Adding, for overly obvious emphasis, that to have message discipline you need to have a message in the first place.
We’re getting our butts kicked out here, and the people who get paid to do this stuff need to get out the belt. I’m looking at you, Barack Obama.
The problem is GOP-style top-down control is anathema to the Democratic culture. They’re the corporate clones; we’re the big tent. They’re the goosesteppers; we’re grassroots rabble. As Will Rogers famously said, “I belong to no organized political party; I’m a Democrat.” Doing what they do would make us more effective but also would turn us into Republicans.
spank you very much.
/public campaign finance
Ian Welsh on the subject.
You sound so very surprised. But this was predicted by most of the sharper leftist commentators. Paul Krugman, of course, but, really, the left knew that the radical right would not be conciliated and that Obama had never promised to lead a fight against them. So now, I guess, we fight in Congress. It looks like there’s going to be a showdown in the House, and then a battle in a House-Senate conference committee, and who knows what will happen? Going to be an interesting fight to watch.
Us corvids, on the other hand, get to eat no matter what you hominids do. Croak!
At the very least we needed another FDR & we ended up getting the third term of Bill Clinton.
I wonder what life’s going to be like under the absolutist rule of Sarah Palin staring in 2013? *shivers*
@3 “Us corvids, on the other hand, get to eat no matter what you hominids do. Croak!”
You and me, brother! You guys can have the carrion and we’ll take the grass and whatever is left of their vegetable farms. If they’re determined to exterminate themselves with medical debt, I just hope they do it before they choke the rest of us with CO2.
I’m afraid Obama is gonna be the Jimmy Carter of health care.
Watch for Paul Ryan…Congressman from Wisconsin to emerge as the 2012 Presidential Candidate.
Unlike Obama, Ryan is not a Socialist and actually reads & understands all Legislation BEFORE he votes.
Ryan understands the consequences of actions…not merely HOPE for the best like Obama.
@7 Watch what? There’s nothing to see there. Just a rehash of tired old Republican schemes to privatize Social Security and throw tax cuts at the health care crisis. For starters, can you explain to me how tax breaks for medical expenses help an unemployer worker who has no taxable income? Ryan’s scheme isn’t even original; he’s merely cobbled together all the GOP talking points that voters rejected in 2006 and 2008. How does that get your party to 2012?
What may get the Republicans to 2012 is that the Democrats don’t have a program, not on really big issues like health care or finance. They have a factional squabble, instead.
Dominatrix Darryl thrashed me yesterday. Felt so good.
Takedowns don’t get more total, but I’m still totally right about the mutability of “torture.”
All this handwringing would be fine if the bill had just failed 59-40 (Mass. legislature fails to act, so no replacement for Teddy) on a cloture vote. It ain’t over. Maybe if we all keep rowing, instead of bashing each other with our oars, something will get done. Capisce?