Friday, July 29, 2005

The meaning of victory

Chris Bower's declares victory in the OH-02 race even before a single vote has been cast and he is absolutely right:

Even if he loses, which remains the most likely outcome, the Hackett campaign has turned a corner of Ohio a little more purple, which in turn turns the state and the nation a little more blue. We have drained money from Republicans nationally, spread our message to one of the reddest parts of the country, and identified numerous activists to help keep up the fight in the future. That is a huge success. That is called building a party from the ground up. That is a fifty-state strategy. That is ending the scourge of the uncontested. Stuart Rothenberg may think I am clueless for supporting and encouraging stuff like this, and if he were the one talking to the grassroots about political strategy instead of bloggers, maybe the Paul Hackett phenomenon would never have happened. That, I think, would be a tragedy. If someone can't see the importance and the already achieved success of the Paul Hackett campaign, then they are the truly clueless.

It's like the Dean campaign. I've said, ever since he dropped out of the presidential race, that Dean didn't lose. He did everything, and more, that he set out to do when he entered the race. Indeed, he exceeded far beyond anyone's wildest expectations (does anyone REALLY think he thought he could be a contender?)

Democrats have got to get beyond the simplistic win/loss assessment of individual votes and start thinking in terms of the expectations game. Even if you don't win the vote, if you exceed the expectations, especially by a wide margin, you influence the overall course of politics. And that is what we want. Because the more the course is shifted in the right direction the greater the chances that we will start to "win" in the electoral sense.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Just saying...

John D. Podesta, who was White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, said he interpreted Clinton's remarks as critical of those on both sides -- centrists as much as liberals -- who would devote more energy to internal party battles than to confronting the right . But he said Clinton may have underestimated the bad feelings within the party. "I think she was trying to push the DLC back a little bit, but she walked into a crossfire maybe she should have realized was out there," he said.

(I got this from Steve Gilliard who, unfortunately, didn't provide a link for where he got it.)

Update: Here's the link (thanks CMike)

"I am not a rubber stamp"

Bob Brigham has a followup on his excellent coverage of last nights Hackett/Schmidt debate. Included is this from the Cincinnati Enquirer:

In their last head-to-head debate before Tuesday's 2nd Congressional District election, Democrat Paul Hackett accused his opponent, former Republican state Rep. Jean Schmidt, of being a "rubber stamp" for the "failed policies" of the Taft administration, and said she can be expected to do the same for President Bush in Washington.

Schmidt insisted she will be an independent voice.

"I am not a rubber stamp," said Schmidt, who served in the Ohio House from 2001 to 2005.

Somewhere, Lakoff must be smiling.

Even if Hackett doesn't win this race I think he has rolled out an excellent frame for any Democrat to use against Republicans. "Rubber Stamp" has such a nice ring to it doesn't it?

An anchor, not a balloon

Steve Gilliard speaks in a similar vein to what I said in my previous post:

To be a good coach, or politician, you need to know when to strike with your best play. To be a great coach, you need to create the conditions for that play to be used. Hillary Clinton is neither. Her timing is off. Pols aren't going to Kos because they like him, but because he can help them.

Notice that pols, both state and local, as well as federal, want nothing to do with the DLC. They had to drop a ton of names from their site. So what does Hillary do? Go to them. She wants use them to revive her fortunes when they cannot revive their own. What that says to me is that her tactical sense is flawed.

Hillary is still stuck in the 90s with the impression that tying herself to the DLC will help her out in 2008.

Here's a clue for you Hillary: the DLC is an anchor, not a balloon.

The rotten tree

BooMan expresses ... concern ... about the recent dustup between the DLC and the progressive grassroots. He seems to interpret the recent comments by people like Kos as a call for a split in the Democratic party. He correctly says that such a split would foolish. But I think he is reading more into this fight then is actually there.

I haven't seen anyone call for a split in the party. Yes, Kos has said that being closely tied to the DLC is a death sentence for any candidate. But that is not a call to purge the party of the DLC. It is a simple statement that the DLC is already outside the mainstream of the party. The DLC does not need to be purged because they have already purged themselves.

What a lot of Democratic leaders don't realize, because they don't spend enough time talking to the grassroots, is that the DLC is despised within the Democratic rank-n-file only marginally less than George W. Bush (in some cases worse). I'm reminded of the way the characters in Fiddler On The Roof would spit on the ground anytime they mentioned the Czar. Many Democrats I know expectorate with the same relish at any mention of the DLC.

This is perhaps an unfair assessment (I don't consider the DLC to be Republican plants. I just think they are idiots when it comes to politics.) But it is the state of opinion within the party at this moment. Kos, in his own [ahem] inimitable style, is simply pointing out to Democratic leaders that the DLC is not the way to go if they want to improve their electoral prospects.

The DLC is a poisoned tree. It may still have some valuable fruit worth picking. But the trunk is full of rot and the whole thing will fall over in the next big wind storm. The sooner Democratic leaders wake up to this reality the better for the party.

Monday, July 25, 2005

Digby speaks for me

Another difficult to quote post:

Being lectured all the time by effete DC Democrats on "patriotism" because I don't back their reflexively hawkish foreign policy is not only insulting it's dumb. It plays into stereotypes that only serve the Republicans by turning this into a dick measuring contest when we should be turning the conversation into who can get the job done. I would submit that if anyone's been traumatized by the Vietnam experience it's the tired Democratic national security hawks who are always rushing to support military action, no matter how insanely counterproductive, because some Republican somewhere might call him a pussy. They've been around since the 60's too. Hell, they've been around forever.

The only thing I would add to this is that Democrats like Will Marshall do his party no service by repeating Republican talking points ("Liberals are anti-patriotic because they were traumatized by the anti-war experience of the 60s"). Hell Mr. Marshall! I was born in 1965 but my formative political experience was during the Reagan years. The 60s are naught to me but an image on the TV screen. I'll thank you very much not to broad-brush whole generations of Democrats with your simplistic formulations.

It's obvious that Mr. Marshall just doesn't understand the rest of his party. Maybe its time for him and others like him to stop trying to lecture to the rest of us about the proper way to demonstrate patriotism and instead spend some time actually talking to us about our concerns.

Or would he rather just pontificate on high about our motives?

(Note: unlike others who outright hate the DLC wing of the Democratic party, I try not to ascribe nefarious motives to the ridiculous pronouncements of people like Mr. Marshall. Many Democrats like to accuse the DLC of being closet Republicans who are deliberately trying to sabotage the party at the bidding of their corporate paymasters. I prefer to think that they are just idiots who don't know what the hell they are talking about.)

Probable Cause

Buzzerman of Table Talk has the perfect response to those who continue to insist that Valerie Plame wasn't really covert:

It's like someone defending O.J. Simpson by saying, "Well, how do we know Nicole's really dead?"

Pass it on!

Progressive Values ARE Religious Values

I highly recommend this post over on the Booman Tribune by one pastordan. In it, he manages to frame the debate in such a way that shows that progressive traditions (Accountability, Reality, Pragmatism) can be derived from progressive religious traditions.

It is far to excellent for any excerpt to do it justice. Just read it.

Investigating the Investigator

Taking the ball from Kos, Josh Marshall runs it down the field:

Sen. Roberts doesn't have time to investigate the manipulation of prewar intelligence, the Niger forgeries or the Plame disclosure.

But he does have time to investigate how the CIA uses 'cover' in its clandestine operations. And as part of his new exercise in water-carrying he will also investigate Patrick Fitzgerald's criminal probe.

Note the specifics: I didn't say he'll be investigating what Fitzgerald's investigating; he's apparently found time to investigate the Fitzgerald probe itself. Roberts' spokesperson Sarah Little told Reuters that his "committee would also review the probe of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who has been investigating the Plame case for nearly two years."

Can any Senate Democrat not see now that Sen. Roberts only use for his committee is as a tool to defend the political interests of the White House? And will anybody deny that the decision to investigate Fitzgerald comes down on the orders of the White House?

My assist: I believe Josh is speculating that Roberts' may be using his power in order to intimidate Fitzgerald's investigation. But could it be even worse than Josh speculates? Could it be that Roberts is trying to use the subpoena power of his committee to determine what is going on within the Fitzgerald investigation? Might he pull an Ollie North and use congressional immunity to get damaging testimony about Plamegate out into the open so that that testimony cannot then be used by Fitzgerald in his investigation?

Don't put anything past these bastards.