Gotta make this quick because I have a lot of driving to do today.
Today is International Women’s Day. I know, I know, it seems like it comes earlier and earlier every year.
So, what did America get for its women this year? We’re all of 17% of the Senate, which is, by the way, pathetic. Well, don’t expect that to get any better come November. Maybe if we’re lucky we can add Elizabeth Warren and we’ll still have only 17%.
In Maine, Representative Chellie Pingree, a liberal Democrat, was disuaded from running for Olympia Snowe’s seat by Angus King, the former governor. See Digby’s post from yesterday for all of the bloody details. The summary goes like this: Pingree was going to run for Snowe’s seat but then King decided he wanted to go for it. The numbers were on her side until King jumped in. King is going run as an independent. Pingree did the numbers on a 3 way race and decided it was too risky with King in it. Sooooo, guess who the Democrats decided to back?
If you guessed Pingree, you would be wrong. They’ve decided to throw their support behind King. King has suggested that he will caucus with the Democrats and will become their Lieberman replacement. Isn’t that special?
To recap: The Democrats had an opportunity to pick up a seat in Maine AND retain one more seat for a woman. But when they had to make a choice to throw all of their effort behind a candidate, they chose to throw it behind a man who isn’t even in their party. Folks, you can’t make this stuff up.
Now, a lot of you are going to say that this is Maine and we don’t know Maine and King was a popular governor and the tea leaves were inauspicious, blah-blah-blah. You know, I just don’t see it that way. I see this as a horribly missed opportunity to replace a woman in a seat which American women simply can not afford to lose to a man. Sometimes, bigger ideas and concepts should take precedent over Democratic party expediency.
And I’m not buying the Supreme Court argument. If Olympia Snowe hadn’t resigned, she would have gone on to keep this seat for the Republicans and the burden of getting that Supreme Court justice protecting seat would have gone to the other Democratic candidates who are running. In other words, nothing would have changed except there would have been one more woman running for a senate seat. It’s unlikely that the rabid Republican running for the seat from Maine would have changed that. He only has one vote and he could only vote for the person the Republicans tell him to vote for. He doesn’t get to nominate a more radical Supreme Court nominee all on his own.
In fact, it’s surprising that any of us are buying this Supreme Court justification for passing over Chellie Pingree. More likely, the Democrats are more comfortable with King and not with Pingree. Pingree would be one more progressive voice, another pro-choice woman who might have expected the party to act like real Democrats. Can’t have that. It’s not the first time this has happened either. Here in NJ-07, the Democrats strongly backed Linda Stender in 2006 when she lost by a mere 4000 or so votes but abandoned her in 2008 when she really needed their help. NJ-07 is a reliably Republican seat so for a pro-choice, anti-war, liberal Democrat to get so close to winning in 2006 was an extraordinary accomplishment and makes it particularly maddening that the Democrats pretty much left her to her fate in 2008. NJ-07 is now stuck with Leonard Lance, a Republican. What’s happening to Pingree seems very familiar. And let me make it clear: Stender’s case was not a cautionary tale. It was an example of something ugly that crept into the party in 2008. This district was winnable but the Democrats went out of their way to ignore Stender and didn’t lift a finger to help her.
I’m really starting to have negative feelings towards this version of the Democratic party and to those of you who are starting to feel increasingly uneasy about what you’re seeing, welcome to the club. It’s just too bad you are 4 years too late.
So, on this International Women’s Day, let’s celebrate America’s progress as leaders of, oh, hell, let’s just not celebrate. I don’t feel like it this year.
Filed under: General | Tagged: Angus King, Chellie Pingree, Democrats, international women's day, maine, Olympia Snowe, Senate |
The Confluence 
From USA Today’s website:
I heard this on Rush the other day but couldn’t find any references until today, you take bloatyboy with a pound of salt.
This means that your Obama-crat will have to beg you for campaign funds, what, oh what, will your answer be?
I know what I’m gonna say,”I gave to a real Democrat, too bad she is not running in my state”
If Mr. Rush said it, it may be a total lie. If one were to hear it from reliable sources, however . . . then it would reveal the depths of masochistic fecophagial abasement the Democratic Party is willing to crawl through and wallow in . . . assuming they accept that treatment from the Great One.
It’s an odd world when some people on the supposed left are quoting their hero…Michelle Malkin? Not you, not you, just venting. But I do see why you drove some people off your blog. Blehhh, raspberries to them!
Happy Woman’s Day
Well, this is the Democratic Party today. This is the Party which several threads ago Nakkajima Kika said I ought to vote for as against voting the man/woman.
No one partycrat is going to be the very first to mutiny against a Party which is their enemy now. And until all the betrayed partycrats mutiny at once, not one will be the first to lead the mutiny. So no mutiny will occur.
If Rep. Pingree changes her mind and decides to run in order to get revenge on today’s DLC-ThirdWay Rubinite Democrat Party by destroying its chances in Maine, I will send her money. What if she were to call herself a New Dealer and announce the start of a new party to be called the New Deal Party?
I like that idea. It would be good if unemployed people all over the country did that too.
In this case the so-called “Democratic” Party is betraying an fbp Democrat in order to support the mbp “Independoid”.
In the runup to Senator Blanche Lincoln’s re-election effort in Arkansas, the so-called “Democratic” Party supported the DLC ThirdWavy Senator Lincoln against her mbp “Demwing Democrat” primary challenger. I get the feeling that the DLC ThirdWavist Wall Street One-Per-Center FrontParty currently misappropriating the name
“Democratic” considers destroying the New Deal and the Democratic Party to be its most primary directive of all. So primary that it will support an fbp Senator against an mpb primary challenger if the challenger is a Real Democrat and the fbp Senator is a DLC Third Wayist. It makes me think more and more that the Democratic Party can’t be saved any more. It is filled up with DLC ThirdWay Goldman-Sachs spirochetes. Our only hope is to kill it and destroy it and sterilize the ground it currently squats on and then hope to build a legitimate political party on that freed-up ground. Will there be any room in that party for leadershippers and/or officeholders from the Democratic Party? Possibly only if they leave and denounce the Democratic Party before no one trusts them any more . . . just as a few
of the senior members of Assad’s Allawite government are beginning to do in Syria . . . to offer a far-fetched analogy.
You mean Bill Clinton’s Third Way/DLC? (Actually not just Bill, but the twofer team of ‘Billary’, bless them.)
If the current Democratic party went down by everyone voting third party, that might give a clue. But to destroy the Democratic party by voting for the Republicans — how is that going to encourage anyone to run for Democratic office other than Rightwing Democrats? Everyone will take it as a sign that the new Democratic party should move further Right.
Defeating Obama made good sense in 2008, and still makes some sense. But we should support the Hillary supporters who are left. If the Bots lose but the Hillary people win, that’s how we’ll get the right kind of new Democratic party: Hillary’s kind.
Woops, why did the above comment go to moderation? No links or dirty words or anything.
Never mind, my post went up on another try.
I am prepared to believe that Hillary Clinton was closer to New Deal thinking in some key respects. If I had known of the existence of this The Confluence blog starting in 2008 I might have possessed all kinds of information that I had no idea existed about what Candidate Clinton really thought about things and stuff. Regrettably, I did not hear about this blog until Monster from the Id noted it in a Hullabaloo comment in mid-late 2011. If SecState Senator Clinton were to come out with a bitter and brutal “refudiation” of DLC ThirdWavy-ism and Free Trade Treasonomics . . . I would be prepared to think that she means it.
I voted for Romney in the Michigan Primary to do my part to create a tolerable alternative on the R side to Candidate Obama. “Tolerable”,not “preferrable”. I will not be voting for any Republicans in the general election. And if the Rs end up nominating
a CLAN authoritrian or a Christian atanist ticket, then I will vote for Obama all over again. But if they nominate Romney and “gray nobody” ,then I will feel set free to vote for someone/something else.
(Trying again.)
You mean Bill Clinton’s Third Way/DLC? (Actually not just Bill, but the twofer team, bless them.)
If the current Democratic party went down by everyone voting third party, that might give a clue. But to destroy the Democratic party by voting for the Republicans — how is that going to encourage anyone to run for Democratic office other than Rightwing Democrats? Everyone will take it as a sign that the new Democratic party should move further Right.
Defeating Obama made good sense in 2008, and still makes some sense. But we should support the Hillary supporters who are left. If the Bots lose but the Hillary people win, that’s how we’ll get the right kind of new Democratic party: Hillary’s kind.
maybe r_u is concerned that his/her vote won’t be recognized if it goes to a third party. But I think that if it goes to a Republican, it will be sending Democrats the wrong message. They’re data miners will interpret it as r_u has become more conservative, therefore the Democrats must also become more conservative to get that vote back. That’s counterproductive. If you want to send a message to the Democrats, you have to vote for a third party candidate and those votes must be in significant numbers so the party realizes how badly it has fucked up.
The only time I have ever voted Republican was in 2008 as a protest vote. I just could not make myself vote for Obama, I was so angry about the primaries and how my vote was stolen by Jon Corzine. All of my downticket choices were for Democrats, btw. But this time, I’m picking a candidate to the left of the Democrats.
At happy hour after daylong modeling event. Have discovered the truffle cheese. To die for. So delicious.
Did you know that one year at Bryn Mawr costs over $52K?? Insane.
Actually unbelievable. Is it the most sophisticated con-job ever?
The place I went to was pricey back then and is now 50K/yr. Couldn’t send my kids there if I had them.
Just back from the loveliest dinner with some sciencey types. They are the nicest people. Did I mention they were Canadian?
I had halibut on asparagus and sweet potatoe puree. Yummmm…
Happy Woman’s Day and History month. 🙂
Riverdaughter,
I will not vote for any Republicans in the general election. Have no fear on that score. I think if every Disatisfied Democratic voted some kind of Third Party in 2012, that would send a “message of subtraction” in the election. Since even that risks letting Republicans win by default, dembot operatives say that is no different than electing Republicans. This will be the dembot guiltmail action-plan for psychologically extorting votes from DDs in 2012. But DDs who have had enough should understand the risks of Republican victory that they do indeed run . . . and they should be ready to accept the risks and take the pain.
I voted for Romney in the primary to do my small part to make the pain of an R victory less than some other prominent R nominees would make it.
The most valuable long-range gain of a massive DD defection from the Democrats in 2012 would be that if it were so big as to make the news, or even so massive as to defeat Obama by default; then the DDs would realize that they do have a measure of power and they would seek eachother out for organizing a longer-range action plan for long-range goals and conquest.
And in fact I voted for Obama in the last election precisely to keep McCain out of office and prevent the specter of an 8 year reign of Christian Satanist Terror under Palin after that.
. . . oh right . . . I should have said ” under Paylinn” just up above there.