Failure to pass a stimulus cost Democrats the election

Failure to Enact Bigger Stimulus Was Fatal Mistake

Mark Weisbrot McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, November 4, 2010 As expected, the Democrats took big losses in the midterm Congressional elections on Tuesday, holding on to the Senate but losing the House. It is typical for the party of the President to lose some seats in midterm elections, and it is doubtful that this election result represents the beginning of another conservative era. But the Democrats’ losses were big by any measure. The overwhelming reason for the Democrats’ losses was their failure to take the necessary measures to ensure a robust recovery from the recession. This is a case where it clearly would have been better to fight for something that you want, and lose, than fight for what you don’t want, and win. Had the Democrats fought for a stimulus large enough to move unemployment to more normal levels over two years – and lost the battle in Congress – they would at least have a case that they tried and were stymied by the Republicans. Of course, the Republican mantra that the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 act didn’t do anything but pile up debt is sheer nonsense. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that between 1.4 and 3.3 million more people were employed by mid-2010, because of the stimulus. But it was not enough. As my colleague Dean Baker has pointed out, the federal stimulus – after subtracting the state and local government budget tightening – amounted to about one-eighth of the private demand that our economy lost from the bursting of the real estate bubble. The economy is always an important issue in national elections, but seldom more important than it is today – with 9.6 percent unemployment, millions more underemployed or dropped out of the labor force, and millions of Americans losing their homes. But our politics today – year round, not only during election season -- is based primarily on manipulating voters through media and advertising, rather than trying to explain even a minimal amount of substance to them. The Democrats would have done better by telling the truth from the beginning: not only that they inherited this mess but explaining that it would take a huge amount of government spending to restore full employment. Enough to make up for the private spending that was lost. And that the alternative was – well, we are looking at it. This is not rocket science. The irony is that our economy remains in a situation where we could spend this money without even adding to the public debt burden. This may seem like magic but it is not. When the economy is this depressed, with high unemployment and unused capacity, the Federal Reserve can create money and loan it to the Treasury – and such money creation does not cause any problem of inflation. In fact, since 2007, the Fed has created more than $1.4 trillion and used it to buy mostly mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But inflation is still running at just 1.1 percent annually – a level that is too low, even for the Fed. Now the Fed is talking about creating more money and using it to buy long-term Treasury bonds. Since the interest on these bonds will return to the treasury, there is no cost to the taxpayer. This money creation can be – and could have been – used to finance enough job creation so that there would be no question about our economic recovery. By failing to stimulate economic recovery, the Democrats gave Republicans a populist card on a platter, which the Republicans played, with pitchforks held high and torches blazing. With unemployment and economic insecurity generating mass anger, the Republicans paid little price even for extremist excesses. In this election, the Democrats’ one big mistake on the economy outweighs any others.

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C. He is also president of Just Foreign Policy.

 This piece also  apparently appeared in the Sacramento Bee, but I don't find it in my home delivered copy.

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ENFRANCHISING NONCITIZENS?

Such is a proposal is on the November 2 ballot in Portland, Maine:

...Portland residents will vote Nov. 2 on a proposal to give legal residents who are not U.S. citizens the right to vote in local elections, joining places like San Francisco and Chicago that have already loosened the rules or are considering it....

[...]

Opponents of the measure say immigrants already have an avenue to cast ballots — by becoming citizens. Allowing noncitizens to vote dilutes the meaning of citizenship, they say, adding that it could lead to fraud and unfairly sway elections....

Back in 2009, Atlas Shrugs posted the following:

Any shot for Americans to take back this country from the hard left in 2010/2012 is looking increasingly dim ....

Obama Justice Department Decision Will Allow Non-Citizens to Register to Vote in Georgia

Decision Bars Georgia From Continuing Voter Verification Process

Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel issued the following statement following the U.S. Department of Justice’s denial of preclearance of Georgia’s voter verification process

Atlanta - “The decision by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to deny preclearance of Georgia’s already implemented citizenship verification process shows a shocking disregard for the integrity of our elections. With this decision, DOJ has now barred Georgia from continuing the citizenship verification program that DOJ lawyers helped to craft. DOJ’s decision also nullifies the orders of two federal courts directing Georgia to implement the procedure for the 2008 general election. The decision comes seven months after Georgia requested an expedited review of the preclearance submission.

“DOJ has thrown open the door for activist organizations such as ACORN to register non-citizens to vote in Georgia’s elections, and the state has no ability to verify an applicant’s citizenship status or whether the individual even exists. DOJ completely disregarded Georgia’s obvious and direct interest in preventing non-citizens from voting...

And we have elections in less than two weeks.

Just how corrupted is our election process?

THE REAL CAMPAIGN SIGN FOR THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

(Graphic above from TOTUS)

VIDEO: I'M TAKING ACTION

Quite the rant and with excellent points about the necessity of the right pursuing political activism:



Vote 'em out in November.

California labor and the fall elections

Labor's campaign in California has been an ambitious mix of trying to persuade swing voters while at the same time trying to mobilize those Democrats who don't often vote in nonpresidential elections.

Harold Meyerson

August 31, 2010

Just how blue will California be this November? Will this Democratic state return Barbara Boxer to the Senate and Jerry Brown to the statehouse, or will their mega-funded GOP opponents ride the red tide of what's looking to be a strong Republican year into office?

Let's start with the governor's race. Brown has been no more than intermittently visible this year, husbanding his limited funds for an autumnal media blitz. Meg Whitman, by contrast, has bought into every media market known to humankind. By the normal rules of politics, she should have opened a lead on the late-starting Brown. But by the measure of almost every poll, she hasn't.

Part of the reason for that is California's union movement, which has put up ads and begun its field program earlier than ever this year to counter Whitman's spending advantage. As Seema Mehta reported in Monday's Times, labor has already spent $14 million on advertising and getting its ground game in place.

"In 2006, [Democratic gubernatorial nominee] Phil Angelides was in a 15-point hole by Labor Day," said Courtni Pugh, who heads up some state political programs for the Service Employees International Union, recalling how Anglides' inability to go on the air that summer gave the far-better-funded Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a decisive advantage before labor had even begun its efforts on Angelides' behalf. "This time," she continued, "we knew we had to go on the air the day after the primary, not the day after Labor Day."

Labor's campaign in California has been an ambitious mix of trying to persuade swing voters while at the same time trying to mobilize those Democrats who don't often vote in nonpresidential elections. Much of labor's strategy to sway swing voters is modeled on the national AFL-CIO's Working America project, which targets white, blue-collar workers with economically populist messages. The larger piece of the program, though — dictated by California's demographics — targets African American and, most especially, Latino voters, who will vote Democratic provided they are motivated to vote at all.

In California, such voters present a huge opportunity. Steve Rosenthal, a Washington-based political consultant who is generally regarded as one of the Democrats' preeminent strategists, has calculated that the number of Latino, African American and young California voters who voted in November 2008 — but not in some or all of the previous elections going back to 2004 — is a mind-boggling 3,585,000. The total number of Californians expected to vote this November is in the 9 million to 10 million range, so getting a large share of those sometime voters to the polls is the central challenge facing California Democrats.

The conventional wisdom on midterm elections is that turnout is always going to be low. State Democrats, however, are confident they can change that, chiefly because California is home to the most politically potent labor movement in the nation, with a strong record of turning out Latino voters for Democratic candidates and causes. Since the mid-'90s, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and the SEIUhave excelled at getting Latino voters to the polls. This year, they are funding ads in the Spanish-language media assailing what they term Whitman's "two-faced" position on immigration — her hard-line position during the Republican primary and her more sunny rhetoric since. On this key issue, they assert, she cannot be trusted. They are carrying that message door to door in Latino neighborhoods throughout the state.

This summer's outburst of Republican nativism has provided the unions with ample talking points, as a union-sponsored poll of Los Angeles-area Latino voters made abundantly clear. Fully 83% of respondents opposed Arizona's suspicious-looking-Latino law, while 72% believed such a law could be passed in California. "Our message is that voting for Jerry is voting against the Arizona law and the prospect of its enactment here," said one of labor's leading California operatives.

"We know we're not going to be able to get back to the November '08 levels of turnout," the operative continued. "But just raising turnout to the level of the '08 primary would be a good goal." If younger voters and Latino and African American voters turned out at the level of that primary, Brown would probably be assured of victory.

Across most of the nation this fall, Democrats are resigned to having to face a reduced, disproportionately Republican electorate. In California, almost entirely because a more vibrant than usual labor movement has built deep ties to minority communities, this grim picture is one they can alter a bit — perhaps, just enough — to their advantage. Were labor as strong nationally as it is in California, Democrats might not be quite so panic-stricken about what the fall portends.

Harold Meyerson is editor at large of the American Prospect and a columnist for the Washington Post. He is doing a guest columnist stint on our Tuesday Op-Ed page.

THE WRITING ON THE WALL FOR NOVEMBER 2010

From U.S. News and World Report:

...Historically, presidents with approval ratings below 50 percent—Obama is at 45—lose an average of 41 House seats in midterm elections. This year, that would return the House of Representatives to Republican control. The Democrats will suffer disproportionately from a climate in which so many Americans are either dissatisfied or angry with the government, for Democrats are in the large majority in both houses and have to defend many more districts than Republicans. In any election year, voters' feelings typically settle in by June. But now they are being further hardened by the loose regulation that preceded the poisonous oil spill—and the tardy government response.

[...]

It is clear that the magical moment of Obama's campaign conveyed a spell that is now broken in the context of the growing public disillusionment. Obama's rise has been spectacular, but so too has been his fall.

How will Obama react to the coming meltdown of the Democratic Party's power?

VIDEO: REMEMBER NOVEMBER

Remember November

Assembly district 9 - Chris Garland and Kevin McCarty

            Sacramento Progressive Alliance

www.sacramentopa.org

There is an important election on  June 8, and it is important that you vote.

Assembly District 9. Endorsed:  Chris Garland and Kevin Mc Carty. Sacramento Progressive Alliance

Why vote for Chris Garland?  Its time to shake up the Capitol.

The Sacramento Progressive Alliance and others interviewed each of the major candidates for Assembly District 9 on May 19.  Most of the district lies within Sacramento.  This is the seat currently held by Dave Jones.  District 9 has a 55.9 % Democrat, 19.8 Republican, 19.4 % decline to state voter registration.  ( Plus American Independent 2.5%, Green 1%, Libertarian 0.5%, and Peace and Freedom 0.8%).

After considering the major candidates on the issues most important to the Progressive Alliance,  on May 22 we voted to  recommend that you vote for either Chris Garland or Kevin Mc Carty.  All four of the major candidates on the Democratic side were impressive.  We will be able to support anyone of them who wins the primary.

Garland explains his advocacy this way.  “ California’s in trouble.

 Our state budget is in a constant state of crisis, our policy-makers are gridlocked, and vital services are at-risk. Teachers are being laid off, and the promise of quality higher education for all may be a thing of the past.”

Chris Garland is currently the political director of the California Faculty Association. His responses were clearly closest to the perspective of the Progressive Alliance.  Like most of the candidates, he has served in positions as staff within the legislature.  He was deputy director of member services  for the Assembly Speaker’s office from 2005-2007.  We regard this significant legislative experience as valuable.  In this era of term limits, electing a person with prior experience in the legislature allows that person to lead rather than spend the first two years in on-the-job training.

 We regard dealing with the higher education budget crisis (along with that of k-12) as critical.  Of all of the candidates, Chris Garland best understood the crisis of  budgets and higher education in California. 

Note. See the complete list of endorsements below and a more detailed description of the differences in Assembly District 9 and the Superintendent of Public Instruction. -Torlakson. 

Boom ! Is it all over for Obama ?

Here are a quick few conclusions I draw from this spectacle:

-- We knew all along that the Democratic victories in 2006 and 2008 owed in great part to rejection of George W. Bush and a bankrupt Republican Party more than it did to a pro-active love for Democrats.

-- The election of Barack Obama did not heal the racial divide in America. He merely and temporarily bridged it because he was, indeed, an inspiring alternative to the crumb-bum Bushies (and that includes a dottering McCain and a wacky Palin).  But as soon as elected and the shine was off, the racial divide widened up again led by those strange creatures known as "independents" ( i.e. basically conservative white folks who look upon politics the way hotel guests view room service).

Read the entire blog at: Marc Cooper.  His blog is at http://marccooper.com/boom-is-it-all-over/ This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 9:27 pm and is filed under Main. 

BHO VOTER: "I FEEL LIKE I'VE BEEN PUNKED"

Graphic credit

Excerpt from an article which appeared above the fold in the front page of the Washington Post on August 5, 2009:

The coffee was still brewing when Chris Ann Cleland got her first reminder of the day that voting for Barack Obama might have been a mistake.

The Prince William County real estate agent was sitting at a long wooden table covered with paperwork. Her clients, a young couple who had brought their 2-week-old baby, were finalizing a short sale on a townhouse that they were anxious to unload, even if it meant ruining their credit, because they had maxed out their credit cards trying to make the payments.

For Cleland, it was another example -- one of many this day -- of the broken promises of a president who she thought would be different. Obama pledged to change a Washington culture that favored corporations and the connected and instead lift families such as the one sitting next to Cleland out of their economic funk. Rather, she said, Obama has backed billions of dollars to banks that continue to "act like they're broke" and started the country down a path that Cleland said she thinks will lead to more grief for the middle class.

"He's just not as advertised," she said. "Nothing's changed for the common guy. I feel like I've been punked."...

Ms. Cleland isn't the only voter with remorse covered in the WaPo article:

Stephanie Slater, 44, a neighbor of Cleland's who leans Republican, voted for Obama on the strength of his character and because of his positions on education, energy and health care. She recalled brimming with confidence after Obama's historic inaugural address.

"When he gave that speech that day, I was in awe. I was really inspired and thought, 'Wow, this is a guy who can do it,' " said Slater, a medical transcriptionist and mother of three.

But she has been disturbed by the large Wall Street bonuses that Obama doesn't seem to be able to halt and his inability to rein in credit card companies that raise rates even on those with good credit. Although she is trying to be patient, she said she is losing faith in the Democrats running Washington.

"Honestly, at this point, I have to say I'm worried. I haven't come across one person that seems to have been helped," she said. "If I don't see a spark, a light at the end of the tunnel, I may be voting Republican [for governor]."

In November, we Virginians will head to the polls to elect a new governor. The present governor, Tim Kaine, is a Democrat Obamabot and, according to the our state constitution, cannot succeed himself. Furthermore, this gubernatorial election is regarded by most as a barometer for the 2010 midterm elections.

Creigh Deeds, the Democratic Party's candidate for November, is walking a fine line and, overall, trying to distance himself from BHO's policies. And that strategy might work - except that BHO insists upon injecting himself into the race:

The president will make his first appearance in the campaign Thursday, when he headlines a fundraiser for R. Creigh Deeds (D) in McLean..."The mood is becoming just as lousy for the Democrats as it has been for us the last couple of years," said J. Kenneth Klinge, a longtime Virginia GOP strategist. "It's evening the playing field."

No matter where you live, keep an eye on this November's race for governor of Virginia.

The meaning of the special election: Marty Hittelman

The meaning of the special election
by Marty Hittelman


The May 19 Special Election has come and gone, but the results may not be easy to interpret. For one thing, each political persuasion (including mine) can find something in the results to validate their own beliefs. The anti-tax ideologues didn't even wait for the results of the May 19 special election to begin spinning. According to them, the defeat of Propositions 1A through 1E was due to the California electorate’s enduring anti-tax feelings.

There is plenty of evidence to dispute such a simplistic conclusion. The bulk of the "No" campaign came from public sector unions and their community allies determined to prevent further cuts to California's vital social services—the government programs that help make our society livable.

Indeed, traditional allies and adversaries were jumbled together on both sides, and a confused electorate is one that tends to vote “no.”
Polling shows that the hardcore anti-tax vote is pretty much constant, representing about 20% of the electorate. Clearly this was not sufficient to defeat the initiatives.

Another factor in assessing the election is that most voters did not bother to vote. While typical of a special election turnout, this phenomenon suggests voters did not believe the ballot measures represented a real solution to the problems of closing the state’s structural budget gap and funding essential public services.

We can reasonably surmise these proposals were defeated for a variety of reasons. But the clearest lesson should be that the people of California did not support a state budget process that occurred behind closed doors, involving only the governor and the legislative leadership, who dumped a half-baked mess of virtually incomprehensible ideas on the voters and said, here, you solve it. Proposition 1A, in particular, was so convoluted that even its advocates couldn't explain it clearly.

If an open, democratic budget process had occurred, 1A and the other propositions never would have made it to the ballot, because their tortuous logic and flaws would have been made all too apparent.

Now the propositions have been defeated and the ever-shrinking Republican legislative minority still possesses just above one third of the votes, leaving them in the same position that forced the special election: the driver’s seat. California’s archaic (from 1934) and nearly unique (just two other states) constitutional requirement for a two-thirds legislative vote for passing the state budget means the legislative Republicans are a classic example of “tyranny of the minority.”

Throughout the campaign the governor maintained, with typical disregard for facts, that these measures would “fix the state budget.” They were never going to. The Democratic Legislative leaders had a more plausible, but equally cynical argument: you had to vote for this package, because there was “no alternative,” due to Republican ideological unity and intransigence.

In the coming days we will see if the Republicans can take their responsibility to govern seriously, or stay stuck in the same reverse gear that brought them massive defeat in the last election and a shrinking share of California’s electorate. If they can’t change, Assembly and Senate Democrats should take a small portion of their political war chests and go out to the Legislative districts that have changing demographics. Enough of these districts now exist that a well-organized voter registration and election campaign leading to the November 2010 election could force the hard line anti-taxers below the magic one-third threshold.

Another alternative: go directly to the ballot to ask the people of California to understand what nearly every other state's citizens do: that our Legislature should practice democracy by majority rule.

The past few decades have seen an unfortunate redistribution of this country's wealth upward. The richest one percent own more than one third of our combined wealth. Recent polls show that large majorities support increasing taxes on the rich and closing corporate tax loopholes to keep California livable. This should give courage to our political leaders. But expediency is not why the governor and Legislature should focus on progressive taxes to solve the budget problem; rather, they should do it because it is their job to clearly explain the links between taxes and the important services they fund, and because it is the right thing to do.
Hittleman is the President of the California Federation of Teachers. Not to be confused with the CTA.

California budget crisis

No on 1 A
Yes on 1 B.
Last year California had a serious budget crisis, over 34 billion in missing revenue. The legislature and the governor passed some temporary tax increases and made harsh budget cuts to get us through this year. Propositions 1 A- 1E, would continue this budget “solution” for a total of 4 years. However, the state, like other states continues to fall further behind. California is at least $21.3 billion behind at this time even with the increased taxes and budget cuts.
No on Prop 1 A
Since 2002 the CSU has lost almost $1 billion in state funding. Students have been charged more fees to make up the losses. Prop. 1A places a spending cap on the state budget that will make these cuts permanent. The CSU budget will not be restored to the levels of 2002 and tuition will continue to rise. The UC Board of Regents and the CSU Board of Trustees have already voted to increase tuition for the Fall by 10%.
Prop 1A would actually make it more difficult for future governors and legislatures to enact budgets that meet California's needs and address state priorities. It would amend the state Constitution to dictate restrictions on the use of funds put into the reserve and limit how "unanticipated" revenues can be used in good years. It could lock in a reduced level of public services, including university education, by not taking proper account of the state's changing demographics and actual growth in costs.
Yes on 1 B
California's k-12 education system is in large part in crisis because it is underfunded. Contrary to the wishes of the voters, politicians continue to fail to adequately fund our schools. Legislators only have a 23% support in the public. When comparisons include cost of living, California ranks 47th out of the 50 states in per pupil expenditures. Our schools are suffering. This is unacceptable.
California, and most other states, have a budget crisis as a result of the national economic crisis – significantly a banking crisis. The robber barons of finance capital have stolen the money, they have looted the treasury and our pensions and now they want to return to business as usual without any significant reform of the economic system. Just give them more tax payer money to bail out the banks.


The severity of the national and international economic collapse has created budget shortfalls for state and local governments. Economist Dean Baker, says "Since many states are required by their charters or constitutions to balance their budgets, states will end up using federal stimulus dollars to offset these shortfalls." It currently looks as if much of the stimulus package will be used to back fill state budget shortages which sharply limits the potential success of the stimulus.

Additional recommendations

Prop 1C: NO –State Lottery (borrows from future lottery funds).
.Prop 1D: NO –Cuts funding for children’s services such as health care.

Prop 1E: NO –Cuts funding for much needed mental health services.

An Important Win

Obama won so overwhelmingly in large part because of Howard Dean's 50 state strategy as chairman of the national Democratic party. After the Democrats romped in the 2006 elections, James Carville and a couple of allies called for Dean to be replaced because they didn't do even better. Democratic state leaders from all over the country rallied to Dean's support, and Carville fell on his face. Hillary was the DLC dog in this race, and Obama the one who stopped them. It is cynical and probably mistaken to assume that Obama is in DLC's pocket just because of a few appointments. To dismiss Obama and Dean's victory over the DLC is to miss or ignore a pretty important aspect of contemporary Amercan political history. Some have argued strongly if cynically that Obama is essentially a neoliberal barely distinguishable from the Clintons -- a position which itself is barely distinguishable from ISO's. (They said the same thing about Edwards.)


But it appears most people think Obama's victory including 3 Southern states (Virginia, Florida and NC) and 3 Western (Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico), the defeats of Sununu and Dole, the election of 2 Udalls to the Senate, and on and on, signals a significant departure potentially analogous to Roosevelt's New Deal. Is it our sad niche to stand aside and say, "We know better than all of you. Don't get your hopes up, the game is fixed"? Again, ISO does that to perfection. And they're wrong - and profoundly un-democratic.



On election day, a Queens race proved to be the fulcrum for flipping the NY state senate democratic for the first time in almost 50 years as Republican incumbent Serphim Maltese lost 58-42 to Dem-WFP Joe Addabbo Jr.. Control of the state senate [still in limbo] will result in progressive taxation, repeal of the Rockefeller drug laws, repealing vacancy decontrol for one million regulated NYC apartments, nonpartisan (or less partisan) redistricting, campaign finance reforms and other interim victories which will strengthen the Left and make future victories more likely.
Kenny Schaeffer . NYC.

Unions and elections

From the American Federation of Teachers
“So much about this campaign has been historic and electrifying,” Weingarten said. “The incredible voter interest Barack Obama generated, especially among young, independent and first-time voters; the sea change in voting patterns across America; and the election of America’s first African-American president are all extraordinary milestones for our country. I am hopeful that this civic excitement and engagement will be sustained for the benefit of our great democracy.
“At a time when the focus on strengthening public education has been all but eclipsed by other issues, Sen. Obama has shown both deep understanding of, and real interest in, the need to ensure every child receives a world-class education. The members and leaders of the AFT welcome President-elect Obama’s commitment to working together to strengthen public education. We look forward to partnering with him and with members of both parties to fulfill this promise.”
The AFT’s political operation in the 2008 elections was unprecedented. The union deployed nearly 600 full-time campaign coordinators and 5,000 volunteers to assist affiliates and the AFL-CIO in member-education and get-out-the-vote efforts. Since endorsing Sen. Obama at its national convention in July, the AFT made more than 4 million contacts with its membership, including phone calls, mail, leaflets and—the means of communication proven to be most effective—direct member-to-member contact at home and at the workplace.
“We were in more states, with a greater presence, than ever before. And it worked,” Weingarten said. “I saw this firsthand in the 18 states I have visited since becoming AFT president in July.”
States with a strong AFT and union presence made a decisive difference in the elections, not only in choosing the next president, but also in giving him a Congress to work with that will champion the concerns of working people and will support public education and other vital public services.
“Barack Obama will be a president for all Americans,” Weingarten said. “For Americans from every state in the Union, for those who enjoy great wealth as well as those who suffer terrible want, for Americans of every color, creed and walk of life. This is the time for our country to come together in common purpose to create a better life for all Americans.
“President-elect Obama faces considerable challenges—a severe economic crisis, a broken healthcare system, the needs of an aging population, enormous infrastructure strains and American troops engaged in two wars. But he is welll-equipped to lead our country, which is unparalleled in its ability and determination to face such challenges.”
From AFT Release

Election results

Like all who worked so long and hard for this victory, I am elated at the Obama win.
See below:

And, Oregon voters defeated Prop.58 which would have banned bilingual education- like California’s Prop.227.

On the other hand, the battle for California Prop.8- the ban on gay marriage has been lost. A major defeat.

The mobilization of the Evangelical Right to pass Prop.8 counteracted the mobilization of the Obama campaign. We lost some close Congressional races such as Cal. Districts 3 and 4 due to this Right wing mobilization. We seem to have lost district 4 by only 400 votes- Charlie Brown V. McClintock although thousands of votes are yet to be counted.

Where do we go from here?

McCain and change

Recount : Florida 2000

‘Recount’ Gets It Right, Even if America Didn’t
By Brad Friedman
This review was originally posted on The Brad Blog.

I don’t mind admitting it. For an Election Integrity journalist, HBO’s Recount is pure pornography.
So it was with great anticipation that I sat down on Sunday night to watch the film as it premiered, along with the “Diebold Document Whistleblower” (and my new colleague at VelvetRevolution.us) Steven Heller and his wife, and Robert Carillo Cohen, one of the filmmakers of HBO’s landmark documentary, the Emmy-nominated Hacking Democracy which enjoyed a re-airing earlier in the day, as the cable net set the stage for its newest democracy thriller/heart-…

As it turns out, HBO seems to have gotten just about all of it right from a factual standpoint. At least from the perspective of someone who followed those extraordinary 36 days incredibly closely both during and since, as the country hung in limbo as if, yes, dangling by a chad. There was quite a bit of nuance packed in to the two fast-paced hours, even down to the dirty machinations of Florida’s corrupt and soulless Rep. Tom Feeney who played a minor, but key role in both the film and the stolen election.
Getting it right, or close to it, is apparently no small feat, since even the New York Times, the “paper of record”, was unable to do so even in their review of the film, seven years after they covered the actual events, and six years after they correctly wrote, “If all the ballots had been reviewed under any of seven single standards...Mr. Gore would have won.”
Never mind history though, now for the Times it’s the revisionistic: “Mr. Bush would have come out slightly ahead, even if all the votes counted throughout the state had been re-tallied.” (For the record, the Times was right six years ago, here’s the evidence [PDF], and wrong last week.)
While time has done few favors for the Times, the historical distance, and time-compression of the two hour film, managed to capture the thrilling, exhausting and disappointing back and forth, up and down roller coaster of the original saga --- while identifying the players who deserve much of the thanks for the failure to count every vote accurately, as per the voters’ intent, or even at all --- in what was finally democracy lost.
Among the players targeted for failing to ensure the proper administration of democracy: then-Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee Joe Lieberman, who the film identifies as having almost single-handedly allowed hundreds of military ballots to be counted for George W. Bush despite any evidence whatsoever that any of them were actually cast prior to the close of polls on November 7th, 2000.
While I had been aware of the Gore campaign foolishly rolling over to the cynical and opportunistic GOP attempts to bully them, by painting them as anti-troop --- based on their eventually-abandoned premise that all counted ballots should actually be legal ones --- I hadn’t drawn a direct bead on Lieberman for blowing that call.
If the filmmakers were accurate in that depiction, then it looks like one of John McCain’s biggest supporters in 2008 had been undermining Democratic White House ambitions long ago.
Given the film’s familiar outcome, no small amount of credit is due the filmmakers who were able to succeed in having a room of jaded (understatement) election buffs still rooting for the good guys to pull it out this time around. (Without giving too much away, they didn’t. Gore was still named the loser, despite having received more votes in Florida in 2000 than Bush [PDF], even after tens of thousands of legal minority voters were excluded from voting at all, merely because their names sounded something like others who had purportedly been convicted of a felony at one time or another.)
The result: a taut, often hilarious, consistently engaging, still-maddening and sick-making political thriller. History would thank you for watching it. Again and again.

Immigration and the 2008 election

I am working on some ideas related to the immigration “crisis” and the election of 2008. Immigrants’ Rights groups are getting together in Houston in January to seek a common program – a program for progressives in the Latino Communities. The task here is different. Our goal may be to develop a strategy for use in the Anglo or European American electorate.
Following the lead ideas of Andrew Levison at democraticstrategist.com, one important task is to drive a wedge between the extreme, racists anti immigrant forces such as the Minutemen, and divide them from working class Lou Dobbs democrats. If we are unable to create this division, the anti immigrant position may well elect a Republican President.

At present many European American working-class families, like others in the working class, are under severe financial pressure to keep a secure job with good pay and benefits. The international economic restructuring has replaced many of the good-paying, unionized, industrial jobs with lower paying service sector work.
In the 1980s and 1990s right-wing political candidates such as Patrick Buchanan, talk show hosts, and conservative opinion-shapers in the media and on college campuses blamed minority advancements and the women’s movement for the economic stagnation of working people rather than recognizing the role of corporate greed, a view accepted as valid by some (Domhoff, 2002). Since 2001 much of the focus of hostility has shifted to blaming immigrants, particularly immigrants and their children from Latin America, Asia, and the Caribbean regions of Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. A populist anti immigration movement and supporting ideology was developed by author Samuel Huntington, news anchor Lou Dobbs on CNN, and Congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado as he ran for the Republican nomination for President.
Currently the debate on immigration is largely framed by the far right. Tom Tancredo, with less than 2% support even in the Republican party, is setting the terms of the debate. Once the Republican primaries are settled, this anti immigrant position will become a major issue used against the Democrats. Both the Republicans and the Democrats already agree on a border wall. As a part of a strategy to drive a wedge druing this election cycle between the outright racists and others in the anti immigrant movement, we should develop and advance some concrete proposals. These might also fit into our Economic Justice Agenda.
First. Give 100,000 immigrant visas per year to people from Mexico and Canada, our NAFTA “partners”. Under current law each country gets a visa total of 20,000 per year. Thus, Costa Rica with 4.1 million people, and Mexico with 103 million people have the same quota for admission. And, given the long history of U.S. –Mexican migration, this ignores the millions of Mexican family members already here.
Second, Give permanent resident visas, and a path to citizenship to all of the children in the U.S, who were brought to the U.S. prior to age 12 by their parents. We don’t punish children for the decisions of their parents.
Third: Develop a reasonable path to citizenship for all the people here who are parents of U.S. citizen children under the age of 18. If a child is a U.S. citizen, certainly they have the right to have their parents here to care for them and to work to earn a living. Proposals to deport parents of U.S. citizen children are mean spirited and contrary to the current law which is based upon family unification.
Fourth:Develop a real path to citizenship for all of the people presently here without documents. This might be a temporary residence visa for 3-5 years, and then a permanent residence visa if the person had good conduct for that period of time.
Fifth: (controversial)
Develop a reasonable guest worker program for 450,000 workers per year. Essentially the same as the Ag Workers bill. There are hunderds of thousands of workers who would like to come to the U.S. for a couple of years to work – and not to stay. And, the U.S. economy needs these workers _ I think.
These workers should be protected by union membership.
To protect the worker. Guest Worker visas should be given to the worker – not to the employer. Then, if a worker is mistreated he/she can leave that job and go find other work.
Note: I have opposed guest worker programs for the last 37 years.
NAFTA and globalization may be making them the better option than the current system of exploitation.
I welcome other ideas and suggestions on this issue. I am confident that my own position will change over time.
Duane Campbell

Immigration : The Lou Dobbs effect

Immigration is a divisive issue. It will be a critical issue in the next election.
Most assume that ," a nation has a right to secure its
borders." Certainly Lou Dobbs takes this position as do almost all
of the Democratic Pres. candidates.
In the specific case of the U.S., the southwest of the U.S. was taken
from Mexico by war. (1848)
If a nation takes a huge territory by war, ie. imperialism, why then
do they subsequently have the right to stop people from the former
country from migrating to the ew conquered territory?
This is, for
example, a critical issue in the Israel case.
Most of the countries with major immigration were formerly
imperialist and colonial powers. the largest migration is from the
former colonies to the empire's center.
That is true of Latinos to the U.S., Pakistanis to England, and a
major problem in Russia.
And, the economic development of the central power was made at the cost of the
periphery. That is massive resources were taken from the colonies to
the center.
Then, does the center country now have the right to close the borders
and say,
We took your oil, land, resources, but now you must starve on what we
left you?
I am not comfortable with that formulation.

In the specific case of Mexico (and Guatemala, El Salvador, etc.) the
U.S. economic treaty NAFTA, enriched the ruling elite on both sides
of the border.
It placed over 1.6 million Mexicans out of work and out of
subsistence farming.
So, do we privilege economic treaties passed by the powerful, and
then say that people can not move to feed their families?
I think not.

More to come on this subject.
Duane Campbell
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