Open Left - Darcy Burner

Darcy Burner discusses what's behind DeFazio's remarks that Geithner & Summers should go

Paul Rosenberg — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:00:00 GMT

On Wednesday, Chris wrote a quick hit on Representative DeFazio's statement that there was "growing consensus" among Congressional liberals that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner should step down. He went on to say that Summers should go as well. Folks in the blogosphere have been saying as much for a long time now, but this seemed like something new, coming from a veteran Representative. The piece Chris linked to ended with DeFazio saying, ""We may have to sacrifice just two more jobs to get millions back for Americans," underscoring that it was not just a general criticism of Geithner and Summers, but one closely tied to the need for shifting from a Wall Street-centered economic policy to a Main Street-centered one. So I followed up by talking with Darcy Burner, Executive Director of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, to see what it might mean.

Open Left: On MSNBC Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said Wednesday that he and other liberal House members are becoming increasingly tired of the Obama administration economic policies that are too focused on maintaining the stability and health of Wall Street firms and largely ignore Main Street. There's been significant criticism of Geithner and Summers in the blogosphere since their appointments were first announced, and significant criticism of their policies as well. There's been scattered and occasional congressional criticism before, but this sounds like it's a good deal more serious. Is it? And if so, why is it different and why now? Let's take those one at a time.

Is it different?

Darcy Burner: My best guess is that it is more serious. Now the Progressive Caucus has not taken an official position. Congressman DeFazio was speaking on his own behalf, quite eloquently, I thought. I particularly liked the line about "losing two jobs to save millions." But I think that the indications are that there is growing dissatisfaction among the members of Congress who very much want to see a set of economic policies that are going to help main street, rather than just Wall Street. And a jobless recovering isn't particularly progressive approach to how we solve the economic crisis that we're in.

Now, it is the case, obviously, that we have some progressives who've been very active, particularly in the financial reform aspect, if you look at Alan Grayson, for instance. He is a member of the Progressive Caucus, he's been extraordinarily involved in asking the tough questions, and encouraging his fellow members on the Financial Services Committee to ask some really tough questions at the hearings they've held, about the Federal Reserve, about the banking system, about the banks, about some of the Wall Street shenanigans.

So there has been growing pressure from members of Congress. And, you know, we're seeing some traction around the idea of auditing the Fed, and finding out what's really going on there.

So I don't think it's particularly surprising that there would be an expression of real dissatisfaction with the Administration's economic policies and the economic advisors from progressives in Congress.
Open Left: As to why now, is there any one factor, such as unemployment hitting double digits, or do you think it's just a combination of things?

Darcy Burner: My educated guess is that it's a combination of things. Unemployment hitting double-digits is certainly a factor, the upcoming financial reform legislation, which has been watered down and watered down, and watered down again to the point where there are legitimate criticisms that it probably institutionalizes some of the worst abuses, rather than fixing them, the introduction by Congressman Conyers of a bill to restore Glass-Steagall, the ongoing discussion of the [Elizabeth] Warren Commission about what's broken in the way that this set of economic advisors has approached stabilizing the financial sector. All of those have been building and building and building, to the point that at some point we were going to hit a tipping point, and we may be just about there.

Open Left: The thing that always gets asked by insider journalists, and I hate to be like that, but to the extent it can shed some light on something people outside the Beltway always have to wonder--Is this just a trial balloon? Or can we expect more congressmembers to speak out in the next several days? Should people expect that? Or not be disappointed if that doesn't happen? What's your sense of how our audience should see it?

Darcy Burner: Well, I think it's certainly a call to take a hard look at what's going on in Congress at what progressives both inside and outside of Congress should be working on. One thing I was thinking about was that you should-I know that Congressman Grijalva made a statement at some point today, to a member of the traditional press about Congressman DeFazio's statement. I don't know exactly what was in his statement, but probably worth setting it up so that you can talk to him directly and either get a statement form hi press person to figure out what Congressman Grijalva is saying, because as one of the co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, it's entirely possible that he'll be driving something. [Editor's note: We're following up on this.]

Now it's worth noting that Congressman Frank is also a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. SO there are interesting dynamics at play.

Open Left: Is there anything you can tell us about discussions going on about the need to change direction. You've mention these things before, and how they're converging in terms of pressure, is there something more that's going on that without breaking confidences that you can tell us might be about to surface?

Darcy Burner: There has been consistent discussion among the progressive members that I talk to on a regular basis, including Congressman Grijalva of the need for progressives to be very actively engaged in the discussions about the economy, and what we do relative to the economy, both in terms of financial sector reforms and in terms of a potential upcoming jobs bill, and the set of policies around that.

To a large extent, it was we get past health care, we're going to take a breath for just a second, and 'All right now, we need to deal with the economy.'

But it has been, I think, assumed that the next big fight they would pick would be around making the economy work for most Americans rather than just multi-millionaire investment bankers.

Open Left: On the subject of a jobs bill, something else I've been working on ever singe since the Stimulus fight is the inadequate funding of the states for the shortfalls for their budgets, because it's a dollar-for-taking away from public sector spending, and that's a lot of jobs, particularly in education and health care, construction. Every time the states have to cut their budgets, fiscally it's really no different than if the federal government was cutting spending. So is that a topic that people have been discussing?

Darcy Burner: I know that it's a topic that's being discussed in DC. I've attending a number of the briefings and think-tank events that people have been talking about the various ways, different progressive approaches to fixing the economy. And certainly dealing with state and municipal spending, and trying to deal with their budget shortfalls has come up repeatedly as one of the issues that needs to be addressed. I don't know how engaged the members of Congress are in that discussion. And at the moment I think it is pretty clear that it will be one of the things that will be on the table to be discussed, in figuring out how to create jobs in actually meaningful ways to fix the economy.

Open Left: Is there anything that activists or ordinary citizens can do to contribute to changing direction on economic issues that you would recommend?

Darcy Burner: I think that there are two related but not identical efforts that are going on. One is what do you do about financial sector reform, and the second is what do you do about a jobs package and economic policies more broadly than just financial sector reform. There are opportunities to get engaged in both.

Some of the work that the Warren Commission has done in financial sector oversight and the TARP program is surprisingly readable, and I think that applying some pressure to Congress very broadly to take the recommendations of the Warren Commission seriously would be frankly really helpful.

From my personal perspective, if I were going to chose one thing that I would ask people to focus on-and this is me, speaking as me-in the next few weeks, it would be get a basic handle on that part of the recommendations to push forward, they have the potential to have a big impact.

The other thing is I think there is an opportunity to do some interesting policy work around how you create jobs, that the Progressive Congressional Caucus, and progressives in general are much more open than most of Congress to some inside-outside approaches to figuring out what the best policies are.

Were starting to have some active discussions about what might make sense, would I think be really constructive. I mean, does it make sense to approach-if there is going to be a jobs bill--does it make sense to create some WPA-like program? And if so, what does it look like, and who are the experts? And what do the numbers look like on that? Does it make sense-as you said--to focus on state and municipal spending? What are the numbers there? Who are the experts? Are there other things they should be looking at? In terms of creative ways to leverage federal dollars into jobs and economic growth in the country?

I think that now would be a really good moment for the progressive community to do some of the really creative thinking, which I think the movement is frankly pretty good at when it tries.

Open Left: Switching gears a bit, to a more negative sign that's come up, Obama was also just quoted saying that if we didn't cut spending, it could lead to a double-dip recession. There was a direct quote on this--""I think it is important though to recognize that if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the US economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession." But that totally confuses short-term and long-term consequences, and in fact cutting back on spending before the recovery is accomplished is most likely to cause a double-dip recession, similar to what happened when FDR tried to balance the budget in 1937. Are congressional Democrats worried about that sort of thinking as well? Is that even on people's radar yet?

Darcy Burner: Based on the conversations that I have had, progressives understand the problem It's not the progressives issue here. Not to be cynical, but it's fascinating to me that spending doesn't count when it's war spending. But does if we're actually helping people keep their houses for certain factions of the party.

I would argue that spending on the creation of the US infrastructure, that people keep their houses so that it's stabilized the underlying security on which the financial crisis was founded... Even the cash-for-clunkers program had significant positive impact in a Main Street sort of way. But we don't blink an eye at dropping $700 billion on TARP.

Open Left: I always like to end by asking a person I interview what's the most important question I didn't ask that I should have, and what's the answer to it. It just a way that, often something pops into your head that doesn't get expressed because you're already saying something more responsive. So I always like to give a chance for someone to reflect and say something about something that they wanted to address that didn't get asked about directly.

Darcy Burner: There's something that I'd actually like to emphasize, which is that in the fight over heath care reform, we saw for maybe the first time, the outside progressive movement and progressives in Congress align around a set of ideas and principles, and move the legislation substantially to the left of where it would have been otherwise.

Nobody will claim that the House Bill was perfectly progressive or everything they want, but it is a much more progressive bill than the progressives on the Hill could have gotten without the help of the movement.

That alignment between the inside and the outside and recognizing that the whole is very much greater than the sum of its parts, in the case of the movement and Congressional progressives actively working together on policymaking, applies equally well to fights around the economy.

If we want progressive policy enacted, then the Congressional Progressive Caucus and its members are our champions, and we're the leverage that they bring to bear that gives them a real competitive advantage over the Blue Dogs and the New Dems.

Open Left: Since you brought that up, there's still this lingering fight that comes up with some people who are advocates of single payer-and I am a longtime single-payer advocate myself, though I don't take this position-but some single-payer advocates take the position that single-payer has been sold out because people were fighting for the public option, in a way that they weren't fighting for single-payer. I'd like you to speak to that.

Darcy Burner: I think we're addressing tht pretty directly. It might be worth you dairying about it separately at some point.

Open Left: I do have something written for this weekend, but I wanted to let you address it yourself, since you mentioned working together. And I do see what you were saying, that the result we have is much more progressive than seemed possible coming out of August. Things did not look headed in a very progressive direction at all at that time.

Darcy Burner: Exactly. I have several drafts of several angry diaries that I have not posted for obvious reasons. The deal is that governing and policy-making, unlike electoral politics, isn't something where you win it all or lose it all at a single moment in time. It's a [question of] where do you fall on the spectrum, more progressive, less progressive, and trying to figure out within the constraints in which you're operating, how to maximize the progressiveness of the result that you get. And it's perfectly fine to disagree on strategy, I think that having active discussions about what works, what doesn't work, what we might try next time, I think that that's really healthy and constructive.

I, on the campaign trial was pretty clearly a single-payer advocate. I'm on the record in that regard, the vast majority of the members of the Progressive Caucus are co-sponsors of HR 676, John Conyers is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. You know, the issue was never that people didn't want single-payer. The issue was figuring out strategically how to effectively move the legislation in as progressive a direction as you possibly could, and the view of the caucus leadership-and it's really hard to claim, for instance, that Lynn Woolsey isn't sufficiently progressive, that's a tough sell. But the view of the caucus leadership was that they couldn't see a path to get 218 for single-payer in the short term.

That wasn't a fight that given this congress, given this environment was possible to win. And everything that they did started with the statement, 'We would strongly prefer single-payer, but given we understand that that's not what's going to happen, as a second choice we demand, at a minimum that ther be a public option.

When I was putting together briefings for them, when we brought in experts, we tried to bring in experts not only the public option, but also on single payer to have a discussion about how we make sure that the path they were pursuing left open possibilities for the future.

I think that a significant majority of the people who believe that single payer is a much better solution than the path we're on right now-and this includes myself-figured it was better to make the legislation as progressive as possible than it was to take our ball and go home. Because if progressives had taken their ball and gone home, and said our line in the sand is single-payer, we won't settle for anything less, then in order to get 218 votes for health care reform, the leadership would have actually had to go in the other direction, and to figure out how to pick up Republican votes.

Because this is not an issue of it being a little bit worse than it would have been. Had the progressive walked, had they drawn the line at single-payer and said 'We're going to walk if we don't get single-payer'. since your not going to get 218 votes for single-payer, that effectively cuts them out of the loop, and at that point it's 'How do we get the votes of however many-20 or 30 Republicans.' And think about how bad the legislation would have to be to pick up 20 or 30 Republicans in the House.

So I think it's totally fine to have a real discussion about strategy and what we can learn and what works and what didn't work, and how we can make future battles that we fight--how we can get stronger, for the next fight, as well as winning the fights that we're picking.

Those are discussions we should absolutely be having. My frustration is with the accusations of bad faith, on the part of the people who have been working incredibly hard to try to make the legislation that was moving through Congress as progressive as we possibly could.

Open Left: Okay, thank you very much for your time.

An Alternative to the Public Option I Could Live With

Mike Lux — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:15:00 GMT

The folks who read my blog posts might be surprised to learn that there is an alternative to the public option I could live with (besides single-payer, of course, that being my preferred option from the beginning). I have been an advocate for a very hard line on the public option, as I discussed here yesterday. But there is one other alternative I would feel okay about, and Bob Creamer outlines it today in his great post, Three Reasons Why a Strong Public Option is Likely to Be Part of Health Insurance Reform.

More on Bob's post, the alternative I could live with, and an action to take, in the extended entry.
Here's the part of Bob's post I'm referring to:

Once everyone is required to buy insurance, the companies can have a field day raising prices and profits using the government to guarantee they are paid - either through subsidies or the imposition of fines. You can see why, from an insurance company perspective, this would be a great deal.
But from the point of view of the taxpayers - and the insurance ratepayers - it would be a disaster. It would be like giving the insurance companies a license to take your money - with no regulation - all enforced by government edict.
This, of course, is basically what happened with the prescription drug benefit - Medicare Part D. But there is a big political difference. A huge percentage of the money used to pay the insurance and drug companies in Medicare Part D comes from the taxpayers (or deficits). Most of the money that will go to pay for health insurance in a new system will come from ratepayers - individuals and companies who will feel the sting of rate increases directly.
What politician in his right mind would pass a law that requires individuals and businesses to buy products from companies who can then charge whatever the traffic will bear -- especially in an industry where premiums have increased three times faster than wages, and profits keep heading skyward even in the worst recession in 60 years? Once government requires you to purchase a product, it has to provide some means to assure that the price is fair.
There are only two real practical solutions to this problem. On the one hand, you could set up a public health insurance option that does not have the same incentives to increase profit or CEO salaries and would compete against the private insurance companies and keep them honest. That is what President Obama has proposed. Or you could regulate health insurance rates.
Now rate regulation is not a crazy idea. It's been done for years in segments of the insurance market at the state level. But if you think the private health insurance industry is fighting tooth and nail to stop a Public option - wait to see what they would do to stop rate regulation

So to my esteemed colleagues in the insurance industry, how's this for a compromise: we'll give up the public option but we will regulate health insurance rates instead. We will institute a system of strict price and rate controls, just like utilities have to live with where they weren't deregulated. That would do more to cut health care cost increases than any other thing we could do. So what do you think, guys?

This is the amazing irony of this whole debate, as it was by the way of the last one (1993-94). Insurance companies are happy to support universal coverage, but they are dead set against anything that would either control their prices or provide them any real competition or accountability.

This is why so many of us who know the health care issue are so determined to not give in on demanding a public option. Look, I am a pragmatist and an Obama loyalist. I want this President to be successful, and having fought a searingly painful fight in the Clinton health care war room a generation ago, I want health care form like I would want a drink of cold water in the middle of a hot desert. But without either a public option, or the kind of strong rate regulation Creamer is talking about, health care reform is a nightmare for the public and for the federal budget. It is not "the good" in the sentence "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good," it is a plain and simple disaster. That is why I don't agree with another good friend and ally of mine, Paul Begala, in his op-ed comparing health care reform and Social Security. I respect the argument he is making, and if it were another issue less fundamental to whether the whole thing works, I might agree. But keeping the insurance companies honest, as Barack Obama likes to put it, is too central to everything. That's only possible with either tough rate regulation or a public plan, because this co-op thing is a jumbled mess that clearly is a non-starter.

Health care is something everyone has to deal with in their and their families' lives and it is at the heart of our federal deficit problem. If the Democrats don't get it (at least mostly) right, we are done as a governing party in spite of all the other demographic and political advantages we have. It's time to face the music and tame the insurance industry dragon.

On an action note, my good friends Howie Klein, Jane Hamsher, Darcy Burner and the Atkins brothers, along with DFA, have put together an action to thank progressive Democrats for standing firm on the public option. Thank them here, and donate to your favorite one or five here. As you can see below, many of our fellow activists who think this is critical have.

(VIDEO) Netroots Nation Day 3: It Comes to an End

Rusty5329 — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 18:23:50 GMT

originally posted at Sum of Change

Also, thank you to DemFromCT for throwing a handful of our videos in the abbreviated pundit roundup this weekend.

Netroots Nation '09 is over. Of course, we are still up until 5:30am (again) working on footage. Today we filmed Valerie Jarrett's conversation with Netroots Nation attendees, a keynote panel with Governor Jon Corzine, Anna Burger, Kevin Drumm, and Dean Baker, the closing keynote with Senator Jim Ferlo, Richard Tumka of the AFL-CIO, and Darcy Burner of the American Proggressive Caucus PolicyFoundation, and four more panels.

We'll start off with a real quick video on an issue that means a lot to me...
This is Chris Bowers on the spread of information over television vs the internet:

Next is another quick video, this one from the incredibly educational panel, "Cutting-Edge Evidence-Based Best Practices." In this video, Regina Schwartz talks about testing done on 2008 Presidential Primary GOTV calling in Pennsylvania:

Next up is another video from the best practices panel, this one about getting the youth out to vote:

Dave Karpf on hubs in social networking:

Dave Karpf: Who is winning YouTube?

Matthew Kerbel & Dave Karpf: Who is ahead in the Blogosphere?

Richard Trumka, who, during the Presidential campaign, famously said what so many were thinking but would not say:

Darcy Burner ended the night with this powerful speech:

In total, two of us filmed 16 panels, and had two cameras running for every major event throughout the weekend. We filmed all day, every day, and edited all night, every night. I'm still running on about 7 hours of sleep since Wednesday. Throughout the weekend we have been posting some highlights. Over the coming weeks we will release more extensive coverage, including the entirety of several panels.

Here is a list of the panels and events that we filmed so you can get a sense of what to expect:

Thursday, August 13th
-The Myth of Post Racial America
-From Prop 8 to Full Equality in all 50 States
-Bloggers and Blue Collar Workers Unite
-How to Get the Most Out of Polling Data
-@FDR is there a New Deal?
-How to Work with Unions in Your District
-The Secret Plan to Defeat the Conservatives Forever
-Getting Noticed: Grassroots Media & Film Distribution Caucus
-President Bill Clinton, Welcome Keynote

Friday, August 14th
-Governor Howard Dean Healthcare Townhall
-Pennsylvannia Leadership Forum with Senator Arlen Specter and Congressman Joe Sestak
-Congressman Joe Sestak, media availability
-Stepping it up: Creating Multiracial Alliances with Bloggers
-Science Denial and Science Policy
-Four Perspectives from the Soc. Change Blogosphere
-Organizing in Second Life and other Virtual Environment

Saturday, August 15th
-Valerie Jarret in Conversation with Baratunde Thurston
-Building a 21st Century Economy Keynote Panel with Governor Jon Corzine, Anna Burger, Kevin Drum, and Dean Baker
-Academic Studies of the Netroots
-Advocating for Reproductive Rights in the Age of Obama
-Cutting Edge Evidence Based Best Practices
-How Technology can Enhance Democracy in PBH and Beyond
-Closing Keynote with Darcy Burner, Richard Trumka, and Senator Jim Ferlo

Will Colorado Senator Mike Bennet stand with workers?

AdamGreen — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:44:19 GMT

David Sirota mentioned some Democrats' (ahem, Harry Reid) plentiful lack of backbone when it comes to empowering workers to organize.

Last Friday night, I was in Colorado and attended a House party for recently-appointed Colorado Senator Mike Bennet. Joining me was Darcy Burner, the legendary people-powered congressional candidate from Seattle, who spoke on a panel with me the next day.

I was very much looking forward to taking inventory of this new senator. Was he smart? Was he authentic? Did he connect with regular people? The answer to all of these things was yes. Indeed, in 30 minutes of Q&A, he quickly rose on the list of politicians I respect.

With one big exception. For some odd reason, he seemed to freeze up -- twice -- when asked about his position on the Employee Free Choice Act. He said he didn't have a position.

The next day, Darcy mentioned this during our panel. Local progressive activist Max Tyler raised his hand and said he asked Bennet the same question at another event and got the same answer. Colorado blogger John Erhardt of SquareState.net describes what happened next:

Darcy Burner challenged us in that discussion to call [Colorado] senators and congressmen, to pressure them to support worker's rights. So when the panel ended, an amazing thing happened. Candidate for CO-06, David Canter came to the front of the room and asked if he could be part of that challenge.

On the spot, Canter cut a YouTube video with Darcy and Max Tyler, announcing that he was posting an online petition urging Colorado's congressional delegation to stand with workers and publicly endorse the Employee Free Choice Act. Here's the video:

This was a remarkably bold thing for a first-time congressional candidate to do--challenging a sitting U.S. Senator and others to get off the fence on an important issue. You can add your voice to Canter's call by signing his petition here. (You can also give this bold progressive a buck by donating here.)

And Senator Bennet, if you'd like to do something similarly bold, feel free to announce your position on the Employee Free Choice Act right here at the OpenLeft!

Darcy Burner the Future of Washington State Politics?

Sean Gallegos — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 01:27:00 GMT

From the Examiner Link
Dwight Pelz
While one might think that, after a great victory that saw the election of a Progressive African-American to the Whitehouse and the triumphant re-election of your party's governor, not to mention pickups in both the legislature and other executive offices, the chair of the state Democrats would be in a pretty safe position. But this is Washington and we are talking about Democrats. For those who need a refresher, Dwight Pelz came to be the chair of the state Democrats when Paul Berendt stepped down from the post in January of 2006 (after leading the effort to ensure all the votes were counted in the first Gregoire-Rossi match-up) and a special election was held to fill the vacancy. While Pelz has presided over the successes listed above, he has also rubbed some of the rank and file a bit sore with an often abrasive personal style and a perceived lack of respect for the grassroots. It is possibly the fact that those successes have been achieved and that there are no real overriding electoral challenges ahead of the party for another two years that might seem to signal an opening for someone to mount a challenge for Pelz's job.
Enter Darcy Burner?
Darcy Burner - New Party Head?
In the past few days I have heard from a few inside sources that, soon after it had become apparent that Burner was not going prevail in her race against Dave Reichert, she was being approached to challenge Pelz for the Chair's position. While I have not gotten any official confirmation from Darcy or anyone in her "inner circle" it is my understanding that she considering the challenge. Obviously Darcy Burner would benefit from great support from the so called netroots community and plenty of name recognition amongst the potential Democratic voting bloc in the King County area and beyond. She certainly would represent a stark contrast to Pelz's macho persona. A potential drawback, of course, would be the perception that Burner might be seeking to use the position as a "place holder" while she determines her next political move. For many there is a distinct line between "party people" and politicians and for them positions of intra-party leadership should be reserved for the former.

Would the Netroots support her as chair the way they supported her as a candidate for congress? A number of Washington state party insiders were willing to state that the idea of supporting a woman in leadership, especially here in the State of Washington seems very likely. With Governor Gregoire, And the two Senators of Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, and Majority Leader in the State Senate Lisa Brown, women find mining for votes in Washington State a lucrative business. Whether or not Darcy is in the race for sure, questions surround Dwight Pelz who often finds little interest in Grassroots, let alone Netroots. Will the change moniker continue to shift through the party after the election of Obama? Or will we see that where Democrats are concerned change is only skin deep.

Grassroots organizer Mark Hintz chair of the Snohomish County Democrats has already declared himself a challenger and is getting some of the party loyalists to back him. This race seems wide open... Stay tuned!

Sad News Overnight Thread

Chris Bowers — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 07:36:09 GMT

It isn't fun to report on bad news, much less on a weekend night after a big victory. However, there are two sad items to report:

Darcy concedes: Darcy Burner has conceded in Washington's 8th congressional district. Darcy writes over email:
"It is likely at this point that Congressman Reichert has won re-election, and while we will certainly ensure that every valid vote is counted, we accept the decision of the voters.

"I would like to thank the thousands of people who put so much time and effort into the campaign, as well as the countless thousands more who went beyond voting to actively participate in our democratic process this year. The election of Barack Obama as our new President will ensure that the change to the direction of our country called for in this campaign is realized in the new year."

This is a victory for local media hit jobs over people power and smart, young leaders. And it is just really, really frakking sad. Darcy's insight, strength and organizing ability will always hold real meaning to me. And she is just a great person, too. It is very rare that I feel a connection with a congressional candidate.
Fifty-state strategy on hold: The DNC organizers who actually form the core of the 50-state strategy at the DNC are being laid off:
A rumor at this point (or rather, someone unwilling to go on record) but what I'm hearing is that the DNC organizers who implement the 50 state strategy are about to be let go. Apparently they will be laid off at the end of the month, and the new DNC chair will decide whether he or she wants to continue the 50 state policy.

Hopefully, the new DNC chair will decide to keep the fifty-state strategy alive. However, I'm not optimistic:
It is worth noting, however, that the 50 state strategy's biggest opponent, for years has been Rahm Emanuel. Rahm's new job? Chief of Staff. Wonder if Obama's ok with this?

I'll guess we will find out. If the organizers get re-hired after Obama selects the new DNC chair, then he believes in the fifty state strategy. If they don't get re-hired, then the only fifty state strategy Obama believed in was the one for his own campaign. I'm strongly hoping it is the former, but Emanuel really was the strongest opponent of the fifty-state strategy.

I'm sorry to be the bring of bad news tonight. However, the fifty-state strategy and Darcy Burner were two big netroots campaigns over the past four years, and these reports needed to be made.

Bad News in WA-08

Matt Stoller — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:33:49 GMT

Reichert has taken a 5000 vote lead, and is even up in King County, which was supposed to be Darcy's base. There are still votes to count, and we have no idea which votes, so it's possible that there are some very pro-Darcy blocs yet to be tallied. Each batch seems to be getting worse for Burner's totals and better for Reichert.

Damn this one hurts.

WA-08: "Both Sides Should Be Very Nervous"

Matt Stoller — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:57:40 GMT

Darcy is currently down by around 1400 votes, around 1%, with what looks like about a third of the vote counted. It's impossible to tell what's going to happen because the uncounted and counted votes are in clumps with distinct partisan leanings. That is, the counted votes are not representative of what the uncounted votes will look like. David Goldstein has the summary of what's going on.

That said, both camps should be very nervous right now. Later today, and possibly tomorrow, after more early absentees are counted, Darcy will likely regain the lead... and then over the next few days, as the late absentees are added to the tally, that lead will likely slowly ebb away. To what degree either of these predictions hold true, if at all, depends on turnout and the partisan composition of yesterday's electorate, neither of which we know enough about yet from the ballots that have been counted in the district thus far.

There's limited context around the data we have so far, and the elongated vote-counting is very frustrating. But you can read whatever you want into the data, since the poll voters skew for Reichert and they have been counted, and the early absentees skew for Darcy, and some of them have been counted. The big clump of votes in the middle is the question.

WA-08: A 600 Vote Difference

Matt Stoller — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:36:18 GMT

Washington's eighth district vote counting is even slower than usual. Right now, Burner is up by 50.39% to Reichert's 49.61%, a very slender 46,068 to 45,347 lead. This one's too close to call, and won't be resolved until Friday at the earliest.

Washington State Report: Rossi Crushed, Reichert Behind

Matt Stoller — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 06:17:24 GMT

Dino Rossi just came on TV, losing 51-49, and talked about how his campaign will go on throughout the week. Only, King County, Gregoire's base county, hasn't really come in yet. That means that Rossi has a few days of vote counting before he concedes. The trends were good in that race and these results bear that out.

In Washington's eighth, Darcy Burner is ahead by 5100 votes, but the count has not moved for hours and the counting machines are really slow and three hours behind. The trend at the end was against Darcy Burner in this one, and my guess is she'll wind up behind by the end of the night as the more Republican poll voters are counted. Still, with these initial results she's definitely in a good position to take the seat.

... Pierce absentees are coming in, and Darcy lost 1000 votes. That's a really good result.

And CNN is calling it for Gregoire.

Darcy Up 13 point in King County

Matt Stoller — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 04:23:28 GMT

King County results site is here. Pierce County results site is here. Pierce is far more Republican and has not reported any results. King is Darcy's base and the early votes are her voters.

Dave Reichert
16396
43.15%
Darcy Burner
21594
56.83%

The next drop of voters should be poll-voters, and will probably eliminate her lead entirely.

Darcy Burner Expectations: We Won't Know Tonight

Matt Stoller — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:36:38 GMT

I think this race is going to be very, very close. Though Obama is running far ahead of McCain in this district, if you've been following this site then you've been aware of the aggressive and effective campaign to delegitimize Darcy as both a creature of the netroots and an untrustworthy liar and pump up Reichert as a 'moderate' good guy. Both concepts are absurd, but they have taken hold in certain parts of the district. Reichert, the NRCC, and centrist activist Emily Heffter of the Seattle Times have been able to plant the seeds of mistrust among voters, and we'll see tonight just how much they are going to reap. What does that mean?

Well, it's going to be tight. Additionally, King County's election processes are unbelievably dysfunctional. The county, which is both Darcy's base and provides the bulk of the vote for the district, will count only around 40% of the ballots by the end of the day. By Friday, only about 70% of the ballots should be counted in King County, with the more conservative Pierce County having tallied up its voting totals much earlier. In both counties, the poll votes will be counted today, but most of the district votes by absentee, and the nature of the voting blocs are different depending on when you vote. Like most Democrats around the country, Darcy will have a lead among early voters, but she will probably lose the poll vote that is the first bit to be counted. So she'll wind up behind tonight, even if she's going to ultimately win the seat.
A a certain thresholds, there will be a hand or machine recount, so this race could go on for weeks. My hope is that Darcy puts it away tonight, but I don't think that's very likely. Here's Darcy herself on Dailykos:

I don't know whether we will know the outcome of my race tonight. The good news is that a huge number of people voted early by mail, and the enthusiasm was on our side. The bad news is that both King and Pierce Counties will be counting votes very, very slowly. We're currently expecting to be behind Congressman Reichert in the poll votes because so many of our voters voted early. And those votes of many of our most enthusiastic supporters won't be counted today; many of them won't be counted until late this week or early next week.
To be specific, we'll know the votes of the roughly 100k voters in my district who vote at the polls today, but only about 40k to 50k of the roughly 250k who voted early. Our best guess is that King and Pierce Counties will count 40k to 50k votes per day in my race, which is, obviously, another five or six days of counting.

So there we go. I know people tend to give lip service to the notion that the work doesn't stop the day after election day. In this case, that's actually very true. If the poll vote is at all close, my guess is Darcy takes the seat. If not, hold on to your hats, there's counting to do.

Donor Match on Better Democrats: Two Final Days

Matt Stoller — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 21:29:52 GMT

Ok, so the big dollar donor match I announced earlier happened with the first $5k, and that money is being moved to candidates as we speak. Congrats, you guys unlocked a bunch of money to great Democratic women. But there's still some money left on the table, since we haven't yet hit $15k that the donors promised to match. This money will be useful for the campaigns; there are last minute cable and TV buys happening and field programs, so if you can put something in, your donations will be doubled.

You can give here. Nearly every woman on the list is in a tough fight, a close fight, and your bit of cash could possibly tip the scales.

The Moment Moderate Republicans Turn into Losers

Matt Stoller — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 00:53:09 GMT

Reichert just switched up his ad traffic, substituting this ad for his earlier Harvard Hoax ads. His Harvard Hoax ads were a clear attack on Burner's trustworthiness as a candidate, but this ad, titled 'Denise', is entirely different. It's a female union leader named Denise Spencer saying that she's scared of Darcy Burner and only slightly alluding to the Harvard hoax line of criticism. It is, in short, a change of message three days before the election and after a good number of ballots have come in.

Burner volunteers reported a poll last week by someone asking about various lines of attack on Darcy, and it was clear that someone was doing research on the race. My guess now is that it was the Reichert campaign, and they realized the Harvard ad, though sticky and memorable, didn't persuade anyone to vote for Reichert. There are more clear shifts in strategy. After mocking the Burner campaign for sending out two glossy magazine pieces titled 'Darcy' with long articles on Burner's policy ideas and various endorsements, the Reichert campaign has come out with their own magazine mail piece titled 'Reichert'.

It seems like a laughable shift in strategy. There's one other possibility, which is that a swing block - younger female independents and Democrats - could move to Reichert with the right persuasion message. The other possibility is that Reichert just hit his loser moment.

This is a certain moment I've noticed among 'moderates' being challenged by progressives, when these moderates run out of arguments to make and begin to resort to tin-eared attacks. In 2006, Nancy Johnson went after Chris Murphy for letting terrorists make phone calls, and you sort of realized she had turned into a loser. When Al Wynn went after Donna Edwards for not renewing her law license, or Lieberman ran a weird Lowell Weicker bear ad, or Gordon Smith went harshly negative at Merkley for helping rapists, you realized that they just weren't in tune with the voters. That's how John McCain has run his campaign, and it became clear he was a complete failure when Palin gave her interview to Katie Couric. His 'maverick' choice, his brand, had gotten blown out of the water by intrepid interviewer Katie Couric?!?

This loser moment happens for a number of reasons. It's partially an ego thing, where a lot of these candidates simply cannot and will not believe that someone dares to challenge them, let alone some liberal. It's partially that the concept of a 'moderate Republican' or 'moderate Democrat' doesn't actually make any sense in an age of polarization. And it's partially that no one actually knows how to market moderate conservatives in this new progressive environment, and so the marketing is just bad. Usual charges like 'she's a liberal' don't work; it's been so long since liberals were in charge of anything or had a clear brand that it's no longer even an insult.

There's no value in the conservative brand right now, voters trust Democrats on every single issue with the possible exception of terrorism, and terrorism is just not the dominant voting issue anymore. The anti-crime arguments of the 1980s? Gone. The economy? Gone. Health care? Ha! Taxes? Gone. There's really nothing left except character attacks and a weird anti-partisan message. And so that's what we're seeing.

A $15K Donor Match for Better Democratic Women

Matt Stoller — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:18:38 GMT

As you may have noticed, we busted through our goal of 600 donors on the Better Democrats page. We're amazed and shocked that people here were able and willing to raise this much money on our little ole blog for progressive Democrats in such a short amount of time. I think what it means is that there's a real hunger not just for change, but for progressive change. And that's the key. In 2009, we could be sitting with a Blue Dog swing block or we could be sitting with a progressive swing block. And the difference between the two is immense.

A couple of big donors have stepped up to match donations of up to $3000 apiece for the women on the page. I've moved them all up to the top. Alice Kryzan just got the Working Families party line, which should help her immensely. Darcy Burner, Debbie Cook, Annette Taddeo, and Sam Bennett are all facing tight races, but all of them are winnable. Chris and I have blogged about how the caucuses are divided not just by ideology but by gender, so having more women in Congress will be very important. It shouldn't be a surprise that the Blue Dogs and the Republicans are nearly all men. In 2006, most of the new Democrats were men. This cycle, we need to even out the freshman class.

Now, Chris and I are shocked that 600 of you have thrown some cash towards Better Democrats since we set up the page. But that's still about 1% of the daily readership of this blog. That means that a lot of you haven't given. Well now's a great time, since you can get your donation matched to a great progressive Democratic woman. Even if it's just $5, it matters. So give. And don't be shy about throwing some cash to some of the men, too, they're ok I guess.

Local Media Continues to Pound Darcy Burner

Matt Stoller — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 22:56:01 GMT

Local Glenn Beck ripoff Ken Schram insults breast-feeding mother.

In most of the country, the wave is breaking hard against Republicans, but in Seattle, the local media, which I'm more and more convinced is and has always been nothing more than a conservative interest group (as Upton Sinclair wrote as far back as 1919), is trying its best keep Republican Dave Reichert in Congress. The Seattle PI, the 'liberal' newspaper in town, came out with its puff piece about Reichert, Reichert seasoned by 4 years in office. Obviously, the Seattle Times used its position to issue a partisan attack on Burner by exploiting a bureaucratic oddity of Harvard. Both papers are collapsing in readership and local political reporting has been decimated by a wave of buyouts and layoffs, but they are still quite powerful.

Reichert is all over TV calling Burner a liar and a fraud using the money from his illegal loan from Media Plus, and local TV personality Ken Schram, a shock jock style reactionary who reminds me of a less intelligent blue state Glen Beck (Schram's compared breast-feeding in public to public urination and embarrassed women who breast feed, leading to a breast feeding rally), spent a few minutes on local TV awarding Darcy a 'Schrammie' for lying about her degree on KOMO. KOMO is one of the stations happily extending credit to Reichert's media buyer. Schram's segment is here, and boy is it ugly. He followed up with a radio show where he bullied and condescended to Darcy. As a quick example, on the show, Schram often snidely said 'Darcy, Darcy, Darcy,', and then wondered why she didn't get a replacement degree after her house burned down. She points out she is running for Congress, replacing everything she owns, Harvard is a huge bureaucracy, and she got the ex-Dean of Harvard to validate her on video, and Schram just continues to call her evasive.

The local Republican press is just jumping all over it. Here's the Bellevue Reporter:

Democrat Darcy Burner is campaigning like she's running against George W. Bush. But she isn't. Congressman Dave Reichert is an independent-minded moderate with strong environmental credentials. That is why both the Seattle Times and the PI, neither of which likes Bush, have endorsed Reichert.
Another reason to support Reichert is that it's not clear who Burner really intends to represent. Reichert believes he's there to support the people back home, not parties and interest groups. But Burner's major constituency seems to be the national network of "netroots" activists who are both liberal and archly partisan. That might fly in Seattle. It shouldn't fly here.
Then there's the issue of character. Reichert has a reputation for being honest and up-front. But twice now, Burner has been caught inflating her job credentials. Two years ago, her campaign misrepresented her status at Microsoft, where she was just a middle manager. And this year she told several audiences that she had an Economics degree from Harvard. No she doesn't, and when the Seattle Times caught her, Burner's instinctive reaction was to attack Republicans for playing "stupid semantic games." That tone - strident, aggressive, diversionary - is classic Darcy Burner. The numbers in this race are close, but they shouldn't be. Dave Reichert by a mile.

This whole attack by the local media and Republican establishment is so egregious that it's comforting to watch the NRCC's latest criticism, a release of this video in which Darcy calls John McCain a 'warmonger'.

Oh, and Reichert is getting obvious illegal donations at this point, a $4000 donation which busts the $2300 cap. No worries, though, he's a Republican and that's fine.

Republican Dave Reichert Says Hi

Matt Stoller — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 03:42:35 GMT

I spent the evening doing some phone-banking. Reichert sends his best.

Musgrove in Mississippi looks out of reach, but Martin in Georgia is still within the margin of error. Like Sirota, I'm in a writing malaise. I have nothing to say. It's about a week until the world changes.

Better Democrats Busted Through $50K

Matt Stoller — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 23:40:43 GMT

Ok, so we made it through that $50K barrier for Better Democrats. I suppose it's time for a little update on how our candidates are doing.

Markos and Crisitunity blog the new Dailykos/Research 2000 poll (these polls are such an awesome concept), which shows the race all tied up at 46-46. It's a random digit dial, which makes this kind of poll more favorable to Reichert since cell phone only and VOIP users aren't sampled. The stats seem to bear that out; Obama's ahead by only 6 points in the poll, and most people think he's up more than that in WA-08. Trendwise, it's very good news that Darcy's gone up by 8 points since the last Kos poll, when she was behind 49-41. Reichert's dropped 3 points and Darcy's gone up 5.
The Mormons are pulling the plug on Prop 8 calls from Utah.
Progressive Democrat Senate candidate Jim Martin is about two points off of Chambliss in a composite of polls, which is far closer than anyone could have imagined a month ago. Al Franken is up by three, Begich leads by two, and Merkley's up by six.
We managed to convince Debbie Wasserman Schultz to back Annette Taddeo, which is not a small feat. Taddeo is in a tight race with Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in the district that encompasses South Beach. South Beach. That's the setting of the Bird Cage movie.
Massa's opponent is on the 'death list' of Republicans, Dennis Schulman and Tom Perriello are closing, and Grayson is up over 10 on his opponent.

When Blue Majority split up earlier this year, it took us some time to figure out the right way to add to the Democratic wave. In retrospect, the Better Democrats concept should have been obvious - with our work on Donna Edwards and Ed Fallon, it was pretty clear the direction this community was headed. I'm really proud of what all of us have been able to do with Better Democrats. In the waning days of a campaign, money becomes less important, because the electorate is basically settled. In this case, though, there are so many seats on the bubble, including many of our best Better Democrats (Merkley, Darcy, Perriello, Martin, etc), that a little more cash to bring them up to the level of Obama actually matters. So to those of you who have given till it hurts, thank you. And for those of you who haven't, what are you waiting for?

Better Democrats

Canvassing and Tagging Along: Why Trust in Politicians Matters

Matt Stoller — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 21:47:07 GMT

Over the past few days, the major event in the ccampaign has been Seattle Times reporter Emily Heffter's hit piece on Darcy about her degree (for more on Heffter's approach to journalism, read this comment). Reichert is up on TV with this ad, and with the illegal contribution from Media Plus, he has substantial rotation on TV behind the allegation. Burner's response from former Harvard Dean Harry Lewis is also up.

I had hoped to talk to voters and find out how the attack was resonating,so I went out canvassing today. Unfortunately, nearly every knock on a door elicited no response. The weather's beautiful so people aren't home, and when someone's not home, you leave some lit squeezed in between their door knob and hope they take a glance at it and remember to vote. This is especially true with transient rental communities, where low probability voters reside. It's not clear how the race is shaping up now, with Darcy narrowly ahead in the polls but this last minute smear up on TV.

In the slideshow above, you'll see pictures from a variety of events, including a local school festival celebrating cultures from around the world (represented by their student body, whose parents immigrated from all over the world), a variety of senior centers, and a sustainability fair at a local community college.
The most revealing conversation was with a retired machinist, an immigrant from Taiwan hanging out at one of the senior centers we visited. His property taxes, he complains, have doubled since 2004, and he's incredibly angry at Governor Gregoire. He's not upset that his taxes have gone up, mind you, just that the tax rate has stayed the same even as the assessment value has increased. Property values are falling, but his property is assessed at a higher and higher value, and he's unable to dispute the state on that matter. He feels cheated, and so he doesn't like politicians.

I've seen this attitude in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and now Washington state. People don't like property taxes because they seem arbitrary and unfair, but they aren't willing to shift to an income tax basis even when they want a different tax system because they don't believe the politicians who keep raising their property taxes will implement a new tax properly. At heart, this is a problem with trust in government, and not that government is using money inefficiently. No one is clearly explaining the situation in a trustworthy and clear manner and discussing the trade-offs involved.

As property values deflate all over the country, getting the Federal government to help move the states away from property taxes should be a key goal, or states and municipalities will simply be unable to govern.

Local Media, Darcy Burner and the War over the Obama Franchise

Matt Stoller — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 01:26:53 GMT

One part of the story in Washington's eighth district I haven't touched on yet was Darcy's role in a major dispute over local media consolidation between the two papers here - the Seattle Times and the Seattle PI. In 2007, she co-chaired something called the Committee for a Two Newspaper town, which ultimately forced the owners of the Seattle Times to pay out $24M and keep the Seattle PI in business. I'll have more on that fight below, because it segues nicely into the overall conflict between the two wings of the Obama power structure - the center right moderates and the populist left progressives.

Buried in the contours of the massive shift in politics we're seeing with the collapse of the conservative movement is a burgeoning fight between center-right establishment, both locally and nationally, and populist progressives. The McCain campaign is falling apart, and the far right is basically playing for 2012, positioning that race as Palin versus Romney and grooming a new generation of right-wing populist Republicans to come at Democrats in 2010. As Sirota shows, right-wing Villagers are freaking out, while the Chris Matthews of the world are mocking McCain/Palin the way they used to call John Edwards gay. It's a stunning reversal. And it's happening on a local level as well, with newspaper endorsements all over the country - even conservative newspapers - going for Obama.
But as I've noted, these forces are organizing themselves to undercut progressives and are seeking to position Obama as a moderate, like Clinton. In Seattle, I'm seeing this play out as a vicious media hit on Burner, a cooperative set of attacks by local Democratic and Republican political consultants (who both served as sources for this Time magazine piece by Amy Sullivan) and the Seattle Times.

The structure here is similar to what you see in DC and around the country. As reported by Josh Feit in the Stranger, some of the political consultants are bought off by AT&T and co, and even some of the 'liberal' ones work for both sides, as Erica C. Barnett showed in her reporting. Burner, who did not come out of this establishment, defeated a Blue Dog Democrat in the primary, using her support from the netroots to first clear the field (of Rodney Tom, a local developer who chose to drop out and endorse Burner) and then win the primary. This primary candidate, Jim Vaughn, then turned around and endorsed Reichert, realizing that he agrees with Reichert "on all the major issues and the only difference I could find was that I am pro choice and Dave is pro life." Vaughn lavished praise on Reichert and the Blue Dogs and noted he was "tired of going to work each day and getting taxed to death (over 50 different taxes in our state) to pay for someone to sit at home and abuse unemployment, the welfare system and worker's compensation."

The Seattle PI, the more liberal of the two major papers, decided to show its bipartisan credentials and endorse Reichert, as did the Tacoma News-Tribune and the conservative Seattle Times. Even liberal journalists like Eli Sanders of the Stranger in the alternate weekly drove an odd sort of anti-netroots conventional wisdom, choosing to overlook polling data to make an anti-Darcy case. Sanders analogized this latest fiasco over Burner's degree to the 'macaca' moment of George Allen, as if a falsified attack from a Republican is equivalent to a long legacy of racist slurs and actions revealed by a bullying comment towards an Indian-American campaign worker. The NRCC is focusing on this race, one of the few incumbents in the country they are spending money to defend, and they have even set up a phone bank in the basement in DC to make thousands of calls out here.

Burner isn't just opposing the DC establishment in terms of issues like FISA and by putting forward plans like a Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, she's also fighting through this local set of kingmakers. In 2007, she began a stint as a co-chair of The Committee for a Two-Newspaper Town, a citizens lobby (partially funded by labor) to prevent the Seattle Times from putting its competitor out of business.

In the 1980s, the Seattle Times and the Seattle PI struck a deal to combine non-news operations and split the profits in a special Joint Operating Agreement. The Times publisher, Frank Blethen, wanted to get rid of this agreement in 2003, as it would lead to the end of the Seattle PI and allow the Times to become a local monopoly. There was a four year lawsuit between the Blethen and the owner of the PI (Heart). In addition, a citizens committee emerged to fight Blethen, citing a compelling public interest to gain standing in the case and seeking to keep both papers open. The committee successful intervened in the case and Blethen cited them as a reason to settle with the PI.

The net payout from the Seattle Times to the Heart company as part of the settlement to keep the Joint Operating Agreement going was $24 million. That's $24 million that Burner, as one citizen activist among many, helped cost Blethen and the Seattle Times. As they say, don't make someone mad who buys ink by the barrel. Only, Burner ignored this rule just as she ignored the rule to be silent about a bipartisan consensus to enable illegal wiretapping, and fought successfully for a diverse media in Seattle. Now Blethen is getting his revenge via his reporter Emily Heffter's 'scoop' that Burner falsified her degree (a charge repudiated by Harvard ex-Dean Harry Lewis). This hit piece is part of a series of slanted articles going after Burner for, among other things, her association with the netroots. And the local TV stations are extending credit to Media Plus, Reichert's media buyer, who is lending money to Reichert, to let him push this charge around on TV.

The pushback from the progressive populist space has been fierce. Heffter is thoroughly embarrassed by her shoddy reporting job, the Seattle Times changed its headline (without explanation, of course), and a response from Lewis is online. Dailykos is doing its own polling and has helped raise massive sums to aid in pushback. And the volunteer operation here is stuffed to the gills, which will hopefully solidify the Obama vote behind Burner.

But what's important to understand is that the lies from Reichert are not isolated tactical events, but are laundered and pressed firmly by a whole series of interlocking Democrats, journalists, media business executives, and Republicans threatened by progressive populists like us that look to the public and not the good ole boys for legitimacy. At every step, progressive populists are going to encounter this nexus - the consultants, the journalists, the publishers, the magnates, all couched under the rubric of 'moderate' Republicans and 'conservative' or 'Blue Dog' Democrats.

The only way through this thicket is to have these fights and slash through the branches, one at a time. Backing candidates who rely on us and not the establishment network makes us stronger, and them weaker. It's not that we're giving to Burner or Grayson or Franken or anyone else, it's that we're freeing them from having to kowtow to people like Steny Hoyer, Frank Blethen, Michael Bloomberg, and their servants like reporter Emily Heffter. It's a complicated set of steps we've taken, but it's working. Obama has repudiated lobbyists in his campaign, and has acquired massive amounts of power and influence through his ability to inspire trust in the electorate. Unlike Burner, though, he did this both through the networks of the establishment and the progressive populists; he doesn't need any of us to get elected and never did, and he's shown that through his vote on FISA and his whipping for the bailout.

Obama, though, is not just a guy, he's a franchise, a network of people currying favor and looking for jobs and seeking to impose their own stamp on the world through differing ideas about how to govern. And by fighting through these thickets, by helping people like Burner and Merkley into office, we help give Obama and the people in his orbit a little bit more space to make the choice to be a progressive populist.