Showbiz For Ugly People: Unscrambling California's Recall Fever

 

<www.sarahepperson.com>


Cheap and tacky bullshit land
Told when to sit don't know where you stand
Too busy recreating the past
To live in the future.

Poor relations to Uncle Sam - 

bears no relation to the country man
Too busy being someone else to be who you really are.

<The Style Council, "Confessions 1-2-3">

<i.>

California's endless recall election is finally winding down today, after weeks of high stakes campaigning. If current polls are accurate, Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom seems on track with survive by a double-digit margin, with roughly 60 percent of voters willing to back him, versus the 38 percent voicing interest in a totally different flavor, Republican Larry Elder.

Those numbers aren't surprising in a state when Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin. Another reminder comes from the return rate for mail-in ballots that went out weeks ago to California's 22 million registered voters. About 35 percent of them are in, with way more coming from Democrats (4.1 million) than Republicans (1.9 million).

Newsom himself won his first election with a landslide margin of 62 percent, and enjoys approval ratings of 57 percent, give or take -- yet barely a month ago, pundits seemed poised to write his political obituary, as Elder's amped up rhetoric made him the frontrunner among 46 candidates seeking the state's top job. 

Just how did we get here after five failed recall attempts? And what does the anticipated outcome say about Elder's and Newsome's leadership styles, or lack thereof, depending on your perspective? For the answers, let's do a deeper dive, and see where it takes us.

<Gavin Newsom:

Wikimedia Commons>

                                                     

"No time to spare - 'spare me a dime'?

The Great Depression is organised crime

Their confessions are written in your blood.

"Kiss your ass an' dreams goodbye
Come back when you've learnt to cry
To busy tryin' to be strong to see how weak you are."

<The Style Council,

"Confessions 1-2-3">

<ii.>

As every political junkie knows, two words sum up Newsom's current predicament: "French Laundry." That's the name of the opulent restaurant in Yountville, CA, where Newsom and his wife were caught dining with officials of the California Medical Association -- in close quarters, indoors, without masks, as they'd constantly been reminding fellow Californians, even while COVID-19 rates were spiking upward for the holidays.

The resulting "Dinnergate" fiasco inspired plenty of howls from the usual mainstream media suspects (cue the New York Times: "Gavin Newsom, What Were You Thinking?"). But the setting proved as much a liability for him, as the timing. With prices starting at $350 a pop, "you need to be rich or have rich friends who are willing to pay the bill," as the Financial Samurai notes, in its overview of the French Laundry (see link below).

If you've got money to burn, there's plenty of options to set it alight, whether you plump for the historic dining room ($850 per person), New Year's Eve dinner ($800 per person), or a night of white truffles and caviar ($1,200 per person). That's before we get to the Governor's bar tab for the night, variously reported at $12,000 to $15,000.

It's not hard to see how such Marie Antoinette-style antics upset people in a state known for its astronomical costs of living, one that accounts for 20 percent of the nation's homeless (151,278 people), who report varying reasons for their plight. Not surprisingly, high rent is number one (68 percent), followed by lack of income (50 percent), poor housing availability (38 percent), and criminal records that cut off access to housing (20 percent).

Yet Newsom saw nothing wrong with his behavior, until the tidal wave of outrage forced him to do what corporate Democrats have done since time immemorial: backpedal, and scramble to play catchup Even so, Newsome seemed flat-footed and flummoxed, especially when pundits suggested that geeked-up Republicans might actually pull this off. 

And then came Larry Elder.

<Larry Elder, Camp Pendleton, 2013:

Public Domain>


 "Somebody smiled on Gavin Newsom and presented California voters with the opportunity to listen to Larry Elder."
<Danny Sragow, Publisher,
The California Target Book>

<iii.>

If Gavin Newsom is the Hapless Warrior, we might dub Larry Elder the Angry Viking. On paper, the leading contender to replace Newsom hardly seems like a fit for the job he craves so openly. He has no government experience, having spent two decades in the talk radio trenches, doing what people like him do best: fanning the grievances of a (mostly) aging white fanbase longing for a simpler time. It's a well-paying gig, and one you can keep forever, so Elder's platform shouldn't surprise anyone.

Abortion? Get rid of it. Texas's newly-enacted Orwellian law suits him fine. How to fix public schools? Give Mom and Dad vouchers. Mask mandates? We don't need them. Medicaid? Abolish it. Protections for pre-existing conditions, and public welfare programs? Scrap them. Let the SOBs stand on their own two feet. Racism? A figment of your imagination. Just pull yourself up by your bootstraps. State-funded healthcare? We don't need it. Let the market handle it.

It's an agenda that feels elastic and simplistic at the same time, since Elder hasn't exactly specified how he'd ever pull it off in a State Assembly, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 60-19, or the State Senate, where they hold an equally lopsided 30-9 edge. My sense is, he'd spend much of his time scheming how to punish his presumed enemies, like some aging mobster trying to hold his turf at any cost.

What's even more troubling, though, is the brittle defensiveness that Elder often shows, whether in trying to fend off some previous color quote coming back to haunt him ("Women know less about men than political issues, economics, and current events": 2000 column), or brushing off when minority voters question why the self-styled "Sage of South Central" hangs out with white nationalists like Stephen Miller, the infamous architect of Trump's brutal immigration policies.

Guess where Miller got his start? On Elder's radio show, of course, a fact that caused him to sputter to Cal Matters: "Why would you bring up Stephen Miller? I'm just wondering what the agenda here is. What's the point? Am I somehow -- what? A Nazi? A fascist?"

How Cal Matters responded, we don't know, because their article (see below) doesn't say. But it reminds me of the saying that politics is "showbiz for ugly people." By that standard, Larry Elder may be the among ugliest to emerge yet from the proverbial swamp.

<iv.>

So what should we make of all this noisy chaos, if Newsom survives? For Californians, the situation should prompt some serious tweaking of a recall law that's barely changed since they adopted it in 1911. The potential for freakish results looms large in a process that needs just 12 percent of registered voters to launch, allows an unlimited number of replacement candidates to run, and requires only a simple majority to win.

For Gavin Newsom, the recall should serve as a wakeup call. As many voters have made clear, from the stories I've seen, they're sticking with him because they don't view Elder's bomb throwing style as a good fit for the world's fifth largest economy. Nor do they see any point in recalling a governor who's entering the final year of his first term in office.

The pandemic politics that landed Newsom in so much hot water now hold the key to his political survival, an irony that needs no further elaboration. Still, Newsom's Dinnergate gaffe should also remind him that perception paces reality. When the overall vibe comes across as, "Do as I say, not as I do," it's not hard to see why  buyer's remorse sets in. Good leaders ignore this reality at their peril, as Newsom did, when his flagship business, PlumpJackGroup, continued to operate its dozen-odd hotels, restaurants and wineries, while Main Street had to shut down.

For Larry Elder and his cultish fanbase, it's hard to imagine a failed recall inspiring any real introspection. Yet if he wants to continue his political career, Elder will have to take California's electoral math into account. Pitching your message to those who already agree with it doesn't seem like a winning formula in a state where Democrats hold such commanding advantages.

Good leaders "read the room," and make adjustments when whatever they're doing -- or saying -- isn't going over. Elder's apparent inability (or unwillingness) to do so raises serious questions about his skill set. It's a drawback that violates "Healey's first rule of politics," as the late British politico defined it: "When you're in a hole, stop digging."

But such foibles carry their share of ironies, as Elder inadvertently acknowledged to the LA Times last week, in responding to criticisms of his "Sage of South Central" tagline as a misguided attempt to buy himself some "street cred":

"I didn't think very much about it. I probably came up with it within a few seconds of being on the air and it stuck. People call me that, but I can't say there's anything deep behind it." 

In a campaign silly season largely defined by his hectoring, high-decibel persona, that simple observation may well have been the most truthful -- and revealing -- thing that Larry Elder has ever said. --The Reckoner

Links To Go:
California Globe
Gavin Newsom's Dinnergate Apology:
https://californiaglobe.com/articles/gov-gavin-newsoms-dinnergate-apology-grows-from-little-white-lie-to-whopper/

Cal Matters: Who Is Larry Elder,

And What He Would Do As Governor?:
https://calmatters.org/politics/2021/08/newsom-recall-candidates-larry-elder-interview/

CNN: "Women Exaggerate The Problem Of Sexism":
Top California Recall Candidate Larry Elder
Has A Long History Of Making 

Disparaging Remarks About Women:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/19/politics/kfile-ca-recall-larry-elder-on-women/index.html

Downtown Streets Team
The Truth About Homelessness:
https://streetsteam.org/causesMythsMisconceptions?gclid=Cj0KCQjwkIGKBhCxARIsAINMioILBoWzfdw55Gt5jilGkCgHEtGXjhSMU1IdWfLOFVXUAQKdxQCyxWAaAk8sEALw_wcB

Financial Samurai
How Rich Do You Have To Be 
To Dine At French Laundry Like Gavin Newsom?
https://www.financialsamurai.com/how-rich-to-dine-at-french-laundry/

Los Angeles Times
Larry Elder And The Danger

Of The "Model Minority" Candidate:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-13/larry-elder-model-minority

What Special Election Lessons? The Script Didn't Flip

<"Trust Us, Really..."

The Reckoner>

 <i.>

Our mainstream news media wasted little time clearing its collective throat Tuesday, once the dust settled from Ohio's Congressional special elections last week. No such drama for the Squawker and myself, as we also did our civic duty, in helping to whittle an eight-candidate field of city commissioners to six, which we'll winnow down to three seats in November.

I felt pleased that one candidate I particularly disliked wound up among the two who didn't make the cut. She sent a mailer that sounded like a political version of the dating game. It consisted of six bullet points, starting with this moth-eaten chestnut: "To be a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars."

It reminded me of so many personal ads back in the day, from people whose chief desire amounted to "Going bowling/walking on the beach/walking in the woods with my mate." Right, who doesn't? But I'd skip to the next one, thinking, "Tell me about you, not your hobbies. I need more substance here." Evidently, my fellow voters thought likewise of Ms. Cliche Obvious Pants's precious bullet points.

The takeaways from Ohio seem more elusive. The 15th District Republican race offered little drama, as Trump-anointed ex-coal industry lobbyist Mike Carey swept an 11-candidate field. He garnered 18,655 votes to 6,724 for his nearest rival, Jeff Lane, a sufficient show of strength for a 12-county district that includes sections of Columbus, plus small towns and suburbs south and west of the city. He's favored this fall over Democrat Allison Russo, who netted an impressive 13,585 votes herself. We'll see how that turns out.

Carey played to Trump's cultish base, as evidenced by the photos I saw of him cradling an AR-15! (Or maybe it's an M-16...I can't tell, offhand.) Subtle, it ain't, but the Trump experience was never about that, anyway. Still, a lot of mainstream media headlines seemingly hedged their bets, coming off a Trump-backed candidate's defeat in another special election, in Texas.

Notable examples included the Canton Repository ("Trump Secures Win in 15th Congressional District With Mike Carey, But Low Turnout Clouds Picture"), and Jewish Insider ("An Early Test Of Trump's Clout In Ohio Special Election"). Even one of my favorite blogs, Down With Tyranny, raised a similar hope in its headline ("Will Trump Be A Double Loser In Ohio Tuesday?").

We know the answer: not really, amid continuing hype of "Republican civil war," and a "Trump resistance within the GOP," but I'm not seeing it here. For now, empty suits like Carey see a brighter future in lining up to kiss The Donald's ring. It beats ending up on the outs, as Liz Cheney has discovered.

Yes, turnout for the 15th District race was pitiful (only four Republicans, besides Carey, broke the 5,000-vote mark). Even so, Trump continues to cast a shadow over our democracy, because he has the money, the juice and enough warm bodies willing to aid and abet his quest. Short of his death, illness or imprisonment, we aren't wrenching free of him any time soon, especially if his army continues to reward the behaviors associated with him.

<"Silly Season TV":

The Reckoner>

<ii.>

The results of the Democratic race in the 11th District, consisting mainly of Akron, Euclid and Cleveland, OH, are way more troubling. Establishment-backed favorite Shontel Brown eked out a narrow win over progressive firebrand Nina Turner by a roughly 4,000 vote margin (37,666 to 33,420 votes), while two other candidates barely registered, with less than 1,000 votes apiece.

The postmortem crowing is running on overdrive, as the Washington Post's headline made clear: "Nina Turner's Loss in Ohio Means Biden Doesn't Need to Keep Caving to the Left." Politico fell in line, as well, with this summary: "Establishment Prevails As Brown Beats Turner In Ohio Special Election." I'll spare you further examples.

Turner's principal offense seems to have been her derisive summary of Biden's march to the nomination last year: "It's like saying to somebody, 'You have a bowl of shit in front of you, and all you've got to do is eat half of it instead of the whole thing.' It's still shit." That commentary came in the wake of Bernie Sanders's second unsuccessful Presidential campaign, on which she served as his national co-chair.

Such comments raised the ire of Biden ally Jim Clyburn,  who didn't like being called "stupid" for not demanding more from his longtime buddy, as Turner stated during an appearance with hip-hop artist Killer Mike. Clyburn cited this moment as his reason for getting so personally involved, though I suspect it came down to a baser impulse: She doesn't belong here, because she backed Bernie. She led protests against Hillary Clinton's nomination. Let's put this firmly gal in her place.

The resulting race was as dispiriting as American politics gets,  complete with barrages of slick attack ads, charges and counter charges, super PAC spending orgies, and enough mud to keep the Mississippi River flowing for decades (climate change be damned). 

Clyburn's intervention stinks like the usual brutish machine politics, when The Kids (that's us, remember?) dare to question The Adults, like him and his crowd ("Sometimes, I have real problems trying to figure out what progressive means," a statement that revealed way more than he wanted it to, I suspect).

I know little about Shontel Brown. However, her campaign's go-along-to-get-along themes, coupled with her eagerness to hoover up special interest money from Republicans like New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft -- who donated $1 million to Trump's 2016 inauguration -- don't bode well for her future constituents. At least, those who can't drop a sufficiently heavy donation to buy the appropriate access to her conscience, such as it is.

It's the reason why critics like State Rep. Juanita Bryant ask, "As a Democrat who has helped Democrats all over the state, we cannot condone Democrats that are accepting money associated with Trump. How can we have someone who is the party chair and says that she's a Democrat's Democrat but is accepting Republican money?" 

It's a fair question, one that Brown will undoubtedly do her best to avoid answering. For the depressing nitty gritty, read "Lessons From The Nina Turner Race?" (see below). The donors lining up to buy the seat read, as you might expect, like a Who's Who of corporate America -- the same one, of course, that's busily donating again to Republican insurrectionists, after indulging in the usual 30-second spectacle of public moral outrage. You get the picture.

<iii.>

At the same time, the results show the need for progressives to work smarter. Hard work alone isn't enough when you're up against reactionary forces willing to spend whatever it takes to buy a seat. It's also fair to ask if Turner's dream was a realistic fit for a district where Hillary Clinton posted her strongest Ohio margin in 2016 (68 percent), and Biden ran equally well in 2020 (73 percent).

But if I were Clyburn and company, I wouldn't crow too long. The race also highlighted a continuing generational divide in a party whose senior leaders are, well seniors, in their seventies and eighties, from Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (70), at the lower end, to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at the upper end (81). If I were Brown, I wouldn't crow too loudly, either. For all the dirty politicking on her behalf, Tuesday's result suggests she has a long way to go, before everybody feels the love.

"In the decisive Super Tuesday contests that effectively ended the Sanders campaign, the Vermont senator won an estimated 63 percent of 18-29 year olds and 42 percent of voters between 30 and 44," The Week notes, in its own commentary (see below)." These voters want sweeping change and aren't necessarily as put off as older voters are by the progressive left's broadsides against the Democratic establishment."

The recent scramble over last month's expiration of the eviction memorandum perfectly illustrates the last point of the above quote. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in late June that it preferred future extensions to go through Congress alone, yet Biden waited -- literally -- until the eleventh hour before the July 31 expiration date, before asking Congress to try and pass something.

How does this happen, with Democratic control of the Presidency, and both houses of Congress? Landlords, the last time I checked, aren't the most popular public figures. Shouldn't Democrats relish the idea of picking a fight with them? Sure, it's great that Biden rolling out a new 60-day extension, based on the pandemic, but it shouldn't have taken a public sleepover by Missouri Democrat Cori Bush to push him that way.

Such missteps make the Clyburns of the world look less like geniuses, and more like the Michael Corleone seen in The Godather, Part III (1990), as the aging wise guy struggles to hang onto his empire, while he gropes for a purpose beyond...well, continuing for the sake of it. But I'll give the Godfather this much: at least he sprinkled a little bit of sugar on that brown steaming bowl, if only once in awhile, when he wanted to win somebody over. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (The Dark Money Dance Continues):
Down With Tyranny

Lessons From The Nina Turner Race?:
https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/lessons-from-the-nina-turner-race

The Intercept 

In The Race Against Nina Turner,

GOP Donors Fund Shontel Brown:

https://theintercept.com/2021/07/27/nina-turner-shontel-brown-ohio-gop/

The Week

Democratic Leaders Should Think Twice

Before Crushing Progressive Primary Challenges:
https://theweek.com/politics/1003286/why-democratic-leaders-should-think-twice-before-crushing-progressive-primary

Massachusetts Primary Fallout: Two Races, Two Object Lessons For Progressives

<"Puppet On A String"

The Reckoner>

<i.>

Last week, Massachusetts voters hit the polls for their party's primary elections. In the most closely-watched races, Democratic Congressman Richard Neal and Senator Ed Markey romped to renomination, for different reasons. Both races offer object lessons for progressives willing to take notes, as they work on broadening their reach nationally.

For progressives, Neal seems like the perfect poster child for everything that's wrong with the current system, starting with his entrenched status (31 years), and readiness to act as a corporate water carrier. Not surprisingly, the House Ways & Means Committee's chairman stood out in 2019 as Congress's top collector of corporate PAC (Political Action Committee) donations, The American Prospect notes.

All told, Neal hoovered up $1.4 million from familiar suspects like AT&T, Comcast, Facebook, General Motors, Google, Lockheed Martin -- just read the list below for yourself. It's enlightening, to say the least, especially you consider issues like Neal's successful crusade against a proposal to limit surprise medical bills.

Surprise billing occurs when patients use services outside their network, often resulting in thousands and thousands of dollars in sticker shock. It can happen despite your best efforts, as Sonji Wilkes discovered, when she racked up a $50,000 bill for her son's hemophilia treatment.

Although the Wilkeses had chosen a hospital in their network, they didn't realize it had outsourced their son's intensive care treatment to a physicians' group that didn't accept any insurance, Washington Monthly reported. Their insurer also refused to pay, shoving the family down a dark financial rabbit hole. Eventually, their bill got dismissed as part of a class-action lawsuit, but by then, the damage had been done.

Such horror stories had seemingly generated sufficient late last year to pass the Lower Health Care Costs Act, until Neal -- and his ranking Republican counterpart, Kevin Brady, another corporate PAC money collector -- went to work. The language gradually changed from limiting surprise costs (subject to appeal), and requiring insurers to pay, to a mixture of voluntary negotiations and arbitration as the preferred solution.

Corporate interests love arbitration for the reasons progressives loathe it. Arbitrators typically hail from the industries they oversee, which means their buddies' interests are more likely to prevail. Arbitration allows companies to hide their misdeeds, since it's a private process, with no public review to determine if the arbitrator got it right. For consumers caught in this bear trip, there are no juries, no appeals, and no legal recourse, once the gavel bangs down. Small wonder that critics like Zach Cooper, a professor of health policy and economics at Yale, harshly denounced the final product: "It's a plague on both our houses."

<"Party Of Lowered Expectations"

The Reckoner>

<ii.>

No matter. Despite a spirited challenge from Holyoke, MA Mayor Alex Morse -- who focused on Neal's corporate ties, and support for ideas his opponent deemed impractical, like the Green New Deal, and Medicare For All -- voters apparently had no second thoughts. Neal took 83,457 votes (58.8%) to 58,390 (41.2%) for Morse, who even lost his hometown (4,366-3,940). 

That had to hurt, I'm sure, when you consider that Neal showed no remorse for his practices, as he made clear during a debate between them: "If you contribute to my campaign, you're buying into my agenda. I'm not buying into yours." So much for money as a medium of exchange, I suppose. 

Presumably, then, we might take this statement from Neal's victory speech with a barrel of salt: "We will put legislative action behind the powerful words of the recognition of racial and economic disparities that still confront America. We must address concentrated wealth in this country and level the playing field for everyone."

Markey also won decisively, with 766,134 votes (55.44%), to 617,961 for Joe Kennedy III (44.6%). Much of the drama centered on whether Joe III, as Camelot's latest acolyte, had offered a convincing rationale for his candidacy beyond, "It's the next step up the ladder," and "I'm a Kennedy, you owe it to me, what other reason do you need?"

Ironically, given the mainstream media's penchant for "horse race" style coverage ("Who won, who lost? Who's ahead, who's behind?"), it wrongly identified Joe III as the first Kennedy to lose an election. That milestone actually belongs to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, who fell short in a 1986 Congressional race. So rest easy, Joe III fans. He's out of politics for now, but at least he's not the punchline of a trivia question...yet.

Markey's victory seems all the more surprising, since he's taken stands that leave him out of step with today's Democratic Party. That includes voting with Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden for the infamously draconian crime bill of 1994, and the 2016 nominee, Hillary Clinton, for the Iraq War, in 2003. Not exactly a good place to sit these days.

Yet Markey's full-throated support for the Green New Deal enabled him to decisively outflank Kennedy, overtake him in polls, and generate the excitement among young voters, in particular, to lift him across the finish line. He also benefited from Joe III's inability to explain why voters should elevate him from the U.S. House, where he'd carved out a low-key, yet undistinguished career, to the hallowed halls of the Senate. 

Joe III's failure to frame a winning rationale naturally prompted lots of sour grapes and raspberries from the usual anonymous suspects, like the consultant who claimed: "The Markey campaign did a masterful job convincing voters Ed is someone is not."  Maybe so, maybe not. But I have a simpler response. If you can't really explain why you should get the job....maybe you shouldn't get the job. 

<Self-Explanatory...
The Reckoner>

<iii.>

So what are the big takeaways here? Start with the obvious: timidity doesn't always equal success. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said as much in 2019, when she gave Markey a crucial endorsement credited with boosting his viability in the race. She cited Markey as one of the few established figures to show any interest in her ideas, after her election to Congress. 

In AOC's eyes, Markey is "not just resting on his record of the past, but he's aggressively pursuing an agenda for the future." That, she argued, "is what a progressive is, and that's what progressivism is all about." Markey summed it up in his own distinct fashion after winning his primary race: 

 “March in the streets, protest, run for school committee or the city council or the state legislature—and win. But don’t just challenge the status quo, dismantle it. Take things over. When they say ‘slow down,’ go faster. When they say ‘not now,’ start that day. When they say ‘not that way,’ redraw the map. When they say you’re too young, show up with your friends. Every reason the critics and cynics offer to give up or give in is proof positive that you should push forward—and hard."

Think about the long game. It's never only about one campaign, or one election. If nothing else, Richard Neal's win shows how tough it is to topple an entrenched incumbent. Unlike recent peers who lost their primaries (like Elliot Engel in New York), Neal didn't bring a knife to his particular gunfight, having amassed a $4 million war chest. Clearly, he came prepared, and ready to play; so should we. In practice, it can take two, three or four tries to pick off someone so well-situated Any strategy for change should take this reality into account.

We should expect the neoliberal establishment will fight dirty to keep control, and plan accordingly. Morse learned this lesson the hard way, when the University of Massachusetts Amherst's College Democrats dis-invited him to future events in a letter that hinted darkly of him making improper sexual advances on students. It's a classic homophobic trope, but one that quickly gained ground after the college paper published the letter. The timing certainly proved convenient, as Morse's internal numbers showed Neal polling at 45 percent (see link below).

The situation rapidly escalated into all-out attacks, including a $1 million ad blitz by a pro-Neal Super PAC that claimed Morse had sex with college students. The shadow group apologized, claiming the ads had "accidentally" gone out to radio stations, even as they "accidentally" continued airing right through Election Day. In the end, no victims ever surfaced, because they never existed.

Innuendo-laden as they were, the ads served their purpose by weaponizing Morse's sexuality, throwing less discerning voters off the scent of Neal's dark money fixations (as well as turning thoughtful people off politics for good -- the kind we need to challenge creeps like him). It's one of the ugliest examples of this gambit that I can remember, and shouldn't go unnoticed in a future campaign. After all, if this is what Neal does when he wins decisively, what'll he actually do in a close race? And what does that say about his character, or lack of it? 

We should also continue pressing for accountability from the institutions that let Neal slip off the hook for this surgically orchestrated smear campaign. That includes the state party officials who solemnly vowed to investigate the students' conduct, even as it advised them to delete emails showing links between the two sides, and the media, whose "he-said, she-said" coverage failed to convey what was really going on.

We should continue creating alternatives to get the results we're after. Staying tethered to the Democratic Party isn't the only viable option, nor is it the only option, as progressives have realized, as they elect more candidates like AOC, and Jamaal Bowman, who knocked off Engel. AOC recognized as much by withholding her dues to the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee), which notoriously requires anyone it helps to use only its consultants and staff, thereby ensuring that the dependence remains permanent. The appearance of issue-driven progressive groups like Indivisible, Justice Democrats, and the Sunrise Movement is one of the most exciting and positive developments in recent years, for three reasons. 

First, such groups offer an alternative to sticking with a Democratic Party structure that talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk. Second, they provide resources that insurgent candidates often struggle to muster on their own. Third, they offer a rallying point for supporters, as the Sunrise Movement showed, by making 350,000 calls for Morse at the height of the smear campaign against him. And, while those efforts weren't enough to tip the balance, without them, Morse's challenge would have been snuffed out before it started, along with his public life.

Groups like Justice Democrats can also serve as a pressure point, by raising questions that established parties and politicians often prefer to duck: How does your embrace of PAC money square with the rhetoric you're dishing out? If your record is really in sync with our ideas, what examples can you give? What have you done for us lately? What will you do tomorrow, and how do we know you'll actually follow through? '

Even if we don't win this race, or that one, knowing that the uncomfortable questions won't stop coming will put a spoke in the "don't ask, don't tell" game that both major parties often like to play. Raising them also puts the media on notice that we want more beyond the "he said, she said"/"horse race" coverage that leaves the larger issues safely untouched, and allow the "don't ask, don't tell" merry-go-round to keep on spinning.

Above all else, we should continue to working to put more people in power that will actually do what we want, at the federal, state and local levels. Scoring policy is more likely when you're working with people who seem genuinely committed to making them happen, and not settling for anything less, as Ed Markey stated in his election night victory speech:

"The time to be timid is past. The age of incrementalism is over. Now is our moment to think big, to build big, to be big. This is what this election is all about. This is what this moment demands.” 

I couldn't have said it better. -- The Reckoner

Links To Go Go (Hurry, Hurry,

Hoover Up All That Dark Money):

American Prospect

Richard Neal Is Number One

In Corporate PAC Donations:

https://prospect.org/power/richard-neal-number-one-in-corporate-pac-donations/

Jacobin

Alex Morse: "I Would Be 

One Of The Few Democrats

To Stand Up To The Democratic Party":

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/08/alex-morse-richard-neal-congress-massachusetts

Politico: Why Joe Kennedy's Senate Campaign Flopped:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-joe-kennedy-senate-campaign-005621788.html

Sludge: Richard Neal Took Big Bucks...

https://readsludge.com/2020/05/05/neal-took-big-bucks-from-lobbyists-while-killing-a-surprise-medical-bills-fix/

The Intercept
Massachusetts Hopeful Alex Morse
Couldn't Overcome Homophobic Smear:
https://theintercept.com/2020/09/02/alex-morse-primary-result-richard-neal/

The Nation
Ed Markey Has A Message For Democrats...
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/ed-markey-progressive-aoc/

Washington Monthly

Why Congress Can't Stop Surprise Medical Bills

https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/april-may-june-2020/why-congress-cant-stop-surprise-medical-bills/

Nice Work, If You Can Get It: Team Biden Circles The Wagons

The Shape Of Things To Come?

https://nypost.com/2019/07/05/joe-biden-keeps-making-things-worse-for-himself/

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One of the oldest, sickest, oft-repeated jokes that America plays on its citizens is the notion that it's some kind of meritocracy. At some point in our lives, we all learned that simply wasn't true, whether that lesson came in junior high -- when we watched the popular kids pick each other for their baseball teams, and leave us standing, way last, in the outfield -- or in high school, where the spoiled jerk who always had a blonde on each arm, and his first car at 16, went on to become a high-profile CFO, courtesy of his family name, and/or connections. (My own favorite anecdote is the star basketball player who earned an ACT composite score that fell 50 percent below the desired minimum, which didn't prevent him from graduating.)

Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but not by half. As over the top as the above images seem, I'd argue the need to believe in a meritocracy is an essential ingredient of our social DNA, even if the reality doesn't match up. It's a belief that drives many a public policy debate, like the infamous Clinton-era welfare overhauls of the 1990s -- which essentially arose from the notion that the undeserving had out-hustled and overtaken the truly needy. That the needy who remained on the rolls would now have to live with scaled-down benefits, and no end of restrictions -- like work requirements, for instance -- was incidental to the whole exercise.

Which brings us to Joe Biden's troubled offspring, Hunter, and uncle, James Biden, who've been reaping a lot of negative news this week for the putative Democratic front-runner. That status seems shaky at the moment, though it will depend on how many other shoes start raining down. The 2014 photo that's surfaced of Joe golfing with Hunter and his Ukrainian business partner, presumably, will do little to help the cause.

In one sense, the avalanche of revelations of Hunter Biden's unorthodox business dealings triggered by Trump's forthcoming impeachment proceedings amount to business as usual. This is how Washington works, the talking heads on TV wearily intone. You get along to go along, blah-blah-blah. It's not what you know, blah-blah-blah, it's who you know, blah-blah-blah. No, it's who knows you. And so on, and so forth. Wash, rinse, repeat.

In yet another sense, you can feel a perverse note of empathy for Hunter, who toiled in the shadow of his far more illustrious brother, Beau Biden -- who seemed headed for a glorious political ride, only to have brain cancer cut it brutally short. At one point, Hunter's life seemed to have skidded so far down, that he convinced someone to pull some strings to get him into the U.S. Naval Reserve at 42, well beyond the age that military recruiters typically desire. Yet even with that helping hand, Hunter Biden washed out of the U.S. Navy as quickly as he'd arrived.

Given Hunter's apparent lack of discernible talent for anything in particular, it's not surprising that he determined, early on, to cash in on his family connections. What else could he really offer? It's a similar rationale that the villainous boxing manager, Maish Rennick, voices to his fallen protege, in the climactic scene of Requiem For A Heavyweight: "You're not a winner anymore, Mountain. There's only one thing left. Let's make some money from the losing."

Of course, Hunter came out of his deals slightly better than the banged-up Mountain Rivera, starting right out of law school, when he picked up a $100,000 retainer as a "consultant" to the credit card giant, MBNA, one of many corporate entities located in the Bidens' home state of Delaware. Not all of his ventures succeeded, as you'll see from the National Review timeline below, but nevertheless, it didn't take long for the Bidens' deals to reach the seven-figure-plus range. The deals came rolling in, goosed by foreign countries eager to buy the access they desired, in order to push their own agendas.

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Again, it's all part of a larger climate where neoconservative and neoliberal offspring alike float along an oil slick of entitlement, whose skids were arguably greased long ago by the likes of Buckley v. Valeo, the infamous 1976 Supreme Court decision that slammed the brakes on campaign spending limits by countering, "Hey, kids, corporations and dollar bills are people, too." The coup de grace came along in 2010, with the Citizens United ruling, one that opened the floodgates for unlimited campaign spending -- and spectacles like the dark money group that spent $22 million to jam Brett Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court (including $17 million alone that came from one anonymous donor).

This, of course, is precisely the problem with the Bidens, and for that matter, all who came before them -- the Clintons, the Bushes, and so on, and so forth. Wash, rinse, repeat. In such a climate, it's hardly surprising that Biden's defenders are furiously pumping out any number of shaky defenses, ranging from the classic "ya got nothing on us" bit ("None of the activities were illegal, per se"), to the "matter of degree" line ("Trump's abuses of power are far worse, and far more damaging"), to the "zombie apocalypse" credo ("If Biden falls, we'll get stuck with four more years of Trump"). As any quick glance at the mainstream media will tell you, Biden has plenty of allies, all doggedly pumping out variations on the above themes with the megaphones that their various platforms provide them. Or, as my late father put it, "One crow doesn't peck another."

But I still see too many fatal flaws in this line of thinking. For one thing, it's hard to take Team Biden's messge ("Eat your spinach, vote your head, not your heart, blah-blah-blah") seriously, when it's obvious that his family has never done likewise. For another, voters have wearied of the constant commingling of business, pleasure and policy that characterizes so many neoconservative and neo-liberal side projects. Team Biden is crawling with lobbyists, like his so-called climate adviser, Heather Zichal, who earned $1.1 million from her ties to the liquified natural gas industry, an energy option that -- not coincidentally -- the Obama administration avidly encouraged. With these sorts of characters lurking behind the curtain, how can you seriously expect a Biden Presidency, should one ever materialize, to tackle the global dumpster fire of climate change? If you believe that the link doesn't matter, you're a more optimistic bugger than I, but I digress.

The final irony, though, is that nominating someone like Biden will repeat the error of 2016, when Trump repeatedly called out Hillary Clinton's political and business baggage to his own perverse advantage by saying, "You think I'm so bad? Well, look at her! You don't know who's lurking behind her curtain! At least you know who's lurking behind mine!" This is why simply moaning about Trump's dark, divisive nature, won't stick against him, in and of itself. The people who chose him in 2016 are well aware of his flaws, for the most part, but wanted someone to blow up the system. That tendency is amply documented. Now imagine them looking at someone like Biden, who epitomizes the "swamp creature" that they so despise -- the same kid who always got the pitcher's mound in junior high, the same rich jerk who got the shiny new car and the blondes on each arm. it's not hard to guess how they'll react, and not hard to imagine Trump gleefully rubbing his palms together: "Oh, boy, I get to muddy the waters again! I can't wait!"

Time will tell how this latest mushrooming narrative of scandal plays out, but the war clouds currently swirling above Team Biden remind me of an equally troubled nominee, Warren G. Harding, from the Roaring Twenties. Like Biden, Harding was a terrible public speaker, one whose utterances made little sense in cold print. Like Biden, Harding's 1920 presidential campaign rested largely on the idea that the nation needed to be soothed, not challenged to greater heights. Feral capital pirates and white-sheeted Ku Klux Klanners had nothing to fear from him, because he simply wished they would go away, so he wouldn't have to hold them accountable for their misdeeds.

Unlike Biden -- who's 0 for 2 in the presidential box score -- Harding rode to the White House, flanked by a group of shadowy opportunists -- some on the government payroll, like Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall, others preferring a lower-key role, like the ever-resourceful go-between, Jess Smith -- who wasted no time cashing in their political IOUs, and cranking up the side deals they hoped would make them ever more rich, and ever more powerful. The cascade of scandals took a physical and emotional toll on Harding, who died in 1923. His name remains forever associated with scandal, cronyism and corruption. 

Historians have argued the degree of Harding's competency and culpability for his "Ohio gang"'s misdeeds ever since, though the debate has hardly budged his ranking near the bottom of American presidents, a place that Trump may eventually overtake. Yet even more forgiving biographers, like Robert K. Murray, remain adamant about one thing -- the need to take accountability, once things head south, as he suggests in his 1969 book, The Harding Era 1921-1923: Warren G. Harding And His Administration. 

"In the American political system, there is no such thing as an innocent bystander in the White House," said Murray, in part. "By his inaction, he forfeited whatever chance he had to maintain the integrity of his position and salvage a favorable image for himself and his administration. As it was, the subsequent popular and scholarly negative verdict was inevitable, if not wholly deserved." It's a point that Team Biden and its defenders, such as they are, would do well to ponder, whenever the next shoe happens to drop. Or if they actually make it to the White House.--The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,
Before The Bidens Beat You To The Post)

National Review
Hunter Biden: The Most Comprehensive Timeline:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/hunter-biden-comprehensive-timeline/

Post-Bulletin
Normal Is What Got Us Here:
https://www.postbulletin.com/opinion/columnists/normal-is-what-got-us-here/article_3da0a11a-cb37-11e9-99d9-d386e4cc3469.html

Skafish:
Disgracing The Family Name:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=974DvCkUtEQ

Sludge Climate
Biden's Climate Adviser
Earned $1 Million From Natural Gas Company:
https://readsludge.com/2019/05/10/bidens-climate-adviser-earned-1-million-from-natural-gas-company/

The Continued Selling Out of America

You think NAFTA was bad, go check out the Trans-Pacific Trade Deal that Obamas is busy with....

Obama is busy selling out America to China....

Xi-Obama summit opens new chapter in trans-Pacific cooperation


The “Trans-Pacific Partnership”: Obama’s Secret Trade Agreement Will Push the Deindustrialization of America into Overdrive

--The Squawker

The Same as Bush Really

Both parties, as I have said before, are teamed together for tyranny, globalism and the destruction of the US economy.....

Hmmm: Nixon wiretaps an office and gets removed from office--forced to resign.

Obama wiretaps an entire nation and it's business as usual. Well, Bush started the trend....

See where this is going? Perhaps they want you to know they are listening so more will be afraid and will be silent--The Squawker