Demanded?  They aren’t even demanding our votes.  They’re extorting them.  “Vote for us or we’ll let these thugs over there ruin your life.”

I’m getting paranoid enough to start to believe that losing Congress and blaming the fucking retarded liberals is actually Obama’s preferred outcome in November. Then he can spend two years not having to do any heavy lifting, while generating a sympathy vote for 2012 out of all the chickenshit Thug harassment of the Administration that we’ll certainly get (remember how Bill Clinton’s popularity rose when he was impeached). For him, as opposed to the country and the Democratic party, that could be a perfectly fine scenario.

And like I said, Gibbs isn’t wrong that this will work on a bunch of bloggers with flexible schedules and hate in their hearts for Republicans.  But for the workaday progressive voter?  They claim progressives didn’t win them this election, and that’s a straight up lie.  Why else did the Obama campaign absolutely destroy on fund-raising with small, online donations?  *COUGH*  I mean, it wasn’t me in particular, but take a thousand blogs like Pandagon, thousands of progressives starting Act Blue pages and forwarding fund-raising appeals, and that’s what you get.  People stood in line for hours to vote for Obama.  I stood in line for 45 minutes to vote for him in the *primary*, and I was far from the only one, thus the line.  You don’t get that kind of enthusiasm from “eh, better than the other guy”.  That’s sparkly eyed optimism that gets people.

You know what’s amazing?  Breaking news is that Judge Walker has stayed gay marriage in California, but only for six days while the opposition has a chance to bring it to the 9th circuit court of appeals, and they’re not going to overturn his decision.  That means that next week, gay marriage is legal in California until the Supremes rule on it, and I don’t think they’re going to have the stomach to overturn it.

And Obama is fucking dickering on DADT.  This country is so far ahead of him.  He was supposed to be a leader.  I’m straight, and this is a huge issue to me.  I’m so disappointed and watching Gibbs smirk and laugh at me, and I"m glad you mentioned that Amanda because it infuriated me last night, really makes me not want to vote.  Will I?  I won’t say right now, but if this shit is still going on it will fucking kill me to vote. 

Maybe it’s because I’m a woman, but what I saw was a big man in the boys club laughing at me.  Just some fucking chick.  What am I going to do about it if they feel like pissing on me? 

Maybe they were gunning for Maddow (as if a gay woman is obligated to kiss the asses of the men who are denying her her civil rights), but they hit a much greater number of people than they were shooting for then.

Well I wouldn’t give them a penny now, and I don’t see it happening anytime in the near future either.  I do donate directly to Alan Grayson though.  And I would to Bernie Sanders and Al Franken if they were up for reelection.  But the DNC or the OFA?  Yeah right.

Right now when I have extra cash I alternate between Grayson and Doctors Without Borders.  Obama can kiss my ass.

The administration is so desperate to make everyone like them that eventually no one will.

Can someone remind what the difference is between Republicans and Democrats, because it’s really hard to tell them apart anymore.  Honestly, the threat of “But the Republicans will get control if you don’t vote for me!” isn’t very effective when the Democrats are acting exactly like the Republicans.  Sure, Obama isn’t nearly as bad as Bush Jr, but Bush Jr was a really bad president even by Republican standards.  I think that even McCain had won the presidential election, things would have turned out pretty much the same as they already have.  Democrats chip away at abortion access, or at least look the other way when Repulicans do it, and then try to convince us it’s ok because at least Roe v Wade hasn’t been overturned.  So great, you do everything but the very worst that Republicans would try to do.

Advice to Democratic politicians: If you want us to vote for the lesser of two evils, then try being less evil than the alternative.

Both parties have part of the right strategy for elections—the Republicans base all of their electioneering on what the base wants, and the Democrats base all of their electioneering on what swing voters want.

The problem, obviously, is that you need both to win an election. And while the Democrats can expect their base to dutifully show up and click the right buttons on election day, it doesn’t do anything for their enthusiasm when their party disses them. And an enthusiastic base is one of the things that helps attract swing voters and favorable press attention.

Coming at ya with the hyperbole of the day:
Da haben auch manche geglaubt, eine Republik zu schützen -
aber die hat das gar nicht gewollt
Fritz Ebert hatte vor seinen Freunden viel mehr Angst
als vor seinen Feinden - in diesem Sinne: Schwarz-Rot-Gold!
Kyrie eleison -!

Just happened to read this in the book Deutschland, Deutschland über alles (a satirical book about Germany in the 1920s by Kurt Tucholsky today, and it had this verse in a poem called Prayer for the Prisoners.
Basically it means: there are many there who thought to protect a republic - but it had not wanted it. Fritz Ebert feared his friends far more than he did his enemies.

With this I only mean to say: it is folly to think that your enemies will ever appreciate you for beating up your friends. It has only weakened the person doing it.

Remember the democrats passed dat health care

So I can totes go to a doctor now, even if I lose my job

Right?

I regret voting for him.

For years and years and year they beat us over the head with “where ya gonna go?  we’re not as bad as them!” and we’ve taken it.  No more.  I’m out. 

He’s got two years to earn back my vote, or, come election time I’m taking another’s advice: “I go to the write-in section and in place of a candidate, I vote “Present”.” 

And if (when) the repigs win, the first person to blame the base his admin took a big shit on, repeatedly, gets a punch to the throat.

It’s really disheartening, and Gibbs needs to drink a tall cold glass of STFU.  Then Obama needs to renounce that shit, and then I’d like to accept delivery on that sparkly pink unicorn I’ve been hoping for.

The Democrats are once again doing every single thing they can fucking think of to snatch nine kinds of defeat out of the jaws of victory.  It’s like they’re ticking off a list: yank all the teeth out of badly needed legislation we’ve promised to pass in a misguided attempt to woo Republican votes? Check!  Repeatedly insult our base and kill their morale?  Check!  Cravenly fail to do even close to what’s needed to alleviate the most dire unemployment levels since the Great Depression?  Check, check, CHECK!!

What the living hell might be next?  Self-administered knuckle sandwiches on the Senate Floor?

And while the Democrats can expect their base to dutifully show up and click the right buttons on election day, it doesn’t do anything for their enthusiasm when their party disses them. And an enthusiastic base is one of the things that helps attract swing voters and favorable press attention.

QFT.  If even the Democratic base looks like it doesn’t care, why should swing voters?  And why should the press bother to cover our concerns?

I keep reading about the enthusiasm gap (the R’s are spun up about immigration, taxes, etc. and the D’s aren’t spun up about anything).  Way to go, Gibbs…. this’ll get us excited about voting for your guy again. </snark>

Your screed is more or less what I wrote back to a begging letter to the DLC, and for good measure also sent over to the DSCC. and OFA.

For all the fucking good it did me.

Saw Gibbs chuckling and walking back on his non-apology last night.

Screw you, too, buddy. And the tidal wave you and your candidate rode in on that I helped make happen.

There’s no tidal wave predicted for November, hmmm, wonder why not?

From the ugliness of earlier discussions about this, I fully expect to be told that I’m a bad person who is threatening not to vote.  This is stupid; I’m going to vote.  I’m going to encourage people to vote.  Shooting the messenger when progressives tell you that the “least bad of two options” campaign strategy reduces voter turnout is the thinking you get in to when you’re more interested in assigning blame than winning elections.  It’s stupid and it’s childish, especially when progressives are telling you this because they want you to stop crying and start winning.

This times a million.  I can barely handle visiting Daily Kos lately, because a lot of the commenters are behaving like such mindless drones that they are bashing other commenters simply for making the accurate observation that the sky is cloudy when the sky is in fact fucking cloudy.  Even Markos himself has been getting bashed for not putting on a smiley face when the White House is clearly fucking the party over, and it’s his freaking website.

I don’t know many politically-engaged progressives who intend to not vote this year in protest.  But as for the other 90% of people who enthusiastically voted for Obama in 2008, I can’t say I’m feeling too hopeful.

The strategic miscalculation is this… they assume that just because the GOP has completely gone off the deep end, there’s no chance that most Obama voters will bolt to them out of frustration at the Democrats.  That assumption is generally true.

But the second part of the assumption is that because Obama’s 2008 voters won’t be voting in droves for GOP whackjobs this year, that must mean that they will be voting for Democrats.

BZZZT.  Wrong.  What a lot of them are going to be doing is not voting at all, feeling like voting is a waste of time.  Sure, they realize that Republicans really suck and will only make matters worse, but in the last 2 years, Democrats have done a bang-up job of presenting themselves as a slightly less craptastic alternative to Republicans.

The magic is gone, and I don’t know any progressive voters who honestly feel hopeful about the upcoming midterms.  At best, they are hoping Republicans will shoot themselves in the foot and overplay their hand, finishing with far fewer victories than they anticipate.  I don’t know a single person who honestly thinks the Democrats will have a net gain of seats in November.

You don’t need to tell us how batshit insane Republicans are.  We know this.  We see it everyday.  We realize that we’ll be even worse off if they regain control in Congress.

But you still haven’t told us why you’ll be so great, nor have you particularly demonstrated that over the past two years.  I’m happy that health reform and financial reform got passed.  I’m disappointed by how low you set the bar for meaningful reform.  What we got is better than nothing at all, but it is hardly the embodiment of the sweeping change that many of us envisioned in November 2008, and the caving towards Republicans like Chuck Grasley who were acting in bad faith didn’t do anything to mollify the Republican base or pick up a lot of Republican votes.

President Obama, quit trying to be so fucking bipartisan, goddammit.  It isn’t doing shit for you except pissing off progressives.  You could announce tomorrow that not only will you extend the Bush tax cuts, you will be giing the top 1% another 5% tax cut, and the asshole Reichwingers would reespond by saying, “Only 5%, you cheap bastard?!?”

They hate you.  You could move to the right of St. Ronnie himself and they would still hate you.  Why do they hate you?  Well, because the sad truth is, for a frightening number of poepl in this country, the sight of a man with a different skin color than their own.  That’s it.  It’s disgusting, it’s vile, it’s repugnant, but their isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.  Quit trying to get racist assholes to like you, Mr. President.

And yes, it is principally about your skin color.  If you doubt that, look at Michael Steele and how he has been treated by his own party’s base.  Sure, wingnuts love trotting Steele out as some kind of example of how not racist the GOP is today, but everytime Steele makes a gaffe (which is often), read some of the comments on non-progressive websites and blogs made by wingnuts about Steele.  Even when it comes to their own party’s fucking national chairman, they can barely contain their racism.  Look at how they lashed out at Colin Powell when he endorsed Barack Obama and called out the violent rhetoric that Sarah Palin was gleefully ginning up in October 2008.

—-CONT’D—-

—-CONT’D—-

You are America’s first African-American president, and while that is a testament to how far many Americans have come in their attitudes about race, it does not indicate that we live in a post-racial society.  Some have argued that we’ve actually become a more racist country since Obama was elected; I’m not sure I fully agree.  What I think Obama’s election did was push a lot of latent racists who used to be able to keep their white hoods hidden from public view over the edge.  The indisputible signs of racism aren’t coming from people who were racially tolerant before January 20, 2009, but a lot of those people got good at keeping their racism tucked away, so long as they didn’t feel threatened.  When a black man actually succeeded in becoming president, and by a pretty impressive margin, it drove a ton of the more latent racists over the edge.  The only difference between those people now and two years ago is that now we have unambiguous proof of their racism.

You want to mitigate November’s losses?  The strateegy needs to be an unapologetic, “Fuck you GOP, we were chosen by the people to lead, and we’re going to do just that regardless of whether or not you’re willing to help in that effort.  Either get on the train or get the fuck out of our way.”

Right now, elected Democrats are seen as spineless cowards, even among many of their most loyal supporters.  Listen to Jon Stewart.  He’s telling you that you are acting like “spineless pussies”, and he’s 100% right, regardless of how one views his choice of the word “pussies” as an epithet.

If you want to not get decimated, tell us why voting for you will be beneficial to us, and then follow through on your promises.  People aren’t gonna flock to the polls if the best you got is, “We suck, but the Republicans REALLY suck.”

THANK YOU for this post, and thank goodness Rachel Maddow has a voice in the mainstream media.  I knew I was voting for a middle of the road moderate, but I’m so tired of being told by Democrats that true progressive issues have to take a backseat and wait because the election is around the corner.  The election is always around the corner.  Part of Obama’s negatives are coming from progressives who are sick and tired of waiting for a truly progressive leader to take charge.

This is where I find myself, too. Will I vote? Sure. I think the act of voting is an important part of citizenship. If you (general you) are not involved in the political process, you really don’t have a lot of room to bitch if things aren’t turning out the way you’d like. But am I going to be enthusiastic about voting? No. Am I going to give money? Hell no. Get out the vote, volunteer? Sorry, no. My free time and my financial resources are limited and so both will go to the causes I feel passionate about supporting. And I’m just not that passionate about helping to elect centrists or straight-up republicans masquerading as “democrats.”

I never got that enthusiastic about Obama. Sure, I felt a little tiny glimmer of hope, even though all available evidence pointed to him being, at best, Clintonesque in his policies. I didn’t expect him to act like a progressive, because he just wasn’t one. I did not expect a third term of Bush which, at least from the standpoint of civil rights violations, war escalation, etc. is exactly what we got. I hoped things would get better, but the fact that they didn’t is actually not a huge surprise. Most of the progressives I know share my feelings. But, at the same time, there were also a ton of people who got excited about an election for the first time, who really believed in the hope/change bullshit, and who put a ton of effort into getting Obama and other dems into office. I don’t see these folks getting that enthusiastic ever again. They learned their lesson and Gibbs just drove the point home about where they really stand with the DNC. I see the likes of Gibbs dividing and destroying the base right now, all because they want to pander to that 30% of “independent” (really, low-information, fickle, clueless) voters who are unpredictable in all but one thing: they will not volunteer or give money or get out the vote for the dems or anyone else on a reliable basis. Maybe the dems will learn the lesson about alienating the base after the midterms, but the reality is that they will not.

Okay, let’s talk brutal realities.  I have read that only 20% of the country identifies itself as liberal and 42% of the country identifies itself as conservative and therefore the White House is playing to the other 80%.

I would wager that nearly 100% of those self-identified liberals voted for Obama and Democrats.

Obama and the Democrats didn’t win the White House or the majority in Congress by more than 20% of the vote.  Pissing on the part of the base that probably voted the most heavily for you…I don’t need to say anymore about that.

I won’t be voting in November.  I’ve heard all the arguments.  The bottom line is that the Democrats don’t want me to vote for them and that’s fine with me.

In his ‘apology’:

“I watch too much cable, I admit,” Gibbs told the Huffington Post. “Day after day it gets frustrating. Yesterday I watched as someone called legislation to prevent teacher layoffs a bailout – but I know that’s not a view held by many, nor were the views I was frustrated about.”

Umm, so let’s see, Gibbs hears conservatives complain about the legislation (I haven’t heard one lefty with this complaint) and so he lashes out at the left? And he’s confused that we complain about this administration?

I don’t blame anyone for not voting and I personally would absolutely not attempt to convince a liberal that they should vote this nov because the other side is scary.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to stomach voting myself but if I do it’ll be mostly on account of several righties I know whom I personally loathe.  And I wouldnt’ want to contribute to their smirking malevolence if the R’s take back the House.  (I personally don’t believe they have a chance in hell of taking the Senate).

It’ll be first time in my life I’m voting out of personal spite.  Isn’t that nice?

Oh, and I also don’t blame anyone for not voting. And I won’t be trying to convince disappointed progressives to vote. AnglScarlett@ 21, a huge part of the reason why I’ll be voting is that same spite, pure and simple.

You know what’s amazing?  Breaking news is that Judge Walker has stayed gay marriage in California, but only for six days while the opposition has a chance to bring it to the 9th circuit court of appeals, and they’re not going to overturn his decision.  That means that next week, gay marriage is legal in California until the Supremes rule on it, and I don’t think they’re going to have the stomach to overturn it.

And Obama is fucking dickering on DADT.  This country is so far ahead of him.  He was supposed to be a leader.  I’m straight, and this is a huge issue to me.  I’m so disappointed and watching Gibbs smirk and laugh at me, and I"m glad you mentioned that Amanda because it infuriated me last night, really makes me not want to vote.  Will I?  I won’t say right now, but if this shit is still going on it will fucking kill me to vote.

Yup.  Nate Silver showed a CNN poll that support for legalized gay marriage has basically reached the 50-50 point, which is a huge deal.  This is the first time in American hiostory that the wingnuts don’t represent a clear majority on the gay marriage debate.  They still represent an unfortunately large segment of the public, but within a year or two, the majority of Americans will be on the right side of this issue.

And DADT has already crossed the tipping point - most Americans are completely OK with repealing DADT today, and even a fuckstick like Dick Cheney advocates repeal now.

I get that presidents don’t like tackling hot-button politically risky issues in election years.  But just how risky is repealing DADT at this point?  It wouldn’t require the same sort of political courage as was necessary for SCOTUS to rule correctly on Loving v. Virginia in 1967.  Most Americans are saying, “Yeah, repeal it already.  It’s time.  We give you our consent.  Most of us are fine with it.”

I just don’t get it.

For those of you that live in California, please vote.  Even if you cannot bring yourselves to vote for democrats running for national office, please vote for Brown, we cannot afford another 4 years of a Republican governor in Sacramento.

<blockquote>… in the last 2 years, Democrats have done a bang-up job of presenting themselves as a slightly less craptastic alternative to Republicans.

2 years?  2 years?  It’s been a minimum of 16 years.  The last time the Dems didn’t present themselves as a slightly less craptastic alternative to Republicans was when Clinton tried to get Health Care Reform done.  Since then it’s been nothing but crap.  With the exception of Obama’s campaign.  But campaigning is not governing. </blockquote>No, but it is “presenting.”

It’ll be first time in my life I’m voting out of personal spite.  Isn’t that nice?

I think Obama in the general election was the first time I voted for someone instead of voting against their opponent since I voted for Barry Commoner in 1980, at the presidential level, at least.

Whelp, I’m considering not voting. for the first time in my life. And I’m 55.

I have several friends who rarely vote, but got excited enough to vote for Obama two years ago. They definitely aren’t voting in November.

It’s just anecdotal evidence. Nothing concrete. But, personally, I think the Dems ought to be waaaay fucking worried. Way worried.

White House to Swing Voters: You Suck

“F]rom 2004 to 2008, Democrats appear to have gained more votes from self-identified liberals than from any other ideological group.

...Swing voters from 2004 to 2008 were spread fairly evenly across the ideological spectrum, with liberals, moderates and conservatives all making up significant portions. Although it is within the margin for rounding error, exit polling actually suggests that liberals were the largest swing voting block of all.”

http://www.openleft.com/diary/19769/dear-swing-voters-you-suck-love-the-white-house

White House also working hard to discourage Hispanic voters from turning out Dem:
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/08/12/hispanic-voters-must-be-the-professional-left-too/

I’m getting paranoid enough to start to believe that losing Congress and blaming the fucking retarded liberals is actually Obama’s preferred outcome in November. Then he can spend two years not having to do any heavy lifting, while generating a sympathy vote for 2012 out of all the chickenshit Thug harassment of the Administration that we’ll certainly get (remember how Bill Clinton’s popularity rose when he was impeached). For him, as opposed to the country and the Democratic party, that could be a perfectly fine scenario.

Strange as it sounds, you and Charles Krauthammer apparently have a similar line of thinking on the matter.  And I don’t mean that as an insult to you; Krauthammer is a neocon turd, but he’s not a complete idiot.  Krauthammer actually said that he hopes the GOP doesn’t win majority control over either chamber in Congress, because he believes Obama will be easier to defeat if he doesn’t have the opportunity to pass blame for conditions on the ground off on a GOP Congress.

I actually think Krauthammer’s theory has some validity.  As you pointed out, Bill Clinton actually benefitted overall from the impeachment debacle, because the GOP overplayed their hand.  Had they basically stayed out of the matter, Clinton probably would have suffered in support from the public for his personal transgressions.  That the backlash got redirected to the Republican Congress wasn’t an indication that Americans approved of Clinton’s behavior, it was an indication that they thought the matter was a personal issue between him and those directly involved, and didn’t warrant the over-the-top reaction from the GOP.  Clinton’s approval numbers did suffer when the Lewinsky affair was first revealed; it was when the GOP made it way more than it was that Clinton started getting sympathy from the public.  The smartest thing the GOP could hav done would have been to leave it alone and let people form their own opinions without having the GOP telling them what that opinion should be.

Anyway, in a sort of twisted way, I do see at least one upside to a 1994 repeat for President Obama - he won’t get blamed as much for not getting shit done if he can pass the blame to a hostile Congress.  The thing about being given huge majorities in Congress alongside control of the White House is that the people who gave you that much power expect you to utilize it.

There’s simply no excuse for having a Democratic White House and nearly 2/3 of all Congressional seats in Democratic control delivering such tepid results.  In my lifetime, Democrats have never been given so much power as they were given in 2008, and I’m shocked by how much of that power was squandered on futile attempts to placate Republicans.

It may be cliche, but there’s a political mantra that says “use it or lose it”, and unfortunately for Democrats, I think they’re about to find out what happens when they don’t use it.

Oh I’m going to vote in California: I always vote Democratic. Just ‘cause the Republicans have always been scary in comparison.

However, the White House excoriating “liberals” isn’t going to help turn the voters out for Jerry Brown.

I would love to see a law which tied the legitimacy of election results to the voting turn out.  It could begin with something manageable, like 10%, and go up a percentage point a year until it reaches something meaningful, say 60%.  Then maybe politicians would have some kind of incentive to be what the *electorate* wants, for once.

@24 - It baffles me too.  I get that they won’t do what’s right when it’s unpopular.  It frustrates the living hell out of me, but I get it.  But when they won’t do what’s both right and popular, and something they campaigned on doing… the fuck?  The 20% of bigots who oppose gays in the military would rather cut out their own livers with rusty grapefruit spoons than vote for a Democrat, ever.  Especially a black Democrat.  Why pander to them?

Slightly OT, but the so-called “professional left” will soon have another player on the roster:

Starting September 27th, Lawrence O’Donnell will begin hosting his own MSNBC program, The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell, weeknights at 10PM ET (currently that timeslot airs a repeat of Countdown).  While I love Keith Olbermann and generally like O’Donnell, it would have been nice if that timeslot went to a non-whiteguy.  In any case, it’s good that MSNBC is moving to 3 full hours a night of political analysis, and I hope O’Donnell is as willing to challenge Democrats falling short as Keith Olbermann, and even moreso, Rachel Maddow have been.

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks has been filling in lately on the dayside programming at MSNBC, and I’d love to see him get a full-time gig on the network.  Give him Doucheborough’s timeslot.

Okay, why not this - a league of liberal single issue voters?

Sort out a list of liberal issues, and have a permanent operation rating the candidates on these single issues - their actual performance and promised performance.  In as many races a possible.  INCLUDING PRIMARIES.  Put it on a website somewhere, with explanations.  It would be less work than most wonks do now, just a matter of collating and rating based on specific issues.

Instead of having party preferences, have people pledged to vote on the single issue closest to their heart.  For Amanda, it might be reproductive rights.  For other people, it might be the environment.  Keep a list and enumerate how many people are pledged to vote based on this single issue.  And then use those lists to support a GOTV effort in every race - including primaries, and including both Democrat and Republican primaries if the State’s laws allow.

“Dear Amanda. 

There is a vote in the NEW YORK REPUBLICAN PRIMARY next week, Feb 31st.  You are eligible to vote for this based on NY law.  Your nearest polling place is WEST 52nd STREET.  If you need help getting there, please reply to this message.  If you are able to help getting other people to the polls, please reply to this message.

The three candidates are JOE BLOW, JANE DOE, and JAY SCHMOE.  Your single issue is REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS; JANE DOE is the leading candidate on this issue in this race, with a rating of 42%. You may go to our website at http://xxx.yyy.zz for further details.

After you vote, we ask that you send a message to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) stating who you voted for and on what issue.  This will be used to in a tally for press releases; no identifying information will be given out.

Yrs, the League of Single Issue Voters
This has been an automated message.

Signorile: If Dems want our money, they need to work for it. And they haven’t yet.

“Tobias’s argument is that we must give money to our friends or else our enemies will completely seize control. But how can we continue to give money to friends who sell us out—taking our cash while sleeping with our enemies? How can we give money to the DNC, knowing it will dole the cash out to Democrats who run from our agenda or actively vote against it? If they want us to save them, they’re going to have to treat us a lot better, and right now that means supporting full civil rights. No more settling.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t support individual Democrats this year. There are plenty of Democrats who deserve your support because they’ve done some good things and are pushing hard for equality. By all means, give to their individual campaigns. But not a dime should go to the DNC. And if Obama isn’t willing to push the party hard—and come out for full equality, including marriage rights—then we’ll need to think about withholding money from him too in 2012.”

http://gay.americablog.com/2010/08/signorile-if-dems-want-our-money-they.html

And I wouldnt’ want to contribute to their smirking malevolence if the R’s take back the House.  (I personally don’t believe they have a chance in hell of taking the Senate).

They really don’t have any realistic shot of winning the Senate, given the fact that they would need to win at least a few races that aren’t really winnable for them (no, Barbara Boxer is not going to lose her seat, no matter how much Rasmussen wants her too).  Taking the Senate means keeping all 17 of the seats they have in play plus winning half of the Democrats’ 20 seats in play.  Six of the GOP Senate seats in play don’t have incumbents running - FL, KS, KY, MO, NH, and OH.  It will be tough for them to win all six of those.

But unfortunately, any progressive still hanging onto the illusion that the House is completely safe is being pollyanish.  We may be able to keep it, but I’ve become resigned to the fact that there’s a decent chance John Boehner will become the Speaker of the House this January.  It isn’t an extremely unlikely scenario anymore; quite the contrary, I’d have difficulty betting against it now.  It’s not etched in stone yet, but I’m guessing Boehner is drooling over the increasing odds of his creepy orangeness being elevated to the third most powerful position in government next year.

Ick.  The shittiest part is that Harry Reid’s position as Senate Majority Leader is less threatened than Nancy Pelosi’s position as House Speaker, even though Pelosi has been ten times the fighter that Reid has been in the 111th Congress.  A Boehner-Reid 112th Congress is a frighteningly strong possibility.  I guess it’s marginally better than a Boehner-McConnell Congress would be, but not by much.  If 60 Democratic Senators couldn’t get solidly progressive legislation passed, I have little faith that 53 or 54 Democratic Senators will do any better.

*Time Out*

First of all, I appreciate just how fustrated many of you are about the political situation, but much of this stuff is just waaaaaay over the top.  Robin Gibbs does not disserve any positive portrayal of his comments, even if he had rather specific people in mind.

Second, there are structural reasons why Obama/Congress cannot drive the program left, namely that there are entrenched interests that are pretty hostile to any genuinely liberal sentiment.  Most of our problems derive from the fact that our political system is undergoing cardiac arrest, and not from any specific individuals.  We went through the same process in the 1850s and 1930s.  Sometimes the worst happens and sometimes it’s not so bad.

Third, I’m rather familiar to what this process looks like in other countries, and I want to emphasis that having to choose between the crazy and the corrupt is a rather inherent flaw in democratic processes.  Thing is, when the corrupt are thrown out of office, the crazies do take charge, and they are almost *always* worse than the corrupt institutionals.  Even the not so bad ones like the Iranian Revolutionary government or the southern japanese leadership who undertook the Meiji restoration went on to be crazy initially after taking over, like continuing the Iran-Iraq war long after Hussein was interested in peace and sending kids over mine-fields, or like having half of Satsuma being bombed to smithereens by a fed-up British deployment (Brits thought diplomats shouldn’t be subject to dispensatory judgements on roadsides by some @#%$ local noble).  Those are the not-so-bad guys.  One only has to read about the problems that the German Social Democrats had in trying to rebuild Germany’s economic and social fortunes, and it’s easy to make comparisons to the problems Obama had (and the nasty “look tough on the lefty attitudes”).  Same with Kerensky.  There are plenty of less famous cases like the years before and after the coup in Liberia that also has similar issues.

We will *always* have to pick between the crazy and the corrupt, because there is a considerable amount of power in not having to be rational, so long as other people have to spend energy stopping you from doing your worst.  Outside of a *very* challenging local geopolitical framework, like say the Dutch immediately post-independence or the UK during the Napoleonic Wars, politics will always drifts towards such a logic because states are fundamentally about redistribution and those who gets the goods, such as the gold, tends to feed it right back into the political framework (because it’s cheap for mega profits compared to actually working hard for your 2% margins).  So corrupt people, by dint of their habits are more effective, politically than progressives.  Crazy people, you know, like Ted Haggard, gets bucks stuffed into their noggin too, and they can mobilize people like nobody’s business, certainly more than progressives could.  About the only times progressive like Mozi or Poivre or some other big time actor that far fewer people know (and more people should know them) ever get power is in extremely unsettled geopolitical environments or in some other situation where competence is blatantly mandatory.

So you can rant and rave all you want about not ever voting for democrats.  That’s fine.  Just don’t think you’re being too unique (that Attacks on FDR from the Left post on DKos is pretty awesome) or being especially useful.  You pretty much have to vote for the corrupt (and hope the economy does well while you live—IBGYBG) because when the crazy wins…well… Very Bad Things happen.

BTW, this is not a response to OP, which is fine, but to some of the comments.

I appreciate everything Obama has done.  I would be, personally, much worse off if it wasn’t for Obama and his policies and I plan to vote for every and any Dem I can in the next election.  HOWEVER, I am utterly baffled by the Dems inability/refusal to do anything more to help the economy and to fight back against the GOP.  It’s like the GOP has tricked the Dems into committing seppuku and the Dems can’t even realize it. 

I understand how much the Dems have done, and how hard it is to do more, but in these historically tough times, they have to do more.  I know, it’s really not fair.  Bush created this mess, but guess what, I voted for Obama to fix it and he’s not done yet.

2 years?  2 years?  It’s been a minimum of 16 years.  The last time the Dems didn’t present themselves as a slightly less craptastic alternative to Republicans was when Clinton tried to get Health Care Reform done.

I agree, but the difference is that in the last 2 years, the Democrats have had literally NO excuse for not getting more done.  From 1993-1995, they had the White House and Congress, but that included a decent number of Dixiecrat types in Congress like Richard Shelby, who was still officially a Democrat for the first two years of Clinton’s presidency.  He switched to the GOP ater the 1994 midterms, and he’s still in office today.  From 1995-2001, Democrats had the White House, but Congress was solidly Republican.  From 2001-2007, the GOP was in complete control of both the White House and Congress.  From 2007-2009, Democrats had gained thin majorities in Congress, but still didn’t have the White House.

I don’t completely excuse their ineffectiveness prior to 2009, but at least they had a somewhat plausible argument that they didn’t control enough seats to bring about meaningful change.

That defense went out the door starting January 20, 2009, when they controlled the White House and 60% of all Congressional seats - the most power they have had since the LBJ Administration in the mid-1960s.  And they still let themselves get rolled by Republicans.  I’ve gotten into heated arguments with Republican relatives over GOP obstructionism in the past two years, and they always respond by saying, “Hey don’t blame us, your party controls the government now.”  And truthfully, I find myself at a loss for a rebuttal to that argument, because they’re kind of right.  Republicans didn’t have much trouble getting a lot of their agenda items passed with only a 51 or 52 seat senate majority, but we can’t do shit with 59 or 60?

Makes no sense.

I am asking this as a legitimate question and not trying to snark on anyone. What do we do about this? I have no idea why tea baggers get to run their party and progressive activists are a punching bag. But the fact is that if we take our ball and go home, the message sent to the Democratic establishment will not be “liberals need something to believe in” it will be “Democratic losses prove yet again that we are a center-right country”

And while Gibbs rant was undoubtably a dick move, it is wrong to say that the Dems and Republicans are the same. Health care reform was in fact a big-fucking deal. I just graduated from college and can’t find a job. This legislation allowed me to be on my parents plan until i am 26th. I just got over strep-throat. While we aren’t ending the wars in the middle east, there would not be wars in the middle east if Gore had a better margin of victory in 2000. I have an acquaintance who could not get out of iraq as his mother died of cancer—he had to wait until the funeral. These “barely not republican policies” are real programs that can make a huge difference in real peoples lives.

We definitely need to hold obama’s feet to the fire and speak loudly on policy issues, but when we withdraw support and sit out an election, the country takes another big step the right and the next democratic candidate will be chasing a new “moderate” that is even more conservative than today’s moderate.

I wish obama could see that “moderate” is a word with absolutely no meaning and that Rs hate him for being a D and will forever. I actually don’t think most Americans are informed enough to be liberal or conservative, but Americans like balls and they like people who can win. Obama and the Dem establishment need to learn that, but if we sit out the election, they won’t.

I think Obama in the general election was the first time I voted for someone instead of voting against their opponent since I voted for Barry Commoner in 1980, at the presidential level, at least.

I’m younger than you, but I can say the exact same thing.  Most progressives under 40 that I know also could say the same thing.

I’ll probably be voting for Barack Obama in 2012 only because the thought of President Palin scares the living shit out of me (though I doubt she’ll actually be the nominee).  Jokes aside, my vote for Obama is safe in 2012 mostly because of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who may not leave before 2012, but I’ll be a bit surprised is she’s still a SC Justice by the 2016 election, given her age (she’s now the oldest SC Justice) and health issues.  I do not want a Republican choosing her replacement, because that will decidedly give wingnuts total control of the court, neutralizing Justice Kennedy’s current influence as a swing vote on the court.  I’m not completely versed on Kennedy’s opinions, but I get the distinct impression that he enjoys his status as being the unpredictable vote.  If the 4 robed wingnuts get a reliable 5th teammate, we’re fucked.  Citizens United will seem benign compared to the draconian shit they’ll give us with 5 solid votes.

In any case, it’s sad that I’ll probably be voting for Obama in 2012 only because I consider him the less shitty option.

So ironic.

I just checked my email and Barack Obama sent me a note.  We’ve been on a 1st name basis since I sent him $40, you know.

He wants me to sign a pledge that I will vote.

I’m not doing it. 

Of course, I’m voting.  And I can’t imagine voting for any GOP candidate.  But after Gibbs’ hippie punching, I’m not going to let Rahm have a little petition type document to show and say “Look, these people are voting anyway.”

Fuck.  I hated Rahm enough when he was my representative.  I sure as hell wouldn’t have voted for him for POTUS.  I voted GREEN last time he ran b/c I couldn’t in conscience vote for him.

If they’d stuck to their guns and quit this stupid “bipartisan” shit, they’d still have a strong force behind them.  I’m forced to believe that there’s some other force behind them pushing them to be ‘moderate’ or else Barry’s in a bubble and really doesn’t understand.

He should.  He’s lost the support of his base.  He needs us.

But it still looks like Dems prefer to be the minority party b/c they can make pretty promises and not have to worry about following through on them.

——-
That said, last time he was home my BIL was on the security detail.  He’s worked presidential security before, but this former Marine called Obama’s security “ugly”.  As in there are 3 helicopters with snipers following him everywhere.

On one hand, I’m glad they are taking the threats seriously.  On the other, it’s scary how threatened he must be.  And how isolated.

One more thing—Republicans are currently at their lowest approval rating EVER.

Democrats genuinely had a chance to gain seats this cycle, but didn’t even bother to try.  That’s Rahm’s stratergery for you.  Never risk anything for anyone, and rest on you feet knowing the base will have no where else to go.

Let’s face it, the only reason the Snoopy Party got anywhere in 2006/2008 is because Howard Dean successfully foisted himself upon them long enough to carry out competent strategy for the party’s first time in decades. Barry “Useless” Obama and Rahm “Fuckhead” Emmanuel managed to boot him out the door and now it’s back to the classic party strategy of 1. lie down and 2. keep lying down.

But if you don’t sign the pledge, what message does that send? They aren’t going to hear “move left after the base” they are going to hear “radical liberal did too much and people got scared.” The natural, sensible thing to do is to tell the Dems to fuck off if they don’t care about us, but when we tell them to fuck off, it sends the opposite of intended message. We need a better strategy or else progressive activists risk isolating ourselves even further from the political process.

From 2001-2007, the GOP was in complete control of both the White House and Congress.

Actually, the Dems took the Senate briefly when Jim Jeffords switched parties from Republican to Democrat, breaking a 50-50 tie to 51-49 Democrat.

Caren - isolated?  Not personally I don’t think. He appears to be one of the very few Presidents who has a very vital, close, and loving marriage.  He has a great family.  I don’t feel sorry for him that way.

The threats are no doubt very real, and I too am glad that they are being taken very seriously.

But if he’s isolated I think it’s a different kind of isolation.  He’s in the village bubble, and the boys club of Rahm, Axelrod, Summers, Geithner, and Gibbs are giving him very bad advice.  But I also don’t believe that’s anything new for a President.  In our lifetime, maybe only Bill Clinton went outside the bubble, but that may have been more because the guy just loves to argue.

Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy was what helped bring us blue dogs by allocating Democratic resources away from blue and purple states into solid red states. “Fuckhead’s” strategy is to concentrate resources on places where the Dems have a good shot of winning rather than spending money making sure that each state legislative district in South Dakota has a conseva-dem running. Progressives really need to learn how to lobby and strategize effectively rather than melting into useless rage.

For what its worth, I also hate Emanuel and preferred Dean’s grass-roots party building strategy, but I don’t think it pulled the party to the left.

You would think Rahm would know better than “Who else are they going to vote for?”

Isn’t Scott Brown in the senate right now b/c Coakley ran a shit campaign?  More than that,  Rahm’s old seat as a representative used to belong to Dan Rostenkowski.  Dan got caught up in the post office scandal,and while he ran hard in the primary, didn’t do much in the general, seeing how he figured he was bound for jail anyway.  He still almost won.

DC insiders tried to spin Flanagan’s win in Rosty’s district as a new world order thing.  The area had gentrified, so it was now going to be GOP all the time.  Except 2 years later Flanagan was handed his ass b/c, richer or not, the district is blue.

Sometimes Democratic voters refuse to vote or vote for the other guy b/c it’s the only way to get a new Democrat—one who might listen—in the job.

Rahm, again, should know this as his own seat went this way.

shah8:

If what you are saying is that no matter how bad things are, we are even worse off under Republicans than we are under Democrats, I think most of us would agree.

Amanda isn’t threatening not to vote, nor is she saying that she wants people not to vote.  What she is pointing out is the fact that when people view their voting choices as being either “Crappy” or “Crappier”, many of them will opt out of voting altogether.

And that’s what is very likely to happen in 2010.  Unlike the Democratic base, the Republican base is wildly enthusiastic about voting this year.  They can’t wait to punish all the uppity poor people, black people, brown people, and gay people for having the nerve to think they deserved a seat at the table.  Their enthusiasm is driven by pretty sadistic motives, but it is a palpable enthusiasm nonetheless.

Democrats win big when they campaign big and when they govern big.  In 2008, they campaigned big, and while disgust with the Bush Presidency was certainly a huge benefit for Democrats, people didn’t just vote for Obama because they thought he would suck less than McCain, they voted for him because they felt truly hopeful about what an Obama Presidency might deliver.

And two years later, they feel very let down, because guess what… at least one out of ten Americans still doesn’t have a fucking job.  Fighting over who deserves the most blame for that still doesn’t change the fact that they still can’t find a fucking job.  Democrats are in power, and things still really suck for many people.  For the low information voter, the most logical conclusion is that if things still suck even though Democrats have the power, they must not be doing a very good job.  Doesn’t matter whether you or I think that’s a fair criticism.  It’s simply reality.

To steal Carville’s infamous cliche… “It’s the economy, stupid.”  I predicted early in 2009 that Democrats prospects in 2010 would largely be shaped by unemployment numbers at the time of the midterms.  The unemployment problem has not been significantly mitigated yet, and thus the Democrats are almost certain to pay for it on Election Day.  I agree that the stimulus prevented an even worse catastrophe from happening, but people don’t get excited when the best thing that can be said about the stimulus is, “Sure, unemployment hasn’t really gotten much better, but at least it hasn’t gotten a lot worse.”

Present economic conditions for a huge number of Americans are just plain unacceptable.  Doing just barely enough to prevent things from getting a lot worse won’t cut it.  You have to do things which demonstrably improve the situation, not just stabilize it at an unacceptable level.  All the Democrats have managed to do was to prevent things from getting a lot worse.  Their efforts haven’t done squat to make things a lot better for most Americans.  And regardless of how much healthcare reform might benefit us 4 years from now, today, most people suffering from our shitty healthcare system continue to suffer, as a lot of the healthcare reform law won’t be implemented until 2014.

Offering a somewhat less crappy candidate than the opposition will not drive low information voters to the polls in droves.  Most Americans are low information voters, and aren’t politically engaged on a daily basis.  Those of us commenting here and elsewhere in the blogosphere don’t represent most voters, and occasionally it seems like the one place where we tend to be clueless is in the assumption that our engagement in political affairs is representative of the norm.  It isn’t.  I bet more than 90% of commenters here could name the Senate Majority Leader or Speaker of the House at any given time without blinking.  Most American voters could not.

The progressive netroots is engaged, and most of us will vote, mostly for Democrats.

But we aren’t most people, and we are foolish if we think most people operate exactly as we do.  A lot of the enthusiastic first time voters of 2008 who helped put Obama in the White House will spend this election playing XBox, planning their holiday budgets, dropping their kids off at school, or doing any number of things other than going to a polling place to do something that seems pointless after feeling let down over the past 2 years.

Obama has an 80 percent approval rating among Democrats.  Playing to swing voters seems to be completely safe, vote-wise.

I did actually say that I agree with Amanda’s post.  Gibb’s attitude is unacceptable.

My problem is that people in the thread are focused entirely too much on the personalities and not enough on the structural issues.  Amanda actually talks about her relationships to the structural dilemmas of getting the people she votes for to support her interests.  What she *doesn’t* do is rant about Howard Dean or Rahm Emmanuel and pleading oh so piously for Prestor John or that Portugese emperor or whoever.  I’m not saying the structural forces are everything and that some other Corsican would do the same, but I am saying that no one Amanda or I would wholeheartedly approve of would ever even sniff power, and that anyone who does seek it has to make the deal with institutional agencies that may or may not be sane.  That means that the people that we are sorta okay with will, quite regularly, make us very mad.

It is enough tho’, to ask not to be hippy-smacked if you’re expecting donations.

The message sent to the Democratic establishment will not be “liberals need something to believe in” it will be “Democratic losses prove yet again that we are a center-right country”

I know, and it drives me batshit insane.  If there’s any doubt about the fallacy of claiming that our mainstream media is controlled by liberals, this should put that myth to bed.

We saw this sort of lie trotted out during healthcare reform as well.  As the legislation moving through Congress got more and more watered down, it lost a lot of popularity.  Talking heads would cite poll numbers indicating that healthcare legislation had become terribly unpopular, and then claim that it indicated that Americans opposed strong healthcare reform.  And I’m not just talking about the predictable GOP shills on Fox News, either.

An unacknowledged reason why HCR started losing support as it was dragging along is because a lot of progressives starting expressing displeasure over what the bill was becoming - not nearly progressive enough.

It wasn’t that most Americans disapproved of the HCR bill for being “too leftist”; delusional wingnuts did, but a decent chunk of that disapproval came from the left because the bill wasn’t nearly leftist enough.

Republicans will emerge victorious this November, and the bullshit narrative will be that America voiced its displeasure with the Stalinist ways of Chairman Maobama, which proves of what a truly center-right nation we actually are, and that all those evil Congresional socialists hellbent on destroying ‘Muraca needed to be taken down.

What the fuck ever.  It’s depressing.

Caren, thanks for reminding me about that email.  I just signed the commitment to vote and included a message explaining that I was voting Green party.

From 2001-2007, the GOP was in complete control of both the White House and Congress.

Actually, the Dems took the Senate briefly when Jim Jeffords switched parties from Republican to Democrat, breaking a 50-50 tie to 51-49 Democrat.

Forgot about that.  But practically speaking, there’s not much a razor thin Democratic Senate majority can do to control the agenda againt a Republican House and a Republican POTUS.

My main point was that prior to 2009, Democrats haven’t had anywhere near this much power since the mid-1960s.  I remember the giddiness of Election Night 2008 was not just because Obama won big, but because Democrats absolutely steamrolled Republicans across the board.  The thought of what Democrats could get done with 60 Senators and almost 2/3 of House members was thrilling, because it was the first time in my lifetime that the Democrats had been given such a huge endorsement from the American public.

And they squandered the shit out of the golden opportunity we gave them, and now have the nerve to suggest that progressives are their biggest problem.

I have no idea how effective any of this stuff will be in the long run. I’m sure people will chime in with their better ideas.

Stuff you can do:
1. If you are a Democrat, help candidates who believe in what you believe primary Blue Dogs.
2. Annoy the living shit out of your representatives with petitions, phone calls, and other stuff. 
3. Boycott companies who support candidates or positions you find egregious and tell them (candidates, companies) why.
4. If you donate money or time, donate it to single issue organizations you agree with and who are doing something concrete. and tell your representatives I donated to x and here’s why.

Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy was what helped bring us blue dogs by allocating Democratic resources away from blue and purple states into solid red states. “Fuckhead’s” strategy is to concentrate resources on places where the Dems have a good shot of winning rather than spending money making sure that each state legislative district in South Dakota has a conseva-dem running. Progressives really need to learn how to lobby and strategize effectively rather than melting into useless rage.

Lol, thanks for that trip through your whimsical thought processes.

@56

2. Annoy the living shit out of your representatives with petitions, phone calls, and other stuff. 

For some reason, at first glance I thought you wrote “annoy the living shit out of your relatives with petitions, etc.”

Which, you know, we could do as well.  It’s all good.

I’m voting this year because I like my Senator and my Rep.  But Obama is basically at square one, and he’s got a lot to make up for before I’ll even consider casting my ballot for him.

Jake Squid @ #59:

Thank you for demonstrating the exact right way to disagree with allies without being disagreeable.  And I say that sincerely and without snark.

I live in Nebraska. I’ll show up to vote and write in Mickey Mouse rather than vote for that fucker Ben Nelson.

Oh man, nothing could get me to vote for Ben Nelson.  Can’t blame you for that.

I’m having a hard time reconciling Entomologista with Nebraska.

I live in Georgia, full of beautiful and vicious bugs, why you way out there?

How likely is it that Obama will do a couple of Liberal things in October, maybe repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” since pubic & legal opinion going against it anyway? In hopes of energizing the Base?

Kwillow - I think the we may get Elizabeth Warren.  Overturning DADT before the election though, I don’t think so.  They already went along with Gates’ bullcrap that he needs a year to “study” it. 

So maybe we get Warren, is that enough to energize the base?  It’s not even close in my opinion.  I just know that Gibbs, Axelrod and Rahm are dying to really give it to “the fucking retards” and passing Warren over.  But I think she’ll end up being our bone.  I really admire the woman, but it’s basically a big shrug to me at this point.  If they were willing to throw me DADT AND Warren, that’d be different.

Check out the Green Party:  http://www.gp.org/index.php

Always VOTE, but vote for non-dem or repugs (tho not for the awful libertarians)

kwillow—“pubic opinion” indeed. lol

Dan, please enlighten me then. What was it that Howard Dean did? The huge rift between Howard Dean and the DCCC establishment was about whether we should spend resources on the reddest of red areas. That meant spending DNC moneys on recruiting candidates in places where the political options are “conservative” and “thinks the movie Red Dawn was documentary.” When you bring places like NC and VA and IN into the Democratic fold, the Democratic party moves to the right. If a more ideologically pure party is your goal, then the 50 state strategy is a misappropriation of funds.

I don’t like Rahm. I think he is an establishment prick who has mistaken worship of conventional wisdom as clevernesss and his hiring was my first post-election disappointment, but i think we need really need to be debating election strategies rather than lobbing platitudes.

#56 I think your list is a great starting point for discussion.

For my two cents, I think #4 is a great idea. Spending on single issue campaigns that will actually 1) convert people to your side of the issue, and 2) get the people already on your side excited seems like a really good way to force the Democratic (and maybe even republican) party a smidge to the left. 2 also seems really good, although I am not sure how much pols listen to those things.

#1, to me, seems really context dependent. If you are in a blue state or district, it might be worth it to allow a republican in in order to get a better dem next time. And if you have a conservadem in a liberal district, there ass needs to be primaried out. This happened in PG County in MD where Donna Edwards will have an easy victory in Nov. after she primaried out a conservadem in a dark blue district. However, what if your Representative is Herseth-Sandlin? It is rare for any sort of Dem to win in that state, and a primary loss for her would mean a seats lost to a Michelle Bachman -ike conservative for the foreseeable future. Their is definitely room for debate here, but boycotting Herseth-Sandlin seems counter-productive, as the national media would play seat losses like hers as poof that Americans just hate liberal Democrats. And she bucks the party on high profile issues, but falls in line when things are under the radar. That Noem woman she is running against would do no such thing.

And yeah, fuck Ben Nelson.

I live in Nebraska. I’ll show up to vote and write in Mickey Mouse rather than vote for that fucker Ben Nelson.

Too bad he’s not up for re-election this year, because that guy needs to lose his job, badly.

There are two members of the Democratic Caucus in the U.S. Senate whose electoral defeats will be an overall positive for Democrats - Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman.  Both are up for re-election in 2012.  As Lieberman is not officially a Democrat, that’s a seat we can and probably will pick up.  As for Nelson, hopefully he gets primaried out by a real Democrat, but if not, I would still see a Republican defeating him in the general election as the preferable outcome, even if it shrinks the caucus by one seat.  It’s the Ben Nelsons of the U.S. Senate that have helped to create an environment in which the Democrats are likely to get steamrolled this year.

The Conservadem U.S. Senator who is going to be made an example of this year will be Blanche Lincoln.  She did what she needed to do to squeak by in her primary, but she’s going to be unemployed after the November election, because she’s pissed all over her own constituents one too many times.  It’s a shame, I think Bill Halter would have been able to keep that seat blue.

You expect my tax dollars to go to the killing of unborn babies?

Do you expect her tax dollars to go for the killing of born babies, children, women and men - because they’re Iraqi or Afghan?

I live in Georgia, full of beautiful and vicious bugs, why you way out there?

I work primarily with insect pests of field crops.

Too bad he’s not up for re-election this year, because that guy needs to lose his job, badly.

Darn. I was really hoping to help vote Ben Nelson out of office this year.

No, Lonnie, I expect my tax dollars to go to kilingl you. (Hardy har har, that’s a joke.—like the ones anti-choice creatures make about killing doctors.)

You’re a stain on the face of humanity, for no other reason than you’re repeating a lie about “tax dollars” supporting a woman’s right to choose.

I was a young adult before Roe v. Wade passed, when your ilk made sure that women died or were mutilated from backstreet abortions.

You, lonnie, want more women and girls to die, which is what is happening now in the South American countries where abortion is banned.

In addition to coat hanger abortions, women die from ectopic pregnancies because doctors are too afraid they’ll be prosecuted to perform even legal procedures.

And that’s what Lonnie wants: not only to control the bodies of women who have never met him, but for women and girls to die horrible deaths.

This confirmed to me that they’re more interested in finding ways to blame the base when the Democrats take a bath in November than in actually winning the fucking election for Democrats in the midterms.

Nail on the head as usual. Progressives will be blamed for daring to criticize the President. Obama “will have no choice” but to move to the right. If we don’t clap loudly and zip our mouths, President Palin will beat us senseless with bibles.

On the bright side, there is a decent chance that Prop 19 may happen, in spite of the cowardice of CA Dems. Pot is actually more popular than any politician in the state, and is tied with Obama, depending on the poll. As California goes…

Amanda had an awesome post on the same subject a while ago which was oft cited but apparently never read.

And to all the people who blame Congress for nothing happening, 2 words for you: recess appointments. 2 more liberal Fed governors could have meant actual expansionary monetary by now. There is no reason not to, and even lukewarm centrists like Brad DeLong are pissed off.

Obama wanted to take advantage of what he thought was inevitable and do the least possible (basically like Reagan), but he wasn’t as lucky. DADT repeal is supported by 75% of the public; its is a political no brainer. How did these guys win the election?

Yes, JohnMckay, and we all live together on a orgy-licious, patchouli- and marijuana-reeking, Wicca Goddess- and Satan-worshiping commune in Massaliforinia.

You might be interested to know that we collectively wrote The Gay Agenda in between for-profit abortions and marrying our turtles.

Atheist, can’t we make it horses?  If I wanted a turtle-dick I’d bone a Republican.

I think I might have to defer to the expert on that one.

I am sure the rest of the commune won’t mind voting on it at the next meeting.

How many people are watching Maddow 25? 30?

Closer to a million, and the majority of them not only vote but provide support and/or donations to Democratic candidates and act as force multipliers with friends and family. I’m sure Glenn Beck’s clown show has a bigger audience (I’d guess 3x Maddow’s), but the majority of them are too busy munching Cheetos, buying over-priced numismatic gold and whinging about how they and their fellow white Xtians are being oppressed to even vote. And of the ones who do, I’d imagine at least half are Teabaggers who wouldn’t vote for a GOP establishment candidate.

Maybe if we can get dedicated fundraising committees like ActBlue and the like to clam up for a month, issue no reports on received donations, transmit no money to the Democratic party, starve them of the private and grass-roots organization that helped get people elected, they might take notice.

This is an excellent idea. As for the NetRoots, I’d like to see them choose an issue this fall before the election that’s low-stakes for progressives but high-value for the administration (probably one of Rahm’s pet projects) and deny the White House any supportive discussion, or even start a campaign to sink the issue deliberately. The bottom line is that a practical demonstration of power is what’s called for, because that’s the only thing that Emmanuel and Gibbs understand.

@#68

You can’t bring little things like facts to a poutrage.

But when they won’t do what’s both right and popular, and something they campaigned on doing… the fuck?

The only logical conclusion is that they don’t actually want to do those things - in fact, they actively want to avoid doing them. They only said they wanted to do them in order to persuade you to vote for them. What they actually want is power - not because they want to make the world a better place, but principally for its own sake, with a hefty side order of enriching themselves and their associates. Such is the nature of politics.

Gibbs not only admitted, but smirked as he said it, that the administration feels it can renege on its promises to progressives and engage in hippie-punching because those progressives will vote for them anyway, because hey, they’re not Republicans.

...

From the ugliness of earlier discussions about this, I fully expect to be told that I’m a bad person who is threatening not to vote.  This is stupid; I’m going to vote.  I’m going to encourage people to vote.

Well, there’s your problem - he’s right. They can do whatever the fuck they want (and that certainly does not include passing the legislation you think they should) and you will continue to vote for and support them anyway.

Whilst it’s true that the bad cop is worse than the good cop, they’re still on the same god-damn side.

The notion that you pull a party to your side by not voting is verifiably false.  Right wingers took over the Republican Party by being the kind of people who never sit out an election.

Robert Gibbs said something stupid, and all sorts of people are acting as if it was them he was talking about and pretending the “professional left” is a real group.  As a way of livening up the base, he did a horrific and stupid thing, but the crux of his argument is that the President wants a lot of things done but prioritizes them in a way that pisses off a lot of people.  He hasn’t closed Gitmo, but that’s the Congress acting like idiots.  He didn’t pass single-payer healthcare, but would the Congress have done so even if he fought for it like a bull moose?  He did pass a significant healthcare bill that makes most things better no matter how flawed it is when compared to a better idea that wouldn’t get through the Senate.  He did get a financial reform bill passed that has Wall Street howling with agony, even though it won’t stop the stupid that has infected the way it does things.

Blaming the President for a bad Congress is what is at the heart of the matter, and fixing the bad Congress in a way that will probably make it worse is an absurd response to that.  Vote or don’t vote, but each choice has consequences.  A President is supposed to lead his party, but his party is supposed to follow that lead if that’s how it’s going to work.  This President didn’t get that amount of compliance, probably because things are so messed up right now that those Blue Dogs have to play to their constituents who are more like Ben Nelson than Al Franken.  In my own Congressional District, there’s a bit of a blue dog Congresswoman who will be up against the winner of a GOP primary who will turn out to be an anti-choice tax-cutting militaristic GOP lobbyist or an anti-choice tax-cutting militaristic son of a government contractor business.  Not voting would be stupid, no matter how much I want to punch her in the nose sometimes.

Gibbs not only admitted, but smirked as he said it, that the administration feels it can renege on its promises to progressives and engage in hippie-punching because those progressives will vote for them anyway, because hey, they’re not Republicans.

This is a grave miscalculation on the administration’s part.  I, like most people I know, vote for something and will not merely vote against something.  I’m not merely going to vote for a candidate just because the other guy is worse.  That’s a sucker’s game.

Moreover, I believe in holding out politicians feet to the fire.  But holding feet to fire involves more than just flapping your yap.  Ultimately you have to be willing to walk or sit out the vote.  We have to be willing to say to our politicians that keeping our support and ultimately their positions means they have to deliver.  If all you do is yap at the politicians but promise to vote for them (or even worse, donate time and money to them) then the politicians are going to take you for granted and NOT deliver.  Sorry, that’s just the way it works.

A vote for Obama at this point, given his actual behavior, is objectively a vote in favor of inequality for LGBTs, for reproductive health restrictions, bailouts for Wall Street, the auto industry, and the insurance industry, and union busting.  It’s a vote for privatizing public education, in favor of two pointless and deadly wars, and a surveillance state.  It’s a vote for torture and for stripping away due process protections.*

I can’t vote in favor of that.  Sorry, I just can’t.  And I’ll say this to Gibbs: as a member of the professional left, if you don’t need my vote and support, then I guess if I and my friends walk, you won’t feel the hit on election day.

My money is better used at the ACLU and the CCR.  My time is better spent at community groups and working on community initiatives.  And finally, my vote can go to the guy most qualified for the job - who might be a member of a third party. 

*But to give credit where credit is due, Obama did help get the Ledbetter Act passed and appointed two Supreme Court justices who, while to the right of the justices they replaced, are not right wing kooks that Republicans would have appointed.  The positive pales in comparison the negative though, doesn’t it?

He hasn’t closed Gitmo, but that’s the Congress acting like idiots.

Yes, accept he ran on closing Gitmo so he’s obligated to do so.  “Congress won’t let me, boo hoo hoo” is an excuse.  I didn’t vote for the man to get a litany of excuses.  I voted for the man to get results.

“So you can rant and rave all you want about not ever voting for democrats.  That’s fine.  Just don’t think you’re being too unique (that Attacks on FDR from the Left post on DKos is pretty awesome) or being especially useful.  You pretty much have to vote for the corrupt (and hope the economy does well while you live—IBGYBG) because when the crazy wins…well… Very Bad Things happen.”

The Democrats just don’t much care for their base. I’m shocked that a bunch of (mostly) rich (mostly) dudes don’t care all that much for a bunch of black people, liberals and union workers. Not to mention it’s a group that’s more female than the human race. They don’t kowtow to this motley crew. 

The really galling part is that Republicans (from our perspective) seem to play to their base more. When there was a right-wing outcry against Harriet Miers on the court, she got dropped. The much smaller anti-Kagan outcry didn’t even make a blip. Now too be fair, the Republican base is easier to kowtow to, because it’s more homogeneous.

The terrible thing is that in 2000, liberals basically pulled the “I’ll show you Democrats!” and a couple million voted for Nader. Thus, we get the Bush Presidency. Think about how many died because of that. Think about how much damage this country took because of that. And we didn’t even get the benefit, which should have been a Democratic Party that would be afraid we’d do it again. They apparently don’t care, or think we do it again, or something. Who knows?

“I appreciate everything Obama has done.  I would be, personally, much worse off if it wasn’t for Obama and his policies and I plan to vote for every and any Dem I can in the next election.  HOWEVER, I am utterly baffled by the Dems inability/refusal to do anything more to help the economy and to fight back against the GOP.  It’s like the GOP has tricked the Dems into committing seppuku and the Dems can’t even realize it.”

It’s the old trap of trying to go where the voters are instead of trying to lead the voters to where you are. What would have happened if Obama had led a full-on counter-offensive on the Republican obstruction and deficit-mongering? What if he’d said, “No, we’re going to borrow money now and use it to stimulate the economy. We’ll be about to pay it back when things turn around, just like Bill Clinton did. Now, double the stimulus bill and like it.” (In political terms, it might not matter if this had worked or not. At least the Dems would be seen as fighting and then they’d just ahve to convince people they were fighting for them.) If that led to voters rejecting the Democrats for prolifigacy, well, at least we’ll have made the case in public on what we think should be done. And the current strategy of playing conservative and trying not to lose, rather trying to win, is going to have the same effect as it often does in football.

It really does lend credence to the suspicision that politics is an argument over how many times rich people get to kick us in the ribs. The Democrats say it should be fewer times. That sucks, but it’s not nothing.

Although I’m significantly more than lukewarm in my support, I too won’t be voting for Obama this November.

They can do whatever the fuck they want (and that certainly does not include passing the legislation you think they should) and you will continue to vote for and support them anyway.

Vote, yes. Support, no. I can’t vote for the ACLU instead of the Dems in a national election, but I can give them my money and time instead of the DNC or a Dem candidate who doesn’t deliver on core issues and sneers at me for demanding it.

The Dems get my vote, at least in national elections, only to offset the other party in our two-party system. But that’s all they’re getting this year, and if they keep up this BS that’s all they’ll get in 2012.

I love voting out of spite, especially when it coincidentally prevents complete barking loons from re-taking control of the Congress. It certainly worked for me in the 2008 President Election.

Some people have a really out-of-whack, romantic, solipsistic notion about voting. Hating is more clarifying; I hate the idea of Republicans getting any seat where I can possibly help it that they don’t.

Richard Goblin,

The President can want to do lots of things, but he doesn’t have the ability to make things happen when the Congress doesn’t go along.  Closing Gitmo isn’t something that can be done without anything short of Presidential Pardons for everyone there, and much as I’d like to think Bush was completely evil I don’t think that’s a good idea.  It’s frustrating as all hell that he can’t just make this problem go away, but he has asked.  And this is one of the times Democrats joined the Stupid Party and its unreasonable opposition, though this was the most public one.

One of the things Obama hasn’t done much is argue with other Democrats publicly.  Maybe he should, maybe he shouldn’t, but it does give the impression that he’s okay with everything he signs and completely content with Congress.  Obama has been careful in his fights to the point where he might seem almost too conservative (in the dictionary sense,) and this has led to what I think is a mistaken impression that he’s weak because he doesn’t stand up to Congress rather than risk another mistaken impression that he complains to Congress and still doesn’t get what he wants and is to be seen as weak and ineffectual as a result.

For all the nonsense about “Chicago Politics” in the blogs and wingnut fantasies, Obama seems more like Walter Mondale with charisma than some mythical “Sausage King of Chicago” type.

“Right wingers took over the Republican Party by being the kind of people who never sit out an election. “

Not really, or at least that’s a very simplified view of how it happened.  Actually, it wasn’t as simple as voting frequently for Republican candidates.  Right wingers organized very effectively and voted as they were told to by their leadership.  Jerry Falwell could get an audience at the White House.  Can Digby get that sort of attention?  Can any progressive (not the “lunatic fringe” that some claim Gibbs was dismissing, but the people who really do want a system of health care like Canada’s)?  No, because Digby can’t deliver a half a million votes.  It isn’t that they vote frequently, but that the masses will take orders.

The funny thing is, if you have studied history, you’ll see that the right, in its method of organization, didn’t do anything except follow the guidelines of Plunkett of Tammany Hall.  Would that the left could get that organized.

The crude vulgarity of ‘feminists’ on display.

You’re just sore because that’s the kind of joke your ex started making about you after she discovered you were more fascinated by men’s “poo-poos” and “pee-pees” than you were by her “hoo-hah.”

No-one likes a humourless prig, lonnie. Plus you can’t expect to get much respect as a person, let alone a man, if you keep dropping to your fainting couch the moment someone talks about sex.

I responded to the Obama email from yesterday, pledging to vote.

Thanks for reminding me to respond to it. Mine will go something like “I’m voting for the Democrats because the other party are insane fantasists. But thanks to Robert Gibbs and his ilk, my vote is all you’re getting this year. Shape up or you can expect the same from me in 2012.”

The funny thing is, if you have studied history, you’ll see that the right, in its method of organization, didn’t do anything except follow the guidelines of Plunkett of Tammany Hall.  Would that the left could get that organized.

You’re correct, but it’s more difficult for liberals. The American right is (not surprisingly for authoritarians) a top-down movement, so there are relatively few people who need to reach consensus and organise to produce the panoply of think tanks, leadership programmes, bogus science institutes, phoney-baloney colleges, astroturf orgs and propaganda news outlets that underlie the conservative base. Building that kind of Mighty Wurlitzer requires top-down orchestration and funding.

For all the talk from RWAs about crafty masterminds like Soros or the puppetmasters of journolist, liberals and progressives by their nature are more grassroots in spirit, and averse to the sorts of grifts that have made conservatives so powerful with their mouth-breathing base. There’s also the matter of funding—in comparison to their conservative counterparts, liberal billionaires have better things to do with their money than provide welfare for third-rate pseudo-intellectuals.

That said, though, there are opportunities for limited, unified and effective action of the type described above. If Netroots Nation constituents can get it together enough to hold a convention in Vegas, for example, they can do the same to hold the administration’s feet to the fire once in a while.

For lonnie:

Atheist, can’t we make it horses?  If I wanted a turtle-<strike>dick</strike> pee-pee I’d bone a Republican.

Will you drop the McCain quotation marks from “feminist,” now?

The President can want to do lots of things, but he doesn’t have the ability to make things happen when the Congress doesn’t go along.

Well, he shouldn’t have campaigned on then, should he have? 

Note further, that I am tired and unresponsive to the DKos meme that campaign promises are mere bullshitting, thus we should not take them seriously.  Bullshit is pernicious, (see this book for the reason why.)  I’m a firm believer in punishing at the polls politicians who engage in bullshitting.  The more we punish bullshitters by not supporting and reelecting them, the more our behavior reenforces to politicians that bullshit will not be tolerated.  If we tolerate bullshit then we will get more of it.

If a politician does not do what they say they are going to do, how can we continue to support him or her and even hope to be taken seriously?

lonnie clutches his pearls so tight they’ve cut off the circulation to his brain.  Which makes him just another Republican…

The terrible thing is that in 2000, liberals basically pulled the “I’ll show you Democrats!” and a couple million voted for Nader. Thus, we get the Bush Presidency.
Comment #91: witless chum

Which would be correct if it were true.  Too bad Gore won the popular vote and after the SCOTUS violated Florida’s election process and voted GW Bush in it was showen that Gore won the Florida vote as well.

I love voting out of spite, especially when it coincidentally prevents complete barking loons from re-taking control of the Congress. It certainly worked for me in the 2008 President Election.
Comment #94: norbizness

Personally, I’m thinking of registering as a Republican since it will allow me to mess up their primary selection.  Fuck them.  If the progressives are only there for punching, I’m walking over to their line to punch some wingnuts in the teabags.

I responded to the Obama email from yesterday, pledging to vote. In the “Why I’m voting” box I wrote. “I don’t know why I’m voting. Robert Gibbs has made it clear the White House couldn’t care less about my vote.”
Comment #97: Elizabeth

Thanks for this.  I’m going to fill mine out with the same, right now.

#94

Some people have a really out-of-whack, romantic, solipsistic notion about voting. Hating is more clarifying; I hate the idea of Republicans getting any seat where I can possibly help it that they don’t.

You’re absolutely right on that one Norbizness. Voting against folks totally has its place, and we ignore that reality at our peril.

For those who don’t understand the difference between a vote and other forms of support, this thread has provided a good if modest illustration of the force-multiplier effect of the latter.

Elizabeth has only one vote. However, her influence here through comment #97 has reminded at least two additional people to convey similar messages to the party leadership—messages about the potential denial of their own funding to and influence on behalf of the party. That’s a trend that any political party anxious for donations and volunteers can’t afford to ignore for too long.

“The crude vulgarity of ‘feminists’ on display.”

Lonnie likes his women to be “ladylike” and “modest”—i.e., shut up, except when you’re simpering about how smart and strong teh menz are, smile pretty, and let teh menz do all the talking about the important things.

Alysia:

Health care reform was in fact a big-fucking deal. I just graduated from college and can’t find a job. This legislation allowed me to be on my parents plan until i am 26th. I just got over strep-throat.

I’m glad it worked out for you. It’s not going to work out for millions of the rest of us.

Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy was what helped bring us blue dogs by allocating Democratic resources away from blue and purple states into solid red states.

What horseshit. They used to be called “yellow dogs.” They’ve been around forever. And it was long past time the Democrats stopped ignoring red states, which sent the message that they didn’t give a shit about those parts of the U.S.

Murrow Fan:

I can barely handle visiting Daily Kos lately, because a lot of the commenters are behaving like such mindless drones that they are bashing other commenters simply for making the accurate observation that the sky is cloudy when the sky is in fact fucking cloudy.  Even Markos himself has been getting bashed for not putting on a smiley face when the White House is clearly fucking the party over, and it’s his freaking website.

DailyKos discussions on the elections, Obama, his administration, etc. have become completely unreadable thanks to these types. Don’t even get me started on the masturbatory picspam diaries of Obama and his family, any criticism of which gives the Obamabots conniption fits and makes them break out the hide-ratings.

Obamabots are, basically, authoritarians who are “liberal” only by today’s skewed standards. In many cases, they were apolitical until the last election, when the damage wrought by the GOP and Obama’s personal charm encouraged them to vote. A great many of them don’t understand how democracy works. The idea that criticizing the people one votes for is not only an acceptable but a necessary part of democracy is alien to them. They approach it all like a team sport, and if you don’t idolize the person in the uniform with a “D” on it, you’re “disloyal,” you’re “divisive,” you want a “pony.”

Those independents who are liberal-progressives for the most part who would not be caught dead as part of the Dem party?  My daughter and I are two of them. 

I didn’t vote FOR Obama; I voted AGAINST Palin as VP and anyone stupid enough to choose her as a running mate.  Not that I think Biden is great shakes, but at least I don’t think it likely he’ll end up PotUSA because Obama is not a heart patient nearly the age of my father-in-law.  I am disgusted by Obama and co, but not really that suprised.

Obamabots?  Authoritarian?  What kind of fucked up world view do you have, anyhow?  You are being divisive!

Ugh.

He hasn’t closed Gitmo, but that’s the Congress acting like idiots.

Yes, accept he ran on closing Gitmo so he’s obligated to do so.  “Congress won’t let me, boo hoo hoo” is an excuse.  I didn’t vote for the man to get a litany of excuses.  I voted for the man to get results.

Um, the fuck?

You basically just want a tyrant who reflects your values don’t you?

Nader and Nader voters were NOT to blame for Bush being appointed the presidency. Our corrupt Supreme Court and our cowardly congress -which did NOT have to accept the ruling- are 1000000% to blame.

I won’t vote for the “lesser of 2 evils”: because that is still voting for EVIL.  I will vote for what I consider GOOD, even if it looses.

I won’t even vote for Reid this Nov.  I won’t vote Angle, but dammed if I’ll help that corporate owned milquetoast win.

We gave congress another “chance” in ‘06 and they shit on us, and are still shitting on is, while Obama and his pals look on smirking.

To Hell with this Administration, and their Little Dogs, too.

Honestly it’s rather humorous that the “netroots” is so surprised to discover that Obama doesn’t really give a shit about progressives beyond getting their votes by not being a Republican.
If his chastising pro-choice orgs for not taking abortion as “a serious moral issue” and his dismissing mental health exceptions for late-term abortions as his campaign was wielding Roe v Wade to club Hillary supporters into line didn’t tip anybody off, his statement that his stance on Iraq was pretty much the same as Bush’s probably should have. Let alone his appointment of Larry fucking Summers.
So Obama’s as gradualist about DADT as he is about the rights of women? Who ever could have foreseen!

Anyway, he doesn’t need anybody’s $25-100 campaign donation; he’s got Goldman Sachs.

typist:  Obama could have closed Gitmo the first week of his presidency; the President has a lot of unilateral powers.  Obama is NOT powerless, he could close Gitmo tomorrow if he wished, he could have DADT stopped today if he wished.  He could have mounted the Bully Pulpet and gotten Medicare expanded -at the least- down to age 50 or so, and for poor children.  Both are groups most Medical Insurance companies don’t want, anyway. And Obama should have advocated for the repealing of the Insurance Companies Anti-Trust exemption: why wasn’t THAT done- in our repug acclaimed FREE MARKET why are Insurance companies allowed to have an unregulated monopoly?

The President did not even try, he barely pretended to try.  He sold out behind the scenes before Health Care Reform was even begun.  And his lick-spittle court jester Gibbs, smirks and says “Hee-Hee-Hee!, we’re the Only Game In Town!”

But Gibbs is wrong.

I know it’s kind of a dead horse but will somebody explain why more progressives don’t vote Green? We’re informed enough to know how the Electoral College works, right? That if you’re not in a swing state, a third party vote doesn’t hurt the Dem candidate’s overall chances. And that a third party only needs 3% of the popular vote to get funding and debate access for the next election.
Why do we not want to put actual progressive stances back into national political discussion and spook the Dems away from acting like Republicans? The only explanation I ever hear is that voting Green is equivalent to voting Republican, which is obviously ill-informed and fucking ludicrous. So could somebody who has some clue about the Electoral College explain it to me?

One more thing—Republicans are currently at their lowest approval rating EVER.

Comment #43: Caren-Sun-blocking Creator of Animorphic Pancakes

A good chunk of those disapprovers though are the rabid wing nuts who think the Pubs aren’t doing enough to stop Obama’s socialist tyranny or to amend the Constitution to ban birth control and homosexuals.

Amanda, I think there needs to be a distinction between a few different things here:

1. How the administration feels about progressives/liberals in general;
2. How the administration feels about progressives/liberals in the old and new media;
3. Whether the kinds of progressives/liberals who feel disrespected by the administration are “the base.”

I think (2) is the target of the “professional left” comment.  Gibbs and, probably, the administration, is irritated that—as they see it—they’re working hard and getting whacked every day by crazy conservatives, and then they look to see who’s backing them up and get whacked again _in the media_ for what they’re not doing, or doing too slowly.  That’s the frustration:  there’s a network like Fox that beats them up all day, and then there’s a network like MSNBC that also beats them up all day; HuffPo beats them up all day, DailyKos beats them up all day, Progressive Change beats them up all day. 

Gibbs was likewise careful to say that rank-and-file liberals still support the administration; I think the thrust of his comment was not that progressives/liberals suck but rather that the leading voices for progressives/liberals have axes to grind, don’t represent what rank-and-file liberals actually are feeling, but drive the media conversation from what passes for the left.

Along those lines, he wasn’t disparaging “the base”; he was disparaging a cross-section of would-be leaders who are out of touch with the actual base.  That’s the distinction between the “professional left” and “the base.”  They may overlap to a degree as “liberals,” but not all liberals are the professional left, and not all the base are liberals.

(1) is an interesting question, and Gibbs’s comment may reveal something about it, but it wasn’t the focus of his remark.

@ snobographer:

I know it’s kind of a dead horse but will somebody explain why more progressives don’t vote Green?

I think we’re living in a moment where the voting public is so close to 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans that few people on the left-hand side want to feel like they’re doing anything that risks getting the Republican actually elected.  It’s kind of like how in soccer a team might get out to a flukish lead and then do all it can to run out the clock, rather than doing anything that might lead to a bobble that starts everything falling apart.

And I definitely remember a lot of people thinking in 2000 that the nation was living through such prosperity and Gore was so middle-of-the-road and Bush was pretty much an amiable doofus, so that if there ever was going to be a moment to cast a Green vote it would be then… and some of those assumptions turned out kinda wrong.

(I voted Green in 1996 on your theory.)

@120 yeah but unless you live in a swing state… electoral college!

@ snobographer/121 : But there’s a prisoner’s dilemma kind of effect that kicks in, I think, where if you’re willing to vote Green strategically because it’s safe for you, you start worrying that so many people might do what you did that you’ll end up actually throwing the election to the other side.  So if you could get 30-35% for the Greens you could strike genuine fear into the hearts of people all over the ideological spectrum, but if you’re stuck at that 2-5% you’re stuck somewhere between insignificant and too significant, and it’s very hard to get from 5% to 30%, with virtually no incentive to improve incrementally between those two levels because you might have too much impact with not enough success.  IRV and proportional representation systems help dispel that issue, of course, and it would be sort of cool to try to get more states and municipalities adopting those.

Don’t even get me started on the masturbatory picspam diaries of Obama and his family, any criticism of which gives the Obamabots conniption fits and makes them break out the hide-ratings.

I assume you are referring to blackwaterdog.

I have no idea why that person’s diaries get rec’d every single day, when basically anytime Obama gets any criticism from the left whatsoever, the diarist throws a tantrum, threatens to leave the site, and tells eveybody that they are ingrateful racist bastards for not worshipping Obama more.

It’s nauseating, and it isn’t just the folks who have never been huge Obama fans that he’s going after, it’s anybody who says anuything remotely critical whatsoever, including even Markos Moulitsas himself.  While there’s no doubt that the majority of criticism Obama has gotten from the right is racist in nature, blackwaterdog basically accuses everybody who ever criticizes Obama for anything of being racist, even if their criticism is that Obama isn’t doing more for progressive causes (one of which is increasing racial equality).  Progressives were the ones who called out the White House for allowing Shirley Sherrod to get thrown under the bus without more information… was that a racist criticism againt Obama, too?

It’s pretty disturbing how much that diarist seems to live vicariously through Obama, and on numerous occasions that diarist has declared that Obama is already one of the greatest presidents in American history.  Aside from being an utterly ridiculous claim on its face, even if Obama were actually as great as blackwaterdog seems to think he is, no president only 1.5 years into office can have their entire presidency properly ranked compared to their predecessors.

Obamabots are, basically, authoritarians who are “liberal” only by today’s skewed standards. In many cases, they were apolitical until the last election, when the damage wrought by the GOP and Obama’s personal charm encouraged them to vote. A great many of them don’t understand how democracy works. The idea that criticizing the people one votes for is not only an acceptable but a necessary part of democracy is alien to them. They approach it all like a team sport, and if you don’t idolize the person in the uniform with a “D” on it, you’re “disloyal,” you’re “divisive,” you want a “pony.”

Pretty much so.  I get that Obama was never gonna be nearly as progressive as I or most progressives hoped he would be, but at a certain point, you have to start calling things that are just plain unacceptable out.  I don’t hate President Obama, nor do I think we would have been better off had John McCain won instead.  But his presidency is on a trajectory to be little more than the Clinton Presidency redux, but with worse economic conditions.

The folks who refuse to acknowledge Obama deserves any criticism whatsoever for where this country is at sound just the same as Bushbots did several years ago.  As Amanda pointed out, the American Left is not a lockstep movement that considers it treason to call out elected officials who have generally been supported by the Left.

More than a year ago on this blog, I predicted that if unemployment was still hovering around 10% in September 2010, Democrats were going to be in deep shit in the midterms.  And right now, it’s looking like that is exactly what’s going to happen.  While Republicans have given us golden opportunities by nominating people like Sharon Angle for the U.S. Senate, there are 470 Congressional races this November between the House and Senate, and the majority of the GOP candidates in those races aren’t going to be as frightening to voters as Sharon Angle.

@122 - They don’t need 30%. They only need 3% of the total national popular vote to get federal funding and access to the next election’s debates. That would be plenty to scare some sense into the Dems.

The Right has the Libertarians and the wingnuts to keep the Pubs in line, the Left should adopt the same strategy to bring the Dems back to the left.

We seriously need to get past the dumb scare-tactic cw that voting Green is essentially voting Republican, or that there’s no point in voting for them because they won’t win the whole enchilada.

re:  Third-party votes

Well, maybe it’s time to form an unholy alliance with the Tea Party and start pushing for election reforms that don’t push people automatically into feeling forced to vote D or R, lest they “waste” their vote.  Instant runoff voting springs to mind, and I’m sure there are other options I haven’t thought of in my uncaffeinated state.

@ Murrow Fan:  I don’t know what Daily Kos you’re in the habit of reading, but the one I check in on has a rec list completely dominated by gloom, doom, tantrums, threats, and a whole lot of strutting around about how uncompromisingly hardcore left everyone fancies themselves to be.  The blackwaterdog pieces get recommended because _they’re not that_, they’re actually kind of sunny.  It’s a respite from the anger, much of which is legitimate, some of which smacks of exhbitionism and one-upmanship.  It’s exhausting.  Sometimes you just want to watch the equivalent of the Rachel Ray show.

@ snobographer/125 : I think it’s because even 3% is pretty often larger than the difference between the two major party candidates.  I get your point about the electoral college; given that, if you’re a left-ish Democrat in, say, Idaho or Washington DC, it makes all kinds of sense to vote Green instead of Democrat in a presidential year.  It’s just that so many states feel like they could be close.  When I lived in PA over the Clinton-Bush II years, it seemed like we would always hear about how this year the state could really swing.  When that’s how people are talking, it doesn’t feel like you can spare 3% for party-building in a future-oriented way.

@126 - Wouldn’t that require the approval and cooperation of the major parties and DC establishment? They hate competition.

@128 - There’s only a couple swing states every Presidential election. A couple thousand voters in each state with a 5%-or-greater margin either way would do it. All those Dem voters who live in Utah or Texas and Arizona who are never heard.

#117

I know it’s kind of a dead horse but will somebody explain why more progressives don’t vote Green? We’re informed enough to know how the Electoral College works, right? That if you’re not in a swing state, a third party vote doesn’t hurt the Dem candidate’s overall chances.

snobographer, actually lots of progressives do vote for Greens in exactly the way you suggest. I vote Green when they run for offices that I don’t think are likely to go to Republicans. I’m more likely to do this for local positions, like water commissioner (which seems ideal for Greens anyhow) or Governor. I admit that I could do this more regularly, though. Living in a blue area as I do, I could probably vote Green for president, which could put them closer to 3%.

Sometimes, though, I honestly think the Democrat running is better than the Green. This recently happened in my congressional district, I had a Green running who wanted to eliminate the Federal Reserve. Sorry, I don’t like economic craziness, the Republicans have more than enough.

Actually, snobographer, I agree that this is something I could and should do more, and organize other folks to do more.

Exactly ... well said.

It is not like we don’t have a case Mr. Gibbs ...

The endless deficits are the residue of the endless wars which are the residue of the endless addiction to oil.

According to Lloyd’s of London and The Chatham House Iraq will soon become the world’s #1 producer of oil, our drug of choice.

That may assuage the deficit if the oil money trickles down to the budget and the people, but not many would hold their breath for that eventuality.

Nobody, It helped me and millions of others like me. Yes, it didn’t go far enough, and there are others that are completely left behind be the bill, but the choice is currently between helping no one or even making to worse and helping a few people.  This isn’t some abstract battle between good and evil; this is about peoples lives right now.

I also think that “reaching out to red states” and “minimize moderate to conservative influence within the party” are mutually exclusive goals. For cause campaigns, it is an excellent strategy. When your goal is to get people to support gay rights for example, it is vital to reach out to rural areas, inner-cities, etc where gay-rights are not supported so you can change the minds of the most people. For a political party, reaching out doesn’t mean “changing minds on political issues.” It means creating new Democrats by changing the party to appeal to those voters and giving those new voters a voice within the party. Like if a Republican wanted to win in CT, he or she wouldn’t go to CT and try to make the people there into angry populist nutbags, that politician would try to discance his/herself from those people, and if the person got elected, the party becomes more moderate overall. See for example, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Scott Brown.

The more I tihnk on it, the best strategy for progressive is to stop financially supporting Democrats, but give money to cause campaigns instead. If we can change the mind of/energize voters around, healthcare, gayrights, etc the pols will have to change their minds or get booted out.

@ alysia: 

I also think that “reaching out to red states” and “minimize moderate to conservative influence within the party” are mutually exclusive goals.

By and large I agree, but there’s a potential way to do both, which is to foster candidates who may not be particularly _liberal_ but are more _populist_.  That was the theory behind Bill Halter—although people in the blogosphere got all tangled up and started to think he was more liberal than Blanche Lincoln, which Lincoln flipped against him—and, before that, behind Jim Webb and Jon Tester.  In theory you could run an economic-justice campaign that spoke to everyday people’s concerns and hence win as a Democrat by peeling off from the Republicans a big chunk of the people who are hostile to Obama, antigay, anti-Muslim, you name it.  Which goes back to the Howard Dean comment about wanting to be the party for people with confederate flags on their pickup trucks.  But, it’s true, bringing politicians into the Democratic fold who are beholden to some section of that constituency does probably mean that things like due process for terror suspects and same-sex marriage will not be zealously upheld by the local Democrats.

The worst of both worlds is when the red-state Democrat is also pro-big business, like Evan Bayh and Ben Nelson as well as Lincoln, so that you end up with conservative cultural politics _and_ plutocratic economic politics.  Eeesh.