I have long lamented the state of the conservative movement. However, Nick Gillespie, in his NYT review of Matt Bai’s new book, points out that the left has, perhaps, an even worse poverty of ideas: Recalling a meeting of leading progressives — including Armstrong, Representative Adam Smith of Washington and Read more…
Chris Bowers pre-emptively declares defeat on pulling out of Iraq.
I am really surprised that the tax fight hasn’t been engaged really. There was some, but not too much, noise when the tax-raising budget was passed by a Democratic Congress. But this is going to come back. In theory, the Bush administration helped the 2008 GOP nominee because imminent, steep Read more…
This is the first thing that the Dems are talking about in 2008 that actually scares me. Mike Dukakis is talking about building a real national precinct organization: "We have to organize every damn precinct in the United States of America—all 185,000,” Mr. Dukakis said. “I’m serious. I’m deadly serious. Read more…
Matt Stoller is laying the groundwork to attack Democrats over FISA: I’ve been kicking around the idea with Chris that we should raise the costs of bad decision-making on things like FISA, or when they fold to Republicans on the supplemental or (insert fight here). It’s not much to put Read more…
Open Left’s Matt Stoller argues here and here that there is an operative "conservative majority" in Congress right now. His basic thesis is summarized here: In particular, this comment by Paul Rosenberg is I think accurate, as he argues that we are facing a conservative but not right-wing Blue Dog/DLC Read more…
Marc Ambinder catches this: In case you missed it, Chuck said on MSNBC earlier that Bill Clinton, in private conversations, has said that he couldn’t win the Democratic nomination in this environment; the party had shifted to the left on trade
It is amusing to read the stories coming out of YearlyKos. You have Chris Bowers’ "Why the Progressive Movement has stalled." And you have Townhall’s Amanda Carpenter’s "Laptop Liberals Plan Takeover at YearlyKos." Both are realizations that the online left isn’t quite what they thought it was. The left thought Read more…
The Cleveland Plain Dealer blog is reporting that Zack Space flipped his vote on the motion to recommit on the Agriculture bill last Thursday: Either facing pressure from their party leaders or getting last-minute facts — accounts vary — several members of Congress from both parties, including Dover Democrat Zack Read more…
Matt Stoller says no. But he had a group to work with. What do we do? More on this later.