“Still, there is something problematic about Tierney’s full-throated partisan stances”
This is The Globe’s opinion board in a nutshell.
jconwaysays
I was on a mobile device so my initial post was a lot shorter than intended, but those lines and these ones stuck out.
The Globe concedes that Moulton is misleading the voters, and in the same breadth, defends Tierney’s lengthy record of delivering to the district
Moulton attacks him for only passing one bill, under his name, in nearly 18 years — that’s not a full representation of the way things work in Congress, where behind-the-scenes negotiations can yield results, and hard-fought amendments can change policy. Tierney has worked diligently on a number of issues, most notably efforts to make student loans more affordable. His close relationship with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, which has made him a beneficiary of the Democrats’ financial largesse, also gives him noteworthy access to influence.
But it then contradicts itself, by asserting that the seniority and influence Tierney actually has is worth risking by giving it to a neophyte who will be unlikely to solve the problem.
Returning him to Washington would do little to change a system that is widely seen as gridlocked and broken. Moulton and Tierney share nearly identical political views, but Moulton’s background, and his approach to discussing the issues, suggests an openness to new perspectives.
The old guy is working just fine, but is working in a bad system, maybe the new guy will make a new system? Not sure what that is supposed to mean and I can’t help but think “an openness to new perspectives” is a Broderism indicating that he will be a ‘bold Democrat’ who opposes ‘unions and backs charters’ and ‘bucks his party’ by supporting chaining CPI and other social security ‘reforms’.
And this line was just laughable:
Moulton’s work in Iraq — negotiating with warlords, developing on-the-ground relationships in tense circumstances — might bode well for his ability to deal with recalcitrant Republicans
Did the Globe just compare the Republicans to warlords? And, unlike a war zone where there is an incentive for shifting alliances and making coalitions-this Congress-which a conservative think tanker called the most partisan in history-has zero incentive for compromise unless it is punished at the polls. I have tremendous respect for Moulton’s service in the military, that he is a member of the upper crust who voluntarily served in an era where service is looked down upon as a lower class activity to those without other options, and that he seems to want to continue to serve his country in other capacities. But he portrays a naivete akin to that of Will Brownsberger, another person I respect tremendously, that the gridlock is caused by partisan Democrats failing to work with partisan Republicans, rather than the real cause-which is exclusively Republican. Moulton has a lot of questions to answer in a short amount of time on the bread and butter issues this district depends on and Tierney, warts and all, has always fought for and delivered on.
JimCsays
THIS needs further exploration.
But he portrays a naivete akin to that of Will Brownsberger, another person I respect tremendously, that the gridlock is caused by partisan Democrats failing to work with partisan Republicans, rather than the real cause-which is exclusively Republican.
I disagree. I think gridlock is as much our fault as theirs. It’s their fault in that they’ve been a new degree of unreasonable, but we had two years (2009 and 2010) to fight fire with fire, and we didn’t. Obamacare for example could have been passed on a party line vote within three months, and it would be better than it is now.
My take is, Democrats hide behind gridlock. Look at our Legislature, completely, supremely Democratic, and we wonder why moderates like DeLeo are put in charge. They’re put in charge because Democrats are more moderate than many of us would like to admit. Given complete control, we instantly morph into centrists.
To be clear I don’t like this, it frustrates me no end. But I don’t think we can exonerate ourselves for gridlock. We take advantage of it.
jconwaysays
This point strikes me as self-contradicting
I disagree. I think gridlock is as much our fault as theirs. It’s their fault in that they’ve been a new degree of unreasonable, but we had two years (2009 and 2010) to fight fire with fire, and we didn’t. Obamacare for example could have been passed on a party line vote within three months, and it would be better than it is now.
Fighting fire with fire is called partisanship, and I agree we had the party line votes to pass a robust public option, let alone ACA, during that time frame when Franken was the 60th vote. Instead, we passed ACA hoping in vain to get Olympia Snowe on board and also to mollify DINOs like Baucus and Nelson who were concerned about re-election and their industry friends. Compromise and bipartisanship were exactly the forces that made the ACA into the multi thousand page beast of regulations it is instead of the single sentence (Medicare for All) it could have been. And it’s complexity, to me, is the main reason it’s so unpopular and it’s benefits are hidden and rarely bragged about.
Moulton is promising to work with Republicans rather than fight fire with fire, and the Globe is praising him for it, as if our failure as Democrats was that we weren’t centrist or willing to compromise, facts that are readily admit are true. It gives a voice to conservatives I argue with, who repeat Paul Ryan fallacies, that this is a leftist Congress and leftist President refusing to head their centrist suggestions. It’s a WaPo and Globe board that calls Ryan a ‘thinker’ and his voucherization of Medicare-the single greatest unraveling of the Great Society ever proposed by a sitting member of Congress-a centrist reform rather than the gutting of the safety net it actually is.
This is where the Brownsberger comparison comes in, do you want an Obama or an LBJ? Do you want someone who acts like Charlie Brown while Boehner the preferable Lucy keeps moving the ball away? Keeps moving the goalposts? We used to deal with two parties that favored government, one favored government that helped workers, the other government that helped business-but both favored government investments in education, infrastructure, health, technology, and bipartisan immigration and security policies. That center is gone, replaced by bomb throwers who oppose government itself.
You don’t invite bomb throwers over for tea, or to a round of golf, and expect them to be mollified. I strongly question the ability of someone to serve in Congress if they are blind to the realities of the last six years, gridlock is exclusively a Republican problem.
Where I agree:
My take is, Democrats hide behind gridlock. Look at our Legislature, completely, supremely Democratic, and we wonder why moderates like DeLeo are put in charge. They’re put in charge because Democrats are more moderate than many of us would like to admit. Given complete control, we instantly morph into centrists.
And that may be true on the state level, though the progressives in the Senate are a lot louder and angrier than they have been in quite sometime. But I see changing that culture by electing more Eldridge’s, not by electing more DeLeos or Bakers to somehow end the gridlock-which is the logic Moulton is employing. You correctly identify the disease as gridlock caused by centrists on Beacon Hill and conservatives on Capital Hill-but you identify a solution-sending a centrist to Capital Hill-that won’t solve the problem. Electing true progressives at all levels of government is the best way out of this impasse.
JimCsays
We’re sort of saying the same thing.
But here’s the thing: those true progressives at every level? They don’t exist (not enough of them), or they can’t win elections (not enough of them).
I have a friend, a swing voter, who insisted that Scott Brown’s defeat by Elizabeth Warren was a loss for the country. She would vote Democratic, but he would vote moderate Republican, and if his star rose in the GOP, that would help. I had to really think about that, and ended up concluding that he was probably right. But it’s not my job as a Massachusetts voter to moderate the GOP. It is, however, Elizabeth Warren’s job to work with GOP Senators, and I think she’s probably done that more than we realize (and no, I don’t mean on cutting Social Security).
Last word is yours if you want it; this is too vast a topic for me today.
jconwaysays
Convergence means working with the opposition on issues where you actually agree from the get go. Warren has done this repeatedly, she has worked with John McCain on repealing Glass-Stegall and with Corker on fixing Fannie and Freddie, and is working with Lisa Murkowski on student loan reform. It’s what Teddy and Orrin Hatch did for SCHIP, it’s what Wyden and Bennet tried to do for healthcare reform, and it’s what McCain and Finegold did for campaign finance reform. They both came in committed to the same goal, and ended up working together to produce an implementable policy change to achieve it.
Centrism means, you both come in with different goals and try to arrive at a common middle goal. I would argue this is much rarer to find, though some legislation has been produced this way. No Child Left Behind for instance, Teddy wanted a significant increase in federal funding and control and Bush wanted accountability and testing, and they ended up getting a bad mixture of both. A positive example may be the immigration and social security reforms we got from Tip and Ronnie, both came in with different goals, and ended up genuinely meeting somewhere in the middle.
Bipartisanship is simply legislation supported by members of both parties, in the case of the Civil Rights act, it required the moderate-liberal wings of both parties to jettison their conservative allies. In the case of the Iraq War, the moderate-conservative wings in both parties jettisoned the fringes on the left and right who ended up being correct about the disaster.
I think Moulton is calling for more centrism, which is dangerous with the Republicans we have these days, and more bipartisanship. You can be a bold progressive like Warren and compromise on legislation without compromising your principles, and it requires building coalitions and making alliances with your opposition who may agree with you on those issues. Amash and Conyers on the NSA, or Grayson and Amash on stopping the Syria strike are other examples of convergence. Centrism and bipartisanship can be good tools, but only if the other side is negotiating in good faith. We have had ample proof that Boehner never has.
kbuschsays
1. Scott Brown only plays a leader on TV and so he’d never “lead” moderate Republicans or even carve out a special place for them.
2. Moderate Republicans keep disappearing. At this point, the word “moderate Republican” doesn’t apply to actual moderates anymore; it applies to non-crazy, reasonable, quite conservative Republicans. Even formerly moderate Republicans keep shifting right: it’s almost inconceivable now that any Republican anywhere would support a tax increase no matter how small for any reason whatsoever. With that happening, one elects a somewhat moderate Republican and gets to watch him sink deeper into wingnuttery year by year.
3. Elizabeth Warren, in fact, articulates very clearly a position in Democratic Party politics that is not so clearly stated (or even stated) by the Clintons or even Obama. Scott Brown’s abilities to articulate a new moderation among Republicans pale by comparison. He might be able to talk about his personal wonderfulness but one can’t really build much of a movement around that.
Trickle upsays
are now Democrats.
(Or, in a few jurisdictions, independents.)
That’s how you separate the Chafees and the Leahys from the Browns.
“I did not leave my party, my party left me.”
JimCsays
Somewhere, a moderate Republican will rise. I tend to agree that Brown lacks the gravitas to be that guy, but it will happen.
Or, they will split into two parties.
jconwaysays
We will have the centrist Wall Street party, with a socially conservative populist rump Republican party on the right and a socially/economically populist FDR/Warren style Democratic party on the left with a whole lot of suits in the middle. I actually hope that does happen, since I am confident only then will the suits \realize they don’t attract a lot of actual voters since voters tend to be the kind of people they don’t give a shit about. I’d rather a party of protectionist, civil liberty defending, pro-labor, anti-war Buchananites as my ‘right wing’ opposition than the corporatist Republicans and Democrats alike that have been foisted on us the past generation.
fenway49says
I’d love it if legislative bodies dominated by Democrats governed from the left instead of the centrist muddle we usually get.
I don’t see how that’s fixed by sending a guy to DC who promises to bend over backwards to work with the looniest bunch of John Birchers we’ve ever seen in office. The only reason things haven’t gone completely off the cliff is that Democrats – voting the way John Tierney votes – have declined to split the difference between centrism and restoring 1890.
The absolute last thing I want is a “Democrat” who’ll be more amenable to these people. I agree with jconway and bryanbarash on this one: this is Broderism at its worst.
JimCsays
Of course one guy doesn’t fix it. It’s a massive problem.
But how does it start to get fixed? We couldn’t even pass immigration reform, something both parties supposedly wanted.
It’s not Broderism to say they exist, and they have votes. We have no other choice but to work with them. “The hard work of self-governance,” as the President put it.
jconwaysays
When the GOP chooses it wants to be an actual partner in government. And that happens after we defeat it electorally to ensure it comes to the table. The GOP finally came around to the necessity of the New Deal, Social Security, and internationalism after losing five presidential campaigns in a row and finally nominating a pro-New Deal, Social Security, internationalist in Ike. Similarly, the Democrats finally came around on the necessity of reforming welfare, balancing the budget, and social moderation after losing three Presidential elections in a row and nominating Clinton.
Our party has moderated, arguably, and I think we agree here, too much. That trend does not change if we keep letting the GOP dictate the terms of every agreement, the terms of the debate, and defining the center. By doing so we shouldn’t be surprised that the Heritage plan passed by their nominee when he was Governor gets called ‘socialism’, that voucherizing social security is called ‘a bold centrist proposal’, and that supporting unions has become the purview of the ‘far left’ rather than ‘the thinking center’.
That debate doesn’t change if we, as the Globe suggest, compromise even further and beg the GOP to play nice when they have no recent history of doing so and no incentive to do so in the future.
I gotta respect the Tea Party-it holds it’s officials accountable and it has made far more gains moving it’s party to the right than MoveOn or Kos has moving our party to the left. If anything, those groups continue to enable centrists to routinely take us for granted, as Seth Moulton is sure to do if he is elected.
JimCsays
And that happens after we defeat it electorally to ensure it comes to the table.
Well the first half of it happened. We had both houses of Congress and the White House for two years. But we were too scared to ram things down their throats, and hid behind the filibuster.
JimCsays
You seem to exonerate well-meaning Democrats. I’m no longer willing to do that. They said they’d fight for us, let’s see them bloody fight.
fenway49says
I still think these are two separate issues. I don’t see how we reconcile the idea that Democrats didn’t fight enough in 2009-10 or on Beacon Hill with the idea that they fight too much and should work better with the Republicans.
JimCsays
This is a side issue to Moulton’s argument, which is justifiable in the swingy fifth district. What else should he say?
But my point is, you always fight. You fight for a little when you can get that, and you fight for a lot when you can get that. Our leaders tend to waiver between “We can’t do much right now” and “We can’t do anything, our hands are tied.”
fenway49says
whatever he wants. I’m sticking with the guy who does always fight. It’s not John Tierney’s fault Nancy Pelosi let a bunch of Blue Dogs (who lost in 2010 anyway) water things down, while Reid did the same thing in the Senate to hold Lieberman, Baucus, Nelson, Lincoln (and where are all those folks now?) and Obama nodded sagely at the reasonableness of it all.
jconwaysays
To be clear, it’s Obama’s fault he didn’t lead his caucus to pass bold legislation when he had the freakin votes. That’s where the LBJ comparison is apt and where Obama falls short. I don’t see how excoriating conservative extremists and their centrist Democratic enablers is exonerating them. Electing more Seth Moulton’s exonerates Republicans and conservative Democrats.
When did Tierney water something down or run away from a fight again? On ideology he is the better candidate since we know where he stands, on character, maybe Moulton is a fresh face with a compelling resume, but, I also don’t know where he stands on the big issues a week before the primary. The Globe finds that opacity attractive-I find it unnerving.
JimCsays
It’s Obama’s fault his 350-vote electoral win didn’t translate to his own party giving him his top legislative priority in a timely manner? Really? After decades of Democrats running on healthcare, and no less than Ted Kennedy getting out of his hospital bed to vote for the bill?
Obama has made some tragic mistakes. But this is not one of them.
jconwaysays
He simply passed the bill to Congress, had he started with a single payer plan it might’ve been compromised into a public option. We won’t know since it wasn’t attempted. He also could’ve bribed, cajoled, and threatened his way to the votes. A big consistent problem of his has been an unwillingness to view himself as the leader of a partisan party. His attempts to always appear moderate and above the fray have resulted in the kind of impotency we see from him on a daily basis and the excuse of “my hands were tied”. How could a lightweight like Dubya get more bills passed for his side? He bothered to maintain and strengthen his majority and exerted discipline upon it.
Not once was the nuclear option considered, not once did Obama threaten committee chairs, and every time he bent over backward for a blue dog or moderate Republican they asked for more. It was an achievement it passed at all, I get that. But, we also had Emmanuel and others urging a centrist course from day 1 and it’s resulted in the mediocre presidency we have here.
JimCsays
Paraphrasing from memory:
“If the Democratic Party cannot deliver its President’s top priority in the first year of his term, there is no reason for the Democratic Party to exist.” — Pat Buchanan
“I think Pat’s right.” — Jack Beatty
fenway49says
I gotta respect the Tea Party-it holds it’s officials accountable and it has made far more gains moving it’s party to the right than MoveOn or Kos has moving our party to the left. If anything, those groups continue to enable centrists to routinely take us for granted, as Seth Moulton is sure to do if he is elected.
I wrote many months ago about this. They cost the GOP some Senate seats (Sharron Angle, Akin, Mourdock, etc.) but they’ve won plenty of elections and they’re moving the party hard right.
It’s because they’re not afraid to break some eggs. On our side, if anyone so much as expresses a lack of enthusiasm for the Wall Street neocon Hillary Clinton, sites like Daily Kos erupt with cries of “Nader!!” It doesn’t help that every election won by the current Republican Party has devastating consequences for the middle class and the planet itself. It’s understandable why we’re not willing to hold out for a real liberal and walk if we don’t get one.
Given that phenomenon, it seems even more imperative not to toss overboard a Democratic congressman whose been a stalwart in favor of a Third Way “no red states, no blue states” kind of guy.
fenway49says
No, we don’t have to work with them all that much in the House. The House generally is run by the majority party, end of discussion. Passing a bill in the Senate requires more compromise due to the (abuse of the) filibuster. Passing a bill that can get through both houses and earn the President’s signature requires still more compromise.
In case you haven’t noticed, most DC Republicans think “compromise” means do it their way. Every step of the way Democrats have compromised – probably too much. Look at last year’s shutdown. Lost in the shuffle was that the overall budget number put in place was right in line with Paul Ryan’s ask from 2009, even though austerity’s a really stupid policy. These guys wanted to defund the ACA on top of that. The narrative was that they “blinked” but in reality they got the budget number they wanted. They just had to release the additional hostage.
Right now, it’s the House Republicans who bear responsibility for governing, not John Tierney. They need to compromise with us if they want to do anything other than pass far-right silliness that will go nowhere in the Senate and would be vetoed in the unlikely event it passed there.
But most of the time their aspirations don’t rise that high, thanks to their gerrymandered districts. If even a small number of House Republicans and John Boehner were interested in being anything other than preening peacocks for the Tea Party – Cruz – Limbaugh set, we could have gotten immigration reform.
We exist too, and we too have the votes.
Christophersays
…”compromise” means selling out.
kbuschsays
This has been pretty explicit with a number of conservatives.
We may regard much of conservative policy and ideology as evil and pernicious. That is more than just reciprocated. Plenty of conservatives see liberalism as a fundamentally evil aberration that lies at the root of almost all problems. They regard us as more harmful than we regard them.
In that moral context, compromise becomes unjustifiable.
fenway49says
For anyone to think we’re more harmful than I think they are.
JimCsays
Too busy to read this right now, but certainly will later.
jconwaysays
And feel free to let your contacts in Seth’s campaign know we’d love to have him on BMG. I think a lot of the myths and uncertainties about his campaign could be allayed by him directly-as Leland Cheung did when he was charged with playing both sides.
JimCsays
But I suspect my contacts are pretty busy!
JimCsays
My translation of what the Globe wrote:
1. Seth Moulton is good enough to be a Congressman, let’s give him a shot.
2. We like Marisa DiFranco’s spirit, but she’s a little nuts.
3. It’s time for John Tierney to go. We like John Tierney, really … but he should go, and we all know why so we’re not even saying it.
I may be projecting, but it seems to me that the Globe‘s failure to mention the online casino trial, and his wife’s sentence, looms really large in the editorial. Maybe the Globe, and maybe Tierney himself, decided 2012 was the referendum on that, and it’s done. But personally I feel like a single press conference could have buried that issue, and Tierney’s failure to do so has raised questions. I repeat, I would accept almost any explanation short of actual law-breaking (“We weren’t certain, but we wanted to believe him” “You don’t always ask such questions when it’s family” — almost anything).
The Globe’s stance is puzzling. Are they tired of or mad at Tierney? It sounds like it.
But, none of that should detract from this great get for Moulton. He has a long climb, but he has a better shot today than he did yesterday.
jconwaysays
Which is why I won’t be surprised if they stab Moulton in the back in the unlikely event he get’s nominated. They endorsed Tisei last time, and there is nothing the Globe loves more than backing a ‘moderate, sensible, Republican’.
Look to the Globe to say “Seth brings good ideas to the table, and he has a lot in common with his Republican opponent, but Tisei’s relationships with the House Majority, his experience as a legislator, and his long time service to his constituents in the district give him the edge. We liked Seth and look forward to seeing him in the future, but this time calls for experienced bipartisan leadership and that man is Tisei”
The narrative writes itself, and it writes itself if Seth loses
“we wanted a good Democrat, unfortunately the primary voters selected partisanship over solutions, and we have no choice but to once again endorse Tisei over the incumbent”.
JimCsays
I forgot that they endorsed Tisei last time.
I think they’re locked now: they have to endorse Tisei if Tierney wins, and they have to endorse Moulton over Tisei if he wins the primary after they endorsed him. But that might be too logical.
is setting the table for endorsing Baker, Tisei and potentially other Republicans in November.
jconwaysays
Maybe even Brian Herr and one of the nobodies taking on Keating. After all, true moderation is a half Republican delegation right?
Mark L. Bailsays
times, but as I read, Fenway said at least everything I wanted to say.
Maybe I can add that, don’t forget the Globe has to prove to itself not only that it’s editorials matter, but that its news coverage does too. How could they “know” what they “know” about John Tierney and still support him?
ryepower12says
but is completely irrelevant to what goes on in most any election, so it doesn’t matter much. When Tierney beats Moulton in the primary, they’ll endorse Tisei too.
The importance of newspaper endorsements are depreciating faster than their subscriber base. I honestly don’t understand why they still endorse at all.
jconwaysays
It’s as if it has gone out of it’s way not to be the “liberal paper”. But in a two paper town when the other paper is decidedly conservative, why not be the liberal paper? I will agree with Herald readers and writers on one thing, the Globe remains an elitist paper, by and for the elite, rather than for the common person. And it’s a sad state of affairs in Massachusetts, and the country writ large, when the only populists in print, on the air, or on our screens are right wing ones. The Globe, by bemoaning union and charters, by consistently backing pro-business/ socially liberal policies and candidates, has turned into the kind of limousine liberal caricature it has tried to desperately to avoid.
The left needs a new Studs Terkel, and the Globe needs an actual voice of blue collar liberalism-not the faux stuff that Barnacle and now Cullen regularly deploy. Such a paper would actually be fun, informative, and interesting to read. For instance, Jacobin’s coverage of Market Basket has been far more interesting, informative, and fun to read than anything in the Globe. Not sure how such a project could be done locally, but it ought to be.
fenway49says
The Globe has become the limousine liberal caricature by not being sufficiently liberal in fact. I imagine the opinions it expresses are widely held in the circles in which the editors run. It’s been the Wellesley Globe rather than the Boston Globe for quite some time. Liberal populism upsets such folks. (Apologies to the genuine liberals doing great work in Wellesley.)
As for the Herald question, the answer’s simple, and the same one applies equally to much of the Democratic Party. With the Herald so far out there, the Globe can be as Third Way as it wants. It will still be “the liberal paper.”
jconwaysays
You can cross apply that logic to the national parties
With the Republicans so far out there, the Democrats can be as Third Way as they want. They will still be “the liberal party.”
“Still, there is something problematic about Tierney’s full-throated partisan stances”
This is The Globe’s opinion board in a nutshell.
“Still, there is something problematic about Tierney’s full-throated partisan stances”
This is The Globe’s opinion board in a nutshell.
I was on a mobile device so my initial post was a lot shorter than intended, but those lines and these ones stuck out.
The Globe concedes that Moulton is misleading the voters, and in the same breadth, defends Tierney’s lengthy record of delivering to the district
But it then contradicts itself, by asserting that the seniority and influence Tierney actually has is worth risking by giving it to a neophyte who will be unlikely to solve the problem.
The old guy is working just fine, but is working in a bad system, maybe the new guy will make a new system? Not sure what that is supposed to mean and I can’t help but think “an openness to new perspectives” is a Broderism indicating that he will be a ‘bold Democrat’ who opposes ‘unions and backs charters’ and ‘bucks his party’ by supporting chaining CPI and other social security ‘reforms’.
And this line was just laughable:
Did the Globe just compare the Republicans to warlords? And, unlike a war zone where there is an incentive for shifting alliances and making coalitions-this Congress-which a conservative think tanker called the most partisan in history-has zero incentive for compromise unless it is punished at the polls. I have tremendous respect for Moulton’s service in the military, that he is a member of the upper crust who voluntarily served in an era where service is looked down upon as a lower class activity to those without other options, and that he seems to want to continue to serve his country in other capacities. But he portrays a naivete akin to that of Will Brownsberger, another person I respect tremendously, that the gridlock is caused by partisan Democrats failing to work with partisan Republicans, rather than the real cause-which is exclusively Republican. Moulton has a lot of questions to answer in a short amount of time on the bread and butter issues this district depends on and Tierney, warts and all, has always fought for and delivered on.
THIS needs further exploration.
I disagree. I think gridlock is as much our fault as theirs. It’s their fault in that they’ve been a new degree of unreasonable, but we had two years (2009 and 2010) to fight fire with fire, and we didn’t. Obamacare for example could have been passed on a party line vote within three months, and it would be better than it is now.
My take is, Democrats hide behind gridlock. Look at our Legislature, completely, supremely Democratic, and we wonder why moderates like DeLeo are put in charge. They’re put in charge because Democrats are more moderate than many of us would like to admit. Given complete control, we instantly morph into centrists.
To be clear I don’t like this, it frustrates me no end. But I don’t think we can exonerate ourselves for gridlock. We take advantage of it.
This point strikes me as self-contradicting
Fighting fire with fire is called partisanship, and I agree we had the party line votes to pass a robust public option, let alone ACA, during that time frame when Franken was the 60th vote. Instead, we passed ACA hoping in vain to get Olympia Snowe on board and also to mollify DINOs like Baucus and Nelson who were concerned about re-election and their industry friends. Compromise and bipartisanship were exactly the forces that made the ACA into the multi thousand page beast of regulations it is instead of the single sentence (Medicare for All) it could have been. And it’s complexity, to me, is the main reason it’s so unpopular and it’s benefits are hidden and rarely bragged about.
Moulton is promising to work with Republicans rather than fight fire with fire, and the Globe is praising him for it, as if our failure as Democrats was that we weren’t centrist or willing to compromise, facts that are readily admit are true. It gives a voice to conservatives I argue with, who repeat Paul Ryan fallacies, that this is a leftist Congress and leftist President refusing to head their centrist suggestions. It’s a WaPo and Globe board that calls Ryan a ‘thinker’ and his voucherization of Medicare-the single greatest unraveling of the Great Society ever proposed by a sitting member of Congress-a centrist reform rather than the gutting of the safety net it actually is.
This is where the Brownsberger comparison comes in, do you want an Obama or an LBJ? Do you want someone who acts like Charlie Brown while Boehner the preferable Lucy keeps moving the ball away? Keeps moving the goalposts? We used to deal with two parties that favored government, one favored government that helped workers, the other government that helped business-but both favored government investments in education, infrastructure, health, technology, and bipartisan immigration and security policies. That center is gone, replaced by bomb throwers who oppose government itself.
You don’t invite bomb throwers over for tea, or to a round of golf, and expect them to be mollified. I strongly question the ability of someone to serve in Congress if they are blind to the realities of the last six years, gridlock is exclusively a Republican problem.
Where I agree:
And that may be true on the state level, though the progressives in the Senate are a lot louder and angrier than they have been in quite sometime. But I see changing that culture by electing more Eldridge’s, not by electing more DeLeos or Bakers to somehow end the gridlock-which is the logic Moulton is employing. You correctly identify the disease as gridlock caused by centrists on Beacon Hill and conservatives on Capital Hill-but you identify a solution-sending a centrist to Capital Hill-that won’t solve the problem. Electing true progressives at all levels of government is the best way out of this impasse.
We’re sort of saying the same thing.
But here’s the thing: those true progressives at every level? They don’t exist (not enough of them), or they can’t win elections (not enough of them).
I have a friend, a swing voter, who insisted that Scott Brown’s defeat by Elizabeth Warren was a loss for the country. She would vote Democratic, but he would vote moderate Republican, and if his star rose in the GOP, that would help. I had to really think about that, and ended up concluding that he was probably right. But it’s not my job as a Massachusetts voter to moderate the GOP. It is, however, Elizabeth Warren’s job to work with GOP Senators, and I think she’s probably done that more than we realize (and no, I don’t mean on cutting Social Security).
Last word is yours if you want it; this is too vast a topic for me today.
Convergence means working with the opposition on issues where you actually agree from the get go. Warren has done this repeatedly, she has worked with John McCain on repealing Glass-Stegall and with Corker on fixing Fannie and Freddie, and is working with Lisa Murkowski on student loan reform. It’s what Teddy and Orrin Hatch did for SCHIP, it’s what Wyden and Bennet tried to do for healthcare reform, and it’s what McCain and Finegold did for campaign finance reform. They both came in committed to the same goal, and ended up working together to produce an implementable policy change to achieve it.
Centrism means, you both come in with different goals and try to arrive at a common middle goal. I would argue this is much rarer to find, though some legislation has been produced this way. No Child Left Behind for instance, Teddy wanted a significant increase in federal funding and control and Bush wanted accountability and testing, and they ended up getting a bad mixture of both. A positive example may be the immigration and social security reforms we got from Tip and Ronnie, both came in with different goals, and ended up genuinely meeting somewhere in the middle.
Bipartisanship is simply legislation supported by members of both parties, in the case of the Civil Rights act, it required the moderate-liberal wings of both parties to jettison their conservative allies. In the case of the Iraq War, the moderate-conservative wings in both parties jettisoned the fringes on the left and right who ended up being correct about the disaster.
I think Moulton is calling for more centrism, which is dangerous with the Republicans we have these days, and more bipartisanship. You can be a bold progressive like Warren and compromise on legislation without compromising your principles, and it requires building coalitions and making alliances with your opposition who may agree with you on those issues. Amash and Conyers on the NSA, or Grayson and Amash on stopping the Syria strike are other examples of convergence. Centrism and bipartisanship can be good tools, but only if the other side is negotiating in good faith. We have had ample proof that Boehner never has.
1. Scott Brown only plays a leader on TV and so he’d never “lead” moderate Republicans or even carve out a special place for them.
2. Moderate Republicans keep disappearing. At this point, the word “moderate Republican” doesn’t apply to actual moderates anymore; it applies to non-crazy, reasonable, quite conservative Republicans. Even formerly moderate Republicans keep shifting right: it’s almost inconceivable now that any Republican anywhere would support a tax increase no matter how small for any reason whatsoever. With that happening, one elects a somewhat moderate Republican and gets to watch him sink deeper into wingnuttery year by year.
3. Elizabeth Warren, in fact, articulates very clearly a position in Democratic Party politics that is not so clearly stated (or even stated) by the Clintons or even Obama. Scott Brown’s abilities to articulate a new moderation among Republicans pale by comparison. He might be able to talk about his personal wonderfulness but one can’t really build much of a movement around that.
are now Democrats.
(Or, in a few jurisdictions, independents.)
That’s how you separate the Chafees and the Leahys from the Browns.
“I did not leave my party, my party left me.”
Somewhere, a moderate Republican will rise. I tend to agree that Brown lacks the gravitas to be that guy, but it will happen.
Or, they will split into two parties.
We will have the centrist Wall Street party, with a socially conservative populist rump Republican party on the right and a socially/economically populist FDR/Warren style Democratic party on the left with a whole lot of suits in the middle. I actually hope that does happen, since I am confident only then will the suits \realize they don’t attract a lot of actual voters since voters tend to be the kind of people they don’t give a shit about. I’d rather a party of protectionist, civil liberty defending, pro-labor, anti-war Buchananites as my ‘right wing’ opposition than the corporatist Republicans and Democrats alike that have been foisted on us the past generation.
I’d love it if legislative bodies dominated by Democrats governed from the left instead of the centrist muddle we usually get.
I don’t see how that’s fixed by sending a guy to DC who promises to bend over backwards to work with the looniest bunch of John Birchers we’ve ever seen in office. The only reason things haven’t gone completely off the cliff is that Democrats – voting the way John Tierney votes – have declined to split the difference between centrism and restoring 1890.
The absolute last thing I want is a “Democrat” who’ll be more amenable to these people. I agree with jconway and bryanbarash on this one: this is Broderism at its worst.
Of course one guy doesn’t fix it. It’s a massive problem.
But how does it start to get fixed? We couldn’t even pass immigration reform, something both parties supposedly wanted.
It’s not Broderism to say they exist, and they have votes. We have no other choice but to work with them. “The hard work of self-governance,” as the President put it.
When the GOP chooses it wants to be an actual partner in government. And that happens after we defeat it electorally to ensure it comes to the table. The GOP finally came around to the necessity of the New Deal, Social Security, and internationalism after losing five presidential campaigns in a row and finally nominating a pro-New Deal, Social Security, internationalist in Ike. Similarly, the Democrats finally came around on the necessity of reforming welfare, balancing the budget, and social moderation after losing three Presidential elections in a row and nominating Clinton.
Our party has moderated, arguably, and I think we agree here, too much. That trend does not change if we keep letting the GOP dictate the terms of every agreement, the terms of the debate, and defining the center. By doing so we shouldn’t be surprised that the Heritage plan passed by their nominee when he was Governor gets called ‘socialism’, that voucherizing social security is called ‘a bold centrist proposal’, and that supporting unions has become the purview of the ‘far left’ rather than ‘the thinking center’.
That debate doesn’t change if we, as the Globe suggest, compromise even further and beg the GOP to play nice when they have no recent history of doing so and no incentive to do so in the future.
I gotta respect the Tea Party-it holds it’s officials accountable and it has made far more gains moving it’s party to the right than MoveOn or Kos has moving our party to the left. If anything, those groups continue to enable centrists to routinely take us for granted, as Seth Moulton is sure to do if he is elected.
Well the first half of it happened. We had both houses of Congress and the White House for two years. But we were too scared to ram things down their throats, and hid behind the filibuster.
You seem to exonerate well-meaning Democrats. I’m no longer willing to do that. They said they’d fight for us, let’s see them bloody fight.
I still think these are two separate issues. I don’t see how we reconcile the idea that Democrats didn’t fight enough in 2009-10 or on Beacon Hill with the idea that they fight too much and should work better with the Republicans.
This is a side issue to Moulton’s argument, which is justifiable in the swingy fifth district. What else should he say?
But my point is, you always fight. You fight for a little when you can get that, and you fight for a lot when you can get that. Our leaders tend to waiver between “We can’t do much right now” and “We can’t do anything, our hands are tied.”
whatever he wants. I’m sticking with the guy who does always fight. It’s not John Tierney’s fault Nancy Pelosi let a bunch of Blue Dogs (who lost in 2010 anyway) water things down, while Reid did the same thing in the Senate to hold Lieberman, Baucus, Nelson, Lincoln (and where are all those folks now?) and Obama nodded sagely at the reasonableness of it all.
To be clear, it’s Obama’s fault he didn’t lead his caucus to pass bold legislation when he had the freakin votes. That’s where the LBJ comparison is apt and where Obama falls short. I don’t see how excoriating conservative extremists and their centrist Democratic enablers is exonerating them. Electing more Seth Moulton’s exonerates Republicans and conservative Democrats.
When did Tierney water something down or run away from a fight again? On ideology he is the better candidate since we know where he stands, on character, maybe Moulton is a fresh face with a compelling resume, but, I also don’t know where he stands on the big issues a week before the primary. The Globe finds that opacity attractive-I find it unnerving.
It’s Obama’s fault his 350-vote electoral win didn’t translate to his own party giving him his top legislative priority in a timely manner? Really? After decades of Democrats running on healthcare, and no less than Ted Kennedy getting out of his hospital bed to vote for the bill?
Obama has made some tragic mistakes. But this is not one of them.
He simply passed the bill to Congress, had he started with a single payer plan it might’ve been compromised into a public option. We won’t know since it wasn’t attempted. He also could’ve bribed, cajoled, and threatened his way to the votes. A big consistent problem of his has been an unwillingness to view himself as the leader of a partisan party. His attempts to always appear moderate and above the fray have resulted in the kind of impotency we see from him on a daily basis and the excuse of “my hands were tied”. How could a lightweight like Dubya get more bills passed for his side? He bothered to maintain and strengthen his majority and exerted discipline upon it.
Not once was the nuclear option considered, not once did Obama threaten committee chairs, and every time he bent over backward for a blue dog or moderate Republican they asked for more. It was an achievement it passed at all, I get that. But, we also had Emmanuel and others urging a centrist course from day 1 and it’s resulted in the mediocre presidency we have here.
Paraphrasing from memory:
I wrote many months ago about this. They cost the GOP some Senate seats (Sharron Angle, Akin, Mourdock, etc.) but they’ve won plenty of elections and they’re moving the party hard right.
It’s because they’re not afraid to break some eggs. On our side, if anyone so much as expresses a lack of enthusiasm for the Wall Street neocon Hillary Clinton, sites like Daily Kos erupt with cries of “Nader!!” It doesn’t help that every election won by the current Republican Party has devastating consequences for the middle class and the planet itself. It’s understandable why we’re not willing to hold out for a real liberal and walk if we don’t get one.
Given that phenomenon, it seems even more imperative not to toss overboard a Democratic congressman whose been a stalwart in favor of a Third Way “no red states, no blue states” kind of guy.
No, we don’t have to work with them all that much in the House. The House generally is run by the majority party, end of discussion. Passing a bill in the Senate requires more compromise due to the (abuse of the) filibuster. Passing a bill that can get through both houses and earn the President’s signature requires still more compromise.
In case you haven’t noticed, most DC Republicans think “compromise” means do it their way. Every step of the way Democrats have compromised – probably too much. Look at last year’s shutdown. Lost in the shuffle was that the overall budget number put in place was right in line with Paul Ryan’s ask from 2009, even though austerity’s a really stupid policy. These guys wanted to defund the ACA on top of that. The narrative was that they “blinked” but in reality they got the budget number they wanted. They just had to release the additional hostage.
Right now, it’s the House Republicans who bear responsibility for governing, not John Tierney. They need to compromise with us if they want to do anything other than pass far-right silliness that will go nowhere in the Senate and would be vetoed in the unlikely event it passed there.
But most of the time their aspirations don’t rise that high, thanks to their gerrymandered districts. If even a small number of House Republicans and John Boehner were interested in being anything other than preening peacocks for the Tea Party – Cruz – Limbaugh set, we could have gotten immigration reform.
We exist too, and we too have the votes.
…”compromise” means selling out.
This has been pretty explicit with a number of conservatives.
We may regard much of conservative policy and ideology as evil and pernicious. That is more than just reciprocated. Plenty of conservatives see liberalism as a fundamentally evil aberration that lies at the root of almost all problems. They regard us as more harmful than we regard them.
In that moral context, compromise becomes unjustifiable.
For anyone to think we’re more harmful than I think they are.
Too busy to read this right now, but certainly will later.
And feel free to let your contacts in Seth’s campaign know we’d love to have him on BMG. I think a lot of the myths and uncertainties about his campaign could be allayed by him directly-as Leland Cheung did when he was charged with playing both sides.
But I suspect my contacts are pretty busy!
My translation of what the Globe wrote:
1. Seth Moulton is good enough to be a Congressman, let’s give him a shot.
2. We like Marisa DiFranco’s spirit, but she’s a little nuts.
3. It’s time for John Tierney to go. We like John Tierney, really … but he should go, and we all know why so we’re not even saying it.
I may be projecting, but it seems to me that the Globe‘s failure to mention the online casino trial, and his wife’s sentence, looms really large in the editorial. Maybe the Globe, and maybe Tierney himself, decided 2012 was the referendum on that, and it’s done. But personally I feel like a single press conference could have buried that issue, and Tierney’s failure to do so has raised questions. I repeat, I would accept almost any explanation short of actual law-breaking (“We weren’t certain, but we wanted to believe him” “You don’t always ask such questions when it’s family” — almost anything).
The Globe’s stance is puzzling. Are they tired of or mad at Tierney? It sounds like it.
But, none of that should detract from this great get for Moulton. He has a long climb, but he has a better shot today than he did yesterday.
Which is why I won’t be surprised if they stab Moulton in the back in the unlikely event he get’s nominated. They endorsed Tisei last time, and there is nothing the Globe loves more than backing a ‘moderate, sensible, Republican’.
Look to the Globe to say “Seth brings good ideas to the table, and he has a lot in common with his Republican opponent, but Tisei’s relationships with the House Majority, his experience as a legislator, and his long time service to his constituents in the district give him the edge. We liked Seth and look forward to seeing him in the future, but this time calls for experienced bipartisan leadership and that man is Tisei”
The narrative writes itself, and it writes itself if Seth loses
“we wanted a good Democrat, unfortunately the primary voters selected partisanship over solutions, and we have no choice but to once again endorse Tisei over the incumbent”.
I forgot that they endorsed Tisei last time.
I think they’re locked now: they have to endorse Tisei if Tierney wins, and they have to endorse Moulton over Tisei if he wins the primary after they endorsed him. But that might be too logical.
is setting the table for endorsing Baker, Tisei and potentially other Republicans in November.
Maybe even Brian Herr and one of the nobodies taking on Keating. After all, true moderation is a half Republican delegation right?
times, but as I read, Fenway said at least everything I wanted to say.
Maybe I can add that, don’t forget the Globe has to prove to itself not only that it’s editorials matter, but that its news coverage does too. How could they “know” what they “know” about John Tierney and still support him?
but is completely irrelevant to what goes on in most any election, so it doesn’t matter much. When Tierney beats Moulton in the primary, they’ll endorse Tisei too.
The importance of newspaper endorsements are depreciating faster than their subscriber base. I honestly don’t understand why they still endorse at all.
It’s as if it has gone out of it’s way not to be the “liberal paper”. But in a two paper town when the other paper is decidedly conservative, why not be the liberal paper? I will agree with Herald readers and writers on one thing, the Globe remains an elitist paper, by and for the elite, rather than for the common person. And it’s a sad state of affairs in Massachusetts, and the country writ large, when the only populists in print, on the air, or on our screens are right wing ones. The Globe, by bemoaning union and charters, by consistently backing pro-business/ socially liberal policies and candidates, has turned into the kind of limousine liberal caricature it has tried to desperately to avoid.
The left needs a new Studs Terkel, and the Globe needs an actual voice of blue collar liberalism-not the faux stuff that Barnacle and now Cullen regularly deploy. Such a paper would actually be fun, informative, and interesting to read. For instance, Jacobin’s coverage of Market Basket has been far more interesting, informative, and fun to read than anything in the Globe. Not sure how such a project could be done locally, but it ought to be.
The Globe has become the limousine liberal caricature by not being sufficiently liberal in fact. I imagine the opinions it expresses are widely held in the circles in which the editors run. It’s been the Wellesley Globe rather than the Boston Globe for quite some time. Liberal populism upsets such folks. (Apologies to the genuine liberals doing great work in Wellesley.)
As for the Herald question, the answer’s simple, and the same one applies equally to much of the Democratic Party. With the Herald so far out there, the Globe can be as Third Way as it wants. It will still be “the liberal paper.”
You can cross apply that logic to the national parties
That’s what I was trying to say.