By Mitchell Bard
Writer and Filmmaker

When it comes to policy positions, I certainly agree with the Democrats far more than the Republicans. (Do the Republicans still have policy positions? Does really, really hating the president, making decisions based primarily on hurting the president politically instead of what is good for the American people, and lying about the president’s programs in an attempt to scare people qualify as a policy position? I’d say not. But I digress …)

But when it comes to how to wield power in Washington once you’ve won an election, give me the Republicans over the Democrats any day of the week. I was reminded of the Democrats’ seeming inability to govern when I read about

the health care bill that finally emerged from Max Baucus’s Senate Finance Committee

, after months of negotiations with three Republicans on the committee.

(To be absolutely clear here, so there are no misunderstandings: When I say that Republicans govern better than Democrats do, I am strictly speaking about how effectively they turn their policy positions into law. I am not saying I want the Republicans to retake the House and Senate, and I do not support the Republican positions on issues, which generally look to protect corporations and the wealthiest Americans at the expense of everyone else, and seek to instill an extreme, religion-based morals agenda on the country. What I’m saying is that I wish the Democrats would act like Republicans once they find themselves in power.)

For most of George W. Bush’s two terms in office, especially during the key period from 2002 to 2006, he had a solidly Republican Congress with which to work. So, despite a razor-thin win in 2000 (losing the popular vote and, in the minds of many, only winning the electoral vote thanks to a flawed, partisan Supreme Court decision), and another narrow victory in 2004, as president, Bush made no effort to moderate his agenda and pursue bipartisan legislation. His party allies in Congress loyally backed nearly all of his proposals, and Bush gleefully rammed through his far-right conservative agenda (massive tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, etc.), which was well to the right of his campaign rhetoric (remember, he was a “compassionate conservative”), without thinking twice about what Democrats thought of what he was doing. His razor-thin margin of victory (and even the fact that fewer people voted for him than his opponent in 2000) didn’t stop him (or his allies in Congress) from moving full-speed ahead with legislation he supported.

Flash forward to 2008. The American people, via their votes, absolutely and unquestionably repudiated the Republican policies of the previous eight years. After giving Democrats narrow advantages in the House and Senate in 2006, voters really “threw the bums out” in 2008, leaving Democrats with a 60-40 majority in the Senate (once Al Franken was seated) and an even more commanding 256-178 lead in the House. The American people also overwhelmingly elected a Democrat to the presidency, handing Barack Obama 365 electoral votes (to 173 for John McCain), with 53 percent of the popular vote going to Obama and only 46 percent to McCain. In two elections, Bush never came close to these kinds of numbers. And Obama managed to win red states like North Carolina and Indiana that few commentators thought the Democrats could even have a chance of taking just a couple of years earlier.

In short, the American people said to the Democrats: We want you to do your thing.

And yet, that isn’t what has happened. Instead, the Democrats in Congress have been timid, looking for Republican support (and making concessions to get it) even though they didn’t need it. At first, it was an admirable pursuit, an effort to leave partisan bickering behind and concentrate on solving the massive problems the current administration and Congress inherited from the disastrous presidency that preceded them. And it was something the president not only supported, but actively pursued. But in the first big legislative test of the bipartisan approach, the stimulus bill, not a single House member voted for the legislation, and only a pair of Republicans in the Senate signed on (it was three, but Arlen Specter later became a Democrat, leaving just Maine’s two senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, as current Republicans who voted for the bill).

The result was weaker stimulus legislation (to try and lure Republicans), but no Republican support. That is a lose-lose for the Democrats (and those suffering from the recession), and a win-win for the Republicans.

The stimulus bill should have been a wake-up call for Democrats in Congress. The way the Republicans stood united in opposition despite Democratic efforts at bipartisanship should have announced loud and clear that the Republicans had no intention of acting reasonably. They had successfully closed ranks, ensuring that not one single Republican in the House voted for the bill and that they didn’t help the president succeed on something that might be viewed as a “win” for him. It should have been a “fool me once” moment from which the Democrats emerged wiser, going forward with the knowledge that the Republicans were only out to obstruct (it was the moment of birth for the Party of No). It should have emboldened Democrats to say, “We won 256 House seats, 60 Senate seats and the presidency. We get to make the rules now. Your guy pushed through his agenda after losing the popular vote. We tried to be nice, and you kicked crap in our faces. We’re done. Have fun on the sidelines watching us enact our agenda.”

But that’s not what happened.

Yes, I understand that you need 60 votes in the Senate to invoke cloture, and yes I know that there is a good size contingent of Blue Dog Democrats in the House and more conservative Democrats in the Senate who would be reluctant to sign off on some of the president’s initiatives. Certainly, compromises would have to be made to ensure that enough Democrats supported a given piece of legislation. But those negotiations should have been handled internally. After the stimulus fiasco, the Democrats should have ensured that when they emerged from a caucus meeting on an issue, they had enough votes to pass it without Republican help, just as Bush and his Republican followers did when they were in power.

And yet, instead, the Democrats keep playing the fool.

Which brings us back to the Baucus debacle. He spent months — months! — negotiating with three Republicans (Olympia Snowe, Chuck Grassley and Mike Enzi) to try and get a bipartisan health care reform bill through his finance committee. Anybody with an IQ above 75 and access to a major daily newspaper knew that there was no meaningful health care reform bill that Enzi and Grassley were going to get behind. Did Baucus listen to and/or read the kinds of things Grassley was saying in interviews and on talk shows? (Two words:

death panels.) The Republicans weren’t going to give the president a win (remember Jim DeMint’s famous health care will be Obama’s “Waterloo” remark

), and they were too beholden to their corporate interests to support anything that would have any real impact on the status quo. The Republicans were obviously stalling, trying to do anything they could to keep the health care reform process from moving forward. Again, this was all obvious to everyone watching … except Baucus.

So what ended up happening? Baucus announced today that he was going forward with a bill and … surprise! … no Republicans are backing it (not even Snowe). But, thanks to Baucus bending over backwards to try and lure Republicans, the Finance Committee bill is weaker than any of the other versions to get through committees in the House and Senate. Enzi, Grassley and Snowe managed to stall the process for months and ensure a weaker bill emerged from the Finance Committee, and they did so without having to actually do anything or give up anything (or support the legislation). Who won that battle, Baucus or the Republicans? If it was a boxing match, Baucus would be bloody and unconscious, and Enzi, Grassley and Snowe would be dancing around the ring, triumphantly holding their hands up in victory.

What Baucus (and the rest of the Democrats in Congress) have to realize is some exceptionally simple math: 60 seats in the Senate + 256 seats in the House + 365 electoral votes = They get to do what they said they would do during the campaign. It really is that simple. Make the Republicans vote against the bills. Make them filibuster what they oppose. Expose them for what they are: the Party of No that puts political games and corporate interests ahead of what is best for the American people.

But no, to Baucus, 60 + 256 + 365 = He has to get on his knees and kiss Republican butt. Sorry, Senator, you get an F in math.

The Democrats won overwhelmingly last November. Now they have to govern. Especially after the way Republicans played them for fools on the stimulus legislation, Democrats don’t have to kowtow to Republicans. They need to get in a room and come up with health care legislation that the 59 Democratic senators (after Ted Kennedy’s passing) — or 51 of them if they go the reconciliation route –and 218 House members can get behind (and that the president will sign) and get it done. If Republicans want to filibuster, vote no, complain, spew lies, hold rallies, go on talk shows, call Obama a socialist, and throw temper tantrums, let them. I am not saying the Democrats shouldn’t fight the public relations battle and shoot down the lies slopped to the public by health care reform opponents, I’m just saying they should do it while passing legislation on their own.

To the Democrats I say: Forget Baucus’s bill. Don’t give the Republicans another victory (one which represents a defeat for the American people). Pass meaningful health care reform, even if not a single Republican votes for it.

60 + 256 + 365. The math is so easy. If only the Democrats could figure it out. I’m happy to email them a link to the election returns every day if it will help.

Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer taught the Democrats how to win elections, which is great. I just wish someone would teach Democrats in Congress how to govern.

MASK
MAST
PALM
PARK
PLAY
RASH

SHATTERED!

Eighteen Million Cracks, and One Crackpot

(author:  Michelle Cottle, The New Republic)

Can someone please tell me what the hell happened? This presidential election was supposed to be a high-water mark for feminism. Hillary Clinton entered the primaries as the first female front-runner in our nation’s history. Better still, she wasn’t running as a Woman Candidate. Yes, Hillary had an established track record of championing so-called women’s issues, including children’s health care, affordable day care, family medical leave, and, of course, reproductive rights. But her focus on strength and experience pretty much precluded her playing the gender card. Forget your garden-variety female pol’s struggle to prove herself tough enough to hang with the Big Boys: Hillary’s entire strategy was to prove that she was tougher than the Big Boys. Fan or foe, few people questioned her basic qualifications to be commander-in-chief, and no one suggested that her political juice was a by-product of identity politics. Whether she won or lost–though the widespread assumption was that her victory was inevitable–Hillary’s candidacy was expected to showcase what it means to be a broad-shouldered, ass-kicking modern woman.

Then, amid the snows of Iowa, it all fell apart. To be fair, New Hampshire may be more to blame. Iowa was where Hillary’s inevitability narrative unraveled, but New Hampshire was where she got the idea that redemption lay in the legions of gals who rallied ’round when the (mostly male) political establishment and punditocracy began salivating at the thought of her imminent demise. That much of the animus toward Hillary had more to do with her last name than her chromosomes did not matter; women objected to seeing one of their own kicked to the curb with such haste. Hillary’s now famous moment of teary-eyed vulnerability fueled their fury. Sisterhood is what resurrected Hillary in New Hampshire.

And, just like that, the strong, proud, fearless, gender-transcendent Hillary morphed into a disrespected, mistreated victim. Grievance feminism came roaring back with a vengeance. Clinton’s supporters increasingly went from praising her gender-neutral success to celebrating her triumph over a male-dominated system and decrying the patriarchal forces still aligned against her. Obama wasn’t just beating Clinton; he was behaving, as Hillary surrogate Geraldine Ferraro charged, in a “terribly sexist” fashion. Party bigwigs, we were told, were pushing Clinton to bow out in a way that they would never pressure a man. Her supporters, meanwhile, saw themselves as suffering the same demeaning treatment women have endured through the ages. As one pro-Hillary group raged, women were being told to “sit down, shut up, and move to the back of the bus.” In May, to combat the growing sense that Clinton had little chance of winning and so should drop out of the race, a group of her devotees formed a group pompously yet plaintively titled Women Count–as though all those who wanted the Democratic race over did so out of disrespect for an entire gender.

By primary’s end, the whining was so intense and Hillary’s struggle so interwoven with the cause of women’s rights that the Democratic National Committee was compelled to insert into its platform this statement: “We believe that standing up for our country means standing up against sexism and all intolerance. Demeaning portrayals of women cheapen our debates, dampen the dreams of our daughters, and deny us the contributions of too many. Responsibility lies with us all.” How sad that, in the year Hillary was supposed to show just how far women have come, Democrats wound up enshrining such a plodding, patronizing admission of how far we apparently have to go.

For those who kept an eye on the inner workings of Hillary’s campaign, the race proved disappointing on a more concrete, personal level as well. Going in, this was supposed to be Hillaryland’s chance to shine. Clinton’s team was stocked with top-level women to a degree that no other presidential campaign had approached. Hillary herself, after years in her husband’s political shadow, was at last free to run things her way. But, as it turned out, Hillary wasn’t much of an organizational leader, delaying key decisions and failing to control her feuding senior staff. The minute Iowa derailed Hillary’s smooth ride, Bill and his people stepped in and began exerting greater influence over the race–much to the dismay of many Hillarylanders. Far from her coming-out party, Hillary’s campaign wound up being just another instance in which Bill and his boys became convinced that they knew best how things should run.

Not even the primary’s resolution could end the drama. As many of Clinton’s supporters and fund-raisers prepared to unify behind Obama, the true dead-enders–an overwhelmingly female cohort–grew ever more marginalized and belligerent. Giving themselves cutesy names (PUMAs! Hillary Villagers!) and loudly venting their rage or sorrow at their hero’s unjust fall, they were increasingly derided as overly emotional and downright nutty. No matter that Americans of both genders tend to cast their presidential votes less on reason than on gut-level intangibles; the extremism of Hillary dead-enders has played into all those tired stereotypes about women being fuzzy-headed and irrational. By the time of the conventions, MSNBC’s notoriously chauvinistic Chris Matthews was far from the only person grumbling about “women of a certain age.”

Then, just when you thought it was all over and the recovery could begin, Republicans handed us Sarah Palin.

The Palin pick is disheartening on so many levels. For starters, even what little we know about the Alaska governor’s policy views is enough to make a traditional feminist weep. The staunchly conservative Palin not only opposes abortion rights (even in cases of rape or incest), she also supports abstinence-only sex education and takes a strict free-market approach toward health care.

Of course, these days, the feminist mantle is claimed by pro-life conservatives and pro-choice progressives alike. Palin herself is a proud member of Feminists for Life. Feminism seems no longer to denote a particular set of values or ideological agenda; it is merely a label appropriated to proclaim that one is committed to the best interests of women–whatever one believes those to be. Thus far, there’s no reason to doubt that Palin devoutly believes her hard-core conservatism is right for women. A McCain-Palin White House, however, would spell only trouble for women’s rights.

Even setting aside Palin’s political views, the governor’s candidacy is a slap in the face to all women. No matter how feisty she is or how darling she looks with a rifle on her shoulder, Palin is abjectly unqualified to sit one heartbeat away from the presidency. She is less than two years into her first term as governor of a state with a population roughly equivalent to that of Baltimore or Fort Worth. Her minimal experience with national domestic issues is overshadowed only by her total lack of experience, or even apparent interest, in foreign affairs. This makes her a bizarre choice for a candidate who has been hawking the need for experience and gravitas in these troubled times–and makes the cynical tokenism of Palin’s selection all the more vivid.

By far the most insulting aspect of Palin’s candidacy is the McCain team’s hope that placing a ballsy female on the ticket will attract some former Hillary supporters by stoking their gender-based resentments against Obama and the DNC. Palin has been happy to encourage this strategy by cheering Hillary’s “eighteen million cracks in the glass ceiling” and offering herself up as a way to help women go even farther. Sadly, some Hillary dead-enders may be so blinded by bitterness that they fall for this nonsense. The rest of us should be outraged by a strategy so nakedly founded on the premise that Hillary gals were driven more by identity politics than by any interest in their candidate’s values, ideology, or qualifications. It’s not just that Palin stands on the opposite side of so many issues dear to Hillary; she is also vastly less accomplished and engaged than the senator from New York. (As political consultant Dan Gerstein has quipped, many Hillary supporters will think Palin “not worthy of carrying their candidate’s pantsuit.”) In Team McCain’s eyes, however, female candidates are pretty much interchangeable and women voters too addlepated to know the difference. We don’t care about issues or experience; we just want someone with the same reproductive parts as ours.

None of which is to disparage Palin’s inherent intelligence, political savvy, or judgment. It’s entirely possible that some day she could make a top-notch vice-presidential, or even presidential, candidate. But, at this point, we are talking about a woman who makes Dan Quayle circa 1988 look like an elder statesman.

Alas, fair or not, like all public figures who rise to prominence as tokens, Palin’s failures will reflect on the group she has been tapped to represent. If McCain loses in November, Palin will become a punchline <!– /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –>à la Geraldine Ferraro. Hopefully, women have progressed enough in politics that a McCain-Palin loss would not prompt lingering hesitations about putting women front and center in positions of power. But there’s little doubt that every clueless, unprepared, or unpresidential word out of Palin’s mouth will have tongues clucking over what the need to cater to women voters has wrought.

Working mothers in particular should be holding their breath. The McCain camp’s decision to pitch Palin’s Supermom-of-five status as one of her chief assets has opened yet another front in the endless and endlessly counterproductive Mommy Wars. The moment Palin’s addition to the ticket was announced, women began publicly and privately savaging the hard-charging governor for perceived mothering missteps both great and small. (What kind of pregnant woman is reckless enough to travel twelve-plus hours from Texas to Alaska after her water breaks? What mom subjects her pregnant, unmarried 17-year-old to the scrutiny of a presidential race?! How dare she take her newborn to a campaign event without socks?!!) How, or whether one should even try, to balance career and family remains a raw subject for women in this country, and the centrality of Palin’s motherhood to her candidacy guarantees that this corrosive debate will rage for the remainder of the election.

Am I suggesting that all of these setbacks for feminism are Palin’s fault? Or Hillary’s? Or that there is nothing at all to celebrate in their achievements? Of course not. Neither would I argue for a second that these smart, ambitious women shouldn’t be pushing as hard as they can to get what they want out of life. But, as with any enduring movement, feminism has its shining moments and its discouraging ones. I just wish someone had warned me ahead of time that this election season would wind up falling with such a thud into the latter category.

Suspicions about Sen. Obama’s true motives have been building over the past few weeks, but not until today have the bloggers called him out for betraying the Democratic Party’s losing tradition.

“Barack Obama seems to be making a very calculated attempt to win over 270 electoral votes,” wrote liberal blogger Carol Foyler at LibDemWatch.com, a blog read by a half-dozen other liberal bloggers. “He must be stopped.”

But those comments were not nearly as strident as those of Tracy Klugian, whose blog LoseOn.org has backed unsuccessful Democratic candidates since 2000.

“Increasingly, Barack Obama’s message is becoming more accessible, appealing, and yes, potentially successful,” he wrote. “Any Democrat who voted for Dukakis, Mondale or Kerry should regard this as a betrayal.”

Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean said that he was “sympathetic” to the concerns of bloggers who worry that their nominee seems stubbornly bent on winning the election, but he warned them that the DNC’s “hands are tied.”

“If Sen. Obama is really determined to win, I don’t think any of us can talk him out of it,” Mr. Dean said.

Liberal bloggers said that they would be watching Sen. Obama’s vice-presidential selection process “very closely” for signs that he is plotting to win the election.