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It is very important that progressives help defeat Coakley. Please read my explanation. The more power the folks in the Democratic Corporate Suck Up wing of the party gain, the more we will have to fight to make the party move to the left. I do not think that many progressive Democrats understand that putting such people as Coakley into power is worse than having a Republican in the seat. Just being in the Democratic Party does not and will not ensure a progressive agenda. Do you not see that? So, if you get her into the seat, what makes you think she will be any better than Lincoln, or Nelson, or Lieberman! It will, in fact, ensure that there will be NO progressive agenda. It was not the Republicans who failed us of late. It was the Democrats. We will never succeed as long as the Dem’s can talk liberal and vote corporate.
The idea that we do this to ‘send a message’ is wrong. They know the message. The idea is to not support candidates who will not support our agenda. The idea is to not feed the very beast we are fighting. It is not the Party which we fight for, it is progressive ideas. Think about what the Dem’s have actually voted for in the last year. How much of it was really any different than the Republicans? We cannot just give the Dem’s power for power’s sake. You must please realize that, as in 1994, we will lose both houses of Congress if we do not stick to our principles. I beg you to see and understand this. I am 59 years old and I saw Clinton sell out to corporate power. He managed to stay in power but he destroyed the Democratic Party. Do Not Let It Happen Again!
Just ask yourself why you vote for Democrats in the first place. It can’t be that you simply like the name.
As Rahm Emanuel and others in the Democratic Party have said, ‘…don’t worry about the left. They will fall in line….they have no choice.’ But we do! Until the powers at the top of the party realize that we cannot be taken for granted, this kind of sell out will never change. Never. Never.
Do you want to end up fighting the huge piles of money which will ensure corporate candidate invincibility in the Democratic primaries? If we do not stop it now, that is exactly what will happen. And, as in 1994, independent voters will not vote for Democrats. Hell, many Democrats will not vote for Democrats! How do I know this? Because I am a Democrat. And if things do not change, I will not vote for Democrats.
We do have a choice. Don’t limit your choices further.
Please folks, wake up!
Gregory Martin
323 Comments
I fully agree with your premise, but the closest I can come to joining you is to promise not to support Coakley’s candidacy.
If she loses on Tues – and it looks like she might actually lose -, it will be because the Democratic Party leadership has turned off so many Americans by failing to deliver on change and has not stood for core Democratic Party principles and values.
In emails sent out by Dodd and Kerry, we find that Senate Democrats can’t even give Americans much of a reason to support Coakley herself. They talk about Ted Kennedy or about supermajority nonsense, but don’t have much to say by way of praise for Coakley. Very uninspiring.
The Democratic Party has to earn my support if they want my contributions and my votes. Coakley isn’t a candidate I believe in, and so I won’t make a contribution, as they repeatedly ask me to do.
That’s as far as I can go on the question of helping to defeat her.
The Democratic Party has to earn the votes of the American people, but I’m not going to encourage anyone to go out of their way to help defeat Coakley.
I would respectfully encourage you to go further. Go to Coakley’s rallies and carry a sign and send the message that we will support you but we demand that you work for progressive change. If Coakley is put over the top with progressive support, she will be beholden to us. If we put Coakley in the Senate, it is our job to let her know everyday who she is beholden to. There are plenty of issues were progressives can slice the pie and though the corporatists will always get the largest share, we can get some for our interests. It is our job to lobby, to write, to protest, to reason with and to shout to our leaders and let them know what we want and what we will accept. As always we will not get everything, but we should remember the long game and work hard and keep pushing for gradual change. After all, do you really believe that Massachusetts progressives will ever, ever get anything that they want from Brown? If Brown slips in, the next Democrat will have to fight even harder to move the then even further rightwing center leftward. Progressive change is progressive, it is not revolution, it is not all at once. Let’s act like adults, remember the 8 years of total disaster that we are digging out of and let’s keep fighting for the change we want. Real progressives and real patriots have no other real choice.
????? I can’t agree with this plan of action. Once these people get into office, they could care less who or what elected them? Their memories are short. Reality check: Obama’s complete turnaround from change we can believe in. I say defeat Coakley through whatever means, and then in 2012 work to elect someone who is not beholden to corporate lobbyists.
This worked so well with Obama!
Yeah, that’s worked SO well with Obama.
I feel Greg M’s pain and know he is correct . Except when it comes to voting . The person with the most votes wins in our system . Our Congress makes our laws and our justice branch interperts these laws . In a government for the people Congress designs the laws the people want but in our system of an almighty Congress our way of life is what they want us to have and how much is in it for them . The real problem is having too many corporate thinkers in the federal judicial system . Who ever imported toys painted with lead paint should be behind bars looking out with no hope of ever walking our streets again . The same applies to the importer of toothpaste laced with arsenic . The makers and importers of these items obviously have bad intentions toward the people of the USA . Since the dawn of time people have been in this struggle between the have’s(corporatist) and the workers . Neither side can do without the other but you can see what a corporatist world looks like and the only way we can change things is by voting enmasse united . The Repubs know this and that is why them spend billions dividing the electorate . If our side losses you our army will be smaller . The things you want are the things the people want so please vote for the candidate that has the people/workers wellfare in mind . Please vote .
if we vote for the candidates with people and workers in mind. Who should we vote for? Certainly not Coakley with all the money she has received from the insurance industry. we know who has bought her.
Is there such a person running?
Go vote for a Republican then. Go on. Don’t let us real progressives stop you.
Gregory,
You are absolutely correct.
A diary such as yours creates confusion, because the the truth, while visible, is so hard to see.
Work to defeat Coakley? That must be wrong. That means working to elect Brown. And working to elect Brown is so unpalatable.
You get it right, Gregory. Eventually, all mindful progressives will move to where you are.
I think we should find people who represent us. At some point we should reject people who continue to betray us. Eventually enough people will abandon the sinking ship and create a viable third party. Frankly maybe what we need is more bush’s to further ruin and destroy the country to such a degree that change is possible.
All that momentum, all those people, when obama was elected. only to end up with more of the same. Massive betrayal. Obama probably would not be down in the polls if he had kept up his end of the deal after he was elected. I’m not going to vote to win elections for traitors and corporate hacks. I’m going to vote for the dennis kusiniche’s till one of them actually wins.
Hell with the skull and bone guys (kerrys).. the bank employee’s (dodds).. Till a true public servant comes along i’m going to vote for the WORST possible candidates (republicans) till it’s so bad in this country.. it’s possible for a third party to emerge.
Amen.
I think there’s something revolutionary going on: people (including me) are starting wean themselves of the Democratic Party, and the farther we step away from party politics, the clearer we see. It’s like having the scales fall from our eyes, and it’s a liberating feeling. Just my opinion.
Sorry, but that is the height of cutting off your nose to spite your face. You are not going to be sending a message, you will be making it that much harder to pass anything progressive for the next three years. Coakley may be a crappy progressive, but she is head and shoulders better than her oppnent who is a dye-in-the-wool conservative.
If you want change, if you don’t want to live through more years of misrule by Republicans the way to get that is by running more progressive candidates in primaries, not by working against Dems running in general election.
If Coakely looses no one is going to say it was a message from the base, they are going to say she ran a crappy campaign. All you do by working for her defeat is set all progressive agenda items back.
I don’t agree with the argument here that we should work to help Coakley lose, but I think you’re wrong to assert that, if she loses on Tues (and it looks like she might actually lose), it won’t be seen as being the result of a base that went from super-enthused to vote for Democrats in ’06 and ’08 to a base that feels no interest in voting for a Democrat – in MA, no less! – in 2010.
Have you seen the polls that show that the Democrats’ base is far less interested in voting in 2010 than is the Republicans’ base?
The reason: the Democratic Party leadership has turned off so many Americans by failing to deliver on change and by not having stood for core Democratic Party principles and values.
Neop,
I like your handle. I’m interested in from whence it comes.
To the point: I believe all your posts are correct, but I also believe you do not allow the logic of your thinking to take you, sometimes, to the right conclusion.
You maintain, correctly in my view, that a Coakley loss would not be a disaster.
The bigger point, I believe, is that a Coakley win would be a disaster.
The diarist gets it right, imo.
Sorry, I haven’t made it back to this thread in a while…
Neoptolemos is an ancient Greek name that means “new battle/struggle/war” (Neo=new + Ptolemy=battle/struggle/war) and I added the Greek term Nikator, “victorious” (the first Seleucid ruler after Alexander the Great died called himself Nikator).
I had to come up with a new FDL name after a few asses at Daily Kos started putting up personal info about me at Daily Kos to silence me.
I’m not disagreeing that a Coakley win would be a disaster necessarily. I’ve received multiple requests from the DSCC to support her with $ that I refuse to do. I will not help her win.
Where I disagree is with the assertion that we should help her lose or be seen as having helped her lose.
The Democratic establishment is already hard at work casting the blame on us so that the American people, the Democratic establishment hopes, won’t blame them. Why help them do that.
I say let’s stand out of the way and let them take their lumps from the American people and take all the blame that they so richly deserve.
I’m saying lets deal the blow ourselves and take credit for it .
But how would that be spun by Democratic establishment assholes and OFA-types?
You’re afraid that people will lie about you? Then get the hell out of politics!
Is there an ancient Greek name that means “Not Ruled By Fear”?
It’s not about being afraid. It’s about whether or not allowing ourselves to be marginalized and thoroughly dismissed by the end of 2010 would help us achieve anything.
Let me put it this way:
Don’t think of it as if we’re trying to win an argument with opponents so that, in the end, they agree with us.
Think of it as an argument where many other people are watching. I care far less about trying to convince my opponents that I’m right than about those people who are watching seeing that our opponents are losing and that our opponents are entirely to blame for the fact that they’re losing.
Jumping in the way of our opponents losing will only help them take the blame off themselves and put it onto us, just before they go back to business in DC as usual.
How does that help us?
You want to fight hard and knock some heads. But that’s not always the best way to win.
Sometimes you have to let your opponents defeat themselves.
It shows, huh? ;^)
Their defeat is only your victory if you are perceived as having been in the fight.
If Progressives sit on their hands while disaffected Dems and Independents oust the DINOs, won’t you find yourselves marginalized and thoroughly dismissed anyway?
They are going to blame you anyway, or try. I like to think that truth will win over propaganda in the end, but if I’m wrong then the question is: would you rather be hung for a lion or hung for a lamb?
Grumpy,
You are vicious.
I like that.
Their defeat is only your victory if you are perceived as having been in the fight.
———————
BINGO !!!
The practical effect will be that Obama loses his super majority in the senate ,
forces the leadership to either give up the health bill in it’s present form ,
or use 51 votes in the senate to pass a very unpopular bill in reconciliation when he wouldn’t do that to pass the public option which the public overwhelmingly supported,
And offers a wake up call to democrats looking at defeats in November from both the house and the senate that even in a state that has voted overwhelmingly democratic for 30 years they are in big trouble .
I think spin has limited affect in this day and age. I don’t care about it.
You didn’t read the post, or “listen” to what he is saying, before rejecting his idea.
Doing something merely “to send a message” is an attempt to modify behavior but leaves you dependent on someone else to do the changing. They know the message. That is why they run on progressive rhetoric.
You are reducing yourself to the powerless whining complainer giving endless warnings and then returning them power to continue with the abuse.
That my friend, is spitting your face by leaving your gangrenous nose.
Logical failure: Coakley is not a progressive at all. She is a trojan horse. Look at who’s donating to her campaign. She will be a corporate representative. How is this different than a conservative?
This is the logical result based on past behavior.
Bill, I think your logic fails because:
You misidentify the adversary.
You don’t follow it through to the conclusion.
First, You suggest that living through more years of misrule by republicans is somehow worse than misrule by neoliberal Dinos that exactly like R’s, dismantle social safety nets and privatize everything they can monetize and then they globalize it. Only considering these things D is equal to R.
The strategy is flawed because it’s only a half measure and you get outmaneuvered because you don’t look ahead to the next move that these fuckers always make. You only cover one position when there are at least two, and the really idiotic part is that they keep doing to over. The obvious weakness is never bolstered against.
On change:
True:
1: the way to get that is by running more progressive candidates in primaries,
False:
2: not by working against Dems running in general election.
Progressives are brought up through grass roots, and then thrown under the bus by entrenched power in the D party. eg:
Ned Lamont v. Joe leiberman, Joe loses the primary and and runs as an independent,
Who rallied around joe against the wishes of their D constituents? Boxer, Obama…
Marcy Winograd v. Jane Harman is coming up, at least so-called progressives Waxman and Woosley( co-chair of prog. caucus) break rank with the progressive caucus, principles, constituents and to rally around Harman, a truly dyed-in-the-wool conservative against a great progressive primary candidate.
This is not democratic. It’s a power play by a cabal to hang on to power despite what the voters have decided.
Despite Waxman and Woosley voting habits, they are actively bringing about the destruction of the progressive block. Woosley, as co-chair should be applying discipline against this behavior, instead she’s leaving the reservation with at least 2 others. Where is the loyalty from them that you are advocating for voters?
This eviscerates your strategy to increase elect more and better progressives. If this is the strategy handed down from on high it’s not working because they aren’t following it; the entrenched insiders are working against us. Our supposed allies are acting as our adversaries.
So we need a new strategy.
If the democratic party was a baby that wouldn’t give up a nasty dirty blanket, we have to remove the item, let them cry for a while, and then return a clean blanket and they’ll take it and be grateful.
If we try to trade the nasty blanket for the clean one they refuse every time. They reject the “change”.
A Republican is not worse than a DNO, because DINOs vote in blocks for regressive legislation.
Republicans can check the excesses of an out of control super majority.
Actively vote with intent make the strategy succeed, not by passively sitting it out due to some misguided sense of loyalty, or confused principles. That means voting for the other – the outside adversary in order to save your own caucus or party from destruction that is coming from within.
It’s COIN strategy. Clear(this seat), Hold (with and R), Replace.
Who cares what anyone says or doesn’t say?
They scapegoat and lie. What matters are results. If we fail to act because we are afraid of what they say, then the adage that progressive constituents are cowards is true.
Progressive politicians that sell us out don’t seem to be bothered by this problem.
This is the basis of your argument and it fails.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War
So, vote for Coakely and primary her in ’12, cuz she IS a letdown (I’m gonna assume the evidence is pretty overwhelming about that) . . . makes sense to me. Better her than Brown. For two years.
I get where you are coming from, I am just trying to tell you what the insiders in the party are going to say. They are going to view it as her fault plus dissatisfaction on the HCR debate and the economy.
I agree. They’ll try to spin it as Coakley’s fault or even that the HCR bill was “too liberal for some people.” Good luck with that. They’re going to KNOW, though. I could even see Rahm being on the hot seat if Coakley loses, and that would definitely be a good thing. We really aren’t helping the party or the country by electing mainstream politicians. If we keep electing the same people over and over, we’re telling them to keep doing what they’re doing.
Fair enough. So you think the Democratic leadership is willing to keep on keepin’ on, doing their corporate thing until a tidal wave of discontent sweeps them back out of power? With that logic, the Dems have no business being put in charge of … what did Leahy say about Gonzales, oh yeah, a lunch counter.
Disaffected Dems are not killing the party’s electoral prospects, unhappy independents are. That is true from the polling in MA and it is supported by the polling in OH & AR that Jon Walker put up in his elections post.
No one is cutting off their nose to spite their face here. How do you propose to turn things around for the Democratic Party, if by your own admission sending them a message is impossible?
I think it’s time we all let the Democratic Party die- I thought 2008 would be the last chance to resurrect it, but I was wrong. If this past year wasn’t going to be the time when the real soul of the Democratic base emerges and governs, then when would this ever happen?
For me, true progressivism is the triumph of the human soul over systems and power structures, and sadly the Democratic Party has become simply another system that believes it deserves blind loyalty, and nowhere is that more true than in Mass. I hope Coakley loses on Tuesday, and this sends a shockwave through the establishment.
About 20% of registered Democrats in Mass are polling as supporting Brown, and this isn’t because they’ve fallen in love with conservatism- it’s because they are convinced that the Dems have forgotten the middle class. Brown’s campaign has seized on that and his rhetoric has echoed that thought.
I don’t think I’ll vote democratic for quite some time, if ever. I’d rather the party die and another rise to take its place.
Agree completely.
you might be right, 2008 was the last chance for the dems
I share your disappointment but advocate voting for a democrat if he or she is a proven progressive and if not voting against them where a progressive candidate exists or not voting where there isn’t one .
This would force the democrats to come to the conclusion that their hold on power will end unless they move left .
A loss in Massachusetts might be the very thing that saves the democratic party from themselves.In one year Obama and Rahm have brought the republican party back to life. 2010 is going to be a tough year for the dems and they only have themselves to blame for it. The voters gave them the keys to the car and said lets change this and the dems said they like the system just the way it is as long as they are in charge. The only way progressives are going to get respect from the dems is by demanding it and unfortunately that means watching a whole lot of dems lose in the next two elections. I dont care how much we call them or write them these dems are going to march in lockstep with what the DC dems say, our only leverage is our vote and to give it to them while they ignore what we want is insanity. I am waiting for the Grant Park concession speech in 2012.
Could not agree more. Great post.
The “arguments” being presented so desperately and belatedly for Coakley reveal the poverty of ideals within the Democratic party, which is the cause of its troubles.
Thank you.
This is very hard choices we have to make. But if we keep doing what RahmCo tells us to do no matter what RahmCo *provides* in return, this will all only get worse.
If voting against this will only make it stronger and voting for it will only make it stronger, why not just take our last shred of power and say no. We might be surprised.
In that light, what choice do we really have??????
I’m still unclear where folks get that Coakley is the height of corporate Democratism. She’s against the Afghanistan war, for one:
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/24345
Right. And Coakley, a freshman Senator is going to be able to stroll into the Oval Office and tell Obama to withdraw our troops? Jason, you are grasping at straws here.
I never said she would, but we have, what, maybe three Senators who are willing to even question the war right now? Even Feingold, who’s most outspoken, doesn’t vote against troop money.
I don’t see how increasing the number of Senators who are against the war in the Senate is a bad thing. In fact, I think it helps.
Jason, Dems ran in 2006 on a platform to end the war. No more funding without a withdrawal timetable remember? And since then… more funding, an escalation Afghanistan, and an ever expanding list of countries attacked by our drones. Three or four Senators aren’t going to get us anywhere as long as the leadership is keeping the funding spigot open to the MIC and upping the ante in Afghanistan.
right on
Dems ran in 2006 on ending the war. Bush vetoed their attempts, but their failures led directly to the Democratic party running an entire slate of Presidential candidates who said they would end Iraq. We elected one, and that war is in fact ending, though not nearly quick enough.
So, how do we duplicate that for Afghanistan? Seems like we start by running and winning candidates who are against Afghanistan in 2010. That list includes Coakley.
Last time I checked, there were a bunch of large, permanent, American military fortresses in Iraq. Are we just going to walk away from them?
Yes, it’s a matter of disregarding facts that are inconvenient that don’t advance one’s argument. Even if we do leave Iraq, the MIC wants to stay in business, so it’ll move on to the next war, which it has, ad infinitum. As we’ve seen, the Democrats, when you get past their stories/excuses, are just as addicted to war as the Republicans. It appears only a financial catastrophe and a populist uprising will stop this train.
The Mass. elections are the next best thing to a popular uprising :
removing the dem’s super majority ,
killing the “reform” unless the senate does what it wouldn’t to pass the public option transparently and go with 51 votes,
Taking back a seat that was always assumed in firm democratic control with incredible symbolic value ,
and offering a wake up call to the party about what they will face in November unless they start acting like democrats !
Coakley’s seat comes up for election again in 2012, the same year we have some hope of running a progressive challenger to Obama. Unless Obama has a come-to-Jesus moment where he turns toward progressive policies, there is nothing Coakley can do as a freshman Senator to move this administration on military policy, whether in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Yemen. And if Obama does undergo a fundamental conversion, then he won’t need Coakley to follow through on it.
That’s not true, that’s not what happens in the Senate. For example, Senator Kerry and Feingold, two Afghanistan skeptics, have held rounds of hearings on the war and its effects and purpose. These are very helpful at convincing colleagues, and are the first steps to organize for action in Congress. Coakley can help and participate in this effort, and hold hearings of her own. Plus, she can get into the media with the message.
I wouldn’t say it’s a big step, but again, electing officials who are against the war is the first step to ending it. Won’t be no end unless we take that step.
If the democrats don’t change course right now people with a proven progressive record will face a hostile electorate in November and that seat is for 6 years .
To add, you can argue that stopping health care is more important to you than stopping the war, and so you hope Coakley loses anyway. That’s a different argument. But to argue that electing more people to Congress who are against the Afghanistan war won’t help end the war, especially when right now there are almost none in the Senate, doesn’t make a shred of sense to me.
Really? I was under the impression you needed to be either a committee or subcommittee chair to hold hearings. Am I mistaken about that? (Sincere question, not snark at all, my understanding is that freshman Senators have little power to do more than introduce legislation).
As for your follow up that “to argue that electing more people to Congress who are against the Afghanistan war won’t help end the war, especially when right now there are almost none in the Senate… “.
My point exactly. She will not have the support of either her colleagues or her leadership to effect change. As a result to use this as the sole purpose of electing her seems depressingly pointless. I’m trying to figure out how to effect change in time to salvage victory in November, I fail to see how a Coakley victory gets us there.
It depends on the committee, I believe, but even freshman Senators can be subcommittee chairs.
As for pointless, I don’t see how electing more people who are against Afghanistan is pointless. Like I said, you can argue that’s not the most important policy at play in the election, but I don’t see how you can argue electing people who are against something you’re against doesn’t help move the issue. If that’s the case, what’s the point in electing anyone who we agree with on anything? Clearly they will do nothing…
Jason, Jason, Jason: three words – oceanfront property + Kansas
Yes, about these Dems symbolic anti-war stand on Iraq. What ever.
Now we have Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and as a bonus war, they have reanimated the Cold War against those commie socialists in South America and are passively and covertly supporting coups. Venezuela is on notice.
As far as Coakely not being an Insurance Pharma too, there’s a post on FDL on that has a Video from the CATO institute that says otherwise.
She’s no hero in Mass. See the Sexual predation case against a cop who violated an 18 month old with a hot curling iron, but he came from a fine family that had deep roots in the community. She let it linger despite evidence until the Attorney decided to run against her out of disgust. just sayin…
Oh, Jason’s back?
Aren’t there some “disclosure requirements” that need to be met — info about his employment that needs to accompany his posts?
not the first time it’s been an issue of disagreement (hope you don’t mind following the links):
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/24086#comment-124985
That’s the issue I was trying to raise [the HCAN employment & posts]. i just didn’t have the links.
Thank you.
Who in his or her right mind isn’t?
How many Democrats in Congress vote against funding endless wars, besides Kucinich? How many Democrats are “against” whatever the war de jour is and vote yes on defense spending bills time and time again? What are the chances Coakley has the balls to buck the party? How often does that happen in the “Democratic” party?
I think you’re missing the point of my post. Perhaps the way these wars are ended isn’t through Congress directly. Nobody had to vote to cut off funding for Iraq. After enough candidates ran and won on out of Iraq in 2006, it because a Presidential position in 2008. If enough candidates run and win on out of Afghanistan in 2010, it could well be the Presidential position in 2012.
Unbelievable, Jason, especially when right now, Obama is asking for another 30 billion for the Afghanistan war, and will get it.
Nah. Obama has said he only wants the surge to end in 2011. It’s not out of the question that he claims as he’s running for re-election that he’s accomplished his goals and now wants to start withdrawal. At the very least, we can try and make that happen, which involves electing more anti-war Democrats. Even if Obama doesn’t change his mind, he’ll face more battles in Congress.
Taking campaign contributions from the health insurance lobby.
I get your point. I don’t share your belief in the strategy of electing anti-war Democrats leading to a presidential candidate running on an anti-war platform leads to the result we desire, ending the wars. And, I am skeptical to say the least that Obama will get out of Afghanistan in 2011. Why? He gave McChrystal what he wanted and more, because he doesn’t mention all the non-combat support troops, private contractors, special/covert ops, in that 30,000 number. McChrystal has said counterinsurgency takes years if not decades. I don’t know that Obama has the balls to say no to the generals. Because Afghanistan is not Iraq. Read Ahmed Rashid’s “Descent Into Chaos” and all fantasies about “winning” and “success” in Afghanistan will evaporate. It’s a Pandora’s Box. Because counterinsurgency which Obama has embraced and which McChrystal endorses rarely works, if ever. Central Asia has stuff the U.S. wants.
It was a real turnoff to read about the fundraiser Coakley had loaded with big insurance and pharma lobbyists..Jason, that basically answers your question.
That is the key question, peony. Many of the arguments now flying back and forth about how to vote in Massachusetts on Tuesday doubtless parallel the thought-processes of those already in Congress who know that they are doing wrong, or not being true to themselves, by following Party leadership orders, but who yet work to rationalize away their own will and conscience in order to ‘go along to get along.’ This is the crucial dynamic at play both inside Party caucuses in Congress, and among those debating how to vote in Masachusetts on Tuesday.
Due to the lack of media coverage, and thus public understanding, of the ins and outs of the public and private Party-run world that is our Congress today, people can easily overlook how vital and yet how rare independent thinking is inside a private Party caucus. The power of our representatives has been concentrated at the top of the caucus – which today, means in the White House (because Parties don’t swear an oath to uphold the Constitution, yet Party members in Congress willingly cede their power to the Party).
Coincidentally, there’s an example from FDL just yesterday that demonstrates what independent, principled thinking in a legislator really looks like, and the words the commenter (Kip Sullivan) used to prove that Minnesota State Senator John Marty is his own man, included these:
Without challenge to the control of Party leadership, we don’t have a Congress and a President, we have two dueling Parties where those branches of government used to be. I consider this to be extremely dangerous and destructive, and completely unacceptable. Many Americans, however, likely think nothing of it, anymore, if they notice it at all, and would rather blame a monolithic Republican “enemy” for all of the ills brought to us by the dismantling of the separation of powers between the branches, and the subjugation of Congress to the President practiced by both Parties.
Obstructing, if ever so slightly, the Party steamroller operated by a power-hungry White House – if Coakley is defeated – has deeper, more fundamental and longlasting benefits to our system of government than the sending of a wake-up call to the present Democratic Party leadership in the White House, whose abuse of power has been enabled by Congressional sheep-herders Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and their docile flocks of incumbents.
If people don’t recognize that – the importance of the underlying Constitutional system of government that the two Parties have done so much to damage and obscure – they probably miss half the point of the opposition to Coakley. [Regarding which, it was like watching the House Progressive Caucus cave to see both slinkerwink and nyceve twisting themselves into pretzels to justify supporting Coakley full-bore, and thus the Senate health reform bill (as slightly massaged by White House operatives), on DailyKos yesterday...]
To answer your last question, peony, we do know now “how often that [conformity to leadership] happens” in the Democratic Party in Congress during the Obama presidency to date – amazingly, the Democratic sheep in Congress managed, in one year, to surpass even the Republican sheep herd’s obedience to Bush during his long reign:
It’s not easy to stop being a herd of sheep, after years of practice and custom, but having huge Congressional majorities and no veto pen in the White House is the time to try, if ever there’s going to be a time. There is no fundamental risk to simple-majority passage of “progressive” legislation that Scott Brown can pose if elected, provided the Democratic majority reinstates pre-1975 Senate custom (no rule change needed) to force filibusters to unfold in public.
If the Democratic majority refuses to reinstate that custom, or even to acknowledge or dispute that they have that power (which they seem determined to avoid discussing), or uses some other method (reconciliation) to pass this one bill by simple majority, without letting simple-majority floor amendments be offered to it, whose fault is that? And is the remedy to the Democratic majority’s refusal to reinstate simple-majority Senate custom – with its occasional important, but rarely successful, minority filibuster – a reason to never vote for a Republican, no matter what, for fear that the Democratic abandonment of their Democratic Senate majority would be exposed for the fraud it is?
And after prevailing upon Obama + Clinton to come campaign for her, how “rebellious” do you think she’s gonna be gainst the Trad Dem agenda?
very, very good point.. She has the Adminstration army coming in to bail her out, so how is she expected to reciprocate, by opposing Nobama’s policies.
I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Coakley is a true progressive. She is ardently pro-choice, she prosecuted predatory lending agencies, and prosecuted wealthy contractors who cheated taxpayers out of millions in the Big Dig.
I get that you’re mad at the Democrats. I am too. But Coakley is a progressive. She walks the walk; she would join the ranks of the Senate as one of the few members who is not independently wealthy. She will speak for us.
I can tell you’re not serious, and I love your joke.
No, I won’t. I’m tired of being a doormat. She’s more of the same. Maybe a loss will startle O’Boover into real action. Dumping Geitner, Summers and Rahmasputin would be a great start. Until then, forget it.
This idea need to get on a mass mailing list and be given the progressive seal of approval !This would be a way of co opting her loss for the movement and the overall symbolism is priceless .
Obama’s 60 vote super majority, ted kennedy’s highly symbolic seat , and the health care reform as written by the insurers !
The cost ? A two year senate seat for a corpracrat .
The value ? An actual voice in the American political system and a wake up call pre November for the democrats to save their own skins and full fill their promises !
Go Brown !!!
Jason have you noticed you are heavily out numbered on this issue by those who comment here ?
Like 10 to 1 ?
Honestly .
FWIW, I am grateful to Jason being here. He is willing to debate these issues and I think the debate itself is terribly important. How can we persuade anyone if we lack the opportunity to make our arguments?
Agreed , he makes an excellent lighting rod but I would prefer if he was more polite with those he disagrees with and less condescending .
Unfortunately Jane has decided to throw her weight behind Jason’s perspective . Both in her words and in putting jason’s post up again a second time on FDL’s front page.
Form yesterday…
Freeman
Save the democrats from themselves and help defeat Coakley in Mass .The party needs a wake up call before november !
Reply
Jane Hamsher January 16th, 2010 at 10:54 am 4In response to freeman @ 3 (show text)
There are plenty of ways to wake the party up that don’t require helping to defeat Democrats. We hope this is one of them.
Oh, boy, freeman. Your arrow has pierced the center of the target.
If Coakley loses on Tuesday anyway the progressive community loses an incredible opportunity to make use of that loss to propel itself forward.
Lacking a front person the pundits can spin it anyway they like . With the addition of a high profile spokesperson the spin will be about a new force in American politics !
I do not disagree with Jason over the need to push up progressive democrats during the primaries and to support them during elections . I do however disagree with him that it should end there . If there isn’t a progressive candidate in the election we should throw up a third party candidate or a write in and force the party to struggle with the implications ,
This is a different slant on a third party strategy because we would vote on principle and not bother trying to actually create a new party for every race . The greens and the progressive party as well as Nader supporters could probably be brought on board for this strategy .
Perhaps like someone who has done a painful stint in rehab ,as a result of an extreme intervention?
Time is running out on the best opportuniy providence has ever provided us. The enemy has been lazy due their own hubris .
Comment#41 was in reply to comment #7,upthread.
Attention Mods-where is the edit button?
I mean like Feingold for instance .
Sorry I wasn’t addressing the war in that post . But rather that it the value of the shot over the bow of health care reform which is so close and the party establishment is gigantic in a race she may well lose anyway .
Her votes on the war aren’t likely to turn the tide IMO .
I”m 64 years old. I’ve voted Democratic for 43 years. You can argue this way or that way, doesn’t matter one damn bit. The problem is that we have reached the end of the road. The view from the edge is that our political and economic system is finished. You just can’t see it when you’re too heavily invested in it. It may take years to collapse, but it’s a goner.
Call me a Naderite if you wish, it doesn’t matter. What the more earnest among you don’t realize is that there’s another way to live outside of the Democrats vs. Republicans framework, and no, it doesn’t involve searching for a third party. It involves tuning in to a much bigger picture, and each one of you can do this on your own. You don’t need blogs, political parties, or any of the old trappings. It has to do with consciousness and listening to the Earth.
Go ahead, laugh. :-) But I am almost free now.
Jason we agree on the first two thirds of your ideas but I am firmly of the opinion that if the democrats can take for granted our votes for non progressive candidates as the lesser of two evils then in fact they can take our votes for granted period without consequences .
By adjusting to a new slant on a third party strategy we may even be able to bring greens , naderites ,progressive party members , independents and even tea partiers into the fold and to support progressive democrats in future elections where they are running .
Pure Naivete! What Politician in Washington is not a Corporatist – If you run for office and win…you will be the first and then NOT FOR LONG! I mean really HOW DO YOU THINK THEY GET ELECTED IN THE FIRST PLACE!
Coakley is no Ben Nelson. Don’t you want the senate Dems to move left? Here’s your chance. Because you’re mad at the Dems you’re willing to let the seat go to a nut like Scott Brown? What good will that do anyone? The Dems did not learn from Nader, instead they just blamed us for voting for him. We need to push for change within the party.
And you’ll push them to the left by voting for non progressive candidates because their democrats if you can’t get a progressive on the balot ? There are no real consequence for their ignoring you with that strategy .
Is the government under Obama not handing out billions to corporations who screwed the public .
Is it reigning in domestic spying or restoring the constitution ?
Is it stopping the war ?
How about indefinite detention without charges is that progressive ?
Are the health insurers being taken to the mat now as promised?
How is this better than a republican government ?
The democrats don’t own progressives . We need to identify with a movement and not a political party , which makes it dangerous for either party not to take our agenda seriously and more likely to co opt independents, disaffected voters, greens, naderites , ron paul supporters ect .
Anything else is just tinkering around the edges .
Absolutely right. Why should progressives identify with Democrats–the Democratic party is not progressive. I’ve watched the actions of the Democratic party for all of the 40-plus years I’ve been voting, and I’ve had enough. With very few exceptions, It’s been a steady, downward spiral that corresponds to the downward spiral this country has been in. They have been bereft of ideas and ideals, and I no longer want to be associated with them.
Voting against Coakley is the only way Americans can register their disapproval of Obama’s health care sellout policies. The emails, faxes, etc to congressmen and senators have obviously not worked. The only language the Obama administration will understand is VOTER outrage. There is no other alternative.
Thank you Gregory. You said how I am thinking and feeling far better then I ever could.
By the way, I was shocked by Katrina Van den Heuval talking about passing HCR on This Week today. Is this a Progressive transformed into a centrist with no principles? Is she planning a run for US Senate in NY and that’s why she
is edging away from criticizing the vacuous, corporate bundled, 2000 page bill. Not one mention of the public option sellout. I was astonished. And she was part of the roundtable talking about the Mass. race.
Jane , I would point out that if this were a democracy you would now come out in favor of what Greg and the majority of other posters here, myself included ,have been saying over the last 2 1/2 days and offer to throw your weight behind our enthusiasm .
Do I detect that Jane wants Coakley elected? Did I miss something here?
From another thread yestrday :
Unfortunately Jane has decided to throw her weight behind Jason’s perspective . Both in her words and in putting jason’s post up again a second time on FDL’s front page.
Form yesterday…
Freeman
Save the democrats from themselves and help defeat Coakley in Mass .The party needs a wake up call before november !
Reply
Jane Hamsher January 16th, 2010 at 10:54 am 4In response to freeman @ 3 (show text)
There are plenty of ways to wake the party up that don’t require helping to defeat Democrats. We hope this is one of them
Now I am really fired up if Jane takes this position especially when she allied with Grover Norquist and made that appearance on Fox and Friends.
You can’t have it both ways.. forming an alliance with your so called opposition but stopping short of ACTING by VOTING..or FOLLOWING THROUGH. This sounds like a re-run of an abysmal made for TV movie. So now I have to face the let down of Jane and Katrina becoming mousy when we need a lion’s roar at the ballot box. It was I who e mailed Jane on Facebook some days ago, asking why the Coakley/Brown race was not being blogged on FDL.. Now I see that
at least we have some debate and dialog.
Yes but the debate we get to have is on the side bar while Jasons piece is front page news !
Is Jane so naive to think that a PROTEST vote by proxy against the administration’s health care policies is not advantageous. Was I under the wrong assumption that Jane wanted the bill to go to reconciliaton in order to resurrect what was tragically leached out of it?
I suggest that the articulate diarists start pumping out their own headlined blogs to counteract the favoritism accorded Jason’s piece.
I have been logging onto Bostonglobe.com and Bostonherald.com and see
overwhelming disgust with Coakley/Obama.. Those voters can’t wait to
get to the ballot box.. especially the Independents.
It’s so glaring that Obama is making that personal appearance in MA for one reason only. To save his crap insurance giveaway, and judging by even the comments I am reading across the country at newspaper Internet sites, the PEOPLE are fed up to their ears and will grab any opportunity to kick the bums out just for the express purpose of having a VOICE that will not be snuffed out by the likes of Obama, Rahm, Reid, and all the sellouts.
If you haven’t read Jason’s post which appeared on FDLs front page as a re post from the seminal today you should and I will point out that 90% of the posters or more totally disagree with Jason’s conclusions .
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/24217
Yes, I definitely had read Jason’s post and was not at all in concurrence with it. I thought his arguments were unconvincing and shallow.
Why his blog should get special repeat status seems undemocratic and shows favoritism.
If Jane picks and chooses her media appearances with the RIGHT, as with Norquist, and then allies with electing an arm of Obama’s Hopey Changey deceptions that have included abandonment of the public option.. forcing Americans to pay for crap, corporate bundled insurance, then who is to give her credibility. That kind of flip flopping is very disturbing.
This hearkens back to the same problems with too many so called Progressives in Congress. They fold and cave in when we most need them.
AT this point I am PRAYING for a Coakley loss!! For once the PEOPLE will have spoken loud and clear.
“The Mass. elections are the next best thing to a popular uprising”
Amen.. There is no other way..
Seems like Katrina and Jane think we have a modicum of “reform” here. I am shocked.
At least Katrina called out George Wills when he tried to call the HCR bill socialist.
OT Gaines Adams, a defensive lineman for the Chicago Bears, died Sunday in South Carolina. He was 26.
Katrina picks and chooses her responses and vacillates. I have grown disenchanted with her erraticism.
Without a spokesperson or five the pundits will be allowed to spin this very possible loss any way they care to .
With a strong voice in the media as a spokesperson and the hard work of bloggers united behind a single strategy the news will be about how progressives are the new force in American politics and to be taken seriously .
I agree. What we are now seeing is a sad split among Progressives that will in fact defeat their causes. The flip flopping drives me mad.
Obama is making a major blunder going over to MA.. Has he no idea how widespread the anger is among the populace. Has he ignored the polls about HCR? This Predident is deaf, dumb and blind to reality. Coakley should realize he is the kiss of death as far as her becoming the next senator. And suddenly Obama is angry at the banks he has coddled all along.. talking now about a bank tax after all the corporate indulgence.. and making separate buyout deals with the unions on cadillac plans. The voters are not stupid even as Obama tries to pump Coakley as being in line with the bank tax.
Too little, too late.
Newspapers , progressive blog sites , letters to the editor and signs at rallies for Coakley in Massachusetts would get the word out but we need a national spokesperson to truly make it look like a movement .
This could be the opening salvo against the status quo and put the progressive movement on the radar screen of both the public and
the establishment ….. or we can merely(and we should also continue to do IMO)vote in the primaries .
I am still amazed that the moderators here see these strategies as mutually exclusive.
This Coakley/Brown election is a golden opportunity to ignite real discussion and debate about the crap HCR. The media will pay far more attention to a shocker election result than a million appearances by Jane and others on Fox and Friends, Hardball, or Democracy Now.
Oh, I love this – the excruciating push & pull & the actual debate of how progressives can find their power.
I am new here, but I like it!
All it takes, is for either a shoe bomber or another like the failed bomber from Nigeria, to justify these war expenditures, even when they are abysmal failures. It only gives Obama an opportunity to show his macho.
Electing Coakley is a loser way to go. She will not stand up to Obama about the war anymore than the other cave in progressives did when it came to voting $$$ for drones, bombs and the rest.
Jason.. ???? I don’t believe Obama intends to wind down or end the Afghan war in 2011, any more than he intended to fight for a public option, or against the mandate. I would have to be a fool to believe him based on his past double speak and
duplicit actions. Electing Coakley who fudged her debates with Brown in the manner of Palin, makes one wonder how on earth anyone would want her elected.
He might and he might not, but I don’t see how electing people who are against the war doesn’t help that cause.
Once again, being against the war during a campaign, is no guarantee that our Senators or Reps will vote the way we expect. Look how Obama strong armed the freshman Dems about the last war funding. Get real. And this is the Obama who rode into power being against the Iraq war.
I don’t know how we expect to elect people who are against the war in office if we don’t vote for them when they’re against the war in the campaign.
We need to act immediately and should do so even without a spokesperson .
I just got another friend involved who posts in places I don’t .
Use the same post you made in one place and cut and paste it into the comments section any where you can !
Go get em !
The earlier in a thread you post the more people read that post .
Copy ,cut, paste….. paste, paste, paste, paste, paste, paste … ect. ad infinitum
Go to you tube and watch Coakley/Brown debates. They are in 7 minutes or so segments. I would definitely not vote from her based on these.. as well as what Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote in the WSJ about the cases she mishandled.
Crooks and Iiars has a great deal up about this race. Word out that Liebermann will come out for Brown
As Race Comes Down To Wire, Dem Volunteers Jamming Coakley Headquarters
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/race-comes-down-wire-dem-volunteers-j
Duh, is that why we voted for Obama only to be betrayed. Better to vote from a defensive position. The issue in MA is HCR and the way the administration has been doing business. Obama NEEDS a wake up call.
That’s a different argument. If health care is more important to you than Afghanistan, fine, vote on that. But it’s silly to say voting for anti-war candidates won’t help end the war. It’s not the end of the activism that needs to happen, but it seems pretty much essential.
the vote in MA this tuesday is much more likely to affect the issue of HCR than it is the war in afghanistan.
Absolutely correct. I agree.
Maybe you should ask yourself how the scales got there in the first place… If you’re interested in preventing it from happening again.
Oh, with 41 Senate votes they will “rule”?
Sure, because they never read polls, the editorials, the letters, the emails…
Coakley’s faults have been posted repeatedly, but “there are none so blind, etc.” Anyway, this is far less about a frakin’ half term junior Senate seat than it is about the entire Democratic party.
First part: I agree. Second part: no, it doesn’t. How many currently serving Dem Senators were against the war during their campaigns, but did diddly squat about it once elected?
How many dead between now and November?
Certainly not as big as kicking a Dem to the curb to encourage the others. If Coakley loses today because of disaffected Progressives and Independents then tomorrow those still in power who want to retain their seats will start working to get those voters back. Tomorrow: not November.
Haven’t you been doing that for years? How’s that working out for you?
Hey when providence offers you a weapon to send a message the powerful you would be foolish to toss it away . Coakley isn’t looking too good anyway and in a state which democrats took for granted 48 hours ago .
Push progressives in the primaries and vote for progressive candidates in the elections when they exist but the fact that this takes away from those ignoring us what we worked so hard to provide for them ,a super majority in congress ,would be a very BIG wake up call that we are a force to be reckoned with and that we expect results …. OR ELSE !
This is a once in a lifetime chance to tell the establishment we aren’t pleased and may well HELP the democrats up for re election in November , in the house and in the senate like feingold and Murray .whose seats are going to be occupied for 6 years not 2 .
It’s your choice the loss of a 2 year stint by a not very progressive candidate in the senate or a wholescale bloodbath for the democrats , as polls and the poor showing in Mass. indicate in the next election cycle.
I have copied and pasted in 2 other blogs , on three sperate threads over the last 10 minutes .May I suggest doing the same anywhere you have a user name !
If Coakley loses, The Health Insurer Corporate Welfare Act of 2010 goes down and the American people win.
May I suggest a little hard ball ?
A Coakley defeat would be a shot across the bow of the establishment .
It would eliminate the 60 vote super majority
It would kill the corporations bogus reform as it is now or force the democrats to do what they wouldn’t do to pass what the public wanted , the public option, by using only 51 votes in the senate.
It would send a wake up call to the party’s leadership and all those seeking re election that unless they move left their screwed in November .
The symbolic value of this being Kennedy’s vacated seat , the man who this reform is to be named after is priceless.Perhaps the symbolic value of that seat is more important than the seat itself ?
The downside ? the loss of a senate seat that will only be occupied for two years by a non progressive candidate
Zooey
Hey when providence offers you a weapon to send a message the powerful you would be foolish to toss it away . Coakley isn’t looking too good anyway and in a state which democrats took for granted 48 hours ago .
Push progressives in the primaries and vote for progressive candidates in the elections when they exist but the fact that this takes away from those ignoring us what we worked so hard to provide for them ,a super majority in congress ,would be a very BIG wake up call that we are a force to be reckoned with and that we expect results …. OR ELSE !
This is a once in a lifetime chance to tell the establishment we aren’t pleased and may well HELP the democrats up for re election in November , in the house and in the senate like feingold and Murray .whose seats are going to be occupied for 6 years not 2 .
It’s your choice the loss of a 2 year stint by a not very progressive candidate in the Senate or a disaster for the democrats , as polls and the poor showing in Mass. indicate or a whole scale bloodbath in the next election cycle.
I have posted the above a half dozen times on 3 blogs.
The “Coakley is against the Afghan War, and we should therefore vote for her” argument doesn’t make even the remotest bit of sense, even judged by the standards of those who are making it, like Jason. Since so few Senators of either party are willing to stand up against escalation in Afghansitan, whether Coakely is elected or not will make no difference on that issue.
On the other hand, if she is not elected, the current, insanely corrupt version of “Health Care Reform” that’s being contemplated is stopped dead in its tracks. Furthermore, Coakeley’s defeat will send an unmistakable wake up call to the Democratic establishment that treating their Progressive base with outright contempt is a recipe for political suicide. They can spin it any way they want, but we all know how a Coakely defeat will be discussed, analyzed, and used as a guide for future strategizing within the Democratic Party’s inner circle. A Coakely defeat will be an unmitigated win for Progressives in the long run.
Jason Rosenbaum,
If your candidate loses on Tuesday, what might be the bright side of that loss?
What effect might it have on the way Rahm whips Congress for the next year?
What effect might Rahm’s potential change in strategy have on the outcome of the 2010 elections?
Are you capable of articulating the potential bright side of a “D” loss on Tuesday?
Prove it.
What makes you think that Rahm would do anything differently in how he whips the Democrat Representatives or Senators. I would pretty much make book right now that if Coakley loses, Rahm and most all of the other Ds running for office in ’10 will run to the right and blame the DFHs for costing Coakley the seat.
It’s how they roll.
Not this time. At least not if they want to win elections. That left/center/right taxonomy is SO done. Politics in the U.S. right now is very non-linear. If Democratic strategists don’t get it yet, they’ll keep losing elections. My guess is that the majority of people in the US are more worried about the unchecked power of big business, especially when allied with government, than anything else. Those individuals fall all over the left/right political spectrum. But it puts all of them directly in opposition to the Democratic Party as it’s come to define itself. I’ll bet the majority of those who vote for Brown are not voting FOR him, so much as voting AGAINST Coakley and the Rhamama White House.
Look. I’m 57 years old and a life long progressive. This is not all that different than every other time the Dems have lost an election. Because of how and why the theme has been presented, the Dems and the Rs, with the help of the TradMed, ALWAYS present it as the fault of the liberals and that whomever must then move to the right.
And yes, folks are worried about the power of Big Business. I have seen no indicator that Scott Brown or anyone on the Right will actually do anything about it. The ONLY reason they are making any noises today is because they are out of power. So they vote against Coakley and wind up with a flaming right winger because in 2 years someone else will run that might be better than Coakley.
It’s been my experience that you fight like crazy in the primaries and if you lose, you hold your nose and vote for the possible conservadem because you realize as bad as the conservadem is, the Right wing R is that much worse. then you start the process to fight in the primary on the next election.
Lather Rinse Repeat as necessary. It’s a marathon and changing the ways of the Dem party and the nation as a whole took over 30 years to reach this point. It is not going to magically change in one or two election cycles.
you don’t think it’s getting worse, not better?
In ONE year, is Obama better, or worse, than Bush?
And that’s how we got to where we are today. Take a bow.
Unfortunately for Progressives, the right wing has been at this for just a bit longer, which is why the ‘base’ of the R party seems to be so filled with the crazies.
Dems have not been fighting this, whether through complacency or what I can’t say. So no, I don’t think we have been doing this for my 57 years.
Mainly because too many folks think it’s a quick battle and if they don’t win, they’ll take their marbles and go home. Rather like how Teddy Kennedy and his supporters responded after they lost the primary in ’80.
i actually think they’d rather lose than move left. iow, we are the enemy not republicans.
otoh, this may be as good/safe a test as there can be (if progressives can make a big enough stink). writing letters to the editor, making phone calls to our reps, etc.
Agreed. Let’s remove as much ambiguity as possible from the state of the Democratic Party.
If Rahm Incorporated continue to stay/move further right even after a loss in MA Tuesday, every Kossack/Obamabot/Rosenbaum would be forced to admit that the left (60+% of the country these days) is the enemy of the Democratic Party, and vice-versa.
Oh, the rebellion has begun.
Where will it end?
Chill a little, Folks. Whether you agree with Jason or not he’s articulate and civil, and while his arguments in this case may be implausible they aren’t irrational.
Grumpy,
Agree that Jason is articulate. And mostly civil.
But don’t you think he’s a skilled, paid shill?
I do.
I honestly don’t know (and therefore tend to be guided by the presumption of innocence), but does it matter?
Perhaps I’m an insidious agent provocateur operating from a secret GOP base in Dr. Strangelove’s underground laboratory to disrupt the Democratic Party. Perhaps you’re a “V” invader working to create chaos and turn all humanity into tasty snacks.
It’s the message that needs to be analyzed and evaluated, not the motivation.
Grumpy,
You are thoughtful, for sure.
I agree: evaluate Jason’s message. Agree totally.
But I also want to know from whence that message springs.
Experience.
Btw, we’re losing the framing / cognitive policy war on hcr.
Republicans are doing a far better job.
They tell the American people that most Americans oppose Obama’s insidious health care plan.
That’s true, but they leave out the fact that a large number of Americans oppose it because they think it doesn’t go far enough, not because they agree with anything the Republicans have to say about hcr.
I hope Jane and Jon do far more to point out this distinction, because there are more than two sides – Obama or Republican – in this debate, and Americans need to know that Obama’s not on their side any more than the Republicans are.
There’s left, there’s right, then…there’s left out.
I’m not saying do nothing! I speak up about why I’m not willing to support the DNC, the DSCC, the DCCC and particular Democratic candidates. I am disappointed in the party leadership’s failures since Jan 2009 and say it constantly.
There was realworld’s excellent diary the other day:
Why I will not be voting for Martha Coakley Tuesday.
There were the diaries by parzival in the past couple of days:
John Kerry: Electing Coakley Means Standing Up to the Big Insurance Companies.
DSCC: Support Coakley Because HCR Meant So Much to Ted Kennedy.
My point is that we need to let the Dems take their hits, make sure that they’re seen justifiably as being the cause of their own losses in Nov, and make sure that we’re in the right position to make real progressive reform the solution in 2011 and beyond.
But if we’re seen as working hard to make sure Dems lose (which I think is unnecessary, btw), then we’re going to be dismissed by the very people we want to see that we’re on their side.
One of the stupider essays I’ve ever seen at FDL.
Keep it up, morans !
Really?
As appealing as that would be in a message-politics sense, we wake up on a Wednesday morning… with a Republican in formerly Democratic Senate seat.
And I get the anger that comes from having 2008 turn out to be such a disappointment. But the day after, there may be a Republican-elect Senator in Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat.
And someone should wipe that self-congratulatory smirk off Rahm Emanuel’s face, and I would pay good money to see it. But at the cost of a Senate seat?
And giving an industrial-strength case of electoral indigestion to Pharma and insurance companies is my idea of fun… Does anyone here think electing a Republican to that seat would change those votes?
And I don’t care about 60 or 59 – that was always a false indicator. I care about Supreme Court Justices.
It’s a two year stint in a six year office fo one and the fact that it IS kennedy’s seat and would put the very unpopular reform in jeopardy is priceless.
While not submitting to the premise – and selise probably knows about this part of the HC calculus – if Harry is forced into reconciliation to save Obama’s chestnuts, is it Baucus’ committee, Senate Finance, that gets the legislation? Was Harkin correct about this?
Damn Am I getting tired or what . my double post was in refernce to newtonusr
all i know is what i got from kagro x (from jan 1):
based on what david says here, and that the house never to my knowledge made the substitution (if true that’s a clue re speaker pelosi’s commitment to her own chamber’s bill), and re thomas no official conference committee is listed in the record (only that it’s been sent back to the house), i think they (senate and house leaders) are now in some kind of non standard, maybe even non official (as if that matters) negotiations on the senate bill with the white house.
but i could be all wrong. haven’t followed the legislative process as carefully as i probably should have (been more interested in policy this time).
I saw Harkin on an MSNBC show weeks ago, saying that reconciliation was in Baucus’ court. I can’t find it now, but he was definitive. And I would not dismiss the possibility that his argument was a ruse.
agreed. never dismiss that possibility. not when it’s a politician. and especially not when it’s a politician on a national stage.
sad to have to write that, but experience has been a cruel teacher.
One further point about the next two years, and the composition of the Supreme Court:
Associate Justice John Paul Stevens – born April 20, 1920
Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – born March 15, 1933
Associate Justice Stephen Breyer – born August 15, 1938
Those two years are looking like an eternity.
That I don’t know .
But I do know that if the Dem’s try to pass a bill which is not supported by the public with a simple majority in the senate when they were unwilling to do so for the public option which had broad popular support they will be taking off the disguise forever in terms of who it is they are representing and will be hammered mercilessly with the fact from now till November from all sides
It’s a lose-lose for Democrats. Once the House Progressives folded, the game was probably up. The disguise was gone long ago, and it is just a matter of when it was going to bite them.
Following which the skies will rain fire, the oceans will boil, and the streets will run red with blood.
Taken alone, yes – that is about morale as much as anything. Until Republicans make hay about getting the safest seat from the Democrats quiver in their column. I am no fan or Democrats, but it is nothing but petulance to cede the seat so Rahm ends up with egg on his face.
“so Rahm ends up with egg on his face.”
That’s just the first step, the catalyzing event that makes Rahm re-evaluate his priorities, if not his loyalties.
A humbled Rahm is good for the entire world.
If you think that one event – Coakley’s defeat – is the moment Rahm loses his job, there is some value in it. I just don’t think that is the event that trigers it. If Rahm is gone, it will be from what happened in August and the events that flowed from it, in my opinion. Imagine advising the President to hide under his desk, while every last bit of his political capital is spent watching from the sidelines this past summer… Allowing Republicans to take the populist mantle for themselves, and run Democrats into oblivion.
Allowing Republicans to take the populist mantle for themselves
If you toss something in the trash, don’t be surprised if someone comes along and grabs it.
Completely true. Not that it was a shining monument by the time Rahm got a hold of it, but it was his to lose.
Wow, thank you for that. It’s so true!!
To me that’s the thing that’s most criminal about Rahm and Obama: by their stupidity, they’ve allowed the corporate whores in the Republican party to claim that they’re now populists/progressives. [After all, if the Dems are condemning progressives, then progressive ideas must belong to the Republicans, right?]
And the Dems have picked up the Corporate Whore mantle for themselves.
Shameful!! And simplistic enough for much of Stupid America to understand, aided by Fox & Friends.
And, no less importantly, bleed off nearly all of Obama’s political capital. His repute as a leader is in shreds.
You, progressives, and the whole world are not going to humble Rahm Emanuel in a million years.
He’s leader of mandating and enforcing the agendas of the Corp/AIPAC/Likud world, and will go to his grave laughing at you.
He’s ruthless, fearless, and an asshole.
He’s also been successful and FULLY achieved his own personal agenda in service to Corps/AIPAC/Likud since he left ChiTown for The Show in The Village.
LIke Cheney, he’s seeming to be mostly untouchable . . . Mz. Hamsher took what I thought was the BEST shot at him that anyone ever has . . . but I don’t see any indictments or even investigations.
I despise him, but I don’t see him being taken out, humbled, or proven wrong in any sense, no more than in ’94.
These people don’t CARE if they get re-elected! They are getting the job done in one admin for their feudalist overlords, and will then go to work lobbying who ever is in office when they aren’t.
Trying to force some public political will onto them is not likely to succeed . . . digging skeletons and getting horrid dirt on them, that’s another story . . . . so, unscathed, doncha know . . .
The Republicans can be so short-sighted that they’d stop the feudalist project from being implemented because the Democrats proposed it and they have to play to their base. And that might be the only thing that can stop Rahm.
Larue, I completely agree with you on Rahm, and we both probably go even further.
There is substantial overlap between the Israel Lobby and the Wall St lobby, and all other corporate lobbies are just subdivisions of the Wall St lobby, which owns controlling shares of every big corp.
Joe Lieberman supports the insurance giants because they are good for Wall St, which is Very good for Israel.
They will ultimately do whatever they want, but as a peon, I know that they want Coakley to get elected on Tuesday. It may only be a blip in their plans, and it may only quicken our demise into a Corporate/Zionist police state.
So no one can defeat the mighty power that is Rahm Emanuel because he (gasp!) uses profanity a lot and is not afraid to piss people off? We must make terms with such a mighty, invincible figure? If we ever get to meet with him in person to air our grievances, should we wear adult diapers lest we shit ourselves when confronted by his indominatable personality? Should we completely submit to the powers of darkness now, or send him a letter of apology for having pissed him off first?
Who cares if Rahm Emanuel is an arrogant asshole; they’re a dime a dozen nowadays. The key is to make sure he’s an arrogant asshole somewhere else, as soon as possible.
I think you are under-estimating Rahm, the powers that stand behind, and the effect of a Republican loss on Tuesday.
But it’s still worth disappointing him.
Nothing but petulance ?
Hey even if you disagree in the end with the strategy you must see some merit in the arguments advanced by so many here .
The effect on nominees to Scotus is as good argument I’ve seen advanced FOR the idea .
41 republican senate votes is hardly a monopoly and come November the Dem’s may well be the party on the skids in the senate unless we force them to change direction before then .
If you believe that Republicans, with 41 members in the Senate, will suddenly stop filibustering every last piece of legislation, I think you are mistaken. Further, the deals made by this feckless mess of Dems we have now will have to be further sweetened to get one thing to the President’s desk.
Jeez, look at what Harry ended up handing out just to keep Nelson, Landreau and Lincoln in the boat for a catastrophically bad piece of HC legislation. I think you would have a hard time arguing that the 3 above-listed so-called ‘moderate Democrats’ would not be in fact strengthened, were a Republican elected in Massachusetts.
There is message politics, and then there are satisfying flights of fancy, and purposely defeating Coakley shows up in the latter column for me.
i think that was pure kabuki.
or maybe i’m too cynical (although so far, i’ve erred in not being cynical enough).
I would not argue that, but my point remains – the idea that electing Republicans means less sweetening to get anything to the President’s desk – good or bad – is mistaken, in my opinion.
i expect the dem leadership would like to “have to” negotiate with republicans. so i can’t disagree with you on that particular point.
but imo this is a really complicated vote for several reasons. my own biggest issue probably being the status of hcr and the possibility that what is coming from negotiations will make romneycare worse (of course that’s unknowable until the bill is out — but the house and senate bills do not reassure).
And in the last year you see so much to crow about ? Lots of progressive achievements from the super majorities we worked so hard to hand the Democrats ?
Oh and if the democrats after losing Coakleys seat pass The Health Insurer Corporate Welfare Act of 2010 with 51 votes in the senate when they wouldn’t do it for the public option will you applaude their courage ?
Democrats courage? You have got to be kidding.
So why put your faith in voting for a not very progressive candidate to fill the remaining 2 years of a senate seat which is occupied for 6 ? Do you know of any scotus judges retiring in the next 10 months ?
Do you think the democrats who after the last year are having a hard time holding onto a seat which has been a shoe in for 30 years if they continue to disregard the public’s wishes ?
Opposing them in Mass is akin to saving them from themselves as far as I can see .
As noted in my #153:
I do not like that math. And Souter was a relatively young man, so you cannot predict everything.
So your solution is to elect a Republican? Really? I mean, it’s all well and good to throw an elbow, but not to consider the downstream effects?
i think that’s a very good (and important) point.
but i have to say that right now, for the country, i am more worried about a right wing (even including progressives) popular backlash. i hope i’m really wrong about this, but i don’t see the employment and economic situation getting better for a large segment (maybe even a majority) of the population (and it won’t help if the hrc passes but crashes and burns.). that is not a recipe, especially absent a genuine populist progressive movement, for good things.
otoh, i don’t know macro econ (although i’ve really tried to educate myself some this past year) and i’ve never seen a popular uprising first hand (just read about them). so even i think it’s very likely i’m wrong.
too many “what if’s” and not enough info or answers. on this and on many other issues tuesday’s particular election brings up. a real dilemma imo.
Only in looking back at current conditions will we know how closely we now hover above collapse. And my sense is that the steps toward the cliff aren’t steps, but a gradual and almost imperceptible slide. It could be 10 years before we have enough distance from these events to see them in trends. And they are still developing.
yes. and i’m also including something political — the presence of larry summers at the head of the administration’s economic team.
i’ve commented on this before, although not perhaps when you were in the thread…. but summers helped kill 3 million russians with his economic policies. i know that’s an outrageous claim to make, but i’m relying on joe stiglitz (globalization and it’s discontents) and naomi klein (shock doctrine) for background and for particulars a report in lancet last january (2009), mass privatisation and the post-communist mortality crisis: a cross-national analysis.
and they’ve already started with the hearings on the (bogus) need for a cat food commission (entitlement reform).
imo summers is a seriously dangerous guy.
Either side could have made that a plus: a “probationary period.” Today: I ask you to trust me. In two years, I’ll ask you to judge me.”
It’s the what ifs and that make this whole post completely maddening. How many leaps in faith and logic do we have here? Coakley’s opponent is a creep. Who’s behind this dumbass narrative that we will teach the democrats a lesson? Because for me another possibility is:The republicans get momentum from a big fat win in a big fat blue state called Mass. And we see Dems tripping over themselves even more to be “bipartisan.” We get set 6 years back. & Some things really have changed in some ways. Dialogue, framing . . . Civil rights legislation didn’t get passed overnight. It really didn’t. It took at least half a century to pass certain legislation. And the special interests back then? Segregationists.
but if they are both possibilities, how are we to judge? disaster looms with every choice.
That’s a little hyperbolic and you know it selise.
i hope my use of “disaster” was an exaggeration. but maybe we just see this issue differently? the healthcare thing in MA could spell personal disaster for me (no exaggeration there). especially if we loose what regulatory control we have. maybe that makes me over reactive. i don’t know. but it really does matter to me personally — a lot.
How many does it take to not order the same pizza that has made you blow chunks (sausage and pepperoni) the last 37 times in a row?
no. but only because the dem leadership doesn’t actually make them filibuster. i’d like to see them try – i haven’t forgotten dec 17 2007 when, if i interpreted events correctly (that time i was paying attention to the legislative process) dodd’s objection to the unanimous consent agreement to require 60 votes for passage of his amendment to remove telco immunity from the senate fisa bill, s.2248 iirc, would have made the republicans have to filibuster his amendment (after all it was germane and so only needed a simple majority to pass). just the threat of that… and reid (did what i guess mcconnell told him to?) pulled the bill.
We need a new word. Filibuster has lost its meaning.
Yeah, that’s more like it.
excellent. i’m going to steal that one if the opportunity presents itself (hopefully with proper attribution).
Take it. I suspect you can make better use of it than me.
freeman @ 191 – And I mean this politely – you believe that the message you send will be more powerful than the negative of sending a Republican to the Senate, in that seat, for the first time in decades, with SCOTUS seats up for grabs – I just disagree.
I have no illusions about what we can ‘make’ Obama do. I did, but I do not now. He is shooting himself in the foot, and his lack of political perspective is shocking, considering how skillfully he ran. So make him smell fear. But I don’t see Coakley as the instrument of that fear.
You are right about the math not looking very good .
If the supremes don’t retire till after the next election I believe the democrats will be in an even greater disadvantage unless we can change their direction between now and then and that’s not even taking into account the case before them on campaign finance which will have dramatic effects on the next elections if it goes south .
Character flaw: I think about Supreme Court Justices all the time.
Don’t think too hard.
Hugo Black was a former member of the KKK.
Earl Warren was a Republican governor of California.
Berger, a Minnesota Republican, helped give us Roe v. Wade.
Souter and Breyer, on the other hand, gave us the New London case, allowing developers to take over private property in New London, Connecticut.
Can’t help it. Why do you think it’s always on my mind?
Read Korematsu lately?
That’s no character flaw: that’s good sense, and it’s looking beyond just the seat count. Lots of discussion of that consideration during the election. Personally, I was praying for longevity on the part of the Justices no matter who got the Oval.
But if they all hang on until after the November elections the super majority will be gone anyway, so how relevant is it to the MA special Senate election?
As I noted above, I don’t like the math.
Associate Justice John Paul Stevens – born April 20, 1920
Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – born March 15, 1933
Associate Justice Stephen Breyer – born August 15, 1938
Stevens will be 90 in 3 months, and if I were he and I wanted to look towards retirement, I would go in March.
Just sayin. 89, 76, 71.
By “the very people” you mean the Dem base and left-leaning Independents? The the same people who’ll be the ones taking down the conservadems (or corporadems, as I like to say)?
Why on earth would they dismiss you for fighting on their side?
Why on earth wouldn’t they dismiss you for doing nothing?
The Coakley/Brown election is perfectly timed to put the brakes on a BAD, rotten, despicable HCR bill. It’s a blessing we need to be grateful for.
I like the way you think.
I’m with you Gregory. Forty-two years is long enough for me to realize that Lucy is going to keep pulling the football away. The Democrat party does not represent me but the Democratic platform does. I’ll keep supporting the platform and fighting the party until I see results.
Let’s not have short memories about all the arm twisting, behind closed doors sweetheart deals orchestrated by ObamaRahma. Let’s not forget the ridiculous, cheerleading emails we got from Reid, OFA and its associates, telling us to email our Reps and senators re: HCR. Remember when Harry wanted us to defend the public option. and ad infinitum. What kind of Dem party is in power?
We need to let them know when a crack in the door opens that we are outraged and won’t let them sheep herd us. Many of us have left the Dems and have become Independents to give them a swift kick in the butt. Now the next kick is in order.
That I don’t know .
But I do know that if the Dem’s try to pass a bill which is not supported by the public with a simple majority in the senate when they were unwilling to do so for the public option which had broad popular support they will be taking off the disguise forever in terms of who it is they are representing and will be hammered mercilessly with the fact from now till November from all sides .
That’s for sure..
Has anyone taken this conversation to another blog yet ? I highly recommend doing so .
“Ron Kaufman, a Republican National Committee member from Massachusetts who was political director in the White House under President George H.W. Bush, stood in the chill outside the Kenmore Diner in Worcester, the candidate’s third morning stop, and marveled at the turnaround as passing motorists honked in support.
“People drive by, used to give us this,” he said, holding up his middle finger. “Now they give us this,” Kaufman said as he showed a thumbs up.
“Obama, whose 2004 address to the Democratic convention here set him on an arc to winning the presidency, said his entire domestic agenda — from financial regulatory reform to climate change legislation — would be at risk with a Brown win.”
” Brown’s opposition to the legislation has Democrats in Congress exploring several potential avenues for securing final passage if the Republican should win Tuesday night, including a rarely used parliamentary device known as reconciliation.
Requiring just a bare majority in the Senate, reconciliation rules would require the bill to be somewhat scaled back from its current ambition of expanding insurance coverage to more than 30 million people who do not have it.”
________
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/17/AR2010011702034_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010011702095
_________
Reconciliation?
Capitulation. On principle, the reform should be shelved until it is UNIVERSAL care regardless of abilility to pay for it.
Who says Obama and the corporate Dems have any principles.
This bill at least has something bipartisan about it. Bipartisan distaste for it. It is too complicated. Single payer is simple. Everyone can understand it.
If they held open hearings on single payer way back in March and didn’t try to pull some sneaky baloney with back room deals, we might have been able to get single payer. All of the sudden, in May, there’s a bill and we have to like it or lump it.
No one can understand it. Single payer, we all understand.
If reconciliation is used to pass it, if the GOP does take over Congress in 2010, they can repeal it with reconciliation.
These dumb shits worked themselves into a situation where they are screwed if they do and screwed if they don’t.
Gregory – you don’t concretely explain how defeating Coakely leads to anything progressive, while it is clear Scott Brown will accomplish the opposite. I appreciate you hope that her loss means your gain, but it is just speculation on your part. To me it sounds like you don’t want to do the hard work… you want a quick easy solution – it ain’t gonna happen for you. If she loses, the narrative will be all about the strength of the Republicans and not about how the progressives dealt a blow to President Obama.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
“the narrative will be all about the strength of the Republicans and not about how the progressives dealt a blow to President Obama.”
The narrative won’t be about the strength of the Republicans. It will be about the universal unpopularity of the Emmanuel/Lieberman Health Care Reform.
60+% support a public option and cheaper re-imported drugs. More and more Republicans support these things all the time, now that they know Obama doesn’t.
That means real reform, passed by reconciliation, will have more popular support now than ever.
We cannot afford the bill we are at risk of passing. It will accelerate the downfall of the Democratic Party and the U.S.’s fiscal solvency.
Think consumers aren’t spending enough money now, leading to higher unemployment? Wait ’til they’re forced to spend most of their discretionary income on exploitative health insurance.
What do you think that will do for the unemployment rate?
The media loves a winner and not a loser. They will focus on the victor. You still don’t explain how electing Scott Brown leads to progress.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
That’s been covered many times in several threads.
And truth is such an impotent weapon when it comes to fighting the all-powerful narrative.
So bend over and give corporadems a free ride!
Look, Folks: all my life I’ve been hearing Progressives claim to be the ones with principles and the courage to act on them. Now I see a division in your ranks, between those with the courage to do the right thing even if it hurts, and those who will act against their stated principles for the sake of a pitifully small political advantage.
Which side do you think Dr. King would support?
I have not been convinced by the arguements that the expected benefits of voting in Scott Brown will materialize. Just as I was not convinced that voting in Obama would lead to instant change. You are attaching expectations to that outcome. Focus on what is clear. Sen. Scott Brown will not support any progressive agenda.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Oh, so you did see them after all?
Of course not, however Democrats might if they had reason to fear for their (political) lives.
Like “vote the Party ticket”?
Vote for the better candidate. In each race.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/us/politics/18massachusetts.html?hp
Good demographic analysis of upcoming Coakley/Brown election
Let’s review how the Dems got themselves into this predicament with Coakley.
If voters hadn’t watched the charade of a health care reform process all these many months, and if Obama had any spine and made good on his campaign promises, he wouldn’t find himself diving into the Mass. bay to save Coakley.
As it was, Kennedy’s seat was taken by Kirk in defiance of the original
rules that an election needed to be convened.. the rules were then changed, and now with all this time passing, Obama showed he was no FDR or anything resembling.. but rather revealed himself to be a two faced, duplicit liar. So how do you expect voters to react when they have a chance to register their outrage.
To those of you arguing with Jason about whether Coakley being against the war in Afghanistan matters, you should know that he’s basis this assertion a quote in Derrick Crowe’s diary: I Don’t Know If You’ve Noticed But Coakley Opposes the Afghanistan War
.
In other words, Jason has successfully inserted the idea that Coakley is a strong anti-war candidate based on next-to-nothing by getting you to argue with him about whether her getting elected would matter and by repeating a half-baked assertion again and again as you argue with him.
Here’s the quote:
As you can see in the comments on that thread, several people found this to be unconvincing as to Coakley actually being strongly against Obama’s escalation.
Here’s my own comment @ 5, mirroring Derrick’s diary:
It’s far from clear that Coakley is an anti-war candidate. The opposite seems more accurate.
She’s NO Kucinich. Let’s make that perfectly clear.
If Coakley is saying that she wants Obama to focus on Al Qaeda in Yemen and Pakistan, then she must be saying she wants him to continue the predator drone strikes, because that’s what Obama’s been doing in Yemen and Pakistan (though, according to Jane Mayer’s article, “The Predator War,” US activities in Pakistan aren’t limited to hitting Al Qaeda with predator drone strikes at all).
I just think Jason twisted an issue to get people to accept a false premise as they debated with him.
Anyway, I put the comment @ 195 up because I saw you and selise discussing it with him earlier. Glad you saw it!
Exactly right. Her position effectively endorses the drones, and all the damage it has done to innocent civilians.
thanks. although, and i really hate to say this (i spent A LOT of effort organizing and protesting the afghanistan war and the run up to the iraq war), the wars are not high on my decision tree for tuesday. hard to see what difference one junior senator could make even if she was anti-war unless she was willing to act independently of the party leadership (which powwow has, completely rightly imo, been warning us is probably one of the biggest issues that makes our deecee gov not work).
The fact that they’re old isn’t the same as the fact they have announced their retirements . So I’ll take that as a no .
Take it however you like. They are old and getting older, and imminent announcements are hardly an indication of what they will do, or what will happen to them.
Let them do voter exit surveys to sift through why so many turned on Coakley.
As one poster rightly stated, many who will register a protest vote, will have a different reason than others who did the same.
Some will cite the breached promises of Obama.. no public option, for example and many will just talk about rising health care costs not being addressed.
Still more will talk about JOBS.. and no relief in site with the floundering economy.
Another subset my cite the love affair Obama has had with Wall Street.
Add all this stuff together in part or as a mix and match, will explain the voter nullification of Obama, Coakley and the rest of the bums.
Coakley is no insurgent.. just a run of the mill, Corporate Dem.
I go back to Jane H’s unholy or holy alliance with Norquist in pursuit of the skids being put on the awful corporate welfare driven HCR bill. Keep it simple and just put the dastardly legislation into hibernation, or permanently to sleep with the flick of a people driven vote.
I’m with shekissesfrogs. If Coakley gets elected, she will help the adversary corporate/dems in the senate keep the progressives from getting their agenda accomplished.
And the republican Brown helps us progressives how?
In prison, if you don’t beat the shit out of the first person that looks at you funny, they they know you’re weak and you get no respect.
They think we’re weak because we don’t fight back when they screw us, Stupak.
The only way that we’ll move progressive agenda items through the Democrat Party is if they believe that we will cut off their balls.
Look at it another way.. Whomever prevails has TWO years to be answerable to the PEOPLE.. all the more reason to strike while the iron is hot and deliver
the nullification of current, failed policies and betrayals.
newtonusr at 212
Can’t help you.
I’m a lawyer and have read Korematsu. Truly a travesty of justice. But certainly a precedent for Obama.
And with Obama’s track record…Copenhagen FAIL….Oylmpic bid for Chicago FAIL…..Massaachusetts/Coakley FAIL?
Well, Obama is not reading the tea leaves properly. He should know better than to herd Dems into the voting booth to push his agenda that is very unpopular according to the polls.
People feel so frustrated writing, emailing, faxing their Reps and Senators to no avail. They watch their original votes for Obama being mocked and taken for granted. This is the mood among many Dems.. whether they are far Left or not. Throw in those who may have become Independents because they feel disenfranchised, and you have a powerful punch to pack. Obama made a big mistake going over to MA today. He will regret it when the votes are counted.
Why do you speak Truth?
Why do not Jane or Jason shut you the fucking down?
You are dangerous.
Keep doing it.
“Why do not Jane or Jason shut you the fucking down?”
Easy, newcomer. I suspect that Jane is not coming out against Coakley because her movement to primary Bernie Sanders went over like a lead balloon.
If she was willing to lead a fight against Bernie Frickin’ Sanders because he backtracked on health care reform, I think it’s relatively safe to say she isn’t opposed to dems losing a seat on Tuesday.
Stick around, and I suspect she’ll win you over. I could be wrong, but don’t think so.
Bill,
Jane tries to work within the system. Honestly, sincerely, and very hard.
I’ve tried telling her working within the system is a losing proposition.
I admire her for that but don’t see why it should end there.
An army without flexibility never wins a battle .
tao te ching
pour it out, baby.
pour it out.
art45 is no newcomer.
No, selise, you chemical engineer.
My bad, Art:)
Forgiven.
I’m always in pursuit of the truth.
holy cow that was a very long time ago and iirc a long time ago that i mentioned it. you have a very good memory.
I hope he does regret it. Maybe he’ll learn the difference between when to use bipartisianship and when to lead.
“They watch their original votes for Obama being mocked and taken for granted.”
Yeah, it’s not like we’re happy to be rooting for the Tea Bagger in MA.
Obama SHOULD have been watching out for us all along.
Backtracking on public financing of his campaign was likely a huge mistake.
The fake health care reform battle was outlined by Rahm and his Wall St handlers before the election.
I agree. I have to admit when he bucked the public financing, I was starting to harbor doubts about him.
Two things will really piss MA voters off.. appealing to them not to allow the loss of the 60th vote to pass health care.
Using the Kennedy name as a guilt trip..like the seat holds a permanent entitlement for DEMS.
I am sure reasonable people can learn to disagree without personal invective.
Oh, I agree with disagreement without personal invective.
I’m totally into argument.
I’ve watched carefully, however, when people have taken to the streets and even picked up bricks.
The handwriting was on the wall when Obama selected Rahm, and the economic team from Clinton years.. including all the anti.. Glass-Stiegle people–including the Robert Rubin contingent. In truth, Dorgan was probably fed up with the whole b.s. especially when he tried to push the reimportation amendment and Obama, et al turned on him.
I will bet that a few selected Dems, esp. in the House are rooting quietly for a Coakley defeat. It will make their lives easier as things progress or digress.
I’ve been wondering about this a lot. I suspect more than “quite a few” in both the House and the Senate. As a matter of fact, given how massively unpopular the administration’s version of “Health Care Reform” will be once people fully understand what it entails, it could be that the best thing that could happen for the Democratic Party in the long run would be for them to lose a Senate seat.
Obama and his inner circle can’t back down on their pledge to “reform” the health care system, but if they deliver the package of vomit currently embodied in this Health Care Bill, all of them–and anyone who is viewed as having stood with them–will go down in flames to a well deserved demise in the 2010-2012 elections. On the other hand, if this Bill dies, and the public looks to the Republicans for an alternative solution to a difficult problem, what are they going to see? Some empty suit stammering out an empty plan centered around “tort reform?” Give me a fucking break.
In short, I’d rather see this Health Care Reform Bill dead, the Democratic Party sent a strong message reminding them where their ultimate support lies (money only buys advertising, it doesn’t buy votes), and Republicans shown to be the do-nothing dead heads we all know them to be. Ironically, losing a single Senate seat for a short time stands a great chance of accomplishing all three.
There are many ways to look at the outcome.
First off, a Coakley defeat will rightfully SLOW up the process of passing
half baked HCR. Obama has been trying to RHAM (pun intended) the bill
through with all his arm twisting and sweetheart back room deals. He pledged an OPEN, transparent administration… he promised to put proceedings On C-span. There are now over 22,000 signatures on Facebook, Let the Cameras in. Give me a break, why should the PEOPLE look the other way and rubber stamp another
sheep herded Dem. There are TWO years between this and the next Senatorial election. If Brown doesn’t cut the cake, let progressives organize around someone who will. We already know what DEMS in sheep herds have done.
Can’t agree more. Do you think if Brown wins, the progressives would have a better Dem running against him in 2012? I don’t think it would mobilize the Repubs, as they still have a very unpopular agenda.
Oh so you’re a prophet! Great! Leap of faith. Love cliffs.
And yes, conventional wisdom has it, it’s always so easy to get rid of an incumbent. A snap really.
People are taking a huge leap of faith with this “punish the dems” BS. It’s mad. Mass. is a huge state, as you know. Vote for Ghouliani’s little buddy, and the republicans fundraising will get a kick start. They’ll get momentum. Please don’t tell me that’s not obvious because it is.
My suggestion: Don’t like Coakley. Back off from the elections. But don’t openly advocate suggestions that will help what’s his name the teabagger, LGBT hater. It will tarnish FDL for sure. It’s nuclear.
How is it punishing the Democrats to say they have not earned our support?
I know I haven’t declared any intention of supporting Republicans.
You say:
By all means, run around saying that to as many Americans as you can. The DSCC keeps asking me to contribute to her campaign. I won’t. Obama in a panick went to MA to get people to vote for Coakley. They’re clearly not all that interested. I don’t blame them.
I refuse to support Democrats who make promises that they do not keep, who mouth progressivism as candidates only to block progressive reform once in office, and who do not serve the people.
I have no intention of helping Brown, but the Democratic Party has to earn our votes.
Something is very off with your analysis. It’s like a tailored little narrative. I’m not hearing much about Obama helping Coakley. I’m hearing from local > bigger progressive groups. And take a walk around the block (lefty blogosphere) a little, there’s a different story altogether.
such as…?
Not sure what “tailored little narrative” means. I get those emails from the DSCC because I have contributed in the past, though not since the first half of 2009. They beg people like me to help them. I won’t. I refuse to support the Senate Democrats any longer, not until they get their heads out of their asses. That’s not a narrative. That’s a form of resistance, my friend.
You do know that Obama was in MA today stumping for Coakley, right?
I have zero interest in hearing OFA-approved propaganda.
Right because those bloggers are OFA. You really do not know what you are talking about. It’s sad.
DSCC emails ohmahgod! I blocked them waay back. I wasn’t too happy the way the Dem establishment treated by candidate Lamont. You really are a little green aren’t you.
mui1,
you are cool.
Neop is like a Columbia-trained lawyer who is smart, really smart.
Give the guy a break. He tries hard.
well did I tell you I live in New Haven where there are supposed to be some really, really smart people? Well never mind about that. Lesson is: don’t bank on reputation.
This is a special delivery for that other cute guy that doesn’t get out much: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/on-sending-messages-by-digby-if-my.html
No it’s not a poison pen letter. It’s just Digby being circumspect. Curbside limosine service. Now how’s that for cool.
mui1,
I live in Connecticut, and I bet you are a fox.
I’m a geek with bottle glasses so don’t try to butter me up.
Hey. At 64, I get what I can get.
Bottle glasses are fine.
Sorry, mui1.
I wuz thinking about myself. Not about you.
I’m sorry.
Thanks!
I’m green in the sense that I’ve always voted the party line my entire adult life and supported the party with contributions.
I’m green in the sense that I realized since Jan 2009 that the Democratic Party has been taken over and is dominated by corporatist sellouts who are actually pushing policies that harm the American people. We’re going to see it all over again when we see them deliberately screw up reform of the financial services industry.
I’ll admit I’m new to resisting my own party. I will not vote for any candidate ever again just because he or she has a “D” after his or her name.
I entered this conversation because your comment @ 242 appeared to be arguing that people like me are supporting Brown. That’s bullshit.
This is old news. I’m sorry you had to find out so suddenly, but IMHO this election can’t go to teabag gay hater. Please read the digby article. & she’s being nice.
You should unsubscribe to the emails… you can leave a note on why you are unsubscribing. I left one detailing my disatisfaction with the health insurance requirement bill.
I have unsubscribed from OFA and a few others, and to stuff from Reid and Schumer. I also added my two cents about HRC and the War in Afghanistan. I am sure others did the same.
many others should do the same
“But don’t openly advocate suggestions that will help what’s his name the teabagger, LGBT hater.”
If Obama, Inc. don’t change their ways (which a Coakley loss will force – shit health care won’t pass), we are going to see dozens of tea baggers join Congress in 2010.
Getting 1 tea bagger elected now is the best and last hope of avoiding many tea baggers getting elected in the fall.
My thinking exactly
Agreed
Ah more prophecy! Excellant!
Skipping the last 70 posts or so and logging off.
Here’s my advice, absolutely free and worth every penny.
Progressives should vote for Brown because in two years they can run a “real” Progressive more easily against a stikin’ war-mongering Rep than against the DNC-supported heir to “Teddy’s Chair.”
What is your best hope of a “real” Progressive in that seat?
Running one in the next election!
Why?
Because you don’t have one running now!
Jesus.
ART: you’ve a boots-on-the-ground combat vet, right? What’s nuts about abandoning a position to prepare it for an ambush? What’s nuts about getting one of your two enemies to fire on the other (DNC attacking Brown in 2012)?
Man, anybody have a grounded vision of what this country would have been like today if Obama had accepted public financing?
Same shit?
McCain Lieberman/Palin presidency?
I’m thinking the press would have turned on Obama pretty quick, and Rev. Wright would have played a much bigger role in the campaign.
selise, you are one of the wisest most circumspect persons I’ve met on the blogosphere, please!
i’m sorry to let you down. maybe not so wise or circumspect? what particularly am i writing to piss you off? email me if you would feel more comfortable unloading on me off line. seriously.
Facebook selise, you’re much welcome and much missed and needed there.
ditto, ditto, ditto.
Oh are you that new? Okay, directions: turn to main page. I think it’s still main page. Scroll to blog roll. Click.
digby, probably pam spaulding and juan cole, howie klein etc. etc. etc. etc.
Thanks for naming a few, I was hoping you would. I want to read their take on the election. I’m not new here, I just don’t get out much.
It’s kind of cute and kind of sad. How old are you? I know, I know I’ll stop with the adhominem. It’s wrong.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_massachusetts_senate
There’s a back-up plan to force the House to accept the Senate bill as is, to avoid a re-vote in the event of a Brown victory.
Well then ta ta cherie, I have to run errands. It’s raining in my neck of the woods.
If Obama were to announce that he’s shit canning the individual mandate, Coakley would win.
Obama could have made this an easy win for Coakley. She should not be blamed. He should. The buck stops with him.
In a perfect world you would have a multitude of choices and could vote in the candidate that perfectly fit your views. A Progressive candidate could win. It’s not a perfect world and there are just two candidates in this race. Sometime you just have to pick the one that comes closest to your agenda. If you don’t vote Democratic, the GOP wins. And no, I don’t believe that the GOP candidates and the Democratic candidates were basically the same. Not in Congress, the Senate or the White House.
In a merely good world, candidates would keep their promises and not knee their core constituencies in the gut while passing policies that Republicans would have voted for had they thought of them first.
Looks like the Young Creationist Wing of the Teabag/Naderite Cotillion has chosen to roost here. Keep that dim bulb flying high!
The old adage goes here.
Don’t buy a shit sandwich unless You plan to eat it.
A Vote for Brown is a plan to eat that sandwich.
A vote for Coakley says that sandwich smells to bad I won’t eat it no matter what.
One word for cranky Democrat hacks: STUPAK.
Would the GOP, for a moment, ever have considered allowing government funding of abortions in order to secure votes for a bill?
If Obama pulls this stunt with reconciliation, ramming through HIS health care agenda, he is really NOT listening to the American people. Yes, it’s one state potentially registering disapproval of his policies in the Coakley/Brown faceoff, but if he looks at the polls, he can put two and two together and it won’t equal 5. Just watch how this unfolds building to a climax in November 2010.
this site is hilarious.
I am a progressive Democrat with years of experience in electing Democrats and fighting Republicans.
You people who would surrender before the battle begins are morons.
And those who don’t recognize betrayal by those who we elect are lacking the ability to understand the different routes to victory and defeat. Supporting a conservative agenda because it is pushed by someone giving lip service to liberals is not perusing victory.
“If Coakely looses no one is going to say it was a message from the base, they are going to say she ran a crappy campaign.”
As someone from the other side, I can assure that your politicians will get the message, regardless their spin.
Many on my side made a statement in 2008 that shook my party’s politicians at their core. Those who still do not believe, do so at their peril as they will be replaced. As a result, I see fresh, young, conservative blood entering the arena who are there because they know how to listen. Will we achieve that perfect party pol, of course not.
But something has to shake up both sides of the aisle and simply sending back the same ole crap sends them the message you approve of their methods. And you know, sometimes you get someone you just can’t justify for any reason.
Voting Coatley into office will only embolden your party.
Unfortunately for you, the fresh, young conservative blood you dream of will be pre-packaged and focus group tested to hit precisely on all the sweet spots people are dying to hear. “Main St before Wall St, blah blah blah.”
That’s how the Contract With America was shaped. Focus Grouped establishment rebellion.
Do you like Ron Paul? His followers are likely the only breath of fresh air you guys will see.
I trust not, from what I am seeing and hearing. It’s a different landscape than previously. I worked the two Bush campaigns in SW Ohio and the old guard is no longer around. They saw their party going back to it’s roots and couldn’t handle it. My friend was the SW committee chair and resigned due to the new direction the local party was heading.
Ron Paul? I was just reading his take on Haiti – but to your question, I’m old enough to be a realist. Which is part of my problem. I grew up being taught how to crawl under my desk at school, knew where every bomb shelter was everywhere I traveled and went to bed everynight believing the Russians were going to lob nukes at us. But it’s different and seems more surreal today. As your Mr. Obama is learning that as great as his campaign rhetoric was, it wasn’t reality…and now Yemen?
And don’t forget, Scott Brown is a conservative from MA…he wouldn’t survive the primaries in TX. He won’t be nearly as bad as
75%95% of the republicans now, but certainly not a tow the line party conservative.I could give a rats a$$ about the politics in MA, and as far as I’m concerned the people deserve the results of their votes – Frank, Dodd and the whole lot.
Why do you believe Brown is getting this national attention? Because we care about MA? We want this healthcare bill killed! Firedoglake has gone to great lengths and teamed with the conservatives to try and stop this. It is that important. I suggest you take a deep breath.
It’s nice to see stupid so neatly wrapped and put in a box as this.
Even if “Progressives” went all out for the Democrats, we could not overcome the determination of the Ron Paul voter to humble the arrogant Dem elite.
Heres the link to the boston globes web page and an article on the Mass. elections , log on and let them know where the progressive community stands on this election .
Boston Globe link
[link shortened by moderator]
Boston Globe link
[link shortened by moderator]
Damn apparently posting these links really crosses the line.
[removed by moderator], purity troll. The difference between you and a conservative operative is nil. You petite bourgeois motherfuckers just goes to show that Marx was right. You’re as much the enemy of the working class as the rich are. You disgust me. Your fucking weasely ass would get chased down in a popular uprising just like the rich bankers and politicians would. We’re looking to empower ourselves, and that happens through progressive legislation running through Congress. Sure they may pass some bills that favor corporations but a few big bills can end up empowering us on the left, If we’re able to get healthy, to get into unions, then we’ll be able to put up a fight. The time to fight is not when one Democratic Senatorial candidate to round out the 60 vote supermajority is up for election. The time to fight is before candidates like Coakley ever get the nomination. It’s too late now. How will she vote? With the Democrats? Then we should vote her in.
You are not more liberal than me. So you have no room to talk. You should just hear my words and obey.
Cool new motto for the DNC! Or… is it new?