Jonathan Bernstein wonders whether liberals have “forgotten about the public option.” I think the point here is that liberals have forgotten about politicians expressing nominal support for the public option. It’s still very early, but the first hints are a lot less promising than I would have expected for public option supporters. I checked the [...]

I wrote previously about Ron Paul’s newsletters, and I still think there’s reason to condemn not only the writings but the worldview they espouse, one which Paul embraces even as he disavows some of the finer points of the newsletters. But I think there’s more to say about this incident and what it means about [...]

I’ve been writing about the exploits of Iowa CCI, the community group that has been challenging Presidential candidates and local politicians in Iowa alike. Because of Iowa CCI, Mitt Romney delivered his “corporations are people” remark. And Iowa CCI has no problem criticizing Democrats who fail to uphold their principles of protecting the social safety [...]

E.J. Dionne gives what has become standard liberal advice nowadays, saying that the President needs to “go big” on a jobs bill, and to take it to the public if Republicans oppose as expected: Going big means immediate action to boost the economy, even though this will increase the short-term deficit. His proposals to continue [...]

We’re seeing more evidence today of the “Invisible Town Hall Revolution,” the pushback by ordinary Americans for progressive values like tax fairness, good jobs now and the social safety net. Freshman Rep. Randy Hultgren was cornered at one of his town halls by constituents who demanded taxes on the wealthy. This is great stuff: “We [...]

I’ve been writing about the invisible town hall revolution, where dozens of conservative members of Congress have been bombarded by ordinary citizens delivering progressive messages. This actually started after the passage of the Paul Ryan budget in the spring, and some members have figured out methods to deal with it. Some do only tele-town halls. [...]

In Chris Cillizza’s smug dismissal of liberal frustration, with the curt statement “liberals and progressives have nowhere else to go,” he overlooks the fact that liberals have plenty of places to go. More than ever, in fact. From a movement-building perspective, there are more opportunities than normal in an off year to really make a [...]

As per usual, Chris Cillizza perfectly sums up an axiom in Washington with his headline, “Liberals Hate the Debt Deal. So What?” First of all, the polling shows that everyone hates the debt deal, particularly those independents who were supposed to be wooed by it, but let that go. The view from Washington is that [...]

I’ve noticed a lingering claim that the reason we won’t see a pivot to jobs over the next several months is that the progressive movement hasn’t sold the concept of the public good and the proper government. I thought we were supposed to be the ones too focused on rhetorical flourish and not the hard [...]

I mentioned yesterday that one of the overlooked consequences of this debt deal is the timing. It came one week before recall elections in Wisconsin that actually represent the best of the progressive movement and a backlash against the forces that won a landslide in 2010. Consider what happened there. Republicans, after winning full dominance [...]

Let me call your attention to Ari Berman’s piece in The Nation, which kind of puts to rest all this drama about whether the Boehner plan or the Reid plan will succeed. “Our plan includes more cuts,” Chuck Schumer bragged at a news conference on Capitol Hill yesterday when comparing Harry Reid’s debt plan to [...]