News & Comment

President Obama allowed Republicans to define the terms of the nation's political argument for the past two years and permitted them to draw battle lines the way they wanted. Neither he nor his party can let that happen again. Now Obama needs to offer proposals that advance the common interest and progressive ideals in ways that force Republicans to pay a price for opposing them. The economy still needs far more support, and Obama should take up the old Republican idea of revenue-sharing by offering states large-scale assistance to prevent layoffs and tax increases. This would be welcomed by the many new Republican governors. Will congressional Republicans really want to pick a fight with them? read more »

The election results on Tuesday night were no surprise: a tea party-fueled tsunami of discontent washed away the House Democratic majority and eroded much of the Democrats' territory in the Senate. In his first eighteen months in office, Obama racked up impressive achievements: a stimulus bill that saved or created millions of jobs (though not enough), health care reform legislation that contained significant improvements (though it also included hard-to-understand provisions and eschewed a public option), and a Wall Street reform measure that set up a new consumer financial protection agency (though it did not tighten up the rules of the road sufficiently). But the president, who had presented such a compelling tale as a candidate, allowed Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to outfox and outmaneuver him. The GOP did all it could to block Obama's agenda and then claimed he had not succeeded. Its leaders lied about the stimulus (claiming it had literally produced no new jobs), and they enabled and cheered on tea party critics of health care reform, who decried nonexistent "death panels" and who compared Democratic supporters of the bill to "Nazis." And Obama never fully called them out. read more »

If I were one of the big corporate donors who bankrolled the Republican tide that carried into office more than 50 new Republicans in the House, I would be wary of what you just bought. For no matter your view of President Obama, he effectively saved capitalism. And for that, he paid a terrible political price. read more »

With their "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" this weekend, political satirists Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are late to the party. This weird campaign has been Comedy Central all along. The main source of hilarity has been the Tea Party movement and its candidates, quite a few of whom give every indication of being several sandwiches short of a picnic. Whether they win or lose - and yes, there remains the possibility that some might actually be elected - they leave us with mondo-bizarro moments that may require years of psychoanalysis for our collective political psyche to purge. read more »

At the center of the recent overheated controversy that became - misleadingly - known as the "Ground Zero Mosque," was Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Newt Gingrich compared Rauf and other supporters of the Muslim community center and mosque to be built several blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, to "Nazis" who have no "right to put up a sign next to the holocaust museum in Washington." But New York mayor Michael Bloomberg defended Rauf. He quoted Rauf's remarks at an interfaith memorial service for the martyred journalist Daniel Pearl: "If to be a Jew means to say with all one's heart, mind, and soul: Shma` Yisrael, Adonai Elohenu Adonai Ehad; Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One, not only today I am a Jew, I have always been one. If to be a Christian is to love the Lord our God with all of my heart, mind and soul, and to love for my fellow human being what I love for myself, then not only am I a Christian, but I have always been one." read more »

Is the election basically sewn up, with the House gone and the Senate hanging in the balance? If things continue as they have been going, almost surely. Voters are still seeking some signs that the Democrats are on their side. Here are two speeches Obama should give, and probably won't. One concerns Social Security, the other the incipient Banking Crisis II. read more »

The Tea Party movement appears to be a lot smaller than its spokespeople claim, according to a Washington Post survey. Tea Party Patriots keeps a list of more than 2,300 local groups. But the Post was only able to verify and reach 647 of them. (A group could have one member or thousands.) Of those groups, only 29 percent were doing any campaigning. And within that group, only two thirds are doing get-out-the-vote efforts, just more than half are sending letters or e-mails, and less than half are making phone calls. That's about 84 groups in the whole country working the phones. That may be enough to swing some tight elections. But it's hardly the tidal wave of enthusiasm that Tea Party leaders and the Republicans who depend on them are hoping for. read more »

By upholding limitations on where and how parties can raise money -- while giving wide range to corporations and independent groups -- Citizens United scattered responsibility for raising funds and generating influence, placing voters at a disadvantage. When there's relative equality between parties and outside groups, the former have some incentive to reach out to voters for cash, which can dilute the influence of special interests. But without that equality, parties have more reason to concentrate their fundraising on the usual collection of corporations, parochial interest groups, and rich people. In the end, public interests are compromised read more »

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Personal Democracy Forum was disappointed by the media's attempt to engage candidates by voters in the CNN YouTube debates. Although the debates featured questions from the public, they were filtered by professional journalists and were met with canned responses from the candidates. In order to remove the barriers between candidates and voters, PdF launched "10Questions" in September 2007, inviting the public to post questions to candidates and then to vote on those questions. Now 10Questions has been relaunched for the midterm elections and activists, organizations and individuals have posted questions to the candidates who are willing to go on the record. Here are the top ten issues gathered by Personal Democracy Forum, and what you can do about it. read more »

David and Charles Koch are the most prominent bankrollers of the tea party. They fit the mold of late 19th century “robber barons” and reject government oversight, corporate taxes and social welfare programs—except welfare that benefits private enterprise. They want no government regulation of the pollution caused by their oil refineries. Simple political bribes served their predecessors, whereas the Kochs and others provide bountiful campaign contributions—our legalized bribery—under the constitutional cover of free speech. read more »