I’m seriously stunned the Democrats are just giving up on the tax cut issue before the election. Sure, I predicted it, but I honestly didn’t think they were that stupid. Sadly, I misunderestimated how stupid/in the pocket of their contributors these clowns actually are. It’s depressing.
We’re just a few weeks out from the election, I still have never heard from any Democrat official in my area asking me for my help, the Oliverio campaign is non-existent as far as I can tell (I haven’t seen so much as a sign), Congressional Dems seem to have just said to hell with it, and about the only thing I imagine I’ll be doing is hosting an OFA call party.
I’m sitting here screaming “HELP ME HELP YOU,” and they Democrats ain’t listening.
Kryptik
The first step to helping someone with a problem this ingrained is to help them realize there’s a problem. Only then can they help you help them.
Democrats simply don’t think there’s a problem. They think this is how the world should world. And fuck them all for thinking that way.
DonkeyKong
“The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they’re an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They’ve got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They’ve got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else. George Carlin
Mark S.
You need to get over to that Stupid Goddamned Centrist thread. Nick and Mnemosyne explain how this was actually a brilliant move.
Mr. Furious
If I had confidence that the cuts would end up expiring across the board, I could take solace in the fact that that’s the proper policy, despite the horrendous politics.
Alas, the Dems will double down on their stupidity by handing over their seats to the GOP and then, after the election, voting to extend them all—probably permanently.
Joe Beese
I feel for you, John. That’s a hell of a ball club to root for.
Carol
West Virginia Organizing for America
At least give them a piece of your mind, John.
DonkeyKong
The majority of Americans, Democrat and Republican want the tax base to reflect a more equitable society.
http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/1336/more-budget-commission?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CapitalGainsAndGames+%28Capital+Gains+and+Games+-+Wall+Street%2C+Washington%2C+and+Everything+in+Between%29
None of this matters. So if you live in Arizona vote for Sharon Angle.
morzer
Well, when you over-complicate the message, of course the Democrats aren’t going to understand you. They didn’t understand you when you went with “Help! Help!” and they certainly won’t understand the beta version with extra crunchy pronouns.
Kryptik
@Mr. Furious:
Nah, knowing them? They’d extend ONLY the upper bracket cuts, and then claim ‘the capital isn’t there’ for the rest of them. That and ‘fairness and all that junk can wait’.
Oh, and John, just to say, I’m kind of glad I’m not back in WV. The fact that Manchin got the Chamber of Commerce endorsement makes me that much more loath to support him in any way.
jl
I think Mr. Cole needs a refreshing walk ‘neath the trees, losing himself in the pretty sun dappled grass and flowers.
My fear, beyond the politics of it, is that the Congressional Democrats will not be able to unite for a responsible policy for the very failed Bush II tax cuts.
For those political operatives and clueless Democrats who may have forgotten, the word ‘policy’ refers to an action or sequence of actions that affect the real world.
And if the political class has forgotten what the words ‘real world’ means, that refers to a concept called ‘reality’ which is…
Awww…. I give up.
I believe that successful policies are almost always good politics, at least in economics. But good policy, reality, and related concepts seem to be the last thing on the minds of the political class. So we have a choice between a confused mumbo jumbo party that does not know what it believes in and is afraid to act even were it to find some beliefs, and dangerous lunatics. The prospects are not promising.
morzer
@DonkeyKong:
Ahem, Nevada, not Arizona. Crazy lady, she not from Arizona (surprising, yes, but true).
Nick
@Mark S.:
It’s not a brilliant move, but forcing Republicans to take votes against unpopular stuff hasn’t proven to be brilliant either.
Linkmeister
What’s the difference between elected Democrats and a box of rocks?
The box of rocks has some weight.
Lolis
Do you think Manchin is in trouble for his Senate race? Supposedly, the polls are pretty close.
FlipYrWhig
@Mark S.:
Oh, come the fuck on. That’s not what they’re saying at all. Mnemosyne said that Hoyer had a point about letting the Senate do the heavy lifting for a change. Nick is saying that it’s understandable why this is playing out the way it is. Neither one of them has said, IMHO, that it’s a good idea in either ideological, campaign-politics, or policy terms.
ETA: Nick is here now and can speak for himself.
PaulW
Remember when Howard Dean pushed for a 50-state strategy that helped garner Democratic majorities? Why exactly did he leave the DNC leadership post again?
DonkeyKong
I’m quoting Sully’s freakout after the Democrats failed to lift DADT, sorry for the inside baseball joke. He actually posted that then corrected himself.
Lolis
I actually think Nick makes good points about how forcing past popular initiative votes hasn’t exactly helped Dems. I still fail to see how it has hurt them. Dems should have voted on two tax bills, one just for the middle class and one for the rich. Then even if both passed, Obama could have vetoed the one for the rich. That would be a no brainer.
morzer
@PaulW:
To spend more time reading the tea-bags, perhaps?
El Tiburon
This I wrote.
Democrats* in Congress don’t want a public option. They don’t want Wall Street accountability. They don’t want stronger unions or a stronger middle-class. They don’t want the wars to end.
Their benefactors are no different than the Republicans. Just as the Republicans know how to get their base in line to do what they want, so do the Democrats.
It is time we all realize we have all been played for suckers, rubes and marks. And quite frankly there is not much we can do about it.
*I realize there are some good Democrats who truly want to do the right thing. But they are few and far between.
David
@Nick: I would argue that the Dems have not forced the GOP to vote against anything near as popular as extending the middle class tax cuts.
lacp
This is all good news for Jane Hamsher.
Emma
How did some of these people manage to get elected in the first place? Heck, how do they even manage to turn on their showers and open their front doors in the morning? I actually used the phrase, “dumbest thing the Democrats have ever done,” when on the phone with an aid to someone to whom I’ve given a fair bit of money. That seemed to get her attention, at least for a minute she stopped blathering about how Kosmas wants, “tax cuts for all Americans.” I guess no one in that office understands that there will be tax cuts for all (working) Americans if we cut taxes for the part of people’s income that is under $250k.
jl
@DonkeyKong: Thanks for the link. I will add to my collection of evidence that the US public wants two incompatible things: more government spending and lower taxes.
Bartlett’s last comment about the public seems to think a quarter of the budget goes to foreign aid is consistent with the table.
I heard a radio ad for some deficit reduction group that peddles this nonsense. The ad suggested that deficit spending is due to ‘special interest groups’ like ‘tunnels for turtles’ and ‘digging for fossils in foreign countries’.
I couldn’t figure out what the heck that was supposed to mean. The projects were the interest groups, or the turtles and fossils?
I never heard of this group before, and forget their name, but I am assuming their real plan is to mislead the public with this nonsense, and use the dupes who support them to cut social security and medicare.
What a country.
FlipYrWhig
@Lolis:
My thinking is that the Blue Dog Dems don’t want to be left hanging by the rest of the Dems. They think the rest of the Dems will vote to cut taxes for the first 98%, then stop there; then the Blue Dogs will vote to cut taxes even more on the next 2%, but the rest of the Dems won’t back them up, making it a Tax Hike. Democrats voted to raise taxes by billions of dollars! Well, they can’t stomach that. So they don’t want two bills, just one, to prevent the other Dems from straying.
Nick has a different idea.
Nick
@Lolis:
They wouldn’t, Republicans would filibuster the middle class tax cuts until the rich tax cuts passed. What do they have to lose?
Just Some Fuckhead
They=dey.
FlipYrWhig
@Emma: There will be tax cuts for all Americans regardless, because even the people who make more than $250K will pay less in taxes for dollars $1-$250K.
Emma
@El Tiburon: Actually, I think they do want all those things, they just have a nagging feeling that they’re not supposed to be in charge, and that, unless they do a good enough impression of being a Repub., they’ll lose their jobs. The people who think that are going to lose their jobs anyway. More important, they’re making it look like Democrats don’t want any of those things you have listed. Does not one Dem in Washington have a single employee who understands a thing about messaging?
Emma
@FlipYrWhig: Yes, that’s what I said.
Nick
@David:
unemployment benefits were pretty popular, so was FinReg, so was the 9/11 health bill.
The 9/11 bill was the point I realized forcing the GOP to filibuster is a failing idea…I had suspected it before, but that’s when I realized it.
When Anthony Weiner couldn’t get the message through to this own constituents and Jon Stewart was saying Democrats should’ve given Republicans what they wanted, I knew I was right.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter, even if they did filibuster, the only person who would be calling them out is the President and the Senators, while our pundits and leftie leaders would talking about how awful politicians are.
FlipYrWhig
@Emma: The problem children are the Democrats who prefer to run as “better than the other Democrats.” They don’t think they benefit from a united front when that united front is too liberal for their standards.
beltane
My local Dems (Leahy, Welch, Shumlin) have been asking me for help incessantly. Today, I got a fundraising letter from Sharron Angle of all people, because former Obama volunteers in blue states must be prime recruiting material for teabagging lunatics. One thing we have in abundance in this country is stupidity.
The last Republican who asked me for money was Ruth Dwyer, the proto-teabagger nut who lost to Howard Dean. Maybe this is a good sign.
Emma
@FlipYrWhig: How about if they voted on one this week and left the other for after the election, and then just never, well, got to it? It’s not like that sort of thing has never been done.
Jeff
I was going to send this to my congresscritter, but then I realized that he was one of the good guys,(relatively speaking)
Dear Representative F**k stick,
I am getting pretty sick and tired of watching you and your lame-ass antics up on Capitol Hill. I elected you to help the president bring change to this country, to help put people back to work with the stimulus program, to end the gouging of the worker by the insurance companies withthe HCR bill, and to end the obscene Bush tax cuts on the wealthy, and give the money back to people like me and millions like me out of work, or about to lose their house…
But you! you p***y seem to think it is our God given responsibility to pay you solely for the privelege of sitting up there to vote to name the local post office the “John J, Dickenslapper post office” and to declare next October National Puff Pastry month” and the minute a bill arrives that requires a modicum of stones to vote for , you whine that “can’t it wait until after the election, because the Republicans will say bad things about me”
Well, I’ve got news for you , d***wad, you are not merely a placeholder, who’s only function is to keep out of the Capitol chambers a person who thinks that the sun sets in the east, and that we should restore the legislation that lets us burn witches at the stake, but an elected representative of the people , sent to serve them. So man up ( or woman up) and serve.
Yours
*******
but you see I didn’t do it, cause my congress critter is a good guy and it might make him cry.
db
I’m with you, Mr. Cole.
I am giving money; I am being bombarded by stupid signage and stupid water cooler talk.
And I sure as hell don’t agree with everything the Dems in Congress do; but I’ll cut them some slack because I understand they have to compromise with nutjobs.
But if I am willing to walk across broken glass to vote to be sure the GOPtards don’t get another chance at f’ing up the economy, I want to see some more symbolic votes to put those GOPtards on the record for hating working people.
FlipYrWhig
@Emma: I thought you were emphasizing “working,” meaning the middle class. My mistake.
Emma
@FlipYrWhig: Are my posts coming up in Chinese or something? You are “correcting” my comments by rewording them. We are agreeing here.
freelancer
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Does the chair know we gon’ look like some punk ass bitches?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Maybe some of them actually think that raising taxes in a recession is a bad idea.
Tom Q
@El Tiburon: I see it the other way around: the “bad” Dems are a deep minority. But in a world where the voting requirement is a near-unanimous Dem caucus to squeak by united GOP negation, they hold veto power over everything.
FlipYrWhig
@Emma: Right, but that’s what Blue Dog types _fear_. They’re the ones who need constant stroking and reassurance. You’re describing a winning strategy for mainstream Democrats, especially liberals. But conservative/Blue Dog Democrats don’t trust it, because getting tricked into “raising taxes” — by virtue of being part of a party that didn’t vote to extend a tax cut — is the kiss of death, they think.
Emma
@FlipYrWhig: No, I meant with a job. No job, no income taxes, so no tax cut. Unless unemployment benefits are taxed? I would hope not.
J.W. Hamner
Isn’t just letting the Bush tax cuts expire the best option from a policy perspective?
Nick
@J.W. Hamner:
Yes, it would pretty much close almost the entire deficit and take it off the table as an issue and allow us to spend some money without the bond markets threatening fire and brimstone, but it’s political suicide.
DonkeyKong
Let’s face it, the country is going through the DT’s caused by smoking, then snorting then shooting “supply side smack”
It’s like that scene in trainspotting when Ewan McGregor dives into the toilet to retrieve his baggy of heroin. That’s what we are about to do November 2010.
FlipYrWhig
@Emma: OK; I keep reading you as saying that “Democrats” are being stupid and suck at messaging, and I keep wanting to say that everything you’re saying is true of _conservative_ Democrats.
Emma
@FlipYrWhig: They don’t need a kiss of death, they are already toast. That list of people who signed the letter asking for even MORE tax cuts for the part of people’s income over $250k? I’m betting not many of them will be left in office by the end of January. They should go out with dignity. You can’t win by being Repub. lite when there is an actual Repub. running against you.
AhabTRuler
I still haven’t figured out why anyone takes Nick seriously?
Tom Q
@Nick: I wonder if Jon Stewart has any idea how helpful he’s been to the GOP in recent weeks. Last night, he just about took the Sully line on the DADT vote. And this whole “both sides need to calm down” rally is false equivalence at near Broder level.
I know Jon’s on our side at heart, but he’s falling for bullshit at a particularly bad moment.
JWL
Democrats should retire the donkey, and adopt a boar with tits as their logo.
I’m shocked that anyone remains shockable about that party’s rudderless incompetence.
For decades, I’ve cringed when I hear the Supreme Court has reached a decision. I assume the worst, and 9 times out of 10 that assumption proves correct.
It’s getting to that point with the democratic party.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@morzer: Susie Madrak actually told that to Axelrod today on the blogger conference call, and call Axelrod could do was snicker.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
And I meant the “Help me help you” thing.
FlipYrWhig
@Emma:
Ah, but that’s just it. Their whole political approach is based on being Republican-lite. That’s who they are. That’s how they’ve won in the past. So that’s what they’re sticking with.
Nick
@Emma:
Except there’s over 50 members of the Democratic caucus who did.
David
@Nick: I’m pretty sure FinReg and the unemployment extensions eventually passed, so they are reasons to start voting. The 9/11 health responders bill isn’t remotely in the same league as the under $250k tax cuts, but then again neither were the FinReg and unemployment extensions.
Emma
@FlipYrWhig: Actually, all Democrats suck at messaging. How did the Senate vote on military funding not end up being played up as “Repubs. vote to block discussion of military funding”? Why is everyone talking about the DREAM Act instead? Because we suck at controlling the message.
Now, on the Obama tax cut issue, Pelosi can introduce a bill making the tax cuts on the portion of everyone’s income that is $250k and under permanent. The tax cuts on the other portion will be discussed in the future, because there is only so much time right now and middle class tax cuts are a priority to additional tax cuts for Cher, Paris Hilton and Cindy McCain (they will already benefit from the $250k and under bill). Blue dogs can vote for it or against it. Call their bluff. Even House Repubs have been saying that, faced with such a choice, they would vote for it. Doesn’t matter to them, since the Senate will kill it anyway.
FlipYrWhig
@Tom Q:
Let’s not forget that Jon Stewart was deeply in love with John McCain for decades. I think he really does believe in bipartisanship, knocking heads together to get shit done, all of that. I don’t think he’s firebagging/disgruntled left.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Jeff: Can’t you send it to him, and ask him to forward it to the cowardly Blue Dogs?
Nick
@David:
After we watered them down for Republicans, yes.
Emma
@Nick: I mean this election, not the last one.
jl
@Nick: I think letting all the tax cuts expire when the economy is in a strong recovery is the best policy for the long run economic health of the US.
But it is not the best policy in the short run. Most models show that in the short run, the economy will take a significant hit if the tax cuts expire on schedule.
The best policy, from a short run Keynesian viewpoint, would be to let all the tax cuts expire on schedule and use all the additional tax revenue for stimulus spending.
Letting the tax cuts for the wealthy expire on schedule and keeping them for middle class is a second best policy that will be OK for muddling through.
My fear is that delay in trying to get one of those policies enacted increases the chance of an extension, or total expiration of the tax cuts for everyone, and if they expire, with the additional revenue not being used for fiscal stimulus, both of which would be bad policy for long run and short run, respectively.
Nick
@Emma:
We suck at controlling the message because we don’t have any messengers.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Nick: You understand who recruited a lot of those Blue Dogs, right?
Chat Noir
@beltane:
Since the start of this year, I’ve been getting fund raising shit from the Republicans, mostly from Sharron Angle. I have never donated to any Republican (and I never will) and it pisses me off to no end when I get the mail and see crap from these douche-bags. Yesterday, I got something from the Dubya Center in Texas.
I don’t know if they lifted my name and address off of my voter registration because these mailers are addressed to me using my full name (I only use my middle initial for my correspondence). Don’t know if that’s where they got my info and I have no idea how to get off of their mailing lists.
AhabTRuler
Nick knows why Jon Stewart said what he did. It wasn’t an accident.
FlipYrWhig
@Emma:
That’s what I would be tempted to do too. But it’d be a shitstorm that showed a hell of a lot of Democratic disunity pretty close to an important election.
Nick
@Emma:
This election, Rep-lite might be better…a lot of Blue Dogs are polling well.
beltane
@DonkeyKong: You’ve described it perfectly. Supply-side economics affects the brain like crack. Rather than go into rehab, our country may well decide to end it all in proper junkie fashion with our heads in the toilet. Organ failure, Congress failure-it’s all the same thing.
DonkeyKong
This quote from Henry V explains the mancrush Stewart and the rest of the press have on McCain.
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Nick: Right, because all our best messengers(except for Grayson) are never allowed on TV. When did you last see Bernie Sanders or Russ Feingold on TV(KO and Maddow don’t count)?
zattarra
I called my Congressman today on this. Gary Peters, MI-09, voted with the Dems on every major progressive issue this cycle. And he is on the letter to policy asking to continue the tax cuts. I asked his office for an explanation – they fed me the talking point about not wanting to hurt the recovery. Couldn’t explain how this would but that was their story and they were sticking with it no matter what I said.
I’m willing to cut him some slack because he’s been with us on everything else. And I’m thinking he’s been getting some local data telling him this would be a bad vote in this district before the election. Given that this is a really bad economy in Michigan and their are a lot of execs and idiots in this district he might be right. So I’m cutting him slack and he’ll be getting my households votes in November. But I’m not happy.
morzer
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
Perhaps the word “pronouns” threw him? I mean, the guy is only supposed to run the messaging side of things. Since when was English comprehension part of the job description?
Just Some Fuckhead
@freelancer: Whatchu talkin’ bout Willis?
j/k
I am lean, listening to some screw.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
What I meant to say is that maybe some of them are genuinely conflicted over this issue. To allow the cuts to expire during a recession acts as the opposite of stimulus. Some people really don’t think this should happen right now. They think the best policy is to temporarily extend them, then let all of them expire. However, if you do that, the GOP takes advantage and uses it to extend ALL of them. Some conservative Dems agree with the GOP that they all should be extended. Plus, as long as the tax cuts are in effect, Dems will forever be bashed over the head with the deficit. So, some think they all should expire. Some agree with Obama that the middle class ones should be extended. So, because there is genuine conflict over the best way to proceed, they do nothing. Its what happens when you can’t get a consensus to do something. I know this drives you guys nuts, but the issue here is that unlike the Repubs, they are debating POLICY. If they cared less about policy, they would do the politically expedient thing and force the GOP into an uncomfortable vote.
General Stuck
@jl:
Wow, this is exactly correct and described better than I tried to in the previous thread. Dems always fail, or nearly always when they try to use wingnut tactics against wingnuts. Which is lies and deception and generally for the government to be impotent, or do nothing to thwart their “dangerous lunatic” dog eat dog philosophy . And when dems try, we get the confused “mumbo jumbo” party that ends up doing nothing, which in this case paradoxically is actually doing something when the dust settles. A return to the progressive tax levels of Bill Clinton which is what they truly believe in. The only problem is all those activists, and the congresscritters themselves who picked this hill to die on, and politically may have, in their souls.
Supporting democrats ought to come with a lifetime supply of Prozac, or a single dose of Cyanide.
Nick
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
Right, they have FOX, any business network, CNN most of the time and MSNBC during the day.
We have…nobody.
Just Some Fuckhead
@AhabTRuler: I can’t tell ’em apart. It’s just mr.flipnickyrbrienwhipplewhigjackson.
Nick
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: We’re not supposed to be governing anymore, we’re supposed to be jockeying for position in the next election.
J.W. Hamner
@Nick:
A) Dems are screwed regardless
B) Blue Dogs are the ones who will get hit hardest by this
C) To accomplish any progressive goals, we are going to have to raise taxes on the middle class
D) This is the least politically painful way to raise taxes on the middle class that I can possibly imagine
What’s not to love?
beltane
@Chat Noir: They used my full name too. I understand the calls from the NRA as I live in a rural area where deer hunting is almost a state religion, but I do not understand a wingnut asking for money from “the left of the left.” Even the local Republicans know better than to bug me.
I’m thinking of sending Ms. Angle a tea bag, Smooth Move perhaps.
Nick
@J.W. Hamner:
Blue Dogs aren’t going to get hit the hardest, trust me.
Allison W.
@ John Cole: I think you are helping by doing the Actblue, and giving some of your readers a reality check in that tough love kind of way. If you want to help more go sign up with OFA and phone bank.
Nick
@zattarra:
Doesn’t he represent Oakland County? The OC of the Great Lakes?
FlipYrWhig
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
I think you’re right. There’s genuine conflict over both the policy (what would be best for the economy) and the politics (what would be best for my own campaign). I know what side I’m on, but my whole thing lately is that we need to see where the doofuses are coming from so that we can figure out how to convince them to flip into non-doofus-hood.
jl
@General Stuck:
Thanks. Nice we can find some common ground on this.
I think we disagree on the advisability of scheduling this particular vote. But in general I have sympathy for your take on it.
I understand you to want the WH and the Democrats to announce a good coherent and strong policy and campaign on that policy in an effective way.
If they had done that, or looked they could do that now, I would not be so upset about the lack of a vote. Because the Dems would be saying strongly what they are going to do, when and how they are going to do that, and explain why.
But I have not seen them do that, and see no prospects that they can do that. So they appear to be either a weak directionless muddle, or sneaky cowards who are up to something.
Have I missed something? Do you think they can do that? Do you think Obama will provide some strong leadership on this now that there will be no vote?
J.W. Hamner
@Nick:
It’s not Bernie Sanders who’s going to get beat by a Tea Bagger, it’s Blanche Lincoln.
Chat Noir
@beltane: I also got something from the NRA today. Again, I’m like WTF?
Early this year, I received an NRCC questionnaire (you know, the ones filled with all sorts of leading questions). I was so irritated at getting it that I filled it out, from a Democratic perspective (natch) and then asked them to remove my name from their mailing list. I knew it wouldn’t do any good but I felt some kind of catharsis for mailing it back to them.
Gawd, but I despise those people.
Nick
@J.W. Hamner:
Bernie Sanders isn’t up, but Russ Feingold is and he’s going down now with Blanche.
Some Blue Dogs will lose, most won’t. The hardest hit are going to be the ones who took tough votes; the Tom Periellos, the Betsy Markeys, the Mary Jo Kilroys.
Mike M
“Sounds like SOMEBODY is angling for a pony of her OWN” – Homer Simpson
Allison W.
@PaulW:
wait, aren’t we all pissed at the very Democrats Dean brought in?
mr. whipple
Yes. And a side-effect of getting those majorities is that they include lots of Blue Doggie idiots.
Nick
@PaulW:
You mean the same Howard Dean who brought us the very Democrats who want to extend the tax cuts?
J.W. Hamner
@Nick:
Evidence?
I don’t buy that statement… it is false prima facie… Dems with conservative consistences are the losers here, and they were losers regardless. This includes Feingold, even if his politics don’t match his constituency… or maybe especially.
Steve
@zattarra: Back when I lived in Oakland County it was the 3rd richest county in the nation, no thanks to me. I would give him a pass because I think he’s smart and really good on most of the stuff that matters.
Emma
@Nick: No they’re not. Those people are going down, because they are in marginal districts and that’s what happens in marginal districts in this sort of environment. They can’t change that. Might be nice if they didn’t scr$w their colleagues who have a chance of holding their seats, though.
J sub D
@Lolis:
That would require intelligent leadership in the House Speaker and Senate Majority Leader.
Have you met Nancy and Harry? In terms of putting a good face on the party, Reid is the worst majority leader since Trent Lott. Pelosi already is sounding like a poor loser. That’ll rally the troops for sure.
This is not about loving or hating the Dems, this is an outsiders observation about competence in your goddam job.
Edit to add that I friggin’ love the way the edit function works here. The site doesn’t function perfectly (none do) but this one is laid out very user friendly. Better than most.
Nick
@J.W. Hamner:
polls.
Chat Noir
@Nick: Yes. He’s my Congressman as well. Disappointed in him wanting to extend all the tax cuts. But overall, he’s been a good Democratic vote. Way better than that slimeball Joe Knollenberg. Man, was I happy when he lost in ’08.
stuckinred
Whether it is right or wrong the dems will once again be painted as chicken-shit motherfuckers. What else is new?
General Stuck
@jl: Oh, I am not against taking a vote now, but was only cautioning that it may well backfire if wingers didn’t play along and do what Boehner first said that started this entire rush by dems. Wingnuts have the ability when the chips are down and they can smell the return to power, to for go their individual misgivings and march in lockstep and vote yes to middle class tax cuts, which they are actually for, and it is not a certainty that a separate vote on extending the rich ones would not pass as well. At least it would be close, I think.
Since they have made this such a big deal, I would not be surprised to see Obama take up the mantle now, like he did when the HCR effort was circling the drain, and announce his own package of middle class cuts to be passed during the lame duck before the others expire. This would meet your requirement of them staying true to their beliefs and not fumbling around with chicanery they are not very good at. We shall see what happens. An address to the nation, or a newsie would be a good way for Obama to announce it a week or two before the election, this is what the bully pulpit was made for.
Nick
@Emma:
People in red district who are polling well;
Walt Minnick
Bobby Bright
Jim Marshall
Ben Chandler
Gene Taylor
Mike Ross
Jason Altmire
Heath Shuler
Rick Boucher
Jim Matheson
zattarra
@Nick: Yup, that’s us. Some in this district are fairly affluent. And also idiots. This district just went blue for the first time in decades in 2008.
jl
@General Stuck:
“this is what the bully pulpit was made for.”
Agreed.
And I will bookmark your comment for the next time you chew out us bully pulpiteers for asking for the bully pulpit!
Nick
@stuckinred:
Republican obstructionism leaves Democrats with two choices, be weak or be ineffective.
I’d rather be weak and effective
FlipYrWhig
@J sub D:
When someone doesn’t do something that looks so obvious, that’s the kind of thing that leads me to wonder why. And stupidity is one possibility, but I tend to think that even stupid politicians have staffs of not-entirely-idiotic people who probably tell them everything we’ve been saying here. So why would they still insist on doing something that looks so stupid? Well, maybe they think they would somehow _benefit_ from it. I’ve given some possibilities in this thread and others, not because I think they have good ideas about tax cuts or politics in general, but because I think we need to understand how they think in order to persuade them to think otherwise.
J.W. Hamner
@Nick:
Oh please. If you can’t bother to use the link button and provide evidence for you assertions, why don’t you just run along? You’re adding nothing but useless noise here.
Nick
@General Stuck:
because it’s been effective so far?
General Stuck
@jl: LOL, fair enough. I am not against the use of bully pulpit, and for electioneering it can be a mighty weapon for the party who controls it, though other times not as much.
Nick
@J.W. Hamner: I’m not going to sit here and dig through poll after poll, just go to Swing State Project, they have them all.
Here’s the most recent one…for Minnick in Idaho
http://media.spokesman.com/documents/2010/09/Idaho_Newspapers_Poll_Day_1.pdf
General Stuck
@Nick: he used it to revive HCR that worked, though I agree it’s use has limits, but this is a perfect time for it imo.
zattarra
@Steve: Yeah, it’s a tough sell here. I wish when I called his Congressional office they just said that he would lose if he voted against tax cuts for everyone. I can respect honesty.
He’s a good, strong Democrat on most issues, I would prefer not to lose him to the Republican this year. I can live with this non vote right now – he voted aye on health care after a lot of abuse in this district so his lawn sign gets to stay out front. And he’s one less vote for Speaker Boehner. But I felt the Congressman still needed to know people in his district don’t support the extension of any of these tax cuts.
Allison W.
I thought the bully pulpit was for convincing voters, not members of congress.
stuckinred
@Nick: What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
Nick
@stuckinred:
They either have to
A.) Compromise to get something done
or
B.) Fight endless battles and never get anything done.
Chris
This isn’t new, but it’s worth reiterating:
I know you think you’re being all smart and logical, but if you want enough Dems to vote for something, you have to tell that it’ll be bad politics and bad policy, and that they can all get jobs as lobbyists after they get their asses kicked by a conservative electorate in what is, aftera all, a center-right country.
I wish I had better news, but that’s where the action in the Democratic party is.
stuckinred
@Nick: And the example of the compromise where they got something? Oh, you are talking about compromising with the blue dogs. . .
Nick
@stuckinred:
Well, the stimulus
HCR (Blue Dogs)
FinReg- they got rid of the bank tax for Senator SexKitten
stuckinred
@Nick: I apologize, I didn’t realize we were talking about compromising with ourselves.
NobodySpecial
Forget what Ahab was linking up above; why do you all listen to Nick anyways?
stuckinred
@NobodySpecial: Nick Danger, Third Eye!
http://www.firesigntheatre.com/swfimg/danger.jpg
Nick
@stuckinred:
I was talking about both Democrats and Republicans
But this isn’t new, Democrats have always had to compromise with one of the other to get shit passed. Just in the past, we had more friendly Republicans to offset the conservative Dems.
J sub D
@FlipYrWhig:
Possible. But the Peter Principle is as true in politics as it is in business and the military. If the Dems retain their majority in one or both houses and either of those two retain their leadership positions, I’ll have to assume the Dems have a death wish.
The be careful what you wish for caveat applies here. They could do worse.
J.W. Hamner
@Nick:
You’re listing people with Tea Party and/or Chamber of Commerce endorsements, and you’ve not even managed a dozen!
If they’ve gone so conservative that they get endorsed by those groups, it’s the same as being replaced by a Republican.
If your point is that Blue Dogs in conservative districts can go so native that they can beat GOP contenders… uhm, ok.
My point was that it hurts Dems in conservative districts only, and that they were screwed regardless… and you seem to have proved that by showing that they had to become de facto Republicans to have any chance.
Mnemosyne
@Mark S.:
My actual argument was that Hoyer’s idea of having a tax bill pass the Senate first rather than passing it in the House and letting the Senate kill is actually a good idea, because having 372 bills waiting for Senate approval makes the House look like a bunch of idiots.
But, hey, if you want to make tax cut extensions item #373 on that list, make your case.
Just Spme Fuckhead
@NobodySpecial: He won’t shut the hell up. He’s damn near Stuck level commenting now.
Nick
@J.W. Hamner:
wasn’t this what we were talking about? That a Democrat who votes like a Republican will lose against a real Republican?
Mnemosyne
@J sub D:
If you were in Nancy’s position of having to do all of the heavy lifting to get legislation passed only to see most of it end up on the back of the Senate calendar because the Republicans would rather play games than do their jobs, you’d be pretty pissy, too.
She’s been doing her job of getting progressive legislation passed in the House, and doing that job very well. It’s not her fault that Reid is a fucking idiot, but she’s probably going to have to pay for his idiocy.
Chris
Also, too: I don’t know how you might think the Democratic party is taking you for granted, or ignoring your concerns and positions.
Maybe we should punch some more hippies.
(/snark)
Seriously, think about what the Democratic party is doing. None of it requires your assistance, as much as you think you can help. Do they need your help to throw this fight to Republicans? No, they can do that on their own. Do they need your help to shake down corporate interests? No, they can do that on their own. Do they need your help to stay at war? No, they can do that on their own. Do they need your help to trash Social Security? No, they can do that on their own (well, with Obama’s help). Face it: what you can do, they don’t know you can do, or want you to do. What you want them to do, isn’t what they want to do. Sorry.
J.W. Hamner
@Nick:
I thought we were talking about the “political suicide” of letting Bush’s tax cuts expire without taking a vote. The only people I think who pay for that are Dems in conservative districts, who I’m not denying could possibly still win as incumbents if they portray themselves as Republicans…. but in either case Republicans win, no?
FlipYrWhig
@J.W. Hamner:
Isn’t that true, though? Yes, there are districts where the only way for a Democrat to win is to become practically a Republican. What that says to me is that the “real” Republican might be a complete crazy person, so running as a pro-business, anti-tax conservative might still be to the left of the local Republican, and hence you can run with a D tag and still win. There are whole states where that’s true, where the state legislature is D-dominated but WAY to the right of the national D party. I think Oklahoma is one.
Mark S.
@NobodySpecial:
1. Never stand up for your principles.
2. Cower in fear against the Republicans.
3. ?????
4. VICTORY!
Martin Gifford
Now do you understand the enthusiasm gap, John?
The two essential human motivators are fear and desire. You have been advocating fear of the GOP. That works for those who are motivated by fear. But those who are motivated by desire see no improvement and so they are not motivated. The Democrats aren’t fighting for principles, so those who are motivated by desire feel there’s nothing there to defend. Hence, no enthusiasm.
The only ones in the fight are the GOP. The Democrats surrendered on day one. Democratic Party politicians and their supporters have been draining the enthusiasm of desire-motivated Democrats daily since then.
sven
@FlipYrWhig: I think this is a really telling point. Imagine running as a Republican, literally anywhere in the United States, and consistently badmouthing conservatism. It would be a recipe for primary annihilation. Democrats either have to make conservatism so toxic in the general election that the republican base has to shut up or find a way to replicate that level of fear in democratic politicians.
As a liberal I of course have no idea how to accomplish this and feel the requisite guilt for suggesting people should be punished for disagreeing with me.
Mnemosyne
This is probably just going to enrage people more, but I think the problem is actually the ongoing conflict between the House and Congress and has very little to do with policy.
The House has been working their asses off all year getting legislation passed, only to see it end up in the black hole of the Senate where it will never see the light of day. No wonder the House is kicking at the idea that, once again, they should have to stick their chins out and pass something that has no hope in hell of getting through the Senate. Hoyer is probably thinking that the Senate should do some of the goddamned work for once rather than pushing it all off on the House and then saying there’s nothing they can do.
It’s a fight between the two houses of Congress that has very little to do with the Blue Dogs or any other political faction, IMO.
General Stuck
@Martin Gifford:
Jeebus fucking christ. Then what is your solution?
TuiMel
@FlipYrWhig:
Good luck with that.
General Stuck
@Mnemosyne: The senate is a separate body Mnem, with very different rules. While I share some of your sentiment about Reid, it is unfair to equate his job with Pelosi (who I adore, btw) because she runs a strictly majoritarian chamber of congress, another kettle of fish compared to the senate.
J sub D
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, 59 seats and the VP ain’t nearly enough of a majority if you want to get shit done.
Chris
(Crap, meant to close the blockquote tag later in #128, above, after the second paragraph, right before “(9/20)” — apologies for any confusion.)
JPL
Even with all the doom and gloom, I still plan on voting. When Kerry lost the election, I went into a deep funk because I could not believe the public could be so easily swayed. Now I’m prepared (thank you media) but I’ll still vote.
Staying home because of I’m mad at Pelosi or Reid is against my self interest. The repubs introduced a platform to increase the deficit by 4 to 5 trillion, I can’t just sit home.
Several years ago, my son held his nose and voted for C. McKinney and folks in the Atlanta area will know why he had to do that. The opposition is worse.
FlipYrWhig
@sven: The difference IMHO is that Democrats are easy to manipulate with the specter of Republican rule.
I know it works on me. I gave money to Jim Webb, who really was a Republican, who worked for Ronald Fucking Reagan — because he was “electable” in Virginia, and the alternative was peckerwood George Allen. I gave money to Creigh Deeds with the same thinking, because the other gubernatorial candidates could be picked on as “too liberal.” And then Deeds ran a horrendous election campaign and blew that theory all to hell.
Anyway, the real point is that Democrats have a sense of guilt and a conscience. We will put up with conservative Democrats who habitually fuck things up because the alternative is much worse. I don’t think Republicans care about that. They don’t really put up with liberal Republicans. They don’t particularly care if their nutball candidates lose. I happen to think is that part of the reason is that they know, deep down, that the worst that can happen if a Democrat is elected somewhere is some squishy stuff that mildly improves the lives of minority groups. But we know that the worst that can happen if a Republican is elected somewhere is, like, millions of people dying from new diseases because the Republicans outlawed non-Biblical medical treatments or something.
Liberal Democrats can be guilted into backing conservative Democrats for tactical purposes. Conservative Republicans don’t put up with that, because they don’t have any sense of guilt.
ruemara
Is there a list of these blue dogs?
morzer
@J sub D:
No, it isn’t. Not when the GOP persistently abuses the filibuster. The VP is only relevant in the event of a tie, and cannot break a filibuster. Technically, the nuclear option is available, but has never yet been deployed.
morzer
@ruemara:
Jason Altmire (PA-4)
John Adler (NJ-3)
Mike Arcuri (NY-24)
Joe Baca (CA-43)
John Barrow (GA-12)
Robert Marion Berry (AR-1)
Sanford Bishop (GA-2)
Dan Boren (OK-2)
Leonard Boswell (IA-3)
Allen Boyd (FL-2)
Bobby Bright (AL-2)
Dennis Cardoza (CA-18)
Christopher Carney (PA-10)
Ben Chandler (KY-6)
Travis Childers (MS-1)
Jim Cooper (TN-5)
Jim Costa (CA-20)
Henry Cuellar (TX-28)
Kathy Dahlkemper (PA-3)
Lincoln Davis (TN-4)
Joe Donnelly (IN-2)
Brad Ellsworth (IN-8)
Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-8)
Bart Gordon (TN-6)
Jane Harman (CA-36)
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD-AL), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Administration
Baron Hill (IN-9), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Policy
Tim Holden (PA-17)
Frank Kratovil (MD-1)
Betsy Markey (CO-4)
Jim Marshall (GA-8)
Jim Matheson (UT-2)
Mike McIntyre (NC-7)
Charlie Melancon (LA-3), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Communications
Mike Michaud (ME-2)
Walt Minnick (ID-1)
Harry Mitchell (AZ-5)
Dennis Moore (KS-3)
Patrick Murphy (PA-8)
Scott Murphy (NY-20)
Glenn Nye (VA-2)
Collin Peterson (MN-7)
Earl Pomeroy (ND-AL)
Mike Ross (AR-4)
John Salazar (CO-3)
Loretta Sanchez (CA-47)
Adam Schiff (CA-29)
Kurt Schrader (OR-5)
David Scott (GA-13)
Heath Shuler (NC-11), Blue Dog Whip
Zack Space (OH-18)
John Tanner (TN-8)
Gene Taylor (MS-4)
Mike Thompson (CA-1)
Charlie Wilson (OH-6)
FlipYrWhig
@TuiMel: Well, I mean, what’s the alternative? It doesn’t have to be finding a way to make stupid people smarter; it could also be a way to make cowardly people more scared of liberal wrath than they are of conservative wrath. It could be just plain selfish interest, carrot or stick, whatever. But I don’t think anyone has come up with it yet.
Mnemosyne
@J sub D:
I’m still trying to figure out why you seem to think it’s Nancy Pelosi’s fault that the Senate isn’t doing its job.
General Stuck
@sven:
They are still running from the ghost of Ronnie Reagan. The first things dems have to do, is quit running and embrace their own philosophy of governance without apology, and that begins by doing what you did, by labeling yourself a liberal. It means worrying less about making toxic the wingnuts, and concentrating on forming and delivering the liberal brand without stuttering or looking down at the ground.
The public by and large knows the wingnuts are full of shit and semi evil, but they can smell fear and lack of resolve a mile away, as well as desperation and panic, and they are inundated with the stench of liberal fear/hysteria that causes them to look to the wingnut too much of the time.
This will continue until dems turn back for good the curse delivered on them by bedtime for bonzo and stand up for what they believe in, and in this case it is progressive taxation to a level that funds their vision of government and looking the country in the eye and telling them there is no free lunch, and the Bush tax cuts have to go, with maybe a temp one for the middle class in these hard times.
morzer
@General Stuck:
In sum: evil with balls beats good without them.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@General Stuck:
> Jeebus fucking christ. Then what is your solution?
You’ll be glad to know that my solution is to let balloonbaggers circle jerk each other as usual while progressives do all the hard work for them.
General Stuck
@morzer: Yup
FlipYrWhig
@General Stuck:
What about the Democrats who are not liberals, who think that the biggest problem with the party these days is that it has been too dominated by liberals? You can let them go piss up a rope, which is always tempting, but I’m not sure what resulted from that would be too wonderful in terms of liberal policy outcomes.
PaulW
To quote Bruno Gianelli:
“Because I’m tired of working for candidates who make me think that I should be embarrassed to believe what I believe, Sam! I’m tired of getting them elected! We all need some therapy, because somebody came along and said, “‘Liberal’ means soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on Communism, soft on defense, and we’re gonna tax you back to the Stone Age because people shouldn’t have to go to work if they don’t want to!” And instead of saying, “Well, excuse me, you right-wing, reactionary, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-education, anti-choice, pro-gun, Leave It To Beaver trip back to the Fifties…!”, we cowered in the corner, and said, “Please. Don’t. Hurt. Me.” No more.”
morzer
@FlipYrWhig:
Talk to those people about the issues. Lay out real policies. Make it clear that the GOP doesn’t want to help them, and anyway was bought and paid for by the corrupt corporate fat-cats. Hammer the message home, back it up with action.
FlipYrWhig
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: The progressives who do hard work have nothing but respect from me. My brother does organizing around economic justice issues. I don’t find that the segment of self-avowed liberals who spend time on the big blogs distinguishes itself by doing a hell of a lot of hard work — they’re mostly amateur pundits and media critics like me — but for those of you who do, big ups.
J.W. Hamner
@FlipYrWhig:
Right, and that’s why we call them Blue Dogs and they’re essentially the moderate GOP that’s disappeared.
I don’t have any problem with their presence in the Democratic party, but I would only be shedding crocodile tears at their disappearance, since they function as essentially GOPers. Replacing them with tea baggers is not good, but it’s not that bad… and if they replace themselves, it’s the same difference.
Letting the Bush Tax cuts expire for all (note that I am firmly middle class – right around median income) is the best policy solution we have… when your realize we might have a GOP run government in 2012 that would extend a temporary extension forever.
The fact that Blue Dogs are so afraid of being portrayed as “hiking taxes” means that they are killing a vote on any tax cut extensions… and thus can be blamed for tax hikes on everybody… strikes me as a delicious and deserved little irony that achieves my policy preference.
I just think the political cost is very low for not having a vote on extending the tax cuts, though I’m prepared to be shown otherwise.
What moderate-liberal candidates do we think could be “saved” by passing it?
Martin Gifford
@General Stuck:
Presuming that Democrats have principles, they should consistently fight for those principles. That starts with leadership. Obama has the talent, but either lacks the principles or an understanding of the situation.
The Democrats are like beaten wives. The message of John Cole and co is to defend mom (Dems) because dad (GOP) is violent. But mom isn’t standing up to dad, so defending her amounts to defending her insistence on brushing dad’s violence under the carpet. We need to encourage mom to make a stand rather than constantly accommodating dad and tiptoeing around his rage.
If you don’t fight you surrender power to the other side. Their power becomes absolute and so they become even more corrupted. Mom is co-creating the degeneration of American politics through her co-dependence.
People claim that the political climate doesn’t allow Dems to fight. But the current political climate was co-created by the Dems surrender to past GOP abuse. We must encourage mom to fight, to stand on principle, to advocate what is right and real.
Like Kriptik @ 1 said:
morzer
@Martin Gifford:
How did you reach this understanding of their position?
Nick
@General Stuck: @General Stuck:
Except only like 35% of Democratic voters actually do consider themselves liberal.
FlipYrWhig
@morzer: That’s the populist strategy. It always sounds appealing. But the problem is that there’s another strategy that has worked fairly well for Democrats in inhospitable territory, and that’s the gambit where you say that you’re a Democrat because you believe in giving everyone a level playing field, but you believe in faith, traditional values, letting people keep more of your hard-earned money and keeping the government out of everybody’s business. And those Democrats have an easier time raising money, too. That’s why I keep saying that what liberals need to give those politicians is something that works _better_ than that tried-and-true DLC bullshit.
Nick
@Martin Gifford:
yyyyyyeah, I’m going to go ahead and assume you didn’t grow up in a house where domestic abuse was present, because if you did, this analogy would sound really ridiculous.
You don’t encourage mom to stand up to dad, you get her the fuck out of the house and as far away from dad as possible.
D-Chance.
Popcorn time!
I especially love how the Professional Left are suddenly “jilted little girls” and “kids who are piled on”… oh, poor, poor, woe is us. Pass around a few extra crying towels for the WATBs.
FlipYrWhig
@Martin Gifford:
Yeah, OK, but you’re also running the risk of encouraging mom to make a stand that backfires, and she gets bludgeoned to death this time, and the judge is a misogynist and dad’s going to get away with it. Not all fighting back works. Sometimes it does. But that risk is why this is hard to solve.
General Stuck
@FlipYrWhig: This is a fair question, and when I say liberal, I am mostly talking about basic social and economic justice, especially for working people, and continued effort to realize the more perfect union Lincoln talked about regarding fundamental equality. The details when it’s time to compromise, which is inherent in a healthy democracy, can be tinkered with around the edges some to satisfy more doctrinaire members on the right and left fringe of the party, so long they still fit in the dem philosophy. But for those who won’t accept that basic philosophy, then they likely are not democrats/liberals to begin with.
Terminology in the center left camp has been skewed and jumbled from running from the L word for so long that it makes it hard to even discuss this where we have terms that mean the same thing generally, but there are core dem values that have remained for a long time, with some welcome adjustments getting rid of the former southern dem racists and xenophobes to the wingnuts, who deserve them. We should all be able to in principle, rally around those core values and debate the details in good faith. And the best ways to make them national policy.
Now I have to go feed my magic unity pony:)
Nick
@General Stuck:
I could name a dozen Democratic voters I know in New York City who don’t believe any of that. I mean they think they do, but their idea of it is letting the rich and powerful run things, cause they know how, since they’re rich, and, oh, torture and oppress Muslims…gays are ok, as long as they don’t get married.
morzer
@FlipYrWhig:
It isn’t necessarily populism so much as applied commonsense. You can’t win if you pretend to be like the other side, only less so.
General Stuck
@Nick: This misses my point entirely about dems embracing the Liberal word and working to re define it away from the demonized version we have gotten from the wingnuts, beginning with Reagan. Nothing happens good, until democrats are willing to take this small but meaningful step to re define themselves accordingly.
When liberal is once again defined as the core dem principles I described earlier, then you might be surprised how many more folks would describe their beliefs as liberal.
General Stuck
@Nick: I am going to ignore your anecdotal scorched earth pessimism Nick. Nothing is 100 percent of anything with politics and people who do them.
Nick
@General Stuck:
What I’m saying is liberal is defined by those core Dem principles and people just don’t believe in them. The only social and economic justice people care about is justice for themselves.
Mark
A little late to the party, but let’s get things straight here:
There are 31 D who voted against health care and are running for the house again. 14 of them have a 40% chance or more of losing their districts. Another six are between 20% and 40%.
There are 207 D who voted for health care and are running for the house again. 32 of them have a 40% chance or more of losing their districts. Another 12 are between 20% and 40%.
If everything breaks like the average and the Dems win three of DE-AL, IL-11, HI-1 and LA-2, then the final tally is this:
189 reps who voted for health care reform
22 reps who didn’t
Whereas before it was:
219 reps who voted for health care reform
34 reps who didn’t
Before: 13.4% of D reps didn’t
After: 10.4% of D reps didn’t
The Blue Dogs are the ones going down in this election and don’t let anyone try to tell you otherwise.
Dennis SGMM
@FlipYrWhig:
I’ve only been voting Democratic since 1968 so my confusion at your “What about the Democrats who are not liberals, who think that the biggest problem with the party these days is that it has been too dominated by liberals?” statement may be understandable. I thought that the Democratic party was where the liberals were supposed to be at home. Or has the time arrived where the old time, got my head busted at the Oakland AFEES street actions in ’66-’67 and worked GOTV in every election (Save for two when I was over in Vietnam) for forty-five years type of liberal now unwelcome in the party?
Looking over what I just typed, I realize that I’m an antique from another era. Compromising and pussy-footing seems to be working out really well. Carry on.
morzer
@General Stuck:
I suspect Nick is a small, grey donkey:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_If_3HlibOug/SWTmUtQTBuI/AAAAAAAAAeM/qhXorNOMxxg/s1600-h/eeyore1.jpg
Nick
@Mark: That doesn’t say the Blue Dogs are going down, that says the exact opposite. Considering they’re the ones in Republican seats, that really doesn’t spell “Blue Dog Doom”
Keep in mind some Blue Dogs voted for HCR despite being, otherwise, Blue Dogs.
General Stuck
@Nick:
There is some of that for sure, self interest is always a player, and there are plenty of people who operate on that level. But there are many others who don’t, and relish higher planes of belief. Dude, you are such a half empty glass person, it is painful to see in comment after comment you make. Things are fucked up, and people are assholes, but not everything and everybody. We are all alive on the earth right now, so why not spend our time striving for something better. The selfish assholes will always be there, so the fuck what.
J sub D
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t. I said she should stop acting like a sore loser. She should stop talking about all the Democratic failures and trying to blame them on the Republicans in the Senate when the Dems have the largest Senate majority in decades. Everybody with multiple functioning neurons can see that after the health care toxic sausage making exhibition the Dems haven’t been able to get shit done.
Her whining only contributes to the Dems November election woes.
Don’t blame me, I don’t have a dog in this fight. I’m not on the blue/red spectrum or the left/right line., I’m just commenting on the politics (as opposed to policy) of the situation. She’s a millstone around the party’s neck and should be jettisoned if the Dems are fortunate enough to retain the house (I don’t think they will).
I fully expect them to Dems to retain the Senate, my SWAG being 53-47.
Surely you don’t disagree with my contention that she, like Harry Reid, is a party liability.
General Stuck
@morzer: Perfect
Martin Gifford
John Cole has written many posts saying that there should be more enthusiasm because the GOP are coming.
On the issues they are actually quite liberal. It’s just that no one fights for the liberal label. No one says liberal positions are American positions. It’s as if the GOP has the registered trade mark for American values.
So the Dems shouldn’t stay in the political arena and fight?
It might backfire in the short-term, but in the long-term your message gets out there and changes the future political climate. By constantly considering the short-term, mom creates a bad long-term.
Exactly. Get a brand and sell it. There’s a huge unmet demand.
Nick
@General Stuck:
They represent a large bloc of Democratic voters, who vote, for Blue Dogs, or Republicans, and love Ronald Reagan, and think some combination of Blacks/Jews/Muslims/Mexicans are ruining their lives, that the fuck what.
scarshapedstar
DAMN YOU, JANE HAMSHER!
liberal
@sven:
F*ck the guilt.
The American people need to understand that the modern Republican Party is a cancer on our nation and is slowly destroying it.
liberal
@Martin Gifford:
Even in the short-term, voters don’t like pols who don’t stand up for themselves or any apparent principles.
Mnemosyne
@J sub D:
Yes, the Republicans are playing procedural games to prevent anything from coming up for a vote but it’s the Democrats’ fault for letting them do it. And I guess that girl shouldn’t have worn that short skirt if she didn’t want to be raped.
You mean other than financial reform, unemployment extensions, and tax cuts for small businesses?
Of course I disagree with it — she’s the only person getting shit done. If doing her job and getting legislation passed makes her a liability to the party, then our entire government is fucked beyond repair.
Texas Dem
It’s always difficult to win an argument when you’re telling people, in effect, to diet, exercise, and eat more spinach, and the other side is telling folks they can eat double bacon cheeseburgers, curly fries, and still lose weight if only they take a pill or wrap some strange electronic device around their mid-section. Sometimes it takes a stroke or a heart attack to bring people to their senses. In our present context, that probably means a debt crisis.
That day is coming; it’s only a matter of time. Our near death experience in 2008-09 wasn’t severe enough, I’m afraid. It will take financial collapse and ruin on an unimaginable scale before the demon of supplied side economics (which has morphed into nothing more than a justification for a free lunch) is finally broken and discredited. Given the level of denial that I see in the country right now, it’s better if the other side is in charge when the hammer blows begin to fall.
Therefore, my advice to progressives is to lay down clear markers warning about the dangers the nation is facing on the economy (declining competitiveness; increasing concentration of wealth; crumbling infrastructure, etc.), foreign policy (the Afghanistan fiasco), and the environment (resource scarcity; climate change). The probable solutions to these problems (higher taxes on the rich; a less aggressive and militaristic foreign policy, and a carbon tax or a “cap and trade” system) are politically impossible right now. So we need to sound the warnings clearly and consistently, then, when the inevitable disasters occur, be prepared to proclaim, loudly and clearly, “I TOLD YOU SO.” In other words, we will probably have to wait for the Republicans to destroy themselves, and the country, before we have any opportunity to implement our ideas. Given that the GOP hasn’t learned anything useful from the Bush II disaster, except that they want to implement Bush’s economic and foreign policies on an even larger scale (permanent tax cuts for the rich; war with Iran, etc.), we may not have to wait very long.
Of course, I have a relatively secure job, no mortgage, no children, some money in the bank, and very little debt, so I can afford to be cynical about these sorts of things.
General Stuck
@Nick: They voted for a skinny black dude with funny ears last time around. Or enough of them. Now drink your dead donkey kool aid and go away.
Nick
@Martin Gifford:
Liberal position AREN’T American positions, Americans are not inherently good people! They’re ultra-nationalist, selfish, and uneducated.
No, my point was the analogy was stupid. they should stay to fight, but it won’t win them anything.
Yes, I actually agree with this, but this brings me back to my point, which is fighting will not win them an election this year, because the American public is too stupid, too ignorant, and yes, too conservative or brainwashed by conservatives. It might win in 20 years. but this is where your analogy is wrong. A mom suffering from abuse doesn’t have the ability to lose short term, because that means she’s dead.
Nick
@General Stuck:
Because the fucking economy was in free fall and his opponent was a walking disaster with a crazy woman as his running mate.
I mean do you seriously think 52.8% is an acceptable number for a Democrat in an economic freefall? I mean Obama was LOSING in September.
General Stuck
@Nick: Yeah, I do. Electing a black man in this country president with our history, that is a testament to hope even if we were all living in grass huts, eating earth worm casserole. And you being the big pollster dude here, Obama is still in the mid 40’s approval range, circa 5 to 10 points higher than Reagan just before his first mid term. If you are not a republican ratfucker nick, you are doing a perfect impersonation of one.
Nick
@General Stuck:
This is where I disagree…There was no reason why a Democrat shouldn’t have won 60% in 2008, no reason 46% should have thought Sarah Palin was a good fucking idea as VP. I didn’t see it as a testament of hope, I saw it as a public forced by external circumstances to be dragged kicking an screaming into the 21st Century.
ocean man
Ben Chandler is my blue dog congressman. He voted against the health care bill and help stall this vote on tax cuts. Does it make any sense to vote for this democrat. I will enthusiastically vote for Jack Conway for the Senate. Why bother with these blue dogs.
General Stuck
@Nick:
Well golly Nick, that’s so unlike you. (eye roll)
Martin Gifford
@liberal:
Yes! It’s hard to vote for watery jelly.
@General Stuck:
Exactly. And that skinny black intellectual bad-bowling Acorn supporting Muslim named Hussein was talking about CHANGE! In supposedly Conservative America!
@Nick:
No. Americans are quite idealistic. You’ve just got to dig a little deeper. When a work colleague was playing rightwing radio all day at work I found myself mouthing positions I didn’t really believe.
It will. Obama fought. But, yes, it’s normally true that you have to wait to reap what you sow now.
In other words, Mom let Dad brainwash the public. She even said she agreed with Dad on many corrupt points.
But in the analogy, mum not fighting means she’ll keep getting kicked. A common battered wife/Democrat excuse is “we have to wait for when the time is right.” Then she does die. At least die fighting. Who knows? She might catch a break. If she’s got her eye out for opportunities (like the tax issue, for example), she can capitalise.
Nick
@ocean man:
Despite the fact Conway is essentially running on the same platform as Chandler?
Nick
@Martin Gifford: would you stop using the beaten wife analogy? It doesn’t work because in real life, the Mom can, does, and is often advised to LEAVE. Democrats don’t have that option.
Texas Dem
Or she can just take advantage of her Second Amendment rights and shoot the bastard dead.
liberal
Putting aside this argument over blame, does anyone here have any empirical information as to what the dynamic is that’s led the Congressional Dems to punt on this issue?
Sure, we each have our favorite theories, but I’m wondering if there’s any actual hard information out there. Though I suppose it’s the kind of thing that might be impossible to get a good hold on (if it’s just closed door membership caucusing etc).
Nick
@Texas Dem:
Or that, Democrats don’t have that option either.
Bobby Thomson
@FlipYrWhig:
Then they’re really fucking stupid. If there’s no vote, all the rates increase.
Actually, there are a lot of redundant words in that post.
Thenthey’re really fucking stupid.If there’s no vote, all the rates increase.There, fixed.
Nick
@liberal:
too many Democrats backing Republicans on this is the most apparent theory.
Perhaps Democrats wanted to use it as issue, especially in special senate elections. Five Senate Races that will be decided will take effect immediately; West Virginia, Colorado, Illinois, Delaware and New York. Three of those races are pretty close.
Nick
@Bobby Thomson:
I think they’re counting on the leadership giving in and allowing a compromise before that happens.
Steve
@Nick: 365 electoral votes is a lot for a candidate with basically no resume. I don’t really care that the GOP collected lots of popular votes in the Deep South where it hardly matters. Reagan won 49 states in 1984 and he still didn’t get 60% of the popular vote.
DonkeyKong
Right Wing Talk Radio is a hell of a drug……..
Corner Stone
I hope by the end of this thread everyone here understands Nick’s role at BJ.
jwb
@Steve: Yes, I want to know which Dem candidate Nick thinks could have garnered 60% of the vote.
Nick
@Steve:
He got 59%, close enough. In the climate we had, Democrats should’ve gotten up that far. Hell, they control 59% of both houses of Congress.
Nick
@jwb:
None of them, that’s the point. Nobody could’ve, because the country is too stupid, too ignorant and too conservative to see past the crap.
Democrats need a Reagan mandate to be able to really knock heads and implement real change, they can’t get it in this country right now, no matter what they do.
Nick
All I’m saying is there are a lot of Democratic voters who do NOT want to identify as liberal, they don’t want to be liberal, they force themselves into knots to avoid the label, always saying “well I’m conservative on X” and they feel the need to sometimes say or do something to avoid being cast as one, like talk about the death penalty and talk about taxes. They say stuff like ‘I’m conservative, I’m moderate” and try to convince people that they’re not radically right or left.
I’ve done this a thousand times, told friends ‘You’re liberal, embrace it” and it’s like I’m asking them to defend Bin Laden.
Democrats won’t run on liberal because a lot of Democratic voters don’t WANT to be liberal.
jwb
@Corner Stone: You mean that the Dems are doomed, doomed, doomed unless they reconcile themselves to the fact that this is a center-right nation and unless they are content with being weak and getting things done, however small—even though they won’t get credit for it, so will be mauled at the polls whatever they do—but only the liberals will lose because the Blue Dogs understand their districts and vote with their districts, which really want Republican ideas. Just look at Feingold! (nice non sequitur there, Nick, done like a pro.) Some place in this thread Nick just ran right past himself.
Nick
@jwb:
Yes, yes this is what I believe, so fucking sue me. I don’t believe Americans are good, I don’t believe most Americans are good natured people who want social and economic justice. I have come to the rather cynical conclusion that most Americans would kill family members for money and power. that’s who we are, that’s how we were raised.
You want to win? Try to convince people your ideas are good for THEM, not poor people, not “the working class,” THEM, each and every one of them individually.
Republicans win because they play into the selfish desires of individual Americans. We don’t.
And for God sake take on the media. The media reinforces the individualist idea that YOU are the most important person in the world, fuck everyone else. Take them on!
billgerat
The Democrats can be counted on screwing up a two-man Chinese Fire Drill.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Nick:
FYI, Reagan never got 60%.
jwb
@Nick: And I just don’t see what you hope to accomplish at this moment with your waves of doom. I’m sure Corner Stone will come back and say I’m just like Ari Fleischer and want everyone to shut up and take one for the team, but at this place in the election cycle I do in fact want to see the political point of the critique.
Mnemosyne
@Martin Gifford:
Martin, your hatred for women is showing. Might want to tuck that back in.
Just Spme Fuckhead
@jwb:
Nick is Obama. Everyone else is all fucked up, everything is shit, nothing can be done, nothing is possible but the brotha transcends!
That is all.
Mark S.
This was only two weeks ago:
Even Boner knew it would look terrible voting against the tax cuts.
(Cue 10 more comments from Nick saying nobody cares what anybody votes for.)
srv
@Texas Dem:
If you had a lot in Bouldin and were a woman, I’d propose.
Nick
@jwb:
I didn’t come here to preach doom, I only got on the topic after General suggested Democrats stand proud of being liberal, to which I said they won’t because a lot of Democrats are not proud of being liberal, since the connotation is soft and humble, and Americans are tough, stern, warror-like, so they’re willing to abandon their principles to fit that profile.
jwb
@Nick: Well, we disagree about the media—except the blowing it up part. I say ignore it, find some rich Dem to buy in, or work diligently on building an alternative media. The last is the ultimate solution, of course, but it will (1) take time, money, imagination and attention and (2) social media is not the key to future success but a symptom of current failure.
srv
@Just Spme Fuckhead:
You done fucked up there.
jwb
@Just Spme Fuckhead: I like the new handle.
Just Spme Fuckhead
@srv: I’m torched, looking up outta this tunnel, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeing loud in the ears. Where is Bouldin?
ruemara
Thank you very much Morzer. I sent that list around immediately.
jwb
@Nick: Of course, no one knows what liberal means any more, so who the fuck cares. It’s etymology lies in freedom, and so the history of the term is actually very manly, until the goopers started the long march against communism, soc ialism, liberalism, and in the process turned it into a ten-letter word.
srv
@Just Spme Fuckhead: Next to Travis Heights.
Mark
@Nick
I ran some more analysis, and in districts that have PVI R+1 or more, voting against HCR is worth 2% in the polls. Creating some jobs would be worth a hell of a lot more than that.
The Blue Dog caucus is going to get decimated, and given their unwillingness to work on job creation, it would have happened regardless of how they voted on HCR.
Martin Gifford
@Nick:
This is an analogy. In real life, the wife should leave. Definitely. But couldn’t you get with the spirit of the analogy? It’s better to interpret it charitably. Or maybe we could change it a bit. Maybe it’s a gay marriage. The Dems are like Arnold Schwarzennegger letting Danny Devito (the GOP) abuse him cos Arnold doesn’t realise his own power or he wants to keep the relationship.
@Texas Dem:
Exactly. The Dems had a nuclear arsenal after Bush II. People were saying the GOP would be gone for decades to come. But the Dems refused to launch their nukes. They somehow believed that Cheney had the nukes. Bizarre! Classic battered wife syndrome. Wanting to keep the dysfunctional relationship going at any cost.
@Mnemosyne:
That’s an invalid ad hominem attack. Also, you are invalidly seeking the high moral ground. Saying a woman should fight for her principles is the opposite of hatred for women.
Mark S.
@Mark:
Nick doesn’t care about your numbers. He’s got a narrative and he’s sticking with it.
NobodySpecial
@Nick: BullSHIT. You always preach waves of doom wherever you go. You’re like Johnny Fucking Appleseed with nightshade plants instead of apple seeds. You never do anything but try and depress Democrats by telling them they can’t win, don’t try. Even your favorite cover guys like Stuck are tired of your bullshit.
If you want to call me a firebagger because I don’t believe in giving up with the powder dry, I’ll wear the name with pride. Liberals don’t get ANYTHING they don’t fight for.
Steve
@Nick: I’m not sure how you are able to analyze politics in a United States completely different from the one we actually have. I’m also not sure about the point of the exercise.
Yeah, if the voters thought differently, Democrats could really clean up! Okay.
jwb
@Mark S.: He’s from the media, so it’s no surprise that he knows how to stick to his narrative.
Mnemosyne
@Martin Gifford:
Your claim with this analogy is that battered women who don’t fight back deserve everything they get. You have repeated that claim several times even with several people explaining patiently to you why it’s offensive to say that a crime victim deserved to be beaten. Either you’re an idiot who genuinely doesn’t understand how offensive this is, or you hate women and think they deserve to be beaten to death if they don’t fight back as well as you think they should.
Which is it?
ETA: A woman being abused is not fighting for her “principles.” She is fighting for her goddamned LIFE.
Nick
@Mark:
We’ll see on Election Day. But I’d wager a bet 75% of the Blue Dogs up to reelection survive.
Nick
@NobodySpecial:
Bullshit to you, you don’t fight for shit. You come here and always whine about how you’re being sold out and you mock me when I suggest we take on the media because it doesn’t fit in your “Obama and the Democrats suck” narrative.
You have some fucking nerve telling me I’m the one who says give up, you can’t win when YOU’RE the one who shows up and tells us we’re getting sold out and mocks me for suggesting we do something about it that doesn’t involve treating our allies like they’re sellouts.
Mnemosyne
@Martin Gifford:
Oh my god. I can’t believe you managed to find a way to make an incredibly offensive analogy even more offensive, but you managed it.
Yes, gay men being beaten by their partners is funny! Ha ha! Let’s write a comedy with Arnold Schwarzenegger beating and berating Danny De Vito because domestic violence is a joke!
Nick
@Martin Gifford:
No, because the analogy doesn’t fucking work unless Democrats have the option to leave the country or kill Republicans.
Like Mmen said, this doesn’t work because women in that position aren’t fighting for power, they’re fighting for their fucking lives. If a Democrat stand ups and loses, they continue to go on living, if a woman stands up and loses, she dies. She has a hell of a lot more to lose by “standing on principles”
Nick
@Steve:
How is it completely different?
Nick
@Martin Gifford:
A woman fights for a principles by WALKING THE FUCK AWAY.
That’s why the analogy doesn’t work. How can you not see this?
Corner Stone
@Mark S.:
But fer God’s sake, never ever make him vote on record for or against something!
Because that isn’t important! People don’t score those votes! Single issue PACs don’t know what you’re voting on!
Nick is a paid plant. That should’ve been obvious months ago to more people than me.
Corner Stone
@Nick: I can not tell you how happy I am you and the recalcitrantlyesque liar Mnemosyne are on the same page about something.
Corner Stone
@jwb:
No. He “told” you he was in the media. It shouldn’t take much consideration to realize he is lying. And is a liar. And lies.
Corner Stone
@Nick:
Shit. In every thread you repeatedly say how nothing can be done, public statements by the President are useless, Democrats can’t beat back the horde, etc.
You are the definition of doom. And douchebag.
FlipYrWhig
@Bobby Thomson:
Yes, they are really fucking stupid. They also want to get reelected. And they think being tagged as a tax-hiker will be deadly. So they’d rather play chicken in the other direction: ensure that there’s no vote now, so that the liberals can’t leave them on the hook for the “tax hikes” on the top 2%, and then let the clock tick towards the tax cuts expiring on 1/1/11, at which point, they figure, the liberals will cave and back all the cuts.
Yes, they’re stupid, and yes, they love tax cuts for rich people. And they’re also right near the leftmost bound of what their districts will abide. So this is how they act. At some point they’ll have to be cut loose, I think, and when that happens it will be a supernova of rage and frustration across the media, because those guys are already the sources of all the embarrassing stories about the other Democrats. It’s gonna be bad.
Martin Gifford
I can’t believe the debate has degenerated to this. Note that this is typical of Defeatist Democrats in America. Find any way possible to avoid facing reality, to make excuses, to blame the messenger, to over-complicate things, to muddy the issues, etc.
@Mnemosyne:
Where did I say that battered women deserve everything they get? We are talking about THIS SPECIFIC battered wife scenario in relation to typical patterns. In THIS SPECIFIC battered wife scenario, the battered wife has MORE POWER than the husband and can therefore fight easily. The only thing she lacks is the will to do what she must do.
False dichotomy, therefore invalid argument.
@Mnemosyne:
In THAT SPECIFIC gay relationship scenario, Danny de Vito cannot do any damage to Arnold Schwarzenegger. One option in debating is to be generous in your interpretation of the other side. You have taken the opposite choice in claiming that I hate women and gays or something. You seem to be doing this for strategic reasons, i.e. to avoid the argument I am making. Do you expect me to spend hours crafting an analogy that would please all your faux politically correct sensibilities?
Mark S.
@Corner Stone:
I’m really starting to wonder. Doesn’t he ever have to take a break to cover GLBT issues for his community paper?
Wile E. Quixote
@Nick:
Yeah, I’m sure that Norm Dicks, Jim McDermott and Nancy Pelosi are all going to be turned out of office.
Martin Gifford
@Nick:
You are assuming that the man is stronger. That’s not always the case. In this situation, you are assuming the GOP is stronger. Even if it is true that the GOP have got bigger muscles and more intelligence than Dems, which seems to be your argument, then the Dems have even more reason to listen to those who want to help them rather than listening to the media and the GOP and business interests.
In actuality, the Dems are stronger because they have truth, reality, and morality on their side (if they stand by traditional principles). I tell you, the GOP is constantly amazed at how they get away with conning the Dems into believing they are powerless when in reality the Dems have all the power and the GOP is all hot air, bluster, and easily-exposed lies.
But let’s go with your assumption that the Dems are weak and stupid. What would walking away look like in this scenario? The Dems would say, “We hereby divorce the GOP for these one million reasons.” Then the Dems list reasons. Then the Dems prosecute, get help from strategists with vision, strength, and intelligence, etc. In short, your way works just as well, so the analogy stands.
Nick
@Corner Stone:
I also say take on the media, declare war on it, but you and your friends mock me for it.
Mnemosyne
@Martin Gifford:
You need to put down the remote and stop watching “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” if you think that’s a realistic scenario. Hint: your “analogy” doesn’t exist in real life. It bears absolutely no resemblance to the dynamics of an actual abusive relationship. It is offensive for you to keep using the analogy, and you keep making it worse the more you cling to it.
Leaving an abusive relationship has nothing to do with “willpower,” and it’s offensive for you to claim that crime victims just need to stand up for themselves and all their problems would be solved.
What’s your next analogy, saying that the Democratic Party is like James Byrd and all he had to do to save himself was to stand up to his attackers?
Nick
@Wile E. Quixote:
no, but Alan Grayson, Tom Periello, John Hall, Carol Shea-Porter, Mark Schauer, Mary Jo Kilroy and Steve Kagen will be.
Mark S.
@Martin Gifford:
Jesus, just drop the fucking analogy.
Nick
@Martin Gifford:
This is getting fucking ridiculous. If the man is beating the shit out of his wife, it’s because HE IS STRONGER.
They can’t, that’s why your analogy doesn’t work. Democrats don’t have the options battered women do, but thank you for pointing out that a woman who walks away from her abusive husband is “weak and stupid”
Mnemosyne
@Martin Gifford:
No, I’m doing this because I find your analogy incredibly fucking offensive and think you should stop using it. The people using sweet reason didn’t make a dent in your idiocy, so I’m trying something different.
I expect you to stop claiming that all a battering victim has to do is “stand up” for him/herself and all their problems will be solved. The analogy is offensive and there’s no way for you to polish the turd and magically make it un-offensive.
Here, I’ll save you hours and hours of work of trying to come up with a less-offensive analogy: Democrats are like the kid being bullied out of his lunch money, and Republicans are the school bullies.
See? I pulled that out of my ass in two seconds, and yet it would take you hours and hours to come up with it, because you just can’t let go of your vision of battered partners as somehow deserving what they get. In fact, your comeback will probably be to somehow try to convince me that schoolyard bullying and partner abuse are exactly the same and so therefore the analogy of schoolyard bullying is exactly as offensive as the analogy as partner abuse. Am I right?
ETA: And, yes, I have friends and family who have been abuse victims, so thank you so much for claiming this is “faux” concern. My sister-in-law, who is now deaf in one ear thanks to a beating from her boyfriend, also thanks you.
Martin Gifford
@Mnemosyne:
Tell us how you think people should leave an abusive relationship. My experience is that one way or the other, something has to change. You either fight back, divorce, get help, or something. That’s the point of my analogy. That’s the point you are avoiding with Defeatist Democrat talking points: “Can’t do it. It’s hard. Let’s change the subject. Let’s sweep everything under the rug.” Those strategies are the abused spouse strategies that keep the dysfunctional dynamic going.
But, as I wrote to Nick: In actuality, the Dems are stronger because they have truth, reality, and morality on their side (if they stand by traditional principles). I tell you, the GOP is constantly amazed at how they get away with conning the Dems into believing they are powerless when in reality the Dems have all the power and the GOP is all hot air, bluster, and easily-exposed lies.
Emma
@Nick: Umm, hi, have we met? Walking the fuck away? Not so much.
Corner Stone
@Nick:
I mock you for many reasons. Mainly because you’re obviously lying and lie quite often.
But even if you were genuine, telling people to “declare war” on the media is about equal to having the govt “declare war” on drugs or poverty.
Nick
@Martin Gifford:
that only works if people actually believe the truth, believe reality, and are moral, which, as we’ve seen, they’re don’t and are not, but that’s not the point, what you are missing is the analogy doesn’t work since abusive spouses HAVE OTHER OPTIONS.
They could walk away from the relationship, they could even kill their abusive spouse in self defense. The former is often the most popular option.
Nick
@Corner Stone:
Now who thinks nothing can be done?
Mnemosyne
@Martin Gifford:
You don’t fight back, because fighting back is the best way to end up in the morgue. You make your plan behind your partner’s back, you save as much money as you can (assuming you’re allowed to work, or that he doesn’t check the grocery store receipts and count the change), and then you clear out in the middle of the night and hide.
You know why they try to put the phone numbers for women’s shelters on cartons of milk? Because many times, that’s the only time a severely abused woman is allowed to leave the house on her own. But apparently that means she’s weak and stupid and beneath your consideration.
No, those are the abused spouse strategies that she uses TO PREVENT HER HUSBAND FROM FUCKING KILLING HER. Because, despite your fantasies, the abused spouse is not the one with all of the power and she needs to do whatever she can to survive.
This is why it’s a bad analogy. Please stop using it.
Nick
@Mnemosyne:
and did she stay and beat up her boyfriend until he stopped beating her?
Corner Stone
@Mark S.:
Well, you have to understand. He’s covering Finance, Politics, Martian Octopeds, MMA and GLBT issues.
He has uninterrupted access to the 15 most powerful elected GLBT MMA Martian Octopeds at pretty much any given time.
So he’s kinda busy and all.
Corner Stone
@Nick: God. Nick, please try and keep up, at least a little.
Useless tags and amorphous enemies are always the best use of resources when you choose to make a fight of it.
Democrats have specific, elected individuals and oncoming challengers to fight against. They also have targeted audiences to win over and/or convince. We don’t need some cloud to “focus our fire” on.
Martin Gifford
@Nick:
… or the wife doesn’t realise she is stronger.
What? Democrats have less power than battered women?
Disingenuous. I was pointing out that you were implying that in the Democratic Party analogy.
@Mnemosyne:
All this Democratic Party has to do is stand up for its traditional principles.
Take the log out of your eye. This is a discussion about the Democratic Party, not beaten wives. I originally wrote:
You changed the subject to beaten wives.
Mnemosyne
@Martin Gifford:
I think that quoting your original offensive analogy as though it actually mitigates it by repeating it counts as tripling down on the original offense.
You don’t encourage Mom to stand up to abusive Dad, because he will kill her. You smuggle her and yourselves out of the house and hide from him.
Mark S.
@Martin Gifford:
Please shut the fuck up.
Martin Gifford
@Nick:
Liberals should believe in and nurture our higher instincts, not our lower instincts.
The Dems could have have killed the GOP easily after Obama won.
fasteddie9318
@FlipYrWhig:
Let’s hope not. This is finally a situation where congressional liberals can maybe make a stand; it’s better policy to let all the cuts expire than to extend the ones for the Koch brothers, and it’ll be happening right after an election loss when the future electoral impact will be at its lowest.
But, fuck, who am I kidding? Of course they’ll cave and extend them all.
Mark S.
@Martin Gifford:
Oh, really? How?
ETA: This is gonna be good.
Mnemosyne
@Martin Gifford:
By the way, the analogy you’re actually groping for is alcoholic dad who needs an intervention, and codependent mom who needs to be encouraged to do the intervention. That’s not the same thing — at all — as abusive dad who you need to get the fuck away from as soon as possible.
Martin Gifford
@Mnemosyne:
You chose to interpret it as an offense against abused women, rather than interpreting it charitably as an argument for helping the Dems.
I agree that is what a real-life Mom should do if that’s her only option. So can you let that go now?
In this case of the Democratic Party, we can’t smuggle them and us out of America and hide from the GOP. That isn’t even an option, nor is it necessary. In this case, she has to fight, and since she is much stronger and smarter than Dad, she should fight. And, in this case, the only alternative is to keep getting kicked.
Nick
@Martin Gifford:
we actually have to HAVE higher instincts to nurture.
Nick
@fasteddie9318:
Well if they lose Congress, all bets are off, because Republicans will extend all tax cuts and Obama is going to have to decide whether or not to veto them, and risk reinforcing the “tax and spend liberal” label or sign them.
Nick
@Martin Gifford:
What? lol
Martin Gifford
@Mark S.:
Your derision shows that you believe the Dems are quite powerless and that you are ready to pounce on any evidence to the contrary. I’ll give you this huge clue: The 8 year Bush II administration was hugely corrupt and drove America over the cliff. Obama was smart and charismatic and had all the evidence he needed to keep the GOP on the defensive for years. But Obama said he wanted to sweep it all under the carpet and look forward.
@Mnemosyne:
Maybe. How about verbally abusive alcoholic dad? Actually, yes, that might be more apt. The GOP shout and bluster and make stuff up and claim that the Dems are the problem and are anti-American while the Dems stay quiet or agree. But the GOP also prosecutes as in the Lewinsky/Clinton affair. And they are saying they might prosecute Obama when they are the guilty party.
I’m sorry, but I have to go now. Thanks for the discussion.
Nick
@Martin Gifford:
I don’t understand where you’re going here. If you “keep them on defensive for years,” you’re not “killing them”
jwb
@Corner Stone: I actually believe he was in the media—in any case, he thinks like our journalistic class, if he’s a bit more embittered than most.
FlipYrWhig
@Martin Gifford: So what the Democrats need to do is just like what a battered wife needs to do, except for the fact that the battered wife should really do something else… I think saying that Democrats need to stand up for themselves and leaving it at that would probably have been a better idea.
liberal
@Mark S.:
Among other things, going after the banksters, and repeating fifty times a day how it was all Bush’s fault.
But…since the Dems got lots of money from the banksters, that wasn’t going to happen.