You Don't Think They'll Just Give Up, Do You?

(I'm a blogger fellow for Brave New Films and their Sick For Profit campaign)

After today's announcement from Harry Reid, adding a public option to the Senate health care bill, some might think that a great victory has been achieved. And it's a significant accomplishment to this point. But we're at the beginning of the end, not the end. And now that this public option, with a state opt-out, represents the lower bound of health care reform, you can bet that the insurance industry will redouble their efforts to kill the bill and retain the status quo. In fact, they've already started. Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Carolina has begun to lobby their customers to work against the bill, asking them to contact Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC). Not a front group, or some ad hoc organization funded by BC/BS. No, just the company itself.

(The mailer) reads:

Public option?
Government Cooperatives?
Community plan?
Single payer?
No matter what you call it, if the federal government intervenes in the private health insurance market, it's a slippery slope to a single payer system.

Who wants that?

The enclosed postcard to Hagan reads:

Senator Hagan,
Please oppose government-run health insurance. We can meet our health care challenges without the government unfairly competing with the private sector. Tell Senate leaders that North Carolina doesn't need government-run insurance.

They've also deployed lobbyists and shills to Capitol Hill to make completely dubious arguments. At a hearing about the insurance industry's anti-trust exemption, this amazing exchange occurred:

University of Arkansas business professor Lawrence Powell, who testified on behalf of the medical malpractice insurance industry.

"The best possible outcome from repealing McCarran is continuation of the status quo," he said. "However, it is also likely that repealing McCarran would have negative consequences for consumers, by decreasing competition and accuracy in insurance pricing."

Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse pointed out that the professor was relying on outdated information.

"You cite for the proposition that insurance markets are highly competitive an article by Paul Joskow. Do I have the date of that article correct, it's 1973?" he asked Powell. "I believe so," came the answer.

And, they've started to push their message out to media, getting an AP reporter to buy the canard that poor, henpecked insurance companies just don't make a lot of money.

WASHINGTON – Quick quiz: What do these enterprises have in common? Farm and construction machinery, Tupperware, the railroads, Hershey sweets, Yum food brands and Yahoo? Answer: They're all more profitable than the health insurance industry.

The missing ingredient here is scale. Tupperware is more profitable than health insurance on a percentage basis, but 1/6 of the US economy doesn't go through Tupperware. In real dollars, the insurance industry makes a mint. And remember, "profit" doesn't count salaries, not even what's given to CEOs.

The truth is that, even with this public option, insurers will do just fine in the health care bill. They get millions of new customers, with competition that is limited (not everyone can get the public plan, under even the most expansive version). But it's just not good enough for them. The notion that they might have to offer coverage with actual benefits, and not cherry-pick the healthy to pay their premiums, which would cut into those profits, is just distasteful to them. So they will fight. And we will be ready.

Change Happens From The Bottom Up

Ceci Connolly overheard the President telling Senate leaders that he would prefer the progressive hits on Democratic members of Congress to stop.

President Obama, strategizing yesterday with congressional leaders about health-care reform, complained that liberal advocacy groups ought to drop their attacks on Democratic lawmakers and devote their energy to promoting passage of comprehensive legislation.

In a pre-holiday call with half a dozen top House and Senate Democrats, Obama expressed his concern over advertisements and online campaigns targeting moderate Democrats, whom they criticize for not being fully devoted to "true" health-care reform.

"We shouldn't be focusing resources on each other," Obama opined in the call, according to three sources who participated in or listened to the conversation. "We ought to be focused on winning this debate."

Specifically, Obama said he is hoping left-leaning organizations that worked on his behalf in the presidential campaign will now rally support for "advancing legislation" that fulfills his goal of expanding coverage, controlling rising costs and modernizing the health system.

I'm wondering how Connolly knows this much about what appears to be a closed strategy call. My assumption is she knows what the White House wants her to know. So going on the assumption that it's true, I'll say this:

Of course this is what Obama would tell Democratic leaders in the Senate about attacks on Democrats in the Senate. He doesn't want those attacks to have his direct sanction, these are lawmakers he has to work with now and in the future, and so it makes perfect sense for him to play good cop. He can take the pose of just wishing these attacks would stop, without intervening directly in the activities of outside organizations (which would be illegal, I believe). It's a classic Obama middle path.

At the same time, this is also nothing new. He essentially drained progressive groups of funding during the 2008 campaign. So that past set of actions is part of this statement, too. It's one thing to make the idle "I wish they'd jump in with the home team for the big victory" comment, it's another to make it secure in the knowledge that he could move it from "I wish" to "do this or some of your biggest fundraisers might get a phone call."

Obama wants to control message and have all these outside groups pushing alongside him for "reform." But his vision of that reform includes a broad set of principles and a glaring lack of specifics. The Presidential candidate who said "change begins from the bottom up" should be the last one as President to expect his supporters to follow him blindly.

What's more, progressive pressure has worked.

But there is no question that these hard-hitting campaigns representing breast cancer survivors and others have been successful, and they have been instrumental in backing Ben Nelson and Kay Hagan off their opposition to a public plan. The memberships of these organizations are in clear support of their efforts, and with 76% of the country in support of a public plan, the President seems to be one of the unhappy few who oppose their tactics.

I could probably find about 1,000 quotes from candidate Obama about how it's time for Americans to once again participate in their government, and how we are the change we've been waiting for, etc. You cannot empower people for months and months to take action and then try to stage-manage that action. Activism doesn't have an on/off switch.

I was actually at this event where Maxine Waters expressed admiration for the DFA ad against Mary Landrieu ("I'm going to be in New Orleans this weekend, telling everyone about it") and said, "Let me just say to all of our friends out there, that a sustained effort, directed at public officials, demanding no less than a public option, can be very successful. So go to work." I believe this work will continue, even if it makes the President uncomfortable. He didn't create this monster, but he certainly drafted off it during 2008. People want to be actively engaged in politics again. It's a shame for anyone to try and cut them out.

...as expected, progressive groups won't be stopping their ad buys anytime soon. Via email, DFA's Charles Chamberlain said that his group hasn't received any calls from the White House to pull back, nor will they be doing so, and he thinks that "this article is a very good sign that what we are doing is working. If Senators and Reps weren't afraid of us, they wouldn't be asking for us to stop."

Washington To Constituents: STFU

Ceci Connolly decided to jump on the opportunity to forward a "Democrats in disarray" narrative, arguing that grassroots groups inviting Americans to participate in their government is just too messy and risks hurting the feelings of those "friends" in the Democratic Party who resist real health care reform.

When asking me about the Progressive Change Campaign Committee's TV ads (which begin airing Monday in DC) holding Senate Dems accountable for taking millions from insurance interests and being on the verge of opposing a public option supported by 76% of Americans, Connolly would ask me ridiculous questions like, "Why are you attacking your friends? Wouldn't you agree that these Democrats are better for you on most health care issues than Republicans?"

I had to patiently explain to her that the public option is the defining issue of the health care debate -- if Senators like Baucus and Nelson aren't with us on that, they are not our friends.

Connolly listened, and then chose to dismiss silly activists who are fighting for what 76% of Americans want:

Activists say they are simply pressing for quick delivery of "true health reform," but the intraparty rift runs the risk of alienating centrist Democrats who will be needed to pass a bill.

Even though this story obviously sympathizes with those who want the hippies to STFU and enjoy whatever scraps they can get, I'm OK with having it out there. Because if the Village has to recognize the efforts in the grassroots, they've become too big to ignore. Also illuminating is the fact that not one named source would go on the record saying that such grassroots pressure on wavering Dems is harmful.

Essentially, being told that this pressure isn't working by folks inside the Beltway is a sure sign that it IS. So watch out, Kay Hagan, who apparently is holding up the inclusion of a public option in the Senate HELP Committee's draft. And the same goes for Blanche Lincoln, who has been squishy on the issue in her public statements. Blue America will have a lot to announce on that front in the coming weeks. So support the Campaign for Health Care Choice as we "run the risk of alienating centrist Democrats" once again.

...what's funny about this is the lack of understanding of who controls the process in the health care bill. It's completely obvious that Republicans will not support any kind of reform. Therefore, anyone who wants to impact the legislation must work on the Democratic side. That's simply a rational calculation of where to place pressure.

Slightly Less Queasy On Health Care

The House health care bill has been received favorably by advocates and, more importantly, the President:

Today, the Chairs of several Committees in the House of Representatives unveiled their health care reform proposal. This proposal would improve the affordability, availability, and quality of health care and represents a major step toward the our goal of fixing what is broken about health care while building on what works.

Jon Cohn has more. At some point, Obama needs to stop giving favorable nods at the Congress and step hard into this debate. But I feel better about this today than yesterday. Doctors are nodding toward working with Obama, and they are the most respected constituency on this issue. Just getting the AMA to back off and not follow the Chamber of Commerce, wackjob Betsy McCaughey (it's amazing she's running the same shtick from 1993 all over again) and other right-wing groups who want to keep the status quo would be positive.

Igor Volsky has a great comparison of the three bills - the House tri-committee bill, the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate HELP Committee. If we can get it through HELP, two of them will include a public option. Basically it comes down to a freshman Democratic Senator fulfilling Ted Kennedy's lifelong dream:

With Ted Kennedy too sick to come down to DC and make the committee vote, Democrats will need every Senator on the HELP committee to produce a strong bill, a bill that fights for what Teddy Kennedy has been fighting for his entire life. The last holdout is Kay Hagan, who represents a state (NC) that is one of the worst in the country in terms of percent of people without health insurance. The insurance companies are lobbying Hagan against the bill, because they don't like having to compete with a public option. My simple question is this: Teddy Kennedy is too sick to be there, Senator Hagan, so he is relying on your vote for the issue that he has fought for passionately his entire life. Will you betray him to help the insurance companies? You need to make up your mind now.

Sounds like a simple question for Kay Hagan.

Health Care: Progressive Movement Must Push Back On This Week's Lapses

It's early, and given the clear attention the President is paying to health care reform I ultimately believe something will get done. But without question, this has been a bad week for those who want to see a legitimate reform of the system. This article in The Hill captures some of the movement:

Despite having a popular president in the White House and comfortable majorities in Congress, the Democratic rollout on healthcare reform has encountered significant bumps in the road.

A cost estimate hanging a $1 trillion price tag on an incomplete bill, salvos from powerful interest groups and great uncertainty among key Democrats on what will actually be in the legislation that moves through Congress have emboldened Republican critics.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee postponed the markup of its healthcare reform bill by one day, to Wednesday. On the eve of that markup, the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce publicly ripped the bill.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) initially planned to release his bill Wednesday, but he has pushed back his timetable because of cost estimate concerns.

“Will we have something out tomorrow? Not sure,” Baucus said Tuesday. “Thursday or probably Friday,” he added.

Perhaps more importantly, the unity that Democrats touted earlier this year has cracked. As conservatives lambaste Democrats, liberal healthcare groups are not rushing to their defense because so many questions about the legislation have not been answered.

Since then, the Senate Finance Committee postponed their markup until after the July 4 recess. And all kinds of compromise plans and half-measures are swimming around Washington. Apparently, centrists in the House from both sides of the aisle are meeting in secret to hash out one of them. Kay Hagan and Jeff Bingaman are refusing to sign on to the public plan in the Senate HELP Committee, delaying its inclusion in the bill, which is worrying advocacy groups. I'm assuming they prefer a compromise like Kent Conrad's out-of-left-field "health co-ops" plan introduced into the debate and sending a thrill up the leg of centrists last week. And today, old warhorses Tom Daschle and Bob Dole unveiled yet ANOTHER compromise plan:

Daschle, Dole and Republican Howard Baker released a bipartisan plan today that would tax some employer-provided health-insurance premiums, require individuals and large employers to buy health insurance, and create public insurance pools run by states instead of the federal government.

The proposals were put together over 15 months by the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center, which was started by Daschle, Dole, Baker and former Democratic Senate leader George Mitchell. Congress is drafting a bill to revamp health care, which President Barack Obama calls “the single most important thing we can do for America’s long-term fiscal health.”

Dole said the U.S. has a rare opportunity this year to enact a comprehensive health-care bill. “Let’s do it now,” he urged, saying it may be five years before lawmakers have a similar political opening.

The state-run insurance pools may run into some trouble due to economies of scale. A state simply cannot bargain the way a single payer federal government can.

There are basically two issues that have bedeviled reformers this week. One is the CBO scoring, based on an incomplete document that should have never been given to them, but causing moderate Dems to simply run for cover. This failure came about largely by the HELP committee offering an incomplete bill to try and get some bipartisan cover.

You might ask what the HELP Committee was thinking, sending Swiss cheese legislation to CBO. Well, the HELP Committee's expectation was that the CBO, in crafting its preliminary score, would assume something similar to the outline it had seen months before. The CBO didn't. In fact, it did the opposite. CBO ran its estimates with no employer mandate and an individual mandate with a laughably small penalty.

Members of HELP were thus shocked by yesterday's score. The specific provisions of the bill that the CBO examined did not look like the bill HELP intends to write. Which means that the numbers aren't correct. If HELP is writing a bill with a strong employer and individual mandate, and CBO scores a bill with no employer mandate and a weak individual mandate, that's not a useful estimate.

By Monday night, members of the HELP Committee were scrambling to give the CBO something closer to the final legislation to examine -- this time including rough details of the employer mandate and the individual mandate. They're hoping to have a new set of estimates by Friday, though that's probably ambitious. Either way, I wouldn't put too much stock in these numbers.

Doesn't matter. The numbers are out there, and the Democrats are running away from them as fast as they can. OF COURSE the Republicans would use the CBO score as a permanent talking point no matter what was changed on the bill. Forevermore, it will be seen as costing a trillion dollars a year and not covering anyone - just check out this piece. Max Baucus essentially pulled his bill so he can cover costs and cut government subsidies.

The other problem has been this continued wrangling over the public plan, which I think a healthy bit of Democrats are simply desperate to torpedo. Hagan and Bingaman won't sign on to it in the HELP Committee, and now Kathleen Sebelius has, perhaps unwittingly, given a bad compromise oxygen:

"I think there is a lot of understanding that the private market has really failed to provide affordable coverage to Americans," Sebelius said. The industry has had "a lot of opportunities" to get rid of coverage restrictions and other unpopular policies, Sebelius said, and really "hasn't served Americans very well."

However, Sebelius stressed that Obama is open to compromise on the shape of the public plan, which doesn't have to be run by the government. She spoke positively of a compromise idea that envisions consumer-owned nonprofit cooperatives, like rural electricity or agriculture co-ops. They would get started with seed money from taxpayers but then compete without government control. The plan by Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., may end up in a health overhaul bill to be unveiled by the Senate Finance Committee this week.

Obama did offer a pretty forceful defense of the public option to the AMA this week. And if he wants to throw his weight around, he could probably muscle something through. But will the desire to create a bipartisan solution, which is supposedly more "durable" than a successful solution, trump the public plan? Bill Clinton hopes not:

If he can’t get a good bill, I wouldn’t give away the store on that. If he can’t get a bill that’s genuine universal coverage, that genuinely is going to cut costs and make health insurers give up some of these unbelievable administrative burdens that they’ve put on people, and that really gets to the guts of the delivery system and does more primary preventive care and actually measures things that work, then I would go for the 51. But I would spend a little time trying to get to 60.

Nyceve has more on this meeting.

So we've had a bad couple weeks, with Democrats scurrying in fear from the cost and the public option clearly being used as a bargaining chip. Enough. Chris Bowers has a proposal:

For years, candidates for, and members of, Congress told us that we needed to elect and re-elect them in order to lower health care costs and provide universal coverage. And so, for years, we dutifully worked our collective asses off, delivering wide majorities for Democrats--who said they would lower health care costs and provide universal coverage--in both branches of Congress.
Now, when it comes time for them to deliver on health care by providing a public option--the care minimum required to reduce costs and provide universal coverage--what we are getting instead are backroom deals, flip-flops, and cop-outs.
Enough.

Today, along with Health Care for America Now, Democracy for America and numerous blogs, a campaign is being launched to put an end to the backroom deals on health care. We made and delivered on a commitment to bring about wide Democratic majorities in Congress. Now, instead of negotiating in secret, this Congress needs to make a public commitment to us on where it stands on health care.
No more dodges. No more vague, open-ended responses. We need every member of the Senate--main obstacle to reform--to answer four questions on the public option:

Do you support a public healthcare option as part of healthcare reform?
If so, do you support a public healthcare option that is available on day one?
Do you support a public healthcare option that is national, available everywhere, and accountable to Congress?
Do you support a public healthcare option that can bargain for rates from providers and big drug companies?

As activists and as constituents, answering these questions are the minimum they owe us. We are entitled to specific, clear, written responses to all of these questions.

Email--don't call, but email--these four questions to your Senators now. Make it clear that you want a written response to all four questions. There needs to be as little room for interpretation as possible. The Senate is going to be the biggest hurdle on health care, as it has proven to the biggest hurdle on all legislation in 2009. That is where we must focus our pressure.

Here's the form to post where your Senator stands. We need a citizen whip count on the public option so we know where everyone stands. Only with this kind of clarity can we embolden, for example, the Progressive Caucus to demand a public option in any reform bill.

This is clearly the biggest domestic policy that will be tackled this year. We MUST not fail.

Fair Trade Contingent Now Formidable Opponent

Ron Kirk made some controversial comments affirming that the Obama Administration has no plans to reopen NAFTA, but would look to address labor and environmental concerns outside of the agreement. Whereupon David Sirota's head exploded. Or actually not - he made some side comments about the virtues of campaign promises, but he also stated that "I still hold out hope - based on the White House's rhetoric - that even though Obama is going back on his promise to reopen NAFTA, there will nonetheless be progressive trade policy changes soon." That's kind of interesting, and I think the optimism comes from the set of allies in Washington for progessive trade policy, moving the country in a new direction:

Trade is emerging as a source of friction between President Obama and congressional Democrats.

Trade critics on Capitol Hill are complaining about comments by Ron Kirk, Obama’s trade representative, who on Monday said Obama does not want to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) after all.

“I’m disappointed,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said of Kirk’s comments. “The president needs to understand there is strong opposition to more-of-the-same trade deals.” Freshman Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) also expressed disappointment.

Kay Hagan's opposition in particular is interesting. She has not taken any high-profile stands as a freshman, to my knowledge, and starting with trade means that she considers it an important issue to her constituents. The President will simply be bound by a very large and strong fair-trade component on Capitol Hill. The Colombia and Panama FTAs will offer a testing ground. Here's what Kirk had to say:

Mr. Kirk, who as mayor of Dallas was known as a strong advocate of free trade, also said the administration planned expeditious reviews of pending trade agreements with Colombia and Panama.

He said that Colombia had made “remarkable progress” in reducing violence — attacks against labor activists have been a key sticking point — but that other issues remained, and he vowed intensive consultation with Congress on the matter.

The Bush administration signed the agreement with Colombia in November 2006. But Congressional Democrats and United States labor groups have said the Uribe government must do more to stop the antilabor violence and hold perpetrators accountable, a position Mr. Obama supported during his campaign.

Regarding Panama, Mr. Kirk said that differences on labor standards, and the question of the country “possibly being a tax haven,” needed resolution.

Certainly, taking these concerns seriously, and putting conditions on these free trade agreements, represents a change in and of itself.

Stay tuned.

MCSNBC Sez Dole's A Cooked Pineapple

In the closing days it looked like Kay Hagan would win, but that's an EARLY admission.



Dole not only lost the race, she lost her self-respect with that horrible "Godless" ad.

...Fox News CALLED IT for Kay Hagan. Another Senate pickup. Wow.

...Jeanne Shaheen also called over John Sununu. Three Senate pickups so far. Susan Collins won in Maine. Tom Allen just couldn't make that seat competitive.

Senate Picture

Here's what we're looking at heading into GOTV weekend. Virginia, New Mexico and Colorado are going to be walks - score two for the Udall family in the US Senate. New Hampshire and Alaska look good - I'm still worried about a Stevens backlash, but the polls are showing strong late movement against the convicted felon. Oregon is moving away from Gordon Smith, and I think Jeff Merkley's going to take that race.

So that's six seats, with 9 needed - really 10 due to the Lieberman factor - to get to the magic 60 votes (which isn't all that magic, as I've explained). There's North Carolina, where Elizabeth Dole has debased herself by releasing a second ad harping on Kay Hagan's fundraiser with "Godless Americans". It's really absurd, but she's going with it. And it appears to be backfiring.

As Elizabeth Dole released her second attack ad trying to use Kay Hagan’s faith to attack her, it’s clear that North Carolinians are not buying it. Every major newspaper in the state (listed below), her fellow Republicans and the North Carolina Council of Churches (letter below) agree – Elizabeth Dole’s ads are “indecent,” a “gross misrepresentation,” “worse than dishonest,” and “beyond the bounds of acceptable political disagreement.”

“The overwhelming reaction to this ad has been disgust – directed at Senator Dole – for stooping to this low and attacking a fellow Christian,” said Hagan Campaign Communications Director Colleen Flanagan. “Senator Dole knows Kay is a strong Christian, a former Sunday school teacher and a member of Greensboro’s First Presbyterian Church, and she knows that her advertisements are lies. But what North Carolinians know is that these kind of political attacks won’t create one good job or help turn our economy back around. These are the issues folks here are concerned about and looking for leadership on, and these are the issues that will decide this election.”

Yesterday the North Carolina Council of Churches sent a letter to Senator Dole asking her to remove her ad, saying, “As you no doubt know, Sen. Hagan is a faithful and active member and leader in the First Presbyterian Church of Greensboro. To say or even to suggest that that outstanding congregation has chosen a lay leader who doesn’t believe in God is appalling and should be offensive to churches and church leaders throughout the state.

I think this is going to hurt Dole enough to put a nail in her coffin.

Then there's Minnesota, which has had a crazy last week. Norm Coleman sued Al Franken for defamation of character (Hagan actually did the same to Dole over the "Godless" ad), while court documents showed that a CEO was pressured to give $75,000 to Coleman and his family. Coleman has shows flashes of being fabulously corrupt in this campaign (having his DC rent, his utilities, and his suits paid for by lobbyists and contributors), and this is part and parcel. There's more evidence on this particular case here. The presence of former Sen. Dean Barkley (he was appointed by Jesse Ventura to replace the late Paul Wellstone for his final two months in office) on the ticket as an independent makes this completely unpredictable. This is going to be the closest race of the night.

And finally, we have the race in Georgia, where a huge African-American turnout would appear to help progressive Democrat Jim Martin. But Saxby Chambliss says that can be a rallying cry.

The Republican is outwardly confident, but there's urgency in his voice as he tours North Georgia, trying to boost turnout in his predominately white base: "The other folks are voting," he bluntly tells supporters.

Just in case anyone was confused about who those "other folks" are, Chambliss gave this quote to the New York Times:

The development is not lost on Mr. Chambliss. "There has always been a rush to the polls by African-Americans early," he said at the square in Covington, a quick stop on a bus tour as the campaign entered its final week. He predicted the crowds of early voters would motivate Republicans to turn out. "It has also got our side energized, they see what is happening," he said.

Nice to see a sitting United States Senator all but yell "race war!"

The thing about Georgia is that the winner must get past 50% or there's a runoff. With a Libertarian and a couple minor-party candidates on the ballot, that's entirely possible. So we could have an election between Martin and Chambliss in December, with the prize of 60 votes in the Senate hanging in the balance.

Kentucky, Nebraska, Maine and Texas may also surprise, but it's unlikely. I think the above represents the top level of competitiveness.

...regarding Kentucky, this is disgusting and sleazy and I hope it backfires, even though Mitch McConnell is a scumbag in his own right.

[ Find Your Polling Place | Voting Info For Your State | Know Your Voting Rights | Report Voting Problems ]

Here Come De Sludge, Here Come De Sludge

It's actually no different from how the Republicans have run this entire campaign - using smear campaigns to make the case that Barack Obama is somehow risky, radical, a terrorist, a Muslim, exotic, not like you or your family. The latest is that they're planting these stories in the newspaper - literally:

Citizens United, the conservative group headed by notorious Whitewater scandalmonger David Bossie, is distributing hundreds of thousands of DVDs attacking Barack Obama's associations with Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers in newspapers in Ohio, Nevada, and Florida this week, a group spokesperson confirms to us.

A reader in Ohio reports to us that she received a copy of the DVD, called "Hype: The Obama Effect," in her copy of the Columbus Dispatch this morning.

We checked in with Citizens United spokesperson Will Holley, who confirmed to us that the DVD was distributed in the Dispatch today, and will be disseminated in copies of the Cincinatti Enquirer and Plain Dealer tomorrow, followed by the Palm Beach Post and the Las Vegas Review Journal on Friday.

The wingers tried this before by shipping Obsession, a DVD designed to stoke fears about radical Islam. But this one is directly focused at Obama.

However, as ridiculous as the smears against Obama have been, some of the sludge being shoveled in the downticket races is even worse. Elizabeth Dole's desperate attempt to save her career is downright slanderous, not just to Kay Hagan but to atheists.

Dole's campaign has been calling attention to a Sept. 15 fundraiser that Hagan attended in Boston with author Wendy Kaminer and her husband, Woody Kaplan, who was on the advisory board of the Godless Americans political action committee and active in a group that promoted "secular" ideas.

The ad featuring Hagan airs a comment from one the organization’s leaders saying "There was no Jesus."

The announcer says "A leader of the Godless Americans PAC recently held a secret fundraiser in Kay Hagan’s honor."

"Godless Americans and Kay Hagan. She hid from cameras. Took godless money. What did Hagan promise in return?"

The best part of that story is the last line, "Recent polls have shown Hagan with a narrow lead over Dole." Well of course!

Kay Hagan is fighting back. She's a Sunday school teacher, for cryin' out loud. And the attack on "godlessness" evokes nothing so much as the 1940s. Apparently Liddy thinks she's running against Helen Gahagan Douglas.

Then there's outright assault.

On Friday, two Feder staffers approached Congressman Wolf in a public location to ask him some questions. Two different individuals who were accompanying Congressman Wolf (staffers? relatives? friends?) assaulted the Feder staffers, as you can see quite clearly in the video. The first Feder staffer was hit with a cane and then punched. The second staffer (as you will see on the video) was pinned to a wall and forcibly held there. All of this took place in the presence of Congressman Wolf, who stood by and did nothing to intervene.

The thug life has come to McCain-Palin rallies as well, but you knew that.

Fortunately, these clowns are suffering for their own attacks. Michelle Bachmann had almost a million dollars tossed at her from the netroots after her neo-McCarthyite rant. Robin Hayes in North Carolina said almost the same thing ("Liberals hate real Americans") and now he's losing to Larry Kissell. Scott Garrett connected his opponent, a RABBI, to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and now Mike Bloomberg endorsed Rabbi Dennis Shulman. Every attack is having an equal and opposite reaction.

And us progressives have long memories. In 2002 Saxby Chambliss ran one of the most disgusting ads in recent memory, making a connection between Sen. Max Cleland (a war hero who left 3 limbs off the battlefield) and Osama bin Laden. Now, six years later, Chambliss is threatened in a race against progressive Jim Martin, and VoteVets is hammering him.



Payback's a bitch.

NC-Sen: Residual Effects

North Carolina is a dead toss-up at the Presidential level this year, but nobody has high hopes for the incumbent.

A poll out Friday shows Sen. Norm Coleman could now easily lose his Minnesota seat to comedian-turned-candidate Al Franken. A Colorado race that initially looked like a nail-biter has now broken decisively for the Democrats. A top official in the McCain camp told us Sen. Elizabeth Dole is virtually certain to lose in conservative North Carolina [...]

Top Republicans say they have no hope for Dole in North Carolina. “There’s no point in even counting the votes,” said a top McCain official.

North Carolina is being lumped into the same column as Alaska, New Hampshire and Oregon in the second tier of winnable Democratic seats (Colorado, Virginia and New Mexico are in the first tier and are pretty safe to flip to the Dems). Why? Ed Cone explains why Elizabeth Dole's days are numbered.

--Dole has disappointed North Carolinians, including those of us who disagree with her positions on many issues, who expected her to be a star in the Senate.

--Dole has been an absentee Senator. We all knew it, but recent reports that she spent a total of 33 days in NC over the course of two years in her term resounded like coffin nails.

--Dole is closely identified with Bush.

--The DSCC has pumped a ton of money into NC to get the message out on all of the above, and the ads have been good.

--Hagan, a powerful member of the state senate, got immediate buy-in from party leaders and was able to raise money early.

--Hagan has run a steady campaign, criss-crossing the state in the style of her uncle, Walkin' Lawton Chiles. She's an appealing, centrist Democrat who plays well across North Carolina.

--Dole doesn't seem to be trying very hard. Her public appearances have been limited, and her ads have been lame. National support for her seems desultory, perhaps a result of her leadership role in the disastrous 2006 GOP Senate effort.

--Hagan has Obama's strong ground game, and the tech-smart, energized NCDP behind her (watch party chair Jerry Meek -- he's a star).

I would add that Dole is clearly a corporate Republican, who was pushing for more deregulation in the banking industry as recently as March of this year, right before the Bear Stearns collapse.

There's a common thread here, and that is the lengths to which swing states where Obama is contesting strongly have impacted those Senate races. Virginia (Mark Warner) and New Mexico (Tom Udall) have been out of reach for a while, but a state like North Carolina, with the impact of the Obama ground fame, gives Hagan a real leg up.

I think Cone is absolutely right calling Hagan a centrist. She is not going to put a lot of smiles on progressive faces with her votes, although her transit policies are first rate. Hagan refused to say whether or not she'd vote for FISA, and she'll be a moderate vote that at best will approach maybe Blanche Lincoln, and at worst Mary Landrieu. I'll be happy to see Liddy Dole out the door, but Hagan is a lesser priority for me, although I think an energized electorate in fast-changing North Carolina might pressure her into some better votes.

My hopes are with Jeff Merkley in Oregon and, to a lesser extent, Al Franken in Minnesota. By the way, this is an affecting ad:

The Drive For 60 In The Senate

It's close enough to the general election that polls can be somewhat descriptive, and if you look at these US Senate seats, there's lots of good news for Democrats.

In Colorado, Rep. Mark Udall has moved to a 6-point lead against the ethically challenged former Rep. Bob Schaffer, last seen touring the Marianas Islands obvlious to the rampant abuse and sexual slavery going on at its factories. The Democratic Congress just tightened controls on the CNMI.

In Alaska, Mark Begich is out in front of Series of Tubes Ted Stevens by five points, with the 50-year Senator well under 50%. The recent ethical scandals that have shown Stevens to be running a favor factory in the Great White North are taking a toll on his re-election chances.

In North Carolina, Liddy Dole is in great danger from a challenge by state Sen. Kay Hagan. The fact that Dole was so crappy at her job at the NRSC that the Republicans lost the Senate in 2006 means that she's not likely to have a lot of friends coming out to raise money for her, either.

In Texas, netroots hero Rick Noriega is very close to beating John "Box Turtle" Cornyn.

And this one blows my mind. In Mississippi - yes, that's right, Mississippi - former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove leads Sen. Roger Wicker by 8 points, 48-40. Wicker gave up his House seat in MS-01 to replace Trent Lott in the Senate. That House seat was taken by Democrat Travis Childers, and now Wicker might lose as well.

Add this to the big leads for Mark Warner in Virginia, Tom Udall in New Mexico and Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, and the challenges by Jeff Merkley in Oregon (where he won his Senate primary yesterday and Gordon Smith is running scared and pretending to be a bipartisan moderate), Al Franken in Minnesota and Tom Allen in Maine, and longshot races like Scott Kleeb in Nebraska and Jim Slattery in Kansas and Larry LaRocco in Idaho, and you're certainly in the ballpark where 60 Senate seats can be a possibility, especially considering that Republicans are, you know, poison.

Now, I'll have something about the fact that we need better Democrats in addition to more. But for the record, I think Noriega and Begich and Tom Udall and Allen would be great, Franken and Merkley and Mark Udall would be pretty good, and Warner and Shaheen and Hagan are moderates who can get somebody else to give them money.

Bargaining For One More Positive Balance Sheet

We have a combination energy/environmental crisis going on. Gas prices are so high that people are working to fill up the fuel tank, paying as much as a quarter of their income on transportation. The Antarctic ice sheets are collapsing and falling into the ocean on what seems like a daily basis. The current energy infrastructure is unsustainable from a financial, military and environmental perspective. And yet we're seeing freshman Democratic members of Congress quite literally being bribed to maintain the status quo.

Moderate House Democrats -- even freshmen with little obvious influence -- have seen a surge of campaign contributions from the energy industry, whose giving patterns have long favored Republicans.

Data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics show the overall industry and individual energy companies giving a larger percentage now to Democrats than they have in a decade. Though powerful committee chairman are seeing a major share of those new industry dollars, a large portion is also flowing to rank-and-file lawmakers who have agreed with the industry on some key issues [...]

[T]here is no denying the importance of moderate Democrats. They have already left their marks on pivotal debates, forcing party leaders to scale back legislative proposals on the renewable electricity standard, fuel economy and oil leasing [...]

Last year, Blue Dog PAC -- which distributes money to group members and other moderate candidates -- received $96,000 from electric utilities, oil-and-gas companies and energy industry groups, according to Federal Election Commission figures.

As long as the energy industry can pick off enough Bush Dogs, they can keep a working conservative majority on these issues and defer the eventual breakdown of their profit margins. Obama and Clinton both have decent enough energy plans but even they have been touting "clean coal" as they hit a series of coal-producing states in the primaries. And even potential incoming members of Congress are being bought off by big energy interests during their stays in state legislatures. Here's a report from someone who's unbought and unbossed, US Senate candidate from North Carolina Jim Neal:

I was surprised and frankly shocked while reading Greensboro’s Yes Weekly article about State Senator Kay Hagan.

Kay points to Senate Bill 3 (SB 3) as an example of how “we do things right in Raleigh.” The legislation adopted by the state senate last year gives away the store to Duke Energy, one of the top contributors to Kay’s state senate campaigns .

You may not know about SB 3. And the problem is I don’t think you’re supposed to. The Raleigh News-Observer says SB 3 was “an insiders' deal from the get-go,” passed with “virtually nonexistent” public debate and no “serious financial analysis of its total impact on consumers.” http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/martinez/story/626147.html

SB 3 shifts the cost of building new power plants from industry to consumers. Duke will be allowed to bill consumers for the costs of building new power plants - before the plants produce even a single watt of electricity. Instead of borrowing money to build power plants, Duke Energy and Progress will charge you more on next month’s bill. This fundamentally changes the law and how the utilities do business in North Carolina.

Only by strengthening and growing the progressive movement and winning primary races such as this one in North Carolina are we going to break this stranglehold that's choking off our ability to move meaningfully on mitigating the impact of climate change. Public mass transit has to be a part of that solution. Here in California it looks like high speed rail will finally get an opportunity on the state ballot. Private investors will be involved, but if they want to be part of the solution rather than the problem I'm OK with it. We're not going to stop industry from bargaining for one more positive balance sheet, but if they're incentivized to work toward solutions that are profitable and sensible for our energy and environmental future, there can be a pleasant compromise that expands the economy as a side benefit.