Dreaming Big Dreams: How Obama Could Change the Game

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Tuesday December 26, 2006 · 9:57 AM PST

2006/12/26 · 09:57

Right now we’re stuck in a 51-49 paradigm, electorally speaking. This suits conservatives just fine. They’ve only ever had one truly unifying, game-changing star in the modern era, and he was an actor – and when his magic disappeared, they resorted to the Atwater-Rove approach: divide and conquer. It’s a truism that conservatives win by dividing America, while progressives can only truly win by uniting it. We can muddle along, hoping to hold our blue states and swing Ohio, and we might win next time, but the math won’t change and in four or eight years the conservatives will be back, governing with undimmed arrogance, no matter how small their margin of victory – because for them, power is its own mandate.

We need to change the game. Here's why I believe Barack Obama could do that:

BrooklynRaider

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Tuesday December 19, 2006 · 10:34 AM PST

2006/12/19 · 10:34

Apologia: I'm wary of writing about Israeli/Palestinian politics at Daily Kos, for obvious reasons. However, I believe this is topical and (I hope) balanced. If it just turns into a trollish pissing match, I'll delete the diary. For the record, I'm not a partisan of either "side": I support secure democratic sovereignty for both Israelis and Palestinians.

Cross-posted at alien & sedition.

I don’t often write about Middle East politics (there are other sites that can do it far better), but sometimes you can’t resist commenting, like when you see your government repeating the same stupid mistakes with a persistence that, were we talking about individuals, would be considered proof of insanity.

(More after the jump)

BrooklynRaider

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Thursday December 14, 2006 · 11:10 AM PST

2006/12/14 · 11:10

Cross-posted from alien & sedition

This morning at the National Review, K-Lo puts Mitt Romney through his paces, as the Governor from the Great State of Dukakis/Kerry continues his effort to pander to conservatives. Given how the GOP spent 2004 redefining Massachusetts as "France, only worse," it can't be easy for the guy.

Lopez asks Romney about comments he made in 1994, when he argued that gay marriage should be an issue decided by the states and denounced "extremist" Republicans ["People of integrity don't force their beliefs on others, they make sure that others can live by different beliefs they may have" - whoops! Don't let Dr. Dobson hear you talking like that!].

[Romney's reply - to the tune of "I Walk the Line": after the jump]

BrooklynRaider

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Friday November 17, 2006 · 9:21 AM PST

2006/11/17 · 09:21

John McCain insists that last Tuesday's election was payback for the Republicans' abandonment of conservative principles:

"Hypocrisy, my friends, is the most obvious of political sins -- and the people will punish it," said Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona. "We were elected to reduce the size of government and enlarge the sphere of free and private initiative. We increased the size of government in the false hope that we could bribe the public into keeping us in office.
"We lost our principles and our majority," he said. "And there is no way to recover our majority without recovering our principles first."

This goes beyond the song-and-dance about how the Democrats somehow moved right to win. McCain is opening the door for the most important political question of our time: can conservatives govern at all?
Read More

Health Care: Looking to the States?

BrooklynRaider

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Thursday April 06, 2006 · 8:31 AM PDT

2006/04/06 · 08:31

The new Massachusetts health care bill, which has generated very little discussion here at Daily Kos, represents a unique effort along all parts of the political spectrum to bring health coverage to 95% of the state's residents. The particulars of the plan merit more analysis by progressives nationally, but it also, I believe, forces us to confront the question of whether it will be more productive to pursue the goal of universal coverage through the states, or at the Federal level. Read More

Why don't Dems push for a Privacy Amendment?

BrooklynRaider

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Wednesday November 16, 2005 · 9:35 AM PST

2005/11/16 · 09:35

Writing in the New York Times, Dan Savage makes an excellent point: since many of our current culture-war battles center on whether or not judges and SCOTUS nominees agree that the Constitution implies a right to privacy, why aren't we seizing the initiative here? Why aren't Democrats proposing and pushing a Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing an explicit (no pun intended) right to privacy? Shouldn't this be a screamingly obvious move?

Savage says:

Problematically, however, a right to privacy is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. The majority in Griswold held that it was among the unenumerated rights implied by the Constitution's "penumbras" (which sound like something a sodomy law might keep you away from). The Griswold case didn't settle the matter, and the right to privacy quickly became the Tinkerbell of constitutional rights: clap your hands if you believe.

BrooklynRaider

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Tuesday October 18, 2005 · 10:25 AM PDT

2005/10/18 · 10:25

In New York City, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 5-1. In national elections, New Yorkers vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates. The city has been a Democratic stronghold since the days of Andrew Jackson.

And yet we are about to witness an election which will extend Republican rule over City Hall to 16 uninterupted years. And a cavalcade of leading "Democrats" are helping to make it happen.
Read More

We must end the culture war

BrooklynRaider

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Monday July 11, 2005 · 8:44 AM PDT

2005/07/11 · 08:44

We get wound up, defending our regional pride, resenting the fools in the other part of the country who just don't get it - we're like the monkey with his fist in the jar, clenched too tight, stuck in place by our own refusal to let go. Read More

Americans on 9/11: Progressives Respond (Add your story!)

BrooklynRaider

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Friday July 01, 2005 · 7:10 AM PDT

2005/07/01 · 07:10

Karl Rove and the Republicans think that they own 9/11. They have made it a strategy to demonize and delegitimize Democrats and liberals by using the horrible events of September 11, 2001 to attack our character, our judgment, and our honor.

Ignoring their own failures in the defense of our nation, brushing aside their own catastrophic errors of judgment, they seek to use one of the greatest modern tragedies this nation has faced as a cheap political weapon. And, in so doing, they dishonor the bravery, the sacrifice, and the courage New Yorkers and other progressives displayed on 9/11 and in the months and years since.

No longer. Read More

Ronald Reagan: the Greatest American

BrooklynRaider

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Tuesday June 28, 2005 · 1:02 PM PDT

2005/06/28 · 13:02

The people have spoken, the bastards. Ronald Reagan is the greatest American of all time.

A towering figure, whose many contributions to America and the world far outweigh the accomplishments of such lesser lights as Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, Jr., George Washington, Albert Einstein, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or even that talking chihuahua.

At least America's Official Greatest Woman provided folks with some compelling reasons to vote for her.

"I can't believe I'm losing to this idiot"

BrooklynRaider

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Friday November 05, 2004 · 12:35 PM PST

2004/11/05 · 12:35

The Times of London has a short summary of Newsweek's multi-part campaign postmortem. There is plenty of gossip and backbiting from anonymous ("a senior aide") Kerry staffers, which can be pondered or dismissed as rubbish, whichever one prefers (as I've said before, I think that a focus on the failures of Kerry as a candidate is pointless and counterproductive).

However, this little bit struck me: "Mr Clinton, correctly sensing that "values" would play a crucial role in voters' minds, urged Mr Kerry to back local ballot initiatives calling for a ban on gay marriage. (Mr Kerry refused)."

I've been fairly nostalgic for ol' Bill of late. But I have to say, this reminded me of exactly why I never did like him much during his eight-year term. I'm glad that Kerry stuck to his guns here - I just wish that he could have taken the next step and articulated a postive defense of gay marriage. But we're not there yet.

It shouldn't take a Messiah

BrooklynRaider

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Wednesday November 03, 2004 · 8:02 AM PST

2004/11/03 · 08:02

First off, it's not over yet. But if we have lost, I will not blame Kerry. Whether or not he was an ideal candidate is beside the point. He was a perfectly fine candidate: we should not need a Messiah to win.

The fact is, we have a reality problem, not a candidate problem. In a political culture where those who oppose the president's policies can be called traitors, where it's considered acceptable to vote for President based on who you'd rather have a beer with, where the media treat the election of our government as equivilant to a celebrity bag race, where the common belief that Bush was chosen by God is not seriously examined in mainstream discourse, in all of this . . . we have a reality problem. Read More

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Dreaming Big Dreams: How Obama Could Change the Game

Lessons from Palestine: Politics Matter

Mitt Romney at NRO: Vive la Difference!

McCain's Dilemma: Why Conservatives Can't Govern

Health Care: Looking to the States?

Why don't Dems push for a Privacy Amendment?

NYC Democrats Turn on Their Own Party

We must end the culture war

Americans on 9/11: Progressives Respond (Add your story!)

Ronald Reagan: the Greatest American

"I can't believe I'm losing to this idiot"

It shouldn't take a Messiah