Quote of the day: Conservatives, politics, and the personal

(((

(Updated below.)

I've written about this before: Conservatives' sense of empathy is similar to Tip O'Neill's take on politics: It's all local.

Conservatives tend not to have empathy until they’re personally impacted. When Arlen Specter got sick, he became a champion of the National Institute of Health, and when Rob Portman discovered he had a gay son, he suddenly saw the light on gay marriage. If Republicans think the Watch List only inconveniences Muslims from Dearborn, Michigan, they’ll never have any interest in fixing its flaws. But if it impacts one of their assault-rifle loving constituents who can’t figure out how to get taken off this list? That will interest them.

- Booman, in an aside from his discussion of the calculating use of the dreadfully flawed no-fly list as leverage to push congressional Republicans to finally take up basic gun control legislation.

I wish that there were some other way to get this leverage without paying lip-service to the due-process disaster that the no-fly list(s) represented from the earliest post-9/11 days, but I haven't figured out yet what it might be.

On my behalf, though, I didn't stumble onto the problem this week, like a lot of commentators. Here's my take on it from almost ten years ago – although, ironically, it was triggered by concern for the possible fate of a friend as much as by my respect for the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Maybe O'Neill was right.

To Booman's list I would add former Oregon Republican Senator Gordon's Smith's ephemeral epiphany that federal spending on social programs can play a positive role, such as in addressing the problem of youth suicide – an insight that didn't come to him until after his son took his own life, and seemed to depart again shortly thereafter.

I get no pleasure from the thought of the Smith family's terrible loss; I can't even imagine the pain of it. I just find it tiresome when conservatives' appreciation of the idea of a commonwealth, a political community existing for the common good, begins and ends – as it so often does – with the moment when disaster strikes them or their family directly.*

(I'm not aware of any other social program legislation Smith supported during his Senate career, but I'm willing to have my memory jogged. Most of his work is better exemplified by the 30,000 dead Coho salmon left behind in his 2002 re-election bid, and his tireless work for the end of Net Neutrality – a cause near and dear to the hearts of industry groups such as the National Association of Broadcasters, an organization he has been president and CEO of since shortly after he lost re-election in 2008.)

* Updated: And don't even get me started on Nancy Reagan.

The unforgiving minute: This was utterly foreseeable

Charles Pierce quotes Rep. Paul Ryan (R - Innumeracy) on something most Oregonians would prefer to forget:

In 2011, Oregon's Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and I offered ideas to reform Medicare. We had different perspectives, but we also had mutual trust. Neither of us had to betray his principles; all we had to do was put prudence ahead of pride.

(Briefly lapses into W.C. Fields impression) Ahhhhh, yessss. (Regular voice resumes) This was one of Ryan's previous scams, and he still hasn't learned that I Found A Sucker isn't a demonstration of bipartisan problem-solving. The Ryan-Wyden plan, which would have mixed private plans with a Medicare "public option," thereby blowing a hole in the Medicare guarantee, attracted the support of exactly nobody and went exactly nowhere. (In fact, to this day, it's hard to see what Wyden ever got out of the deal.)

I liked to think, then and now, that this unforced error by Wyden is attributable to: (1) his not having kicked the “senatorial courtesy” fetish that made him never turn down a photo op invitation with Oregon's then-Junior senator Gordon Smith, whether Smith was sticking to Bush like the skin on a weenie or desperately trying to put daylight between himself and Bush as re-election time grew near; (2) his evident and lingering disappointment that his Healthy American Act had been overwhelmed by events, including Obama's health care plan, to which Wyden's HAA was in some ways superior; combined with (3) a desire to stay relevant in the health care conversation.

Whatever the reason, it was inevitable that Senator Wyden's move would accomplish nothing he wanted as far as policy goes, while handing Ryan a free ticket to claim his plan to eliminate Medicare enjoyed “bipartisan support.” And it certainly left a lot of dents in a lot of desks that perfectly matched the foreheads of a lot of Oregon Democrats.

Minute's up.

Eight years ago today on p3: Senate Republicans try to decide how bad they really feel about lynching

And it wasn't anything that would make you proud of the World's Greatest Deliberative Body^TM.

How embarrassing was it, for those of us who don't wish Jim Crow was still in place?

Well, Oregon's junior senator at the time, Gordon Smith, was one of the very last senators to cosponsor – after the damned bill was already passed, mind you – the resolution saying that the Senate should have stepped up about a hundred years sooner to say that, you know, lynching is bad.

Oregon is so fortunate to have dumped Smith for Jeff Merkley. On so many levels.

Statistically speaking, I suppose this was bound to happen

But it still seems pretty misguided on Facebook's part:

The unforgiving minute

(Speaking of apologies . . . ) Five years ago this month in p3:

Senator Gordon Smith (then Oregon's one remaining statewide-elected Republican, and now head of the National Association of Broadcasters, the folks who want to bring you the end of Net Neutrality, among other good things), just couldn't quite decide how he felt about saying that it was wrong for the Senate to have sat on its hands for generations rather than putting a stop to the practice of racial lynchings.

(Smith eventually signed on near the end of the month, by which point only such enlightened souls as Trent Lott, John Cornyn, Jon Kyl, and Richard Shelby were still holding out.)

Here's how morally vacuous Smith's performance was: Orrin Hatch came around on the subject of lynchings before Gordo did.

Minute's up.

Q: How are Congressional seats like yachts?

A: If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it.

Congressional Quarterly notes another consequence of the tanking economy: the likelihood that big-ticket donors won't be as easy to find in 2010 as they have been in recent cycles. That could mean an increase in candidates who don't have to go begging:

Republican political consultant Tim Clark has some advice for national campaign strategists: recruit self-funders.

Clark, vice president of JohnsonClark Associates in Sacramento, suggested in a recent interview that if he worked for either party’s national House campaign organization this cycle, he would actively seek out candidates who possess the means to finance their own campaigns.

“Because of the difficult economy and the difficulty that everyone is seeing raising money . . . I think that’s made self-funded candidates all the more important to find,” Clark said. “They come with their own bank account.”

In the previous election cycle, at least 18 House and eight Senate candidates loaned their campaigns more than $1 million in personal funds, according to CQ Moneyline.

Another 60 candidates loaned their campaigns $350,000 or more. In addition, numerous self-funding candidates identified their personal funds as contributions instead of loans to be repaid.

Just what America needs: turning the Congress from a figurative "Millionaire's Club" to a literal one. How close are we to that already? Here's one indicator, from last week:

New York Republican congressional candidate Jim Tedisco declared in a televised debate last night that he is not a millionaire.

"I've lived, I've worked, I've represented upstate New York as a leader for many years," Tedisco said. "I'm not a millionaire, and I'm never gonna be a millionaire. When I get to the floor of Washington, I'll probably be the poorest person there in Congress."

But according to personal financial disclosure forms (PDF), Tedisco isn't exactly a working-class stiff. The sum of the minimum value of the assets Tedisco reported -- including two addresses in Saratoga Springs -- totals at least $1,426,000. The maximum value is over $3 million.

So we've arrived at a point where millionaire congressmen are reaching for the "poor me" card just because they're barely millioniaires. How the other members must snicker behind their backs in the lunchroom.

There is one bit of offsetting news, though: Self-funded candidates have a pretty poor track record.

According to her past research, a majority of self-funded candidates overall lose their elections.

"Most of them are politically inexperienced,” Steen said. “They can run on promises, but they don’t have any credentials to point to." She also said self-funders may hire expensive consultants, but their lack of political knowledge means they may not have the tools to evaluate the advice they’re given.

Brian Smoot, partner at Democratic consulting firm 4C Partners LLC and former political director at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, acknowledged that self-funders don’t have a strong electoral record, but said they still hold advantages for the party committees.

"It’s hard to resist sometimes — a good self-funder — because in scarce resources, if they’ve got the ability to fund their own campaign, it just provides more resources for other campaigns," Smoot said.

But don't take CQ's word for it; just ask unsuccessful self-funder Mike Erickson:

[A]nother 2008 self-funder, Republican Mike Erickson of Oregon, is actively considering a 2010 campaign.

Erickson, president of a transportation consulting firm, spent a total of $3.7 million on two unsuccessful campaigns for Oregon’s 5th district-, in 2006 and in 2008.

He contends that the economy will not play into his decision regarding a 2010 campaign, but speculated that it may be a factor for other self-funders.

"A lot of people have to think twice about spending money — personal money — in an election," Erickson said. "Do they have the resources to really commit to a tough, competitive congressional race? Now it’s probably a little tougher decision for some."

(Come to think of it, Erickson isn't Oregon's only unsuccessful self-funding Republican of late, is he?)

This is one more ugly side effect of the "two Americas" economy the Bush administration and congressional Republicans have left us: More and more, a congressional seat is becoming a luxury purchase item for the wealthy, not an opportunity for competent, experienced candidates.

The article is about Congress, of course, not the White House, but it's somewhat striking that CQ didn't mention the one significant counter-trend: Obama's success in tapping unprecedented numbers of small-dollar contributors. Nor did it mention public financing. Those are the only two currently available alternatives to the rise of the self-funded (and not necessarily competent) candidates.

Royal blood

Amid the Shakespearean struggles of the Houses of Bush, Clinton, and Kennedy currently being performed on the American political stage, Jane Hamscher at Firedoglake reminds us that there's a dynastic aspect to Gordon Smith's defeat by Jeff Merkley.

(Cross-posted at Loaded Orygun.)

Yike! I almost forgot:

The 111th Congress was sworn in today. And former Senator Gordon H. Smith--did you think we'd forgotten you here at p3?

Nonsense! In fact, we've got something for you: Your very own p3 bumper sticker:

Congratulations to Oregon's spankin'-new junior Senator Jeff Merkley.

Gordon Smith and the Great Republican Pie Fight

Near the end of the 1974 classic "Blazing Saddles," when the film has boiled over into a crazed free-for-all ranging across several Warner Bros. back lots, "the great pie fight" breaks out in the studio commissary.

Dapper villain Headly Lamar emerges from the mens' room just as a pie narrowly misses his head and smacks into the wall inches away. Determined not to get anything on himself, and with a look that clearly says "screw this!", Lamar carefully steps back into the men's room and closes the door . . . only to re-emerge a moment later with pie all over his face, squarely nailed from the one direction he wasn't watching.

Splat!

That's not a bad metaphor for how the final week before the election is starting off for Gordon Smith. Throughout this campaign the dapper right-wing Junior senator, determined to keep up appearances as a moderate (at least in Willamette Valley media), has carefully stepped back from the Republican brand, John McCain, President Bush, and the extremist wing of his own party. No right-wing custard on his suit for our Gordon!

Unfortunately for Smith, like that pie in the men's room, the extremists found him anyway.

National Right to Life began running a radio ad in Oregon that does something literally millions of dollars of advertising hasn't done before: mention Republican Sen. Gordon Smith and Republican presidential nominee John McCain in the same breath.

Smith, of course, has determinedly run away from the Republican brand, famously running ads featuring a gallery of Democrats from fellow Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden to the Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama. While Smith supports McCain, he wouldn't even be the honorary chair of his campaign in Oregon this year.

His Democratic opponent, Jeff Merkley, has focused his firepower on tying Smith to President Bush. And the McCain campaign has been absent from the state and hasn't run anything at all here.

The right to life ad praises Smith and McCain for opposing public funding of abortion and for voting for legislation aimed at ending late-term "partial-birth" abortions - and it says Democratic Senate candidate Jeff Merkley and presidential candidate Barack Obama support "abortion on demand for any reason."

Merkley spokesman Matt Canter called the ad "disgusting and offensive" but said that his candidate welcomed a debate about the issue of abortion. He noted that Merkley has run advertising promoting a woman's right to choose but that Smith has not addressed the issue in his own advertising.

Splat!

(The Oregonian story includes an audio link to the right-to-lifers' radio message.)

Ouch. That's going to leave a mark.

From the editors of the Daily Astorian:

One may debate the matter of when and why Sen. Smith turned against the Iraq War. But the basic question about Smith is much simpler. Why return Sen. Smith for a third term when he's done so little in two terms? Smith must come out from behind a phalanx of television advertising and answer that question, in person.

(h/t to Blue Oregon.)

There is no "I" in "team"--but there are several in this shameless Gordon Smith ad

". . . What matters is helping people, not who gets the credit?" Seriously? You're actually going to say that, Senator, in an ad that's desperately trying to give you credit?

I haven't actually been in touch with Kerry or Obama, but I think I can speak for them on this one:

Senator Smith, go campaign with your fellow Republicans, please.

(H/t to Atrios.)

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Dear Washington Post: If I promise to produce content as silly and untethered to reality as Paul Kane does, can I write for your paper too?

Anonymous: Good Morning Paul. How do you see Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore) re-election? A poll said he was trailing his opponent by 2 percent.

Paul Kane: Ah, the best sleeper Senate race in the country right now. I think this will be the race that is the equivalent to Tester-Burns from '06. These are two good candidates -- Smith spent the 1st five years of this decade voting a bit more conservative than his state's political ideology, but the past 3 years he has aggressively moved back to the middle and he's now firmly planted in the ideological sweet spot of his state, and he's adamantly opposed to the Iraq war. Jeff Merkley is the state House speaker, with lots of connections to the Democratic Party there, lots of institutional knowledge. Smith has all the money he'll ever need. I think this is going down to the wire. If the race is all about Smith and his votes in '01-'05 in favor of most Bush administration policies, then Merkley can win. If it's about how Smith has become an independent voice for Oregon, then he wins.

(Emphasis added. Silliness in the original.)

Memo to Kane: Do your homework. Oregon Democrats (with the occasional irritating exception of Ron Wyden) have never trusted Smith. Oregon Republicans suspect and fear he's a RINO. He doesn't want to be seen in public with his party's President or his party's presumptive presidential nominee (although he's the chair of the latter's Oregon election campaign and he'll certainly let either of those worthies fundraise for him).

And the Oregon independents . . . well, here's what the Independent Party of Oregon has to say about him:

"We are supporting Jeff Merkley because he is the true 'independent' in this race," said Linda Williams, state chair of the Independent Party. "Gordon Smith is very dependent – dependent on the utilities, drug companies, and other corporations for the millions of dollars he is spending on ads denying his record as a Bush Administration rubber stamp. He has voted repeatedly against campaign finance reform, including the McCain-Feingold reforms in 1997 and 2002, and has denounced voter-enacted campaign finance reforms in Oregon. He has been the Republican point-man against campaign finance reform on the TV talk shows."

Smith is an "independent" only in the sense that, with each passing day, no one's really on his side anymore. He's gradually becoming a man with a war chest, and that's about it.

Oh, yeah, and postscript to Kane: That bit about Smith being "adamantly opposed to the Iraq war?" During one long, dark night of the soul a week after the Republican were routed in the 2006 midterm elections, alone in the Senate chamber near midnight, Smith did say this:

"I for one am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that anymore."

But in the cold light of the following day, his staffers were already walking that one back as best they could: Did the Senator really say criminal? Well, yes, but not in the legal sense, only in the sense that it was ridiculous and absurd. Which, as an explanation, makes about as much sense as if Smith had called the war ridiculous and absurd--but only in the sense that it was criminal. Two different things, guys.

And in any case Oregon's Junior senator has managed to rise above semantics and continue his record of unflinching support for Bush and his Iraq war.

Looks like he found some more rope after all.

Is Gordon Smith really independent? Well, yes, but only in the sense that he's completely in lock-step with Republicans George Bush and John McCain.

Otherwise, no.

Honor among Republicans

Here's a story that'll warm your heart:

Republican Senate leaders — terrified by the prospect of losing five or more seats in November — have freed their members to vote however they need to vote to get reelected, even if that means bucking the president or the party’s leadership.

On at least four votes over the past month — Medicare, housing, the GI Bill and the Farm Bill — Republican leaders haven’t even bothered whipping members to toe the party line or back President Bush’s veto threats. Instead, a GOP leadership aide says leaders have told vulnerable senators that it’s all right to “get well” with voters by siding with Democrats on anything but energy and national security.

It’s unusual for rank-and-file members to get a green light to blow off their party leaders. But these are unusual times for Republicans. They are genuinely worried they could get their clocks cleaned in November. The prevailing attitude: It is better to lose some big votes now than big races in November.

Call it the "Gordon Smith Re-election Escape Pod," since Oregon's Junior senator is miraculously on the non-Bush side of all four votes.

(Hm. Perhaps the way to bring Gordon Smith around would be a constitutional amendment shortening his term of office to six months--if he were constantly having to seek re-election, he would be forced to stay in his faux-moderate posture year-round. He wouldn't mean it, of course, but at least we'd get the votes we need out of him.

Or we could simply replace him with Merkley, which does seem a lot simpler.)

But some of these GOP Senators have been in such tight lock-step with Bush for the last eight years that their tongues might burst into flames before they could utter an "Aye" against the White House.

If nothing else, it should be interesting to watch Senate Republicans claw their way over one another to the lifeboats in the next couple of months. When even Saxby Chambliss is donning a life vest and scrambling over the railing, you know things are looking bad aboard the S.S. Bush.

Gordon Smith in three-quarter time

Gordon Smith, like most Republicans, says he's in favor of cutting taxes--but that really isn't so. They're only in favor of reducing those taxes that their big contributors and ideological bunkmates pay. (Case in point.)

As for cutting the taxes you and I pay--well, that's a different matter altogether. To paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes, Smith assumes that taxes are the price you and I pay for their civilized society. After all, someone has to keep the money coming for things like this.

Just not any of Smith's friends.

The Democratic Party of Oregon has put together a new video responding to Gordon Smith's latest attempts to play the "tax cut" card:

Nice touch that they picture him in a tuxedo, too. Oregon's economy isn't taking the beating that some other states seem to be facing, but I don't think the power of the "out-of-touch rich guy" meme should be underestimated in this campaign.

Gordon Smith continues to attach himself to Dems at every opportunity

Last week it was Elizabeth Furse and Avel Gordley--not the hottest tickets in town, but everyone understood that he has to take what he can get.

Even so, that didn't work too well.

Today he's angling to get his name on the same page as Obama.

(Note: For some reason this ad has refused to run beyond the first two seconds, regardless of what site I go to. I've double-checked all my Flash settings and have arrived at the conclusion that no vessel of discourse, including my notebook computer, can contain the crap in this ad. Anyway, be warned.)

Who says Gordon Smith helped lead the fight for better gas mileage and a cleaner environment? Barack Obama! He joined with Gordon and broke through a 20-year deadlock to pass new laws which increase gas mileage for automobiles.

Obama's campaign issued this statement in short order:

"Barack Obama has a long record of bipartisan accomplishment and we appreciate that it is respected by his Democratic and Republican colleagues in the Senate. But in this race, Oregonians should know that Barack Obama supports Jeff Merkley for Senate. Merkley will help Obama bring about the fundamental change we need in Washington," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

Merkley's office issued a statement of its own that led with this pithy remark:

Obama never said "Smith helped lead the fight" on anything.

Which pretty well sums it up.

Poor Smith: desperately trying to step into the frame in the yearbook picture with any Democrats he can find, all the while hoping he can thread the needle of distancing himself as far as possible from Bush, the Republicans and his own voting record without motivating his base to stay home in November.

(Cross-posted at Loaded Orygun.)

Looks like he picked the wrong week to be Gordon Smith

1. The Oregon House delegation strikes back:

Oregon Reps Blumenauer, DeFazio, Hooley, and Wu released a joint statement responding to Smith's latest ad, in which Oregon's Junior senator tries to claim bipartisan support from Oregon Democrats--and it ain't pretty:

After watching Gordon Smith's new television ad featuring Elizabeth Furse and Avel Gordly we feel compelled to respond and to help set the record straight: Gordon Smith was not one of the first to speak out against the war. It was only after the resounding rejection of the failed Bush agenda at the ballot box in 2006 that Gordon Smith revealed that he harbored second thoughts about the war. Any previous consternation, on his part, was concealed from his constituents and those of us that were fighting to change this disastrous policy.

2. "$1.25 million golf clubs" enters the political lexicon, next to "solid gold toilet seat" and "$70 hammer:"

Thanks to the DNCC:

3. Being Smith means always having to say you're sorry:

Following a bizarre statement by Smith on gay marriage that the editors of the Albany Democrat Herald describe, generously, as "unremarkable, even if it was a bit on the murky side," the search string "senator gordon smith apology" got three pages of hits on Google News.

Poor Gordon Smith

The guy just can't seem to catch a break.

Oregonians on the left and center attack his ritual election-season pretense at being a moderate, when his record of voting with Bush 90% of the time and supporting the candidacy of John "Third Bush Term" McCain--not to mention his coziness with big oil in the era of $4/gal gasoline--clearly show just the opposite.

But at the other end of the political spectrum, those six months spent trying to pass for a moderate every six years aren't winning him friends among his conservative base, either.

Here's local conservative radio talking head Jayne Carroll:

When Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith first ran for statewide office, many Oregon conservatives were down right euphoric. Smith, a self-made millionaire from Eastern Oregon, was not another made-for-rejection conservative. Gordon Smith was special.

Smith's principles made him more than worthy of enthusiasm. His charm, grace, smarts, good looks and understated charisma, not to mention his almost sweet political naiveté catapulted him to the lonely rungs of Oregon Republican super stardom.

Smith's wealth appeared to be the insulation necessary to avoid the routine re-election selling-out to big money special interests.

When Gordon Smith first ran for the United States Senate, in Oregon's first statewide vote-by-mail experiment, he lost to Democrat Ron Wyden. The special election campaign to fill Bob Packwood's vacant Senate seat is considered to be one of the most insidious in modern Oregon politics. Many close to Sen. Smith believe the defeat made him a sadder, but wiser politician.[…]

Since that morning [following his defeat in 1996], Gordon Smith and Oregon have moved politically farther and farther to the left. The more "blue" Oregon becomes, the less conservative is Smith.

Some defend Smith's sellouts as following in the maverick footsteps of Mark Hatfield. But Hatfield was always a moderate-liberal Republican; Smith's dramatic metamorphosis into Wyden-lite is stunning even in a profession laden with charlatans.

Smith's expedient "change of heart" on many core value issues may be exactly what is necessary for him to keep his coveted seat in the United States Senate; yet, his spurning of those beliefs and the people who share them is immeasurably sad.

Gordon Smith was once an extraordinary man; Sen. Smith is just another politician.

"Sweet political naiveté"?

Having "the insulation necessary to avoid the routine re-election selling-out to big money special interests"?

"Wyden-lite"?

Are we even talking about the same person?

Poor Smith--the left mocks his attempts to tack toward the center at election time because they don't believe a word of it; the right mocks him because they do believe it.

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

(And while we're on the subject, it doesn't bode well for Smith's buddy McCain if conservatives are starting to use "maverick" as interchangeable with "sellout.")

(Cross-posted at Loaded Orygun.)

What's the difference between Wyden's Healthy Americans Act and Bush's war in Iraq?

Well, for starters, the Healthy Americans Act is expected to pay for itself in its first year, then produce a surplus within a few years. Can't say that about Bush's war.

Wyden, D-Ore, touted the preliminary analysis, by the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation, as demonstrating that it is possible to provide universal health care without large tax increases.

They have told us that all Americans can have quality, affordable health care without breaking the bank," Wyden said after emerging from a closed briefing on the analysis with many of his 13 co-sponsors.

Let's review:

Best single thing about HAA: It doesn't perpetuate the historical accident of employer-based health care. Given that workers entering the job market today will probably change jobs up to 10 times in their working lives, that's a good thing.

Second best thing: Guarantees every American health care at the level currently enjoyed by every federal employee, including members of Congress.

Third best thing: Subsidizes health care up to 400% of the poverty level.

Learn more about the Healthy Americans Act here.


Suggestion to Senator Wyden: Why not tell Gordon Smith he gets no more freebie "bipartisan" photo ops with you to use in his re-election campaign until he signs on as co-sponsor of the HAA?

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Memo to Republicans, right-wing pundits, and media bloviators

If you're wondering why anyone might dare suggest that the working class in America is "bitter," consider that it might have something to do with stories like this one.

Last spring, the Supreme Court--with newest member Sammy "Strip Search" Alito, who never met a pro-business court decision he didn't like--ruled that, if your employers can somehow manage to keep you from finding out for six months that you've been unfairly discriminated against in your pay, you can never take them to court to make it right.

This week, the Senate voted on a bill intended to correct this gaping injustice. Here's how it went:

Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a measure intended to overturn a Supreme Court decision limiting pay discrimination suits in a politically charged vote certain to be replayed in the presidential and Congressional campaigns.

By a vote of 56 to 42, the Senate fell four votes short of the 60 required to begin consideration of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, named for an Alabama woman who lost a case against the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company when the court found she not did file her complaint in time. Ms. Ledbetter had been paid as much as 40 percent less than her male counterparts doing the same job, according to her allies.

Note first of all that it only takes 51 votes for a bill to pass in the Senate; that 60-vote minimum was for cloture, to end a filibuster, which Senate Republicans have now made an automatic part of the process by which any remotely controversial bill comes to the floor. Two years ago, Senate Republicans (and their fellow travelers like Joe Lieberman) were arguing that filibusters were Satan's tool on earth--when Democrats were threatening to use them to stop things like Scalita's confirmation. Today, when Republicans resort to it as a matter of routine to obstruct the Democratic majority, the fact barely rates mention. What once were vices now are habits.

Note also the lame reason offered by Republicans who voted against the bill:

Republicans said the proposal to ease the time constraints would prompt more lawsuits and lead to litigation over outdated cases. “This debate today is not about allowing, favoring or supporting discrimination,” said Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican of Georgia.

Seems to me that there would only be a flood of Ledbetter litigation if there were in fact a flood of Ledbetter-style shenanigans by employers out there waiting to be uncovered. You think?

And finally, note that Fair Weather Populist Gordon Smith, Oregon's "Junior" senator, confident that the measure wasn't going to pass--that fellow conservative Senate Republicans who were themselves not up for re-election this year had his back--felt safe to engage in some political kabuki theater by voting for the doomed measure. One imagines that, after the vote, he returned to his office and scrubbed and scrubbed the hand that pressed the button for that Yea vote, reminding himself that, while unfortunate, it was necessary for the greater good.

So, pundits and press, remember this little episode the next time you're prepared to cluck your tongue at anyone who says that America's working class might be experiencing a tad of bitterness.

Then go somewhere and be quiet.

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In Oregon, Edwards and Romney lead the money game

(Updated below.)

CNN has an interactive map of state-by-state, county-by-county donations to the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns as of January 7th.

Here in the Beaver State, the map reveals such tidbits as:

• Statewide, Romney ($390,475) has far out-raised Edwards ($235,750).


• In Mulnomah County, Romney ($184,425) out-raised Edwards ($136,325).


• Of the still-active candidates, the worst Republican fundraiser in the state (Fred Thompson, $11,000) still raised four times the money that the worst Democratic fundraiser in the state brought in (Mike Gravel, $2700).


• The voters of Harney, Grant, Wallowa, Sherman, Gillian, Morrow, Wheeler, and Lake counties have yet to cough up a dime for any candidate.

Update: Yes, it's nice that Dems actually have the edge over Repubs in campaign funding for the first time in decades, but don't get cocky: The right wing still has all those so-called "independent" organizations like Freedom's Watch. Freedom's Watch, as some of you may recall, first got in the game last fall to pressure members of Congress who were judged insufficiently supportive of Bush's Iraq war (including, superfluous as this might seem, Gordon "90 Per Cent" Smith).

(H/t to the omniscient Shawn. Cross-posted at Loaded Orygun.)