November 06, 2008

Dr. Helen . . .

tackles the issue of "what is to be done":

I picked up a copy of Michael Barone's excellent book, The Almanac of American Politics, 2008 to see what senators are up for re-election. Here is what I found:

Democrats up for re-election—

Bayh, Evan (D-IN)

Boxer, Barbara (D-CA)

Dodd, Christopher J. (D-CT)

Dorgan, Byron L. (D-ND)

Feingold, Russell D. (D-WI)

Inouye, Daniel K. (D-HI)

Leahy, Patrick J. (D-VT)

Lincoln, Blanche L. (D-AR)

Mikulski, Barbara A. (D-MD)

Murray, Patty (D-WA)

Obama, Barack (D-IL) [and wouldn't it be nice to get a
Rethug into that one?]

Reid, Harry (D-NV)

Salazar, Ken (D-CO)

Schumer, Charles E. (D-NY)

Wyden, Ron (D-OR)


Republicans up for re-election—

Bond, Christopher S. (R-MO)

Brownback, Sam (R-KS)

Bunning, Jim (R-KY)

Burr, Richard (R-NC)

Coburn, Tom (R-OK)

Crapo, Mike (R-ID)

DeMint, Jim (R-SC)

Grassley, Chuck (R-IA)

Gregg, Judd (R-NH)

Isakson, Johnny (R-GA)

Martinez, Mel (R-FL)

McCain, John (R-AZ)

Murkowski, Lisa (R-AK)

Shelby, Richard C. (R-AL)

Specter, Arlen (R-PA)

Thune, John (R-SD)

Vitter, David (R-LA)

Voinovich, George V. (R-OH)

I wonder if Arnold Schwarzenegger might run against Barbara Boxer for her Senate seat, or if Chris Dodd will survive his ties to the housing crisis? Perhaps if conservatives and libertarians work together to defeat a few Democrats and keep Republicans in place, 2010 will be a more welcoming place for us.

I do know that there are some angry people in Nevada who intend to cause some big problems for Harry Reid in two years. I'd love to see Dingy Harry go, and I do think he's vulnerable.

Boxer is, too. More than she thinks. And I think there are people out there who are getting pretty tired of Chuck Schumer's face.


Organize, organize, organize. The bluer your state is, the more frustrated you probably feel: channel that into action.

The biggest danger to democracy right now, as I see it, is the prospect of open ballots for union voting in the ironically named "Employee Free Choice Act." The Democrats will be trying to force this one through again, and if they manage it they will unleash the ugliest elements of union thuggery, nationwide. "That's the Chicago way."

The Barone guidebook Dr. Smith mentions is available here.

And in case you need to get in the mood, John Sayles's short story collection The Anarchists' Convention might help you get there. Maybe we do need more goddamned conventions!


(Dr. Helen link via Insty. In case you were wondering what it takes to get an Instalanche these days. . . )

Posted by: Attila Girl at 07:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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More Zo!

Some words from Macho-Sauce Man:

Via D.C. Thornton, who took care of me for a week while I toiled in the vineyards of Clark County, Nevada, attempting to undo some of the damage my fellow Californians seem to have accomplished in what is still, in many ways, the freest state of the Union.

If need be, the entire Free West may retreat into Utah and Arizona, but I don't think it'll have to: Nevada will go red again. It must.

Thornton says he isn't getting the "Keyes vibe": I kinda feel the same about Huckabee. I'm not a red-meat girl on illegal immigration, but a lot of my political allies are. My problem with Huckabee was his tax-and-spend leanings. I truly understand that there's a lot to be said for a politician who is also a musician—does anyone doubt the impact of Bill Clinton playing the sax, wearing dark sunglasses, on the Arsenio Hall show during the 1992 campaign?—but that is frosting on the charisma cake.

And from the libertarian (if not libertine) side of the party, I'd submit that Rudy Giuliani has every bit as much appeal as Huckabee does; he is a compelling speaker. But he is at the other end of the party—considered a RINO for quite different, largely complementary, reasons.

The trick is to find someone who has charisma—the "delivery system," as Zo puts it—but doesn't carry any baggage that is truly alienating to the base (open support for choice in Rudy's case; immigration and tax policy in Huckabee's).

We need someone who is popular without being a populist, and it turns out to be a taller order than we thought.

I think we do need fresh blood: Palin is a good start, and we know Louisiana is going to lose Jindal sooner or later, for the good of the country (preferably after fixing the systemic problems in Louisiana). But there are a lot of bright people out there, and we need to cultivate their talent, while studying the things Axelrod did right, and continuing to garner wisdom from the old hands on our side, such as Rove and Gingrich; those guys have been through the political wars, and we need to listen to them as we recruit new talent.

In California, the task is drastically different: our party is very bifurcated here, and we need to continue to find people like Schwarzenegger and Riordan who can bridge the divide between the Christians in the Central Valley and San Diego and the Log Cabin folks in West Hollywood, who are "out" in their sexual orientations—but not in their politics.

We might start by getting Tammy Bruce to admit that the letter after her name looks a lot less like a "D" these days, and more like an "R." And by reminding the party's right wing that Goldwater didn't disown his gay son—any more than Cheney disowned his gay daughter. Any more than Catholic voters turned on Reagan because of his divorce, or evangelicals abandoned him for not attending church on a regular basis.

How do we keep the tent big without watering down our message? We do it by focusing on three key issues: security/defense/foreign policy, economics, and civil liberties such as speech rights, privacy, and gun rights (and the seemingly irrelevant right to smoke and eat foods that contain sugar and trans-fats: once we concede to the state that it can monitor our health, we have declared what we are, and are simply haggling over the price).

"Stay safe, and shoot straight."

Posted by: Attila Girl at 05:55 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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