In all the hundreds of thousands of words being written and spoken about the implications of last night's special election in Massachusetts by all the pundits and strategists and drum-beaters for various interest groups, only one thing really matters right now: the character of the leaders of the Democratic party. It is up to them whether this generation of Democrats has the guts to keep moving forward boldly even as they run into resistance and trial, or whether they fall back into the collective character flaw that has held the Democrats, and the country, back for 40 years now: that sense of abiding caution that would have them pull back into a shell at the first sign of trouble and give up on trying to change anything. As I wrote in my book The Progressive Revolution:
In the culture of caution that dominates Democratic politics in the modern era, when you try something big and fail, even if the failure is due in great part to your own timidity, you only become more cautious.
President Obama deserves enormous credit for taking on big, tough issues like health care and climate change and financial regulation, but the problem is that the pursuit of these noble causes has become bogged down in the slowness and special interest dominated world that is Capitol Hill right now. The Obama White House has compounded the problem by not taking on the special interests head on and full force, but instead giving in to them on a variety of issues that really mattered to both the Democratic base and to middle class voters: the big banks got bailout money while being asked to do little in return; the drug companies got taken off the hook in order to bring them aboard with health care legislation; the insurance industry won all their big battles on health care, leaving them free from public plan competition or anti-trust worries; polluters got massive set-asides in the energy bill.
Here's the deal: while there are significant differences between Democratic base voters who didn't turn out to vote in very big numbers yesterday in Massachusetts, and the working class swing voters who voted for Scott Brown, these two kinds of voters actually have a great deal in common in terms of what will move them to vote for Democrats:
The same debate every political party has after every big loss started up immediately again last night. The completely predictable voices of cautious conservative Democrats are already in the usual high pitch whine: we have to pull back, we have to go slow, we have to not change things so much. The quintessential cautious Democrat, Evan Bayh, spoke for this line of thinking in his usual way:
It's why moderates and independents even in a state as Democratic as Massacusetts aren't buying our message. They just don't believe the answers we are currently proposing are solving their problems.
Although he was arguing this in the context of pulling back, the ironic thing is that Bayh was right about one thing: voters really don't believe Democrats are solving their problems. And why is that? Because the big change we promised them hasn't materialized. Because the deals being cut with the bankers and drug companies and insurance industry are not solving their problems. Because going in slow motion on issues like health care has convinced them that we can't deliver.
At this moment, Democrats face the ultimate test of character: do we have the courage to head into the wind of the pontificating pundits and the culture of caution Democrats, and deliver the real change American voters are asking for? Or do we turn tail and run from the challenge? The irony is that doing the gutsy thing is by far the smartest thing Democrats could do politically. If we actually pass health care reform, if we actually go after the big banks, if we actually get things done on immigration reform, we convince swing voters we are capable of getting things done, and we convince our base that we are worth turning out to vote for.
Voters will reward us if we do the right thing. And so will history. When the revolutionary war was going badly for Washington, when the civil war was going badly for Lincoln, when civil rights reform threatened the Democrats in the South for a generation, our leaders did not turn tail and run away from the challenge. They had the courage of their convictions, and they have a special place in our country's history as a result. Now is the time for this generation of Democratic leaders to do the right thing. Voters will reward them in the short run, and history will reward them in the long run.
I'm personally going to work on fixing up California first, then leverage the feds with pressure by pointing out what we're doing that they aren't. Until Obama finds his balls again the federal government is just one big sick joke.
I called the DNC at 202-863-8000.
I got a call back
so can you
http://joethenerd.blogspot.com/2010/01/time-for-intervention-at-dnc-and-ofa.html
Even they can see that the people are tired of the lies and skewed polling coming from this WH.
How many legs does a dog have if you count the tail as a leg? Four. You can call the tail a leg but it's still a tail. You can say the people want this agenda with twenty different polls , but the election proves the opposite.
Do what you said you would do or face the music in November.
Paradoxically, the Democrats will favor total destruction over taking any risks. Why? Because they are spineless wimps. Obama has done his level best to demonstrate that fact over the last year.
Keep moving forward boldly?! By continuing to sell out to Wall Street and bending over for big insurance and big pharma? They've TALKED boldly, but they haven't moved forward or ACTED boldly at all, and that's why their base stayed home. When you run on "change" and deliver "same", this is what you get.
The Citizens of Ideology were called Loonycons who decided to go to war but has to convince the people to go to war so they lied about why they were going to war and also spread fear everywhere by getting a terrorist group called the Langlies to send out anthrax letters which really created fear and murdered 5 citizens.
The one who ordered the Langlies to do this ran the country for a guy who didn't know what country he was in and this Loonycon also liked the idea of torture, shooting everything in sight including his friends and hobnobbing with Justices of the Supreme Court which means these people have a real problem knowing what ethics means.
The Loonycon who enjoyed sending anthrax letters has to pin this crime on someone - anyone!!! The guy that was picked to pin it on sued the government and won but the next guy wasn't so lucky because he was harassed into a mental hospital where they gave him powerful psychotic drugs which caused him to commit suicide and of course dead men tell no tales.
Do you think anyone would believe a story like this???!!! Sounds a bit farfetched doesn't it???!!! And in this land called Idealism the rule of law prevails, doesn't it???!!!
You're half-right.
Deliver the change the country VOTED for in the 2006 and 2008 elections.
I say move the Uninsured to MA
1. big oil/energy
2. heath/ Pharma
3.Wall St
4. Military Industrial Complex
They are so powerful that even President Bush would not disparage Rush's comments about Haiti. They are ALL petrified of this $50,000,000/ yr corporate propaganda artist.
Unitl this cancer in our society is dealt with, nothing will change.
This is a serious question I am about to ask you and in no way am I being sarcastic or poking fun. I am very curious about your answer because I think it goes to the heart of the debate of what yesterday's election in Mass. meant to the country ...
... Are you saying (writing) that thousands to millions of people in this country listen to right wing radio and their political beliefs and other general life philosophies are significantly influenced by what they here on the radio and that it effects their voting habits (pause, breath) but at the same time, you, and people you respect and many people who write and comment on HuffPo are "smarter than that" and don't believe what they hear on right wing talk radio and aren't influenced by it because you know it's "hogwash."
example -Several months back talk radio went on a rampage against Napolitano and Obama over a report on right wing extremists. They implied to their audiences of over 20,000,000 Americans that the President and she were targeting average citizens that voted Republican. It enraged millions of people to the point that they were wearing t-shirts that said "I am a right wing exttremist". What they did not tell their listeners was that this report had been initiated several months prior during the Bush Administration and a report on left wing extremists was also done as SOP. Please tell me how this helps our Country progress or deal with the massive problems Obama inherited. If 9 out of 10 stations use these slimy techniques (I can give you 100's of examples) it is a real danger to our democracy. If the Fairness Doctrine had been in place this crap would be exposed and the whole truth would have been heard. This is not a matter of right and left. It is right or wrong.
You see we aren't looking for change that amounts to favoring the special interests of one side over the other, that is the message sent yesterday and in November 2008.
I warned as many union members as I could at the time, that what they were trying to do was political suicide, but their response was... "the unions exist to win benefits for their members, so shove off!"
Guess what? The public just learned that the unions are full of selfish S.O.B.s and now the unions don't even have the consolation of the special dispensation they spent their political capital winning. Hah, they didn't even realize that they had political capital, the fools.
It kind of makes you think that the guys running the unions ain't all that smart. They live or die by public opinion, and frankly, not realizing that fact should be criminal. Well, they're going to pay dearly now.
That is the problem and that is what the voters said in 2008 and again yesterday. We are tired of Washington politics regardless of which side you play for. Yet those entrenched on either side cannot see it, they see a loss for one side as a justification for their beliefs and not for the utter disgust we have have with the whole political system in general.
As you wrote, it really is time for this Democratic leadership in the White House, the House, and the Senate to show some real courage.
The good policy and good politics is to break the oligarchy, as Simon Johnson argued. Run against the Wall Street banks, run against the health care special interests, and run against the oil and gas companies. In short, run against the Predator class (see The Predator State).
From all the comments and blogs I've read, the liberal and progressive base of the party is waiting for real leadership and real courage.
If Obama, Reid, and Pelosi think that doing more of the same is the way to go, here's a newsflash: prepare to lose control of the House and Senate.