It being Thanksgiving and all, it’s hard to resist a quick ‘thumbs up’ response to the verdict convicting Tom DeLay for money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering in 2002, ostensibly in order to funnel corporate contributions to Texas GOP legislative candidates.
As Robert Barnes and R. Jeffrey Smith explain it in their WaPo report, prosecutors argued that,

…a political action committee that DeLay started in Texas solicited $190,000 from corporate interests and sent it to an arm of the Republican National Committee. They said that group then distributed the money to seven legislative candidates in an effort to skirt Texas law, which forbids corporate contributions to political campaigns.
Prosecutors said that the money helped the GOP win control of the Texas House and that the majority then pushed through a DeLay-organized congressional redistricting plan that sent more Republicans to Congress.
…Punishment for the first ranges from five years to life in prison, but the former congressman from the Houston suburb of Sugar Land could receive probation…The conviction follows years of investigation of DeLay, 63, who came to symbolize the intersection of money and politics in Washington. He made a mission of solidifying the Republican majority in Congress, and his ability to raise campaign cash was part of his power and eventual downfall.
For a time, DeLay was the Republicans’ chief vote counter and patronage dispenser, and he earned his nickname, “The Hammer,” for the dictatorial style with which he commanded House Republicans – and tormented President Bill Clinton and Democrats.

DeLay may win his appeal or walk after a wrist-slapping. Mine is not to gloat here, as do some, tempting though it is, given DeLay’s snarling arrogance and oft-stated contempt for all things Democratic. But it’s not about DeLay. He’s been over for a while.
This verdict is worth a thumbs up for a practical reason — it will discourage saner Republicans from skirting campaign finance laws willy-nilly, at least for a while. In the post ‘Citizens United’ era, that could be significant, coming after the GOP’s midterm takeovers of state legislatures and governorships and consequent redistricting leverage.
So spare a holiday toast for the good jurors of Travis County, Texas, who refused to be hustled by DeLay’s pricey lawyers. Justice lives in the Lone Star state, and somewhere, Molly Ivins is smiling proudly.

Political Animal Steve Benen has a strong post up at The Washington Monthly — the most persuasive case yet made that the good of the country is not even on the radar screen of Republican leadership priorities, compared to their quest to defeat President Obama. Yes, it’s been said before, but not this well:

NONE DARE CALL IT SABOTAGE…. Consider a thought experiment. Imagine you actively disliked the United States, and wanted to deliberately undermine its economy. What kind of positions would you take to do the most damage?
You might start with rejecting the advice of economists and oppose any kind of stimulus investments. You’d also want to cut spending and take money out of the economy, while blocking funds to states and municipalities, forcing them to lay off more workers. You’d no doubt want to cut off stimulative unemployment benefits, and identify the single most effective jobs program of the last two years (the TANF Emergency Fund) so you could kill it.
You might then take steps to stop the Federal Reserve from trying to lower the unemployment rate. You’d also no doubt want to create massive economic uncertainty by vowing to gut the national health care system, promising to re-write the rules overseeing the financial industry, vowing re-write business regulations in general, considering a government shutdown, and even weighing the possibly of sending the United States into default….

Benen quotes Matthew Yglesias to underscore the point:

McConnell has clarified that his key goal in the Senate is to cause Barack Obama to lose in 2012 which if McConnell understands the situation correctly means doing everything in his power to reduce economic growth. Boehner has distanced himself from this theory, but many members of his caucus may agree with McConnell.
Which is just to say that specifically the White House needs to be prepared not just for rough political tactics from the opposition (what else is new?) but for a true worst case scenario of deliberate economic sabotage.

Democrats have been reluctant to impugn the patriotism of those with different political beliefs as unseemly. But given the Republican leadership’s open admissions that defeat of a Democratic President is the priority that trumps all others, then they are raising the question, not Dems. Benen continues:

We’re talking about a major political party, which will control much of Congress next year, possibly undermining the strength of the country — on purpose, in public, without apology or shame — for no other reason than to give themselves a campaign advantage in 2012.
Maybe now would be a good time to pause and ask a straightforward question: are Americans O.K. with this?

A good question. I doubt that there are any polls that frame the question in such a way as to get a definitive answer. But my guess is that few Americans would endorse McConnell’s stated priorities. And it’s getting worse, as Benen explains:

For months in 2009, conservatives debated amongst themselves about whether it’s acceptable to actively root against President Obama as he dealt with a variety of pressing emergencies. Led by Rush Limbaugh and others, the right generally seemed to agree that there was nothing wrong with rooting against our leaders’ success, even in a time of crisis.
But we’re talking about a significantly different dynamic now. This general approach has shifted from hoping conditions don’t improve to taking steps to ensure conditions don’t improve. We’ve gone from Republicans rooting for failure to Republicans trying to guarantee failure.

Benen cites Jon Chait’s concern about using terms like “deliberate sabotage” when describing Republican motives, which is a valid consideration. However, as Benen notes,

…Jon’s benefit-of-the-doubt approach would be more persuasive if (a) the same Republicans weren’t rejecting ideas they used to support; and (b) GOP leaders weren’t boasting publicly about prioritizing Obama’s destruction above all else, including the health of the country.
Indeed, we can even go a little further with this and note that apparent sabotage isn’t limited to economic policy. Why would Republican senators, without reason or explanation, oppose a nuclear arms treaty that advances U.S. national security interests? When the treaty enjoys support from the GOP elder statesmen and the Pentagon, and is only opposed by Iran, North Korea, and Senate Republicans, it leads to questions about the party’s intentions that give one pause.

All political parties want control of the political process. But it’s difficult to see how democracy is served when one political party refuses bipartisanship on any significant piece of legislation as a matter of openly-stated principle. When the raw pursuit of political power is defined as the end goal of a political party, that is cause for concern about the motives of its leadership. As Benen concludes,

If a major, powerful political party is making a conscious decision about sabotage, the political world should probably take the time to consider whether this is acceptable, whether it meets the bare minimum standards for patriotism, and whether it’s a healthy development in our system of government.

Benen’s concern is well-echoed in this excerpt from Paul Krugman’s New York Times column today:

…Our nation is in much worse shape, much closer to a political breakdown, than most people realize. …The fact is that one of our two great political parties has made it clear that it has no interest in making America governable, unless it’s doing the governing… The G.O.P. isn’t interested in helping the economy as long as a Democrat is in the White House. Indeed, far from being willing to help Mr. Bernanke’s efforts, Republicans are trying to bully the Fed itself into giving up completely on trying to reduce unemployment.

Or, as one of the readers of Benen’s post put it in the comments, “During the Clinton presidency, Rush Limbaugh began every show with the words “America held hostage day …Unfortunately, it looks like that’s exactly what is happening now. Republicans are holding the economy and security of the U.S. hostage in order to win the White House..”

Those sensitive pachyderms are beginning to twitch, hem and haw over a growing chorus of accusations that they are being hypocritical in calling for repeal of federally-subsidized health insurance for working people while accepting it for themselves (see my backgrounder on the topic here). Well, not absolutely all of them…yet.
Into the fray rides Bill Johnson, incoming freshman Republican from northeastern Ohio, who maybe, just maybe might be the one exception, who practices what he preaches regarding the Affordable Care Act, as Jonathan Riskind reports following an interview he conducted with Johnson for the Columbus Dispatch:

“I have not made a final decision, but I am leaning toward not taking it,” Johnson told The Dispatch last week on Capitol Hill as he and other incoming members of Congress went through orientation classes and voted for party leaders.
But Johnson, who as a retired Air Force officer also has veterans health insurance available to him, seems to be in a minority among the new GOP House majority in drawing a comparison between criticizing the health-care reform law and participating in a congressional health plan.

“Leaning toward” — wowsers, what a masterful example of principle and integrity. We await his “final decision” with baited breath.
Riskind reports that other Republicans are trotting out the old “apples and oranges” cliche to deny their hypocrisy on the topic. Happily, by the time they are finished explaining the nuanced distinctions between their acceptance of government-subsidized insurance and that provided to everyday working people under the ACA, they sound like Irwin Corey on speed.

Fun to watch the Republicans stumble and trip all over themselves in search of a non-existent justification for their unbridled hypocrisy on the topic of health care reform. It appears Dems have a potent attack weapon here, and they should not hesitate to wield it with all of the ferocity at their command.

Brian Beutler reports at Talking Points Memo on four Democratic House members’ creative expose of Republican hypocrisy on health care reform:

Four members — Joe Crowley (NY), Linda Sanchez (CA), Donna Edwards (MD), and Tim Ryan (OH) — are rounding up signatures for a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Speaker-to-be John Boehner, encouraging them to press their members to refuse their federal health benefits based on the same principles underlying their opposition to health care reform.
“It is amazing that your members would complain about not having health care coverage for a few weeks, even after campaigning to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which will help provide coverage to millions of Americans who find themselves without health insurance for months or even years,” the letter reads. “It begs the question: how many members of the Republican conference will be forgoing the employer-subsidized FEHBP coverage and experiencing what so many Americans find themselves forced to face? If your conference wants to deny millions of Americans affordable health care, your members should walk that walk.”

A fair question, not that the Republicans will answer the Dems’ letter with anything resembling candor. But it is a question that decent political reporters should keep asking Republicans who have been calling for repeal of the Affordable Care Act until they get some answers. The letter continues:

…You cannot enroll in the very kind of coverage that you want for yourselves, and then turn around and deny it to Americans who don’t happen to be Members of Congress. It is worth noting that in 2011, the Federal government will pay $10,503.48 of the premiums for each member of Congress with a family policy under the commonly-selected Blue Cross standard plan.
It is important for the American people to know whether the members of Congress and members-elect who have called for the repeal of health insurance reform are going to stand by their opposition by opting out of the care available to them at the expense of hard-working taxpayers. We look forward to your response in the coming days about exactly how many of the members in the Republican conference will be declining their taxpayer-supported health benefits.

The controversy about Republican opponents of HCR who accept government-subsidized health insurance was re-ignited when GOP incoming House freshman Andy Harris complained that his health insurance wouldn’t kick in until a month after he began working.
In addition to the hypocrisy Republicans are displaying in calling for repeal of the Affordable Care Act while accepting government-subsidized health insurance for themselves, many GOP outspoken opponents of earmarks are also on very shaky ground when you look at their track records. For example, according to Andy Birkey at the Minnesota Independent:

Just days after saying she had requested zero earmarks for her district, Rep. Michele Bachmann admitted to Fox News’ Brian Wilson that she had indeed requested millions in earmarks in 2008. But, she says, it’s not a big deal because her earmarks were less than the average earmarks for the rest of Minnesota’s congressional delegation.
…Bachmann secured $3,767,600 for her district in 2008. As Think Progress has pointed out, the average earmark for Minnesota’s delegation is $2.1 million…

When Republican House members talk about their positions on HCR repeal or banning earmarks, apparently what they say depends on which face you are hearing from.

House Dems have got two months to kick butt. OK, less, considering the Christmas vacation and holiday slow down. I have no doubt Speaker Pelosi will do the best possible job with the resources she has. But it would be good for Dem rank and file activists to pay close attention during this period, because it’s likely to be the last chance for positive legislative action before the party of Gridlock, Obstruction and Paralysis takes over the House. After that, it’s pure defense for at least a couple of years.
Time to give all of the finger-pointing, hand-wringing and Monday-morning quarterbacking a rest and get focused on helping Pelosi, Reid and Obama get something done. Toward that end, the editors of The Nation have a good read, “An Agenda for the Lame-Duck Congress” to get the juices stirring again. Here’s an excerpt:

…The period after an election is not set aside for rearranging furniture; Congress sits for two years, not twenty-two months, and it’s supposed to do its job for the entire term. That doesn’t mean Democrats should be blind to the election results; to the contrary, they should respond to them–while getting things done for the American people….
…Pelosi is smart to link the defense of healthcare reform, financial regulation and long-term commitments to maintaining Social Security with the need to create jobs. She can highlight the linkage during the lame-duck session by focusing on fundamentals: extending unemployment benefits, shoring up Medicare and Medicaid, and assuring that a stopgap spending bill contains funding not just to keep the federal government operating into the next year but to help state and local governments and school districts across the country do the same. These are all popular initiatives; Pelosi and Harry Reid–who still controls the Senate for the next two years–have no reason to accept the conventional wisdom that the election produced a mandate for conservative ideas, neglecting the plight of jobless Americans, cutting social services or forcing teacher layoffs in the middle of the school year.
…Democrats should take the moment to argue for letting the Bush tax cuts expire and using the new revenue to maintain federal, state and local services in tough economic times…If compromise is necessary, the only credible one is giving relief to working families–not billionaires. The American people will get the point if Democrats make it aggressively and without apology.
Pelosi should also move the Fair Elections Now Act onto the floor for a vote, advancing a debate on an issue that Republicans don’t want discussed. We just finished the most expensive midterm election in US history; shouldn’t House and Senate committees hold hearings to look at how much was spent by corporations and billionaires, at the impact of that money on the elections and at the influence it will have on government? Republicans will scream, and incoming House Oversight chair Darrell Issa will surely shut down those hearings in January while opening hundreds of investigations on Democratic reforms. Bring it on. In her new role as minority leader, Pelosi could use her bully pulpit to ask essential questions. What is the GOP trying to hide? What do Republicans want to roll back? That’s a fighting stance, not a surrender position.

That’s a lot to take on in a short time, and there may not be time to do justice the the last idea. Joan McCarter flags an even more ambitious agenda in her recent post at Daily Kos, including:

Not a single spending bill has passed. A stopgap bill is needed to avoid a government shutdown.
…Without action by Congress, 2 million unemployed people will lose jobless benefits averaging about $300 a week nationwide by the end of December. It’s by no means a sure thing that the benefits could be extended in the post-election session….
…Taxes: Obama supports renewing most of the Bush-era tax cuts, but not those for family income exceeding $250,000. Emboldened Republicans will insist, however, and with Democrats splintered, many observers think a one- or two-year extension of everything is most likely. Otherwise, it’ll fall to the new Congress to decide. Already expired tax cuts, like AMT relief, are likely to get done in the lame duck.
…Unemployment benefits: Congress has always extended unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed when the jobless rate has been this high. But it took months earlier this year for Congress to extend jobless benefits through the end of November, and Republicans are likely to insist that any further extension be financed by spending cuts elsewhere in the budget. That could limit any extension to just a couple of months.
…Social Security: Before the election, Democrats promised a vote on legislation to award a $250 payment to Social Security recipients, who are not receiving a cost-of-living hike this year….

And McCarter adds,

That doesn’t include the masses of judges and executive appointees that haven’t been confirmed. Nor does it include the DREAM Act, which Harry Reid needs to make good on his promise to the Latino community that was absolutely instrumental to his reelection. Nor does it include the bogged down defense spending bill and the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which Defense Secretary Robert Gates is now on the record urging Congress to accomplish.

Whew! It will be a miracle if Dems get half of it passed. Pelosi and Reid will select the most doable priorities, the Republicans will go into full obstruction mode and Dem activists will have to mobilize to get it done. All hands on deck.

I tend to side with the viewpoint that ads don’t matter so much in creating a wave election, or in the overall outcome of congressional elections. Sure, ads can make a big difference in individual races, as many believe LBJ’s “daisy chain” ad did in 1964. But when you are looking at the aggregate result of races for 435 House seats and one-third of Senate seats, larger forces, like economic insecurity, are going to determine which party comes out on top. Ads can stress or understate economic fears, but not too many voters are going to let ads change their perceptions of the economic realities they are experiencing.
Still, it’s instructive to look at effective ads – as well as those that boomeranged, and how they may have helped decide individual elections. One example of the latter was Christine O’Donnell’s widely-ridiculed “I’m not a Witch” ad, although she was probably doomed before it came out. A better example was Democratic senatorial candidate Jack Conway’s “Aqua Buddha” ad in his campaign against Rand Paul. Writing in the Louisville Courier-Journal, Brandeis Professor Russell L. Weaver observed,

…The evidence started coming in as soon as Conway’s more sensational ads began running….According to Real Clear Politics, a nonpartisan group that lists election polls, the electorate started moving decisively away from Conway shortly after he began his most outrageous attack ads. What had been a close race (a 4 percent differential in favor of Paul, but one that was within the margin of error) quickly expanded to eight points, then to twelve points, and then 15 points. Ultimately, Paul won by 12 points.
Interestingly, during this period, overall support for Conway dropped, and the percentage of people who viewed him negatively rose significantly. While it is possible that future candidates will interpret this election as simply a wave election, and conclude that Conway had no chance with or without the attack ads, I’m hoping that they will see the election as illustrating the potential perils of negative advertising. One wonders what would have happened in this race had Conway taken the high road and run positive advertising that emphasized his record.

I had to eat some crow on this one, having written that Conway could have been the Dems’ best shot at a pick-up. Conway may well have lost even without the ad — Dems got trounced across the board in KY, with a couple of exceptions. In stark contrast to his better speeches, Conway’s ad was so ill-conceived and poorly executed that it even elicited expressions of disgust from some liberals and iced the election for Paul.
Conway should have known better. There was the example of Democrat Kay Hagan’s victory in NC’s ’08 senate race, which some observers attributed to incumbent Republican Elizabeth Dole’s “Godless” ad attempting to link Hagan to an atheist group. Hagan, a Sunday school teacher, responded brilliantly.
Conway’s real point was to take Paul to task for mocking Christianity when he was a college student, a dubious idea at best. It was easily spun to sound like Conway was disparaging Paul’s faith, and the tone was nasty enough to backfire on Conway. Plus, the ad was visually ugly and the buzz may have left many swing voters with an unsavory image they associated more with Conway than Paul.
James Vega had a more promising idea — to make Paul explain his ardent reverence for Ayn Rand, a militant atheist philosopher who mocked religion, as a way of demonstrating Paul’s hypocrisy. This would be more effectively revealed by reporters or a non-campaign source. While attacking an opponent’s religion is clearly a loser, exposing hypocrisy as a character flaw is fair enough game, if done carefully.
Ridicule can be an effective campaign tactic, but there are limits. Conway’s experience reaffirms the warning that calling attention to an opponent’s religion is a dicey proposition at best, and blasting a candidate for long-ago college pranks makes the attacker look petty and desperate. Sharp ridicule should come from a source that is not affiliated with a candidate. The Republicans know this, and let the shadowy groups empowered by the Citizens United decision do their dirtier work.
No doubt there were many other ads besides the ‘witch’ and ‘Aqua Buddha’ ads, which backfired, particularly in lower-profile races. Rep. Alan Grayson’s ‘Taliban Dan’ ad, for example, was instrumental in his defeat, according to Charlie Cook.
The 2010 campaigns included attack ads that served their sponsors extremely-well, none with a bigger prize at stake than Jerry Brown’s much-applauded ad revealing eMeg parroting the same failed policy cliches – almost verbatim – as Governor Schwartzenegger. Brown probably would have won without the ad, but it generated great anti-Whitman buzz, and his numbers trended significantly upward after the ad debut. The firm that made it will get plenty of work from Democratic candidates in the next election. Conversely, it appears that Democratic Governor-elect John Hickenlooper’s clever anti-attack ad scored well with pro-civility voters in his close race in CO.
Campaigns will continue to pour millions of dollars into political ads, well-aware that they don’t always work. But Democrats should do so knowing that the sounder strategy is to use ads to gradually promote a candidate’s visibility, name recognition and credibility, and to build a strong case against the adversary, rather than stake everything on one hideous attack ad.

This may seem like a strange question on election day, but how many times have you been annoyed when some friend or acquaintance says, often with self-righteous intonation, “I vote for the person, not the party”?
My answer would be, “a lot,” so commonplace the phrase has become in political discussions. My hunch is that there is a pretty good chance you have also heard the expression in the last couple of months.
It can be a conversation-ender, depending on your tolerance for political dialogue with those who don’t give politics much thought, unprincipled dimwits or otherwise intelligent but apolitical people. But the expression is emblematic of a larger problem, the failure of the Democratic Party to inspire broad-based loyalty of similar magnitude as progressive parties in other nations.
Steve Benen has an interesting observation about “The Limited Value of the ‘Vote for the Person’ Maxim” at The Washington Monthly. As Benen notes,

…I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard people say, with some degree of pride, “I vote for the person, not the party.” I get the sense those who repeat it consider it evidence of high-minded independence.
…The “I vote for the person” crowd is making an odd argument. These folks seem to be suggesting they’re not especially concerned with policy differences, policy visions, or agendas, but rather, are principally concerned with personalities. Maybe the candidate seems more personable; maybe they ran better commercials. Either way, as a substantive matter, the “vote for the person, not the party” approach seems pretty weak. Indeed, it’s what leads people to express a series of policy priorities, and then vote for a candidate who opposes all of those priorities — a dynamic that’s as exasperating as it is counter-productive.

Benen quotes Michael Kinsley to underscore the point:

…There is nothing wrong with voting for the party and not the person…. A candidate’s party affiliation doesn’t tell you everything you would like to know, but it tells you something. In fact, it tells you a lot — enough so that it even makes sense to vote your party preference even when you know nothing else about a candidate. Or even vote for a candidate that you actively dislike.

There are several reasons for the failure of the Democratic Party to inspire the kind of loyalty that motivates voters to support their candidates, even when a candidate’s charisma is lacking. Multiparty parliamentary systems seem to do this better. They have more ‘street’ or neighborhood presence, which builds solidarity. America’s culture elevates individual achievement over accomplishments based on ideological solidarity. And there’s no denying that the Democratic Party could do a lot better job of defining and projecting what it stands for.
I raise this issue today because the “I vote the person” maxim will have a particularly sour echo on a day like today. I find it hard to believe that majorities of voters really believe that Sharron Angle, Rand Paul or Nathan Deal are truly persons of superior character, competence or likability, compared with their Democratic opponents. In a way support for those candidates is based on party, but not party loyalty — numerous polls indicate voters don’t like the GOP very much. Rather, indications are that many are angry with Democrats for what they perceive as inadequate commitment to economic recovery.
Dems did not sell the very real economic achievements of their party during the last two years very well. I don’t recall seeing any ads in which Dems claim credit for saving the auto industry, talk about the impressive number of jobs created by the stimulus, explain that TARP is proving to be a cost-effective investment, or brag about the life-saving benefits of HCR. Instead they relied on interviews and speeches to get the message out, with limited results. As Joe Klein observed on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe,’

…This is one of the weirdest campaigns I’ve ever seen. The Democrats pass all this legislation — stuff they wanted to pass for 60 years — and then they run away from it. They don’t even bother to explain the stuff that they passed…

Painfully true. Lots of ads are necessary to tell a party’s story properly and unedited by outsiders, because TV editors clip interviews and speech excerpts, often drastically, to suit their programs.
But there is still hope that Dems can build a stronger spirit of party loyalty. The seeds are there, as James Vega has noted,

…During the 50’s and 60’s, in dozens and dozens of congressional districts blue- collar Democrats loyally voted for Democratic candidates who were much more liberal than they were on social issues. They did it out of a combination of party loyalty and trust that the Democratic candidate would be more pro-labor on economic issues.

Dems need a stronger commitment to assertively promote the party and its agenda, not just our candidates in their individual races. The image of the Democratic party has dwindled down into a collection of candidates who stand for different reforms in varying degrees with little solidarity between them. Party building is not just about recruiting good candidates; It’s also about creating a collective identity that inspires voters and invites them to be a part of it.

Assuming the representation of cell-phone-only respondents has been properly addressed in the most recent polls and absent a Democratic midterm turnout juggernaut of historic proportions, it appears likely that Republicans will win a majority in the House. Sabato predicts a net GOP pick-up of 55 House seats, with 39 needed to win a majority. Nate Silver sees the GOP gaining about 53 seats. Sam Wang of the Princeton Election Consortium predicts a 52 seat increase for the Republicans. There seems to be a consensus among poll analysts that Dems will narrowly hold the senate.
Wednesday will bring the soul-searching, finger-pointing and “what if?” scenarios Eugene Robinson touched on in his WaPo column last week. As Robinson put it:

What if President Obama and the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill had pushed through an authentic, righteous, no-holds-barred progressive agenda, perhaps with a thick overlay of pitchfork populism? How different might the political landscape look? Would predictions for the party’s prospects on Election Day still range from gloom all the way to doom? Or would triumphant Democrats be preparing to leave the GOP — or what remained of it — dazed and confused?
This question is being asked, in all seriousness, by thoughtful progressives. They argue that the Obama administration’s political mistake wasn’t pushing its liberal program too hard but not pushing it hard enough. And they contend that the White House seriously misread both the public anger and the national interest when it came to dealing with Wall Street’s greedy excesses — punishing miscreant bankers with love taps rather than cudgel and mace.

Numerous progressives have expressed versions of this contention, none more persuasively or with more cred than Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, who has eloquently argued that the Administration’s stimulus was way too weak. And had Obama tweaked his Wall St. reform agenda with a little more “pitchfork populism,” who knows, it might have helped Dems some.
But Robinson also sees a sort of progressive myopia regarding the Republicans numerical strength in congress:

The problem is that for all the talk of changing the way Washington works, you still have to get actual legislation through an actual Congress. In the House, Democratic ranks are swollen with Blue Dogs and other moderates, many of them elected in swing districts as part of the 2008 Democratic landslide. The votes for a full-fledged progressive agenda — single-payer health care, for example — simply were not there.
In the Senate, the terrain was even less favorable. With the Republican caucus voting no as a bloc, passing any piece of legislation meant making concessions and compromises to keep together the needed 60 votes to bring a bill to the floor. The votes weren’t there for a health-care bill that would have been cleaner and more transformative than the one that passed, or for climate-change legislation with teeth, or for rules that could really transform Wall Street’s toxic culture, or for . . . fill in the blank.

Robinson concedes that progressives make some credible points and that President Obama’s unrequited bipartisan outreach amounted to “self-defeating concessions to Republicans who had no good-faith intention of seeking compromise.” That Obama had to make a strong initial appeal for bipartisan support is to me defensible. But the continued outreach to Republicans, which met with repeated rejection, appeared to waste time and political capital.
Robinson less persuasively dismisses the contention that Dems should have put jobs before HCR, noting “there’s no way the economy could recover 8 million jobs so quickly, no matter what Washington did. And health-care reform would still be a distant dream.”
Nobody expected the recovery of all 8 million jobs in two years, but a larger reduction in unemployment may have been possible. If Dems made 2010 the “year of jobs,” as William Galston argued, it may well have helped them. Robinson is likely right, however, that the “jobs first” strategy would have precluded any significant health care reform, even if it meant that Dems would be in better mid term position.
Speculation about the outcome of untried strategies is an enduring political ritual following every election, and, in the long run, Obama’s health care reform strategy may prove to have been the wisest course. In the end, however, “what if” scenarios don’t help much in terms of formulating strategy going forward. Regardless of all pre-election speculation, it’s more important that Dems learn the lessons of the midterms as revealed by the exit polls on Tuesday — and get focused on honing the best strategy for 2012.

No matter what happens in the mid term elections, expect an intensified debate about the future of the Democratic Party in general, and an even more heated discussion about the breadth of the Democratic Tent — more specifically what to do about the ‘Blue Dogs.’
The debate has been going on for a few years. But a re-opening salvo has just been fired by Ari Berman, in his New York Times op-ed “Boot the Blue Dogs.” Berman, a contributing writer for The Nation and author of “Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics,” argues that the Democratic tent has gotten too big, and the time has come to purge the party of conservative Democrats who are obstructing not only the Democratic agenda, but also the party’s ability to grow. He makes a strong case:

With President Obama in office, some notable beneficiaries of the Democrats’ 50-state strategy have been antagonizing the party from within — causing legislative stalemate in Congress, especially in the Senate, and casting doubt on the long-term viability of a Democratic majority. As a result, the activists who were so inspired by Mr. Dean in 2006 and Mr. Obama in 2008 are now feeling buyer’s remorse.
…Democrats would be in better shape, and would accomplish more, with a smaller and more ideologically cohesive caucus. It’s a sentiment that even Mr. Dean now echoes. “Having a big, open-tent Democratic Party is great, but not at the cost of getting nothing done,” he said. Since the passage of health care reform, few major bills have passed the Senate. Although the Democrats have a 59-vote majority, party leaders can barely find the votes for something as benign as extending unemployment benefits.

Berman sees two pivotal benefits of dumping the ‘Blue Dogs’:

…First, it could enable them to devise cleaner pieces of legislation, without blatantly trading pork for votes as they did with the deals that helped sour the public on the health care bill. (As a corollary, the narrative of “Democratic infighting” would also diminish.)
Second, in the Senate, having a majority of 52 rather than 59 or 60 would force Democrats to confront the Republicans’ incessant misuse of the filibuster to require that any piece of legislation garner a minimum of 60 votes to become law. Since President Obama’s election, more than 420 bills have cleared the House but have sat dormant in the Senate. It’s easy to forget that George W. Bush passed his controversial 2003 tax cut legislation with only 50 votes, plus Vice President Dick Cheney’s. Eternal gridlock is not inevitable unless Democrats allow it to be.

Berman adds “Democrats aren’t ideological enough. Their conservative contingent has so blurred what it means to be a Democrat that the party itself can barely find its way.” He does not say exactly how Democrats should get rid of the Blue Dogs, but withholding financial support from them and otherwise disciplining Democratic members of congress who refuse to support the majority agenda are measures that have gained support among Democratic progressives who want to diminish the power of the Blue Dogs.
Single-payer, pro-choice, tax-the-rich, withdraw-from-Afghanistan progressive Democrat that I am, I worry about the effects of a wholesale purge of the Blue Dogs. I think it’s a mistake to stereotype all Blue Dogs as ideologues. Many are, but some are fairly progressive, and merely want to survive in their conservative districts, hoping to lead their constituents forward to a more progressive vision. Some Blue Dogs in marginal districts deserve a little wiggle room.
Use redistricting where possible to reduce Blue Dog numbers, while not cutting the number of Democratic districts, yes. Allocate less Party money to Blue Dogs and give it to needy progressive candidates in close races, sure. Invoke stronger party discipline with respect to committee assignments on those who fail to support the party a standard percentage of the time, of the time, absolutely.
As for conservative Democratic Senators (‘Blue Dogs’ is a term usually reserved for House members), it’s easier to draw a line in the sand. Cloture betrayal, as Ed Kilgore has persuasively argued, should invoke party discipline.
Generally, Dems should use more carrot and stick to sway the Blue Dogs in a progressive direction. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that majority status is so important for getting anything done in congress, that it would be a mistake to embrace a level of rigid ideological purity that denies Dems the speakership, committee chairs and the ability to enact legislation.

Quite a lot of buzz out there about Jack Conway’s recent video ad attacking Rand Paul for being stupid during his college years, with reactions ranging from righteous indignation to “Hey, personal history is fair game.”
Some progressives were offended by Conway’s ad, which attacked Paul for “mocking Christianity” As Jonathan Chait puts it in the New Republic, “The ugliest, most illiberal political ad of the year may be this one, from Kentucky Democrat Jack Conway.” Morally, Chait is right. In terms of ad strategy, there is a little more room for argument.
Kos disagrees, explaining,

Personally, I see nothing wrong with it. Voters are less concerned with issues than values when casting their ballots, and for many voters, religion speaks to the candidate’s values. I may not like it, but it’s a democracy, and the notion that the source of a candidate’s values are off-limits is patently absurd…In a democracy, you have to sell yourself to the voters. In many places, religion is part of the package.

Kos points out that Paul made religion an issue by prattling on piously. “Remember, it was Rand Paul that tried to gin up the outrage machine when Conway said the word “hell” during his Fancy Farm picnic earlier this year.” Theda Scopkol, quoted here in TPM, agrees that Conway was not out of line:

I have a real problem with all the prissy condemnations coming from liberal commentators about Conway’s ad on Rand Paul’s youthful playing with contempt for Christianity. People are acting as if it is some kind of political sin to point out to ordinary Kentucky voters the kind of stuff about Paul’s extremist libertarian views that everyone in the punditry already knows. This does not amount to saying that Christian belief is a “requirement for public office” as one site huffs. It is a matter of letting regular voters who themselves care deeply about Christian belief know that Paul is basically playing them. No different really than letting folks who care about Social Security and Medicare know that Paul is playing them…

The ad was pretty cheesy. I hate the snarky voice-over thing, which seems to be in fashion this year for ads across the political spectrum. Conway was only down 5 points or so, and the race was most likely going to narrow some. Why bet the whole ranch on a pair of Jacks? I tend to agree with Larry J. Sabato’s take, which is that the ad is probably a net negative for Conway. “Mainly, it’s changing the subject to less helpful issues…I’d be surprised if this brings Paul down,”
But, who knows, the ad may do some good, as well as damage, by implanting the meme that Paul’s is a little too weird for Kentucky. It may be a game-changer, if it encourages the media, which after all, loves personal scandals, to press Paul to explain the pot-kidnapping-bondage-aqua-Buddha thing. My guess is he will dodge the media like he did Meet the Press for the next couple of weeks. It could be a wash.
But Conway should not apologize. Stick with responses that criticize Paul for his extremist ideas. Project certitude and strong conviction that Paul is too crazy for Kentucky. Keep attacking Paul for his idiotic policies, not his college pranks, and do it with sharply-worded soundbites, not rambling critiques.
Regardless of the outcome, the ad will probably be credited with making the difference, even though it may not be the case. Generally, however, I would argue against holding opponents accountable for their college behavior. Not too many of any political party could stand such rigorous scrutiny.