Keith Olbermann

The kerfuffle over MSNBC’s “indefinite suspension” of Keith Olbermann for giving contributions to three Congressional candidates is hilarious in one respect: That MSNBC’s brass thinks of Olbermann as a journalist and their own network as a “news” network. Puh-leeeze.

The rules at NBC News about political contributions by employees are not only sound, they are pretty standard throughout the world of journalism. Most news organizations think it’s important that the reporters, editors and producers who are responsible to telling fair and balanced stories don’t create the appearance of bias by working for a party or candidate or giving money to a campaign. In the case of NBC News there’s an exception with management approval. That seems totally reasonable and fair for journalists.

When I was a political reporter I never would have dreamed of giving money to a candidate. One colleague didn’t even register to vote fearing that the very act of making a private political choice would make him seem less impartial. That used to matter — in journalism — to journalists.

But who would mistake Olbermann — or any member of MSNBC’s prime-time liberal cabal — for a journalist? The only reason each has a show is because he or she has strong political biases and expresses those opinions with gusto and glee (OK, that Ed guy doesn’t seem very gleeful but the rest of them generally have fun). MSNBC in prime time is no more a network of journalism than is Fox. Both play flip sides of the same record. They fill hours and hours of airtime with bombastic, one-note hosts who “interview” (“jerk off” would be more accurate in most cases but I wouldn’t want to suggest that the supremely “manly” and homophobic hosts at Fox are in any way promoting the “gay lifestyle”) like-minded guests about issues and stories without ever bothering to acknowledge inconvenient facts. In this regard Olbermann goes toe-to-toe with his nemesis Bill O’Reilly every night — a mirror image echo chamber for liberal America. The New York Times got it right when it called KO the “anchor of…’The Democratic Nightly News’.”

Of course that’s not what the masters at Fox and MSNBC want the audience to think. These profitable networks promote the notion that what they peddle 24/7 is news and journalism. Despite the fact that Fox has insisted there’s a bright line between opinion and news, that seems awfully far-fetched when the network considers it’s latest blond star, Megyn Kelly, to be a “news” anchor and her bilious, hilariously hypocritcal show to be a “news” program. And so it is at MSNBC where NBC News personnel mix and mingle with their cable colleagues in sometimes uncomfortable ways. Uncomfortable at least for the journalists who believe their jobs in the Fourth Estate are actually important to the functioning operation of a democracy. Not that the audience would know the difference. But at least that tension exists at MSNBC. At Fox, news programming decisions appear to be made by the Republican National Committee and nobody bats an eye (partial props to Shep Smith here for being the only one at Fox to have the guts to at least try to report more than one side of an issue).

And so, back to Olbermann. MSNBC’s boss, Phil Griffin, had to act. Years ago local WNBC anchor Chuck Scarborough gave money to a favored Republican candidate and earned a slap on the wrist, but no suspension. But that was local TV news — hardly the place of high journalistic standards (Google “ratings sweeps TV news stories”). Had Brian Williams given money to those candidates suspension would have been warranted. But for Olbermann? It’s just silly.

Rachel Maddow waved the company flag Friday night, and bless her heart, it was almost convincing: “We are not a political operation. Fox is. We are a news operation. And the rules around here are part of how you know that.” That is, of course, poppycock. I fear Rachel’s been drinking a bit too much of the Kool Aid in the commissary. Sure, Maddow is the only host in prime time on MSNBC to work hard at bringing in guests who disagree with her on issues. And for that she deserves a lot of credit. In the vast sea of flabby reasoning, ridiculous lies and adversion to fact that is prime time cable “news”, Maddow is a beacon of reason. But she’s not a journalist and her network is not a “news operation.” MSNBC, like Fox, is in the business of entertaining political junkies. Their shows are acts in a circus. And to suspend the ringmaster for feeding the lions seems pretty absurd.

Turns out New York’s “Accidental Governor” is no more capable of understanding the responsibilities that come with the job than his predecessor. But while Eliot Spitzer’s fatal flaw is hubris mixed with a wee bit of sex addiction is seems, David Paterson’s problem is simply ineptitude.

Paterson and his supporters have been making the claim for months now that he has been unfairly targeted by the media, and certainly the ugly coupling of sloppy bloggers and immoral tabloids produced a pathetically irresponsible miasma of “a rumor from a single unconfirmed unreliable source” “reporting”. But as it turns out, there was even more fire than smoke.

That the sitting Governor would call the victim of an alleged assault by one of his closest aides (his people say she called him but DP declined to make that case on the radio this morning) after she had been pursuing legal redress is unfathomable to those of us who haven’t been CEOs. It’s just strange how power seems to erase a person’s (presumably) natural ability to use his brain. It’s not like he was turning up aces before this happened. You’d think with all of his troubles he might have thought picking up the phone and calling this woman was maybe not the best idea. Or not.

Paterson was never suited to be the boss. To his credit he said all the right things about the state budget and the economy and did his best to shame the hucksters in the Legislature to take the crisis seriously. But they never took him seriously and for good reason. What happens behind the scenes in politics is way more important than what goes on in public and everyone in Albany knew Paterson was the captain of a rudderless ship.

Let’s be fair: “Steamroller Spitzer” didn’t do any better with the Legislature either but there was no question he, and everyone else, at least knew what he wanted to do. Paterson has shown no such inclination.

The political establishment has been waiting for him to declare he wasn’t running for (re)election and Democrats have been fretting about his unwillingness to take a fall for the sake of the party. Seems like that’s all about to take care of itself.

And so now it’s in the hands of Andrew Cuomo. Haven’t we seen this movie before? Cuomo — the guy who wants to be Governor so bad we can taste it — was given the opportunity to screw Spitzer with Troopergate (Spitzer ended up screwing himself instead…well someone ended up screwing Spitzer but she’s not important right now) and now Cuomo has the power to finish off Paterson. There’s definitely something Shakespearean going on around here.

Tuesday’s review of Diane Sawyer’s debut in Tuesday’s NY Post is a case in point. Kyle Smith goes on a spleen dump and gets almost everything comically wrong. He’s one the the paper’s TV writers but you wouldn’t know it from his lack of knowledge, writing ability, or research acumen.

First let me say for the record that I don’t have strong feelings about Diane Sawyer one way or another. It’s good that two of the three big seats of TV journalism are filled with women (finally) but I kinda prefer Katie. Nonetheless I don’t watch any of the nightly newscasts regularly (I’m decidedly under the age of 63) so I don’t particularly care.

Second, it pays to remember here that the Post and Fox News are Rupert Murdoch’s one-two partisan political punchers — media outlets that feed off of one another to help create news-like events that do the boss’s bidding (see: Tea Partys). Once you get that it makes all the sense in the world why Mr. Smith would go to Cuckooland in talking about FNC competitor ABC News.

Smith takes Sawyer to task for interviewing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week, holding the “get” until this week, and then not really grilling him. That’s all fair. TV news has always been about the “show” as much as the journalism and lining up big interviews so that the promotions department can tease the crap out of it is SOP on all the networks including Kyle’s beloved FNC. Remember Fox’s Sarah Palin week? A sharper bulb might have used ABC’s reliance on this old skool technique to point out how all the network news divisions have turned their nightly 22 minutes into shows about their anchors rather than about the news.

Instead Smith goes on to note that ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl did a piece on health care that was, according to Kyle, insufficiently like one Glenn Beck would do. He notes with derision that the story was filled with “last week’s” news about the deals made to get various Senators to back the bill. The same reports that fill his own paper’s coverage today. I’m pretty sure the intrepid Mr. Smith has not taken his complaints about the Post’s coverage to his boss Col Allen. Probably because the story is still developing….

Then there’s this:

A story on the dropping crime rate cited FBI statistics that showed, for instance, murder down 10 percent from January to June. Wait: you’re giving us news that became available July 1? Is this ABC or The History Channel?

Hahahaha. Oh that Kyle. So clever! But wait: it take the FBI six months to collect crime stats from the hundreds of cities and towns and law enforcement agencies across the country. So the FBI report was released…wait for it…yesterday. The day ABC (and everyone else including the NY Times, Bloomberg, the Washington Post, and 686 other news sites according to Google) reported on it. Apparently fact-checking is not a strong suit of either Mr. Smith or his paper. Maybe I can help. Here’s the press release from the FBI.

Smith digs Sawyer and her show as a “stale plate of info-leftovers for shut-ins, news for people who aren’t all that interested in news” without noting that the three network newscasts still get at least four times as many viewers as all of the prime-time cable clowns combined. I admit I’m not one of either group but if Smith’s colorful description of Sawyer’s show is accurate I can’t wait for him to let his quick wit loose on the shows of Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity or Keith Olbermann all of which traffic in talking about days-old stories (forget about reporting anything) to audiences that are even older (and presumably more shut in) than the network newscasts.

Finally Smith shows his true colors when he derisively points out that the Sawyer broadcast spent 27 seconds on the death of actress Brittany Murphy as compared with 42 seconds on Obama delivering cookies to kids. I’m not sure either deserved that much time but what do I know? Unlike Kyle Smith I don’t work for a “news”  organization that devoted more back-to-back covers to Tiger Woods sex life than it did to the September 11th attacks in which almost 3000 Americans died.

St. Sen. Hiram Monserrate (photo: Ellis Kaplan)

If you want some advice about marriage — same-sex or otherwise — I can’t think of anyone better to ask than convicted girlfriend-batterer, ex-cop, and current New York State Senator Hiram Monserrate. Monserrate was one of eight Democrats in the state’s “upper” chamber who voted against allowing people of the same gender to marry yesterday.

(Irony alert! Four of the eight ‘no’ votes came from members who represent Queens — but apparently not queens.)

Although I’m sure he had very good reasons for his decision (the word in Albany and his Elmhurst district is he’s hoping to beat back a primary opponent by appealing to religious voters!) Monserrate is pretty much the poster boy for everything that is wrong in Albany and he proved it yet again with his vote.

You may recall a grand jury charged Monserrate with three felonies and three misdemeanors in the caught-on-tape beating/slashing of his girlfriend Karla Giraldo. Giraldo was seen on surveillance tape clinging to the doorway of Monserrate’s home screaming while the Senator shoved her outside. At first Giraldo made statements that lead prosecutors to believe Monserrate had slashed her in the face with a broken drinking glass. Later she changed her tune.

Nonetheless the Senator was convicted of misdemeanor assault and will someday, maybe, be the subject of a “disciplinary” hearing in the Senate. And Friday he will be sentenced for his crime.

So now this “family values” Democrat wants to gin up support among the Pentecostal crowd out on Roosevelt Avenue by voting against same-sex marriage? Perfect.

The arguments for and against marriage equality are well known and honest people can disagree about whether it’s fair to deny two people civil, legal but non-religious marital status solely because of their gender. It would be interesting to hear Queens Senator Shirley Huntley’s take. The 71-year-old African-American Senator certainly remembers anti-miscegenation laws that denied civil, legal marriage to two people based solely on the color of their skin. She was another of the 8 Dems who voted ‘no.’ Unfortunately she chose not to explain.

In fact just one of the 38 Senators who voted against same-sex marriage explained his vote. St. Sen. (and minister) Ruben Diaz has had a bee in his bonnet about gay everything since as far back as I can remember. I’ll never forget the news conference in the South Bronx a bunch of reporters attended one winter day a decade back in which the speakers were there to talk about some environmental racism they thought was going on in the neighborhood. One by one they decried how the area was bearing far more than its share of pollution. Then Diaz came to the mic and went on a bender about gays. Huh?

In 1994 when he was on the Civilian Complaint Review Board he said bringing the Gay Games to New York would only increase the number of people with AIDS. A few years later he was the driving force in trying to close the Harvey Milk High School (designed to give gay kids a safe space to go to school) by claiming it was “heterosexual discrimination.” At least he’s consistent. But one has to wonder why he has for so many years been fixated on gay things. Freud would have a field day.

And here’s where the story comes full circle. Diaz told the Post recently that he will be officiating the marriage of Hiram Monserrate and Karla Giraldo. After the restraining order that is keeping the Senator away from his punching-bag fiance-to-be is lifted.

Oh, so that’s the traditional marriage the Senate is protecting! God bless them.

Sometimes spin is so ridiculous — so obviously wrong that political reporters have to laugh. Or blog about it.

So here’s a great press release sent out Wednesday regarding the New York City Comptroller runoff election results from Tuesday night. Remember this is from an organization based in upstate Troy that probably had never heard of John Liu or David Yassky until today.

News from New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc.

New York City Primary Voters Reject Gun Grabber

TROY, NY (09/30/2009)(readMedia)– For the second time in two weeks, the citizens of New York City have delivered an unambiguous rebuke to the gun control movement by rejecting David Yassky’s bid for Comptroller. Yassky based his campaign largely upon his gun control record. As a staffer to then Congressman Charles Schumer he worked on both the Brady Act and Clinton Gun Ban. His campaign was endorsed by Senator Schumer, the Daily News and the New York Times because of this. Yassky’s double-digit loss in the runoff election demonstrates just how far outside the mainstream of society gun control advocates are. A solid majority of Democrat voters in all five boroughs have soundly rejected this candidate and his ideas.

Where to start? Oh wait let me pull my jaw off the floor and then stop howling. For those (few) people who were actually following this runoff election the only issue that got any resonance at all was about the Working Families Party’s backing of Liu and how that might make him beholden to the union-backed mini-party. Guns? No mention in the papers or on TV.

And follow the logic: If “the citizens of New York City have delivered an unambiguous rebuke to the gun control movement” then Sen. Chuck Schumer should be in deep doo-doo. He’s up for reelection in 2010. So how are his poll numbers holding up? According to the Marist Poll last month 6 in 10 New Yorkers think he’s doing an excellent or good job — just 13% think he’s doing a poor job.

So here’s some advice to the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association: It’s fine to try and look on the bright side but leave the production of fantasy to Hollywood.

Back up to this past winter when Paterson’s amateur-hour handling of his pick to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate left just about everyone slack-jawed. He managed to piss of anyone connected to the Kennedys (not an insignificant body of people especially in the Democratic Party) by publicly dissing and embarrassing Caroline Kennedy before doing precisely what the White House didn’t want him to do — pluck newly-reelected Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand from her very Republican district thereby allowing the GOP to score a quick victory just months after Obama’s sweeping win. Fortunately for Dems the GOP in New York is even more dysfunctional than they are and managed to lose what should have been a sure win.

That gave New Yorkers a taste of the Governor’s incompetence. He then inexplicably fed that perception over the next couple of months by failing to exert any leadership over the Legislature as it’s members descended into chaos. Ever since Paterson’s poll numbers have been in the dumps and we’ve talked a lot about it here, here, and here. In fact all along we’ve said despite his disasterous ratings — even among African-Americans — Paterson was probably safe from a primary challenge unless a major African-American politician broke from supporting him.

Enter Barack Obama.

But why? Why would Obama care enough at this stage to get involved in New York’s local politics? He’s not from here. He doesn’t need help from a New York Governor. The election isn’t until 2010 when Congresssional elections will surely dominate the political storyline. So why?

Enter Chuck Schumer.

Several people close to Paterson and Schumer say this has Chuck’s fingerprints all over it. Schumer was the one who first mentioned Gillibrand and eventually got his way. Chuck is the one who in two terms heading the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee brought his party first into the majority and then made it filibuster-proof. Chuck is the (not so) hidden power center in the Senate. And Chuck doesn’t want to deal with a Governor heading the ticket in 2010 that could bring it all crashing down.

You see Senator Gillibrand is up for election in 2010 too and her poll numbers are only so-so despite her spreading a heavy dose of Chuck’s media magic across the Empire State. If Paterson is in trouble on top — especially if Rudy Giuliani were to run as he has been threatening — Gillibrand could be collateral damage. Meaning Chuck’s choice — Chuck’s bluest of blue states — could be the one that yields the filibuster-proof majority.

And so he called in the big gun to try and ease Paterson out. Unfortunately the Governor has other ideas and our sources say he is the one who leaked the story creating blowback on Obama and Schumer (neither of whom he is all that fond of anyway). So now Paterson can say he’s running and he’s standing up to pressure from his own party because he puts the people of New York first. Blah blah blah.

Michael Steele’s unchecked inanity aside (the Times lets the RNC Chairman get away with this: “I think Governor Paterson’s numbers are about the same as Governor Corzine’s numbers, and yet the president was with Governor Corzine and I don’t know whether there’s been a request for Governor Corzine to step down in New Jersey….” Corzine is down by 8, Paterson is down by 20), Obama should not have let himself be drawn into this mess this early. Worse, he got smacked by the woefully undertalented Paterson.

Nonetheless Paterson and the Democrats have real problems. Watch Charlie Rangel. If he starts spending private time with Paterson the feckless Governor may yet find himself with an ambassadorship to Fiji.

Sarah Palin

There’s nothing more staggeringly inane than this from Sarah Palin’s July Fourth Facebook message:

Though it’s honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make.

Wow. Palin’s got a chip on her shoulder the size of Alaska. Almost everyone is out to get her, not the least of which is the big bad “main stream” media (as opposed to the “mainstream” media?). Best of all is her completely ahistoric sense of what would be the patriotic, truly bold thing to do. This was the highlight of her rambling news conference from July 3rd:

As I thought about this announcement, that I wouldn’t run for re-election and what that means for Alaska, I thought about, well, how much fun some governors have as lame ducks. They maybe travel around their state, travel to other states, maybe take their overseas international trade missions. So many politicians do that. And then I thought, that’s what wrong. Many just accept that lame duck status and they hit the road, they draw a paycheck, they kind of milk it, and I’m not going to put Alaskans through that. I promised efficiencies and effectiveness. That’s not how I’m wired. I’m not wired to operate under the same old politics as usual. I promised that four years ago and I meant it. That’s not what is best for Alaska at this time. I’m determined to take the right path for Alaska, even though it is unconventional and it’s not so comfortable.

Really? Resigning is so unconventional? Then why are you complaining about how the “main stream” media gives everybody else a free pass when they do it? And what’s all this about lame ducks milking their status for free trips? Politicians don’t need to be lame ducks to spend the taxpayers’ money in frivolous ways.

If Palin really wanted to be unconventional — if she really wanted to shatter the politics as usual — she would stay on for the rest of her term and, unbeholden to the politics of campaigning, take brave stances for the things she believed in. Indeed a Republican President was one of the first to recognize that being a lame duck could hold great promise.

In 1959, Time editors wrote in an editorial:

As the nation’s first President barred by the U.S. Constitution (22nd Amendment) from seeking a third term, Dwight Eisenhower once feared that his lack of a political future might hurt his political present. It seemed all too likely that political opportunists of both parties would declare open season on an Eisenhower deprived of a chance to take his program and his popularity to the polls again. But by last week the President had just about decided that his unique lame-duck position was one of strength, not of weakness.The reason seemed both simple and sensible: foreclosed from a political future, he can hardly be accused of political motivation in advancing his program. “I’m not talking about politics,” he said recently. “I’m talking about the good of the country, and I’ll fight it out on those terms.”

Ike saw the opportunity and seized it. Then again he was finishing up his political career while Sarah Palin is clearly just getting warmed up. And that’s what is so totally disingenuous about Palin’s claims. The only plausible reason she is resigning is that she wants to be in the best position to run for President three years from now.

The advantages are plain: No more being forced to hang around Alaska, far from the Republican Party faithful in places like Iowa and New Hampshire; No more drip drip drip of ethics investigations in Alaska; No more time spent on parochial state politics instead of writing a now de rigeur pre-Presidential-campaign book; No more living on a government salary.

But there’s a big disadvantage someone as smitten with oneself as Palin is cannot see. The more non-ideological conservative Americans see of her the more she risks being the next Barry Goldwater. Palin is a darling of hard-core religious conservatives and their mouthpieces like William Kristol and Rush Limbaugh. She will undoubtedly spend the next 2 years playing to that crowd. As Barack Obama showed, however, it’s the independents that matter and they disliked Palin so much when McCain added her to the ticket that the race was effectively over for the GOP within a week of her selection.

Sarah Palin appears to be like so many other politicians — the more you know, the less you like. Leaving Alaska prematurely could end up as her too-smart-by-half move.

Circus Promoter Tom Golisano

There’s big news about Tom Golisano.

The formerly upstate billionaire (he’s still got the money but he moved to Florida) is dating former tennis star Monica Seles. So reports Page Six. Oh, and the three-time candidate for New York Governor  just loves the circus. How else to explain his recent quarterbacking of the quasi-Republican coup in Albany?

Golisano has always been an odd bird in New York politics. In his three runs for Governor as an independent (94, 98, 02) he always seemed to have it out for Republican George Pataki (who won each time) even though they, at times, seemed to disagree about very little. Golisano’s reform mantle has really been a cover for lowering taxes in the state in which he built his successful payroll company. Nothing wrong with that.

So last fall Golisano put some of his money into Democratic State Senate candidates hoping to hitch a ride on the demographic train that spelled the inevitable end of decades-long Republican rule in Albany’s upper chamber, if not in 2008 than certainly in 2010. When the Dems did in fact win control of the Senate Golisano expected a hearing. Or at least a little courtesy.

Instead we’ve learned he got a fairly rude brush off from the newly-ensconced Majority Leader Malcolm Smith. Golisano says he was pissed after Smith spent an entire meeting with the billionaire fooling around with his Blackberry. Quel suprise!

Smith was incompetent on day one and, as numerous others have written in the last few days, he horribly misunderstood how to govern with a one-seat majority. So Golisano helped convince two Democratic Senators to back Republican Dean Skelos as the new Majority Leader and the coup was on. But if the G man seriously believes this will change anything he is more deluded than his mentor, Ross Perot.

First, the two Dems he lured to the team are both in serious legal trouble and may both end up sent packing before their terms end. Both Pedro Espada (under investigation by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for using state funds for himself — a charge he went to trial on a few years back and won) and Hiram Monserrate (soon to go on trial for felony assault of his girlfriend) are hardly posterboys for reform. Indeed Espada has shown he will do almost anything to save his political skin. That’s what makes this next part pretty scary: As part of this deal, Espada becomes President Pro Tem of the Senate, meaning he will become Acting Governor the second David Paterson becomes incapacitated or even leaves the state. So now Paterson is a prisoner of New York. Could be worse. Let’s hope he doesn’t get an appendicitis though.

Of course everything is still in flux and it’s Albany so the only thing worth predicting is that this will all end in an unpredictable and highly entertaining way if you’re into dysfunction. And that’s what Golisano has bought for himself and the state he no longer calls home: Even more political dysfunction.

Smith was no leader but he was the Leader of the Senate and with only about a week left for the Senate, Assembly, and Governor to get a whole mess of really important stuff done, this chaos certainly does not serve the people of the Great State of New York. The Republicans agreed to Golisano’s demands for substantial reform in the way the Senate works which, if Skelos and Company really meant it, might actually be worth the turmoil. But Skelos? C’mon Tommy, don’t you listen to The Who? Try track the last track on Who’s Next. You might learn something.

The Senate Republicans proved over their 66 years of (almost) uninterrupted power (Dems were in “control” for nine months in 1965 due to redistricting-mandated multiple elections) to be as venal and corrupt as their Democratic opponents. It’s not for nothing that their former long-time Majority Leader Joe Bruno has been charged with 8 Federal corruption counts.

Golisano is clearly a savvier negotiator in business than in politics since any idiot realizes Republicans would have promised anything to get back in power. Keeping those promises is another story. And Golisano’s reform bona fides have always been a little suspect.

Last fall he promised to take on his fellow billionaire politician Mike Bloomberg over the Mayor’s extension of term limits (allowing MB to run for a third term) but then punted, spending chump change for a tepid last-minute “effort” that failed.

This time around Golisano has done little more than bankroll a new show for the Albany Circus Maximus. I’m sure he’ll enjoy his ringside seats before jetting back to his waterfront abode in Naples, Florida. As for the rest of us? Let ‘em eat popcorn.

Leading the Way? California Loses It's Luster

Everyone’s got something to say about the California Supreme Court’s ruling that the voters of that state had the legal right to approve a measure actively limiting the rights of certain California citizens. A lot of the response is predictable and, depending where you stand on the issue of same-sex marriage, entirely defensible.

So we’ll leave it to the legal scholars to parse the technical merit of the not terribly surprising 185 page decision and we’ll leave it to the activists on both sides to make their arguments about the morality of allowing 18,000 gay couples to stay legally married while barring any additional couples from joining that now-exclusive club.

Instead let’s ask a different question: What does mean for everyone else?

California was once known as a pretty progressive place (insert tilted-country-fruits-and-nuts-rolled-to-Cali joke here) and is still known as a bellwether for many social and political trends. One of the most critical tipping points in 20th Century American politics came in California in 1978 when voters passed Proposition 13. This landmark law radically cut property taxes (by 57%) and subsequently caused deep and lasting cuts to the level and quality of many public services in the state. Services like schools that quickly went from first in the nation to worst in the nation. Whatever its intended effect Prop 13 unleashed a tidal wave of anti-tax sentiment across the country and helped reshape the politics of the next thirty years.

Ronald Reagan rode that wave into the White House. George Bush was carried out of office by that wave when he broke a no tax pledge. Democrats and Republicans alike were challenged to say “no” to taxes at every turn. Twenty-three years after Prop 13 George W. Bush continued to capitalize on the voter anger it induced by pushing through the largest, and most regressive tax cut in American history. Prop 13 changed American politics and it all started in California.

But what has the Golden State given us since? Precious little in the way of important change. Direct democracy as practiced in California has become government by proposition — wonderful in concept perhaps but disastrous in practice. Voters, persuaded by multimillion-dollar ad campaigns run by special interests, have driven the increasingly rickety jalopy off the cliff by approving nearly every tax cut and specially-directed spending increase that comes along.

California is totally broke and even the Terminator has not been able to fix it. The Governor and Legislature are returning to Sacramento for a third attempt at passing a budget this year after voters rejected the last deal involving painful service cuts and tax and fee hikes. Like spoiled children they keep demanding more of everything. While the rest of America seems to have learned from our decades-long binge on easy credit — we can have it all and not pay for it!! — Californians are stuck in the past. No longer does the state lead with fresh new ideas or bold political moves. Instead it molders like a rotting tomato fallen from the vine.

And so it is with same-sex marriage. First the court ruled San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom couldn’t just decide for himself to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Then the same court ruled the California Constitution demanded same-sex couples be allowed to marry. Now the same court has decided that voters can overrule the justices on a Constitutional issue such as this. Leading the way? Hardly.

While schizophrenic California has made same-sex marriage a soap opera, states like Vermont, Connecticut, Maine, and Iowa (Iowa for God’s sakes!) have had reasoned discussions and debates and recognized that marriage, as a matter of civil contract law, should not be limited to two people of opposite genders. And in the time Californians have hemmed and hawed and screamed and yelled American public opinion has dramatically shifted with opponents and supporters of same-sex marriage now roughly split. Apparently as goes Maine, so goes the nation.

The same-sex marriage “debate” in California has been the “Real Wives of Orange County” to Connecticut’s and Iowa’s CSPAN. One’s a car wreck that you can neither take your eyes off of nor take seriously while the other is a dry but inevitably substantive exercise.

So while California gears up for another season of “Gay Marriage Propositions” (not a bad title for a totally different show but that’s another story) other states will probably quietly add themselves to the small but growing list of places where gay marriage is the law of the land. New Hampshire, New Jersey, and New York (if the State Senate can overcome the objections of a suspiciously hysterical homophobic minister) are the most likely candidates.

Indeed maybe California has, at least, served a function: By being so loud and distracting it has allowed other states to judge the issue on its merits and find that equal rights really does mean “equal”. Not “equal other than the the use of the word ‘marriage’.”

Is the GOP Dead? (Threedonia.com)

Conservatives like small. Small government. Small states. Small taxes. And apparently a small political party to call their own. How else to explain the rapid desire to purge the fast-shrinking Republican Party of anyone who dares to suggest small is NOT better for a political party?

The latest example comes from Bobby Eberle who runs the website GOPUSA and it concerns George W. Bush’s first Secretary of State, Republican Colin Powell.

In a recent speech, Powell took swipes at Rush Limbaugh, Gov. Sarah Palin, and made his usual claims that the Republican Party has moved too far to the right. Give Powell credit, when he sees an opportunity to be opportunistic, he seizes it. The problem is that he is completely off track and would be much better suited joining Arlen Specter and the Democrats.

Eberle joins Rush Limbaugh and plenty of others from the conservative opinion whirlpool in calling for the ouster of any Republican who advocates tinkering with the party’s message to make it even the tiniest bit more moderate. Limbaugh famously said Arlen Specter should take “McCain and his daughter” with him when he left the GOP and the bright red blogosphere has been filled with angry calls for other Republican moderates like Maine’s Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to leave the party too. (Here’s one really amazing thread.)

The argument goes like this: Since we’re already in deep doo-doo (having lost the White House, 15 Senate seats, and 51 House seats in four years) we might as well go all in. Purge all the moderate and liberal elements and refocus on a hard-core conservative message — low taxes, little government, religious social values on gays and abortion, no gun restrictions, big military. Get back, as Rush loves to preach, to Reagan. Limbaugh is first among many in arguing that Reagan was the last true conservative in the White House and he got there because he was a true conservative. Those now advocating turning away from Reagan, he says, don’t want to win.

When they look at the past and see landslide Presidential victories and don’t want to do it again that’s not a refutation of Reagan that’s not saying, “screw Reagan” that’s saying, “We don’t want those issues, we don’t want to win with those issues.”

Which is precisely the opposite of the truth. Reagan won in spite of his conservative politics because he did what any effective candidate does: He reframed his views to fit voters’ desires. He was, remember, the Great Communicator. And even if you don’t buy that the notion there’s this little gem of a fact conservatives like Rush are ignoring — it’s not 1980. America has changed. Here’s more of Rush:

I’ve been hearing we can’t win without the black vote — been hearing that all my life…. We can’t win without the women’s vote. and we’ve won without majorities of both. Now there’s a new one — we can’t win without the Hispanic vote.

Republicans have done best with white male voters for decades. It has been the real base of the party. In 1980 88% of those voting were white and 52% were men. In 2008 74% of the electorate was white and 47% was male. And those pesky Hispanics? Just two percent in 1980, 9% last year. But still Rush is not convinced that conservatives need to change. He insists issues like abortion are moving in the right direction.

The demographics have changed? Abortion is moving more and more in the pro-life favor in every public poll that’s taken.

Alas this is also simply not true. In poll after poll the abortion issue has changed very little since Roe v. Wade made it legal. For instance when Gallup asked about abortion in 1975, the results were not much different from when the pollsters asked the same questions in 1980 (when Reagan was elected), 1990 (when Bush was President), 2000 (when Clinton was ending his term), and 2008.

Always Legal           Sometimes Legal         Never Legal

1975                     21                                 54                             22
1980                     25                                 53                             18
1990                     31                                 53                             12
2000                     28                                 51                             19
2008                     28                                 54                             17

Source: Gallup Poll

The fact is Rush and the other conservatives-in-denial refuse to acknowledge what is demonstrably true from what they wish reality was. For the GOP, November’s election was a traumatic event — like a death in the family. There are 5 stages of recovery from such an event and some conservatives have a way to go before they run the list.

The 5 Stages of Grief
1. Denial
2. Guilt
3. Anger
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

On this scale Rush seems to be at about stage 3 (being temperamentally incapable of working through stage 2) while the Republican group out on its listening tour (Romney, McCain, Jeb Bush, etc) actually appear to be at stage 5. When more Republicans accept the reality that the electorate is not what it was in 1980 and that social values issues never have resonance in tough economic times they will be on the path towards reconstruction. That’s why Democrats have been so eager to keep Rush talking. He’s doing their work for them.

Still, sooner or later enough conservatives will get tired of losing. Democrats would be foolish to get complacent.