The Lion’s Share on NO WE WON’T- NOW!

Join us for a special edition of NO WE WON’T- The Lion’s Share with Sheri, Darragh, me and YOU!

On Now:

Rebuilding years

N.O.T for Democrats 2008

Three nights ago, Hillary Clinton told us to “keep going” no matter what.  The ‘what’ came today in the form of Sarah Palin for Vice President, running with John McCain.  It was a masterstroke of genius from John McCain and a checkmate to Barack Obama and the DNC.  Many of our coalition members have already written emails saying they are now supporting John McCain out of protest at the way the primaries and convention were run by the DNC.  Some were planning to do so before Palin’s announcement.  Many more Democrats are planning to defect since this morning.

That’s fine.  We won’t tell you how to vote.  Just remember that as attractive as the McCain/Palin ticket is, Republicans have a fundamentally different philosophy about government than Democrats.  Although McCain and Palin may be considered reformers of the Republican party, they are wrong about many issues that Democrats find important.  For example, both McCain and Palin are adamantly anti-choice.  They also have different attitudes towards distribution of risk in areas like health care.  We must not gloss over this.

That is why it is so important to make sure that Congress remains in the hands of Democrats.  This year, we have the opportunity to increase our numbers in both the House and Senate.  A number of these downticket Dems are true Democrats in the liberal and FDR style.  For example, Linda Stender in NJ-07 is very much a progressive like Hillary Clinton: pro-choice, against the war, for rescinding the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.  Now is the time to work for these downticket Dems to guarantee that we have divided government in the wake of what will be almost certain defeat for Barack Obama.

To that end, there are some new efforts that I would like to call your attention to:

• PUMAPac is about to launch The New Democratic Party.  This party is in the model of Alice Paul’s National Women’s Party.  The party will have a platform and goals and will endorse candidates that meet our criteria.  We are still working on the website but we welcome your input on platform and goals tonight on a Lion’s Share edition of NO WE WON’T at 9:00PM EST tonight.
• The Denver Group, co-founded by Heidi Li Feldman and Marc Rubin, is going to be starting an ad initiative to inform voters about how they were betrayed by the DNC.  The intent is to make the powers that be, the powers that were.  The DNC can not be rewarded for their behavior.  Now is the time to purge the party of the authorirarian elements that shut Hillary Clinton and faithful Democrats like ourselves out of the party.  Please see their page describing their initiative.

Remember, we are strong and powerful because we represent millions of votes that *both* parties want to get their sweaty little hands on.  Now is the time that we call the tunes and make them dance.  But we can only do it if we’re all using the same music.  Find your buddies, stick together, hold hands, watch out for one another and we *will* “keep going” and fighting back.

Here’s an ad for Linda Stender to remind you of the kind of Democrat we need in Congress:

Palin = PUMA vote?

Post- electable Obama lovers, welcome to the General Election!  Like it so far?  Awwww…I know, I know.  Grown-ups can be soooo unfair!  Riffing from MYIQ2XU post, this is what I found on Palin’s VP announcement by especially Salon.com’s poor imitation of Maureen Dowd, Rebecca Traister, who is verklempt. :

Should Obama have picked Hillary?

For the true Hillary holdouts, the handful of so-called PUMAs who spent this week jawing about how they were going to vote for John McCain, these antiwoman stances aren’t likely to make a dent. These agitators will not consider that picking Palin, a politician with only a few years of experience, is a pandering and condescending sop toward them, one that suggests that by dint of her gender alone, Palin could stand in for Clinton, who spent years being fire-forged for her place in history.

Now Hillary is fire-forging her place in history, but before she released her delegates she was just gettting in the way of Obama.  RIiight.  Note to Obama-lovers, DON’T try to diss Sarah Palin’s “experience.”  Palin was mayor of her hometown and now governor of Alaska for 20+ months.  Obama can count on one hand and still have fingers left over the times he actually sat down in his senator’s seat.  But go ahead, humor me: 

McCain to Obama: You got SERVED!

Meet GOP Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin.   

This was a master-stroke by old Johnny Mac.  All that misogyny by the He-Man Woman Haters Club known as Obamanation just came back and took a big ol’ bite out of Teh Precious’ skinny butt.  Nobody is talking about that speech anymore.

For months the women supporting Hillary Clinton have been told to shut up and fall in line because they had nowhere else to go.  John McCain just sent them this message:

“I WANT YOUR VOTE”

This was a brilliant move by McCain.  Sarah Palin is young and telegenic, and any attack on her lack of experience opens up the GOP counter-punch of attacking Uh-bama’s lack of experience.  When the He-Man Woman Haters Club launches misogynistic attacks on Palin (and they have already begun) it puts the GOP in the position of supporting and defending women.

When McCain retires in 4-8 years, Sarah Palin will be the natural front-runner to replace him, thus potentially extending GOP control of the White House even longer.  Hillary bashed her head bloody on that glass ceiling, leaving 18 million cracks.  Sarah Palin will be the one who finally breaks through.

Thanks for nothing, Howard, Donna and Nancy.  It could have been Hillary Clinton, instead it will be a Republican.

Obamanation appears to have been caught with their pants down on this pick.  It took nearly two hours for their trolls to start making cookie-cutter negative comments about the nomination of Governor Palin.  McCain had them totally faked out with rumors that he was going to select Pawlenty or Romney.  Obamanation had nothing ready on Palin, and their initial shoot-from-the-hip reaction was D-U-M-B:

“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain’s commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush’s failed economic policies — that’s not the change we need, it’s just more of the same,” said Bill Burton, Obama Campaign Spokesman.

UPDATE:

STATEMENT FROM SEN. HILLARY CLINTON ON SEN. MCCAIN’S VP SELECTION

“We should all be proud of Governor Sarah Palin’s historic nomination, and I congratulate her and Senator McCain. While their policies would take America in the wrong direction, Governor Palin will add an important new voice to the debate.”

Hillary has class.  But we knew that already.

MacBama: A Play in One Shakespearean Act.

Victory Is Mine, Saith MacBama

(Note: I hope Shakespeare will forgive me for appropriating his Scottish Play to describe the rise and fall of Barack Obama. It may help that he’s been dead for several hundred years.)

THE SCENE: It is 2004. Brand-new Senator BARACK MACBAMA has just given his first “unity” speech at the Democratic National Convention, and the media is drooling, as is the Democratic Party. BARACK and MICHELLE (LADY) MACBAMA are at home in bed, discussing their next move. LADY MACBAMA is dressed in a red velvet smoking jacket over pink silk pajamas and is wearing reading glasses, perusing the papers. MACBAMA is reading over her shoulder. He is wearing ivory silk pajamas with a giant OMB monogram on the shirt pocket. The bedroom itself is done in overblown bordello-tacky, like the Greek temple in which MACBAMA will eventually be coronated.

LADY (wonderingly): I never imagined so much adulation could be sent thy way, my husband.

MACBAMA: Forsooth, it gladdens my heart greatly, my lady! Let us bask in the moment together.

(Both MACBAMAS glance up at the mirror above the bed, grin happily, then look back at each other, unsmiling.)

MACBAMA: Doth this portend aught for my future, my lady? In truth, I am confounded. For I have only just ascended the mighty corridors of power. Shall I count myself greedy to want more?

LADY: Surely not, my lord. Thy excellence and superiority to all living beings, save myself, know no bounds. How canst thou stop thine own ascendance to the very highest of offices?

MACBAMA: But would it be proper to begin the climb to that height, knowing that I have duties to those who elected me? I doubt myself, wife.

LADY (silkily): Truly, thou knowest thine own worth, MacBama. But if I cannot persuade thee, thou must go to the place of the Three Witches and abide their counsel. Surely they shall guide thee truly!

MACBAMA (smiling): Ah, my lady, thou art wise as always. Indeed, it shall be done.

The McCain VP Thread: Palindromes anyone?

The word is that McCain has picked Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska — a woman who has spent nearly her entire life as far away as you can from Washington, D.C. and still live in the United States! FOX News is all about CHANGE!

I don’t know if this is enough for McCain to get my vote but, as I said in a comment THIS nominations is the opposite of Obama’s traditional finger-in-my-eye. And the experience is refreshing. Also, as a librarian, I have to say that I like the way she looks.

I’m sure we’ll have more about Sarah Palin as the day and weeks go on but, for now — THIS is a thread for discussing McCain’s Vice Presidential pick.

Or Palindromes.

Dammit, I’m mad

Rise to vote, sir

Friday: Post-electable incoherence

Before I get started, I admit that I haven’t listened to Barack Obama’s speech.  He has now achieved the unenviable position in my mind of having a voice even more irritating than George Bush’s.  At least with Bush, his mannerisms are so well known and predictable that they were  “almost” endearing in their mindless stupidity.  With Obama, the wounds are still too raw.  The mannerisms that make him quite possibly more mockable than Bush are currently surrounded by ideas that make me want to smack him.

Both Heidi Li and Anglachel have commentary on Obama’s speech.  I will listen or read Obama’s speech later but from what these two have deconstructed, it isn’t difficult for me to piece together what Obama was trying to convey.  The bottom line is that the Democrats are in deep, deep trouble not merely because they have selected a man who is supremely unready for the job but because they find themselves trying to hold their own base together without a clue of how they got to a divided party in the first place.

Heidi Li reports that Obama lifted whole sections of Hillary’s speeches without attribution.  This is not really a surprise.  We have seen the content of Obama’s character.  Schmoozers are experts at taking other people’s ideas and passing them off as their own.  It’s how they keep climbing the rungs of success.  The difference here is that half of his Democratic base is watching and we still have the votes to truncate his rise to the top.  I think this is what drives the Obamaphiles insane, as we have witnessed in the past couple of days as the trolls descend on us and pull the “If you don’t give us what we want, it will be YOUR fault if we lose” routine.  They just can’t believe they have to stoop down to us and ask nicely for our vote.  If we were as smart as *they* are, we would just give it to them to do for us what they know is best for us.  Can’t we see they desperately want Obama to win?  Why are we making their lives so difficult?

So, Obama sighs in resignation and incorporates parts of Clinton’s agenda in his speech.  “There!”, he seems to say, “I’m a Democrat.  Are you happy now?  Now, shut up and hand the votes over.”  But then, according to Anglachel, he reveals the reason why he will fail to win the White House in November.

For 40 years, since 1968, the American political landscape has been dominated by the most compact, fanatical, ideologically radical party in the West today. They have brutalized their opponents and despoiled the nation. The crises of our nation (vs. some rather pedestrian political screw ups) have been caused by this group that simply does not agree that we should be a democratic nation. This is not “gridlock” – this is political survival. They have over-reached and now is the time to seize a political opportunity.

From the langauge I have heard through the campaign season and particularly in the last few days, this group is quite cheerfully positioning itself in a weaker position than the Clintons took in 1992, when it seemed impossible that anything could stop the Reagan Revolution juggernaut. They have eagerly taken on the superficial trappings of the Right – pandering to religious kooks, backing down on civil rights, abandoning even the pretense of social and economic equity, flatly saying they will not entertain an ambitious health care reform plan – and have no sense of the depth of change they could accomplish if they would trust to their own party’s philosophy.

The speech was all surface and ended by denying its own opening claims, cutting off its deepest, strongest roots.

He seems intent on negotiating Clinton’s agenda away in the name of post-partisanship.  He embraces high-Broderism, that media construct that says that Americans really want the parties to get along and if only the Democrats would stop being so stubborn about their core principles and learned to work with Republicans, then we would all sing in perfect harmony.

The problem is that if Democrats abandon their core principles and Republicans don’t abandon theirs, any attempts at negotiation and compromise ends up pulling us more to the right.  The DC Village is perfectly happy pulling the Democrats to the right because it doesn’t rock their little boat and what is good for them, MUST be good for the rest of the country.

What we in the neglected half of the party can’t understand is why we are buying into the Villager narrative.  This was supposed to be our year.  After 8 years of unfettered movement conservatism and radical Republicanism when there was absolutely nothing standing in the way of Republicans enacting every Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society initiative in their arsenal, the country finally woke up and rejected what the Republicans were selling.  This year was supposed to be a cakewalk for Democrats.  The country is dying for a strong Democratic push-back and what Obama is proposing is about has bold as tapioca.

So, we have the strength of the Clinton agenda blunted by the call for bi-partisanship.  This is the Change! that we’ve been waiting for?  No, this is what the Villagers want.  They want a Democratic party without any teeth.  And the Democrats are going along with it because they have learned helplessness in the face of the Republican juggernaut.  Recently, I got a clue about what is going on in the heads of the liberal elite Obamaphile when I heard an interview Terry Gross did with a pension and retirement specialist who recommended that the government start a pension account for every American.  Terry whined about how the Republicans are never going to let that happen.  So why bother?  This is Obamatics.  Give up before you even start because vigorous resistence against Republicans has been unsuccessful in the past 8 years.

Grover Norquist and Karl Rove must be ecstatic.  They had always hoped to defang the opposition and now they are successful beyond their wildest dreams.  The Democrats have spent so much time banging their heads against an immovable object that they have completely forgotten what it was they were fighting for in the first place.  To them, politics is one endless series of compromises.  With Obama elected, the Democrats continue down the path of making the party irrelevent. And they Obama faction, for the most part, is too young and affluent to realize that what is required of it is struggle.  They are willing to surrender before a single bill is proposed.

What Clinton offered was the coherence of core Democratic principles with which we would strengthen our bargaining abilities.  She understood the American electorate and how it had been hurt economically and socially by movement conservatism.  She wanted to restore the social safety net of the New Deal and rally the public to fight for themselves.  That is bold.  That is change from what we have had from Democrats in the past eight years.  That is scary.  That’s not what we’re getting with Obama.

Obama does not have a core.  That is why his speech is incoherent.  It doesn’t stick together because he doesn’t believe in core Democratic principles.  He is merely mouthing the words because he knows he needs us onboard. But he will never get us onboard because we understand the hollowness of his policies and as a result, he is not only post-partisan, he is post-electable.  He is a failure before he has even started, along with the rest of the current Democratic party leadership.  They threw away their champion for a schmoozer and will be handed their asses in November.

The sooner the better.

Thursday: Up All Night? What to read if you’re not snoring

I know, you’re going to be lucky to drag yourself to bed after falling asleep on the couch watching the snore-fest at the Barackopolis. But for those of you (who possibly skipped the show) who are still awake I’ve compiled a tour of fascinating posts.

First up is our friend MyIQ2xu who’s Klownhaus has moved way beyond scary clowns today with several very interesting posts. Purging Dissent Is Not Democratic asks “Are “lefty” blogs purging dissent?” (shaking my head) Also, he asks, Is Something Wrong? You’ve GOT to see the illustration.  Seriously.

At By the Fault, Charles has a McCain commercial that actually shocked me.

Oh, MY! InsightAnalytical has this The GOP Toolbar…the Latest Thing in Their Arsenal… THIS you won’t believe. Plus a timely reminder of Gore Vidal’s Best Man. (sigh) or not so timely now.  I guess.

And Dr. Violet Socks – The Reclusive Leftist – Has something to say about The Kangaroo Convention.

Incredible. It wasn’t enough to have the usual fake roll-call vote; they had to interrupt it for a fake nomination-by-acclamation. And this after last night’s travesty of forcing the actual winner of the Democratic primaries — Hillary Clinton — to rally the party behind the crook who stole the nomination.

Sugar is ready to rumble.

Annabelle at Peacocks and Lilies has a VERY interesting take on the Roll Call.  I haven’t read what she said anywhere else.

I try to skip around the Blogroll as I put these lists together.  But, I’m sure I miss lots of good interesting posts — even posts I’ve intended to include sometimes.  So please share your suggestions in the comments.

AND — THIS is an Open Thread.