What Massachusetts Showed
Last night in Massachusetts, America didn't get what it needs. But Democrats got what they deserved.
Republicans lost in 2008 because they'd spent many years implementing clear, extreme economic and foreign policies thoroughly enough for real life to prove them bogus. They hadn't just won a big election in 1980 with "Great Communicator" Ronald Reagan's terrific campaign on behalf of their ideas; they'd actually proceeded to give us enough of what even George H.W. Bush once called "voodoo economics" and enough of national-security statism to prove what those strategies are actually worth in New Orleans and Baghdad, on Main Street and in a global economy that is no longer an American protectorate.
Democrats are losing now for an entirely different reason. Although in 2008 they, too, won a national election with a great communicator riding on the other party's implosion, the Democrats, unlike Republicans, haven't really tried to implement their promised strategies seriously enough for real life to prove them bogus -- or, like Social Security, indispensable to Americans' safety and freedom.
Why haven't they done that?
Why did not only Howard Dean but even Chris Matthews lament last night that Democrats haven't given Americans an activist government strong enough to build big things that work and to flummox predators who would keep them from working?
Was it because, unlike Ronald Reagan, a simplifier and a believer who surrounded himself with neoconservative and right-wing zealots, Barack Obama is a nuanced thinker and a conciliator who has surrounded himself with operators and naïve, "The World is Flat" neoliberals?
It's partly that. But even more, I think, it's that most Americans really do fear proactive, social-democratic solutions more than they fear the Republicans' easy, negative, market-driven non-solutions. The latter are a kind of default position in American politics. The social-democratic solutions aren't, and never will be, until people are beguiled or nudged - or forced by crisis -- into living with them long enough to realize that some of them are more conducive to freedom and safety than the Republicans' answers.
Even Social Security, which Americans refused to let George W. Bush privatize, wasn't as popular as you might think when it was first created. People had to live with it for a generation or two before they realized that it strengthens, not weakens, them. This reflects a problem deep in our political culture.
That's why I understand but can't join with those who beat up on Obama as if some failure in his character were to blame. But it's also why I don't go all the way with those who want us all to cry, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" "Stand and Deliver!" "No passaran!" "The people, united, will never be defeated!"
Sure, if "the people" can create enough new facts on the ground, as FDR's Democratic majority did in creating Social Security amid unprecedented disaster, we must strive to do that now, too - and fight to keep it. But beneath the current events run undercurrent events and crises that can be met only with newer, deeper, more potent strategies of persuasion.
I don't know what those strategies might be -- I've done my best to sketch some guiding principles here -- but they aren't now on offer from Democrats or the left, and they haven't yet been driven home to us by a crisis worse than most Americans have encountered since the 1930s.
I do think that such a crisis is coming. But until it gets here or newer, deeper strategies arise, many people in the not-always-right-wing suburbs that went Republican last night will be easily played because they're still in denial about what it will take to relieve their anxieties about the country and themselves. Those of us who are social democrats will continue to find ourselves outside the country's default position, and we'll be left talking mainly to ourselves and to a thin penumbra that waxes and wanes.
Conservative Republicans were once this marginal, too. But because their ideas found openings in the American default position, their Great Communicator could take them further than ours. Democrats, knowing this, capitulated on policy even before they began to fight.
That's why, even though America didn't get what it needs last night, Democrats got what they deserved.
What would "newer, deeper, more potent strategies of persuasion" look like...specifically? I know you don't know (you said that), but still, I'm asking.
January 20, 2010 12:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
An example, Tintin: Health care security (more than health care reform) is something Americans want deeply. But exactly because Americans feel so insecure about their health care, they will accept change in the health care system only if they are very clear about what the change is and how that change will make their own care more secure. To change something so significant in such a sensitive area takes a lot of work focused on making ordinary people believe in the change and believe that the change is good for them.
The mistake the Democrats made was not presenting to the ordinary voter a clear picture of what their reformed health care system would look like and what their proposal would do to make health care more secure for the ordinary voter. Instead, they spent all their time horse trading with Joe Lieberman (and a few others). Obama was completely off base to turn the health care bill over to congressional committees. This is a big change for America and he needed to get out and make people believe in it and feel confident in it. He needed to formulate to the public a clear picture of what the Democrats were trying to achieve--and he needed to sell that vision to the voters. He needed to be out their talking about health care every single day as if it were the most important thing in the world. Instead, he handed the bill over to the back-roomers-and all the horse trading and questioning and lack of clarity about the goals and features of the bill made people ever more nervous about what was being done to their health care. And of course the Republican noise machine was out there talking directly to the voters and stoking their fears.
The problem with the Democrats now--as it has been for years--is that they don't present to the voters any clear, simple vision of what they are trying to accomplish. On health care this year, the Democrats spent all their time winning Joe Lieberman's vote and while doing so lost the people's votes. If they had taking the time to win the people's votes first, the Senate would have followed. Now they've lost both the people and the Senate.
Ever since the Reagan, the Democrats keep compromising their ideals, making concessions to people like Joe Lieberman (who supported McCain remember!) to try to eek out another vote and get a finger-hold on power. If only they can look just a little more like Republicans maybe people will like them. Well no. They end up looking weak, looking compromised, looking like grovelers with nothing of their own to offer. They end up compromised, ridiculed, and kicked out of office. It's really quite pathetic. But they never seem to learn, do they?
January 20, 2010 6:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Health Care Security. It resonates with me and probably many others. It's a much better concept than Health Care Reform...
Do you mind if we use that concept in future discussions, or is it you're baby? :)
January 20, 2010 7:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
The results in Mass. should be an eye-opener for Democrats.
The party of NO RESULTS was defeated by the party of NO simply because the party of NO was effective. The party of NO RESULTS was just that.
People expected "Change we Can Believe In" and only got "More of the Same".
The Bush DOJ and US Attorneys still in office and pursuing "Voter Fraud", An expansion of the GWOT, an expansion of bailouts to foreign bank owners, and Regulators in bed with the companies thay are supposed to regulate.
Democrats are now looking for anyone but themselves to blame for the fiasco in Mass. which resulted in their losing their "super majority in the US Senate.
.
January 20, 2010 7:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting fact about the MA election: while the overall result was reasonably close, in different parts of the state each candidate got vote ratios of 3:1 and 4:1, even 5:1 over the other.
These seem like tribal margins, but they break down geographically. Boston area towns and the college-heavy Berkshires went very lopsidedly for Coakley, while mid-state dwellers and suburbanites around Boston went less lopsidedly but still very strongly for Brown.
Here is a map that shows the percentages in each town:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/01/19/us/politics/massachusetts-election-map.html
I don't think I've ever seen a range of percentages as widely spread as this one.
If the state of the local economy has this strong an influence, look out for later, because the second economic kick downward is on the way.
Time to start blaming the Republicans instead of letting them blame us?
January 20, 2010 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
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January 20, 2010 8:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you are definitely right on process, P. But once you start filling in all the Xs and Ys in your algorithm, what do you have?
When liberals have tried to take the ball and run, they don't seem to get very far--that is, when they have to convince someone who doesn't naturally or automatically agree with them.
It's easy to poke at Clinton for this third way, but he was the ONLY Democrat of any stripe to win the presidency twice, since who? FDR. Okay, maybe Kennedy would've won. And LBJ probably could have won had he not deepened Vietnam.
Plus, there's the question of party unity and discipline. You, Dan K, and maybe Libertine predicted yesterday that Coakley would win. You also said that progressives weren't the problem in this election because they were going to vote for Coakley. Well, maybe there aren't as many as progressives in MA as we've been led to believe. Or maybe they stayed home because Coakley was from western MA. Or maybe they couldn't be bothered to save what Dan called that "smelly" bill. But assuming there are a lot of progressives in MA, they sure as hell did not come out to vote or they voted for the Republican.
So I think your and Dan's confidence in what progressives would do when it came to vote was at least...suspect and maybe even misplaced. Okay, let's not triangulate. It was dead wrong. And yeah, because MA is such a progressive state, it WAS and IS the progressive's fault that this went down. Obama can't cast all those votes FOR you. He probably put more effort into the final days than all the progressives in the state combined. Prove I'm wrong--I hope you can.
I happen to be a progressive in what I believe is right. But progressives sure as shit do not know how to win. So, assuming that winning depends on knowing how to speak to voters deepest needs and fears as you say, they don't know how to do that either.
How do I know? This is not just a "slam" against progressives; it's a verifiable observation. They don't win! Kucinich can't leave his compound without losing. Nader is a footnote. And they always have someone ELSE to blame (corporate America, the press, the DLC, the party) when they lose. Hey, now THAT shows them to be real standup guys willing to take responsibility for their own lives, doesn't it?
I just LOVED Libertine's line from the other thread: Give us the wheel and we will lead. That's right: Give us, give us, give us. Hey, if it WERE that easy, Obama would've passed a bigger stimulus, health care, climate change and been on to bigger and better things by now. He could've just said, "give me."
So who's in the progressive bullpen, ready to lead, ready to overcome the headwinds? What we need is an FDR. Even LBJ is suspect because I'm not sure he could've won in different circumstances, i.e., when the wave wasn't moving in his direction.
And now what do we have? Now that we've had this set back. Would you consider Barney Frank a progressive? As soon as Coakley loses, this guy is ready to throw in the towel! And a whole bunch of other progressives in the House are unwilling to sully their hands by voting for Dan's smelly bill.
It's funny, Purple, progressives always talk about how we have to fight, fight, fight. But as soon as they don't get (aren't given) just what they want, they are ready to take their ball and go home. It doesn't matter to them how many folks this bill would help. It doesn't matter to them that this bill would do a lot of good. It doesn't even matter that this bill would move the ball closer to what THEY see as ideal. Nah. It's no deal. Jane Hamsher can go back to producing movies and complaining. I bet SHE has coverage.
January 20, 2010 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tintin . . . many things to discuss here, but I had to work late tonight and don't have much energy to write now. I'll try to address some of your points when I have more time. But a few quick comments:
Massachusetts may not be as progressive as its reputation suggests. Independents are by far the largest block of voters in the state. And while Democrats far outnumber Republicans, many of those Democrats aren't progressives--they're more like Reagan Democrats. Until our current governor was elected, Massachusetts had 16 straight years of Republican governors. Those Republicans didn't get elected because progressives were apathetic. They won by attracting the votes of independents and Reagan Democrats--and I suspect that's how Brown won as well. Progressives may or may not have turned out in their usual numbers for the Democratic candidate on Tuesday (I don't know), but I seriously doubt that any deficiency in progressive turnout lost the election. I think the far more likely reason for Brown's victory was strong turnout among independents. To me, the Brown-Coakley election looks an awful lot like the Romney-Swift election. In both cases the Republican won because the Democratic candidate was weak and the Republican candidate energetic and focused on middle class economic issues.
________
You are right that ever since Reaganism took hold, the only moderately successful Democratic approach to governing has been Clintonism. Clintonism is, in my opinion, merely a watered-down version of Reaganism. If the voters want Reaganism (as they have in recent decades), Democratic Clintonism may sometimes succeed when the Republican candidate is weaker that the Democratic candidate. But the Democrats won't really ever dominate if all they are doing is selling a watered-down version of what the Republicans sell full strength. If the Democrats want to become more than the marginal party they've been since Reagan, they have to find a real alternative to Reaganism --- something that's at once very different from Reaganism and more appealing. Clintonism won't get them that new thing. It may allow them to "win at the margins" but it will keep them marginal.
That new thing--whatever it is--will not be the product of Clintonian triangulation. It also won't be, as you note, the traditional leftist ideas of a Kucinich (which aren't broadly popular even if they appeal to some of us on TPMCafe). I'm not sure exactly what that new thing is yet, but until the Democrats find it and learn to sell it, they will remain recessive to Republican dominance.
(I know this isn't fully clear, but I'm tired. I'll try to express it better some other time.)
January 20, 2010 10:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The mistake the Democrats made was not presenting to the ordinary voter a clear picture of what their reformed health care system would look like..."
I think that's because they truly didn't know themselves.
January 20, 2010 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
If Americans fear proactive social democratic solutions it's because Republicans succeed at making them afraid. They stick to their message! Democratic Party leaders absorbed and internalized their message, for a generation. Recall Jimmy Carter started the era of deregulation, and Clinton ended "welfare as we know it", while privatizing military operations into the hands of Blackwater (an idea not invented by Dubya -- Gore called it "reinventing government")
The Dems of today are about 3rd way premature compromisation, and as someone put it earlier today, "an ideology of moderation".
I think the present situation works for Dems because they can still win at least for a while, and being in DC these days is a huge meal ticket. The revolving door of government-turned-lobbyist and government-turned-contractor is a lifetime of gravy train. When you've got that, why do you need to build something that lasts that the American people need?
January 20, 2010 12:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
I also tend to think there's a simpler solution: The Dems dicked around with bipartisanship and the filibuster rule instead of doing what the Republicans did to get their way in a very direct manner.
I agree, though, with your analysis about the "default position." It's much harder to accommodate something that's very new than to stick with a familiar, but incredibly broken status quo.
It does have to do with Americans' notion of what "freedom" is-- that, somehow, government action of this sort delimits freedom and is in essential opposition to it.
This sort of delimitation is something I, personally, don't feel, so it's very hard for me to relate to it or empathize with it. My mother is on Medicare, and it's plain as day to me that it in no way limits her "freedom" to do whatever she wants.
But for conservatives--honest ones--it appears to be the last exit before the gulag. I just have to shake my head in wonder.
January 20, 2010 12:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jim, and feel free to correct me if I am wrong with what I am about to say which has been known to happen, but weren't you a defender of the third way and a critic of traditional liberalism? I do agree with your post and I am happy you feel this way but I am a bit confused. Did I misread where you were at before?
January 20, 2010 12:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Libertine, thanks for asking!
I don't think I ever defended a "third way," if by that you mean Bill Clintonite triangulation; I don't believe I've ever used the phrase, other than once or twice in passing to refer to something someone else had said.
Daniel Bell once said that he considered himself a social-democrat in economics, a liberal in politics, and a conservative in culture. I'm a little like that, tho' not really very "conservative" on cultural issues. This is a way of saying that, sure, I've been a critic of traditional liberalism from the social-democratic left, and sometimes from a cultural position slightly to the "right" of some of what used to pass for liberation in the realm of identity politics and the politics of racial paroxysm and of the cookie-cutter, "color=culture" racialism that gripped this country in the 1980s and 1990s. Many traditional liberals did support that, for reasons I detailed and criticized in "The Closest of Strangers" and "Liberal Racism." But when it comes to political institutions, Constitutional provisions, civic-republican conventions, I'm a defender of traditional liberalism against most radical critiques of those things.
I've tried to sketch my civic-republican leanings at www.jimsleeper.com, in the section called "A Civic-Republican Primer," which contains a short introductory essay and links to some other things I've published on this. The website is somewhat in disarray and is under repair, but if you go to www.jimsleeper.com and click on "A Civic Republican Primer," you should still be able to get this stuff.
January 20, 2010 1:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
OK...thanks. I see where you were/are at. I remember your critques of cultural liberalism, critiques which are often prevalent among adherents to the third way, which left an incorrect impression on me about your larger political philosophy. Thanks for clarifying and for the link...
January 20, 2010 1:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
The biggest difference is the following: GWB acted as if he had a mandate in the 2000 election even before he was officially declared the winner.
Obama did no such thing in 2008.
Still and all, Obama is not the entire government. There is very weak leadership in the Senate and the Whip isn't corralling everyone to be on the same page.
LBJ knew how to play hardball in the Senate. There is no evidence that Reid has a clue.
January 20, 2010 12:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
LBJ also had a 68-32 senate to work with.
As much fun as it is -- and even as much as I generally agree Reid has been ineffective -- to bash Reid, that's a margin that's even bigger than it looks.
Sure - LBJ had plenty of dixiecrats to deal with on civil rights legislation (and LBJ gets an awful lot of credit that really should go to Mike Mansfield) - but the same wasn't true on things like Medicare.
January 20, 2010 10:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
"But even more, I think, it's that most Americans really do fear proactive, social-democratic solutions more than they fear the Republicans' easy, negative, market-driven non-solutions."
Sorry but that is nothing but a load of crap. Are you saying Obama and the Democrats even attempted any proactive, social-democratic solutions to anything at all? He didn't. They didn't. They offered warmed over Republican policies. They offered zero contrast to Republican reactionary positions. They acted like the limp wristed wooses they are. They essentially repeated ever mistake the Democrats have made the past 30 years by being too timid, too conservative, and too much like the Republicans and you come up with this anlysis? What they hell? That is the direct opposite from the truth. Voters gave Democrats a sweeping mandate for dramatic changes across the board economically and even in foreign policy and what did they get? George W. Obama. That's why they got their asses kicked tonight along with the fact that they were arrogant and assumed an easy victory. People want liberal policies and they're being given Republican Lite. Given the opportunity to vote for a real Republican instead of an imitation, they went ahead and did so.
January 20, 2010 12:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
oleeb...I really think you are misreading what Sleeper is saying. I think he is saying that is what the American people have been programmed to believe and when forced by necessity to embrace liberal policies they end up liking them. At lwast that is the way I read the whole paragraph that passage was in.
I am pretty sure he is on our side on this...
January 20, 2010 1:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Libertine:
What you are saying (?) is that the Democrats failed to convince the American people that their way was the way for the USA to go, and that the Republicans did convince the American people that the Democrats couldn't actually govern effectively?
That, in itself, is a failure on the part of the Democratic leadership.
BTW, the Democratic leadership even failed to get their own people in the Senate to get with their program. That is a failure of epic proportions.
They deserved what they got in Mass. and will get the same in November unless they can produce some results on the campaign promises of Obama.
Health Insurance reform is a great example. Democrats made this issue the milestone of their tenure in office. It has become the millstone around their necks. They negotiated with themselves to gut any meaningful reform right out of the bill. Their attempts to blame the Republicans have fallen on deaf ears because they had their "super majority" and the Republicans actually caved immediately when the Democrats finally called their bluff and were going to keep Congress in session through the Christmas holidays until Health reform was voted out of committee to the floor for review by the entire Senate.
It will be harder now that they do not have the "super majority" (60) in the Senate, but the Republicans, under GW Bush pushed through his agenda with an even less majority.
The Democrats really have their work cut out for them if they wish to avoid a total disaster in November.
.
January 20, 2010 8:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is it correct that your many years of previous posts would suggest that both/all parties have seemingly deliberately and intentionaly hoodwinked all with deliberate and intentional corrupt fraud, waste and abuse with many lies and with too little or none of the more fully expected endeavors of proper and forthright 'Oversight and Accountability' that is mandated in our US Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence to a relevant and significant extent that would require a more full and complete competent review and as promised within the current past 3 years within the Democratic Campaign Verbal and Written Acknowlegegments, Promises and Pledges!!??
January 20, 2010 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Even if you're right, I still think that what he is saying not only wrong but an out of touch misread of the situation.
It is the pusilanimous Democratic leadership in the Congress and the President who fear progressive/liberal legislation not the people. The people, for example, favor Medicare for All but they can't have it because the huge Democratic majorities in Congress and the President won't even discuss it. It is their timidity, their willingness to give away the store a la "health insurance reform", to Baucus to death good legislation that robs our country of the advances it needs until a crisis forces our cowardly, capitulationist politicians to finally, at long last do the right thing.
January 20, 2010 9:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
When I hear this quote from above, I can't help but thinking of H.L. Mencken's quote.
I think the following quote is incredibly revealing...
Yes, maybe a majority of Americans are scared of Obama's ideas and of the ideas of those that he panders to on the left. And maybe they do prefer Republican ideas. What are you going to do then? Give the people what they want or as many are saying on this forum, combat a wake up call with a handful of qualudes.
Calling market driven solutions as the "default position" is like admitting that surgically implanting wheels on a Cheetah might not make him faster.
Then to go so far as to adopt the Thomas Friedman "China for a day" solution that we need to "beguile" a supposedly slow witted majority into more government intrusion in our lives or "Force" more socialism on them as Howard Dean says. And to use "Crisis" thinking to convince them as Rahm Emanuel infamously proposed.
American's want their ideas and beliefs respected and they want to be heard and maybe they are not so slow witted about feeling they are being treated like they are slow witted.
Obama won on lofty rhetoric, minimal specificity and an army of media cheerleaders, many of which admitted within weeks, maybe we set the bar to high....maybe we have created unrealsitic expectations.
Criticism of Bush's impeachable offenses leads many to ask, if they were impeachable, then why are most of these policies still in place.
He promised an end to partisanship and contrary to what most people here argue was too much "inclusion" of GOP ideas, he told them "I won", tough luck. Traditionally the opposition is allowed to bring ideas to the table, but the Democrats again and again, shut out Republicans at every step....and transparency? Even liberal pundits are calling this administration one of the most secretive and opaque. Earmarks? How long did that last? Backroom deals with Pharmaceutical companies? Even CSPAN is asking why no cameras? What does he have to hide?
We were going to be post racial and see an end to good ol boy networks and as soon as his friend is arrested he starts "pre-judging" a cop because he is white, when it turned out most Americans saw this as jumping to conclusions based on favoritism and race.
And speaking of "jumping to conclusions" on race. An Al Qaeda terrorist influenced by a radical Imam in Yemen shoots defenseless Americans at Fort Hood and he starts implying that if we assume it is an Islamic terror attack that an ocean of seething bigotry in America will explode in the mythical "Anti-Muslim backlash" which has never, ever come to pass. He still hasn't publicly admitted it was a terrorist attack.
He continually blames his predecessor for his problems and America at some point is going to say, enough with the whining and excuses, we are suffering and if you are not up to the job STFU. He runs up record setting debt and then humiliates us by going to his International loan shark in China and bows, then says debt is killing us.
He has three major issues addressed in a year. One, he promised if we didn't pass his Pork bill we would fall into an "abyss" of depression from which there is no return, and if passed it would bring Unemployment down. It is now higher than his worst predictions. He muffed that one.
Second, He spent months deciding to go to Afghanistan, which was the right decision, but handled it and other foreign policy issues so poorly that most of our European allies openly mock him, and our enemies make jokes about the chances his charm will sway them.
Third, Taking the world's best Health care system and disassembling it, which has dominated his agenda and because of the loss of the Kennedy seat, will probably be a muff as well, not to mention a waste of six months and most of his political capital. Poll numbers show massive opposition to Obamacare, but Obama and the Democrats have said, Public be damned, full speed ahead.
Public be damned, right? I guess that includes Massachusets.
And who is to blame for all this? The Republicans who are being excoriated for having been put on the bench while Democrats ran plays? Remember how everyone snickered when he said, "I won".
It wasn't half as loud as the snickering when Bill Clinton announced in front of the whole world, "The era of Big government is over".
This is going to be one hell of a state of the Union Speech. Let's see if he has the balls to stand up and say, "My bad, I took your high hopes, your dreams and your feelings that I respected you and listened to your ideas, an I chucked 'em out the windows and wasted a whole year doiing nothing, just like Saturday Night live said".
Whoops!!
January 20, 2010 1:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dear Josh et al --
Thanks for forcing this inexperienced, uninspired (entering politics a full decade later than most other aspirants), and uninspiring man upon us as our party's standard bearer. It's funny about Pres. Obama. The same media figures who in 2000 said there was no real difference between Vice President Gore and Governor Bush (Frank Rich, New York Times, 3/11/00: "We're stranded with two establishment, tightly scripted, often robotic candidates who are about as different from one another as J. Crew and Banana Republic"), the same ones who in 2002 ignored a desperately leaking CIA and endorsed our adventure in Iraq, were the men and women who supported and promoted the Sen. Obama candidacy. Why anyone thought they could have been wrong on so much else and right about the candidate is one of the great mysteries of the decade, just as their own cupidity is one of that decade's sorrows. And now the party and country must live with the result. Again, thank you and well done.
All best,
Desmond
PS I have never voted Republican in a national election, and don't imagine I ever will. But believing in the transformational effect of a two-year junior senator was about the same as believing in the power of magic. Josh (et al) you guys were supposed to be professionals. You were supposed to use your expertise to steer the electorate towards a reasoned choice. Why did you steer us away from expertise?
January 20, 2010 1:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
My theory has always been that Obama was swept into the White House about twelve years before he was ready for the job. It's a shame. It's as if a promising young heavyweight had been brought up too fast. He has never governed or administrated anything before in his life. He has many, many, talents and a cool head, but experience is important and he had had very little.
January 20, 2010 2:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are pinning the fact that Coakley didn't want cold hands in front of Fenway on Obama?
In the end, this was an election between Brown and Coakley, not Brown and Obama.
January 20, 2010 3:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bingo!
There were some issues unique to MA that caused Coakley to lose. She was from the Western part of the state and her primary opponent, who had the party machine behind him, was from Boston. The powerful Democrats in the state, such as the mayor of Boston, never did endorse her and weren't much help with her campaign.
January 20, 2010 5:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh Come ON....reality here. We are talking about MASS.....not Montana! She was from the more right leaning western part of the state. Winning should have been a cinch.......
January 20, 2010 6:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Comeon now. You aren't going to tell me this wasn't a referendum on Obama? Sure it was. It was his election and instead of making sure it was won he dithered and lost it......
January 20, 2010 6:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
January 20, 2010 5:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
As an advocate of a Right Wing military dictatorship I find all this Leftist bloviating amusing.
You people are insane, dangerous, and self-loathing.
I do enjoy the self-loathing part and it is your one single emotional manifestion grounded in truth.
I wish you all a good year watching your Socialist experiment rot and die at 4X speed.
January 20, 2010 5:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Firehydrant
I'm afraid that that before terribly long, you will get your wish... but be careful what you wish for, because the first thing a military dictator will do is to disarm the population and put anyone that resists before a firing squad. Have fun.January 20, 2010 6:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
We can analyze this ad nauseum, but it boils down to a simple lack of leadership in both the White House and the Senate. Harry Reid has the largest majority in the Senate--still--in 40 years, and has not accomplished anything. He should step down. If not, then hopefully the Nevada voters will do the right thing. Obama rode in on a fantastic wave of change, and handed it all to the Republicans. He really needs to take a good, long look in the mirror and think about what he's doing.
Obama has not taken a stand on anything, and it shows in an unmotivated electorate and feckless Senate. I have to give Nancy Pelosi her due in the House, but she can't carry the country by herself. If Obama can't find it in himself to follow up his nice speaches with some real action, then don't be surprised when no one listens to him in 2012.
January 20, 2010 7:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jim Sleeper says:
This pronouncement on the psychology of "most Americans" is based on what? All of the outside research Sleeper has provided to support his thesis? A meticulous examination of state-by-state poll results since the 1980s? A historical analysis of Americans' fears of "proactive" policy solutions and embrace of "negative" non-solutions?
Anything other than Sleeper's own previous unsubstantiated theses?
Nope! Check the links.
Jim Sleeper just might be the laziest academic headliner at Talking Points Memo. Why anyone lets him get away with it is deeply troubling.
But, hey, nice work if you can get it, right Sleeper?
January 20, 2010 8:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Did Dems have 60 votes to pass Medicare in the sixties?
Hell no!
53 votes did it.
But they were fighters, with backbone.
None of this weak kneed manure we see in the Senate today.
Quit kissing Blue Dog and GOP butt and start kicking it instead.
No wonder people are pissed!
Elect these folks and what do we get?
More wishy-washy corporate whoring!
We don't want bipartisanship, we want results!
January 20, 2010 8:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hear! Hear!
January 20, 2010 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
One common theme among liberal bloggers - and Thomas Frank. If people (e.g. Sleeper's suburbanites) buy into the free-market ideas it is due to incomplete ideas, etc.
I'm not an expert in Massachusetts, but Boston (like most other NE cities) has a large financial services sector and insurance industry. It also has many world-renowned hospitals.
People may be worrying about the effect of finance and health-care policies on their jobs. On the job their are dozens of loud-mouths at higher levels giving opinions regularly.
The same may even be true for blue-collar workers. 30 years of right-wing policies and many have had no choice but to start their own businesses or work in small businesses. Many of these businesses did well during the housing boom.
Of course there is hypocrisy - "big government" has been involved in their past "success", but as we know this involvement is often hidden.
And if they wanted to get rid of "big government" they could start with their own - by definition - wasteful suburbs. Do towns of 10000 need their own garbage departments?
January 20, 2010 8:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Liberals in this country have some unknown reason acquired the nasty habit of talking down to people and have become far too preachy.
This pissed people off. People in this country think in very general simplistic terms and are interested in what's in it for them.
Until the dems and liberals grasp these facts they will lose elections.
They need to be in tune with the populace and the peoples personal concerns and needs and desires and get off their high horse. They need to learn how to connect.
LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, "Scoop" Jackson, Daniel Patrick Moynihan all were very connected to their constituency. And they listened to them.
Something that the current crop of democrats need to start doing.
C
January 20, 2010 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Each one of the names you mentioned were either run out of their party or reviled by the current Democrat party by them time they left.
LBJ ejected.
Scoop is now mocked as a Republican shill and war monger, especially when Republicans pay compliments to him.
HHH, was blamed for botching the '68 campaign and reviled by the new left that waged violent attacks on the Chicago convention. He was also one of the few Democrats in 1964 that had fought vigorously for years to help the Republicans pass civil rights. But the new left considered him a pawn of the Hard Hats, Democrat cultural conservatives and the old school Mayor Daly types.
Patrick Moynihan was viewed with suspicion ever since his "defining deviancy down" ideas that were seen as disloyal to the left's views on crime, culture and urban policy. When Hillary Clinton publicly insulted him over differences on Health Care, he returned fire and was later blamed as one of the earliest voices to damage HillaryCare's chances.
You are right, these stalwarts listened to their constituents, connected with them and on issues of race and national security sometimes took stances that required leadership and were later proven to be the right choices.
I would add Joe Lieberman to this list for representing his constituents and taking major heat for doing so. When he was ejected from the party in 2006, he was probably the last of the JFK/Scoop Jackson wing of the party, and what we were left with was the final purge of the Democrat party and total takeover by the 1960s New Left of the party.
Now that they have the party, they are treating the rest of the nation like idiots. A month ago, we had posts here saying "revenge on Lieberman", "Get even with Nelson", and so on. Now we hear voices here saying "Let's go to war, let's try even more socialism, Let's do a real purge of the unbelievers!"
Fine, just keep purging and purging and purging.
As the GOP has been saying for 3 years,....we would be happy to give a corner office to Joe Lieberman, and one for Nelson, and one for Evan Bayh....
Anyone else you want to send over?
January 20, 2010 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Herbert Hoover" Obama is a neoliberal corporatist -- bluntly, he's a schmo.
-- that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
January 20, 2010 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well put! LOL!
January 20, 2010 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh the Keats quote is way out of context here.
January 20, 2010 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't like the image of desire ever unconsummated, eh?
I thought it pictured the relationship between the electorate ex Obamanauts and Obama rather well.
January 20, 2010 8:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
You mean forever will they love and forever will he be fair?
Odd take. But if you say so.
January 20, 2010 8:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
RE: "bluntly, he's a schmo"(or schmoe also shmo) - Ellen
MY COMMENT: That's a bit harsh, but I like the Keats. The very best desire is "desire ever unconsummated". You can't have your Cake and....
P.S. "I want a girl with a short skirt and a lonnnnng.... lonnng jacket"
January 21, 2010 12:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Short Skirt, Long Jacket"
VIDEO(3:30)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBYEVnQkMU8
January 21, 2010 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for your patience and sorry for the inconvenience!
Best regards, Mary, CEO of youtube to mp3
December 17, 2010 3:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
RE: "...talking mainly to ourselves and to a thin penumbra that waxes and wanes..." - Sleeper
MY COMMENT: Well, that's certainly food for thought. A super sized meal, in fact. I may not be able to sleep tonight! Penumbrae can be very dicey.
January 20, 2010 11:53 PM | Reply | Permalink