Graph of the Day - August 24th

Tax cut proposals by income level

Source

Republicans want to give Millionaires an extra $700 billion over the next ten years. They think it will be good for the economy. How are we to expand the American economy when the vast majority of Americans are losing ground?

How a Red State flipped Blue

I wish this was a master discussion of the work I got to help with in Florida during the Obama campaign in 2008, but the state I am talking about is Colorado. I read a good book describing what some might call the "inside baseball." Incidentally this was my first book purchase from an independent bookstore. I tend to get used books from the bookstore, online, or from friends. The trusty library usually helps me as well. This time, Nightbird Books in Fayetteville on Dickson Street special ordered the book for me. I even got a 10% discount for reciting a poem at the counter because it was Poetry Month I guess. Actually I recited two: one in English and one in Spanish. Anyways, onto my book review.

The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado (and Why Republicans Everywhere Should Care) Adam Schrager and Rob Witwer (@ Amazon.com)

I learned about this book on DailyKos, a very popular progressive political blog. A much better review of the book can be found there, but I wanted to share a bit of what I read and what I thought about it.

Long story short: Colorado was a solid conservative state where Republicans ruled and few thought anything otherwise. In less than a decade a concerted effort flipped both houses of the state legislature, the governorship, and two U.S. Senate seats. Though some demographics where trending towards the Democrats, the real reason for the change was political organizing. How did the Democrats pull it off? Well it wasn't really the Democratic Party of Colorado, but I will get to that in a moment. How did they do it? Money, Discipline, and Unity.

Money
Colorado reformed their campaign finance laws in a way that limited how much individuals could give to candidates. It was intended to decrease the "buying" of candidates and officials by wealthy interests. This law made a national appearance in the form of the McCain-Feingold Act. What these laws did was close the door for donations from the wealthy to candidates, but opened up a new class of political organizations that could act politically, though NOT in direct concert with candidate campaigns. Arkansans got a great taste of these organizations in the recent primary between Senator Blanche Lincoln and Lt. Governor Bill Halter. Anyways, some hugely wealthy folks in Colorado were hugely pissed about the antics of the Republicans in the state government. They decided enough was enough and the way to stop it was to strategically pick off candidates that were most vulnerable and replace them with Democrats.

Discipline
These donors funded multiple organizations with different spheres of influence: a House campaign org, a Senate campaign org, a media watchdog, and others. Each organization was staffed by experienced political organizers (operatives). Though each organization was a separate entity, the donors and even board members had great overlap. With a clear mission, no group had to try to do everything. The ability to have discipline towards mission was granted from the donors: these donors made huge and continued investments and did not meddle in the details. They did NOT micromanage. They hired competent people and let them get to work.

Unity

Though these donors were in general progressive, they had their differences. They also picked the most electable candidates in many of the districts and this lead to differences between the political positions between the Democratic candidates and the progressive donors. They stuck to what they could agree on 90% of the time, and agreed that the mission (turning the state legislature) was worth supporting candidates that did not all have the same beliefs.

So...the campaign finance reforms really killed the "party" as the active machine of getting candidates and agendas into office. What replaced this machine was a loose group of organizations that were more nimble and less likely to be afraid to get dirty. For sure, many of their tactics would be considered "dirty" politics. They did what conservatives (through churches and religious organizations) had done for years. And they did it better than they had ever done. Karl Rove perfected micro-targeting and the Georgia Republicans perfected the 72 turnout machine, but Colorado Republicans never saw it coming. A group of Colorado millionaires decided to put those to work electing a party that would work for the people. And that is what Colorado got.

The Donors: Tim Gill, Jared Polis, and Pat Stryker were the LGBT and Allied ones. Others joined in.

What is your Pearl Harbor?

During any discussion of current politics, one of my brothers always points out that he doesn’t want the rules to change midgame. He feels like significant changes in healthcare, tax structure, and global climate change are unfair to those who are in the middle of their lives. Now, says he doesn’t purposely want to destroy the environment or deny people medical care, but he doesn’t want to be told what he can and can’t do and he doesn’t want to have to pay for other people.

So let me get this right: changing our expectations and our commitments in a changing world is un-American? Liberals and Democrats are lambasted as un-American because they see current challenges abroad and within as calls to collective action and higher duty?

Where is this coming from you ask? What set you off this time Casey?

Well, let’s start at McDonalds at about 8:15 this morning. For a grad student like me with mainly night classes and flexible research hours, this is actually early for me to be up and around. Normally for breakfast I try to eat two eggs at home with some kind of fruit and a little whole grain, but this morning was just another piece of a horrible week and a half, so I threw my hands up and surrendered to mass produced food-like products.

Considering that my grandparents live at least 4 hours away and I am perpetually stuck in either collegiate or organizing mode, I don’t have a lot of contact with folks who are significantly older than me. But like many McDonalds during breakfast hours, the McDonalds closest to campus had a fairly good sized crowd of older folks “dining” this morning. There were two noticeable groups actually. I will get to the second one in a minute, but the older crowd is what made me start thinking first. The older crowd tended towards men and coffee. Some perhaps were only there for coffee and a few were reading newspapers. Most were probably retired but I heard one talking about a job he had to do next week. A few wives had tagged along with their husbands. These folks were probably the age of my grandparents. WWII cohort. The Greatest Generation. I didn’t listen long enough to hear any general political talk, but I heard a random “Russia didn’t even win a gold medal”, a reference to what I thought was an amazing Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Nothing special here really, just a bunch of old men enjoying coffee with their friends.

Now, about these old men coffee drinkers and the Greatest Generation. The world owes the relative “peace” of the last 6 decades to this generation. They were presented with a situation that called for sacrifice and changed expectations. A changing world called on them to create a new reality. As the world continues to change and we are presented with new situations, wouldn’t it make sense that we must change with the changing times?

I say accepting new conditions and proactively attacking the coming problems is as honorable as what Americans did during WWII. They certainly accepted a way of life far different than they would have preferred. We complain about regulations that might possibly raise the price of dirty energy or gas guzzling cars, but they couldn’t buy cars at all during the war. Why not tax sugary drinks that are fueling our obesity crisis when our forefathers experienced rationing of sugar, butter, and all kinds of things in order to achieve a group goal.

I guess sacrifice is more honorable when it comes voluntarily from every single individual, but plenty of those soldiers in WWII and Korea and Vietnam were conscripted. We certainly don’t down play what they did and their forced sacrifice is still probably what was needed.

The United States probably should have entered WWII before they did. It was too controversial to step into the war before we were totally surprised at Pearl Harbor. Sure, many people then volunteered with the threat of imminent destruction at hand. Are we going to have to wait until disastrous conditions occur? What if it is too late with too many PPM CO2 in the atmosphere? Do we have to wait for universal health insurance until it is evident that the American economy cannot afford to spend nearly double what other countries spend? How long must we give tax breaks to the rich holding onto the idea that it will make anyone but the wealthy wealthier?

So tell me climate change skeptics, what is your Pearl Harbor? At what point will you believe and allow substantial policy change to occur?

Middle income and working class Americans who face service cuts and tax hikes, what is your Pearl Harbor? At what point will you ally yourselves with each other, rather than with the wealthy whom you hope to someday join?

All you Americans who fear insurance and medical bills getting in the way of your dreams, what is your Pearl Harbor? At what point will you demand care for people over profits?

What is your Pearl Harbor?