Joy-Ann Reid's Open Salon Blog

The Labor Day speech President Obama should give

Sun, 5 Sep 2010 17:09:47 -0400

On Labor Day, many Americans will be thinking about jobs, and steaming about the economy even while they fire up the barbecue. Here's the speech I wish President Obama would give, to restore the faith of Democrats and independents, and to let the majority of Americans -- who haven't gone "birther" and don't want to "tea party their country back," that he feels their pain. Obama should defend what he and the Democrats have done in the last 19 months, and he should give the country a clear, straightforward message about where we've been, and where he intends to take us. It sure couldn't hurt.

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REMARKS BY FICTIONAL PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

September 6, 2010

As prepared for delivery --

My fellow Americans,

Today, as we celebrate the people who get up first in the morning, go to bed last at night, and who are the backbone of American economic strength and power – America's great, hard working employees, we are still a troubled, anxious nation. The economy has improved, but not enough. Jobs are coming back, but not fast enough. And we stand on the brink of another crucial election, causing many to put aside what’s best for the country, and think instead what will help their party win in November.

Well on this Labor Day, I want to speak specifically to the people who have expressed, in polls, and in the letters I read every day, their disappointment that in the past 19 months, change has not been change they feel they can believe in.

People all over this country are expressing their anxiety – even anger – at the direction we’re headed. They feel that the pace of the economic recovery has been too slow, or that we’ve been too focused on things that don’t matter to their everyday lives.

We spent a year on healthcare. In fact, we spent a year allowing some who opposed reform, to drag us into a quagmire – a false fight over healthcare by people who never intended to improve what we were doing, but rather, intended only to kill it, because that’s what the big insurance companies wanted.

In the end, we won an historic reform. But the process made many of you doubt the outcome. Made you cynical about whether it was all worth it.

Understand that our victory on healthcare, providing coverage to a record number of people who didn’t have it before, including young people, was not perfect. It was not everything that I wanted, or that you wanted. It has flaws. We can fix those flaws, but I want you to know a few things as we move forward together.

First, I want you to know that I get it.

I recognize that the year we spent on healthcare felt like a wasted year to you. I understand that you watched the process on Capitol Hill, and the town hall takeovers and the demagoguery about “death panels” and other lies, and figured Washington just doesn’t work. Obama just doesn’t get it. We need the economy to be fixed and we need jobs, and they’re up there fighting about healthcare.

I get that you think we gambled away some important, bedrock principals that you and I share, like the belief that if we were going to mandate that everyone have healthcare, we should also offer a public option.

I get that you think we gave too much to the Republicans, and got nothing in return.

And I get that you think that we took too long, and took our eye off the ball, which is the economy and jobs.

But I also want you to understand this:

House and Senate Democratic and I fought so hard on healthcare for one reason, and one reason only: because healthcare costs are the biggest weight dragging this economy down. Healthcare costs make up nearly 18 percent of our gross domestic product. That means for every dollar we spend as a country, 18 cents goes to healthcare. By 2018, that will rise to 20 cents. That’s more than any other country. And it will keep going up from there. Had we done nothing, healthcare spending in this country would have jumped from $2.5 trillion in 2009, to $4.5 trillion by 2019, money this country simply can’t afford to spend, especially since we get less healthcare for our money than nearly every other industrialized country.

We took on the insurance industry lobbyists and their well-funded front groups because spending on healthcare threatens to further weaken our economy and kill jobs.

Just look at the auto industry, where healthcare costs were crushing the big three American automakers. Think about your own state and local governments, which are buckling under the weight of pension costs, with the biggest issue being retiree health benefits.

We had to tackle healthcare, not because it was some pet project of mine, but because it was the first step in bringing our economy back.

Second, while our opponents claim that healthcare reform was about a “government takeover,” or about “socialism,” or about “cutting Medicare, let me explain in very simple terms what we did.

We passed a law that says people no longer have the right to get their healthcare at the emergency room and then pass those high costs on to you.

We passed a law that says insurance companies can’t take your money and then drop you when you get sick.

And the law we passed says the government will no longer pay private insurance companies to do something they can do with their own money – namely, provide extra services alongside Medicare. If insurance companies want to supplement Medicare, they can do so on their own, without government subsidies. That’s what the healthcare law does.

Finally, we closed the donut hole, so that seniors can afford their prescription drugs, instead of hitting a gap, where they have to take money out of their pockets to pay for live-saving prescriptions that are supposed to be covered by Medicare Part D. This summer, millions of seniors will receive a rebate check to pay them back for the money the previous law forced them to spend.

All of those things will make our economy stronger, will give Americans peace of mind about their healthcare, and will help business, and state and local governments afford to provide healthcare to our teachers, firefighters and police.

Next, I want to say in very clear terms: I also get that the number one thing you care about is the economy.

It’s the thing I wake up in the morning thinking about, and the thing I go to bed thinking about.

When I came into office, we had to take drastic measures to keep this country from going into another Great Depression.

The previous administration had instituted the TARP program to bail out the banks. But we had to administer it.

We had to save the American auto industry, because I refuse to hand an industry that started right here in America, over to foreign competitors, when we can and do build better cars right here in our country. We did save the industry, kept millions of people on the job, and kept America in the lead in a vital industrial sector. Now, all three American car companies are profitable, and millions of jobs at auto plants, and with parts suppliers, were saved.

It’s not enough, but it was a very important start.

Second, I haven’t done the job I should have done in explaining the stimulus bill, so let me break it down to three very simple things.

First, the bill was one third tax cuts, and 95 percent of Americans, meaning those who aren’t millionaires, will see that in a lower tax bill this year.

Second, if you know a teacher, a fireman or a policeman, chances are their job was saved because we passed the stimulus bill.

Third, we’re funding infrastructure projects – rebuilding our roads and bridges. If you see highway construction on your local roads, that too is the stimulus bill at work. Republicans are happy to try and take credit for the projects, and pose for pictures next to the cranes and heavy machinery, but not a single one of them voted for this job-saving bill.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has made it clear, and every credible economist agrees: without the stimulus bill, we would right now, still be in a deep recession, and the unemployment rate would be up to 1.8 percent higher.

Did we think unemployment would be lower by now? Absolutely. But we also couldn’t have anticipated that after my election, the economy would continue to bleed 750,000 jobs a month right through my inauguration.

My fellow Americans, know that my administration, and my Democratic colleagues on Capitol Hill are throwing everything we have at fixing this economy. And my team and the Democrats who represent you in Congress, will continue to introduce bills that will help accelerate this recovery.

This month, we plan to offer tax cuts for small business to hire American workers, and we’ll see if our Republican colleagues will help us pass that bill.

We plan to offer tax breaks for businesses who expand into green technologies, and we’ll see if we get any support from our Republican friends.

Republicans like to pretend that they have been powerless in Washington over the last two years. But they have enough members in the Senate to stop any bill with a filibuster, and they have used it time and time again, even to block unemployment benefits for middle class parents who are struggling to keep a roof over their heads while they look for another job. Our Republican colleagues have been relentless, using arcane Senate rules to block nearly every attempt we’ve made to keep this economy growing.

If you want to know why Washington doesn’t seem to work, it’s because partisanship and politics, “taking back the House and Senate” – has taken the place of leadership on Capitol Hill.

I’m not in the business of questioning anybody’s motives, but you’ve got to wonder why anyone would try and block help for middle class Americans who are unemployed, why anyone would talk about handing Social Security over to Wall Street after what we saw happen to this economy in 2008; or why anyone would want to hand Medicare over to the same private insurance companies who needed a law to make them stop dropping people who have paid their premiums, when they get sick.

In fact, I don’t care why it’s being done. I just know that we’re not going to let the cynics succeed.

We’re going to protect our seniors, protect Social Security from the same predatory scams that took down our housing market, we’re going to keep Medicare out of the hands of the insurance companies, and we’re going to stand up for middle class Americans who don’t want a handout, but do want a little help until they can find a good-paying job.

We’re going to defend what we did to stop the federal government from paying banks to do what they’re supposed to be doing anyway: providing student loans. If they have to be paid a government subsidy to do it, maybe the government should just eliminate the middle man, and help our young people get to college without subsidizing banks. And that’s what we did.

We're going to defend our reforms of Wall Street, and we're going to push the banks who gladly took our money when they were in trouble, to start lending some of that money out to small businesses, and to start working with homeowners to help keep people in their homes.

We’re going to defend tax cuts for the middle class, and stand against permanently extending the Bush tax cuts for the very rich.

We're going to fight unfair trade practices that keep American goods out of countries who ship their products here, and we're going to push to open up new markets for American-made products and innovations, including making America the number one manufacturer of green technologies like advanced batteries and the tools to produce solar and wind energy.'

We're going to continue to push for education reform, so that America will once again be the best educated, best prepared nation on earth. And we will do so in a way that respects the profound responsibility and incredible professionalism of our teachers.

We will defend the gains we made on healthcare reform, and we’re going to continue to improve the bill, so that it meets your high expectations, and our shared goals.

We’re going to take a stand for American values against bashing immigrants, who contribute every day to the vitality of this nation; against intolerance and hatred of people of the Muslim faith, who are part of the fabric of this country too, including serving in our military, and who were among those who died on 9/11; and will stand against the divisiveness of cynics who would rather win an election than bring this country together.

And we will conclude the war in Afghanistan in the same responsible way that we have ended combat operations in Iraq, with success in our mission, respect for our troops, and a warning to our enemies never to doubt our resolve.

Lastly, I want you to know that I understand that change hasn’t come fast enough in other areas having to do with who we are as a people.

From environmental legislation, which has passed the House but still languishes in the Senate under Republican filibusters; to marriage equality to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, change has been slower than many of you hoped. But know that I am with you, and with this country’s historic march toward freedom and equality; whether it’s freedom of religion, freedom to serve, or freedom to marry. None of our freedoms was ever won easily. It took 15 years to desegregate the military, even after Truman’s historic executive order; and 219 years for an African-American to become president.

Change is much more complex from this side of the campaign trail, and I am sobered by that reality as president.

And yet, I am a firm believer that change will come, must come, and can only come if we keep pushing back against the forces of cynicism and stagnation, together. And if you keep pushing me.

I will see these things done. I will see these changes made. Don’t give up on this president just yet.

Our opponents want you to be cynical. They want you to be angry. They want you to give up. They are betting against the resilience and strength and unity of the American people for one reason: to win an election. But this country is bigger than that. We’re better than that.

You need to know that as president of the United States, I will work every day, every hour, and do everything in my power to bring this economy back, to reunite us as a people, and to keep America the strongest, most prosperous, and greatest nation on earth.

We can do this. We ARE doing this. It’s going to take time, and I know you’re impatient, but stay with me. Let’s keep building, and let’s keep moving forward.

Thank you, and may God bless the United States of America.

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Cross-posted at The Reid Report

Jeff Greene, seriously

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 03:08:14 -0400

Is Jeff Greene a rich jerk? That seems to be the focus of most of the inquiries into the Democratic Senate candidate in the throes of the summer news cycle. In this interview, The Reid Report searches for substance in this year's hottest tabloid candidacy. Read on and judge for yourself ...

Greene has been accused of everything from single-handedly tanking the mortgage market to being a 55-year-old, long lost member of the Kardashian clan: living a wild, party-boy life of vomit-soaked yachting with Mike Tyson, Lindsey Lohan and a bevy of Ukranian strippers. Of course, as with anything, the truth is more complicated. Greene scored a front page retraction from the St. Pete Times over a story that implied Tyson -- the best man at Greene's 2007 wedding -- did drugs aboard Greene's yacht, the Summerwind, when the two were hanging tight in 2005. Tyson says he did lots of drugs back then, but "not on the boat". Greene threatening to sue, and ultimately, the paper backed down. Now, his team is pushing back on a story tying him to a California condo flipping fraud scheme. (In that case, a campaign spokesman says Greene sold the 300 California condos to a single buyer, who then phonied up individual sales with straw buyers using Greene's name, without his knowledge.) But the stories of business deals gone wrong -- but Greene making money anyway -- just keep coming.

Greene's wealth is an irresistible shiny object to a media obsessed with money and celebrity, and he is indeed, very rich -- worth about $2 billion according to Forbes, which lists him as the world's 488th richest man. He and his wife Mei (real name Mei Sze Chan), a former real estate executive some 20 years his junior, who's originally from Australia, own a sprawling mansion in Palm Beach called La Bellucia. And that's just one of five homes in the Greene portfolio.

But Greene doesn't wear his status on his sleeve. He dresses like your average businessman -- with no noticeable bling. He doesn't tote an entourage, and is usually in the company of just one or two staffers. He and his wife have a nanny, but reportedly, Mei Greene's frequent absence from the campaign trail is due to her being a full-time mom to their toddler (and campaign strategist.)

Still, how he made his money has become an issue in the Senate campaign. Greene's climb from middle class kid to titan began with your garden variety real estate investments, and escalated as Americans on and off Wall Street were gambling on an exploding housing bubble. Greene was one of the few investors who saw the inevitable pop coming (or one of the few who were willing to accept it,) and he made some smart bets against the House. Greene says he nearly lost everything during the 1990s when he was a solo real estate investor, and having watched his father lose his livelihood when Greene was a teenager, he made the investments -- through an unusual, new financial instrument called "naked credit default swaps" -- because he was determined not to go broke. And while he's being clobbered by his Democratic opponent, Kendrick Meek, for allegedly profiting off the misery of American homeowners, the truth is, Greene may have been the prophet (and profit) of doom, but he wasn't driving the car that wrecked so many Americans' (and so many Floridians') lives -- he was holding a betting slip against the car insurance company.

The trouble for Greene, however, is that in his run for the U.S. Senate, he's seeking to portray himself as a humble public servant, an image that clashes with the hard-nosed money man who once called in to the government's mortgage help line pretending to be a condo owner behind on his mortgage, to get a bead on where the housing market was going, and whether the federal government might intervene.

Since Greene entered the race in May, the Meek campaign has attacked him relentlessly for allegedly profiting from the misery of hard-hit homeowners. They call him the "king of credit default swaps" -- the "meltdown mogul" whose investments were "financial weapons of mass destruction" that helped bring the American economy to its knees. And while Greene has effectively challenged some of those claims, including one implying that Warren Buffet had made the "financial WMD" claim about Greene personally, Greene's negative ratings in the polls have been rising, in large part due to the effectiveness and simplicity of the attacks, versus the complexity of describing Greene's real estate dealings.

And in what has become one of the most vicious Democratic primaries in recent Florida memory, Greene has given as good as he's gotten, attacking Meek as a "failed politician" and accusing him of corruption -- attacking a deal with a developer that involved Meek's mother, former Congresswoman Carrie Meek, and which was supposed to bring a biotech facility to the District, prompting Meek to declare him to be a "bad man" -- and one who is attacking a woman in her 80s for political gain.

Greene campaign spokesman Luis Viszcaino insists that Greene respects Meek's mother, and is simply pointing out an ethically dubious deal involving her and her son, but the inclusion of Carrie Meek, in Greene's debate talking points and most recently, in a campaign mailer, has prompted an outcry from some African-Americans. Miami-Dade NAACP president Victor Curry -- a prominent Democrat -- called Greene "mean," and said that based on his attacks on Carrie Meek, he could not support Greene if he were to be the nominee.

That complicates what has been an intriguing strategy by the Greene campaign, which has aligned itself with the political micro-machine associated with ousted Miami Commissioner Michelle Spence Jones, in a district that overlaps with Meek's Congressional District. How Greene came to be supported by the Liberty City Democratic Club, and how he came to hire the Hardemons, Spence Jones' political fixers in Liberty City, has become something of an intrigue in Miami. Greene has gotten credit from some African-Americans for getting there first -- he held a rally in the poverty and crime-ravaged Liberty Square housing projects before Meek, who represents the area, got to town. And he has made friends among some Black Miamians who have become impatient with Meek.

"They called us," Greene said of Eric Thompson and Roy Hardemon, who founded the Liberty City club after splintering with a similar local group. "They said 'we'd like you to come down. We've had Kendrick Meek, we thought his mother was great, but he has not been here."

"I'm in that same category with Kendrick," Meek supporter Alcee Hastings told me this week. "(People say) 'I haven't seen you.' Well I spend several months of my life in Washington D.C. Try as I might, I can't be there all the time."

Viszcaino said that when Greene and his team toured the abandoned would-be biotech site, they were told by the activists, "you've been here a half hour and that's longer than Kendrick Meek has ever been here."

"I think they feel neglected by him," said Greene. "All I know is the people there are not happy. They feel they've been neglected. It's a blighted area." And while he went on to list a number of remedies for places like Liberty City: ("give money to these areas -- and I'm talking about real legislation not earmarks. Programs to provide early childhood education, after school progs, this is not some fat, this is the guts of what we should be standing up and doing, these kids are our future...") Greene didn't mention those ideas in his Liberty City stump speech. Nor did he bring up the one of the issues most on the minds of people in that neighborhood: crime.

Now, however, Greene's attacks on Carrie Meek -- a revered figure in the black Miami community, threaten to harden African-American support for Meek, who accuses Greene of buying black support (and marginal support at that, since Meek insists the disgruntled in his district are few.)

But Greene has done some things that are outside the box for a white candidate facing a black opponent in his own backyard. His campaign alone responded to an invitation from Embrace Girls Foundation to speak (with his wife) at one of their teas, through which the group of young inner city girls have met judges, celebrities, and even Hillary Clinton. The organizers said they had been trying to get Meek to attend for two years. Greene recently pledged to donate his Senate salary, if elected, to Florida charities, including Embrace. And he continues to hold events in the black community, including a recent Liberty City block party, and a "back to school" event and school supply giveaway at a popular restaurant/nightclub in Miami Gardens -- also in Meek's district.

In the 20 minutes or so that I spent with Greene, I didn't see any obvious evidence of evil. If anything, Greene comes across as more band geek than Machiavelli, though you do get the feeling that in a business deal, he'd drink your milkshake (then make you wash the glass.)

Indeed, people who know Greene confirm he can be a difficult guy to deal with in a business setting, though one person formerly associated with the campaign preferred to describe him as "driven."

"He's the kind of guy who if he asks you for ten and you give him ten, he asks why you didn't make it 12," the source said, adding that Greene's hard-charging personality was likely what soured his relationship with Joe Trippi, the former Howard Dean political wizard who used to be a Greene consultant before being replaced by Tad Devine.

Greene's manner of dealing with people hasn't always helped his P.R. He once settled a libel suit for allegedly verbally abusing an employee, he has been slammed by former employees on his yacht -- and by officials in Belize, who say the Summerwind damaged a coral reef there (which Greene denies) -- and he even got into a verbal and legal brawl with actor/director Ron Howard, who reportedly is so sour on Greene, he has donated money to Meek.

Beyond personality, Greene has faced other accusations during the campaign that could prove damaging to his chances on August 24.

One such accusation: that he is a Republican -- not something you want to be in the heat of a Democratic primary. And indeed Greene only registered as a Democrat in 2008, the same year he changed his residency from California to Florida (Greene says his ties to the state go deeper, since his parents moved to the state when he was in high school, and his mother lives in a condo in Palm Beach.) While stressing his Democratic pedigree, Greene admitted to having been a "Reagan Democrat" in the 1980s, after graduating from Harvard Business School (from which you'd be hard pressed to emerge as anything other than a Republican.) The only other time in his life that he ran for office, he did so as a Republican. And yet, Greene claims he can't remember whether he voted for Reagan in 1980. When I pressed him on it, he admitted to being disappointed with Jimmy Carter, but stuck to what the blogworld has come to call his "Gippernesia."

"Look, there was a huge Reagan Democrat [movement] in the ... 80s," Greene said. "I had always been a Democrat. I was raised in Massachusetts, the land of the Kennedys. I got very frustrated at that time in my life, with the Iranian hostage crisis, we had the misery index, gas lines... I remember that I was frustrated, but I don't remember that I went and voted for Ronald Reagan."

But why not just cop to it and move on? "I ran as a Republican in 1982, if I did remember I'd say it. I'm just not gonna lie. it's not intentionally. I'm not willing to say what's convenient and expedient. I can't remember whether I voted for him."

Greene also has reportedly been an infrequent voter, which you'd think would make each experience in the voting booth a bit more memorable. Still, whether or not he voted for the Gipper, Greene did admit to being a supporter, and to having been spurred into politics by Reagan's example.

"After he got in, I supported him and I ran as a Republican," Greene said, though he was careful to pivot back to Democratic lingo before things got too far afield. "I supported him and I was glad he was in, I think a lot of people were proud of what he brought from the point of view of patriotism, but I think what he did was a big mistake, with the economy and supply side economics... I think it was a failure."

On whether his yacht docked illegally in Cuba, and his many, evolving explanations of how the Summerwind wound up docked in Havana (plus the later retracted claim that he was actually in Cuba to visit totems of the Jewish community there,) Greene said he simply forgot all the details with the passage of time, but looking back, realized that they'd stopped because of a hydraulics problem with his boat. And as he reconstructed events, he remembered that he'd visited a synagogue.

As for the tales of mistreating employees on his yacht, Greene dismissed those too, saying that with all the people who work on a yacht over many years, he can't even remember who the complainants are.

Greene seems frustrated by the fascination with his lifestyle, which he complained has kept the focus off substantive issues. But his campaign has sometimes helped to feed the beast -- their first robocall to voters was from his friend Star Jones, former co-host of "The View," and he volunteered during the interview that he's also friends with Bill Maher, Oliver Stone, directors Brett Ratner and Michael Bay, and singer Natalie Cole.

"I have plenty of friends in that industry," Greene said, though he insists not Lindsey Lohan, who was famously photographed with him in St. Barths over New Year's, when she reportedly stayed on his yacht. "I don't even have her phone number," he said. "The whole thing is so stupid."

"My friends who are peers are deans of universities..." added Greene, who speaks so rapidly, he moves on to the next thought before completing the first, "it's not like I was hanging out with Lindsey Lohan. She hasn't called me, she hasn't talked to me since New Year's. A close friend of mine asked if she could stay... [they said] could you do me a big favor, she's coming in tonight, and it's a good friend so I said 'okay, two nights.' I walked into town with her once and they've got all these pictures of me."

On matters of substance, Greene's positions are not all that different from his rival Meek's.

On the Bush tax cuts, which he benefited nicely from, Greene said, "I think they should expire the tax cuts for the wealthy but I think they should keep them in for the middle class."

Both men are pro-choice, liberal on gay rights, and both are uber-hawks on Israel. Both formerly supported the Cuban embargo, though Greene has now "evolved" on Cuba travel (perhaps coincidentally, after his own brush with Havana.)

Greene's opinion also morphed on the subject of the proposed Islamic community center near Ground Zero in New York City. When I spoke to him, he was non-committal, saying "I haven't formed an opinion on it, (but) if somebody wants to build a mosque and it's for the right reasons, and there's plenty of Muslims in this country, and they deserve to have a place of worship like everyone else. If it's being done to antagonize people then it's not a good idea, but it's up to the people of New York."

But after President Obama made a statement supporting the Park 51 organization's right to build the mosque, Greene blasted the president's statement, and came out unequivocally against the project, aligning himself with Republicans like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, who vehemently oppose the Islamic Center commonly misnamed the "Ground Zero mosque."

Greene also veers off the Democratic talking points when it comes to the economy. He is critical of the stimulus package, which he doesn't believe produced significant numbers of jobs, and sounds more like a CNBC anchor than a Democratic candidate once he gets on a roll talking about economics. But he says he doesn't buy the Republican argument that tax cuts create jobs, either.

"The idea that tax cuts for rich people are going to create jobs is ridiculous," he said. "(They) create jobs at Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Bentley dealerships, but they're not creating jobs for average Americans."

So how would he turn around the jobless recovery?

"You use fiscal policy to target job creating industries," he said, gesturing at the counter of the Hollywood deli where we spoke, pointing out a woman who appeared to be the manager, and unleashing a rapid-fire word blizzard. "Or you do a payroll tax holiday, so this lady says 'I think I'll add a new employee or stay open a couple extra hours.' ... Maybe a tax break would push her over the top to add an employee. Or you target certain behavior. You have an old home and the government says you get a tax credit if you weatherize your home... you think, 'I get a tax credit and half of it is paid by the tax credit, then I'll get it,' and it's a no-brainer. You call up a bunch of companies and all of a sudden all these weatherizing companies are hiring people. The other thing is that you need lending. These banks are not lending."

Greene also doesn't buy the conspiracy theory, voiced by some liberals, that banks are holding back in order to punish the Obama administration, or hurt the president. "Banks aren't lending because they don't have the confidence as to where the econ is going. They're buying government backed securities at 3 or 4 percent. If you're a bank, why would you want to make a loan at 6 or 7 percent when you can buy a security that's issued by the same entity you're buying from? It's a scam. And who depends on the money from CDs is mainly older people, which Florida has more of than other places, so seniors are getting low rates on CDs, (while) banks borrow at zero."

So what would he do about it? "Legislate that banks have to lend certain percentages of their capital."

Greene doesn't seem wildly enthusiastic about the Democrats he hopes to join in the Senate, though he gave credit to Majority Leader Harry Reid for passing healthcare and financial regulatory reform "in these difficult times."

As for President Obama: "Based on the hand he was dealt, I think he's done a good job. He started out (when) we were losing 750,000 jobs a month, a deficit, two wars ... people would like to see things get better right away. I would too. But this economy was hit with a nuclear missile. Now we're picking up the pieces."

Asked to assign blame for the economy catastrophe, Greene seems to single out two groups: consumers themselves, and his favorite target: Washington politicians (read: Kendrick Meek.)

"This is what happens when you get ten years of people over-consuming. These guys who have been in Washington, they should have seen where this economy was going. The economy isn't the same as when you were a kid or I was a kid. Manufacturing isn't there in the same way anymore."

As for the guy who's been in Washington, and against whom he is now locked in a vicious primary, Greene says he never intended for it to get ugly. He even donated $500 to Meek's campaign in the months before getting into the race, although he brushes off the donation as unintentional: "I was going to an event and wanted to meet Barney Frank, so donating to Meek was the cost to get in."

There is clearly no love lost between the two men, for which each blames the other.

"When I first got in this race, I called Kendrick, the day I filed, and told him I wanted to keep this positive. We're very different candidates. If someone is looking for a guy who knows his way around Washington and can put together a bill very efficiently, and kind of knows his way around the Capitol and has a lot of friends there and is a Washington insider, that's Kendrick."

After that back-handed compliment, Greene explained how he would get along in Washington if he were to be elected to the Senate.

"It's gonna take a learning curve," he said. "I'm gonna have to put together a staff and figure out how to put together bills and learn the culture of Washington. But if someone is looking for a businessman who is self-made, who spent his whole life creating jobs, who has a much more different vision for the economy and has a much better background to deal with the things we've been talking about, which is where do we position ourselves globally, I'm the better choice."

Greene was unapologetic about his harsh attacks on Meek, whom he has called on to request an ethics investigation of himself, Charlie Rangel style, over the failed development project for which Carrie Meek received a consulting fee and a car and for which Kendrick Meek sought earmarks. The developer, Dennis Stackhouse, now faces criminal charges for allegedly misappropriating county funds he received for the project. And his campaign has attacked Meek's use of a taxpayer-funded car.

"As far as I'm concerned the culture of corruption in Washington is criminal, whether it's illegal or not," Greene said. "It's not right because my feeling is, why should our tax dollars go to get money for a guy like Dennis Stackhouse because Kendrick Meek's mother gets $90,000 and his chief of staff gets $13,000" (in the form of help from Stackhouse with a house down payment, which Meek says he knew nothing about.) "That's our money. We have a $13 trillion national debt. Why are we taking our money and spending it to reward Dennis Stackhouse? As far as I'm concerned it's dead wrong."

And yet, Greene has pledged to support Meek if the Congressman becomes the Democratic nominee Tuesday.

Asked to explain the apparent contradiction, Greene said, "I'm a Democrat. The last thing I want to see is a Republican Senate to obstruct the policies of our president. I hope I'm the nominee of our party. Any Democrat who says he's gonna caucus with our party, I'd support him. Kendrick Meek has not made that pledge to me."

With the race coming down to the wire, Greene can count on a handful of Democrats in his corner, while Meek is bringing the entire, national Democratic establishment to bear -- including former President Clinton and current President Barack Obama.

Greene has found strength in the condos, among older and Jewish voters, who he says he can better relate to.

"I have a real connection to the senior citizens of Florida and what they're going through," Greene said, pushing back on a story earlier in the summer that quoted him seeming to suggests Meek couldn't win the state because he's black. "It's not racial in any way," he said. "I'm 55 years old. I got an offer to join AARP."

Greene sees the phenomenon of rich candidates like himself, Republican gubernatorial candidates Rick Scott in Florida and Meg Whitman in California, Carly Fiorina, who is challenging Senator Barbara Boxer in California, and locally, Rudy Moise, who is running to replace Meek, and showing off a million-dollar war chest all around town to try and win the Democratic primary -- as a natural consequence of the country's economic collapse.

"I think it's about people who have been successful and they feel its great to have success of your own, but the country's falling apart."

"I know that our country is facing challenges like we've never faced before," Greene added. "We need the best, brightest people in every walk of life to commit their time and talent to make this country work. People can't sit in the bleachers and watch the others on the stage. we're mortgaging our future to foreign countries to live a lifestyle we really can't afford. It can't go on forever. I know we can do better and I'm determined to make a big contribution to turn this country around."

Greene expressed some sympathy for the tea party movement, calling it "one more example of people who are frustrated, angry and fed up with the failure government."

"They're expressing it in a way that I don't agree with politically," he said, "but I share their frustration. We have diff approaches. Their approach is let's shut down the government. Like Marco Rubio says he wants to cut taxes -- I don't know what he wants to close first, the fire department, cut off Social Security, close the police department, close the schools ... to me its just rhetoric. It's based on rhetoric, but its not realistic. You want to cut taxes but we're 1.4 trillion in the hole."

As for what he wants to do should he get to Washington, Greene says he wants to be a part of bringing about change -- incrementally: "We don't want revolutionary change (in America.) We don't want to say lets change the whole tax code next week. I think that's what's great about our country. We're a ship that turns slowly. (But) we're in an economic world war, fighting all these other countries for jobs. whoever is the best educated and also creative will be the winner."

And he ended on an optimistic note ... sort of ...before returning to his anti-Washington theme.

"The good news is the middle class is expanding at the fastest pace in global history. Because of our patchwork of immigrants and freedoms to express ourselves ... and I think we should be celebrating that ... we're on the launch pad about to take off into prosperity and growth. Instead, bad policies have caused the opposite to happen. We're not renewing our infrastructure, we're not investing in education. It's a failure of Washington," he said.

And while the polls have begun to tilt against him, Greene sounded cautiously hopeful about his chances on August 24th, and about his ability to deliver if elected in what has to be considered a long shot Senate bid -- even for a guy with $2 billion.

"I have no magic wand, I have a lot of good ideas and hopefully if I get elected, six years later they'll be saying thanks for a job well done."

Cross-posted at The Reid Report

Read other Reid Report profiles and analysis of the candidates and races:

Governor:

Alex Sink

Bud Chiles

U.S. Senate:

Kendrick Meek (also here)

Marco Rubio

Maurice Ferre

Charlie Crist

Alex Sink seeks to awaken Florida's moderate sleeping giant

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 02:07:21 -0400

Alex Sink is the anti-Sarah Palin.

Where the former half-term Alaska governor is flashy and aggressive, firing up her "mama grizzlies" and bashing the president, but never articulating a coherent policy narrative, Sink is quiet and careful. In fact she's very careful. She even pauses to think before she speaks. Long considered a bright prospect for state Democrats, Sink -- already the state's highest ranking female elected official as CFO -- hopes to join the small club of 32 women, Palin included, who have served as their state's chief executives.

So far, polls show her holding her own, if not bringing down the house. A recent Ipsos/Reuters poll found Sink leading hapless Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum within the margin of error, 31 to 30, and down 34 to 31 (also within the MOE) to millionaire astroturfer Rick Scott. Mostly, polls show that relatively few Floridians know who Sink is, even though she's held statewide office for nearly four years. (In her defense, CFO is hardly a high-visibility post.)

The upshot of the name ID deficit is that some voters aren't even aware that Ms. Sink, real name Adelaide, is a woman. That's in part because, unlike the marauding "pink elephants" of the GOP, Sink up to now has been running on pragmatism and good government (her big media release this year was a business plan for the state,) rather than her gender.

That will begin to change as the campaign heads into late summer, when the frugal Sink campaign plans to launch into its second phase.

"People are just now getting focused on the campaign," she said when I interviewed her on Thursday, adding that the campaign is now fully staffed up and planning a "week of action" during the second week of August "in which we're going to be engaging women particularly all across the state."

As for activists (and pundits, this one included) who have complained that Sink has lacked intensity and failed to generate grassroots excitement (and who fear the ghosts of her husband Bill McBride's lackluster run against Jeb Bush in 2002 -- back when more than a few Democrats wondered why he didn't step aside and let Alex run instead...) the candidate doesn't seem worried.

"I'm actually very excited and enthusiastic about where we are right now," Sink said. "We're exactly in the right place at the right time."

She may be onto something. The more radical the national and state Republican Party have become, and the more glaring the scandals in the Florida GOP, the better Sink is starting to look. It's quite possible, in this age of hyperbolic, histrionic, angry politics, that Sink might just be the right mild-tempered moderate at the right time. The consensus of political watchers is that the emergence of Scott, whose fortune was built on massive Medicare Fraud, as the front runner in the Republican primary, forcing McCollum to the far right on issues like immigration and abortion, has been a gift to the Sink campaign.

Once she starts barnstorming the state in earnest, Floridians will notice some differences between Sink and the men who have run the state, starting with her accent, which after eight years of Jeb Bush's Brahman, Kennebunkport delivery and Charlie Crist's mild croon, stands out for its striking, genuinely southern twang (especially in the New York boroughs of Broward County. Just my take: she should lose the voice coaches and just let it ride.) But in some ways, Sink represents a continuation of the moderate, fiscally disciplined administration she's hoping to succeed. The former bank executive is noted, and sometimes mocked by her opponents, for penny pinching.

"I am a fiscal conservative and I wanted to conserve my resources," Sink said of her modest campaign spending to date (despite strong fundraising), and touting the "hundreds of millions of dollars" in savings she's scoured the state budget for on behalf of the cash-starved state. "That's how I ran as CFO. That's how I've been managing myself and my office."

Sink has done some things that go outside the box. In June, she became the first statewide candidate to campaign in Miami's black enclave of Liberty City, even getting there before Senate candidate Kendrick Meek, who's from the neighborhood (he's holding a rally there on Sunday.) Often, black voters complain that Democratic campaigns wait until the eleventh hour to engage their communities. And if Sink is unfamiliar to most Floridians, she's a total unknown to a majority of black voters, who Democrats hope to coax back to the polls for even a close approximation of the Obama turnout from 2008.

She has been an aggressive advocate for small businesspeople in Northwest Florida and the Panhandle who have been hit hardest by the Gulf oil spill (she opposes drilling near the Florida coast), calling for an upcoming special legislative session on a possible offshore drilling ban to also include discussion of tax breaks for those businesses.

And while she was relatively quiet during the rancorous national debates on the stimulus and healthcare, Sink has been very vocal on issues that play to her profile of fiscal restraint, including the Republican Party of Florida credit card and Jim Greer scandals. On those, Sink faults her opponent, Bill McCollum, for not recognizing his conflicts of interest. She said her early, vehement calls for McCollum to recuse himself from any investigation of his party by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) had nothing to do with politics, and "everything to do with ethics and integrity and common sense."

"With all the controversy around Jim Greer and the executive director (Delmar Johnson) and also the many public officials from (incoming House Speaker Dean) Cannon to (Senate President Jeff) Atwater to (Marco) Rubio who were using their credit cards for a very persoal use... to me, from a common sense point of view it meant it should be investigated," Sink said. "Even looking for possible criminal violations."

"That's the attorney general's responsibility," she added. "However our A.G. happens to be a high ranking Republican officeholder himself with a clear, close relationship with Chairman Greer. When the attorney general announced his candidacy, Chairman Greer was standing right there alongside him. And everyone knew that Chairman Greer was very aggressive about getting other people including the agriculture commissioner (Charles) Bronson not to run to clear the field for McCollum. So the very fact that A.G. McCollum didn't see that he shouldn't be the one to call for his own investigation..."

"In January, he said, 'well let's wait and see' -- he says 'wait and see' a lot -- he says 'let's wait and see what they come up with on their own.'"

Sink added that when, months later, McCollum directed the FDLE to conduct an investigation, "well, the FDLE is an agency of the cabinet that reports, among others, to the attorney general. It's just a clear conflict of interest and it should have never been handled that way."

Sink seemed a bit reluctant to go after Crist, though she did call him "lax" in not taking complaints about his hand-picked party chairman seriously. "He was blinded by loyalty to a friend who it turns out is very close to going to jail."

However, Sink was unsparing in her criticism of the the way things are run in the place where she works, the State Capitol in Tallahassee.

"I've been here just long enough to see how the place works," she said. "They're out of control and they're out of touch with the people of Florida."

As evidence, Sink cited several pieces of legislation she said put Republican leaders in Tallahassee outside the Florida mainstream. She called the teacher tenure bill, SB6, a "bureaucratic state takeover of local school decision making process," that would have "hamstrung" the ability of local school boards to administer their workforces.

She said a bill that would have required women seeking an abortion to view and pay for an invasive ultrasound, which like SB6 was vetoed by Crist, represented state intrusion into the personal lives of Floridians, just like the Terri Schiavo case.

"We don't need government to get involved in personal decisions between and individual and their physician," she said.

And she slammed the Republican Party for "this culture of corruption; carrying (donor-funded) credit cards around and charging $1,000 a night (hotel) rooms and big meals at fancy places."

"What were they thinking?" she added. "That's why we need a new governor. We need a governor that's going to stand up and call these people out for these misdeeds."

To ensure that she becomes that governor, Sink is counting on a resurgence of the forces who rose up against the teacher tenure bill, an uprising of the state's teachers and school administrators, but also of students and parents, that was credited with bringing about both the Crist veto, and his ultimate exit from the Republican Party.

"I think the thing that really encouraged me was when I saw the reaction to that Senate Bill Six," she said. "When I put out a call on my website (that) if you're against this, sign this petition, and within a few days we had 13,000 people sign, I thought, well maybe the sleeping giant is waking up, and that's what has to happen this fall."

Sink could yet be derailed by a former fellow Democrat. Lawton "Bud" Chiles, son of the late governor, Lawton Chiles, has filed to run "no party affiliated," like Crist. Polls show him taking up to 13 percent of the vote, which most analysts believe comes directly from Sink's support. Democrats have been putting increasing pressure on Chiles to drop out, lest his quixotic run elect a Republican, but so far, the appeals have fallen on deaf ears.

Sink said Chiles "is just like any other citizen," and "has a right to put his name on the ballot," though her campaign apparently tried, and failed, to talk him out of running. (In all, there are 14 candidates running for governor.)

Despite the challenges, Sink stressed that her strategy will be to reach out to the people who mobilized against SB6, to try and recapture the momentum of that victory for her campaign.

"I've said we have got to re-mobilize that group of parents and administrators and teachers once again, because if they don't go to the polls and vote, this right wing agenda is going to be back in January, and they will have their way, and they'll have a governor that will go along with it."

Well if that isn't enough to generate excitement, I don't know what is.

Cross-posted at The Reid Report

Author's note: the article originally stated that 16,000 petitions were signed by anti-SB6 Floridians. The number has been corrected to 13,000.

The fall of Marco Rubio

Fri, 7 May 2010 12:05:48 -0400

Marco Rubio has changed his mind about the Arizona immigration law, which he now supports whole-heartedly, to the point of actually advocating the deportation of children to Latin American countries where he admits the culture would be alien to them. In doing so, he may be joining an ignominious club, and so marginalizing himself in the quest for the votes of hardline conservatives that he loses all hope of gaining ground among Florida moderates.

Rubio has locked up conservative Republican votes for November. But to win, he needs to expand his base to include independents, who in Florida tend not to be nearly as right wing as Rubio's new BFF, Jim DeMint (of South Carolina), or even as the state's legislature, whose minority rule is cemented by gerrymandered districts. By moving to the far right in the immigration debate, Rubio may make Ann Coulter happy, but he could harm himself with fellow Hispanics (Rubio is Cuban-American, but the fastest growing group of Florida Hispanics are Puerto Rican, and their numbers are numerous in the critical central portion of the state) as well as with suburban whites, and younger voters, who tend to hold more moderate views.

And it can't be stated enough that Rubio's new stance on immigration ends, probably for all time, the possibility that he can be the right's fishing lure to reel in Hispanic votes in 2012. Nearly seven in ten Hispanic-Americans are of Mexican origin, and the vast majority (just like the majority of all Americans, including Republicans) favor the "path to citizenship" that Rubio now stringently opposes. Thanks for playing, Mr. Rubio.

From Sara Haile-Mariam at Campus Progress:

Via Ben Smith, Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives said in an interview with Human Events’ Jason Mattera today:
And that’s why I’ve always believed that, no matter how well-intentioned it is. I understand the human stories that we’re going to…We’re gonna….There are going to be stories of very young kids that were brought to this country at a very young age who don’t even speak Spanish that are going to be sent back to Nicaragua or some other place. And it’s gonna feel weird and I understand that. The goal here is to have an immigration policy that works.

It's "gonna feel weird???" Really, Marco? That's all you've got??? Campus Progress, your witness:

Rubio’s scenario of an ideal immigration system would require securing federal funding to deport over 65,000 young people who are undocumented citizens. It would require some sort of system to identify them, hunt them down, and facilitate their deportation. The proposal doesn’t sound weird as much as it sounds wrong.

Tell me about it. Rubio's revised position on the Arizona law puts him squarely in opposition to himself, since he used to be considered a moderate on immigration, and even was accused by rabid anti-immigrationists in Florida of slow-walking related bills when he was Speaker of the House. This was Rubio in December:

"They're God's children, but they're here illegally," he recently told a Republican club in northwest Florida. "You can't round up 11 million people because we don't live in a police state. But you can't grant amnesty either because if you do, you will destroy any hope of having a legal immigration system that works. You will send a message that all you have to do is come into this country, stay here long enough and we will let you stay."

But Rubio now says you can indeed round them all up and deport them, and we should do so right away, including children who came into this country illegally without their knowledge, because they were kids, to which Ms. Haile-Mariam asks:

What I’d like to know is what I’m supposed to tell young people like Juan, Felipe, Gabby and Carlos collectively known as the Trail of Dream Walkers. These four young people walked from Florida to Washington, D.C., in support of immigration reforms like the DREAM Act, federal legislation that would provide three of them with a path to citizenship through education or military service.

Incredibly, Rubio has now taken a position to the right of Linda Chavez, the conservative, self-described "most Hated Hispanic in America," who wrote a stinging rebuke of the Arizona law this month, even attacking it's grammar. Rubio had denounced the law for a time, too, with back-up from Jeb Bush. And not for nothing, but the law's sponsor has ties to white supremacists and anti-Hispanic bigots, something obviously lost on Mr. Rubio, who now appears to be taking different advice than that offered by Jeb. He is, apparently, oblivious to the irony that his people, Cuban-Americans, have had the most liberal immigration policy applied to them, including allowing them to enter the U.S. without visas, via Mexico (h/t to Salon)...

In South Florida, among the strongest supporters of immigration reform, including more liberal rules for admitting Haitian refugees into the country are Cuban-Americans, including all three Cuban-American members of Congress. Rubio has now also placed himself to the right of his own community.

Is Rubio becoming the Latino Clarence Thomas?

There is a reason why more Blacks and Hispanics don't join the Republican Party and the "conservative movement." It's not just their ideas, which often seem hostile to people of color, and which have had very real, negative consequences, not just for minorities, but for America. It's that in order to be in the club, you have to sell a little too much of your soul, by becoming an ethnic parody (see Michael Steele) or by openly repudiating your own ethnic group in the strongest, harshest terms, in order to prove that you have more fealty to their notion of America, which often translates to a particular white historic and corporate elite, than to people who look like you. In an ideal world, there should of course be no ethnic tribalism in a pluralistic, multi-ethnic society. But America has not reached that ideal, and empathy for others, whether in your own ethnic group or not, is at minimum, a sign of civilization. To the right, however, empathy is seen as a threat, particularly when those being empathized with are not, to be blunt, white.

Too harsh?

Well think about the African-Americans who have earned favor among right wing Republicans: Alan Keyes, whose bug-eyed denunciations of Barack Obama (and his supposed threat to the republic) and zealous advocacy of the founding fathers, with no reference to the fact that had he been among them, they would have considered him a rank inferior, and enslaved him, have not stopped him from being taken seriously on the right; Clarence Thomas, whose self-pitying malevolence extends not just to affirmative action, which he grouses at having benefited from, but to anyone who isn't at the economic apex of society; plus the equally bitter Ward Connerly, the reverse Robin Hood of affirmative action politics, who was indirectly responsible for Jeb Bush's imposition of "One Florida" on this state.

Other conservative African-Americans, like Star Parker, excel at banging on about "welfare queens" and "race hustlers," while contributing nothing, beyond the books they're trying to sell (and the occasional long shot run for Congress), to the cause of improving struggling inner city communities.

There's Allen West, whose clownish performances as the lone black member of the "tea party movement" have a Dave Chappelle quality to them that really make me miss the former Comedy Central show.

And let's not even get started on Michelle Malkin, an Asian-American supporter of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II ...

Likewise, conservative Hispanics are prized by the right for their willingness to condemn fellow Latinos for daring to come to this country and mow the lawn and pick tomatoes. But that has proved to be a brand of cognitive dissonance most people find difficult, if not impossible, to accept. In fact, there are notable exceptions; people who refuse to be the spokesmen for bigotry or extremism just to please the far right (think Michelle Bernard of the Independent Womens Forum, JC Watts, who left Congress saying he was tired of being a photo-op, and Gen. Collin Powell, the one Republican of any ethnicity with the cojones to denounce Rush Limbaugh without fear or apology.)

Which brings us back to Mr. Rubio, who by the time we get to November, might not have much of his soul left to sell, or for that matter, much of a path to victory.

Flashback: Does Rubio have a Cuban-American problem?

Cross-posted at The Reid Report

How to lose an election

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:01:33 -0500

For the Obama administration, Martha Coakley, the
likely loser in tonight's Senate election in Massachusets,
is only part of the problem.

[UPDATED] Press secretary Robert Gibbs during the daily briefing ~~today~~ on Tuesday, said President Obama is "surprised and frustrated" by the turn of events in Massachusetts, where ~~it seems highly likely that~~ Democrat Martha Coakley ~~is about to lose~~ up and lost Ted Kennedy's ... sorry, "the people's" seat in true blue Massachusetts. Frustrated I can see. But surprised? What would surprise me would be if the White House still doesn't get it, and still hasn't figured out why they're in the pickle they find themselves in. Losing Massachusetts is easy, it turns out, if you do a few really stupid things.

Stupid thing #1 - Allow the Senate to put the country through a full year of drawn out, torturous, back-stabbing, over-compromise, Republican-begging, Lieberman-coddling, Ben Nelson-bribing, Max Baucus smirking, Olympia Snowe ass-kissing debate on healthcare. Had the White House put their foot on the gas, rather than the break, in July, and forced the Senate to get a bill of the White House's design done before the August recess, we'd be long past that debate by now, and Americans would be thanking Democrats for keeping insurance companies from dropping them (and some would be looking forward to signing up for the public option,) rather than cursing the day the Democratic Party was created, as they await the dreaded individual mandate that's going to force them to become what a lot of people are certain will be vassals of the unregulated insurance giants.

Stupid thing #2 - (which is actually a subset of stupid thing #1) Pursue "bi-partisanship" at all costs. President Obama apparently read his campaign talking points too literally, and came into office more intent on befriending the opposition than on defeating it. If you run on "change," and your opponent is already painting you as Hugo Chavez, then damnit, get a little Chavez on them and push through change with a little bit of freaking attitude! Call a few people the Devil if you have to and keep it moving, but for god sakes stop being nice... Pretending that the other side are friends, not foes, only serves to blur the distinction between you and them. And if the American people wanted a slightly nicer version of them, they would have voted for John McCain (okay, maybe forget the "nicer" part.) There is some evidence the White House gets this, and is pivoting hard as a result.

Stupid thing #3 - Be too nice to the banks. The administration completely misread the politics of 2008, which was part one of the politics of anger. The American people were mad at George W. Bush, so they elected Barack Obama. But the reason they were mad at Bush was in large part because he let the economy go bankrupt on his watch, and then signed into law the biggest bank and insurance company bailouts they've ever seen. Had Team Obama read that anger right, they would have come into office railing at the banks, clobbered Wall Street with stiff regulations, and let the fat cats know that there's a new sheriff in town. Instead, they opted for "continuity" with the hated Bush bailout regime, complete with keeping Bush's Fed chairman, and they hired a bunch of Harvard and Federal Reserve eggheads who care more about Goldman Sachs than they do about Gordon Sachs, which sure didn't look like change to most Americans. By not sticking it to the banks from the get-go, the administration allowed the tea party rage to fester into something serious. And had they been seen as taking on Wall Street, Detroit and health insurers, rather than propping them up, they wouldn't have to resort to propping up the world's worst candidates (Corzine, Deeds and now the utterly lame Martha Coakley.) Oh, they're getting all populist now, with their "we want are money back" and stuff, but it ~~might be~~ was too little too late to help poor Martha.

Stupid thing #4: Recruit suckish candidates. The Obama political team, which sure isn't as good as the Obama campaign team, was all up in New York Gov. Patterson's face. But they didn't lift a finger to mold the statewide races in Virginia, where Creigh Deeds thought the way to win was to stay in the rural areas and ignore the big suburban areas -- where all the Democratic voters are -- and New Jersey, where even Democrats thought Corzine was a jerk. In Massachusetts, you'd think a good vetter could have figured out that Coakley was the tin man from "The Wizard of Oz," only really without a heart, and that they were facing the political equivalent of a used car salesman on the other side. Now, the teabaggers, who are as belligerent as they are crazy (their overall goal seems to be to get the federal government to stop spending money, though they can't quite say on what, and to keep our healthcare system exactly the way it is, and to return to George W. Bush's super-duper tax cuts for the rich ... even though most of them aren't rich...) ~~are set to~~ have claimed their biggest Democratic scalp yet. Ted Kennedy: permission to roll over, now.

Stupid thing #5: Screw the base. This might be the biggest mistake the White House has made this year. By being openly disdainful -- hostile almost -- to its own Democratic base, complete with snidery from Rahm Emanuel and constant demands that the left eat the crap coming out of Joe Lieberman's rear end, the White House has actually made me feel sorry for Harry Reid. And I NEVER feel sorry for Harry Reid. It turns out Reid, who most lefties view as a weakling, had more cojones in negotiating with Lieberman and the other right wingers in the Democratic caucus than the president did. And now that the left has been told to wait their turn, not just on healthcare, but on everything they wanted, Obama has no base to turn to for volunteers, donors, voters and just plain enthusiasts in his time of need. George W. Bush is clearly not the brightest bulb in the fixture, but even he knew better than to leave the base hanging, in pursuit of the mythical "Independents" (who are usually just Republicans who think the party brand stinks, or that it's somehow edgier to call themselves "unaffiliated.")

BTW, ~~if and when Coakley loses~~ now that Coakley has lost, is the Obama administration finished? Of course not. The same hysterical pundits who are pronouncing this presidency over were calling in the priest for the GOP just a few months ago. Politics is like a sine wave -- you're up and you're down, and the administration has a good long time to pull it together (both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton had poor starts too, and look how they ended up...) But the administration has to take corrective measures, immediately. One thing the president could do is to threaten to veto any financial regulatory reform that comes to his desk without a consumer protection agency. Another would be to sack a few members of his economics team, and hire a person or two how has run a business, rather than just written academic books about them. He has done a good job with Haiti, given the magnitude of the challenge, and the bank fee is a great idea, both literally and politically.

And even without the Massachusetts seat, believe it or not, Democrats will still hold a big majority in the Senate. Still, the problems the White House faces today are largely of their own making (and no, wingers, not because Americans love the healthcare system the way it is and only want it changed via tort reform.)

Year one was a mess. There's just no nice way to put it. So nah, the White House shouldn't be surprised by what's going on in Massachusetts. And just for the record, it's the supporters of this president who are frustrated.

Cross-posted at The Reid Report