The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    TIME TO MOVE ON

    By Oxy Mora on Thu, 11/04/2010 - 12:50pm |

    I can't keep myself upset 24/7 for the next two years about this upsetting election.

    I think A-man nailed a couple of points, hope I represent them correctly. It's about Independents, this election and the next. The key to Independents was the economy, jobs, they didn't like the progress. There was no populist outcry against Wall St. And IMO it was the reverse of populism, cronyism by Summers, Geitner, and thus inescapably, Obama.

    To lose the election on both the jobs issue and the lack of Populism against the perps in Wall St. was inexcusable. Geithner's engineering is done. Cashier the guy and get a populist spokesman who can make the confirmation hearings a referendum on Republicans.

    I'm as angry as the next person about Obama's "cooperativeness". I want to throw "No Compromise" back in O'Connell's face. But O'Connell is placating the tea rabble. If he faces the electorate with high unemployment and charge of a "do nothing Congress" the Republicans will have trouble holding Independents. Big Business owns this Congress, a shutdown is bad for business, so I discount that kind of talk. But the House will make mischief in order to advance the strategy that Obama is a "stranger in the kingdom". Obama needs to overturn that particular narrative, but that doesn't mean he can avoid getting whatever he can from the Congress to advance the economy.

    I don't like the idea of extending tax cuts for the rich. It makes me angry. But I am not the prize. Independents are the prize. And independents want progress. That's the focus. Not that I won't have fun demonizing Republicans. 

    Finally, Obama needs to get what he can from the business community. I'm a small businessman and I love writeoffs--give me 100% depreciation on the purchase of a new piece of machinery and I'm in. And I may be wrong but I don't think that a cooperative strategy with small and medium sized businesses precludes a tough stance against Wall St. A populist stance against Wall St. is the backup plan to weak employment numbers--not a great one, just the only one that I can see.  

    Comments

    But I am not the prize. Independents are the prize.

    So well said, really sums it all up.

    John Heilemann, a year ago, presidential advice not taken, maybe would still work: Sucking Sound.


    by artappraiser on Thu, 11/04/2010 - 4:23pm

    P.S. On

    I'm a small businessman....

    I have lots of friends who are the same and I've heard from more than 1 or 2 complaining about that clause that was inserted into the health care bill by--who the hell knows who did it-- about having to furnish a 1099 for every minor vendor payment they make? They are really angry and upset about that. I would be too if I was running a small business, it would be a nightmare to have to do that for most small businesses. I think I saw somewhere Obama said he would consider working on changing that after GOP complaints about it?



    by artappraiser on Thu, 11/04/2010 - 4:29pm

    Yes, the 1099 provision is a burden. But a lot depends upon the structure of the business, whether you actually have many outside vendor purchases, which, in our case, we don't. I think Obama was awfully glad to have anything to offer as a chip.


    by Oxy Mora on Thu, 11/04/2010 - 4:41pm

    Thanks for the link. Great article. Well, anyway it's played, 2012 is still a high wire act with no net.

    It does help my mental health, whether it is true or not, to think that there might be some pragmatism in the middle, not just the ideology of right and left.


    by Oxy Mora on Thu, 11/04/2010 - 4:51pm

    A cooperative strategy with small and medium businesses would do a lot to temper our current oligarchy.  Big business vs. small business is a real war and we could win a lot of support by taking the small side.


    by Michael Maiello on Thu, 11/04/2010 - 4:55pm

    It is a war. The big corporations including the investment banks have the cash. But it's traditionally the small businesses who create jobs and they can't get loans. And my favorite whipping boy, Geithner, is not the right messenger, either to bully pulpit the banks, or to win over small business owners.


    by Oxy Mora on Thu, 11/04/2010 - 7:13pm

    Yes, Stiglitz wrote in Freefall, which I highly recommend to anyone who believes there really were and are no better options on how to deal with the various financial sector messes, that if some of money spent on TARP  had instead been targeted to get loans to needy small and medium businesses that might have helped with job creation.  Instead it went to the big banks and wasn't loaned out as both the Bush and Obama Administrations hoped would happen. 

    One possibility for an area where efforts at bipartisanship might possibly bear some fruit might be a bipartisan presidential commission to look at the regulatory and paperwork burdens on small and medium-sized businesses, which seems to be a never-ending source of complaint from the business lobbies.  I really don't know if there is legitimacy to at least some of these complaints.  Perhaps that has already been looked into.  But why not have a bipartisan group look into this and come back with recommendations on ways to provide relief for real burdens which do not compromise public or worker safety or other important concerns?  This could be a low-risk substantive gesture backing up the President's comments yesterday about how troubled he is to be seen as an enemy of business.

    I could certainly believe that members of Congress and/or regulatory agencies that impose regulatory and paperwork reporting burdens on small and medium businesses may not in all cases have a sound understanding of what those requirements translate into on the compliance end, and whether they are achieving a worthwhile purpose that justifies the burdens they create.    

    I also agree with DanK's identification a few days back (in his Free Political Advice blog) of the immigration issue as another one where there might, just might, be a possibility for a useful bipartisan compromise.  If, that is, the Republicans do not walk up to the precipice and then kill the effort at the last minute to deny Obama an ostensible win to use in 2012.  It might be worth testing the waters quietly on that to see if there is any serious interest on both sides of the aisle.. 


    by AmericanDreamer on Thu, 11/04/2010 - 9:12pm

    Reading through this and skimming across the other threads, there is something that bothers me about the whole way the subject of 'lessons learned' is being approached.

    Like this

    - "But I am not the prize. Independents are the prize. And independents want progress. "

    I appreciate the selfless sentiment there, but what does this even mean? We are ALL the prize! Would you really be cool with a strategy that involved gutting SocSec and Medicare, totally alienating everyone left of Nelson, if it won over independents? And 'progress'? We ALL want progress! What the hell else are we supposed to want? it's not as if lefties want affordable health care for all just because it's in our secret lefty Bible as a precursor for some grand socialist rapture. It just is a pretty universally accepted part of what 'progress' means (do you remember how deranged Bill Kristol looked trying to say that the poor don't 'deserve' decent health care...?) It may not be everyone's number one priority, and that is just a fact of life. But you seem to be assuming that people more to the right or more to the left have some other secret mission in their political life distinct from 'progress'.

    Apart from the corporate rentier class, there isn't that much of a disagreement between someone like me - who seems to be regarded as loony left - and your average member of the tea-party, on the question of the goal of economic progress (and I'm talking from experience with close family here...). Economic progress is when there is widespread improvements in welfare (in its original sense of 'people faring well') - it's not that complicated. Where we differ is on the means by which that progress is going to happen. On the right, they think that deregulation and tax-cuts and free trade and less government makes that happen. People like me think that is horseshit. Leftists don't want a Public Option, infrastructure spending, green energy initiatives, federal aid to states, labor rights, etc. for any esoteric reason. We want that stuff because it will bring about broad-based improvements in welfare. 

    My point is, it's not like there is some magical middle ground of non-ideological solutions that actually produce progress unlike the ideologically lefty or righty stuff. In my opinion, (but then this would be my opinion, wouldn't it) what went wrong over these two years was that the administration strove so hard to avoid anything ideological that it ended up with policy that was totally incoherent. If you make a stimulus just big enough to budge the growth curve, but not enough to kick-start sustainable growth, you've just blown a few hundred billion dollars. If you expand access to health care but do it without the statist intervention that controls costs, you end up with ... an unaffordable health care system. If you bailout the banks only at arms length and don't reform them in depth, the transmission of savings to investments that is so vital to the economy remains dysfunctional. That isn't a 'right vs left' issue. It's just muddling about in the middle. Which is worse than either of the 'ideological' options. 

    So, yeah, if what you want is to please independents, fine. Though I think that is a silly goal. But if it is your goal, you should do what you actually think produces broad-based economic growth. If someone can argue convincingly that tax cuts for the rich does that, awesome, lets do it! But the past 30 years experience, even for those not versed in the technical economics of this stuff, should clue people in on whether that idea is in any way convincing. it should actually be pretty clear that those arguing for it just want to make a bit more money at everyone else's expense, the economy be damned.

    This is getting longer than I intended. But it's merely intended as an appeal to everyone to stop throwing around labels and false oppositions like 'ideological vs pragmatic' that carry more heat than light. Look, we all want progress. Let's argue about what actually produces progress. Let's argue about ... policy. If progress happens, not only independents but liberals and even some conservatives, will be happy. And Obama will get his prize.

    Sorry about the length. Will try to rethink this, but thought it might be worth throwing out there...


    by Obey on Thu, 11/04/2010 - 7:54pm

    IMO, you start out well and then totally jump the shark before returning to a sanity. First thing to remember, you can't trust a media that lies to you about everything else to accurately tell you what the independents really want.

    There is a reality in the nature of independents that they are, well, independent. So, I can speak *as* an independent but I can't speak *for* independents. But if you are someone who is NOT an independent and trying to understand us, please at least *listen* to what I'm telling you, because I am a dyed-in-the-wool life long independent voter. I've voted for four Democrats (Reid, Kerry, Minnick, Obama) and zero Republicans in my life. My credentials are pretty solid in this. Here's the way I see the independent attitude...

    The biggest mistake Democrats have made is that they have allowed the media to turn the overwhelming mandate for their articulated set of solutions into something other than a mandate. They looked at the election returns and inexplicably concluded "America wants us to listen to republicans more."

    Nobody elected Democrats because they wanted them to be nice to Republicans. If someone wanted the people in power to listen to republicans more ... they VOTED for a republican in 2008. The only people who were crying out for bipartisanship were the damn Republicans themselves ... starting about the time it became clear they couldn't win. And somehow by January, Obama had set that as our A#1 national priority. And the nonsense continues to this day. I can't emphasize enough: America elected Democrats because we wanted you to kick Republican ass from sea to shining sea. They fucking trashed our entire country, turned us into torturers and ... well, the list is just too long.

    When the new president spends the first 18 months of his administration telling America that Republicans have really good ideas too and we really want to make sure they are totally on board before we do anything ... America is going think anyone who supports him is a damn moron. Those idiots who just ran us into a ditch suddenly turned competent because Obama got elected?!? That is some mega-healing power in a president there, boy! And once the policy went to right-wing-centrist-corporatist mush people felt betrayed. Not some "professional left" ... a BUNCH of Americans. We're not stupid. A few extra commercials trying to finesse a message are no substitute for old-fashioned greasy pork-filled pandering to the populace. And that's exactly what the current national situation legitimately calls for as good policy (and in many regards comprises a decent chunk of the Democratic platform). We didn't get it. Democrats control everything. Punish the Democrats who betrayed us. It's kind of base ... but that's what just happened IMO.

    So. Here we are. And the reality is that the only thing less popular than Democrats in America is .... Republicans. And inexplicably, the same fucking idiots who were dispatched to call the only segment of team Democrat who actually GETS IT "fucking retarded" have now declared that what America wants most is for Democrats to work more closely with the only thing in America LESS POPULAR THAN THEY ARE!!!!! I though you guys were supposed to be the smart ones ... how the hell does that conclusion make any sense at all?

    America wants you to kick their asses. It doesn't even matter what they are trying to accomplish ... we want to see Democrats make them lose ... just like WE did when we voted for you. So far we independents are the only ones to actually kick Republican ass - period. If you can't even fucking win when the solution to winning is forcing the GOP to filibuster middle-class tax cuts until the whole mess EXPIRES (no vote required) and then hang them with the blame for a middle class tax tax increase (which really is a wash with the cuts in stimulus, for those keeping score at home) ... great fucking spaghetti monster in the sky!

    And yes. Really sticking it to the titans of Wall Street along the way ... especially if you can also punish the Fed for their abject betrayal of their mandate and end the revolving-door between institutional finance and the organ that is supposed to protect America's economy from the excesses of those in institutional finance ... might even help your party become popular again.

    Just one independent's opinion. Take it FWIW (which may be rather little, I dunno ... but allowing continued tax cuts for the rich is NOT a path to electoral nirvana with independents!).

    [/rant]


    by kgb999 on Thu, 11/04/2010 - 8:12pm

    Great comment.  Sad sad sad reality.  But you've nailed it pretty damned well. 

     


    by anna am on Thu, 11/04/2010 - 8:26pm

    LOL. Great comment. Thank you for opening up a window into the mind of a real live independent. 


    by AmericanDreamer on Thu, 11/04/2010 - 10:04pm

    When the new president spends the first 18 months of his administration telling America that Republicans have really good ideas too and we really want to make sure they are totally on board before we do anything ..

    Obama's first 2 years in a nutshell. Somebody tell Obama this is not a community organizing committee but cutthroat politics with the bastards who spent $80 million impeaching Clinton for BS, and then elected a carnival barker who started a war based on lies, called himself the Decider, and now says he 'dissented' from it all.  Republicans want to sink you and your administration in the deepest part of the Potomac.  No, don't bother, he is having dinner with them to get more 'new' ideas recycled from the GWB administration later this month.


    by NCD on Thu, 11/04/2010 - 11:09pm

    I am not the prize. Independents are the prize

    is reiterated here,

    CNN Poll on the next presidential election, done Oct. 27-30, 2010:

    http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/11/03/rel15d.pdf

    Especially see page 14--of Democrats and Democratic leaners, iit appears that liberals are the happiest with him:

    Question 21

    Do you think the Democratic party should renominate Barack Obama as the party's candidate for president in 2012, or do you think the Democratic party should nominate a different candidate
    for president in 2012?

    Base = Democrats

                                   Total  Demo- Indep- Repub- Lib-  Mod-   Conser-
                                            crat      endent lican     eral  erate  vative
                                   -----  ------    -----   ------   -----  -----    ------ 
    Renominate Obama    73%  81%     57%    N/A     84%   66%     N/A
    Different candidate      22%  14%     37%    N/A     14%   25%     N/A
    No opinion                   5%    5%      6%     N/A      2%     8%     N/A
    Sampling Error          +/-4.5 +/-5.5 +/-8.5          +/-7.5 +/-6.5

    Of course the mass quantites of liberal bloggers unhappy with him and calling for a primary challenge all have unlisted cell phones. Tongue out

    As to the rest of the poll, sure seems that teevee time helped Mike Huckabee with the name recognition thing, and probably approval rating as well. I got a kick out of how many never heard of many of the other Republicans named in the poll. It was mostly registered voters....


    by artappraiser on Fri, 11/05/2010 - 12:53pm

    Thanks very much for the tea leaves, I'm going to "study on 'em".

    So attack the tea party--extremist do-nothings--, don't piss off that 20% of the base again, and tack that 37% Independent bogey up on the door of the fridge. 

    And please, Republicans, nominate Palin in 2012. 


    by Oxy Mora on Fri, 11/05/2010 - 1:16pm