( – promoted by buhdydharma )
I really don’t have the time to write this up, but I wanted to draw your attention to this series on HuffPo. In is quite an indepth, inside look and well worth the whole read. Despite the cheerleading, there are pissed-off liberals. We are not alone. Enjoy.
Power Struggle: Inside The Battle For The Soul Of The Democratic Party
Doug Kahn, a big Democratic donor and heir to the Annenberg fortune, is not giving any money to candidates running for office this year even though he has donated more than $200,000 to candidates in past election cycles.
“The people who are really liberal, like me, are disgusted. And the ones I’ve talked to are just saying, forget this. They’re throwing their hands up. They’re not going to give money,” says Kahn.
In 2008, says Kahn, he asked the DCCC to list candidates who had an outside shot of beating a Republican and weren’t currently getting much party backing. He jumped in and gave the maximum contributions, donating to several of the 34 Democrats who voted against health care reform. In 2010, he says, he’ll spend his money in a different way. “Anger is a real motivator,” says Kahn.
The Florida donor plans to spend $100,000 between two districts currently held by Blue Dogs. He’ll come in during the last few weeks and spend money educating Democratic voters about the Blue Dogs’ record. “I’m convinced that if they know what the voting records of some of these people are — that is, Blue Dogs — a significant percentage, a percentage that could beat the Blue Dog, will simply not vote. I might be wrong about that, but I’m going to try it out,” says Kahn.
Kahn says he doesn’t yet know which districts he’ll attack and has no interest working to defeat a Blue Dog who is already going to lose. He wants Blue Dogs on the edge and he wants to push them off. The purpose, he says, is not to teach those particular dogs a lesson, but “to move the Blue Dogs who are in the House to have some fear of Democratic voters.”
Pelosi worked to muzzle progressives who said they could never vote for the watered-down Senate version. “I told the members, the members who said, ‘I’m never voting the Senate bill,’ I said, ‘Fine. Let me take care of that, but to the extent that you go out and say that, you are empowering the insurance industry and those who are trying to say just do a small bill,” she said. “That empowered them: ‘See, she’s never going to be able to pass the bill, so why don’t we just go for this thing, which happens to be what the insurance company is advocating.’ So we’re saying, ‘No, you have to have the courage to go for it, and what is it that we can put over the finish line that is strong and tough as possible, giving the president his opportunity to strive for bipartisanship?”
There’s a whole lot more.
Found this, just had to add it.
Clyburn called Grijalva into his office and asked if he had been the leaker. After initially denying it, he copped to the breach. Though it was widely assumed in the Capitol that Grijalva was the guilty party, he talked about it openly for the first time for this story. “It didn’t help,” Grijalva says, pausing to reflect on his decision. “It didn’t help. It was some level of desperation … and frustration.”
It had worked out better before. Earlier that year, he had leaked to DailyKos blogger Joan McCarter, a smaller, CPC-driven public option whip count of progressives who had committed to voting against any bill that didn’t include a robust public plan. That leak paid off, as the blogosphere pressured those who weren’t on the list to sign up.
— snip —
The question Frank poses — “What’s our tactic?” — is the one that progressives inside and outside of Congress are mulling. Mike Lux, founder of Progressive Strategies and a former Clinton administration official who works closely with both the blogosphere and the White House, says that the options extend beyond a binary choice for or against a final bill. In other words, look at Congress dynamically.
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At least there’s a struggle and not everything in roses Obamaville.
We seem to be losing the battle for the soul of the Democratic Party, but I won’t go down without a fight.
would get troll rated at GOS as a purist who literally is putting his money where his mouth is. The party needs more of this especially those with the bucks to back this up. Yes this does make me feel better. Political reality outside the gates of the propaganda machine might not be as bleak as the veiw I get a daily dose of. Comfort can come when you least expect it.
That’s enough to make my day. Tired of donating to idiots and pretend Democrats.
Nice…thanks
where progress goes to die. Whatever the least amount of reform necessary to quell the masses is, that’s what they pass. Never anything too fundamental for their corporate masters.
…. we watched this huge battle play out this summer and fall with the Senate writing a bill, some of the alleged OFA and Dem operatives and the various Dem staffers and Friends/Big Donors of Dem Senators telling us not to bother trying to influence the Senate, because they aren’t paying any attention to you (that’s us, the ignorant peons in front of the keyboards) and then the Senate said to the House, basically, bleep you and take this or we’ll take our filibuster and go home.
Then the DNC operatives pretended that their sudden summoning of the OFA and the million call day pushed the crappy bill over the finish line. Yeah, sure, Kabuki me some more. And they folded. “Like Origami,- I’m a swan” said compoundF, in one of the funniest quips ever.
Because of the excuse of We Can’t Do Anything Without the Supermajority. There was no getting the bill thru the Senate otherwise. And then they screwed us on this Public Option up or down vote, so we could at least see who the wankers were.
I didn’t know there was a 30 state majority needed to pass any bill, did you ?
I have read discussions by polling and trend wonks and they’re saying that we are likely going to see 5 to even 10 Senate seats lost in the fall to the Republican Party.
And this is with labeling me as irrelevant, so I’m not worried that it’s all my fault. If the netroots are truly irrelevant, and it’s the DC insiders and state insiders who control the selection process and actually GOTV (according to the right wing Dem crap I’ve been reading) then how to explain this wretched doom and gloom reality polling ?
Part of it has to be that we have Dems so scared of their own shadows that even the liberal ones are having trouble sounding coherent.
Part of it has to be the Majority Leader, who is on very shaky electoral ground when instead, at the height of his career and power, (Majority Leader with same Party President, he should be kicking a$$) he should be a shoo in for re election, he’s struggling so hard he’s cutting more deals than at a flea market bazaar just to keep the unruly DINOs in the same building.
Have you ever seen a more frustrating Senate ?
What do we do ? Expect the Congress House to finally act like the firewall they could be, or just let nature take its course, and end up with that Republican Senate anyway ?
If the President is really a closet moderate Republican, who ran as a Democrat because it was easier, then he may end up with the Senate he always wanted. What does he then do with that Senate ?
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And say, I just ran Doug Kahn’s name thru newsmeat and I’m finding only 2 candidates, Charlie Brown who lost to Doolittle, then McClintock, so he never got a chance to vote at all, and Joe Sestak when he was running for congress in PA’s 7th in 2006, and Sestak voted for the bill but was a slippery eel with this public option support, only coming out for it after Arlen Specter did, when he decided to challenge Specter for the Senate primary race. I found 3 more on Huffpo, Tim Walz, Harry Mitchell, Melissa Bean.
But there’s also one for John Kerry, if it is the same Doug Kahn.
I am so effing pissed at Kerry and the entire Dem Contingent of the Senate Finance Committee for screwing around for months, then on Kerry’s support of that effing excise tax, I could scream, especially because of all the sh*t I took for pointing out that not only did it suck, it was going to be a very unpopular thing.
If Kahn wanted to be putting the fear of the Voter into the Dem Party machine, he ought to go after these Pandercrat Senate Dems who won’t do the right thing. I think the voters of Massachusetts did just that when they said Hell No to Martha “No I Don’t Support the Public Option, Just Higher Taxes on Your Existing Benefits” Coakley.
I don’t know what else to do, since these arrogant bastards have the attitude that expecting the Senate to respond to public opinion is a quaint and outdated notion.
starting to think? fear? dread? that the obama-“health”-crap memes were gonna win.
Local Seattle news in the last few weeks, I’ve seen 8? 15? ads talking about how great this AHIP welfare is, AND, to call patty pathetic murray to thank her.
funny how there weren’t ads in the summer telling people to call maria cant do shit and patty pathetic, AND then tell those 2 kerry-esqu sell outs to:
1. get on OUR side, or
2. you’ll be unemployed,
a. we’ll change the ex-Senator rules to strip you of EVERYTHING, too, by the way.
rmm.
… that Pelosi could argue with a straight face that the insurers would be more empowered by a smaller bill that did not include a Federal mandate to buy their product.
or
…that the Progressive caucus would willingly accept at face value Nancy’s fatuous charade that the insurance companies didn’t want this bill just as much as Obama did.
despite all the brave talk, they will get nothing of their own but blame for all that is bad.
It is oddly heartening to see someone like Grijalva disheartened. We know his heart is in the right – er, left place. The heart is always on the left in humans.
What’s the answer to the riddle?
Mine is to back words with actions.
It is a lonely opinion.
Best, Terry
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Noticed the link wasn’t working – fixed it. Hope people take the time to give it a read.
same centrist crap, this sort of team sports no longer interests me. I am off the reservation man! I wouldn’t give money to any of em!
Heath was actually a reasonable choice when we just HAD to get rid of Chainsaw Charlie, basically a Republican Lite sort of guy. Good looking, nice young family, local hero. But he took his position to the bank almost immediately, was paid more money by health care and insurance company lobbyists than any other representative ever! We couldn’t find a decent challenger this time, but by ’12 hope to have several (two likelies got elected to the A-ville City Council this past November). If SEIU’s new party can avoid the full-on Socialist label, it could definitely be viable here.
When I read the article yesterday I was struck by the negative description of Lynn Woolsey, Co-Chair with Raul Grijalva of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The narrative that she was ineffective, especially for the HIR bill, matches well with the position paper put out by Firedoglake.
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.c…
Of course the other weak link is Obama the abandoned love child.