Hold Fast

Adam Serwer, writing at Greg Sargent’s place, writes:
It’s sort of odd that in an election where Democrats are doing badly because they failed to do more to revive the economy, they’re foundering for a message while facing opponents who are promising to do even less.
It is something more than sort of odd. It’s a demonstration […]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sq0176-yFg

Steve Aufrecht of What Do I Know? shot this video of Alaska’s Democratic Senate nominee Scott McAdams in Anchorage on Wednesday. McAdams is the mayor of Sitka, Alaska, and though he isn’t widely known across the state like a couple other Alaskan mayors, he is the real deal.
Dave Weigel at Slate asks a good question:
Do […]

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I think primaries are really good, healthy things for both democracy broadly and the Democratic Party specifically. In my home state of Connecticut, there’s a heated primary going on between grassroots hero Ned Lamont and Stamford mayor Dan Malloy. It’s not that it’s a close race - Ned is well ahead of Malloy and is […]

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At the end of a long, thoughtful and dare I say, Must Read piece in The Nation on the structural hurdles in American politics and the media that prevent a truly progressive presidency from being realized, Eric Alterman writes:
What’s more, one hypothesis—one I’m tempted to share—for the Obama administration’s willingness to compromise so extensively on […]

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Markos, in looking at polling that shows while Democrats are very unpopular in Ohio, Republicans are even worse, writes:
By all rights, Democrats should get crushed in November. They took office promising change, and their actions have been, at best, weak tea. Hostile corporatist interests have successfully watered down every bit of legislation passed. The job […]

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What Markos said:
The GOP establishment tries to nominate electable candidates, and gets sabotaged by the teabaggers. We’re trying to nominate electable candidates, and we get sabotaged by the Democratic Party establishment. We won in Pennsylvania, lost in Arkansas. You can’t win them all. But make no mistake — we made the politically smart move. [Emphasis […]

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Chris Bowers:
The lesson for the White House here should be to stay out of primaries. These stories are costing them a lot of news cycles, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars they sunk into Arlen Specter’s campaign.  Further, these primary challenges are actually helpful to the administration’s legislative agenda, as they do […]

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Greg Sargent writes:
While anti-incumbent sentiment was no doubt a factor in the stunning upset of Arlen Specter and the forcing of Blanche Lincoln into a runoff, isn’t it also possible that many Dem primary voters, even moderate ones, simply opted for the candidate who better represents mainstream Democratic positions?
Yes. It’s hard to frame this as […]

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It’s a big day for Democratic Senate primaries, with Arkansas and Pennsylvania going to the polls to challenge the tenure of Blanche Lincoln and Arlen Specter. While I don’t know what the outcome will be of these elections (I’d guess Lincoln gets a plurality but there is still a runoff and Specter barely loses), it’s […]

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It feels really weird to write this, but as of today, April 22nd, 2010, I’m not that concerned about the fate of Democrats in midterms. Granted, they haven’t done much to make me care too deeply about the size of the Democratic majority in either chamber or even holding on to both. If I had […]

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