Yeah, I look forward (4.00 / 2)

to debating whether the health care bill is a good or bad compromise.

Which is to say that the debates on this side of the aisle are only beginning, and that definitive answers about the effectiveness of O's tactics will be hard to come by.

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by: david mizner @ Fri Dec 19, 2008 at 16:16:51 PM CST

Instead of waiting until a bill is passed (4.00 / 3)

Why don't we start defining now what is a good compromise and what is a bad compromise?  What should the left be asking for and what should the left be willing to compromise on?

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both

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by: Anthony de Jesus @ Fri Dec 19, 2008 at 17:07:49 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Are you sure? .. (0.00 / 0)

come January 20th, there will be virtually no way Republicans can stop anything in 2009.

Are you saying that Mitch McConnell won't try and fuck everything up?  What other two Republican Senators, besides Specter and Voinivich(since Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu said no) will we get to break the filibuster attempt on EFCA?  Will we have other defections(like Mark Pryor)?  Look, I want things to go well too.  I just have very little faith in certain Democratic Senators and know all too well that Mitch McConnell relishes being a horse's ass

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by: Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle @ Fri Dec 19, 2008 at 16:27:01 PM CST

What did Landreau and Lincoln say about EFCA? (0.00 / 0)

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by: adamterando @ Fri Dec 19, 2008 at 16:42:36 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I see now (2.00 / 2)

While giving herself "room to support the measure if it's brought up later," Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) said yesterday that "she doesn't think federal legislation that would allow labor organizations to unionize workplaces without secret-ballot elections is necessary." The legislation in question is the Employee Free Choice Act, which allow workers to form a union if a majority sign cards of consent, instead of having to undergo a full and very often unfair "election" process.

LINK

Sigh...Well, the hope now is that this gives them wiggle room to vote against final passage but they'll still vote for cloture so at least it gets an up or down vote.  

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by: adamterando @ Fri Dec 19, 2008 at 16:45:57 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Addiction to anger, cynicism, and despair (0.00 / 0)

are the legacy of the last 14 years. And it's all too prevalent in the blogosphere.

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by: Brigid @ Fri Dec 19, 2008 at 16:32:26 PM CST

Yglesias (4.00 / 1)

Matt Yglesias has a good post on this, which I'll just steal outright:

I'm getting sort of tired of the endless discussion of whether Barack Obama is a wholesome liberal or an evil centrist, but I have to say something about one aspect of this story:

"Barack Obama has never made any bones about it: He is a moderate," said Matt Bennett, co-founder of Third Way, a moderate public policy think tank. "People who ignored that did so at their peril."

Third Way is a neat organization - I used to work across the hall from them. And they do a lot of clever messaging stuff that a lot of candidates find very useful. But their domestic policy agenda is hyper-timid incrementalist bullshit. There are a variety of issues that they have nothing whatsoever to say on, and what policy ideas they do have are laughable in comparison to the scale of the problems they allegedly address. Which is fine, because Third Way isn't really a "public policy think tank" at all, it's a messaging and political tactics outfit. But Barack Obama's policy proposals aren't like that. At all. Nor do personnel on his policy teams - including the more ideologically moderate members - stand for anything that's remotely as weak a brew as the stuff Third Way puts out. And yet, Third Way loves Barack Obama and says he's a moderate just like them. Which is great. But everyone needs to see that these things are moving in two directions simultaneously. At the very same time Obama is disappointing progressive supporters on a number of fronts, he's also bringing moderates on board for things that are way more ambitious than anything they were endorsing two or three years ago.

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by: Mark Matson @ Fri Dec 19, 2008 at 16:59:22 PM CST

I fail to see how he's really going to "bring on" the anti-abortion fundies. (0.00 / 0)

Rick Warren has adopted an implacable position. He and his followers hold true to their ideals; I can't see that it's anything but useless for Obama to sacrifice his. I suppose, at its best (in an efficacy sense,) it could be seen by a wide swath of moderates as a noble gesture of compromise. But are a width swath of moderates really following the Warren matter carefully? I'm just not seeing that as terribly plausible.

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by: sb @ Fri Dec 19, 2008 at 19:26:11 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Please note, now the Warrenites have brought in Ken Starr (4.00 / 1)

to forcibly divorce the 18,000 gay Californians who got married during the window of opportunity. Link. Is Obama on board with that?

Can it happen here?

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by: janinsanfran @ Fri Dec 19, 2008 at 21:12:57 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Exciting Times (4.00 / 1)

The eyes of the country and much of the world will be on Barack Obama.  Considering all the overwhelming challenges that the Obama administration, the country, and the world will be facing next year and the years ahead, the collective anticipation is rather amazing and it's still quite exciting to imagine and to see how things will unfold.  I'm convinced that no candidate other than Barack Obama would have the public engaged in such desperate times.  Surely apathy or perhaps depression would have taken over long ago.  

It's unfortunate that when we finally have a Democratic president and a Democratic majority the country is facing so many serious challenges.  But it's because of these serious challenges that many great things might be accomplished that otherwise would not have even been attempted or considered possible.  We are entering one of those rare moments in history where tragic events present great opportunity.  George Bush squandered his moment.  Only time will tell what Barack Obama does with his.
     

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by: Kane @ Fri Dec 19, 2008 at 17:37:39 PM CST

Completely agree with you about this (0.00 / 0)

I've been mostly absent here because I can't really deal in organizing and conflict over symbolism -- I need to see concretes.

Being gay and sentient, I've had to mobilize against Warren, but really I need to see where this is all going. Then I'll put my shoulder to the wheel to push it where I think it ought to go. That wa-a-a-a-y left, of course!

Can it happen here?

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by: janinsanfran @ Fri Dec 19, 2008 at 21:07:36 PM CST

shouldn't we be writing these bills... (0.00 / 0)

rather than waiting?  Take "we" to mean whatever version of it you want.

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by: dr anonymous @ Sat Dec 20, 2008 at 03:42:11 AM CST