Democrats
mikethemadbiologist | February 21, 2010Or it's not the messaging, it's the actual policy. John Aravosis was recently invited to the White House along with some other 'progressive' bloggers who were called out on the carpet for not supporting the stimulus enough (funny, I didn't realize they were paid political operatives...). Aravosis writes:
The problem with the stimulus messaging is, well, the stimulus messaging itself. The problem is the White House messaging operation. It kind of sucks. And while Joe and I were living in Democratic exile over the past year for being the Cassandra's who saw all of this coming early on,…
mikethemadbiologist | February 7, 2010If you're looking for a good primer on Big Shitpile and other recent economic events, I highly recommend Peter Goodman's Past Due: The End of Easy Money and the Renewal of the American Economy. It's well written, and does what many other books about the recent economic collapse fail to do: puts it into a larger context. But this small excerpt from Past Due hits the nail on the head as to what our problem is:
Washington has grown accustomed to muddy compromises that can be spun into clear-cut victories by both parties, as their leaders appear on Sunday television talk shows to argue over…
mikethemadbiologist | February 3, 2010Are Democrats intentionally trying to lose the next election? Because that's the only possible way to explain this:
Twelve Democratic Senators spent last weekend in Miami Beach raising money from top lobbyists for oil, drug, and other corporate interests that they often decry, according to a guest list for the event obtained by POLITICO.
The guest list for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's "winter retreat" at the Ritz Carlton South Beach Resort doesn't include the price tag for attendance, but the maximum contribution to the committee, typical for such events, is $30,000. There…
drorzel | February 3, 2010In the wake of recent political developments, there has been a lot of hand-wringing about why Democrats in Congress are so spineless, and have been unable to pass meaningful legislation despite huge majorities. After thinking about my travel plans last night, I think I have the key to the Grand Unified Theory of American politics.
The problem is not that Democratic politicians are uniquely craven, or venal, or anything like that. The problem is Washington, DC.
No, this is not a prelude to some right-wing rant about how the Real America can be found only in states with more livestock than…
mikethemadbiologist | February 2, 2010Once again, Republican Sen. Judd Gregg makes me wonder what the Obama administration was thinking when they nominated him for Commerce Secretary--they must have really believed that post-partisanship bullshit. Gregg's latest eruption:
Judd Gregg just had a meltdown on MSNBC that came out of nowhere. He's been attacking everything Obama, almost from the minute he turned down a Cabinet post offer from the White House, but his performance today was really weird. The conversation was about spending and, as usual, Gregg was acting like the incredible deficit freak that he is.
Melissa Francis is a…
mikethemadbiologist | January 30, 2010As I say often (probably far too often), ultimately policies have to help the majority of voters, and when they don't people stay home. Outsourced to Gin and Tacos (italics mine):
It is plainly obvious that Democratic candidates can't expect success without the voters who showed up in 2008, and they're not going to show up unless they're highly motivated by distaste for the GOP (which they aren't at the moment, given the results from 2006-08) or enthusiasm for the Congressional agenda. What we're seeing is not a schizophrenic electorate giving the GOP eight years to screw things up and…
mikethemadbiologist | January 29, 2010A very quick, nearly Twitter-esque point. Reading this post by Mike Stark about the Bernanke confirmation, it is remarkable (and disturbing) how few senators seem to realize where Bernanke stands on unemployment. What's worse is how far off the radar screen the Fed is for so many of the senators interviewed. If I were a senator, making sure as many of my constituents were employed would be my top priority (not only is it good policy, but it's good politics). The Fed plays a large role in that. The divorce between what affects the political prospects of senators and the lives of their…
mikethemadbiologist | January 29, 2010Sure, there were some nice parts in Obama's State of the Union speech. But this part is the equivalent of flat-eartherism and creationism (italics mine):
Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years. Spending related to our national security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be affected. But all other discretionary government programs will. Like any cash-strapped family, we will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don't. And if I have to enforce this discipline by veto, I will.
We will continue to go through…
mikethemadbiologist | January 28, 2010Or something. Tuesday, I wrote about the reporting on the Oregon ballot initiatives, but, of course, the ballot initiative itself actually matters. And Oregon voters approved the tax increases (italics mine):
Yesterday Oregon voters delivered a huge victory for progressives by approving Measures 66 and 67, raising taxes on incomes over $250,000 and large corporations to generate $733 million to close the state's budget deficit. The Oregon legislature had approved the taxes last summer, but a corporate/teabagger alliance organized to put it to voters in a referendum.
One wonders if the…
mikethemadbiologist | January 24, 2010I made this point Wednesday, but Steve Singiser breaks down the numbers:
But the "tack back to the center" crowd ignores a critical stat from yesterday evening: 44% of the people who cast a ballot for Barack Obama in 2008 in the state of Massachusetts either (a) cast a vote for Scott Brown, (b) cast a vote for Joe Kennedy, or (c) withheld their vote. The math tells us that option (c) was the most likely of the three.
Indeed, a good deal of Martha Coakley's problem last night was that communities that were absolute strongholds for President Obama in 2008 failed to turn out in the numbers that…
mikethemadbiologist | January 23, 2010...about President Obama. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) seems to be one of the few politicians in the Democratic caucus (not party, though) who understands just how dire the Democrats' prospects are:
In my view, the Democrats--including the president--have absurdly continued to stumble along the path of "bipartisanship" at exactly the same time the Republicans have waged the most vigorous partisan and obstructionist strategy in recent history.
Instead of making it clear that the first two years of the Obama administration would be about digging the country out of the incredible mess that…
mikethemadbiologist | January 22, 2010Well, he didn't say it in Latin (that would have been very French. Or something). But this report is very encouraging:
Democratic insiders say they are weighing several options to save health care reform, and one actually may be bold enough to revive a depressed, turned-off Democratic base: use the obscure reconciliation loophole to pass a public option.
"Let's do a public option, or let's go back and do a single-payer plan," a frustrated senior Democrat told the Mouth. "You can have people say, 'Look, if we're going to do reconciliation, let's get more, not get less.'"
"If you're going to…
mikethemadbiologist | January 21, 2010I think this is only part of the story, but it seems that the 'Democratic Machine' in Massachusetts might have slipped a gear:
"Nobody likes her" says mom. What she means is, Coakley had no friends in politics. The Democrats in Massachusetts let this happen because - "I don't know" says mom.
Maybe they weren't about to let Western Mass manipulate them. Maybe it all comes down to nothing more than who is friends with whom.
All Scott Brown did was see an opportunity and turn it to his advantage.
There is no deeper national implication. This is not a death knell for the Democratic party or Obama…
mikethemadbiologist | January 21, 2010Keep in mind that eighteen percent of those who voted for Obama in 2008 voted for Brown--if Coakley had kept half of these voters (or even a third), she wins. Now my head goes boom:
HEALTH CARE BILL OPPONENTS THINK IT "DOESN'T GO FAR ENOUGH"
by 3 to 2 among Obama voters who voted for Brown
by 6 to 1 among Obama voters who stayed home
VOTERS OVERWHELMINGLY SUPPORT THE PUBLIC OPTION
82% of Obama voters who voted for Brown
86% of Obama voters who stayed home
OBAMA VOTERS WANT DEMOCRATS TO BE BOLDER
57% of Brown voters say Obama "not delivering enough" on change he promised
49% to 37% among…
mikethemadbiologist | January 20, 2010These will have to be some quick hits, since I'm at a meeting; I'll try to revisit them later this week:
1) The absolute numbers indicate that Democrats lost this election:
In 2008, Obama received 1,904,097 votes; in 2009, Coakley received 1,058,682.
In 2008, McCain received 1,108,854 votes; in 2009, Brown received 1,168,107 votes.
This is a massive defection by Democrats--it's nearly a 50% drop for Democrats versus the Republicans holding steady in absolute numbers. 20% of Obama voters crossed over to Brown.
2) Following on #1, the entire active rank-and-file warned the Democratic '…
mikethemadbiologist | January 18, 2010If you're in Massachusetts, there's a special election for U.S. Senate tomorrow, and it's much closer than it should be--the Republican Scott Brown (who is horrid--who votes to eliminate tax breaks and aid for 9/11 emergency responders?) might actually win. There are several reasons why I'm voting for Coakley*:
1) Republicans hate science. Massachusetts received $2.25 billion in NIH funding alone in 2008 and another $400 million from NSF. That's equivalent to ten percent of the MA state budget. As someone who works for USDA once told me, "Republicans cut my budget, Democrats increase it…
mikethemadbiologist | January 16, 2010...that Lieberman and Snowe were not acting in good faith on healthcare. First, TPM on Republican Senator Olympia Snowe:
Hindsight's 20-20, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid now thinks he and leading Democrats, at the behest of the White House, flushed months down the toilet courting Sen. Olympia Snowe's (R-ME) support for health care reform.
"As I look back it was a waste of time dealing with [Snowe]," Reid is quoted as saying about the White House in a forthcoming New York Times Magazine piece, "because she had no intention of ever working anything out."
And Lieberman:
In a preview of…
mikethemadbiologist | January 14, 2010Many grants have what are known as milestones: dates by which certain activities are supposed to occur; with some grants, failure to meet these milestones (or does one pass milestones?) can ultimately result in withdrawal of the grant. There is a lot of grantsmanship involved in milestones. For obvious reasons, you don't want to set lots of impossible-to-reach milestones. Likewise, you want some low hanging fruit in there too (to confuse images and metaphors).
For example, let's say a Mad Biologist were to sequence a bunch of bacterial genomes. Here are three milestones:
1) Get all of…
mikethemadbiologist | January 13, 2010To follow up on Tuesday's post about Massachusetts' healthcare, it bears repeating: healthcare reform has to make people's lives better. In other words, people have to like this crap. And this isn't cutting it (boldface mine; italics original):
When it came time to renew my own insurance, I asked the insurance broker, what it would cost to buy good insurance in New York State. She said, "sit down". I held my breath in anticipation, she said, "$1300 a month."
When it came time for me to renew my health insurance which was a barely adequate policy with a $500 deductible, the new premium…
mikethemadbiologist | January 12, 2010One of the claims that has been going around is that healthcare in Massachusetts is affordable; in fact, MIT economist Paul Jonathan Gruber, who has come under fire for conflicts-of-interest, has made this claim:
In considering affordability for a group, we need to establish a sensible benchmark whereby insurance is considered affordable if "most of" a group can afford it. We can disagree about what "most of" means, but it would be wrong to define "most of" only as "very close to 100%."
Well, that's good to know. Because most humans, as opposed to MIT economists, would think, when it comes…