Monday, November 15, 2010
Check out whitecollargreenspace blog
http://whitecollargreenspace.blogspot.com/
Here is a proposal that will save the Federal government close to $50 billion per year enough to pay for the public option with only an executive order. Most office space is very expensive yet white collar workers only use it 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. This amounts to only 30% efficiency which is completely unacceptable in today's economic and ecological environmentWe can no longer afford to let all white-collar workers that still have jobs work banker's hours when we can work two shifts per day in government and private industry and cut our overhead costs in half. This simple paradigm shifts solves three problems: It jumpstarts economy and fights poverty, cuts pollution, reduces budget deficits.
Here is a proposal that will save the Federal government close to $50 billion per year enough to pay for the public option with only an executive order. Most office space is very expensive yet white collar workers only use it 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. This amounts to only 30% efficiency which is completely unacceptable in today's economic and ecological environmentWe can no longer afford to let all white-collar workers that still have jobs work banker's hours when we can work two shifts per day in government and private industry and cut our overhead costs in half. This simple paradigm shifts solves three problems: It jumpstarts economy and fights poverty, cuts pollution, reduces budget deficits.
Arizona Legalizes Medical Marijuana
— By Josh Harkinson
| Mon Nov. 15, 2010 12:51 PM PST
As I've noted in the past, loosening restrictions on marijuana turns out to be a bipartisan issue. According to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, a whopping 61 percent of Republicans support legalizing the drug for medical patients. The tea party includes vocal advocates of legalizing pot for medical as well as recreational use such as US Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and the former Republican governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson.
Of course, marijuana legalization in any form is still a tough sell in many states. On election day, voters rejected a similar medical marijuana measure in South Dakota, and other states haven't even been able to get the issue on the ballot. The difference in Arizona's case is probably geographical: According to a poll released on April 20th by CBS news, 55 percent of voters in Western states support legalizing marijuana for recreational use—a higher percent than in any other part of the country (only 36 percent of Midwestern voters support legalization). Western Republicans tend to be more libertarian than their counterparts in the rest of the country.
Ironically, some Arizona voters may have been scared into into opposing medical marijuana by the spectacle of California, where a landmark initiative to legalize pot for recreational use was on the ballot. California potheads argued that the state's 1996 medical marijuana law is so loosely worded that pot is virtually legal already. Working the argument from the other side, Keep AZ Drug Free, the anti-Prop 203 group, claimed that allowing medical cannabis in the Grand Canyon State would just be the first step towards total marijuana legalization. In an effort to tamp down such fears, Prop 203 places tighter controls on who can use medical marijuana and where they can buy it. Yet if polling trends hold up, it's just a matter of time before the West completely succumbs to reefer madness.
What Should Climate Hawks Do Next?
Fight for Free Birth Control
| Mon Nov. 15, 2010 12:59 PM PST
[1]Climate hawks [2] are floundering after this year's election. A climate bill couldn't get through Congress even when it was controlled by the Democrats, thanks to Senate dysfunction [3] and general idiocy [4]. Now, with the GOP and Tea Party ascendant, the chances of passing curbs on greenhouse gases anytime soon are zip to zilch.
So what now, the hawks are wondering [5]?
For the moment, forget about carbon caps and start thinking about cervical caps—and the Pill, IUDs, and Depo-Provera.
Next week, a panel of experts will start meeting to determine whether health insurers should be required to cover the full cost of contraceptives. At issue is whether birth control is "preventive" medicine, which the new health-care law requires insurers to cover free of charge, without co-pays. The Department of Health and Human Services is supposed to make a final call on that question in August 2011.
Sounds like a no-brainer, but ultra-right-wing groups like the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Family Research Council are rallying in opposition [6], and they may have more allies in the newly conservatized Congress.
It should be obvious why climate hawks need to care about making birth control widely accessible: fewer unwanted pregnancies will mean fewer unwanted births (not to mention fewer abortions), and, ultimately, fewer greenhouse gases [7].
You might think birth control is already so prevalent in the US that covering it fully under insurance wouldn't make a difference. But you'd be wrong. Consider, for starters, that about half [8] of all pregnancies in the US are unplanned; that leaves a lot of room for improvement.
Cost can be a real deterrent to contraceptive use, even among women with health insurance, as the co-pays tend to cost $10 to $50 a month. Thirty-four percent of women voters have struggled with the cost of prescription birth control, according to a recent poll [9] conducted for Planned Parenthood. And a survey [10] [PDF] conducted last year for the Guttmacher Institute found that 8 percent of American women sometimes didn't use birth control in order to save money; that includes 18 percent of women on the Pill who used it inconsistently in order to reduce costs.
Even beyond the prospect of reducing CO2 emissions, there are great reasons for climate hawks to get involved in this fight. Stepping out of the climate/energy silo would help them forge alliances and generate goodwill with other progressive groups. Unlike conservatives, who are great at sticking together and pushing an overarching narrative, the left tends to splinter into little interest groups that don't rally to support each other's causes. Here's one way to start changing that dynamic.
This stuff's pricey. Can't you lend a hand?And this issue is a clear political winner. Eighty-eight percent of American voters support women's access to contraception, according to a 2009 poll [11] conducted by the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. That includes 80 percent of Republicans and 80 percent of self-identified "pro-lifers."
And on the specific question of insurance company coverage, the numbers are almost as high: 71 percent of American voters believe insurers should be required to fully cover prescription contraception, according to a Planned Parenthood poll [9], including 72 percent of Republican women and 77 percent of Catholic women (no matter what their bishops say).
Planned Parenthood is making a big push on this issue [12], along with other groups focused on women's issues and reproductive health. Climate hawks should step outside their comfort zone and get on board.
This post [13] was produced by Grist [14] as part of the Climate Desk [1] collaboration.
You might think birth control is already so prevalent in the US that covering it fully under insurance wouldn't make a difference. But you'd be wrong. Consider, for starters, that about half [8] of all pregnancies in the US are unplanned; that leaves a lot of room for improvement.
Cost can be a real deterrent to contraceptive use, even among women with health insurance, as the co-pays tend to cost $10 to $50 a month. Thirty-four percent of women voters have struggled with the cost of prescription birth control, according to a recent poll [9] conducted for Planned Parenthood. And a survey [10] [PDF] conducted last year for the Guttmacher Institute found that 8 percent of American women sometimes didn't use birth control in order to save money; that includes 18 percent of women on the Pill who used it inconsistently in order to reduce costs.
Even beyond the prospect of reducing CO2 emissions, there are great reasons for climate hawks to get involved in this fight. Stepping out of the climate/energy silo would help them forge alliances and generate goodwill with other progressive groups. Unlike conservatives, who are great at sticking together and pushing an overarching narrative, the left tends to splinter into little interest groups that don't rally to support each other's causes. Here's one way to start changing that dynamic.
This stuff's pricey. Can't you lend a hand?And this issue is a clear political winner. Eighty-eight percent of American voters support women's access to contraception, according to a 2009 poll [11] conducted by the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. That includes 80 percent of Republicans and 80 percent of self-identified "pro-lifers."And on the specific question of insurance company coverage, the numbers are almost as high: 71 percent of American voters believe insurers should be required to fully cover prescription contraception, according to a Planned Parenthood poll [9], including 72 percent of Republican women and 77 percent of Catholic women (no matter what their bishops say).
Planned Parenthood is making a big push on this issue [12], along with other groups focused on women's issues and reproductive health. Climate hawks should step outside their comfort zone and get on board.
This post [13] was produced by Grist [14] as part of the Climate Desk [1] collaboration.
Aung San Suu Kyi's Release "Just the Beginning"
— By Mac McClelland
| Mon Nov. 15, 2010 10:00 AM PST
This weekend, Burmese Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest, where she spent the better part of the last two decades. So. Now what?
(If your first question is actually Why was it again that she was imprisoned?, here's your primer: In 1988, Burma erupted into mass protest against the dictatorship, and Aung San Suu Kyi became a symbol of a new order because her dad was Aung San, father of independence, national hero, assassinated in 1947. She started giving speeches and leading a political party, the National League for Democracy, so she was locked up by the military government. After the NLD won the 1990 elections and the dictatorship decided to just void the results, she was kept locked up, except for two brief releases. During one of which the government tried to kill her, staging an unsuccessful assassination attempt.)
Let's start with the reasons she was let go. The military government says it's because her sentencing time was up, but over the last 20 years, her time's been up lots of times, and they've always just renewed and extended it, so no, that's not a plausible explanation. And entertaining the possibility that the ruling generals who plunder the country and propagate ethnic cleansing campaigns had a fit of anything remotely resembling magnanimity or a change of heart is absurd. More likely, Aung San Suu Kyi's release is a sign that they're so secure in the status quo that they didn't feel they needed to incarcerate her anymore. Her release also lends further credibility to the charade of democracy the regime started enacting with its rigged elections last week. And Aung San Suu Kyi's imprisonment was one of the only lasting points of Burmese oppression anyone actually talked about. Newspapers, politicians paid some lip service to her incarceration periodically, bringing unwanted attention to the otherwise isolated regime.
The generals are right that making progress won't be easy for Aung San Suu Kyi. Their party won the majority of legislative seats in the election. Her party was legally disbanded after it boycotted, at her advice, the polls, which caused divisions within the party as well. And while her release was score one for the generals' honoring the most basic standards of human rights, there are still more than two thousand other, less famous, political prisoners in the country. To say nothing of that aforementioned ethnic cleansing, or the rebel militia from one of those minorities currently wreaking havoc on the eastern border.
But she's got some momentum—and many thousands of crowding fans—behind her, too: She's been hustling around giving interviews and speeches and calling for a chat with the generals, not that anybody (UN envoys, American presidents, whatever) ever got anything out of talking to them. She's announced she's going to work on a new agreement of peace and cooperation between the majority and minority groups, like the one her father made decades ago but that was never honored because of his death.
She doesn't have any real political power to actually implement these idealistic policies. She does have one very important tool, though: the fans. "I'm glad that you are welcoming me and supporting me," she told a crowd this weekend. "I want to say that there will be a time to come out. Do not stay quiet when that time comes." If anybody could mobilize the much-needed revolution in Burma, it'd be her. Whether or not she'll do it, and whether the military will fracture and fall to an uprising or just violently squash it like it usually does, remains to be seen. Like one old lady outside Aung San Suu Kyi's house said on Saturday, "I’m happier than if I won the lottery. But this is just the beginning, not the end."
(If your first question is actually Why was it again that she was imprisoned?, here's your primer: In 1988, Burma erupted into mass protest against the dictatorship, and Aung San Suu Kyi became a symbol of a new order because her dad was Aung San, father of independence, national hero, assassinated in 1947. She started giving speeches and leading a political party, the National League for Democracy, so she was locked up by the military government. After the NLD won the 1990 elections and the dictatorship decided to just void the results, she was kept locked up, except for two brief releases. During one of which the government tried to kill her, staging an unsuccessful assassination attempt.)
Let's start with the reasons she was let go. The military government says it's because her sentencing time was up, but over the last 20 years, her time's been up lots of times, and they've always just renewed and extended it, so no, that's not a plausible explanation. And entertaining the possibility that the ruling generals who plunder the country and propagate ethnic cleansing campaigns had a fit of anything remotely resembling magnanimity or a change of heart is absurd. More likely, Aung San Suu Kyi's release is a sign that they're so secure in the status quo that they didn't feel they needed to incarcerate her anymore. Her release also lends further credibility to the charade of democracy the regime started enacting with its rigged elections last week. And Aung San Suu Kyi's imprisonment was one of the only lasting points of Burmese oppression anyone actually talked about. Newspapers, politicians paid some lip service to her incarceration periodically, bringing unwanted attention to the otherwise isolated regime.
The generals are right that making progress won't be easy for Aung San Suu Kyi. Their party won the majority of legislative seats in the election. Her party was legally disbanded after it boycotted, at her advice, the polls, which caused divisions within the party as well. And while her release was score one for the generals' honoring the most basic standards of human rights, there are still more than two thousand other, less famous, political prisoners in the country. To say nothing of that aforementioned ethnic cleansing, or the rebel militia from one of those minorities currently wreaking havoc on the eastern border.
But she's got some momentum—and many thousands of crowding fans—behind her, too: She's been hustling around giving interviews and speeches and calling for a chat with the generals, not that anybody (UN envoys, American presidents, whatever) ever got anything out of talking to them. She's announced she's going to work on a new agreement of peace and cooperation between the majority and minority groups, like the one her father made decades ago but that was never honored because of his death.
She doesn't have any real political power to actually implement these idealistic policies. She does have one very important tool, though: the fans. "I'm glad that you are welcoming me and supporting me," she told a crowd this weekend. "I want to say that there will be a time to come out. Do not stay quiet when that time comes." If anybody could mobilize the much-needed revolution in Burma, it'd be her. Whether or not she'll do it, and whether the military will fracture and fall to an uprising or just violently squash it like it usually does, remains to be seen. Like one old lady outside Aung San Suu Kyi's house said on Saturday, "I’m happier than if I won the lottery. But this is just the beginning, not the end."
Rep. Jeff Flake: Kill Earmarks
— By Siddhartha Mahanta
| Mon Nov. 15, 2010 11:32 AM PST
Kill earmarks! So said Arizona Republican Jeff Flake in an op-ed on Friday in the Washington Post. Flake, a fiscal conservative with a sterling no-earmark record, has been floated as a possible addition to the House Appropriations Committee. For a rising star like Flake—and with earmark reform the meme of the moment for congressional Republicans—it was only a matter of time 'til he weighed in on the debate.
Critics of earmark reform rally around the fact that they constitute a paltry 2 percent of government spending. But as earmarks have spiked in number and expense over the past two decades, Flake says, the commensurate quality of congressional oversight by the House Appropriations Committee has slipped precipitously. The result: Congress has given up its oversight of the remaining 98 percent.
Flake attacks Sen. Mitch McConnell's contention that an earmark ban cedes spending power to the president. (Despite initial resistance, McConnell endorsed Sen. Jim Demint's proposed earmark moratorium Monday afternoon.) Giving up earmarks doesn’t hand power to the White House, he argues. Instead, it's Congress' reliance on earmarks that has led lawmakers to turn a blind eye to the executive branch's spending excesses.
"It is as if Congress has called a truce with the executive branch: don’t hassle us about our 2 percent," he writes, "and we'll offer only token interference with your 98 percent. Such a poor trade has not been made since the days of Esau." Flake's suggestion is that, in Washington, both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue excel at the practice of gluttonous spending. One end feeds and, in fact, enables the other.
Public revulsion to wasteful projects, he argues, is reason enough to invoke a ban. The "most compelling reason," he says, is that it will balance the relationship between Congress and the executive branch.
"Without the earmark distraction," he argues, "Congress can return to the deliberative process of authorization, appropriation, and oversight, thus reining in spending abuses of the administration rather than simply piling on with spending abuses of our own."
Ranking member Jerry Lewis certainly seems convinced of Flake's fiscal bonafides: the California Republican has endorsed Flake in his bid to be named to the committee. Lewis is term-limited from being named chairman, and is seeking a waiver. He's also a notorious porker. Some see his support for Flake as an attempt to win over Republicans skeptical of his record on earmarks.
There's no telling how realistic Flake's orthodox vision truly is. But thanks to the DeMint's proposed moratorium, the tea party freshmen, and longtime earmark critics like Flake, the push for earmark austerity is getting a major shot in the arm.
Critics of earmark reform rally around the fact that they constitute a paltry 2 percent of government spending. But as earmarks have spiked in number and expense over the past two decades, Flake says, the commensurate quality of congressional oversight by the House Appropriations Committee has slipped precipitously. The result: Congress has given up its oversight of the remaining 98 percent.
Flake attacks Sen. Mitch McConnell's contention that an earmark ban cedes spending power to the president. (Despite initial resistance, McConnell endorsed Sen. Jim Demint's proposed earmark moratorium Monday afternoon.) Giving up earmarks doesn’t hand power to the White House, he argues. Instead, it's Congress' reliance on earmarks that has led lawmakers to turn a blind eye to the executive branch's spending excesses.
"It is as if Congress has called a truce with the executive branch: don’t hassle us about our 2 percent," he writes, "and we'll offer only token interference with your 98 percent. Such a poor trade has not been made since the days of Esau." Flake's suggestion is that, in Washington, both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue excel at the practice of gluttonous spending. One end feeds and, in fact, enables the other.
Public revulsion to wasteful projects, he argues, is reason enough to invoke a ban. The "most compelling reason," he says, is that it will balance the relationship between Congress and the executive branch.
"Without the earmark distraction," he argues, "Congress can return to the deliberative process of authorization, appropriation, and oversight, thus reining in spending abuses of the administration rather than simply piling on with spending abuses of our own."
Ranking member Jerry Lewis certainly seems convinced of Flake's fiscal bonafides: the California Republican has endorsed Flake in his bid to be named to the committee. Lewis is term-limited from being named chairman, and is seeking a waiver. He's also a notorious porker. Some see his support for Flake as an attempt to win over Republicans skeptical of his record on earmarks.
There's no telling how realistic Flake's orthodox vision truly is. But thanks to the DeMint's proposed moratorium, the tea party freshmen, and longtime earmark critics like Flake, the push for earmark austerity is getting a major shot in the arm.
Labor-Enviro Coalition Calls for RES in Lame Duck
| Mon Nov. 15, 2010 11:50 AM PST
In a busy but likely not very eventful lame duck session, passing an RES is probably a longshot. But four Republicans are backing the effort, along with 21 Democrats. The Blue Green Alliance, an enviro-labor coalition that includes the Sierra Club, the United Steelworkers, and 11 other union and green partners is pushing to keep it on the RES on the agenda.
"We can put people back to work with policies like an RES and investments in manufacturing," said Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers. "We cannot afford to sit on the sidelines as China and Europe pull ahead in the race for clean energy. "
The alliance called for the RES as part of their "Seven Simple Steps" for moving the green jobs agenda forward in this session. That also includes passage of the Home Star and Building Star bills, two measures meant to encourage building efficiency improvements, and the extension of the advanced energy manufacturing tax credit. They are also calling for the passage of a bill to improve health and safety standards for miners.
Will Secret Spending Divide Democrats?
They denounced shadowy outside groups and dark money during the midterms. Now, as they plan for a nasty 2012, all options are on the table.
| Mon Nov. 15, 2010 2:00 AM PST
With the midterms wreckage still smoldering, 150 or so Democratic donors will meet [1] at Washington's Mandarin Oriental Hotel this week to ruminate on what led to the party's 2010 "shellacking" [2] and, more important, discuss how to beat back the ascendant Republicans in 2012. Atop their to-do list is figuring out how to counter the deluge of political spending by outside conservative groups, including the US Chamber of Commerce, the American Action Network, and Karl Rove's American Crossroads, which poured more than twice [3] as much cash into midterm races as their Democratic counterparts did. The critical questions: should they fight fire with fire, and can they?
This debate within Democratic circles promises to be a contentious one. Are new outside groups needed to keep control of the White House? Or should liberals work through existing organizations—like the Sierra Club and labor unions—to push out the progressive message? And if they take the former route after having denounced the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision and demanded transparency in campaign spending, will they come across as hypocrites to voters?
There are no easy answers, say strategists, fundraisers, and progressive leaders helping to plot the Democrats' 2012 war plan. Complicating matters is the White House's mixed message on campaign spending. During the 2008 presidential race, the Obama campaign told the founders of the Fund for America [4]—a left-leaning 527 political action committee [5] that funded ads [6] attacking Republican candidate John McCain—to shut down their operation. The candidate's team wanted full control of the 2008 message, and they wanted to win with small individual donations from the grassroots—not with outside spending. "We said, 'OK, fine,'" recalls Robert McKay, a California-based philanthropist, chair of the Democracy Alliance [7], and one of the Fund's founders. "If this major national election campaign wants to do it this way, then we'll shut this thing down."
This debate within Democratic circles promises to be a contentious one. Are new outside groups needed to keep control of the White House? Or should liberals work through existing organizations—like the Sierra Club and labor unions—to push out the progressive message? And if they take the former route after having denounced the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision and demanded transparency in campaign spending, will they come across as hypocrites to voters?
There are no easy answers, say strategists, fundraisers, and progressive leaders helping to plot the Democrats' 2012 war plan. Complicating matters is the White House's mixed message on campaign spending. During the 2008 presidential race, the Obama campaign told the founders of the Fund for America [4]—a left-leaning 527 political action committee [5] that funded ads [6] attacking Republican candidate John McCain—to shut down their operation. The candidate's team wanted full control of the 2008 message, and they wanted to win with small individual donations from the grassroots—not with outside spending. "We said, 'OK, fine,'" recalls Robert McKay, a California-based philanthropist, chair of the Democracy Alliance [7], and one of the Fund's founders. "If this major national election campaign wants to do it this way, then we'll shut this thing down."
Similarly, after the Citizens United decision, President Obama came out strongly in opposition. "I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities," he said. Again, in October, he said [8] at a Democratic fundraiser, "I want you to understand right now all over this country special interests are planning and running millions of dollars of attack ads against Democratic candidates." The administration's statements clearly turned off deep-pocketed liberal donors [9] in the midterms, during which Democrats lost the most seats in a single election cycle since World War II.
The left can't wait for campaign finance reform to rein in outside spending, says Joan Fitz-Gerald, president of America Votes [12], an umbrella group that oversees some 300 progressive organizations nationwide. "If we look at where the Supreme Court has been trending, it is to give unfettered rights to wealthy individuals as well as wealthy corporations to express free speech through money," she notes. Fitz-Gerald, a former state senator in Colorado and ex-chairwoman of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, points out that this past year Democrats in Congress failed [13] to overcome GOP opposition to the DISCLOSE Act, which sought to beef up disclosure requirements on political spending. Fitz-Gerald says progressive groups must adapt to this cash-flush political playing field or risk another trouncing: "This is the way it's going to be unless we have radical changes on the Supreme Court."
The best option, Fitz-Gerald insists, is using existing progressive organizations. While a small cadre of wealthy donors and corporations bankroll American Crossroads and its ilk on the right, unions and environmental groups have grassroots bases (and, thus, power in numbers). With that, she contends, comes credibility, which could make a difference at the polls: "They are trusted messengers, whether they're a union that someone belongs to or a group that people have been a member of for many years. At some point the American people, as they see these ads pushing this right-wing agenda, they're going to ask, 'Who are these people? What's the goal of American Crossroads?'"
But progressive groups will have to engage immediately, Fitz-Gerald says. "If we're going to have this onslaught of commercials on the things we care about from a very conservative perspective," she notes, "we're going to have to continue, much as we did during the Bush administration, to be very vigilant."
Not that left-leaning groups snoozed through the midterms. Unions spent big; the Service Employees International Union poured in $15.7 million, and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, $12.3 million. Commonsense Ten, a "super PAC" founded by a trio of Democratic strategists, spent [14] $3.3 million in the midterms. C10, as it's known, helped defeat GOP Senate candidates including Dino Rossi in Washington state, Ken Buck in Colorado, and Christine O'Donnell in Delaware. The left-leaning America's Families First Action Fund spent [15] $5.9 million opposing House Republican candidates in a dozen states. Those figures pale in comparison to leading right-wing groups—the Chamber's $32.9 million [16], for instance, or American Action Network's $26.1 million [17], according to the Center for Responsive Politics. "For every $500,000 we spent, it felt like American Crossroads spent another $5 million," said Mike Palamuso, vice president of communications at the League of Conservation Voters.
Even with ramped-up fundraising and more attack ads, liberal groups will be unlikely to come close to the half a billion dollars right-leaning groups claim they'll drum up for 2012. The way Robert McKay (who's also a Mother Jones board member [18]) sees it, Democrats and the progressive community will likely need to take both routes—that is, use existing organizations and create new independent groups—to counter pro-Republican corporate America and the likes of the Koch brothers, the billionaire benefactors of the libertarian right. And this would include Democratic-friendly organizations that do not disclose donors. "We have a lot of existing groups who do disclose, and that is a meaningful distinction," McKay says. "But look: The Chamber and Crossroads and all them are going to be coming in full bore. So I think you will see donors engaged, and I'm not going to sit here and say we won't need to create some new groups." He adds, "It's not that I don't want to see a meaningful legislative response to Citizens United, but I'm also not going to unilaterally disarm."
McKay readily admits that Democratic groups, secretive or not, will not enjoy the massive corporate backing that Republican-backing groups do. He does, however, suggest liberals ought to make hay of corporate America's coziness with the GOP; casting big business as the bad guy could be one way to appeal to middle-class voters. "We have to think about what additional public campaigns may be appropriate now to let their shareholders and consumers know what [big corporations] are up to," he says.
A massive influx of Democratic money will no doubt draw criticism from factions of the liberal community. But Democrats will have to dive headfirst into the post-Citizens United spending wars if they want to compete in 2012, says Harold Ickes, former deputy chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and a prominent Democratic fundraiser. Ickes, who ran two independent spending groups during the 2004 presidential campaign and served as a top political strategist on Hillary Clinton's presidential bid, says big donors usually want to see their money have maximum effect, and they are more likely to get that through outside outfits. Plus, the Democrats will need all the tools they can muster, he adds. "Is small money better? You bet," Ickes says. "But we're in a fucking fight. And if you're in a fistfight, then you're in a fistfight, and you use all legal means available."
"If you're in a fistfight, then you're in a fistfight, and you use all legal means available," says Harold Ickes.
Though top Obama aide David Axelrod recently opened the door [10] for liberal donors to fight the right's secretive attack machine, many Democratic players still see the administration as hostile to outside political spending. "By and large, the political people in the Obama firmament really have disdain for outside groups," says one Democratic strategist. "They think they whine and snivel and make all these demands and don't produce very much." But with conservative forces poised to spend over half a billion dollars in 2012, monied liberals are already plotting [11] their own outside spending groups to wage war against the right. Among them is David Brock, the founder of Media Matters for America, who is reportedly pursuing [11] his own 527 independent spending outfit for the upcoming presidential race.The left can't wait for campaign finance reform to rein in outside spending, says Joan Fitz-Gerald, president of America Votes [12], an umbrella group that oversees some 300 progressive organizations nationwide. "If we look at where the Supreme Court has been trending, it is to give unfettered rights to wealthy individuals as well as wealthy corporations to express free speech through money," she notes. Fitz-Gerald, a former state senator in Colorado and ex-chairwoman of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, points out that this past year Democrats in Congress failed [13] to overcome GOP opposition to the DISCLOSE Act, which sought to beef up disclosure requirements on political spending. Fitz-Gerald says progressive groups must adapt to this cash-flush political playing field or risk another trouncing: "This is the way it's going to be unless we have radical changes on the Supreme Court."
The best option, Fitz-Gerald insists, is using existing progressive organizations. While a small cadre of wealthy donors and corporations bankroll American Crossroads and its ilk on the right, unions and environmental groups have grassroots bases (and, thus, power in numbers). With that, she contends, comes credibility, which could make a difference at the polls: "They are trusted messengers, whether they're a union that someone belongs to or a group that people have been a member of for many years. At some point the American people, as they see these ads pushing this right-wing agenda, they're going to ask, 'Who are these people? What's the goal of American Crossroads?'"
But progressive groups will have to engage immediately, Fitz-Gerald says. "If we're going to have this onslaught of commercials on the things we care about from a very conservative perspective," she notes, "we're going to have to continue, much as we did during the Bush administration, to be very vigilant."
Not that left-leaning groups snoozed through the midterms. Unions spent big; the Service Employees International Union poured in $15.7 million, and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, $12.3 million. Commonsense Ten, a "super PAC" founded by a trio of Democratic strategists, spent [14] $3.3 million in the midterms. C10, as it's known, helped defeat GOP Senate candidates including Dino Rossi in Washington state, Ken Buck in Colorado, and Christine O'Donnell in Delaware. The left-leaning America's Families First Action Fund spent [15] $5.9 million opposing House Republican candidates in a dozen states. Those figures pale in comparison to leading right-wing groups—the Chamber's $32.9 million [16], for instance, or American Action Network's $26.1 million [17], according to the Center for Responsive Politics. "For every $500,000 we spent, it felt like American Crossroads spent another $5 million," said Mike Palamuso, vice president of communications at the League of Conservation Voters.
Even with ramped-up fundraising and more attack ads, liberal groups will be unlikely to come close to the half a billion dollars right-leaning groups claim they'll drum up for 2012. The way Robert McKay (who's also a Mother Jones board member [18]) sees it, Democrats and the progressive community will likely need to take both routes—that is, use existing organizations and create new independent groups—to counter pro-Republican corporate America and the likes of the Koch brothers, the billionaire benefactors of the libertarian right. And this would include Democratic-friendly organizations that do not disclose donors. "We have a lot of existing groups who do disclose, and that is a meaningful distinction," McKay says. "But look: The Chamber and Crossroads and all them are going to be coming in full bore. So I think you will see donors engaged, and I'm not going to sit here and say we won't need to create some new groups." He adds, "It's not that I don't want to see a meaningful legislative response to Citizens United, but I'm also not going to unilaterally disarm."
McKay readily admits that Democratic groups, secretive or not, will not enjoy the massive corporate backing that Republican-backing groups do. He does, however, suggest liberals ought to make hay of corporate America's coziness with the GOP; casting big business as the bad guy could be one way to appeal to middle-class voters. "We have to think about what additional public campaigns may be appropriate now to let their shareholders and consumers know what [big corporations] are up to," he says.
A massive influx of Democratic money will no doubt draw criticism from factions of the liberal community. But Democrats will have to dive headfirst into the post-Citizens United spending wars if they want to compete in 2012, says Harold Ickes, former deputy chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and a prominent Democratic fundraiser. Ickes, who ran two independent spending groups during the 2004 presidential campaign and served as a top political strategist on Hillary Clinton's presidential bid, says big donors usually want to see their money have maximum effect, and they are more likely to get that through outside outfits. Plus, the Democrats will need all the tools they can muster, he adds. "Is small money better? You bet," Ickes says. "But we're in a fucking fight. And if you're in a fistfight, then you're in a fistfight, and you use all legal means available."
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