Does having a leftist challenge hurt or help Hillary?

By Richard Barry

Go get 'em, Bernie

It is being reported that Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, will announce on Thursday his intention to run for president in 2016. Though an Independent, he plans to enter the primary and caucus contests as a Democrat, according to his advisors.

Sanders, who calls himself an independent socialist, will of course be running to the left of Hillary Clinton. The question is whether that helps her or hurts her.

I like Senator Sanders. I like Senator Warren. But if the left-wing of the Democratic Party thinks Hillary Clinton is incapable of successfully addressing a challenge from their quarter, they are mistaken.

Despite what we hear from the vocal left of the Democratic Party, the American electorate is quite conservative, as is the Democratic Party. Sanders will say important things about income inequality, the challenges facing the poor and the middle class, and the need to better regulate Wall Street, etc., etc., and Hillary will agree with him, but she will also position herself as a moderate when dealing with various scourges because that is where the votes are. Yes, she will care, and she will promise to do things, but not too much and not too fast, but thank you Senator Sanders for providing contrast.

If you haven't noticed, Hillary is already doing a decent of job of holding Elizabeth Warren close.

I am trying to imagine an issue on which Sanders will seriously challenge Clinton that will have a significantly adverse impact on her vote share in the general election. Sanders will not be there for the general election, and not being far enough to the left will matter not at all when it comes time for Clinton to face off against the GOP nominee.

The greatest danger, and I truly hate to say this, is that Hillary will allow herself to be so spooked by her left flank that she gives away too much and alienates moderate voters who could vote for a Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio.

What a world.

Immigration reform still unlikely

By Frank Moraes 

(Ed. note: Well, good for the Senate, or at least for the Democratic majority along with a handful of Republicans. But now it goes to the House, where crazy-ass Republican extremism prevails, where the Republican leadership is divided, with Speaker Boehner barely clinging to power, and where it will likely die. Maybe there's enough establishment Republican support to give Boehner cover, and so maybe the bill can pass with Democratic votes and a few Republicans on board, but it's awfully hard to move anything forward when the majority party is insane, so much so that it won't even support a flawed, Republican-oriented bill that Ronald Reagan would have backed and that includes a pile of throw-ins for conservatives. -- MJWS)

I'm sure you've heard that the Senate managed to pass their little immigration reform bill with a vote of 68-32. Let's think about that for a second. That means that 32 of the 46 Republican senators voted against the bill: 70%. This is what passes for a huge bipartisan compromise. And notice: the bill itself is extremely conservative. Bernie Sanders voted for it, but with a great many misgivings. Yet despite giving in on all kinds of issues, the Democrats only managed to get 14 Republicans to vote for it. And these were senators: the more moderate of the congressional Republicans.

Now it moves to the House where many of our liberal friends in the pundit world are cautiously optimistic. Somehow, they think that winning 30% Republican support in the Senate will put pressure on the House to pass the bill. Maybe! Stranger things have happened. But Dylan Matthews wrote an article this afternoon that made me think it is highly unlikely, "Immigration Reform Has Passed the Senate. Here's How it Passes the House." In the article, he provided three ways that the immigration reform might make its way through the House.

Read more »

This is America. This ain't no stinkin' utopia.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) tweeted at 5:26 PM on Mon, Mar 18, 2013:

Demand a budget that makes sure that the wealthiest Americans and most profitable corporations pay their fair share. (link to petition)

A good and noble cause, and I'm all for it, but it's also an uphill battle given the power of the plutocracy over both major political parties and the media, as well as throughout the national mythology.

You might as well demand that the country interact with the rest of the world with something other than a hegemonic bludgeon, or that the powers that be give a damn about the poor and disenfranchised, or that "the people" not be armed to the teeth in preparation for armageddon, or that the Republican Party embrace science, or that the Miami Heat lose a basketball game.

In any other advanced, civilized democracy, Bernie Sanders would be a mainstream voice of justice and reason. In America, he's a "radical." That alone should fill you with despair.

The U.S. does not have a spending problem

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) tweeted at 5:02 PM on Wed, Jan 02, 2013: 

At 15.7%, revenue as a percentage of GDP is at or near the lowest level in 60 years. #budget #fiscalcliff 

Which is to say, the way to solve the budget/debt problem is with higher tax rates on those who can afford it (with a threshold well below 400K), along with sensible, progressive tax reform.

It is not by cutting spending, which only hurts those who need help the most -- whether it's discretionary or entitlement spending.

Unless we're talking about the bloated military, which could certainly afford a cut or two.

This is all so obvious.

If only the Democrats weren't so fucking spineless and the Republicans weren't so fucking insane -- and President Obama weren't so desperate to make deals with domestic terrorists.

The Koch funded echo chamber

By Creature

If I was still blogging, I'd so post this video. Well, since I still have the keys here at The Reaction, what the hell.


[Via Digby]

The political pendulum of potential revolution

Guest post by Nicholas Wilbur 

Nicholas Wilbur is an award-winning reporter and opinion columnist turned political junkie and critic. He is the founder of the blog Muddy Politics and lives in New Mexico.

(Ed. note: This is Nicholas's third guest post for us. You can find his first two, both on the Obama-GOP tax deal, here and here. -- MJWS)

********** 

A friend asked me recently, "Is there a revolution approaching?"

It was not a stupid question. Given the turmoil in Washington over tax cuts, immigration reform, unemployment benefits, gay rights versus military policy, the constitutional challenges to health-care reform, a quasi-filibuster in the Senate against affluence, and the continued existence of the government itself (via a controversial omnibus funding bill), revolution seems possible if not inevitable.

After the midterm elections, most assumed that the politicking and trash-talking of the campaigns would subside, that the lame-duck Congress would pass the last two months of the year making headlines only when reporters with a quota wrote fluffy filler features about golf games and vacation plans for the slew of Democrats retiring in January.

Obviously, that hasn't been the case. But political turmoil, brutal policy battles, inter-party fighting and even the near severing of the liberal base from the alleged liberal of the decade, the prophet of progressivism, the headman of hope, Barack Obama, are not signs of revolution.

They're signs of life in the most deplorable sense of the term – proof that, in a bittersweet, backward and still disappointing way, Washington is functioning. The fact that a socialist senator from Vermont carried the day as the No. 1 Twitter trend with his 8 1/2-hour filibuster means only that politics continues to provide ample entertainment for Americans, and – to the shame of too few Americans – for the rest of the developed world as well.

The truth is, revolution in America is a dream, a distant, out-of-touch fantasy with worse odds than a three-legged mule competing in the Daytona 500. A few will talk of it, a few less will listen, but fewer still will actually do anything to achieve it – mainly because nobody knows where to start, much less where to end.

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ filibuster speech proved this.

In talking about tax cuts for the wealthy, he went on for hours about rich people's control of the banks, the markets, the marketplaces – Wal-Mart, of course, not excluded. He railed against classism, inequality, education, poverty, corruption, and more – issues that millions of Americans fight for and against daily, whether volunteer social workers or over-paid corporate lobbyists.

And that is the dilemma.

It is the reason the majority of Americans generally tune out news from Capitol Hill. It is the reason politics is such a dirty word that patriarchs prohibit it as a dinner conversation topic. It is the reason so many feel helpless to the point of foregoing their most basic rights as United States citizens: voting.

There are too many issues to tackle, too many injustices to protest, too many wrongs to right – and not nearly enough time to adequately address them, even as a salaried member of Congress, who proved this by talking instead of marching, lecturing instead of fighting, and filibustering an issue all but decided after sitting on the sidelines as the policies that created these social ills were pushed through Congress, in many cases, decades ago.

Four thousand people began following Sanders on Twitter throughout and after his speech, and the blogosphere twitterpated with admiration, confusion, false hope, and a renewed longing for the long-abandoned utopian dream. The bleeding hearts fluttered anew with the romantic idealism of progressive revolution even as our elected members of Congress yawned and exited the building, knowing full well the difference between symbolic gestures and realistic political solutions.

It's difficult to gauge what is sadder, the fact that Sanders was correct and still ineffective in riling even his fellow lawmakers, or the fact that as his speech turned heads continent to continent, the most staunch supporters of his ideals did nothing but forward e-mails, "Like" Facebook pages, and "retweet" pragmatically impossible progressive talking points.

When unemployment begins to fall, steadily or slightly, the focus of American media consumers will adjust accordingly. The hostility of D.C. politics will be buried in the papers and ignored by the masses once again.

The truth was written by a Marine nearly four years ago on a wall nearly in Ramadi, Iraq, and it speaks beyond foreign policy: "American is not at war... America is at the mall."

The costs of the Obama-GOP tax deal

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Senate voted yesterday to end Bernie Sanders's admirable filibuster and to send the Obama-GOP package to the floor for debate and a final up-or-down vote.

The vote was overwhelming: 83 to 15. (Nine Democrats, five Republicans, and one independent (Sanders) voted against it.)

An initial critic of the deal, I now go back and forth. In principle, I'm still against it. But what is principle? The reality is that Obama needs this (and we still care about his 2012 re-election, right?) and for the most part the American people need this. At the very least, given the continuing poor state of the economy, the stimulus that Obama won in exchange for extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy is critical. (For more on this, see our two guests posts by Nicholas Wilbur here and here. He makes a persuasive case.)

This is what happened with health-care reform. I wanted more, like so many others, but I nonetheless ended up supporting the bill. It was much, much better than nothing, and a lot was achieved.

Can that not be the case here? It will be, if Obama follows through on his promise not to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy past 2012. If he stands firm, this will be, as Jonathan Chait puts it, "a huge victory." (And if he doesn't? Then this will be "a massive defeat." The president hardly inspires much confidence these days, particularly within his base, but there's good reason to believe that he will stand firm. I just hope I'm not trying to convince myself of this at the risk of looking stupid when, as so often happens, Obama and the Democrats give in once again to Republican demands.)

Anyway, Chait posted a couple of helpful charts yesterday -- one from the White House and one from MoveOn.org:

The first looks good (for our side), the second looks bad (for our side) -- if, in the latter case, the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy are extended (contra Obama's pledge).

So which one is right? Well, we'll have to see -- time, and politics, will tell. There is no doubt that making the deal entails significant risk for Obama and the Democrats.

But Chait is right, I think, that "the liberal revolt does help demonstrate the costs the administration will pay if it capitulates on the upper-bracket Bush tax cuts in 2012."

For that, I fear, there would be no excuse, and the president would deserve to be held accountable for such costly failure.

Do Dems have the votes for the public option?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

He isn't a Democrat, but Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont certainly thinks so.

I think we do have 50 votes in the Senate for a public option and frankly I don't know why the president has not put it in and I hope that we can inject it. I think it's a very important part of healthcare reform.

This is in direct opposition to the White House's claim that the votes just aren't there.

I'm torn, I must admit. While I would like to see a bill with a public option be signed into law -- it would, after all, make for much more meaningful reform -- I understand Obama's preference that the House pass the Senate bill as is (that is, without a public option) and then that modifications (but not the addition of a public option) be made through reconciliation.

And I repeat what I wrote the other day:

Or maybe they are, or at least could be with enough prodding, but maybe securing them, in both the House and Senate, would take too much time, and require too much prodding, too much additional compromise, too much playing off of competing Democratic interests, not least in a challenging mid-term election year.

And maybe the White House thinks that pushing through a more robust reform bill, one with a public option, by way of reconciliation would undermine the president's ability to sell reform as something other than a solo partisan effort. We all know what the public thinks of partisanship. We also know what it thinks of reform -- unpopular within the context of legislative sausage-making, much more popular when the specifics are known. And we know that the media are spinning reconciliation as a dirty word. So how would passing a reform bill, even one with a popular public option, through what is perceived to be partisan trickery benefit Obama, not least given how Republicans would undoubtedly propagandize against both the process and the substance? And how would it benefit Democrats running for re-election in November?

At this point, in other words, it may just be a matter of brutal political calculation. In a perfect world, maybe Obama would have pushed vigorously for the public option and would be demanding it now. But it's hardly perfect in Washington, and the key is get this done as soon as possible so that what would be major historic achievement could be communicated to the public well ahead of the midterms and so that Congress, and the Democrats specifically, could move on.

Don't get me wrong. This is not what I want. It's just what I think is realistically possible in the short term -- and what would benefit Democrats without excessive risk of the whole thing unravelling.

And part of the problem is that the situation in Congress is so unclear. Sanders says the votes are there, but Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa says they're probably not: "I hate to say it, but I am not certain we're going to be able to get a public option in this bill."

But if now is not the time, the time will come. Harkin:

That doesn't mean we stop trying... I keep reminding people that this bill is not written in stone, like the Ten Commandments, for ever and ever. This is a law, it's a bill, we change laws all the time around here -- that's what we do.

And so, whatever happens now:

At some point, we're going to revisit the public option, I can assure you of that.

Which is what many of us have been saying all along. Indeed, I have often referred to this admittedly flawed bill as a possible thin end of the wedge that could lead to significant supplementary reform down the road, if not in the very near future.

As Chris Bowers puts it: "To strengthen your negotiating position, and to prepare for future fights, it is important to round up as much support as possible."

Those fights are coming, whether Republicans like it or not, and I suspect there will continue to be significant and perhaps increasing popular support for the public option going forward.

And so while the push for the public option must continue, and while the temperature of the Senate must be taken, the current political reality both in Washington and across the country must not be ignored. Given that reality, what needs to be done is for Democrats to get this done now.

Quote of the Day: Bernie Sanders on global warming deniers

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In case you missed it, this is what the independent Vermont senator said at a Senate hearing on Tuesday:

It reminds me in some ways of the debate taking place in this country and around the world in the late 1930s. During that period of Nazism and fascism's growth -- a real danger to the United States and democratic countries around the world -- there were people in this country and in the British parliament who said "don't worry! Hitler's not real! It'll disappear!"

Well, we know how that turned out, don't we?

Sanders is being accused of hyperbole, of course, and worse, but to those of who live in reality and understand that, in EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's words, "[t]he science behind climate change is settled, and human activity is responsible for global warming," his words ring true.

Given the possibility, and indeed likelihood, if nothing or not enough is done to curb climate change, of massive global catastrophe, including the deaths of millions and millions of people as the seas rise, freakish and destructive weather becomes more common, and civil society collapses in some of the most unstable parts of the planet, those who deny global warming, or who are euphemistically called "skeptics," are nothing more than enablers of future genocide.

Obviously, there is a qualitative difference between Hitler and the Nazis on the one hand and global warming on the other. But the denying, the refusal not just to do anything about but even to recognize the great danger that threatens us, is common to both situations.

And we will pay for it again, and on an even greater scale.

Bernie Sanders is a no

By Creature

While I appreciate very much that Bernie has announced his intention, no matter how tentative, to vote no on the Lieberman-Obama healthcare bill, he has not said he would filibuster. The fight here is now on the filibuster level. I don't like that it is, but that's where we are at. Bernie should say no to cloture and be clear about. It's the only way this bill will be forced to the left.

The truth about health-care reform: the public option

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Here's a second Q&A from the Senate Democratic Policy Committee's Citizens Forum. I posted one on affordability yesterday.

Geoffrey Pettingill (Hamburg, MI): Why is the public option better than private insurance?

Senator Bernard Sanders (I-VT): The public option is there to do its best to provide health care to people.