Fecal Tsunami

Filed in National by on May 16, 2012

Barack Obama is going to be the last Democratic President. Thanks Dread Justice Roberts!

Barack Obama may have the mojo — and I stress may — to withstand the fecal tsunami of GOP super PAC attack ads this year. But four years from now — unless the Democrats have become vastly more friendly to the interests of billionaires than they already are — how is the first Democratic non-incumbent to run in a Citizens United world possibly going to compete with right-wing billionaire cash? How is anyone with even vaguely progressive ideas on economic issues ever going to compete?

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Jason330 is a deep cover double agent working for the GOP. Don't tell anybody.

Comments (29)

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  1. Steve Newton says:

    They will compete because the landscape will change. Don’t know how, but it will. Three observations:

    1. Bill Clinton was the absolute master of electoral politics in the 1990s. By 2008 he was a dinosaur. The internet happened.

    2. Barack Obama understood social networking and how it would work in 2008, but there are already signs that social networking is changing and in many ways his campaign looks to be fighting “the last war.”

    3. In 2008 Ron Paul perfected the outsider “money bomb” campaign; this year it has not worked half so well because conditions and technologies are morphing before our eyes.

    My best guess is that over the next 6-8 years the playing field will flatten again because there will be less network/cable TV watching and more direct to your TV/PC, and that the attack ads won’t work as effectively.

    But even if I am wrong about WHAT changes, the media is changing too rapidly for even Citizens United to make it static.

  2. Valentine says:

    Well, I actually think we are going down the tubes, but … hopefully the Left can figure out how to organize and the people will rise up and vote for Democrats, and their votes will be counted and respected!

  3. Idealist says:

    Super PACs may favor the R’s but demographic changes will continue to benefit the D’s until the R’s realize that being the party of the rich white man isn’t sustainable.

  4. puck says:

    Bill Clinton was the absolute master of electoral politics in the 1990s.

    I love Bill Clinton more than most of you. But in 1992 he was lucky to win in a plurality, and won his second term because he fixed the economy. There is no sorcery in that.

    By 2008 he was a dinosaur.

    Clinton didn’t leave the party, the party left him and started drinking GOP Kool-aid. Can you imagine the 1990s Democrats providing the winning margin for the Bush tax cuts like the 2001 Democrats did? Can you imagine Bill Clinton creating a Presidential commission to recommend the best way to cut Social Security and Medicare?

    Just saying, if you want Clinton-style electoral results, try Clinton-style economic policies.

  5. SussexWatcher says:

    ClInton made the kool-aid in a faux Democratic pitcher. He was one of the first DLCers.

  6. Jason330 says:

    The normally irate and accusatory puck has a soft spot for Clinton.

  7. cassandra m says:

    Clinton was one of the first DLCers. Who delivered on a fair number of conservative policies including so-called welfare reform. He was another Democrat who couldn’t make the case for government and spent a great deal of time kowtowing to businesses too. And the V chip. Lets not forget that.

  8. puck says:

    Clinton found the core economic problem of his time and fixed it.

    “Who delivered on a fair number of conservative policies”

    Only around the fringes. The famed triangulation didn’t actually produce a lot of wins for Republicans.

    What have you got besides welfare reform? I wasn’t all that distressed about welfare reform, especially considering Clinton replaced a good deal of that welfare with jobs. 1970s-style welfare doesn’t belong in the Democratic platform anymore for good reason.

    Probably Clinton’s biggest economic mistake was his 1997 cave-in to Newt to cut capital gains tax from 25% to 20%, which arguably turned the healthy tech boom into a bubble.

    Clinton defended the New Deal and core Democratic values with the full powers of the presidency, including veto threats and actual vetoes, and more importantly, no compromising with our pre-compromises. The Contract with America dissipated into a puff of wingnut dust.

    I would take you more seriously on this if you held Obama to that same standard.

  9. cassandra m says:

    Clinton found Robert Rubin’s core economic problem and fixed it. He reduced the government competition for borrowing so that there was more capital for businesses. Which is why increased taxes now won’t change much of the business environment — borrowing costs are already low. But it will address the deficit issues.

    I wasn’t all that distressed about welfare reform, especially considering Clinton replaced a good deal of that welfare with jobs.

    And along the way he validated the Welfare Queen bigotry of the GOP. Not that that exists, BTW, but now that the economy is in the tank, we find that this part of the safety net is not only not adequate, but is actively under attack, a door the Clinton opened. He couldn’t institutionalize applying the budget surpluses to Social Security obligations AND he wanted to invest some of that surplus in the markets in order to get more money for future social security obligations.

    And Don’t Ask Don’t Tell wasn’t a core democratic value. Neither was DOMA. Neither was the revision to Glass-Steagall.

    I would take you more seriously if I wasn’t certain that you’ll be rewriting Obama history in the rosiest of terms during the next GOP administration.

  10. puck says:

    So that’s all you’ve got besides welfare reform is Gramm-Leach-Bliley? And the social liberal issues of course, DADT/DOMA, which weren’t ripe yet and probably still aren’t. We really need to wait for some more homophobic old coots to die before we throw the party on that particular sword. In the meantime it’s the economy, stupid.

    We were losing elections over gay marriage as recently as 2004 and we might lose this one too. Hell if it weren’t for DADT/DOMA there might not have been enough Democrats left to put a ten-year sunset on the Bush tax cuts, even if Obama did piss it away.

    Gramm Leach Bliley was a blunder of course, but it happened in 1999 after a long string of Clinton wins on the economy. There’s still time for Obama to compile that kind of record – the jury is still out. As long as he wins a second term.

    In three years I’d like to say Obama’s first term was about putting out the fires, and the second term was about fixing the structural problems and creating prosperity.

  11. cassandra m says:

    And the social liberal issues of course, DADT/DOMA, which weren’t ripe yet and probably still aren’t.

    So you’re grading on a curve on the democratic core values then? Saying that the compromise was OK? So you are holding Clinton in retrospect to a much lower standard than you hold Obama.

    Which we knew, right?

  12. cassandra_m says:

    And, while I’m at it, *not* regulating the derivatives markets and severing the ties between traditional and investment banking is one of the big reasons why we have the economic mess we do have. Which even Clinton acknowledges. So that too was a pretty big gimme to the business community.

  13. puck says:

    Where is your pragmatism now?

    I guess we all have selective idealism. I happen to put a broadly distributed prosperity first on my list. Clinton delivered that, and the recipe is not a secret. Once you have prosperity, all other things become possible. Maybe you have some other idea of what’s important?

    I guess if you are evaluating everything as a moral issue from a purist point of view, then it becomes possible to view DADT/DOMA as weighted equally with all other issues, in the sense that a slight to one is a slight to all. Which is true on a moral level.

    But from a pragmatic point of view, I’d say jobs and economic health affect a lot more people than gay marriage and DADT. I wish we didn’t have to choose, but sometimes we do. So yes, when I walk into the voting booth I do have my priorities in mind.

  14. puck says:

    *not* regulating the derivatives markets and severing the ties between traditional and investment banking is one of the big reasons why we have the economic mess we do have.

    Agreed. But at least Clinton saved his biggest screwup for his last year instead of doing it in his first term like Obama.

  15. socialistic ben says:

    There are people that will agree with a progressive philosophy on things like income inequality and will disagree about civil rights. (same sex marriage.) ally with them first, get done what we can get done… defeat them later.

  16. pandora says:

    Where is your pragmatism now?

    Right where its always been, since we supported Clinton’s compromises. And while we may not have liked it, we got it.

    Cassandra is merely pointing out that your support of Clinton’s priorities came with sacrifices/compromises and you were okay with those compromises/sacrifices. Which is fine. Cassandra is saying, and I’m agreeing, that she understands Clinton’s and Obama’s compromises.

  17. puck says:

    Clinton vetoed Republican tax cuts; Obama signed them. There is no comparison or continuum between Clinton’s and Obama’s “compromises.” They are qualitatively different. Everything Republicans won from Clinton was done grudgingly and with meaningful concessions in return, not willingly handed over like Obama did. This is not the bridge to the 21st century Clinton was talking about.

  18. Valentine says:

    I did not find Clinton’s changes to welfare acceptable, and now we are seeing their downside.

  19. puck says:

    I’d agree we need a number of temporary relief programs for the duration of the jobless recovery – but not a restoration of permanent traditional welfare.

  20. cassandra_m says:

    And there we go. Permanent welfare wasn’t exactly a big problem. cf the Welfare Queen thing. Large majorities of people on it spent something like less than 2 years on it, and most of those were white people. The welfare as we know it crap was Bill Clinton’s co-option of a specific bit of the GOP Southern strategy.

    But hey, I’m as pragmatic now as I was when Clinton was President. And as often as he made me mad (more than Obama to tell the truth) I could mostly see the political path he was treading. Not to say that I approved of all of it now or then, but I’m not going to be joining you anytime soon in portraying Clinton as some super progressive. Because he wasn’t. He was well-steeped in Tom Carper style DLCism. Clinton is, however, and always will be, a better politician than Obama.

    But we already knew you were rewriting history just so that you could have a pedestal in the story.

  21. cassandra_m says:

    Clinton vetoed Republican tax cuts; Obama signed them.

    This is the depth of your delusion. There isn’t a universe that exists where Bill Clinton would veto unemployment benefits and additional stimulus for middle class people if they needed it.

  22. Dave says:

    I also would place a “broadly distributed prosperity” first on the list. Proserity is not just an economic and survival consideration – putting food on the table. Prosperity fulfills physiological and safety needs (Maslov’s) that then allow a society and individuals to focus on the upper level needs.

    And make no mistake, propersity needs to create a foundation for those upper level needs. If we fail to create the means to propersity for everyone, upper level needs cannot be met. So the means to propersity is just as important as achieving prosperity.

    Consequently, I do not believe that we can hand propersity to someone. Instead we must work to create opportunity for everyone whereby they can attain prosperity for themselves resulting in satisfaction of the higher level needs (esteem, self actualization).

    I think that’s what is so difficult and why we default to easier solutions. Clinton’s work with welfare reform at least attempted to incorporate that paradigm which recognizes that folks need a hand but the ultimate objective is to help them up and not just provide for the basic needs. Without that construct, we can satisfy basic needs but they will never get beyond the first and part of the second levels.

  23. puck says:

    And here is where progressives part ways with old-school liberals. “Work, not welfare” isn’t an empty slogan if you actually provide the jobs. I’d even say welfare reform needs to be expanded to provide child care and more realistic deeper and long-term training and education.

    But not just a money dump. Not because I buy into the welfare queen narrative (I don’t), but because it doesn’t work.

  24. cassandra_m says:

    Work not welfare isn’t an especially progressive value if you don’t make it stick.

    And welfare is not about handing prosperity to anybody.

    Clinton’s work with welfare reform at least attempted to incorporate that paradigm which recognizes that folks need a hand but the ultimate objective is to help them up and not just provide for the basic needs.

    This was already built into the system. Already. The bits that didn’t work were the ones that would help them up. And those bits STILL don’t work.

  25. puck says:

    There isn’t a universe that exists where Bill Clinton would veto unemployment benefits and additional stimulus for middle class people if they needed it.

    LOL… speaking of revisionism, that’s exactly what Clinton did in 1995, complete with Republican hostages and threats not to raise the debt limit. And Clinton called their bluff with vetos. Unemployment offices were closed, government employees and contractors lost pay. Workarounds were eventually found to keep checks trickling out, but when the vetoes went down there was no guarantee that would happen. Clinton hung tough and won for the middle class. Republicans are paper tigers with their threats and Clinton knew it.

  26. cassandra_m says:

    Now that is Olympic-class revisionism. Bill Clinton let the GOP shutdown the entire government. Not just unemployment. So you’re doing apples to oranges here, which you know. Which is alot of work to keep the flames of your disappointment in the failure of your Magic Negro narrative alive.

  27. puck says:

    LOL! Now you’ve topped yourself! You are bloody intense but not one whit serious.

  28. cassandra_m says:

    You, of all people, aren’t in much position to judge “serious”, but I’ll note that you’re waving the white flag here.

  29. Dave says:

    “Work, not welfare” isn’t an empty slogan if you actually provide the jobs. I’d even say welfare reform needs to be expanded to provide child care and more realistic deeper and long-term training and education.”

    I agree. Welfare cannot be just a handout, it needs to be a hand up. Ultimately we buy off our conscience by providing a few dollars. The problem is pervasive and pervasive solutions are needed. I don’t pretend know how to structure the entire solution but I do know that putting food on the table is not the whole answer. Just as everyone knows building sheltaers is not a total solution for homelessness and the Dream Act isn’t a total solution for immigration and a single payer system is not a total solution for health care.

    “The bits that didn’t work were the ones that would help them up. And those bits STILL don’t work.”

    True, and that’s because we approach things in a half assed manner. Somehow we need to begin with the end in mind and understand what it takes to get from the “as is” condition to the “to be condition.”