I don't know if anyone pays attention to the generic ballot for Congress, but things are looking up lately for Republicans. The aggregate on Pollster.com shows a generic Republican polling only two points behind a generic Democrat; at several polling outfits, notably Rasmussen Reports, Republicans are ahead substantially in the generic ballot. Coupled with the losses Democrats suffered in the New Jersey and Virginia governors' races this month, you could argue that 2010 is shaping up to be a bad year for the Democratic Party.

Here we go again.

Violet today reiterates the warning signs that led us to a day where House Democrats voted through a health insurance reform bill that effectively bans abortion, and reminds us what we need to do:

Word to the wise, girls: if a guy calls you a filthy cunt or a whiny bitch, if he says Hillary Clinton is a hag from hell, if he calls her supporters the dry pussy brigade, if he talks about punish-raping the rebels, this guy is not a feminist. Which means that he doesn’t really give a shit about women’s rights. Which means that his commitment to your reproductive freedom is about as firm as a tomato seed. Which means he will sell you out. In a god. damn. heartbeat....

RiggsVeda:

As for the Democrats, well, they come off looking even worse. They are certainly as venal and power-hungry as the Republicans; they've proven that over and over. But what makes them even worse is that they parade around waving their humanitarian banners as thought they really give a shit about the have-nots, and then, in a remarkable collapse of backbone, sell them down the river every time a reactionary yells "liberty!". One really has a difficult time telling them apart anymore, as Gore Vidal repeatedly warned:

"...the United States has only one party—-the property party. It’s the party of big corporations, the party of money. It has two right wings; one is Democrat and the other is Republican."

To their credit, Dems find the totalitarianism of Republicans, with their demands for compliance with the party line, anathema. But they are far too cowardly for my taste, with no real statecraft to allow them to distinguish between when compromise is needed and when it needs to be left in the dirt. It's as though, despite their humane platform, the Democratic party is beset by an alien hand, one that keeps hitting them over the head with dinner plates:

They came, they sat, they chanted:

8 Protesters backing a universal health care system briefly occupied Sen. Joe Lieberman's office this morning.

Protesters were arrested, one by one, and dragged out of his office amid chants of "Everyone in and noone out, universal healthcare now!" and "Represent Connecticut, not AETNA!"

Activists hopefully moving the Overton Window - in our case leftward - because too many Democratic party politicians were too stupid to do that on their own at the start of the healthcare debate.

What Avedon said:

So Orrin Hatch spilled the beans from the GOP side - that we can't pass health care reform because it would be good for the Democratic Party - as if the recent eight years of Republican rule haven't already had a similar effect. Now, if only the Democratic leadership would come clean about their reasons for not wanting good health care reform, which, while not particularly partisan, seems to be just plain corruption. Not that the Republicans aren't at least as corrupt, but they're focus on partisanship is tied directly to their ideology, while the Democratic leadership's focus on "bipartisanship" is in direct opposition to their claimed ideology.

I saw this entry posted over at Docudharma and thought I'd share the link to it. I'll post as much as I can, but really, it's worth checking out the entire entry. It's by the user known as FreeSociety.

The total vacuum of any principled leadership from President Obama, has inevitably produced the most directionless, anti-consumer, Insurance Monopoly boondoggle fraud imaginable -- which is now masquerading before Congress as "reform".

A new poll on the Massachusetts Senate race has state Attorney General Martha Coakley dominating the field with 37 percent support from registered Democrats and unenrolled voters, who are eligible to vote in the primary. That is more than double her nearest challenger, with 14 percent backing Boston Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca and 13 percent supporting Congressman Mike Capuano.

Isn't it time to have a Democratic President? A long quote from Taibbi, but a good one. And I'm glad we're starting this discussion now instead of in 2010 or, heaven forfend, 2012:

I’m personally of the opinion that our main problem lay with the fact that the Democratic Party as currently constituted is more afraid of losing the financial support of Wall Street and the health insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry than it is of losing progressive voters. In fact, I think I’ve put that wrong, because it implies that the Democratic Party pushes the agenda of industry insiders out of fear. That is a misread of the situation, I think.

Progressive Democrats of America joins the single payer fight in Pennsylvania

The events will start Saturday, Oct. 17, at 1 p.m. with a special Healthcare NOT Warfare rally on the steps of the Beaver County Courthouse. At 6 p.m., everyone will be on hand for the grand opening of the Healthcare4AllPA office in Pittsburgh, followed by a round-table strategy session with Carpenter and PDA Field Director Conor Boylan for PDA members and friends.

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.
- Will Rogers

Frustration with Democratic leadership seemed to boil over in the last week or so. It began (as far as I can tell) with John Aravosis' withering criticism of the president over his speech last weekend at a Human Rights Campaign event. He wrote of "concerns about President Obama's inaction, and backtracking" on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) policy towards gays. The criticism led to backlash (here is a good example) and tensions have been high all around since. In a way Obama is not the right target, and some have acknowledged that even as they urge him to act. Vermont Law School Associate Professor of Law Jackie Gardina advocates his taking action on DADT, but acknowledges all he can change is the implementation. Overturning it can only be done by Congress. The same is true for DOMA. While it may be more appealing to focus all criticism on a single target, the fact is that these changes will only be durable when the legislature acts. The president is obviously not a passive figure in all this - he can urge Congress to act, give moral support to the effort through his rhetoric (something that has curiously been treated as largely irrelevant on this issue) and otherwise encourage action on these issues, but in the end the action is at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Yes, our old favorite Boohooman has followed up on his venting with a thumbsucker on his deep spiritual dilemma: Whether to keep on being a fan, or try to figure out how to become an engaged citizen. I wish him well, and hope he feels free to take all the time he needs working things out.

Mr. Bowers serves up a mixed metaphor:

The $810 billion Wall Street Bailout is a loadstone [sic] hanging around the neck of the Democratic Party.

Of course, Mr. Bowers wrote "loadstone" when he meant "millstone."

Here's a definition of "loadstone" (or "lodestone"):

Fact-esque has a long post up that works through the answer to that question, using the health care debacle as the case study. Read the whole thing, because I'm about to summarize it, no doubt badly:

The brilliant Democrat policy of following Republican-style divide-and-conquer tactics in the healthcare bill is having the unsurprising and perfectly predictable effect of splitting two of the party's once stalwart base groups by forcing one to pay for the other and threatening the second's coverage.

This is interesting from Bloomberg:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N), legendary for its clout in Washington, has inexplicably halted its political fund-raising machine.

The strange twist comes at a time when Wall Street's biggest and most powerful investment bank, nicknamed Government Sachs by critics, seems in other respects to be just as politically involved as ever.

By all accounts, its senior executives are in close contact with Washington regulators, the lobbyists on its payroll include some of the best connected, and it continues to spend heavily to influence government.

[If you're coming here from Digby's comments, that's a result of a campaign to deny a (pro-single payer, pro-finance reform, feminist-friendly) blogger fuel for the winter, and help him avoid foreclosure, by causing a fundraiser to fail. I rest my case. -- lambert]

[Just cross-posted to Kos. How about a recommendation? And welcome, Eschatonians, Paul Krugman, Digby, Andrew Tobias, and Sadly, No readers. And Avedon, you know I do.]

[And readers, if you want others to read this post, you can use the Digg or Reddit buttons below to recommend it.]

ONE CURRENT PERMATHREAD on Big Orange is that Krugman and Obama are feuding or having a vendetta. Which, when you take a step back, is bizarre. That movement conservatives and Villagers like stone Bush enabler William Kristol, like David Brooks, Broderella, and Andrew Sullivan are all good with Obama isn't even mentioned in passing by Obama's fan base. And yet those same enthusiasts spend inordinate amounts of time vilifying Paul Krugman, a true progressive who was there for us from the earliest dark days of the Bush regime.

Curious. What's really happening?  Read more…