Stan Greenberg and James Carville have recently made a memo public, in which they state that the President's message has been weak and not resonating enough with the public to affect voter turn-out for an embattled Democratic Party. They outlined three messages:

We have to change Washington. That means eliminating the special deals and tax breaks won by corporate lobbyists for the oil companies and Wall Street. (REPUBLICAN HOUSE CANDIDATE) has pledged to protect the tax cuts for the top two per- cent and the big tax breaks for companies who export American jobs. I'll take a different approach with new middle class tax cuts to help small businesses and new American industries create jobs. Let's make our country work for the middle class.

My passion is "made in America," working to support small businesses, American companies and new American industries. (REPUBLICAN HOUSE CANDIDATE) has pledged to support the free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea and protect the loophole for companies outsourcing American jobs. I have a different approach to give tax breaks for small businesses that hire workers and give tax subsidies for companies that create jobs right here in America.

(REPUBLICAN HOUSE CANDIDATE) has pledged to make sweeping cuts, including cuts to off-limit programs for the middle class, like Social Security and Medicare. The Republicans plan to privatize Social Security by shifting those savings to the stock market, and ending guaranteed benefit levels. Medicare as we know it will end, as seniors will have to purchase private insurance using a voucher that will cover some of the costs.

 

However there are significant problems for implementing these messages.

There's more...

As Progressives it is our job to ensure that we stop electing Blue Doggish, corrupt Democrats just because they have a D next to their name, whether it is to local, state, or federal office. We can start with Kevin Boyce, Treasurer of Ohio.

A quick summary: Immediately after his appointment in 2006 (the opening was created due to a scandal in the AGs office, and a domino effect from there), Treasurer Boyce spent taxpayer money to put his name and likeness on pretty muchevery piece of swag he could find. While Ohio was losing jobs by the boatload, he filled many of the few good state jobs available with his high school, political and church cronies.

He also gave more taxpayer money in the form of contracts to a bank (State Street) that raided California workers' pensions and didn't inform New York workers it was investing their pensions with Bernie Madoff (yeah, that one). It might have something to do with the fact that his deputy's best bud is their lobbyist, and the lobbyist's wife is hid deptuty's personal assistant. He also likes to reward other big banks who contribute to him by giving them fat government contracts.

This is not the kind of Democrat we need in office killing our brand while partaking in corruption. If you live in Ohio, do us all a favor, don't vote for Treasurer Kevin Boyce.

Nearly a million workers won't get a consumer protection in the U.S. health reform law meant to cap insurance costs because the government exempted their employers.

Thirty companies and organizations, including McDonald's (MCD) and Jack in the Box (JACK), won't be required to raise the minimum annual benefit included in low-cost health plans, which are often used to cover part-time or low-wage employees.

Armstrong, Drew (2010-10-7). McDonald's, 29 other firms get health care coverage waivers. USA Today. Retrieved on 2010-10-7.

Honest question:  are we really capping health care costs if waivers are handed out exempting corporations from minimum levels of coverage?

I step away for a few days, and then look at the polling, and its even worse. And then I read Democratic partisans actually putting in print predictions that Democrats will retain both bodies of Congress (Donna Brazille, Bob Shrum). What are they high on?

The Hotline poll numbers are toxic city for Democratic House incumbents. A slew of 30's and a few scattered low 40's. These are incumbents folks!  Anything under 50% and they are 95% out the door.

And Obama's numbers. It amazes me to still read people saying that Obama is gonna win a landslide in 2012. He's rolling in the 30's on job approval in CNN polling states like MO, NV and OH, and in the 40's in states like NY and CT.

If Obama wins, no, the only way he will win, is by there either being a split of 3rd party, and/or a meltdown of the Republican candidate. Sarah Palin will not be their nominee. I will bet on it. But both of those scenarios are quite possible.

2011 is going to be soo soo ugly in DC. Not a single thing is going to pass. Obama, who is now in 8-9% approval among Republicans, will likely see that number go even further down. It's the Independents though, that are killing Democrats. A block of 55-60 in disapproval has been solid since last summer.

It is a combination of Obama hiring the same people who do the same thing (brand killer); letting the banks get 100 cents to the dollar of Gov't money and then letting their obscene bonuses happen (populist killer); not taking the small deal on HCR in July 2009 (jobs focus killer); and then Obama's War in Afghanistan over the summer (hope killer). Its never one thing that is an end-all, but a multiple of things that when, it tips, go south until they turn, and that can be a while.

When will the Democrats get a grove back?  Obama's numbers are likely to get even worse in 2011. We are going to have to see some vicious Democratic primaries that go against the anti-populist sentiment among the DC Democratic establishment. Otherwise, it may not be until 2016, and after Republicans take total control in 2012.

Its a few weeks away from the bloodbath, and I've no reason to look at the blood being spilled on a daily basis.

I did? That's news to me. Actually, that lie is not new. I saw the lie reprinted in comments on blogs in 2007-08, and was told by numerous people that the Obama campaign staffers were spreading the rumor (as a reason for why I would dare criticize Obama), but I ignored it as childish.

Well, now that Ari Berman has peddled the lie in his new book, and folks have asked me about it, I think it deserves a refutation. Here's Ari recycling the lie:

Jim Brayton, who had the position on the exploratory committee, left the campaign because his wife was due to have a baby. Berman writes: "A lot of people now wanted his job--Joe Trippi lobbied him, as did former MoveOn and Dean organizer Zack Exley and popular blogger Jerome Armstrong. 'I became a very popular person,' Brayton joked. Brayton wanted Joe Rospars to replace him."

I heard firsthand that Clay Johnson (then of Blue State Digital) peddled the lie, I guess from the above it sounds like Jim Brayton was a source of Ari's, and who knows what other dubious source Ari had. If your sources can't be public on bullshit claims that are not even brought to the attention of the interested parties, do they really count as good journalistic sources?

This is the first I heard of Joe Trippi wanting to be the Obama internet director. Seriously Brayton/Rospars? Come on! And I don't have a clue about Zack Exley.

After Warner dropped out, and into early 2007, I helped place FTPAC staffers on about all of the campaigns, but made it clear up front that I was only interested in giving advice, tips and pointing to others that wanted to work with them.

When I confronted Ari about where he sourced it for his gossip book, we had a back and forth that I'll just reprint here for the record:

What?

On Sep 30, 2010, at 12:36 PM, Jerome Armstrong wrote:

Ari, I never lobbied for Jim Brayton's job, who told you that and why didn't you ask me about it before you printed that lie?

I had no interest at all in doing it, or moving to Chicago, having SBNation to lead.

At the request of Gov Warner, to help place Forward Together PAC staffers, I was put into touch with Steve Hildebrand, who called and asked that I talk with Charles SteelFisher, who was slated to run the tech dept for Obama.  The only time I ever talked with Brayton was on a conference call with him, xxx, Charles, and Steve.  It was a blah blah blah talk, and I asked to talk alone with Steve after it was done alone, where I told him I'd taken a job with John Kerry, and woudn't be able to help out any further, but he could hire xxx maybe. You can ask either Trei (who was in the room) or Steve to back that up.

But its sorta late to check your facts.

On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 1:05 PM, Ari Berman <ari@thenation.com> wrote:
Jerome,

Multiple sources inside the Obama campaign told me that. The book was properly fact-checked but we simply didn't have time to run every little detail by every person, especially when we had information on good authority. It's a very small detail in the book and your explanation is far too detailed for a quick summary. If you read the book, I'm confident you will like it.

-Ari

On Sep 30, 2010, at 1:23 PM, Jerome Armstrong wrote:

You are calling me a liar now. Did you talk with Steve, did he say that?  I forwarded on to you the entire context of my reaching out to them-- that I was trying to place Trei on their tech team.

Its one thing to be wrong, but quite another to then try and dig in and say its a fact.

On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 1:35 PM, Ari Berman <ari@thenation.com> wrote:
Jerome - I never called you a liar, I only said that I had the info on good authority from multiple sources inside the Obama campaign.

On Sep 30, 2010, at 1:40 PM, Jerome Armstrong wrote:

Obviously, either your sources or myself is a liar. If you are standing by your sources, then you are calling me a liar.

And unless your source is Steve Hildebrand, then they are full of shit, because he alone is who I talked with, as the emails I sent you showed.

On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 4:58 PM, Ari Berman <ari@thenation.com> wrote:
Jerome - I am sorry you are so upset but I sent the book to you because I thought you would like it, this small detail aside. I don't have anything more to do add on the topic. -Ari

On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 7:50 PM, Jerome Armstrong wrote:
I understand why you have that opinion its a small topic, and I would normally not even care. However, staffers on the Obama campaign spread that rumor repeatedly during early 2008 on the blogs, in order to discredit any criticism I had of Obama as some sort of grudge. Its mighty petty, and its a shame that you peddled the lie.

That you are not even able to admit it (even after I sent you the entire context that is very clear), that you engaged in gossip speaks to your lack of credibility as far as I'm concerned.

Now, when I looked back at the original emails (mentioned above and re-printed in part below) from January 2007, it was interesting hindsight reading, and curious side note of Obama's campaign history.

In late December 2006, the main persons forming the Obama campaign, Hildebrand and Plouffe, had met with and slated the guy who did Deval Patrick's stuff, Charles SteelFisher, as being brought on to roll out a first website, and it was that way for about a month. Jim Brayton was leaving in April (new born-- good reason), so SteelFisher was going to be doing Obama's whole internet scene...

Now, that didn't turn out at all. Charles just didn't have the tech ready to go, as I noted in the below email in reply to Hildebrand (his sending me over a contact to help with the John Kerry work on Set A Deadline that I'd undertook) with some advice:

On Thu, Jan 25, 2007 at 9:40 PM, Jerome Armstrong wrote:
Thanks, that contact will come in handy I think.

I hope you'll reach out to xxx xxxxxxxxxx, and further along his involvement there. He's at xxx-xxx-xxxx

I know he likes Obama a lot more, but he told me tonight that he's getting the full squeeze from Hillary camp, with the Karen Hicks/Harold Ickes/Mike Henry treatment tomorrow in DC. I don't know why he would subject himself to such torture, but he's got a serious pres campaign bug going on.

...he did volunteer work for Dean in Texas/Iowa in '04 ...a real whiz, and you would have everyone in the Warner org (including the Gov) vouch for him if need be.

I would suggest you... have him team up with Charles in building out your tech plan/platform/team. XXXX would help to cut your dev time there. Charles is a terrific visionary, but XXXX would help with the large dose of pragmatics... You guys don't have time for the perfect to be built.

Lets meet down the road sometime, best, Jerome

Then I guess Blue State Digital and Joe Rospars came aboard in the following weeks. The prefect had already been built.

I always thought it was quite shaky ethically, for the DNC to have spent 2005-06 to build out the Blue State Digital internet platform (frontend and backend) for the Democrats.org website  --having funded BSD with hundreds of thousand dollars included with putting BDS staffers on the DNC payroll-- and then for BSD to turn around and use the entire DNC-funded system, on a weeks notice, for Obama. 

Regardless, I thought at the time it was a great move by Obama to snag the BSD platform just fresh out of the gate after ~$500K in DNC funding.

And I was psyched that XXXX didn't go to work for Obama, as I was able to bring him and his tech crew onto SBNation, while in the same period getting our first outside seed money, and beginning the transition to a real CEO that's brought the company to a valuation headed for 9 figures.

Enjoy.

• The Young Turks mount a well researched challenge to The Big Republican Lie on Tax Cuts.


• See for yourself the Powerful racial profiling documentary screened at Congressional Briefing. (Restore Fairness)


• Inoljt (bravely) gets to know the Republican Base while Analyzing Swing States: Colorado, Part 2.


• Is this really who you want in charge?  Then help the NC Democrats writes Sam Spencer in North Carolina House Republican Uses Anti-Gay Slurs, Calls Democrats "Fruitloops."  Also: It's an Elaine MarshallBomb, October 8th!


• Torture still hangs heavy over civillian/commission trials.  Daphne Eviatar Human Rights 1st explains in With Times Square Bomber Sentenced to Life, Ghailani Trial Gets Started.


• The Media Consortium's Weekly Audit: One Nation With No Jobs.

And your bonus: Wonkette catches up with Mark Foley on Twitter.  It's creepy.

In 2008 the liberal media establishment became unmoored from any pretense of journalistic integrity and destroyed—a flawed and sometimes loathsome—Hillary Rodham Clinton in the service of Barack Obama’s candidacy. This experience considerably warmed me to Sarah Palin later in the campaign.

But to be sure, I never considered voting for her and John McCain. It’s important for contrarian liberals, PUMA-types, or whatever our designation is, to remember what Gov. Palin ultimately represents. Like President Obama, her personal dynamism cult of personality is a clever cloak for a disastrous set of policies: In her case corporate Republicanism or honest-to-God Tea Party libertarianism. It’s not immediately clear which Sarahcuda would show up to take the oath at noon on Jan. 20, 2013.

I don’t hate or despise the woman (nor do I hate Barry), but if you disregard the personal invective here, it’s hard to argue with the Godlike Oliver Stone:

(h/t: OneNationMatch)

This will not end well. Though who knows, it might actually serve up a progressive-conservative coalition in Chicago to defeat Rahm.

Via Ben Smith:

Emanuel's 'Glad to be home' video filmed in Washington.

UPDATE: Rahm Emanuel: Experts say not a legal resident of Chicago, cannot run for mayor

Over before it starts?

I doubt Trump is the only rich businessman that's thinking the GOP nomination is there for the taking from the likes of Senators like Thune that voted for the bank bailout. Via Mark Halperin:

I've posted here a couple of times that WebStrong is working a slew of races in Brazil. We are not doing the Presidential contest, but instead on 13 statewide, Senate and Gov, campaign teams. We're providing website technology and consulting, teaming up with Duda Mendoca, who was media strategist whom helped elect Lula. We've had a great team in place for the campaigns: Bruno Hoffman is in Brazil, leading the effort with the Brazilian Coneqt team. Matt McMillian (from BuzzMaker) has been on the team with us from the beginning doing internet strategy. Evan Moody has been the project manager for everything with Daniel Drehmer on the technical team.

Anyway, the first election results are in. You can see them here. The big news on the national level is that the Green Party candidate, Marina Silva, took in nearly 20% of the vote, forcing the other two candidates, Jose Serra, and frontrunner Dilma Rousseff into a runoff. Less than two weeks ago, Dilma was assumed to have a cakewalk into the presidency, but the recent surge of the Marina Silva left Dilma a few points shy of avoiding a runoff.  There is wide speculation about how the third party votes will split during the runoff.  

Probably the favorite candidate we worked for is Siqueira Campos, who is  this 85 year old guy that made a YouTube sensation when he threw some punches on the campaign trail. He's going to be the Governor of Tocantins, winning by a bare majority, 50.5 - 49.5.

We dealt with all sorts of restrictions that are relics of offline campaigning which were carried over to online campaigning. One particular odd one is that all of our sites are to be turned off, dead links, nothing there. For 24 hours on election day. Its quite odd, as that's when we get the most traffic, and have the most influence, here in the states. The beauty of this law, though, is that interpretation of this law varied depending upon the legal team involved in the campaign, so we ended up with some sites being turned off, while others were live.