"Tea Party" more popular than the Grand Old Party?

Easier said than done (4.00 / 1)

Moderate GOPers will finally understand there is no longer room in their party for them. We should reach out to traditional GOP types who are increasingly isolated.

I like this idea. It is the cornerstone of my centrism. However, there will be the liberal purists that will unconditionally rail against the Democratic candidate that reaches out to these voters. In the "Battle for The Middle," candidates are repeatedly thrashed for not gushing "true Progressive values."

There is an intolerance amongst the far left for progressive politicians to even couch progressive ideals in "moderate speak." Cries of "pandering and kowtowing" puke forth, like so much kneejerk because the liberal parrot points are not regurgitated.

Good luck with your endeavors, Mr. Marsh. It can be done. It is being done, but it is more difficult than it needs to be. The Pharisees of the Left will not be appeased.

Whack-a-mole, anyone?

---

by: Jack Mitchell @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 12:36:56 PM CST

This really is crap. (0.00 / 0)

Truly stupid crap.

Motivated by a delight in insulting progressives, rather than any actual thought and analysis.

---

by: elwood @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 18:04:26 PM CST

[ Parent ]

More of a taunt (0.00 / 0)

It is not, as you say..stooopid.

There seems to be no problem here with delighting in the misfortunes the GOP has, due to its "teabagger problem." The nimble fingered political calculators are banging away, looking to wrench the disenfranchised "center-right."

Yet, it is taboo to challenge the far left to look in the mirror or worse yet, ask their nearest neighbors to quit placating them.

So as we whirl around, like so much toilet slog, discussing how the 2010 & 2012 elections are doomed because our leaders aren't blue enough, let's not kid ourselves.

I'm OK. You're OK. And the walls came tumbling down.

I think it is time to tighten our shot group. The battle is pitched. And, as Rudyard wrote:

YOU may talk o' gin an' beer  
When you're quartered safe out 'ere,  
An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it;  
But if it comes to slaughter  
You will do your work on water,          
An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.

 

Whack-a-mole, anyone?

---

by: Jack Mitchell @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 18:52:29 PM CST

[ Parent ]

You wouldn't know the far left if it bit you in the rear n/t (0.00 / 0)

---

by: elwood @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 20:04:14 PM CST

[ Parent ]

But he's right, (0.00 / 0)

nobody is rolling out the red carpet to the center right.

---

by: Alex Gallichon @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 23:07:48 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Quite possibly :-! (0.00 / 0)

I don't mind airing it a bit, for the simple reason that I think others put us in this box.

---

by: JimC @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 19:26:35 PM CST

[ Parent ]

At Our Peril (4.00 / 2)

Of course the social "conservatives" are fading. They've been used by the powers that be and their time is up.

It is, however, unfortunate that Obama has surrounded himself with the old Rubinites at the economic policy table.  They've done far too much damage already.

If we Democrats choose to ignore the legitimate populist outrage at the continued power of the Wall St plutocrats, it will be at our own peril.

No'm Sayn?

---

by: BurtCohen @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 13:35:47 PM CST

Populist outrage (4.00 / 1)

at Wall St plutocrats....

...wow...

The imagery to me is of William Jennings Bryan's cross of gold.  

---

by: Alex Gallichon @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 23:10:28 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Yep (0.00 / 0)

Populism has been part of who we are since the shaping of the Constitution.

The same creditors/robber barons still rule!

No'm Sayn?

---

by: BurtCohen @ Wed Dec 09, 2009 at 08:37:17 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Game Theory (4.00 / 1)

I was thinking about offering up a "game theory" or "branding" thread, but this will do.

Conventional widsom says, one party can afford to alienate its furthest wing on a few issues, because that wing is most diametrically opposed to the other party and will therefore be there on Election Day. But the Almighty Center must never be alienated.

That's probably usually true -- but not now, at this historical moment. The Democratic Party moved right, under Clinton -- not right-wing, per se, but right of where it was. That worked, but then we had an election STOLEN and got plunged into eight years of madness. It took two wars, a sliding economy, and loss of much of a great city to bring us back to power.

But those crises all persist, and we literally don't know what to do with the power we have. "Anybody but Bush" was a useful precursor to the 2008 process; it laid groundwork for unity. But being united in opposition is not the same as being united in governance.

I'll use healthcare to avoid using the wars. Single-payer was taken off the table too soon. We began compromising with ourselves before we even started talking to the GOP. It's what we always do. We should have allowed that debate to play out, but our leaders, in the guise of protecting us from electoral damage, merely narrowed the spectrum.

I can't come up with a metaphor that quite satisfies me, so I'm punting on that. But I'm willing to bet someone could prove that the most successful politicians are those (unlike Charlie Bass, apparently) who know who they are and what they stand for.

 

---

by: JimC @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 13:35:59 PM CST

A mouth full (4.00 / 1)

Single-payer was taken off the table too soon.

It is one thing to believe that single-payer was a powerful bargaining chip, to be strategically played and another to think it was the objective.

This is where the purists cause the most grief. Fighting an enemy to ones front is grueling enough. Receiving potshots from the rear is, among many things, demoralizing.

Whack-a-mole, anyone?

---

by: Jack Mitchell @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 14:35:22 PM CST

[ Parent ]

That is what I believe (0.00 / 0)

It is one thing to believe that single-payer was a powerful bargaining chip

We all KNEW we couldn't get it. But why allow the other side to define the debate? Enough of us wanted it, let's at least have a hearing on it.

 

---

by: JimC @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 14:46:44 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Medicare For All (4.00 / 1)

I think communicating Medicare For All, which is the way Ted Kennedy explained single-payer, would have been much easier than "selling" a 2,000+ page bill.  That's the next chapter.

---

by: Rep. Jim Splaine @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 16:53:35 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Healthcare is about the only (4.00 / 1)

thing that has united the Democratic party since FDR.

I begin to get cynical, that the party doesn't want to lose it's most valuable implicit election promise and actually implement the thing.

---

by: Alex Gallichon @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 23:13:09 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Adding (0.00 / 0)

And that's what I mean by bringing the party together first. Maybe the single-payer discussion would have honed the larger thinking around the final bill, improving it and making everybody happier.

---

by: JimC @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 14:47:47 PM CST

[ Parent ]

What would game theory say about the ability (4.00 / 1)

of players to simply quit the game?

Voter participation has dropped over the years, as the parties have acted on "we can afford to ignore the activists in our base".

---

by: elwood @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 18:06:57 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Parties? (0.00 / 0)

Or one party, namely ours?

Re: people dropping out, I don't know. I was hoping someone else would chime in.

And for the record, I'm not entirely comfortable with game theory as a political metaphor, but I do think the GOP does comfortably view this as a game. Right now, for example, the GOP has a clear strategy of obstruction: stop all things Obama. That is their gamble, even though it may cost them seats in the short term (you could say it already cost them Specter, though I'm not sure he's a great pickup for us).

---

by: JimC @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 19:22:12 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Atrios (0.00 / 0)

For the uninitiated, "dirty hippies" is pretty much anyone left of Evan Bayh, and it sardonically refers, I think, to the portrayal of the Left in the traditional media.

http://www.eschatonblog.com/

Since all the dirty hippies decided that the public option was what mattered, it was probably inevitable that it would go (I don't know this, I'm hopefully mostly kidding). Pissing off the hippies is what "moderates" do, and as most of them don't have a clue about policy anyway, if the hippies are for it then they know it must be bad.

(snip)

Next time there's a major piece of legislation, I hope "The Left" can organize around supporting all the stuff they actually don't like and rejecting all the stuff that they actually do. We might just trick the "moderates" that way.

---

by: JimC @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 13:56:34 PM CST

One Angry Socialist (0.00 / 0)

(h/t NH Ex-pat)

Chris Hedges' Columns
Liberals Are Useless

I save my anger for our bankrupt liberal intelligentsia of which, sadly, I guess I am a member. Liberals are the defeated, self-absorbed Mouse Man in Dostoevsky's "Notes From Underground." They embrace cynicism, a cloak for their cowardice and impotence. They, like Dostoevsky's depraved character, have come to believe that the "conscious inertia" of the underground surpasses all other forms of existence. They too use inaction and empty moral posturing, not to affect change but to engage in an orgy of self-adulation and self-pity. They too refuse to act or engage with anyone not cowering in the underground. This choice does not satisfy the Mouse Man, as it does not satisfy our liberal class, but neither has the strength to change. The gravest danger we face as a nation is not from the far right, although it may well inherit power, but from a bankrupt liberal class that has lost the will to fight and the moral courage to stand up for what it espouses.

My favorite part centers on the classism that can be found. My heart goes out to Peter Sullivan.

I was also at the time a member of the Greater Boston YMCA boxing team. We fought on Saturday nights for $25 in arenas in working-class neighborhoods like Charlestown. My closest friends were construction workers and pot washers. They worked hard. They believed in unions. They wanted a better life, which few of them ever got. We used to run five miles after our nightly training, passing through the Mission Main and Mission Extension Housing Projects, and they would joke, "I hope we get mugged." They knew precisely what to do with people who abused them. They may not have been liberal, they may not have finished high school, but they were far more grounded than most of those I studied with across the Charles River. They would have felt awkward, and would have been made to feel awkward, at the little gatherings of progressive and liberal intellectuals at Harvard, but you could trust and rely on them.

Whack-a-mole, anyone?

---

by: Jack Mitchell @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 14:27:40 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Moral courage (0.00 / 0)

That's pretty much what I was calling for above.

But I've never really understood why writers like to bash liberals so much. As a writer I understand the temptation of the sweeping metaphor, but it's a teensy bit unfair to put a broad swath of American opinion in the -- what did it say? -- underground.

---

by: JimC @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 15:39:46 PM CST

[ Parent ]

That word again - Groundswell (0.00 / 0)

I've read that dirty socialist hippie's tirade a couple of times now. My summation is:

It is not enough to have ideas. Those ideas have to be pounded into the face of allies and opposition. Then, and only then, will those ideals be realized. No half measures.

When I argue purists, it seems like I'm arguing the principle. Rarely is that the case, but I'm not always patient enough to articulate this. What underlies most of my scoffing is the strong belief that they are understrength. Not in concept, but in real manpower.

Put the boots on the ground, pens and clipboards in hand, and beat the system. Obama just did it. It can be done.

BUT only if enough people agree.

This is where I get an attitude. The purists, left or right, will rarely, if ever, get enough consensus to muster the groudswell to assert their cause. They refuse to compromise. They can't muster support. They refuse to achieve their goals incrementally. SO the gripe, from the underground.

Whack-a-mole, anyone?

---

by: Jack Mitchell @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 16:49:59 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Well, I go back to game theory (0.00 / 0)

Let's say you and I have different positions on Bill X. The GOP will consider your version, but will definitely vote against my version. I can admit this and not say a word, quietly settling for your version. Or I can raise a big stink, making a passionate case for my version.

Remember, their hardliners are arguing against your version too. Maybe we should bring my version to the floor, with your version being our backup plan. Then the moderate Republicans -- if there are any -- can tell the hardliners they pushed us to compromise. But we know we got a victory.

Any way you cut it, I have to push left. Otherwise, what's the point of electing me?

---

by: JimC @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 17:11:48 PM CST

[ Parent ]

What not to do (0.00 / 0)

Is rally antagonists against me, undermine my poitical capital and create a disincentive for the GOPers to bother at all.

Even though your plan is sound, the caucus will still be the backbone of this effort. How do we address the fact that we hold seats where we are lucky to have a (D), while pushing purple regions bluer.

Is it by ramming liberalism in the faces of those with no palate for it? Or do we concede certain principles and look for what is shared in common?

Governing is campaigning in the offseason.

Whack-a-mole, anyone?

---

by: Jack Mitchell @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 17:22:06 PM CST

[ Parent ]

FDR Knew About Bipartisanship (4.00 / 1)

He said: You can't tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it.

Stand and fight for what you want! Then, and only then, compromise, only if you really must.

No'm Sayn?

---

by: BurtCohen @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 19:34:37 PM CST

[ Parent ]

No (0.00 / 0)

We never concede on principle; we compromise to get what we want later because we can't get it now.
 

---

by: JimC @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 19:36:32 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Principle (0.00 / 0)

Compromise lies between the pro-life conservative and the anti-war liberal. Are not both desirous of sustaining life? Yet they burn the candle at different ends.

Whack-a-mole, anyone?

---

by: Jack Mitchell @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 19:53:06 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Whoa Jack! (0.00 / 0)

To my mind those things are not comparable. Trying to make them so is intellectually false and a meme of the anti-choice crowd.

---

by: Jennifer Daler @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 19:57:06 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Intellectually false, how? (4.00 / 1)

Pro-lifers talk about not killing babies.

Anti-war demonstrators talk of filling body bags.

Then, there is the Anti- Death Penalty crowd, though they have recently switched their case to economics.

Funny, the pro-lifer will raise their babies to go die in a war. While the Anti-War folks prefer to nip "social problems" in the bud.

All valuing life, but acknowledging "justifiable" death. To the non-partisan (which isn't me) it is confusing.


Whack-a-mole, anyone?

---

by: Jack Mitchell @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 20:56:04 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I'm not getting into this. (0.00 / 0)

Just read what you wrote. Think of definitions and the locations.

---

by: Jennifer Daler @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 21:13:26 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Bad example (0.00 / 0)

What would that bill be?

Here's a potential healthcare compromise: No public option in New York or Massachusetts, but one in states where there is only one insurer. I'd consider that, in the hope that it bolstered the chances of a national public option.

But if the conservative won't consider a public option anywhere -- just to continue this example -- I'm pulling my cards. Why do otherwise?

---

by: JimC @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 19:58:37 PM CST

[ Parent ]

There has to be common ground (0.00 / 0)

If we were so different, we'd be killing each other, like in many countires in this world.

Political blather is entertaining, and yes it serves some purpose, but does it not get in the way. There are extremes. To read June Frazier's excellent piece and not sense the reciprocal is blind, imho.

Whack-a-mole, anyone?

---

by: Jack Mitchell @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 21:11:07 PM CST

[ Parent ]

That IS the common ground (0.00 / 0)

We have a social contract. I think some Republican ideas are dangerous, and I'm not going to apologize for that. I won't teabag them, but there are limits to compromise.

But again, the stuff that I consider beyond the pale -- say, the alleged Cheney assassination squads -- are, one hopes, considered beyond the pale by Republicans too.

So that's why I hope that Eric Holder prosecutes whatever Bush officials he can. F bipartisanship when it comes to matters of law. Newt Gingrich says that's partisanship. He's lying -- and why doesn't my party have the guts to say that?

Your argument is predicated on the existence of GOP moderates. They're welcome to support our candidates, but I'm not handing them any candy until they can demonstrate that they actually exist.

---

by: JimC @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 21:20:27 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Like Yelling "No Nukes" (0.00 / 0)

I'm not sure what island of political arrogance you come from, that has you believe that any American need prove themselves to get such "candy."

Pudding being the proof, we have control over the House, Senate & WH, yet......

Could it be that they know something you and Dennis Kucinich do not? Or shall we go with the conspiracy theory that it is all about BIG business.

I knew they should have passed lobbying reform first! Damn lawyers, again.

PS. I'd turn Cheney over to The Hague. Do they have the death penalty?

Whack-a-mole, anyone?

---

by: Jack Mitchell @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 21:36:34 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Foul (0.00 / 0)

The question you raised was, should we reach out to GOP moderates. I said no, because they don't exist, and now you rate that answer as unacceptable.

There are independents, and they have to be reached out to, but I submit that a strong Democratic agenda (broadly but distinctly defined -- something like "working for the other 99%") has greater appeal to the indies than an insincere pander to them does.

---

by: JimC @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 21:42:53 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Democratic agenda (0.00 / 0)

Oh. It's all Democrats now. Like Blanche Lincoln/Arlen Specter "Democratic?"

I was talking about the far left to Progressive subculture, ya know the ones BH was made for.

So, ya. We may have little to gain attracting "moderate Republicans" because we may have most of them already.

The liberal purists weep.

Whack-a-mole, anyone?

---

by: Jack Mitchell @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 21:55:03 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Kind of, yeah (0.00 / 0)

A unified, motivated Democratic Party is a damn powerful thing. I want to make sure we have that before we worry about the moderate Republicans.

I'm willing to admit that this might be unattainable in the long term.

---

by: JimC @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 22:01:51 PM CST

[ Parent ]

100 times Yes (0.00 / 0)

So you know I'm serious, I will speak in Portuguese, "Exactamente!"

A unified, motivated Democratic Party is a damn powerful thing.

Will the liberal purists weep?

Whack-a-mole, anyone?

---

by: Jack Mitchell @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 22:14:10 PM CST

[ Parent ]

We wait in the wings (0.00 / 0)

We've got to play a part.

---

by: JimC @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 22:43:10 PM CST

[ Parent ]

This is just insulting (0.00 / 0)

Who do you think is fighting for economic equality in this country? I'll let you know, it's us 'weepy purists'. And I will weep at the continued destruction of the middle class.

Democrats in Washington have demonstrated that they just don't get it. Pandering to the center leaves us with these band-aid policies that do not constructively solve the problems that characterize the inequality in this country. If we do not acutely address these problems, we're screwed. We can already see the damage in the Millenial generation -- we will be worse off than our parents. Call me a liberal purist. I'm sorry that I expect more from a party that's platform is entitled "Renewing America's Promise". It's bullshit, and until they start honoring their promises, I'll only put my 'boots on the ground, pens and clipboards in hand' for candidates like Dennis Kucinich, who actually honor their words.

Elitist classist? Nope, I just want to be able to see a doctor.

because who is to doubt the American Way is not the way?

---

by: peacekeeper @ Thu Dec 10, 2009 at 16:52:24 PM CST

[ Parent ]

3,891 (0.00 / 0)

If all you say is true, you would think folks would notice.

Whack-a-mole, anyone?

---

by: Jack Mitchell @ Thu Dec 10, 2009 at 17:10:46 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I don't know what that is trying to suggest (0.00 / 0)

but people vote against their self-interest all the time. There are many reasons why Kucinich doesn't get high turn-out, one reason being that so many Democrats write him off saying he doesn't have a chance, even though he represents their positions most accurately.

Obama, however, has apparently done a complete 180 since his campaign. From Matt Taibbi's latest Rolling Stone blog

That was the day the jubilant Obama campaign announced its transition team. Though many of the names were familiar - former Bill Clinton chief of staff John Podesta, long-time Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett - the list was most notable for who was not on it, especially on the economic side. Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist who had served as one of Obama's chief advisers during the campaign, didn't make the cut. Neither did Karen Kornbluh, who had served as Obama's policy director and was instrumental in crafting the Democratic Party's platform. Both had emphasized populist themes during the campaign: Kornbluh was known for pushing Democrats to focus on the plight of the poor and middle class, while Goolsbee was an aggressive critic of Wall Street, declaring that AIG executives should receive "a Nobel Prize - for evil."

But come November 5th, both were banished from Obama's inner circle - and replaced with a group of Wall Street bankers. Leading the search for the president's new economic team was his close friend and Harvard Law classmate Michael Froman, a high-ranking executive at Citigroup. During the campaign, Froman had emerged as one of Obama's biggest fundraisers, bundling $200,000 in contributions and introducing the candidate to a host of heavy hitters - chief among them his mentor Bob Rubin, the former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs who served as Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton.

Oh, but I forgot. Matt Taibbi is another one of those liberal, fringe, overrated purists (nevermind the fact that he's right).

because who is to doubt the American Way is not the way?

---

by: peacekeeper @ Thu Dec 10, 2009 at 17:21:49 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I think you're pulling my leg (0.00 / 0)

If you could read that entire Taibbi piece, you can pick up what I'm laying down.


Whack-a-mole, anyone?

---

by: Jack Mitchell @ Thu Dec 10, 2009 at 17:33:16 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Which part? (0.00 / 0)

I have read it, I'm not sure what part references what you're 'laying down'.

because who is to doubt the American Way is not the way?

---

by: peacekeeper @ Thu Dec 10, 2009 at 17:54:59 PM CST

[ Parent ]

This Leftist (0.00 / 0)

is perfectly comfortable reaching out to those old NH Republicans, the ones who believe in good, competent (if small) government, and in getting value in exchange for your expenditures.  I'd welcome their input, if they can be comfortable with ideas like support for unions of workers and REALLY taking care of the downtrodden and helpless among us.

What I'm NOT comfortable doing is making a goal out of centrism or, as it is expressed on the national level, bipartisanship. Here and in Washington, we should be speaking up and standing up for our principles and inviting our opponents to join us.  We should not be compromising even one inch in order to attract the pinched, parsimonious smile of Olympia Snowe or, for that matter, Joe Lieberman.

Sure, I voted for less government and less government spending...just NOT the parts that I benefit from!

---

by: Ref @ Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 20:12:51 PM CST

Common Dreams (4.00 / 4)

What links many on the left and right is a populist core: We demand to govern ourselves. Not a government of by and for the very richest, but by the old we the people. As I said earlier, when we leave that territory to the Republicans, we do so at our peril. Let's shape the discussion, not be shaped by it!

No'm Sayn?

---

by: BurtCohen @ Wed Dec 09, 2009 at 08:42:27 AM CST

[ Parent ]