Steven C. Day

By Steven C. Day

Let's face facts: the chances of Sarah Palin ending up as the GOP nominee in 2012, of lightning actually striking, are probably pretty close to zilch. To begin with, she probably won't even run: she's plainly a gal who likes easy money more than hard work. And even if she does decide to take the plunge, it's hard to believe she could survive the primary fight so as to actually claim the nomination of even as mentally unbalanced a party as is today's GOP. As to this, I agree with Steve Schmidt, McCain's former campaign manager, who recently said that nominating Palin would be catastrophic for the Republican Party.

Still, lightning on rare occasions does strike (just ask Chicago about 1871 . . . oh, wait that was a cow not lightning wasn't it?).

Anyway, what's most intriguing about this for me involves the question of just exactly where my rooting interests should lie. Do I want Palin to win the nomination?

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By Steven C. Day

In case you missed it, we recently held an election in which the left wing (sort of) party creamed the right wing (extremely so) party. Finally, some of us thought, somebody in Washington will actually start thinking about the “have nots” for once, instead of just piling more and more goodies onto the already overflowing stack of the fortunate few. Welcome to the “revolution” comrade!

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By Steven C. Day

The following one question test will be administered to every American voter, with the results to determine further mission parameters.

Question: Which political party can be trusted to be the most fiscally responsible?

Answer of voter: ___________.

*  *  *

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By Steven C. Day

God knows, when it comes to progressives fighting back against right wing smear campaigns, low expectations are generally in order. So I’ll probably be proven wrong here.

Still, I honestly believe that the far right (and their media enablers) may finally have gone too far by pushing this Obama school speech insanity. And I’m not simply talking about them turning off independents. That kayak sailed oodles ago anyway. No, this time they’ve done something more than that — something nearly impossible to do: they’ve finally pissed off the broader progressive community (as opposed to just the netroots) badly enough that we may start doing something more than just bitching about it. We may actually start to fight back and ultimately kick their sorry butts all the way back into the Jurassic Age (they’re already in the Stone Age).

Yes, of course, there have been much bigger things to get angry about. There is, however, something about this particular bit of insanity — the total inanity and plain racism of it — that’s stirring the blood of progressive Democrats like nothing else has. Even those of us who are growing impatient with Obama feel the fire in our guts.

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By Steven C. Day

As much as I detested the presidency of George W. Bush, if he had given a speech to be broadcast to schools, the possibility of pulling my kids out of class wouldn't even have occurred to me. This is just so stupid. In fact, it's so stupid it's hard for me to avoid the conclusion that racism is at play here.

What exactly are these boobs so afraid of? Do they think that one speech about staying in school will turn their children into lifelong Democrats?

I remember when I was a kid, growing up in Wisconsin, my grade school class took a field trip to the state capital where we met the governor. I got to personally shake the guy's hand, which was sort of cool, to be honest.

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By Steven C. Day

Things are looking more than a little bleak for President Barack Obama’s health care reform initiative: polls show public support dropping, increasing numbers of people profess to be confused by the issue, the GOP stands emboldened in opposition as right wing talking points predominate in the media and “centrist” Democrats, true to form, cause endless mischief.

So the question of the day becomes: what can Obama do about it? And one of the most popular answers is that he needs to be more specific. One can hardly expect people to rally around a reform proposal, the outlines of which remain maddeningly vague, proponents of this view argue.

And there’s a lot to be said for this point (which appears to be gaining some traction inside the White House). One downside to Obama’s desire to stay above the nitty-gritty of the debate — leaving the details for Congress — has been that it’s left him without a clear vision to communicate to the American people. At times he’s seemed downright wishy-washy: “We need the public option unless we don’t need the public option,” and so on. Not exactly awe-inspiring rhetoric from a guy known for his awe-inspiring rhetoric.

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By Steven C. Day

You know the world has turned completely upside down when you find yourself nodding in agreement with a George Will column. But he's right: the Afghanistan war is a giant sandbox filled with quicksand to the United States -- and already we're in way too deep. Obama needs to figure a way out this mess and soon or everything else he hopes to accomplish will turn to grief.

Yes, it's damn convenient for someone such as Will to reach this conclusion only now, when "the other side" is in office. But the truth is still the truth.

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By Steven C. Day

If the sight of Max Baucus spinning in a circle on the public option in health care reform – looking for all the world like a blue dog chasing his own tail -– surprises you, it shouldn't. He's a man torn between two worlds: on the one hand, like so many other blue dogs today ("blue dog" in the sense of conservative Democrats as opposed to the specific House Blue Dog Coalition), he's having the time of his life playing the power broker as one of the centrist gods of the Beltway. And as we liberals never end bemoaning, this makes him a hero to the "Villagers," — a species generally personified by liberals in the person of the dependably annoying David Broder. Besides, health care industry campaign money spends just fine.

But on the other hand, as elected officials, the blue dogs, must, of course, also attend to the hometown folks.

Now, I suspect that to most liberal coastal types (and other liberals in rock-solid Democratic areas) this looks like a fairly risk free venture for the blue dogs, who, after all, generally represent conservative or battleground states anyway. But there's a catch: in fact there's a whole pot full of catches: they're called Democrats.

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By Steven C. Day

Who'd have thunk it?

Liberals are madder than a nest of hornets hit with a stick -- and, for the most part, it isn't about abortion, gay rights, evolution, stem cell research or any other social issue: no, for once, progressive outrage seems to be largely about a good ol' fashioned bread-and-butter issue of profound importance to middle class America -- health care.

Now, I care deeply about abortion rights, gay rights, Separation of Church and State and most of the other hot button social issues. But the truth is that nothing has done more to diminish the influence of progressive politics in America than the tendency of liberals, in recent years, to emphasis social issues over economic fairness.

We've lived through one of the most explosive increases in economic inequality in American history, yet few Democratic politicians are even willing to mention it — such is the fear of being accused of "class warfare." But, if we're fair, this is one time we can't just blame the politicians. Rank and file liberals have often seemed bored by economic issues. I long ago noticed, for example, that nothing is more likely to cause a blog post to fall flat than dedicating it to economic issues of importance to working Americans.

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By Steven C. Day

According to the generally dependable Nate Silver, Democrats have a lot to worry about in 2010. Not only does he predict that the party will lose seats in Congress, he sees some risk, small but not trivial, that the GOP could actually win back the House. But what's particularly interesting is the reason for Silver's pessimism: it seems that there's an enthusiasm gap between the two parties -- one that favors the Republicans. Right now, Republican voters are much more motivated than Democratic voters.

So, what is the Democrats' response? Will they, at long last, start playing to the base a little? Perhaps even start aggressively pushing liberal priorities in an effort to fire up the troops? Or at a very minimum, will they at least start feeding the base a little red meat by raising holy hell over GOP lies and obstructionism?

That would be a no.

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