BarbMD declares "This is what is sounds like when someone representing the Democratic wing of the Party speaks" in reference to AFL-CIO president Trumka laying down markers for what health reform must have, including the so-called public option (It is unclear if Trumka is referring to Hacker's 2007 Medicare Plus, or the sliver public option being debated in Congress). Trumka's line in the sand is the public option, but where do member unions stand?

For once, I don't actually mean this title to be all that snarky. The man is dead, nothing can change that now. Hearings can be a first step to prevent future, similar deaths. The point I'd make is that there's something deeply wrong with allowing power companies to shut off people's homes in the dead of winter. I know corporate profit is God in this country, and all must submit to its needs, but then again, once upon a time we called power companies "regulated public utilities" and understood that in civilized society, allowing poor people to freeze to death simply because they are poor is, you know, barbaric. From the MI Dem Party Press Secretary via email:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
LANSING – State Representative Jeff Mayes (D-Bay City) and State Senator Jim Barcia (D-Bay City) today called for a review of the tragic death of Marvin E. Schur, a 93-year-old World War II veteran, who froze to death in his Bay City home after Bay City Electric Light & Power placed a device on his home to limit his electric use.

"I am shocked and saddened by this tragedy," said Mayes, Chair of the House Energy and Technology Committee. "Though we're still getting more information, what's clear is that this man's death was entirely preventable. Until we understand this unfortunate situation, we need a moratorium on all electric shut-offs as well as the use of these limiting devices, in order to ensure that this does not happen again."

Schur, who owed more than $1,000 to Bay City Electric Light and Power, had a limiter device placed on his home on January 13 to restrict the amount of electricity that the home can use. If the homeowner uses too much electricity, the device shuts off all power to the home, and needs to be reset. City officials believe that nobody explained the device's operation to Schur, who tripped the device and did not reset it. Schur's body was found January 17.

Frankly, I don't find all that much to get upset about in the Chris Bowers Open Left post to which Lambert refers here. Okay, the post has a slightly condescending tinge to its tone, but why shouldn't Democrats be proud that now more than ever the Democratic base looks like America? Bill Clinton himself once noted the same, and pledged that his administration would too, one pledge among many, many that Clinton kept.

While I'm on this subject, I want to remind everyone that neither any particular African-American nor the African-American community as a whole needs to apologize for voting for an African-American candidate for President, or any other office, for that matter. Black folks have been voting for white folks for decades now. And it isn't as if Obama got their support automatically. It was only when he convinced many of them that he was viable, and presented a vision they obviously found inspiring, as is true for a large swathe of the electorate, that they have flocked to him. So, we are not talking about identity politics here. Remember, it was Obama who has been running as a post-racial candidate, for which many of us here at Corrente criticized him, rightly so, in my opinion.

Back to Bowers. It's this stunning post that should be the focus of our incredulous ire, although I do realize that in Lambert's majestic takedown, of Matt Stoller's chilling foray into Obama triumphalism, this Bowers post is mentioned along with the fact that Bowers starts with an admiring nod to the Stoller post.

In his post, Bowers is imagining/predicting what kind of changes in Democratic governance we might be seeing from an Obama presidency. Fasten your seat belts.

Cultural Shift: Out with Bubbas, up with Creatives: There should be a major cultural shift in the party, where the southern Dems and Liebercrat elite will be largely replaced by rising creative class types. Obama has all the markers of a creative class background, from his community organizing, to his Unitarianism, to being an academic, to living in Hyde Park to shopping at Whole Foods and drinking PBR. These will be the type of people running the Democratic Party now, and it will be a big cultural shift from the white working class focus of earlier decades. Given the demographics of the blogosphere, in all likelihood, this is a socioeconomic and cultural demographic into which you fit. Culturally, the Democratic Party will feel pretty normal to netroots types. It will consistently send out cultural signals designed to appeal primarily to the creative class instead of rich donors and the white working class.

I'm not even sure what that means. Who the hell are the creative class?

What ever happened to my Democratic Party? Why doesn’t the donkey love me anymore?

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Image by mjs

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Now that the brouhaha over the words of Reverend Wright has been completely done away with by Barack Obama's speech, his supporters are once again clamoring for Hillary Clinton to get out of the race. We are told the only way she can win is if she manages to have a 'coup by superdelegates.' Those of you who are fans of the rules will note that such a coup is wholly permissible (as long as there is no associated violence).

There are many on the blogs who deem it unseemly that the will of the people would be ignored by these superdelegates (unless, say, that superdelegate was a governor from a southwestern state whose voters didn't vote for the bloggers' candidate of choice ). The question is what will they be looking at when making their decisions about what is best for the Democratic Party. Undoubtedly, the superdelegates will take the will of the people into account, but that is not all. Here I will focus on something else they will consider - who has the best chance of beating McCain in the Electoral College at the end of the year.

To do this I first look at the current state of polling in head to head match-ups between McCain and the two Democrats. The following two maps are drawn based on the current match-ups. These were created using 270toWin.com's interactive map feature. The polling data used in this analysis were also found at 270toWin.com. A complete listing of this polling data is given in a table at the end of this post. The states are colored in only if the polls show a difference between the two (Clinton vs. McCain or Obama vs. McCain) of five percentage points or greater. It is certainly possible that changes of more than 5 percentage points could occur before November, but that is what I chose to use as a point for comparison.

Clinton vs. McCain

Obama vs. McCain

As can be seen, more states have aligned themselves with a candidate in the Clinton vs. McCain contest than for Obama vs. McCain. Clinton holds a >5% lead over McCain in 16 states (and the District of Columbia) which are worth a total of 215 electoral votes, while McCain leads (>5%) Clinton in 24 states worth 212 electoral votes. This leaves 10 states and 111 electoral votes 'up for grabs.' For Obama the lead (>5%) is in 15 states (plus DC), worth 180 electoral votes, with McCain leading (>5%) in 21 states worth 189 electoral votes. Thus they have 14 states and 169 electoral votes 'in-play.'   Read more…

I've been listening to NPR, and herewith some random thoughts.

0. Last I checked, the press always destroys the annointed front runner, much in the manner of a disturbed five-year-old tearing the wings off a fly. The narrative is one they have a lot of fun with. Hillary was so annointed, but is not yet destroyed.

1. Ron Paul has a ton of money, but he's not spending it. Third party?

I'd like to see a lot more slicing and dicing of the numbers than we're seeing. Even youth vs. age isn't absolute:

2. In CA, Latin@s of all ages, including youth, went 2/3 for Clinton (although apparently there's a lot of difference state to state here).

3. Asians break for Hillary in CA massively. Why?

Gallup:

A new Gallup Poll finds Congress' approval rating the lowest it has been since Gallup first tracked public opinion of Congress with this measure in 1974. Just 18% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, while 76% disapprove, according to the August 13-16, 2007, Gallup Poll.

There was a slight interruption in the downward trend in congressional approval ratings at the beginning of this year when party control changed hands from the Republicans to the Democrats following last fall's midterm elections. In January 2007, 35% of Americans approved of Congress, a significant increase from the 21% who approved of Congress in December 2006.

But that "honeymoon" period for the new Democratically controlled Congress was brief, as its job ratings dropped below 30% in March 2007 and have now fallen below where they were just before the Democrats took over.

Harry, Nancy: Nice work. I knew you could do it. I'm proud of you.

Our famously free press will try to spin this as the product of a lack of teh Bipartisan and the need for unity and "they're all the same" but I think there's a much simpler and more basic explanation:

Chapter 1. Shrubsville

A pack of sleep dogs stretch and yawn lazily under a stand of tower Oak trees as the little commute train steams out of the Shrubsville station. Spring is here. The beauty Magnolias and Azaleas are just beginning to bloom. The passengers look out of the dirt windows as clouds of brick-red dust blow across the fresh-plow fields. Red Gibson, the engineer, peers out from under the bill of his stripe cap as the train moves slowly down the wind track in the direction of Shooterville. Red is a very tradition man. He remembers the glory days of the Republic Party—the Ronald Reagan days and the Contract-With-America days-- when the Democrat Party knew its place in the scheme of things. “We’ve come a long ways from Doleton and Gingrichburg,” he says to his crust old brakeman. “Imagine the gall of this new Democrat Majority—thinking they have the right to question the Decider on matters of nation security.”

I just came across this site and I’m interested to see where they go with it. Think tanks abound in the Beltway, I’m not sure another one is needed or can make a difference, even with bloggers working for it, but I’m still glad to know people are making an effort. However, one quote on their blog (although I’m not sure that’s how they think of it) really ticked me off:

It is fair to say that the Strategist intends to make empirical evidence a more central element than most blogs, and we reject advocacy of strategies that are weakly supported by evidence (if at all). But you know what? The netroots may very well be right on any number of questions where their answer differs from the Beltway conventional wisdom.