2010 | TaylorMarsh.com

Taylor Marsh has been writing on line since 1996, with the archives provided here a representation of that work.

Tag Archives | 2010

Pres. Obama Already has Your Vote and He Knows It

By Taylor Marsh on 02 February 2012

This article was first published for U.S. News & World Report, under the title “Time for a Tea Party of the Left”.

President Obama takes his base for granted on issues like the Bush tax cuts, Plan B, and the economy

Here we are at the beginning of Pres. Obama’s reelection and what do we find? The Bush tax cuts that, back in 2008, candidate Obama pledged he’d fight to repeal, but which as president he extended. Considering not extending them began as his base position, three years into his first term it’s not too much to ask how Democrats allowed themselves to get twisted into this policy pretzel.

That’s exactly where Obama’s got his Democratic and progressive base, which has absolutely no resemblance to the Tea Party, who began challenging the Republican establishment back during George W. Bush’s term. The efforts finally ended up making history in 2010, with state legislatures across the country went Republican. It started an assault on the middle class, unions, as well as a war on women’s freedoms that ended up turning Wisconsin and Ohio upside down, but boy did it change the debate.

Now Newt Gingrich, once a speaker of the House, is running on an anti-establishment, anti-Washington platform spouting Tea Party populism as the new change message. In South Carolina, Newt sang the Tea Party’s tune and the right wing base rewarded him with a win, leaving the establishment mouths agape.

Where’s the Democratic version of the Tea Party? You’d think after Obama’s anti-progressive economics, foreign policy, and adoption of Bush antiterrorism policies (though to a more methodically lethal, anti-progressive effect), the Democratic base would have taken the Tea Party template and run with it by now.

Obama got away with the healthcare plan, which was bargained behind closed doors with private insurance and drug companies, manifesting a product that hasn’t kept costs down. He negotiated with himself, as he did on the stimulus, instead of using the majority he had in Congress to press the case for a public option that would have tackled healthcare costs, our biggest foe. It was never considered.

When Obama recently decided not to relax restrictions on the emergency contraceptive Plan B, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi gave him a pass, while the Colorado Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette, a member of the so called “Pro-Choice Caucus,” stated she was “disappointed.” There are never any repercussions for such decisions on the left, while repercussions have defined the Tea Party and its power on the right.

Understand that Plan B has nothing to do with abortion. It simply makes a female’s womb inhospitable for implantation and has been found absolutely safe by the F.D.A. However, as an ode to independents in an election season, Obama made a decision that any Republican would have made.

But not to worry, a carrot wasn’t far behind. The Department of Health and Human Services recently announced that universal contraceptive coverage will now be part of every employer healthcare plan, with religious-affiliated hospitals and institutions getting a one-year delay to comply. It could have been done earlier, but an election year is prime time.

During the debate around Bowles-Simpson, entitlement “reform” was broached first by Obama, with cost-of-living increases on Social Security being considered by the White House. That this would hit women hardest and put them in poverty was evidently missed by the administration. It was scuttled when all hell broke loose.

There wasn’t a woman in the room during the debt ceiling debate, a time when entitlement “reforms” were being considered. Pelosi was only added after women’s groups held a conference call and writers started complaining.

Obama also cut home heating assistance for the poor at a time when the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy are in place.

During Obama’s first term, he’s sucked on the straw of cutting the deficit, while ignoring Democratic economics. The bully pulpit for progressive economics wasn’t used until re-election season, when he took to the stage at Osawatamie, Kan., channeling the Occupy Wall Street message while launching his 2012 campaign.

There’s the latest action on the Keystone XL Pipeline, at least a short-term win, but it’s not like he came out with gusto against it. Obama said no for now then blamed the Republicans for not giving him enough time to consider the environmental impact. Activists from the grass roots to Robert Redford applauded. We don’t even know if it’s a definite decision.

The Democratic base has a passive-aggressive relationship with Obama that resembles a dysfunctional love affair. He has all the power and the base has absolutely none, unless you count the gay and lesbian contingent which was as good a model as the Tea Party on how to get it done. It’s not that progressives couldn’t have power; it’s that they refuse to wield any.

So they cannot pressure Obama at election time because he knows his Democratic base will be there. After all, they’re not the Tea Party. It doesn’t matter if they’re unhappy, all that matters is he’s got their vote and he knows it.

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Komen Move to Defund Planned Parenthood Not a Surprise

By Taylor Marsh on 01 February 2012

Planned Parenthood confirms that Komen is the first, and only, organization to cut off funding since the Congress began debating the issue in earnest last winter. Komen said it could not continue to fund Planned Parenthood because it has adopted new guidelines that bar it from funding organizations under congressional investigation. The House oversight and investigations subcommittee announced in the fall an investigation into Planned Parenthood’s funding. – Why Komen defunded Planned Parenthood

While the right was laying ground for what just happened, the left was giving ground.

This Komen–Planned Parenthood relationship has long been a target of pro-life activists and, media bias aside, this appears to be a remarkable turning point. – Kathryn Lopez

Kathryn Lopez is correct and the abortion rights opponents earned it. Democrats and progressives have no one to blame but themselves.

Nothing happens suddenly on issues this large or in a vacuum. There is always a methodology to this type of madness and when you cede territory to people on a mission you rarely get it back.

In a statement by Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood, she says she’s “shocked and saddened.” How embarrassing for her. Others write words like “creep up” to describe what has been systematic strategy utilizing tactics that the left is too squeamish to consider.

As a liberal, all I can say is that the female leaders we have today not only aren’t up to the task, but progressives have failed immeasurably and completely to defend the ground stronger women who came before won.

This fight has been around for decades and revolves around abortion rights not cancer screening. But a tipping point occurred during the health care debate when Democrats chose to allow the Hyde Amendment to be codified into law. Until the Affordability Care Act, the Hyde Amendment had to be voted on yearly in the budget.

It signified Democrats and progressives had blinked and the right got the message.

At the time, Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards wasn’t bothered by the move in ACA or the decisions by Democrats. But when Rep. Bart Stupak was given ground by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker of the House in U.S. history who also empowered the Catholic Church during health care negotiations, something fundamental shifted on the game board. Mr. Stupak was then elevated further through an unnecessary executive order signed by Pres. Obama and the message was sent and received by people who never give ground that Democrats weren’t going to suit up for the fight.

The Susan G. Komen decision is the result of getting beaten, with women across this country the victims because Ms. Richards, Ms. Pelosi, Rep. DeGette and the so-called progressive “pro-choice” caucus, along with many, many others never understood what compromise on issues of bedrock principle to the right would mean in the long-term.

We’ve seen it with Pres. Obama’s actions time and again.

The Susan B. Komen decision is about the abortion rights opponent forces winning a battle through squeezing the foundation, starting with getting them ostracized. Here’s the background if you’re interested. Komen’s current senior vice president public policy person is Karen Handel, a woman who wasn’t going to stop until the defunding of Planned Parenthood was a reality.

These are not people who capitulate and compromise for the sake of anything, unlike Democrats and progressives in Congress and their allies who set this scene up.

An entire chapter in my book, “Is Freedom Just for Men,” was written because I saw the erosion of women’s rights, which began with the Hyde Amendment decades ago. It then crescendoed with it being not only codified into law, but women are expected to find emergency insurance outside the normal routes, shrinking the pool of insured and opening the door to unavailability. In this chapter in my book, I cite all the “mini-Stupak” laws that have spread in a contagion across this country, because of the message sent by Democrats.

Susan G. Komen Foundation made the decision on Planned Parenthood because the right won critical seats in the 2010 midterms in a rabid campaign that Democrats didn’t engage fully, including on economics. It allowed Republicans to corner Planned Parenthood, which set up the investigation, which was written into Komen as something that disqualified an organization from funding.

As I wrote in “The Party’s Over,” for over 30 years Democrats have said women needed to vote for them to keep our rights secure. I’ve done that, trusted them, and with Democrats the only game in politics who aren’t cut out for the current fight, now look what has happened. What I was promised would never occur if I voted Democratic.

When you have female leaders so weak on fundamental issues of women’s individual freedoms that they are willing to give away foundational concessions on issues won through the courts it’s only a matter of time before you lose them. Putting party loyalty above all else is how this unfolded.

This was very well played strategy by the right whose tactics should have been seen a long way out. That the head of Planned Parenthood is “shocked” says it all.

Needless to say, I’m not.

Next you’ll hear a rallying cry from Democrats and others to fight back and that women’s rights are at stake! The mean anti-women’s coalition is targeting us all! Give money now!

Any organization taking your money to fund political prerogatives over the mission they’re touting doesn’t deserve one dime.

It goes beyond hypocrisy. It’s a betrayal of trust and purpose, using women as the coin.

This column has been edited.

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Newsweek Asks Correct Question, Gives Wrong Answer

By Taylor Marsh on 16 January 2012

The right is exploding in indignation. As for the left, Tina Brown’s cover title, Why are Obama’s critics so dumb?, gets it right, even if Andrew Sullivan’s nervous writing on the subject gets it wrong. Anyone believing Pres. Obama would have a presidency any different than has manifested is dumb. However, it’s certainly not because Obama’s long game will outsmart his critics, as Sullivan posits.

It’s because there was nothing in Obama’s past that pointed to decisive progressive or F.D.R. leadership, which has resulted in many of his current critics on the left being disappointed and disillusioned. The media in ’08 never bothered to tell that story, with the very few who did, of which I was an early writer, being vilified for our efforts.

I have chronicled why since 2007, having interviewed and talked to some of the Chi-town crowd who saw Obama rise (in 2007) while following candidate Obama on the trail in early 2008. I outlined it further in my piece, “Not Disappointed in Pres. Obama.”

The Obama supporter in the video shown here is “not disappointed by Pres. Obama.”
I’m not either.
The difference is that I’m not as exhausted as this particular Obama supporter seems to be, because I don’t feel the need to defend him or attempt a pitch on his presidency that comes with no enthusiasm and gives lesser of two evils as the foundation. Watching the video is actually depressing instead of convincing.
I’m also not disappointed to say most of the things Pres. Obama has accomplished most any Democratic president would have also done, which may be part of the reason most die hard Obama fans always end up their arguments talking about the appalling choices on the right.

It’s what has led me to the view from a recovering partisan outlined in “The Party’s Over.”

The exhausted Obama supporter in Newsweek‘s case is the conservative who recently endorsed Ron Paul, Andrew Sullivan, whose rhetorical flailing can’t do anything but remind everyone of his convoluted and corrupt theories of intelligence and race, which is mixed in with his bankrupt C.S.I. ramblings on Sarah Palin paternity, which I chronicle in my book. But who can forget Sullivan’s main case for Pres. Obama in ’08, his face. Fan politics has never been so fully defined.

That Andrew Sullivan is for reforming entitlements, and fiscally conservative, is unlikely to be remembered in his case for Pres. Obama. There are few heartfelt endorsements coming from anywhere, with “Republicans are Worse” the main Obama reelect theme. Torture runs deep on pluses with Sullivan, as it should, and DADT is important, a policy who’s time had come, with activists the prime movers on this one. Sullivan’s certainly not concerned about the erosion of women’s individual freedoms, which exploded when Pres. Obama refused to make the economic case in 2010, handing legislatures across the country over to the right that led to an assault on unions, the middle class and a war on women’s rights. He seems unmoved by the Bush-Cheney neoconservatism in Pres. Obama’s foreign policy, including indefinite detention cloaked in the window dressing of an executive order that is more marketing than substance, because the un-American option remains a choice.

However, the real issue with Sullivan’s case on Barack Obama’s 8-year, long-haul case is that it is inarguably the worst Republican field in modern history. No one doubts Pres. Obama is beatable, but in order to do so you at least have to nominate someone for whom voting is a worthy exercise and viable option that doesn’t make you gag. That someone so unloved, barely respected, even vilified by conservatives, will be the Republican nominee proves that the challenger Pres. Obama will likely face is someone for whom conservatives can barely vote.

Mitt Romney is a one-percenter in an Occupy era who can’t even close with Republicans.

Sure he’s the best candidate among the field, but what does that even mean this year? Better than Rick Perry, who can’t remember three bullet points of his own philosophy? Better than big government conservative Rick Santorum who doesn’t believe in birth control, thinks gays are worse for children than an orphanage, neither stance embraceable by independents, and is a “pro-life” politician who has a blood lust for war? Jon Hunstman, the smartest man in the field— Oh, right. A better choice than the hypocritical Newt Gingrich, an ethics challenged, multi-married opportunistic, tantrum prone priss who would rather take his party down by challenging their core foundation with gas bag rhetoric based on lies to get it done?

Then there is Ron Paul, whom Sullivan endorsed recently. Paul is more anti-war than the once anti-Iraq war market-pitching, regime change, indefinite detention backing “Democratic” president. Paul also wants to take on the drug war, something that hits minorities more than any other policy, and honor civil liberties, which Sullivan conveniently ignores for the very reasons I just stated in the previous paragraph. He simply can’t vote for the Republican rabble. Paul also doesn’t have a path to win, so Obama’s the next best stop for Sullivan, an obvious lesser than other evils voter.

He’s not alone.

So, if Pres. Obama succeeds in beating Mitt Romney, assuming he prevails, is it really due to the President’s long term strategy? No, it’s not. It’s due to voters feeling they have no other choice, because it’s been obvious for some time the American electorate wants one, including Andrew Sullivan.

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Book Event and Fundraiser

By Taylor Marsh on 21 December 2011

Thanks for your support!

I’ve seen the print version and it’s gorgeous, easy to read and beautiful if you’re considering giving it for Christmas or Hanukkah.

Buy my book in the soft cover print version!

It’s a smart book to have on your Kindle or NOOK, too.

You can also support my work and this site by donating through Paypal (credit cards accepted, too). It makes a big difference.

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Robert Cruickshank is Half Right

By Taylor Marsh on 19 December 2011

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

Read Robert Cruickshank’s post on “Occupy the Progressive Movement.” Unfortunately, it only goes half way, which has been the problem with progressives since the health care bill sell off.

What’s needed from movement progressives and Democrats is to Occupy the White House. If the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), see Glenn Greenwald’s analysis or Jonathan Turley’s thoughts (h/t newdealdeme1), didn’t prove that to progressives nothing will.

I also understand that progressives and their leaders like Robert Cruickshank recoil from giving the Tea Party any credit. It’s understandable considering the astroturfing by the Koch Bros. and many others, because it’s hard to laud the Tea Party as grass roots when they’re being funded by 1% whales.

However, back during the Bush-Cheney era, when the Tea Party actually sprang up, giving Ron Paul the energy that now has him leading in Iowa, their foundation wasn’t the stuff of millionaire Republicans and financing through insiders. It was a genuine revolt by the right to Republican hypocrisy, which included that Republican Establishment that they targeted for take down. This included the very leaders in power, from Congress to the White House.

In 2010, the Tea Party succeeded, regardless of the loss of power and the irrelevancy they’re living today. Though the vindication of Ron Paul over the Koch Bros. wing proves that the righteous are finally having their day, even it’s likely to disappear post Paul.

Mr. Cruickshank hits very important points, which movement progressives will hail. But one glaring omission reveals the weakness of the progressive movement today, which still doesn’t have at its foundation the courage to go all the way.

Cruickshank suggests that organizing will manifest the change needed. He’s smart enough to know that Occupy’s agenda is not the same as the progressives movement’s agenda, but he won’t go so far as to answer the question I posed about movement progressives taking on the Democratic Party at the convention in Charlotte, giving political heft to Occupy. It’s not a small point.

I have tremendous respect, in some cases awe, of what movement progressives work to accomplish, which is especially productive on local levels and through primary challengers, but the progressive “movement” is still afraid to take it the last mile.

Unless movement progressives are willing to Occupy the Obama White House they will remain supplicants to a political message and leader that uses them during election seasons, but never delivers once empowered.

I understand fully the difficulty in accepting you cannot take down and defeat a corporate behemoth like Obama reelect.

Why no movement progressive is making the case against Pres. Obama on principles and policy in a public and tactical way reveals the weakness of Robert Cruickshank’s case, but also the “movement” he’s attempting to inspire to action.

No pain, no gain. There will be pain for taking on a Democratic president on issues and substance of his decisions, with the gain being that of movement progressives, which could harm Pres. Obama in a reelection year.

It is a hard choice, but one of long-term thinking and credibility over expediency that rarely delivers.

Movement progressives should have long ago decided to Occupy the current occupant of the White House who has compromised or caved time and again, while moving the entire country’s political discourse to the right.

The good news about Pres. Obama’s frightfully bad first term is that he played a role in helping Occupy rise, too.

As long as Pres. Obama’s reelection is more important than the policies, principles and purpose of the progressive movement the notion of “Occupying the progressive movement” is strictly amateur.

It’s not the job of movement progressives to get Pres. Obama reelected. In fact, it’s not really in their best interest, as the indefinite detention bill revealed. Why don’t they know that by now?

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The Hillary Effect Hits Amazon

By Taylor Marsh on 15 December 2011

Now available on Amazon for your Kindle!

Now Available on Amazon!

I received the hard copy yesterday and it was great to see, hold and read.

Our PR team will be sending it out far and wide in the coming weeks, so media outlets can request a copy through that link.

If you feel so compelled, I’d appreciate a “like” click on the page. Thanks.

It looks just great under the Christmas tree!

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Bill Clinton on Pres. Obama

By Taylor Marsh on 06 November 2011

The Washington Post on former Pres. Bill Clinton’s new book:

Bill Clinton has advice, and some criticism, for President Obama in new book
“The Democrats did not counter the national Republican message with one of their own,” Clinton writes of the Democratic losses in 2010. “There was no national advertising campaign to explain and defend what they had done and to compare their agenda for the next two years with the GOP proposals.” He compares it with his own congressional defeats in 1994.
The very existence of such a book by the former president — which Clinton says was inspired by the 2010 midterm losses — has produced some eye-rolling among senior Obama advisers and is certain to spur a new round of unwelcome comparisons between the 1990s and today. …
[...] His more cutting criticism of Obama is implied. Clinton praises Wall Street executives, saying that many would be willing to contribute to improving the economy and cutting the deficit. “Many of them supported me when I raised their taxes in 1993, because I didn’t attack them for their success,” Clinton writes. Unspoken is that Obama has at times eviscerated Wall Street for its excesses, infuriating its leaders.

Amen on 2010, much of which should be laid at the feet of Tim Kaine, now running for senator in Virginia. What a colossal mistake, but it’s been one of Pres. Obama’s biggest mistakes during his first term: taking up economic Republicanism, while shunning progressive economics until he realized it was causing him reelection problems.

However, what Mr. Clinton misses by a mile regarding Wall Street is that he didn’t preside over a fatal collapse of the economy, which hinted at real malevolence of Wall Street fat cats that were responsible. Going on the assessments of what Clinton has written, because I have not read his book yet — I’m still working with my publisher on my own book that will be out soon — I’d say it’s impossible for Bill Clinton to judge accurately how he’d have reacted in the same situation.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s preposterous for Mr. Clinton to imply Pres. Obama shouldn’t have taken out after Wall Streeters after the debacle they caused. The Obama administration and A.G. Holder haven’t been nearly tough enough on Wall Street for my money.

The New York Times article on WJC’s book is titled “With a Book, the Last Democrat in the White House Tries to Help the Current One.”

But leave it to the New York Post to go with “Clinton Book Slams Bam.” It’s likely to be the view of the “eye-rollers” in the Administration, too.

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OWS: The Connections are Wide and Deep

By Taylor Marsh on 27 October 2011

The video above is of Sgt. Shamar Thomas. It went viral and now has over 2 million hits. After Scott Olsen’s assault, it seems even more relevant.

Interestingly, Olsen is reportedly from Wisconsin, the state that Gov. Scott Walker ignited with his anti-democratic view of economic equality.

As a reminder, Pres. Obama and the Democrats did not mount any economic message for the 2010 midterms. Then after getting their… um.. hats handed to them in December, Pres. Obama made a deal with Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts. Now that candidate Obama is on the campaign stump, however, he says he won’t extend them again.

Of course, now that Pres. Obama’s own political future is on the line he’s sounding like a class warrior who has religion. One by one on cable, the talking heads proclaim he’s “back,” his message is winning, etc.

It’s not hard to believe Pres. Obama’s populist message, conveniently timed and politically motivated, is winning. The message to back up the middle class and working stiffs, one that I’ve been drilling home for years, is always a winner. It’s just unfortunate that Mr. Obama only finds it when his own fortunes need a lift.

It’s also why I laugh out loud when David Axelrod or team Obama go after Mitt Romney, making the argument that slick Mitt will say anything to get elected. If that charge sounds familiar it should. Yes, Mitt Romney is a Wall Street jackal. Obama’s not in that league, but he doesn’t have any problem taking campaign contributions from those who are. You decipher the difference.

Ronald Reagan started sapping the American dream in the 1980s, which lasted for 12 years.

The Bush tax cuts and two wars off the books in the 2000s did the rest.

When Pres. Obama came into office, the economic die was already cast.

Unfortunately, Obama chose to hire Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, the latter the man who convinced Pres. Bill Clinton to dismantle Glass-Steagall, though when Clinton finally signed the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, Congress had passed it with a veto proof majority. An apology from Clinton is hardly enough, but you would have thought Barack Obama would have learned before entering office what these actions had wrought. Instead, he doubled down on known economic quantities and friends of the establishment, moneyed class. People who helped the economic crisis occur.

Elizabeth Warren offered Pres. Obama a glimmer of hope and a way out of the mess Geithner and Summers had made of his economic message. Unfortunately, Tim Geithner had no intention of letting her gain power and Obama had no intention of using his presidential clout to make sure the woman who understood the financial plight of we the people had any.

From Confidence Men, the book that sent the White House into swift damage control, by Ron Suskind:

“… Only those in his inner circle at Treasury, though, can read what’s behind that expression: a string of private efforts across the past year to neutralize Warren. The previous fall, Geithner huddled with top aides to develop what one called an “Elizabeth Warren strategy,” a plan to engage with the firebrand reformer that would render her politically inert. He never worked out a viable strategy–a way to meet with Warren without drawing undesirable comparisons–and so, like the president, he didn’t.
What the Treasury Department did do, unbeknownst to Warren, was embrace demands from the banking industry to create a bureau under the condition that Warren would not be allowed to lead it. [...] The industry managed to get the proposed agency shrunk into a bureau that would live under the auspices of the Federal Reserve…

It may seem like all of the events currently swirling are unrelated and happening separately, but as days and weeks pass there is a common thread running through them all and it’s not going away.

AFTER-TAX INCOME GREW MORE FOR HIGHEST-INCOME HOUSEHOLDS

After-tax income for the highest-income households grew more than it did for any other group. (After-tax income is income after federal taxes have been deducted and government transfers—which are payments to people through such programs as Social Security and Unemployment Insurance—have been added.)

CBO finds that, between 1979 and 2007, income grew by:

275 percent for the top 1 percent of households,
65 percent for the next 19 percent,
Just under 40 percent for the next 60 percent, and
18 percent for the bottom 20 percent.

The title to this piece has been changed.

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Romney’s Top Legal Adviser: Women ‘Aren’t Discriminated Against Anymore’

By Taylor Marsh on 17 October 2011

Mitt Romney Monday continues.

Pres. Obama and the Democrats split the women’s vote in the 2010 midterms. Romney and the Republicans seem to be determined to turn that around for them.

According to Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast, Robert Bork is one of Mitt Romney’s newest legal advisers.

How about the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment? Does he still think it shouldn’t apply to women?
“Yeah,” he answers. “I think I feel justified by the fact ever since then, the Equal Protection Clause kept expanding in ways that cannot be justified historically, grammatically, or any other way. Women are a majority of the population now—a majority in university classrooms and a majority in all kinds of contexts. It seems to me silly to say, ‘Gee, they’re discriminated against and we need to do something about it.’ They aren’t discriminated against anymore.”

Good to know.

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Democrats and the Politics of Denial

By Taylor Marsh on 14 September 2011

On a high-level campaign conference call Tuesday afternoon, Democratic donors and strategists commiserated over their disappointment in Obama. A source on the call described the mood as “awful.” “People feel betrayed, disappointed, furious, disgusted, hopeless,” said the source. – Twin defeats spark Democratic fears

Steve Benen writes about “context” of the special elections yesterday.

Okay, then let’s provide real context, not simply partisan sunscreen to soothe the roasted beast.

From Nate Silver comes the numbers, including Hochul’s win in upstate New York, with numbers uninterested in anyone’s need to cover Pres. Obama’s abysmal part in the shellacking or the Democratic Party’s current trajectory:

Even if you include it, however — as well as a July special election in California, where Democrats won but by an underwhelming margin — Republicans have overperformed the P.V.I. baseline by an average of 7 percentage points across the four races. That squares with what we saw in 2010, when Republicans won the popular vote for the House by an aggregate of 7 percentage points.
In other words, the four special elections, taken as a whole, suggest that Democrats may still be locked in a 2010-type political environment. Democrats might not lose many more seats in the House if that were the case, since most of their vulnerable targets have already been picked off, but it would limit their potential for any gains. And it could produce dire results for the Democrats in the U.S. Senate, where they have twice as many seats up for re-election.

Let’s also remember for one moment how Kathy Hochul won in a red district. She pummeled Republicans on their Medicare voucher idea, coming from right-wing darling Paul Ryan.

Pres. Obama is preparing, along with his “super committee,” to take that weapon away from Democrats, because of “reforms” being planned, which he’s reportedly set to outline next week.

Marc Ambinder writes about the White House spin, which started early and was piled on thick:

Still, Obama always has had trouble with Orthodox Jews, and two Obama advisers said they understand that at least some of the frustration may be exercised in the form of a vote against the Democratic candidate. They concede that the election might bring to the fore how difficult it will be for Obama to win back the trust of independents—no matter what their faith. This New York contest would seem to have implications beyond Brooklyn and Queens.

Partisans trying to make Democrats and progressives feel better about the reality being faced right now aren’t doing anyone any favors. But that’s what partisans do. They support the status quo, because otherwise they’d have to admit that their team sucks.

I honestly don’t know what else Democrats and progressives need to see for them to wake up to reality, which may be ugly, but is better to face now than this time next year.

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Al Gore Chides Obama to Use Bully Pulpit on Climate Change

By Taylor Marsh on 22 June 2011

Poor Al.

He wants so badly to help Pres. Barack Obama find his inner presidential activist on behalf of important international policy. But while he scolds him, Mr. Gore also neuters his effectiveness by giving Pres. Obama power over him and the message he’s desperate to drill home.

The Joplin tornado proved how badly a leader is needed. Last week my brother Larry traveled to Joplin, Mo. where he was born. There’d never been such a catastrophe like the tornado that recently decimated this quaint mining town. We’d talked and I’d hoped he’d make the trip once they were letting people in again. He wanted to see the houses he grew up and lived in, to see if they were still standing, along with the hospital where he was born, which took direct hits. All 3 houses of Larry’s childhood, grandma and grandpa’s too, made it through the tornado, his junior high school did not. But seeing Joplin was a stunning trip for him, even as current residents work their way back.

This is part of what our weather has become. The Rush Limbaugh flat earth crowd is oblivious, because they’re still moored in the 19th century, ignoring science, even evolution, not taking the stewardship of our planet seriously.

The problem remains that Obama’s too scared he’ll alienate some far flung Blue Dog or Independent or discover an extinct liberal Republican that might vote for him in North Carolina that he won’t say what’s needed to be said. He’s been in this state for a long time.

It’s time for Mr. Gore to face that Pres. Obama hasn’t been able to find the courage or vision to inspire Americans to join together for any cause and today people wouldn’t listen if he did.

Even with Obama’s incredible power he once had coming into office, he couldn’t get a Democratic Congress to join together to pass important Democratic legislation, with even the health care bill a mish-mash of private insurance benefits and giveaways to Big Phrma. Why anyone thinks at this point he’s going to rally people behind a cause is beyond me.

But because we’re in a desperate climate situation, including losing our oceans, Mr. Gore is driven to try. From Gore’s Rolling Stone article:

[...] But in spite of these and other achievements, President Obama has thus far failed to use the bully pulpit to make the case for bold action on climate change. After successfully passing his green stimulus package, he did nothing to defend it when Congress decimated its funding. After the House passed cap and trade, he did little to make passage in the Senate a priority. Senate advocates — including one Republican — felt abandoned when the president made concessions to oil and coal companies without asking for anything in return. He has also called for a massive expansion of oil drilling in the United States, apparently in an effort to defuse criticism from those who argue speciously that “drill, baby, drill” is the answer to our growing dependence on foreign oil.
[...] … Ultimately, however, the only way to address the climate crisis will be with a global agreement that in one way or another puts a price on carbon. And whatever approach is eventually chosen, the U.S. simply must provide leadership by changing our own policy.
Yet without presidential leadership that focuses intensely on making the public aware of the reality we face, nothing will change. The real power of any president, as Richard Neustadt wrote, is “the power to persuade.” Yet President Obama has never presented to the American people the magnitude of the climate crisis. He has simply not made the case for action. He has not defended the science against the ongoing, withering and dishonest attacks. Nor has he provided a presidential venue for the scientific community — including our own National Academy — to bring the reality of the science before the public.
Here is the core of it: we are destroying the climate balance that is essential to the survival of our civilization. This is not a distant or abstract threat; it is happening now. The United States is the only nation that can rally a global effort to save our future. And the president is the only person who can rally the United States.
Many political advisers assume that a president has to deal with the world of politics as he finds it, and that it is unwise to risk political capital on an effort to actually lead the country toward a new understanding of the real threats and real opportunities we face. Concentrate on the politics of re-election, they say. Don’t take chances.
All that might be completely understandable and make perfect sense in a world where the climate crisis wasn’t “real.” Those of us who support and admire President Obama understand how difficult the politics of this issue are in the context of the massive opposition to doing anything at all — or even to recognizing that there is a crisis. And assuming that the Republicans come to their senses and avoid nominating a clown, his re-election is likely to involve a hard-fought battle with high stakes for the country. All of his supporters understand that it would be self-defeating to weaken Obama and heighten the risk of another step backward. Even writing an article like this one carries risks; opponents of the president will excerpt the criticism and strip it of context.
But in this case, the President has reality on his side. The scientific consensus is far stronger today than at any time in the past. Here is the truth: The Earth is round; Saddam Hussein did not attack us on 9/11; Elvis is dead; Obama was born in the United States; and the climate crisis is real. It is time to act. [...]

What Mr. Gore ignores is that whatever capital Pres. Obama once had he has squandered. There isn’t enough hope to believe he can change to lead on climate change. Even if Obama wins reelection, his second term won’t be about Democratic change, but he will likely go for historic accomplishments like “dealing with entitlements.”

It might be hard for people to understand what I’m now about to write. But given Pres. Obama’s failure to use the presidential bully pulpit for anything but to help himself, whether through issues that serve his long-term interests or political future, on climate change, leadership may now have to come from an unlikely source.

Could climate change be the Republicans’ Nixon to China moment if they get into office in 2012? I’m not betting on it, that’s for sure, because Republicans today are a rag tag lot of miserable austerity hacks.

But reading Mr. Gore write this incredible statement reveals the problem with the Democratic establishment, including the best and brightest:

All of his supporters understand that it would be self-defeating to weaken Obama and heighten the risk of another step backward.

The Democratic Party will continue to be ineffectual, weak and a party of corporate interests, including on policy, if they believe pleading to a president who knows he won’t face consequences for his betrayals will change the equation.

At some point, Democrats and progressives are going to have to decide what’s more important, one man and winning or the principles on which their party once stood.

The men backing Jon Huntsman have decided for the sake of the future they think his candidacy is worth standing behind, because it might pave the way for something amazing to happen, like the huge fundraising on his first day out. Maybe they’ll get lucky in the face of such an uninspiring GOP field, but they simply know they can’t tolerate what’s being stood up in the name of Reagan’s party.

Too bad Democrats and progressives don’t feel the same way about F.D.R.’s party.

Al Gore’s piece is a tortured plea, as filled with angst as the entire progressive movement is when it comes to Barack Obama. Lecturing this man won’t change him.

Ask any woman who goes to work trying to change a man, falling in love with the person she thinks he is or could be instead of the man he actually is. It always ends badly, either in breakup or divorce, unless she’s stupid and lazy enough to choose to live with much less than she deserves.

The planet doesn’t stand a chance against these odds.

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David Frum Levels Pawlenty While Trump Watches

By Taylor Marsh on 21 April 2011

I’ve been waiting for someone on the Right to say something close to what’s deserved about Mr. Tim Pawlenty and finally someone has.

If the GOP wants to finish Trump, GOP candidates had better learn to speak to those anxieties – to offer a remedy more effectual than the snake-oil now being peddled by Tim Pawlenty. – How to Beat Trump

If Republicans want to stop the reelection of Pres. Obama they won’t do it with Tim Pawlenty.

Watching Lawrence O’Donnell’s take downs of Donald Trump, many obviously have validity on the substance issues like on privacy, but also Canada regarding our oil, not to mention that you just don’t wave a wand and our trade challenges are fixed. But he’s completely missing the moment Mr. Trump has grabbed and is filling. He has tapped into an emotional current through instinctually understanding the mood of a segment of conservative Americans and Independents, which I’ve been talking about since he surfaced. His role as the un-Obama, a man who speaks his mind, knows where he’s going and is sure about the direction, because he knows even if he’s wrong he can adapt and figure it out on the fly. He’s done it all his life. Many of Mr. Trump’s pronouncements sound ludicrous (though he’s smart enough to stay away from Ryan’s plan), but after the last two years conservatives only respond to political dog whistles that now come in an assorted variety.

One day after being named to a presidential task force to negotiate deficit reduction, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor fired off a stark warning to Democrats that the GOP “will not grant their request for a debt limit increase” without major spending cuts or budget process reforms. – GOP escalates demands on debt limit

There is something else Frum wrote:

America has not had a mass conversion to ideological libertarianism…. The GOP establishment has successfully directed those emotions against the Obama administration. But there’s no guarantee that the emotions will remain fixed in that direction – because after all, the establishment GOP is offering little or nothing to allay the discontents producing the anger. Conservatives like liberals have suffered unemployment, the loss of savings, the decline in housing values. Conservatives like liberals find themselves suddenly poorer for reasons they do not understand. Conservatives like liberals fear and dread that Medicare and Social Security will soon be cut to rescue the country’s finances.

Liberals and conservatives are pissed off and “lesser of two evils” no matter where it’s represented isn’t good enough for some anymore. There are still a multitude of two party voter drones who’ll never alter their voting habits, but there’s now other contingents who will no longer settle and when politicians don’t deliver they feel no loyalty.

Segue to Ed Kilgore:

Trump, the real estate mogul and reality TV star, has been putting out the types of feelers that usually signal a real candidacy rather than a publicity stunt. He is riding high in the polls on essentially the same customer-service-style political strategy that fellow entrepreneur Mitt Romney pursued, but a la Trump, stronger, bigger, crasser—and in a far more radical political environment, where the demand for an ultra-hard line on terrorism has been eclipsed by the niche demand for Birtherism, along with extreme policy positions that voters weren’t even obsessing about yet like virulent anti-Chinese protectionism and a policy to openly steal the Arab world’s oil. The Republican establishment has perceived this as a threat—believing that Trump will drag the entire Republican field into a world where they cannot be taken seriously by general election voters—and launched an all-out effort to tar him. But the truth is that their effort may be a lost cause, for reasons that are intrinsic to the success of Trump’s consumer-focused approach: This year, GOP voters’ hunger for radicalism is so great that it can be filled by essentially anybody. Kill off Trump’s candidacy and the demand will remain, leaving an opening for yet another demagogic charlatan to take his place.

Ronald Reagan’s legacy is already being fulfilled before the candidates are even officially announced. The GOP’s B-movie segment of the golden age of Hollywood replaced by the tin age of TV, complete with their own television reality show stars. Everyone else will have to wait until this battle is over and if there’s anything left at the end someone else can pick up the spoils if they’re not scattered to smithereens.

But as things stand now Donald Trump just as easily could be the last man standing on the GOP side, but if he isn’t you’re still likely to get crazy over establishment.

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The Next Obamas

By Taylor Marsh on 07 April 2011

Did that mean, I asked, that Mario Cuomo, who strongly opposed Clintonian compromises like the welfare-reform law of 1996, had come at last to appreciate triangulation? “No,” he said quickly, shifting a bit in his swivel chair. Then, more softly, “I’m still a liberal, I guess.” – Mario Cuomo Still Believes, by Matt Bai

They don’t make Democratic leaders like Mario Cuomo anymore.

The Obama era is now producing clones that stand for nothing, certainly not Democratic principles, with the idea to keep their options open so that voters can dress them like a political Ken doll.

This template has been bronzed through Barack Obama’s success in slick talking Democrats into submission. So now Andrew Cuomo is trying it on for size as he eyes the spot his father couldn’t reach, the White House in 2016.

Cuomo’s 2010 campaign slogan was “experience and independence.” Of course you need “independence,” because in the Obama era standing up for Democratic principles is considered too limiting. Cuomo’s the latest Obama clone, another “pragmatist,” who shows “little interest in ideological labels.”

From the New York Times:

He has clashed with unions, who he believes have helped drive his state toward bankruptcy. He has been praised by prominent conservatives like Sarah Palin and Rudolph W. Giuliani. And he has taken thousands of dollars in campaign money from the New York billionaire David H. Koch, who with his family has helped financed the Tea Party movement.
[...] “Candidly, progressives are quite disappointed with the governor’s budget,” said Jon Kest, a veteran organizer and executive director of New York Communities for Change, an advocacy group for low-income New Yorkers. “We will stand with him when his actions align with our values, but that is not the case today.”
… Mr. Cuomo declined to be interviewed for this article. In a rare on-the-record interview last October, as he was running for governor, he showed little interest in ideological labels. “I’m a realist,” Mr. Cuomo said at the time. “Numbers are numbers. ‘I want to have a political-philosophical discussion,’ ” he mimicked. “They’re numbers. Forget the philosophy. Here are the numbers.”

Oh, sweet Jesus, spare me.

A political “realist” is someone who admits he’ll do anything to get elected, because he realizes he doesn’t have the intellect to sell what he believes, because principles might hem him in.

I honestly don’t know what it’s going to take to get movement progressives to wake up and challenge the establishment in the Democratic Party, but they’d better do it soon or all they’ll have to choose from in 2016 is Obama knock offs who stand for everything, but whose political principles are nonexistent, and whose promises and pledges to get your vote mean nothing.

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2012: ‘Ultra-paranoid’ Jim Messina and Obama’s Re-elect

By Taylor Marsh on 01 April 2011

Says one Democratic operative of Messina: “I hope he’s better at political campaigns than at managing big, important pieces of legislation.” – Jim Messina, Obama’s Enforcer, by Ari Berman

Absolutely nothing frosted me more than watching the White House bungle the health care messaging. Jim Messina is the guy who got beat by Sarah Palin’s “death panels” squeal and led the Democrats into a legislative quagmire and electoral strife that will follow them into the 2012 election cycle.

Jim Messina is also the guy who bought Andrew Breitbart’s smear tactics, then praised the quick firing of Shirley Sherrod to staffers, which I wrote about here, based on the reporting of Ben Smith at Politico.

From Berman’s piece:

Messina begins the re-election campaign with a significant amount of baggage. As a former chief of staff to Baucus and deputy to Emanuel, Messina has clashed with progressive activists and grassroots Obama supporters both inside and outside Washington over political strategy and on issues like healthcare reform and gay rights, alienating parts of the very constituencies that worked so hard for Obama in 2008 and that the campaign needs to reinspire and activate in 2012. Obama’s fixer has arguably created as many problems as he’s solved. “He is not of the Obama movement,” says one top Democratic strategist in Washington. “There is not a bone in his body that speaks to or comprehends the idea of a movement and that grassroots energy. To me, that’s bothersome.”
[...] Under Messina, Obama ‘12 could more closely resemble the electoral strategy of Baucus or Bill and Hillary Clinton—cautious, controlling, top-down in structure and devoted to small-bore issues that blur differences between the parties—than Obama ‘08, a grassroots effort on a scale modern politics had never seen. “It was a major harbinger to me, when Obama hired him, that we were not going to get ‘change we can believe in,’” says Ken Toole, a former Democratic state senator and public service commissioner in Montana. “Messina has a lot of talents, but he’s extremely conservative in his views on how to do politics. He’s got a tried-and-true triangulation methodology, and that’s never gonna change.” The Democratic National Committee declined to make Messina available for an interview.

To refresh, Messina is the “veal pen” man and was instrumental on muscling the health care bill away from anything progressives wanted and toward the private deal with insurers, particularly PhRMA, that sunk and stunk up the plan. More from Berman:

The administration deputized Messina as the top liaison to the Common Purpose Project. The coveted invite-only, off-the-record Tuesday meetings at the Capitol Hilton became the premier forum where the administration briefed leading progressive groups, including organizations like the AFL-CIO, MoveOn, Planned Parenthood and the Center for American Progress, on its legislative and political strategy. Theoretically, the meetings were supposed to provide a candid back-and-forth between outside groups and administration officials, but Messina tightly controlled the discussions and dictated the terms of debate (Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake memorably dubbed this the “veal pen”). “Common Purpose didn’t make a move without talking to Jim,” says one progressive strategist. During the healthcare fight, Messina used his influence to try to stifle any criticism of Baucus or lobbying by progressive groups that was out of sync with the administration’s agenda, according to Common Purpose participants. “Messina wouldn’t tolerate us trying to lobby to improve the bill,” says Richard Kirsch, former national campaign manager for Health Care for America Now (HCAN), the major coalition of progressive groups backing reform. Kirsch recalled being told by a White House insider that when asked what the administration’s “inside/outside strategy” was for passing healthcare reform, Messina replied, “There is no outside strategy.”

As for the never ending promises to the gay community, Joe Subday says DADT passed “in spite of Messina.” If Joe says this is the truth, it is. Many people won’t be so blunt, because progressive groups don’t want the backlash and to be frozen out.

But if there is one thing that resonates with what I hear constantly it is this sentence from Berman’s piece:

Corporate America no longer regards Obama as an ally, while many donors from 2008 are disillusioned with the administration’s legislative compromises and political timidity.

Couple all of this with progressive disappointment and disgust over the trajectory of Obama’s first term and you’ve got a whole lot of depressed Democrats and progressives as 2012 rolls around and the Republicans get ready to do what they’ve been waiting to do since 2008. Defeat Pres. Obama at all costs.

The most committed wins and 2012 won’t come close to 2008 on the enthusiasm meter for Barack Obama. That’s a fact that’s already baked into the election.

Could it make the difference?

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Rush Limbaugh and the Republican Field for 2012

By Taylor Marsh on 15 March 2011

It’s true that Palin relies on shallow talking points, but where do these come from? They come from the institutions and leaders of the movement that is supposedly so concerned with ideas. Palin is disinterested in ideas, and she has flourished in the conservative media for years. She does rely on shallow talking points, and legions of conservative pundits have repeatedly defended her against charges that she is ignorant and incurious. Everything about her public persona since she received the VP nomination has been built up around tapping into resentment, grievance, and identity politics, all of which are in one way or another antithetical to critical thinking and substantive discussion of policy, and for a while most of her new detractors said nothing or gushed about how wonderful she was. – Palin and the “Party of Ideas”

Mike, Michele, Newt and Sarah lead the 2012 pack. “Frontrunner” Mitt Romney is well back of the populist wannabes.

Mr. Huckabee is the only one out of the four who could possibly wage a decent fight against Obama. However, in the end will suburban Republican women vote for him? There are real doubts.

Sarah Palin finds herself slipping, which reveals a couple of things. The Republican establishment’s war on her is working, even if her own self-inflicted “blood-libel” wound was far worse. But also that her unwillingness to jump into the race early is allowing for others of her brand type to gain traction, specifically Michele Bachmann.

Republicans were hands off when Sarah Palin was leading them to victory in 2010. But looking to 2012 she presents real problems. The Republican boys’ club therefore has decided she’s finally outlived her usefulness.

All of this had Rush Limbaugh genuinely perplexed yesterday, while freaking out over Palin being compared to Al Sharpton. The transcript isn’t as stunning as listening to it live, but here it is: What’s the Problem with Palin?

[...] But this rising vitriol from the “conservative intellectual” bench is mystifying to me. (sigh) I don’t get this comparison to Al Sharpton. I don’t know where that comes from. That’s Matt Labash at the Weekly Standard. I don’t know where that comes from. What does Sharpton do? Would somebody point out one similarity between Al Sharpton and Sarah Palin? Where is the Tawana Brawley in Sarah Palin’s life? Where is that incident? Where are all the megaphone-lead rallies and protests? Where are those things? Where is the complement to the National Action Network and its annual convention in whatever else?
Where is this? Where are the lawsuits that Sharpton files against people? Well, they claim that she’s playing her cards. Where is her tax cheating, for example? Who is Sarah Palin shaking down? I mean, if we’re gonna start making these comparisons… (interruption) What was it you just shouted at me, H.R.? Well, that’s why they say she’s portraying herself as a victim because she’s firing back. They are saying that she should just shut up. In the aftermath of being blamed for this Arizona thing, she should have just shut up. The fact that she responded and reacted to it means that she’s feeling sorry for herself and is portraying herself as a victim — and that’s something that the left does: Portray themselves as victims.
She shoulda just been quiet and let the story ride itself out and let it go away and so forth as it would have. I used to think that a lot of this was just fear-based. (sigh) I’ve really had a tough time understanding this. To be honest, folks, I’ve had a tough time. I’m still not sure. I’m wondering if some of this is not rooted in the fear that our “conservative intellectuals” have that our current crop of Republican presidential hopefuls is kind of weak; and that, therefore, she may be the most popular among ‘em. But it’s like I told you: I love telling this story. A couple friends of mine who had recently met Palin — I’ve never met her. I’ve spoken to her on the phone once when we interviewed her for Limbaugh Letter, the newsletter when she had her book out.
Other than that I’d never talked to her. I’ve never met her. She did tell a funny story when I did interview her. She said that I met her father out in Palm Springs at one of the first two Bob Hope Chrysler Classic golf tournaments I played in as an amateur that some guy came up and asked me to sign a copy of my book for his daughter. Well, it turned out to be her dad getting the book signed for her and that she has that book in her office or her library in her home in Alaska. That’s the extent. I don’t know her. I’ve never spent any time with her.
But these people that I know here had spent an evening with her, and couple days later I met them for dinner — and, folks, these are rock-ribbed conservatives, huge donors and fundraisers, Reaganites. Their pedigree is unquestionable, and they said to me, “You know, dear, we met Sarah Palin. I think you would agree, dear, she just doesn’t have the heft. She’s much prettier in person than even on TV — you can’t escape noticing that — but, I don’t know. I think she’s just not presidential. Do you think, dear?” And, you know, I recalled what the circumstance was here. This is not a place to start an argument. I didn’t care to, didn’t want to spend that kind of time there.
I said, “Yeah, you know what? Give me four more years of Obama, instead of Palin.”
“W-w-what? What do you mean by that, dear?”
“Well, Sarah Palin is so damn embarrassing, I don’t know how I could vote for her. I might not even be able to say I’m a Republican if she gets the nomination!”
“Um, I’m not quite following you, dear.”
“Well, she’s so embarrassing, I guess if it’s Sarah Palin or Obama? Hell, give me Obama!” I finally said, “Look, I don’t understand all this. THE PROBLEM IS OBAMA! The Democrat Party is destroying the freaking country — sorry to yell here — and we’re sitting here sniping over Sarah Palin? I’d vote for Elmer Fudd if the Republicans nominated him, if Obama’s the Democrat.” So obviously there are elements of this that are personal that I don’t understand. Look, I could understand not wanting her to be the nominee, I can understand thinking there’s somebody better, but this? There’s an all-out assault on her by our guys that puzzles me — and now this latest to say that she’s Al Sharpton? Our version of Al Sharpton in Alaska?
So you guys gotta help me out out there. Somebody’s gonna have to explain this to me because it makes no sense. You know, I’m totally immersed in logic and common sense, and some of this doesn’t register that way for me. I don’t get it. I can think of — I’m not going to mention any names here — the Republican field, what is it, nine or ten people that are said to be interested in it. There are four or five of them that can’t hold a candle to her, as far as I’m concerned. But these guys don’t think there’s one. So I’m thinking: What did she do to them? Does she embarrass them? (interruption) Okay. (interruption) If she does embarrass them, what? (interruption) Okay, well, of course the liberals are gonna say she’s stupid. That’s enough for us to say, “Okay, we don’t want her,” ’cause the liberals are rejecting her so we’ve gotta dump her? Okay.
All right. Fine. Fine. Well, anybody else got any ideas, I’m open to ‘em. [...]

What Rush doesn’t get is that Republicans used Palin to get a win in 2010, but now that it’s time to think about nominating a presidential contender she’s outlived her usefulness, because the firmly believe she simply cannot win. But Rush’s blindness about Sarah Palin and her inability to beat Pres. Obama does point to something else. It could be that the Missouri-born blowhard simply doesn’t understand how anyone could vote for a black man.

The problem isn’t Sarah Palin. It’s today’s Republican Party.

[...] As long as she was useful prior to the midterms, the institutions, magazines, and leaders of the movement not only tolerated her, but actively promoted her and gave her typically glowing coverage. Those that couldn’t bring themselves to praise her went out of their way not to criticize her. Now that Palin may represent a political threat to Republican chances of regaining the White House, they are suddenly very concerned about her impact on the quality of conservative argument. Their concern would be interesting if it weren’t so belated and narrowly focused on Palin. When Moynihan made that statement about Republicans 30 years ago, it was true. Thirty years later, the label “party of ideas” has simply become another slogan that Republicans trot out in lieu of any policy ideas. – Palin and the “Party of Ideas”

The reason Rush Limbaugh doesn’t understand it all is because Palin’s ideology fits his and that means she’s a viable candidate for Republicans, which is Mr. Limbaugh’s world means she can automatically beat Obama.

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Overestimated Midterm Mandate

By Taylor Marsh on 01 March 2011

Wisconsin's Gov. Walker

The New York Times/CBS Poll reveals Americans still support the notion of bargaining, but also understand that pay cuts hurt real families, especially at a time when the super rich and Wall Street aren’t being asked to do their fair share.

Americans oppose weakening the bargaining rights of public employee unions by a margin of nearly two to one: 60 percent to 33 percent. While a slim majority of Republicans favored taking away some bargaining rights, they were outnumbered by large majorities of Democrats and independents who said they opposed weakening them.
Those surveyed said they opposed, 56 percent to 37 percent, cutting the pay or benefits of public employees to reduce deficits, breaking down along similar party lines.

In Wisconsin, Gov. Walker has so blown his advantage that just four months after being elected the people of Wisconsin would elect the Democrat if given the chance today.

Someone should clue Charles Koch in on reality, because his op-ed in the Wall Street Journal ignores the obvious, while pushing austerity talking points that never once looks at the issue of shared sacrifice.

From PPP:

We’ll have our full poll on the Wisconsin conflict out tomorrow but here’s the most interesting finding: if voters in the state could do it over today they’d support defeated Democratic nominee Tom Barrett over Scott Walker by a a 52-45 margin.

Walker seems to forget the state he lives in. As PPP reveals, it’s GOP union households that are shifting back to Democrats, because of Walker’s stupidity to think an election makes him king.

Gov. Walker also issued a 24-hour ultimatum to Democratic senators.

The New York Times/CBS Poll at the top proves Americans aren’t stupid about what unions provide. Gov. Walker and over zealous Republicans have done the Democrats a huge favor, though it’s still very tough to change the equation this time, though not impossible.

As for Pres. Obama’s statement today about unions. Something tells me someone got him numbers on independents, which is why he spoke out. I don’t think anything he says is organic in the least, but instead opportunism after waiting out a moment where he could have chosen to lead but didn’t. Nothing new there.

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Feingold Speaks: “This is the Gilded Age on Steroids.” Plans to Lead Progressive Coalition.

By Art Pronin on 27 January 2011

TM NOTE: Texan4Hillary offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.

Former Senator Russ Feingold is speaking out after his tragic re-election loss for this past midterm. Known for being highly principled and progressive he courageously opposed the Patriot Act and Iraq War, and voted nay on both. His last famous nay vote was on the loophole ridden “Wall Street Reform” bill. He said it would not solve the issue with Glass Stegall put back in place. Feingold questioned the war in Afghanistan and, on the Foreign Relations Committee, pressed for further oversight into what we are doing there.

Feingold was the chief voice for public finance of all campaigns in the Senate and, had he not lost, he was next to become Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, something which scared the establishment terribly. This champion is gone from the Senate but in his first post election interview he reveals his plans and opinions on politics.

He is back at being a professor, writing a book on the Afghan War, and plans to help lead a progressive movement to counter the Tea Party (let us hope it happens).

Make sure and read the whole thing in The Nation here.

On money and politics in his 2010 race:

…What happened in my race was frustrating. What happened in 2010 was frustrating. But it is going to be worse in 2012 unless we do something… That’s why money in politics is such a fundamental issue. In terms of the incredibly corrosive effect that unlimited spending by corporations has, we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg…. I think the process is being destroyed by this. Some of my future activities will involve challenging that directly.

Feingold in the interview was asked about how relevant the progressive movement is right now. And he lays it out all right…

What do you mean when you refer to “the broader struggle”? What should progressives do now?
I don’t know how it could be more stark or clear: this entire society is being dominated by corporate power in a way that may exceed what happened in the late nineteenth century, early twentieth century. The incredible power these institutions now have over the average person is just overwhelming: the way they can make these trade deals to ship people’s jobs overseas, the way consumers are just brutalized and consumer protection laws are marginalized, the way this town here—Washington—has become a corporate playground. Since I’ve been here, this place has gone from a government town to a giant corporate headquarters.
To me, the whole face of the country—whether it be the government, the media, agriculture, what happens on Main Street—has become so corporatized that the progressive movement is as relevant as it was one hundred years ago, maybe more so. It’s the same issues. It’s just that [corporate] power, because of money, international arrangements and communications, is so overwhelming that the average person is nearly helpless unless we develop a movement that can counter that power. I know we’ve all tried over the years, but this is a critical moment. We need to regenerate progressivism and make it relevant to what’s happening right now. But there’s no lack of historical comparison to a hundred years ago. It’s so similar; the only real difference is that corporate power is even more extended. It’s the Gilded Age on steroids.

He discusses one of his disappointments with Obama: trade.

… I don’t think he gets it on trade agreements. I really wish he saw the connection between these agreements and what they do to working families and communities. It’s devastating. Voters recognize the connection; we saw that in the election. I’m hoping that [Obama] makes the connection in a more direct way. He hasn’t yet, and that worries me on many levels.

On how progressives should relate to Obama and influence him:

I think we need to be very vocal. We can respect him and also indicate a desire that he move more strongly in certain areas, such as civil liberties. We can do it in a way that makes it clear we are not trying to harm the presidency but that we’re trying to make sure that the base of the party and the progressive movement is motivated for this re-election. Because it needs to be. The other side is going to be very excited about 2012. I hope the White House understands that progressives have to be excited too. That will require a real effort to take some chances by moving in a more progressive manner on certain issues. I don’t think we should be shy about saying that.

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Sarah Palin Speaks from Some Undisclosed Facebook Location

By Taylor Marsh on 12 January 2011

Sarah Palin: “America’s Enduring Strength” from Sarah Palin on Vimeo.

Sarah Palin chose to forget today that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords brought up Palin’s “targeting” of her when lamenting the vitriolic political rhetoric in this country before Jared Lee Loughner tried to assassinate her in Arizona.

In a weirdly disembodied and out of touch statement from the abyss of her self-imposed political exile, Palin picks today, the day Pres. Obama will address the nation in Arizona, to come out to mount a defense of herself using the term “blood libel” for anyone saying she’s played a part in the escalating negative rhetoric in this country.

Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online has this correct:

I should have said this a few days ago, when my friend Glenn Reynolds introduced the term to this debate. But I think that the use of this particular term in this context isn’t ideal. Historically, the term is almost invariably used to describe anti-Semitic myths about how Jews use blood — usually from children — in their rituals. I agree entirely with Glenn’s, and now Palin’s, larger point. But I’m not sure either of them intended to redefine the phrase, or that they should have.

After a gaping silence, using “blood libel” is a very bad move on Palin’s part. J-Street has demanded an apology.

She seems clearly not to understand the meaning any more than she does what her own complicity in the toxic atmosphere debate has come to mean in this country.

From Facebook:

No one should be deterred from speaking up and speaking out in peaceful dissent, and we certainly must not be deterred by those who embrace evil and call it good. And we will not be stopped from celebrating the greatness of our country and our foundational freedoms by those who mock its greatness by being intolerant of differing opinion and seeking to muzzle dissent with shrill cries of imagined insults.

There was nothing “imagined” in the gun-laced rhetoric and crosshairs targeting of Sarah Palin. Rep. Giffords found them offensive herself we now know, because she said so on camera, not from some undisclosed location in presidentland.

No politician was more important in 2010 than Sarah Palin, who rose from the embarrassment of her vice presidency nomination, then leaving her governorship prematurely, to be the face and energy of a movement that began during George W. Bush’s profligate presidency, then went on to take the Democratic Party out in the midterm elections. However, as much as she understands and can exploit the politics of the moment, her lacking in self-awareness and the narcissism revealed once again today proves why so many Republicans don’t want her to be their nominee for the presidency.

Is there a reason Sarah Palin’s first statement to the public after the Arizona domestic terrorism came in a canned video statement? It was no mistake it was set up similarly to what presidents do in speaking to the people after a tragedy. Playing president isn’t what Palin needed right now.

I did hope she’d be able to at least have the personal fortitude to speak on the record to the public personally on Fox News, which is friendly to her.

It’s very sad to see a powerful female politician, someone who was the primary jolt responsible for the Republicans taking the House in such numbers, like Palin be reduced to this. That she hasn’t earned the right to pretend to be president seems to have escaped her completely. But at least we can all be assured her gigantic ego is intact and she hasn’t learned a thing.

Too bad no one will ever forget “don’t retreat, reload” and the crosshairs targeting image that helped fill the political air in this country with gun metaphors, along with her negative bomb throwing, with one of the people she named with her gun sights almost killed in a political assassination attempt, with 6 others dead and many more wounded.

Former governor Sarah Palin had a chance to prove prowess in this moment and she failed abysmally, because she continues to talk only to her own choir. She simply thinks too small to be able to harness a moment of self-reflection, grace or greatness at a time of such great national tragedy.

This essay has been updated.

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Obama’s 2010 Moment

By Taylor Marsh on 31 December 2010

In a year that brought little inspiration from Democrats, there was no more important moment for the President and he executed it flawlessly.

When Pres. Obama sacked Gen. Stanley McChrystal and then appointed Gen. David Petraeus he was forced to do something he’s not done before. Stand on a line and make a critical decision that would have lasting consequences for thousands of U.S. soldiers and Afghans. It was brilliant, as I wrote at the time.

Pres. Obama on June 23rd:

But war is bigger than any one man or woman, whether a private, a general, or a president. And as difficult as it is to lose General McChrystal, I believe that it is the right decision for our national security.
The conduct represented in the recently published article does not meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general. It undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system. And it erodes the trust that’s necessary for our team to work together to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan.

The day before Obama made his decision, everyone was debating what he might do, with friends and I going at it, including individuals I talked to at the State Dept. Quite a few were not convinced Obama could actually sack McChrystal. I knew he had no choice if he wanted to keep his presidency intact, but that doesn’t mean I thought he’d do it. Not only did Pres. Obama make the move, but choosing Petraeus turned his decision into perfectly crafted leadership.

For me, the entire event revealed something complex and catastrophic, which forced me to reevaluate reality. McChrystal’s implosion in Rolling Stone signaled that things were much, much worse in Afghanistan than the Administration was letting on or dare I say even knew or would admit. This was the moment my unwavering support for Obama’s Afghanistan policy ended, because McChrystal’s raw candor and his admissions were so brutal, it blew out all previous reporting. For a warrior of his stature to unmask the chaos so totally through his own naked stressful confession meant that the unraveling was now uncontrollable for outside forces. COIN had crapped out and not only would our strategy have to be altered, no matter what was being said in public, but even at that we had lost whatever control to influence events enough to connect a country that had never known this type of life.

Recent reports have confirmed just this fact. From the Wall Street Journal:

Internal United Nations maps show a marked deterioration of the security situation in Afghanistan during this year’s fighting season, countering the Obama administration’s optimistic assessments of military progress since the surge of additional American forces began a year ago.
[...] Many nongovernment organizations, or NGOs, operating in Afghanistan dispute that any progress has been made by the coalition this year. According to preliminary statistics compiled by the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office, which provides security advice and coordination to NGOs working in the country, the number of insurgent-initiated attacks surged by some 66% in 2010 from the previous year.
“The country as a whole is dramatically worse off than a year ago, both in terms of the insurgency’s geographical spread and its rate of attacks,” said Nic Lee, director of the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office. “Vast amounts of the country remain insecure for the unarmed civilians, and more and more areas are becoming inaccessible.”

So, even as brilliant as the replacement of McChrystal with Petraeus was, the unfortunate reality is that Pres. Obama didn’t get the message from McChrystal’s career ending confession.

And as we end 2010 there isn’t any politician of either party who has the prowess to lead the U.S. do what’s required and make the tough decision that’s needed, which is to disengage from Afghanistan starting immediately, which would still mean we wouldn’t be out of there for another 16 months or so.

The U.S. is carrying out military operations we cannot afford, that are not helping our nation or making us safer, while keeping us in a hamster wheel of never ending futility on battlefields we are not welcomed and no longer belong.

That we have no one to lead us out of this mess is the most depressingly alarming reality our country faces as the New Year dawns.

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The Political Moment of the Year

By Taylor Marsh on 30 December 2010

If anyone had any doubts that 2010 was former Pres. Bill Clinton’s year, the moment he took over the White House press room proved the point conclusively.

…and Barack Obama, who never showed Bill Clinton the respect he deserved before becoming president, has a new appreciation for WJC, because former Pres. Clinton did things in 2010 that Pres. Obama couldn’t come close to achieving himself.

Now not only is Sect. Hillary Clinton the most admired woman in the country, but it was her husband who bailed out the Democratic Party’s failed image, because in 2010 Democrats lost their mojo, their heart and connection with middle class Americans, with the end of the year bringing real questions about just what the Democratic Party stands for today.

Unfortunately, Democrats no longer sounding like Democrats is a problem not even William Jefferson Clinton can solve, because the President and congressional progressives ceded way too much territory to the Right.

Pres. Obama remains the most admired man in the country, but this has as much to do with his true appeal as a great father and husband, as well as his general likability, than anything else. It’s not because people trust his leadership, though there’s still time for this to happen, something everyone should hope manifests, though the foreshadowing so far is that if it does it will come at the expense of Democratic Party principles.

As for what precipitated The Political Moment of the Year, there’s no doubt Bill Clinton is the ultimate deal maker, including some real stinkers when president, but when he finally compromises it’s always after he’s made the Right eat political dirt somewhere along the process. Even during his worst of times, while the Right was focused on kicking him out of office, he just kept working and ended up making fools of them when an election they thought was in their hands turned sour for them.

There were many moments in 2010 where former Pres. William Jefferson Clinton proved his prowess, power and popularity with the people. There was, however, never a doubt that he’d be vindicated from the mud slinging swiftboating he endured during the 2008 campaign season, when progressives and Democrats, as well as media personalities, levied unspeakable charges of racism at a man who’d worked his whole life for people of all colors.

In 2010, the Comeback Kid not only did it again, but when he took the White House podium at the end of the year presser, he made everyone miss what Bill Clinton signified for Democrats. He’s a winner. That’s what he always represented to Democrats who endured the hold your nose ’80s, of which I was one. Clinton embodies the tenacious, never give in without making the other guy hurt first, mentality that makes bad deals you have to do go down easier when you know the other guy has had to at least pay a price.

I truly doubt if Pres. Obama will ever bother to learn this lesson.

William Jefferson Clinton is a flawed, supremely human man whose spirit is indomitable. We were reminded of that once again this year, while also being gifted with performances revealing why he always comes out ahead in the end.

So as 2010 closes all’s mended, as Sect. Hillary Clinton very likely prepares to make her exit from State in the near future, with things having come full circle. …and no matter what she says if she wants it, 2016 awaits. If she doesn’t, onward to her international foundation for women, knowing that regardless of the naysayers, in the first two years of Obama’s presidency, the Clintons made a difference and proved their power is transcendent.

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