Ghosts of Joe Slovo

Lots of people make predictions about the outcomes of primaries, some of whom have actually done things like poll prospective voters, others who have crunched demographics, and still others who have crunched lots of polling data.

And then there's me. Going on nothing but gut instinct and cursory blog-entry-reading.

So I'm breaking my weeks-long silence to regale ya'll with my primary predictions:

NC: Obama by 8-10 points, say 54 or 55 to Clinton's 46 or 45.
IN: Clinton by 5 points, say 52.5 to Obama's 47.5.

Until the Rev. Wright decided to do his Buffoonery 2008 Tour I thought maybe Indiana could break for Obama, but not now. And in all fairness to Rev. Wright, if Obama had used the opportunity of his "bitter" comment to actually hammer home a populist economic theme that spoke directly to working class anxiety over the economy and the future, it wouldn't have mattered what the good Reverend was on about.

But that is the pitfall of leaving your economic messaging to University of Chicago economists.

Kick ass and get out the vote.

Crud.

For the first time in my life I owe more taxes than were taken out of my paycheck.

I suspect some kind of Bush Administration conspiracy.

But my financial advisor says it was probably due to the conversation of retirement savings from one kind of IRA to another, a change that had "tax implications" as they say in the biz.

As I was thinking about this I heard that Big Oil made a collective $143 billion PROFIT this past year and yet still get about $11 billion or so each year in tax breaks.

WTF?

Apparently the next time I convert IRA's I need to make sure that I'm also investing in R&D, exploration, and upgrading my refining equipment.

Question: If you can make $143 billion in one year (ONE YEAR!), can't you also fund your own R&D, exploration, and upgrades? I mean that's $143 billion AFTER YOU'VE PAID FOR ALL YOUR COSTS!


"Gosh, Senator, you know that $143 billion doesn't go so far anymore. You've got your salaries, your supplies, your transportation and fuel costs *snicker*, your computers and what not... After all that, there's not a whole lot left over for searching for new deposits and upgrading old refineries so they don't keep exploding like they do all the time in Contra Costa County, CA. You know how it is Senator, a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money."


Clearly I am in the wrong business.

Kick ass and pay $4/gallon for gasoline.

Okay, first off, I'd be happy if the Dems picked either of the two people currently kicking the shit out of each other. I'd prefer Obama, not necessarily from a policy perspective, since his articulated policies are clearly the less progressive, but because of the way he's running for President. He's investing huge amounts of money and effort in training his staff and volunteers in the basics of organizing and he's running his campaign as if it were a giant community organizing effort. This will have ramifications for the next generation of progressive work and substantially builds progressive infrastructure, which can then be used to kick a little right-wing ass.

My bias is front and center in this. So take that into consideration when I say that I'm fairly disappointed with Clinton's campaign right now. Choosing to go with the red phone ad, which plays into people's fears and insecurities, in effect scaring them into voting for her, is, to my mind, unethical in this particular primary race. It's not dirty, it's not harsh, but it is unethical.

Why? Because it accepts the GOP frame on this election: that is is the 3rd security election (2002, 2004, 2008 - 2006 was clearly about the direction of the country and the meltdown of the Republicans) and the decision should be made on who the next Commander In Chief should be.

Well, first of all, thanks for appealing to the most primitive and base part of a person's emotional make-up as you try to make your case. Second, do you seriously think that the Dems can compete on CIC issues running against a former GOP prisoner of war who was tortured? Third, there is a golden opportunity to make this election about economic issues, effectively reframing "security" to include economic security. Do that and you win. Do this red phone business and you lose.

The winning contrast for the Democrats in November will not be between relative competancies in dealing with military threats, it will be between those who speak for people who are hurting and for people who are energized by the idea of a new direction for the country and those who want a 3rd Bush Presidency run by a guy who went to high school with Methusalah. 

That's why I'm disappointed in Clinton right now and find myself actually dreading a drawn-out primary contest. It only gets bloodier from here and, not to only blame Clinton in all this, Obama needs to add some economic populism to his message of hope and post-partisanship (and he can start that by giving the heave-ho to all those U of Chicago economic advisors) because he's not going to win as a Democrat appleaing only to the well-educated, the young, and the economically well off. (See also, Latino Vote, Winning the.) Seriously, dude, use that soaring rhetoric to channel your inner Paul Wellstone.

That's all.

Kick ass and watch the primary season of a thouand cuts grind on.

I mentioned the other day that the ACORN PAC might be making an endorsement this week. Well, they did.

On Wednesday night, ACORN Votes, the ACORN PAC, endorsed Barack Obama for President.

ACORN President Maude Hurd had this to say,

“Last night, Sen. Obama received more than the two-thirds majority needed from our elected national leadership to secure the endorsement. Over the past months, we have worked with all leading candidates. ACORN’s members have deep appreciation and respect for Senators Clinton and Edwards and their work on behalf of our communities. What it came down to was that Senator Obama is the candidate who best understands and can effect change on the issues ACORN cares about like stopping foreclosures, enacting fair and comprehensive immigration reform, and building stronger and safer communities across America.”

ACORN's membership is probably about 35% Latino and 65% African-American. I don't think this will have much effect in Texas, since Texas ACORN's presence is concentrated in a few areas. But this could have a major impact on African-American turnout in Ohio, where ACORN has a major presence and a demonstrated track record in moving state-wide issues and conducting statewide voter contact programs. ACORN ran the field for the 2006 Ohio Minimum Wage ballot measure and reached between 250K and 350K largely African-American voters.

I would expect that this means that ACORN members will hit the streets for Obama immediately in Ohio (and Texas, but more in Ohio). Down the line this could mean more boots on the ground in places like Pennsylvania as well.

Interesting.

Kick ass and take names.

Word on the street is that ACORN, which has massive field capacity amongst low and moderate income voters and communities of color in Ohio and Pennsylvania, might be making a Presidential endorsement this week, Wednesday at the earliest. 

The organization's membership has been divided amongst the Big Three on the Democratic side, reflecting how voters voting in Democratic primaries have broken down nationally. But with Edwards out and the fight down to two, with only a few big states remaining, it looks like there is mounting support to pick a candidate. The winning candidate needs two-thirds support of the voting membership and no one's willing to go on record as to who the membership is supporting.

My own guess is Obama, but Clinton has always played well with ACORN's membership and NY ACORN members are especially fierce in their support. They could move the rest of the voting leadership or gather enough votes to block any endorsement at all.

This is particularly important for the endorsee in Ohio because of ACORN's demostrated ability to reach voters in majority minority districts, last seen in 2006's election when they ran the field for the minimum wage ballot initiative and reached well over 250,000 voters with multiple contacts over a 6 week period.

We'll see what happens...

Kick ass and take names.

Okay Hillary and Barack.

Make me want you.


Kick ass and take names.

When I heard that the President and Democratic leaders in Congress were holding talks about stimulating me, I thought, "Finally! Government tackles the important issues!" I started thinking about how they might help me out with items from the Good Vibrations catalog, maybe a few DVD's or a really good streaming internet connection for some intimate chatting, if you know what I mean...

Then I heard that they were talking about economic stiumlation.

Less exciting. Or to put it in the colorful language of Mae West, I felt like her pun on the classic Flannery O'Conner short story: A Hard Man Is Good To Find. Except it was A Hard Man is Hard to Find.

Then I heard they amount they were talking about.

Total and complete buzzkill. As in A Hard Man Is Impossible To Find.

Because, look, they are talking about $300 per person to hit in May and $600 for couples who file their taxes jointly.

That's the same amount of money I got back when GW gave away the treasury to his rich buddies. I got $300, they got about $50,000. Cuz, you know, people worth million need that extra $50K.

And this is now 2008. That was 2001. To keep pace with inflation, the "stimulus" would have to be $340 (in 2006 dollars). In other words, compared with the last time the Gummint just handed out money I got $300, this time I'm getting $265 in constant dollars. (I figued this out using the Inflation Calculator.)

And the entire thing is going to cost about $150 billion. A good chunk of which is tax relief for businesses. Because you know how taxes kill businesses. So many die every year that we have the largest economy in the world. Feh. Anyway, in an economy of $12-13 TRILLION, this is kind of a drop in the bucket.

And what's that in relation to, say, the Iraq war? Like 2-3 months of our costs. Don't you think a package to goose the economy should actually be an amount of money that can make a difference?

I'm going to take whatever money the give me, don't get me wrong.

But, seriously, if they think that is "stimulating" they are surfing the wrong porn sites.

Kick ass and take names.

Been gone for a while. This is going to be very stream of consciousness.

*Los Angeles smells GREAT after it rains. Seriously. But, we're in a drought, so this is something I've experienced, like, twice.

*We did the Bay Area for part of the Holidays. I love the Bay and I totally appreciate getting to jog in the redwoods. Totally did not appreciate the 5-day sore throat this gave me. Also, if you get a chance to go to a party in the Berkeley hills at a house with a panoramic view from Mt. Tam to the San Mateo Bridge during a winter sunset then you should go, even if it is just for the sunset. If the party is full of family members, good wine, and great food, then so much the better.

*Tyche and her family are good together for about 2.5 days, after that I suggest shin guards and one of those weird looking soft helmet things that soccer players use to prevent concussions. On a related note, there are few things as surpsingly disappointing as a banal "Jesus Loves You" Christmas Day homily. And I say that as an a person with no particular religious affiliation.

*New Orleans continues to be a mix of devestation and slow return. Comparing this time last year to this year, the amount of rebuilding and population growth is palpable. There are still massive problems - infrastructure, political, justice system, health care system, housing - but the change is hopeful. The culture that makes New Orleans New Orleans still shines through, though it will take awhile before it becomes as robust as it was.

*Case in point: New Year's at Tipitina's, a NOLA institution. Featuring Galactic, a NOLA funk band that is one of the few contemporary bands that can kick ass the way The Meters and JB and Parliament/Funkadelic did. Which is where Tyche and I along with my brother and his fiance ended up. Got there at about 9:45 and stayed until about 3AM. Galactic was even better live than on their CD's. But it was the entire scene, an alchemical mixture of drunken frat boys/sorority sisters in town for the various bowl games, recent "brain gain" young people there to rebuild, old school NOLA burnouts, southern fried hippies (think Asheville and Athens), and the usual number of funk-stoners that made it an utterly NOLA gathering. Well, that and the music. New Or-Lee-Annes knows how to party. Seriously.

*And as I stood there, about halfway back in the room, taking in the entire scene, the people, the music, the mixed scents of sweat, mixed drinks, spilled beer, tobacco, and marijuana all at New Year's on the cusp of 2008, I thought, "This is history in the making. People in this town are going to remember the years after the storm as something. It will be an era, a time spoken of as "a time when". And my brother is right in the middle of it and here I am right in the middle of this. This is going to be a thing."

*2008 is going to be a thing, too.

*The general election is going to be close, unless Bloomberg launches a 3rd party bid. Then it's the Democrats in a blow-out. Having said that, this year it is the Democrats' race to lose.

*About two years ago I wrote a few essays/longwinded blog comments about the coming crack-up of the GOP coalition between the Main Streeters and the Wall Streeters. Main Streeters were your Christianists and aspects of the small business community, Wall Streeters were your corporate owning class types. The latter use the former as foot soldiers to elect people like W who speak about values and proceed to rape the country and embark on pre-emptive wars. But this year, the Main Streeters finally have their own genuine candidate in Mike Huckabee. I think the crack-up is upon us. This is one of the reasons why I think this election is the Democrats to lose.

*Of course that means that who the Democratic nominee is becomes even more important than it was in 2004. There is an opportunity to get a functioning progressive into the White House and we need to take that opportunity. My choice is Edwards, clearly the most progressive and most populist of the Democratic contenders.

*Obama is good too, but it worries me that he chooses to make it difficult for citizen's organizations like ACORN and labor unions to get his campaign's attention and that he uses rhetoric and literature that calls groups like us "special interests" as if we played in the same sandbox with energy companies and Big Pharma. I wonder how open he would be to groups like us once he's in the White House. And believe me, we are going to be a big reason that core progressive voters show up at the polls this year.

That's all for now.

Kick ass and take names.

I've been thinking a lot about stuff lately, he said, displaying a keen sense for the vauge and ambiguous. Here's the guide: politics, futbol, and con artists.

First, politics: Here's you superstat of the moment. If, in the 2006 election cycle, non-whites had been registered and voted at the same rates as whites, there would have been 7.5 million more voters in the electorate. The context for this is that people think bringing in 2 million or so new voters in an election cycle (above who you would expect to enter under the current rates of entry and exit) is a Really Big Deal. Bringing in 7.5 million would be mind-blowing.

Why does this matter? These voters generally favor one party over another. You can guess which. This is why the whole freak-out by the Department of Justice in 04 and 06, (illegally) using the machinery of the US Govt. to suppress voters from just these demographics, push for voter ID laws, and generally attack groups like ACORN as engaging in "voter fraud" is so important. The whole Attorneygate deal hinged on people not being zealous enough in attacking so-called fraud. Turns out there was no fraud. Turns out it was an effort to keep certain people from voting. And those numbers, while large, are nowhere near 7.5 million. More like 500K-1 Million, spread strategically over the country.

So what would happen if you DID bring in 7.5 million of these voters. I can tell you the GOP has no interest in finding out.


Next, futbol: The LA Galaxy are on a 4-game win streak after having their worst season ever to date. Ugly wins, achieved thorugh grit, will, and teamwork. Not so very much fun to watch, except that, as a fan, knowing they have to win 7 in a row to make the playoffs, every minute has tension and excitement. I'll miss the season when its over.


After that, con artists: How many of you have been conned? And how many times? I was thinking about this earlier in the week, when a guy in a not-so-new-but-not-so-old Mercedes motioned me over from the crosswalk at 37th and Flower and gave me a sob story about being from the Valley (Encino) and forgetting his wallet and needing cash to fill the tank to get to the next place on his itinerary. Maybe. Maybe not.

This situation is a dilemma that in my case relies more on my own self-image than the actual circumstances in front of my eyes. Does the guy need gas? I can't verify it. Is he just messing with me to get cash to do something he thinks he can't get cash for if he's honest? (AKA "Is this guy a crack fiend preying on my charity to get high and support the terrorist economy?") Maybe. Do I care? Not really. I want to live in a world where someone in need can walk up to someone else and say, "Yo, I need cash to fix an immediate need." and the other person will say, "Here's something to help you out." I want to be that guy. But I'm not interested in separating out the "worthy" from the "unworthy".

So I've decided to categorize each of these encounters not as a charity transaction, but an an entertainment event. I generally ask myself, "What is this story worth?" Based entirely on subjective and ever-changing criteria, of course. How well rehearsed is the story? How smooth is the delivery? How much does the dude smell? How much pathos is involved? Are their kids? What kind of tragedy is being invoked? Is there self-deprication invovled? What is the level of obsequiosness? How much am I being assumed to be a clueless white man devoid of the street smarts given to your average 8th grade survivor of middle school?

Based on my own interpretation of the answers to these questions and the level of the "ask", I generally come up with a dollar figure that satisfies us both. And I don't have to worry about where or how the money will be spent or whether or not I'm being taken by a con artist or a street hustler. It was an equal tranaction. I got a show and the dude got some cash. End of story.

This also got me thinking about all the times I really did get conned out of what I would consider to be "real" money, most of which also played on my own self-image. But I was less experienced and more naive, so I got hooked and reeled in nice and easy like. But those are stories for another posting.

Kick ass and take names.

I was thinking about US politics for a minute recently. Shocking I know.

And it was not pleasant.

In short: Unless the Wimpocrats develop a spine and force some kind of real plan for getting the hell out of Iraq, the 2009-2012 Democratic Presidency will be unable to have the funds to deliver a domestic agenda that deals with ANY of the pressing needs facing the country and the planet AND will be blamed for everything that goes wrong in Iraq (and NOTHING will go right) AND will end up in enough of a shambles that the GOP will win the 2012 elections in Congress and the White House and we will be back to being a country run by PaleoCons.

Weee, I'm a real ray of sunshine.

Kick ass and dither and dilly-dally and cluck and whine and cave-in.

Sometimes you get to surprise yourself.

For a few years now I've been toiling away in a small part of a large operation dedicated to facilitating and encouraging the electoral participation of underrepresented populations, with an emphasis on black folks, Latinos, low-income families, and young people. A large part of that work is registering people to vote, or more accurately, helping them register to vote, since technically they aren't registered until the County says they are registered.

We've done pretty well. Actually, we are the largest national voter registration organization in the United States (which isn't saying much because most other countries don't need this kind of work as they have policies in place that ensure near-universal registration of all their eligible population). Over the past two election cycles we've submitted over 37% of all the voter registration applications submitted by nationalvoter registration drives. And I've seen a statistice that about 12% of voters get registred through VR drives, so we've got about 37% of whatvever of that 12% was done by national drives. In raw terms, that's about 1.7 million VR applications.

In order to do this effectively, you have to go where the unregistered people are, especially from your own targeted constituencies. So you have to know approximately where these folks are and how many of them are there. Otherwise you waste time and money, both of which are precious for anyone, but especially so for an organization of poor people.

That's where I come in. One of the biggest tasks my tiny little piece of this much larger operation is responsible for is projecting the unregistered eligible populations in various counties and electoral jurisdictions. While this isn't rocket science, it does take some thought and concentration to deal with the data sets. Well, it turns out that in toiling away at this aspect of my work for the past 3 years, I've actually become good at it. An expert even. In fact, there are only a couple other people in the progressive non-profit civic engagement/voter participation community who have my level of sophistication.

Of course that really means nothing. Or meant nothing until I spent 30 minutes on the phone with an actual demographer and talked through the methodology of my projections. Turns out I'm way more accurate than I ever anticipated I was. So my numbers are good and the projections we add to them in order to understand potential registrants by the registration deadlines in most states aren't crazy weird either.

In other words, I'm one of the top experts in determining unregistered voting age populations by race, ethnicity, income, etc. in the entire country.

It is definately weird to walk out of a meeting and suddenly realize this.

Anybody else out there an expert in something they had no idea they had even developed skills in?

Kick ass and register to vote.

OW! OW! The irony! It burns!

Saw it at The Brad Blog, who saw it somewhere else, where it was originally titled "God Bless America" with the comment under the photo of "take that foringers!"

All I can say is thank God we have such stringent tests for citizenship because it will obviously class-up the joint.

Kick ass and remember the classic line from The Sure Thing: "You're failing English. That's your native language."

I'm trying something new here, which is to respond to news and opinions from various publications/blogs in a focused manner. Kinda like commentary. Don't know if I can sustain this on the regular, but that wont stop me from experimenting.

Todd Gitlin is currently a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University and is also famous for being a founder and president of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), one of the seminal "New Left" organizations of the 1960's.

Last Sunday he wrote an op-ed for the LA Times called "Nader's Dead End" in which he argues that the willingness of the Netroots to play inside the Democratic Party and the willingness of Democratic Party gatekeepers to accomodate them has made leftist minor party electoral challenges to the Democrats largely irrelevant. He uses the specific example of Ralph Nader's recent (and possible future) runs for president on a Green Party ticket to make this point, setting up the pro-Nader arguement thusly,

"As Nader's advocates do not weary of pointing out, American third parties have often been the vehicles in which those excluded from the two-party system (such as the abolitionist Republicans of the mid-19th century and the Socialists of the early 20th) hitched a ride. The idea is that when the major parties duck the urgent and transforming issues of their time, outsiders will fuse their passion and ideals into a battering ram. They are likely to lose in the end, but they will be influential.

There's some truth to that argument, and especially to the idea that their self-sacrifice is both inevitable and, at times, somewhat effective. A rhythm of outsider assault followed by accommodation runs through American history. The moral declaimers aim to upend the table but eventually find seats there -- if not for themselves then for their ideas, as espoused by their better-behaved, more accommodating cousins. The Socialists and Progressives, for example, were rarely elected, but their ideas were critical to the New Deal. And many of Alabama Gov. George Wallace's anti-federal attitudes found their way into Ronald Reagan's programs."

But then Gitlin makes his main point: The way leftist interact with the Democrats has changed and in a way that makes minor parties irrelevant and pointless. Dead-enders, you might say.

"What Nader refuses to recognize, however -- indeed, what he is intensely committed to not recognizing -- is that political reform movements today are not what they were. The world has changed. The energy and moral vigor of outsiders has now taken up residence inside the Democratic Party. There, it is a force -- a recruiting channel, a source of funds, a well of campaigners, a lobby, a debate center.

...Now, the fervent activists of the so-called netroots have taken a page from the conservative playbook. They have stormed into the Democratic Party and become one of its indispensable segments. First visible in the MoveOn.org anti-impeachment effort of 1998, then in the 2004 campaign of Howard Dean, and most recently in the decidedly more successful Democratic mobilization of 2006, the netroots number in the millions, united, organized and empowered by the power of the Internet. Their numbers are compounded by their fervor -- they are, in the main, activists.

...The netroots want their movement to function within the party -- a machine committed to winning and governing. And this is why Nader no longer matters. In the post-Bush setting, Nader's Greens are dead-enders. MoveOn.org counts 3.25 million members, a larger number than the Nader voters of 2000."

Okay. I totally agree that Nader would be stupid and egotistical to run in 2008. In fact, I think that about any of the minor parties because there is absolutely positively no way on Earth, Heaven, or Hell that they stand a hope of winning. All they do is siphon votes away from people already running, setting up the possiblity that in voting for who you really want, you are likely to toss the election to the person you would most dread to see elected.  

But there's really much more here that Gitlin is (intentionally?) leaving out. First, as the good folks over at The Democratic Strategist note, 58% of respondents in a July 2007 poll, when asked, "...Do the Republican and Democratic parties do an adequate job of representing the American people, or do they do such a poor job that a third major party is needed?", agreed that a third major party is needed.

Either these folks haven't been paying attention to the leftist takeover of the Democratic Party or, more likely, they are skeptical of the ability of either major party to adequately represent them without selling out their values, regardless of how much the vim and vigor of a new populist movement has been injected into one of the two majors.

From a progressive perpective the problem can be boiled down to toxic corporate influence in the Democractic Party's decision-making and it's pursuit of legislation at all levels of government. Gitlin opines that,

"To vote for Nader now means to agree with him that there's no real difference between the Republicans and the Democrats -- a proposition as absurd as attributing 9/11 to Saddam Hussein."

And I agree with him, but that doesn't mean that I trust the Democratic Party to resist the tempation to play to corporate power in return for perks like junkets to tropical locales or the legalized bribery of campaign donations. Voting for a minor party isn't necessarily about being stupid and brain dead, though that's what Gitlin would like you conclude, it's about things like integrity, ethics, and values, ostensibly those things which, at their fundamental core, politics in a democracy are supposed to be all about.

But in Gitlin's world, minor parties aren't an option; Democrats are progressives' "natural" party. However, given the current way elections are run in the US, this analysis actually makes a fair amount of sense. But it is disingenuous because it doesn't address the strucutral advantages built into the system for the two major parties. (Ballot Access News run by Richard Winger is the best source for news on the challenges facing getting on the ballot for minor parties and there's this primer from Wikipedia.) 

The Democrats are the natual party for progressives because they are a perpetual party (thanks to structural advantages), just like the GOP, and at this stage in their existence they are the center-left (this was not always true; in the post-Civil War period they spent a long time fighting the integration of African-Americans and immigrants into America's political life).

If Gitlin were truly concerned with progressive politics rather than whether or not the Democrats are going to win contested elections, then he would do two things (1) address the problem of built-in advantages for the Democrats and Republicans in almost every state and at the Federal level and (2) address the problem of accountabillity in which people we send to City Hall, the Statehouse, or Congress inevitably end up doing the bidding of, well, the highest bidder, rather than that of their constituents. 

Remember those 58% who want another party to vote for? Well, Dan Cantor, the Executive Director of the Working Families Party, recently spent a week at TPM Media's Table for One making arguements for a specifc voting reform that progressives can use to do two things (1) build a strong minor party and (2) hold Democrats accountable to their constituents, not their corporate contributors. You can find the five essays and comments here, here, here, here and here.

What Gitlin is really concerned about here is a national minor party challenge to the eventual Democratic Presidential nominee and he's launching a pre-emptive strike against Nader to try to scuttle one before it gets going. He's using the example of the netroots' recent successes (which are conveniently difficult to quantify) as a front to camouflage this attack. (See? It's a big tent and progressives can make a difference here!) 

And let me be clear that I'm not discounting the Dems. With the rules we have, they are still the best electoral hope for progressives. But long-term progressive electoral hopes are not the same thing as long-term Democratic Party interests. Progressives want to use the electoral process to win public policies that matter to us (health care reform, raising the minimum wage, education reform, affordable housing, green energy, action on climate changes, extension of civil rights to marginalized communities and people, etc. etc. etc.). Democratic loyalists want their party to win every election.

Not. The. Same.

Todd Gitlin's essay shows him to be a Democratic Party loyalist first and a liberal second. I'm a progressive first, a Democratic voter occasionally, and a liberal never. I may agree with his conclusion (please, Ralph, don't do it), but I sure don't agree with why he's drawing it or how he got there.

Kick ass and shill for your Party.

Allow me to jump back on the US Attorneys scandal for a hot minute.

In previous episodes of our saga I've noted that the Department of Justice was essentially suborned into a piece of partisan machinery for the Republicans, used to ensure GOP victories in recent elections using the full weight of the Federal Government's law-eonforcement powers.

This in and of itself is a major subversion of the US Constitution and should be ground for impeachment of the Attorney General at the very least.

However, this kind of stuff is what we seem to expect from elected and appointed officials. It's just what politicians do, right?

Well not so much really. The US has a remarkably clean democracy and government, especially given our rich history in this area. But the Civil Service Act of the 1880's, many reforms in the early 1900's, and expanding accountability within the electorate by extending the franchise to previously disenfranchised folk has made this system of ours more free and fair than not.

So allow me to excerpt some choice paragraphs from the editorial of a 25-year staff attorney with the Department of Justice, John Koppel, that was published on Thursday July 5 in the Denver Post. The language is retrained but the words are shocking nonetheless.

As a longtime attorney at the U.S.Department of Justice, I can honestly say that I have never been asashamed of the department and government that I serve as I am at thistime.

The public record now plainly demonstrates that both theDOJ and the government as a whole have been thoroughly politicized in a manner that is inappropriate, unethical and indeed unlawful. Theu nconscionable commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's sentence, the misuse of warrantless investigative powers under the Patriot Act andthe deplorable treatment of U.S. attorneys all point to an unmistakable pattern of abuse.

In the course of its tenure since the Sept. 11 attacks,the Bush administration has turned the entire government (and the DOJin particular) into a veritable Augean stable on issues such as civilrights, civil liberties, international law and basic human rights, aswell as criminal prosecution and federal employment and contracting practices. It has systematically undermined the rule of law in the name of fighting terrorism, and it has sought to insulate its actions from legislative or judicial scrutiny and accountability by invoking national security at every turn, engaging in persistent fearmongering, routinely impugning the integrity and/or patriotism of its critics, and protecting its own lawbreakers. This is neither normal governmentconduct nor "politics as usual," but a national disgrace of a magnitude unseen since the days of Watergate - which, in fact, I believe it eclipses.

Whoa. Bigger than Watergate. I hate hyperbole so I tend to shy away from it, but from what I know of this stuff from the load of info coming out about the US Attorneys scandal, that feels right.

Koppel concludes with this thought:

I realize that this constitutionallyprotected statement subjects me to a substantial risk of unlawfulreprisal from extremely ruthless people who have repeatedly taken suchaction in the past. But I am confident that I am speaking on behalf ofcountless thousands of honorable public servants, at Justice andelsewhere, who take their responsibilities seriously and share theseviews. And some things must be said, whatever the risk.

It takes courage to speak out.

I hope this leads somewhere besides the end of a career.

Kick ass and <sigh>think about impeachment</sigh>.

From Wade Rathke's Chief Organizer blog giving the insider's perspective on how the questions for the event today were put together.

Here's an except:

 There will be 7 questions that run the gamut of ACORN’s interests in low- and moderate-income communities around the country.

1. Maximum Eligible Participation: getting all qualified and eligible citizens for any federal program to fully participate in the program.

2. Protecting Our Assets: stopping predatory lending and moving forward on better financial services.

3. Citizenship: helping immigrants become citizens.

4. Rebuilding American Cities: the call for a Marshall plan and a community impact assessment for all neighborhoods confronting developers with public support.

5. Improving Income, Wages, and Working Conditions: show us the money!

6. Katrina and Rebuilding New Orleans: this is more than a symbol to ACORN, it’s personal!

7. Protecting the Right to Vote: we have had enough of voter suppression and want a fully entitled citizenship.

Each member has a one-page scorecard and a small stub of a pencil prepared for them, so that they can rank each candidate and his or her response and keep a running straw poll of their thinking to input to fellow members not attending and the leadership across the country. The scoring is tough and runs from “excellent” to “failed.” We are tired and won’t take it no more!

Kick ass and make an informed choice.

ACORN Presidential Forum from Philadelphia will feature ACORN leaders asking Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich questions about the issues that affect low and moderate income Americans and about supportuing the work that ACORN members engage in every day.

The fun starts at 1PM EDT/10AM PDT and will be simulcast on the web as well as blogged by several national and Philadelphia-area blogs. There is also a blog anyone can join run by ACORN set up specifically for this event. You can also find short descriptions of the bloggers who will be in atttendance and who will be posting about the event here.

Candidates themselves will be the last up in the event, after introductions and explanations of the most important issues to ACORN members. Each candidate will go one-on-one with a group of ACORN leaders who will ask direct questions and expect direct answers. Each candidate will get a minimum of 35 minutes.

The whole thing starts in half an hour. See you there.

Kick ass and make an informed choice.

On July 2, ACORN will sponsor a Presidential Candidates Forum for the Democratic candidates. It will take place in a Philadelphia church on the north side of town, largely African-American, largely poor.

So far Hilary Clinton and John Edwards have confirmed their attendance and Dennis Kucinich is a tentative yes.

The format will include a short speech from incoming Philly Mayor Michael Nutter, an explanation of the top issues as identified by ACORN's low- and moderate-income membership, and then questions asked directly of the candidates by ACORN members. Each candidate will be asked 45 minutes worth of questions. The answers will be used by ACORN members to inform their decision-making process around whether or not to make endorsements in the primaries and if so, for whom, as well as for the edification of the public at large.

Every candidate was invited, those appearing made it work for their campaigns. Of the candidates who could not attend, Bill Richardson agreed to be interviewed by ACORN's Political Action Committee leaders last week in DC.

Of interest for everybody out in the internets, the Forum will be webcast live and will also be live blogged by over a dozen guest bloggers.

Details:

Monday July 2, 2007
Bright Hope Baptist Church in North Philly
Lunch starts Noon EDT
Program starts 1PM EDT
Program ends 5PM EDT

Clinton - 2:30PM
Edwards - 3:40PM
Kucinich - 4:15PM

Simulcast can be found here: http://www.acorn.org/candidatesforum

Bloggers include:
MyDD
ESCHATON (Atrios)
Future Majority
Booman Tribune
and a host of Philly-area blogs.

And ACORN will be running a blog for the event as well.

So if you want to see where these folks are on issues that matter to Main Street as opposed to Wall Street, then tune in!

Kick ass and ponder your choices.

Ghosts of Joe Slovo reaction to Bush: Yawn. Wake me when it is 2008.

Ghosts of Joe Slovo reaction to Webb: OH MY GOD I WANT TO HAVE YOUR BABIES.

But thank god I heard it on the radio rather on TV because the shot I just saw of Webb on the internet giving the speech... not sexy. Which would have an impact on the whole baby thing. I know, I'm shallow.

Kick ass and take names.

If you don't care for electoral politics, then you can safely ignore this post. (Though I'm fairly sure that outside of my two faithful readers these posts are ignored on the regular.)

We are now 15 days away from the 2006 Mid-Term Election and there are serious indications that, despite their best efforts and track record over the last 12 years, the Democrats could take control of at least once chamber of Congress. I'm not going to go over all of them, but if you are a true poll junkie then you should head to Electoral Vote, MyDD or Daily Kos for starters. And if you are a true political wonk, then CQ Politics is your cup of tea. Spend a minute perusing and you will see that the prevailing conventional wisdom is that if the election were held today Democrats could win anywhere from 8 to 25 seats. They need 15 to take control in the House.

The biggest flys in the ointment are that (1) the GOP still has two weeks for any number of October/November Surprises to hit. (Kerry claims he was going to win until the Osama audio tape story hit the week of the 2004 election, but I say that's total crap.) (2) The GOP still has a hot steaming pile of cash to plough into its races and you can bet that this money will be spent on negative ads and on tactics designed to reduce core Democratic support. (3) The GOP has proved over the past few election cycles that their GOTV operation is deep and sophsiticated and the numbers I've seen from the GOP's weekly Grassroots Update show that the program is in full-swing and it is posting up extremely good numbers.

So if you like the Dems, don't get your hopes up yet and make sure you get your ass to the polls, even in liberal bastions. Vote early and vote often is my motto this election.

This election one key to a progressive victory (not quite the same as a Dem victory, but close) is turnout from base progressive consitutencies that traditionally do not vote in high percentages. This is expecially true in some of the contested statewide elections out there in states like OH, MO, MI, and PA. For two election cycles now, ACORN has been building infrastructure to increase particpation by these constituencies, especially working families, single women, and people of color.

The biggest thing we've got going this year is four ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage. These initiatives are in four key states: AZ, CO, MO, and OH. Why are these important? First, the mobilize base voters, by as much as a 7% increase in turnout according to the Ballot Initiative Strategies Center (BISC).

Second, they unify a constituency usually divided over social and cultural issues. In ACORN's 2004 minimum wage ballot effort in Flordia, the issue carried every county in the state, from the panhandle to the keys and got more votes than anything or anyone on the ballot. Rednecks were voting with liberal elites, union members with day laborers, Cuban refugees with nativists.

Third, candidates who identify their campaigns with these initiatives get more votes on Election Day. Candidates benefit from being identified with this issue and candidates who make it a part of a broader economic justice platform do very well. Sherrod Brown in OH is the best example of this in 2006 (great, watch him lose on 11/7 now that I've jinxed him).

These initiatives, in other words, do something very startegic: they expand the progressive electorate. In 2006 this means the potential to change the outcomes of the elections in the states in which they appear (NV and MT also have initiatives on their ballots). But in order for this expansion to be institutionalized, it needs to be consistenly involved in public policy campaigns and issues between elections. So ACORN is investing time and money in building ACORN Precinct Action Leader networks. These are the old precinct captain system from back in the day (you know, ward bosses, Tammany Hall, anything regarding politics in Chicago...) but up-dates with Palm Pilots, computerized voting lists, and extensive training done by experienced ACORN organizers.

We're building 19 netowrks in 2006 with over 1040 volunteers who are going to mobilize 45,000 voters on Election Day. In between elections these APALs will continue to mobilize their networks around salient issues like education, utility rates, affordable housing, and quality of life issues. Thus, when 2008 rolls around these folks will have built a culture of participation in their communities and turnout will maitain the boost it is getting in 2006. Come 2008, there's no reason to think we can't mobilize at least 100,000 low and moderate income voters in targeted states using this system.

And all that is in addition to the paid porgrams we are and will implement. We're reaching 670,000 voters this year and knocking on 2.1 million doors to find them and talk, at least twice, with them all. Outside of labor unions and political parties, we're the biggest voter particpation program in the United States in 2006.

Kick ass and take control of Congress.

This Foley mess might stop the Republicans from getting erected.

I mean, elected.

On the other handjob, I mean, hand, maybe they are going for the ever-important NAMBLA vote.

Kick ass and wipe down the keypad.