… because, you know, that’s the one reason most of us can think of for Joe not to run.
Anyway, watch the video, in which he tells CNN’s Kate Bolduan why “there’s no obvious reason for me why I think I should not run” for the top job in 2016.
Personally, I’d like to see Joe run, and not just because he’s fun. But, if you’ll excuse a locution even more convoluted than the Veep’s, I’m certainly not at a loss for coming up with a reason why he would decide not to.
The S.C. Democratic Party rather joyfully brings attention to this item that describes the back-and-forth between Nikki Haley and the office of her counterpart in Georgia, Nathan Deal.
The piece quotes this from the Charleston Regional Business Journal about Nikki’s complaints in a speech to a civic club about the mess in Atlanta:
Haley, who was in Charleston on Tuesday for a speech to members of the Historic Rotary Club of Charleston, said her brother was stuck on an interstate in Atlanta for 27 hours because of the snow and ice.
“While I was trying to fix South Carolina, I was furious at Georgia for not taking care of that,” she said.
She complimented South Carolina’s Department of Transportation, Department of Public Safety and other law enforcement agencies, as well as the state’s National Guard, for their work during the storm.
“When you go through a storm, whether it’s a hurricane or winter storm, our team stands ready,” Haley said. “I am very proud of team South Carolina and the way they handled the storm.”…
And then it provides this response from the Georgia governor’s office:
Deal spokesman Brian Robinson offered this when confronted with Haley’s jab:
“To say South Carolina did a better job responding to the storm than Georgia is like saying Tennessee did a better job than Louisiana responding to Hurricane Katrina. We experienced completely different weather events.”
This just in:
Former SC Governor Jim Hodges endorses Mike Anthony for Superintendent of Education
Mike Anthony
“Mike Anthony has spent his life dedicated to public schools – as a classroom teacher and state champion football coach. He’s the kind of person our public schools need – a proven leader with a track record of success in our schools. I have every reason to believe he will be that strong advocate for kids, parents and teachers we desperately need.”
Governor Jim Hodges is best known for his leadership in bringing the Education Lottery to South Carolina, securing over $1 billion for school construction without raising taxes. He also launched the ‘First Steps to School Readiness’ program.
Representative Mike Anthony said he was very grateful for Governor Hodges’ endorsement.
“Governor Hodges was truly an ‘education governor,’ said Rep. Anthony. ”He made public education his highest priority and as a result our schools made great strides during his tenure. His work to establish the education lottery and ‘First Steps’ program have done wonders for South Carolina public schools. I’m truly honored that Governor Hodges has decided to support my candidacy.”
####
Not sure what to make of it. But assuming that a Democrat still has a shot at this office in a race without an incumbent, then having the endorsement of the last Democratic governor has to be a help. To the nomination, at least. Anthony currently has one Democratic opponent, Montrio Belton.
On Friday, I said I’d post something from the new American Party’s big announcement at the State House, and I meant to; I really did. But it didn’t happen. Not that I didn’t try. While rabbiting away at my day job, I tried twice to upload the video I had shot at their presser, only to see my internet connection (and presumably, that of others at ADCO) slow way down, so I aborted each time. HD video is great, but 14:15 of it can really be a drag on bandwidth. At least, I assume that’s what was happening.
That night, I took a look at the video, only to find that it had no sound. I’ve had that happen a couple of times lately. I think my iPhone 4 is wearing out. So I had been wasting time as well as bandwidth.
None of that should have stopped me from posting about it, but the opportunity for a timely post just got away from me. And there was another reason… I didn’t have much that was constructive to say.
I have a great appreciation of both Oscar Lovelace and Jim Rex, and what they are trying to do, in terms of breaking the death grip that the two parties have on our politics. I think they are operating from the purest of motives, and that they have been sensible and pragmatic in going about it, according to their own understanding of things. And before I get into my fault-finding, here’s some normal coverage of their thing on Friday.
I want to be a cheerleader for them. Hey, I’d even like to get involved, or even (gasp!) run for office, if I could honestly embrace the alternative that they’re offering.
I think I expected too much.
That Jim Rex in particular would start a party that would appropriate the ever-popular trope of term limits is in keeping with a pattern. As state superintendent of education, he played upon the popularity (in certain circles) of “school choice” to push public school choice. And now again, he’s trying to pair something that might poll well among portions of the electorate to push something that he thinks would be good for the state and nation.
But all I could do, listening to them make their announcement, was find fault. Worse, when Oscar and Jim each came up to me afterwards, rather than play reporter and ask questions, I told them what I didn’t like about what they were doing. Which was obnoxious of me, I know. And I could sense, after each had come up to me and initiated a conversation, that they both were ready to talk to someone else almost immediately. They had come to launch a party, not listen to criticism. I didn’t blame them a bit.
But I couldn’t help it. Because to me, we so badly need a good alternative to the two parties that when I finally see the only sustained effort to establish one that I’ve seen in my 26 years of observing SC politics, I hate to see it going wrong.
And here’s how I see it going wrong. There are two main problems:
And that gets us to the real problem with our system, and that is the parties themselves. The American Party correctly diagnoses the problem when it says what we need is “elected officials who place the common good and problem-solving above party loyalty and partisanship.” The parties are about themselves. They are about perpetuating themselves, and that means constantly stoking the fires of resentment among their respective constituencies toward the OTHER side. Everything is framed in terms that make it difficult for any office-seeker to stray from the party line, lest he or she be judged one of THEM.
Every vote, every statement, is geared toward helping the party gain a majority, or expand a majority, or if the party in question is stuck hopelessly in the minority, make things hard for the majority party.
Assembling consensus on policies so as to pass legislation that all or most could support is not only discouraged, it’s rendered practically impossible.
The point of a third party – one that addresses our real needs – should be to break that stranglehold that the existing parties have, with their never-ending quest to achieve a majority plus one. To go on about career politicians and rich, powerful folk behind the scenes is to misdiagnose the problem, and to create distractions. Which is what the parties do.
Yeah, I know how silly it can seem for me to be holding out for the purity of my UnParty – which offers no silver bullets, which demonizes no scapegoats, but simply attacks the real problems created by the two parties, working together to ensure that nothing gets done.
And I know that a pragmatic person looks for gimmicks that sound good to rally people around a banner, such as term limits and blaming those wicked “corporate” interests (I keep wondering – what is it about incorporation that makes an entity evil?).
After all, no group of people has ever stood up behind ME at a press conference to express support for the UnParty.
But I still believe that something is needed to explode the two-party system, and the American Party, as currently presented, isn’t it.
Jim Rex and Oscar Lovelace
Remember that new political party that Jim Rex and Oscar Lovelace have been planning to launch? Well, it’s having its State House debut tomorrow:
American Party Supporters!
Finally, we are ready for our press conference on Friday January 31st at 11:00 A.M. at the State House.
Please disregard an old message that was sent by mistake that may confuse you as to the time.
The press conference is at 11:00 A.M. tomorrow on the 1st floor lobby of the State House.
If you are able to come, try to be there at least 20 minutes before to get through security.
If you are on Gervais looking at the State House, the entrance is on the far left. There are metered parking spots around the State House on Sumter Street. There is also a parking garage on Assembly.
We look forward to seeing you if possible. Your support has meant so much to the success of the new American Party.
Jim and Oscar
I’ll try to drop by if I can get away at that time. But even if I can’t maybe you can…
This is not, mind you, to be confused with the UnParty. This new party has taken the name of George Wallace’s old party (although there the resemblance ends), and has tenets that, by existing, violate the very first fundamental, inviolable tenet of the UnParty — which is “unwavering opposition to fundamental, nonnegotiable tenets.”
Thought this headline on an email alert from The Washington Post kinda odd:
Hillary Clinton (has a) commanding lead over Democrats for 2016, poll finds
Well, yeah. Duh. I mean, since I can’t think of a single other Democrat being seriously spoken of as a 2016 candidate, one would assume she would have a “commanding lead.”
OK, yeah, Joe Biden. But we already knew she would swamp Joe Biden. I mean, I like Joe, but let’s be serious.
The Post further reports:
The race for the Republican nomination, in contrast, is wide open, with six prospective candidates registering 10 percent to 20 percent support….
What that means is that there is someone who has had a lead (if not a “commanding” one) over on the GOP side, too, but he’s in a lot of trouble.
And so, my little fantasy of having two acceptable people who were shoo-ins for their nominations, possibly avoiding the tears and flapdoodle of the sort of musical chairs game the Republicans played last time around, is to remain a fantasy. As, of course, I knew it would.
Democracy is so… messy…
Taegan Goddard over at Political Wire says it’s “Time to start calling Chris Christie the former GOP frontrunner.”
And he presents good arguments in support of that statement. He says Christie’s main strength was his crossover appeal — the GOP base loved him not — but according to a new poll, he’s lost ground among Democrats, Independents and women and:
Without holding the electability card, Christie has little chance of winning the Republican presidential nomination. It’s just one more example of how quickly fortunes can turn in politics.
Yes, exactly. I seem to recall that in the fall of 2011 and into early 2012, the GOP field had a different front-runner every week. And then the musical chairs game ended, and Mitt Romney, the original front-runner, was the only one with a seat.
So Chris Christie is out of it this week. And next week, too. But who knows what will transpire during the 145 weeks left until Election Day 2016? People are disenchanted with Christie now, but that’s in a vacuum. Whom will they love better? And what will be that person’s “electability?”
The most important question in politics is, “Compared to what?” Or perhaps I should say, “Compared to whom?” And the comparisons have not yet begun.
Meant to mention that I liked the point (in boldface) made in this piece in the WSJ yesterday, headlined “Obama Is No Lame Duck“:
There are more than 1,000 days until the 2016 elections, about as long as the entire Kennedy administration. But you’d never guess it from today’s political discourse. How badly will Bridgegate damage Chris Christie’s race for the Republican presidential nomination? Will Republican opposition research undermine the narrative of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton‘s forthcoming memoirs? These are the “issues” that dominate the conversation.
A lengthy new profile of President Obama in the New Yorker feeds this tendency by adopting a distinctly elegiac tone. As New Yorker editor David Remnick puts it, “Obama has three years left, but it’s not difficult to sense a politician with an acute sense of time, a politician devising ways to widen his legacy without the benefit of any support from Congress. . . . And so there is in him a certain degree of reduced ambition, a sense that even well before the commentariat starts calling him a lame duck he will spend much of his time setting an agenda that can be resolved only after he has retired to the life of a writer and post-President.”
Call me naïve and old-fashioned, but I object to this entire way of thinking. Policy debates may bore the press, but that’s no excuse for defaulting to horse-race coverage. Only journalistic complicity can allow the permanent campaign to drive out concern for governance. For their part, elected officials should understand that they cannot afford to leave the world’s greatest democracy on autopilot for the next three years. When it comes to advancing a national agenda, surely there’s a midpoint between grandiosity and resignation….
Yep, that’s what the media do — and have long done. And the press are almost as guilty as the broadcast people.
News people tend to treat politics like sports, because it’s simple — it fits into the idiotic binary view of the world, where there are only two teams and two choices, such as winners and losers — and because it’s easy, and fun. You don’t have to think very hard about who’s going to win the next election. So you write about that and write about it and build up this pitch of excitement like the buildup to the big game, and then you cover the election, and extensively cover the aftermath of the election.
And then, you start writing about the next election. And everything that happens, from events to scandals to policy debates, are couched in terms of how they will affect candidate’s chances in the next election. (James Fallows wrote an excellent book on this subject back in the early ’90s, called Breaking The News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy. I reviewed it at the time. Nothing has gotten better since he wrote it.
And so we get this foolishness of treating a president as a lame duck from the moment he wins a second term, because hey, he has no election coming up — which means all too many reporters just can’t come up with a reason to be interested in what he does. If it doesn’t have an impact on his electoral chances, it has no meaning to them. Oh, they’ll try to work up enthusiasm about the unrelated subject of how his party will do in the next election, but their simple little hearts just aren’t really into it.
(I say “unrelated” because it’s unrelated, and decidedly uninteresting, to me. But in their simplistic, dichotomous worldview, one member of a party’s fate has tremendous meaning to other members of that party, because there are only two kinds of people in the world, rather than six billion kinds, and only two ways of thinking.)
Anyway, this is the media’s big contribution to the sickness in our political system, and the dysfunction of our government. By taking this either-or, column A or column B, approach (when in reality there are thousands, millions, an infinity of possibilities in each policy question), they make it difficult for Americans to frame political questions in any way other than hyperpartisan terms.
I think Rep. James Smith is one of the best people in the SC Legislature, and I’m glad his colleagues think so much of him. But I could do without this:
Representative James Smith to deliverDemocratic Response to State of the StateColumbia, SC – State Representative James Smith (D-Columbia) will deliver the Democratic Response to the State of the State immediately following Governor Haley’s address on Wednesday night. Representative Smith will present the Democratic vision for greater accountability and responsible leadership for South Carolina. Smith, 46, a decorated combat veteran who has served in Afghanistan, is a small business owner and attorney. He has represented district 72 in the South Carolina House of Representatives since 1997.The official Democratic response will take place immediately following the State of the State in a live press conference in the 3rd floor Senate conference room in the State House. Representative Smith will tape a message on the Democratic vision for building a stronger South Carolina earlier in the day, which will be available to all media outlets around the state and air on ETV.
I’ve really, really disliked this convention ever since it developed on the national level. It’s a formalization of our two-party disease (some call it a two-party “system;” I prefer to be more descriptive), and I don’t hold with it. The perpetual competition between the parties doesn’t deserve such ritual recognition.
If Democrats want to react to the governor’s speech, let them do so right along with Republicans and the rest of us — in man-on-the-street or lawmaker-in-the-chamber-type reaction roundups. Reverse the party names, and apply the same thought to the national level. The party out of power doesn’t have to have, and is not entitled to, a formal, separate-but-semi-equal speech, through which the media and viewers on the telly are expected to sit with the same patience and respect that they afforded to the actual, elected Chief Executive.
The people chose the governor, or president, or what have you. Who chose the responder? A caucus of party insiders.
If you want to deliver the State of the State address, get elected governor. If you want to deliver the State of the Union, get elected president. If you’re unable to do that, wait until the next election.
I was looking for a picture of Vincent Sheheen to go with the last post, and ran across this video clip that I had forgotten.
It’s from the meeting on January 29, 2008, when he unveiled his restructuring plan to Cindi Scoppe and me, in the editorial board room at The State.
It’s short — the camera I used then would only shoot video for three minutes at a time — and there are several other clips from after this one that I did not upload.
But I share this one because in it, he shows how well he understood the actual power situation in South Carolina.
When talking about South Carolina’s unique situation as the “Legislative State” (even back in 1949, when some other Southern states had some similar such arrangements, political scientist V. O. Key called South Carolina that in his classic. Southern Politics in State and Nation), we tend to use a lazy shorthand. We say that SC lawmakers don’t want to surrender power to the governor.
That glosses over an important truth, one that we elaborated on in the Power Failure series back in 1991, but which I don’t stop often enough to explain any more: It’s that the Legislature, too, lacks the power to exert any effective control over state government. This leads to a government in which no one is in charge, and no one can be held accountable.
There was a time, long ago — pre-WWII, roughly, and maybe for awhile between then and the 1960s, which saw expansions of government programs on a number of levels — when lawmakers actually could run executive agencies, at least in a loose, informal way. On the state level, agencies answered to boards and commissions whose members were appointed by lawmakers. On the local level, they ran things more directly, calling all the shots. This was before county councils were empowered (more or less) in the mid-70s.
But as state agencies grew, they became more autonomous. Oh, they kept their heads down and didn’t anger powerful lawmakers, especially at budget time, but there was generally no effective way for legislators to affect their day-to-day operations. And while lawmakers appointed the members of boards and commissions, they lacked the power to remove them if they did something to attract legislative ire.
And on the local level, the advent of single-member districts broke up county delegations as coherent local powers. Yes, we have vestiges of that now — the Richland County elections mess is an illustration of this old system, as is the Richland recreation district and other special purpose districts, all legislative creations — but largely, they’re out of the business of running counties.
Increasingly in recent decades, the main power wielded by the Legislature has been a negative power — the ability to block things from happening, rather than initiate sweeping changes. And that’s what the General Assembly is best at — blocking change, for good or ill. That’s why the passage of this Department of Administration bill is such a milestone.
Anyway, while he doesn’t say all that stuff I just said, in this clip, Sheheen shows that he understands that no one is actually in charge, and that someone needs to be, so that someone can be held accountable. Or at least, that’s the way I hear it.
You may wonder why I think it remarkable that a state senator would exhibit such understanding of the system. Well… that’s just rarer than you may think.
So if Thigpen’s right, we’re much less likely to see scenes such as this one this year.
Having trouble finding anything substantive not to like in Nikki Haley’s education and other proposals, some critics are saying she’s just playing election-year politics.
Well, if that’s the case, that’s good news, too. In fact, unless you’re a Democrat trying to unseat her, it’s hard to see where the downside is for you here.
That occurred to me reading the following, written by Schuyler Kropf at The Post and Courier:
Democrats — and even some political talking heads — were quick to point out Haley’s attention to education and mental health could easily be seen as attempts to neutralize her Democratic opposition.
“They must feel it’s a more moderate electorate out there,” retired Francis Marion University political scientist Neal Thigpen said Monday in assessing her administration’s 2014 spending ideas.
Thigpen, who has followed Republican politics in the state for years, said the most obvious political target in her budget is announced Democratic challenger, state Sen. Vincent Sheheen of Camden.
Haley’s camp must see a need in “trying to block him out,” Thigpen added, “and being ahead of him in trying to blunt those issues that he may be able to use.”…
Look again at what Neal Thigpen just said…
“They must feel it’s a more moderate electorate out there…”
If Nikki Haley and her people are looking around them and seeing a more reasonable world than the one that elected them in the Year of The Tea Party, then that’s gotta be a good thing, right?
So, if that’s correct, her speeches this year will be less about throwing red meat to people who hate government, and more about good governance. Which Vincent Sheheen will be doing as well, because he always does that. Which means that no matter which of them is elected, that person will be committed to such basic things as better schools, and better care for the mentally ill.
Which as I say, is a good thing for all South Carolinians…
I’ve had this image in my head of a strong, pragmatic New Jersey-style leader. Oops, wrong image…
If Chris Christie is truly knocked out of the running for the GOP nomination in 2016, then who will take his place?
No, that’s not a setup for a list. I was wondering whether y’all had anybody in mind. I can think of only two categories:
Regarding that second category: You may say that there’s somebody great out there that I’m not thinking of. But in my book, someone I haven’t heard of has next to no chance to gain my confidence between now and 2016. When it comes to doling out (more or less) extreme executive power, trust is a cumulative process with me. It takes time for me to be able to see someone as president.
I was feeling pretty good there looking at a Clinton-Christie matchup, as it meant the choice would be two people I felt moderately good about. That is to say, I wouldn’t have seen the election of either as a disaster, which gave me a small measure confidence about the nation’s future. After her four years as SecState, I felt better about Hillary than I did in 2008. And after watching Chris the last couple of years, I thought I saw the kind of pragmatic governor that I like.
In any case, he was the only Republican I could think of that I felt kinda OK about (while Hillary is kinda the only Democrat I can think of, good or bad).
So… if he’s knocked out… what happens?
I’ve always seen Tom Davis as a (mostly) reasonable man, and have been distressed to see his drift into extremism over the last couple of years.
So I’m pleased to see him take a deliberate step away from the antebellum notion of Nullification:
COLUMBIA, SC — A Republican lawmaker says he plans to take the “nullification” out of the Obamacare nullification bill before the state Senate….
“The conversation really has gotten off the rails a little bit,” Davis said Wednesday, after holding three public hearings across the state that drew hundreds. “Everybody talks about nullification. This isn’t nullification. We can’t nullify.”…
Amen to that, senator. No, we can’t. That’s been pretty clear ever since 1865, if not sooner.
But it’s a bit disingenuous for Tom to act like other people have somehow gone “off the rails” with all this nullification talk:
So… Tom no longer wants to nullify Obamacare. However, he does want to sabotage it, to do all he can to make it fail. Which is not the most positive attitude I’ve ever heard of with regard to respecting laws legitimately passed by the Congress.
But this is progress…
The latest release from the often-indignant Rep. Mia McLeod:
Must we be hypocrites about everything in this state? I mean…since we wanna wear the “Bible Belt” like a badge of honor, shouldn’t some of our actions reflect it? As we head into the 2014 legislative session one week from today, I pray that our elected leaders will one day practice what they preach.While browsing through countless Christmas cards from my colleagues, complete with Biblical scriptures and picturesque family poses, I was reminded that God can’t be pleased when “the majority” claims to be Christians in one breath and deliberately defies His very essence in the next.
Too many legislative decisions are calculated, self-serving and hypocritical. We wanna separate church and state, but only when it’s politically expedient…pushing God out of our schools, our workplaces, our thoughts/decisions…while hiding behind our self-righteous, self-proclaimed “Christian” labels to push our own destructive political agendas.Think about it…Your lawmakers love to protect fetuses in the womb. Why? Because the gift of life is one of God’s most precious, of course. But there’s nothing Godly about our refusal to assist or help protect that same precious life, once it is manifested outside of the womb. In South Carolina, when the umbilical cord is cut, so is the concern and compassion. Funny how one goes from being God’s chosen to society’s forgotten by simply passing through the birth canal. We love to flaunt our state’s sordid “heritage.” And we’ll fiercely defend that good ole divisive, oppressive and offensive confederate flag at all costs. Now tell me, where is God in all of that, again?
We relish our attention on the national stage. From being #1 in domestic violence homicides to being hailed as one of the most corrupt states in the nation, we’re last (or first at being last) and lovin’ it.
Add to that our newest designation as “most idiotic state” in the country because of one so-called leader’s flagrant dishonor of Nelson Mandela’s life and legacy, and it’s easy to see why we’re the laughing stock of the nation.
And when I receive legislative emails from “Christian” coalitions that spew hatred for others in His name for their own political purposes, I can’t help but wonder what “God” these people serve.
Surely not mine…
We love talking the talk. We just hate walking the walk. And we do our “dirty” work openly, unabashedly,…without flinching, without feeling and without fail.
But my Bible reminds me that “whatever you’ve done unto the least of these… you’ve done unto Me (Him).” So how do we justify denying 300,000 South Carolinians access to healthcare coverage? More proof that in our “great” state, partisan politics trumps “Christianity” not just any day, but every day.
And “you lie!” if you even think we’re interested in accepting or supporting “anything Obama.” It just ain’t happening. No way. No how. Not here. Why? Well…according to Rep. Kris Crawford, it’s not (politically) popular for the Republican Party to even try to work with the black man in the White House.
Yep, that’s good ole pure, unadulterated racism…just one of many “elephants” in the room.
So tell me…where is (your) God in all of that?
Saying we’re Christians is one thing. Behaving like Christians is another. Deliberately disenfranchising voters, denying healthcare, equal educational and economic opportunities to certain South Carolinians, refusing to pass tougher gun laws and failing to protect our state’s most vulnerable are just a few examples of ways in which God’s will has been preempted by power-hungry, good ole politicians who carelessly and callously hide behind His to invoke their own.
Don’t be confused. Our Governor and lawmakers are much more adept at “playing God” than acting Godly.
I believe God is love. And if you ask most of my colleagues, they’ll say they do too. So why are our legislative agendas and priorities saturated with hatred, intolerance and indifference? I’m not a theologian. But even if I weren’t acutely aware of who God is… it wouldn’t take long in the SC Legislature to figure out who He isn’t.
My fervent prayer for the 2014 legislative session and beyond is that the hypocrisy will end and lawmakers will decide to represent all of the people of South Carolina, in word and in deed. If that happens, you’ll soon begin to see more of His will in our legislative decisions and actions and much less of ours.
I know who my God is. The question is…do they?
Did you shake your head when you read this, which appeared under the Bizarro-World headline, “Clyburn too conservative?”
WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn is used to political foes calling him liberal. They’ve been doing it for years. Now, though, prominent liberals are coming after him for being too conservative.
The patron saint of delusional Democrats.
Several left-wing groups are criticizing South Carolina’s Clyburn, the No. 3 Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, for his relationship with one of the party’s influential centrist policy organizations.
The founders of that think tank, Third Way, attacked U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., last week for pushing tax hikes for the rich and increases in Social Security benefits, and for taking other stances that they said represented risky fiscal approaches and bad political strategies.
Allies of Warren, a freshman lawmaker who is a rising star in Washington, struck back quickly.
Four liberal groups asked Clyburn of Columbia and 11 other Democratic members of Congress who are “honorary co-chairs” of Third Way to repudiate the condemnation of Warren and sever their ties with the organization…
Do you recall, back during the Democratic Convention last year, when I highly praised a speech by Bill “Third Way” Clinton? Aside from the fact that it may have been, as I said, the most skilled and powerful political speech yet in this century (and as I noted at the time, that was coming from “the editor who presided over an editorial board that was tied as first in the country to call on him to resign after he admitted lying to us”) — certainly the best I ever heard from Clinton — my positive impression of it was heightened by the fact that it followed an atrocious rant from Elizabeth Warren, which I characterized as follows: “She gave one of those speeches full of resentments and blame, the kind that makes me dislike political parties so much.”
Which is, you know, pretty much par for the course for her. These allies of hers, if anything, tend toward even sillier rhetoric:
“We’re calling on James Clyburn to do the right thing and immediately drop his affiliation with the Wall Street-backed Third Way…”
“Wall Street-backed” being a very powerful epithet among these people. Because, apparently, business is evil by its very nature in their belief system.
Embracing the Third Way.
It’s interesting to me that, just as John Boehner is finally reining in the loonies in his party — and they’ve been on quite a rampage for several years now — the left wing of the Democratic Party is going on a delusional tear of its own.
The only way this embrace of Sen. Warren as presidential timber for 2016 makes sense for Democrats is that it would provide Hillary Clinton with a way of looking sensible and mainstream by contrast (which she is, by contrast), putting her in a strong position for the general election.
But I don’t think these folks are thinking that way. I think they actually believe Sen. Warren represents a direction in which they can pull the country. Hence my use of the word, “delusional.”
See, you can read about it in black and white:
The House passed an 2-year bipartisan budget deal Thursday evening, possibly signaling a truce in the spending showdowns that have paralyzed Washington for the past three years.
Approval of the budget was the House’s final action of 2013. Earlier Thursday, lawmakers agreed unanimously to approve the National Defense Authorization Act, which sets military pay and policy, and to extend current agricultural policy after negotiators failed to complete a new Farm Bill….
The budget deal appeared to mark a significant shift by House Republicans away from the uncompromising confrontation of recent years fueled by tea party-aligned politicians and outside conservative advocacy groups. After multiple standoffs and threatened defaults and one actual shutdown, polls show that the Republican brand has been badly damaged among voters, and even some of the most conservative Republicans said they were ready for a breather.
If the Senate approves the budget bill next week, as expected, members of the House and Senate appropriations committees would then work over the holidays to prepare funding bills for individual government agencies, which are likely to be combined into a single omnibus bill. …
Doesn’t that sound almost like the way grownups would legislate? This is not being hailed as the long-sought “grand bargain” or anything, but it’s something remarkable anyway, given the material we’re working with here. Which is to say, the membership of the House.
Here’s a press release from Joe Wilson about it:
Wilson Statement on the Passage of the Bipartisan Budget Agreement
(Washington, DC) – Congressman Joe Wilson (SC-02) released the following statement after the House passed a bipartisan budget resolution. This legislation provides two years of budget certainty for the federal government. In years past, the federal government has operated under continuing resolutions.
“When I was elected to Congress, I promised to help make a difference. The status quo is not working,” Congressman Joe Wilson said. “Government overspending while racking up trillion-dollar deficits is irresponsible, especially when we know that our children and grandchildren will be faced with the burden.
“House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan was able to reduce spending from its current levels to help pay down our debt without raising taxes. For years, House Republicans have spent the better part of December in battles with Washington Democrats in hopes of not raising taxes so that the American people could keep more of their hard-earned paychecks.
“Additionally, President Obama’s sequester, which targets the military, has already limited our Armed Forces’ abilities to protect themselves and defend our freedoms. Military installations across South Carolina and the Savannah River Site have faced challenges, which undermine our national security. I have warned against the horrible impacts sequestration would impose and have done my best to advocate for those who are suffering within South Carolina’s Second Congressional District. I am very pleased that Chairman Ryan was successful in finding common-sense reforms to replace sequestration that will not place families at risk.
“The road ahead will be difficult as budget debates continue for years to come. However, we must remain hopeful that we can achieve spending reductions while promoting limited-government solutions that create jobs and spur economic growth.”
Yeah, I know — “President Obama’s sequester.” I didn’t say the partisans up there had stopped with the silly talk. But let’s focus on the action rather than the words here.
Meanwhile, Lindsey Graham says he will not vote for the deal when it reaches the Senate:
Graham to Oppose Budget Agreement
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today said he would vote against the budget agreement when it comes to the Senate floor.
“After careful review of the agreement, I believe it will do disproportionate harm to our military retirees,” said Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Our men and women in uniform have served admirably during some of our nation’s most troubling times. They deserve more from us in their retirement than this agreement provides.”
Graham noted the budget deal contains a one percent reduction in cost of living benefits for some military retirees. The provision could significantly impact military retiree benefits. For example:
· A 42-year old who retires as an enlisted E-7 could lose a minimum of $72,000.
· A 42-year old Lt. Colonel could lose a minimum of $109,000.
Source: Military Officers Association of America (MOAA)
“I support comprehensive, not piecemeal, pay and benefit reform to deal with rising military personnel costs,” said Graham.
“I truly appreciate Congressman Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray for their work trying to write a budget that provides relief to the Department of Defense,” concluded Graham. “But this agreement doesn’t do enough to protect those who have spent their lives protecting our nation.”
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This is actually fairly consistent for Graham, who since the start has found the sequester appalling because of what it did to the military.
But isn’t it intriguing that in this moment when even Tea Party types are disciplining themselves to pass compromise legislation, trying to make up for the damage they’ve done to the GOP, Lindsey Graham is the guy standing up and saying, “No?”
This is from The Fix blog at The Washington Post:
Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Tex.) surprised the political world Monday when he filed at the last minute to challenge Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), complicating the senator’s reelection bid just when it looked to be virtually problem-free….
Stockman is far from an A-list challenger. He has a knack for controversial statements and a dearth of campaign funds. But among a Texas GOP electorate in which Cornyn is no hero, he shouldn’t be counted out.
Nor should underdog tea party-aligned challengers to Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.),Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), or Pat Roberts (R-Kan.). Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) have drawn higher-caliber opponents….
That’s probably about the way to put it with Alexander. It’s not exactly that he’s in trouble, so much as you can’t count his many challengers out — especially if one of the stronger ones gets him into a runoff.
When I hear that Lamar Alexander — whom I covered in his successful gubernatorial election way back in 1978 — is in trouble, it tells me Republicans in Tennessee have gone nuts while I wasn’t watching them.
He’s one of the dwindling number of sensible people in Washington.
Rep. Jeff Duncan posted the following on his Facebook page last night:
Every so often God places upon the Earth an individual with the power to change humanity’s destiny for the better. One of those very special people was Nelson Mandela. His compassion, grace, and mercy created ripples across every corner of the globe. His fight for equality and justice for all mankind helped to further ingrain on our souls the truth that we are all born with the right to be free. Nelson Mandela set an example that we would be wise to follow for all time, and tonight the world is collectively mourning this loss.
Here are some of the responses he received:
Brent Heaton This may be the politically correct thing to do but I must disagree with this one. He was no example to be followed.
Roxie Todd Kincannon I agree with Margaret Thatcher. Mandela was a communist sympathizer and a terrorist. You can’t pal around with the likes of Fidel Castro and Muammar al-Gaddafi unless share their beliefs. You know the old saying about birds of a feather.
Chris Corley What? He took a first world nation and turned into a third world country. That is quite an accomplishment. Maybe Obama is the second coming of Ol’ Nelson?
Larry R Smith Jeff I am absolutely disappointed in you; What are you trying to do win the Black vote in Pickens County. Nelson was a racist, murder, terrorist, and a devote Marxist. Have you not read any of the books about this man? There is plenty of info out there about him.
David Merck I would not follow Mandela’s example in a million years!
Cheyenne Hoyle McLendon Who are you people ??!!…other than haters….Hitler ?
Danny Cooper Yeah I’m a hater! I hate: Progressives, Socialist, Communists, Marxists, Racists, & Liberals. That’s all I can think of for now, but if I come up with more I’ll add them later.
Larry R Smith Shame on you Jeff!!!!!
Samuel Lawrence The Truth About Nelson Mandela…
The ugly truth about the world’s favourite terrorist-turned-politician, Nelson Mandela, has been buried deep beneath the media-created myth of the man, who for decades has been given such a whitewashing by the liberal/Socialist media that the real Mandela disappeared from the world’s eyes, and in his place appeared a messiah, a saviour, a demigod, whose only resemblance to the real Mandela was the outer shell. The man who emerged from prison and became president of South Africa was at heart the same man who had gone into prison so many years before, a Communist revolutionary, much older but just as committed to the ideology and the revolution as he had been when the prison gates slammed shut on him. Yet by the time he emerged from prison, the worldwide liberal/leftist media had repackaged him, presenting him to the world as a wise, big-hearted, moderate, decent man, who had been unjustly imprisoned for his stand against apartheid, and who would, when he became president of South Africa, govern this complex and diverse country with wisdom and magnanimity, creating a wonderful earthly paradise where all would live happily ever after.
http://www.biblebasedministries.co.uk/…/lest-we-forget…/
And so forth…
On a previous post, Burl brought our attention to an item on Daily Kos, under a picture of Nikki Haley:
Even in South Carolina, a state hostile to Obamacare expansion, hundreds of thousands of people are benefiting just from greater awareness of existing government programs for which they do qualify. And while most of those beneficiaries are children, those children have families who would appreciate access to similar services, if only Republicans would get out of the way.
But South Carolina is solidly Red, right? Romney won the state by 11 points, right? So it doesn’t matter! Except that in raw totals, Romney won by around 204,000 votes. And Republicans assume (perhaps rightly) that every Obamacare beneficiary will become much more favorable toward the government. And if you start thinking government can help you, Republicans don’t stand a chance….
That’s why Republicans continue to fight tooth and nail against Obamacare, from seeking its repeal to sabotaging its rollout. It’s an existential crisis. The more people benefit, the harder it will be for them to argue that government is irreparably broken and must be drowned in Grover Norquist’s bathtub.
Yeah, well…
I don’t think that’s right. That sounds like a liberal thinking wishfully.
Nationally, maybe Republicans worry about that. And it’s the kind of thing the Mark Sanfords of the world — the serious, more theoretical, pre-Tea Party libertarians who think in terms of a historical, apocalyptic dialectic in which democracy is doomed once people figure out they can vote themselves benefits — also fret over.
But as long as the following two conditions remain, the SC GOP as a whole has nothing to fear:
That’s because of a couple of characteristics commonly found among white South Carolinians: For centuries, the surest way to get their blood boiling has been to suggest that someone out there (i.e., the federal government) is messing in their business, trampling on their prerogatives. (How else do you think so many thousands who did not own slaves were persuaded to fight in the Confederate cause?) Add to that a deep resentment — that is certainly not confined to SC whites, but is a characteristic many of them share — at the idea that some undeserving someone is getting something, and they, the deserving salt-of-the-earth people, are paying for it.
Now someone’s going to get bent all out of shape and say I’m calling good, conservative Republican folk racists. But I’m not. Review my words. In fact, I’ll assert that even if more whites than blacks benefit from new health benefits, these attitudes remain the same.
What I’m describing are a couple of widely held political impulses, neither of which is inherently racist (even though those issues have gotten tangled up in race through our history). Both attitudes can be strongly defended, even though, with my communitarian leanings, I tend to portray them negatively.
The urge to self-determination is a natural impulse of the human soul. “State’s rights” may have gotten a bad rap historically because of its association with segregation, but the idea itself — that as many governmental decisions as possible should be made on the most local levels — is a sound one, closely related to subsidiarity, which I extol.
And there’s nothing wrong with not wanting one’s tax money wasted. If benefits are indeed going to “undeserving” recipients, then it’s only human to resent it.
The way race comes into my calculation arises simply from the fact that generally speaking, those two attitudes are more often found to motivate white voters than black voters.
Am I wrong about that? I don’t think so. Near as I can tell, whether these factors are openly acknowledged or not, both parties tend to operate on the assumption that these things are true…
Back in the first few years that I was back here in SC — I want to say it was about the time of the Lost Trust scandal in 1990; in any case, it was a time when we were struggling with some huge problem in Columbia — The Charlotte Observer ran a short, dismissive, truly snotty editorial asking what was up with South Carolina, and comparing us to the Three Stooges.
That was it. There was no serious analysis of the problem, and no recommendation (that I recall) on how to make it better. Just a setup for comparing South Carolina to the Stooges. Ha-ha.
Something crystallized for me in that moment. I had been a longtime admirer of the Observer before I came to work here. But since my return here in 1987, I had noticed that its coverage of my home state had a certain tone to it — a scornful fascination based in a concept of SC as the other; as a vastly inferior other that existed to make folks in that corner of NC feel good about themselves.
I fully realized what had bothered me as soon as I read that editorial. I felt that the Observer couldn’t care less whether things got better in SC, as long as we provided our betters with entertainment. (If I’m correct on the timing, this was at the time that I was conceiving of the year-long Power Failure project analyzing what was really wrong with SC, and offering a specific path to fixing the problems. So I had a markedly different attitude: I cared.)
Anyway, I was reminded of that Three Stooges moment when Celeste Headlee brought my attention to CREW’s second list of the nation’s worst governors. (CREW, by the way, is the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government.)
For those of you interested in such things, of the 18 governors on the list, only two — Andrew Cuomo and Steven Beshear — are Democrats (Scott Walker makes the list for being anti-union, and accepting contributions from people who are also anti-union — really; those are his “sins”). But I’m less concerned with the fact that CREW doesn’t live up to its self-professed partisan impartiality than the fact that, by publishing a list such as this one, the organization gives the lie to the “responsibility” part of its name.
Of course, our own governor makes the list. And that would be OK, if CREW had some helpful criticism. Here’s what it has to say about Gov. Haley. I won’t bother repeating it since there’s no news in it. She’s been roundly criticized for these things in this space. But I stand today to defend her.
My beef is with the overall way that this list is presented. Someone thought it would be cute to give the list a circus theme. The 18 governors are divided into three groups — the “Ringmasters,” the “Clowns,” and the “Sideshows.”
Nikki Haley is listed among the six “Clowns.”
I’m mystified as to the reasoning behind this equal division into three groups. What, our governor is a “Clown,” but Rick Perry makes “Ringmaster”? Really? If someone forced you to pick one of them as a “Clown,” how could you pick her over him?
Beyond that, there is no evidence provided of her clownishness. I didn’t see anything funny in any of the things said about her. It is simply not a defensible metaphor.
Let me say unequivocally that Nikki Haley is not a clown. She’s a perfectly serious, earnest young woman who governs as well as she can, according to her lights.
She does not deserve to be called a clown.
And if CREW really cared about responsibility in government, it would desist from this kind of immature, dismissive, unhelpful nonsense. This is the kind of destructive thing the political parties do — denigrate and demean and utterly dismiss all with whom they disagree, making it impossible for people wearing different labels to work together toward the common good.
On its About Us page, CREW moans,
Many Americans have given up on our political system, writing off our elected leaders…
Well, you know why? Because (at least in part) of dismissive junk such as this.
If you have something constructive to say, say it. If you have any specific, serious advice to offer the people of South Carolina, we’re all ears — really. Not all of us have “We Don’t CARE How You Did It Up North” bumper stickers on our vehicles (although, admittedly, some of us do). Let’s hear your prescription.
But if you have nothing more helpful to offer than to call our governor a “clown,” then just shut up about it.
