There is no shortage of disturbing/depressing meta-messages from last night's election results.
There was the "What's the Matter With Kansas" message of populism being channeled into the cause of elitism and aristocracy: For example, we saw an anti-establishment/anti-corporate/anti-NAFTA/anti-government Tea Party electing to the Senate a congressman's son (Rand Paul), a senator-turned-Washington-drug-lobbyist (Dan Coats) and George W. Bush's trade representative (Rob Portman).
There was the "The Privileged Finish First" while "Good People Finish Last" message: For instance, principled Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, who has taken many a principled progressive stand, loses while appointed Sen. Thurston Bennet the III of Colorado, who has sold out on key issues, wins.*
And, of course, there was the "Celebrity Trumps Everything" message of our Sarah Palin-inspired idiocracy: As just one example, low-key-but-uber-serious Rep. David Obey (D) retires and is replaced by a Republican known only for being an MTV Real World star.
All of that said, though, there is one very positive meta-message that -- arguably -- trumps all of the negative ones -- a meta-message that will be inevitably ignored by what Jon Stewart so aptly called the national media's D.C.-obsessed "conflictinator." You can see this deeper, far more important story in the ballot measures.
Ballot measures get ignored by the media because they don't involve personality -- but that's exactly why they are so good at telling us what an election is all about. Precisely because they are exclusively about issues and stripped of all the personality/side issues that come with specific candidates, ballot measures tell us what voters are thinking. And when you look at what happened to the ballot measures that exemplify the most pure form of conservative doctrine, you see an overwhelming rejection of that doctrine.
Colorado gives us a good example. Amendments 60, 61 and 101 were known here as the Taxpayer Bill of Rights on steroids -- they would have mandated massive spending and tax cuts. On top of that, Amendment 62 was the so-called "personhood" amendment that would have effectively outlawed abortion. All of these amendments, as I said, represent a pure form of the core conservative budget, tax and social issues agenda -- and all of them were defeated by a more than 2-to-1 margin in one of the most politically important swing-states in the country. Additionally, as the Denver Post notes, cities and counties throughout Colorado actually passed local measures raising revenues for key progressive public priorities.
This was not, mind you, isolated to Colorado. CNN reports that there was a similar trend all over the country, noting that "voters in several states defeated major anti-tax measures on Tuesday, acknowledging that their financially-strapped governments need revenue to provide services."
I'm not saying last night was, overall, a terrific night for progressive politics. But I am saying that beneath all the national media's manufactured storylines and its inevitably focus on the D.C. palace drama, we can see what may end up being the most important long-term result of the 2010 election: When put up for a vote in an election that had everything aligned for conservatives, the conservative policy agenda was stopped dead in its tracks -- and that very well could be a paradigm shift in our politics.
* To be clear, I wasn't in any way hoping for a Ken Buck victory in Colorado, but I am pointing out the depressing meta-message of Feingold losing and Bennet winning.
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God, that is SO funny..........
This is a flat out lie.
A savings of 15% or more can be achieved through a government-administered plan like Medicare - for everyone. (And by the way, a CBS/New York Times poll June 2009 showed that 72% of Americans favored this approach.)
The quickest and easiest and sane way to save is move to a single payer system. Advocates for such a system were blocked from speaking by Senator Max Baucus last year; but the facts are the facts.
When the President of the United States allows his White House Director of Management and Budget lies about such a fundamental reality, it reflects very poorly on the President and his leadership.
President Obama does not need people working for him who lie to the American people. Whether it’s “Heck of a Job Timmy†or Orszag, people are tired of being lied to.
If President Obama does not have the courage to stop his own staff from lying to the American people, he is no leader.
If you want to expand Medicare, you have to reform it and eliminate the waste before you expand it, otherwise it'll rapidly escalate our already failing economy.
cougarsrus, I didn't hear what was said on 760am so I guess I'm at a loss. But I do agree with your opinion about David Sirota. I'm saddened that he's been so vocal opposing Bennet. Not good for progressives who want to win. Another writer who has done this is Taylor Marsh who is very critical of the President, and she's supposed to be a progressive Dem. I know that the progressives didn't get all that they wanted from this President, but by staying home and not voting they have certainly hurt the party. Also the continuous criticism is unacceptable when there was a huge election where every dem needed to get out and vote.
The nation is 20% progressive. The nation as a whole is moderate/conservative/centrist. Period.
Republicans in power are not centrist; they are corporatist. People want effective government; they just don't have a party that will give it to them so they kept voting back and forth until now, when the Republicans secret billions will control every future election.
And all elections are local. Sadly now influenced by foreign money. But Feingold might have won in Colorado. You can't compare the two electorates. States are different. Why we need to abandon the electoral college for straight voting where everyone's vote counts equally (except for the having been bought with secret money thing).
California, generally seen as forward leaning politically, has voted to move in reverse -- back to the government-growing, tax-and-spend liberalism that has brought us 12.5% unemployment, job-killing environmental and business regulations, and ubiquitous taxes. Except for rejecting marijuana legalization, the other approved ballot initiatives blindly perpetuate the militant immigrant, labor union and environmental special interests that have crushed California prosperity for the foreseeable future.
What this election should have been for California is a therapeutic intervention to change its addiction to big government. Sadly, the election results will read like an obituary of failed progressive political policies and has beens. The national political trajectory is changed with this election; and it will leave California behind as a failed state.
California has wiped out on the conservative wave election. This confirms California's status as a failed state under the oppression of militant immigrant, labor and green special interests. The once "Golden State" is broke and broken.
The Constitution is alive and well.
Let's repeal those child labor laws and rescind the 14th, 15th 16th 17th, 19th, 24th, and 26th amendments-and the 13th while we're at it.
Pity that you tea baggers don't even know what your constitution says, no ?
I have an idea, lets keep that labor laws in place, and get rid of the redundancy of unionization.
Lets keep the labor protections afforded to us by the government and rid ourselves of the job killing unions instaed.
You must have missed "Blue Dog Coalition Crushed By GOP Wave Election" at
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/03/blue-dog-coalition-gop-wave-elections_n_778087.html
Remember, representative democracy is a great idea....compared to tyrannical monarchies and un-represented citizens. But our system was basically designed to send a representative to DC, when getting to DC took weeks or months of travel by horseback and there were no wired or wireless communications.
Now, we could all be able to vote on huge numbers of measures....using a Citizen Voting Gadget, or using telephone or internet or mail and a personal voting ID....similar to a DNR ID or Soc. Sec. #.
We are stuck in a horrible dilemma, for centuries now, of rascals and rogues and bums who spend their time looting the public treasury, peddling influence, and doing whatever they damm well please every 2, 4 of 6 years between elections. We only get one day each cycle to have input.
Now, I believe humans are a weird breed. Very brainy, analytical, and even reasonable on many subjects....whether you are left, right, or indie. But in certain arenas, our reason goes out the window. Personalities, sex appeal, them vs us, cool winners in nice suits with expensive dentistry, or hemp clothed hippies in clogs tend to skew us badly and we go spinning out of control.
Sirota is correct. Take the personality and personal enmity out of it, people vote smart.
I am no believer in the brilliance of the average american....and this election has taken our aggregate IQ to new lows. But I also think that elections seem to bring out the worst in us, play on our worst traits, and affect our reason in ways we do not understand, and are unaware of. We THINK we are being rational. What fan of a certain team is ever rational? THey think the other team is evil, cheating, the refs are unfair, and they overlook their own team's sins. Same in politics, joining sides.
The big obstacle to taking the power out of Congress' hands would be Congress. They don't want to give it up. But Sirota has uncovered something amazing here....that our intelligence goes up huge when you take the personal, and personality, and gamesmanship and TEAM out of voting, and place it directly in our hands and bypass the elected fraudsters and thieves.
I know that there has always been misrepresentation by politicians in every country, throughout recorded history.This is nothing new. But the level, the insidiousness, the totality of the corporate dominance over our system, a system which worked very well during 1930s through 1950s, for ex. Now look at it. Completely dominated by self serving politicians, stuffing corporate cash in their pockets, lying and untouchable for 4 or 6 year stretches and only answerable at election day....where they have a 90% chance of being re-elected solely because they are the incumbent.
Some hybrid of representative governance, along with the ability for the populace to have much more say over votes on specific issues all throughout the year would be nice. You would not want the whole system at risk every time the population took to their voting device, but I believe referendums and propositions and other ballot initiatives are a great and under-utilized means of governing as the people desire.
I have an idea. How about if we start voting backwards, signaling Yay or Nay on issues only and finding out later the actual politicians attached to those issues. An issue can't be accused of being mobbed up due to loans to convicted felons, an issue would never mistake a Latino for an Asian ... heck, an issue wouldn't even think of dabbling in witchcraft.
There would be almost no reason to blow nearly $5B slinging mud (anonymously but the cash is in Libyan denominations). With the savings, improvements could be made to healthcare, infrastructure, job programs, and the list goes on.
Of course, it would present a tricky situation for all the slugs in office who like to moan that there's no money for anything productive.