Accountability Now

by: Matt Stoller

Fri Aug 08, 2008 at 10:59


One of the most significant opportunities we have over the next few years is fixing the broken market for Democratic primaries, where incumbents can take primary voters for granted because there is no way for primary challengers to get a foothold in competing with them, even if those incumbents are out of step with the district.  This has produced a culture of sludge-like caution and utterly disgusting unaccountability on Capitol Hill among party elites on both sides.  Walmart is now giving more to Democrats than Republicans.  Walmart.

The disgusting cretins in DC are the ones who are going to block Obama's most progressive reforms, they are the ones who threw Wes Clark under the bus for speaking the truth, they are the ones who backed Nikki Tinker's antisemitic bullshit, they are the ones who insist on boring milquetoast corporate-friendly ads, and the ones that preach caution when Alan Grayson says we need to throw war profiteers in jail.  They are the ones who are targeted with this effort, through the most democratic means possible, helping primary challenges and advertising to soften up corrupt incumbents like Steny Hoyer, the architect of much of the nonsense on Capitol Hill.  Some of you reading right now are going to work on these primary campaigns, and some of you will even run, and win.  We are building a different kind of politics, where there's real accountability in the political system, which there hasn't been for decades.  It's time to end this charade.

Matt Stoller :: Accountability Now
Just for today, we've added Accountability Now to the Better Democrats Actblue page.  
Accountability Now is Glenn Greenwald and Jane Hamsher's new organization designed to undermine the Beltway consensus for attacks on our civil liberties and reckless adventures abroad.  They have set up a moneybomb with 3400 pledges to support the effort, which is really a continuation of the FISA campaign.

When you give, you should go through the Better Democrats page in case their page is getting hammered.  And every little bit helps, so even if you just throw $5 in there, it's going to be put to good use.

Give here.

Thanks for reading OpenLeft, you make the site what it is, you make our work possible, and you really are changing the country, a very little bit at a time.

UPDATE:  Better Democrats just hit 100 donations.  I put in $50 myself to Accountability Now.

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Accountability Now | 28 comments
We've got to get Doug Tudor... (4.00 / 2)
on the "Better Democrats" page!  He's running against Adam "Opie" Putnam in FL-12. http://www.teamtudor.org/index...
YOU ARE SO RIGHT! (4.00 / 2)
We need more and better Democrats! First we get more then we break our backs getting Better Dems to throw out bums like Steny Hoyer and Jay Rockefeller. I also believe we need to tolerate Dems in really, really red areas and states. We can work to turn those places first purple than blue. Once weve accomplished that goal then we can primary those blue dogs onto the scap heap of Politics too. But I feel it's important we send a message to the all by a really strong effort to get Steny and Jay out first!
You are right .. (4.00 / 2)
that is what is so important about people like Donna Edwards .. or why it was important for Steve Cohen to win yesterday
[ Parent ]
Walmart and reality. (0.00 / 0)
First, demonizing Walmart more than other corporations isn't necessarily productive.  

Second, you are not dealing with the reality of the political system.  Your $5 contributions against Steny Hoyer are very noble.  But as long as Walmart and Exxon are in the game, you can't compete on a national level.

Obama is leaning more on big donors.  I've never heard the words "Obama" and "progressive reforms" linked in a sentence before, unless the word "opposes" was included somewhere.

If you change the system to get the anti-corporate Democrats to win in the primary - and so far, the net has a legacy of failure - they will get crushed financially in the general.  All politicians need to take corporate money to survive - it's just a question of who they will choose, and how.

Third, you have a binary vision of the universe.  Walmart, FISA, war profiteering, and Nikki Tinker are distinct issues.  Walmart's problems are primarily with labor and trade.  The problem with FISA is related to telecommunications money.  Neither Walmart nor the telecommunications industry are anti-semetic.  Lumping them together isn't very coherent.


A long journey starts with a single Primary win! (4.00 / 1)
Ned lamont's primary win set the stage for the 2006 whooping of the Repigs. This is the kind of success we can proudly point to! You speak from a defeatist perspective. America has broken up Monopolies in the past and will do so in the future and Walmart is a prime example of the need for that kind of action. People powered politics is fast becoming a political power house and the present power structure is begining to realize that fact. You say we are powerless against big corporate power you are dead wrong.
[ Parent ]
Repig? (0.00 / 0)
I'm not sure what a repig is, and I'm fairly sure I don't want to.

The electorate has been promised "people powered politics" for several hundred years, and it hasn't emerged.  I see absolutely no sign that the power structure is changing. I fail to see how Lamont's loss to Lieberman demonstrated much of anything other than the persistence of the current power structure.

Whether you want to deal with it or not, you and I are relatively (not absolutely) powerless against big money in politics.  No matter how much "grassroots" politics takes hold, the legislature is undemocratic, with procedural maneuvers and filibusters, etc. that will be invoked whenever the power structure is seriously challenged.  You cannot consistently enact democratic reforms through an undemocratic institution.  To the extent that anti-corporate bills might pass, we have a judiciary that is badly slanted towards corporate interests, and it will take a least a generation to replace them.  Most importantly, there is no way to fundamentally change the way politics is funded without passing laws through the legislature and having them upheld by the Supreme Court, and there is no issue that will be fought harder than the underpinning of the current system.

We live in an undemocratic federal system, which is controlled by monied interests.  This isn't unusual - there isn't a society in the world or in history where money didn't equal influence.  However, our system was designed at the inception to be relatively resistant to popular movements - democratic mechanism are more of an escape valve to prevent overthrow than a mode or operation.  For its day, it might have been seen as advanced, but that day has long passed.  What is possible, and what has been possible in the past, is slow, uneven progress on basic issues of dignity and equality, but only after a crisis point has usually reached and passed, and a tremendous amount of suffering and futile protest.  

"People powered politics" is incompatible with our Constitution and traditions, and always has been.  False hope, however, is an American tradition - it is the moral foundation of our "free" market.  

[ Parent ]
so (4.00 / 2)
Why are you even commenting?  If progress is futile and we are all irrelevant, then why bother come here and talk about politics?
[ Parent ]
Where did I say (0.00 / 0)
that progress is futile?

You might try dealing with the substance of my post.

I think we need to deal with how progress is realistically acheived.  And we are "relatively" powerless against big money interests, and unfortunately won't get change without finally enlisting big money interests.

For example, I have been waiting thirty years for some comprehensive reform of the healthcare system.  Despite pushing for it for decades, and sometimes coming close, it has not come to pass.  And I, for one, have strongly supported candidates, contributed, written letters, rang doorbells, on that very issue.

I recognize that we may finally get something.  But, it may not be single payer, as it should be.  And, whatever it is, we will be succeeding because the Republicans have broken the government, and the system is collapsing of its own weight.  Corporate interests recognize the burden the current mess places on the economy, and ultimately it will be a battle between the insurers and everyone else, including corporate interests.  So, in the end, the good guys will win, but as usual, a bit late, and not through mass movements or institutional change.

My vision isn't futility, but it appears to me that anytime we have real progress, it comes in response to a crisis, after a lot of sacrifice, and it is almost never enacted through institutional change (eg, a basic social safety net in response to the Depression; voting rights generations after the 14th Amendment). Throwing money at candidates who are "anti-corporate" or bashing corporate interests with the idea that the system can be changed is a losing proposition.  IMO.    

[ Parent ]
You seem to contradict your self here. (0.00 / 0)
First you say
And we are "relatively" powerless against big money interests, and unfortunately won't get change without finally enlisting big money interests.
Then later on you say  
Throwing money at candidates who are "anti-corporate" or bashing corporate interests with the idea that the system can be changed is a losing proposition.  

You tell us we can't beat the Corporatists because they have the MONEY then you tell us it's futile to fight fire with fire by throwing money to our "Anti Corporate" candidates.
Obama has raised astronomical amounts of cash and a majority of it comes from individuals donating less than one hundred dollars. This is the result of using the web the very basis of the netroots movement! He has spurned the lobyist cash machine. This is the power I speak of.
Isn't this the dramatic change we need to change our government system for the better. What better tool to put the money men out of business then using the money of the people, by the people and for the people to do it!  
[ Parent ]
Realism (4.00 / 1)
I don't see a contradiction.  Instead, I see "grassroots" groups, whether they be the Bush Dog campaign, NARAL, the NRA, or the anti-abortion groups as putting a certain amount of money into the system.  Now, perhaps liberal groups will vastly outnumber the conservative groups, dollar for dollar, in the future - I don't see much reason to think they will in the long run, but they might.  However, if they are "anti-corporate" then they will never match the total of the conservative grassroots dollars plus corporate money.  It isn't futile to put money into the system - it is frequently futile to rail against corporate interests, and not seek alliances with them.

I have nothing against Obama, but his "people powered" politics are a fraud.  There are no "people powered" politics in the federal system.

He has raised money from individuals, many of whom are pretty far to the left - but that is reflected by basically zero in terms of his positions.  His politics aren't "people powered" - they are corporate, because if he were Kucinich, he wouldn't have the "credibility" in the party necessary to win.

The Bush Dog campaign is another "people powered" fraud.  I really don't see what it will accomplish.  MAYBE there will be ten successful primary challenges in the House in the end.   But the track record isn't so good.  As some have said, it is already a backwards-looking campaign, as most of the Bush Dogs will have no Bush to cave in to very soon.

These ten or maybe twenty House members aren't going to do anything to change what has happened in the Bush years, and the Bush Dogs will likely never bark for the rightwing again.  The point is all symbolic.  Even if it weren't only symbolic, in the end they are too small a group to make a difference.  

So, the Bush Dog campaign may win a certain number of seats, and have some talking about "people powered politics" or the beginning of a true progressive movment, etc., but it is pretty transparent bs, in my opinion.  

There is some talk about creating a left-wing infrastructure and movement, rather as the right wing built a movement since the late seventies.  I think this is a worthwhile effort - but, at base, the right wing movement was a creation of corporate, big money interests.  No left wing movement will exist similarly without courting big money interests.  An anti-corporate movement won't succeed because it can't reliably fund itself in the current system.  The current system won't change, because there are too many institutional safeguards.  

[ Parent ]
Well thought out response. (4.00 / 1)
I only have two points to make, 1) Ned Lamonts win set the stage for Democrats to come out strongly against the war and proved to be the deciding factor in taking back congress. 2)You argument dismisses the power of the vote to institute change which I strongly disagree. I guess only time will tell who is right.
[ Parent ]
um (0.00 / 0)
Lumping them together isn't very coherent.

Tell that to the lobbyists who work for telecom companies, Walmart, the Chamber of Commerce, and give to people like Harold Ford and Steny Hoyer.

[ Parent ]
Thats exactly what we are doing! (0.00 / 0)
Don't you get it? That's what people powered politics is all about, taking on those very power structures. This is the beauty of Democracy it give the power of the vote to the PEOPLE. That power is now being put to work by folks like you and me! You are right to say we are up against powerful foes but they have been defeated in the past! So why would you think we can't succeed now!
[ Parent ]
Walmart demonizes itself (0.00 / 0)
n/t
[ Parent ]
I thought (4.00 / 1)
it was a progressive success story:

http://www.americanprogress.or...

[ Parent ]
So, (0.00 / 0)
the solution would be to pass a law banning corporations from contributing to campaigns? In fact, I always thought this would be perfectly logical -- allow individuals to donate to campaigns, but not anything else, not corporations, not PACs. What's the argument against this? Is it unconstitutional?
[ Parent ]
My guess is it would be unconstitutional (0.00 / 0)
[ Parent ]
That's unfortunate, if so. (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Winners get money (0.00 / 0)
Walmart is now giving more to Democrats than Republicans.

Dems are going to win and win big. Walmart and everyone else is going to give $ to Dems.

What progressive reforms is Obama proposing?

very few (4.00 / 1)

[ Parent ]
It depends on your defination of progressive. (0.00 / 0)
In my mind the definition of "Progressive" is rooted in the word "Progress". Therefor Obama represents real Progress for America especially for all of us on the left! He may not be Progressive enough for Matt and many others but that doesn't mean his offered reforms aren't Progressive.
[ Parent ]
what are his offered reforms? (0.00 / 0)
seriously, what reforms is he offering?
[ Parent ]
I can only refer you to Barak's Home page. (0.00 / 0)

On his website he lays of his positions pretty clearly.
I don't know what you want to hear but to me The Govt we have now is the result of decades of repiglican REFORMS. When Obama becomes our President he will begin the process of REFORMING our government. These REFORMS include our health care system ,our lopsided tax system, our foreign policy, rebuilding our infrastructure and support for a strong Union movement to name a few.  
[ Parent ]
refer to his website? (0.00 / 0)
that is lame. You should be able to name one, maybe not a whole laundry list, but one reform that you think would make life better. Just pick out your favorite.

What do you do when you are canvassing? Tell voters to visit the Obama web site? Yeah, that'll work.

[ Parent ]
You missed something I wrote? (0.00 / 0)
When Obama becomes our President he will begin the process of REFORMING our government. These REFORMS include our health care system ,our lopsided tax system, our foreign policy, rebuilding our infrastructure and support for a strong Union movement to name a few.

You seemed to ignore those examples and only reply to my referral to Obama's web sit by saying
What do you do when you are canvassing? Tell voters to visit the Obama web site? Yeah, that'll work.

I find that response amusing because I have canvassed for Obama and I was instructed by his Staff to, are you ready, refer the questioner to the Obama's web site for answers to questions just like yours!
what are his offered reforms?  
seriously, what reforms is he offering?
By the way, FYI that response to that particular question gets a very positive response.  
[ Parent ]
Lots if challengers, few wins (4.00 / 2)
FWIW, a GOP challenger, Phil Roe, picked off first time House member David Davis by 500 votes yesterday.  There seemed to be little separating the two although apparently  Davis sounds more corporate and Roe more foklsy or populist with both being conservative in a solid Republican area.

IMO, the most important vote for this session was the rout of John Murtha by Steny Hoyer in the battle for number two.  Hoyer has been a thorn in the side of Pelosi and Progressives for the whole session.  It was claimed that the piddling sums distributed by Hoyer made the difference: nonsense.  These same folks turned with a vengeance on MoveOn which had provided many times the cash for a political general who was briefed by Republican operatives.  Shame on them.

Anyway, there have been a lot of challengers this year just few winners.  Among them Donna Edwards (Al Wynn), and Jackie Speier (Tom Lantos) (yes Tom Lantos died but he was already in a bad political position as his health went bad)have already made it to the House.  But that looks to be about it.  Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick survived by 3,000 votes. Dollar Bill Jefferson may be 50-50 and Crist is a long shot against Bush Dog Brian Baird in WA.  The Ed Towns/Kevin Powell battle has potential.

Challenges from the right to Lautenberg and Kucinich failed.  Challenges from the left to Lipinski, Boswell, Barrow and Marshall failed.  John Lewis in GA-5 was shaking left right and all over but then survived handily.  David Scott got a worse scare in GA-13.

The most promising thing is to work to pick off one or two leaders of gridlock like a Steny Hoyer but mainly concentrate on making sure that in open seats like NY-26 and especially NY-21 that a single conservative candidate does not win in a liberal field.

For what it's worth (0.00 / 0)
EMILY's is horrified about all of this with Tinker. Personally, so am I.

However, part of the reason Tinker ran was because of Steve Cohen's sexist commentary about HRC during the primaries.

Gosh, maybe this is "payback."

And as long as you're talking "accountability", how about holding Cohen (for one) responsible for his reprehensible comments about Hillary Clinton? If he --- and other so-called progressive candidates can get away with this b.s. about a national presidential candidate --- he can get away with this b.s. about other women.

And, BTW: I didn't see one diary on OL criticizing Cohen about his sexist comments.

So, yeah. You want to do accountability: sexism oughtta be right up there in a list of actions that we hold candidates accountable for - and Cohen is no exception.

I thought the idea was to (0.00 / 0)
primary them until we show we can take a few of them down if the congress critters don't behave.

The idea is to train them to realize that it can happen to them if they do not represent the interests of the people in their districts.

It does not take beating all of the bush dogs, just one or two seems to modify behavior.

Just saying.  

Accountability Now | 28 comments





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