8/14/08 - In which I'm disappointed.

There are some who see no difference between Republicans and Democrats. If I believed that, this blog would never have existed. Or I'd be posting more these days instead of less. Given the way our system works, putting a "bad" Democrat into office rather than a "good" Republican is the only way to allow the "good" Democrats to get anything done and prevent "bad" Republicans from doing much damage.

Given this, when Republicans controlled the Presidency, the U.S. House, The U.S. Senate, the Ohio Governorship, the Ohio House, and the Ohio Senate, my personal mission was clear: vote for Dems and convince others to do likewise.

We've flipped five of six. So what's the new mission? That's tougher. Let's start at the Federal level:

Obama is banking his presidency on health-care reform and environmental/energy policy reform. I'm pretty sure that he figures that if he can get these things done, nobody will begrudge him things like extending and defending the state secrets privilege, meeting in private with lobbyists and stonewalling requests for visitors logs, refusing to consider prosecuting or even investigating possible crimes against the citizenry by an overzealous executive branch and against foreigners by interrogators, treating gays like whiny children, and placing a justice on the Supreme Court who has been reliably conservative on issues like defendants' rights.

Perhaps he's right. But that assumes he gets those first two things done. On health care, he has no policy or plan. From a political standpoint, it might have made sense to insist that Congress come up with a plan and present it to him. What we have right now, though, is a situation in which some folks are arguing against any change (a coherent position), and the rest of us in the position of arguing that some sort of change would be better because it would have some subset of possible improvements compared to the current system, although we don't know for sure which improvements we should expect (an incoherent argument). Unless one believes that there is no such thing as a "bad" health-care reform bill, we're pretty much reduced to playing defense and ad hominem attacks. And losing. Given that I do believe that a "bad" bill is a possible outcome, I don't even enjoy playing defense. This coming from a guy who has always said that health-care reform is the number one issue at the federal level.

If Obama can't get health-care done, climate-change legislation is dead. Which is why it's not unlikely he'll compromise on cap-and-trade/alternative energy to get some form of health-care reform done. Obama was quoted today as saying (about health-care reform):

"if it makes me a one-term president, I'm going to, we're going to take it on because the country is in need of us taking this on."

On the one hand, I admire that greatly. On the other hand, it's not as if he has much choice at this point.

If I had to do it all over again, would I vote for Obama/Biden over McCain/Palin? In a motherf***ing heartbeat. Will I vote for them against whomever the GOP nominates in '12? Of course. Which is why my opinion counts for nothing.

Same goes for Ted here in Bexley/C-Bus. I think he's overseen a disturbing consolidation of power into the governor's office. I think he wimped out on education reform. I think he's sincere in his socially conservative tendencies, which is not exactly an endearing trait. I keep trying to come up with a reason to not unconditionally endorse today's Dispatch editorial, but for the first time in memory I agree with them completely. I normally think of Tim at Blogger Interrupted as pushing the envelope to pull the mainstream, but as mean/speculative as it is, I think that his post yesterday is going to become the consensus opinion of mainstream rank-and-file Ohio Democrats, if it isn't already.

My mind cannot fathom how bad the state would have fared under J.K. Blackwell. Neither can I imagine not doing whatever I can to keep John Kasich out of office. So really now, why would anyone care about what I have to say?

There are such things as primaries, and there is still work to be done. You can thank Jennifer Brunner, Marilyn Brown, and Paula Brooks for my renewed interest in blogging (not that any of them would likely endorse anything I've written today). I believe Ohio will be a better place when they assume their new offices in 17 months, and I'm committed to seeing that happen.

So I'll just finish up with this statement to my dearly elected Dem officeholders who have been dealing with state budgets and national health care: If you do things in office that could possibly cause swing voters to switch allegiances, then you won't survive to be able to do anything at all in the future. I get that. But if the alternative is not doing anything that could alienate swing voters, then ability is obviously not the issue, character is. Republicans were voted out in droves because they tried their policies and the policies failed. But, give them this: they tried, didn't they?

Paula Brooks for OH-12

While I was writing that last post, the high-powered candidate for the Dems announced that she was running. So at least I wasn't crazy.

And, by the way, I'll take credit for the idea.

Can someone please tell me what has caused Tiberi's sudden "weakness?"

Okay, so I was never that connected and these days I'm totally out of the loop. But I'm still interested, and I'm hoping somebody can tell me what's going on...

During the last two election cycles, a major focus of this blog was putting pressure on Pat Tiberi, and if possible, defeating him and getting a Dem to represent OH-12. One of the major frustrations I had was that the national players were helping out significantly in dozens of other races (e.g. OH-1,2,15,16, etc.), but OH-12 was treated as a lost cause. As it turns out, even in years of huge Democratic gains, Tiberi won re-election by a solid enough margin to justify the decisions to allocate resources elsewhere.

But somehow, that thinking has obviously changed:

The DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) is the key party source for assistance in winning house elections. They are targeting 8 "vulnerable" GOP congressfolk with radio ads and 25 with live/robo calls dealing with health care reform. Pat is one of those being targeted by both campaigns.

The AFSCME and the affiliated lobbying group Health Care for America Now (HCAN) already have been targeting Tiberi and 6 others with television ads.

While the healthcare ads have been going on for the last two weeks, they've been joined by an even more targeted campaign by EDF (the Environmental Defense Fund), which is spending $150k on radio, tv, on-line and print ads criticizing 3 total GOP congressmen - Holden from PA, Souder from IN, and our friend Pat.

These ads are supposed to put lawmakers in a position where they change their position, or pay a price in lost votes next election year. When a lawmaker is likely to be in a tight race, the lawmakers position runs counter to the typical swing voter in his/her district, and the legislators vote could really swing a bill's passage, this is a no-lose strategy for the advertiser. Is that the situation here? I submit to you Tiberi's recent statement on healthcare (missing spaces preserved from original):

“Once again I’m baffled.President Barack Obama again repeated his refrain that if Americans liketheir current healthcare plan, they can keep it, if the Democrats governmenttake-over of healthcare becomes law. Irespectfully say, ‘Read the bill, Mr. President. Your claims simply aren’t true.’ Right there on pages 16 and 17 of the HouseDemocrats bill, the legislation says if healthcare plans don’t meetrequirements described by a government-appointed commissioner, they must changeor be fined. If your employer providesyou with the healthcare plan, and it doesn’t meet the commissioner’s approval,your employer will be taxed and you must enter the government exchangeprogram. It’s time the president readthe bill and quit misleading the American people. The Democrats’ plan is really a governmenttake-over of healthcare and Ohioans deserve real healthcare reform thatpreserves their choices. No one shouldbe forced into a government-run plan where bureaucrats, not doctors andpatients, make an individual’s personal healthcare decisions.”

He might say that "Ohioans deserve real healthcare reform," but it's clear from his rhetoric that he's not going to vote for any plan written by House Dems. So how about the energy bill, which seeks to drastically cut carbon emissions? Here's Pat with another one of his Newark Advocate op/eds:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi's energy bill is intended to make the planet greener, but it will leave Ohioans and other Midwesterners seeing red. The Waxman-Markey bill, also known as Cap and Trade, should be known as Cap and Tax. In an answer to the liberal left's demands, Pelosi and Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman have tied climate change legislation to energy reform mandates that have resulted in the Democrats proposing a national energy tax increase that would impose unprecedented energy mandates that result in higher costs for nearly every good and service individuals need...

Once again, I think Pat's made his position pretty clear.

Which means that all of this ad money is a waste, unless folks inside the beltway think they can win this seat in 2010. Given that they're in the loop and putting their money where their mouths are, I have to assume that there is new evidence that he can be beat. Is it a fantastic candidate they've recruited to run? Is it a possible scandal? Do they think that large numbers of African Americans will finally turn on him if he can be portrayed as anti-Obama? Is there new and unprecedented polling? Or is it simply that the Dems have already plucked all the low-hanging fruit among pickup opportunities?

Something has changed peoples minds. Seriously, email me if you know or can guess what it is.

One Off

It's going to be a couple of months before I resume blogging, and it is still up in the air what that will look like. But enough has been happening that I can't keep my mouth shut, so to the folks still subscribed to the RSS/e-mail of Blue Bexley, Here You Go:

1) Blue Bexley endorses Jennifer Brunner for U.S. Senate, as she is easily the Ohio Dem for whom I have the most respect. One of the last statements I made before hibernating was that I anticipated the campaign I'd be most enthusiastic about in 2010 was getting her re-elected as SOS. I'm even more excited about seeing her run against Portman. This is going to be a fairly big referendum on the role of the grassroots and blogosphere in Ohio... The traditional power brokers all favor Lee Fisher as a candidate. There is tremendous support among the younger and activist rank-and-file Dems for Brunner. Unlike most folks, I hope they both stick around 'til the Primary. IMHO, you are less bloodied by winning an election than you are sullied by winning a power struggle.

2) Ted Strickland supports Fisher. A cynic might say that Ted would support any situation which would let him get a new Development Director. But that's not fair. It is fair to bring up that Ted was an early vocal endorser of Hillary Clinton, who went on to take 83 of 88 Ohio Counties in what was kind of the final gasp of her campaign. Naymik at the Plain Dealer has already commented that Brunner seems to be channeling Obama. The question is, would Ted and Lee make a straight-faced attempt to turn Fisher into HRC?

3) Speaking of Ted - from the looks of it, his school funding fix sucks. It brings the state into technical compliance with DeRolph by completely ignoring the spirit of the decision. These newly funded schools will then use the increases or reductions in cash to fund a bunch of evidence-based changes to instruction format and curriculum. It'd be nice if he actually pointed to some of the supposed evidence. In his defense, there would be more money for schools if people would just throw more money away on Keno, which is why spending for marketing campaigns convincing people to gamble in a recession seems to be bucking more general trends in state expenditures.

4) Of course, playing Keno is only marginally less financially harmful than taking out a payday loan. "What?!?!" I hear you asking... Didn't we ban payday lending?!? Well, yes, sort of. It turns out that the lenders have gotten creative about fees, and the APR is still about 200%. I was pretty scared about loopholes that would be exposed if Issue 5 failed, but I wasn't expecting the law to be so easily skirted if it passed. I have to think the Payday Lenders couldn't have foreseen it either, or they may not have spent so much cash on the futile campaign.

5) Obama has been pretty much everything I feared when I refused to support him in the primary, and pretty much everything I hoped for when I supported him in the general. In other words, I'm of the opinion that anybody who has been at all surprised wasn't paying attention.

6) The economy is in free-fall and we've passed a stimulus package. I'm ambivalent. What I find most frustrating is that we should be putting in place a strong social(ist) safety net during times of economic growth, as a way of protecting individuals and lessening the collective impact during times of economic downturn, and when times get tough we should be relaxing barriers to trade and commerce to provide fuel for the natural forces of the market that cause economic growth. Instead, we use economic growth as evidence that social protections and economic regulation are not only unnecessary but harmful, and when the inevitable crash comes, it is magnified and accelerated by the lack of protection and regulation. This is followed by a recession/depression in which people clamor for more government services and public intervention into the private sector, impeding the speed at which the economy can recover. Given that it is too late to properly prepare for an economic crisis, I guess it's better to have stimulated and lost than to never have stimulated at all. And despite the (understandable) preference on the part of conservatives to pull the economy up from the top down rather than attempt the slower and less efficient process of pushing the economy up from the bottom up, it is only defensible when the bottom is stable and sustainable. Until then, government spending trumps tax cuts.

6) Some of you know that there's a non-trivial chance that I'll be leaving the State of Ohio in 2009. If it becomes apparent that that is the case, I'll be shutting down Blue Bexley for good and pursuing other outlets. If, as is more likely, it becomes apparent that I will be sticking around for the foreseeable future, I will most likely be doing a pretty thorough makeover of BB, but still writing about state and local politics as a big chunk of the content. I'll let you know. Thanks for your patience.

Hibernation

This election season was different from the last two, in that the majority of the results were consistent with the results I was working for here at Blue Bexley - Nancy Garland won in the 20th Ohio House District, helping to give Democrats a majority in that body. Issue 5 passed, and the most predatory of lending schemes in Ohio is no longer being perpetrated. Barack Obama, of course, is our next president (and my faith in the legions of volunteers and donors he inspired was borne out). David Robinson did not manage to unseat Pat Tiberi, which is disappointing. Of course, if Pat were to actually be defeated, what would I blog about?

Ay, there's the rub.

The primary objective of Blue Bexley has always been to provide analysis, opinion, and original reporting that focuses on the aspects of reality that would influence the election of Democrats to the offices on the Bexley ballot (local, state, and federal). I've argued for a pro-partisan view of politics, because parties set the legislative agenda, and 'liberal Republicans' and 'conservative Democrats' only get to vote on legislation approved by the caucus more generally. For example, putting a gay-friendly Republican in the Ohio House instead of a quietly homophobic Democrat might seem like the right thing to do if you're a single issue gay-rights voter, but in actuality, a non-discrimination bill makes it to the floor if the Dems have a majority, and doesn't if they don't. Once Dems have a majority, you can lobby and confront individual office-holders. Until then, it doesn't make a difference.

I keep saying "until then." I should say "until now." Democrats have a strong working majority in both the U.S. House and Senate, they're now set to be running the executive branch in D.C. and Columbus, and have gained a majority in the Ohio House. The Ohio Senate is still GOP turf, but their agenda-setting capabilities have been overwhelmed by the Democratic control everywhere else.

So, um, that's that.

The two secondary objectives of BB have been to provide expanded coverage of the interplay between policy, politics, and the Bexley community, and to fulfill the promise inherent in the old joke that Everyone is Entitled to My Opinion.

Coming out of this election, I'm looking at a blog that is less focused on getting Ted Strickland re-elected and more focused on pushing Ted hard on his so-far-underwhelming response to funding and quality disparities in Ohio schools, his knee-capping of the Sick-Law initiative, his power grabs on behalf of the executive branch, etc. A blog that focuses on the details of competing proposals for a new Bexley Public Schools levy. A blog that wonders if the fact that Rusty Klesla is the only original Blue Jacket on the team makes him more or less likely to be the defenseman who gets dealt. A blog that can't help itself and starts trying to raise funds for Jennifer Brunner's 2010 race.

And though it might not be easy to explain or to understand, I'm not sure I'm up for writing that blog. So for now, I'm taking a few months off. If I come back, it may be to continue Blue Bexley. It may be to pivot Blue Bexley. It may be to shut down Blue Bexley and try something new.

By all means, if you can't live without my opinion on something, shoot me an email. I'm not expecting my inbox to overflow, though. Thank you to all who have emailed me, as well as to all of you who have read Blue Bexley regularly, and those who have stumbled upon the site by chance and came back once or twice. I've had a very small but still noticeable influence on electoral politics in Central Ohio this year, and that was always my first metric for the blog's success. Without y'all, that never could have happened.

I hope you and your families enjoy the upcoming holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, from Veteran's Day tomorrow, to Inauguration Day Jan 20.

-Jason aka bonobo