Nightly Random Notes: Nixon, Mean Jean, Krugman, Rand Paul Brown Shirts Beat Up Girl... And A Patti Smith Contest!

Yes, they are trying to subvert democracy again

I tweet away the days with random thoughts in between writing my DWT posts. But although my brain seems to have altered itself to think in 140 character blurts, sometimes, especially when the thought comes from a book I'm reading, a thought or two just might not fit into the twitter format. So from now until the election, I'm going to try to put up some politically relevant not-quite-tweets every evening.

I owe my first two to Rick Perlstein and his always elucidating latest tome, Nixonland. Let's make my first random thought a quiz. What later mega-famous/then Assistant Attorney General explained circumventing the Constitution to spy on American citizens by telling the Senate that "self-discipline on the part of the executive branch would provide an answer to virtually all of the legitimate complaints against excesses of information gathering?" The Senate was mollified and every president since-- including the "constitutional scholar" we have in there now-- has proceeded as though the Constitution was just a debatable theory. If you guessed Supreme Court Chief Justice Billy Rehnquist, who cut his teeth as a GOP lawyer intimidating and disenfranchising minority voters at the polls in Phoenix, you win the prize! Congratulations. This evening's second Random Thought was also inspired by Nixonland.

Were you rolling your eyes at reports over the weekend that Obama's hapless DNC Chair, Tim Kaine, was calling the infusion of hundreds of millions of dollars into conservative coffers-- both from American corporations and shady foreign entities-- the "biggest political story since Watergate?" Well Kaine may be a loser but he wasn't stretching for that comparison. Anyone recall Americans Dedicated To Better Public Administration? No? How about Volunteers Against Citizen Apathy? Or Supporters of the American Dream? Still no, huh? How about Americans United For Objective Reporting? Damn. Oh, wait, you'll remember this one; it was in a book and a movie, the Committee to Re-Elect The President (CREEP). But they all started out in the fevered brain of Nixon's sleazy personal attorney, Herb Kalmbach, as Republican front groups to funnel massive amounts of illicit money into GOP campaign coffers. Eventually, Kalmbach was arrested, convicted, fined, imprisoned and disbarred for his pivotal role in the Watergate scandal-- but not before the damage was done and Nixon had stolen the election and dealt a serious blow to American democracy. Now, recall the long, proud histories of American Crossroads ($17,969,740.47), American Future Fund ($14,077,693.17), SuperPac For America ($678,379.50), Americans For Limited Government ($831,967.44), The 60 Plus Association ($5,888,997.66), The New Prosperity Foundation ($1,284,654.25), American Principles In Action ($312,337.79, all of it to Carly Fiorina), CitizenLink ($381,519.25), RightChange.com ($2,229,242.20), Alliance For America's Future ($632,540.92)... They all formed to funnel shady, secretive money into GOP campaigns-- just the way Kalmbach did for Nixon. And there's a lot more coming over the next 8 days.

And speaking of sleaze, remember Mean Jean Schmidt? She's been supplanted in recent years by the likes of Virginia Foxx, Darrell Issa, Michele Bachmann, Steve King and Paul Broun. But she's never far from the surface, never far from bubbling over in a fit of psychotic hysteria. Last weekend when the Republican Party newspaper in Cincinnati did what it always does and endorsed all 3 local congressional ne'er-do-wells (as well as Rand Paul and the architect of the de-industrialization of Ohio, Rob Portman), they called Mean Jean "a seasoned incumbent who has established herself well in Washington after a rocky and sometimes embarrassing neophyte term, who has steeped herself in the issues; who has matured greatly in office as a savvy, more bipartisan player; and is a tireless, disciplined advocate for the people of her district. It would be a shame for the 2nd District to lose Schmidt's experience, contacts, rich insights and seniority, particularly if Republicans regain control of the House. She richly deserves to continue her service in Washington." The editorial board should lose their license for journalistic malpractice and perhaps be put into fairytale-writing jobs. "Matured?" "Savvy?" "BIPARTISAN???" Mean Jean Schmidt? Even when a majority of Republicans abandoned Boehner and crossed the aisle to vote against Chinese currency manipulation, Mean Jean voted with China, not America. Does that make her more savvy, mature or bipartisan?

Earlier today WLWT News reported that Mean Jean told a group of first graders that abortion is killing unborn babies in their mothers' wombs. When the principal flipped out and wrote an apology to the parents of the traumatized 6 and 7 year olds, Mean Jean hid in her office and had a spokesperson go out and imply that the children had asked her about it. She was lying. But the Cincinnati Enquirer says she's mature and filled with "rich insights." I suppose compared to them...

Continuing on in with sleaze zeitgeist, we hear that jury selection begins Tuesday in the criminal trial of Tom DeLay and in Austin, a city he hates and that hates him. He fought like a mad dog to have the trial moved to a more backward part of the state (basically, anywhere else). He'll be facing two serious charges: "money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. If convicted of money laundering, he faces from five years to life in prison. The conspiracy charge carries a prison term of two to 20 years."

A gang of John Bircher type teabaggy thugs, apparently distraught after Jack Conway demolished Rand Paul at a debate again, found just the right victim. The whole gang of 'em brutalized a young woman and stomped on her head this evening. Not quite Sharron Angle's "Second Amendment solution," but close enough... and a step beyond Joe Miller's handcuffing and kidnapping a journalist asking embarrassing questions. But who else would support someone like Rand Paul?

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich asked a good question at Huffington Post today: After the Midterms: Why Democrats Move to the Center, and Republicans Don't. "If Republicans succeed in taking over the House and come even close to gaining a majority in the Senate, expect calls for the president to 'move to the center.' These will come not only from Republicans but also from conservative Democrats, other prominent Democrats who have been defeated, Fox Republican News, mainstream pundits, and White House political advisers." Sunday, in fact, Wall Street lobbyist Harold Ford was on Meet the Press doing just that... at every opportunity. Reich, of course, understands what a dreadful idea that is and begs Obama-- pointlessly, since Obama seems to be frothing at the mouth to do just that-- not to. (Sneak peak.)

Why are Democratic presidents so much more easily intimidated by the "move to the center" rhetoric after midterm losses than Republican presidents?

Because Democrats think in terms of programs, policies, and particular pieces of legislation. It's easy to reverse course by compromising more and giving up on legislative goals. Bill Clinton never mentioned the words "health care reform" after the 1994 midterms.

Republicans think in terms of simple ideas, themes, and movements. It's far harder to reverse course on these (look what happened to the first George Bush when he raised taxes), and easier to keep them alive: Republican presidents just continue looking for opportunities to implement them.

Republicans are also more disciplined (ask yourself which party attracts authoritarian personalities and which attracts anti-authoritarians). This makes it easier for them to stay the course. Their base continues to organize and fulminate even after midterm defeats. Democrats, on the other hand, are less organized. Electoral defeats tend to fracture and dissipate whatever organization they have.

Republicans are cynical about politics from the jump. Political cynicism fuels them. Democrats are idealistic about politics. When they become cynical they tend to drop out.

Message to Obama: Whatever happens November 2, don't move to the center. Push even harder for what you believe in. Message to Democrats: Whatever happens, keep the courage of your conviction and get even more active.

The White House asked two of my partners to come to the White House for a chat with Obama this week. One laughed but one is actually going; I guess he wants a photo with the president. He asked me if I wanted to suggest any topics of conversation. I told him that I suspect that they have all the topics already picked and packaged. But just in case he has an opportunity to get a word in edgewise, there are a couple of excellent Paul Krugman posts that would be excellent topics. Last week, for example, he wrote a post on his blog that Obama should certainly read and re-read, Epitaph For An Administration (and he wasn't talking about Bush's).

As the foreclosure abuses have come to light, the Obama administration has resisted calls for a more forceful response, worried that added pressure might spook the banks and hobble the broader economy.

Surely this can serve as a generic statement:

As (NAME ISSUE HERE) has come to light, the Obama administration has resisted calls for a more forceful response, worried that added pressure might spook the banks and hobble the broader economy.

Stimulus, bank rescue, China, foreclosure; it applies all along. At each point there were arguments for not acting; but the cumulative effect has been drift, and a looming catastrophe in the midterms.

Or to put it another way, the administration has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. And soon there won’t be any more opportunities to miss.

Yesterday Krugman offered Obama a similarly cheery topic for though: Falling Into The Chasm

This is what happens when you need to leap over an economic chasm-- but either can’t or won’t jump far enough, so that you only get part of the way across.

If Democrats do as badly as expected in next week’s elections, pundits will rush to interpret the results as a referendum on ideology. President Obama moved too far to the left, most will say, even though his actual program — a health care plan very similar to past Republican proposals, a fiscal stimulus that consisted mainly of tax cuts, help for the unemployed and aid to hard-pressed states-- was more conservative than his election platform.

A few commentators will point out, with much more justice, that Mr. Obama never made a full-throated case for progressive policies, that he consistently stepped on his own message, that he was so worried about making bankers nervous that he ended up ceding populist anger to the right.

But the truth is that if the economic situation were better-- if unemployment had fallen substantially over the past year-- we wouldn’t be having this discussion. We would, instead, be talking about modest Democratic losses, no more than is usual in midterm elections.

The real story of this election, then, is that of an economic policy that failed to deliver. Why? Because it was greatly inadequate to the task.

When Mr. Obama took office, he inherited an economy in dire straits-- more dire, it seems, than he or his top economic advisers realized. They knew that America was in the midst of a severe financial crisis. But they don’t seem to have taken on board the lesson of history, which is that major financial crises are normally followed by a protracted period of very high unemployment.

...America needed a much stronger program than what it actually got — a modest rise in federal spending that was barely enough to offset cutbacks at the state and local level. This isn’t 20-20 hindsight: the inadequacy of the stimulus was obvious from the beginning.

Could the administration have gotten a bigger stimulus through Congress? Even if it couldn’t, would it have been better off making the case for a bigger plan, rather than pretending that what it got was just right? We’ll never know.

What we do know is that the inadequacy of the stimulus has been a political catastrophe. Yes, things are better than they would have been without the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: the unemployment rate would probably be close to 12 percent right now if the administration hadn’t passed its plan. But voters respond to facts, not counterfactuals, and the perception is that the administration’s policies have failed.

Probably better to just practice smiling and a firm handshake.

Oh, and a nightly contest: Before I write this column tomorrow evening, I'll put all the names of donors in a hat who contributed today and tomorrow to make sure our Billy Kennedy ad runs all day on Halloween-- for obvious reasons-- and pick one who will win... an extremely rare (only 6 exist), gorgeous Patti Smith print by Richard Aaron, autographed both by Richard and Patti. Donate to the Blue America PAC on this Billy Kennedy page to make sure the ad below runs and you get a chance to win the print, which is probably worth around $1,000.