Occupying a place roughly equidistant between the Blue Dogs and the Progressives, but slightly to the right of the House Democratic caucus as a whole, the New Democrats are an often overlooked third (and now fourth) ideological group within the House Democratic caucus as a whole. Ideologically speaking, the New Democrats are closely aligned with 1990's Clintonian policies, and the Democratic Leadership Council. Generally speaking, it is a corporatist group that is left-wing on cultural issues. Of any ideological group in either major political party, the New Democrats were consistently the staunchest supporters of the Wall Street bailout, for example.
Here's the industry's play: progressives will approach Nancy with ideas for reform, and she'll agree to push for their proposals, and she'll really mean it. Then industry lobbyists will go to Dennis Moore, Melissa Bean and a few other Democrats, and tell them how dire the consequences of the proposals would be, and that the members who understand how the economy works need to step up to stop Nancy and the crazy liberals from doing something rash. Then those Democrats will go to Steny and tell him how terrible Nancy's crazy ideas would be, and how we can't rush into something like that without much, much more thought. Maybe Barney will try to talk to Dennis or Melissa, but it will become apparent quickly that they have no idea what they're talking about; they're just repeating by rote what the lobbyists told them to say. Melissa may actually be dumber than Sarah Palin. Barney will realize he might as well talk to the lobbyists directly and save a step. The lobbyists will agree to something inconsequential, but certainly nothing that would really affect the industry's conduct. Then the leadership will do the math and conclude that because the vast majority of Republicans will vote against any bill, we can't get enough votes without the Dennis and Melissa crowd. The only way, our leadership will conclude, to get anything at all passed is to include nothing more than the inconsequential proposals that the lobbyists agreed to. Then we'll all go along because it would be wildly irresponsible not to act when we're staring over the brink of a complete collapse of world financial markets.
I'd diagram it for you if I had a chalkboard. I've seen the play again and again, and it always goes for long yardage.
The only defense for the play is for a significant group of Democrats to say they won't vote for any proposal that isn't unpalatable to industry, and mean it. It's a pretty high stakes game of chicken, but otherwise we come out of this with nothing but a $700 billion giveaway to a crooked industry.
Ouch.
If anyone out there is good with diagramming software it'd be a neat picture to put together.
Emily's List had a success of sorts last week, when Niki Tsongas beat former Lowell Mayor Eileen Donoghue in Massachusetts 5th district primary. I say 'of sorts' because the mission of Emily's List is to elect pro-choice Democratic women, and both Donoghue and Tsongas fit that bill. The rationale from Emily's List for endorsing Tsongas was that she was 'the stronger candidate'. Tsongas won, despite an overwhelming fundraising advantage, some of which was provided by Emily's List, by around 4 points. I'm not sure how Tsongas was determined to be the stronger candidate, but if she was a better candidate than Donoghue, it wasn't by much. I should say that I'm glad Tsongas won, because Donoghue represents the Lowell machine and they are kind of awful; I'm just looking at the selection criteria for Emily's List.
This behavior fits a pattern. Look who is on Emily's List's group of featured candidates.
Christine Jennings, FL-13: Jennings is a strongly establishment former Republican and former bank CEO candidate who in 2006 used her support from Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emanuel, and Barbara Boxer to beat a liberal in the primary in 2006 before losing to a Republican in the general.
Kay Barnes, MO-06: Claire McCaskill took this district in 2006, though it went strongly for Bush in 2004. Barnes is the former Mayor of Kansas City and a top DCCC recruit.
Joan Fitz-Gerald, CO-02: The former Colorado state Senate head is in a three way primary with two other candidates over who will represent this liberal seat formerly held by Mark Udall. The candidates are pretty much indistinguishable.
Chellie Pingree, ME-01: Pingree is the former head of Common Cause and the former Senate Majority leader in Maine. She ran against Susan Collins in 2002 and was against the war during that race. There's a six way primary, with another female candidate in the race. [UPDATE: The other female candidate has said she will not run.]
Melissa Bean, IL-08: This is a Bush Dog who is being challenged in the primary by a longshot female progressive, and faces a tough reelection every year. She has a good record on choice.
Hillary Clinton: Clinton is probably the most conservative candidate in the Presidential race, and the only woman.
And who is not on the list of featured candidates?
Darcy Burner, WA-08: Burner is a strong progressive who just raised $125,000 from the netroots, and her male primary opponent with a questionable background on choice just dropped out. Burner was endorsed by Emily's List in 2006, and is now a top DCCC prospect.
Donna Edwards: Edwards is an extremely well-respected progressive lawyer and activist in the foundation community challenging a reactionary male Democrat in the primary. Though she nearly beat Wynn in 2006, she did not receive an Emily's List endorsement in 2006. She still has not.
Emily's List's mission statement, as it was explained to me by a reprsentative of the organization, is to 'elect pro-choice women candidates'. The group had a miserable record in a banner Democratic year in 2006, losing most of its House races though putting two conservative female Democrats in the Senate. In the recent MA-05 race, Emily's List actually caused its endorsed candidate damage, opening up an effective negative attack on Tsongas late in the race.
What all of the above featured candidates have in common is that they are 'establishment' acceptable choices in DC. That's not always a bad thing. I mean, I like Chellie Pingree, for instance, and I think she will be a good Democrat. Tsongas will probably be a good vote as well. But Pingree is replacing Tom Allen and that district will probably be a pickup, as will the MA-05 for Tsongas. Both Tsongas and Pingree are top-shelf IBM picks, as are Kay Barnes, a top DCCC pick, or Jennings or Bean. No one will get fired if they put resources into these races, even if they lose. Certainly no one was fired in 2006.
But it's not clear at all that Emily's List is supporting pro-choice female candidates that actually need the help, like Donna Edwards, who in her life has moved incredibly important feminist legislation in Congress against domestic violence. And it's weird that candidates with remarkable success on the internet, like Burner, are ignored. The concept 'early money is like yeast' came from Emily's List, and it means that validating organizations can help candidates early on in a way that later money does not. What's strange is that Emily's List does not validate you unless you are already 'in the club', and that lack of validation means that other donors might consider you 'fringe'. This was the case with Edwards, who few would support until she managed to almost take the district from Wynn despite having almost no money. If Emily's List had taken the bet on Edwards, there would be one more Democratic pro-choice candidate in the House today.
This has two consequences. One, progressive populist women tend not to get Emily's List endorsements, but insiders who fit their districts according to the current DC conventional wisdom do. Two, this creates a perverse incentive where female candidates who may want to run for office, like Edwards, are actually held back by a group that is ostensibly set up to elect more women. Running for office, especially if you are not already in politics, means taking a big risk in your personal and professional life. Organizations like Emily's List ought to be focused on mitigating that risk so that more women will take the plunge. But as we are seeing, they don't do that. The group withholds its validation from all but the most establishment candidates, even withholding it from those with demonstrated political success. It's ironic that Niki Tsongas, whose credibility comes from her position as the wife of a successful politician, got the nod from Emily's List to narrowly defeat another pro-choice Democratic woman, when a self-made politician like Donna Edwards, who has made substantive political achievements on behalf of women and is facing a reactionary Al Wynn, has not.
I'm not sure that Emily's List has even noticed this pattern of disenfranchising outsiders, but I would hope that Emily's List is willing to add a little more risk to their candidate selection process.
FDL and Glenn Greenwald are both noting something very significant - the $200B that Bush is asking for will probably be doing to initiate a new war with Iran. Blue America, which raised a little over a half a million last cycle, will be pulling off of their Actblue page any candidate who votes for this money. That's very significant, a line in the sand.
The Iran link is another reason WA-03 Brian Baird's support of the surge, and his support of the $50B, is so pernicious. Even if he only wants to support the surge, the money will probably be diverted to military operations in Iran. Hopefully, we can recruit state Senator Craig Pridemore to challenge Baird in a primary. Pridemore is a veteran, has won in the district, is well-respected and liberal, and can beat incumbents.
I added some content yesterday on the Bush Dog campaign. Here's a FAQ on what a Bush Dog is, and here are instructions on how to profile one. We've had new profiles written on AR-02: Vic Snyder, AR-04: Mike Ross, IL-08: Melissa Bean, NC-11: Heath Schuler, and TX-23: Ciro Rodriguez. I particularly like Ciro's profile, since he was a netroots candidate yet won his last race without our endorsement or help. You'll also note that Melissa Bean has two profiles now on the Bush Dog Blogroll, and that's very good. It's useful to have multiple perspectives. Getting to know these people, who are probably going to support money for Bush and a war with Iran, is important.
Here is a four-pack for another fine, rainy evening:
Hastert To Retire Early; Special Election for IL-14 Likely This is big news, and suddenly makes all of the attention the IL-14 Democratic primary has been receiving worth it:
An Illinois Republican source tells us former Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) plans to resign November 6 this year instead of finishing out his term. This would create a vacancy and trigger a special election in the 14th District.
Under Illinois statute, the governor, Rod Blagojevich (D), would get to pick the date of both of the special general election and the special primary election (with separate ballots for each party). The general election would have to be within 120 days of the vacancy (meaning by early March, if the November 6 resignation date holds). February 5 is the date for Illinois's presidential and congressional primaries, and slating the special election -- either the primaries or the general -- on that date would save state money.
If the special election, or at least the primary for the special election, is held on February 5th, it will coincide with Super Tuesday. This would be dangerous for Democrats, because it means that campaign would be largely overshadowed by the Presidential contest online, thus removing an important element of national support. Then again, with Obama running for President, it should also mean very high Democratic turnout in the district. Overall, it is hard to say if this will be a net benefit or not. Prairie State Blue has more on the IL-14 campaign.
Democrats on Tuesday proposed putting on a 2008 ballot an initiative aimed at having California join the movement to elect presidents by popular vote. The initiative, if successful, also would head off a Republican effort to get some of California's electoral votes.
GOP consultants have proposed a separate initiative to change California's winner-take-all system of awarding its 55 electoral votes. Under this measure, electoral votes would be awarded by how congressional districts vote, which could benefit the Republican nominee in this state with more registered Democrats.(…)
A team of Democrats filed two virtually identical initiatives with the California attorney general's office Tuesday, a first step to begin gathering the hundreds of thousands of signatures needed to place either measure on the June or November ballot. (One version contains a clause stating that if both the Democratic- and Republican-backed initiatives make it onto the ballot, the one with the most votes would take precedence.)(…)
The national drive toward a popular vote would not scrap the electoral college system, but would require states to award their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the most actual votes nationally. It would take effect only if states representing a majority of the electoral votes agree to the change.
Not only would this prevent Republicans from stealing 19-20 electoral votes outright, making it much more difficult for Democrats to win the presidency in 2008 and beyond, but this is a great step forward for the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, a plan which I have endorsed in the past even as North Carolina Dems successful took four, and possibly seven, electoral votes from Republicans.
Clinton Way Ahead In New Gallup National Poll
To no one's surprise, Clinton stays well ahead of Obama and Edwards in the latest Gallup national poll 468 Dems and Dem leaners, 8/13-16., MoE 5, 8/3-5 numbers in parenthesis:
Clinton: 48 (48)
Obama: 25 (26)
Edwards: 12 (13)
No on else above 2%
Time For Teacher Accountability
Given my background as a teacher and union organizer, I find concepts like merit pay for teacher's an appalling means of destroying teacher recruitment, especially in inner cities, not to mention punishing many people who work in one of the most difficult professions nationwide. However, there is one circumstance where I wouldn't mind a little merit pay for teachers. Bush Dog Melissa Bean is apparently the new role model for Democratic candidates:
Bean, a self-styled pro-business Democrat from a slice of Chicago's north and northwest suburbs long dominated by the GOP, has become an archetype for many of the congressional rookies whose victories delivered control of the House to Democrats last fall -- and whose fortunes in 2008 will determine whether the new majority lasts another two years.(…)
"She's a real role model for someone like myself, running in a Republican-leaning district," said Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), a freshman who holds a top spot on the National Republican Congressional Committee's target list for 2008.(…)
Other Democrats followed suit across the country, winning seats long held by Republicans in areas where Bush cruised in his presidential victories. Bean mentored some of them, including Giffords, during the campaign.
'If she can do it, I can too'
"There's no question," Bean said in a recent interview, "that some of the candidates who ran in the last cycle said, 'If she can do it, I can too.'"
Holding up Giffords as a model isn't exactly compelling since, the NRCC abandoned the district to her on September 13, 2006. Would some of the other candidates Bean consulted include Diane Farrell, Lois Murphy, Linda Stender, Patricia Madrid, Mary Jo Kilroy, Victoria Wulsin, Christine Jennings, Teresa Hafen, and many of the other droves of Democratic women who lost close House elections in 2006? I mean, is there a way to take this as something other than an admission that Melissa Bean's instructions are at least partially responsible for the horrid performance of Democratic women in US House elections in 2006? It would certainly make a lot of sense, since moving to the right was not exactly the same winning strategy in 2006 that it might have been in 2004.
I've been kicking around the idea with Chris that we should raise the costs of bad decision-making on things like FISA, or when they fold to Republicans on the supplemental or (insert fight here).
It's not much to put up some google ads criticizing these members for their position on FISA. The way Google adwords works is that the ad will only show up for the search terms we select. That means that if we select 'Chris Carney', then people searching for Chris Carney (PA-04) will see an ad criticizing Chris Carney for his vote on FISA. And the people who are searching for Chris Carney are people who want to know more about Carney, like reporters, activists, and constituents. We can even geotarget his state, so only people in Pennsylvania see the ad.
It'll probably run around $100-150 per member for a six month period, which is the amount of time until the law must be reauthorized.
Would you put a bit of money and effort to go after these wayward Democrats? We can't replace all of them with progressive Democrats, but we can certainly annoy at least a few of them and raise the costs for voting against the Constitution.
Aside from money, this will take some work, since we'll have to get posts written about each member that did this. It's not worth doing unless you'd support it. So if you think this is a good idea, put it in the comments or send me an email at stoller at gmail.com. We need support in one of two ways. One, you could throw in a few bucks for this. Two, you could write up a problem Democrat, on this blog or on your own site, and we'd use that as the Google ad advertised link. Let me know if you'd be willing to do either.
Yesterday, I tested out the idea that what we are dealing with in Congress is a nominally Democratic majority but an effective Republican working majority. I mostly pinned this on the Blue Dog swing bloc and a conservative Senate, but there are other important factors at work. The conversation was really amazing, and punctured some holes in my piece.
The fact is, things have changed quite a bit. I'm friendly with a lawyer in a major executive branch agency, and she told me that the investigations going on by Congress are allowing her to do her job. Steve Novick, candidate for Senate in Oregon (who is really quite terrific), told me the same thing about friends he has in the Federal bureaucracy. Governance itself is getting better, or at least has stopped getting worse. So Blue Dogs are not Republicans.
There are other weaknesses in what I wrote, and the commenters pointed them out. In particular, this comment by Paul Rosenberg is I think accurate, as he argues that we are facing a conservative but not right-wing Blue Dog/DLC bloc combined with an anti-progressive elite consensus in the form of a hostile media establishment, a hostile think tank and academic structure, a hostile regulatory structure, a hostile set of cultural leaders and a set of old world economic incentives for elites.
I'm going to revise my earlier title, and argue that while we don't have a Republican working majority, we do have a conservative working majority to contend with. Most of the strategic problems I highlighted in the original piece remain, with the additional need to attack and/or subvert elite structures. The irony, or perhaps the not entirely-coincidental pattern of the Open Left, is that we're all at once going after the right-wing, their Blue Dog enablers, and the elite structures that love them.
I'm beginning to explore an idea that I'm not entirely sold on, which is that in the House, while Democrats are in control, there is effectively a Republican working majority. If true, this has a number of implications, both electoral and political. But first, I'll illustrate my thinking, which basically boils down to the fact that politically speaking, Bush is effectively using the surge model to govern in all policy arenas. Take tax policy.
President Bush said yesterday that he is considering a fresh plan to cut tax rates for U.S. corporations to make them more competitive around the world, an initiative that could further inflame a battle with the Democratic Congress over spending and taxes and help define the remainder of his tenure.
Advisers presented Bush with a series of ideas to restructure corporate taxes, possibly eliminating narrowly targeted breaks to pay for a broader, across-the-board rate cut. In an interview with a small group of journalists afterward, Bush said he was "inclined" to send a corporate tax package to Congress, although he expressed uncertainty about its political viability.
It's a simple pattern. When Bush loses ground politically, he simply changes his ask. It's the equivalent of negotiating with someone to sell them a bike for $50, and when they find a problem with the bike, changing the price to $75 and negotiating the final price to $65. It's bad faith negotiating, but it's working, because Democratic leaders aren't able to walk away from the table out of a mixture of fear, incompetence, and insufficient liberal voting strength. They always stupidly buy the bike at the higher price.
The FISA bill debacle is a good example. I've been in email contact with a variety of sources inside the House, and there's certainly tremendous bitterness at what happened with FISA, as well as a recognition that the 'stand up and cave' rhetoric strategy is now a clear pattern for this Congress. Steny Hoyer is the weak link in the House leadership, and though I can't read tea leaves that well, I think that Blue Dogs are essentially threatening a revolt against Pelosi if she tries to impose real discipline. In addition, the Senate is making it nearly impossible for her to stand up for liberalism. With a reactionary Senate that has about 10 neoconservative Democrats and a neoconservative President, liberals cannot govern except on the most clear-cut and non-controversial issues, like poor children's health care (which itself might be vetoed).
So while we may have thought we gained a check on Bush in 2006, we actually didn't. What we gained was a more progressive Democratic Party, but we started from such a low base that the Republicans essentially can still govern. Now, holding the majority is nice for subpoena power, and that matters. But when you combine a conservative Senate, a Blue Dog swing block, and an extreme White House, you may have a situation similar to the Boll Weevil Democrats in the early 1980s and their working relationship with Reagan. I'm not sure how well the analogy holds up since I've never studied that period in history, but regardless, Bush has realized that his conservative governing mandate is still intact.
In 2006, the midterms registered a clear antiwar message, but instead of listening, Bush surged troops, and politically speaking, it worked. No one stopped him. Bush, weaker than he's ever been as President in terms of popular approval and credibility, is governing this country through a mix of veto threats, bad faith negotiating tactics via surrogates like Mike McConnell and David Patraeus, and Blue Dogs. This is true with Bush's rampant lawbreaking and authoritarian criminal impulses. No one stops him. I'm no longer content to think that Blue Dogs are acting out of fear of being criticized, at this point I am going to take the Heath Shuler's at their word and recognize them as right-wingers.
To be clear, there's reason for optimism, as this is a temporary situation and we've made enormous progress since 2002. There are more self-identified liberals today than there have been since 1972, independents are swinging far to the left, and the base Democratic vote is making the difference in elections. The Democratic Party of 2007 is much more progressive than that of 2002, and at the rate we're gaining reliable liberal votes (10/year), there will be an unbreakable progressive House majority by 2012. The overall intellectual environment, the shattering of the right-wing careerist foreign policy community, the increasing efficiency of liberal advocacy groups, the increased participation of progressive economy sectors in the political sector, and the liberalization of the White House and Senate, can also have significant effects. Our politicians are obviously behind the curve, with Clinton quasi-supporting the surge and Obama in his most recent Iowa ad doesn't call himself a Democrat. But this is temporary.
I don't have a good strategy on how to 'fix' the Senate, but to get to a progressive working majority in the House, we need to pick up 41 more reliable votes, either by beating Republicans or by converting or beating Blue Dog Democrats. If we can get to an uncompromising progressive majority in the House, then the Senate will be dragged along through conference committees and a Democratic White House. In the Senate, we'll need 16 for a clear progressive majority, but because of institutional dynamics we'll probably need less to have a working majority.
There are several paths to making this happen in the House.
Pick Up Safe Seats Progressives: This is what we are trying to do in Massachusetts 5th, where a reactionary Niki Tsongas is facing four other candidates, including progressive Jamie Eldridge. There's also a primary in TN-09, Harold Ford's old haunt.
Convert Reactionary Democrats: Both Al Wynn and Ellen Tauscher are good examples of how this can be done, and this is continuing against Daniel Lipinski, Al Wynn, and Henry Cuellar.
Beat Republicans: In 2006, Democrats picked up 30 seats in the House. Out of those pickups, 11 voted for the FISA expansion, and 19 didn't.
Convert Republicans: I'm not sure how this is supposed to work. Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq is trying to crack Republicans, but this is very very difficult. Republicans have run right-wing primary challenges against dissidents for 30 years, since 1978. Countering that is extremely tough, though recent moves by the Mainstream Partnership could have effects.
If there is a Republican working majority, with the Blue Dogs as the swing group, that should have one very significant effect on our strategy. In a House with a minority role for Democrats, electing a Blue Dog Democrat is far superior than electing a Republican. But in a majority Democratic House where conservatives have a governing working majority, electing a Blue Dog Democrat is little different than electing a Republican when it comes to public policy choices. Electing a Blue Dog is not going to help us restore out Constitutional fabric, hold these people accountable, deal with global warming, energy, health care, or restore a progressive tax code. More significantly, more Blue Dogs aren't going to give someone like Pelosi the leverage she needs to do any of these things.
What this means is clear. No longer should we as progressives particularly care whether a Democrat is in a swing district or Republican district when considering how to evaluate them. It is more important to elect progressives and destroy the power of Blue Dogs than to increase our partisan advantage in the House, though these goals are complements and not substitutes. The Colorado example, of turning a libertarian-esque red state into a Blue Dog state at the behest of wealthy billionaires, is not something to emulate. Rather, we should look at the New Hampshire example, which has turned a libertarian-esque red state into a deep blue progressive libertarian area.
There's one other important rhetorical consequence here. When Blue Dogs vote with Bush, they are not 'betraying' us any more than Republicans are when they vote with Bush. Blue Dogs just don't agree with us. And when they vote to expand wiretapping or to cut taxes for the wealthy or to support endless war, they are acting like Blue Dogs, and Blue Dogs support President Bush and the conservative movement.
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