Colorado Progressive

Commentary & Analysis

Ed Quillen is Right to be Frustrated. Ed Quillen Should also Take Heart.

Ed Quillen laments the sad state of the caucus in Colorado, then he goes on to describe how little life has changed for him since he switched affiliation from Republican to Democrat.

Even beyond the aggravation of the campaign phone calls, though, I start to wonder why I bother to participate in Democratic politics.

After all, if I’d wanted a health-care plan that consisted of “trying to hold on until you’re 65 and eligible for Medicare,” I’d have voted for Republicans.

If I’d wanted the United States to be involved in two shooting wars in the Middle East, I’d have voted Republican.

If I wanted to give billions of dollars to prop up Wall Street and then see huge bonuses given to the same people who got us into this financial mess, I’d vote for Republicans.

If I wanted U.S. intelligence activities (performed in our name and with our money) to continue to operate without meaningful congressional oversight, I’d vote Republican.

If I wanted accused terrorists to be tried as warriors before military tribunals as if they were soldiers, instead of in civilian courts like the criminals they are, I’d vote Republican.

If I wanted the USA Patriot Act extended rather than repealed, I’d vote for Republicans.

If I wanted theocrats in Texas to require that the American history textbooks used in public schools focus on John Calvin (who wasn’t even an American) and ignore Thomas Jefferson, I’d vote Republican.

It does force one to recognize, ultimately, how close to center the Democrat establishment has hewn since Barack Obama’s watershed election. Quillen’s commentary also–albeit incidentally–highlights the slowness of substantive institutional change in our nation’s politics.

Ed Quillen’s piece today makes no room for incrementalism, and I think that’s an oversight too common among progressives right now. Of course, Democrats lined the National Mall and stood before TV sets on January 20, 2009, and many of us wept. After eight years of global shame, Democratic Americans held their heads high with their president; yet little could we have imagined the storm of obstruction and vitriol preparing to seize the nation’s capitol.

Quillen is right, of course, and he makes each of us scratch our heads and mutter “Damn.” Damn, because one politician is, arguably, never so very different from another politician. Damn, because yesterday’s tired policies become today’s tired policies. Damn, because Washington process, by necessity, given our parliamentary checks and balances, waters down meaningful policy before it ever gets the chance to become meaningful legislation.

And yet incremental changes do take place in Washington and do spread district by district across the nation. To agree too wholeheartedly with Quillen is to forget that, in his first year or so in office, Obama oversaw expansion of children’s health insurance; sent stimulus funding directly to support social safety net institutions such as Medicaid and COBRA; allocated nearly $140 billion in funding for education; signed legislation insisting that, by 2016, all vehicles sold in the U.S. get 35+ miles to the gallon; designated 2 million acres of new federally protected wild lands; signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act; began direct efforts to strengthen and update the national infrastructure (highways, rail, Internet, and more); initiated DADT repeal; and a whole lot more.*

Yes, Quillen makes a great point. Guantanamo ought to have been shuttered by now. Health insurance reform ought to have passed by now. Troops ought to have come home–not only from Iraq but also from Afghanistan–by now. No Child Left Behind ought to have been completely scrapped by now.

It’s sad that these things haven’t happened, and it’s incredibly frustrating. But make no mistake: incremental change is change. And given the extraordinary leverages afforded minority parties under current congressional rules, incremental change is about all the change we can hope for. Don’t lose sight, Democrats, of the good things that are still happening in politics today.

*List copped almost exclusively from Nathan Newman’s rundown last fall at TPM Cafe.

Matt Plavnick · March 18, 2010 · 12:42 pm

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The Caucus and the Case for Andrew Romanoff

Greg Giroux at CQ Politics lays out a few of the dynamics at play today in Colorado as the campaign for Michael Bennet’s US Senate seat heats up another notch with tonight’s caucus. By all accounts, Jane Norton appears to have the early Republican nomination all but sewed up. Barring any hiccups, she’ll be the GOP’s answer to Bennet, and nothing that happens today is likely to change that reality.

Democrats, similarly, will likely retain Bennet on the ballot this November, and nothing that happens to today will probably affect that outcome too much. But that should not yet be taken for granted. Clearly, Bennet is the leading fundraiser against a stagnating Andrew Romanoff and enjoys the advantages that accompany incumbency. At the same time, Romanoff is positioning himself as the outsider looking in–a strange twist for the former House Speaker and erstwhile golden boy of Colorado Democratic politics–during a year that poses significant challenges for incumbents, namely the messy health care reform issue that has paralyzed Washington and polarized the nation.

Here’s Giroux on the Romanoff-Bennet caucus stakes:

Political analysts said Romanoff, who badly trails Bennet in fundraising, needs to perform very well at the caucuses to gain traction for the difficult undertaking of unseating a senator in a primary.

“My current assumption is that Romanoff needs to win [the caucuses] … to credibly make the argument that ‘I’m the grass-roots guy,’ ” said independent Colorado pollster Floyd Ciruli.

Eric Sondermann, an independent political analyst in Denver, described the caucuses as “a home game for Andrew Romanoff” because he’s concentrated heavily on securing the support of the sliver of Democrats who will participate in them. He expects Romanoff to do well.

“If he does not fare well [Tuesday] in the caucuses, it’s hard to understand what the ongoing rationale for his candidacy is,” Sondermann said.

Katy Atkinson, a Denver-based political consultant, said that the caucuses are far less important for Bennet than for Romanoff because “Bennet has the money to be able to run a primary campaign, and Romanoff needs the momentum that a convention win would give him to help him raise more money.”

Bennet’s campaign is targeting the caucuses to build the full-fledged statewide political organization he lacked after coming to the Senate as an unelected member with no experience in elective office.

So Romanoff is in must-do mode, and Bennet is simply looking to build the momentum and recognition he never needed to win his seat in the first place.  That makes tonight’s outing particularly tough on Romanoff, who, to be honest, has done little to kick up awareness of his candidacy outside a few inside politics circles.

For the sake of argument and variety, and without tendering an endorsement, I urge Democratic caucus goers to step up tonight for Andrew Romanoff, if only to force Michael Bennet to define himself yet more clearly. Bennet is responding well under threat of a primary challenge, with strong support of a public option for health insurance reform and with a slate of new rules introduced to reduce filibuster abuse, and that’s only good news for Colorado.

Additionally, Andrew Romanoff is an effective legislator and a likable politician. If he makes it through these early rounds of primary wrangling, I’m confident that he will bring to the discourse a number of key points and policy ideas that matter to the quality of state and national politics. It’s especially important now for Democrats to energize their politics once more on the validity of clear and constructive policy discussion. Let’s learn as much as we can and then vote on the best candidate.

Matt Plavnick · March 16, 2010 · 5:40 am

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The Case for Yglesias

Once during a “preliminary screen” for a job interview I was asked to name my favorite blog. The question caught me off guard, though it shouldn’t have since the job in question was equal parts in-house writing, external messaging, and social networking for a well-established Denver consulting agency.

I mulled the question quickly in my head, considered and dismissed Talking Points Memo and The Washington Monthly’s Political Animal (both good picks, mind you), and settled in to discuss Matthew Yglesias, who now blogs for ThinkProgress and is often referenced in my posts.

Alas, there was no discussion. The question was designed, I surmise, that the HR screener might review the answer at a later date, if at all. I suspect that neither my resume nor my off-the-cuff answers during the screening call precisely answered the criteria the firm was looking to match.

There’s a point to all this, though, and that’s that Matthew Yglesias is probably my favorite blogger writing about politics today because he’s so damn tight.  Take this two-paragraph post from last Sunday. Yglesias identifies the main idea:

It’s nothing new to learn that there are quality-control problems at the Washington Post op-ed page, but Kevin Carey’s demolishing of Lamar Alexander’s op-ed on SAFRA is really something to behold.

Yglesias pays a nod to another blogger’s takedown of a hotly politicized policy issue. As a bonus, Yglesias takes a swipe at a media institution he loves to hate, the WaPo op-ed page. Not bad for a mere 30-odd words.

But that’s just the first sentence. The rest of the first paragraph goes on to skewer the Post’s editorial page editor *and* remind readers that Lamar Alexander is a senator on a soapbox with a malignant agenda and a pack of lies to share.

Therein lies the pivot that makes the rest of the blog post work so well. Yglesias conflates The Post op-ed page with the general unreliability of the contributor. Then, in the second paragraph, Yglesias nails the problem behind the problem.

Meanwhile, I take it that if Lamar Alexander had something false he wanted to tell people about the SAT—like if he wanted to say it was bad test-taking strategy to guess randomly even if you’re able to narrow it down to two options—that Kaplan wouldn’t let him write that in one of their test prep books. Their feeling, as I understand it, is that if they expect people to pay money for test prep books then the information in the books had better be reliable and not just reflect something or other some powerful person happened to want to say.

Emphasis mine. Yglesias argues, and this is pretty much airtight as far as I can tell, that The Washington Post and its parent company The Washington Post Co. are being irresponsible by publishing fallacious op-eds that wouldn’t pass muster as content for sale under the Post’s meal ticket, Kaplan Test Prep, which accounts for over $2 billion a year in Post Co. revenue and keeps the newspaper branch afloat.

All that in a mere two paragraphs. I wish I could have accomplished as much in so little space here.

Matt Plavnick · March 14, 2010 · 12:17 pm

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Climate Cynicism

Via The Wonk Room, it’s a tough day when China challenges the U.S. to step up on climate change. But wait, there’s more. In addition to getting our chops busted by the nation Americans like to blame most for pollution, the U.S. is also working with corporate polluters/climate change deniers to create new legislation regarding the so-called “green economy.”

I should say something pithy here, but I’m too discouraged.

Matt Plavnick · March 11, 2010 · 9:28 am

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Amazon in Colorado: A Lose-Lose-Lose Situation

Quick timeline:

February 24, 2010: Governor Bill Ritter signs a raft of new tax bills into law, including the controversial HB 1193, which forces online retailers to inform consumers of the state taxes owed on purchases made or shipped from Colorado.

March 1: New tax laws take effect.

March 8: Amazon dumps Colorado associates.

March 8: Rasmussen reports McInnis 6 points ahead of HIckenlooper in CO gubernatorial race.

March 8-10: Howls of protest, on all sides of the Amazon sales tax issue. One. Two. Three. Four. More.

There are a couple crucial factors to consider in all this. First, the notion of collecting state taxes on purchases made online is not in itself novel. New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island have adopted similar legislation. Virginia appears poised to do the same.

Two very salient political dynamics motivate the statehouses to challenge the online status quo: State budgets are busting, and brick-and-mortar businesses are crying foul that online businesses don’t have to play by the same taxation rules as everyone else.

Where the argument could have been made that the Colorado legislature was a) improving state services by collecting taxes that are already due and b) leveling the playing field for all Colorado businesses, Amazon’s response Monday undermines both those points. By dumping Colorado affiliates, the state won’t see its taxes and the state business sector as a whole loses out, because consumers will still buy goods online, but those goods will come from vendors in other states.

Enter the governors race, and issues like this one get even thornier. Hickenlooper will campaign on jobs creation, but he’s stuck in the unfortunate position of losing (potentially) Frontier Airlines under his watch and making no comment on the Ritter tax laws, which hurt his position as a member of the (current) majority party. McInnis and Co. are wise to stomp on these issues.

Unfortunately, the state is losing face, state businesses are losing revenues, and John Hickenlooper is losing ground (for now). Not a happy situation in Colorado.

Matt Plavnick · March 10, 2010 · 10:15 am

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Twitter Tools

I just added the Twitter Tools plugin to Colorado Progressive. Let’s test it out!

Matt Plavnick · March 9, 2010 · 1:51 pm

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More About Abortion & Health Care for Women and Children

Yesterday I wrote that I didn’t think Diana DeGette and other strongly pro-choice Democrats would scuttle health care reform over the crappy deal women are bound to get out of any bill that eventually arrives at some compromise language on abortion. Matt Yglesias cites Theda Skocpol and offers further support for my read of the current situation.

[F]rom a feminist point of view, undue focus on the abortion-funding provisions is missing the forest for the trees. Not only will the bill give subsidized health insurance to currently uninsured poor women, but the requirement that insurance companies not charge women higher premiums than men will be a financial boon to middle class single women. As a matter of principle, discriminating against abortion services is indefensible. But in practice, the need to pay out of pocket for abortions is going to be far offset by other benefits women are getting.

Exactly. And call me overly optimistic, but I think Diana DeGette understands the dynamic here. She’s built a reliable platform on protecting and improving health access for all comers, and she’s served her district well on health issues for a number of years. I do not expect her to take a reactionary position on this matter.

Matt Plavnick · March 6, 2010 · 6:37 pm

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Missing the Point

WaPo headline: “Massa resigns; Democrats’ ethical lapses could threaten hold on power.”

Don’t get me started. Scummy politicians are bad, but they’re pretty much beside the point. Democrats’ inability to function as a unified caucus is what threatens the party’s hold on power, as evidenced by the fracture and fallout surrounding health care reform. Massa’s resignation is actually a pretty good thing as far as health care reform goes, though likely not so good for Democrats in the long run.

Matt Plavnick · March 6, 2010 · 6:18 pm

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Blood Falls, Taylor Glacier, Antarctica

The possibilities for scientific research on the Antarctic primordial ooze must be giddy making:

The existence of the Blood Falls ecosystem shows that life is indeed possible in the most extreme of conditions. Life could perhaps exist on other planets with similar environments and similar bodies of frozen water – notably Mars and Jupiter’s moon Europa.

Check the larger image here, and note the tent in the foreground for a sense of scale.

Thanks Brian K. for posting on Facebook.

Matt Plavnick · March 6, 2010 · 6:07 am

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Health Care Reform, Abortion Language, and Diana DeGette

The Denver Post highlights House Democrats’ health care conundrums relative to endangered seats (Betsy Markey) and abortion language (Diana DeGette).

I can see the challenge facing a fractured Democratic caucus in an election year, and to be frank I’m not getting my hopes up for Betsy Markey’s vote.  DeGette is a different story, however, and contra the Post, I just don’t see this side* of the abortion issue being much of a stumbling block. Progressives and pro-choice groups will make some noise–and I suppose they should, because there’s no reason to go all progressive on health care yet force women’s rights back by several decades–but in the end, most are prepared to swallow a little bitter to achieve reform that is measurably better for millions of Americans.

Here’s the Post on DeGette’s dilemma:

As co-chair of the Pro Choice Caucus and a fierce abortion-rights advocate, DeGette is facing strong pressure from national groups not to approve a health care bill with the current language restricting insurance coverage of abortion contained in the Senate bill — but the reconciliation process allows no clear way to change it.

All of this is true, but politically it just doesn’t pack enough punch to threaten health care reform. The very next graf, in fact, gives DeGette the wiggle room she needs.

“Our bottom line is fix it,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “We have tremendous champions in the House, Diana DeGette being one of them. And we expect, whether at this stage or another stage, that they get the job done.”

Emphasis mine. “Whether at this stage or another stage” is pretty damn generous in the course of holding politicos’ feet to the fire. My takeaway is that NARAL gets the basic premise that millions of women and children will be better off with the improvements in the pipeline if health care reform succeeds than if it fails, and the pro-choice movement won’t stand in the way of progress.

The Post also mentions the 40-odd representatives who won’t vote for a bill with language any tougher than the existing Senate language. This is an example of how skewed are our bicameral politics today. Basically, all of these reps already approved a bill with tougher language than the Senate bill contains; it’s called HR 3200, and it passed the House in November with Bart Stupak’s tough abortion language intact. Those reps were counting on the Senate to pass a less restrictive bill, which the Senate did. Those same representatives then assumed that the Senate language would prevail during markup, but no markup session ever took place. And with reconciliation looking like the only route to pass health care reform, markup isn’t going to happen. Instead, the House must scrounge the 217 votes it’ll take to pass the Senate bill as is with a pledge to fix the language later. That’s the real pickle, not this side note about progressives sabotaging health care reform.

*There’s another side of the abortion issue that is much more threatening to the health care reform agenda, and that’s the Stupak faction that insists the Senate adopt House language (Stupak language) before moving on reform. Brian Beutler has a great piece today on the problems Stupak & Co. bring to the mix.

Matt Plavnick · March 5, 2010 · 2:38 pm

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