...the most damning indictment to emerge from the mess was the Democrats' relief at Reid's survival. Our party knew of his severe limitations before we made him leader--same with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We have watched them consistently hurt the party's image and undermine its productivity. And while much of the country is now mocking Reid's obvious liabilities, we cheer his staying in power. Talk about tone-deafness--Reid's is nothing compared to the Democrats who continue to uncritically accept his and Pelosi's chronic embarrassments and ineffectiveness.
I understand the tribal impulses driving Democrats to protect Reid and deny the Republicans a scalp. And in isolation Reid's latest gaffe is hardly a firing offense. But his racially insensitive remarks are part of a pattern of poor judgment that, along with his (widely acknowledged) poor communication skills, would have gotten him fired long ago from any other comparable leadership position. Can you imagine the boards of Wal-Mart or the Sierra Club sticking with a CEO whom most shareholders or donors regard as unpersuasive and who frequently damages their brand?...
Posted by: Mike ||
01/13/2010 15:28 ||
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#1
Hey, even Tiger Woods' sponsors dumped him for image reasons.
Not next Tuesday's Senate election itself, of course -- few observers really think that's winnable even now, no matter how toxic the environment for Democrats these days.
But the fact that this is a race at all -- or, at least, the fact that it's being treated like a race over the final week -- is itself a victory that tells important tales for both parties. A narrative for 2010 didn't have to wait beyond the first month of the year to get written.
The pieces are there: the Kennedy seat, the fate of the health care bill, Tea Party fervor, an anti-establishment Republican, a Democrat clinging to a lead in the bluest of states.
Democrats are being forced to spend very real resources in a place they should not, by any calculation, have to worry about it. They're being met by resources (perhaps a more renewable variety at this stage) that Republicans never dreamed would be worth spending.
And they're being forced to combat the very real perception that if it can happen in the Hub, it can happen in Arkansas or Nevada or Virginia, too.
"Aware that she has little time for the hand-shaking and baby-kissing of a standard political campaign, [Democratic candidate Martha Coakley] has focused instead on rallying key political leaders, Democratic activists, and union organizers, in hope they will get people to the polls," David Filipov writes in The Boston Globe.
"By at least one measure, her strategy is working: A Globe poll published Sunday showed her leading her Republican rival, state Senator Scott Brown, by 15 percentage points," he writes. "For many Democrats, that is too close for comfort, in a race for the seat held for so long by a Kennedy in one of the bluest states in the land. Other polls have showed the race much tighter. Despite that, there is a subdued, almost dispassionate quality to her public appearances, which are surprisingly few."
At the very least: "Massachusetts state Sen. Scott Brown (R) has thrown a major scare into the Democratic establishment in his bid to win next Tuesday's special Senate election over once heavily favored Attorney General Martha Coakley," Dan Balz and Chris Cillizza write in The Washington Post. "A victory, or even a narrow loss, by Brown in the competition for the symbolically important seat would be interpreted as another sign that voters have turned away from the Democrats at the start of the midterm election year."
Not just a win is potentially dangerous for Democrats: "Brown's threat to health reform is in some ways larger. He's showing how Republicans can run against reform -- something sure to play out in other high-profile campaigns this fall, such as those of Reps. Frank Kratovil Jr. (D-Md.) and John Adler (D-N.J.), along with Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)," Politico's Chris Frates reports.
"A close race -- within five points, or even ten -- would generate significant panic among Democrats in other races presumed to be safe," The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder writes.
No running from health care -- from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's new ad targeting Brown: "On health care? Brown wants to be the deciding vote to kill Ted Kennedy's legislation."
"In a fresh sign of increasing nervousness among Democrats about the race, the national party committees on Tuesday chipped in more than $1 million to help boost Coakley's prospects," Roll Call's Emily Cadei reports.
Massachusetts Democratic Party Chairman John Walsh said Organizing for America is putting out the word to activists: "The call's gone out that we need all hands on deck, formally, informally ... by carrier pigeon, whatever we can get."
Coakley was in Washington for a fundraiser at a wine bar on Capitol Hill Tuesday night with the Massachusetts congressional delegation (optic alert!). The delegation's dean, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., was quoted by The Hotline as having said inside the fundraiser: "If we don't win this, 2010 will be hell for Democrats."
And, asked whether she's asked President Obama to campaign for her, Coakley told reporters: "I haven't."
Worth keeping an eye on -- if Brown wins this could be huge: "Should Republican Scott Brown pull off an upset victory in next week's special election in Massachusetts, Senate Democrats may seek to use the chaos surrounding the appointment of Roland Burris last year as a precedent for delaying the swearing in of a man who campaigned as the 41st 'no' vote on health care reform,"
#1
more important than this one election contest is the continuing drips and dollops of information that is getting out about the arrogance of the Dem candidates, the contempt they have for the electorate, the low esteem they have for the US, etc.
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/13/2010 13:24 Comments ||
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#2
These are definately NOT the democrats your Mom and Pop voted for. This is a scary bunch.
#3
It's not the Burris precedent they'll use, it's Franken. If Brown wins, expect all sorts of challenges - legal, administrative and otherwise. And, that's regardless of the margin - recall Coleman/Franken was in the hundreds, then few thousands of votes - the Mass. machine will gum up the works here if the margin is within 200,000 votes.
Interestingly, all that may reveal just how corrupt/mismanaged the system is. While everyone focused on Florida 2000, almost nobody noticed the follow-up analysis in Cook County, where similar machines are used. Basically, the county machine is satisfied if they have less than 250,000 "spoiled" ballots. In other words, the votes lost to incompetence in Cook County are more than the totals cast in the 10-12 least populated states. God help us if we ever have another close election here - then again, we'd likely never know.
#6
Senate Democrats may seek to use the chaos surrounding the appointment of Roland Burris last year as a precedent for delaying the swearing in of a man who campaigned as the 41st 'no' vote on health care reform
Banana republic time. God help us. WTF is happening in our country?
...when you look back over the surges of enthusiasm in the politics of the last two years, you see something like this: The Obama enthusiasts who dominated so much of the 2008 campaign cycle were motivated by style. The tea party protesters who dominated so much of 2009 were motivated by substance.
Remember those rapturous crowds that swooned at Barack Obama's rhetoric. "We are the change we are seeking," he proclaimed. "We will be able to look back and tell our children," that "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." A lot of style there, but not very much substance. A Brookings Institution scholar who produced nothing more than that would soon be looking for a new job....
...In contrast, the tea party protesters, many of them as fractious and loudmouthed as David Brooks thinks, are interested in substantive political issues. They decry the dangers of expanding the national debt, increasing government spending, and putting government in command of the health care sector.
Their concerns have basis in fact. The national debt is on a trajectory to double as a percentage of the economy over 10 years, and the Democrats' health care bills threaten to bend the cost curve up. Higher taxes could choke off economic recovery and keep unemployment up near double-digit rates for years. Last year's stimulus bill surreptitiously raised the budget baseline for many domestic spending programs and sent money to state and local governments -- a payoff to the public employee unions who spent more than $100 million to elect Democrats in 2008.
Agree with the tea party folk or not, these are substantive public policy issues of fundamental importance....
Posted by: Mike ||
01/13/2010 10:59 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
