If the hearing word bipartisan makes you want to commit senseless acts of violence, chances are that you are probably one of those pacifist liberals. Just like so many words in American politics, bipartisan no longer means what we think it means. It would also seem that "progressive action" has come to mean being in the constant state of erasing lines in the sand.
All this time so many Democratic supporters were thinking that Social Security and Medicare represented the backbone of the Party of FDR but in the spirit of bipartisanship our Democratic president recently appointed a Republican as the chairman of the euphemistically named National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. That way the former Republican Senator from Wyoming can "save" the United States from "insolvency" by hacking away at Social Security and Medicare.
Yesterday there was this story by James Ridgeway and he seems to have understood what to expect from the beginning. It really helps to redefine bipartisanship and understand where progress will be going under "bipartisan Democrats."
On Friday, Rachel Maddow covered the conservative movement's latest desperate attempt to pin something nefarious on President Obama. Since this stuff matters a lot to Republicans, I'm launching the President Obama Conspiracy Generator in an effort to be more bipartisan.
It's the same old story. Another slap in the face to both organized labor and the entire middle class as both Craig Becker and the National Labor Relations Board are in limbo. Harry Reid called for recess appointments, The AFL-CIO sprang into action and the president's response is limbo continued. There is nothing this Democratic president can do for such close allies? As workers are wondering if a functioning NLRB is being saved for October of 2012 this all seems so 1994. But top that off with Obama's lust for the HCR excise tax and it gets so much worse.
In the debate over the finance of health insurance expansion it would be worth noting that the wealthy who voted for Barack Obama and supported the Democratic party fully expected that healthcare reform would be financed by a roll back the Bush tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000 per year. The union members who voted for, stuffed envelopes, reached into their pockets an organized fundraisers, were under the impression that they would see some much needed advancement from a Democratic president after eight years of Bush.
By now most progressive bloggers have moved way beyond these workers who have been losing ground since the 1970's. It has been rationalized to death so everyone could move on to the next action, followed by the next capitulation, followed by the next wild goose chase towards progress. Come November blue collar workers, like Massachusetts voters recently, might end up being framed as stupid for protecting themselves from harm.
Distrust for government seems to work for Republicans, not for Democrats. As the public option is being presented once again, probably another carrot on a string, a deeper look at this excise tax that will live in the memories of workers for many years is in order. How much trust will be left between the workers and Democratic leadership once this excise tax becomes law and in years to come?
This is the first post in a series on the Obama presidency. It's a round - up of what I saw as the most salient parts of the discussion that took place at The American Prospect and Huffington Post as the Obama Administration approached the one year mark.
This is the final preliminary post in a series on the Obama presidency that was initially going to be posted after the health care reform effort was finished in December of last year. Continuing to wait for a resolution on this issue would push the series back even further, so I'm going to post it now with a scaled down health care section.
In the two months since this original version of this post was written, there have been new developments that have cast John Edwards in an increasingly negative light. Everytime I think this story has hit bottom, I'm proven wrong. There are bound to be very strong feelings about this, but I believe that at the bottom of this mess there is something very important, despite how far one of its most recent champions has fallen. The goal of this post is to take another look at why the 2008 Edwards campaign was supported by many in the Democratic base (especially labor and the progressive blogosphere), and the aspects of the campaign and its message that are especially relevant today.
Below is an overview of where I was coming from when I supported Edwards, and where I'm coming from now. This is meant to be a discussion starter. Feel free to weigh in.
In case you haven't already seen it, this article on President Obama's inner circle is a must read.
The Obama Administration has done some great things. There is no question about that. But the Democratic Party and it's core values are going to suffer a dramatic setback if the White House and Congressional Dems don't get their act together. If we don't make more progress on strengthening the Middle Class (read: jobs and finishing health care), this will go down in history as the moment elected Democrats let the future slip away.
David Axelrod has every reason to be very proud of the work he did in mayoral campaigns in the late 1980. But that was 20 years ago. Attitudes have changes, and the Great Recession demands urgency. The fierce urgency of now. Not the timid mediocrity of "that's not the way we roll."
As far as Rahm Emanuel goes, actions speak letter than expletive - heavy words. And once again, the 90's really are over. The country is different. The Democratic Party is different. Avoiding a much more powerful grassroots coalition and a winning message is not the mark of a "pragmatist" or a "realist." It's the mark of someone whose Beltway Goggles have blinded them to the changes that have taken place in front of them.
There is no shortage of talent that could be elevated or tapped into on a much more regular basis.
David Plouffe's recent op - ed was right on the money.
Austan Goolsbee is a very effective surrogate.
Jared Bernstein and Melody Barnes are already working in the administration. Mike Lux worked in the Clinton Administration.
Robert Kuttner and Jacob Hacker are respected policy wonks who are also politically savvy.
President Obama has all of the potential in the world, but it's just not coming together. The Administration's needs to change, and soon. It's hard to see how that happens without something of a staff shake - up.
President Obama's Q&A with Senate Democrats showed that the disconnect between the mindset of elected Democrats in general and what needs to happen over the few months is still far too wide. Thanks in large part to a handful of fundamentally lame Senators, the caucus as a whole has been seriously undermined. There are a lot of words that could be used to describe what the Senate has done over the last year, but "leadership" -- a word that was used Wednesday-- isn't one of them.
Here are some thoughts on President Obama's State of the Union address. I waited until I had a chance to watch the speech a second time before posting them.
Feel free to ad any of your thoughts in the comments section.
We didn't need any further evidence that the Beltway Bubble is where support for elected Democrats goes to die, but last night we got it in the form of a spending freeze.
Yes, Independent voters say that they are very concerned about the deficit. But does this issue actually move many votes? Not really, unless "President Mondale" has somehow been grossly overlooked. Concerns about the deficit will be far more dangerous if they become a proxy for general economic anxiety. That is why putting the budget deficit ahead of jobs is full - blown malpractice, both policy - wise and politically.
If they can't say goodbye to fatally flawed conventional wisdom from1995, the Obama Administration is going to play a key role in recreating 1937.
With the current setbacks in election results President Obama is trying to retool his message and offer measures to give relief to the middle-class. While some of it sounds good, to me it seems as if it will fall short in really helping some middle-class folks. Another huge problem is it seems to not address the real underlying problem, the RE-BUILDING of our middle-class which has been disappearing.
Make no mistake about it. This is a moment of crisis for the Democratic Party. It's not a moment to panic and run away from winning contrasts. It's a moment to realize that the approach we've seen over the past year is fatally flawed, and make the changes that are clearly necessary.
Paul Krugman speaks for a lot of heavily active grassroots Dems when he says that President Obama "seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had about whether he was ready to fight for what his supporters believed in."
The president's move this morning to reign in Wall Street, and his response to today's Supreme Court decision were a good start... if his words are backed up with a real willingness to fight hard. If they turn out to be "just words," he can almost certainly say goodbye to re - election.
Many of us are furious. We have every right to be.
Elected Democrats are no longer at risk of blowing a once in a generation opportunity. They are blowing this opportunity. The president and Congressional Democrats need to get their act together. Now.
