Progressives. I don’t think that word means what Ron Fournier thinks it means.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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I’m not sure anything means what Ron Fournier thinks it means.
That kind of stupid blunder, right out of the gate, pretty much makes irrelevant the rest of what he has to say in the article.
And this guy makes a living writing about politics?
Just tell Ron to Fourniercate off and ignore his nonsense. Your life will be better for it.
I clicked on the article despite my intentions to never read another F’d up column again. The reference to “progressives” aside, there was at least a little bit of insight to the writing. The nod to racism at the end was an expression of the obvious. Fournier is a click whore – his columns often lead the list of “most read” at NJ – so he caters to the wingers looking for another dose of Obama hate.
Is there any reason to believe that Fournier chooses his words for any other reason than effect? It’s not that he misunderstands the meaning of “progressive”, etymological, historical, popular or otherwise. He’s taking the occasion to bend it to his own purposes.
Fournier is every bit the GOP apologist — in the sense of “explainer” — that Limbaugh is. He’s all about providing an ideological structure which undermines Democrats and supports those among the Republicans he wants to curry favor with. Except, unlike Limbaugh, he does this while pretending to non-partisan “independent,” and only interested only in “common sense”.
I wouldn’t try to makese sense of Fournier. There’s no sense to be made. It’s just manipulation.
What applies to Fournier also applies to The Big Potatohead(Tim Russert) as well. And both were exposed during the time of C- Augustus.
No. I don’t think I’ve ever read an extended piece by him before, at least not one with this kind of literary ambition, and I’m startled at how awful it is. I think a seventh-grade teacher told him he was talented and he’s never gotten over it. Thinks he doesn’t need to know what the words mean.
I don’t read Mr. Fournier…ever. Not because I somehow dislike his views or those of The National Jopurnal…I know nothing at all about either. They are simply not in my websights.
However…reading that article in as non-prejudgmental way as possible, what I get out of it is exactly the same take that I get out of similar Maine and New Hampshire experiences. If one can pass as a native in relatively non-hypemeistered cities and towns across the U.S….or at least pass as an accepted outlier who is related to a native…you can hear the same sorts of conversations among white, working class/middle class voters. Same same in truck stops, working-class bars and diners/coffee shops, etc. Is this stuff racially-based? In some cases, sure, but I think that had say Joe Biden been elected president in 2004 and produced the same sort of track record as has Barack Obama over 8 years much the same antipathy for him and for his party would be present.
“Progressives?”
On the evidence of the last 8 years? A totally devalued word.
Just a catchphrase, a branding. A failed branding, one that savvy pols will avoid at all costs in 2016. Muhammad Ali once said when Howard Cosell called him “truculent” during an interview, “”Whatever truculent means if it’s good, I’m that.” “Progressive” ain’t so good anymore Booman,
no matter what one supposes it really means.
Fournier writes:
I am afraid…and I use that word quite consciously…that this statement is absolutely true for a burgeoning percentage of U.S. voters who elected Obama. Why? How? Koch money? Fox News? Of course those things are part of the problem, but the real problem is that Obama himself has at best proven to be a ineffective “progressive,” and that’s at best. At worst he has been a well-functioning Judas goat for the PermaGov/Deep State, leading the American sheeple down a killing path into a PermaWar security state.
Worse than the ObamaCare rollout, worse than the various foreign policy disasters or federal bureaucratic snafus was the Snowden affair. It was not only bad because it exposed a security state that was hellbent on total control of its citizens, it got worse every time Obama or his little helpers stood up and either tried to mealy-mouth their way out of the problem or tough-talk about what they were going to do those nasty whistle blowers. You cannot blame he Koch brothers there. In my opinion the Snowden affair was a breath of real progressivism. Progress towards the truths of the matter.
“Folks around here are over that President Obama?” Folks around a lot of places…people who voted for him…are over that President Obama.
This following statement sums it up. It has the ring of truth to it.
Precisely the problem.
How many states that went blue in 2008 and 2012 will have to go red for the DemRats to take a real licking in 2016? Two? Three? Four? More?
Watch.
AG
“How many states that went blue in 2008 and 2012 will have to go red for the DemRats to take a real licking in 2016? Two? Three? Four? More?”
Well, let’s see. 62 EVs would have to switch for a Republican to win; 120 to have a margin equal to Obama’s. I don’t know where your threshold for a “real licking” is, but those probably are the outer bounds.
I think we can assume that California and New York are safe, so after that the Republican could win by switching Florida, Pennsylvania and one from the list of Illinois, New Jersey, Michigan, Ohio and Virginia. It would take Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey and one more state to flip 120 EVs.
If you leave out any state with a 10 point or more margin for Obama (which is pretty generous), that leaves only 352 EVs on the table, which would require flipping at least 8 states to get the same number of EVs as Obama. You’d still only need to flip 3 states to get to 270, but your choices for the 3rd state would be limited to Ohio and Michigan (a state Obama won by 9 points); if you don’t get one of them, you’d need 4, or if you don’t get both Florida and Pennsylvania, you’d need to flip at least 4.
That’s “Former McCain White House Press Secretary Ron Fournier” to you bub.