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I hopped on a conference call with Nancy Pelosi a little late today, and didn’t find much to report. She was focused on the election and the choice voters have to face, and didn’t want to hear much about dissension within the Democratic ranks. Someone asked a question about members running away from the health care bill, and she insisted that “the plural of anecdote is not data,” that “at least 200 members are out there boasting the HC bill,” and that everybody is running their own race in their own district, and some issues work in those districts better than others.
But I have to think Pelosi is none too happy about Democratic candidates, receiving money from Democratic campaign sources, touting their intentions to vote against her for Speaker:
Or this one from Jim Marshall, which opens with the kind of lame parody of hippie San Franciscans you’d expect out of a Sarah Palin fever dream:
(h/t Digby)
The Speaker can talk all she wants about how this doesn’t bother her, but regardless of that, it has a lasting impact in the country. You have a very loud segment of a national political party going out of their way to denigrate the leaders of that party. Some people think this makes the Democratic tent bigger and more able to gain majorities, but last I checked, Republicans held Congress for 12 years and are poised to return to that majority after just a four-year respite. The only difference in 2006 and 2008 was awful performance from George W. Bush and a leader of the DNC who actually stood for something. This strategy of self-flagellation only seems to show up when Democrats are sure to lose. In fact, you could see the two circumstances as intimately connected.
Marshall, keep in mind, is proudly accepting funding from the Chamber of Commerce, the organization at the top of the news over using the same account for campaign spending that they use to collect money from foreign companies. So he’s undermining Democratic themes in addition to its leaders.
I guess I just don’t know what Marshall or Bright gets out of the exchange. They don’t vote very often with Democrats, they don’t seem too happy about being associated with Democrats. They have to tell their district every two years that they can’t stand themselves for being Democrats.
Why are they Democrats?
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Why are they Democrats?
Two words: Parker Griffith
Who says Pelosi is a Democrat?
Why do they have no opposition in the primaries and why do Democrats vote for them? Many of our red state Democratic parties are controlled by entrenched wealth and corrupt.
Maybe if Rahm hadn’t trashed the fifty-state strategy via his surrogate Tim Kaine, and favored DINOs like Bobby Bright in his funding allocations, then we wouldn’t be stuck with these clowns. Instead, all the money’s being steered to Obama’s 2012 campaign.
That’s going to have to be the next big project: Seriously primarying these clowns.
Ds are finally coming out of the closet as Rs.
I do.
In my part of the world it can’t be done through the existing party structures which really still have their roots in old old money and Jim Crow. I have been through some years of working to challenge this but it is hard to find company.
Addendum. We had a great highly qualified genuine liberal progressive candidate for the Senate this past election cycle. The party leadership gave him no encouragement and supported a milk toast “conservative”.
Because some DLC fuckhead on the DCCC thought they were more electable?
Yeah, me, too.
There’s a time to push for progressive agenda’s and there’s a time to get as many Dems elected as possible to facilitate the means to allow for debating progressive legislation in the House committees.
My opinion is now is the time to get as many Dems elected as possible to ensure Dems hold the House and maintain control of the committees.
Fire away at me now.
The national pundits can’t figure out what the Congressinal Democrats are up to during this election cycle. Each morning I listen to Chuck Todd puzzle over it with one DC pundit after another.
They don’t get it. The last thing Congressional Democrats want is to nationalize this election. There is no national theme by design. The races are being run tactically and close to the ground.
I sincerely hope many of the conservaDems lose, because they are a serious impediment to achieving traditional, valid, desperately needed Dem goals.
We would be much better off with a narrower majority holding the essential Dem/lib/prog world view.
DINO
dems in NAME only
Heath Shuler. Tammy Duckworth. The former Republican he got into office as a Dem and the candidate he tried and failed to impose on a resistant district. Which Duckworth didn’t live in. Rahm thinks like a Republican. Acts like a Republican. Hmmm
actually,i proclaim a merger…rich corporate party
Losers are losers. A leopard can’t change its spots!
It already is one party. It’s the voters who don’t realize it yet.
Read somewhere today that half the Blue Dogs are going to lose. I smiled.
No, you’re entitled to your opinion, tho you may have noticed that many of us don’t agree.
Chuckles Todd has as much intelligence as Sharon Angle…just sayin
its such a sad joke
I wouldn’t be feeling sorry for the “Democrat” Pelosi – just wait until she unleashes the Catfood Commission on us.
its possible………..
She just has to pretend longer because her district is so ‘librul.’
“There’s a time to push for progressive agenda’s and there’s a time to get as many Dems elected as possible to facilitate the means to allow for debating progressive legislation in the House committees.”
If you elect people with Ds next to their name purely because of that little letter, that’s the recipe to go nowhere except backwards.
i hear Ms Greenspin in all her glory was hyping E-Meg this morn…Meggerz dropped another 20 mill in her race it seems
What evidence can you cite that electing more Democrats gets us progressive legislation? Note I said progressive legislation, not more progressive legislation.
YAY! Right on! Best thing that could come out of this election!
I sincerely hope we retain majorities in both houses, but we’ve got to get rid of some of these conservaDems in order to be able to really pressure the White House to lean left.
speculation is Goldman holds Cali ….pensions…Meggerz will run to SLASH all dat
That sort of thinking got us into this mess. If we had better Dems, we would have a better stimulus, better HCR, and better polling numbers.
Your plan will lead us into the same situation, basically holding us hostage every 2 years. I will vote Democratic n my district, but I will give a standing ovation when those Georgia blue dogs go down in flame. In 2012, we should focus on getting good progressives like Regina Thomas to run, and give them our support.
You will use the same excuse you are using now.
O’Donnell Can’t Name a SCOTUS Ruling In Debate On C-Span
01:26……..
oh my
In many economically-disadvantaged districts, everything is run by the local rich folks, because there’s no corporations/manufacturing/high-tech, etc. in the district. They’re usually the descendants of the people who ran those places in the 1920′s. In places like this, both parties are controlled by those local rich folks. Many blue dogs come from districts like this.
As I understood Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy, it was intended to create strong state-level organizations to provide ways for “real” Democrats to get on the ballot in areas where they had previously been roadblocked by corrupt and/or reactionary local organizations. If this strategy had been pursued continuously up to now, we might not have such a blue dog problem.
But over the last several years, it seems to have been replaced by the Rahm Emanuel 50-state strategy of supporting any and all candidates of the local machines (no matter how corrupt or how reactionary) and of discouraging any progressive challengers.
I have a modest amount of personal experience with Ms. Pelosi from deep inside the CA Dem party in the 1990′s, and I think she’s a very fine, liberally-biased Democrat. I think she plays the game as best she can inside a heavily corporate party. And, no, I’m not blinded by an encounter with charisma; met plenty of big names in politics and entertainment.
I hope you’re right.
The way I look at it, everything is moving so far right, the pols like Pelosi, who in your words
will eventually cave in to the party to preserve her position.
Dean got cashiered out because of a personal vendetta of the Obama administration (specifically Rahm wanted to punish Dean). Also it was Gibbs who was part of a covertly-funded anti-Dean organization, so the top brass of Obama Inc wanted to humiliate Dean no matter what the repercussions were.
Indeed…
Maintaining any faith these days requires a lot of faith.
“I think she plays the game as best she can inside a heavily corporate party”
The thing is that I hear that “best (s)he can” excuse with Obama as well. Obama/Pelosi run the country and yet they are supposed to be so powerless. If the President and Speaker of the House are so weak and helpless, then conversely it doesn’t matter who holds those positions.
“Why are they Democrats?”
Probably because they want to run for office and they wouldn’t be able to knock off the Republican in the primary. Or because the Democratic machine is the dominant one in their district. Or they got started as a Democrat and they would never be able to cross over and hope to win a primary.
Parties didn’t used to be ideological, they used to be geographic. You still see some of that in local and Congressional races.
and Dean is an Oligarch(family)
I don’t see how you can praise Dean’s 50 state strategy and piss and moan about Blue Dogs. That strategy increased the size of the kennel.
Parties didn’t used to be ideological, they used to be geographic
i did not know that ,thank you
Sorry, that lie doesn’t work anymore. It’s always time to get more Democrats, it’s never time to push progressive issues. Throw in the fact that we’re expected to help re-elect the same assholes who get off on throwing flaming lawn darts at our genitals, and eventually we wise up.
They are, in this era, like all political players left and right, very weak, but they are not without power. With a little help (like losing the conservaDems), she can and will do better.
My sense of Ms. Pelosi is that she has strong, real liberal instincts, and I believe Obama is not a small problem for her politically.
For example, the “Solid South” used to be Democratic. No Southerner would ever vote for Mr. Lincoln’s party. Vermont used to be solid Republican (country-club type Republicans). Only Vermont and Maine voted for Alf Landon in 36 (he ran on repealing Social Security).
Exactly. And if that happens, it will be by CHOICE. As speaker, she can decide what to bring up for a vote and what not to. That vote they had this summer was NON-BINDING.
So, if she CHOOSES to allow the catfood commission’s recomendations to be voted on, and those recomendations include cuts in social security as expected, then I can’t wait to hear the apologists explain the excuse for that one.
Anyone want to give me a hint? Come on, if Pelosi CHOOSES to allow that vote to cut social security, why would anyone still consider her a Democrats?
Pelosi is a big girl, I’m sure she realizes that people run the campaign they think they need to in order to win. If the Democrats lose the House this cycle, she is no longer Speaker anyway. If the Democrats hold the House (and I think they will), she may have a bit of a fight on her hands to hold the gavel, but that’s about it.
Since I’ve already gone rather far out walking the plank for Pelosi in this thread, though I assure you my self-removal from the CA Dem party is due to deep disgust, I’ll offer a hint:
Cuz in our political system, you always allow a vote you know you’ll win.
I’ll put a buck on the line that she allows the vote after she’s got it all properly whipped. That said, I admit I was appalled that she allowed the lame-duck vote to get set up…and my modest faith in her was seriously bruised thereby…
Oh, ok, I get it. If she allows the vote to happen, it will be voted down? Is that it?? She won’t allow the vote unless she’s sure it will be voted down?
OK, I can get on board with that. Until evidence proves otherwise.
You got balls, Mike…I give you that.
Why are they democrats?
The corporate media own by rich republicans tells us they are democrats. (all war is base on deception)
Welcome to the art of war!
All you have to do to conquer and take over the USA, is control the message the ignorant masses of the USA hear and see on TV. (Russia, China, Iran, you don’t need Nukes to beat the USA, just by FOX, CBS, NBC, ABC, etc. who knows they probably already have.
If you control what people hear, see, know, you will control everything they do! (The american tea party blue collar worker is the only worker on the planet who supports the idea of sending his or her job to another nation)
Everyday american citizens lets a small group of rich people with no morals kill the planet, and the human race, so that they can pursue the only GOD they know and love “THE DOLLAR BILL”
The USA govt can not exist or function with a Corporate Own Media with an agenda that enjoys killing the USA.
See corporations have one mission, to make money by any means necessary.
At the present time OBAMA is attacking the democratic base before the midterms! Obama is not a moron! Obama is intentionally trying to kill the democratic party.
A below average “real democrat” that got elected in 2008, could have wipe out the GOP. Not Obama! because Obama is a GOP trojan horse.
Wake Up America! A lot of us woke up a long time ago.
Welcome to “the Hope A Dope”, by OBAMA
Most of the enemies of the USA live in DC. Just Saying!
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/comics/this_modern_world/2010/02/01/this_modern_world
Enjoy…Tom Tomorrow is never wrong, is he?
Oh IM SURE thats why rahmbo didnt like him
I’ve probably said this before, and I’ll say it again: to hell with “more and better.” I’m with “more and enough.”
I want two things this election: the democrats to keep the house, and as many conservadems to lose as possible that still enables us to keep the house. It’s well past time for progressives to be in charge of the party for once, and we’ll have no better shot of that than Pelosi staying on as Speaker… and a general purge of the Republican-lite Democrats.
Still stuck on this idiocy of so-called conservative democrats when logic dictates there is no such thing. Well, bad habits do die hard…………
OFG, I think that you are right to be skeptical. I have long felt that pelosi is a dim because she grew up that way and knows how to deal in that environment. She moved to SF and, even though she is now rich, she can’t become a repug and win there. I think that in many ways she is still liberal, but it is really liberal in a Rockefeller way.
As far as the catfood commission results are concerned, since it is a lame duck session and there is no accountability, she should just dump it. Promised votes can change as soon as the voter opens her/his mouth. She was so easy about taking impeachment off the table, she should be just as easy in tossing the catfood commission.