated all over the wingnutosphere, and they'll get bloodier and bloodier.
I'm not saying the actual Pledge is weak tea -- it's a scary legislative agenda, although it's the same agenda Republicans have been talking about for a year (essentially, a rollback of the entire Obama presidency and lots of tax and spending cuts). But there's not enough hate in it.
Some of the reaction on the right to the GOP's "Pledge to America" is surprisingly negative. And I don't mean just Erick Erickson, who was bashing the damn thing even before it came out ("what will be missing will make it a wasted exercise by a party that still shows little sign of getting exactly why it lost power in 2006") and now declares it "Perhaps the Most Ridiculous Thing to Come Out of Washington Since George McClellan" ("it is full of mom tested, kid approved pablum that will make certain hearts on the right sing in solidarity. But like a diet full of sugar, it will actually do nothing but keep making Washington fatter before we crash from the sugar high"). This Freeper laments that the text of the Pledge wasn't literally taken from Barry Goldwater. Commenters in this Freep thread grumble:
Just pieces of paper. I don't care what it says, only what they do.
****
This is encouraging, but the real way to go is what Mark Levin said (pretty sure it was him), which was that the pledge to Americans should simply be to uphold the Constitution as intended by the framers.
****
Strikes me as establishment pandering......gives Dems a moving target at wrong time....
Doug Ross echoes Levin in responding to the tedious document:
21 pages? How about starting with two words: THE CONSTITUTION?
(Sudden thought: When do we start calling this "constitutional fundamentalism"? It almost seems as if right-wingers have substituted this for religious fundamentalism -- namely, an interpretation of a sacred text, formerly the Bible, now the Constitution, that jibes with their political prejudices, but which they think is a strictly literal reading.)
Oh, and Ross goes on to demand a more red-meat version of the dull manifesto:
• We will repeal the Democrat health care bill and, if vetoed by the President, will de-fund every aspect of that bill until such time as the American people have input into a sensible health care reform process.
• We will slash the size of the federal government bureaucracies (Commerce, Education, Energy, the EPA, Labor, etc.) by 20% in 2011 with a goal of reducing each by 50% over the next three years, thereby saving hundreds of billions of dollars.
• We will secure the border with physical fencing suitable to repel drug smugglers, human smugglers, and terrorists, while encouraging legal immigration and enforcement of the law.
• We will confront the entitlement crisis -- Social Security and Medicare -- by preserving benefits for those who depend upon them and moving to privatized options for younger workers. Anything less condemns future generations to mountains of debt and economic catastrophe.
• We will strengthen our armed forces, space and missile defense programs to retain our unparalleled superpower status.
• We will begin the process of paying down our debts, spending within our means every year.
• We will ban public sector unions, which exist solely to wage war against the taxpayers who fund their operations.
That's not as bloody as the usual winger red meat, but at least it talks about hurting people (unions, border crossers, etc.). The real Pledge seems to promise hurt only to Obama and Democrats. Real conservatives hate way more people than that!
I think substitute Pledges are going to be generated all over the wingnutosphere, and they'll get bloodier and bloodier.
I'm not saying the actual Pledge is weak tea -- it's a scary legislative agenda, although it's the same agenda Republicans have been talking about for a year (essentially, a rollback of the entire Obama presidency and lots of tax and spending cuts). But there's not enough hate in it.
IT'S OK TO USE THESE WORDS IF YOU'RE A REPUBLICAN
Regarding the forthcoming Bob Woodward book, Steve Benen notes that a certain turn of phrase has upset right-wingers:
This morning, it appears one quote from the book in particular is sparking interest.
... the right has already begun throwing a tantrum over the president's remarks. Fox News' Gretchen Carlson suggested Obama is "inviting" an attack....
John Bolton appeared on Fox News to declare the president's comments "outrageous," adding, "How can an American president say that as if he's a detached observer and doesn't care about Americans dying?" Bolton went on to say Obama's words "proves" he's not qualified to be president....
Um, if Obama saying "we absorbed it and we are stronger" is "outrageous" and "inviting" to terrorists planning an attack, then I suppose you could say the same about this:
From the tragedy of September 11 emerged a stronger Nation, renewed by a spirit of national pride and a true love of country.
And this:
Over the past seven years, this system has absorbed shocks -- recession, corporate scandals, terrorist attacks, global war. Yet the genius of our system is that it can absorb such shocks and emerge even stronger.
(Emphasis added.)
The first of those was President Bush's 2002 proclamation designating 9/11 as Patriot Day.
The second of those was President Bush's statement about the U.S. economy on February 13, 2008, as he signed that year's Economic Stimulus Act.
As usual, it's OK if you're a Republican.
****
UPDATE: Oh, of course -- via Newshoggers, I see that the many wingnut bloggers who gasped in response to this quote were led to it by Matt Drudge's red highlighting. Well, naturally -- these people don't say "Good morning, nice day, isn't it?" unless Drudge (or someone) has put that in the approved talking points, do they?
Regarding the forthcoming Bob Woodward book, Steve Benen notes that a certain turn of phrase has upset right-wingers:
This morning, it appears one quote from the book in particular is sparking interest.
Woodward's book portrays Obama and the White House as barraged by warnings about the threat of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and confronted with the difficulty in preventing them. During an interview with Woodward in July, the president said, "We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever ... we absorbed it and we are stronger."
... the right has already begun throwing a tantrum over the president's remarks. Fox News' Gretchen Carlson suggested Obama is "inviting" an attack....
John Bolton appeared on Fox News to declare the president's comments "outrageous," adding, "How can an American president say that as if he's a detached observer and doesn't care about Americans dying?" Bolton went on to say Obama's words "proves" he's not qualified to be president....
Um, if Obama saying "we absorbed it and we are stronger" is "outrageous" and "inviting" to terrorists planning an attack, then I suppose you could say the same about this:
From the tragedy of September 11 emerged a stronger Nation, renewed by a spirit of national pride and a true love of country.
And this:
Over the past seven years, this system has absorbed shocks -- recession, corporate scandals, terrorist attacks, global war. Yet the genius of our system is that it can absorb such shocks and emerge even stronger.
(Emphasis added.)
The first of those was President Bush's 2002 proclamation designating 9/11 as Patriot Day.
The second of those was President Bush's statement about the U.S. economy on February 13, 2008, as he signed that year's Economic Stimulus Act.
As usual, it's OK if you're a Republican.
****
UPDATE: Oh, of course -- via Newshoggers, I see that the many wingnut bloggers who gasped in response to this quote were led to it by Matt Drudge's red highlighting. Well, naturally -- these people don't say "Good morning, nice day, isn't it?" unless Drudge (or someone) has put that in the approved talking points, do they?
VOTERS ARE JUST LASHING OUT: MORE PEOPLE SUPPORT PALADINO THAN LIKE HIM
After the primary day on which Christine O'Donnell and Carl Paladino won, I considered writing a post saying that Paladino, despite what should have been political career-killing racist and pornographic e-mail forwards, probably had a better chance of winning than O'Donnell, because she was being rendered ridiculous (her witchcraft remarks hadn't come out, but we knew all about her views on masturbation), while Paladino had merely been exposed as a bigot and infantile blowhard, which might actually appeal to certain voters, especially white males, in a year like this.
I never wrote the post because I decided he was still too much of a long shot -- it was likely that he'd lose some votes to the guy he beat in the GOP primary, Rick Lazio, who's still on the ballot as a Conservative Party candidate, and it seemed likely that as voters, especially non-white and non-macho voters, learned more about Paladino, his star would fall.
I still half-suspect it'll work that way, but, based on the new Quinnipiac poll, I'd say all bets are off:
Republican Carl Paladino, aided by a 4 -1 margin among Tea Partiers, trails New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic candidate for Governor, 49 - 43 percent among likely voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today....
Now, let me point out that Paladino gets 43% even though only 36% of poll respondents have a favorable opinion of him. (The other numbers: 31% unfavorable, 31% don't know.) So some people are just saying, "I can't tell you what I think of this guy, but the hell with it, I'm voting for him anyway." That's a desperate electorate.
The poll samples "likely voters." No definition is offered, but another recent Quinnipiac poll defines "likely voters" as "people who have voted in past elections."
What worries me is that this will be an election in which people who don't vote frequently are likely to come out and vote GOP/tea party, to flip the bird to the whole system.
Cuomo has to find specific voter groups -- non-whites, church groups, whoever -- and remind them, gently but insistently, that Paladino thinks stuff like this is amusing and harmless:
As I said yesterday, he needs to contrast doing actual work on behalf of the citizenry with being a big-mouthed saloon lout who's all talk. And that's just for starters.
But, yeah, now I can really see that Paladino could win. And you know what? Screw it. If we can elect Paladino, Sharron Angle, war criminal Allen West, Rand Paul, Dan Bicycles Are a UN Plot" Maes,* and, who the hell knows, maybe even O'Donnell, then have them in power, and not become revulsed as a nation, then maybe we deserve whatever they do.
Look, you and I know how crazy these people are. Most voters don't, and, since all these people are running against Democrats, chances are the voters never will know until after the crazies are sworn in. I have a somewhat low opinion of the ability of the U.S. public to absorb facts, but it's not that low. I think Democrats just can't ever figure out how to frame these nutjobs. But their plans when they're in office will be another story. Remember, these folks are going to have to govern through an economic Lost Decade, too. The public really might not have any more patience with them than with Obama and Pelosi and Reid. Especially if they're actively calling for the evisceratation of what's left of the social safety net.
*UPDATE: Well, as marindenver reminds me in comments, Maes is actually trailing badly. My error.
After the primary day on which Christine O'Donnell and Carl Paladino won, I considered writing a post saying that Paladino, despite what should have been political career-killing racist and pornographic e-mail forwards, probably had a better chance of winning than O'Donnell, because she was being rendered ridiculous (her witchcraft remarks hadn't come out, but we knew all about her views on masturbation), while Paladino had merely been exposed as a bigot and infantile blowhard, which might actually appeal to certain voters, especially white males, in a year like this.
I never wrote the post because I decided he was still too much of a long shot -- it was likely that he'd lose some votes to the guy he beat in the GOP primary, Rick Lazio, who's still on the ballot as a Conservative Party candidate, and it seemed likely that as voters, especially non-white and non-macho voters, learned more about Paladino, his star would fall.
I still half-suspect it'll work that way, but, based on the new Quinnipiac poll, I'd say all bets are off:
Republican Carl Paladino, aided by a 4 -1 margin among Tea Partiers, trails New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic candidate for Governor, 49 - 43 percent among likely voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today....
Now, let me point out that Paladino gets 43% even though only 36% of poll respondents have a favorable opinion of him. (The other numbers: 31% unfavorable, 31% don't know.) So some people are just saying, "I can't tell you what I think of this guy, but the hell with it, I'm voting for him anyway." That's a desperate electorate.
The poll samples "likely voters." No definition is offered, but another recent Quinnipiac poll defines "likely voters" as "people who have voted in past elections."
What worries me is that this will be an election in which people who don't vote frequently are likely to come out and vote GOP/tea party, to flip the bird to the whole system.
Cuomo has to find specific voter groups -- non-whites, church groups, whoever -- and remind them, gently but insistently, that Paladino thinks stuff like this is amusing and harmless:
As I said yesterday, he needs to contrast doing actual work on behalf of the citizenry with being a big-mouthed saloon lout who's all talk. And that's just for starters.
But, yeah, now I can really see that Paladino could win. And you know what? Screw it. If we can elect Paladino, Sharron Angle, war criminal Allen West, Rand Paul, Dan Bicycles Are a UN Plot" Maes,* and, who the hell knows, maybe even O'Donnell, then have them in power, and not become revulsed as a nation, then maybe we deserve whatever they do.
Look, you and I know how crazy these people are. Most voters don't, and, since all these people are running against Democrats, chances are the voters never will know until after the crazies are sworn in. I have a somewhat low opinion of the ability of the U.S. public to absorb facts, but it's not that low. I think Democrats just can't ever figure out how to frame these nutjobs. But their plans when they're in office will be another story. Remember, these folks are going to have to govern through an economic Lost Decade, too. The public really might not have any more patience with them than with Obama and Pelosi and Reid. Especially if they're actively calling for the evisceratation of what's left of the social safety net.
*UPDATE: Well, as marindenver reminds me in comments, Maes is actually trailing badly. My error.
In Re the Teabaggers:
A month or so ago I had a rip roaring fight with my Christian, Right Wing, long time Republican Sister-in-law. Specifically the fight was about whether the Tea Party represented a) racists, b) a fringe, c) the Republican party. The whole thing, though not unexpected, was pretty awful. My sister-in-law voted for Bush once, and I believe she voted for Kerry as a "protest vote" against how badly the war had been mishandled. And then I think she may have voted for Obama. But she has and always will have a lingering association with the Republican Party as her daddy's party and she has always refused to inquire into the actual history and policies of the party where knowing anything about them would have to make her anxious about her father. In other words the John Bircher side of things doesn't suit her memories of her military/insurance salesman father and his fiscal conservatvism. It also doesn't suit her form of Christianity to see what side her racism, homophobia, and pro-militarism is buttered on. As a result of our fight we've exchanged nothing but polite emails about family issues since.
But this morning I received, out of the blue, the following email in its entirety:
Message Line: UncleInside Text: Christine O'Donnell--Sister--in-law's name.
Tar and feather the entire Republican party with the Tea Bagger label and we'd win these midterms in a walk.
aimai
YAWN -- OFFICE POLITICS
The carefully orchestrated rollout of yet another Bob Woodward book is under way -- here's the New York Times story on the soon-to-be-published book (the release date is next Tuesday); here's the Washington Post story -- and all I'm seeing is the unshocking news that Obama and his team disagree with one another and bicker and backbite. The guys with the medals and epaulets want more of a commitment to war than Obama does. Gosh, who knew?
Here's one of the startling new revelations, according to the Post:
{Defense Secretary Robert] Gates was tempted to walk out of an Oval Office meeting after being offended by comments made by deputy national security adviser Thomas E. Donilon about a general not named in the book.
Wow, that'll get everyone in America to stop talking about Lindsey Lohan.
The key question to ask of any Woodward book published during a Democratic administration is "How is this book going to screw the president?" It looks as if there's nothing as memorable as the Hillary "seance" bit from the 1996 Woodward book, The Choice, but this soundbite, as described in the Times, is going to work its way into thousands of screeds and diatribes about the evils of Obama:
Mr. Obama's struggle with the decision comes through in a conversation with Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who asked if his deadline to begin withdrawal in July 2011 was firm. "I have to say that," Mr. Obama replied. "I can't let this be a war without end, and I can't lose the whole Democratic Party."
The "I can't let this be a war without end" part, needless to say, will not appear in any of the horrified recountings of this.
Look, if the president is going to fight this damn war, I at least want him to feel this way about it (as recounted in the Post):
"This needs to be a plan about how we're going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan," Obama is quoted as telling White House aides as he laid out his reasons for adding 30,000 troops in a short-term escalation. "Everything we're doing has to be focused on how we're going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint. It's in our national security interest. There cannot be any wiggle room."
Obama rejected the military's request for 40,000 troops as part of an expansive mission that had no foreseeable end. "I'm not doing 10 years," he told Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a meeting on Oct. 26, 2009. "I'm not doing long-term nation-building. I am not spending a trillion dollars."
"It's in our national security interest" "I am not spending a trillion dollars." At least he understand that endless war is bad for America.
And the reason that's important is that, if we're still deeply mired in Afghanistan as of January 20, 2013, we'll still be just as deeply mired four years later, because President Palin/Pence/Daniels/Thune/Huckabee/Barbour/Christie sure as hell ain't gonna withdraw. But this semi-rationality on Obama's part is going to be lost, and the bullet-point version of this entire book is going to be "Obama plans to surrender in Afghanistan to appease the evil traitorous voters in his party."
The carefully orchestrated rollout of yet another Bob Woodward book is under way -- here's the New York Times story on the soon-to-be-published book (the release date is next Tuesday); here's the Washington Post story -- and all I'm seeing is the unshocking news that Obama and his team disagree with one another and bicker and backbite. The guys with the medals and epaulets want more of a commitment to war than Obama does. Gosh, who knew?
Here's one of the startling new revelations, according to the Post:
{Defense Secretary Robert] Gates was tempted to walk out of an Oval Office meeting after being offended by comments made by deputy national security adviser Thomas E. Donilon about a general not named in the book.
Wow, that'll get everyone in America to stop talking about Lindsey Lohan.
The key question to ask of any Woodward book published during a Democratic administration is "How is this book going to screw the president?" It looks as if there's nothing as memorable as the Hillary "seance" bit from the 1996 Woodward book, The Choice, but this soundbite, as described in the Times, is going to work its way into thousands of screeds and diatribes about the evils of Obama:
Mr. Obama's struggle with the decision comes through in a conversation with Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who asked if his deadline to begin withdrawal in July 2011 was firm. "I have to say that," Mr. Obama replied. "I can't let this be a war without end, and I can't lose the whole Democratic Party."
The "I can't let this be a war without end" part, needless to say, will not appear in any of the horrified recountings of this.
Look, if the president is going to fight this damn war, I at least want him to feel this way about it (as recounted in the Post):
"This needs to be a plan about how we're going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan," Obama is quoted as telling White House aides as he laid out his reasons for adding 30,000 troops in a short-term escalation. "Everything we're doing has to be focused on how we're going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint. It's in our national security interest. There cannot be any wiggle room."
Obama rejected the military's request for 40,000 troops as part of an expansive mission that had no foreseeable end. "I'm not doing 10 years," he told Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a meeting on Oct. 26, 2009. "I'm not doing long-term nation-building. I am not spending a trillion dollars."
"It's in our national security interest" "I am not spending a trillion dollars." At least he understand that endless war is bad for America.
And the reason that's important is that, if we're still deeply mired in Afghanistan as of January 20, 2013, we'll still be just as deeply mired four years later, because President Palin/Pence/Daniels/Thune/Huckabee/Barbour/Christie sure as hell ain't gonna withdraw. But this semi-rationality on Obama's part is going to be lost, and the bullet-point version of this entire book is going to be "Obama plans to surrender in Afghanistan to appease the evil traitorous voters in his party."
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
HOPE, CHANGE, ETC.
OK, I get the point of John Cole's sarcasm:
DADT/Dream Act
Both are up for a vote today, and both will be filibustered...
... it goes without saying that any failure to have these two items passed is not the fault of the troglodyte bigots who blocked the bills or the dysfunctional Senate rules that always seem to call for a supermajority when the President is a Democrat, but Obama for failing to use the bully pulpit.
Obviously, the No-sayers are the evil ones here. But tell me what the point is if you promise serious change and you have no techniques at your disposal -- arm-twisting, bully-pulpit bullying, palm-greasing, nothing -- that actually works to deliver change. Explain to me why you overpromised when you couldn't deliver a hundredth of what you told us you could push through. After a while it starts to look like the Underpants Gnome theory of transformational government:
Phase 1: Get elected in a country where recalcitrant barking-lunatic reactionaries still wield tremendous power and the political-insider culture still accords those stubborn old bastards tremendous respect.
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: CHANGE!
If you didn't have a plan, you should have promised to fight -- no more. You shouldn't have told us you'd be able to prevail.
OK, I get the point of John Cole's sarcasm:
DADT/Dream Act
Both are up for a vote today, and both will be filibustered...
... it goes without saying that any failure to have these two items passed is not the fault of the troglodyte bigots who blocked the bills or the dysfunctional Senate rules that always seem to call for a supermajority when the President is a Democrat, but Obama for failing to use the bully pulpit.
Obviously, the No-sayers are the evil ones here. But tell me what the point is if you promise serious change and you have no techniques at your disposal -- arm-twisting, bully-pulpit bullying, palm-greasing, nothing -- that actually works to deliver change. Explain to me why you overpromised when you couldn't deliver a hundredth of what you told us you could push through. After a while it starts to look like the Underpants Gnome theory of transformational government:
Phase 1: Get elected in a country where recalcitrant barking-lunatic reactionaries still wield tremendous power and the political-insider culture still accords those stubborn old bastards tremendous respect.
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: CHANGE!
If you didn't have a plan, you should have promised to fight -- no more. You shouldn't have told us you'd be able to prevail.
DUH -- WHEN TEA IS LINKED TO BAD THINGS, PEOPLE DON'T LIKE TEA
Democrats seem absolutely allergic to the notion of nationalizing the 2010 midterms by reminding voters across the country of the crazy, dangerous things teabag candidates and other Republicans have said recently -- and yet a new Delaware poll makes clear that voters reject the tea party when they have actual evidence that it's a crazy, dangerous movement:
A new Fox News poll ... shows Democratic Senate nominee Chris Coons leading Republican Christine O’Donnell by 15 points, 54 to 39 percent.
... the poll’s other questions also reveal an antipathy to the "tea party" among the state’s electorate.
More of the 1,000 likely voters surveyed -- 46 percent -- disapprove of the job President Barack Obama is doing than the 45 percent who approve. But that's not translating into support for the tea party wing of the GOP: 40 percent of those surveyed strongly oppose the tea party, and just 21 percent strongly support it.
... 41 percent of respondents said their Senate vote would express opposition to the tea party, while just 26 percent responded that they would vote to express their support....
And this despite the fact that a plurality of survey respondents disapprove of President Obama's job performance and want to repeal the health care law.
So why do 49% of Delawareans either strongly oppose (40%) or somewhat oppose (9%) the tea party movement? Um, maybe because they've gotten a good look at an actual teabagger and they don't like what they see?
So why don't Democrats want to give everyone in America the opportunity to take a good, long look at teabagger craziness? Why don't Democrats want to hang every loopy teabagger pronouncement around the neck of every Republican, by broadly publicizing the most out-there stuff nationwide?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Democrats seem absolutely allergic to the notion of nationalizing the 2010 midterms by reminding voters across the country of the crazy, dangerous things teabag candidates and other Republicans have said recently -- and yet a new Delaware poll makes clear that voters reject the tea party when they have actual evidence that it's a crazy, dangerous movement:
A new Fox News poll ... shows Democratic Senate nominee Chris Coons leading Republican Christine O’Donnell by 15 points, 54 to 39 percent.
... the poll’s other questions also reveal an antipathy to the "tea party" among the state’s electorate.
More of the 1,000 likely voters surveyed -- 46 percent -- disapprove of the job President Barack Obama is doing than the 45 percent who approve. But that's not translating into support for the tea party wing of the GOP: 40 percent of those surveyed strongly oppose the tea party, and just 21 percent strongly support it.
... 41 percent of respondents said their Senate vote would express opposition to the tea party, while just 26 percent responded that they would vote to express their support....
And this despite the fact that a plurality of survey respondents disapprove of President Obama's job performance and want to repeal the health care law.
So why do 49% of Delawareans either strongly oppose (40%) or somewhat oppose (9%) the tea party movement? Um, maybe because they've gotten a good look at an actual teabagger and they don't like what they see?
So why don't Democrats want to give everyone in America the opportunity to take a good, long look at teabagger craziness? Why don't Democrats want to hang every loopy teabagger pronouncement around the neck of every Republican, by broadly publicizing the most out-there stuff nationwide?
Your guess is as good as mine.
COME ON, DEMOCRATS, THIS ISN'T THAT DIFFICULT
Id-driven racist Carl Paladino sent out a Palin-on-steroids open letter to New York gubernatorial rival Andrew Cuomo yesterday in which he insulted Cuomo and challenged the Democrat's masculinity ("Come out and debate like a man"). Paladino also has a Shepard Fairey-style image of Cuomo on his Web site that's accompanied by the Palinesque caption NO COJONES.
Now, Cuomo was 37 points ahead of Paladino in the most recent Quinnipiac poll and is 16 points ahead of him in the latest Rasmussen poll (which almost certainly means he's up by at least 20). Cuomo also should benefit from the fact that the defeated Establishment GOP candidate, Rick Lazio, doesn't plan to drop out of the race -- he'll appear on the battle on the Conservative Party line and siphon off a few votes from Paladino.
And yet, as Politico's Maggie Haberman notes, Paladino has clearly gotten under Cuomo's skin, with the result being this New York Daily News article:
Stung by Carl Paladino's below-the-belt attacks, an angry Andrew Cuomo summoned his war council on Monday to figure out how to fight back against his slash-and-burn GOP rival.
"If a guy says you have no cojones, how do you punch him back, call him an a--hole?" the Democratic gubernatorial candidate fumed in a secret talk to his team, one insider said.
"We have all this stuff [on Paladino] and we're on the defensive," Cuomo groused, the insider added....
Oh, good grief.
Look -- it's obvious, as Haberman says, that Cuomo wanted this angry outburst in the news ("word of Cuomo wanting to call Paladino 'an a--hole' getting out publicly may have accomplished the Democrat's aim of saying what he wanted through other people"). But why, Andrew, why? As New York magazine's Dan Amira notes, this plays right into Paladino's hands:
You can picture Paladino smiling as he reads the paper today: "Yes, Andrew. Let the hate flow through you."
So it looks like this race will probably get uglier and uglier as it goes on, which should be quite comfortable for the outspoken, nothing-to-lose Paladino. In fact, he seems to be having a ball.
Right. Cuomo is now playing Paladino's game.
And why? Obviously, it's because Cuomo's a Democrat, and when you attack a Democrat on gender, you hit a nerve, because virtually every Democrat feels vulnerable on those grounds.
Well, screw that. Listen, Andrew: just stay cool and go after Paladino on what's supposed to be his strength. You see, he's not really a tough guy -- he's just a mouthy guy. He says he can kick ass, which is an infantile turnoff to some people (especially women), and there's no evidence he actually can kick ass, which you can make a turnoff to everyone else (especially men).
Here's your ad. Do the classic belittling imagery of the opposing candidate -- a photograph of Paladino's head imposed on a cartoonish cardboard-cutout body that's windmilling its fists as if preparing for a brawl. For audio, put some sub-verbal Moe/Curly/Larry fight-oriented muttering in the background.
Now mix in a few lines from your own current TV ad. Here's the voiceover:
On behalf of the people of New York, Andrew Cuomo took on greedy bankers. Carl Paladino? He's all talk.
Andrew Cuomo took on abusive insurance companies and crooked politicians. Carl Paladino? All talk.
If you want a candidate who talks about fighting all the time, Carl Paladino's your guy.
But if you want a candidate who knows that talk is cheap, if you want a candidate who's actually fought real battles for real New Yorkers, then vote Andrew Cuomo for governor.
It ain't perfect, but come on -- can't you do this, Andrew? Can't you make yourself look tough and grown-up, while making Paladino look like a barroom blowhard? Do you (and every other Democrat) have to get rattled whenever your masculinity/femininity (hello, Hillary) is questioned?
****
Oh, and why is Cuomo hesitating on a debate? The News explains:
Cuomo ... pushed the possibility of just one debate, limited to Paladino and Conservative Party candidate Rick Lazio.
Cuomo believes Paladino wants to open the debate up to minor-party candidates, including former Black Panther Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn), who is a city councilman, and former madam Kristin Davis, who is linked to the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal and is being handled by Paladino adviser Roger Stone.
It was suspected Barron and Davis would take aim at the front-running Democrat in an open debate, insiders said.
Well, just take that chance, Andrew -- and figure out a debate format, and a few subtle barbs, that prompt Paladino to go off half-cocked. Or just work the notorious Paladino e-mails into your opening statement.
And yes, you read right: Roger "Citizens United Not Timid," he of the long GOP resume and Nixon tattoo, has two candidates in this race. Yeah, the tea party movement has certainly made this a whole new Republican Party, right?
Id-driven racist Carl Paladino sent out a Palin-on-steroids open letter to New York gubernatorial rival Andrew Cuomo yesterday in which he insulted Cuomo and challenged the Democrat's masculinity ("Come out and debate like a man"). Paladino also has a Shepard Fairey-style image of Cuomo on his Web site that's accompanied by the Palinesque caption NO COJONES.
Now, Cuomo was 37 points ahead of Paladino in the most recent Quinnipiac poll and is 16 points ahead of him in the latest Rasmussen poll (which almost certainly means he's up by at least 20). Cuomo also should benefit from the fact that the defeated Establishment GOP candidate, Rick Lazio, doesn't plan to drop out of the race -- he'll appear on the battle on the Conservative Party line and siphon off a few votes from Paladino.
And yet, as Politico's Maggie Haberman notes, Paladino has clearly gotten under Cuomo's skin, with the result being this New York Daily News article:
Stung by Carl Paladino's below-the-belt attacks, an angry Andrew Cuomo summoned his war council on Monday to figure out how to fight back against his slash-and-burn GOP rival.
"If a guy says you have no cojones, how do you punch him back, call him an a--hole?" the Democratic gubernatorial candidate fumed in a secret talk to his team, one insider said.
"We have all this stuff [on Paladino] and we're on the defensive," Cuomo groused, the insider added....
Oh, good grief.
Look -- it's obvious, as Haberman says, that Cuomo wanted this angry outburst in the news ("word of Cuomo wanting to call Paladino 'an a--hole' getting out publicly may have accomplished the Democrat's aim of saying what he wanted through other people"). But why, Andrew, why? As New York magazine's Dan Amira notes, this plays right into Paladino's hands:
You can picture Paladino smiling as he reads the paper today: "Yes, Andrew. Let the hate flow through you."
So it looks like this race will probably get uglier and uglier as it goes on, which should be quite comfortable for the outspoken, nothing-to-lose Paladino. In fact, he seems to be having a ball.
Right. Cuomo is now playing Paladino's game.
And why? Obviously, it's because Cuomo's a Democrat, and when you attack a Democrat on gender, you hit a nerve, because virtually every Democrat feels vulnerable on those grounds.
Well, screw that. Listen, Andrew: just stay cool and go after Paladino on what's supposed to be his strength. You see, he's not really a tough guy -- he's just a mouthy guy. He says he can kick ass, which is an infantile turnoff to some people (especially women), and there's no evidence he actually can kick ass, which you can make a turnoff to everyone else (especially men).
Here's your ad. Do the classic belittling imagery of the opposing candidate -- a photograph of Paladino's head imposed on a cartoonish cardboard-cutout body that's windmilling its fists as if preparing for a brawl. For audio, put some sub-verbal Moe/Curly/Larry fight-oriented muttering in the background.
Now mix in a few lines from your own current TV ad. Here's the voiceover:
On behalf of the people of New York, Andrew Cuomo took on greedy bankers. Carl Paladino? He's all talk.
Andrew Cuomo took on abusive insurance companies and crooked politicians. Carl Paladino? All talk.
If you want a candidate who talks about fighting all the time, Carl Paladino's your guy.
But if you want a candidate who knows that talk is cheap, if you want a candidate who's actually fought real battles for real New Yorkers, then vote Andrew Cuomo for governor.
It ain't perfect, but come on -- can't you do this, Andrew? Can't you make yourself look tough and grown-up, while making Paladino look like a barroom blowhard? Do you (and every other Democrat) have to get rattled whenever your masculinity/femininity (hello, Hillary) is questioned?
****
Oh, and why is Cuomo hesitating on a debate? The News explains:
Cuomo ... pushed the possibility of just one debate, limited to Paladino and Conservative Party candidate Rick Lazio.
Cuomo believes Paladino wants to open the debate up to minor-party candidates, including former Black Panther Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn), who is a city councilman, and former madam Kristin Davis, who is linked to the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal and is being handled by Paladino adviser Roger Stone.
It was suspected Barron and Davis would take aim at the front-running Democrat in an open debate, insiders said.
Well, just take that chance, Andrew -- and figure out a debate format, and a few subtle barbs, that prompt Paladino to go off half-cocked. Or just work the notorious Paladino e-mails into your opening statement.
And yes, you read right: Roger "Citizens United Not Timid," he of the long GOP resume and Nixon tattoo, has two candidates in this race. Yeah, the tea party movement has certainly made this a whole new Republican Party, right?
IS THERE ANYTHING WE ARE ALLOWED TO CRITICIZE "REAL" TEABAGGERS FOR, HOWIE?
Concern troll Howard Kurtz clearly thinks we should just leave poor Christine O'Donnell -- and all the other tea party candidates -- alone, because they're so "real":
One candidate, who talked of privatizing Social Security, also declared that pregnant rape victims should make the "lemon situation into lemonade."
Another candidate says he has reservations about the 46-year-old Civil Rights Act.
Another candidate says unemployment benefits aren't authorized by the Constitution.
And the latest tea party favorite, among other things, defaulted on her mortgage, didn't take the college courses she claimed, and is on tape criticizing masturbation and blabbing about dabbling in witchcraft....
To be sure, journalists have every right to unearth past statements....
Already Kurtz is mixing apples and oranges. The attacks on Sharron Angle, Rand Paul, and Joe Miller are attacks on issue positions. They're attacks on statements the candidates have made on matters that are going to come before them if they're senators.
And those attacks have not been particularly successful. All three have a good chance of winning.
So O'Donnell drops a treasure trove of too-much-information, chat-show-provocateur talk in our laps, and Democrats use it because this is America, where trying to defeat a right-wing candidate based on this kind of thing actually works better than trying to use issues, and the press picks it up, and Kurtz (as you'll see) is appalled. (Democrats -- how dare they mount a politically effective attack in a campaign! Only Republicans are allowed to do that!) What's more, Kurtz uses the O'Donnell situation to imply that the attacks on Angle, Paul, and Miller regarding actual issues are in the same category as the attacks on O'Donnell. It's all trivia!
Oh, but Kurtz is just looking out for our best interests:
In a normal year, the accumulation of rhetoric and might be enough to send a candidate down to defeat. But this is not a normal year.
And here's the thing: the slightly mocking tone with which some journalists are portraying these tea party conservatives is probably helping them with the broad swath of voters who don't much trust the media. If some of these voters are fed up with the establishment, that would include the establishment press....
Or, no, actually he's not looking out for our best interests -- it's his own contempt he's expressing:
I don't immediately associate having dabbled in witchcraft with senatorial service. But if see the 11-year-old Bill Maher clip one more time I'm going to feel like making my TV set disappear. The thing went so viral in 24 hours that it now looks like open mockery. Debra Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle told me that the media were acting like the cool kids making O'Donnell the geek.
Right -- only Al Gore is allowed to be treated like a pathetic geek. (And Mike Dukakis. And, at the hands of Maureen Dowd, Barack Obama. And Jerry Brown can be the "Moonbeam" guy and Hillary Clinton can be the mousy feminist who can't get a date. That's OK. But don't mock O'Donnell!)
Kurtz the approvingly quotes The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder:
Wackiness will always cut through the clutter. But the difference this cycle is that wackiness has been MAINSTREAMED....
Look at our fascination with reality shows.
... all the reality shows ... have conditioned us for "wild and woolly" candidates....
Um, yeah -- but if our political culture has degenerated that much (and I think Ambinder is on to something), do we have to treat these new reality-star candidates with more deference than we offer to actual reality stars? America has no problem feeling contempt for Kate Gosselin or the Salahis -- why, aren't Democrats and the press allowed to focus on embarrassing or less savory facts about O'Donnell?
Oh, yeah, I forgot: O'Donnaell (and the other 'bagger candidates) have "realness." Basically, what Kurtz is saying is:
Aren't crazy, masturbation-condemning, Social Security-privatizing, unemployment insurance-condemning teabaggers really people America would rather have a beer with?
Concern troll Howard Kurtz clearly thinks we should just leave poor Christine O'Donnell -- and all the other tea party candidates -- alone, because they're so "real":
One candidate, who talked of privatizing Social Security, also declared that pregnant rape victims should make the "lemon situation into lemonade."
Another candidate says he has reservations about the 46-year-old Civil Rights Act.
Another candidate says unemployment benefits aren't authorized by the Constitution.
And the latest tea party favorite, among other things, defaulted on her mortgage, didn't take the college courses she claimed, and is on tape criticizing masturbation and blabbing about dabbling in witchcraft....
To be sure, journalists have every right to unearth past statements....
Already Kurtz is mixing apples and oranges. The attacks on Sharron Angle, Rand Paul, and Joe Miller are attacks on issue positions. They're attacks on statements the candidates have made on matters that are going to come before them if they're senators.
And those attacks have not been particularly successful. All three have a good chance of winning.
So O'Donnell drops a treasure trove of too-much-information, chat-show-provocateur talk in our laps, and Democrats use it because this is America, where trying to defeat a right-wing candidate based on this kind of thing actually works better than trying to use issues, and the press picks it up, and Kurtz (as you'll see) is appalled. (Democrats -- how dare they mount a politically effective attack in a campaign! Only Republicans are allowed to do that!) What's more, Kurtz uses the O'Donnell situation to imply that the attacks on Angle, Paul, and Miller regarding actual issues are in the same category as the attacks on O'Donnell. It's all trivia!
Oh, but Kurtz is just looking out for our best interests:
In a normal year, the accumulation of rhetoric and might be enough to send a candidate down to defeat. But this is not a normal year.
And here's the thing: the slightly mocking tone with which some journalists are portraying these tea party conservatives is probably helping them with the broad swath of voters who don't much trust the media. If some of these voters are fed up with the establishment, that would include the establishment press....
Or, no, actually he's not looking out for our best interests -- it's his own contempt he's expressing:
I don't immediately associate having dabbled in witchcraft with senatorial service. But if see the 11-year-old Bill Maher clip one more time I'm going to feel like making my TV set disappear. The thing went so viral in 24 hours that it now looks like open mockery. Debra Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle told me that the media were acting like the cool kids making O'Donnell the geek.
Right -- only Al Gore is allowed to be treated like a pathetic geek. (And Mike Dukakis. And, at the hands of Maureen Dowd, Barack Obama. And Jerry Brown can be the "Moonbeam" guy and Hillary Clinton can be the mousy feminist who can't get a date. That's OK. But don't mock O'Donnell!)
Kurtz the approvingly quotes The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder:
Wackiness will always cut through the clutter. But the difference this cycle is that wackiness has been MAINSTREAMED....
Look at our fascination with reality shows.
... all the reality shows ... have conditioned us for "wild and woolly" candidates....
Um, yeah -- but if our political culture has degenerated that much (and I think Ambinder is on to something), do we have to treat these new reality-star candidates with more deference than we offer to actual reality stars? America has no problem feeling contempt for Kate Gosselin or the Salahis -- why, aren't Democrats and the press allowed to focus on embarrassing or less savory facts about O'Donnell?
Oh, yeah, I forgot: O'Donnaell (and the other 'bagger candidates) have "realness." Basically, what Kurtz is saying is:
Aren't crazy, masturbation-condemning, Social Security-privatizing, unemployment insurance-condemning teabaggers really people America would rather have a beer with?
Monday, September 20, 2010
DEAR DEMOCRATS: STEWART AND COLBERT AREN'T THERE TO DO YOUR JOB
On October 30, Jon Stewart is going to stage a "Rally to Restore Sanity" in D.C., after which Stephen Colbert will lead a "March to Keep Fear Alive." If we're to believe Politico, there are Democrats who actually think these events are going to help their party at the polls a few days later.
Sorry, they won't.
On Saturday there was this from Politico:
... no matter how much Comedy Central insists it's all just a goof, Stewart and Colbert's rally will be read as an important measure of the enthusiasm of young Democratic-leaning voters 10 days before the midterm elections.
That’s because, according to a Pew Research Center study released on Sunday, 58% of Daily Show and 64% of Colbert Report viewers described themselves as progressive, with 69% and 68% of them, respectively, approving of President Barack Obama's job performance....
So wait -- Politico thinks a big crowd to see two really entertaining, politically astute left-leaning guys will be a sign that the attendees are likely to go back and vote for their (quite possibly) timid, ineffectual, spineless members of the House and Senate? Is there really a cause-and-effect relationship here?
Today Politico has a follow-up:
...the planned event has also produced a bit of hand-wringing among Democrats. For one thing, Stewart hasn't mentioned that labor groups and other institutional Democratic organizations are already planning a big Washington rally to counter Beck: The One America rally on October 2, which has been struggling to get the kind of attention Beck does. And the Stewart rally is also, for Democratic field operatives, at an inconvenient time: Its participants are "not doing GOTV on GOTV weekend" said Matt Ortega, a former DNC staffer, referring to a weekend typically spent knocking on doors and making calls in one's home district, not Washington....
Other Democratic field organizers, though, said the event would be a plus on balance, and suggested that the party could even set up phone banks beside it.
"He will energize many, many more people than he will distract. And those who attend are only a small piece of the audience," emails Dan Cantor, executive director of New York's labor-backed Working Families Party....
Do you people get it at all?
Stewart and Colbert lean left, as do their audiences. But Stewart and Colbert are not Democratic Party operatives. It is not their freaking job to plug a labor-led rally on October 2. People don't know about that rally, Dems? That's your fault, and the fault of the organizers. Do your damn job and publicize it better.
The larger point here is that Stewart and Colbert, as comics, have not been Democratic Party cheerleaders. They clearly seem to agree, for the most part, with what Democrats claim to stand for -- but they are unwilling to pretend that Democratic ineptitude is brilliance. In Stewart's case, go watch his "I Give Up" segment (about the Democrats' inability to win a vote on a bill to aid sick 9/11 first responders), or his really harsh interview with Tim Kaine, or the segment about how Democrats will fuck up the golden opportunity presented by the primary victories of O'Donnell, Paladino, et al. -- when Democrats deserve it, he and his cast and writers strongly suggest that they're not worth expending effort for.
Now, a lot of us feel that way and will get out to the polls anyway. But he's not going get us pumped up to vote Democratic. That's not the premise of the "moderation" bit, and, more to the point, that's not his job. (And Colbert's mockery of Fox-style fearmongering will probably make it seem less scary than it actually is, so that won't be a motivator, either.)
So don't expect these guys to do your work for you, Democrats. Motivate your voters yourselves -- if you can figure out how.
And as for the possibility that your get-out-the-vote volunteers might skip politicking to go watch Stewart and Colbert: folks, if that's how little commitment your volunteers have to the Democratic cause, maybe it's the lack of commitment that's your real problem.
On October 30, Jon Stewart is going to stage a "Rally to Restore Sanity" in D.C., after which Stephen Colbert will lead a "March to Keep Fear Alive." If we're to believe Politico, there are Democrats who actually think these events are going to help their party at the polls a few days later.
Sorry, they won't.
On Saturday there was this from Politico:
... no matter how much Comedy Central insists it's all just a goof, Stewart and Colbert's rally will be read as an important measure of the enthusiasm of young Democratic-leaning voters 10 days before the midterm elections.
That’s because, according to a Pew Research Center study released on Sunday, 58% of Daily Show and 64% of Colbert Report viewers described themselves as progressive, with 69% and 68% of them, respectively, approving of President Barack Obama's job performance....
So wait -- Politico thinks a big crowd to see two really entertaining, politically astute left-leaning guys will be a sign that the attendees are likely to go back and vote for their (quite possibly) timid, ineffectual, spineless members of the House and Senate? Is there really a cause-and-effect relationship here?
Today Politico has a follow-up:
...the planned event has also produced a bit of hand-wringing among Democrats. For one thing, Stewart hasn't mentioned that labor groups and other institutional Democratic organizations are already planning a big Washington rally to counter Beck: The One America rally on October 2, which has been struggling to get the kind of attention Beck does. And the Stewart rally is also, for Democratic field operatives, at an inconvenient time: Its participants are "not doing GOTV on GOTV weekend" said Matt Ortega, a former DNC staffer, referring to a weekend typically spent knocking on doors and making calls in one's home district, not Washington....
Other Democratic field organizers, though, said the event would be a plus on balance, and suggested that the party could even set up phone banks beside it.
"He will energize many, many more people than he will distract. And those who attend are only a small piece of the audience," emails Dan Cantor, executive director of New York's labor-backed Working Families Party....
Do you people get it at all?
Stewart and Colbert lean left, as do their audiences. But Stewart and Colbert are not Democratic Party operatives. It is not their freaking job to plug a labor-led rally on October 2. People don't know about that rally, Dems? That's your fault, and the fault of the organizers. Do your damn job and publicize it better.
The larger point here is that Stewart and Colbert, as comics, have not been Democratic Party cheerleaders. They clearly seem to agree, for the most part, with what Democrats claim to stand for -- but they are unwilling to pretend that Democratic ineptitude is brilliance. In Stewart's case, go watch his "I Give Up" segment (about the Democrats' inability to win a vote on a bill to aid sick 9/11 first responders), or his really harsh interview with Tim Kaine, or the segment about how Democrats will fuck up the golden opportunity presented by the primary victories of O'Donnell, Paladino, et al. -- when Democrats deserve it, he and his cast and writers strongly suggest that they're not worth expending effort for.
Now, a lot of us feel that way and will get out to the polls anyway. But he's not going get us pumped up to vote Democratic. That's not the premise of the "moderation" bit, and, more to the point, that's not his job. (And Colbert's mockery of Fox-style fearmongering will probably make it seem less scary than it actually is, so that won't be a motivator, either.)
So don't expect these guys to do your work for you, Democrats. Motivate your voters yourselves -- if you can figure out how.
And as for the possibility that your get-out-the-vote volunteers might skip politicking to go watch Stewart and Colbert: folks, if that's how little commitment your volunteers have to the Democratic cause, maybe it's the lack of commitment that's your real problem.
THE GOP'S UPCOMING TWO-YEAR FREE RIDE?
After Republicans take over the House and nearly take the Senate, should we expect a government shutdown and impeachment efforts? Maybe ... or maybe the Republicans are just going to continue giving us talk radio rather than governance, not really caring whether any of their nutball ideas are implemented, because they believe they're going to get two more years in which the worse things get, the more the White House and the Democratic Party in general will be blamed.
This is from The Wall Street Journal (emphasis added):
Eyeing a potential Congressional win in November, House Republicans are planning to chip away at the White House's legislative agenda -- in particular the health-care law -- by depriving the programs of cash....
Republican leaders acknowledge many of these salvos will fail. At best, the party will gain a majority in the House and a razor-thin hold in the Senate in November's elections -- short of what's needed to overcome a presidential veto....
But Republican lawmakers portray the anticipated drama as foreshadowing the far bigger brawl of the 2012 presidential elections and a clash of visions with President Barack Obama. A vote in the House to repeal the health-care overhaul would be among the GOP's top priorities.
... Republican leaders are also devising legislative maneuvers that might have a bigger impact, using appropriations bills and other tactics to try to undermine the administration's overhaul of health care and financial regulations and its plans to regulate greenhouse gases. GOP leaders also hope to trim spending, return unspent stimulus funds and restore sweeping tax cuts....
So they're going to keep selling these ideas, but I think they figure if they win a few of the battles, it's gravy -- losing most of the time would actually reinforce their message that Obamaism is a jackbooted unconstitutional juggernaut running roughshod over Freedom. They probably recognize that we're still going to be in bleak economic conditions two years from now, and they'll want to run then, as now, on the message that they're the cure for the disease. So whether they know their Laffer-curve, Atlas Shrugged talked is malarkey or whether they really believe what they're saying, they won't necessarily want to have the power to change the course of the country, either by getting their way on everything or (obviously) by meeting Obama partway to try to solve the country's problems. They'll want to win on fear and despair next time, too. Then, they assume, they can seize the reins of the whole government, in a seemingly endless economic emergency, and go all Shock Doctrine on the nation with every cockamamie scheme in their repertoire.
I could be wrong, but that's my hunch -- they could well be content with being the Party of an Even Louder No, just as long as the Democrats control the White House and (nominally) the Senate, and can still be blamed for everything that goes wrong.
After Republicans take over the House and nearly take the Senate, should we expect a government shutdown and impeachment efforts? Maybe ... or maybe the Republicans are just going to continue giving us talk radio rather than governance, not really caring whether any of their nutball ideas are implemented, because they believe they're going to get two more years in which the worse things get, the more the White House and the Democratic Party in general will be blamed.
This is from The Wall Street Journal (emphasis added):
Eyeing a potential Congressional win in November, House Republicans are planning to chip away at the White House's legislative agenda -- in particular the health-care law -- by depriving the programs of cash....
Republican leaders acknowledge many of these salvos will fail. At best, the party will gain a majority in the House and a razor-thin hold in the Senate in November's elections -- short of what's needed to overcome a presidential veto....
But Republican lawmakers portray the anticipated drama as foreshadowing the far bigger brawl of the 2012 presidential elections and a clash of visions with President Barack Obama. A vote in the House to repeal the health-care overhaul would be among the GOP's top priorities.
... Republican leaders are also devising legislative maneuvers that might have a bigger impact, using appropriations bills and other tactics to try to undermine the administration's overhaul of health care and financial regulations and its plans to regulate greenhouse gases. GOP leaders also hope to trim spending, return unspent stimulus funds and restore sweeping tax cuts....
So they're going to keep selling these ideas, but I think they figure if they win a few of the battles, it's gravy -- losing most of the time would actually reinforce their message that Obamaism is a jackbooted unconstitutional juggernaut running roughshod over Freedom. They probably recognize that we're still going to be in bleak economic conditions two years from now, and they'll want to run then, as now, on the message that they're the cure for the disease. So whether they know their Laffer-curve, Atlas Shrugged talked is malarkey or whether they really believe what they're saying, they won't necessarily want to have the power to change the course of the country, either by getting their way on everything or (obviously) by meeting Obama partway to try to solve the country's problems. They'll want to win on fear and despair next time, too. Then, they assume, they can seize the reins of the whole government, in a seemingly endless economic emergency, and go all Shock Doctrine on the nation with every cockamamie scheme in their repertoire.
I could be wrong, but that's my hunch -- they could well be content with being the Party of an Even Louder No, just as long as the Democrats control the White House and (nominally) the Senate, and can still be blamed for everything that goes wrong.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
I HATE THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
I am just so weary of having to choose between one party that's psychotic, nihilistic, reactionary, and hate-filled and another party that's this politically incompetent:
President Obama's political advisers, looking for ways to help Democrats and alter the course of the midterm elections in the final weeks, are considering a national advertising campaign that would cast the Republican Party as all but taken over by Tea Party extremists, people involved in the discussion said....
"We need to get out the message that it's now really dangerous to re-empower the Republican Party because the people who have taken over the party are radical," said one Democratic strategist who has spoken with White House advisers but requested anonymity to discuss private strategy talks.
That's not the incompetent part. This is:
But Democrats are divided. The party's House and Senate campaign committees are resistant, not wanting to do anything that smacks of nationalizing the midterm elections.... Endangered Congressional candidates want any available money to go to their localized campaigns.
Right -- because your messaging in local campaigns is going over so well this year. Yeah, right -- you don't want to mess up a really successful strategy like saying "I'm a Democratic incumbent! Vote for me!" with, y'know, actual information about how the other guys are planning to shut down the government, sink the country deeper into debt, and repeal every good, popular government program from the entire twentieth century. Shhh! Don't bring it up!
But that's not the full extent of the stupidity. It turns out that the White House wants to do this not with an eye toward this pivotal election cycle, but with an eye toward 2012:
Democrats on Capitol Hill say that Obama aides ... do not consult with them enough and are more concerned with positioning Mr. Obama for his 2012 reelection race than with re-electing Democrats now.
At the Democratic National Committee, aides already have started work on a database to link the most controversial statements of the Tea Party-backed candidates to possible Republican presidential aspirants.
The database will point out, for example, that Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney are supporting the Republican candidate for Senate in Nevada, Sharron Angle, who once said that victims of rape should make "what was really a lemon situation into lemonade," and [Christine] O'Donnell, who has said that having women in the service academies "cripples the readiness of our defense."
The tactic of linking potential Republican rivals to such statements was already in evidence last week. After Ms. O'Donnell’s victory, a party spokesman told reporters, "The fact that Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin would put their name behind a candidate that believes women who serve our country 'cripple the readiness of our defense' make them unfit to be commander-in-chief."
Does this make any sense at all? Do these people actually think they're going to get mileage two years from now attacking statements that in some cases are now years old and that aren't even from Obama's potential opponents, but from people they've endorsed? That's going to be his message? "Vote for me -- my opponent endorsed someone two years ago who said something offensive in 1996"? Really?
Oh, I give up.
I am just so weary of having to choose between one party that's psychotic, nihilistic, reactionary, and hate-filled and another party that's this politically incompetent:
President Obama's political advisers, looking for ways to help Democrats and alter the course of the midterm elections in the final weeks, are considering a national advertising campaign that would cast the Republican Party as all but taken over by Tea Party extremists, people involved in the discussion said....
"We need to get out the message that it's now really dangerous to re-empower the Republican Party because the people who have taken over the party are radical," said one Democratic strategist who has spoken with White House advisers but requested anonymity to discuss private strategy talks.
That's not the incompetent part. This is:
But Democrats are divided. The party's House and Senate campaign committees are resistant, not wanting to do anything that smacks of nationalizing the midterm elections.... Endangered Congressional candidates want any available money to go to their localized campaigns.
Right -- because your messaging in local campaigns is going over so well this year. Yeah, right -- you don't want to mess up a really successful strategy like saying "I'm a Democratic incumbent! Vote for me!" with, y'know, actual information about how the other guys are planning to shut down the government, sink the country deeper into debt, and repeal every good, popular government program from the entire twentieth century. Shhh! Don't bring it up!
But that's not the full extent of the stupidity. It turns out that the White House wants to do this not with an eye toward this pivotal election cycle, but with an eye toward 2012:
Democrats on Capitol Hill say that Obama aides ... do not consult with them enough and are more concerned with positioning Mr. Obama for his 2012 reelection race than with re-electing Democrats now.
At the Democratic National Committee, aides already have started work on a database to link the most controversial statements of the Tea Party-backed candidates to possible Republican presidential aspirants.
The database will point out, for example, that Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney are supporting the Republican candidate for Senate in Nevada, Sharron Angle, who once said that victims of rape should make "what was really a lemon situation into lemonade," and [Christine] O'Donnell, who has said that having women in the service academies "cripples the readiness of our defense."
The tactic of linking potential Republican rivals to such statements was already in evidence last week. After Ms. O'Donnell’s victory, a party spokesman told reporters, "The fact that Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin would put their name behind a candidate that believes women who serve our country 'cripple the readiness of our defense' make them unfit to be commander-in-chief."
Does this make any sense at all? Do these people actually think they're going to get mileage two years from now attacking statements that in some cases are now years old and that aren't even from Obama's potential opponents, but from people they've endorsed? That's going to be his message? "Vote for me -- my opponent endorsed someone two years ago who said something offensive in 1996"? Really?
Oh, I give up.
PALIN: CLEARLY NOT INEVITABLE, BUT STILL POSSIBLY (PROBABLY?) RUNNING
It's hard to believe that Sarah Palin is the inevitable 2012 presidential GOP nominee when you look at what she did and didn't do in Iowa. Unlike Andrew Sullivan, I've never thought of Palin as inevitable -- yet I'm still not ready to go to the other extreme and join the she-won't-run crowd:
When politicians accept speech invitations at party occasions, particularly outings like the annual Ronald Reagan Dinner, they often do a host of behind-the-scenes events. It is a mutually beneficial arrangement. But Ms. Palin declined to do any additional appearances. Instead, she went for a run....
There are few more sophisticated or demanding political audiences than in Iowa or New Hampshire, where the road to the White House traditionally begins. It is often not the speeches that are most remembered, but rather the face-to-face time where a voter can shake a visiting candidate's hand, ask a question and get a gut-level feeling about whether he -- or she -- would make a good president.
This is why many Republicans are not at all convinced that Ms. Palin is running. Whether she should is a subject many Iowans politely declined to discuss, but there was widespread agreement that should she decide to, she would have to do it the Iowa way.
"One speech is not enough to make a run in Iowa," said Mary Ann Hanusa, a Republican from Council Bluffs, who is making her own bid for the Statehouse. "We pay attention to the candidates and ask very tough questions when we meet with them."
I don't think it means she's not running. I think it means that, like a sullen teenager, she resents being told she has to do anything she doesn't feel like doing, even if it would get her closer to a goal she seeks. I'm sticking with my theory that she'll run -- but she'll insist on doing it "her way," and she'll imagine that not doing the tedious grunt work is somehow "radical," a tea party-esque challenge to the status quo.
If she really never intends to go to Iowa and kiss the rings of the voters, she's toast. The Christian conservatives who make up a disproportionate share of Iowa's GOP would be a great fit for her, and political observers know that, so if she loses there because she won't do retail politics precisely when and how the voters expect her to, that's going to make her look like 2012's Giuliani or Thompson. And then she won't win in non-crazy, non-God-bothering New Hampshire, one of Romney's home states. So she'll be through.
Her fifth-place finish in the Values Voter Summit straw poll doesn't bode well for her, either. This seems like another example of Palin blowing off a potentially receptive crowd just because she felt like it. She clearly believes in following her gut, even if it means passing up chances to court voters who are well worth courting. I think she can go much further than a lot of people expect while passing up opportunities to pick up support, just because she has a huge cult and it's going to be a crowded field (which means she won't need huge percentages to win early primaries). But right now she looks as if she's going way too far in the direction of "I won't do what you tell me."
It's hard to believe that Sarah Palin is the inevitable 2012 presidential GOP nominee when you look at what she did and didn't do in Iowa. Unlike Andrew Sullivan, I've never thought of Palin as inevitable -- yet I'm still not ready to go to the other extreme and join the she-won't-run crowd:
When politicians accept speech invitations at party occasions, particularly outings like the annual Ronald Reagan Dinner, they often do a host of behind-the-scenes events. It is a mutually beneficial arrangement. But Ms. Palin declined to do any additional appearances. Instead, she went for a run....
There are few more sophisticated or demanding political audiences than in Iowa or New Hampshire, where the road to the White House traditionally begins. It is often not the speeches that are most remembered, but rather the face-to-face time where a voter can shake a visiting candidate's hand, ask a question and get a gut-level feeling about whether he -- or she -- would make a good president.
This is why many Republicans are not at all convinced that Ms. Palin is running. Whether she should is a subject many Iowans politely declined to discuss, but there was widespread agreement that should she decide to, she would have to do it the Iowa way.
"One speech is not enough to make a run in Iowa," said Mary Ann Hanusa, a Republican from Council Bluffs, who is making her own bid for the Statehouse. "We pay attention to the candidates and ask very tough questions when we meet with them."
I don't think it means she's not running. I think it means that, like a sullen teenager, she resents being told she has to do anything she doesn't feel like doing, even if it would get her closer to a goal she seeks. I'm sticking with my theory that she'll run -- but she'll insist on doing it "her way," and she'll imagine that not doing the tedious grunt work is somehow "radical," a tea party-esque challenge to the status quo.
If she really never intends to go to Iowa and kiss the rings of the voters, she's toast. The Christian conservatives who make up a disproportionate share of Iowa's GOP would be a great fit for her, and political observers know that, so if she loses there because she won't do retail politics precisely when and how the voters expect her to, that's going to make her look like 2012's Giuliani or Thompson. And then she won't win in non-crazy, non-God-bothering New Hampshire, one of Romney's home states. So she'll be through.
Her fifth-place finish in the Values Voter Summit straw poll doesn't bode well for her, either. This seems like another example of Palin blowing off a potentially receptive crowd just because she felt like it. She clearly believes in following her gut, even if it means passing up chances to court voters who are well worth courting. I think she can go much further than a lot of people expect while passing up opportunities to pick up support, just because she has a huge cult and it's going to be a crowded field (which means she won't need huge percentages to win early primaries). But right now she looks as if she's going way too far in the direction of "I won't do what you tell me."
NEWT GINGRICH: THE NEW-STYLE JOHN McCAIN?
You may already know about Newt Gingrich's latest effort to pander to the yahoos:
Gingrich told the crowd at [the Values Voter Summit] that it's time to take federal action to prevent Shariah Law from infiltrating courtrooms in the US.
"We should have a federal law that says sharia law cannot be recognized by any court in the United States," Gingrich said to a standing ovation from the audience. The law will let judges know, Gingrich said, that "no judge will remain in office that tried to use sharia law."
I like Steve Benen's headline: GINGRICH DEMANDS LEGISLATION TO ADDRESS IMAGINARY THREAT. I also like the fact that Steve reminds us who constitutes Gingrich's core audience: not the ignorant, hate-filled people Gingrich seems to want to reach, but the mainstream media.
Remember, as far as the media establishment goes, disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) is a "visionary" worthy of respect, despite his frequent slips into madness....
The disgraced former Speaker added that the Democrats' "secular socialist machine" is comparable to "radical Islamists," and that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius relies on "the spirit of Soviet tyranny."
Major media outlets, however, have no qualms about considering Gingrich a credible, mainstream figure.
But isn't Gingrich also connecting with some wingnuts voters? Well, note how poorly hedid in the Values Voter Summit presidential straw poll:
[Mike] Pence, chair of the House Republican conference, received 24% of the vote, edging the winner of the 2009 straw poll, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who received 22%. Each addressed the gathering on Friday, as did third-place finisher Mitt Romney, who won 13% of the vote.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who spoke Saturday, received 10%.
Fourth. He came in fourth. And I'd say this is an outlier (Mike Pence? Really?), but I haven't seen a 2012 poll of any kind, ever, in which Gingrich won. No one with an interest in running for office is trying harder to rouse the rabble than Gingrich, but the rabble remain largely unroused.
And yet Gingrich can be on a Sunday talk show any time he wants. To me, that makes him the new-style guy on the tire swing, the new-era John McCain. McCain represented the old way of impressing the Beltway establishment: be anti-liberal but surprisingly "centrist" on a few issues, seem "refreshingly honest," and the press will think you're the guy who should always be on TV to tell us what to do about everything. In the new version of this formulation, you still have to court the press McCain style, but you should be a lunatic teabaggish provocateur. You should throw out red meat and irresponsible crazy talk, but you should do so using big words and abstruse-seeming allusions. That's what makes you good (albeit "serious"-seeming) television in the 2010s.
Gingrich's base, like McCain's, is the Beltway media. He's just giving them something they didn't need from McCain back before they felt threatened by the Internet: Fox-style demagoguery. I'm not sure why wingnut voters aren't buying, but they aren't. Only insider journalists are.
You may already know about Newt Gingrich's latest effort to pander to the yahoos:
Gingrich told the crowd at [the Values Voter Summit] that it's time to take federal action to prevent Shariah Law from infiltrating courtrooms in the US.
"We should have a federal law that says sharia law cannot be recognized by any court in the United States," Gingrich said to a standing ovation from the audience. The law will let judges know, Gingrich said, that "no judge will remain in office that tried to use sharia law."
I like Steve Benen's headline: GINGRICH DEMANDS LEGISLATION TO ADDRESS IMAGINARY THREAT. I also like the fact that Steve reminds us who constitutes Gingrich's core audience: not the ignorant, hate-filled people Gingrich seems to want to reach, but the mainstream media.
Remember, as far as the media establishment goes, disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) is a "visionary" worthy of respect, despite his frequent slips into madness....
The disgraced former Speaker added that the Democrats' "secular socialist machine" is comparable to "radical Islamists," and that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius relies on "the spirit of Soviet tyranny."
Major media outlets, however, have no qualms about considering Gingrich a credible, mainstream figure.
But isn't Gingrich also connecting with some wingnuts voters? Well, note how poorly hedid in the Values Voter Summit presidential straw poll:
[Mike] Pence, chair of the House Republican conference, received 24% of the vote, edging the winner of the 2009 straw poll, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who received 22%. Each addressed the gathering on Friday, as did third-place finisher Mitt Romney, who won 13% of the vote.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who spoke Saturday, received 10%.
Fourth. He came in fourth. And I'd say this is an outlier (Mike Pence? Really?), but I haven't seen a 2012 poll of any kind, ever, in which Gingrich won. No one with an interest in running for office is trying harder to rouse the rabble than Gingrich, but the rabble remain largely unroused.
And yet Gingrich can be on a Sunday talk show any time he wants. To me, that makes him the new-style guy on the tire swing, the new-era John McCain. McCain represented the old way of impressing the Beltway establishment: be anti-liberal but surprisingly "centrist" on a few issues, seem "refreshingly honest," and the press will think you're the guy who should always be on TV to tell us what to do about everything. In the new version of this formulation, you still have to court the press McCain style, but you should be a lunatic teabaggish provocateur. You should throw out red meat and irresponsible crazy talk, but you should do so using big words and abstruse-seeming allusions. That's what makes you good (albeit "serious"-seeming) television in the 2010s.
Gingrich's base, like McCain's, is the Beltway media. He's just giving them something they didn't need from McCain back before they felt threatened by the Internet: Fox-style demagoguery. I'm not sure why wingnut voters aren't buying, but they aren't. Only insider journalists are.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
IN SOME STATES, I BET THAT WOULDN'T MAKE HER UNELECTABLE
I'm sure you already know that last night Bill Maher aired a 1999 clip from his old Politically Incorrect show in which Christine O'Donnell said she'd "dabbled into witchcraft":
O'DONNELL: I dabbled into witchcraft -- I never joined a coven. But I did, I did.... I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things. I’m not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do. [...]
One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn't know it. I mean, there's little blood there and stuff like that. ... We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.
I suspect this is the final nail in the coffin of her candidacy in Delaware. (I can even imagine the GOP prevailing upon her to withdraw as a candidate.)
But I'm not sure this would be the end for her in many states -- and I'm not talking about, say, California or New York. It's my guess that a God-bothering right-winger might just be able to survive this in a Bible Belt state by going out and talking about how horrifying it all was. It would be a conversion story, see, straight out of "Amazing Grace" -- "I once was lost but now I'm found." She would regale horrified fellow Christians with firsthand -- and now, to her, appalling -- tales of Satanic depravity. She'd say that she now knows from experience how much demonic wickedness is abroad in the land (perhaps even in the corridors of power -- probably in Washington, D.C.!). She'd say that Satan did tempt her once, and the Prince of Darkness even led her to appear on Bill Maher's wicked, Godless show and treat the subject lightly, but since then she's said, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" -- and now the scales have fallen from her eyes and the face of Evil is all too apparent to her. And her understanding of this Evil is why the good people of her state should send her to the U.S. Senate -- with God on her side!
I bet, in a lot of states, she could use this to win in a landslide.
I'm sure you already know that last night Bill Maher aired a 1999 clip from his old Politically Incorrect show in which Christine O'Donnell said she'd "dabbled into witchcraft":
O'DONNELL: I dabbled into witchcraft -- I never joined a coven. But I did, I did.... I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things. I’m not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do. [...]
One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn't know it. I mean, there's little blood there and stuff like that. ... We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.
I suspect this is the final nail in the coffin of her candidacy in Delaware. (I can even imagine the GOP prevailing upon her to withdraw as a candidate.)
But I'm not sure this would be the end for her in many states -- and I'm not talking about, say, California or New York. It's my guess that a God-bothering right-winger might just be able to survive this in a Bible Belt state by going out and talking about how horrifying it all was. It would be a conversion story, see, straight out of "Amazing Grace" -- "I once was lost but now I'm found." She would regale horrified fellow Christians with firsthand -- and now, to her, appalling -- tales of Satanic depravity. She'd say that she now knows from experience how much demonic wickedness is abroad in the land (perhaps even in the corridors of power -- probably in Washington, D.C.!). She'd say that Satan did tempt her once, and the Prince of Darkness even led her to appear on Bill Maher's wicked, Godless show and treat the subject lightly, but since then she's said, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" -- and now the scales have fallen from her eyes and the face of Evil is all too apparent to her. And her understanding of this Evil is why the good people of her state should send her to the U.S. Senate -- with God on her side!
I bet, in a lot of states, she could use this to win in a landslide.
PALIN: ISSUES, SCHMISSUES
Amusing anecdote in today's column by Gail Collins, who's been up in Alaska:
I spent the week here, and almost everyone I talked to wound up revisiting Sarahland unprompted, from a woman who said they went to the same gym, to a Republican who once ran against Palin and told me how, after a debate, she had complimented him on his grasp of figures and policy, and then added: "But then I look over the crowd and wonder -- does that really mean anything?"
I'm assuming that's Andrew Halcro, who ran against Palin in the 2006 governor's race, and who was once willing to attach his name to this anecdote, as The New Republic noted in 2008:
Palin was difficult to debate, Halcro added, because while she didn't know the issues well, she was masterful at tap-dancing around questions and offering "glittering generalities" or populist "happy talk." Halcro told The Los Angeles Times that in a private conversation after a debate in Fairbanks, Palin questioned her opponent's heavy focus on issue positions. "I look out over the audience, and I wonder: Is that really important?" Halcro recalled Palin saying. "Those of us who are policy wonks would say, 'Hell yes'" Halcro told TNR.
A lot of people think this is what would trip Palin up in a 2012 presidential run. I think nimbly, eye-battingly sidestepping the issues and responding to tough questions with folksy generalities and sentiment and patriotic claptrap is precisely how she could win the nomination, if not the election. Remember, this isn't exactly the most well-informed country on the planet.
Amusing anecdote in today's column by Gail Collins, who's been up in Alaska:
I spent the week here, and almost everyone I talked to wound up revisiting Sarahland unprompted, from a woman who said they went to the same gym, to a Republican who once ran against Palin and told me how, after a debate, she had complimented him on his grasp of figures and policy, and then added: "But then I look over the crowd and wonder -- does that really mean anything?"
I'm assuming that's Andrew Halcro, who ran against Palin in the 2006 governor's race, and who was once willing to attach his name to this anecdote, as The New Republic noted in 2008:
Palin was difficult to debate, Halcro added, because while she didn't know the issues well, she was masterful at tap-dancing around questions and offering "glittering generalities" or populist "happy talk." Halcro told The Los Angeles Times that in a private conversation after a debate in Fairbanks, Palin questioned her opponent's heavy focus on issue positions. "I look out over the audience, and I wonder: Is that really important?" Halcro recalled Palin saying. "Those of us who are policy wonks would say, 'Hell yes'" Halcro told TNR.
A lot of people think this is what would trip Palin up in a 2012 presidential run. I think nimbly, eye-battingly sidestepping the issues and responding to tough questions with folksy generalities and sentiment and patriotic claptrap is precisely how she could win the nomination, if not the election. Remember, this isn't exactly the most well-informed country on the planet.
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Look, its a two way street: on the one hand, the media were desperate to find a counter-wave to the Obama landslide victory, a way to keep the Republicans who they routinely interview, and the money that the Republicans have to offer through think tanks etc…, viable players. On the other hand, Obama and the Dems shut down all attempts by typical Democratic constituencies and agitators to play a more obvious and vocal part in the new legislation and the new post election landscape.
Of course a serious green/gay/union/public option or whatever agitation from the ground up, with hysterical and overthe top August town halls, rallies, and letter writing campaigns would have gotten no traction in the mainstream media. How do we know this? Because it never has. The media has been ignoring and belittling the left as either a) elitist college kids detached from the real working class/blue collar white voter or b) welfare queens with their hands out for ever. From the current coverage of the DREAM act and the Arizona law you’d think that hispanic protests against Republican anti-immigrant stuff just a few years ago hadn’t paralyzed the Bush administration. But its all down the memory hole and as far as the press are concerned the only organized political party today is the Republican Party and the Tea Party.
The Democrats made a stunning error in demobilizing after the election. Its basically the same decision that Bush made in re the Iraqi army and its one that every government faces in a post war period. The Dems and Obama thought that winning the election meant it was time to turn the process of governing over to the governing class. They thought they didn’t need voters and rallies and money and agitation from the bottom up. They demobilized, shut down fundraising and organizing, told lots of funders to take a chill pill and basically, as Atrios observed today, told us all “I got this.”
I thought at the time it was a huge mistake. And it was—because they needed the raw, angry, energy of their voters to push through the health care bill, and now at the midterms. But you can’t tell people you don’t need them and then turn around and two months before a major election tell them you do need them. They get frustrated, complacent, rusty, disconnected. All armies do. You’ve got to keep your people in the game, keep them feeling needed and listened to. If you want them to be there to fight for you when you need their voices and their votes.
What gets my goat--not to wander into Republican fetish territory here--is that this was all totally avoidable. Its very clear from studying what they did do that the Obama team switched their focus from grassroots organizing to a top level governing strategy almost from the get go. Instead of keeping the local groups going and giving them updates periodically, and calls to action, that was all shut down. I think, personally, that Obama wanted to get in and govern like any other President in order to scotch rumors that the black guy was going to be some kind of revolutionary insurgent in the Oval Office. I think he and his team thought they would get some kind of honeymoon and that shutting down all outside agitation was a way of calming Republican fears in the Senate and the House long enough to begin the process of working with the Republicans on legislation.
Of course they failed to realize what anyone with half an eye had already grasped. This wasn't your daddy's Republican party. This was a totally new, take no prisoners, party-with-nothing-to-lose. Governing itself was going to be their target. They would simply block everything until they could get back into power. That has been their obvious plan and they've carried it out with ruthless efficiency. The only thing that could conceivably counteract it was the threat of even bigger losses--permanent minority status--at the midterms. And the only group that could deliver on that threat was the voters. And the only way for the Republicans to percieve that threat would have been to have had a drumbeat of ceaseless voter driven initiatives, rallies, and media events promising just that. Not a Tea Party but a very well organized and clearly respected set of progressive group agitations. But from the get go the Democratic Party discouraged that--they discouraged the rise of difficult to manage interest groups, they refused to "cater" to those special interests or to reward the leadership of those groups (which is one way of building strength for those groups).
So, here we are: a few weeks to go and in the vacuum created by the rise of Obama from insurgent/organizer to leader the Republican Party and the Tea Party and the Corporations are still setting the agenda. And the most progressive and effective Democratic government of the last quarter century is on the ropes. I know we can win this--but the Democrats have to change tactics. They have to stop hectoring their voters, in Digby's words, and start asking them for help and guidance. They have to throw away speeches about how much they've done, as Mondale said recently, and come forward. People need to be needed. They need to be respected. Turning out and voting for a candidate and for a party is a huge thing to do--its not a little thing for most people. It takes time, money, energy, faith,--people already gave that to Obama and the Dems. And in return they got a series of "this is as much as we can do for you, stop whining." But once they are remobilized for the midterms they have to be empowered to keep working for 2012. The Republican "can't do" machine is not going to be stopped until it dies off generationally. However hard we have to fight in 2010 we will have to fight still harder, and on even more fronts, in 2012. Its simply not possible to give up--or to ask our voters to lay back and let the governing class "get this" for them.
But all is not lost. Far from it. Like I said people need to be needed. They need to be asked to do things. They want to do something, anything, to improve their lives and the lives of their neighbors. Obama and Reid and Pelosi need to come forward and say something shocking:
aimai