Happy Independence Day! Hope you all are enjoying it. Unfortunatley, I'm stuck at work, but the holiday pay cushions the blow of having to work, and I'll get off in time for fireworks. But our question today is a natural one: with all the recent claims of "concern trolling" against contributors who have always been of a good value to the discussions we've had, and now with a diary on the rec list touting how we all just need to shut the hell up on FISA and abortion, has MyDD jumped the shark?

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Thanks, Jerome, for the gig. And I don't see the point of having a gig like this if I don't plug my new (political) novel. Buy it. You'll like it. Probably.

It was about a year ago that I decided to support Edwards. I did so for many reasons (which I discuss here and here) but for one reason above all others: I believed he would be the most progressive candidate among the top-tier. And so he has; he is. On virtually every important issue--health care, taxes, trade, climate change, poverty, even foreign policy--he's running to the left of Obama and Clinton. We've arrived at the point where progressives have to concoct reasons not to support him.

More important than any single position is this:

No more pontificating, no more vacillating, no more triangulating, no more broken promises, no more pats on the head, no more `we'll get around to it next time,' no more taking half a loaf, no more `tomorrow.

Undergirding his campaign is the belief that the Democratic Party needs to more progressive. Clinton certainly doesn't share this belief. And Obama, for all of his attributes, doesn't seem to, either. In any case, it's neither an organizing principle of Obama's campaign nor part of his rhetoric. Obama clearly thinks Democrats should be more open to religion and more adept at projecting a muscular foreign policy. But if Obama thinks Dems need to be more unabashedly progressive, more heedless of Republican smears and frames, he's not saying so.

Like John McCain in 2000, Obama offers a reformer's critique, that D.C. needs to be cleansed of the cynicism and corruption wrought by $$$. It's an important belief, one that Edwards shares, but even if all the lobbyists on K-Street were to spontaneously combust from guilt, there would still be one political party bent on serving corporations and the rich, a party that for the last thirty years has made Democrats insecure and self-doubting, scared to be themselves. Republicans don't try to marginalize and demonize Democrats just because Corporate America wants them to but because they themselves want to. And by the way, K-Street lobbyists aren't going to spontaneously combust from guilt.

That's why it's exciting to see Edwards build frames in which a new politics can be played. Rather than trying to out-hawk Republicans, he's redefining what it means to be tough on terrorism. This is the best moment of the race so far, the best moment any candidate has had.

It is now clear that George Bush's misnamed "war on terror" has backfired--and is now part of the problem.

The war on terror is a slogan designed only for politics, not a strategy to make America safe. It's a bumper sticker, not a plan. It has damaged our alliances and weakened our standing in the world.

As a political "frame," it's been used to justify everything from the Iraq War to Guantanamo to illegal spying on the American people. It's even been used by this White House as a partisan weapon to bludgeon their political opponents. Whether by manipulating threat levels leading up to elections, or by deeming opponents "weak on terror," they have shown no hesitation whatsoever about using fear to divide.

But the worst thing about this slogan is that it hasn't worked. The so-called "war" has created even more terrorism--as we have seen so tragically in Iraq. The State Department itself recently released a study showing that worldwide terrorism has increased 25% in 2006, including a 40% surge in civilian fatalities.

By framing this as a "war," we have walked right into the trap that terrorists have set--that we are engaged in some kind of clash of civilizations and a war against Islam.

The "war" metaphor has also failed because it exaggerates the role of only one instrument of American power--the military. This has occurred in part because the military is so effective at what it does. Yet if you think all you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail.

And unlike Bill Clinton and most of the other Democrats who play on the national stage, he doesn't concede that big government is bad, or that a balanced budget is beautiful. On the contrary, he proudly advocates social spending, as if oblivious to decades of Democratic cowardice:

[T]here's gonna be hard judgments that have to be made--my commitment is to have universal health care, to do things that have to be done about this energy situation and global warming, because I think they're enormous threats, not only to the people of America but to the future of the world, for America to lead on some of these big moral issues that face the world, and I think America has to do something about poverty, I just do. Those are higher priorities to me than the elimination of the deficit.

As I explain here, I love the campaign Edwards is running. Its (intelligent) assumption is that Primary voters include lots of progressives, and that progressives will like a progressive candidate, especially one that's eminently electable. He'll look good to comparison shoppers. In Iowa he'll form a winning coalition out of passionate supporters and pragmatists worried about Clinton's electability and Obama's experience.

The danger for Edwards is not that he runs too far to the left but that he doesn't run far enough. Clinton and Obama are working to blur distinctions, so he needs to take clearly superior positions on important, emotionally charged issues. He should have supported full defunding of the war earlier than he did and blasted Obama for his recent hawkish grandstanding on Pakistan. The race would look quite different if Edwards supported gay marriage or wanted to cancel NAFTA.

But there are always opportunities to take stands for progressive values. Maybe the most under-discussed issue in the country is our criminal justice system, particular the disastrous and racist War on Drugs. He should call for withdrawal from the WOD: not legalization but policies that focus on rehabilitation instead of imprisonment. Edwards needs to make voters understand what the press is just beginning to realize: of the leading contenders, he's the boldest progressive.

For Edwards, there is only one path to the nomination, and it runs hard left.

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The score in the senate is that a single Democratic defection allows Dick Cheney to decide the issue. For Republicans, the number one target to undermine Harry Reid's leadership is Max Baucus. Even the conservative Joe Lieberman Weekly wrote, "What Baucus does is use his influence as the top Democrat on the Finance Committee to systematically undercut his party and enable George W. Bush's most egregious domestic legislation."

Today's Washington Post has a story, Democrats to Push Pocketbook Issues where we see Baucus hinting of siding with big corporations to undermine Harry Reid and screw over working people:

Many in the party want to change Medicare's new drug benefit so the government can negotiate prices directly with pharmaceutical companies. Incoming Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) remains unsure. "We need to be very honest in getting the facts" about whether such a switch would be helpful, he said.

Would lowering prescription drug prices be helpful? For you and I, yes. But Max Baucus is wondering whether triangulating against Democrats will help his re-election campaign.

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The Bush administration knew what this election was about, and that's why Donald Rumsfeld is out of office.

Democrats pushing the conservative line, or giving credit to Rahm Emanuel, don't get it.  Rahm Emanuel did everything he could to lose the House.  His recruiting and use of money was strategically unwise, and he was bailed out by a national trend that brought us the Senate, the Governorships, state legislative chambers, and state constitutional officers all over the country.  

Democrats have won back the House. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), nearly tripped over himself on the way to the microphone to claim the credit. In fact, while the tidal wave in the House looks like a bit of strategic genius by Emanuel--and pundits are starting to call it that way (Howard Fineman on MSNBC noted that the Democrats even picked up a seat in Kentucky, where the 3rd District candidate was John Yarmuth--"Emanuel's fourth choice!" Fineman exclaimed, as if in awe of the power possessed by Emanuel's mere table scraps)--in race after race, it actually represents the apotheosis of forces Emanuel has doubted all long: the netroots.

In two competitive House races in the Bluegrass State, Emanuel's first choices lost by 9 and 12 points. In the 2nd District it was Colonel Mike Weaver, the cofounder of Commonwealth Democrats, a group of conservative Democratic state legislators. In the 4th, it was Ken Lucas, a former congressman whom Robert Novak recently called "moderate conservative" in a column Emanuel's "recruiting coup" in coaxing Lucas out of retirement. Both were the kind of candidates Emanuel has favored in his famous nationwide recruiting drive. Yarmuth, meanwhile, was founder of the state's first alternative newspaper, said things on the campaign trail things like "the No Child Left Behind Act ... is a plan deliberately constructed to create 'failing' schools," and called for "a universal health care system in which every citizen has health insurance independent of his or her employment."

It was a pattern repeated across the country. New Hampshire's 1st District delivered Carol Shea-Porter, a former social worker who got kicked out of a 2005 Presidential appearance for wearing a T-shirt that said turn your back on bush. That might have been her fifteen minutes of fame--if, last night, she hadn't defeated two-term Republican incumbent Jeb Bradley. For the chance to face him, however, she had to win a primary against the DCCC's preferred candidate, Jim Craig--whom Rahm Emanuel liked to much he had the unusual move of contributing $5000 to his primary campaign. Shea-Porter dominated Craig by 20 points--and then was shut out by the DCCC for general election funds.

Not all Emanuel's losing recruits were beaten in primaries. Some were beaten in the general election. Christine Jennings, a banker and former Republican gunning for Katherine Harris's former House seat lost in a squeaker to conservative Republican Vern Buchanan. Dan Seals, a black moderate in the Barack Obama mold who criticized the Democratic Party even in speeches to Democratic crowds, lost to the Republican incumbent in Emanuel's backyard, Illinois's 10th District--as did the DCCC's most talked-about recruit, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois's 6th. Emanuel poured as astonishing $3 million into her campaign. It bought her a four-point defeat. Activists say the money would have been better spent on all the promising candidates to whom Rahm wouldn't give the time of day.

Many of them won anyway. John Hall is poised to become the Democrats' version of Sonny Bono--a former environmental and anti-nuclear activist and co-author of the hit 1970s hit "Still the One," he just won New York's 19th District House seat. Chris Carney, now heading to Washington to represent Pennsylvania's 10th, beat beleaguered incumbent (and alleged-strangler) Don Sherwood. "Until Carney was ahead by double digits," complained Howie Klein of DownWithTyranny, a blog that backed his candidacy, "Rahm wouldn't take his phone calls." Larry Kissell, a high school social studies teacher, is, as of this writing, in a statistical dead heat with an incumbent Republican from of all places, North Carolina. Says Klein: "If Rahm had a little bit of foresight to see this guy was for real, and to see that he was a candidate who could have won, a little bit of money would have made all the difference for him."

Rahm Emanuel did his best to force Howard Dean to move money out of party building and into his terrible TV ad program that lost IL-06.  He sniped at Dean, at Moveon, at George Soros, at blogs, at anyone he could.  He ran scared, and he put his thumb on the scale against liberal Democrats.  He couldn't even win in his own backyard, with the milquetoast Dan Seals and charismatically moderate Tammy Duckworth.  Most significantly, for a good amount of time he didn't want Democrats to mention Iraq, period.  If Rahm Emanuel were actually been a loyal Democrat instead of someone hellbent on sabotaging liberals, imagine how many seats we could have picked up.  

It's clear that what happened last night was a repudiation of Bush and the Iraq war, and the beginning of the era of partial power for the progressive movement.  It's the very very beginning.  Realize that the 'victory for conservative Democrats' meme is being pushed all over Limbaugh and by the White House.  It's false.  Economic progressives won, some of whom are more conservative on social issues, and some of whom are not, did extremely well.  A wave of liberals won in the Northeast.  And the South is not part of our governing coalition.

Now that we've come so far so fast, there will be a vicious reaction against us, against the liberal blogs and the progressive movement.  Consultants will gather and snicker and collude, and we're going to be sold out by our seeming friends.  DLC backwash groups are already having meetings figuring out how to strike at us, and Joe Lieberman is going to be their main weapon.

But at the end of the day, all the narratives and bickering can't disguise the fact that there are a lot of new liberals and populists in the House and Senate.  Senator Tester and his incoming crew will hopefully make DC look a little more like Montana.

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-- crossposted from mnblue.com

A woman I know, Maryellen -- a rock star door knocker and volunteer, emailed me.  We'd talked a few weeks ago about doorknocking in the suburbs.  She wanted to organize a bunch of her friends in the city and suburbs to doorknock for Keith Ellison who is running for the MN-06 seat vacated by Martin Sabo.  She was correctly concerned that next to nothing would be done in the suburbs for Keith other than mailings.  You may recall that Pam Costain told me she wished that they'd been able to do more in the suburbs, that when people heard from a volunteer about Keith, they liked him.  In the runup to the primary, they simply didn't have enough time to get that aspect organized.  Since the Ellison Campaign is back to most of the people who were originally running it, the suburban effort (as far as I can tell) is haphazard.

I knew Maryellen would have a positive experience out there in MN-05 suburbia from my experience as a canvasser for Clean Water Action (which is the most powerful environmental group in the state) from 1988 to 1993.  Put me in a trailer park, I'd raise a ton of money.  Put me in the Seward, the Wedge or Kingfield (progresssive, middle-to-upper class) neighborhoods, I'd raise a ton of money.  Put me in East or West Lake of the Isles Pkwy or even the Lake Minnetonka area where the millionaires live, I'd raise a ton of money.  The fact is if you're excited about your cause, speak well, people will listen to you.  Door knocking isn't rocket science or Renaissance fresco painting ... passion will go a long way.  To make it easier, she wasn't asking for money.

She's allowed me to relay her email:

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