Retaining control of the Senate is going to be difficult for the Democrats, and it isn’t as simple as turning out the general election voters. That would help the Democrats retain seats in states like Michigan that Obama carried in 2012, but it would not be enough in states like Louisiana, Arkansas, and Montana. The normal route to victory would be for Democrats in red states to show their worth to their constituents while creating some distance from the president and the national party. But a safer strategy is for the Democrats to make a straightforward appeal to voters in red states. Promoting a hike in the minimum wage is what they seem to have latched onto, and that’s not bad. But to really break through, the Democrats need something bolder. Wiping out college debt or rescheduling marijuana as a safer drug are two things that could energize young people. They also need to go on offense with health care. Defensiveness over the Affordable Care Act could be disastrous.
Overall, it would be better to have candidates like Mark Pryor, Kay Hagan, John Walsh, and Mary Landrieu pitching populist policies, even if they aren’t immediately achievable, than to have them distancing themselves from the party and the president. Also, the Republicans are nuts, and they should be pointing that out. Agricultural issues can be exploited, too, in a lot of these races. The GOP’s extremism has created a lot of vulnerabilities but they can only be exploited if the Democrats are willing to go on offense.
If the elections are nationalized under the current red/blue split, the Democrats will have a bad election night. But, if the Democrats change the narrative, they can win over some Romney voters and keep control of the Senate.
This is me hoping their consultants feel the same way you do.
The Republicans can “message!”
The Democrats can’t, or don’t, or won’t.
Instead, they try to massage.
And that’s no way to win elections.
I said this a long time ago, but I think it still holds true:
The reason W and the Republicans/Conservative were, and are, against stem-cell research, is that they’re afraid that the Democrats will grow a spine.
It would be nice to see them grow one naturally – but, I’ll take what I can get…
That’s not really true, the problem is the solutions to problems can’t be boiled down to bumper stickers
Face it, Booman. Like a failing coach on a big-time basketball team,…Mike Woodson on the Knicks, for example…Obama has lost control over the players and the game(s). “They also need to go on offense with health care?” “Defensiveness over the Affordable Care Act could be disastrous?” Please!!! Wake the fuck up!!! There is no position that can be taken on this situation by the Dems. They have already lost the fucking game. Why? How? Because it was played very, very badly against a better team. In situations like this the coach eventually gets fired…or at the very least not consulted about who should replace him…and the team moves on. If it has bad owners…and bet on it, the owners of the PermaGov team(s) have been proving themselves incompetent on every level except making money off of a series of disastrously bad seasons…the next coach will certainly be saddled with the many of the same problems.
The Senate?
It’s as good as lost. Deal wid it.
The presidency? Even if a Dem wins it will be a lost presidency.
I personally think that Hillary Clinton has been putting off a real announcement regarding her active candidacy until the makeup of the 2014 Senate is fairly clear. She’s old and she’s at the very least physically tired. I mean…look at her, fer Chrissake!!!
Do you think she thinks she needs to preside over a hostile and recalcitrant congress?
I don’t.
They’ll run some tired, gaffe-prone Dem tomato can…Biden would be perfect, which is why he’s been making presidential noises recently…against a younger RatPub candidate who has established the ability to appeal to minorities and younger voters (Rand Paul has carefully tailored and branded himself to fit that bill to the max since before Christie’s fall from public grace.), and then if the new president dares to try to do anything other than what the controllers tell him to do they’ll simply stonewall him w/a united congress.
And the beat goes on.
Watch.
AG
P.S. Look on the bright side, Booman. The leftiness blogs will have so much to complain about for the next couple of terms. “Double euphoria heaven!!!,” as the great social prophet Lord Buckley used to say.
Double euphoria heaven.
WTFU.
This is dumb on so many levels.
First of all, regardless of what happens in 2014, the Senate will be in Democratic hands in 2016. If the Republicans don’t win a ton of Democratic seats in November, it’s likely that the Dems will wind up with 60 or more seats after the 2016 election. Do your homework.
And this post is a tautology — it’s an AG post after all…
Also, lol:
“Obama’s foreign policy has shown the United States to be weak–that we don’t want to do anything,” says Elizabeth. “Countries don’t take our red lines seriously. We are starting to lose our standing.”
“Ron Paul was a staunch isolationist,” says Aaron, “whereas Rand Paul does believe we live in an international community. That’s one of the big differences between supporters of Ron and Rand.”
At CPAC, a new generation of conservatives wrestles with what it means to be a foreign policy hawk.
StandWithRand, amirite? Let’s face it (not that you or I, Booman, need to face it, as we know who these motherfuckers are): Rand and Ron Paul’s supporters are fascists and are just the same warmongering asshole conservatives they’ve always been.
And two years of pain might almost be worth it if the upshot is the absence of Blue Dogs when we retake the Senate.
Unless, of course, Obama’s approval rating is even lower in 2016. When was the last time a candidate from the same party won the Presidency after a two-term, unpopular Preisident was leaving office? How many parties have taken control of a chamber of Congress while losing a Presidential election? Food for thought.
Instead of engaging in conservawanking you might want to take a look at how many Senate seats currently held by each party are up in 2016, and where. And no, I won’t do your Googling for you.
You write in your original post:
I agree. Difficult if not impossible.
And then you write:
What? Are you Nostradamus now?
Why do you say that?
Because the article you quote in the post quotes Obama as saying the following?
C’mon.
That’s not a prediction, it’s a cheerleader formation.
“I don’t know what it is about us?”
Weak spirited, casual, middle class leftinesses can’t get their collective asses in gear to fight if they don’t have some kind of celebrity at the head of a ticket is “what it is” about you.
What it is, baby.
What it is!!!
What kind of passion will they be able to rouse in 2016 if Hillary doesn’t run? Or how about if Hillary is visibly weak and fatigued during the campaign?
Do my homework!!!???
A cursory daily glance at the leanings of the mass media is all the “homework” I need to do.
Obama is toast.
Obamacare failed. Big time.
Foreign policy has been a disaster.
The economy…on the ground, the economy that counts with working people, not the jiveass numbers from Wall Street and the so-called employment/unemployment numbers…is in tatters. Everywhere I go people are lamenting the rise in consumer prices…at the market, at the drugstore, at the pump…everywhere.
He can’t even get a sufficient number of his own highly placed party members to back him up on simple appointments.
Obama’s “stand” on Syria?
A joke.
His stand on Crimea and Russia? A worse joke.
His horse-faced Secretary of State?
Been a joke since he acceded to the stolen vote in 2004. Since before that, really.
Sending Kerry to deal with the likes of Putin?
He couldn’t even deal with a protestor in Florida. He had to use college rent-a-cops and a taser to shut him up.
While Kerry hemmed, hawed and hid on stage.
“Dumb on so many levels?”
Look in the mirror, Booman.
You been pundited.
Please.
We got enough problems without eyes wide shut DemRatisms.
Please.
AG
P.S. Saaaay…I wonder if Batman Kerry will bring Robin to the Crimea/Ukraine/Russian negotiating table?
That’d be interesting!!!
Such a fine judge of men and all.
I uprated this because there is much to agree with and I didn’t agree with the troll rating. It smacks too much of Dkos where opinions that one doesn’t agree with are troll rated.
Don’t agree with the pessimism and, as you already know, Arthur, the Paulism.
What about the sexism, do you agree with that?
.
What sexism? Because I predict Hillary Clinton is too old to stand up to the strains of the presidency and I further predict that she is intelligent enough to know it I’m a sexist? Give me a break!!! We all age differently. It’s not about “sex,” it’s about strength and health. Am I a sexist because I think that Ronald Reagan was too old to be president in his 2nd term? Hell no!!! He was an empty shell. (Not that his shell was ever very full, but that’s another story.)
What bullshit.
I supported Clinton over Obama in 2008 because I thought that if we were going to elect a neoliberal hustler we might as well at least elect one who knew her way around the DC block instead of a rookie. And look what happened. The rookie went and got his butt kicked by the DC pros. My favorite 2016 candidate right now? Elizabeth Warren, although since she hasn’t started a real campaign her chances of even being nominated are none and nil.
Sexist?
Get real.
AG
Give ’em hell, Arthur!
I saw no sexism. What part was sexist in your opinion.
AG,
The entire Clinton Plan is to sit out the 2014 Elections, and if we lose the Senate, then Hillary will be presented as the Democratic Savior for 2016.
Possible. On the other side I expect to see another clown collection of GOP candidates and the party “saved” by Jeb Bush, and his Latina wife.
Maybe. We’ll see. Fixes are hard to predict. So many options!!! My own take on Hillary Clinton is that she was really hurt about a year ago by that fall she took and the concomitant concussion…or she fell because she was already unsteady…and she’s still not entirely back on top of things.
She was filmed falling a year or so before that fall while boarding a plane in Yemen.
Here it is:
Now everybody makes a misstep once in a while, but what bothers me about the film is how she got up. Very painfully. She needed the help of an attendant, the help of her own right hand and she had a hell of a time getting her (overweight…sorry) butt in balance even then. I am about her age, in much better shape…I took a fall a couple of months ago while running across a street and was up in a flash, even with a musical instrument on my back and a fairly heavy equipment bag in one hand…and to tell you the truth I doubt that I could have stood up to the pace of her life as Secretary of State without massive help from various up-and-down drugs, drugs which only make one weaker in the long run. The stresses of the presidency? I wouldn’t even think of trying it unless it was so important to me that I was willing to die for the privilege. Is she willing to do that? If so, then she’ll run. She’s smart, right? She has to know that she’s not well. Look at what the presidency has done to a fit younger president. Two of them, actually. Both Obama and Bush II aged visibly.
She just doesn’t have that much candle left to burn.
AG
Tl,dr: student loan forgiveness is a bad idea, imho
Im 27 and had about 20k in debt when I finished school. Ive gotten it down to less than 5k and should be done with it soon. I make about 39k a year and with nyc taxes, rents, expenses, etc it’s a little tight. In the years since finishing school ive had to make a lot of decisions about how to prioritize bills and I always put the loan first because of the interest. As a result I had to pinch pennies elsewhere. I don’t live in the safest neighborhood, have taken on strangers as roomates, went a few years without dental etc. not saying im virtuous or anything just that I had decisions to make and went one way. Other people in my same situation, no less virtuous, might have put other things ahead of paying off loans. Now if there’s a loan forgiveness program it could have the effect of costing me a bunch of money compared to ppl in the exact same circumstances as me who just made different decisions. No better or worse just different. If the idea is to help people then we should just give out money no strings attached. Lots of ppl other than millenials with loans need help. Some will spend it on paying of their loans but some on healthcare, some on food, shelter, fix a car, whatever. Some of the ppl with loans still wont pay them showing that they have other needs more urgent than the loans. The no strings attached is why social security works better than other anti poverty programs. If you give to charity something like givedirectly is better than some really narrow specific thing. Some of the tax credits in the stimulus bill were really good in this way.
Also the politics is bad. My age group is solidly liberal and you shouldn’t mess with that. We all started adulthood in a terrible job market and most could use some help in some way. Introducing a policy that divides us in what to us would be an arbitrary way to help some and leave the rest out would give big numbers of ppl in a core demographic a good reason to be pissed at democrats. Seems like EITC has just as good a chance at happening and could be just as populist considering it would go to a much wider group of people who could use the help just as much
Sorry for ranting
Now if there’s a loan forgiveness program it could have the effect of costing me a bunch of money compared to ppl in the exact same circumstances as me who just made different decisions.
I got mine jack – fuck you.
That’s pretty harsh… I don’t think that’s the commenter’s attitude at all. These are tough problems. Debt forgiveness is always going to be controversial. Renters objected when people with mortgages get breaks and so it will be with student loans.
So just screw the unfortunates who had to accumulate three times your debt or more to finish their degrees? You’re also ignoring the fact that that debt is becoming a major drag on the economy, especially the housing market.
Same argument Jefferson made when Hamilton wanted to establish a national debt. Virginia paid its debts; other states weren’t as lucky. Sorry, bro, you’re wrong. I’ve paid off $61,000 in two years. Why wouldn’t I want my peers to get a jubilee? I was lucky enough to be able to afford paying this shit off, with lots of change to spare. I can afford it. Others cannot.
You won’t be a liberal for long. Look at the responses on this blog. The way you think about money indicates you will likely become a Conservative once you realize the true nature of the difference between the two philosophies.
you’re right it’s a tough decision, but it is one solution to jump start the economy and open up some cash flow for a lot of people even if it doesn’t apply to people in your position
I would be in favor of both, loan forgiveness and direct cash payments like Booman suggested last week
The Democratic establishment has been taking midterm elections for granted for far too long unless (like 2006) their back is really to the wall. There is not an institutional memory of how to get the turnout to win a midterm election. Democrats have been coasting on PVI.
This is kinda late in the cycle to figure out you are in trouble, in part because you don’t have the candidates in place to aggressively work all states. Nor do you have a record that appeals to your base or to the public at large because you have been depending on the (true) narrative that the other guys are worse, lots worse. But not enough of the public realizes that yet and worse, Democratic challengers where they exist don’t have name recognition. And the SuperPACs have already put lots of money in play that has only been mildly answered.
The problem with the Hagans, Landrieus, and Pryors is that their silence or complicity makes the Republicans seem less nuts in their states. A sudden pivot from them would not be credible.
Besides, we are at the point where get-out-the-vote turnout better be beginning. And registration and public education about the ins and outs of new voter laws. Because the other side will be trying to confuse people as much as possible.
The issue in state after state is state legislatures and their malfeasance. National Democratic candidate can ride on the coattails of a massive shift in the state legislatures and governor’s mansions if state-level and local Democrats can get their act together and get some coordinated national support.
For so many years we have been told of the consequences what happens if we don’t side w/ blue dogs/moderates/shills but THAT experiment is over. And guess what the result was? This collective always votes for their interests not the country. Who could have seen that coming? Every blogger who were party loyalists were wrong in their assumption.
I can’t tell you for how many years I was preached at why we have to “stick together” & now here we are at this moment. And still even at the last moments of gasping in denial reaching for that moderate bottle of “Progress takes time” What in the hell do you think the result is going to be if we keep tilting more & more to right? Democrats will not be rewarded, it doesn’t work like that. We don’t own media outlets, we made that mistake 100 or so years in the making.
I live in Ohio. The notion of state Dem parties getting their act together is therefore a source of bitter amusement to me.
The good folks of Madison WI are having Rev. Barber of Moral Monday come speak to religious left and labor groups up there. Maybe that movement can bypass the state parties.
So all we have to do is make sure Democratic Senate candidates follow a smart, aggresssive and progressive strategy?
yay
in other words, we’re doomed.
I think I’ve found the flaw in your reasoning…
If we are going to lose the Senate, please god, Mary Landrieu is gone. The environment won’t survive her.
If you listen to Fela Kuti, that will cleanse your spirit of this nonsense.
All you have to do is remember one RULE
The more money you throw at politics, the worse it becomes, remember that and you will be dancing to the afrobeat sounds like me not falling for the press releases or speeches.
Wake me, when someone actually cares & proves they do. Not just a infomercial on tv but something that demonstrates w/out a doubt this politician cares.
You are right. Barry Goldwater correctly identified the GOP’s problem as being “Me too Republicanism”. Sure he was defeated in a landslide, but he shifted the Party’s direction which led the way to future victories so that even idiots like Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin can be considered Presidential material without newscasters breaking out in laughter.
In a similar manner by becoming “Me Too Democrats” the Democratic Party has traded it’s future for short term gains. I think Bill Clinton was wrong when he diagnosed Democratic failure by straying too far from the rich and not embracing business. The Democratic Party lost it’s way when it focused too much on the poor at the expense and outright hostility to its working class base.
Pot, minimum wage, health care for poor people, and debt forgiveness. I guess that’s something. What’s really sad is that we’ve all stood by while the economy was gutted. We did this to ourselves. See this from the Wash. Post today about working at a Nissan plant in Tennessee. Those poor people… look what free trade, union corruption, and our horrible political did to the middle class.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/03/09/this-is-what-a-job-in-the-u-s-new-manufac
turing-industry-looks-like/?tid=hpModule_79c38dfc-8691-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394&hpid=z13
I had to work 22 straight days in December. But I got time and a half for the sixth day and double time on the seventh each week. I make a decent wage, about the national average family income, and the Postal Service pays 79% of my health insurance.
The article does say that Chris doesn’t get health insurance (notice that’s because Obama gave his employer an extension — telling me that Obama cares more for his employer than he does for Chris) but it doesn’t mention if Chris gets overtime. In Tennessee, I wouldn’t take it for granted.
Surely you know that statutes requiring overtime pay are Federal, and not dependent in the state in which you live?
Nonetheless, I am impressed by your somewhat pro-business attitude. (relative to this blog, of course!)
Pro-business? How did you get that?
“Relative to this blog”.
Perhaps “tolerate business” is more accurate?
At least you seem to recognize that businesses need to exist. Which means they need to earn a profit. Which means the minimum wage cannot be $100,000 per year.
Which means the minimum wage cannot be $100,000 per year.
Nice strawman you got there ……
Too bad nobody except right wing trolls ever suggest that dumba$$ an idea
My father worked with a man from Kentucky in the 50’s and 60’s. When they first met, this man told my father he made six dollars a day at a sawmill in Kentucky, sixty cents an hour, no overtime. He was making $1.50 an hour in Chicago and thought was rich. Multiply those figures by roughly ten to get a feel in today’s dollars. My father was a group leader making $100 a week. We did OK.
Surely you know that statutes requiring overtime pay are Federal, and not dependent in the state in which you live?
Nonetheless, I am impressed by your somewhat pro-business attitude. (relative to this blog, of course!)