Feldman is back just a year later with his next offering: “Outright Barbarous: How the Violent Language of the Right Poisons American Democracy,” which comes out this week. It’s a slightly more inflammatory title for a book that is a lot more aggressive in taking to task some of the most infamous spokespeople for the modern conservative movement: The National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre. Former presidential candidate and inexplicable media personality Pat Buchanan. Ann Coulter. James Dobson. Dinesh D’Souza.

In each case, Feldman devotes a chapter to outlining numerous examples of the subject’s violent rhetoric and how that violent talk seems designed to instill fear in the audience, preventing any kind of pragmatic discussion or policy-making from taking place.

But Feldman doesn’t stop there — he links each example to the real issue at hand, and provides a progressive frame on how to combat violent rhetoric and pinpoint the underlying issue. Consider his thorough argument against Pat Buchanan on the “issue” of illegal immigration.

Buchanan is not concerned with separating races within American society, nor does he blame social ills on the biological mixing of races through marriage and reproduction, which was the hallmark belief of the various, racist fascisms that bloomed in the early twentieth century and which led to such moral aberrations as the Nazi extermination camps. Instead, Buchanan turns the late twentieth century critique of racism on its head, arguing that western guilt over “Hitler’s crimes” have lulled America and Europe into letting their guard down. Buchanan would have us believe that seeing the world in terms of distinct, hierarchical races with white Europeans at the top is not a problem, unless one commits crimes based on that belief. Those who critique racism are misguided in Buchanan’s eyes because their concern gets in the way of racial common sense.

An indictment of Buchanan’s racist rhetoric? Sort of. As Feldman puts it a few pages later, “Immigration has become a political issue because of trade, not because of race or ‘civilization.’”

The theory that economic markets can exist without any rules, however, does not make logical sense. If rules are not set in advance, then the strongest player sets them by default.
…
Foreign nations should not be banned from conducting business in the United States any more than U.S. companies should be barred from pursuing business interests abroad. And yet, the propagandistic notion of “free trade” has given rise to a system of influence peddling and trade agreements that have tipped the American economy into a crisis … To swing the civic debate back towards pragmatic solutions to the problems created by free market economics and free trade treaties, the public discussion must shift away from fears of cultural destruction to the economics that affect our everyday lives.

The biggest criticism of Feldman’s work (that I’ve seen, at least) is that it’s nothing more than common sense, just everyday messaging techniques with a new political term — “framing” — applied along with a fresh coat of paint. But there’s more to this type of material than a message. When thinking in messaging terms, the talking points will eventually run out, and the communications staffer will hang up the phone because he or she simply has nothing more to say. The message has been pushed. But framing these messages in progressive terms means finding ways to really think about (and get one’s audience to think about) issues in a way that is more effective and insulated from the fear caused by hateful, violent, reactionary right-wing rhetoric.

“Outright Barbarous” makes a great read, more accessible but no less insightful than “Framing the Debate.” Feldman offers prescriptions for a particular set of ills in our politics as he closes with a chapter entitled “The Return of Pragmatism.” They are prescriptions that everyone from volunteers in city council races all the way to presidential candidates should be reading and practicing.

It’s not a matter of hard work and luck for Hillary Clinton anymore. It’s merely a matter of time, numbers, and perspective.

Numbers, because there is mathematically no way for her to win the nomination barring some massive (i.e., bigger than “bitter”) Obama scandal that sends hordes of superdelegates scrambling back her way. Time, because while the decision to suspend her presidential campaign is ultimately up to her, the longer she waits, the longer she personally lets John McCain off the hook and keeps the Democratic Party from uniting and taking him to the electoral toolshed. Perspective, because we could all use some at this point, given the way the race has been covered by the traditional media.

Perhaps it’s the color of their glasses: the slightest hint of green. In the age of corporate media, it is in the best interest of the corporations who bring the news to the television-watching masses to keep this primary season alive as long as possible. The longer this goes on, the more media markets see record-breaking spending on advertising, which means great profits for those corporate media entities, which in turn makes them better able to push the theme that there is still a fight for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Continued: Click “Read more”Ahead of Pennsylvania’s primary, let us not mince words about what Hillary Clinton is: a strong, savvy, educated woman who has without a doubt been “through the wringer of Washington politics,” as her campaign loves to put it. Let us also be clear about what she is NOT: evil. A socialist. A Republican in disguise.

Unfortunately, another thing soon to be added to the list of what she is not is a Democratic presidential nominee. There is mathematically no way for Clinton to win this nomination, plain and simple. She could become the nominee, but it would not be a win: it would involve either a coup-by-superdelegates (which seems increasingly unlikely given DNC Chair Howard Dean’s push for superdelegates to endorse sooner rather than later) or a strategic stuffing of the DNC Credentials Committee that would seat Michigan’s and Florida’s illegitimate delegates. Either of these scenarios would tear the Democratic Party apart, and would at best be a pyrrhic victory for Sen. Clinton, leading to far worse than simply a defeat in November: another four years of Republican occupation of the White House.

So as we look forward to Pennsylvania’s primary on Tuesday, let us keep in mind what the traditional media would rather we forget: that regardless of asinine questions (45 minutes worth!) and a poor performance from Obama in this week’s ABC debate, the numbers do not lie. Anything but an all-out killing for Clinton in Pennsylvania will not allow her to close the delegate gap in any significant way, and several of the states remaining on the primary schedule — Montana, South Dakota, North Carolina — favor Obama. Time, numbers, and perspective are on the side of the skinny kid with a funny name.

Photo: WDCpix

Nevertheless, the strategic aspect of the endorsing game cannot be discounted.

So here’s the question: was it really an easy decision for Klobuchar? Or were there some very real risks just beneath the glossy veneer of Monday’s announcement, to be mitigated before this move came about?

Continued: Click “Read more”The sequence of events leading to Klobuchar’s endorsement raises an important topic: risk in political campaigns, and how political leaders manage it. In an intense, hard-fought race like this one, the risks associated with a bad endorsement are many: endorse at the right time and your influence is maintained or even increased, but endorse a candidate who later goes down to defeat, and your own political fortunes are at risk. Maybe you’re blamed for the downfall, depending on how bad your timing is. Maybe if you’d endorsed just a few days earlier, a few more votes might have moved and your candidate might have won. Who knows? One can never be sure in such matters, nor can those very real risks be removed from view altogether.

In Klobuchar’s case, the risk now is that something catastrophic happens to Obama’s campaign, and suddenly Hillary Clinton is back in the driver’s seat for the Democratic nomination — leaving Klobuchar out in the political cold. Between Feb. 5 and mid-March, that risk waxed and waned — a string of Obama wins closed Clinton’s window a little, but her win in Ohio and extremely tight margins in Texas earlier this month threw the outcome back into question. Now that Clinton is back on the media downslide (thanks to a few less-than-truthful comments about sniper fire in Bosnia) and Obama seems to have weathered the Jeremiah Wright issue, it would appear that the risk of not endorsing — being left out by both campaigns for waiting too long to get involved — has simply become a greater concern than the risk of throwing in with her constituents’ favored candidate.

A calculated move, and ultimately, a risk-averse one.

Now just two Minnesota superdelegates remain uncommitted, including Rep. Collin Peterson. Peterson represents an interesting challenge for the presidential contenders: he is essentially a red-state Democrat, representing a district that has delivered 54 and 55 percent of its vote for President Bush in his two White House races. That would seem to favor Obama, who has fared well among red-state Democrats across the country. However, Peterson has made quite a career out of opposing his party’s base on a variety of issues. Despite the fact that Obama won most of the counties in Peterson’s northwestern Minnesota district just as he did across the state, it is likely that few other than Peterson himself know which way Peterson is leaning. Having won his most recent reelection bid with a shade over 70 percent of the vote, Peterson is a bit more insulated from the political risks swirling around presidential endorsements than many of his colleagues.

Still — political risks, ever-present, cannot be eliminated. Only managed.

Flanagan said Tuesday that blocking the endorsement was a huge victory for her campaign. The convention went three ballots — two other candidates were dropped after the first ballot, and one threw his support behind Flanagan, where the votes on the next two ballots were deadlocked with Mullery leading 53-47 percent, well below the 60 percent threshold for an endorsement.

Continued: Click “Read more”Flanagan said the potential for new voter registration in the North Minneapolis district is high, citing the 46 percent of convention delegates who were new to the party process.  She also expressed excitement at being able to take the campaign to the streets in the primary. According to one independent report from the convention, Mullery may indeed be in trouble, at least as far as demographics go. The district was previously heavily eastern European, but has in recent years seen the addition of many minorities and members of the LGBT community move in. When I spoke with her last October about her then-nascent run, she noted that bringing those new community members to the political process was an important part of the campaign.

On the other hand, Mullery still has enough grassroots support among the party faithful to pull off a majority at convention despite an active challenger. He was not immediately available to comment, but gets a mulligan for being in the midst of a legislative session.

Tomorrow I’ll take a closer look at the Dominguez vs. Champion race, in the seat once held by Congressman Keith Ellison.  I’ll also take a look at the big picture in Minneapolis and across the state as pertains to endangered House incumbents.

The Responsible Plan, touted as a progressive Contract with America, was unveiled this week at the Take Back America conference in Washington, D.C. The plan includes several components focused on ending U.S. military action in Iraq and refocusing America’s military and energy policy.

The original sponsors include Netroots favorite Darcy Burner, who lost a close race in Washington’s 8th district in 2006 and is back for a second run against incumbent Dave Reichert this year, and Donna Edwards, who recently defeated Blue Dog Democrat Al Wynn in Maryland’s solid-blue 4th district’s primary.

Now the rush appears to be on, with more Democratic candidates signing up.

Continued: Click “Read more” Joining as signatories are Democrats from Larry Grant in Idaho to Dennis Shulman and Tom Wyka in New Jersey. Jeff Merkley and Steve Novick, who are squaring off for the Democratic nomination in the Oregon Senate race, both endorsed the plan within 24 hours of its release.

Traditionally, congressional candidates do not engage in detailed policy pushes like this one, but the Responsible Plan is being touted as a win-win for Democratic candidates and the progressive movement as a whole: end the war responsibly, elect Democrats in a policy-platform wave as the Republican Contract with America did in 1994, and move the proverbial ball down the field on important legislation already before Congress. The plan (pdf) highlights several bills, along with their current cosponsors, that would serve as components of a successful execution of the plan. Notable among them is H.R. 4102, the Stop Outsourcing Security Act, sponsored by Rep. Janice Schakowski (D-IL) and 24 cosponsors, which would end the use of private military contractors like Blackwater in conflict zones such as Iraq.

According to the poll, Coleman leads Franken among women, 49-44, and among independents, 48-42. The poll represents a departure from recent polls, which showed a race quickly moving into “statistically tied” territory.

Call it spin, but this poll has “outlier” written all over it.

Read why after the breakHave a quick look at the graph below showing the trend in the race (the trendlines show a five-poll moving average). It will take at least one or two more polls showing this Coleman bounce to reveal this one as an accurate indicator of what’s happening in the race. Calling Rasmussen Reports…it’s your turn to poll this race.

There are circumstantial points working against the SurveyUSA poll as well. It was conducted on March 12 — and only March 12. Single-day polls are a good deal less accurate than multi-day polls — they run a higher chance of missing important segments of the electorate, and may oversample one group or another. They are also subject to the vagaries of the news cycle — in the case of March 12, it was a bad one for Democrats as revelations of former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s dalliances with a prostitute hit the news that day. Just a month ago, SurveyUSA showed Franken leading Coleman among women 51-39. In November, they showed Franken leading among women 49-44. Is it more likely that women’s opinions shifted toward Coleman by between 7 and 10 points in the space of a month, or did a negative news cycle affect women voters’ perception of Democrats on the day when a popular Democrat admitted he cheated on his wife with a call girl?

The announcement was made Sunday by Darcy Burner (pictured), a candidate for Congress in Washington’s 8th Congressional district, and Matt Stoller, who blogs at OpenLeft.com, at a blogger forum and training in Washington, D.C., today.  The plan will be rolled out Monday at the three-day Take Back America conference, which will include progressive activists, Democratic officials and bloggers from across the country.

Burner said in her remarks, “Ten years ago it would have been impossible for a congressional candidate like me to have an impact on the policy dialog,” and noted that the candidates who are signing on to this plan are taking a large risk. Burner called on bloggers from across the country to call attention to the plan, to which 10 congressional candidates have already signed on.

Stoller said of the plan “we want to allow the public to translate their desire to end the war by voting for candidates who want to end the war … this is an important effort, and we’re going to put it to the voters.” According to Burner, retired Gen. Paul Eaton, who preceded David Petraeus in commanding U.S. forces in Iraq, was a major resource in building the plan.

The main points of the plan include:

• No residual troops
• A diplomatic surge
• Humanitarian work — engaging the international community
• Fixing the structural problems at home that got us into the war in the first place: eliminate presidential signing statements, eliminate the use of torture, phase out the use of private contractors

The full plan will appear on Monday at ResponsiblePlan.com.

The House this week passed a FISA amendment bill that provided fixes for several issues in the 1978 law, but did not include retroactive immunity for telecom companies that may have assisted the Bush administration in breaking the law. Yet in a Star-Tribune op-ed Saturday morning, there’s Ms. Bachmann, claiming that responsibility for making Americans unsafe lies with the House Democratic Leadership — who allegedly have not allowed any FISA legislation to pass.

Reality disagrees with you, Congresswoman.

Continued: Click “Read more.”In her op-ed, Bachmann wrote:

…on Feb. 16, the Protect America Act expired — even though the Senate voted to reauthorize it with a strong, bipartisan vote, and even though the same bipartisan support exists in the House as well.

Why, then, has it expired?

Because the House Democratic leadership has simply refused to allow a vote — knowing it will pass. In fact, 21 House Democrats wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, urging her to bring the bill to the floor.

While this inaction may score cheap political points with the fringe elements of the Democratic caucus, American families are needlessly imperiled. This is not an exaggeration. This is not hyperbole. This is fact — confirmed by our intelligence community and agreed upon by Republicans and Democrats alike.

Actually, Bachmann’s claim is both hyperbolic and untrue. The House Leadership did bring the FISA bill to the floor for a vote, and it passed yesterday by a margin of 213-197. This bill does many things those same 21 House Democrats were looking for in FISA amendments, all except providing retroactive telecom immunity. This follows the passage of another FISA amendment in November (on a vote of 227-189), which did not make it past the Senate. That followed the temporary legislation, passed in August on a vote of 227-183, which established the rule about which Bachmann finds herself so hot and bothered.

On the second and third of those three votes, Bachmann votes against the bills.

Let us be crystal clear on that point: when voting on bills which had one major difference between the House and Senate — providing after-the-fact immunity to companies that may have knowingly assisted in criminal activity — Bachmann came down on the side of protecting the telecom companies.

Bachmann continues:

Since 2001, attack after attack has been averted — including a plot to destroy American-bound airliners with liquid explosives. Indeed, last year, the Heritage Foundation compiled a list of 19 confirmed terror plots against American targets that had been thwarted.

This sounds nice, except that the Protect America Act was the temporary legislation, put into effect last August, that expired this month. That’s nearly seven months of life for that legislation, which Bachmann characterizes as the sole barrier standing in the way of terrorist attacks against American citizens for the past seven years. Every one of those 19 attacks was thwarted before the passage of the Protect America Act.

The No. 1 job of the American government is to protect her citizens. House Democratic leaders, in forcing the expiration of the FISA updates, have shirked that most fundamental responsibility — the safety of the American people.

Ms. Bachmann should take another look at the Constitution. The Preamble reads: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense…” If “establish justice” truly ranks just as high as “provide for the common defense,” then it’s Bachmann (and not the House Democratic leadership) who’s in the hot seat and needs to explain how Republican obstruction of FISA legislation works to establish justice in American society.

Stop misleading Minnesota, Congresswoman. We deserve better.

Continued: Click “Read more.”In a release endorsing Sarvi and six others, VoteVets.org chairman Jon Soltz said: “One of the most frequent requests we get from supporters is to open up our endorsement process to veterans who may not have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, but still bring the unique qualities and judgment that only a veteran has. As a member-driven group, we wanted to oblige and endorse these fine veterans of different eras.”

The seven candidates’ names are being put to a vote of VoteVets.org members for a $5,000 campaign contribution.

The endorsement of Sarvi stands out for one particular reason (other than “he’s from Minnesota”): Sarvi vs. Kline is a veteran vs. veteran race. In campaign appearances, Sarvi has put his military experience right alongside his experience in local government as a qualification for Congress and has offered it as inoculation against charges of being weak on national security or the continuing occupation of Iraq, issues Kline used as a political cudgel against 2006 candidate Coleen Rowley.

In a statement released after the victory was announced last night, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen said in a statement “Andre Carson will be a tremendous asset to our Democratic Caucus as we fight to strengthen our economy, end the war in Iraq, and restore the American dream to America’s middle class families.” Carson the younger also represents the second Muslim to be elected to Congress, after Minnesota’s Keith Ellison.  Paging Virgil Goode….