The Deal with Russ Feingold's new advocacy arm of Progressives United (Run, Russ, Run)

Our favorite potential candidate to run against the President in the 2012 Democratic Presidential Primary continues to do the peoples' work. And do so very effectively. What we like most about this new advocacy group is the way the former Senator from Wisconsin is going to manage the reporting. This type of organization, a 501(c)(4), can spend and raise an unlimited amounts of money and do so without disclosing the identities of the individuals and/or organizations who donate. This is not the Russ way. He will walk the talk. The tight disclosure standards he has put in place will set contribution limits and allow for public access to the identities of all funds raised and spent.

Transparency of money in politics. There's a concept.

The following article comes to us c/o The Huffington Post. It closes by stating Feingold and his people will be deciding on whether to run for the open WI Senate seat left by Sen. Herb Kohl by the end of the Labor Day weekend holiday.

The Democrat Deal was made aware earlier this month that this is not precisely case. The former Senator was a great Senator and would undoubtedly serve with equal distinction if re-elected. However, there are different dynamics afoot.

Democrats are more and more vocal about their displeasure with the Presidents performance. The recent sell-out to the Tea Party controlled Congress is a palpable case in point. It is no longer just the progressives and party activists who are clamoring for an alternative to the President in the 2012 Democratic Primary. Presently, the majority of all Democrats want a primary challenger. Among the field of viable men and women who could step into history and reclaim the Democrat Party and reclaim America for working families and the middle class, - one name has been gathering the most buzz: Russ Feingold.

To the people of Wisconsin, we agree, Russ would be a stellar choice for the Senate. But we ask you, for the sake of our country, help us send your prodigal son to the White House. It is time for a democrat in the White House, it is time for Russ Feingold for President.

for the original Huffington Post article go here.
for the unofficial Russ Feingold for President 2012 website go here.

Russ Feingold Expands Progressives United, Launches Advocacy Operation
by Amanda Terkel
WASHINGTON -- Former Wisconsin senator Russ Feingold is expanding his Progressives United operation, launching a 501(c)(4) and a new website on Monday morning. The organization will now consist of a political action committee for political work and a nonprofit for advocacy efforts. And although a 501(c)(4) is allowed to spend and raise unlimited amounts of undisclosed money, Feingold is promising to practice what he preaches by setting up strict disclosure requirements and contribution limits for his group.

Feingold launched Progressives United in February. Since then, it has raised more than $2 million. The organization was designed to support progressive candidates at the local, state and national levels, as well as hold the media and elected officials accountable on combating corporate influence in politics.

The PAC has raised more than $200,000 for the Democratic candidates in the Wisconsin state senate recall elections, and it organized a campaign calling on President Obama to fire General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt as the head of his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

The new nonprofit arm will allow the group to do more advocacy work, allowing the PAC to concentrate on political work. The PAC will be posting new endorsement criteria for candidates and asking supporters to nominate possible individuals they would like to see Progressives United endorse.

"It's clear people are fed up with the way corporations are running our politics and our government. Progressives United is taking the next step to fight back," said Progressives United Executive Director Cole Leystra.

Feingold has been one of the Democratic Party's most vocal critics on the issue of whether to accept corporate contributions.

Speaking at the annual Netroots Nation conference for progressive bloggers and activists in June, Feingold said the Democratic Party was "in danger of losing its soul" if it did not adopt stricter regulations on campaign contributions. He singled out Priorities USA, a new Democratic independent expenditure group, or super PAC, that is allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts of corporate cash for political purposes.
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The nonprofit that Feingold is forming, known as a 501(c)(4) in the U.S. tax code, is allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts of undisclosed money as long as its primary focus is not politics.

But Feingold is placing extra restrictions on his new organization. It will disclose 100 percent of its income and will not knowingly accept any money from corporations, national banks, labor unions, federal contractors or federal or state lobbyists. It is also swearing off independent expenditures, electioneering and the "issue ads" that are popular with outside groups. No contributions above $10,000 per individual per year will be accepted.

The group says it is also putting up firewalls between Progressives United Inc., the nonprofit, and the Progressives United PAC. While they will share resources and staff, they will be financed and fundraised for separately, and they will engage in distinct activities. On Aug. 1 of congressional and presidential election years, all non-administrative operations will be conducted and financed through the PAC.

On Monday, Progressives United supporters will receive an email announcing the launch of the new website.

"With elections coming up in Wisconsin next week and around the country soon -- and with corporate money already flowing into politics through shadowy front groups like Karl Rove's Crossroads -- we had to launch our new website right now to get these important grassroots tools into activists' hands as soon as possible," reads the message.

Feingold has said that he will decide by Labor Day whether he will run for retiring Sen. Herb Kohl's (D-Wis.) open U.S. Senate seat in the 2012 elections. Progressives United staff insisted that the new announcement is an extension of the senator's long fight for campaign finance reform, not any indication about his political future.

The Case for a Primary Challenge Against Obama

 c/o The Atlantic

July 8, 2011
by Conor Friedersdorf

It looks like Obama is to Boehner's left..  Perhaps a smidge. (photo credit: Reuters)

Ask a typical tea partier when his discontent with the political establishment began. Often as not he'll point to the Bush Administration. The list of grievances is long: the profligate spending, the new entitlement for prescription drugs, the Harriet Miers nomination, the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Most tea partiers now think compassionate conservatism itself was ill-conceived.

So where were all the protest rallies back when Bush was president? It's a question tea party critics love to ask. The implication is that the protest movement is motivated by partisanship and antagonism to Obama more than principle. In fact, discontent on the right during the Bush years was genuine. Tongues were held for reasons including these: a desire to support the president in the war on terror, misguided partisan loyalty, a conservative movement that acted as unprincipled apologists and attack dog enforcers for the president, and perhaps more than anything else, a dearth of options. Circa 2003, when Medicare Part D was enacted, a primary challenge against Bush was unthinkable. What was an upset conservative to do, vote for John Kerry?

By their lights, he'd have been worse.

Liberals should understand that predicament. It's exactly the one in which they now find themselves. President Obama won't face a serious primary challenge prior to Election 2012, but that isn't because he has governed as the left would've wanted. He is trying to keep American troops in Iraq beyond his own withdrawal deadline. His executive power claims are every bit as bad, and sometimes more extreme, than the excesses the left blasted when Bush was responsible for them. The prison at Guantanamo Bay remains open. Warantless surveillance on innocent Americans continues. Whistleblowers are in greater legal jeopardy than they were. The economy is terrible. Health-care reform was more corporatist than progressives would've preferred. We're now waging an illegal war in Libya that'll cost over a billion dollars, even as we prepare deep cuts to social welfare programs. Despite promises to the contrary, the FBI is still raiding medical marijuana dispensaries in jurisdictions where they're legal under state law. Promised advances in government transparency haven't materialized.

The left would be justified in lashing out, given the Grand-Canyon-sized chasm that separates the rhetoric of candidate Obama from the behavior of President Obama. By and large, however, they've kept quiet about the abuses and unlawful behavior of the man who occupies the White House, with a few notable exceptions, compared to their volume and passion during his predecessor's tenure. That's partly because they've focused their attacks on the tea party, and politicians like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. The truth of the matter is that even if a conservative like Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, the soft spoken advocate of a truce on social issues, won the nomination, the vast majority of liberals would support President Obama's reelection anyway.

It is their feeling that they've got nowhere else to go.

Is there any way out of this cycle, whereby every president is virulently hated by the opposition and proceeds to betray his ideological allies, who submit for lack of an alternative? Are we condemned to a political establishment that has failed all of us? If things proceed as before, perhaps Obama will win re-election, continue to betray his base and the ideals he articulated in 2008, and sow the seeds for a left-leaning tea party equivalent. There is, however, one flaw in that plan: isn't the rhetoric of candidate Obama mostly what those people want to hear from a champion?

In a provocative essay, James Poulos lays out another possible future. It's deeply counterintuitive. He argues that the existing tea party can appeal to the whole political spectrum if its leaders and rank-and-file have the will to make it happen:

Democrats have not been so disillusioned with a sitting president of their party since Robert F. Kennedy ran in 1968 to unseat Lyndon Johnson. Liberal confidence in the most basic principles of Democratic rule have been shaken to the core by Barack Obama's intensification of Bush-era policies that even divide the right. The left cannot field a challenge to what increasingly strikes good-faith liberals as the rule of a corporatist police state. The Green Party is a husk. The radicals are a rump. Outside the right, there is now no viable political alternative to Obamaism -- the greatest partisan disappointment in generations.

But until Republicans make some fundamental changes to their party platform, the left is prepared to accept from the Democratic Party many generations of abuse and depression. This is why liberal elites are deep into a crash program to hardwire the public mind with their caricature of Tea Partiers as a virulent, violent fringe peddling moral hatred and social suffering. At the present moment, it sounds farfetched to say that only the Tea Party can address this concern in a way that can attract liberal voters to Republican candidates. But does it sound any less farfetched to say that establishment Republicanism can gain the support of any liberals worthy of the name?

His theory has this going for it: Tea partiers and disaffected liberals have in common a mistrust of the political establishment, a plausible critique of centrists, a desire to hold candidates they elect to their promises, and legitimate grievances with widespread appeal. As a student of partisan media, however, it is unthinkable to me that they'd join forces to elect even a reformed version of a Tea Party Republican. In a better world, ideological movements wouldn't rely on vilifying adversaries as the people who are "destroying America" while advancing their own causes.

But our world is one where there is not only a psychological temptation to do so, but huge financial incentives for people like Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann, Andrew Breitbart, Mark Levin and Michael Moore to stoke the pathology. If the other side is as malicious in their intentions as these entertainers say, it would be folly for the non-establishment right and left to join forces.

Thus failed "centrists" keep hanging around.

What I'd like to see, apart from everything else, is a return to strong primary challenges against sitting presidents. It's easy to understand why they don't happen. But hard to argue that we wouldn't be better off if President Bush had been forced to worry a bit more about fiscal hawks, and President Obama was worried a bit more about anti-corporatists and the anti-war, civil libertarian left.

Carnage Along the Path: the Rise and Fall of the Tea Party/Palin/Christianist Movement and the Violence in its Wake.

The socio-political monster that is the Tea Party/Sarah Palin/Christianist movement must first rise for it to be slain. The result will be a more vibrant, constructive and civil political environment. But at what cost? If the last two weeks are a precursor of what is to come, it won't be pretty.

In February of this year we argued that the rise of Sarah Palin as a political figure in the U.S. would, ultimately, be good for the GOP, the Dems and America as a whole. [Read the article here.] Briefly, we believe Palin (and with her the Tea Partiers and Christianists) have placed the GOP in a position where it is splitting along ideological lines. The rift has been visible just beneath the surface since Sen. Barry Goldwater's (R-AZ) 1964 Presidential Campaign. The 1980's saw Ronald Reagan's hired gun, Lee Atwater, mobilize the "Christian Conservative" movement into a powerful base of the Republican Party. Atwater's protoge, Karl Rove, did the same for Pres. George W. Bush. In the meantime, the conservative-right has moved from being a reliable and effective grassroots supporter of the GOP to outright challengers to the leadership of the party. When John McCain ushered Sarah Palin onto the national political scene eighteen months ago, she captured the imagination of the far right as no one else in the past decade. Which was just what McCain had hoped she would do for his lackluster campaign. What he hadn't fully taken into account was the push-back from the moderates of the GOP and independent voters. In the end, Obama won the election with most of the independent vote as well as a modest, yet notable, percentage of moderate Republicans.

Jump ahead to 2010 and the Tea Party movement. The midterm elections are around the corner and the Charlie Crist/Marc Rubio Senate campaign in Florida shows what we can expect from the GOP. A big, vocal, ugly split. Charismatic young Rubio has the Tea Partiers/Palin folks sewn up. Gov. Crist has the support of the GOP establishment and the moderates along with some independents. This results of this race, the other primaries and the midterm general elections will be a precursor to what the next Presidential election in 2012 looks like.

It is most likely the Democrats will lose seats but keep the majority in both houses of Congress in 2010. The Tea Party/Palin/Christianists (TPPC) and the moderates will both claim some victories and suffer some defeats. As a result, the direction of the GOP will not be decided in the mid-terms and the struggle for dominance will boil over into the 2012 elections, culminating most visibly in the 2012 Republican National Convention.

This will do one or both of two things. The GOP traditionalists will win out and reestablish the party's fiscally conservative/socially moderate roots while reaching out to independents as the party with the "big tent." This could also mean the rise of a third party political force made up of the purged and disgruntled TPPC. Or, less likely, the vocal right wing of the GOP, bolstered by wins in the mid-terms and meeting with tepid or ineffective resistance from Republican leadership, will gain control of the party, perhaps even with Ms. Palin at the top of the ticket. Here, again, the possibility of the third party emerges with a candidate along the lines of Christine Todd Whitman, Colin Powell or Bill Weld.

How is this good? Because a healthy political system partially depends on a vibrant opposition. Look at the healthcare debate as a case in point. The GOP is still in a shambles following the 2010 election. The was very little constructive debate and negotiation between parties. With little exception, the GOP offered no proposals of their own and only a few Republican members became part of the process and suffered backlash for doing so. As a result, they are heading into the election cycle having to overcome their image as obstructionists. A robust GOP would have had plenty of political cover and wherewithall to develop and negotiate its own healthcare policy measures and temper those democrat proposals they deemed excessive. The Democrats, meanwhile, facing only the strategy of "No" were not put into a position where they had to unite, focus and fight for a cohesive policy. Instead, they split into factions and fought amongst each other, House against Senate, with the President staying above the fray without employing leadership to the cause of either faction. The result? A watered-down, middle of the road health care bill that, while making some significant headway, fell far below the expectations of just over a year ago when the new government was swept in with huge margins under a now less prescient banner of "Hope" and "Change."

Ultimately, the GOP is already heading into an identity crisis and the TPPC are accelerating that process. That is a good thing. The sooner the Dems have an opposition that relies more on constructive ideas, accountability and mutual respect than fear, misinformation and obstruction, the better.

The more timely question, given the events of the past two weeks, is what will be the cost of this process. While often characterized as such by the left, the TPPC's are neither wholly insane or racist (though arguably some of the former and much of the latter may be found). What may be said of those in the movement as a whole is that they share significant frustration, are motivated by deep-seated beliefs and are nearly entirely misinformed. This is not just a matter of believing false or misleading information from talk radio, the internet, Fox News or one another. It is also a matter of gravitating towards and accepting as legitimate information and ideas that reflect deep seated beliefs, fears and prejudices.  This phenomena, known as cultural cognition, makes beliefs specifically and perspective of reality in general impervious to fact or reason. Topical examples abound. Climate change, for instance, is accepted as fact by nearly every element of the scientific community. Yet, there are those who wholeheartedly believe otherwise. The so-called "Birthers" believe Barak Obama is not a U.S. citizen. There are those who believe homosexuality is a choice made by the individual rather than the natural development of an individual's biology as shown in every major study on the issue.  And there are those, as we covered in previous articles, who would claim America was founded as and intended to be a uniquely "Christian nation" despite the overwhelming contradiction of the U.S. historian community. In each of these instances, there are two clear factors. The belief in question is met with an irrefutable body of evidence to the contrary while it simultaneously reflects the cultural beliefs and perspective of the individual.


Cultural Cognition on display at McCain/Pain '08 rally.


Tea Party Convention, 2/10, Sarah Palin, Orly Taitz, and interviews with participants.

This is where things start to get sticky. Once one removes reason from the situation, you are essentially left with crowd control. Trying to limit the damage made by those who see themselves as leading a modern revolution. The crowd control around the Capitol earlier this month was not enough to restrain Tea Party protesters from shouting obscene language, racial and sexual slurs, and even spitting on a Member of Congress. This while other Members like Michelle Bachman stood on a Capitol balcony cheering and rallying for the protesters.

Rep. Bachman (R-MN) and fellow GOP members cheer on Tea Party health care protest.



Examples of racism at Tea Party demonstrations.

Politicians and political figures have taken to fanning the flames of the TPPC crowd to further their own political objectives. Witness the Sarah Palin poster of her "targeted" politicians, each with a gun sight symbol while encouraging her supporters to "reload." As the fears and prejudices of the TPPC are being exploited we hear of a brick through the window of Rep. Louise Slaughter's office in upstate New York. A coffin placed in front of Rep. Russ Carnahan's home in Missouri. A gas line cut at the home of the brother of Rep. Tom Periello in Virginia after the his home address was mistakingly posted as the Congressman's by Tea Party activists who encouraged others to "stop by." Earlier in the year we saw a man attack guards at the Pentagon and another fly a plane into an IRS building. Just today, nine men from a Michigan-based, Christianist Militia have been arrested and charged with planning to kill a police officer and bomb the funeral procession in an effort to spark a national uprising against the U.S. Government.

What does it take to get a highly motivated individual to move from the threat of violence to carrying out an act of violence? Seemingly, too little. And we are likely to have ample instances to inform an answer as long as there are those who continue to encourage such behavior directly or indirectly.

It will be a while before the TPPC begins to fade as it has yet to reach its apex. In the meantime, politicians and public figures who do not publicly and vociferously condemn the violence and threat of violence and, instead, fan the flames of this jingoistic, racist and fear-based anger do so at their peril. And our peril, as well.


For more on Tea Party rage, see Frank Rich opinion piece in NYT 3/27 here.
To learn more about "cultural cognition" go here.

Don't Ask, Don't Give. That's the deal, Shaquille.

Because justice delayed IS justice denied.

Today, The Deal is proud to join our friends Paul Sousa (Equal Rep), David Mixner, Joe Sudbay of AMERICAblog, The Daily Kos, FireDogLake and the many other blogs in the Don't Ask, Don't Give campaign.

Please read on, sign the petition, take the pledge. When our brothers and sisters are denied their civil rights, so are we.

What's the deal? [the following is reposted from AMERICAblog]
We are asking voters to pledge to withhold contributions to the Democratic National Committee, Organizing for America, and the Obama campaign until the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is passed, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) is repealed, and the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is repealed -– all of which President Obama repeatedly promised to do if elected.

Why are you asking people to take this pledge?
Candidate Obama promised during the campaign to be the gay community’s “fierce advocate.” He and the Democratic party have not kept their promise.

Can you give examples of how the President and Democrats have not been fierce advocates for the civil rights of gay and lesbian Americans?

• Asking a religious right activist who claims to have been “cured” of his homosexuality to headline campaign events in South Carolina. Then letting the anti-gay bigot spend half an hour, on stage, haranguing gays at the Obama event.
• Refusing for months to interview with LGBT newspapers during the campaign, while his opponent did repeatedly.
• Flubbing question on whether gays are immoral.
• Inviting anti-gay activist Rick Warren, who helped pass Prop 8 in California, to give the invocation at the inaugural.
• Inviting a gay bishop to the inaugural festivities, then not beginning the TV broadcast until the gay bishop has finished and left.
• Refusing to appoint an openly gay Cabinet member.
• Abolishing the LGBT outreach position at the DNC and never reinstating it.
• Refusing to re-establish the White House Office of LGBT Outreach and the White House LGBT Liaison (which was a Special Assistant to the President at one point).
• Continuing to discharge two gay servicemembers a day, even though he could stop it immediately by issuing a stop-loss order immediately.
• Asking for a study on “whether” repealing DADT would hurt national security, rather than a study on how to repeal it, as promised.
• Deleting his gay civil rights promise from the White House Web site.
• Changing his commitment to “repeal” Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, to “changing DADT it in a sensible manner.”
• Repeatedly defending DOMA in court, including just a few weeks ago, even though he didn’t have to.
• Making jokes about marriage equality, which President Obama claims he doesn't support, even though he once did.
• Comparing gay relationships to incest and pedophilia in a Justice Department brief.
• Joking about gay protesters upset about the DOMA brief.
• Refusing to provide health care benefits to the partners of gay employees, and then claiming that DOMA precludes it, when it does not.
• Refusing to meet with gay legal groups to discuss how to provide such health benefits within the confines of DOMA.
• Claiming that health benefits for partners of federal employees were new, then being caught in a lie. 
• Showing visible discomfort when asked about gay civil rights.
• Suggesting he won’t get to DADT, DOMA or ENDA until his second term, if ever.
• Refusing to suspend implementation of anti-gay laws, like DADT and DOMA, while suspending laws that hurt others.
• White House staffers worked against amendment proposed by Rep. Alcee Hasting (D-FL) to defund Don't Ask, Don't Tell investigations
• Saying won’t repeal DADT until wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have finished.
• Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid had to beg President Obama to help on DADT repeal.
• A White House official referring to gay civil rights advocates, marching on Washington, as part of “the Internet left fringe” whose opinions don’t matter.
• Saying he won’t touch DOMA in his first term.
• Refusing to release list of gay attendees at hate crimes reception.
• Refusing to mention Maine or Washington state, or anything of substance, in his speech to the Human Rights Campaign dinner.
• Saying gays are “naïve” for wanting the president to keep his promise. 
• Refusing to issue a statement specifically opposing anti-gay ballot measures in Maine and Washington state.
• Attorney General Eric Holders flubs question on Maine, twice -- once while in Maine.
• DNC/OFA emailed supporters in Maine and Washington state, but didn't ask them to vote against anti-gay ballot measures, then lied about it.
• Senator Durbin (D-IL), a very close ally of Obama, says Senate probably won’t repeal DADT in 2010, as promised.
• Senior DNC official accuses gays and lesbians of “helping Republicans” by simply asking Democrats to keep their gay civil rights promise.
• Refusing to publicly endorse marriage equality for gays.
• Continuing to dawdle over DADT.
• Refusing to this day to interview with the gay press.
• Refusing to apologize for any of these slights.

But won’t your pledge hurt Democrats?
It never hurts Democrats to keep their promises to the voters. The American people respect strong leaders who have the courage to stick to their beliefs. And it will only help Democrats in the next election to stand by their commitments to a core constituency. If Democratic voters aren't motivated, they won't vote. We are concerned that the President's failure to fulfill his promises may suppress voter participation not only from gay Democrats, but from our families, friends and allies. In a very real way, this is an effort to ensure that we get-out-the-vote in 2010, 2012 and beyond.

But if you don’t give money to the DNC, won’t that help elect Republicans who are even worse on gay issues, and other issues Democrats care about?
We are not calling for a boycott of donations to the DNC. We are simply calling for a pause until the party follows through on its campaign promise to repeal DADT and DOMA, and pass ENDA. The party will get the same donations it would have gotten, when the promises are kept. The Democrats could choose to make good on their promise today. And by doing so, they will only further motivate the Democratic base to again turn out for the next election, a decidedly good thing.

You have to admit, gay rights is controversial – wouldn’t it be political suicide for Democrats to push gay rights?
Democrats should not have promised to support gay civil rights rights in exchange for our votes if they never intended to keep the promise. If we're not controversial during the campaign, when politicians are happy to accept our votes and our money, we cannot accept being labeled controversial after our candidates win. We kept our part of the bargain, we voted for Barack Obama and a Democratic Congress. It’s entirely reasonable for us to ask our elected officials to keep their part of the bargain too.

What's more, gay rights are not controversial. Americans favor allowing openly gay men and lesbian women to serve in the military by a margin of 69% - 26%.  By a margin of 57% - 37%, "A clear majority of Americans (57%) favors allowing gay and lesbian couples to enter into legal agreements with each other that would give them many of the same rights as married couples." That can't happen if DOMA is the law.  And in fact, if these civil rights promises were controversial, they would have hurt candidate Obama at the polls. But, he proudly and loudly proclaimed his support for LGBT equality, and he won.

No matter how disappointed you are, aren’t Democrats still better than Republicans?
The Republican party is terrible on gay issues. That doesn’t excuse the Democratic party breaking specific promises to the gay community made in exchange for our votes. We didn’t break our promise at the ballot box, the Democrats shouldn’t break theirs after we helped put them into office.

President Obama has only been in office less than a year, why the rush?
In less than a year, serious damage has already been done to the President’s commitments to the gay community. The problem isn’t only that he hasn’t been quick enough to fulfill his promises, it’s that he has actually backtracked on his promises and hurt the cause of civil rights and our community, as detailed above.

But aren’t there bigger priorities than gay rights for the Democrats to deal with, like health care and the economy?
Would President Obama, the DNC and the Congress tell other minorities that their civil rights aren't important? The suggestion is that Democrats have more important things on the table. When won't Democrats have more important priorities than the civil rights of gays and lesbians? Will there ever be a day, a year, an administration, when the President and the Congress won't have serious crises to deal with? Suggesting that gay Americans and their friends and families wait until the President and Congress have nothing else to do is not only insulting, it's a recipe for never. And regardless, we trust that this President, unlike the previous, can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Who is behind this effort?
John Aravosis and Joe Sudbay, two longtime political operatives in Washington, DC, and the editors of AMERICAblog.com. AMERICAblog has raised over $300,000 for Democratic candidates and progressive causes, including nearly $50,000 for then-candidate Barack Obama, supported by AMERICAblog early in the primaries. The boycott is cosponsored by Daily Kos, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake, Dan Savage, Michelangelo Signorile, David Mixner, Andy Towle and Michael Goff of Towle Road, Paul Sousa (Founder of Equal Rep in Boston), Pam Spaulding, Robin Tyler (ED of the Equality Campaign, Inc.), Bil Browning for the Bilerico Project, and soon others.

You can contact us at: dncboycott@gmail.com

How can I help?
Sign the pledge, tell your friends about this campaign, read the blog, and stay tuned for updates and action alerts on how you help make sure that the President, the Congress and the Democratic party keep their promises to the LGBT community, our families, our friends and our allies.

What is the Deal with Sarah Palin? Why she is good for the Democratic Party. [and it's not why you think]

The woman is a phenomenon. I think everyone can pretty much agree on that. The majority of the country believes she should never, ever, be in the same room as the nuclear "football." In the months following John McCain's ill-fated announcement that the freshman Alaskan Governor was to be his running mate for the 2008 Presidential election, the more Americans heard from her, the less they thought of her. Some of the more glaring examples were those prominent Republicans who, in those 10 long weeks between her arrival on the scene and the election, broke Pres. Reagan's Eleventh Commandment, "Thou shall not speak ill of any fellow Republican." These included noted conservatives like George Will, David Broder, Kathleen Parker, Charles Krauthammer, Ross Douthat and former Bush speechwriter, David Frum, who noted in the New York Times, "How serious can [McCain] be," Frum wrote even before Palin appeared at the GOP convention, "if he would place such a neophyte second in line to the presidency?"

So Sarah Palin is good for the Democrats because, by comparison, she makes them look like God's gift to good Government? No. Not even she could pull off that sort of miracle these days. No, Sarah Palin is good for the Democrats because she gathers all the crazies under one roof. This, in the long run, will be good for the Republicans, and, in turn, a good deal for the Dems, too. Stay with me.

The recent Brown/Coakley election in MA has somewhat obscured an even more telling election in NY last fall when Palin (along with MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty, fmr. Majority Leader Dick Army and right-wing talk radio) endorsed conservative outsider Doug Hoffman over local GOP nominee Dierdre Scozzafava. This was a very visible display of a Tea Party/GOP rift that has continued to foment since the 2008 elections. Those familiar with the race for US Senate in Florida know this is already the next visible street fight between these two forces. Gov. Charlie Crist started out with a very healthy lead last year but has given up all that ground to fmr. FL House Speaker, Marc Rubio. A lengthy article on the race and Rubio (linked below) in the NYT last month was entitled "The First Senator from the Tea Party."

In what may the most ironic display of political identification of our time, the figure most heralded by both Teabaggers and their GOP counterparts is fmr. Pres. Ronald Reagan, the man whose 11th. Commandment they run roughshod over.  Reagan was notably committed to the idea of a Republican big tent. That philosophy contributed to two solid elections and a party re-energized for the first time following Watergate. Yet, Palin and her Partiers are about to bring down the tent in Florida.

If, on August 23rd, Rubio goes on to defeat Crist in Florida's US Senate election and Ms. Palin has all but made her 2012 run for the Presidency official, it is powerful good news for the Democrats. But not for the reason you think.  Yes, a healthy Tea Party movement involved in the 2010 midterm elections is great news for democratic candidates during a time when, at least to date, there is little to no great news. Nor should there be. Save for a few Congressman/Congresswomen and even fewer Senators, there really isn't much reason to vote Democratic this year except for the fact that they are not Republicans. Though some do come exceedingly close by definition. And a strong Sarah Palin run for the Presidency in 2012 is one of the exceedingly few scenarios that would clinch a second term for Mr. Obama. While both these developments mean great short term gains for the Democratic Party, a long term, more ellusive benefit is also moved into play.

Politics is like tennis. Your game can only improve when you play with someone your equal or better.  Leadership issues aside, the democrats are currently flailing, in large part, because the GOP is an awful mess. Since the '08 elections there has been not a scintilla of cohesion in the party. Sure, members of congress still step before microphones and repeat mantras of "lower taxes" and "cut spending" but this is a planetary distance from a strategy, let alone a uniting raison dêtre. By default, the GOP has become the party of "no." As it turns out, this hasn't been good for the Dems, the GOP or, most importantly, American citizens. Instead of Democratic initiatives being challenged by Republican initiatives and then put through the fire of constructive debate with an outcome that may disappoint some on both sides but come closer to the goals both sought, Democratic initiatives have been met with obstinance and procedural gridlock. It should not be a surprise that this lesser strategy from the GOP has inflicted damage on the Dems. It is very difficult for the Dems to rise to the occasion when they are wrestling in the gutter. A certain amount of leadership is required to rise above this sophomoric fray and return to the ideas that were supposedly ushered to the steps of Capitol Hill in '08. Neither the legislative nor the executive branch is offering anything of the sort so far. But this is a topic for a different article.

To be at it's best, the Democratic Majority must have a healthy opposition party. Why do minority parties occasionally meld into a significant force (ie. Gingrich and the "Contract for America")? Because they must. Just as the arts gorge in meaning and talent during oppressive regimes or political movements galvanize when forced underground, desperation is a powerful motivator for the underrepresented. Presently, the GOP desperately lacks a voice, a mission, a raison dêtre (much more so than the Dems who seem to have stepped away from theirs temporarily). Sarah Palin can save the party.

The former Governor of Alaska's success will accelerate a 'coming to Jesus' moment for the party of Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. A recent National Review poll of over a hundred GOP leaders found Sarah Palin in 5th place (after MS Governor Haley Barbour) as the most likely to get the nomination in 2012. Compare that with the reception Ms. Palin received this week at the Tea Party Convention and at most all of her public appearances, and anyone can see a storm brewing on the horizon. Fortunately for everyone, this has little to do with Ms. Palin herself and much more to do with the angry and vocal political vein she has tapped. She brings a fresh face and attractive demeanor to the table. But that's about it. She is riding a disgruntled, populist, culturally isolated and near jingoistic wave of folks who don't place much stock in experience or book learnin' and are pleased as punch with the former beauty queen as their spokesperson. Even if she isn't politically in alignment with much of the Tea Party precepts, no one seems to mind on either side.

As the primaries for 2010 continue and the presidential primary for 2012 draws closer, lines will begin to form and sides taken. Where and how the showdown happens, one can't be sure. Will it wait till the Republican Convention (either Tampa, Phoenix or Salt Lake City)? Or will races such the Senate race in FL bring this pot to a boil well before then?  Either way, between now and the 2012 general elections the GOP is going to be forced to into a crisis of identity. And that will be good for them, good for the Dems, and, especially, good for the people.


Read more about the Crist/Rubio race for US Senate in FL:

The First Senator from the Tea Party?
by Mark Leibovich
NYT 1/6/10