But they're wrong to the extent that they take that to mean that there's no point in addressing the concerns of or appealing to libertarian-ish people who now vote (or might under not very different circumstances vote) Republican.
I don't think they are, in fact, making this argument. See, for example, Matt Yglesias's reference to Tester's anti-Patriot Act ads in Montana. Both Klein and Yglesias address "libertarianish" Republicans who like the idea of "small government" but aren't actual, principled libertarians; these are, in fact, the people Kos was addressing in the first place, and I don't see Matt or Ezra disagreeing with the notion that Dems should go after that vote where they can.
While it is true that self identified libertarians who vote Republican(such as myself) distrust many of the New Deal programs and think that there may be market solutions, I feel that the Democrats would pick up more votes by being more "pro- Defense". Not to say that the Democrats are unpatriotic, or even that the two concepts are equivalent, but they are conflated. Unforetunately, this is Bobby Kennedy's legacy, that the Democrats will gut the military. In the current environment, I don't know how you change that perception.
By pointing out that Republicans have, literally in the case of many soldiers, gutted the military?
First, we need to make it clear that this is an empirical question, not a matter of principle -- if your argument is that poor people are better off without income support programs than with with income support programs, then you need to support it with some facts, and if the facts don't go your way, you need to change your mind.
One big problem with simply viewing it as an empirical question is that there's still the issue of what "better off" means.
Most libertarian-type arguments seem to eventually fall back on a "poor children going hungry and without medical care now will produce better results for everybody in the long run, whereas the government helping to feed and treat those children just reinforces dependency" or some such horseshit.
these are, in fact, the people Kos was addressing in the first place, and I don't see Matt or Ezra disagreeing with the notion that Dems should go after that vote where they can.
Weren't they both disagreeing with Kos? I thought they were.
I liked Sausagely's post on this; what I took him as saying, basically, is that democrats can safely ignore the Reason and Randroid Libertarians (because they're statistically insignificant and crazy) but that libertarianism much more loosely defined has a real emotional appeal for a lot of voters. Or, IOW, what LB said.
Belle Waring made this argument pretty well right after the 2004 elections, as did Tim Burke and some others. Me, I'd prefer to go in the other direction, especially as there appears to be siginificantly more populists than libertarians in the U.S. today. (Put the self-described liberals and the populists together, and you've just about got a guaranteed plurality of the population.) But neither is likely to happen anyway.
Yeah, but he still doesn't want to call it appealing to libertarians, because he's all accurate about people's beliefs. I think Kos's approach, of calling people 'libertarians' because that's how they think of themselves, even if it's not an accurate self-description, is a better way to go.
This is kind of what I was getting at in some things I wrote after the 2004 elections. I agree that pursuing people who claim the political label "libertarian" as an explicit description of their party or political loyalties is fairly pointless, because most of the people fitting that description are basically Republican loyalists with very little serious interest in libertarian thought and its implications.
But libertarian themes or ideas in American life are very much potentially up for grabs and available to the Democrats, I think. The entire "small-government" concept, with a lot of its components (the paranoid view of government, a kind of 'don't tread on me' approach to civil liberties, a presumptive skepticism about government programs and expenditure, etc.) seems to me to retain much of its power, including in "red-state" communities, and the Democrats could plausibly appeal to it.
BUT.
Only if they're willing to de-emphasize other long-term commitments within the party in order to be *credible* in their use of these ideas. If they're just seen to be "framing" Lakoff-style, I think they'll get killed--the Democrats, justly or not, have a much deeper reputation in the electorate for phoniness and inauthenticity when they try to appeal to new groups or constituencies.
So if you're going to try and appeal to the small-government narrative, I think you've got to do more than just talk an Al-Gore type line on promoting greater efficiency. You've got to adopt a genuinely skeptical position towards government interventions in civil, cultural and domestic life, to effectively up the bar for what constitutes a necessary intervention in those areas. You've got to be absolutely rigorous and unyielding in a civil liberties position. Etc.
Don't talk about the framing, Burke! That's the first rule of framing!
Weren't they both disagreeing with Kos? I thought they were.
They weren't even responding to Kos so much as they were respondng to responses to Kos that weren't really responding to Kos. Go back and look at Kos's original piece and you'll see that he's not addressing libertarians - Kos isn't stupid on politics, he knows there's no votes out there - he's addressing a sort of Western, "small-government" Republican who's fond of a certain myth of rugged individualism. Because he called his piece "libertarian democrats," and because actual bona fide libertarians are wildly overrepresented in the blogosphere, the discussion in response to his piece became about whether actual libertarians should vote for Democrats. Ezra and Matt pointed out that this was pretty much besides the point, since there aren't enough of them to matter.
Whoops, Russell posted while I was composing...Anyway, his argument is a good one, too--my only thought is that the Democrats would be best off deciding which political fraction they want to try and move into their column--"instinctively" libertarian folks, or "instinctive" populists of various kinds. Russell's right that there are more of the latter, probably, and even I think you could argue that this was one of the constituencies that Clinton appealed to and still can connect to. My thought is that the libertarian slant is more appealing to me personally, and probably to a certain swing constituency of independents, especially male independents, and can be appealed to at less cost to the Democratic Party in terms of its traditional constituencies than trying to be big-tent populists. I think big-tent populism just exacerbates the incompatibilities within the traditional Democratic coalition and drives many business-class independents even further into the Republican column.
You've got to be absolutely rigorous and unyielding in a civil liberties position. Etc.
This, yes.
You've got to adopt a genuinely skeptical position towards government interventions in civil, cultural and domestic life, to effectively up the bar for what constitutes a necessary intervention in those areas.
Here, I think the tack to take is to get aggressive about the level of intervention related to alternative policies. Welfare reform got sold as a 'smaller government' sort of thing, when it's nothing of the sort, it's more intrusive than a straight income support program would be.
This, by the way, is where bob mcmanus is supposed to show up telling me I'm full of shit and that independents are always going to be Republicans and that the only options are to talk like revolutionaries but to actually just sit around waiting for the rare convergencies of events that make new institutional and political forms possible.
Democrats would pick up more votes by being more "pro- Defense"
This is nuts - at least where "pro-defense" is typically defined as "pro-war." There's no room to move in that direction; Republicans have moved so far to the right on defense and foreign policy that the opportunity is now for Dems to become the sensible, non-crazy anti-war party. Be the party of "we won't get you killed," and trust that that message will actually sell.
3- no LB, I think tactics like that will backfire. It assumes that there can never be any caualties. Believe it or not, most military people that I know, while mourning deeply the friends they have lost, understand that causualties will occur, and are part of the job. Somewhere along the way, Vietnam I guess, but also the "peace dividend" Democrats have been perceived as "weak" on defense. Few voters think with their heads, rather they vote their gut. Ronald Reagan vs, Jimmy Carter if the best example of that.
What about the libertarian argument that it's typically liberal of you to bring up poor people and "income support programs," when the real issues are that the government doesn't have a right to my money, one, and that two, whether or not poor people are better off isn't my problem, nor is it an issue for the government to be concerned about.
By the way, read that Belle Waring thread, the comments are really good.
Jacob Levy and Rich Puchalsky do a lot to underscore what Russell suggests here, which is that the opposite "swing" constituency to libertarians, basically cultural and social populists of all kinds, is a lot larger and in some ways easier to get motivated politically.
My interest in the libertarian sensibility (as opposed to declared political libertarians) is first a thought that it may be easier to appeal in a narrow, coalition-making way to that sensibility at the present moment, by asking, "Who here really is the greatest danger? Is the Democratic tendency to ignore 'Big Government' in some of its manifestations really comparable to what the Bush Administration is doing?" Secondly, I suppose some of what I'm thinking is the same as what Belle is thinking, which is less about Democratic strategy and more about people with libertarian sensibilities themselves. E.g., I'm asking people who identify in some respect with small-government, don't-tread-on-me sensibilities why on EARTH they would even consider voting for the contemporary Republican Party.
I think that the Democrats could make inroads in asking that question themselves at relatively less cost to their historic ideals than trying to get cultural or social populists of all kinds inside their tent. I'd rather the Democrats promise to show some increased skepticism towards the regulatory state than they promise to continue banning gay marriage, to boil it down simplistically.
Rather than a bunch of liberals sitting around and deciding what government efforts ought to be abandoned in hopes of getting some support from some self-styled libertarians, it sems to me it would be a whole lot more productive to find out from people who aren't voting for us now what efforts we have to ditch to get them. Then we get to decide whether their votes are worth it.
TSL (#16)--
Somewhere along the way, Vietnam I guess, but also the "peace dividend" Democrats have been perceived as "weak" on defense. Few voters think with their heads, rather they vote their gut. Ronald Reagan vs, Jimmy Carter if the best example of that.
It goes back further than that. During the 1960 campaign Kennedy very clearly felt like he needed to act tough, talk about the missle gap with the Soviet Union, etc., to prevent Nixon from tagging him with the "weak" label. I'd say the whole "Democrats are weak on defense" thing definitely received a huge boost from the Dems receptivity to the anti-war movement (McGovern, etc.), but really it probably goes back to the 1950s and Aldai Stevenson.
Honestly, people, I'd rather not see yet another thread in which Democrats try to convince ideological libertarians that they should vote for Democrats. Actual libertarians - as opposed to neo-libertarians or "propertarians" or whatever the fuck Glenn Reynolds is - had reason enough to vote Bush out of office in 2004. If you claim to love liberty and you're not voting to toss out the GOP in 2006, you are either misinformed or a big fat liar.
I meant "TLL," Tassled Loafered Leech; sorry for getting the acronym wrong in #20.
Tim (#18)--
"My interest in the libertarian sensibility (as opposed to declared political libertarians) is first a thought that it may be easier to appeal in a narrow, coalition-making way..."
Politically speaking, I think you're probably right here. The populist sensibility is comparatively huge, but also very inchoate and filled with contradictions; whereas the sort of "libertarianish" sensibility today has been honed to a sharp point by Bush's horrible performance, at home and abroad, and thus can probably be more effectively enlisted in a coalition. Not my preferred route, obviously, but definitely one that is available to the Democrats.
20 -- I agree with that, and it goes earlier. LBJ escalated in Viet Nam -- yeah, those Democrats are really weak -- because he knew that Republicans would give him a 'who lost China' re-run.
How many people would Clinton have had to kill -- how many more than he actually killed -- to shake the 'weak' label? How much effect did the Republican opposition to Clinton's various miliatry activities have on this whole thing?
I think anyone who buys at any level the 'Democrats are weak' meme is a totally lost cause, and no effort should be made to win their votes.
15:"You rang!?" But I have deeper questions on my mind than sewage.
Re the 2nd argument about gov't inefficiency. It may not be either an empirical or principled arhument, but I think a logical argument can be made about the inevitability of gov't inefficiency on the margins. Gov't may be useful as an organizing structure, bureacracy for its own sake, like the redistribution of Social Security of Medicare. But those periods when gov't was most efficient in social programs coincided with theera of pretty good private unionized pension and health care plans.
IOW, when there is a clear consensus as to policy, I am not sure that gov't adds much efficiency. But when there is no consensus, as for example on abortion, it seems that gov't will add inefficiencies to policy resolution. Gov't, in most of its forms, is not very good at sustained conflict resolution, because in the case of closely divided issues, it allows a faction with a very marginal majority to impose its will too widely.
Work in progress, but I am starting to believe that we on the left are asking gov't to do what is actually least able to do well:conflict resolution. And the left especially is in a cycle of dependence, becoming alienated and disempowered and trusting a structire that is far too fragile for the weight we ask it to carry.
Seriously? This isn't about wooing libertarians who show up here -- anyone who's politically engaged enough to be reading blogs, you're right, I have no sympathy for them if they're still voting Republican. But as a salespitch to less engaged voters, I think that the Democratic party could profitably pay more attention to libertarianish people who think of the reason they don't like Democrats as because they value liberty too highly to do so.
Sorry 14 was the gratuitous Burkean attack, 14 s/b 15 if I have the convention right.
26 -- What price are you willing to pay? What is the candidate supposed to say about a particular program? Dems can say 'the era of big government is over' until they are blue in the face, but until they show they are planning to cut off named programs, no 'libertarian' currently willing to vote Republican is going to believe in it.
I'm not saying there are no programs worth cutting off to get a majority coalition. I am saying that until they are identified, the electoral strategy is worse than useless. Because you're telling the supporters of virtually all programs that the Dems are looking for people to cut, and the 'libertarians' that they should buy a pig-in-a-poke. Worst of both worlds.
26: It's not about a sales pitch to libertarians reading blogs. It's about the notion that Democrats should be making a sales pitch to libertarians, period. The idea is silly. First, there are hardly any of them out there. Second, any of them that could be won over were won over years ago.
Making a sales pitch to "libertarianish" swing Republicans is entirely different, and on this there doesn't really seem to be any real disagreement, as I said before. There's just a mislabeled group, for which I blame Kos's misnomer.
23. Then Charley- you will continue to lose elections. I don't know why the Democrats are weak on Defense meme has stuck, but it has. It is the single most important issue to voters like me, who I assume are the target. Small government, Defense and interstate highways. The rest is window dressing, no matter how effective. ( I exaggerate, of course).
It is the single most important issue to voters like me, who I assume are the target.
You assume incorrectly.
There are lots of voters in the Western states who sort of vaguely think that they are libertarians but who would, if confronted with a pure, ideologically Libertarian platform, recoil in horror (or snort with disbelief). Making a pitch to these voters is totally reasonable.
However, you've got to sell it with emotions. Sure, the policy debate is really important, and CC is right that tossing core policy committments overboard for short-term advantage would make me very very cranky. But the wonkish policy-debate approach has not been working, people. These libertarianish people like to think of themselves as libertarian---fine: we call our sales pitch to them the "libertarian Democrat" philosophy.
That might even work if the story-line doesn't become "silly silly Democratic activists and strategists now think that they can balance their base's support while reaching out to libertarians, but we all know that's not going to work."
"that the only options are to talk like revolutionaries" ...Burke
I believe that many of the bigger changes in gov't policy have happened in a revolutionary form rather than an incremental process. TR with the parks, social security, civil rights laws, the Great Society, EPA were developed incrementally in the private discourse but were enacted as a sudden and discontinuous event.
So, yes, the private discourse should be revolutionary. Cato talking about dropping marginal rates for decades until they suddenly and perhaps accidentally get a favourable Congress and then jumping for it. The current 30-50 year right plan to dismantle the New Deal. That is how iy is done, not adding 5 seats and enacting 5 percent of your agenda. You talk big ideas, so they are out there as possibilities. Like we are doing with UHC.
32- Then you don't know my politics, or who I would be willing to vote for.
Okay, TLL. Why don't you *say* what your politics are and who you'd vote for, first, rather than playing these silly games; and second, realize that nothing is more annoying than someone saying "oh, *I'm* the target audience. *My* vote is the one you want, and I'm *very choosy* about who I give it to. Let's see if you can dance to my tune."
Stop acting like a princess. Make an argument or get off the pot.
31 -- I don't think you're the target, at all. I think no member of the current coalition should be thrown over the side in hopes of winning your vote.
The 2000 election was pretty close. In fact, but for some very strange anomalies, we won. The 2004 presidential election was also quite close, and but for (a) the last minute intervention of Osama bin Laden on the President's side and (b) the Ohio ballot initiative against gay marriage, we might well have won that one as well.
We may yet win the mid-terms, although the manipulation of the levers of government in service of the political needs of the Republican party can't be underestimated.
I don't know why the Democrats are weak on Defense meme has stuck, but it has. It is the single most important issue to voters like me, who I assume are the target.
The thing is, TLL, this makes literally no sense. You are describing the 'Democrats are weak on defense' thing a a meme. You don't know why it's stuck. You appear to recognize that it has no particular relationship to reality. And yet it's the most important issue to voters like you (who I assume include you).
If that's how your thinking works, then I'm not going to be trying to craft an appeal to you. I am many things, but I'm not a pretzel.
35: You identified yourself as a libertarian. As I have noted several times in this thread, the strategy in question proposed by Kos does not involve targeting libertarians. Actual, ideological libertarians are not the issue here.
That said, how does "defense" become the overriding, top-priority issue for a libertarian? I don't think that word means what you think it means.
So:a radical plan to attract Libertarians will involve great risks. Any gaining of a solid majority will either involve great concessions or great gambles.
Give them smaller gov't. Block grants, federalism, local control, no unfunded mandates.
How about exchanging very large reform and cuts in social and entitlement programs in exchange for massive and radical union and association and cooperative support on a federal level. No defense spending in open shops or right-to-work states. Transfer much of SS to Pension Guaranty. A radical attempt to make Blue states independent of the Red State obstructionism.
Or something like that. Maybe you have better ideas. But UHC, enacted now or in the near future, will be held hostage by Texas and Mississippi, and I think will not last one lifetime.
41: What we have here is a failure to communicate.
No, Bob, I think it's as simple as having our politicians talk about "pay as you go" and protecting civil liberties and inefficiency in the health-care system, while our strategists and activists are running around describing the above, very moderate procedural ideas as the "libertarian Democratic" philosophy. Then, hopefully, we get a super-majority and tell the remaining Republican congresspeople after the trials to shut up.
Listen to TLL, folks. And remember, that Burkeanism withstanding, you need 200 liberal house members and probably 50+ moderates, maybe more like a 100 to get a liberal gov't to your liking. 5-10-25 seats can only play defense.
Same with the Senate. Looking at the Republican caucus, how many liberal Senators will you need to get a truly liberal Justice? I would say a solid veto-proof majority. 60. Ben Nelson will not get you another Stevens.
That is not to say we shouldn't try to win all we can. But we need to think radically.
Yeah, exactly. I want Jack running the party.
"No, Bob, I think it's as simple as having our politicians talk about "pay as you go""
The country is broke, and getting broker. The Republicans will prevent any significant tax increases. Democrats will be able to deliver nothing under paygo except program cuts. If they do manage tax increases after campaigning as the Party of fiscal restraint the majority will be short-lived.
Super majorities are not built 5 seats at a time. If I am wrong, correct me.
45 -- I'm on board with that.
44 -- Can't argue with the math, bob. It has to come from a mass social movement outside of any political party. And that movement has to be indigenous to the South.
There are a couple of programs in the Middle East I could stand to see cut. I doubt I'm alone on that one.
Here's another one: what can we do to win over the massive block of swing voters that is the Natural Law Party? Maybe we can trade them Social Security for transcendental meditation in public schools!
Former Sen. Sam Nunn from GA was a Democrat that I was actually hoping would run fro President. I am not trying to be a princess- but I actually was a registered Libertarian tuntil I realized they were nuts. I would identify more as a Goldwater Republican, and I am not at all happy with the God botheres who are pulling the strings. And I'm sorry if I have upset your thread, but I felt your could use an opinion from the other side. I've been wrong before.
Hmm. Color me skeptical. "Color" being the key word here. I talk occasionally with people who aren't very political, are basically decent and hardworking, and consistently vote Republican, because they see Democrats as the party of handouts. So you might be able to make some gains at the margins with libertarianish folks, but ultimately, as long as black people are poor and identified as key constituents of the Democratic party, those folks are going to have a reflexive antipathy toward Democrats.
This is where Clinton's strategy was astute, in emphasizing work, work, work. Just listen to how many times he said that word when he was talking about something like welfare.
It's not that we don't want to hear from you, it's that you haven't said anything about what voters like you want, in any concrete sense. I've got no idea how to appeal to someone like you, so I'm not going to get very far in a discussion of whether it's possible to do so without abandoning my principles.
If you choose to share what sort of policies and rhetoric would make you a Democrat, that'd be interesting.
TLL--
Have you been reading Jim Henley's blog? It's in the exclusive Unfogged blogroll below, if you haven't.
50, 52 -- And it might be helpful to say what it is about Sam Nunn that distinguishes him from Al Gore enough to make the difference.
I talk occasionally with people who aren't very political, are basically decent and hardworking, and consistently vote Republican, because they see Democrats as the party of handouts. So you might be able to make some gains at the margins with libertarianish folks, but ultimately, as long as black people are poor and identified as key constituents of the Democratic party, those folks are going to have a reflexive antipathy toward Democrats.
Yeah. I think the way to work this is to work harder on making an empirical case for social democracy and what it can do for the middle and working class; emphasis on UHC, good schools for everyone, maybe set up an income support program called unemployment insurance but not time-limited like our current program... But you're pointing at a real problem.
47:Mr Carpenter, the South hasn't changed much in 300 years. Demographics may help, but Republicans can see them too, and take countermeasures. On a national level, Clinton is about the best we can do, and he really wasn't very much. A moderate Republican. Can anybody give me a good liberal program Clinton gave us? He increased taxes and cut a little spending, lost Congress, and then Republicans threw that money away. I don't think you change the South.
That is why I am looking at federalism, or de facto secession. And syndicalism.
Somebody above mentioned the Western strategy, and that's basically what I'm suggesting--that the Democrats make a play for tipping the interior West into the Dem column with small-government, paranoid-style, neo-Goldwaterian positions. I think that has a very specific political price tag: de-emphasizing the enviromental regulatory government project, and pretty much completely dropping gun control. I think a lot of other commitments can kind of remain intact, maybe with a modest uptick in Democratic interest in fiscal responsibility, etc., as long as the rhetoric is in the right place and the candidates avoid sounding like technocratic weenies straight out of Boston.
Bob's right that if you're talking strong super-majorities down the road, it's a different kettle of fish altogether. I don't agree, I suspect, with his particular type of revolutionary vision, but I agree a lot with the proposition that a strong super-majority is going to take a major political vision that makes left-liberal ideas newly appealing and powerful to very large groups. The libertarian, small-government thing is just about trying to form a coalition in the short term that staunches the bleeding; it's not a transformative political vision.
The libertarian, small-government thing is just about trying to form a coalition in the short term that staunches the bleeding; it's not a transformative political vision.
I think the transformative vision here (and I'm not saying I'm the one to successfully sell it) is to split 'small government' away from 'individual liberty' and sell social democracy as the key to individual liberty. 'Small government' is a red herring -- it doesn't have anything principled to do with liberty.
55:Nunn had the Southern parochialism, nationalism/chauvinism, paranoia. There be always dragons there beyond the borders, new ones born every day.
At 55+ plus, I am supposed to believe we can slash defense spending? Never happened for long in my lifetime. The viable candidates I see for Dems want to transfer spending from machines to troops, but the only viable defense posture for Dems is a massive peacetime Army and Marines. That also means more jobs for the underclass than Star Wars and fighter planes.
Bush broke our Army, and withdrawal will create new threats. Big defense cuts are not in the cards.
57 -- Mr. McManus, I think we can use first names.
I'm not sure whether the South can change or not -- I don't see having 200 liberal members of the House without some real change in the South.
I agree with you about Clinton being about the best we can do -- actually, I'd say Gore is about the best we can do right now, and he'd have been playing defense too. LBJ was right to sign the Civil Rights Act, and right about the political impact.
Federalism is fine for a number of issues. Not war, though, or civil liberties.
"sell social democracy as the key to individual liberty"
I would love it LB, but we will never be Sweden. I hope you can prove me wrong, but I will likely be dead while you are still hoping.
51: Ogged, in 2004 Montana went to Bush by over 20 points, but it elected Brian Schweitzer running a "libertarianish Democrat" campaign much like the kind we're talking about the same year. Schweitzer is currently very popular there, and Jon Tester is beating Conrad Burns while running anti-Patriot Act ads. These aren't pure hypotheticals we're talking about; the voters are out there.
I don't know Henley's blog. I try to read a lot of different opinions, so which one is it?
LB as to what programs or policies would have to be introduced or changed I would say the rhetoric of wealth redistribution would be a start. We all have to pay taxes to fund necessary government programs, but the "soak the rich" attitude is off putting to say the least. I think that all of our entitlement spending has to be rethought, and that privatizing Social Security can not be laughed out of the room, although I see a big moral hazard in the suggestions so far. Affirmative action is discrimination, period, and as such must be abandoned. I think there is a bigger problem in equal access for people of different classes, not races.
One way to target the "Libertarian-esque" voters that LB mentions without sacrificing Democratic ideals would be to get the party to stop acting in lock step with the Repubs on the drug war.
This would have the added benefit of actually being the right thing to do anyway.
58 -- I'm going to a Schweitzer thing in DC tomorrow, on clean coal. I like him, personally and politically. Tester will be ok (this blog is OK for following his campaign). If this is more or less what you are talking about, it's well in motion . . .
58 gets it right- I forgot about gun control.
64.-- It's called "Unqualifed Offerings" in the blogroll below. About two or three months back, he was the first to undertake seriously the libertarian Democrat argument. His commenters are much more serious Libertarians than you'll get around here.
I think that has a very specific political price tag: de-emphasizing the enviromental regulatory government project
This is completely untrue. As many have pointed out, conservation is actually more popular among conservatives out west, where hunting and fishing is a tradition. Gaining those votes means putting aside gun control, but really, gun control is not exactly our top priority anymore. We can afford to let gun control go in exchange for getting a sane foreign policy and our basic civil liberties back.
66 -- pwned by 63. Do I redeem myself by noting that Brian speaks some Arabic? Not your usual rancher . . .
64 -- 'Soak the Rich'? This is about a two percent difference in the income tax rates at the $300k level? Or maintaining the estate tax? I cannot imagine that the libertarianish Republicans who could be won by any suite of policy proposals add up to even one percent of the coalition that believes in (a) maintaining Social Security in some government form and (b) maintaining affirmative action in some form.
Yeah. No offense, TLL, but I don't think you're what we're talking about in terms of an easy pickup.
as long as black people are poor and identified as key constituents of the Democratic party, those folks are going to have a reflexive antipathy toward Democrats.
Well, now we're talking about how to appeal to racists, which is a separate issue.
Affirmative action is discrimination, period, and as such must be abandoned. I think there is a bigger problem in equal access for people of different classes, not races.
I would like to take this opportunity to highly recommend this book. It's an excellent history of how affirmative action came into being and all the issues surrounding it.
71. Not an easy pickup, but a cheap date nonetheless.
70- Charley you're getting wonkish. It is the rhetoric that is the problem, not the policy as currently implemented. And the estate tax has more resonance than you would expect.
So what you're saying, TLL, is that the left should try harder to appeal to the slutty girls? But sluts are already firmly in our camp, didn't you know?
Speaking of taxes, I am getting flyers in my mail every day comparing the Dems to the Rs in the gubernatorial race. Every single issue is "the Dems will raise your taxes!!!"
I walk PK to school past all the maids and gardeners arriving to work, and every house in my neighborhood has a brand-new car in the driveway. The local public school has the rep of being the best in the city, and the PTO is *constantly* badgering us for money in order to provide arts and music programs for the kids, and outdoor education for the 5th grade class. I find it astonishingly difficult to countenance that "you'll pay more taxes!" is the winning strategy with my neighbors. Are rich people really that fucking selfish? We've got quarter acre lots and hired caretakers and we all drive SUVs and we begrudge a few tax dollars to provide arts and music programs for *all* the kids in the city?
We'll see in a month.
Bitch- you've convinced me. Who was it that said they joined the SDS to meet girls?
So I'm guessing the target is someone white, male, western, would self-describe as responsible, comfortably middle-class but ambitious, who votes Republican now because he believes Democrats are weenies and all government types are a bunch of bastards so you might as well have the tough bastards in there.
Here's where I see some things.
1) Western guy wants the government pretty much out of his life. He doesn't want to pay taxes, or have to prop up welfare, or people telling him how to raise his kids, or to tell him what he can do with his land. This means he's potentially a weak ally on abortion rights, but isn't going to go for contraception in the schools because it should be the parent's responsibility. Probably isn't for gay marriage, but for no terribly principled reason.
2) The government is supposed to be good at fighting bad guys. This can probably be pushed as 'the current clowns aren't good at it.' But a general pacifist plan isn't going to fly, and you're going to have to convince them that another government could do it better, and remember, they don't like government at all.
3) I can't see this guy likely being pro-union. Depends on the area and the sort of middle class guy he is: the guy that's in the union or the guy that has to try to schedule a convention center by clearing it with 17 unions.
4) I can see this guy thinking that government could administer welfare better than other options; I doubt he'd agree that the government should be helping people, though.
5) There might be some room to push on the environment, if framed not as 'hugging the trees' but as 'responsible stewardship.' The guy probably likes hunting and fishing.
6) The guy probably likes his guns and doesn't have a lot of patience for people who haven't fired a gun insisting that they're evil and bad.
Is there room for him in the tent? Not sure. Thinking 4) is probably the sticking point.
75 -- We don't use 'soak the rich' rhetoric. That's a characterization, just like 'weak on defense,' from the other side. Believed by people more interested in their 'gut' than in reality.
This is why I think you are unreachable.
If you think Sen. Nunn would have run on a platform that included the end of affirmative action, environmental regulation, and Social Security, you are not, in my view, talking about a real person.
4) I can see this guy thinking that government could administer welfare better than other options; I doubt he'd agree that the government should be helping people, though.
4 is what we have to sell. We start with UHC, because it makes his life easier. We turn 'welfare' into 'unemployment' and couple it with job training and education in a non-punitive way. I think it's doable.
UHC can only be sold as a replacement of who is paying for health insurance. Currently it is the employer. Switch the government for the employer, but leave the plan inplace. Add the uninsured to the rolls. Hillarycare was too ambitious.
I'm not as confident. We'd need to first explain why it should be his problem: why should he care if someone else gets a welfare check? why should he care if someone else has health care?
It's doable, but it needs to be sold as 'second chance for hardworking folks down on their luck' not as 'our moral duty to our neighbor'
See, I don't understand that at all. There's no principled reason for interposing a private insurance company between a government payer and an individual insured, and no empirical reason why it should do anything useful. If you can explain to me what good you think the private insurance company does there, we can talk.
It's doable, but it needs to be sold as 'second chance for hardworking folks down on their luck' not as 'our moral duty to our neighbor'
Security for you, the voter. You never have to worry about health care again.
Cala- you're post in79 makes me think you're spying on me. And as for unions, most of my friends are generally supportive of industrial and trade unions, i.e. carpenters, steel workers, etc, but not supportive of white color unions, especially teachers and government workers. I think this is because in the private sector if the union pushes too much, like the UAW, the business becomes uncompetetive and fails. Government just gets bigger and bigger.
Not security. Freedom. Freedom to quit that job and start your own business, because you don't need to worry about health care for your kids, so can follow the American dream. Freedom to move to a new place and better yourself. Freedom to see whatever doctor you want, not just limited to a plan.
I see it as a transition. I actually think that there will be efficiences achieved by standardizing health insurance. But you will have to allow for people who will purchase "extra".
UHC can only be sold as a replacement of who is paying for health insurance. Currently it is the employer. Switch the government for the employer, but leave the plan inplace. Add the uninsured to the rolls. Hillarycare was too ambitious.
At the risk of sounding a little wonkish, I have no idea why you would think this plan is less ambitious than 'Hillarycare.'
I see it as a transition. I actually think that there will be efficiences achieved by standardizing health insurance. But you will have to allow for people who will purchase "extra".
I think this is roughly the French model, isn't it?
89: Sure, the French system where someone who wants to purchase private insurance on top of a base level of UHC is fine with me. What does that have to do with administering UHC through a network of private insurers?
IIRC, Hillarycare envisioned removing all private insurance, making it illegal for doctors to even accept private insurance. All health workers were going to be employees of the federal government, and the hospitals would be nationalized. Or at least that's what they told me at my ZOG meeting.
One further bonus to UHC, which I think has been woefully overlooked is the fact that we could do away with the whole workers comp regime. Of all the things that used to drive me crazy as a business owner, it was workers comp.
TLL: You should basically be a Democrat. Not being one is just being an ass.
(Ooohpa...ooohpa..TLL, I am your father.)
Workers comp, less sick leave, the overhead and expense of administering health care plans, all of it. Why old-style Republicans aren't all over UHC is completely beyond me.
83: How about being sold as `more efficient system that will save you money'. In most respects, the Canadian system has the US system beat flat. It's got some problems, but it is a) much more efficient (in terms of dollars spent for actual outcomes reached) and b) is probably more easily fixed than the US system. Taking that as a basic template and working from there to address some of the design problems wouldn't be insane... but probably never fly here. Instead you'd get a bunch of wingnuts ranting about godless communists and other inanities.
98- Fear of change, probably. And the fact that they are insured, so what's in it for me? That is why I think the transition has to be invisible to both the insured and the health care provider.
The last thing health care providers want is an invisible transition. Dealing with insurance companies is hell for them now.
I honestly think it's less fear of change than knee-jerk foolishness whenever someone yelps about "socialism!" Honestly.
101- Which is one reason this is so sticky. People who ahve insurance are generally OK with it. The providers have to deal with a dog's breakfast of plans, deductibles, etc. than is relatively invisible to the insured. The employer bitches about the cost, and passes as much as possible to the employee. No one wants their ox to be gored, so nothing gets done, although all parties agree that it isn't working. Partisanship aside, the candidate who cuts this particular Gordian knot will have a lock. I am not a policy wonk, but have been on the board both a community hospital and an employee health and welfare plan, let alone as a consumer and I know there has got to be a better way.
Right. The transition needs to reassure consumers that they'll still have x, y, and z (mental health coverage, birth control, coverage if they get cancer and want to try some crazy new experimental drug). And it needs to make explicit comparisons between what the average cost-to-consumer is now vs. what it'll be when it's a tax burden instead.
The employers won't care; they'll just be glad to be rid of the burden, I should think. But then I've never been an employer, so I don't know. If it comes up as some kind of payroll tax, then I guess how that gets administered would have to be addressed. I should think that hospitals and providers, in general, would be all for it.
I think that it would have to be some sort of payroll tax. The employer is already paying now. Picking up the employer who currently doesn't offer health insurance is another sticking point.
Why not general revenues? The idea is to cover the unemployed as well, isn't it?
(Seriously, I don't get the function of a payroll tax other than for PR.)
But bringing this full circle to libertarianism, once the government starts paying for health care, does anyone think you will be allowed to smoke, or drink, or engage in any other known risky behaviour? If you think the war on (some) drugs is bad, how about the war on fat? Thank you Mayor Bloomberg for a glimpse into the future.
LB- PR is exactly what I'm talking about. This is electoral politics, after all. Wonkism doesn't sell feeling good or at least not feeling bad does.
Well, you're already not allowed to smoke in public places or on government property in a lot of states.
And of course you will. The government will be much better about that shit than the private insurers, because they have that pesky constitution keeping them in check.
Well, at least, in theory they do.
Germans aren't penalized for their lifestyle choices. They live as they choose to and they don't live in fear that their insurance is going to be yanked. And they get to choose their doctors.
109- I think that may be the fatal flaw in the system. Currently, those engaging in risky behaviours are charged a higher premium, or not insured at all. Under UHC, risk won't enter into the mix, so I am free to engage in any unhealthy practise whatsover knowing that there is no additional cost to me. This is the moral hazard, and although no one likes getting sick or going to the doctor, I think that it may change behaviours so as to scew any potential savings. We will get nightly news anecdotes about this stuff, mark my words.
110- Serious question- do Turkish guest workers get the same care as Germans? I know one roadblock to UHC is our illegal immigrant problem.
(Having not read the comments:) Imitating Bush's success in 2000 would be a brilliant way to lose the popular vote.
No, 111 is totally silly. People are not going to smoke just to take advantage of the system. And currently people don't quit because of their insurance premiums. After all, quitting doesn't save you money--the questions are all like, "have you smoked in the last five years?" and such. No incentive there. If I quit, I'll maybe save money five years down the line? Yeah, whatever.
Also, health care isn't really a consumer good. People don't go to the doc for fun; it's time-consuming and inconvenient. You go because you're sick or due for a checkup, and I don't see people going more often just b/c they can.
Plus, if anything (do you ever go to a public health clinic), UHC will mean that public health info about diet, smoking, etc., will be much more easily and consistently delivered, and people are *less* likely to ask for/get expensive unnecessary care, and way more likely to get cheap preventative care. The real problem is going to be the anecdotes about so-and-so's child who has a rare illness and the government won't pay for X new experimental treatment, or the missed diagnosis that's now a public policy problem rather than just a malpractice suit.
One issue *is* going to be that malpractice thing. Again, you'd think fiscal conservatives would love it--obviously the government is going to end up limiting awards. But they'll use it as a stick to scare people away from it instead.
112--I assume so. When I was an employee of a German university, I was able to apply for health insurance.
114. I totally agree with the second half of your post. Orphan drugs, malpratice, experimental procedures all become public policy questions with vocal constituencies. No wonder no one wants to touch this.
our illegal immigrant problem
I reiterate my skepticism regarding TLL's libertarian status.
Well, people avoid going if they can't afford it. But that's not actually desirable (obviously) or necessarily even a money-saver in the long run.
117: I think "libertarian" is understood (certainly by Kos) to be broader than "card-carrying member," and to include libertarian-flavored Republicans.
the moral hazard
This is the part that makes me wonder about TLL's libertarian status. Smokers cough, fall ill, and die; they don't need (additional) financial penalties to make them aware of their poor choices.
119: Yeah, I made that point about a dozen times earlier in this thread. TLL was making a claim earlier that (1) s/he was a libertarian, and moreover (2) s/he was the kind of voter this strategy was supposed to target (and thus it was doomed to failure). I was calling both of these claims into question.
framing is good. in fact, theres nothing else. whitepapers? all the slogans and policy proposals are just about creting the stronger frame. and whoever has the stronger frame is the better leader and who people will follow. you have to win the fram ebattle and make it 'make sure everyone who works hard/plays by the rules can get a good job, health care, retirement, affordable housing, &c." If the frame of 'do you deserve what your paycheck says' its a real uphill battle because you have to go into rawls and the role of luck and parents in creating your money winning character and the bad things that lottery/playoff style corporate structures play in deciding just what your income is. thats not going to win when GOP just says 'we think you earned your income and should get to keep it and decide whta to do with it. i think mr ogge is on the same page.
pro war= spending money for some WWV with china, NMD, &c. huge goverment spending. 'voted against XYZ weapons programs 17 times in teh senate' ads. its also hard to outflank as hawkish and also point out how bad wars likek vietnam or iraq are and try to make the populace a little more warry of buying hawkish/nationalistic schemes. The frame has to be 'putting our soldiers into hornet's nests' or something like it. whats the point of electing democrats if they're going to support invading iraq, and starting a draft so we can invade iran, syria, and maybe lobbing some nukes at NK and venezuela?
and selling environmentalism as 'keeping shit nice to hunt and snowmobile on' like Schwartz in montana lets you keep most of it, except some extractive industries. you still have all the CO2 & lead and manufactuing type pollution controls. i see western strategy mostly good for neutralizing some of hte republican advantage in the senate/EC.
116: But those things are already an issue, because of HMOs. The solution from a political perspective is just to say that people can get top-up private insurance if they want to. Smart employers who hire hyper-educated professionals will offer it as a matter of course; the cost will be a *lot* lower, and it's people like us who are spoiled enough to expect that, damnit, we should be able to opt to take the crazy apricot-pit stuff from Mexico if we want to and if there's any chance at all that it'll somehow reverse our terminal brain cancer.
120: Plus, smokers are the cheapest bastards to insure, because they're way less likely to end up in long-term nursing care, lingering on but not quite managing to die somehow.
My great-grandfather tried that crazy apricot-pit stuff. It didn't cure his cancer.
No, I don't imagine it would. But it would be very very hard to be dying and be told that your health insurance wouldn't cover it.
Does any health insurance actually cover that stuff?
Actually I don't know. But I remember the news stories about the kids whose HMOs refused payment for experimental or unlikely last-ditch treatments. I infer that private insurance does? But I don't really know.
121: But I think TLL's right; he appears to be the type of person to whom Kos (or others wanting a "libertarian" strategy) is appealing. I haven't read the thread closely, but he sounds a lot like he's willing to admit a fair number of egregious mistakes by Republicans, and that some of the stereotypes of Dems are really unfair. He doesn't sound like a social conservative. For some reason, I think he lives in the NYC area--so, you know, fuck'im, we don't need him--but other than that, I think he's the target.
93, 107, 111: TLL, I think the reason you're unreachable is that you're filing away Republican talking points as facts instead of actually educating yourself about the issues you're talking about. As long as your political BS filter is set to accept Republican talking points as gospel and assume Democrats are lying, nasty people, nothing Democrats say is going to get to you. When your vote is in play is when the Republicans become so obviously screwed up that you become open to actually listening to what Democrats are saying.
I agree. But I also have kind of an issue with the way that people like TLL (and I have some at my blog, too) hold out the potential promise of their vote when, really, it seems like they pretty much know the Bush administration sucks ass, that the current Republican platform is heinous and stupid, and that Democrats aren't the strawfigures we've been painted as in popular culture. It often feels like "I know that I'm really on your side, but you don't use the terminology I want you to use, so if you want my vote, you have to talk about incentives and tax burdens, etc., and you're not allowed to talk about affirmative action or feminism"--even though they know that a.a. and feminism is not about getting even with whitey or hating men. I always feel like I'm being put to some kind of stupid test for no real solid reason, and I resent it.
Vote for the party that you honestly think is going to do a better job. You're too smart to let yourselves buy into the popular campaign nonsense that's being flouted by Karl Rove and his ilk. Stop acting like you believe that crap.
You go because you're sick or due for a checkup, and I don't see people going more often just b/c they can.
They absolutely do. Not in the sense of seeking out frivolous illness ('today I'm going to catch a cold!'), but in the sense of waiting longer before seeking treatment. When you don't have insurance, you ignore the heart palpitation and hope it goes away. You hope that the cough your kid has is just something viral. You use the over-the-counter medicine rather than seeing the OB/GYN. You figure the pediatrician only sees you for five minutes so you skip the recommended prenatal care. You don't get a physical or a pap smear. You'll never get a mammogram.
Completely willing to yield that people will use more health care if they have the ability to pay for it. I'm just completely convinced that's a good thing.
The point is, it costs *less* if you go when you have the palpitation rather than waiting for the cardiac arrest, and when you take your kid to the well-baby visits instead of waiting until the lack of weight gain becomes so acute he ends up dehydrated in the ER.
HMOs usually don't cover alternative therapies. Case in point: they'll pay for spinal surgery, should I require it, but not a chiropractor.
134: Costs less, or you die. Either way, the point that 'people won't use more health care if it's free' is true per dollar (95% of costs are spent in the last six months of life) but not true per, say, visit or procedure.
136: Sure, but it's dollars that matter.
135: This varies a bit among HMOs. My mom's paid for (in-house) acupuncture.
(Unrelated: Warner bows out.)
Facilities and staff matter, too, as do wait times, especially when transitioning to a new system; 65 million people finally getting their checkups will cause a slowdown unless it's very well implemented, and that will take an initial expenditure.
"In-house" meaning provided by the HMO itself, not in her house.
139: I don't think anyone's claiming there won't be transition costs.
I kind of think that we're likely to end up buying off the health insurance providers by keeping them around as claims processors (many do that already for self-insured employer groups). That might even be a good thing if we got the incentives right. Getting the incentives right would be tricky, of course.
. But I also have kind of an issue with the way that people like TLL (and I have some at my blog, too) hold out the potential promise of their vote....
I get that. I just don't think it's true here. Unless the Republicans change dramatically, TLL will move over to the Dems sooner or later. And it won't have anything to do with any specific policy. We're basically the only game in town if you believe in pretty standard notions of "how things work" and what counts as a "reasonable" justification. That is, we're the Establishment-in-exile party. And TLL strikes me as Establishment. To a great extent, we're just trying to get him to move sooner rather than later.
Yeah, I'm probably being an asshole. I skipped my meds for two days, you just have to put up with that. Or else I'll blow smoke in your face.
TLL, you have to come over to the liberal side b/c we're more fun, we're sluttier, and we have better parties.
smokers are the cheapest bastards to insure, because they're way less likely to end up in long-term nursing care
This wouldn't have much of an effect on costs, since long-term care isn't covered by regular health insurance. They cut you off after a few weeks, depending on your particular plan. You can get long-term care insurance, but it's hella expensive; you're basically just pre-paying the nursing home bills.
That whole aspect of health care is hugely flawed in this country. Medicare doesn't cover it, so you have to go on Medicaid if you can't afford it on your own, but you first have to spend down all of your assets until you're at whatever the particular poverty level cutoff is (I think 150%). Your spouse has to give up most of their assets as well (everything excpet the house, car, and a bit of cash). And you can't just sign over your stock certificates to your children, everything must be sold for fair market value.
And at the end of it all, you still have to go into a nursing home, a pretty terrible fate even in ideal circumstances, let alone if you're in one of the all-too-common abusive or neglectful places. The whole system is biased towards institutionalization, even though in-home care is more appropriate (and effective) for a lot of people. Rather fucked up, all told.
But if we had UHC, then long-term care would be covered, b/c UHC would presumably just fold in medicare.
Yeah, but Medicare doesn't cover it now. They could decide to start doing so, but that wouldn't be related to UHC--medicare is already a universal coverage plan, albeit for a restricted age group. I don't see why they would start all of a sudden.
Facilities and staff matter, too, as do wait times, especially when transitioning to a new system; 65 million people finally getting their checkups will cause a slowdown unless it's very well implemented, and that will take an initial expenditure.
This paper indicates Taiwan's experience with going to UHC 10 years ago or so was that the savings offset the cost increase of expanding coverage. (pdf, but a small one)
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/phcf/Papers/does%20universal%20health%20insurance%20make%20health%20care%20unaffordable.pdf
Some insanely high percentage of our health care spending is for premature babies and people at the very end of their lives, with a huge drop in between. Seems like we could just give the preemies to the moribund and let them feed on the stem cells or something.
Wait, who's feeding on whose stem cells now?
Medicare covers nursing home care; its just that what it covers is so minimal that it's really crappy nursing home care. But both my grandmother and (eventually) my aunt will be paid for by medicare.
151: Nobody is now. That's the problem.
It'll pay for those sorts of end-stage, strictly medical treatments, but most people who need LT care need it well before that point. There's usually an extended period when a person needs assistance with "activities of daily living" (dressing, bathing, etc.) but isn't yet terminal, and medicare doesn't cover any of that.
Right, that's the stage where you spend down every penny of your assets.
Thinking about things from way upthread, because that's just the kind of time zone I'm in.
18: "don't-tread-on-me sensibilities" I think this is a very good phrase. Back when I read the Kos piece, I thought (to myself, wouldn't it be nice to be able to cite something and say I blogged on that ages ago? Well maybe not, but I did think about this stuff.) that there were some good ideas in it, but the label "libertarian Democrat" was bad. Like slugs are bad. (C'mon, you know they are.) "Libertarian" is about as well-defined as any term in political discourse, and attaching it to the party name Democrat is just going to confuse some people, irritate some other people, and motivate about exactly zero to go and punch the big D button on those Tuesdays in November.
I don't know if Kos made a mistake or just wanted to provoke people, but "libertarian Democrat" is not a phrase that means what he seems to think it means. If the goal is to come up with a catchy phrase that people can feel positive about, thus making them more likely to vote D at the ballot booth, he missed. He needs a different phrase, and we don't need this debate about labels.
"Don't-tread-on-me Democrats" is pretty good; it's visual, it's got historical resonance all the way back to the Revolution, and there's aren't a bunch of people already running around calling themselves don't-tread-on-me-itarians, so you're not going to get sidetracked coming out of the starting gate. It's a sentiment that commands widespread agreement, even if people are fuzzy on the details. And you can fill the phrase with the meaning that you want to give it, which is pretty much doubleplusgood for the whole framing and media-attention-grabbing gig. But don't grab too much, if you want it to last more than one electoral cycle. (Where have you gone, Mrs Soccer Mom, our nation turns its lonely eyes away, hey hey hey.)
"Western Democrats" might be pretty good, too, since we already talk a lot about regional identities in our political discussions. "Western" is both suggestive and relatively unoccupied.
So. Two reasonable suggestions. But "libertarian Democrats"? No, bad label.
50, 52, 55: Nunn was opposed to adding new members to NATO. Gore was not. Gore, of course, was right.
79: Given the structure of the Senate and the Electoral College, there ought to be room in the tent. Otherwise, it's a nearly impossible slog for the Ds in both institutions for the foreseeable future.
112: Yes, they do. Everyone here in Germany is either privately insured or insured by one of the quasi-public entities known as Krankenkassen. It's one of the things that immigration authorities are pretty persnickety about, too. Both when you initially get a residence permit and any time you get it renewed you have to demonstrate that you're covered.
Guest workers are, by definition, here legally and have to jump through all of the above hoops.
People in a country illegally are a challenge for any public service, but if you want to throw away the service because not everyone using it will be fully documented, then I don't think you're really serious about wanting the service in the first place. Think roads or schools.
116: "Orphan drugs, malpratice, experimental procedures all become public policy questions with vocal constituencies. "
This is already true in the US today, esp as many experimental procedures deal with the ills that befall senior citizens, many of whom are covered by Medicare. Ditto orphan drugs. And what Leech worth his tasseled loafers would claim that malpractice is not currently a public policy question?
Next argument, please.
So. Two reasonable suggestions. But "libertarian Democrats"? No, bad label.
You might be right that 'libertarian Democrats' is a bad label, but I still think that we want something that aims squarely at people who consciously think of themselves as kinda libertarianish.
157 -- I'd have no problem at all with an announcement from the DNC along these lines: 'some 40 years ago, the Republicans announced a Southern Strategy, which has been successful, in electoral terms anyway. We are today announcing a Western Strategy, with the following broad policy features . . .' And then play to myths, but not abandon actual policies.
Of course, I'd be willing to drop gun control in a heartbeat. Let it be a municipal issue, just like in Dodge City KS in the '70s. And I think UHC is going to have to be done on a state basis for now -- letting laboratories of democracy work out kinks. And summary execution for any Dem consultants who lie to NYT writers in ways that tend to feminize our candidates like, ie, Gore and the earth tones thing.
And I think UHC is going to have to be done on a state basis for now -- letting laboratories of democracy work out kinks.
That won't happen. We'd have a race to the bottom. My money's on a piecemeal extention targeting kids first.
Or maybe it will happen, and we will see a race to the bottom.
And summary execution for any Dem consultants who lie to NYT writers in ways that tend to feminize our candidates like, ie, Gore and the earth tones thing.
I'd have to look up the story, but did anyone else see some recent blog posts on Carville after the 2004 election, giving the Bush campaign the heads up that Kerry was considering contesting the Ohio count? That sort of nonsense makes me wonder how much of the Democrats' woes come from literal moles in the political establishment.
164,165 -- I guess I'm with Dr. McManus on how much I care about whether Arkansas, Mississippi, or Texas wins the race to the bottom, and how long I think Maryland and Pennsylvania, for example, ought to be held hostage waiting for them to decide that a federal plan is OK after all. (Not to say that we shouldn't get whatever federal stuff we can get through).
If I wanted it to sound respectable, I'd call this mood I get sometimes Libertarianish, or Federalist. Fnck-You-ist is probably more accurate. I'm not interested in block grants to red states with fewer strings attached: if you want my money, you have to live with my restrictions on how it's going to be used. If on the other hand you'd rather give me a tax cut and then try to run your own program on your own money, well, I think I could live with that.
Not so much a reversal of Appamattox, as Emerson suggested a while back, as a repeal of the spend-money-in-the-South part of the New Deal.
... the Democratic party could profitably pay more attention to libertarianish people who think of the reason they don't like Democrats as because they value liberty too highly to do so.
Right. And to do so the Democrats are going to have to come up with programs that at least attempt to come up with solutions to problems. Simply trying to treat symptoms prioritized by how loudly the sufferers of those symptoms bleat isn't working.
Anyone here old enough to remember when a Congressional committee got the cast of MASH to testify about health care? That's when I gave up on politics as anything at all rational. I'll hold my nose and vote anti-Republican this time around but it's not for any love of the Democrats, it's because I'm disgusted with the equation of conservativism = profligate incompetent theocracy.
And I think UHC is going to have to be done on a state basis for now -- letting laboratories of democracy work out kinks.
I think UHC might be closer than we think. A driving force is going to be Big Business. When you've already got the head of GM openly agitating for health care reform, change is a coming.
167: Well, I have friends, relatives or friends-of-friends in all three states you named, so I'm not inclined to write them off and welcome bad outcomes there. "We're all Americans" is a Democratic value, as far as I'm concerned.
162: Don't-tread-on-me Democrats, freedom Democrats, liberty Democrats, free range Democrats (bonus Western association there), frontier Democrats, open frontier Democrats ... the list can go on. At some point a naming consultancy fee will have to be levied...
166: Saw some posts, don't remember where either, don't remember anything like confirmation.
I guess I'm with Dr. McManus on how much I care about whether Arkansas, Mississippi, or Texas wins the race to the bottom, and how long I think Maryland and Pennsylvania, for example, ought to be held hostage waiting for them to decide that a federal plan is OK after all.
I think the concern is that, over time, you would see population transfers that overburdened states trying to do good, and underburdened states racing to the bottom. OTOH, maybe this is how you start putting teeth into federalism--increased residency requirements for access to healthcare or something.
Anyway, I think there is, at the moment, a tendency to believe that the pendulum has swung back our way, and that it will stay there for some length of time. I'm not convinced of either of those two things--I'm not sure we'll take either House of Congress--and until we can build a convincing coalition, most of the policy proposals are extremely contingent.
Not that it matters- but SCMT is probably right in 144. I was born and raised Republican. My grandfather on my mother's side was the New Jersey State Senate leader in the 40's and 50's and helped rewrite the NJ Constitution. But growing up the Dems were in charge of both houses of Congress, so being a Repub was "anti-Establishment". No one has been more disappointed in the performance of this Bush admin than me. And I am really on the bubble, which is why I have been trolling more lefty sites than LGF, etc. But I live in LA, not NYC. And I really was a registered Libertarian for a while.
I think that "Libertarian Democrat" now makes much more sense than "Libertarian Republican". By now, there's nothing Libertarian about Republicans at all except low taxes. "Libertarians" supporting Bush are former Libertarians.
I support Democrats for lack of anything better, and I don't have much problem with recommending that Libertarians do the same. On ACLU issues Libertarians and left-liberals pull the Democrats in the same direction, whereas on taxes and spending we pull in opposite directions.
Before the 2004 election I suggested to all the Libertarian sites that what they should do is actually vote for the Libertarian candidate instead of holding their noses and voting for Bush, but as far as I know most Libertarians voted for Bush. My suggestion was regarded as malicious trolling.
TLL, answers to a couple of your questions/comments in 160 and 162 above. Just in case you're only skimming...
My parents both voted for Badnirak, or however you spell his name, in 2004. My only explanation for how that fits your experience, Emerson, is that neither of them are real Libertarians.