In today's GOP it is increasingly difficult to defend the honor of any individual party member. Even so, it's unfair, simpleminded, and even bigoted to make the sort of claim Mooser makes. A good-hearted, informed, and intelligent person could be a member of the GOP, for all its faults, because that person disagrees with the Democratic Party on some fundamental issue. For example, the size of government, foreign policy, or abortion. In each of those cases, yes, many conservatives are motivated by arguably malicious—or at least ungenerous—inclinations...but not all, and not necessarily.

The inclination to label every single member of the opposing party as immoral and malicious is itself an immoral and malicious tendency. It is pernicious and has a very distorting effect on politics. Sadly, it is the bread-and-butter of the Coulters and Limbaughs of the world. We on the left don't need to be like those abhorrent people.

Worse are the claims that a member of some identity group is somehow a hypocrite or a traitor for being affiliated with a particular party. This is disrespectful and anti-humanistic because it reduces a living, breathing individual into nothing more than a lifeless representative of some abstract group.

Posted at July 8, 2008 7:28 PM in response to Direct Mail Letter Rails Against "So-Called 'Black Leaders'"

Is it not possible to get a list of donors and ask them how they feel about being defrauded in this way?

The Boston newspaper article which first broke this story contacted a few of these donors. All were retired, most were elderly. Some didn't remember the contribution at all. In the cases where the candidates had dropped out of the race, none were aware of this when they made their contribution. One of the donors was an elderly man who had given more than 150K over several years to numerous candidates on whose behalf BMW Direct solicited (indicating to me that their claims of having to build up a new donor pool at great expense are untrue). This man's family has asked his caregiver to screen his mail and phone calls.

Because of reporting requirements, in theory these donors should be locatable and contactable. It's probably unrealistic, and perhaps open to a civil suit, but I'd like to see a grassroots effort to divy up these donor lists and have people contact the donors telling them—just the facts—what BMW Direct is doing. Because I believe they're contacted many of the same people again and again, this would substantially hurt their ability to prey upon these people. The problem is that BMW Direct isn't apparently breaking any laws.

A more realistic solution would be some House committee to hold hearing on this, investigating BMW Direct and any others (there's at least one other company doing something like this). That'd likely put a stop to it.

It seems to me that it's only a matter of time—ironically, more likely given this media attention—before someone starts doing this with Democratic candidates, too.

Posted at July 8, 2008 7:13 PM in response to Direct Mail Letter Rails Against "So-Called 'Black Leaders'"

He hits a number of nativist notes in this speech. A bit bothersome and not very progressive, but probably good politics—especially because he balances it out in other parts of the speech.

Posted at July 8, 2008 7:01 PM in response to Obama Tells Latino Group That McCain Sold Them Out On Immigration

Oh, come on. That's just mean spirited and wrong. You don't know a damn thing about this woman's politics other than her party affiliation.

The one thing we do know, based upon the similar cases already reported, is that Dr. Fisher is probably a political naif who was preyed upon by BMW. These are extremely quixotic candidates. They don't expect to raise more than twenty or thirty thousand dollars, are grateful for what they get, and are bamboozled by BMW's claims of high costs and such.

I don't disagree that there is a culture of dishonesty and greed thriving in the Washington GOP for a number of years now and that because of this it's no surprise that such an operation turns up on the right rather than on the left.

However, I think this has much more to do with classic con-artistry than anything else. It could have been an operation aimed at Dem candidates, or even non-partisan. More likely, it's aimed at the right because there's far more likely marks for the direct mail affiliated with the right than the left. This preys upon the elderly, counting on these donors not to know that the candidates are lost causes. As we've already seen, BMW still solicits contributions after their candidates have dropped out of the race.

Personally, I feel sorry for these candidates because even though they're undoubtedly often very much extreme wingnuts, they're also always just average Americans, not part of the party machine or insider politics. They take on lost causes, and good for them. I appreciate Dem candidates in solid Republican districts who do the same. And while it's a bit hard to feel sympathy for probably very reactionary donors, they are regular people, too, our parents and grandparents being bilked out of their savings, drop by drop.

Apparently, BMW Direct isn't violating any laws. Nevertheless, what they're doing is disgusting and makes a mockery of the democratic process. TPM and others are doing a service by shining a light on these con artists and perhaps, if we're lucky, public pressure will shut them down.

Posted at July 8, 2008 6:49 PM in response to Fundraisers Sought To Continue After Election Seeking to Cover "Debt"

I'm going to have to shower after posting this comment, but in the name of fairness and anti-BS, it's really silly of you to claim that the two things are comparable. It'd be exactly like claiming that someone who complains about high medical costs but who pays a high insurance premium was being hypocritical. The folks who complain of high taxes but pay big money to GOP candidates are doing so because A) they probably are paying more in taxes than in political contributions, and B) they expect to get something for their contributions that will actually reduce their taxes. That's in their own rational self-interest, if not in the interest of the USA.

Posted at July 3, 2008 8:13 PM in response to Today's Must Read

As linked by someone in a reply to an earlier comment in the thread, the production company has released a b-roll. Unless they went to more effort to fake a b-roll than they did the original spot, it's real.

I agree with everyone that it looks very fake. It looks very similar to matte shots in ads with a talking head at the lower right corner of the screen.

But I sort of relish seeing people speaking so authoritatively (like pretty much everyone in this thread) be made to look foolish by being proven wrong. It should act as a lesson. I won't deny that I'm prone to be an Internet expert and talk out of my ass every now and then like most everyone else. But we all should learn a bit of humility. Not just for virtue's sake, but for the sake of productive discussion.

Posted at June 21, 2008 12:49 AM in response to Did GOP Senator Fake An Ad Showing Him Cozy With Wife?

It doesn't really sound like doubletalk to me, more like resigned realism.

They might be trying to greatly lower expectations and raise those of the Dems, though. My first thought reading this was a feeling of certainty that we'd pick up nine or more seats. But if that's not really a gimme and we take it for granted, and then it doesn't come to happen, they'll have accomplished what they intended by moving the goalposts.

It's probably best to ignore all the polling and signals and pretend—with some optimist, certainly—that we still have a tough road ahead of us.

Posted at June 10, 2008 2:49 AM in response to GOP Official: If We Only Lose Eight Senate Seats, We Win

The "narcissistic avatar" comment was uncalled-for. There is nothing narcissistic about having an avatar that's an actual photo of oneself. I, personally, have no interest in being someone, or something else, or presenting myself accordingly. It's not that I love myself, it's arguably that I don't love myself so much that I need to have more than one identity. I mean, c'mon, reading narcissism into someone's choice of avatar is a real stretch.

I very strongly disagree with her, and think that some of her language is inappropriate and provocative, but there's no reason to respond in kind and just make things worse.

Posted at June 1, 2008 1:51 AM in response to In Blow To Hillary, DNC Agrees To Seat Florida And Michigan Delegations At Half-Votes

As the other commenter says, the Constitution doesn't have to mention primaries because the point is that primaries are not elections to office. It's the general election ballot that matters from a Constitutional perspective. How a group of people band together and how those people select someone to appear on that ballot in their collective name is nobody's business but that group's. Do you understand?

It's true that because of the historical accident of or two-party system that the primaries end up being just about as important to all American voters in general as the general election. Therefore, intuitively, there's a sense that the primaries should be considered to be under the same rule of law as other US elections are. But, they're not. And it would take a Constitutional amendment, or an extremely unlikely Supreme Court ruling, to make them so. Until that happens, as the other poster says, the parties might as well play paper, scissors, rock to select candidates and that's completely legal.

Posted at June 1, 2008 1:42 AM in response to In Blow To Hillary, DNC Agrees To Seat Florida And Michigan Delegations At Half-Votes

How in the world is this "throwing the rules out the window" when the rules are that none of these delegates should have been seated at all? Anything that Clinton gets out of this is a bonus over what she should get, if it's the "rules" we're talking about, here.

I only slightly prefer Obama to Clinton and would have been perfectly happy to see Clinton get the nomination. I don't really have anything personal at stake, here. My criticism of Clinton and your arguments is not partisan.

And I just cannot understand how she or you or anyone can justify reversing her position on the Michigan and Florida delegates—especially when, in doing so, there is a complete disregard for the fact that Obama took his name off the Michigan ballot as part of the agreement, which Clinton was a party to, of the implementation of the punishment of Michigan. To act as if it's fair to seat the Michigan delegates with no consideration for Obama's massive disadvantage is simply amazing to me. The Clinton campaign, represented by Ickes, wanted to seat all the Clinton delegates at full votes and give none of the "uncommitted" to Obama. That's absurdly unfair.

Finally, this notion that it's grossly unfair to Florida and Michigan voters to be disenfranchised is just plain wrong. I read one Clinton supporter from Florida quoted as saying that it wasn't her decision, as a "citizen" [sic] of Florida to move the date of the primary. But the truth is that it was, in effect, her decision because it was the Florida legislature, put in power by she and her fellow Florida voters, who decided this. That's how representative democracy works. You can't disavow responsibility for what your elected leaders do, it's our responsibility as citizens to elect the right leaders.

"Don't blame me, I didn't vote for X" is BS. It's an understandable sentiment, but it's wrong. If it were true, then if elected representatives we didn't vote for in a legislature passes laws we don't agree with, it would be reasonable to not aide by them. But it doesn't, and shouldn't, work that way.

The Michigan and Florida legislatures made bad decisions. The residents of those two states are rightly punished for these bad decisions.

Posted at June 1, 2008 1:32 AM in response to In Blow To Hillary, DNC Agrees To Seat Florida And Michigan Delegations At Half-Votes