Sometimes I worry that my readers will get a kind of whiplash as I alternate between alarmist and optimistic messages. The truth is, though, that I am both alarmed and optimistic. As I’ve said, I think we have the better candidates and the better argument. At the same time, I can read polls, and they’re terrible. The outcome of the midterms is in real doubt. But one thing that needs to change, and change quickly, is the insane situation that allows Bush’s budget director and trade representative to be polling well in Ohio and for the GOP to be surging in Michigan.
The people of Michigan should be naming their children and schools after the president because he saved their entire way of life by bailing out General Motors and Chrysler at a time when the GOP wanted to destroy them and their powerful unions. Remember the debate?
Senator Bob Corker, a leading critic of the companies who has said they should file for bankruptcy, said Wednesday that G.M. was simply seeking to replace bondholder debt with government loans, which would leave it in no better shape.
“How much better off is the capital structure of G.M. when another $30 billion of public lending supplants that private debt?” Mr. Corker, Republican of Tennessee, said in an interview.
How’d that prediction work out?
General Motors took the first formal steps on Wednesday to once again sell shares publicly, highlighting a remarkable turnaround for the corporate giant a year after its bankruptcy and setting the stage for Washington to withdraw from its majority ownership stake in the automaker.
Meanwhile, the people of Ohio’s standard of living was decimated by Rob Portman’s economic and trade policies. They might as well elect their own hangman as vote for a guy like Portman.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Ohio had 209,400 fewer nonfarm jobs in December 2007 than it had in December 2000. This loss of 3.7 percent of Ohio’s jobs is the worst seven-year loss in state records that begin in 1939 as the Great Depression was ending.
And that was before the Great Recession hit. Now?
From December 2008 to December 2009, more than 255,000 Ohio jobs disappeared, according to revised, seasonally adjusted numbers. The state now has a bit fewer than 5 million jobs.
Ohio had most recently had fewer than 5 million workers in 1993. That signals almost two lost decades for job growth in the state. Since the state’s monthly jobs number peaked in the spring of 2000 at 5.64 million, Ohio has lost 11.3 percent of its jobs, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
“It’s appalling,” Newton said. “This is not something that’s going to turn around quickly.”
Rob Portman for Ohio? You’ve got to be kidding me.
Now, the Democrats are going to make these arguments, but it’s long past time for the Democrats and progressives in the blogosphere to turn their attention toward assisting them. We’re whatever exists in the way of paltry left-wing media in this country. Too many of us have our eyes off the ball. It’s one thing to lose seats in the South or conservative exurbs. But to have people in Ohio and Michigan turning to the GOP? That’s unacceptable. We’ve got to beat this back.
People in Ohio blame Strickland because he’s in charge. They don’t blame Portman because, as I’ve heard people say “who the fuck is Rob Portman”?
It’s emotional anger at the current situation that’s driving decisions, not a rational look at who is going to do the better job. Look at the back-and-forth on the Strickland-Kasich governor’s race – Kasich is proposing “pro-business” solutions that Strickland implemented years ago. First of all he’s shown himself to be a clown who doesn’t even know what he’s talking about – he’s proposing to do things that Ohio already does. Second of all, they haven’t helped, except maybe they staunched some bleeding.
But it doesn’t matter because people are hurting, they have no clue who has real solutions and who is just shooting their mouths off. And they don’t have the tools to evaluate it either. But they know that Strickland has been in charge and things have gotten bad, so they’re going to vote for the other guy and hope things get better. And the governor’s race will decide our Senator, unless Portman does something stupid to blow himself up.
(It doesn’t help that Lee Fisher is our Senate nominee, since he’s widely perceived as a bit of a buffoon himself. Or that Strickland has hurt himself over the last four years by being a “responsible Democrat” and always managing to find ways to cut things that help traditionally Democratic voters for the “greater good of the state”. He doesn’t seem to have a lot of enthusiasm built up for him, except among people who are voting for him because Kasich would be a bigger disaster for our state than Bob Taft was.)
It is too late in the cycle to be trying to make arguments. What has to be done now is a thorough canvass of all those who supported Obama in 2008 and a get-out-the-vote campaign so that the new voters brought on board understand that no elected office is insignificant, least of all Congress, Senators, Governors, state attorneys general, and state secretaries of state.
A salvage operation like the one you describe is probably the best sensible option at this point.
Unlike media consultants and campaign strategists, I don’t consider getting-out-the-vote a salvage operation. It is the critical piece of an election.
People are persuaded by media only to the extent that it gets reinforced in credibility by people in their personal networks. You know, the “opinionated” folks. But that sets the political climate of an election. It doesn’t get people’s marks on the ballot.
Get-out-the-vote operations ensure that people who have decided to support a candidate follow through on that with action that gets the candidate elected. It is not an afterthought or a salvage operation; it is the campaign.
Agreed.
I hate Rick Boucher, but I’m attending a house-party that one of his long-time donors is holding on Sunday. I’m not sure if he will show up or not, but he’s kind of old anyway. And even though he’s an asshat who should be a Republican, he’s still a Democrat and he’s the 10th most powerful person in the House.
The thing is this state doesn’t have any Senate members to work for, so I’m hoping we can also help out Tom Perriello; I think he deserves re-election more than almost every single House member.
Perriello is a good choice to help. He has to be free to campaign in rural Southside VA where his opponent has some strength. Having strong GOTV in Perriello’s strongholds means having to work to shore up that vote less.
what’s sad about this is that it didn’t have to be this way. it really didn’t.
Don’t weep until the results are in.
I’m in SW Ohio and Portman is killing Strickland with attack TV ads. The 400,000 jobs lost are being blamed on Strickland, which is of course a big fat lie, but people see it, hear it, and they believe it. Portman’s got a fuck ton of money and he’s spreading it everywhere.
Strickland is a good guy. He’s honest, fair, and smart. But if he can’t beat back the rhetoric and the lies, he’s toast.
This is a get-out-the-vote election. It doesn’t matter whether some folks believe Portman; they wouldn’t likely vote for Strickland anyway. And the TV attack ads could make Portman complacent about SW Ohio.
You counter that by canvassing the people who reject Portman and making sure that they get to the polls and vote for Strickland. Make the media campaign irrelevant.
In 2010, demanding that Democratic candidates beat back all the lies is expecting too much–especially for a Governor, who is distracted by this thing called governing a state.
Get everyone you know who agrees with you about Strickland to go help canvass and get out the vote. And send a little help Justin Coussoule’s way. Defeating the orange-man would be a sweet victory.
Oh look!
Why is Obama siding With Polluters?
Again and again that last sentence seems to come up.
Did you miss this paragraph?
In the brief, Katyal argues that because the EPA is already on the case, the Supreme Court should vacate the 2nd Circuit Court’s ruling and send the case back for reconsideration. SCOTUS has, of course, already weighed in on the issue of global warming. In 2007’s Massachusetts v. EPA, the court ruled that the agency could regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, should it determine that those gases are a threat to human health. And in April 2009, the agency declared that the gases do endanger humans, thus beginning the process of regulation. In this week’s filing, the Obama administration argues that it’s already following through on this front, so the lower court should have to reconsider its 2009 ruling.
“Since this court held in 2007 that carbon dioxide falls within that regulatory authority, EPA has taken several significant steps toward addressing the very question presented here,” Katyal wrote. The EPA’s regulatory approach, he wrote, “is preferable” to letting the courts “sit as arbiters of scientific and technology-related disputes”–serving in practice, then, as regulators of pollution. In other words, the EPA is already on the case, so no outside litigation is necessary.
Obama turns an even lighter shade of green
There is a force more powerful than Congress or the industries if we would use it. It’s called public review of regulations. A draft is published in the Federal Register and the public can comment for a specified number of days. Usually it is only various lobbyists and industries that comment. But the public can comment. Then when the final regulation is written, it is published in the Federal Register and there must be a discussion of the public comments and why they were accepted or rejected.
Getting change is going to be a lot of paying attention and a lot of hard work.
And by the way, the regulations that implement healthcare reform and financial industry reform will also be up for review and comment. And they will probably come out in batches dealing with a particular topic.
I’ve studied administrative law, and this reasoning baffles me. There’s nothing that says the regulator has to listen to public comment. They sometimes do, but if it intrudes with their ideology they are going to find some reason to ignore it.
Anyhow in general in regards to this suit Obama if he wants legislation, WANTS IT TO CONTINUE. Why? Because in it’s a lever to use in negotiations. So this indicates at least, the he has given up on climate legislation and as he did in the campaign, is seeking to marginalize anyone who he doesn’t control on the left.
They don’t have to listen, but they do have to explain why they are not listening. And a large number of public comments from folks other than industry makes the issue politically salient.
My experience as a contractor a while ago (during the Bush era) with EPA was that most of the folks working on regulations were ideologically committed to the environment but were pretty hunkered down waiting for Bush-Cheney to pass.
On the second point, I think that Obama sees that he doesn’t need legislation and cannot likely get it (unless blue lightning strikes in November). So cap-and-trade is out, and carbon tax is a non-starter. But the Clean Air Act is still in force and EPA has classified greenhouse gases as pollutants. What will happen is that there will be regulations for point sources and outreach-education programs for non-point sources, such as personal automobiles and fireplaces. There might even be federally guaranteed loans to enable point sources to finance the necessary retrofits plus appropriations for retrofitting government point sources and dealing with government-owned non-point sources.
On the case itself, the brief was filed on behalf of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which would have to obtain additional appropriations to clean up their act. And TVA is in the hole already for the pond spill of toxic wastes collected from their precipitators and scrubbers.
I think that it is a stretch to read what Obama wants into the filing of this brief. The comment in the article “It reads like a Bush administration brief” may be on target because there are a huge number of Bush holdovers in the Justice department. But in this case, I think what happened is that DOJ was covering TVA’s ass in this matter. And they ask for it to go back to the district court (as I understand it), so the damage is delay as much as anything else. If the government wasn’t one of the producers with an interest in the case, I doubt there would have been a brief filed.
But keeping the EPA regulation-writing process before the public is a way to ensure that the regulations come close to doing what they need to do. Ignoring this process allows the industry to gut the regulations at the beginning.
Yes, something’s gotta change, Boo. That was the entire point of 2008, at least we thought. But we’ve had no change at all. Just a gargantuan sack of watered-down worthless policies that only political nerds can and will decipher is all I see. Obama will be the complete cause of the Meltdown 2010, not anyone else! So, Boo, which is it: is he a savior or a failure? And yes, I do get whiplash with your constant vacillating and oscillating. But I love you, anyway, because you allow me a glance into the Centrist world of caution caution caution at all costs. Too hell with the common good if it’ll scare People Who Matter. That’s Obama’s brand and it’s a recipe for disaster for the American people.
Yes, I agree that they should congratulate Obama for saving GM. But that great feat is overshadowed by him constantly jumping ahead of the angry mob that wants to punish Wall Street. At the end of that comes a washout. And that’s what Obama is: muddled in the extreme. One day he says religious freedom is an American cornerstone; the next he says something slightly different. It’s the way he is: unclear. Makes his “let me be clear” BS all the more ironic.
Don’t blame Republicans. They are only doing their jobs (the way they see it) and they are doing them well (just look at the polls). And that leaves Obama and the Democrats looking like the blockers of real change. They’ve sown the wind and will reap the whirlwind…to the decimation of the public. It’s not just us hippies!
But he’ll always have his golfing dates with his Wall Street criminal BFFs.
2008 was no more the complete change than Lexington and Concord were a revolution.
Obama is responding to the sensitivities of the weakest members of the Democratic caucus in Congress. They are responding to the media narrative of what it going on.
If you really want change, you have to defeat that media narrative. And the media narrative about the election is that Democrats (Obama is not running) are going to lose big, maybe even the House. So defeating it means that Republicans have to lose big, and the only folks capable of having that happen at all (except maybe in Florida and even that is questionable) are Democrats.
I will repeat the mantra: The Republicans must lose. The Republicans must lose big. The Republicans must lose as many of their symbolic crazies as possible.
Policy does not matter in this election. A Republican Party that has significantly lost will bend on policy or lose again in 2012.
What matters is that:
Justin Coussoule beats John Boehner
Tarryl Clark beats Michele Bachmann
Billy Kennedy beats Virginia Foxx
Roxanne Conlin beats Chuck Grassley
Elaine Marshall beats Richard Burr
Matt Campbell beats Steve King
Paul Hodes wins in New Hampshire
Joe Sestak wins in Pennsylvania
Lee Fisher wins in Ohio
Robin Carnahan wins in Missouri
Jack Conway wins in Kentucky
Barbara Boxer wins in California
Tom Perriello gets re-elected in VA-05
…and on and on.
We have to take more Republican seats in Congress than we lose.
All the messaging that Obama does, or any of the candidates do doesn’t matter in this election.
What matters is getting the people who do continue to want change to the polls to cast their vote against a Republican. When we break the conventional wisdom, we can start holding Democrats accountable.
It’s not a matter of blaming, it’s a matter of getting people who have decided for a candidate to get out and vote for that candidate.
And don’t think there won’t be church buses full of Republican voters trying to reinforce the conventional wisdom.
Change occurs from the bottom up.
Justin Coussoule beats John Boehner
Tarryl Clark beats Michele Bachmann
Billy Kennedy beats Virginia Foxx
It would be nice if the DCCC would help at all .. but they don’t support progressives .. only Blue Dogs
This fact punctures a gaping hole in the “obstructionism” narrative, doesn’t it?
contribute to individual progressive candidates and work on GOTV
F**k the DCCC. They are not God. And they do not keep individuals from contributing to candidates.
The DCCC supports incumbents and challengers who are likely to win. If a progressive is likely to win a pick-up seat, they will provide a last-minute boost. If a Blue Dog is a long shot challenger, they’ll ignore that campaign too.
We need to stop using the national Democratic institutions as an excuse to not do what needs to be done.
You want a long shot? (And it’s not Alvin Greene) There is a guy named Howard Katz running as a Democrat against Darrell Issa. He’s the sort of challenger that an incumbent can get complacent about. Here’s the question. Should folks go hit Issa’s district to turn out the vote of the 45.14% who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 in Issa’s district and aim to get 85% – 90% to vote against Issa and for Katz? It really doesn’t matter what Katz’s philosophy is as long as he follows the House leadership. And what would an Issa defeat do the the conventional narrative? Would you go in whole hog for Katz?
That’s the dilemma that DCCC faces with limited funds. And the problem is that the conventional wisdom is still against progressives. So they are more likely to be looked at as long shots, even when extraordinary work on the ground could make a miracle.
I know all about the bullshit the DCCC pulls. They even get into primaries where there is no incumbent(the Lori Edwards/Doug Tudor race for one). As I have said previously, they don’t even find a good candidate to take on Paul “Privatizing” Ryan, in a district that Obama won. And Boo can tell you all about the fail the DCCC has had with candidates in PA-06. We finally have a good candidate this year. And it’s a district every Democrat since Gore has won.
Whining ass white liberals like you are to blame! You are nothing more than a white liberal lynch mob!
Relax. Keep it civil.
That’s the depth of your analysis?
Umm…I’m not white. That was my guffaw for the day.
I’m tired of this crap. Please Delonjo, enlighten the rest of us, who are CLEARLY no where near as wise as you are.
Provide us with a stridently progressive bill that would have gotten 60 votes in the Senate. Now, since you’re clearly going to assume anyone who doesn’t agree with you is either a traitor or an idiot, we’re going to need to see some actual text on this magical legislation of yours. Then, I want a list of the names of the sixty U.S. Senators you can guarantee will vote for it (and how you’ll get some of them to vote for it).
Show us! Please! We all wish these bills could have done more and been more progressive…but we have the Senate we have. Show us how when 2012 rolls around you (or chosen candidate)will be more effective, how it will make us more pure, and lead us to the promised land…
Wrong defense:
This is irrelevant to the November election because most voters won’t see that nuance.
And the election is not going to be about the record or the philosophy or the policies or media ads. It is going to be about who can get the most people to the polls through their get-out-the-vote efforts. How many of those first-time voters can be persuaded to see a midterm election as a priority for making a guy they still agree with successful. That’s what it’s about. And action can settle this back and forth about Obama.
Because it’s not really about Obama. It’s about whether you want John Boehner or Justin Coussoule to win. Billy Kennedy or Virginia Foxx. Tarryl Clark or Michele Bachmann. Tom Perriello or Robert Hurt. Roxanne Conlin or Chuck Grassley. Even, Rich Waugh or Eric Cantor and Howard Katz or Darrell Issa.
And how much you want them to win. Enough to get out and canvass and get out the vote? Enough to donate directly to their campaigns or through BlueAmerica?
Yes, I do go out and canvass, donate, and do what I can to get people elected, and that’s why I get so upset when people whine that the considerable gains we’ve made simply are not ideologically pure enough, but they often have no grasp of the realities of our legislative system.
This may not apply to the poster above, and I may have responded too quickly… However, I would hope that most could agree that the defeatist attitudes and divisiveness of many on the left aren’t going to get the left to the polls either.
Your sarcasm is noted and appreciated. Who said that I was wiser than anyone? Thanks for the vote of confidence, anyway.
Sixty votes?! Please. It was only 50 in 2007. The lies are the problem. Also, it’s not always about Congress. That’s another shift-the-blame position to deflect responsibility for the lack of trust on both sides. Maybe setup a commission to combat right-wing hysteria and the deleterious effects it engenders to the public as a whole but we get a commission to cut SocSec. (If you don’t think that this paean to bipartisanship “grand bargain” is in the post-election pipeline, then maybe I am actually wiser.)
I don’t know what can be done by 2012. I think it’s too late. He’s trapped in his right-wing vortex until he leaves office. I’m pessimistic, yes; but I’m also a realist. Pragmatism is simply another word for empty politics.
Also, it’s not always a bad thing to fail in politics so long as you can frame the loss in a progressive way to get out the vote but Obama and his handlers believe that “winning” is everything, even if it’s a loss for progressive values.
Initially, I was concerned that some of the “extreme” candidates put forth by the Republicans in the primaries would hurt our chances of electing enough Republicans to stem the Obama keynesian tide, and was cringing at some of the interviews by Angle, Paul, etc. Now, however, I am emboldened–surely the positions held by these folks will never be accepted by enough Americans to manifest in significant reductions in the size and scope of Government–but at least the ideas are out there and being discussed! The mere fact that Angle can talk about privatizing insurance, and Paul can talk about eliminating the departments of Education and Energy–and still get elected!–is cause for celebration. Don’t worry, Progressives–in the long run, you’ll still win, as virtually every society in history inexorably moves from an emphasis on individualism and self-reliance, to an emphasis on collectivism and “fairness”, but at least we can delay your creeping statism for another decade as 31+ Republican governors oversee favorable redistricting next year.
This Dkos diary references an old discussion here
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/27/896715/-Another-win-for-the-liberal-economists
OK, so Obama has done a number of important things. Yet, many on the progressive side, myself included, are not impressed.
It is not that we are unmoved by Health Care. It is the way that Health Care was passed. Basically, most things that progressives want were simply ignored or given lip service, while conservative things were moved to the front of the line.
Progressives are unimpressed because we are not given a single thing that we want. I don’t believe that the Public Option was unpassable. It was not passed, IMHO, because Obama basically threw it under the bus.
So, if Obama wants progressives back, he needs to come out and PUSH for a progressive outcome. Where is his attempt at recovering progressives for the Nov election?
Who contributed to the 2008 election? It wasn’t moderates, or Blue Dogs. Who made phone calls? Not moderates or Blue Dogs. It was progressives, and yet we get very little.
Obama needs to QUICKLY move to find a policy that progressives want and that he will back.
How about “Property is Theft”?
How about…Taxes are theft? Black is White, and White is Black
Progressives…you are materialists who are concerned that the less fortunate have access to wealth, and/or the things that wealth can procure.
Please answer one question…where does wealth come from?
People have a right to food, housing, shelter, health care, unemployment benefits, you name it…where does the wealth to pay for these things come?
What if there were no doctors…would you have a “right” to health care?
Wake Up! I love your compassion, but you are blind! If most of you put your idealism to appreciating the true human spirit, you would be the best Tea Partiers Ever!
The wealth comes from our educated and highly motivated workforce. The wealth comes from the laws that protect business from patent infringement and other theft.
A judicial system and the rule of law cost money. If your making 100 million dollars a year you should pay a far higher percent of your income in taxes then the person making sixty thousand. You use the nations infrastructure (people and highways) to a much greater degree when you make that kind of money.
Its healthy for our economy too. The top three million people having as much money as the bottom 180 million is fiscal suicide. How many cars will three million people buy? Three million? How about 180 million people? A 180 million cars. Extrapolate to houses and durable goods.
The more people with money the better for the nation.
What’s gotta change? Those who control Congress and the White House need to put people first.
PEOPLE FIRST.
Bailouts, jobs, subsidies… people first.
Those of us who fought Bush-Cheney for eight years were suckered in 2008, period. The people got the party in power and were swiftly ignored and shunted aside.
Things will go to hell before we see change we can believe in, in our lifetimes.
Take that to the bank.
You are not causing whiplash. Your concern is genuine but ignores some things about human behavior.
One you have to acknowledge that most of the voters who voted for 44 are not registered Democrats. As Karen Finney points out constantly they are independents 44 brought in through his out reach program called OFA. The most reliable voters in the Democratic party are African American. These two groups are at odds w/ each other because OFA voters are young and white and they do not participate in the party process. The odds come from the fact they are not carrying the load in local elections where they are essentially right when they say the party doesn’t listen to their interests, e.g look at attempts to use abandoned urban land for gardening/local food initiatives when local Democratic leaders are seeking to use that land to reward both unions and developers(contributors financially to the party(local) for the purpose of creating some jobs and a tax base for decaying dying cities.
These same voters for the most part are affluent enough that if they aren’t psychicly(sic?)emotionally rewarded they don’t vote. In local elections in large urban/immediate exurban areas this lack of voting doesn’t matter but in state wide elections it is a killer. In Blue Dog districts these votes are negated by the inherent conservatism of the district. This conservatism means that many social issues these voters care about are anathema to the district so the local officials can’t, if they are at minimum sympathetic, push w/o pushing the voters into the Republican party(now this is cowardice on their part but I have yet to meet an elected official on other side of the spectrum irregardless of party pull a Cincinantus and just go home). So in times of stress this lack of voting allows Republicans to win because they at least keep their voters motivated over the local Democrats.
The keys to overcoming this is a much more nuance action(s) on the part of 44 to address the OFA voters concerns w/o putting them in conflict w
local officials. The classic example of the conflict is the DADT law that the solicitor General had to defend early in 44’s administration. Instead of arguing for the law in an independent manner the DOJ used the same language that 43 did. This language stated directly that homosexuals were animals and allowing them rights would lead to “other” perversions.
It is one thing to understand that 44 is w/ you on this issue but you can’t create a situation. The homosexual community understands that the law under the law has to be defended until it is changed but to defend it using the same words as 43 gives you no assurance 44 is on your side. Cap and Change, Afghanistan, Iraq, GITMO and a host of others suffer from the same types of problems.
Conversely the African American community knows to damn well that if you walk away from 44 the shit is really going to hit the fan given the ratcheting up of hatred bigotry and intolerance being fanned by Republican politicians and their allies. You may not have a job but a white person can just walk away and hunker down till the pendulum swings the other way. So they see OFA voters as whining children latching on to ideas and values they aren’t willing to fight for.
The question is how to motivate all the sides to see that working together is the important goal w/o relying on only a rational appeal.
I’m not sure how this situation is really any different from the past, Boo. Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, etc, all voted for Nixon, Reagan, Daddy Bush, Clinton, and so on. They’ve been hanging themselves for decades.
It’s amazing, but the idea that opposition to trade policies that shred their economies is the golden ticket in the Rust Belt has always been a myth.
And it isn’t just the Rust Belt. It’s been going on in the South the whole time, too, when you look at, for example, the textile industry.
There is no concerted effort to get out the vote in Michigan. People running for local/state offices are the only ones trying.
The Democratic representatives in this state are no where to be found. One would think that even if they are not up for election this year they would make some type of effort for Democrats nationally.
Letters to their offices get a response two to three months later and they are primarily “thank you for your support and oh, btw, send money.
There are also no community leaders trying to get out the vote. The talk show hosts on the single progressive radio station in my area, which does not carry any local talk shows, do encourage Democrats to vote, but that is about it.
I am around 80% handicapped so the best that I can do is donate money to Democrats across the country(several hundred this year alone) but I am getting tired of it since the current Democratic office holders in this state are not making effort.
Plus I am getting very, very tired of the Democrats not standing up to the republicans.