Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

First Principles

Bill Simon Jr., one of the best-known Republicans in the recall election for California governor, dropped out of the race today, saying that the defeat of Gov. Gray Davis was more important than his personal ambitions.

Mr. Simon had come under intense pressure from fellow Republicans in recent days to withdraw from the contest to avoid splintering the Republican vote

[…]

… on Friday, the Lincoln Club of Orange County, a group of wealthy conservative Republicans, unanimously endorsed Mr. Schwarzenegger and urged Mr. Simon, Senator McClintock and Mr. Ueberroth to step aside. Also on Friday, the Republican leader of the State Senate, Jim Brulte, warned that there were too many Republicans in the race and that some would have to drop out to avoid handing victory to Mr. Davis or Mr. Bustamante.

We had a little dust up, if you recall, during the last election when the Democrats put the heat on Bob Torricelli to resign 36 days before the election so that they could replace him on the ballot with someone who could win. The Republicans went into their patented phony ape-shit mode, screaming about the rule-‘o-law-blah-blah-blah, sore-loserman, blah, blah blah.

The reasons as to why this action was so outrageous numbered in the hundreds.

Sullivan said that the health of the body politic required that Torricelli should have been forced to stay on the ballot so he could be ritually humiliated.

George Will fulminated that “election laws are supposed to be exacting so they can prevent just such last-minute frenzies by people frightened of losing. Yet today Democrats are asserting this principle: Anytime–even just 36 days before an election–a party has discouraging polls about a candidate, that party can replace him.”

Jonathan Last boldly asserted that “the Democrats haven’t just become Nixon, they’ve become the exaggerated liberal nightmare version of Nixon: Today Democrats are what they believe Nixon was.”

But, despite their varying objections, there was one overriding matter of principle that every last Republican agreed upon, — a matter so serious and of such fundamental importance to our system that any legalistic hairsplitting or judicial interpretations of it are, by their very nature, antithetical to the practice of democracy.

This principle is not, you understand, that old liberal clap trap about “counting all the votes” or “whoever wins the most votes wins” or even something silly like “short of incapacity or corruption, office holders who have been certified in a legal election should be allowed to serve their entire term.” These are nice concepts but they don’t carry any serious philosophical weight.

No, Republicans hold that the single most important principle upon which our electoral system rests is the sanctity of the arbitrary deadline which under no circumstances shall ever be overruled, even if it conflicts with another arbitrary deadline, is incomprehensibly vague or was instituted by the legislature for purely administrative purposes that had no bearing on anyone but a couple of election workers in outlying suburbs (if anyone can even remember why it was instituted in the first place.)

If an arbitrary deadline is on the books it is sacrosanct under any and all circumstances and no court in the land has a right to tamper with it.

This is because a deep and abiding fidelity to bureaucratic timetables that mean absolutely nothing is the very foundation of our democracy. You can look it up.

It explains why we hear no similar indignant outcry from George Will about “last-minute frenzies by people frightened of losing” at the sight of another weeping conservative being muscled out of the recall on a daily basis. (Lock up your horses, Uberroth.)

You see, the GOP outrage at the Torricelli matter was never about the fact that national Democrats so desperately wanted to keep that seat that they strong-armed their weak candidate to step aside to make way for a stronger contender. The Republicans admittedly did that very thing today in California, so they onviously don’t have a problem with it. And, it certainly wasn’t about a corrupt politician being forced to stay the course and face the music — after all, his opponent had been calling for Torricellis resignation for a solid month before he actually did it.

No, the egregious violation was going past the sacred 51 day deadline for replacing a name on the ballot. When the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that the right of the Democratic party to have a candidate in the race superceded this holy edict (the other side argued that the Democrats had to forfeit the race), the Republicans erupted in righteous fury at the Nixonian dirty tricksters.

Lucky for them that this is California and not New Jersey. There aren’t any more hallowed deadlines that prevent them from forcing the non-muscled Austrian GOP candidates drop out of the race so that the Republican Party can take a mulligan and try again to win the seat they legally and legitimately lost 9 short months ago.

Hell, here they could put the thumb screws to Larry Flynt and Gary Coleman just for kicks right up until the polls open — just 45 days from today.

I Gotcher Trademark Infringement, Right Here

Where DO the Bushies get their ideas, I wonder?

They Get It

TAPPED, writing about the terrific Dean blog pinpoints not only what is so good about it, but what is important about it:

Tapped has thought for a while that the great unacknowledged secret of the Dean campaign’s wildly succesful blog — at least during this slowish news month of August — is that it has a heck of a lot more in common with Parade Magazine and US Weekly than it does with Slate. The Dean Blog is as goofy and cheesy and low-brow as the American people themselves…

The Dean people understand something that the rest of the Democrats just can’t seem to get a grasp on.

Politics and popular culture have converged. The Bushies know this and very effectively market their “product” as a shit-kickin’ moron. They know their audience.

Dean’s bloggers know theirs too.

In both cases, they are successful because they are entertaining. In the dense and dangerous internet jungle or the maze of the 500 channel sushi menu, being boring will kill you.

Phlegmatic Overachievers

Michael Wolfe wrote another one of his brilliant pieces this week, this time on the liberal cognoscenti. With the exception of Bill Clinton, (who should always be listened to — he’s one of those freaky people who’s always riding the Zeitgeist) it turns out that the “movers and shakers” of the Democratic party are awfully flaccid and slight. Sigh.

Personally, I love these people. The thinkers, the overachievers, the rational, problem solving, liberal minded, intellectual elite. These are the people whose forbearers can take credit for much of the progress that led to our open and liberal society. (Conservatives and warriors are there, too, in different ways.) But hey, this is my tribe.

However much I love them, however, these days they seem to be living in a different dimension than the one I inhabit.

There was even the sense, for all its various problems—consolidation, Fox (everybody said Murdoch’s name with great scorn), the mess at AOL Time Warner—of the media’s being, well, safely and proudly fair-minded (despite the conservative noisiness).

Ann Moore, while she openly shuddered over the AOL merger, still thought Time Inc. did pretty fine work without corporate interference. And Michael Kinsley, who was there with his new wife, Patty Stonesifer, who runs the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said sanguinely, “I don’t see the problem, frankly,” and then offered a defense of big media and Bill Gates.

Indeed, nowhere at the conference, really, was there controversy. In some sense, the theme of the conference, even, was a rejection of controversy—much talk about the erosion of civic trust that came from partisanship.

Well, yes. The erosion of civic trust (partially) comes from partisanship. But, they evidently believe this “partisanship” comes from partisans on both sides equally, and that further, if everyone would just behave, then we wouldn’t have all this unpleasantness.

“Come come, people. Let’s not sink to their level. Let’s “send a positive message of bipartisanship and conviviality so the GOP can see that you get more flies with honey than you get with vinegar.”

The leadership of “overachieving” liberal America are like sheltered maiden aunts and musty Latin professors — filled with good intentions but useless against a gang of street thugs.

They seem to think that if we can just hold on to our notions of civility and good government, politics will go back to being a more or less collegial game defined by cooperation and compromise. In other words, they think the system itself is defined by the cold war consensus and the New Deal and all this bickering is anomalous and temporary.

This is surprising coming from a group of very smart people. They, of anyone, should know that there is nothing fundamentally “balanced” in our political system and that there is nothing to stop this country from becoming a de facto one-party state, by legitimate OR illegitimate means. History is full of examples of that very thing and the United States (contrary to Prezdunt Pretzel’s beliefs) is not specially blessed by God or anything else.

They certainly should be able to see that the modern Republican party has as much a chance of going back to the suprapartisan politics of Everett Dirkson as Arianna Huffington has of winning the California governorship.

Something profound is happening in America and, for some reason, liberalism’s smartest people don’t seem to realize it.

So, it looks as though any stemming of the radical Republican tide really is going to have to come from the grassroots.

Wolfe also discusses Wesley Clark’s appeal in a very interesting way, concluding that he is the wet dream candidate of the liberal intellectual elite but is possibly too “cool” for the “not-so-cool” American heartland. I would agree if he had a different biography. It doesn’t guarantee a win, but you cannot discount the martial spirit of much of the south and rural America, particularly at a time like this. Michael Lind wrote a great article on the topic that I think is more relevant than ever.

The sad fact is that being super-smart is now considered a liability for a president. It makes him a pussy.

Unless, perhaps, he is also a four star General.

As bizarre as it is, we Democrats must now nominate candidates who have images of heroism, machismo or scrappy rags to riches tales of Galtian proportions. But, we have to pretend that he isn’t one of the smartest people on the planet. That would offend the mouth breathers, apparently, who need to believe that anyone smarter than them (a door knob, for instance) is too effeminate to be president.

They can try to characterize Clark as a cold, effete, smarty pants but they have to be very careful. Clark’s only been out of the military for a couple of years. He spent his entire life in the Army — there is absolutely no history of any counter-culture shenanigans or any issues of personal integrity. His life cannot be criticized on the basis of the culture war, a unique situation for a Democrat. (Republicans, no matter how hedonistic are, of course, exempt. Praise Jeebus.)

They’ll go after him anyway, needless to say, but it stands a good chance of backfiring. Attacking General Clark on a personal basis is akin to attacking the military itself.

It won’t stop them. But, it will not help them either.

Helluva Hangover

It is just possible that the tired old saw “…as California goes, so goes the nation” is not the laughable irrelevance that we all think it is as we watch this sideshow. As I read today’s LA Times poll, showing that Davis and the legislature both have over a 70% unfavorable rating, it looks to me as if the electorate of this state is having a bit of a temper tantrum.

Historically speaking, that often leads to one of those “clean house” elections — like 1994.

It’s impossible to know what the country as a whole will be feeling a year from now, but I can easily picture a widespread discontent that could shake up the whole election.

The reason is that the economic downturn is just now starting to be felt and downturns are much more painful when it seems like only last week the sky was the limit. Falling from a lofty height really hurts.

I think that people may finally be coming to terms with the fact that the economy isn’t going back to what it was and that translates into big dreams and aspirations going down the tubes. Recessions come and go, but speculative bubbles are once in a lifetime.

Unfortunately, conventional wisdom emanating from pundits and corrupt analysts made a lot of Americans believe that the business cycle really had been vanquished (if they knew what the business cycle was in the first place) and that the end of history was nigh.

They believed that success beyond their wildest dreams was almost guaranteed so they bought big expensive houses and ran up their debt with cheap credit, secure in the knowledge that they were winners, with a capital win. Why, things were going so well that we could turn politics into a soap opera and journalism into a reality TV show. Seriousness was so boring and 70’s.

Now people are beginning to understand that they may have to lower their expectations. We are in a confusing war, insecure, in debt, underemployed and under the bosses thumb — and nobody knows what hit them. People are starting to wake up to the knowledge that this may be no blip, no “correction.”

George W. Bush’s America does not look like a shining city on a hill.

I hope that Davis doesn’t lose. I think it is a travesty of democracy — one of many, lately. But, if the worst happens, the Democratic talking points are clear:

As California goes, so goes the nation: Throw The Bums Out.

Coming Out

We can change today’s culture from “if it feels good, do it”. George W. Bush,

Texas A&M Univ. Apr 6, 1998

“It is as satisfying to me as coming is – you know, as having sex with a woman and coming. So can you believe how much I am in heaven? I am, like, getting the feeling of coming in the gym. I’m getting the feeling of coming at home. I’m getting the feeling of coming backstage when I pump up. When I pose out in front of 5.000 people I get the same feeling. So I’m coming day and night.” Arnold Schwarzenegger in the documentary “Pumping Iron”

“I think he’d be a good governor.” George W. Bush, Crawford, Texas Friday, August 8, 2003

This recall, like the immature obsession with the Clenis™, is nothing more than baby boomers like George W. Bush “doing it because it feels good,” GOP style. The poor Republicans had to sublimate their unresolved adolescent sexual confusion into bullying midlife power plays or go to their graves as the saddest lil’ guys in the world. Ahhnold is just the latest cartoonlike example.

We boomer Democrats grew out of that “it it feels good, do it” bullshit a long time ago. Even then we pretty much confined it to sex, hair and air guitar solos. Unlike the Republicans, we didn’t let morons and radicals actually run anything. We just partied. (Ahhnuld appears to be one of the few who is double dipping in the FGDI ethos. More likely he never stopped…)

Allowing Junior, Newtie, Norquist, Perle and DeLay to wield real world power is the equivalent of the Democrats running Tiny Tim, Jane Fonda, Bernardine Dorn, Huey Newton and Abbie Hoffman in 1972.

Only now, middle aged and paunchy, the republicans are discovering that it “feels sooo good” to be a rebel and a tough guy, telling the establishment to “bring it on.” Getting in people’s faces is such a rush. It is as satisfying as coming, getting the good feeling of coming in the gym, getting the good feeling of coming at home, getting the good feeling of coming backstage or out in front of 5.000 people on the deck of an aircraft carrier. It’s like coming day and night.

Let Them Eat California Roll

Mister egalitarian, Mickey Kaus writes:

(Meanwhile, complaints about the long ballot seem overblown. Are citizens who routinely negotiate a typical cable TV guide or sushi menu really unable to find their candidate among 135 names, if the ballot is laid out clearly?) ….

It may come as something of a surprise to him that the 500 channel, digital cable menu that he negotiates everyday (as do I — with some difficulty, I might add) and long complicated sushi menus may be “routine” over here on the Westside of LA, but they are probably not that “typical” in other parts of Los Angeles, much less California. Certainly, ballots containing 135 names, in no discernable order, spread over many pages and attached to punch card ballots that are impossible to verify by looking at them is not commonplace even for all of Mickey’s salt of the earth pals in Brentwood and Beverly Hills.

Then, unbelievably, in the next post he says:

If Arianna would freely admit her shifting positions and joke about them, almost all would be forgiven. It’s bizarre that she hasn’t been displaying in public the self-deprecating humor that wins over dinner guests in private.

Don’t you just hate it when somebody you just adoooore at intimate dinner parties turns out to be such a bore when they’re running for office. I know I do.

I’m sure that if she didn’t have to appeal to the great cableless, sushilliterate hoi polloi, we’d get to see more of the charming Arianna that Mickey and I just love at those faaaabulous dinner parties.

(How many nights have we spent at Arianna’s salon, nibbling spicy yellowtail, watching pay-per-view, listening to her tinkling laughter as she gaily tells tales of her former days as Newties courtesan? Life can be so sweet sometimes.)

Now, she is dirtying her hands in the electoral process, having to explain her political evolution in a serious way and being forced to answer questions from the great unwashed…even about her (gasp!) finances. It’s so common, so tawdry.

It’s sad, really. She was once one of Us. You know — the people who are superior to Everyone, conservative and liberal alike?

Hooyah

Those Texas Democrats have got what it takes.

Send them an e-mail, if you have a minute. A little national Democratic solidarity might just make their day.

So Much For My Lunch

Thanks TBOGG:

ROLLINS: What is your definition of virility? Does it have a role in political leadership?

WALTER: It’s a nebulous quality for a political leader. Bill Clinton was virile—in a very sleazy way. There’s also the sex appeal of someone like Don Rumsfeld. President Bush possesses this intangible something—you really saw it on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Testosterone and camaraderie—many people responded to it. In George W. Bush, people see a contained, channeled virility. They see a man who does what he says, whose every speech and act is not calculated. Bill Clinton showed a lot of outward empathy and he was very articulate but I don’t think many of us would have trusted him with our daughters.

GAVORA: If virility equates with strength, then there is no question that Bill Clinton lacked it completely. Bush has shown that he has it. His willingness to go after terrorism root and branch despite the widespread opposition among our European allies and even some at home, and to withstand that pressure, is strength. Bill Clinton made surface gestures. He refused to go against the media, popular opinion, the pinstriped boys at the State Department, because he lacked that strength.

HAYS: The most masculine man I ever knew was my grandfather, who supported seven children and never failed to stand when a woman came into the room. Bill Clinton is virile, but he’s not masculine or mature. He never became a grown man.

O’BEIRNE: When I heard that he grew up jumping rope with the girls in his neighborhood, I knew everything I needed to know about Bill Clinton. There’s no contest between Clinton and Bush on masculinity. Bill Clinton couldn’t credibly wear jogging shorts, and look at George Bush in that flight suit.

ROLLINS: But why do so many American women love Bill Clinton?

SCHAEFER: You can learn a lot jumping rope with girls. It won’t make you sexually attractive, but it will make you a more effective, patient listener.

O’BEIRNE: Bill Clinton did understand, from the matriarchy he grew up in, how to appeal to women in that modern way.

HAYS: Clinton could feel your pain like one of your girlfriends. But he could never make a decision like Bush has had to make. He would still be trying to negotiate with the terrorists. The use of force, which until recently was passé, has come back. Clinton couldn’t use force except in a motel room.

My friend Gloria wrote in:

When I heard that he grew up abusing animals like Jeffrey Dahmer I knew all I needed to know about George W. Bush. No man over 30 can credibly wear jogging shorts and any man whose idea of comaraderie is to play dress up and show off his bulge to a bunch of sailors isn’t what I’d call masculine.

I can see their point, though. There’s nothing I hate more than a virile guy who is an effective patient listener. Give me a towel-snapping moron in a Halloween costume any day. Oooh yummy.

Spinning Failure

Dwight Meredith over on PLA has a very interesting post up about the contrary spin points being employed by the two parties regarding the recession. Democrats are saying that the recession started in March 2001 (which is correct) and Bush is saying that it started in January 2001.

As Dwight points out, however, it would be smarter for them to switch their talking points because:

The argument the Democrats should make is that Mr. Bush failed to fix the problem. The more time Mr. Bush had to fix the problem, the more traction the Democrats will gain.

The Democratic line should be, “Mr. Bush wasted four full years and $2 trillion and the American people still can’t get jobs.”

The more time Mr. Bush had to turn the economy around, the better that argument will sound.

The converse is true for Mr. Bush. The later the recession started, the less time his policies have had to work. If the economy remains sluggish, Mr. Bush will argue that his prescription is right, but the medicine has not yet had time to work. That argument works better if it is made closer to the time the symptoms appeared.

This is correct. And, it plays into what I think is a strangely stupid tactic on Rove’s part — Junior’s defensive and whiny tone and a pattern of unwillingness to take responsibility for anything that has happened since he assumed the office. (It’s always possible that this is one of those unfortunate things that Rove can’t control — Bush himself may be believing his own hype about having been chosen by God or maybe he is just congenitally incapable of admitting fault.)

Bush and his boys are beating their breasts about all the things that have happened on his watch that he just couldn’t help. And, he’s right as far as it goes. The downturn in the economy and 9/11 were beyond the control of any politician. But, the man has been in office now for almost 3 years. At this point, the questions must go way beyond the problems (and surpluses) he inherited and unanticipated crises. It’s about what he did about them.

This constant refrain of “it isn’t my fault” is very unattractive coming from a supposed manly-man, “responsiblity era”, straight shooter like Bush particularly one who has had a GOP congress (in practice if not in fact for the first year and a half) and has not issued even one veto. It’s not like he had any institutional roadblocks preventing him from doing everything he possibly could.

The 2nd term is a referendum on the incumbent. He has almost nothing positive to show for his tenure. His reactions to economic conditions and 9/11 have been unsuccessful. He has failed to turn around the economy and he has failed to make America safer. In fact, it can be argued that 3 years after the advent of the recession and 2 years after 9/11 we are substantially worse off than we were before.

The Democrats need to emphasise Junior’s response to problems (or lack thereof) rather than trying to defend the Clinton era by implying that the recession wouldn’t have happened had Bill (or Al) been in office. Clinton’s legacy will take care of itself. What they need to point out is that every president is confronted with unanticipated crises and that Bush has mishandled every single one that came his way, from the lack of stimulus in excessive tax cuts for the rich to botched homeland security to post war planning in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He’s got a record and it isn’t very impressive. It’s a mistake to let him get away with framing the argument as if he inherited a bunch of huge problems that nobody could have dealt with, when the truth is that it’s his job to deal with whatever problems present themselves.

Real Men don’t whine and they don’t put on cute costumes and pretend that they did something when they didn’t. They solve the problem and move on to the next one.