The Republic of T.

It Won’t Work

Not to pick on Kathleen Parker, but the “narrative” she suggested the Democrats take from midterm elections — “You can’t sell people what they don’t want” — is more likely to end up being the narrative the Republicans take from 2012 — if the president and the Democrats do what they need to do. Karl Rove was half-right when he said voters didn’t toss out the Democrats because are “enraptured with the GOP.” People are angry sure, but the numbers tell a different story.

People are angry not at what the Democrats did after 2008, but what they didn’t do. They didn’t “buy” what the GOP was selling. Like a shopper who ordered one thing and got another, American voters ordered transformative change in 2008 but got the same old transactional politics instead. The midterms of 2010 is their letter or complaint.

Here at Campaign for America’s Future, we just released a voter survey that shows voter fears about the economy and anger at government failure to help middle- working-class families even as Wall Street got bailed out.

Findings include:

• Compared to a candidate who attacked Democrats for the economic stimulus and health care reform, 57 percent of voters said they were much or somewhat more likely to support a candidate with a “made-in-America” campaign message that points out that Republicans have “pledged to support free trade deals and protect tax breaks for companies that send American jobs to India and China.”
• Eighty-nine percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement that “America is falling behind” in the global economy and that “we need a clear strategy to make things in America, make our economy competitive, and revive America’s middle class.”
• Sixty-nine percent said that “politicians should keep their hands off Social Security and Medicare” as they attempt to address the national deficit.
• A majority opposed the Republican plan to cut $100 billion from domestic spending programs while extending the Bush tax cuts to those earning more than $250,000, while 51 percent said they agreed that those top-end tax cuts should expire and with proposals offered by Democrats to reduce the deficit over time.
• Significant majorities in the poll supported new investments in infrastructure through a national infrastructure bank, a five-year strategy for reviving manufacturing in America

Why stop at one poll?

The GOP is not popular with Americans, nor is its agenda. Poll after poll leading up to the election bear this out. Their approval/favorability ratings were low going into the election, lower than the Democrats in many cases.

This is in the context of low approval ratings for Congress overall. But, as I said in the previous post, The Democrats’ problem is failing to deliver on the agenda Americans voted for in 2008. The Republicans problem is an agenda that remains toxic to most Americans.

Americans offer tepid support for much of the Republican Party’s domestic agenda, including repealing the new healthcare law and extending tax cuts for the wealthy, according to the latest Society for Human Resource Management/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll, conducted with the Pew Research Center.

The results suggest Republicans could struggle to pass legislation advancing many of the smaller-government themes that have dominated their campaigns in the midterm elections, even if the party wins control of one or both houses of Congress in November.

In particular, the party appears to risk a backlash from senior citizens, a critical voting bloc that harbors deep skepticism about tinkering with entitlement programs.

The survey is the most comprehensive polling look so far at the major elements of the agenda that key Republicans have been discussing in the weeks leading up to the election.

Not all the news was good for Democrats…

…Still, the poll offered little to suggest that the surge in voter support for Republican candidates, whom analysts project to win major gains this fall, carries over to support for policies championed this fall by Republican leaders in Washington and on the campaign trail.

Kos posted a handy breakdown when the poll came out.

• 29% of Americans support extending all of the Bush tax cuts.
• 32% support repealing the newly passed health care law.
• 33% support replacing Medicare with vouchers.
• 58% support creating Social Security private accounts.
• 46% support amending the Constitution to deny citizenship to children of illegal immigrants (49 are opposed).
• Fewer than half of Republican respondents favored extending all the Bush tax cuts or replacing Medicare benefits with vouchers.
• Poll respondents continue to disapprove of President Obama’s signature healthcare legislation, 45% to 38%.
• Three-quarters said they could not name the leader of the Republican Party, or that the party does not have a leader.

What do Americans want? Here’s a hint, it’s not what the Republicans campaigned on.

• A September AP poll said that Americans who wish health care reform went further outnumber opponents of health care reform by 2-to-1.
• An October poll by the Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard university found that six in ten Americans say they want their representatives to fight for more government spending in their districts, to spur job growth.
• That’s compared to 39% who said they want cuts even if it means fewer local jobs. (That’s a flip from 1994, by the way, when 53% wanted their Reps. to fight for cuts, while 42% were on the other side.)
• In the same poll, 50% supported more government spending to boost the economy, while 46% prioritized deficit reduction.
• Not only did voters defeat major anti-tax measures in several states, but an AP poll less than 50 days before the election showed that 54% of Americans favored raising taxes on the highest earners, compare to 44% opposed.
• A Stanford University poll showed that 86% of Americans want government to limit the amount of air pollution that businesses emit.
• And 76% favored government regulating greenhouse gasses in particular.
• Another poll, conducted by Knowledge Networks and designed by Yale researches showed that 77% believe that global warming should be a priority for the president and Congress.
• And 94% believe that developing sources of clean energy should be a priority for the president and Congress.
• Meanwhile, 77% support regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

And that’s an overview, because a detailed analysis is more than I have space to do here.

Not of the above adds up to what the GOP was “selling” in this election. But it’s what more Americans “bought” in 2008 than voted in the midterm elections and any number of special elections since.

Parker follows the example of other conservatives who, after every election election since November 2008 have rushed to declare that “the people have spoken.” When voters in Massachusetts, Virginia, and New Jersey elected Republicans, they somehow “spoke” louder than those Americans who spoke in 2008. When 45 million fewer vote in 2010 than voted in 2008, “the people have spoken.”

The people spoke in 2008, and have been speaking since then. It’s just that neither party has listened.

The people spoke in 2008, upwards of 130 million of them, compared to 82.5 million in 2010. The numbers above, all from polls taken in the last half of this year, reflect what they voted for then and have wanted since.

From Democrats they got health care reform with no public option; and no fight to defend it; financial reform that left “Too Big To Fail” standing; a stimulus that was too small for the jobs crisis the country faces; a foreclosure prevention program that, in order to avoid helping the “wrong people,” helped almost no one; and no climate/energy legislation, given up without much of a fight.

From the GOP they got an agenda written by and for corporate interests.

The GOP is in an unenviable position. It is constitutionally incapable of delivering what Americans truly want. Meanwhile, the party must content with an extreme right that wants what Republicans cannot deliver without angering a great many Americans.

It won’t work.

The Democrats have a chance to come back if they want it. But they need a plan to finish what the started, and deliver what Americans said they wanted in 2008 and are still waiting for.

Then they have to convince us that they mean it.

Still looking for a reason to vote? Here’s a three word answer: health care reform. I’m not sure why Democrats aren’t running on it, but it’s a big step towards "change we can believe in" — the kind that some 66,882,230 (53% of the popular vote compared to Bush’s 47.9% in 2000 and 50.7% in 2004) voted for in 2008. Parts of it are already in effect and making a difference in live of millions of Americans, and some of its biggest changes — expanding coverage to millions of Americans, lowering costs to seniors, and prohibiting some of the insurance industry’s worst practices — are yet to come.

That’s why the GOP is promising to do all it can to repeal health care reform, take away the benefits Americans already enjoy, and block future benefits. That’s also why health care reform has to be defended. It represents not only change we can believe in, but change we still believe in.

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As my carpal tunnel issues — which go way, way, way back — continue, so does my search for the perfect mouse.

I think I may have found, if not the perfect mouse, then a close contender.

Sometimes last week I went, when I found myself reaching for another wrist brace, I went on another virtual search for the “perfect mouse.” How can there be a “perfect mouse”? Aren’t they all pretty much the same? Well, yes. Most of them haven’t changed significantly since the first computer mouse was invented. In the long history of the mouse, the essential design hasn’t changed much at all. Look at the mouse that came with your computer, and you’ve pretty much got it.

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You talk about the president
Won’t stop the air pollution
Just put ya hand on ya mouth
That’ll help the solution

“Respect Yourself” – The Staples Singers

I’ve been fighting a chest cold for the few days, after finally going to the doctor about the nagging cough, that was the result of chest congestion, which was the result of sinus congestion that crept downard despite my best efforts at treating it with over-the-counter mediciations and prescribed allergy medicine.

Two prescriptions, one inhaler, and two day later I’m back in the land of the living. I decided to take my lunch break as an opportunity to get a much needed haircut, and have a working lunch at my desk afterwards. I was just about to get up from the chair when the strangest thing happened.

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I am not a burned down house. Like millions of Americans, I have a “pre-existing condition.” But I am not a “burned down house”, as Mike Huckabee and those who applauded his recent statement seem, to think.

When Republicans attack health care reform, Democrats like to counter by accusing Republicans of wanting to repeal a law that requires insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions. According to Republican Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, that’s exactly right. People with pre-existing conditions, he explains are like houses that have already burned down.

“It sounds so good, and it’s such a warm message to say we’re not gonna deny anyone from a preexisting condition,” Huckabee explained at the Value Voters Summit today. “Look, I think that sounds terrific, but I want to ask you something from a common sense perspective. Suppose we applied that principle [to] our property insurance. And you can call your insurance agent and say, “I’d like to buy some insurance for my house.” He’d say, “Tell me about your house.” “Well sir, it burned down yesterday, but I’d like to insure it today.” And he’ll say “I’m sorry, but we can’t insure it after it’s already burned.” Well, no preexisting conditions.”

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I knew it! All through my schooling I told my parents that I studied better (and learned more) with the radio on, or some noise going on in the background. I’m not sure whether they believed me or just decided not to fight that battle, though they did draw the line at having the television on.

Now it appears that, a couple of decades late, science supports my study habits.

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"It" being a painful knot, that is. I wrote earlier that my eyes had begun to their/my age. Well, now my back is angling to get in on the act, with some stiff competition from my knees. It’s funny. Twenty years ago, I was probably barely even aware I had a back.

It all started innocently enough one morning this week. I was getting ready to head out the door with Parker.

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I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. George W. Bush might have been slightly better president if he’d listened to the women in his family. That’s become even more evident, now that he’s safely out of office, and some of the women in the family are more free to speak their minds.

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It’s official. I’m getting older. It started, actually, a year ago. I went to my annual eye exam, and the doctor told me that I was just starting to show a touch of presbyopia.

Presbyopia usually occurs beginning at around age 40, when people experience blurred near vision when reading, sewing or working at the computer.

You can’t escape presbyopia, even if you’ve never had a vision problem before. Even people who are nearsighted will notice that their near vision blurs when they wear their usual eyeglasses or contact lenses to correct distance vision.

Presbyopia is widespread in the United States. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, over 135 million Americans were age 40 and older in 2008, and the country is growing older: The median age reached 36.8 in 2008, up 1.5 years since 2000. This growing number of older citizens generates a huge demand for eyewear, contact lenses and surgery that can help presbyopes deal with their failing near vision.

Apparently, the knees are not the first to go. Not always.

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I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination.

Barack Obama, August 8, 2008 – Denver, Colorado

There are, I have been reminded throughout the marriage equality debate, limits to what what president can do. A president can’t simply make marriage equality a reality by edict. Nor can a president ban or prohibit marriage equality by declaration. Of course, I’ve never argued that a president could or should be able to do either.

But, there are and have always been things that a president could do, if so inclined, that would move the issue forward in a way that could make a real difference in the lives of many Americans, and open the minds of many more — by stroke of the pen or use of the “bully pulpit” that comes with the office. I have just been waiting for a president who could.

And finally, one did. That’s the only way I can think of to describe Obama’s move to stop hospitals from denying visitation to same-sex partners.

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This is too rich.

See, during the campaign, I watched countless videos of McCain-Palin supporters. I compiled snippets of them for two post-election videos, and I collected the videos in an online playlist. (I’ve archived them offline, just in case they disappear and their existence is called into question.) Everywhere that McCain-Palin supporters encounters Obama supporters demonstrating outside the venue, they always said one thing that I found perplexing.

Invariably, one of them would say to the Obama-Biden supporters, "Get a job."

Huh? Why is it, I wondered, that conservatives always assume progressive don’t have jobs? 

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The big news, since President Obama signed health care reform into law, has been the threats made against Democratic lawmakers. [h/t, Prometheus.]

But there is another threat looming, that isn’t directed at Democratic officials, and isn’t getting nearly as much press.

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Well, that didn’t take long. First members of Congress were pelted with bigoted slurs and spit upon, by a crowd cheered on by Republican members of Congress, to the point that the Speaker and congressional Democrats walked across the capitol complex flanked by police — their to protect them from the mob. Then came vandalism, like bricks thrown through windows. Faxes bearing racial slurs along with pictures of nooses and gallows quickly followed, along with outright death threats. Angry Tea part activists — furious that some 30 million uninsured Americans might finally have access to health care — were encouraged to make personal visits to members of Congress, to “express their thanks”.

Now, threats and vandalism have come closer to home, and graduated to actions that could actually endanger lives: like cutting gas lines.

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I don’t know about anyone else, but this was my favorite image from today’s signing of the health care reform legislation.

You can see the rest of the event here, if you missed it this morning.

For those who don’t know, the kid watching Obama sign the bill is 11-year-old Marcelas Owens, who lost her health insurance when she lost her job, and eventually lost her life to pulmonary hypertension. Marcelas became the target of right wing attacks when he took up the cause of health care reform in memory of his mother.

Naturally, his story resonated with president Obama, who said during his remarks: “Today, I’m signing this reform bill into law on behalf of my mother, who argued with insurance companies even as she battled cancer in her final days.”

Oh, and why is it a big deal that the VP was heard to say “This is a big fucking deal”? After all, he’s right. It is a big fucking deal.

Not as big as it might have been or should have been, but big nonetheless.

This is one of those things you just have to see to believe. Chances are you’ve seen it posted elsewhere, but it bears replaying over and over and over again. Here’s the face of conservatism today, for ya — mocking and screaming at a man with Parkinson’s disease.

At an anti health reform rally in Columbus yesterday, Tea Partiers demonstrated why they should be taken seriously as a populist movement by heckling a man who carried a sign claiming he suffers from Parkinson’s.

A video shows the man sitting down in front of a group of protesters. “If you’re looking for a handout, you’re in the wrong part of town! Nothing for free here, you have to work for everything you get!” says one guy. Then, some khaki-clad dick saunters over, flings some money at the protester and smarmily says “I’ll pay for this guy. Here you go. Start a pot.” He circles back around to scream, “I’ll decide when to give you money!” Someone yells something about communism. Someone else screams, “No more handouts!!!”

If only the health bill created some sort of panels where experts could decide if diseased commie scum like this guy are deserving of care …

If you can stomach it, the video clip is after the jump.

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If you believe the buzz in Washington, this week could very well be “make or break” for getting any kind of health care reform done — not just this year or next year, but for the foreseeable future. As a progressive, to me that means that no matter limited I believe the current reform package is, I can’t in good conscience oppose its passage. Nor can I in good conscience be indifferent to its passage. Too many people need what this reform package does provide. Too many are suffering for lack of reform, and many more will suffer without it — indefinitely, and without remedy.

They don’t have the luxury of waiting for a “better” bill, that would theoretically satisfy conservatives who believe this reform goes to far or progressives who think it doesn’t go far enough. None of us do, if we think about it.

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What kind of people respond to an invitation with a list of demands?

John Boehner and Eric Cantor have responded to Barack Obama’s invitation to sit down and talk health-care reform. They answered in the form of a ransom note. Here are their demands:

1) “Assuming the President is sincere about moving forward on health care in a bipartisan way, does that mean he will agree to start over?”

2) “Does that mean he has taken off the table the idea of relying solely on Democratic votes and jamming through health care reform by way of reconciliation?”

Well, now we know. This goes on for another 6 items.

While I disagree with Ezra’s advice that the White House accept these terms in exchange for straight, up-or-down votes in the House and Senate, I agree that it amounts to a ransom note from a party that’s holding health care reform hostage, which should read something like this:

If nothing else, it’s much more honest and straightforward.

Maybe that’s how the GOP should have spelled out their demands. But that’s not how the Democrats should read this particular ransom note.

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Tea bags are meant to be tossed out. They are useful, at most, once or twice in their lifetimes. Beyond that, they lose flavor and strength, eventually becoming weak as water itself. If kept around beyond their usefulness, they become unpleasant and even unhealthy, as they start to smell and begin to mold. Or they dry up and eventually crumble. Either way, they become useless.

What’s true of tea bags is also true of teabaggers. However, tea bags are tossed out when they outlive their usefulness. The same can be true of teabaggers, but only if Democrats have the political will to make it so.

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Apparently all you need to do to be arrested for prostitution in D.C. is carry three or more condoms. Seriously.

Think you might get lucky tonight? Well, if you’re in D.C., don’t bring more than two condoms in your purse, or you could be arrested as a prostitute.

In D.C., police can declare “Prostitution Free Zones” where officers can pick up (I mean, arrest) anyone suspected of sex work. And they’ve been accused of using carrying three or more condoms as proof of intent to sell sex — rather than intent to spend the weekend getting jiggy with a guy.

This is the stupidest thing I’ve heard so far this year.

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i

The fury and dialogue catalyzed by Joe Lieberman’s unsurprising treachery on health care reform — along with futile efforts to court Olympia Snowe, and the dealmaking with Ben Nelson and other “Blue Dog” Democrats — underscores a Democratic division and a political reality progressives must take seriously. The division is one between progressives and Democrats.

The reality is that not all Democrats are progressive. The health care reform debate is illustrative of this divide, and the challenge progressives face with this political reality.

The difference depends on what you believe concerning health care. Is it an injustice that millions of Americans have little or no access to quality, affordable health care? Or is it merely unfortunate?

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