Musing's musings

Deliciously dishy

The more I hear from Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), the more I like him:

Palin, the former half-term Governor, current-nothing and future-even-less, charmed the all-Republican audience with her folksy folksiness and her homespun homespunnery. Atypically, Palin was wearing clothes that she had paid for herself. At the end of the event, she shared her recipe for mooseface pie.

In response to Palin's attack on Rep Grayson, Grayson actually complimented Palin. Grayson praised Palin for having a hand large enough to fit Grayson's entire name on it. He thanked Palin for alleviating the growing shortage of platitudes in Central Florida. Grayson added that Palin deserved credit for getting through the entire hour-long program without quitting. Grayson also said that Palin really had mastered Palin's imitation of Tina Fey imitating Palin. Grayson observed that Palin is the most-intelligent leader that the Republican Party has produced since George W. Bush.

...I'm sure Palin knows all about politics in Central Florida, since from her porch she can see Winter Park.

I believe Rep. Grayson is now entitled to send former Gov. Palin the traditional pinch of snuff: that one was razor-sharp. I don't believe I've seen political invective of this timbre since Winston Churchill replied to Bessie Braddock's complaint (ca. 1946) that he was drunk with the following:

Bessie, my dear, you are ugly, and what's more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be disgustingly ugly.

It's a pity of the world that most of the Democrats, both in Congress and in the White House, are too frightened of their own shadows to stand up and tell it like it really is. Thank you, Rep. Grayson, for being one of the few who will.

Meh

Martha Coakley, who was by many accounts an uninspiring and uninspired candidate in the first place, has conceded the Massachusetts Senate special election to Republican former Cosmopolitan centerfold Scott Brown. I can predict, with greater than 95% confidence, that there will be much bleating by the Republicans that this is bad news for Obama and the Democrats. I can also predict, with roughly the same confidence level, that the Democratic leadership will muff the lesson it should have learned and try to run even further to the right, and compromise even more of their principles, than they have already done in the first year of President Obama's term.

There will also be considerable weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth about having lost "Teddy Kennedy's seat" in the Senate. That's just bunk. You could just as accurately call it Henry Cabot Lodge's seat, or Edward Everett's. Where, exactly, is it written in our Constitution or our laws that any one person (or any particular party, ethnic or racil group, religious denomination, or any other associational entity you care to name) is entitled to claim a seat in either house of Congress? The voters decide whom the seat belongs to--and if you can't get more of yours out than the other guy (or gal) does, then you lose it. That's how the political system works in this country. And that's how it should be.

I chose the title of this post deliberately. It was my reaction to Martha Coakley's candidacy. It was also my reaction to all the appeals from this group or that party organization to help out with the race. It is also my reaction to the election result. I could wish that it would also be the Democratic Party's reaction to the result, but I doubt I'll get that lucky. (Indeed, I suspect I have a better chance at winning tonight's Mega Millions drawing...)

Will they heed the warnings?

President Obama and the Democratic Party leadership more generally have, I argue, been overlooking or ignoring significant warning signals over the last few months. That's dangerous at any time in modern politics, but even more so as we are already in the early stages of the runup to the midterm elections. Unless the president and the rest of the party leaders wake up quickly, I fear we are not going to see a third election cycle wherein the Democrats pick up seats in Congress.

The start of the slump, in my mind, was this summer. When the wingnuts were out having their fun pretending to be patriots and interrupting anyone they didn't like (which was just about everyone in politics), the Democrats largely let them have the news cycles. We woke up eventually and took some reparative steps, but by that time the damage had already been done. The initial slippage continued as we headed into the autumn, with the health-insurance reform package (where we started out from a disadvantageous position and then compromised gave in to our opponents on virtually every point). Both the president and the party leadership were largely absent from the fall election season, particularly as regards Question 1 in Maine, which should have been a no-brainer.

Once the elections were over, with their mixed results, the party leadership largely seemed to conclude that the message being sent by the voters was not (as it should have been) "stick to the principles you said you believed in and for which we voted in 2008," but rather "try to become more like Republicans than you already are." Suddenly, all questions of progressive issues were being kicked down the road--when the pressure should have been all the greater to get precisely those things taken care of, before the momentum from the 2008 elections wore off.

I would hope that the declining approval numbers for both President Obama and the Democratic Party would be a matter of concern in party leadership circles in and of themselves. But even if they are not, then this should be:

But a bigger indicator of peril comes from a new survey question added [to] the DK tracking poll for the first time this week. The poll now includes a rather simple indicator of baseline voter enthusiasm for the year 2010. The question offered to respondents is a simple question about their intentions for 2010:

QUESTION: In the 2010 Congressional elections will you definitely vote, probably vote, not likely vote, or definitely will not vote?

The results were, to put it mildly, shocking:

Voter Intensity: Definitely + Probably Voting/Not Likely + Not Voting

Republican Voters: 81/14
Independent Voters: 65/23
DEMOCRATIC VOTERS: 56/40

Two in five Democratic voters either consider themselves unlikely to vote at this point in time, or have already made the firm decision to remove themselves from the 2010 electorate pool. Indeed, Democrats were three times more likely to say that they will "definitely not vote" in 2010 than are Republicans.