Sunday, September 23, 2012
Sunday Question for Liberals
Okay, I know that you're all excited about the prospect of Elizabeth Warren in the Senate, so you don't have to tell me about that one. But which other, if any, of the Democratic candidates for Senate do you have high hopes for if they win in November?
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Gillibrand is, of course, a lock to win. But, when she does, she'll continue to build her profile nationally. If Hillary doesn't run, she'll be one to watch.
ReplyDeleteReally? I had the impression that she had kept a pretty low profile and stuck to fairly uncontroversial positions, but I really haven't been paying close attention. (On the other hand, as someone born Upstate, I was happy to see an Upstater in the Senate for the first time in, I believe, about half a century.)
Deletemazie hirono, tammy baldwin, chris murphy--potential major upgrades from undistinguished (or, in murphy's case, otherwise problematic) veteran democrats.
ReplyDeleteI think Hirono, Heinrich, Baldwin, Heitkamp, and Murphy could all make great senators. And there is something special about the way Carmona communicates that I think would provide something we are currently lacking.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually going to take a different tack here and say Angus King from Maine. One of the big problems the Democrats had when they controlled both chambers was Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman, who were both very flaky in their support of Democratic initiatives, and pretty infuriating in the way they would flirt with legislation and then vote nay, even after offered substantial accommodation. King would probably rank towards the middle of the ideological spectrum, but seems like he has a strong enough personality (as a popular ex-governor) to be a bit more up front with his positions so the Dems won't have to continually court him only to have him flake out at the last second.
DeleteDidn't mean to reply to the comment above though.
DeleteTammy! Also, Maizie Hirono, Richard Carmona, and Heidi Heitkamp. Angus King too.
ReplyDeleteBut about the only concrete thing I can really hope for from these freshmen is that they will all support serious filibuster reform.
Tammy Baldwin. Not only would it be a historic first, but she's also a proud progressive... which is why I don't think she ends up winning, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big fan of the Tammy, and I've been pleasantly surprised by her recent polling, which shows a consistent small lead over Thompson.
DeleteAngus King, moderate liberal who cares about climate change and takes Senate procedural reform seriously.
ReplyDeleteWhy all the excitement about Warren? She's basically a populist repackaging of Obama, who's a Team Blue repackaging of George Bush. When I hear talk of Warren 2016, all I can think of is nearly a quarter century of Bush-Cheney policies.
ReplyDeleteAt what point do the real liberals revolt? (And as someone who's voted for Barney Frank and would love to see Senator Wyden run in 2016, I don't say that just as a provocation.)
when civil liberty-focused libertarians evolve a domestic agenda that doesn't terrify us.
DeleteThose are strong words, Anon. What about Frank and Wyden terrifies you?
DeleteWyden co-authored one of Paul Ryan's Medicare privatizing schemes. And in general he hasnt done anything that impresses me. Frank is just another liberal, as far as I can tell and so supporting him isn't "revolting" it's just a method of pushing the party to the Left. I think the real reason that there hasn't been a liberal revolt is because 1) Obama isn't actually putting people in concentration camps (or whatever Ron Paul is scared of these days) and 2) liberals care more about domestic policy than foreign policy
DeleteSherrod Brown shouldbe reelected in Ohio. Don't know if he's national-ticket material, but he's been an A+ progressive populist for the last six years.
ReplyDeleteCouves, any worldview that says Ron Wyden is a hero but Elizabeth Warren a Cheney clone is both bizarre and naive. The two will have largely identical voting records should Warren be elected to the Senate.
TapirBoy1,
DeleteOnly "bizarre and naive" if you buy the narrative fed to you by the parties.
I don't consider anyone who would support the Patriot Act, the NDAA and the troop surge in Afghanistan to be a liberal. If you don't see how much the Democratic leadership has changed, I think you're being willfully blind.
A fun fact about Tammy Baldwin is that she's currently a Representative, and before that served in the Wisconsin Assembly, on the Dane County Board of Supervisors, and (briefly) on the Madison Common Council:
ReplyDeletehttp://tammybaldwin.house.gov/about/biography.shtml
(See also Wiki.)
I spent a bit of time trying to find a Senator who had previously been a legislator at the Congressional, State, County, and City levels, and I couldn't. Of course, there aren't all that many county legislatures.
Sherrod Brown, Angus King and Tammy Baldwin.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of strange to think that the same state would send both Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin to the Senate at the same time. Is there another pair of senators--or plausible future pair--that has as much ideological distance between them? The biggest gap I can think of now (besides Kohl-Johnson, obviously) is probably Harkin-Grassley.
ReplyDeleteIs Kohl-Johnson or Harkin-Grassley clearly exceptional? -- A regular mainstream Dem-mainstream Rep team will be pretty far apart. I (no specialist) have no reason to suppose they're further than, oh ... off the top of my head ... Bill Nelson-Marco Rubio in Florida; my own Senators, Jeanne Shaheen and Kelly Ayotte; North Carolina's Kay Hagan and Richard (?) Burr ... and surely Harry Reid and Dean Heller can't have more similar legislative profiles than the others ... or if you want to add style to policy, nothing like hoarse-voiced messy-haired wild-eyed populist and spontaneous pushup fan Sherrod Brown vs. prep technocrat order-of-magnitude-mistaken cost estimator extraordinaire Rob Portman for you.
Delete@the classicist: I am in NH, too. The far northern bit. And I think you pretty much nailed the binary Senate states pretty well.
DeleteHere's my impression of all the purple pairs:
ReplyDeleteAlaska: moderate D, moderate R
Arkansas: mainstream R, moderate D
Florida: moderate D, mainstream R
Illinois: mainstream D, moderate R
Iowa: liberal D, mainstream R
Louisiana: moderate D, conservative R
Massachusetts: mainstream D, moderate R
Missouri: moderate D, mainstream R
Nebraska: moderate D, mainstream R
Nevada: mainstream D, mainstream R
New Hampshire: mainstream D, mainstream R
North Carolina: moderate D, mainstream R
North Dakota: moderate D, mainstream R
Ohio: liberal D, mainstream R
Pennsylvania: mainstream D, conservative R
South Dakota: moderate D, mainstream R
Wisconsin: mainstream D, conservative R
So it seems like pairs from Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are the furthest apart now. They all have a member from the mainstream of one party and the far side of the other. Baldwin-Johnson would be two members, each from the far side of their parties, unless Tammy moves to the center in office.