(1) Every Democratic surrender is a brilliant tactical (or even strategic!) retreat.
(2) Every inaction by Bush is put down as a glorious victory won by the Dems.
(3) When 2/3 of the Senate Dems vote for a horrendous bill, laud the power of Daschle to make it "more progressive" in conference committee.
(4) Forget what the Democrats have done. Talk about what they will do. When they fail to do that, talk about something else.
BTW, how did Ralph get into this conversation? Didn't vote for the man. Having long ago given up the absurd notion that my vote has STRATEGIC importance, I now cheerfully squander my vote on people I respect. Ralph? Shit, no, Nathan: Dave McReynolds!
As for strategy, let's be clear. The electoral leverage of the Left (the LEFT, damn it, not "progressives") is nil. Nada. Zip. If the Left wants to strategize, it can start by taking stock of its weakness and look at the places where its limited power can be found. You'll never find it by counseling the Left to suck up to "progressive" dems who kowtow to centrist dems who are held hostage by swing conservative dems who deliver the goods for Bush - as if that's somehow a brilliant "strategy". Shit, we've all been tempted by this pseudo-strategy. I even joined DSOC for a time back in 1979. I learned. Either you'll learn, too, and break with the Dems, or you'll forget that you're moving right for "stratetgic" reasons and end up indistinguishable from the DLC. Your current position is untenable - the only question is which direction you'll move.
Michael McIntyre
>>> nathan at newman.org 05/25/01 12:15PM >>>
Yeah, yeah- whatever is won would have been won anyways; whatever is lost is
the fault of craven Dems; nothing is strategy. And to repeat, the Dems
didn't have control yet, so why fuck that up before getting control? Both
Jeffords and Miller voted for Olsen- who knows if a filibuster might create
second thoughts on pushing through the change in control. The fact is that
the swing votes do have a veto, not only on control of the Senate but on how
far Daschle et all can move on filibusters.
The fact is that the Dems had already essentially filibustered a number of Bush judicial nominations, including Chris Cox and a few others who Bush didn't even try to nominate in the face of Dem opposition. Oh yeah, Daschle can't get credit for blocking Chris Cox because....why is that?
As for the bankruptcy bill, the opponents didn't have the votes for a filibuster, period. Wish they did, but they didn't. There are plenty of moderate to conservative Dems - there's no uniformity in the party on a lot of issues. But it's worth noting that the reason the bankruptcy bill hasn't yet become law is because Daschle et al have essentially been filibustering the appointment of conference committee members to this point. The bill will become law, unfortunately, but it will be more progressive in shape with the Senate conferees being appointed by Daschle rather than Trent Lott.
As the Dems bring up patient bill of rights, minimum wage, and prescription drug bills, I have no problem in awarding Daschle a big red start for forwarding progressive politics. He is far more conservative than Ralph Nader but he will end up doing far more than progressivism than a futile useless race that actually lost concrete power for progressives. The Left is allergic to strategy and organizing for power, so they love purist losers like Nader. Give me a moderate like Daschle who moves the ball in our direction any day.
-- Nathan Newman