The left continues to live in a fantasy world, politically:
Ignoring completely the immediately obvious – and in some cases vastly better funded – parallels on the Left, the author quickly concludes that the only way to beat the nasty fiscal conservatives is to implement even more aggressive “campaign finance reform” efforts than those attempted in the past. He also seems oblivious to the fact this his fellow progressives managed to fund the most expensive presidential election in history when putting Barack Obama in office and that they are already crowing over the likely target of spending more than a billion next year.
As long as they continue to delude themselves in this way, the Tea Party is going to continue to “kick their butts.”
I don’t buy all the hand wringing from progressives about the Tea Party “victories”.
It’s as if the Japanese high command were getting upset about all the planes they lost over Pearl Harbor.
I don’t understand your analogy: wasn’t the loss of their airplanes the reason that the Japanese withdrew too early from Pearl Harbor, and thus the reason that Yamamoto actually was pretty upset about the attack? (And then there is the larger issue of the wisdom of the Pearl Harbor attack, and the wisdom of attacking America at all, but we can just stay focused on the planes and the Japanese high command.)
How about we stay focused on the topic? The lunacy of suggesting more campaign finance reform, when other parts of the article talks about problems with lackluster incumbents, not to mention campaign finance reform is just code for laws that restrict freedom of speech.
Shaw (at Hot Air) misrepresents Esko (at the Huffington Post). Esko does think campaign finance reform is the only answer; Esko’s primary answer is what our 41st President called “the vision thing”. But partisans always says that. Esko also offers up another old chestnut: throw out the squishy moderates. Big deal. I ‘d rather run with K’s analogy. Is Michele Bachman a torpedo bomber?
Should have read: Esko does NOT think campaign finance reform is the only answer…
I can see the stupid party. Win a skirmish is not winning the war. We have to turn back decades of insidious developments. It will take decades of focus to do so, if ever. Losing focus is the danger.
Campaign Finance Reform only becomes a Really Important Issue in the wake of GOP victories. When Obama wins in 2012 after spending a “Historic” 10-figure Campaign (including countless plugs from “objective news media”), it’ll be a non-issue, same as two years ago when he out-spent McCain 3-to-1 or whatever. It’s just the usual Gramician demand that the opposition play by Marquess of Queensberry Rules while they go for the kill.
No wait, K has the Tea Party as the Americans, so Bachman is an ol’ battleship. And as Thomas Matula has said over and over here, the Tea Party’s problem is that it not only has no Roosevelt, it has no Nimitz.
Titus, there is lots of progressive objection to Obama’s campaign finance strategy (as well as lots of progresive objection to nearly anything Obama does, which indicates how awesome he is in my book) but yes, I think you are basically right. Obama. is. so. awesome.
Bobwan, the line is “I don’t care — Obama is awesome!”
I don’t understand your analogy
Republicans “win” by with cuts of less than one percent in budget meltdown. Admiral Kimmel declares victory.
We need constituent finance reform. All that robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul.
Ah, here it is…
Hence that general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack.
The Left will rid itself of the Tea Party only when they’re prepared to go house-to-house. Are you?
Are you asking me? I don’t want to get rid of the Tea Party. The Tea Party has some terrific points to make. Even if, say, Keynesian economics is completely correct, the Tea Party challenges Keynesians to explain their case. Tea Partiers are a lot like Muslims — the vast majority of them are perfectly nice people with whom I happen to disagree about certain philosophical issues. Sure, some of them are dangerous or at least utter assholes, and the rest of them aren’t as quick to condem the former group as might like sometimes, but I’m not going to write off all of them because of a few bad apples.
I can’t think of a single Tea Partier who could be described as being dangerous (to something other than a political career).
One of the more boneheaded elements of Keynesian economics is the reliance on public works as stimulus. Public works are temporary projects – once they’re finished, those jobs are gone and whatever economic growth they induced fritters away. Call it the Ghost Town Effect. Long-term economic growth has to be fed by something more enduring – by going concerns.
Not even a single one? Here’s two: http://latftp.com/2010/10/31/tread-on-me/
But that’s not the kind of blog I read, nor is it the kind of thing I want to dwell on. As I’ve mentioned here before, a Tea Party member was greatly helpful in assisting of a bunch of us (all Democrats) who wanted to make our local government more transparent. And I should point out, the fellow in question is a professional community organizer (He works for a libertarian foundation.)
The argument for public works is that public infrastructure (roads, airports, sewer lines, etc) enables increased private economic activity. The Keynesian part of the argument, I suppose, is the idea that the taxpayers should invest in public works just as private activity slows down, and the infrastructure will be there for use when private activity speeds up. As for individual jobs: a worker whose job goes away when the public sector project finishes might find work in the newly enabled private sector.
…unless it’s horribly misallocated, such as, *clears throat* High Speed Rail, leaving the taxpayers on the hook for subsidized boondogglery for generations to come.
If we just build the bridge to nowhere, then people will go there.
“If you build it, they will come”
If you build it, they will come
Wasn’t that the idea behind the mother of all public works projects, the railway system Britain built in India?
(I guess the Trans-Texas Corridor would have been the mother-in-law of public works if it had passed.)