Paying the piper

Are progressives finally getting serious about fundraising for blue dogs?  It made sense to put party first when Democrats were in the minority, but with a solid majority the time has come to look for quality.

Chris Bowers opines:

If we keep sending the Blue Dogs millions of dollars in small, online donations every year, then there is no incentive for Blue Dogs to ever change their behavior, or for Democratic candidates to not seek out membership in the Blue Dog coalition. Currently, being a member, or prospective member, of the Blue Dog coalition provides you access to a network of Hill staff, corproate lobbyists and their PACs, large donor fundraisers, and press releases back home to talk about how you aren’t like those other, dirty liberal Democrats. If we want to change Democratic behavior in Congress, we have stop adding even more incentives for Democrats to become Blue Dogs. Instead, we must offer strong disincentives for them to become Blue Dogs, such as a significantly reduced access to online, small donor fundraising.

Unfortunately, in Scott Murphy’s case, small online donors raised over $300,000 for him even after Murphy had stated he was applying to join the Blue Dogs. That has to stop. Before we raise money for other congressional candidates in 2009-2010, we have to extract promises from those candidates that they won’t join either the Blue Dogs (for House candidates) or Evan Bayh’s groups (for Senate candidates).

No more money for the Blue Dogs. We can’t continue to ratify their efforts to push the Democratic Party to the right. There are plenty of candidates and organizations working to push the party in the opposite direction to whom we small online donors should give our money.

Recognizing the limitations

Yglesias on why a progressive majority will always be transitory:

I would go stronger than that, actually, and posit that American politics in the future will mostly be dominated by a center-right political coalition just as it always has. This is just how things work. A political coalition grounded in the social mores of the ethno-sectarian majority and the ideas of the business class has overwhelming intrinsic advantages against contrary movements grounded in the complaints of minority groups and the economic claims of the lower orders. It’s a little bit hard to even know what a permanent progressive governing majority would mean, and harder to know how you would sustain it.

The old ways don’t cut it any more

It’s about time to call out the GOP weenies blocking the stimulus.

The shifting center

Pollster Frank Luntz, writing in the LA Times shows how far things have shifted in terms of the tax debate:

Last month, I conducted a national survey of 800 registered voters on their attitudes toward infrastructure investment…The survey’s findings were unlike any other issue I have polled in more than a decade…A near unanimous 94% of Americans are concerned about our nation’s infrastructure. And this concern cuts across all regions of the country and across urban, suburban and rural communities. Fully 84% of the public wants more money spent by the federal government — and 83% wants more spent by state governments — to improve America’s infrastructure. And here’s the kicker: 81% of Americans are personally prepared to pay 1% more in taxes for the cause. This isn’t “soft” support for infrastructure either. It stretches from Maine to Montana, from California to Connecticut. Democrats (87%) and Republicans (74%) are prepared to, in Barack Obama’s words, put skin in the game, which tells you just how wide and deep the support is.

Interesting. David Sirota observes:

Thus, as we push for a bigger stimulus package with more spending and less tax cuts, and as we try to stop Obama and Congress from cutting more blank checks to Wall Street, we should know that even top Republican pollsters see that ou efforts are supported by the vast majority of the American people. In other words, we the progressive movement are representing the real center of American public opinion – and it’s our job to now force Washington to represent that real center, too.

The blueing of America

Not that Utah’s electoral votes were ever in question, but it’s still amazing that Salt Lake County voted for Obama.

Salt Lake County just turned a shade bluer. After completing the final canvass of votes cast in the general election Nov. 4, President-elect Barack Obama can claim another battleground victory — he out-polled Sen. John McCain in Salt Lake County by a margin of 296 votes.

Fifty state strategy anyone?

Who’s important now?

Jane at Firedoglake has what is, for me at least, a surprising observation:

With 4.5 million members, MoveOn is now bigger than they NRA.  Maybe our leaders should think about that for a while.