Will Grassroots Democrats Rise Up And Throw The Bums Out? Progressives In Alabama!

Russ Feingold's PAC, Progressives United, fired a shot across the bow of corrupt Beltway ConservaDems, directly putting Steve Israel and the DCCC on notice that out in America, grassroots Democrats are fed up with supporting fake Dems who vote with the GOP... and even more fed up with Machiavellian characters-- or, as Pelosi put it, operatives with reptilian tendencies-- who instruct vulnerable and naive freshmen to vote with Boehner and Cantor on key issues. Recall that strategy devastated the Democrats in the 2010 midterms-- in which they lost an historic 62 seats, the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse-- and Israel and his DCCC brain surgeons are trying to replicate it exactly for 2014. Feingold's message:

If you and I want to stop radical House Republicans from trampling on our most vulnerable citizens, we need to elect strong progressive challengers who will stand up for our bedrock values-- like protecting Social Security benefits.

Yet we've seen troubling signs that the group responsible for winning Democratic House races won’t stand up to the Social Security benefit cuts in the budget proposed by the White House.

If true, this is an outrageous, cynical strategy from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)-- and it sure won't advance the progressive values the Democratic Party purports to champion.

Would it really be worth working all-out to replace your Republican congressperson with a so-called "Democrat" who would be willing to slash crucial benefits for hard-working Americans? Progressives need to speak out now-- while we have a strong hand in shaping the next crop of House candidates.

Tell the DCCC: support Democratic candidates who will firmly stand against any benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.

Social Security isn't just one of the most successful public programs in our nation's history. It's also overwhelmingly popular-- meaning that Democratic candidates for Congress face no risk by defending it in the face of attacks from either party!

Unfortunately, the DCCC seems more concerned with appealing to Washington, D.C. pundits than standing up for the benefits Americans have earned from a lifetime of work.

They need to get their priorities straight.

...It's just plain wrong not to speak out on fundamental progressive values -- especially when progressives in Congress have stood as a bulwark against extreme ideas to slash essential benefits time and again.

We need to send a message to the DCCC that we won't sit by while they recruit corporate-lite candidates to run for the House.

And it isn't just Feingold and the folks at Progressives United who are concerned that the Beltway Democrats are looking and sounding more and more like the Beltway Republicans. "They have more in common with each other than they do with real Democrats outside the Beltway," one Democratic state senator here in California told me-- and not admiringly. And even in Alabama, Democrats are getting fed up with the self-serving Establishment careerists. Mark Kennedy resigned as chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party yesterday. He's been chairman for two years and he's sick of it... and his family founded it! His great, great uncle-- maybe another great in there-- Thomas Hill Watts, was Attorney General for the Confederacy and Alabama's 18th governor. And, Watts helped found the Alabama Democratic Party after the Civil War.

Right after resigning, Kennedy announced he's "forming a non-profit foundation to support progressive Democrats fed up with the years of failure by the Alabama Democratic Party to offer voters little more than watered down Republican Party rhetoric and what Kennedy calls the politics of fear."

The name of the new organization will be the Alabama Democratic Majority and Kennedy will be its chairman.

The foundation hopes to do what the Democratic Party in the state has not done, namely build and develop a broad base of donors and use the dollars they give to identify, support and elect Democrats.

To say that will be a daunting task is to understate the challenge. In the last 27 years only one Democrat-- Don Siegelman-- has won a race for governor and he was defeated for a second term. All nine justices on the Alabama Supreme Court, where Kennedy once served, are all Republicans. So are all the judges on the state's appellate courts. In the Legislature, the GOP hold super majorities in both houses making it almost impossible for Democrats to have much impact unless the GOP is divided on an issue. Currently no Democrat holds a state-wide elected office.

Kennedy said the only way his party can matter again is to reinvent itself, rebrand itself and reach out to a new generation of young Alabamians not caught up in the state's old divisions. The party must also appeal to an aging generation who need a state government that will support efforts to bring better medical care to seniors and the poor.

Kennedy said he has become convinced in recent months that his party as currently constituted cannot do the work of rebuilding itself.

Kennedy does not flinch when told that it sounds like what he is doing is creating a new Democratic Party.

"I hope so," said Kennedy quietly. "My great, great, great uncle-- I think its three greats-- helped found the Alabama Democratic Party and it had a long run."

Kennedy said what now passes for the Democratic Party in Alabama has lost its way at a time when many Alabamians more than ever need an alternative to a Republican Party that protects the rich and powerful and who sees a majority of hard working people who need government on their side as takers.

"We don't need two Republican parties in Alabama and for too long the Alabama Democratic Party has offered to voters a kind of water-down version of the GOP," said Kennedy.

What is worse, said Kennedy, the party has failed to articulate what it means to be a Democrat.

"We have been too willing to run from why we are Democrats," said Kennedy.

And what does it mean to be a Democrat, Kennedy was asked.

"First, we are an inclusive party made up of all of us: men and women and that means women who work in the home and those who leave it each day to work at jobs to support their families," said Kennedy. "We are black and white; we are Hispanics and native born Americans, straights and gays, conservatives and progressives, old and young."

Secondly, Kennedy said Democrats he hopes to rally to a renewed party will be those who see government not as the enemy but as the people themselves.

"I'm weary of the demagogues in both parties who say we've got to get government out of our lives, that our government is the enemy," said Kennedy. "The truth is the government is us. It's the Social Security check so many of us have earned and depend on. It's the police officers who protect us and the paramedics who come to help us when we are hurt or sick. It's our public schools that we have entrusted with our children's education. It's our men and women in service who risk their lives to protect us from those who would seek to destroy our country."

Kennedy said as long as the Alabama Democratic Party is held hostage by old factions and special interest groups that put first what is best for them, the party will only grow weaker.

"The party must change if it is to grow and be relevant again," said Kennedy. "I came to see that my vision for the party was simply not shared by a majority in leadership positions in the party."

Kennedy said it's well past the time when politicians should stop doing what politicians in both parties have done for generations, namely seeking votes by preying on people's fears.

"What we want to do is support candidates who will appeal to our hopes, not our fears," said Kennedy. "We saw Governor Wallace do that and he was a Democrat. We see Republicans do it today over the debate on immigration and we see both parties doing it in the debate about guns."

Kennedy knows his foundation will come under attack from status quo Democrats and Republicans.

"I'm sure we will be attacked and it will come from people who have failed the party and failed the state, and who have failed to articulate a vision for the party and the future because they don't have one," said Kennedy.

South Union Street reported that "lawmakers at the event included Sen. Linda Coleman, D-Birmingham and Reps. Richard Lindsey, D-Centre; Johnny Mack Morrow, D-Red Bay and Rod Scott, D-Birmingham. Former first lady Marsha Folsom introduced Kennedy at the event-- which had the air of a campaign kick-off-- saying that she, former Gov. Jim Folsom Jr. and the “Folsom wing” of the party were behind the new organization." As we've been telling you for several years, stop supporting the DCCC with contributions. Send donations directly to progressives who support your values and principles-- like these candidates.

E. J. Dionne Jr. asks: Are Washington Dems prepared to learn the lesson of Wisconsin?

AP caption: "Police carried dozens of protesters from a hallway leading to the Wisconsin Assembly on Thursday as Democratic representatives pounded on the locked door of the chamber, demanding to be let in to the room. (March 10)" (See Howie's post earlier today, "Right-Wing Coup In Wisconsin.")

"Here's the key to the Wisconsin battle: For the first time in a long time, blue-collar Republicans -- once known as Reagan Democrats -- have been encouraged to remember what they think is wrong with conservative ideology. Working-class voters, including many Republicans, want no part of Walker's war."

-- E. J. Dionne Jr., in his WaPo column today, "What
Wisconsin Democrats can teach Washington Democrats"

by Ken

I know it was just last night that I managed to include E. J. Dionne Jr. in a short list of reality-grounded Washington Post columnists (along with Harold Meyerson and Gene Robinson -- as I wrote, I know I must be forgetting somebody, but I still can't think who), standing their ground against the gathering force of fake-centrist right-wing twittery that has secured pretty much of a stranglehold on a newspaper that once at least aspired to be something better.

Still, it was just a mention. You have to go all the way back to January 18 for an occasion on which I noted properly how much I love the guy. It's just about impossible to shake him out of his ingrained habit of observing the world carefully from a background of wide and deep knowledge and understanding, and then speaking plain truths in his quiet, unfailingly modest and reasonable tone.

Here's how E.J. starts today's column:

Consider the contrast between two groups of Democrats, in Wisconsin and in the nation's capital.

Washington Democrats, including President Obama, have allowed conservative Republicans to dominate the budget debate so far. As long as the argument is over who will cut more from federal spending, conservatives win. Voters may think the GOP is going too far, but when it comes to dollar amounts, they know Republicans will always cut more.

In Wisconsin, by contrast, 14 Democrats in the state Senate defined the political argument on their own terms - and they are winning it.

By leaving Madison rather than providing a quorum to pass Gov. Scott Walker's assault on collective bargaining for public employees, the Wisconsin 14 took a big risk. Yet to the surprise of establishment politicians, voters have sided with the itinerant senators and the unions against a Republican governor who has been successfully portrayed as an inflexible ideologue. And in using questionable tactics to force the antiunion provision through the Senate on Wednesday, Republicans may win a procedural round but lose further ground in public opinion.

Then E.J. serves up the cool insight I've quoted at the top of this post. He cites the recent Pew survey ("More Side with Wisconsin Unions than Governor"), then adds:

At my request, Pew broke the numbers down by education and income and, sure enough, Walker won support from fewer than half of Republicans in two overlapping groups: those with incomes under $50,000 and those who did not attend college. Walker's strongest support came from the wealthier and those with college educations, i.e., country club Republicans.

Republicans, E.J. points out, "cannot afford to hemorrhage blue-collar voters," and recalls what he calls "a seminal article" six years ago in The Weekly Standard by Reihan Salam and the ineffable Ross Douchebag which wrote:

This is the Republican Party of today - an increasingly working-class party, dependent for its power on supermajorities of the white working-class vote, and a party whose constituents are surprisingly comfortable with bad-but-popular liberal ideas like raising the minimum wage, expanding clumsy environmental regulations, or hiking taxes on the wealthy to fund a health care entitlement.

"Put aside that I favor the policies Douthat and Salam criticize," E.J. writes. "Their electoral point is dead on."

In 2010, working-class whites gave Republicans a 30-point lead over Democrats in House races. That's why the Wisconsin fight is so dangerous to the conservative cause: Many working-class Republicans still have warm feelings toward unions, and Walker has contrived to remind them of this.

"Which brings us to the Washington Democrats," E..J. writes. The closest they've come to taking a stand has been indicating ever so timorously that they would really prefer that budget cuts be not quite so draconian as what criminally insane congressional Republicans have been trying to shove down our throats. Congressional Dems, in allowing the Republican marauders to totally define the terms of the debate, and focus, as Sen. Chuck Schumer actually pointed out, on "one tiny portion of the budget," meaning ignoring most of the actual sources of our ongoing deficit problems and, as E.J. points out, not dealing with revenue sources at all.

E.J.'s conclusion seems to me beyond argument:

To this point, Washington Democrats have been too afraid and divided to engage compellingly on the fundamentals of what government is there to do and how the burdens of deficit reduction should be apportioned. Wisconsin Democrats have shown that the only way to win arguments is to take risks on behalf of what you believe. Are Washington Democrats prepared to learn this lesson?

Excellent question, E.J. Are Washington Democrats prepared to learn this lesson? You'd think that simply on the level of self-preservation, which often seems to be the only way in which most Beltway Dems are willing or able to look at any issue before them, they would see this lesson as their only possible salvation. Until some sense can be restored to the national discourse, there's not much hope that those pathetic souls can save their mangy hides by pretending to be Republicans. The Republicans, after all, don't have to pretend.

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Are there winners on this Election Day? I don't know, but there sure are a lot of losers

The Coney Island subway yard seemed a much happier election evening destination than the traditional tubeside Election Night vigil.

"[I]t was revealed last week (by David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter for The New York Times) that the incomes of the very highest earners in the United States, a small group of individuals hauling in more than $50 million annually (sometimes much more), increased fivefold from 2008 to 2009, even as the nation was being rocked by the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
"Last year was a terrific year for those at the very top. Professors Hacker and Pierson note in their book that investors and executives at the nation’s 38 largest companies earned a stunning total of $140 billion -- a record. The investment firm Goldman Sachs paid bonuses to its employees that averaged nearly $600,000 per person, its best year since it was founded in 1869."

-- Bob Herbert, referencing the book Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer -- and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class by Jacob Hacker of Yale and Paul Pierson of Berkeley in his NYT column today, "Fast Track to Inequality"

"This is the essence of an economy that has broken down, where people become desperate, where they do things to preserve their lives and their families they wouldn't normally do. For a great number of Americans out there, it's everyday reality. And the new regime that swept into power on January 20, 2009 has not materially changed their circumstances."

--David Dayen, in an FDL post today telling "The Story of the Election"

by Ken

Happily, I'm going to be otherwise occupied this evening. Other-than-election-result-watching, I mean.

I wish I could credit myself with smart planning, but sometimes the smarter things I do are done with a minimum of thinking. The New York Transit Museum tour of the massive Coney Island subway yard was offered on two different dates, which only recently occurred to me represented a choice between the evenings of Election Day and Pearl Harbor Day. I really wasn't weighing the relative disaster content of the two dates, or the freshness of those disasters. As best I can remember, I simply picked the earlier date. Now I'm pretty happy about the timing, which has turned out unintentionally smart.

I'll have to leave work a little early to trek out to Coney Island in time for the start of the tour. Afterward, it's a long schlepp home to (way) Upper Manhattan, and I won't be rushing it. Since I'll be in Brooklyn anyway, I thought of stopping off on that long way back to join the local contingent of Drinking Liberally who'll be gathering at Fourth Avenue Pub (76 Fourth Avenue), but now I don't think so. 

If I do any stopping off to break up the long trip, it's likelier to be non-election-related, preferably election-proof -- i.e., no place where there's apt to be a TV or radio playing. And when I do get home, I'm going to try to focus on the accumulation of unwatched TV treasures on the DVR. Maybe take a look at this newfangled Sherlock Holmes thing.

It's not, after all, as if the election is going to go away. It'll still all be there when I decide I'm ready to deal with it, and by then, with luck, we'll actually know what's what, more or less, and I'll spare myself those long, awful hours of making believe that stuff is "happening," when all that's really happening is that they're counting votes that have already been cast.

This election has me pretty worked up, partly of course the unnecessarily stupid and hard-to-defend position the lordly ranks of the Democratic Party have put us in, having to defend a whole host of policy decisions and nondecisions we've been screaming bloody murder about the whole time. But more because of the utter depravity and delusionality of the marching forces of right-wing hooliganism and delusion. It's hard to control my rage that all over the country people who should be in prisons or mental institutions, people who should be spat upon by anyone with a modicum of sense or decency, are poised to be elected to positions they will disgrace. What kind of country has a half-electorate who would even think about voting for such degraded specimens of humanity?

In this mood maybe the last thing I needed was Bob Herbert's NYT column today, taking off from Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson's book Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer -- and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (all emphasis added):

"Over the last generation," the authors write, "more and more of the rewards of growth have gone to the rich and superrich. The rest of America, from the poor through the upper middle class, has fallen further and further behind." . . .

Something has gone seriously haywire in the distribution of the fruits of the American economy.

This unfortunate shift away from a long period of more widely shared prosperity unfolded steadily, year after year since the late-'70s, whether Democrats or Republicans controlled the levers of power in Washington. "Winner-Take-All Politics" explores the vexing question of how this could have happened in a democracy in which -- in theory, at least -- the enormous number of voters who are not rich would serve as a check on policies that curtailed their own economic opportunities while at the same time supercharging the benefits of the runaway rich.

The answer becomes clearer when one recognizes, as the book stresses, that politics is largely about organized combat. It's a form of warfare. "It's a contest," said Professor Pierson, "between those who are organized, who can really monitor what government is doing in a very complicated world and bring pressure effectively to bear on politicians. Voters in that kind of system are at a disadvantage when there aren't reliable, organized groups representing them that have clout and can effectively communicate to them what is going on."

The book describes an "organizational revolution" that took place over the past three decades in which big business mobilized on an enormous scale to become much more active in Washington, cultivating politicians in both parties and fighting fiercely to achieve shared political goals. This occurred at the same time that organized labor, the most effective force fighting on behalf of the middle class and other working Americans, was caught in a devastating spiral of decline.

Thus, the counterweight of labor to the ever-increasing political clout of big business was effectively lost.

'We're not arguing that globalization and technological change don't matter,' said Professor Hacker. 'But they aren't by any means a sufficient explanation for this massive change in the distribution of wealth and income in the U.S. Much more important are the ways in which government has shaped the economy over this period through deregulation, through changes in industrial relations policies affecting labor unions, through corporate governance policies that have allowed C.E.O.'s to basically set their own pay, and so on.'

This hyperconcentration of wealth and income, and the overwhelming political clout it has put into the hands of the monied interests, has drastically eroded the capacity of government to respond to the needs of the middle class and others of modest income.

Nothing better illustrates the enormous power that has accrued to this tiny sliver of the population than its continued ability to thrive and prosper despite the Great Recession that was largely the result of their winner-take-all policies, and that has had such a disastrous effect on so many other Americans.

Still and all, how can it be that so many people are prepared to vote for candidates who by hook or by crook are witting or unwitting creatures of the oligarchy that feeds off the rest of us?

But somewhere in there I read our friend David Dayen's post this morning at FDL, in which he references Zaid Jilani's ThinkProgress account of Jennifer Cline, a Michigan woman "lucky" enough to receive a hand-written note from the president (links onsite).

In January of this year, Obama read a letter from Jennifer Cline, a 28-year-old woman living in Monroe, Michigan. Cline informed Obama that she and her husband had both lost their jobs in 2007 and fallen on hard times as a result. "I lost my job, my health benefits and my self-worth in a matter of five days," she wrote. Following the loss of her job, Cline "was diagnosed with two types of skin cancer, and she had no health insurance. She signed up for Medicaid, and treatment was successful. She went back to college after her unemployment benefit was extended." She hoped that in "just a couple of years we will be in a great spot."

After reading the letter, Obama chose to reply with a handwritten note on White House stationary. He wrote, "Thanks for the very kind and inspiring letter. I know times are tough, but knowing there are folks out there like you and your husband gives me confidence that things will keep getting better!"

But things, unfortunately, did not get better. Crunched by the costs of a down payment on her home and cancer treatments, Cline has been forced to sell her letter from the president to earn some money. She is selling the letter to autograph dealer Gary Zimet for $7,000, who will then sell it on his website momentsintime.com, which markets autographs.

D-Day comments in his post (again, links onsite):

Jennifer Cline is selling the letter to pay for a mortgage payment and medical bills. She got the help she needed from the President, in a manner of thinking, but not nearly the way she wanted to. Her hope had to turn into currency, the belief in a President turned into raw commerce.

Zaid Jilani adds that Cline's circumstances are not unique. Cline fares better than most in this economy because at least she came into possession of something of value to sell. For many others, it's their most cherished longtime assets, the last items they can scrape together, that comprise what they can exchange for money to keep them going. This is the essence of an economy that has broken down, where people become desperate, where they do things to preserve their lives and their families they wouldn't normally do. For a great number of Americans out there, it's everyday reality. And the new regime that swept into power on January 20, 2009 has not materially changed their circumstances.

Obama's done some things and it's important not to lose sight of them. But outside the political junkie class, he is measured on whether he brought a positive development in the lives of the great mass of people. Unfortunately, people are still unemployed, they're still losing their homes, they're still getting screwed by their loan servicers and they still have little recourse in bankruptcy. They are on the brink; their sacrifice and their struggle demands an overwhelming policy response. They got tinkering around the edges.

We did get our first "blame the whiny Left" column today, and I eagerly anticipate many more. But that's a stupid debate among elites. You can blame the lack of material economic improvements for the circumstances that occur today. Some of these were because of the depths of the crisis, some because of serious policy misjudgments, some because of an unwillingness to take on the forces of power who caused the problem. But it's this truth, the story of Jennifer Cline and her struggle to survive, that has brought us to this point.

People in Jennifer Cline's position are seriously kidding themselves if they imagine that voting for Republicans will help them. But it's not hard to understand why they would think long and hard before voting for Democrats.

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Bye-bye, Rahm -- write if you get work, and don't worry, there's no shortage of Village weasels left to carry on your mission

For a couple of hours this morning, White House spokesninny Robert "Ooh, I Hate That Professional Left So-o-o Much" Gibbs was destined to become, er, the new Tim Kaine.

by Ken

So Master Rahm is gone. From the White House, anyway. And apparently unmourned, except insofar as he now serves as a convenient scapegoat for anyone left behind who feels the need for one. (Witness David Axelrod's astonishing rewrite of history reported by The New Republic's Noam Scheiber as "the disillusionment of Obama's guru.") This is, of course, in perfect accord with one of the basic operating principles of modern-day fake-centrist right-wing Dems:

"Devote all your energies to serving the People Who Really Matter with gutlessness and freedom from principle. Just be sure to have a bus lined up, and at least one well-enough-placed schmuck to throw under it, if the heat falls on you."

It does appear that in the end our Rahm was kind of pushed out of the White House, I assume because once it became a Village fact-on-the-ground that he was on his way out to pursue the Chicago mayoralty, he lost a lot of his magic powers. He was, in a word, history. Now, as I've already noted, we can only hope that the good people of Chicago are sensible enough to look at the astonishing swarm of candidates seeking to replace what we have to hope is the city's last Mayor Daley and say to Rahm, "Nuh-uh, we don't think so."

The thing about Rahm is not just that he's evil, though he is, but that even the things he claims to be good at, like hard-nosed politics, or getting things done, he sucks at. I'm astonished to be hearing people talking about the "toughness" he is imagined to have brought to Democrats, when the guy is scared of his shadow when it comes to mixing it up with anyone who isn't weaker than he is, and has never fought any Republican half as hard as he does every Democrat to the left of, say, Joe Lieberman.

Yesterday on NPR's Morning Edition Mara Liasson was paying teary tribute to Master Rahm for being "prescient" in warning the president of the political risk of staking so much political capital on health care, but of course no one is more responsible than Master Rahm for the crappiness of the crap that was finally passed, with its unapologetic kowtowing to the giant corporate interests that would have suffered from real health care reform. It was the Master, after all, who toiled so tirelessly to mow down opposition within his party with the argument that all they had to do for political salvation was pass a bill, any bill. Was that more of Master Rahm's "prescience," Mara?

(Side note: If I know all of this, how does it happen that Mara doesn't? I don't know whether she's too ignorant or too corrupt to be a political correspondent, but one way or the other shouldn't she be quitting in abject disgrace?)

Again, Master Rahm likes to pass himself off as a political genius, when there's no evidence that he knows any techniques of political operation beyond: (a) pandering to voter apathy and ignorance and (b) behaving like an authoritarian sleazebag who lines his own pockets in the service of corporate masters while abusing the political little people. These are both, in their different ways, correct political expressions. But if they represent the sum total of your political acumen, you aren't fit to lick Karl Rove's shoes.

As we've pointed out so often here at DWT, Rahm had very little to do with the Dems retaking the House. To the extent that he succeeded in putting nominal-Dem fannies in House seats, these are the very people who are Exhibit A anytime the party's House leadership "doesn't have the votes" to enact legislation that would be genuinely beneficial to non-elite Americans. And with the progressives who found their way into Congress, usually not just without his help but with his active opposition, he used all the powers of leaderly strong-arming to spinectomize. He can smell political principle and especially independence a mile off, and do whatever he has to to stamp it out. My guess is that there isn't any Republican who hates Alan Grayson half as much as Rahm does.

Meanwhile back in the White House, a lot of my progressive colleagues have been trying frantically to find out more about Pete Rouse, Master Rahm's apparently interim replacement as chief of staff. I've heard some moderately good things about him, but I can't imagine that'll make any substantive difference, because Rahmism is bigger than Rahm -- no evidence suggests that his counsel was anything other than what the president wanted to hear. And the White House woodwork is crawling with Rahmistas.

Those "senior officials" in the administration may already have forgotten Rahm's name, but the spirit lives, as does the rank political ineptitude. This morning, for example, for a couple of hours White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was more or less signed, sealed, and delivered to replace Tim Kaine as chair of the DNC, at least according to Politico's Mike Allen and Josh Gerstein, in an online "exclusive" posted this morning.

Now if you say that Politico is a dreadful source of information, I couldn't agree more. The thing is Allen and Gerstein, Village hacks though they may be, didn't make this story up. Like most of the drivel their rag circulates, it was fed to them. So the obvious question is, who planted the story? And then the question is: why?

If it was a trial balloon, apparently didn't float. The Politico "exclusive" was posted at 9:41am ET, and by 1:15pm the Washington Post's Philip Rucker and Anne Kornblut had posted: "Gibbs unlikely to become DNC chair, White House says." It seems everybody in the White House (and on a Saturday!), including Gibbs, was denying all.

Well, not denying all. According to Rucker and Kornblut, "Senior administration and Democratic officials" -- presumably not to be confused with the "senior officials" who had earlier been whispering in Politico's ears -- "sought to squelch the report, saying the idea may have been put out as a trial balloon but that there was no real plan underway."

Now "there was no real plan underway" leaves lots of weasel room, and no modern White House ever seems to have a shortage of weasels. Well, yes, admitted one anonymous WaPo source(once again, this silliness could be whistled dead if the media political whores would stop granting anonymity to every Village ax-grinder peddling a "scoop"), maybe the Gibbs-to-DNC idea has been discussed informally, but not in any high-level meetings. Another senior anonym allows that maybe the idea has been talked about "vaguely," but it's "not currently under active consideration."

At least not since the trial balloon, if that's what it was, burst. The best clue to what such a trial balloon might have been about is this from the Politico scoop: "Donors’ response has been positive, according to people who have been consulted." (Quick: Can anyone count how many layers of anonymity are embedded in that, er, report?)

So the point of fascination remains: Who in the administration political apparatus thinks putting Robert Gibbs in charge of the Democratic Party political operation would be a good idea? Or even an idea worth discussing? As Alan Grayson set forth so cogently some weeks ago ("Gibbs should not resign, he should be fired"), it would be difficult to imagine a more hideously inept job of client representation than Gibbs's. Pretty much every word out of his mouth has seemed perfectly crafted to be used by the Republican obstructionist opposition to trounce, ridiculed, demonize, and otherwise tear the administration to shreds.

However, like other people who have the president's ear, Gibbs seems to have no trouble articulating his loathing for the "professional left," by which they appear to understand the people who have been warning since the administration's panoply of "Bush lite" (and often not-so-lite) policies became clear that they would likely have the effect on the public's perception that they have in fact had.

It's one thing to have to face the political consequences for standing on principle. But when you sneer at pols who have even a shred of principle and still take a political clobbering, well, isn't there something wrong with this picture?

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As usual, inside the Beltway there's never symmetry between Left and Right

"The GOP base wants tax cuts and deregulation, and when the Republicans are in power, they deliver as much of those things as they can. The Democratic base wanted a public option (actually, single-payer) for health care, a trillion-dollar stimulus, and the breakup of the big banks. It never came especially close to getting any of these things."

-- Michael Tomasky, in "The Right Way to Please

the Base," in The American Prospect

by Ken

Especially in the wake of White House Press Worm Robert Gibbs's Left-baiting performance, Michael Tomasky's new piece is an exhilarating must-read. If nothing else, it's nice to be back in the real world. (My favorite comment to date about the Gibbs fiasco was Alan Grayson's "Robert Gibbs has brought America together; both the Right and the Left hate him." Actually, he devotes most of his comment in this Ed Show segment to a brilliantly articulate description of how Gibbs has failed at his job, becoming a tool of the right-wing media. For the record, I've already set out my "I Hate Gibbsy" credentials.)

Michael begins by recalling:

A video that made the rounds last summer summed up the problem nicely. Mike Stark of The Huffington Post hoisted a camera on his shoulder, hung out on the streets near the House office buildings in Washington, and asked passing Republican House members: Do you believe that Barack Obama is a rightful citizen of the United States?

I don't know how many he asked (there were snippets of several ducking into cars or pretending to take calls), but he quoted 11 in the video he posted. Of the 11, only one, Trent Franks of Arizona [right], acknowledged straightforwardly that yes, his staff had intensively researched the question and was forced to conclude that a birth announcement in a 1961 issue of The Honolulu Advertiser likely couldn't have been forged. The other 10, mostly not well known, either ducked the question, marching forward in that West Wing, I've-got-important-business way, or gave too-clever-by-half responses, or just came out and said they weren't sure. "I think there are questions, so we'll have to see," quipped Charles Boustany of Louisiana -- spoken a touch ironically because he, unlike Obama, is in fact of Arab (Lebanese) lineage, an ethnicity frequently and incorrectly assigned to the president.

Oh, and by the way: Even Franks wanted Stark to understand that while he conceded the citizenship question, he believed Obama to be a socialist and jihad-abettor.

I remember watching this in disbelief and thinking, well, this explains a lot. These people aren't just indulgent of their base. They're terrified of it. The birther movement is crazy. And even on a question of crazy, these sitting members of the United States Congress could not say what is obviously true and uncontroversial to normal earthlings. I'm confident very few of them actually buy this nonsense. But they know exactly what kind of plagues will be unleashed on them if they admit the truth.

How to put this in perspective? Michael comes up with an ingenious hypothetical.

Let's imagine that a right-wing reporter had asked 11 Democratic House members in 2002 whether George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks and let them happen (an imprecise but rough analogy in that it is also, I believe, crazy). One or two Democrats might have played that one coy, but by and large, they'd have turned cartwheels disassociating themselves from such a view. Herein lies one of the most important facts of our politics over the past 20 years: Republicans are terrified of offending even the fringe elements of their base. Democrats are terrified of being associated with theirs.

This is a dynamic that shapes policy-making every day and has shifted the center of gravity rightward over those two decades.

No, indeed, inside the Beltway they sure don't treat Left and Right anywhere near equivalently. D.C. Dems routinely trash progressives to build up cred with their mythical "Center." By contrast, even before the Terror of the Teabaggers it would have been hard to imagine Republican pols saying anything unkind about the blatant ignorance and insanity pouring forth from their rightward flank; now it's all but unthinkable.

After making the comparison I quoted at the top of this post, Michael strolls down Health-Care-Memory Lane.

"It is important for us to build on our traditions here in the United States," Obama said early in the health-care reform process, by way of warning that single-payer was off the table from the start. It's pretty close to impossible to imagine a Republican president taking a policy goal for which tens of thousands of rank-and-file conservatives had petitioned and lobbied over many years and defenestrating it from jump street. When progressive goals like single-payer are not even seen as starting points for negotiation, they become marginalized, non-mainstream; the whole spectrum moves rightward.

Then he reviews some Clinton history: denouncing Sister Souljah, passing NAFTA, supporting welfare reform, signing DOMA.

Clinton may well have believed in all these things. But he also knew that they were smart politics: If he stuck it to the liberal interest groups a few times, Establishment Washington would applaud. I think it's fair to say there is little such equivalent pressure on Republican presidents.

Democrats kowtow to -- and appropriately go to bat for -- their interest groups at times. But it's usually a negative application rather than a positive one. That is: Democrats typically don't go out of their way to embarrass the unions or the pro-choice lobby, as we saw on the health-care debate, when both of those factions won certain side victories. But doing something big and affirmative for labor, for example, like passing card-check legislation? Many Democrats are scared to death of taking action.

The reasons for this are depressingly straightforward. One: About 40 percent of Americans identify as conservative, and 20 percent identify as liberals. If those numbers were reversed, the levels of passion would be as well. Two: The conservative noise machine has done an effective job of painting liberal interest groups -- even ones whose main causes have respectable or even majority levels of support -- as if they're all secret agents of Hugo Chavez. The noise machine accuses; even if the interest group is innocent, which it typically is, it must constantly explain why it's innocent, and the explaining takes up most of the group's time and resources.

"There are," Michael insists, "no quick fixes" for these problems. "America will never be a 40-20 liberal country (even in the mid-1960s, at liberalism's political apex, we were more like 30-30)." And the mild-mannered "liberal noise machine" is no match for the right-wing juggernaut.

[O]ne of these days, a Democratic president -- preferably the sitting one -- is going to have to choose an issue, just one, that is important to the base and enjoys popular support and just say damn the torpedoes and push the throttle. It might be the public option, in an Obama second term, after the full implementation of the health-care law in 2014. It might be a price on carbon, which majorities consistently support in polls. Just one issue: It merely has to be demonstrated that a goal important to the liberal base can be winning politics (and, subsequently, good policy). Things will change; still slowly, but they will. . . .

Ideally, the Democrats will pay somewhat more attention to their base, and the Republicans somewhat less to theirs (which they might, if prominent Tea Party candidates like Marco Rubio and Sharron Angle lose this fall). We'd have a more balanced politics, and liberals would have more of a voice, even if we don't get everything we want. Given the alarming way things might go in this country, I'd count it a victory if that's where we are 20 years from now.

And this is what we would have to call the "optimistic" scenario!

#

It appears that the Big Stinky Cheeses of Demdom lie as pathologically as their GOP soulmates

It would count for something if thugs like Master Rahm and the DCCC stooges would stop lying about why they hate candidates like Colleen Hanabusa, but don't hold your breath.

by Ken

As Howie and I have frequent cause to note, the increasingly unapologetic right-wing sympathies of the Democratic Party leadership make it harder and harder to distinguish the power-brokers of the two major parties without a scorecard.

In his Morning Line today, washingtonpost.com's Chris Cillizza has an updated version, faithfully "carrying the water" for the Big Cheeses of Demdom, of an earlier item on the latest development in the lineup for the November election for the Hawaii House seat just lost to the Republicans in a special election:

Former Rep. Ed Case (D-Hawaii) has opted not to run for the seat in the general election a week after he and state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa (D) split the Democratic vote and handed the seat to Rep. Charles Djou (R-Hawaii) in a special election.

The good news for Democrats in the Case decision is that are now likely to avoid a difficult and costly primary - the latest in the nation, in fact. The bad news is that the candidate they are left with is the one national party leaders -- if not their state counterparts -- regarded as the weaker of the two candidates.

Hanabusa had the support of the state's two senators -- Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka but party leaders in Washington didn't see a path to victory for her since she struggled to win over moderate Democrats and independents. While the White House and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee made it quite clear they preferred Case, neither entity wound up officially weighing in at all -- a move that effectively ceded the seat to Djou for the next six months.

The November general election, of course, provides much different dynamics. There won't be two Democrats on the ballot, and the electorate will be different too. Regardless of what party leaders thought of Hanabusa before, she will now likely be the only Democrat on the ballot in a district where President Barack Obama won 70 percent of the vote in 2008.

I have no doubt that the Big Cheeses of Demdom hate Hanabusa and love Case every bit as much as loyal Waterboy Chris represents. They're just lying their sorry butts off about why.

According to Waterboy Chris, it's all about "electability." "Party leaders in Washington didn't see a path to victory for her since she struggled to win over moderate Democrats and independents." This sounds like hard-headed politics, but it's really just bullshit. They love Case because he's a proven right-wing Democratic hack, and they hate Hanabusa -- beyond the fact that she's a woman (for a woman to draw official party support these days it appears she has to be either really rich or really conservative) -- because she believes in traditional Democratic values, which drives demon Dem corporatists like Master Rahm bonkers. So much so that, as they demonstrated all too blatantly in the special election, they'd sooner see a Republican in that House seat.

Howie covered this race at some length in January, and indeed the election played out just as foreseen, with Case running third behind Republican Charles Djou and Hanabusa, thereby allowing Djou to turn the seat Republican. There are no reports of Master Rahm, the man who supposedly lives to build Democratic majorities, shedding tears.

Is it not obvious that Master Rahm and his stinky Beltway stooges aren't afraid of Hanabusa losing; but rather are riddled with angst at the prospect of her winning? Of course the Master has been playing this game for ages: masquerading as the bare-knuckled battler on behalf of the Democratic Party when his real interest is purging the party as much as possible of pols to the left of, say, Heath Shuler, and maximizing the ranks of what we might call "coin toss" Dems. Or should I say "bushels o' bucks" Dems?

I guess I stand corrected regarding my recent suggestion that the Stinky Cheeses have stopped pretending that the issue in their support of all these crap candidates is an "electability" thing:

In this election cycle even the pretense of an "electability" factor has more and more been dropped, as the official party organs increasingly find themselves stumping for candidates who (probably fortunately) couldn't beat any candidate unencumbered by a sex scandal. It becomes increasingly clear that the party hacks support right-wing "Democrats" because they're the people they're most comfortable with -- people who will fit right into the Beltway's kabuki politics, where "order" requires giving highest consideration to the people who pay for it.

Just as spinmeistering, you have to admire the effrontery of the Stinky Cheeses in imposing their view of both Democratic values and Hawaiian politics over those of the state's Democratic U.S. senators, Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka (left), both of whom solidly endorsed Hanabusa. (There can't be a lot of precedents for a national party overriding the judgment of two senators of their party.)

It could be argued that Akaka holds a grudge against Case for primarying him in his 2006 reelection bid, but that seems to quite a good reason for holding a grudge -- not to mention a commentary on Case's party "loyalty." Inouye and Akaka have made it clear that they welcomed Case to Congress after he wangled his way -- via an earlier special election, in 2003 -- into Hawaii's other House seat, vacated by the death of Rep. Patsy Mink, but that he was a great disappointment to them as a congressman, until he gave up the seat to try to oust Akaka.

Case really thinks he belongs in the U.S. Senate. Howie noted that he's said to check the newspaper every day when he wakes up to see if maybe the 85-year-old Inouye didn't. Not surprisingly, given his virually Republican voting record, during his brief time in Congress he was a favorite of the K Street cash dispensers, and as the Dem Stinky Cheeses showed in the special election, they'll go a long way to advance the electoral prospects of one of their own.

As the general election race for the House seat now held by Republican Djou gets into gear, we'll find out what they're prepared to do for a real Democrat like Hanabusa. Political common sense says this is an R seat ready and waiting to be returned to the D column, but that's without reckoning on the interest of the Stinky Cheeses of the national party in keeping her far, far outside the Beltway.

#

HE GIVES US HELL, ALL RIGHT

Harry? Harry, is that you? Oh wait, the sign says that this fellow is suspending panhandling, to focus on the national economy. That can't be our Harry.

by Noah

The other day I received a sponging-for-reelection money e-solicitation from Sen. Harry Reid, under this banner --


It started out:

Friends [quite an assumption there -- Noah],

I've said it before: the Republicans have made me their top target. [God knows why! -- Noah again]

Then he blathered on about how he's a "force for change," a phrase whose meaning has apparently been redefined by people like him.

Nowadays, the only Democrat that's gonna get money from me would have to be a progressive, ActBlue kind of Dem, not the usual Repug in Dem clothing, so I wasted no time in replying to His Royal Spinelessness.

Senator Reid:

Sorry, but your party is also a party of no change and "no, we can't," as in "no, we can't get the votes for a public option." You guys don't even want us to have the same government health care that you have and will have the rest of your lives. Hell, Baucus and Schumer just sat on their fat asses and laughed as they had single-payer advocates arrested. You could practically see the crisp Franklins from the K Street Bribery Squads sticking out of their pockets. Joe Stalin would have cheered them on.

Until there is a public option (and one that isn't a watered-down, crossed-fingers-behind-the-back one), or, better yet, single-payer, I don't see why I should support or vote for Democrats anymore. Your party seems to think we have no choice but to vote for you. Well, I'll either support third-party candidates or just stay home. What's the difference? Now I hear even President Obama is open to abandoning the public-option concept. Might as well have given Bush a third term.

I'm sick of the sell-outs and sick of the corruption and bribe-taking. I'm tired of the smirks and the laughter coming from inside the Beltway. Tired of being played. You guys either have no idea or just don't care. The Senate is the worst of all. I'll give the Repugs credit, though. At least they have a spine. You're givin' us hell, all right. A Republican-lite is still a Repug.

Given the choice, Americans will vote for the truth-in-advertising model. Change is a hell of a lot more than a cynical campaign slogan, but I guess you're hoping there are just enough fools outside the Beltway to get you another term. You need to go visit America. Take some of your buddies with you. I wonder if they can comprehend it.

I heartily encourage all readers to give 'em all hell -- by phone, by e-mail, by fax, by buttonholing them if they dare walk the streets of your town, even by carrier pigeon, complete with well-aimed droppings! Just do it.

#

With Holy Joe cozily lodged in all but name in the bowels of the War Party, Senate and other Dems face a gut check. Ah, quit kidding--a GUT check?

The first Democratic mouth most of us heard belonged to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, responding to John King of CNN about "Holy Joe" Lieberman's endorsement of John McCain for president:

Let me say that I'm sorry that Joe felt called upon to do what he did, but our Democratic candidate, as we have done in the Congress -- the first bill that we passed through this House of Representatives was the 9/11 Commission recommendation bill to keep our country safe. Last night we passed $31 billion in additional funding so that we could confront terrorism and defeat the Taliban, which was, after all, the site from which this country was attacked and which, frankly, we have distracted our attention from.

And as far as Iraq goes, we need to defeat terrorists. When we've said we ought to redeploy, we have made the caveat that we ought to make sure that we continue to confront and defeat terrorism. So I think Senator Lieberman, who I -- is a good friend of mine, I respect him-- but I think in this instance he is wrong. And our Democratic candidate is going to make sure that the American public knows that we are going to be committed to the safety of this country, to the safety of our people, and to the defeat of terrorists.

Whoa there, Steny, don't get carried away!

Leader Hoyer was referring, of course, to His Holiness's claim that no Democrat could be trusted to continue the unmitigatedly catastrophic bungling in Iraq to which Holy Joe has from the outset committed his sclerotic heart and putrid soul. Myself, I'm more inclined to credit the other reason His Holiness let slip: that none of the Democratic presidential candidates wanted his endorsement.

Which by itself gives us reason to feel a little better about all the Democratic presidential candidates.

Now I don't know about you, but I would have figured that after a betrayal of his party of this magnitude, Holy Joe would have Democratic blood boiling. Accordingly, a friend gathered this sampling of quotes from prominent Dems:

"I have the greatest respect for Joe, but I simply have to disagree with his decision to endorse Senator McCain."
--Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada

"Everyone has the right to make their own decisions.... I wish he hadn't done what he did, but he's a friend of mine."
--Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota

"Joe has voted with us on most domestic issues."
--Sen. Charles Schumer of New York

"I respect Senator McCain for being a great patriot ... but so many of the issues that matter to Connecticut voters ... are all issues that Senator Lieberman has supported and McCain hasn't."
--Connecticut Democratic chair Nancy DiNardo

"It doesn't surprise me at all--I've known him 30 years. It doesn't surprise me."
--former President Bill Clinton

"Oh my God, no. Really?"
--anonymous Lieberman staffer, CNN.com, December 17th

Sen. Joe Lieberman's endorsement of Republican Sen. John McCain for president earlier this week rattled some of his Democratic colleagues, one of whom said he was "speechless" after his conference mate announced his choice.
--anonymous Democratic Senator

"I am very saddened by Senator Lieberman's choice, and profoundly disagree with it.... We need to elect a Democratic president in 2008."
--DLC founder-CEO and legendary centrist Al From [right]

And (says our friend) the best for last--

"Joe described his role in the party as that of an eccentric uncle, but I think it's more like having an uncle in the mob.... People are ashamed, but they're also afraid. It's not a happy thing for the family. His fellow senators are like volcano worshipers. They just know if he blows, then there's really trouble."
--former Connecticut Democratic gubernatorial nominee Bill Curry

Fer cripes' sake, freakin' Al From? A man who travels with compass and protractor to make sure that he's always at dead center (on a spectrum that often seems to range from Tom Tancredo on the right to, oh, Wile E. Coyote on the left)? The only Democrat in sight with the balls to say the simple truth about the Holy One?

I don't speak for Blue America, but I have been thinking about what I might say to the latest renegade who finds himself cut off from BA cash

Personal disclaimer: When it comes to Down With Tyranny's energetic participation in Blue America with partners FireDogLake, Crooks and Liars, and Digby, as far as DWT is concerned that's all Howie. I just view from the sidelines and occasionally cheerlead.

Sometimes it's ridiculously easy. You don't have to be a Ph.D.-ed political scientist to know that Maine Sen. Susan Collins, along with her fellow New England GOP "moderates," has made a mockery of the concept of "moderation." If these folks had had the guts to stand up and say, "No, we won't go along with this"--in other words, the guts their Vermont colleague Jim Jeffords actually had--who knows how differently the Bush regime's all-out assault on reason and decency might have played out? Instead they allowed themselves to function as Bush rubber-stampers, and Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee, having disgraced a proud family name, was rightly sent packing in 2006. (Was Chafee a fundamentally more decent human being than nearly all his Senate Republican colleagues? Sure, but so what?)

So it was exciting to discover via Blue America that something like the perfect candidate, Rep. Tom Allen, might be available--to learn, for example, that he has served in Congress over the exact same time period as Senator Collins, except of course in the House, where he has built up an actual record, one as positive as the incumbent senator's is negative. Tom threw his hat in the ring, and it has been exciting to watch the campaign--notably when progressive fund-raisers made the delicious discovery that active support for Senator Collins by her bosom buddy Connecticut Sen. "Holy Joe" Lieberman could actually be transformed directly into campaign cash for Tom Allen!

I hope no one forgets this race. It's almost a two-for-one: retiring an incumbent senator who has importantly misrepresented the interests of her constituents and of the country at large; and sending a superbly qualified new person (I think!) to the Senate--the very feat Rhode Island voters accomplished when they elected Sheldon Whitehouse to the Senate seat that Lincoln Chafee had wasted and dishonored.

So, Tom Allen for U.S. Senate!

Sorry, I kind of got carried away there. I should mention, though, that you can contribute to the Allen campaign on the Blue America '08 page, along with a lot of other candidates the tough BA screening committee has high hopes for.

From my sideline perch I know two things:

(1) The screening of candidates for possible Blue America support, and then the tireless effort to support the people chosen, consumes an enormous (and growing) amount of time and effort. I have a pretty good idea how much time and effort Howie for one puts into it, and I am filled with admiration.

(2) With success come new problems, including disappointments. This is built into the process. Human beings aren't machines. Just because candidates talk the talk while they're running doesn't mean they're going to walk the walk if they get elected. It's easy to get excited about a new candidate, and I think it's important to continue being able to be excited by new candidates. But the fact is, you simply don't know what they would do in office until they're in office. Which means disappointments are inevitable.

And plain disagreements as well. One complaint it's possible to hear, supposedly in support of such-and-such a politician's "independence," is that he/she doesn't want to be, in fact won't be, "dictated to." Which is silly. Blue America isn't "dictating" to anyone. We certainly understand that candidates may agree with our agenda on some points and disagree on others. What we don't understand is why those candidates think they should expect to raise money via Blue America.

Lately, in much the same way that you can expect any politican caught saying something self-evidently dopey to claim that he/she was "misquoted," or better still "quoted out of context," we are hearing that candidates who have disappointed Blue America hopes and expectations, and face being cut off from the modest cash infusions raised via BA, need to "explain their positions."

And they're always welcome to try.

What follows is strictly my take on this subject, and carries no official standing--with Blue America or anybody else who has such a thing as official standing. It is, more or less, as of right this moment and off the top of my head. But I'm thinking I might say to one of these candidates with a record of making statements and/or casting votes inimical to the core beliefs of Blue Americans:

We welcome open discussion. After all, that's one of the things being progressive is about. But we also have a set of beliefs: what we mean by the catch-all term "progressive." And so, Mr./Ms. Candidate, we are happy to have you clarify your position, as long as your idea of "discussion" isn't delivering unto us a set of canned "talking points"--and as long as you realize that the problem is as likely that you don't understand our position, or that you just don't agree with our position, as that we don't understand yours.

We don't wish you ill, and in fact hope you will beat back the almost certainly greater evil represented by your Republican opponent. But the contributions made by our donors mean too much to them, and are too precious to us, to be diverted to candidates who don't fit the mold of the "more and better Democrats" we are committed to helping in this election cycle.

It would be surprising, for example, if there's anything you can tell us about "the political realities"--whether it's in your home district (and I can vouch for the fact that Howie for one is exceedingly sensitive to the realities of particular districts) or in the District of Columbia--which we haven't heard at least several times too often. We have watched through this session of Congress as the Democratic "leadership" in both houses allowed themselves to be reduced to Bush-enabling figureheads, clinging all the while to their intimate knowledge of the "political realities."

The indications we see throughout the country are that voters right now are way ahead of their elected representatives in wanting some of those political realities changed. The big moneyed interests may not have come around to this view, and probably won't ever, but we don't represent the big moneyed interests. In our small way, we are trying to provide a counterweight to them.

For too long too many of us have grudgingly tolerated being offered Election Day choices between greater and lesser evils. There's no question that all too often it is necessary to make such choices. But that's not what Blue America is about.

We are committed to offering voters good choices. Right now that means prospective officeholders who will search out and support the earliest possible end to our toxic occupation of Iraq, while doing everything possible to prevent repetitions of this catastrophic involvement, and while supporting social and economic justice for all Americans, working toward the brightest and most hopeful future for all.

It is, as I said, a natural process for candidates we supported in the past to disappoint us. The way the process works, we try to learn from the mistakes and move on. There are people we supported who won and turned out to be everything we hoped they would be. There are people we supported who haven't won yet but still excite us, and we hope will continue to excite us once they do win. And then there are lots of people just entering the fray. We want to find the ones who are our kind of people and let them know that if they stick to their principles, we'll be there to support them.

It's not that complicated, really.
-

As Beltway Dems congratulate themselves on their shrewd strategizing over Iraq, is there any chance of us getting whatever the heck they're smoking?

"Obviously it's a good move. It gives President Bush and Republicans one less thing to shoot at."
--Democratic pollster Fred Yang [right], on his party's congressional capitulation on funding the Iraq war

In the real world where most of us live, the story about congressional Democrats' capitulation to Chimpy the Prez, giving him the blank check on Iraq he was demanding, is a story of, well, abject capitulation.

Apparently not so within the Beltway-delimited Shangri-La on the Potomac. "The crazy thing about the fight," Matt Stoller writes today on MyDD, "is that Democratic insiders are convinced that capitulation is the right strategy. They actually believe that this will put pressure on the Republicans in the fall, and that standing up to Bush is a bad idea."

Matt quotes this chunk from reporting by Susan Ferrechio on CQ.com:

Democrats said this week they would have jeopardized their fall bargaining position if they had insisted on keeping withdrawal timelines in the current supplemental spending bill (HR 2206). Persisting now would likely have resulted in another veto and would have handed Republicans talking points for the Memorial Day recess about which party supports the troops in the field.

Democrats were particularly worried about the prospect of Bush declaring at wreath-laying ceremonies that "Democrats have stopped resources for the troops," said Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala. [right].

"The problem is that we have to provide money for the troops, and if we don't, the Democrats will be blamed," added Rep. James P. Moran, D-Va., a war opponent. "Bush has the bully pulpit, so he will define who is responsible."

"Obviously it's a good move," said Democratic pollster Fred Yang. "It gives President Bush and Republicans one less thing to shoot at" during the upcoming recess week.

Which prompts this from Matt:

Bush has the bully pulpit. Obviously it's a good move.

These are the attitudes of Democratic members and pollsters. There's no evidence that Bush moves numbers anymore. In fact, when he talks he becomes less popular. He has no credibility, which means that his access to the bully pulpit is severely diminished. Yet Democrats are afraid of him. More than that, Democratic members think that by capitulating to him that Republicans will stop saying that Democrats won't fund the troops. It's crazy. It's like they didn't notice the 2002 election where they were like 'we can take Iraq off the table'.

And while the news media is abuzz with talk of Democratic capitulation, I'm watching idiots like Louise Slaughter [right] on C-Span saying that this is not a concession to Bush, and that Congress is fighting to end the war. And she really believes it. She really thinks that Democrats are fighting Bush with this bill. It's amazing. It's like la-la land.

POSTSCRIPT: Shh! House Dems scheme to capitulate quietly

Apparently those Beltway Dems are so pleased with their victory-through-capitulation strategy that they're engineering a way of avoiding even leaving a voting trail. David Sirota reports this morning that House Democrats have come up with a way of voting for the Iraq spending capitulation without actually appearing to cast votes for it:

VOTE ALERT: Dick Cheney Dems
Plan to Hide Votes on Iraq TODAY

Today is the day House Democrats are expected to vote on Iraq - except, news out of Washington this morning says the leadership has come up with a nifty little trick to try to prevent the public from seeing who voted for giving Bush a blank check, and who voted against it. If you thought Democrats were behaving like cowards by caving into a President at a three-decade low in presidential polling and giving him the very blank check they explicitly promised not to give him during the 2006 election, you ain't seen nothing yet. Welcome to the rise of the Dick Cheney Democrats - that is, Democrats who endorse governing in secret and hiding the public's business from the public itself.

Here's how it is expected to work today (though it could change). Every bill comes to the House floor with what is known as a "rule" that sets the terms of the debate over the legislation in question. House members first vote to approve this parliamentary rule, and then vote on the legislation. Today, however, Democrats are planning to include the Iraq Blank check bill IN the rule itself, meaning when the public goes to look for a vote on the Iraq supplemental bill, the public won't find that. All we will find is a complex parliamentary procedure vote. Lawmakers, of course, will then tell their angry constituents they really are using all of their power to end the war, and this vote on the rule - which was the real vote for war - wasn't really a vote on the war. It is a devious, deliberately confusing cherry on top of the manure sundae being served up to the American public, which voted Democrats into office on the premise that they would use their congressional majority to end the war.

All of this is happening at the time top Republican leaders are making ever more sociopathic statements at odds with mainstream public opinion. Today, as just one example, House Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam (R-FL) [right, better known to DWT readers as Rep. Howdy Doody] cheered on the blank check, telling Roll Call that "You drop Murtha [troop readiness standards], you drop withdrawal, the troops win." He doesn't explain how popular proposals to better equip and train American soldiers for combat and force the Bush administration to come up with a plan for redeploying troops out of harms way means "troops win."