Two years ago, a post-Bush Republican Party that couldn't find itself on Google Maps was thoroughly thrashed for the second time in as many elections. The GOP had lost over 50 House seats over two election cycles, scores of state legislative chambers, governorships, US Senate seats, and the presidency to a guy named Barack Hussein Obama.
The latter, something most observers thought wouldn't happen in the United States until some time between the next arrival of Haley's Comet and when Kevin Costner evolves into a fish-humanoid hybrid to live on an Earth covered by H20.
It's amazing what can happen, however, when you have a Democratic president who doesn't live up to many of his core progressive promises, who blames his base for asking him to, and whose communications people, to quote Democratic National Committeeman and CNN Contributor Robert Zimmerman, "... couldn't sell cocaine to Charlie Sheen."
The results were on display this past Tuesday, when an American public tired of being unemployed, scared about their future, and looking for some kind of leadership, handed over the US House - in stunning fashion - to a coterie of cranks who have to put corks on the end of their forks not to jab their own eyes while eating. Think Steve Martin's Ruprecht from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and you get the basic picture of some of the Tea Party proxies we elected to Congress last week.
She did not provide answers about other issues that may prove more controversial. Ms. Kennedy did not say whether she supports a cap on local property taxes in New York, something that has sharply divided Democrats and Republicans in Albany. And she did not say whether she supports raising state or federal income taxes for the rich to help balance the budget and pay for government programs.
In her responses, Ms. Kennedy expressed strong support for Israel and said an undivided Jerusalem must be the country's national capital.
New York Governor Patterson just proposed a cruel and regressive budget that closes a massive budget gap without raising taxes on the wealthy, a budget Kennedy endorsed. I get that Kennedy can't go against Patterson, but refusing to answer a question about Federal income taxes is a pretty clear indication that her instincts are not yet honed enough for a major political seat. And you can throw in the deeply problematic answer on Jerusalem for good measure, which I see simply as evidence that her campaign is being entirely driven by a center-right aristocratic New York consulting class.
This is why elections are useful, though to be fair, they do have those pesky voter people.
[Kennedy] didn't support a Democrat in 2005. Fernando Ferrer, the Democratic candidate and first Latino ever nominated for citywide office, says she didn't support him. And one source recalls seeing her at a Women for Bloomberg event, though Stu Loeser, the mayor's press secretary, says she was not a member of the group.
Isay runs a consulting firm that literally feasts on its ties to Bloomberg. His clients include the Partnership for New York City, the NYC Cultural Institutions Group, NYC & Co., Forest City Ratner, Primary Care Development Corporation, and the Building Trades Employers Association, all of which do business with Bloomberg City Hall. He's got a metal bat company out of California that lists itself as having lobbied the mayor against a council ban, and a taxi company that's approved by the Taxi & Limousine Commission to put driver and passenger information monitors in cabs. He did the television ads for PlaNYC 2030, the premier initiative of the Bloomberg administration, paid for by the Real Estate Board of New York and others.
The opening page of Knickerbocker's website consists solely of a Schumer blurb, and both he and the newly hired campaign manager for Bloomberg 2009, Bradley Tusk, cut their teeth with Schumer. Knickerbocker's last great senate campaign was Joe Lieberman in 2006, and Bloomberg granted unusual leaves to three of his City Hall aides to join Isay in turning that campaign around. Isay's company is a subsidiary of Squier Knapp Dunn (SKD), the major Washington-based consultant that handled Bloomberg's media in 2001 and 2005. SKD's last big winner was Blagojevich, handling his 2002 and 2006 campaigns. Coincidentally, Tusk went from a stint in Bloomberg City Hall to become Blagojevich's Deputy Governor from 2003 to 2007.
This Schumer-Bloomberg-Lieberman axis is dominant in New York and national politics, a sort of pay-to-play racket for Wall Street, lobbyists, and developers. It's sad that Kennedy has enmeshed herself with this crew. And I have to say, they could be doing a better job of PR on her behalf.
Justin Krebs is on it. For those of you who don't know what this is about, it's a power grab by the city's wealthy elite (aided of course by its journalistic establishment).
Imagine if affairs in Iraq took a negative turn, or -- the worst case scenario -- there was a threat, or even attack, here at home, and President Bush announced that since he's the best "War President" we've got, he thought we should postpone the elections until things got better.
What would we do? We'd laugh him out of office faster than New Yorkers turned on "America's Mayor" Rudy Giuliani, when he suggested delaying the '01 elections shortly after the 9/11 attacks.
Michael Bloomberg is the great rich hope for elite media types everywhere. He promises to be able to do something no mere non-billionaire can: dispense with voters, activists and political parties altogether. As he said yesterday:
“We all know that spending decisions in Washington are driven by whatever will attract votes and campaign cash,” he said in criticizing the government for running up enormous budget deficits over the last few years.
Yep, it is really a horrendous state of affairs when elected officials in a republic pass legislation that is designed to appeal to the people who elected them. As Digby notes:
Imagine that. Attracting votes and campaign cash. How tacky. Yes, what we clearly need is benevolent billionaire dictators who ignore the voters and care about nothing but their own interests.
Yes, someone who does not need voters, donors, or political parties and who will instead act entirely in the interest of media elites is the only person who can truly pull this country together. It is a good thing he doesn’t need voters, since they don’t like him very much:
So, Michael Bloomberg is less popular than the top three Democrats and the top three Republicans running for President right now. He even has lower overall favorables than Ron Paul. Fortunately, since he doesn’t think appealing to the voters is a worthy activity for elected officials, it actually seems like this low favorable rating was one of his goals.
Here is a set of quick five links to serve as prelude to the Michigan results (most polls close at 8 p.m. eastern) and Nevada debate (9 p.m. eastern, on MSNBC) tonight:
Democracy for America Grassroots All-Star Voting is up, and there are lots of good candidates to choose from. I'll have a hard time deciding between Dan Maffei (NY-25) and Ed Fallon (IA-03, primary challenger to Bush Dog Boswell).
New Democracy Corps polling still shows Democrats in a very strong position to make further gains in the House. Democrats lead by 23% across the named ballot in their 25 most vulnerable districts, but only trail Republicans by 2% in the named ballot in the 40 most vulnerable Republican districts. That points to around 250 Democrats in the House for the 111th Congress.
I am also amazed at how both the Roll Call piece Tim describes and Democracy Corp polling further emphasize how Democrats don't want to run on Iraq in 2008. No matter how much the public has been cajoled into thinking that it doesn't actually care about Iraq anymore, polls still show that the public cares about Iraq was much as it cares about anything else. the public has to be prompted with a list of issues in order for Iraq to even fall to a strong second place among all issues. When the public isn't prompted, Iraq is still tied for first.
What amazes me about this is that 2006 was the only election in decades where Democrats won a majority of the national vote without the aide of Dixiecrats. Even though that happened because of Iraq, the Democratic leadership wants to avoid Iraq in 2008. It is as though some leading Democrats didn't like winning a majority of the national vote, and want to do worse in 2008. Well, maybe I should be surprised by that.
This thread is a prelude to Michigan results, the Nevada debate, and also open for other topics of discussion.
A source familiar with the Bloomberg for president movement says the bipartisan Unity08 effort is poised to shut down its Web site, reconstitute as a Draft Bloomberg site and launch its own 50-state signature-gathering operation on behalf of the supposedly reluctant would-be independent presidential candidate.
This move has been apparently been approved by the Bloomberg people.
I'm told Unity08 has $1.4 million in the bank and about 124,000 people signed up on its site. I have tried - so far unsuccessfully - to reach a spokesperson for the organization.
It's unclear whether this would be some kind of publicity stunt for Unity08, which has been ignored, or even flat-out ridiculed, in some corners, or a real, honest-to-goodness sign that Bloomberg is serious about running for president and not simply trying to maintain relevancy in his lame-duck years.
As Atrios notes, so much for the grassroots process of Unity08 selecting a ticket of one Democrat and one Republican in a national, online convention. Now, Unity08 has simply become what many joked it was all along: a top down effort to draft billionaire media moguls for President. Or, as I once called it, "Aging Wealthy White Men for National Unity Under Billionaire Media Moguls (AWWMNUUBM for short)." Perhaps there was some sort of online convention that led to this decision, but I missed it. The top-down, elite desire for national unity is revealed once more.
New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a potential independent candidate for president, has scheduled a meeting next week with a dozen leading Democrats and Republicans, who will join him in challenging the major-party contenders to spell out their plans for forming a "government of national unity" to end the gridlock in Washington.
Those who will be at the Jan. 7 session at the University of Oklahoma say that if the likely nominees of the two parties do not pledge to "go beyond tokenism" in building an administration that seeks national consensus, they will be prepared to back Bloomberg or someone else in a third-party campaign for president.
Conveners of the meeting include such prominent Democrats as former senators Sam Nunn (Ga.), Charles S. Robb (Va.) and David L. Boren (Okla.), and former presidential candidate Gary Hart. Republican organizers include Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.), former party chairman Bill Brock, former senator John Danforth (Mo.) and former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman.
It was nice of them to toss in Whitman is a token non-white dude. "Gridlock in Washington" must only be a major problem for people who are so rich and powerful that they have to make-up problems in their lives. This is because, over the last five years, Democrats in Congress have only blocked the following pieces of legislation:
Three conservative judges (out of several dozen)
Privatization of Social Security
Retroactive immunity for telecom companies in the warrantless spying program.
Legislation to deport millions of illegal aliens
Given that these are the only conservative pieces of legislation that Democrats in Congress have blocked in the past five years, one must assume that a "government of national unity" means a government that will confirmation 100% of all conservative judges, the destruction of social security, retroactive immunity of telecom companies, and the mass deportation of twelve million people. If this third-party did not favor these things, then there would be absolutely no need to form "a government of national unity." Those four things are the sum total of what Democrats in Congress have prevented Republicans from passing, and thus are the entirety of what Democrats have contributed to "gridlock in Washington." Every other reform has been blocked by Republicans.
It would be nice, for once, if the constant drumbeat from Aging Wealthy White Men for National Unity Under Billionaire Media Moguls (AWWMNUUBM for short) decrying polarization, the lack of bi-partisanship and gridlock in Washington would actually provide specifics on what legislation their hated polarization, partisanship and gridlock is blocking. Of course, they won't actually do that, because blaming national problems on vague, undefined concepts like "polarization" and "gridlock" is much easier than actually analyzing the contemporary political scene in America.
Józef Pilsudski of Poland is one of the most interesting figures of European history during the first third of the 20th century. Variously a communist, a nationalist, a liberal democrat, and a crypto-fascist strongman, he ran the gamut of inter-war European ideologies. He also employed a wide variety of policies to achieve his various aims, the two most interesting of which were Prometheism and Miedzymorze. Here is a quick description of Prometheism:
Prometheism (Polish: "Prometeizm") was a political project initiated by Poland's Józef Pilsudski. Its aim was to weaken Tsarist Russia and its successor, the Soviet Union, by supporting nationalist independence movements of the major non-Russian peoples that lived within the borders of Russia or the Soviet Union.
Between the World Wars, Prometheism and Pilsudski's other concept of a "Miedzymorze federation" constituted two complementary geopolitical strategies for him and some of his political heirs.
Miedzymorze was a project pursued after World War I by Józef Pilsudski, of a Polish-led federation of Central and Eastern European countries. Invited to join were the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia), Finland, Belarus, Ukraine, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and the Czech lands.
The Polish name Miedzymorze may be translated as "Intersea" or "Between-seas" and has also been rendered, from the Latin, as "Intermarum" or "Intermarium."
Neither project succeeded, at least partially because Pilsudski engaged in a series of military conflicts with neighboring states, thus rendering such broad co-operation impossible. However, I admire Pilsudski's audacious strategic goals to defend a series of new and relatively small nations against the massive empires of Germany and Russia, from which many of these states had been recently liberated. Had both plans succeeded, World War Two would almost certainly have been avoided, and the Cold War might have been averted as well. Now, nearly a century later, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent eastward expansion of the European Union, both Prometheism and Miedzymorze have basically been achieved. The peoples of the Baltic, Black and Caspian Sea basins have achieved independence (though some still lack democracy). Most of these new nations have joined with international organizations such as NATO and the EU that provide them with strategic security from what is still quite clearly an aggressive Russia.
I wonder if Pilsudski's goals can be applied to the American political system. For one thing, the pluralist strategy I have discussed for the Democratic Party and progressive movement is reasonably analogous to the international concept of Miedzymorze. Further, the past six months have strongly suggested that a Prometheist strategy might be within reach. At least three major pieces of the Republican coalition have threatened significant breaks with the larger coalition, which collectively would leave Republicans as a rump, minority political party for a generation. Consider the following:
With the rapid growth of both all three House ideological caucuses, Blue Dogs, New Democrats, and Progressives, certainly Democrats have their own balkanization problem. However, in contrast to Republicans where three major third party threats are still on the table, none of the divisions among Democrats have resulted in any serious third-party threats this year. I don't think a total anti-Republican Prometheian strategy is possible in the short term, since I don't know what circumstance would result in the simultaneous splintering of the socially conservative theocons, the country club Bloomberg types, and the American exceptionalist, libertarian Ron Paul types, but it still seems useful to think about. As Democrats expand their coalition to include a series of smaller, very pro-Democratic identity groups, driving deep wedges into the Republican coalition seems to be a natural, complimentary strategy. This is very much what happened to Democrats in the 1980's and 1990's, after all, as Dixiecrats, New Dems, and Naderites all splintered the party in different directions just as Republicans were sweeping to power nationwide.
So, any thoughts on strategies to drive deep wedges into the Republican coalition? This isn't something Democrats have been very good at lately, or really ever, but I think it is a subject worth exploring in more detail.
Worthy items for the Saturday election junkie in all of us:
Thompson Derided On First Iowa Visit
With the Iowa caucuses now, quite possibly, only sixteen weeks away, Fred Thompson is already being derided for finally making his first visit to Iowa. For example, he was ripped by Fox News. Also, CQ politics:
Too little and too late is what they're saying in Iowa about Fred Thompson's first trip there today as a possible presidential contender.(…)
Already, his schedule for today in Des Moines is drawing criticism as off the mark. The Des Moines Register notes that Thompson most needs to begin a meaningful dialogue with voters. But after reviewing his planned emphasis on photo-ops and private meetings with GOP leaders, the state's largest newspaper concludes that "he will have hardly begun that task by the time he leaves Iowa this afternoon."
It is starting to seem very unlikely that Fred Thomspon will be able to seriously compete in Iowa, which in turn makes it less likely that he can compete in New Hampshire, which in turn makes it less likely that he can compete in Michigan, which in turn makes it less likely that he can compete in South Carolina, which in turn make sit less likely that he can compete in Florida, etc. At this point, he has the resources to make a stand in only one state. Although for a while the question for Republicans was whether an alternative to "Rudy McRomney" would emerge in the primaries, now the Republican nomination might very well be Romney's to lose. Maybe Gingrich can still be the Republican nominee.
Bloomberg Definitely Out? Dan Rather says that Michael Bloomberg told him on august 9th that he was not going to run for President in 2008 under any circumstances:
Mr. Rather: Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York, told me that he was not going to run for president. In a direct answer to a direct question, would he run under any circumstances, he danced around a bit and finally said 'No.' Furthermore, he said he wasn't open to even considering running as a vice presidential candidate with anybody, and he wouldn't take a place in anybody's cabinet."
Darn. I kind of hope Rather is wrong here. A Bloomberg run would make an already favorable Democratic electoral scene in 2008 even more favorable, as every poll with Bloomberg in the race shows he draws more support from Republicans than Democrats. Further, it would have the advantage of potentially exposing the DLC as a third-party splinter group, since much of their leadership is behind a Bloomberg run. I also like the idea of seeing billionaire centrist heroes like Bloomberg get waxed in the general election, thus showing LieberDems they have no real national base.
At this point in 2005, Republicans were dealing with nine open seats of an eventual total of twenty. Interestingly, only two of these nine were straight-up retirements, whereas the bulk of these early announcements were made by House members seeking a promotion to a statewide office. While the rumors and speculation are rampant, only five Republicans have announced retirements this year(…)
However, of these five, four are "straight-up" retirements, while the fifth (Duncan Hunter) may as well be, too. Additionally, retirements by Rick Renzi (AZ-01) and Ralph Regula (OH-16) seem all but official, and many are convinced that Dave Hobson (OH-07) will throw in the towel, as well.
To put it one way, in 2006, House Democrats benefited from Republican electoral hubris. Back then, there were more open seats at this point on the Republican side, but that was because so many House Republicans declared for higher office, which they almost all ended up losing. At this point, there are more "straight-up" retirements, and this is a trend we could see continue as more Republicans decide that being in the minority in the House isn't very fun.
One of the early spats (and just you wait -- the GOP race hasn't even begun to get nasty, but it absolutely will) found Mitt Romney attacking Rudy Giuliani, saying that when he was mayor, "New York was the poster child for sanctuary cities." Though Romney was technically incorrect (New York never actually declared itself a sanctuary city, though it was, and is, one in all but name), the attack hit its mark.(…)
[W]hen a party says again and again that you and people like you are the biggest problem facing the country, it's hard to muster up enthusiasm for its candidates. If the GOP keeps this up, Latino Republicans could become like gay Republicans, a tiny, beleaguered group waging a daily battle against cognitive dissonance, scapegoated by their own party and mocked by their friends for associating with people who despise them.
And it is already happening. In 2004, John Kerry won the Latino vote by 58-40 percent, a healthy 18-point margin. Since he lost the overall popular vote by 3 points, this means that Kerry outperformed his national numbers among Latinos by 21 points. In 2006, however, Latinos voted for Democratic congressional candidates by an overwhelming 69-30 percent, or 39 points. With Democrats winning the overall House vote nationally by 52-46 percent, Democrats outperformed among Latinos by 33 points.
It is not just Latinos and the LGBT community. Conservative attacks on numerous minorities are quickly making the Republican party a minority itself. For example, Arab-Americans were long a swing vote in the country, but in the wake of anti-Arab rhetoric and policies from conservatives after 9/11, they now favor Democrats by 30 points. Constantly scapegoating minorities might work for a while, but when the majority of the country becomes non-white and or non-Christian, it is electoral suicide. Check out the Open Left demographics archive for more on this.
The Democratic presidential candidates have chosen sides in the latest skirmish in the long-running war between the party's business-friendly moderates and liberal-leaning activists. This time, they are with the liberals.
The front-running candidates all are staying away from Nashville, Tenn., this weekend, which is hosting the annual gathering of the Democratic Leadership Council, the business-friendly group of centrist Democrats who played such a key role in guiding the party from Walter Mondale's defeat in 1984 to Bill Clinton's victories in 1992 and 1996.
But they all will be in Chicago next weekend for the second annual convening of Internet bloggers, a relatively new part of campaign infrastructure that wasn't even imagined when Mondale and Clinton were campaigning for votes.
Al From isn't concerned. He says the DLC isn't very comfortable with primaries and is focused on helping Democrats in the general election. From the same, subscription-only article:
"Always the most uncomfortable year for us is the third year in the cycle when people are looking at the early primaries and caucuses," he said. Candidates now "are focused on winning interest group votes... We were organized and always have been the force in the party that looks to the general election and tries to connect the Democratic Party to the mainstream values of the country."
Uncomfortable with the third year of the election cycle, eh? They didn't felt hat way back in 1995, when they advocated cutting ties with then sitting president Bill Clinton, and even tried to find a primary challenger against him. Rick Perlstein:
After the 1994 elections Joel Kotkin, a senior fellow of the DLC's Progressive Policy Institute, called for New Democrats to cut Clinton loose in favor of a primary challenger in 1996 or even think about leaving the Democratic Party altogether. The DLC's Progressive Foundation put out feelers to begin a third-party movement-"a new approach," according to the PPI board chairman Michael Steinhardt, "to separate ourselves from the Democratic Party."
According to Michael Steinhardt, chairman of PPI's Board of Trustees until he resigned at the end of 1995, the Third Way Project was to be 'a new approach to separate ourselves from the Democratic Party.' He explained [to author Baer] that the DLC began to take on a more bipartisan focus, which appealed to a number of contributors, including Steinhardt himself, who advocated the formation of a third party and went so far as to meet with Bill Bradley to try to persuade him to run for President in 1996."
Now, some might protest that was twelve years ago, and surely the DLC has improved since then. When have they ever threatened splintering with the Democratic Party in the last decade? Surely, they will be with Democratic in 2008, right? Wrongo. Last year, both From and Steinhardt held a dinner to encourage Michael Bloomberg to run in 2008:
CBS 2 has learned the details of a private dinner for the mayor that was held at an apartment building on Manhattan's Upper East Side last month. There, he spent the evening in serious discussions about the viability of a White House run.
Sources told CBS 2 Bloomberg brought three deputy mayors with him, and proceeded to talk through every angle of a presidential run. By the end, the group had zeroed in on his running as an independent in 2008. And, the sources said, he seemed intrigued.
The dinner was held at the home of Michael Steinhardt, a legendary Wall Street hedge fund manager and a Bloomberg friend. He brought along Al From, head of the Democratic Leadership Council, which played a part in Bill Clinton's rise to power in 1992.
DLC leaders are currently encouraging Michael Bloomberg to run as an independent. That is even worse that encouraging Bill Bradley to run in the primaries against Clinton. At least a primary fight keeps it in the Democratic Party. Now, they are actively seeking candidates to run against Democrats in general elections. As such, From's lines about being uncomfortable with primaries and being there for the party in the general seem like little more than lies. If there were anything else, then the DLC would not have sought a primary challenger against Clinton in 1995, and would not be encouraging a Bloomberg independent run in 2007.
Before the Democratic nominee decides whether or not to speak at the 2008 DLC convention, s/he should ask the DLC what side it is on. This is especially since the nominee might be forced to share the stage with another presidential candidate, Michael Bloomberg. If nothing else, that certainly isn't a problem s/he will face at Yearly Kos 2008.
I don't live in New York. I live in Washington, DC, and Google adwords allows for very easy geotargeting. That means this is either a national buy roping in climate change voters or a buy targeted at decision-makers in DC. In other words, learn about Bloomberg on the environment, if you're concerned about climate change.
Let's see how widespread this buy is. If you have a moment, would you google 'climate change' and let us know in the comments if you see the Bloomberg ad. Do this a few times, as adwords rotates ads in and out. Also, leave your location so we can learn a bit more about who Bloomberg is talking to.
UPDATE: This is getting more interesting. People are seeing ads in St Louis, upstate New York, North Carolina, New Orleans, etc. They are not seeing ads in Canada. So what it sounds like is that this is a national ad purchase, explicitly. I thought it was possible that the ad buyer was lazy and just bought the adword 'climate change' generically across Google, but that doesn't seem to be the case. It's specifically in the US, or at least that's what the indications are. This looks like a national ad buy.
Update 2 (Chris): Relevant to this post, three weeks ago a friend of mine participated in a telephone poll conducted by Mountain West Research Strategies. Apparently, they asked many questions about his outlook on the two political parties, but the only politician they asked about was Michael Bloomberg. It should be noted that Mountain West Research Strategies was a polling firm used by Joe Lieberman in 2006.
Update 3 (Adam): Looking through a post of Chris' just now, Bloomberg also bought "Mike on nonpartisanship" adwords, which showed up in the Google ads on our site. Has anyone else seen other adwords buy relating to other issues?
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