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I’ve made this statement before but I would like to once again put it forward.
All 3 of our so called "Firedogs", Weiner, Grayson, and Kucinich have proven themselves unworthy of the title. All 3 were signatories of the letter promising not to vote for a bill with no Public Option in it. All 3 have betrayed that pledge.
Of those 3 only Kucinich has promised to refund the money he took from us, and so far that hasn’t really been happening.
We’ve proven carrots are not an effective strategy. Over and over again we’ve seen their word is worth nothing.
So let’s break out the sticks.
Jane, I don’t know how good your relationship is with the mainstream these days, if you can like try and request to get on air or anything. But a blatant and public disowning of these three, stating exactly why is in order. A massive demonstration that we are not the left that Rahm thinks he can just walk all over.
Sure we’ll be called firebaggers and the Kossacks will call us traitors, but so what? What good was Kos or any of them? Kos, like the three 3 "firedogs" caved in to everything his all mighty Obama wanted. What kind of ally is that?
We need to make this break public, and as large as we can.
48 Comments
I think this is a valid question.
What I’d like to do is wait a week so people have a chance to digest things, and then maybe see where everyone is. We can open it up to people’s suggestions as to how to handle it, perhaps take another vote.
Since everyone doesn’t process (or even become aware of) information immediately I’d like to give it a couple of days before we do anything, but we will definitely revisit it.
Wow I wasn’t actually expecting you to respond.
That’s fair Jane, I just wanted to get the ball rolling. Because as long as there’s no penalty for ignoring us they can just keep on doing it.
Great work by the way. I’m proud to be a member of the only intellectually honest blog left.
Gah, I finally fixed my spam filter today, as i’d found FDL emails in there and lo and behold there was a Kucinich branded DCCC fundraiser ( i’d actually opted out months ago, but why would I expect they’d start listening to me now ).
I think Sanders’ less than couragous stand in the Senate was at least somewhat palatable due to the concessions he extracted for his support. The same, I believe, cannot be said for the rest of our Fizzlepups.
VERY interesting diary, thanks for posting it!
And to Mz. Hamsher’s #1, yes, there is a WHOLE lot of processing goin on right now, about not only the FDL Three, but about the whole political process and the system and what can or can’t even be done about any of it.
WHOLE lot of processing going on, I’d expect, for all Pups N Progs.
It will be interesting to see if there’s any chance of unity being rebuilt amongst ‘line in the sand progs’ (my term), moderate progs (those who see the HCR effort as a positive), libs, dem’s and more.
One thing I can’t ignore anymore is that the left HAS been splintered. Cracked open like an egg, and beaten in the MSM by Rahm/Obama/Dem Corporate Machine and the combined veal pens of centrist status quo.
A week or two to see how it all processes is going to be interesting once it’s over . . . on we hope, I guess.
Inquisitr, this is a great idea. And Jane is so right that we need time to process everything that has happened. Personally, my head is spinning. Things like tea partiers threatening Democrats for fomenting a pro-choice health bill when the truth is, the bill contains the worst attack on choice in years. And most of msm is living in a world where up is called down, night is called day, etc., which tends to be dizzying.
Since much of the progressive momentum grew during w bush’s reign, an unholy nonstop 8 year carnival of conservative excess, it’s inevitable that deep disagreements should appear among progressives over time, especially when a supposedly more liberal administration came in. Many so-called progressives are really moderates/centrists, even moderately conservative. After all, it didn’t take much to stand to the left of the Bushites, and the way the Democrats have used and abused progressives has further clouded the issue of what progressivism means and what its goals are. And there’s the fact that in Obama we have perhaps the smoothest and most plausible mis-leader and propagandist in recent history, who it seems has cynically used his African American identity to blunt criticism and scrutiny.
Maybe one good thing that will come out of this is that real progressives now will be less likely to waste time and energy on faux progressive groups and leaders.
I’m still waiting for my Kucinich refund, and I plan to send a copy of that check to every faithless progressive Pledger on Public Option. Not a single one of them voted against the health care bill as promised. My money was contingent on that pledge.
In fact, some of them have started emailing and snail-mailing for money already.
This is a great idea. And, Inquisitr, you shouldn’t be surprised to hear from Jane Hamsher on this topic. I think you’ll find she keeps a close eye on the public pulse in Seminal diaries, especially those on topics like yours.
It’s not that I didn’t think Jane checks, it’s that my diaries tend to be a bit pie in the sky so the speak. I mean my last one was me declaring why I call myself a socialist.
Whether we go with this idea or not, I think the most important thing we can do is start finding some very large very effective sticks. Because our carrots will never ever be as large as the ones from corporate interests, and trying to rely on the individual “morals” of the representatives is just asking to be betrayed.
The one thing I’m adamant about however is breaking with Kos. The enemy of our enemy is not our friend. Be it immigration reform, financial reform, or whatever is next we can’t rely on him and his. He’s going to bluster and make his money, get his precious access to the MSM, then cave and cower like the Obamabot he is.
Obama is his dream, Reagan in a lefties clothing. The CIA of which he was a member couldn’t have thought up a better way to infiltrate the left, and they spent a number of years trying. Obama has done in a year what even Reagan couldn’t do. And as a former Reagan youth Kos couldn’t be happier.
Americablog hosted Alan Grayson today in a live chat. This is what Grayson had to say as regards the PO and the mandate:
No rebuttal or follow-up from Aravosis or the commenters.
*goes and makes martini now*
What the . . .? $395 a year? Where is he pulling this figure from? First I’ve heard of it. What about penalties for each uninsured member of a family? And just for the record, if anyone can get out of an ER with a bill of under $1,000 (well, at least in NJ), I’ll eat it
Thanks for this and your socialist diary.
I think we all have to cool out. For the moment nothing much is to be done. But, fear not this POS bill will very quickly show it’s true colors and then the shit will truly hit the fan. We don’t need to add to the tea bagger rage it only makes it better for the Corporatist. I say, we should just walk and and be patient. This thing is so bad it can’t stand long on it’s own . It FIXES so little at such a huge price when the Industry just keeps inflating as it has now for 2 decades and this shitty excuse for reform does nothing to fix the cost curve all the rest of things it was supposed to cure won’t matter. If the cost of Insurance and care continues to far out pace incomes this Bill will very quickly be remembered as another lousy Dem. non-reform like HBO and managed care was. Unfortunately hundreds of thousands will die before we re-visit this nightmare again and in the interim the Ins. companies, Big Pharma and the rest will bankrupt millions. But, we are taking the risk right now of being lumped in with the rage on the right and the violence and we cannot afford to be seen in anyway backing these nut cases. I hate this bill and abhor Obama and the Dems. now but the GOPERS / Tea parties are beyond the pale and I in no way do I want to be seen as associated with them.
At least Jane shows somm calm and cosideration.
These people didn’t do exactly as some would have wanted, but if they had all would have got nothing.
Do we want to be like the Republicans and take all our toys and go home because things didn’t go like we wanted.
Or do we want to make these people keep working to give us what we wanted in the future?
If the Country including us gets mad and takes it out the Dems, we will find the Republicans back in power and all that was gained lost.
*smacks the martini out of your hand*
Truth time friend. first of all that 395$ figure is BS. But what he also fails to tell you is that the penalty continues to go up every year until it gets to the full % of your income as we’ve been saying. Grayson is being beyond disingenuous here.
Even the right wing can’t find anything wrong with it? What do you think all this socialism and death panels has been about. Of course they can find something wrong with it, even if there isn’t anything wrong with it. That is the one skill the right has always been better at than us. They can make you believe something is bad with lies.
My position has always been that this is worse than nothing, as has it been the position of most of FDL. Mandates, abortion restrictions, filtering profits and taxes into private industry, for what? No cost controls, an expansion of coverage that won’t actually amount to anything, and a fake ban on pre-existing conditions that is already being gamed by lawyers.
Tell me, what did we really get here?
Indeed make them give us what we want. But the carrots aka money, support, petitions, etc haven’t made them do that. Because the industry can always offer them bigger ones. SO I say break out the stick. Threaten their jobs and we get what we want.
‘I have a right to my anger, and I don’t want anybody telling me I shouldn’t be, that it’s not nice to be, and that something’s wrong with me because I get angry.’ – Maxine Waters
Not being angry is a mistake. And I reserve the right to be angry.
Right on Inq! Here is a commentary I sent to Dennis Kucinich today in response to his explanations for why he caved on Health Insurance reform without getting even a shred of a concession:
I’m with you inquistr, I think we ought to disown them and all of the other progressive caucus people who broke their commitment.
I’m with you cb, also.
Hey Lgid,
Its geting a little early where I come from, 1:45 AM, and my old bones are going to be taken upstairs to bed real soon. This is a very critical time from a political persepctive. I fear that much of the ground Obama lost over the year because of his corporatist friendly policies will be regained by his HIR victory. Americans like nothing better than a winner, so those of us who detest what he is doing are about to be marginalized unless we step up our critiques of the Democratic leadership. I found Greenwald’s short comment today on the two contrastive answers Obama gives on human rights violations in Indonesia and in America to be heartening. Apparently the man who brought us Nixoncare now seems to think we can’t go forward until we look backward, at least in Indonesia. The war must be brought along and a critical dialectic of the ills of neoliberalism must be kept alive. Your formidable knowledge and powerful lines of argumentation will be especially welcome to me. Rejoice, you won’t have to waste your energy devising complex legislative strategies for the Democratic Party to effect leftist change in America. Good night and good luck.
Not to pile on, but…
It’s not that we’re “not getting exactly what we want”. We’re getting nothing that we wanted. We didn’t want an excise tax. We didn’t want mandates without a public option. We didn’t want eliminating pre-existing conditions to contain the very same loopholes insurance companies have been using to date. We didn’t want to funnel money through subsidies to private enterprise to achieve our goals. We didn’t want an unsustainable model that will eventually bankrupt our country ( although the banks are doing a pretty good job of that already ). We didn’t want restrictive abortion language inserted into the bill and then further reinforced with a presidential signing statement. We didn’t want to further mortgage our future to allow pHARMa to rake in insane profits. We didn’t want to give away the golden goose to that very same pHARMa group 12 years on biologics. It’s a ****ing litany…A veritable polor opposite of what we wanted.
We wanted affordable health care access for all. We get expensive as hell healthcare for most.
So if we’re not getting anything out of voting Dem, why the hell are we doing it?
Analogy time: When I was younger, there was a guy on the bus who used to bully the hell out of me. He’d take my Star Wars cards, lunch money, whatever. Usual drill. And he’d tell me “i’ll break your ****ing face if you don’t do ‘X’”. After a while though, I got tired of losing all my sh*t to this mouth breather. It got to a point where a beating ( even from a guy built like a fridge ) just didn’t seem that bad to me anymore. So one day I told him to go **** himself. Sure enough, I got a thumping but he didn’t get my stuff. And I was right…It wasn’t that bad.
There’s not much left of our country for the GOP to hand over to the corporations at this point, the dems are wrapping that up as we speak. It’s not as if they’re going to be able to restrict access to abortions more than the dems have either( without another supreme court death/retirement )and it’s not like we’ve gotten back our freedoms eroded under Bush. We’re already in two wars so it’s not like they can start another without a draft. Sure it will suck a bit more than now…but
Threats are what bullies use. I’m done being bullied for my vote and i’m willing to take a beating, it’s not that bad.
“Sure it will suck a bit more than now…”
Republican gains will almost certainly lead to gridlock rather than a reversal of fortunes. The Senate will still struggle with their rules to get anything done.
Gridlock is almost certainly preferable to passing bad legislation at the hands of either party.
Firedoglake is relatively new as a player in the Democratic Party swirl. I think its influence, and the influence of Progressives in general, is yet to be fully understood by Beltway insiders. The Democratic Party is often referred to as a ‘big-tent’ political entity. Within such an edifice there must be those factions who sort of stand as the party’s conscience, who hold up the ideals we supposedly hold dear and defend them. FDR fills that role. Yes politics is the ‘art of the possible’, but that phrase can be an excuse for selling out and someone has got to be there to ask, ‘Hey, what about principle?’ Such questions irritate, but the reason they get under your skin, as they say, is because they are vital, however inconvenient, and deep down you know they are.
It may be that the Democratic Party is too corrupted to save, but I’m not ready to leave the table just yet. If I don’t have the cards I might bluff. If I do have the cards I’ll bet big, but either way I’m still in right now.
bear with me, just got up and am gonna ramble a little here
I’m not sure there should be any “Firedogs”. I think it a little too close to the reactive fandom progressives are subject to that frankly slow us up or step us backward.
I think we are just beginning to baby step towards keeping our eye on the prize – not the players, or the machinations therein (though both are integral partners in the dance)
maybe…maybe there should be Fire’pacs’, something issue-oriented – ’cause under the current system (one that insn’t going to change substantially for a while :D) any single elected representative can disappoint us (has anyone else wondered what Wellstone would have done in this epic 15 months ?)
ok, I said it was a ramble – just something I’ve been chewing on as long as I’ve been a firedog and HCR has brought it to the fore. I don’t know the answer – I’m not suggesting we stop endorsing or supporting candidates – but we have to get better at pursuing our goals via our principles and less reliance on the personalities involved
there – clear as mud
The three in question were the best you had. The next three won’t be any better if they are Democrats. I think you should raise money for real progressives. Ralph Nader comes to mind. Or you might support actual peace activists like Cindy Sheehan. You simply cannot trust Democrats and Republicans.
“I think you should raise money for real progressives.”
Any money raising efforts should be post action as a reward, not pre-action, as an inducement.
sure looks like they threw a few out of the tent in the direction of the Bus …
The FDL Party. Nice ring to it.
I agree with this.
If we decide to continue raising money it should be something along the liens of “we will guve the amount we raised to candidate only after he has voted how we liked.”
But doing it before hand in hopes of swaying votes is just foolish and something we need to stop.
I continue to maintain however that we need stick along with the carrots.
Damn right. I’m all for it. The notion of accountabilty has to start somewhere for these Politicos. They have to learn that there is a price to be paid for breaking their word.
Why give money raised to politicians? Why not spend it on educating the public? Countering the propaganda that is being put out there by these neoliberal Parties?
A valid point.
One thing we have to get to terms with is that the right has always been better at naming things, better at framing the debate in black and white terms, and things liek this.
It doesn’t matter if they’re right or wrong, they’re better at that 5 second “If you do this we all dieeeeeeeeeee” moment.
I’m not saying we should scare people. Well maybe a little, but not really. But we need to be able to counter those messages.
“I continue to maintain however that we need stick …”
Agreed.
I agree both with Inquisitor and Jane here. I’m ready to cut these guys off, and will personally not donate to any of them again until they demonstrate some actual usefulness (as opposed to shooting their mouths off). Still, time gives people perspective, and there’s no point in flying off the handle collectively.
Hear Hear!
*grins* You misunderstand me. I’m a long time supporter of the PO, and have argued vociferously against a bill without a PO that INCLUDES the onerous mandate.
I am surprised that Aravosis is either not informed enough to push on the $395 claim, or is veal pen material.
I too think there should be some measure of sanction/disavowal.
Ah, I had a feeling I may have misunderstood you there, I just had my anger going so I didn’t think of going back to put a disclaimer in.
Apologies all around.
A good idea, I think. We’re not going to agree with candidates or incumbents on everything. Rewarding them when they actually (really) do something useful might be a good idea. Just can’t think of a way to make it so that doesn’t look like a bribe, but I’m sure that points can be awarded toward a fund raising goal, or some such.
Thank-you for giving this serious consideration.
I’ve expressed similar, non-forgiving type thoughts in an FDL diary called How to End Kucinich’s Career.
I’d also be interested in hearing your thoughts on my notion of a segmented strategy in deciding who to focus on in primaries, which I mentioned in that diary. Basically, there are 3 elements:
1) segment Democratic Congress critters into groups, e.g.
2) progressives nationally pool their $$, and focus a fraction (say 50%) of those $$ on primaries, as follows:
- the object here is NOT just ‘gradual process improvement, like the other categories
- the object, instead, is to teach a lesson
( a more sophisticated strategy would try to incorporate weakness of the incumbent with his/her constituents, overall, as a factor; i.e., incumbents who are in trouble would get weighted, somewhat, on this basis )
3) progressives who nationally pooled their $$ would use the rest of the funds left over from 2) to target a randomly chosen set of incumbents, from each group, who are judged the NEXT ‘X worst’; stating an ‘X’ right now is not important, but the example I gave was to randomly target 6 of the 10 next worse. That will will put pressure on 10-12 in each category, instead of 6-8.
I think you can reward them for action as long as it is not a personal fund. If you raise money for Kucinich or whoever, then if you only give him that money if he performs, it can look like a bribe. OTOH, if you raise money in a fund for candidates who support a public option, you can wait until the actual election season starts to decide who gets those funds. I don’t know if you could also use the funds for education since I’m not up on PAC and political fundraising laws. Actually, thinking as I type, that might be the best way to go. Don’t give any money to any candidate. Raise a bunch of money for an issue like single payer or public option or states being allowed to do what they want in health care. Then use the money for independent expenditures like the ads run in Blanche Lincoln’s district. You can have positive ads for those who have done what you want and negative for those who haven’t. You can run ads when the issues are being contested and not yet voted on or you can run them when election time comes around to bring positive or negative consequences after the votes are done. Isn’t that what most concerns them about Citizens United? The ads run against them or for their opponent down the line?
I think part of this is self-defeating, though. We keep talking about money. We can’t compete on the money side. We can compete on the time and effort side. I think we should bank donations of time and promise boots on the ground (or voices on the phone bank) for those we end up supporting on balance by the time they are up for election. We can donate facebook space, phone banking time, neighborhood meeting time, whatever. And people who don’t have much money can give time. I think we need to have a paradigm shift. We lose because they are convinced that what wins them elections is money. We need to teach them that money can’t save them, only the majority of voters can. If the majority pays too much attention to ads, we are going to have to commit to going out one on one and convincing voters otherwise. But shouldn’t we be committed to that anyway? If we can’t convince our neighbors of the justice of our causes, we’re screwed anyway. The best commercials in the world can’t make a shit sandwich taste good. We need to make sure they know it’s a shit sandwich before they buy it so they look at the ads and say, “Man, they sure are good at photoshopping shit” and walk away bemused instead of bedazzled.
Maybe so, but an FDL Voting Bloc makes more sense. If the bloc decides to support a Democrat, fine, a Green, fine, and independent, fine, or even a Republican, fine (say to punish a Democrat, or to get an entrenched Democrat incumbent out – thus sacrificing the seat for an election cycle to somebody potentially worse – so that the FDL Voting Bloc can get somebody much better in, later.)
Since there are likely to be complications and disincentives involved with flipping party affiliation, a smart FDL Voting Bloc would make the decision on asking it’s members to flip their party affiliation, depending on the circumstances in each state (and district).
Hopefully, an FDL Voting Bloc can afford a very good political game theorist, so that members voting online to determine how the Voting Bloc members will register and then cast their real-world vote, will be guided more on a rational basis than on emotion or plain old guessing.
The message of any voting bloc, to politicians, should be: “If you want our collective votes, better keep us happy.” And may the biggest voting blocs win. Which, in a functioning democracy which had all the tools and infrastructure built out, should be the case. (Whether or not that happens to be a voting bloc that you are a member of.)
After having been around for the Brown/Coakley wars, I don’t think you are going to get consensus on who a voting bloc should vote for. I’m all for having a game theorist let us know how various options might work out before making decisions even if they are individual decisions, though.
Would you explain this, please?
A lot of disagreement. Some thought a Coakley loss would kill or improve an unsatisfactory bill and wanted that outcome, others did not.
The way that a voting bloc expresses it’s will is…. drum roll, please….. via voting. Unlike current “real world” voting, an online system, strategically used by a voting bloc before the real world votes, can use instant runoff voting. Or even non-instant runoff voting.
If a large percentage of a voting bloc members do not conduct their real-world votes according to what they, the voting bloc members, themselves, vote for in their online systems, then they don’t deserve to be called a voting bloc. They will have all of the credibility of the so-called “progressive bloc”, that failed so spectacularly in the recent healthcare debacle. Actually, the so-called progressive bloc did vote as a bloc, just not the way they said they would.
Now, if the subject is not, “Is a voting bloc worthy to be called a voting bloc if the bloc’s members don’t stick to their guns?” but rather “Will a voting bloc (that does stick to its guns) sometimes not like the results of it’s adherence to it’s principles (even assuming non-betrayal by whoever they vote for)?”, then I think the answer has to be: “Of course some voting bloc behavior will backfire.”
Disagreement is natural in a democracy. So is not getting your way, all the time. What is not natural in a healthy democracy is continued frustration of the public will, on an issue that has majoritarian support. If Massachussetts voters had been fully activated and enrolled in voting blocs, that were capable and willing to make whatever compromises they needed to make before real world elections; and if, further, candidates who had a history of honesty and activism had been fully vetted and selected by these voting blocs, then the blocs would bypass plutocratic control.
This won’t solve the problem of brainwashing via our wonderful media, nor, frankly the fact that many citizens will remain lazy and not even willing to listen to honest ‘advisors’ (perhaps taking their cues from the likes of Rush Limbaugh).
But this just underscores why you need more democratic infrastructure like is being created via Coffee Parties. Coffee party meetings are supposed to have a no nonsense attitude towards disruptors. (Annabel Park has said that, if disruptors don’t cease, have them arrested. Good for her.) Thus, you should be able to have a civil discussion with your neighbors, where facts can more easily gain ascendancy over emotions and grossly biased, partisan, ‘talking point knowledge’. Insulting and mocking people never makes them interested in listening to your viewpoint and considering it, seriously.
It also underscores why we need a way to grow a media which embraces the “fluff” of our current media (“Desperate Housewives” , “American Idol”, etc.), but which goes beyond it by providing more factual information, of the sort that our friendly, neighborhood corporations, and their political party lackeys (Dems and Repubs) don’t want you know, or be reminded of.
I sketched out a system in a partially completed document about democratic infrastructure that I submitted to Gary Null’s office, about a month, ago. This was a simpler version of a proposal I wrote years ago, called “Putting the NY Times Out of Business”, where the fact-based part was basically just manifested in creative “un-commericials”. (My original proposal, which would require much more effort, involved creating fact-based and fact-friendly programming, not just 1 minute segments.) Imagine watching “Desperate Housewives”, but broken up with “un-commericals” where you have Ralph Nader in one, Michael Moore in another, and in a third, instead of a Coca-Cola commerical, a funny segment with a tooth fairy who shows little kids how they can dissolve their teeth in only 8 hours by soaking them in soda pop.
Greetings and Permutations. You know fellow canines, I really hate to spoil the party but it is entirely possible that we have completely over estimated the mindset of the American people. It is possible that they really are merely a bunch of egocentric, greedy, craven cowards and they have the government they deserve-both democrats and republicans. Maybe they just have to get really mad and scared before they demand a change. Until then I can’t help but think that we are just pissing up a rope-ladies pick your own diction.
To tell you the truth, believing in karma, as I do, I also wonder if we do not have exactly the government we deserve. Nevertheless, I view it as spiritually evil not to make a good faith effort to improve our government, as well as civil society. If you see a drunk wandering into a street, do you just watch and say to yourself “well, nobody told him to get drunk. He’s going to get what he deserves!”. Or, do you yell “Get out of the road, you drunken fool!”, before the drunk gets run over by a car?
It’s easy to predict the consequences of all activists just giving up, and allowing plutocrats and war-mongers to continue making a mess of this world (and not just our country). In it’s most demonic manifestation, so far, the rule of plutocrats and war-mongers has manifested in the absolutely horrible defects visited upon our hapless Iraqi brothers and sisters, due to depleted uranium. Nice job there, Dem and Repub enablers. Take a good look at the deformed bodies of Iraqis of the sort that you will be incarnating into.
What is much harder to predict is what the consequences of activists using their heads to a) make their actions as effective as possible, given current democratic infrastructure and b) creating new democratic infrastructure to make the government reflect the public will, with efficiency to rival the K-Street nexus of lobbyists. Their infrastructure make the corrupting of Congress critters easy. (While pricey, it’s very price-effective.)
The people’s infrastructure should perform as efficiently as K-Street performs presently, though with much the opposite goals.
Back when they had the Mass special election to fill Kennedy’s seat, there were threads on here with comments in the hundreds about what should be done. Some were in the camp of vote for Coakley because she’s progressive, though those were the minority. Some were saying to vote for Coakley because even an establishment Dem was better than a Republican. Others were saying to vote for Brown to send a message about how bad the Senate bill was before the House also passed it and they ended up with a crappy bill (not that it stopped them, after all, but at least there was some hope it might). After all the discussion and some really good arguments from all involved (plus some really bad ones from some), there was no consensus on what should be done. I don’t think there would be on future races. There would be those in the any Dem is better camp and those in the anything but an incumbent who has betrayed us to teach a lesson camp, and probably a few other camps as well depending on the particulars of the race. There are those who would like to see Kucinich gone and those who are mad about health care but say he’s been good on other things or they think the pressure was so great that they are inclined to forgive him or he’s the most progressive one we’ve got even if he’s spineless, or whatever, but want to keep him. When we had Romanoff on here the other day, every other question was about why anyone should trust him even though we know from very recent experience we can’t trust Bennett, who he’s running against. You’d think people would be okay with jumping in on that lesser of evils, but some would still rather go third party or maybe not vote at all, but something other than just trust him from what they were asking.
So how do you get this particular community to vote as a bloc?
Thanks for this fuller explanation. It’s clear that you’re asking a very good question.
Hmmm. Well, I guess there’s two main points to be made.
First, in thinking and writing about voting blocs in the past (if you search OpenLeft.com for {“Nancy Bordier” + IVCS + metamars}, or {“Nancy Bordier + “voting bloc” + metamars}, you can follow discussions I’ve had on this subject in the past, with an inventor of a vote bloc technology), we’d mostly discussed what particular set of policy options any given voting would insist on, how different voting blocs could merge permanently or just temporarily ally (for a given election), the need for ranking policy options in terms of their desirability, and the filtering effect by certain voting blocs on insisting that certain policy options not be selected be it’s members.
An example I spoke about more than once was that of having a race with 2 progressive candidates, separately supported by 2 progressive voting blocs. How do you prevent the two blocs from splitting their real-world vote in, say, a Democratic primary? If one group mostly wants Kucinich, and another one mostly wants Howard Dean, it would be a disaster for them to split their votes in a real-world primary, and thus throw the primary vote to, say, a stealth Republican like Obama. (OK, I exaggerate, slightly.)
However, the really interesting thing about your question, to me, is it points to a complicating factor in maintaining a voting bloc’s real-world voting coherence. By “real world voting coherence”, I mean: do they stick together and vote as a bloc in real-world elections, as they must at least declare that they will do, via their online elections (or pre-elections, to be more precise, as they must complete their voting before real-world primaries and general elections.)? E.g., two progressive voting blocs’ members in a given state may agree, ahead of time, to a temporary alliance, such that whichever candidate jointly favored by both voting blocs in an online election, will be voted for in the real world primary. So, say that in Mass. there is a voting bloc with 3 million members, and 1,600,000 of them want Kucinich, 1,400,000 want Dean; and so the voting bloc is committed to voting for Kucinich as a whole, if it did so alone. I.e., all 3 million members, in order to maintain the voting blocs’ power (and to not make a mockery of the phrase “voting bloc”, as was done by the so-called “progressive voting bloc” in Congress this last year) will vote for Kucinich, absent an alliance with another progressive voting bloc. However, both progressive voting blocs have approved an alliance with the other (via voting), and, as it turns out the other progressive voting bloc wants Howard Dean over Kucinich, by a margin of 1,800,000 to 200,000. So, the net voting of the two blocs, together is : Kucinich: 1,800,000 vs. Dean 3,200,000. Even though the larger voting bloc would have gone for Kucinich, had it not formed an alliance with the smaller voting bloc, members of both blocs realize that neither Dean nor Kucinich will prevail, unless they unify their voting. And they sure as heck don’t want Obama.
So, what is the “complicating factor” that I referred to, above? The complicating factor is strategy. Your excellent question has got me thinking about other scenarios where even the general, and relatively (I claim) tidy and non-controversial alliance forming process I sketched out above, could fail. This is particularly easy to see in transitions that voting blocs must make in moving from primary to general elections, where their favored candidate has lost the primary. E.g., let’s say that the Mass. progressive voting blocs, despite their best efforts, fail to prevent Obama from capturing the real-world primary in 2012. Now there’s a general election, and the Republican Presidential nominee is Sarah Palin. If the voting bloc of 5 million voters collectively stay home, or even vote Republican (to punish liar and backstabber Obama), that would probably make all the difference – Sarah Palin would win Mass. in 2012. If one of the vote blocs had a “we’ve had enough of the ‘lesser of two evils’ strategy; we’ll vote Republican before we vote for a crummy DINO” strategic policy, but the other progressive voting bloc did not have such a strategic policy, what then? Well, assuming each voting bloc is separately faithful to it’s strategy, there’s not much doubt about what should happen in this case. Only one bloc will support Obama in the general election, and the other will not. An alliance that is not only possible, but quite natural in a primary cannot be carried forward into a general election. If a vote bloc alliance didnt’t forsee and accept such an honest difference of opinion, then that could create discord and distrust, going forward. And since nobody that I’m aware of has talked about essential differences of strategy as important components of a vote bloc technology, I’m now concerned that this will not be properly prepared for.
So, thank-you for your question. You’ve illuminated an important point.
I’ll guess that in a Day 1 rollout scenario of a vote bloc system, there doesn’t actually need to be any formal means of accounting for differences in vote bloc strategy, at all. This could be accomplished by simply strongly advising all new vote bloc members that vote bloc alliances are only provisional. I.e., vote bloc alliances are expected to maintain their united cohesion through primaries definitely; but through general elections only if their jointly favored candidate wins the primary.
If you examine jeffroby’s Full Court Press, you see that this is only a strategy for primaries. Nothing is said or implied aboout how FCP voters should vote during a general election. I view FCP voters as a voting bloc, and I think that it’s easy to see that this particular voting bloc would have no problem, whatsoever, sticking to a “loyalty to an alliance only through the primary” advisement.
The second point that needs to be made is that a lot of the differences that you’ve spoken about can simply be ‘flattened out’, within a voting bloc, via ….. drumroll, please….. voting. Of course, people will have different opinions about not just policies, but also strategy. Discussing and arguing about a particular policy option or strategy is quite appropriate, but everybody needs to understand that, unless they organize themselves into voting blocs, and honor the need for the voting bloc to cohere through it’s real-world voting, they will generally be powerless.
By going around some of the barriers and choke points of our current democracy, using the internet, people will increasingly be able to see, ahead of time, the result of their adherence to too many policy option, or to too few policy options. To a stricter, less-forgiving strategy vs. a less strict, more forgiving and compromising strategy.
Also, a viable and smartly put together vote bloc technology would make the migration of members from a less successful voting bloc to a (hopefully) more successful one easy.
So, in the case of FDL, let’s consider what your wrote, here:
(I will now make a sleight of hand, and start responding to this question as though a fully featured vote bloc technology already existed. I believe that this is inevitable, though I’m concerned about overlapping systems… I’ll also make some other assumptions that readers can, hopefully, easily infer.)
Immediately we can see that FDL’ers will segregate into more than one voting bloc. For simplicity’s sake, let’s assume that there are 2 FDL voting blocs, that are quite similar in policy options, but have a somewhat irreconcilable difference in their chosen strategy options: FDL A Voting Bloc will not forgive Kucinich (having adopted a “no forgiveness” policy for the most progressive incumbents), but FDL B Voting Bloc (VB, henceforth) will. It’s 2012, and again, for simplicity’s sake, we assume that the Democratic party field consists of Kucinich, Dean, and Obama.
In Mass., FDL A VB has 2 million voters who collectively prefer Dean, and FDL B VB hs 3 million voters who collectively prefer Kucinich. Let’s pretend, further, that if FDL A VB did not have a “no forgiveness” policy, that a joint vote between FDL A and FDL B would select Kucinich. However, this is not possible – FDL A VB’s “no forgiveness” policy will not allow Kucinich’s name to appear on joint vote ballot. So, FDL B has to decide whether or not they are willing to participate in a joint vote with FDL A, knowing that they do not have the electoral muscle to get Dean elected, by themselves. This joint vote will only offer a choice between Obama and Dean. Everbody knows that Obama will not be selected. The choice for FDL B is thus whether or not they want to cooperate with FDL A, and thus at least get Dean. Or, will they say “no, that’s too harsh, and we won’t even co-operate with FDL A; I guess we’re stuck with Obama”?
I can’t answer that question. That what voting is for – to allow groups of people to determine their own fate.
Now, let’s say that FDL A decides not to cooperate with FDL B in 2012 (which doesn’t make much sense to me, but it’s a theoretical possibility). Consequently, Obama wins Mass. Well, two possibilities for what can happen in 2016 immediately spring to mind:
Life is a series of choices, many of them hard choices. A mature voting bloc technology will make things easier than, say, wailing at the current lobbyist-infested, moribund political system. But that won’t isolate people from ill effects of their choices. The burden of choosing wisely will fall on voters – which is as it should be. Better that, than letting Wellpoint lobbyists and disgustingly corrupted Congress critters decide your fate.
I strongly disapprove of their reneging on their promises, but there is an aspect of their behavior that bothers me even more.
I can empathize with someone ultimately coming to the conclusion that this bill is “better than nothing” and at the last minute pushing the “yes” button even though they promised to push “no.” I wouldn’t approve, but I’d understand.
What I can’t figure out is why any who felt that the public option would be better would pre-announce that decision, thereby giving up their leverage and weakening that of their comrades. Until yesterday, there was still a possibility of getting a public option and would have gotten it if Pelosi and the White House thought that was the only way to get their “win.”
So, even if these people thought that ultimately if it was Obamacare vs nothing, why did they give up their leverage for no obvious benefit to themselves and/or their constituents. When I listened to Kucinich, it sounded like he simply felt sorry for the President and didn’t want to make him sweat so much. Duh?