Even as much of the MSM buys into the largely phony meme of bitter internecine controversy among Republicans, who are actually united in a more-conservatism-with-tweaks strategy going forward, there’s growing talk of Democratic divisions over the current fiscal negotiations, perhaps extending to votes in Congress (and particularly the Senate). And although I am on record predicting there will be an actual “struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party” at some point, it’s not clear it has to break out any time soon.

The latest flash point is a polling memo released by the Beltway centrist Democratic group Third Way, showing strong support among Obama voters for a “balanced” fiscal deal that includes “fixing” Medicare and Social Security in addition to higher taxes on the wealthy. “Fixing” is not defined in the polling, though Third Way tells us its recent focus groups show Democrats are open to “modernizing” the programs via “minor measures” like small boosts in the retirement age. Retirement age changes are typically defined by many progressive Democrats not as “modernization measures” but as “benefit cuts.”

WaPo’s Greg Sargent fears Third Way is trying to lead Democrats away from a consensus position that even its own polling supports:

The centrist reading of the election is harder to explain. The Third Way poll seems designed to create the impression that the public yearns for a centrist deficit agreement. It tells us Obama voters support a mix of tax increases and spending cuts as part of a “bipartisan” deficit deal and that they want lawmakers to “fix” entitlements. But so what? A mix of tax increases and spending cuts is the liberal-Democratic position. The argument is one over degree. No one is arguing for no spending cuts whatsoever or doing nothing on entitlements or the deficit. Rather, the left wants a fiscal cliff solution that doesn’t take benefits away from those who need them and doesn’t undermine the core mission of social programs and the safety net. On this, the voters have spoken clearly.
I agree, but so, too, would Third Way, give or take some details or messaging emphasis. The real conflict here is probably one of traditional mistrust between Democratic factions rather than an actual split on substance or strategy. The real “centrist” threat to Democratic unity, if any, would probably emerge from the remaining red-state Democratic Senators up for re-election in 2014, particularly Landrieu, Hagan, Pryor and Begich, who are leery about committing to a hard-and-fast position on killing the Bush tax cuts on the weathy—a position on which, BTW, Third Way is fully in line with more liberal Democatic groups.

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So it’s probably too early to get too excited about potential “betrayals” by any Democrats or project any real split in the party. The fat will hit the fire, if ever, only after the administration comes to a negotiating position in conjunction with the congressional Democratic leadership.

Gabriel Sherman has an amazing piece about the on-air meltdown at Fox News over the decision to call Ohio for President Obama last night, which contains this charming detail:

With neither side backing down, senior producers had to find a way to split the difference. One idea was for two members of the decision team, Mishkin and Fox’s digital politics editor Chris Stirewalt, to go on camera with Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier to squelch the doubts over the call. But then it was decided that Kelly would walk through the office and interview the decision team in the conference room. “This is Fox News,” an insider said, “so anytime there’s a chance to show off Megyn Kelly’s legs they’ll go for it.” The decision desk were given a three-minute warning that Kelly would be showing up.

I suppose when a substantial part of your brand, in addition to hiring commentators for their inflammatory qualities rather than actual credentials, is hiring extremely attractive women, it makes sense to use the assets you’ve invested in. But the decision by the channel last night to break the firewall between its anchors and its decision team on behalf of a contributor, Karl Rove, who helped shepherd hundreds of millions of dollars to influence the outcome of an election and didn’t want to hear the final verdict on his investment, was already a sham, another illustration of a conservative allergy to facts and data. Sending an attractive woman to do that embarrassing work–rather than letting her continue to do her anchoring job, at which Kelly is frequently a credit to the network–on Rove’s behalf, to fake concern for the integrity of election results, and to send her in part so you can get her legs out from behind her desk, is strikingly juvenile and strikingly retrograde.

Back in 2005, Stephen Colbert introduced a word that has become part of the reality-based community's lexicon: truthiness.

And now, he introduces another concept that should become the rallying cry of anyone who wants to return to free and fair elections in this country: "The Politico-Industrial Complex":


Of course, David Gregory, being the useless tool that he is, doesn't follow up on that notion. And that is the crux of the problem of our electoral process now, the one thing that could resolve so many other issues.

The presidential election has already taken in and spent over a BILLION dollars. And congressional races add another $4 billion. Think how much good that money could have done for people in this country. How many underwater mortgages could have been forgiven? How many economically disadvantaged youths could have gone to college? How many Medicaid patients could get services they need? How many job re-training programs could have helped add workers to the economy?

This is the framework for a failing democracy. And unfortunately, it is left to the satirists like Colbert to make the point our media won't.

It would be wrong to read too much into Warren's strong showing. Brown did what he came to do, which is to promise not to raise any taxes anywhere on anyone, ever. This is, of course, insane public policy, and it makes him sound more like he's running for state senator again, but it sells very, very well, and if he can use it to deflect Warren's attempts to make national issues important to this race, it will have served its purpose. This will still be a two- or three-point race, either way. Recent polling has shown Warren's unfavorability rating inching northward — endless TV attack ads will do that — but it also has shown that people overwhelmingly blame Brown for the tone of the campaign so far, which undoubtedly had something to do with the fact that he declined to utilize his Injun-spottin' skills on Wednesday night. Maybe it takes a strong hand to turn a campaign back into something positive. Maybe, dammit, it takes a Jim Madigan.

By Barbara Ehrenreich, TomDispatch

This piece originally appeared at TomDispatch. Read Tom Engelhardt’s introduction here.

Individually the poor are not too tempting to thieves, for obvious reasons. Mug a banker and you might score a wallet containing a month’s rent. Mug a janitor and you will be lucky to get away with bus fare to flee the crime scene. But as Business Week helpfully pointed out in 2007, the poor in aggregate provide a juicy target for anyone depraved enough to make a business of stealing from them.

The trick is to rob them in ways that are systematic, impersonal, and almost impossible to trace to individual perpetrators. Employers, for example, can simply program their computers to shave a few dollars off each paycheck, or they can require workers to show up 30 minutes or more before the time clock starts ticking.

..

It’s not just the private sector that’s preying on the poor. Local governments are discovering that they can partially make up for declining tax revenues through fines, fees, and other costs imposed on indigent defendants, often for crimes no more dastardly than driving with a suspended license. And if that seems like an inefficient way to make money, given the high cost of locking people up, a growing number of jurisdictions have taken to charging defendants for their court costs and even the price of occupying a jail cell.
...
Being poor itself is not yet a crime, but in at least a third of the states, being in debt can now land you in jail. If a creditor like a landlord or credit card company has a court summons issued for you and you fail to show up on your appointed court date, a warrant will be issued for your arrest. And it is easy enough to miss a court summons, which may have been delivered to the wrong address or, in the case of some bottom-feeding bill collectors, simply tossed in the garbage—a practice so common that the industry even has a term for it: “sewer service.” In a sequence that National Public Radio reports is “increasingly common,” a person is stopped for some minor traffic offense—having a noisy muffler, say, or broken brake light—at which point the officer discovers the warrant and the unwitting offender is whisked off to jail.
...
I could propose all kinds of policies to curb the ongoing predation on the poor. Limits on usury should be reinstated. Theft should be taken seriously even when it’s committed by millionaire employers. No one should be incarcerated for debt or squeezed for money they have no chance of getting their hands on. These are no-brainers, and should take precedence over any lon

Yet the reality is that he did not win one term, let alone two. And he has instead spent the past seven-plus years in the US Senate, focusing his attention on his duties as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and - more recently - as the senior member from Massachusetts.

This past week, though, Kerry showed that the presidential gene has not receded, as he launched a broad-based defense of the Obama administration. It only underscored the belief that he is a leading candidate for secretary of state should fellow Democrat Barack Obama win a second term in November.

...
On Monday, Kerry delivered a sharply partisan speech to the nonpartisan New England Council, castigating congressional Republicans for blocking even the most mundane accomplishment as part of an effort to prevent Obama’s reelection.

On Tuesday, it was a floor statement and TV interviews rebutting an op-ed article about Iran written by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, whom Kerry dealt with while he was governor of Massachusetts.

Kerry showed this past week that the presidential gene has not receded.


On Thursday, Kerry himself wrote an op-ed piece for The Washington Post that detailed his complaints about Romney in writing.

Denial, Collapse

...
And we’ve got a “truly exceptional” outbreak of deadly tornadoes. Weather on steroids. No, no one weather event can be attributed to global warming, but to ignore the broad context of these extreme events would be blind and stupid.

Ocean acidification (caused by CO2 dissolving in ocean water, creating carbonic acid) is increasing at the highest rate in 300 million years, with disastrous effects for ocean life and the food chain generally — and we may be on our way to a mass extinction seen only five times before in 540 million years of multicellular life.

And we’re in denial. Sure, the right denies that it’s real, which is mule-headed and monstrous. But give them credit — climate denial is a priority to them. On the other hand, the left simply fails to make it a priority. It’s not a main priority on the major lefty blogs — Kos, etc. The Occupy folks, who have done an immense amount of good, are mostly fixated on pocketbook/class issues,m and hardly mention climate. In calling for cleaner energy, the President doesn’t even mention global warming and its likely consequences — flooding, starvation, political instability (war), entire regions and industries decimated by drought or flood, and so forth.

John Kerry weighed in today, via BuzzFeed's Rosie Gray, on the oft-repeated suggestion that he and Mitt Romney have a lot in common:

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts rejected the comparison that some in the press have made between him and current Republican candidate Mitt Romney: that they're both aloof, cut from the same patrician Massachusetts cloth, unable to connect with working class voters.

At a lunch at New York Law School in New York City today where he's giving a speech, Kerry told BuzzFeed that he totally rejects the premise.

"Well, I didn't have trouble connecting with [voters]," he said. "I almost won the presidency. I just don't agree with that. I completely reject that. It's not even similar in any way remotely. I won more votes up until that vote that any Democrat ever won ,particularly against a president in wartime. But for 59,000 votes, I would have won the presidency."

Kerry doesn't think Romney will come as close in the general election as he did.

"I think Romney's positions are out of touch with the needs of America," he said. "The difficulty I had in my campaign came about in the primaries because of the war, and it took me time to break through and be able to explain the position I had. But nobody doubted I connected with voters in Iowa, connected with them in New Hampshire, which I won."

Kerry added that "I've won five Senate races. I just don't buy that."

Law School today and The Politicker asked his thoughts on whether the former governor of his state, Mitt Romney, has moved to the right now that he’s seeking the Republican nomination. Mr. Kerry said it’s clear Mr. Romney has substantially changed his approach.

“Well,” Senator Kerry said with a laugh, “It’s like 180 degrees night and day difference. It’s just a different Mitt Romney. It’s Mitt Romney versus Mitt Romney.”

Mr. Romney’s Massachusetts health plan, commonly dubbed “Romneycare” by conservatives, has frequently been used as an example of his liberal past by those who say it served as the model for President Barack Obama’s health care reform plan. Mr. Kerry said Mr. Romney’s plan is “completely similar to the president’s.
...
Mr. Kerry is currently accompanied by a Republican, Scott Brown, in the Massachusetts Senate delegation. Mr. Brown is up for re-election this year and we asked Mr. Kerry whether he thinks Elizabeth Warren, Mr. Brown’s Democratic opponent, will win. He was loathe to make a prediction about the race.

“I can’t prognosticate. I mean, obviously, I want a Democrat and I’m supportive of a Dem, but the voters of Massachusetts are going to make up their minds,” Mr. Kerry said. “I’m not going to get into likelihoods or not. I think she’s a terrific candidate.”

Mitt vs Mitt

by digby

And to think the Republicans called John Kerry a flip-flopper for saying he voted for war funding before he voted against it and are now very likely to put a ping-pong ball on their presidential ticket. Hypocrisy doesn't begin to describe it:




Of course he does. Or does he?

...


He's doing this so often that I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't his strategy. I'm sure he's being well briefed so unless he has Alzheimers,this doesn't make a lot of sense anymore. Maybe they think voters will choose him for the position they agree with and assume he's pandering on those they don't. Certainly, the villagers seem to think he must really be a centrist moderate (the bestest and most wonderful of all ideologies) and is just pandering to the rubes. Weirdly, the rubes don't seem to be as keen, but we'll see if they don't find it in their interest to believe his wingnut pronouncements were his real beliefs once he gets the nomination. People often delude themselves in this way --- on both ends of the ideological spectrum.