January 20, 2010 archive

In only one short year, Democrats have managed to redirect away from the Republicans and at the Democrats the rage voters felt at Bush, Cheney and Republicans for destroying our economy and our country .

In only one short year, Democrats drove up deficits to bailout Wall Street and fund two wars nobody wants but Republicans.   They couldn’t manage to reinstate usury laws or Glass-Steagall, but they sure as hell could pass bankruptcy reform just in time for the meltdown.  Only tone deaf, elitist Democrats living in Washington’s bubble could possibly blow blue MA and lose Ted Kennedy’s seat.  

Democrats ran on change and proceeded to deliver Bush and Clinton’s third terms.  And if they think people are angry at them now, just wait until they use deficit reduction to cut Social Security and Medicare instead of raising taxes on the rich and corporations.  

By surrounding Obama with Clinton and Goldman Sachs’ reruns, the idiots in charge of this Party managed to make a liar out of Obama the reform candidate, a hypocrite out of President Obama and destroy the party and country’s desperately needed opportunity for real, fundamental reform.  Instead of a New Deal, a Fair Deal, they gave all of their supporters a raw deal.

Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

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Jon Walker makes a very effective argument about why learning the wrong lesson from the defeat of Martha Coakley in yesterday’s Massachusetts Senate race will lead to disaster.

Not only will Democrats lose badly if they adopt this strategy, but they will be laughed at. Republicans never had 59 Senate seats, and that did not stop them from passing the legislation they wanted. Trying to explain to the American people how, despite controlling everything, Democrats cannot do anything, because a mean minority of 41 Republican senators won’t let them, is a message that will go over like a lead balloon. If you try to use that excuse, people will think elected Democrats are liars, wimps, idiots, or an ineffectual combination of all three.

President Obama, Remember Who Your Friends Are

Wednesday 20 January 2010

by: Staff, t r u t h o u t | Editorial

In the wake of a crushing Democratic defeat in the Massachusetts Senate race, we find ourselves faced with the one-year anniversary of a spirit-changing day in the history of the United States, the inauguration of President Barack Obama. This odd confluence of events provides an opening for a very timely warning: It is time to remember who your friends are, Mr. President.

Your friends are not the suits on Wall Street, the same ones who fooled Timothy Geithner for years. Your friends are not the timid centrists, who Rahm Emanuel coddles. Your friends are not the giants of the mortgage industry, who fought you tooth and nail to keep the foreclosure crisis out of the courts. Your friend is not George W. Bush, whose crimes you continue to conceal.

Your friends are the progressives across this country, who, when you asked for their faith and inspired them with beautiful words, placed you on their shoulders and carried you to a historic victory.

The progressive movement needs results – we’re too smart to be placated and spun. We’re too cynical – and too determined – to compromise. And, soon, we’ll be too jaded to believe that Democrats are anything but limp windsocks, pointing whichever way the wind blows.

Some have already walked away, according to a recent Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll, which states that 45 percent of Democrats are not likely to vote in the 2010 election.

Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread

1 New quake triggers panic in Haiti

by Sophie Nicholson and Stephane Jourdain, AFP

46 mins ago

This is just a short list of what I think the responsibilities of a good political blogger are.  I know we fill up the physical world with garbage:

Here I just wish to suggest ways of producing not-garbage in the political blogosphere.  Opinions below are merely the product of the author.

(Crossposted at Orange)

Scott Brown’s victory provides clear lessons for both Democratic Party and Republican Party operatives.  The question: whether these operatives will read the tea leaves correctly or incorrectly and, therefore, what measures they will take walking away from the situation.

Briefly, for the Republican Party, the message is clear: essentially every single seat is up for grabs in this fall’s elections if (a) they have a photogenic candidate, (b) maintain message discipline with truthiness-laden attacks on all policies, (c) avoid mentioning “Bush” (and invoke “Reagan”), and (d) if the Democratic Party “establishment” fails to heed the lessons of Massachusetts.

Now, as in New Jersey and Virginia, much of the Democratic Party knashing of teeth will resolve around Martha Coakley’s failures as a candidate (from failure to take the election seriously to, in the debate, stating that this was “Ted Kennedy’s seat to …).  There is (substantial) truth to these complaints, but this was not the core of what went on in Massachusetts (although, a more robust / stronger campaign and a Brown surge wouldn’t have seriously threatened Coakley).

From this election, many will propagate a message that “Obama is too left” and that “voters think he’s trying to do too much”.  This, however, simply flies in the face of both polling and on-the-ground reality.