Dear Third Way: Boo!
voice of the day
"Too often are poor and oppressed people (especially people of color) regarded as threats here in America, while poor and oppressed people in other countries are viewed as victims. This type of perspective is dehumanizing to people here and to people abroad. To overlook the problems here and to focus on issues elsewhere sends the message that poor and oppressed Americans' problems are either insignificant, unimportant, or non urgent and at the same time it leads to the objectification of the "exotic other."
- Ryan Herring
+third way democrats are starting to panic about the projected results of the 2014 US Senate elections. They are mounting a propaganda campaign against +Daily Kos, and will probably attack the +PCCC / the +Progressive Change Campaign Committee next, blaming them for the chance the Democrats will loose the senate in November 2014. What the refuse to acknowledge is the the threat to Democratic control of the Senate is due to their kow-towing to the gop / tea-bagger obstructionist in the Senate, their participation in the Democratic grand betrayal of the electorate that delivered the White House and Congress in 2008. The AFA? third way negotiated with republicans and tea-baggers, the legislation was weakened to meet their demands and in the end not one republican or tea-bagger voted for the bill. They have held 50 votes to repeal the AFA in the house. We could have achieved Universal Health Care. Thanks third way. Dodd-Frank? They should have restored and strengthened Glass-Steagall. Thanks third way. Economic stimulus? third way gave in to the gop and tea-baggers to the extent that the unemployment rate is still 6.7%, there are millions of underemployed and millions who have dropped out of the workforce altogether because there aren't any jobs. Unemployment benefits, job training and other social safety net programs have been cut. There are hundreds of thousands of Americans struggling to survive on $2.00 a day, poverty usually found in Third World countries. Thanks third way. The economy is stagnant, economic mobility is stagnant, wages are stagnant, income inequality has increased by leaps and bounds, while the rich, corporate America, Wall Street, the bank-financial cabal increase their wealth and power on the backs of the poor, students, the retired, our military vets and the shrinking middle class. Thanks third way. It is understood the political parties have to negotiate and compromise in order to govern the country. But when the opposition continues to vote against compromise legislation and begins to dictate how things are going to be or nothing gets done and you go along with that your agenda changes from third way moderation to collusion. You have embraced austerity economics to protect the wealth and power of the 1%, these are the reasons why control of the US Senate is at risk. Thanks a lot third way. rover norquist and the koch brothers say thanks too, but you probably heard that from them in person. This from Politico, followed by an appeal from Daily Kos for a donation to their fund supporting Progressive candidates for congress. Click the link to donate if you can, I did. And finally, Markos Moulitsas' response to third way on +Politico and Daily Kos.....
In a remarkable post yesterday, Moulitsas, founder and publisher of the progressive community site DailyKos, celebrates the departure from the Senate of 10 moderate Democrats over the last decade, and makes clear his hope that Senators Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.) lose their tough reelection battles this year. He doesn’t name some other moderates in tight races, like Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), but his logic suggests that he’d be only too happy to say goodbye to them as well.
Moulitsas cares passionately about progressive politics, and he is a very savvy political observer—he knows that we must have Democratic majorities in Congress to make real progress, and that to create those majorities we must have Democrats win in red states like Arkansas, Alaska, Louisiana and North Carolina. Surely he can see that such Democrats must be somewhat different than the full-throated progressives that he name-checks in his essay.
The majorities those moderates helped create made possible the progress of Barack Obama’s first term. Without them, the president would have been unable to reverse our slide toward depression with the stimulus, extend stable and secure health care coverage to all with the ACA, reform the worst abuses of the financial services sector with Dodd-Frank, remove the scourge of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell from the military or pass a sensible immigration reform bill through the Senate.
A charge implicit in the Moulitsas post is that moderate Democrats lack political courage—that they would do the right thing if only they were brave enough. This just doesn’t withstand scrutiny. We actually sat in meetings with Senate moderates during the darkest days of the ACA deliberations. They knew that voting for the bill could send them to the Valley of the Doomed, and for many it did or still could. They put their careers on the line and took that vote anyway—every single moderate named in the piece who was still in the Senate voted for the ACA. So did those unnamed, like Senators Begich and Hagan. That is political courage.
It was laudable, but hardly courageous, for a Democrat from a blue state to have voted for the ACA. The last time a Democratic Senate incumbent lost in New York was 1899, and in Massachusetts it was 1947. They don’t stare political death in the face on any vote, ever. The moderates do.
Moulitsas might have a stronger case if the moderates he abhors were replaced by more liberal members. But almost every instance saw the opposite result. Of the 10 former Democratic senators that Moulitsas identifies, seven were replaced by Republicans, one by Montanan John Walsh, who is in a fight for his political life this year, and another by Democrat Joe Donnelly of Indiana, who is unlikely to make the DailyKos Pantheon of Progressiveness. Just one, Joe Lieberman, of midnight-blue Connecticut, was succeeded by someone to his left. Meanwhile, the moderate Democrats in tough fights this cycle are running against Tea Party true believers.
Democrats across the spectrum agree on far more than we disagree—almost all supported President Obama’s key initiatives, including universal health care and fundamental immigration reform. Most support new gun safety laws, marriage for gay couples and a vigorous federal response to climate change. Yet for some, that’s not pure enough.
If we are to make progress in a divided Washington—and if we are to protect the Democratic Senate majority—we simply must embrace a big tent for the Democratic Party. Even in purple states, there are not enough self-identified liberals to elect Democrats without their winning significant pluralities or majorities of moderates. The idea that more liberal candidates could win in places like Arkansas, Indiana or Alaska is pure fantasy. And to write off those states would consign Democrats to long-term congressional minority status.
We have all witnessed the devastating effect that the politics of purity can have, as the Republicans grapple with the toxic impact of the Tea Party on their candidates, their congressional leadership and their governing philosophy. Let’s not become them.
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