Month: November 2014

What about the Democrats who won?

by digby

Here’s an interesting little factoid.

One trend that was interesting last night is that clear, strong progressives like Jeff Merkley (OR), Tom Udall (NM), Brian Schatz (HI) and Al Franken (MN)– who had massive right-wing money thrown at them– won, while conservative Democrats like Mark Warner, Mary Landrieu and Kay Hagan stumbled and the most conservative Democrat of all, Mark Pryor, lost badly. In the House, conservative Democrats– Blue Dogs and New Dems– lost everywhere, even in Democratic districts. Almost all of Israel’s Red-to-Blue recruits lost, as did many of his Frontline incumbents.

Schatz is no surprise being from Blue Hawaii. And Oregon went even more blue all around (although that wasn’t destined to be true — it wasn’t that long ago that they had GOP Senators.) But both Franken and Udall pulled it out in states that are not reliably liberal. What happened in these races that didn’t happen elsewhere? The right certainly gave it their all to unseat them.

And as Howie points out, all those Republicans in Democratic clothing the Party recruited lost as did all the Blue Dogs who’ve been very reliable GOP votes. It just doesn’t pay to be a conservative Democrat these days.

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Republicans are weird, Part XXIV

by digby

I wanna be a Cowboy baby …

Their celebration reached a fever pitch when they threw it to their panel of experts, featuring Chris Wallace, Karl Rove, and some guy the other two talked over. As promised early in the night, the three were decked out in cowboy garb, giggling as they cracked cowboy jokes that will have your sides a-stitchin’

Conservatives love to play dress up for some reason.

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Why do they leave the easy ones on the table?

by digby

Howie is going to be doing a long series of posts over at Down with Tyranny analyzing one of the fundamental problems with the Democratic strategy and why they are not maximizing what should be their advantage in quite a few races. And the Party isn’t going to like it. Here’s a taste of the first installment:

When David Broder first wrote about the determinedly centrist Congressional Center Aisle Caucus in 2005, he almost ejaculated for joy on the editorial page of the Washington Post over the sheer civility of the project. I wonder why they didn’t make him an honorary member. Broder claimed there were 47 invited members (which later grew to 60), roughly equally split between the two parties, although that membership roll isn’t readily available anywhere, almost like it’s being hidden. They meet, or met, secretly, in a Chinese restaurant two blocks from Capitol Hill; no joke. The caucus was founded by Republican Tim Johnson (IL) and the-Blue Dog… Steve Israel (NY) with the stated purpose of bypassing Congress’ partisan ways.

Applicants for membership weren’t admitted unless they recruited companion members from the opposite party. Caucus members avoided lightning-rod issues and focused only on areas that most likely would produce agreement. Under one unwritten bylaw, members vowed never to engage in political campaigns against other members. That’s nice… but does it make sense to appoint the person who came up with that chairman of the DCCC? I’ll answer that for you– NO! These are the exact candidates the DCCC should be going after… but regardless of how vulnerable they are, Israel keeps the DCCC off their backs one way or the other. In a rational world, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen would have been a top tier DCCC candidate, but Steve Israel doesn’t live in a rational world; he lives in a Center Aisle world and ignores the fact that Ros-Lehtinen is in a blue district that Obama won– and by a way stronger margin than just about all of Israel’s targeted districts. But Ileana gets a reelection free-pass from Israel and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Last year Wasserman Schultz was complicit in recruiting a cardboard candidate, Manny Yevancey, who no one ever heard of, who raised zero dollars and who campaigned exactly zero days. His only job was to occupy the Democratic ballot slot so no one else could run against Wasserman Schultz’s and Israel’s BBF.

There are 21 seats like this in the House, winnable seats Steve Israel willfully ignored, even if they were much easier than impossible targets in deep red districts where he ran his handpicked Blue Dogs and New Dems.

There’s something rotten in the state of Democratic institutions and Party infrastructure. It has to do with collusion with money and power. Read DWT regularly over the next few weeks to get a good idea of the details. It’s not pretty.

Update: Here’s one on the problem with the Senate. Same as it ever was.

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Nothing to see here, folks

by digby

Here’s a little flashing red light:

For McConnell and Senate Republicans, governing in the majority could prove to be more difficult than winning it was.

The first test of McConnell’s ability to manage intraparty divisions could come as soon as lawmakers return to Washington later this month for a lame-duck session. Congress will have to fund the government (again) to stave off a shutdown, approve a sweeping Department of Defense authorization bill, potentially approve an Iran sanctions measure, and also could clear Eric Holder’s replacement as U.S. attorney general.

In all of those cases, McConnell’s interests and the interests of the Republican Party may not align with those of individual members, several of whom are mulling 2016 presidential election bids. At least four are flirting with a run for the White House: Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Marco Rubio of Florida and Rob Portman of Ohio.

Cruz especially could prove to be a troublesome force for McConnell, as the Texas conservative has built his national profile on bucking his own leadership as well as attacking the president and Democrats. Cruz was the intellectual architect of the October 2013 government shutdown that largely was opposed by the GOP leadership. Despite their warnings — and those of even more establishment colleagues — Cruz filibustered a spending bill unless it defunded Obama’s health care law. Though public opinion of the GOP tanked — dropping to historic lows — Cruz appeared unmoved. The Republican grass roots roared their approval, and nothing that Cruz or his aides have said since suggests he plans to drop his hardline approach. In fact, Cruz has conspicuously refused to endorse McConnell for majority leader.

GOP Senate aides across the ideological spectrum told Yahoo News that some of the chamber’s most conservative members have expressed a paranoia that a newly minted Majority Leader McConnell could try to strike deals with Democrats in the lame-duck session on issues such as a longer-term spending agreement — rather than having to find a coalition in the next Congress to approve spending measures more palatable to the Cruz contingent.

I’m guess that liberal members ought to have a little paranoia about all that too … just saying.

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Waves: A thumpin’, a history maker, a shellackin’ and a drubbin’

by digby

I know we’re all supposed to be throwing on our hair shirts and wandering around the streets begging for forgiveness for being losers but I just don’t have the stomach for it this time out. I expected this loss, everything pointed toward it and I don’t think it says much new about the Democrats or the Republicans or the state of our politics.  Four of the last five elections have been “wave” elections so it’s hard to get too worked up one way or the other particularly when the policy agenda is so narrow regardless of which party wins.

The punditocracy is Claud Rainsing itself into a frenzy pretending that nobody saw this coming when they’ve been relentlessly informing us for months that the mid-term turnout is always older, whiter and more Republican than presidential years and that the field was very unfriendly to Democrats this year anyway. It makes for good TV, I guess. But nobody should be any more depressed about the state of our politics this morning than they were yesterday.  This “wave” is status quo, not change.

I think The Onion said it best:

WASHINGTON—With precincts reporting GOP victories in key midterm election races nationwide, Beltway sources confirmed Tuesday that the Republican Party is poised to retain its complete control of the U.S. Senate. “If current polling projections are accurate, it appears as if Republican lawmakers will hold on to power in the Senate chamber and will continue to steer the legislative agenda with little resistance,” political analyst Michael Barone told reporters, noting that the likely election results will preserve the GOP’s singular authority over the direction of the Senate, allowing Republicans to go on stymieing judicial appointments, derailing or neutering any legislation they oppose, and obstructing President Obama at every turn. “With the Senate still firmly under their control, Mitch McConnell and his Republican colleagues will persist in refusing to cede an inch of political leverage to their Democratic rivals and will continue blocking Democratic initiatives just as they have been. Yet again, the GOP is in prime position to carry on dictating the course of the upper house of Congress.” Barone went on to say that Republicans would finally relinquish control of the Senate only when Democrats captured the 100 seats they require to govern.

None of that is to say that the Democrats don’t need to re-evaluate their strategy. All over the country yesterday voters approved liberal policies on economics and social issues — and inexplicably voted for Republicans. Something is not computing there. Perhaps the Democrats might want to inquire as to why the people don’t associate them with the liberal policies they prefer.

I don’t know how much National Security and “law and order” played into these campaigns. Nobody seems to be talking about it today but ISIS and ebola and the Border and Ferguson were all huge stories in this campaign and I have to think these stories may have inspired the GOP turnout more than they’re being given credit for. They are classic fear motivators for the conservatives and the timing was very good. I would not be surprised if they played a part in making the GOP victory as substantial as it was. And this could be a factor in 2016, so stay tuned.

I wrote about what I thought the Republicans have in mind when they talk about how they plan to prove they can “govern” in this piece for Salon last week. I still think I’m right:

[T]here might be good reason to hope that Kevin McCarthy was putting some of his extremist colleagues on notice that their more outlandish shenanigans were not going to be tolerated any longer. No more government shutdowns, no more indiscriminate budget slashing, no more ludicrous investigations into Benghazi! or the IRS. Now is the time for the Republicans to show they are indeed the grown-ups in the room and start working across the aisle with Democrats to get things done for the good of the nation. Unfortunately, McCarthy doesn’t live in Republican Bizarro world and neither do we so the chances of that happening are about as good as the chance that Jerry Brown is going down to defeat next week. No, McCarthy is doing something a little bit different and if you parse his words carefully you’ll see what it is.

Jake Sherman at Politico broke this story on Monday with this opening line:

HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy landed here from Los Angeles with a bang: He bluntly warned that Republicans will blow the presidency in 2016 if they don’t make some radical changes — and quick.

McCarthy, speaking without a working microphone, told a group of Long Island donors that Republicans’ gains in the House will amount to little if they can’t govern over the next two years.

He goes on to lay out an agenda that is short on precipitous “cliffs” and long on “big picture” legislating. He claims they will introduce energy and infrastructure projects and business-focused tax programs. He expects to try to get more highway spending funded by more drilling. And he wants to set up “a congressional mechanism” that will completely overhaul the federal bureaucracy so that it works better. Why, if one didn’t know better, one might assume this fellow thinks he won the presidency instead of the office of House majority leader.

All of this has the villagers very excited. If the Republicans can pass legislation in both houses then surely the president will be obliged to sign it and then everyone can have drinks like Tip ‘n’ Ronnie and we’ll all live happily ever after. This is the best of all possible worlds to the political establishment — a GOP Congress passing GOP legislation and a Democratic president happily signing it.

But that’s not the plan. If you look more closely at what McCarthy is saying, he is putting Washington on notice that the Congress may pass a few bills the president can sign on to. But what he’s really signaling is an intention to pass legislation in both houses that the president will veto.

McCarthy chooses his words carefully and this is what he is quoted as saying:

“I do know this,” McCarthy said. “If we don’t capture the House stronger, and the Senate, and prove we could govern, there won’t be a Republican president in 2016.”

Note that he doesn’t say “prove we can govern,” he says “prove we could govern,” which implies that they will prove they can pass legislation but they need a Republican in the White House to get the job done.

The Republicans just elected a new class of very hard core Tea Partiers who were co-opted and groomed by the GOP establishment to smooth out some of the rough edges. Ernst, Cotton, Tillis (and probably even Gardner at times) are part of the Cruz faction. And Cruz has been all over TV with Ernst the face of the new GOP.  Any idea that McConnell has a nice working majority of good old moderate Republicans is a Villager illusion. (And judging from my sporadic cable news viewing last night, a fairly prevalent one.)

Anyway, in my view this is a status quo election. The next one probably will be too barring something major shaking up the dynamic, which is certainly possible considering the instability in so much of the world. Right now we are in a state of polarization where the two parties are unable to move beyond the bare minimum they need to keep the government open (and even that is up for grabs.) And this suits the plutocrats and the national security establishment just fine.

Meanwhile, a little bit of good news on the personal front. My good friend Adam Wool won his seat to the Alaska State House last night defying the odds. He said that when he was out canvassing he talked to many more Republicans than Democrats. (It’s a red state after all.) But when he sat down in living rooms a lot of them would listen with interest and come away with a more open mind. It appears some of those Republicans voted for him. Maybe they just hadn’t heard a Democrat who made any sense before.

Anyway, the Republicans have a right to savor their victory. The Democrats certainly ostentatiously savor theirs whenever they win one. But not a lot has changed except that the hard right of the GOP is still ascendant. Which makes the 2016 election very interesting indeed.

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Not really coming to vote

by Tom Sullivan

In spite of Sen. Kay Hagan’s loss to state Rep. Thom Tillis last night, there were a few bright spots for North Carolina Democrats. They need to pick up
five state House seats to break a GOP supermajority. They picked up three last night, gaining two in just one western county, mine.

Since first elected in 2010, state Rep. Tim Moffitt, R-Buncombe, has wedged conservative county voters against city voters. The ALEC board member passed legislation to strip Asheville of control of its airport and water system. (The NCGOP has gone after Charlotte’s airport as well. It’s the next phase of “Defund the Left.”) Moffitt lost his reelection bid last night. In a newspaper
account of local election results, a voter comments about why he supported Moffitt:

Gary Mize, who also lives in Arden, said he voted for Moffitt “to screw the people in (Asheville) City Hall.”

“As a conservative Christian, City Hall stands for nothing I stand for,” Mize said.

In 2011, another state legislator dubbed the left-leaning city “a cesspool of sin.”

I share the quote because it echoes something a friend in SC once said about electioneering. He said he could spot Republicans as they approached the polling place by the sour looks on their faces.

“They’re not coming to vote,” he said. “They’re coming to f–k someone!”

I guess that says “Morning in America” to somebody.

It Shouldn’t Have Even Been Close 

by tristero

There sure are a lot of incompetents leading the Democrats.

“Thank You for Your Service” a note to Progressive Volunteers, Activists and Supporters 

by Spocko

Maybe your proposition or candidate won. Maybe you got crushed by big money and blatant voter suppression techniques.  After a win some people look around and pat each other on the back and appreciate everyone’s hard work. Of course then some killjoy will say, “Now the hard work begins.”  Please. Just let me celebrate for a bit Debbie Downer.

After you fail some people will attack the people next to them. Instead of a “Thanks for the hard work, we’ll get ’em next time!” it becomes, “I knew we shouldn’t have listened to you! Spocko, your shenanigans cost us the election!”

Before any of that happens I want to say thank you to everyone who has spend so much brainpower, money and energy to help progressive causes and candidates.


Thank you for your service. On behalf of all Vulcan Americans, I appreciate your work, win or lose.

We can disagree on methods, issues and people, but I try to remember that our colleagues do the work because they too want to make the world better. Sure they might be misguided, wrong or naive, but they usually aren’t doing it maliciously.

We can get depressed with failure and quit, or learn from it. I try to channel my anger at the people I think are hurting America.

I try to remember to praise and support the people helping, even if not every attempt is a win. Yes, let’s learn from our failures, but in addition to soul searching, identifying and fixing failing internal strategies and actions–let’s look at the people, structures, systems and attitudes that defeated us and attack them. 

• Pissed that big money swamped your proposition? Take that experience and use it defeat Citizens United. 

• Angry that the media sat back and enjoyed the millions in campaign ad money with nary a story about money in politics? Time to check if they recorded all the “who paid for what” details in their public files and bust their ass if they didn’t comply.

  Do it now while you are still angry. The least they can do with all that juicy, juicy TV ad money is to do their publicly mandated job of record keeping, especially if they aren’t going to do any journalism. 

• Does it make you crazy that the people behind dark money got what they wanted and nobody knows who they are? Support people like my friends at the Center for Media and Democracy who are digging up the dirt on them. Then USE THAT DIRT!

  They are hiding for a reason, figure out what that reason is and use it as leverage. Maybe they don’t want their customers, investors or employees to know. They can either explain how their support of crazy candidates and regressive policies are in line with their brand values or stop supporting the regressive policies.  What else are they hiding? Footage of the CEO kicking a dog in an elevator? 

I want to contrast this work with people who dedicate their lives to making the world worse, more divisive and hateful. They know what they are doing, they aren’t dups. Instead of wishing them ill, I hope that they will have a Tony Stark or Lee Atwater level conversion and they use their power for good.

I went to a Day of the Dead party last week. I loved hearing the stories about friends’ dead relatives and loved ones. Sometimes the person wasn’t loved, but provided an example of how “not to be.”

Noonan admonishes Obama to be stop being ungracious

by digby

As we await the election returns it’s probably a good time to check in with Peggy Noonan to see how grown-ups are supposed to behave. She says that Obama is a horrible jerk and suggests he stops being one. She quotes George Bush being the classy, well-mannered fellow he is after he lost the 2006 election and extolls the behavior of Bill Clinton after his loss of the House 20 years ago today:

In a news conference the next day he accepted responsibility and suggested the political meaning of the election was that the public was more conservative than he was. That took some guts and humility. Cleverness, too. By convincing those on his left that they had to face reality, he opened the door for his historic compromises with the Contract Congress. This in turn gave Clinton room to breathe and gather his forces.

How they love old Bill these days. Why you’d hardly know that just four years after the gracious concession speech Noonan fondly recalls as being so brave and humble, they impeached Bill Clinton over fellatio. Just saying. Where did being “gracious” ever get any of Noonan’s antagonists?

Here’s another president who delivered a conciliatory speech the day after an epic election loss:

The men and women who sent us here don’t expect Washington to solve all their problems. But they do expect Washington to work for them, not against them. They want to know that their tax dollars are being spent wisely, not wasted, and that we’re not going to leave our children a legacy of debt. They want to know that their voices aren’t being drowned out by a sea of lobbyists and special interests and partisan bickering. They want business to be done here openly and honestly.

Now, I ran for this office to tackle these challenges and give voice to the concerns of everyday people. Over the last two years, we’ve made progress. But, clearly, too many Americans haven’t felt that progress yet, and they told us that yesterday. And as President, I take responsibility for that.

What yesterday also told us is that no one party will be able to dictate where we go from here, that we must find common ground in order to set — in order to make progress on some uncommonly difficult challenges. And I told John Boehner and Mitch McConnell last night I am very eager to sit down with members of both parties and figure out how we can move forward together.

I’m not suggesting this will be easy. I won’t pretend that we will be able to bridge every difference or solve every disagreement. There’s a reason we have two parties in this country, and both Democrats and Republicans have certain beliefs and certain principles that each feels cannot be compromised. But what I think the American people are expecting, and what we owe them, is to focus on those issues that affect their jobs, their security, and their future: reducing our deficit, promoting a clean energy economy, making sure that our children are the best educated in the world, making sure that we’re making the investments in technology that will allow us to keep our competitive edge in the global economy.

Because the most important contest we face is not the contest between Democrats and Republicans. In this century, the most important competition we face is between America and our economic competitors around the world. To win that competition, and to continue our economic leadership, we’re going to need to be strong and we’re going to need to be united.

None of the challenges we face lend themselves to simple solutions or bumper-sticker slogans. Nor are the answers found in any one particular philosophy or ideology. As I’ve said before, no person, no party, has a monopoly on wisdom. And that’s why I’m eager to hear good ideas wherever they come from, whoever proposes them. And that’s why I believe it’s important to have an honest and civil debate about the choices that we face. That’s why I want to engage both Democrats and Republicans in serious conversations about where we’re going as a nation.

And with so much at stake, what the American people don’t want from us, especially here in Washington, is to spend the next two years refighting the political battles of the last two. We just had a tough election. We will have another in 2012. I’m not so naïve as to think that everybody will put politics aside until then, but I do hope to make progress on the very serious problems facing us right now. And that’s going to require all of us, including me, to work harder at building consensus.

That fiery partisan warrior was, of course, Barack Obama after the 2010 election.

For a good laugh: Also too, this.

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Nice lady

by digby

I love it when Republicans lecture women about being ladylike and sweet not like those icky feminists with all their hairiness and creepy masculine attributes.  Like this lovely lady, the head of the New Hampshire GOP:

She emphasized the need for volunteers to continue working to get out the vote if they want to see a Republican wave in the state.

“Waves do not just happen. You can’t just sit there on your beach chair and wait for it to come in and wash you away,” she said.

“This is our time. We need to crush it. We need to grab it, run with it, push their heads under over and over again until they cannot breathe anymore, until the elections are over Tuesday night and we’ve won it all,” she said.

This is not someone I’d want to be alone with in the middle of the night. She’s got a very violent imagination.

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