So, anyway, I got mentioned on Sonoran Alliance the other day. A blogger calling himself Veritas Vincit said this about me:

It seems that the Republican Party isn’t an exclusive club when it comes to inter-party warfare.

I wish to thank Donna Gratehouse, an Arizona Liberal Diva and US Navy veteran for introducing me to the internecine warfare now raging within the Democratic Party. Without her assistance I would never have gotten as far as I have in understanding the true soul of a Progressive and why they are so angry.

He then goes on to link to a March 2010 post by a liberal critic of President Obama that I’d never seen before but supposedly went viral. The mention of my name was pretty much apropos of nothing but maybe Mr. Veritas has wanted to work my name into a post for a long time. Cool. And I’m glad for whatever role I played in enlightening V Squared (who apparently lacks both a working knowledge of history and observation ability) about intra-Dem squabbling, which has been going on since, like, forever. Will Rogers quipped that he didn’t belong to an organized party, he belonged to the Democratic Party back in the 1920s. Dems also had that little tiff over the Civil Rights Act, that minor scuffle at the DNC Convention in ’68, that little Carter-Kennedy primary situation back in ’80, and so on and so forth up to and including a lengthy and slightly contentious 2008 Dem primary. Yeah, I can totally see how a conservative like VV could have missed all that and assume that Dems have been have been holding hands and singing kumbaya all this time.

Which gets me to the bit of internecine scolding of certain Democrats I need to do now. This is more of a strategic criticism than an ideological one. Those of us active in Lefty Blogistan are very familiar with the rift between what I’ll call the Obama Loyalists and the so-called Professional Left. Personally, I’m in neither camp, or both camps, depending on how you look at it. Among fellow liberals I’m critical of the President because I’m disappointed that he’s less progressive than I want him to be and has a maddening habit of embracing right wing memes about the economy. But he still has my vote and my strong support for reelection and I will defend him against every stupid, vicious, disgusting attack conservative throw at him in my presence. And I think he has done a lot of good things and made decent incremental progress in many areas. But like I said there are two distinct camps and both are right about some things, wrong about others, and insufferable in their own ways. The Loyalists tolerate no criticism of Obama and are sometimes too quick to defend and excuse the shortcomings of his administration. The Professional Lefties are often hyperbolic and hypercritical.

That said, I’m going to come down on a very important subset of the Loyalists for this post. This Ezra Klein blog post from a few weeks ago chilled me to my core:

Greg Sargent has a nice take on the e-mail an Obama campaign official sent mocking Paul Krugman and the “firebaggers.” But whenever I read these periodic eruptions about “the professional left,” my main thought is: if I were a member of the professional left, I would be stoked.

Paul Krugman is one op-ed columnist. Firedog Lake is one Web site. They have readers. But they are not the state of Ohio. Time and again, however, we see evidence that they have gotten deep inside the White House’s head. In letters, in offhand comments, in outbursts at press conferences, in my personal reporting, members of the Obama administration and members of the Obama reelection campaign will let slip that they are dwelling and worrying over these arguments. They may not agree with them. They may not think they’re fair, or sophisticated, or useful. But they’re thinking about them. And if you’re the “professional left,” that’s exactly what you want.

The mocking email Klein was referring to was sent out by the head of OFA in New Mexico, which got some attention in Dem and lefty political circles. I consider myself to be a proud Professional Leftist but I’m most certainly not stoked to learn that the Obama administration and reelection campaign are spending time that would be much better spent organizing to get out the vote for the President and the Dems being butthurt over bloggers and Paul Krugman. Really? If you are someone who works in the administration or OFA you have a job to do and that job is not to obsess over FireDogLake and Paul Krugman hurting your fee fees.

Social media has become a vital conduit of fundraising and volunteer momentum for campaigns so, in fairness, I can understand how Obama staffers would feel demoralized and defensive by seeing a bunch of liberals yelling about how mad they are at Obama and (some of them) swearing they won’t vote for him next year. But it’s important not to overestimate the importance and influence of partisan blogs. They are useful for sharing and spreading ideas, venting, and for interested outsiders to gain inside dope. But if you stopped 100 random people at Desert Ridge Mall in Phoenix, I bet you’d be hard pressed to find one who could identify Jane Hamsher or Andrew Breitbart. Or me or Shane Wikfors for that matter. So if Obama’s approval has dropped significantly, it’s highly unlikely it’s because of what anyone on a blog said. Again, I don’t want to understate the impact of liberal social media enthusiasm to a Democratic campaign but it’s not something you can browbeat people into and if you don’t have it right now maybe it’s time to focus on other things.

I also think it’s important to note that, internet chatter aside, progressives are still in Obama’s camp. We’re the ones supporting him in high percentages in polls. At this point, we alone are propping up his approval ratings. Which makes it all the more pointless and unproductive for Obama people to spend any time punching hippies.

The Americans Elect Party, according to its website, supports an open presidential nominating system in which voters would be able to choose the party’s candidate at an online convention next June. The group intends to gain party status in all states and already is in Nevada, Kansas and Alaska.

Americans Elect ballot access director Kellen Arno said the purpose of the party is to allow voters to nominate a candidate who represents the issues that are most important to them.

Boy howdy, that sounds super democratic and populist, doesn’t it? Irregular Times has done some thorough coverage on this outfit. They’re secretive about funding and cagey about their agenda (they insist they don’t have one). Remember the Unity Party from 2008? Some of my Dem friends were keen on it back then, just as some of my Dem friends are jazzed about No Labels now.

Irregular Times blogger Jim Cook reported that Unity 2008 has been reformulated into a task force called Unity12 by corporate raider, former Michael Milken associate, and fan of Social Security privatization, one Peter Ackerman.

Guess who is the president of Americans Elect?

Per Jim Cook again, Americans Elect swears up and down it’s a folksy little grassroots effort seeking to give Joe and Jane Sixpack a voice in selecting a Presidential nominee via the Internet.

Americans Elect’s “About” Page:

No traditional parties.
No special interests.
No agendas. Really!

… As a Delegate, you will help shape the rules, craft the platform of key questions the candidates must answer, and ultimately choose the nominees.

Americans Elect, “#6 of Six Things to Know“:

Americans Elect is a platform. We have no candidate, issues, or ideology of our own. We are simply a vehicle for a presidential ticket that is more representative of, and more accountable to you, your friends, your family, and your neighbors. You are the drivers.

You are the drivers. Americans Elect won’t be steering. No agendas. No candidate, issues, or ideology of its own.

Really?

Yeah, really. I know this will come as a shock:

Dig a bit past promotional material and you’ll find something else:

Video by Americans Elect promoting the “sensible center” and focusing on fiscal issues from a centrist point of view.

Blog posts focused on budgetary and fiscal issues from a centrist point of view.

Selective Americans Elect interviews with citizens who disparage conservatism and liberalism and call for a resurgence of centrist politics.

Position or no position? Agenda or no agenda? Ideology or no ideology? Which version of Americans Elect’s public message accurately reflects the corporation’s nature and intentions? Editor’s note: Links to the blog posts and videos have been scrubbed.

Ah, good old centrism. Not to be confused with moderation. Moderate voters aren’t the same as political centrists. Centrism is a fiction invented to disguise rich people pushing their interests. That’s why centrists like things like free trade deals, deregulation, deficit reduction, austerity, and so-called “entitlement reform” – most of which are hugely unpopular with and detrimental to Americans. Centrists aren’t anywhere near where the real center of the public is. They just pretend they are.

Jim Cook revealed today that Americans Elect plans to broker the 2012 Presidential election should they receive enough votes to swing it. Cook’s post presents two scenarios under which that could happen. They also have a very punitive loyalty oath in the bylaws should an Americans Elect elector refuse to vote for the party’s chosen candidate.

Failure to comply with this agreement shall result in the automatic termination of the Elector and substitution therefor with the alternate elector, in view of the national effort and costs to AE to attain ballot access for the AE ticket, which is not susceptible of easy calculation, the parties agree that the elector shall be liable to AE in the amount of $500,000 in liquidated damages if the Elector violates this agreement.

Yikes. Anyway, I went to the Americans Elect website so I could sign up (under a fake name), which I did. Right of the bat, I noticed a similarity to the No Labels site on the landing page. See if you notice it too. Coinky-dink, I’m sure.

“They’ve not paid attention to who they’ve voted for,” Chabin told a gaggle of reporters just prior to the House convening on the floor. “This is the chaos that you buy.

“Voters in Arizona are shortsighted, disinterested and disengaged.”

I’ve been asked many times what I think happened in AZ in the 2008 election. Why, when most of the country went in an arguably more progressive direction, did Arizona put more rabid reactionaries in office? My answer doesn’t sit well with a lot of people but I stand by it. I mostly blame the voters. Sorry, I just do. I say this as someone who didn’t bother to vote in Arizona for the first six years that I lived here, so I shoulder my share of that blame. It was the craven and evil stupidity of the Bush administration that stirred me from my disengagement and got me involved. I started going to John Kerry meetups. I have since learned that there has been a concerted effort by the MSM and movement conservatives to cultivate political apathy. Still, it wasn’t anyone else’s fault but mine that I blew off my responsibility as a citizen.

You can regard the voters as passive consumers who respond to the party or candidate with the more appealing “message”, as they do with any other product, or you can think of them as active participants in their own government. I believe that they are always the latter. Always. Even if they appear for all the world to be the former. If they decide that Dancing With The Stars or their sports teams are more important than their government, then that is their prerogative and they (and unfortunately everyone else) will suffer the consequences. If they choose to believe supply side malarkey without checking the facts themselves and then proceed to vote against their own best interests to give tax cuts to the wealthy that is also their prerogative.

You can’t say they weren’t warned about what would happen if the Republicans took control of everything. We told them over and over, until we were blue in the face. Candidates and volunteers knocked on the doors and made the phone calls and wrote the opeds and LTTEs and tried to persuade them. In the end a plurality of Arizonans chose to put more Republicans in office. We do have some pretty gerrymandered legislative districts here but that doesn’t force the voters who live in Republican strongholds to return rabid ideologues like Russell Pearce and Jack Harper to the State Capitol term after term, but that’s exactly what those voters do. Voters in more competitive districts ejected moderate Dems like Jackie Thrasher and Theresa Ullmer and replaced them with right wing Republicans. 30% of the Arizona electorate opted to let others make decisions for them by abstaining from voting. Think about that. This wasn’t a city council race or a school bond election, where a GOTV effort could mean making a miniscule turnout slightly larger. This was Barack Obama running against John McCain in the longest, most expensive, most reported on election ever. It’s not like people didn’t know it was happening. It’s not like it wasn’t plainly obvious that Janet Napolitano was going to hightail it to DC as soon as Obama got elected. But nearly a third of the Arizona electorate had better things to do than vote on November 4th, 2008. I get into arguments with people all the time who want to lay the entire fiasco on the Democrats but the truth is no matter how badly you think the Arizona Democratic Party sucks, that level of apathy and ignorance in the public is depressing.

To illustrate this: On June 30th I protested with educators over the proposed harsh cuts to the schools at the Capitol. In a Senate conference room I sat next to a pink-slipped teacher who told me that she always voted R all the way down the ballot. She considered herself to be a moderate and had no idea what hardcore reactionaries her legislators were. She had no idea. Her Senator is Pamela Gorman. This self-described moderate Republican pink-slipped schoolteacher had no idea how far to the right Pamela Gorman is. Seriously. I’m not mad at her, though. Given my own history, why would I be? Clearly this woman, and others like her, need to spend some time living in the chaos they bought. I derive no satisfaction from saying that and I know that many, many people in our state will suffer greatly so that people like that teacher will suffer just enough to start paying attention to whom they are putting in office. Unfortunately, that’s what has to happen. Tom Chabin was telling the truth.

I have some more thoughts about this topic and I will return to it in an upcoming post. Right now I’m at the State Committee meeting, where we will discuss strategies and message in the caucuses and get an update from the state party on where we are headed. Pardon my less-than-cheery attitude but hopefully it will brighten if I hear some good news.

What began as a collegial airing of views abruptly changed when McCain spoke about immigration, according to these sources, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution. Anonymity was also requested by a third source, who was not at the meeting but was told, independently of the other two, that McCain had displayed his notorious temper.

“He was angry,” one source said. “He was over the top. In some cases, he rolled his eyes a lot. There were portions of the meeting where he was just staring at the ceiling, and he wasn’t even listening to us. We came out of the meeting really upset.”

McCain’s message was obvious, the source continued: After bucking his party on immigration, he had no sympathy for Hispanics who are dissatisfied with President Obama’s pace on the issue. “He threw out [the words] ‘You people — you people made your choice. You made your choice during the election,’ ” the source said. “It was almost as if [he was saying] ‘You’re cut off!’ We felt very uncomfortable when we walked away from the meeting because of that.”

McCain’s tantrum stemmed from his perception that he was snubbed by Hispanic voters in the election, despite his considerable efforts on immigration reform. And just like a tantrum-throwing child, he’s taking his toys and going home. I don’t suppose it’s occured to him that Hispanics care about other issues besides immigration. It’s also entirely possible that it wasn’t McCain who was the problem with that particular voting bloc, but the people he was palling around with during the election.

I’ve got another post to do about the budget memo but I’ll have to get to it tomorrow.   I just thought this story was noteworthy in the context of this week’s events.   Can you imagine President John McCain in Europe right now?   Shudder.

I’ll tell you what this carrot-topped Diva did on the cusp of her 40th birthday:  Agreed to join a breakfast panel discussion about the election, to provide the Democratic perspective.   Not the first time I’ve done something like that but this time the panel included a prominent local Libertarian.   I’d been asked to do it by my friend who runs the twice monthly event.   He’s a lefty but is very welcoming to people from all over the political spectrum.

Sigh.  As most of y’all know, the single most freaking annoying person on the planet is a Libertarian.   And the only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is a bunch of them in the same place.  A group of Libertarians applies a force multiplier effect to the stupidosity of the ideas of each individual Libertarian, culminating in this sort of hive mind Echo Chamber of Dumb thing that makes every unfortunate soul in its noxious presence want to kill him/herself.   This is only a slight exaggeration.  Much to my consternation, at least half of the assembled attendees at the breakfast were Libertarians. 

The meeting started at 7:30am and after a few introductions and pleasantries we proceeded to get down to the panel discussion.  The Republican started and spoke for a few minutes about the national and local races.  I followed him and did the same from the Democratic side.  

Then came the Libertarian dude.   Oh lordy.   See Divas, there’s a reason that Libertarians rarely hold elective office.   Aside from the fact that they embrace an economic and political ideology that has never worked anywhere outside of an Ayn Rand novel, there is also the fact that no Libertarian has ever stopped making florid soliliquies and ill-formed rants about the Fed and fiat currencies long enough to show anything resembling an actual interest in governance.   Some of them love to run for stuff, though.   Libertarian Speaker Dude is a perennial candidate.  He’s run for something pretty much every 2 years since I’ve lived in Arizona.   At the same time he proudly admits that he hasn’t voted for years and that the whole notion of elected government is a farce.   He was quite entertaining, as he churned out one metaphor-laden analogy after another, none of which made any sense nor had any relevance to the recent election.

The Q and A session that followed was a grueling two hour root canal wherein I was bombarded with questions from the Libertarians about Obama’s “missing” birth certificate.  I made a futile attempt to explain that Philip Berg, the attorney who is making the case to the Supreme Court that Obama is not a U.S. citizen is, a) a well known litigious nuisance and b) pursuing an argument utterly devoid of merit.   This did not deter my interrogators in the slightest.   They proceeded to demand to know what would happen IF Obama was proven not to be a U.S. citizen.  At this point even the Republican was getting annoyed.  Finally, in exasperation, I surmised that unicorns might fly out of all of our butts at some point in the future and maybe we could cross that bridge when we got to it. 

As I suggested before in a previous post, Libertarians are essentially Republicans minus some of the moralizing*.   That’s pretty much true except that Libertarians really cling to the free market religion.   I mean, take the most hardcore Republican politician or businessman you can imagine.   You know that he doesn’t really believe all that hooey about free markets.   “Free market” means “fill my greedy pockets with everyone else’s money and use the barrel of a Government gun to accomplish it, if need be” to him.  But my Libertarian breakfast companions have slurped down tumblers of the Milton Friedman koo-koo koolaid.  Here’s what one of them had to say about the role of government:

“You know what I say to people who ask how the roads would be built without the government? I tell them that if the government had gotten out of the way we’d have personal jet packs by now!

Whee!  Overdosing on science fiction can be unhealthy.  I’m just saying.  Anyway, it got to be 10:30 and I was getting ready to start drinking if I stayed a minute longer so I skedaddled.

*A surprisingly large percentage of Libertarian males are anti-choice. I have my theories as to why this is but I was tempted to ask some of the breakfast guests about it. Of course, I refrained because I’ve learned through painful personal experience to never ask a Libertarian anything.  Ever.

While I was partying down with my AZ Dem peeps on the VIP terrace (oh yeah, that’s how Divas roll) I had more than one person tug on my arm and inquire as to my intentions to run in LD20 again. “You were such a great candidate!” They are, of course, referring to Ted Maish’s hugely disappointing loss to John Huppenthal for the Senate. They are also laboring under unfounded assumptions as to why I came closer to unseating Hupp in my 2006 bid (I lost by 3000 votes) than Ted (who lost by nearly 8000).  

While I’m flattered by the compliments, I can tell you one thing with certainty: I was NOT a good candidate. I hated canvassing and phone calls and made every excuse to get out of doing them.  In public appearances, I would invariably make some intemperate or ill advised remark.  Like suggesting pot should be legal at the Clean Elections debate.  Seriously, I did.  I was in over my head and had no support from the state party.  I drove my campaign manager and volunteers crazy. Tempted as I am to indulge myself in face-saving revisionist history, I can’t.  I sucked.  I know it.  I was there.  I was me.  It’s okay.

Ted Maish was, by every measure, my antithesis. A workhorse who went out and knocked on doors every day from the moment he filed. He’s a retired teacher and a former Republican, which lent him credibility on education and should have reassured non-Democrats that he would be a moderate voice in the lege. His performances at the Clean Elections debate and other forums were flawless. Plus the state targeted our district, and understandably so. Not only did they have a great candidate in Ted, but there was an increase of 3000 (my loss margin) in D voter registrations in LD20 while Rs had seen a small decrease.  All of the elements for a perfect storm to pick off the seat from Hupp were present. 

And then Hupp accosts a 78 year old woman over a sign on Election Day!   Geez Louise. 

You know what my theory is? I did good because of my hair. Behold the glamour shot, done by the aces at Southwest Photos of Tempe, of me that was on signs strewn all over LD20 in 2006:

Those lustrous Auburn tresses and the makeup were the handiwork of Heather at Rumors Salon in Tempe.  I mean, seriously y’all, is my hair not amazing in that photo?  For the record, my ’do never looks that good.  My visage was like 3 feet high on those signs, with all that glorious hair.  A pal who serves on a board in Chandler told me that a fellow board member told her she was voting for me because “Ohmigod!  I LOVE her hair!”  Make what you will of it but I maintain to this day that I got a not-insignificant hair bump. 

Catch y’all later with more on the election!

If you haven’t voted yet, go and vote!

That said, here is what I WANT to happen tomorrow:

Decisive Obama win.  The hands-down best poll analyst of the season has decreed it to be so:  http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/  Nate Silver knows what he is doing.  Read his site and you will be edified.

Bob Lord win.  Because John Shadegg is a whiny little crybaby who can’t legitimately defend his record on veteran’s issues in his ads.  Plus he’s a snowbird who really wants to be a Senator. 

Harry Mitchell:  As if David Schweikert could really convince people to vote against their Grandpa, who has a big honkin’ statue in honor of him in Tempe. 

Gabby Giffords and Ann Kirkpatrick:  Obviously.

LD20:  Ted Maish and Rae Waters.   Because it’s my district and they rawwk!

LD12:  Angela Cotera rawwks!  And is a rocket scientist. 

LD23:  Rebecca Rios.  Because she’s a good Legislator and Andre Campos is a creep who hearts Ron Paul and strip clubs. 

Dan Saban:  Because Joe Arpaio is a fascist thug and Dan is a decent guy who will do a good job.

Tim Nelson:  Ditto Andrew Thomas and ditto Tim.

Ed Hermes:  Because panty-obsessed right wing blogs need to brought down a peg or two. 

Steven Sarkis (Arcadia/Biltmore JP):  Because his opponent, Syd Steven Booth, is a violent felon who tried to intimidate me.

Other states (not all inclusive by any means):

Elwyn Tinklenberg for the win:  I hope he opens a can of whupass on McCarthyite Michelle Bachmann. 

Kay Hagen for the win: God doesn’t like you, Elizabeth Dole.

Joe the Plumber: The end to your interminable 15 minutes and the return to Ohio, where you will have to repay your back taxes and child support.

Sarah Palin: Ahh…. You will return to Alaska, where you will finish your one term, while facing more ethics charges. I don’t care what you do. Get Joe’s record deal, get a show on Fox, go on the lecture circuit, I don’t care. Just get out of my face, with your ignorant science-hating religious extremist ass.

The “socialism” and concommitant “redistribution” memes: Die an ignominous death as Americans realize that Trickle Down economics is the biggest fraud ever to be perpetuated upon the American people, and that we need things like bridges that don’t collapse and breast cancer research.

Earmarks: Will be examined for efficiency and effectiveness, under Obama, but will no longer be a convenient bugaboo for conservatives to use to distract Americans from the many ways our gov’t REALLY wastes money, i.e., defense contracts and tax cuts to billionaires who outsource American jobs. Will continue to be used to help states pay for things like ensuring that bridges don’t collapse and toward breast cancer research.

That’s it for now. Will update if I think of anything else. G’night fellow Divas and good luck on Election Day!

There ain’t no such animal as a Bradley effect, people. The idea that racists are telling pollsters they did one thing after doing another is laughable. It may be socially unacceptable to publicly acknowledge one’s racism in voting decisions (not that it stops some people, believe you me) but it’s not like there aren’t a plethora of code words and dog whistles available to couch your racism if you are just not comfortable voting for the black guy. Take your pick from these examples:

“Muslim”

“Reverend Wright”

“Not a Real American”

“ACORN”

“Fannie and Freddie”   (Yes, federally chartered mortgage institutions are now code for black people.  Check out some right wing blogs if you don’t believe me.)

For racists who wax nostalgic for Reagan there’s the less contemporaneous but still effective:

“Welfare”

So stick a sock in it, MSM, with this Bradley effect malarkey. Then again, there’s this:

Last week, Julie Hensley made one of her thousands of phone calls on behalf of Barack Obama. A woman answered. As Hensley ran through her short script, the husband impatiently broke in.

“Ma’am, we’re voting for the n***er.” And hung up.

These anecdotes of the “Reverse Bradley effect” might also be the stuff of urban legend, but I’d like to think they’re not.