Multi Medium

Eleventy-Dimensional Chess Strategy Revealed!

I think I have finally figured it out: By co-opting Republican positions on issues like extraction, tax cuts, regulations, and austerity, Obama is forcing the GOP to become more and more insane in order to stay to the right of him as an opposition party, thus making itself less and less appealing to non-crazy voters.

Obama isn’t following the Republicans to the right, he’s pushing them.

Add comment September 8th, 2011 at 11:23am Posted by Eli

Quote Of The Day

Michele Bachmann, from a story about how Republican Jews think she’s Jewish(!):

As a young girl from Anoka, I was shocked at the level of security in Israel. We worked on the kibbutz from 4 am to noon. We were always accompanied by soldiers with machine guns. While we were working, the soldiers were walking around looking for land mines. I really learned a lot in Israel.

Am I the only one who finds that kind of… unsettling?

Add comment August 31st, 2011 at 06:51am Posted by Eli

Optimistic Jon Huntsman Is Optimistic

Apparently he thinks that Republican primary voters are looking for a sane, rational candidate.  My favorite bit:

“The minute that the Republican Party becomes the party — the anti-science party, we have a huge problem,” Huntsman said.

Umm… Jon?  That ship sailed about ten years ago, if not more.

Add comment August 22nd, 2011 at 08:03am Posted by Eli

This Just In

Apparently the teabaggers are basically just rebranded Republican theocrats.  If they’re political independents, it’s only because the Republican Party isn’t sufficiently suffused with right-wing religious fanaticism.

But the joke’s on them, because now they’re even less popular than the religious right, and even atheists and Muslims.  Why, they’re even less popular than Obama’s record on the economy, and that’s saying something.

The Tea Party really is the best hope Obama and the Democrats have next year – that they nominate more unelectable crazies like Sharron Angle, Linda McMahon and Christine O’Donnell, and that voters turn against the teabaggers that they elected last year.  Lesser of two evils is pretty much all they have going for them next year, so they’re going to have to be pretty damn lesser to overcome the enthusiasm gap (who could have predicted that the party that strokes its base would get better turnout than the party that kicks theirs?).

1 comment August 18th, 2011 at 08:08am Posted by Eli

It All Depends On What The Meaning Of The Word “Good” Is…

The NYT recently revived Obama’s old quote from early in his presidency that he would rather be a good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president, in the context of talking about what he has to do to turn his presidency around before he’s up for re-election.  But really, that only makes sense if you buy the premise that he hasn’t been a good president, which can only be properly evaluated if you know what his goals are.

That is the question.  There has been a spate of Obama-evaluating articles and blog posts lately, with the likes of Robert Reich, Drew Westen, Der Spiegel, LAT, and the Wall Street Journal attributing his disappointing presidency to weakness and/or cluelessness, while Matt Stoller, David Sirota, Jamie Galbraith, and, well, me, argue that Obama has been enacting exactly the policies he wants to enact.

There is room for agreement between the two views, however: Regardless of whether Obama is a successful Republican or an unsuccessful Democrat, he has been an absolutely miserable politician who has demoralized his own base, alienated independents, and done nothing to win over Republicans. (Well, actually, he’s done quite a lot to win over Republicans, but none of it has worked.)  And the economy and employment situation is still terrible, although I suppose that could also be considered a matter of perspective – the wealthy are still doing fine, if not better, but the overwhelming majority of the electorate are not feeling very secure.

So is Obama a good president or a mediocre one?  I think the answer mainly depends on how much money you have.  Is he a one-term president or a two-term one?  I think the answer mainly depends on how crazy the Republican nominee is.

1 comment August 11th, 2011 at 07:42am Posted by Eli

Obama’s Secret Weapon Against Mitt Romney: Irony

Yes, Obama’s plan is actually to paint Romney as a phony insincere corporate shill who reverses his position on every issue.

His team really has been studying Karl Rove’s gameplan of attacking opponents with your candidate’s own weaknesses…

Add comment August 10th, 2011 at 07:25am Posted by Eli

There’s No One Left To Vote For

Shorter American electorate: WE HATE EVERYBODY.

And really, who can blame them?  Both parties got their shot at running the government, and both parties failed miserably because they cared more about their corporate and wealthy donors than the people they were elected to serve.

There is definitely room for a third party (although it would really be more like a second party at this point), but not if it’s just a corporate “centrist” party positioned between the other two corporate parties.  The only kind of third party that’s going to gain any traction would be a populist one that promises to represent ordinary people instead of corporations and the wealthy.

1 comment August 6th, 2011 at 01:47pm Posted by Eli

Just What We Need

Tom Friedman and Chris Cillizza are absolutely right that there is a palpable hunger for a third-party alternative to the godawful Republicans and Democrats, but I really don’t think that a new corporate-owned party positioned between the two corporate-owned parties that we already have is going to represent our interests any better.

Add comment July 25th, 2011 at 08:05am Posted by Eli

Daily Caller Vs. Bachmann?

Most people I know think the Daily Caller story about Michele Bachmann’s supposedly debilitating migraines is the Republican establishment’s attempt to get her out of the way for the 2012 election, but I think maybe Tucker Carlson is just trying to reassure us that she won’t be trying to wreck the country 24/7.

Add comment July 20th, 2011 at 07:11am Posted by Eli

What I’ve Been Saying

I said this over five years ago:

Republicans understand that voters in “the base” turn out if motivated, and the undecideds in the middle do not. Consequently, they tailor their electoral strategy to pumping up their base to maximize that turnout, and they don’t worry about the middle all that much because they’re proportionally less of a factor. The Democrats, on the other hand, repeatedly throw their base under the bus in pursuit of those fickle undecideds who probably aren’t voting anyway.

From Nate Silver’s post on why Republicans are crazy (answer: because unlike the Democrats, they’re playing to their base):

Tell me again why alienating your base in pursuit of independents is a good electoral strategy?

(This is, of course, assuming that this actually is the Democrats’ electoral strategy and not just an excuse for pursuing conservative policy goals on behalf of their corporate benefactors.  But as excuses go, it’s a pretty transparently ridiculous one.)

1 comment July 8th, 2011 at 07:36am Posted by Eli

Seriousness, Republican Style

Shorter Thomas Sowell: Why is no one taking this fire seriously?  Stop jabbering and posturing and throw some gasoline on it already!

I also liked the part where he explains that raising taxes on the rich is both a socialist takeover and an ineffective empty gesture.  And where he explains that voting should be a privilege for the educated overclass rather than a right extended to just any peon.

Somehow, I don’t think restricting the electorate to only well-informed people would work out quite the way Sowell pictures.  On the other hand, quizzing voters would be so unwieldy and contentious, so maybe we should use income or net worth as a proxy for knowledge and intelligence, since after all only the smartest and best-educated people get rich, right?

Add comment July 6th, 2011 at 08:11am Posted by Eli

Good Luck With That.

Obama campaign looks to collect contributions from all the people it’s shafted for the last two years.

It’s a lot easier to win people over with inspiring messaging than uninspired governance.  Much less out of touch, corrupt and downright awful governance.

1 comment June 22nd, 2011 at 07:46pm Posted by Eli

Devils And Angels

You know the old cliche gag where someone has an angel on one shoulder telling them to do the right thing, and a devil on the other shoulder telling them the exact opposite?  The GOP is kind of looking like that right now, and the devil is winning.

Representing the angel (relatively speaking, this is the GOP we’re talking about), David Frum:

Look at the issues the House GOP has decided to showcase this summer:

A) A budget plan that would gradually withdraw Medicare coverage from everyone younger than 55, to the point where the Congressional Budget Office estimates that senior citizens will be paying two-thirds of their health coverage out of pocket by 2030.

B) A threat to force a default on the obligations of the United States by August unless the president yields on point A.

(…)

Tea Party conservatives complain that Republicans who advocate restraint, responsibility and moderation do so in order to be nice to Obama. That’s utterly upside down. Restraint, responsibility and moderation are indispensable to the defeat of President Obama. It is Tea Party conservatism itself that is Obama’s last, best hope for a second term.

The Obama campaign can only redirect attention from the president’s own record to GOP kookiness if the GOP cooperates. The conclusion that you’d think would follow: don’t do it.

And in the devil corner we have, who else but Karl Rove:

Next year, Republicans must describe their Medicare reforms plainly, set the record straight vigorously when Democrats demagogue, and go on the attack. Congressional Republicans—especially in the House—need a political war college that schools incumbents and challengers in the best way to explain, defend and attack on the issue of Medicare reform. They have to become as comfortable talking about Medicare in the coming year as they did in talking about health-care reform last year.

There needs to be preparation and self-education, followed by extensive town halls, outreach meetings, visits to senior citizen centers, and the use of every available communications tool to get the reform message across.

Yes, a full-court press to make sure America knows all about the Republicans’ Medicare sounds like an absolutely brilliant idea!  And maybe Robert Samuelson can explain that the end of Medicare is a good thing, and exactly how cutting seniors loose with $8,000 to buy private coverage will “[force the] health-care delivery system… to restructure by reducing costs and improving quality.”

Obama doesn’t really deserve to win next year, but the GOP seems determined to help him out.

Add comment June 7th, 2011 at 11:25am Posted by Eli

I Got Your “Overreach” Right Here

Hey, remember the Republican narrative about how the Democrats got pummeled last year because Mad Socialist Obama “overreached” with his government takeover agenda?  Funny thing: As soon as the GOP took power after that wave election, it immediately got to work showing everybody what real overreach looks like, attacking collective bargaining rights, and now Medicare.

The Democrats swept the Republicans out in 2006 and 2008 because the Republicans proved themselves to be incompetent and corrupt.  The Republicans swept the Democrats out in 2010 because the Democrats proved themselves to be incompetent and corrupt.  Now the Republicans are proving themselves to be downright malevolent, and could very well swing the backlash pendulum back to the Democrats, and in a presidential election cycle too.

If the presidential election had been held in 2010, Obama might have been in serious trouble if the Republicans nominated someone even semi-sane.  But if the Republicans continue to push a nakedly pro-wealth, anti-everything-else agenda, Obama’s going to win in another landslide, whether he deserves to or not (it’s “not”, by the way).

Also, the fawning Cheney endorsement probably isn’t doing Paul Ryan any favors.  If I’m his opponent, I’m running that quote on a continuous loop from now until election day.

Add comment May 27th, 2011 at 07:55am Posted by Eli

Great Moments In Political Analysis

Conservative pundit Andrea Tantaros helpfully explains that Republican voters should nominate the best candidate, makes no attempt to identify who that might be.

Insightful columnist is insightful!

Add comment May 19th, 2011 at 07:09am Posted by Eli

Wednesday Why-I-Love-The-Weekly-World-News Blogging

The Callista Gingrich phenomenon, explained at last:

Today Newt Gingrich announced that his wife, Callista, is in his words a “Stepford Wife.”   Newt told reporters today.  “Soon after I married Callista, I had her brain replaced with a robotic brain.  She does anything I tell her to, which frankly, the way all wives should behave to their husbands.”

Callista has been the most public and the least known of the political partners bracing for the scrutiny of a presidential campaign. In eleven years of marriage, Callista Gingrich has never been the subject of a profile. Gingrich’s aides declined to make her available to any newspapers for an interview, to talk about her or the marriage on the record or on background, or even to suggest friends who might offer a glimpse of the would-be First Lady.

The reason:  Callista is a robot.

Friends say she’s ready for the rigors of Iowa, where she went to college, and a comfortable public performer, if one who has spent much of her time on stage behind a gleaming french horn in the Fairfax City Band.

“The robotic brain I had put in her head, can handle any situation,” said Newt.

“She is much more in the model of a Laura Bush than a Hillary Clinton,” said David Bossie, the president of the conservative group Citizens United and a longtime Gingrich ally. “She just is a strong partner like Laura Bush, was but not out in front like Hillary Clinton was.”

Callista Gingrich is Newt’s third wife.  He was tired of having his wives “talk back” to him and deny him sex.  “Callista will have sex with me whenever I ask her too and she never talks back.  If she starts to talk back, I just say the word “Speaker” and she shuts up. I love her so much.”

When asked where Newt had his wife’s brain replaced with a robotic brain, he said – “That’s something that will come out in the campaign.  I will reveal that on every campaign stop ONLY to the men who promise to vote for me in 2012.”

Newt hopes to win in a landslide.

I am intrigued by the hint that Laura Bush may also be a robot.

Add comment May 11th, 2011 at 11:33am Posted by Eli

Wait… What?

I can’t make any sense of this sentence:

The question of whether President Barack Obama was born on U.S. soil will have zero impact on the 2012 campaign but could significantly damage Republicans’ prospects for retaking the White House if it lingers.

Wouldn’t “significantly damage” be a little more than “zero impact”?  Of course, Roll Call is just reporting a Republican consensus view, so I guess nonsensical contradiction is to be expected.

Speaking of Obama’s birth certificate, I’m surprised Obama didn’t choose to release it in late 2012 to embarrass the GOP right in the middle of their campaign against him (or, y’know, NOT AT ALL).  I guess that’s what happens when you have a Democratic president who only plays hardball against his own base.

Add comment April 29th, 2011 at 07:59am Posted by Eli

Overthinking

There’s really a very simple reason why conservatives haven’t built a strong grassroots internet infrastructure: THEY DON’T HAVE TO.

Why on earth do you need internet grassroots when your political movement is primarily about serving the interests of corporations and elites instead of ordinary people?  And when those corporations and elites can funnel you more money than ordinary people could ever dream of without even breaking a sweat?

1 comment April 26th, 2011 at 07:58am Posted by Eli

Save us, Donald!

Donald Trump’s will-he-or-won’t-he shadow presidential campaign continues.  This is far and away my favorite part:

“I can send two executives into a room. They can say the same things; one guy comes home with the bacon and the other guy doesn’t,” Trump said. “I’ve seen it a thousand times. … We don’t have the right messenger. [President Barack] Obama is not the right messenger. We are not a respected nation anymore and the world is laughing at us.“

Because the only way to regain our respect and stop the rest of the world from laughing at us is to elect Donald Trump President.

Add comment April 19th, 2011 at 07:58am Posted by Eli

Primirony

From an Americablog post from an anonymous Democratic insider about the need to primary the Obatross:

We saw in 2008 that organizing a primary campaign apart from the built-in support of the established party can create a national movement for change. A successful campaign has to recruit and organize supporters around the country, it must create its own message machine and rapid response team, and it must create donors and fundraise successfully in order to support all of these efforts. Modern technologies make this even easier than it was in the days of Reagan’s 1976 campaign. But, to really succeed, the movement cannot be discarded at the moment of the Inauguration (just ask the poor folks trapped in the tunnel with the Purple tickets).

Hey, you know what would provide a really great ready-made base of supporters for an upstart progressive primary challenger?  The Obama For America mailing list.

Add comment April 11th, 2011 at 08:00am Posted by Eli

This Can Only Be Good For Generic Republicans

So despite all his pro-corporate worthlessness and ineptitude, Obama still polls ahead of a generic unnamed Republican opponent by 10 points, 47-37.  I suspect that this probably says a lot more about fear of Republicans than it does about confidence in Obama.

I guess the best way to confirm that would be to ask voters if they would rather vote for Obama or a crazy person who wants to deregulate everything, cut taxes for the rich, throw all the gays, immigrants and labor unions out of the country, and gut Social Security and Medicare to pay for more wars, and see if those numbers change at all.

Add comment March 24th, 2011 at 10:58am Posted by Eli

Thrower-Outer’s Remorse?

I saw a remarkable number recently – Michigan’s union-busting Republican governor won election by 18 points last year, but if he had to run for election today, just a few months later, he would lose. And I think a lot of other similar governors (i.e., Scott Walker, Rick Scott) are in a similar situation.

So what I’m wondering is what exactly the message is here. Is it solely about appalled voters finally realizing just what it is they voted for, or is it a measure of just how disgusted they were with Obama and the Democrats that they would vote for anybody just to send a message?

Sometimes you don’t have to provide an appealing alternative – just an alternative.

4 comments March 23rd, 2011 at 12:55pm Posted by Eli

Democracy In Action

This just in: 61% of Americans want to reduce the deficit by raising taxes on the rich, 3% want to do it by cutting Social Security.

So what does Obama do?  He cuts a deal with Republicans behind his own party’s back to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and he creates a presidential deficit reduction commission stocked with Pete Peterson acolytes and other enemies of Social Security, whose draconian recommendations he shows every sign of favoring.

Obama and the Democrats might want to think about this as they wonder why they got destroyed in next year’s elections.

Add comment January 4th, 2011 at 07:41am Posted by Eli

On Primaries, Cause & Effect, And Teddy Kennedy

I would submit to you that Jimmy Carter was not weakened because he faced a primary from Teddy Kennedy, but rather that he faced a primary from Teddy Kennedy because he was weakened.

The same applies to Obama: If he gets primaried from the left and subsequently loses the general election, that loss will not be the result of the primary challenge – it will be the result of the discontent that led to the primary challenge.

I would also say that I don’t buy the premise that a primary would cause Obama to move to the left. He might – might – do so temporarily during the campaign, but if he were to win the general election he would immediately revert to the same kiss-right, kick-left behavior he’s exhibiting now. In fact, he’d probably be a lot worse with a Republican Senate and an even more Republican House.

Add comment December 8th, 2010 at 11:36am Posted by Eli

Something For CT To Look Forward To

Imagine having to choose between Linda McMahon and Joe Lieberman.

Would Lieberman try to win the Democratic nomination (unlikely the outcome would be any better than last time), or would he just go straight to an independent run again?  As an added bit of fun, the Connecticut For Lieberman Party has pretty much been taken over by people who aren’t exactly Lieberman fans, so he’d have to come up with a new imaginary party banner to run under.

My fondest hope is that the CFL actually runs ads against him.  What would be sweeter than seeing 27 seconds of Lieberman-bashing followed by “This message has been paid for by the Connecticut For Lieberman Party”?

Add comment November 10th, 2010 at 07:05am Posted by Eli

Great Moments In Irony

The Blue Dogs’ own opposition to effective stimulus and financial reform led directly to the Republican wave which cut them in half.  (And I’m guessing that their opposition to the public option and support for the Stupak Amendment didn’t help them much either.)

And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of corporatist wankers.  Too bad it had to result in the ascendancy of even bigger corporate wankers.  Johann Hari sums it up nicely:

This is the story of the modern Republican Party. They use the cultural signifiers of the good people of Middle America to get their emotional identification, meanwhile they pillage Middle America and redistribute its wealth to the rich….

This is all made easy for Republicans by the fact that most of the Democratic Party slithers in the same trough of corruption, begging from the same billionaires and corporations, and so can deliver only a tiny notch more for ordinary Americans. This makes left-liberal ideas look discredited, when in truth they are largely discarded.

Unless and until we get some kind of robust public campaign financing, this is just going to get worse and worse.  The Democrats’ own corporate corruption has essentially given the GOP license to run even further and further to the right, secure in the knowledge that the other side is too compromised to truly oppose them.

Add comment November 5th, 2010 at 07:20am Posted by Eli

Post-Midterm-Mortem

In a nutshell, the Democrats got crushed because they, behind Obama’s fearless leadership, failed to deliver.  Yes, they passed a lot of bills, but they were compromised and weak at best.  They actually managed to pass a healthcare reform bill that most people hate, they passed a weak financial reform bill, they passed a stimulus bill that was too small and poorly-designed to reduce unemployment (but continued to brag about how the economy’s in recovery), and they appear to be mostly twiddling their thumbs in the face of a massive foreclosure crisis.

Not only that, but the Obama administration has repeatedly belittled and insulted the Democratic base while screwing over core Democratic constituencies like Latinos, unions, women and gays.

And of all the Democrats to survive, why did it have to be Harry Reid?  Ryan Grim kinda-sorta defends him as merely doing his president’s bidding, but that’s not really a ringing endorsement when Obama has been such a destructive tone-deaf fool.  Reid should have been resisting Obama’s efforts to make the Democratic Party toxic, not facilitating them.  The money quote:

Reid… is merely the contemporary Democratic Party distilled to its essence. Over the past decade and a half, the party of FDR, JFK and LBJ drifted away from its foundation and found refuge in a transactional politics that is being forcefully rejected by voters. Presented with the chance to make history, Democrats made deals — with pill makers, with device makers, with hospital executives, with hedge fund managers, with swaps dealers, with auto dealers, with “non-bank financial institutions.” As the tide turned, Democrats found those corporate interests scurrying back to the GOP. When the party turned back to its people, they were nowhere to be found. Compromise in pursuit of a broadly popular, unifying agenda is a forgivable sin. Compromise just to put points on the board leads to a blowout.

Well, I’m sure that will certainly improve now that the Republicans control the House and probably have functional control of the Senate…

1 comment November 3rd, 2010 at 07:32am Posted by Eli

The Other Campaign Finance Problem

Technically speaking, it’s not actually campaign finance, but it’s a key part of the whole corrupt system of skewed incentives that has made our government a wholly-owned corporate subsidiary:

Why would members of Congress be prepared to take a vote that is both bad on policy grounds and also could hurt their own political survival? Erskine Bowles is a large part of the answer. Bowles is an unsuccessful politician, having twice lost in runs for the Senate in North Carolina.

Yet, he is very successful financially. He pockets $335,000 a year as a director of Morgan Stanley, one of the huge Wall Street banks that was rescued by taxpayer dollars in the fall of 2008. He likely pockets a similar sum from sitting as a director of GM, another company rescued by the government.

This means that Bowles pockets close to $700,000 annually (@600 monthly Social Security checks) from attending eight to twelve meetings a year. This must look like a pretty attractive deal to current members of Congress. In other words, the message Bowles is sending members of Congress is that if you betray your constituents and vote to undermine Social Security, you will be amply rewarded even if the voters give you the boot.

For this reason, Bowles should be a very scary figure to supporters of Social Security. By example, he is telling our elected representatives of Congress that they need not worry about either good policy or their voters’ wishes. Unfortunately, many members of Congress may find Bowles career to be an attractive route to follow.

This scares me at least as much as the obscene quantities of corporate money sloshing around in the system, an it’s even harder to regulate.  Sure, you can impose restrictions on politicians becoming lobbyists immediately after they leave office, but just how much can you legally restrict how (or how well) they make a living?

Add comment November 2nd, 2010 at 07:26am Posted by Eli

Karl Rove Hates Lightweights

I think it’s hilarious that the guy who masterminded George W. Bush’s rise to the White House is so offended by the idea of unqualified nitwits like Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell running for office, especially the oval one.  Maybe if he’d held that view 10-15 years ago we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now.

Add comment October 28th, 2010 at 06:47pm Posted by Eli

Irony Of The Day

Apparently Rand Paul campaign volunteers tackling and stomping on a progressive activist is simultaneously a minor trivial “crowd control problem” in which no one got hurt and too violent for YouTube.  Awesome.

Add comment October 27th, 2010 at 07:16pm Posted by Eli