What would Stuart Rothenberg think about the 10% drop in approval ratings for the Dem leadership? I don't see how it is playing things perfectly. Does it do anything for those who say Dems are afraid to stand up for what they believe in? Does it enter into his brain that there is always the possibility that Dems could stay home come Nov. '08?

no worries -- the point is worth repeating!

They have allowed Bush-Karl to dictate the terms of the debate

As usual. Look, the Dems had an uphill battle with this funding measure. But they could have fought it in a more public way than they did. That's what I dislike.

And I hope Democratic strategists in both chambers of Congress do not take this Rothenberg analysis as a game plan. "See how clever we were? We did this. Got squashed. And then, we backed down! Take that, President Bush! We won, we really did." I don't know who Rothenberg talks to, but there are angry people out there who have been commenting for the last month that there's not much difference between the new Congress and the old Congress. You may disagree with that sentiment, but those voters might just stay home.

How is that smart?

What you're all missing is the battle isn't over. Come fall if enough people pressure their Repub
House reps and senators we can get them to break with Bush and end the occupation. Unless of course you think there's a pony hiding under the surge.

I understand how disappointed people are but if we spend all summer whining about one vote in the series it's going to take instead of hammering the Repubs because the cool kids like Stoller think cynicism or breaking up the Democratic party is the way to go we'll never end the damn occupation.

Keep in mind that this was a supplemental bill and was only a small piece of the Iraq situation. As CinC, Bush can do what he wants with certain troops. Since he put the troops in harms way before asking for the supplement, he put the Dems on defensive.

The real battle for Iraq will come down to the general appropriations where Dems will be able to hold out much longer and be more forceful. I'm actually quite shocked that people on the left don't understand the difference between this supplemental and the real meat of the defense budget. Given that I didn't think the battle over the supplemental was that significant right now, that's probably why I think the Dems are doing better than they are given credit for. Several conservative Dems and some moderate GOPers are on record in favor of timetables already. When the real appropriations battle comes, Dems will have the upper hand and I expect the GOP to fall apart at that point.

The real battle will be during the general appropriations skirmish, but you inadvertently highlight that this (relatively minor) battle was still very important:

Given that I didn't think the battle over the supplemental was that significant right now, that's probably why I think the Dems are doing better than they are given credit for.

They're not getting sufficient credit for it, and, the media narrative will already have been set in stone by the time the appropriations discussion comes around. "President Bush won the first funding war with the Democrats, who, despite controlling both chambers of Congress couldn't overcome his veto threat."

Rather than: Democrats, having succesfully withstood Bush's empty veto threats last May, are set to impose further supervision on Bush's ill-advised occupation.

It may have been a relatively small issue, but it creates a context for larger, much more important issues.

Ghost, Dems will not stay home in a Presidential election.

Sorry, CT, but here's where I disagree with you. It's in the "Bush's empty veto threats". I don't think they were empty at all. I really believe that Bush would have vetoed this type of bill until h#ll froze over.

I actually see nothing in the miserable Bush years that leads me to believe that Bush would have agreed to the bill. I think this administration would have "cooked up" coverage on how the lack of funds was hurting the troops or their families and played it over and over again in the compliant media. A simple way to do this would be to delay paychecks to troops serving in Iraq and then we could all watch the miserable effect this would have on families right here in the USA.

With all that Bush has done, I remain amazed that any liberal believes that Bush would surrender and be compliant to Congress' will. Heck, the guy can't even bring himself to address the pope correctly.

Seems to me the question here is "on whose behalf does Rothenberg speak?" The answer, of course, is that if Rothenberg speaks for anyone other than himself it is the inside the beltway crowd. In other words, Rothenberg is voicing the judgement of those who are for nothing at all beyond the perpetuation of the current corrupt and out of touch system we all endure. The inside the beltway crowd hasn't gotten anything right, in terms of how regular Americans view politics, for years and years! That is why you have the difference between Rothenberg's pronouncement and the public opinion polls which have detected that the Democrats are moral and political weaklings.

Yeah you just keep talking that way terry. It's so much easier being cynical isn't it? Never mind that thousands more will die. Never mind that our presence in Iraq only makes this war worse. Just throw in the towel and claim falsely that most Dems and all Repubs support the occupation indefinately is so much easier than trying.

And yet we had a Democratic president for 8 years in the 1990s. A Democratically led congress for most of the last 50 years before 1994. We now have a Democratically led congress and all signs point to making those majorities in both houses bigger and electing a Democratic president in 2008.

As a matter of fact Schumer and Emanuel raised tons of money thru the DSCC and DCCC last year. The DCCC raised $120 million to the netroots $20 million. So when you say "the inside the beltway crowd hasn't gotten anything right, in terms of how regular Americans view politics, for years and years!" I'd say a lot of regular Americans disagree with you using their wallets and their votes.

A lot of the time those of us who sit in front of the computer all day reading blogs forget that we are minority.

And where do you think that $120 million comes from? The rich? the middle class? A lot of the politicians in DC only care about the little guy enough that it gets them sent back every 2 or 6 years.

Many of them have said the surge is the last chance. The news gets worse every day from Iraq. Find, cut and paste the articles to Repub reps and senators. They like their jobs, they don't want to leave with Bush in January 09. They are standing on the deck of the Titanic yelling "the ship isn't sinking!". That's not gonna keep their boat afloat.

Here's some advice I gave to someone on Kos a few weeks ago. This will work if enough people do it
Tom.

http://tinyurl.com/35mtvo

It's so much easier being cynical isn't it? Never mind that thousands more will die.

So those who hunger and speak out and work for an end to the damnable occupation that is killing so many are actually responsible for it? Who is being ultra cynical if not downright deceitful?

I read your posting on Kos. Interesting and surprising and yet...

How much does the visiting constituent weigh into matters compared to the pollster, the spin doctor, the strategist, the hefty contributors? Especially one who isn't anxious for action now?

I was amused (and most appreciative) years ago by a friend who made an appointment with our maverick representative.

Sherwood Boehlert, Republican, at the time was waging war in the press with Newt Gingrich. He was regularly besieged with fundies attacking him and even had newspaper endorsements of the right-to-life opposition. Boehlert did once consider running in the Democratic primary as well as Republican and would probably have won both. Amazingly Boehlert after one of his many huge landslide victories noted that he lost the Perot voters and said he would strive to win them back.

So my intrepid friend made an appointment with this representative who was so concerned with fringies that he wanted to get all of them on his side.

And what was the first question?

It was: "Who do you represent." That was followed by questions about why my friend was there by himself and oh, lots more in that vein. The reason the constituent came to see his representative was mostly lost in the shuffle.

Why don't you want to end that damnable occupation ASAP? What's this nonsense about waiting until thousands more are killed and then maybe people who are blind will suddenly see? Do even you believe that?

Best, Terry

Not every Democrat is fully appreciative of pretend Democrats who have no use for the working class and do their best to emulate Republicans in law and deed.

Despite your claims terry a majority of American voters would have elected Bill Clinton again in 2000 and 2004 if they could have and he'd probably win this next race handily too.

How much more incompetent can any president be than to aim a missile at Congress and hit an aspirin factory in The Sudan?

Hey way to repeat Republican cheapshots troll! Maybe you'd like to tell us how Operation Desert Fox Was just wagging the dog too? How much more incompetent can any president be? How about invading and occupying Iraq? Ya think that might have been more serious than bombing a suspected
WMD site in Sudan? Nope not you!

Clinton lost the reputedly impregnable House to the Republican Heavies BTW. Guess people decided they might as well have the Real Thing.

You don't think Jim Wright, Dan Rostenkowski and Tom Foley had something to do with that? You don't think the Republican attack machine did?

Ya know terry you not only can't find anybody to root for on the Democratic side you actively oppose just about everybody. For you it must be like watching a movie with no sympathetic characters in your least favorite genre, reading a book about a subject that doesn't interest you, or watching a last place team lose game after game as they play out the string. Why do you bother?

>>Despite your claims terry a majority of American voters would have elected Bill Clinton again in 2000 and 2004 if they could have

Could be but did he get a majority even once when he did run?

He beat an incumbunt president who had a 90% approval rating in 1991 and a filthy rich third party candidate. Hardly any other major Dems decided to run because the race looked so unwinnable in 1992.

In 1996 again he easily beat two candidates
two years after we lost the House, a year after Repubs shut down the government, after 4 eyars of Repubs doing everything they could to hamstring him with the media trying to make a mountain out of the Whitewater molehill.

This "troll" loves your namecalling but not necessarily your falsification of facts.

What falsification? When you repeat Republican slander I calls 'em as I sees 'em.

Every candidate for office has liabilities, whatever brand they choose, to anyone who can think and have independent opinions.

Duh. Yeah I wish Jesus Mahatma Superman was running too. There's no such person. Get over it.

The only candidate running for the Democratic nomination that I have said I would not vote for under almost any conceivable circumstance is Hillary Clinton.

That doesn't keep you from belittling them all with sweeping innaccurate generalizations though does it? If you and others like you keep doing that, trying to prove how hip you are with your cynicism, criticizing our candidates for the way they run their campaigns and nitpicking their policy positions thru 2008 as less than perfect when perfect is never an option, you'll wake up the day after the election with another Republican president and congress.

Why don't you try to find something you actaully like about any Dem and tell us about that? Oh I know, that's too pollyannish for you. Much better to point fingers whenever possible. You never have to actually try doing it your way, never have to put yourself on the line and run the risk of getting hurt or failing. Sniping from the sidelines is safer but it's not going to end the war, not going to elect "real" Democrats or make any of the positive changes this country needs.