Hey mistermix — How about a rant on Andrew Cuomo and his creation of the Women’s Equality Party to undermine the Working Families Party in New York. What a douche-bagel.
This week, I happened to get a bored-sounding, unenthusiastic call from someone I’m sure was a paid caller, on behalf of the Women’s Equality Party, encouraging me to vote for Cuomo on their line. That’s just one example of how Cuomo is putting money behind the WEP, and he’s also pissing all over the WFP in the process:
“It empowers women in a way that has never been done. It’s almost amazing when you think about it,” Cuomo said. “We’ve formed every kind of fringe party for every kind of reason. We have Democrat, Republican, Green, Red, White, Blue, Working People, Working Short People, Working Tall People. We’ve never had a women’s party. This is the home of Seneca Falls. Let the women make their voice heard.”
For those of you missing your Cuomo decoder, that was Mario’s Kid calling the WFP a fringe party without even stooping to name them. It takes a pretty big asshole to do that, but we all know that Andrew is the gaping interstellar void of all known assholes, so he’s up to the task.
That said, if real Democrats in New York want to get mad at someone, Cuomo isn’t the guy. The idiots in charge of the Working Families Party, who took Cuomo’s worthless IOU in return for an endorsement that handed him the Governor’s office, are the ones to blame here. They’re like the frog in the frog and scorpion fable, except that in this case the scorpion stung the frog after they got to dry land.
Leaving the unpleasant subject of the Cuomo the lesser aside, the New York Democrats’ strategy of concentrating on women will have an interesting test in my local State Senate District, 55. In this race, first-term Senator Ted O’Brien, the rather uninspiring but competent Democrat who won his seat after Republican failer Jim Alesi retired, is facing former sports go sports broadcaster Rich Funke. Funke has a few problems, including some sexist Facebook posts, a campaign manager who was arrested in a prostitution sting, and communications director who thinks that tweets bemoaning the lack of mammogram coverage for men are funny. More substantively, he’s for restrictions on abortion and won’t support the Women’s Equality Act in the New York State Senate. Both men are well-financed, so my house has been bombarded with leaflets and calls, and I understand that both have had big media buys. The Democratic literature has been almost entirely aimed at pointing out Funke’s failings on women’s issues, and touting O’Brien’s much better record. The calls are all for my wife, and there are a lot of them. Siena has polled the race a couple of times and O’Brien is trailing Funke, but their polling record is spotty. I’ll report back next week on this race, because it is an interesting test of a well-financed effort by Democrats to make an appeal directly to women.
cmorenc
I never did understand exactly what the upside for Cuomo was for facilitating the small splinter group of dems to join the GOP to give them narrow majority control of the state senate (or was it house?), or as a corollary, what was the downside for Cuomo had the democrats retained the narrow majority in the state legislature they had purportedly won in the elections? Did the democratic caucus have particular ambitions that were anathema to Cuomo? There has to be more to this than simply Cuomo doing this simply to be a devious and a prick – even though those qualities were also understandably required. What nuts-and-bolts goals was he seeking to advance or retard by that move?
Iowa Old Lady
I’m hysterical this morning (and not in a good way) because the Des Moines Register has Ernst 7 points up on Braley. That can’t be right. By which I mean, for the sake of my sanity, that can’t be right.
AnonPhenom
Cuomo makes taking a position on this year’s ballot measures easy. “If he’s fer it, I’m again’ it”.
Elizabelle
@Iowa Old Lady:
I don’t understand Iowa and — allegedly, Colorado — this election cycle.
Ernst is Sarah Palin with military service. She’s a woman willing to throw other women’s concerns under the bus [ed: I’m talking education, healthcare, family issues, economic opportunity for workers — not just abortion] while seeming like “one of the guys”, and this one can castrate hogs too. No surprise she’s up among men (I saw a 12-point lead?) and trying to attract “older women” as well. (I hope younger women are a lost cause to her, or maybe they don’t vote their numbers and get taken for granted.)
Colorado: NYTimes had dispiriting report that more ballots were being mailed in by GOP voters.
I’ve noticed people calling the incumbent senator Mark Uterus because of his focus on abortion/contraception rights.
NYTimes has had the most deflating headlines and stories. Republicans who cannot wait to stick it to Democrats (and it’s rarely about good public policy) and Democrats who can’t bother to vote or respond to election workers’ calls.
I can’t decide if this is driving the narrative, as the MSM is wont to do, or inaccurate reporting.
I think the flood of Citizens United money might bore people with all the negative ads, and they decide “everyone is a bad choice” and don’t vote. I don’t know.
Corner Stone
@Iowa Old Lady:
Freakin’ Joni Ernst, for dog’s sake.
Man, I just kant even with some people.
kindness
Follow the money. I’ll bet Cuomo didn’t get the WFP nomination for nothing.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
I love how that’s a negative thing.
Corner Stone
As much as I love MHP I am absolutely going to have to stop watching MSNBC. That [email protected]@ ad with the beautiful blonde lady with the accent is driving me bonkers.
Elizabelle
@Baud:
Yeah. Got to say that would motivate me to vote.
I am hoping women and minorities and younger voters have been undersampled and will be giving Colorado Republicans and the mainstream media a surprise come Tuesday night.
Corner Stone
@Baud: I’ve seen them try to play it like that’s the only thing he ever hits Gardener about, so he must not have anything else. I hope all the womens mail out like true ballers.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
I hope so. Because the day after the election, all those people will be complaining about how Democrats don’t stand up for Democratic values.
mai naem mobile
Its not just Iowa. Its this whole fucking country which has just gone whacko. They somehow think the gop gives a flying fuck about them. This is stockholm syndrome or something.
Davis X. Machina
@mai naem mobile:
The problem is not the voters who have gone whacko. Assume the 2012 electorate and the Dems are even money to hold the Senate.
It’s the voters who have just gone missing.
The widespread belief that the Constitution establishes an elective monarchy has all kinds of knock-on-effects.
WereBear
I hope it works like gangbusters, because women are so beaten down by Republican policies. And the cultural wars have brought out all the “keep ’em barefoot and pregnant” troops, may they live in squalor with no one to make them a sammich.
BBA
@cmorenc: The arrangement dates back to the Paterson administration when a few particularly craven Democrats decided to caucus with the Republicans in exchange for leadership positions in the new “coalition”. Cuomo kept it around because, I imagine, a five-member IDC is easier to control than a 30-member Democratic caucus.
Corner Stone
@Davis X. Machina: What’s up with that wacky LePage guy taking the lead?
Schlemazel
@Elizabelle:
The primary reason for ALL negative advertising is to drive down the vote. Yes, we can pretend it is to throw our opponents into stark relief but the truth is that the real intent is to get people who would vote for the other guy to be turned off & not vote. It has worked extremely effectively, particularly for the goopers who gain when the majority does not bother to vote.
GregB
I will repeat that the media must be loving the results of Citizens United. 4 billion dollars spent on this election.
Clearly they have a tangible interest in supporting the people that brought them this windfall.
Also, Margaret Carlson thinks Udall is an asshole for publicly supporting women’s issues. Booman takes her down a peg.
Schlemazel
@Elizabelle:
Spent a few days in CO this summer & the airwaves were filled end to end with ads. Abortion seemed to be the ONLY issue Udahl talked about on his ads.
It reminded me of Carter v St. Ronnie. Someone told him a good issue was nuclear war & somehow that became the only thing he wanted to talk about & dragged it into ever conversation. Made him an easy target. I thought Udahl was making a one-note mistake. But I was only there for a week so I thought he might bring out other guns as the season went on.
Schlemazel
@Corner Stone:
Right decision, wrong motivation. Starve these beasts.
Nicole
@Elizabelle:
That’s not surprising; the majority of absentee ballots lean GOP (due to the voters being older). It’s the reason the GOP is so obsessed with at-the-polling place voter fraud, but not at all concerned with absentee ballots, even though it is in fact, easier to commit fraud with an absentee ballot. Can’t risk making it harder on old white folk to vote against the future.
Elizabelle
@Schlemazel:
So true about negative advertising driving down the vote. That’s been true since long before Citizens United.
It’s an undemocratic practice.
We need shorter, cheaper election seasons with a playing field leveled by public financing.
We need to see it in our lifetimes. It drives all our other problems, which don’t get addressed because those with money and power don’t care if they’re addressed.
PsiFighter37
@Iowa Old Lady: If Selzer is way off and Braley wins, it means even the good pollsters can’t poll anymore.
I can’t believe a heavy-grade moron like Joni Ernst might be a senator.
Elizabelle
@Nicole:
I have been worried about people crowing on newspaper websites “we have 6 absentee votes in our house for [reactionary politician].” I always wonder, do they actually? Or is that what’s getting mailed in?
Baud
@Elizabelle:
You’d need a constitutional amendment at this point, because there’s no way to regulate outside spending after Citizens United.
PsiFighter37
Also, as reiterated in the thread yesterday, the WFP and de Blasio are playing checkers while Cuomo is playing ruthless, attacking chess. They’re a bunch of amateurs who will get their automatic spot on the ballot taken away as a result.
Elizabelle
@Schlemazel:
Yeah, I don’t like abortion being the be all and end all that gets remembered about a candidate’s campaign. Because you know that candidate has taken a lot of other positions.
Colorado makes me sad. Beautiful state, a lot of civically minded people who appreciate their environment.
Site of mass killings at Columbine High School and an Aurora movie theatre, and gun nuts still have the advantage since others are not single issue voters.
Elizabelle
@Baud:
A constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United might be an excellent grassroots organizing tool.
Seriously.
WereBear
An excellent point and one that explains a lot of media behavior. Their mission is profits and entertainment: journalism has migrated to the web.
When more people realize that, the R’s will further lose their grip. Their margin is razor thin now — that’s a fact.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Maybe. I’m at a loss at what motivates people these days.
Goblue72
Going to the lose the Senate. Old white people vote – and old white people are becoming more GOP at a rate faster than we can get young brown people registered.
Die old white people, die off already!
Iowa Old Lady
@Goblue72: I beg your pardon?
Present company excepted, I assume
Elizabelle
Fabulous comment by “gemli” on Frank Bruni’s NYTimes column today, “The Pitiful Whimper of 2014”.
Take it away gemli:
I would say many/most of us do NOT deserve these politicians. But otherwise solid.
Fox News and its wannabes and unlimited corporate money (and personhood) are the cancer that could bring down American democracy.
Gene108
@mai naem mobile:
For a good chunk of the country, as long as some other group is getting hurt worse than they are, the government is doing its job.
There’s a lot of bigoted hateful folks in this country, who have internally absorbed the notion everything was fine and dandy until some previously oppressed group made social gains, from blacks making up economic progress from centuries of oppression due to Great Society programs to now gays being able to marry.
The problem is these assholes vote in every election and are easily driven into a frenzy by a few hot button issues like guns or abortion or gay marriage.
There’s nothing similar in non-conservative circles, where people get off on rage, intolerance and general negativity.
The negativity is like a double win for Republicans. It energizes their constituents and lowers the moral of their opponents.
Elizabelle
Here’s the leadin to Frank Bruni’s column:
This is where I expected he was going:
Baud
Question about Colorado. I heard that the GOP candidate for governor there had a shot to win even though he was opposed to pot legalization there. If so, where are all those people who were furious at Obama and Holder for not being lenient enough on pot? They were very loud before, but seem very quite now.
My info on the Colorado governors race may be wrong, so that might be the answer.
geg6
This whole country sucks, so why shouldn’t New York suck just as badly as everywhere else in the US of A?
I am hating my fellow Americans more and more every day. And Canada, which seems to have caught the prion disease that is eating up the brain cells of the US, isn’t even an option any more. Fuck me.
DissidentFish
@Baud: Both Gov. candidates in Colorado were opposed to mj legalization so it’s wash.
Mike J
@Baud:
Dave’s not here, man.
Davis X. Machina
@Elizabelle:
@Nicole:
I’m waiting for this:
“Pastor Bob and the worship team at the Bible-Believing Baptist Church to have a mail-in-ballot night this Wednesday after the mid-week service. Bring your ballot to church, and Pastor Bob and his worship team will assist you in the thoughtful, prayerful, completion of your ballot.”
“What do you mean you already marked it in the privacy of your home, and mailed it in? How could you assure the fullness of the guidance of the Spirit?”
the Conster
@Baud:
Don’t overthink this. It’s tribal. White Americans want their country back from “those people”. It’s just that simple, really. They’ve been telling us that for 6 years.
Tsukune
There is a RPG called Legend of the 5 Rings. One of the clans is the Scorpion clan, and they have a version of this parable that seems apt for Prince Andy.
PsiFighter37
@the Conster: This is pretty much it.
If the past several years have proven anything, it’s that Obama’s election did very little to move the ball on racial issues. Sad but true
wmd
@Iowa Old Lady:
I made about 20 calls to Iowa yesterday – towards the end people were asking me if I was in Iowa.
PCCC Call out the Vote has shifts for Braley today at 5 PM CST. Anyone can call, but hawkeyes may have better luck.
I’ve got prior commitments today, will be calling for Begich later in the day. Udall also has a shift today.
We can drive turnout and prove the polling wrong. Make some calls!
Elizabelle
@wmd:
Proud of you! 3 cheers!
Baud
@DissidentFish:
I thought I heard that the Dem had acquiesced after the vote, but not the GOP guy. But thanks. That’s helpful.
vheidi
@PsiFighter37: may I ask what you’re doing? I’mm waffling between that colossal ahole on WFP and Howie Hawkins
Baud
@the Conster:
I meant, what can motivate people on our side.
Scamp Dog
@Goblue72: yeah, I hear you. The door knocking I’ve done this election and the last one has convinced me that there’s something seriously wrong with the way these people think about the world.
There are some exceptions, of course. I’m one, and I imagine you are too.
the Conster
@Baud:
Gotcha. Just was listening to Bernie Sanders talk about this on Bill Moyers – he doesn’t know either, and no one is more devoted to figuring it out for our side than him. He attributes the tribalism to talk radio – 90% of it is hate speech – Radio Rwanda basically, and the source of most “news” out in the heartland where RealAmericans(TM) live. That’s the biggest disadvantage progressives have – we’re just not inclined to be herded like that. It’s a problem.
PsiFighter37
@vheidi: Can’t vote (moved and re-registered too close to the enteral election). Frankly, though, I’d either vote for Cuomo on the Democratic line or not vote at all. If the WFP was too stupid to see that Cuomo saw this as his best way of driving them from their guaranteed spot on the ballot, then they deserve to wither and die. Let progressives either a) figure out how to retake the gears of power in the state Democratic Party, or b) start from anew.
I hate Cuomo, but what I really can’t stand are amateurs and fools when it comes to politics.
JGabriel
So, New York gubernatorial election – who should I vote for?
Cuomo is obviously out. That leaves, as far as I know, Rob Astorino (R-Asshole, though I suppose that’s redundant) or Howie Hawkins (Green).
I’m half tempted to vote for Astorino, on the basis that if we’re going to get Republican policies anyway, I’d prefer that the Republicans get blamed for it.
On the other hand I like Howie Hawkins. But there’s no chance of him winning.
It’s a quandary: Who should I vote for? Color me perplexed.
wmd
@Scamp Dog:
I had a GoTV call to a 70 year old woman in Kentucky this week – she was undecided because Alison Lundergan-Grimes is “for the gays”, and the voter can’t abide the kind of things “gays do”. I helped reframe it – Alison isn’t “for gays” so much as she’s against discrimination. And that promptly had the voter saying that she was against discrimination too. I have no idea if it will lead to a vote for LG, at least she has a new frame to think about the issue. Of course it has to be reinforced to take hold, but the seed is there.
I’m a bit proud of how I responded – she started on the topic by asking if I was gay.
Baud
@the Conster:
Then people are right not to vote for our candidates. If we can’t come together to support our candidates and oppose the people who hate us, we can’t come together to run a government effectively. It makes me sad to say it, but I believe that’s the reality.
wmd
@Baud:
It’s possible to dump the PUMA like posturing, hold ones nose and work to defeat those that would send us to perdition. I don’t particularly think Alison Lundergan-Grimes would be great in the Senate, but given McConnell as the alternative it’s easy for me to make calls for LG.
Much easier to help a candidate like Elizabeth Warren. We’ve got one that’s closer to EW in Bruce Braley – and he needs our help today.
Baud
@wmd:
Good luck to you. I’m doing a phone bank later today also.
I think if we hold the Senate, I’ll be about as happy as I was when Obama beat Romney. That night still makes me smile.
WereBear
@the Conster: We need to tell stories.
Progressives have their geeky side; policy wonking and problem solving are our strengths. While some can get passionate about a beautifully crafted social solution, most can only grasp how such things work when we tell them a story with a beginning, middle, and end.
It’s what the Conservatives do: Once upon a time, daddies all went to work in offices and mommies all stayed home vacuuming in pearls and children had fun like Tom Sawyer until bad dark-skinned people/bra-burning lesbians/pointy headed intellectuals/debased sex addicts all got together to take our money away and give it to lazy bums and that’s why your wife dumped you/your boss is someone you’ve been told to despise/you are such a loser and so Beaver Cleaver doesn’t live here anymore, The End.
We need to tell stories of our own, true stories. How people labored in the mines until they died of black lung, how people risked death to escape slavery, how immigrants built this country, how corporations are murdering us because of weak regulations, how the 1% steal our money by turning the cost of admission to society into crushing debt.
How we grow rich every time we shared wealth and opportunity with other levels of our society. How we grow poor when we do not.
VidaLoca
@Elizabelle: that would be Move To Amend. It’s already up and running, in fact the last count I heard was that 16 state legislatures have taken steps to ask their congressional delegations to propose wording for such an amendment (you may recall it takes 2/3 of the states to propose and 3/4 to ratify). We organized grassroots campaigns around referenda in several of the Milwaukee County suburbs, City of Milwaukee, and Milwaukee County itself, memorializing the WI legislature to join the list of states.
You’re probably aware of the state of things in the WI legislature right now so… not much happening there.
At the federal level, it’s on the radar of enough people that they’ve proposed wording that would essentially water down the “Move to Amend” language.
I did a lot of circulating of petitions on this issue summer before last. What I found was that people were willing to sign — on the order of 60%-70% of the people I asked. The referenda pass by roughly the same margins. Problem is, nobody believes that the amendment will ever be enacted. The level of cynicism is startling. And the cynics have a valid point: it wasn’t, and still isn’t clear to me that the proponents of the amendment have any plan to win their demand. So you can get support, of a grudging sort — but it’s much harder get people involved to join you in the movement.
In the end, I would have to say that this makes it less than a great grassroots organizing tool, as attractive as the idea is and as much support as you can find for it.
Ronnie Pudding
Rich Funke’s main TV ad has him saying he thinks women should be paid the same as men. Ted O’Brien’s has a guy who started a craft brewery, with help from O’Brien’s work in Albany.
This is politics in Western NY. What are the ads like where you live?
Elizabelle
@VidaLoca: Thanks, Vida. Most informative.
Botsplainer
@Goblue72:
Old whites owe their longevity and consequent outsized influence to the Medicare and Social Security that the GOP wants to gut for those of us under 60.
People like my lazy, greedy, nastily racist, never worked grandmother – who turns 99 in January but clings to government programs (which she hated when her brain still worked) like a deer tick to a doe in September. She never put mileage on her bady (particularly the last 45 years), so it goes on and on.
And yes, I’ll be struggling to come up with something to say at whatever visitation and funeral happens after her passing. I have to be there for my mother and my aunt, but I’m damned if I can think up anything to say to people who say “So sorry for your loss” beyond this shitty statement:
Elizabelle
@WereBear:
You’re right about telling stories, and it works at the doors. You’ll get people to tune in if you personalize a story and make it snappy. Has to be an authentic story, though, and sound fresh. No spiel.
Steve Pearlstein’s column in the WaPost: he thinks Democrats’ problem is branding failure. They have a good brand, actually, but they’re running away from it. A lengthy summary:
DissidentFish
@Baud: acquiesced is the right word, as Hickenlooper had no authority to stop it. But he is strongly associated with being anti-pot, and makes no secret of being opposed to legal pot to this day.
What I’d like to know is — how can people still vote for republicans on economic issues? Trickle down economics and “the Brownback Way” are proven lies. Kansas is next door to Colorado, geez.