How I wanted an honest to goodness, old fashioned, New-Deal-type Democrat in the White House as opposed to once again facing the choice between a New Democrat and a New Democrat in the race for the Democratic nomination in 2008.

It seems I just could not believe my lying eyes when my hero, Paul Krugman, criticized Obama’s policies on Social Security and Health Care, comparing them less favorably to Clinton’s.

I've tried to get into this race. I really have. I should be excited about the first female and first African American presidential candidates who actually have a chance to win. It is historical. But unfortunately my enthusiasm for the great achievement this race represents in overcoming long standing prejudices and unequal opportunities, especially for African Americans, is tempered by my disfavor of being manipulated.

Many won't like to believe this, but Barack and Hillary were chosen long before today. Before even the 2006 midterms. Here was the plan: The Clintons return to the White House with Obama as running mate. Then, hopefully, the groundswell of dangerously populist sentiments rising among the utterly disgusted electorate will be drowned out by the historical reemergence of racial and gender politics.

Then, according to the plan, the 2008 presidential race, and by proxy the congressional races as well, will not be about corporate power, the corruption of our government, the real causes for the destruction of the working class, the real causes for the Iraq war, the real crimes of George Bush and company, or anything else that threatens the establishment power structure in the US. If all goes accordingly, we'll be so caught up in the Big Firsts that we'll put those concerns aside.

To really see the sheer corruption of our political process, you have to look at the lies that simply refuse to go away in the face of overwhelming facts - the myths that are utterly and completely untrue, yet which are regarded as unchallenged truth in Washington because they serve to rationalize Big Money's agenda.

The Bush Dog campiagn, started at Open Left with this analysis by Chris Bowers.  Its focus so far is merely criticizing representatives who supported Bush on FISA and the Iraq War, and suggesting that some of them should be subject to primary challenges.

With the example of Joe Liebarman apparently still fresh in people's mind, the p-word seems as hard to handle as the i-word, and over-reaction is the order of the day.  Above all, we are told that the members in question are not at fault, that they have to vote that way because of their districts.  But a simple, straighforward analysis shows that this just isn't true.... On the jump.

cross-posted on OpenLeft, where we will be running the campaign.

I'm hearing more and more frequently a sense of rage with the Democratic leadership in Congress.  From failing to stop the war to expanding Bush's wiretapping authority, the swing vote of conservative Democrats in the House are forming an effective conservative majority that is enabling Bush to govern as he wishes.  The polls show that this is a very bad political move for Democrats.  Congress has an 18% approval rating, from Democrats, and 60% of all voters strongly disapprove of Bush's new wiretapping authority.  Democrats haven't stopped the war, haven't stopped torture, haven't curbed corporate abuses, and haven't really done anything except raise the minimum wage as part of a package to send $100B of taxpayer into the sands of Iraq.

There's interesting new polling data from today's Washington Post.  Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama by 17 percentage points, an increase of 5 percentage points since 2/25/07.  Clinton gets 37 percent, Obama gets 20 percent, and Edwards gets 14 percent.

Al Gore checks in at 3rd place with 17 percent.

Full details are available over at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Recently, Bush invited members of the Blue Dog Coalition and New Democrat Coalition to visit the White House to talk about policy. Many people here were understandably concerned that these representatives would outflank the leadership and cut deals with Bush on pro-business and anti-environmentalist policies, as we saw in the Senate in 2002. It appeared to be a slap in the face of the Democratic leaders who control the agenda in the House.

(originally posted at Ruck Pad and can be found at Calitics)

The Representative from CA-10 has done a lot of talking in the last few months.  She spoke of Kabuki, insinuating that Democrats will be put on a show, but standing, as Sirota says, "for nothing other than than their own party."  She has spoken of the dangers of "getting the majority and running over the left cliff".  This was of course before the election, which had the lovely consequence of reinforcing Republican talking points that a Democratic majority would be disastrous.

On February 27, 1968, CBS's Walter Cronkite famously said that "the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate." As Iraq and the hubris that led to the invasion shows, Cronkite's words were never taken to heart by the political system, or even just the majority of Democrats, who supported the war. Instead, what many in Democratic politics really internalized to great folly was President Lyndon Johnson's reaction to Cronkite's declaration. "That's it," LBJ said. "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America."  

From The Hill via Josh:

President Bush has invited leaders of the conservative Blue Dog and New Democrat coalitions to the White House Friday to discuss areas of "mutual cooperation" in the words of one Democratic Congressional aide....

Reps. Alan Boyd (Fla.), Dennis Moore (Kan.) and Mike Ross (Ark.) will represent the Blue Dogs, a coalition of usually southern, conservative-leaning Democrats and Reps. Joe Crowley (N.Y.), Artur Davis (Ala.), Ron Kind (Wis.), Adam Smith (Wash.) and Ellen Tauscher (Calif.) are set to represent the New Democrats, a group of business-friendly centrists, at the meeting, which the president is expected to attend.

They must be reading Broder. There really is no other explanation for such incredible stupidity. They've decided to hitch their wagon to Mr. 30 Percent Approval? Really? See guys, that's not demonstrating your independence and capacity for "bipartisanship." That's just plain old treachery, and idiotic treachery to boot. Steny needs to learn how to work that whip.

Update: Let me clarify what I'm saying. I'm not saying that the Democratic leadership should not be meeting with Bush. That's part of their job. If he'd agree to meet with them every day it would be fantastic. But the leadership has to be able to lead, and this move by Bush is an end-run around the leadership. It's an effort by the administration to peel away a block of Democrats that have, to the party's detriment, shown their willingness to buck party leadership. It's about respecting party leadership, staying unified within the caucus, and maintaining the strength that will be necessary to get good legislation passed. A unified caucus will be able to accomplish more. This move fractures the caucus.

On November 13th, eastcoastmoderate said: "Of the 29 new house member of the Democrats, 15 have joined the DLC, and another 9 consider themselves blue dogs. Boo-Man you are in total denial." Was I in denial? Or did Joementum's biggest booster not know his head from the hole in his ass?

Now, I'm not speaking for all KOSSACKS here (that would be far too presumptous and inaccurate)  but sure, we want Democrats elected nationally, state-wide and locally.

But (and here's the crux), we want 'clean' Democrats.

So what is the answer? If we are abandoned by the current Democratic party, then we must in turn abandon them.