The Multitasking Cashier and Other Political Issues

by: JimC

Sun Dec 05, 2010 at 14:21:20 PM EST

Let's talk about food.

Why? Because I like food, and I'm too lazy to do any research to make my points.

The actual reason is that food offers me a vehicle to follow up on my "pox" post and discuss the sort of issues I think the Democratic Party, and by extension the entire American political system, should pay more attention to. We all eat. And because I can only walk in my own shoes ... which is part of the point.

Every weekday, I get coffee at the same place on my way to work. It's my second cup, usually, and it's not optional. If I'm 15 minutes early, I stop there; if I'm 45 minutes late, I stop there. When I stop, I tend to be carrying too much stuff -- sometimes my work laptop, sometimes not, but really the days without the laptop can be worse because then the stuff is not compressed into one thing. I'll have a book, my reading glasses in a hard shell case that is broken and won't close tightly, and my brown (plastic) bag lunch. So the coffee, which is self-serve (I pour it, I put the milk in) makes a new element and sometimes creates a delay in the time it takes me to get the money out.

The delay can be, I'd say ... five or six seconds. Long time. Forever if there's a line.

By the time I look up, the cashier has looked away. She is looking out over the floor of the place, scanning for problems: a spill, for example, or a customer who isn't a regular and can't find what they want.

Now I'm waiting, and sometimes my wait is longer than the delay I caused. But the cashier is just doing her job. The troubleshooting is built into her role. I know this with relative certainly for two reasons:

- A table near the cash registers functions as a management station, and no cashier has ever been criticized for not being at their post.

- I worked in retail seven years ago, as a seasonal Christmas hire at a large bookstore chain that I am tempted to name out of lingering loyalty and gratitude for a job I really needed at the time, but I am declining to name it because ... well, I don't want to get sued.

Seasonal hires, at this store at least, served a specific purpose: keeping the lines short at the cash registers. So everybody is a cashier, that's the first thing you're taught. I volunteered to work in the music section, a mistake because it's a boring section when it's inside a bookstore, but part of my job was "flipping" (I think that was the term). You flip through stacks of CDs. You're looking for stuff that's in the wrong place, or an extra security tag, because the extra tag means another CD is missing its tag, and therefore was stolen.

Another role is checking the floor for messy piles of books or misfiled books. That sort of thing spikes up considerably during Christmas shopping season, and hence the need for the additional staff. I liked this job, despite its mediocre pay: $7.50 an hour. The manager said something about seeing if she could keep me after the season, and I would have definitely considered staying on, but it never became an option; the season ended (January 2, if memory serves), and the seasonals ended. Thanks for playing.

So back to that cashier and my coffee. The coffee costs almost two bucks. Let's say she makes 12 bucks an hour -- which is probably overly generous, I really doubt she makes that much. Six cups of coffee, one every 10 minutes, would cover her salary. I need hardly note that they go past her way faster than that during morning rush, and coffee is not the only item the place sells. (Obviously there are other staff, including the guy who makes the coffee and restocks the self-service shelf.)

Yet, despite the comfortable profit margin that implies, other functions are built into her role. Cashiering alone does not justify her having a job.

I've noticed this at my local grocer, which I also decline to name, but it's a fairly large local chain. In 2008 I saw Jim McGovern speak at a Democratic breakfast, and he said he had calculated that his personal grocery bill for his family had increased 30% since 2007. He compared the same basic list of items for the family (milk, bread, etc.), and he had spent 30% more.

At my local store, there are about 12 cash registers. They are never full. At the absolute busiest time, which in my experience at this store is Sunday, maybe eight of them are open. Maybe three of them have someone available to bag groceries. I don't mind bagging my own groceries, in principle, but I'm pretty bad at it, and I can't possibly keep up with the cashier doing the scanning. So to avoid creating that delay, I pick a line, even a longer line, to make sure I get someone to bag the groceries. But sometimes the baggers float, so I end up not getting one.

And what's the latest thing at the grocery stores? Self-service scanners. I refuse to use them. Not until they make me. It's my little (futile) protest against potential staff cuts.

Another store near my office is a large (really large) drugstore. It might be the only one I've ever seen of this chain with two floors. I tend to think of it as another food source because that's how I tend to use it. I don't do much convenience shopping there, and there are better options for some junk food, but the office has some community candy sources (especially right now), and I try to avoid them, but the flesh is weak, so when I feel the need to chip in, this store has the best options for that.

You should see this place at lunch. Incredible lines. Just packed. One thing they do that We the People never liked is that they try to have one line instead of several. But because the registers were behind a counter, there weren't natural lines, and there was a snaking column of people. The system lent itself to abuse by impatient people, which we have in abundance in our fair city.

To recap: massive store, always busy.

Well, they just replaced nearly every cashier with scanners.

How long before my friends selling me my coffee and patiently waiting for me to fumble for my cash are replaced by scanners?

Jobs are disappearing. Not manufacturing jobs, not green jobs, not high-tech jobs -- though more on those in a minute -- but crappy jobs that you don't want are disappearing, despite the obvious presence of heavy demand for the items.

Just after Election Day, I began reading The Rascal King, Jack Beatty's biography of James Michael Curley. I had spotted it at the library about 10 days before the election, and read a bit and got interested, but deliberately passed. Not right now, I thought, I can't get more cynical before Election Day. I have some GOTV to do. When I did take it out, I didn't expect to learn anything important. I just wanted to have some laughs at the old crook's expense.

But I am learning things. What's interesting about The Rascal King is that it captures a rare moment when the tide of history was turning. Historical novels always employ this as a cheap trick. The Alienist does it ad nauseam. There are two guys who keep saying things like, "There a technique we could try, it's largely untested, but it's called ... fingerprinting." Oh shut up.

But The Rascal King is actual history, and Beatty takes pains in the early part of the book to provide context for Curley. The dominant party in Boston in the 1850s was the Know-Nothings, who later became the modern Republican Party. They weren't all bad -- they were abolitionists, for one thing. Boston Irish Catholic Democrats openly scorned abolitionists, and they were mocked in The Pilot (yes, The Pilot, same newspaper). The two groups came together, sort of, during the Civil War, but according to Beatty the animating issue for the Irish Democrats was not slavery. It was secession. They rallied to protect their new homeland -- no potato famine here.

The Know-Nothings, in Boston anyway, were bigoted against Irish immigrants. In the name of reform, they did things like raid convents to prevent the terrible things allegedly going on there. (Who knows, maybe they were even right once or twice, but you can imagine the effect on Irish Catholics.) So when Curley later said, "I won't be styled a reformer," he was echoing this cultural memory -- according to Beatty anyway, and I find his case quite convincing.

Curley and two cronies, banished by a rival from the dominant Irish faction, formed a club called the Tammany Club. The name was deliberately chosen, because Tammany Hall was already scandalous. But Curley said they wanted to emphasize "the good side of Tammany" -- getting people jobs.

So then this tidbit gets dropped --

We got 50 men jobs in New Hampshire.

Whoa.

My grandfather worked in New Hampshire in the 1930s, at a paper mill.

Fifty men is quite a few. Google the stats on small businesses in this country, and notice how many business have fewer than 50 employees. Notice how many have fewer than 25.

Then bear in mind that women at the time, largely, didn't work outside the home. Fifty men with jobs is 50 families being fed.

I don't believe that Curley or anyone who worked for him got my grandfather that job. But did that sort of thing, happening in various areas and reflecting the increasing influence of Irish politicians, make it easier for my grandfather, living in Medford, Massachusetts with his six children, to get a job? I can only speculate. But when I told my mother that I was reading The Rascal King, she said her parents thought Curley was great.

In politics, we call that sort of thing loyalty.

And by the way, at one point during my grandfather's employment at the paper mill, he would mail home his check, and my grandmother would bring the check -- the entire check -- to the grocery store to pay down the tab. I don't know how long that went on, but it happened more than once.

We're getting back to my cashier friends, but first I want to tell you another story about loyalty.

In 1989 or so I had a temp job at an investment firm. I was an administrative assistant -- a highly unqualified one, I might add. So one day I was sitting there, nothing to do, playing with this funky and primitive little program called PowerPoint. And then my ears perked up, because I heard someone say:

IBM is dead in the water.

What? IBM? That's the company that makes my Selectric typewriter!

Of course I never questioned the wisdom of my learned peers. For years I waited for IBM to die. Almighty Microsoft would take them down.

Still waiting. Still really don't know why they're still around.

Oh wait, yes I do ... their stuff works. But lots of stuff works. Why did they survive when so many others failed?

Years later I heard a clue. I worked in a technology firm, and learned a little saying, a maxim if you will, that IT managers have (and it may be dated, but they said it in the late 1990s).

Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.

More loyalty.

It hardly needs to be said the Curley model (I'll get you a job, and you remember me on Election Day) won't work today, and certainly won't work nationally.

But it's probably time for us to think about what will work, and bear in mind that our decisions will be judged by that aforementioned tide of history.

Put another way, what are you going to do, Mr. Politician, for my friends the cashiers? Curley got the scrubwomen off the knees -- because his mother was a scrubwoman, and he'd seen her bruised knees. What that meant, in practical terms, was that he got them mops. They no longer had to scrub floors on their knees.

One more story -- no, two.

I think I've mentioned this before, but when I realized we were Democrats, I asked someone in my family what the difference between Democrats and Republicans is.

Republicans are the party of the rich, and Democrats are the party of everybody else.

OK then. I know which one I am.

But one thing we have to remember is that, in global terms, we are rich. I can afford a cup of coffee that costs almost two bucks. (My mother would say I can't afford it, because I could make it at home. Well I do that too ... but I digress.)

Jobs are being lost to India. Take a look at India's per capita income sometime, or China's. At some point people began to say the US is a service economy. OK fine, but jobs are vanishing in the service industry too.

If I were advising a Boston politician right now, I would give them one very distinct piece of advice:

Crack down on underground restaurants.

I get the appeal of an underground restaurant. It's a chance to eat a very good meal you can't afford for a price you can almost afford. Chances are some of the underground chefs will go legit someday, and you can say you were there, man. I'll bet you can get a nice glass of wine for a really tiny markup too. Tempting, very tempting. I got asked to like a Facebook page dedicated to underground restaurants.

Um, no thanks, I don't support white collar crime.

That's what it is -- the moral equivalent of kids selling OxyContin outside a drugstore.

No business is subject to greater government scrutiny than a restaurant. A town can shut it down; all kinds of state boards have input; and once I was having a drink with a guy who works for the IRS, and he mentioned, just casually, no threat implied, by way of explaining what he does, "I could shut this place down."

And all that is just food and finances. It doesn't begin to consider the liquor license, which is the absolute key to survival for many restaurants. The money Dianne Wilkerson got -- what was it for again? And what was the margin in her final race, the one where there was no doubt that she had broken the law?

Crack down. And don't do it for Lydia Shire and Todd English -- do it for the waitresses, waiters, and dishwashers. To my untrained eye, the Boston restaurant scene seems pretty healthy -- a few chains, but a number of independent, good places to eat. Why should we allow unfair competition? Anyone who's worked at a small business knows that the anxieties of the owner will be transferred to the staff. These anxieties will affect hiring and the life of the business. These are people's jobs -- people working hard and playing by the rules. This is the economy (stupid).

Furthermore, there are actual residents of Boston. I can picture some difficult to rent space becoming home to these things. When Boston had a rave scene, the ravers knew where to go. But that's just noise, which ends -- restaurants bring restaurant problems. The underground ones won't be inspected. There will be problems -- yes, I'm talking about vermin. The residents will be left to deal with them.

Make some friends! Show some moral consistency. It's not your job to be cool, it's your job to enforce the law. Enforce it -- now, before this gets out of hand.

And then let's talk about what you're doing for my friends the cashiers, and especially the woman who isn't a cashier, who cleans the tables (which the customers are supposed to clean, but a lot of people blow it off). She says hi to me every day, and every day we have the following conversation.

"Good morning, how are you?"
"I'm good, how are you?"
"Good, and you?"

Her English might need a bit of work. But you'll notice that I didn't attribute the dialogue. Sometimes I'm the one who says "Good, and you?" because I'm doing my own multitasking.

And by the way, I'm loyal to this place for a specific reason. They have the best coffee.

Just remember, Republicans are the party of the rich.

Democrats are the party of everybody else.

Everybody else.

You Have The Right To Vote

by: Kathy Sullivan 2

Mon Oct 25, 2010 at 16:49:05 PM EDT

Concord - New Hampshire Democratic Party chairman Raymond Buckley announced today that the Democratic Party and 100 New Hampshire attorneys have joined together in an effort called "You Have The Right To Vote", in order to protect the rights of all eligible Granite State voters to cast ballots on November 2.

"Every 2 years we have seen efforts by Republicans to interfere with the right to vote, and this year is no exception," said Buckley. "There are reports from Texas and Illinois of attempts to discourage or stop people from voting. We will not let that happen in New Hampshire."

The rest of the release is after the jump. A good number of the attorneys involved in this project have been doing this for several election cycles, and are volunteering to take Tuesday off to assist. While hopefully there will not be any problems, an ounce of prevention and all that. Republicans are obsessed with two notions when it comes to voting: that there is voter fraud, and that college students should not be allowed to vote where they attend school. The New Hampshire Attorney General found no evidence of voter fraud in 2006 or 2008, but sadly the NHGOP and some of its adherents have a hard time accepting that Democrats actually won in 2006 and 2008 because the voters wanted to elect Democrats.  

Got My Running Shoes On

by: Jennifer Daler

Wed Jun 02, 2010 at 19:17:28 PM EDT

The Democratic majority has done a great deal to improve things for New Hampshire citizens. As I write this they are dealing with a severe budget crisis, the fallout of the most fiscally irresponsible government of all time, that of President George W Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. The damage done in eight years cannot be undone in two. We've held the majority in Concord for a mere four years, and in that time have instituted environmental programs such as the Regional Green House Gas Initiative (RGGI), ended the wait list for services for the developmentally
disabled, and brought the state into compliance with the Claremont Decisions, something the Republicans couldn't do in 16 years. In addition New Hampshire can stand proud as one of a handful of states to have full marriage equality for all citizens.

If we don't keep the majority, then bills such as HB 1590 (repealing marriage equality) and CACR28 (a Constitutional Amendment to ban marriage equality) could very well pass. What is now a side-show could very well be the power structure of state government. Can we risk that? One of my present state reps put forward legislation to not only nullify health insurance reform in New Hampshire, but make it a felony for any public official to carry it out. It lost, but a few more Republican seats, and it passes. With a Republican majority, the person who introduced this could become the next Speaker.

Remember that it wasn't too long ago that an unconstitutional anti-choice bill was signed into law by Craig Benson, then taken all the way to the Supreme Court before Democratic majorities and a Democratic governor repealed it. It can and will happen again of the state does not stay blue.

Because New Hampshire is not a referendum state, and also considered a "swing state", boatloads of money from out of state groups, heady from their victories with referenda in California and Maine, will head to Republican coffers in the hope of taking away people's rights and freedom.

We all have to work harder than ever to keep this state moving in the right direction. I've decided that I can contribute best by running for office, one I held from 2006-2008. During that time I served on the Health and Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee, where I worked to close a gap in the Healthy Kids Program and on issues of privacy concerning electronic medical records. While the latter are a good thing, and a boon to health care, we have to be vigilant about how information is shared, and with whom. I tend to work on the small details of policy that can improve people's day to day lives.

I hope you will support me in this effort. Contributions can be made via my Act Blue page, and you can join my Face Book group for campaign events and updates as they happen.

100 Club Dinner Highlights

by: Jennifer Daler

Thu Apr 29, 2010 at 23:27:54 PM EDT

I was very impressed with Governor Lynch's speech. His main theme was the lies spread by an out of state hate group that is heady with its successes in California and Maine. The governor is really standing by his decision to sign the marriage equality bill. He said he did it because it was the right thing to do, which got him a standing ovation.

He aggressively countered the lies of the out of state hate group as well as the other lies spread by the opposition. It was an important message and one we have to keep pushing. We can't let the other side define us. And we have to go beyond tagging them as the party of "no" and counter their policies, may of which would create a repeat of the economic collapse keeping us in a perpetual one and take basic rights away from women, gays, and others.

Keynote speaker Brian Schweitzer of Montana told many interesting stories. The one that stands out in my mind is the one he told of an Irish girl who came to America in the early part of the last century using her sister's passport and visa. This girl could not find work in New York, so she took up an offer to go to Montana in a boxcar and homestead 350 acres. She did this on her own. Eventually  she married another Irish immigrant and raised a family. This "illegal alien" was Governor Schweitzer's grandmother, and he wondered whether he should be deported for this. He asked how many of our ancestors had proper papers. Good question.

We also heard from Congressman and US Senate candidate Paul Hodes, CD-02 candidates DeJoie, Kuster and Swett, and Speaker Norelli and Senate President Larsen.

The bottom line is that we have to work harder than we did in '06 to keep New Hampshire blue at the state and federal level. Change always produces backlash. We cannot allow this to happen and lose the gains we have made. Get involved at whatever level and in whatever way you can. It is crucial.

Rep. John Murtha Has Died

by: Jennifer Daler

Mon Feb 08, 2010 at 15:27:18 PM EST

A long time Congressman, (he was elected in 1974), Murtha was Chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.

He became an outspoken opponent of the Iraq war, calling for withdrawal back in 2005.

Congressional Races Heat Up for Winter

by: Jennifer Daler

Mon Nov 30, 2009 at 14:07:57 PM EST

What caught my attention was this:

DeJoie spoke of the importance of restoring consumer protection in financial services, creation of good paying green jobs, healthcare reform with Medicare for All, removing troops from Afghanistan and providing high quality services for all of America's veterans.

On the Republican side in CD-01, BAE executive Rich Ashooh is said to be exploring a run for the nomination.

Hat tip to James Pindell, New Hampshire Political Report

Swett Responds

by: Jennifer Daler

Fri Aug 14, 2009 at 08:41:22 AM EDT

The Democratic Party has truly become the big tent party of this country, where the passion of the progressives is linked to the pragmatism of the moderates to achieve real solutions. Indeed, the most effective moderates bring deep passion to their work, and the most inspiring progressives leaven their advocacy with a healthy measure of pragmatism.

Instead of working toward consensus, the opposition has chosen to demonize reform with phony accusations of "death panels" and "government takeovers." But at the end of the day, I believe we will enact significant reforms that will make health care more accessible and affordable without compromising quality, innovation or choice. These solutions will command the strong support of the American people if they are built on the terra firma of common ground.

Looking at the primary, it seems Swett is positioning herself as a "centrist" Democrat, the only party to claim that territory.

The Republican Party has become the party of extremism and unhinged behavior, as evidenced by the disruptions at Town Hall meetings on health care reform. Tim C's photo essay of anti health care demonstrators in Portsmouth bears this out. Remember people were removed from Bush's events by police for wearing t-shirts his handlers found offensive. But people carrying sidearms are allowed to roam at Obama's events with signs that signal a call to violence.

Notice that no Republican leader, at the state or federal level, has condemned the violent and anti-American nature of the protests. None. Their silence is complicity. It means they are in agreement.  It means they believe the lies and distortions being put forward by  industry shills and radio/teevee demagogues. I remember all too well how anyone criticizing Bush for the least little thing, such as creating torture chambers, was branded a traitor and unpatriotic. Now people say Obama isn't a citizen, hold signs with him as Hitler (the ahistorical and ignorant nature of this is mind boggling), and that's somehow okay.

I hope voters realize this as we move forward toward the 2010 elections.

David Plouffe Coming to Portsmouth

by: Larry Drake

Fri Jul 31, 2009 at 16:46:06 PM EDT

Plouffe will speak about the book, answer audience questions, and sign copies in Portsmouth, NH on Tuesday, November 17.  Sponsored by RiverRun Bookstore, the booksigning event will take place at 7:00 PM at South Church (Unitarian-Universalist), 292 State Street.  

It is very fitting that RiverRun is sponsoring this event.  In December 2006, they held a similar event at the Frank Jones Center in Portsmouth.  The author?  Senator Barack Obama, who spoke about The Audacity of Hope and signed about 700 copies.  Obama was in the state to speak at a Manchester gathering of the New Hampshire Democratic Party to celebrate the party's historic electoral triumph of November 2006.  This, of course, was before Obama declared his candidacy for President in February 2007.

RiverRun is an excellent independent bookstore, so if you come to Portsmouth, stop by.  Located at 20 Congress Street in downtown Portsmouth, their web site is www.riverrunbookstore.com and their phone number is 603-431-2100.

Activism, 2009

by: JimC

Wed Jun 17, 2009 at 09:57:53 AM EDT

Here is something I am tempted to call misguided activism:
http://www.jennymccarthybodyco...

But is it? It certainly gets one's attention.

It got me thinking about the state of activism in the Obama era. For one thing, I didn't hear a single Democrat mention John Ensign yesterday. If he were a Democrat (and this were June 2001), the GOP would howl.

So all hail leftist restraint, or maybe leftist prioritizing. But sometimes, I must admit, I miss the delirious, joyous defiance that was Queer Nation ("We're here, and we're queer!"). They are alleged to have stormed into St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York and thrown holy water on to the ground to protest the Catholic Church stance on gays. At the time, even pro-gay rights people were offended by Queer Nation. One person argued to me that they kept some people in the closet, because they didn't want to be associated with that type of militancy (this anecdote was given without examples).

But here is what I remember: President George H.W. Bush saying he had no problems with gays, just the militant ones. He wouldn't have said that if he didn't have to. In other words, Queer Nation (and other groups) expanded the terms of the national debate. That may have been a necesary contribution to advancing gay rights.

So what now? The tension is pretty obvious: condemn Obama for not moving quickly enough, or keep thinking "President McCain" and "Sarah Palin an aging heartbeat away" and be patient.

I have a foot firmly in each camp. For one thing, I admit a "no single payer" hangover. On one hand, I understand why it was taken off the table; on the other hand, I don't understand why. We have both the House and the Senate. I know there is no Democratic unity on the issue, but there is a large chunk of the party that wants single payer. Why not, then?

Thoughts?

Agree to Disagree

by: Jennifer Daler

Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 10:48:53 AM EDT

That being said, there was an interesting diary (link above) on Daily Kos from a liberal's perspective. Follow below the fold for more.

Giants and Dragons and Wicked Knights of the Old Brigade

by: JimC

Sat Feb 14, 2009 at 10:16:05 AM EST

"The idea of our Table was that Right was to be the important thing, not Might. Unfortunately, we have tried to establish Right by Might, and you can't do that."

"I don't see why you can't do it."

"I tried to dig a channel for Might, so that it would flow usefully. The idea was that all the people who enjoyed fighting should be headed off, so that that they fought for justice, and I hoped that this would solve the problem. It has not."

"Why not?"

"Simply because we have got justice. We have achieved what we were fighting for, and now we still have the fighters on our hands. Don't you see what has happened? We have run out of things to fight for, so all the fighters of the Table are going to rot. Look at Gawaine and his brothers. While there were still giants and dragons and wicked knights of the old brigade, we could keep them occupied; we could keep them in order. But now that the ends have been achieved, there is nothing for them to use their might on. So they use it on Pellinore and Lamorak and my sister -- God be good to them. The first sign of the fester was when our chivalry turned into Games-Mania -- all that nonsense about who had the best tilting average and so forth."

-- T.H. White, The Once and Future King

It's certainly a noble notion, but this conversation ends with Arthur and Lancelot deciding to find the Holy Grail, and we all know how that worked out.

L'affaire Gregg has been instructive, for me. My dirty little secret throughout the fall campaign was that I was torn over Democrats getting 60 votes. I'm from Massachusetts after all, and one-party rule (even rule by the better party) can be dangerous. But there is a key difference, at the national level: We will never have 60 Democrats with safe seats, so the usual Democratic divides will kick in, and be the antithesis of what we saw for the most of the Bush administration.

What's the upshot of the Gregg nonsense? The president gets another Cabinet embarrassment, John Lynch looks like a wimp (at best), and we still have no Commerce secretary. Great outreach. And still, the question lingers: Why Gregg in the first place? If the answer is bipartisanship, then bipartisanship needs to go back to the drawing board.

Meanwhile, Gregg's absentia dementia enabled GOP obstructionism of the bailout bill. The Republicans in the House forced all sorts of concessions, then all voted against the bill. Will the Democratic caucus learn from this? Do bears build A-frames in the woods?

I have a lot of sympathy for what Obama is trying to do. But the fact remains that the loyal opposition is disloyal, to him. Limbaugh may have been hyperbolic in saying he wanted Obama to "fail," but what they do want, by definition, is political viability, and they can't get that by "rubber stamping" a stimulus bill. The end result is Games-Mania.

So what is a good American, but also a good Democrat, to do?

This is where I should have the answer, but I don't have it.

But I know I have not run out of things to fight for.

Identifying Our Core Principle As A Party In An Easy To Remember Slogan

by: Andrew Sylvia

Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 12:57:25 PM EST

Just about every single top of the ticket candidate in New Hampshire on our side had a slogan, if not several this year.

Barack Obama

"Change You Can Believe In"

"Yes We Can"

etc. etc. etc.

John Lynch

Official

"Working For Us"

Unofficial

"Governor Lynch Is So Non-Partisan, Nobody Knows If The Republicans Put Up A Candidate."

Jeanne Shaheen

A New Direction

Carol Shea Porter

For The Rest Of Us

Paul Hodes

(2006 slogan, I didn't hear it as much this time)

Bringing A Backbone To Washington

etc. etc. etc.  

we did it without a catch phrase

by: kite

Mon Nov 17, 2008 at 18:30:08 PM EST

• worker safety;
  
• clean air and water;
  
• consumer protection;
  
• individual privacy;
  
• standing up for the middle class;
  
• family values (co-opting a nice phrase that is often used for a nasty purpose);
  

and so on.  I actually had 3 or 4 I kind of liked, that I thought summed up Democratic values pretty well.  I don't remember what they were.  

But turns out maybe we didn't (and don't) need a catch phrase, and I think that's kind of interesting.  Maybe there are so many causes we need to stand up for that a catch phrase won't work.  Maybe we're a big tent party in more ways than one.  

Or maybe complexity has been brought back into the discussion of complicated problems.  Everyone wants a "strong defense," after all, but that means more than invading other countries.  (It means a strong economy.  It means making friends.  It means working with allies.)

Anyway, it's kind of funny to watch the Republicans doing their "soul-searching."  I hope they come out of it a better party.  And I hope their little catch phrase doesn't hold them back.

We've really got to take this party split seriously

by: Bill Duncan

Tue Jun 03, 2008 at 09:13:12 AM EDT

So I said to him yesterday,"What do you think about these charges of sexism and unfairness toward Hillary?"  He's a smart guy and I thought that would be something we could massage some and arrive at a nuanced form of agreement.  He didn't answer that question, though.  He went straight for the Hillary/Ickes talking points.  There wasn't one point on which we could agree.  From he'll-lose-Ohio/Penn/Fla to whether and how Michigan and Florida votes should be counted to it's-basically-tied-and-she-won-the-popular-vote.  He couldn't even agree that Barack ran a good campaign.

And look at Michael McCord's piece in this morning's Portsmouth Herald on the attacks Martha Fuller Clark sustained for supporting Obama in the rules committee meeting: http://www.seacoastonline.com/...

Leave aside the merits of every point (Hillary's obviously right about the challenge Obama faces in certain demographics, for instance), we cannot be confident of a reconciliation on the way to November.

When you look at what Hillary is saying day to day and the tone in which it is amplified and elaborated upon by Harold Ickes and then you hear those very words in the mouths of sane and articulate friends, you know you've got a problem.

Matt Stoller's point in Open Left about how the candidates exercise their power to "imprint" their supporters is a good one: http://www.openleft.com/showDi... .  Our views, at this point in a long battle, seem to be more rooted in our loyalties more than analysis.

Clearly, reconciliation is entirely in Hillary's hands.  Barack looks to be trying to do his part (though I'm not entirely sure why he couldn't have given up 4 more Michigan delegates) and he'll have to learn fast how to do more to reach across the divides.  But if Barack wins, it's Hillary's supporters who have to be able to find merit in him and it looks to me as if it's only Hillary who can lead them there.  I really do understand the point that he must earn it (he says, anticipating the commentary), but if Hillary doesn't show people the way, they may well not make the trip.

That's her leverage, and it's big.  And we may find that the price she extracts is big.  But in a race that will be tough under the best of circumstances, where the stakes are unimaginably high, Barack is going to have to do whatever it takes to get her full throated support.

My friend did enthusiastically agree to work for Carol Shea-Porter.

Gov. Dean on the 50 State Strategy

by: Ed Tracey

Sat May 17, 2008 at 10:20:11 AM EDT

9 Comments: HACW

by: elwood

Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 18:14:41 PM EDT

Back in November 2007 - when the Democratic Senate unanimously colluded to ensure Michael Mukasey would become Attorney General, approving 'no filibuster' rules by unanimous consent - I said here that I was leaving the Democratic Party. More precisely I said that it had "spit me out" by this action. I intended to re-register as Undeclared on my way out of the voting booth in the January primary.

I'm back - or rather, I never actually left.

It certainly isn't because Michael Mukasey has proven me wrong in his tenure thus far. He has refused to launch an independent investigation of the US Attorney firings and he has refused to act on the House Contempt of Congress citations of Miers and Bolten. Both of these issues were on the radar in November - but the Senate didn't demand a commitment on them before confirmation. (All the Democratic Senators were complicit in this: Clinton and Obama, but also Dodd, Biden, Feingold, and Bernie Sanders.)

So, why am I still a Democrat? Disjoint observations below the fold.

Another Response to the " Red State Primaries Don't Matter Much" Claim

by: jdblanch

Sun Mar 09, 2008 at 15:46:42 PM EDT

The new voters that Obama has drawn into the Democratic Primaries across the country are voters that may not have voted for any other candidate.  For instance, young people have been inspired and motivated by Barack Obama and voted for him.  

Likewise, Hillary Clinton has inspired many people, notably traditional Democrats.

The debate rests on this point:  People who Obama inspires to vote may not vote for another candidate, especially one who, in an attempt to win the nomination herself, questions the integrity of the candidate whom they support.  Hillary's supporters, like noted above, are consistently voting Democrats and will most likely vote for Obama if he is the nominee.

Bottom line is this:  

If Obama is nominated, he keeps the new voters who he has inspired, many of whom are youth and independents - people who we can recruit into the Party permanently.  He will also get the support of the traditional Party establishment who trend to have voted for Hillary.  With Obama you get the his supporters PLUS most Hillary supporters.

If Hillary is nominated, it will most likely be because of the Super-delegate vote.  This will most likely alienate those Obama supporters who are already alienated by the political system and see Obama as someone who can rise above that corrupt system.  If the system undermines his candidacy, these Obama supporters, mostly young people, may be lost to the Democratic Party forever.  Hillary will sustain her support, but not pick up much additional support from this new voting block.

Lastly, looking down-ticket, an Obama nomination will better benefit the Party as a whole.  Hillary is to the Republican party, conservatives and moderates alike, what Bush was to the Republicans in '04. "ANYBODY BUT HILLARY!"  Currently, the conservative base of the GOP has yet to fully embrace a McCain nomination.  The best way to motivate them to work for a McCain campaign is to nominate Hillary Clinton.  We have a better chance of winning our down-ticket races by having the alienated GOP voters stay home, than by motivating them to get to he polls with a Clinton candidacy.  

Those are my thoughts...  Responses?

Amid Unclear Nominees, Party Turnout Becomes Story of the Race

by: Dean Barker

Sun Jan 20, 2008 at 10:54:11 AM EST

Hurtling toward February 5th, we have a fractured GOP field, with two candidates (McCain, Huckabee) largely unacceptable to the biggest voices in the GOP stacking up wins and close seconds, while the one the establishment settled on early (Romney) finds that his vast fortune can't hide his mile-wide and inch-deep platform and support. And another big name (Rudy!) has utterly collapsed.

Among Democrats, while it is undeniable that we now have a two-person race, the choice for nominee is even murkier than the elephants.  With huge name endorsements, constituencies, and demographics between them, one with more wins and the other with more (non-super) delegates, and each of them representing a historic change in the person who will occupy the Oval Office, I now doubt that this will be decided soon, even as we hurtle past February 5th.

As crazy as it sounds in 2008, the idea of a brokered convention, on both sides, may not just be for political junkies anymore.

Yet out of such cloudy skies has emerged as clear a ray of light as we can see, and it is undeniably the biggest story of the race so far: turnout.

In Iowa, in New Hampshire, and in Nevada, Democrats are turning out to vote over Republicans in huge numbers.  In Michigan (where the Democratic race didn't matter), despite the Levin-induced mania for an early primary, and with the accompanying millions spent to make it happen, there was depressingly low turnout for Republicans.

But let's leave aside Michigan and look at the three other states, each with great regional and demographic differences among them:

Voter Turnout by Party (rough numbers):

Iowa:     220,000(D)     115,000(R)
New Hampshire:     288,000(D)     239,000(R)
Nevada:     115,800(D)     44,300(R)

Total Democratic Voter Turnout:     623,800
Total Republican Voter Turnout:     398,300

But the emerging narrative is as clear as day: eight years of Bush and Cheney have given the Democratic party an enormous structural advantage this time around.  Let's not blow it.

Important Legislative Issue About Campaign Finance Is Up For Discussion This Week

by: Rep. Jim Splaine

Sun Jun 17, 2007 at 21:15:52 PM EDT

This disagreement is occurring over Senate Bill 91, which originally would have eliminated all prohibitions on donations from corporations, businesses, unions, and partnerships.  The real problem with all that is that by eliminating all prohibitions, we'd also be eliminating the public disclosure process of those donations. 

New Hampshire has excelled in keeping corruption out of politics because of our policy of "transparency."  It's a core principle in our campaign finance laws.  It's also a core value of our Democratic and Republican Parties.  People should be able to participate in democracy with their voice or money, BUT the contributions must be publicly disclosed.

Many of us have been committed for decades to preserving that ideal.  The key question on this issue should be:  WHY should not all businesses, partnerships, unions, and corporations which contribute to candidates or political parties or otherwise spend money in the New Hampshire political process have to disclose those expenditures?  That's sunshine in government at its best. 

Case Solved

by: Kathy Sullivan

Sat Jun 16, 2007 at 15:12:53 PM EDT