Politics 101

Harry Reid has not been as big a disappointment as Nancy Pelosi, simply because I didn't expect much from him. I had great hopes that she would bring some liberal sanity to Washington and, more important, that she would have the guts to make some things stick. Reid, I hoped, would at least tame the Bushist penchant for appointing extremists to Federal offices. Even with those low expectations, he has been underwhelming, though I was thrilled at his pro forma sessions.

Now, Mitch McConnell is dictating budget terms to the Senate Democratic majority! McConnell says:

I think we are being consistent here against higher taxes, consistently against greater regulation, consistently against creating new causes of action in bill after bill after bill...

Consistently against democracy, I'd say. Doesn't he remember who lost in 2006? Doesn't he remember his own anti-filibuster rhetoric in the previous years. Of course he does. His principle is winning, not consistency. He's playing hardball, while the Democrats play blind man's bluff.

The proper response to McConnell is not quite a Cheneyism, "Mitch, we're going to let you f--- yourself on C-SPAN every evening until you're too sore to go on. Have at it."

Then Reid has to do something besides sending tallies to the press about how many things the big bad mean Republicans have filibustered. He and the Democrats have to provide the media with pictures and sound bites. Make the smug and doughy face of McConnell represent the GOP's intransigence. Make them vote against cloture on TV every damn day. Put together a cogent video press release about it every day. The media are about as lazy as Duhbya - you've got to give them something that goes down easy.

Have a Democrat make a reasonable but obviously frustrated speech every day. Make the Presidential candidates do some of them. Tell them all to keep it short so you can control the message that winds up in the news. Podcast and Youtube the speeches. Tell the American public that the Democrats have a bill ready to negotiate but that the Republicans' position is that they'll hold their breath until they turn blue unless they get everything they want, even after losing in 2006.

If you have to twist some arms in your own caucus, do it. Tell Joe Lieberman his fucking furniture will be out on Constitution Ave. if he defects.

What's amazing is that the Democratic "leadership" has spent their adult lives in politics and yet have managed not to learn even the most basic facts about it. When your opponent is playing a vicious game, you have to show the electorate that in colorful, memorable, and sometimes vicious ways.

Let the Republicans shut down the government again. Just make sure the voters know who's doing the shutting. What you want is for Duhbya to veto the omnibus spending bill because it has something in it he doesn't like. That's what McConnell is protecting him from. So, tie the two of them together and pin the blame on them. They deserve it.

Shit, this is politics, not needlepoint.