Feel The Rumble Of Lefty Insurgents?

Feel The Rumble?

by digby

Greg Sargent points out that the http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/05/are_the_dem_insurgents_about_t.html mainstream media is potentially missing a very important story. If Bill Halter and Joe Sestak win next week, it's a sign that it isn't just the tea partiers who are forming an insurgency against the Republican establishment --- the progressive movement is making a move as well .In fact, there are a whole bunch of contests that may surprise people in the next couple of months. The tea partiers have all the good costumes and are willing to make public asses of themselves, so they get all the press. But the fact is that the left has been quietly going about its business during this period to unseat Blue Dogs and pull the Democratic party away from its center of gravity in the lap of corporations and right wing ideology. Just because the Village media reflexively interprets anger at Washington as anger at liberal policies, it doesn't make it so.

Nobody knows what will happen, but the fact is that this is not a right wing backlash, it's an anti-incumbent backlash.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/feel-rumble-republicans-arent-only.html

..................

Will lefty insurgents win big next week?
Don't look now, but the lefty insurgents could be on the verge of scoring not one,
but two major victories next week.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/05/are_the_dem_insurgents_about_t.html

I will vote for Obama next time but I want a left liberal as our next president. In the meantime, I will be pushing for true liberal lefties for everything all the way down to dog catcher.

:shrug:

Now that I think of it, he/she'd be far less likely to torture the animal.

While the Repubs nominating tea baggers will destroy their party.

I will be ecstatic with Sestak and Holder wins next week!

One is going for ignorance and frothing at the mouth and the other is going for Progress.

we don't want to be a crazed mob like the tea baggers

what you said does not represent my viewpoint on the subject.

do you have a cricket in your pocket?

:crazy:

left is right

on edit: :sarcasm: (just in case)

:rofl:

See how he did that? He said 'us'...

These guys are much too clever for us.
:rofl:

a lefty progressive.

that the WH is saying applies to Kagan.

Personally, I think the national impact of Sestak winning is more important than where he stands on a few specific issues.

which is largely republican...I am afraid he will turn out to be a Blue Dog. I was going to vote for Specter, but after seeing him on several programs last week, I think he should retire...or be retired. He is not thinking clearly and he is 80 years old.

Go home, Arlen, and stay there.

Reluctantly, I'm voting for Sestak-but I don't expect too much from him.

mark

rating for Congressman Sestak in 2007: 100 percent.

Specter's rating was 57.

We agree on something! :woohoo:

quite a few things.

I'd buy you a cold beer any day of the week.

:thumbsup:

Specter is a Republican.

Got it now?

Sounds rude.

and got my head chewed off. Oh well. Dems don't need to wear silly costumes to get attention, we do it at the voting booth.

as far as I know.

The primaries are pushing 'centrists' out and replacing them with politicians more to the right or the left.

538 says that in 2010 the dems will likely lose 6+ senate seats while only gaining about 2 GOP seats. So its not so much an anti-incumbency movement, unless the public associate incumbency with democrats. If you look at it that way, then yeah its an anti-incumbency election coming up. But incumbent republicans will have it easier than incumbent democrats in 2010.

However, both ARE to the Left of the Republicans with a "D" after their name that the Democratic Party Leadership (Obama and DLC friends)) are campaigning for.

If Halter and Sestak win, it WILL send a strong message to the Democratic Party Leadership:
"No More Republicans."
We already have too many Republicans in the Democratic Party.


"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."---Paul Wellstone

It will change the national debate. The Senate is where most good bills are getting blocked or watered down. Two primary victories will mean the Senate, Obama and the nation can move significantly to the left.

Three more Senators plus push a coupla current Ds to the left and we could approach FDR/LBJ territory.

He has to be "pushed."

Thus the need for insurgency, and maybe later on, a primary challenge, and even, a new Dem candidate.

So the need to move the Senate left is pretty clear.

and a better health care bill than what passed the Senate?
Or that Obama got a climate change bill through the house that's now stalled in the Senate?

I know its much simpler to blame everything on Obama. There's every reason to believe that Obama will go as far left as he can pull the Senate. Obama is already far to the left of where Dean ever was.

Do we really need to reopen that can of worms?

The list is much longer, of course.

Whatever else he may be, Obama is no leftist, not even a liberal.

Banking, fossil fuels and insurance. Obama's proposals were all to the left of what got passed in the Senate. I'm sure you'll feel free to keep your head in the sand and ignore anything good he does while he keeps piling up progressive accomplishments.

I suspect it would be pointless to argue the point further.

is because you know it's true. Yes, it would be pointless because I live in the reality based community.

A "reality based community"?

Please spare me.

You call yourself "Radical Activist" and sport an image of the revolutionary (capital-C) Communist Che Guevara as your avatar, while posting excuses for a corporate-friendly, neo-liberal (at best) administration whose big claim to fame (as you frame it) is the passage of a 1990s Republican HC bill.

I don't need a lecture on "reality" from such an obviously confused perspective.

Bye, and see you on the barricades.


:rofl: :patriot:

It makes me less of a sucker. At least I was able to see through Howard Dean, easily the biggest fake to run for President since Ronald Reagan. Is he back to being a fiscal conservative this week or is he from the democratic wing of the Democratic Party again? It's so hard to keep track of what he calls himself day to day.

:rofl: :popcorn:

In an interview he was talking about meeting with political leaders of Europe who were confused by all the people calling him a marxist and socialist, because they (the political leaders of Europe) said that by western european standards he governs like a conservative.

The health care bill is pretty similar to what the GOP proposed in 1993.

The overton window in the US veers way to far to the right. A politician who governs from the right by UK or French standards is labeled a communist in the US. It is like living in Saudi Arabia, the overton window is radically out of proportion.

just looked it up, and I still am not sure what it means. Yeah, the health care bill was the one Dole wrote.

The window can move so views that were once radical become mainstream, or that were once mainstream become radical.

For example, more and more GOP politicians and GOP voters are becoming sympathetic to domestic terrorism by militias and McVeigh types. A few years ago that would be 'radical', now it is becoming 'acceptable' to support domestic terrorism.

The window has moved drastically to the right, partly because powerful corporations and individuals control the lobbyists and media, and they stand to benefit from a far right overton window (which supports letting powerful people and business do whatever they want, get huge tax cuts and have no regulations or retributions on them). Nixon governed like a liberal compared to Clinton. the republican Gerald Ford appointed Stevens, who is now the liberal anchor of the far right supreme court.

It was an appeal of the universal health care bill to me. Even though the health care bill is imperfect, it moves the concept of the government guaranteeing everyone access to health care from radical/acceptable to popular/policy. In 10 years it'll be much easier to pass even more left wing health reform because the 2010 bill moved the overton window to the left.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

for years. So I see your point. :eyes:

the one Dole authored years ago. Banking regulation? Oh, hell yes, he's just been magnificent there. Does GS have a criminal indictment yet? Has Jaime Dimon been investigated? Which hedge fund managers are in jail? Climate change? As for Climate Change, he created a new politic, nothing more. And what he did there may well be reversed by the Supreme Court, especially if a Kagan gets in. Now let's talk about what he hasn't done. Then we can sit down to a Thanksgiving meal somewhere.

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for HCR, then it may be time for YOU to take Logic 101. He could have easily got a public option included, and maybe even single payer. He met with Pharmacy executives in February of 2009. They laid out both what they would allow as well as the talking points. Bye, activista.

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understand about unfulfilled promises and base disenfranchisement. I understand the word poseur.

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And he never formally "proposed" a bill with a public option in it either.

He let the committees do the framing and operated behind the scenes, and never insisted on any kind of public plan.

It was all talk.

agenda, the reason for which I can only guess. I just hope to God should this oil spill go on much longer, he'll bypass seeking permission from the oil companies to take action and go directly to the UN, or whatever body handles end-of-life-as-we-now-know-it problems.

Strange, the stuff this dude is saying to you. I've read a lot of your posts because of your handle. You were an Obama stalwart, and stuck by him though thick and thin. Weird.

I supported him and voted for him in the PA primary, after Edwards flamed out.

My heart belongs to Howard.

Sorry, do you mean avatar?

I was thinking of changing mine to "Che" and renaming myself "Mertzian Activist."

William Frawley well. A great one. Vaudeville before I Love Lucy. Sure glad I lived when I did. These people were real.

He gave two major Presidential addresses in Congress and countless media appearances to advocate for that bill. You have a very selective memory.

Do you see how easy it is to accuse someone of doing something "behind the scenes" that can never be proven on record? I could say that YOU advocated against the public option "behind the scenes" and no one could prove that it isn't true. Stop being manipulated.

If ill-considered.

Do you consider calling the public option a "sliver" a ringing endorsement?

You probably do.

and you keep responding with hyperbole and flimsy accusations.
Yes, it is pointless because I live in the reality based community and you don't like dealing with facts that don't fit in with your preconceived notions about Obama.

It is a quote.

Obama on public option: From “must include” to “just one sliver” of reform
Posted Aug 17, 2009, 9:15 AM PT by Jed Lewison • First broadcast: Aug 17, 2009

Video:

http://www.dailykos.com/tv/w/002055/

But you knew that.

are rooting for Halter and Sestak not only because we'd be frustrated if Lincoln and Specter won but because we think they are stronger candidates against the likely GOP opponents in the fall.

I think it would be a great night if next Tuesday evening we hear news that Bill and Joe have won their primaries.

Which is a good thing.

they just won't report it. Don't want to spread the revolution, wouldn't be good for business.

hey tea baggers go for it id like to see the rightest righties win the republican primaries n scare the ba-jesus out of the country and make the republican party go the way of the Whig party.
primaries

Andrew Romanoff, a long-time leader in the state houses (both of them) is trying to unseat Michael Bennet who was appointed to Ken Salazar's senate seat when Ken was picked for Interior Secretary.

Bennet is, at best, an unknown quantity. I know, I know, he was the guy who started the whole "public option" letter. But when the time came to actually PROPOSE the p.o., he didn't do it. I don't believe he ever had any intention of doing it. At worst he is a political hack, and an unabashed corporatist.

Romanoff started this campaign with a pledge to not take any corporate or PAC money, and he has stuck to that promise. He asked Bennet to join him, but Bennet declined, and has received millions from corporations.

Romanoff is easily the "real" democrat in this race. And right now he's looking pretty strong in the primary campaign. The state assembly is May 22, and then there is a primary in August (I think). So...we'll see.

Cool name too.

Any relation?

:thumbsup:

Both would likely be in the right half of the Senate Democrats if elected. Halter would likely be closer to Ben Nelson than Bernie Sanders, Pat Leahy, John Kerry and Dick Durbin. (and some here argue Kerry and Durbin aren't to the left!) Sestak seems more to the left than Halter, but it's not clear that he is to the left of Bob Casey - never listed as a liberal here.

Progressive appears to mean whatever anyone wants it to be - so that is harder to argue - other than to say that Pryor and Nelson were never called that.

What you can say is that both are running as "outside DC".

Anti-establishment, anti-incumbent.

It is going to be a tough year for the old guard.

Here Sestak actually has been in Congress for 4 years - so it is simply in comparison. So, if it only that, there's a problem in the general election - he will be the DC guy of the two.

On his belt.

Specter's.