then again (0.00 / 0)

There seems to be very little interest on the blogs (certainly I personally could not get around to phonebanking even though it would have been easy to do so, and Matt Stoller has confessed to similar feelings) and they haven't taken direction from Democratic leaders before.


New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

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by: Hopeful in NJ @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 02:58:48 AM CST

I wonder how long it will take Obama to see that the Repugs.... (4.00 / 2)

do not know the meaning of bi-partisanship? Will he they smite them? That will prove to be interesting!

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by: humphrey @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 03:48:50 AM CST

I am looking for a replay of what happened with Clinton. (4.00 / 2)

In 1992, I believed in bi-partisanship, too. Bill Clinton reached out to Republicans, felt their pain etc. and they crucified him for it.

The experience radicalized and made partisans out of everyone who was paying attention at the time.

Montani semper liberi

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by: Sadie Baker @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 07:49:57 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Not quite. (0.00 / 0)

Some of us had been radicalized a good number of years before that.

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by: Querent @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 19:32:45 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Correlation Does NOT Equal Causation (4.00 / 2)

Chris, just because things happen in occurrence does not mean that one caused the other. I might buy this argument if these special elections happened all across the country, but you seem to be arguing that depressed turnout of the Democratic base caused losses in blood red states. These special elections have about half the electorate for a general election (if that). Democrat voters, especially in the south, tend to be voters that are a lot less likely to vote without a good turnout operation. These results are not surprising.

With that said, I agree with you completely that the Team of Rivals concept is a bunch of BS. Historian James Oakes argued this well in the NYT op-ed page the other week. Basically, he talked about how Lincoln's cabinet was in fact pretty dysfunctional.

I explored this a bit here:

A Team of Dysfunctional Rivals


Demockracy.com

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by: kvandyke @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 04:49:38 AM CST

We could've won LA-04 (4.00 / 1)

Imagine if Barack Obama had made a visit there, saying that he needed a strong Democratic congres.  We only lost by 100 votes.

Frankly, this whole thing reminds me of the late spring and summer of 2008, when we watched Democrats piss away a huge lead by prefacing every criticism of John McCain by first saying what an honorable man he was and how much we respected his heroic service to this country...while he was flinging poo on a daily basis.  (Before they FINALLY learned not to do that around September.)

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by: Cat Servant @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 08:15:27 AM CST

[ Parent ]

the bigger and more corporate-friendly (4.00 / 8)

our Democratic politicans become, the less partisan they are.  Just as Leona Helmsley once remarked that taxes are for little people to pay, it is easy to infer that folks like Reid, Pelosi, Emmanuel, Biden, and Obama really may believe that partisanship is for rubes like us.

It often seems that their primary allegiance is to their status as members of our nation's bipartisan ruling elite.

An afternoon swing through Georgia in the days before the campaign might have made a serious difference there, but it wasn't attempted.  In any case, GA's Democratic party is a hollow shell due to the eagerness of all its big name politicians to compete for corporate donations, and the level of institutional control leveraged over Democrats in office by the media, corporate interests, and their surrogates like the DCCC and the minority/majority leadership (whose function is to dish out the corporate largesse to the obedient, to withhold it from the independent, and to run oppoennts in primaries against the really independent) in the legislature here.  The primary that Jim Martin emerged from is a testament to the state Democratic party's bankruptcy of spirit.

Early next year we can expect to see a familiar exercise in bipartisanship as the Democrats in Congress and Obama's DOJ will decline to pursue investigations or indictments of whichever criminals Bush does not pardon.  I say familiar, because the same thing happened in early 1993 when it was possible to investigate Republican crimes of the Reagan-Bush era, and Robert Gates was high on the list of unpardoned suspects.

Some of the evidence on him came from Soviet KGB archives, opened after the fall of the USSR, which suggested he had been in on the October Surprise, helping torpedo his boss Jimmy Carter while he served on Carter's National Security Administration, according to Robert Parry.

   In 1991, despite doubts about Gates's honesty over Iran-Contra and other scandals, the career intelligence officer brushed aside accusations that he played secret roles in arming both sides of the Iran-Iraq War. Since then, however, documents have surfaced that raise new questions about Gates's sweeping denials.

   For instance, the Russian government sent an intelligence report to a House investigative task force in early 1993 stating that Gates participated in secret contacts with Iranian officials in 1980 to delay release of 52 U.S. hostages then held in Iran, a move to benefit the presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

   "R[obert] Gates, at that time a staffer of the National Security Council in the administration of Jimmy Carter, and former CIA Director George Bush also took part" in a meeting in Paris in October 1980, according to the Russian report, which meshed with information from witnesses who have alleged Gates's involvement in the Iranian gambit.

 

Robert Gates owes his career to Democratic "bipartisanshipo".  Like I said, look for Demcorats to decline to investigate unpardoned Bush operatives so that they can re-emerge to do more damage in the decades to come.

"If you want that good feeling that comes from doing things for other people, then you have to pay for it in abuse and misunderstanding..."
Zora Neale Hurston

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by: bruce.dixon @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 05:46:46 AM CST

Bar fight standard (4.00 / 1)

We need to bring back Chris Bowers' famous bar fight standard and scrap bipartisanship pronto.  Due to the stated policy of Karl Rove's "Justice Department" every US Attorney is compromised (at least the ones not fired) and evry Democrat prosecuted (including those convicted) has a case that he/she was set up.

This is especially true here in Jersey where the Republicans only hope is media darling and white knight Chris Christie, one of those partisan prosecutors.

The biggest Democratic House pickup since 1932 was in 1948 (+75 seats) when Harry Truman made partisanship on the Congressional level the keynote of this campaign. We also won 9 Senate seats that year. Hey Obama, Reid, Pelosi: You are coming to a gun fight with a knife.

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by: David Kowalski @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 06:49:53 AM CST

The "bar fight" standard is a Stollerism, fwiw. n/t (4.00 / 2)

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by: sb @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 07:32:14 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Hehehe, "Stollerism"! More examples, pls! (4.00 / 1)

What other great similes did Matt create?

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by: Gray @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 08:14:57 AM CST

[ Parent ]

I'm more worried about Anh Cao (4.00 / 2)

Making Gates the face of the Republican Party isn't smart, but that's a short-term issue. The long-term problem lies with guys like Anh Cao.

Cao stands no chance of re-election but he's the only minority Republicans have got (unless you count the Cubanos, Devin Nunes or part native American Tom Cole - but all of those appear more "white" than Cao).

If he runs for Senate in 2010 and takes out Vitter in the primary - which is unlikely, but possible with Jindal's support - then we have a minority Republican elected from a Southern state. If Republicans slap down their talking-head bigots, that gives them the opportunity to rework their coalition, trying to attract middle-class Asians, Hispanics and (possibly) blacks.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

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by: Englishlefty @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 06:53:35 AM CST

Racist Rep. will not vote for a Vietnamese statewide (0.00 / 0)

the special elections held were ALL in the south......in states that John McCain won, its not a surprise that republicans won those.  The only heavily dem. district was represented by a criminal.

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by: vamonticello @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 07:25:46 AM CST

[ Parent ]

They voted for Jindal (4.00 / 1)

In 2003 he lost, probably due to racism. In 2007 he won fairly convincingly and his approvals are high.

I'm not certain they're willing to dump Vitter, but if they are Cao could get elected.

That said, I am giving worst case scenarios here.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

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by: Englishlefty @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 08:21:53 AM CST

[ Parent ]

I agree with Chris........... (0.00 / 0)

however, what we do over the next 18 months will decide what happens in the next election. We need to make big things happen very fast. I believe a massive stimulus is no problem, but I am much less confident in healthcare reform. We really need that to come through as it is impacting everything we do. My union is currently negotiating our new contract - talk about bad timing! Anyway, they are trying to raise our health insurance 52% over last time and we already pay at the top end for a union workforce.

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by: dolphan76 @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 07:26:01 AM CST

"Lacking the same energy, the state reverted to its red-state form." (4.00 / 4)

About Jim Martin losing the Georgia Senate run-off to Saxby Chambliss, Chris Bowers says "Lacking the same energy, the state reverted to its red-state form."

Maybe where you were, Chris, the only thing you noticed "lacking" in Georgia was "energy," but down here we noticed that Barack Obama and his money were also "lacking."

Jim Martin kept asking Obama for help, and Obama helped Martin a little with some mailings and staff, but the RNC helped Saxby Chambliss with $2 million, a lot of it in the form of negative TV ads about Martin.

There was still a lot of "energy" here, but if "energy" alone won elections, Barack Obama wouldn't have bothered to raise $750 million. Not much of the huge chunk of it that remains made its way to Georgia.

Why not?

Democrats have been whining about a super-majority in Congress non-stop for two years, and when they have a real shot at that same super-majority, Obama just blows it off.

Why?

Martin got 46% of the vote in the general election, and as you may or may not know, run-offs are all about turn-out on a day when most people haven't been planning to vote for months in advance.

Maybe you think you have some psychic insight into Georgia voters (just a bunch of stupid crackers?) that tells you Martin never had a chance, but down here it looked like he had a very good chance if Obama helped get out the vote.

Three or four campaign appearances by Obama could have made a huge difference in turn-out for the run-off, or at least that's what we stupid crackers think.

A couple of million dollars from Obama's zillion-dollar campaign fund could have made a huge difference in the run-off, or at least that's the way we stupid crackers see it.

But not much money came down from the President-Elect, and the President-Elect didn't come down here at all.

Why not?

Is a 60 vote super-majority that can over-ride Republican filibusters suddenly unimportant?

Gail Collins, the excruciatingly unfunny (but always politically correct!) "humor" columnist for the Times is actually celebrating Martin's loss today!

Is that hilarious! Democrats blow off a chance for a filibuster-proof majority!

But it isn't much of a joke in Georgia.

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by: Jacob Freeze @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 07:32:58 AM CST

Doesn't surprise me. (4.00 / 4)

If Democrats had a 60-vote supermajority they'd really be expected to deliver on their promises.  With 58-9 they can give a beautiful illusion of action and blame the other side.

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by: Cat Servant @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 08:19:00 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Yes (0.00 / 0)

^^ what you said. If something goes wrong in the next two years or things don't improve as fast as expectations are (since expectations are pretty high atm) there's an IMPRESSION that dems didn't get the super majority so a little bit of blame can go around. on that note I am glad we are not getting 60 but hopefully we will get 59 (which is practically 65 with some moderate republicans in the mix)

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by: Barry @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 15:37:30 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Bi-Partisanship (at this time) is too much like Stockholm syndrome (4.00 / 1)

I'm very upset with the Obama administration at this point and I'm tired of pretending that everything is going to be OK. Everyone in Washington is pretending to play nice and be supportive of each other and all that crap, but what is really happening is that a HUGE message is being sent to all those common people who did everything they could to put a stop to the madness of the past eight years and turn the world away from a coming great dark age.

That message is this: "There is one and only one political party in this country that matters. And that party is the MONEY PARTY. Half of it we call Republicans. Half of it we call Democrats. Listen carefully you plebs. NOTHING YOU DO MATTERS IN THE LEAST. WE RUN THIS SHOW. WE ALWAYS WILL."

I voted in LA-04 yesterday. You say it's conservative here. There is a majority African American population here. During the presidential campaign, people stood in line for hours to vote early so they could be certain their actions mattered. Look at the electoral map. It was blue.

As for Obama's Gates, Geithner, etc. appointments. You shall know them by their appointees. I don't need a crystal ball to see where this is going. You think these people are all going to live in "Opppositeland" just because Obama's their new boss. Yeah, right. I don't want an Obama t-shirt or coffee mug. I want my democracy and my Constitution returned to me. The man's not even inaugurated and he's already trying to give the country back to the criminal's who did all this evil stuff we're now paying for.

(BTW, why isn't Karl Rove in jail?)

I've given up on the newspapers and TV. I read Digby, Greenwald, HuffPo, Firedoglake and OpenLeft these days. These are about the only places I trust anymore.

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by: Michael Harold @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 07:44:24 AM CST

Democrats - Republicans... (4.00 / 1)

It's easy to see that the new democratic party does not stand for any of the progressive principles that the left bloggers have gleefully attached to it.

They're comfortable with the Republicans.
They have been for quite awhile.

Does anyone think or care whether we are about to get out troops out of Iraq?
In 2006, when we voted to get out of Iraq, all it seemed to take was the will to do so. Pelosi and Reid are nothing. Obama opposed Lamont's primary challenge to Lieberman. Everyone's comfortable with a certain amount of war. The left is as silent as a clam. There is no will to bring our troops home on the part of the democrats. They had tea with Bush and went away like stray dogs with a bone.

Now we have Obama.
And plans have already been made to "redistribute" our troops to Afghanistan, assuming of course that Al Qaeda doesn't do something in Iraq to keep them there. It has been reported that barracks are being built for 20,000 American soldiers. If Obama or Clinton or any of the rest of this old/new crew oppose it, they are keeping it a secret.

So - don't expect any waves of support for the democratic party from a weary populace. It lucked out that everybody's focus was diverted to the crisis in the economy. The left willingly is taking it's eye off the ball of perpetual war, content that "they" have made history. LOL.

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by: lentinel @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 07:55:57 AM CST

Yawn (0.00 / 0)

"Now we have Obama.
And plans have already been made to "redistribute" our troops to Afghanistan, assuming of course that Al Qaeda doesn't do something in Iraq to keep them there. It has been reported that barracks are being built for 20,000 American soldiers. If Obama or Clinton or any of the rest of this old/new crew oppose it, they are keeping it a secret. "

That is what he said through the campaign. In fact more soldiers in Afghanistan was his main difference between him and most other dems in the primary. Also he ALWAYS promised some residual forces in Iraq to help the embassy and strike out remaining alQida bases in Iraq if necessary. Don't act like all this is news to you and express outrage. Voters have made the  choice that they don't want the likes of denisi kusinich or the partisans like Hillary or the negative types like McCain. Democracy sucks doesn't it?

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by: Barry @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 15:48:35 PM CST

[ Parent ]

It's not news to me. (0.00 / 0)

I know this is what Obama said during the campaign.

I found it to be repellant.

My outrage is that the left has been so indifferent.

Maybe that's why you're yawning.

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by: lentinel @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 16:06:47 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Maybe because (0.00 / 0)

We support more troops in Afghanistan since the people there attacked and killed 3k Americans? or maybe we don't want our Iraq embassy bombed and want some minimal protection for the Iraqi gov. maybe that's why we are indifferent because we are for it and that is one of the reasons we supported obama over others in the bunch in the primaries.

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by: Barry @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 17:25:36 PM CST

[ Parent ]

If that's your point of view, (0.00 / 0)

you may have well settled for any of the other candidates - except Kucinich.

And you believe that we are in Afghanistan today because 8 years ago some creeps came from Saudi Arabia and did what they did.

OK.  

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by: lentinel @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 18:06:33 PM CST

[ Parent ]

They think bipartisanship is a virtue (4.00 / 4)

 At our state Democratic meeting yesterday in Annapolis, Frank Kratovil addressed us with a strong warning that now that we're in power, our continued success depends on us actually delivering the change we promised. He wasn't taking our gains in this election for granted. It sounded good; I was thinking, "He gets it!"

 Then he quickly followed that with a mushy appeal to bipartisanship and "reaching across the aisle". Pfffft.

 We need to elect some people who operate from the PREMISE that Republicans are assholes who can't be trusted. Because it happens to be true.  

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

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by: Master Jack @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 08:08:29 AM CST

Well (0.00 / 0)

You should have supported Clinton then, if you wanted partisan politics as usual. Obama is bi-partisan and he has been through out his campaign (and life I may add).

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by: Barry @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 15:40:14 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I would have (0.00 / 0)

supported Clinton, except I didn't think Clinton was going to win.  It was clear by the third or fourth primary that Obama was able to organize better and more productively than anybody else.  That's mainly why I supported him--- because I thought he had the best chance to win.  Tawdry, I know, but there it is. I'm not at all sure that Hillary would have been able to beat McSame.  None of that means that I have to like what Obama's doing, though.

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by: Querent @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 19:55:40 PM CST

[ Parent ]

On Jefferson (4.00 / 2)

 Didn't Jefferson win his primary because the voters, while very aware of his hideous corruption, basically took the attitude of "He's a corrupt bastard but he's OUR corrupt bastard"?

  So now, suddenly, Jefferson's corruption IS an issue, eh?

  In other words, it was more important to the party to defend Jefferson against a "clean" Democratic challenger than it was to defend him against a Republican.

  Our Democratic Party, in a nutshell.  

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

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by: Master Jack @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 08:24:43 AM CST

Virginia in 2009 (0.00 / 0)

I'll predict right now, though it is early, that Republicans will win the Virginia Governors race next November continuing a pattern that goes back to 1976/77 under which every year that one party wins the White House the opposite party wins the VA Gov. race the odd year after.

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by: howardpark @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 12:33:24 PM CST

2010 won't be predicated on bipartisanship (4.00 / 1)

It will be predicated on whether Obama is a popular president. Period.

If he has taken most troops from Iraq, if he has lots of infrastructure projects to point to, if the housing market has stabilized and the economy seems to be getting back on its feet, if gas prices aren't too high, Dems will be in good shape.

GA was a lost cause because of the demographics, Dollar Bill Jefferson deserved to lose, the other was a tossup race. Please don't take this measly evidence as proof that we're all doomed because Obama is being too nice to Republicans.

Obama needs more progressives in his cabinet, but I have no problem with this bipartisan b.s. if it helps him become more popular and get the votes he needs to get shit done. I think President Bowers, shitting on the Republican party (as much as they deserve it), would have a hard time overcoming many filibusters.

It's our job to shit on Republicans, not Obama's.

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by: existenz @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 12:40:18 PM CST

Well if that's my job (0.00 / 0)

I'll be getting a lot of job satisfaction.

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by: Querent @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 19:58:54 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Thoughts... (0.00 / 0)

I think the President-Elect should have put a little more effort into Georgia, even though I think they would have still lost.  

And I do agree with someone up thread that all the talk about McCain being "an honorable man" and "a good man" made his approval go up during the election and made his poll numbers go up, while Obama's went down.  You don't run against someone and say "they'll do a great job!", especially when the other side is throwing every bit of mud they can find.  

Remember, Clinton constantly reached out to Republicans, and they impeached him.  

I hope Mr. Obama will be bipartisan if Republicans want to help him pass his agenda, not if they want to derail it, like they did with Bill Clinton.  But then, Mr. Obama is a lot tougher than most people think he is.  

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by: JaneaneTheAcerbicGoblin @ Sun Dec 07, 2008 at 13:38:10 PM CST