AvengingTiki

There was a forum thread a little while ago that asked what the differences between liberal and progressive are. You can find the thread on this page.  To sum up that post: the 'liberals' of today are basically a result of the New Deal ushering in a torrent of changes that defined a political philosophy for 65+ years.  It focused on getting aid to people.  Progressives are more concerned with regulating and protecting a functioning system, and helping where needed.  This focuses a lot more on economic issues than classic liberals did.  I've been thinking about this for a couple of weeks now and I had some other thoughts I wanted to write down about progressivism.  This is not meant to be an academic style paper.  This is a declaration of a belief, an attempt at defining something complex and constantly changing.  So while many might not agree that this is a strong definition of progressivism it is my version of the philosophy.

Progressivism as it exists today in the modern American political sphere is all thanks to Bill Clinton, though he is not the only one to thank.  Clinton taught the Dems how important money is and showed the power of well-managed compromises.  So with that in mind I feel that it is necessary that I thank Newt Gingrich.  Let me be clear I am thankful Gingrich helped show Clinton the value of a strong economy, by forcing him to cut spending.  Gingrich, however, was not trying to revolutionize the Democratic Party he was trying to hold one of the greatest Legislative revolutions of all time.  But he built the new Republicans on a foundation of corruption and lies.  This beginning is why the party spun out of control, going from the top of political power in 2000 to utter disaster in eight years (and Bush bears a large responsibility but you are letting too many people of the hook if you blame it all on him).  America was ready for Progressivism in 2000; the popular vote went to Al Gore.  They were at least willing for a test drive of it.  Eight years later and millions upon millions of Americans are chomping at the bit to try Progressivism out for real, for the first time.  Why though does progressivism appeal to so many, and from such ranging backgrounds?  The answer lies in the key beliefs of progressivism.

Progressives want (shock) 'progress.'  It is the word that defines them.  For there to be progress though one must admit that there are good overall outcomes and bad overall outcomes.  In short progressives do not believe in the zero-sum theory of the world.  There is good and there is evil, though extremes of either are not common, unlike what many would have you believe.  Progress requires a direction to head, a set of goals that would make things better as opposed to worse.  To accomplish this progressives look at politics in a very interconnected fashion; a fact due in large part to the internet and it's ability to move information (a creation whose political champion was early progressive-convert Al Gore).  Progressives are tinkering creatures.  They find an idea, a system, a committee, a legal doctrine, something that they think works, and will find a way to try and absorb it with the good parts of another system.  This is much easier said than done and requires a more complete understanding of issues and sometimes making large compromises for the greater sake of progress.  Though as with good and evil there are extremes. there are rules that cannot be broken, though they are not common, unlike what many would have you believe.

Progressives sometimes piss people off, especially other progressives.  There are some core elements that bind us but lots of grey area that is not as defined.  I think progressivism is partially successful because of the grey that exists; it creates a lot of room for compromises to be made.  The core issue of ‘progress,’ is the focal point of what holds these people together.  They are people who want to progress things, who want to help people, and who are willing to put some differences aside to get it done.  This is why young evangelicals are intrigued by progressivism; they don't want to be two issue voters. It feels wrong when progressives are the people pushing to enact the most 'Christian' policies; helping the poor, protecting the environment, equality.  Progressives are the ones trying to create a system of abundance instead of a system of scarcity.

I'm very excited about the potential of progressivism but am not naive enough to think this idea is a panacea for the World's ills.  It will take everyone doing what needs to be done to sustain and endure.  Progressivism is simply the newest system of popular thought with a road map.  I just so happen to think, however, that it's the best map out there.

I'm not sure if Howard Dean or Obama and the Dynamic David Duo thought of it first, it doesn't really matter, but the idea to pursue a 50 state campaign was a stroke of genius.  Some conservatives have laughed at it and plenty of Dems have scoffed at the idea as being foolish, but I present this brief bit of evidence to show why this is one of the most forward thinking political moves in recent history.

To begin with I would like everyone to take a look at this, it is a discussion at swing state project about the states most likely to pick up a congressional seat (and an additional electoral vote) in the next census.  The first thing you will notice is that all of the states (except Oregon) are traditional red states.  So to begin with expanding the traditional view of where democrats can win elections is a good idea since the proportionally bigger states are red states.  Now I ask you to look at who is propelling these states' growth.  In 4 of the 9 states (Nevada, Texas, Florida, and Arizona) Hispanics are the fastest growing part of the population.  In another one of the states (Georgia) African Americans are the fastest.  In two of the remaining four (Oregon and North Carolina) total minority population is outpacing white population growth.  Leaving only Utah and South Carolina as the states where white population growth is most of the population growth.  In 7 of the 9 states most likely to gain electoral votes and another representative minorities will be a bigger part of the electoral bloc.  African Americans are pretty locked up by the Dems, but what of the massive new Hispanic voting bloc.

Oh Look

Hispanics have begun flocking to the Democratic party with two thirds supporting Obama.  Part of this is due to the large scale nationwide reachout Obama and the Dems are doing (and part of this is due to the Republicans screwing over Hispanics on low income legislation (minimum wage, healthcare, tax breaks for the wealthy), and Immigration policy).  The outreach to traditional red states shows promise to not only affect this election cycle but to help win the Democrats up to 7 more House Seats in the coming years.  A wise plan that shows foresight from the Dems and helps to fortify their position in the lead up to a new round of district redraws.

I just realized I had been failing to click on the publish button for my last three blog entries.  I feel silly... anyway if you're reading this I encourage you to read my last three entries and comment on them.  The most recent one is about energy policy and news, the one before that is about the Missouri Governor's race, and the first one I messed up was about the Alaskan Senate race.  Hope you guys enjoy and I'll be more careful in the future, to make sure I don't pull such a bone head move again.  Thanks for reading!

I've posted a few policy blog entries before, but most have been about candidates.  I thought I'd return to some policy discussion by mentioning a few developments that have taken place over the last month or so in the energy field.  First here’s a shocking bit of news, Texas is spending $5 billion on Wind Energy.  It’s the largest single investment in renewable energy in this country’s history.  Has big oil begun to see the future?  We’ll see.  In other news Gore wants the US to produce every kilowatt of energy from renewable resources by 2018.  Well by 2018 I want a mechanical horse made of solid gold.  He is comparing the challenge to Kennedy’s declaration that man would get to the moon by the end of the decade.  No offense to Mr. Gore, but when making such sweeping challenges it is helpful to be the president of the country you are challenging.  Finally (my favorite story of the three), the House of Representatives passed a bill that would require oil companies that own legal off shore drilling sites to fully explore the sites or lose their lease on the spots.  Also they want to prohibit Alaskan oil from being exported (though very little of it is anyways)… Bush is threatening to veto the bill.

The man who wanted to so desperately expand offshore drilling won’t make a bill that requires oil companies to drill where they can already drill.  This position confirms my suspicions that the oil companies don’t want more offshore sites to drill they want to horde more offshore sites so that when oil starts becoming scarce they have backup spots already under their control.  It’s an investment attempt for them, one that hurts the American people by allowing industry to destroy wilderness when there is no need to.  Experts seem to think that these already exsisting plants could start producing oil in one to two years instead of ten, but still agree it wouldn’t be much.  Something tells me the Democrats don’t really care if the oil companies drill or not, they just found a great way to shut them up though.  Hats off to the person who came up with this bill, beautiful politicking and if it did manage to get passed it would help the country.

Moving on, I would like to briefly discuss my opinions on some other environmental issues.  While my primary reason for wanting to save the environment is for the sake of saving it discussing the issue in those terms somewhat like preaching to the choir.  The neat part about the environmental arguement is that an ever-growing number of conservatives are beginning to see that conservationism can also be beneficial monetarily.  Take Texas for example, this is a way to produce cheap free energy and the technology exists to allow for energy to be produced at a profit.  It’s simple dollars and cents.  Oil companies are worried that if too much cheap energy is made some of them will go out of business as the amount of money spent on energy, by consumers, would decrease.  They, however, are making a fatal error in their calculation.  Imagine what the demand would become like for cheap clean energy?  Are you a little cold at night?  Turn that thermostat up to 75, who cares?  Demand will increase enough to keep our oil friends making some serious money.

Here’s another example of money making ecofriendly stuff, Oregon is trying to expand it’s bottle bill to have all drink containers cost an extra five cents, all containers 24 oz. and over would be a dime deposit, and liquor and wine bottles would be a 25 cent deposit.  This would greatly increase the recycle rate of the containers, and make the government a little bit of extra cash in non-redeemed bottles.  Heck it even gives our more… industrious citizens a way to get a meal once in awhile.  Another example of a green-squared phenomenon (eco-friendly x money making) is a company in New Zealand (having trouble finding their website I’ll post it when I get it).  This company is a recycling company; it charges less than the dump to take in people’s trash (they make money here).  Next using a number of new technologies they recover an average of 90% of the materials and return them to industrial quality goods for sale (they make money here too).  Leaving them with only 10% of the waste originally given to them,  If this turns out to be profitable it could revolutionize eco-friendly businesses and potentially reduce our solid waste to 10% of it's current mass.

Everyone can agree that privately owned businesses that make money and save the environment are awesome.  But how do we get more successes like these?  The answer is to use more of our tax dollars on research and development and investing in green companies.  Some investments will fail but it is clearly possible for these businesses to succeed.  More grants for research and eco small businesses should be given.  We should get the money for these grants from Oil Companies by reducing our tax breaks and subsidies to them.  If futures speculators really looked into the future when investing they would be jumping all over renewable energy.  Oil Companies should be happy to give up some government money for more investments by the government.  The Oil Companies could stand to make a lot of money.  While I believe Mr. Gore’s goal is a bit too lofty I think it is reachable in the near future.  This should truly become an international movement with nothing to stand in its way starting as soon as next year.  All we need is a little more initial investment.  Here here to green-squared businesses!

My job has been eating up a lot of my time but I managed to find some time to write this entry up.  Missouri's governor Matt Blunt has decided to not run for reelection because no one likes him.  So there is an open governor's seat that is being vacated by a disliked Republican, sounds like a prime target for the Dems.  The state will hold it’s primaries on the 5th of August but in a rare turn of events the Dems only have one real legitimate candidate (Jay Nixon) while the Republicans have two (Kenny Hulshof and Sarah Steelman), this fact has led Nixon to open up a nice lead over both candidates.  Nixon is the current Attorney General of Missouri, Hulshof is a Congressman, and Steelman is State Treasurer.  The three all have strong roots in the community and have all been politically active for quite sometime.  While Nixon has a strong lead it’s safe to say whoever wins the Republican nomination will get a bump (though over 50% of voters say they support Nixon against either Republican candidate), so instead of discussing what Nixon needs to focus on (though I’ll probably do a little bit of that) I’ll talk about what Nixon needs to watch out for coming from either Republican challenger.  First though I’ll take a brief look at the two Republicans.

In my opinion Hulshof is making a big mistake going for governor.  This is his sixth term as representative and he has steadily become more conservative as time has gone on, as a brief look at his interest group ratings shows.  Perhaps he couldn’t win his seat back, but if that is the case why try for an even bigger goal instead of fighting hard for his seat?  He is pro-life and anti-union and has steadily become more of spend crazy neocon.  He’s a pretty standard new age Republican, which are doing badly across the board this year.  Steelman on the other hand doesn’t have a long tainted legislative record and can be seen as an economic expert (being treasurer and all) an angle that should play well this election year.  Though she is almost as conservative as Hulshof (as a quick look at her issues page will show) her better economics record and lack of records in general are beneficial to her bid.  A fun little fact, Nixon beat Steelman’s husband in 1992 for the Attorney General’s seat.  Back to what I was saying, I’d be thrilled to have Hulshof win the candidacy because I don’t think he’ll be able to win any moderates.  It’s looking good for Hulshof too (though he and Steelman are very close in the polls), Governor Blunt’s father, Roy Blunt, just endorsed him.  Blunt the senior is the Minority Whip in the House and pulls a lot of water in Missouri.  We’ll see how this Republican primary plays out in about a month.  With that quick little look out of the way it’s on to Nixon.

Nixon is probably feeling pretty good right about now.  He’s got more experience and name recognition than one of the Republicans and more appeal to moderates than the other.  A quick look at Nixon’s website shows that he has not had to run a tough primary.  It is very light on the issues page; he doesn’t even have a prominent list of endorsements (though the state police endorsing him is one of his headlines).  Despite being Attorney General for 16 years public safety is not one of his major campaign issues.  Instead he is focusing on the economy, health care, and education.  These are all very important issues to middle America and he seems to have a good idea of what is important to his constituents.  I think the biggest worry Nixon should have is underestimating his opponents.  Not taking strong stands on issues can be helpful early on since you don’t want to alienate people any earlier than need be.  Eventually, however, it is important to take some more detailed stances on a larger number of issues.  This lets people know what they’re voting for and keeps you from being called a ‘paper thin’ candidate.  To be fair Nixon still has a month before the general election starts in earnest, so he’ll probably pick it up in a few weeks.  As far as his accomplishments as Attorney General go Nixon made Missouri one of the first states to have a no-call list for telemarketers and limit campaign donations, both of which were eventually adopted by the federal government.  He also created a $1.5 billion health fund to help provide healthcare to the poor. In addition he created an Environment Task Force to help enforce Missouri’s environmental laws, which has led to large-scale cleanups and millions of dollars for the state.  A similar system is being lauded by Oregon’s Attorney General elect John Kroger.  Not to be seen as too liberal Nixon has adopted a pro-second amendment stance, applauding the recent Supreme Court ruling on the DC handgun ban.

Each Republican will probably try to hit Nixon on the economy, which is probably why Nixon has been focusing on that particular issue.  I foresee both candidates also making Nixon out to be too liberal for Missouri, but as someone who has done so much for the state for so long I’m not sure that will pan out.  With so many historic and prominent accomplishments as Attorney General I think Nixon should highlight these more.  There are no recent press releases or news articles about these accomplishments being touted and they are not prominent on his website.  He has been busy outlining more positions but has mostly focused on economic, health care and education issues.  Reminding the people of Missouri about how great he is and firming up more of his positions would be a good call for Nixon.  If he watches out for his opponents and is setting up to treat this like a tough race I think, in all reality, he has the best shot in the country of turning a red governor’s seat blue.  Good luck to Mr. Nixon, hopefully he’ll cruise through to November with minimal turbulence and move Governor Blunt’s seat to the left.

     First my apologies for not writing in so long, I've been getting ready to start a new job field directing for a candidate trying to beat a Republican incumbent in the Oregon State House. In preparation I've been spending as much time as possible with friends and enjoying my freedom, as it will rapidly evaporate over the next four months as we approach the election. Anyway if the odd title hasn't clued you in today I'm going to talk about Alaska. Specifically I'm going to talk about Ted Stevens running for reelection in Alaska. Stevens is the fourth most senior member of the Senate and has been serving since 1968. Usually this election would be a slam-dunk for the R’s, but there are a few complications that have Stevens on the ropes. Namely the FBI is investigating Stevens for bribery charges (discussion of this is towards the end of the article). An oil company called VECO had their executives found guilty of various crimes and they testified that they had given Stevens free home renovations as well as given numerous payments of cash to Stevens' son. This is a really bad time for this to have happened to Stevens. With people generally upset with Republicans he doesn't need to be giving people any additional reasons not to vote for him. In addition to this Stevens is famous for pork barrel spending including the famous "Bridges to Nowhere;" two bridges in Alaska, being paid for by federal dollars, that would cost billions and offer very little utility to the people of Alaska.  His opponent is Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. A new poll shows Stevens only up 46 to 44.  With four months to go before the election this is bad news for Stevens as incumbents usually have their lead shrink, as it gets closer to the election.  So where does Stevens stand on the issues (other than the issue of bribe taking which we already know where he stands)?

     A brief look at Stevens’ site shows his two major issues are the environment and energy policy.  These are two things that are often times at odds with one another but are both very important to Alaskans.  Though in actuality it’s safe to say the economy is a bigger issue for Stevens than the environment.  When given the opportunity to be environmentally friendly without hurting energy or economics policy, Stevens tends to be more than happy to help the environment.  He supported the cap and trade agreement and likes to at least tout himself as one of the bi-partisan leaders that got the fuel-efficiency bill passed in 07, he also has supported constructing some renewable energy sources in Alaska.  He, however, is opposed to the Endangered Species Act, and for ANWR drilling and the Alaskan gas pipeline.  He also sometimes supports fish preservation acts while other times pushing for deregulation on fishing (a big deal in Alaska).  His number one goal is clearly bringing money into Alaska and getting as much oil and energy production for Alaska by any means available to him.  With that thought in mind I found it odd that he recently voted against an act that would have created a lot more renewable energy sources in the country as well as a number of other neat provisions.  I, however, could not find a reason why he voted against it.  The only thing I can think of is that he would think it is too expensive, but that would be a silly defense since he gets massive amounts of pork barrel spending for Alaska. As far as technology goes Stevens once famously described the Internet as a "Series of Tubes" when describing why he was against net neutrality, something that many have taken to show that Stevens is disconnected with the current world.  At first glance he seems like a traditional Republican but a closer look at him shows that Stevens was a NeoCon (as far as economics goes) years before they were a force.  He supports tax breaks whenever he can but insists on absurd amounts of money for projects that have no value to anyone.  He takes a tough stance on immigration as well as gun rights.  He is an established figurehead of Alaskan politics and even with the scandals it will take a lot to get him out of office.

     Mark Begich has a lot of work to do in four months but he's approaching this race in a great direction.  While I disagree with him he has come out in support of ANWR drilling, the Alaskan gas pipeline, and was for the Supreme Courts decision to remove the DC handgun ban (he was also enraged at the Supreme Court, at the same time, for reducing the amount paid to victims of the Exxon Valdez spill).  While I don't agree with him on the first three issues I think they are great stances for him to take because they are all issues moderates and some Dems find important in Alaska.  Begich knows that he needs to give people that are upset with Stevens good reasons to vote for him.  They need to feel that they will be able to get a lot of the same things they like about Stevens from Begich.  Begich makes a big point of being against No Child Left Behind (it's the first issue on his issues page, and while the issues page is alphabetical they didn't have to make it that way if they didn't want to highlight education). This is a great decision because Stevens is for the bill and went so far as to tour with the Secretary of Education and discuss how much the bill has helped Alaska.  Begich wants more state and local control of schools, another appealing policy for small government moderates/conservatives.  Despite being for some environmentally damaging policies Begich does set hard goals for wanting to reduce energy consumption and get more energy from renewable sources.  He supports veteran and elderly benefits and more affordable healthcare, but doesn't give the details about the positions the same way he does about the other issues mentioned.  Begich is running a strong campaign and has made some great choices on issues.

     I personally think this is one of the best-run campaigns I've looked into so far.  Begich has an issue that he can dig at Stevens with (Education) which also appeals to conservative voters.  He has plenty to attack Stevens on (corruption) without targeting the Bridges to Nowhere too much (some Alaskans like a lot of money being wasted on their state economy).  He has plenty of stances that will help win over moderates and has no worry of losing his base because they all want Stevens gone so much.  Not only do I think his policies are good I think they are a good representation of what Alaskans really want, and for the most part he supports what is best for Alaska while not completely forgetting to think about what is best for the country as a whole.  In the end I think he's doing a great job so far and I hope he gets rid of Ted Stevens.

     There are a lot of Republican seats in jeopardy this year and I wanted to write about one that I would particularly love to see get overthrown.  I speak of none other than Georgia's Saxby Chambliss.  So, why do I want this guy gone so badly?  You might remember him from the 2002 election when he got voted into office defeating incumbent Max Cleland.  Why would you remember any one of a number of Republican pickups from 2002, because of an ad that Senator Chambliss ran.  This ad was run against Senator Cleland, who is a triple amputee Vietnam War hero.  If the act of suggesting that an amputee veteran isn't serious about homeland security isn't enough to make you question Senator Chambliss's character, he also used to get money from Mr. Jack Abramoff.  Do you still not find this guy repulsive?  Well don't worry I've got one more doosie up my sleeve.  In November 2001, then Congressman Chambliss said that the Georgian government should "turn the sheriff loose and arrest every Muslim that crosses the state line," [read it] after making those comments he went on to win the Senate race a year later on a national security platform...  So what has he done with his time in the Senate?  He's been an avid anti-conservationist, and has also received terrible rating from the ACLU and NARAL.  This isn't super absurd given his party affiliation and geographic location.  What is absurd is the stuff on this guy's website.  Go to it (link above) and watch some of the videos on the right side of the main page.  First off he talks at the speed of molasses in a wonderfully droll monotone voice, but more importantly his issues and the way he presents the issues are almost all mud slinging and half-truths (on a plus side for Chambliss he has embrassed the internet with a big website with lots of videos, so he's got one over on old John McCain).  To summarize my views of Saxby: he's not a good Senator.  So what do the Democrat's have coming down the pipeline?

     Not so much so far.  To be fair there are seven candidates currently running for the Democratic nomination, which will be cut to two candidates on July 15th with a nominee decided on August 5th.  As we've seen with Obama once the primary is over we can expect a bump for the Democratic Nominee.  According to Rasmussen, however, they'll need a pretty big bump to overcome Chambliss.  The most disturbing part of the poll is that Chambliss maintains a 57% favorability rating.  So what should be the Dems plan for getting Chambliss?  Obviously it will differ depending on the candidate, the African-American Vernon Jones (who unsurprisingly has the highest unfavorable ratings of any Democratic Candidate) will need to rally the sizeable minority base in Georgia (Obama will help with this), while finding an angle to pull moderates from Chambliss.  If Jim Martin wins he can go toe to toe with Chambliss on the national security issue, given that he's a vet, but he'll need to watch himself, Chambliss has proven to be a mudslinger of considerable talent even when up against a veteran on national security (A quick note during Vietnam Chambliss received five student deferments and eventually a medical deferment).  Finally the last major Democratic contender is a TV journalist named Dale Cardwell.  Dale will have name recognition which is nice since the winner of the nomination only gets three months to become well known to non-Democrats in the state.  However, Cardwell also needs an angle to attack Chambliss on.  So where is Chambliss weak?  I pointed out a lot of issues that liberals will dislike him for but an issue needs to be found that can get moderates to the Dem side.

     Given the current political climate I think a two-pronged attack would best serve the Democratic nominee.  First a large amount of vetting and publicizing about all of Chambliss' past mud slinging.  The political climate is a lot different than it was in 2002 and people seem to be a lot more fed-up with dirty politics this year.  As for the issue side of the campaign a big point is Chambliss' vagueness and seeming ineptitude about the economy.  He wants to make the tax-cuts permanent but pushes a lot (in his economy video on his site) for a balanced budget.  He wants to pass more tax cuts but still wants to balance the budget.  Despite wanting to give individuals more buying power he wants to remove all current tax laws and just have a national consumption tax (think a super giant huge sales tax). I would hate to see what this "fair tax," as he put it, would do to food and oil prices, and what that would mean for the  lower class, who don't pay that much in taxes right now.  He offers no suggestions on how to balance the budget and in fact seems to advocate spending more money on farmers (not a bad idea but where's that money coming from).  Also the environment has become increasingly more important to voters and if played well could actually steal some farmers from Chambliss' base (a point that if shown clearly enough could work nationally 'your crops are hurting, your family's financial situation is hurting, you depend on a healthy earth').  I think targeting Chambliss on the economy with the environment as a side note is the right direction to go.  He can clearly hold his own on national security (though maybe not so well against another vet who knows his tricks), so a different approach would be wise.  So there you have it another election rundown.  Next time I think I'll find a policy issue to rant about.  Thanks as always for reading and comments are greatly appreciated.