Before the Supreme Court ruled against McCain-Feingold, unleashing unlimited corporate campaign contributions into the political scene, the big issue of the week was the defeat of the filibuster-proof Obama majority in the Senate. Despite the seriousness of the Supreme Court ruling, the issue of why the Democrats lost Ted Kennedy's seat should not go away, for there is a message contained within it which both parties, as well as the Court, should be heeding.
But before any such message can be evaluated for action, one has to clear away the clutter. In the instance of the claim that the Democratic Party lost for being out of touch with voter reality, those the clutter protects attempt to make the spinning worse and hide what the real issues are. Senator Evan Bayh and former Clinton White House Counsel Lanny Davis attempt to do their post-ruling-best duty to the ruling corporatists by attempting to paint their Democratic Party as being under the thrall of the Left, a claim which Glenn Greenwald laboriously exposes as fraudulent. Greenwald's exposé is supported by Ezra Klein, who reports that the Left got "exactly nothing they wanted in recent months."
How this puts the Democrats under the control of the Left escapes examination once one looks at the details, as Greenwald and Klein have done. Even conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan is amazed that the unsupportable attempt is underway. So what is the reason for making these specious claims?
Greenwald proposes that the strategy is to isolate Obama from the effects of the Massachusetts defeat. Considering how isolated Obama has been since winning the election, one has to wonder just who is actually being protected by this action. Supposedly, according to Josh Marshall and Kevin Drum, the laughable argument is that what little liberal media as exists in this nation somehow derailed the Obama agenda due to not blindly following the leader. I invite these two sages, and any other unsighted and unthinking Obama-tons, to recall that one of the major complaints about the Republicans during their majorities was their blind allegiance to GOP Party leaders. Is this how Democrats should rule just because the shoe is now on the other foot?
Article comments
1 - Baritone
Don't you think there are all kinds of mis-direction coming from multiple sides of this multi-faceted coin? Everyone of whatever ilk wants to either point fingers or take credit for the Massachusetts debacle and Obama's failures to this point.
This notion that "people want change" is one of those gobbledeegook catch phrases that means little. When asked just what "change" people want, many are hard pressed to come up with anything substantive. They can make broad claims and accusations, or talk about things like big government, out of control spending, jobs, and so forth, but few have any idea how all this came about, specifically what Bush, Obama, etal, did or did not do that caused or could have prevented our current dilemmas, or what can be done to correct them. The only answer is "throw the bums out," which as you suggest means just reseating the "bums" that were tossed 15 months ago.
To say that Dems should be lending an ear to what the voters are saying is hardly a useful endeavor in that what they are "saying" is tantamount to a cacaphony of mixed messages and mis-directed, or perhaps more aptly, scattershot anger.
What's to be learned from all this is anybody's guess. As stunning as the Dem's defeat in Massachusetts was, it likely will have little discernable effect down the road. The paradigms will continue to shift. Where that ball drops come November is, again, anybody's guess.
The Supreme Court ruling regarding corporate campaign contributions will likely have far more significant and long term effects on the American political landscape in the years to come than anything that's going down right now.
B
2 - roger nowosielski
I tend to agree with your last prediction, Baritone. We have yet to see what we have unleashed.
3 - jeannie danna
It is amazing that what galvanized that little party up in MASS. was a promise to cut taxes...that's all you need to say to bring the masses to the streets, wearing tetley all over themselves and claiming to be the same as the original Boston Brew! We are represented!
But, then again, when is the last time you saw jay-Walking on Leno?
Let's face it , we have been dumbed down.