We’re so screwed. Bob Shrum just said Democrats will hold the House and Senate.
Election 2010
ActBlue Reminder
There’s a link to Balloon Juice’s very own ActBlue page over there on the right-hand column —->, and we’re making good progress towards what Cole labelled “a very ambitious goal”. As a jumpstart, here’s an ad from one of the candidates we’re targetting, Scott McAdams:
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Thanks to commentor Linda Featheringill for the link. I admit to a bias in favor here, because my mother-in-law is Norwegian-born. In the thirty-plus years we’ve been acquainted, she has never actually cursed me out, because she doesn’t need profanity to obtain compliance. But I will attest that the experience builds character.
Cover of the Rolling Stone
Let’s everybody go buy at least one copy of the October 15 issue of Rolling Stone, and see if we can stealth-seed them into the waiting rooms at the dentist, Jiffy-Lube, Gymboree, the break room at the office, and wherever “low information” voters might be in need of an easily palatable update on How The World Works. It has a nice tasteful Newsweek–worthy cover, three-quarters profile of Our President, nothing that might hint of naughty thoughts or profane words to even the most tender sensibility. And there are two great long-form articles that deserve to be widely read.
First, Jann Wenner’s interview with “Obama in Command“, which includes a lot of the details people need to be reminded about, starting right on the first page:
How do you feel about the fact that day after day, there’s this really destructive attack on whatever you propose? Does that bother you? Has it shocked you?
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I don’t think it’s a shock. I had served in the United States Senate; I had seen how the filibuster had become a routine tool to slow things down, as opposed to what it used to be, which was a selective tool — although often a very destructive one, because it was typically targeted at civil rights and the aspirations of African-Americans who were trying to be freed up from Jim Crow. But I’d been in the Senate long enough to know that the machinery there was breaking down…
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But the delays, the cloture votes, the unprecedented obstruction that has taken place in the Senate took its toll. Even if you eventually got something done, it would take so long and it would be so contentious, that it sent a message to the public that “Gosh, Obama said he was going to come in and change Washington, and it’s exactly the same, it’s more contentious than ever.” Everything just seems to drag on — even what should be routine activities, like appointments, aren’t happening. So it created an atmosphere in which a public that is already very skeptical of government, but was maybe feeling hopeful right after my election, felt deflated and sort of felt, “We’re just seeing more of the same.”
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How do you personally feel about hedge-fund managers who are making $200 million a year and paying a 15 percent tax rate? Or the guy who made $700 million one year and compared you to Hitler for trying to raise his taxes above 15 percent — does that gall you?
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I’ve gotta say that I have been surprised by some of the rhetoric in the business press… I know a lot of these guys who started hedge funds. They are making large profits, taking home large incomes, but because of a rule called “carried interest,” they are paying lower tax rates than their secretaries, or the janitor that cleans up the building. Or folks who are out there as police officers and teachers and small-business people. So all we’ve said is that it makes sense for them to pay taxes on it like on ordinary income….
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The average American out there who is my primary concern and is making 60 grand a year and paying taxes on all that income and trying to send their kids through school, and partly as a consequence of bad decisions on Wall Street, feels that their job is insecure and has seen their 401(k) decline by 30 percent, and has seen the value of their home decline — I don’t think they’re that sympathetic to these guys, and neither am I.
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Bring Out Your Dead
The next two years should be fun:
Rep. Darrell Issa means business! If the GOP takes back the House of Representatives the new chairman of the Congressional Oversight and Government Reform Committee will investigate only the important stuff, like ACORN (which no longer exists) and the post office! Scary stuff! I’m really glad that Democrats decided not to investigate the Bush Administration for torture, lying us into a war, and wiretapping American citizens without a warrant. It totally made the GOP re-think launching stupid investigations if they were to ever take back the House.
Why stop there? Let’s investigate Terri Schiavo and Whitewater and go through all the GOP’s greatest hits!
The DRahma Never Stops
According to ABC news, liberalism’s greatest villain, Rahm Emanuel, is planning to leave the administration this week. Prepare for a few days of media wanking about “what this all means.”
Curtis is Back
In 2003, Curtis was a 17 year old local high student who volunteered with the county effort for the Kerry campaign. He just showed up one day. He wasn’t old enough to vote, but he wanted to help.
We lost track of him after that, and I figured he had moved on, which is right and good and what someone that age is supposed to be doing, and he had.
Curtis showed up again Friday. After 2004, he went to a state college 60 miles away. He volunteered with the Obama campaign while a commuter student at that college, got his degree, and is now back in town. He’s working as a manager at a nursing home, and wants to get involved locally again.
Curtis got me thinking about the national discussion of the 50 State Strategy or the Kerry Campaign or the Obama Campaign or OFA, and how those efforts and organizations are presented as a series of distinguishable events with clear lines of demarcation that begin and end abruptly with a change of national leadership. It looks and feels very different from the ground.
It’s not like the national leadership changes and everyone involved is summarily fired and replaced with brand new people. They move on, or up, or sideways, or away, and they often turn back up, with a brand-new email address and a new title.
In 2003, we had a full-time Kerry organizer who came from a state Party in Kentucky, and he went back there the day after the election. We got a Dean 50 state strategy state Party hire. He came from a union. He stayed less than a year, but he is still out there. He has contacted me on behalf of two different issue advocacy groups. After he left, another state Party organizer appeared in 2006. She was hired away by the Obama campaign, where she became “Northern Ohio Coordinator” or something equally impressive-sounding. She’s now working for the Ohio Democratic Party in Columbus. Our current county organizer started with the Obama campaign, then worked briefly for OFA, and now works for the state Party. Our current OFA organizer started with a union. One of our homegrown local-issue advocates ended up with a paid position on Sherrod Brown’s staff.
The nature of their work, how they go from job to job, blurs the lines at the local level, and makes changes in national strategy or national leadership much less important than the local conversation.
We’re having that conversation with people who have cycled through a lot of strategies and a lot of leaders, and a lot of time they’re the same people.
On the Right Side
This is good news for Democrats if they can leverage it:
A new AP poll finds that Americans who think the law should have done more outnumber those who think the government should stay out of health care by 2-to-1.
The toplines for the poll [pdf] show that the main areas where people are confused about the reform bill center around coverage for illegal immigrants. There’s broad (80/20) agreement that drug manufacturers and insurance companies make too much money. And, by 60/40 margins, there’s agreement that minorities and the poor will get better care as a result of the bill, while a smaller majority thinks that whites and the middle class will not get better care.
Reading this poll, it’s clear that “kill the bill” is political suicide, that traditional Democratic constituencies think the bill benefits them, and that overall people are interested in more change to the healthcare system, not less.