Voted

By Creature

Carl Paladino can suck it. Here's hoping he disappears from our political conversations forever.

Jon Stewart -- the definition of insanity

By R.K. Barry

I like Jon Stewart. I like The Daily Show and usually watch it every night. One has to be constantly reminded that Stewart is primarily a comedian because his political commentary is so frequently bang on and his interviews so thoughtful and compelling.

But even before the recent Stewart/Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity, something was starting to bother me about Stewart's approach, which has been, simply put, his more recent suggestion that the left and right in America are in some sense equally culpable for poisoning the current environment in which political ideas are framed, articulated, and advocated.

If what he means is that conservatives have bent the truth beyond recognition and pandered to the worst instincts of human nature in order to troll for votes, while progressives have fought back as best they could, though fairly feebly, then, yes, both left and right are equally culpable.

Let's face it, for the past many months, countless Republican candidates, Tea Party activists, Fox News and its stable of crazies, and other purveyors of the hysterical conservative narrative have shown no interest in facts and rational argument and reasonable political accommodation. They have harnessed voter anger and frustration in the most effective ways possible.

Democrats, who clearly have not caught on fast enough to the "new normal" of political discourse in America, have been getting their asses kicked.

So, watching Jon Stewart say to what were undoubtedly mostly a bunch of fairly progressive citizens that they ought to become more reasonable and rational in their attitude towards politics was a little like watching the Rand Paul campaign organizer asking the women whose head he stomped to apologize for getting her noggin stuck under his foot.

Surely Mr. Stewart doesn't think that his audience, either on the National Mall or at Comedy Central, is composed of many conservatives.

But it is conservative hysteria that has driven the current climate of debate and to suggest that progressives, liberals, or Democrats are equally culpable is to show that one has simply not been paying enough attention. To ask this group to calm down and be more "sane" is not only foolish but a little dangerous.

I cannot help but think of a dozen metaphors to express what is wrong with this, most of them violent metaphors (make of that what you will). The inadvisability of unilateral disarmament comes to mind.

The current election campaign is now almost over. I invite you to catalogue the misrepresentations, outright prevarications, and bat-shit crazy ideas and behaviour coming from the conservative leadership in the current struggle for the hearts and minds of the American voter. And while I would not suggest that Democrats are devoid of sin, you cannot reasonably compare the two. But the conservative record is pretty clear.

Where to begin? Sarah Palin's lies about "death panels" in Obama's health-care legislation; Carl Paladino's homophobic rants; Rand Paul's misrepresentation of the Civil Rights Act and his thuggish repression of dissent on the campaign trail; Sharron Angle's call for Second Amendment remedies to solve disputes; Christine O'Donnell's rejection of the separation of church and state; Ken Buck's rejection of abortion even in the case of rape and incest; and almost anything said by Glenn Beck and all the others on Fox News about America's inevitable descent into totalitarianism at the hands of the socialist Obama. And I can't even begin to list the instances of idiocy from the likes of Rush Limbaugh.

Again, it's late in the campaign season, so there is no need to restate everything. But to suggest that conservatives and progressives are equally culpable for poisoning the tone of debate is not credible.

Yes, people like Ed Schultz, Keith Olbermann, and Rachel Maddow get excited in defending the truth, and I am so glad they do. It is not, after all, passion that we should worry about, for passion in the service of the truth should always be looked on as a positive contribution.

It is passion and aggressiveness with the goal of misrepresenting the facts in order to appeal to people's fears, irrational biases and lesser angels. This has been the conservatives' stock-in-trade.

By implication there is a suggestion on Stewart's part that we all just need to calm down and talk to each other rationally in order to arrive at some sort of agreement as to how America can move forward and solve the problems that need addressing.

Great idea, but that train has left the station. For conservatives, I don't think it ever made that station stop at all.

Passion in the defence of truth, passion in the defence of the facts, passion for the openness of political discussions that might get us closer to solving our problem. Yes, to all of these things.

But now is not the time for progressives to calm down in their struggle against the dangerous vision for America presented by the likes of the Tea Party movement and those others in the Republican Party afraid to cross them.

Progressives are in a very serious conflict here and they will need to bring their best effort to have a chance, both over the next few days and in what is to follow. It would be insane to do otherwise.

It is simply not true that progressives and conservatives are equally responsible for the tone of the current political debate, and we ought to stop suggesting it is. Conservatives have, for the time being, cornered the market on anger. Progressives need to get back in the game and be just as passionate in defense of the kind of America they want.

To do any less would be the very definition of insanity. And -- forgive another violent metaphor -- it would be like bringing a knife to a gunfight.

When independents turn stupid (and vote for Republican extremists)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There are a number of reasons why Republicans will win next Tuesday, likely taking back the House (if not the Senate) and doing very well at the state level. The so-called "enthusiasm gap" is a big reason, with anti-government yet also theocratic Tea Party-led Republicans frothing at the mouth, as is the general and thoroughly irrational anti-incumbent sentiment sweeping the country. But it seems that "independents," that ever-so-important group, are also pushing this election to the GOP.

As Time is reporting, new polls show independents helping Republicans to the lead in four key Senate races:

-- In Pennsylvania, Pat Toomey is leading Joe Sestak 49-45.

-- In Kentucky, Rand Paul is leading Jack Conway 50-43.

-- In Colorado, Ken Buck is leading Michael Bennet 47-46.

-- In Nevada, Sharron Angle is leading Harry Reid 49-45.

Of course, independents are not the only group, or demographic, pushing these Republicans over the top. In Nevada, for example, Angle maintains "sizable margins among males, white voters and voters over 50." And, of course, these are four somewhat purple states where state-wide Republicans wins aren't at all surprising. It makes some sense, even if their specific policies/views do not, that Paul's libertarianism is popular, that Angle is ahead of a deeply unpopular incumbent (and Democratic leader), and that Buck may pull out a victory in a flip-flopping state that can usually go either way. Even Toomey's lead is understandable. Pennsylvania can be described as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Alabama in between. It's a purple state that is Democratic only because of its two metropolises. When the urban vote isn't there, Republicans can win.

I say that it "makes some sense," but at least three of these four are ideological extremists who shouldn't win, ever. I'll leave Toomey off that list, though he too has embraced the far right, such as on climate change. And, poor economy and anti-incumbent sentiment aside, it makes absolutely no sense that these three are leading, solidly, among independents -- most of whom, presumably, are more or less in the wishy-washy center, and who should be swayed against such Republican extremism even if they don't much care for what Democrats have to offer either.

Take Buck, for example, who is an anti-gay bigot and a theocrat who objects to the separation of church and state. Or Angle, whose sheer craziness, as she has proven throughout this campaign, is enormous. In this year of collective voter ignorance and insanity, of fear, anger, and bitterness dominating the political landscape and motivating voters to make terrible choices, it's almost surprising that independents aren't putting the supremely unqualified Christine O'Donnell over the top in Delaware. In some states, like Delaware and New York, where the anti-gay bigot and wealthy teabagger Carl Paladino will get crushed in the gubernatorial race, I suppose not even delusional independents are enough.

This, of course, would not be the first time that voters turned stupid. But while we can expect Republicans to embrace the most partisan and most ideologically extreme of their kind, independents are supposed to know better, are they not? Well, no. Some may suppose that they do, but they don't. The David Broder-influenced media drool all over independents, giving them a place of prominence they don't deserve, as if they are by far the most important voters in America, but, really, they often don't much of a clue and are easily manipulated, this year by Republican propaganda.

Call me a cynic, but I think this Family Guy clip about undecided (and hence more or less independent) voters (which I found here), with Lois running for mayor against incumbent Adam West and, on Brian's advice, resorting to GOP-style appeals to idiocy ("Jesus," "9/11" -- you might as well put "tax cuts" in there, too), says it all:

Carl Paladino -- New York can do a lot better

Guest post by R.K. Barry

I'm not sure if New York Republican gubernatorial nominee Carl Paladino has officially changed his name to "Tea Party Favourite Carl Paladino," but I rarely see his name mentioned without being described in this way. 

In any case, they can have him. Paladino is crazy and slimy and bigoted and all kinds of other disgusting stuff, but he's also really stupid, which is a good thing for his Democratic opponent, Andrew Cuomo.

Following his gay-bashing rant at an event over the weekend, pundits of all stripes have been trying to understand what makes Carl tick. They want to know how someone in his position could say, "I don't want [our children] to be brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid or successful option." They want to know how someone so clueless could have had this much political success. Even inquiring Republicans want to know.

Let's face it, in this campaign season all you have to do is blather a few platitudes about Washington insiders and then some nonsense about runaway government spending, wrap yourself up in the flag, and, lo and behold, you are the Republican nominee in too many states to mention.

But the reason I know Paladino is clueless is that Fox News told me so, or at least Bill O'Reilly on Fox News told me so. Yes, in an interview with right-wing commentator Ann Coulter, O'Reilly said the following: "The bottom line on this is, I think everybody but you in the world agrees this isn't going to help the guy. He wants to win the election. He needs independents to come over."

Yes, he does. He needs independents to come over if he hopes to win a general election and you mostly don't do that in New York State by being a crazy social conservative. I know New York. I was raised in the southern part of the state, educated in the northern part, and have lived in the Buffalo media market for thirty years. These days, gay-bashing is just not going to be that helpful with independents, nor is pandering to those who embrace all those other issues that make social conservatism what it is. I'm not saying that New York can't be pretty conservative, only that it's not Jim Demint's South Carolina.

So here's the thing: some recent research has indicated that of those who consider themselves part of the Tea Party movement, 57% identify as part of the religious right. That's a pretty big number, and a number that would suggest that pandering to the Tea Party requires more than a nod to secular libertarian economics.

When a guy like Paladino sticks to his script (which is rare) and talks about fiscal conservatism, he has a chance with independent voters. But every time he feels the need to pander to his Tea Party base, to the extent that this base is far more socially conservative than is frequently advertised, he runs the risk of pushing away a lot of independents. Hell, even Bill O'Reilly gets that.

In the short term, the Tea Party movement itself is in an internal battle between fiscal and social conservatives that hasn't quite shaken itself out yet, but will.

In the end, coalitions always fall apart and the Tea Party is no different; Paladino's ramblings speak volumes about the difficulty of keeping this coalition together. Significantly, independent voters are watching, without perhaps even knowing what they are watching.

Every time a slug like Paladino says something like "there is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual," the universe of independent voters available to him contracts just a little bit and the myth that the Tea Party is mostly about fiscal responsibility melts away ever so slightly.

It will be interesting to see what becomes of the Tea Party movement over time. It may be that the old Christian Coalition will absorb it. The fact is that social conservatives, Christian Coalition types, are always in it for the long haul; they have better organizational structures and they may just outlast fiscal conservatives once the economy improves. We'll see.

For the time being, the hardest act in politics for a conservative candidate in a place like New York State is to keep the two sides of the Tea Party coalition – the social and fiscal conservative sides - in proper balance so as not to push away much-needed independent voters, while also giving enough red meat to the true believers to keep them happy.

That would take a lot more skill and discipline than someone like Carl Paladino could ever hope to have. That would take Clintonian levels of ability, albeit from the other side of the playing field.

The grotesque and gluttonous hypocrisy of Carl Paladino

By Michael J.W. Stickings

New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino isn't just a crazy Tea Party extremist, he's a grotesque and gluttonous hypocrite -- like so many of his plutocratic ilk:

For the last decade, anti-big government candidate Carl Paladino has pocketed millions of dollars in tax breaks by promising to jump-start economic revival in and around his native Buffalo.

Today it's clear that promise remains unfulfilled.

A Daily News probe found Paladino's companies netted $3 million in tax breaks through a program called the Empire Zones -- while producing a grand total of 25 new jobs.

To justify tax breaks in one instance, he sold a dozen vacant lots he owned to himself and claimed hundreds of thousands of dollars in "real property investments." Seven years later, these "investments" remain what they were - vacant lots.

His Empire Zone investments consisted mostly of renovating his own buildings -- $19 million worth. He completed no new construction and brought no new businesses in any of his Empire Zone projects.

Instead, the Paladino companies such as the Ellicott Group mostly generate income through six big office buildings that collect millions of dollars in rent.

That's right, this anti-government (not just anti-big government) extremist who blames government for every ill (mainly because it takes money out of his pocket so that it can, you know, help and protect other people and otherwise make American society something other than an anarchic, Hobbesian dystopia) takes government handouts and tax breaks -- greedily, one imagines -- while doing next to nothing for the economy.

A measly 25 jobs, huh? What's that about the private sector being the answer to all our problems?

Paladino certainly isn't the answer to New York State's problems. He'd just make them a whole lot worse.

Enthusiasm gap bridged

By Creature

Not that I wasn't going to vote, but the chance to vote against a jerk like Carl Paladino will make it all the more satisfying.