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December 01, 2009

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Eric Wilde

Its kinda sad to say it; but, we need a better adversary. Right now the adversaries of progressives are complacence and dogma. We don't have Bush to unite us in our opposition. With such a lack of unity in purpose, we tend to drift our separate ways.

How can we effectively communicate to others that the most destructive thing we can do right now is sit out the 2010 election? That's easy for me to say with my only possible protest vote a dubious senator (Feinstein) that isn't up for re-election until 2012.

kathy a.

eric -- a better adversary? i'm sick enough of the ones we have.

i think that news like what-all has been accomplished in just 10 months, what further disasters we have avoided, what can be done next to fix the mess we've inherited -- that stuff is motivating.

Corvus9

Thanks for this post Sir Charles.

These last few months have seemed pretty demoralizing, but that Newman post did a really good job pointing out how that should just not be the mood.

I think one of the problems is just this damn healthcare bill. It's sapping up all the Oxygen while going nowhere, and since all the progressive organizations are in attack and arm-twisting mode, it's impossible for any organizing or victory speeches to be made. Everyone has to play up the negative to underline the need for reform, and all that endless negativity is killing off the morale necessary for effort. I've only barely been able to follow politics lately myself, and most of it— even stuff from liberal sources, not just MSM stuff!—makes me want to start gutting people.

Another problem is that, going somewhat off what Eric said, we not so much need a better adversary as we don't know who the adversary is. To judge by most progressive commentary, the source of liberal vexation is the executive branch, which just isn't doing enough. Even though we all know that the source of all the stonewalling is actually the Senate. I mean, it just seems strange to me to get angry at Obama for the things that he "hasn't done" when he has no control over doing them. It seems like at some point people forgot that the president doesn't actually make laws, he follows them. Yeah, the bully pulpit is powerful, but only because it is a tool for changing public opinion. It can't really make the Senate do things they don't want. A lot of the ire and disappointment that is focused on Obama should be focused on illuminating the problems with the Senate. There's really not a whole lot more that Obama can do to push them before he starts stepping on their egos and inviting them to retaliate with spite.

But hot damn, that list of accomplishments is actually pretty nice.

Eric Wilde

A lot of the ire and disappointment that is focused on Obama should be focused on illuminating the problems with the Senate.

Exactly. But its Congress who will pay the price in 2010. I don't see why more Congresscritters aren't making a fuss.

low-tech cyclist

Posts like Nathan's and Sir Charles' are largely preaching to the wrong people. Next fall, the denizens of the lefty blogosphere will vote, regardless of misgivings. It'll be the people who lean left, but don't eat and breathe politics the way we do, who will be the no-shows.

The Obama campaign got a lot of those folks reconnected to politics, but it seems they've been sorta dropped here, as the Obama Administration has pursued basically an inside game on health care and climate change, undercut them on stimulus and cramdown, and betrayed them on Wall Street regulation and the bailout.

Why expect these people to hang around? Maybe the verall results will look better once health care is passed, but once you're told to go away because you're not important, it's hard to be talked back in. Especially if Team Obama drops the ball on important stuff. Cramdown lost 51-45, with Obama putting no skin in the game. The stimulus wasn't nearly large enough, but Obama said it was just right, rather than saying at every opportunity that it should have been twice as big, but this was the best deal he could get. Team Obama is already giving away big chunks of the game with respect to derivative regulation. And there's never been the first dollar of haircut on AIG obligations.

Maybe Obama needed a good inside game to get this far. But to win in 2010, he needs a base game, and he doesn't have one at this point.

ikl

Also important to keep in mind here is that the Senate map in 2010 is relatively favorable. This is a big opportunity. By contrast in 2012 and 2014, the Democrats will be playing some serious defense in the Senate even if the political environment is relatively favorable - after 2006 and 2008, there are just not that many winnable seats left. In other words 2010 may be the last chance to push the Senate to the left for a while.

If the Senate doesn't change (60-40) in 2010, some people might call that a win for the Democrats. In reality, it would be a missed opportunity.

Sir Charles

Eric,

I think when we look at our real adversary -- a Republican Party that is truly batshit insane -- that should be motivation enough, although I know what you mean. And DiFi is a truly uninspiring figure. But such is life. The Republicans are engaging in a kind of psychological warfare right now. They are going to make everything a long hard slog. They want us to be discouraged and demoralized.

Corvus,

Good to hear from you. Yeah, the health care bill is a source of much of this. It has been such a long and difficult process and the fighting with our own right wing has been spirit draining.

Part of this too is that not too many of us have really lived through a period in whcih an ambitious Democratic domestic agenda has been on the table. Neither Carter nor Clinton (with the exception of health care in his first year in office) really pushed a very big agenda. We have forgotten how difficult the fights for Medicare and Civil and Voting Rights were. These initiatives lost several times before finally being enacted following years long struggles. We need to be mindful of this.

l-t c,

I disagree a bit with what your saying about preaching to the wrong people. In many respects, we are the base -- yes we will vote, but the question is whether we will give money and walk the precincts and man the phone banks and all of the other things that we did in 2006 and 2008. Unlike our right wing brethren, we are a pretty difficult lot. Despite claims that we view Obama as a messasiah, many of us, myself included, are quick to jump on the Administrations shortcomings, which, as you point out, are real, while not being by any means the whole story. We have to be a little bit circumspect in our negativity I think.

I certaialy would have favored a bigger stimulus, but the blame for what we got is largely with the moderate Senate Dems. With respect to the economic policy writ large, certainly it could be a lot more progressive to suit my tastes. On the other hand, to pretend that Wall Street and friends are not a force to be reckoned with on the Hill is just not realistic. I would love it if the Democratic Party was a labor or social democratic party, but it's not, and if it were, we could not cobble together a broad based majority. The way Wall Street reacts to initiatives has an impact on our lives, both real and perceived, so it is difficult to just tell them to fuck off, pleasing as that would be.

I think a lot of the claims of a depressed base are due to the results in Virginia and New Jersey, where we had respectively an incredibly lackluster campaign and an unpopular incumbent with a lot of problems and less than optimal communication skills. This depressed turnout of minorities and young people. I think when we accurately portray the stakes in national federal elections, the results will differ substantially. I think this will be particularly true if we can get health care passed soon and get some sort of jobs bill through right afterward.

A lot of this depends too on what kind of shape the economy looks to be in around June or July of 2010. If things look like they are rebounding, I think the danger to the Dems will be considerably lower.

ikl,

Nice to hear from you too. If you asked me on election night in 2008 how the Senate races would go in 2010, I would have predicted a gain of 3 to 5 seats, with new Dems from New Hampshire, Ohio and Missouri giving the liberal side a real boost. If we only break even that would be a disappointment from where we were at that point. However, if we break even while dealing with 10% unemployment, that has to be viewed as a victory.

One thing I am very unhappy with the Administration for (and was at the time) was the selection of too many talented Dems from marginal states for the cabinet. Plucking Sebelius from Kansas, Napolitano from Arizona, and Salazar from Colorado was a mistake. We could have made Kansas and Arizona potential Senate pick ups, while being able to easily defend Colorado. If things go awry, this is one area where the Administration will rightly be criticized.

low-tech cyclist

Sir Charles: claims about a depressed base aren't just about Virginia and New Jersey; they're about this Research 2000/DKos poll (scroll all the way down to "Voter Likelihood," second from the bottom).

Only 56% of self-identified Dems say they'll definitely or probably vote in 2010. That's a number that should have us all waking up screaming in the middle of the night.

On the issues, my point is not that the Administration could have gotten more; it's quite likely that it couldn't have. The difficulties with the stimulus were real, and you're right that no amount of speechifying will make Wall Street's dominant influence wither up and blow away.

But you've still got to let people know where you stand. When Reagan went to the mats with the Democrats in Congress, he often didn't get everything he wanted. But when that happened, he made it clear that this was far from everything he wanted, but it was the best deal he could get.

That's what's missing with Obama. He should have been upfront about how big a stimulus was really needed, both before and after settling for what he actually got. Then he could go around the country saying, "I got you what I could, but I tried to get you a lot more. Get me a few more Democratic Senators, and next time, we won't have this problem." Instead, he's pretty much played Goldilocks and all but said the stimulus he got was not too big and not too small, but just right.

Similarly with Wall Street regulation: his people are conceding important pieces already in negotiations with themselves, before they're ever in a position of trading a concession for someone's vote. How does that signal to anyone that Obama's on their side, rather than on Wall Street's?

And not even bothering to fight for cramdown: sure, he might have lost anyway. But a lot of people who've lost their houses this year might have appreciated it if he'd at least have tried. Why should they or their friends go out and vote for him now? If you're walking the precinct or manning a phone bank, what do you tell them? And if you know you don't know what you can tell them, how are you going to convince yourself to man that phone bank?

Right now, everything's very dependent on getting a decent health care bill passed. If it doesn't pass, Nathan's laundry list of accomplishments won't be enough to overcome the sense that Dem-leaning voters will have that Obama's not really on their side - not in any 'is he sufficiently liberal' sense, but just in the sense of 'is he fighting to do the things that will make a difference for me and my family in these tough times?'

And even if it passes, it's still five years away from being implemented, and there's a lot of pain going on right now. I don't care if Obama 'feels my pain' or not, and I doubt anyone else does, either. But he's got to be fighting for the things that would do something about that pain. It's going to be less than clear to people that he is, and that's a big headwind going into next year.

Sir Charles

l-t c,

I don't disagree with a lot of what you say. I am aware of the kos poll and should have indicated that it strikes me as a snapshot in time. I think when the stakes are clearer, the Democratic base will actually begin to feel far greater motivation to get out there and vote. I think we have to be careful that we do not convey the message that it is not worth it to vote, even if it means pulling the lever for DiFi or even Blanche Lincoln.

I do think Obama needs to emote more, to make clear that he is fighting for people. I think he is a bit wary of being perceived as angry or too emotional, a reflex that is certainly informed by race. I think he has very consciously strived to not be Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.

I also think that the major miscalculation that the Administration made was about the depth of the economic problems. I am pretty sure that this is why they were realtively sanguine about the size of the stimulus, despite the warnings from folks like Krugman (who must tire of almost always being right). This recession is truly the most frightening that we have had in our lifetimes and things remain very touch and go out there.

I don't know if they could have made a difference with cram down. Durbin was its biggest supporter and he is generally a pretty effective operatior. He just could not move the crappy centrists for reasons we've discussed. I know someone who had a meeting with Durbin the afternoon that he lost that vote, and she told me he was devastated.

But yes, Obama needs to fight and he needs for people out there to perceive that he is fighting for them.

low-tech cyclist

Sir Charles - I'd be the last person to suggest that it's not worth it to vote next year. The reason why that 56% number scares me so much is precisely because it IS so important. It's bad enough that the three L's and Bayh and Nelson are all needed, every time, to get the 60 votes for cloture, but if the size of the Senate Democratic caucus drops below 60 after next November, Obama's opportunity to change things any further is essentially over. And that would be a hell of a lot worse.

Any lefty who does not acknowledge that is out of touch with reality. Ditto any lefty who acknowledges it but somehow believes there'd be a worthwhile silver lining if, say, Lincoln and Bayh got defeated to bring our numbers to 58.

(OTOH, I wouldn't mind seeing some House Blue Dogs lose. We've got a margin of error in the House, and it would be a Good Thing to have a practical reminder delivered, with minimal cost to our agenda, that if Dems don't deliver the goods, it'll be Heath Shuler losing his seat, and not Barney Frank.)

As far as Obama's emoting is concerned, I don't think he needs to be any more emotional than he was in 2008. But he absolutely needs to make it clear, repeatedly and in real time on specific issues, that there's a real gulf between what he wants to do for Americans, and what he can get through the U.S. Senate.

I think it would even be worthwhile for him to do some non-emotive leveling with the American people about the nature of his legislative obstacles: about the now-routine Republican use of the filibuster to require 60 votes to pass anything, that 60 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus doesn't mean 60 Democratic votes - that sometimes it does, and other times, it means 55 or 57 or 58 votes. And that even though there are a handful of Dems who don't always support his agenda, they're still better than Republicans, but it does mean that if people really want him to be able to deliver the goods, that even 60 Dem Senators isn't enough - he really may need 63 or 64 Democratic Senators to get seemingly noncontroversial legislation passed.

He's got to make the case for why people should elect more Democrats. And the fact is, most Americans have no idea why Obama and huge Democratic majorities in Congress can't effect whatever changes they want - and they will continue to not know unless Obama tells them, because our wonderful media gatekeepers will never spell it out.

Sir Charles

Totally agree. We could live without the Heath Shulers of the world, whereas we need evey vote we can possibly scrounge in the Senate.

I do think Obama showed more emotion in the campaign though -- in fact, I thought he struck a nearly perfect balance between being inspirational and cerebreal. I think anger though is a trickier emotion to express than hope, but it is one he needs to add to his palette. I think right now he is being too muted except on the occasions where he is trying to make a blockbuster speech.

oddjob

He's got to make the case for why people should elect more Democrats

And most specifically, Democratic senators.

oddjob

(BTW Sir C., if things here in MA stay as they are now I think one week from this evening it will be clear that Massachusetts will be sending its first ever female senator to Washington next January.)

Sir Charles

oddjob,

What did you make of the Globe's rather quixotic endorsement?

Coakley seems pretty rock solid, especially on choice issues. How is she on marriage equality?

oddjob

On all major issues, including marriage equality, all four Dem. candidates are on the same page. In fact, in my estimation Coakley's done the most significant work in its favor of all. I'm not familiar with the details, but I know that as MA Atty. Gen. she's initiated a federal lawsuit in which the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is challenging the constitutionality of DOMA. As I said, I'm not familiar with its details, but to the best of my recollection the suit contends that DOMA illegally interferes with the Commonwealth's ability to conduct its own affairs.

I know that in more than one way DOMA creates a two-tier effect in the Commonwealth because there are some matters that are usually handled for married couples in only one way that instead have to be handled in two ways, separating straight married couples from gay ones because DOMA prevents the federal government from honoring the marriage decisions that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has legally made for itself. Unfortunately, as I indicated, I don't remember exactly what they are and so I can't illustrate the harm the suit contends DOMA causes to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

As to the Globe's endorsement, I was surprised. I think Kharzei will come in last. I've only watched the first debate between the four Dem. candidates, but Kharzei wouldn't shut up, even as he kept harping on the same two or three gripes. On the whole I found him very irritating. However, I also realize what the Globe has mentioned about how of the four he's the only one who has demonstrated an ability to get disparate people to come together in a way that has promoted the common good.

Coakley will be a dependably liberal vote in the Senate. However, I think she won't make much of an impression, especially at first. That's probably a good thing since the Senate punishes its junior members when they get what is collectively regarded as too pushy, but in Coakley's case it's also because her temperament is so flat. She very much comes across as someone who is earnest, hard working, & consequently well prepared, but also extremely careful - to the point of blandness.

Temperamentally you would have difficulty finding a candidate more different from Kennedy. She's much more like John Kerry than Kennedy (without being an officious bore, that is).

On the other hand, when Kennedy first ran for the Senate his candidacy was regarded as a bit of a joke by more than a few, wasn't it? (It was yet another example of the Kennedys' seeming habit of regarding political offices as hand-me-down perks to be kept within the family.) Obviously Kennedy grew into the job. I think Coakley's capable of that, too. Given her prosecutor background I can imagine her as someone who might in the future make a dogged investigator on an oversight committee.

Of the four she's the one I'm the most comfortable with. Capuano clearly relishes the pork barrel, back-slapping side of how Congress works, to the point that it irks me, even as I do realize that's how it works in Congress. I'd prefer to have a senator who isn't so quick to brag about grabbing pork.

Pagliuca's political ads are everywhere (his campaign is even robo-calling my home phone), but he sounds like he's running for governor. Besides that, I'm very unimpressed by someone who claims he's always been a progressive Democrat, even as he made his fortune working at Bain Capital, like Mitt Romney.

Sir Charles

I have a good impression of Capuano. Remember, he took Tip O'Neil's seat --- it's only appropriate that he enjoys bringing home the bacon.

My sense though is Coakley is going to win and that she will be a good addition to the Senate. I am also very much in favor of seeing more women there -- as long as they aren't Kay Bailey Hutchison or those two clownettes from Maine.

Joe

At the end of the day, I don't think blog readers are the people the Democrats have to worry about. Lefty blog readers will hold their noses and vote Dem. The issue is going to be low information, minority, and/or young voters who are out of work and don't see anybody doing enough about it. The key for Dems is to create jobs by any means necessary. The Administration also has to look like they're trying to create new jobs and putting the blame on Congressional Republicans and conservative Dem Senators for blocking job creation. Larry Summers and Ben Bernanke are not helping with the optics. They seem to be shrugging and saying things that sound like "that's the way the cookie crumbles." Most voters care first and foremost about job creation.

Sir Charles

Joe,

Absolutely. What I can't understand is why the ConservaDems and guys like Summers don't get this.

If I were Obama I would make sure that Summers gets the message or I would seek someone else to take his place.

Corvus9

I gotta disagree with the sentiment that Blog readers or the lefty base doesn't need to be worry about themselves. It's not a question of whether they will vote or not, it's a question of their level of excitement and committment. Political interest must spread by osmosis from the political poles. It just cannot be a coincidence that the party whose base is acting like rabid howler monkeys is showing higher overall enthusiasm than the party whose base is acting like a bunch of sad pandas. If we aren't enthusiastic, no one else will be enthusiastic. And as Nathan Newman has shown, there is reason to be enthusiastic. Remember, he averted a second Great Depression.

kathy a.

"rabid howeler monkeys." "sad panda party." oh, corvus9, very good!

but you are right about excitement by osmosis. that's how it worked last year. i've had some trouble revving up the same energy this year, but maybe that will be a resolution i can keep for next year.

if the message every day is "obama hasn't fixed the top 1000 things on my list yet, the dude is a loser" -- well, that just isn't as inspirational as "yay, we avoided the apocalypse, got a bunch of stuff done, and now, baby, we are on a roll!"

one problem is that there really IS a lot of stuff to get done, and that stuff was left around festering by the previous administration. the fact that bush has stopped doing the presidential photo-ops doesn't mean he cleaned the place up before he moved along to whatever he is doing now. it's obama's set of problems to fix, but he didn't make the mess in the first place.

Joe

Regardless though, it will be a lot easier for Lefty activists (organizers, precinct captains, donors, people who read Lefty blogs, etc.) to get occasional voters to vote if there are job creation strategies to present to the occasional Democratic-leaning voters. Most activists will ultimately paste a smile on their faces and try and get out the vote. Their success in persuading occasional voters will depend on the existence of job creation programs and strategies. The most important selling point that is going to excite occasional Dem-leaning voters are job creation programs.

Eric Wilde

The most important selling point that is going to excite occasional Dem-leaning voters are job creation programs.

There are three things that I believe will motivate a lot of people:

End the wars - ain't gonna happen
Good health care reform - may possibly happen
Jobs - I give it a 50/50 chance

Progress in each of these categories will help excite the base and those who lean D. The more progress made in each category the better will be the turnout in 2010. What discourages me is that there are few people in the D playing field who are actually making headlines leading in these areas.

Joe

I agree, we'll be occupying Iraq and parts of Afghanistan for the next five years. Good health care reform is going to take years as well. We'll have to add a robust public option down the road. The cutting of costs will then lead to better allocated resources for more people. Also, all of the benefits of health care reform shift into place over the course of several years. But jobs creation is the only thing Dems can do now to actually address voter concerns.

Prup (aka Jim Benton)

I wanted to get more involved in this discussion yesterday, but two 'new toya' -- finally upgrading to a DVR over my crappy DVD recorder and finally rejoining questia.com, a wonderful on-line academic library -- plus working on a loooong article (looks to be 7000 words+) on the "Myth of the Myth of Jesus" is taking a lot of time.

But I just couldn't stay out completely. I have been arguing since about February that 'politics as usual' and 'governing as usual' has changed, and that the worst mistake both the Obama Administration and political commenters like Steve Benen and the folks here are making is not realizing it. They verbally acknowledge it, but don't really accept it.

For example, Sir Charles, you are literally correct that the Republican Party is 'batshit insane' -- or rather playing to those who are. And yet we are discussing the upcoming election as if the Republicans will be running 'generic Republican' candidates -- like those in the past. And we are acting as if -- again in thec past -- it is the 20% of 'centrist' voters that are in play.

We should realize that the 'crazy base' that Republicans are forced to play for have ideas that the majority of people find repugnant and start using that fact to defeat them. In every election out there, Democrats -- and Democratic suppirters like us, like Act Blue, like various caucuses -- should be running ads challenging Republicans by quoting Beck, Bachman, Palin, Limbaugh, even Orly and Farah, and demanding that the Republicans -- particularly Republican incumbents -- declare if they support or reject such positions.

Force them to choose between alienating the 'crazy base' or the average voter -- even the average Republican voter. Whichever way they chose, we'd benefit. There may be a few districts out there who are so far gone that we couldn't reach them -- but we won't reach them by compromising either. And I'd guess most districts that go for a Bachman, a Franks, a Gohmert, a Foxx or a Steve King really don't understand how crazy their Representatives are and simply vote for them because they have (R) after their name, and they are reflexive Republicans. If they were forced to confront what they were voting for, the crazies would start bleeding votes from the 'middle-right' leftwards -- and if the less crazy Republicans rejected the crazies, they'd be attacked by the local equivalent of Doug Hoffman and similarly start bleeding their far right support.

(And we should use more humor, more outright mockery than we do. Stewart and Colbert are great -- but they are, for the most part, 'preaching to the choir.' Tina Fey probably cost McCain-Palin more votes than every leftist blogger combined. A Democratic candidate who ran an ad quoting some of the insanity and who literally broke down laughing in the middle of it, and ended it with 'C'mon folks, do you really believe such nonsense?' would probably not only win votes in his district, but would get enough attention that he'd hurt Republicans running everywhere.

I'll save my related comments and 'advice to Obama' for a second post.

Prup (aka Jim Benton)

Meanwhile, Obama has -- understandably -- not responded to the Republican obstructionism the way he should have, because he too expected that, eventually, 'politics as usual' would take over. It always had in the past. No matter how fierce the partisan battles were, there would always be a few members of the opposition party that would 'break ranks' and support a sensible idea from the other side. And we forget that by the time the election was decided, almost every Republican had declared the health system was broken and we had to fix it, that the economy was in danger and that Keynesian solutions were necessary, etc.

It's understandable that he started out by working for a bi-partisan compromise. What has caused his 'perceived' failure (he's accomplished an incredible amount, as the main post points out, but his accomplishments haven't been 'headline makers' -- and not just because of the 'malignity of the MSM.') is that he didn't realize, about by the end of April, that this approach just wasn't working.

(I'd argue that his slide started when he actually accepted changes in the healthcare bill to respond to the 'death panel' nonsense. That wasn't just idiocy in itself -- and actually ratified the craziness -- it showed he could continue to be scared away from solid accomplishments if the Republicans 'made their noisemakers loud enough.')

About May he should have said 'enough is enough, this is what the country voted for, this is what the country elected me to do' and gave his own party a banner to stad behind -- and forced the Republicans to take the blame for any failure.

Instead, because of his continuous attempt to compromise in a totally failed attempt to get Republican votes, he has seemed to be betraying his own side.

Take gay rights rather than health care. I spent most of the first six months defending him on the topic, but I haven't been doing much of that lately. While he isn't the homophobe that Aravosis paints him as, I can no longer say I am sure what his position is on the subject. If he'd not 'back-burnered' the big ticket items, DADT, DOMA etc., and decided 'Oh, Lord, i don't need to take on another fight NOW' he would have gained far more support, and far more passionate support from supporters, not just gays, but straights.

More importantly, it would have cost him almost no support he wasn't going to lose anyway. (This was the problem with 'Clintonian triangulation' -- rather than getting a compromise that worked -- in any area -- it convinced your supporters you were a hypocrite, and your opponents that they could simply hold out and you'd give away everything.

Obama was supposed to be a student of FDR. Right now he should paste up a sign in the oval office reading "The 'First 100 Days' starts TODAY." and actually think about what it implies.

Eric Wilde

More importantly, it would have cost him almost no support he wasn't going to lose anyway. (This was the problem with 'Clintonian triangulation' -- rather than getting a compromise that worked -- in any area -- it convinced your supporters you were a hypocrite, and your opponents that they could simply hold out and you'd give away everything.

Right on, Prup! If O and the Ds stood up for what is right, and slung shit back at the Rs just like Grayson has been doing, we would see a much more energized base without the erosion of broader support.

Prup (aka Jim Benton)

Eric. Litbrit and others:
I hope what I'm about to say gets put eventually in the Paranoid Old Prup file, but I have to say it. Please be very cautious about getting too strongly behind Grayson. There are just too many little things that are setting off warning bells in my head. His connection with IDT, a very slimy company in all its incarnations, currently I think they are involved in one of these 'energy bundling' arrangements that can be very good and can turn into Enrons. The fact that he lied about his connection with the company, implying he was either the founder or the person who ran it, when he wasn't.

And most recently his appearance on the Alex Jones show, that home base of crackpots of all stripes -- something which few other Congressmen would have done. (Does anyone know if Jones does the inviting, or if guests ask to be on it?)

Hopefully none of this matters, but I'd still suggest stepping back and while applauding, not getting too close to him, not quite yet. It isn't just neocons who make the mistake of assuming the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend.'

Eric Wilde

Trust no man in power.

My point is his presentation will work.

ballgame

My response (and Sir Charles's counter-response) is up at Ian Welsh's.

ballgame

My response (and Sir Charles's counter-response) is up at Ian Welsh's.

big bad wolf

obama did not deliver by the end of thermidor. all correct thinking people should therefore abandon him and await the real revolution.

Corvus9

I would like to second Prup on Grayson. Anyone who hangs out with Alex Jones, whether by invite or request, has a few screws loose. (I actually have some friends who are fans, but they are all pothead Truthers who like Ron Paul and voted for Nader).

Also, what big bad wolf said. There is no real revolution, guys. There's just the slow evolution, with its attendant vestigial organs and bloody dead ends. It's best just to accept that, and either drop out, or throw yourself into it.

Corvus9

Also, Obama=worse than Nixon? Really, ballgame? Really? You know, it's saying stuff like that that makes me understand how the "liberals aren't Serious People" meme could take hold. Perhaps instead of complaining about liberal strawmen our side should do more work at not being actual liberal strawmen.

Sir Charles

My comment to one of the commenters at Ian's site -- the contention was that I am not hearing the disaffected Democrats who are going to sit out the 2010 mid-terms because of Obama's perfidy:

"Enjoy basking in your purity. I hear things loud and clear, which is what prompted my post in the first place."

"If folks want to sit on their hands and let the Republicans take power, well I guess they can relish the prospects for “heightening the contradictions” and then no doubt a golden era of progressivism with a far more worthy person than Obama at the helm will emerge. Because that’s happened incredibly frequently in American history."

I believe bbw and I have both lived through this sort of thing and have a similar sense of how well it will play out for our side.

I hope I am not coming off as condescending, but this is just disastrous thinking.

ikl

As usual, I'm with Sir Charles and Corvus on this one.

Look, if you are more interested in having a purity party than in seizing a golden opportunity to get something constructive accomplished (these don't come around too often given how our government is structured), don't complain if nothing constructive happens.

If, on the other hand, you want to accomplish something constructive, then it is important that we have Senators Hodes, Carnahan, and Fisher / Brunner in 2011.

big bad wolf

i read that comment and i liked it a lot. i do not think it is condescending at all. i think it is something that the pure have to confront and answer. i have thought this politically and otherwise, since my younger self thought you didn't need a safety pin or a silly haircut to get the music. this may make me inherently suspect in some circles, but i believe facts on the ground and effort, not conformity to the "right" matter.

we all would, of course, have instituted single-payer, nationalization of banks, and a wpa-like jobs programs on day one and then moved on to other issues the next day. at the end of the week, the u.s would be paradise, which accords with my definition of the right and true.

real life is a bit trickier. i don't in any way think that obama should be immune from criticism. i fear disaster in afghanistan. i don't for the life of me understand his failure to abolish DADT (and i say that as one who thinks clinton could have pulled it off in 1993, if he had waited six or eight months). i am perplexed and disturbed by obama's slowness on judges; judges are boring and slow moving and amazingly important. but given the structural and political world in which obama must exist and which he cannot control, i find much of the criticism of him ridiculous. real life is never as easy as typing a blog entry or running your mouth. real life, however, hurtful the pure find it, is not susceptible to simple answers and clear lines. progress, as we define it, rightly i think, is a struggle, not a sweeping victory from a movie or a video game.

obama and team averted a major economic disaster. fdr, god bless him, had an actual economic disaster---that gave him more running room. but creating disaster---heightening the contradictions---would, i, now sort-of old, believe be wrong. SC is correct, i think, that we cannot afford this sort of thinking.

perhaps, my age and experience deform my views. one can never be entirely sure that that is not happening. still, i think that is not the case. this is not a liberal or progressive nation in many matters; i think that is true of both sexes and most,, if not all racial and ethnic groups. corvus is right, i think, we fight and we evolve. if we don't have the heart to march a long way, fight a long time, we are, however, pure, essentially unserious as political beings.

ballgame

You ask a fair question, Corvus9.

In foreign policy terms, it's hard for me to get a clear distinction between Nixon's Vietnam and Obama's Iraq & Afghanistan approaches. They both inherited those wars; the jury is out so far as to whether Obama's approach will be ultimately just and peaceful in his Asian military entanglements. He's escalating in Afghanistan; I have hard time keeping track of what's actually going on in Iraq. You hear about troop withdrawals, but then you read about how the number of private military contractors is higher than it was even under Bush.

From a moral standpoint, I see precious little evidence that either Nixon or Obama were/are fighting for genuine democracy or freedom.

Do you disagree?

So that leaves domestic policy and civil liberties.

Domestically, Obama inherited an economy in far worse shape than the one Nixon oversaw. Late in Nixon's term, though, there was the Oil Shock and high inflation to deal with. In response, he instituted the freeze on wages and prices … a fairly radical response for a Republican. As I recall, it didn't last terribly long, and wasn't terribly effective.

Obama pushed through the stimulus package in response to a far more severe economic crisis, which was an achievement. However, there appears to be a strong sense from what I've read that the amount is inadequate for the task at hand, and from what I can tell banks still aren't lending the way they need to be. A logical approach to the banking crisis — one advocated by Simon Johnson, and utilized effectively in similar situations (such as Sweden) — would have involved taking over the bad banks (at least temporarily) and cleaning them up. That would have meant confronting and removing the financiers who engaged in the fraudulent practices which led to the meltdown in the first place. This seems pretty basic. Obama, however, didn't do this. Instead, MASSIVE amounts of public moneys were given or pledged to prop up the balance sheets of economically and morally bankrupt institutions. I don't recall any analogous move by Nixon.

Do you disagree?

Moreover, despite the programs cited by the articles Sir Charles refers to, there seems to be little meaningful response to four of the five deeper causes of our economic woes: 1. the outsourcing of a substantial portion of our nation's productive enterprises to China, India and Third World countries; 2. our profligate reliance on oil imports; 3. an underinvestment in key domestic programs like health care; 4. the tremendous extent to which Americans are compelled to work in debt-ridden companies that have been subjected to leveraged buyouts (which our tax code encourages); and 5. a regulatory and investment structure which promotes economic bubbles. (There is obviously a considerable intertwining of these issues.)

The fact that Obama is taking on the health care problem is good. But as I pointed out in my Ian Welsh post, Nixon actually proposed something similar.

Obama's approach will leave a massively inefficient health care delivery system in place. There is the issue of millions of people now being required to give money to private insurance companies. I've seen it asked how much these insurance companies are exposed to current and upcoming debt crises (collateralized loan obligations and commercial real estate) and how much they need the customer expansion to cover these losses.

There is also the issue that the proposed plan does nothing (as far as I know) to address the high prices charged by hospital complexes, who themselves are often cash-strapped because they've been the target of leveraged buyouts.

On the basis of all this, it's hard for me to give a significant edge to Obama here … the 'private profits/public losses' schema he's employing is, in its own way, disastrous.

Do you disagree?

As for civil liberties, Nixon did violate them extensively … but his acts were illegal and he had to cover them up (with limited success). Bush created a framework which put presidential behavior beyond the reach of law, and made it legal to ignore the Fourth Amendment. According to Greenwald, Obama has embraced this approach. Though he is not violating the civil liberties of Americans as much as Nixon did (as far as we know, but I don't fully understand what surveillance programs are in place), he has, in my view, done far more lasting damage to the Constitution.

Do you disagree?

So, all in all, I don't see how it's so obvious that Obama's performance is better than Nixon. Enlighten me.

Prup (aka Jim Benton)

More and more my favorite saying is becoming 'the perfect is often the enemy of the good.' Sir C. and bbw have lived it, but my first election -- I just missed out on the 18-year old vote Amendment was in 1968. How many of us rejected Humphrey -- I honestly don't remember if I did or not -- who was one of the great liberal voices of my lifetime, despite his silence about Vietnam. Some of us even applauded the election of Nixon, 'knowing' this would cause such a revulsion in the country that we'd get a 'real liberal' the next time. (The revolutionaries of the time even figured it would be the trigger they'd need.)

Well, we're still paying for that disaster. Another 'victory' like that and I won't see a 'real liberal' elected in what's left of my life, even if I live as long as my wife's parents -- who just celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary.

Leave the ideological 'purity tests' to Republicans. They are going a long way to insuring our gains in the next election -- if we don't follow their example.

Prup (aka Jim Benton)

Ballgame posted while I was writing mine. Right now my knees literally hurt too much to take the time to respond, but maybe later. (How young are you, btw?)

big bad wolf

is that a bluebird singing to a lemonade spring that i hear?

i hope to hear what corvus and prup and SC have to say, but i'd throw these things about about nixon and obama.

ballgame, you say, "From a moral standpoint, I see precious little evidence that either Nixon or Obama were/are fighting for genuine democracy or freedom.

Do you disagree?"

sigh. you are so lucky to be able to always discern what is genuine, democratic, and free. as i expressed above, i have grave concerns with obama's afghanistan decision, but a clear difference between obama and nixon is how much each let us see. obama tells us what his rationale is, and in both iraq and afghanistan has suggested a timetable and a way out (however much i worry the way will be a quagmire); nixon had a 1968 secret plan to end the war, massive sideshow bombing, and a 1972 peace is at hand lie. another important difference is that afghanistan as a proxy for pakistani dissolution is more credible, if still questionable, rationale than vietnam as a soviet domino. advantage, at this point, obama by a lot.

ballgame, you write "Instead, MASSIVE amounts of public moneys were given or pledged to prop up the balance sheets of economically and morally bankrupt institutions. I don't recall any analogous move by Nixon.

Do you disagree?"

well, the premise of your paragraph was that nixon did not face an analogous situation. to say he did not take an analagous action is therefore irrelevant. thus, disagreement, or agreement, with the statement that nixon did not make an analogous move is irrelevant. again, i note the "moral" qualifier. moral is a nice thing to strive for, but i notice we tend to mock people we disagree with when they speak in moral terms (some (not i) would say it is immoral to disagree with a woman who feels that she was a victim of sex discrimination) better, i think to advocate and to strive for policies we think more efficient, less likely to encourage fraud, and more likely to result in distributive equality than to cast it in moral terms.

ballgame, you write "On the basis of all this, it's hard for me to give a significant edge to Obama here … the 'private profits/public losses' schema he's employing is, in its own way, disastrous.

Do you disagree?"

i disagree that it is disastrous. less than optimal, sure, disastrous, i think unlikely. SC has, i think, several times set out why getting health care reform on the tracks is important. having something in place that we can work on and improve and make people feel invested in is better than leaving everything the way it is and feeling we are superior to hold out for the best.

ballgame you write "Though he is not violating the civil liberties of Americans as much as Nixon did (as far as we know, but I don't fully understand what surveillance programs are in place), he has, in my view, done far more lasting damage to the Constitution.

Do you disagree?"

i do disagree, at the very least because you do not say and i think it impossible to say what, if any, lasting damage obama has done. this is an entirely rhetorical gambit on your part----bad things might happen, horrible pain might be inflicted. well, yes, that's always true. i would prefer obama act against the executive powers but he hasn't yet. perhaps allowing them to fall into disuse (at least as likely as your secret terrorizing of civil liberites) and setting limits on their use might help set them up for abandonment later. i'm not sure i believe that is the plan, but it still puts obama above nixon's active use of abusive powers. i also think, in large part becuase of my job as a criminal defense attorney, that the fourth amendment was mostly gutted, with popular acclaim, long before obama, or even bush, became president.

finally, i think you entirely overlook a difference in tone and tactics between nixon and obama. nixon rose to prominence as an aggressive, divisive figure. he ran for president as a divider. he governed as one. his viet nam policy included efforts to divide the country into us and them, so too did his law and order policies. he was suspicious, near paranoid, closed, and righteous. obama, whatever his practical flaws, does not appear to display any of these traits. advantage, obama.

big bad wolf

i should add that the treatment of women under the taliban regime and any potential future taliban regime is abhorrent. i hate, no matter how intolerant of cultural difference it makes me, the subjugation of women. that treatment, arguably, provides a "genuine" "moral" "democratic" reason to try to stablize afghanistan as a somewhat more modern nation. in the end, i think the costs outweigh the benefits of us staying in afghanistan, but the thing that gives me most pause is that we may consign women to indefensible treatment. i don't think nixon had that argument in his favor in viet nam.

Corvus9

Prup, you old fogies need to stop acting like we under-30's don't have first hand experience of the perfect being the enemy of the good. I remember 2000, and the debacle of the Nader protest vote, ok? If that isn't an example of the way to hell being paved with good intentions, I don't know what is.

Ballgame,
First off, let's leave aside the actual policy similarities between Obama and Nixon. Just consider the optics of the comparison. Think about Nixon represents. Nixon is Nixon: the paranoid, bigoted, angry, ratfucking, most inarguably corrupt man to ever hold the office of president. There are a whole host of presidents who, through the lens of history, are seen as more immoral, and most of them were less competent, but none of them were as disgraced. And when you compare anyone to Nixon, that image, not his various policies, is being brought up. Yeah, Nixon had a lot of policies that don't look that bad now. Detente! The EPA! Liked Keynes! But when you compare someone to Nixon, your not just trying to compare those records; you're trying to insult them. "You, sir, are a lesser president than the most disgraceful man to ever hold the office!" It's an insult, and under no circumstance, given what Nixon's legacy is, is it possible to read it as anything else. Which is why you led off with it. To grab attention. "Wow, look at this counter-intuitive and very nasty thing I said about the president!" After pulling a stunt like that, I don't see how you can really expect me or anybody who still supports the president to seriously consider any of the actual policy comparisons you have to make. We may do that, of course, but it really shouldn't be expected. You're obviously just trying to piss us off. Why should we care what you think?

Now, as to the various policy comparisons you bring up, most of what you said is basically covered by bbw's thermidor comment. You're comparing Obama's first 10 months in office to the nearly six years that Nixon was in office, and in all the ways Obama has yet to right certain abuses of the last decade you count against him. So Obama has not yet ended the wars, reformed healthcare, reformed the the entire financial system, or removed the abuses of civil liberties. So? All of those things take time, and more time than he has had. Healthcare is still a work in progress. Financial reform and civil liberties are as much issues for Congress, and they have been completely shit on both. (Any actual reform of the present civil liberty violations will likely have to come from the courts, who actually have seemed to be quite good on these issues. Plus, allowing the courts to do it removes the political headaches that the Executive and Legislative branches would have to deal with.) With the wars, there is now a clear time horizon on both, Afghanistan is not Vietnam, though Iraq kinda is, and both are complicated by the need to make sure that withdrawal does not need to as much or more death and danger as staying does.

So, yeah, I disagree.

Sir Charles

Ballgame,

To amplify bbw's comment, Richard Nixon's every craven move was based on creating internal enemies and figures of resentment against whom he could rally his supporters. His was an ugly politics, filled with an odious combination of McCarthyism and the mueling self-pity of a professional victim.

You can trash Obama all you want, but he has consistently set a tone of respectfulness in dealing with his opponents, he has steadfastly attempted to explain his policies in rational terms without scapegoating any group, and he has basically tried to elevate the tone of politics. You can call him naive in so doing, you can regret the lack of raw meat thrown to the troops, but don't compare him unfavorably to Nixon, who was a pretty odious character.

Nixon, perpetrator of both the southern strategy and the "dolchstosslegende" myth with respect to our problems in the Vietnam War, did grave harm to the political culture of this country. He created many of the themes and strategies that are still being used by the GOP forty plus years later.

Prup (aka Jim Benton)

bbw's comments help me try and put my thoughts on Afghanistan down. I haven't commented anywhere on this because I am so conflicted. Let me try, and apologies if I'm not at my clearest:

As for the fact of our going in there, I have no doubt that we were justified because of 9/11 and the refusal to turn over Bin Laden. I also believe that the Taliban regime itself might have been justification enough, that sometimes -- but very rarely -- regimes are so horrible we do have the right to get rid of them. (Please, don't challenge me by giving other examples of regimes we tolerated or even helped, since they aren't relevant -- on the 'murderers continue to exist, therefore don't punish a specific murderer' example.)

However, we botched our incursion so badly that the question is whether we can do any good by remaining there or not is a very strong one.

But the third point, and to me the most difficult one, is that -- whatever you think of Islam as a religion -- as a polity, it has always been disastrous, and the only thing that has worked to ameliorate it has been a strong secular counterweight. Which can come from various sources, thus the Army serves as the key in Turkey, the secular middle and upper class in Pakistan and Egypt, even the excesses of the Royal Family and the secular businesses that provide services for the Haji in Saudi Arabia.

(As far as Pakistan, it was, to a great extent our 'out-sourcing' of various jobs, from computer work to phone banks -- along with the music industry -- that did much to turn the country from an almost-failed state in the 70s and 80s (Read Naipaul's AMONG THE BELIEVERS) to a relatively modern one.)

But currently there is no focus for such a secular counter-weight to form in Afghanistan. Even if our military presence fails to accomplish much, there is a chance -- if we realize the desireability of encouraging local businesses to grow to supply the troops instead of having them supplied entirely through PXs -- our presence may help this form.

The question is whether the Bush incompetence has so fouled up the situation that this, or any positive benefit from our presence, has become impossible.

Prup (aka Jim Benton)

Corvus 9: Comparing the Nader mistake to the abandonment of Humphrey simply shows how little you understsnd of what the latter meant. (My apologies, but sometimes you do 'gotta be there.')

Humphrey was a true liberal in the line that ran from FDR to (the domestic) LBJ -- including Eisenhower in most areas. The consensus of the country was a liberal one, and had Humphrey been elected, it would have continued on that path -- and we wouldn't be comparing ourselves unfavorably to European countries that did not make the 'move backwards' we did.

But after the defeat, and after the sad follies of the McGovern campaign, it was Democrats who abandoned liberalism. We ran Carter, probably the most conservative Democratic candidate since Davis in 24, or Parker in 04, against Ford -- and barely won. Later we'd run Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, and "Bush-lite" Kerry. Even Mondale was a sure loser and had become merely the shell of his formerly strongly liberal self -- and we coupled him with Ferraro, as we joined Lieberman with Gore.

(And I can only wonder what woul have happened if the Bush Depression had had a few more months to penetrate the consciousness of America before the election, so we'd have realized how much Obama has, in fact, done to prevent it from resembling 1929 on Steroids.)

If we let Obama fail, if we let the 'New Improved Chock-full-a-Nuts' Republican Party make any gains at all in 2010, if we don't use the few improvements he's making as a springboard, I don't know what will happen, but I'm tempted to ask my Canadian Sister-in-Law, or Eric "Off to India" Wilde if they have a spare room for rent.

Sir Charles

I continue to get beaten up at Ian's site for being the Obama fellating, right wing sell out you all know me to be. My most recent comment to one of our bold vanguard who is unhappy with my lecturing him/her on how much he/she doesn't know:

"I don’t mean to lecture, but the third party pie in the sky bullshit is only conducive to that kind of response. It’s not a serious proposal, it’s posing.

Our problems are with the Senators in places like Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Indiana, and Montana. What exactly will a third party challenge due in those kinds of places except insure the election of Republicans? I am not averse to primary challenges against someone like Lieberman where by all rights we should have a better senator. I am also not opposed to pulling the plugs on some of the useless blue dogs in the House, where a bare majority can make things happen.

But the major parties have been undisturbed now for 150 years. In that time they have withstood the challnges of the People’s Party, the Progressives, the Socialists, the Dixiecrats, and the Wallace and Perot movements. In an era in which television and money rule supreme, I have a hard time seeing how conditions for such a challenge are more favorable.

You can ignore the quality of the opposition party all you want, but again, this is the kind of self-indulgent posturing that led us to the pretense that no meaningful difference existed between Gore and Bush, so why the hell not vote for Nader. After those eight disastrous years I would expect a little bit more sobriety on our side."

ballgame
More and more my favorite saying is becoming 'the perfect is often the enemy of the good.' Sir C. and bbw have lived it, but my first election -- I just missed out on the 18-year old vote Amendment was in 1968. How many of us rejected Humphrey -- I honestly don't remember if I did or not -- who was one of the great liberal voices of my lifetime, despite his silence about Vietnam. Some of us even applauded the election of Nixon, 'knowing' this would cause such a revulsion in the country that we'd get a 'real liberal' the next time. (The revolutionaries of the time even figured it would be the trigger they'd need.)

You know, Prup, I agree that Humphrey doesn't get the respect he deserves, but, Vietnam? Kind of an important thing to be silent about, no?

And how much better would it have been if Bobby Kennedy — who broke with Johnson on Vietnam — had not been assassinated? Pressure from the left contributed to Johnson not running for re-election, and provided the opening for Kennedy. Maybe pressure from the left can compel Obama not to run in 2012 and open up space for a genuine — and hopefully at least modestly charismatic — progressive. Or maybe pressure from the left will cause Obama to shift his approach (though I'm skeptical that this will occur).

And if neither of those things occurs, maybe I'll once again endorse Obama over whatever dangerous idiot the Republicans nominate.

But I have to disagree with the notion that we have all this time for political evolution. The twin scourges of peak oil and global warming tremendously limit our window of opportunity. This reality is intruding on our daily lives in more and more urgent ways. The current crisis will not be the last or most severe unless we make dramatic, structural changes. Trade deficits are hemorrhaging our purchasing power, and will dramatically curtail opportunities for a decent standard of living for the non-wealthy no matter what happens with EFCA.* We cannot sustain our trade imbalance without economically unrealistic and ecologically unsustainable rates of growth. In short, we're going to crap out pretty soon.

So … what has Obama done to address our trade imbalance issue? This issue is absolutely fundamental (though too involved for me to write much on here). I'll just note that dramatically reducing oil consumption is absolutely key. (And tanks, military transport vehicles, and oceanic cargo ships gobble oil like crazy.) Obama's approach seems very much built on "keeping the game going a little bit longer." I think it's suicide for progressives to hitch their wagon to that idea.

Corvus9, I do not agree that Nixon was the most disgraceful and corrupt president. That honor goes to Bush. And no, it was not my intent to compare Obama images with Nixon images, it was my intent to wake people up to the fact that, in terms of policy and substance, it's really not clear how much more progressive Obama is than Nixon was. And yes, I did choose that comparison to try to break through the complacency about what Obama is really doing that I see in the OP and a lot of the comments in this thread. (I didn't think it would be quite as inflammatory as apparently it was, though. I guess I take Greenwald, Chomsky, and Kunstler to heart more than others do.)

I didn't expect him to solve everything in his first year … but I DID expect him to not to make things worse (which is what I think he's done in the area of civil liberties).

You can trash Obama all you want, but he has consistently set a tone of respectfulness in dealing with his opponents, he has steadfastly attempted to explain his policies in rational terms without scapegoating any group, and he has basically tried to elevate the tone of politics.

Sir Charles, I don't think Rahm Emanuel saying progressives who ran attack ads against Blue Dogs were "fucking stupid" was particularly respectful, do you? And I can't help but wonder if Obama's more respectful to some of his Republican opponents because he's not nearly as much their enemy as you and I would like to believe.

Anyway, I don't feel like I've been rebutted. One can certainly argue on the basis of the stimulus package alone that Obama was 'clearly' better than Nixon, but that kind of assumes that Nixon wouldn't have done the same thing under the same circumstances. (I don't know what he would have done; he did say he was a Keynesian and he clearly was willing to do things that would be heresy for a Republican today.) Other than that, I'm seeing a lot of 'style'-type assertions: Nixon was paranoid and evil and unattractive, while Obama is smooth and appealing. I don't disagree with this. It just doesn't address the point I was making.

* Note: I think EFCA is important and I support it.

Sir Charles

Ballgame,

I was contrasting Obama's tone with Nixon's, not Emanuel's versus Haldeman's. There is a difference.

As far as energy policy, do you really think that Obama is being insufficiently progressive? How much further could he go and get anything through?

I am not in any way opposed to the administration being a little bolder and more populist in tone. I think it would be a good thing in fact. But it's not like Obama is getting beaten up in the mainstream media for being insufficiently liberal.

I deeply believe that you and the folks over at Ian's are misunderstanding the moment here (just as those who sat on their hands in the 1968 election were) and that if it all turns to shit in 2010, you are going to look back on it ruefully some day. Of course, for us on the left, these opportunities arise every thirty or forty years or so, so it's not like it's a big deal.

But you can all revel in being purer than me.

We can get the nader 2012 bumper stickers printed soon.

Sir Charles

I'm under attack by italics.

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