Meta tags:

Headings (most frequently used words):

2010, the, may, thursday, 2011, saturday, 12, december, blog, republicans, should, more, red, state, blue, guy, 19, february, sunday, monday, september, 27, 29, wednesday, 26, my, list, about, me, archive, butch, otter, and, idaho, associate, with, known, liar, ann, coulter, at, cpac, think, there, be, jailed, journalists, audience, cheered, so, if, even, mention, word, filibuster, then, we, give, up, idp, inter, party, analysis, district, update, cd1, latino, voting, patterns, randomness,

Text of the page (most frequently used words):
the (321), that (140), and (100), this (90), democrats (84), for (79), would (59), have (53), idaho (51), are (49), not (49), you (43), legislation (42), more (37), senate (37), will (35), about (34), #latino (34), progressive (32), with (31), because (31), they (31), strategy (29), but (27), any (26), there (25), who (25), think (23), was (23), has (23), all (23), very (23), like (22), moderate (22), party (21), democratic (21), republican (20), what (20), vote (19), can (19), their (19), state (18), really (18), make (18), now (17), election (17), optics (17), republicans (16), raul (16), analysis (16), just (16), many (16), comments (15), could (15), community (15), idp (15), may (14), those (14), from (14), cd1 (14), good (14), one (14), were (14), look (14), when (14), had (13), than (13), some (13), voting (13), voters (13), know (13), foster (13), don (13), been (12), labrador (12), much (12), pass (12), get (11), minnick (11), back (11), well (11), should (11), conservative (11), right (11), years (10), race (10), which (10), people (10), did (10), however (10), seat (10), true (10), course (10), way (10), even (10), only (10), two (10), out (10), actually (10), result (10), high (10), moral (10), point (9), say (9), such (9), also (9), fact (9), same (9), against (9), patterns (9), him (9), thing (9), data (9), likely (9), own (9), real (9), change (9), single (9), bill (9), why (9), electoral (9), reggieh (8), posted (8), ward (8), candidate (8), how (8), find (8), known (8), his (8), time (8), does (8), able (8), important (8), our (8), house (8), public (8), folks (8), see (8), filibuster (8), liar (8), breitbart (8), 2010 (7), otter (7), ago (7), need (7), pretty (7), something (7), guy (7), elected (7), still (7), run (7), most (7), anyway (7), around (7), within (7), politics (7), next (7), voted (7), your (7), didn (7), senators (7), push (7), payer (7), caucus (7), states (7), wayne (7), political (6), interesting (6), while (6), until (6), going (6), facebook (6), want (6), hard (6), county (6), makes (6), lot (6), sense (6), first (6), then (6), down (6), into (6), here (6), evidence (6), completely (6), seems (6), few (6), though (6), sure (6), them (6), less (6), far (6), national (6), schroeder (6), ideas (6), matter (6), frame (6), schweitzer (6), blue (6), passed (6), these (6), option (6), little (6), candidates (6), after (5), over (5), off (5), bit (5), read (5), won (5), argument (5), currently (5), votes (5), where (5), talking (5), precinct (5), wanted (5), question (5), support (5), example (5), work (5), democrat (5), please (5), problem (5), district (5), bouma (5), doing (5), made (5), leadership (5), lakoff (5), care (5), implications (5), comment (5), health (5), previous (5), rural (5), leaning (5), legislative (5), toobigtoofail (5), iff (5), media (5), blog (4), issue (4), john (4), least (4), easier (4), win (4), page (4), listen (4), her (4), better (4), she (4), appeal (4), sisyphus (4), main (4), points (4), wing (4), recent (4), event (4), take (4), might (4), claim (4), results (4), left (4), thoughts (4), immigration (4), policy (4), issues (4), probably (4), case (4), consider (4), latinos (4), give (4), position (4), doubt (4), latah (4), dems (4), tea (4), strong (4), couple (4), second (4), controversial (4), news (4), affairs (4), bottom (4), tough (4), before (4), other (4), doesn (4), assumption (4), fewer (4), brand (4), frames (4), forced (4), tax (4), american (4), pushing (4), arguments (4), red (4), simply (4), obamacare (4), california (4), missouri (4), mccaskill (4), oppose (4), numbers (4), americans (4), model (4), hoffman (4), deleted (4), december (3), butch (3), associate (3), 2011 (3), posts (3), home (3), looks (3), debate (3), idea (3), guess (3), got (3), starts (3), maybe (3), being (3), heard (3), types (3), article (3), between (3), walt (3), said (3), break (3), sali (3), turnout (3), climate (3), influence (3), found (3), end (3), moncrief (3), highly (3), asked (3), seem (3), answer (3), coalesce (3), candidacy (3), campaign (3), benefit (3), feel (3), anti (3), making (3), provides (3), favor (3), try (3), must (3), final (3), certainly (3), let (3), use (3), census (3), level (3), things (3), races (3), reason (3), governor (3), last (3), means (3), another (3), order (3), saying (3), running (3), nothing (3), okay (3), problems (3), accept (3), inter (3), realize (3), done (3), job (3), montana (3), understand (3), recently (3), tarnishes (3), dogs (3), cuts (3), wealthy (3), rather (3), always (3), reality (3), never (3), attempt (3), filibustered (3), tell (3), through (3), obama (3), bad (3), talk (3), system (3), representation (3), parts (3), inherently (3), thought (3), weak (3), attention (3), milquetoast (3), ending (3), truth (3), failed (3), organization (3), freedom (3), foundation (3), reporter (3), banned (3), commenting (3), fundraiser (3), september (2), february (2), list (2), feeling (2), ambivalent (2), came (2), away (2), clear (2), someone (2), ada (2), crazy (2), old (2), mcjoan (2), anyone (2), potential (2), three (2), fundraising (2), evidenced (2), relevant (2), decisions (2), slightly (2), background (2), prima (2), facie (2), anything (2), close (2), expert (2), mentioned (2), low (2), looked (2), hit (2), gary (2), information (2), offer (2), impossible (2), type (2), says (2), whether (2), short (2), electorally (2), robert (2), vasquez (2), 2006 (2), firebrand (2), pushed (2), number (2), assuring (2), xenophobic (2), idahoans (2), trying (2), garner (2), ignore (2), show (2), office (2), power (2), incentive (2), believe (2), agrees (2), positions (2), effectively (2), safe (2), both (2), large (2), role (2), registered (2), word (2), wonder (2), friends (2), lieu (2), indeed (2), obviously (2), ways (2), polling (2), year (2), saturday (2), representative (2), rep (2), lost (2), gresham (2), radical (2), garnered (2), fairly (2), rex (2), incumbent (2), open (2), cycle (2), chance (2), help (2), extremist (2), nature (2), lead (2), once (2), wrote (2), start (2), based (2), company (2), top (2), mind (2), move (2), function (2), fair (2), 100x (2), inconsequential (2), lack (2), communication (2), thinks (2), dog (2), ignored (2), somehow (2), effective (2), stayed (2), personally (2), stick (2), george (2), subject (2), criticisms (2), questions (2), advice (2), electing (2), bush (2), ultra (2), middle (2), control (2), terms (2), fifty (2), willing (2), forth (2), put (2), elections (2), again (2), assume (2), infrastructure (2), ahead (2), every (2), become (2), became (2), happened (2), thursday (2), form (2), hear (2), preferred (2), proposed (2), consistently (2), success (2), president (2), imho (2), risk (2), opposed (2), representatives (2), quite (2), compared (2), past (2), name (2), senator (2), equally (2), nominated (2), knew (2), resulted (2), regarding (2), meaningful (2), enough (2), ineffectual (2), imagine (2), hardcore (2), line (2), went (2), insurance (2), individual (2), ends (2), passing (2), current (2), utterly (2), bound (2), progress (2), base (2), majorities (2), rule (2), central (2), committee (2), myself (2), center (2), benefits (2), free (2), week (2), runs (2), non (2), invite (2), took (2), screencap (2), proving (2), couldn (2), story (2), watermark, theme, powered, blogger, august, 2009, archive, view, complete, profile, 123idaho, contact, info, spokesman, com, huckleberries, online, border, wall, gofundme, refunds, millions, raised, 43rd, blues, democracy, death, lewis, game, welcome, jungle, mountaingoat, report, subscribe, atom, older, saved, perpetual, tab, day, sooner, later, saw, preference, liked, face, remain, occurs, haven, written, full, summer, relaxing, grad, school, fall, write, laughing, ass, infighting, links, conversation, vaughn, fan, laugh, glad, commercials, received, 000, increase, reported, precincts, prefer, giordano, glenn, greenwald, cole, man, beard, link, heilemann, randomness, wednesday, late, regards, dailykos, tougher, opponent, basic, ridiculously, embarrassing, screw, moderates, impressive, quick, sake, posterity, pissed, supporting, ousting, kirk, sullivan, anemic, informal, coalition, tact, teabagger, enthusiasm, waned, incredibly, poor, palin, disagrees, believes, helpful, analyze, light, different, direction, explore, ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________, whom, informed, implied, felt, dead, turned, elsewhere, contacted, respected, boise, university, science, professor, secretary, website, official, available, june, 9th, include, breakdown, started, happen, prepared, exploration, encourage, keep, statistics, especially, having, analyzed, depth, worried, ran, gain, nth, degree, react, contrast, spent, lawyer, extra, formidable, walk, tightrope, sympathetic, cause, side, spend, chunk, befriend, xenophobes, anywhere, play, procure, idahoan, turn, nose, strongest, significant, supposed, further, tends, general, viewed, negatively, organized, effect, addressed, politicians, outreach, parties, inadequate, identity, played, nearly, claims, adopts, readers, below, subjective, remarks, inaccurate, possible, specifically, ballots, secret, infer, breaks, ethnicity, 1st, best, matching, bureau, block, new, released, dealing, almost, nonetheless, standard, sort, complicates, books, four, author, starting, sixth, front, lines, held, serving, radicals, area, mounted, primary, challenged, wingnut, cred, check, image, feed, supports, reading, recollection, intriguing, rammell, research, long, darned, lean, unseat, turns, otherwise, bag, everyone, knows, motivated, disillusioned, whatever, message, stand, picking, donate, local, humbly, suggest, pick, putting, great, preventing, rightwing, law, telling, nutbaggers, scary, prospect, emphasize, rumblings, connected, moscow, oriented, book, defense, southern, slavery, doug, wilson, christ, church, resemble, dan, schmidt, rammel, update, monday, fly, commentary, bulletin, format, particular, accepted, seattle, hopefully, bothering, anymore, place, irony, inherent, obtaining, lofty, month, essentially, worst, campaigns, history, ridiculous, missteps, ironic, build, quotations, emblematic, indicates, ability, constructive, criticism, aspect, incorporate, perceives, gauge, publicly, quit, whistle, ads, friended, kind, criticize, methods, normally, ignoring, sending, private, messages, chain, lose, told, loudly, castigate, moving, proper, qualities, ummm, interstics, randy, stapilus, showing, moved, longer, choice, tarnish, nobody, wants, hates, itself, strengthens, establishing, linking, lots, complicated, attempting, convey, assessment, horrible, poorly, policies, rabid, nationally, extend, shits, extended, considerably, explain, simpler, plus, disagree, platform, whatsoever, simple, quote, reiterate, method, thereby, reinforcing, meant, thanks, forefront, effort, formulate, ruby, needs, built, former, executive, director, operation, internal, days, undecided, voter, broke, post, independent, independents, recognize, opining, weren, prentice, interview, friend, process, progressives, stops, accuse, giving, realistic, curious, evaluate, actions, feasible, ideal, instead, shall, term, hell, examine, sounds, wrong, enacted, rejected, leaving, alternative, passable, goes, tricky, threat, pressuring, included, since, lieberman, upheld, personal, opinion, applies, funny, compromise, weakling, acquiesced, demands, double, dip, recession, outweighs, specific, situation, introduce, concept, necessary, subpoints, automatically, presents, plurality, each, populous, times, per, capita, disparity, staggering, already, lower, populations, massive, advantage, tendency, urban, thwarted, amount, mounds, unfair, handicap, america, stacked, followed, decades, winning, joined, honestly, appealed, similar, beat, embattled, relatively, thin, margin, pattern, carried, throughout, country, offered, solutions, yet, incomprehensible, considering, required, appear, backfired, accomplished, watering, senatorial, capabilities, dramatically, cannot, dramatic, effects, either, sissies, neither, situations, pay, greatly, angers, piece, centered, perceptions, super, leftist, socialist, focus, defeated, republians, options, moderately, hcr, subsidies, family, poverty, recision, denial, coverage, upon, pre, existing, conditions, sets, healthcare, exchange, allows, stay, parents, age, negative, aspects, costs, somewhat, unsavory, mandate, reinforces, flawed, unfortunate, upsets, comparison, financial, regulation, objectively, liberal, overwhelmingly, unified, cogent, mostly, involved, additionally, stopping, neck, fail, failure, weaken, possibly, prevent, finreg, noticed, dictated, seen, person, unsatisfied, addressing, fool, blame, nominate, criticizing, agree, stupid, fodder, opposition, depresses, ultimately, carefully, interested, captain, eventually, intend, spot, outsider, agenda, small, advocating, nominating, wherein, tacks, major, difference, tack, dominated, electorate, otoh, reinforce, introducing, initially, immediate, disadvantage, others, initial, possibility, eliminate, above, minority, 2008, majority, enact, water, rhetoric, areas, failing, produce, enforce, opinions, enthused, popular, levels, surprising, obtained, allow, retaining, districts, proved, beyond, shadow, faulty, retain, contrary, goals, produces, sticking, guns, comes, mention, sunday, ann, coulter, cpac, jailed, journalists, audience, cheered, tiff, proxy, critical, falsely, purports, partisan, biased, propaganda, arm, gop, learned, impetus, decision, infamous, andrew, keynote, speaker, 2nd, annual, mean, banquet, asking, commenters, silly, shown, deleting, civility, disagreed, embarrassed, delete, called, unable, defend, uncivil, legitimate, stop, thinking, sensitive, allowed, banning, tossed, head, today, brad, attendance, night, extravaganza, reference, events, surrounding, lies, suspect, attract, status, provided, association, ask, comfortable, associating, shirley, sherrod, incident, facing, defamation, lawsuit, conscious,

Text of the page (random words):
t to their name but look at missouri a republican leaning state that has a democratic senator mccaskill joined the senate in 2006 after a very tough election about 49 47 it is a fact that a more progressive candidate would not have won that race this is true of many conservative senate democrats mccaskill is one of those who would likely have voted against any bill with a public option if she had she would certainly be voted out of office in her next election she probably will anyway but i ll get to that in a bit it is equally true though that conservative senate democrats like mccaskill actually do personally oppose progressive legislation missouri democrats nominated her for that very reason they wanted a candidate who honestly appealed to missouri voters because they knew that anything less would have much more likely resulted in a republican senator from missouri there was a similar case here in idaho idaho dems nominated walt minnick because they thought he was the only guy who could beat the embattled and relatively weak bill sali mind you he did so by a very very thin margin this pattern has been carried out in republican leaning senate races all throughout the country back to optics i have not offered any solutions yet because i need to get back to the implications of the democrats senate electoral strategy regarding optics prima facie the democrats senate electoral strategy is not a completely incomprehensible strategy it is a numbers strategy this strategy would seem to make sense considering it is numbers which is required to pass legislation however it would appear that this strategy has backfired democrats do have numbers but they have accomplished this by watering down their senatorial legislative capabilities dramatically they have 60 senators in their caucus but cannot pass any meaningful legislation because 16 senators within that caucus will oppose this has three dramatic effects on optics a first of all if the democrats are in power and they do not pass any progressive legislation it looks to the american people as though the democrats are either a being sissies or b don t actually believe in their own ideas neither of these situations are the case of course democrats can t pass progressive legislation because they simply don t have the numbers to do so americans don t pay enough attention to realize that this is a result of moderate democrats and that the un democratic nature of the senate has a lot to do with the election of moderate democrats to these americans the democrats look simply weak ineffectual and maybe even these optics greatly angers the voters who voted for change b second imagine that the democrats were somehow able to break a filibuster on a piece of real progressive legislation and that the legislation were subject to an up or down vote in terms of optics what does it look like to the american people when the democrats can t even get their own caucus to pass their own progressive legislation imagine if there were no filibuster and democrats had pushed for single payer health care well the national debate would be centered around obama trying to get those 16 moderate democrats to vote for the legislation that would be very bad optics because it would result in americans perceptions of progressive democrats as super hardcore left the line of thought would go like this if moderate democrats oppose progressive legislation then that progressive legislation must be really really really hardcore leftist socialist this is a result of electing democrats to the senate who don t support progressive ideas c so let s focus now on democrats recent legislative strategy they knew they could not pass any really meaningful progressive legislation because it would be filibustered by republicans and or defeated by republians and moderate democrats within their own caucus they had two options they could pass no legislation or they could pass moderately progressive legislation they went with option two they passed health care now the hcr bill is actually a very good bill it provides insurance subsidies to any individual or family making less than 3x the poverty line it ends recision it ends denial of coverage based upon pre existing conditions it sets up a national healthcare exchange it allows people to stay on their parents health insurance until age 26 i could go on at the same time there are negative aspects it doesn t do as much to control costs as we would like it has a somewhat unsavory individual mandate and it reinforces a health care system which is inherently flawed however compared with doing nothing it is really good legislation the unfortunate problem with this strategy is that the optics of it make americans think that obamacare was the democrats preferred legislation when it most certainly was not it highly upsets all the voters who voted for change because it is milquetoast in comparison to the change that they really wanted consider the financial regulation bill that passed objectively it was good legislation however it didn t go far enough because it didn t end toobigtoofail ending toobigtoofail of course could not have made it through the senate as a result it looks to the american people as though the democrats do not support toobigtoofail the truth of course is that liberal democrats overwhelmingly support ending toobigtoofail in the end democrats were not even able to make a strong unified cogent argument for ending toobigtoofail mostly because of the optics involved in pushing for it while republicans and moderate democrats push back additionally when that legislation failed as it no doubt would democrats would once again look weak and ineffectual while republicans and moderate democrats would look strong for stopping legislation why stick your neck out for something that will only fail anyway when that something s failure will weaken your position and possibly prevent you from passing any finreg legislation you may have noticed that it seems like there is nothing democrats can do that makes for good optics this may be true and if it is it is a result of democratic senate electoral strategy you see current democratic legislative strategy is inherently dictated by previous years democratic electoral strategy as we have seen previous years democratic electoral strategy has been to run moderate democrats for really tough senate elections current democratic legislative strategy is utterly bound by the previous year s senate electoral strategy which resulted in 16 moderate democrats who oppose progressive legislation i have two main points as a result of all this analysis 1 first of all if you are a person who is unsatisfied with democrats progress in addressing tough issues with progressive legislation you would be a fool to blame the president or the house democrats or anyone senate democrats other than the republicans the 16 moderate senate democrats and or the state party democrats who nominate these moderate senate democratic candidates the democratic leadership s legislative strategy is bound by previous years electoral strategy criticizing the democrats who agree with us is stupid provides fodder for the opposition depresses the democratic base see 2010 election and ultimately results in republican majorities and republican rule we should carefully consider the implications of republican rule i ll tell you one thing though republicans are not interested in the same policy ideas that you and i are 2 second main point i am an idaho democrat i am not a precinct captain if i could be i would be and i do not have a vote on the central committee eventually i intend to attempt to garner a spot for myself on the idp central committee for now i can only attempt to influence idp as an outsider the point is this is where success for the progressive agenda starts people like you and i have to find a way to work within the party infrastructure in our own state and influence the party to run candidates that actually push for progressive legislation in idaho this starts small some of us have been advocating that idaho look to montana s schweitzer model when nominating candidates this is indeed a model wherein the candidate tacks to the center however the major difference between the schweitzer model and the minnick model imho is that while schweitzer did tack to the center in many ways he has still willing to push for a few progressive ideas that he thinks would appeal to montana s republican dominated electorate minnick otoh did no such thing as such candidates like minnick only reinforce the conservative high moral frame while candidates like schweitzer do a pretty good job of introducing the progressive high moral frame the truth of the matter is that initially a strategy like this will probably lead to less elected democrats this is true of the use of this strategy on a state level and on a national level maybe some other time we will talk about the implications of this strategy on state politics pretty much the same implications i think but right now we are talking about national politics the immediate disadvantage to the strategy proposed by myself and some others is the initial possibility of fewer elected democrats and more elected republicans but let s look at the benefits first of all we would eliminate all of the optics problems mentioned above democrats would be free to push for true progressive legislation as a minority and if they were elected on those ideas as they were in 2008 they could push for true legislation as a majority and actually enact such legislation democrats would not be forced to water down their own legislation rhetoric and voters would not be forced to accept milquetoast change in lieu of the real change they voted for i ve said this before but i d much rather have fewer democrats push for real progressive legislation in many areas as opposed to more democrats pushing for milquetoast legislation as well as failing to produce any progress on many issues real democrats would be much more free to make real arguments that enforce a progressive high moral frame if you don t know what a high moral frame is read lakoff but i will tell you that the only way to actually change opinions on a political issue is through high moral frames the more real progressive legislation that democrats are able to pass the more enthused their base will become as a result more democrats will be elected if it s true that progressive legislation is good and it is then it is equally true that passing real progressive legislation will be popular we can see that the strategy of pushing moderate democrats into the senate has failed on many levels it didn t work for minnick it didn t work for the surprising number of conservative and blue dog democrats who lost their seat in this last election and i highly doubt that it will work for mccaskill in her next election the only two arguments for the moderate democrats senate strategy are 1 that the majorities obtained as a result will allow democrats to pass real legislation and 2 that moderate democrats will have an easier time retaining their seat in republican leaning districts the past two years have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that both of those arguments are completely faulty if voting against progressive legislation does not help a democrat retain a seat in a republican leaning district then what is the point of doing so it is contrary to all of our goals and produces no benefits we are much better off sticking to our guns when it comes to senate electoral strategy posted by reggieh at 6 23 pm no comments thursday december 2 2010 more idp inter party analysis this is just some on the fly commentary on george prentice s recent interview with john foster so it s going to be short and in bulletin format and in no particular order 1 the good news seems to be that mr foster has accepted a position as vp for a seattle based public affairs company hopefully that means he won t be bothering us anymore just to be clear i m not saying he has no place within the party i just don t think he does well at the top 2 i have to point out the irony inherent in his obtaining such a lofty position within a public affairs company not even a month after essentially running one of the worst campaigns mind you a campaign is nothing but public affairs in idaho history he made so many ridiculous missteps that i find it very ironic that he would move from this on to public affairs is it just me 3 okay now i m going to build some analysis around a couple of foster quotations that i think are emblematic of some recent problems with the idp 4 i recognize that most of the people opining about what happened are doing it because they weren t in the middle of it and never will be so they re inconsequential as a result okay so the thing about this is that it indicates a leadership problem an important function of leadership is ability to listen to constructive criticism and accept it when it is fair this aspect of leadership is 100x more important in party politics if you are at the top you need to be able to listen to the folks at the bottom and incorporate their ideas into your strategy in this case we can see that mr foster perceives those of us at the bottom as inconsequential that s a problem is there a foster wing of the idp that agrees with him hard to say a lack of inter party communication makes it tough to gauge who thinks what that s another problem lack of inter party communication within the idp some of you who know me may know that i publicly asked mr foster to quit running dog whistle ads before the election he de friended me on facebook as a result i realize that as an idaho democrat it was kind of controversial for me to criticize foster s methods right before the election normally i don t do that but i did it for a reason this time foster was ignoring all the folks at the bottom who were sending private messages up the chain i didn t want him to be able to lose this election and then say there was no way we could have known there was a way he could have known because we told him loudly and he ignored us anyway back to my main point it s 100x more important in party politics to be able to listen to the folks at the bottom i m not saying this just to castigate foster he s moving on to other things so that doesn t matter i m saying it because we need to somehow find a way to make sure the next idp ed is someone with the proper leadership qualities to actually run the idp 5 we were ahead in all of our internal polling all the way up to the final days every single undecided voter broke against walt i ll make one comment about some of the post election analysis there seems to be an assumption that democrats stayed home the reality is that there are a lot fewer of them the state has become a lot more red more democrats became independent and more independents became republicans an assumption ummm no mr foster an assumption is something you make when ...