Outside of the West, that is, where not all Progressives are feeling devastated. We remain largely immune to what ever it is that poisoned the minds of so many across the rest of the country, and kicked the crap out of the TeaPartyRepublicans. In California we elected a new administration of solidly Progressive Democrats top-to-bottom, empowered a mostly Progressive Democratic legislature to pass a budget without Republican blackmail demands (although raising taxes will still require a 2/3 supermajority) and returned a Progressive champion to the Senate.

Democratic Senator Ron Weyden won re-election in Oregon, and it looks as though Democrat Patty Murray will squeak in for another Senatorial term from Washington as well. In Nevada an astounding GOTV effort in Washoe County, expected to be a stronghold for Sharron Angle, instead overwhelmed her by going for Reid by a substantial margin. Trailing in the polls all summer, sometimes by double digits, Reid won by 40,000 votes, 50% to 45%. All are accomplishments to feel positive about.

We have a lot of work to do to get ready for 2012, that’s for certain, but the struggle was always going to be endless and brutal so this morning’s reality isn’t substantially different from the day before. What is needed instead of despair are new solutions, new approaches, new understandings and new policies, presented in new ways that can penetrate the biases and bigotry that keep holding us back as a nation. This election is a defeat only if we do not embrace it as an opportunity.

With that in mind, I’m open to any and all suggestions going forward. If you think you have a good idea, now is the time to bring it out.

Last winter I ventured that the Dems would hold their own in the House, plus/minus a few seats, and keep their majority in the Senate intact with the chance to possibly pick up a seat. But that was when I still thought there was some semblance of decency left in a few congressional Republicans, and they would allow passage of a stream of small yet functional stimulus bills to help put the nation back to work.

Alas. It turns out there are no decent Republicans.

Worse, for reasons inexplicable to me apparently driven by delusion, irrational fear and a reptilian logic imbedded deep within the human brainstem, many voters have decided to blame the recently arrived and overwhelmed Democrats for thirty years of systematic Republican cruelty. That’s like punishing the firemen for water damage while continuing to befriend the criminal gang that stole everything you owned and set your house on fire. It just dosn’t make any sense.

Or maybe in their minds it is all about having “one of them” in the White House, who isn’t a servant – hard to tell. Apparently I have once again over-rated the common decency and good sense of otherwise apparently intelligent elected Repubicans and a significant cross-sectional share of the electorate, Right, Middle and Left alike. Just when you imagine that after 100,000 years people as a whole couldn’t possibly act more self-destructively….

But prospects likely aren’t as bad for the Democrats as the media and the pollsters and the Republicans want us to think, because the polls that all the current Republican whoop-and-holler relys on are based on a biased voter selection mechanism – the land-line telephone. Modern times, and with significant recent acceleration, the young and the technologically comfortable are moving away from landlines and going it more and more alone with cellular devices. (I’m 63, only modestly technologically adept, wouldn’t twitter if paid to do so, and haven’t had a landline in years.)

Yet pollsters still rely primarily on land-line calls, and even when the more adventurous polls do try to include cell phone users they almost always substantially under-represent them. This creates what is called “coverage error” and can seriously warp the poll outcome. Nate Silver, no less, has substantial concerns and no clear answers.

This particular “coverage error” matters for interpretation of the pollster’s accuracy because the young and the technologically capable of all ages tend to be more Liberal than average in both their thinking and their voting. The polls this year, as they have been for some time, are generally skewed towards recording opinions of Conservative/Reactionary land-line users and away from the intentions of their more Liberal cell-only counterparts. Compare, for instance, the results from two recent major polls. The traditional dominantly landline approach of McClatchy-Marist yielded results consistent with most other pollsters, giving Obama a net negative rating of -4% while showing a massive tilt towards Republican voter enthusiasm, 51% versus 28% for Democrats. A Newsweek poll that deliberately included a reasonable proportion of cell-phone only users provided quite different outcomes, with Obama having a net +14 approval and the “enthusiasm gap” gone entirely.

Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but my back-of-the-envelope pencil-metrics put the effect at 2% to 4% underestimation of Democratic-likely voters depending on the urban density – the better the cell phone connection pattern and the tighter the economic squeeze, the more people decide to dump their increasingly anachronistic landlines.

While pollsters do try to make corrections for this kind of bias based on prior responses, their correction algorithms are restricted by historical data which may no longer apply. This is especially true in subject areas with a rapid change in the demographic where adjustments must be made. The shift from landline to cell-only is one of those, with a rapid and increasing rate of conversion.

Currently, a quarter to a third of Americans are cell-only or essentially so and thus outside most pollster’s reach, and that percentage is increasing at an accelerating rate. When a quarter or more of your intended subjects are unavailable, a quarter-plus that differs significantly in makeup and attitude from the residual sample and that divergence is accelerating, any “correction” that might be applied falls more and more under the heading of Wild-Assed Guess.

The other aspect that has been misinterpreted is voter turnout. Anger will motivate, certainly, and angst will de-motivate, but the GOTV effort on the part of the Democrats still has a great deal of power left from two years ago. I’ve talked to a lot of folks who are just as active as in 2008 and some who are even more so this cycle, and the massive Obama-voter-apathy we’ve been told so much about doesn’t seem to me to be as big as is reported.

Add another 2% or so to the poll-predicted Democratic vote totals from this effect.

Combined, and hedging a bit as any decent prognosticator must do, I’ll predict that in general the Democrats as individual candidates will do somewhere from 3% to 5% better than the polls now suggest. Since there are a lot of races where Democrats trail within that range or are holding even, my analysis suggests that there will be a lot more Democrats in office come November 3rd than the MSM, the Republican Party and Nate Silver are predicting. I have Harry Reid being re-elected by 4,000+/- votes and the Democratic caucus holding the Senate 55 – 45, while the Democrats retain control of the House 222 – 213.

Or I could be wrong, and Republicans win everything still hanging in the balance. That would be bad, but from an immediate strategic sense perhaps won’t force much of a change from what already needed doing. Looking forward, every conceivable electoral outcome leaves those of us on the Left in about the same position we’ve been in for the last two years:

Wondering what we might do to make an impact for real Progressive change in the face of a deadlocked – and thus inherently Conservative – Congress, a systematically-obstructed, mostly-well-intentioned but agonizingly-deliberate-to-the-point-of-being-tentative president, massive corruption of the media, a Reactionary grip on the judiciary, all while climate change comes down upon us like all the hounds of Hell and the ascendant power within the Republican Party believes that an Apocalypse is a desirable event. Big picture, our challenge appears to be more systemic than any one general election.

Come Wednesday morning, bright and early, those of us not permanently gripped by chronic depression need to start a serious discussion about what to do going forward that can plausibly succeed. I look forward to getting past the election hype, and back to work on the really hard stuff.

The pundits would have it that this election’s outcome will depend on massive enthusiasm from the TeaParty fools and a scarcity of Liberal voters because they are depressed after finding out that Barack Obama is merely human. Good to know.

But here in California that is certainly not the case. The TeaPartiers have made a lot of noise, that’s what they do best, and the MSM hyperactive talking heads have made the most of it, but the truth is that the state’s voters shifted significantly to the Left in 2008 and that trend has continued through this election. We will elect a Democratic Governor, replacing the utter failure of another Republican administration, and return one of the most Liberal Senators to another six year term. Across the state on a local level we will apparently retain nearly all Democratic House representatives, and keep the Democratic majorities in our state legislature intact as well.

Graham Firchlis recommends:

US Senator: Barbara Boxer
US Representatives: All Democratic candidates
Governor: Jerry Brown
Lieutenant Governor: Gavin Newsom
Secretary of State: Debra Bowen
Controller: John Chang
Treasurer: Bill Lockyer
Attorney General: Kamala Harris
Insurance Commissioner: Dave Jones
State Assembly: All Democratic candidates
State Senate: All Democratic candidates

Down-ticket are several interesting and important initiative propositions, many of which are distinctly misleading. In the following recommendations I include explanation:

Proposition 19; Marijuana legalization: No. [There are better ways. This approach will benefit large commercial grow operations while undermining small-scale growers, while neither price nor quality will likely improve in significant ways. A better approach would be to expand medical indications to include every ailment where the sufferer can benefit by an improved sense of well-being, appetite increase and/or relief of chronic pain.]

Proposition 20; Assigns redistricting of congressional representatives to an appointed commission: No. [Empowers the Republican Party. *See redistricting summary below.]

Proposition 21; Vehicle tax surcharge to fund state parks: Yes. [Permanently funds state parks for $1.50 a month per vehicle, taking them out of the political arena and making them available to citizens with no admission fee.]

Proposition 22; Prohibits state from seizing taxpayer funds from local government: Yes. Local agencies were promised a share of state revenue. Now the state under Ahnold is reneging on that promise, taking the funds to to balance the state budget while leaving local agencies in the lurch, in many cases for project funding that has been years in the planning process. The result is lost jobs and usurpation of local authority to meet local needs.

Proposition 23; Suspends California’s landmark air pollution control law: No. Funded by big oil. We need to move forward with pollution control and sustainable energy, not backwards.

Proposition 24; Repeals billions of dollars in unnecessary sweet-heart tax breaks for selected businesses: Yes. This bit of nonsense was the price a Republican legislator demanded to get last year’s budget passed, handing out tax breaks to companies that electorally back Republicans. The effect was to provide campaign funds to Republicans, using taxpayer money.

Proposition 25; Lowers legislative budget approval requirement from two-thirds to simple majority: Yes. [*See redistricting summary below.]

Proposition 26; Imposes two-thirds vote requirement for new fees by local agencies: No. The 2/3 vote requirement on new taxes has crippled California’s ability to fund projects required for the general welfare of our citizens. Adding that restriction to fees will do more of the same. Voters who dislike fees can respond by voting out the elected officials who imposed them.

Proposition 27; Eliminates appointed state commission on redistricting, returning authority to the legislature: Yes. [*See redistricting summary below.]

——————————————

Sticking my nose into other states’ business:

I think states should be free to handle their internal electoral processes free of outside interference, so long as constitutional requirements are respected. I certainly did not appreciate Utah’s LDS “Church” massive interference in our struggle to define equal rights for our citizens. But sometimes issues deserve limited discussion from beyond a state’s boundaries:

In Nevada, for Senator: Harry Reid
In Wisconsin, for Senator: Russ Feingold
In Florida, for Senator: Charlie Crist (Potential Dem caucus pickup. The Democratic candidate cannot win)
In Alaska, for Senator: Lisa Murkowski (Less likely Dem caucus pickup, but there have been back-channel discussions and she’s seriously displeased with the Republican Party both in Alaska and nationally. The Democratic candidate cannot win.)
In Pennsylvania, for Senator: Joe Sestak
In Missouri, for Senator: Robin Carnahan
In Texas, for Governor: Bill White
In Rhode Island, for Governor: Lincoln Chaffee (Chaffee, formerly a Republican running as n Independent, is a Progressive while the Democratic candidate is a Reactionary.)
In New York, for Governor: Andrew Cuomo (Keep an eye on this young man. He wins this election and things go as I expect, he’ll make a run for President in 2016.)

——————————————

[* Redistricting issue summary. Redistricting in California rested with the state legislature for many years. Under Democrat Willie Brown, a deal was cut to bring stability to electoral districts based on either Republican or Democratic majorities. Both parties accepted the arrangement. But Brown foresaw what Republicans did not, that the tide of voter sympathies would eventually shift towards a pattern that would allow the Democratic Party to assume legislative control and keep it. Republicans have been trying to thwart majority rule in California ever since that reality dawned on them.

The infamous Republican-backed Prop 13 initiative bribed voters with enormous real estate tax breaks in return for establishing a 2/3 requirement to pass state taxes and the state budget, handing Republicans a powerful lever with which they could control state affairs from the minority. In the last election another Republican initiative, foolishly backed by a number of Progressive groups, took the redistricting authority away from the Democratic-controlled legislature just as the Democrats were on the verge of obtaining the two-thirds majorities they need to finally govern as a majority of the state’s voters desire.

That redistricting power would be vested in a new commission comprised of five members from each major party and five from the governor. The effect would be to hand the Republican Party, an abject minority in the legislature, an equal voice with the dominant Democratic Party when it comes to redistricting. After decades of avoiding the consequences of voter preference and defying the democratic principle of majority rule, the Republicans have found yet another tool to keep their slender unjustified hold on power.

Proposition 20 in this election would extend that minority dictatorship to congressional redistricting, and should be defeated. Proposition 27 reverses the misguided establishment of an “independent” commission, thwarts the attempted coup by the minority Republican Party, and returns the serious responsibility of redistricting to the representatives elected by the people - where it belongs.]

Our crack team of systems experts are working on the problem, and we anticipate having a resolution for you shortly.

Leave a comment, we’ll see what happens.

Passing a health insurance reform bill without a public option is poor policy. It is also political suicide.

Crossposted at Whenceforth Progress. Please leave any comments there.

I know you’re in hurry to get something passed on healthcare/insurance reform, but I urge you to take a moment and reflect on the need to include a public option. A viable public option, even one managed by private insurance companies and paying above-Medicare rates, is the only meaningful way to combat the worst of private insurance practices.

What ever rules and regulations are imposed, the private insurers will find a work-around. Only by offering a strictly regulated program available to anyone and offering comprehensive Medicare-like coverage can “free-market” forces be brought fully to bear. Give people a real option, and the privates will have to treat their customers properly or watch them all flee. Without one, people will be forced to deal with intransigence and deceit and delay and their mandated participation will rapidly bring about anger and retribution for the Democratic Party.

Multiple polls including very recent ones have shown that the public supports having a “public option” overwhelmingly while rejecting reform without it. This is the case all across the nation, and most importantly from a political standpoint in states that will be key battlegrounds this November. Madam Speaker, in your role as a leader of the Democratic Party as well as your role as a constitutional officer, you have a responsibility to see to it that the country is not returned to the grip of the Radical Reactionary forces that have nearly destroyed us. Please pass a public option, help keep control of Congress, and continue to lead us in a civilized direction.

Majority Leader Reid, on a personal note; polls in Nevada show that you will pick up 20 percentage points on your potential Republican challengers by passing a public option bill, enough to overcome your currently losing position. While I have differences with you on some issues, I also recognize you as a decent, intelligent and dedicated public servant. It would be a loss to the nation and the State of Nevada if you were to be defeated in the next election. Please pass a public option, so we may all continue to receive the benefit of your honest leadership.

Because it is right, because it is reasonable, because it is decent, and because your political lives depend on it – Please Pass A Public Option.

Sincerely Yours,
&etc.

[I’ve sent this to Pelosi and Reid, and similar letters to both of my Senators and my Representative. I urge all concerned citizens to do likewise.]

Crossposted at Whenceforth Progress. Please leave comments there.

In my mother’s front yard is a lawn, of sorts. Originally planted with dichondra, through the years it has been mostly taken over by a mix of clover, various grasses and an assortment of weeds including a substantial population of dandelions. For decades she insisted on “taking care” of it herself, as it slowly declined. She has rigidly resisted replacing it, and at this point spraying for the weeds is out of the question since mostly dirt would be left. A couple of years ago she finally turned over the care to me and I’ve ripped out the thistles and most of the burrs and such, but the dandelions are so many and so deeply rooted that there is nothing to be done to keep them from going to seed but pick the blossoms, and that is an exceedingly tedious chore.

So it was with great delight that I discovered a positive option in my Norwegian grandmother’s cookbook, a well-worn and well-loved volume printed in 1915 and the basis for her years of cookery on a wood stove in a small Wisconsin farm house without any indoor plumbing except a kitchen hand pump.

The pages are richly yellowed, selectively dog-eared with many stains and not a few rips and tears, while the binding has split and separated long ago. Included throughout, on the blank pages at the end of each chapter, are recipes written in her own hand including one for dandelion wine:

Dandelion Wine
2 qts of dandelion blossoms, 2 oranges
and two lemons, cut up skins and
all, 4 lbs of granulated sugar and
4 qts of boiling water. Let stand 24
hours, strain and squeeze, put into
a jar or jug, let stand until thor-
oughly fermented, and in November
bottle for use. One can make
this a year ahead and have it on
hand all the time.

This year those annoying little blossoms will be going to a better use than the green recycle bin, and my attitude while picking them has noticeably improved. Depending on the weather a day’s harvest yields a handful or more:

They are washed thoroughly and then put in a freezer bag to save, since kept at room temperature they quickly turn brown and rot. I’ll get the oranges from her neighbor on one side and the lemons from her neighbor on the other, in trade for tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers from my vegetable garden, so overall the cost for this wine will be minimal. In grandmother’s day they depended on wild yeasts for what would have been an uncertain course of fermentation, but I’ll go high-tech and use a high-alcohol yeast from a local brewing supply store.

Accounts from my mother and other surviving relatives who were allowed a taste – Grandma was stingy with her wine – all say it was light, fruity and unusual. In her own words,

It is a clear white
wine, not a bitter taste as one
might think, and considered valuable
for its healthful properties, especially
in the spring when a tonic is
needed.

It also reportedly had quite a kick, which explains the emphasis on its health properties as recreational alcoholic drinks were sinful in her devout Norwegian Lutheran belief. Still, she must have had more than one sip on occasion, as she included this warning to the unwary:

Care should be exercised
in its use, for while it is not
considered intoxicating as a drink
it is very exhilarating.

Certainly hoping for some of that exhilaration, to go along with the healthfulness. My target is a 4 1/2 gallon must, for which I will need 2 gallons of dandelion blossoms. The stems and green guard leaves are discarded, so I’m guessing I’ll need to amass 4 gallons of blossom heads or more. Right now I have a little more than a gallon in the freezer, so there’s some ways to go before I start the fermentation.

I expect to be able to bottle as directed by the first of November if not sooner, and will keep posting as I proceed. The neighbors have all gotten a good laugh out of this project, so I am anticipating showing them up with an unusual taste treat for New Year’s Eve.

Just a sip, mind you; wouldn’t want to contribute to sinfulness in others.

Crossposted at Whenceforth Progress. Please leave comments there.

José told me he got the seeds from his cousin, who lives in the Mexican state of Michoacán. It was a beautiful plant, over six feet tall with long upright narrow stems and slender leaves, like a Serrano plant on steroids. The fruits were rich green like a Jalapeño but differently shaped; an inch and a half to two inches long, a full inch across the base and tapered to a point, similar in appearance to a small Fresno. Allowed to ripen and dry, they take on a brilliant red with an oily luster that nature generally reserves as a warning of serious danger:

They may be a rare variety but I am thinking they are a new cross of some sort, perhaps between Serrano – because of the architecture of the plant – and Red Habanero.

As I admired the plant, a small crowd of his relatives and friends had quietly gathered. When he offered me a taste and the crowd murmured, it became clear that the idea behind inviting me over was to see if this gringo could deal with the fire. I am loath to back down from a challenge, especially one I think I can win, so I said sure. Damn if they didn’t start to place bets on whether I could swallow it down or would spit it out.

I grew up eating hot chilies of all sorts. Many neighbors were Mexican and raised Jalapeños and Habaneros which we children stole and dared each other to eat. Other neighbors were Portuguese and the old men raised some sort of small slender African pepper they would carefully tend in dry soil and full sun, trying to outdo their relatives and friends as to who could raise the hottest, and I ate those too while the old men laughed. I love Thai food, and am not in the least intimidated by capsaicin.

Still, these little peppers were shockingly impressive, fiercer than even a Habanero. The burn is slow to come on, then intensifies and explodes like a skyrocket and sustains for what, in a fine display of Einsteinian Local Relativity, seems like a very long time. The eyes water, the nose runs, the lips first go numb and then when feeling returns you wish it hadn’t, the throat constricts and your body refuses to breath. I got it all down, with help from several swallows of beer from a bottle that I grabbed out of the hand of the nearest onlooker, earning me laughing backslaps from the winners and grudging handshakes from the losers. When I caught my breath the first thing I did was ask for a cut of the winnings which brought laughter all around, and now instead of just a neighbor I am respected as acceptably macho even if just a gringo. No pain, no gain.

I asked for several ripe pods late last fall and saved them to dry, and a few weeks ago planted some seeds. (Yes, I wore goggles while cutting open the pod. A bit in the eye would be unbearable.) They have sprouted and hopefully will come true, so I can take my turn passing them out to unsuspecting neighbors and friends.

About the title of this post; when I was able to speak in full sentences I again asked my neighbor what kind of chilies these were. He replied in halting English, “My cousin’s chilies.”

“Yes” I said, “But do they have a name?” He looked puzzled, then carefully replied “They are the chilies of my cousin.”

My Spanish is poor, but I managed to get out “¿El nombre de este chile?” – m/l, What is the name of this chili? Again he screwed up his face, then took on the look that adults sometimes use when speaking to child who is failing to comprehend, and very slowly and deliberately said:

“The name I call them is; ‘The. Chilies. Of. My. Cousin.’”

And so then, that is what they are: José’s Cousin’s Chilies.

Crossposted at Whenceforth Progress. Please leave any comments there.

I’ve had to step away from blogging for a while, as my temper had gotten the best of me. Full disclosure, that is indeed an uncertain struggle much of the time, but over the past few months as I’ve watched supposedly reality-based-sophisticated-educated-smarter-than-the-average-bear Leftist blogs attack Democrats incessantly not honestly on the basis of policy disagreement but rather more often malignly and falsely on character and intent, I have gotten so angry I couldn’t trust myself to keep even a remote semblance of civility. In short, I had temporarily become less than the person I wish to be.

I’m calmer now, although hardly simmered down; more like reduced to a steady boil. Probably fit enough for polite company, although I won’t guarantee it will stay that way. When I read arguments from the Left that repeat the worst calumny of the Right, that reinforce false Right-Wing memes and support defeat of admittedly flawed Democrats in favor of re-installing rule by malicious Radical Reactionary Republicans, my blood begins to boil and my bile rises and the chemical reaction that combination elicits is very unpleasant to experience.

Look in the posts and the largely-unrebutted comment threads of nearly any prominent Leftist blog and you will see a steady call for defeat of Democratic office holders. In some few cases, such as the entirely odious and apparently already doomed Blanche Lincoln, that might turn out to be a smart move. But across the broader spectrum of office holders it is entirely foolish and counterproductive to try and replace sitting Democrats, including Democratic-affiliated BlueDogs, with Progressive candidates if the outcome in November will be the election to office of more Radical Reactionary Republicans.

In many Leftist blogs it is the fashion to claim that Obama and the Democrats are no different than Republicans, a lie so vile it should bring down a rain of condemnation from anyone with a single functioning neuron capable of critical thought. Instead, we read a steady chorus of agreement and outright glee at the growing disaffection of Middle America, a disaffection directly traceable to the self-same Leftist attacks and in whose screeching falsehoods I see nothing less than a whooping hollering screaming call for a leap to political suicide, deranged at the best, shameful and foolish at worst.

Liberal stalwarts, long-serving true heroes such as Nancy Pelosi and Pete Stark along with newcomers like Anthony Weiner and Alan Grayson, are ridiculed because they are not “pure” enough for the self-styled “real” Leftist bloggers and scarcely a word is written in dissent. The people of San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area are neither fools nor raging Reactionaries. What we are, by a large majority, is solidly Progressive, fully Liberal and completely Enlightened, and we return Pelosi and Stark and others like them to Congress year after year with overwhelming margins because we know them well and trust them to represent the best there is in the human heart. Critics from elsewhere in the country, who don’t know these people as anything other than the cardboard cutouts portrayed by the Right-Wing-controlled MSM, should put their egos in check and consider that we in the Greater SF Bay Area do actually know what the hell we are doing. If you feel the need to make political corrections, look first to your own representatives; we’ll take care of ours, no outside advice needed thank you very much.

Actual Conservatives, decent people like President Obama and Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid, are the targets of apoplectic diatribes accusing them of being tools of big business repression and enemies of the working class when in fact they have spent their entire lives and political careers trying to counter the depredations of the Radical Reactionary Right and their criminal allies. While they aren’t my idea of true Liberals, they are still decent people trying to do reasonably right by the majority of the American people and we all, Leftists especially, should be grateful that people of such integrity and courage should choose to spend the better part of their lives in public service.

On reflection I conclude that what has particularly ground me down is the Left repeating one of the greatest Right-Wing lies, that Democrats are spineless cowards. It is this particular lie that the Right uses to frighten the Muddled Middle of the American electorate about “terrorists” and “immigrants” and assorted evil Others, to turn them in favor of the supposedly braver and more aggressive Republicans. But one only has to look at the records of FDR and HST and LBJ to see that modern Democratic politicians are certainly aggressive in matters of national security, while the Republican paper-tiger actor Reagan played footsy with a horribly oppressive Iranian regime while it held American citizens hostage and the supposedly manly but actually empty-headed posturing alcoholic coke-head GW Bush failed to protect American citizens in our own homeland from al Qaeda in spite of receiving ample warning of an impending attack.

Repeating the lie that Democrats are “soft” and “weak” and “cowardly” and “spineless” is not only false, it only serves the interests of the Radical Reactionaries. When a usually calm and thoughtful and kind – and Christian – Lefty blogger such as BlueGal feels free to casually say, just in passing mind you, that she hates* Harry Reid and portrays him as a timid bunny rabbit, I begin to fear that there is no longer hope for rational thought anywhere in the Leftist blogosphere.

Then I get pissed off.

Forty years of hard work to get to this point, where the long national nightmare of Nixon/Ford/Reagan/Meese/Bush/Gingrich/Delay/Rove/Bush/Cheney is on the verge of being turned aside in favor of rational thought and a return to broader equalitarianism, and now the damn Left seems to be as dedicated as the Right to finding some way to fuck it up. Irresponsible. Immoral. Unconscionable. Unacceptable.

I’ll come back to this theme in the near future, as the coming election will decide whether or not we return to the dark days of full-on Radical Reactionary rule or continue to try and turn the corner towards the light of freedom. The Left has a moral choice to make, whether to support the effort towards enlightenment or contribute to a resurgence of Radical Reactionary darkness. Right now I am not at all hopeful that the supposedly bright Left can figure out that Defeat is not Victory, Losing is not Winning, Lies are not Truth, and Backwards is not Forward.

Perhaps the core problem is that many on the Left appear to have developed a fanciful view of the American electorate, believing that the majority of voting Americans are somehow Liberal or even Progressive when that is so manifestly not the case. There also seems to be a general failure of the Left to understand the true nature of American governance, such that many on the Left think there is somehow even a shred of possibility that our form of government actually is designed to routinely serve the interests of most citizens when it is not and never has been. I’ll give some thought to how best to explain the actual political thinking of American voters, and the real structure of American governance. Maybe, just maybe, if we can all agree on Reality we can begin the process of agreeing on how to go about changing it.

In conclusion, let me be clear; Emanuel was incorrect in his assessment, and Leftists working to undermine Democrats in a way that facilitates Republican ascendency are not, generally speaking, “Fucking Retarded.”

What they are being is Fucking Stupid.

[* Dear Ms. Langum: Hate is such an awful feeling, and is most destructive to whoever holds it in their heart. As a committed agnostic, even I know we should strive to hate the sin and not the sinner. Regarding Reid’s courage, he is one of the bravest people around and he has proven that many times over throughout his lifetime. You speak in ignorance, out of a passion that is, however well intentioned, blind. You really should educate yourself about him, and then apologize.]

[Crossposted at Whenceforth Progress. Please leave comments there.]

President Clinton came to UC Berkeley last Wednesday, February 24, to give an afternoon address at Zellerbach Hall. His appearance was part of a continuing series sponsored by Cal’s Blum Center for Developing Economies, founded by UC Regent Richard Blum who is best known as Mr. Diane Feinstein.

(Zellerbach wasn’t Clinton’s only West Coast stop. He was in LA early Wednesday for a symposium on obesity, and Wednesday evening he joined Blum at a fundraiser in SF for the Himalayan Society.)

The crowd of a little over 2,000 was treated to a free-flowing speech by one of the world’s most charismatic speakers, who did have notes but rarely referred to them. Clinton’s major topic was the work of his Clinton Foundation, specifically the myriad programs he sponsers to deliver medical, economic and infrastructure development programs to third-world countries.

But he wandered off-script throughout, touching on the rising cost of higher education – “unconscionable” – “I would never have had a chance to become president if I hadn’t had a chance to go to college and law school, and gotten a government-backed loan” and offering a plea for active advocacy in support of health care reform and other liberal goals – “The future is in your hands, you have to be willing to put yourselves on the line.”

I’m not a Clinton-worshiper, neither Bill nor Hillary. They both had tremendous opportunities and instead allowed their egos to get in the way, then fell back on compromise with Evil in order to survive politically, but I cannot deny that the Big Dog has an amazing ability to charm and entertain. Having had some time to reflect, he has also begun to engage in a little self-examination and that is a good thing.

The most interesting of his comments, for me anyway, came as he discussed the shortcomings of his strategizing while in the White House:

“Most of the time I was in politics, we debated three things:

What are you going to do?
Who is going to do it? (public or private sector?)
How much money are you going to spend on it?

The most important question is the one that wasn’t asked: How ever much money you have, what ever it is you propose to do,

- How are you going to do it? -

so that you turn your good intentions into positive changes.”

That might read like excuse-making, but the tone was emphatically cautionary. Goals and aspirations and justification and delegation are all neccessary, but without a solid plan for the mechanics of accomplishment it is easy to underestimate the effort required. Only after a plan is formalized, with the nuts and bolts of how defined, do the obstacles become apparent and with them the magnitude of difficulty to be overcome and the range of possible consequences.

As we on the Left continue to criticize the efforts of Obama and Reid and Pelosi to govern, we should keep Clinton’s cautionary words in mind. It is fine to propose alternatives, what should be done and why and by whom, but unless we can show how something will get done all we have are hopes and dreams – dreams that could, like Clinton’s presidency, easily turn into nightmares.

But it appears that Obama and the Big Dems are playing quite a different strategy that anything their accusers have imagined, one borrowed not from sainted political or social philosophers but rather from The Greatest boxer ever; Mohammed Ali. This health care reform exercise has been, more than anything, a classic application of the Rope-A-Dope.

[Crossposted at Whenceforth Progress. Please leave comments there.]

For months Obama and the Big Dems have laid back, barely defending themselves, pushed up against the ropes while the opposition took swings at will. The barrage from Left and Right has been relentless and unyielding for a long time, but now the opponents are exhausted. They’ve thrown everything they have, yet Obama and the Big Dems are still standing. And not just standing, but starting to move around the ring and take some solid shots of their own.

The first indication that Obama and the Dems were changing the pace was when Obama accepted the Republican Caucus’ invitation to speak but put on a requirement that it be televised. Always before, when the president of one party addressed the caucus of another, the event was reported in the press. By moving to live television, Obama took delivery of his message out of the hands of the VRWC-controlled MSM. He took away the opportunity for Assorted Talking Heads to re-interpret his message and miss-report it to the American People. He seized control of the Media, instead of letting the Media control him.

He became the Message.

He owned the Message.

And with it, he crushed the Republicans in what was the most compelling piece of public political confrontation since the Kennedy-Nixon debates. Obama didn’t just defeat the Republicans; he sent them crying from the room with their tails between their legs, howling at the unfairness of it all and vowing to take revenge by being even bigger assholes than they had been before.

[I do not at all dismiss Universal Single-Payer advocates. We fought valiantly, but didn’t have enough power to bring anything meaningful to this battle. We should not, any of us, despair. Learning how to better frame the argument was worthwhile, and there will be another chance to make the case. Single-Payers, of whom I am one, should all take care to recognize that Obama, Pelosi and Reid are also Single-Payer advocates. We, they and you and I, didn’t have a big enough coalition this time to win. Next time - and there will be one - I am confident we will prevail.]

Now Obama and the Big Dems have picked up the pace. While the Republicans are weakened, bewildered, desperate and fresh out of fresh, Obama and the Big Dems have moved to the center of the ring and are dancing, beckoning with one hand to the Republicans and daring them to bring their best stuff on health care reform.

The last round, the Republicans led with their biggest weapons and got counter-punched until their knees turned to jelly. This round, with the venue moved to his House, Obama is already peppering them with jabs and setting them up for a knockout.

The Republicans, like all bullies, think that if they just keep charging they will prevail and so in arrogance and anger will stick out their (double) chin(s), right where Obama is waiting. And truly, thanks to maneuvering by Obama and the Big Dems, Republicans have no good choice; they either have to step up and get a very public drubbing, or slink away defeated. From here on out, with their arms exhausted and their vision blurred, they will not lay another glove on him.

With the other hand, The Big Dems have begun to move on reconciling the House and Senate bills. As a result of careful planning for what was expected to be a difficult fight, they have had multiple paths available for some time and still have options in spite of the blows thrown at them by Republicans, BlueDogs and NewDems. The so-called “new” push for a public option, in fact an objective for from the outset Obama and the Big Dems, has shifted in stance but the power is just as solid as it always was. Instead of conference and a new synthesized bill, the Big Dems will use reconciliation.

None of this emergent push for a public option through reconciliation would be happening if Pelosi didn’t have the votes to pass the existing Senate bill. Feinstein, in particular, is not one to stick her neck out if she isn’t sure she’s covered. Given the suddenness and rapidity with which this movement is unfolding, I have to believe that Pelosi has outflanked Stupak and has the votes to pass the existing Senate bill provided the Senate fixes (mostly) the House-Senate differences in funding and coverage.

As to what can and cannot be included in reconciliation, the Omnibus Budget Resolution of last spring specifically included a provision stipulating that during this session any health care reform legislation can be handled through reconciliation – without meaningful restriction. The reconciliation process is an internal Senate invention, an infinitely mutable procedural pathway and not a fixed law. Senators can do whatever they want with it, and have already decided that any – repeat, any – health care reform bill can be managed through reconciliation. Wording it cleverly to include anticipated budget balancing tricks from the already-passed Senate bill is just that, clever wording; John Yoo could knock it out in an afternoon.

(A list of the various subjects moved through by reconciliation is here.)

The very nature of the reconciliation structure will limit any attempt by opponents to obstruct, amend or strip the bill. According to rule, Reid can bring to the floor essentially any bill he deems to be health care reform related and do so by 50 votes with Biden providing the tie breaker if needed. Challenges or amendments to the bill, in contradistinction, will require both a ruling by the Parliamentarian that the challenge or amendment is proper and a 60-vote supermajority to prevail.

The current Parliamentarian is well aware that he serves at the pleasure of the Majority Leader; the last one was sacked by the Republicans when he didn’t follow their lead, and this one is not eager to follow the same path. Even if he allows a challenge or amendment, opponents must rally all 41 Republicans plus 19 Democrats to strike or add any provision. This is a nearly impossible obstacle and so, within the bounds of a 41-vote minority, whatever Reid proposes under reconciliation will prevail unchanged. A final Yes vote of 50 will be enough for passage, again with Biden presiding to cast the 51st vote should it be needed.

What was planned, with Pelosi and Reid and Obama all in agreement, was that each chamber would pass something and the differences would be hammered out in conference. Reconciliation was always on the table for Reid to use if he had to. The Brown election made the conference path impossible, leaving reconciliation as the only possibility and here we are. What is being negotiated now – between Democrats only, mind you – are the terms of the reconciliation bill, following which the House will pass both Senate measures.

Republicans are correct to assert that at this point they are no longer part of the process, except as a punching bag on the way to their defeat. They don’t have anything even plausible to offer, while Obama and the Big Dems have co-opted all of the main Republican Regressive positions and transmogrified them into sustainable, sensible and decent Liberal – if modestly so – programs. Not perfect in the whole, but far better that what we have now or will have if nothing is done. All the Republicans can do now is scream and sweat and blubber and flail with their tired and worn out proposals, while Obama and the Big Dems punch them silly. The Left at this point should be cheering, not complaining.

Pelosi and Reid and Obama have been working closely together throughout this effort, since immediately after the election. (The “Dems in Disarray” meme is a whole-cloth construct of the VRWC-MSM, sadly perpetuated by many on the Left.) All three of them want a public option. All of them wanted something stronger than the House version, but couldn’t round up the votes. They’ll go with what they can get, and should. The benefits of the total package – with a Medicare+5% public option – far outweigh the negatives.

The final-final version of the Democrat’s overall health care reform proposal hasn’t been released so we don’t know for sure what Obama will stake out at the Summit, but this outline is currently making the rounds:

The Plan will be based on the Senate bill, with adjustments to more-or-less match up with the House version.

Near-universal participation will be required, with around 20 million Americans exempted. They will not be excluded, just not mandated to participate.

Subsidies will be provided for low-income insured, on a sliding scale.

Insurance companies will be prohibited from denying coverage for any reason, from charging differentials based on risk, and from terminating coverage for use or change in risk status.

A public option will be created, providing a “bread-basket” of coverage options similar to the Federal Employee system, available to small businesses and individuals. It will be contractually overseen by private insurers, as Medicare is partially now, but with severely limited fees. Provider payments will be at Medicare+5%.

The GWBush-legacy Medicare prescription “doughnut hole” will be substantially closed.

The bribes special Medicaid subsidies for certain states will be eliminated.

The Stupak abortion restrictions will evaporate.

Overall cost will be around $1.1 Trillion over ten years, close enough for horseshoes to Obama’s $1 Trillion target; he will magnanimously “compromise” on this target by yielding to the will of Congress. Thereafter, the program should be a money-saver.

Funding will come by a mix of premiums, selective tax increases on very high incomes and some very-high-end employee-subsidized insurance plans, along with future cuts in Medicare and Medicaid coverage targeted to eliminate ineffective practices and specious treatments as well as now-rampant fraud. Elimination of fraud in those programs alone, currently a wasted cost approaching $100 Billion per year, would very nearly cover the entire program.

This “anonymous sources” release might be a feint, could be Obama and the Big Dems are holding something in reserve, but at this point with their opponent staggering and bewildered I think it is more of a solid Right lead, a crossover from a series of Left jabs, and is a set-up for a from-the-hip Haymaker of a Right Cross to be delivered on Thursday. The Republicans can see it coming, but will not be able to move out of the way in time and instead will lean into it. Face, meet Glove; Head, meet Canvas.

After this protracted engagement, many on the Left are feeling weary, fearful and unhappy and I understand; we all wished for better. But this achievement – as described above – is well more than half a loaf and we will be able to come back again in a very short time to take the remainder. If we can hold together now and pass this bill, we will have a universal single-payer system in the USA by 2020 at the latest. If the private insurers continue to raise rates as they are now contemplating, we might have it by 2015.

As always with politics, there are caveats. The margins in both chambers will be very small. Assuming Pelosi has split the Stupak coalition, she will have at most a two or three vote margin on the Senate bill. My last headcount in the Senate showed just 48 Democrats willing to back a public option; with the Brown election that would drop to 47. But Obama and Reid have been working the Dem caucus over pretty good, and they now appear to believe they can pull together the 50 votes they need. A strong showing by Obama this Thursday will help with that, but it will be a squeaker and last-minute shifts towards opposition cannot be ruled out.

Another aspect is the whole concept of bi-partisanship. Obama is, I think, sincere in his desire to try and find a way to govern with Republican participation. Their lock-step opposition to everything he wants, however, has made that impossible to achieve. Assuming the votes are as close as they appear, the only bipartisanship will turn out to be on the side opposed to the health care reform measures, where Republicans are joined by a goodly number of Democrats. Irony never goes out of fashion.

In spite of all the inadequacies, it is good to see the Democrats moving ahead with needed reform. After 40 years of getting my ass kicked on nearly every issue by the Reactionary Republicans, I am so loving this.

[Note: A last-minute search reveals that Bob Burnett sees the same analogy. Great minds, or something….]