Via Steve Benen, some pretty interesting news that probably will not shock you. So we're not the only ones feeling less than enthusiastic about Democratic performance, huh:

The latest Research 2000 poll for Daily Kos included the usual question on the generic congressional ballot, with Dems still enjoying a modest edge over Republicans, 37% to 32%, with 31% unsure. Democratic numbers were strongest in the Northeast (53% Dems, 7% GOP), and Republican numbers were strongest in the South (51% GOP, 21% Dems).

But this poll added a new question to the mix to measure voter enthusiasm: "In the 2010 Congressional elections will you definitely vote, probably vote, not likely vote, or definitely will not vote?" The overall results aren't nearly as interesting as the partisan breakdown.

Among self-identified Republican voters, 81% are either "definitely" voting next year or "probably" voting, while 14% are "not likely" to vote or will "definitely" not vote.

Among self-identified Independent voters, 65% are either "definitely" voting next year or "probably" voting, while 23% are "not likely" to vote or will "definitely" not vote.

And among self-identified Democratic voters, 56% are either "definitely" voting next year or "probably" voting, while 40% are "not likely" to vote or will "definitely" not vote.

Markos, who called the results "shocking," explained:

Two in five Democratic voters either consider themselves unlikely to vote at this point in time, or have already made the firm decision to remove themselves from the 2010 electorate pool. Indeed, Democrats were three times more likely to say that they will "definitely not vote" in 2010 than are Republicans.

This enormous enthusiasm gap ... seems to make passing legitimate health care reform an absolute political necessity for Democrats. This polling data certainly should be something for Congressional leadership to consider, as they move along the legislative path.

The notion of an enthusiasm gap this year is not exactly new, but we haven't seen numbers quite this stark until now.

Runnin' Scared: Hoffman concedes in NY 23, but the Tea Baggers are still eager to burn down the GOP pup tent

darrel plant: Populist campaigns are a barometer of how difficult the times are, and if you think things are bad now, wait until you hear a politician comparing himself (or herself) to Huey Long.

Wall St. Cheat Sheet: Cramer 'buy' recommendation goes bankrupt

his vorpal sword: The Secret Masters: Freedom Works and their Oregon franchises

AlterNet: Meet the 28 (male) anti-choice Dems who are stalling health care reform

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: The Daily Censored, Unemployed and Trying, The Immoral Minority, Mark Of The Beast

All day long MSNBC has had on one pundit after another using the election in NY-23 as their springboard to make the case that the Dems are weak. There hasn't been a Democrat elected in that seat for more years than I've been alive, but that doesn't seem to enter into the equation.

The real story, though, is the fighting going on within the GOP. Rudy Giuliani was on with Chuck Todd and saying that the GOP will never win national elections if they never win in NY and California and so there needs to be a more inclusive Republican party. NY-23 didn't pan out that way for Rudy and he had to figure a way to lighten the blow. He said that Scozzafava was really a liberal and implied that he told Newt not to back her. He said the GOP needs moderates in the party, but they have to be 80% with them on issues and 20% against.

Of course Chuck Todd either couldn't be bothered to check Scozzafava's voting record and history on issues or decided to give Rudy the floor with no opposition because Scozzafava is not 80% liberal and 20% conservative, as Giuliani claimed.

The reality is this: When people say “don’t judge a book by its cover”, you should take their advice. The “cover” on Scozzafava was that she was this progressive Republican because she was backed by the WFP, supported a woman’s right to choose and has been a supporter of marriage equality. But the “book” tells the whole story (as it usually does). Scozzafava has a few positions that are more liberal (on abortion and marriage equality) but most of her positions are, at best, moderate-to-conservative. More often than not, however, she is a conservative.

This race is interesting to watch just to see the Villagers scurry around and try to make it a national story, but at least they could take the time and get their facts straight.

Duncan writes:

Tip Of The Spear

I'm not sure if the teabaggers will have much success in purifying their party, but it'll be interesting to see how the Villagers will react. My guess is they'll portray them as just folks exercising their patriotic duties, unlike those dirty fucking hippie traitors who ran a primary against the greatest man in America, Joe Lieberman.

The cable shows are covering these races as if the outcome will determine if Obama should step down as the president.

And very predictably, as the results come in, Doug Hoffman is claiming that ACORN is stealing the election.

At a short press availability in his campaign office here, NY-23 Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman said that a GOTV volunteer’s tires had been slashed, and all but blamed Democrats for the dirty trick. “There are reports that they’re bringing in the troops and they’re bringing in ACORN,” said Hoffman. “I think the Democrats are doing anything they possibly can to steal this election away from the 23rd district.”
--
Update: Anton Troianovski of the Wall Street Journal followed up with the Plattsburgh police on this, and was told that the volunteer actually damaged his tire on a broken bottle. I asked Hoffman campaign manager Dan Tripp about this–he said he had no comment because the campaign had not heard this yet.

They will blame ACORN for everything. Digby sees this through the prism of her brilliance.

I just hope that all the major networks and newspapers assign a special reporter to look into these accusations by the teabaggers' darling. Certainly Fox will be running with them and everyone knows that the mainstream press has been remiss by failing to follow up on such important Fox investigations.

It's actually a smart move. Since Fox has intimidated the pants off of the other news organizations, they will bend over backwards to be "fair and balanced" thus lending credence to the ACORN meme.

I just hope they don't end up accidentally arresting Hoffman's African American staffer in their zeal to reveal the ACORNs in the woodpile.

I'm always happy to see the progressives step up and demand what they want - you know, instead of falling into the fetal position. Greg Sargent from The Plumline:

At a private meeting at the White House yesterday, top House liberals urged President Obama to more aggressively throw his weight into a public campaign on behalf of the public option, a leading House progressive said in an interview.

Dem Rep. Raul Grijalva, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, says that this point was made “emphatically” to the president in the meeting yesterday with House liberals, and that his help was urgently needed in bringing centrist Dems on board.

“We need the full engagement of everybody in this discussion — that includes the White House,” Grijalva said in characterizing the message that was delivered to the president. Grijalva described the meeting in an interview with Democracy Now.

Dems have largely refrained from making such a blunt case publicly, not wanting to appear critical of the president. But Grijalva appears to have no qualms about making it.

“We really do feel that engagement from the leader of this nation is vital if we’re going to end up with anything that approaches a robust public option,” Grijalva said.

Strong stuff. I’ve asked Grijalva’s office what the president’s response was, and will update you if I learn more.

It's true, you are dumb, Halloween book burners.

CJSD: Top Ten Reasons We Should Reject Our Nobel Peace Prize

Skippy: Self-Described Troublemaker Whines because People think he's a Troublemaker

PourMeCoffee: Michael Steele Accuses Democrats of Treason, in Writing, and No One Even Blinks Anymore

Ben Varkentine: Looking for something serious to read this weekend?

Guest posted by Blue Gal.

One constant theme which needs dealing with is the idea that the country is more conservative than liberal and that centrists are needed to hold off horrible conservative things from happening.

More than that, this is an argument for oligarchy. What I see is that the majority of people, in poll after poll, want single payer. A huge majority want the public option, yet odds are decent you won't even get that.

When people talk of left-center coalitions the center part include a large number of Senators (like Diane Feinstein) who won't do what the majority of their constituents want them to do. At this point centrist = captured by monied interests.

Odds are if Obama wanted single payer, the House could pass it. It'd be close, but they could get it done. The House is the more representative body of the two bodies, the Senate is deliberately retrograde.

When I look at the US what I see is a banana republic, because it doesn't act like a democracy. I see people who think that the Senate, or even the House, actually does what the American people want. Again and again, Congress does things that the majority disagree with. In 2006 the Dems were elected to end the war in Iraq, for example, and refused to do so (though again, the House at least went through the motion, the Senate didn't even make an effort). Oh, Congress will sometimes do what the majority want—when that's what it was going to do anyway.

The plan to fix this is simple enough and always has been.

Continue reading »

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (942)

PLAYS: (1277)

The right's favorite talking point on Thursday, with Ted Kennedy's funeral dominating the news, was to compare the event to Sen. Paul Wellstone's funeral and kvetch that Democrats were being crudely opportunistic in using Kennedy's death to help push harder for liberal health-care reform.

Laura Ingraham, filling in for O'Reilly on The Factor, was right in step, saying Dems were "playing the death card" and promising that such opportunism would cost them at the polls. Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch.

I think Amanda Marcotte has precisely the right response.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (884)

PLAYS: (2558)

Hold back the jello. Jay Rockefeller was on this morning with Andrea Mitchell and complained about the Kent Conrad "co-op" plan which he said was basically unworkable. He then went on The Ed show and hit it even harder. Jay is a supporter of the public option and was pissed that the co-op proposal was inserted in the Baucus bill since it was never even talked about during the general election. Isn't it nice that Baucus has killed the public option just to work with Republicans? Conservatives don't even have to win elections to get what they want. That's some deal they have.

Ed: It's not going to work. There's really no successful model out there to support the basis of signing on to a co-op. Would you sign on to a co-op or is that unacceptable?

Rockefeller: That's unacceptable and I can almost prove it. We've been in touch with all the folks that oversee, represent all the co-ops in the country on all subjects and they point out that there are probably less than twenty health co-ops in the country. There are only two that really work that well. One in Puget Sound, one in Minnesota, except for those two, they are all unlicensed. All present health co-ops are all unlicensed, they're unregulated. Nobody knows anything about them, nobody has any control over them and nobody has ever said, which is stunning to me, no government organization or private organization has ever done a study to what effect they might have in terms of bringing down the insurance prices.

They are untested, they are unlicensed, they are unregulated, they are unstudied. Why would we even think about putting them in as a control on this massive insurance industry instead of the public option?

There aren't any co-ops throughout much of the country, but to appease the conservative Dems we're supposed to throw six billion dollars around and hope that the states will try to make them workable. Is this insane? Watch the whole clip, but you get the idea from this one statement. Kent Conrad's big proposal is a complete sham, but President Baucus is trying to cram that down the throats of the country, which will render all health-care reform useless. All hail bipartisanship!

(Here's some info on the ads by OFA)

Those poor poor Democrats in Congress who want to block the public option. They can't face the heat so they are whining to Harry Reid. And Reid then scolds the DNC for "wasting their money" on ads that target them.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) slammed the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Thursday for running ads designed to pressure centrist Democrats into supporting the president’s healthcare plan, calling the effort a “waste of money.”
Reid’s comments sent his staff into damage control mode, as they sought to clarify his remarks, but also reflect a growing frustration among those centrists who have been reluctant to back a government-run health insurance plan at the center of President Obama’s healthcare proposal. Liberals have been urging centrists to support such a plan for months, using various television and radio campaigns to try to force their hand. This week a wing of the DNC announced it would run television ads in states represented by centrist senators.

Reid slammed the DNC for targeting Democrats instead of Republicans or special interest groups that traditionally oppose Democratic policies.
“I think it’s a waste of money,” Reid said when asked about the ads. “Democrats running ads against Democrats?”

First of all they are not centrist. That's a bogus word to try and muddle the issue. Dems like Blue America's target Blanche Lincoln, Evan Bayh, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu and all the rest are Conservative Dems. Health care is not a right/left issue, but an American issue. Standing in the way of real reform makes one a republican obstructionist at this time and not a centrist. And Harry Reid should be careful who he backs in this fight. These ads came with a blessing from the White House so is he going against the President now? You're supposed to be the majority leader so if they come whining to you again just tell them to act like Democrats.
You can still donate to Blue America's Campaign For Health Care Choice. We're working on our next action and will need your help.

It's real simple. If President Obama doesn't include a vibrant public option in health care reform, he will lose the left and will never recover. Is that what he wants? Does he want to be a one-term president? Does he want conservatives and teabaggers to control Congress?

I'm sick and tired of hearing his representatives tell me that Congress is writing the bill. He won a mandate to reform health care. John McCain's plans for health care were rejected by Americans. So why is he involved in a kabuki dance with all the weak-kneed Democrats like Blanche Lincoln, DiFi, Ben Nelson, Kent Conrad and all the rest of the corporate Dems? And why does Sen. Grassley matter at all? They don't care about American families and what's been happening to them.

Doesn't his team look at the polls? Americans are willing to be taxed for health care reform. What more does he want? There's a 20-point jump in the belief that the government can run health care, which is amazing. The polls aren't lying so what is President Obama doing?

Protests should be breaking out all over America about health care before it's too late. July 4th would have been a great day to have one.

President Obama wants a bill to sign in October. Great. But it has to be a good bill with a vibrant public option or health care will never be reformed and President Obama will see his popularity rise in Republicanland. I'm sure they'll all turn out to vote for him in 2012. The problem is that nobody else will.

And let's give credit to the Dems who put the "bi" in bipartisan on this issue! Yes, let's hear it for those Dems who live and die by the prevailing winds of public opinion - who would never dream of actually educating the voters instead of knuckling under to their uninformed emotions. You go, Weathervane Dems! Woo hoo!

The Obama administration has all but abandoned plans to allow Guantanamo Bay detainees who have been cleared for release to live in the United States, administration officials said yesterday, a decision that reflects bipartisan congressional opposition to admitting such prisoners but complicates efforts to persuade European allies to accept them.

Four Uighur detainees, Chinese Muslims who were incarcerated at the U.S. military prison in Cuba for more than seven years, arrived early yesterday in Bermuda, where they will become foreign guest workers. An administration official said the United States is engaged in negotiations with other countries, including Palau, an island nation in the western Pacific, to find places for the remaining 13 Uighurs held at Guantanamo.

The Uighurs, who were ordered released by a federal judge last year, never counted America as an enemy, according to the men's lawyers and human rights groups, giving the administration grounds to argue that they should live in the United States. Picked up in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2002, the Uighurs were later cleared of the "enemy combatant" label but remained in minimum-security confinement at Guantanamo.

Attempting to settle non-Uighur detainees in the United States would generate even greater congressional opposition, and the administration has decided not to pursue it broadly, an administration official said yesterday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. But he said there may yet be "a few" candidates for settlement in the United States among the dozens of Guantanamo detainees who have been cleared for release.

Congressional Democrats yesterday reached agreement on a war-funding bill that would allow detainees to be sent to the United States for trial. The draft bill included no provision for prolonged detention without trial, a step that President Obama has said will be necessary to incarcerate detainees who are too dangerous to release but who cannot be prosecuted.

Mock, Paper, Scissors: Who has better sex: Dems v. GOP Matrix

Vagabond Scholar: Defending torture insistently means one's moral compass is pointing straight down to hell

A Tiny Revolution: Obama's great concern is about the impact on the U.S. public, half of which is already far more interested in accountability for torture than he is, and the other half unwilling or unable to conceive of US torture unless shown pictures.

Wonkette: Lying hypocrite, Newt Gingrich, is the voice of the GOP.  Can someone explain why any cognizant human would pay any attention to this waste of skin?

OurFuture: Big Busines likes arbitration...if it can control the process

Agitprop: When an authority figure comes to you and says “We must do this now or else [fill in the blank]” it’s best to question their motives.

Comments from Left Field: The White House is set to release an IG torture report. Dem Congressional staffers tell me this report is the “holy grail,” because it is expected to detail torture in unprecedented detail and to cast doubt on the claim that torture works — and its release will almost certainly trigger howls of protest from conservatives.

TAPPED: Offensive remarks?  Oh wait.  Wanda Sykes didn't say these things, Rush Limbaugh said them about Obama and other Dems, and he wasn't kidding.

Legal Schnauzer: As Texas Governor, Bush did the same thing that landed Don Siegelman in prison

Where’s the Outrage? Say what? Health Care Industry pledging $2 trillion in cuts

Pharyngula: Elephant's Wings (h/t Vagabond Scholar)

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: Just wondering...Hard Hitting journalism always provides a megaphone for frauds...Waiting for CNBC...A world without Newspapers...Clear Channel reaping the whirlwind...Newspaper Narcissism...Fire this assh*le...NYT finally prints the word 'torture'...Mustard...Play Misty for me...EFCA for very slow reporters....Kindle to the rescue... Interview with Greg Mitchell, editor of Editor & Publisher Magazine...How much was Fox paid to shill Bush's War Crimes?