More like this, please

By Kathy G.

What Nicholas said.

Earlier this month I had the pleasure of meeting Darcy Burner at Yearly Kos. I attended nearly all of the feminist and women's sessions, and so did she. She was most impressive. Here's what was really cool about Darcy: unlike other candidates, she didn't just swoop in, introduce herself, make her little speech, and swoop out. She stayed. She listened. She seemed to care about what people had to say. And she made valuable contributions to the sessions.

For example, at one of the meetings we decided we wanted to create a wiki of women's media resources. Darcy volunteered her services and website to do this. And guess what? It was up the next day.

A little about Darcy: she's from the Seattle area and was a top executive at Microsoft. She's especially strong on women's issues, the environment, and civil liberties. In 2006 she came very close to beating her Republican opponent. She probably would have won if not for a last-minute dirty tricks operation, in the form of Republican headquarters making upwards of 500,000 phone calls spreading malicious lies about her (telling voters that she was going to be indicted, for example).

You can make a contribution to Darcy's campaign here.

The Morning After

It's nice to finally write one of these election wrap-ups that doesn't have to account for a massive Democratic disappointment. Change is good, right? What it does have to do is punch back against the remarkably coordinated and quick campaign from the right (and sometimes the right includes the left) seeking to paint this election as some sort of victory for...conservatism.

The ideological spectrum is a tricky thing. Take Heath Schuler, exhibit A in the rightwing Democrats meme. He's a cultural conservative, no doubt. But however far right he drifts on those issues -- which, under a Democratic Congress, he won't be voting on because they won't be brought to floor -- he's notably left on economic issues. Today, for instance, he's giving a press conference under the auspices of the United Steelworkers with Great Liberal Hope Sherrod Brown, where they'll discuss the need for new trade policies and their success in making active opposition to NAFTA a winning issue. That's not centrist Democrat. It's not moderate liberal. That's populism, kids, and it's leftier than polite company has allowed for quite some time.

So is Shuler rightwing? Seems like a tough case to me. Sherrod Brown? Liberal as they come. Defeating South Dakota's abortion ban initiative? Passing Missouri's stem cell initiative? All those progressives who toppled liberal Republicans in the Northeast? Somebody think they won in the blue bastions with roaring conservatism? Meanwhile, the most conservative of the serious Democratic challengers this cycle, Harold Ford, went down to defeat. Bravely fought race, tough environs, etc. But with an out-and-out liberal winning Ohio and a right-of-center Democrat losing Tennessee, we're really going to call this election for conservatism?

I don't think so. That distorted interpretation is being promoted by an array of rightwingers and self-styled centrists anxious to constrain the new majority's perceived range of motion. Some of them are conservatives trying to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Others are "centrist" Democrats look to grad defeat from the jaws of victory. Both are, for ideological reasons, afraid that a Democratic majority will govern like...Democrats. And make no mistake: They'll convince no small number of Democrats to eschew any such legislative style. But if the country had wanted a continuation of conservative rule, they would have voted for it. Instead, they voted Democratic. And their elects should give them what they asked for.

What Makes a Liberal?

So various folks are taking well-deserved swings at Geoffrey Stone's "What It Means To Be A Liberal." I find most all such exercises to be tedious and unilluminating, a halfhearted recitation of broadly supportable platitudes and generalities that really boils down to what it means to be a good person, at least politically speaking. The meaning of liberalism, at least so far as it seeks to separate from conservatism, needs to offer points of disagreement between the two. Stone's piece doesn't do much of that -- it doesn't create a liberalism most conservatives would reject. So I'll give it a shot.

Before I do, however, a caveat: There are many types of Democrat, and many of their beliefs conflict with each other. I'm going to use liberal in the sense that it denotes leftists descended from the Progressives and New Dealers, not as it's used to group everyone from Clintonian neoliberals to newly embraced neorealists. So really, this is a rather personal list, and I encourage folks to add their items in comments:

• People Make Mistakes: Personal responsibility is important to encourage, but pursuing it shouldn't blind us to human frailty and error. Folks are not always logical, rational actors able to balance long-term interests and short-term rewards. So if someone doesn't contribute enough to their pension fund, or their health savings account, or whatever, they shouldn't face financial ruin when they get sick or retire. We can craft a society that allows good behaviors to reward, but refuses to abandon those who showed insufficient vision.
• Luck Matters: This is a traditionally Rawlsian viewpoint, and folks interested in it should seek out the source. But the conservative idea that we truly control our destiny is bunk. At this moment in time, with all that you are and have, you may feel pretty autonomous. But intelligence, temperament, looks, and health are, in large part, genetically predetermined. Who you're born to is, assumedly, luck, as is which peer group you fall into. Whether you attend a good school, live in a nice neighborhood, make a stupid mistake, have parents who instill the right routines, and all the rest largely decide whether you're the type of person who, when grown, will work hard, save money, invest in your future, and all the rest. If you are that type of person, it is not necessarily an expression of your virtues, but of your luck -- unfortunately, we see who we are now, not what made us, and so overemphasize our autonomy. Our society too often comforts itself by assuming meritocracy is a fair ideal, rather than an arbitrary sorting mechanism that values certain character traits and intrinsic abilities, some of which we achieve through hard work, but some of which are hardwired or learned before we exercise any autonomy or virtue at all. Because we want a good and vibrant economy, we should always encourage the behaviors which contribute. But we should have a high social floor and expansive safety net in the recognition that there but for fortune go we.
• The Economy isn't All Powerful: The Harvard medical economist Rashi Fein likes to say that we live in a society, not an economy. Liberals should take that dictum seriously. It routinely seems to me that the right assumes whatever boosts economic growth is prima facie beneficial. If corporations are lowering prices by creating efficiencies, that's terrific. If they're doing it by cutting wages, destroying health care, polluting, or a variety of other cost-saving but society-poisoning methods, that's not. Economic growth is important, but so are its roots and distribution. What matters, in the end, aren't the macroeconomic statistics, but the sort of society we live in.
• War Sucks: Lord knows many liberals forget this too, but on the heels of the new Lancet study showing more than 650,000 Iraqis have died as a result of our invasion and occupation, it's worth reminding ourselves the burden of proof should always be against war. The atrocities, cruelties, and uncertainties inherent in all armed conflicts should eternally be pitted against whatever heroic or humanitarian visions we may have of clean interventions and grateful villagers.
• Government is Good and Necessary: Or it should be. Or can be. In a world of massive, multinational corporations and unbelievably wealthy individuals, government is the single force able to aggregate citizen power and advocate for their interests. In an economy that needs countervailing powers, government should be the one on our side. Currently, it's occupied by folks who profess to hate it, but actually press it into serving their corporatist agendas. The answer to that isn't buying into antigovernment rhetoric and hoping to enact social programs by stealth, but to argue for an alternate, positive, and populist conception of what government should be and what it can do.
• Worker Power and Autonomy Matters: Unions are important. Employers already own salaries and self-respect, they shouldn't also control access to medical treatment and secure retirements. The interests of corporations are different, though related, to those of their employees, and so workers need institutions and protections that aid self-advocacy.

So those are a couple, jotted down, and sure to be full of holes and overstatements, But given that I think most conservatives envision a good society that, on some level, looks relatively similar to mine, these are spots where we often differ. But folks should feel free to prove me wrong, or offer more.

Update:

• Equal Rights: Conservatives believe in this as an ideal, but liberals understand that America has a legacy -- and present-day reality -- of discrimination against minorities, women, gays that often requires the coercive power of the state to overcome. To imagine that, as currently constructed, society offers African-Americans equal opportunities, or women equality in the workforce, is a pleasant, but poisonous, delusion.

Update 2: It's probably worth saying that the emphasis on this list is much of the message. On point one, for instance, certainly most conservatives don't believe we should just abandon anyone who slips up. But I think government's emphasis should be on protecting folks from consequences and risks, not increasing their "skin in the game" or vulnerability to the market or financial exposure if they don't save. Indeed, I think only by protecting from risk can we sufficiently encourage risk-taking. See, for instance, my argument that health care should be guaranteed so no one need ever squelch their entrepreneurial instinct because they fear their ability to get antibiotics if they quit their job.

Democrats Hold Their Ground, Win

By Neil the Ethical Werewolf

The Democrats managed to pull of a filibuster Thursday night, shutting down the GOP attempt to cut the estate tax by tying it to a minimum wage increase.  As Mike Caudle explains at the Edwards Blog, it wasn't even a totally legit minimum wage increase -- it would've reduced wages for lots of workers who make money off of tips.  If you're looking for a very inside perspective on this story, there's one at the HotlineBlog about how Maria Cantwell decided to join 41 other Senators for the filibuster, enraging Bill Frist with her refusal to engage in bipartisan dumbness.  Well done, team! 

Losing Joementum

By Neil the Ethical Werewolf

His continued support of the Iraq War and attacks on the patriotism of its opponents are the main reasons for opposing Joe Lieberman, but his history of attacks on fellow Democrats and liberal ideals is much longer.  There was his support of DOMA in 1996, his scolding of Clinton during the impeachment hearings in 1998, his flirtation with private accounts during the early days of the Social Security fight, and his cloture vote on Alito. While his overall voting record isn't bad, it's hard to see Ned Lamont as anything but an upgrade, especially as far as winning media battles is concerned. 

What's really exciting about this race is the message it'll send to safe-state Democrats who may occasionally be driven to Liebermania by the siren song of the anti-partisan media: bashing your party for personal gain is unacceptable, and Democrats in safe seats are expected to do their part in moving the country leftward.  Betrayals of the party and liberal ideals, whether for reasons pragmatic or psychological, may come with the consequence of a primary defeat. 

I generally agree with folks like Petey who think that moderate-seeming Democrats will attract more votes, but Joe Lieberman is the kind of moderate who gives his party a radical image.  Garance has a good post on this.  Criticizing "extremists" in your party and making opponents of the war look like unpatriotic radicals does nothing to help Claire McCaskill and Harold Ford win their Senate races.  By painting a picture of unpatriotic extreme antiwar Democrats, Lieberman damages the party's brand and hurts Democrats everywhere. 

Triangulation makes sense as a strategy for individual candidates, but it's not a strategy that an entire party can engage in.  In a country with an established two-party system, the media will define the space of moderate opinion relative to the parties themselves.  No party will be able to gain a lasting reputation for moderation by compromising and moving towards its opponents. All that'll happen is that the space of moderation will be narrowed, and opinions that previously were considered moderate will be regarded as extreme. 

Consider the idea of invading Iraq.  Even setting aside the WMD issue, it's hard to imagine that early poll numbers in favor of invading would've been high if we were under a responsible Republican administration that itself rejected the idea of invasion as ridiculous.  Support for the war would then fall outside the range of acceptable moderate opinion.  This analysis applies better to new issues where minds aren't made up than old ones where most people have come to a firm opinion, but on things like foreign policy proposals and judicial nominations, we need to realize that the battle of public opinion is still out there to be won.  Lieberman must not be allowed to sabotage Democrats by narrowing the space of moderation so that our views look extreme. 

I don't want my safe-seat Democrats triangulating into moderate positions.  I want them to explore new territory on the left, so that when our Arkansas and Nebraska Senators triangulate off of them, they end up in positions that are fairly good, or at least non-destructive.  And that's why I have no use for Joe Lieberman.  Where Lamont would stretch the field leftward as a moderate personality with progressive views, Lieberman compresses it and perpetuates negative stereotypes of Democrats.  It's time to remove him from politics, and threaten anyone who follows his path with a similar fate. 

Speaker Pelosi!

By Neil the Ethical Werewolf

A couple interesting things out of the Prospect discussion with Nancy Pelosi are worth mentioning.  First, she seems to be pretty excited about the possibility of using the subpoena power of a House majority to launch investigations of the Bush Administration. 

And one of the great triumphs of our victory in November will be the power of the subpoena. This is a Congress that is not only a rubberstamp for the President, but has abdicated its responsibility, derelict in its responsibility for oversight. [inaudible] The power to investigate, the power to subpoena will show the American people how far they were willing to go for their own agenda at the expense of the lives of our kids, the limbs of our kids, a trillion-dollar war, the cost to our reputation around the world. [inaudible] Very calmly, very calmly, when we win, we will assume the duties of the legislative branch, the first branch of government. We will have a system of checks and balances that is called for in our Constitution and abandoned by this Congress.

This is exactly what I'm hoping for.  As I've argued before, massive investigations of Bush Administration malfeasance could be useful in doing long-term damage to the Republican Party.  I'm not quite as hot on impeachment as some people are -- I'm happy to settle for laying out lots of Bush scandals for the American people to see, and making the point that these are what you get if you let Republicans run the country.  Bush will be around for just two more years; Republicans will be around somewhat longer.  (By the way, what's with all the [inaudible] in the transcript?  Ezra, do you need to send your people shopping for some higher-quality recording equipment?  Or was Pelosi whispering so that NSA bugs wouldn't pick up her plans?) 

One of Pelosi's achievements that she referred to a couple times was preventing individual Democrats from all coming out with their own plans back in the Social Security privatization days.  Rather than having a bunch of different plans and muddling the party's message in the media, or even having one Democratic plan and conceding the necessity of damaging the federal government's most financially secure program in response to a made-up crisis, Pelosi and Reid got their caucuses to just say no to privatization.  You can read Matt Yglesias' classic post on why this was absolutely the right political decision for Democrats at the time.  What Matt's talking about is exactly what Pelosi did, and it's why we won. 
 

Harry Wins Again

By Neil the Ethical Werewolf

Just because it combines the two things I've been talking about this weekend -- immigration and the newfound competence of the Democratic leadership -- I'm linking to Kevin Drum's discussion of how Harry Reid saw through Bill Frist's web of deceit and ensured that the Republicans wouldn't be able to pass an evil Frankenstein version of the immigration bill.  Matt's right that this hurts the Republicans more than it hurts us. 

Million Buck Chuck and the Democratic Leadership

By Neil the Ethical Werewolf

Two great articles came out this week about the people at the top of the Democratic Party.  One is Ryan Lizza's profile of Chuck Schumer, the second is Amy Sullivan's piece on the Democratic leadership.  If you're looking for something that'll put a little bounce in your trot and make you a happy little donkey, I'd suggest reading both. 

Lizza's article shows you how much Schumer has already done to make sure we're playing offense, not defense, in the Senate this year.  After the 2004 defeat, I remember looking at the 2006 Senate calendar with dread -- we're defending more seats than Republicans are, and many of them are deep in GOP country. Schumer turned crisis into opportunity by trading favors to make sure that popular Democratic incumbents stayed in the Senate, and by dropping huge money on Democrats in time to scare off Republican challengers.  Take the example of Nebraska:

In Nebraska, another vulnerable red-stater, Ben Nelson, wanted to scare off a challenge from Governor Mike Johanns. Nelson came to Schumer and Reid in late 2004 and told them that if he could raise $1 million in one month, Johanns wouldn’t challenge him. Schumer personally tapped his own base of New York donors, many of whom had never heard of Nelson. They coughed up tens of thousands of dollars. In his last Senate election campaign, Nelson raised a total of $50,395 from New Yorkers; this cycle, he’s already netted $130,500. His ratio of Nebraska money to New York money used to be thirteen to one. Now it’s three to one. Sure enough, a month after the fund-raising blitz began, and with $1 million in the bank, Johanns decided to join the Bush administration as secretary of Agriculture, and other top Republicans in the state declined to enter the race.

Similar things happened in North Dakota, where the most popular governor in America declined to challenge Democrat Kent Conrad.  Schumer has recruited excellent Democratic candidates across the country.  I rather liked the story of how he recruited Claire McCaskill to run in Missouri by schmoozing with her reluctant husband.  And though the article doesn't make it clear exactly how this is happening, his agents seem to have been weakening Conrad Burns in Montana by circulating anti-Burns stories in the local press.  Schumer hasn't been perfect -- I really think he should've picked up Barbara Hafer instead of Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, and perhaps he could've averted the Hackett-Brown car accident in Ohio (though I think that Brown really is the guy we want in the end, and Schumer was right to prefer him).  All in all, though, he's had a big role in shaping the 2006 Senate picture for the better. 

One of the major themes of Sullivan's piece is how the media tends not to credit Democrats who inflict serious damage on the Bush Administration.  Schumer emerges as a hero here too, for masterminding the Dubai port scandal:

If you read the press coverage of the story, you would have thought the issue surfaced on its own. In fact, however, the story was a little grenade rolled into the White House bunker by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). No one was aware of the port deal until Schumer—who had been tipped off by a source in the shipping industry—held a press conference, and another, and another until the press corps finally paid attention. As for Schumer, he popped up in news reports about the deal, but almost always as a “critic of the administration,” not as the initiator of the entire episode.

It's one of the big problems with being in the minority -- if you do something awesome, the media just says that it happened, not that you did it.  And if any Republicans show up to help you out, they get the credit.  The ban on torture is regarded as John McCain's doing, and the Democrats who backed it are invisible. 

I liked what Sam Rosenfeld had to say about the Democratic leadership, in his comment on the Sullivan article:

compared to both recent and much more longstanding historical precedent, the current Democratic opposition has not only been disciplined and unified, but effective. Improvements can always be made, but it's simple ignorance to portray the state of the congressional caucuses under Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi as indistinguishable from what we saw under Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt in the early Bush years or, for that matter, what we saw from Democrats during the 1990s, when first Democratic congressional majorities confirmed Clarence Thomas and completely flubbed a major opportunity for universal healthcare legislation, then later Democratic congressional minorities joined ranks with Republicans on any number of illiberal, corporate-friendly initiatives. The current Democratic caucus is more ideologically unified, more disciplined in their votes, and on most scores more liberal than it has been in recent history.

The Gore-Leaf Clover that I Overlooked Be-Gore

by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math

I found Ezra's Gore article fascinating, but I ended up somewhat bearish on his Presidential ambitions  (Gore's, that is; Ezra, when you're ready to become the First Jewish President, let me know if you need a field director or a pollster). That is, I'm not entirely sure he's running for President. The first reason is that upon assuming the Presidency, if not during the campaign, he would be forced by political pressure to end his work with Current TV and other media enterprises. The main reason, though, is same reason I think some of Ezra's latest comments land off the mark:

No longer. Dean -- unlike Bill Bradley, or John McCain, or Gary Hart -- did not win any of the early primaries. He lost them. What was unique about his insurgency is that he went from darkest, quietest horse to frontrunner in a matter of months, without winning a single state. He did it through direct communication with the small core of party activists who can singlehandedly make a candidacy. And they made his, until poor ads, some major gaffes, and an overly-mational focus lost him Iowa. But in 2008, that core will enlarge, and the media will be watching them closely. Win them over, and you might well win the nomination.

First of all, Bradley didn't win any primaries. He gave Gore a scare in New Hampshire, but exit polls showed Bradley winning wealthy Democrats and young Democrats, while Gore carried the stolid working class demographics that he rode to victory in states that have fewer "yippies". Political observers knew it was all over after New Hampshire. (Similary, Paul Tsongas's pyrrhic victory in New Hampshire follows similar trends, though Clinton had to dig himelf out of a much bigger hole).

Second, the proof seems to be in the pudding. As Ezra concedes, every candidate who seeks to excite the activist base ends up losing primaries. Hart's campaign came the closest to winning, but we need to remember that it was Jerry Brown and Paul Tsongas who sought the yuppie/yippie vote in 1992. The Trippi/Dean/Klein theory of Presidential campaigns suggests that the Internet allows candidates to get their message to activists at a blindingly fast pace, creating a giant network to influence the main news narratives of the day. But why should Gore have an advantage heredel? In 2008, unlike Dean in '04, Gore would have to compete for activists' bandwidth (literally) with Edwards, Feingold, Clark, and others, each with their own internet loyalists. And social stratification means that heavy internet users -- who have more formal education, higher incomes, and are more likely to be urban and single -- won't spend that much time talking about politics working class voters with a high school or maybe a two-year college degree. So I just don't see MoveOn and similar "viral marketing" techniques being able to "infect" the entire nation.

Coincidentally, Ezra's article is up for debate on the same day that Mark Penn writes an op-ed in the Washington Post on the continued importance of swing voters. Penn -- who was Clinton's pollster in 1996 and is currently Hillary's pollster -- points out that these voters are the anti-activists: "[t]he two or three or 10 voters who are the quietest in focus groups, who never demonstrate and who belong to no political party ...". But that doesn't make their votes less important on election day. So while I love Gore's attempts to create a more community driven media environment, and his challenge to the notion that objectivity the holy grail of professional journalism, I don't think it's the start of his Presidential campaign.

Everybody Screwed Up. Including Russ Feingold.

By Neil the Ethical Werewolf

Lots of people are upset about the Democrats’ initial performance on the resolution to censure Bush for his illegal wiretapping, and they’re right to be. From what I know of FISA, wiretapping without following the laughably easy conditions for getting a warrant (you can seek your warrant after you wiretap) is illegal and inexcusable. The censure resolution is totally right on the merits. The politics is a tighter issue, but a slight plurality of Americans seem to agree with it. So we need to step up and make our case. Most Democrats have better things to run on, but most Democrats don’t have to do very much to help us use this against GOP Senators from tough states. Which is just a long-winded way of saying – I agree, mostly, with Digby.   At least as far as the first week is concerned, Senate Democrats were painful to watch.

But Digby and I part ways when it comes to Feingold’s tactic of launching the censure resolution without giving the other Democrats any advance notice:

It's apparently true that Feingold didn't consult with the party. But considering the response I can sort of see his point. They are so unimaginative and so sluggish that he didn't see the use in playing the party game. If party coodination means being forced to wait for them to hold plodding press conferences about x-raying cargo boxes, then it's hard to see why anyone who wants to take the fight to the Republicans would bother.

Digby, it’s not 2002 anymore. There’s been a change in leadership, and the new leaders of our party managed to – with a clear minority in each chamber – completely wreck a freshly re-elected president’s biggest second-term proposal. United Democrats fought like hell against Social Security Privatization, and they ended up winning the biggest defensive victory in American politics since the GOP took down Clinton’s health care plan in 1994. Harry Reid’s donkey is a completely different animal from the one that Tom Daschle used to ride. Remember Bill Frist foaming at the mouth when Harry closed the Senate chamber back in the fall? Reid’s influence puts more fight into Democrats, not less – after the botched hearings, he was urging them not to rule out filibustering Alito until they had caucused, and they came out of their caucuses with a lot more fight than they went in with. Sure, they lost that one, but the effect of the Senate leadership and the big meeting was positive, not negative.

In other words, there’s no excuse for going around Harry Reid. Yes, maybe you’ll have to sit through a couple plodding press conferences on x-raying cargo boxes while we scrape off a couple extra points on national security. Maybe the censure plan will be pushed to another week and you’ll have to do it in May rather than March. Big deal. Go through the Senate leadership, and when the time comes, Democrats will be confident, not confused. And the problem here is more confusion than cowardice. Today’s Democrats can fight and win gutsy battles against the administration, and they have – they just need to be totally sure about the plan before they charge. Sure, it’s sad that they lack the minimal level of instinct that it takes to fight and win on the fly.  Similarly, it’s sad that some people are missing legs. But we don’t take away their crutches.

Russ Feingold didn’t go through Harry Reid. He grabbed the censure weapon while nobody was looking, and nobody knew until he had already fired it. Rather than a bunch of Democrats standing behind him, everyone was staring at each other wondering, “what just happened?” With planning, we could’ve fitted a media strategy around this to force hard choices on DeWine and Chafee and other GOP Senators with tough re-election prospects.  Maybe a good strategy from here on can still get us there.  (And maybe Harry Reid's "worst president ever" line is an early bit of that strategy.)  But at this point, we're going to have to build that strategy off of a botched opening. 

Now, Russ is no dummy. (If he was, I wouldn’t have bought futures on him winning the nomination over at Tradesports. His gimmick jumped them from 3.2 to 4.9.) He knows how his party does business, and he knew how this would play out. Which leads me to think that he didn’t really care about giving Democrats any advance warning and making this censure thing go right. More likely, he set it up to get the Democratic confusion that he wanted. He was perfectly happy to make dramatic speeches while his party looked silly, criticize them on Fox News (and he was quick – big speech on Monday, Fox on Tuesday), and provide the perfect backdrop for his 2008 protest candidacy. As a piece of personal political strategy, it was pretty darned good. I just wish Russ Feingold would just use that sort of smart tactical thinking on behalf of his party, and his country, rather than himself.

The Democrats must not allow a biography gap

By Lance Mannion.

Accidents will happen, but as any Freudian will tell you, there are accidents, and then there are self-destructive moments when you unconsciously conspire with Fate, circumstance, a few beers, and a shot gun to reveal the whole of your twisted inner psyche to the world as if seized by a heavenly desire to stand on the Salem scaffold, confess it all, and show the assembled congregation the great big scarlet A on your chest.

A for Asshole.

Dick Cheney appears to have had one of those accidents.  Over the last week everything rotten, seamy, dangerous, and threatening in his character seems to have summed itself up in one perfect, symbolic story.   The fable of his life has been written and you'd think that from here on out, wherever he goes, he will be held in the universal contempt he's so determinedly earned.  But probably not.  I think he may get away with it.

The story is just too good a story.

,As I said, everything rotten about Cheney has been on display all week.  His arrogance, his hypocrisy, his innate dishonesty, his sense of entitlement, his swaggering certainty that the laws as written do not apply to him, he can obey them to whatever degree he feels like, and the police as his personal flunkeys will bow and scrape and follow his orders.  His carelessness about others, his placing of his self-regard and reputation above another man's life.  The circumstances that set up the accident show up the material corruption of the man.  Canned hunts are the most childish, wasteful, and brutal way for a spoiled rich man to indulge himself.  My god, if you can't think of a better method for throwing away your money, then just keep it in the vault and go down and count it in the dark every night, at least that's a form of avarice that pays homage to the virtue of thrift.

It's all perfect, in the way perfect stories are perfect.  Chekhov couldn't have written one more revealing, although he came spookily close.

But that's the trouble.  People love good stories and they react to the true ones with the same excitement and sympathy with which we react to the made up ones.   We love stories for the way they entertain us, but we also love them for the lessons we learn from them, and the best stories all teach the same thing, that human beings are flawed and weak and deserve understanding and pity.  They encourage tolerance and foregiveness.

The story of the shooting shows up Dick Cheney as a rotten human being.  But it shows him as a human being.  He's easier to hate as an abstraction.

We can despise someone and sympathize with him.

I don't know what will come of all this.  I think that those of us to whom Cheney is a clear-cut villain might very well wind up as frustrated as the Clinton haters who were sure that Monica would be the end of Bill.  The Lewinsky Scandal was another great story---I'm still surprised there's been no good novel written about it yet.---and Monica and Bill turned out to be sympathetic characters.  Ken Starr made a convincing villain.

I don't know if Cheney will be saved by the story that should damn him, but this has me thinking about one of the problems Democrats have.  Republicans these days seem to make better stories.

I don't mean that they are better at telling stories, which they are, as many a blogger and pundit has pointed out.

I mean that their lives make for better stories.

Not because they're better people.  Just the opposite.  But flawed, weak, sinful, and vice-ridden people are more interesting characters.

I'll have to expand on this idea later.

For now, to put it simply, look at the comparative biographies of George Bush and John Kerry.

George Bush's biography makes a great story---with a terrible moral.  It's still a fascinating story, full of chills, thrills, and suspense---How much more harm can the man do?

But after his days leading the Vietnam Vets against the War, when he settled down to his career as a lawyer and politician, John Kerry's biography makes...

A great resume.

Cross-posted at my place.

 

The (D) Is the Part That Matters

By Neil the Ethical Werewolf

NARAL's endorsement of Lincoln Chafee gets so much discussion because it lets us talk about an issue on which everybody has strong feelings -- how should progressive groups regard the Democratic Party? Given the sad history of the Daschle-era Senate Democrats, it's understandable that lots of people worry that the Democrats aren't willing to fight for liberal causes. But a close look at the Alito nomination makes it clear that the only way progressives will get anywhere is by donkey.

Anybody who counted on the supposed GOP moderates for help was sorely disappointed. Of the four Republican Senators -- Specter, Snowe, Collins, and Chafee -- who are regarded as moderates, only Chafee was willing to vote against Alito on the floor. Nobody voted for a filibuster, and Specter cast the deciding vote to help Alito through the Judiciary committee.

But here's the question that I find the most interesting: How many more Senate Democrats would it have taken to stop Alito? 9, counting down from the 58-42 confirmation vote, is the wrong answer. The right answer is probably 6. (If Durbin really had 37 people willing to filibuster if they could get 41, maybe the number is even lower.) That's how many we need for a majority in the Senate. If you have a majority in the Senate, you get a majority on every single Senate committee. Assuming another party-line confirmation vote in the Judiciary Committee, Alito goes down.

Importantly, it doesn't matter what the substantive views of these 6 Democrats are. Replace the six most pro-choice Senate Republicans with six anti-choice Democrats, and as long as these six Democrats don't get seats on the Judiciary Committee, it's the end of the Alito nomination. No matter what the substantive views of Senate candidates are, the simple fact that they're Democrats gives you very strong reasons to support them. You're not just voting for Bob Casey. You're voting for Pat Leahy to lead a Democratic majority on Judiciary, Carl Levin to lead a Democratic majority on Armed Services, Chris Dodd to replace Trent Lott on Rules, and Robert Byrd to take the Appropriations goodie bag away from Lott's Mississippi pal Thad Cochran. The increased power that liberals get out of a conservative Democrat's victory can be awesome.

This isn't to say that we should stop caring about the substantive views of candidates. Kos' interventions on behalf of the progressive Ciro Rodriguez against conservative Democrat Henry Cuellar are exactly the sort of thing I like to see. (You especially don't want guys like Cuellar gaining seniority and power, so that they're running committees and pushing people around. Though if Specter is any guide, committee chairmen with heterodox views can be controlled.) But what I've learned from the Alito story is that control of Senate committees is huge, and that's something brought to you by the letter (D).

Lieberman: Politics and Policy

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math

I'm sure lots of readers are excited about the fresh batch of rumors that Lieberman will face a serious
primary challenge, but someone really needs to bring out the wet blanket; exactly zero news outlet have gotten anyone on the record on Ned Lamont. And even if the rumors were true, it's not clear that it would even matter.

On policy matters, Lieberman isn't really all that bad. He's just a hair to the right of being in the center-left of the party, with other Democratic Senators like Joe Biden (DE), Jeff Bingaman (NM), and Maria Cantwell (WA). He's a strong defender of the environment, and he has no desire to dismantle the entire regulatory state. On some economic matters, he's a bit to the right of my personal preferences, but on basic questions of who should be taxed, whether the government ought to provide certain services, and so forth, he's a stand-up guy. On close votes you could probably twist his arm if need be.

That's the upside; the downside is his dissent into unwavering hawkishness on Iraq, his moralizing posture on pop culture (he was bashing Grand Theft Auto before Hillary made it cool), and his perpetual Sistah Souljah-esque efforts to distance himself from prominent Democrats. So with his latest round of "maverick" quotes, even though he's at least partially correct, it's hard to take him seriously; it's just another instance of Lieberman trying to burnish his credibility as an "independent". Is it worth drumming Lieberman from office with a primary? That depends on how much you think his schtick harms the Democratic brand. Reasonable people can disagree on that point.

Whether or not its a good idea, it's close to impossible; Lieberman is enormously popular in his home state. In the latest SurveyUSA poll, taken after the last set of "Holy Joe" quotes, Lieberman enjoys majority support among all Democrats; even among self-described liberals (!). He has enough chits in the favor bank that he could raise fistfuls of money from the insurance and financial services industry. And large chunks of the state party establishment would likely stand by his side after all he has done for them (for instance, preserving Amtrak's historical routes through umpteen different townships in Eastern Connecticut, thus making the Boston-New York or Providence-New York train ride much longer than it needs to be). So let's find some other way to bring Lieberman back into the Reality-Based Community, and spend the money that would have gone to his primary challenger on, say, Harris Miller's Senate campaign against George Allen.

What the Ohio Senate Discussion Should Be About

By Neil the Ethical Werewolf

After reading the Majikthise-Dadahead exchange on Paul Hackett, I'm not especially happy with the arguments of either side.  I haven't yet decided who I want to win the Ohio Senate primary, though I'm leaning towards Brown.  (Like everybody else, I donated to Hackett's House race this year.)  Below, I'm going to criticize both of their arguments, and present the state of the debate as I see it.  I'm open to being convinced, but I don't think the arguments given so far are convincing. 

Lindsay says that "The reason to support Hackett over Brown is simple -- if Hackett wins (and he can win), the progressive blogosphere makes history."  She discusses Hackett's "ability to harness the power of the blogosphere" and says that he "owes the blogosphere."  These arguments really don't move me.  I care about helping poor people, preserving individual liberties from persecution, and having an intelligent and humane foreign policy.  The progressive blogosphere making history is not very high on my list of interests.  Even if it was, Hackett's Senate campaign is unlikely to be as closely tied to progressive blogs as his House campaign. 

Hackett was able to harness progressive blogs because he was an aggressive opponent of the Iraq War whose military record made him surprisingly electable in a very red district.  It's also because of the structure of a special election -- there were no other candidates that month to compete for bloggers' money, the relative news vacuum got Hackett national media attention, and some bloggers (like myself) saw fit to exploit the news vacuum by filling it with an attractive candidate's message, which would reflect well on Democrats.  Many of these factors don't apply to the 2006 Senate race.  Maybe a Hackett Senate campaign will get more money than his House campaign got, but he won't get enough to power a hard-fought Senate race in a big state while bloggers are also donating to defeat Katherine Harris and Rick Santorum, win open Senate seats in several states, and take back the House.  It's also possible that a Hackett campaign might draw funds away from other important races. 

Dadahead has criticized Hackett for claiming that Brown is "too liberal."  If Hackett had actually said anything like this, it would be a problem -- I like liberal Democrats, and I dislike any Democrat who tries to damage another Democrat's electability by making them seem extreme. But it's not clear that Hackett actually said this.  Dadahead gets his quote from David Sirota, who cites a sloppy Toledo Blade article in which Hackett is never quoted as saying any such thing.  The reporter puts the "too liberal" charge in Hackett's mouth, but doesn't present any quotes to substantiate it.  What Hackett actually seems to be saying is just that he'll have a wider appeal: 

"I believe in the core values of the Democratic Party," Mr. Hackett said. "I'm not afraid to fight for them and my values. Some of them are conservative, including on Second Amendment rights.

"A Democrat in Ohio can get all of the Democratic votes in the northeastern and central parts of the state and still not get elected," he said. "It's got to be somebody who believes in the values of all Ohioans, and that takes winning over independents and conservatives."

So he's conservative on the gun issue.  If you're big on gun control, vote for Brown.  But I don't see the "too liberal" charge anywhere, except in the vague "values of all Ohioans" way that only touches Brown by a faint implicature.  Maybe Sirota knows more than we do about this.  But given his egregious history of misrepresenting the positions of Democrats he disagrees with, I'm not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. 

Hackett's military background will be resistant to the kinds of attacks that Republicans wheeled in against Kerry.  Hackett's cocky, aggressive attitude meshes much better with his military background than Kerry's stiff, senatorial persona did with his, and it'll earn Hackett a powerful media image.  While Americans didn't see the relevance of Kerry's Vietnam service 30+ years ago to his attitude to Iraq today, Hackett's more recent service in Iraq gives him instant credibility on that issue.   

To make my decision about whom to support, I'll need to know more about the candidates.  I like Hackett's public persona, which will help him unseat DeWine.  I also like the idea of having a somewhat stereotypical military man aggressively defending Democratic foreign policy views and strengthening our party's image on national defense.  But he has to show me that he will actually be a strong force for liberal positions.  (Somebody ask him about health care, please?)  As for Brown, I'm in near-total agreement with his voting record -- I'm probably more of a free-trader than he is, but everything else, including his vote against the war and his support for foreign aid, looks pretty much right.  I've heard great things about the organization he's set up in Ohio, which will help him beat DeWine.  Brown still has to show me that he has an appealing enough public persona to win the election and help Democrats win media battles as a Senator. 

So try to convince me.  Tell me what Hackett's policy positions are, and tell me what kind of persona Brown has.  Those are the areas that I and other  undecided folk are in the dark about, and it's  up to these candidates and their  supporters to enlighten us.   

Bringing a Knife to a Knife Fight

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math

Machiavellian liberals are stepping up their game and deciding that being the play-nice-party, while it may make you feel good, doesn't necessarily help win elections.

Ten months ago, Washington's governor's race was a dead heat. The incumbent retired, and Dino Rossi (R) had made the best challenge to the office in 20 years, and appeared to lead Christine Gregoire (D) by a few hundred votes. After one recount, the lead was down to 42 votes. On the second recount, Gregoire took the lead, saved by an 80 vote swing in King County, home of the city of Seattle. She won the election by 10 votes, or 123 votes if you count a box full of ballots that were found. Talk radio went ballistic. Right-leaning conspiracy types -- you know, the ones who think FEMA is going to land black helicopters in their Idaho ranch, confiscate their property, and turn it over to the UN -- channeled their rage at the appearance of botched ballot handling in King County and made endless unfounded allegations of fraud in county, complete with the state Republican Party chair waving McCarthy-esque lists of felon voters, dead voters, and people who voted twice, all of which turned out to be a lot of hot air. To anyone who's spent any time east of the Mississippi, I need to emphasize how squeaky clean our politicians are; we voted two city council members out of office because they took legal campaign contributions from a strip club owner who wanted zoning changes to give him more parking spaces, had off-the-record meetings with said owner, then returned money that was later discovered to have been laundered through family members, and held. That constitutes "scandal" out here. The idea that King County Executive Ron Sims (D) would have a Democratic leaning political machine is absurd; he'd be voted out of office by all of our state's good government advocates. But that didn't stop the unfounded fraud insinuations. First the GOP tried to demand a recount, and when that didn't work, they tried to prosecute their way into the Governor's Mansion. Frivolous lawsuit, you say? I hear you.

Fast forward to today. The GOP and reactionary talk radio have continued to stoke the fires of outrage. They've abused our special-interest-dominated ballot initative process to push a revenue cut that will halt needed road construction and repairs -- basic da-jab-of-da-guvament-is-ta-get-da-people-ta-werk stuff -- to help boost turnout. And they've found another Rossi-esque figure to run against Ron Sims for King County Executive in David Irons (R), who, like Rossi, studiously avoids taking concrete positions on as many things as he possibly can. For the first time in ages, this election is going to be close.

Center-left bloggers have scooped the local print media, as David Irons own mother has gone on the record with accounts of incidents where Irons hit her. In addition, she's help uncover cases of resume padding and campaign dirty tricks during Irons first race for the County Council. The story has broken into wider circulation, with an article on page 1 of the local section and several talk radio appearances. It's also earned him an endorsement from the pro-family Jesus' General. BoBo's world, indeed.

Elsewhere, in the Virginia governor's race, I cannot help but think that the Tim Kaine (D) campaign picked the words "Sugar Daddy" for one of their attack ads with good reason. Jerry Kilgore's (R) voice is way too effeminate for rural Virginia, and is part of the reason the campaign has kept him out of the limelight as much as possible.

On the one hand, it feels a little strange to air a family's dirty laundry in a political campaign. On the other, voters do use these sort of character issues to decide who to vote for. Why, then, shouldn't a candidate get a chance to attack on questions of character? Why let her opposition create whatever persona they think will serve them best in the election? Shouldn't she be able to paint her own picture of how they will behave in office. Bill Clinton decried the politics of personal destruction, but he trashed Quayle for not knowing how to spell potato, he ridiculed H.W. Bush for his lack of vision, and he made Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich look like heartless, nasty, creatures who crawled out of some tobacco industry laboratory. This stuff matters, and if you can make it related to the issues at hand (as Clinton did with the callous budget cuts proposed by Dole & Gingrich), it's certainly fair game.

Gephardt Repents

RonK at the Next Hurrah had a sit-down with Dick Gephardt in which Gephardt admitted to being wrong on Iraq. Good stuff, and well worth a read. I'd suggest that Gephardt's sin wasn't his support for the war but his rather craven, campaign-minded undercutting of Democratic opposition on the issue, and that's the part, not his personal feelings, that really matters. Nevertheless, it's great to see the guy admit his called it incorrectly, and hopefully Gep's example will serve as warning to future Democrats -- simply going along with war is not an automatically good political move, no matter what the punditocracy is telling you.

Now if we could only get a few more of these admissions...

Three Democratic Wishes

By Neil the Ethical Werewolf

Suppose you had the money and power to start three small liberal organizations -- 527 groups, think tanks, PACs, ninja strike teams, or whatever. What would they be? Leave your answers in the comments if you like. Here are the answers that come to my mind:

1. A 527 group devoted to publicizing problems with the current health care system and paving the way for single-payer.

2. An institute to promote the liberal Christian leaders of the future. It would give a few promising young religious lefties summer internships and post-college jobs, allowing them to network with each other and the rest of the liberal community.

3. A publishing house aimed at giving lucrative book contracts to Democrats who have done great deeds on the party's behalf without adequate compensation. It's not so much for the books themselves, but to set up some financial incentives for valor.

(I realize that our Republican readers will be tempted to suggest groups like "People For Yelling Really Loud Whenever Howard Dean Talks, So Nobody Can Hear Him." Okay, if you've got something amusing to say, you can play too.)

Respect Her Authoritah!

Via Matt, Jonah Goldberg's making some very, very strange points:

I feel a bit sorry for liberals when it comes to Nancy Pelosi. I think among leading Democrats of the last decade or so, she inspires the least respect from her ideological enemies, and deservedly so.

Oh dear God. This coming from a guy whose party is led by a soon-to-be-indicted exterminator, a partially-evolved wrestling coach, and a weak-willed surgeon who conducted a psychic telediagnosis of a comatose political prop that turned out to be wrong. Some Democrats may respect DeLay's ruthlessness, but thinking the majority leader is a political criminal doesn't strike me as the sort of respect Goldberg's talking about. So far as I know, nobody thinks Hastert is anything but an animatronic apparatchik, and I can't think of anyone in contemporary politics who engenders less respect than Frist.

As it happens, all the Democrats I know are quite pleased with Pelosi. I wish she'd give up doing those post-SOTU speeches, but as a party leader and legislative tactician, I've been very impressed with her performance. And that's coming from someone who supported Harold Ford's quixotic play for the post. Meanwhile, in Corner-land, only Jonah Goldberg could possibly pity liberals for the psychic toll Jonah Goldberg's poor opinion of Pelosi must exact. That's a truly heroic level of self-regard. So far as I'm concerned, animus from Tom DeLay and hostility from right-wing rags are a hell of an endorsement for Pelosi's job performance.

Feingold on Health Care

I talked yesterday about how liberals are losing the essential arguments for health care in this country. The day before, I went to a forum with Russ Feingold. His speech was mainly on Iraq, but he mentioned that the top domestic concern of his constituents was health care so, when Q&A came, I asked how he'd fix it. His answer shows where we've fallen to. This is paraphrased, but accurate:

I've always been for single payer. In the Senate, it was me and Paul Wellstone, we sponsored the bill. But recently, I came to the same conclusion Paul did towards the end of his life, which is that we need to establish a universal floor, but after that, give each state full autonomy over their programs. We don't need a big federal bureaucracy doing this, we need to rely, instead, on the "genius of the states" and let them experiment and decide what's best.

Let's break that down a bit. He's for single payer. His alliance with Wellstone is used to give that cred. But when he gets into his actual plan, he needs to reinvoke Wellstone because the idea, while progressive in some respects, is quite conservative in others, and is in any case bad. Using Paul's name heads off arguments that it's illiberal.

Wellstone's name aside, Feingold consciously adopts two conservative arguments here. The first, that federal bureaucracy is bad, and the second, that states can do it better. Neither make any sense outside a fear of being labeled a big-government liberal. Structurally, fracturing the system across 50-states is absurd. The genius of some states is more than matched by the idiocy of others. And now each gets to take an IQ test with your health care cdependent on the outcome. So Alabama has HSA's, California single-payer, etc? How is that funded? Does CA pay for Alabama's sick? Does everyone pay the same no matter their system? Do the states fight with the fed for money, as they do now with Medicare? Every time you move, do you need to enter a wholly new and unfamiliar system? And considering all the problems with integration, all the new positions that couldn't be standardized across the board, and all the variation across systems, how is this not a much more byzantine bureaucracy we're creating?

Feingold, like other liberals, is afraid. So he promises single-payer but promises it won't be the federal government's. Which doesn't make sense. But liberals, for now, aren't allowed to make sense. We know, or think we know, the direction we should be going in, but lingering nightmares from 1994 have taught us to keep those naughty thoughts to ourselves. Deep down, I've little doubt that Russ knows the government needs a united system to bargain effectively, to reduce administrative costs, to ensure easy portability, to make the system work. That doesn't mean states can't have any freedom, but they can't have total license to go whichever way Haley Barbour, Jeb Bush, or, for you Republicans, Bill Richardson, wants to.

Feingold's heart is in the right place, but his fear's leaving the product incoherent. As he said on Iraq, someone needs to break the taboo over talking about withdrawal. Well, if he runs for president, someone needs to break the Party's taboo on speaking truth about health care. And after the firestorm he started on Iraq, I can't think of anyone more experienced at that kind of thing. Here's hoping he gives Wellstone another read and takes the assignment.

Next at Bat: Russ Feingold

In recent weeks, we've been talking a fair amount about how no prominent Democrats are standing up to give voice to the "withdrawal" movement. Well, that changed today. Russ Feingold is calling for a pull-out date of December 31st, 2006, and, so far as I can tell, he's going to do so loudly. Yesterday, I was invited to two major national security speeches and a media Q&A Russ is giving in Los Angeles early next week. So he's definitely taking the message nationwide and is, if I can speculate, hoping to use hist "firstness" on the topic to carve out a Deanesque maverick position in advance of 2008. Interesting stuff. I will, of course, have more on this after next week's events.

Update: It'll be interesting, as Kevin notes, to see how the Biden/Clinton wing reacts. If they're solicitous of the move and publicly supportive of the motivations behind it, you'll know that a) the polls have got to them and b) they're hedging their bets. If they condemn it and say something about not aiding the insurgency, you'll know they're a bunch of douches determined to avoid another VIetnam-style meltdown of the party's national security credentials. What concerns me is that that second reaction, the condemnations and protests of anti-insurgency strength, are actually much more dangerous for the party. A serious hawk/dove split within the party where the establishment sits with the hawks and the base runs to the doves and turns violently against the war-lovin' establishment is essentially what happened in 68, and it's not the sort of thing that's good for the party.

RFK, Man of Confidence?

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math

Ezra (?) writes:

What struck me about Shakespeare's Sister's post wasn't that she was a girl playing video games, but that she'd articulated what I miss in video games, what I miss in culture, what I miss in politics. I miss heroes, and the sort of society that wants to see them. I want an RFK* to stand up and fight injustice ...

* A tortured soul if there ever was one, but not publicly.

Bwuh? Robert F. "I dream things that never were, and ask why not" Kennedy wasn't publicly a tortured soul? Bobby "I have come here because our great nation is troubled" Kennedy? Bobby "There is difficulty and division in the land" Kennedy? I could go on, but eventually I will shoot all the fish in the barrel.

Kennedy's 1968 Presidential campaign consisted entirely of his attempts to excise his liberal guilt. Here he is, the great New England patriarch, speaking with the Black Panthers and later the migrant workers in California, visiting Indian reservations, talking about the struggle of class inequality and eliminating hunger in the United States (which was a much larger problem then that it was today, partially because living standards in the South were closer to 60% of the national average, rather than 80% or 90% as they are today). He walked into a room full of med students and told them all that his health care plan would reduce their salaries. "Let me say something about the tone of these questions ..." he continued. "Part of a civilized society is to let people go to medical schools who come from ghettos ... it's the poor who carry the major burden in Vietnam". His path to victory in most primaries involved getting horsewhipping majorities among African-Americans, Native Americans, and in poor rural areas; he fared worst in states like Oregon that were largely white and middle class. RFK's opposition to LBJ's Great Society expansions of welfare grew out of their failure to provide "dignified employment", and in his economic speeches he spoke more of the need to provide dignity than of economic aid.

If RFK kept his tortured soul bottled up inside, I would hate to be in the path of the outpouring of rage when he let it out.

The Mystery of the Missing Spokesperson

I think I should say a bit more about the Gary Hart piece I plugged yesterday. What's interesting here isn't his skewering of the Bush administration or his lionization of Cindy Sheehan, but his diagnosis of what's wrong with the antiwar movement today:

where will the expanding majority of Americans look for a representative, a spokesperson, a voice for their anger, frustration, and distrust at being misled?

The circumstances suggest it should be a Senate or House Democratic leader, a recognized authority on foreign policy constantly seen on the Sunday talk shows, certainly one of the many “leaders” lining up to seek the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in 2008.

Strangely, no one in any of those categories comes to mind. Their voices are silent.

He's right. And it's strange. For some reason, no William Fulbright has emerged, no George McGovern or Eugene McCarthy or RFK has stepped forward to focus the call for withdrawal. We've got this big rally, and most of America has joined, but there's not a goddamn soul on the stage. One could argue that Dean was on his way to leadership, but his campaign called for an expansion of the troop presence, his anti-war position was anti starting the war, not continuing it. In any case, he no longer has the sort of rhetorical freedom to make those comments, his leash has been tightened.

But Gary's wrong that Sheehan is emerging as this spokesperson. She isn't and she won't. It is possible, however, that her media celebrity, coming so soon after the Downing Street Memos and amidst Bush's dive-bombing poll numbers on Iraq, will crystallize an atmosphere in which full-throated calls for withdrawal are a viable position to take, and thus viable candidates for anti-war spokesperson will begin applying for the position.

But it's taken a long time. And that's a sign of how far liberalism has fallen. Progressives very much like bottom-up movements, but without some top-level representatives willing to push their arguments, the liberal position remains lurking in the shadows, invoked only by conservative media players who want to smear Democrats. Indeed, the only ones willing to mention liberal positions are those who want to discredit them. And that's as true today as it was when an unknown small-state governor stepped on a stage with nothing to lose and roared at his disapproval of the Democratic party's support for "the President's unilateral war on Iraq". Now he's got something to lose so he doesn't say that anymore.

Somebody else should. Back in Vietnam, Nixon succeeded Johnson largely on his promise to deescalate the war. He didn't even need to say how, he just touted a secret plan that'd end the conflict. He won, as the Democrats seemed too divided to handle Vietnam themselves. That needn't be the case today. 55% of Americans think we should withdraw some or all of the troops. That's a majority position. And at least one or two Democrats should be courageous enough to share it. This isn't a "Peace Now" position; it's simply the next logical step.

NARAL Redux

As coda to last night's post on NARAL, a few things:

Brad, who should know he can never outstay his welcome at chez Klein, so long as he promises to call it chez Klein, has a fuller rundown of his argument at his place. Read it. I think the basic disagreement comes over how well you think Democrats stand up for choice. Kos and I think pretty well, Brad and DaDa Head are less impressed. Fair enough. Brad in particular points out that, in 1976, a Democratic Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, which restricted federal funding for abortion, and in 1993, 98 Democrats crossed the aisle to help pass a weakened Hyde amendment.

This seems one of those perfect v. good arguments. Democrats aren't perfect, but compared to Republicans they are very, very good. And the playing field in 1976 was different than the playing field now. NARAL, back then a small group, had only been around for seven years, and choice wasn't as important an issue within the Democratic constituencies because it wasn't as loud an issue in the culture generally. In 1993, Clinton was dragging, Democrats were unpopular, and the 1994 realignment hadn't happened, so we still had scores of Southern Democrats who were, particularly on culture, Republicans. They crossed over on other things too.

But 1993, in some ways, proves the point. NARAL isn't in a place to play this kind of hardball. Remember, this isn't a moral argument, but a tactical one. In 1994, Democrats who voted against NRA priorities were eviscerated in the elections. The NRA, through grassroots mobilization and targeted spending, remade the political environment on guns. Whatever the country's opinion may have been, the reality was Democrats were now and forevermore going to be very, very careful around firearms legislation. Who did NARAL beat?

In some senses, actually in many, NARAL has failed. An interest group's mandate is not to get legislators to vote their conscience, it's to create a political environment where legislators have to vote their way. But despite a fairly solid majority for some kind of choice, NARAL's been completely outplayed by the Christian Right. They've let abortion rights become quasi-radioactive for Democrats. Is it all their fault? No, of course not. But they have failed at their mission, which was to do for choice what the NRA has done for guns. For that reason, the NRA can play hardball with the Republican party, the right knows they need the NRA. NARAL doesn't quite have the same leeway. Democrats don't need NARAL.

As I said yesterday, the real political gold is in denouncing them, separating, proving we chart our own path on choice. Now, we won't and shouldn't do that, but the difference is, the Republicans can't do it to the NRA. So when NARAL comes out and begins endorsing Republicans who vote with a majority that takes the destruction of choice as a sacred quest, they deserve to be blamed. They're acting as if they're in a position of strength, as if the Democratic party is sticking with them because it's the politically expedient thing to do, not the right one. But that's not the case, and we all know it. Democrats are taking real hits by standing with NARAL, by not publicly backpedaling dramatically on choice. And it's that very loyalty, that respect for an ideological ally and commitment to their program, that explains why NARAL should be trying to get Reid made majority leader, not hedging bets with Chafee.

You get Reid on top and Langevin in, and much of what Brad's talking about won't come to the floor, votes that'd upset NARAL will get help up in committee, judicial nominees will be rejected. Not all, certainly, but there's no doubt that the Republicans pass much more that's chips at choice than Democrats do. When NARAL and its allies remake the playing field so choice is sacrosanct, no Democrat will cross lines to oppose it. But NARAL is weak right now and they need to make their principal ally strong. Trying to drive out the one challenger who led Chafee in the polls deserves all the criticism it can get, because NARAL's primary mission should be electing a Democratic party that is indebted to them, and that they can then control.

Update: These comments concerning NARAL's position on Roberts and Chafee's likely actions are worth reading.

Harry Reid: The Man, the Myth, the Legend

Posted by Nick Beaudrot

Via Neil the Ethical Werewolf, some good hero-worship for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid:

In July of 1978, a man named Jack Gordon, who was later married to LaToya Jackson, offered Reid twelve thousand dollars to approve two new, carnival-like gaming devices for casino use. Reid reported the attempted bribe to the F.B.I. and arranged a meeting with Gordon in his office. By agreement, F.B.I. agents burst in to arrest Gordon at the point where Reid asked, “Is this the money?” Although he was taking part in a sting, Reid was unable to control his temper; the videotape shows him getting up from his chair and saying, “You son of a bitch, you tried to bribe me!” and attempting to choke Gordon, before startled agents pulled him off. “I was so angry with him for thinking he could bribe me,” Reid said, explaining his theatrical outburst. Gordon was convicted in federal court in 1979 and sentenced to six months in prison.

The whole article is worth a read.

Mythologizing our leaders, and evangelizing that mythology to the general public, is something Democrats could afford to do more of. Think of it as a counterattack to Bush and his brush-clearing act; a bit of local color that shows our guys (and gals) are stand-up guys (and gals) too. Between this story and the dreaded cactus-eating rabbits of Searchlight, Nevada, Harry Reid is certainly the most colurful Senate leader the country's had in a long time.

Update: commenter davidS (that's not S as in Sirota) remarks, "Prison and then marriage to LaToya? Ye Gods!" I'm not sure if that's a step up or down either. Sort of the reverse of Mark Antony's situation, where he dumped Miss America Universe in order to wed J-Lo [preemptive strike: it's just snark, Amanda, don't panic; I'm not trying to perpetuate unrealistic standards of beauty or anything like that].

Elections Have Consequences

Jonah Goldberg's latest column is, well, kinda good. Very good, in fact. He takes as target Arnold Schwarzenegger and, as background, Gray Davis. And while his ultimate point is to slap around us kooky Californians, he's actually right about doing so:

I was against the recall on the grounds that the people of California elected Gray Davis and therefore they deserved to be punished. Seriously. Democracy isn’t merely about “the people” getting what they want, it’s also about the people getting what they deserve. Mobs get what they want every time. Citizens make informed choices and then live with — and learn from — the consequences. Those lessons inform how we view not merely candidates but parties and philosophies. “We gave those guys their shot and they blew it, I won’t be voting for that crowd again,” is an indispensable reaction in democratic politics.
...
I’m sympathetic to the substance of Schwarzenegger’s agenda. But the last thing California needs is more populism. What it needs are strong, competitive political parties, run by people who are held accountable for their actions, not overruled by special elections and referenda every time things go south.

That's true, though Goldberg conveniently forgets that the whole reason for the recount was the opportunistic motivations of California's skeeziest congressman, Darrell Issa. But nevertheless, we voted out Gray and ushered in Arnold, so the ultimate fault is ours.

So too have we sacrificed our political structure on the altar of feel-good populism. Our scores of ballot initiatives, a populist innovation that's now a plaything of rich groups with agendas, has resulted in a dysfunctional budget hijacked with guaranteed outlays to a variety of cookie and ice cream parties no one had the heart to vote against. Arnold, of course, was part of that problem long before he ran, contributing an idiotic initiative for afterschool programs and then governing in exactly the same way, with a stream of poorly designed ballot offerings.

But insofar as the game is letting your opponent's folly destroy him, Democrats have yet to learn it. Like obsessive-compulsives with a self-destructive tic, we can be counted on to cover for Republicans no matter how ill-conceived and doomed-to-fail their ideas are. We'll vote for the Iraq War, pitch in on the Bankruptcy Bill, offer a few "ayes" to CAFTA, and join the President in cutting taxes. Goldberg's right: elections do have consequences. For parties as much as people. And every time we pretend that being out of power doesn't mean being out of power, we ensure they won't pay for their vote, because bipartisan support is another way of saying "there's no one to blame".

DeLay hasn't taken away our keys to the washroom, but we were long ago locked out of the legislating chamber. And we should play as if we know it. Form a shadow cabinet and say what we'd do before showing up en masse to vote no when the Republicans ask for the opposite. Hell, if you really want to make a statement, boycott the chamber in front of a particularly egregious vote so the Republicans can stand there, alone, one after the other, affirming corporate commandments. And then, when the credit card companies raise rates and the judges tell you bankruptcy just ain't gonna fly, you'll know who to blame. Not us, you didn't vote for us and we didn't vote for that. We weren't even there,

Blame them.

Elections have consequences, but not when the losers stick their hands in the cookie jar along with everyone else. Tonight, CAFTA comes up for vote. The vote will happen between 12 and 2am, and god knows how far it'll be extended if the totals look bad for passage (Medicare's vote was held up three extra hours). The vote will happen that late because congressmen will be tired, easier to shoehorn, and newspapermen will be sleepy, less likely to write long stories. If a Democrat -- even one -- breaks ranks, it'll be a bipartisan victory for either the "ayes" or the "nays". But if they don't, if they hold firm, it'll be a Republican loss. Either the bill will fail or Southern and Midwestern challengers can hang Republican incumbents for undercutting the American worker yet again. Either way, the Republicans will lose.

Elections have consequences. Votes should have consequences. But they don't always. That, unlike everything else in the DeLay-controlled House, is up to the minority party. Tonight we'll see if they can keep their hands out of the cookie jar.

From MK to GTA

Kevin Drum asks (and answers):

What effect has the videogame "Grand Theft Auto" had on actual thefts of autos? "The national carjacking rate has dropped substantially," reports Steven Johnson in the LA Times today.
...
It strikes me as a bit degrading, actually, that Hillary has to pretend to oppose violent videogames as a means of gaining heartland social values cred, but I suppose that's the world we live in. If I were running for president I might do the same. And I guess the upside is that a few speeches denouncing the evils of "Grand Theft Auto" is unlikely to do any real damage.

True 'nuff. But then, what effect will Hillary Clinton denouncing GTA have on "Grand Theft Auto"? My hunch is none whatsoever. Indeed, it may create an uptick in sales thanks to the added publicity. That's why I can never get bent out of shape about this stuff. If parents wary of a violent, sexualized culture want politicians to recognize their fears, then politicians should do that. The denunciations of Mortal Kombat sure didn't harm that series longevity at all (interesting note: the first time I ever used the internet was to look up early pictures of Mortal Kombat 3), and I've little doubt that exposing GTA's misogyny, violence, and sexuality will lead to any different an outcome.

Should politicians censor games? Of course not! But what's Hillary calling for? A study to assess the impacts of video games on youth. Funny, I could've sworn commissioning studies was what politicians did when they wanted to publicly acknowledge a problem but didn't want to do anything about it. A law fining video game retailers who sell "Mature" or "Adult Only" (as rated by the ESRB) games to kids. Well, fine, that's kinda the point of a ratings system, to ensure some content can only be accessed with parental permission.

We shouldn't be afraid of this. It's not a slippery slope. We've watched pop culture get denounced for decades, but in that time it's only gotten breast implants, larger weapons, more blood, and hotter sex. We always say parents should be responsible for determining what their kids can play. This law is part of that. Parents can't be around 24/7, and the disc bought while mom is at work can be hid from her when she comes home. Clinton is smart for recognizing and addressing that. If she ever tries censorship, we can take to the ramparts and fight to the death. Until then, barring minors from buying what their parents wouldn't want them to have is perfectly sensical and damn good politics.

And let the flaming begin!

Update: Whoops, what I meant by this was Hillary Clinton should roast in the hottest furnaces of hell for abandoning us coastal elites and our digitized killing sprees and simulated rapes. Manhattan's Upper West Side will never, ever forgive her.

Her days as a Democrat are over.

A Housing Agenda

Nathan Newman's got a very strong post on the primacy (or puzzling lack thereof) of housing issues on the progressive agenda. And he's right on it. Employees of all incomes and occupations know how little they like living in zip codes wholly unconnected to their workplaces just so they can afford a roof for their children. The commute, the lack of flexibility, the total disruption of everyday life -- it's crushing.

In addition, many of these folks are becoming Republicans, either in reaction to the urban areas that banished them or as simple result of becoming property owners. It shouldn't be that way, and speaking to the everyday hardships of their commute and conditions would, if nothing else, prove Democrats are on their side as much as the city's. Kevin Drum likes to say that the divide isn't red vs. blue, it's urban vs. rural. But it's more than that: it's urban vs. rural/suburban/exurban, it's urban vs. everyone else. Affordable, well-planned, high-density housing that would let families of moderate means live near their workplaces and thus reclaim their time speaks to the everyone else in the equation, and if Democrats piss off some urbanites who don't want development along the way, well, good then.

DLC'ing It

As I knocked the DLC this morning, I may as well flip the coin before the day's out. Progressives need to recognize the DLC's essential utility. Our criticism of them is that they criticize us. And in most ways, that's a bad thing. But occasionally, it serves a purpose. It has, for instance, motivated the media to give the DLC a Cloak of Moderation (+5) which, in some contexts, can be good for Democrats wrap themselves in.

So when Hillary goes to speak to them and lead their policy project, rejoice. She's not straying on CAFTA, she didn't vote for the bankruptcy bill, and so we needn't worry that her appearance in Ohio is evidence that she's selling out our issues. Nor, so far as I can see, has she in any way disparaged the netroots or attacked liberals, so at the same time she's resisting the DLC's worst policy impulses (or, depending who you talk to, the worst caricatures of their policy impulses), she's also ignoring their taste for internecine warfare.

Meanwhile, she's still benefitting from the centrist credentials they confer. And with Bill Clinton beating George W. Bush in hypothetical match-ups 55%-45%, anything that puts Hillary deeper in the Clinton legacy is good for her campaign. And in the end, that means it's good for us. We want to win. And while we may not like how the DLC treats us, what matters is our relationship with individual candidates, not whether the candidates stop by DLC conventions and try to burnish their moderate credentials. So nail the DLC when they swing at us, but leave Hillary, Warner, Bayh and Vilsack alone. The better they are at bridging the party's essential divide, the more unified we'll be, and the more unified we are, the better we'll do. And all of us -- DLC and netroots -- want the Democratic Party to do better.

Update: I think Jesse gets something wrong here that kinda explains why Hillary's going to the DLC:

A Hillary Clinton-DLC campaign in 2008 would essentially be the apex of the DLC death wish that's consumed far too much of the party since Clinton's victory in 1992. Take the most famous Democrat in America, and run her as a DLC candidate. Mix that with years of campaigning against her as a dangerous left-wing liberal, and the continual failure of political concession as political definition, and Hillary's poised for a fantastic flameout against someone who's likely coming off the Republican B-team.

Hillary, of course, knows this. That's why she's been so painstakingly thorough in taking prominent "centrist" positions and cultivating a public image of moderation. Being part of the DLC adds to this. The idea here is to make the right look nuts, let their most vile impulses run wild and use the last four years and the DLC connection to create a media storyline of centrism in the face of vicious, partisan, unexplainable attacks. And it's for exactly that reason that the DLC, with their occasional anti-liberal broadsides, can be valuable for progressive project. It's yet to be seen if she can pull this strategy off, but if she does, it'll be in no small part due to the concrete alliances and positions she can use to prove her attackers partisan hacks.