Four out of five voters prefer real Republicans to fake ones

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I made that stat up but I believe the sentiment (“truthiness“?) holds.   Paul Waldman, The Keystone XL Issue May Be Resolved With—Shocker—Democratic Capitulation:

The current Democratic effort to help Mary Landrieu win her runoff election by scheduling a quick vote on the Keystone XL pipeline has to be one of the most politically idiotic moves in recent history. As I argued yesterday, not only is it guaranteed to fail in its goal of helping Landrieu, it gives Republicans a huge policy victory while getting nothing in return. Runoff elections have extremely low turnout, and the only way Landrieu stands a chance is if she can convince lots of Louisiana Democrats to go to the polls to save her. This kind of me-too policymaking—I’m just as pro-oil as Republicans are!—is about the last thing that’ll pump up Democratic enthusiasm.

Harry Truman called out me-too policymaking over 60 years ago:

I’ve seen it happen time after time. When the Democratic candidate allows himself to be put on the defensive and starts apologizing for the New Deal and the fair Deal, and says he really doesn’t believe in them, he is sure to lose. The people don’t want a phony Democrat. If it’s a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat, and I don’t want any phony Democratic candidates in this campaign.

(Hat tip to Ron C for the Truman quote.)

Friday must reads

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Two must reads:

1.  Mike Konczal, “The [University of North Carolina] Coup and the Second Limit of Economic Liberalism”:

There was a quiet revolution in the University of North Carolina higher education system in August, one that shows an important limit of current liberal thought. In the aftermath of the 2014 election, there’s been a significant amount of discussion over whether liberals have an economic agenda designed for the working and middle classes. This discussion has primarily been about wages in the middle of the income distribution, which are the first major limit of liberal thought; however, it is also tied to a second limit, which is the way that liberals want to provide public goods and services.

Read his full post for the details

2.  The Oatmeal explaining to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) how Net Neutrality works.

[I] assume one of two things:

Thing #1:

When you [Sen. Cruz] accepted campaign funds from telecom lobbyists last year, they asked that you publicly smear Net Neutrality.

Thing #2:

You don’t actually know what Net Neutrality is.

There is very little I can do about Thing #1, and so instead I’ll work of fixing Thing #2.  And I’m going to do that by being a super terrific At dude and explaining to you exactly how Net Neutrality works.

His explanation involves a lot of crabs.   (It’s both educational and entertaining.)

Good morning. It’s Senator Warren with your wake-up call.

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren in the Washington Post:

There have been terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Election Days for Democrats before — and Republicans have had a few of those, too. Such days are always followed by plenty of pronouncements about what just changed and what’s going to be different going forward.

But for all the talk of change in Washington and in states where one party is taking over from another, one thing has not changed: The stock market and gross domestic product keep going up, while families are getting squeezed hard by an economy that isn’t working for them.

The solution to this isn’t a basket of quickly passed laws designed to prove Congress can do something — anything. The solution isn’t for the president to cut deals — any deals — just to show he can do business. The solution requires an honest recognition of the kind of changes needed if families are going to get a shot at building a secure future.

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Daniel Bolger, The Truth About the Wars

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Lt. Gen. (ret.) Daniel Bolger in the NY Times, The Truth About the Wars:

As a senior commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, I lost 80 soldiers. Despite their sacrifices, and those of thousands more, all we have to show for it are two failed wars. This fact eats at me every day, and Veterans Day is tougher than most.

As veterans, we tell ourselves it was all worth it. The grim butchery of war hovers out of sight and out of mind, an unwelcome guest at the dignified ceremonies. Instead, we talk of devotion to duty and noble sacrifice. We salute the soldiers at Omaha Beach, the sailors at Leyte Gulf, the airmen in the skies over Berlin and the Marines at the Chosin Reservoir, and we’re not wrong to do so. The military thrives on tales of valor. In our volunteer armed forces, such stirring examples keep bringing young men and women through the recruiters’ door. As we used to say in the First Cavalry Division, they want to “live the legend.” In the military, we love our legends.

Here’s a legend that’s going around these days. In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq and toppled a dictator. We botched the follow-through, and a vicious insurgency erupted. Four years later, we surged in fresh troops, adopted improved counterinsurgency tactics and won the war. And then dithering American politicians squandered the gains. It’s a compelling story. But it’s just that — a story.

The surge in Iraq did not “win” anything. It bought time. It allowed us to kill some more bad guys and feel better about ourselves. But in the end, shackled to a corrupt, sectarian government in Baghdad and hobbled by our fellow Americans’ unwillingness to commit to a fight lasting decades, the surge just forestalled today’s stalemate. Like a handful of aspirin gobbled by a fevered patient, the surge cooled the symptoms. But the underlying disease didn’t go away. The remnants of Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Sunni insurgents we battled for more than eight years simply re-emerged this year as the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

The surge legend is soothing, especially for military commanders like me. We can convince ourselves that we did our part, and a few more diplomats or civilian leaders should have done theirs. Similar myths no doubt comforted Americans who fought under the command of Robert E. Lee in the Civil War or William C. Westmoreland in Vietnam. But as a three-star general who spent four years trying to win this thing — and failing — I now know better.

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Weekly Digest – November 9, 2014

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Must Read

Should Read/Watch

Politics:  Election 2014 Continue reading →

Election reflections

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First, two quotes which stick in my head:

Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth.

– Paul Krugman

I’m not really in the excuse business.

– Bill Parcells

Democrats lost because they didn’t make a compelling case for why they’d make better elected representatives than Republicans.  (And Alison Lundergran Grimes refusing to say whether or not she voted for Pres. Obama?  That’s just pathetic.)  It’s not like they lacked material to justify voting for them.  They didn’t run on their successes and didn’t offer a compelling vision – any vision, really – for what they’d attempt to accomplish over the next two years.   The vision – a compelling narrative of what of you want to achieve – is critical because the successes feel pretty thin to many people.  As Kevin Baker put it:

This appears to have been a baffling rejection to this supremely detached president, whose supporters have been protesting that the public just does not appreciate all he has done – a list that invariably includes Obamacare, a revived stock market and an unemployment mark that has inched slowly downward.

What the White House doesn’t seem to appreciate is just how little a dent this has made in the devastating loss of wealth, security and opportunity so many Americans have experienced in the last few years.

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What last night’s election wasn’t about

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I think Jared Bernstein captures a significant element of why Democrats lost so badly on the national level – and in many states – on Nov. 4.  An excerpt from What I didn’t hear on economic policy in the runup to the midterms:

… [H]ere’s what last night’s election wasn’t about:

“Yes, the economy has been growing and unemployment has been falling. No question, GDP is up, and solidly. But it’s hard to see much of that in your paycheck. In fact, most of the folks getting the growth don’t depend on paychecks; they depend on portfolios.

“Why is it that so little GDP growth is reaching average folks? Because there aren’t enough good jobs, because the trade deficit is too large, because finance is booming compared to manufacturing, because there’s too much outsourcing and offshoring and part-timing and subcontracting … and far too little ability to bargain for a fair slice of the growing pie – a pie you’re helping to bake!

“You don’t fix these problems by cutting taxes, ‘red tape,’ or getting rid of Obamacare. You don’t fix them by hating on the guy in White House or anybody else. You don’t even fix them today by providing better education for kids, though that’s a critical piece of what’s missing and will undoubtedly help them in the future.

“You fix them by fixing them: If the private sector isn’t creating enough jobs, then we need to invest in public goods that will generate more demand. We accept the Federal Reserve as lender of last resort when credit markets fail. Well, if we want to elevate full employment to be the national goal that it should be, then the government must be the job creator of last resort when the private sector fails.

“You fix them by fighting back when our trading partners depress the value of their currencies to get an export edge over us and by reviving the labor standards that will make sure people get the pay they deserve, whether its overtime or a decent minimum wage or the flexible scheduling you need to balance work and family.”

We might well have gotten our asses kicked if we’d made that argument.  We’ll never know.  But if we’re going to get beat let’s at least go down having done the right thing.