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BlogTalkRadio

Want to start your own radio show? Well, you're going to need an agent, a lawyer and a big contract. Just kidding! With new online radio platforms, all you need to get started are a few basics. Oh, and co-hosts aren't a bad idea.

***Scroll down for an On Topic radio show discussing this diary***

First of all, some of you are probably wondering why you would want a radio show at all. There are several compelling reasons to add audio, and particularly radio shows, to your content:

• Some topics are better suited to the radio format. Got a great interview lined up on a topic you would like to diary? Well, if you set up the interview as a show, you can diary the topic and allow readers who want to go more in-depth on the topic access to the actual audio. You can even set up call in shows and allow readers to pose questions to your guest directly.



• It's nice to have a voice sometimes. A lot of writing is story telling, and being able to provide a first hand account or source, or even just your own commentary can be powerful.
• It can add a greater depth to your diary--especially since most readers will only look at so much text before they move on. Providing a radio link with more discussion on the topic can break up the information and allow those who want to hear more a different way of accessing your information.



• Reach new audiences. Especially when it comes to organizations and issues advocacy, a radio show or in-depth interview can be a great way to reach new audiences and even keep your current supporters up to date on the projects you are working on. Call in shows mean the dialog can run both ways.



• Why not? It's essentially FREE, and as I will show you, pretty easy to boot.

Getting Started

There are several ways to get started in putting together your own radio show. First is deciding what platform you are going to use to record. A radio show is simply an audio file or a podcast (unless you have some hot distribution deal, in which case, maybe YOU should be writing this), so this means recording is the biggest factor in which approach you take.

Anyway you can make a podcast, you can make a radio show. There are numerous audio recording programs you can download, Mac Books often come with recording software, or you can even record Skype calls. The challenge is if you want more than one person on the recording (which I hope you do) and whether you will be dealing with feeding in calls. For the sound engineers among us, no problem! But for the rest of us, there are sites that offer a means of circumventing this problem and I highly recommend using them to get started.

BlogTalkRadio.com is the site thereisnospoon, clammyc and I currently use. It employs a recording platform that run via phone. You sign up, schedule a show and they give you a number to call into via landline, cell phone, or skype and it records a digital audio file for you and hosts it on the their site. You can link to it from your own site like we did for a time (politicalnexus.blogspot.com) or use their host page as your main site. And you can pull links for your most recent show and embed them in your diaries.

Pretty simple. Now for the tricky part: actually creating the shows.

The difficult part is putting it all together: live radio means you don't have to deal with pesky editing, but it also means you need to do more planning so you don't have dead air time.

So when you put together a show, you should consider several things:

1) How long should my show be? And how much content do I need to cover that amount of time?

2) Will I have a co-host? Different guests?

3) How often will I produce my show?

4) What do I want my show to be about?

5) Have I come up with a show intro and show close I can use?

6) Do I have copyright free music I can use as an intro to my show?

Our shows are typically 15-20 minutes when it comes to a single topic like our FrameWork shows, and 30-60 minutes for our in-depth interviews with Congressional Candidates or On-Topic shows. Our call in show Don't Hijack My Thread is 60 minutes.

We typically plan out five topics for Don't Hijack My Thread--but we rarely get through them all! For our shorter shows, we started out with five or so questions but we largely abandoned structuring our shows too much once we got used to the format.

In my opinion, one of the most important things you can do is not talk those last few seconds before your show goes live! If you have a clean intro to your show and a solid beginning it sets a good tone, even if you flub some of the other parts.

Transcripts of shows are something we get commonly requests for, especially since many cannot listen to audio at work, but we gave up on being able to provide them since they simply took too long to compile.

In terms of promoting a show, the best way to go about it is to compile the email addresses of people that you think might be interested, and send them

• the link to the show for downloading
• the phone number to dial in (if you want to take callers)
• the topics and details of the show

Any more questions? Just post them in the comments and we'll be answering them over the course of the next 24 hours. Also, any of you audio geeks who have expertise in sound engineering, equipment, etc. please share your thoughts as well. And of course, I am the first to admit there are many more knowledgeable than myself, so pipe up!

A radio show discussing the topics of this diary can be found here: On Topic Kossacks Under 35: How to Start Your Online Radio Show We just taped it but it the audio should be available soon so please check back if there are problems.

Also here is a link to a previous interview we did with Kath25 herself about the Kossacks Under 35 series

Kossacks Under 35 is a weekly diary series designed to create a community
within DailyKos that focuses on young people. Our overall goals are to
work on increasing young voters' Democratic majority, and to raise
awareness about issues that particularly affect young people, with a
potential eye to policy solutions. Kossacks of all ages are welcome to
participate (and do!), but the overall framework of each diary will
likely be on or from a younger person's perspective. If you would like
more information or want to contribute a diary, please email kath25 at kossacksunder35 (at) gmail dot com

Stop the Sucking

Sure, she's wasting campaign money. And Democratic opportunities to attack John McCain. And attempting to create divisions in the Party.

But of all the many reasons that Hillary Clinton should graciously concede the Democratic nomination to the clear winner of the contest, none has been more overlooked than the impact on downballot races.

No, I'm not talking about Obama's major coattails, though that is certainly important. I'm talking about the oxygen that this continued farce of a campaign is taking away from the deserving and overlooked women and men running for Senate and Congress.

Clinton supporters not making their votes based on identity politics, and who are not currently deluded enough to believe that their candidate is more electable, presumably are making their votes based on specific issues. Maybe they believe that mandates on health insurance programs are a good idea (I don't); maybe they believe that freezing interest rates for 5 years is a good idea (I certainly don't); maybe they believe that we should pull out of Iraq more slowly (I disagree). Who knows?

But the truth of the matter is that without a strong Democratic congress to help the Chief Executive to push these plans through the legislature, none of them will come close to passing in the forms being pushed by the candidates. Any voter truly making decisions about these candidates based on the issues while ignoring the state of the downballot races is making a colossal error in judgment. Much I find Clinton's candidacy and modus operandi highly distasteful, I know that a Clinton presidency with a strong Democratic, progressive congress is likelier to lead to the policy outcomes I desire than an Obama candidacy with a weaker Democratic congress. The reverse is, of course, doubly true.

I know that there are some who say that continuing this primary is good for the party, as it registers new voters and create ground operations in every state. But that help is dramatically overwhelmed by oxygen being sucked out of lungs of our deserving candidates: the media attention and money that are the lifeblood of such campaigns. Every second of every minute of every day that the Clintons spend desperately trying to maintain their grip over the Democratic Party and its levers of power is precious sand running out of the hourglass for the candidates who could actually use the most time, energy and money from the netroots and the progressive movement. Every campaign donation drive from the pockets of the netroots faithful on behalf of the Obama or the Clinton campaigns to maintain this petty and ultimately pointless intramural fight the Clintons are waging, is not only money that could have been going to attack John McCain: it's money that could have been going to candidates like those on the Red to Blue list--to say nothing of the many other deserving candidates like Ron Shepston, Mary Pallant or Gilda Reed.

My good friend clammyc and I have been conducting a series of online, podcastable radio interviews with deserving progressive, Democratic congressional candidates (the interviews also get posted to Heading Left, in case BlogTalkRadio's format is a too intimidating). In every single show, I make the case that as important as the Oval Office is, and as much as the presidential candidates deserve our time and effort, these candidates need our aggressive support to succeed in sometimes extremely difficult circumstances. Not all of them will have Bill Foster's good fortune in having a single special election to focus on, or having Barack Obama appear in ads for them, or having as sadsack an opponent as Mr. Oberweis. These are very difficult battles, and they could use a little more love coming their way. And they won't get that love from most of us unless Hillary Clinton ends her quixotic quest to put herself and her husband back in the White House.

One of those candidates I'm talking about is Ron Shepston in CA-42, running against the odious Gary Miller. As many of you know, Ron Shepston (whom clammyc and I will be interviewing tomorrow) started his political career right here in the blogosphere, posting under the name CanYouBeAngryAndStillDream, and has had our backs as a progressive activist for years. Fellow Kossacks hekebolos, theKK and I just hosted a fantastic fundraiser/house party for him this last Saturday. And Ron is just one of many, many candidates who stands to gain enormously by our party turning its attention away from the Clintons' desperate power ploy, and back to the issues and candidates that matter.

If Hillary Clinton or her supporters care anything at all about the Democratic Party, the issues we hold dear and the legislation we want passed, they must know that the time has come to end this charade. We've got more important things to worry about at this point.


--------------------------------------

By the way, for those interested in hearing the real voices of some great candidates, you can hear prior interviews in our candidate series below:

• Betsy Markey (CO-4) - The diary about Betsy is here. The link to her interivew can be found here
• Gilda Reed (LA-1) - the diary about Gilda is here. The link to her interview can be found here.


• John Laesch (IL-14) - the diary about John is here. The link to his interview can be found here.


• Dennis Shulman (NJ-5) - the diary about Dennis is here. The link to his interview can be found here.


• Barry Welsh (IN-6) - the diary about Barry is here. The link to his interview can be found here.


• Charlie Brown (CA-4) - the diary about Charlie is here. The link to his interview can be found here.


• Mark Schauer (MI-7) - the diary about Mark is here. The link to his interview can be found here.


• Heather Ryan (KY-1) - the diary about Heather is here. The link to her interview can be found here.

What Hillary Means By "Obama Isn't Vetted"

Among the memes this election cycle that are so patently stupid that it makes me want to beat my head against a wall is the idea put forth by the Clinton campaign that "Obama isn't vetted." Here's just one example of Hillary Clinton herself pushing this idea:

“I’ve been tested. I’ve been vetted. I have been in the political arena in our country very intensely for 16 years. There are no surprises. There’s not going to be anybody saying, ‘Well why didn’t we think of that?’ or ‘What, my goodness, what does that mean?’” she said. “I am going to be able to go up against any Republican who they nominate.”

And here's longtime Clinton booster Taylor Marsh:

I'm getting quite a lot of heat these days for my posts on Mr. Obama. Frankly, I don't care because when a man running for office hasn't been vetted by the media or our own party, it's a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

The pertinent question is, "What could the Clinton camp possibly mean by this?" It certainly can't be the fabricated Rezko scandal, or the silly Exelon story, or the ridiculous charge about "present" votes, or the insulting "cult" insinuations, or the plagiarism charges, or his supposedly incomplete health care plan, or his supposed "lack of experience" in domestic or foreign policy. All of these are attacks are easily batted aside and debunked, of course--but more importantly, they've already been used by the Clinton campaign. Most of these broadsides are more influential with Democratic voters than with the general election; if hitting Obama with them hasn't sunk his presidential campaign in a Democratic Primary against an opponent with better name recognition who started off 20 points ahead in the polls, why should anyone believe that they'll stick in the general election?

Certainly she can't mean that Obama has yet-unseen skeletons in his closet. After all, she had to have been using at least some of the $140 million she wasted on oppo research. If the Clintons couldn't dig up serious dirt on Obama with over 13 months to run against him and most of the Democratic establishment until recently at their disposal, Democratic voters should not too afraid of what 9 months of Republican research in Obama's background will bring. Not to mention the fact that the Clintons' last seven years of financial dealings have not been vetted, as the disclosure of the $100 million Boratgate scandal reminds us. Add to that the fact that Clinton refuses to release her tax records until after the nomination has been secured and continues to resist releasing Clinton Library records, and it becomes a serious question who has more undisclosed skeletons in their closet (to say nothing of the numerous Clinton skeletons that have already been exposed and are lying all over the bedroom floor). That Hillary Clinton has survived rightwing assaults is no great shakes: surviving a challenge from Rick Lazio in bluer-than-blue New York is no more a badge of honor than Obama's beating Alan Keyes in Illinois.

No, the frustration and exasperation seen on the faces of the Clinton campaign and its supporters about Obama's supposed lack of vetting has nothing to do with scandal or experience: it's all about race and Muslim smears. This is an uncomfortable truth that was first pointed out by Bob Novak, of all people.

The Clinton camp is frustrated because they know that the "Black/Muslim" line is the only one they can't use in a Democratic Party without its blowing up in their faces. They also know it's the only one that has a prayer of working to smear Obama enough to stop his incredible grassroots movement and fundraising momentum. And as is typical of the DLC, weak-willed finger-in-the-wind bunker politics practiced by the Clintons and many of their backers, they believe that when Republicans use this strategy on Obama in the general election, it will destroy Obama and secure the nomination for John McCain.

But they couldn't come out and say that explicitly--not, at least, until the Clinton campaign became as desperate as they are today. Now that the Clinton camp is all but certain to lose the nomination, they are throwing all caution to the wind and actively going with the sort of campaign that they have been signaling with various dog-whistles that Republicans would be running: an overt strategy to paint Obama as a black African Muslim.

It is actually a boon to the Obama campaign to see Clinton begin this line of attack, especially after her ridiculous attempt to accuse Obama of having started the gutter politics first, right before she knew that she would be using the filthiest line possible against him. To the Obama campaign's credit, David Plouffe has has responded quickly and coherently to this tripe, which just goes to show that the Obama camp, as usual, is on its toes and ready to counter such vile fearmongering. The Clinton camp, in true Fox News fashion, is playing coy, neither affirming nor denying that they were behind the attack, but stating with extraordinary nerve that

We think it is wrong for the Obama campaign to say that this is divisive photo. It’s not a divisive photo.

This Rovian strategy of accusing the other camp of doing exactly what you intend to do, combined with appealing to the worst instincts of the American electorate, is exactly what Obama can expect to encounter from the Republican machine.

It is the final barrier; the final vetting. Clinton has hit Obama with every other attack possible but the Black/Muslim smear. This last is what Hillary means by "Obama isn't vetted." So let's vet him and get it over with. That neither Obama nor any of the other candidate shave gone this route against Clinton (e.g., Vince Foster or Chelsea Hubbell rumors) even when things looked hopeless for their campaigns is a testament to their collective character. Let us demonstrate once and for all who our friends really are in the Democratic Party.

And, more importantly, let us demonstrate that the American people can respond to the better angels of our nature and reject the gutter politics being pushed by the Clinton campaign just as surely as we can reject it from the Republicans.

Yes, we can.

Am I a Cult Member?

Am I a cult member? Jake Tapper seems to think so. The Guardian seems to think so. Many commenters here seem to think so.

One must, of course, admit that there has been more than a whiff of the euphoria of fervent aspiration among Obama supporters. It is certainly a phenomenon, a movement that has rarely been paralleled in American politics. Obama's message, his speeches, his policy platforms, and his personal charisma have been deeply inspiring to millions across America. But is there more to it than that? Is it about Obama--or is it about something else entirely?

One of the central tenets of a cult of personality is, by definition, that the cult disappears without the person behind the cult. Thus, by this thinking, if Obama himself were to die tomorrow and his candidacy disappear, there would be no movement. There would be no fervor, no animus, no euphoria. The cultists would, as though deprogrammed and removed from a trance-like state brought on by the sight and sound of the Obama wurlitzer, come to some "rational" support for another candidate--a candidate with a more pedestrian style perhaps, but with the hard-nosed experience to fight against Republicans.

The biggest problem with this thinking is not that the millions who have voted for Obama are too many to accurately describe as a cult, or that cults tend to be closed systems while political campaigns are not, or that cults utilize brainwashing tactics to recruit and retain their members (where's that secret Obama handshake?).

The biggest problem is that this movement--this phenomenon--was already in place. It was happening before Obama took it by the horns and ran with it. It has been growing and building since Howard Dean's candidacy gave progressive Democrats the will to believe, and provided a reason to hope for the future. And it has had many, many faces--Obama's is only the latest.

This movement is about CHANGE. Change from not only last eight years of Bushism, but from the previous eight years of Clintonism before that. It is about change from neoliberalism, from centrism (no, Obama's inclusivity is not centrism), from triangulation, from arguing over the same boomer battles from abortion to Vietraq year after year, from corporatism, from playing not to lose, from apathy. Change from the belief that we have to settle for the lesser of two evils. Change from the belief that the nice people at the top of the food chain will do what's best for all of us--whether that's supply-side economics, or a candidate who believes that LBJ's pulling the levers of power was more important than MLK's grassroots movement.

Obama didn't create this movement; he's just the last and most credible candidate left to harness it. Perhaps more importantly, it is a movement that cannot and will never have Hillary Clinton at its head--first female candidate or not. Not because of sexism against her first and maiden names, but because of anti-DLCism against her last name.

One way to demonstrate these twin points is by looking at candidate support on DailyKos over the past year. While acknowledging that Daily Kos readership is not the same as the Democratic electorate (obviously) or even Obama supporters in general, it is nevertheless indicative, in a broad sense, of the Netroots progressive movement that has been a key part of the "change" demographic since the rough-and-tumble days of Howard Dean and before. And since almost 80% of DailyKos readers now support Obama, they are at least somewhat indicative of a certain kind of very passionate and well-informed Obama booster.

Let us examine, then, the latest tabulated dkos straw poll results provided by Markos on 12/20/07:



What you will notice here is fairly obvious: Obama's support is a recent phenomenon. Obama support hovered on average around 25% of DailyKos all the way from February of 2007 until mid-December--even cratering to 16% as late as October. His fluctuating numbers are proof that many of his supporters were not so mesmerized by his personality that they didn't switch their support from him to other candidates--particularly Chris Dodd, who at that time and to this day showed himself a greater champion for progressive values and for change from the politics of the past than did Obama himself.

You will also notice something even more obvious to those who have paid any attention for the last year: DailyKos has historically been Edwards territory, not Obama territory--by wide margins, in fact.

You will also remember that many Kossacks (myself included) were holding out for Al Gore to enter the race, leading as many as 9% of voters to reject all of the candidates in the race in favor of the man who would not, unfortunately, end up running for more than an Oscar and a Nobel.

Most importantly, you may notice that in all these fluctuations, Hillary Clinton never broke the 11% barrier among those committed to this change movement. Not once. Even Bill Richardson (ugh) hit 13% at one point in May. But not Hillary.

Now let's examine the straw polls since then. Here we are on January 2, 2008 eve of the Iowa caucuses:



John Edwards reaches the height of his support at 48%. Obama has fallen to 27%. Dodd limps along with Dennis Kucinich at 4%. Hillary, the Democratic Default Candidate, stands at 8%--with 92% of 22,568 Kossack votes against her, spread out among various candidates.

But then came Obama's victory in Iowa. And after that came Hillary Clinton's surprising win in New Hampshire.

Now let's see what happens. From the straw poll taken on January 16:



By now several of the candidates (Dodd, Biden, Richardson) have dropped out of the race. Obama's momentum, stalled by his NH loss, has carried him to a 41% surge. Edwards' failure to take Iowa where he was putting all his marbles (combined with his dismal NH showing) deflates his support to 37%. In spite of Hillary's amazing New Hampshire victory being recently in the minds of poll-takers, Clinton once again hits only 11%--barely tying her highest mark to this point. With the first two states down, the "change" vote is split between two candidates--neither of whose supporters are yet being labeled cult members at this point.

Now let's move on to the latest straw poll to date, taken on January 30:



With Edwards out of the race, Obama has now taken a whopping 76% of 18,784 voters in the dkos poll; the die-hard supporters of dropped out change candidates plus Gravel account for 5%, putting the "change" vote at over 4-in-5 Kossacks and lurkers. As for Hillary? Once again, she stalls at 11%. Because Obama is the only credible candidate left to defeat the Clintons, all the support is now thrown his way.

-----------------------------------------

What all of this should tell you is that Obama's supporters aren't part of an Obama personality cult: they're part of a "Change" cult. A change cult that wants to end Clintonism almost as badly as it wants to end Republicanism. A "Change" cult that sways from one change candidate to another--be it Gore, Gravel, Edwards, Kucinich or Obama--but that is in no way motivated to switch its allegiance to a Clinton.

It is a movement that believes as much in itself as it does in its chosen candidate(s). It is a movement that needs no leader, no figurehead, no reason to exist beyond the courage of its own convictions and its own aspirations for a political future radically different from that of the past 30 years.

And this story is, in fact, my story. For months I held out in vain hope (get that word?) for Gore to jump into the race. His incredible book The Assault on Reason is in many ways my Progressive Bible, ranking right up there with Markos' own Crashing the Gate. I have never promoted Obama's books before; I have repeatedly promoted Gore's and Markos'. When it became clear that Gore would not enter and that he chose to make his mark in ways other than electoral politics and elections, I moved squarely into the undecided camp. I could not support Richardson or Kucinich for several reasons; Edwards bothered me, admittedly, for reasons that had much more to do with image and electability than with substance (perhaps I can write more about what I believe was wrong with Edwards' campaign when the flames of passion have died down here somewhat), while Obama's seemingly conciliatory rhetoric turned me off.

Like my good friend clammyc, I became a Dodd supporter because of his hard-nosed fights on our behalf. When I went to YearlyKos, it was Dodd I went to go see speak--not Obama. I still have the red wrist-tag somewhere to prove it.

But then, as it became clear that Dodd could not get traction for several reasons (again, grist for a diary someday), I moved into the undecided column again. As of two days before the Iowa Caucuses, I still couldn't make up my mind. And then, after leaning his direction for a while based on the movement he was building, this video sealed the deal for me and convinced me he would be the fighting candidate we need:



From this point on, my destiny was set. I signed up to become a precinct captain in my neighborhood; I went to Nevada where my suspicions about the lack of ethics of Clinton machine support were confirmed in ways that even I couldn't believe; and I've been turning out voters for Obama ever since.

Does that make me and the other 80% of Obama supporters here in the progressive grassroots members of a cult of personality?

Hardly. It makes all of us members of a Cult for Change: a cult that will continue to exist well beyond Obama's candidacy should it come to the same unfortunate end as Howard Dean's. A cult that will only with extreme reluctance unite behind Hillary Clinton as a nominee in order to end Republicanism (in the dual quest to end Republicanism and Clintonism, I guess I'll settle for 1 out of 2).

A cult that will not stop, come Republican or Democratic victories, until it has actually succeeded in creating the cultural transformations and political realignments demanded by the urgency of our times.

Congressional Democrats: Cynical Manipulators, not Spineless Cowards

Enough with the Congressional Democrats are weak meme already. Enough of this idea that Democrats cave to the slightest pressure from the GOP. Really--enough. It may be comforting to progressive bloggers to say that our leaders are weak and all will be well when we've replaced them or given them spine transplants. That would be a pleasant fiction. But it's about as far from the truth as Mike Gravel is from the presidency.

It's time to put that tired piece of conventional wisdom to rest--if for no other reason than so that we can address the real root of the problem and stop tilting at windmills.

I've said it before. Other diarists before me have said it better than I. When we vent about the unwillingness of our elected officials to stand up to the Republicans on everything from Iraq to telecom amnesty to subpoena enforcement to Executive Branch nominations to impeachment inquiries, we are barking up the wrong tree to call our Democrats "weak." "Capitulating", certainly. But not "weak."

Conventional wisdom says that our Dems are so afraid of their own shadows that they wouldn't dare risk letting Republicans slander them as weak on terrorism or inadequately patriotic. Conventional wisdom says that our Dems are too worried about the next election to stand up for the principles they believe in. Conventional wisdom says that our Dems have bought into the DLC line that this is a conservative country, and that only by running as conservative lite can they stay ahead of the game. Conventional wisdom says that our Dems are so poll-driven and focus group tested that authentic progressivism never shines forth to inspire the public.

Bullshit.

Let's be clear on something: our Democrats are perfectly well capable of standing up to Republicans--and even to the American people--when they damn well feel like it.

Exhibit A: Gay Rights. Even though the "Democrats Support Gays" angle is one of the few tactics the GOP have been able to play against Democrats with any sort of continued success, our House Dens were more than brave enough to pass an anti-discrimination bill protecting gays and lesbians from workplace discrimination. Certainly, this is a wonderful development for a long oppressed minority, for civil rights, and for the American Constitution. And yet, if Democrats were able to do this on such a contentious issue where the polling, while improving, is still marginal at best, why not on other issues like Iraq or healthcare where the polling is so much clearer?

Exhibit B: Illegal Immigration. Even though the GOP had limited electoral success this year playing the anti-immigrant card, the polling on this issue remains abysmal for Democrats. Whipped up by nativist media elements from Lou Dobbs to Pat Buchanan to every Republican racist hack with a deep fear of any skin color darker than porcelain, the American public is deeply anti-immigrant at this time. And yet, Democrats are somehow finding the spine and courage to promote (or at least hem and haw about) giving driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants--despite polls showing that 3 out of 4 Americans disapprove of the idea. During the major war over immigration earlier this year in which Congressional Republicans eventually caved to pressure from their base, Democrats were more than willing to take the unpopular position of so-called "amnesty."

The same goes for affirmative action programs, which have mixed support with the American public. And certainly, Democrats have no difficulty standing up and opposing the majority of Americans who want more progressive policies ranging from healthcare to foreign policy.

So what's the difference? Why do Democrats seem able to show such courage on some issues, but not on others? Why in god's name does Hillary Clinton find it easier to consider giving driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants than to promise universal health coverage for all Americans? Why in the world does Barack Obama find it easier to support gay rights than to support the speedy drawdown of American forces in Iraq? Why in all hell does Dianne Feinstein have no trouble supporting the difficult issue of abortion rights, but cannot find the will to oppose the simple issue of the Mukasey nomination--even though her next election is years away and no one will even remember or care what she did on Mukasey come 2010?

The answer is simple: they're not poll-driven cowards; they're cynical electioneering manipulators. Perhaps they're right to be; perhaps it's the best way when all is said and done. Perhaps the end of electoral victory justifies the means of cynical accommodation and capitulation in the short term. Who knows? But weak and cowardly they aren't.

The awful truth is that--all references to "do-nothing Congresses" aside--when the people are upset (and make no mistake: the people are plenty upset right now), they tend to blame those who hold the power. They don't tend to blame those who are--or at least seem to be--powerless. When the people want change they lash out at whoever appears to be in charge, pretty much regardless of who they are. When the people think the the country's on the wrong track, they're pretty much certain to throw out whoever looks like they're conducting the train.


In fact, to act at all in such a way that would demonstrate they have real power, would be to take responsibility for the absolute mess this country is currently in--from housing troubles to currency collapses to global warming issues to foreign policy disasters to a host of other troubles.

On the other hand, to fan the flames of public resentment against the current holders of power for perceived wrongs is nothing short of electoral gold. Republicans were brilliant about doing this for years in their role as a minority opposition party: they would successfully trash Democrats while offering no coherent solutions of their own beyond a culture of "I've got mine; screw you." It was only when forced to actually attempt to govern that Republicans ended up sowing the seeds of their own demise.

An important and utterly perverse corollary of these two premises is that, so long as we have an unpopular Republican president and a Democratic legislature, the Executive must be seen as overwhelmingly powerful compared to the Legislative for Democrats to win. So long as the public believes that Bush is driving the train and the Democrats are itching but unable to get into the driver's seat, the public will be so angry by November 2008 that they will toss Bush and anyone associated with him out of the driver's seat and put Democrats in charge. Thus, so long as Democrats keep their eye on electoral victory rather than on their oath of office, Article I of the Constitution is doomed to near irrelevance if not extinction.

Indeed, the only way (to the congressional mindset) to screw things up for electoral victory in '08 would be, ironically, to act and exercise their authority rather than to complain. Why defund the Occupation of Iraq and risk having the voters turn their scorn on you when/if things go badly, when you can simply fume impotently about the President's Iraq policy and keep the focus on him, instead? Why risk taking real action on healthcare and making people upset about whatever transition pains may take place, when you can simply get people riled up about their HMOs? Why impeach the Vice-President and risk focusing the spotlight on yourself, when it's so much easier to rage with feigned indignation at Cheney's latest abuse of power?

After all, as far as the Congressional mindset is concerned, the only mistake Congressional Republicans made during the Clinton years was actually going through with stalling the budget and impeaching Clinton, thereby making the election more about Gingrich than Clinton. Never mind that Clinton was more popular and a better politician and policy-maker than Gingrich: to your average strategist, the problem was that Gingrich became an issue at all.

And let's be clear: to defund the Occupation of Iraq or impeach the President shows that you have power. To promote equal rights for all couples or affirmative action programs shows that you care for the Constitution at best, or are pandering to specific demographics at worst.

The Democrats have no difficulty standing up to Republicans and public opinion to do the latter, but they have major issues doing the former.

They're not weak; they just want to win. Their strategy is to act as weak and helpless as possible so that the other guy takes the fall for the current and coming disasters.

And until we realize that that's what is going on, our exhortations to stand stronger against Republican depredations will continue to fall on deaf ears attuned not the needs of the American people, but rather to a concerted strategy aimed at 2008 victories through the path of least resistance.

How Dare *Republicans* Use Katrina for Electoral Gold?

As the next election season begins unfolds and the primaries get into full swing, it is natural to begin the process of writing epitaphs on the previous administration. This must be done, if for no other reason, than so that other campaigns can compare and contrast their prospective agendas with those that came before them.

In the case of the Bush Administration Worst Administration in History, the all-too familiar adjectives have already become shopworn: "Incompetent." "Misguided." "Reckless." "Misleading." "Stubborn." We who pay attention and aren't afraid to tell the truth, on the other hand, know better: Bush is not incompetent; he is, in fact, criminally negligent and pathologically corrupt. It is old hat for progressives at this point to say that we must continue to emphasize this point< in any way we can to demonstrate that the problem with the last 8 years is not a Bush Administration problem, but a problem of Republican ideology.

The Mississippi governor's race has given us yet another opportunity to do just that, in association with the debacle that did more to undo the Bush Presidency than the Occupation of Iraq: the criminally negligent response to Hurricane Katrina.

One would think that the issue of Katrina would be a political poison pill to Republicans. Not so in Mississippi, however, where recovery efforts and disaster response times have been much faster than in New Orleans. In Mississippi, the L.A. Times reports that current Republican governor Haley Barbour is trying to ride the issue of Katrina to re-election:

Haley Barbour, who impressed many with his quick disaster response [to Katrina], now hopes to ride that popularity to a second term...

Barbour, a former lobbyist and chairman of the Republican National Committee, is riding high in Mississippi, where he is widely considered to be the front-runner in Tuesday's election. Campaign finance reports from October showed him with nearly $6 million in cash on hand, compared with $23,000 for his Democratic rival, John Eaves.

Not only is this GOP machine operative who worked for Richard Nixon's 1968 campaign seemingly destined to cruise to re-election as Mississippi's governor, he's being touted as prime vice-presidential material--especially by the likes of Rudy Giuliani. Apparently, Giuliani's decision to place emergency anti-terrorism essentials in the top terrorist target, to fail to integrate emergency responders' communication equipment, and failure to address the concerns of poisonous particulates at the Ground Zero site makes him a perfect comparison with a governor who had the good fortune to have Trent Lott's porch within his territory.

And why would a Republican operative who used fiscal mismanagement as an excuse to cut tens of thousands of poor and elderly from Medicaid have the gall to run on Katrina, even if his response were effective? Well, first there's the partisan Rovian corruption involving federalization that Michael "Brownie" Brown, former head of FEMA, enlightened us about:

Brown, speaking at the Metropolitan College of New York, said he had recommended to President Bush that all 90,000 square miles along the Gulf Coast affected by the devastating hurricane be federalized, a term Brown explained as placing the federal government in charge of all agencies responding to the disaster.

"Unbeknownst to me, certain people in the White House were thinking, 'We had to federalize Louisiana because she's a white, female Democratic governor, and we have a chance to rub her nose in it,'" he said, without naming names. "'We can't do it to Haley [Barbour] because Haley's a white male Republican governor. And we can't do a thing to him. So we're just gonna federalize Louisiana.'"

And then there's the less directly overt but still insanely corrupt issue of reconstruction efforts. If you're a Republican, a little open graft never hurts:

The governor's critics, however, contend that his post-storm success was due largely to his Republican friends in Washington. Blanco, who did not seek a second term, has even alleged a "political conspiracy" in which GOP leaders in Washington stiffed Louisiana while lavishing money on Barbour's state...

The governor's supporters said they saw Mississippi shine where Louisiana stumbled. For one thing, Mississippians got their housing recovery money quicker. By January 2007, more than 10,000 Mississippi homeowners had received federal rebuilding grants from the program administered by their state. In Louisiana, fewer than 300 had received their money. (Louisiana officials say the comparison is unfair. Congress began fully funding Mississippi's program six months before theirs; Louisiana has since paid out more than 67,000 grants.)...

Few doubt that Barbour's Washington contacts paid off for Mississippi, especially before Republicans lost control of Congress in 2006. Until then, Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) had been chairman of the powerful appropriations committee...

By some measures, Mississippi received a disproportionate share of the federal aid for recovery from Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. A study funded by the Rockefeller Institute of Government found that Mississippi had 20% of the major or severe housing damage, but got 33% of the Community Development Block Grant funds. Louisiana had 67% of the damage and received 62% of those funds.

So here's the story: while Bush strummed his guitar and shared birthday cake with John McCain during th, the male former RNC head of a Red State gets to run his own show, get federal monies and assistance far in advance, use his contacts to pull strings, and finds a way to get much more money compared to its needs. He strides ahead in the polls and is on his way to running for the seat currently occuppied by Darth Cheney. And the people couldn't be more thrilled:

Look, I hate lobbyists," said Janet Densmore, 59, a Democrat from the hard-hit coastal city of Waveland. "But I've got to say that in the post-Katrina world, his connections benefited us quite a bit." Densmore was living in a government-provided trailer until September, when she moved into a tiny prefab Katrina Cottage as part of a program that Barbour championed. "And I'm proud of him for it," she said.

Meanwhile, the female Democratic governor of a blue state gets her power removed, is left helpless, gets federal funds in delayed manner, and receives fewer funds overall than needed. She will face a difficult re-election battle.

That's not what you call "misguided", "stubborn", "clueless" or "incompetent." That's what you call "criminally corrupt."

At the very least, if a Republican is going to dare run on Katrina of all things on a local level, the Republican Party as a whole should pay a price on a national level. The public should be reminded of just how competent the Bush Administration is in bestowing political favors to its cronies and allies, while letting the rest of America eat cake.

And that, when all is said and done, from Blackwater to Barbour, should be the final epitaph of this horrid Administration.