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The New Republic Online: At His Service

Howard Dean is about to take another huge step toward winning the Democratic nomination. According to union officials and aides to several campaigns, it is nearly certain that the Service Employees International Union (seiu) will endorse Dean next week. This may sound like just another obscure piece of campaign inside baseball, but the endorsement could transform the race.

Good overview of SEIU and what its endorsement of Dean would mean for the Democratic nomination.

NPR : New Bobbleheads on the Block: Supreme Court

Ha. Cool.

Democrats Shake Their Booty

Sounds a lot like the Dean fundraiser/party in NYC last quarter.

DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe looks out over the club’s second floor, so packed it represents the sardines-in-a-can wing of the Democratic Party, and beams. “How great is this!” he yells over the blasting hip-hop, thrilled that 90 percent of those who bought tickets are first-time party donors.

By 10 at night, the place is so crowded that no one can do anything that resembles forward motion. Women in tight skirts on their way to somewhere slither against men in loosened ties and rolled shirt sleeves, who get that dopey, glazed look in their eyes.

Maybe the Democrats are finally learning something.

House committee votes for tax cuts for multinational corporations

The New Stop-Dean Candidate - Howard Dean. By William Saletan

All year, Howard Dean has been gaining ground in the Democratic presidential race. And all year, Democratic centrists have been scrambling for a candidate to stop him. He’s too liberal, they said. He’s soft on defense, a Vermont lefty, an evangelist for expansive programs. To stop him, they turned to Joe Lieberman, then John Kerry, then Wes Clark. But the more Dean’s rivals expose his record, the more I suspect that the centrist who’s going to spare Democrats this left-wing nightmare isn’t any of these guys. It’s Howard Dean.

Sure, sure. We all said Dean was not a liberal back in the summer when we appointed him the best hope for wresting control away from the right-wing. Is Will’s piece irrelevant?

No.

First of all, it’s funny, so it’s worth a read.

It’s also a great run-down of the way in which this once “too-liberal” candidate is now being attacked from all sides for not being liberal enough. Note that Lieberman and the DLC no longer talk about the anti-war position as being the path to the wilderness. In fact, Lieberman now says his continuing support for the war is an “act of courage” while Dean’s unwavering opposition to the war is “principled”; he accuses Kerry, Edwards, Gephardt, and Clark of flip-flopping. These new “too-conservative” attacks reflect the fact that Dean has energized the Democratic base more than any of his rivals. Will thinks the basis of these attacks are key to a Dean victory next year.

As is evident from the last decade or two of American politics, our system of choosing representatives has resulted in partisan warfare and corruption by special interests. Both major parties are guilty, and the solution does not lie in electing one party over another, but rather in changing the framework within which they operate. Three reforms could completely change politics as we have to come to know it.

1. An end to gerrymandering. The tradition of redistricting usually results in enclaves of majority Democratic or Republican support, resulting in an unconstructive polarization of our political bodies, since “moderate” candidates tend to lose to partisans. Unfortunately, I don’t have a good solution worked out just yet.

2. Open primaries. Closed primaries don’t reflect the choices of the people; instead, they reflect the choices of party loyalists and partisans. Furthermore, they reinforce the two-party system to the detriment of other points of view. An open primary would pit all candidates of all parties against one another. The top two chosen by all the people would then go on to the general election for a face-off.

The California recall election is the closest thing we have had to an open primary. Arnold clearly earned the most votes, but his stated views on gay marriage and abortion rights would have alienated many conservative voters in a closed primary, preventing him from entering a traditional general election at all. The key difference between an open primary system and the recall election would be that voters would be able to first vote their conscience and then vote for the lesser of two evils. Presumably more signatures would also be required to earn a spot on the ballot.

3. Public financing of campaigns. Money buys advertising. Advertising sways voters. Money wins elections. Money also makes politicians accountable to donors. Big tax cuts, deregulation of key markets, slackening environmental controls—perhaps these aren’t a direct result of campaign contributions, but shouldn’t we ensure that even the appearance of catering to special interests is removed from the system?

It’s not enough to restrict campaign contributions; elections should be about issues, not ubiquitous advertising. Spending limits would allow all candidates to compete on equal footing. A ban on advertising coupled with allocations of time on the public airwaves would also level the playing field. Imagine a system in which candidates running for office are given the 7:50 - 7:55 PM time slot on all broadcast stations once every two weeks for free (they’d have to pay for the production and distribution of these segments, but not the broadcast).

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If this is what is needed to change the tone of politics, to whom should we look to initiate these changes? Possibly outspoken critics of the process such as Senators McCain and Feingold or outsiders such as Nader. But these men will not be able to do anything until the public speaks in favor of reform. Write to your representative. Write to your Senator. Write to your Assembly Member. Write to your State Senator. Talk to your friends and neighbors about politics. Drum up support for change. Blog it.

Chicago Tribune | Rep. Jackson plans to back Dean

It’s a start.

USA Today: Health insurers’ deals get mixed reactions Competition could increase, but small insurers could fold

Benefit consultants and others had mixed views on what the mergers may mean for consumers. Savings from merging back-office efforts and eliminating some jobs could slow increases in premiums, which are currently rising at their fastest clip in a decade. The Anthem-WellPoint deal particularly may increase competition among large insurers eager to attract the business of large, multistate employers.

If the merger of two large health care providers could save increases in premiums by merging some operations and laying off staff, then it follows that a single health care provider could also save money. Strip out the advertising budget and the savings will increase.

Combine this with policies that restrict drug company advertising, expedite the process of bringing generic versions of off-patent drugs to market, negotiate drug-price controls in other countries, and control the costs of catastrophic medical care, and we might be able to afford health care for everyone while reining in overall costs to an acceptable percentage of GDP.

Well, hell. I was going to blog about Dean’s support from two big unions, the California Teachers Association and The International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, with links going to different newspaper articles, but Hugo Martin at the LA Times decided to save me a lot of trouble by writing a single article to discuss them both: “Dean Wins Support of Two Key Unions”.

Now, Gephardt’s gotten the support of 20 unions so far, but my understanding is that they’re relatively small unions. The unions that have come out for Dean are of decent size: IUPAT has 140,000 members, CTA has 333,000 members and is part of the 2.7 million member National Education Association. Getting the support of the national body would be a coup. So would getting the Service Employees International Union on board. They’ve got 1.3 million members and represent a lot of health care workers and janitors. Since Dean has vowed to “clean house” in Washington while holding a big broom, SEIU support is virtually in the bag. That’s a joke, son.

Update

The Des Moines Register’s Jonathan Roos reports that Gephardt’s 20 union endorsements add up to 54,000 members and explains why union endorsements are important:

Democratic candidates covet union endorsements because organized labor is a major Democratic constituency with a lot of money and muscle to help campaigns.

ABCNews Dean campaign reporter Marc Ambinder contributes this to the Note:

“With 3,000 active Iowa members and 1,000 retirees, the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades may not be a match for the potent union coalition that Dick Gephardt is building in Iowa. But IUPAT, will try to match Gephardt’s numerical strength by setting an ambitious shoe-leather goal.”

“When the secretary-treasurers teleconferenced and laid out their arguments in mid-October, Dean was the clear favorite, union officials said.”

At first glance it almost seems like an ash-covered survivor is surveying the ruins of her home. Then you realize it’s a silly statue put up by some bourgeois dumbass who decided to buy an expensive house in an area where forest fires are common. Still, it’s an interesting photo. The top half is very picturesque, with light streaming among the barren trunks of trees. It could almost be a winterscape. The bottom half of the photo shows a lot of crap the humans brought up.

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By the way, if you don’t know much about the fires beyond the fact that they’ve been out there, you might want to check in on the LA Times. They’ll tell you everything you want to know about where and how they started, where they’re burning now, and how the prospects for control look. They’ve also got some amazing photos, satellite shots, videos, and all sorts of other things, including a link to Sigalert.com. So far this looks like a nicer traffic map than TANN’s.