You'll Never Go Wrong Politically By Doing The Opposite Of Whatever Ed Rendell Tells You To Do

They've had their turn running the place-- and they screwed it up

Ed Rendell is the apotheosis of the Democratic Party Establishment Hack. He was a Philly tough-on-crime D.A. for 2 terms, Philly Mayor for 2 terms and Pennsylvania Governor for 2 terms, pleasing Republicans by slashing items that helped poor people and working families from the state budget. He is widely thought to have fueled Pennsylvania's opioid epidemic by eliminating and Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program. He was also chairman of the DNC and of the National Governors Association. In 2008 he was a top Hillary Clinton supporter against Obama who went on Fox & Friends to kiss their ass for the Clinton campaign: "I think during this entire primary coverage, starting in Iowa and up to the present, Fox has done the fairest job, has remained the most objective of all the cable networks," he told Steve Doocy. "You actually have done a very balanced job of reporting the news, and some of the other stations are just caught up with Senator Obama, who is a great guy, but Senator Obama can do no wrong, and Senator Clinton can do no right." After his second term of governor he became an effective fracking lobbyist and is one of the top fracking proponents in the upper ranks of the Democratic Party.

He is the personification of the self-loathing anti-progressive Republican wing of the Democratic Party. Last year, just before election day, he wrote an OpEd for The Hill warning how the Democratic Party is going too far left. "One trend," he wrote, "that has taken hold is quite alarming: our swing to the far left. That trend has been exemplified by almost all of our putative presidential candidates. The two clearest examples of trying to appeal to our base by being as progressive as possible were the rush to embrace a “single-payer” health care system after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) publicly endorsed it, and the stampede to call for the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Sanders’s Medicare-for-all plan really was not unexpected; he talked about single-payer during the 2016 campaign. But when he reiterated it, loudly and clearly, his words brought a rapid endorsements from almost all other Democrats who are hinting at presidential aspirations... Regardless of your opinion on its merits, single-payer is not a reasonable solution to the challenge of making health care accessible and affordable; it will never get the 60 votes necessary in the Senate, even if Democrats were to win back the chamber on Nov. 6. Our candidates should work for solutions that are politically achievable, and not appeal to voters with a plan they know cannot become reality. (That’s like saying, 'Mexico would pay for the wall.') I would respect our wannabes more if they would make realistic proposals for reform."

Quintessential Ed Rendell-- and why conservatives always say no progress is ever achievable. He urged his readers to back conservative corporate whores-- calling them "solid left-of-center candidates"-- Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Amy Klobuchar or John Delaney. This graphic was created as a reminder to political hacks with no vision-- like Ed Rendell:

Yesterday, Rendell was back on the radio with reactionary Republican billionaire and major Trump backer John Catsimatidis, spewing the inevitability argument for Biden. "I think Joe Biden is baked in. People say, 'oh well, he makes gaffes.' Well, the American people have followed him for 40 years, and they know he makes gaffes. It’s part of his charm."

Political elites have followed him for 40 years. Most Americans have no idea who he was before Obama picked him to balance his ticket. Few Democrats Biden was a corporate suck-up for his entire career and a virulent racist for the first half of it. As for the "gaffes"... half of them are lies meant to mislead and the other half are indicative of a brain malfunction increasingly common when old people are sinking deeper into senility-- like Trump... and Biden. Rendell then launched into the carefully crafted Biden campaign talking points he surrogates use to excuse his deteriorating mind:

"But it’s baked in. No one seems to hold it against him. They believe he’s a smart, decent guy. He’s got a good heart. And he’s effective at government. I think in the end, Joe Biden will prevail. But you can’t be sure of that. Elizabeth Warren is coming on very strong. She’s a good campaigner. Bernie has a resolute following...You just don’t know how this is going to shake out."

Why Does Far Far Far Far Right Democrat Ed Rendell Talk Exactly Like A Republican When It Comes To Policy?

Trump is spending $200 million in a phony military deployment to defend the southern border from a make-believe "invasion" of Honduran refugees but Democratic corporate warns Democrats that they are leaning too far left. Who remembers former Pennsylvania Ed Rendell, an any time he's needed spokesperson for the Republican wing of the Democratic Party?

From his earliest days, Rendell ran as a right-of-center Democrat who was tough on "crime," a death penalty booster and, oh, so proud of the death sentence he won against Mumia Abu-Jamal, president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists, as district attorney-- a sentence that was overturned 30 years later. Rendell was "America's Mayor" even before Rudy Giuliani. He was also the head of the DNC when the Democrats allowed Bush/Cheney to steal the presidential election from Gore/Lieberman. In 2008 he was a fanatic anti-Obama supporter of Hillary who keep babbling that Fox was the only fair news station and how Fox and Friends was the most balanced news on the air. If he were a TV anchor, he'd be Chris Matthews with with little more Steve Doocy in him. After he was finally termed out of office he became a fracking lobbyist.

His OpEd for The Hill this weekend was the same old whining from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party you hear whenever progressive ideas become popular. His marching orders: lasso all those potential presidential candidates trying to appeal to the voters instead of the special interests who finance the party establishment. He starts with the premise that "our swing to the far left"-- Medicare for All? a livable minimum wage?-- "is quite alarming... That trend has been exemplified by almost all of our putative presidential candidates. The two clearest examples of trying to appeal to our base by being as progressive as possible were the rush to embrace a “single-payer” health care system after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) publicly endorsed it, and the stampede to call for the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Sanders’s Medicare-for-all plan really was not unexpected; he talked about single-payer during the 2016 campaign. But when he reiterated it, loudly and clearly, his words brought a rapid endorsements from almost all other Democrats who are hinting at presidential aspirations. If you’ve read one of my columns in The Hill, you know that I think single-payer could work under certain circumstances but I am troubled by its initial expense and taxes we would have to raise to make it work early on. In the few places it has been tried, such as Vermont, it was repealed because it was simply unworkable and unfundable.

Regardless of your opinion on its merits, single-payer is not a reasonable solution to the challenge of making health care accessible and affordable; it will never get the 60 votes necessary in the Senate, even if Democrats were to win back the chamber on Nov. 6. Our candidates should work for solutions that are politically achievable, and not appeal to voters with a plan they know cannot become reality. (That’s like saying, “Mexico would pay for the wall.”) I would respect our wannabes more if they would make realistic proposals for reform.

The rush to declare their progressive bona fides through this topic was matched by a similar charge to pledge the abolition of ICE. Now, it’s clear that ICE is a mess, needs reforming and a serious reordering of its priorities. But among other things, ICE is charged with-- and performs adequately-- keeping out young people who are being forced into our country to become sex slaves, drug dealers, etc. The proper response for someone wanting to be U.S. president should be similar to the answer regarding the ACA: “Mend it, don’t end it.” Kudos to Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN.) for endorsing this commonsense approach.

The “abolish ICE” movement came at a terrible time for the Democratic Party because, in the weeks preceding the movement’s arise, the Trump administration was getting savaged-- and deservedly so-- for its idiotic policy of separating families at the southern border. Public opinion polls were so strong against the administration that the divider-in-chief was forced to sign an executive order to keep migrant families together. His unfavorable ratings were shooting up, but we Democrats came to his rescue by letting him change the subject-- to say that Democrats wanted to abolish ICE and leave the border defenseless. That may appear to be a totally illogical argument, but it effectively redirected attention and halted the bleeding for President Trump.

One more glaring incident of our far-left overreach occurred immediately after Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Let me begin by saying that I believe Christine Ford and Deborah Ramirez, who accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault. Had I the opportunity, I would have voted no on Kavanaugh’s confirmation because of that, and also because he clearly demonstrated partisanship and an inclination to vitriolic revenge that makes him unqualified to sit on the Supreme Court.

However, once he was confirmed, we should have let the issue drop. But too many of our most vociferous progressive candidates and progressive media outlets promised that Democrats will begin impeachment proceedings against Justice Kavanaugh if we take back the House. First of all, that’s another promise that never could be achieved. Yes, if we win the election, and if every Democratic House member voted to impeach Justice Kavanaugh, we could send his case to the Senate for trial.

But, of course, there is no way we would ever get 66 votes to convict him and remove him from the court. So, they were guilty of making a shallow promise with no basis in reality. By doing this, Democrats gave ammunition to the Republicans, ensuring their base has a reason to vote by making the treatment of Justice Kavanaugh a weapon. This helped create momentum that dramatically reduced the Democratic Party’s lead in the enthusiasm gap among voters.

So, the moral of the story is: if we continue to tack to the far left in the 2020 election cycle, we surely will see another four years of President Trump (please, no!). But, if we recalibrate our thinking and come up with a solid left-of-center [get ready for a list of conservative corporate whores like himself] candidate (e.g. Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Sen. Klobuchar, or Rep. John Delaney of Maryland) we just might win-- and take the House and Senate as well.

This is why our political system never gets any better. How come no one ever goes to a restaurant and spoils Ed Rendell's dinner the way they spoiled Miss McConnell's? Curious about the thermometer above? Take a guess-- and then click it and see for yourself what it is. These are all non-controversial things voters like but that Ed Rendell, Joe Lieberman and Steve Doocy think are too "far left":

The Democratic Party Is Creating Its Own Disaster

The Democratic Party is forcing Sanders voters to look at its real face and choose. Not the best move with November just months away (source; click to enlarge).

by Gaius Publius

Short and simple. It looks like the Democratic Party is on the verge of creating the disaster it's trying to avoid — its own destruction. Unless Sanders is nominated — in which case, the Party will be reborn as what it no longer is — the Party in November will offer to the people its true self and ask for the people's support.

That true self is expressed in the graphic above. That expression is, "I am the Party of lobbyists. I am the Party of Clinton. You are not the Party." The existence of the graphic also tells a second tale. Notice that it's handmade. Graphics like these say that many Sanders voters are learning this season to understand the Democratic Party the way writers like Thomas Frank understand it, and then to hate it.

That's especially true of independent (non-party-affiliated) Sanders supporters, of which there are many.

Reuters tracking poll filtered for likely general election voters, independents only. Yellow is Sanders (58%). Red is Clinton (14%). Orange is Won't Vote (28%). Won't Vote has double the support that Clinton has. Source; click to enlarge.

Recall that independents now make up over 40% of the electorate (43% to be exact), and that neither party can win in November without winning independents.

Again. The Democratic Party is teaching Sanders voters to hate the Democratic Party. The progress of this election, the growing popular resistance to the current version of the Democratic Party, and the Party's resistance to any attempt to alter the money-soaked way it does business, is putting on full and public display what the Democratic Party now stands for. People see it, and they don't like it. What an educational moment we're experiencing.

Look again at that graphic at the top. Can you not see the anger in the making of it? Can you not see the reason for anger in the content of it? Can you not see disaster approaching because of that anger? I'm one of those who won't like a President Trump. I don't know how to convince the Democratic Party not to give him to us.

Stimulus and Response ... and Response

It's all so self-inflicted. Stimulus — here's what Sanders wants to do for the Democratic Party and to its entrenched Establishment:

He wants to give the Party a gift, to recapture it in the name of the people it claims to support.

The response? Here's just one taste of the Party's public reaction, via remarks from a "senior Clinton aide" after her New York victory:

“We kicked [Sanders'] ass tonight,” a senior Clinton aide told me Tuesday night. “I hope this convinces Bernie to tone it down. If not, f--- him.”

"If not, f--- him." There's a lot more like that, a ton of it in fact, including what looks to me like obvious election fraud, which is also getting noticed. The battle over control of the Convention brings all of this into focus as well. In the struggle for power between the Party and the people, the Party is making what it stands for way too obvious.

How will Sanders' supporters respond if the Party establishment succeeds? Look again at the graphic at the top and then at the one in the middle. For the last time — the Democratic Party is teaching Sanders supporters to hate the Democratic Party. What could possibly go wrong?

Pride and a Fall

It may not be that Clinton brings just herself down. She may bring down the Party as well — with the Party's eager collusion. We'll look at what that could look like, the possible self-destruction of the Democratic Party, in our Look Ahead series. It won't be pretty, if it occurs, no matter how it occurs. The Party could lose by losing to Trump. The Party could lose by winning against Trump. The Party can only win by losing to Sanders.

If you're a Sanders supporter, it's still not too late. Care to help him defeat the Ed Rendells and Wasserman Schultzes of the world? Click here, and thanks!

GP
 

A Corporate Convention: "Comcast Presents ... The Democratic Party. Welcome to Philadelphia."

The above is a real fake ad — it's a fake Air France ad that really showed up in Parisian ad spaces during the recent climate conference. "Care about climate change? Of course not. We're Air France. If we cared we'd stop flying planes. We're just sponsoring the climate conference to confuse you, and to make sure we keep making money" (or words to that effect).

by Gaius Publius

It's looking more and more that the Crossroad in Philadelphia, the 2016 Democratic Convention, will be a crossroad indeed. Wasserman Schultz is reported to be openly stacking the convention committees with Clinton supporters, despite Sanders having won, so far at least, 45% of the delegates.

And Ed Rendell — a "huge Hillary Clinton backer," a "vocal proponent of shale gas extraction" (fracking), former governor of Pennsylvania, former DNC chair and current "DNC Host Chair" (under Debbie Wasserman Schultz) — is telling Sanders supporters, in effect, "You'll get to vote before you watch him lose, and then he'll make a nice goodbye speech, so don't make trouble afterward. Play nice and play along." (Note that Rendell has already called the rest of the race for Clinton. We'll see about that.)

Dem convention host: Sanders supporters better 'behave themselves' when he loses https://t.co/cXhVMv5Yur pic.twitter.com/REYfEznKii

— The Hill (@thehill) May 8, 2016

And over the crowd at the Wells Fargo® Convention Center will fly, at least virtually, all of the banners of every corporation that finances and maintains this Establishment — including the ones that finance, almost certainly, its nominating convention.

A Corporate Convention

We won't know about corporate funding of the Democratic Party Convention until after it's held (clever of the law to allow that), but here's what happened in 2012 (my emphasis):

Corporate cash helps fuel Democratic convention despite pledges

New group accepts company money

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — While Democrats have touted their grassroots fundraising efforts for the 2012 Democratic National Convention, deep-pocketed corporate donors are helping underwrite the event.

Among the corporate sponsors at the Charlotte convention: AT&T Inc., Bank of America, Duke Energy, Time Warner Cable, Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo, UnitedHealth Group, Piedmont Natural Gas, US Airways and law and lobbying firm McGuireWoods.

The corporate sponsorship appears to fly in the face of the Democrats’ pledge to host a “people’s convention.”

The party’s 2012 “host committee” is not accepting contributions from corporations, lobbyists and political action committees. Democrats also capped how much money individuals can give at $100,000.

But the party is accepting in-kind donations from corporate firms. In addition, a second nonprofit, called “New American City” was established in May to “defray” administrative expenses and other costs. New American City does accept corporate money.

The exact levels of these companies’ financial support won’t be known until mid-October when filings will be submitted to the Federal Election Commission.

Banks, cable companies (like Comcast, which as you'll see has a special seat at this year's well-bought table), health insurance companies, fracking companies, airlines and lobbying firms — all are in all likelihood all lined up to foot the bill for the Establishment-run Democratic Convention. The Party fêtes its patrons. The patrons smile down at the Party.

When you're the only one with money, they all have to come to you eventually. This is from a USA swimming national championship event (source).

By the way, I'd be shocked if Big Pharma weren't a huge contributor funding this year's Democratic Convention. TPP is an Obama high-value special order; drug companies are among the biggest winners if it passes; and how better to say thank you to a friend than to help the friend of a friend when she needs the cash. We won't find out about Pharma sponsorship until after the nomination, of course, but watch for it.

Comcast's Special Seat at the Democratic Party Table

You remember Comcast, right? They own MSNBC, one of the many networks that helped Hillary Clinton immensely when her pre-won nomination was suddenly put in doubt by Bernie Sanders voters. It took a lot of shoulders to shove that wheel nearer the finish line, and MSNBC (Comcast, $74 billion annual revenue) had a lot of shoulders to push with, as did CNN (Time Warner, $28 billion annual revenue), the New York Times (the New York Times Company, $1.5 billion annual revenue) and anyone else with a lot of money to lose if an actual anti-corruption candidate dared to win. (Don't give up yet, billionaires. She could still lose. Keep fighting.)

So, Comcast. The name to remember (aside from the above-mentioned Ed Rendell, a Comcast employee) is David Cohen. Here's Daily Kos diarist Liberty Equality Fraternity and Trees, one of my favorites over there, with the news:

Comcast EVP/Republican Fundraiser to Serve as Senior Advisor to DNC 2016 Host Committee

Earlier today, Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter announced that David Cohen, executive Vice President of Comcast, will serve as senior adviser to Philly's Host Committee for the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

The same Comcast that is one of America's least favorite companies.

And the same David Cohen and same Comcast that lobbied against Obama's net neutrality proposal.

And the same Comcast that fought Philadelphia's paid sick leave legislation, getting the mayor to veto it two times before he finally accepted a watered-down version today. ...

And the same David Cohen that raised money for former Republican governor Tom Corbett and current Republican senator Pat Toomey.

But running America the way it's currently run is a bipartisan joint, right? I just wish there were a Comcast banner flying high above the arena when the delegate votes are taken and Sanders speaks. Then Sanders could point repeatedly to it and rail against corporate governance, all without saying their name.

Care to Plaster Philadelphia with Posters?

I'm in the early stages of thinking about this, but consider this thought, and if you like it, you can join in. Remember, you don't need anyone's permission to make a fuss, especially an artistic one.

Corporations, many of them big polluters, spent a lot of money green-washing themselves by actually sponsoring, openly and nakedly, the recent COP21 Paris climate conference. It's like a tobacco company contributing to a lung cancer clinic — and getting naming rights. But they did it anyway, hoping no one would notice the problem.

Then this happened overnight, in Parisian bus stops and other places that normally hold billboards. It looks like a simple product poster, but it isn't:

Also this:

And of course, the lovely piece at the very top.

It's called "brandalism" and I hear it's a lot of fun. Feel like joining the fun? You don't need anyone's permission to say yes. I even understand one could make smaller posters, some with adhesive backing and some suitable for nailing to nail-ready outdoors objects (but only where legal, of course). Philadelphia could be your playground if you want it to be. Or not; your call on that.

My thought: As decorative as Philadelphia already is (that's the magnificent Comcast Center at the link, by the way), perhaps the city could use a little something extra — or a lot of it — a something that only you and your friends can provide, should you decide to go yourself.

GP
  

Who Would You Rather See Running America-- Someone Like Ed Rendell Or Charles Pierce?

David Cotes' PAC spent $5.9 million in legalistic bribes to conservatives of both parties this year

Digby was upset yesterday when she saw that pillar of conservative consensus, Ed Rendell, go on MSNBC to yammer about how Obama wants to cut back on "entitlement" benefits for working families even more than most people know yet. But does Ed Rendell ever have any other message? Isn't that his whole shtick? Is he joining fellow bloodsucking Republicrats John Podesta, Gene Sperling and Neera Tanden at next week's big Fix The Debt shindig? Every piggie who wants some of the big cash corporate leaders are dangling in front of Beltway insiders will be there-- the distant enemies of America's working families who inhabit their own DC bubble and who have wrecked the country and now insist the rest of us should "share" the sacrifices among ourselves.

Last week Tom Hamburger helped unmask the bad actors behind this group and yesterday Charles Pierce introduced Esquire readers to the pirates behind the campaign to fix the debt. What a great writer! [Did you ever get around to reading Idiot America?]

There are many more important topics out there than The Deficit, the scary, hairy monster that haunts the dreams of David Gregory and only the blood of the poor and elderly can appease its wrath. Climate change comes immediately to mind, as do income inequality, the vast inequities of our tax code, the ongoing upward translation of the nation's wealth, why more bankers aren't in federal prison, and whatever did I do to the baby Jeebus that he allowed Notre Dame to play for a national championship. But the biggest reason why we should shut the national piehole on the topic is not that we have more serious problems, or even that any discussion violates the blog's first rule of economics-- Fk The Deficit. People Got No Jobs. People Got No Money. The real reason we should stop talking about it for a while is that the people who are insisting that it will eat us and our posterity on toast are lying swine who would sell your white-haired granny to the Somali pirates for another three points on the Dow. Until we all acknowledge the fact that organized wealth in this country has become downright sociopathic in the heedless damage it does, any discussion of The Deficit can and will be hijacked by that quarter in order to gain absolution for its grievous sins and the right to go on committing them against the rest of us, over and over again.

Listening to these people talk about the national economy is like listening to a burglar tell you that you should really polish the silver more often.

The latest confirmation of this obvious truth comes from the good folks at the Institute Of Policy Studies, who took a look at the various plutocrats and pirates who are behind Fix The Debt, the latest scam from the phony deficit scolds, albeit one made up almost exclusively of people who helped throw the national economy into the abyss for a decade, and then came looking for government handouts when it all went to hell. In a sensible world, the whole notion of taking seriously the economic proposals emanating from this particular bag of rancid marsupials would occasion an immediate takeout order from Wanda's House Of Tar And Feathers. Instead, we have the people at IPS, to whom none of our courtier press will pay attention, but who have done us the invaluable service of showing us in detail how the folks behind Fix The Debt do business in their day jobs. These are the people, of course, who are so concerned about The Deficit because of the impact it will gave on their children and grandchildren, most of whom, of course, will not have to work a day in their lives, because Grampy stole the country back in the day. The report is a truly remarkable look at who's really running things.

The 71 Fix the Debt CEOs who lead publicly held companies have amassed an average of $9 million in their company retirement funds. A dozen have more than $20 million in their accounts. If each of them converted their assets to an annuity when they turned 65, they would receive a monthly check for at least $110,000 for life. The Fix the Debt CEO with the largest pension fund is Honeywell's David Cote, a long-time advocate of Social Security cuts. His $78 million nest egg is enough to provide a $428,000 check every month after he turns 65. Forty-one of the 71 companies offer employee pension funds. Of these, only two have sufficient assets in their funds to meet expected obligations. The rest have combined deficits of $103 billion, or about $2.5 billion on average. General Electric has the largest deficit in its worker pension fund, with $22 billion.

(Cote is the sweetheart to whom Gregory gave such an elaborate private dance in the VIP Room of his show on Sunday. When it comes to speaking mush to power, there's nobody quite like the Dancin' Master.)

Look at those numbers. Only two-- !-- of these gombeens run companies that intend to fulfill the bargains they have made with their workers. They have feathered their own nests so luxuriously that they make the Ottoman sultans look like Franciscans. And they now have organized themselves to lobby for a program that will cut Social Security and Medicare, and they are trotting it out in public, and nobody has yet greeted them with the flying clumps of horse manure that are really the only answer to this shameless audacity. My god in heaven, the average Social Security recipient receives a little over $1200 a month, or roughly 400 times less than will David Cote who, on Sunday, said this to David Gregory who, alas, declined to spit on him.

We have a significant problem with entitlements. Medicare, Medicaid in - in particular. Those things need to get resolved together. If we could actually develop a four trillion dollar credible market credible plan that would cause everyone out there to say, wow, we can govern again.

It is hard to believe, given the very real look into how these people think that was the essence of the Romney campaign, that so many people now covering our politics seem unwilling to admit what is plainly in front of their face. We need government more than ever to protect us and our political commonwealth from a rapacious business and financial elite that sees the country as something to be pillaged, and that doesn't have the basic patriotism that god gave the common sea slug. These people have no more business directing the politics of the country than does your drunk uncle who watches Fox News. These people ought to have less influence in our politics than do the people who leave the mints on their pillows every night. There is nothing for the rest of us but self-government, which occasionally must show the right people its fangs so they do not wreck the country and loot what's left. It is all that the rest of us have.

The Pennsylvania Republican Party's Jihad Against Democracy

Pennsylvania state Senator Daylin Leach is one of the most (and only) real progressives in his state's Senate. After serving in the state House of Representatives since 2003, he was elected to the Senate to represent much of Montgomery County and parts of Delaware County in the Philly suburbs in the southeast corner of the state. This week he's been the most articulate Democrat in explaining the latest Republican assault against democracy from Tom Corbett and the Republican legislature. Here's the OpEd he did for his pals at the Philadelphia Inquirer:

In America, we don't elect our presidents directly. Each state elects representatives to the Electoral College, which technically "elects" our president. For 224 years, Pennsylvania has joined virtually every other state in casting all of its electoral votes for the presidential candidate who won the state's popular vote. This has always made Pennsylvania a critical state in national elections because of the number of electoral votes we deliver.

On Monday, Gov. Corbett endorsed changing our system. He wants to award one electoral vote to a presidential candidate for each congressional district he or she wins. This is an obscene, transparent, blatantly partisan change in the rules, designed to help Republican presidential candidates.

We should be suspicious any time one political party unilaterally tries to directly affect the outcome of future elections. Republicans in Harrisburg want to award electoral votes according to congressional districts because they are in control of the current redistricting process. They want to be able to decide how many votes to guarantee future Republican presidential candidates.

The redistricting process is likely to create 12 solidly Republican districts and six Democratic ones. This assures any Republican presidential candidate a clear majority of the state's electoral votes. This means that your vote in the presidential election will be meaningless.

This plan will also end Pennsylvania's status as a battleground state and will make us irrelevant to presidential campaigns. Why should candidates come here when we will already know what the final electoral vote count will be? It is distressing that our governor is pushing a plan to make Pennsylvania matter less in national politics.

Notice that Republicans in control of states that GOP presidential candidates usually win show absolutely no interest in changing their rules. We won't be seeing this proposal in Texas or Mississippi. It is only states that Republicans currently control, but which tend to vote Democratic in national elections, that will see the rules altered. Any change to our Electoral College should be adopted uniformly across the nation, with buy-in from both red and blue states so there is no effort to rig future elections.

The governor gives lip service to improving our electoral system, but this bill has nothing to do with good government. It is simply a partisan power-grab. If Corbett was really interested in improving Pennsylvania's electoral structure, he would support bipartisan proposals such as early voting, no-excuse absentee voting, or a national popular vote. But he opposes all of these.

Instead, the governor supports this bill, as well as additional legislation that would make it harder for people who disproportionately do not vote Republican to vote, such as requiring photo ID at the polls. This will disenfranchise millions of the poor, the elderly, and those who live in cities.

At times, Democrats have controlled the executive and legislative branches of state government. They could have passed anything they wished, and when it comes to substantive policy they often did. But nobody ever attempted to abuse their temporary control to fix future elections. As the prime sponsor of redistricting reform, I find it disheartening that this proposal will make gerrymandering an even more entrenched part of the system.

Elections in a democracy are sacred. Changing the rules created by our founders in order to benefit one political party is profoundly wrong. It desecrates our history and is a repugnant attack on the very core of our nationhood. Corbett's endorsement of this profanity brings to mind the famous words of Joseph Welch to Sen. Joe McCarthy during another attack on the basic structure of our democracy: "Have you no sense of decency?"

I don't know how many votes Texas fascist Pete Sessions, chairman of the NRCC, controls in the Pennsylvania legislature but yesterday he was voicing his "concerns" about the plan, not because of any sense of fairness, of course, but because he senses it could lose the GOP some seats in Congress. Sensing that national Democrats will move resources into suburban districts in a way that could tip the balance against precarious right-wingers Jim Gerlach, Pat Meehan, and Mike Fitzpatrick, Sessions groused "This proposal will have a minimal effect on the presidential race at the expense of negatively altering the political landscape for Republicans in Pennsylvania’s House races.”

"$1 billion of infrastructure spending creates 25K well-paying jobs that can't be outsourced": outgoing PA Gov. Ed Rendell

In the latest installment of The New Yorker's "New Yorker Currents" interview series, staff writer George Packer talks to term-limited Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell "about the 'lousy' state of the the country’s roads, bridges, and other infrastructure; why failing to make investments poses a threat to our economy and stature in the world; and how to build public support for capital investments."

"We're going to leave our children with roads that are so congested nobody's going to get anywhere, with a light-rail system that's a joke, with airports that are clogged and increasingly dangerous, with bridges that fall down. That's what we want to leave our children?"

-- Governor Rendell

The Nov. 29 issue of The New Yorker contains "some excerpts, condensed and edited" from the online video conversation between Governor Rendell and the magazine's George Packer. Here are some excerpts from the excerpts. -- Ken

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE COUNTRY THAT ONCE
BUILT HIGHWAYS, RAILROADS, DAMS, BRIDGES?

GOVERNOR RENDELL: We used to be a country that built things. And not just infrastructure: we built things for the entire world. American manufacturing is teetering on the brink of extinction, except for a little bit of high-tech manufacturing. If we become a nation whose economy is solely based on services, I think we're finished as an economic power.

The whole mania that's gripped the body politic and the public in the last twenty-five years: it's wrong for government to spend, we don't want to borrow, we'll borrow ourselves into debt, we're going to leave our children and grandchildren with debt. Instead, we're going to leave our children with roads that are so congested nobody's going to get anywhere, with a light-rail system that's a joke, with airports that are clogged and increasingly dangerous, with bridges that fall down. That's what we want to leave our children?

WHY HAVE YOU MADE THIS YOUR SIGNAL CAUSE?

GOVERNOR RENDELL: It's all about economic competitiveness. The port of Shanghai in less than five years will have more throughput than the top ten American ports put together. There's almost no investment in American pots going on right now.

It's also public safety. People died in New Orleans. They didn't have to die . . .

We need to grab the American public. We need to tell people that this is government spending that's going to improve their safety, improve the quality of life, create jobs -- one billion dollars of infrastructure spending creates twenty-five thousand well-paying jobs that can't be outsourced.

It's been lost or subsumed in this mania about the deficit. The federal government is the only government in the country that doesn't have a capital budget. Every state does, every municipality does. The federal government buys paper clips, which have a thirty-day life span, the same way it finacnes bridges that have a thirty- or forty-year life span. It makes no sense at all. No business would do it.

ISN'T THE PUBLIC PART OF THE PROBLEM, WANTING
THINGS BUT BEING UNWILLING TO PAY FOR THEM?

GOVERNOR RENDELL: When you spend time talkng to the public, people do listen and they are open-minded -- and they get it.

#

What do you have to do to get a slug like Arlen Specter out of the Senate?

Rick Santorum knows: Arlen's no liberal.

"The voters didn't send us to Washington to duck the tough issues -- they sent us here to take them head-on. We must enact the right policies for America's working families and let the politics take care of itself. This is the right thing to do. I'm proud of our work, and I look forward to standing accountable for it before the American people."

-- PA Rep. Joe Sestak, from a March 16 statement urging

House Democrats to support health care reform

by Ken

The last time I wrote about the Sestak campaign, it was to indulge the fantasy of a Senate that had places for both Delaware's temporary senator, Ted Kaufman (who had just made a defiantly tough floor speech on real financial-regulation reform), and the man who should be sending Arlen Specter into retirement, Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak. And in the process of stitching the two parts of the post together, I managed to misattribute the above quote to Senator Kaufman rather than Representative Sestak -- a silly mistake, because Senator Kaufman hadn't been sent to Washington by voters at all, but was appointed to fill Vice President Biden's former seat until a special election can be held.

I've written a number of times now about what seems to me a remarkable campaign on the issues which Joe Sestak has been waging for the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nomination. What I don't believe I've stressed enough is how extraordinary it is that I of all people should be paying attention to campaign position papers. Usually I'm the one who pays as little attention as possible to campaign rhetoric, on the ground that it's just consultant or handler hooey designed to tell people what they want to hear.

But the Sestak campaign has seemed to me something else. It hasn't been the usual cynically poll-tested statements on a handful of hot-button issues. Instead there has been this incredible abundance of thoughtfully reasoned and forcefully argued positions on a whole array of issues, most of which no one is talking about, least of all incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter. Now I don't doubt that the issues the Sestak campaign has chosen to take stands on are hoped to be popular ones -- they're all issues that affect citizens directly and ought to be of considerable concern -- for example, the plight of homeless kids zapped by the economic meltdown.

I'm sure the campaign thought there was the possibility that such an obviously sensible concern about the welfare of our children might attract media attention. And of course it should have. But regardless, it was a position worth taking, and from this and a host of other positions that we hardly ever hear from politicians about, I've had the feeling that we're getting the real voice of exactly the kind of person we need more of in government -- and, to put it bluntly, the U.S. Senate desperately needs more of. From what I know about the congressman, he's not big on being told by political professionals what to think or say -- or do.

Which is why it's so frustrating that the campaign seems to have made so little headway among Pennsylvania Democratic primary voters. I mean, it looks to me like the campaign you would dream of based on your Civics 101 curriculum -- a man of demonstrated character and principle bringing to the attention of voters a vast array of issues that need attention, for which there are legislative fixes, or at least ameliorations, at hand.

Clearly a lot of the blame lies with President Obama and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who allowed the wretched Arlen, that cynically self-promoting opportunist, to con them into taking him unconditionally into the Democratic fold when he had virtually no bargaining power -- he was facing up to the grim fact that the rising tide of Republican know-nothingism had made him unrenominatable in a Republican primary. And it's understandable that establishment Dems would have coveted his Senate vote. Why, that brought them one vote closer to being able to do, well, nothing much, but maybe someday . . .

I suppose it would have been unthinkable for the president and the governor to say, "Sure, you can come aboard the Democratic ship, but we're not making any commitments, or any promises, about the 2010 nomination." And when you get right down to it, why would they have said such a thing? Arlen is, after all, one of them: a man who is wholly owned by a cynical, corrupt system in which the first question is always, "What's in it for me?" Ironically, what's in it for Arlen the Democrat has often been as inconvenient for the establishment Dems as was Arlen the Republican, because Arlen is always for Arlen. Still, I'll bet the president and the governor are prepared to forgive even that, since again, they understand and identify with what makes him tick politically: the big-money system. When the chips are down, they all know who'll buy them more chips.

Nor is there any reason to go soft on the Infotainment News Media. They all know what Arlen is, and don't seem to see any reason to make sure Pennsylvania Democratic primary voters know. Is he more like a Democrat than, say, Miss Mitch McConnell or Tiny Jim DeMint? Sure, but is that the standard Pennsylvania Democrats really want to enforce? But to the media sluggards too, Arlen is one of them. A hack and an opportunist? Sure, but aren't they all hacks and opportunists? They don't think of it as a bad thing.

There are lots of reasons why the Senate has become unworkable. But one, clearly, is that it contains way too many people, in both parties, who think like Arlen. The reality is that the Senate needs Joe Sestak a lot more than Joe Sestak needs the Senate. What a waste of an opportunity, though, to upgrade the club membership.

#