.
In case you missed it earlier. I like that Senator Warren didn’t say ‘This is my chance… ‘ but ‘This is our chance’.
On a related topic, the Washington Post had a good article on the various (nationwide!) local initiatives to raise the minimum wage closer to something approaching a living wage:
States and municipalities across the country are leading a localized push to raise the minimum wage, driven largely by Democrats, who see an opening to appeal to working-class Americans at a time of growing inequity.
Efforts in Congress to raise the national minimum wage above $7.25 an hour have stalled. But numerous local governments — including those of Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, and the District — are forging ahead, in some cases voting to dramatically increase the pay of low-wage workers….
President Obama has called for an increase in the national rate, mentioning it in his most recent State of the Union address and recently signing on to a proposal from congressional Democrats to set a $10.10 hourly rate. But congressional Republicans have opposed any increase, saying it would hurt employers and curtail job growth….
Even in red states, Democrats see opportunity in minimum wage increases. Democrats are deep in the minority in legislatures in South Dakota and Arkansas, for instance. But both states allow for statewide referendums, and Democrats there are gathering signatures to put minimum wage increases on the ballot in 2014.
Just as Republicans used initiatives banning same-sex marriage as a way to boost turnout in 2004, Democratic candidates may find that sharing a ballot with a minimum wage measure helps draw the contrast between the two parties…
“Having minimum wage measures on the ballot in certain states next year may prove electorally beneficial to Democrats,” said Carolyn Fiddler, a Democratic strategist at the Atlas Project. “It certainly seems to poll well generally.”…
At its highest purchasing power, in the 1960s and 1970s, the nation’s minimum wage approached a rate of 50 percent of the country’s median wage. That’s a ratio economists say is still important in assessing its ability to keep low-income residents out of poverty…
***********
Apart from remembering what the Democratic Party is supposed to stand for, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up this holiday weekend?
Hal
I know this get said all the time, but I really want Elizabeth Warren to stay in the Senate. Congress is such a shit show that Sen. Warren as majority leader would be real change. Hell, if we could clone her and have her run for the house and become majority leader there, Congress might actually have ratings higher than malaria.
Amir Khalid
Every time this topic comes up I wonder if some brave Republican is going to speak up for reducing the minimum wage.
ETA: … which is, after all, the logical extension of that party’s prevailing “take from the poor and give to the rich” philosophy.
NobodySpecial
How about drone strikes on CEO’s? Everyone’s happy!
fuckwit
And, I have to say, thank you, thank you, thank you, to the kids in 2011, getting beat down in Zuccotti by the NYPD, by the LAPD, getting brutally fucked with by the OPD, getting maced in the face by UC rent-a-cops, getting evicted from the streets…. you did this, you Occupied, you told your story, you used the People’s Mic, you changed the narrative, you got the message out about income inequality and the 1%, you pushed the Overton Window, you put your bodies on the line and you made a difference– and are still making a difference.
Now the message has spread. There’s a great Senator leading the charge in Congress. The President is on board. There are groups that evolved out of Occupy helping organize workers in red states. There was a nationwide general strike of retail workers. There are ballot measures. Now it looks like even the vapid, Macchiavellian, polling-obsessed beltway establishment is on board.
The change has been very slow in coming but it is definitely coming. It took 40 years for the Rethugs to destroy the middle class in this country; we’re not going to rebuild it in a day, or a year, or even a couple years. But the process has started and it’s underway.
This is what democracy looks like.
JPL
@Amir Khalid:If there were no minimum wage, everyone would be rich. The pesky 7.25 an hour wage holds back the average American. Also, too tax cuts on the wealthy expands growth and lowers the deficit.
Derelict
Anybody else find it more than a bit offensive that the entire issue is cast as something Democrats push for simply to pander to voters?
Seriously? Can’t ANYONE (press or politician) simply state that a higher minimum wage is good for the country?
JPL
@fuckwit: wow! I want what you are smoking. Although the election is a ways off, the Republicans have an opportunity to gain enough seats to control both houses of Congress.
magurakurin
Senator Warren seems pretty awesome to me, but I don’t want her to run for president (mainly because I don’t think she would win) and if this CNN poll is any indication, Maddow’s headline not withstanding, it doesn’t seem as if Democrats actually want her to run…for president.
We need good people everywhere, but most important we need to win. Senator Warren winning a senate seat in Mass really isn’t a sign that she is a sure thing to win the Whitehouse. A whole different ballgame.
Splitting Image
@Amir Khalid:
Leaving a reduced minimum wage in place is secular-socialist Islamofascist tyranny.
New Hampshire: a laboratory of democracy
fuckwit
@JPL: Well, you’re not reading what I wrote: it took 40 years for the Rethugs to destroy this country, we’re not going to fix it in one election, or maybe even a half-dozen, maybe even a dozen. It may take decades to fix this. Who knows what 2014 will bring. Maybe the process will accelerate and we’ll hold the Senate and make gains in the House or even win it back. But if it isn’t 2014, it’ll be 2016, or 2018, or 2020. No matter what, we’re on a path that will lead to fixing the damage, eventually, if we keep up the work.
OzarkHillbilly
Did anyone else feel that earthquake last night? The epicenter seems to have been Columbia MO:
Yet when you witnessed this mad scene on Saturday night, when you saw the faces in this crowd that covered so many generations of cursed and dispirited Mizzou fans, you realized that it really wasn’t such a private mission after all.
What happened here was a collective mission shared by so many Mizzou fans who have spent their entire lives flinching, recoiling and fearing the worst possible nightmare would happen on big nights like this.
But on Saturday night, that gawdawful luck finally changed. There were kids rolling around on the field and parents taking pictures, trying to document the night when the bad luck for Mizzou football finally changed.
It’s a battle of Tigers now.
Back to your regularly scheduled programming….
fuckwit
@magurakurin: I have to wonder who was the ovewhelming frontrunner for 2008 when Democrats were polled in late 2005? Oh wait, it was Clinton!
http://www.gallup.com/poll/17773/hillary-clinton-easily-paces-democratic-field.aspx
Haha, that charismatic newly-elected Senator who gave that great speech about “one America” at the 2004 convention wasn’t even on the polling radar to run in 2008, as of 2005. My point is: these early numbers are meaningless, and the Clintons know that damn well.
magurakurin
@fuckwit: I don’t want to get into a brawl here because we are clearly on the same side. But, that doesn’t make Maddow’s headline any less false. Maybe Warren is the same as Obama, I don’t think so at all, and maybe by 2016 she’ll be the come from behind nominee and then go on to win(I’d surely vote for her, but I also voted for Mondale, Dukakis, Gore and Kerry(I was 17 in November 80 so I couldn’t vote for Carter, but I surely would have). None of that changes the fact that right now there is no ground swell of support for her. Maddow’s headline “this is why Democrats want her to run” just isn’t true. They don’t. I remember Obama’s speech at the convention. And I also remember telling my wife, “this guy is going to be president some day.” I know it’s just my opinion but I don’t get that vibe from Warren..at all. I think she would get her clock cleaned in presidential election. So, yeah, I don’t want her to run. I willing to admit I could be wrong, but it seems that a lot of people share my feeling and not Maddows.
OzarkHillbilly
@magurakurin: I would love to see a President Warren. I just don’t think America is ready for her yet.
Death Panel Truck
“Maddow’s headline “this is why Democrats want her to run” just isn’t true.”
I’d vote for her in a heartbeat. Anyone but another Clinton. Another Clinton means another term for Bill.
NO. FUCKING. WAY.
JPL
@fuckwit: Change will take a long time and I understand that, I’m just more pessimistic. MSM is an impediment to change. Unless something horrible happens, the Morning Joe crowd and others just don’t care about the Walmart strikers.
magurakurin
@OzarkHillbilly: exactly. And winning is important. And Clinton will most likely win if she runs. She’s not my favorite person, and she isn’t the best there is, but if she wins, she’ll do. I’ll support Warren if she runs, but I wouldn’t be holding out much hope that she would win. None, actually. But, hey, that’s me. I’m no expert but it still is my honest opinion.
WereBear
@JPL: Yes, but the pundit crowd is becoming irrelevant. He last remaining barrier is that politicians listen to them.
magurakurin
@Death Panel Truck: fine, you’re in the 7 percent of that poll then. Still doesn’t prove Maddow right. Maybe Democrats should want Warren to run, but that is a different thing altogether.
WereBear
Yes. Of course, the Republicans push for something that benefits THEIR paymasters, too.
I sickly love the way the press enjoys castigating the idea that voters can vote for policies which improve their lives… but for some reason they should not.
After all, Tea Partiers are voting to starve children, just so their taxes go down. Aren’t they getting what they want?
OzarkHillbilly
@Death Panel Truck: While sympathetic with your point of view, I have to ask a question:
Hillary Clinton or Paul Ryan?
Hillary Clinton or Rand Paul?
Hillary Clinton or Ted Cruz?
Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio?
Hillary Clinton or Chris Christie?
Hillary Clinton or Rick Santoram?
OK, that was 6, but it really all boils down to this: Can you name a single Republican that would be better than Hillary?
Just One More Canuck
@Amir Khalid: so they will nominate Dennis Moore in 2016?
Shawn in ShowMe
My first instinct is that Warren couldn’t win a presidential election. But then I ask myself, what states did Obama win in 2012 that she would lose? I can’t really think of any. The purple states that Obama won might be even more receptive to Warren’s working class platform.
WereBear
The reason I’m pro-Clinton is not policy driven. It’s simple voting. Clinton vs whatever Psyclo-in-a-suit the Republicans regurgitate this coming cycle would be floor-mopping numbers. She would get Appalachia and chunks of the south. She would nudge the color needle blue. She would have coat-tails which can get us the House back.
That’s the kind of message that gets out, past the frantic courtiers of our useless Beltway media.
Our nation is as progressive as we allow it to be. We elected such a great President, one who loves liberal policy. That is what he pushes.
The fact that it is not what he, and we, get is because we have single-celled organisms clogging the system. A spectacular nation-wide loss is how Reagan looked inevitable, and his policies, popular.
We need that.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: The court that we have now, is going to restrict a woman’s choice and the next court could restrict the types of contraception available. I for one, will vote for the democratic candidate.
Shawn in ShowMe
@WereBear:
We’d have to win an additional 4 states to approach floor-mopping numbers. So what states in particular do you think Clinton would win that we didn’t win in 2012? (For starters, she ain’t winning Missouri. The out-staters hate the Clintons’ guts here.)
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: If (legally) possible, I for 3 will vote for the Dem candidate.
WereBear
@Shawn in ShowMe: Polling this summer showed her picking up AK, TX, KY, LA, & GA.
I predicted that Barack Obama would triumph in 2008, partly because he was my preference, and partly because misogyny trumps racism. Offered a black man vs a white woman, the man has the edge, simply because people, in the aggregate, are both stupid and timid about these decisions.
Now we’ve had an African American President, and people are ready for the next step of voting for a woman. But it won’t be an out-of-nowhere woman like the recent senator from Massachusetts. It will be someone they are used to seeing in power; Hillary Clinton.
People don’t really vote on policy. People vote on personality.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: haha.. We will be lucky if we are still allowed to vote.
Shawn in ShowMe
@WereBear:
C’mon now, you know those polls had her going up against the likes of Marco Rubio and Rand Paul. She’d be lucky to grab two of those states against the blowhard from New Jersey.
OzarkHillbilly
@Shawn in ShowMe: Actually, I think she’d have a shot in MO. Repubs have an uphill fight in any statewide election these days (see McCaskill, Nixon, Koster, Kander). Once you remove race from the equation, and I know more than a few lifetime Dem voters out here that just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for that ni**er, it gets even harder for them. As always in MO tho, the question will be settled in the STL and KC suburbs.
Betty Cracker
I don’t see Clinton winning any state Obama didn’t win in 2012 if she runs in 2016 (which I don’t necessarily think she will). Appalachia? Please. Appalachia turned out for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primary as a way of giving the finger to the black dude (and I say that as someone who thinks we at Balloon Juice perhaps overestimate how much of the opposition the president encounters is based on race).
Appalachia / Dixie voted for McCain and Romney in the general election, and they’ll vote for whichever psycho the GOP horks up in 2016. If the Democrats unearth a Bubba who can appeal to that part of the country, they might have a chance of peeling off a Southern / Appalachian state, but even then, I seriously doubt it; things are much more polarized now then they were a generation ago.
Still, just holding the Obama constituency together at the national level is a good bet; we beat Romney and McCain handily. What needs to happen now is more focus at the local and state level. I’m actually more optimistic about our chances to move the needle there, seeing as how so many GOP governors have fucked things up.
gelfling545
@Hal: I agree. She can be more effective and has a better chance of actually getting some parts of her agenda acted upon from the Senate than from the White House. If we keep removing our best people from the Senate we’ll always have our current mess.
Kay
I’m pleased that Democrats are supporting a minimum wage increase, but the people doing all the work on the ground are labor people. It’s great that Democrats are on the side of labor, but Democrats didn’t organize the fast food strikes and Black Friday actions, labor did.
The fast food strikes have been hugely successful in terms of media attention, and all the credit for the work should go to labor and the fast food strikers (who are taking a huge risk, as individuals).
Minimum wage ballot measures passed all over the country in 2006 (well prior to Occupy and the financial crash) and in Ohio (successful!) all the organizers I saw were labor-paid organizers.
These were the donors for the Ohio measure:
There were 107 donors to Ohioans for a Fair Minimum Wage, which altogether spent $3,653,549 promoting the measure. Donors to the committee included:[4]
National Education Association, $710,000.
AFL-CIO, $550,000.
New Orleans ACORN Democracy Campaign, $330,000.
Little Rock ACORN, $300,000.
Democratic Governors Association, $250,000.
Change to Win PAC, $200,000.
George Soros, $110,000.
Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, $28,500.
Slogging along for the last ten years while (most) national media and politicians were still trumpeting the housing/finance bubble (as far back as 2004) should count for something.
Shawn in ShowMe
@gelfling545:
Warren is absolutely one of our best people in the Senate. But she’s not in line to be Majority Leader and even if she was, it wouldn’t make much difference when we’re dealing with obstructionists on the other side of the aisle. We need to win more House and Senate races, period.
Kay
This is the only mention of labor in the Post article, and that is just not an accurate account in terms of who are the actual movers behind Fight for Fifteen and the (successful) push for media coverage of this broader wage issue:
MikeJ
I think the people who want Warren to run for president are sure that *this* time we’ll have somebody who doesn’t waste time “passing laws” and all that shit Obummer insists on. Magically upon her swearing in everything will take effect to the point that the ghost of Eugene Debs comes back and starts urging that we slow down.
And if she were to win, before the votes from California have even been officially counted we’ll hear the chants of “Warren sold us out under the bus worse than Obama.”
Frankensteinbeck
@Derelict:
The whole point of the article is that Democratic politicians from Obama are stating that raising the minimum wage is the right thing to do, but the press cannot grasp that they might believe it and describes it as a horse race instead. Yes, it disgusts me. God, does it disgust me.
EDIT – @Kay:
For the same reason the press cannot imagine a politician might care about helping people, the press cannot imagine that labor is anything but a special interest lobbying group. That ordinary people might be important in any way is alien to national journalists. The tone of the article makes it clear – they’re fascinated and surprised that politics can happen at a local level and not all in DC.
cmm
I heard tell of such Democrats, going on the offensive and trying to make things better instead of playing who can be tougher on spending and the poors. But since my first election was 1984, I have never seen it, other than from a few like Sanders. Welcome back Democratic spines! We have missed you.
Kay
@Frankensteinbeck:
It’s fair to portray it that way though, because the minimum wage fight has been going on a long time. As a practical matter, it makes sense for Democrats to take it up aggressively right now (income inequality polls as the biggest issue of concern for people) but the fact is they ARE taking it up nationally just as it hits broad recognition nationally. There’s nothing really wrong with that, it was LESS of a national issue in 2006 (which is the last time Democrats used it in an election year) but it is basically accurate to say that they are taking it up when it’s politically beneficial for them. That’s true.
khead
If my Facebook feed is any indication, the gun nuts are *bit* upset at the NFL over refusing a gun commercial. First, it was a tragedy that the NFL wouldn’t run the ad….. then a few hours later the same folks decided they didn’t want the National Felons League running that ad anyway! I wasn’t even sure how to poke fun.
Also, thanks to everyone for the nice words few nights back. Bro had a slight setback the next day – his sodium levels are screwy – so he hasn’t gone home yet but he is still expected to go home in the next few days.
Shawn in ShowMe
@MikeJ:
It’s all an academic discussion, anyway. Foreign policy is Warren’s Achilles heel. Hillary will point to her bonafides as Secretary of State and point out Warren’s dearth of foreign policy experience and that will be that.
It’s probably all for the best. Warren can spend her time in the Senate connecting the dots between our economic foreign policy and the damage it does to workers here at home.
Betty Cracker
@MikeJ: Bollocks. Oh sure, there are magical unicorn Warren supporters, just as there were deluded Obama supporters who thought the president could reverse global warming, end racism and bring about world peace by his very presence. Those of us who supported Obama after actually having read his policy proposals and understood his pragmatic political philosophy had a hard time talking those folks down from the ledge when the difficult work of governing began.
But that wasn’t Obama’s fault, and it didn’t de-legitimize the constituency that got him elected — twice. It would be a mistake to fall into the same trap against another good Democrat.
Glidwrith
@Amir Khalid: “I wonder if some brave Republican will speak up for reducing minimum wage.”
Fuck – we have DROVES of Thugs that want to get rid of it all together. It starts with Romney, Ron Paul, Paul Ryan, every Thug presidential candidate, continues in Congress and right down to state level races. Just google “republican get rid of” and it will auto complete “minimum wage” for you. They think it would be a huge job creator because if you paid half the cost or less there would be more money to pay other people therefore more jobs. Gack.
Kay
@Frankensteinbeck:
Right, but the whole point of going at it locally (states or cities) is because nothing moves at all in DC. Also, I do think the Washington Post has a definite anti-labor bias, where they like to pretend labor is olde timey and ineffective, labor “bosses” in smoke-filled rooms, collecting dues and doing nothing.
It seems to be so hard for them to present an accurate picture of labor, or, (and they’re even worse at this) an accurate picture of the relationship between the Democratic Party and labor. They either wildly exaggerate labor’s clout (Big Labor! Ooga booga!) or treat them like some historical footnote that has no immediate relevance. BOTH of those depictions benefit conservatives, BOTH are anti-labor, and BOTH are not true.
Fight for Fifteen was a great media tactic. There wouldn’t be any national discussion of low wage workers if they hadn’t gone out and then stuck with it. At this point it’s 2 years old.
WaterGIrl
@fuckwit: Fuckwit, I really appreciated what you wrote in your comment above, especially your first paragraph. The Occupy movement is routinely dismissed and ridiculed and I find it amazing that so many have missed the impact that movement had.
WereBear
I agree with all of it, except it is not amazing. Were it not for cell phones, most people would have never heard about it. It wouldn’t have been covered, any more than the massive protests over W’s war got coverage.
Aimai
@MikeJ: yes. 100 percent this. The fantasizing anout the uncompromised candidate is so childish and disconnected from reality. Warren is just the designer flavor of the month fir political purists. These discussions have nothing to do with who she is, or what she would do. And she is not nearly as popular or well known as people fantasize.
shelly
Heard a RW radio head the other day pushing the usual ‘job killer’ nonsense. He said “What’s better? A job that pays $13. that you can’t get or a job at $7. that you can get?” Nobody asked him, what was the good of having a job that can’t support you?
Tokyokie
@Derelict: What could be more dastardly and underhanded than to promote an issue that’s popular and helps a lot of people? You know, like universal healthcare.
Kay
@shelly:
Well, they’re missing the point, and it’s good that they’re missing the point. It’s about more than wages. It’s about a 30 year campaign to depict ordinary workers as stupid and worthless and not worthy of even grudging respect.
They’re not listening to them. The godamned signs say “RESPECT”. I’m not sure the Wal Mart workers can dumb it down any further for the RW radio audience. They don’t want the food stamps. They want to be able to buy their own food if they have a full time job.
Kay
The NYTimes has an accurate piece on Fight for Fifteen:
So if it’s on the front page of the NYTimes, it’s a rousing success :)
WereBear
Har! If one fast food chain goes out of business because they can’t make money with real wages for their employees… three more will be jockeying for the new slot. Those burgers don’t condiment themselves, ya know.
And the rest of us won’t be supporting those workers with food stamps and medicaid if they get a living wage.
I bring this up all the time… if nothing else, it shuts up the Tea Partiers.
Kropadope
@OzarkHillbilly: Any, the damage any of those clowns would do the Republican party is worth it and nothing compared to the damage she’d do to the Democrats, largely for the same reasons. The inflexibility, the desire to remove dissenters from polite conversation that is characteristic of Republicans is also evident in Hillary Clinton. I can’t bear to watch the Democrats become just like the Republicans in all but their policy positions.
Betty Cracker
@Aimai:
That’s true, but why extrapolate all of that onto anyone who supports Warren? The wingnuts and PUMAs said the very same thing about Obama supporters back in the day — that’s what Bill Clinton’s “fairy tale” remark was about.
It may very well be true that Warren doesn’t even want to run and can’t win if she did. Personally, I think it’s a bit early to talk about who’s going to run in 2016. But it seems like whenever anyone’s name is brought up for 2016 around here, some folks immediately leap to the barricades as if it’s a personal assault on Obama. I think that’s incredibly counterproductive.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@fuckwit:
Heh. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but after his speech, I turned to my wife and said “he’s going to be our next president.”
jayboat
My fantasy is to see Hillary appoint Liz to the Supreme Court.
dreams are good, no?
Kay
I think it’s an indication of how far off track we’ve gone that the Labor Secretary supporting a (successful) labor initiative is considered “scoring a success” :)
I know it’s a lot to ask, and we’ve had 30 years of practice at cowering every time “labor” is mentioned, but I would like to see Democrats out in front once in a while instead of having people who make 8 dollars an hour taking all the risk and leading the charge.
Keith Ellison in Minnesota is marching with them. Every single Democrat in the House should be out there. Raising the minimum wage is popular, and it will benefit them politically. It is also the right thing to do to offer cover for the actual workers who are out there alone.
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: it’s not when anyone’s name is brought up, it’s when names are spoken in tones of rapturous enthusiasm and wrapped in wishful thinking about how THIS time the candidate will be A Real Democrat.
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig: Well, that’s certainly a problem, one quickly resolved after the election of their preferred candidate. Then Pres. X betrayed us will be their new battle cry. You can read it here on Balloon Juice.
Why trying to avoid that outcome should mean supporting Hillary Clinton, that I don’t understand.
Kay
I hate to be a pain in the ass, and I have mentioned here that Clinton is very popular in Ohio and I think she would do well here, so I am NOT opposed to her on principle, but I already don’t like her campaign (and it is a campaign, although she’s denying it).
She was at her best midway through the primary fight (and I was on the other side, but credit where credit is due) when she found her footing and adopted a sort of hard-headed, practical, DC wonk/ populist approach. I think that’s what’s authentic to her and that’s why it was successful.
Everything I’m reading (the careful foreign policy speeches, the deliberate and quiet mending of fences with AA Democrats, the courting state party chiefs) seems to me to be the same “positioning” she did at the onset of the 08 primary. I would like to see her RUN her own campaign. She HAS a political persona of her own. I saw it in the Ohio primary. It’s what works best for her.
I’m afraid she has too many consultants :)
Mike E
@Betty Cracker:
I honestly thought he was screwed the moment he raised his right hand (and that was brought home by how Roberts bollixed the oath) because I was convinced the W admin had installed too many moles and sleeper cells to allow PBO to get anything done. Truth be told, I thot his 1st term (yeah, I really believed he was a 2-termer, heh ;) was gonna be sapped by rooting out place holders and obstructionists just in the gov’t professional ranks…little did I know how that was merely a prelude to the shitshow we’ve seen from elected office holders as well. Too.
Betty Cracker
@FlipYrWhig: But isn’t that the nature of politics — or perhaps even human nature itself — when it’s time to make a new beginning? “The triumph of hope over experience” — a phrase coined about marriage that could just as easily apply to politics.
Long before I’d ever heard the name “Barack Obama,” I’d get excited about some candidate or another prior to or during the primaries and think, “Wouldn’t it be nice to vote for someone I could actually be enthusiastic about instead of the lesser of two evils,” which roughly translates into “a REAL Democrat.” I remember thinking that about Bill Bradley and Howard Dean.
Obama was the first early primary candidate I supported who actually won. I’m glad I didn’t listen to the DLC Democrats early on who had been condescendingly telling me to get in line behind Hillary because she was the only one who could win. Some of the anti-Warren folks here sound an awful lot like those DLC Democrats.
There will be plenty of time to hash this shit out, and those of us with a brain in our noggins will vote for whomever the Dems eventually nominate because we understand the nature of the lunatic theocrats and plutocrats who are the only realistic alternative. But in the meantime, WTF is the point of insulting people who support Warren or taking it as a personal affront to Obama, who after all is her friend and champion? It makes no sense to me.
Fair Economist
@fuckwit:
40% of the vote and a 2-1 lead over the next guy is a world away from 63% of the vote and a 5-1 lead. Hillary got more of the vote in 2008 than would have voted for her in 2005. Obviously if she does the same thing now she wins in a runaway. You can’t talk about the Democrats who don’t want her stopping her, because almost 2/3 of Democrats *do* want her.
Davis X. Machina
@jayboat: Not long-lived enough. You want to appoint 45 year-olds to the Court.
Davis X. Machina
@WaterGIrl:
And what impact would that be? What’s happened that can’t be attributed to the rise of SEIU, or the WTO protest movement, or just five years of bad times?
kc
@OzarkHillbilly:
That’s just how we roll at Balloon Juice.
rda909
Notice Rachel “Stand With Rand” Maddow decides to couch the presidential run question in terms of divided Democrats? Maddow’s motivations are very suspect in my opinion.
Woodrowfan
Labor is an expected cost of business the same as any other cost. If your business can’t pay a living wage and still make a profit then the problem is with your business model, not with labor. You can’t start a business and operate under the assumption you’ll only pay the power company ½ of the going rate for electricity. Or that you can only pay the gas station a dollar a gallon for the fuel to run your delivery truck. Why should you be able to deny your labor a living wage?
rda909
Why is this so difficult for PUMAs to understand? Hillary tried a national campaign already and failed miserably. 2008 Dem primaries were done after South Carolina, yet she continued for many months. She cannot win a national election. Senator Elizabeth Warren is our only hope. Run, Elizabeth, run!
Kay
@Davis X. Machina:
I think liberals and Democrats should be careful in lessening the role of labor in the low wage fight, because these are very specific labor unions, and they are black, brown and female. Labor will be browner and more female going forward. I will be offended if all of a sudden, mysteriously, labor becomes less important to Democrats AS it becomes browner and more female. The actual workforce in fast food in urban areas (where these fights are) are primarily minority and female. They’re leading on this. We should recognize that, even if they don’t look like how we think “labor” should look.
The biggest donor to the Ohio minimum wage fight in 2005 and 2006 was a teachers union. Teachers. They were the big ally.
rda909
@Betty Cracker: “Some of the anti-Warren folks here sound an awful lot like those DLC Democrats.”
It’s been interesting to see the “she should just stay in the Senate” brigades come out in full force anywhere there’s a story about Senator Warren running for President, not just here. This thread is good example of it, and it’s almost as if it’s coordinated talking points by a multi-millionaire/billionaire-funded marketing group paying people to spread the message everywhere. Nah, couldn’t be that, could it?
rda909
@rda909: Didn’t realize that was a Republican site, but the point is the same at that link.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I guess if I had to choose between Warren and HRC, I’d pick Warren, but 1) I’ve never heard she wants to run, not even the sort of leaks that she’s told confidants she might be interested in running; 2) what bugs me about so much of the bloggy noise around Warren is that it’s the other side of the coin of criticism of Obama: Green Lantern, cult-of-the-presidency claptrap that willfully and childishly ignores the existence of Congress and the broader electorate, to say nothing of the Beltway media, whose influence goes beyond their actual ratings and web traffic.
Davis X. Machina
@Kay:
OWS gives people an out. They can be radical as f*ck, and never meet the people on whose behalf they’re being radical.
WereBear
@rda909: Oh, for heaven’s sake, there’s no “conspiracy” to keep Warren down. I adore her. But I don’t think she has the broad appeal Clinton does, like it or not.
And like I said above, this has nothing to do with policy. We wish elections were won on policy, don’t we? But they are not.
They are mainly won on who the electorate thinks is “the most Presidential.” This is partly policy but it’s also a lot of other factors.
Most voters aren’t wonks. They are casting directors.
Davis X. Machina
@rda909: 2016 Dem primaries were done after South Carolina, yet Warren continued for many months. She cannot win a national election. Ex-Senator Clinton is our only hope. Run, Hillary, run!
(Same scenario, basically.)
Davis X. Machina
@Woodrowfan: When you can roll the State, with its compulsory power of taxation, to make up the difference. All of these businesses should carry the government on their books as a fixed asset, just like the donut machine or the MRI apparatus, or the laser milling machine.
Davis X. Machina
@WereBear:
Bingo. Party. Family. Neighborhood. Family. Narrative. All trump policy considerations at the ballot box. There’s shed-loads of poli-sci work to back it up. Flannigan and Zingale’s a good place to start.
Kay
@Davis X. Machina:
I think OWS was great, I supported them here, but the SEIU isn’t OWS and they are the reason the NYTimes has an actual group of people to interview outside McDonalds.
I just can’t help but notice labor unions became invisible the moment they were composed of brown people and led by women. The Moral Monday leader is an AA minister from the NAACP. White people aren’t exactly covering themselves in glory by leading “populism”. They seem to be following to me, sort of holding the coats of all these people who are actually having this fight :)
Shawn in ShowMe
@rda909:
Maybe our definitions of miserable are different. Being the first woman in history to be competitive in a U.S. presidential primary doesn’t seem like a miserable accomplishment to me.
Reagan’s time was supposed to have passed after he failed in his second attempt to win the presidential nomination in 1976. Some politicians are relentless and every now and then, circumstances break in their favor.
Woodrowfan
@WereBear:
nicely phrased.
rda909
@WereBear: Let’s try this again…Hillary tried a national campaign already and it was a massive failure. Not sure where you get the idea she has “broad support” outside of the polling games they do. Why are you making the same “inevitable” arguments that proved fantastically wrong in 2008?
Davis X. Machina
@Kay:
Skilled trades, construction trades in particular, have a very….equivocal….history on this issue.
Kay
@Davis X. Machina:
Well, it’s also because they started to make some money and started voting for Republicans. Something like 45% of Ohio union members in “traditional” (manufacturing) unions vote for Republicans. They’re not exactly leading the charge, despite Chris Matthew’s sentimental notions of lunch buckets and factory whistles. As far as I can tell, all the energy and growth is with low wage service workers, and those are browner and more female. Thank God for them. We’d be eating sparrows off curtain rods if we waited for the near-mythical “Reagan Democrats” to “come home”.
They’re Republicans. It was a long time ago. They aren’t ever coming home. Move on.
Davis X. Machina
@Kay: I see some promise in the non-union union movement…. They’ve got all the right enemies…
rda909
@Shawn in ShowMe: Yes, Hillary does scare me since people such as Rupert Murdoch hold fundraisers for her:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/rupert-murdoch-loves-hillary-clinton/
She’ll try to bully her way through again as she did in 2007-2008 (I’m still hopeful she won’t run, by the way) using money from billionaire Republicans/Libertarians and about 10 years of media “inevitable” conditioning on the public, so she’s definitely dangerous. That’s why it’s going to take someone with the smarts to overcome the odds, and Senator Warren is the only I see right now who can do that. Maybe Martin O’malley, but not sure he has that X-factor to fire people up on a large scale…we’ll see.
I never understand why supposed liberals don’t seem to ask why such horrible people such as Murdoch support Hillary. He and his friends certainly have not held fundraisers for President Obama and certainly won’t hold any for Senator Elizabeth Warren. Why is that?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: I suspect large numbers of “Reagan Democrats” were (are) actually “Nixon Democrats”. I can’t imagine many of my now departed uncles who fit that demo voted for McGovern
Origuy
As the cliche goes, politics makes strange bedfellows. Ron Unz, the publisher of The American Conservative, is pushing a ballot measure in California to raise the minimum wage.
ruemara
@WereBear: I take real umbrage at what you’re saying there. Clinton didn’t lose because of misogyny. She lost because she didn’t campaign well. She lost due to positions she took and she lost due to the quality of people she had working for her. I can’t understand this viewpoint that somehow a white woman would lose out to a black man in the court of public opinion simply because she’s a woman. Experience tells me a different tale. You, of course, have every right to your view but I’m really surprised anyone who recalls the level of nonsense in that ’08 election primary season could believe that. Clinton lost a primary that she had nearly wrapped up just entering the race. She beat Edwards without trying. If there was no Barack Obama in that race, you’d have had your first woman president, but it’s not because of bros before hoes.
@rda909: Oh jesus christ. How about if there’s one thing we should have learned by now, it’s that having a sane, stable senate and house is just as, if not more desirable than just the presidency and by running Elisabeth Warren-the darling of people who do not have much money nor that much majority-we might lose both? I’d keep her in the Senate, let her raise her profile and then, if she chooses, run her. It’s not that hard to figure out. Politics isn’t policy, it’s strategy and it’s about time Democrats and liberals learned to have some. I don’t want HRC, I doubt she wants to be Prez, but if she runs and wins the primary, I’ll work my ass off for her to win the general. Why? I don’t want a republican win in any election including school president of Ms Minchin’s 3rd grade class.
Fair Economist
@rda909:
OK, two points:
How is losing in the second-closest nomination race in modern history a “massive failure”? (only Ford-Reagan was closer) She did far better than either Reagan or H.W. Bush *their* first times out and they both become President.
Can you name any example of a nomination candidate consistently polling over 50% and not getting the nomination barring a major scandal or personal disaster?
Betty Cracker
@ruemara: I’m not one of the people jumping up and down for Warren to run (I don’t think she wants to, for one thing), but the arguments you’ve just made for her staying in the Senate are exactly the same arguments Democrats made against then-Senator Obama’s presidential run back in the day. Stay in the Senate. Get more exposure and experience. It’s important to hold the seat. The arguments aren’t necessarily bad ones, but they’re hardly dispositive.
Kay
@Davis X. Machina:
I see promise in the polling that says those polled see income inequality as the biggest threat. That’s an absolute triumph, considering how big and well-funded the campaign to see DEBT as the biggest threat was. Who decided to push “debt” as the biggest issue immediately after the financial meltdown? They really thought that was a good time to discuss “sacrifice”? They already sacrificed, you dumb fucks. They’re mad that no one at the top sacrificed.
Kay
@Fair Economist:
I agree with you that not enough people give Clinton credit for getting votes. That’s huge. It’s a much more tangible advantage than polling, which is why it isn’t the same as 2008. Millions of people already voted for her.
aimai
@Betty Cracker: Well, I think I’m responding to the totalizing force of “Why Democrats want her to run.” I’m a supporter of Warren–fuck, she’s my Senator and I worked and donated to her campaign and always will. But I don’t think she is, or can be, the salvation of the party as a Presidential Candidate. Not only does she not want to run but this continued setting her up as some kind of pure, conscience of the party puts her at odds with whoever the party does end up running–the person “Democrats” choose in the primary. She is being used as a leftist stick to beat the eventual primary winner. I’ve got nothing against pulling and pushing the party to the left but
a) Warren is not a real leftist at all, she just looks like one right now because she’s a populist.
b) The people who do this are explicitly turning her into some kind of purity poney/spoiler–you watch.
The people who burble on about how great Warren is are the same people who (more or less) despise the Clintons as time servers and quasi republicans. I’m not saying the Clintons are perfect, far from it, but I think these Warren fantasists are going to end up sitting out the next election if they can’t get the perfect one of their dreams.
Again: I admire and support Senator Warren as a Senator whose expertise and whose inclinations jump with my own interests in domestic policy. I would even support her in a primary if she choose to run for President. But she’s not going to. She’s said so over and over. And she’s already given her support to Hillary Clinton because of her strong interest in getting a Democrat into the Presidency and Democrats back into power. Warren has made her interests and goals clear at this point. People puffing her off as a new kind of savior are very much mistaken in both who she is and what she wants. She will put party over perfection every time. And the people who think she is perfection within a compromised, sullied party? They are not supporting her at all. They are going to end up splitting and trying to force her to “Nader it” and/or they will become enraged with her.
rda909
@Fair Economist: Just about anyone paying attention knew after South Carolina that there was no way Hillary could come back. However, she stayed in for months, thereby padding her overall total, but this was the beginning of the PUMA wars, as her supporters starting getting oddly mean-spirited toward Obama, especially her husband, and these fissures have obviously not healed, despite President Obama doing over-the-top gestures of goodwill toward her, with the S.O.S. nomination and paying off her campaign debt since he ended with a massive surplus.
Don’t understand your question, but I don’t usually put a lot of stock in “polls” in general, since as we know they are often coordinated with false media storylines to try and give credibility to the false themes. Much of the “inevitable” polling around Hillary was proven to be way wrong given that she was done after South Carolina, and I think they’re trying this same again now. Gotta run…
taylormattd
@OzarkHillbilly: Don’t bother.
You’re interfering with a circle jerk comprised of the “most-democrats-suck” and the “all democrats are corporate whores who never do anything right” sections of the left blogosphere.
Not that a single one of these people have ever, in their entire lives, been active in their local democratic party.
Liberty60
I think its also a mistake to fixate on a single office (the Presidency) as if the liberal movement were a game of Highlander, where there can only be one King Of The Progressives.
Further, fretting over a nonexistant Warren presidency candidacy, one which she has not even indicated she wants, is a bit silly.
Point is, we need more Democrats, period. I won’t even stipulate better Democrats- hell, the worst Democrat is better than the best Republican at this point.
Slightly OT, there was an article in Salon about how superhero movies are intrinsically fascist- the idea bein that fascism is ultimately about a single Ubermensch saving us from evil, while we all stand passively and then genuflect in gratitude to his superior force.
It made me think that there is this weakness in politics where we all sit around waiting for a superhero savior to come and vanquish the neofascists, when it is the patient community building work like is being done by the unions that ultimately wins the war.
Another Holocene Human
@Betty Cracker:
Love your turn of phrase here. Horks up, indeed.
It’s not even so much polarization as the Southern Strategy entering its terminal phase. There’s one Dixiecrat left in state office in Florida; the rest are local officeholders only. Both parties are at a crossroads. The GOP is losing liberal downstate voters who have found the waters are safe to vote D now that the racists are out of the party. (Remember, it was a Republican, Crist, who stopped the racist Stephen Foster inauguration ritual… and now he’s quit the party. Bill Young’s seat is about to go D and there was a special election a couple of months ago in Peterburg/Clearwater that flipped R to D, with Latvala supporting the D.)
The same has happened in Va. I looked carefully at the county maps from the last several governor’s races and the D vote is gone from the mountain regions but supplemented by new immigrants (internal US from other states, but also new citizens) in Northern Va and higher African-American voter participation in Southern Va.
Those Dixiecrat voters are long gone. There are some who are poor enough and confused enough that they won’t vote (despite hours and hours of hate radio turning them against Ds they do know that the Rs want to pick their pocket), but I’m pretty sure I know quite a few who turned up to vote against the Sheriff just because. Which is stupid, but there you go.
No “Bubba” is going to turn those voters back. Stop chasing the past and focus on winning elections. And in the South, that’s going to be by getting young people and people of color and young people of color to vote, as well as stopping schemes to dilute or throw out their votes.
In Appalachia, it looks like the best effort would be getting traction in the state houses, which can also provide a platform to win Senate races and hopefully get the Reps proportioned since all of these states do have cities. But the Ds don’t need them to win a Presidential election. Fuck that noise.
I’m tired of this dream of a white candidate shit, anyway. I’m not a big fan of Deval Patrick because Clintons, but I’d vote for him. I’m totally down with the African American big city technocrat brand. You know why? Because no matter how wealthy or cossetted a Black person in America is, they’ll always be a Black person in America. And I’m going to trust someone who understands what it’s like to be on the other side of privilege (as deBlasio, showing that he could overcome the handicap of being a white male, did–and his family was part of that, showing how entwined he was in that circle of empathy because of his son, showing he was going to fight like hell over stop&frisk because of that, showing that he DID realize a small bit of what it’s like to be on the other side through everything that had been flung and him and his wife) as opposed to someone who is walking around with unexamined privilege.
You know, like Mitt Romney, who thinks the social safety net is working just fine. The D stable has too many people just like him.
Another Holocene Human
Btw, the above is not to imply that I am an uncritical voter who would vote based on color. Allen West, Alan Keyes, Herman Cain… just no. Oh yeah, Ewwww Jackson. Hell, no.
You want to be a bully and identify with the oppressors? (Or maybe you’re just violent & cray-cray, like West?) Walk on by, brother.
Another Holocene Human
@Liberty60: Certainly the DC superhero movies are like that, and the suckier Marvel heroes trend that way. (Bleh, Thor.) I wish they would make better Spiderman movies because Spiderman is in a different mold from the Ubermenschy ones.
Also, Captain America was never supposed to be an Ubermensch. He’s more of a progressive hero, and as the name implies, he musters a team to defeat evil. My favorite Cap stories involve him using his shield and his heart to fight injustice. He doesn’t have 50 bajillion alien superpowers like Superman. Actually, Superman kinda sorta started more like Captain America but changed in the 1950s to something very different. Cap’s 1950s series got retconned out of existence, which is AWESOME.
AxelFoley
@MikeJ:
This.
mai naem
I hope the Dems have a ballot prop in every purple state for an increased minimum wage and I say it simply for electoral politics. This is the only thing that will provide an incentive for low turnout voters to show the fcuk up at the polling booth and move it from purple to blue. Once its blue for statewide politics, you push through good voting rules into the state constitutions.
aimai
@mai naem: I kind of think we should also be considering ballot prop that are propostions like:
Resolved: the voters of this district believe that no one should go bankrupt from medical bills and would like to urge their represntatives to come together and get single payer/Canadian style health care for all.
It wouldn’t affect right wing turnout at all but might bring out a lot of people who aren’t quite sure how to make their vote as expressive as people like to make their votes. One thing that I think the Democrats fail to understand about voters in general is that voting is either a fun/necessary act of self expression or people won’t get out to do it. People will vote for a pointless or lost cause if they feel that their friends and associates are doing it, or if they feel that by casting their vote they are “making a statement.” In off year elections the Dems generally neglect this notion and leave the voter feeling that they are voting for “some guy” on the ticket whose actual policies or intentions are opaque, or voting against some other guy. These are not reasons to actually get out and vote. “I express my hatred for gays! I love bunnies! I’m a good person! You are a Bad Person!” These are reasons people get up and go out to vote. So give them something to express themselves with. Give them a ballot proposition that lets them say something–whatever it is–and they will turn out to vote and vote for our candidates at the same time.
rikyrah
@rda909:
Keep on asking that question.
It is the COMPANY HILLARY KEEPS.
THAT is the reason she should NEVER be allowed near the White House.
rikyrah
@Another Holocene Human:
You aren’t the only one.
I’ll say it again……
Willard got 60% of the White vote…
and it wasn’t even close.
President Obama has shown the way to victory.
Tired of codding or even pretending to coddle those that would vote against their own best economic interests.
WereBear
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying being male gives one an edge at being perceived as a “leader.”
In the early going, I thought of Clinton and Obama as about even. That was when I was asked about their chances, and I replied, all things being equal, the guy had the edge.
This was before she messed up her campaign.
rikyrah
I like Senator Warren, and don’t think she should run for President.
I can’t stand Hillary Clinton and am willing to vote for pretty much anyone else against her in the primaries.
I’d rather Warren stay in the Senate and do what she does and fight for the populist causes.
rikyrah
the whole ‘inevitability’ bullshyt that they are trying to run again with her…didn’t work in 2008.
what’s wrong with her just FUCKING RUNNING AND WINNING THE NOMINATION.
RUN AND WIN.
Not everyone else shouldn’t even run because SHE should be coronated.
fuck that shyt.
you run and WIN. …
which is why ANYONE else that runs against Hillary at this point will get my vote in the primary.
Done with Hillary being coronated bullshyt.
Betty Cracker
@aimai: I think you’re exactly right on the self-expression angle. This is something the right gets, but we’ve been lacking in that department. Obama’s campaign tapped into that on multiple angles — post-Boomers wanted to see the torch passed to a new generation, minorities wanted affirmation that they’re fully a part of the American family, people who were sick of politics as usual wanted to make that statement.
Obama was the rare politician who embodied those aspirations, but you’re right — we need to make more of an effort to give people a chance to make a statement outside of voting for a specific person.
PopeRatzo
@OzarkHillbilly:
Not again, please.]
It’s been decades of “better than the alternative” that have gotten this country in the shithole it’s in. Wages down, prices up, income disparity growing more under a Democratic president than ever before.
We just can’t keep doing this dance of “let’s find someone who’s nominally better than the best Republican” and hope to ever get anywhere. Because, remember, that “better than the Republican” Democrat is always going to move to the Right.
I don’t ever want to vote against a Democrat. My father and grandfather would turn over in their union-made caskets. But goddamn, I can’t handle another corporatist Democrat blowing smoke up our asses and watching decent people try to make excuses for eight years like we’re seeing now. This can’t be a comfortable time for those of you who are doing your best to put a happy face on the past five years. I don’t want to see you go through this again.
fuckwit
@PopeRatzo: Democrats will be corporatists until we change the narrative, educate voters about income inequality and corporate campaign bribery and K-street and corporate personhood the dangers of corporate power, motivate more non-voters to vote, register more voters, and change how campaigns are funded. In short, we have to create an electorate which rejects corporatists and corporations. That’s a long slow process, and the corporate-owned media is actively working against it. It’ll take a generation or more. But it will happen. One to one, person to person, neighbor to neighbor, and on social media, using every grassroots tool available.
DTOzone
@fuckwit:
yes and no.
That poll shows her at 40%, meaning she still had a majority of the party looking for another candidate.
Polls now have her at @ 60%. That’s a big difference.
DTOzone
@PopeRatzo: .
Part of this will depend on the type of Democrats that are getting elected to Congress and state houses.
The Clintons are moderates and triangulates, yes, but they also won at a time when the party had no progressive standard bearers or real progressive forces. Now they do, and Hillary would bend herself to fit the profile needed. All that matters is that we show her who she’s governing with.
Matt McIrvin
@Amir Khalid: I’m pretty sure George Will has weighed in saying that the minimum wage should be $0.00.