I am Liberal and I Vote

The latest Democrats Are Doomed poll is out, and it's a doozy.

Josh Marshall:

They asked voters, basically, how are sure are you you're going to vote next year. The first number is certain or likely to vote; the second is unlikely or certain not to vote.

Republican Voters: 81/14
Independent Voters: 65/23
Democratic Voters: 56/40

Everyone knows there's an enthusiasm gap. You don't even need a poll to tell you. You can feel it. On the one hand you've got very gunned up conservatives, who make up an even greater proportion of the diminished GOP. On the other you've got a mix of demoralized progressives and other Dems who feel like they got the job done in November 2008 and have checked out on politics ... at least for now.
All together, it points to very, very rough seas in 2010.

Um, no. Anybody else want to give it a try? Yes, Steve Benen:

It's obviously not too late, and a great deal can happen over the next 10 or so months. What's more, the solution isn't exactly a mystery -- if Dems do what they were elected to do, they'll be pleased with the results. I keep thinking about something Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.) said earlier this month: "We must deliver. I need to give Democrats something to be excited about."

Finish health care. Pass a jobs bill. Finish the climate bill. Re-regulate the financial industry. Finish the education bill. Pick up immigration reform. Repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." It's ambitious, but a Democratic Congress and a Democratic president can prove to the country that they know how to tackle the issues that matter and know how to get things done.

The R2K/Daily Kos poll shouldn't cause panic among Democratic leaders; it should serve as a wake-up call.

Close, but his first commenter, Karen Marie, gets even closer:

No, actually, I'd like to see a little panic among "Dem lawmakers."

Just how many times do they think they can get people to vote for them before people figure out they're not going to do any of things they conned them into thinking they would do?

You think I'm going to jump back on my primary-the-Blue-Dogs-with-real-liberals soapbox, don't you? And tempting as it is, as much as I believe liberals they would win red districts as Alan Grayson did, the truth is that before we can get more liberal lawmakers or even candidates, we have to, in the immortal words of Steve M., create more liberal voters.

I know, I know: liberals and moderates favor the public option, and if you put together a coalition of liberals and moderates and give them what they want, surely you'll be reelected. But liberals and moderates aren't adequately politicized -- they don't stand up for what they want. They don't vote, or withhold votes, based on fealty to progressive (or even moderate) principles -- that's the message of Connecticut '06.

SNIP

I think wingnut Republicans are extremists who believe insane things -- but I envy thir level of political engagement. They know what they want and they vote accordingly. They've engineered a coup in upstate New York's 23rd congressional district, and they're making Charlie Crist sweat in Florida. Right-wingers know how to rally a base -- and, ultimately, politicians -- around an ideology. Our side has learned in recent years how to get whoever happens to be called a Democrat elected -- but no more than that.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: we need to make more liberals in this country. We need to politicize more ordinary Americans the way the right-wing crazies have. We need a politicized, demanding voting bloc politicians fear. Until we have that, Conservadems know they're free to tell us where we can stick MoveOn.

It won't be easy, because there are strong political and cultural forces in the country, including the still-dominant Villagers in the mainstream media, working against liberal success.

Here's Digby on how the Stupak Amendment's real target is liberals:

I knew that after all the sturm and drang over the past few months over the public option, the number one liberal priority in the health care debate, there would be a price for its success. The ruling elite could never allow an unambiguous liberal victory. It would endanger their narrative that says fealty to business, religion, military and other authoritarian structures is democratically inspired. They have to maintain the fiction that the people prefer to be subjects. If politicians aren't convinced that there will be a price for being liberals, they might get the idea that they can actually govern liberally.

This is why changing the media narratives and forcing Democrats to use liberal rhetoric and reject right wing framing is as important to the process as anything else. By perpetuating this default, conservative ideology, even as they are excoriated for being liberals (see: Obama campaign) they permanently tilt the playing field to the right, even in a liberal era or one in which the only pragmatic answers to difficult problems are liberal.

SNIP

Any legislation such as health care reform must therefore be tempered by a liberal sacrifice, something real, a principle that will make them hate themselves and loathe each other for having done it. It cannot be a clean victory, lest they come to believe they can do more. In the end, the "moral" must always be that you cannot go too far left.

The Stupak amendment was designed to do just that, a power move easily predicted by anyone who has watched the way policy victories are managed over the last couple of decades. The one consistent characteristic is that they are never unambiguously positive for the left. The arguments are always self-servingly pragmatic --- "blue dogs have to vote their district" --- but the real purpose is to drive home the absolute certainty that liberals are never really in charge. That is why there is never any desire among the ruling elite to sell the idea that liberalism itself -- its philosophy, its values, its ideology --- is something positive with which a majority of people, including Blue Dogs, can identify. If the public ever came to believe that, who knows what might happen?

Steve M. on liberalism's negative image:

Unfortunately, there's no negative baseline image of conservatism as it's practiced these days. The crazy things right-wingers are saying don't seem inherently crazy to much of the center, and that's true because no negative idea of conservatism has taken root in the heartland, even now. (Yeah, I know that the GOP gets lousy ratings in polls, but a lot of that has to do with Bush's incompetence, which I fear isn't seen as ideological by much of the country, and with right-wingers thinking the GOP isn't wingnutty enough.)

There is a negative baseline image of liberalism, of course -- it's carefully cultivated by the right-wing noise machine on a 24/7/365 basis. Liberals, we're told unceasingly, are crazy and evil and pathetic and dangerous and scary and bent on the destruction of America. So as soon as a Democrat starts sounding too scarily, evil-ly liberal, a cloud of suspicion forms. No similar cloud forms over the crazies on the right, Palin excepted -- and she's excepted because Tina Fey made her look like the dolt she is, not because what she's saying is nuts.

And thus even legislation and policies desired by a majority of the population, even a majority of moderate and republicans, that can be tagged as liberal and used as a way to discredit and destroy liberals, is itself discredited and destroyed, as Zandar explains.

I believe Digby is right, but I also believe that Stupak is the vehicle that was always intended to force liberals to scuttle the entire Obamacare package, rather than making the Sensible Village Centrists being the bad guys.

If Joe F'ckin Lieberman or Blanche Lincoln or Evan F'ckin Bayh or Ben Nelson are the bad guy, well, that would affect their Sensible Village Centrist credentials. Make no mistake, all of them want to scuttle the bill, but they don't want the blood on their hands. Better to make the bill so unpalatable and unacceptable to liberals so that they scrap it, and once again liberals are the bad guys and the Sensible Centrists can say "Well, we were going to vote for this compromise, but the liberals killed it. That's a shame. Maybe next time you'll listen to us instead of listening to them. See what happens when liberals are in charge?"

You see, only liberals want this silly health reform crap. (The truth is a majority of Americans do, but this is the Village. Perception is everything.) If you disabuse them of the notion by making the reform so painful and divisive through something like Stupak, then nobody will want health care reform anymore.

And in the end, that's the goal of Washington: to disabuse the people of the notion that the Federal Government is there to help them. It's there to help the Village, not you.

I'm a Liberal and I vote.

I am in favor of everyone making medical decisions with their doctors and no one else.

I am in favor of affordable health care for everyone.

I am in favor of putting criminals in jail, even if they are filthy rich christianists with billion-dollar government contracts.

I am in favor of demonstrating the superiority of the American System to the world by closing Guantanamo and trying accused terrorists in U.S. courtrooms.

I am in favor of every able-bodied adult working a safe job for fair pay, and for government using my tax dollars to build an economy that creates those jobs.

I am in favor of ensuring a livable world for our children by stopping global warming.

I am in favor of raising revenue and freeing up law enforcement resources by legalizing marijuana and taxing the shit out of it.

I am a Liberal and I vote.