plus, Clinton likely has the legislative chops (one would hope at this point) to at least make convincing attempts at her proposals. so, if SHE puts social security cuts on the table, they'll likely get passed.

Take yer Republicans who want a super conservative, definitely-in-the-bag-for-big-biz Romney Clone, take yer Dems who want Anyone But Their Guy, and balance that against independents and maybe / maybe-not voters, and it's possible a Conserva-Dem could just flat lose.

We've got a brand, but we keep undercutting it with talk about how we need to hike up our skirts and smile at the rich men in order to succeed.

I that's wrong. I think we win much bigger, much more broadly by selling what we've actually got: Better Ideas.

move in the General, followed by a very real possibility that indies perceive Clinton as "meh."

wearing thin. And the big issue conserva-Dems won't tackle is the biggest one for everyone: Economic reform. Financial re-regulation. Reeling in reckless banks, carbon polluters and bloated CEO palaces in the sky.

I don't think Dems can safely keep whistling past all of that.

Not this time.

this is from the perception of a beltway insider. at the very least you could say he's hitting an anxious tone vis a vis progressive change.

it's understandable -- there's BILLIONS of dollars at stake.


imagine how grotesque that spending is going to seem to families struggling after losing their homes, their jobs and their retirements.

in another 'graph he says…

anyone who's not a reactionary Republican feels like they're more liberal.

wildly liberal, even marxist-socialist-commmie, by a disturbingly large number of American citizens.

It has to have been a part of the masseive, well-funded, RW propaganda plan to make support for anything the slightest bit progressive seem RADICAL! Meanwhile, the R-controlled House is filled with intensely extreme RW cretins, espousing insanely ignorant, reactionary nonsense, and the masses are encouraged by the corporate-controlled media to go, "Well, you know, both sides are just as bad." No. They're not.

branding Obama has a fiery lefty externally (to us) while maintaining his centrist cred internally with fundraisers keen to appease big money donors.

i get it, i really do. fundraising has to be the most difficult job in the world -- but it seems the tail has wagged the dog since i've been old enough to vote.

The only answer is get the money out of the elections. But, the corporate media will not allow that message to go out loud and clear. And as long as the current SCOTUS reigns, we are fked.

everyone sees the corruption this "fundraiser takes all" approach has gotten us.

a fortune on a propaganda push to convince us how unAmurcin that would be. I guess I've become too cynical to believe we can get out of the clutches of the massive, lavishly funded multimedia campaign the RW has been running for years now to convince the public of whatever it is they want us to believe. I hope I'm wrong.

but that seeps into their consciousness. It works. And the RW knows it and uses it.

I wish... hopefully soon.

knowing good and well that rapid cultural transformation comes from tangible change, and being afraid that the kind of tangible change WE need isn't the kind of tangible change HE needs. He's an elite. We're workers -- at the end of the train to use a Snowpiercer tableau.

It's about time we did - time to raise some hell.

It hasn't happened yet, but if and when it does, it will be a very good thing.

The path to long term electoral victory lies in a clearly-defined and principled party whose candidates show that they actually believe in their ideals, and don't just do whatever is politically expedient in the name of 'making something happen'.

a fairly mild path, but he won on strong progressive rhetoric, and to be fair, plowed directly into a way of obstructionism the likes of which America had never seen before.

but truthfully, now that the repubs have acted like bratty two year olds for 6 years & not been called out on it, I don't think we're coming back from this. I think this is the new status quo in DC & on the 'news' shows. They will make their extravagant salaries with all the perks & they will do nothing. They will bicker & they will sue & they will impeach & the media will not call them out on it & America will slip further into the toilet.

They are totally brainwashed.

...will also lie in rebuilding a true left-wing political backstop. By this, I mean re-establishing academia as a bastion of left-leaning thought, the reemergence of a strong labor movement, and the rebuilding of a media infrastructure that challenges government and corporate figures rather than kowtows to them.

While this happens, we'll need to take a page from the Republican playbook and start running in smaller, local elections: school boards, city and county boards, etc. This is where the power base resides, and the more true progressives we get into those local seats (not conservaDems like Blanche Lincoln), the more ability we'll have to run progressive candidates for the higher national and state offices and have a legitimate shot at winning.

BTW - "smaller government" = Right Wing Meme push since the days of Ronniebaby, a meme that has undoubtedly had an impact on those lovely polls cited by the article. It's time to call the meme what it is: total, complete, genuine, USDA-Grade, 200-proof BULLSHIT.

brings back so many horrible memories of the 80s.

I wish we still had unrec.

I think it's somewhat of an unfortunate subject line, because it doesn't give a very accurate snapshot of the content - and the content IS worth reading through.

this is actually from a Facebook post that i replied to earlier today. it was posted by very influential local funder, and I worried about providing him my actual, real opinion on the matter. but this is so important, and it's such a disconnect. we have to fight the hard battles, and we have a responsibility to let our party elites know that where our hearts and minds are at the moment.

-- btw -- it was just a brief not to him…i'd since cogitated deeper after a trip to the grocery store. something about Publix calms me.

I would have maybe followed it with something like: "-- sez Beltway hack."

A few days ago, I edited a post (in a slow-moving Group) that was 2 months old.

What world is this person living in?

Markos maybe a soft one, though he has supported many New Democrats in the past, and he supports the Clinton coronation. Obama is a fellow center-rightist.

Doug Sosnik is a Democratic political strategist and former political director in President Bill Clinton’s White House. Also campaign strategist for Massachusetts Senator John Kerry in 2004 (wonder what his thoughts on Ohio are). Prior to joining the Clinton Administration, Sosnik was the chief of staff for Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd (D-Wall Street), and later worked with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He was most recently an informal adviser to Mark Warner, the former governor of Virginia -- and co-authored of a book (with Maureen Dowd), Applebee's America, about political strategy.

Oh man. That was good. Hysterical. I've not read that solid a piece of satire in ages. It was almost as save the entirely implausible premise, that the author actually believed what was being written/typed on the page.

Bravo!

...when you have circling jerks like the author of this tripe try to define how the left should think, as if we're a doddering band of idiots?

instead i kept trying to find sense in it. made my brain hurt. bad brains.

Talk about a guy (Sosnik) stuck in Beltway status quo conventional wisdom! Not to mention, yet another (supposed) Democrat parroting Republican framing as though it represents some sort of incontrovertable truth.

The sooner we can shunt these kinds of "Democrats" out of power, the sooner we can actually make some real progress.

fighting on our side. i'd rather we all double-down and demand that New Deal we so tragically need to save the middle class.

If they can't do better than parrot right-wing framing, then they honestly need to shut up and get out of the messaging business. They are NOT helping.

quantitive polling data requires qualitative, meaningful analysis and framing. seems like so many writers these days just parrot the poll without giving a second thought about how to respond culturally.

it's turned off a lot young progressives to polling altogether, which i don't think is a good thing. we need both solid numbers and transformative analysis. but some are starting to view all polling as disingenuous.

own progressive impulses."

"the public" has no idea what it truly desires.

The public, in general, swallows whatever it is told -

Change has to begin with reclaiming the media from the corporate right.

no one knows what they want until they see it. and then they want NOTHING else but that. show the vision. appeal to tangible values like being able to have a family, buy a house, retire.

we're being fleeced, and we frankly can't take much more. Like Hanauer says…the pitchforks are around here somewhere.

And the isolationist faction fails miserably.

or, at least plugged in to the Democracy Alliance.

there's a LOT of great organizing going on where I live, and in many other important swing areas. also, LOT's of organizing in already-progressive cities like Seattle.

we need another 50-state strategy. we need to syndicate the work being done in Central Florida and share it. we need to build real infrastructure for progressive work and abandon the "swoop in and put 200 canvassers on the ground" 3-weeks before elections strategy.

that's no strategy at all. it's exploitative.

this point? No thanks, time for the real left to clean this cesspool of a "democracy" up, and the only ones that are up to it are real progressives that have "we the people"'s back, and we KNOW who they are don't we? No more of the same two family names that keep popping up, this is not the UK where only the royals will do.


K & R and sending a wake up call to Clinton's former guy, the people are no longer suffering fools or illusions.

Smaller gov't is what we have, are they f'ing kidding? We've got BIG corporatist rule, is this guy for real? Disconnected...some are forever disconnected. K&R for true discussion that reaches into the heart of the matter.

eom

i've been missing the days when we actually discussed politics around here

If you aren't echoing the same party line BS, you are seemingly not welcome, well screw it. I'm done being a cheerleader for the middle of the damned road status quo that screws us into oblivion. And if people here don't like it, to hell with them, they aren't worth their liberal salt, IMHO.

I'm tired of never ending war and debt while we facilitate the MIC and corporate feudalism, and deny basic necessities to those in poverty through no fault of their own. This shit has to end. Now, I'm off the soapbox (promise ), and finding less and less in common here with the status quo than ever before. Time for a new day? I'm thinking hell yeah.

The DLC crowd still rules the roost, much to the detriment of the party.

The claim that the public wants smaller government is misleading and naïve. The public wants effective government that gets things done. Of course when the right or center right is running things the public wants smaller government--those blocs do nothing to help any people but the wealthy. So, yeah, shrink it.

then heck yeah, we need to shift the balance of power to local cities, counties and states where government is supposedly small enough to have an impact in.

over because there's one thing that Progressives do... they say what they do, and mean what they say... and that's hard to beat, when you have candidates like Hillary who preach one thing, then do for and accept money from those she preaches against.

Money is what allows her to get away with it. Progressive heart will overcome it!

ur doing it wrong.

-Laelth

And the Left has taken over our party?

There's some bit of information I'm missing here. Either that, or the latter claim is ludicrous.

that what they're doing isn't working. 2014 could be a bloodbath. no one wants to confront that reality straight-on.

they need a scapegoat to blame, and that will be, as always, 'the left', rather than their own candidates for being far closer to the right than they need to be to excite voters to actually turn out in large enough numbers.

1. We hear this in every presidential election - in some form or another. Lately it was Howard Dean in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008. I'm not denying it's true, I'm just pointing out we've heard this before.

2. Maybe this is the year. "Purists" from both sides are louder than they've been previously and the tea party has shown it's possible to be successful. I know progressives don't like the comparison and they are certainly major differences, but in so much as we're discussing outsiders getting a foothold in a major party (through various means) I believe the comparison is valid.

3. To be successful, the progressive movement needs a candidate like Hillary Clinton to make the down ticket successful. It's far easier to get progressives elected on the state level and in house seats than in the White House at this point. Given her popularity, she will get Democrats to the polls.

Just my 3 cents.

and simply weird, actually. In both '92 and '08 -- it was the newcomer and the come-back kid that compelled us, who captured our imagination and got us off our couches into voting booths. we could have had "establishment" nominees in both those races, but the new vision won both times.

You may have a point with Obama although some of us knew he was no netroots-style progressive based on his book which was full of Third Way policy. Most didn't get that memo, though.

Bill Clinton was a known commodity. There was no doubt he was a centrist. Democrats just smelled a winner.

But we'll see. I just want to win.

for down ticket races. that it's been the newcomers (rather than the tried-and-trues) that attract attention.

surrender and letting the GOP set the agenda.

After the last confederate flag-waving, Rush Limbaugh loving conservatives have gone to their graves, the Blue Dogs will have seances to figure out what they would have done if they were still alive, and surrender to that.

But, of course it really isn't about surrendering to the GOP, it's about courting the deep pockets behind the GOP. So instead of knee-capping Republicans in elected offices, Blue Dogs say, "I can do what he's doing better!"

it was the Clintonian Way.

elections have become big business, and our presidential races have become strange rituals of genuflection driven by computer generated graphics.

Obama's powder is pretty fucking dry too:

"But if we all are dead, then who will fire the shot?"

They were wrong. And the anti-gay homophobes were never going to vote for Obama anyway, no matter what.

But this is once again a demonstration of the warped positioning in American politics where Ronald Reagan is the "center" and anyone to the left of that is "THE LEFT"

either because of economic status or youth. it was one punch in the throat after another. he and Margaret Thatcher, two peas in a pod.

Nostalgia is an amazingly insidious force on the human mind.

There's also the effect of unchallenged narratives

The first thing we hear from a third way Democrats is the bashing of anyone who says that there's no difference between Democrats and Republicans.

The next we hear from them is the bashing of any Democrat who tries not to sound like a Republican.

They are such strange people.
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What this twit Sosnik is trying to sell us while we're still feeling the effects of the Great Recession is that, in spite of that, Ronald Reagan was really one of our truly great presidents and the Wall Street bankers who robbed us blind are really good guys who deserve the power over our lives that the TPP will give them.

Got a nice word for the Koch brothers, asshole?

Remember, there were the same nitwits who told us that the way to beat the Frat Boy and the Big Dick in 2004 was to shut the fuck up and get behind them on Iraq.

I didn't buy what they were selling then, and I'm not buying it now.

. . . I thought it HAD to be from The Onion.

Pray tell, what "left" would that be? And left relative to what -- today's GOP? Yeah, well, so is Idi Amin.

apparently it's a full-tilt Progressive boogie in the beltway these days.

Why wasn't I notified? lol

Like this should be front page news eh?

Ah I bet its just some wall street hand maiden of the 1%ers getting his jimmies rustled by the specter of Elizabeth Warren as Prez lol

She set up camp in the reich wing baggers heads LOL

... big business. And big Republican fraudcasting.

i use "sneercasting" for the FOX stylings of Megyn Kelly.

a progressive populist candidate IMHO.

This is my favorite:

"While progressive activists are ascendent in the party, there's a countervailing force sure to dash hopes for change, and that's the desire of the American public is to shrink government."

Since Obama became president, the number of Americans who want to expand the role of the federal government has decreased sharply...The botched launch of Obamacare last October only reinforced those perceptions."

"shrinking government" isn't Dem framing. ACA isn't a failure. and so one HAS to question his claim that Clinton is already crowned.

His pronouncements are nonsensical at best, outright lies at worst.

It's rhetoric that's been working, true, but it's disingenuous from the start. Republicans and conservatives don't want "small government." They want weak regulation of business and low taxes for the rich.

Then they want pinpoint, iron-fisted control over what women can do with their reproductive systems and a huge prison system to lock up the poor for minor drug offenses or prostitution. A defense industry the size of the next 10 nations combined, and an aggressive military presence to pave the way for U.S. - friendly regimes the world over.

It's just code for a resource battle that's been sold successfully after decades of drum beating and deception, but at its core, it mostly just resonates because people hate to pay taxes.

And this is where conservative Dems want to lead. Rightwing rhetoric that pleases monied interests and resonates well enough with the populace to slip by, because no one successfully challenges it. It's an easy road, paved with big paydays for professional pundits and campaign strategists.

The whole is piece is a chunk of cognitive dissonance, trying to make an implausible leap from "Dems now see themselves as more liberal" to, "But we can't go that way because the 'small government' rhetoric from the right works too well."

It's nonsense. B does not follow A. This is a scared member of the status quo throwing chaff into the air hoping to head off a liberal turn in the party that apparently scares the crap out of him.

GOOD.

we're not worthy.

:kick:

I was merely pointing out that small government, is not necessarily a bad thing to progressives.

It's how one defines 'small government' that is the issue.
I would make the case that we have an opportunity to hit the GOP on one of the central pillars of their propaganda tower.

i should actually start another thread about the absurd discussions i've had regarding small and big government with so-called NPAs. people have no idea what it means b/c it means nothing.

Sosnik’s last paragraph contains the nut of the article:

However, in an age of political alienation where the majority of Americans lack faith in their institutions in general—and their federal government in particular—Democratic activists will need to reconcile the public’s desire for smaller government with their own progressive impulses.

and it begs the question, what's his motivation? it certainly doesn't seem that he's fighting for an increase in progressive policy. rather he seems to think that just magically happens after Clinton is elected, and we're able to get a more progressive candidate after her 8 years in office.

or maybe if the House is taken over by Progressives in the next 8 years. or when hell freezes over. whichever comes first.


BTW -- the polling on true progressive issues is outstanding, especially when you look at issues that hit working families like Earned Sick Time, maternity leave and minimum wage.

Small government supports a status quo that crosses public and private lines. This social network enriches a plutocracy by milking the the constitutional rights of those around them.

The key is that small government creates the status quo, which means federal politicians who take shortcuts by cultivating relationships with these local boss hogs only make our situation worse.

Along with gun control, the Citizen's wage and environmental reregulation. These bills are gonna rule.

Unlocking our phones is just the beginning, mark my words.

Major K&R, and thank you for this!!! Made my Monday.

/blush

why should taxpayers subsidize corporations who refuse to pay their fair share?

That's a good thing.

If people want small government, they will vote Republican. Democrats don't need to even try to court their vote.

We Democrats need to earn the votes of people who want good government.

It's about communities. Communities thrive when their government is good.

Communities fail when they fail to govern themselves well.

That's true for families as well as for nations.

Jerry Brown, a liberal Democrat, has done a great job pulling California out of debt and driving it into prosperity rather than oblivion. And all that in spite of our horrible drought.

These old conservative clowns do not belong in the Democratic Party. They do not speak, they cannot, based on the Clinton record, speak to the issues of our time. They are Republicans. The Republican Party, of course, is so far to the left that they should be renamed, the Fascist Party. That's what they are.

I became a Democrat in 1952, sitting on my father's knee listening to the Democratic Convention on the radio. We all huddled around. My father called every play, explained every maneuver. My parents were Roosevelt Democrats. So am I. The Party left me there for a while, and I lived overseas for some years. But I am and always have been a Democrat. I think we could earn the trust of more voters if, as a party, we represent them better. And conservative Democrats cannot do that. They cannot represent the real interests of Democratic voters. Why? Because they are in the pay of conservative corporations. That's why.

Especially as they know that a desire for a populist is what derailed Hillary in 2008. They are not merely looking ahead to 2016, they never stopped the 2008 campaign, and still take pot shots at Obama and anyone to the left.

No matter...this time, people will NOT want the Clinton era back; the glorious hippie-punching, soul-selling mess. If hillary wants to survive the primary, she knows she had better not merely campaign left, but also GOVERN left, even if, and especially if, it pisses off her donors.

from the base and from the weird middle topography that's emerged in the "youth" vote (18-35).

also brings up so many bad memories for me vis a vis Gore. i always wanted him to be president. i felt he was made of different stuff than the Clintons, and that a Gore presidency would be vastly different. but progressives in my age group (GenX) who should have been his base, retaliated against him to "protest vote" for old whatshisname.

i'm not a Nader=evil person -- not by any means. but people wanted anything but more Clinton after the Clinton administration. they were sick and tired of the soul-selling.