To answer Anne Laurie’s question about my views towards Max Baucus, there’s a difference between holding one’s nose in order to tolerate a blue dog like Stephanie Herseth, and putting up with a larcenous, obstructionist, prima donna like Baucus. Good riddance to the egotistical fool who almost killed and certainly impeded Obamacare, to the money grubber who launched a hundred K street consultants, and to the “Democrat” whose voting record was almost indistinguishable from a Republican in far more areas than was necessary to win a state that has a few more Democrats than the Dakotas, Wyoming and Idaho.
The other nice piece of news is that Baucus’ retirement opens the way for Brian Schweitzer. Schweitzer is an interesting study in the strategy that all the northern prairie and mountain state Democrats use to get elected and stay in office, which is to get voters to tolerate a liberal by bringing home the bacon, and lots of it, and adopting Republican positions on the real hot-buttons. As governor, Schweitzer fought hard to use Montana’s coal resources (bacon), he criticized GM when they stopped buying precious metals mined in Montana (more bacon), and he out gun-nutted the gun nuts (hot button). To balance that out, he also was a major proponent of wind energy, has a great record on education, and supports single-payer healthcare.
Schweitzer is a bit of a progressive darling because of his single-payer position, which isn’t as big a push as you might think. First, the Republican base is energized to hate Obamacare, and single-payer isn’t that, so the great irony is that the more liberal position actually deflects a lot of the criticism that is thrown up about Obamacare. Second, “single-payer” is a term that shows that Democrats are so terrible at political branding that if they were giving away gold they’d call it “shit” — the obvious and far better brand is “Medicare for all”.
Like all mavericky types, Schweitzer has a bit of the foot-in-mouth disease. Calling Mitt Romney’s Mexican ancestors members of a “polygamy commune” was funny, but there are a lot of Mormons in Montana and a (very) few might vote for him. Schweitzer’s great blessing is that Denny Rehberg, his probable opponent, already lost to Tester and is a dumbass. After Schweitzer is elected and votes a few times for Montana interests, he won’t be addressing Netroots Nation and Kos won’t want to have his love child, but he’ll be about as good a Democrat as we could ever expect coming from that part of the world.
Xantar
I know I’ve already posted it before, but this amazingly prescient Onion article deserves repeating because it says everything you need to say about Max Baucus.
In 2001.
low-tech cyclist
Yeppers to all that, mistermix. There’s a huge difference from being a real Democrat who’s doing the things he has to do to get elected in a fairly red state, and a worthless corporate shill like Baucus.
Schweitzer will be a huge improvement.
liberal
OT: More evidence that the West is in the wrong in the confrontation with Iran.
Marc
Do you want an over/under on when the Daily Kos crowd turns on him? My only question is whether it’s before or after the election.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
The firebaggers, of course, will hate Schweitzer for the usual reasons as cited above but he’ll be far more of a Democrat that Baucus ever was.
WereBear
The long slow demographic grind of getting these reflexive Republican voters out of the system is going to work on my nerves.
It doesn’t matter if they advocate baby broiling and Mutual Assured Destruction Guaranteed at High Noon: too many jerks my age and above stopped thinking quite a while back, and still feel “grown up” because they vote R.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Marc:
Markos is leading a petition drive urging him to run. In fact, Markos has been a huge Schweitzer fan since at least 2008. Ain’t gonna be no turning anytime soon, at least not by the people who actually matter there, the Front Pagers.
The “Daily Kos” crowd that turns on Dems are all firebaggers. They’re the ones that dominate and game the Wrecks List because their pleatings at Calamity Jane’s site fall of deaf eyes.
c u n d gulag
Well, I don’t see any Montana version of Robert Marion “Fighting Bob” La Follette, Sr., running (and yes, I know he was a Republican – but that was THEN!).
So, I’ll take Schweitzer, and hold my nose on guns, and a few other issues.
Schlemizel
@liberal:
I am just stunned to learn that Boy Blunder and his Super Friends fucked up an opportunity to make the world a better place!
Schlemizel
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Please do not try to bring reason or sense into a debate here about the great orange satan. All you ever need know is that they once actually tried to unseat Senator Droopy Dawg of Conn. and failed and once a commenter there compared some politician to Hitler – ergo they are firebagers and no attempt to separate the good things they have done from the fringe crazies can ever be tolerated by the true scotsmen here
MTiffany71
What I never understood on the issue of ‘single payer’ is why Democrats never asked the obvious question: “So long as you get to see your doctor, who cares who does the paper work?”
Punchy
Max Bupkis
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@MTiffany71: Because the argument wasn’t about paperwork, it was about where your money goes. And a lot of people can’t get over the “my money goes to the government to pay for that welfare cheat to get free healthcare.”
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
I really, really wish there was a way to stop the congressional revolving door, but damned if I don’t know what it would be, other than public funding of election campaigns, and that’s sockalism. Sigh. Think of all the good that could be done with the money that’s sloshing around K Street, instead of propping up shit like Pharma, the NRA, MPAA, RIAA, etc.
Elizabelle
1) Doesn’t “Medicare for All” mean that grifters and the undeserving are stealing from the Olds?
Maybe single-payer makes the voter engage brain for a few moments, engages “curiosity” feature before “sloganeering” catches on.
2) What does Max get to do with all that campaign cash? He must have something.
3) Check out reader comments on this NYTimes story, sorted by “most recommended.” Not a lotta love out there for Max.
It’s a good day when Max Baucus realizes he has passed his “sell by” date. Bring on a less rancid product.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Schlemizel:
Hell, I think Obama only lasted for two posts over there…lol! I got sick and tired of the place back in 2005 and quite happily settled in here instead. Someone there sent me a link to something Tim F wrote and I ended up sticking around because of that insufferable asshole, I mean John.
:)
geg6
@Schlemizel:
The problem is that people read the comments and the rec lists and that is the poisonous part of GOS. I read the front pagers only and have no problem with most of what I read there. Ignore the shit parts and read what is usually a pretty damn good product. The comments, however, I consider verboten. And I can’t tell you the last time I read one of the diaries.
amk
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): Compulsory IRS audit of those lobbyist mofos would be a good start.
scarshapedstar
“If it doesn’t make you laugh, it isn’t true.”
– RA Wilson, Illuminatus!
Cassidy
@Schlemizel:
Emo-pouting is never a good thing no matter how many duckface pictures exist on the internet.
RaflW
Speaking of foot-in-mouth disease, the display by Harry Reid’s aide Jim Manley on the Daily Show last night gives us a damn good idea of why politics is so f*cking broken in this country. Yes, I know, the top problem is Republicans. But groveling, moronic shitstains like Manley(link to segment, sorry about ad) are rampant in Washington. I’m sure Max Baucus has helped put 100s of them into sweet K Street jobs, too.
I just can’t stand how bitter and angry I am at the politics of this country.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Schlemizel: I still hover between here and there. My biggest beef with the place is that the diarists, even a few front pagers, think that their posts actually mean something outside DK.
Cassidy
@RaflW:
Well, maybe if we’re licky the
traitorous, inhuman scumConservatives will grow the balls to start the civil war they really want and then we can just shoot them instead of trying to debate jackasses and morons.Got to find that silver lining!
I kid, though. I’d much rather they commit mass suicide and try to go see their maker.
cleek
he’s probably more responsible for Obamacare’s existence than anyone else in DC.
Davis X. Machina
Or not…
mai naem
I detest Max Baucus and really like Schweitzer. I wonder if Obama knew Schweitzer was going to run and that Baucus was going to resign. I was surprised Obama didn’t appoint Schweitzer to something in the second term but it also could be because Schweitzer’s a straight white guy and wouldn’t have contributed to diversity in the cabinet.
Patrick
@MTiffany71:
As I understand their logic; that equals socialism, which apparently is the same as tyranny. Or something like that.
Never mind that single payer is a much more efficient way of running health care and that free markets/capitalism doesn’t work for everything. Especially for health coverage.
Patrick
@geg6:
But the comments make me question which party I belong to. I used to be a Republican. But that party has become so extreme that I don’t belong there. On the other hand, I agree with perhaps 5% of the comments on dkos. I guess I am an independent.
FlipYrWhig
@Patrick: Yes, but calling it “single payer” is soul-suckingly awful. It immediately makes you think that _you’re_ the single payer, on your own paying for every service. No one could possibly understand from the phrase alone that the single payer is the government.
Cassidy
@Patrick: According to the Firebaggers, we’re all fascist Republicans because DROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNZZZZZZZZZZ! CHAINED CPI! ARGLEBARGLE!
eemom
Backass voted against the gun bill last week, which is sufficient and plenty reason for him to rot in hell.
mds
@c u n d gulag:
While there are certainly nose-holding issues (coal, Keystone XL, etc.), Schweitzer is a gun nut who has indicated support for background checks. So he might have been willing to join Tester in supporting Manchin/Toomey, at least. Which is to say, he’s potentially even to the “left” of Baucus on firearms. Though it’s become less prevalent these days, being a rootin’ tootin’ long gun enthusiast isn’t necessarily inconsistent with supporting sane gun control legislation.
Cassidy
@mds: A lot of the “sportsmen” gun owners try and quietly distance themselves from the hoarders and concealed carry nuts. I still dont’ have respect for them as they won’t vocally support sensible gun laws, but, one on one, they don’t understand the “prepare for treason” crowd either.
askew
@Marc:
He’s a white man who acts macho. They’ll take a long time to turn on him, because they care more about optics than they do policy and they are so busy demonizing Obama that they don’t have time to go after another Dem.
somethingblue
Nah, they’d frame it as a market-based initiative to incentivize private employers to take advantage of a narrowly tailored tax credit for improving and developing shit. And then they’d take the gold out and replace it with fool’s gold “in hopes of appealing to moderate Republicans.”
askew
@Schlemizel:
It’s been a long damn time since Daily Kos did something helpful to the Democratic Party. They went around the bend in 2009 when they spent months smearing Obamacare and trying to kill the bill and the site has never recovered. They went full on firebagger in 2010 at YearlyKos when one of the front pagers was a complete and total asshole to the WH spokesperson who bothered to show up. You’ll notice that very few politicians show up for YearlyKos any longer when it used to be a required stop for politicians.
Markos should never have bought into Blackface Jane’s firebaggery. That same anti-Democrat/Obama nuttiness led to myDD and OpenLeft being shutdown after they became ghosttowns. FDL and DK are on the same path. Just look how much slower both sites are now than they were even 1 year ago.
Alex S.
Well if Schweitzer runs for that, he won’t run for President.
@eemom:
Then you won’t like Schweitzer.
There must be a certain recipe to get elected as a Democrat in the northern plains states. I wonder how Frank Church did it.
mistermix
@eemom: Schweitzer is a gun nut.
mistermix
@Alex S.: McGovern probably had an A rating from the NRA, he basically held his nose and voted their way.
Biff Longbotham
and true, n’est-ce pas?
ricky
I suppose the corollary is that Republicans are so good at political branding they would charge that the Democrat’s shit was just another government give away that destroyed the market value of every God’n Glenn Beck loving free American’s get rich quick retirement investment.
liberal
@Patrick:
Single payer doesn’t really run health care; it’s health insurance. They’re intertwined, of course, especially if the payer uses its monopsony power, but they’re not the same thing.
@MTiffany71:
But this is problem. You can’t control costs if you have a single payer system that just rubber stamps everything a doctor orders up for a patient.
There’s a lot of things that no payer should pay for, because they’re not necessary, or the small benefit they provide is far outweighed by their costs. Or even worse, they provide a negative benefit via overtreatment.
Sure, single payer alone would be an advance in cost containment, insofar as having private insurance doesn’t add much value, and has extra costs. But because of market failures in the provision of health care itself, not just health insurance, reform of the payment system alone isn’t going to completely fix the problem.
liberal
@Alex S.:
I could be mistaken, but I assume that the populace there now is much further right than the populace then (a statement I wouldn’t make for the nation as a whole).
Certainly seems true of MN, anyway.
Patrick
I know. It is an expression as most people refer to it that way…
gene108
@liberal:
Because of obvious blunders closer to home – 9/11/01, Katrina, the economy, etc. – the foreign policy failures of Bush & Co. get glossed over and/or Iraq/Afghanistan failure sucks all the energy to discuss their other failures.
Iran made good faith efforts to reach out to the U.S. after 9/11/01 because Iran hated the Taliban and nearly went to war with the Taliban in the 1990’s. Bush & Co. told Iran fuck off, we don’t need your help.
Clinton struck a deal, much maligned by neocons, that allowed some monitoring of North Korea’s nuclear program, so they wouldn’t get nukes. Bush & Co. jettisoned that agreement, talked tough, called North Korea part of the Axis of Evil and so North Korea told us to take their NPT obligations and shove it where the sun don’t shine and in 2006 they detonated an atomic device.
So thanks to Bush & Co., you have a bad situation with Iran made worse and North Korea a member of the nuclear weapons club.
ricky
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Which means if he does run and win, Markos will claim credit and argue that this proves by running on a Progressive agenda, Democrats can even win in Red Montana.
It also means every act by Senator S. counter to the Progressive agenda as defined by Mr. M. will therefore be an act of Treason. Or at least assault in the posterior of the Base by a carving instrument. Either of which is a capital offense.
ruemara
@liberal:
I wouldn’t say much further right, but I would say far more engaged in tribalism than a rational debate mindset. When you explain the neoconservative position on many issues, a large portion of their base simply refuses to believe that it’s so. They vote that way out of brand loyalty and hatred of the other guy.
JoyfulA
@mistermix: Howard Dean held an NRA A rating when he ran for president. Although I doubt that he does now.
pseudonymous in nc
Schweitzer is basically part of a progressive tradition that’s well suited to the wide-open spaces of the mountain West.
But that sort of sums up the problem of the Senate, in that it perpetuates a system where doing the right thing for the nation as a whole is always compromised by a sufficient number of states where it’s appropriate to do the wrong thing. See: the Minnesota senators in hock to Medtronic.
Freemark
It is hilarious reading the anti-GOS comments. Because we BJers are SO much better than ‘those’ people. I still still a member of the Church of the GOS. Many diaries have incredible amount of excellent information. Most of the front pagers are excellent and great to read.
If you don’t want go go there don’t. It is a huge community and saying shit about it being ‘firebagger’ is pretty much like saying you won’t go into a city because pf graffiti. If that is all you think it is its because that is what you are looking for.
Cassidy
@Freemark:
I am. Next.
Seriously, though, the mindset of the firebagger is simple and delusional and divorced from reality. No, I’m not going to consider that kind of idiotic thinking as equal to my own.
That’s their fault. When you prominently display your stupidity, don’t be surprised when you’re called stupid.
aimai
@askew:
You know–lots of sites are slower when there isn’t a live election happening. I don’t think you can count DailyKos out because between elections people aren’t as politically active. I try to avoid the comment section at all and never post anymore because of all the general stupidity but the entire country is full of stupid people–just because people are nominally democrats or nominally to the left does not preserve them from the country’s general problem. I did blow my stack at LaFeminista, who is truly stupid, over the second guessing she did over the “shelter in place” order for Boston. The tinfoil was flying over there over that issue and then I reminded myself not to bother.
Cris (without an H)
@scarshapedstar: and the expanded version:
Cris (without an H)
@mistermix: It’s speculation, but word is that Schweitzer, who is indeed a gun nut, does support the expansion of background checks.
askew
@aimai:
It’s slower than I’ve ever seen it even in off-election periods. Rec list diaries sit up there for days and there are less than 100 comments on them. That never happened before.
While there are stupid people all over the internet and the country, the stupid people have drown out or driven off all of the intelligent people from the site.
I still love Daily Kos Elections though.
rikyrah
Couldn’t stand him.
good riddance.
Cris (without an H)
Lemme add a link to clarify that:
Thor Heyerdahl
@askew: I was a former daily reader at DKos (heck I have a user ID under 500 – so I’ve been there a long time). Have barely looked at it since the election and have no real reason to go back.
This site and, on occasion, “First Draft” are the only political sites I bother reading anymore.
Cris (without an H)
LOLOL. Email from Jon Carson, BarackObama.com:
Welcome to the undercarriage, Max. Even OFA hates you.
Schlemizel
@geg6:
Agreed.
Freemark
@Cassidy: No, it is actually your fault. If you seriously cannot stop yourself from reading something because it is on the page in front of you must be a godsend to internet advertisers.
DailyKos has a great deal of good information, some great front pagers and some good diarists. Yes there is a lot of chaff, but it is an open site connected to the internet. Obviously if you don’t like it don’t go there. But since your criteria seems to be you won’t go to a site where some stupid things are posted, why are you here?
I like GOS because there is great, useable information put on the site daily. If I click on a diary that is ends up being ‘firebagger’ I just use the back button. Problem solved.
liberal
@gene108:
Yeah.
Loviatar, Firebagger
Why Obama’s Stealth Social Security Cut Is Bigger Than It Seems
rikyrah
Schweitzer- hope he runs
smike
Thank you for “Medicare for all.” That should be a national mantra.