Marc Cooper on Kucinich

Dennis Kucinich has announced that he will vote against the health reform bill, even if he is the decisive vote. Marc Cooper nails what is wrong with this position and with Kucinich's politics.

...in Congress... we have the ultimate zero-sum equation. There are no choices except up or down, yes or no. If you don't vote for a bill, you are voting against it. Period. You are not taking a third position by opposing a less than perfect reform. You are literally joining forces with all of its opponents.

I have always been skeptical of Kucinich not because he is too far left. But because he is too far detached from effective politics. I saw his primary "campaign" up close and personal in Iowa in 2004 -- the ultimate venue for ground-level retail politics-- and he did virtually nothing. Late in the game, he hired a single staffer for the entire state. The point being he squandered the energy and political capital invested in him by naive supporters. I can honestly say he did little, nay, he did nothing to build any movement out of his campaign other than to move his face in front of the cameras of the televised debates.

Here we go again. We now have a black and white choice. Either we pass a flawed health care bill that provides access to private insurance for 30 million Americans without it. Or we do nothing. And in so doing, let the Republicans pick up another 15 or 20 seats beyond the 25 or so they are already destined to win in November.

Dennis Kucinich is no Ralph Nader. He might as well be another John Boehner.

Secretary of Labor Jim Garner on Getting Benefit of Stimulus Program

Kansas Secretary of Labor Jim Garner addresses the Labor Caucus on the state Democratic Party during Washington Days on February 28, 2009. He addressed the need to take full advantage of the potential benefits of the Obama stimulus program.

Garner strongly advocated that the state can gain $68 million for the state's unemployment fund by modernizing the state's system for determining eligibility for unemployment. Kansas does not currenlty count the most recent quarter of earnings to decide if a unemployed worker can get unemployment.

Garner also said is it long overdue to increase the pitiful $250,000 limit for worker's compensation and the disgraceful $2.65 an hour Kansas minimum wage.

Washington Days Photos

It was one ofthe better Washington Days, I've been to. Very good Labor Caucus meeting, thanks to the leaderhip of Pat Lehman.

Kansas Federal Democratic Candidate Web Sites

US Senate
Jim Slattery KSDP Info page website

Lee Jones KSDP Info page Website
Candidate for US Senate
US Congress

James Bordonaro
Candidate for US House 1st District KSDP Info Page Website

Congresswoman Nancy Boyda
Candidate for US House 2nd District KSDP Info Page Website

Congressman Dennis Moore
Candidate for US House 3rd District KSDP Info Page Website

Senator Donald Betts
Candidate for US House 4th District KSDP Info Page Website

Updated: June 24, 2008

John Edwards for VP?

Eric Lee is not only making the case that Barak Obama should pick John Edwards as VP, he is organizing a grass roots campaign to send that message to the Obama campaign.

Here's what Eric writes

It's the morning after the Indiana and North Carolina primaries. It now seems pretty clear to everyone that Barack Obama is going to be the Democratic nominee for President. The question now is -- what can we do to ensure that he defeats John McCain in November. And not only defeats McCain, but defeats him decisively.

We need more than a Democratic victory in November -- we need a landslide. We need huge Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. We can only achieve that if we have the kind of unbeatable team at the top that unites the party and the nation.

It's obvious that Hillary Clinton is not going to be Obama's running mate. Obama has to choose from among many outstanding Democrats, including some who ran against him in the early primaries, to find a great Vice Presidential choice. But one man stands head and shoulders above all the others as the obvious choice: John Edwards.

John Edwards set the agenda for all the candidates in the early stages of the primary battles. He came up with the first and best comprehensive health care plan. He raised the issue of poverty as no leading politician has done for 40 years. His charisma, his abilities and his appeal to those voters Obama must win in November are beyond dispute.

An Obama-Edwards ticket in November is the Democratic party's best chance of winning a resounding victory. If you agree, please sign the form above. We'll make sure that Obama gets this message loud and clear from the many Democrats who we're sure agree with us.

If you agree, visit the Edwards for VP site and sign-on. BTW, Eric promises to have Obama-Edwards campaign materials available soon.

Most lists of potential VPs for Obama seem to be to excessively centrist and rather bland. Despite the importance of Ohio, no-one seems to mention Senator Sherrod Brown, a very forceful critic of the myths of fair trade (he's even written a book on the subject) or Governor Ted Strickland.

If Eric is right and Hillary out of the equation, it seems to me that Obama's advisors will present him with three options. First, a woman to win over Hillary's female supporters. Second, a balance-the-ticket moderate who will satisfy the media and the punditcrats. Third, as Eric argues pick a running mate who will give an economic populist punch to the ticket. This is the way to build an enduring, progressive Democratic majority.

Message of the Kansas Caucuses

Everybody knows that Barack Obamma and Mike Huckabee were the big winners in the Kansas caucuses last week, but there were some other winners and losers.

Big losers were citizens of Kansas who were denied the opportunity to vote in a primary. Secretary of State Ron Thornburg estimated that 800,000 would have voted in a primary. That's 20 times that number that took part in the caucuses. The projected cost to taxpayers was a measly $ 2 million.

Looking at the caucus data shows that Democrats may have been big winners and Republicans big losers.

Nearly twice as many Democrats as Republicans caucused in Kansas--and the Democrats did it on a weekday night in the middle of a snowstorm instead of a warm-for- winter Saturday morning.

In raw numbers that was 37,089 Democrats versus 19,432 Republicans. The State GOP had predicted a turnout of 35,000. State Senator Phil Journey, a leader in the Republican right-wing went even further saying he expected a turnout of 50,000. This may have been more spin than real expectations; some caucus sites were overwhelmed and said they had many more than expected.

The contrast is even more striking when compared to party registration. 8.4 percent of Demorats participated as compared to 2.6 percent of Republicans. That's 1 of 12 Democrats and 1 of 38 Republicans.

Two stories on John Edwards

I read two interesting stories on the John Edwards campaign this week.

Jonathon Tasini discusses an interesting Wall Street Journal article on how Edwards is seeting the agenda for the Democratic field. The WSJ article is for subscribers only, but here's two key paragraphs.

John Edwards may be stuck in third place in the polls and fund raising in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. But the populist seems to be playing an outsized role in driving the terms of the party's debate -- generally to the left -- on everything from Iraq to health care.

This week, the former North Carolina senator has made his most prominent bid yet to place the oft-ignored issue of poverty prominently on the 2008 agenda, with a four-day tour of some of the most run-down parts of the South and Midwest, beginning with his sixth trip this campaign to this city, devastated by Hurricane Katrina. He has talked about the issue more than any of his rivals, and was the first to craft a "poverty" plank in his platform.

David Moberg has a fascinating In These Times article "The Union's Man?"

Edwards walks the talk as well, often on picket lines. The week after his swing through Iowa, he joined a rally at the giant Smithfield hog processing plant in his home state to demand that the company, a notorious labor law violator, recognize workers when a majority signs union cards. During the past two years, the Edwards campaign claims, the former senator and vice-presidential candidate has taken part in more than 200 different union events with more than 20 unions, including a national contract campaign tour for hotel workers, a fast with janitors organizing at the University of Miami and an airport rally in Texas for Continental Airlines ramp employees who were organizing.

“He’s redefined the way public officials engage the ongoing work of the labor movement,” says Chris Chafe, the former chief of staff of UNITE HERE and one of several labor officials with high-level positions in the Edwards campaign—not counting campaign manager David Bonior, the former staunchly pro-union congressman who previously headed American Rights at Work, a labor-rights advocacy group. “I don’t think anyone has come so close in recent memory to putting himself so squarely behind issues central to the labor movement. We’d welcome institutional endorsements, but our goal is to have workers and union leaders focus on what he does as well as what he says.”

Washington Days

I attended the Kansas Democratic Party Washington Days events March 2 and 3 in Topeka.

Former President Bill Clinton was the keynote speaker Friday night. He spoke to a crowd of about 1500 and raised over $200,000 for the state party.

Josh Rosenau of the Thoughts from Kansas blog has a nice round-up here and some nice photos here.

The Topeka Capital Journal report is here.



Steve Kraske of the Kansas City Star compared Clinton's speeches in Topeka and earlier in the day at Kansas State University in Manhattan to campaign stops.

In Topeka, he followed party tradition by offering his tie for auction.

The winning bid: $26,000, far above the $8,000 offered for last year’s speaker, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.

Clinton barely referred to his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, who is a contender for the Democratic nomination for president.

When praising Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, he said: “I think we ought to just elect women to everything;” a line that got a rousing applause.

Another time and another (blog) space, a critique of the shortcomings of the Clinton "third way" triangulations will be in order, but I'll save those for later.

There was a packed, enthusiastic, and productive meeting of the Labor Caucus on Saturday morning.

Saturday's luncheon speaker was Lt. Governor Mark Parkinson. He gave a very effective speech. Parkinson is a former Republican legislator and state GOP chairman. He did a good job of explaining how his traditional moderate Republicanism had made him increasingly uncomfortable in today's right wing, social conservative party and led him to switch parties. He riffed on how true conservatism and true progressivism could work in tandem. He was also very persuasive in proclaiming that's he's now a Democrat for life.

One suspects that there is a political future for Parkinson in Kansas, whether running to succeed Sebelius in 2010 or against Senator Pat Roberts in 2008.

Maybe by then, he'll evolve a little more and embrace Democratic principles more fully.

Huge Gain in Democratic Self-Identification in Kansas

The Gallup folks are out with a new poll on partisan identification. They asked voters which party they identified and then asked the self-identified "independents" which party they leaned towards.

There's been a significant gain in Democratic identification nationally and in many states. Nowhere is this gain more dramatic than in Kansas.

It may be time to through out the old conventional wisdom based on voter registration. That's usually broken down along the line of, something like, 47% Republican, 29% Democratic, and 27% Independent.

Here's how the Gallup poll break down for Kansas.

Democrats and Lean-Democratic 48%
Independent Independents 8%
Republicans and Lean Republican 44%

Combine this with GOP infighting and the low approval rates shown for Senators Pat Roberts and there is reason for Kansas Democrats to set their sights high in 2008. Even though Robert s will be 72 in 2008, he's apparently running for re-election. He already has a campaign website up and running.

Not only should the Democrats mount a serious challenge for the Senate seat, they ought not to restrict themselves to defending Dennis Moore (KC and suburban Johnson County) and freshman Nancy Boyda. They should also go after Wichita's ultra-conservative Todd Tiahrt.

Boyda on the State of the Union Speech

The National Journal interviewed a bunch of the freshmen Dems on their reaction to Bush's state of the union speech. They gave lots of attention to Nancy Boyda.

But perhaps no freshman Democrat has as much at stake in her criticism of Bush as Rep. Nancy Boyda, whose sprawling Kansas district went for Bush in '04 by a whopping 20 points. Republicans are already gearing up to challenge Boyda, widely considered the most vulnerable Democratic freshman.

In an interview Wednesday, however, Boyda was undaunted. She said she was "dismayed" and "bewildered" by Bush's health care plan. And while she "appreciated" his efforts to strike a "bipartisan" and "personal tone," she added, "I think it would have been nice if he had actually complimented Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi on getting so much done in the first 100 hours. But hey, maybe that's too much to expect."

A freshman House Democrat from a Republican stronghold is demanding that a Republican president heap public praise on a liberal Democratic Speaker? We're not in Kansas anymore.

Way to go, Nancy!

Kudos to Boyda and House Freshmen on Trade

I criticized newly elected Kansas Congresswoman Nancy Boyda for her poorly stated and, in my opinion, wrong position saying she would vote to fund Bush's escalation in Iraq, even though she apparently does not agree with it. Today, I want to applaud Boyda for joining with 38 other House freshmen in sending a letter to Ways and Mean chair Charles Rangel demanding an end to sell-out free-trade policies.

David Sirota has more

The letter restates what Public Citizen already has reported: that Democrats achieved their majority specifically because candidates ran against our current “free” trade policies, backed by both Republicans and the Wall Street/Rubin wing of the Democratic Party. There have been furious efforts by some Democrats to try to pretend that’s not the case, but this letter makes pretty clear what the reality is. Here’s a key excerpt:

“As you may know, in each of our campaigns the issue of trade and the impact of the Administration’s trade policy on working families, the environment, independent farmers and businesses in our districts were critically important. Vital to our electoral successes was our ability to take a vocal stand against the Administration’s misguided trade agenda, and offer our voters real, meaningful alternatives to the job-killing agreements, such as CAFTA, that the majority of our opponents supported.”

As you can see, this letter was signed by even the freshman that the media has tried to tout as “conservative” faux “centrists” - but what we see is that this new class of lawmakers is really a group of economic populists. See the full letter here - and get ready for the upcoming fights as the White House presses for more “free” trade pacts and ultimately reauthorization of “fast track” authority which guarantees a continuation of a trade policy that includes no labor/wage/environmental/human rights standards.

Ten Step Program for Democrats

Some good ideas from Jonathon Tasini. Here's the intro which contains the critical idea.

The lesson from the 2006 election is that people want dramatic change, not poll-tested, cautious half-measures. So, be bold.

The threat to a progressive agenda is not the lack of hugs and soaring rhetoric. Rather, the challenge is pretty clear: Will Democrats be willing to break from the false worship of the twins gods of the so-called “free market” and so-called “free trade”? This worship has made Democrats quiver, tremble and crumble in the face of policies that have been devastating to our country and the world for the past several decades, and made them incapable of advancing ideas and proposals that people so desperately

"Free market” and “free trade” are both marketing phrases. There is no such thing as a “free market” because every corporation in America profits thanks to subsidized public goods like education, roads, the electric power grid, and (albeit, too permissive) regulatory management of the stock market, which imposes stability and deters dishonest behavior. So-called “free trade” is a mirage—nothing is free about a global trading regime that has iron-clad protection for capital investment and corporate intellectual property, and thrives on controlling and suppressing wages of workers, particularly in China.

Will Democrats stand up and clearly say that the real choice is not over politically empty slogans or accusations of ‘protectionism’ but over what rules we want to govern how the economy operates for the benefit of our families and communities? Do we want rules that support people and their communities or rules that help powerful, global corporations? Once Democrats do so, the political road is easy because such a plea has broad support across the country, no matter how people define themselves ideologically. It comes down to this: Are you for everyone having health care, a fair wage, solid retirement, and being able to live in a democratic system that allows the people to decide how corporations behave?

Robert Reich "From the Heartland"

Robert Reich recently made a speaking tour through Texas, Oklahoma, Minnesota and Pennsylvania--far from his old home of Massachusetts and his new home in California.

He had some interesting observations:

1. First, everything you’ve heard about the deep dissatisfaction with Congress and the Bush administration is true. Iraq and the economy are on everyone’s minds, and just about everyone I met was determined to “throw the rascals out.” I don’t recall this level of hostility since Richard Nixon occupied the White House – and, surprisingly, I heard a lot of it from people who described themselves as Republicans.

2. Not a single Democrat expressed enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy. Most were afraid she’d lose. Many were upset with her drift to the right. Lots said they "just don’t like her.” Almost all wanted Gore to run instead. Among the Democratic left, I also heard a lot of talk about Russ Feingold. John McCain’s name came up over and over, among Democrats and Republicans. Most Democrats said they admire him, a surprising number said they’d vote for him over Hillary. Most were unaware of how conservative McCain is, and how hawkish.

3. The “culture wars” seem to have died down. Almost everyone said the divisive issues of abortion and gay marriage had become less salient in their states and communities. The religious right is still very much alive and I had a number of conversations with people who described themselves as “right-wing Christians,” but their attention has switched to issues like immigration. Immigration is a big deal in the Heartland, but Republicans are all over the place on it, and so are Democrats.

4. I’ve never heard so much discussion about widening inequality. It’s a theme I’ve been talking about for years now, without much response. But for some reason, now – perhaps we’ve reached a sort of tipping point on the subject, where the public is starting to take notice and become concerned – it’s now a big deal. There’s lots of worry about the nation “coming apart,” about “anyone falling into poverty,” and about “rich people running the country.” Again, I heard this from self-described Republicans as well as Democrats.

5. The other salient issue is health care. Everyone’s upset about it. The middle class is suffering sticker shock, as employers continue to shift health care costs on to employees. No one has heard any politician from either party give a clear and simple account of what’s wrong and what should be done. Almost everyone I talked with predicted this would be the major domestic policy issue in 2008.