I've heard a lot of conservatives blaming the media for their loss this time around.

None of them seem to be able to admit that McCain's bad choices forced a lot of the negative reporting he got. When he "suspended" his campaign, canceled the upcoming debate, flew to Washington -- where the bill he supposedly flew to support failed to pass -- and then "uncanceled" the debate without any resolution on the matter he'd suspended his campaign for... how can you NOT expect negative press?

When you pick a woman who hasn't even spent a full term as governor as your VP, and you hide her away from all interviews, refuse to let her give any press conferences, and then when she finally gives an interview, she repeatedly utters comments that reveal her ignorance... how can you NOT expect negative press?

Obama got plenty of negative press of his own. Remember how Obama "couldn't close the deal"? Does the phrase "hardworking whites" ring a bell? How about the words "bitter" and "cling"? And who could forget, "No no no, not 'God bless America! God DAMN America!" we heard it every 10 minutes for about a month.

But Obama was and is a genuine phenomenon, and the press had to cover it, because it was genuine news. People like Halperin would have journalists ignore what's really happening in favor of reporting a false neutrality where each side is made out to have equal amounts of excitement, and run equally good campaigns, even when one side is surging and the other is stumbling.

I think if Nader had been able to come to terms with the idea of actually being a Democrat and supporting the party, he could've been enormously influential.

If he had played his cards right in 2000, he might have been able to demand the Attorney General position in a Gore administration. In 2004, he still could've negotiated himself an important regulatory position in the FDA or OSHA or wherever he felt he could do the most good.

We all would've benefited if he did. Instead, he's continued to run these increasingly quixotic campaigns that get less and less media attention, and often seem simply irrelevant. Worse, they're self defeating.

Nader complains endlessly that the two parties are basically the same. (Even after 8 years of Bush.) But the only way to change the party is to get involved in it. In an alternate universe, a wiser Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich might have been able to pull the party more strongly towards some of his positions, most of which I think are pretty darn good: http://www.votenader.org/issues /

I think seeing two passionate, intelligent, articulate progressives on stage would've done a lot to set the tone of the primary debates. What did Nader get out of running as an independent instead? Nothing. What's he been able to accomplish with any of his runs other than contributing to Gore's defeat in 2000?

Nader's story is like a Greek tragedy. He's one of the smartest advocates for social justice and good government our nation has ever produced. He's saved millions of lives. But in the final years of his career, he's beached his ship on the rocks. It's a sad thing to watch. It really is.

The hate and threats of violence on the right are as genuinely terrifying to me as they are to you. You look at the vacant smile on Michelle Bachmann's face as she gleefully calls Barack Obama "un-American", and all you can feel is terror. People like Bachmann and Sarah Palin, Hannity and Glenn Beck, have only one purpose in life and that is to stoke the fires of fear and hatred in their base.

But that base is shrinking. Young people who have grown up during the Bush years, watching the Daily Show and Colbert, thriving on the internet, are never ever going to become Republican in large numbers. Even this presidential election is swinging hugely to Democrats, and that's not likely to change after 4 or 8 years, when even more young Dems become active voters, and bigoted, fearful elderly Republican voters die off.

In the end, the Republican party, to win any traction electorally, is going to have to stop indulging the worst aspects of its base and become more like Democrats. If they don't, they're going to be slowly shut out of the political process.

So, I'm still scared for Obama because of the fear and hate these people whip up, but I'm hopeful for the country as a whole.

That sense of calm remove Obama has is, in part, because of his racial heritage. We haven't seen this calm before in part because we've never had a non-white candidate nominated for the presidency.

Being a black man trying to rise in a society where whites control most of the power means learning to control your thoughts. But for Obama, it goes deeper, because he was raised by a white mother and white grandparents. So unlike some, he couldn't just retreat to holding negative views about whites when confronted by their racism. He couldn't just smile outwardly while loathing them for their racism inwardly. He saw white people he loved every day, white people who loved him even while holding some racist tendencies themselves.

I think that's a big part of the reason why Obama is engaged at such a higher level than most of us. He's had to not only learn how to rise in a white society, but also had to learn that people are complex, and that even people who may have some bad aspects to them are worthy of respect and love.

It's a powerful thought to think of a man like that in the White House.

1984 was the last year we had anything even remotely resembling a true debate. That was the last year the League of Women Voters organized them. In 1988, they resigned from the process and issued a press release:



Now the "debates" are negotiated by the Commission on Presidential Debates, an essentially corrupt organization, made up of the former heads of both major parties, with the shared goal of making sure that third parties do not get to debate, and that the actual events are simply riskless pageants where both parties can declare victory.

It's funny to me that the author of the OP doesn't seem to identify this as the problem. His solutions are still focused on more personality-based spectacle instead of demanding a true policy debate, where each candidate describes their positions and defends them.

I think devoting a day of C-SPAN to one exhaustive Lincoln-Douglas style debate would be great. Simulcast it on PBS.

Or we could have a series of Mace debates on the candidates major policy differences: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate#Mace_D...

What we have now, though, is a joke. It's part of the dumbing down of America. There's no room for substantial argument in the debates we have now. They're just a brief moment of political celebrity where we can see how each candidate bears up against the other. Superficial as heck. That's not going to change until the people demand more from both parties.

That's the biggest problem for him. McCain once upon a time had a natural, authentic voice. He would call out BS when he saw it. He was still a Republican, but he had the guts to be his own man when the situation called for it. I think a lot of this stemmed from his involvement in the Keating 5, and his desire to be seen as a man of honor once more.

But the lure of the presidency was too big for him. Instead of campaigning the way he did in 2000 (when he lost), he decided this year to listen to advisers trained in the ways of Karl Rove. They told him to smear Obama as a terrorist and as un-American. He thought he could just dip his toe in that water, but now he's drowned himself in it.

And McCain knows it. He still wants to win, desperately, but he knows that he's poisoned his base with hate, and now he looks like he's leading a lynch mob. No mainstream American wants anything to do with the hateful racist kooks he's aroused as his core supporters, and McCain doesn't know how to fix it. He can sense that he's going down, that he's stained his honor once more, this time irreversibly.

It must eat at him at night. To make it all the way to finally being the nominee for president, and then to blow it by listening to the same stupid assholes who beat him in 2000.

I know the guy is supposed to be a Wall St. supergenius who earned $750 million and headed Goldman-Sachs, but in my book, he is an idiot.

If he had the common sense not to include that bizarre, stupid clause immunizing him from any oversight, and had asked for an equity stake in the companies he bailed out, people would've trusted that he knew what he was doing, and Congress probably would've signed on without much discord. This would still be a big mess, but it would be a big bipartisan mess.

But when people read that he wanted to be the sole arbiter of the disbursement of $700 billion, with no oversight, jaws dropped everywhere, along with public confidence in him. Then we learned that the $700 billion amount was just plucked out of the air because he wanted "a big number." Now Repubs and Dems are haggling with each other, and the bailout has become a political football.

Way to go, Mr. Supergenius!

You turned our entire economy and livelihoods of millions of people into a chaotic farce.

We'd be better off right now if he'd never even broached the idea, because now the market expects money, and is going to keep swinging wildly until it gets some.

All I can say is, somewhere Michael "Brownie" Brown must be smiling, taking comfort in the fact that he is no longer the biggest fuckup Bush ever appointed.

Yes, I know we've got 54 days left before the election, and every single one counts.

But I keep thinking about how fantastic it's going to feel when we finally win this race.

I keep visualizing the results coming in, the cable pundits sputtering, trying to explain the massive turnout of new Democratic voters sweeping Obama into office.

I keep thinking about the moment we'll know that Obama has finally won. Maybe if we're lucky, it'll be Florida that comes through with the final 27 electoral votes. What an awesome inversion of the 2000 election that would be!

I keep thinking about the moment when it all hits home: No more Bush! No more Cheney! No 100 years of war with McCain! No 4 years of listening to Sarah Palin! A new era, where we finally start the pendulum swinging back towards peace and freedom!

Knowing, in that moment, that we beat them. We really, truly... BEAT THEM.

And saved the country.

Knowing that America has shown the entire world that we can move beyond our racism and our fear, and elect a black man to the highest political office in the land. How great will that day be? How amazing? Knowing that we're living through history, seeing at least part of MLK's dream fulfilled in our lifetimes?

And then... McCain's concession speech. Watching him congratulate Obama. Knowing that he's humiliated himself in front of the world by squandering any integrity he had in this election. Knowing that he will never be the "straight talking maverick" ever again. That his greatest achievement will be as a political loser, a defeated opponent of Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States.

Oh, and then Sarah gets her turn at the mic. And no matter what garbage she squawks out... I laugh and laugh and laugh.

I can't wait to share that night with all my fellow DUers -- knowing we visualized it, worked for it, and made it happen! Don't even get me started on Inauguration Day!

All the examples he gives of Wal-mart's "success" in the health industry are just nibbling around the margins, which is what Wal-mart does best. They take straightforward, uncomplicated transactions -- like buying a jar of pickles -- and make inroads either by offering their own versions at low prices, or pressuring their suppliers to lower their prices if they want their products on Wal-mart shelves.

But putting pressure on a brain surgeon or a hospital to lower prices is not like putting pressure on a picklemaker. You know what you're getting when you buy a jar of pickles, for instance. If the supplier cuts corners, you know it. There are less pickles in the jar. But if you don't get the right tests or the right treatments because someone thought they could pawn off a cheaper alternative (or nothing at all), you will likely have no idea until it's too late. If even then.

Most of what Jubak's article here celebrates is the power of being able to negotiate prices lower by representing large numbers of people. Isn't that what universal health care is all about? That he doesn't get this seems amazing. It's a good example of the cultish double-standard we see so often from those on the right that anything done by big business is fantastic, while the same things done by the government are terrible.

For instance, Wal-mart sees a product that is they think is being sold at too high a profit margin, so they take it off their shelves and contract to produce a store-brand version at a lower cost. If Wal-mart does it, it's competition in action, and will get ceaseless praise in articles just like this. But when government does it? It's eeeeeeeevil socialism! The government, actually competing against private industry for the benefit of the public? The horror!

If our government used the same kinds of cost-cutting measures and pressures as Wal-mart does, I can guarantee you that this guy would be one of the first people on the complain train.

Frankly, my biggest gripe about Wal-mart's low, low prices is that Wal-mart is a mess. Whenever I've been there, I'm always astounded by how cramped and crowded everything is, with random pallets of crap shoved in the middle of their main aisles, making it impossible to get around. There are always too few checkers at the registers, which means I have to wait and wait. And the customer service? Ye gads. No one knows anything about anything. Getting someone to answer a simple question is like pulling teeth.

This is what Mr. Jubak wants to be the health care experience of the future? God help us all.

da da da da daaaaaaaaaaa

First it came out in a new book:



Then a Baptist minister brought it out into the open by asking McCain in public, "Did you call your wife a cunt?"

McCain didn't answer.

I firmly believe that if the country ever learns that McCain said those words, he would become unelectable. If you watch the video, you can hear the groans of disgust when the minister even asks the question. Insulting and humiliating your own wife by calling her a "trollop" and a "cunt" is terrible enough, but doing so in front of reporters is not only abusive, but raises huge questions about McCain's impulse control and fitness for office.

I know bringing the c-word into national discourse is distasteful to a lot of people, but this insult wasn't done in private. It was done in front of reporters while McCain was campaigning for the Senate. When George Allen used the slur "macaca", it was fair game then, and McCain's actions have made this question fair game now. It's time the media asked John McCain to confirm whether or not this anecdote is legitimate -- all it takes is one reporter to say:



It's a fair question. The answer isn't trivial. This is the man who may be negotiating for the United States, the man who will meet with world leaders on our behalf, the man who must work with Congress on a daily basis, the man who may have to make snap decisions regarding our nuclear arsenal and our military. Isn't finding out whether he has so little control of his temper that he can't keep from calling his wife abusive obscenities in public more important than a few seconds of discomfort?

Obama's work regarding police interrogations and the death penalty is outstanding, but it's really not reflective of how he approaches most issues. Generally, Obama seeks consensus over justice. I don't say that as a criticism -- Kucinich is a good example of a candidate who perpetually seeks justice, and is rarely effective at achieving it. But Kucinich does what progressives do: he frames issues as a choice between right and wrong. Obama doesn't do that. He looks for areas of common ground where the ball can moved incrementally closer to the goal. He is often willing to give opposing parties an extraordinary amount of trust and latitude, as he did when he authored legislation that would allow the nuclear industry a period of two years to devise their own set of regulations.

Obama's health care plan is another good example. He doesn't frame the lack of health care in this country as a moral ill that must be addressed, but rather as a market failure. His language and his plan both center around lowering costs, and making a more competitive product. Only Kucinich really offered progressive arguments and solutions for health care.

Obama's entire campaign centers around "good government", finding a way to come together. The way I define the difference between liberals and progressives, this is a very liberal message. (I know my definition of "liberal" isn't the traditional one, but I think times have changed.) A progressive message is more populist, more focused on goals instead of process. I think progressives seek victory rather than consensus.

Sometimes the progressive message can be too bold for the moment, as it is right now. Obama is the right man for the times. We need a good government liberal in office to fix all the bad government we've gotten over the past 8 years. We need someone who values process because our processes have been corrupted. But we're not going to see Obama fight for the rights of gays to get married. We're not going to see him speaking out for the criminal acts of the Bush administration to be investigated, and the criminals held accountable. That's not the kind of guy he is.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...



Regarding your link, with respect, I think the author of that piece missed the real story in Obama's work on regulating the nuclear industry. It largely revolves around this sentence near the end: "The revised bill was never taken up in the full Senate, where partisan parliamentary maneuvering resulted in a number of bills being shelved before the 2006 session ended." Obama, while threatening the nuclear industry with regulatory legislation, was in essence pointing an unloaded gun. The bill, because of the makeup of the Senate at the time, was being blocked in committee. Had Obama not revised the bill, it would've been clear that it was moribund. But by revising the bill, there began to seem to the nuclear industry a chance that the legislation might indeed make it to a vote. This threat induced the industry to begin voluntary reporting, even though the bill was actually locked into place by Republicans. The story here was not one of capitulation, but of how smart moves enabled Obama to achieve at least part of his goal, even when he was being shut out.

I'm under no illusions about Obama; he's a moderate and a pragmatist, not a progressive. But Kucinich didn't catch fire this year, and Obama is sparking a prairie fire of young people who will, indeed, grow into progressives. Hillary isn't. All in all, I'm happy with Obama as the Democratic nominee, if he gets it. We could've done a lot worse.

What makes universal health care truly universal in those cases is that health care is a service available to all, even to those who cannot pay.

A universal mandate to purchase health insurance doesn't even deserve the mantle of "universal health care". If you can't afford it, it's still not available to you, no matter what labels you use. I've written before about why Hillary's plan will in reality end up covering less people than Obama's plan because her subsidies don't subsidize: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...

To me, a universal mandate to purchase health insurance is just a stalking horse for the HMO industry. It's a mockery of what real universality is supposed to mean, and an example of corporate Democrats co-opting the language of the left but excising it of its meaning. To be fair, I think Obama is guilty of this too when he touts his plan as "universal".

The difficulty with Hillary's plan is how she structures the subsidies meant to enable people to afford health insurance.

Obama's plan provides direct financial subsidies through his National Heath Insurance Exchange. You apply for coverage, and if you need help to afford it, you get direct financial assistance to help pay for your insurance.

Hillary's subsidies are only tax credits.

This means:

• You have to pay for the full cost of insurance out of your own pocket
  
• You have to wait up to a year to get reimbursed (if you qualify)
  
• You have to file taxes to get reimbursed (many of the poorest do not)
  
• You have to be aware of the health insurance credit, and know how to claim it properly in your taxes
  

I want to address that last point, just for a second. We can get some idea of how many people might utilize this subsidy by looking at the Earned Income Tax Credit. It's the only tax credit you can claim on the 1040EZ. (Currently, health coverage tax credits are only available through other, more complex, tax forms, but we'll assume for the moment that Hillary is able to find a way to allow these credits to be claimable through the 1040EZ.)


So that's 15% - 25% of folks who won't get the subsidies they're entitled to, even assuming that Hillary is able to make the 1040EZ compatible with her tax credits. If not, the way it is today, that number jumps much higher. And, of course, the other three points above still apply. For people who can't afford to buy health insurance out of pocket, Hillary's subsidies don't do the job they're supposed to do. Tax credits are just, frankly, a slow, complicated, and ineffective way of enabling people to afford health insurance. That's part of what Reich is pointing out -- that the practical effect of the way her subsidies are implemented means, at the end of the day, Obama's plan will actually cover more people.

This is not meant, on my part, as a criticism of Hillary's healthcare plan overall. Her team has done a lot of eye-opening work, and her plan shows a great deal of research and thoughtfulness. It puzzled me at first why a plan that was so thoughtful in most ways seemed so thoughtless about how subsidies were implemented, but eventually I understood it. Hillary's plans make repeated emphasis on minimizing new government bureaucracies. That's why her Health Choices plan will be implemented as part of the already extant Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan instead of simply being modeled on it, as Obama's is. And that's why she chose to use the IRS to do the means testing and subsidizing rather than create a new entity to do so, as Obama is with the National Health Insurance Exchange. Hillary made a choice here, and I think it was the wrong one, in the specific case of subsidies.