Primary Objective

I've been reading lots of yak-yak in the blogosphere about how there needs to be a primary challenge to Obama. OK, let's talk about that in some real terms. For shits and giggles, we'll toss in 3rd party/independent challenges, too. This gives us two different modes of challenge, one internal to a party and another intended to cut across institutional coalitions.

There are a few models of what an internal challenge can look like. The classic is a moderately powerful insider taking a run at an incumbent who is clearly failing or is perceived to be weak. In recent times, that gives us Teddy Kennedy's challenge to Carter, Bill Bradley's challenge to Gore, who, as Vice-President, was the default choice for the nomination on the Democratic side, and Ronald Reagan's 1976 challenge to Ford and Pat Buchanan's 1992 challenge to Bush I for the Republicans.

Hillary Knocking Them Dead in Asia

As I knew she would.

In the Hillary section in the righthand links, I have posted a link to the State Department's unfortunately named Dipnote blog, which is offering some great commentary on Hillary's rock star reception overseas. I am savoring this reporting after all of the crap the Blogger Boyz (and others) threw at her during the primaries and immediately after her name was floated for Secretary of State.

Take a little time to read the various posts from State Department personnel (and a post from Hillary herself) as inside commentary on the trip. To me, what comes through is the joy people are feeling at her presence. (For more complete coverage of the trip, be sure to check out the official news and transcipts on the State Department's site.) The other thing that comes through is the way in which Hillary is able to be both a formidable diplomat (see her responses to North Korea's blustering) and a very public ambassador, representing the nation to the world simply by who she is. She can go appear on the Indonesian youth TV show "Dahsyat", walk in a poor neighborhood of Jakarta, do many public appearances and private meetings in Tokyo, and make China absolutely giddy over her impending arrival. That post intrigued me the most, in great part because of the ever-so-diplomatic comparisons being drawn between our new Secretary and those before her:

Ben Moeling, the post's author, serves as the Deputy Political Chief at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, China and Overall Control Officer for Secretary Clinton's Visit.

Secretary Clinton arrived in Beijing on a cold February night after a full day in Korea. Two senior officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were on hand to greet her officially, but hundreds of millions of Chinese people were also eagerly tuned in. The Secretary, or "Xi-la-li" as everyone in China refers to her with a tone both of familiarity and respect, is famous in China. Speculation about her visit has been intense. Almost every Embassy officer, from vice consuls to the Charge d'Affaires, has received inquiries about her upcoming visit. Our Political, Economic, and Environment, Science, Technology and Health sections have been working for weeks with our Chinese counterparts on the arrangements. Finally, it's game day. The Embassy is ready. Press from all over the world have gathered. The Chinese government is giving her an exceptionally warm welcome, and tomorrow she will meet with the President, Premier, State Councilor and Foreign Minister.

The warm response to Secretary Clinton's first trip to China is literally overwhelming. Already, we've had to improvise. Our carefully arranged plan for her to meet the staff and families of U.S. Embassy employees had to be scrapped just yesterday because the number of RSVPs shot past the maximum occupancy of the venue we'd selected for the event. Despite the fact that the Secretary's only available window is late on a Saturday afternoon, 430 people have already said they plan to come back to the office to see her.

I have noticed an incredible energy in the team that has come together to plan and execute this visit. This is not my first "S visit," and I am used to working with dedicated and professional colleagues, but this is somehow different. Everyone is so deeply invested in the success of this visit, no matter how big his or her job. Dozens of people have come up to me and volunteered to assist. I am excited, proud (and a little awed) to be part of it myself. Tomorrow is going to be a big day in U.S.-China relations.

The embassy staff is turning out en masse to see her. She is called by her first name with endearment by ordinary people (and not just in China, I might add). The government is responding positively to her visit. They want her there. High and low alike are straining for an opportunity to see her.

And this is what sets her apart from previous secretaries. It is almost too easy to compare Hillary's ecstatic reception to the lack of such reaction to Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell, but Madeleine Albright could not generate this response either. Bush had tried to use Karen Hughes as some kind of public figure for outreach, but only managed to demonstrate the moral black hole at the center of his regime.

This buzz, this palpable anticipation over Her arrival is what I was trying to identify in my posts from last November, The Politics of States and Against Conventional Wisdom. This is what I expected to see and why I wanted her to take the position.

No need to rely on hope here. This dame has got the goods and she delivers.

Anglachel

Pandora's Box

So the NYT is saying that Hillary will be Secretary of State. I am, of course, intrigued and pleased by the prospect, but note that I won't believe it until the official announcement. Indeed, I won't actually believe it until the confirmation hearings are completed and she takes the oath of office.

What I expect to see for the next week is mass hysteria among the Whole Foods Nation crowd who won't accept that this can be a legitimate appointment. The CDS will get worse, not better. They will do everything in their power to try to derail the nomination.

I don't have time for a longer post this moment. If you have not been reading Bob Somerby this week, go there right now (he's linked in the sidebar) and read very carefully what he has to say about CDS. The opposition to HRC as Secretary of State is rooted in the green light Obama himself gave to using irrational hatred as an acceptable political tool against other Democrats. (And this is why BTD is wrong about the conduct of the campaign.) Somerby appears to be the only critical analyst around who understands the implications of this.

Obama opened Pandora's box, allowing the pestilence of right-wing CDS to set up shop in the heart of left politics.

Anglachel

Sounding Serious - Updated

Update - And the Guardian says its a done deal. I'm not certain this is so as in the body of the article they don't present anyone on record definitively saying yes, the deal is signed. It reports little more than the NYT article does, but with less asshattery. The reason I'd be inclined to believe this report despite the lack of sources is the Sidney Blumenthal connection.

This NYT article says to me the consideration of Hillary for Secretary of State is serious.

The "worry" about Bill Clinton is such bullshit, of course. It is no more than fear of the Unity Democrats that they will be over shadowed by this person they irrationally hate. The media is only too happy to drool over the maybes and perhaps and some people say and what don't we know, what isn't he telling us rumor mongering. It is no less than the manufacture of scandal. Calling Bob Somerby...

However, I have to admit I'm not sure I'd be happy to have Henry Kissinger praising my abilities.

Ignoring the specious scandal-mongering of the last part of the article, what the report says is that the decision of acceptance is based on conditions being met. That's serious and negotiations can fall apart for politically legitimate reasons. HRC will request a significant degree of power and autonomy to accept the obligations and burdens of the office because that is how she does things. You can approve of this or not, but that is part of her character. Is what she requests reasonable? Whether reasonable or not, will it be acceptable? There are balance of power issues that are not just personality conflicts (the tedious crap The Village and Blogger Boyz roll in like dogs with a rotting carcass) but involve questions of authority and state interests that matter when dealing with other sovereign states.

Pulling on the poli sci cap, this is a fascinating and significant development for the incoming administration. It is a real test of leadership and how the executive branch will be run. Can this administration put the interests of the country first? We have had 8 years of one that would not. And before the Obamacan zombies start screaming how I am not giving The Precious a chance, this is a challenge that any incoming non-incumbent president must face. Traditionally, a new president focuses on domestic issues in a first term because those are the issues you campaign on and that is what matters most to the electorate. Screw it up and you lose power. Really screw it up and you lose office. See Carter, Jimmy and Bush, George H.W. In both of these cases, they had domestic and foreign policy challenges. One had a failed foreign policy while the other had a successful one. They both got chucked out of office (Carter more decisively than Bush) because of the crappy domestic conditions. Two-term presidents tend to focus on foreign affairs in the second term because the domestic policy battle lines are settled. It gives them some stature and gets them out of the daily mud-slinging.

Obama has been signaling that he really didn't care too much about domestic affairs, offering lack-luster domestic policy positions (except for environmental stuff - whomever is writing those papers is the sharpest person he has in the policy shop) and indicating that he wants to be leader of the free world. The collapse of the economy has brought those intentions to a screaming halt. This presidency cannot be conducted through symbol, gesture and a desire to be the good guy who frees the world of the Bush Doctrine. Domestic affairs will dominate, but foreign affairs are as pressing as ever.

Regardless of who ends up in the SOS seat, the administration is going to have to make some hard decisions about the autonomy of that office. Where is policy actually developed? Who are those actors? Will you have integration or oppositional relations by design (which is different than whether individuals like each other)? I agree with the article that the two most significant cabinet choices are SOS and Sec. Treas. How much will these two coordinate and communicate? To what degree will domestic policy and foreign policy need to work in tandem due to the global nature of the financial crisis? Also, what about the VP? We have been seeing a more activist role for this office since Carter. Where will Biden fit in the overall picture?

Putting the conduct of foreign policy into Hillary's hands could be an extremely bold choice that is in the best interests of the country, even if not in the short-term electoral interests of the individuals involved. With reference to a comment in my earlier post asking about Samantha Powers, the answer is simple - if HRC is the SOS, Powers will get on board and do her job to the best of her considerable abilities or she will leave. That says nothing about Powers individually. It's just how the system works. But that points towards the as-yet-unanswered question of where and how power will be balanced in the administration. A confident executive gets the best, puts them in place, defines the ground rules, and tells people to be smarter and better than the boss in their area of expertise. Do not underestimate the dangers of this power model. The wrong mix of "the best", poor ground rules, bad rule following, titanic ego battles, and people with a great deal of autonomy being flat-out wrong in their judgment will wreck it, just to name a few common problems. Actions to limit risks introduce their own risks of missed opportunities, insecurity about and second-guessing of area leaders, negotiation partners not trusting the authority of who they are dealing with (Can you really promise me X?), and a failure to succeed because of risk avoidance, etc. These are not qualities specific to the SOS appointment, but will accompany any of the cabinet positions and major advisory posts.

Oddly enough, this story has little to do with Hillary and everything to do with Obama.

It is time to commit to a course of action.

Anglachel

Tea Leaves

The media and blogosphere are abuzz with rumors of HRC being considered for Secretary of State. From CNN to Alegre's Corner, there are plenty of perspectives on why this is/isn't a "real" offer, why this is/isn't a good position for Hillary to take, why she should/shouldn't accept this offer if it is actually an offer at at all, and so forth.

Steve Clemons at the Washington Note appears to have some of the most insider information on what facts can be known and offers a few considerations, most of which are simply inside-the-beltway horse race handicapping. He has another post from about a week ago, Who Wasn't On Stage With Obama and Should Have Been?, discussing the participants at Obama's first post-election press conference. There was a post by Lambert day before yesterday, Mysterious spreadsheet lists candidates for appointments in the Obama administration, which presented screen shots of what purported to be an Excel spreadsheet of the short list of Cabinet and other top advisory positions in the administration-to-be. The provenance of this document is unclear and it strikes me that it is more an attempt to influence the final choices than a presentation of those choices.

As far as Hillary and the SOS, if there is any validity to the rumors (and we'll know soon enough), I'm not of any particular opinion as to the outcome. HRC would be a solid choice for SOS, though I suspect there are other people (not many) who are better prepared right now to take over the office. I share Alegre's glee at having HRC's foreign policy chops being recognized by the group that spent so much time dissing her over them, and it's fun to watch the exploding heads. That said, I'm actually disinterested in what Hillary will do in regards to her next career move. She's brilliant, she will work her heart out for the nation, and she has nothing to prove to anyone. Hillary is a known quantity.

What is making me go "Hmm" over the last few days is the cast of characters trotted out in public to measure reactions to potential choices, such as Clemon's wish list, the PDF Lambert referenced, and the Larry Summers death-watch. There was Yves Smith's reaction to Albright and Leach representing Obama at the G20, Bush and Obama Diss the G20 Financial Summit, which made me wonder why Obama would not send a stronger economic advisor presence, though it may simply be a move to have two excellent observors present while staying detached from the Bushies. I got some snarks in last week about the presence of former Clinton administration people on the transition team and being tapped for key positions, mostly to poke a finger in the eye of professional Clinton haters (and, oh boy, but did I get a fine selection of outraged responses - you guys are a riot!), but the on-going news leaves me scratching my head.

Why is there so much indecision about key posts like SOS or Treasury? Throughout the primary campaign and more muted in the general, I remember how the high-brow punditocracy like Clemons was insisting that Obama had this great team on foreign affairs (or the pundit's particular specialty), and they knew the players and they were excited at the potential, etc. I don't think this was BS for the most part, though it may have been wishful thinking. I admit to being surprised at just how heavily the prospective administration is populated by former Clinton people, even if it is just rumors and wish lists. There's a lot spinning going on over the prospective choices as is to be expected, and the people doing this are playing a game I have no part of. When I look at this, even taking into account both the obvious political jockeying and the short duration since the election, what I see is indecision.

Here's a proposition - McCain wasn't the only candidate side-swiped by the abrupt collapse of the economic world. I'm not saying this to be snarky nor am I drawing some kind of equivalence. There are a large number of very smart people who expected a downturn but who didn't anticipate the expanding sinkhole. The recent unemployment numbers are shocking people who have not been wearing rose-colored glasses. People who know what they are talking about are nervous, if not downright afraid, of what they see.

When the economic horizon looked like a another recession, somewhat worse than the downturn after the dot com crash but not as much as the mess of the early 90s, mild and vague policy stances seemed sufficient and blather about bipartisanship could be served up with a straight face. Even now, these nostrums - not so much centrist as inconsequential - are being pushed by Villagers truly too stupid to recognize reality even when it beats them over the top of their perfectly coiffed heads. They are still obsessing about whether the Evil Hillary Mommy Monster will get "rewarded" with a major administration post.

My deepest suspicion is that Obama has just run smack into the realization that events are in the saddle and ride men.

He is now faced with the situation of having spent more than a year cruising along on the demonization of the people who are in possession of the institutional knowledge and practices that will give his administration any hope in Hell of surviving the next four years, which is tantamount to saying the people who give the nation that hope of getting through it. This is bigger than the Clintons themselves; this goes to the entire cadre of top and middle level Clinton appointees and hires who have been treated like shit from the left and the right for nearly a decade, and who Obama himself dismissed throughout his campaign as the old way of thinking. It is irrelevant whether that stance is his true belief or just a campaign posture because it has set up expectations that he will reject them.

This is a problem for him on all fronts because his rejection of the previous administration has resulted in opposition from a significant slice on the left, people he took for granted beacuse they had no where else to go, but whose support he will now need to put through the kinds of programs and policies necesary to deal with the sinkhole. To placate them means pissing off the interests who he pandered to in order to secure the nomination. Rock, meet hard place.

Taking seriously the reasonably dire predictions of thinkers and analysts that we are facing at best severe recession and possibly a full-blown depression, what is needed in the administration are old hands capable of performing new tricks, people with thorough knowledge of the federal bureaucracy and a willingness to turn it upside down, comfortable ignoring the squawks of the Village, the bluster of the Movement Conservatives and the greek chorus of the blogosphere.

Thus, I'm looking at the trial balloons going up and what I see is an attempt to decide who Obama can bring in to do the job that needs doing without creating a backlash from the unstable part of his electoral coalition.

Anglachel

Dignity

The last few days of political news has a familiar ring. From the Villagers outraged at the mere idea of former Clinton administration staff are part of the transition team, to the haughty rejection of Hillary as the leader on health care reform, to the rumors of HRC being considered for Secretary of State, to anti-Hillary sentiment among former Hillary supporters, to confused responses to whether Joe Lieberman should go because he's in bed with the Clintons (ewww, sorry, here's some bleach for your brain to scrub away that image) to whether he should stay because it is brilliant strategy by The Precious, and so forth, what we see is that for all the swooning over Obama, the center of the political universe is still Hillary Clinton.

The Unity Democrats and the newly amenable Village can't figure out what to do about this obstreperous woman. There she goes again, making statements and writing letters without asking permission or waiting for a signal. She won't quit. She is impervious to their childish maneuvers and rude behavior. Every expression of hatred, every act of frustration elicits a bigger smile and greater determination. How can she keep doing this when all the Very Serious People are telling her she is a political dead letter?

Easy. She has won the hearts of millions and has pledged herself to their defense. It is her driving passion. As Time magazine stated, "Clinton returns to Congress as a champion of women and the working class."

Every successful public figure is motivated by a passion for distinction. Call it ambition. It is a political virtue because it drives the actor to accomplish more even when there are no obvious rewards. It is not always a constructive distinction the person seeks, but our best leaders will be more good than bad. They wish to distinguish themselves in admirable ways. Hillary has chosen to distinguish herself by recognizing and honoring the dignity of the people she encounters, giving them the respect that they may not deign to offer her in return. By never failing to respect the dignity of those she met, Hillary maintained her own. There is nothing she has done over this long and dismaying campaign that she needs to be ashamed of, which none of her rivals can say for themselves. Instead, she has shamed them with her persistent, unshakeable dignity. Nothing they did could reduce her to their level.

You cannot intimidate someone who doesn't want what you have to offer or who will not be dismayed over territorial displays and backroom intrigues. Every vindictive claim that has been offered up by right, left and the media about what Hillary will/won't do/say (She'll sabotage! She'll kill him! She won't campaign! She'll backstab! She'll destroy rather than let someone else have it!) have all been exposed for the empty lies they are. Instead, we have been privileged to witness a very rare political phenomenon.

She has offered up herself, her time and her integrity, for the sake of others as they needed her help and even when they did little or nothing to deserve it. Her tireless campaigning on behalf of the party and ideology she believes in is unprecedented in the modern history of the party. Compare her hundreds of campaign appearances since the convention and the hundreds of thousands of dollars in PAC money for other candidates to Bill Bradley, Paul Tsongas, Gary Hart, or Teddy Kennedy in their defeats. Hillary is exactly what she appears to be: a left of center moderate who is completely dedicated to improving the lives of her constituents and people throughout the nation on immediate pocketbook matters - living wages, health care, secure housing and personal dignity.

The distinction between Hillary and the other political actors of this season is that she treats everyone with diginity, even her opponents. Her criticisms are based in policy and practical politics, no matter how The Village mendaciously misconstrued her words. You do not hear her talking down to anyone. She never disparaged any voter who chose another candidate, never told anyone they were not needed, never mocked or ridiculed someone who wasn't part of her tribe.

I would say that her demeanor is true bipartisanship, by the way. She does not talk about Bunkers and Bubbas, demonizing classes of people, but speaks directly to political policies that do not serve us well. It becomes possible, and less daunting, to change political allegiance because it is not you who is under attack or even your beliefs, but support for a particular policy that has failed you. She didn't judge the voters, she judged the politics. This is why voters who were at the margins and who feel endangered were drawn to this leader. She talks in the language of interests and needs, not motivations and morality.

The authoritarians of the left do not like this. As with their conservative counterparts, they are intensely moralistic and judgemental (clinging to God and guns, the white party, bitter knitters, etc.), wanting to divide the political world into the saved and the damned. The need to punish enemies is part of the definition of success. They seek to discipline the souls that make up the body politic, demanding that we love Big Brother and not simply pick a government. You don't want to treat people with dignity in such a case, you want them to look upon you with awe.

I fully expect that Hillary will do things and support measures I do not like, which only goes to show that she is not me and that I should not confuse my will with the good of the nation. I trust her to be consistent and steadfast in her defense of human dignity, which is the human face of human rights. If you cannot see an opponent as a being to be treated with dignity (even as you vote them out of office), then what is to say you will be able to see anyone in such a light? This may not be Joan Didion's unexpressable uneasiness, but it is a great deal of my own.

So, a year on, this is why my respect for the lady in the pantsuit has increased. I expect the trend to continue.

Anglachel

You First

This is the second part of my take on the "call to service" hooey being served up the Obama-Biden transition site. The problem is defined this way:

The Problem
Americans Not Asked to Serve After 9/11: President Bush squandered an opportunity to mobilize the American people following 9/11 when he asked Americans only to go shopping.

Insufficient Federal Support for Service: While more than 500,000 people have served in AmeriCorps, the program turns away tens of thousands of applicants a year because of limited funding.

Need for More R&D in Nonprofit Sector: Research and development in the nonprofit sector is limited and there is a disconnect between charitable foundations that can fund innovation and the organizations on the ground that can test new concepts and bring them to scale.

I'm honestly not sure why the third item is on this list. Nonprofit =/= volunteer. Nonprofit organizations can be serious money makers. I work for one myself and, trust me, I am no volunteer. I am paid an industry competitive salary and have a benefits package better than most. All of the excess income brought in by my organization is ploughed right back into the community. I am 100% behind beefing up nonprofits to do things like research, especially if the fruits of the research can then be provided to the public without having to make a profit from it. However, what I know from working with nonprofits is how they can be used to unfairly enrich some top executives and not actually provide much benefit. In any event, this doesn't belong on the Service page.

The middle item, expanding the funding for AmeriCorps, is a valid goal, though there is also a need to create a new CCC, paying people to perform needed work rather than asking for them to both volunteer and support themselves. We need fiscal stimulus at the individual level through creation of jobs that will keep local economies moving but which can be allowed to vanish or be converted to a more permanent position once the economy picks up.

One of the reasons why volunteerism is promoted by conservatives is because it prevents the establishment of government agencies and employment positions that people will get to like, especially if they involve job security and are open to social outsiders. The goods and resources provided by a volunteer group are not things the recipient has a right to - it's charity, not benefits, and can be offered with many strings attached or withdrawn abruptly and with no recourse. It makes the recipients into beggars, at base, dependent on the generosity and attention span of their socio-economic betters. This is why volunteerism is something that must enhance, not replace, state supported social services.

The first statement, however, is what leads off the plea for service, figured as some kind of sacrifice due for our supposed failure to serve after 9/11. Bush did not ask us, so we didn't bother is the message, so now the Good Fathers (not the Prodigal Son) will take us to task and have us make amends for our neglect of the Beloved Community.

To which I say, you first, Bub.

Pray tell, what sacrifice is due from the people of this country? What great bounty has the average American reaped under Bush?

It is not Madge the manicurist and Serena the student who owe America a sacrifice. Joe the janitor and Carlos the car mechanic have been working their asses off the last 8 years trying to make ends meet, or haven't you noticed? Antoine the hair stylist has struggled to keep his salon open and his staff employed, while Chris the window repair gal has been sub-contracting a bunch of her jobs to friends who are down on their luck, not keeping a dime for herself. Unemployment is on the rise and estimates of how high it will be are approaching double digits. The percentage increases the further down the ladder you go and we aren't even touching on underemployment.

Why should the blue and pink collar workers, the students and new graduates, the low-level denizens of cubicle cities sacrifice their second job or time with their children or just the opportunity to take a day off for the sake of restoring an economy and society laid waste by the money men and corporate cronies, by the worst president ever and his criminal administration, by a rapacious and ruthless political oligarchy still more interested in defending the golden parachutes of Goldman Sachs than the stagnant wages of Rosie the Riveter?

I think those who got to party are the ones who should pay the bill. It is the people at the very top of the socio-economic food and political chain who are due for some sacrifice. Like 50%, 60%, 70% marginal tax rates. Like lower profits for shareholders. Like seeing some jail time for war crimes.

I think the people who benefitted from the international and domestic misery inflicted by Bush & Co need to lead by example and endure some sacrifices. How about they have to put in a few hundred hours of community service? How about having the senior executives of AIG go to the public schools in New York and do some painting and window washing for a few months? How about we send Bush's failed agency heads into the Lower 9th Ward to fix things, mow lawns and run errands for the residents in atonement for having allowed so many to die? That's assuming the residents would allow that pack of thieves and thugs into their neighborhood, of course. Don't want to give up your free time? OK, fine, then you can pay through the nose for each hour you want exempted. From your own pocket. And no tax breaks on it or charging it off to the company.

Ordinary Americans will volunteer their time in their communities as they always have, tutoring kids at school, organizing local amateur sports, improving neighborhoods, caring for the elderly, donating a few extra dollars to a worthy cause. They owe the nation nothing. Before we start guilt tripping the people who are going to be hard pressed to make ends meet in the next few years to relinquish yet more of their lives, it is time that the people who created the mess feel a good measure of the pain they are causing for the rest.

You go first. We insist.

Anglachel

Effective Democratic Government

We're laughing our asses off around Casa Anglachel after reading this article: Several Early Choices Have Clinton Pedigree:

Barack Obama argued for months that victory for his opponent would be akin to a third term for President Bush. But as he embarks on his own presidency, Mr. Obama faces the challenge of building an administration that does not look like a third term for former President Bill Clinton.

Obama has never had to do anything in his public life except run for election. He has no background in administration and no team of people who can help him with that. He's got a bunch of intellectuals and talking-head courtiers surrounding him, plus the second tier losers from the Clinton administration who all wanted to get back at people who weren't nice to them last time. Guess what?

But this is only the beginning of a delicate balancing act for Mr. Obama: between bringing a new generation of leadership to Washington as a signal of his commitment to his pledge to change politics, and recruiting, at a time of intense economic and national security challenges, from the biggest pool of Democrats with national executive branch experience. ...

As he looks to build a presidency from scratch, Mr. Obama recognizes that he needs at least some of the expertise of the Clinton circles, advisers said. Most telling was his decision even before the election to tap Mr. Podesta, founder and president of the Center for American Progress, a Washington group widely viewed as Mrs. Clinton’s government-in-waiting until she lost.

Mr. Podesta put together an extensive team to plan for a possible Obama transition; not counting Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s representatives, all 10 members of the advisory board served in the Clinton administration. Still, some of them held relatively low-level positions in the Clinton era and were not identified so personally with the former president. And now Mr. Podesta is being joined by two co-chairmen, Valerie Jarrett and Pete Rouse, who are both close to Mr. Obama.

All the blogospheric people who have made an industry out of Clinton bashing and demonizing Bill's administration while refusing to hold anyone else accountable and who have been at the forefront of proclaiming what incredible change The Precious will bring to Washington are now having to deal with the very basic fact that the new preznit won't be able to do jack shit without using the people Left Blogistan loves to hate.

It's only The Village and the self-appointed "experts" (often members of the media or else Ivory Tower academics, all of them the worst kind of Stevensonians) of Left Blogistan who hate Clinton and Gore (and for pretty much the same reasons - their joint fantasy that they are opposing white trash racists) and who insist the Clinton administration was a failure. The rest of us can see that it held the line against the Movement Conservatives and would have done more save for the backstabbing of a complacent Congress. We can rationally criticize Clinton's administration without falling prey to CDS, which is why we can both be pleased to see some real policy wonks may be running the show and mock the Obamacans for having to confront the vacuity of their preferred candidate's political vision.

Big Dog's speech at the convention, the speech that actually defined the Democratic agenda according to a coherent, humane, and actionable ideology, remains the touch stone for what Democrats need to do to become the preferred choice for government, not just a way to reject the Movement Conservatives. The way to do that is not by hoping for change, but by getting over the internal culture wars of the party, rejecting the CDS of the Left as well as the Right, and building on the foundation that has already been laid.

Those of us who already started the change 16 years ago are waiting for the rest of you to catch up. We are the change you have been waiting for.

Anglachel

Senate Races

Updated 11/6 7:38 PST: Merkley is going to win the Oregon Senate seat, as I predicted below. He is more than 36,000 votes ahead and his major counties are still not done being counted. This gives us 57 seats.

Georgia has not been called for Chambliss because he has not yet won 50% of the vote. If he fails to get that amount, there will be a runoff election between him and Jim Martin. Sadly, the third party candidate was a libertarian and so his portion of the vote will probably go to Chambliss, the scum bag who painted Max Cleland as some kind of traitor and terrorist sympathizer. This was one seat I wanted the Dems to pick up if only to balance out the karmic scales. What I do notice by drilling down into the county level data is that a number of the counties where Martin did well have not yet had all precincts report in, so his numbers may grow a little. In any event, if there is a runoff, all the Democratic powers that be had better get their butts down to Georgia to stump for Martin and try to turn the race. It's not often that you get a second chance.

North Carolina was a delightful win and both removes a total loser of a Republican and puts another Democratic woman into the Senate. More like this, please. It is particularly wonderful that the seat she won was previously held by Jesse Helms.

New Hampshire gave us Jeanne Shaheen and removed John Sununu. Another excellent exchange.

Oregon is a nailbiter to be sure, but Merkley may just pull it out. The chief reasons are Washington County with 22% of precincts still to report and a large population, Multnomah County, the most populous county in the state and 52% of its precincts still to report plus it is going for Merkley 2-1, and Lane County, home to Eugene, very populous, going strongly for Merkley, and has 55% of its precincts still to report. There are a lot of Merkley votes out there that haven't been counted yet.

The Udalls will be a solid addition to the Senate, particularly for environmental concerns.

Alaska is still not decided. There is only a 3353 vote margin betwwen Begich and Stevens, and if the outstanding precincts are Democratic ones, we may squeak this one out.

I've always regarded the Minnesota senate race as a joke all the way around (and not a particularly funny one), so I am unsurprised to see Franken coming up short. A recount may flip things our way, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Five more seats for 56 in January and three more that are possibilities that could bring us to 59. I think our best chance there is Oregon. The run-off in Georgia would be a dream if we could pull it off, so no reason not to take a bunch of money from war chests (hint, hint) and throw it into that contest. If we could take all four, that's 60, and we don't have to count Lieberman.

First off, we need to make the filibuster as onerous as humanly possible for the Republicans to uphold. No more gentlemen's agreement that we fold in the face of a possibility of a filibuster. Make the bastards sit their butts on the floor of the Seante and talk until they drop.

Next, start lining up the battles for 2010. It's going to take 2 years to get serious legislation written and vetted anyway, like Hillary's UHC, so plan to bring the big ones to the floor with the next Congress. Who to target?

• AZ - McCain. I've never much liked the guy and it's time for him to retire.
• FL - Mel Martinez. Make him work to defend it.
• GA - If Chambliss is vulnerable, so is Isakson.
• IA - Chuck Grassley. Better yet, appoint him to the cabinet, and let the Democratic governor appoint a Democrat to replace him. Then fire him.
• KY - Jim Bunning. We came very close to defeating Mitch McConnell this year. Let's keep pushing our luck.
• NH - Judd Gregg. Is there another high profile Democrat in NH who could be enlisted to do a Seante run? Let's turn New England blue.
• OH - Voinovich. Ohio is turning blue. Keep the trend going.
• PA - Arlen Specter. He'd be turning 80 and might like the idea of retirement. Let's encourage that thought

The danger is that some of our senators are going to be targeted as well. Schwartzenegger is term limited out as the Governator in CA and makes no secret that he wants to take away Boxer's seat. Blanche Lincoln will be targeted in Arkansas. Inouye and Byrd are no spring chickens, and we may be having to fill seats.

The Republicans have not had a filibuster-proof Senate majority since 1909, and yet Democrats have allowed them to run things like they have a super-majority. There is no excuse for not not putting forward the most ambitious agendas and daring them to stand in the way.

Act like a majority for once, OK?

Anglachel

House Majority

There are a few races still to be decided. Two won't be held until December. Both of those are in Louisiana and both favor Democrats. Two have the Democrat with the lead (MD 01, VA 05), and three have the Republican with a lead (AK 01, CA 04, WA 08).

The NYT says we now have 254 seats, the Republicans have 174, and the seven undecideds are probably going to go 4 to the Dems, 2 to the Reps, and one true toss-up (WA 08), so we can count on 258 seats and we might get 259.

How does that compare to past Congresses? Let's look at when the Dems had at least 250 House members:

313 - 73rd - FDR
322 - 74th - FDR
333 - 75th - FDR
262 - 76th - FDR
267 - 77th - FDR
263 - 81st - Truman
283 - 86th - Eisenhower
262 - 87th - JFK
258 - 88th - LBJ
295 - 89th - LBJ
255 - 92nd - Nixon
291 - 94th - Ford
292 - 95th - Carter
277 - 96th - Carter
269 - 98th - Reagan
253 - 99th - Reagan
258 - 100th - Reagan
260 - 101st - Bush
267 - 102nd - Bush
258 - 103rd - Clinton

I've highlighted where the Congress was within 4 people of 258. Hmm. Quite a history there. There were the amazing super majorities of the New Deal era (over 300), a big spike at the end of Eisenhower, another big spike under LBJ and the Great Society, and a final big spike after Nixon. The Republicans have not commanded even this many members since Herbert Hoover, and look at what they have shoved through with much smaller majorities.

What this says to me is that there is a large enough majority in the House to push the agenda firmly left if the members have the will power to do it.

Anglachel

Private Matters

Some of my readers (and not just the published commenters) seem confused by discussion of public, private and the excusable when analyzing misogyny.

Right on cue, the AP reports today about a pair of white supremacists who intended to murder African American students and also try to kill Obama. The media frenzy is about the stated threat to Obama, while Damon on Corrente goes to the real problem, which is that the plot to murder people on account of race was the primary motivation: "To me, the main part of the story is the murderous rampage planned against a bunch of innocents folks based on nothing other than their color".

I'm going to focus on the planned school attacks not to minimize what the perpetrators wanted to do, but to emphasize a point I have been making about the privatized nature of misogyny compared to racism. As an aside to the total nut cases who have been innundating my comments and email: A) discussing the lack of attention given to misogyny in no way minimizes racist violence and B) providing a critical view of racism alongside of a critical view of misogyny is not excusing race-baiting against HRC during the primaries, or to minimize the misogynystic attacks on her or Gov. Palin. Smarter trolls, please.

What I want to point to first is the very serious and responsible actions of the ATF to the plot. That these racists did not appear capable of actually carrying out the full horrors of their plot against their initial targets (they evidently confessed to having fired at least one gun at an unoccupied AA church in the recent past) is not much of a concern - to have caused injury well short of death to a single person is reason for revulsion and condemnation. We look at it and can agree without equivocation that this plan was racist and inexcusable. Unlike the two school attacks, on the Amish school and on the Colorado high school, I have referenced before there is no doubt that these men were singling out a class of people without regard to anything specific to those people except a demographic marker - race. We are not confused by any personal histories of the would-be murderers or particularly interested in their motivations. We can see bigotry based on a class in a way we can't or won't see it when groups of women are murdered, or even threatened with violence short of murder.

There is another quality to the foiled plot that needs attention. Racial violence is conducted publically and (though not clearly present in this example) institutionally with state-controlled means of violence and coercion. Strangers seek out racial groups for assault and murder. Institutionally, we see patterns of actions that disproportionately punish non-white groups - "driving while black", the staggering incarceration rate of young black men, the different penalties handed out to different drug users, and so forth. This is violence inflicted in the street and with an audience.

As discussed in the previous posts, violence against women is disproportionately a crime performed within a private space - a home, a car in a secluded place, a locked dorm room, a professional office. The assailants are not usually strangers to us, but family members and friends. The privacy makes it difficult to measure the scope and scale, easy to reduce it to expressions of antipathy between particular individuals or of the psychopathy of the assailant, and extremely difficult to prosecute because of the intimacy and dependence between the assailant and the victim. The institutions of civil society, divided into feminine and masculine space, home and work, emotion and economics, provide constant, unmonitored, unremarkable access to the subjugated class.

This has also been the condition of racial violence in this country, of course, where slaveholders claimed to be acting as paternal authorities over the people attached (willingly or not) to their household. It was the physical and sexual subjugation of people who could not escape and who were, as time and generations went by, the kin of the abusers. America's apartheid, Jim Crow, was defended on the grounds that it was a private matter that outsiders should not interfere with, the paternalistic, patriarchal model of violent control extended to the community. It lingers on in arguments about "state's rights" or the power to systematically treat classes of people as the proper subjects of private violence and coercion.

Another aspect of the public/private which is counter intuitive is that misogyny does not need to hide itself in public, which is why I call it excusable. It is permissable to describe women as their body parts, to have magazines dedicated to demeaning sexualized portrayals of women, to harass, to graphically describe the sexual violence you want to inflict on a particular female as punishment for some real or imagined failing of hers, etc. We can talk violently and derogatorily about women in public venues in every corner of this country, in every socio-economic group, in every place of discourse from high brow to the gutter in a way that is not acceptable to speak about racial and ethnic groups. Ironically enough, to the degree that Obama was unfairly treated by The Village, the language used sought to feminize him, to make him appear weak, unmasculine, vain, girly, "Obambi" in Maureen Dowd's all-too self-revealing terminology. The worst thing she could think to call him was a girl.

To the degree that the society accepts as normal the use of private violence and coercion against a class of people, you will see public expressions of that violence tolerated, even promulgated, without irony or shame. Olbermann can trash women as such, something that the Incomparable Bob Somerby has noticed about Olbermann in the past.

Two of my favorite bloggers also bring up the public/private split in recent posts, one on race and another on gender disparity in pay. French Doc of The Global Sociology Blog posted a cartoon "Of The Invisibility of Social Privilege and Institutional Racism" that could just as easily be used to describe male privilege. She notes:

This should be mandatory material for any introduction to sociology course to explain the simple yet often hard to understand for our students fact that we do not all experience the social structure and interact with its social institutions in a similar fashion. ...

Moreover, social disadvantages and privileges are invisible, especially for the dominant categories (and sometimes even to the disadvantaged who might buy into the dominant ideology). That society is overall experienced as more structurally and interpersonally violent for the disadvantaged is a greatly under-discussed social fact that contributes to the reproduction of these forms of violence.

The violence against women is reinforced by structures of habitation and the acceptance of a level of violent language and imagery that would be unsustainable for any other class of people. Ann of Historiann has a post Who’s your daddy? that looks at the pay disparity in law firms, and that women are consistently paid less, even when they are married and have children and, at least objectively, have as great a need to provide economic support to their household. Married women with children earn the least, which is another informal structure of society that makes them vulnerable to coersion and violence in the home - low pay and pressure to not work increases vulnerability and also increases the relative advantage of all males, not just those who woud use violence. To my mind, the increasing reluctance of the men on the Left to spend political capital fighting for contraceptive rights has a great deal to do with wanting to reduce the competition. If I'm smart enough to get this connection, so are they.

Back in my grad school days in NYC, the spousal unit and I lived in a walkup in Little Italy. In the apartment above us was a couple who argued and scuffled. The woman was good friends with another woman on our floor. One night, we were brought bolt awake by the sound of the upstairs woman screaming and of things crashing. We scrambled to pull on our clothes, and the SU tried to find a stick or club. The woman downstairs was calling the cops and screaming up the stairwell for the guy to stop beating the other woman. The upstairs apartment door crashed open (big, heavy metal doors) and the woman being attacked ran downstairs to her friend's apartment, slamming the door shut before the boyfriend could get her. He spent the next 15 minutes pounding on the door screaming at them both. The cops showed up and did the arrest just outside our door. After the Miranda Rights, it kinda went like this:

COP: (Conversational, almost cheerful tone) So, why'd ya go beatin' your girl?

BF: (slurred voice) I din't!

COP: But she said ya did. Look, that's blood there. Need a closer look? (sounds of scuffle)

BF: I din't do nuthin'!

COP: Ya broke her nose, asshole.

BF: I din't hurt her!

COP: Ya didn't hurt her, huh? Well, tell ya what. How's about I take this here flashlight an' I smash in your nose? Whadda ya tink? Tink it would hurt?

Ah, rhetorical questions from New York's Finest. They dragged the guy off about then so we didn't get to find out of the boyfriend took the cop up on the offer. Two things have stayed with me about the exchange. First is the cop, who obviously didn't like this abuser, discussing the woman as a belonging and in a diminutive - your girl. The second is the insistence by the guy that he had not done anything, he had not inflicted harm. I think he meant it, that he didn't think what he had done to her constituted harm. Actually, there was a third thing I remember. It is Franca, the maintenance woman, on her knees on the stone steps the next day, scrubbing away the blood. It was spattered on the walls, the stairs and the floor.

Domestic violence, the systematic infliction of violence and threats of violence on household members, may be privatized, but it is not private, which is to say that it is not simply an altercation between two individuals but is a relationship of power that the society chooses to maintain as normal, natural, and outside anyone's ability to address because it's a "family matter". Just like chattel slavery used to be. Violent acts are performed by a significant minority of men for the simple reason that they know they will probably get away with it, but those acts in turn take place in a milieu where contemptuous degradation of women is as common as the nearest Hooters restaurant or the pharmacist who won't fill birth control prescriptions. Why wouldn't they think they can get away with it when the majority of men give no indication that they have any interest in changing the terms of the interactions?

I'm back to my original question to the men - who are you? Don't bother to tell me about what a great guy you are or how offended you are that I would compare you to those bastards who beat and rape. Anyone can appear sincere online. Since I don't know any of you in person, I have no way to know whether your words and your deeds coincide. Only you know if you are making excuses for not standing up and excercising the 1st Amendmant rights you hold so sacred for those who want to spew murderous misogynystic crap, and doing so on behalf of those who have to live on the receiving end of that violence. A system that promulgates misogyny also keeps intact the structures that engender classicm, racism and homophobia.

You can excuse yourself, or you can do the right thing.

Anglachel

PS - I look up from my blogging and see this posted by Echidne, Modern Day Sex Slavery. Someone is buying the use of these children, in enough volume that it is worth risking arrest to run these operations. I read this post and all I want to know is who is visiting these brothels and handing over dough to fuck barely pubescent girls?

It's the Democrats' Shitpile Now

The Democrats have taken on Paulson's plan as their own. Unlike Paul Krugman, I do not seeing any meaningful revisions being made to the plan when January rolls around. I do see Paulson trying to spend every last penny of the Treasury on his Wall Street buddies before December 31. I also forsee Obama keeping Paulson on for at least a year to "ensure continuity during the transition" (i.e., as a favor to the Wall Street firms backing Obama now so they can drain the public coffers as long as possible).

It is more than the Wall Street blow job. It is that Obama has not evinced a single sign that he wants to be a Democrat, that he believes in Democratic (or even democratic - see "FISA, voting for") principles, or that he intends to use the Oval Office for anything except running for Preznit again in 2012. His foreign policy plans, as far as there are any, seem to be focused on holding his own glorious little war with Pakistan, based out of Afghanistan. Europe is expected to go along because they have already declared him their choice for Preznit of the World.

The choice on November 4 is between two versions of Republican policy - the thoroughly odious vs. the batshit insane. Obama will always move to the right when faced with opposition, and the Village (and the Blogger Boyz) will cheer wildly, applauding his statesmanlike gravitas and his savvy positioning to set up a greater victory down the game tree. Oh, and the bipartisan unity. Can't forget that.

But what we will have from the Right is anything but unity. They will happily hand over the bankrupt and beggared nation to their opponents and spend the next four years screaming about how this is all the fault of the Democrats who over-regulated the markets while under-regulating government agencies, who have gutted the military and aren't sufficiently strong against the militant jihadism, and who are trying to force their heathenish, immoral values like gay marriage and birth control onto good upstanding citizens.

It will be culture wars layered on top of economic devastation, fought out between the economic and social philosophies of the Right, but blamed on the Left when none of it works.

Anglachel

Somerby on Nominal Allies

I am working on a big post and don't have anything to add to the general furor over the Hanky Panky. Instead, here is Bob Somerby on Atrios (Duncan Black) changing his reporting on the first preseidential debate to fit the media narrative, my emphais:

One last point about “nominal allies,” for whose likely decency Atrios thoughtfully vouches.

Starting in the summer of 2002, we began to express an unfortunate theme, one we had only begun to ponder: We began suggesting to readers that their nominal allies are often not actual allies. (We tepidly mentioned E. J. Dionne first.) This takes us back to a political era which may now be nearing an end, as American institutions disintegrate. But looking ahead to what may become a vastly changed political landscape, we’ll suggest to readers that the growing inanity of the liberal web makes that entity no ally either. Increasingly, the liberal web is written by and for fly-weights. You’re handed silly, childish tales—silly tales that will make you feel good.

You’re told that you play on a team called The Shirts—and that The Shirts are very good people. You’re told about the vile team called The Skins—and you’re handed endless proof of their troubling ways. Just yesterday, the Post’s Shankar Vedantam did a nice job describing the general way this process works, as he has done many times in the past. (His weekly pieces are true must-reads.) But increasingly, the liberal web is written for rubes. People like Atrios serve you crap sandwiches, assuming you’ll wolf them straight down.

Unfair to Atrios? To tell the truth, we can’t exactly say. But again, just click here to read that third post, the one about the way McCain was treating Obama “on a par with dog shit.” Do you really believe that Atrios thought that? Or was he just serving another thick sandwich—scripting you with the words you should say? Trust us: If you believe he really thought that, there will be many fine meals ahead. For ourselves, we can’t help wondering if the Three Tenors didn’t all learn a catchy new tune.

Their outrage was stirring—by Saturday noon. In real time, it seemed oddly muted.

Nominal versus actual allies. I think this really sums up the way Left Blogistan has been going, PB 2.0 as much as PB 1.0. Perhaps it s an unavoidable outcome of an environment in which partisanship is the ground for all subsequent discussion. Bob Somerby has no respect, let alone love, for John McCain, so his criticism of Duncan's change of story has to do with the integrity of the reporting, particularly reporting that is done in real time and with a wide audience.

Somerby has always and only been concerned with one thing - the lies of the media that serve to defend the debasement and dismantling of our institutions. It is truthiness that has become the lasting institution. Women have certainly found out that unless they embrace the "Bros before Hos" ethos, our presumed allies on the left are nominal, not actual. The Paulson bill gave us another view on this, with a horrifically fascinating mix of reasons for casting this or that vote, all claiming to be in the service of the ordinary citizen.

We need to learn how to pick our allies.

Anglachel

Downticket

I can't offer any better thinking about the economics side of the Hanky Panky than can be had on Calculated Risk, Krugman, RGE Monitor (Roubini), Interfluidity, naked capitalism and Angry Bear (just to name my favorites), so I won't try. Also, the crew at Corrente is keeping the political commentary coming fast and furious, so pop on over for a smorgasbord of write ups.

In most cases, these various analyses tend to focus on the leadership and their machinations. I want to look a little more closely at the rank and file of the House and what the vote there may indicate.

I've been studying the interactive map at the New York Times, counting up not just how many votes were cast by which party members, but also at geographic distribution. After all, November is not a national election day. It is a day of elections across the nation. Variations between states and regions of states matters.

First let's start with the observation that 19 seats is what the Republicans need to gain to take back the House. As noted by Lambert, there are 31 contested seats in the House this year (not all held by Democrats, of course) and this vote was pretty damn important to the millions of extremely engaged citizens keeping tabs of on the proceedings. There were a truckload of nervous Congress critters on both sides of the aisle this morning.

I took numbers off the NYT map (and I'm having a little problem getting my numbers to add up exactly from the map count. I have one too many Dem yes votes, 2 too few Rep yes votes, 1 too few Dem no votes and one too many Rep no votes) to look at the information from various perspectives.

Of the four regions, only the Northeast (CT, DE, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VT) with 72% of their representatives being Democratic voted more than 50% for the measure, voting 65% yes and 35% no (I'm rounding).

The table shows the % of representative by regions by party affilaition, the total percentage of yes and no votes for that region, then the percent of each party what voted yes or no.

Region	Dem	Rep	Yes	No	%Dem Yes	%Dem No	%Rep Yes	%Rep No
Northeast	75%	25%	65%	35%	73%	27%	43%	57%
South	42%	58%	41%	59%	60%	40%	27%	73%
Midwest	50%	50%	43%	57%	57%	43%	28%	72%
West	58%	42%	44%	56%	47%	53%	39%	61%

The Northeast Democrats held their percentages best with the least vote defections. This makes sense given the dominance of the New York delegation. What is perhaps suprising given the hatred the Unity Democrats have for Southerners, the Southern Democratic delegation held its numbers next highest, though 13% below the Northeast delegation. In the Midwest, the Democrats saw a greater decline among their numbers compared to the South than did the Republicans. This says to me that Democratic support in the Midwest is softer than support in the South, and representatives feel a greater need to cater to constituents than do Southern representatives. The shocking defections were in the West, where Republican opposition was only a few percentages higher than in the Northeast, while Democratic defections were 26% higher than their Northeastern counterparts. The majority of Western Democratic representatives voted against the measure.

The take away from this data for me is that Democrats in the Midwest and West are vulnerable and feel a need to shore up support. Any perusal of the comment threads on econoblogs show a significant percentage of posters declaring that they will vote against critters who voted "Yes". As I pointed out in the debate post a few days ago, these are mostly Independent white male voters, the kind who are supposed to provide the margin of victory in elections.

What this tells me is that the Democratic leadership is risking losing their majority in the House by forcing such an unpopular and incendiary measure to a vote 5 weeks before the election. The bill will be kept in the public eye with votes for at least another week, and it will be the single most salient issue in the final campaign push nationwide. People are very aware of the connection between the big banks and the foreclosure epidemic. In San Diego, foreclosures and short sales dominate the housing market. The rental market is also affected as landlords lose the houses to foreclosures and renters face a contracting pool of available units. The mortgage meltdown is real, is hurting a lot of people who are not necessarily home owners (anybody whose income depended on home sales), and is going to motivate voters more than culture clash issues.

Simply put, when I'm going broke, I don't like the people who ripped me off to get bailed out.

If the Harry and Barney and Hank and Nancy movie insists on forcing senators to cast a vote on this bill, they are asking for trouble. A "Yes" vote by a Senator facing an election might cause a voter backlash. A "No" vote is a no confidence vote against the leadership, though it might please constituents. A "No" vote for a Republican in a contested seat is a no-brainer - there is virtually no downside and a potentially huge upside if it can garner them just a few percentage points at the polls. What Lambert calls a vacuum at the top is actually some fairly cagey behavior by The Precious to kiss his Wall Street patrons' collective ass by handing them bags of money but be able to claim plausible deniability for the shit sandwich being prepared in the Congressional dining hall. The Democratic leadership is firmly behind Hank Paulson (Bush is a complete non-entity at this point) and the question is how to create a bill with enough lettuce and tomato between the bread and the shit that enough Democrats can be convinced that "organic" is good for them (Yay Whole Foods Nation!); much better to buy prepackaged than to try to assemble the meal themselves in such a short period of time.

Then there is this conference call between Treasury and Wall Street types that the great unwashed was not supposed to hear about. It pretty much confirms that the concessions "won" by the leadership are intentionally toothless, mere formalitieis to manuever around. What happens to candidates who have voted "Yes" based on leadership assurances and then find out it was all a farce and it is just as much a power grab as it was before? Paul Krugman may be assured that Obama will benefit at McCain's exspence with the crisis, but what if the bullshit and kissing up cost the Dems their control of Congress? What policies can we expect to see in that case? Is Mr. Bipartisan going to cave to the High Borderists and give in on more deals, sucha s keeping Hank around to "transition" the job?

It is more than the Republicans playing Lucy and yanking away the football from the hapless Democrats. It is that the Democratic leadership has willingly walked into a situation where cooperation means cooptation and where the populace is united in opposition to the proposed plan. They have cavalierly placed their downticket people at risk to avoid offending the Village rather than driving a real bargain (including delay of everything possbile until Hank has cleaned out his desk and departed in January) that would rebound to the Dems election efforts. Oh, and actually do some good for us peons.

The irony that the Dem majority may be maintained because of the recalcitrance of some whacko Republicans would be funny if it were not such an indictment of the ineffective and demoralizing behavior of our so-called leadership, right up to the guy at the top who doesn't even want to be a Democrat.

Anglachel

Prophylactic Measures

Slowly recovering from whatever has been dogging me the last few days and no longer feel so wrung out. I've been doing small chores all day, and reading over the econoblogs when I need to sit and recover.

There appears to be a consensus among the economists - the Hanky Panky is the financial equivalent of unsafe sex, indiscriminantly spreading way too many vital fluids with no way to track what was inserted where and with what devices. The only certainty is that the taxpayer is going to be thoroughly screwed, and not in a good way.

The divergence (and there's not much) is what is the best response to corral the public health threat. There is general consensus that there is no way to actually keep Hank from screwing around until he can be removed from the street corner he's working. At best, we need to insist that he wear a condom to keep the worst of the Hanky Panky contained, which means oversight. He hates it, it cramps his style, some customers won't agree to the terms, it reduces the sensations they feel and doesn't give them the satisfaction they crave.

After that, there seems to be another consensus - not much we can do until Bush is out of office. Until the madame running the operation is finally hauled off, we're stuck with the situation.

Krugman: On the other hand, there’s no prospect of enacting an actually good plan any time soon. Bush is still sitting in the White House; and anyway, selling voters on large-scale stock purchases would be tough, especially given the cynical attacks sure to come from the right. And the financial crisis is all too real.

Stiglitz: No one expects [Congressional Dems] to address the underlying causes of the problem: the spirit of excessive deregulation that the Bush Administration so promoted. Almost surely, there will be plenty of work to be done by the next president and the next Congress. It would be better if we got it right the first time, but that is expecting too much of this president and his administration.

There is also agreement that some actual treatment of the disease itself in the customers must be undertaken in the form of equity shares, kind of like penicillin to treat the clap, in the hopes of correcting the undercapitalization of the market. The big problem here is that the Hanky Panky is not really interested in changing the terms of the transaction, just getting somebody else to front the money and then take it up the, well, orifice of your choice, almost like asking new hookers to pay the customers for the honor of servicing their diseased and insatiable forms.

The trouble here is that whether the plan is passed in its current form (unlikely) or with a lot of lipstick, a new set of fishnets and a pocket full of Trojans (more likely), or even with a public health worker standing there, not passing judgment but saying you have to swallow the pill before you get the Panky (not gunna happen), the business is left intact, without fundamental modifications and with the restrictions all on the Treasury side.

That is what gets passed down to the next administration. What guarantees do we have from either side that they won't be perfectly happy to let the business go on as it has, with the taxpayer constantly on the hook for buying the latest social disease and curing it? What happens to the idea that we need to build a public health clinic, have better job opportunities so people are not left gambling their long-term safety in this market, and so forth? We're already hearing Unity Dems saying we can kiss pretty much the entire social safety net good-bye because we have to bail out Wall Street.

What we need Democrats to commit to is radical restructuring of the terms of the power relationship, so the public is no longer being prostituted by the government for the sake of the corporate johns.

Anglachel

And Promises to Keep

While the Congressional Democrats all seem to be doing the Hanky Panky (which is much like doing the Hokey Pokey, except using the arms and legs of tax payers instead of your own), Hillary continues the themes and promises of her primary campaign. The article in the Wall Street Journal echoes much of what we saw in her Senate speeches of September 18 and September 19, distilling and strengthening what she has been saying for months.

It is Hillary's insistance that, whatever we must do to handle the demands of the moment, we need to radically reconceptualize exactly what the nation is facing:

This is not just a financial crisis; it's an economic crisis. Therefore, the solutions we pursue cannot simply stabilize the markets. We must also deal with the interconnected economic challenges that set the stage for this crisis -- and reverse the failed policies that allowed a potential crisis to become a real one

The failure is not some accident of market forces or a weird alignment of the planets. It is the direct result of deliberate policies that are wrong because they have led us to this end. Then she presents a decent argument for bipartisanship:

The time for ideological, partisan arguments against these actions is over. For years, the calls to provide borrowers an affordable opportunity to avoid foreclosure as a means of preventing wider turmoil were dismissed as government intrusion into the private marketplace. My proposals over the past two years were derided as too much, too soon. Now we are forced to reckon with too little, too late.

We did it your way and your way failed. Now you get to do it our way. You can stop your ideological partisanship that has brought us to this pass. You can abandon your failed policies and deal with the dact that there's a new game in town. Or you can be shut out. I was right, you were wrong. Suck it up and deal.

So, what's wrong? Here is a nice, easy to understand explanation of the economic problem caused by the political policies, and just why the Hanky Panky is not going to fly politically:

As a result, the home-mortgage crisis slowly eroded the value of debt instruments upon which Wall Street firms were depending. That is how this house of borrowed cards began to fall. If we do not take action to address the crisis facing borrowers, we'll never solve the crisis facing lenders. These problems go hand in hand. And if we are going to take on the mortgage debt of storied Wall Street giants, we ought to extend the same help to struggling, middle-class families.

Share and share alike. There is going to be pain, and it is going to be shared, one way or the other. Main Street is in for a world of pain as it is, but Wall Street can share that burden and make it less, or else Wall Street can feel the full pain of its own failure. It all comes down to what is equitable:

Second, American taxpayers should have a voice and a stake in the resolution of this market crisis. If the Treasury proposal is enacted in its current form, the American government would assume enough financial risk to become the majority shareholder in the companies rescued by taxpayer dollars.

The American people are bearing the risk and therefore deserve to reap the rewards of a shared equity model. And mortgage securities bought by taxpayers must be valued accurately at prices disclosed in real time, with checks and reporting requirements to prevent abuse.

For risk, there must be rewards. Isn't that what is said everytime the right screams about the foul crime of taxing the rich? We can't penalize the risk takers! OK, then, that will hold for all risk takers, not just the insiders.

To do this means rethinking the relationships of power, and making explicit the costs and benefits of doing business. These fundamentally are political decisions, not economic ones. The nature of risk and reward are shaped by the deliberate hand of government, not the "invisible" hand of the market:

Third, taxpayers are being asked to bear an unparalleled degree of financial risk. We cannot allow taxpayers to take on this burden so that Wall Street and the Bush administration can hit the "reset button." This historic intervention demands a historic shift in priorities: an end to the broken culture on Wall Street, and the broken economic policies in Washington.

And, finally, she sums up the stakes:

This is a sink-or-swim moment for America. We cannot simply catch our breath. We've got to swim for the shores.

This is a call to action, and an embrace of politics for the sake of the nation. It's not the fiddling of wonks, but a reformulation of how we should think. Put this leadership in front of the kinds of proposals we see from economic thinkers like James Galbraith, Nouriel Roubini and Paul Krugman, and we could be talking a Great Deal.

Unlike the current leadership of the Democratic Party, who are simply bouncing off the Bush proposal like pinballs, accepting the basic terms of the deal and trying to beef up some goodies to help with the November election, Hillary is presenting a vision of what a Democratic economic plan should do. It is not pandering for votes though it is very aware of the needs of constituents found from rural backwaters to Manhattan skyscapers. She may have details wrong, but it is not for lack of trying. It is a committment to use power to make institutions serve public good before private greed.

This is and is not a different person than I saw this time last year when the primary contests revved up. Hillary has always been someone willing to dare to do great things, but the primaries -brutal, rigged, stacked against her as a person in a way I have never seen in 30 years of politics - appear to have scoured her clean of any hesitancy or defensiveness that formerly attended her attempts at great works. Maybe it was seeing the people who needed her to be their advocate. Maybe it was understanding the depth of respect and trust so many of us have in her after the decades of public abuse. Maybe it was knowing that there is nothing for her to lose by simply doing what is right.

Whatever the reason, there is a clear and unwavering voice who makes clear the difference between those who want to play politics and those who want to use it for the public good. It is a political philosophy comfortable with making life better and more secure for ordinary people.

There are miles to go.

Anglachel

And If It's the Truth?

I'm trying to deal with cognitive dissonance here. I'm afraid it won't be clever or snarky or particularly thought provoking because I'm really tired and I'm simply at an end of trying to make sense of what passes for politics in the blogosphere.

On the one hand, I'm reading up on Shakesville (via TGW via Falstaff) about an ad running on various "progressive" blogs showing a silhouette of a naked female, the kind you see on the mudflaps of trucks, "pole dancing" against an oil derrick with the caption "Drill, baby, drill!" in mockery of Gov. Palin.

On the other hand, I'm reading up in Corrente that it's the fault of white female voters - and no other demographic - if Obama loses due to their out of control racisim, based on the results of a single AP-Yahoo poll.

Sexism that the guys can't see when it is using classic imagery found on the vehicles of "rednecks" everywhere and racisim that they can pick up even when dog whistled or denied.

When Democratic women say "The Obama camp has run a sexist, mysogynistic campaign," we are told we're wrong, no such thing, there was not any sexism there, except maybe some from Tweety. When Democratic women say, "No, it's not his race, it's his lack of commitment to the programs that matter to us," we are told that, no, we're all just racist bitches, and that it's our fault if he doesn't win.

What does it mean to electoral outcomes if what we Democratic women are saying is simply true? That there is too much encouragement of and reliance upon misogyny as a campaign tactic? That our objections to this candidate really are based on rational economic self-interest, and are not due to his race?

Using shame (shame of being female, shame of being racist) rather than offering benefit is a tactic that may intimidate some, and perhaps win some over who would rather be part of the pack that attacks than one who is attacked, but mostly it engenders resentment. It is nothing on which political solidarity can be founded. Hasn't the Democratic Party learned that it is not enough to run on "I'm not [insert opponent here]"? That was a losing argument against Nixon, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II. Shouting "The other party is worse!" does nothing to address the weaknesses and failings of our own. Put on top of that a very public contempt for the concerns of a large and (until now) unswervingly loyal constituency and this is a recipe for long term, nearly permanent loss of electoral power.

I'll never vote Republican, but for the first time in my life, I feel no desire to vote Democrat, either.

I've written reams of analysis of why the current election is shaping up the way it has and I may be wrong about my judgments on those things, but I know my own thoughts. When I say I won't vote for Obama after the revolting campaign he has run and because he doesn't have anything substantive to back him up, I mean exactly those two things, nothing more, nothing less.

It's just the truth.

Anglachel

And We Get?

Tanta at Calculated risk reproduces what is alleged to be a letter from a member of Congress, originally linked at Open Left. Here is her post in full:
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What We Should Get For $700 Billion

This is purported to be from a member of Congress, regarding the TARP authorization. I cannot independently verify that, but like Fox Mulder I want to believe:

Paulsen and congressional Republicans, or the few that will actually vote for this (most will be unwilling to take responsibility for the consequences of their policies), have said that there can't be any "add ons," or addition provisions. [Frank expletive]. I don't really want to trigger a world wide depression (that's not hyperbole, that's a distinct possibility), but I'm not voting for a blank check for $700 billion for those [serious obscenity].

Nancy said she wanted to include the second "stimulus" package that the Bush Administration and congressional Republicans have blocked. I don't want to trade a $700 billion dollar giveaway to the most unsympathetic human beings on the planet for a few [adjectival exuberance] bridges. I want reforms of the industry, and I want it to be as punitive as possible.

Henry Waxman has suggested corporate government reforms, including CEO compensation, as the price for this. Some members have publicly suggested allowing modification of mortgages in bankruptcy, and the House Judiciary Committee staff is also very interested in that. That's a real possibility.

We may strip out all the gives to industry in the predatory mortgage lending bill that the House passed last November, which hasn't budged in the Senate, and include that in the bill. There are other ideas on the table but they are going to be tough to work out before next week.

I also find myself drawn to provisions that would serve no useful purpose except to insult the industry, like requiring the CEOs, CFOs and the chair of the board of any entity that sells mortgage related securities to the Treasury Department to certify that they have completed an approved course in credit counseling. That is now required of consumers filing bankruptcy to make sure they feel properly humiliated for being head over heels in debt, although most lost control of their finances because of a serious illness in the family. That would just be petty and childish, and completely in character for me.

I'm open to other ideas, and I am looking for volunteers who want to hold the [colorful noun] so I can beat the crap out of them.

I've been an advocate ofbankruptcy cram-downs for ages, so no argument there. What I really really like is the idea of subjecting CEOs to the same petty humiliation everyone else gets treated to. I suggest that for every separate asset these CEOs sell to the government, they be required to write a Hardship Letter over a 1010 warning (that's a reference to the statute forbidding lying in order to get a loan) explaining why they acquired or originated this asset to begin with, what's really wrong with it in detail, what they have learned from this experience, and what steps they are taking to make sure it never happens again. Furthermore, the Treasury Department will empanel a committee of the oldest, most traditional, and bitterest mortgage loan underwriters--preferably those downsized to make way for automated underwriting systems--to review these letters and opine on their acceptability.

I'm sure you all will have other suggestions.
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I like Tanta's suggestions. Do go see the comment thread. Some of their suggestions are very funny. For my comment thread, who do you think said this?

But it points to the very serious divide in the Congressional Democrats, where some are very clear that this is a political opportunity to be used to the max (as in the above letter), while others *cough*Dodd*cough*Schumer*cough* are committed to defending the interests of their most important constituents, and screw both the party and the country.

This is why my focus on this blog is on the party. Unless the Democratic Party decides to stand for the ordinary citizen, then they are simply being Republican enablers. The focus cannot be a specific candidate (no matter how much I (heart) Hillary), it has to be on reforming the party.

In the coming week, anyone seriously concerned with party reform needs to keep close track on which Democrats oppose the Paulson wealth-grab and which enable it. Will Obama even come back to the Senate, or will he use the campaign to not go on record as for or against?

We get something, or they get nothing.

Anglachel

Hillary's Statement on the Proposed Bailout

Lambert wanted to know if Hillary had said anything about Paulson's give away to Bush's base. Here is is, with my emphasis:

Statement of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on the Administration's Proposal to Restore Stability to U.S. Financial Markets

“When the American people, facing a foreclosure crisis and struggling economy, turned to this administration for help, the answer was no. Now, the administration is turning to the American people for help, to rescue the credit markets and take on hundreds of billions in debt and financial obligations as a consequence of that same foreclosure crisis. The truth is, Main Street came to Washington and got little. Now Washington is coming to Main Street and asking for a lot. The American people deserve to know that this isn't a blank check. While the need to address the current crisis is clear, I will only support steps that will prevent a widening crisis, tackle the worst kinds of abuse tolerated for too long by the Bush Administration, and address the root problems at work.

The proposed intervention outlined today by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson would be a watershed moment for our economy. I believe that such an intervention demands that we fundamentally alter the priorities and policies of our nation under the Bush Administration that allowed this crisis to take place and escalate. Corporations that will benefit must be held accountable not only to large shareholders but also to the American people. And American taxpayers deserve to know that their money will not allow for a continuation of the status quo: short term profit at the expense of long term viability; obscene bonuses and golden parachutes regardless of performance; reckless risk taking that have placed the markets in so much jeopardy; rewards for those who foreclose on middle class families and sell mortgages designed to fail to turn a profit; and outsourcing of good jobs to serve short term stock prices instead of America's long term economic health. The prevailing dynamic of corporate America, where the sole priority was the dividend, the inflated bonus and the quarterly earnings report, must give way to a new respect for the long term prosperity of the American worker and the well being of the middle class.

After eight years of failed policies – and two years of an absentee administration – our only option left may be an unprecedented government intervention into the private markets. The markets must be stabilized to stave off wider turmoil. Nevertheless, the urgency of this crisis does not mean that we should offer a blank check to financial institutions or the privileged few. Nor can we simply allow the administration to use the taxpayers like a ‘reset button.’ We cannot allow Wall Street to act without oversight by a vigilant SEC and administration – and without regard for the American people, who will now have paid twice: in falling prey to a widening credit crisis, and in paying the bill to hopefully bring it to an end.

I will be examining the administration's proposal very closely to ensure that we do not approve a policy that may stabilize the markets in the short term without addressing the root problems facing middle class families or the kinds of reckless gambling that was permitted for far too long by the administration. The Bush Administration may have changed its tune once the crisis facing Main Street hit Wall Street. But we need to be sure that the American taxpayers – asked to shoulder yet more risk and responsibility – have a voice.”

This statement should be printed out, carried around and read five times a day by every Democrat. In four paragraphs, a new vision for the party and the country are laid out.

The first paragraph captures the power dynamic in Washington. Ordinary citizens cannot get assistance to deal with extreme crises caused by mismanagement of a needed industry. When that industry mismanages its way into the ground, the citizens are supposed to step up and help out. That is what needs to be answered, the power imbalance, not whether Bush's golf buddies can afford that 10th or 11th summer house.

The second paragraph is the most important, as Hillary calls for no less than an FDR level reorganization of the relations between the citizens and the corporations, which means the structure of power will change. The nation is not here to serve the interests of the monied class against the rest.

The third paragraph puts responsibility where it belongs - squarely on the head of the Bush administration. No more of this mealy mouthed "divisive politics of left and right" crap. The division is there because of the "privileged few" using the rest of us like piggy banks. If the fat cats keep screwing up, it's time to put them on a diet.

The fourth paragraph is an announcement of how she shall act and the standard against which Democrats should be judged. It makes clear, once again, that the real problem is not some liquidity issue but the very structure of the financial industry. Just stabilizing the stock market will not suffice, though it is clearly necessary.

See? It's not so hard to do what is right by all parties by being a strong, unapologetic Clinton Democrat. A little less unity and a lot more opposition, please.

Anglachel