Making Sense: What Ed Kilgore Said

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Media
Posted on Fri Nov 19, 2010 at 04:05:32 PM EST
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Ed Kilgore:

[T]rue independents tend to vote against the party in power when the economy is bad, regardless of the perceived ideology or partisanship of the party in power. It happened in 2006 and it happened again in 2010. Arguing, as some have done, that the answer for Democrats is to "move to the center" and find some way to work with Republicans makes sense only if such steps contribute to an improvement in the performance of the economy. If they don't, then it's not the right direction to take, particularly if you consider the costs in terms of sacrificing progressive policy goals and making the Democratic elements of the electorate unhappy precisely on the eve of the cycle when they can be expected to return to the polls.

(Emphasis supplied.) What former DLCer Ed Kilgore said.

Speaking for me only

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Making Sense: What Ed Kilgore Said | 22 comments (22 topical)

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Well (5.00 / 2) (#1)
by Ga6thDem on Fri Nov 19, 2010 at 04:28:16 PM EST

at this point I would prefer gridlock to concessions. At least stopping the crazies in the GOP from implementing their agenda would be a step in the right direction. Don't expect it though.

"Moving To the Center" Defined (5.00 / 3) (#2)
by john horse on Fri Nov 19, 2010 at 05:59:02 PM EST

"Moving to the center" can be defined as compromising the solution so that it doesn't solve the problem. For example, in order to get the support of one or two Republican Senators, the stimulus was weakened so much that most Americans did not notice any improvement. Obama "moved to the center" almost from the day he took office. If this strategy didn't work in the past then why is it supposed to work in the future?

They would tell you he did not (none / 0) (#4)
by ruffian on Fri Nov 19, 2010 at 10:17:00 PM EST

move enoughto the center.


: Yeah, he went too far right. (5.00 / 3) (#5)
by observed on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 08:03:08 AM EST

Nobody has complained more than me (5.00 / 0) (#8)
by cpa1 on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 09:45:52 AM EST

about the taxes and how our country grew with a top that used to be 91% (in and before 1961) and that went down only to 70% (50% for earned income) until Reagan. Trickle down is a huge illustration of how the law of diminishing returns works.

At what point were tax rates too high to stop creativity and entrepreneurship? They were never too high because when they were it was all the more reason to take chanced because the high tax rates paid for losses and if things went well you could sell your creativity at capital gains rates. Used to be 28%.

So, how do we do this? Can we complain that rates used to be very high or do we talk about what kind of tax rates a super power needs to fund growth?

Obama barely whispered about how W destroyed us because he didn't want to make the Republicans mad while he climbed up the butt of Ronald Reagan's corpse. The only Democrat with balls was Nancy Pelosi and other Dems, including the White House, did follow her lead.

How do we make our case to independents and stupid Democrats that another round of trickle down economics will kill us? As much as I hate to say it, it's time to stop focus 100% on the economy, taxes and funding a government and not worry so much about DADT or a horrible healthcare bill. We ave to get tough and not be terrorized by the next Supreme Ct. nominations because if we act like chickensh_ts, we won't get elected anyway. We have to get very tough and very angry. We have to be armed with the logic about the economy to take to the water coolers and dinner tables. Obama should have been killing Republicans over START and not worry who is going to like him because they HATE him no matter what he does. They couldn't have asked for and gotten more. Still in Iraq and Afghanistan and we aren't leaving. Talking about extending the Bush tax cuts. Passing of a horrible healthcare bill that allows insurance companies to destroy it. Naming effing Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles to a deficit commission. WTF was he thinking? And the imbeciles from the DailyKos defend anything Obama like they defended anything Kerry and many defended anything Nader.

I hated and still hate Ralph Nader for what he did in 2000. I can't look at Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon and Phil Donahue but those pigs brought us a rejuvenation of the Republican Party. John Kerry, what a waste he was and now Obama. If it wasn't for Sarah Palin, he'd be in the Senate now.

We have to find ways to quickly explain the economy and taxes to imbeciles who don't want to think. We have to be relentless with the truth as the Republicans are relentless in their lies and misinformation campaign.

Howard Dean was the clearest (5.00 / 1) (#9)
by observed on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 10:41:46 AM EST

voice of sanity. He was also completely fearless in honestly discussing the Iraq war.


You bet (none / 0) (#12)
by gyrfalcon on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 12:37:31 PM EST

And he's still the sanest and most fearless person in political life to this date, IMHO.

Unfortunately, the guy is also fiscally very, very conservative (in the old-fashioned sense) and is doing way too much yapping about the horrors of the deficit these days, including the "need" to cut "entitlements."


Do we have the political (none / 0) (#14)
by observed on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 12:44:08 PM EST

equivalent of Howard speaking on economic issues? BTW, if that's Dean's message, he's missing his chance: the real choice is between being a global military hegemon at enormous cost, or providing for social welfare.


: Ho-ho has no "message" (none / 0) (#21)
by gyrfalcon on Thu Nov 25, 2010 at 12:44:19 AM EST

these days because he's quite literally not campaigning for anything. Vermont Public Radio gets him on fairly regularly, though, to comment on whatever's in the news, and he gets asked about the deficit issue.

Howard Dean (none / 0) (#16)
by cpa1 on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 01:23:27 PM EST

Thought it was fine for Obama to raise Reagan up to a higher standard than Clinton. Howard Dead was a shill for Obama during that election.


: I'm not a fan of everything he (none / 0) (#17)
by observed on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 01:25:57 PM EST

says, but he was a model in speaking on the war

: The story on that (none / 0) (#22)
by gyrfalcon on Thu Nov 25, 2010 at 12:46:33 AM EST

has yet to be told, if it ever is. There was clearly a whole lotta stuff going on behind the scenes with the DNC during all that, and I have no idea what pressures of one kind or another he was under. I take issue with calling him a "shill" for Obama, though. I don't think that's what was going on, FWIW. Howard Dean doesn't "shill" for anybody or anything, which ought to be obvious by now.

Amen and bravo (none / 0) (#11)
by gyrfalcon on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 12:34:35 PM EST

I'm right with you on the tax rates and have been complaining about it nearly as much as you. I think the folks who are too young to remember the 50s and 60s, when 90 percent marginal tax rates were the way things were and the economy was roaring, can really appreciate how normal and accepted and appropriate that tax rate was felt to be in an era when now there's wild screeching and holy hell at the possibility it might go up to <gasp> 39 percent from 34.

Yet I have never heard one single Democratic pol and precious few commentators point any of that out, not one.


But it's more than 35% to 39.6 (none / 0) (#18)
by cpa1 on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 01:32:51 PM EST

It's bringing back dividends to 39.% as well as the income of Hedge Fund Managers. It's also the retun of the old Estate Tax Rates that were as high as 55%. Obama is a jerk if he doesn't use that as a hostage. The Bush tax cuts will expire, all of them on 1/1/11. Let him make them override his veto with 290 votes in the House and 67 votes in the Senate. This last election was based on lies and if those tax cuts go without a veto, Obama is finished for 2012.

Bristol Palin getting into the finals of DWTS is the new flagship for lies and deceit by the GOP. We need to stop them or they will destroy us.


: Oh, please (none / 0) (#20)
by gyrfalcon on Thu Nov 25, 2010 at 12:41:50 AM EST

55 percent only for what's over a million bucks. Give me a break. GOP talking points much?

Ed, please review the actual (none / 0) (#3)
by me only on Fri Nov 19, 2010 at 08:15:44 PM EST

economy in 2006. Unemployment was a robust 4.6%.

: pyramid scheme (none / 0) (#19)
by cpa1 on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 01:37:58 PM EST

The Bush Tax cuts pumped up the economy like the Republican tax cuts did in the mid 1920s and look what happened. The stock market grew because of the lower tax rates on dividends, capital gains and hedge fund managers income and people sold and paid less taxes on years of accumulated wealth. After all the sales the bottom fell out of the overvalued securities and our economy tanked with the leverage and stupid instruments created by Wall Street.

The True Independent (none / 0) (#6)
by Stellaaa on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 08:42:30 AM EST

I can blame both political parties for many things, why do Independents, the ones who cause this mess get off and act as if their hands are clean?

: That seems the default position. (none / 0) (#7)
by Rojas on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 09:30:57 AM EST

When every issue is dissected through a partisan lens we are left with only one bit to flip.

heh (none / 0) (#10)
by The Addams Family on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 12:26:42 PM EST

Congressional Republicans are giving little ground to weakened Democrats in the final weeks of the 111th Congress.

remember Grover Norquist's famous definition of "bipartisanship"?*

btw, my health insurance will cost me almost $650/month as of January 2011 - & i am healthy, w/out "pre-existing conditions"

thanks, Dinocrats

thanks, "progressives"

* date rape

You're premiums are not (none / 0) (#13)
by gyrfalcon on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 12:39:41 PM EST

going up because of that wretched health care bill. They would have gone up anyway. The insu. companies are just using that as an excuse, and the GOPers, of course, are filling the airwaves with finger-pointing, as well. Don't let yourself be duped.


: i am not (5.00 / 1) (#15)
by The Addams Family on Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 01:05:35 PM EST

a Tea Partier duped by the loathesome GOP
i know my premiums would have gone up anyway
that is pretty much my point
as you say, the insurance companies - in this case, Kaiser, an HMO - are using the wretched health care bill as an excuse
& they will do even worse in the future, thanks to a bill written largely by them - which in turn we have the "bipartisan" "single payer off the table" Dinocrats & cargo cult "progressives" to thank for