Sen. Mark Warner Equates Progressives With Tea Party Activists, Provoking Outrage From MoveOn

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) called for compromise and cooperation between Democrats and Republicans during remarks in Virginia on Monday, and equated the Tea Party movement on the right with progressive MoveOn.org activists.

"There's a super left on my party -- the MoveOn crowd in my party -- and the Tea Party crowd on the other party," he said after a meeting with tourism officials in Staunton, Va. "You know, they don't compromise. So I, for one, am -- there are too many times I bit my lip in the first year, or bit my tongue. I'm done."

"Democrats just lost an election where much of the base didn't turn out, and voters felt like Democrats weren't on their side," responded MoveOn Executive Director Justin Ruben in a statement to The Huffington Post. "Senator Warner's response is to falsely equate 5 million MoveOn members, including over 102,000 in Virginia -- people from all walks of life who worked tirelessly for Democrats in Virginia and all across the country -- with the racist and xenophobic far-right wing of the Republican Party. If Mark Warner's recipe for victory is to attack the core of supporters still willing to back Democrats, and to promise more deals with corporate Republicans, anyone who cares about progress should look elsewhere for leadership."

Also in his remarks on Monday, Warner said that both sides must be part of the solution now that Democrats can't "jam stuff through" and Republicans "can't just say no."

"There's going to be one of two routes," said Warner. "We're either going to let the extremes, who say no negotiation under any terms, rule the day, or the folks who want to find some common ground in the middle are going to have to step up."

LISTEN:

The site Blue Virginia points out that this isn't the first time that Warner has gone after what he views as the intransigence of progressives in his party. Speaking on energy policy in January, Warner told "some of our more liberal Democrats in the room" that they can't always take a "purist approach."

"That this is not going to be totally solved by some airy dream of it's just gonna be all solar and wind -- that nuclear has to be a piece of this, that coal has to be a piece of this, that there's gonna be a portfolio approach," said Warner. "And I think those three factors make the possibilities of some action on this area on a national basis much higher than it was, say, six months ago."

Comments

[fbros]

05:45 PM on 11/18/2010

Warner needs to be unelected. He is one of the duds that slipped thru the crack. He is a dummie. I'm from Virginia and take part responsibility for this fool.

[ChasG]

03:16 PM on 11/18/2010

All ideologies, political and religious, are alike in exploiting people's fears.  Left wing and right wing ideologues have this in common-- they just appeal to different fears.
 
Ideologues on the left and right are like yin and yang.  Western thinking on this regards yin and yang as black and white opposites, but that is not the case.  The black area in the yin/yang symbol contains a white dot, and the white area contains a black dot.  Each contains elements of the other, both sides define themselves in terms of the other, and each side without the other is less than whole.  That is part of the yin/yang world view.  Also, each side of the yin/yang symbol is not a half-circle but is a swoop, signifying continuous motion and change; thus yin and yang are not separated by a straight line, separating left from right, but by a curved line further symbolizing that the left has occupied part of the right, and the right has occupied part of the left.
 
If this seems a little esoteric for progressive and Tea Party politics, think of it this way.  Left wing and right wing ideologues need each other in order to define themselves as being not the other.  So neither left nor right can ever prevail on its own.

[whirlybird]

09:40 AM on 11/18/2010

Failing to differentiate between the corporate astro-turf tea partiers and MoveOn members in both form and substance is inexcusable. It reeks of the worst tendencies of congressional Dems -- Warner is spineless and politically self-serving.

[ChasG]

01:19 PM on 11/18/2010

Failing to differentiate between right wing extremism and moderate centrism is inexcusable.  Calling those who are not ideologues and who are therefore willing to compromise "spineless and politically self serving" is anti-democratic (small "d").
 
There is plenty to differentiate the right wing ideologues in the Tea Party movement from the left wing ideologues associated with Move-on.org.  But failing to also recognize that both are ideological and uncompromising is just intellectual dishonesty.

[Joe Friday]

11:11 AM on 11/16/2010

When Americans hear the name "MoveOn" they wonder who is this crowd? Even the politically active question who and what this herd represents. However, If you are active in a TeaParty group you understand. I.E.,"Senator Warner's response is to falsely equate 5 million MoveOn members, including over 102,000 in Virginia -- people from all walks of life who worked tirelessly for Democrats in Virginia and all across the country -- with the racist and xenophobic far-right wing of the Republican Party". MoveOn, an out of touch radical propaganda group! They need to have their head stepped upon! :-))

[Beyrak]

09:53 PM on 11/13/2010

Liberals and moveon.org that insist on giving handouts to people and teach them to depend on the government are only hurting people, but that is their intent. It is the Democrats way of building in a dependent constituency.

You will read liberals commenting to articles on this site saying, "How could people vote against their own interests?" 'Own interests' are code words for entitlements.

The 'TEA Party' movement has faith in their fellow man, unlike a lot on the other side of the aisle.

[ChasG]

03:48 PM on 11/17/2010

If Tea Party really "has faith in their fellow man," they would be democratic (small "d") and not ideological ("you're either with us or you're against us").
 
If "own interests" are code words for entitlements, then GOP and Tea Party should stop voting for their own interests.  Are jobs an entitlement?
 
Democrats building a dependent constituency?  How many Democrat constituents do you think are receiving entitlements from the government?

[whirlybird]

09:41 AM on 11/18/2010

You've got the corporate line down well. What else can you learn?

[Patriot86]

09:30 AM on 11/13/2010

Not hardly, Moveone.org people have brains.

[ChasG]

12:17 PM on 11/12/2010

Quoting MoveOn Executive Director Justin Ruben in a statement to The Huffington Post, "Democrats just lost an election where much of the base didn't turn out, and voters felt like Democrats weren't on their side.... If Mark Warner's recipe for victory is to attack the core of supporters still willing to back Democrats, and to promise more deals with corporate Republicans, anyone who cares about progress should look elsewhere for leadership."
How is it that the first group to abandom the Democrats also claims to be the party's "base."  These so-called "progressives" on the left are not Democrats, they are ideologues (not racists or xenophobes) who, unlike real Democrats, are unable to compromise with anybody because if you're not progressive then, from their perspective, everyone else is right wing.
 

[Patriot86]

09:33 AM on 11/13/2010

Why do Democrats always compromise but the GOP gets what they want? It is called caving and Clinton did it in the 90's to the detriment of the country...NAFTA, repeal of Glass-Steagall, cut medicare and social security and so called welfare reform...no more. And the bottom line is those righties will vote for real GOP and if you turn your base off...you will merely lose and lose badly.

[ChasG]

01:15 PM on 11/13/2010

Compromise is not the same as "caving in," because in compromise implicitly both sides win something and both sides lose something, and both sides come closer together in a constructive working relationship (agree to disagree).
As for Clinton, you may not be aware but those landmark bi-partisan mistakes you refer to were passed by veto-proof majorities, so I would not lay it all at Clinton's feet.
And if the far left is the first group to be "turned off" by compromise, then they hardly can call themselves "the base."  They are "the fringle" on the margin. and are not what holds Democrats together.  They are what is tearing the party apart, just like Tea Party pols are tearing the GOP apart.  Tearing apart seems to be the national paradigm right now.  I wonder if anything constructive can come of that.  I doubt it.

[Floridaval]

01:21 AM on 11/17/2010

So far I have seen compromise promises by Republicans that appear to come with conditions, just to appear easy to get along with. For 2 years, Republicans have refused to compromise, and what was Boehner's battle cry after the elections: No compromise! As much as I would love to see true compromise in government, this year everything is so hyped up, that I find this hardly possible. We are also asked to compromise on issues that should have been over and done with, like Roe vs Wade, DADT, Earmarks. But believe me, as distrusting as I am right now, these are morsels thrown to us by the Repubs, so Pres Obama and the Dems can say, oh they let us have this, so I guess they can have the tax cuts, they can have health care, and we still will not have created jobs n this country. Yes, I am angry, and frustrated and I consider myself progressive and frankly I am not really too willing to compromise with the old "regime" of our politicians who have fooled us so many times. But I can tell you this, I am not violent, I don't advocate 2nd amendment solutions and I don't want anything to do with any organization that does.

[congocat]

12:32 AM on 11/12/2010

Look at the situation as a compliment...they copied us, not us copying them. We progressives (including Moveon.org) led the amazing surge of voters to successfully elect President Barack Obama since we were so tired of the GOP and all their negative, bossy behaviors and the way the country was going economically as well as the political devisiveness. Seems to me the Tea Party copied us on enthusiasm but on the wrong side on the issues, and of course they had to add their own negativity and hatefulness to it. Only people who concentrate on fear can behave in such nasty ways.

[ChasG]

03:01 PM on 11/18/2010

All ideologies, political and religious, are alike in exploiting people's fears.  Left wing and right wing ideologues have this in common-- they just appeal to different fears.

[whirlybird]

01:21 AM on 11/19/2010

Some ideas are better than others. Period. And ideals are good things, too.

[Gatormouth]

11:06 PM on 11/11/2010

Senator Warner sounds like a Centrist, besides being a Blue Dog that won't hunt. Getting nervous, too, it sounds like.

Both major parties are primarily controlled now by Post National corporations.The politicians are not creating law or policy for a public constituency but as directed by their not-so-well hidden corporate constituency.

Now, Thanks to a seriously conflicted and collaborating Supreme Court, Post National Corporations have been given license to manipulate our politicians and jurists and to loot our industries, wealth, and sovereignty.

Our trade laws have been eroded and re-written by NAFTA/CAFTA, GATT and WTO agreements achieved by a Post National form of what was Italian National Fascism in the mid 20th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamber_of_Fasci_and_Corporations

Obama's (and Clinton's) Centrism is a return to the Transformism of late 19th Century Italy that worked to eliminate party factions and make it safe for corporate domination and to pave the way for Fascism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trasformismo
We are moving toward a one party system. The Incumbent party. The Democratic Centrist party has marginalized it's "far left" Progressives, and made room for disaffected and ejected Republican Moderates. The Tea Party will then wither away and we will be left with no Right wing, no Left wing, but just the Corporatist selected party. That's the Centrist plan, anyway. We'll see.

[ChasG]

12:04 AM on 11/12/2010

We have been given a false choice by both major parties-- vote left or vote right.  The idea that centrism in a democracy is equivalent to or leads to fascism is only true when the country is deeply divided and the far left and far right have become so extreme they are ineffectual.  Ideology is unbending, uncompromising, and unable to cope with change because change inherently violates ideology.
Real progressives are center-left because they are not ideological, they are pragmatic, and will steal ideas from both parties to cobble together a national concensus and move us forward on the long road of social progress.  "Far left" progressives aren't progressive at all, because they are ideological and uncompromising.  Just look at the far-right criticism of Obama, in the face of his historical legislative accomplishments, they still define him according to their disappointments (awe, gee, you mean life is full of disappointments for everybody?  why didn't somebody warn me before I decided to be born?).
The idea that centrism is fascist belies the fact that fascism is, in policy matters, far right extremism.  But being in favor of well regulated free markets in a democratic society is not fascism, it's progressive centrism.  Only someone on the far right or the far left will find ideological differences with centrism.  From the center, the right calls you left and the left calls you right.  Both are wrong.

[ChasG]

12:22 AM on 11/12/2010

When you look at Italy for comparisons, look at everything.  Look at the fact that most people were not eligible to vote-- only 2 million had that franchise, so it was not a democracy to begin with.
This "transformismo" in Italy was similar to what happened in Canada to create a third political party.  Note the extreme differences in outcome of "transformismo" between the non-democracy of Italy, and the popular democracy of Canada.  Canada has a vibrant three-party democracy, not fascism.
Suggesting the Warner and others like him could lead us to fascism is completely baseless and uninformed.
Perhaps you confuse fascism with well regulated free enterprise, which is what the vast majority want on both sides of the political spectrum, especially those cluster in the center.

[Gatormouth]

01:38 AM on 11/12/2010

If the "Well Regulated Free Enterprise" and "Popular Democracy" you cite is directed or controlled by the deliberate application of conditional corporate money and influence I call it what it is, Fascism. And if the corporate organization is Trans National in scope, and not bound by the rules, laws or taxes imposed by nation States, I call it Post National Fascism. The "Real Progressives" you posit are collaborators, not patriots. I like my Nation and wish it's success, not it's assimilation into a "well ordered" Corporate colonial empire.

[whirlybird]

09:48 AM on 11/18/2010

How can you say with a straight face that current mainstream conservatives are interested in well-regulated free enterprise? And what do those of us who don't much respect the lukewarm center want? Poorly regulated free enterprise?

[ProChoiceGrandma]

08:29 PM on 11/11/2010

Mark Warner has certainly lost MY support.

How Dare You, Sir, to equate ANY Democrats as anything even close to the rabid racist xenophobic misogynists of the ChristianiTEA Party!

Can Virginia PLEASE find a clone of Alan Grayson, or persuade him to move to Virginia??

[ChasG]

11:42 AM on 11/12/2010

Warner was not equating the specific traits that make right and left wing extremes different.  Your comments about racism, xenophobia etc., are differentials, I agree, but Warner was talking about the similarities in the two extremes:  both offer a dogmatic ideological approach to our problems rather than pragmatic centrist solutions.  I don't think such a statement has anything to do with racism or xenophobia.

[whirlybird]

09:52 AM on 11/18/2010

Centrists have indeed controlled the debate for quite a while, and have allowed the political focus to mindlessly drift to the right for the past quarter century. Unfortunately, such a passive and passionless incremental approach has led to the messes in which we now find ourselves.

[patstory]

02:58 PM on 11/11/2010

I too am an ex-Virginian (thank goodness) and talked with Warner a couple of times. He's a gazillionaire from some electronics investments, but he was never this unreasonable. Either he was lying then or else Washington has corrupted him like so many others in congress. It would be good to turn him out but unless VA has changed that's not likely. His opponents will be dreadful, such as "macaca," but what's the use of a corporate dem in the senate when big decisions are on the line?

[sds2008]

11:35 AM on 11/12/2010

Having lived in Virginia, Mark Warner always solved problems by consensus, so I'm not sure this is out of character for him. I think he was always fiscally conservative, which was necessary when he took office of Governor- the previous administration had the state in a huge hole. I don't agree with the statement, but I have to say that from my point of view, Virginia was very well run under his leadership.

[ChasG]

11:49 AM on 11/12/2010

What defines a "corporate Dem" in your mind? 
Any Dem with corporate donors?  (99%)
Any Dem supporting any pro-business policies? (99%)
How many Dems in congress can you name who are not "corporate" as you define, and what makes you say they aren't "corporate?"

[JakobFabian01]

02:43 PM on 11/11/2010

Senator Mark Wilson's statement is tilting at windmills - in the original sense of Don Quixote. I am a lifelong environmentalist, and I read a lot of what environmentalists write. To my knowledge, not one of us imagines that any energy plan in the near future will eliminate fossil fuels completely. But what environmentalists resist, and with good reason, is the accelerated or increased consumption of these fuels. When Warner says "coal has to be a piece of this," does he mean the horrible practice of mountaintop removal, or does he agree that in the future of coal - which I concede will have to go on at least a few generations more - there must be no place for this dirty, dangerous, life-destroying, wealth-concentrating, poverty-spreading, exploitive desecration of the Appalachian landscape?
I cannot speak for all environmentalists, but I for one am willing to "deal" on the question of nuclear power, provided that you agree to the following: For every dollar you spend on fossil fuels and nuclear energy, spend TWO dollars on expanding wind and solar energy and on making our electric grid and our public and private buildings more energy-efficient. I predict confidently that if you keep spending money in precisely this ratio, you will quickly discover that nuclear power is a WASTE OF MONEY, as the investments in renewables and energy efficiency together prove to pay for themselves in terms of lowered electricity bills and make new nuclear power plants COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY.

[patstory]

03:05 PM on 11/11/2010

I'm surprised that as a self-identified environmentalist, you are willing to spread more nuclear waste, the most toxic substance in the universe, around our country, not to mention the inevitable human error or terrorism that's coming at reactor sites. Even global warming/climate change seems relatively benign compared to this "solution" to energy needs.

[ChasG]

01:54 PM on 11/18/2010

Actually, gram for gram, dioxin (a mutagenic waste product of chemical agriculture) is believed to be more toxic than plutonium, but as an environmental advocate I agree with you--- we don't need any more of either.
 
We need to decentralize the production and distribution of electrical energy.  On this issue I disagree with Warner, but I would still vote for him over any ideological alternative candidate.
 
 

[Tisquantum]

04:26 PM on 11/15/2010

As "a lifelong environmentalist" you actually believe there is enough coal remaining to last "a few generations more"? Perhaps you're not aware that at current consumption trends the planet has only enough coal to last 56 years, or that virtually all scholarly estimates project a peak production date of no later than 2048 and quite possibly as early as 2030. With rapidly growing economies (China, India etc.) and their voracious appetites for coal. we can no longer count on coal as a "reliable" fossil energy source for the remainder of this century. The sad thing here is that everyone is missing the big picture when it comes to our energy sources. It's not even about our "environment" per se. Even assuming you're okay with permanently changing the climate, melting the polar Ice sheets, raising sea levels by 10 feet or more, blasting every remaining mountain in the Appalachians with a speck of coal to smithereenes (coal). Even if you're willing do all of the above, engage in resource wars, and turn the Atlantic Ocean into the world's largest chemistry experiment (Petroleum). Even if you're fine with cancer and radiation-diseases becoming a universal fact of modern life (Nuclear), the trouble is, none of these finite resources will last for more than "a few generations".

[azm2004]

02:02 PM on 11/11/2010

Sen. Warner is very wrong equating progressives with T-Party crowd.
Progressives:
-don't attend town hall meetings with their guns!
-don't call their opponents names (communists, socialists, nazzis...)
-don't insult their elective officials and The President.
-don't stump on their young opponents' heads!
-don't spread lies about the opposition.
-respect their opponents and rule of law.
-read facts about the laws and then take a position.
-believe in our democratic system.
-love this country and want the best for everyone.

We will see, if Sen. Warner survives his reelection in Virginia next time around. I doubt it!

[congocat]

12:38 AM on 11/12/2010

azm204, thanks so much...you are absolutely right...I am going to copy and keep your comments as
you truly sum it up and your words will cheer me up when the political situation gets me down !

[ChasG]

06:55 AM on 11/19/2010

Progressives call their opponents names as well (corporate shills, corporatists, demopubs, bigots and racists, fascists, need I go on?)
 
Progressives have been insulting Obama since he began to form his cabinet before he was even inaugurated.  (GOP lite, DINO, spineless, traitor, need I go on?)
 
Progressives don't all believe in our democratic system.  They often see no differences between GOP and Dems, and because they are uncompromising and ideolgical, just like the Tea Party, they are inherently undemocratic (small "d").  Democracy requires compromise, or we are headed for civil war.  We have that history.  And a lot of the "progressive" rhetoric posted and blogged here at HuffPost seems to want that civil war to happen.

[wfglaser]

12:30 PM on 11/11/2010

More false equivalence. Time to knock it off or the Democrats are going to continue to lose.

[ChasG]

02:36 PM on 11/18/2010

The false equivalences tend to come from both progressives and Tea Party followers.  The difference between them is which conclusions they rationalize, but the ideological thought processes are the same, not the policy conclusions.
 
If progressives don't stop being ideological and don't learn to respect compromise, we can expect Dems to either lose more elections or drift further to the right.

[whirlybird]

01:26 AM on 11/19/2010

The false equivalences are coming from Warner and from you.

[George Hanshaw]

08:27 PM on 11/10/2010

That is insulting. The tea party is far more middle-of-the-road than Moveon.

[William Diaz]

08:56 PM on 11/10/2010

I truly hope you are joking and/or being ironic.

Have a great day!

[George Hanshaw]

09:52 PM on 11/10/2010

I had a wonderful day... but I wasn't joking. From a NYTimes/CBS poll.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html

some excerpts:

The Tea Party movement burst onto the scene a year ago in protest of the economic stimulus package, and its supporters have vowed to purge the Republican Party of officials they consider not sufficiently conservative and to block the Democratic agenda on the economy, the environment and health care. But the demographics and attitudes of those in the movement have been known largely anecdotally. The Times/CBS poll offers a detailed look at the profile and attitudes of those supporters.

Their responses are like the general public’s in many ways. Most describe the amount they paid in taxes this year as “fair.” Most send their children to public schools. A plurality do not think Sarah Palin is qualified to be president, and, despite their push for smaller government, they think that Social Security and Medicare are worth the cost to taxpayers. They actually are just as likely as Americans as a whole to have returned their census forms, though some conservative leaders have urged a boycott.