guy2k

my first post-post-9/11 9/11 post

2009-09-11T23:45:00.002-04:00

So, now it is eight years. Eight years since the sound and vibration of American Airlines flight 11 screaming over my building and slamming into the north tower of the World Trade Center a dozen blocks south sent me running downstairs and into the street. And it was there I stood with my neighbors and watched as all of the drama and horror of the day played out in very real time.

As I commented on a past anniversary, one of my earliest thoughts that day was that with George W. Bush in the White House, flanked by Dick Cheney and Attorney General John Ashcroft, we had about as bad a collection of leaders for that moment in history as I could possibly imagine. And for the next six anniversaries, that team did nothing to make me doubt my initial instinct.

But now, with the seventh commemoration, the eighth anniversary, I am forced by the very Constitution the Bush gang sought to destroy to contemplate something else.

It seems mundane, but thinking or saying, “This is the first post-Bush 9/11” also feels wildly momentous. But should it?

This is not going to be one of those “meet the new boss, same as the old boss,” “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” posts; in a thousand different ways, this September 11th is different—and better different, at that. The call to make this a national day of service instead of a day of national Grand Guignol, fear mongering, and political opportunism is a small thing, but very much welcome. And there are a thousand people in a thousand different government jobs that, no matter how much they piss me off, are still better than Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzalez, Donald Rumsfeld, Michael Chertoff, Paul Wolfowitz, Porter Goss, Condoleezza Rice, Richard Perle, Doug Feith, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, David Addington, John Yoo. . . I could go on and on before I ever needed to refer to Wikipedia.

But this is not strictly a “look at the bright side” post, either. How can it be? One can’t spend a day with emptywheel (the blog, not Marcy herself) and not grow tense and angry as Obama and his Attorney General, Eric Holder, fail at the necessary job of rolling back the secrecy, Constitutional abuses, and mad usurpations of the previous “unitary” executive. One cannot have been working on the fight to actually reform health care without practically chewing through a lip as you watch the current wizards of Pennsylvania Avenue negotiate away any chance of actually helping the un- and underinsured, to instead benefit the Blue Dogs, the ConservaDems, and the balance sheets of Big Insurance.

Today, however, I am really wondering about something at least as troubling, and likely much more visceral. For it was on another anniversary that I wrote about something that intrudes on my thoughts on every 9/11, and on the large majority of the days in between—the blood. You can go back and read my thoughts on those lost in 2001 in the United States, and those lost in 2002, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. . . in Iraq and Afghanistan, but since this is an administration that likes to constantly insist on looking forward instead of back, lets do just that.

OK, I’m looking; are you?

Take a look at Attackerman, and see where Spencer dutifully and honorably notes the deaths of US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq practically every day. He will no doubt have to keep doing that through the next September 11. . . and I have to ask, to what end?

I am thinking today mostly about Afghanistan (though the needless debacle of Iraq that was sold to us as an adjunct to our “war on terror” should not be forgotten). Bush missed opportunities both before and after 9/11/01 to disrupt al Qaeda, to capture its leaders, to bind the world together in an effort to bring to justice the criminals that killed nearly 3,000 on US soil eight years ago—so I would assume that is still a goal. But now I also hear we are “at war” with the Taliban, that we are trying to help “stabilize” Afghanistan, train a security force, buttress a budding democracy, secure the border regions. . . again, I can go on, but I can’t tell you what we are doing. I can tell you what McChrystal says we are doing (sort of), but I can’t tell you what we are really doing.

I can tell you that military commanders are likely to ask for more—perhaps many more—troops. I can tell you that several in Congress are now saying that they will get no more troops. I can even tell you with a sort of gut surety that the end result will be more “trigger pullers” than we have deployed there now. . . and more military contractors, the miserable praetorian guard of the previous administration, will have to fill in where our support personnel have been traded out.

But I can’t tell you why. I can’t pinpoint the objective. I can’t say, we are doing “this,” so we can accomplish “this.” And I have a really bad feeling that our first post-Bush president can’t either.

And that is no way to honor our first post-Bush 9/11.

(cross-posted from Firedoglake)

so, what's a "conservadem" cost these days?

2009-03-25T01:12:00.005-04:00

Why is a Democratic Senator with a huge foreclosure problem in his state writing a bill to compete with House legislation designed to cram down mortgages and keep people in their homes? Might it have something to do with, um, money?

Just sayin’. . . .

Jane Hamsher went on The Rachel Maddow Show Tuesday night to explore why our Democratic president and a large Democratic majority in Congress has to worry more about a few Democratic Senators and their new coalition, led by the aforementioned Senator, one Even Bayh of Indiana.

Why is Bayh bucking his party—and, more importantly, his own state’s population—to go to the mat for the banks? Maybe this chart has something to do with it:

That’s a list of Bayh’s top campaign contributors from 2003 to 2008.

Just sayin’. . . .

(cross-posted on Firedoglake)

what dreams may come?

2009-03-17T01:59:00.003-04:00

Perhaps much of this has been said before, but some of the fallout from Stewart vs. Cramer—the calls for changes in the way business “news” is handled—puts some long-simmering arguments about media consolidation back on the front burner.

Media conglomerates do not exist to deliver news, they exist to deliver shareholder value. It is in their interest to fluff the stock market and to curry favor with government regulators so that they can continue to acquire, conglomerate, consolidate, profit, and pay dividends.

There are individual reporters that try to do their jobs, but increasingly with less staff and more demands for additional content. Reporters are rewarded and promoted more often these days not for their clips as much as they are for their rolodexes and their ability to serve the needs of the parent company as detailed above. It is natural for them to want to get ahead and ensure job security. Pissing off powerful contacts doesn't really meet any of these needs as the industry is currently structured.

Is there a fix for this? Yes, but it's a very heavy lift. Roll back media consolidation. Re-impose limits on ownership that existed prior to 1996. Take away special wavers for multiple major channels in single markets.

Yes, it's hard to get to that when the large and ever-growing media conglomerates lobby the heck out of the officials and electeds that would impose such reforms. . . so, we must then examine campaign finance reform as a way of taking the influence of the media conglomerates (and the telecoms that carry so much of our information) out of the regulatory process.

Getting real campaign finance reform is going to be difficult, as you know, since it needs to be approved by the folks that benefit from the status quo. The push is going to have to come from somewhere else. . . perhaps an aggressive Fourth Estate?

And there's the rub. . . .

(cross-posted on capitoilette and Firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette)

putting the racketeering back in the insurance racket

2009-03-16T19:35:00.002-04:00

So, late Saturday/early Sunday, we learn that AIG, already recipient of some $170 billion of US government coin, is set to pay out $165 million in something called “retention bonuses” to the people in the financial products unit, the very division that brought the insurance giant to its knees. Cue the righteous indignation.

Righteous, but also rightful—this dispersal is outrageous. But while most behind the microphones, on the opinion pages, and in the halls of Congress will declare this the height of hubris, or a simple “screw you” to the American people, they will be missing a slightly more nefarious conclusion:

These are not retention bonuses--this is protection money.

I had a drink with a friend last week--she works for the NYSE in Europe--and she commented that in her 15 years in the market, the march of "progress" has been about who can come up with the next gimmick, the next algorithm that is slightly more nuanced, complicated, and arcane than the previous. Anything that can give you an edge over your competitors. She said you can see similar growth curves repeated in each of the derivatives as they came along: a slow growth start, then a rapid, steep climb, and then a rapid leveling off, followed by everyone rearranging the deck chairs while they scramble for the next hot gimmick. CDOs, CDSs fall into this pattern.

Do not assume that Edward Liddy, the government appointed chairman of AIG, fully understands what went on within the financial products unit, do not assume he understands their "gimmick," but assume that he knows that something is up and that these bonus babies know what it is.

Many more expert than I believe these “smartest guys in the room (AIG edition)” cooked the books—I’d say that’s more than possible--but even if they didn't, Liddy likely fears that without these guys, it might be impossible to sort out what the hell they did.

Libby also worries that they will take this "expertise" somewhere else, and that Somewhere Else, inc., will then have a competitive advantage over AIG, since they will know not only the game last played, and how to play it better, they will know where AIG is on solid ground, and where it is not.

And, worst fear of all: the disgruntled AIG employees will not land a new job, and to make a little cash, or in order to boost their personal stock, or simply out of sheer vindictiveness they will start talking to friends, regulators, and/or the press.

AIG is paying to prevent this from happening. Retention = protection, pure and simple.

Obviously, this not a legal opinion on my part--just an opinion. I would assume that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner can read between the lines, and that he knows what Liddy is really saying here, and that the legalities (such as they are) are little more than window dressing. I assume Geithner has no interest in this all becoming a public bloodbath any more than Liddy does.

One heck of a racket, indeed.

[graphic by twolf1]

(cross-posted on Firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette and capitoilette)

FDL will be delivering a petition to Congress telling them to put a stop to this legalized racketeering on Wednesday morning when Barney Frank's House Financial Services Committee holds a hearing on AIG at 10am ET. You can sign it here and leave your comments for Congress.

there's trying, and then there's doing

2009-03-16T17:50:00.001-04:00

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has issued a subpoena to American International Group Inc. seeking a list with the names of executives receiving bonuses.

"We had given AGI up to 4 o'clock today to provide the information on the latest round of bonuses that they paid out," Cuomo said. "Four o'clock has come and gone."

. . . .

In the letter to AIG's CEO Edward Liddy, Cuomo said he was disturbed to learn over the weekend of AIG’s plans to pay millions of dollars to members of the Financial Products subsidiary through it’s Financial Products Retention Plan.

President Obama has said he wants every legal angle pursued in stopping these bonuses from going out—do you think he had this in mind?

And, as noted by Jane, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was involved in negotiating the size and scope of the FP bonus package—might Cuomo want to talk with him, as well?

(cross-posted on Firedoglake)

battle of the network stars: street.com ceo quits; MSNBC told to downplay Stewart - Cramer interview

2009-03-13T18:06:00.001-04:00

Thomas Clarke, who has been CEO of financial news website The Street has announced his departure “effective immediately.”

Clarke’s abrupt departure comes less than a day after The Daily Show aired tape of The Street’s co-founder, Jim Cramer, explaining in a Street.com webcast how he, as a hedge fund manager, manipulated value to serve some publicly traded companies and investors at the expense of others.

If you have just crawled out from under a rock, Cramer was a guest on Jon Stewart’s show last night, and the general consensus is Stewart took Cramer, CNBC, and financial “journalism,” in general, to the cleaners.

Or, maybe you haven’t just crawled out from under a rock—maybe you have only been getting your news from MSNBC. The 24-hour news channel—and CNBC partner—was reportedly told by its corporate bosses that this was, you know, not of interest to its viewers:

A TVNewser tipster tells us MSNBC producers were asked not to incorporate the Jim Cramer/Jon Stewart interview into their shows today. In fact, the only time it came up on MSNBC was during the White House briefing, when a member of the press corps asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs if Pres. Obama watched. Gibbs wasn't sure if the president had, but Gibbs did. "I enjoyed it thoroughly," the Press Secretary said.

Cramer will apparently talk about his Daily Show performance on his Friday show (6pm Eastern); no word yet on what MSNBC shows like Hardball, Countdown, and The Rachel Maddow Show will do.

A search of CNBC’s website this afternoon showed only AP and Reuters wire copy on the Stewart-Cramer interview/battle-of-the-century—no original reporting. But, then, why should today be any different for CNBC?

UPDATE: Of the three primetime MSNBC news hosts, only Maddow made reference to the Stewart-Cramer dust-up on Friday night.

(a version of this post previously appeared on Firedoglake)

[Miss me? Don't forget, I am now Managing Editor at Firedoglake, and I occasionally post over there, as well as on my other blog, capitoilette.]

coming soon to a post office near you: epic fail

2009-01-15T02:05:00.003-05:00

That’s it, the party’s over, turn out the lights. There is enough in this, the official White House photo of soon-to-be President Barack Obama, to tell you that all the hope you were hoping for is hopeless.

First off, note the center-right framing!

. . . and what’s with all that head-room?

Second, the contrast ratio: F-L-A-T. In other words: Bo-o-o-o-r-ri-i-i-ing! Look, I know you don’t want the first noir president to look all film noir, but really, couldn’t we spice this up a little? Lower the fill a bit? Give him a kicker maybe? Throw up a cookie on the background? At least break it up with a flag or finger?

Third, that tie! It looks like swag from an American Legion convention. Go back to that iridescent pale blue number you love so much—yeah, it’s a little Wedding/Bar Mitzvah guest-ie, but it was understated, classy even. Or, better yet, you’re young, you’re skinny, how about a tie to match?

. . . and that knot! I know PEBO can tie a better knot—if there is one thing I will take away from the 2008 election cycle, it is that Barack Obama knows how to tie a great half-windsor. . . but this, this is like Michelle tied it around her neck, then loosened it, then slipped it over Barack’s head and retightened it, all while checking her Blackberry. Sloppy, sloppy work.

. . . and, I’m not a big fan of seeing collar over the knot—especially when you have a stylist on hand. Uh, you did have a stylist on hand, right?

And, finally, not least of all, that fucking flag pin!!!!! Barack, baby, you are president now—you don’t have to sacrifice fashion for votes anymore! Ditch the lapel lesion. It doesn’t do anything for me—fashion-wise or politics-wise.

. . . and, guess what? It ain’t fooling the wingnuts, either. Laura Bush’s former press secretary (now LA times “blogger”) Andrew Malcolm is already giving you shit about it. Guys who care that much about a flag pin? These guys don’t like you! Never have, never will.

All of the above should obviously be taken to heart—trust me on this—but if you learn nothing else from this post, note the last point. This should be a lesson for ya’—and not just when it comes to your choice of cheap jewelry.

Bush: 30,000 rooftop rescues = success

2009-01-13T04:19:00.003-05:00

Still-President George W. Bush, looking on Monday morning like most of America now feels, stood before the White House press corps one last time to express his undying gratitude for their piss-poor performance during his eight-years in office. From groggy start to rambling finish, it was a jaw-dropping performance.

In keeping with a long-standing pattern, Bush repeatedly “admitted” that his “rhetoric” might not have been right (“Obviously, some of my rhetoric has been a mistake.”). All the deeds were fine; he just didn’t sell them well. For the Boy King, this has always been the PR presidency; he is now just more loose-lipped about it. Like with so many crappy, Peter-Principled CEO types, he has made the strategy the tactic.

In that vain vein, the most startling moment to my ear and eye was Bush’s perception of his failure to respond to Hurricane Katrina with anything resembling appropriate gravity:

Don't tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed.

You know, I remember going to see those helicopter drivers, Coast Guard drivers, to thank them. . .

Wait, hang on—I just have to interrupt for minute: “Helicopter drivers?” “Coast Guard Drivers?”

I think we call them “pilots.”

OK, carry on. . . .

three is a magic number

2008-12-30T04:52:00.003-05:00

Oh. My. God. Three simple words to celebrate the completion of my third year of words—that’s right, guy2k is three today!

Another year, another 300-plus posts, trips to Netroots Nation in Austin and the Democratic National Convention in Denver, and, to top it all off, my jump to the editor’s chair at Firedoglake just three—no, make that four—weeks ago. Quite the magical year. . . as personal/political blogger years go.

My only regret (OK, it is doubtful that this is my only regret, but it is the one to which I will limit myself today) is that since joining forces with FDL, I have neglected this little place where it all began. The editorial workload has surprised me a tad, so I have not found the rhythm that allows me to both do my new job and bang out posts that meet my absurdly strict standards. If I have a new year’s resolution, it would be to write more.

But, this month, alas, not so much. What started as “a journal of politics, popular culture and mixed drinks” has delivered precious little on all three fronts. . . until now.

In honor of my third anniversary, my move to Firedoglake, and my annual obligation to include at least one topical cocktail a year, I present to you the Flaming Fireman:

2 oz Goldschlager
2 oz 151 proof rum
2 oz triple sec

Three simple ingredients. Mix. Set aflame. Slam. Enjoy (or so I’m told).

Thank you all for making me part of your 2008. Here’s to a triple-good 2009.

Bush at Walter Reed:between chicken and egg, I'll go with chicken

2008-12-23T01:48:00.005-05:00

Yesterday’s headline news, in all its various establishment media permutations, was full of stories about Still-President George W. Bush paying a visit to wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center this morning. A couple added that this was the site of one of his administration’s most serious scandals.

Those reports were talking about the appalling conditions at Walter Reed given broad attention after Dana Priest and Anne Hull published a front-page exposé last year in the Washington Post—they were not talking about the scandal that is the cause of so many of those wounds. That would be the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

When I heard the story, I smirked and shook my head in disgust, figuring it was just another lame, lame duck attempt at legacy burnishing.

Well, it was that, but it was so much more. . . or less.

It turns out, as was later reported, that Bush had an MRI on Monday morning at Walter Reed for a chronic pain in his left shoulder. Yes, that’s right. Bush went to WRAMC because he wasn’t feeling well.

I suppose it’s a chicken and egg thing. . . kind of. It certainly would have looked bad if word had gotten out that Bush was at the medical center and didn’t stop in to look after the men and women who owe their disability checks to his vainglorious boondoggle. But would George W. have gone out there at all if he hadn’t had his own needs to look after?

My guess is a certain “no.”

Bush, even at his most “engaged” was never big on confronting his mistakes—especially ones made so (pardon this) flesh. The man was, is, and will forever be a reality chicken.

Now, as anyone looking at an unemployment check will confirm, the decider has decided he’s decided enough. He’s over it, done his bit, given what he can give. You don’t like him being president any more? Fine, he just won’t be.

So, while it’s just me s’posin’, I’m going to say that if Bush hadn’t felt the need, there’s no way he goes to Reed.

Which might have been just fine with the brave men and women confronting reality every day. . . whether they choose to or not.

(cross-posted on Firedoglake, The Seminal, and capitoilette)

senator Dodd angered by republican desire to screw workers

2008-12-13T00:46:00.002-05:00

Senator Christopher Dodd spoke to the press Friday afternoon about last night’s Republican shenanigans and made some very important points:

Worker salaries make up a tiny fraction of the financial challenge facing the automakers.
The UAW had already agreed to achieve “compatibility and comparability” by March—a major concession.
We still have the opportunity to fix this and the obligation to try.
It is “incredible” that the one demand put above all others by Republicans during this negotiation is that workers, who have already been hurt badly by the declining economy, should take another hit.

Indeed, it is absolutely incredible. As Sen. Dodd told NPR on Friday, there was a part of the minority that was “set on having this deal blow up.”

Dodd’s complexion in this video might be an indication of just how furious he is over this Republican stunt, or it might be the result of bad lighting or a camera that wasn’t white balanced—either way, selfish and cynical Senate Republicans have left us all seeing red.

(cross-posted on Firedoglake)

big news

2008-12-01T02:53:00.006-05:00

Starting today, I join Jane Hamsher and all the other great folks at Firedoglake, where I’ll be serving as editor (I think that’s my official title) and posting under my actual, meatspace name. This is an exciting opportunity, and I am honored to now be among the smart, aggressively progressive voices at FDL.

What does that mean for my lil’ ol’ blogs, guy2k and capitoilette? Well, the short answer is: I don’t know. It’s going to take a few weeks for me to get my bearings, and until then, my own output might drop a bit (might. . . still not sure. . . we’ll see). Once I do have things better figured out, I expect that there will be posts that don’t necessarily fit on Firedoglake, which I will put up here; conversely, some of the things I will be responsible for over at FDL, like breaking news, have not typically been the stock and trade of my personal blogs.

Dare I suggest that you might want to look at all three places?

I was surprised to discover that The Jeffersons ran for 11 seasons—let’s hope that I can enjoy even a fraction of that success in my own move on up.

(PS I will continue to occasionally cross-post to The Seminal, where you can still find all kinds of good work. Over the last 16 months, The Seminal has been extremely supportive of me and my writing, for which I am very grateful, so don’t forget to show them some love.)

the pirates of pennsylvania avenue

2008-11-27T04:36:00.008-05:00

Last night, I was watching Rachel Maddow recount the dozens upon dozens of scandals that pock-marked the last eight years of the Bush Administration, and for some reason, I started hearing the "Major-General’s Song" in my head. I have no idea why a mind-bogglingly long list of greed and corruption made me think of The Pirates of Penzance—OK, it’s not that big a stretch—but anyway, my confusion is your, um, gain(?).

So how about a Thanksgiving sing-along. . . .

The Major Criminal’s Song

I am the very model of a modern major criminal
I’ve tortured everything in sight, turned animal to mineral
I’ve stripped men naked, chained them up, and blasted heavy meteral
I recognize no laws on me unless they’re extra-federal

My dad once ran the CIA, he told me it was just good fun
My veep will back me up on that—look out, he’s got a birding gun!
Those treaties of Geneva type should not be taken serious
The prohibitions there within are quaint if not mysterious

I lied the country into war to boost my numbers in a poll
Ignored advice of everyone from grunt to four star general
When Wilson tried to show me up, I said hey it’s your funeral
I’ve ruined oh so many lives, my staff assumes it’s protocol

I’ll hunt them down and smoke them out as long as I am vertical
You don’t have to take my word, just ask my old friend Richard Perle
No terrorist will walk this earth beneath my robot predators
So what if I kill innocents? (How’d that get past my editors?)

It’s the president who makes the laws, so I don’t need an alibi
I decide what’s right or wrong, that’s why I’m the decider guy
Don’t need to recognize the courts or documents historical
My explanation’s ironclad if not un-categorical

My attitudes about your rights are bold and unconventional
Don’t whine at me about the law, I don’t need you to concern troll
In short I am the president who won with RATS subliminal
I am the very model of a modern major criminal

I think it’s still a work in progress—for instance, I’m still trying to find a rhyme for “strategery.”

Funny enough, it was almost exactly two years ago that I was also looking at Bush and thinking Gilbert and Sullivan. Must be type casting.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

up and down with Brennan and Gates

2008-11-26T07:27:00.002-05:00

My thoughts on John Brennan withdrawing his name from consideration for DCI, and on the news that Robert Gates will stay on at Defense, got a little long. . . please pick up the conversation over on capitoilette.

GM’s “no plan” more of a plan than Citi’s “plan”

2008-11-25T06:33:00.006-05:00

Days after the Big Three automakers were sent home without any supper—told to come back after Thanksgiving with a “plan” that shows them to be deserving of $25 billion of ~~taxpayer~~ ~~congressional~~ Treasury largess—Super-sized financial institution Citibank was handed roughly that much cash in an attempt to prevent the bank’s complete collapse. (That is new money added to the estimated $25 billion Citi has already received under the Paulson TARP/injection/bailout extravaganza.)

But one of the big car manufacturers, General Motors, already seems to be ahead of Citibank as far as making plans for financial stability is concerned. GM’s Buick division announced that it has cancelled its five-year, $40 million endorsement deal with star golfer Tiger Woods, while Citibank has confirmed that its 20-year, $400 million deal for the naming rights to the new home of Major League Baseball’s New York Mets is still very much a “go.”

GM’s Chief Executive, Richard Wagoner, was lambasted for taking a private jet to last week’s congressional hearings (and that was bad form), but just a week earlier, the company had already decided to let go of two of its five private jets (all five are leased, not owned). General Motors has also made many other (arguably small) cuts in an effort to trim costs—from slashing worker uniform stipends and buying cheaper wipe-up towels, to trimming the size of test fleets and turning off escalators at corporate HQ after 7 p.m.

These cuts could fall under the “penny wise and pound foolish” category, but they stand in striking contrast to the kinds of cuts Citi has made:

At Citigroup, executives had announced more than 27,000 job cuts, including ones shed through the sale of the company’s Indian outsourcing operations and German banking franchise and prior layoffs. But the bank stepped up its efforts on Monday with plans to eliminate 17,000 workers in the coming months. It will also cut an additional 7,000 or so employees by divesting businesses in the future and could shed more jobs through attrition.

The job cuts would be in addition to about 23,000 layoffs already this year and leave the bank with about 300,000 employees, down from its peak of about 375,000 in the fourth quarter of 2008. And Citi executives said there could be more layoffs ahead as they moved forward with plans to reorganize the company next year.

Meanwhile, back at GM, failure to get a bridge loan this year could result in the direct loss of some 120,000 jobs—with an additional seven-and-a-half times as many spin-off jobs potentially lost as a ripple effect. That’s over a million jobs total from GM’s hardships—and that doesn’t figure in Ford or Chrysler.

Though the failure of another big financial institution is likely not in the country’s economic interests, either, based on recent history, it is hard to argue that Citi is more deserving of its backstop than America’s automakers.

(photo by me)

(cross-posted on The Seminal and capitoilette)

“at least one runner-up bird should also be protected”

2008-11-21T03:28:00.001-05:00

She said it, not me. . .

“Any state programs on the chopping block?” Oh, no she didn’t.

Oh, yes she did.

don’t make him angry. . .

2008-11-19T07:26:00.000-05:00

. . . because you won’t. . . oh, never mind. . . .

too late

2008-11-17T07:26:00.003-05:00

Over the next two months, Mr. Paulson must impose some coherence and clarity on the bailout. Otherwise he will only fan anxieties and mistrust, which will undermine the effectiveness of his good decisions and amplify the fallout of his bad ones. With markets gyrating wildly, and the economy deteriorating rapidly, the nation needs clear leadership and a sound plan.

After spending the entire length of today’s lead editorial demonstrating just how badly Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has handled the economic crisis and ensuing attempts at a “bailout,” the New York Times undermines its point with this half-hearted admonition. Honestly, if the Times editorial board knows of a good decision by Mr. Hanky, might they have shared it?

The nation does need clear leadership and a sound plan, but, to date, the nation has gotten neither. As pointed out in this very editorial, any “modest easing the bailout initially brought about in the credit markets is now being reversed over doubts about the Treasury’s stewardship of the plan.” Paulson’s actions have been reactive and woefully behind the curve; he lacks anything like a coherent strategy, and the moves he has taken seem less motivated by an interest in protecting wage-earning Americans than in protecting Paulson’s pals and ideological biases.

There is also zero transparency—something many econ-watchers consider of utmost importance to stabilizing credit markets. . . not to mention the stock market. Beyond the lack of oversight as to what the banks are doing with the billions in bailout cash that they have received (much will end up going to bonuses, balance sheets, and the buy-ups of competing banks), it has now been revealed that there was another $2 trillion (!) dispensed by the Fed that is completely opaque.

Paulson has refused to use any of the TARP cash to help homeowners facing foreclosure, even though that might slow the bleeding and even stimulate some local economies, and now he has also rejected using his precious kitty to help the auto industry. Though it’s true that an auto-industry bailout administered with a similar chaotic attitude and the same lack of rules and requirements would do little in the long run to fix systemic problems in this sector, deciding that Goldman Sachs was “too big to fail” but GM is not is as stupid as it is hypocritical.

Given that record, I have no need to extend the rhetorical lifeline the Times so generously offers. Clear leadership and a sound plan cannot come soon enough, and given the noted rapid deterioration of the economy and the number of Paulson’s remaining days, it probably won’t.

(cross-posted on capitoilette and The Seminal)

New York State budget: more regressive ideas from Gov. Paterson

2008-11-14T05:38:00.004-05:00

Two days ago I wrote about the proposal to jack up NYC transit fares by 28% and how that was in effect a regressive tax on the sort of New Yorkers whom could least afford it—and how this was being done at the same time New York State Governor David Paterson has refused to consider what’s come to be called the “millionaires’ tax.”

Well, just to add insult to injury, here’s another winner of an idea: New York State has started collecting a $25 child support enforcement fee from those that needed government help to recover child support payments.

To be fair, this insult was originally the brainchild of the Bush Administration and its rubberstamp Republican Congress. As part of the “Deficit Reduction Act of 2005,” the federal government started charging states a $25 fee for child support recovery. However, from then, till recently, New York had covered that fee for its needy residents.

But with the looming state budget crisis, no more. Governor Paterson has decided the state can no longer afford this level of generosity.

Millionaires, however, well, have no fear, the governor is looking out for you.

The “millionaires’ tax” is pretty simple as tax proposals go. Income over $1 million would be taxed an additional 1%, and income over $5 million would be taxed .75% more. New York has one of the highest concentrations of wealth in the country—just one-half of one percent earned 28% of the taxable income back in 2005. The proposed tax surcharge could bring in about $1.5 billion in the first year—or roughly three-quarters of the expected NY budget shortfall.

The millionaires that would have to pay this tax—or at least a few loud ones, like the ubiquitous, selfish, and inevitably wrong Donald Trump—argue that if you make them pay this increase, they just might leave New York. I say, as did the NY Daily News recently, call their bluff.

As the Daily News observed, New Jersey imposed a much larger increase on all incomes over half-a-million a few years back, and they got incredible bang for their buck—about $26 coming in for every $1 fleeing the state.

And they were fleeing New Jersey!

Even New York City’s billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg—who had previously been heard whining about a surcharge—now says this millionaire flight threat is a lot of hooey:

I can only tell you, among my friends, I've never heard one person say “I'm going to move out of the city because of taxes.” Not one. Not in all the years I've lived here. You know, they can complain, “Oh got my tax bill, it's heavy.” But they've not ever thought that. My friends all want to live here and understand the value.

He oughta know, right? That is his cohort.

As for the rest of us—that would be 99.5% of us—well, I’m guessing a lot of us have a little less mobility. And since Paterson knows he’s got a captive “audience,” I guess it’s up to this rest of us to pick up the slack, balance the budget, and so, look out for the Governor’s interests. . . whether we want to or not.

(PS The information on the child support fee comes from the office of Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), who has called on NY State to stop collecting this regressive tax, and has asked the Senate to increase funding to child support enforcement.)

(cross-posted on capitoilette, The Seminal, and Daily Kos)

prop 8: Nate Silver has my back

2008-11-13T03:38:00.005-05:00

Last week, I wrote this:

The implication [of the AP story] is clear, and has been said outright, first-time non-white voters brought into the system by the Obama campaign provided the margin necessary to pass Prop. 8.

Except that if you look at the data from the AP exit poll [now a pdf], that isn’t clear at all.

Unless there are cross-tabulations from this poll that have not been made publicly available, I cannot see how the numbers support the certitude of the claim. . . .

Democrats overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, first-time voters overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, those who are in accordance with Obama’s positions overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, those who supported Obama in the primary overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, those who voted for Obama on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8.

Five days later, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight wrote this:

Certainly, the No on 8 folks might have done a better job of outreach to California's black and Latino communities. But the notion that Prop 8 passed because of the Obama turnout surge is silly. Exit polls suggest that first-time voters -- the vast majority of whom were driven to turn out by Obama (he won 83 percent [!] of their votes) -- voted against Prop 8 by a 62-38 margin. More experienced voters voted for the measure 56-44, however, providing for its passage.

Now, it's true that if new voters had voted against Prop 8 at the same rates that they voted for Obama, the measure probably would have failed. But that does not mean that the new voters were harmful on balance -- they were helpful on balance. If California's electorate had been the same as it was in 2004, Prop 8 would have passed by a wider margin.

Furthermore, it would be premature to say that new Latino and black voters were responsible for Prop 8's passage. Latinos aged 18-29 (not strictly the same as 'new' voters, but the closest available proxy) voted against Prop 8 by a 59-41 margin. These figures are not available for young black voters, but it would surprise me if their votes weren't fairly close to the 50-50 mark.

There are few quantitative analysts I would trust more than Silver (and his presidential predictions were the best of the lot this cycle), so it is a real confidence builder for me to know that when he looks at the data he sees the same thing that I see—or, more accurately, he doesn’t see the same thing that I don’t see. There is nothing in the exit polling to support the narrative that the first-time African American voters brought to the polls by Barack Obama’s campaign provided Prop. 8 with its margin of victory—and, in fact, most evidence seems to point the other way.

Silver believes that the ballot measure owes its passage to older voters, noting that if no one over 65 had voted, Prop. 8 would have failed by “a point or two.” Silver suggests that as that demographic ages out of, um, life, bigoted efforts such as this one will eventually fail.

While I tend to agree overall—the younger you go, the more comfortable most seem with diversity—I think that Silver should take a look at the family factor. Those that are married and have children (31% of the sample) voted in favor of the measure 68% to 32%. All others voted against the gay marriage ban by a ten-point margin.

(I know what you’re thinking: “All others” includes most of the voting homosexual population. That’s probably true. Alas, there is no cross-tabulation for “married heterosexuals without children”—however, because the “all others” segment is so much larger than the “married with children” slice, even if you could subtract the gay vote, I suspect that this segment would still have rejected the proposition.)

The question becomes “Are beliefs about gay marriage static?” Will the young segments that voted against Prop. 8 continue to feel the same way, even as they age and/or have children? To ask it another way: Do those married with children tend to favor the ban more because they would tend to be older than those without kids, or did those that are younger reject Proposition 8 because they had yet to reproduce?

To my eye, the history of civil rights movements in the United States would favor Silver’s take on the numbers, but the numbers don’t confirm this, at least not with absolute certainty. I guess, as they—and the numbers—say, time will tell.

(cross-posted on Daily Kos, capitoilette, and The Seminal)

NYC subways: fare hikes, service cuts. . . is this the change we need?

2008-11-12T04:46:00.007-05:00

Tell me you didn’t see this one coming. MTA Chief Elliot Sander announced this week that economic times being what they are, the Transit Authority’s deficit was going to balloon to $1.2 billion, and so service cuts and substantial fare hikes were now inevitable.

The MTA had already slated eight percent fare increases for next year; they now say they will need an additional 20% to make up shortfalls caused by increased fuel costs and decreasing property values (the MTA gets a good chunk of its budget from property and property-related taxes). If an increase like that is approved, the price of a single ride on a New York City subway or bus would climb above $2.50.

Capital improvements and service expansion are already lagging far behind the needs of a city expecting to grow to a size of 10 million in the next decade, but even if Sander gets all of his fare boost, service and improvements will still have to be cut back to trim the deficit.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority is hardly the only state agency facing a budget crisis as the Bush economy and the Wall Street meltdown send shockwaves through the New York economy. (For those of you not familiar with NYS politics—yes, the city’s transit system is run by the state. It was taken from the city during the 1970s fiscal crisis, and NYC never got it back.) Governor David Paterson, who has already negotiated state budget cuts, is demanding the legislature return for another round—and for that round, Paterson is proposing a 25% haircut.

Still, Paterson has made it clear: there will be no state tax increases.

What Paterson means by that, of course, is that he will not countenance a state income tax increase. The ousted Spitzer Administration had floated the idea of a “millionaires’ tax”—a surcharge on the highest of highest incomes to help New York meet its obligations—but Paterson, formerly a state representative from Harlem and once considered a liberal, has thrown that baby out with Eliot’s bathwater.

Of course, a 28% fare increase—more than a dollar extra for every roundtrip commute—would effectively (if not officially) be a tax increase. . . except this one would primarily affect the other end of the economic ladder.

To reiterate: For millionaires, who don’t take the subway all that much—no new taxes; for working class New Yorkers, who do use the subway daily to get to and from work—how does paying an extra $260 per year sound? (That’s per person—if there are kids that use the subways and busses to get to school, multiply accordingly.)

NYC is the economic engine of New York State. (And city residents already pay a disproportionate amount to fill state coffers—they pay out more than they get back in services and benefits.) The fuel for that engine is the city’s workforce—and that workforce relies in large part on public transportation to get to work. Without a functioning and affordable public transit system, New York City’s commerce—the state’s engine—would grind to a halt.

So why is it that all anyone can think of when times get tough is to cut service and raise fares? Why take one of the great advantages that New York has over most other American cities and hobble it? Is it that hard to think of anything else to do?

Let me give it a try. . .

First off, it is high time that control of the city’s mass transit system is returned to the city. For far too long, income from the total of state transit systems has gone disproportionately to commuter rail; subway and bus riders have effectively been subsidizing suburban rail commuters. That has to stop. I’m not saying that commuter rail isn’t important—it is vital—but the subway system is more vital to the workings of New York City, and it deserves the full benefit of its income.

Second, how about some creative thinking?

New York City and State pay more in taxes to the federal government than either gets back—so it is in America’s best interest to keep the New York economy growing. So how about we integrate some of NYC’s financial problems into the national thinking on bailouts and stimulus?

If Washington is going to spend billions to bailout the auto industry, why not spend a couple billion to help out systems that are better for the economy and the environment than cars? Seriously, not only does the MTA itself provide good-paying jobs to thousands of New Yorkers, capital improvements would provide even more, and the service that the MTA provides increases the productivity of practically all city businesses. Backstopping automobile manufacturers will cost tens or hundreds of billions, and I can’t even begin to tell you how much of that will go to the credit divisions, or legacy costs, or executive compensation, or shareholder value. I can pretty much guarantee that one or two billion to the MTA will deliver much more bang for your buck.

Here’s another idea: The coming infrastructure bill. . . what says infrastructure more than subway and light rail? Why shouldn’t the New York congressional delegation insist that this promised investment in infrastructure pick up the tab for system upgrades and expansion? Let fares go to the day-to-day operating costs. For all the reasons cited above, I am pretty sure that few infrastructure investments will provide better ROI.

I got another: What say we reduce the burden of rising fuel costs by making the New York transit system one of the stars of the new green economy? Spur plug-in hybrid innovation by promising the best technology a crack at replacing all of NYC’s busses. Fund an initiative to find a self-sustaining way to generate all the electricity needed to run the subways. Yes, that’s dreaming big, but a) not that big, and b) isn’t that the change we need?

So there you go—in fifteen minutes, I just outlined three (or was that four?) possible alternatives to fare hikes and service cuts. And I am just doing this on my own, pro-bono. There are staffs of paid experts and consultants at the MTA’s and the government’s beck and call—where are their ideas?

Indeed, I’ll go a step further: where is the political leadership? Why is it that the best anyone can think of is to make the poor and working class suck it up, pay more, and make do with less? What makes that leadership? That’s the simpleton’s solution. That’s the coward’s way. Why should we reward that?

When I went to the polls here in Manhattan last week, I didn’t just vote for change at the federal level; I voted for my US Representative, and my state senator and assembly member, too. Two years from now, I’ll vote for all of them again, and a Senator. I expect them to be full participants in promoting the vision and the programs that were highlighted in the campaign of our president-elect. What better place to begin than right here at home?

(cross-posted on capitoilette, Daily Kos, and The Seminal)

goodbye—but why?

2008-11-11T06:51:00.001-05:00

Pollster Stanley Greenberg writes in Tuesday’s NYT that he is finally ready to say goodbye to his “Reagan Democrats.” Hallelujah. Democrats have paid the price for this ill-conceived frame for far too long.

Of course, I was singing “ding dong the frame is dead” last week. I’m glad Greenberg has joined in, but, to my ear, Stan is woefully off key. Here’s why. . . .

mourning Mama Afrika: Miriam Makeba dead at 76

2008-11-10T06:22:00.004-05:00

I no longer remember how to dance the Pata Pata; in fact, I am not sure I ever learned. I have strong memories of the song, however. My mother, a fan of African drumming and dance, almost certainly had the album and played it often, but it might have been a single of Pata Pata that my sister used to rehearse an elementary school routine that permanently carved the tune (whose words I still don’t really know) into my brain.

Hearing Pata Pata always takes me back—way back.

The woman who gave voice to this musical madeleine, Miriam Makeba, passed away this morning, apparently of a heart attack after giving a benefit concert in Italy. She was 76.

That Makeba used some of her final breaths to help another—in this case, investigative journalist Roberto Saviano, whose life has been threatened by the Camorra—is as fitting as it is predictable. Barred from her native South Africa after participating in the anti-apartheid documentary Come Back, Africa in 1959, Makeba used her music and the notoriety that came with it to keep her people and their oppression in the spotlight: “I kept my culture. I kept the music of my roots. Through my music I became this voice and image of Africa, and the people, without even realizing.”

Makeba, who earned the nickname “Mama Afrika” (or “Africa”—I’ve seen it both ways), testified against apartheid at the United Nations as a private citizen on multiple occasions. And, after her marriage to civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) caused US bookings to dry up and the couple moved to Guinea, Makeba would eventually return to the UN as that country’s delegate.

Makeba’s marriage to Carmichael ended in divorce, as did three other marriages, one of which was to South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela. She also survived an abusive first marriage, cervical cancer, and the deaths of her only daughter and grandson. Throughout all of this, Mama Afrika kept singing out and speaking out.

Makeba performed for President John F. Kennedy at his famous 1962 birthday concert at Madison Square Garden. She won a Grammy in 1966 for an album she recorded with Harry Belafonte.

My mama’s also got a great Harry Belafonte story, but that’s her memory—you’ll have to wait till she gets her own blog.

(cross-posted on The Seminal)

doubt, by the numbers

2008-11-07T06:49:00.002-05:00

A snippet of “analysis,” courtesy of the AP (here via the LA Times), seems to have dictated what fast became the received wisdom on the “be careful what you fish for” conundrum of the Obama campaign’s drive for increased minority turnout vis-à-vis the very unfortunate passage of Proposition 8 (eliminating marriage rights for same-sex couples):

California's black and Latino voters, who turned out in droves for Barack Obama, also provided key support in favor of the state's same-sex marriage ban. Seven in 10 black voters backed a successful ballot measure to overturn the California Supreme Court's May decision allowing same-sex marriage, according to exit polls for The Associated Press.

More than half of Latino voters supported Proposition 8, while whites were split. Religious groups led the tightly organized campaign for the measure, and religious voters were decisive in getting it passed. Of the seven in 10 voters who described themselves as Christian, two-thirds backed the initiative. Married voters and voters with children strongly supported Proposition 8. Unmarried voters were heavily opposed.

The sound of this report, what with it being grounded in a poll and all, makes it hard to refute—and, indeed, it seems few have tried. The language in the top paragraph, or some slight variant, appears in most of the major reports I’ve read or heard in the two days since the November 4th referendum. The implication is clear, and has been said outright, first-time non-white voters brought into the system by the Obama campaign provided the margin necessary to pass Prop. 8.

Except that if you look at the data from the AP exit poll, that isn’t clear at all.

Unless there are cross-tabulations from this poll that have not been made publicly available, I cannot see how the numbers support the certitude of the claim. The above narrative is a possibility, but so are many other stories—and I feel that other conclusions are likely just as viable.

First off, while it is true that African American voters in California did vote overwhelmingly for the marriage ban—70% YES to 30% NO—Latinos were more closely divided: 53% YES to 47% NO. That’s significant, but not in the same league as the margin from African American voters. It also should be noted that African Americans accounted for 10% of those polled; Latinos, 18%.

More to my point, however, is the missing cross-tab. There are a good number of sub-samples available in the published results (more on some of those in moment), but “African American first-time voters that voted for Obama-Biden” or even just “African American first-time voters” are not among them.

It is quite possible that with that many cuts, the sample size is too small to yield results that pass statistical muster, but without the ability to run my own cross-tabs, I can’t tell you.

Here’s what I can tell you (based on what is posted), and it is some of these numbers that make me at least harbor doubts about the “new Black voters are conservative on social issues” storyline.

(The first number in brackets is the % of the total sample, the second number is the % that voted YES, and the third is the % that voted NO.)

Democrats (42) 36 - 64
Republicans (29) 82 - 18
Independents (28) 46 - 54

Is this the first year you’ve ever voted?
Yes (14) 38 - 62
No (86) 56 - 44

Union Household (25) 56 - 44
Non-union Household (75) 50 - 50

Who did you want to win in the nomination?
Dems for Clinton (15) 39 - 61
Dems for Obama (23) 31 - 69

Suburban voters (51) 59 - 41
Large city voters (45) 45 - 55

Do you think Obama’s positions are:
Too liberal (32) 74 - 25
Too conservative (7) (sample too small)
About right (56) 31 - 69

Voted for Obama (60) 32 - 68
Voted for McCain (38) 84 - 16

Democrats overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, first-time voters overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, those who are in accordance with Obama’s positions overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, those who supported Obama in the primary overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, those who voted for Obama on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8.

Urban voters rejected the measure by a ten-point margin, while suburban voters supported it by eight. I don’t know what the racial breakdown is of California’s suburbs, but I would assume that large cities would have the larger African American populations.

The only category that could have been influenced by the “Obama effect” (for lack of a better name) is the union vote. It has been widely reported how active organized labor was in getting out the vote for Barack Obama, and, as you see above, union households favored the marriage ban by 12 points. However, and this is a big however, this number might also be deceptive because the “households” category, almost by definition, includes a lot of families. Married with children (31% of the sample) voted YES 68% of the time (all others—69% of the sample—rejected Prop. 8 by ten points).

While none of what I have just detailed rules out the hypothesis that first-time African American voters brought to the polls by the Obama candidacy proved the difference in the passage of Proposition 8, I think there is enough here to call that narrative into question. For all we know, most of the 70% of the African American population that voted YES on 8 would have come out and voted even if Obama wasn’t on the ballot. Conversely, it might be the case that the 30% of African Americans that rejected the measure are the ones voting for the first time. Might be—I just can’t tell.

And if I can’t tell, I am figuring that most of the establishment press parroting the AP’s narrative probably can’t tell either.

No doubt there is much to be done to combat the homophobic bias evidenced in this tally, and in similar outcomes in other states, but the discussion about what is to be done could be influenced by perceptions of which groups bear responsibility for the final outcome. Indeed, the way Obama governs could be shaped by the larger story about what kinds of voters provided the president-elect’s margin of victory. Without the ability to further analyze the exit poll data, we should not accept the center-right narrative or claims of any particular Obama effect.

(cross-posted on capitoilette and The Seminal)

yes we brand

2008-11-06T08:02:00.003-05:00

It’s been a long time coming.

The first time that I ever voted was the first time that I was eligible—the 1980 general election. And if that’s not enough of a humbling admission, I’ll go a step further: I voted for Barry Commoner. It was a protest vote in a non-competitive state, but the reasons for that protest formed the foundation of my complaints about Democrats—or, if not Democrats, Democratic strategy—for the rest of my political life.

At least until today (more on that in a minute).

I didn’t have a neat phrase in 1980, because the trend did not yet have a name, but I would eventually topline my criticism by saying, “Why vote for the ersatz Republican when you can vote for the real thing?”

The point of that flip and bitter but all too often prescient comment was that Democrats, by pursuing what came to be called “Reagan Democrats”—conservative or right-leaning voters who, by some freak of demographics or inertia, had failed to change their party affiliation even though their worldview had left the Democratic party with the creation of Medicare, the signing of the Voting Rights Act, or protests over the Vietnam War—had so muddied their brand that they turned off or failed to inspire their core audience while failing to convince the so-called center that a second-to-market mishmash was better than almost just-as-good as the original. And when Democrats did manage to tilt Reagan-ward enough to grab the odd brass ring, the result was even worse—for the party and the country—for, you see (and this quickly became the corollary to my first proclamation), in a contest between an old Republican and a new Republican, the victor is guaranteed to be a Republican.

By the 1990s, the Democratic elite had evolved enough to believe that they shouldn’t so much follow the voters as they should follow the money. The Democratic Party of Bill Clinton did manage to divert their way some of the rivers of cash that had been flooding GOP coffers, but, to my mind, they did so at the expense of the party’s natural reservoir of votes.

Flash forward another decade, and suddenly “values voters” were all the rage. Democrats, apparently, didn’t know how to talk about religion—apparently the font of all positive values—and so were losing white evangelicals. Until Democrats embraced the naturally conservative (some might say reactionary) beliefs of this highly organized voting bloc, they would never feel the electoral love. The dreadful results that befell Democrats for more than a decade, or, depending on how you evaluated, perhaps more than a generation, stood as some kind of unmistakable verification of this trope.

Chasing Reaganites, millionaires, or evangelicals all required the same tactic, however (and not surprisingly), and that was a full-throttle fudge to the right.

What the ever-shifting boundaries of this monotonous, mono-directional, and monumentally flawed brand strategy always failed to understand, though, was that the group of habitual voters that Democrats supposedly just had to win-over to win was so very much smaller than the group of natural constituents who had become disenchanted enough to disengage, or who had never been inspired enough to participate in electoral politics at all.

To again put it in a tidier package: Instead of chasing the money, Democrats should have been chasing the voters. There are so many of them naturally predisposed to love Democrats for who they are—or recently were—that if you could just get them excited and invested in the outcome, they would swamp any numbers you might be able to pick off from the Republican base.

Which brings us to the here-and-now.

Though I have some reservations about what type of president Barack Obama might be, I have never failed to praise him as a candidate. The genius of the Obama campaign, and what I have loved most about the last year, is the ability of Barack Obama to reach out to, excite, inspire, and organize a part of the Democratic base that had long been either taken for granted or left for dead. With the voter registration drives, the canvassing, the outreach, and the GOTV, Obama didn’t have to sweat the right—he had something bigger and better: a broader definition of the American electorate.

For, while Obama and his surrogates might talk of an America beyond partisanship, the values and, indeed, the proposals that drove the Obama campaign were solidly Democratic. The fairness he preached and the cool reason he seemed to embody contrast favorably with the selfishness and base emotion of the Bush years. Proposals like more equitable taxation, universal access to affordable, quality healthcare, and a belief in the importance of organized labor feel like the Democratic Party I remember from my pre-voting youth. And a pro-active, fact-based approach to combating global warming is a refreshing reproach to the reactive and reactionary anti-science stance that drives today’s GOP.

Embodied in all of that, too, is the inherently Democratic (and democratic) sentiment that we are all in this together, rather than the sad ethos of the right—that we are all in this for ourselves.

And, amazingly, in returning to Democrats’ core principles and best practices, and not pandering to the Reagan Democrats or values voters or whatever we will now decide to call them, Obama was able to win (win back?) some of their votes. Obama’s victory is a monument to good branding—and I mean that wholly as a statement of admiration (I am, after all, a brand strategist). Barack Obama and many other Democrats this cycle (and I would be remiss if I did not single out DNC Chair Howard Dean for special praise) have proven that crafting a strong brand, behaving as a distinct brand, and not being simply a “not” brand—and then selling the distinct benefits of that brand—is the best route to victory.

After a lifetime of railing and flailing, I feel, well, not vindicated, but, at least, validated. I hope that Obama and other Democrats see it the same way—even if not all will admit it in public. Candidate Obama preached hope while implementing a strong and identifiably Democratic brand strategy. My hope is that President Obama sees that this would be a solid strategy for governing, as well.

(cross-posted on capitoilette, The Seminal, and Daily Kos)