Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Kerry @ Faneuil Hall: You and what army?

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I don't know if this is the kind of message that will resonate in the general 2008 Presidential campaign, but at the very least it seems to be part of the Zeitgeist, in a way that didn't seem to be the case in 2000 or even 2004, when Kerry somewhat tinnily railed against “Benedict Arnold CEOs” moving jobs overseas. But I think Kerry and Edwards may be on to something this time: people are starting to really feel the effects of a government that nakedly serves the interests of a plutocracy. When folks are hit by the effects of high health care costs, or student loans, or a rapacious subprime mortgage industry, or insurers that won't insure when the hurricane hits, they naturally look to the government to play referee. From the Enron scandal to Katrina on through to SCHIP, the Bush administration has shown again and again that it is simply not in the business of protecting people without money and power — that's just not where its priorities lie. This administration –aided by a bought-and-paid-for Congress — exists to turn the government into an ATM for corporate interests. That John Q Public might be helped in the process is either totally incidental, or a flimsy cover for masive looting: 20 for me, one for you. (cf. Medicare Part D.)

I doubt the media will understand this, and I have little doubt that like John Edwards, Kerry's own personal wealth will be perversely seized upon as a sign of his “hypocrisy” — Gosh, how can a rich guy say all that? (I shouldn't need to say that this objection is nonsensical.) After all, our corporate pundits have long mocked “populist anger” as the bad breath of so many ill-bred, pitchfork-wielding peasants — or as the down-market hobby of a privileged poseur elite. But this perception is reinforced by the pattern that genuinely populist ideas have so little purchase in the halls of Congress, precisely because populists are not concerned with making nice with moneyed interests. Witness the fact that single-payer health care — a perfectly fair, equitable, and workable idea in theory and in practice — is still considered an absolute fantasy because it cuts the insurance industry out of the deal. Never mind that 47 million people have been cut out of the deal under the current system: They don't write $2300 checks, and they don't have lobbyists, and so they don't count.And when Hillary Clinton wanly defends the influence of special interests, this is treated by the media with a yawn.  That's just how things work, don't-you-know. And Hillary is even applauded for “understanding how Washington works”, with no consideration for how it ought to work. To our punditariat, a populist anti-corporate tone is assumed to be prima facie evidence of a “lack of realism.” How odd. 

When was the last time you saw an idea floated in Congress that truly embodied a utilitarian principle — that is, that sacrificed the gain of a few in order to help a much larger number of people? Such a thing is rare, or non-existent. Our professional media so often finds it easier to cover the machinations of money-power in government, than to cover those overpowered by special-interest politics. It's Godzilla vs. Mothra politics: All the action is happening way above your head; and yeah, you might get crushed by falling debris but there's nothing you can do about it.

At some point, there's going to be a point at which the voting public takes stock and notices that we're not getting ahead, that the rules are stacked in someone else's favor — and against the rest of us. But this new populism needs to seem plausible. For people to buy a ticket to the game, there has to be a chance the good guys could actually win. And that will require a widespread change in public attitudes. Or … if we're hearing it from our politicians so much now, maybe the change has already happened.

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  1. Why do Democrats continue to listen to this boob?

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    Why is it that whenever Democrats angrily divide the world into us and them, I feel like a them, even though, by all rights, I should be an us?

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    I didn’t work for Al Gore, it didn’t work for Shannon O’Brien. It pleases no one other than the remaining trade union members with actual jobs.

    • Are you a pundit CMD?

       To our punditariat, a populist anti-corporate tone is assumed to be prima facie evidence of a “lack of realism.” How odd.

      I think populism is a message and a movement whose time has come. 

        • since young elites are usually taught by old elites.

           

          In fact, just this morning talk radio was howling about how SCHIP was the latest battle of an ongoing Class War where “unemployed couch potatoes” are forcing “working people” to pay their medical bills. 

          What better evidence of an emerging populist movement than a hysterical reactionary response? 

          • Must be real happy with the fact that the democratic party wants them to pay for our failed fiscal responsibility and the upcoming social security debacle—-once they all get their green cards that is. Talk about a disincentive to go go the USA tax rolls.

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            time for a national sales tax. Everyone can get screwed equally—share the pain!

    • I’ve been thinking a lot about your comments both here and on anti-war stuff.

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      It’s as if you are warm to lots of liberal positions but temperamentally dislike all the standard ways of expressing those positions: anti-war without moral outrage, economic justice without appeals to populism.

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      Is there no pleasing you? Are you preferences inexpressible? Or how would you advocate for a government less beholden to narrow corporate interests?

      • Not by the political parties as presently configured anyway.

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        You are correct that I am tempermentally conservative, though more often than not I arrive at liberal conclusions.  So, yes, I have little patience with sanctimonious progressives, even when, perhaps especially when, I agree with them.

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        With respect to the war, I am well aware of the degree of damage that has been done by the present administration, and the potential for further damage until 2009.  The next administration has some serious, significant salvage work to do, on any number of fronts.

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        The problem is that I am not at all sure that the Democrats will prove capable of this salvage work.  It is becoming increasingly clear that the Democratic Party is coming under the sway of so-called “peace activists” whom I perceive to be no more rooted in reality than the dolts presently setting our foreign policy.  Just being opposed to Bush et al. is not enough.

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        In all liklihood, the next President is going to need to take a hawkish stance with a confident and newly aggressive Iran, and if the circumstances of her election prevents her from doing this, it will be a problem.  In addition, I am suspicious that pacifism within the Democratic Party could undermine whatever is left of the mission in Afghanistan after inauguration day.

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        With respect to the above post, my reaction to progessives muttering darkly about corporations is not unlike my reaction to religious conservatives muttering darkly about NARAL: I think you’re all nuts.  It is not at all clear to me that corporations have “too much influence” over politics, absent outright corruption that is, see Abramoff, Jack, already illegal.  This position is the one often espused by those who, say, are opposed to casionos because it will benefit a corporation.  Corporate money flows to the already influential politician, but doesn’t make a nobody into a contender.

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        Finally, when I hear Shrummish “people versus the powerful, lets go get ’em” what I really hear is “We’re going to tax those whom are neither powerful nor powerless until they weep.”

        • OK, but just being opposed to sanctimonious peace activists isn’t enough, either.

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          And I have to say the rest of your post follows the pattern KBusch has noticed. I feel the “pox on both your houses” attitude, I really do. But we want to know what you positively believe; what you think the way forward is. And from this post, I still don’t know.

          • I assume you mean Iraq.  I don’t think there is a definitive way forward.  Trying to formulate a ten point plan is a fruitless enterprise because the tem pints will be obsolete before point 1 is finished. Frankly, to the extent that any candidate has a “solution,” they are blowing smoke.

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            So I guess my approach would be to get our foot off the gas. And, stop making policy based on “belief” regardless of whether one simply believes that it was right to invade, or believes that it was wrong.

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            Disengage, but do not withdraw outright (which would just creat a power vacuum)– perhaps to the desert or “over the horizon.”  Then, wait for an opportunity to present itself.  We’ll need a POTUS with the judgment to recognize that opportunity when it comes, even if that opportunity is something other than an abject apology for all of our misdeeds.

        • I take

          You are correct that I am tempermentally conservative, though more often than not I arrive at liberal conclusions.  So, yes, I have little patience with sanctimonious progressives, even when, perhaps especially when, I agree with them.

          as agreeing with me and stating it better than I stated it. Thank you.

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          During the Vietnam War, there was a significant pacifist tendency. I don’t detect similar pacifism now.

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          As I recall, you did detect it relative to the Afghani invasion; however some of that was based on the very real possibility of screwing up Afghanistan again. And in fact, we’ve screwed up Afghanistan again with Mullah Omar getting invitations to rejoin the government.

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          Where are you detecting this threat? Certainly from no one Congressional.

          • You are right that pacifism is not as explicit now as is was during and after Vietnam.

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            To, me, several things suggests that it is lurking out of sight.

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            One, the tenor of the “end the war” movement.  Many people justifiably opposed intervention in Iraq because it would, and did, create a sideahow from where the real action is in Afghanistan and Pakiston.  In my view, this was probably the single greatest reason that the intervention was error. So, admist all of the talk about withdrawal, how much, and when, I would expect to hear some significant discussion of redeployment of resources to Afghanistan, and have not.  Rather, withdrawn troops are to be supported by “bringing them home, now.”

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            Two, the stridency of the “Admit you were wrong!” demand regarding AUMF.  Although it has let up a bit, this kind of “debate” strikes me as nothing other than an attempt to enforce dovish orthodoxy, especially as used as a cudgel against HRC.

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            Three, the rising power of the left wing of the party.  Maybe my perception of this is skewed because I read too much of this blog.  But I don’t think so.  Ned Lamont, the decline of the DLC, etc.  It sure seems like the party is tacking leftward in a campus-liberal direction, and those are the folks who, in my view, are least likely (at least among Democrats) to espouse a realistic view of foreign affairs and national security policy.

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            Admittedly, the stronger candidates are staying moderate.  Obama in particular won big points from me by acknowledging the possibility of a hawkish response regarding Pakistan’s tribal areas.  But Obama and HRC are taking more fire from their left flank than any real contender has for many years–maybe since Jesse Jackson ran.  So I think the party is moving left under the feet of those major candidates.

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            Why is this a big deal for me?  One thing –maybe the only thing–that the present administration did right was to perceive that we are involved in assymetric warfare with Islamic extremism.  They have badly bungled strategically and tactically at every step along the way, but the original insight is, IMO, true.  Even if the next administration fixes the strategic and tactical blunders, if they do not share this insight then we may not be as well off as we should be.

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            On the left, it seems to me that instead of a view that we are engaged in warfare with Islamic extremism, there is a growing view that Islamic extremism is a simple–on the very far left, justifiable– byproduct of US support of Israel vis a vis the Palestinians.  That is, Islamists aren’t bad people, they’re just reacting naturally to our support for their oppressors.  This view has been prevalent among Greens, and for awhile was manifested odiously in Massachusetts own Green Party.  To the extent that this worldview percolates up into the national Democratic Party, it will be no less damaging to our national interests than neoconservatism has proved to be.

            • During the Vietnam War, there was a tremendous amount of moral outrage among opponents. Napalm, tiger cages, bombed dikes, and Operation Phoenix really did inspire outrage. The media were there to cover more of it.

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              During the Bush Administration, conventional wisdom has been remarkably slow to acknowledge the radicalism, ultra-partisanship, and disregard for truth that have characterized the Bush Administration. We on the left have been shouting “Don’t you see what’s happening to us!” for a few years. That’s the light in which I understand the obsession with the AUMF votes: people who voted for the AUMF were acting as if Gore were President.

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              Neutral observers would not say that Islamic extremism is a simple, justifiable byproduct of US support of Israel vis a vis the Palestinians. However, such observers would notice lots of coverage of the grinding down of Palestinians in the Arab press. The dynamic has certainly contributed to radicalization. The neoconservatives who run our foreign policy have done nothing to mitigate it. So we have an area that we are messing up royally. Overheated rhetoric shouldn’t surprise you, but it won’t win the Massachusetts Green Party any House seats.

              • “Treating the vote as if Gore were president.”  That is interesting, and probably accurate.  Of course, Gore would not likely have been able to play the heavy as well as Bush did.  Alas, Bush apparently still doesn’t know that the leverage supplied by the threat of force is greater than the leverage supplied by the force itself.

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                I’m not saying that the Mass Green party line circa 2005 is becoming the Democratic platform.  (BTW, the position at that time was to refuse to use the word “Israel” because that word suggested that the “zionist colonial entity” should exist.) Far from it: the heavy hitters are Obama and HRC, and they are holding the left at arm’s length, and Edwards isn’t exactly surging out there on the left.

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                I am saying that the Democratic mainstream–which really is independent of the presidential primaries– seems to be moving leftward, seemingly in a direction that would make those Green Party positions at least less marginal.

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                The reaction of the 1960s anti-war movement to the outrages you mention, among others, was to specifically identify with the other side.  There is still a profile of Ho Chi Minh on the SE Expressway, and Jane Fonda actually went to Hanoi for a propaganda visit.  It is still fashionable to wear a Che Guevara t-shirt.  At the time, this was a marginal portion of the Democratic party, if they were part of the party at all.  After 1968, and especially after 1972, anti-war could combine potently with anti-Nixon, and the assimilation of this kind of anti-war activism into the party caused, was caused by, or was coincident with the party’s leftward shift.  This identification with No. Vietnam was unfortunate.

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                I am suspicious of a similar dynamic in 2008 or 2012 (if HRC doesn’t withdraw fast enough).  The president of Columbia was roundly scolded by the “netroots” for being mean to the Iranian president whose name I cannot spell.  Even Saddam got the soft focus treatment from Michael Moore.  The Green Party thing already mentioned.

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                It is not that I disagree with the anti-war movement regarding Iraq.  I have belatedly concluded that they are right, and that the only way to salvage anything there is to remove the irritant that is active engagement by US forces.  I worry, however, that they reach this correct conclusion for horribly misguided reasons which could ultimately lead to horribly misguided decisions down the road.

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                Again, my greatest arguments with the left are over issues in which we agree.

    • How about this quote from Teddy Roosevelt:

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      “Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.”

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      Sounds pretty populist to me.

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      One thing that I always try to keep in mind is that populists aren’t always right when they divide the country into two camps … but they’re not always wrong, either.

      • Populism is not inheriently divisive.  Especially economic populism.  The message that “We'll do better if the working class sticks together and supports each other to improve the state of working America” is not really divisive because the line of division seperates millions of americans on one side from only a few (albeit a very powerful few) thousand people on the other side.  You can't really call that divisive in the same sense that Rovian tactics of the last few elections have been divisive.

         

        For instance, you can't call that divisive in the same spirit in which opponants of the Iraqi occupation are accused of sympathizing with terrorists. 

          • I've observed that simplicity has a unique appeal to certain demographics.  This definition will suffice.  If you're not a trust fund baby or able to make a sustainable income solely off of accumulated wealth, you are working class.  The exception is retirees, who are living off of the product of their life's work.

              • Something tells me that either of those people could manage a sustainable income from their accumulated wealth.

                • Neither inherited their money.  They worked, built businesses, and still earn a salary.

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                  You want working class to exclude rich.  Fair enough, but you cannot say it encompasses all who work for a living.

                • They work out of bordom, or prestige, or inspiration, or some other reason.  But you could not say that these guys get up each day and slog it out to keep food on the table, pay the mortgage, health insurance and keep keeping on.   Thay don't have to work at all.  

                • they were working class.  When work was no longer neccessary, they became a part of the leisure class.  That's called social mobility. 

              • is a different reality than living off of your paycheck.

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                apply this test: if you can go without drawing off of a paycheck or salary for six months for whatever reason, than you’re probably not working class.

        • Populism != division per se (5.00 / 1)

          Populism is not inheriently divisive.  Especially economic populism.  The message that “We’ll do better if the working class sticks together and supports each other to improve the state of working America” is not really divisive because the line of division seperates millions of americans on one side from only a few (albeit a very powerful few) thousand people on the other side.  You can’t really call that divisive in the same sense that Rovian tactics of the last few elections have been divisive

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          Populism is often a reaction to division. It is not itself divise, that’s true, but often it is a reaction to glaring, and painful, divisions. Economic divisions being the clearest form of class and social communications. That’s why it’s called ‘populism’… when the interests of the people (from the latin populus) diverge from the interests of the rulers of those people.

    • Populism, if that is what this is, is pretty much the opposite of what the consultariate agrees is “viable” today. FDR, in their view, wouldn’t stand a change. Hey, in today’s ginned-up polity maybe they are right.

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      But I think Shrum and co. would agree more with CentralMassDad than with Kerry. (Or if you like, let’s call Shrum’s stuff faux populism, populism by focus group, populism as a gimmick, and agree to hell with that.)

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      Charlie’s question–“Is it in touch with ‘political reality'”–contains its own limitation. If you have to ask it the answer is probably no.

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      To be sure one way that political movements win is by gaging “political reality” correctly and responding appropriately. But the other way is to change political reality by asserting truth and, of course, mobilizing people and votes behind it.

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      My only critique of the first way is that “political reality” as we know it has played itself out into a cul de sac of war and intractable problems. Time for one of those generational shifts, I say.

      • Kerry did indeed use “revolutionary” language in the speech: 

        We need fundamental change — not bite sized ideas that are poll tested, sound-bite ready and destined to be mere footnotes to the times we live in. It's time we end the era of incrementalism and begin a bold new age in progressive politics.

        So, I think he's down with a “generational shift”, as you say. My central question is whether people and votes are indeed being mobilized behind it. I don't have a strong feeling for that one way or the other. It's hard to activate feelings of populist anger without also activating feelings of despair. 

        Both populism and “realism” (for lack of a better word) have their costs: This new populism runs the risk of making one sound quixotic, like you'll never actually get what you advocate for. On the other hand, a kind of cold “realism” — cutting special interests in on the deal, or actually letting them fight it out amongst themselves — makes one a sell-out.

        So I'm on board with the “what” of a new populism, but I sure am curious about the “how.” That's not just going to take care of itself somehow. Pols are going to need to feel very, very comfortable with their populist backing to consistently vote against special interests in any number of areas.

  2. I’m bewildered by the necessity of “pundits” to separate the populist movement from all other political movements, causes or issues.  All politics is modern politics – it’s not “what have you done for me yesterday,” nor “what can you do for me tomorrow?”  Instead, it’s always “what can you do for me right now“.  To that end, whatever your cause, or whatever issue sways you, it has some populist theme to it.  The anti-war movement is populist to the extent the poor pay a disproportionate price.  The health care movement is populist.  People concerned about college costs are pushing a populist issue.  All these issues could be considered populist issues to one extent or another. 

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    You would think that liberals have the market cornered on populist themes, but even the Republicans got on board this decade by slashing taxes for the wealthy and calling it “tax relief.”  The issue of “framing” has been discussed on these boards ad naseum, but all that framing has done is help us talk about issues in a more populist way.

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    I think Charlie’s right about this particular election.  Populist themes take root in the American consciousness to the extent that people feel they’re being left behind.  How many American’s can really say they’re not living paycheck-to-paycheck right now, or that they’re not one major health emergency away from crisis at any given time?  In 2000, people felt economically secure.  In 2007, the last recession is very recent memory, and now economic experts are talking about another.  The environment may be just right for the electorate to hear the populist message.

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    Here, I think the issue isn’t so much the message as the messanger.  For whatever reason, when John Kerry starts (rightfully) talking about the haves and the have-nots in this country, perfectly reasonable middle-class, middle-of-the-spectrum guys like CMD reflexively come to the defense of the haves.  And I wish I could put my finger on exactly why.  Maybe it’s because Senator Kerry comes off as disingenuous.  Maybe it’s because we now know he was opposed in 1996 to raising the minimum wage.  Or perhaps its because his championship of the poor and middle-class seems convenient and calculated rather than natural.  But when Bill Clinton said he felt our pain, we believed him, even though he himself wasn’t all that progressive.  When John Kerry says it, we recoil.

    • those feelings especially when they are reinforced by the the media.  Right now it is fashionable to criticize how Kerry comes off.  When Al Gore was making liberal (ne progressive) speeches in 2000 the media spun him as bloviatng and therefore phony.  That is the same thing that happened to Ted Kennedy in 1980.  As someone who has been watching politcal speeches since I was a kid and Nixon made everyone feel bad for him and his dog I distrust these impressions of genuiness/disingenuousness. 

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      The George Bush of the 2000 came off as very genuine.  John Kerry’s style is what it is.  He has been talking about these issues for a long time.  He was Robert Drinan’s campaign manager and you cant get more dedicate to social justice than Robert Drinan was. 

      • that same thing happened to Kennedy in 1980 because he was being somewhat “phony” to the extent that the real Ted Kennedy didn’t come out until the end of the campaign, culminating in his speech at the convention.

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        I wasn’t (necessarily) saying that Kerry is phony, I said that people (unenrolled voters) don’t respond to populism coming from him. 

  3. John Kerry actually wrote the original bill that became S-CHIP. 

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    In 2005, Kerry made a bold move on CAFTA that won the support of Labor.

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    Today’s speech was excellent.

  4. I would certainly agree that one’s wealth does not negate one’s populism. However, I do think that Senator Kerry’s newfound populism is a situation of too little, too late. Where was his populism in 2004? Or 2000? or 1998? Or any other time?

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    I think what bothers me most in this situation is that, although I believe people can and do change their positions over time, Kerry’s remarks seem more calculated than heartfelt. I had similar feelings in 2000 when Al Gore suddenly became Mr. People Versus the Powerful.

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    I think that Edwards is a little better positioned to make this argument than Kerry (granted, I am an Edwards supporter and biased). At least Edwards grew up as one of “us”- worked his way through a public university and law school, fought for victims of medical malpractice, etc.

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    To be clear, I do not think that privileged people like Kerry or Gore cannot be, or become, populists. I just feel that folks like Edwards, who grew up well outside of the elite confines of prep schools and Ivy League universities, provide a much more credible vehicle for the populist message.

    • if you were someone who was about to go bankrupt due to medical bills, would you care whether the leader who changed the system to save you was calculating or heartfelt?

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      Whatever politicians feel, they make promises to voters, and they have to deliver policies–one way or another–to keep voters’ favor.  In 1992, Bill Clinton ran on populism, and while he did cut the welfare programs that help people who are down on their luck get up on their feet, he also expanded the earned income tax credit and raised the minimum wage enough that lower income voters felt he was helping them out, so they voted for him.  Even if he was just thinking about McDonald’s fries the whole time he signed the bills into law, it was the results he got that mattered.

    • the positions of Democrats humble origins rather than the merits of the issues Barack Obama would be the one who would be in a better position to talk about social justice and economic issues than Edwards.  My preference is that when a politician gets on the right side issues like Kerry did today is to support them

    • Two points I would like to make.

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      First, if/when Kerry leads and is responsible for changing the system, I will be the first to thank him. Speeches will not change the system, actions will. And so I will reserve my accolades until Kerry follows through on his words. Otherwise, it is just empty rhetoric.

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      Second, I do agree that we ought to support politicians who get on the right side of issues. But just because someone comes around to the right side does not mean we ought to mute our criticism, including questioning their motives.

      • For a member of Congress, I don’t know what the heck this means. All that members of Congress can do is run and around and convince folks of stuff. Senator Kerry lacks executive authority — because he lost in 2004.

      • but try and gauge how worthy they are of our time, money and trust. It is necessary and right to ask why, if the fabulously wealthy Edwards was working for a hedge fund to learn about hedge funds’ connection to poverty, he had to take a nearly half-million-dollar salary. (Or, more basically, why was he really working for the hedge fund?) Or why Obama was doing land deals with indicted (PDF) Chicago developer and Illinois political insider Tony Rezko, now awaiting trial. Or why he mouths off about cynicism being our worst enemy while relying on a highly technical definition of the term “registered Washington lobbyist” to carry off his self-mythologized above-it-all-ness.

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        And these are my top two choices for the nomination!

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        But they, like all top-tier candidates, must be well-practiced obfuscators, dodgers, panderers, Slick Willies, et cetera. It’s our obligation to know this and to hope that the parts of their platforms that really attract us are the ones they’re telling the truth about. It’s a leap of faith in the end, but it doesn’t demand that we refrain from calling bullshit when appropriate.

  5. He [Kerry] spoke passionately….

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    Of all the lies I’ve ever seen on this blog, saying that John Kerry spoke passionately has to be one of the worst.

      • No, I was not there. I was, however, in NH for months working for Kerry in the Presidential. The few times I ddi sleep it was on floors, rugs and lumpy futons. I had a diet of pizza, soda and potato chips. I worked very hard to get him elected President.

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        What I found was basically this – the only thing John Kerry has to fear is John Kerry himself.

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        At the end of the day John Kerry is only slightly more passionate than a pumpkin,… three months old… rotting in the snow.

      • *[new]  Lost art of sarcasm  (0.00 / 0)

        Wow, by the ratings I gather that sarcasm toward our junior senator is taboo. I freakin’ worked my ass off for the guy,

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        Just ’cause you wanna be sarcastic, doesn’t mean you’re good at it.

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        he flubbed it and I can’t fun of the guy?

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        He didn’t flub a thing and no, you can’t make make fun of him. Why? Because your passive aggressive attempts at making fun… aren’t fun

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        Even with my disdain for the guy I was one of the few who suggested he shouldn’t be held responsible for the kid that got tasered. Sheesh.

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        If you landed here expecting us to genuflect at all your hardwork and dedication, not to mention your superior political acumen, I might just hafta open up a real can of sarcasm on you…

  6. about this kind of message, IMHO, is that the people delivering it don’t always adopt the positions that it would seem to lead to.  Universal single-payer health care is the most obvious example.  If Kerry, Edwards, and the rest of the “new populists” are serious about health care, why not go for it?  Why is it left to the Dennis Kuciniches of the world to advocate for what most people who study the issue seriously have recognized is probably the best solution, and is the only one that really will cover everyone?

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    Gay marriage — another excellent example.  John Edwards talked at the debate the other night about how even his wife and his daughter are miles ahead of him on this issue.  What’s his problem?  Kerry — same question.  What’s the problem?

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    So I’d venture that we’re not hearing it from our politicians now.  We’re hearing the words, but there’s not enough behind them.  They’re talking the talk, which is a good step, but they’re not yet walking the walk.

    • It’s relatively easy to identify problems and rail against them. It’s hard to propose solutions. Kerry’s speech was populist in identifying the parts of the Bush/GOP record that ought to be rolled back. But the forward-looking part was pretty vague on the details, and “the lobbyist is in the details”, so to speak.

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      Anyway, I hope they post it, ‘cuz I’m not going to type in the whole thing.

      • Thank you for coming.  Gathering here is special – Faneuil Hall is more than an historic building. This birthplace of American freedom has also been a keeper of the American conscience. Here, where we assemble today, abolitionists dreamed of and demanded a nation that would live out its founding ideal that all are created equal. From the fight for women’s suffrage to the fight against Fascism, from McCarthyism to civil rights to Vietnam, these walls have rung with words of honor, dissent, courage, and principle.

        In the last decades, we’ve worked hard to live up to that heritage even if sometimes we’ve fallen short of it-or of victory. I began my presidential campaign here – and three years ago next month, I ended it here, and yes, the loss still exacts its price.

        And I’m not talking about me.  I’m talking about all the hard working families whose lives would’ve been better, all the young American soldiers whose lives were and are on the line, and all those-here and across the world-who yearn to see America move in a new direction. 

        So on that hard November afternoon, I had no doubt of one thing: my resolve, as I said then, “that what we started in this campaign will not end here.” I pledged that, rather than walk away, “in the years ahead” in whatever was ahead for me, I would “fight on for the people and for the principles that I’ve learned and lived with here in Massachusetts.” And that’s exactly what together we are doing.

        That is why, with actions not words, on the floor of the Senate last week, we reminded Rush Limbaugh and all those who think patriotism belongs to one political party, that just saying you support the troops doesn’t make it so. You don’t support the troops if you force their families to take up a collection to buy body armor for a son or daughter in the service, you don’t support the troops if you deny veterans health care, no – you support the troops by doing what it took a Democratic Senate to do in the last months and just last week: pass my amendment to fund the vet centers that help returning soldiers heal PTSD and the hidden wounds of war, and make sure that for a generation of veterans returning home with eye injuries, their government will guarantee they get treated. That’s how you keep faith with those who wear the uniform of our country. 

        Again and again since then, I have returned here to address the great issues facing our country. 

        In this hall, we’ve talked about the need to end a war in Iraq that was rooted in deception and waged with self-deception.  I argued here and in the Senate and across the country that we will be stronger when we stop a policy that has not weakened terrorism but worsened it, and when we stop helping attract Al Qaeda where it wasn’t, in Iraq, and instead fight Al Qaeda where it plotted and planned the attacks of 9/11. And here again we continue to fight to make America safer not by perpetuating a broken policy for the sake of politicians’ pride, but by pursuing diplomacy to end an Iraqi civil war and bring our heroes home from the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time

        Last April, I returned here to defend the deeply American principle that dissent is not a danger-but the very safeguard of democracy.  That it is right to stand up to a President who ignores the Constitution and a Vice President who acts as if he had never read it – to insist that our leaders are strongest when they believe the future belongs not to fear but to freedom. We reaffirm today: America is strongest when we don’t just tolerate free speech-but listen to it.

        I also joined you here to set out a strategy to make America energy independent – to propose specific steps for an energy revolution as far-reaching as the industrial revolution-a revolution that can not only light our land, but protect our air, our water, and our environment – a new America that relies on its ingenuity and innovation, not the Saudi royal family.

        And I came here to discuss health care – the great unfinished business of half a century a fundamental moral commitment that at long last must be kept.

        These are the great challenges of our time, and they deserve a President committed to meet them head-on. 

        Today we return to Faneuil Hall-this time in keeping with this building’s first and founding contribution to the American nation. This is where America’s first middle class gathered-Boston merchants, mechanics, printers and craftsmen-they came here because they were fed up with a leader named “King George.”  Fed up with rule from an ocean away, that seemed as remote then as Dick Cheney’s undisclosed locations do today. 

        They believed that rather than the rules working for them, improving their lives, they were working for the rulers -and that a distant government was doing the bidding of the powerful few-not the people who paid the taxes and played by the rules.

        Sound familiar?  Well I think so, too.  And just as it did then, it’s going to take more than a tea party to put this country and our economy back on course. 

        Today we’re in the middle of another revolution – a whirlwind of technological innovation that constantly shrinks our world, widens our horizons, and flattens out global competition.  We’ve heard a thousand times how we live in a “new economy”- but we remain prisoners of old economics: Regulators that don’t regulate. Politicians who say education is the key, but make educators beg for the resources to open that door.  A growth in GDP, but a larger growth in inequality.  A middle class steadily falling behind. And trickle-down tax cuts for the rich that left most Americans feeling trickled on. 

        Ten years ago, we were ending a decade of sustained prosperity in which middle-class Americans, and particularly minority Americans, made big gains in real income and wealth.  Those were the Clinton years.  Now we are in the middle of an era of not only stagnant real incomes for most Americans but a vast erosion of benefits and security.  These are the Bush years-good for Halliburton and Blackwater, and bad for hardworking Americans.

        Ten years ago, we were talking about retiring the national debt.  Now we are talking about public and private debts of an unprecedented magnitude, financed by foreign governments which can hold our economy hostage-or buy it up piece by piece.  That is the Bush legacy to America’s economy.

        Ten years ago when the tech bubble burst, the losses were mainly on paper.  Now our losses are in homes, health care, pensions, and jobs.  A decade ago, investors lost the illusion of pain-free, perpetual super-profits.  Today we are ridding ourselves of the Cheney illusion that “deficits don’t matter,” and the Bush illusion that you can borrow, deregulate, devalue and subsidize your way to growth by letting moneyed interests feed at the trough of government favors and borrowed money.  That is Bushonomics: those at the top get the benefit.  You and future generations get stuck with the bill. 

        But there is more here than just a partisan divide.  For too long, Washington has been caught in old debates – Democrats forced to defend the gains of the twentieth century against Republicans determined to take us back to the nineteenth century. And while politicians debate whether to move left or right, too little is being done to move the middle class forward.

        We’re now as many years away from the New Deal as the New Deal was from the Civil War.  But we’ve been responding to transformations in our economy with tinkering around the edges of past policies.  It is now time for progressives to match Franklin Roosevelt’s vision, not just mimic his rhetoric.

        We need fundamental change- not bite sized ideas that are poll tested, sound-bite ready and destined to be mere footnotes to the times we live in. It’s time we end the era of incrementalism and begin a bold new age in progressive politics.

        We can’t have the economy Americans deserve unless we finally have what we should’ve had for decades and generations: universal health care for all. And we need that not just for the health and moral benefit to our citizens, but because that is the only way to streamline and liberate our economy.

        This can’t be just a plan in a campaign – another political box to be checked off.  It has to be a top priority for the next President and the next Congress- and it must become a reality for every American family. 

        Today’s broken system is an economic disaster. It forces businesses into untenable choices: the GM model of crushing health care costs and the Wal-Mart model of minimal or no health coverage at all.  The public message to business right now is cut coverage at home, or go to China where you don’t have to give your workers health care at all. 

        Our current system is offering more and more middle-class Americans the equally lousy choice of clawing to hold onto inadequate insurance at skyrocketing prices, or simply praying for good health.  Real leadership should be making the system efficient and effective, and making American businesses competitive at the same time. 

        Truly universal health care is the way, and the only way, forward for businesses and families alike.  I’m proud that every Democratic candidate for President is – without exception – committed to that goal, as I was in 2004.  And I can’t help noting that Mitt Romney, the only Republican who’s even lifted a finger in that direction-where the wind was already blowing strong, right here in Massachusetts-is running away from his own record so fast that it seems he was for his health care plan before he was against it.  In fact, he seems to have turned away from his own record so fast he’s going to need a good health care plan to treat him for whiplash.

        The progressive economic agenda of our time must also demand and deliver energy independence, and an answer to climate change as serious-as real-as the problem itself.  After years of evasion and denial, George Bush and his administration now pay lip service to the issue, but the rules are still being written in the Vice President’s office, by the special interests, for the special interests, to serve the special interests.  It’s time to worry about the next generation’s world, not the next quarter’s bloated profits for big oil. 

        Every economist tells us that clean energy will be one of the most dominant drivers of economic growth in this century.  But Washington still hasn’t figured out how to make that an American century.  After years of denial and delay from this Administration, these green jobs are being created in places like Germany and Japan.  The choice is simple: we can lead or be left behind.  The apologists of the status quo say we cannot afford to act on carbon emissions.  The inescapable truth is that we cannot afford not to act. We cannot accept an America mired in fossil fuel dependency while other nations are beginning to leave us in our own polluted dust as they develop clean energy. 

        We passed a bill in the Senate this year to invest billions of dollars in clean energy. Last year the oil companies collectively made $253 billion, the most profitable companies in America, and we paid for the clean energy bill by repealing over $23 billion in tax giveaways to those most profitable companies. But you know what?  Even with these record profits from Exxon Mobile and others- Republicans are still blocking the bill from passing. That’s another reason to block them from being re-elected.

        Over the last six-and-a-half years, we’ve witnessed in Washington a remarkable backwards-leaning experiment in which our environmental, tax, budget, trade, regulatory, labor, and social policies have been almost entirely subject to the most short-sighted interests of the most privileged Americans, and the most influential corporations. 

        They smear their critics by waving the flag of class warfare, while themselves all the time waging an assault on the middle class and the workers struggling to join it.  What America needs is neither class warfare nor business-bashing but a battle for common sense, and an end to the reverse class warfare of the current administration.  Thomas Jefferson’s credo should again become the foundation of our strategy for prosperity: “equal opportunity for all, special privileges for none.” 

        And nowhere has that credo been more absent, or has the assault on the middle class found more favor, than in our tax code itself. Taxes have never been absent from the debate between citizens and their government. When King George chose to raise taxes on paint, paper, and tea in the American colonies rather than tax those in Britain, he unwittingly lit the fires of revolution that burst into flames just blocks away from this hall in the Boston Massacre. Just over one hundred years later, no less a Republican than Teddy Roosevelt said that “the first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight.” America has always stood for shared sacrifice – and  fundamental fairness.

        No wonder Americans are fed up with a system where the idea of shared sacrifice has been turned on its head. After four years of war, the income gap between CEOs and Army privates is 308 to 1. The army private makes about $25,000 a year and puts life and limb on the line.  The average defense CEO makes $7.7 million.

        This didn’t happen by accident. It is long past time to roll back this President’s unfair, unaffordable tax cuts for those who make more than $200,000 a year. In 2008 alone, these tax cuts give $49 billion to people making a million dollars a year or more.  That’s 20% of the whole tax cut to the one third of one percent of the population that doesn’t need it at all.  Those of us lucky enough to be in a high-income bracket ought to be content, and lucky as we are, Teresa and I don’t need – and didn’t ask for – a tax cut then more than 46 million Americans need health care coverage.

        So now it falls on us to do more than correct the mistakes of the last seven years. We need to readjust the entire tax code to reflect who we are and what we value:  opportunity for the middle class, honoring work not just wealth, and closing the loopholes that reward CEOs for sending American jobs overseas.

        We need to make it equitable and we need to make it radically simpler. In 1940, instructions to the Form 1040 were about 4 pages long. Today the instruction booklet fills more than 100 pages, accompanied by more than 10 schedules and 20 worksheets. It takes the average person 28 hours to file a tax return.  You shouldn’t have to hire a CPA just to get your tax refund back from Uncle Sam.

        We also have to reform the Alternative Minimum Tax which has metastasized into the “family tax.” Back in January 1969, Americans were outraged to learn that 155 of the wealthiest citizens somehow paid no federal income tax at all. Congress received more letters of protest about that than about the Vietnam War, and Washington responded with the AMT. In 1970, 20,000 Americans paid the AMT.  In 2007, 23 million will. Who are they? Teachers, police officers, nurses and hard-working families. Now some people want to patch the AMT and punt this problem down the road.  But we shouldn’t just band-aid an unfair tax-we should bury it altogether.

        It’s also time we end the “separate and unequal” system that taxes money earned by wealth so much more favorably than it does money earned by work. Anyone who tells you that wealth is the source of work probably thinks the New York Yankees need a bigger payroll. We need to encourage entrepreneurship – not just comfort the comfortable. The tax code should help more families save for college and retirement, not help millionaires hide their money offshore.

        As we fix the code, we also need to finally put an end to a corporate tax system that rewards sending American jobs overseas.  It’s just plain wrong to tell American workers to dig their own occupational graves by subsidizing the export of their own jobs. 

        We must also restore accountability and bring today’s underground economy into the sunshine.  Too many sectors of our economy are moving off the books and working for cash under the table, and everybody loses when that happens. 

        Putting an end to the underground economy will actually save jobs and bring in tax revenue at the same time.  You know all of us take pride when corporations produce great products and great jobs, but we should take equal pride when corporate America pays its fair share of the costs of making America strong.

        It’s hard to remember that there was a time not too long ago when this President talked about creating an “ownership society.” But as the mortgage foreclosures start to pile up, we’re learning who gets to do the owning: big banks!

        Buying your own home has always been the foundation of the American dream – but when more than 2 million Americans-including thousands in Massachusetts-risk losing their homes, for too many the dream of home ownership is becoming a nightmare.

        Why is that happening? Because we have a sub-prime mortgage market that’s been abused by lenders’ deceptive practices and abandoned by the federal bank regulators who looked the other way: in the Bush economy, anything goes- but for families in danger of losing their homes, the question “why” is less important than: “What now?” 

        Today families fighting to hold onto their homes also find themselves fighting the federal government.  When a bank does the right thing to try to lighten a family’s mortgage burden, the federal government turns around and taxes this assistance as if it were real income. This is just plain wrong. The government should be helping families pick themselves up, not kicking them when they’re already down. That’s why I’m fighting in the Senate to change the law so families don’t have to fight the IRS while they’re fighting to keep their homes. 

          We also see that too many families can’t get a mortgage at a fair price on the open market. To help them here in Massachusetts and across America to find a way out of the abusive loans that now hold them hostage, we should immediately increase federal loan limits and lower down payment requirements. 

        And third, we should make sure regulators do their job: stopping abusive mortgage practices and guaranteeing that anyone buying a home gets good information and responsible advice. Instead families have been lied to; they have been misled; and it’s long overdue for Congress to lead by making sure that lenders actually tell Americans the truth. 

        In the end, as we know all too well, owning a home is just one part of an ownership society.  Most importantly, the promise means having a sense of ownership over your whole life: being able to save for college, save for retirement, put money away to care for an aging parent, earn a decent living.  No amount of White House spin can build an ownership society out of Republican policies that make those things impossible and are really telling most Americans “you’re on your own.”

        For the first time since the Great Depression, our personal savings rate is less than zero.  Since the year 2000, household debt has increased by more than $26,000.

        And our nation’s debt-public and private- is out of control. One answer is creating automatic individual retirement accounts-and helping Americans invest in them.  Every worker should be able to send part of their salary directly from their paycheck into retirement accounts-without even writing a check each month. 

        And if we want more Americans to take the risks that spark our economy, we can’t hold them back at the starting gate with students leaving college burdened with mountains of debt.  Two-thirds of college students graduate with $23,000 in student loans. 

        After World War II, we invested in those who kept us safe from fascism, and I believe we ought to be making the same kind of deal by sending young people today to work to save post-Katrina New Orleans from extinction and to become Big Brothers, Big Sisters and mentors in communities of need. It’s high time we made a new deal with America’s young people, with a new Service for College program.  If you serve your country for two years, we will cover the cost of a four-year public university. 

        Finally, you can’t build a modern economy without universal broadband access.  Just as FDR fought to bring electricity to rural America, just as Eisenhower had a vision for our highways, we need to bring the Information superhighway – high-speed internet – to every home. Three years ago, President Bush talked about delivering universal broadband access by 2007, but here we are- 2007 almost over- and less than half the homes in Massachusetts- which is a leader in the nation- have broadband-even fewer in Western Massachusetts. Instead of marching forward, as a nation, we’re falling behind: We’ve slipped from fourth worldwide to 21st – behind Estonia and tied with Slovenia. Well, I don’t think the United States should be second to anyone on the planet. Bottom line, our economy can only go as far as our high-tech infrastructure will take us- and we have to insist that we take it all the way, right away, to our economic future, because if we build it, the jobs will come.

        These are the choices we must make to create an economy that works for all Americans again. But more than these choices we must restore a fundamental social contract.

        Everyday millions of Americans get up and go to work to a job that brings with it a pension, health care, high wages, and safety standards. But fewer and fewer of these workers have joined a union.  Let me tell you something, they all owe those benefits to the labor movement in our country. 

        What was true in Roosevelt’s day is just as true today:  we must promote the right of employees to collectively bargain for better wages and benefits-at home and abroad. 

        There’s nothing anti-business about being pro-union.  And there’s nothing that contributes more to a socially responsible corporate community than workers who know they have a place at the table in key corporate decisions. 

        Under the Bush administration, the federal government has pursued the most strident anti-union policies in memory. I doubt they’ve appointed one judge who has voted for workers one time in their lifetime.  Then how can they talk about spreading democracy to other countries and then tell workers that they don’t have the right to sign a card and elect a union to bargain for a better wage here in America?  Congress needs to finally enact basic labor law reforms like the Employee Free Choice Act, which preserves the right of workers to organize without intimidation.  And just as important, we have to promote workers’ rights abroad-because it’s right – and because it’s the only way to create a level playing field for U.S. exports.  American labor leaders understand this.  Andy Stern, head of SEIU, has been to China six times in five years. As President, George Bush has only been there once-and I’m sure he didn’t once mention worker’s rights.

          James Hoffa, of the Teamsters union, sees China as a new frontline for the labor movement.  He understands that, at its worst, the global economy is a race to the bottom that pulls the rug out from under American workers.

        So we have to make it a race for the top-because globalization isn’t going to go away.  We need to put our stamp on it and create a fair playing field – – because empowering America’s workers means stepping up to bat for workers everywhere.

        When Democrats took over Congress we said to this President – – “no more trade deals unless you fight for workers’ rights.” We held his feet to the fire in a trade deal with Peru that does protect workers. But it’s not enough to have labor rights written on a piece of paper signed in the Rose Garden.  We need countries to start enforcing them-and we need a President who actually wants them enforced. 

        44 years ago, a very different kind of president, John F. Kennedy, went to Pueblo Colorado and assured America that a “rising tide would lift all boats.” Back then Pueblo had a steel mine with over 14,000 union workers. Now there are only a thousand.  It used to be an industry town.  Now it has an industrial museum.

        Pueblo isn’t alone. Look in the Merrimack Valley; which was once the home of our textile industry with 40,000 mill workers in Lawrence alone-immigrants who walked a picket line during the winter of 1912 for a fair days’ pay. Union members rallied right here in Faneuil Hall to support them. Today we have a State Heritage Park in Lawrence but not enough living wage jobs for the new immigrants who live there. 

        No, we don’t live with the same economy that President Kennedy talked about: as he once said, “the world is very different now.”  But the ideal he spoke of must endure.  The economy will never be the same as it once was, but America always needs to stay true to America. 

        Today our economy is living on borrowed money, and on borrowed time, and both will run out soon if we don’t get serious about changing course in Washington. 

        We must end the assault on America’s middle class and we must begin to make our economy fair again. The great American middle class doesn’t ask for much, but it counts on: leadership that honors work as much as wealth; and leaders who will make economic growth not a spectator sport, but a common endeavor.

        Our mission is as clear and the cause is just: Health care for all.  Energy independence.  A tax code that works for working people. Stop making a mockery of the phrase “ownership society.”  A fair shake for the workers who ultimately create our wealth.  And a society where wealth comes with responsibility, and not just a ticket to power and privilege. 

        All these goals are within our grasp if we really want them.  Those proud Massachusetts patriots of 1776 didn’t plead for permission to govern themselves, and they didn’t wait to be told what to do by those who misgoverned them.  They acted, and now so must we.  Thank you.

        • Today’s broken system is an economic disaster. It forces businesses into untenable choices: the GM model of crushing health care costs and the Wal-Mart model of minimal or no health coverage at all…. Truly universal health care is the way, and the only way, forward for businesses and families alike.  I’m proud that every Democratic candidate for President is – without exception – committed to that goal, as I was in 2004.

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          Right — “truly universal health care” on the old employer-based model that basically leads either to the GM model or the Wal-Mart model.  Yes, the Dems’ plans would be an improvement over the current system, in that more people would have coverage.  But they don’t get at the root of the problem.

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          Kerry has a high enough profile that he could really lead on single-payer, if he wanted to.  I just don’t get why he’s so reticent.

          • executive power still counts for a lot.  The S-CHIP program is being railed against by the administrations supporters as a back-door approach to undermine private insurers–ultimately leading to the dreaded “single payer”.  When Kerry launched his “Kids Come First” initiative he said as much.  I see this as a battle for the general direction in which to move saying “I’m for single payer” and then being ignored.  When you think about senate leadership on this issue I think Kerry and Kennedy do a pretty good job. 

          • It strikes me that he doesn’t mean Universal Health CARE – we have that NOW, with free care pools, etc.  He MEANS Universal Health INSURANCE, be it premium or taxes based.  You say health CARE when you mean INSURACE/COVERAGE.  But that would raise the ugly spectre of how are we gonna PAY for this…so CARE it remains, when I cannot remember the last time anyone had CARE declined at a hospital.

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            Same thing with the weather.  Keep calling it Global Warming, and look foolish when it snows on Easter, instead of Climate Change, which is more accurate and takes in all kinds of weather conditions.  Ah, but that raises the spectre of maybe humans aren’t entirely responsible, maybe it’s the normal climate cycle…so Global Warming it remains.

      • Gay marriage — another excellent example.  John Edwards talked at the debate the other night about how even his wife and his daughter are miles ahead of him on this issue.  What’s his problem?  Kerry — same question.  What’s the problem?

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        You wrote:

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        It’s relatively easy to identify problems and rail against them. It’s hard to propose solutions.

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        Please. “Solving” the gay marriage ban is hard? How about laying off the pandering for a second and daring to propose equal civil rights for all? Or, failing that, explaining why you (Edwards, Obama, Clinton, Kerry, et al.) don’t think that everyone deserves them?

    • Part of the cynicism  (4.67 / 3)

      about this kind of message, IMHO, is that the people delivering it don’t always adopt the positions that it would seem to lead to.  Universal single-payer health care is the most obvious example.  If Kerry, Edwards, and the rest of the “new populists” are serious about health care, why not go for it?  Why is it left to the Dennis Kuciniches of the world to advocate for what most people who study the issue seriously have recognized is probably the best solution, and is the only one that really will cover everyone?

      Gay marriage — another excellent example.  John Edwards talked at the debate the other night about how even his wife and his daughter are miles ahead of him on this issue.  What’s his problem?  Kerry — same question.  What’s the problem?

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      I don’t trust cynicism and I try never to excuse it. I do, however, recognize frustration. 

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      Why not go for it? I don’t know about you, but I was around in the 90’s when Hillary DID go for it. It was not pretty. I remember the DOMA  (defense of marriage act) which Bill Clinton signed. And I remember the infantile Sen. Sam Nunn inspecting bunks and barracks and concluding that such proximity, when gays were openly included, was a danger to national security…

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      Many have tried and many have been burned.  Kucinich, for some reason, hasn’t been burned… Maybe he fireproof?

  8. Since Senator Kerry’s vote to authorize military action in Iraq, I have paid particular attention to Senator Kerry’s continued calculation in everything he does.

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    As the other Democrat running to be your next U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, I attended today’s speech. I was surprised that the event was rather sparsely attended since several emails went out to a huge data base and there was much encouragement from the Kerry camp for people to attend .

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    This speech was very calculating and consistent with John Kerry, the professional politician, for the following reasons:

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    1. Since John Kerry already had a “kickoff” which was unaffordable to most Americans, he needed to try to do it again, but call it something different;

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    2. He read the entire speech from teleprompters;

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    3. John Kerry is disconnected from the middle class and thinks that speaking about “them” somehow will make the connection;

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    4.  John Kerry has spent little time on the mainland of Massachusetts and wanted to be seen amid a setting worthy of his stature and yet connected to Boston;

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    John Kerry has not appeared at any event in Massachusetts where dialogue has been part of the program since his June 16th fiasco in Natick.  John Kerry needs to come out of isolation and answer questions rather than lecture to the middle class.

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    These are some of the questions John Kerry needs to answer:

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    1.  Did he consider his own personal ambitions over the good of our troops and our country when he voted for military authorization in Iraq in 2002 as Robert Shrum has stated?

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    2.  What time did he leave the Senate on August 3rd when he was AWOL on the FISA vote which took another chunk out of our Constitution?

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    3.  When he talks about universal health care, what exactly does he mean?

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    4.  Why does he not support gay marriage?

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    5.  Why does he want to keep troops in bases in Iraq indefinitely?

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    6.  Did over $200,000 in campaign contributions from the auto lobby influence his vote in 2005 not to increase CAFE standards?

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    7.  Why did he give a tax break to hedge fund managers that would pay for the health care of every low income child in America?

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    8.  Although he stated today that he is against the tax breaks for the rich, didn’t he and his wife take advantage of that same tax break?

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    9.  Why didn’t he donate the $15m left over from the 2004 Presidential election to charitable veterans’ groups as I had requested?

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    10.  Why did he take over $7m of the money left from the Presidential Campaign fund and move it to his Senate fund?

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    11.  Does he consider a $1,000 minimum to attend his “kickoff” and a $2,300 donation for a constituent to have time with his/her elected Senator to be affordable to the average middle class American and consistent with the principles of democracy?

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    12.  Does he not realize that money buys access and access creates influence in politics?

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    13.  Does he realize that most people have to work at noon when this speech was made or was it made for the cameras and the 5-6 o’clock news?

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    In answer to some of these questions, I support community based, not for profit renewable energy companies, based upon the model of the 40 municipal power companies in Massachusetts giving local control over the renewable energy projects while returning profits to local communities for health and education programs.

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    I want to begin the immediate, orderly and complete withdrawal of our troops from Iraq.

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    I believe health care should be a constitutional right and a national single payer health care plan would cut costs while improving care.  I support a single payer system.

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    I support marriage equality as a civil right.

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    Ed O’Reilly
    Democratic Candidate for the U.S. Senate from, and for, Massachusetts
    Ed O’Reilly.com

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    • Kerry’s bad alright, but is he really not leftist enough for MA?

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      Hey btw I’ll support your constitutional right to health care if you throw in a constitutional right to some other stuff that we need:
      – Constitutional right to housing
      – Constitutional right to 3 balanced meals per day
      – Constitutional right to transportation
      – Constitutional right to no pollution from transportation
      – Constitutional right to a computer with internet access

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      Its pretty awesome that we can have rights to things that other people then have to produce.

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      Thanks pal,

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      D

      • A constitutional right to four weeks vacation in the summer.
        A constitutional right to full employment (forty hours pay for thirty hours work)
        A constitutional right to full time day care until the child is age seven.
        A constitutional right for one years maternity leave (paid for mother and father—if there is a father—a real live one as opposed to a sperm donor)

    • Some of this stuff I agree with. Some is intellectually dishonest. Some of it is boneheaded. It is a mishmash one doesn’t expect from a Senator.

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      Why do we care whether he read the speech from teleprompters? What candidate for Senate does not have events for which admission is $1000? Doesn’t the following sound rather strange?

      Why didn’t he donate the $15m left over from the 2004 Presidential election to charitable veterans’ groups as I had requested? [Emphasis added]

      Sometimes I think this is a campaign for Purity Troll of the Year not for the Senate.

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      Please, please, please, if you want to support primary opponents, support Mark Pera against Rep. Lipinski and Donna Edwards against Rep. Wynn.

  9. realities of what we are up against. It is comparitively  easy to stake out positions without promoting real policy that takes the opposition into account.  Kerry struck a good balance on advocacy and policy in this speech.  Thanks for thought-provoking analysis and questions Charlie.  Speaking of economics– gotta get back to work. 

  10. and it seems to generate a high standard of living for the average person. By all those measurable statistics anyway, like average lifespan and infant mortality.

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    Whether or not it is directly in the Constitution, there are excellent economic arguments to be made to making minimum guarentees for all citizens, such as:

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    guarenteed enough to eat
    guarenteed shelter
    guarenteed health care
    guarenteed education

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    When all understand they will not starve, go homeless, or be unable to afford health care, the balance of power shifts to the individual- they are able to take risks they cannot take otherwise.

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    It is hard to start a business now as you can’t afford health care for your family if you do, for example. but small business is the hotbed of innovation and tends to be a growth employer.

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    This also makes labor disputes more possible, and gives the individual more ability to negotiate and demand with an employer. It is empowering to the people.

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    And that, historically, has been associated with growing economies.

  11. Regarding the readiness of the people to hear a populist message:

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    much of the discussion was about how previous efforts have been received, but:

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    we don’t often know how things have been received, unless a pundit tell us so. What I am trying to say it that in general, the news and communication media have been the arbiters of the national mood.

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    As in, my mother says “I can’t believe no one is upset when people are being tortured”…well people were plenty upset, but the national media didn’t report it that way, and we who were upset were then effectively disempowered.

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    Hence the roll of blogs; now there is a community with a far more realistic handle on what people actually think; we can see it for ourselves.

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    So now that there is a communication channel outside of the major media, and a huge amount of frustration, I would say a talented enough populist could easily win with that message, although I haven’t seen/ heard such a person yet.

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    The frustration- I don’t know too many people who are better off than they used to be. Anyone my age can remember days when a young person could rent their own apartment, or a single mother support her family as a waitress, or college kids finance their way through a state school with part time work and some money from their family. We all know things have changed, slowly but inexorably.

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    Economic declines always enrage a population. The question is only will someone tap that rage?

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    I agree John Kerry will not be the one, but I am glad to see him adding fuel to the fire.

    • Not only do the pundits have a biased view, but the Rethuglicans like acting as if everyone thinks the same way they do. Further, it’s a well-known phenomenon in social psychology that our perceptions of “what everyone else is doing” or thinking can be quite inaccurate.

        • Progressives will think that everyone should think like them but will lament the fact that out of ignorance they don’t.

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          Conservatives believe that everyone already thinks like them and will discount evidence to the contrary — or not even recognize it. I’m reminded of the numerous conservative commentators here who point at disapproval ratings of Congress without examining why Congress is so disapproved of.

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          This is how Bush continued to be described as a “popular President” long after his approval numbers sank permanently below 40%. It is also how Clinton is frequently described as much less popular than an examination of approval ratings would indicate.

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