US POLITICS SPRING 2011: Let's just call off this country.

does that even really matter? I can't imagine a scenario where she'd get through

That's okay. Everyone hate Tim Geithner.

Also, I'm really into the idea of her being a Senator.

why can't this dude better and more forcefully convey that compromise can work the other way, too

I don't understand how any theoretical Democratic president is supposed to do this. It cannot be done.

perhaps true . . . but how did that happen? it wasn't always so

if the rumors are true its also cause tim geithner HATES e warren

a very good thing ... "i welcome their hatred" and all that.

I don't understand how any theoretical Democratic president is supposed to do this. It cannot be done.

it's frustrating because it feels like it isn't even being tried though; it's like packer saying that he's forfeited the most powerful aspect of his position, which is rhetorical suasion, goddamn i love you the new yorker, suasion every week. there's a part in nigel hamilton's american caesars when he's talking about the reelection of truman, when he'd go off-script and become a blaring, swiping populist socking it to the other candidates. through the campaign i know it was a balancing act, to weigh the value of an outburst against the more sustained narrative of character. but now? i don't know that it would be possible to incite popular outrage, encourage civic responsibility re taxes and so on. what is it that's impossible, that there's a republican press & machine to fight back or?

The question is whether Obama will be such a pragmatic puss in his second term. I'd love to see more of a slash and burn 'Bama, a lame-duck who uses his status to fight back, rouse his base once again, and foster enough of a Dem groundswell to end on the note he began, with the congress (if not necessarily the presidency) more blue. Thus leading to another four+ years of bullshit deadlock pettiness, but still.

i am still p sure that second term obama is going to actually crossbow dissenting republicans in the house, limit senatorial health plan coverage to medicaid & stop the use of private cars in the USA

The question is whether Obama will be such a pragmatic puss in his second term

What is left to compromise on? Besides, a President's second term is a wheeze. It's how political parties scare you into voting ("Don't worry – he'll be 'progressive' if reelected").

And Obama keeps pushing this ridiculous notion that if he gets an amazing deficit deal that will clean the deck and magically allow him to have chits in order to push 2nd term programs that progressives like. I don't see that happening. The more likely scenario is that Republicans will feel even further emboldened by what they got now and will push back even harder against anything Obama wants to do in a 2nd term, and will push harder for what they want(with media support because Obama won't be using his bully pulpit and staying on message with Congressional dems on why the Republican ideas are wrong). Compromising now in the manner that he proposes (entitlement cuts, etc.) is not going to allow us to reach the promised land in the 2nd term no matter what he and his advisors think (who also though going with watered down Geithner economics would lower unemployment).

Ah, now I see Why J. Paul Oetken, of New York, got approved with a number of Republican votes to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York. Even though he's gay, he was a corporate attorney.

Corporate attorneys have been suitably pithed of any feelings for actual justice and are safe bets.

Watching the Republicans frog-marching the whole nation toward debt default has been interesting, but with Obama making so many frantic signals of his willingness to be rolled on a debt deal that it takes away some of the breathtaking drama. I plan to be so deep in the mountains when the deal is announced that I will miss the POTUS solemnly praising the heap of shit he is grasping to his bosom as a radical step forward to a better future. Thererfore I will be spared from many morbid thoughts.

I don't understand how any theoretical Democratic president is supposed to do this. It cannot be done.

I really don't even know what you're declaring here. That all Dems are now slo-mo Republicans? That's mostly true, and there are 2 solutions: Get different Democrats OR get a new party.

what about 'get people who would vote for different democrats'

They're around, and I find it cynical to assume otherwise.

Besides, a President's second term is a wheeze.

^^^yup. we're reaching the end of O's legislative accomplishments.

fwiw saying his foreign policy in the middle east is indistinguishable from Dubya's is just revisionism.

tom coburn in the parking lot, circling, screaming i don't give a fuck

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=138485866

The plan by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is laced with politically perilous proposals like raising to 70 the age at which people can claim their full Social Security benefits. It would cut farm subsidies, Medicare, student aid, housing subsidies for the poor, and funding for community development grants. Coburn even takes on the powerful veterans' lobby by proposing that some veterans pay more for medical care and prescription drugs.

Coburn would also eliminate $1 trillion in tax breaks over the coming decade, earning him an immediate rebuke from Americans for Tax Reform, an anti-tax organization with which Coburn has had a running feud. He would block taxpayers from claiming the mortgage interest deduction on second homes and limit it to homes worth $500,000. He would also ease taxpayers into higher tax brackets more quickly by using a smaller measure of inflation to adjust the brackets.

haha i kind of love it, the "fuck everyone" plan

make the us into new hampshire

oh god npr doesn't even mention what he's calling the thing...

back in black

This should scare Dems into voting for The One.

did Perry declare...? I missed that

Party puppetmasters have a way of winnowing out unacceptable frontrunners, eg Howard Dean

xp

i had to spend all weekend w/ my bachmann loving cousin. i was like ... why? and he was all 'she's not afraid to tell it like it is.... and she's smart' and then i punched him in the face, lopped off his head, and mounted in my trophy room.

Next to your Borders Rewards card?

yeah. atop a pile of ticket stubs from that awful winnie the pooh abortion i saw yesterday.

lol

Party puppetmasters have a way of winnowing out unacceptable frontrunners, eg Howard Dean

party puppetmasters = buncha democrats in iowa?

GOP version is a bunch of big guys with hats in Texas

also if you don't think Gephardt fell on his sword to destroy Dean at the behest of Party apparatchiks I think yr missing a piece of the puzzle

I really don't even know what you're declaring here.

That attempting to make more of a stand and demagoguing more would not be an effective political strategy.

can you explain about gephardt? honestly i though he just came in 3rd and that was that, with the 'scream' bs being cooked up by the media a while later after it 'went viral'

http://thequietus.com/reviews

How do you know? The Dems haven't tried it in years.

whoops -- xpost to tim

That attempting to make more of a stand and demagoguing more would not be an effective political strategy.

Wrong thread!

as far as I can tell, the thing about Dean was that a bunch of (rich) Internet nerds fell in love with him and artificially inflated his apparent level of support; the scream was kind of lol (mostly because it was a terrible scream) but from what I understand from insidery friends it didn't really contribute to his "downfall" because his level of support was grossly inflated

can you explain about gephardt? honestly i though he just came in 3rd and that was that, with the 'scream' bs being cooked up by the media a while later after it 'went viral'

Gephardt went after Dean hard in Iowa, running vicious and flagrantly disingenuous attack ads against him, openly fought with him for union endorsements - of all the other candidates in the race at that time, Gephardt was the one most obviously acting as the "establishment"'s attack dog against Dean. Then there was "the scream" (which was a ridiculous non-issue) that played into the DNC's hands, and Dean was done.

Dean won the major union endorsements in Iowa btw. dunno if I would call the SEIU "internet nerds". he won the state.

wait you are saying one guy running for the nomination said bad things about the front-runner? sounds like a conspiracy.

most of the rest of the candidates were trying to ignore Dean/downplay his significance. Gephardt was the only one blowing all his money running ads against him.

you do not need to go into conspiracy zone to find examples of people running attack ads against a front-runner. blame Iowa, the media and the Dean campaign. there's nothing mysterious here.

lol at Dean as a democratic 'outsider' anyway. that was marketing.

Dean had an even bigger hard-on for balanced budgets than Obama did, FWIW. (nb: i was a Dean supporter, not that it made any difference when my state's primary came.)

he's an insider now, I don't think he really was one prior to his campaign. and I don't think anything "mysterious" happened, the Gephardt thing was totally obvious!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_Democratic_caucuses,_2004

60% of the iowa caucus-going party had already coalesced around not-dean.

if gephardt went hard after him, you could just as easily say that it was gephardt misreading dean's "lead" as badly as everyone else. i'd honestly never heard this quasi-conspiracy idea before.

xps

Dean won the major union endorsements in Iowa btw. dunno if I would call the SEIU "internet nerds". he won the state.

Polling throughout the primary campaign consistently showed Dean either in first place, or second behind Dick Gephardt. However, last minute surges by rivals John Kerry and John Edwards as well as negative campaigning between the Dean and Gephardt campaigns resulted in an 11th hour slump for both campaigns. In a poll released by the Des Moines Register just before Caucus Day, Dean registered in third place with 20%, behind Kerry with 26%, and Edwards with 23%, but ahead of Dick Gephardt with 18%.[10]

Throughout Caucus night, Dean was in a fight with Gephardt for third place in Iowa behind Kerry and Edwards. With 100% of precincts reporting, Kerry received 38%, Edwards received 32%, and Dean came in third with 18% while Gephardt finished in fourth with just 11% of caucus support.

how is coming in 3rd "winning the state"

we have a weird, pretty unfair but sorta democratic way of nominating candidates. if these all powerful puppet masters with their uh...attack ads...were in charge, hill woulda been a sure thing. they aren't, she wasn't. random people in Iowa were entirely responsible!

god bless America!

As Dean pollster Paul Maslin noted in the Atlantic:

the most serious damage was coming from Dick Gephardt and his labor minions in Iowa, who relentlessly attacked Dean for his supposed weakness on Medicare and Social Security and his prior support of NAFTA. Although Dean's personal ratings remained strong, the Gephardt barrage took its toll. When, on October 29, we completed the first night of a new poll, Gephardt had retaken the lead in Iowa (by an impressive margin) for the first time in more than three months.

xp
Gephardt was supposed to cruise in Iowa, as the pseudo-favorite son candidate. He was pretty desperate to take Dean down, but came in third anyway.

The scream was more important than anything nasty that Gephardt said, because no one outside Iowa and political geeks and operatives paid the slightest attention before the caucuses. After Dean's winning Iowa the media took the opportunity to shape the nation's perception of him in the next few hours when anyone was paying attention. The media could have annointed him the Next Great Democratic White Hope and the country would have bought the story, for a while at least. Instead the media savaged him non-stop for the next week.

sorry Dan yeah I misspoke (missposted?) - forgetting which ones he won (New Hampshire?)