Friday Talking Points [54] -- Republican Fossilization

Welcome back to Friday Talking Points.

Of course, the big question on everyone's mind right now is: What is going on up in Minnesota? Al Franken is tantalizingly close to taking a lead in his Senate race, but very few details are available in the media (with the exception of this report from the Huffington Post) to let us know exactly what is going on. So I went to the source, and contacted the Franken campaign for some details.

Minnesota is currently in the process of verifying their ballot results. What is happening right now (and the reason why the totals keep slightly changing) is "canvassing" in Minnesota's 87 counties. This is a preliminary review of the results, and should be complete in the middle of next week. A few days after this is completed, each county will conduct a post-election review, or a spot-check of a small sampling of precincts, to verify the machine totals are correct.

Over 2.9 million votes were cast in the Gopher State. An automatic recount is triggered by one-half of one percent (0.50%) of these votes. The margin right now is less than 240 votes, or less than one one-hundredth of a percent (0.01%), meaning that a recount is mandatory.

Of course, the outcome of a recount is anybody's guess. Franken campaign spokesperson Jess McIntosh summed it up: "The race is the closest Senate race in Minnesota history and the closest race anywhere in the country this year; it is too close to call, and we do not yet know who won."

McIntosh went on to say: "The recount is an automatic process used in Minnesota to determine with certainty the outcomes of extremely close races. It will be orderly, fair, and conducted with one goal: To ensure that every vote is properly counted. Candidates don't get to decide when an election is decided -- voters do. We may have to wait a little while to learn who won the election, but we will know that the voice of the electorate was clearly heard."

This is a very level-headed appraisal of the situation. We're going to have to be patient for a while. While we would definitely like to see Senator Franken representing the Land of 10,000 Lakes, we're just not going to know for a few weeks whether that is going to happen or not, it seems. More on this story as it develops....

 

 

President-Elect Barack Obama.

 

That just about says it all, doesn't it? Barack Obama wins Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week, if not this entire year. No explanation is necessary here.

[Congratulate President-Elect Barack Obama on his new Change.gov transition page to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]

 

This week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week goes to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The handling of Joe Lieberman's status once again confirms to me that this man does not deserve to be a party leader, and should be challenged in the Democratic leadership elections in a month or so.

Because Reid just oozes weakness. He can't help it, it seems. I'll even put it into boxing terms so Reid can understand it himself: he's got a glass jaw. Which he leads with.

Time and time again, Reid starts some delicate negotiation process by leaking to the press his utter capitulation from any sort of strong Democratic position. In this case, he called Lieberman into his office, but apparently issued no ultimatum. If Democrats are going to kick Lieberman out of the party, fine. If they're going to leave him with his committee chairmanship, fine. Either way, it should have been strongly communicated to the world. If Democrats are waiting to see the outcome of the final three unfinished Senate races, that would have been fine too. But in that case, this silly little dance with Lieberman that happened this week should not have happened at all.

What did happen was the usual Harry Reid public-relations disaster. It was leaked to the press that a meeting was going to happen. Lieberman appeared in front of the press after the meeting and said "I'm going to think about things." Reid talked out of both sides of his mouth, and didn't communicate any sort of position at all. Now, the Republicans have leaked to the press that they are personally courting Lieberman.

Anyone with an ounce of media savvy would have handled it in a completely different fashion. Here's one way that is infinitely better, just as an example: leak in mid-November that Reid is going to give Lieberman an ultimatum -- no chairmanships, but he can still caucus with Democrats if he wants to, or he can jump ship and become a Republican. Then have the meeting with Lieberman the day after Thanksgiving, and tell the world what happened late on a Friday night. No matter which way it goes at this point, the public won't be paying any attention at all. This boxes Lieberman into a corner.

Sigh. Unfortunately, right in the midst of Obama's news wave, we have Reid looking weak. That's not leadership. And that's why he really should be replaced as Senate Majority Leader.

And that's also why he gets this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award.

[Contact Majority Leader Harry Reid on his Senate contact page to let him know what you think of his actions.]

 

Volume 54 (11/7/08)

This is just too funny.

Now, Washington, D.C. is a town that thrives on acronyms. [Here's a quick quiz -- if you know the meaning of most of the following, you can be considered "inside the Beltway" no matter where you live: POTUS, VPOTUS, SCOTUS, CINC, USA PATRIOT ACT, HAVA, VAWA, SOFA, GOP, RNC, DNC, DLC, NSC, HUAAC.] So you'd think Washington bigwigs would check everything they do for acronym-compatibility. You would think, at any rate.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, in a bid to change his title to House Permanent Minority Leader, writes an op-ed article in today's Washington Post. If you don't have the stomach to read the whole thing, allow me to summarize:

"Just because Obama got elected, and just because Republicans absolutely got our clocks cleaned for the second straight election in Congress doesn't mean voters actually think our ideas suck. Actually, our ideas are great! They don't suck at all! We just have to convince voters that they were really, really stupid the last two times around, and we know better than they do what they were thinking in the voting booth. Sure, Obama promised a bunch of stuff, but nobody really voted for all that stuff. They really don't believe that stuff, they believe our stuff... because I said so! So there! We're a center-right country, dammit! I don't care what the voters say, we're center-right! Center-right I tells ya!!"

Ahem. Sorry, but that's pretty much what it says.

But the hilarious thing is the phrase which appears with the exact same wording twice in the article -- the core beliefs of the Republican Party (according to Boehner): "freedom, opportunity, security, and individual liberty." Hmm.. let's just parse that as if it were on a bumpersticker: "Freedom, Opportunity, Security, and Individual Liberty." Or, if you're in a hurry: FOSIL.

You can't make this stuff up. One of the Republican Leadership is publicly stating that their ideas can be summed up as FOSIL. Maybe they're going for the Paleolithic vote?

All kidding aside, this is an important period for Democrats appearing on the media, because this is when the "conventional wisdom" about the 2008 election is going to gel in the minds of pundits everywhere. And Democrats have to stand up for the proper framing of the election NOW, and shoot down the idiocy which has already started coming from the right.

 

   Center-left

This one just has to be nipped in the bud, pronto. From Boehner's article, a prime example of what I'm talking about:

Recommitting ourselves [Republicans] to these principles means two things: vigorously fighting a far-left agenda that is out of step with the wishes of the vast majority of Americans and, more important, promoting superior Republican alternatives that prove that we offer a better vision for our country's future. America is still a center-right country.

Um, no, John, it's not. This needs to get hammered home by any Democrat in reach of a media microphone, and it needs to get repeated over and over again until the media themselves start using it:

"America's political outlook has gone through a giant pendulum-swing in the past two elections. We are now a center-left country. Republicans keep trying to tell anyone who will listen that this is still a center-right country, but that is utter hogwash. It was a center-right country. It has changed. Tens of millions of voters have proven this twice now. The sooner Republicans realize this and start working with us to enact the laws America is begging for, the better. Because the public is center-left, and that's where we're going to be governing from. Republicans can either join in, or get out of the way."

 

   Mandate

From Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) comes one of what will likely be many blatant hypocrisies from the right on the word "mandate." Here is conservative columnist Bob Novak, after Bush's 2004 re-election (responding to Mark Shields' question "Is 51 percent of the vote really a mandate?"):

Of course it is. It's a 3.5 million vote margin. But the people who are saying that it isn't a mandate are the same people who were predicting that John Kerry would win. ... So the people who say there's not a mandate want the president, now that he's won, to say, "Oh, we're going to accept the liberalism that the voters rejected." But Mark, this is a conservative country, and it showed it on last Tuesday.

Bob Novak, the day after Barack Obama won with 52.5% of the vote:

When Franklin D. Roosevelt won his second term for president in 1936, the defeated Republican candidate, Gov. Alf Landon of Kansas, won only two states, Maine and Vermont, and Democrats controlled both houses of Congress by wide margins. But Obama's win was nothing like that. He may have opened the door to enactment of the long-deferred liberal agenda, but he neither received a broad mandate from the public nor the needed large congressional majorities.

When it's a Democrat, see, you don't get to use the word "mandate" unless you beat F.D.R.'s record. What baloney!

Democrats need to start tossing this word around with sheer joy and unbridled abandon. Mandate, mandate, mandate. They can even get Obama-ey and poetic and use "mandate for change" if they'd like. But anyone who tries to claim that Obama and the Democrats don't have a "mandate" (and they will, Novak is merely one example) needs to get laughed down immediately.

"Of course Obama's got a mandate. Obama is the first Democratic President in thirty years to win over 50% of the popular vote. If fifty-two-and-a-half percent isn't a mandate, then I don't know what is, because you are changing the definition of the word itself. Obama has an enormous mandate for change, and won more votes for president than any other candidate in American history. Anyone who says Obama doesn't have a mandate is a fool, or flat-out deluded."

 

   Karl Rove's legacy -- Permanent Republican minority?

Before I rip into Karl Rove, I've got to say one thing in his favor -- during the campaign season, his electoral maps on Fox News were often a lot closer to the reality than the other networks. Fair's fair, and I've got to give him at least that.

But Karl Rove's job (before he became a news media analyst) was to create a "permanent Republican majority" in Washington, D.C. That's what his dream was all about. He was going to get this majority by the use of fear, the use of divisiveness and wedge issues, and by firing up his base and peeling off just enough independents to win every time.

Too bad it didn't turn out that way, Karl. Quite the opposite, in fact.

This needs to be pointed out by Democrats.

"The election results show that Republicans are losing just about every demographic group there is -- including the two groups that are showing real growth: Latinos and young people. This doesn't bode well for their party's prospects for the future. Wouldn't it be ironic if Karl Rove's true lasting legacy was a permanent Republican minority?!?"

 

   Obama Revolution

I'm open to suggestions for this one, if anyone's got anything snappier. Because this election transformed the face of American politics the way nobody's done since Ronald Reagan. And Reagan, if you'll remember, caused all sorts of catchphrases to pop up in American political discourse. There is absolutely no reason why Obama should not be accorded the same honor.

"When we look back on the 2008 election, my guess is that people will call it the 'Obama Revolution' in the same way we talk of a 'Reagan Revolution' in 1980."

 

   Obama Republicans

Likewise, we need to rename all the Republican voters who supported Obama.

"You know, in 1980 it was the Reagan Democrats who made all the difference. This time around, it was the Obama Republicans and the Obama Independents who made an enormous difference. Obama's support was widespread, and transcended party affiliation in the same way that Ronald Reagan did."

 

   Yes they did!

Back to that Boehner op-ed again. This is likely to be a loud talking point from the right in the next few weeks, and it has to be smacked down as the up-is-down nonsense it truly is:

This election was neither a referendum in favor of the left's approach to key issues nor a mandate for big government. Obama campaigned by masking liberal policies with moderate rhetoric to make his agenda more palatable to voters. Soon he will seek to advance these policies through a Congress that was purchased by liberal special interests such as unions, trial lawyers and radical environmentalists, and he'll have a fight on his hands when he does so.

In record numbers, Americans voted on Tuesday for a skillful presidential nominee promising change, but "change" should not be confused with a license to raise taxes, drive up wasteful government spending, weaken our security, or give more power to Washington, Big Labor bosses and the trial bar. Americans did not vote for higher taxes to fund a redistribution of wealth; drastic cuts in funding for our troops; the end of secret ballots for workers participating in union elections; more costly obstacles to American energy production; or the imposition of government-run health care on employers and working families.

Um... yes... yes they did. Like I said, Democrats need to smack this moose poop down:

"I hear a lot of people on the right saying the voters 'didn't vote for this' or 'didn't vote for that,' and I think that points out a fundamental difference between the left and the right. The left respects voters' intelligence. We know what they voted for, and we are going to get it done for them. Republicans can question the voters' intelligence all they want to -- which I don't really think is a good way to get future votes... but hey, it's a free country. Democrats listen to the voters, and they have spoken loudly about what they do want and Democrats are now going to deliver for them."

 

   Fossilization

And finally, the cheap shot that is just begging to be taken. You just knew I couldn't resist, didn't you?

"One of the leaders of the Republican Party outlined what the party stands for on the editorial pages of the Washington Post the other day. The things they are supposedly for spell out 'FOSIL,' which I find particularly appropriate. Their old and tired ideas are nearing extinction, and have not just been set in stone, but (according to John Boehner) have actually fossilized. I am not making this up, you can check for yourself. Republicans ideas are just as Paleolithic as they've always been, but luckily enough the voters have realized that the dinosaur bones of discredited Republican philosophy are not exactly what is going to lead us into the future."

 

Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com

Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground

 

Comments

[anon004]

"You can't make this stuff up. One of the Republican Leadership is publicly stating that their ideas can be summed up as FOSIL. Maybe they're going for the Paleolithic vote?"

Best acronym since CREEP . . .

[Chris Weigant - Huffpost Blogger]

anon004 -

Hoo boy, how did I miss that one? You're right, that has to be the top Washington acronym of all time.

For those too young to remember, this was the name (no kidding) of Richard Nixon's "Committee to RE-Elect the President.­"

I don't know how I missed that, thanks for pointing it out...

-CW

[Davwbaird]

This revolution makes Reagan's insignifant. This like something we don't have words for. It is awe inspiring, wonderful and tran·scending

[nypoet22]

chris,

great column, as usual. Agreed on #2: MANDATE MANDATE MANDATE!!!

on a somber note, just because the dems managed to win an election does NOT mean we can assume all future elections will now be fair. when i cast my vote here in florida, i and half the voters in line with me felt very iffy about whether our ballots would be counted accurately by the computer software. one MAJOR item on the agenda (now that we actually have the power to do something about it) NEEDS to be the expulsion from our country of anything and everything diebold-related.

[Chris Weigant - Huffpost Blogger]

nypoet22 -

I've been calling to federalize elections for a while now, and have one standard for everyone to use to vote.

And may I just add... MANDATE!

Heh heh.

-CW

[timm0]

Like most of this week's, sir.

But #1 (the "left-center" thing) is a trap. It's neocon labeling and what I think needs to be done is to eradicate that ENTIRE CONCEPT from all public discourse.

The "left-center" "right-center" crap is all intellectual dishonesty and not much more than a cheap - but more high-minde­d-sounding - replacement for name-calling. There is no real definition for it. There is no arbiter of it's interpretation. It's basically made-up nonsense that the message-carriers for the republican party and their talk radio acolytes will use.

Giving that garbage ANY respect whatsoever is a mistake. I guarantee that if it remains an unchallenged, "standard" characterization of policy-adherence, it will be the straw-man played by the neocon attack dogs in 2010 election window.

It's a surrender to the creeps who control the image of the party in the media if we don't discredit it as a pathetic, homogenized, over-generalization of a broad swatch of policy which lets lazy people avoid actually learning about and understanding individual policy.

[nypoet22]

this is one of the most intelligent comments i've read recently. in 21st century politics, the left-right dichotomy is basically a myth. every issue has multiple dimensions, which can rarely be broken down into simple lefty or righty positions. both parties have individuals who want to serve the public, and individuals who want to serve themselves, pragmatists and ideologues, some smart as a whip and others dumb as rocks. which, come to think of it, is why a "talking points" column is even needed to begin with, to present a compelling sound-byte answer for who is being "impressive" and who is being "disappoin­ting."

[Davwbaird]

So true. I think the current response to our President Elect had more to do something we will struggle to explain for the next five years until we can see in retrospect, that this country was so tired of living in stoked politcal fear that we saw hope in a man that relected our thoughts and dreams. That is what I am picking up.

[Chris Weigant - Huffpost Blogger]

timm0 -

I hear what you're saying, but I think most of the television talking heads aren't that smart. Left/right is one-dimensional, so it fits right in with how they try to present pretty much everything. It is indeed intellectually lazy, but that's about all they can normally handle, if you know what I mean.

-CW

[timm0]

Yes sir, that is about all they can handle. No quarrel there. However, as a talking point, I don't think that should stop Dems from consistently treating the terms with disdain and hostility when they are confronted with them by the media.

A fitting response may be, "What is that label, anyway? Is 'center-left' like a Homeland Security threat level color? Is it orange or blue or green? Those labels seem to me to be the same thing as the colors - there's no relevance whatsoever to facts, reality, or issues, just some trite, dumbed-down, generic button. Hey, if Obama starts 'ruling from the left-center-left,' do we need duct tape and plastic? Can we please talk about actual issues instead of these meaningless labels?"

[Max and the Marginalized - Huffpost Blogger]

Happiest Friday talking points ever! When will they stop saying that we are a center-right nation?

I didn't realize that we have been running about the same schedule. Nice work =)

[Chris Weigant - Huffpost Blogger]

Max -

The Republicans will never stop saying it, but the media is convincable, I bet.

Thanks for the kind words. Just writing something every week is hard enough, I don't know how you manage to put it to music, too!

:-)

-CW

[altohone]

Chris-

I have now seen about a dozen neocon pundits talk about Obama snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq in their post-election analysis.

Could you please tackle this issue?
After a trillion dollars, 7 years of chaos, more than 60,000 wounded and 4,000 dead Americans and an estimated 100,000 dead Iraqis...

... maybe my dictionary is out of date, but the definition of "victory" doesn't appear to match this reality.

This right-wing spin is crying out for a response in carefully crafted talking points. It's not a coincidence all these people are using the same phrase... it's a planned spin designed to constrain Obama and/or for use in the next election.
Fifty-four in a series means you've got the job.
Thanks.

[Chris Weigant - Huffpost Blogger]

altohone -

I don't think it's going to work. I think Americans have made up their minds about Iraq, and Republican spin isn't going to influence them much at all. When Obama comes out with his detailed plan for Iraq, I'll help him out with some talking points, how's that? Not that he needs much help in that department, but FTP is for all Democrats to use, and some of the rest of them could use a hand...

-CW

[LizM]

Hey altohone! I guess we're both pretty happy, these days!