I was looking at these clips on The Insiders, which is apparently some Iowa political program.
Brian Schweitzer is on for parts one and two. I went to an Ohio women’s caucus thing a couple of weeks ago and there was some chatter about him.
What do we think about him in a Prez primary? Is he really a populist?
Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer visited Iowa for the 2013 Progress Iowa holiday party. Schweitzer said that although the President’s approval rating is down, it will go up. He said he’s seen the same thing with many other presidents and that when a new, paradigm altering policy takes effect, it is bound to happen.
Schweitzer said that the Affordable Care Act was certainly a step in the right direction but the policy as it stands now is flawed. But, he added, that’s the starting point to build it up. Medicare, for example, is an entirely different policy now than it was when it was originally passed.
He said Congress’ job now needs to be improving it to the point where Americans have top rated health care instead of scraping the bottom of the barrel and paying through the nose to get it.
Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer said that he not decided to run for president himself so he could not say if he felt comfortable taking on Clinton as a presidential contender.
Schweitzer did emphasize the need for strong leaders in political positions and that they need to be strong here in America before we can focus on building up the rest of the world.
He has the same last name as my son’s girlfriend, so that might be fun for her.
nastybrutishntall
That guy’s talking sense. That’s nuts!
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
He won’t run.
lol
It’s nice to see Democrats defending the ACA for once.
Schweitzer has all the makings of a moderate who, in the grand tradition of Howard Dean and John Edwards, will be turned into a Progressive Purity Pony by a Netroots desperate to establish itself separate from Clinton.
Hill Dweller
He reportedly had enough skeletons in the proverbial closet to prevent a Senate run. If that was in fact the case, there is no way he runs for President.
piratedan
he’s like one of those old Rooseveltian populists, he hits some nice chords with his stances but I wonder how well he’d stand up against the usual media sound bite presentation of his positions, but hell I worry about that with every Dem candidate. Seems these days if you can’t speak in sound bite or tweet mode, then you’re deemed unacceptable for reasons only known to the media.
Betty Cracker
Seems like an interesting guy from what little I know about him. Apparently, instead of vetoing bills with a pen or stamp like everyone else, he has a cattle brand that he burns into the offending bill. Colorful!
Davis X. Machina
@lol:
He’s just another trimmer. A fauxgressive. Just like Obama.
Did he so much as mention the public option?
Did he call on us to expropriate the expropriators?
Is he talking about seizing the commanding heights of the economy in the name of the workers?
For nationalizing the banks?
For banksters’ heads on pikes?
That’s the ticket for a 48-state victory! (Mississippi and Utah excepted)
We lose when we’re not bold enough, not when we’re too bold.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
It would be nice if Queen Hillary would announce what she is going to do so other “non-inevitable” candidates could plan accordingly.
Redshift
I got to hear him at the convention, and he’s a fun and upbeat speaker. I hope that even if he doesn’t run, he tantalizes the media enough that they put him on teevee a lot. That would be good for the Democratic brand.
West of the Cascades
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: it would be nice if people weren’t worrying about people announcing whether or not they’ll run for President in 2016 in December of fucking 2013 …
Kay
@lol:
It’s not that hard to defend it while pushing for more. I watched Trumka interviewed on CSPAN yesterday evening and he did a really good job. I don’t know why this is so difficult for Democrats.
srv
@lol: He’s pro guns, pro dope, pro single-payer, pro Commerce Clause Nullifiaction, so he can be my new messiah.
Unless I lose the troll lotto and have to be pro-Hitlery again.
Patrick
@Kay:
Me neither. It reminds me of October 2002, when Democrat after Democrat started to cave and supported the idiotic war in Iraq. How well that turned out for them!
It has been sad to see it again regarding the ACA. As much as the GOP has turned into the party for hypocritical haters; at the least they stand for something. I would assume the less informed voters are confused as to what the heck the Democrats stand for.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@West of the Cascades: We are, in fact, a little over a year out about from candidates officially announcing.
askew
He’s pretty bad on gun control and environment. I prefer O’Malley over Schweitzer myself. Much more progressive.
ranchandsyrup
He speaks Arabic and lived in Saudi Arabia for 7 years. Automatic disqualification.
Cassidy
@Davis X. Machina: Also nothing about abolishing the NSA.
Roger Moore
I say it doesn’t matter much how great he is if he would wind up spending his time in office fighting with a Republican Congress. Getting a better Congress has to be the immediate priority.
Hill Dweller
@Patrick:
Sad but predictable. The modern Democratic party isn’t exactly known for its courage.
Kay
@Patrick:
I have to say, Sherrod Brown defended it here, so it isn’t all Democrats. Some of them know how to talk :)
Brown also said Republicans never suffered politically when they opposed Medicare (Bob Dole) and that’s part of the reason I don’t think changing the health care system is ever pure political pay dirt, or whatever.
If it wasn’t true for Medicare, it probably won’t be true for any change to the system. Medicare was all win. Still, people were happily voting for Bob Dole for a million years. Would it be more politically popular if it were more progressive? I don’t know. If that were true Republicans would have been beaten back to regional minority Party on Medicare and Medicaid, and last I checked they’re still around.
Roger Moore
@Davis X. Machina:
Insufficient evidence. The Democrats have never actually tried being too bold, so we have no idea how effective it would be.
Davis X. Machina
@Hill Dweller: Whip a dog enough, he’ll go around in a perma-flinch.
The longest-lived political legacy of the Reagan years may be the lingering mental effects of ’80, ’82, and ’84 — with a booster shot every ten years (’94, ’00, ’10) — when the present generation of Democrats were making their bones.
As the twig is bent so grows the tree.
Served
Kay! I don’t mean to threadjack, but I couldn’t get the e-mail widget on here to work.
All of the employees at the sandwich shop in my building were fired by e-mail over the weekend (yes, right before Christmas), most likely due to their taking part in the strikes for better wages. I know you’ve mentioned that organizers have systems set up to help employees get their jobs back, but I didn’t know how I could help out with this process.
Thank you thank you for all that you do for voters and workers!
Mnemosyne
@askew:
Some of the governors of rural states (Dean comes to mind) had an interesting idea of pegging gun laws to population density. Basically, the further away you lived from other people, the more guns you could have. Since a lot of the recent massacres have involved people living in suburban or urban areas (i.e. Tucson, Connecticut, Colorado, etc.) I wouldn’t have much of a problem with that. If you have to drive 50 or 75 miles to get to the nearest 7-Eleven, keep as many guns as you want. Knock yourself out. But if you have neighbors closer than 5 or 10 miles away, then you get regulated.
Hill Dweller
President Obama signed up for a bronze plan today. I’m not sure how that works, considering, as CiC, he and his family gets medical care.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Hill Dweller: Isn’t Boehner on a bronzer plan too?
Patrick
@Kay:
You are correct. There are some democrats who are not afraid. Sherrod Brown seems to always have the courage to speak out. It was the same way in 2002, where there indeed were some Dems who held the line.
But compare that to the GOP; if a Republican dares to criticize one of their own, FoxNews, Rush and the rest of the GOP establishment hunts them down and usually the person criticized the GOP will soon backtrack.
Bob Dole is a perfect example of where people happily will vote against their own economic interests. What would his supporters/voters do without Medicare?
max
What do we think about him in a Prez primary? Is he really a populist?
I’m not seeing what the argument for him. I like the guy and I agree with his loud and proud positions on the establishment preferences in war & economics, but that doesn’t get me to ‘we should run this guy for Pres’. In addition, if he can’t run for the Senate, I don’t see how the jump to President works.
@Hill Dweller: Sad but predictable. The modern Democratic party isn’t exactly known for its courage.
Quite. I like people who fight – but I also like them to have some brains.
max
[‘If I wanted to support *stupid* fighty people, I’d vote Republican. They have no idea what the hell’s happening but they’re against it, whatever it is. Which is not my bag.’]
Mnemosyne
@Hill Dweller:
If he claimed to be a non-smoker, I’m sure the impeachment charges are being drawn up as we speak.
Kay
@Served:
I’m going to send you an email at the address you used for your comment. is that ok with you?
Napoleon
Please, no nominees with the name Clinton or from a blue state.
He will fold in a second from any remotely “progressive” or “populist” position when he gets any push from the press on anything, and will double down by proposing to scale back New Deal programs (something BO became the first Dem Pres. to propose on his own).
Served
@Kay: Yes please and thank you!
I found this article about it: http://www.chicagogrid.com/news/snarfs-600-w-chicago-laid-employees-email/ and it looks like they’re already on the case, thank FSM.
Paul in KY
I do hear he has shoulders you could land an aircraft on…
Kay
@Patrick:
Brown is a better test case for “bold progressive” (to me) than Elizabeth Warren, because Massachusetts is so blue. Sherrod Brown will always battle to get elected in Ohio. Always. It’s riskier for him.
kindness
I dunno. I like the idea of winning the next presidential contest. While Hillary isn’t pure I do think she can/will win it.
Brian? He pissed me off the last years he served as governor. Although I forget why now.
askew
@Mnemosyne:
That’s better than nothing I guess. I’d still prefer someone who strongly backs gun control as our nominee though.
Kay
@Served:
I’m going to put you in touch with someone who truly understands exactly what they’re doing. I think it’s great that you’re trying to help them. The vulnerability of them out there just kills me. While I think it’s great to go on strike w/out any real labor protections, I don’t think we should forget they don’t have any labor protections. In real life.
It’s flat-out brave. The contradiction in all this is their employers have put them in a position where they might be more willing to take more risk, because they have so little (financially) to lose.
Cacti
As was pointed out on the Great Orange Satan today, the actual number of people covered by the ACA is around 8 million to date.
– 3.9 million covered by the Medicaid expansion (would likely be double that but for intransigent GOP governors).
– 3.1 million young adults added as covered dependents on their parents’ policies.
– 1 million plus who have signed up for new policies.
Leave it to Congressional Dems to apologize for accomplishing the above.
Suffern ACE
@Kay: Because democrats don’t listen to Trumka enough? Sadly, a lot of our leaders are like bright kids who didn’t pay attention in class but managed to get As anyway when it comes to learning and delivering clear messages.
Suffern ACE
@kindness: Well, if you want a candidate who has experience as an executive dealing with a legislature to the right of our current Congress, Sweitzer does have that experience.
max
Brown is a better test case for “bold progressive” (to me) than Elizabeth Warren, because Massachusetts is so blue. Sherrod Brown will always battle to get elected in Ohio. Always. It’s riskier for him.
Sure. Completely agree.
Schweitzer sounds like he’s trying to do a more liberal version of “David “Mudcat” Saunders”.
max
[‘I think.’]
Amir Khalid
As a foreign observer, I’m curious to know, who among the Democratic party’s possibles is closest to setting up a nationwide campaign org? Who’s putting out their feelers, not in the media and with the talking heads, but among the grassroots? (Creepy image, I know; sorry.) Who’s getting good word-of-mouth? As JSF Thought Leader says, there’s still a year to go before candidacy announcements. But over the next few months, if you track the data that tells the potential candidates how well their chances are shaping up, you might get a sense of who will declare.
Suffern ACE
@Hill Dweller: I wonder if his doctor is in the network. I think she has his family and the VPs family as her only patients. This could get sticky for her if she’s decided to go galt.
Kay
@Suffern ACE:
It was amusing to watch because he doesn’t even break a sweat. He transitions easily from his dear old dad (who was hard working!) to rattling off statistics from the health care enrollment.
It is surprisingly hard to do, if you’re not a pro. I took this “election” class with the Ohio Democrats when we had a local statehouse candidate and they filmed us responding to “hostile press”. The idea was we would realize that it’s harder than it looks (like everything is).
I sounded exhausted. I WAS exhausted, and I slow down when I’m winging it (which I learned to do in court) because it literally gives you more time to think, but I wasn’t all that pleased with my presentation. I’m used to doing the interviewing, not being interviewed. Still, they’re professionals! I at least defended!
Napoleon
@Amir Khalid:
Hillary is massively ahead in all of those, it appears. But she ran before.
Betty Cracker
@max:
Ugh, I hope not! I can’t abide Mudcat’s bogus cornpone shtick. Every time I see his mug on TV (thankfully rare these days), I want to rip that NASCAR hat off his head, set it on fire and stuff it down his overalls.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Amir Khalid: I think most folks prolly assume HRC will run and win in 2016 so if she doesn’t, you’re liable to see a giant void with practically anyone throwing their hat into the ring. I think at the moment she is a heavy wet blanket on the aspirants.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: It’s not clear to me at all.
max
@Betty Cracker: Ugh, I hope not! I can’t abide Mudcat’s bogus cornpone shtick. Every time I see his mug on TV (thankfully rare these days), I want to rip that NASCAR hat off his head, set it on fire and stuff it down his overalls.
That’s the problem I’m having here (and incidentally the same problem I might have with Warren if she ran, which she isn’t because she’s a smart lady) – we have got a probable nominee, so someone else is not likely to win. Someone would have to run for some other reason, and while I am as down on the banks and the war in error as the next hippie, no one is trying to sell me on what or how they’re going to do something about it.
If you’re going to risk splitting the party, you need to have a good reason and a good plan. I have no clue what Schweitzer wants to do, really. If the field was wide open, then I’d have a reason to think the dude might have a chance, but he’d still need to sell me.
max
[‘And Schweitzer’s effective positions are all over the map compared to the average dem.’]
realbtl
Schweitzer is a Montana Dem so of course he’s going to disappoint a lot of folks on guns. Hell, here in Montana everything comes to a grinding halt the first day of hunting season and doesn’t start back up until the 1st Monday after Thanksgiving.
After watching him as governor my personal opinion is that he just likes fucking with the media. I hope his stature with them increases as I generally like what he says.
Betty Cracker
@max: I’m still thinking Hillary Clinton won’t run. But we’ll know within a year, I suppose. We can jump off that bridge when we get to it.
FlipYrWhig
@max: Schweitzer would essentially be running on attitude, the way Dean did, and the way (albeit quite differently) Obama did. That’s not meaningless or value-less, but it’d be great if there were also something there besides persona.
RosiesDad
I have a friend who lives in Montana and he has almost nothing to say about Schweitzer that isn’t good. In another era, he might be an Eisenhower Republican. He is a geologist by training and he is a thoughtful guy when it comes to energy independence and protecting the environment. If he ran, I would support him.
Jeff Spender
OT, but I was just told that logic was a matter of opinion. One wonders how another can live in an orderes reality with such a view.
Sorry, just frustrated.
Davis X. Machina
@FlipYrWhig:
In a world where for most voters politics is not about actual policy, but is a form of social signalling, where you let people know who you are and how you feel by your choice of brands of consumer products, in this case, candidates, this is the way forward, this is the way you win.
Hell, half the country would go down to town hall and re-register “Rag + Bone” or “Carhartt” instead of “Democrat” and “Republican” if they had the chance. And “No Labels” is also a kind of label, just as “No Logos” actually is a sort of logo.
I’m not sure platforms and position papers ever counted for much, but they count for even less now.
feebog
Could be Schweitzer is auditioning for the Veep slot should Hillary clear the field and get the nomination. IMHO Hillary is running and will have the inside track during the entire primary lap. Not to say someone couldn’t beat her, but I think it would be a huge uphill climb.
askew
@Betty Cracker:
If she isn’t going to run, it just hurts the party for her to not say so now. Money and staff are already investing in HillaryPAC and other candidates will get a late start waiting until she announces her decision not to run.
My guess is Bill and the Clintonites are pressuring her to run, while she is more ambivalent about it.
ruemara
@askew: I strongly got the vibe from her that while she enjoys the attention, she was not really interested in running. But I can’t understand the anointing people are giving her as future pres. We’d do better to have caution and see what other candidates would be interesting and garner support rather than just claiming someone who won’t commit as de facto.
Davis X. Machina
@askew: She won’t run. Health will be the reason.
StringOnAStick
@realbtl: Yep, a guy who managed to get elected as a democrat in a state like Montana should be looked at a little closer simply because doing that, while still holding to most democratic principles, shows talent. I wish he had stronger comments about guns, but as a Colorado resident who just watched successful NRA-directed recalls of 2 of our better state senators because dems and the non-gun-crazed didn’t bother to vote, well, I’m afraid that improvement in gun legislation is going to require some deeper demographic changes than are likely in the next 2-3 years. For that reason, I wouldn’t disqualify Schweitzer based on that issue alone. He definitely has significant appeal here in the west; if that could translate to nationally, I don’t know.
My concern about Hillary has always been the age issue. I know I’d rather be retired than President at that age, but obviously people who have been in politics and pursued power their whole lives are quite different than this somewhat aimless tail-end Boomer.
Betty Cracker
@askew: You could be right. I’ll vote for her if she wins the nomination, of course, and I’m not gonna lie and say I wouldn’t weep with joy to see the first female president inaugurated (as I did to see the first African American — never thought that would happen in my lifetime). But I dislike the dynastic angle. My suspicion is HRC is more of a liberal at heart than her record would indicate; she’s a creature of her times, as is her spouse. But that’s an awfully thin reed to hang my lefty hopes on…
friend of Montanans
I have heard from Montana residents who seem to know what they’re talking about that Schweitzer cannot possibly make it through a national campaign, due to skeletons. In the closet. Take it for what it’s worth, but I think he’s really a non-starter. Best to move on.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
I’m still convinced Hillary wants to be the kingmaker in the next primary. I suspect her health problems are a bit more serious than we were told, so she may need to be satisfied with putting her imprimatur on her preferred candidate.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
I assume that a lot of the trick to responding well to the press is preparation; they have a set of stats and answers memorized that they can break out whenever they need them. It you watch the politicians who are good at this kind of thing, it’s obvious that they only have to make up a few sentences to move from the question they were asked to the canned answer they wanted to give. It’s frustrating as hell to watch when they’re obviously dodging a question they don’t want to answer or don’t have a memorized answer for, but when they’re responding to relatively obvious questions, they can do really well.
JoyfulA
I don’t want to see any more of Bill. But if Hillary gets the nomination, I’ll certainly vote for her and campaign for her.
piratedan
to be honest, I’m not sure that there is any Democratic candidate that I wouldn’t back against the R’s. They’re simply that fucking heinous, the lot of them.
James E Powell
@feebog:
Nobody auditions for VP – who really wants that job?
askew
@Betty Cracker:
I’d really like the first female president to be someone who got there 100% on her own with a long list of accomplishments prior to being elected. With Hillary, there is a lot of promise but not really any solo accomplishments for her to hang her hat on. She didn’t do much of anything in the Senate and her time as SoS was under Obama’s leadership and her time as First Lady was in Bill’s shadows. That worries me because we really don’t know what she’d do once in office.
I can’t imagine who she’d anoint if she doesn’t run – Gilibrand maybe?
I also think her health problems are more serious than she is letting on. We’ll see though.
Kay
@Roger Moore:
It was funny, because our most passionate advocate started swearing in the first ten seconds. He was the big failure in the group because they won’t put that on local tv.
The person asking the questions was a retired statehouse reporter and the questions were pretty hostile. Your impulse is to get (personally) defensive.
It is nice that slowing down your speech sounds like you’re deliberate and confident and SURE about things when the reverse is actually true, for me anyway. It’s a handy trick :)
Yatsuno
@feebog: Schweitzer declined running for the (currently open) Senate seat on the excuse that he hated Washington. And not just the political Washington. He literally dripped disdain for the city itself. So flipping around and running after all that smells really funny. But if he just happened to get selected for veep well one does not turn that down now does one?
Personally I could live with four years of Hillary and 8 of Brian.
KG
@Hill Dweller: or, he decided that he’d rather run for president rather than Senate, why run two campaigns in a short amount of time if you think you can win the bigger one without the smaller one (Obama needed to be a Senator to have a chance at being viable – a former governor, from a red state no less, wouldn’t need the Senate seat to be considered viable, and losing would hurt his chances more than winning would improve his chances).
srv
The Obama Boom continues, Dow Jones up 100% over his term.
Gene108
@Kay:
There were other factors that kept the Great Society programs from nailing the coffin shut on conservatives, like the Democratic split over Vietnam and the Southern backlash to the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act.
I think social identity politics trumps economic populism with enough voters that progressive economic policies will never be the force to drive the GOP into defeat. Only their own overreaching, when in power seems to set them back.
James E Powell
@Betty Cracker:
I’m with you on Hillary Clinton – note for note. The best thing I would get out of her winning would be watching FOX announce the third straight right-wing head exploder.
Even if she has the heart of Olof Palme, it’s still the congress of the USA.
elmo
@Cacti:
Not to nitpick, but that’s not even close to accurate. The number of people covered by the ACA is approximately 350M, because the ACA is about more than the exchanges.
Every American is covered by the ban on lifetime caps.
Every American is covered by the ban on pre-existing conditions.
Every American is covered by the loss ratio.
This is a continual pet peeve of mine, that somehow “Obamacare” is just about who gets coverage through healthcare.gov.
KG
@James E Powell: I dunno, Vice President might be the best job in the world, if you think about it. You wake up, call the White House to ask if the president is ok, have breakfast, maybe case a tie-breaking vote or two in the Senate, go do some public appearances… You have no responsibility for actually having positions of your own, you can’t be part of Senate “debates” and you don’t have any government departments to run. You get a fat salary, plus housing and transportation, after you’re done, you get just about any job you want because you’ve got connections (or the speaking tour), plus a nice pension and health care for life.
Fair Economist
@Betty Cracker:
Both Clintons have always been politicians first, managers second, and opinion leaders third. I’m sure they have personal opinions, and suspect both are more liberal than their accomplishments would indicate, but I think both of them believe they need to ignore their own personal opinions in favor of what’s going to get them elected. Bill was very third-way but, with Republican moderates exterminated, Hillary, if elected, will basically end up signing whatever Democrats in Congress can get passed.
I think Clinton will run if at all possible. She’s clearly highly ambitious. If she doesn’t run she’ll spend the rest of her life knowing she had a very good shot to be the first female president and a reasonable chance to be a respected and successful one too. I think it would be torture for a woman like her to spend her twilight years knowing she hadn’t taken a chance like that.
chrome agnomen
@James E Powell:
dick cheney, for one. of course, he knew in his case that he would really be closer to the top slot than to a bucket of warm…uh…spit.
David Koch
Uh-oh, Kay. Now u didit.
This just proves your a sexist who hates older women who have power. Plus you’re obviously a paid republican posing as a progressive to tear Hillary down and divide the party. After all, only a republican could possibly have problems with Secretary Clinton.
Obot!
Steeplejack
@srv:
Yes, and the tragedy is that Wall Street no longer equals Main Street.
RentiersInvestors are doing fine. Regular people not so much.srv
@Steeplejack: I remember John Edwards saying that back in 2004.
But there were different rules for his penis vs Clenis’
Gene108
@askew:
I honestly think because Bill was President already, fragile* male egos will be more accepting of Hillary. Other women, who have more successful careers than their husbands threaten the patriarchal order more.
* By fragile I also include folks in the MSM, who can turn into a boys club pretty easily. They may feel their jobs and status threatened, if a woman can succeed independently of her man.
Elizabelle
@Served:
It’s appalling to fire everyone by email, and say it had been months in the planning. It would have been fairer to keep employees apprised.
I hope Snarf’s never regains its business, under whatever concept they reopen.
Elizabelle
@elmo:
Well said, elmo.
Have to remember to spout that about all 350,000 if Obamacare comes up during holiday festivities.
Elizabelle
@Yatsuno:
Hope you are feeling way better. Late to the party wishing you a successful convalescence.
Christmas in rehab. You do know how to live.
Patrick
@elmo:
Well said! I don’t understand whatsoever how it can be so fricking difficult for our lazy media to get that straight. They make it sound like literally nobody has health insurance.
Jeffro
@Served: I swear, I’m going to open up a sandwich shop (or BBQ joint?) in a couple of years and a) pay my workers very well, while b) keeping prices extremely low. Don’t even care about doing anything but breaking even and spreading the wealth.
Then I’m going to go on a media blitz to show how well it works, and start franchising out to people who’ll do the same thing.
Union Subs, anyone?
mai naem
I’ve liked Schweitzer for a long time. He’s smart, funny and media savvy. And he’s from the West. I know Montana is a small state but I’m pretty sure you would pick up Montana in a national election if he was on the ticket. That may come in handy in these days of voter suppression. I also think he would manage to blue Colorado and Nevada some more. I also have a tendency of picking primary loser candidates.
As far as guns, you can’t do anything on guns until you have all of Congress and the Presidency, and even with that, it would be somewhat of a challenge.
Chris
@Gene108:
Yeah, I agree with this. It’s no accident that in the biggest era of backlash against the 1% in our history (early 20th century) the backlash was equal parts economic and cultural. In the rural areas, the anti-1%er hate had plenty of overlap with resentment for East Coast Big City Snobs – the kind of sentiment that today tends to target Hollywood, the Librul Media, universities and other “liberal elitists” rather than Wall Street. It’s no accident that the same guy who launched the Populist backlash in 1896 went on to speak for creationism at the Scopes monkey trial.
For the GOP today to be crushed as completely as it was back in the day would require the heartlanders to turn against them the way their ancestors did, and I just don’t see that in the cards right now.
sparrow
@Kay: Does Brown have presidential ambitions?
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
“Jews.”
“Jews.”
“Smartypants Jews.”
“Miscellaneous Jews.”
“WASPs.”
I really wish I was exaggerating, but that really is how most conservatives break those groups down. Michael Lind had a really fascinating part of his book Up From Conservatism where he took a job with Pat Robertson and spent a whole lot of time doing search-and-replace on conservative literature to remove “Jewish” from the various paranoid rants. It may be unspoken, but it’s still deeply embedded in conservative beliefs and philosophy, no matter how much people like Bill Kristol and Jonah Goldberg try to whistle past the graveyard.
Keith G
@Fair Economist: I think it is highly likely that Hillary is the most talented and able national political figure who is Constitutionally eligible to run for president in ’16.
I agree with you that there are historical imperatives that I doubt she can ignore. Assuming she is able, I guess she could be persuaded that her party, and the country, needs her – if she hasn’t been persuaded already.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
And, of course, if you’re going back to the 1930s, there was a niche for blaming Jews for the depredations of Wall Street WASPs, too. Not just in Germany. The Share Our Wealth movement right here in America was into that, gaining quite a few followers.
WaterGIrl
Kay, Sherrod Brown is the only candidate I can get really excited about for 2016. Is there any change that he would run? I think he’s the real deal.
Kay
@WaterGIrl:
He said he wasn’t running when he was here last and it seemed unequivocal and genuine. I think he really likes being in the Senate.
I’m in the camp that says we shouldn’t pull from the Senate right now. There’s an opportunity to develop a real (newer) group of economic issue progressives- Brown, Warren, Franken, etc.
Warren’s bill on credit ratings and job searches is genius. Brown signed onto that. That is an actual issue people here face; immediate, relevant and a real problem for them. I know she plucked it out of a House version so it’s not “hers” but that’s the stuff they should be doing, IMO.
lol
The Pro-Hillary folks have pretty much locked down a lot of key Obama people. The new ED of the DNC (by way of EMILY’s List) is also a Hillary supporter. Meanwhile, the clowns that ran her 2008 campaign are ramping up on the IE side.
If she runs, she’ll be well-positioned to capitalize on her frontrunner position.
If she doesn’t, there will be *massive* scrambling.
That said, it’s remarkable that no one I know seems to know for certain. People are betting she will run but are still gaming out what will happen if she doesn’t.
David Koch
It’s gonna be pretty nasty primary, at least, on the blogosphere
Last week Jed Lewison had a positive post on Hillary at GOS and it was met with 532 angry comments trashing Hillary.
They’re just gonna rip her day in and day out. I’m sure liberals like Chris Hayes will be banging away, as well.
Kay
@David Koch:
I like primaries and I like to speculate about politics. Clinton is popular here. I don’t think it has to be knock down, drag out ‘n bloody.
I also said – I am told – that I would support her if she ran again when I was trying to get her supporters to back Obama.
I don’t remember saying it but it sounds like something I would say, so I bet I did :)
revrick
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: win!
Cervantes
@Roger Moore:
Never? That seems … ahistorical.
Cervantes
@Jeff Spender: At least you’re not being told that men are from Mars and women are from Venus.
Good luck.
revrick
What’s with all the pearl clutching about Democrats? History is on OUR side! With every election the demographics get nastier for the GOP, so while a Copperhead Dem like Chris Christie may be competitive at the Presidential level , the long run favors us… and by long run I mean the rest of the 21st century.
The Yankeedom-centered GOP held the Presidency from 1860 -1932, the two exceptions being suicide attempts: Blaine in 1884 and the Taft-Roosevelt split in 1912 with the Dixie-centered Dems squeaking through with non-threatening Northerners.
I’ll vote for any Democrat since she/he will be to the left of any GOP candidate — even if the Democrat is literally the party jackass.
amk
methinks he has a chance since he passes the two litmus tests – He is not blah and he is not a woman. Most ‘murkans fall for that shit.
Phil Perspective
@Yatsuno: Did he hate DC or just the Senate? And can anyone really blame him in either case? The Senate is a cesspit and you have to deal with idjits like Chuck Todd.
rev dave
my liberal brother in Missoula considers him a huge disappointment and not very trustworthy – fwiw