Good Luck With That
So President Obama is racing up to Boston to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, having belatedly discovered that governing like a Republican when you ran as a Democrat has made fellow Democrats as popular as crabs in a whorehouse. Smooth move. Watch Republicans crow when she loses, and declare his Presidency over. I’ve got news… it’s been over for quite some time; really before it started. From the FISA cave to a health care bill that might have been written by Bush himself, Obama hasn’t undone anything Bush did that matters, nor does he appear to plan to. I used to think he would be like Clinton, a moderate Republican with good political instincts, but he’s not. The only mystery to me is what, pray tell, the teabaggers can find to dislike at this point.
The wars have not only not stopped but escalated. Torture has become as American as apple pie. Secrecy is being defended just as fanatically in court, and illegal imprisonment, warrantless spying, and absurd invasions of privacy continue. The Bush tax cuts remain holy writ, the deficits blossom, and the military budget grows like topsy. Gay Americans still can neither serve openly in the military nor look forward to any movement on the federal level toward marriage equality. The “too big to fail” banks are larger and even more arrogant, and gutting “entitlements” like Social Security and Medicare is more likely than Bush could have ever hoped. Why, In Heaven’s name, would Democrats reward such behavior with their votes?
As Obama’s approval ratings continue to plummet, deservedly so, he thinks his magic presence will save a lackluster candidate from defeat at the hands of a teabagger centerfold. Good luck with that. If I were Coakley, I’d say, “Stay home.” She’d probably win if she did.
Republicans will naturally declare the loss of Teddy Kennedy’s seat to be a harbinger of things to come, and they’re probably right. They understand, as Democrats don’t, that once in office you actually have to DO SOMETHING if you want to stay there. Obama and Coakley seem to think this is some kind of myth. I guess Bush wasn’t bad enough for Democrats to clue in to the idea that Republicans have to be defeated because of the damage their policies inflict on all but the richest Americans, and reversing that dysfunction, utterly, is the only way Americans will see beyond the bleatings of the right-loving mainstream media to relegate them to the irrelevancy they have so richly earned.
And you don’t do that by being just like them. The 60 seat majority that supposedly makes Coakley’s seat meaningful is nothing but a pile of garbage with Joe Lieberman sitting on top. You know, the guy Obama campaigned for back in 2006……
I am as disheartened as any other liberal would be by this revolting development, but Obama has done it to himself, his own party, and America, and this loss, should it occur, is probably his last wakeup call before he becomes the irrelevant one-termer he seems determined to be. Hell, if I weren’t so cheap, I’d give some money to the Brown campaign.
I fear Tom is getting to you.
As I indicated in the previous post, we may have to call her Squeaky, but I think Coakley will win.
As well she may. But I fail to see how it matters.
The knock on the DNC and Obama is what matters.
I think that losing the health care bill might be the Dems best chance of avoiding a debacle in November, and losing this seat might be the one thing that sets Obama straight. Nothing else looks like it will.
Both parties missed their opportunity to run a really good candidate who had no ties to the RW nuts or the entrenched corporatist Dems.
But noooooo.
It would have been the perfect opportunity for an independent of any strip to run against the Ds and Rs. But noooo. Nobody had the guts to buck the system.
Meanwhile, a 60 seat majority in the Senate (a breathtaking majority in any other era), is still not good enough, what with Lieberman voting with the Rs. No, we need a 61 seat majority to get anything done today.
I wish that more independents would take this as a sign to run in the mid-terms and capitalize on the general antipathy on both sides of the political spectrum. Everybody is pissed.
The only real Democrat we have, Bernie Sanders, isn’t even a Democrat. It’s pathetic and infuriating.
Nobody wants a health care bill that was crafted in the offices of the health insurers and then sent down to our own Sveriges riksdag. The Democrats don’t really want to have to defend that thing and if the whole project fails, they’ll be off the hook, blaming the genocidal Republicans for children dying on the sidewalks. And life, pretty much better than it was just a few years ago, continues to drudge on.
It is surprising to me, or I wish it were, that anyone thought health care that didn’t cut the insurers out entirely would be politically advantageous, much less work in the real world. Everyone knew what Bush was doing with Medicare Part D, because he was, well, Bush, and the corporations would always come first for him. Why a purported Democrat would do that is beyond me, and they deserve what they get.
Who is, now, campaigning against Medicare Part D?
Nobody is.
Seniors like it and corporations like it.
So why would it be politically crazy to emulate that?
Unethical, wasteful, bad policy – - yeah, sure.
But not crazy.
Except for the fact that it’s working its magic already, making Medicare look wasteful and doomed for the chopping block.
Brown is a teabagger?
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/scott-brown-is-liberal-republican.html
He seems to be a typical Massachusetts Republican – - the kind of Republican that frequently gets elected there.
From 1965 through 1991, Massachusetts had four different governors, of whom two were Democrats and two were Republicans.
All four governors from 1991 through 2007 were Republicans.
The current governor, Deval Patrick, is a Democrat, elected in 2006, which was a very bad year for Republicans, but even so, Patrick got only 55% of the vote.
Obviously, if Coakley loses, that would be and probably should be interpreted as a vote of no confidence in Obama and the Dems, but the current polls are showing a lot of potential voters who say they support both Obama and Brown, so it’s obviously not only a vote about Obama, but also (hold on, here’s my radical theory) a vote about Brown and Coakley.
Not a teabagger, per se, but more than willing to woo their support, when it behooves him; i.e., railing against the health care bill for the wrong reasons. But you’re right, Massachusetts was never as “liberal,” particularly economically, as the FOX types make it out to be. Coakley muffed it by not giving anybody any reason to vote for her.
Brown appears to be basing his entire campaign on the pledge to defeat the health care bill, which for me, as a Massachusetts guy, doesn’t ring up as “liberal Republican,” notwithstanding his state legislative voting record.
Previous Republican governors in the state worked with Democratic presidents fairly well, and that is more or less the norm in Massachusetts. GOP governors there are not ravers, as is the case in the South and West. Even Romney was half-hearted about drinking the GOP firewater when he was governor. Of course when Mitt went national, that changed.
I would not assume that Brown would “work” with Obama.
Up to now, his image and rhetoric are jarring to my eyes and ears.
Unfortunately, “working” with Obama means working with Big Health, Big Banking, Big Miltary, and Big Rich, against unions, gays, liberals, and libertarians. He and Brown could end up best friends.
Along with Connecticut Joe, who will be bounced next time.
By the way, you might like Dick Blumenthal, who is the smart money favorite to replace Chris Dodd.
Interestingly, Blumenthal, like Lieberman, has been the attorney general for a really long time, and the Connecticut AG’s office has a progressive pedigree as an institution.
But golly, what happened to Joe?
What may happen to Blumenthal?
I’ve heard good things about Blumenthal, and although I liked Chris Dodd when he took his stand on FISA, and gave him quite a bit of money, even, I’m glad he stepped aside. He has leapt forward in credibility since.
Obama could appoint Dodd to something or other …
Yeah, but the Countrywide thing would still haunt him.
Digby recommends this item by Chris Hayes.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100201/hayes/single
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Hmmm. I’m thinking that it will force the politicians to get some serious moolah to tamp down any trouble, and the usual suspects are going to have a lot of it. Great article, sysprog.
Thanks for that link. I know I sound like a stuck record needle, but if we don’t concentrate on system change, we’ll never make much progress.
Here’s a link for you sysprog on Obama’s character flaw:
Do Obama and Geithner Have the Same Flaw: Accommodation Instead of Moral Action?
http://www.alternet.org/politics/145181/do_obama_and_geithner_have_the_same_flaw%3A_accommodation_instead_of_moral_action?page=entire
OT and one for Avatar fans:
Why Do People Want to Have Sex with the 9-Foot Tall Natives in ‘Avatar’?
http://www.alternet.org/sex/145180/why_do_people_want_to_have_sex_with_the_9-foot_tall_natives_in_%27avatar%27
Thom Hartmann said that, sort of. He said that Obama probably didn’t realize at first how little power he really had; the government has already been sold. Trouble is, Bush liked it that way, and therefore was “successful,” whereas Obama ostensibly wanted to change things, then took one look around and said, “Nah.” Now he’s looking like a flop, and that sort of thing sticks, especially for Democrats. (Remember how the MSM declared Clinton’s Presidency “over” about three months into it?)
Clinton at least socked it to the rich a bit with his tax bill right at first, and didn’t turn into a Republican until ’95 or so. Obama skipped that stage.
OT… Think those natives are tall all over?
Thanks for that “Nation” link, sysprog. I have a big crush on Chris Hayes — from afar, of course.
Speaking of popular blobbers, I read “The Daily Dish” pretty much every day, have read Andrew Sullivan for years, since long before his Atlantic days and even before he was a bit Iraq war supporter (and then had buyer’s remorse). He’s a Catholic gay from England, which makes him a total misfit, which is likely why I was drawn to him…anyhoo….
Today he has an entry called “Obama’s Tora Bora?” where his hyperbolic and offensive (to me) headline likens Obama’s potential loss of the health care reform bill (should Brown be elected in MA), to Bush’s loss of the mysterious OBL.
He doesn’t flesh out how these two events are analogous; it’s more a rant about how the Ds wasted time on the bill, how it came down to one vote, blah blah. He’s off to the races.
But, I don’t see how he can compare these two events: first of all, I don’t recall Bush suffering any political setbacks, whatsoever, when OBL escaped from Tora Bora. In fact, I don’t recall the majority of people even being AWARE of it until years later. There was no political capital lost at all.
Secondly, how can you compare the alleged negligent behavior of the military in Afghanistan that let a so-called terrist mastermind dance off into the mountains to a health care bill possibly failing or being passed in a watered-down version?
He’s such an ass sometimes.
I’d write to him, but he doesn’t much like girrrrls.
Oh, I don’t know, Retzilian. Maybe you could change your screen name to BarebackBruiser and Sully might take a shine to you….
Oh, I have sent Andrew many a “dissent” and some other thoughtful notes about Sarah Palin and her pregnancy story (one of my areas of expertise, haha), and also some gorgeous “views” from my various windows overlooking Lake Erie, or from work when I worked downtown, etc.
He never responds to anything, never publishes anything I send him. I am almost certain it’s because I’m a girl. Maybe if I send something to him from a male-sounding email address? I should.
Couldn’t hurt. But it could well be that he disdains any dissenting comments. As a controlled experiment, maybe you should write to him when you agree with him, and see what happens. After that, it’s time to pull out the strap-on.
Talk about false equivalencies – I’d bet 8 out of 10 random people I asked right now (just walked down the street and knocked on doors) wouldn’t even know what the reference “Obama’s Tora Bora” even meant.
sheesh.
Ok, I need to hit some tennis balls.