Progressing

Once more, irregular contributor Open Source Dem provides a POV on the local sturm und drang around the call for heads to roll in the wake of the 2010 Demacolypse. FTR I strongly support the continuing service of Gerry Birnberg, Willie Belle Boone, and Belinda Castro as the Harris County Democratic Party's leadership team. And I am all in on the resignations of Boyd Richie and Tim Kaine as party chairs state and national. Herewith, with my grammatical and punctuational edits, my valued friend OSD (who has earlier circulated this message under the headline "First the plan, then the man ... or woman") ...

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Carl Whitmarsh’s call for mass resignation and replacement of the Harris County Democratic Party leadership is well-timed.

One of many problems with our party’s legal structure, and even more so of its arcane history in this and other ex-Confederate states, is that we choose the state and county chair late in what is actually a 4-year election cycle. This is profoundly dysfunctional. We should elect our party chair in a county convention held early in odd-numbered years following the Governor’s election in the preceding year. That would be next year.

During this election cycle -- 2006-10 -- Gerry Birnberg acted more like the field director for a local chapter of the DCCC. And Boyd Richie functioned as a cheerleader for the Texas Trust. So at the end of the day we had a “Normal Election” even though normally we lose. This featured three independently funded but nominally “coordinated” campaigns in Harris County.

Try and find the accountability in that: The plural of coordinated is uncoordinated.

The least said about seat-warmers on the Texas delegation to the DNC, the better. The county and state executive committees did nothing but fawn in public and gripe in private. We do not really have a coherent caucus, committee, and convention system of party governance in Texas; we have a little of this and that accumulated since 1874.

That is scarcely Gerry’s fault.

This then is what elected party officials like myself voted for, almost always unanimously, usually unwittingly, in one time-wasting committee meeting after another. And this was what Gerry was re-elected in 2008 and 2010 to do.

1. Over the 2006-10 cycle, the Texas delegation to the DNC opposed Howard Dean, supported John Edwards and Hillary Clinton, and, in the case of Sue Lovell, opposed Democrats in and for municipal office. Gerry ignored all of that and made better use of his time.

2. Gerry did much better than Boyd: Our county chairman emphasized countywide mobilization rather than conventional targeting. Harris County only lost two House seats. Boyd lost 19 more seats, even after sacrificing the statewide to the district races. Gerry said what he was going to do and did it as best he could. It was not enough and not what I would have done, but he did it honorably and honestly. I was proud to be as supportive as I could be.

3. Gerry was at least as successful as Darlene Ewing in Dallas, whom he is regularly compared to unfavorably. In fact if you drew one of those small, square counties somewhere down here, you would find that voters in that hypothetical little county within our 25th-largest state of the Union (the State of Harris) did as well as or better than voters in Dallas County.

4. Gerry has been the finest steward of this party in my lifetime: he has strengthened its finances, built racial solidarity, and improved the stature of our party in legal and election matters. The contrast between this proficiently managed county party and the next biggest one in Bexar County could not be more stark.

5. He has been amazingly patient and relentlessly attentive to his responsible and constructive critics, not least me.

But Gerry, like any lawyer in the party chair, has engaged in transactional politics.

He has never had the strategy, plan, tactics, logistics, or operational art to wage “politics as war”, to challenge the GOP at all echelons of government and politics, and to defeat them in detail. But who has?

At the very least Gerry has been not just fair-minded but clear-headed. He recognized the victories of 2008 as “Halley’s Comet” and tried to mobilize both our base and surge vote. It almost worked for Ellen Cohen, where the three uncoordinated campaigns (Matt Angle + Robert Jones, Bill White + Steve Mostyn, and Dave Matthiessen + Gerry Birnberg) all meshed in one unique district (HD-134). Still, a plan –- a coincidence, really –- that can only almost work under nearly ideal conditions is not much of a plan. So too, a state party that barely succeeds in one county (Travis) is a pathetic joke. The results of 2010 are the failure of an entire political establishment, though not of one man. This is Twilight for Jim Crow.

And even those circumstances will likely be blown away in 2011; redistricting and the likely collapse of the “conduit” funding model of campaign finance following Citizens United ends the state and county party’s attempt to overcome the consequences of the 1994 realignment of voters and radicalization of the GOP. Now the success of a jumped-up Tea Party in Harris County, home of the most powerful and influential right-wing county party in all the Red States, will excite political hustlers and depress political loyalists across the spectrum.

Looking ahead, it is time to reiterate that we need transformational politics.

Some think of that as movement politics. That would be the Tea Party, actually. They are a now-forgotten movement reminiscent of something called the Liberty League back in the early 30’s. But we do not need a left-wing parody of them. Emulation of the GOP or adoption of the mock-socialism they impose on us is not a moral or practical way to compete with the GOP today.

In my view, we need strategic party-building –- not movement politics -- that will raise the political participation rate and ballot discipline within the center-left Democratic majority we know Harris County already has.

I would characterize that thematically as “patriotic-populist” rather than “left-wing progressive” or “ cringing liberal” party. In all events, it would be very different from the faux-conservatism or jingo-populism of the right or far-right.

We need a robustly diverse party based on a few genuinely liberal and conservative principles –- nothing new -- that can provide voters with a “hard center” they can trust and believe in come November 2012.

That is actually all the strategy we need to articulate right now. Building a county party that can support re-election of President Obama and benefit from a disciplined national campaign will not be sufficient for the President, though. The Democratic Party of Greater Austin cannot turn Texas blue any more than can a few local chapters of the DCCC. Still, support for the President is necessary for us here.

I am confident that it will raise our spirits again. But I am no less sure the national campaign in 2012 will not trickle down resources here. We are on our own here in Harris County. We have not boot-strapped our way into power like the other political party here. We have nearly blustered our way into oblivion.

The plan should be to replace paid media with authenticated social media and earned local media at the municipal level of both civic and political formation, mobilization, deliberation, discipline, and action. This is better, faster, and cheaper than what commission-based consultants have been squandering money on.

The strategy and plan will take a different business model for the county party than just leveraging corporate funding and large donations for express advocacy with small donations from suckers for losing campaigns.

Gerry tried as hard at that as anyone possibly could. But we never did and never will do that as well as the GOP.

There is an alternative business model. That is good, because the state and county parties are essentially bankrupt today.

I am sure Gerry is conscientiously trying to find a responsible receiver for the HCDP.

He probably does not want to keep losing or dealing with the pettiness of a broken-down patronage chain -- what our party has degenerated into despite his best efforts. If others can find the man or woman to articulate a more forward-looking strategy and practical plan than we have ever articulated or implemented, I will try to support them any way I can. So too, I imagine, will Gerry. He has come a long way from 1994, and we are all better off for his stewardship of this fine, old party.

Now is the time to salvage what we can and to build what we have never had: a responsible, majority governing party in Harris County: patriotic and popular, hence practical politically and progressive economically. That is not a matter of just complying with state and federal law, negotiating collusively for marginally better outcomes for people disdained or pitied as a pro bono clientele rather than as sovereign citizens –- the “Atticus Finch” syndrome.

Please: let’s get out of this damn Grisham novel we are in. Harris County is the 25th largest state of the Union and Houston is one of the most important cities in the world. We have a future.

Now we need a plan.

The hypocrisy is strong with this one

But he can't smell it on himself.

A conservative Maryland physician elected to Congress on an anti-Obamacare platform surprised fellow freshmen at a Monday orientation session by demanding to know why his government-subsidized health care plan takes a month to kick in.

Republican Andy Harris, an anesthesiologist who defeated freshman Democrat Frank Kratovil on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, reacted incredulously when informed that federal law mandated that his government-subsidized health care policy would take effect on Feb. 1 – 28 days after his Jan. 3rd swearing-in. 

It gets better. Or worse.

“He stood up and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care,” said a congressional staffer who saw the exchange. The benefits session, held behind closed doors, drew about 250 freshman members, staffers and family members to the Capitol Visitors Center auditorium late Monday morning,”.

“Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap,” added the aide, who was struck by the similarity to Harris’s request and the public option he denounced as a gateway to socialized medicine.

Harris, a Maryland state senator who works at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and several hospitals on the Eastern Shore, also told the audience, “This is the only employer I’ve ever worked for where you don’t get coverage the first day you are employed,” his spokeswoman Anna Nix told POLITICO.

The 'only employer he's ever worked for where he didn't get coverage the first day.'  I don't believe I have ever HEARD OF an employer that provided health coverage on the first day; every one of mine was thirty, and some ninety days, during the probationary employment period. Excepting top-level management and professionals, of course. I've never seen the rank-and-file -- and yes, despite the exclusive coverage, along with their pay raises, that they can vote themselves to be provided, Congressman are rank-and-file government employees -- qualify for that benefit. (Have you? Let me know in the comments, please.) 

And this appalling lapse in medical coverage is because -- according to Congressman Harris -- the federal government is "inefficient".

Nix said Harris, who is the father of five, wasn’t being hypocritical – he was just pointing out the inefficiency of government-run health care.

Oh, the woe of the beleaguered press spokespersons for Congressman Harris and his ilk.

Let's review: an anesthesiologist elected to Congress on an anti-"Obamacare" platform is 'incredulous' to learn that his government-provided healthcare requires a thirty-day waiting period.

If you wrote a movie script with a character like this, your editor would laugh at you and edit it right out.

Which is precisely what the good morons of Maryland's Eastern Shore should do with Congressman Harris in 2012.

Anti-Semitism in the Texas Speaker's contest

Quorum Report's Harvey Kronberg, at his News8Austin gig:

In 2007 a growing group of Republicans tried to unseat Tom Craddick during the legislative session, but were outmaneuvered. Mr. Craddick’s parliamentarian even resigned over the Speaker’s abuse of House rules.

Two years later, Joe Straus replaced Tom Craddick when a large bloc of Democrats joined with the unhappy Republicans to return civility to the institution. By all but a handful of accounts, Straus ran a fair process.

Under Craddick, Republicans lost ground in three elections. Under Straus, but as part of the national tidal wave, Republicans regained all the lost seats plus 11 more.

So you have major Republican gains and a widely acknowledged fair broker presiding over the House ... meaning we will see very conservative legislation this session.

Nevertheless, a handful of outside socially conservative groups are running a fairly deceitful but noisy campaign trying to pressure lawmakers who actually like the speaker’s management style to vote against him. They blame him for the failure of the sonogram bill, but the pro-life organization Texans for Life said the claim is false. They blame him for the failure of voter ID by permitting the Democratic filibuster, but that’s also false; Straus followed the direction of his colleagues in the Republican caucus.

They said that Straus appointed moderate chairman, but the budget under Straus was more fiscally conservative than the last one under Craddick.

Now the so-called grassroots effort has crossed over the line with coordinated email and robocall programs calling for a "true Christian speaker". (Straus is Jewish.)

Republicans won an enormous victory on Election Day. How they govern themselves will tell us a lot about how they intend to govern the rest of us.

Harvey rarely crosses his very strict non-partisan line, and to be sure he isn't doing so here. He's taking a stand against an injustice -- a rather underhanded and nasty smear campaign based on Joe Straus' creed -- which is something I have never seen him do.

If Straus retains his post, it won't be because of Democratic support, as in 2009. The GOP enjoys a 99-51 advantage in the coming session, one vote shy of a two-thirds majority -- which would be enough to do anything they choose.

No, Straus will remain Speaker of the Texas House only because the Texas Republicans began an internecine fight two months before the Lege convenes, and because the arch-conservative caucus (or whatever it is they are calling themselves today) over-reached in a brazen and bigoted way.

Surprise! This is who you voted for.

Update: TFN Insider has some e-mail excerpts from behind Harvey K's subscription paywall.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is beginning to feel the holiday spirit as it brings you this week's blog roundup.

Off the Kuff discusses the issue of Latino turnout in the wake of Tuesday-before-last's elections.

This week on Left of College Station Teddy takes in the landscape after the storm and presents a way forward for Texas Democrats. LoCS also begins the Texas Legislature Watch by looking at the bills that Representative Fred Brown has pre-filed, and covers the week in headlines.

Letters From Texas explained a fundamental truth to state Senator Dan Patrick: democracy is about more than two wolves and one sheep voting on what's for dinner.

Killing Medicaid and CHIP along with Grandma and the kids will devastate the Texas economy. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders why the evil Heritage Foundation wants to hurt the Texas economy.

Mean Rachel wondered when the Democratic Party decided to become the I Can't Believe It's Not Republican Party.

Bay Area Houston says the GOP is giving poor Hispanic kids the bird.

Over at TexasKaos, libby shaw gives her take on deficit reduction ... or rather how NOT to do it while distracting a nation. Check it out : Fixing the Federal Deficit.

Neil at Texas Liberal says that where there is smoke you will not inherently find fire. Yet the smoke alone may be enough to do a great deal of damage.

This week at McBlogger, Captain Kroc takes a look at one of the newest members of the Texas Legislature.

PerryCare to replace Medicaid in Texas

Or perhaps we should call it RepubliCare. "Cheaper, better, and without so many of those nasty poor sick people".

Medicaid is the health lifeline for more than 3 million of the most vulnerable Texans, but some Republicans, including Gov. Rick Perry, are talking about opting out of the program as a massive state budget shortfall looms.

The prospect, described by some as far-fetched, raises fears about the toll on poor children, people with disabilities, pregnant women and the elderly. Medicaid covers at least part of the cost for more than 60 percent of nursing home residents.

Speaker-in-waiting Warren Chisum is here to ally concerns.

Those looking to shake things up said they are not proposing to put existing Medicaid patients out in the cold. They said they want to find a way to deliver health care in a better, more cost-effective way as Texas bends under the burden of more needs than money. 

"It's not a warning that we're going to throw momma out of the retirement home, it's just saying we've got to do something different, because this is not working for us," said state Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, who cited the Medicaid opt-out idea as he runs for House speaker.

Rest assured, the Republicans say there will be no death panels deciding who gets treated and who gets rolled on a gurney out in the street.

With their ability to touch Medicaid hampered by federal requirements and the federal health care law aiming to add to the Medicaid rolls in the future, some fear the impact on areas such as education and public safety.

"It sends a strong message to the federal government that what you've asked the states to do, even with the (funding) matches that you're proposing, is going to cause the states to go bankrupt — or certainly it's going to compromise our ability to deliver on education, public safety and infrastructure," said state Rep. John Zerwas, R-Richmond, an anesthesiologist.

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission is looking at what the effect would be if Medicaid were abolished in Texas or federal matching funds were slashed. Zerwas, who carried the legislation that called for the study, is saying not that he supports an opt-out but that the idea needs to be thoroughly studied, including the human and economic effects.

Details are unclear on what would replace Medicaid if Texas opted out. Groups, including the limited-government Texas Public Policy Foundation, are working on proposals with the idea that the state still would be able to pull down federal funds in addition to its state health care money, or the federal government would otherwise continue coverage options. 

"It's not just opting out of Medicaid. It is replacing the Medicaid program with something that is affordable by the states and the federal government and can deliver better care," said the foundation's Arlene Wohlgemuth, a former state lawmaker. 

Perry told Fox News that he thinks Texas could find a "private insurance solution" that would save the state and federal government $40 billion each over six years while covering more people. He did not give specifics.

There it is: PerryCare. Which of the governor's richest friends wants to start the company to take Medicaid private? What private insurance company wants to take over coverage of the elderly, the poor, and the infirm? I forget; which ones are now?

Who said elections don't have consequences?

Update: STC has more, including a "superbad" quote from Speaker-to-be Chisum.

Sunday Funnies, Derision Points edition

"George W. Bush says he is glad to be out of the Oval Office because he doesn't have to think all the time. And I'm thinking: wait a minute, that was him thinking all the time. Really?" — David Letterman

"George W. Bush was interviewed by Matt Lauer, who asked him if he would still invade Iraq if he knew then what he knows now. It's an unfair question. For one thing I don't know if Bush does know what he knows now." — Jimmy Kimmel

"'Decision Points' by George W. Bush has dropped, and it's like 'War & Peace' without the peace. Here's the very first page: 'In the last year of my presidency I began to seriously consider writing my memoirs.' Right away he's got you hooked. Did he write them or didn't he? You won't know until you read the book. Maybe the rest of the pages are blank. If there's one thing we've learned it's that we can't believe something is there just because Bush says it is." — Stephen Colbert

"In his new book, George W. Bush says he’s happy to be out of Washington. Well, it’s unanimous." - David Letterman

"President Bush told Matt Lauer the most embarrassing thing he ever did drunk was ask a friend of his parents what sex was like after 50. That's nothing. John McCain asked Sarah Palin to be his running mate when he was sober." – Jay Leno

"No sir, I'm not going to read it until he reads it." – David Letterman

In the clearing stands a boxer ... somewhere

Willaim Greider (whom I have enjoyed reading since he wrote in the '80's for Rolling Stone) nails it again here.

Given the election results, the question Barack Obama has to decide for himself is whether he really wants to be president in the fullest sense. Not a moderator for earnest policy discussions. Not the national cheerleader for hope. Not the worthy visionary describing a distant future. Those qualities are elements in any successful presidency, and Obama applies them with admirable skill and seriousness.

What's missing with this president is power — a strong grasp of the powers he possesses and the willingness to govern the country with them. During the past two years, this missing quality has been consistently obvious in his rhetoric and substantive policy positions. There is a cloying Boy Scout quality in his style of leadership — the troop leader urging boys to work together on their merit badges — and none of the pigheaded stubbornness of his "I am the decider" predecessor, nor the hard steel of Lyndon Johnson or the guile of Richard Nixon.

I have never seen this fighter. I have never seen Obama respond to a challenge with a battler's mentality. During his debates with John McCain, I bemoaned to all those watching around me that he would not punch back.

Republicans, who are masters of deceptive marketing, seized on Obama's most appealing qualities and turned them upside down. Their propaganda cast him not as soft but as a power-mad (black) leftist, destroying democracy with socialist schemes. The portrait was so ludicrous and mendacious, the president's party hardly bothered to respond. Egged on by the Republican Party and Fox News, right-wing frothers conjured sicko fantasies and extreme accusations: the president is not only a black man (bad enough for the party of the white South); he is not even American. The vindictive GOP strategy is racial McCarthyism, demonizing this honorable man as an alien threat, just as cold war Republicans depicted left-liberal Democrats as commie sympathizers.

Even Obama supporters began to ask, Where is the fight in the man? Some critics blame a lack of courage, but that neglects the extraordinary nerve Obama displayed in his rise to the White House — a young black man with an unusual name and limited experience who triumphed through his audacity. Obama's governing style is a function of his biography — a man who grew up always in the middle, both black and white. He succeeded by learning rare skills, the ability to bridge different worlds comfortably and draw people together across racial, political and intellectual divides. He learned to charm and disarm, not to smash and conquer.

For the first time in his life, those qualities seem to have failed him. Indeed, he may have been misled by his high regard for his own talents. This is really his first encounter with devastating political defeat. The question now is, What will he learn from his "shellacking"? Possibly not much, since it is always very hard to rethink and adjust in midstream. But remember, this man is an unusually observant politician with a great thirst for self-reflection. One can reasonably hope that as he absorbs the hard knocks, he will make calculated changes in how he governs.

But those around him continue to kowtow and cave in, crawfish and backpedal. Does this reflect their own weakness or just their counsel to him, or the president's own view? Or is this just more of the confusion coming out of the White House right now?

Bluntly put, Obama needs to learn hardball. People saw this in him when he fired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and many of us yearn to see more. If he absorbs the lesson of power, he will accept that sometimes in politics you can't split the difference or round off sharp edges. He has to push back aggressively and stand his ground, more like those ruthless opponents trying to bury him. If Congress won't act, the president will. But first he has to switch from cheerleading to honest talk. Tell people what the nation really needs, what Republicans intend to sabotage. In a political street fight, you've got to hit back.

Only Obama can decide this about himself, but others can influence the outcome by surrounding him with tough love and new circumstances created by their own direct actions. It does not help Obama to keep telling him he did great but the people misunderstood him. He did lousy, not great, and in many governing dimensions people understood his failures clearly enough. They knew he gave tons of money to bankers and demanded nothing in return. They knew he thought the economy was in recovery. They couldn't believe this intelligent man was that clueless.

Popular forces can blow away the fuzziness. They can mobilize to demonstrate visible support for the president's loftier goals and to warn him off the temptation to pursue a Clintonesque appeasement of the right. Given the fragile status of his presidency, Obama needs to know that caving in is sure to encourage enemies and drive off disheartened supporters. People should, likewise, call out the president's enemies and attack them with the harshness that's out of character for him. The racial McCarthyism of the GOP establishment is a good place to start.

People who still have great hope for Obama can help revive his presidency, but only if they toughen up themselves. Stop holding his hand (he's an adult) and start building a people's agenda that compels the president to change his. Obama won't like this at first—his own supporters talking back—but he can learn to draw strength from their courage. If people fail to step up with their own message, the president will likely fail with his.

2012 is literally going to be won or lost by Obama, entirely through his own action or lack thereof, in the next few weeks. Will he fight against renewing the Bush tax cuts for millionaires with a lame-duck Congress and Speaker? Will he pick up the gauntlet thrown at his feet by Mitch McConnell?

How badly does he want to be re-elected in 2012, and help Democrats down the ballot get elected as well? We'll find out soon enough.

Sunday Funnies

Rachel Maddow's interview with Jon Stewart

One of my Facebook friends indicated that Stewart was being disingenuous for not owning his power as socio-political commentator. I agree wholeheartedly.

His repeating that "he's just a comedian" gives him the illusion of absolving himself of responsibility for influencing the sad state of the national political media for the better. Avoiding accountability means he can keep laughing and pointing at the mess, but not do anything to clean it up.

Unfortunately for Stewart, he's outgrown those pants.

Update: From Mediaite ...

Stewart goes on to explain, quite adroitly, his role as satirist relative to that of an opinion media personality, but it’s not exactly correct to claim that he adds his commentary from the sidelines. Mr. Stewart is very much in the game of forming opinions based on the news, though to be fair, his take is significantly different from that of Maddow and others. But 200,000 participants at the Rally to Restore Sanity didn’t “meta-participate” in a support for a reasoned and sane discourse. Stewart is in the game, though he’s clearly much more comfortable (and perhaps even effective) voicing his critique from the sidelines. Whether he asked for it or not, Stewart has been handed the Cronkite “most trusted” mantle. That puts him, not in the game, and not in the stands, but in the zebra shirt, refereeing the whole affair.

No comprende

How does he expect Democratic voters to support him in two years if he does everything the Republicans want?

President Barack Obama's top adviser suggested to The Huffington Post late Wednesday that the administration is ready to accept an across-the-board continuation of steep Bush-era tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest taxpayers.

That appears to be the only way, said David Axelrod, that middle-class taxpayers can keep their tax cuts, given the legislative and political realities facing Obama in the aftermath of last week's electoral defeat.

"We have to deal with the world as we find it," Axelrod said during an unusually candid and reflective 90-minute interview in his office, steps away from the Oval Office. "The world of what it takes to get this done."

Breathtaking in its defeatist posture. Well almost breathtaking, if I hadn't seen it so many times before. Meanwhile, the Catfood Commission recommends Social Securtiy cutbacks:

The plan would gradually increase the retirement age for full Social Security benefits -- to 69 by 2075 -- and current recipients would receive smaller-than-anticipated annual increases. Equally controversial, it would eliminate the current tax deduction that homeowners receive for the interest they pay on their mortgages.

It would be so much more fun to be cracking wise at Rick Perry and George Bush's hapless dueling book tours, or even the Texas House Speaker shenanigans -- "Quien es mas conservador?" -- but these developments are more critical.

Obama seems to be folding his tent, and along with it the future of his political party.

Is there anyone willing to fight out there for this man?

Update: Not so fast, says Axelrod. And if that is accurate, then the White House has once again screwed up their message, or their 'triangulation', or whatever the fuck it is they're trying to do.