A Message The Democrats Should Embrace

Caption: The political party in power should deposit all messages here. Don't forget to flush.

Image credit: Wikipedia/Jeanot

Apparently, a particularly sad portion of the progressive and Democratic Party leadership still think the Democrats got their asses handed to them in November because they couldn't put out the right message:

Others said Democratic leaders need to clearly spell out what they believe are the motivations behind the Republicans' positions: that they are beholden to special interests, who bankroll their campaigns.

If Democrats keep losing the message war, they worry, they will be wiped out in 2012.

“There was a lot of passion in that room,” one senator said. “The reason is because the public is with us on our policies, but they’re not getting the message.”

Senate Democrats vent anger with Barack Obama

As you can see from the title, this particular group of wankers was the Senate Democrats, but it's not the first time I've felt the need to write about this. Clearly, that article was too long for all those folks who worry about messaging, so let me put the problem in simple, messaging terms:

When you’re not in power, messaging matters. When you’re in power, results are what matter.

You see, we got the message. The Democrats were useless at making the things happen that we needed them to make happen. It's that simple. Blaming messaging for their failure to do what needed to be done, because it's just so darned hard, isn't going to fly in this or any century. When sports teams and companies don't perform well, the leadership gets fired. That's why they get the big bucks. That's true even on those rare occasions when the leaders aren't the ones to blame.

Not that I don't blame our leaders, mind you. Did they punish Blanche Lincoln for holding up bank reform? No, they bankrolled her against a moderate challenger. Did they punish Ben Nelson for holding up health care? Not a chance. They punished progressives in the party. They got what they wanted, and in the end, they lost.

The Democrats lost because they were useless. There, that's another message.

(h/t Blue Texan, who also had some interesting things to say about messaging.)

A Video Worth Watching

Cenk Uygur and Glenn Greenwald on The Dylan Ratigan Show after the electoral debacle:



If you haven't read what these guys were saying in the first five minutes at Slobber And Spittle, then I don't think you've been reading here very long. From there, though, they take on the next question, which is what should we do next. They have some good answers.

The segment is almost fifteen minutes long, so set aside a little time. It's definitely worth watching, though.

UPDATE: It looks like MSNBC's embed code doesn't work. Click here to be taken to the video at MSNBC's site.

ACORN Goes Down, Taking Some Deserving Souls WIth It

Caption: He's just about reached the sleigh.

Image credit: Arrr!.



ACORN's CEO, Bertha Lewis, published this news release today:

The impact of ACORN's highly effective strategies spread throughout the country, catching the attention of right-wing media and its proponents. The barrage of unmitigated accusations certainly took its toll, but even as extremists increased their radicalism, we continued to make a difference for families in each and every corner of our nation. We fought bank redlining and predatory lending for decades, making the American dream of homeownership more universally available while protecting it against waves of abusive practices. We helped build a movement for a living wage, fought for stronger public schools, helped rebuild New Orleans after Katrina, and won countless improvements in neighborhoods. As recently as 2009, the organization saved affordable housing in New York, stood up to anti-immigrant racism in Arizona, and was fighting for real solutions to the foreclosure crisis, even as the right fought to stop this work in its tracks.

The ongoing political onslaught caused irreparable harm. This effort was a clear attempt to cast a shadow over the historic 2008 Presidential election, and set up a far right counter offense. Through those attacks we re-tooled and re-organized. Then again came the right-wing media blitz. This time of edited videos that misrepresented our mission, and consequently misled the public. The pressure and cost of defending ourselves in multiple investigations as a result of the falsified videos has eroded our organization. As a result we will be filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy by close of business today.

The End Of An Era: ACORN Files Chapter 7 Bankruptcy

What Ms. Lewis failed to mention, of course, was the cowardly way that Democratic politicians ran and hid from this issue, rather than speaking out on ACORN's behalf. As Ian Welsh notes:

Dems abandoned Acorn, an organization which had relentlessly registered new voters, based on accusations which were outright lies. Now Dems lose an election as an organization which had helped them for forty years goes under.
...
You reap what you sow, folks.

How Appropriate That Acorn Should File For Bankruptcy As Dems Take A Bath

ACORN is part of a long list of people and organizations who have helped the Democrats over the years, including gays, minorities, unions, and progressives whom they then turned their backs on when they needed help.

The new motto of the Democratic Party should be Sic semper rectumi. People who are too stupid to realize that the way to hold onto power is to support your friends aren't going to be much use, anyway. The last four years have proved that pretty conclusively.

Almost Forgot ...

Oh, yes, it's that day, too. Here's a wonderful video that Lawguy found to remind us of what we're voting for today:



Yep, narcissistic sociopaths who want to be in charge. At least, that's what far too many seem to be these days. Still, if you don't vote, you don't get to choose the one who might conceivably do something on your behalf, or vote for one of the politicians who don't fit that description.

Meanwhile, you know the excuses and punditry about why the Democrats are losing is coming. Taylor Marsh put it in perspective today, I think:

The outcome of today’s elections will be about a lot of things, but it won’t be about Obama’s “overreach” as will be cited, or a vote against liberal policies in favor of conservative answers. It will be about political incompetence and the inability to craft legislation that actually works instead of conservative compromise that produces legislative mush on the altar of getting something done even if what it manifests doesn’t do the job.

People don’t care about liberal or conservative as much as they do about effectiveness. Democrats have always known the purpose of government and how to use it to its maximum effectiveness on the people’s behalf, especially when times are tough. So, if you want to talk about the epic fail being voted on today, this is it, because Pres. Obama simply doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Bright Spot Among Carnage

Except maybe for that last line. If you take as a given that President Obama is just a political grifter, then he might know exactly what he's doing. That's not a terribly reassuring thought, of course.

This election isn't about wanting the Republicans back in power. Any look at a poll on confidence in the two major parties would prove that. What it is about is that the Democrats screwed their base repeatedly and unapologetically, and then wondered why we weren't smiling after the experience. I wrote more than a year ago that what the Democrats needed to do was give people hope that things would get better, by making at least some changes that would help us. They resolutely refused to do that, and now they're paying the price.

That's what this day's results are about, regardless of what people who say shit like this will tell you.

Do You Know Why He Wore Black?

Caption: Johnny Cash singing "Man In Black".

Image credit: Screenshot from this YouTube video by Cujo359




I have one thing to say to John Boehner:

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town
I wear it for the prisoner who is long paid for his crime
But is there because he's a victim of the times

I wear the black for those who've never read
Or listened to the words that Jesus said
About the road to happiness through love and charity
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me.

Johnny Cash: Man In Black Lyrics

Quite frankly, any DC politician who invokes the name of someone like Johnny Cash, John Mellencamp, or Bruce Springsteen has summoned up imagery he has no hope of living up to. There isn't a politician there these days who seems likely to manage it.

I'm not much of a fan of Johnny Cash, yet I know about this song. That should tell you just how silly Boehner's reference to the man actually was.

Take this as another example of how divorced our leaders are from the world the rest of us live in, and how little respect they have for us.

Quote Of The Day

This one is surprising, given Jerome Armstrong's stolid support of the Democratic Party until this election cycle:

I've ended my hyper-partisan allegiance to the Democratic Party. In moving beyond the past decade's partisan affair with Democrats, I am ready for a real revolution to happen in this country.

It has got to happen over the next two years, and its going to take progressives, libertarians, tea partiers, coffee partiers, conservatives... everyone that is not part of the problem (the financial/political/military elite). Get radical, first by moving beyond attachment to a single party or a political identity. Radicalize them both, go independent; whatever, and if that's not you too, then get out of the way.
...
It's quite liberating, actually. We'll see where it goes next.

99% There

Of the two authors who wrote Crashing The Gate, I always thought that Jerome was the smart one. I think he's proving it by being the first to drop his allegiance to the Democratic Party. As he explains in a comment at that article, this didn't come out of nowhere, he lists Ron Paul, Howard Dean, and Ralph Nader as being politicians he's supported in the past. All were, if not third party candidates, at least insurgents within their own.

Still, it's quite a turnabout he's been through this year. In contrast to the never-ending parade of people who have simply ignored all the failures of the DC Democrats these last few years, Jerome Armstrong has been honest about pointing them out, and he's now reached the obvious conclusion: politics aren't working as they should be. Right now, there's no party that even pretends to speak on behalf of ordinary Americans. We are left to choose which spokesmodels we find more attractive. That's hardly a sustainable model for government.

I don't know what the solution is, but as Jerome notes, it needs to happen soon.

(h/t Ian Welsh)

Now That's Pathetic

Image credit: Twitpics/SandiBehrne

This is a picture of Tim Profitt, the guy who felt the need to "restrain" a young woman who was protesting a Rand Paul campaign event by stepping on her head, and Rand Paul. He must be twice the size of the woman he stepped on, who reportedly was already restrained by another Paul campaign worker. Yet somehow, he feels the need to ask the woman for an apology:

"I don't think it's that big of a deal," Profitt said. "I would like for her to apologize to me to be honest with you."

"She's a professional at what she does," Profitt added, "and I think when" all the facts come out, I think people will see that she was the one that initiated the whole thing."

Kentucky Stomper Wants An Apology From Woman He Assaulted

If anyone ever needs a picture to go along with the phrase "pathetic little man", the picture of this guy towering over the politician he used to volunteer for would be a good choice.

When you're caught in a situation like this, hurting someone half your size in what turns out to be an unnecessary use of force, I think the best thing to do is say you're sorry she's hurt and hope she recovers. Leave all the excuse making for if the thing makes it to court.

How Many Strikes In This Game?

More of this, please:

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - The Democratic candidate for Rhode Island governor told President Barack Obama on Monday to "shove it" after learning Obama would not endorse him.

Frank Caprio's campaign last week said he would welcome the president's endorsement. But on Monday, the same day Obama was set to make his first visit to Rhode Island as president and a day after the White House said Obama would not endorse anyone, Caprio angrily told WPRO-AM that Obama can "take his endorsement and really shove it."

RI Dem: Obama Can 'Shove It' For Not Endorsing Him

If there's any more proof needed that Barack Obama doesn't give a damn about his own party's future, then this would be it. After wasting time and effort supporting Blanche Lincoln in the Arkansas U.S. Senate primary over the more electable Bill Halter, and supporting Arlen Specter over Joe Sestak in the PA U.S. Senate primary, and potentially screwing the Democrats' chances of retaining that seat as well, this should be the third strike that wakes up the party leadership.

Fat chance that will happen, but there has to be some point at which even they will see the light.

UPDATE: I could probably add pissing off and pissing on his base to the list of things Obama's done to ruin the Democratic Party, but so many other Democrats have cooperated there that it's hard to think of that as anything but a group effort.

A Reminder

Image credit: National Archives

Just to review, because it seems that occasionally major party candidates for the U.S. Senate forget this, this is where the Constitution mandates the separation of church and state. In Article 6, it says:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

U.S. Constitution - Article 6

[emphasis added]

As you can see, that bit even applies to Senators.

The other place it is mentioned is in the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

U.S. Constitution - Amendment 1

[emphasis added, of course]

These are the only places that religion is mentioned in the entire document. Further, the Fourteenth Amendment explains that this rule applies to how the government treats everyone who is an American citizen:

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

U.S. Constitution: Fourteenth Amendment

It should be pretty obvious, to anyone who ever studied elementary logic at least, that the people who wrote that document didn't want any religion in charge of the government. Yes, that means even if that religion happens to be the majority religion. Whether that class of people includes any candidates running for the United States Senate these days is an open question, but whether the Constitution mandates separation of church and state is not.

Quote Of The Day

As I've mentioned a time or two, I'm not interested all that much in watching political debates. I'm also not interested in most post-debate analysis. Steve Benen puts his finger on part of the reason in this quote:

But, really, what do these debate watchers expect? Was there any real chance that Sharron Angle would take the stage last night, pull out a machine gun, and start threatening to kill gay immigrants who used to work for ACORN?

We seem to have developed a depressing checklist: (a) did the candidate show up; (b) did the candidate speak English; (c) did the candidate remember the talking points drilled into his/her head by handlers from Washington; (d) did the candidate repeat the poll-tested zinger; (e) did the candidate avoid some kind of mental breakdown.

If most of the list gets a check mark, then the candidate is necessarily deemed credible enough for service.

Soft Bigotry, Low Expectations

We seem to live in a political environment filled with such things. I don't know what the solution is, because I'm not even sure when that era began. It was certainly in full force by the time Ronald Reagan was elected President. The man could say utter nonsense and be taken seriously by half of the country. Some criticism of his predecessor, Jimmy Carter, was equally vacuous. So, it's clearly been a fact of life for as long as I've been adult enough to understand logic.

Still, it's sad to watch spectacles like this, where that environment is so clearly on display. That's a big part of the reason I don't.

On Moving Rightward

One of the inevitable arguments by progressives against letting Republicans take control of the House of Representatives this fall goes along the lines of "It will make the Democrats go farther right." This has always struck me as a ridiculous argument. Here's an example of why, provided by the putative leader of the Democratic Party:

During our hour together, Obama told me he had no regrets about the broad direction of his presidency. But he did identify what he called “tactical lessons.” He let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend liberal Democrat.” He realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects” when it comes to public works. Perhaps he should not have proposed tax breaks as part of his stimulus and instead “let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts” so it could be seen as a bipartisan compromise.

Education Of A President

The reason those progressives' argument makes no sense to me is that, by their own actions and words, the Democratic leadership have proved again and again that they will move right no matter what. Look at the nonsensical reasons the guy in charge of our government spouts as if they actually make sense. The idea that concentrating the stimulus bill on shovel ready projects didn't save time and money is utter nonsense - anyone who has ever gone through a state or federal contracting process can tell you that. A project that's been approved, awarded, and just lost its funding is a lot further along than one that was just dreamed up last week. Tax cuts versus tax breaks, what the hell does that even mean? The stimulus would have been more effective with no tax breaks at all, if they'd spent the money instead on something even moderately useful.

These guys aren't taking politics to the right because that's where America is going. They're taking politics to the right because that's where the money is. Those big corporations aren't going to drop campaign funds into the campaign coffers of the kind of politician who will watch out for the little guy. Despite blog activism and Act Blue, there's not much money there, and I doubt there will be as long as the income disparity continues as it is in America.

They're also taking politics to the right, as I've pointed out many, many times, because progressives don't demand that their politicians be progressives, where conservatives aren't foolish enough to accept progressivism from their politicians. Politicians will chase the power that can go elsewhere. Progressives don't change their votes - they can always be counted on to vote out of fear of the Other Guys, and any national politician who doesn't know that was probably appointed to his job.

That's enough motivation to pull politics to the right no matter which party wins in November. Until progressives learn to demand better of their politicians, none of that is going to change.

(h/t to Ian Welsh for the quote.)

Could We Stop Beating Up The Furniture?

Another example of cluelessness in American politics is this ad by the Democratic National Committee:



How many people do they think are going to be influenced by this ad? Forget that The New York Times has disputed the extent of foreign influence in the Chamber of Commerce budget, and let's just focus on what's really important right now.

What's really important right now is that we have 17-plus percent under- and unemployment in this country, our health care system remains unreformed, the banks are getting away with foreclosing on just about anyone who has a mortgage, we are still hip-deep in two ruinous wars, and the Democrats are determined to not do a thing about any of that.

Like the lawyers say, when you have the law on your side, pound on the law. When the facts are on your side, pound on the facts, and when neither is on your side, pound on the table. That poor table must be splinters by now.

September Employment Numbers

I'd make more of the unemployment numbers that came out today, but plenty of folks have already. Here's David Dayen:

The numbers, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: the economy lost 95,000 jobs in September, with the topline unemployment rate unchanged at 9.6%. 77,000 of those losses came from reductions at the 2010 US Census, so taking that out of the equation you’re still at -18,000. The private sector gained 64,000 jobs, the ninth straight month of private-sector gains. But government and public-sector jobs outside the Census also crashed, a victim of continued rolling budget cuts, mostly in education. That has furthered the jobs crisis.

Jobs Report: -95,000, without Census -18,000

Here's what

Private-sector payrolls rose by 64,000 in September. Private payrolls increased a revised 93,000 in August, up from the 67,000 initially estimated.


Image credit: MarketWatch

Still, the private-payrolls growth for September came in weaker than the increase of 85,000 that by economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected.

The payrolls count in July and August was revised lower by a cumulative 15,000. Payrolls fell a revised 57,000 in July and by 66,000 in August.

Economy loses jobs at faster pace in September

AFP bottom lines the political implications this way:

September was the 17th consecutive month of unemployment that equaled or surpassed 9.4 percent, the longest stretch since the start of monthly figures in 1948.

The report was the last monthly jobs snapshot ahead of the November 2 mid-term elections.

Obama and his Democratic Party needed a strong report to crow about the recovery ahead of the vote, in which opposition Republicans are expected to make strong gains and possibly recapture a majority in one or both chambers of Congress.

US Unexpectedly Sheds 95,000 Jobs In September

I would be surprised, but not shocked, to see the GOP take control of the Senate this year. They have to gain ten seats in the Senate, out of thirty-two that are in play. Even assuming that Joe Lieberman would change sides if it suited him, that still leaves nine races they have to win where they don't have a Republican Senator now. That's a big hurdle.

Still, by screwing up early and often on the economy, and giving people absolutely no reason to think anything better is on the horizon, the Democrats could still manage to make it possible.

Dayen wrote something that I have to disagree with:

We’re basically in a crippling stasis in the job market.

Jobs Report: -95,000, without Census -18,000

Stasis means nothing is changing. What's actually happening is that the economy is deteriorating. Even if there had been no job losses in the public sector, the 64,000 jobs created in the private sector is only about half what’s needed to employ the people entering the work force this month.

So, even when we finally reach Grover Norquist territory, and there are no more government jobs to lose, we’ll still be losing ground. We’re nowhere near there yet, of course.

That’s what you can infer from this report. Things are going to get much worse. That's true no matter which party takes control of Congress this fall. The one in control now is supposed to be the one that watches out for the little guy. They've been screwing us as much as they can. They're going to pay dearly for that this fall, but that isn't going to help us, I'm afraid.

Of Horse Races And Their Meaning

Over at MyDD, Jerome Armstrong pretty much gets what's going to happen the next few years:

When will the Democrats get a grove back? Obama's numbers are likely to get even worse in 2011. We are going to have to see some vicious Democratic primaries that go against the anti-populist sentiment among the DC Democratic establishment. Otherwise, it may not be until 2016, and after Republicans take total control in 2012.

Its a few weeks away from the bloodbath, and I've no reason to look at the blood being spilled on a daily basis.

2010 Polling

That final sentence captures part of the reason I'm not much interested in blogging these days. The other part is that I'm really not all that interested in how much blood gets spilled. The DC Democrats have betrayed almost all their natural constituencies in the name of big campaign bucks from the financial, pharmaceutical, and petroleum industries. They left us to twist in the wind while the depression we're now in took hold, only pausing long enough to bail out the banks.

If the Democrats manage to hold onto the House, then they will learn nothing, and will probably lose even bigger in 2012. Either way, things are going to continue as they have the next two years. I've never seen an election where so little mattered. Those are such obvious conclusions that it barely seems worth mentioning, yet there are plenty of folks out there who clearly don't see that.

Those folks should be cheered up by Jane Hamsher's analysis of the upcoming election:

I actually think there is reason to believe the Democrats may do better in the November elections than many believe. Not great, but better than they should have expected at this point. And that’s largely based on factors that aren’t going to show up in the polls.

Top 10 Reasons the Democrats Might Do Better In 2010 Than You Think

The short version of that article is that the Republicans have been their own worst enemy. They haven't organized, they've splintered, and they manage to say something stupid or offensive to moderates and just about anyone who isn't a religious nutcase or a racist every time they open their mouths.

I still think the Democrats will lose the House this year. It just may not be by a phenomenal margin. Don't forget, the GOP has to pick up 41 seats to take control. That's a lot in any election year.

UPDATE: Just add this thought to the end: It's even possible that the Democrats will manage to retain that House. If that happens, you can pretty well bet that the disaster some folk seem to fear if Republicans come to power actually will happen in 2012, when they GOP takes control of both the White House and Congress.

The Democrats might be savvy enough to pull out a victory here, but they're nowhere near smart enough to change their ways in time for 2012. And that's going to kill them.

Mr. Wonderful Spurned Us Again

There is so much about Greg Sargent's account of a conference call between the Obama Administration's spokesperson David Axelrod and some progressive bloggers that epitomizes the relationship between Democratic Party leaders and progressives these days:

"You want us to help you, the first thing I would suggest is enough of the hippie punching," Madrak added. "We're the girl you'll take under the bleachers but you won't be seen with in the light of day."

Axelrod didn't engage on "hippie punching," but he said he agreed with the blogger. "To the extent that we shouldn't get involved in intramural skirmishing, I couldn't agree more," Axelrod said. "We just can't afford that. There are big things at stake here."

Madrak replied that Axelrod was missing the point -- that the criticism of the left made it tougher for bloggers like herself to motivate the base. "Don't make our jobs harder," she said.

"Right back at'cha. Right back at'cha," Axelrod replied, a bit testily, an apparent reference to blogospheric criticism of the administration.

Liberal Blogger Directly Confronts David Axelrod, Accuses White House Of "Hippie Punching"

You know, this lament just screams out for some sappy country music. Cue the Dixie Chicks:



There, that's better.

The first rather obvious conclusion is that the Obama Administration clearly is not really interested in communicating with progressives. Of course, many have realized this for a long time. Any communication has been about what progressives can do for the Obama Administration, not the other way around. In that context, Axelrod's response was clearly more of the same.

The second is that the Obama Administration clearly doesn't expect criticism from its friends. That's not what real friendship is, because friends never agree on everything, for one thing, and it's sometimes the role of a friend to give someone the bad news about what he's done to himself. The Obama Administration doesn't want progressives to be their friends. They want us to be their bitches.

Which brings us to the final point - how interesting Madrak's metaphor of the girl who lets herself be taken under the bleachers is in this context. That sort of thing strikes me as OK, as long as it's clearly understood that it's a quickie and that's all it's going to be (though the expression "no glove, no love" comes to mind.) But when Mr. Wonderful comes around later asking to borrow $50, and oh, yeah, maybe he can squeeze you into his schedule next week while the Homecoming Queen is out of town, then you have a decision to make. You can either say "Sure baby, whatever you want", or you can tell the asshole that if he wants $50 then he can mow your lawn for the next few weeks, and don't forget to trim around the roses. People with their self-respect intact tend toward the latter response.

And therein lies the progressives' problem. No one at that conference call stood up and said "if you want our help, you will accomplish ..", and then went on to listing some things that Obama promised to do during the campaign but hasn't yet lifted a finger on. They just acted like they wanted to please, but didn't quite think they were up to the job.

Which, I suppose, is among the reasons they're all on the A list of bloggers and I can't average 100 visits a day. Clearly, I don't understand how that big time political stuff works.

When progressives have enough self-respect to tell Mr. Wonderful to do something useful or take his act elsewhere, progressives will finally have real power. At this rate, I think that day will come about the same time that Satan is bobsledding to the office.

Yes, I've written this before, lots of times. It's pretty clear that none of those A listers has been paying attention. So, I'll make this simple, because they clearly are really busy people: If you're not willing to stand up for yourself, then you're not going to get jack from people like Barack Obama.

So, try to fit a little bit of self-respect into your schedule.


UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Wonk The Vote had a good idea, too: If you don’t want to be punched, don’t vote for a hippie-puncher. It's like the old joke goes "Doctor, it hurts when I do this." "Then don't do that."

Sometimes, life really is pretty simple.


UPDATE 2 (Sep. 26): Susie Madrak left a response over at the FireDogLake diary version of this article.

What it leads me to say is that I should have made clear that it's at least good that someone was willing to speak up there, and Susie was, I suspect, the only one who did. Note the sentence reads "No one at that conference call stood up and said...", not that it was Ms. Madrak's fault for not being more clear. This is a general problem, not one of a specific blogger. Unfortunately, we tend to get caught up in personalities, particularly when those personalities have done something difficult, and then see those actions criticized. In this case, that wasn't my intention. I thought that was clear, but apparently to at least some folks it wasn't.

Fuck Ed Rendell

Via Blue Texan, I found this video of Pennsylvania Governer Ed Rendell on the Rachel Maddow show yesterday:

Yes, the man says, get over it and vote for us. If you don't vote for us, you'll have Michelle Bachmann calling for investigations into Barack Obama and Daryl Issa will be "The Chairman". Other than calling progressives and others who have finally had enough of these clowns childish morons for not voting for them, I didn't hear a single point that would make anyone want to vote Democratic this fall.

I could once again point out the long list of the things that Democrats have failed to do, despite those being the things they promised to do if elected, and despite being the things we sent them there to do, but none of the people who resort to this sort of argument are going to bother to look. That's half the problem - the one group of people who actually will respond to this sort of stupid argument are progressives. I'm not going to any longer.

You see, I lived through the Bush Administration, and I remember what happened. If I don't, I can look at what I wrote for the first two years of this blog. Then, after Bush was out of office, I lived through another two years of the Bush Administration. Do you know why that is? It's because nothing of any importance changed. No recitation of a pathetic laundry list of things that are superficially different from what the Republicans have passed is going to change that. I've written about what hasn't changed, and what's changed for the worst. If you want to know what that is, just click on the keywords "economy", "Barack Obama", "Democrats", and "progressives", and start reading.

It's particularly instructive to remember that, to me, Ed Rendell is The Prince Of Fail for how he has allowed services in his state to dwindle rather than tax the rich some more. They have an income tax there, he could have found a way to do it. He hasn't done a thing for the poor and middle class in his state that would risk any of his political power. He has lots of company in that regard, but as far as I'm concerned, most of what's wrong with the Obama Administration's handling of the economy and its priorities is mirrored in Rendell's handling of Pennsylvania.

Here's what Ed Rendell, and every other pathetic little fuckwad who came up with this same argument fails to acknowledge - I'm not refusing to vote for Democratic incumbents because I'm having a tantrum. I'd vote for those clowns if I thought it would actually make the country better, despite what their thoughtless actions have cost me and just about everyone else I know. The problem is, it won't. The reason I won't vote for them is because they refuse to acknowledge the mistakes they've made, and they refuse to try to correct them. Instead, they insult their base. Frankly, I'm tired of trying to reason with them or their enablers.

So, fuck Ed Rendell right in his fat, atrophied ass, and fuck anyone who thinks like him, too. It's going to take a lot more than calling folks like me childish little ingrates for me to change my mind. In fact, what will change my mind is the one thing you'll never see from the arrogant bastards the Democrats send out to be their spokesmen these days. That something is an honest acknowledgement of how much they've fucked up in the last two years, and some honest effort at trying to change that.

Someome Needs Better Optics

Caption: The 24-inch Clarke telescope at the Lowell Observatory, in Flagstaff, Arizona. Maybe our President and his new pals should get one of these so they can find out what the little people are doing.

Image credit: Cujo359

President Barack Obama was quoted as having said this Thursday night at an "event" in Connecticut:

Democrats, just congenitally, tend to get -- to see the glass as half empty. (Laughter.) If we get an historic health care bill passed -- oh, well, the public option wasn’t there. If you get the financial reform bill passed -- then, well, I don't know about this particularly derivatives rule, I'm not sure that I'm satisfied with that. And gosh, we haven’t yet brought about world peace and -- (laughter.) I thought that was going to happen quicker. (Laughter.) You know who you are. (Laughter.)

Mike Allen's Playbook: Sept. 17, 2010

Yes, I know who I am, jackass. I'm one of the many people in this country who can't afford to go to an "event" like this one, as described by the Hartford Courant:

The White House released the transcript of President Barack Obama's remarks at the home of Richard and Ellen Richman, who live in the exclusive Conyers Farm development in Greenwich's famed "back country'' neighborhood.

Conyers Farm is the 1,500-acre gated community where Republican Linda McMahon also lives. Her opponent, Democrat Richard Blumenthal, attended the dinner with the President at a 20-acre estate that was not far from McMahon's home.

President Obama's Remarks At Greenwich Fundraiser At Conyers Farm, Where GOP's Linda McMahon Lives

The Greenwich Time adds another little detail:

The location of the Democratic National Committee dinner with the president was the estate of Richard and Ellen Schapps Richman, Richard Richman runs The Richman Group of Companies, a Greenwich-based real estate, investment banking, construction, mortgage banking, and asset and property management conglomerate that touts itself on its website as one of the nation's 10 largest residential property owners. Ellen Schapps Richman is an active philanthropist and adjunct professor of marketing at Pace University's Lubin School of Business, according to her biography on the United Way of Greenwich website.

Guests shelled out more than $30,000 per plate for the exclusive evening with the president.

Faces in the crowd at Conyers Farm Obama dinner

Isn't that special? The President goes to the home of one of the richest people in America, whose holdings include portions of the investment and financial industries that have distinguished themselves recently to the tune of $20 trillion in government-backed bailouts, to talk about how silly the little people can be.

Jane Hamsher makes the case that Obama's whiny outburst ignores the fact that he promised to do exactly what he did not do, provide what he called "a public option" to buy insurance from the government instead of from folks like Mr. Richman. Glenn Greenwald makes the case that the idea that Obama has done lots of wonderfully progressive stuff is, to put it charitably, utterly absurd. I've made the case that he's failed at plenty besides the health care reform issue, in lambasting his running mate. I'll save myself the trouble of doing that again.

There are a couple of points, though, that really bother me. First, Obama's remarks here completely ignore that almost none of us have complained merely because there wasn't a public option. We complained that the bill as passed simply made things worse for many Americans, and did nothing to fix the costs of health care. In short, it was not health care reform. And all that after a year long kabuki play that ended up with the very bill Obama negotiated in secret with the insurance, pharmaceutical, and medical care industries with no input from consumer groups.

Obama, in short, was talking utter nonsense. We aren't pouting because there's no public option like the one he based his health care proposal on during the Presidential campaign. We're angry because he managed to make things worse. That's not the thing that's most annoying about this, though. After all, he's lied about this all along. Why would he stop now?

Here's the part that's really annoying. Not only did Obama stoop to using a strawman version of the argument against the health care reform that he negotiated with the interests that were doing the most to make our health care as expensive and inaccessible as possible, and not only did he ignore his promise to provide the very thing he called us stupid for expecting, but he did it in front of people who paid $30,000 to hear him say this.

Sure, they got dinner with that, too, but face it - it probably wasn't substantially better than something you could pick up for $3.00 at your local grocery store's freezer section. That $30,000 is more than a lot of people in this country make in a year. No one earning minimum wage earns that much in a year, unless they're getting lots of overtime. Very few of the official sixteen-plus percent of the population who are currently either under- or unemployed are earning that much. Yet these people paid that much for a dinner and a lousy comedy act.

None of those people, either Obama or the people attending, have any worries about being able to afford health care if they can afford to shell out that kind of money. Yet the President and the smug rich folks in his audience think we're all kinds of stupid or childish for expecting that he would keep his promise to make things better, and not make them worse instead.

We're the ones dying at the rate of 25,000 or more a year thanks to a health care system that he resolutely refused to fix. Yet that condescending little jackass thinks it's funny we're unhappy with that fact.

There's a bit of slang political bloggers sometimes use, "optics", which means "how does this look?" In this case, I think the optics of a President joking about the foolishness of the people who needed his help and didn't get it being upset about that, in front of the people who have benefited the most from his actions the last couple of years, don't look all that good.

Even on a strictly political level, this has to rank among the stupidest things this man has done since taking office.

It's amazing to me that anyone still respects him.

UPDATE: Over at FireDogLake, diarist Niland comments on the high-risk pools that were set up by the health care "reform" bill:

I had high hopes for this, as my Mother is a 61 year old widow who has low income but is too young for Medicare and who we (my brother and I) have been paying $1,000+/mo for Anthem Blue Cross individual market insurance for the last three years to keep her insured. I thought the new high risk plan was going to be standardized with a 4-1 age ratio and also “affordable” for people who cannot get affordable coverage in the individual market. I looked up the rates for California where she lives, and her premium will be $799/mo with no subsidy under the new plan . Meanwhile, the premium for a child under 15 is $142/mo…how is that 4-1? How is that even remotely affordable?

Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan — Out of Reach

If I had a dollar for every time some uninformed fool told me that I didn't know this stuff was going to be worthless, I'd be able to buy my insurance with the proceeds, and I could buy Niland's mother's, too. Not that it would do me any good, but given that their foolishness helped get us this piece of crap system, I'd much rather waste those jackasses' money than my own.

UPDATE (Sep. 22): I just noticed the typo in the article's title today. In my defense, I was away from the Internet for the past few days, or I might have picked up on it sooner. Anyway, the current spelling appeals to my sense of humor for some reason, so it stays as is.

Pucker Up, Joe

Caption: It may be lazy and ungrateful, but it's also cute and furry. Joe Biden and his boss can kiss it whenever they want.

Image credit: The Dawg Blog by Dawgdad (Click to see the whole picture - it's cute.)



There are some great things about not having cable. One of them is that you get to miss seeing Joe Biden telling all the people the Democrats in DC have screwed in the last eighteen months to get off their lazy asses and support the Democrats.

Gregg Levine filled me in this morning:

Vice President Joe Biden made room in his busy schedule Wednesday to appear on “The Rachel Maddow Show” to address the much-reported enthusiasm gap between fired-up Tea-publicans and a disappointed Democratic base. How do I know that was his reason? He said so:

What I’m doing. . . one of the reasons I wanna be on your show is to tell the progressives out there, you know, get in gear, man. First of all, there’s a great deal at stake.

No duh. Really? Progressives are the ones that need to be reminded that there’s a great deal at stake?
...
Actually, Mr. Vice President, you didn’t mention a single thing that your administration or this Democratically controlled 111th Congress has gotten done. You are just telling progressives out there that they “better get energized,” that they “get in gear,” that they “should not stay home” come November.

Why? Because. . . because. . . Pete Sessions!

Biden Scolds Dem Voters for Enthusiasm Gap; Tells Progressives to “Get in Gear”

Yes, because apparently we haven't been begging these same clowns who are now calling us lazy to actually differentiate themselves by their actions from their predecessors, to little or no effect. Apparently, they haven't been throwing us from the sleigh one by one, hoping they'll have enough supporters left come election time. Apparently, we didn't warn them about all this, repeatedly.

Levine, a former advertising consultant, makes some great points about why products fail to catch on with consumers. Sometimes, it's the attitude of the product's sellers that is the problem. They'll berate the consumer for not being able to understand how great the product is. Which is true enough, at times. The problem is that berating them does no good, because afterward they still won't know why the product is good, and they'll be annoyed at the people berating them.

My professional background gives me another insight. I spent more time than I care to remember testing software and computer systems that other people designed. Those other people, when confronted with the fact that their product didn't work, would sometimes berate the testers, saying that they didn't know how to use it, didn't use it the way it was supposed to be used, etc. When, as often happened, the product was released despite objections, and the customer told us it sucked for the same reason that the testers had, I cannot recall one time when those people admitted that maybe they should have listened more carefully. I think I'd remember that, too, because it would have been an extraordinary moment.

Most of us don't work in advertising, and most of us haven't tested products for a living, but nearly all of us have encountered this situation in some form. Perhaps it was a friend or family member who tells us we're crazy cheapskates not to buy whatever bits of Amway garbage he's selling. Perhaps it's a boss who blames the failure of his brilliant plan for corporate domination on his lazy, no good employees. The scenarios may differ, but the blame being cast on us for these peoples' lack of attention to reality and unwillingness to listen is a constant through all of them.
Caption: This is a picture of our economy. We're the red line, which many economists are lazy and ungrateful enough to think is a bad thing.

Image credit: Calculated Risk

The Democrats in DC have been a colossal failure. They have failed utterly at a long list of issues. That's the problem. Gays can't say "Oh, they didn't give us a repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, but at least they're doing everything in their power to save the jobs of gay servicemembers." People worried about the financial sector can't say "Yes, TARP and the Fed bailouts were a problem, but we have meaningful financial reform." People who wanted real health care reform can't tell themselves that it won't matter so much once the economy gets moving again. People who want the government to return to the rule of law can't tell themselves that the government is being ruled by people who follow their principles, and that someday we can hope for better. Unions can't tell themselves that it doesn't matter quite so much that the economy isn't getting better, because at least they have a card check system. People who want us to get out of Iraq can't tell themselves that at least we're not further enmeshed in Afghanistan.

What's worse, none of the people concerned about those issues can look at the others and say "They haven't taken care of this, but they've made progress with those things."

Caption: Pollster's composite of Right Direction/Wrong Track polls. Self-identified progressives and liberals make up roughly 25 percent of the population. Looks to me like someone else is unhappy besides us. Do you think maybe this is the Democrats' real problem?

Image credit: Snapshot of today's Pollster page


The only time that Vice President Biden, President Obama, and all their sycophantic enablers talk to us is when they tell us to get off our lazy, ungrateful butts and support them. They can call us lazy and ungrateful all they want, but we aren't the ones who failed at these things. We voted for them, wrote the letters, made the calls, signed the petitions. At the end of the day, we did our jobs, which was to get them into office and tell them what needed to change. They didn't provide that change. That's the bottom line.

The DC Democrats have failed utterly at everything they were sent there to do. They'd be much better served admitting they were wrong, and trying to do better. Going by past experience, I don't think that's going to happen. Berating us for not seeing the genius of the product is beyond pointless and absurd - it's counterproductive.

We know their product sucks. We're living in it.

Afterword: Taylor Marsh adds this thought:

We haven’t even gotten to the serial political messaging malpractice of Obama’s White House, which is the worst I’ve ever seen. Biden proved it again last night, though at least he didn’t blame movement progressives. He simply is the latest to insult the people Dems need in November, saying basically that the Democratic base has no other alternative, so Wake up and save our ass.

I honestly don’t know how Ms. Maddow controlled herself from offering a rejoinder the likes of which would have deservedly blown Mr. Biden’s hair askew. Something like, “Mr. Vice President, surely you understand that Democrats in 2008 didn’t elect a majority and Barack Obama in order to compromise with Republicans, something Bush never did with less.”

VP Joe Biden: ‘Get in gear, man. … You better get energized.’

[italics from original]

That's another part of this that is so annoying - the pathetic excuses about how so little could be done, because there just weren't enough of the right people running things. The people running things are the ones these guys supported. And as Taylor observes, they had a lot more going for them than George W. Bush did.

What Anomalous Data Can Teach Us

Last week I wrote that it would be foolish to assume the bump in favor of Democrats in last week's Gallup generic congressional ballot meant anything. Sure enough, here's this week's Gallup poll, which the Democrats don't seem to be ballyhooing quite as much:

Registered-voter preferences for Congress since the beginning of August have averaged 48% for Republican candidates and 43% for Democratic candidates, identical to this week's results. While there have been a few instances in recent months when the Republicans were not ahead to at least some degree -- including in mid-July, when the Democrats were up by six percentage points, and last week, when the parties were tied at 46% -- the broad picture has generally been positive for the Republicans.

Generic Ballot Splits 48% for GOP, 43% for Dems

That's Gallup for "Last week was an anomaly. You weren't silly enough to believe it, were you?" Still, it seems that plenty of people were. Here's this week's graph:
Image credit: Gallup poll graph converted to PNG format by Cujo359
[click on charts to enlarge]

So, last week's result was the anomaly, and the previous week's record-setting Republican advantage was just a bit exaggerated. Go figure.

That high pitched sound you hear is Democratic politicians whistling past the graveyard.

Speaking of silliness, as I wrote in the update to last week's poll article, I made a rather silly mistake. The numbers I pulled from Rasmussen for their generic congressional ballot were all in reverse chronological order, i.e,, newest data point first. That made the graph reversed, too, and made me misinterpret.

Since then, I've played a little with the spreadsheet, and now it generates a graph similar to the Gallup chart, including the time span and color selection:
Image credit: Plot by Cujo359 from Rasmussen data

The spread in Rasmussen's data is now 9 percent in favor of the GOP, down from 12 percent last week.

What the combination of these two polls suggests is that there was a spike in the Republican's popularity two weeks ago, and that it may have abated a little. There's certainly reason to think that when you look at how Republicans have been behaving recently. I've made the point often enough that they're the only ones standing in the way of their controlling the House next year. They've given me no reason to think they still can't accomplish the miracle of losing to these Democrats.

Still, the Democrats are in big trouble. Both charts show enough variation to suggest that they still could lose in record-setting numbers to Republicans this fall. The enthusiasm gap is as big as ever, and the Democrats haven't done anything to close it besides trying to makes us more frightened of Republicans than we are of them.

There are some lessons we should learn from this:

• Don't believe politicians when they're talking about polls.


• Don't believe the people who support those politicians when they're talking about the polls.


• When discussing any information like this, one of the most important things to ask is: What's normal? What is the normal variation in poll data from one time to the next? What change is evident in the long term? All of these things are important for knowing what a change in a given data point is likely to mean.


• The chart is not the data. It's a way of making sense of the data. Understand what it's saying.


• Mistakes are opportunities to learn something.


• In the end, it's really up to you to use your own skepticism about everything you read, because even people who don't have an axe to grind can be wrong.

As many bloggers do, I try to always document where I obtained data from polls, and to explain any assumptions, guesses, and methods I use to draw conclusions from it. That's how it should be, and if there's something that isn't clear from that conclusion, then it's OK to ask, or to be skeptical. In fact, I really expect the latter.

What Does This Say About Us, Pt. 3

Let's decide the South Dakota At Large U.S. Representative race based on which of the two candidates is cuter. Here they are:

Hey, does it really make a difference? Either way, South Dakota will be looking pretty good on the House floor.

Before someone accuses me of trivializing this race, let me explain that it's too late for that. Consider this quote from Talking Points Memo today:

State Rep. Kristi Noem (R) recently emerged from a GOP primary and was looking like a strong candidate until the local press unearthed her bad driving record with multiple speeding violations.

TPM's Top 10 House Races To Watch

In case you're wondering, Noem's the brunette.

Seriously, could there be any more trivial way of determining the outcome of a House race? The lady has lousy driving habits. So what? What's her legislative record? What special interests does she have a special relationship with? These are the things I'd be wondering about.

Yet TPM's assumption appears to be founded in reality. Here's a quote from a local paper:

[T]he longer the speeding issue lives in public discussion, the worse it is for Noem, said Joel Rosenthal, a former state Republican Party chairman from Sioux Falls.

“I think her momentum has been stopped by this,” Rosenthal said. “I think we’ve got a really tight race now.”

It isn’t just the news stories of Noem’s driving record over the past 21 years that have kept the issue alive, Rosenthal said. It’s also the fight-back response from Noem supporters, who provided state records showing that Herseth Sandlin’s father, former state Sen. Lars Herseth, had a string of 17 speeding tickets himself.

Noem Apologizes For Traffic Citations

I guess this is one case where the family with the higher score loses.

As for how I want this race to go, this one's a tough call. The blonde's cuter, but with that driving record I bet the brunette would be more fun at parties.

Yes, I've hammered this theme to death already, but when you look at how we choose our leaders, it should be no surprise what we end up with.