Hillary is Not Going to Save Us

I've had private conversations on this point before on whether Hillary would run again for President. I have always said she would not. After the disastrous midterm elections, people who had dismissed her in 2008 began asking if she would, perhaps finally understanding the penalties of having been so wrong before. Today, myiq2xu has a post on The Confluence citing two news articles where HRC says pretty firmly that she's done with public service after the Secretary of State gig. Nope, Hillary is not going to save us, even if we ask nicely.

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.

Media Darlings and Policy Disasters

A pattern I'm noticing among former Obama cheerleaders is how quick they are to subsume Obama to Clinton. BTD scornfully dismisses him as a Clinton Democrat, for example, and now Sirota (is it funny that my spell check wants to change "Sirota" into "scrotum"?) is rolling him back into the Clinton/DC/Third Way borg. He has disappointed them, he is no longer top-drawer goods, so now they paint him with the worst epithet they can pull out of their kit-bag - Clinton Democrat.

None of these esteemed pundits appears willing to cop to the fact that Obama is being completely consistent with what he campaigned on - a platform of feel-good rah-rah and center-right policies, coupled to a deliberate rejection of identification with the Democratic party. Obama was a transformational figure only in their self-indulgent wet dreams. (BTD in particular has no grounds to complain as he explicitly said the reason to support Obama was his media darling status, not his policies.) They supported Obama in order to defeat HRC, and, rather like Obama himself, failed to consider the all important closing line of The Candidate "What do we do now?"

Dance With Them Who Brung Ya

The saying goes that you should "dance with them who brung ya," a colloquial way of pointing out that you have substantive obligations towards those who brought you to whatever festive occasion you are attending.

The Democrats faced the penalty of failing to follow this advice in two ways in the midterms. The people who the Dems didn't want to be seen with in the last electoral round and who have been treated as expendable for the last two years, most crucially white, relatively affluent women, declined the invitation, either by outright defection to the opposition (notably those who are married) or by not voting at all (unmarried women). The party was also rejected by those who they courted assiduously two years ago - independent men and the "youth" vote - who decided to find another dance partner this time around.

From the LA Times, "Blacks, Latinos stick with shrinking Democratic base" (my emphasis throughout):

Democrats searching for good news amid the rubble of Tuesday's midterm election results can look to Latinos and African Americans, two groups of voters that stayed with the party in large numbers.

But that, in a sense, is like taking comfort in that fact that as your house is falling down around you, it isn't also on fire.

On His Head

Sorry to keep quoting myself, but when you're right, you're right. On June 7, 2008, I posted The Front Lines of Democracy, an analysis if HRC's "concession" speech. I quoted her at length and then talked about how her presentation of the issues and challenges facing Democratic candidates and constituencies differed from Obama's:

Of Hicks and Hacks

I was reminded by the Spousal Unit of a post by Brad DeLong a little over a year ago (Health Care Reform: Memories of 1994) that fits quite well with the themes I've been writing about. DeLong notes (my emphasis):

After President Clinton's 43 percent plurality victory in the presidential election of 1992, I worked as a spear carrier in the U.S. Treasury Department under Secretary Lloyd Bentsen. The plurality view in the Treasury Department throughout 1993 and up through the middle of 1994 regarding the health-care reform situation had six analytical pieces:

(1) There were not even 50 votes available in the U.S. Senate for any health-care reform bill sponsored by President Clinton. It did not matter what the bill included or how good the policy might be, because key Democratic senators placed a higher priority on teaching the hick from Arkansas that he was not their boss; they were determined to vote against it. Thus even though the Democrats had a majority in the Senate, they could not pass Clinton's bill—whatever it was—even if the Republicans did not filibuster it.

Popular is as Popular Does

I laughed out loud at lunch today when I read this article in the LA Times, Clinton outshines Obama as campaign trail surrogate, poll finds:

According to a Gallup Poll released Tuesday, more voters of all political persuasions said they were more likely to back a candidate if Democrat Clinton campaigned for him or her, than if the campaigner were President Obama, who is fighting to keep Democrats in control of Congress.

The poll found that 53% of Democrats said Clinton’s personal endorsement would carry weight compared to 48% who said Obama’s would. On the negative side, 5% of Democrats said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate if Clinton campaigned, while 6% said they would be more hostile if it were Obama. The differences between those numbers translates into what the poll said was a net of 48 for Clinton and 42 for Obama.

Clinton and Obama fare less well with Republicans and independents but the former president, free of the burden of actually being in office and having to make tough decisions, again gets the edge. Neither Democrat carries much weight with either group, but Clinton is less hurtful by a ratio of about 2 to 1 among Republicans.

Among independents, 21% said they'd be more likely to vote for a candidate who was baked by Clinton compared to 12% who said the same about Obama.

Idiocracy

The Incomparable One, Bob Somerby, uses Tom Friedman as an example to deliver a nice swift kick to the so-called liberal media (mostly my emphasis):

As we talk, can we offer some context? Friedman announces, this very day, that the Whitewater “scandal” was bogus. His announcement is less than timely:

• It has now been seventeen years since the first bungled Whitewater story appeared—on the front page of Friedman’s own newspaper.
• It has now been fifteen years since Harper’s published “Fool for Scandal,” an article by Gene Lyons. Lyons’ piece debunked the New York Times’ bungled work. Harper’s is a rather well-known American journal of thought.
• It has now been fifteen years since Lyons published an op-ed column, “The Non-Scandal That Won’t Quit,” in the Washington Post, a well-known newspaper.
• It has been thirteen years since Harper’s published Lyons’ book, Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater.
• It has been nine years since the publication of The Hunting of the President, by Lyons and Joe Conason.

In short, Friedman is rather late to the game with today’s announcement. But that’s exactly how things work inside an idiocracy! Inside the mainstream press corps, everybody knew the rules in the 1990s—you had to bury Lyons’ work, which went right after the mainstream press corps. By now, a great many years have passed. At long last, it’s safe for store-bought fellows like Friedman to tell Times readers the truth—but only in passing, of course.

Let’s be fair! We only single Friedman out because his column appears today. On Monday night, the gruesome dandy Lawrence O’Donnell played a related game on Countdown. And of course, that program’s $5 million man ran off and hid in the late 1990s, blubbering in the arms of Roger Ailes rather than staying to tell the truth about what was happening around him. (Olbermann publicly apologized to Ailes for criticizing Matt Drudge, then accepted big-bucks employment at Fox Sports. He kept his pretty trap shut tight all through the Clinton impeachment and the subsequent War Against Gore. Today, of course, he’s on your side—paid $5 million to play there.)

In short, the “liberal” world played the lead role in the hunting down of Clinton, then Gore. You may live in an idiocracy if:

The people who agreed to perform those tasks can be hailed as “liberal” giants, with no questions ever asked.

On Monday, we thought Paul Krugman was right on target, as he typically is—but insufficiently shrill. Yes, it’s striking when a society refuses to discuss climate change. But in fact, your society can’t discuss any issue! Bob Herbert can’t discuss education; to this day, we have seen no one attempt to explain the gonzo state of our health care spending. It isn’t that we don’t discuss it well. We don’t discuss it at all!

This morning, Friedman makes a rather odd statement. “[M]e wonder whether we can seriously discuss serious issues any longer,” he clumsily says. He wonders whether we can do that? Isn’t the truth rather clear?

In the midst of all this idiocracy, the liberal world still hails the people who conspired to take down Clinton, then Gore. No questions are asked of our liberal heroes, who now play progressives on TV! They, no less than Roman Polanksi, have remained free to roam the world. Now, Polanski has stepped in a trap. Their free range continues.

Now that it is clear that neither Bill nor Hillary Clinton has any intention of leaving the world stage, and even more clear that to the degree Obama has any effectiveness outside of his fawning circle, it is due in great part to the support they are giving him, suddenly the chattering class is beginning to wonder if maybe, just maybe, they missed some boat.

But Somerby's point, the one that was driven home by the campaign of 2008, is that the so-called liberal media is driven by celebrity, not by politics and sure as hell not by facts. Like Polanski, their freedom is based on the confidence that other members of the tribe - members like Olbermann and Friedman, Dowd and Maddow - will not turn on them and expose them to judgment. The spoil sports, like Lyons, Conason, Krugman and the Incomparable One himself, are ostracized, ignored and treated as beyond the pale. Shrill! Like the Polanski apologists, the popular "liberal" punditocracy secretly (and not so secretly) approve of the violations they witness others of the tribe perform, preferring to blame the victims for their less than pure states to identifying the lies, the crimes and the preferential treatment the attackers deploy to excuse their acts.

The A-list blogosphere had the opportunity to align itself with the truth tellers or to comfortably ensconce themselves as the pool boys and cabana babes of Versailles. We know where they have thrown in their towels. The failure of Democrats to make headway against the Movement Conservative onslaught is partially their responsibility as willing enablers of Versailles and as participants in the persistent demonization of Clinton Democrats. It is the political equivalent of slut-shaming, and it is not mistake that the same bloggers who hate everything Clinton are also so cool with misogyny. It is the same pattern of behavior - domination masquerading as morality. Meanwhile, the vast rightwing conspiracy continues to utilize every media channel to promote their anti-D/democratic ideology and move their agenda forward despite being rejected by the majority of the nation.

Whole Foods Nation holds as an object of contempt a particular slice of the nation that fails to be sufficiently cultured for their tastes and spurns the popular heros of that culture, even when it is clearly the way to hold substantial political power with a minimum of political compromise. Their cultural contempt for people who just won't see that defense of their celebrity hero is worth some fucked over females is paradigmatic of their politics as well.

That is idiocracy.

Anglachel

A Deeply Sedimented Cultural Narrative

And this is just the lead in to the week's series on messaging - Krugman kicks down/fouls up.

Somerby goes after Krugman in an amazing post today. There is no doubt that the Incomparable One holds the Shrill One in high regard, so it matters greatly when Somerby uses Krugman as an example of what is wrong with liberal political discourse. Krugman, unlike the Blogger Boyz, has zero interest in being a pool boy at Versailles. He has a day job, after all. The errors he makes are interesting and illuminating because of what they say about the blind spots and ill-advised impulses on the left.

Somerby starts with Ted Kennedy, using Kennedy's death as a dash of ice water on the longing for Camelot:

Our guy was the most effective ever! And health care reform was his lifetime passion! Only we liberals would fail to see the oddness of these conjoined statements, in a month when we’re getting our clocks cleaned again in the matter of health care reform! This isn’t a criticism of Senator Kennedy, of course, This is a criticism of us.

But then, that’s the shape of modern politics. The other side gets the big wins. Our side gets the pleasing stories, in which we’re allowed to define ourselves as being both moral and smart. That’s one of the ways the world’s ruling classes buy off numb-nuts like us.

If we're so "smart", how come we keep getting our asses handed to us? Why can't we get our agendas enacted even when we hold legislative majorities? Somerby then goes into a long and detailed criticism of Krugman's latest article, picking up on themes he has been discussing with regards to Rick Perlstein last week. He's using these two thinkers in great part because these are two of the most perceptive analysts of Movement Conservatism around, people who have clearly demonstrated (Krugman with Conscience of a Liberal and Perlstein with Before the Storm and Nixonland) they get what that movement is and how it came to power.

What Bob zeros in on is the use of the term "crazies" (edited down - be sure to read it all. Some emphasis mine, some Somerby's):

According to Krugman, the right-wing fringe—Rick Perlstein’s “crazy” people, he is careful to say—have taken over the GOP. But does that story, told that way, really make much sense? Does it really make sense on the merits? Does it make any sense as a matter of politics?

Just think about what Krugman says there:

In Perlstein’s piece (click here), he explained who his “crazy” people were—the people around whom he chose to build his name-calling piece. ... Does it make sense to be told that people like these have somehow “taken over one of our two major parties?” Actually, no, it pretty much doesn’t—but that’s where Krugman starts!

Grassley and all those other players are vastly more culpable than the “crazies.” But in the past forty years, liberals have always loved to kick down at little people—at the people who simply aren’t smart enough to win the Bates Medal, the Nobel Prize. In our view, Krugman’s story—as told there—is quite weak-minded. But ever since the days of Nixon, “liberals” have loved to tell that story, thus harming progressive interests.

I read this and had to agree. Mockery of the have-littles has been a standard operating procedure of the Stevensonian mode of liberalism since, well, Stevenson.* What benefit can come to liberalism by being constantly on an intellectual and cultural offensive against working class Americans? Somewhere between nothing and less than zero. Somerby continues by describing the corporate embrace of conservative political measures to defeat the liberal gains of the New Deal. Their success, as both Krugman and Perlstein have documented, lay in the ability of the Movement Conservatives to leverage the arrogance and elitism endemic in the rising technocratic elite - the revolutionary saints. Somerby winds up and delivers a kock-out punch:

COOLICAN (5/15/08): Though it had been tried before, Perlstein writes, Nixon was the first to successfully exploit a devastating new narrative: the Democratic Party as enemy of the working man.

Perlstein says Nixon understood the anger and frustration of working-class people, the humiliation of being looked down upon by elitist, liberal betters. Why did Nixon understand this “deeply sedimented cultural narrative,” as Perlstein calls it? Because he’d faced it all his life.

In California, Ronald Reagan was also “successfully exploiting” that “devastating new narrative.” (For examples, read Perlstein’s Nixonland.) Endlessly, we thought of that devastating narrative in the past five days as we watched a string of spectacularly un-savvy liberals describe certain aspects of the past forty-seven years. (More on that next week.)

We “liberals!”We love to call the other side dumb! But has anyone ever been dumber than we are? Tomorrow, we’ll start a series about the crucial questions Perlstein was asked in the wake of his piece in the Post. Why are Democrats so bad at “messaging?” So bad at “pushing back?” Why is that Democrats and liberals keep getting defeated by “blatant and ridiculous falsehoods?”

Put it a slightly different way: If we had the most effective legislator, why can’t we get the cause of his lifetime passed? Part of the answer: We’re too busy assuring ourselves that those who defeat us are dumb.

Sound familiar? It is the alpha and omega of the Obama 2008 campaign, sneering at the socio-economic inferiors who they didn't need anymore to win the elections. Or, to quote Chris Bowers:

Out with Bubbas, up with Creatives: There should be a major cultural shift in the party, where the southern Dems and Liebercrat elite will be largely replaced by rising creative class types. Obama has all the markers of a creative class background, from his community organizing, to his Unitarianism, to being an academic, to living in Hyde Park to shopping at Whole Foods and drinking PBR. These will be the type of people running the Democratic Party now, and it will be a big cultural shift from the white working class focus of earlier decades. Given the demographics of the blogosphere, in all likelihood, this is a socioeconomic and cultural demographic into which you fit. Culturally, the Democratic Party will feel pretty normal to netroots types. It will consistently send out cultural signals designed to appeal primarily to the creative class instead of rich donors and the white working class.

Yup. Hope you creative types don't need health insurance.

Anglachel

*During one of Stevenson's presidential campaigns, allegedly, a supporter told him that he was sure to "get the vote of every thinking man" in the U.S., to which Stevenson is said to have replied, "Thank you, but I need a majority to win."

Their Madness Was Allowed

Paul Krugman's latest column, State of Paralysis, is about the insanity of the California budget crisis and how a small revanchist group of far-right radicals had been steadily deconstructing the state government since Pat Brown left office. Krugman pins the origins in Prop. 13 which used a real problem of unjustified increases in property taxes to set in motion the real killer in the state - the requirement of a super majority in the state legislature to raise state taxes. This has led to wildly unpredictable and financially regressive attempts to pay for the needs of a diverse and productive state through lotteries, sin taxes and fees. Part of the reason that property values skyrocketed in the state was because the only way to expand the property tax base is to have higher and higher valuations on real estate, either in newly constructed or in "trade ups". (On the lack of move up buyers in California, see Calculated Risk's latest post.)

I was enjoying the blistering column until I came across this paragraph:

To be blunt: recent events suggest that the Republican Party has been driven mad by lack of power. The few remaining moderates have been defeated, have fled, or are being driven out. What’s left is a party whose national committee has just passed a resolution solemnly declaring that Democrats are “dedicated to restructuring American society along socialist ideals,” and released a video comparing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to Pussy Galore.

Not so fast, Paul. Lack of power? To the contrary, they are using their power efficiently and effectively. They have significant leverage in the form of things like the super-majority needed to have a realistic budget. They have spent years looting every treasury they could find, lining their own pockets and those of their cronies, and now scream about the need for fiscal austerity when asked what they did with the dough. That is why the City of San Diego is now in such dire financial straits - the Republican power elite in the government diverted funds away from the employees' retirement system and lavished it on the Republican National convention, an unneeded ball park, payments to developers, and other pet projects to feather their own nests.

I wondered if I was being a bit too tough on the Krug until I read Bob Somerby's post today. The Incomparable One politely takes the Shrill One to task for thinking the Republicans are being driven mad by a lack of power. After a wonderful slap-down-in-passing of Olbermann, Somerby asks, "But was the GOP driven mad this year, or in recent years? And was the GOP driven mad by a lack of power?" He then takes us on a quick historical review of their purposeful "madness" and the gatekeepers who let them get away with it. Bob's argument is very clear (my emphasis):

In fact, the GOP and its agents have been behaving this way for a very long time. We’d suggest they were driven mad by an excess of power—by the grinding power the party held through most of the past forty years.

Here at THE HOWLER, we’ve been watching as our political narratives have turned in the past six months. As we’ve watched, we’ve pondered the way the GOP controlled such political narratives from 1968 on.

Controlling the narrative is key to political leverage. This is Somerby's fundamental objection to Krugman's slip-up, and then he illustrates that the utter "insanity" of the GOP has been around for a good long time and that it was soberly presented as legitimate public discourse all the way along. For example:

Just how crazy was this era? Let’s pose a question to younger readers: Did you know that the Clintons used condoms and crack pipes for ornaments on the White House Christmas tree? After former FBI agent Gary Aldrich made that and other preposterous claims in a crackpot, best-selling book, Tim Russert devoted the bulk of a worried hour to The New Yorker’s outrageous attempt to fact-check Aldrich’s claims. Today, Russert’s scolding cross-examination of Hedrik Hertzberg and Jane Myers reads like a fever-dream from a deeply lunatic era.

This was being done in May of 1997. Bob notes "That fall, we started planning this web site. (It took some time!) But let’s be honest: Few career players showed signs of giving a fig about this spreading lunacy." (my emphasis)

You do not need a legislative majority as long as you have cowed the majority into agreeing to your filibusters, jiggered the law to multiply the effects of minority opposition on crucial government activities (vs. preventing a simple majority vote from abrogating the rights of a minority), and have the media consistently legitimizing the extremist posturing because of deeply held class resentments.

Bob points directly at this last point as what has kept the nation under the sway of Movement Conservative Madness (my emphasis):

This lunacy didn’t stem from a lack of power. It grew when Republicans had too much power. And let’s make sure we understand where that excess came from:

In large part, it came from the willingness of the mainstream press to tolerate or repeat any GOP claim, no matter how patently crazy. In large part, it came from the refusal of liberals and Dems to resist this misuse of power.

Gene Lyons resisted in 1995 with Fools for Scandal; few career players followed suit. This created an unfortunate world—a world in which Republicans and their agents could make any claim, no matter how blatantly crazy.

This is how we end up in a situation where the voters have clearly indicated they have had enough of these psychopaths, that they want an end to permanent war, that they are tired of losing ground while Little Timmy Geithner's buddies turn financial malfeasance on a stupefying scale into more money for them, that they want affordable health care, that they want to know the truth behind the lies of the criminal Bush regime, yet our "liberal" leadership is preaching the virtues of bipartisan agreement.

We have a president who is to the right of Bill Clinton and moving further right in an time when the political tides have reversed. Obama presents vague policies that would have been weak in the face of Gingrich's Contract on America, and seems determined to retain the one set of advisors from Big Dog's administration who most needed to be shown the door. He keeps talking about compromise and meeting the opposition half way as though agreement is a good in and of itself.

No, half-way to crazy instead of all-the-way crazy is not an acceptable political compromise. It should not be allowed.

Somerby concludes (my emphasis):

The GOP didn’t get crazy this year. They were publicly crazy a long time ago, enabled in their public lunacy by a wide range of major players. Liberals and Democrats hid in the woods, waiting until the tide turned.

Eventually, Bush destroyed the known world—and narratives have started to turn. But GOP’s lunacy hasn’t. For many, it’s all they know.

That tape about Pelosi is astounding. But they played similar, gender-trashing games with Hillary Clinton for many years. Our heroes were camping in the woods—or were vouching for Chris Matthews’ brilliance.

How did the GOP go mad? They went mad in a crackpot era, the 1990s. We seem inclined to forget that era today. In that era, their madness was allowed.

This is one of the reasons that I singled out Eric Boehlert's presentism as a fatal weakness of his otherwise engaging book. The failure of the liberal response to the right-wing madness is the unspoken shadow to Left Blogistan triumphalism over the most recent elections. To understand why Obama knew himself perfectly safe to ignore the liberal blogs, you need only look at the spectacle of those blogs falling all over themselves to show that they could trash the Clintons, too. The focus on tactics of a particular campaign season takes that campaign out of the decades long political context which alone can explain the continual cognitive capture of seemingly liberal opinion makers by a determined and organized political rump group.

The madness has been allowed because it has inculcated the media - from the talking heads shows to Talking Points Memo - with the fantasy that they are somehow combating the evil politicians in their smokey back rooms, yet the enemy always ends up being the Democrats. Obama is safe to the degree that he refuses to identify as a member of the party, but keeps crooning his Obamacan non-partisan love song to the admiring opinion makers who look at him and see only themselves and their belief that they are the hip heroes of the republic, all pretending to be Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman up on the big screen.

And while the hipsters hang out in their virtual bar - or maybe it's a Brat Pack era casino lounge, given the amount of gambling going on, a throwback to the days before the rise of Movement Conservatism - the madness of the right continues to be allowed.

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

Hillary on the Unemployment Numbers

Statement of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on October Jobs Report

(My emphasis)

Under the Bush Administration, the American economy has lost jobs for 10 straight months. Today's report contains the worst unemployment rate in 14 years with our economy now having lost more than 1.2 million jobs in this last year alone. The Bush Administration has the worst job creation record of any administration since the Great Depression.

Businesses large and small are struggling to secure financing to survive. Families cannot find affordable mortgages and consumer loans. The housing crisis has wiped out hundreds of billions of dollars in home equity and grows deeper every day. This final chapter of the Bush Administration's ill-conceived economic policies cannot end soon enough.

We are in a recession and we must act decisively and wisely to change course, hasten a recovery, and reform the broken economic policies that will be the sad and disastrous legacy of the Bush Administration. Under a Democratic Congress and Administration, we will have the ability to do precisely that. In the coming weeks, as we consider a stimulus package, I believe we should pursue several goals that will help restore stability to our markets and financial system.

One, we must prevent another wave of looming foreclosures that will drive down home values and the broader financial markets. Twenty percent of Americans now hold mortgages that exceed the value of their homes. We must prevent as many unnecessary foreclosures as possible by rewriting mortgages for families committed to making monthly payments and acting responsibly. I have proposed, and will introduce, the Home Owners' Mortgage Enterprise, or HOME Act, to buy and rewrite mortgages at risk of failure. This is based on the successful Home Owner's Loan Corporation created during the Great Depression by President Roosevelt, which not only saved more than one million homes but also turned a profit while staving off foreclosures and preventing wider home values from falling further. We also should consider jump starting the housing market with a temporary tax credit to address record levels of low demand.

Two, a stimulus package should help displaced workers and struggling middle class and hardworking families. Extending unemployment insurance benefits for the hundreds of thousands of workers who will soon exhaust their benefits is necessary to ease the burden on those families who continue to seek work. Aid for struggling families facing higher home heating bills this winter must also be an urgent priority.

Three, we should also help our distressed states and cities. Our states, many of which face record budget shortfalls, need fiscal aid in order to fill their budget holes without having to sacrifice their critical health, social, and public safety services.

And four, we should consider steps to create jobs in the near term by targeting a stimulus that will not only boost the economy now but pay dividends in the future. For example, providing resources for states to begin construction on "fast-tracked" infrastructure projects will help create hundreds of thousands of new jobs while fixing our crumbling roads and deteriorating bridges, creating room for the economy to grow.

The challenges we face are daunting, and today's jobs report clearly shows that the road to recovery will be difficult. But it is imperative that we take these urgent steps that will kick start our economy and hasten our recovery.

All good, solid Democratic efforts. My biggest point of disagreement with Hillary is that house prices need to drop further because they have been grossly over priced in the bubble areas. Thus, we need to let prices drift down further until they are in line with household incomes and sensible borrowing.

I love her line: "We are in a recession and we must act decisively and wisely to change course, hasten a recovery, and reform the broken economic policies that will be the sad and disastrous legacy of the Bush Administration." More of this, please. More nicely, sweetly partisan knife twisting to ensure that Bush is never spoken of without BartCop's tag line - Worst President Ever.

On a practical note, and (giving credit where credit is due) something I have heard The Precious say he wants done, is to extend unemployment insurance benefits. OK, Congress Critters, do it. Do something that is chump change compared to the Hanky Panky but will immediately and materially improve ordinary lives starting now.

The push for infrastructure projects is also good because those are highly localized operations that will benefit working class families directly. It's a threefer - stimulate local economies, target the segment of the workforce that is being devastated by the loss of manufacturing and construction, and create infrastructure that is an investment for long-term growth through better roads, ports, bridges, power and water systems, and so forth.

See? Being a good liberal means doing what is right at every scale and takes a lot less effort than plotting how to screw people while enriching your cronies back home.

Anglachel

The Timid Triangulators

So the first order of the day is to lower expectations: Obama Aides Tamp Down Expectations. Uh, no, I've been waiting for some real Democratic action for 8 years now. The economic downturn is an opportunity to try new things and take some risks.

And then we get Pelosi fighting against her own party people who are trying to jump-start the necessary work the damage of the Movement Conservatives: Democrats Vow to Pursue an Aggressive Agenda. No UHC, just a little nod to SCHIP. Maybe. I particularly like this little bit of revisionist lying:

House and Senate Democrats said they believed the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats could mesh in a way that Capitol Hill Democrats and the Carter and Clinton administrations could not. As senators, Mr. Obama and Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., built strong relationships on Capitol Hill.

President Jimmy Carter and President Bill Clinton, as former governors, were outsiders to Congress.

Riiiight. Carter and Clinton were "outsiders" who couldn't get things done. But The Precious is going to come in and change the tone in Washington? Using Clinton insiders? And that Congress will "mesh" with a Democratic White House this time? What the hell was wrong with them last time? Why couldn't they work with the leaders of their own party? Isn't this just an admission that the power brokers of the Democratic Party purposefully sabotaged their own presidents?

This is just more of the The Village tailoring a narrative to fit their own ass-covering agenda. The inside the beltway crowd decided they didn't like these "hicks" trashing their place and moved heaven and earth to prevent them from being effective.

But what we're left with are the Timid Triangulators - The Precious, The Pugilist and Pelosi - frantically trying to figure out how they can avoid actually acting on any of their implied campaign promises. This group is more afraid of being seen to fail than they are of failing to do enough. They are worried about expectations being set too high instead of failing to act boldly enough. They don't want to be losers like Carter and Clinton, who tried and fell short. They want to be the winners of itty-bitty, narrowly circumscribed and vaguely defined bits of policy ornamentation:

Democratic leaders are tamping down on expectations for rapid change and trying to signal they will place a calm hand on the nation’s tiller.

“The country must be governed from the middle,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday. Repeating themes from election night, she said she plans to emphasize “civility” and “fiscal responsibility.”

Yet, they face massive expectations for change and deep-seated fears of overreaching. But senior aides say they’ve learned from the mistakes of the past. Nearly every member of the current Democratic leadership in the House served through the 1992 election, when Bill Clinton was elected president. Two years later, the GOP gained control of Congress.

More recently, they’ve watched Republicans go from complete dominance to minority status in the space of two elections.

“The difference is we have the benefit of experience in seeing what happens when you gain control,” said a senior Democratic aide. “I do not envision a scenario where we’d go off on an ideological mission in an undisciplined way.”

There are similar sentiments in the Senate.

“There is a wave of hope that swept the country ... not a mandate for any hope or ideology, but a mandate to get things done,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Wednesday morning on National Public Radio.

Dems lower expectations

This is so wrong I don't know where to start. They point to the Congressional losses of 1994 as due to failing to meet campaign promises instead of as a result on long term political realignments. They refuse to embrace Bill Clinton's dead-on argument that the Democrats need to run on their ideology as the party that stands for something clearly superior to the failed policies of the Republicans. They refuse to create a brand that can be promoted and defended. It's all mealy-mouthed bi/post/anti-partisan bullshit. It's High Broderism.

We can expect the newest crop of The Village's idiots, our own Blogger Boyz, to try to hold on to the campaign magic for as long as they can, but the truth is that the Timid Triangulators are already claiming that their cozy mutual backscratching is an acceptable replacement for real politics.

Wrong.

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

Losers

Kevin Drum recently posted from his new digs at Mother Jones, complaining about Bob Somerby:

But here's what I don't get: why does Bob think that liberals are giving away a "giant political advantage" by not harping on this constantly? Frankly, I'd be delighted to harp away if I actually thought this was one of the top 100 issues that might help the future of liberalism, but it's not, is it? Media criticism in general helps our side, but what exactly would it gain us to relate everything back to Al Gore's decade-old mistreatment with the Ahab-like intensity that Bob does? Wouldn't it just cause everyone to tune us out as cranks and fogeys? Anyone care to weigh in on this, on either side?

C'mon, Bob, stop being a crank and an old fogey! You're really harshing the mellow here. Can't you just move on, like the rest of us Iraq War supporters have, and understand that we don't care if Al Gore was robbed? I mean, he's a boring crank, too, and it really puts a damper on the cocktail weenie circuit if you bring up his name.

Bob Somerby may take the treatment of Gore a little too personally, given that he is a close friend, but the foundation of his argument is far more sound than the shaky underpinnings of the Blogger Boyz. Indeed, haven't we just watched a repeat of the same phenomenon, with the press going apeshit about the horrible, lying, murderous Hillary monster who wants our Precious destroyed? Kevin asked for a response, and Bob provided one:

And no, there really aren’t “100 issues” that would better serve “the future of liberalism.” It’s absolutely, completely absurd that Kevin would say such a thing.

Repeating: Most voters have never heard a word about the situation Kevin described. For that reason, they’re strongly inclined to believe the GOP’s relentless complaints about bias. They hear endless claims about bias toward Palin; they never hear a single word about what was done to the Clintons and Gore. Surely, Kevin knows why that is. Once again, let’s make sure that we all understand:

In the early 1990s, conservative power was sweeping through Washington. In large part, this took the form of endless, nasty attacks against both Clintons. They were both liars; they were both sex fiends; why, they hung decorative condoms on the White House Christmas tree. Beyond that, of course, they were murderers. By 1999, large blocks of cable “news” time were being devoted to this insanity. And go ahead, Kevin—when you “come down,” you can check it out! When Hardball and Hannity pimped those vile murders, not a single career liberal player offered one word of protest.

By 1999, there was simply nothing you couldn’t say—as long as you said it about the Clintons. And then, about Candidate Gore.

The mainstream press corps accepted all this; indeed, they were the principal malefactors. So, of course, did your “liberal leaders”—weak, unprincipled, hackworthy men who run with the Sally Quinn crowd.

And they refused all enlightenment. In 1996, Gene Lyons published Fools for Scandal (How the Media Invented Whitewater), the most important political book of the decade. But go ahead—try to find a single reference to Lyons’ book in your “liberal journals.” And go ahead—see what those same fiery journals did when Gene and Joe Conason published The Hunting of the President in early 2000. Of course, you probably know what they did—they all agreed to keep their traps shut. By that time, these broken-souled losers had completely rolled over for those joint RNC/MSM narratives. They had adopted their masters’ commands. To this day, they have never looked back—or wanted you to do so. Candidate Gore had every advantage, Josh told you in 2002.

Beyond that, see what they did when the MSM turned its sights on Candidate Gore. In March 1999, it seamlessly happened—the venom aimed at President Clinton was instantly, seamlessly transferred to Gore. And what did your liberal leaders do? Some ran and hid—and some played along! Indeed, the Bradley campaign was built around dishonest panders to the insider press corps about their hatred of Clinton and Gore. And the “left” of your party played this sick game. By December 1999, the Bradley campaign was even pretending that Gore had been responsible for the gruesome Willie Horton debacle. Disgracefully, Bradley himself began to say this the next month—even though he’d said the opposite, in some detail, in his own 1996 book. But so what? One pundit challenged this balls-out lying. Sadly, it was Morton Kondracke. Every good “liberal” shut up.

That’s right! The weak-willed men at your “liberal journals” went along with this deeply unprincipled trashing. You can still find their names on those mastheads. And oh yes! You can find the U.S. Army deeply entrenched in Iraq.

Sorry, kids! The American public will never think we’re “cranks and fogeys” because “we harp on this so much!” Let’s be frank: The public will never hear this at all, because our leaders will never tell them about the disgraceful things they did in thrall to MSM power and influence. They won’t mention Ceci or “Kit;” indeed, when Ceci and Kit got briefly criticized in the summer of 2000, Jane Mayer heroically jumped in the stew, saying it was all due to sexism! (Happy with how that bullsh*t worked out?) For these reasons, “media bias” remains a powerful tool—a powerful tool for the GOP. They’re playing this card very hard this week—because it’s one of their strongest.

Last week, Naomi Judd began telling voters that no one has ever been trashed like Palin. Quite naturally, voters tend to believe such claims, because they’ve never heard anything different. In our view, Mother Jones should call Mother Judd and tell her the things he wrote in that post. We’ll offer this one small guess to Kevin: You’ll likely find Judd a damn sight more honest than the players who work in your yard.

“Liberal bias” is a powerful card, a card they’ve spent fifty years perfecting. They play this card because it works; it keeps working because our side has refused to debunk it. As we’ve long said, we refuse to tell the public the truth about the press corps’ recent conduct. One side keeps saying things which are bogus. And one side won’t say what is true.

Conservative power blew into town—and the millionaire “press corps” bowed down before it. To this day, the career liberal world won’t tell the public the facts about what happened next. Mother Judd has never heard a word about the matters Kevin described. And, with Mother Jones fretting so hard, it’s quite clear that she never will. ...

One side plays this game to win. On the other side, Kevin is palling around with careerists.

We've seen it happen all over again this year, except that it was conducted inside of the so called liberal political arena.

If I have a criticism of the Incomparable One, it is that his analysis does not extend much beyond his presentation of the fact of the Left's cooperation with the Right's maniacal jihad against the Clintons and Al Gore. Then again, that's not his objective. He has set for himself the sisyphean task of simply telling the truth. It is people like Bob that Hannah Arendt means when she says "Facts need testimony to be remembered and trustworthy witnesses to be established in order to find a secure dwelling place in the domain of human affairs." He is a trustworthy witness testifying about the facts on the ground, no matter the desire of the courtiers to dismiss the destruction of political accountability.

But the question remains - why has the intelligentsia of the Left turned so implacably against people whose stated policies and observable acts are not substantively different than those who won that group's support? The embrace of The Precious shows that it is not merely the media being anti-Democrat - they loved him from the get-go and are eager to see him coronated in exactly the way they lusted for Bush in 2000. I think the answer has come out this year that the bias is class and acculturation. Upper class, cool, urbane, and not too interested in the details. That's for the underlings to handle.

It's the politics of people whose need for government resources and services are at a remove but substantial, like defending a financial system, rather than immediate and actually fairly modest, like some help paying the heating bills when the fuel companies price gouge. It is a politics that is disdainful of people in need. It doesn't like people who aren't from the right class and culture, and is suspicious of people who think too much about how to fix things that threaten people in need. It admires those who use power to take what they want.

As I said before, it is a politics of catering to the winners rather than defending the losers. What offends the Drums and Marshalls and other "pro-war before we were anti-war" suck-ups on the Left most about Somerby is that he keeps defending a "loser." Al may have won back some of these guys with the environmentalism and Nobel prize, but fundamentally they all still despise Gore as a loser, and they thought of him this way before the debacle of 2000.

They want their own Reagan, someone who will make them stop feeling like losers, even if it means losing touch with the principles they claim to hold.

Anglachel

Update - Also read Vast Left's latest on Corrente, When windmills attack, is it quixotic to notice?

Hillary on Healthcare

Statement of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on Report Finding Health Care Premiums in New York Rising Much Faster than Earnings

WASHINGTON, DC – Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton made the following statement after the release of a new report by the consumer health organization Families USA comparing increases in health care premiums and earnings in New York.

“The findings of this new report underscore the urgent need to reform our health care system. Over the eight years of the Bush Administration, New Yorkers have seen their health insurance premiums rise more than seven times as fast as their earnings. Across our country premiums are outstripping earnings, but New York has been particularly hard hit, with premiums rising more than 80 percent while earnings only increased by 11 percent. Workers in New York, especially employees of small businesses, are facing higher deductibles and receiving fewer benefits. In short, New Yorkers are paying more for less. Health care costs are consuming a larger and larger portion of family budgets at a time when so many New Yorkers are struggling to put food on the table and put gas in their tanks and the credit crisis threatens our entire economy. And even as health care costs have soared, so have the ranks of the uninsured. More than 2.5 million New Yorkers under age 65, about 15.4 percent, are now without health insurance. These are not just statistics. These are real people facing real and mounting challenges. It is now clearer than ever that we urgently need major reforms to reduce health care costs and ensure quality, affordable care for every single American. We cannot afford to continue down the path of the last eight years. I will continue fighting for this goal until we have the health care system that Americans deserve.”

On my agenda: universal health care, privacy rights, reversing declining incomes for middle income and lower wage earners, and battling misogyny.

Anglachel

Democratic Women up for Election

Courtesy of Hillary, information and contribution links to Democratic women up for election:

Three Senate Challengers:

In North Carolina, Kay Hagan is running a great race and some polls even show her ahead. Kay will invest in helping families stay in their homes, reducing foreclosures, and finding innovative new ways to stabilize neighborhoods. She will seek public-private partnerships to renovate neighborhoods and turn foreclosed properties into affordable rental or ownership units.

Mary Landrieu has been working her heart out for the people of Louisiana, still focused on Katrina recovery three years later while her opponents are doing everything they can to knock her out of her Senate seat. Senator Landrieu is spearheading efforts to rewrite federal disaster laws, which are unsuited to deal with larger disasters like Hurricane Katrina and largely ignore communities that host disaster evacuees.

And Jeanne Shaheen is criss-crossing the battleground state of New Hampshire, working hard in a race that is one of our top pick-up opportunities. Jeanne and I both have a long record of advocating for expanding children's healthcare. While Governor, Jeanne launched the New Hampshire's Children's Health Insurance Program, which has provided affordable health insurance to tens of thousands of New Hampshire children.

Anglachel - I'd really love for Jeanne Shaheen to pick up John Sununu's old seat.

Running for Office for the First Time:

In Colorado, Betsy Markey is running against Marilyn Musgrave, one of the most conservative, anti-choice Republicans in Congress. She's facing a million-dollar attack plan from a GOP desperate to hold on to this seat.

In Pennsylvania, local businesswoman Kathy Dahlkemper has taken the lead in a race that many thought Democrats couldn't win. Her opponent, Republican Phil English, has held his seat since 1994.

Shelly Moore-Capito is the only Republican in West Virginia's Congressional delegation, and Anne Barth, who has worked for years with my Senate colleague and friend Robert Byrd, has the chance to make West Virginia a totally Democratic state.

Anglachel - Some new faces in the House would be a good idea, especially if we can replace wingnut Marilyn Musgrave with Betsy Markey.

Wes Clark is supporting women Democrats, too. He's one man who isn't afraid to promote women in the military or in politics.

3 Fighting Women

Gabrielle Giffords
Gabrielle Giffords is a first term Congresswoman running for re-election in Arizona's 8th Congressional District. Gabrielle's business experience has made her an effective leader, successfully pushing 7 bills and amendments into law while introducing over 20 pieces of legislation in the House. Her priorities include expanding health care for American families and promoting alternative energy research and development.

Gabrielle's a rising star in our Party, and we must keep her seat in Congress. But her race is one of the most competitive in the country, and she needs our help. The right-wing is pouring in national resources in an attempt to take back this seat. In fact, George W. Bush visited Arizona to campaign for her opponent earlier this summer, raising half a million dollars. Help Gabrielle fight back against the likes of George W. Bush.

Dina Titus
Dina has worked tirelessly on behalf of Nevada's most vulnerable citizens by promoting legislation that allows seniors and other Nevadans to purchase less expensive prescription drugs from Canada, mandates tougher penalties for criminals who commit identity theft, and increases penalties for offenders who perpetrate crimes against the disabled.

Her opponent, Jon Porter, has spent the last six years fighting for the Washington special interests. That's why he doesn't want to run on the issues and is up with the first negative ad in the race. I am asking you to join me and help Dina fight back.

Judy Baker
Judy Baker is running in Missouri's 9th Congressional District. It's a tough district with a partisan voting index of R+7, but her first poll shows her two points ahead of her opponent. This is exactly the kind of race the WesPAC community has made our specialty. We don't back down from the tough fights, and this is one of them.

Judy's experience saving rural health clinics and operating her own small business has made her a strong leader in the state legislature, where she has advocated for education and health care access. She stood up to the Republican governor's plan to cut 200,000 children and seniors off of Medicaid and voted to cut her own benefits instead.

The polls show Judy within striking distance of Republican Blaine Luetkemeyer. We need to help her make up the difference. Please contribute to Judy's campaign today!

Anglachel - Dina and Judy are two-fers. Electing them puts in a Democratic woman and takes out a Republican man. Not a bad exchange rate.

Put Democratic women into power at every possible opportunity.

Anglachel

More Evidence on Fannie and Freddy

From McClatchy, one of the few new organizations left that doesn't just guzzle whatever kool-aide the Very Serious People hand them, a nice smack down of the Movement Conservative argument that its all those dark-skinned poor people who are responsible for the financial crisis because of their bad home loans:

As the economy worsens and Election Day approaches, a conservative campaign that blames the global financial crisis on a government push to make housing more affordable to lower-class Americans has taken off on talk radio and e-mail.

Commentators say that's what triggered the stock market meltdown and the freeze on credit. They've specifically targeted the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which the federal government seized on Sept. 6, contending that lending to poor and minority Americans caused Fannie's and Freddie's financial problems.

Federal housing data reveal that the charges aren't true, and that the private sector, not the government or government-backed companies, was behind the soaring subprime lending at the core of the crisis.

Subprime lending offered high-cost loans to the weakest borrowers during the housing boom that lasted from 2001 to 2007. Subprime lending was at its height vrom [sic] 2004 to 2006.

What is most notable about this news article is that it states clearly in the first sentence that this line of argument is coming from conservative quarters. No vague "some economic commenters" language; they put it right where it belongs, as a conservative red herring intended to undermine both attempts to regulate financial services and attempts to provide financial services on decent terms to lower income consumers and communities. Then the author does some analysis if the factual basis of the conservative claims and finds them grasping at straws.

Fannie, the Federal National Mortgage Association, and Freddie, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., don't lend money, to minorities or anyone else, however. They purchase loans from the private lenders who actually underwrite the loans.

It's a process called securitization, and by passing on the loans, banks have more capital on hand so they can lend even more.

This much is true. In an effort to promote affordable home ownership for minorities and rural whites, the Department of Housing and Urban Development set targets for Fannie and Freddie in 1992 to purchase low-income loans for sale into the secondary market that eventually reached this number: 52 percent of loans given to low-to moderate-income families.

To be sure, encouraging lower-income Americans to become homeowners gave unsophisticated borrowers and unscrupulous lenders and mortgage brokers more chances to turn dreams of homeownership in nightmares.

But these loans, and those to low- and moderate-income families represent a small portion of overall lending. And at the height of the housing boom in 2005 and 2006, Republicans and their party's standard bearer, President Bush, didn't criticize any sort of lending, frequently boasting that they were presiding over the highest-ever rates of U.S. homeownership.

Yes, there is a risk with low income borrowers. It's not like credit isn't extended to them now - it just done so under usurious terms and with a cynical hope to catch the borrowers in a cycle of debt peonage. This never gets mentioned in the conservative critique. They want to attach the act of low-income lending to a stigmatized class as a way of damaging the ability of liberal legislators and financial bureaucrats (yes, yes, precious few of any them, but they do exist) to proactively use government power to reduce barriers to wealth accumulation to previously excluded groups. They talk about individuals as credit risks, but quickly move over to condemning entire classes of people. Sadly for them, there is no conenction between their claims and the facts on the ground:

Conservative critics also blame the subprime lending mess on the Community Reinvestment Act, a 31-year-old law aimed at freeing credit for underserved neighborhoods.

...[O]nly commercial banks and thrifts must follow CRA rules. The investment banks don't, nor did the now-bankrupt non-bank lenders such as New Century Financial Corp. and Ameriquest that underwrote most of the subprime loans.

These private non-bank lenders enjoyed a regulatory gap, allowing them to be regulated by 50 different state banking supervisors instead of the federal government. And mortgage brokers, who also weren't subject to federal regulation or the CRA, originated most of the subprime loans.

In a speech last March, Janet Yellen, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, debunked the notion that the push for affordable housing created today's problems.

"Most of the loans made by depository institutions examined under the CRA have not been higher-priced loans," she said. "The CRA has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households."

The reason I am pushing this issue is because the ability to cut off credit on reasonable terms to classes of people is part of the larger Movement Conservatives' war on the social safety net as such. The people most hurt by this are poor and working class women and their dependent children, regardless of color.

If you want to fight the creeping fascism of the Right, then you must undermine their attempt to wrap questions of power and socio-economic resources in mantles of class resentment and racial bigotry, not just wail that we'd better vote Obama or else.

Anglachel

Palomino Ponderings

Palomino is mulling over things that I have been considering as well. A few paragraphs (but be sure to read the whole thing - it is challenging):

The Republican brand is so thoroughly and deservedly trashed that all Johnny Mac can do is try to relaunch the culture wars by peddling oblique suspicions about Obama’s associates and his character. Hey, what a maverick. But the sales pitch only makes McCain look desperate, and the voters of Chillicothe, Ohio, aren’t buying. They’re even more desperate than John McCain, now that the local pawn shop is the town’s sole viable business. And in Pennsylvania, the Bitter Clingers are dropping their guns and bibles and having a come-to-Obama moment of their very own. ...

And now Obama has the election all but locked up. Hillary Clinton won’t be permitted to challenge a sitting Democratic president in the 2012 primaries, no matter how abysmal his first term may be. As a result, it’s entirely probable that she won’t run for president again herself, or not successfully, and certainly not before 2016, when she’ll be nearly as old as John McCain is now. She may even find herself marginalized in the Senate for at least the next four years; the Democratic leadership’s pointed lack of interest in her current proposals seems to indicate as much.

This is definitely not what I wanted. But it does appear to be what we’re stuck with. And as a wise person once said, you can’t win a fight with reality. That doesn’t mean you can’t fight to change a particular reality, but you do have to start from the way things actually stand (also known as living in the reality-based community).

I'm beginning to understand how Republicans like Lincoln Chafee must feel looking at the takeover of their party by the Movement Conservatives. What should be a celebratory election for me, the downfall of the Reaganauts, leaves me feeling angry and betrayed. The accidents of political and economic fate have brought us an anti-leader, someone who occupies a symbolic space without embodying the substance of what those symbols represent. I read people like Digby telling us that we have to settle for the importance of symbolism rather than actual substantive legislation and we should be fine with this, and I wonder how the the Left Blogosphere became more complacent than the DLC they revile so much. How is this different than being a Blue Dog Democrat? When did triangulation come back into vogue, except this time standing squarely on a party platform that holds rejection of partisan stances as its primary political purpose?

People who have been the most loyal to the party, their dedication and service spanning decades, were declared unfit to show their faces and told they were no longer wanted. In the caucuses, they were physically threatened. Others have been sent death threats, have been stalked, have had their property vandalized. The violence done to people within the party is outdone only by the denials that anything is wrong and we'd better make the best of the situation we're in. I can only compare it to being forced to cohabitate with your rapist, something I have had to do in my life so it's a familiar feeling.

Hitching your wagon to the Republicans won't get you far in these political and economic times, even if you can stomach doing so. Since the problem with the Democrats is their abrupt move to the right on social and economic issues, trying mightily to capture the poisoned ground left behind by the Movement Conservatives' mad dash into authoritarian rule, it would also simply move you closer to where they want to be. In truth, Nixon was more liberal than this.

I have no answer to the violence and cruelty than has seized my party.

But I'm thinking.

Anglachel