I am delighted that Obama has quit saying that we must work with the President because Bush is our commander in chief, which Obana was still saying early this week..  Continuing to say this would have doomed any chance he had for the Democratic nomination.

It is fine for him to say we must work in a bipartisan way, because since Wednesday this means working with Republicans to oppose escalation, but the insistence on working with the President was suicide-city for his chances.

I think he will run.

I do not think that this legislative shift to the left was at unplanned or preconscious.  I think it is the result of some very conscious calculations starting with the one that the Democrats made when they replaced Gephardt with a San Francisco liberal as speaker.  They knew that the Right would have a field day with Pelosi being from California and holding very liberal positions, and the Right did.  I have been reading it for a long time on NewsMax, which is my handy indicator of Republican memes.

It was not at all obviious to me that this was a good move at the time, and media coverage of the choice of Pelosi was uniformly negative.  The Democratic caucus knew that would be the case when they made the decision.  

Nancy Pelosi and the caucus have done some very careful and conscious planning and calculating about the "Six in 06" to make our current momentum happen.  It was crucial that there be no big mistake or rebuff at the very beginning of the 110th Congress.  Any media frenzy would have been disastrous.  They needed to build some momentum and demoralize the Republicans.

I believe that part of the reason Bush delayed his speech on Iraq was to disrupt the positive PR that Rove knew the Six in 06 would create and to block coverage of it.  Originally this appeared to be working, but CNN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times have continued to follow the House legislative successes, although NBC and MSNBC have not.

It has been quite tricky for the Democratic House to keep the agenda moving and stay on top of Iraq, defunding, etc., and they have been successful.  By the way, I have seen better and more articulate Democrats appearing on TV than before the election.  The message is clearer and firmer.

Democrats have a strange reluctance to ever acknowledge that their leaders ever have any courage or successful strategy and skill.  I am all for exposing the Liebermans and the cowards, of whom there are plenty, but if we do not balance this with recognition that our successes are not lucky accidents but the result of good planning and strategy and even courage, we feed into the media narrative that only Republicans have courage, toughness, and principles.  This was very damaging to us in 04.  I think this perception cost us the Presidency and that we should not be reinforcing it, as it will continue to hurt us.

Whether or not democracy is affecting Democrats (and I think it is), it is definitely affecting Republicans.  The fact that Brownback and Lugar and Hagel oppose escalation (solely due to the pressure from the public) --and there will soon be other Republican opponents of escalation--will put  tremendous pressure on Democrats who support escalation or say that we should allow the President his way.

Democrats cannot go along with escalation while Republican presidential candidates oppose it, without great political harm to their own reelection as well as to the Democratic Party's presidential chances in 08.  They cannot allow the Republican candidates to align themselves with a position which has 88 pct support by the American people while they align with escalation which has 12 pct support..  Tauscher has already figured this out, and Steney Hoyer soon will.

The Republican defections change the risk factors completely--Dems can align with the very unpopular escalation and the debacle which will almost certainly follow its implementation, or align with opposition to escalation alongwith the overwhelming majority of the  American public.

Unless Obama changes the position he staked out today, he has doomed his chance for the Democratic normination.  He is now to the right of Hillary Clinton.  McCain has probably also doomed himself.

I think we are not factoring in Reality in Iraq enough here.  I admit it is not entirely knowable, but  I think Bush will send the surge, even if the Democrats defund it.  Then one of three things will happen 1) the troops will attack the Mehdi army and fail due to Iraqi forces not doing their part, or 2) the troops will attack the Mehdi army and fail and Iran will descend into a terrible bloodbath with political chaos, murders of cabinet members, and many US casualties, etc. or 3) Maliki will forbid the troops from attacking the Mehdi army due to his forseeing no. 2

All of this will generate much coverage and horrifying pictures, or in the case of no. 3, disgust with Iraq and Maliki.  The Democrats will not be held responsible nor will the public reaction be, "This is due to the weak Democrats."  The public will blame Bush.  Republican congressmen are afraid of this.

The horrors to come in Iraq if we really do take on the Muqtada al Sadr are going to be so awful that the coverage is going to be riveted on the fall-out and "What is Bush going to do now?" not the Democrats.

I do think the Democrats are wise to wait until Bush actually makes the speech, then they should defund the surge, if they have been able to get the votes.  If they do not have enough Democratic votes, they should not hold the vote.  

Instead of attacking "Democrats" as weak, I hope MyDD will identify the Dems who are wavering or opposed, put out their phone numbers and ways of contacting them, and mobilize the kind of effort that they did for Net Neutrality.  I think it would be a big mistake to try to approach this with a broad-brush "Democrats are weak,"  or "the leadership is weak" or "Nancy Pelosi screwed us over" which does not motivate nondefunders to change their votes and hurts our brand and validates Republican talking points about the unfitness of "weak" Democrats to govern.  Rather, we should target individual Dems and tpush them to vote to defund.

Walking past my TV with C-Span a few days ago I saw a slender gray haired gentleman tearing into the war on Iraq and how the troops should be brought home as soon as possible.  Wow, I thought, Harry Reid has really become a fireball!

Then the name appeared on the bottom of the C-Span screen:  Ron Paul, R, Texas 14, Victoria.

Everything is different now.  The Dems have nothing to fear from opposing escalation--it is the Republicans who are terrified of supporting it.  As more and more Republicans--and very conservative Republicans from conservative districts --oppose the surge, it is going to put tremendous pressure on the Lieberman-type Dems.  Any such Dem senators must be feeling very lonely after the Republican senators met with Bush and said they would not support it.  It is going to be very interesting watching the Lieberman-types twisting in the wind worrying about the Republicans try to outflank them on opposing escalation.

Pelosi made a very strong statement in November on the day of her election to Speaker right after Hoyer and Rahm's caucus elections, that the war in Iraq needed to end and that our troops needed to come home soon.

Curiously it was ignored, and commenters on this site began to attack her as stupid and cowardly and to predict that she would fold.  She has been very bold in standing against the war and in pursuing a Progressive agenda but I am slowly coming to believe that we are just waiting for even the flimsiest of quasi-excuses to attack her as spineless.

The mainstream media narrative is that she is tough and courageous and willling to take a stand and to do battle--as has been quite obvious for well over a year now, although the media have only recently acknowledged this.   I think attacks by pro-business Democrats will merely strengthen that "tough Pelosi" narrative, but that it may be in the power of progressive critics to replace this media narrative about her with a new narrative that Pelosi is weak, cowardly, and clueless.  

The method will be to repeatedly and loudly predict that she will fold on the war, on the Jennings election, on the surge, on witholding funding for the war, on the Progressive agenda, and then ignore it when she does the contrary land to undo the reality of her steadfastness by making a new and loud prediction of her spinelessness and caving in.

I watched us destroy own own in the 1970s.  Repeated predictions of Pelosi weakness and faithlessness have a very good chance of succeeding in severely damaging the new Democratic caucus now as well, especially as they so closely miirror Republican talking points about why Democrats should not be allowed to govern.

Very good job in a stressful format.

I do think you should ignore the insults, letting your mature bonhomie contrast with their boorishness.  Just address the issue.  If they raise several issues, pick the one you feel your listeners need to hear about most and address that one, and ignore all the other stuff, including Harvard, your youth, whether you are a crazy liberal, etc.  

I feel every discussion of corporate welfare should start with Halliburton.  Even the angry older male caller could have gotten the point with regard to no bid contracts, etc.  I also feel that we should always bring up Wendy Gramm when we discuss Halliburton.  I think egregious concrete examples work better than statements which sound all-embracing and theoretical.  I agree with the theory, but it lends itself to apparent invalidation through the caller highlighting some small detail that seems contrary to your argument, such as some piece of corporate good behavior.

Get a fancier title.  The screen identified you as "blogger."  I think you need to be Political Analyst, MyDD.com, or some such.

Great job--you are a very clear, fluent speaker and you think quickly and well on the fly, and you have an engaging TV personality.  I hope you do a lot more of these.

I thought all the action projects like the Candidate memo, the Use It or Lose it,  the Google Bomb (brilliant idea and must have been an incredible amount of work), the Adwatch, etc. were wonderful and had a real impact on the election..

I loved all the forecasts and read them obsessively.  They saved my sanity.

I confess I did not read the Candidate Interviews.  Capsule summaries would have been better for me, although I realize that an interview is fairer to the candidates..

If the largest block of non voters in 04 was single women, who are surely a naturally Democratic and even Progressive opportunity, would it be possible to do some polling or even some Greenberg-type message testing on them? What, if anything, would motivate them to go to the polls and vote?  They could really help us in 08.

I saw Charlie Rangell on C-Span today moderate a panel of mayors--which included Bloomberg.  Rangel felt that mayors could lobby Congress more and have more impact.  I would love to know more about this.  If any one is willing to profile the big city mayors or to figure out how they could have more of an impact on social policy, that would be fascinating and perhaps useful.  The Democrats are going to need all the help they can get to pass their agenda.  

I think Pelosi's support for Murtha  was an excellent tactical move and very low cost, coming right before Thanksgiving and, better yet, right before the Republican selection of THEIR caucus leadership, which should be contentious and soak up news coverage.

Her support for Murtha, coming in after it was certain he would lose, helped her pressure Hoyer on the war, as she made clear in her very strong comments on the war after the caucus announced the results of the leadership vote.  It also allows her to hammer Murtha on supporting ethics reform, which he committed to during his remarks today.  I feel sure she got that commitment before supporting him.  

She got traction on two of her biggest problems, Hoyer's past attacks on redeployment as "catastrophic"  and Murtha's opposition to ethics reform, both of which have the potential to be far more damaging in terms of news coverage than this little rift, which I think will probably be dwarfed by the Republican problems--Hastert issues, Pence, etc.

Preventive actions often look "colossolly stupid" because you never see the bad things that the tactic prevented since they do not take place and cause bad news coverage, policy disasters, etc.

I believe that Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic caucus have already made the decision not to follow Rahm's strategy, so that Rahm's efforts via the media are feeble and self-deluding.

Pelosi's statement in her letter supporting Matha speaks volumes re strategy:

"Working with all the groups in our Caucus over the past two years, we focused the national debate around issues that clearly differentiated Democrats from Republicans"

It was not necessary for her to include that statement in her letter of support but she did.

Her statement about Murtha "I salute your courageous leadership that changed the national debate and helped make Iraq the central issue of this historic election" also speaks volumes about  strategy.

The DLC and Rahm in particular pride themselves on fund raising, so I think there is something close to a provocative tone in her statement that Murtha's personal solicitations for funds are "unsurpassed"

"your unsurpassed personal solicitations produced millions of dollars which were new to the effort"

I think the strategy battle is over, and Rahm lost, hence his lowly position in the party hierarchy.  Had he won more of his targeted races, I think he might well be Majority Whip, but the Democratic leadership knows how to count just as well as we do.

I respect Rahm's fund-raising and hard work, but his strategy did not pan out, and this has not gone unnoticed where it counts.

Curiously enough, there is one race Rahn lost--or withdrew from because he knew he would lose--the race for majority whip.

The House leadership choices, Pelosi on down,  including Committee chairs, gives some hints about which  direction the Democratic house majority will be going.

Rahm is losing this battle badly.  The Chicago Tribune article is probably a puff piece reward for some "insider information" he gave them on the elections.  Not that he won't win some skirmishes down the line, and probably cause trouble, too, but right now he is losing.

I wonder if all of this trumpeting how mainstream and center the new Democratic house will be doesn't cause some problems for the Republicans, who are going to need to brand it as a bunch of wild-eyed radicals.  It might have some inoculating effect.  It makes tRepublicans feel better to say that their philosophy has not been rejected, only co-opted by Democrats, but I think they would have been better off saying that the Dems are leftist loons.

Yesterday when Scarbarough admiringly covered Kerry's defense of his remark  and also covered Rangel's calling Cheney an SOB, I wondered if the Dems had not done this deliberately to show that they were willing to take on Bush and fight for what they believed in.  I was delighted, as it was clearly working.  Rangell did a wonderful job defending his calling Cheney an SOB and highlighting the issues Dems are running on, and reminded everybody of what Cheney's "Go F yourself" remarks.

Sadly, that fantasy died today.
Bobbles

I gave some money to Dr, Victoria Wulsin, who is running against Mean Jean Schmidt.  Victoria was tied with her in one poll, and we know how close Paul Hackett came.  This seems a very winnable race based on the above.  And you get two for one:  get rid of Mean Jean, who called Murtha a traitor,  and get a true progressive who is an expert on health care.

Dr. Wulsin called me personally this morning and we chatted at some length.  She seems the real deal to me.  This is a low money campaign where a little money can mean a lot to her campaign.  So please think about contributing, even a small amount.--this is Ohio, people.  Think about watching Mean Jean pop up on cable for the next two years--that alone is pretty motivating, and you get a very smart, experienced, passionate Progressive candidate if Wulsin wins.  I think she needs money now, so I am going to do what I am recommending to everyone here who has a little cash to do.  Small donations count in this race.

For more info, see Firedoglake
http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/08/19/bl ue-america-dr-victoria-wulsin-oh-2-if-yo u-believe-in-americas-future/#more-4065

Bobbles

My effort to put the war and how little I feel I do about it compared to what I ought to do, although I do not actually like the stuff described in the poem.

ACCESSORIES  

I sit at my desk, flicking
Salvation Army pleas for Katrina's
victims, the Houston homeless,
and political donation requests
aside in a pile to be dealt
with later, checks to be written
later when I have more time,
lifting instead the fat catalogs,              
of marblized pens, leather desk sets,
figurines, picture frames anodized in gold        
or painted with roses, ivy--page after page
of sets of collectibles, glossy accessories.
I pick out waste baskets--brass canisters
trendier than mahogany veneer--then candlesticks
glistening in crystal, their wax tapers,
or scented paraffins spreading
a molten glow across the photo.

Off to the side, the TV brightens,
seethes with orange flares, as blasts
smash walls, scatter bricks, debris,
bundles of severed flesh, scorched clothes.
A flash of white lights up the room;
fires tremble in dark windows, mirrors--
the stacks of toppling paper shine.

END