Welcome News Journal Readers
If someone would like to make the case for why Democrats should vote for someone who sounds exactly like a Republican and thinks “everything should be on he table” when negotiating with the GOP’s budget terrorists, I’d be happy to hear it.
The “bi-partisanship” at all costs espoused by our congressional delegation makes no sense. We are pre-surrendering on all core democratic issues to a radicalized and zealous GOP that views any willingness to negotiate as an exploitable weakness.
Only because our other choice always seems to be a whack job republican. If any democrats would primary them…
Precisely AQC. Precisely.
I guess you never talk your own crew of yellow dog Democrats.
This thread could turn into a “more liberal than thou” finger pointing fest, but we should at least start off be agreeing that Carney and Carper need a wake up call.
The Carney/Kovach race is the perfect race for Democrats to stay home on. A nervous election night sweating out a 2 percentage point win is the only thing that will wake up John Carney.
Anonone… while I can’t speak for other DL contributers, I do know that Jason and I disagree on his tactics in this instance, but not on the basic complaint. Indeed, we have 10 contributers, and they all probably have 10 different opinions on this topic, which shows how false the charge that we are a far left moonbat blog or an echo chamber is.
My personal opinion is that the type of purism on display in Jason’s criticisms of Carney in particular is remisicent of Christine O’Donnell and her happy band of lunatics. Does Carney speak too Republican? Yes. Will I vote for a Republican to give Carney a lesson? No, that is idiotic.
perhaps all the Snooze Urinal bashing on this blog finally pissed them off. good to know there are still human beings over there.
reading that article as your typical reader would… aka the headline, the captions near the pictures and a few sentences….. i get this. “Delaware’s entire congressional delegation is democratic. they want to balance the budget and cut wasteful spending… the liberals are pissed off about that. stupid liberals”
well played NJ. well played.
“Does Carney speak too Republican? Yes.”
How many News Journal articles or talk radio shows feature you saying so?
Okay then. So much for your critique of tactics.
Armando over at the Great Orange Satan has a post up that speaks directly on this issue:
Puck,
If Jason’s goal is just to bring media attention to the situation, then he is wildly successful.
If Jason’s goal is to defeat Carney in favor of electing Kovach, then that tactic is wildly insane.
That is how you start changing hearts and minds.
Where we have failed is finding Democrats to run against Carney and Carper.
Right. Now maybe some of those Democrats are paying attention a little bit more. The more media attention, the less of a suicide mission it will be for a primary candidate.
Nobody wants to replace Carney with Kovach. I agree with SB’s assessment of the article. It is more of the same, “those crazy liberals – Just like Christine O’Donnell only liberal” bullshit.
Except for the block quote – which is pretty good. I think it is the first time I’ve every read that Republicans are unreasonable in a newspaper.
Didn’t read it that way at all. Except for the final quote from your typical clueless ‘go-to’ quote type:
“I think guys like Carney and Carper don’t have that much to fear from the left,” said Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
And even the clueless ‘go-to-type added:
“Democrats are more willing to live with ideological heresy than Republicans are,” Kondik said. “If there were a primary challenge, that would change their tone real quick.”
Here’s the point. When it comes to the Democratic Party and what it has traditionally stood for, Carper and Carney are the radicals. Carper and Joe Lieberman are best buds, for cryin’ out loud. Hell, I remember hearing Carper wax poetic on health care vouchers 20 years ago.
As opposed to the teabaggers, who want to move American politics back at least two centuries, all we progressives want are Democrats who stand up for the traditional principles of our Party. Protecting the powerless, standing up for the middle class. In other words, NOT serving as wholly-owned subsidiaries of the corporatocrats.
I continue to say that Carper in particular would be especially vulnerable to a primary from the Democratic wing of our Party. He has long since left that Party. With social media, a credible candidate could raise plenty of money to get their message out, and the millions upon millions that Carper is sitting on could be turned into an effective campaign issue: Just who is paying for Tom Carper, and what are they getting? We know the answers. It’s about time everyone did.
reading that article as your typical reader would… aka the headline, the captions near the pictures and a few sentences….. i get this. “Delaware’s entire congressional delegation is democratic. they want to balance the budget and cut wasteful spending… the liberals are pissed off about that. stupid liberals”
well played NJ. well played.
If you really, truly think that some News Journal editor sat there and edited the story, placed the photos, wrote the captions and wrote the headline with the goal of making liberals look stupid and the delegation look good, then you are a certifiable moron.
The story was edited by a mid-level editor whose only goal was to get it done so he could get home before a reasonable hour – like 7 or 8 p.m. The photos were selected by a page designer who had to turn out 13 other pages that night and doesn’t give two figs about what the delegation looks like – all he cares about is that the boxes are filled. The headline and captions were written by a copy editor with 20 other stories to work on that night before she goes home.
There is no master plan of pro- or anti-Democratic or -Republican bias in any newspaper at the level you suggest. Might an editorial page be slanted in one direction? Certainly. But there is no institutional leaning or grand conspiracy.
Re More and better Democrats:
Every Republican outrage since the Bush tax cuts has been passed with Democratic votes providing the margin of victory.
Every Republican outrage since the Bush tax cuts has been passed (or defeated) with Democratic votes providing the margin of victory for the more right-wing position. Carney/Coons/Carper are reliable soldiers in that sad procession.
No way I’m voting for Kovach, but I may not vote for Carney, either. I’m on record — multiple times — for primaries to move the agenda further towards our own priorities. Bipartisanship is just fine as long as you are working on something that matters, like getting the 12 million of us who are unemployed back to work. Bipartisanship for tax cuts that the GOP would do anyway and do very, very little to make a dent in the genuine severity of that problem is pretty meaningless bipartisanship. Did anyone notice how jobs never comes up from the Congressional delegation?
And Armando’s piece from yesterday is spot on.
If you really, truly think that some News Journal editor sat there and edited the story, placed the photos, wrote the captions and wrote the headline with the goal of making liberals look stupid and the delegation look good, then you are a certifiable moron.
I agree nobody devoted that much time to it. I think that attitude is so ingrained it no longer takes any time at all.
certifiable moron. …. before 9am! nice. that was simply my first-take, sans coffee read. a musing. but thanks. prick.
“there is no institutional leaning or grand conspiracy.”
No, there isn’t. Which doesn’t change the perception of the message at all. Bias does not have to be conscious to be bias — indeed, how many biased people are aware of that bias?
It may be true that Carper/Carney/Coons have nothing to fear from the left. On the other hand, if they acted more like Democrats they would have even less to fear from the right.
And none of them has any sense of the center:
I wish he would go to the center. He’d have to turn around and march leftward for a while.
How about going to the center of the Democratic party, not the center defined by the wack-jobs on the far right?
Same goes for you, Senator Coons.
Who the hell do you think is extreme on the left these days? People who want to raise the top marginal rate by a few points?
They all have the faint smell of banker’s cologne lingering on them.
Very well put Cassandra.
OK, I’m still pissed by our delegates’ bullshit about the center. The kitchen table issues that form the core of the traditional Democratic platform all poll very well. But Carney/Coons/Carper either vote against them outright, or let them die of neglect. This is what the News Journal smugly sums up as “liberals feeling slighted.”
And what is all this crap about “tax reform?” That is not an issue that came from voter demand. That was spun out of whole cloth by Democratic politicians, starting with Obama 12/07/10, and swallowed hook, line, and sinker by Coons/Carney/Carper. It was invented to distract voters from the uncomfortable task of expiring the Bush tax cuts.
In the 2010 election cycle, there was no talk of “tax reform.” The issue was simply details on how to let the Bush tax cuts expire. Coons began his campaign calling for the expiration of the Bush tax cuts for those over $250K, which enjoyed strong majorities in the polls. At that time, that was the Democratic tax reform plan, and it remains the best tax reform plan now.
And let’s not forget – as the NJ article did – that all three of our delegates are in favor of the Bowles Simpson plan, which calls for a top marginal rate of 23-29%, funded by austerity for the rest of us.
And guys – when your best Democratic jobs plan is a tax cut that raids Social Security funding, most likely permanently – it’s time to hang it up and let a real Democrat take over.
If Coons, Carper and Carney read one sentence from that article, I hope it is this one from Stephen K. Medvic, a professor of government at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa.
It is breathtaking to me that they don’t get this simple fact of modern political life.
Here is an interesting and damning statement in the NJ article: “‘Democrats are more willing to live with ideological heresy than Republicans are,’ Kondik said.”
My question is except for the FDR years and the McGovern candidacy for Prez, when has center-right thinking been “heretical” in the national Democratic Party? With few exceptions, I think the relationship between center-right politicians and the Democratic Party have had a cozy relationship for a long time.
What is the News Journal’s obsession with identifying everybody’s age?
They DO get it, Jason. They figure that if they act like Republicans, they head off serious GOP opposition. In short, they’re more afraid of Republicans than they are of liberals. We have to make them more afraid of liberals than they are of Republicans.
Without serious election reform, the game is already over. Big corporate money knows how to maintain a voting majority on any given issue/vote so the progressive side doesn’t have a chance. If Carper is replaced by someone who can’t be bribed via campaign contributions and corporate largesse, then they will find someone else who can be bribed.
Meanwhile, legislation to overtly gear up the machinations of the American Police State to crush any serious dissent by allowing censorship of the internet and turning the whole country into a militarized war-zone is currently being promoted by members of both parties.
It isn’t the people in the system; it is the system itself.
The wealthy control their politicians as much by the donations that aren’t made as the ones that are.
It is tempting to call out the 1%-er money that flows to politicians one way or another. But I think even more important is the 1%-er contributions that aren’t made to opponents, either in primaries or the general.
If we want clean elections without corporate funding then support Campaign Finance Reform. Eleven states already have it. Our founders didnt believe in the “party system”, they believed in consensus government coming from we the people. Its time the democratic party support the principles of the democratic party and support candidates who do also. I don’t buy this crap they are center right to keep a GOP from challenging them. The insider trading exposed on 60 Minutes should give us all a clue. Both parties are morally bankrupt and corrupt corporate prostitutes. http://www.occupydelawareonline.com has a challenge for the current system.
anonone and Anonymous: I support your goal, but it will take a long time, and we can’t wait that long. The idea isn’t necessarily to elect liberals; it’s to make Democrats fear liberals enough to act more liberal themselves.
“it’s to make Democrats fear liberals enough to act more liberal themselves.”
I like the sound of that.
On the other hand, Delaware voters aren’t exactly insisting on the conservadems we are getting. It’s just that those are the only Democrats running.
In today’s article, Coons and Carney are dishonestly try to put out the idea that they are moving right in response to voter preference. That is not the case at all.
Delaware Democrats would be just as happy to vote for a solid Democrat, except that the party keeps serving up conservadems.
So a cliffhanger election for Carney would be good medicine for Delaware Democrats, as would a serious primary challenge for any of them.
Geezer, I know that you agree with this, but it hasn’t been shown how “fear of liberals” will ever be greater than fear of losing their jobs by losing their campaign contributions and big media support.
Remember, corporate interests are only interested in maintaining a majority that will vote in their interests on a given issue, not with party affiliation or individuals. This majority does not have to be the same people on each issue, so they can strategically spend by issue. Biden was a perfect example. He would vote as a liberal on many issues, but he was a reliable vote for the financial services industry. Another “liberal” Senator would then vote against the financial services industry, but then support the oil industry.
Corporate lobbyists are not stupid; they know how to spend strategically to get their majorities. And they do. And the evidence for this is overwhelmingly clear and undeniable.
Agreed, agreed, agreed. My argument in favor of making the 3C’s fear liberals comes from the success the Tea Party had in making Republicans fear hard-core conservatives. It worked for them, so I’m saying let’s see if it works for us. Finding primary opponents, even underfunded ones, is a key part of such a project — that’s how the Tea Party got its message across.
Such a project can be, and should be, pursued simultaneousy with election reform.
Unfortunately, the Tea Party was tightly aligned with corporate interests (“lower taxes and less regulations”) so they really didn’t upset the status quo much. They changed some people on the game board, but the game is still fixed.
But, point taken, maybe we can have some influence in Delaware.
What Repubs rely on, and what our conservadems are taking advantage of, is that nobody ever got voted out of office for cutting taxes or cutting regulations.
It all sounds so good!… if you are low-information and don’t understand the consequences. Most voters do not connect the dots between the tax cuts and the disastrous downstream effects. They treat them as two separate events.
2001: “Yeah, we got tax cuts! Go Repubs, stick it to the Democrats!”
2011: “Crap, I don’t have a job. Damn Democrats, won’t let the Repubs pass more tax cuts.”
The Republican’s favorite trick is to enact policies that destroy the economy and then blame Democrats for it when the shit hits the fan years later. What Carney/Coons/Carper are doing is simply trying to stay out of the shadow of that blame, yet they are just digging deeper.
Now Repubs are proposing “hair of the dog that bit us” (more tax cuts and dereg), and Democrats are meekly following three paces behind. Yeah, that’ll work.
if you want to know how the establishment reacts to “fear of liberals” look at oakland, uc davis,…….
A1: I agree, that’s why corporate Republicans let the Tea Party grow at first — they thought of them as conservative storm troopers. But those corporate types are not happy to find themselves now struggling for control of the party.
When an election pits a Tea Partier against a centrist Democrat, the Democrat better represents the business community. This is the great danger to the Democratic Party — that dispossessed moderate Republicans (the Castle sort) will migrate across the aisle in response to the rightward shift of the GOP. Pressure from the left could minimize that.
I made that point to Chad Livengood. Not only is it galling that these Democrats are promoting Republican policies, they are promoting FAILED Republican policies.
I made a correlated point — that given the massively big problems facing us (12 million of us out of work), that working on Republican issues is not good prioritization of time or energy.
There’s two things I want to know from these guys:
1. When did calling for serious action on the fact that 12 million of us is unemployed became a “far left” issue?
2. When did destabilizing and dismantling Social Security and Medicare or balanced budget amendments become “centrist” (rather than far right) issues?
Excellent point, Geezer – the migration of so-called moderate repubs to the Democrats only pushes the Democrats more to the right.
In the multi-party America I dream of, the current Democrats are the conservative party to the right of a far-more popular liberal party. But without election reform, from financing to election standards to fairness in media, it ain’t going to happen because it is against the entrenched interests of the current ruling parties.
2. When did destabilizing and dismantling Social Security and Medicare or balanced budget amendments become “centrist” (rather than far right) issues?
That’s an easy one. December 17, 2010.
I think it’s a mistake to categorize (these) politicians in such simplistic terms as liberal, conservative, DINO, RINO, moderate, etc. I suggest that it is more complex than that. The politicians (our leadership) is faced with many competing interests such as:
1. The need to retain their elected position.
2. Retaining the support of their constitutents (see #1).
3. Providing constitutent services (see #2)
4. Living up to their campaign promises (see #1 and #2).
5. Providing solutions to the nation’s needs.
And oh so many others. Oft times these competing interests are at odds with each other. 12 million people are out of work and need jobs. Should the government spend it’s way out recession? If so does that mean we put the control of spending on hold for awhile? What about the spiraling cost of entitlement programs? Do we just leave them alone? Can we get better by increasing taxes or are there other ways of generating revenue to pay for them? I don’t see these as liberal or conservative questions. Maybe the answers/solutions would have a liberal or conservative bias, but thus far I have seen precious few answers.
You know what? There are plenty of answers to these questions and plenty of historical data to indicate what would work for some of these. The pretense of of “precious few answers” is about vamping to wait for your ideological political preferences to come into play rather than looking at the data — and yes there is data — to formulate and implement a solution. The problem here is that what you see is a failure to prioritize solutions over the politics and Democrats are playing this (unwinning) hand, rather than insisting on solutions.
“What about the spiraling cost of entitlement programs? Do we just leave them alone?”
A good start would be to stop talking about “entitlement programs” and start talking about “health care costs.” Social Security is NOT in trouble, except for the fact that politicians don’t want to pay the IOUs in the trust fund. Middle-class retirements should not be sacrificed so that the military-industrial complex can play war and act as global capitalism’s police force.
The simple fact is that if US paid the same per capita rate for health care as France or Germany, the government would be running an annual surplus even with the Bush tax cuts in force. To that end, we must end the odious practice of for-profit health insurance and go to a single-payer system. This won’t bring prices down to European levels, but no single other step offers a similar level of savings.
With all this bipartisan love for tax cuts, when are they going to get around to repealing the Reagan taxes on Social Security benefits and unemployment benefits? You know, so the benefits provide more bang for the buck?
Somehow it became more important to tap the Social Security revenue stream – which through some sleight of hand is supposed to create more jobs.
A good start toward paying for health care along the lines of a modern industrialized country would be to have wealthy guys like Chris Coons and Tom Carper pay into Social Security for four months instead of two months.
A 0% tax rate on income above $106,800 is ridiculous.
That would be my campaign tag line if I decide to primary Carper. “End the 0% tax rate on income above $106,800!”
What do we want?
“An end the 0% tax rate on income above $106,800!!”
When do we want it?
“In a reasonable interval after the election.”
We want a flat tax (for Social Security).
As far as “reasonable interval,” with Obama you have to make sure it gets done in the first hundred days, or else it ain’t getting done. If you let it run longer than that, he might even change his mind and decide to do the opposite.
I actually do not have any ideological political preferences. I am solution oriented. Politics and problem solving are often competing objectives. I vote for what works. The data that you believe exists regarding solutions can only be considered empirical data if the solution has been attempted before and was successful. Otherwise, the studies, which more often substitutes for real data is unproven, until implemented and performance data has been collected. For instance there are those who are convinced that lower taxes spur business growth. I am not convinced that is the case and there is no data that I have found which proves that becasue is it nearly impossible to isolate cause and effect in isolation from other influence. Of course that’s just an example.
You’re funny, Dave. I hope that you meant to be.
“I vote for what works. ”
Well, you don’t get to vote on policy. You have to vote for people who vote for a mixed bag of good and bad policy, and just to make it interesting, they lie.
“The data that you believe exists regarding solutions can only be considered empirical data if the solution has been attempted before and was successful.”
Single payer systems in Europe have produced reams of empirical data. It has been tried before, quite successfully, in many countries.
Cassandra, I don’t believe that any of Delaware’s congressional delegation is for “dismantling” social security and Medicare. Their positios do seem to find a a rough center between those who want to dismantle them and left solutions. The same with Carney’s highly qualified balanced budget amendment. These views are, nevertheless, unacceptable. I still don’t see how centrism isn’t consonant w/ the Democratic Party’s largely historic position. The problem with the Democratic Party is that it has nearly always tacked to the center, not that it has deviated from the left. That the Democratic Party has assimilated and tolerated progressivism hardly means that it has largely embraced it.
“Their positios do seem to find a a rough center between those who want to dismantle them and left solutions. ”
This allows Republican extremists to define the center by moving ever-right, which they gleefully do. Which is not an acceptable way of finding the center. If you calculate the center with reference to the Rubios and Perrys and Bachmanns, then your compass is broken.
Why should Delaware’s Chris Coons find the “center” by consulting the worst conservatives in Florida and in the nation?
Even so, this “centrism” excuse offered up by conservadems does not explain why they go against poll results on kitchen table issues. When are Republicans going to be required to move toward the center?
We have a centrist nation, but a center right Congress.
Cassandra, I don’t believe that any of Delaware’s congressional delegation is for “dismantling” social security and Medicare. Their positios do seem to find a a rough center between those who want to dismantle them and left solutions.
Efforts to increase retirement eligibility or live with chained COLA or whatever else they might be for that increases the burden on recipients of SS or Medicare is one step (among many more to come) to dismantle these programs. And Democrats will compromise to those next steps as sure as I’m sitting here because compromise is going to be more important than these vital programs. Social Security doesn’t add to the deficit — period. Medicare is genuinely a larger and more challenging problem. But cost-shifting is also part of the slow dismantling process and we need to find ways to make it more sustainable without asking beneficiaries for money they don’t have. In other words, compromising away tiny bits of these programs isn’t about saving those programs, it is about saving these legislators from having to work for a longer term solution.
Puck, I don’t agree with the centrism of the Delaware congressional delegation nor w/ the centrism of Obama. I just think that the News Journal article proceeds on a questionable premise: namely, that most elected politicians in Democratic Party have departed from a historic progressive position.
The reason why we on the left often feel as though we are hitting our heads against the wall is not because we are endeavoring to “return” the party to it’s progressive roots. It’s because we are in fact trying to create something in the party that largely doesn’t exist. Now I do think the Democratic Party has the most potential to move to the left and be a successful left party (that’s one of the reasons I quit the Green Party), but let’s not pretend that the historic thrust of the Democratic Party has been on our side ideologically. We can have a clearer focus and feel less frustrated if we set ourselves to the task of creating and educating for a NEW direction for the Democratic Party than trying to restore an imagined past.
And I don’t seem centrism as the essential problem. It is the fact that the center keeps moving to the right and that is because the Carneys’, Coons’ and Carpers’ keep taking up GOP BS as if it were gospel. Democrats committed to Social Security — Democrats who genuinely understood what this program means to alot of people — would not be offering up solutions that ask even more from already financially strapped working poor and middle class people. Most of the recent polling on Social Security shows that people do not want it to change. If most of the polling shows that Americans don’t want Social Security to change, you’d think *that* would be the centrist position. Instead we have these guys going for what is easiest for them, not what the centrist position might be.
For instance there are those who are convinced that lower taxes spur business growth. I am not convinced that is the case and there is no data that I have found which proves that becasue is it nearly impossible to isolate cause and effect in isolation from other influence.
Actually there is plenty of data on this and it all shows that there is little correlation between lower taxes and increased business growth. Frankly, all you need to do is look at the anemic growth data of the 2000’s to see this is true. Federal taxes are at their lowest in decades and there isn’t much business growth NOW.
When it comes to many important political issues, the “center” of the issue is about as real as the center between being pregnant or not.
“Single payer systems in Europe have produced reams of empirical data. It has been tried before, quite successfully, in many countries”
Yes, and there are disputes about the quality of care under such systems. I’ll do some research and see if I can find some performance data for those systems. I would have to see a definition of “Quite successfully.” Remember, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
“Yes, and there are disputes about the quality of care under such systems.”
Only from conservatives. My definition of “quite successfully” is good outcomes for a greater percentage of the population at half the per-capita price.
Bullshit is in the eye of the beholder, too, and virtually everything that comes out of the conservative noise machine is bullshit.
A primary is difficult because the Delaware Democratic party systematically works to prevent them. A person like Denn who is eager for a promotion would never run against Carney because the party has scripted him the governorship in 2016. Until the party’s stranglehold on the process is broken we are going to continue to see safe Republican-lite incumbents in high offices and timid officials in lower offices waiting for their turn. Markell was hurt by the party’s system in 2008 but instead of working to reform the party he simply put his people in charge and continued existing practices. Until the state party is reformed expect more of the same…Everything is scripted…Denn for governor in 2016, Beau to replace Carper, Crane to replace Karen, etc. How democratic is the Delaware Democratic Party? When is the last time the party did not try to dictate a statewide primary?
Have to go with anon. I was someone who spent years saying it wasn’t happening, until I saw it happen.
ElSom, another place I owe you an apology. My apologies. 🙁
I always liked John but lately he is losing me with his blue dog stances
Democrats get the candidates that we deserve. I’m coming to the conclusion that the insider-conservadems are the only ones winning because they are the only ones fielding a team.
I’ve said that we want them to “be better Democrats” but that stance is pretty idiotic (as my friend Delaware Dem is eager to point out). It is like asking a cat to act more like a dog.
If we want progressive candidates we need a progressive farm team. We need to train hard. We need to compete and lose a bunch of times, and then compete and win.
“the insider-conservadems are the only ones winning because they are the only ones fielding a team.”
O-75 … Bingo!
The incumbent/insider protection racket isn’t unique to Democrats — it is true for GOPers too. The teajadi crowd isn’t quite so intimidated or defeated by that fact. Which is why GOP incumbents are trying to sing their tune.
In other heartbreaking news, John Carney’s Facebook page is advertising his appearance on TV with his bipartisan breakfast partner. So I guess when he runs again, his slogan will be — Let Them Eat Bipartisanship, right?
The Crane candidacy isn’t scripted.
It in fact reflects more of what SHOULD be happening. Someone with a progressive philosophy challenging, well, in this case, someone who is clueless and dangerous and just LOVES them some BC/BSD.
Went to a Crane event, and his supporters were not the party leaders. They were the Dave Sokolas’, Karen Petersons’ and Dennis E. Williams’. Good for them. What we need are more party leaders who share their philosophy.
Give me more scripts like that, and I won’t deviate from them as much.
Speaking of which. Markell challenging and beating Carney wasn’t in the script. It’s not so hard to rewrite the script when you have credible alternatives. Which is just what Carper and Carney deserve.
I really don’t see any conflict between the approaches of “recruit progressive candidates” and “punish bad Democrats.”
They are not mutually exclusive at all, and one is not a valid argument for not doing the other.
We can and should do both, each according to our abilities. Hit the conservadems from both directions until they wake up or are defeated.
I would like to caution though once again on falling into the trap of calling for “progressives” when most of us would be perfectly happy with traditional Democrats.
“… calling for “progressives” when most of us would be perfectly happy with traditional Democrats.”
Seconded.
By “traditional,” I assume you mean “pre-Clinton.”
That’s a good break point. NAFTA marks the Wall Street take over of the Democratic Party as well as anything.
Memories must be short or history isn’t well known. You can look as far back as the Carter candidacy to Democrats running on the “importance” of achieving a balanced budget. And it continues.from there. And you have Clinton’s welfare reform. Traditional Democrats is precisely what we don’t need. We need progressives.
I know the history better than most. You are assigning way too much emotional weight to Clinton’s welfare reform.
Clinton was progressive/real Democrat enough for me. Very few Democrats approach his standard today. Clinton actually succeeded in raising taxes on the rich and didn’t caress Republicans with the idea he might compromise or cave in, fighting and winning by Al Gore’s vote in the Senate.
He vetoed or derailed much of the Contract With America, and blocked the kind of Republican extremism that Democrats are now choosing to pro-actively compromise with to the point of even introducing Republican-themed legislation themselves.
Raising taxes on the rich, FMLA, Direct Student loans, SCHIP, ergonomic workplace protection rules, jobs jobs jobs. What’s not to like? I can vote for that in a heartbeat without holding my nose. Can’t say the same about Obama, Coons, Carney, and Carper.
Clinton’s welfare reform was an idea whose time had come. There really was a problem of dependency, which I changed my opinion on by seeing it first hand. It was difficult to be critical of that particular welfare reform, when the rest of Clinton policies had created a broad prosperity and wide avaialability of jobs.
I am more pissed about Clinton agreeing to cut capital gains from 25% to 15% late in his administration. That along with the Fed contributed to the inflation and collapse of the equities bubble and the subsequent recession, which opened the door for the Bush tax cuts.
Dana: The balanced budget was a great example of giving your enemy what he wants so you can defuse it as an issue. If you’ll recall, Republicans had been whining since LBJ partly funded the Vietnam War on borrowed money, so Clinton called their bluff. Republicans promptly proved their concern was bullshit with the Bush tax cuts.
Unfortunately, the American attention span being what it is, the press fell for it all over again with the Tea Partiers.
“Clinton was progressive/real Democrat enough for me.”
Really? The guy who put the Democrats in bed with corporate America? He was about as progressive as your normal Arkansas liberal, which is to say, just to the left of a Dixiecrat.
The balanced budget grew out of Clinton’s 1992 tax increases, which calmed market fears about “deficits as far as the eye can see” and encouraged business expansion.
Clinton had the smarts to enact his economic policy immediately. Obama did exactly the opposite. He had sensible economic policies upon entering office, and Pelosi kept dumping the policies on Harry Reid’s desk, but Reid and Obama treated their own economic policy like it was radioactive, resulting in predictable economic failure and jeopardizing his second term (as well as the entire middle class).
After Clinton enacted his economic policy in 1992 the budget was going to be balanced anyway pretty much no matter what. The Clinton/Gingrich budget battles were simply about balancing the budget this year instead of next year. NOT about whether to balance the budget or not.
Clinton protected the balanced budget though by blocking Republicans from giving away the revenue to the rich (which GWB accomplished in 2001).
“…which calmed market fears about the deficit and encouraged business expansion.”
Wow. Just wow. This is the kind of analysis I’d expect from CNBC. “Market fears” my green ass. If you believe that sort of horseshit, you’ll believe anything.
Geezer, I’ve read at least 2 history books that locate the fusion of economic conservatism w/ personal morality-obsessed conservatism not w/ Nixon interestingly enough but w/ Jimmy Carter. (We sometimes confuse the progressive post-presidency Carter w/ Carter as Prez…two different critters). Remember Carter’s theme of deregulating various industries? That’s a conservative meme until this day.
Puck, I have to disagree w/ you about Clinton’s welfare reform. The whole culture of dependency theme was overblown and misleading as was shown at the time. There’s a reason why the joke was invented that Clinton was the best president the Republicans ever had. Smart & affable guy, though.
Wow. Just wow, Geezer. Were you in a coma the whole time?
The fact is that at the time of Clinton’s election the biggest fear of investors was inflation, which was seen as the inevitable result of the GHWB structural deficit. Investors were fearful of making long-term investments because they would be paid back in inflated dollars.
There wasn’t really the obsession with tax increases at the time. Investors didn’t much care HOW the deficit would be turned around. And the budget didn’t have to be balanced to satisfy them; all that was needed was to turn the deficit arrow around to convince them we were serious about the problem. A modest tax increase would do, which is what Clinton did, along with spending restraints.
This was described in Bob Woodward’s book. Read a few pages before and after the page this link takes you to:
Clinton:
There are more facts available but you’d have to be willing to wade through old CBO reports and news archives. The “facts” nowadays about the economics at that time are mostly spin distributed by wingnut blogs and cable news retellings.
Yeah Markell proved the script can be beaten but that was an exception. Who would be a credible challenger for Carney? Denn, Flowers, Beau could mount a challenge but they are waiting for their turn. They have proven capable of winning statewide and have decent fundraising abilities. A wealthy progressive version of Urkel could win too but would have greater hurdles as an unknown.
Crane is not an example of the system working. If he is this great progressive why is he running for a minor office instead of challenging Carney? He is another ambitious pol playing it safe.
How many “investors” do you actually talk to, Puck? And how many Bob Woodward books have you read that aren’t exercises in his sources burnishing their own reputations?
Your citations of “investors” and their “fears” is exactly the kind of crap the DLC Democrats loved to traffic in. Clinton is the one who tied the Democrats to Wall Street, as the passages you linked to show. In exchange for helping him, they helped themselves. That’s a lot of things, but “progressive” is not one of them.
And investors, for all the bloviating done about their “fears,” don’t operate that way. They work off the numbers, not their emotions.
“Crane is not an example of the system working. If he is this great progressive why is he running for a minor office instead of challenging Carney? He is another ambitious pol playing it safe.”
And you, sir or madame, are a brass-plated moron. He’s running for IC because that’s the field he knows, from working in that office. To you they might seem like horses in various races, but they’re not. If you like the horse races, visit Delaware Park.