This Funny or Die video featuring Will Ferrell and the routinely hilarious Craig Robinson is about a bat fight. Ferrell's character's approach to the fight is all too familiar.
Future Majority has a really good post on how the recession has hit younger American especially hard, and what they're doing about it.
It's painfully clear that the people the Democratic Party represents are in peril. Jacob Hacker calls it the Great Risk Shift. Jared Bernstein calls it the Middle Class Squeeze. Labor unions and organizations representing women and minorities have been trying to draw attention to the severity of the problem for a while now.
It is simple. This is America's middle class. We've hacked at it and chipped at it and pulled on it for 30 years now. And now there's no more to do. Either we fix this problem going forward or the game really is over.
Yet too many elected Democrats are still whistling past the potential Middle Class graveyard. If we don't start aiming for what is necessary, instead of what is convenient, we will fail. On this, there is no Third Way. Differing on the sequence of action is legitimate and can be a healthy thing. But it's clear where we must go, and it's going to take bold action to get there. At this point, it would be borderline delusional to deny that.
The politics of this are more straightforward that they've been made out to be. A winning coalition can be mobilized, as long as elected Democrats resist the urge to cower. Either we go big and dedicate ourselves to strengthening the Middle Class, or we'll be losers in every sense of the word.
Related: Ann Friedman's smart take on the Dem coalition.
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.
Greg Sargent has the details of a new Gallup poll on health care reform that the Status Quo Caucus, with their well - known Selective Poll - Citing Disorder, is sure to love.
If this one poll matters now, leading Democratic will remove any doubt that they are clueless... likely beyond all hope.
Struggling Americans need results. The Dem coalition is demanding them. Swing voters are looking for them, but they've seen this process drag on for far too long. The useless Gang of Six took its sweet time. Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson removed the most popular elements of reform and added deals like the Cornhusker Kickback that annoyed everyone.
Of course people are tired of this crap.
Our choice right now is fairly simple. Are we going to put ourselves in a position this November where we took all this time and exhausted the patience of voters only to produce no meaningful reform? The quickest, best, (and likely only) way to deal with the giant mess Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, and the White House made is to get some real results, and get them very soon.
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.
Many progressive Democrats are extremely frustrated right now. A lack of backbone and competence in our party's leadership has left us with health insurance legislation instead of health care reform. Some progressives are asking themselves why they should continue to identify as a Democrat. In the wake of recent events, their anger is certainly justified. But I believe that grassroots Democrats should continue to lead through example.
One thing that Democrats have always proclaimed about our party is that we have a "big tent". Within this big tent we have always excepted many different people from different walks of life. However, recent developments should show us all that sometimes a "big tent" is not the greatest thing in the world, especially in the world of politics. Perhaps we should consider the fact that quite possibly our "big tent" has outgrown itself.
"The problem is with this legislation, if one person holds up this Bill, and it passes as a 'hodge podge of nonsense', which is what the 4 more conservative Democrats want -- basically 'A Insurance Company Bill' is what they want -- this is a huge problem for the Obama Administration, it is a huge problem for the Democrats in 2010."
BTW Howard Dean knows a thing or two about winning Elections, nationwide, so Dems would be wise to listen to and think about his blunt warnings.
The Democratic Party is careening towards a political train wreck. That may sound hyperbolic to some, but it's the truth. It's difficult to overstate the extent to which what is accomplished in the next few months is going to set the stage for 2010 and beyond. If President Obama and Congressional Democrats can't show real progress on the major domestic issues that got them elected, the party is going to be in serious trouble.
The strategic incompetence we're seeing, even though it's clear that Democrats will either live up to their rhetoric about standing up for working Americans or lose in a big way, is stunning.
Back in 2008, Candidate Barack Obama, invited average American Citizens, to provide their thoughts, on what should be INCLUDED in the 'New' Democratic Platform for Change.
Here is one such reply, that made it to the 'final draft':
Citizen Statement - (pg 10)
"I worked for a manufacturer for over fifteen years. My wages stayed the same for six years as I found myself paying more and more for health care. Co-pays went up, deductibles went up.
In late 2006, the company sent my production job to Mexico and China and I was laid off. I could not afford COBRA premiums. I am two years away from Medicare and unemployed and on the 'faith based' health care system -- meaning I just pray I don't get sick.
Oh yeah, and I'm a cancer survivor and I haven't done the yearly checkup in 3 years."
-- Listening to America - National Hearing
I hail from the red area of Western Kentucky as many know. This can have many frustrations in itself as we deal with not only Conservatives in our party who consistently vote Republican while registered Democrats, but we also are forced to deal with many in the national party ridiculing our unfunded efforts and writing us off as Democrats. I am sure many Democrats in other parts of the country feel the same way, ignored and powerless.
