Palin?

by folkbum

If I were to have put money on any one candidate that John McCain would not pick, it would have been Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Three reasons: 1) She deflates McCain's most effective attack against Obama, the idea that he does not have the experience to be president. 2) She is under investigation, literally, right now (even if it all turns out clean, the Alaska Republican Party right now is a hotbed of indictments and corruption and picking someone up from the middle of all that seems ... odd). 3) McCain apparently had met her in person exactly once.

Barack Obama's selection of Joe Biden had none of those pitfalls--it wasn't Chris Dodd, who's got something mortgagy that can get played to death in the media; it wasn't Evan Bayh, whose voting record is a lot closer to McCain's than Obama's is; it wasn't Sam Nunn, who was far outside Obama's circle; and so on. In the end, Obama selected a friend, a long-time (well, four-year) ally, someone with the chops and wide-ranging expertise to both challenge and support Obama during key deliberations. In the end, I suppose you could say Joe Biden is exactly the opposite of Sarah Palin--which makes it strange that so many of the conservatives who nodded sagely that of course Biden was a reasonable pick for Obama are now ga-ga for Palin.

But in the end what strikes me most is the way the selection of Palin, who is a very far right-wing ideologue, is being celebrated because it connects McCain to his base. My initial reaction, once I knew it was ferreal, was to compare, in my head, Sarah Palin to Wisconsin second-district Representative Tammy Baldwin.

I know, I know, Palin is the only governor of Alaska and Baldwin is one of 435 Representatives. But consider: The population of the 2nd CD is about 670,000 (2000 data) and the population of Alaska is also about 670,000 (2000 data). Palin is a far-right social conservative, and Baldwin is a far-left (by American standards) social liberal. Neither has much foreign policy experience. Palin is a mother of five with a hard-working husband, while Baldwin is, um, not legally married. They are extremely similar cases for decidedly opposite parties.

But what would the reaction have been from the media or the right-wingnuts had Obama gone to his left for a relatively unknown pol like Baldwin? Certainly not the great outpouring of praise and adulation that McCain has gotten for his pick today.

Ah, well, such are the vagaries of the press and the wingers--it's okay if you're a Republican to pick an extremest to succeed you. Indeed, with the Cheney precedent, I suppose now it is expected.

No Excuse for Supporting Hillary Now

by Michael A. Leon

Update: A reader left this comment worth posting: "Hillary is a political succubus. She will suck the energy and will from this party until we are broken and defeated. ... Even if one does not consider the supposedly inflammatory nature of the Wright sermons, she took an opportunity to promote healing or at least thought provoking discussion, and instead parroted a line that even the conservative nominee and the man he defeated has abandoned. ... I have no doubt Hillary would have left her church and the place that introduced her to Jesus because it is abundantly clear that there is no belief, no ethic, no moral, or important relationship she would not gladly sacrifice in order to further her own naked ambition."

"And you know I'm just speaking for myself, and I was answering a question that was posed to me," said Hillary Clinton as she reads from her notes. TPM video of Clinton:

Does anyone have any doubt now that Hillary Clinton has crossed the line using racism in her pursuit of political power?

And Rep. Tammy Baldwin, a superdelegate pledged to Hillary, will you now disavow Hillary Clinton? Tammy, you know appeals to bigotry when you see them, and Hillary's is as ugly and potentially destructive as the national Democratic stage has seen in decades.

Clinton's latest tactic came in an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, during which Clinton suggested that Reverend Wright is guilty of "hate speech," and said, "He would not have been my pastor. You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."

Obama's campaign has hit back immediately:

"After originally refusing to play politics with this issue, it's disappointing to see Hillary Clinton's campaign sink to this low in a transparent effort to distract attention away from the story she made up about dodging sniper fire in Bosnia. The truth is, Barack Obama has already spoken out against his pastor's offensive comments and addressed the issue of race in America with a deeply personal and uncommonly honest speech. The American people deserve better than tired political games that do nothing to solve the larger challenges facing this country," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

But Hillary is threatening the historic coalition with black America and her attempt to secure the nomination has to be shot down now and hard. I mean playing on racism, are we going to countenance this?

A piece in Kos eloquently calls for an end now to Hillary's appeals to hate. Personally, I think Hillary is considering a third-party run. From Kos:

Clinton is not only presumptuous, she is vicious and divisive and hurtful. She should be defending Barack Obama against unfair attacks, and defending and contextualizing the tradition of black sermonizing. In his speech, Barack Obama sought to educate and bring reconciliation. Clinton's response is to throw it all back in his face and suggest that there is something wrong with him for
attending his church. ...

If Clinton succeeds in pushing this racial polarization to the point that white people will not vote for Obama, the black community will never, ever, forgive her. ...

At this point it is absolutely imperative that the party leaders step in and stop the Clinton campaign from inflicting lasting damage to the relationship between the party and the African-American community. She cannot be allowed to even try to win the nomination this way, let alone actually win it.

This is poison of the worst possible kind. It will destroy the party's electoral viability more swiftly and more surely than anything I can think of.

I call on Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid, Chairman Dean, and the other leaders of the party to step in right now and call this contest.
The Clintons absolutely must not be permitted to do this. It must be stopped.

Myself, I call on Tammy Baldwin to step up right now and denounce Hillary Clinton. Silence is a betrayal to every progressive who has worked with you and the cause of justice.

Health Care He Said-She Said: I Say, Simplify

Two Wisconsin Congresscritters wrote dueling op-eds in the Sunday Journal Sentinel, Privatizin' Paul Ryan and Slammin' Tammy Baldwin. They do a he said-she said on health care.

I wonder what would happen if you took the two essays, Rayn's and Baldwin's, stripped the authorship information from them, and presented them to the public, which one of the two positions the public would prefer. Because, as I read them, it comes down to this:

Baldwin: Health care is so expensive because it's such a complicated system.
Ryan: Health care is so expensive because the system is not complicated enough.

The choice is pretty clear in my mind--why would we want to make the way we purchase and pay for health care more complex? Who, exactly, does that appeal to? Cui bono--who benefits from a more complicated system? Certainly not health care consumers. Probably not doctors and other providers, either.

Oh, but Jay, you're thinking, surely you're being reductionist and Ryan's and Baldwin's ideas are more nuanced than that. Well, I don't think what I wrote is an unfair rendering of their arguments. See for yourself; here they are in their own words:

Baldwin:We don't have the time or the space to go into details on the overuse of services, the duplication of services, fraud and other factors that all contribute to the unnecessarily exorbitant and inherently unfair cost of health care in this country.

It's been seven decades since President Truman first called for health care for all in this country, but we still have an inadequate health care system. [. . .] Under a single-payer system, all Americans would be covered for all medically necessary services. Patients would regain free choice of doctor and hospital, and doctors would regain autonomy over patient care.

A single-payer system would be financed by eliminating private insurers and recapturing their administrative waste. Modest new taxes would replace premiums and out-of-pocket payments currently paid by individuals and business. Costs would be controlled through negotiated fees, global budgeting, and bulk purchasing. [. . .] The costs of health care will never be controlled until we, as a nation, make a commitment to guarantee health care for all and then make that happen most efficiently and economically.

***
Ryan: [T]he heart of what is actually driving runaway medical expenses [is] the lack of a working free market in health care that puts power in patients' hands. [. . . W]e need to make sure patients can access reliable, up-to-date information on what hospitals and doctors actually charge for medical procedures. [. . ] Making sure the public has access to this kind of data, as well as information about the quality of care patients receive, is essential to fostering competition and lowering costs.

While consumers need accurate information to make sound judgments and select the best health care provider to meet their needs, they also need tools that give them more control over their health care purchases and make coverage more affordable. [. . .]

Health savings accounts are a relatively new option for health care coverage that enables individuals to set aside tax-free savings for future medical expenses. I co-wrote the law that took effect in January 2004 to permit HSAs, and they have become an increasingly popular way to obtain coverage and manage health costs. [. . .] HSA holders or their employers buy a high-deductible insurance plan to take care of large hospital bills, and they use money from their HSA to pay for check-ups and other routine medical expenses. [. . .] They also give patients an incentive to pay attention to what they spend and seek the best deal, in terms of price and quality, which will help bring down the cost of health care.

Transparent pricing doesn't really help much when your insurance plan doesn't cover the cheaper hospital or the cheaper doctor, does it? The last round of conservative-driven reform in the health care industry centered around HMOs and other managed-care plans, which made explicit and rigid the rules limiting where patients could seek treatment. Even under my teachers-union insurance, which is most assuredly not an HMO, I pay quite a bit extra for out-of-network services (some of which, like pathologists, I may not have a choice about). What good does it do me to know I could save my insurance company $10,000 on an operation if I went to a hospital that would cost me thousands out-of-pocket? Am I really going to make that choice?

And I've never understood the conservative fetish for HSAs--they apparently think you have too much insurance. And if only you had less, you'd be healthier, or at least you'd go to the doctor less often. That is just about the worst public health policy I could imagine. I mean, I may have the luxury of deciding that it's not worth fixing the suspension on my 1997 Saturn (it really isn't); I don't have the luxury--none of us should--of deciding that it's not worth seeing the doctor for this or that ailment just in case something worse comes along. And, indeed, it's prevention and preventive care--something HSAs discourage--that is the strongest reform we could make to our health care system. Even if only a small percentage of catastrophic cases could be prevented, the savings to the system would more than make up for the increased cost for wide-spread preventive care.

To be fair, Paul Ryan does support some reasonable reforms; indeed, I've endorsed the idea of pricing transparency as part of a wider set of reforms, and he supports a tax credit on premiums. But he neglects to mention that some of the reforms he supports have downsides. For example, the innocuous-sounding bill to allow small businesses to form "trade associations" and buy health care from cheaper "out-of-state" providers was the infamous "Enzi Bill," a bill that would have allowed employers in one state to avoid that state's laws, laws which might require covering certain conditions or treatments. That bill was opposed by everyone from the AARP to 39 state Attorneys General.

And, to keep being fair, Tammy Baldwin stops short of actually proposing a single-payer system, with the cop-out that "no single health care reform proposal, not a single-payer plan nor the more conservative, employer-based programs, have any chance of gaining the majority of votes necessary for passage at this time." Which is too bad, since now that there is some momentum in Congress for change, Baldwin should take the gloves off and see what she can get done.

In the end, there is no way we can avoid the unpleasant facts: As the only major industrialized nation without some kind of single-payer system, the United States pays double--in terms of GDP and per-capita cost--what other nations do for health care, without double the results. In fact, experts peg the death toll due to underinsurance in this country at between 20,000 and 80,000 annually; how much greater is the drag on our economy from the many hundreds of thousands or millions more who don't die, but just lose days of work? The only solution, in the end, is one which guarantees everyone a certain level of care. HSAs won't do it. A more transparent system of pricing won't do it. Even tax credits on the cost of a premium won't do it.

And while Ryan repeats the standard dire warnings about Canada, I will repeat my plea that we could be more like France--a country you never hear conservatives warn about because single-payer works there, and works well.

Health care is not so expensive because it isn't yet complicted enough, and Ryan's plea for more piecemeal and patchwork answers is the wrong way to go. Instead, let's follow the advice Baldwin offers: Simplify.

Warner Woos Wisconsin: Founder's Day Dinner Wrap-Up

All photos, unless as noted, by my friend and fellow blogger Scott Feldstein, who has them at much better resolution at his place.

It is no secret that former Virginia governor Mark Warner is running for president. So he's doing what candidates do--particularly candidates who are "unemployed," as he kept reminding us during his speech--he's talking to any assemblage of Democrats he can get his hands on. And trying to drum up all the buzz he can.

The buzz is where I come in: A couple of weeks ago I got an email from Warner's Forward Together PAC--and, yes, in introducing Warner, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle did joke about Warner's use of Wisconsin's motto ("Forward!") in the name of his PAC. Nate invited me to attend the Democratic Party of Wisconsin's Founder's Day (née Jefferson-Jackson) Dinner as a guest of the PAC and to blog the event. So here we go . . .

Events like this are always a who's who of the state Dem party, so it was a lot of fun to get to meet or get re-accquanted with some of the big names in the party from around the state. And then it was also good to see my state representative and a few of the candidates for the open Congressional seat in Wisconsin's 8th CD, including Dr. Steve Kagen and Nancy Nusbaum (I also saw but didn't talk to Jamie Wall). There were tables full of goodies, too, including some great merchandise from Russ Feingold's PAC, like a t-shirt with a snake-like phone cord and the tagline "Don't Spy on Me!" (I can't find those online.) I got hit with so many stickers I felt like a race car.

And the place was packed, too, sold out. It shouldn't be that big of a surprise in an election year, but everyone seemed quite overjoyed that that many tickets were sold. It was a good night for the DPW's coffers, I guess.

How much of those full coffers were due to Warner, I don't know. I joined up with him and Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle (that's them on the left, in a photo I took) as they left the extra-special VIP reception before the main event. Warner was mobbed even then, as Doyle tried to get him introduced to some more of the movers and shakers in the party. The speaking part of the night started almost half an hour late, in part because Doyle and Warner couldn't get into the room.



As I ate my buffet meatballs, veggie sticks, and cheese (it is Wisconsin, you know), the speakers for the night got up and did their thing: In order, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (not pictured), Congresswomen Tammy Baldwin and Gwen Moore, Senators Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, and Governor Doyle.

The speakers all made a big deal both about the high attendance at the event (Barrett credited Wisconsin's dissatisfaction with Bush and Republicans, though I doubt any real swing voters were in the room) and the great successes Democrats have had in the state. In particular, they highlighted two results from last week's spring municipal elections: 24 of 32 communities voting to start bring troops home from Iraq now passed, some overwhelmingly (see my take on that) and the election of Democrat (in a non-partisan election against a Republican state representative) Larry Nelson as mayor of Waukesha. That's Larry smiling there in the right in a picture I took; I've known him for a few years, and he's a teacher, a labor leader, and a strong progressive. What makes this important is that the city of Waukesha is the red center of one of the reddest counties in the country, and Larry was able to win with a strong populist message. I do think that bodes well for this fall, and in particular, the campaign of Bryan Kennedy, running for the congressional seat that includes Waukesha, currently held by Jim Sensenbrenner.

But you didn't click on this diary to hear about all of that: You want to hear about Mark Warner. Yes, well, first I want to tell you what Russ Feingold said, since the two were the two presidential candidates in the room. You're probably pretty familiar with Feingold's message, which started and ended with the notion that Democrats need to "stand up" to Bush. He called again for censure (something Herb Kohl conveniently forgot to mention), and for a timetable to bring our troops home from Iraq by the end of this year. And, of course, he talked about the NSA spying scandals and administration stonewalling, although, I will tell you, the best line of the night on that actually came from Tammy Baldwin, who said, "It cannot be a government of the people if the people are kept in the dark."

Warner, as the keynote speaker, was able to do a lot more in his speech, including the biography bits necessary to introduce himself to an audience that didn't know him. In contrast with Russ, he spoke with less fire and passion, but with an equal desire, it seemed, to rid the country of its current leadership and put us back on track. In that way, I think he hit a strong message several times. He kept talking about "seeing further down the road," while Republicans, he said, "put posturing and posing ahead of foresight and follow-through." Part of that biography that Warner stressed is that he was able to look forward in business, starting up the company that went on to become Nextel. He also stressed that as governor of Virginia, he looked toward the future, including strong investments in education and bringing technological development in to replace fading manufacturing ("If they can build it in Bangalore, they can build it in Lebanon, Virginia"). "Politics," he said, "should not be about Left versus Right, but about the future versus the past."

Warner also struck some familiar Democratic foreign-policy themes, saying that "no one thinks it is more important than Democrats to keep America safe," and reminding us that a sound energy policy is a key element of national security. He lamented what has happened in Iraq.

He also said a few things that, I think, shows the influence that Howard Dean's run in 2004 will be having all over the 2008 race. I can't tell you how many times I heard Dean's stump speech in that cycle, so I know it well enough, and in Warner's stump here I heard the familiar themes: "Being called a 'red-state governor' makes me cringe," Warner said, "because the Democratic Party needs to be competitive in 50 states." Even in the foreign policy section, Warner talked about how we need an attitude that will "unite our friends and scare our enemies, not the other way around." Mostly, I was very surprised to hear Warner end with a call to "take our country back."

As it was the DPW's dinner, Warner made sure to reinforce several things. One, of course, is how important it is to re-elect Jim Doyle this fall. He helped to frame some things that will be very important to that race, including Mark Green's identity as a member of a very do-nothing Congress and the importance that the issue of stem cells will play in the election (at least, if Doyle's smart, they will be the campaign issue). He also took the time to remind of why he is a Democrat, even if some might be tempted to call him a "centrist" or "moderate." "I'm a Democrat because," he told us, "the Democratic Party has never stood for the status quo, but for hope and optimism." And he's right, you know; the Republicans have monopolized fear and distrust, and we must get that message of hope and optimism across in all races, at all levels, in all fifty states.

Warner left the stage to a standing ovation (about equivalent to Feingold's standing O earlier), and was immediately mobbed afterwards, by every elected official in the crowd, and a whole lot of everyone else (including civil rights pioneer Vel Phillips). I asked Warner's people how much of this sort of thing--traveling around the country talking to roomsful of Democrats--he was doing. "A lot," I was told. I tried a little bit to gauge the sentiments of the crowd afterwards as well, and everyone seemed to like Warner's message. It's hard, of course, for Wisconsin Democrats to talk about anyone but Russ as a favorite for 2008, but I didn't find anyone who said they hated Warner.

I know that Mark Warner has a strong following on the internet, and now, having met him and heard what is clearly a compelling story, it is easy to see why. Certainly, with a field including the likes of Feingold and Warner, 2008 will be a great year for Democrats.

***

Two last things: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a fair take on the event here. I should also point out that the dinner was live-blogged by Zach Corey at CampusTavern.com. All that time taking notes in class must have paid off, because he's got a pretty accurate rendition of all the speeches: Mark Warner, Jim Doyle, Herb Kohl, Russ Feingold, Gwen Moore, and Tammy Baldwin.