Delaware Dem

Wednesday Open Thread [1.27.2016]

The pathetic coward who is the frontrunner for the GOP nomination said yesterday that he would not attend tomorrow’s day because one of the moderators, Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, asked him a fair and legitimate question in last summer’s debate that revealed him to be sexist pig. Well, the Donald could not have that, so he proceeded to act out after the August debate by being a sexist pig. I hope Fox News stands their ground and refuses to budge. Let his podium stand empty.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders, for some inexplicable reason, does not want to attend a new debate that is being scheduled by MSNBC and the New Hampshire Union Leader. The debate is not sanctioned by the DNC, but Martin O’Malley and Hillary Clinton have agreed to attend the debate, which will take place in the week before the New Hampshire primary. Everyone all campaign long have complained about the minimal number of debates the Democrats have scheduled, including Bernie Sanders. And now Bernie doesn’t want to show up. Bernie, stop acting like Donald Trump.

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Tuesday Open Thread [1.26.2016]

Jeet Heer has says Hillary and Bernie showed different sides of themselves at the Democratic Town Hall Forum last night:

When Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders shared a stage—separately—at Monday night’s Iowa Democratic Forum on CNN, the most noticeable thing was the difference in volume. By reputation, Sanders is a shouter, but on this occasion he came across as much quieter than Clinton, who gave forceful, directed, and impassioned answers to some difficult questions from Iowa Democrats. Both candidates were fighting against stereotypes that voters have formed of them, using a new tone to win over those still wavering before the Iowa caucuses next Monday. And both of them gave, in their different ways, remarkably convincing performances. […]

[O]n the whole, the kinder, gentler Sanders showed that he has a much wider tonal range as a politician than the Larry David stereotype—or some of his rallies—would suggest. It’s likely that this softer Sanders was crafted in no small part to appeal to the rural populations of Iowa and New Hampshire. Rural voters are especially important in Iowa, because of the weight their votes have in the caucus system. Sanders has already won over a considerable number of college students and urbanites, who form his core fan base, so he needs those rural voters to diversify his support.

Clinton’s new, fightin’ tone is also aimed at skeptical voters. She’s been accused of being a complacent front-runner and pillar of the establishment. Whether this image is fair or not, Clinton needed to counter it. And so she’s re-cast herself as Hillary Clinton the fighter, the counter-puncher who has had to fight the Republicans her whole life. The theme of a combative Hillary is quite visible in her recent campaign ads, and her performance in the Democratic Forum was designed to reenforce this idea.

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Monday Open Thread [1.25.2016]

Jacob Lederman at In These Times writes—Flint’s Water Crisis Is No Accident. It’s the Result of Years of Devastating Free-Market Reforms:

By most accounts, cities like Flint are victims of structural forces. The common-sense canard that globalization and technological change have made rust-belt cities unviable has been a convenient narrative for restructuring industrial cities through fiscal austerity programs. But while deindustrialization is an important part of Flint’s story, it obscures broader political forces that have decimated budgets and battered working class populations across the Midwest.

According to the Michigan Municipal League, between 2003-2013, Flint lost close to 60 million dollars in revenue sharing from the state, tied to the sales tax, which increased over the same decade. During this period, the city cut its police force in half while violent crime doubled, from 12.2 per 1000 people in 2003, to 23.4 in 2011. Such a loss of revenue is larger than the entire 2015 Flint general fund budget.

In fact, cuts to Michigan cities like Flint and Detroit have occurred as state authorities raided so-called statutory revenue sharing funds to balance their own budgets and pay for cuts in business taxes. Unlike “constitutional” revenue sharing in Michigan, state authorities could divert these resources at their discretion. It is estimated that between 2003-2013 the state withheld over $6 billion dollars from Michigan cities.

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Saturday Open Thread [1.23.2016]

Xpostfactoid, after considering the approach from Bernie and Hillary:

As Democrats mull how change works, consider Obama.

Bernie Sanders’ light sketch of single-payer healthcare Utopia has got Democrats debating their theory of change. Generate mass support for fundamental restructurings — of healthcare, banking, wage law –or take any step you can, by legislative compromise or executive order, to make current institutions more progressive?

Obama is often held up these days as a proto-Bernie who stoked the thirst for swift transformation in 2007-8 and then disappointed. But if Hope and Change was the Obama trumpet call, his bass note was always slow, hard, pragmatic step-by-step progress.

Even at his most apparently messianic, Obama has always stressed the incremental nature of change for the better…
The biggest flaw in Obama’s theory of change was born of arrogance rooted in past personal success. He plainly thought he could win Republicans over by moving toward them. I don’t think he fully corrected on that until the sequester took its first bite and he realized that Republicans wouldn’t compromise to shut it off. That quirk aside, though, I don’t think that Democrats ruminating over how change works can find a more nuanced or effective perspective than Obama’s.

Progressives really need to get over this Green Latern Theory of Change. That if we just elect one person the revolution will come and all will be well, simply because President Sanders has the bully pulpit. Did you all learn nothing from Obama? You need to elect more than one person. In 2006, and 2008, we elected a shit ton of Progressive Democrats, and that still was not enough to get all that we wanted. Politics and policy enactment is a long never ending struggle that takes decades. And you have to do two things at once: defend the progress you have made while at the same time trying to take the next step. It’s like walking in a Blizzard.

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The Great Blizzard of 2016 Thread

Here is your clearinghouse for all Delaware Blizzard information. We are officially under a Blizzard Warning and it will be in effect until Sunday morning. We can expect 16 to 25 inches of snow in New Castle County, 8-16 inches in Kent County and parts of Sussex County, and under 8 at the coast. And those are low end numbers. If this storms bombs out or stalls over us, as some models suggest, well then, see you in April. The main problem with this blizzard is the wind and the heavy snow. There will be power outages, in places that are not used to power outages. So be prepared.

Due to the blizzard, El Somnambulo will post his Political Weekly and Post Game/Pre Game columns tomorrow rather than yesterday and today. I will have our normal political open thread later today as well as a post on some fundraising this morning as well.

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Friday Open Thread [1.22.2016]

E.J. Dionne: “After Obama won, the main goal of Republican leaders of all stripes was to take back Congress as a prelude to defeating the president in 2012. The angry grass-roots right — it has been there for decades but cleverly rebranded itself as the tea party in 2009 — would be central in driving the midterm voters the GOP would need to the polls. Since no one was better at rousing them than Palin, old-line Republican leaders embraced and legitimized her even if they snickered privately about who she was and how she said things.”

“Today’s Republican crisis was thus engineered by the party leadership’s step-by-step capitulation to a politics of unreason, a policy of silence toward the most extreme and wild charges against Obama, and a lifting up of resentment and anger over policy and ideas as the party’s lodestars.”

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