Excellent article! I wonder, do you have any thoughts about specific steps that we Dems can take now to change the incessant dirty hippy/peacenick/blame America/cut&run/big government/tax&spend narrative? It appears that McCain has decided pushing this narrative is his only hope, however provably false the stereotypes may be, and the media isn't sufficiently challenging him on it.

Posted at August 8, 2008 3:25 PM in response to The Extraordinary Power Of Political Stereotype

Oh Jeez...hasn't the paragraph formatting been made automatic yet? I forgot to manually add the code between the paragraphs. That last paragraph isn't mine; it's part of the update from Emily's List.

Posted at August 6, 2008 7:22 PM in response to The Shame of EMILY'S LIST: Its Candidate Uses Anti-Semitism To Defeat a Liberal in Tennessee

The article that M.J. linked (Politico) has been updated with this statement from Emily's List:

UPDATE: EMILY’s List president Ellen Malcolm issued a statement Wednesday evening condemning Tinker’s most recent ad. The group, which endorses Democratic women who favor abortion rights, has been Tinker's most prominent backer.

“We were shocked to see the recent ads run by the Nikki Tinker for Congress campaign. We believe the ads are offensive and divisive,” said Malcolm. EMILY's List does not condone or support these types of attacks.”

Posted at August 6, 2008 7:16 PM in response to The Shame of EMILY'S LIST: Its Candidate Uses Anti-Semitism To Defeat a Liberal in Tennessee

Richard L. Adlof said:

The thing that disturbs me is that Franken has REAL Pro-DEM and Progressives bonafides and folk are playig little attention to the issues.

Yeah, that's what I thought. What's going on? Why doesn't Franken have more traction? Does he need money? Or? If the voters in MN aren't paying attention to issues, what are they paying attention to?

Posted at July 14, 2008 9:30 PM in response to Tonight: Ventura To Announce Whether He's Running For Senate

piotr:
Sadly, your post captures the essence of the situation much better than much of what I've read over the last few years (with a few exceptions, such as Levy's work, of course).

It just seems to get worse and worse and I can't imagine what will possibly change it.

Daniel: Thanks for bringing us an update on what's actually going on in the West Bank. There really has seemed to be a dearth of information lately (not that there's generally much anyway), probably because of the U.S. elections.

Dore Gold has been working with One Jerusalem, a group devoted to keeping Jerusalem entirely under Israeli sovereignty. This would of course be completely unsatisfactory to the Palestinians, who intend to make East Jerusalem their capitol upon the conclusion of a peace agreement, and so is a serious impediment to any real peace.

Here's more about what Gold has said to One Jerusalem: http://www.onejerusalem.org/blog/archives/2008/01/exclusive_one_j_1.asp

Posted at July 11, 2008 1:44 PM in response to A Typical Day in the Wild West Bank

My understanding is that the Senate has already voted, and according to Pelosi this bill is an improvement over the Senate version. And I don't think it's the leadership's fault. According to an article that's posted on the front page here at TPM, it's the blue dog Dems in the House who are responsible (http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=cqmidday-000002899718)

Asked why Democrats don’t put aside the surveillance legislation until a new president is elected in November, Hoyer said he would prefer to do so, but can’t because so many House Democrats are prepared to vote for the Senate bill that he and other top House Democrats oppose.

“Clearly enough Democrats have indicated in the House they would vote for the Senate bill if it came to the floor. The alternatives are either the Senate bill or a bill significantly better” reached through negotiations with the Senate and the White House, he said.

Here's my question: what by what rationale have the blue dogs made the decision to vote for immunity? Do you think they receive many calls from constituents demanding that the law grant the telecoms immunity? (I don't.)

There's also more info in the NYT, tomorrow's edition: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/washington/20fisacnd.html

Posted at June 20, 2008 1:10 AM in response to Will Obama okay capitulation and allow the FISA travesty to pass?

While I think that Clinton is still newsworthy, I do agree that the private element to these "urgings" is a little troubling. What I'd like to see her do is register for an account at Hillaryis44 and a few other blogs, and give them a talking-to, explaining why they must all support Obama in the general.

But all of the threats to vote McCain or to write-in Clinton may blow over pretty quickly now as the general campaign gears up. It really seems that most of her supporters have already returned to their roots and now support Obama and the Dems anyway.

Posted at June 18, 2008 3:52 PM in response to Hillary Holding Private Conference Call With Top Fundraisers On Thursday*

Some excellent points here and well-argued. I hope this makes the recommended list, as these ideas deserve further circulation.

In addition, Jerusalem is a holy place to all the other millions of Muslims around the world, so Iran would not only nuke it's own holy place if it nuked Israel, a further reason for Iran to avoid pariah-dom by not taking such an action.

I certainly hope you're right about it being no more than a case of Cheney and the neocons "playing blackmail" with the Dems in order to avoid investigations or impeachment. But Steve Clemons has an article up that makes the situation sound far more ominous. (http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/09/iran/)
The thing is, even if the intention is no more than blackmail, once an intention to attack another country has been telegraphed, either explicitly or implicitly, it would be very easy for things to spin out of control. If it's blackmail that Cheney's playing, it is indeed a dangerous game.

Posted at June 11, 2008 12:47 PM in response to Iran can't nuke Israel without devastating their own holy land... AND themselves.

I guess everyone beat me to it saying (and it's been said before) that Lieberman clearly needs to go, but I did think of a rejoinder to those Republicans (including Lieberman) who insist on using "democrat" instead of "democratic." It's this: every time one of them uses "democrat," respond by calling the GOP "the GOP" (rhymes with "sop" or "mop" or "drop"). The word is sufficiently icky-sounding that I predict it would either catch on - to their detriment - or stop them from using "democrat" inappropriately. :D

Posted at June 8, 2008 2:39 PM in response to Lieberman Calls Dems The "Democrat Party"

Edwards' endorsement right after Clinton's win in the KY primary was perfectly timed, and helped Obama maintain the spotlight at a crucial moment. It also led to the endorsement of the UMWA.

I'm hoping that John has his sights on another important spot in the Obama administration, such as AG, or even a spot on the SC (he might not be temperamentally suited to the SC, but I still fantasize of all he could do to turn the Court away from it's overly pro-business approach of recent years).

Posted at June 6, 2008 10:06 AM in response to Edwards: I Don't Want To Run For VP