Month: September 2012

The oldest profession

by digby

Those on the left who write scathingly about the Democratic Party often get chastised for being shrill, particularly on issues concerning corporate influence. But this report by Lee Fang speaks for itself:

In 2008, Mark Squier was the executive producer of the Democratic National Convention in Denver. A veteran political consultant of several campaigns, including Howard Dean’s insurgent quest for the White House, Squier helped launch the Obama-Biden ticket into the final stretch of the campaign.

Now Squier is working for the other side.

Shortly after the general election four years ago, a slew of Democrats joined Republican consultant and CNN pundit Alex Castellanos to form a firm called Purple Strategies. Steve McMahon, also a former Dean operative at the DNC, merged his campaign company, Issue & Image, with Castellano’s National Media Research to form Purple Strategies.

A search of FEC records shows that Squier’s new firm has been hard at work helping to elect a GOP Congress and defeat Barack Obama. A search of Federal Elections Commission records provides a snapshot:

• Just in the last week, Purple Strategies’ media buying firm helped the National Republican Campaign Committee purchase $103,054 worth of attack ads in key Congressional races, including against Mike McIntyre, one of the most endangered House Democrats in North Carolina.

• Purple Strategies’ subsidiary is providing media production, creative services and focus group services for the Republican National Committee. In the last month, the firm collected $7,698,514 from the party.

• Purple Strategies is the consulting firm for the YG Action Fund, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s Super PAC.

In total, the company has received at least $43 million in contracts working for Republican candidates this cycle.

One might assume the name “Purple:” would mean that the firm provides bipartisan services. But the name seems to refer to only the firm’s composition—I could not find work on behalf of the poor, disadvantaged minority groups, environmental causes or any of the core left of center constituencies.

Other prominent Democrats at Purple Strategies: John Donovan and Meghan Johnson, both former DCCC strategists; CR Wooters, a former aide to Congressman Chris Van Hollen (D-MD); and Jim Jordan, a former executive director at the DSCC.

I think that says it all.

I’m not surprised that Alex Castellanos would blue wash his firm with Democratic sell-outs. He’s the guy who was responsible for the famous “Rats” ad, after all.

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Better off compared to what?

by digby

Krugman asks the “are you better off” question the right way:

Obama came to office in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. The question should be how well he dealt with that crisis — and in particular whether the man seeking to replace him would have done better.

And the facts of how we’ve done aren’t complicated: the economy was in free fall in January 2009; it stabilized and began growing by mid-2009; but growth has been disappointing, and employment has barely kept up with population. Here’s real GDP per capita:

Would a Republican president have done better? If so, how? That’s the question — not the dumb “four years” trope.

In my view, the problem for the Obama administration was rigidly sticking to their agenda even in the face of changing circumstances. From the outset, the administration wanted to do a Grand Bargain and the wild right wing hostility to the health care program only made them motivated to prove their “responsible” bona fides even more.The economy didn’t cooperate, unfortunately.

However, judging by the McCain and Romney campaigns as well as the dystopian nightmare agenda of Paul Ryan and the right wing of the party, we almost certainly would have had worse if the Republicans had been in office. Sadly, this is because unlike the Tea Partiers and the GOP leadership who adopted a total obstruction policy, there would undoubtedly have been enough Democrats crossing over to pass any hideous legislation they devised. (Having the majority wouldn’t have helped I’m afraid.) We’d very likely be back in recession right now.

So, yeah. The question isn’t whether we’re better off now than we were. It’s how much worse off we’d be if the crazy Republicans had been in charge with a bunch of Blue Dogs happily helping them do their worst.

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Wall St. “Job Creators” strangle the futures of American cities

by David Atkins

Our glorious “job creators” hard at work:

Jeffrey A. Michael, a finance professor in Stockton, Calif., took a hard look at his city’s bankruptcy this summer and thought he saw a smoking gun: a dubious bond deal that bankers had pushed on Stockton just as the local economy was starting to tank in the spring of 2007, he said.

Stockton sold the bonds, about $125 million worth, to obtain cash to close a shortfall in its pension plans for current and retired city workers. The strategy backfired, which is part of the reason the city is now in Chapter 9 bankruptcy. Stockton is trying to walk away from the so-called pension obligation bonds and to renegotiate other debts.

After reviewing an analysis of the bond deal, underwritten by the ill-fated investment bank, Lehman Brothers, and watching a recording of the Stockton City Council meeting where Lehman bankers pitched the deal, Mr. Michael concluded that “Stockton is entitled to some relief, due to deceptive and misleading sales practices that understated the risk.”

“Lehman Brothers just didn’t disclose all the risks of the transaction,” he said. “Their product didn’t work, in the same way as if they had built a marina for the city and then the marina collapsed.”

Financial analysts and actuaries say essentially the same pitch that swayed Stockton has been made thousands of times to local governments all over the country — and that many of them were drawn into deals that have since cost them dearly.

Read the whole thing. What Wall Street did here was disgusting. But more disgusting is that while the banks were made whole, the cities that got conned by them are still left holding the bag, in many cases forced to declare bankruptcy. This is wrong on more levels than it’s possible to count.

In the old days there would have been tar and feathers–and worse–for a situation like this. That the city of Stockton and others like it should declare bankruptcy even as Wall Street profits return to record highs is injustice of untold magnitude. Cities should be able to trust high-rated bonds. If they can’t, the financial entities selling them have little value to society. And when those financial entities get bailed out at the expense of everyone else, they quickly have negative value to society.

Which is where we are now.

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The sophisticated ground game

by digby

Via Buzzfeed, here’s some savvy micro-targeting:

Works for me …

The dead Perot bounce

by digby

Jonathan Bernstein writes about why Clinton’s 1992 Democratic convention bump wasn’t because of the excellence of the convention:

‘The Man From Hope’ ” video is still more vivid to me than any convention gimmick since.” Indeed, that video was almost certainly the best-ever of the genre; his speech was first-rate; and the stagecraft in general was well-done throughout the event.

And yet, that’s almost certainly not why Clinton received a monster convention bump (before the convention he was struggling to avoid being in third place; after, he rarely trailed). As Douthat mentions, the Ross Perot candidacy had a lot to do with it.

Steve Kornacki nails it in reply to Douthat: “Perot had drowned clinton out all spring. when convo started, most people still associated him mainly w/ scandal.” Indeed, to really understand the ebb and flow of polling in 1992, you have to go back to January, when Bill Clinton was introduced to the American people in a post-Super Bowl 60 Minutes appearance that was all about scandal. Then, as Kornacki remembers, Clinton never really received a normal spring bump from clinching the nomination, because that was when Perot mania was at its peak.

In other words, regardless of the quality of the convention, Clinton was poised for a large bounce because lots and lots of people who “should” have been Democratic voters in 1992 – weak Democrats, a fair number of pure independents, and perhaps even a decent number of solid Democrats – were not with him when the convention started. And what conventions do well is to convert those “should” voters into solid voters.

All that’s true but it leaves out one vital and important fact. The convention was held in New York from July 13 to July 16, 1992. And it was good. So good that Perot announced he was dropping out of the race on the day of Clinton’s acceptance speech, saying this:

“When we started in early summer,” Mr. Perot said at a news conference here, “there was a climate there where we could win outright. The Democratic Party has revitalized itself. They’ve done a brilliant job, in my opinion, in coming back.”

Now it’s true that Perot’s campaign was a shambles at this point, and the Dems were already making strides in the polls from the Al Gore announcement, but Perot dropping out in that moment was electrifying. The clear implication of his statement on the last day of the convention was that it had been so convincing that there was no need for old Ross to stay in the race now that the Democrats had gotten their shit together.

I don’t dispute that Clinton may have had a bounce coming. But I have to believe that event had something to do with it. For that moment, it was as if Perot had handed his mandate to Clinton.

Didn’t last, of course. Perot jumped back in and got the biggest third party vote in history.

Oy:

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Well heck, whodda thunk it?

Business support for the government’s austerity plan started to fracture on Thursday after one group called for a small stimulus funded through extra public borrowing.

The British Chambers of Commerce, which represents more than 100,000 businesses, said the UK had enough “wiggle room” to use a “moderate fiscal stimulus” to help lift the stagnant economy.

“[George] Osborne’s built up a lot of credibility with the markets, a clear continued commitment to deficit reduction is important, but coupled with that we’ve got to get growth,” John Longworth, the BCC’s director-general, said.

“If we can’t get growth, and tax revenues fall, we’re just as much at risk of having the bond markets react to that as we are from failing to have a deficit reduction plan.”

Ok, so they’re still talking about the bond market as if it’s God Almighty, but at least they are acknowledging that austerity isn’t working. Baby steps.

But the government, so far, isn’t listening. Here’s Krugman:

In a lot of ways George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) is Britain’s answer to Paul Ryan. True, he’s a toned-down version — no Ayn Rand, please, we’re British — but other aspects of package are there in full force: he’s articulate, has a vision that’s completely at odds with everything we actually know about macroeconomics, and he was for a while the darling not just of the right but of self-proclaimed centrists on both sides of the Atlantic.

Osborne’s big idea was that Britain should turn to fiscal austerity now now now, even though the economy remained deeply depressed; it would all work out, he insisted, because the confidence fairy would come to the rescue. Never mind those whining Keynesians who said that premature austerity would send Britain into a double-dip recession.

Strange to say, Britain’s recovery stalled soon after Cameron/Osborne began their new policies, and the country is now in a double-dip recession.

So is Cameron rethinking his faith in Osborne? According to the FT, no:

But Mr Osborne continues to enjoy David Cameron’s backing and will stay as chancellor when the prime minister this week conducts his reshuffle, expected to take place on Tuesday.

Instead of a real policy rethink, what Cameron and Osborne apparently have in mind is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic a set of basically minor twiddles involving credit and planning authorizations, which seem highly unlikely to make any significant difference.

And the Tories are doubling down, calling for “shock therapy” austerity, the problem apparently being that people just aren’t suffering enough. Not kidding.

And here in the US, we are in grave danger of being led down that same garden path as soon as the election is over. We’re preparing to do some kind of “austerity-lite” — which is likely to have similar results.

In case you wonder what those irrelevant elements called “the people” think about all this, check out the reaction to George Osborne at the paralympics:

Eric Cantor insults workers everywhere

by David Atkins

Eric Cantor tweets:

Today, we celebrate those who have taken a risk, worked hard, built a business and earned their own success.

As a small business owner who understands that my value to society is no more than that of a teacher, and who knows that my activism does far more for humanity than the smattering of jobs and economic activity my business creates, I would like to be the first to tell Eric Cantor to go to hell.

Nor is Eric Cantor the first to make statements in this vein today.

What the GOP is doing this Labor Day is akin to thanking weapons manufacturers on Memorial Day. It’s sick, disrespectful and little more than tonedeaf plutocratic jingoism. It’s not enough for them to own all the power and the money, crushing everyone underneath them. They want to be loved for it.

Fat chance.

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Thank a union worker today

by digby

Here’s a nice post by Zaid Jilani over at Bold Progressives blog about the contributions of the labor movement (besides labor day!) to the betterment of all our lives:

Here’s some other things we can thank unionized workers for:

The Weekend: The ultra-right Mises Institute notes that in the relatively labor union-free year of 1870, the average workweek for most Americans was 61 hours — almost double what most Americans work now. In response to this, in the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century, labor unions engaged in massive strikes in order to demand shorter workweeks so that Americans could be home with their loved ones instead of constantly toiling for their employers with no leisure time. By 1937, these labor actions created enough political momentum to pass the Fair Labor Standards Act, which helped create a federal framework for a shorter workweek that included room for workers to spend time with their families and engage in other leisurely activities.

Widespread Employer-Based Health Coverage: As unions grew in numbers in the 1930s and 40s, there was a rapid expansion of employers offering their employees health care. As Health Affairs notes, “In industries dominated by a few giant firms, unions used their “countervailing power” to make the firms share some of their potential profits with workers in the form of high wages and generous health insurance benefits. “

Ending Child Labor: The first American Federation of Labor (AFL) national convention passed “a resolution calling on states to ban children under 14 from all gainful employment” in 1881, and soon after states across the country adopted similar recommendations, leading up to the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act which regulated child labor on the federal level for the first time.

The Family and Medical Leave Act: Labor unions as part of the AFL-CIO federation led the fight for this 1993 law, which “requires state agencies and private employers with more than 50 employees to provide up to 12 weeks of job-protected unpaid leave annually for workers to care for a newborn, newly adopted child, seriously ill family member or for the worker’s own illness.”

Keeping Income Inequality In Check: As research from the Center for American Progress has shown, the middle class had its largest share of national income at exactly the same time that union membership was highest in the United States. In 1967, the middle class had approximately 53 percent of the national income, while 27 percent of workers belong to a union. By 2007, the middle class’s share of national income dropped to around 46 percent with a union membership rate of around 11 percent.

So thank a union member today!

Happy labor day everyone.

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The Big Lie

by David Atkins

The press establishment is already making a big deal of a a quote from California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton this morning:

“They lie and they don’t care if people think they lie… Joseph Goebbels – it’s the big lie, you keep repeating it,” Burton said Monday before the Blake Hotel breakfast. He said Ryan told “a bold-faced lie and he doesn’t care that it was a lie. That was Goebbels, the big lie.”

Pass the freaking smelling salts already. Burton wasn’t calling Republicans Nazis or mass murderers. He was saying that they’re using the same propaganda tactic Goebbels made famous. It’s a fairly common reference:

All this was inspired by the principle–which is quite true within itself–that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.

The press may want to be reminded of this:

Did Paul Ryan bend the truth?

The verdict, rendered by a slew of media fact checkers, was immediate and unequivocal: In his first major speech before the American people, the Republican vice presidential nominee repeatedly left out key facts, ignored context and was blind to his own hypocrisy.

This week, Romney’s campaign faced questions about its repeated accusation that Obama ended welfare work requirements — even after fact checkers decreed that assertion false. Romney pollster Neil Newhouse turned the challenge back on the fact checkers, saying they bring their own “thoughts and beliefs” to the process.

“We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers,” Newhouse said.

Not that fact-check organizations are perfect, of course. But the Romney campaign’s claims about welfare are exactly the sort of thing Goebbels meant by a Big Lie: a lie that corrupts the deep emotional strata of huge segments of the population susceptible to racist appeals. A lie that distorts the perception of reality itself, a claim so boldly fallacious that it leaves no room for nuance, forcing the observer to baldly trust one side’s claim or the other in a tribal way. A lie that washes away all the smaller lies and exaggerations of a campaign by its monumental boldness.

One would hope that the press establishment would be more offended by the Big Lie itself than by a party official’s commonplace reference to what’s actually going on.

Update: Burton responds with an apology:

“To correct press reports of my recent comments about Republican lies, I did not call Republicans Nazis nor would I ever. In fact, I didn’t even use the word.

If Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, or the Republicans are insulted by my describing their campaign tactic as the big lie – I most humbly apologize to them or anyone who might have been offended by that comment.”

He probably shouldn’t have mentioned Goebbels by name, but there’s nothing wrong with saying that they’re using the Big Lie tactic. They are. If we’re not allowed to call it what it is anymore, then I suspect a bunch of unnecessary circumlocutions will be in store for people looking to communicate such a simple idea.

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I didn’t go to the Democratic convention this year. The truth is that I’m just not a convention person. I didn’t enjoy them in my former career and I don’t much like them now.