December 1, 2015

Learning the wrong lessons from 1984. DLC's “false cause fallacy” has harmed our party.

However the primary turns out..no matter who wins it...I have learned a lot more about our party's attitude toward those of us who question too much. There are many here who are in effect saying the primary's over, Hillary won. They feel there's really no need to continue, it's over.

At least the party leaders aren't holding press conferences saying that Bernie will never be president. It's getting close to that though.

Just as in 2004 those of us who question present Democratic policy are considered questionable members of that party.

That's a sad situation. It does not bode well for the party in the future. Where's the desire for new ideas, new people with fresh thinking?

The rhetoric from party leaders and from the Democratic think tanks has gotten old and stale. It all boils down to liberals can't win....that the only way we can win is to be more like the other party.

That is baloney.

From Salon earlier this year:

America’s anti-liberal myth. Why Dems learned the wrong lesson from 1984

Your calendar says it’s 2015, but it’s always 1984 in mind of the New Dems. These are the economically conservative Democrats that include centrists like the old Democratic Leadership Council, Third Way and financial sector-centric elected Democrats (plus Robert Rubin, the Rubin-launched Hamilton Project and associated advisers on the policy side). As always, they are again invoking 1984 to conjure images of a grave danger to Democrats’ ability to win elections in the form of ascendant progressive populism.

The New Dems’ scare story goes something like this: In 1984 Walter Mondale lost 49 states because he ran as a Super Liberal. Democrats would have kept losing if the New Dems had not formed to take control of and steer the party. In 1992 Bill Clinton ran as Centrist Man and Democrats started winning elections again. Now, economic progressives who prioritize other things before Wall Street’s approval are causing trouble. If these progressives Democrats represent the party it will again be banished to the political wilderness and forced to relearn the lesson of the ’80s and ’90s.

This premise is not only wrongheaded, in important ways it’s backwards. The temptation not to relitigate something that is, after all, over 30 years in the past is obviated by 1984’s continued role as the go-to cudgel against progressive Democrats. The New Dems’ reliance on the ’84 cautionary tale is illustrative of an under-appreciated dynamic in the struggle between the progressive/populist coalition and the Wall Street wing: there never really was a big, public “fight for the soul of the party” in the 80’s and 90’s.

This part sounds so familiar and true:

Forever 1984

As Democratic losses demoralized the party faithful, the New Dems’ shifted from trying to sell their agenda on the merits to claiming that their self-proclaimed “centrism” was the only way a Democrat could hope to win. (They were fond of stating the obvious truth that a candidate can’t do too much to advance anything good or help stop anything awful, unless they can first get elected — as if it was some kind of discussion-ender that proved their claim that only New Dems could win.) Unfortunately, their assertions were all too rarely challenged and quickly gained traction, prominence and, finally, conventional wisdom status. Challenging them now may be late but better late than never.

The False Cause Fallacy:

The “false cause fallacy” is From’s stock-in-trade. A bad thing happened and Al From was sad. His friends in the White House lost their jobs (which couldn’t have been a pleasant experience, but was not in and of itself proof of anything). When a good thing eventually happened it had to be due to what Al From had done in the interim. And what From was doing before the bad thing happened is irrelevant. That’s just science right there.

A fairly small group of men took over the party's platform in the late eighties. They had the wealth of corporations behind them so they would not need the ordinary folks in the party. They did not have to stand for anything that might keep them from winning.

Because of that policy most of us lost big time. They are still saying the same things that didn't work, still calling for us to be more "bi-partisan" and even more scarily..."post-partisan."

The latter means being just like the other party, beyond partisanship.

The primary is not over, no one should be pretending it should be over. There should be no inevitability factor for any candidate.

November 22, 2015

Bernie on creating a caring nation. And me on the harm of the inevitabiity aura.

Not just "I’m in it for myself."

What Is Actually Radical About Bernie Sanders’ Democratic Socialism Isn’t the Socialism

Subtitle:

It isn’t a particularly radical political vision—it’s an unflinching commitment to democracy.

“I think what you’re talking about,” Sanders said, “is creating a nation— it’s pretty radical stuff—in which we actually care about each other rather than looking at the world as, ‘I’m in it for myself. And to hell with everybody else.’”

The brouhaha over Sanders’ self-identification as a “democratic socialist” has largely missed what is truly radical about that identity. It’s not the socialism. Sanders has never used the “S” word with precision—for him, it seems to be simply a shorthand for robust investment in public services and the common good.

That shorthand has proved remarkably useful, allowing him to distinguish himself from liberals and most Democrats, while pointing out that much of what he calls socialism is already deeply embedded in American society in a variety of popular programs and institutions, most notably in public libraries and parks, in the Social Security and Medicare programs, and in various aspects of the military. The ambitious agenda he has laid out would amount to “the largest peacetime expansion of government in modern American history,” as the Wall Street Journal has noted.

More:

Though they are very different in their approaches to achieving it, Sanders shares this commitment to a radical version of democracy with Saul Alinsky, the activist and organizer who made Chicago his home and has played an outsized role in our recent national politics.

....It may be that neither Alinsky’s ground-level strategy nor Sanders’ effort to build a broad, national coalition can reverse our march toward increasing inequality and the concentration of power among elites. It may be that a political revolution of the kind that Sanders predicts is an impossible dream.

....On the other hand, perhaps only a grand vision of “the world that should be” is equal to the scale of the challenges we face. Perhaps “millions of people at every level,” as Sanders offered at the conclusion of his University of Chicago talk, can indeed come together to foster a healthy democracy, redistribute power and make the American political system work for all people.

I have no idea what's going to happen as the primaries end.

I do know that the polling that has been so overwhelming since the debates is not really giving a true picture yet.

I still think I was right when I said at the start of the primary....we are in uncharted territory as far as polls and predictions go.

I think Bernie's idea of having a democracy in which the regular everyday people are valued as much as the super billionaires is not going to be easy to achieve.

I quite frankly think our party is making a mistake in trying to make one candidate seem totally inevitable while basically giving little attention to the others.

The trend seems clear, though: inevitability should not be something a candidate wants.

Hillary Clinton was the inevitable candidate in the 2008 race and the status did her more harm than good. Mitt Romney, the GOP’s inevitable candidate in the same year, wound up limping across the GOP primary finish line dogged by Rick Santorum of all people—only to lose after being seen as an out-of-touch, robotic and wooden joke on the campaign trail.

....Jeb Bush, meanwhile, has become a walking joke for his passive weakness in the face of Donald Trump’s insults, and his country-club white-collar tone and demeanor compared with Trump’s brashness.

Inevitability is bad for candidates. It makes them careful, comfortable and defensive. No modern candidate should want it. If a candidate is fortunate enough to hold a lead in an intra-party presidential primary, they should follow the opposite of their instincts and their consultants’ advice and stay hungry: hold rallies, initiate bold legislative proposals and make provocative statements to win a news cycle or two.

The American people have an intense anger at elites right now, and they feel both culturally and economically insecure. Inevitable candidates run the risk of incurring their anger as the entrenched elites who need to be removed. It’s perhaps the most dangerous position for a modern presidential candidate to hold.
Inevitability Comes Before a Fall in Modern Presidential Politics

I see posts recommending that since the polls are all so immensely in Hillary's favor that there is no need for other candidates to even bother.

I see it this way. If the party considers Bernie not to be a Democrat, then they must think of me that way as well. How very sad. I've always voted Democratic. Bill Clinton said we can fall in love in the primaries and fall in line in the general election. I have always done that.

People should hesitate before implying that Bernie Sanders and his supporters are not Democrats.

November 18, 2015

It's like an overwhelming play to enforce Hillary's inevitability. Polls, unions, endorsements...

from Senate and House Democratic leaders are meant to enforce and reinforce and then remind us again that Hillary is inevitable.

It's my opinion.

It started after the first debate when the internet went quickly and overpoweringly for Bernie.

At first I figured that well, it was so obvious that people would soon catch on. But with our media seemingly speaking with mostly one voice, we would not know there were those who realized that these massive changes seldom occur overnight in politics.

I have no idea how the primaries will end for the Democrats. I am fully in support of Bernie Sanders because he is saying things I believe to be true. I know what happened the last time we went against the Florida Democrats and supported Howard Dean. I know we were never really welcome by local Democrats again. I understand why they are that way.

All too many care far more about not making the Republicans around here upset than they actually care about winning. In my opinion that goal of going along to get along has given the Republicans in Florida almost total control of the Legislature and of the state.

I know. Someone's going to call my post sour grapes. I prefer to call it a look at the reality one side simply refuses to acknowledge. I have always felt polls could control questions, demographics, means of contact and pretty much get certain results.

I do know that in politics there is no sudden huge overnight surge and change in a candidate's popularity. The polls the day after the first debate were a shock. The endorsements came quickly, almost as though it was all organized.

The only people I talk to around here are Republicans. There is a great lack of Democrats. Most of the Republicans in my area are tea party types. They are independents. There is one characteristic they share.....they like straight honest talk.

But I have noticed one thing. They do not like Hillary Clinton. They like Bernie Sanders. I have no idea if they would vote for him, but they would not vote for Hillary.

They don't like Jeb! either. I guess you could say they are tired of dynasties.

Me, I am just tired. There were some rough times during the last 3 primaries I spent here at DU...and I often contributed to them. I had strong opinions. This time is different. There is ridicule, there is actually hatred.

I see posts recommending that since the polls are all so immensely in Hillary's favor that there is no need for other candidates to even bother.

It's different this time. As it was in 2003, there's a feeling that those of us supporting an "outsider" are going to hurt the party. But when I see people complaining that Bernie is not a Democrat, I want to say then let the party leaders remember his votes with the party. Let them remember that he voted with the party though at first they did not really want him to caucus with them.

I see it this way. If the party considers Bernie not to be a Democrat, then they must think of me that way as well. How very sad. I've always voted Democratic. Bill Clinton said we can fall in love in the primaries and fall in line in the general election. I have always done that.

People should hesitate before implying that Bernie Sanders and his supporters are not Democrats.

I keep thinking about all these young people who are excitedly supporting Bernie. I wonder if the Democratic party will embrace them or shun them.

Will they welcome these folks to the party and accept their fresh ideas?

I read an article today about the dangers of inevitability.

Inevitability comes before a fall

The trend seems clear, though: inevitability should not be something a candidate wants.

Hillary Clinton was the inevitable candidate in the 2008 race and the status did her more harm than good. Mitt Romney, the GOP’s inevitable candidate in the same year, wound up limping across the GOP primary finish line dogged by Rick Santorum of all people—only to lose after being seen as an out-of-touch, robotic and wooden joke on the campaign trail.

....Jeb Bush, meanwhile, has become a walking joke for his passive weakness in the face of Donald Trump’s insults, and his country-club white-collar tone and demeanor compared with Trump’s brashness.

Inevitability is bad for candidates. It makes them careful, comfortable and defensive. No modern candidate should want it. If a candidate is fortunate enough to hold a lead in an intra-party presidential primary, they should follow the opposite of their instincts and their consultants’ advice and stay hungry: hold rallies, initiate bold legislative proposals and make provocative statements to win a news cycle or two.

The American people have an intense anger at elites right now, and they feel both culturally and economically insecure. Inevitable candidates run the risk of incurring their anger as the entrenched elites who need to be removed. It’s perhaps the most dangerous position for a modern presidential candidate to hold.

November 16, 2015

Mark Penn's strategizing...are we seeing it again?

He's not overtly part of Hillary's campaign this time around. He is connected strongly to a polling firm used by the DNC. He's known for dirty tricks, and he's known for his ugly policies.

Repost from not along ago, because I don't think Penn is done yet.

He is no longer with Hillary Clinton's campaign. But he's involved with a company that does Democratic Party consulting.

But now he’s come in from the cold, at least sort of. The private equity firm he oversees, the Stagwell Group, has purchased SKDKnickerbocker, a consulting firm that is synonymous with Democratic Party politics. In an interview with The Daily Beast on Thursday, Penn said he’ll be giving advice on how to grow the business but will still be watching his former client from the sidelines. “I’m on good terms with both of them,” he said, referring to the Clintons. “But I am not advising the campaign.”

He waited until after Tuesday’s debate to talk about the campaign because he thought the criticism of Clinton had gotten “out of sync with reality.” After months of seeing television clips of her under stress, at Chipotle, or answering questions on emails, he said the debate gave Clinton an opportunity to be seen unfiltered, and “as the leader she is.” While she has tacked left on key issues, like trade and the environment, he credits her with standing firm on a no-fly zone for Syria, refusing to reinstate Glass-Steagall in a nod to Wall Street, and pushing back on capitalism and the strength of the American economic system. “The Hillary who won the debate took a lot of the best of ’08 and combined it with some of the best new issues of ’16,” he said.

Penn is also teaching a graduate class in polling strategy.

Mark Penn is no longer her campaign guru, but he's still testing the waters for Clinton.

He is teaching a graduate course at George Washington University, “Interpreting and Strategizing with Polls,” where he currently has his students crafting polls and memos addressing the question of how Clinton should position herself in what so far is shaping up to be an outsider’s election.

Students in Penn’s class, which a POLITICO reporter attended last week, are in the midst of formulating a poll “to determine the state of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, and to determine the effectiveness of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign messages and how it affects the general voter.”

I'm glad he is hands off on campaign policy because these excerpts from his strategy for winning in 2008 were very questionable.

We win women, lower classes, and Democrats (about 3 to 1 in our favor).

Obama wins men, upper class, and independents (about 2 to 1 in his favor).

Edwards draws from these groups as well.

Our winning strategy builds from a base of women, builds on top of that a lower and middle class constituency, and seeks to minimize his advantages with the high class democrats.

If we double perform with WOMEN, LOWER AND MIDDLE CLASS VOTERS, then we have about 55% of the voters.

Actually gearing a campaign to the lower classes and to one gender is a terrible idea.

A partial summary from later on in the memo:

1) Start with a base of women.

2) Add on a base of lower and middle class voters

Contest the black vote at every opportunity. Keep him pinned down there.

The Atlantic has more on Penn's 2007 memos

Penn Strategy Memo, March 19, 2007: More than anything else, this memo captures the full essence of Mark Penn's campaign strategy--its brilliance and its breathtaking attacks. Penn identified with impressive specificity the very coalition of women and blue-collar workers that Clinton ended up winning a year later. But he also called Obama "unelectable except perhaps against Attila the Hun," and wrote, "I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values." Penn proposed targeting Obama's "lack of American roots."

This guy needs to keep his distance from any campaign with those attitudes.

Just a thought, just an idea based on past actions.

It's hard not to think of the the man in the middle.

November 8, 2015

Mark Penn's terrible horrible no good strategy for winning in 2008.

He is no longer with Hillary Clinton's campaign. But he's involved with a company that does Democratic Party consulting.

But now he’s come in from the cold, at least sort of. The private equity firm he oversees, the Stagwell Group, has purchased SKDKnickerbocker, a consulting firm that is synonymous with Democratic Party politics. In an interview with The Daily Beast on Thursday, Penn said he’ll be giving advice on how to grow the business but will still be watching his former client from the sidelines. “I’m on good terms with both of them,” he said, referring to the Clintons. “But I am not advising the campaign.”

He waited until after Tuesday’s debate to talk about the campaign because he thought the criticism of Clinton had gotten “out of sync with reality.” After months of seeing television clips of her under stress, at Chipotle, or answering questions on emails, he said the debate gave Clinton an opportunity to be seen unfiltered, and “as the leader she is.” While she has tacked left on key issues, like trade and the environment, he credits her with standing firm on a no-fly zone for Syria, refusing to reinstate Glass-Steagall in a nod to Wall Street, and pushing back on capitalism and the strength of the American economic system. “The Hillary who won the debate took a lot of the best of ’08 and combined it with some of the best new issues of ’16,” he said.

Penn is also teaching a graduate class in polling strategy.

Mark Penn is no longer her campaign guru, but he's still testing the waters for Clinton.

He is teaching a graduate course at George Washington University, “Interpreting and Strategizing with Polls,” where he currently has his students crafting polls and memos addressing the question of how Clinton should position herself in what so far is shaping up to be an outsider’s election.

Students in Penn’s class, which a POLITICO reporter attended last week, are in the midst of formulating a poll “to determine the state of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, and to determine the effectiveness of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign messages and how it affects the general voter.”

I'm glad he is hands off on campaign policy because these excerpts from his strategy for winning in 2008 were very questionable.

We win women, lower classes, and Democrats (about 3 to 1 in our favor).

Obama wins men, upper class, and independents (about 2 to 1 in his favor).

Edwards draws from these groups as well.

Our winning strategy builds from a base of women, builds on top of that a lower and middle class constituency, and seeks to minimize his advantages with the high class democrats.

If we double perform with WOMEN, LOWER AND MIDDLE CLASS VOTERS, then we have about 55% of the voters.

Actually gearing a campaign to the lower classes and to one gender is a terrible idea.

A partial summary from later on in the memo:

1) Start with a base of women.

2) Add on a base of lower and middle class voters

Contest the black vote at every opportunity. Keep him pinned down there.

The Atlantic has more on Penn's 2007 memos

Penn Strategy Memo, March 19, 2007: More than anything else, this memo captures the full essence of Mark Penn's campaign strategy--its brilliance and its breathtaking attacks. Penn identified with impressive specificity the very coalition of women and blue-collar workers that Clinton ended up winning a year later. But he also called Obama "unelectable except perhaps against Attila the Hun," and wrote, "I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values." Penn proposed targeting Obama's "lack of American roots."

This guy needs to keep his distance from any campaign with those attitudes.

November 8, 2015

Decided to edit this post.

Someone please let SKP know I cared enough to try. Afraid to take a chance right....got a few heads up.

Maybe I'll post Ginny-dog later.

November 2, 2015

Speaking of Tony Blair..our New Dems proudly called pro-war folks in our party "Blair Democrats."

Tony Blair is having a rough time right about now.

He's being called to account for his role in a war based on lies that they knew would destabilize the middle east.

Time for some of our country's leaders to likewise be held accountable.

This article by Will Marshall shows just about how screwed up things were in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq using lies.

Will Marshall wrote this for the Washington Post in May 2003 as a spokeman for the DLC.

He called it The Blair Democrats: Ready for Battle

He brags on our country's Democrats who voted for the war, and he named them Blair Democrats as a compliment. I have posted this before, but it needs to not be forgotten. It shows how the think tanks making our party policy were able to take a situation based on lies and misinformation.....and turn it against those of us in the party who opposed them.

The U.S.-led coalition's stunning success in liberating Iraq is undoubtedly a triumph for President Bush. But Karl Rove shouldn't get too giddy, because it may be a boon for some Democrats, too.

The U.S.-led coalition's stunning success in liberating Iraq is undoubtedly a triumph for President Bush. But Karl Rove shouldn't get too giddy, because it may be a boon for some Democrats, too.

After all, four of the leading Democratic presidential contenders -- Rep. Dick Gephardt and Sens. Joseph Lieberman, John Kerry and John Edwards -- not only voted to support the war but also joined British Prime Minister Tony Blair in demanding that Bush challenge the United Nations to live up to its responsibilities to disarm Iraq. This position put these "Blair Democrats" in sync with the vast majority of Americans who said they would much rather attack Saddam Hussein's regime with United Nations backing than without it. And it puts them at odds with what Kerry called the "blustery unilateralism" of the president, which combined with French obstructionism to rupture not only the United Nations but the Atlantic alliance as well.

...Like Bush, these Democrats did not shrink from the use of force to end Hussein's reign of terror. Like Blair, they saw the Iraq crisis as a test of Western resolve and the United Nations' credibility as an effective instrument of collective security. Their "yes-but" position on Iraq irked the antiwar left and some political commentators, who prefer the parties to take starkly opposing stands on every issue, no matter how complicated. But the Blair Democrats faithfully reflected Americans' instinctive internationalism. While neoconservatives may yearn for a new Augustan age based on unfettered U.S. power, most Americans still see strategic advantages in international cooperation.

Here's the other part, where these "policy makers" used the Iraq invasion to denigrate those in our party who fought so hard against this fiasco. This was disturbing.

Just as the swift liberation of Iraq has strengthened the Blair Democrats, it has weakened the party's antiwar contingent, whose worst fears failed to materialize. The outcome deals a near-fatal blow to the presidential prospects of Howard Dean, whose staunch opposition to the war thrilled Iowa's left-leaning activists but is out of step with rank-and-file Democrats, about two-thirds of whom approve of the war. Moreover, because 75 percent of all voters back the war, the odds that Democrats will make Bush's day by serving up an antiwar nominee as his opponent in 2004 seem long indeed.

The writer is president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank affiliated with the Democratic Leadership Council.

We, the anti-war protestors, were right back then.

I have encountered no sense of vindication, no "I told you so", among veterans of the anti-war protest of 15 February 2003 in response to the events in Iraq. Despair, yes, but above all else, bitterness – that we were unable to stop one of the greatest calamities of modern times, that warnings which were dismissed as hyperbole now look like understatements, that countless lives (literally – no one counts them) have been lost, and will continue to be so for many years to come.

More from the link, from 2007:

In a statement attached to yesterday's 229-page report, the Senate intelligence committee's chairman, John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va.), and three other Democratic panel members said: "The most chilling and prescient warning from the intelligence community prior to the war was that the American invasion would bring about instability in Iraq that would be exploited by Iran and al Qaeda terrorists."

In addition to portraying a terrorist nexus between Iraq and al-Qaeda that did not exist, the Democrats said, the Bush administration "also kept from the American people . . . the sobering intelligence assessments it received at the time" -- that an Iraq war could allow al-Qaeda "to establish the presence in Iraq and opportunity to strike at Americans it did not have prior to the invasion."

Now we are supposed to go along with the rhetoric that our social safety nets are harming our economy, and we are supposed to pretend that the votes for the Iraq war were just a mistake. Guess we are supposed to overlook the massive cost of war as they blames seniors and the needy and poor for the deficit.

I want to hear truth now. I don't want anymore pretending that Iraq did not happen.