Giving Republicans cover by stymying the reform agenda that won Democrats the 2006 and 2008 elections won't win them any conservative votes. In a base election, and 2010 will certainly be one, the party that better rallies its base will win. And abandoning the promises that got Democrats elected is a sure fire way to make sure that the activist base stays home and refuses to do the heavy lifting every campaign needs to win, and makes sure that less committed Democrats say "fuck it" and stay home on election night.Too late, too late. The damage has been done. Consider:
Dennis Kucinich couldn't get his amendment -- the one which would allow states to opt for single-payer -- into the main House health care bill, because Pelosi stripped it out. He's hoping that someone will slide it in during conciliation. (Fat chance.) The Speaker will probably also block Weiner's single-payer bill. Pelosi does favor a public option; I'll grant her that. But she can't get a sufficient number of her fellow Dems to go along with the idea.
Meanwhile, just to be snippy, Boehner is working on a GOP bill that will be quite a bit worse than anything the Republicans have heretofore proposed -- indeed, the new plan makes John McCain's look like socialism. Boehner wouldn't be heading into such territory if he felt the slightest bit intimidated by the Dems.
The "Goldman Sachs Democrats" have failed the party. The situation cannot be salvaged. It's too late.
What to do? Here are my long-term ideas:
Liberals should do what the movement conservatives have done and are doing: Wage intra-party war. Get rid of the Goldman Sachs Democrats and put in some real Democrats. Out with the "progressives;" in with the liberals. End the influence of jackasses like Markos and Marshall; look for new blood. First control the party -- then wait to control the country.
Does this mean that the Republicans will regain control in the medium-term? Yup. It's already underway. Nothing can stop it. But as I said just yesterday: Republicans are great at fighting meme wars, but they cannot govern. Wait for them to get back in, then wait for them to fail.
Right now, liberals should give Obama nothing but sneers -- unless he changes his ways, which he won't. Liberals should demonstrate utter contempt for both the president and the tea-baggers.
6 comments:
Too late Joe, regular folks(liberal ones) like me have been thinking that for a while now and if a real health care reform does not pass, there will be a lot more people who will sit at home or at best will vote selectivly for a few real democrats. Yesterday might have been an eye opener for some in the MSM or Congress or Obama(not sure about that either listening to the spin)but folks like me have been thinking and saying that(everytime I sign a pro health care reform petition, I add the sentiment in the comment box) for the last 3-4 months.
I got an email today urging us to contact our reps over the Weiner bill. Supposedly it's being voted on the end of this week, but none of the links and dates matched up, so I leave it to others to figure out. I have no definitive link, sorry.
And he can't spell "stymieing" either (a word about which I once corresponded with Encyclopaedia Britannica).
History and common usage have, I think, stymied your attempt to maintain the old, preferred spelling. "Stymying" is now everywhere, even in the dictionary.
So new and popular is good? :-)
b
I said Encyclopaedia Britannica, but meant the OED, where the relevant editor agreed that the logical 'stymieing' was used a lot. That was only a few years ago. Sure, today it gets less Google points than the alternative - but someone's got to stand up against the juggernaut :-)
b
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