Another day...another day
So the morning "Ask The Leaders" forum was cancelled. Yes, the damn Rethugs kept Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Harry Reid, Sen. Chuck Schumer, and Rep. Rahm Emmanuel from attending. Damn them.
Although we didn't get Nancy, we did get to hear from the fruit of her labor (literally) at yesterday's Netroots Nation celebration. Christine Pelosi, attorney, author, and activist spoke on behalf of the netroots supporting local candidates.
Rahm Emmanuel did have a group of folks waiting for him. The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights took up Shelby's chicken meme:
Shelby, we have to get you a mini rubber chicken accessory.
Sen. Russ Feingold and the Progressive Patriots Fund had a very cool and interactive exhibitor table. The concept was to say in one word what your President would be.
I wrote "LOCAL", of course :) I need a President focused on domestic issues equally as international issues. I also should have said "Diverse" - the Progressive Patriots Fund is still lacking on the number of minority candidates. So if you know of a good minority candidate, sign them up on the Progressive Patriots Funds website.
So without hearing from our Congresspeople, we went into the Presidential Leadership Forum.
Yes, the highly anticipated debate. Honestly, this was no different than earlier debates broadcasted on the teevee. The answers were the same. The only difference is that I felt this debate had a more puppetry feel.
Before I get to the puppet show analysis, here is something that I couldn't quite wrap my head around. The blogosphere community bashes the MSM on a daily about their lack of strength on tackling issues, their poor coverage of BushCo, and their lack of awareness of raising the consciousness of America. So how does it work that the moderator of the 1st Blogosphere Presidential Leadership Forum is a reporter from the New York Times Magazine? I'm not going to deny Matt Bai's work and contributions, but its hard for me to understand how the YKos leadership group wasn't able to find at least one blogger that could speak well? I'm just saying there's some hypocrisy going on.
Most of the candidates knew exactly what to say to rev the crowd. The problem was that it wasn't any substantive stuff. This community of voters deserved more. For example, the first mentioning of Hurricane Katrina came 89 minutes into the debate by Hillary Clinton. I wasn't overly happy with the answers from the three frontrunners.
I'm just going to write my assessment in no particular order:
Barack Obama - finally woke up after 90 minutes of the debate. He didn't really connect to the audience because he didn't look at the audience - he continually addressed Matt Bai, who was sitting to the right of him. Not good. Pretty sad to lose a debate in your own hometown. He did have some good thoughts about how we reconcile with China. Obama made the comment that before we worked on defining whether China was an enemy or friend; we first needed to get our house in order so we can cut them off as our banker. True dat. He attacked Hillary by saying that her lobbyist friends are not contributing to her campaign because they are contributing for the good of the public interest.
Hillary Clinton - God bless her for showing up to the lion's den. Dang, talk about walking into a place where everyone knows your name, but no one wants to sit next to you. Bottom line is that she has to dismiss her normal stump speech and talk directly (and quickly) about her progressive agenda. It's time to turn the table and become friends with the progressive community. I know she has it in her and her background - so let her run free (I mean not that free where she is doing some ridiculous Elizabeth Edwards' stuff and blogging everywhere and anywhere). She has a message that isn't being let out and I believe and hope that the tide will turn in her favor.
Bill Richardson - probably his best performance. He opened it up by admitting that he screwed up at the last debate with the "who's your favorite Supreme Court Justice" question. Richardson's best line was answering if he had a plan for Iraq - he said "I have a 1 point plan "Get Out".
Kucinich - not really sure why he was there. He once again pissed on his fellow Democrats in Congress. Dude, we get it that you don't like your other Party members, but let it go or get some good therapy about that issue.
Gravel - again with the pissing on Democrats. Gravel was Gravel. The meds were working and he seemed pretty stable. No potted plant jokes.
John Edwards - My new nickname for John Edwards is the "Pony Man" - my friends know what this means and one day I'll provide a fuller description. But, back to the Pony Man. He got the crowd fired up talking about not taking money from Washington lobbyists. He then challenged everyone on the stage to agree to not take money from Washington lobbyists. Well HRC didn't agree and Pony Man went in for the full attack. Edwards' attack on HRC was par for the course, except now he is trying to bring Obama into the fight or else he's trying to ride on Obama's coattails. It's most likely the later. The Pony Man said on several occasions "well me and Senator Obama haven't taken any money from Washington lobbyists ever". Spread the manure, Pony Man. So if you have everyone who works for lobbyist firm give a campaign donation is that completely different from receiving a check directly from the same lobbyist firm?
Chris Dodd had the best line on lobbyists, he said "it doesn't matter what city you attach a lobbyist, whether Washington or Chicago, the only true way to clean up politics is for public campaign financing". Dodd smacked the Pony Man down. Sweeet.
The Pony Man also said that on the 1st day of his presidency he will close Guantánamo. It's a bullshit line. Ummm, yeah right. Closing Guantánamo requires a lot more than just locking the fence.
Hey Pony Man, here's what I found on Wikipedia:
A 1934 treaty reaffirming the lease granted Cuba and her trading partners free access through the bay, modified the lease payment from $2,000 in U.S. gold coins per year, to the 1934 equivalent value of $4,085 in U.S. dollars, and made the lease permanent unless both governments agreed to break it or the U.S. abandoned the base property.
You see if the US abandons this property, then Cuba can legally reclaim her land. Now tell me how that will work out if the American people find out you just gave Cuba a strategic nuclear bomb location. I'm thinking that tis no good Mr. Pony Man. In Pony Men language, "abandon" and "close" probably don't mean the same things. Yeah right that the Devil is the details; it’s in the rhetoric.
After the Presidential Forum, we all moved to our breakout sessions. The readers of BfD voted for me to attend the John Edwards a.k.a. Pony Man's session.
Ahhh, what an experience. It was rather trippi.
Hey, I agreed to go, but I never said that I was going to give a blow-by-blow description of the session. I couldn't if I tried because one had to be a real big fan to sit through the hypocrisy.
The best question he received by an audience member was framed something like this:
"how can you support the death penalty while continuing a poverty tour whereby more minorities and poor people are killed by the death penalty".
OUCH!! I didn't know John Edwards' supported the death penalty - might be old news to some but to those that are required to listen to the Pony Man I didn't know this. Oh, the Pony Man started with some "well I hear you and you're right but I'm doing" kinda stuff and then he finally admitted that he supported the death penalty.
So Mr. Pony Man while you're out touring the latest poverty block in America, please take along these stats:
Since 1988, the federal government has authorized seeking the death penalty against 382 defendants. Of the 382 approved prosecutions, 278 (73%) were against minority defendants. Of these defendants, 104 have been white, 64 Hispanic, 16 Asian/Indian/Pacific Islander, 3 Arab and 195 African American. Of the 44 inmates currently on federal death row, 26 (59%) are members of a minority group. (Source: Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project (June 28, 2006)).
The best Pony Man line in respect to this question was "I will ensure that no American is executed until the system is fixed". Again I must call bullshit. You say you're for the death penalty but now you're saying that you won't let anyone be executed.
Total Number of Death Row Inmates as of January 1st, 2007: 3,350
Maybe the Pony Man will randomly pick and choose which one of the 3,350 death row inmates will be executed. I wonder if he already has a team working hard on the selection criteria for death row executions.
So really tell me, Mr. Pony Man, did ya just pull that "no execution until system is fix" out of the air or cause it just so damn sounded like something the people needed to hear?
Be back in a few...gotta pack bags and head to the ATL.
Comments (14)
Whoa, whoa. So you're going after Edwards for choosing to be a progressive candidate, and then not quite being progressive enough? Huh?!? How do you honestly conflate poverty and the death penalty, other than the fact that those on the Row are more likely to come from impoverished conditions? Wait, do you honestly think Hills is going to have anything to say other than "justice" and "they made their choice to take the life" or "I feel for the families?" and so on?
I don't understand how Edwards is seen to be promising something for everyone. He was the first one I had seen that not only built himself a good health plan, but actually produced numbers and told us how much revenue would have to be added in order to pay it off. He's also got the most synergistic set of plans at the moment to simultaneously hit economics, health, environment and labor.
I'm not buying him as a fake. You don't work in a field for multiple years in your non-campaign time just to build up a resume. Okay, well, you might say you need to work on *something* big, but what you do choose says a lot about you. Edwards has poverty. Gore has global warming. Both mega-issues, both really important so good on them both.
He's also one to say "War on Terror" is just a bumper sticker. Quite true - I haven't heard him expand much beyond that to understand how much of the meme he rejects, though.
Also forgetting that Hillary managed to say "Lobbyists are people too?" Really, nice one. Next I'll feel sorry for people that have to pay 35 percent of their income in taxes. Oh, and since you praised Dodd about the public financing - who do you think got the whole Democratic field to drop the public financing? Strong hint: Hillary was the first candidate since the current system was built to forgo primary financing. Looks like she has a lot of herself to sell before the day is done.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/us/politics/23donate.html?ex=1186459200&en=e943f392de962d8c&ei=5070
I don't think Hillary has a desire to be a progressive any longer than it takes to win the primary. She and hubby bill actually hang around the Bushes. She's been in public with Rupert Murdoch. The point isn't that we shouldn't occasionally break bread with our political enemies, but that I think she wants the Clintons to be a family like the Bushes or Kennedies. And that isn't my interest as a voter. After eight years of horribly regressive rule, America is actually ready to turn a bit left.
I'll gladly take Richardson if he can push into the top tier. The guy's got to have some chops for being involved in things for so long.
Obama - eh, if I have to. On the plus side, he might settle the Jesus freaks down long enough that we can get back to running a country correctly again. And if a guy can broker peace amongst all the back-stabbing in Illinois, maybe he's got a chance in the Middle East.
But, anyone but HRC at this time. Edwards I obviously like.
Oh, and as for Congressional leadership - I think they were too busy handing over more of our rights to Dear Leader. Somebody take these fools to MIT or Georgia Tech and show them just how scary data mining can be. It makes such great fodder for whisper campaigns and character assasination.
I'm guessing, save Kucinich and Gravel, they're all for the death penalty. But that's just a guess.
"...I never said that I was going to give a blow-by-blow description of the session." That means you couldn't sit through it with an open mind? That blows.
Hypocrisy? Did you type that with a straight face.
Nita, I'm feelin' ya, but this reminds me of 'he who's name must not be spoken' and Taylor/Cox. I hate this presidential primary stuff.
All I want to know is-
"Can I eat the fish I catch in Georgia?" because "Any redneck knows, you can't fry the mercury out of fish." (Dubose Porter at the GADCC) Will our children have a place to hunt in Georgia?
Shouldn't everyone be free from want of the necessities of life?
Is it right to make a proffit off of human misery? (big pharma, HMOs, insurance industry) Is it right when one of us loses our life savings or our homes because we get sick?
Transportation for all.
What are we going to do about the birth tax?
What should we invest our tax money into, what tax investments will pay the highest dividends?
What are we going to do about the cheap labor trap?
How are we going to pay for repairs needed for the thousands of bridges across this country so that we're safe when we're on the road?
Most of all, how are we going to restore traditional progressive American values in our state's capitol and in our nation's capitol? Will traditional progressive American values get any respect at all under the gold dome?
My president is traditional progressive American values. My presidential candidate is the Newton County Democratic Party.
Speaking in general of empty rhetoric versus actual planning:
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/opinion/06krugman.html?hp
Speaking of tricle up political theory:
http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/projects/strategic/values.gif
Nothing wrong with policy proposals, as long as they personify your core values and they're framed from a progressive point of view. Christopher Dodd and John Edwards mentioned specific policy proposals. Which one is the general population more likely to remember. Dodd's specific policy proposal or Edwards story about the appalachian guy with a cleft pallet who suffered with a speech impediment for 50 years till someone generously offered to provide the money to fix it. It's not enough that our elected representatives and the government in general to CARE about it's citizens, it must also ACT on that care.
You don't get credit for a chicken schtick unless your fingertips are soaking in pools of your own sweat that has trickled down from your head and arms into the thick red rubber gloves, but you don't really care because the mask-induced hypoxia has given you quite a buzz.
And I still call him Pony BOY. I almost smacked my computer when I got his earnest fundraising appeal premised on challenging Dems to reform their finances. Give me a break.
I don't think lobbyist campaign contributions are a big problem. They're just like the rest of us in that regard. It's the trips and gifts and perks to people after they get elected that is un-defendable.
I'm pretty sure most legal executions are for state crimes, so Edwards, or any other president, doesn't have any jurisdiction.
Judging by Hillary's record, she's a bit more progressive than she appears right now. It's clear to me that she is trying to run a campaign that will overcome the double-whammy perception of both women and Democrats as being weak on security, and this means saying some things she probably dislikes, war votes included. Hillary has long been a friend to the GLBT community, education, universal healthcare, and other progressive issues.
So, if I were a lobbyist (I'm not) and I wrote a personal check to Senator Edwards or Senator Obama, would they return it?
Yes, he would return the check. John Edwards has never taken money from Federal Lobbyists or Federal Pacs. He has taken money from state level lobbyists in the past, but will no longer do so, per the pledge at Y-kos.
Wow! That means someone who works for Planned Parenthood (which has a lobbying organization) cannot contribute to Senator Edwards campaign. Or the AFL-CIO. Basically, all the unions that have lobbying organizations.
Well, that's one way to send a message.
Well, maybe he and Dale can share a call list..
Well damn.
We just can't stand for those bastards at the Special Olympics, with their 27 registered lobbyists, who continue to damage our government now can we?
I'll just lay it out in plain language that every one can understand:
Anyone who takes money from Special Olympics lobbyists are corrupted by their evil and wicked influence.
I'm getting a little tired of the self-righteousness in this argument.
There's just a really strong tendency for people to oversimplify things, and I blame George Bush.
It's easy to recognize that some lobbying activity is out of control, it's harder to not condemn ALL lobbying as a result.
Some PACs do good work.
Not all corporations are automatically evil.
Profit is not always obscene.
I hope we can be more sophisticated than that.
It's George Bush's fault because it's him and his people who discourage critical thought, and science, and a humanistic outlook. They just want it to be about right and wrong, testing, and competition. They suck. (Mostly.)
"It's easy to recognize that some lobbying activity is out of control, it's harder to not condemn ALL lobbying as a result."
See, but my over-idealistic thought is that we shouldn't *have* to have these groups trying to out-gun their well-heeled counterparts in this game.
Okay, yes, I think we the people will always be slightly out-gunned in having people work full-time for our interest. Simply because it doesn't pay - we can contribute for a few salaries here and there, but if the super-rich families or industries decide that they really want many people on their active payroll advancing their interests full time, there is going to be a disadvantage to us.
Also, with the latest Supreme Court campaign ruling, it's going to get a bit nastier this year, since sockpuppet "issue ads" are back on the table.
I look at it this way: An elected official can't realistically pay attention effectively to 800,000 individual points of view (or however many are in their constituency). People have to organize with like-minded other people and speak with a collective voice. That is how the official knows that this is a group representative of a significant portion of the electorate.
Lobbyists and PACs represent groups of people who have gotten themselves organized. I think one could make the case that many of us might be better served by making contributions to a candidate through a PAC that we like rather than a direct contribution.