Obama’s Courtship of Dem Mods

Jay Newton-Small:
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“…Dem moderates…”
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I’m sorry, but “moderate” what, exactly?
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That’s a serious question, btw.
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What is the ideological or political characteristic that is found in moderate quantity with these people?
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Are they “moderate Keynesians”? What do you mean, precisely?

Much more useful effort to court the moderates and get the new wave of incredibly popular and populist Dems on board with your agenda. Then the GOPers can’t just slam Pelosi and Reid.

Obama might grab a few moderate/conservative Republicans with this outreach, too.

http://www.political-buzz.com/

one easily poisoned by the appearance of things like earmarks
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Which is why TIME magazine devotes entire articles about them even though they make up a small percentage of the budget, and even though said articles don’t contain any analysis of, like, whether the earmarks fund reasonable spending projects.
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Disclaimer: Not that I’m bitter. The press is doing a fine job of explaining difficult concepts, and not parroting GOP talking points at all!
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Dizzy? A little nauseous?
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No. Speak for yourself. And how can you call them moderates and conservatives literally in the same sentence? If they are conservatives, wouldn’t that make them … conservative?

To the public the litany – TARP, auto bailout, TARP2, stimulus FY09 budget, FY10 budget – has all rolled into one giant slushy fund of money
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Again, the Dems wouldn’t need to explain so much if the press took it upon themselves to do a little explaining of their own.
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This would include explaining the inevitable conflict between controlling spending and pleasing constituents. The best way to reduce earmarking would be to take huge chunks of the Federal budget and raise State and local taxes to accomodate the difference.
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But that would take away from the pointing and laughing at “pork” that seems to be the number one entertainment among the press crowd these days.

Obama signs ‘imperfect’ spending bill in private…

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090311/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_spending

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COWARD.

I agree that for many people all these bills have had a mind meld. I even hear confusion on some news summaries. I absolutely blame the media and people like Ms. McCaskill for jumping on the earmark bandwagon and riding it as though it was a direct line to heaven.
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Until the Democrats took over the house and came a little closer in the Senate, the GOP set records in porking up appropriations and other bills. When Obama was elected to the Senate, he sponsored a bill that was passed by a narrow margin that was the first reform of the process in a very long time. That required Senators to put their names on their earmarks and for the information to be made public.
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During the election campaign, the GOP decided to bleat on and on about earmarks and how terrible they were – in spite of the number that were put in by GOP Congress members. Their candidate could rail about his purity on the issue and it looked like a winner for them. Obama promised to roll back the amount to 1997 levels. Since they have nothing else, the GOP has kept pushing the earmark meme until that relatively small amount has become the greatest evil known to man. I didn’t hear any Dem moderate trying to defend the omnibus bill which had to be passed in some form because govt funding came to a halt on March 6. But goodness knows I heard McCain over and over demanding that Obama veto the bill — if not a tape, then quoted.
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Dem moderates better get their act together or they will find themselves where Rep moderates have.

Limbaugh, a staunch conservative, emphasized that he is rooting for the failure of Obama’s liberal policies.

“The difference between Carville and his ilk and me is that I care about what happens to my country,” Limbaugh told Fox on Wednesday. “I am not saying what I say for political advantage. I oppose actions, such as Obama’s socialist agenda, that hurt my country.

“I deal in principles, not polls,” Limbaugh added. “Carville and people like him live and breathe political exploitation. This is all a game to them. It’s not a game to me. I am concerned about the well-being and survival of our nation. When has Carville ever advocated anything that would benefit the country at the expense of his party?”

Carville told Politico that focusing on Limbaugh is a deliberate strategy aimed at undermining Republicans.

“The television cameras just can’t stay away from him,” he said. “Our strategy depends on him keeping talking, and I think we’re going to succeed.”

Greenberg added: “He’s driving the Republican reluctance to deal with Obama, which Americans want.”

In 2006, 51 percent of Democrats wanted Bush to fail, according to a FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll.

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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/11/carville-wanted-bush-fail/

Obama signs a $400 BILLION earmark bill, BEHIND CLOSED DOORS — and this IS the guy the left wants leading our country?

Where?

Into the 1830′s?

Freakin liberal MORONS.

I just wish that “Democrats from the Democratic wing of the party” were more agressive — progressives need to be a lot more vocal about their concerns, because otherwise the DINOs control the agenda.

It is difficult for progressives to speak out when the media is enamored with “moderates” an undefined term that can mean whatever they want it to mean. They certainly never bother offering a definition.

Ditto what pluk said: I just wish that “Democrats from the Democratic wing of the party” were more agressive — progressives need to be a lot more vocal about their concerns, because otherwise the DINOs control the agenda.
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However, more importantly, it is very difficult if not impossible to have a national debate when fully half of the “very serious people” on the teevee are telling bald-faced lies without any pushback or even pointing/laughing/ha ha ha ha ha ha’s.
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Which leads me to, ditto what PaulD said: Again, the Dems wouldn’t need to explain so much if the press took it upon themselves to do a little explaining of their own. Or, at least, in the immortal words of Rachel Maddow: “It’s time to take the radical step of privileging correct information over incorrect information.”
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Until the msm does that, Dems can try to do a better job distinguishing between programs until they are blue in the face and the public will remain confused. This is a MEDIA problem. We need to have many more moments where leading msm figures admit what Mitchel did in this video:
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Yes, as have been said many times during the course of the campaign, the transition and the first fifty days, the media has failed to step up. The continued focus on the trivial and inconsequential in order to report on conflict at all cost has highlighted their contribution to our unprecedented problems and their significant role in obstructing solutions.
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Even in the face of industry contraction, the media has failed to alter its standard operating procedure and provide no evidence that they even recognize the downward spiral in which they are engaged. There has been no demonstrative attempts to increase the value of the product by “privileging correct information over incorrect information.”
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Interestingly, or perhaps ironically, the media’s behavior is quite similar to the seemingly clueless Republicans, whose fantastical talking points seem to be driving much of the media’s angles of analysis in addition to often being a substitution for actual reporting.

In 2008, the Democrats told me that if I voted for John McCain, the U.S. economy would worsen, the market would tank, unemployment would go through the roof, we’d botch the war in Afghanistan, deficit spending would increase, Iran would get a nuke, Russian and Red China would be ignored, the administration would be filled with crooks and racists, our VEEP would be an embarrassment, and we’d have troops in Iraq until at least 2011.

Well I did vote for McCain, and damned if all that didn’t come to pass.

Mission Accomplished Barry Hussein!