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Coakley concedes: 46%
Brown wins: 53%
Well, here it is: Our first preview of the November elections, our first chance to see how voters are responding to the Democratic agenda. Quite frankly, it’s not looking very good. At best, Martha Coakley will win in a squeaker; at worst, she’ll lose in a landslide.
Yes, every race is its own animal, and yes, there are complaints about how Coakley ran her campaign, but come on. This is one of the bluest states in the country, and her opponent is a dishonest slimeball who lied about his tea party connections and joked about President Obama being illegitimate. She should have been able to kick Brown’s ass with Bob Shrum tied behind her back.
But she hasn’t. And the surprisingly negative poll results for Snyder and Dreihaus suggest that this isn’t just some isolated fluke that can be chalked up to a bad candidate, it’s more like a warning sign that there’s an awful lot of dissatisfaction with the Democrats right now.
The good news is that Obama and the Democrats have 9 months to get their act together; the bad news is that they have to resist all the Villagers and Liebermans (not to mention their inner and outer Rahms) telling them that Coakley’s struggles are due to backlash against Liberal Overreach, and they must therefore be more bipartisan and centrist to have any hope of surviving the current storm.
Personally, I’m having a hard time following the argument that not delivering the change and reform agenda that Obama was overwhelmingly voted in on somehow constitutes overreach, but I guess that’s why I’m not making the big pundit bucks.
Whether Obama is a pragmatist, a marshmallow, or a corporatist, the bottom line is that the Democratic base is feeling betrayed while the rest of America is still waiting to see results. They want to see a health care reform bill that doesn’t suck, they want to see financial reform with real teeth, they want to see employment on the rise.
Obama has 9 months; he’d better deliver.
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Eli!
Lets see if anyone in the white house can figure out why one of the safest blue seats in america just went to a republikan.
Eli!
46-53, with what percentage reporting?
60% of precincts reporting.
They should know why, I have no idea if they actually do. Devoting all their energy to how best to spin it. Spin is the new populism, doncha know…
Egreg! Ratfood!
I dunno what the percentage is; the CNN widget is down, Boston.com is down, and AP doesn’t seem to have that number.
Thanks for the info. Does not look good.
Fine, I’ll FRIST(!) They want to see Bush/ Cheney held accountable/ prosecuted. torture REALLY repudiated and Afghanistan drawn way, way down. (& as long as I’m being greedy- some kind of a plan to support the Iranians that won’t involve attacks or invasions)
Ah, then maybe I do have that number. But it sure jumped by a whole lot.
I am hoping against hope that the SOTU will be about bashing wall street and not deficit reduction.
How often do DC dems learn the right lessons?
Or not
Be thankful you don’t make the big bucks. You’d have to get a big wallet. Makes the hiney appear bulbous (and lopsided).
they’re already hosing it up. so far its excatly as Eli reported it. they are trying to blame “liberal overreach” whenver i hear that i try to explain to people that the country could not possibly more polarized than it was on election night. the independants that have fallen away from Obama have fallen away from the left, not from the right. And the liberal democrats like me. He never HAD ANY SUPPORT from the right. they are really a bunch of dense. obtuse, corrupt fools at the MSM. But as Eli says I guess their genius is unquestionable, becasue in the end, they’re ALWAYS right, arent they?
Rasmussen exit poll thing says 22% of Democrats in Massachusetts voted for Brown. Almost a quarter of Democrats voting against Obama/Coakley. This election is all about sending a message to Obama and Democrats in Washington.
Howard Dean on Rachel right now, doesn’t look very happy.
If you can’t look at the latest polling and figure it out you have no business being the leader of the free world. They were elected to do particular things, none of which have even been started. I was afraid this would happen.
edit: The shit sandwhich we’ve been eating is about to get a whole lot worse.
Wake up and smell the coffee Rahm , if this doesn’t spur a wholesale defection by house democrats then nothing will !
El pueblo unido jamàs serà vencido
If Brown wins, in MA divorce will go up, as will teen pregnancies and infant mortality. Life expectancy will fall. Social & health outcomes are always worse in red states than blue states.
Yes, apparently liberal underreach is just too much for the American people now.
Howard sez if Boston’s not in, we’re in good shape. If Boston’s in, we’re out of the running.
Dean is the one establishment figure who might tell the truth about the reason for a loss (if it happens).
Please tell Jane that we are not looking for a good leader necessarily; a lucky one will do just fine….
not bad, but first id like to see a plan to “support” americans, that dosent involve, elimintaing their jobs, or forcing them to send money (they dont have) to the insurance industry
Does anyone know if Boston is in?
Anyone asking ‘why’ must have been on another planet for 8 months. It’s sad it happens, but at the same time inevitable as DC has been playing the corporatist songbook. In the end, I think this was a good thing. We better get a painfull wakeup call NOW and not a devestating blow in 2010.
This is sadly enough change you get from broken promises.
Easier to just blame it on us. Gives ‘em cover to move further to the right.
one of them (malone) already pronounced health care “dead” at a gildbrand rally earlier tonight. they arent going to support the senate bill without question.
No
131 of 254 reporting
52% reporting in Boston according to the front page of the NYTimes online.
on edit: 65% for Coakley, 33% for Brown
Well, it kinda looks like it is… At least partially, anyway.
66% reporting now
52.6 to 46.4
I know fflambeau is an Obama-obsessive, but his observation that Obama and his clan are social climbers seems to me to be pretty on-target. The Obama “no sudden moves” stance is rather inappropriate to the emergency of the present day. Imagine if you called the Fire Department with your house 40% ablaze, and they came with glasses of orange juice to throw at the fire. You ask them about their strategy for putting out the fire, and they tell you, “no sudden moves.” Would you hire Obama as your fireman?
Just before this election I wrote an analysis of the discussion of voting strategies, and posted it to Docudharma. I still don’t see the last-minute panic throughout the DailyKos.com group to save Coakley’s campaign as being of any real import. If all progressives are going to do is launch rearguard efforts for the sake of propping up Democrats who aren’t really “with them” on issues which count, e.g. health care reform, then said progressives are useless.
The lesson we should learn from the Coakley campaign is this: if progressives can’t do any better than an alliance with Blue Dogs, then we’re all headed for the abyss, because the eventual hatred for the Blue Dogs will lead to a general persona non grata status for the progressives.
My bet is on a pragmatic, marshmallow corporatist.
TPM‘s widget is working. 56-43 65%
We have a presumptuous culture of 5x per capita relative planetary resource consumption addicted to plenary entitlement instant gratification. No surprise, then, that we make irrational year-to-year political decisions. We will likely face an upcoming 3 years of political gridlock, whereupon a new President will get to lather-rinse-repeat.
Imagine my surprise.
Yep. The gasbags have been shrieking about “spending, Spending SPENDING!” Since I turned on the tv when I got home.
This is the perfect climate for the Gregg/Conrad “Catfood Commission” to radically reduce SocSec and Medicare/Medicaid.
131 of 254 precincts reporting in Boston. See AP here.
I think this is ObamaRahma’s “Can You Hear Me Now?!” moment. Coakly may not have been an inspired campaigner, but this really doesn’t seem to be about her…….jeez, this is Teddy Kennedy’s seat…..what a catastrophe in the making. And they’ll spin it to blame her. Crap.
It’s over.
Hopefully Obama will wise the hell up….or maybe he will just take this as a sign he has been governing too much from the ‘left’. hehe
wow
Oh for fucks sake, bush never met a spending bill he didn’t love. The people saying that now should STFU.
About 2/3 of precincts reporting, Brown leads by 6%.
Which means the race is done, no way Coakley can sweep a +12% smackdown in the remaining votes unless we missed the bluest of bluest centers combined in those 33% remaining.
Bunch of places haven’t reported in yet.
As if he is a democrat anyway …
lieberman urges party to go centrist after Massachusetts election
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/19/lieberman-urges-party-to_n_428686.html
So, obama wins the presidential campaign by a fairly large margin by running on change … significant change … and then he governs like a complete corporate centrist whore and loses much of his popularity. What is lieberman’s solution? Be more of a corporate centrist whore … like him. I’m sure that rahm will second that interpretation.
Z
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/19/lieberman-urges-party-to_n_428686.html
If Obama moves further to the right the Republicans will win back both the Senate and House and he’ll be at Goldman Sachs in 2013. After the Republicans, le deluge.
Yes, Boston is in. She’s lost.
Now: We all need to make it clear it because on abandoning the liberal agenda and fear of using liberal rhetoric. Every chance, every forum we need to make that clear.
AP is projecting Brown the winner.
AP projects Brown wins
That was my Lieberdems link.
Noron sez Coakley has conceded to Brown in a phonecall.
Rachel Maddow practically in tears…..she does love her Massachusetts. Coakley apparently has called Brown to concede.
Lieberman is the DLC’s version of Yoda.
58% of Boston in: Coakley 66%, Brown 32% NYtimes
If Obama moves any farther to the right, they won’t have to…
Brown won this a half hour ago…
Just had to wait for Boston to be the final nail in the coffin.
Yep.
Yeah, my money is on Barry O going more right wing. Gotta love America. A country with no real left. I mean a REAL, fuctioning left. And I don’t count US liberals as part of the left. They’re basically UK Tories. Maybe even more right wing than the Tories.
I know! And Alex Castellanos was outright lying on CNN when he said “The 13 trillion dollar deficit by Obama’s spending…”
Begala was on the same panel and mewled a feeble “that’s not true” and that was it.
It’s just bad.
rotsa ruck with that, the republicans will KILL the dems with this
I’m not sure GS really pays it’s debts but otherwise your spot on.
Is Brown really a pro choice Republican?
I know! Let’s wage an all-out campaign to defend the Blue Dogs in Congress so that it can stay Democratic!
This is probably what the “inspired” people over at DailyKos.com will recommend.
OK, they’ve lost Kennedy’s seat.
Let’s see if the Democrats learn their lesson or not.
I would suggest we email the WH as soon as the results show no possibility of her winning and tell them that blaming Coakley won’t be cuttin’ it this time. Lay the blame on the WH and its minions. Flood ‘em before they sing that song. Sing it they will but we’ll be ready for it.
bummer …
like i said, i’ve sold my house
i’m headin out in my car to cross the country and
see WTFis goin on out there.
cause if what looks like a neofascist wave,
smells like a neofascist wave,
and sounds like a neofascist wave
actually IS a neofascist wave
i am relocating
Boston Globe:
See my comment #63.
[guffaw] You’re joking, right?
Quite amazing that the Ds threw away a clean sweep in less than a year. One for the record books.
teddy’s rollin over in his grave up there on the hill
Heathcare reform 2028!
Looks like that bill everyone hated is dead. How does that make everyone feel?
Copy that.
I just emailed Obama/Rahma: “Can You Hear Me Now?”
Like you have no clue. They haven’t even come close to exhausting the ways in which this bill can be passed.
Read Jared Diamond’s “Collapse.”
Yeah, it took Dubya five years to get to where Obama got to in one. Dubya did give him kind of a head start, though.
If Obama keeps failing to deliver the only things I can say to the dems is – you aint seen nothing yet.
Wow. That was fast. Very depressing.
Nonetheless, it’s still a piece of shit.
Jared Diamond sucks — but otherwise I get your point, and I think I agree.
The Senate bill sucked, the House bill not so much. There still isn’t a final bill. [Trust me, I work in the medical industrial complex… I believe the final bill will suck in the high 90s…)
he’s already used up as a frontman. something about the thin veneer wearing off. maybe they could find a use for him someplace like running the world bank. /deep sad snark.
hilarious and true. major LOL. thanks.
email from O to you: No.
FIRE
RAHM
Maddow is trying to tell that fucking idiot Matthews this isn’t due to “over reach.”
Yep. Still, an amazing accomplishment, though a predictable one, at least by many FDLers.
I’ll take what I can get.
Screw the Blue Dogs and Obama’s 3rd Way. His bipartisanship fetish, which was merely cover so he could govern from the right, will destroy the Democratic party. Unfortunately his former mentor in the Senate, Joe Liarman, and the corporate media bobbleheads will force him to move to the “center” since they control the story. He lacks any true principles, convictions or willingness to fight so he will follow the path of least resistance which is to the right. What bullshit.
Oh sure, I agree completely, but generally the effective point to drive home here is one of how thoroughly DYSFUNCTIONAL “progressive strategy” has been for the past thirty years.
Can ANYONE explain to me why this guy in the White House seems to be trying so fracking hard to fail? Has he ever heard of the bully pulpit? Doesn’t he know how to put his thumb on the scale? I’m so frustrated I could just HOWL…
From your lips to God’s ear…
2028? Aren’t you optimistic.
Underreach. Or perhaps reacharound.
heah heah!
Now, let’s all watch Obama run right.
Why stop a track record of boneheaded decisions now?
Yep. All together now:
FIRE RAHM!
Tweety makes me want to puke.
“It’s all about fiscal over-reach and debts”
Wwwwwwweeeeaealy
*smack*
Rachel is dismantling Chris Matthews on MSNBC.
But what’s completely inexplicable is that people believe he’s gone too left. It’s Alice in Wonderland shit.
So meme from the left and from the right are equally credible at this moment, i.e. only one data point. The only dispositive evidence that will demonstrate that the right meme is wrong is if they regain power and fail even worse than the Ds. That would be my forecast. Hunker down for the next decade, worse than the last one.
Isn’t that a basic contradiction in terms?
Geithner and Summers. Wall Street bailouts. No fraud prosecutions. (Is Holder actually working?)
And this latest blunder from the transparency president below. Obama is a fraud. The Dems have blown it.
SEC order helps maintain AIG bailout mystery
NEW YORK, Jan 11 (Reuters) – It could take until November 2018 to get the full story behind the U.S. bailout of insurance giant American International Group (AIG.N) because of an action taken last year by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In May, the SEC approved a request by AIG to keep secret an exhibit to a year-old regulatory filing that includes some of the details on the most controversial aspect of the AIG bailout: the funneling of tens of billions of dollars to big banks like Societe Generale, Goldman Sachs (GS.N), Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) and Merrill Lynch.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1116982020100111
and abortion no doubt, I’m watchin hoops.
And that matters why?
OK, great, now go over to DailyKos.com and persuade “blackwaterdog” and all of his fans that this is the case.
“Now, let’s all watch Obama run right.”
___
I haven’t forgotten FISA. How far right can he still go?
Oh, it makes me feel better for a moment or two… [sigh]
Yes, unless you count the “progressives” as a public relations face for the DLC
You ain’t seen nuttin yet.
Obama brought this whole debacle upon himself and by association upon Coakley and whomever will fall to the hatchet at midterms. Just look back at what voters were saying all along. They were polled to favor the public option.. Obama ignored them. They did not favor back room sweetheart deals, and registered the same. Obama ignored them. They did not like Obama’s love affair with Wall Street and made that loud and clear in any number of polls. Obama ignored them. They wanted cheaper prescription drugs from Canada. Obama killed it and ignored the voters. Suddenly, he shows up in MA arm and arm with Coakley and expects voters to step up to the plate and support a political extension of himself. Get real. Sad to say, that Obama has made it hard for Progressives now, because the waters have become very muddy in the way this election upset, if it comes to pass is spun. I am sure that among the Independents who went for Brown, there were any number of Liberals and Progressives who felt they just HAD to register their voices in any way they could to MAKE a STATEMENT.
he’s not failing – he’s winning what he wants to win – high gains for medical and drug insurance companies. before the election, he voted for fisa and he was out on capitol hill beating the bushes for the bailout.
Jane Hamsher is upstairs…
Classy: DNC Throw Martha Coakley Under the Bus
The Lieberman presidency came to a bitter, jowly end tonight in the staple in Scott Brown’s centerfold.
I’d like some opposition, or at least feedback, to my 102.
Yes, yes, yes! I totally agree. It’s going to take 50 yrs of right wing rule before the sheeple wake up–and then it might be too late.
dailyKos, isn’t that the place where they think Obama is playing 9 dimensional chess?
This is my pet peeve with simplistic Yes/No poll results that don’t ask *why*. They’re basically a blank slate that anyone can interpret however they like.
My “serves you right” feeling of the past few days has turned to a big knot in my stomach. Seeing this actually play out is gut-wrenching. Even worse is the snippet of spin I caught on CNN before I changed the channel – something about this being a wake-up call to Obama to start reaching out to Republicans. It will be instructive to see what they do with the healthcare bill. I wanted it dead but perhaps not at this price. Ugliness prevails.
right on! especially MA residents, but out of state dems can also publicly reflect on their own anti-incumbent feelings (should they have any).
and not just on the intertoobz. letters to the editor. calls to our D reps. and probably lots of other stuff i haven’t thought of….
tomorrow, at the very least, let’s all call our D reps and senators (all of us who have any that is) and give them a piece of our minds. let them hear from someone other than lieberman.
My feeling is that this is a big Fuck You! to the Democrats.
You tease us with Medicare buy-in then drop it without out even pretending to be sorry?
Well, Fuckadoodle you.
If fact, the fact that the guy who won is such a sleaze delivers the fuck you with a jagged edge.
And I don’t even mean this for Rahm. He can’t help himself. I mean it for the people (Obama) who listen to him and the cowards (Reid) terrified of Joe Asshole Lieberman.
Don’t be afraid of Lieberman and Snowe and Nelson et al.
Be afraid of real Democrats, the voters. We don’t buy that line anymore, the one that goes: Who are they (the left) going to vote for, the Republicans? Um, yeah.
Schadenfreude is a bitch. I’m an old-fashioned, ACLU belonging, union supporting, pro Labor, anti-aristocrat LIBERAL. I thought Coakley could have been one of the good guys and I wanted her to win.
But I hate the milquetoast mafia that’s taken over the Democratic Party, and if they have to lose ugly to the get the message, then tonight just might be a victory in disguise for real liberals.
Let’s go to Gloria Clemente (White Men Can’t Jump) for solace:
About Obama running Right. That is what he has been doing all along.
There are no more progressives, as I remember them. The Overton Window has been shoved so far to the right that Richard Fucking Milhouse Nixon would be considered a progressive today.
Heh…
I meant further right.
DEAN!!!!!
Great balls of fire. NOT wanting to go centrist, talks about LEADING! Says we should have best had 59 senators from the beginning.
Love that man, I hope this will empower the Dean side of the democratic party and castrate the Rham faction once and for all.
Agree. But given that’s the world we live in, do you see any other way to prove the R meme is wrong other than the one I sketched?
will do.
Except that, as since Nixon, Americans tend to support progressive policies as well as conservative power figures. Our ideas and values are mainstream.
11 dimensional chess!
“My feeling is that this is a big Fuck You! to the Democrats.”
And Obama, Rahm, Alexrod and Gibbs will spin it anything but…
No, i’m pessimistic as hell right now. I have serous doubts that America is governable at all.
You do remember that he was tossed under the bus, don’t you? DC don’t give a flying at a rolling about us.
It’s early yet, but I’m pretty sure that’s the most horrifying mental image of the year. Even if it is kind of a pleasant thought in the (very) abstract.
And that plays out in the Congress just how?
Source: Crain’s New York Business………….(Today)
(AP) – Harold Ford Jr. has taken a leave of absence from his Wall Street job so he can have more free time to travel around New York state and decide whether to run for U.S. Senate.
A spokesman said that Mr. Ford took a 30-day leave from his job as vice chairman of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Davidson Goldin said Tuesday Ford wants to focus on “listening to New Yorkers and discussing his goals as an independent Democrat” while he decides whether to challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in the Democratic primary.
The former Tennessee congressman has been meeting with elected officials and other political operatives recently. He plans to travel to Long Island this week and upstate next week.
Read more: http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20100119/FREE/1001…
What Americans support became irrelevant after Clinton decided only campaign contributions counted.
I was at Bally’s gym watching CNN early results, and it made my day.
It’s about time voters just rose up and said, ENOUGH!
This is governance by ping pong, with the narrative of restoring the center the tool to keep things the way they are by providing the illusion of choice.
Sorry if I stomped on your link.
Z
feedback: i have no opposition. very sad to say, i agree. i think we’re in for a VERY rough ride. namely, shock doctrine and fascism. oh, and economic disaster.
Let Obama move right and see what happens. His numbers will fall below Shrub’s. Americans hate weakness and capitulation of any kind. Let him do “bipartisanship” again, it will translate into more weakness and capitulation.
This is a schoolyard fight and he can’t talk his way out of it. He either fights back hard, or he’s done.
Independent Democrat = Lying SOB Republican.
I did not say that the Congress shared those values, rather that the Democrats and Republicans have conspired to restrain trade in politics, racketeering, with intent to constrain the range of discourse narrowly.
Except it wouldn’t. It’d just be like the 2006 landslide, which everyone knows was a triumph of centrism and Rahm’s strategic genius.
Apparently he has some big financial backers, and given what happened in MA today, I have notched up his ability to pull it off by a large margin. In normal times he would be totally wrong for NYS.
Bluetoe2, DailyKos.com is a rather vast place. It gets a huge hit count. Most of the people who post there seem rather vulnerable to the herd mentality; there are also, however, plenty of priceless friends to be made there. I’ve been posting there for more than three years now.
how did you wind up voting, dear?
Let’s keep it simple. Voters are saying, HCR is unacceptable in its current form, period. Even if you make this a single issue state election, it says quite a bit and can’t be ignored.
This is excellent news for Republicans.
Oh wait.
Quite alright. No worries.
jmo, but i thought that was already in the cards. and i don’t think both narratives are equally credible. but one will be louder and more persistent, so it’s worth, imo, speaking up.
Four legs bad?
We’ve miscommunicated, so rather than figure out how, I’ll just repeat. I think the only way the R meme will be proved wrong is if the Rs take over and fail even more than the Ds. This will take a decade or more.
I agree. The next decade of Republican rule ushered in by the incompetence and cynicism of Obama’s 3rd Way will indeed be ugly. Will likely see another crash or as economists like to call them “bubbles” (bubble sounds so much less threatening than “crash”). The desperation of millions of people will play itself out in a real class war on the streets of America. Of course the rich will have at their disposal all the police powers necessary to keep the rabble in their place.
I predict that the word “bipartisan” will be used a record number of times in the SOTU. Obama is going to eat some serious Republican dong for 9 months. And they’ll *still* lose both houses.
But… that already happened. And it cost them a grand total of two electoral cycles.
Utah or some equivalent red state would have elected a Democrat Senator in protest in 1990 had Bush expanded federal abortion coverage to poor women.
For a President to suggest that he is not to blame for a candidate who was once up 20 points to lose in Massachusetts — a candidate who represented his fucking 60th vote in the Senate — is absolutely outrageous. What the fuck can this a-hole be held responsible for?
That Obama, he’s something else.
didn’t coakley outspend brown significantly?
Unless some kind of FDR figure emerges. But I can’t see that in this climate. Different time in 30s. A real, functioning left which was scary and got in your face! The left is moribund now.
It’s depressing.
According to Drew Weston who posted and interacted here, Obama is averse to conflict.
Definitely worth speaking up. But I’m a forecaster not a doer. In forecasting you assess the power on both sides and go with the side that has the most power. Don’t see a lot of progressive power around, when voting outcomes are determined by campaign contributions, not what voters want.
Don’t really know if the Democrats can get through a day without screwing over their base.
If Obama did not poison the well for progressive promises for a while.
I don’t really believe in the “Overton window.” People do not think as they do because some magical Overton window convinces them of their place on the political spectrum — rather, beliefs are established through experience. If I was once a believer in war, and came through experience to conclude that war is fundamentally wrong, I don’t shift my “Overton window” to believe that war is only 2% wrong. Either war is wrong for me, or it’s not.
The problem with progressives, then, is not that they have failed the almighty “Overton window,” but rather that their talk is not matched by their actions, and thus nobody is given a chance to experience “progressive truth” as part of reality. Remember, people learn by experience.
More of the same from Obama. Denial, double talk, rhetoric, fancy speeches. It’s getting old if not rotten.
I’ve been depressed about what’s going on for a while, and this evening didn’t help. I’m heading off to bed. Play nicely together, please, and sleep well when y’all turn in.
i didn’t vote for coakley. more in scarecrow’s thread.
Coakley = Ben Nelson = Rahm = Obama = Loss
No real progressive should lose any sleep over the Coakley loss.
Obama and Rahm are working for the corporate elites to destroy the progressive movement.
Scott Brown is a complete MORON, yes a MORON can win in MASS, when progressives don’t care and don’t see any benefits in electing another Ben Nelson.
Most intelligent dems will now recognize the simple fact you either support progressive ideas or lose to tea baggers. Welcome to the new football games guys. You either are on the team of glenn beck, rush limbaugh or Keith Olberman, Ed, Rachel,Jane, etc. (the day of the conserdem is over thank god)
Obama is the one that is now terrified! Without the Progressive base he cannot and will not when the primary in 2012.
The other great news of the day, is that 51 becomes the majority again. No more B.S. about 60 votes being a majority.
Obama, Rahm, conserverdems, use 60 votes to hide their corporate agenda.
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are the happiest people in Washington tonite!
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi can now tell their members NO ONE will cheer for you if you vote for this HCR scam Bill.
America is GREAT!
Obama took down Coakley, and has separately taken down Progressives, his base.
Watch carefully as the Ministry of Truth spins eight years of Cheney/Bush catastrophes into a burning tire around this administration’s and congress’ neck in November.
Then, the Gingrich/Petraeus ticket will ride to the rescue by mid-2011.
I’d like to hear what those people who used to vote for Kennedy did. Did enough of them actually stay home? I can’t believe they’d switch to a Republican.
I posted this earlier this afternoon on a coupla other threads.
What I thought was the significance was the TIMING-this was announced well PRIOR to Coakley’s defeat.
Also, and just as importantly-the statement about traveling and listening to voters-and specifically using the word INDEPENDENT.imho, tells me that he got the message from Massachusetts loud and clear.
Ford is a quicker “study” than I thought.
Let Obama try now to use reconciliation when he refused to when it counted (Public option, expanded medicare) Does he think voters are fools?
One would have thought that after the last decade of Republican rule (trickle down, NAFTA, wars of aggression et al) that would have been proof enough of a failure of conservative ideology. If they didn’t learn this time I doubt they will learn in another 10 years. Many Americans today have a serf mentality.
Good point. So then what is the forecast? Cycles of R’s doing so badly that Ds get elected in dire circunstances, which they are too dumb to capitalize on, then Rs get elected again. An even worse downward sine curve than I described in 102.
And for those forecasting revolution, I don’t see it. It could happen, but evidence to date is the opposite. Workers work harder for less, consumers borrow and spend more. Until that behavior shows signs of changing, don’t even dream of something bolder.
Some of us have done the organizing to do progressive politics in our communities, and we know what ferocious headwinds communities face when going up against corporate power.
Each and every incentive, from the money in politics to the need to swim upstream to keep one’s political inertia incentivizes against problem solving and for manipulation of the public operation to further private political advancement.
There are so many vested interests sucking at the guvmint teat, left and right, that are able to close ranks to keep the taxpayers far, far away from the table. Politics is illegitimately mediated at all levels.
Eetz da Rahminatorrr’s Revenge
Night Marion. Dream of the wonderful cats & birdies.
I hope progressives who have been whining non stop since June now understand a little something about politics. Think you can finally get behind this president and his agenda? If it isn’t too late.
Geez.
Why does Rachel Maddow insist on making coherent arguments of four legs good, two legs bad so often when the dynamics at play in this race had nothing to do with the issues the candidates ran on other than perhaps Brown’s promise to stop health care which is way down in MA polls?
Discombobulated for sure (torn between relief, myself, & sorry for those hoping she’d win) I completely forgot repealing/ revising NAFTA & jobsjobsjobs. Right now that is all that matters before another thing happens (yeah even the banksters unless that’s a conjunction) Thank you for pointing that out.
His conservative, pro-corporate agenda?
As you gaze into your crystal ball, do you see a possibility that a couple of years down the road he might switch to being an Independent or Progressive?
Um, no, since this prez’s agenda is to screw real people. Progressive will never get behind that.
Forecast for 2010: Dems learn wrong lesson, listen to Lieberman, move to the right to appease the punditocracy, lose more seats.
This is a huge defeat for Obama and the DLC. Oh! I am so happy.
Could you give examples?
NY Times headline:
G.O.P. Takes Massachusetts Senate Seat
CONFIRMATION
The American People as voters aren’t smart enough to pick the right people to run our Country.
We like to blame politics, the Parties, and the Politicians, but the people are this countries problem.
This election should show us all that we have little hope as a Country.
can’t disagree. possibly even zero.
if an upset was going to happen, this is about the best situation i can think for it happen in: early in obama’s presidency. only one seat on the line (unlike in nov). major control by Ds of white house and both chambers of congress. very blue state. for 2 not 6 years….
we do our best and see. if the dems go right (as i expect the party leadership wants to, and even the cpc goes along, then we will have an answer to the power question. we’ll know it’s zero. imo this is actually really important info because it tells us to focus on grass roots organizing rather than attempting to exercise power we don’t have.
It’s already a diminishing cycle, as Obama inherited far worse conditions than Clinton, and has done squat to improve them, which is pretty much sending the Democratic brand into the toilet. Unless something radically changes, we’re looking at longer and more disastrous stretches of Republican rule, and shorter and more ineffectual stretches of Democratic placeholding.
Brown won!!
Who is the “he” in your comment? I’m confused in the thread and will respond once you clarify.
Think you can finally get behind this president and his agenda?
You’re kidding. right?
I agree Chris Matthews needs to just shut up.
the last time I check Mass is a dark blue state. the only way Scott Brown wins in Mass is if the dem progrssive base stays home. What would Chris say if a dem won South Carolina? would he say that the conservative people of S.C. wanted a Dem?
Rachel should have had Jane on with her, Chris does not have clue.
I’ll ask again: Was Noron right? Did Coakley really spend 2 weeks on vacation in the month before the election?
The victor, Brown.
yeah… I wish they hadn’t pushed it to this point & a wake up call was in order, but still…
At least, just maybe, we’ll get some discussion about why voters turned on the Dems. This should and must slow up this crazy passage of the Health Insurance corporate Welfare bill.
Go easy on the kid. He/she is merely star struck.
Looks like the move to the right has already started. This from TPM.
Don’t seem to be a lot of other alternatives if you want to try to effect change. Not glad to read that you the doer and me the forecaster agree that the progressives have little power, but two people coming at the assessment from different directions does raise the liklihood that it’s accurate.
There are many progressives in San Francisco who have worked with independents and Greens like us to establish a formidable presence in local government.
We have 6 or 7 votes on the Board of Supervisors, a majority on the Board of Ed and 3 out of 4 on the college board.
1/2 of the local Democrat apparatus is Newsomite-moderate and the other 1/2 is progressive-liberal.
The amount of shit that the corporations, including real estate speculation, throw at progressives and their non-profits as well as the amount of shit that the non-profits throw at average citizens is astounding. They essentially are fighting over city contracts and that is what drives the algebra of governance more so than anything else.
Yep, I think that’s accurate.
I don’t think it’s that simple. Big O had help in creating this disaster from a bad candidate. I hate piling on her tonight, but she was one arrogant and aloof non-campaigner.
This election, given the timing and the back story (Ted’s seat), and all of the threads, (tone deaf Dem party) is the working definition of clusterf**k. A satirist couldn’t have written it better (a centerfold model winning a MA senate seat? An editor would have rejected that plot as too farcical).
It really boils down to this: unless you have militant unions, not the pansy ass ones we have now, nothing is gonna change in the US. My salary has not increased appreciably in 2 yrs. Wages are stagnant. This is the main problem with those employed. Now, as for the unemployed…well…there is no plan for them. And that’s for a reason. It’s a race to the bottom. The rich capitalists are winning the class war, and there’s no sign of a let up.
Bottom line…no serious labor movement, no progress. Obama is just dressing, folks.
Coakley may not go quietly.
I think Ian’s crystal ball is both gloomy and accurate. The only question in my mind is whether they push the Senate health care bill now, but I wouldn’t want to bet against it. All the other consequences flow from that one.
And as Ian implies, we’re going to have to pick up the pieces and get it right.
told you
That makes me ill….let the new guy decide the whole thing that we already know he is against….sicko
Unfortunately, the pundits and national media have their brians right in the middle of the Overton Window. Even a view of MSNBC tonight during the election returns demonstrated that tonight. Especially Tweety, who was in rare form.
It is going to have to have 21st century decentralized anarchist tendencies rather than the same old crap.
The only question in my mind is whether they push the Senate health care bill now
Uh, a few more concessions will be required, please.
I think this is what Weiner is referring to when he says a Coakley loss kills HCR.
The Chinese will “liberate” the U.S. before there is a serious and militant movement of any sort.
And, BTW, Eli’s last sentence is also true.
Especially Tweety, who was in rare form.
I’ve had a filthy mouth for decades — since I was about 8 years old — and I can’t find the words to describe him.
Keith just said the “R” word.
FWIW, I am not convinced she really wanted it that badly.
She seemed more animated at her concession speech than she seemed on the campaign trail.
Her body language during the campaign ,to me, did not project enthusiasm.
But ofcourse, that is just one personal opinion…..FWIW.
If anyone sees Debbierlus, please tell her that a forum named for a tree has some of her journals cached from google and the way back machine. We know she has been very upset about having her entire journal ripped from her by an untimely pizza, and we’d like to return a little of it.
Jim Webb is the first to jump ship.
Jim Webb and other dems will now come running to progressives or drink a lot of tea.
Well there’s always EFCA to look forward to.
yeah. but that could change. it really is in the hands of the people. we just don’t know it. or know how to act on it… (i hope there’s a “yet” in there).
i agree if we’re talking business as usual electoral politics. but there are alternatives via social movement politics. here’s a thought experiment to give an example of what i mean: picture a million people surrounding capitol hill on a multi-day sit in. hundreds surrounding every district office. thousands more doing media, legal and other support. and all of them demanding passage of, for example, hr 676 (single payer comprehensive universal healthcare).
The media will say and do whatever their elite employers want them to say and do. Here in America we have a richest 1% who own half of all non-home capital assets. They like the social order the way it is, and have structured the mass media to keep it that way to the extent they can.
Jim Webb may be performing kabuki here. The minute they can’t get 60, they have to go for 51, which makes the bill more progressive.
They’ve been very effective because there has been no counter weight. The internet? Merely a safety valve.
Ah. San Francisco.
Ha, yeah! China! You know I didn’t expect much from Obama, but if he had at least resuscitated our manufacturing base with green tech, etc. I’d have respect for the man. But he’s a complete cipher. I can’t get a handle on the guy. The one phrase that comes to mind is “radical technocrat.” That’s his main problem. No heart, just brain. Thus, he sucks as a politician.
Hello Medicare 55 to start with.
This loss is a win imho.
Had Coakley won it would have reinforced the complacency that has filled the party at the top. All they want to do is court corporate donations and write corporate friendly legislation.
This loss is a win for all of us who have been getting crapped on and told to shut up and like it. I don’t give a shit how much the Republicans gloat, they just elected another Clown-Dick to the Senate and he’ll fit right in.
Let’s be real. It’s not like this Senate was going to pass anything meaningful for anyone not inside the Beltway or on Wall St.
The time is right to start a real movement for campaign finance reform.
Agreed.
So now “Centerfold” Scott Brown joins
“Wide Stance” Larry Craig and
“Diaper” Dave Vitter in the GOP SenateHall of Shame.
It’s a pretty big Hall.
Quite a team.
Oh kewl, a corporate D who didn’t even want the job. My Ds should win the Darwin award meme just got another boost.
Martha Coakley was Attorney General of Massachusetts. She’s not a politician and should never have won the nomination to fill Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat. The candidate the Dems should have picked is U.S. Rep. Mike Capuano. He’s a great politician, well-known and supported by the people of Mass- and would have won – hands down.
Even Vicki Reggie Kennedy could have won.
Maddow: “Something called health care must pass in 30 days.” Or else.
She was a really lousy candidate. She got through the primary on name recognition and support from the Democratic party machinery. She thought she could do the same in the general election until the 11th hour and it was too late.
Don’t know if Capuano could have won the general election, but I am sure that at the very least he would have realized that just showing up was not enough.
Will be interesting to see what the party draws as a lesson on this one. If you ask me:
economic anxiety + ignoring base + dead fish candidate=looserville
Obama & brain in the same comment? Nope. I’d say bought if it weren’t politically incorrect.
If it is nigh on impossible to do here, it is probably not doable.
The political pathology of the crack head.
In theory. *If* they go for reconciliation, it will be interesting to see if they pass something crappy with 59 votes, or something halfway decent (public option, no excise tax) with 51.
Dream, the impossible dream.
Already China is the world leader in solar technology. I believe they are also leading in wind turbine production. They are also in the forefront of sustainable urban design of new cities. Oh, they now have joined the ranks of nations with high speed rail. Obama does want high speed rail but were talking about 110mph not 210 mph. Obama has talked the green talk but has not walked the walk. Smoke and mirrors with that guy.
Why do I feel that I have lived through this so many many times before: Dems get a majority – they fail to lead or govern in any progressive way – they then loose some seat(s) and the lesson they take away is that they need to be more ‘centrist’ (re. conservative)?
At this stage we’ll never get any real economic regulatory reform. . .
Pardon if someone made this observation and missed it, but it looks like the heaviest turnout was in smaller districts. That would suggest that Republicans won by showing up in greater numbers than Democrats.
i know i’m a broken record on this one, but i think it’s significant that the house leadership did not substitute their bill for the one the senate used (since the senate didn’t use the house’s bill number but instead chose an unrelated bill the house had already passed). that is not the action of a house leadership interested in supporting their bill. and they left the path free for passing the senate bill as is.
if the house does that, then we know progressives really do have zero ability to influence the outcome at this point and using the techniques attempted so far.
Would you feel more PC with the terminology “proprietary model “?
i agree
into the breach my friends!
Presiding at the downslide of empire. The U.S. is certainly following the path well documented.
that would be good.
and none of this stupid buy in shit that will undermine medicare so long as we don’t have the regulatory environment to do adequate risk adjustment, etc.
Obama is a mystery to me. Clinton was just a horn dog with no moral compass. Like most pols. But Obama….???? Yeah, he’s bought, but so is every pol. He treats governing like a chess game. The Kosman is right in that sense. He’s like Mr. Spock on steroids. Except Spock believed in a set of principles. Obama has none that I can suss readily.
That is very nice of you, elmtreehuman! Will do.
: )
Except that the elites this time are riding the operation down like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove.
That’s one of the reasons I’m not too optimistic. The other one is the one Ian covered – these guys don’t seem to be capable of learning.
Exactly..
Clearly, Teddy Kennedy’s seat was lost because the Democrats have not been bipartisan or centrist enough. Right?
They will never learn, I fear.
Sadly agreed. I don’t think the American psyche will do well as a second rate power.
status quo achieved
kabuki perfection
jinx.
at this point only the senate’s version would go to committee — because the house has not substituted their bill (see my comment @248).
I have no illusions about the DLC Democrats. They own and operate the Wall Street Lite party in America.
But when Gore lost in 2000, I cringed. And when Kerry lost in 2004, I cringed.
And when Obama won in 2008, I shelved my deeply embedded cynicism for a couple of weeks and actually dared to hope he wasn’t what I knew he really was deep down inside—another fucking DLC Democrat.
But now I’ve got to be honest: Go Brown!!!
I know it is irrational from the neck up; but from the heart down, the anger and contempt I feel for the Rahm Obama Democratic Party is such that my fear of a BeckWorld explosion in the Fall is surpassed [here and now] by the triumphant sense that Obama and everything his betrayals stand for was humiliated tonight in Massachusetts.
Please allow me enjoy that for a few days, okay?
Yes, I suppose, but they don’t seem to be paying much attention to us anyway.
I had a knee jerk negative reaction to O, and I have learned to trust my instints when they work that way. In the intervening 2 years, I have tried to figure out why. The best & shortest I can do is from Dreams. The man doesn’t care a bit about the people in that book. If he did he would have written an afterward detailing how it all came out, for better or worse, and would have invited them to sit in the front row at the inauguration. I think he just you garden variety social/career climber with more than his share of skills.
I was talking to a friend the other night about politics, and honestly, more than at any other time in my life, I see politicians as a living analogue to the last chapter and last sentence of Orwell’s “Animal Farm.”
I cannot tell the difference any more. This goes for the media as well – Katrina Vanden Heuvel as a centrist? Only Olbermann really shines forth as a force for progressive principles.
Obama, indeed, has nine months. Nine months to get us out of Iraq AND Afghanistan, nine months to get real, progressive health care reform passed. Nine months to stand up to the centrists of both parties and shout with a voice like Moses himself, ENOUGH! Enough of the money changers, be they banks, insurance companies, oil companies, whatever.
Failing that, I have probably voted in my last election. If there’s no difference between the parties, what does it matter who’s elected?
Ha! You know why, because some goddam wind turbine company got a grant from the stimulus, and the first thing they did was fire a bunch of their workers, and contract a Chinese company to build the turbines. Stupid bullshit like that is why we don’t have the green manufacturing that China does. Goddam it!
Great imagery. Yahooooo!!!!!!
Think drunken crazy guy in refrigerator box on the global stage with nuclear weapons.
yeah, but i still think it’s worth knowing even if the news is bad.
I think you have it precisely backward.
Not to worry. U.S.ians will not figure it out until U.S. is a third world nation.
Its not like he didn’t solve everything, its like he didn’t try to solve anything with policies rooted in progressive or even liberal values.
Told ya so! “g”
The democrats are in a difficult position – and chances are many won’t get out alive.
I don’t understand this at all. Obama and the Democrats run on a platform of change. They get the biggest majorities in Congress that have been seen for years. They proceed to enact one corporatist program after another. Unemployment and fears about the economy go through the roof. They pick another corporatist to run in MA. She’s a terrible campaigner to boot. And she loses. I mean who could have foreseen ….
Absolutely nothing wrong with Obamas stated and campaigned on agenda…it is the agendas handling by an inept White House and the resulting anger. Wall Street, Insurance companies, big Pharma…all are calling the shots not the WH or the fools on the Hill. The very people who are screwing the taxpayers left and right and Obama cant seem to get his mandate to work for him. So why bother. The Democratic caucus in the Senate has shown there respective ego asses and NO ONE is impressed or wants them calling the shots from the little Napoleon from Nebraska to the Holy Joe. Obama has been shown to be a toothless tiger that simply is clueless….fools. We are in trouble folks.
As they said in “Godfather I”, it’s only business.
American exceptionalism. We will have the best soup lines in the world.
Won’t be the first to go down after screwing their base and won’t be the last.
But where is the moral hazard to losing elections if you can just go to Wall Street like Rahm did and make millions and millions?
When the head regains control, there will be judicial nominations and such to consider.
I hope, and I mean this, that the few days you have are very pleasant.
When you’re right, flaunt it. *g* to you too.
That shining city on a hill is nothing but empty soup bowls reflecting in the glint of smog.
For my part, there are mixed emotions. I’m sad that Coakley seemingly torpedoed her own campaign to pay homage to the DLC and Obama. She looked like she had a chance after the primary. But, she toed the Obama line and the voters explained that they didn’t like that.
Hopefully, Democratic “leadership” will learn from this, but I’m afraid this is just the beginning of the lesson.
The good news….JOE LIEBERMAN IS NOT THE 60TH VOTE ANYMORE! Now the true test for the Democrats in the Senate and the White House….how long will Joe be Chairman of the Homeland Security committee. If he goes …then I will regain some faith..if he is there in two months…screw em.
Do not blame us for Obama’s political loss for pursuing policies counter to those he ran on and generally demoralizing the progressive and liberal base.
Doormats? Potted plants?
Bingo!
The democrats are in a difficult position – and chances are many won’t get out alive.
You obviously don’t know how to play 11-dimensional chess.
I agree. The unions made their own deal on the excise tax and sold out non-union workers and the middle class. The truth is that America has always been an “I got mine” kind of place and we commie pinkos have been in denial about that our whole lives. Instead of aspiring to get those fucking boots off our necks and those of our neighbors, we’re supposed to aspire to be the one wearing the boot.
It’s almost like it was planned. It’s almost like they didn’t want a supermajority. It’s almost like they wanted a way to blame R’s for their crappy policies.
i remember you saying that all along — saying even before the inauguration that it would be significant if obama didn’t have anyone from that time in the front row.
Jane’s upstairs.
kabuki is HARD WORK
Great image.
I have to disagree with Cujo about this. The Democrats always learn from their mistakes: They lose, they move right. They lost again, they move further right. They lose again, more right, rinse, repeat.
It’s still my best read on him. Do you know of a better? Or anyone else? Like the blindfolded groping the elephant, I’m still trying to figure O out.
and they’re called food stamps because it’s important that how many people need to use them be invisible.
It’s the beginning of the end of Obama’s administration. A lame duck in just 12 months. It took Geogre Bush 7 years.
SNORT!
Who is “us”?
Who could have predicted ?!!
Sadlyyes !
Perhaps the metaphor itself contains your answer…
This is what they get for pushing bad reform plans.
I’m going to use that.
I haven’t heard why she was so terrible at campaigning, other than the general idea that she took the win for granted once she won the primary. She was well known in MA, there probably wasn’t as much reason to campaign as there would have been if she were a local politician.
The narrative that she lost because she supported the health care bill makes sense to me. I don’t know if it’s really supported by all the facts, but it fits the ones I’m aware of.
one year. not saying it couldn’t happen, but it’s only one year (actually less).
so devastatingly true
This is what happens when you run as one thing and govern as another.
Probably, but I never expected Bush to last two terms, either.
The unions have never been the same since they purged all the socialists and communists in the 40′ & 50′s. They struck a bargain with the devil and the devil is now coming for his due. EFCA? You’ve got to be kidding. Labor is the next one under the bus.
Good Lard they’re getting Webb’s “Hold HCR til Brown is seated” message out instantly; was just on CNN too.
Crap the DLCers are not only turning right, they’re turning hard right and right now.
Every Democratic defeat is the result of liberalism, and every Democratic victory is the result of centrism.
You know….the American people are basically a conservative lot. BUT…if Obama had grabbed the bully pulpit and appealed to their best instincts and said that health care is a right and a MORAL issue…maybe, just maybe, people would have listened and supported him… I mean, he had nothing to lose. Look where we are now.
As for jobs…he could have also appealed to people…saying that a jobs program and higher taxation on the rich would lift everyone’s boats…that it was an imperative to save the republic…maybe, just maybe, people would have listened.
But he’s incapable of leading. Incapable.
oh Petro……..so sad we all suspected these outcomes months ago……..i really did hope,silly me
Well, let’s say they’re incapable of learning lessons they hadn’t already learned before they started. That’s pretty close to not being able to learn. ;)
I don’t think Woolsey will be attending any more Harman fundraisers.
But warmongering and corporatism was in sync with his base, not diametrically at odds with it.
That too.
paul street and crew? — but they had background info most of us didn’t. otherwise, no. no better than your Q about the inauguration.
It worked pretty well a couple of Novembers ago.
Serfs were pretty conservative as well. Americans should adapt well to the new feudalism.
Just imagine if you will, had Obama kept his multitude of campaign Change/Hope promises and lofty rhetoric, and actually had the audacity to enact changes. This would have been a Dem landslide. He had better get his crap together, or he will be a one term president that rode in on a wave of populism, and p*ssed it away. Sad.
Let’s see if ObamaCo come running to the Progressives for support – we’ll see how much the Kennedy’s influence the remainder of his term – or if he goes right, to kiss more Reich Wing Butt and thereby seal the fate on Dems in ’10 & ’12.
When I wrote my one report (4/11/97) on welfare reform when I was on Wall St., I said in the introduction that it was never more than 1/2% of GDP and 2-3/4% of federal spending. So what was the big deal?
Please feel free.
True, and that may be the difference. It depends how much progressives fear the alternative, I suppose. Given the likely GOP candidates, there’s lots of reason to fear.
Exactly my point. But am open to other interpretations. A niece, HS English teacher who loved the book because of how it was written, completely missed the part I picked up.
yup,has no stones,imo………he completely slid off the plate,he couldnt step up to
Sadly, this is what we are reduced to tonight.
Sounds like she had as much enthusiasm for winning as the other, inspiring Mass. senator did in ’04.
and the countries too
Yes.
We want to increase the Republican Senate count by 1, and we don’t want the responsibility.
I once saw a map of the Old West that pinpointed locations of conflicts between Native Americans and settlers and/or U.S. Army. Any instance in which the white men were victorious was a “battle,” if the NA came out on top it was a “massacre.”
Events that occurred over a century ago and we’re still spinning.
Obama will take the path of least resistance. He is conflict averse and will likely take the path his former mentor in the Senate and the corporate media dictates. He’s moving right. I mean he’s moving further to the right.
wow……shamefull just run peeps into the ground,dont maintain their health sevices,and replace with new droids…………..nice
I knew it from the Donny McClurkin incident. Because also implicit in that, was that he was no progressive about women’s repro rights.
Also, I was on OFA Colorado’s mailing list, and their caucus tactics which they advised, were completely intimidatory in nature. Then I recoiled in horror about his relationship with Sunstein. Then FISA clinched it.
It was the first Prez election in my life I voted early, rather than Election day which used to really jazz me up.
I had a feeling from early on that Obama was probably not going to be the man he said he would be…well, now we know – its almost humorous in a dark sort of way remembering the campaign cheering “Same old, same old” for McCain.
I have a great union story. Joyce Miller, the highest ranking woman in labor unions at the time Clinton appointed her to head the Glass Ceiling Commission, had been a tenant of my SIL, a summer cottage thing. With that intro, I had a lunch and a dinner with her in DeeCee. I asked her why she thought the union movement had run down and she responded with a host of excuses. When I ran the converstations by my SIL, a librul, she short-curciuted me by saying that the reason for the demise of the labor movement was on account of people like Joyce Miller. (And, moreso, her male mentors I’d add.)
The one US solar cell company that was making an impact was thrown under the bus by the Bush SEC.
Righto.
It’s above his pay grade, doncha know, or so he claimed while fluffing Rick Warren.
holy cow. i never knew the numbers before. that’s got to be less than the administrative overhead cost we pay in healthcare just to maintain our multi payer system of insurance companies (i’m thinking gdp only, i have no idea about fed spending).
(2003 nejm paper by woolhandler and himmelstein showed, iirc, that it was about $300 billion/year in 1999 — which is not far from your 1997 report. you seem to remember the numbers, can you tell me if i have it wrong?)
have i mentioned recently how much i despise the clinton administration?
Weird thing about Cash Sunstein…guy’s a big animal rights dude…yet he’s a complete fascist where humans are concerned. Weird dichotomy.
narcissist
At one time labor wasn’t affraid to mix it up. It’s leaders gave their members a world view that empowered them to feel vital and necessary to the life blood of the nation and it’s economic well being. Today’s labor leaders give their members merely excuses on why it’s necessary to settle for less.
So what. Hitler was a vegetarian and loved dogs.
BOOTSTRAPS me boy
I just got out my paper copy of my old report to make sure I didn’t characterize it wrong. I assume I got the stats right back then, as, unlike today, I used to be VERY careful.
Of course I went on to report about the benefits of behavioral change, despite the small macroeconomic influence. And my cleaning lady is a perfect example of the behavioral changes. She read the handwriting and got a PN certificate, now works for the VA and has expanded her life experiences dramatically. She still cleans for me (offa books) cause we luv each other.
But her story is not the typical story which is more poor people working shit jobs for shit pay and without a social safety net.
Yeah, lots of vegans I know are right wingers. Guess I’m naive.
narcissism would allow him that dichotomy,control freak
Progressives and liberals who name Obama’s betrayal for what it is and who would vote against Democrats as a result.
Don’t blame us for holding someone politically accountable who has betrayed us.
Didn’t he find the dogs to be too stringy and meaty?
The cognitive infiltration shit is seriously fucked up. That dude needs to see a shrink. Hey, Cash $ Sunstein can you hear me!!!!!
F A d i n
g
If all you want to do is place a Republican in a Senate seat and then avoid responsibility for any downstream effects, just say so. We will understand – it’s the price Dems pay for being feckless.
But don’t run away from yourself.
OMFG, I have purposely not paid attention to Scott Brown so I had no idea. I just watched a few minutes of his acceptance speech wherein he said that both of his daughters are available and then talked about playing basketball with Obama. I threw up a little in my mouth.
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mebbe sasha and malia can do play dates……………ok niteall
i’m glad things worked out for your friend (and cleaning lady, but cleaning is something we do for people we care about and not always only for the $). i had no clue about it as it happened (all focus was elsewhere), but heard horror stories later (only after getting involved in local anti-war stuff. many of the same people worked on social justice issues, especially the quakers).
and i have no doubt you were very careful and detail oriented. but retirement is supposed to be license to relax a little… *g*
Tonight, Obama, his inner circle, and the deluded few who still worship him got exactly what they have earned… the complete disdain of rest of us. Saying Obama has betrayed us is far too kind. Really. In fact, he deliberately lied about his positions.
The depth of this loss is not just symbolic. It cuts to the bone.
It is a sad statement that the future will remember Obama almost solely as the first African American president. Not as an exceptional leader. Not as a bold visionary. Not even as a clever pragmatist. Just this… the first African American to hold the office. How utterly unfortunate.
There was a short window of opportunity. Incredible opportunity. But that rare opportunity has been lost.
on the other side there was the attempt to protect what we have in romneycare. things like reproductive healthcare, not having state regulators undermined. it was a hard call and there were big risks, probably lots more i haven’t thought of, either way.
Exactly right. Publicly stripping Joe of one of his plum committee jobs would be a great idea. The get him alone with some of the boys in the back and tell him that if he doesn’t straighten up and fly right, he’ll lose another perk.
Then let that be leaked not so subtly to the press.
And you know, it’s not as if the corporate types are going to waste hundreds of millions of dollars trying to get Lieberman out of the sling; this is one assignment a bet a lot of people would love to take on. Doubtless there’s a lot of people up on the hill who’d love to tell Joe just what they thought of him.
With adversity there an advantage.If Obama can’t get Health Care with a Public Option buy in if we want to or Medicare buy in if we want to.Kill the Bill.Tell us who the people in the Senate and Congress that blocking progress and the voters will replace them.Obama can be a Great Leader.The people like him.Thay did Trust him.The Democrats in the Senate are doing to him as bad as thay did Carter.The Congress follows.First Obama Atone and get off THE TRANQUILIZING DRUG OF GRADUALISM.Obama reflect on your life’s campaign.HONESTY,HONOR,TRUSTWORTHY,OBEDIENT,BRAVE,REVERENT,THRIFTY.To help the people at all times.Stay mentally awake and morally stright.Obama do your duty to God and Country.We the people will follow.
The MSM and the White House act like Ted Kennedy, JFK, would have voted for this HCR scam.
Ted Kennedy would have voted against the HCR scam.
The MSM loves it when the GOP goes hard right, they get all giddy.
Obama has better go hard left, or he will join a lot of americans un-employed.
“Obama has 9 months; he’d better deliver.”
He’s going nowhere – all flash and no substance.
My thesis was more along the lines that Obama portrayed himself as a progressive (forget the fine print caveats) and governed as a status quo corporatist –to the great anger of most Americans and certainly his base. Coakley was just another corporatist. Why wouldn’t voters vent their anger on her, or any similar candidate?
I did not place anyone anywhere. I do not have that kind of power. Those who do have the power to make a difference did not. They can still change and govern on the platform we elected them on. Or they can continue down this track with predictable results. If they’re not going to represent public opinion and govern as we elected them to, then it makes no difference who holds the seat.
Squandered, energy grounded and a nasty political vacuum opened.
“But don’t run away from yourself.”
I’m not, I can tell you. This is a message that needed to be delivered, and it would have been much more painful in November.
Blame me, I don’t mind.
Barnie Franks has jump ship
The progressives are leaving Obama.
Losing in Mass, shows liberals that any one of them can lose.
Never bite the hands that vote for you progressives.
The progressives in the House are now learning this simple rule.
Ezra Kline the Moron, thinks passing a HCR bill that no one likes is a great idea for Dems. I forgot he is not running for re-election in 2010.
Any Dem that votes for the Senate bill, will probably have to run in a primary and probably lose.
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are jumping all over the place laughing!
They can now tell their members if you vote this HCR scam produce by Rahm and Obama, no one will CHEER for you and you will probably get to drink a lot of tea with Coakley.
You are so right. He will indeed be remembered only as the first African American President. He squandered any number of opportunities to be true to his word and to leave an important legacy.
I asked a similar question on a thread the other day.
Crickets.
I asked what would Ted think of this bill?
Would he think it reflected what his life’s work was about?
Would he vote for it?
Not one reply.
Good evening ,Selise.
evening gitcheegumee. been a long day and i’m off to try to sleep. something big happened today, but i don’t think we will really have a clue what for some time.
good luck to all of us.
I think he’d be appalled.
Also, I just remembered another problem with the Villagers’ “Backlash Against Liberal Overreach” explanation: It’s MASSACHUSETTS. You might as well try to argue that Obama’s “liberal overreach” is what’s frustrating us here at FDL too.
I would like to believe that Teddy would have started from a position of strength and refused to let the Blue Dogs and the Party of No strip out everything that benefits the working class. I would like to believe that he would have been outraged at a rollback of women’s reproductive rights and a regressive tax on the middle class and a mandate without a public option. Maybe that’s not how it would have gone, but I would like to believe it.
That is an excellent point… which will unfortunately never occur to them.
It saddened and infuriated me every time I saw some Democrat (his own widow, even!) claiming that Teddy would have been proud to vote for this godawful mess, and that we should elect Martha Coakley to honor his legacy or keep his dream alive or whatever.
I didn’t want her to lose, but I still thought that was a pretty huge insult to his memory.
I agree
Yes. And Scott Brown is an even worse insult to his memory.
It was like they believed their own hype about the bill and thought that MA Democrats would think it was as awesome as they did.
“The healthcare bill” turned into this generic thing that we had to pass for Teddy, even as it became more and more odious. The silver lining here may be that the bill dies. I see mayhem in November either way; passing it and then being unable to provide any tangible benefits to people for several years (or ever) is not going to help the Democrats. They’re delusional if they think so.
Villagers backlash against liberal underreach!
From my website:
The chickens have come home to roost.
The utter stupidity by the Obama Administration is dwarfed only by those media hacks who believe Coakley’s loss is because the country’s gone more to the left.
The thing Obama still doesn’t seem to get is his election was a bold action by Americans who, using politics as their mirror, wanted bold action in return. Meekly begging for a non-arriving bi-partisanship is not bold. Turning the bully pulpit over to Max Baucus is not bold. Talking tough to Wall Street bankers while giving them the gentlest of handjobs under the table is not bold. And away go your independents.
Running away from repealing DADT, caving in to Joe Lieberman, abandoning the public option, and ratcheting up the fighting overseas loses you the base. When the Democrats called over the weekend looking for my help, I said “Fuck ‘em!” I can’t fight beside those who don’t, and I know I was far from alone. The White House has the names and numbers. Why don’t they do a poll and see how many Dem volunteers sat this one out? I bet that’ll open some eyes.
If the White House is dumb enough to move further to the right, they deserve the rout they’ll encounter this Election Day.
Perhaps the mere smell of one’s own farts is not offensive, but the smell of one’s own shit surely is.
When you start to believe your own bullshit in politics, you’ve lost, game over.
great comments throughout…hope this result kills the bill and we get rid of Rahm. Three Cheers.
If I were someone who advocated for a strategy that resulted in a Republican win in a Senate race, and it happened, I would want to run like Hell, too.
That advocacy is replete with responsibilities, and if you are going to play that angle, you should own up to it when the time comes.
Again:
Associate Justice John Paul Stevens – born April 20, 1920
Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – born March 15, 1933
Associate Justice Stephen Breyer – born August 15, 1938
That shortened term is looking mighty long.
Kinda like an alcoholic owning a bar……
brown ran without ever emphasizing any party affiliation. he ran as a humble guy who just wants to represent his constituents concerns by winning ‘the people’s seat’. driving his now famous truck around the state to meet face-to-face with independent-minded ‘regular folks’ contrasted dramatically with his opponents stated disdain for meeting with the public and her arrogant assumption that the seat was undoubtably hers simply by virtue of her party affiliation. the celebrity president jetted in (on our dime) to put his arm around her, wave to the crowd, look down his nose and mock brown’s truck as an indication of brown’s lack of sophistication or some such thing. well, brown catapulted from obscurity to the senate in record time, and coakley is now a textbook failure. any lessons here for…anyone?
Uh huh, and the substantial Democrat minorities in the Senate during Alito and Roberts were just fine by you? And the Democrat majorities that approved Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, no problemo, right?