I gave money to Bill Halter and hoped he would win, but I’m not a huge Blance Lincoln hater. That said, what the fuck is this?
The Arkansas senator may be unlikely to win reelection come November, but her elegant, defiant stand against the union juggernaut in the primary has made her the thinking conservative’s Democratic pin-up.
There’s something about Blanche. The name, so redolent of a certain archetype of American womanhood, is irresistible to anyone red-blooded. Tennessee Williams knew what he was doing when he planted it on his Streetcar. But Blanche DuBois is not a patch on Blanche Lincoln, that handsome, winsome slayer of labor unions, a woman who is now, without peer or dispute, the most fragrant Democrat that any Republican could envision.
Tunku Varadarajan is one weird guy. Also too, it’s strange the way that Republicans fall in fall in love with conservative Democrats, “the last honest man” Joe Lieberman, the fragrant Blanche Lincoln, etc. You sure don’t see this kind of love for Charlie Crist and Olympia Snowe on the left.
Update. If you haven’t read Tunku’s classic “Cricket and the Lord’s Bounty”, you’re missing out:
On day one — with each day’s play lasting from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. — we started at about 11:15 with a snack of stuffed Greek vine leaves. Shortly before noon, when we were joined by his wife, OE uncorked a chilled bottle of Pouilly-Fumé, which we sipped with smoked trout sandwiches.
At lunch, at about 1:15, we had kipper pâté and chicory sandwiches along with a sadistic-sounding but actually rather delicious and very Etonian creation: soft rolls stuffed with salami, chopped radish and English mustard. These we ate with a lovely, firm Pauillac.
With a pause between the lunch and tea breaks, we allowed ourselves time for gastric recovery. At tea, we turned our attention to scones…
cleek
writing about the aroma of politicians is like sculpting about the sound of librarians.
i think Dweezil Zappa said that.
The Moar You Know
Jesus. I did NOT need that to be the first thing I read on the internet this morning.
Fuck this, I’m logging off for the day and going to drive to the mountains and try to make sense of a world I no longer understand.
Crusty Dem
The beltway types just love them, though. I believe it was Broder who said “Moderation in the defense of the status quo is a great virtue”.
Kryptik
For good reason, Doug.
When the shit hits the fan, ‘moderate’ Dems and ‘moderate’ Republicans tend to always fall on the same side: the right.
Seriously, I just want to tear my hair out sometimes. There’s just no point and no use in being a sane progressive. There’s just never a win to be had ever.
Steve
I didn’t know opposition to unions was the raison d’être of the conservative Democrat. In fact, a lot of the more conservative Democrats are union members!
I thought this tripe was totally sexist until I realized it’s no different from what they said about Fred Thompson.
schrodinger's cat
Well what can I say, Tunku is a pretentious idiot.
Crashman
If Republicans got laid more, would we stop hearing bizarre nonsense like this?
jibeaux
I haven’t read the play, but wasn’t the streetcar named Desire? Because the end of that New Orleans streetcar line at that time was Desire St.? I know about Blanche DuBois, but he’s talking about planting the name on the streetcar.
And Blanche is an irresistible name to the red-blooded? Really? ‘Cause I’m just gettin Blanche DuBois and the Golden Girls, and while I’m totally down with celebrating the sexuality of fictional characters and/or older ladies, I dunno about irresistible to the red-blooded.
Thirdly, you don’t “envision” the fragrance of things. And I’m not even getting to the merits of his points, because that’s just like a black hole of moronity.
There’s so much stupid concentrated in there, you could freebase it.
burnspbesq
I will manage to find some love for Charlie Crist if he (a) wins and (b) caucuses with the Democrats.
You missed a potential song-related title for this post. Remember the old R&B chestnut “Everybody Loves a Winner” (covered by, among others, Linda Ronstadt)?
Crusty Dem
@Steve:
True, I remember someone writing how Fred Thompson’s balls smelled like 18-year old Scotch, Old Spice, and freedom. I hope someone has the deep love beltway insiders had for the various twits running for the GOP nod in 2008, that would be very useful in 2012 and beyond. All the Rudy! Fred! Sarah!! megalust should be pretty hilarious in the coming years.
frankdawg
They fall in love with these assholes not because they like them, not because they want them to win – in fact many of Lincoln’s strongest primary allies are funding & working for her opponent now.
They fall in love because it pisses off the DFH
Menzies
@Steve:
But those conservative Democrats tend to be socially conservative but economically liberal, and we just can’t have that shit.
Violet
Hey, didn’t I link that Tunku classic take on cricket for you back a few months ago?
He’s an odd duck, but he’s got a way with words that’s memorable.
slag
Smells like Starbursts to me.
norbizness
He must have wondered why people were laughing at rather than booing Monty Python’s Upper-Class Twit of the Year Competition sketch.
NickM
Chris Matthews’ ode to Fred Thompson’s (imagined) smells was far more poetic:
This sets the standard for writing about imagining politicians’ smells; a standard that Tunku fails to even come close to. I want to know: what exact smells does he imagine eminating from Lincoln? Here’s my shot:
Talcum powder and magnolias, the memory of Chanel No. 5 lingering in a Senate cloak room, a breeze from an Ozark pine stand, some ol-fashioned corn squeezin’s on a fresh-cut golf green, hominy and molassas and a little bit of cigar smoke. You know, whatever.
Crusty Dem
Holy hell, DougJ, it’s only 8 AM on the West coast, you can’t unleash that type of horror until drinking time. Fuck, man, you could get your ass kicked quoting something like that..
jayjaybear
Sounds like Tunku wants to spend more time on the Ozark Highlands Trail (which, incidentally, leads to Woolum, not Bueno Aires).
schrodinger's cat
When talks about cricket, he sounds like he is more interested in the food than the game, itself. What a nitwit.
Sloegin
Fucking ponce is the term I think everyone is looking for here.
Allison W.
That was creepy. very creepy.
Menzies
@Allison W.:
Always is when the Starburst Brigade is on a mission.
Comrade Dread
Oh, sweet frickin’ Buddha.
It’s the damned starbursts again.
Man, I did not need this to be the first thing I read this morning.
fucen tarmal
Blanch a process that sets the color of vegetables, lets you easily peel fruits, and slip the skins off nuts.
Lincoln a large overpriced gas guzzling mushy handling car who’s enthusiasts brag about the trunk size and the number of dead hookers that can be stowed therein….
what’s in a name?
her fragrance? i wouldn’t claim to know.
suzanne
God, I feel like I need to scrub with bleach and steel wool after reading that.
And Arkansas smells like poop, anyway.
jibeaux
Well, clearly, with the update, Tunku shows himself to be your “go to guy” for all matters red-blooded.
Tom Hilton
After reading that excerpt, I have to allow myself time for gastric recovery.
cleek
@jibeaux:
“Blanche” makes me think of boiling vegetables, or of having my face go pale in terror.
Capn America
Ummm for those of you who haven’t read or seen A Streetcar Named Desire:
a) There’s no streetcar in it. Maybe as a prop in the stage version, but really, there’s no streetcar relevant to the plot.
b) Blanche typifies a very specific type of woman, the American Southern Belle. A lot of her beef with her sister’s working-class husband has to do with his being Polish, and thus not old school American like her and her sister’s Southern family. Of course, her reaction would probably have been even more intense if the husband was black instead of Polish.
c) Her last name is a pun on something the play only hints at – she seems to have an attraction for very young men, and tries to seduce one before her nervous breakdown.
d) She has a nervous breakdown.
In other words, none of this is favorable to Blanche Lincoln.
Not to be a jerk to people who aren’t familiar with the work, just a bit of a lit nerd.
frankdawg
Attaturk had coined the motto for Obama’s re-election campaign. Its so good I didn’t want to wait for an open thread.
“We may think disappointingly small, but at least we’re not crazy!”
that is a perfect match for the argument so many people are making – it should be his motto
sukabi
@Kryptik: There’s just no point and no use in being a sane progressive. There’s just never a win to be had ever.
until folks get serious about the voting process and make sure that the votes cast are the same as the votes counted there won’t be a win, just the same old shit over and over again.
Paper ballots, hand counted in public at the precinct level with totals posted.
Digital Amish
I can’t be sure, but I think my first reaction upon meeting Tunku would be to kick him in the balls.
DougJ
@Violet:
Yes! Thank you!
mr. whipple
Even a ‘win’ for progressives would never be recognized as such. That’s part of being a ‘progressive’.
Toughen Up!
Keith
At least she doesn’t have the kind of shoulders you could land a 737 on.
Zifnab
The thinking conservative’s Democrat:
Smells Great
Bashes Unions
Loses in the General Election
Sounds like a Washington pundit’s wet dream. If only Obama had been so graceful.
I can at least comprehend why Lincoln got the support of Clinton and Obama. Clinton is a creature of the ’90s and the incumbency protection racket. Obama owed Lincoln on a bunch of closure votes and issue votes. Lincoln isn’t Ben Nelson and Ben Nelson isn’t a “No On Everything” Republican. But all of this political gamesmanship is just the symptom of a dysfunctional Senate. Obama HAS to back this clown because he needs her vote. And he needs her vote because Republicans absolutely refuse to break ranks.
One thing worth noting in the current political climate. The Republicans continue to anchor the country’s politicians on the right, even in the minority, because of their intractability. If Obama had the freedom to tell Lincoln to fuck off, maybe Halter would have won and we’d have had a serious shot at the general. Instead, he’s got to play the short game – pushing for votes today, knowing he’ll lose the seat tomorrow – because he simply can’t afford to risk pissing off Lincoln between now and November.
El Cid
If only more Democrats were willing to shoot those evil corrupt big boss unions in favor of those poor, itty bitty super-wealthy corporate owners and executives, the party could gain some respectability of the Republicans and centristarian pundits whose approval is so urgently needed.
schrodinger's cat
@Violet: I get the feeling he is trying too hard to sound like one of PG Wodehouse’s characters, may be Bertie Wooster or one of his pals.
jibeaux
I don’t think those words have ever done anything so bad to deserve him having his way with them like that. How on earth is an unnamed salami sandwich “sadistic-sounding”?
The Other Chuck
@schrodinger’s cat:
Wait, are you saying cricket involves some kind of game?
schrodinger's cat
@The Other Chuck: Not to Tunku, to him it seems like an excuse to pig out.
Librarian
Yeah, being a “slayer of unions” makes you “fragrant.” Because, God forbid that workers should organize to get a living wage and decent working conditions. That’s totally beyond the pale. We just can’t have that now, can we?
brendancalling
Seriously? This reads like Tunku was typing with one hand, while punching the bishop with the other. I wonder if he kisses his framed picture of Blanche and sleeps with it under his pillow?
I think i just puked in my mouth.
Steeplejack
@Crusty Dem:
Win.
Alex S.
That piece is concentrated stupid… but I’ll take it. It’ll take a miracle to get Lincoln re-elected. Beltway love might just be it.
schrodinger's cat
@Steve: I never understood the punditry’s obsession with Fred Thompson, they were swooning and gushing as if he were George Clooney, me nor any other woman I knew thought of Fred Thompson as remotely that attractive.
benjoya
punching the bishop…
IMO, “admonishing” is the more evocative verb.
Jim Crozier
“You sure don’t see this kind of love for Charlie Crist and Olympia Snowe on the left.”
That’s because the conservative Dems like Lieberman and Lincoln frequently stick their finger into their party’s eyes. Crist and Snowe didn’t do anything to earn their sides’ ire. They’re just not quite batshit crazy enough for the nutcases currently running the Republican party base.
Not being crazy does not equal actually not supporting their party.
If Snowe and Crist actually were guilty of apostasy towards their party from time to time, you might see Democrats falling in love with them. Instead, you see Snowe drag out…and out…and out…the Health Care negotiations for the benefit of her party. She was like Lucy with the football for Charlie Brown. “This time I swear that my vote is gettable!”
burnspbesq
Oh my – down goes Spain.
twiffer
all i can say in response is that, well, my blood must not be red.
ricky
I must admit I was confused but followed the link where it was all explained:
“Tunku is a Buzzboard Insider”
maus
BARF
Anyway, I thought that was Lieberman.
@Librarian:
“Fetid” is a fragrance.
rapido
“At tea, we turned our attention to scones…”
Should be in the lexicon – its meaning to be determined later.
flukebucket
I love the smell of a fragrant Democrat in the morning.
mr. whipple
As odious as I find Lincoln, the ‘Democrats’ in her state voted for her in the primary. It was always my assumption that she was just a corporate stooge, but apparently her brand of stoogism is the type Ark. Dems prefer. I don’t get it, but there it is.
Tsulagi
So like the far left unions you flushed your money down the toilet.
sukabi
@brendancalling: sounds like he’s got a secret deal with Romance Weakly and got his gig confused.
ricky
Is it true we are getting all these wingnut Indians washing up on our shores because somebody told the Tigers they could catch Mad Human Disease?
Tonybrown74
@Crusty Dem:
I think you are referring to Aqua Velva …
Redhand
Reminds me of Rich Lowry’s “starbursts.” What My Little Pony horseshit.
Chyron HR
Are these people even dimly aware that back in the “good old days”, anarchists would be chucking bombs at them?
I mean, real, literal, exploding bombs.
Zifnab
@mr. whipple: Firstly, it was a close race. So I wouldn’t run off on the suggestion that Arkansas Democrats are – to a man – Lincoln supporters.
Secondly, she had the backing of both former Governor Bill Clinton and current President Barack Obama. That kind of endorsement will bring in the undecideds and the lower info voters.
Thirdly, she’s an incumbent. She has the backing of the party and of her own constituencies. Not everyone is convinced that Bill Halter is any better than another devil we all don’t know.
And fourthly, Lincoln’s got a bunch of money that Halter doesn’t. That means lots of media buys.
Lincoln had the edge in the primary and she won. A disappointment, but not a super shocker.
fucen tarmal
@schrodinger’s cat:
thompson; a face like a white chocolate molded bulldog melting on a radiator?
PeakVT
How can someone write crap like Varadarajan does and not die of shame?
Oh, right, he’s a conservative. Nevermind.
Ash Can
It sounds to me like Varadarajan gets wasted before he writes his columns.
ricky
@Chyron HR:
Are these people even dimly aware that back in the “good old days”, anarchists would be chucking bombs at them?
He would have gone home with the Brits, but these days
those on the subcontinent who sided with the Imperial masters find the attraction of well stocked Amereican grocery shelves impossible to resist.
Zifnab
@Tsulagi: /rolls eyes
You’re just a ray of sunshine, Tsulagi. Don’t ever bet against the underdog, amirite? I suppose the unions should have given their money to Lincoln – or better yet, Republican John Boozman.
Because giving money to a representative that likely won’t win but win but will vote for you is way dumber than giving your money to a representative that likely will win but won’t vote for you.
Or better yet, just get the fuck out of politics. Stop trying you ‘tards. YOU CAN’T WIN. EVER.
mr. whipple
Yeah, I know. What I’m trying to convey is that apparently progressives nationwide have an ideal of what’s desirable in an ARK. dem that isn’t matched by the voters there, over 50% of which thought she was just fine.
Yes, she had advantages that Halter didn’t, but if the DEm voters there found her so out of step she would have got clobbered.
Larv
@burnspbesq:
You know, there’s a thread just for that. Some of us are recording the game to watch later, and don’t appreciate spoilers.
Also, holy shit. To Switzerland?
schrodinger's cat
Varadarajan was the name of a famous mob boss in Bombay, in the 80’s. There is I think a famous movie made on his life. I wonder if Tunku and the mafiosi are related? Hmmm it would be irresponsible not to speculate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varadarajan_Mudaliar
schrodinger's cat
@fucen tarmal: That’s funny, he does look like a bull dog!
Bob L
Considering the way he is just so fabulous about Lincoln and he drops Tennessee Williams is he seeing Lincoln as some kind of surrogate female persona for himself?
Randy P
@Capn America:
I could have sworn I remembered one being mentioned, possibly even seen in the movie version. Just a visual and a throwaway line, but I thought I remembered it being there. FWIW, Wikipedia backs up my memory: The local transportation she takes to arrive there includes a streetcar route named “Desire.”
Well, OK, I guess I agree with that characterization. Definitely not relevant to the plot.
Update: Found the mention in a couple of places. It’s in the first few seconds of the play/movie. Blanche’s first speech.
“They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at Elysian Fields.”
/Even More Pedantry
sukabi
@NickM: more likely the smell of oiled man balls… I hear that’s her main constituency…
Dave S.
It almost sounds like they drank wine through fish sandwiches. Regardless, it reminded me of Salad Days.
In the same vein: “What a great twit!”
jibeaux
Well, it wasn’t really my point that the streetcar was a major character in the play. Just that it wasn’t named Blanche.
CalD
It’s stranger still that people say stuff like that that with a straight face when Lincoln isn’t really all that conservative. In fact, in terms of the most conservative Democratic senators currently serving, using the American Conservative Unions’s lifetime voting scores on key legislation as the most objective broadband measure of overall conservativeness available, she barely makes the top ten.
Those would be:
1. Ben Nelson 46.9
2. Arlen Specter 43.63
3. Bill Nelson 35.53
4. Robert Byrd 28.07
5. Mark Warner 24
6. Mary Landrieu 22.65
7, Evan Bayh 22.45
8. Kent Conrad 19.28
9. Blanche Lincoln 19.01
10. Claire McCaskill 18.67
11. Harry Reid 18.56
I included Reid just because I couldn’t decide whether to disqualify Specter as a Democrat. But the point is that putting aside the caricatures that we tend to draw of our candidates in primary fights, Lincoln is actually kind of on the left wing of the Blue Dog coalition in general.
thomas
@schrodinger’s cat:
Why do you hate on bulldogs?
Dr.BDH
Sing it, Tunku! “Oh, I wish I were an English Manor weiner!”
NobodySpecial
Oh, Lincoln’s fragrant all right. And conservatives LOVE the smell of bullshit…
Tsulagi
@Zifnab: The force is not with your snarkdar.
After Lincoln won, the WH was quoted as saying unions flushed 10 million down the toilet supporting Halter. There were a couple of BJ posts about that primary including that quote. The usual reflexive Obots cheered and defended the quote sentiment as pragmatic.
It was a stand against the far left using a variation of the masterful 11D chess Lieberman gambit. While she isn’t with Dems on much of anything, she’s said some good things about banking reform.
Tax Analyst
@slag:
My thoughts exactly.
Further…
This guy sounds more like a trouser trout sniffer than a connoisseur. I have a feeling all this food foreplay ended with a final course of Stuffed Tunku basted in a frothy creme de cojones sauce. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
The thought of sitting on some picnic blanket or whatever with this fatuous asshole is almost enough to make me vomit.
Any self-respecting scone would surely be repulsed by Tunku’s pretentious attention and would likely refuse to be anointed with the jam and clotted cream that a traditional British cream tea would call for.
PeakVT
@CalD: Depends on what scorecard you use. Progressive Punch has her as the 3rd most conservative Democrat on crucial votes for this session, and 6th for her career. ACLU has her as the 3rd worst for the 111th Congress. And scorecards can’t show how much harm she did by fighting Obama’s key legislative goal in a very public manner.
danimal
Union juggernaut????
More proof of “writing while intoxicated.” There hasn’t been a union juggernaut in America since, um, ever, but certainly not in the last 30 years.
Anti-union in the State of Wal-Mart isn’t exactly a profile in courage, either. As always, follow the money.
stuckinred
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senior administration officials tell The Associated Press that BP has agreed to finance a $20 billion fund to pay the claims of people whose jobs and way of life have been damaged by the devastating Gulf Coast oil spill.
The independent fund will be led by lawyer Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw payments to families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
PTirebiter
I really don’t get why American unions haven’t been able to mount a more effective/any push-back to this never ending narrative. Did they put all their eggs into behind the scene baskets or what? I just don’t see how their story got so lost.
TuiMel
@jibeaux:
When I hear the name Blanche, I think of a Holstein that was part of the herd at the dairy farm across the street from my childhood home. Blanche produced lots of offspring and purportedly would drink soda through a straw. She could be pretty fragrant, too.
mr. whipple
Obviously, another massive Obama fail because it’s not eleventy billion and administered by Jello Biafra.
brendancalling
@mr. whipple:
oh I LOVED that one. shorter booman: “a winning message in 2010 is the base is stupid for wanting the Democrats to deliver”.
Chyron HR
@stuckinred:
That’s nothing but a bunch of Chicago-style deep-dish socialism! And uppity, too!
lurkergirl
Dr. BDH
FTW
jl
“what the fuck is this?”
Drivel.
SATSQ.
Maybe I missed it, but exactly who in the GOP is in wuv with Blanche Lincoln? I don’t see where the gasbag and gourmand Varadarajan mentions any names except for other opinionators.
Lincoln is a Democrat and probably loser in an upcoming general election, and the GOP sure does like those.
Varadarajan seems to be living in Kausland, and thinks it is still the mid 90s when all the cool kids were showing how much intellectual econ 101 weight they could throw around by bashing paleoliberalism.
His rant about how the unions all by themselves busted up Arnold’s plan to save the California budget is sheer fantasy. Arnold never had a realistic plan to fix the CA budget, and his major economic campaign proposals ensured that the budget could not be fixed, even if we stripped retired state employees of all their pensions (though, state employee pension system does need to be changed).
His excrescence regarding hoity toity food was more tolerable. Too bad the nice picnic was ruined by a cricket match (and before cricket nuts descend on me, I would say the same if it were a baseball game).
You drink beer, eat burgers and dogs at games.
flukebucket
@jibeaux:
When I think of Blanche this is the one that comes to mind.
QuaintIrene
Streetcar!
Long before the Superdome,
. Where the Saints of football play,
. There’s a city where the damned call home,
. Hear their hellish rondelet:
Zifnab
@Tsulagi: *sigh* Well, then, redirect my anger to the WH.
I really have to wonder where this bullshit comes from? There’s no way Obama is sitting up in an Ivory Tower scoffing at the notion that underdogs can win primaries. The Hillary / Obama battle of ’08 isn’t that far behind him, and Obama wasn’t exactly the favorite in that one.
PeakVT
When I hear the word “blanche” I think of blanching 400 lbs of fries for the evening rush on a Friday. At least that job paid $8.50/hr in 1988.
Svensker
@benjoya:
Is that the new name for it? It’s hard to keep up.
Phoebe
@Capn America: Blanche takes the streetcar in the beginning to get to Stella and Stanley’s place, and refers to it later on: “Desire, the name of that rattletrap streetcar…” So, as jibeaux points out, even if you don’t know the play [or movie, which is great], you know one thing: The streetcar is not named Blanche.
Maroon.
Peering into his idiot mind, though, I think his attraction to Blanche is probably to the sweet, ultrafeminine persona this poor crazy nympho adopts to get through life. The very thing that makes Stanley crush her, of course. He’s really a moron any way you slice it, this Tunku.
Svensker
@Dr.BDH:
Ha ha ha.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Tsulagi: And the usual reflexive Puma’s rallied around and cheered due to a single anonymous source from someone reportedly working in the WH>And were and are too damn lazy to actually check Lincoln’s voting record, and if they would would see that Lincoln more often than not votes with democrats/ And has for a long time.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@stuckinred: Why wasn’t it 20 TRILLION. or at least 21 billion. Obvious cave by Obama, again.
Brachiator
OT Rand Paul Fun
I saw this item at the Vanity Fair site. Apparently, Rand Paul is not currently certified in his medical specialty.
This isn’t a huge deal, but is perhaps consistent with a libertarian outlook. Let the free market decide who is and who is not a doctor.
maus
@Tsulagi:
Troll on, troll on, troll on.
You PUMAs never fail to bore.
suzanne
FWIW, my in-laws are all Arkansas Dems, and they said that, while they preferred Halter in actuality, the fact that Lincoln was the head of the Agriculture committee was a big deal for them, and they voted for her to keep their Senator in that seat. I have no idea if that sort of thinking was widespread, though.
Jay in Oregon
@Librarian:
To a conservative, “union” is a shorthand for “the Mafia”.
Tsulagi
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
There you go, General, Blanche is a wonderful pragmatic choice. Her performance during the year+ HCR saga was stellar.
About the 10 million flush quote, yeah, it was attributed to a “senior WH official.” When later asked about the accuracy of the quote, the WH didn’t deny it while Gibbs tried to walk it back some. Not too much, though, might offend Blanche.
Don’t know what the PUMAs in your mind were rallying and cheering at the time, don’t really care to know, but on one BJ post on the subject I simply commented it was kinda dumb to issue a petulant “in your face” statement to one of your historically largest supporters, campaign contributors and GOTV orgs. Strategery Dem style.
sacman701
I think what Tunku’s trying to say is that Blanche’s milkshake brings the boys to the yard, and damn right it’s better than yours.
Tsulagi
@maus:
Didn’t you forget Firebagger? Jane Hamsher of the Left and all that? At least toss in a good ol Mike Kay secret Edwards voter accusation to add some real deep insight and force to your comment. Those windmills aren’t going to fuck themselves.
jl
@sacman701: Thanks. I’ll read the piece again with the sound on. But it will be hard to beat the original.
Brachiator
@Jay in Oregon:
And apparently, “unemployed worker” is shorthand for “lazy bum.” The Senate has (for now) voted down an extension of unemployment benefits.
Over the past couple of days, I have been hearing callers to various talk shows opine that if we only eliminated unemployment compensation, the economy would surge as people took jobs instead of living high on the dole.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@suzanne: Obviously widespread enough. I’m Not a fan of any conservadem, and certainly not Blanche, but for electoral purposes of electability, incumbency is a big advantage, such as with your in laws, and likely many others. Lincoln’s biggest obstacle, and it would have been the same with Halter, are conservative independents and conservative dems in that state, which there are many. They are not so put out with Lincoln as have joined with the tea bag mentality, and it is mainly why Lincoln has gotten as wingnutty as she has, at least with her rhetoric. Any dem in that state has to walk a very narrow and shaky tightrope of being acceptable to the upset and energized conservatives, which are dominant, whether D’s or R’s, and also be acceptable to the fewer liberals in that state, especially in the current pol atmosphere in the south. Lincoln has to now bring on board the Halter voters whilst not also alienating the conservatives, not an easy task. But she is a known entity, and Halter would have had to pull off the same feat, and he is not a known entity, at least as a US Senator.
kay
@suzanne:
I think it is. I once lived in Marcy Kaptur’s district. She’s an anti-war liberal, an old-school populist, and hardworking and honest. She’s anti-abortion, but that stance probably fits the district.
Less ideological Democrats regularly complained that she didn’t bring enough money back to the District, and she wasn’t on powerful committees.
They saw her as a well-intentioned loser, sort of a chump. No credit whatsoever for principled stands.
It was interesting. They were just purely self-interested, and they didn’t apologize for it.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Tsulagi:Don’t know what the “usual reflexive Obots” in your mind were telling you either. Prolly to stop yer wanking.
Jules
MoDo is sad again.
Obama has still not fulfilled her need for an emotionally open father figure.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/opinion/16dowd.html?hp
Capn America
@Randy P:
@Phoebe:
True, my mistake about there being NO streetcars. Actually, your quoting that line also reminds me of the Elysian Fields reference, which I never really got the meaning of – maybe Blanche goes from Desire to dying (metaphorically)? But that implies she’s a hero of some sort, and I think the play makes it clear she isn’t, at least not one with traditional redeeming qualities. Then again, it could just be a throwaway line Williams used to keep nerds like us talking about his work…
asiangrrlMN
@jibeaux: I agree. I mean, I could string together a bunch of elegant sounding words and come up with something more cringe-worthy than what this guy has written, but why would I do that? Those words never hurt nobody!
Jennifer
You know, I’d like to birth a meme right here in this very comments thread.
The next time you talk to an anti-immigrant ranter, ask them this: “how do you feel about the unions?”
Dollars to donuts they’re agin ’em. Because unions are evil or whatever. I don’t have any hard polling data to back this up, but given that anti-immigrant and anti-union sentiment are both features of rightwing mentality, the overlap has got to be if not 100%, then pretty damn close.
Allow the rightwinger time to vent about the unions and all the evil they’ve done. Then calmly point out that there aren’t any illegal immigrants working in union shops. That getting rid of unions was a necessary step for big business to allow them to hire illegals who they can pay less than the federal minimum. That if the meatpackers union hadn’t been destroyed by Reagan, Tyson and Smithfield and the rest wouldn’t be actively recruiting immigrants to come to the country illegally to work for them, and there would be tens of thousands more jobs for American citizens making actual living wages instead of an entire class of illegal peasants doing the work instead.
Then stand back – you don’t want to get any bits of exploding head on your clothing. It stinks and it’s really hard to wash out.
kay
@Jules:
I thought that column was so revealing. Only Reagan meets Maureen Dowd’s “daddy test”.
Hmmm.
Did you ever think media’s role was going to become so personal?
They talk about themselves incessantly. It’s just so wildly self-indulgent. Maureen Dowd’s columns are about Maureen Dowd. That’s her job. She gets paid.
asiangrrlMN
@Jennifer: I like the way you think. I may have to employ your methods–while wearing a cheap t-shirt that I can just toss.
Jules
@kay: She gets paid.
If only I had known.
I can whine and talk about myself all day.
Where’s my NYT gig?
maus
@Tsulagi:
The pejorative “Obots” for Obama voters is theirs, moreso the union hate. Since searching for posts is difficult here, I assumed.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@maus: Not originally, we just accepted it to mock the wingers and progs that invented it. AKA thick skin.
Brachiator
@Jennifer:
I don’t think this is necessarily the case, especially because some people insist on conflating “anti-immigrant” and “anti-ILLEGAL-immigrant sentiment.
I know that some would like to pretend that immigration laws do not exist, and on the other side places like Arizona which have upped the ante with what amounts to a perverted neo-secessionism based on anti-Latino sentiment.
But in Southern California, at least, there is no easy linkage of anti-union and anti-illegal immigrant sentiment.
Also, typically conservative anti-union sentiment is beginning to get some traction with a wider segment of voters as public sector unions clash with local, state and federal budget crises.
maus
@Brachiator:
How many anti-“illegal immigrants” are for actual, legitimate immigration reform?
And this is also a laughably small percentage of the”counter-argument.
Brachiator
@maus:
RE: I don’t think this is necessarily the case, especially because some people insist on conflating “anti-immigrant” and “anti-ILLEGAL-immigrant sentiment.
Don’t know. And what is “legitimate” immigration reform?
RE: I know that some would like to pretend that immigration laws do not exist
Don’t think so. Democratic leaders do a nice dance where they talk about undocumented workers and the need for comprehensive immigration reform, but never admit that there is such a thing as illegal immigration. Cardinal Roger Mahoney blandly insists that there is no such thing as an illegal immigrant. The official position of the California Green Party was that national borders did not apply to indigenous people of the Americas. Republicans talk about illegal immigration and everyone assumes that they mean immigration, period, which may be true of some, but attempts to make a distinction get discounted.
And note that increasingly the new background to this is the stench that is coming from Arizona and elsewhere that is attempting to redefine the United States as a white Christian nation in which anyone who doesn’t fit the profile can come along for the ride as long as they acknowledge a subordinate place at the national table.
CalD
@PeakVT: Ever read Progressive Punch’s methodology statement? I’m afraid I really don’t think much of their approach. The ACU scorecard and the Americans for Democratic Action “Liberal Quotient” both rely on a hand-picked list of 20 and 25 key votes per year respectively. They’re coming from diametrically opposed ideological perspectives but their lists typically overlap virtually completely, to the point that their respective scorecards are near perfect mirror images.
I tend to use the ACU simply because they use more votes per year and keep a running lifetime tally for every member of congress. But more is only better up to a point. And Progressive Punch’s approach, in my opinion virtually guarantees a higher proportion of bullshit throw-away votes will be included in their tallies — i.e., the kind that really exist purely for members of congress to score a few brownie points with the rubes back home (or in this case, perhaps a few extra meaningless strikes against them with the other rubes). So thanks very much, but I think I’ll stick with the ACU and ADA.
CalD
PS: There’s a reason why every batter in baseball doesn’t swing for the fences every time the go to bat. It’s because that’s not how you win baseball games.