Bob Perry (1932-2013)

By Richard K. Barry 

Bob Perry was the money behind the insidious "Swift Boat" ad campaign attacking John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, in 2004. Perry, a homebuilder, started as one of the largest campaign donors in Texas before branching out nationally. 

He died at the age of 80 at his home in Nassau Bay, Texas, near Houston. 

In 2004, he gave $4.4 million to a group called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." They used the money to launch a baseless ad campaign accusing John Kerry of embellishing his military accomplishments and discrediting others who served with him. 

The New York Times gently suggests that the ads were "widely criticized as misleading." In truth they were simply a pack of lies, but they did their job. They made some voters doubt the facts behind Kerry's war record, a record for which he was awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. 

Though one cannot say for sure that he would have won a close race against George W. Bush in 2004 had Perry kept his checkbook in his pocket, there is a decent chance he would have. 

Whatever good Mr. Perry may have done in his life, he will be best remembered as the man who bankrolled one of the biggest lies in American electoral history. Quite a legacy. 

(Cross-posted at Phantom Public.)

The bluing of America

By Carl 

Ted Cruz, the Senator-elect from Texas, has an interesting observation to make:

"If Republicans do not do better in the Hispanic community," he said, "in a few short years Republicans will no longer be the majority party in our state." He ticked off some statistics: in 2004, George W. Bush won forty-four per cent of the Hispanic vote nationally; in 2008, John McCain won just thirty-one per cent. On Tuesday, Romney fared even worse.

"In not too many years, Texas could switch from being all Republican to all Democrat," he said. "If that happens, no Republican will ever again win the White House. New York and California are for the foreseeable future unalterably Democrat. If Texas turns bright blue, the Electoral College math is simple. We won't be talking about Ohio, we won't be talking about Florida or Virginia, because it won't matter. If Texas is bright blue, you can't get to two-seventy electoral votes. The Republican Party would cease to exist. We would become like the Whig Party. Our kids and grandkids would study how this used to be a national political party. 'They had Conventions, they nominated Presidential candidates. They don't exist anymore.'"

Long-time and careful readers of my prose will recognize this statement. I've long held that the U.S. is due to swing the political pendulum back to liberal thinking and policies.

Normally, pendulums lose momentum and gravitate towards the center, and that will eventually happen, but in this instance, Karl Rove and the Republicans, in an effort to create what Rove termed a "permanent Republican majority" have pulled the pendulum really far to the right.

And you know what happens when you pull a pendulum really hard: it swings back, fast and hard.

Cruz is one of a handful of Republicans -- Marco Rubio and Susana Martinez are among the others -- who could prevent this from happening, but it seems really unlikely to occur. It's pretty clear that Florida (Rubio) and New Mexico (Martinez) have cemented the Democratic Party as the party of the minority vote. But that's not the issue, identity politics. It's something much more basic and subtle.

I want you to think back to the election campaign, particularly the general election: can you name one Republican proposal for the next four years that didn't involve lowering taxes for the wealthy?

Meanwhile, Obama still has a raft of policies from his 2008 campaign that he can call upon at any time and propose. This is what we might term "leadership."

People respond to this. People in trouble especially respond to proposals that will lift us all out of trouble. It's fine to propose a tax cut -- claiming it's for all but in truth, it benefits the wealthy the most -- but when people aren't so worried about their next paycheck as their next car or their house or their retirement or their children, short-term proposals lose an awful lot of their luster.

If Hurricane Sandy benefitted President Obama at all -- apart from looking presidential, I mean -- it is on this very subtle point. Sandy showed that everything we build up for ourselves to ensure a future can be wiped off the face of the earth in an instant, and then where do you begin again?

Tax cuts help, to be sure, but they don't address the underlying problem: jobs don't pay as much as they used to and second jobs are really embarrassing.

Wage growth will help Americans. To play with tax cuts at this point in time is preposterous. It's like giving someone a five percent discount off a TV, when what they need is a job that pays enough so they can pay for that TV out of their own pocket, not borrowing the money.

This, above all other reasons, is why I believe America is heading for a progressive agenda over the coming decades. People are tired of crumbs and want the bread, and minorities are only the canary in the coalmine on this point.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Petulant child Grover Norquist says Obama portrayed Romney as a "poopy head"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Once, twice, three times a poopy head.

Seriously. This is what Republican anti-tax absolutist Grover Norquist said about Romney and the election this morning:

The president was elected on the basis that he was not Romney and that Romney was a poopy-head and you should vote against Romney. [Obama] won by two points, but he didn't make the case for higher taxes and higher spending. He kind of sounded like the opposite.

Well, actually he did make the case that the rich should pay a bit more in taxes -- and there is broad public support for having the rich pay more. And while Romney was indeed a terrible candidate, President Obama didn't win re-election simply because "he was not Romney." (Has Norquist ever actually talked to an Obama voter?)

And... poopy head? I get that this was national TV, and so characterizations like "bullshit artist," "lying scumbag," and "douchebag" just weren't on, but is that really the best he could do?

(Obviously, Obama never used such words to describe Romney. He ran on substance, including the substance of Romney's record at Bain and generally plutocratic outlook and policy positions. Norquist just can't seem to understand why Romney might have been so vulnerable on those terms, or why there might be popular opposition to plutocracy. And saying the president's campaign amounted to nothing more than "Romney is a poopy head" is just plain stupid.)

Otherwise, two points:

1) This is what Republicans always do when a Democrat wins -- not just the White House but anything. When a Republican wins, even by only a tiny margin (like Bush over Kerry in '04), they say he (or she, but usually he) has a mandate to do any number of radical right-wing things, including things that he (or she) didn't mention (let alone run on) during the campaign (like privatize Social Security). But when a Democrat wins, he or she has absolutely no mandate to do anything except what Republicans want. If I were a Democratic office-holder, I'd tell Norquist et al. to go to hell -- figuratively speaking, of course. Obama won by a significant margin over Romney and Democrats made gains in both the House and Senate. Period.

2) Norquist is such an influential figure on the right that almost every Republican signs his pledge and bows to his leadership. And he uses words like "poopy head" on national TV.

How Fox News misinforms: 15 minutes with Sean Hannity

Guest post by Ted Leibowitz

Ed. note: Ted's good friends with our former associate editor and co-blogger Creature, and Ted often wrote for Creature's now-on-long-hiatus blog State of the Day. Ted also guest blogged here at The Reaction. Looking back, I found a post from December 2008 in which he was rather critical of then President-elect Obama for choosing Rick Warren, who supported California's anti-gay Prop 8, to give the inaugural invocation. (We love President Obama here, but it's not like we're completely supportive of everything he does.) Well, it's great to welcome Ted back to the fold with a post on the completely unfair and unbalanced coverage of the election by the delusional folks at Fox. -- MJWS

Ted is an award-winning internet radio music director / DJ focused on bringing the best new and interesting indie rock to his worldwide listenership via his 10-year old station BAGeL Radio. He has been featured on panels at music/tech conferences and writes about the exciting new business of music as well as the foot-dragging, entrenched, dinosaur-like old music industry. Ted mainly tends to share his political thoughts around election time as this time of year makes him an insomniac.

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You lost, Sean. Oops.

I turned on the TV Wednesday night. It was tuned to Fox News. Sean Hannity was on. I watched, so you don't have to. For those of you who don't live in the U.S. and don't get the pleasure of tuning into Fox News, perhaps this sampling will help you understand how nearly 58 million Americans this week voted for a guy they didn't even like: they watch Fox News.

Below is what I gleaned from watching about 15-20 minutes of the show.

Sean Hannity is disgusted by President Obama for dirty campaigning.

SH: "One tragedy of this election is that Obama's dirty tactics have now been vindicated, and we're now going to see this [sic] kind of tactics replicated for many years to come. Thanks to Barack Obama, politics is now dirtier than it was, and it will get worse as others try to now perfect this "politics of personal destruction."

Apparently Mr. Hannity was not paying attention when George W. Bush (who is rarely mentioned anymore on Fox News for some reason) mercilessly took down one of his own, Senator John McCain, in the Republican primaries prior to the 2000 presidential election. Nor Dubya's second presidential campaign, during which Karl "Dubya's Brain" Rove invented the Swift Boat campaign smear against his opponent John Kerry, a recipient of the Purple Heart medal.

"If I'm [one of the people who ran Obama's campaign], today, I'm embarrassed," Hannity said, "because they knew no boundaries when it came to lying, and demonizing, slandering, smearing, besmirching, attacking a nice guy."

Hannity referred to the Obama campaign as "dirty and ugly and mean."

Even if this were true, it would be very "pot calling the kettle black" of someone at Fox News to disparage a campaign over such deeds. Fox News has on its payroll the unchallenged modern grand master of campaign dirty tricks, Karl Rove. Karl Rove learned dirty politics in the Nixon administration and went on to run many a smear campaign on behalf of George W. Bush with highlights including hinting that Texas Governor Ann Richards (1994) was a lesbian and suggesting that Senator John McCain (2000) was psychologically unstable due to his time as a POW (and also that McCain's wife was on drugs and that McCain had fathered an African-American love child). And who can forget the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame (2003) and the aforementioned Swift Boaters (2004).

The same Karl Rove who wouldn't concede Obama's victory on election night even after CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and his own Fox News had already called it. Perhaps he thought if he kept barking he could pull James Baker out of a hat, like in 2000. But enough about Rove.

Next, Hannity had Ann Coulter on the show.

Coulter: "Recent immigrants are more likely to be on government assistance. The Democrats lure them in, get them on government assistance... recent immigrants are for more likely to be on government assistance than native-born Americans..." (I doubt she gets the irony of her poor word choice with "native... American")... get them on welfare, and they vote Democratic."

She continued, "Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration act was specifically designed to change the demographics of this nation."

Suddenly, 47 years after the fact, Ann Coulter woke up and realized that the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act was a liberal conspiracy to change the demographics of the U.S. by luring immigrants to our shores in order to get them addicted to government assistance so that they would some day vote Democratic.

Mr. Kennedy, if Ms. Coulter is right, you were an even more incredibly forward-thinking political genius than anyone knew.

Coulter then said, "I think Mitt Romney would have won if he'd had the same demographics that Ronald Reagan had."

Yes, Ann, in an alternate reality, Mitt Romney could have won the Presidency of the United States this week. Unfortunately for Mitt, and you, and Sean, and Karl, and Fox News, we live in this reality.

Coulter went on to refer, in passing, to Bush's wars as "wars that help America." Off-handed remarks like that get bandied about without explanation all the time on Fox News, implanting unsubstantiated falsehoods in viewers' minds.

Then there was this exchange:

AC: "Simpson-Bowles [a commission set up by President Obama to address growing U.S. debt] would be better than anything Obama could come up with."

SH: "Tax reform is a sneaky way of basically raising taxes..."

AC: "...raising taxes, which produces less revenue to the government."

Wait a second... raising taxes is a way to produce less revenue for the government?!?! What?!?!

Then a favorite Fox News straw man came up: the Liberal Media, which is apparently a monolithic entity that works in concert against the interests of conservatives and America.

SH: "The Liberal Media put all it's resources behind re-electing Barack Obama."

He then had Bob Woodward of The Washington Post on to talk about how the Liberal Media worked to get Obama re-elected. Problem was, Woodward brought up three examples of how the "mainstream media" (which Fox always refers to as the Liberal Media) hammered Obama in recent months.

Hannity's response was (paraphrasing), "Well, you may have some [valid] points, but I don't think the Liberal Media covered the scandals* to my satisfaction." Before I get to just what those "scandals" were, here is what Hannity actually meant:

"Well, you may have some [valid] points, but I'm not going to let the facts which you just stated, Bob Woodward, and which I, Sean Hannity, just acknowledged the validity of, get in the way of me reiterating the false narrative we here at Fox News have created and are ramming down our viewers throats."

After that I could take no more.

*The "scandals" were "The Beghazi Cover Up" (a non-story that Media Matters thoroughly debunked); "The Fast & Furious" (which has been debunked by such liberal rags as Fortune and the NY Daily News); and something about high unemployment numbers, which Woodward had just stated had been pretty well covered by that demon, the Liberal Media.

Twisting knickers

By Carl 

It's kind of funny that, after nearly a week, Democrats and fans of the president are still flapping wings and gums over how lackluster President Obama's performance was at last week's debate, even getting all flustered over a debate "win" by Mittens.

Romney saw a two-point bounce. ALL CHALLENGERS see at least a two point bounce after the first debate. That Mitt only saw a two point bounce should be taken as nothing but encouraging news.

Why at least a two point bounce? Because up until last week, you'd never seen both the president and the challenger on the same stage. By allowing himself to be seen with a peon like Romney, Obama graciously gifted him a bounce. It showed that Obama took Romney's challenge seriously -- although obviously not seriously enough to challenge him more harshly. Which might be the point.

By contrast, not only did John Kerry see a much bigger bounce, Kerry bounced up into the lead by nearly eight points after the first debate in 2004, the last time a challenger has debated a sitting President.

I'm sure former President Kerry is smiling about this foo-foraw. In fact, if I were the good senator, I would have come out on Thursday or Friday and reminded people of this fact and that Barack Obama is still in command in the race and that it's more vital than ever to make sure every Democrat gets out and votes and gets out the vote.

Here's the thing: by engaging Romney on even his most ludicrous statements like the 47% comment, Barack Obama is seen as threatened by Romney's candidacy. He shouldn't be, even if he feels he might stand some small chance of losing to this chump.

Go watch the debate again, only this time, look only at the candidate who is NOT speaking. Now tell me who won the debate. Obama is respectful and patient with Romney, yet you can see his disdain and anger at the blatant lies Romney is telling.

Meanwhile, Romney is chomping at the bit like a wounded puppy trying to take a bite out of the squirrel that tricked him under the falling acorn.

Tell me again, who won? Who won a debate where the major talking point was killing a highly popular children's television icon? Who won a debate where the other major talking point is how badly the other guy lied to score cheap points?

Now, unknot your knickers and go pick up a phone and start making this thing a slam dunk again.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

The media created Romney's loser image. Agree or disagree. Discuss.

By Richard K. Barry 

John Cook writing at Gawker makes an interesting case. I'm not sure I agree. I'm not sure I disagree. His idea is that somewhere along the way the media have decided Mitt Romney is such a loser that, no matter what he does, he will be portrayed as a loser:

The press is doing to Romney the same thing it did to John Kerry, and to Al Gore before him: Covering him as a loser. A weird loser. A distant loser, who is "uncomfortable in his own skin" and "failing to connect" with "regular voters." The contempt and pity for him as a candidate is almost palpable, and each moment in the campaign is distorted imperceptibly, as if by magnetism, to reinforce the Romney caricature.

Cook makes a case. It's not a bad argument. But I would argue that we've got to get our chickens and eggs in a row here (just to mix some metaphors). If he really is unable to connect and consistently says and does stupid things, as I think is obvious, it won't take long for the press to start blowing stuff out of proportion that might not otherwise have been significant. That much I accept.

But does this mean that Romney is not "uncomfortable in his own skin?" Does it mean that he doesn't "fail to connect" with "regular voters?" Uh, no.

The fairness issue comes into play only when we ask about the extent to which how Romney actually is makes the press too quick to magnify small gaffes and even non-gaffes that should mean nothing. This may have happened, and I'm sure it sucks if you're Mitt Romney, but his image was not created out of whole cloth by lazy media types.

Politics is hard, or so Ann Romney told me.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

New polls: Obama widens leads in Ohio and Florida

By Michael J.W. Stickings

WaPo:

President Obama is threatening Mitt Romney's best route to victory in the electoral college, grabbing a significant lead over his Republican challenger in Ohio and a slender edge in Florida, according to two new polls by The Washington Post.

In the presidential race, Obama is ahead of Romney in Ohio by 52 percent to 44 percent among likely voters. In Florida, the president leads 51 percent to 47 percent, a numerical edge but not a statistically significant one. Among all registered Florida voters, Obama is ahead by nine percentage points.

There's just no way Romney can win the election without at least one of these key swing states. And as Mustang Bobby writes:

More than a few people think John Kerry would be finishing his second term had it not been for some slight-of-hand in Ohio in 2004, and, well, we all know what happened in Florida in 2000.

Wouldn't it be ironic if these two states closed the deal for Obama?

Indeed, and while I'm still trying not to get too excited about any of this, things are looking really good at the moment.

The Ryan Bump

By Carl 

It turned into little more than a pimple:

Mr. Romney was given a 28.0 percent chance of winning the Electoral College on Aug. 10, the day before he officially announced Mr. Ryan as his pick. The forecast then moved somewhat toward Mr. Romney after a series of improved polling in swing states for the newly minted Republican ticket, achieving a peak of 33.3 percent on Wednesday. It has since receded slightly to 30.6 percent, however, as Mr. Obama held leads in a number of swing state polls late last week.

These shifts could be consistent with a small vice-presidential "bounce" for Mr. Romney which has since faded — perhaps as less favorable stories for Republicans, like the comments on abortion and rape made by Representative Todd Akin of Missouri, have come to dominate the news cycle.

But these are only very minor differences — the model estimates that Mr. Romney gained a net of perhaps one percentage point in the popular vote after his selection of Mr. Ryan, and has lost perhaps half a percentage point since then. Changes of that magnitude could potentially be caused by statistical noise, as well as by real shifts of opinion. 

This, coupled with another interesting Veep story in the news today, tells you really all you need to know about Mitt Romney's chances this November.

He stands none. When a choice as intriguing and polarizing as Paul Ryan practically loses you votes (I claim margin of error in that pronouncement), there's something seriously wrong with your ticket, and it ain't your vice presidential choice.

Romney suffers from some of the same problems that John Kerry did in 2004: he's a likable enough guy but it's because he's worked so hard at being likable that's got him in deep trouble.

I mean, really, when your position on global climate change flip-flops inside of six months because polling says it should, you've doubled down on confusion. I think voters, even Republicans, can respect a man who stands on at least one principle that disagrees with them. He had such a magnificent financing advantage that he could have suffered on an issue that even FOX has backpedalled from.

Add to that image the whole Bain background, and Romney now comes across as a snake-oil salesman, a man who wants to build a monorail for no other reason than Shelbyville is going to get one.

Still, it's sad that even before a single word has been uttered in Tampa to frighten away the sane folks of America, Romney has already seen his chances of winning the presidency dwindle to next to nothing, or slightly higher than the Mets' chances of winning this year's World Series.

This country is due for a good talk about the future and issues, and it would be nice to hear some Republican input, rather than a "Don't Blame Me! I Voted For Kolob" chant.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

The missing trials and tribulations of Mittens

By Comrade Misfit

It can be interesting to look at a person's life and see what shaped them. It could be that a person escaped a life of crushing poverty or political oppression. They may have served in the armed forces, fought in a way, or worked overseas in the Peace Corps. Maybe they had to deal with a severe illness or the loss of a loved one.

For Mitt Romney, the answer seems to be "none of the above." What was his life experience, maybe being teased by the other kids at his preppie high school because his dad didn't work for one of the Big Three car companies? Being beaten like a gong by Teddy Kennedy in the Massachusetts Senate race in 1992? Suffering a bad paper cut at Bain Capital when he was figuring out how to loot yet another company?

Hell, even the last beswaddled privileged brat that the GOP nominated to be president played around in the Air National Guard (deserting for the last two years) and quit drinking (maybe). Both Dubya and Mittens seem to both have had an outsized chip on their shoulder because their fathers lost an election.

Mitt was truly born five steps from the goal line, and he seems to be extremely proud that he was able to make the step from being born of privilege to becoming really wealthy.

Other than being a corporate pirate (and running the frozen Olympics in the middle of nowhere, as the Brits love to point out), what has he done? We do know that he wouldn't face the judgment of the voters in Massachusetts for re-election. And he's been running as far away from what he did there as he can.

So, you guys on the Right, why Mitt? Is the only thing he truly has is he's not Obama? And if that's it, then think back to 2004 when you charged that Kerry's sole point was that he wasn't Bush and explain away your hypocrisy now.

(Cross-posted at Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I.)

Then and now are simply two different planets for Mitt Romney

By Richard K. Barry

Not that Mitt Romney's duplicity in the clip below will have much impact on anything, but it is incredible. American Bridge uncovered this clip in which Romney is seen defending the Bush-Cheney jobs record in 2004 -- on Election Day, at a time, Steve Benen writes, that "Bush's net job total was still negative."

Romney's argument is that Bush was confronted by a "perfect storm" of events in the earliest days of his administration and that he therefore was not responsible for the poor recovery.

The fact that Obama was handed one of the worst economic messes any president has been forced to address since FDR took office is clearly a different matter in Mitt's eyes.

Benen makes the rather clever point that "sometimes, it seems as if the Romney of the recent past would practically be willing to endorse President Obama's re-election campaign."

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

What's left?

By Mustang Bobby

As far as the Republicans are concerned, there are three selling points to Mitt Romney:

1. He has business experience that will put America back on the road to economic recovery;
2. He was a successful Republican governor in a heavily Democratic state, so he can work with everybody; and
3. He's not Barack Obama.

Well, in the last few weeks we've seen Number 1 come under scrutiny for the cutthroat tactics and outsourcing of jobs overseas at Bain Capital, plus questions about when Mr. Romney really left the company. If it really was in 1999, why was he still listed on the company's documents, and why did he collect nearly half a million dollars in payments when he allegedly had nothing to do with the company? (Nice work if you can get it.) The explanations from him and his surrogates are beginning to sound like Bill Clinton's tortured explanations of exactly how he did not have sexual relations with that woman, and "retired retroactively" has become as much an internet and Twitter sensation as "it all depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."

They're caught in a bind. The Republicans and the Romney campaign have sneered at the attempts by their opponents to point out nuances; they don't think the "common people" pay attention to the difference between "tax" and "penalty" when it comes to the ACA, but now they want us to know the difference between "outsourcing" and "offshoring," and they expect us to understand why it's perfectly okay to still collect a salary from a job you claim you left years before, and you really don't need to see his tax returns. And now, as Josh Marshall points out, the embedding of words like "joke," "liar," "felon," "retroactively retired," "SEC filings," "Caymans," "whiner," "buck stops here," "hiding something" will forever be linked to Mitt Romney and Bain Capital the same way "swiftboating" and windsurfing latched on to John Kerry.

As for Number 2, Mr. Romney's signature achievement as Governor of Massachusetts was the passage of healthcare reform. It's been a huge success, and anyone else would be proud to run on it as a genuine accomplishment. The problem is that it was the model for the Affordable Care Act passed by President Obama and the Democrats in 2010, and Mr. Romney and the Republicans have vowed to repeal it. As far as anyone can tell, the only legitimate reason he might have for that is copyright infringement. So since he can't run on that, what else does he have to show for his government experience? Precious little. Massachusetts did not emerge as a powerhouse of the economy under his stewardship, and aside from his White House ambitions in 2008, he chose not to run for a second term in 2006 because he stood a good chance of losing. That's not exactly a record to run on at the presidential level.

So we get to Number 3: He's not Barack Obama. Well, neither was Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman, or any of the other GOP primary challengers who toyed with the idea of running against him. The only reason Mr. Romney emerged as the winner in the primary was because he came in second the last time. The GOP is big on entitlement, so it's his turn. (Are you ready for Santorum '16?) And he's Not Barack Obama.

The problem with that is that he doesn't have the likability qualities of the president. Poll after poll show that even people who disagree with him on policy matters like Mr. Obama personally, especially compared to Mr. Romney's klutzy people skills, verbal gaffes, Etch-A-Sketch changes to his positions, and his complete unawareness that he comes across to people as the caricature of the rich plutocrat. You can't tell your friends that you really told off the NAACP to vote for the other guy to keep getting free stuff while you're taking a $77,000 tax write-off for your pet horse and expect to come across as anything but out of touch. As much as I think elections should not be about which one you want to have a beer with, it still is a question that matters to a lot of people who vote, and Mr. Romney comes across as not the guy you work with but the guy who laid you off.

Two legs of the Romney candidacy stool have been weakened considerably, all without the help of outside forces, and the third leg -- "I'm not the other guy" -- only works when you're running for student council. So what's left for him to run on?

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

What progressives can learn from Andrew Breitbart

Guest post by Marc McDonald 

(Ed. note: Along with his post earlier today on how to take action against Dear Leader Rush, this is Marc's fifth guest post at The Reaction. His first, on how Steve Jobs represented much of what's wrong with the U.S. economy today, can be found here. His second, on how Ronald Reagan laid the groundwork for the death of capitalism, can be found here. This third, on the top mysteries surrounding The Beatles, can be found here. For more of his writing, check out his great blog, Beggars Can Be Choosers. -- MJWS)

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Marc McDonald is a Texas journalist who runs the progressive political blog Beggars Can Be Choosers.

Normally, when someone passes away, everyone tries to think of something kind to say about them. But I can't do that with Andrew Breitbart. I absolutely despised him while he was alive. And his death doesn't change my feelings one bit.

However, I do think that we progressives can learn a thing or two from Breitbart.

By that, I don't mean resorting to using dirty tactics and twisting the facts around to attack opponents, as Breitbart did. No, what I'm talking about is learning a thing or two from his hard-core, take-no-prisoners attacking style to get what we want.

Democrats (and progressives in general) are just too goddamn timid and polite these days. We let conservatives steamroll right over us again and again. On the other hand, cons know exactly what they want and they'll do whatever it takes to win. And that is why they've pretty much gotten everything they've wanted for the past three decades.

Breitbart nearly always got what he wanted. It didn't matter if his tactics were questionable or slimy. They got the job done. A good example was when he posted video of Shirley Sherrod that made it appear that she'd made racist remarks. (Of course, she'd done no such thing, as was clear when the full video was released). But Breitbart still "won" in the end. After all, Sherrod was forced to resign, apparently with the White House's approval.

The Sherrod case involved a despicable tactic by Breitbart that summed up his approach to politics: attack, attack, attack -- and worry about the facts later, if at all.

Once again, I'm not suggesting we progressives copy this sort of slimy technique. But we do need some of the fire and conviction that Breitbart had in spades.

We need to fight tooth and claw for what we want, instead of timidly sitting around letting the GOP steamroll over us again and again.

Take the 2000 election, for example. The GOP fought ferociously on behalf of George W. Bush, even to the point of bringing in a rent-a-mob to bang on doors and intimidate Florida election officials. Meanwhile, the Gore team sat around politely, waiting for the phone to ring.

Yes, what the GOP did was despicable and it dealt a severe setback to democracy in America. But I get the feeling they didn't lose one second's worth of sleep over their sleazy tactics. And what's more, their guy got into the White House, despite losing the popular vote by 539,000 votes. In the end, they got everything they wanted: their war for oil, their tax breaks for the rich, and their billions of dollars in no-bid contracts for Halliburton.

Modern day politics is like a back alley switchblade fight. The GOP has known this for the past 30 years. And so they always come equipped with a switchblade, and whatever else they need to win the fight.

Meanwhile, the Dems have a bizarre fixation on using a polite, timid approach to politics. Unlike the GOP, they fail to grasp that the game has changed and that sometimes, you've got to use brute force and have a willingness to fight fire with fire.

After all, simply having the facts on his side didn't help John Kerry in 2004. On the other hand, the Swift Boat Liars' willingness to lie and use vicious, sleazy attacks sank Kerry's presidential bid.

The worst part of it was that, unlike the GOP, Kerry didn't need to lie. But he did need to use brute force (and a very loud megaphone) to get the truth out. He needed to get into the liars' faces and scream at the top of his voice that they were lying. In the end, his timid, polite approach failed. He failed to realize that, in modern day politics, politeness and being a gentleman and even having the truth on your side often isn't enough to win elections.

It's a lesson that the Dems have yet to grasp. In modern politics, if you want to win, you've got to have the fire, the hunger, and determination of people like Breitbart. Unlike Breitbart, you don't need to lie -- but you do need to learn to bring a switchblade to a street fight.

The Texecutioner's Song: Part I

By Nicholas Wilbur

I called the 2004 election for George W. Bush on October 8, the night of his second debate with John Kerry.

Political analysts and media critics said the town-hall debate ranked as a tie (the previous and following meetings were solid Kerry victories), but by the end of the night it didn't matter if they ever met on stage again.

"Need some wood?"

The moment I knew Bush would coast into another four-year term occurred during an exchange about tax rates on small businesses. Kerry said Bush's policy made "small businesses" out of everything and everyone. He cited a report about Bush's tax filings showing the president had an $84-dollar income from a timber company, a meager amount that nonetheless qualified Bush as a small business owner.

Bush's response sealed any lingering hope I had that he would lose.

"I own a timber company?" he asked the crowd. "That's news to me." And with a pause that should be studied by every politician wanting to master the art of public speaking, Bush added, "Need some wood?"

These exchanges went on all night and throughout the remainder of the campaign. When Kerry outlined his support for tort reform, he talked about numbers and policies: the 500,000 kids cut from after-school programs, the 365,000 kids cut from health care, the future tax bracket for those making under $200,000 a year, the $3,500 or 64 percent increase in premiums for Missourians, the percentage of medical costs associated with tort reform.

Bush was much simpler.

He pulled out one detail of Kerry's monologue and quipped, "You're now for capping punitive damages? That's odd. You should have shown up on the floor in the Senate and voted for it then."

The end.

The debate wasn't a tie. Bush secured his second term, and in the process he reminded Democrats that, in politics, facts don’t matter. Kerry's points on both tort reform and taxes were accurate and valid in the context of the issues, but nobody watching the debate could say one way or another whether health insurance premiums in Missouri rose 64 percent or 46 percent. Not only would Americans not remember such a statistic, they wouldn't care. And in all honesty, why should they?

It's for the same reason that I believe Rick Perry has the GOP nomination in the bag.

I make the prediction not merely because he surpassed all expectations by completing his sentences during his first live debate performance. It's not because he so flippantly dismissed the debate moderator's "gotcha" questions and stuck to his talking points. And it's not because he got a raucous round of applause from a crowd that apparently thought putting 234 Texans to death was commendable.

It's because he's a cowboy who embodies all the positive qualities the American people found in George W. Bush. He's passionate but not pinched. He's quick and harsh when on the attack, but he's more entertained than vengeful when launching them. He talks in the stilted, stuttering drawl of a clichéd Texan – a comfort to those who aren't Ivy League elocutionists. Mainly, he appeals to the heart.

Tom Pennington, Getty Images

Similar to how most Republicans react to politics, my prediction about Perry's primary success is based on a gut reaction.

As Roger Simon of Politico put it, those who watched Rick Perry in the primary debate "saw a guy with square shoulders and a gunslinger squint, a man who likes to drop his g's when speakin' his mind... What his answers sometimes lacked in logic was made up for in enthusiasm, and after some initial nervousness – he gripped the sides of his podium as if he were hanging onto a life raft – Perry settled down to his talking points."

Indeed he did.

When asked about climate change – specifically, if Perry could name "specific scientists or specific theories" that he found "especially compelling" – the Texas governor focused on one detail of the question, in this case a word, and crafted an answer that was palatable to essentially every American watching on TV.

"Let me tell you what I find compelling, is what we've done in the state of Texas, using our ability to regulate our clean air. We cleaned up our air in the state of Texas, more than any other state in the nation during the decade. Nitrous oxide levels, down by 57 percent. Ozone levels down by 27 percent. That's the way you need to do it, not by some scientist somewhere saying, 'Here is what we think is happening out there.' The fact of the matter is, the science is not settled on whether or not the climate change is being impacted by man to the point where we're going to put America‘s economics in jeopardy."

Is any of it true?

Well, no. Texas ranks 13th on the "Toxic 20" list of most polluted states, and Houston ranks as the fifth most polluted city in the U.S. (Dallas also was in the top 10). Furthermore, climate change is only a "questionable theory" to cranks, and PolitiFact.com confirms that Perry's statement is utterly false.

But again, the facts are irrelevant.

In between his regular criticisms of "Romneycare," Perry finally fielded a question about his own "health care mandate" – a mandatory vaccination against cervical cancer for 12-year-olds.

Rather than stumbling over a defensive apology for his record, he put the question to rest by saying, "I hate cancer."

Who in America disagreed?

In mocking the intellectual over-analysis of left-wing pundits, Comedy Central's Jon Stewart explained Perry's magnetic effect with Republican voters this way: "In the presence of Republican voters, Rick Perry actuates an neuro-endocrine reaction that reroutes any analytic frontal cortex activity as a hotwave of electro-chemical impulses, stimulating their proto-reptilian limbic system."

As George Lakoff noted in The Political Mind, 98 percent of all political beliefs are unconscious. While Romney will win the battle for intellectuals who agree with his economic plan, Perry will win the war by appealing to the heart, the gut and, as Stewart's crotch grab implied, the balls.

"You don't get Rick Perry here," he said, pointing to his head. "You get him here!" 

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Democrats who suck: Looking back at '04

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Jon Chait looks back at the 2004 Democratic presidential field and, well, finds it wanting:

Just how awful was the 2004 Democratic primary field? Go through the list, and try to imagine any of these men as a presidential nominee, let alone (shudder) a president:

Howard Dean, who's been spending the last year on and off trying to kill health care reform.

Dick Gephardt, who's now a corporate whore.

John Edwards, who's, well, John Edwards.

Wes Clark, last seen insisting that "New York money people" were pushing for war with Iran.

Dennis Kucinich, also trying to kill health care reform.

Joe Lieberman: [photo of Lieberman at McCain rally -- enough said]

and, of course, Al Sharpton.

At the time, I was disappointed that Kerry prevailed. And it's certainly true that Kerry lacked the communications skills to be a presidential nominee. But compared to that field, he was a giant. He's the only candidate you can imagine actually serving as president without bringing about some enormous disaster. And he's handled himself pretty well since losing the race. Indeed, the only other 2004 candidate who's actually raised his stature among Democrats is Sharpton.

Dean was the exciting candidate, and many in the base supported him, but I hesitantly backed Kerry and was anything but disappointed when he won. I came to admire him a great deal during the campaign, and I admire him still. (I later came to support Edwards, before turning to Obama early in the '08 primaries.) And certainly, when you think back to that bunch, he seems all the more impressive.

Let's not be too revisionist, though. At the time, Gephardt and Lieberman were respected figures in the party, Clark (a distinguished military man) and Edwards (a Southerner with a vote-winning populist pedigree) were rising stars, Dean was, in a way, Obama before Obama, and Kucinich, who never had a chance, was widely regarded, as he is still, as the leftist conscience of the party. Only Sharpton was a joke, or worse.

It's an embarrassing roster of candidates when you look back on it now, but was it so bad back then? Sure, you think the Democrats could have fielded stronger candidates (Kerry aside) given Bush's vulnerability, but the strength of the '08 field more than makes up for the weakness of the '04 one. The fact is, the Democrats were in rudderless disarray back then with the Clinton-Gore years behind them and with Bush skating along with 9/11 still fresh in everyone's mind and the Iraq War not yet the utter disaster it would soon become.

There is still some disarray, of course, but, at the presidential level, with candidates who could compete one day for the White House, they're in a much better position now than they were then. Or so I think. It's rather hard to tell, with a Democrat in the White House and with no one in the party seriously challenging him, but I just don't see the same vacuum of leadership, and forward-looking leadership potential, that I saw in '04 and that is so much starker now in retrospect.

Besides, take a look at the possible GOP field in 2012 if you want to see mediocrity, and worse: Romney, Huckabee, Palin, Paul, Pawlenty, Jindal, Santorum, Pence, Thune...

Now there's "some enormous disaster" waiting to happen.

Does the Left understand the faithful?

Guest post by Peter Henne

Peter S. Henne is a Security Fellow with the Truman National Security Project and a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University. This is his third guest post at The Reaction. In April, he posted on "the lessons of Sri Lanka." In August, he posted on "avoiding defeat in Afghanistan."

**********

As the Supreme Court took up Salazar v. Buono last week, deciding the fate of a cross on public land, I was put in an awkward position. Once again, I squirm at the unrestrained histrionics of both sides, sinking into my chair as I did during heated debates in my religion classes in college. The reason for my discomfort? I am that rare creature, distrusted yet patronized by both sides of the culture wars: a Christian with leanings towards Biblical inerrancy who is also an unabashed progressive.

The case is the banal, tedious type that excites law students and bores the rest of us. It involves a religious symbol placed on public land, with complex reasoning and politics behind it. What upsets me is not the case itself, but the predictable nature of it all. The Left attacks a public display of religion and the Right defends America's Christian origins. Meanwhile, a great number of Christians dedicated to their beliefs but progressive in their political views -- including myself -- squirm uncomfortably, unhappy with the hijacking of their faith by the Right and having to defend their religion from apparent assaults by the Left.

Progressive Christians will never whole-heartedly embrace Democrats as long we feel the need to justify our faith during waves of Left-Right tensions over religious symbols. While a vocal minority of evangelical Christians are "values-voters" -- basing their political decisions primarily on single value-driven issues -- most Christians are faithful voters. We vote based on our entire set of beliefs, supporting the candidate who appears to share and understand our faith. Even though certain values held by Christians are incommensurate with the GOP agenda, the GOP will continue to gain votes as long as they seem the more "faithful" of the two parties.

Democrats have long had a problem appealing to the faithful. Despite John Kerry's Catholicism and some attempts to gain Christian, Bush handily beat Kerry among almost all Christians in 2004. This is because Democrats believed they could rely on appeals to certain issues expected to resonate with Christian voters. Meanwhile, voices on the Left critical of a public role for Christianity caused Christians to perceive a general progressive hostility towards their faith. This limited the effectiveness of Democratic outreach to Christians. In contrast, Bush presented himself as the candidate of faith in general, gaining the votes of this important electoral group.

Obama, though, has appeared much more at ease with religion. Faith has long been a central element of Obama's message; since his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, he has called on the faithful to reject the use of religion as a political tool by the right. In the 2008 election, Obama made significant gains among Christian voters; even his ¼ share of the evangelical vote was an improvement. These voters are very committed to their religious beliefs, and believed Obama the more faithful of the presidential candidates.

If progressives are able to maintain this image -- as the party that truly understands the faithful -- their share of the Christian vote will likely grow. If, in contrast, they believe that a general alignment between progressive and Christian values is sufficient to gain Christian support -- despite broader hostility towards religion among some on the Left -- the trend Obama began will be short-lived.

The Supreme Court case illustrates this issue perfectly. Right-wing Christians see an indelible connection between their faith and government acceptance of public Christian displays. Progressive Christians often disagree. We place a value on the separation of Church and State, but are still uneasy with criticism of the public display of Christian symbols. Right or wrong, faith involves gut reactions, and the reaction to statements by groups like the American Civil Liberties Union is to perceive an attack on the faith.

One can object that the cross in question is just a symbol: if progressive Christians truly value Church-State separation, they should support its removal. But that is the point: it is a symbol, representing a set of beliefs that guides and enriches the lives of Christians. And Christians like myself are ultimately faithful, not values-voters. While I personally will never switch allegiances to the GOP because of cases such as this, it may well sway other progressive Christians and cost Democrats future political support.

So the Democratic Party must tread lightly on issues of faith, achieving the difficult balance between appealing to the base and reaching out to the faithful. If progressives want to maintain and increase the Democratic share of Christian voters in this country, they must understand our faith and sympathize -- even if they do not agree -- with the value we believe it holds for this country. Merely appealing to what seem to be Christian "values" every four years will not be enough. Ultimately, the Left may have to abandon the religious symbols it fights over in favor of the broader goal of steering the country in a progressive direction, because the faithful will not.

The young people poll

By Jim Arkedis

Jim Arkedis runs the All Our Might blog at the Progressive Policy Institute.

Democracy Corps conducted a poll of 606 voters between the ages of 18-29 -- in other words, the voters who will determine attitudes and election results for the next several decades. As pertains to foreign policy and national security issues, there is an undeniable trend towards the Democratic Party.

A few sample numbers:

Q: Is the Republican Party patriotic?
63 yes / 27 no

Q: Is the Democratic Party patriotic?
67 yes / 22 no

Q: Who is better in the "war on terrorism"?
D: 42/ R: 35

Q: Are you "warm" or "cool" on the war in Iraq?
Warm: 19/ Cool: 64

Q: Are you "warm" or "cool" on the war in Afghanistan?
Warm: 24/ Cool: 55

I'll briefly focus in on the "patriotic" question, because the Republican Party has done a great job strangling this issue for all it's worth. According to a CBS News story from 2007:

According to the Roper Center iPoll database at the University of Connecticut, pollsters have rarely asked Americans whether specific candidates or individuals were patriotic. But when they do, Republicans have the upper hand. In early 2004, according to a Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll, more Americans said being patriotic applied more to Republican George W. Bush than to Democrat John Kerry. In 1988, more voters thought the current President's father George Bush was very patriotic than thought Democrat Michael Dukakis was. Twenty years ago, in the middle of the Iran-Contra scandal, 73 percent of Americans agreed that Oliver North was a "real patriot."

That this issue is now trending Democratic among young voters can't be emphasized enough. In my mind, there's a correlation (though not exactly a direct one) between the public's perception of the parties' "patriotism" and the president's connections to the military and willingness to use force.

Obama has done a better job of passing this "Commander-in-Chief test" during his short time in office than Bill Clinton did in eight years. (Clinton tried, but was thrown off initially by "gays in the military" and then Monica Lewinsky.) Obama has coupled his objections to the Iraq War's premise with a desire to withdraw while keeping America's national security interests intact. At the same time, he has emphasized Afghanistan's importance and shown no hesitation in deploying more American troops. Obama has supported measures to care for America's uniformed personnel in ways the Bush administration objected to (GI Bill; PTSD). And, finally, his steady resolve has been expressly or tacitly endorsed by the likes of Colin Powell, Adm. Mike Mullen, and Gen. David Petraeus.

Since America's youth aren't tied to older perceptions/portrayals of weak-kneed Democrats trying to show muscle (ahem, Dukakis in the tank), they are giving credit where it's due. You might say Democracts have Bush's legacy to thank for such a good showing.

(Cross-posted from All Our Might.)

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth

By Carl

It strikes me odd how much better, how much more hopeful, I feel right now than I did even three days ago. I wonder why...

Oh, yeah. That might do it.

See, for thirty years, I've felt like an outcast in my own nation. A liberal. A stranger in a strange land and I couldn't grok society. I'd rail as the antithesis of culture, of the political spectrum. I felt a little like Cassandra, destined to have foresight yet doomed to be taken quite unseriously until events had passed that showed I was right.

Such was the power of the right wing hate machine that even I, a liberal even in this most blue of cities, felt a frisson of that hate.

Oh, there were moments, of course, like when Bill "Greatest. President. Ever." Clinton was elected twice. That comforted me, made me feel like part of the universe again.

Until the right wing hate machine, presented by Rupert Murdoch and funded by Richard Mellon "Family Values Cost $750,000 A Month" Scaife decided he was too much a threat to the good of the nation, and started dismantling him, brick by brick.

The year 2000 held hope, as my real hero, the man I voted for twice in primaries, Al Gore succeeded in capturing the nomination. It looked, to coin a phrase, like a slam dunk, until Karl Rove got his precious little mitts on the election, and managed to squeeze a faux cowboy into the flight suit he had abandoned 25 years earlier.

Now there's a diet I probably should try, altho being around Karl Rove seven days a week probably would make me quit eating and start drinking more, so who knows?

After four years, I figured we had the bastard: approval ratings in the 40% range, half the country truly hating the man, an abortion of a war, an economy that took three years to jump start from the most mild of recessions in 2000 and 2001, and a man who failed to protect us from a terrorist attack, not because he was caught by surprise, but because he really just didn't give a damn about some feller named "Al Kaydah."

And then the Democrats, rather than choosing the most obvious candidate, a former general with bona fides out the wazoo in Muslim-West relations in Wesley Clark, or even the most antipodal candidate to Bush's elitism and out-of-touchness, a man who worked with the poor and could speak earnestly about the plight of the children left behind in John Edwards, picked a former war hero who had for thirty years ducked the charges smearing him from a nutcase former soldier who probably never even fired a gun, much less saved his men on a Swift Boat.

All this, again, funded and encouraged by the Wonder Twerps of Truthiness, Murdoch and Scaife.

That was a bitter defeat, to be sure. Even as horrid a candidate as John Kerry battled this machine down to the last minute, and almost, ALMOST, pulled it out. It shouldn't have been close enough that voting discrepancies in Ohio made a difference, just as 2000 should not have been close enough to let Florida's egregious backwoods voting systems and antiquated laws decide that election.

It should have Dems in a walk in both years.

A sidenote: Recent history gives us coalescing images of moments in time. Photography and videography have given us totems of events that sum up and define not only the historical significance of the instant, but the context and emotional content. Think of the Kennedy assassination, and the photo of Caroline and John-John with Jackie on the cortege route, or the flag at Iwo Jima, or this one from 9/11:

My suspicion is that history's pictorial judgement of the elections of 2000 will be this photo:

So we are left at the end of the 2004 election, defeated, dispirited, but not dormant. The anger that welled up inside progressives and liberals nationwide, and spread worldwide by the old saw "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice... can't get fooled again". Other nations woke up and realized that Bush was not going away easily, and decided to leverage their political strength against him. We here on the left took comfort in that, that the rest of the world would shun, as best as they could, this poseur president.

As time passed, and our anger solidified into action, the 2006 election loomed as a pivotal point in American history. It would set the stage for a revolution unlike any we had known previously, even our own Civil War, even our own birth, because this one would forge a future for our country without bloodshed. This one could unite a nation in the pursuit of true American values, of fair play and equal opportunity. It would prove the adage that, yes, ANYONE could be president.

It sure didn't hurt any that the Republicans had shot themselves in the collective face (in Dick Cheney's case, quite literally) by accomplishing nothing in over ten years of Congressional control. The politics of division revealed themselves to be the politics of do-nothingism, and America wondered why we even have a Congress.

It also didn't hurt that, hand in hand with this, and likely this bit was orchestrated by some on the left, the hypocrisies of the "family values" party were slowly uncovered, like a good stripping. The GOP missed the lessons of the early-'90s Democrats: never EVER let yourself be caught on tape or in a sex scandal. By Nov. 8, 2006, it was almost safe to be a liberal.

But there was still Dum-Dum to deal with. Were Pelosi and Reid correct not to pursue criminal charges against Bush? History will judge, but in my opinion, yes. Two years of haggling over documents would have frozen the nation worse than it already was, and would have made the bailouts and other economic stimuli passed and that still need to be passed, impossible. For the greater good, we let the guilty get off.

This is how our nation has always operated. This is how it must operate now. If you want to file cases in the Hague against the Bushies, I'll do what I can to see them brought to justice, but not here. Not now.

And now, we have a President who reflects in his very being the country: cool under pressure, able to laugh at himself, and diverse.

In other words, a liberal. He may, from practicality sake, be forced to dumb down his progressive credentials. I'm OK with that. He's not the Liberal President. He is President of the United States and that means respecting the thoughts and feelings of people in Nebraska as much as New Jersey.

I'm OK with that. It guarantees him an eight year term, and I kinda like "That One."

(Cross-posted at Simply Left Behind.)