For its final op-ed ad in the New York Times, Campaign For America’s Future characterizes the progressive argument for change as a return to the Democratic tradition. I like it a lot:
There’s more to the American tradition than war and taxes. For instance, there is the tradition of pulling together when times are tough. That’s why I think this current Republican assault on the term “spreading the wealth” is going to fall on deaf ears. (They would have been better sticking with the “socialism” boogeyman since most people don’t really know what it means.) “Spreading the wealth” just doesn’t sound like a threatening unamerican idea. It sounds like … fairness. The kind of thing you teach little kids — the kind of thing that some people used to call Christian values.
I just don’t think most voters are going to get too worked up about whether the government is being unfair to rich people right now. They have plenty of other things to worry about. Obama’s closing argument hit all those notes today and I think it’s far more compelling than the cramped and angry, petty case from the Republicans. A little All American community spirit sounds very good right about now.
Sirota catches today’s attempt to frame an impending election of a Democratic government as a victory for Republican philosophy:
The Village freakout continues, this time in the form of Peter Wehner’s op-ed in the Washington Post today. With most Republican candidates explicitly running on a platform promising a revival of Reagan conservatism and berating the supposed “socialism” of Democrats, this former Bush hack writes that “it is a mistake to assume that significant GOP losses, should they occur, are a referendum on conservatism.”
It’s hard to overstate how absurd this is. Let me repeat: In the stretch run of this campaign, the Republican Party has decided to make this an ideological contest between Reagan conservatism and supposed wild-eyed liberalism/socialism – and now, sensing a potentially huge loss, conservatives are now arguing that despite their decision to make this an ideological contest, “an Obama victory would be a partisan, rather than an ideological, win.”
Obviously, the Right understands what’s really going on in America – and is working to reinterpret that reality.
Having doubled-down on Reaganism, they know that a loss under these circumstances would be not just a momentary electoral set back, but a huge repudiation of conservative ideology, and a huge mandate for progressivism. And so conservatives are already trying to revise history to pretend these last few months of the campaign never happened.
To underline Sirota’s point, I would just remind everyone of this:
ROMNEY: Absolutely. Ronald Reagan would look at the issues that are being debated right here and say, one, we’re going to win in Iraq, and I’m not going to walk out of Iraq until we win in Iraq.
Ronald Reagan would say lower taxes. Ronald Reagan would say lower spending.
Ronald Reagan would — is pro-life. He would also say I want to have an amendment to protect marriage.
Ronald Reagan would say, as I do, that Washington is broken. And like Ronald Reagan, I’d go to Washington as an outsider — not owing favors, not lobbyists on every elbow. I would be able to be the independent outsider that Ronald Reagan was, and he brought change to Washington.
Ronald Reagan would say, yes, let’s drill in ANWR. Ronald Reagan would say, no way are we going to have amnesty again. Ronald Reagan saw it, it didn’t work. Let’s not do it again.
Ronald Reagan would say no to a 50-cent-per-gallon charge on Americans for energy that the rest of the world doesn’t have to pay.
Ronald Reagan would have said absolutely no way to McCain- Feingold.
I would be with Ronald Reagan. And this party, it has a choice, what the heart and soul of this party is going to be, and it’s going to have to be in the house that Ronald Reagan built.
…
MCCAIN: Ronald Reagan would not approve of someone who changes their positions depending on what the year is.
Ronald Reagan — Ronald Reagan came with an unshakable set of principles, and there were many times, like when he had to deploy the (INAUDIBLE) cruise missile to Europe and there were hundreds of thousands of demonstrators against it, he stood with it. Ronald Reagan had a deal in Reykjavik that everybody wanted him to take, but he stuck with his principles.
I think he knows that I stick with my principles. I put my political career on the line because I knew what would happen if we failed in Iraq.
I hope that the experience I had serving as a foot soldier in his revolution would make him proud for me to continue that legacy of sticking to principle and doing what you believe in, no matter what.
…
PAUL: I supported Ronald Reagan in 1976, and there were only four members of Congress that did. And also in 1980. Ronald Reagan came and campaigned for me in 1978.
I’m not sure exactly what he would do right now, but I do know that he was very sympathetic to the gold standard, and he told me personally that no great nation that went off the gold standard ever remained great. And he was very, very serious about that.
So he had a sound understanding about monetary policy. And for that reason, I would say look to Ronald Reagan’s ideas on money because he, too, was concerned about runaway inflation and what it does to a country when you ruin the currency. And that’s what’s happening today. The dollar is going down and our country is going to be on the ropes if we don’t reverse that trend.
…
The way to stop Iran, [Giuliani] said, was through resolute American leadership facing down the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“He has to look at an American president, and he has to see Ronald Reagan,” Giuliani said.
All of the Republicans ran explicitly as the heirs to the legacy of Ronald Reagan, at times to the point of absurdity.
The right is working overtime to frame a Democratic win as a repudiation of Bushism — which it is. But there can be no doubt that it is also a repudiation of Reaganism. They have been evoking his name like a sacred talisman, making the case that they would adhere to St Ronnie’s policies without deviation. If the Republicans lose, it’s not because the American people want Reaganism again. If that’s what they wanted, they had a bunch of Republicans who said over and over again that they would deliver it to them.
It’s pretty clear the American people are tired of conservatism, whether it’s Bush conservatism or Reagan conservatism, and that scares the villagers. They are inherent conservatives, guardians of the status quo and protectors of the wealthy elites, even as they style themselves as jes plain folks down at the beauty parlor.
The liberal hippies are coming to their town to trash the place — and it’s not their place. They’re already setting up the barricades.
I fully expect one last-minute “Shocking revelation!!! Must credit Drudge!!!eleventy!1!” for each remaining day until the election. John McCain has run his entire campaign from news cycle to news cycle, and so they’ll grasp on to whatever they can manage to find. Today’s big hit is a 2001 interview with Barack Obama about the civil rights movement, where he lamented the movement’s propensity to lean on the courts to mandate changes as opposed to building social change from the bottom up within local communities. That’s pretty much all he said, but because he used the words “redistribute” and “wealth” every conservative in America figures they’ve cracked the Da Vinci Code and revealed Obama for the Maoist-Leninist-Marxist-Communist-socialist that he is. The key quote is this:
“And I think one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was that the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and organizing activities on the ground that are able to bring about the coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and in some ways we still suffer from that,” Obama said.
That’s not only a pretty conservative (not in the political sense) argument, it’s echoed by conservative legal scholars.
Now here’s how the McCain campaign deliberately misinterprets it:
“Barack Obama expressed his regret that the Supreme Court hadn’t been more ‘radical’ and described as a ‘tragedy’ the court’s refusal to take up ‘the issues of redistribution of wealth.’ No wonder he wants to appoint judges that legislate from the bench,” Holtz-Eakin continued.
This is reminiscent of the “global test” brouhaha from 2004, where Bush officials went ahead and misinterpreted a line from John Kerry for their own ends. It’s a very common and even tired political trick.
On the substance of whether or not we should accept “redistribution of wealth” in society, perhaps it’s better to flip the question. Does the McCain-Palin ticket defend the extreme concentrations of wealth – with CEOs earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a minute and sitting on the proceeds rather than creating jobs – that exists in this country today? The owners of the top 1% of wealth have more than the bottom 90%. The top 1% wage earners make more than the bottom 50%. Is that in any way sustainable or preferable? Can anyone look into the eyes of the 47 million who have no health care or the other 50-60 million who would go bankrupt if they tried to use theirs and tell them that extreme concentration of wealth is a positive social good?
I would put up the time-honored concept of progressive taxation against the attempt to protect the massive, depression-inducing income inequality we have today.
And furthermore, the definition of socialism, in general terms, is when the state collectivizes the ownership of the means of production and distributes wealth equally across segments of society. You know, like in Alaska.
“And Alaska—we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs. … It’s to maximize benefits for Alaskans, not an individual company, not some multinational somewhere, but for Alaskans.”
Has there ever been a more perfect coda to the corrupt, big money Republican rule than the conviction of Ted Stevens on all counts?
Alaska clearly needs to clean up its act. Luckily, the Democrats have a great Blue America candidate, Mark Begich, ready and willing to do the clean-up. If you would like to help, you can do so here.
keep in mind that Alaska is a very red state. They have even been known to elect wingnut Wasilla mayors to the governorship rather than a highly qualified Democratic ex-governor and mayor of Anchorage.
So don’t count on Stevens’ conviction not leading to his reelection. It could happen. Obviously, he wouldn’t be able to serve out his term. But one Sarah W. Palin would be the one to appoint his replacement to the Senate. It wouldn’t surprise me if she appointed herself. I think she’s got the chutzpah 9and the wardrobe) to do it, don’t you?
Last week, Huffpo reported that the McCain campaign was “rethinking” McCain’s allegedly heroic decision not to use Jeremiah Wright in the election because John Lewis had said he was hearing some echoes of George Wallace in this election. sadly, Mccain might not be able to keep from responding with George Wallace style attacks in the face of such slander.
It looks like one of those 527s is coming to the rescue, saving poor McCain from having to further besmirch his sterling character:
The National Republican Trust PAC, which aired one harsh anti-Obama ad that it also used to fundraise on Drudge and elsewhere, says it’s putting $2.5 million behind this spot in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
The ad is exactly what many conservatives have been hoping would air for months: A Jeremiah Wright highlight reel, with a voice-over describing the pastor’s long relationship with Obama.
“For 20 years, Obama never complained, until he ran for president,” says the ad, which labels Obama, “too radical, too risky.”
“This is the base giving a collective direction to where the campaign should have gone a long time ago,” said Rick Wilson, the consultant who made it.
He’s right. That is, in fact, the base giving a collective direction to where they wanted the campaign to go all along. It’s all right out there.
If you aren’t a racist and you’re still voting Republican, how do you see this and not feel dirty?
Ensuring that news of the Republican National Committee’s sartorial spending spree will remain in the headlines for at least one more news cycle, Sarah Palin on Sunday sounded off on the $150,000 wardrobe that was purchased for her in September, denouncing the report as “ridiculous” and declaring emphatically: “Those clothes, they are not my property.”
A senior adviser to John McCain told CNN’s Dana Bash that the comments about her wardrobe “were not the remarks we sent to her plane this morning.” Palin did not discuss the wardrobe story at her rally in Kissimmee later in the day.
At this point, the McCain campaign consultants are trying to keep from being sued for political malpractice. After Palin made the kind of mistake she made yesterday by keeping that story alive, they have to cover their asses. I saw it as it happened and could hardly believe my ears:
But in Tampa, Palin happily broached the clothing issue after being introduced by “The View” co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who accused Palin’s opponents of being “fixated on her wardrobe” and “deliberately sexist.”
That opened the door for Palin to weigh in on a topic that has frustrated the candidate and her advisers since the story first broke five days ago.
“This whole thing with the wardrobe, you know I have tried to just ignore it because it is so ridiculous, but I am glad now that Elisabeth brought it up, cause it gives me an opportunity without the filter of the media to get to tell you the whole clothes thing,” she said.
“Those clothes, they are not my property. Just like the lighting and the staging and everything else that the RNC purchased, I’m not taking them with me. I am back to wearing my own clothes from my favorite consignment shop in Anchorage, Alaska. You’d think — not that I would even have to address the issue because, as Elisabeth is suggesting, the double standard here it’s — gosh, we don’t even want to waste our time.”
Palin, however, forged on.
“I am glad, though, that she brought up accessories also. Let me tell you a little bit about a couple of accessories, didn’t think that we would be talking about it, but my earrings — I see a Native Americans for Palin poster,” she said. “These are beaded earrings from Todd’s mom who is a Yupik Eskimo up in Alaska, Native American, Native Alaskan.
“And my wedding ring, it’s in Todd’s pocket, ’cause it hurts sometimes when I shake hands and it gets squished,” she continued. “A $35 wedding ring from Hawaii that I bought myself and ’cause I always thought with my ring it’s not what it’s made of, it’s what it represents, and 20 years later, happy to wear it. And then finally the other accessory, you bet I’m a gold — I’m a blue star mom. I’m wearing this in honor of my son who is fighting over in Iraq right now defending all of you.”
After spending four minutes on the shopping escapade, Palin switched gears and trained her sights on Barack Obama, who, she said, is prematurely measuring the White House drapes.
“Barack Obama and I, we both have spent quite some time on the basketball court,” she said. “But where I come from, you have to win the game before you start cutting down the nets.”
Palin accused the Democrat of renting a stadium for a victory party on November 4.
That’s actually not the case — Obama’s rally on election night will be held outdoors in Grant Park in downtown Chicago.
She’s just letting it all hang out now.
And on a slightly amusing sidenote, Palin told the press last Friday that she was very frugal and shopped at a store called “Out of the Closet” in Anchorage. Anyone who lives in LA must have chuckled at that one because “Out of the Closet” is a major thrift store chain that benefits HIVAids patients. (I thought that it might have even been the same chain.) It’s not the kind of place Sarah W’s base would feel “comfortable” having their darling shop.
Well, it turns out that Sarah W has also caused her favorite little resale shop some trouble:
AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s flagship ‘Out of the Closet’ fundraising thrift store in the heart of Hollywood also offers free HIV testing and has an AHF Pharmacy on site which is open to everyone, but offers clients specific expertise in HIV/AIDS medications. Governor Sarah Palin recently made headlines stating that another ‘Out of the Closet’ resale store in Alaska is her family’s favorite store. AHF will pursue trademark protection for its registered federal trademark for ‘Out of the Closet,’ which AHF first opened in 1990.
And then there’s this:
Retailer Christos Garkinos recently hosted the owners of the Alaskan store at Decadestwo, the designer resale store he co-owns with Cameron Silver in Los Angeles. “I was saying that Alaska’s been in the news a lot, and they said that Palin shops at their store all the time,” he said. The Out of the Closet owners ended up “buying a ton of stuff,” but the L.A. retailer — a staunch Sen. Barack Obama supporter who recently married his longtime partner — said he was so skeeved out at the thought of Palin wearing clothes bought from his store, he donated 100% of the sales to the Obama campaign.
In a conference call with Connecticut reporters on Friday, Lieberman bristled at the media’s coverage of the McCain campaign’s negativity. “You guys are going down a road, you have contributed to the demeaning of our politics by this kind of focus,” Lieberman said. “I mean, give me a break. Have any of you been out listening to me?”
“When I go out, I say, ‘I have a lot of respect for Sen. Obama. He’s bright. He’s eloquent.’ Someday, I might even support him for president,” Lieberman told a conference call of Connecticut reporters. “But now in the midst of this series of crises, John McCain is simply so much better prepared that that’s who I am proud to support.”
Lieberman also said that if McCain doesn’t, “I’m going to do everything I can to be bringing people … together across party lines to support the new president so he can succeed.”
Actually, sure I can. Lieberman is a suck-up to power as much as the rest of them. But the revisionism – a week before the election – is a little too much to take. He has spent the entire election questioning Obama’s patriotism and pushing the basest smears and lies.
The chairmanship that Lieberman now holds has the authority to conduct oversight on the federal government. There is absolutely no reason to believe that Lieberman wouldn’t abuse that power in the event of an Obama Administration. Regardless of the number of Democrats in the Senate, there is no way that Lieberman should be allowed to maintain that chairmanship. His choice of caucus partners is his decision. But his seniority should be gone. This weasel move to get back in everybody’s good graces is pathetic.
Looks like there’s been a rollout of two new “products” by the Bush administration when no one was looking: Air wars in Pakistan and Syria.
I can’t help but wonder whether these may be just rehearsals for an air attack on Iran, a test not only of the strategies and tactics but also an attempt to gauge world reaction. At the very least, Bush’s attempts to expand the American wars in the Middle East and Central Asia are a deliberate attempt to make it as difficult as possible for the next president to withdraw from either conflict.
NY Times on the anti-marriage amendment in California known as Proposition 8 (aka Prop Hate):
“This vote on whether we stop the gay-marriage juggernaut in California is Armageddon,” said Charles W. Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries and an eminent evangelical voice, speaking to pastors in a video promoting Proposition 8. “We lose this, we are going to lose in a lot of other ways…
Let’s hope so.
Vote NO on Prop Hate.
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Note: If you click on the link, you’ll discover that I left out the final clause of Colson’s rant. That’s because there is no basis in reality for his hysterical and ludicrous assertion that “freedom of religion” is endangered by permitting people who love each other to marry. Unlike the NY Times, I see no reason to confer status on ignorant, extremist fear-mongering by repeating it.
Special note to the rightwing and others having difficulty comprehending the English language: Of course I support freedom of, and from, religion. I have a long public history of that support.
U.S. military helicopters launched an extremely rare attack Sunday on Syrian territory close to the border with Iraq, killing eight people in a strike the government in Damascus condemned as “serious aggression.”
A U.S. military official said the raid by special forces targeted the network of al-Qaida-linked foreign fighters moving through Syria into Iraq. The Americans have been unable to shut the network down in the area because Syria was out of the military’s reach.
“We are taking matters into our own hands,” the official told The Associated Press in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity
