AAC Blog
Elaine Marshall for US Senate
News Briefing for May 21, 2010
Winston-Salem Journal ....................
Lewis said he was particularly impressed with the conviction and courage shown by Marshall, North Carolina's secretary of state, even as Democratic officials in Washington put their support behind the other remaining candidate, Cal Cunningham. He praised Marshall for her ability to organize grass-roots support and to appeal to a broad range of voters
Key Constituency for Two Hopefuls
MINNEAPOLIS (The Borowitz Report) - In a sign of his increasing prominence in the so-called Tea Party movement, a new poll shows Kentucky senatorial candidate Rand Paul topping former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin among voters who describe themselves as morons.
In the poll, conducted by the University of Minnesota’s Opinion Research Institute, 42% preferred Paul, 36% preferred Palin, and the remaining 22% were unsure what the word “prefer” meant.
According to Davis Logsdon, who supervised the poll for the University of Minnesota, Paul’s surging popularity among morons is bad news for Palin, who previously had a lock on that important constituency.
“I never thought I’d say this, but if Palin is going to stay competitive with Paul, she’s going to have to start dumbing down her message.” More here.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Racist Tea Party.
Are those separate concepts or a single one? Depends on whom you ask.
According to an article accompanying a Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Wednesday (5/5): “About 61 percent of tea party opponents say racism has a lot to do with the movement, a view held by just 7 percent of tea party supporters.”
This gulf of perception has left Tea Party organizers struggling to scrub the stain of racism from its image, but those efforts may fly in the face of the facts.
On Thursday (5/6), Amy Kremer, the director of the Tea Party Express, sat down on “The View.” Prompted to disavow supporters who might be motivated by racism, she looked into the camera and said: “This is not a racist movement. We don’t want you here. Go away if that’s what you’re about. We’re about the fiscal issues and about being American.”
There’s no reason to doubt her sincerity, but there seems to be a gap between things as they are and things as she would have them.
The Tea Party is a Frankenstein movement — an odd collection of factions, loosely stitched together, where the head, to the extent that it exists, fails to control the body.
It has attracted hordes of the disaffected with differing interests, including some who’ve openly expressed their dark racial prejudices and others who polls suggest harbor more subtle and less visible biases. Opposition to President Obama triggers a political Pavlovian response among some of these people, and they want to ally themselves with others around a common enemy.
It’s unlikely that appeals from the top, however earnest, will expunge them.
There is no way to know how many Tea Party supporters — or supporters of any group — are motivated by racism, or to what degree. For instance, one could legitimately ask: to what degree is African-American support of the president motivated by racial pride, and when does that pride cross over into prejudice?
There are no easy answers, but blanket accusations and denials are worthless and disingenuous.
Kremer credits the Tea Party’s racial problems, to the extent that she would agree they existed, to an unwelcome “fringe.” This seems plausible at first blush. There is often rabble at rallies.
However, widely cited polling, like the multistate University of Washington survey released last month, has found that large swaths among those who show strong support for the Tea Party also hold the most extreme views on a range of racial issues. The fringe theory is a farce.
Their other strategy is to repress, deny and redefine. Following their logic, racial views not visible are nonexistent and those who raise the issue are simply projecting. It’s a fete of Freudian delusions.
Tea Party organizers may want to run away from the facts, but they’re not that fast, and the American people are not that slow.
Charles M. Blow is a New York Times Columnist and nationally-known commentator: "I invite you to visit my blog By The Numbers, join me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter, or e-mail me at chblow@nytimes.com."
I want to thank all those who voted for me in the May Democratic primary in North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District. As you know I am a true Democrat who stands up for working class America. I am not alone in this fight. It is with great pleasure and respect that I lend my voice and energy to a woman who is fighting for the same values we share. I hope you will join me in endorsing and casting your vote on June 22 for the only candidate who can defeat Richard Burr in November, our current Secretary of State, Elaine Marshall.
Thank You,
Nancy Shakir
Former Candidate for Congress, NC-08
With the North Carolina Senate primary just a week away, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall still has a small edge over former state Sen. Cal Cunningham in the race for the Democratic nomination. A SurveyUSA poll conducted for WRAL shows Marshall taking 23 percent to Cunningham's 19 percent, with attorney Ken Lewis in third with 10 percent. A candidate would need 40 percent of primary votes to win the nomination outright and it's looking like a runoff may be in store.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36398.html#ixzz0mSYHa2lr
Submitted by Mike Nellis
Democracy for America Endorses Elaine Marshall for Senate.
Friends --
To shake up the U.S. Senate we need to give vulnerable Republicans the boot.
Elaine Marshall is working hard to beat Republican Richard Burr and become North Carolina's next U.S. Senator. Senator Burr is vulnerable, running for re-election to a seat that has changed hands every election for seven elections in a row.
And I know you don't need me to tell you that Senator Burr has to go. He supported the Republican attempts to filibuster healthcare and worked against the public option. And just last night, he stood with the rest of the Republican Party again to filibuster Wall Street reform like every other right-wing zombie.
But for Elaine to win in November, she has to win the Democratic Primary on May 4 first. Any of the Democrats running would be better than Senator Burr, but DFA members in North Carolina have chosen Secretary of State Elaine Marshall as the clear favorite with almost 60% of the vote in a three-way race.
Time is short. The election is exactly one week away. Elaine is making her final plans for field and getting out the vote by the end of the day. Local DFA members are counting on our national community to come together and deliver vital support right now.
Marshall's story is one of an underdog who has made good. Marshall became the first woman elected statewide to executive office in North Carolina in 1996, when she defeated NASCAR legend Richard Petty in a race for secretary of state. She has won re-election three times since and is the only one of this bunch to have won statewide. In 2008, she won more votes in a contested race than anyone but Attorney General Roy Cooper.
Her 13-plus year performance as secretary of state has been impressive. She was instrumental in bringing about lobbying and ethics reforms. She brought organizational skills and technological upgrades that have vastly improved the performance of her department. She is recognized for her efforts to combat counterfeit goods and protect copyrights. And she has battled consumer fraud...
Marshall is authentic, smart, experienced and public-service oriented. She has taken on special interests and won.
Elaine Marshall is the progressive in the primary and the most qualified to take on Republican Richard Burr this November. Let's make sure she wins the primary first.
Reporter: Pam Saulsby
Raleigh, N.C. — Secretary of State Elaine Marshall hopes to take her first step next week toward making North Carolina the first Southern state with two women in the U.S. Senate at the same time.
In a WRAL News Poll, Marshall is the leader among the six people seeking the Democratic nomination in the race for Republican Sen. Richard Burr's seat.
Marshall said she expects this year's race to be different than eight years ago, when she lost in another U.S. Senate bid.
"It was a first time meeting a lot of the players and the issues (in 2002), and I have matured in my array of skills (and) in my familiarity with issues," she said. "That is certainly a stronger springboard."
She said her understanding of where the points of power are and who controls them will make her a strong player if she gets to Washington, D.C.
Marshall was the first woman elected to a statewide office in North Carolina when she defeated NASCAR legend Richard Petty in 1996 for secretary of state. She's won re-election three times, most recently in 2008, and said the job has honed her problem-solving skills.
"It's trying to figure out the right way to solve problems, to get as much of a win-win solution as you possibly can," she said.
Her platform focuses on financial reform, job creation and government accountability.
By Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Andy Stern, president of the SEIU, has emphasized going after Democrats opposed to the health-care bill. (Andrew Harrer/bloomberg News)
http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2010/04/18/PH2010041803715.jpg
RALEIGH, N.C. -- A political rebellion is brewing inside an old funeral home near the state Capitol here. Frustrated liberals and labor organizers are taking aim at the Democratic Party, rushing to gather enough signatures to start a third party that they believe could help oust three Democratic congressmen.
Less than two years ago, this same funeral home was a command post for the grass-roots army that propelled Barack Obama to victory in this conservative swing state. Here is where supporters distributed signs and stickers, sorted lists of registered voters and rallied with a Johnny Cash cover band.
Now, some of Obama's supporters are mounting a defiant strike against the president's party. The nascent third party, North Carolina First, could endanger the Democratic congressional majority by siphoning votes from incumbent Democrats in November's midterm election, potentially enabling Republican challengers to pick up the seats.
Organizers say they are so fed up with Democrats who did not support health-care reform that they simply do not care.
"Our whole agenda is to turn that apple cart around and say, 'No more are we going to blindly support you because you're a Democrat,' " said Dana S. Cope, executive director of the 55,000-member State Employees Association of North Carolina (SEANC), which is leading the effort. "We're going to support you because you're right on the issues and if you're not right on the issues, we're going to remove you from office."
Chuck Stone, a longtime SEANC leader who is chairman of North Carolina First, asked: "Does it really matter if you put a Democratic label or a Republican label on them when they go up there and support big companies and big insurance?"
SEANC and its parent group, the Service Employees International Union, possibly the nation's most politically powerful labor union, are funding the effort, which was announced April 8. In the days since, they have hired more than 100 canvassers who are rounding up the signatures needed to qualify as a third party on the general election ballot.
This is a top priority for outgoing SEIU President Andy Stern, who considers it a way to hold Democratic lawmakers accountable for their health-care votes. "It's not a fly-by-night kind of thing," said SEIU spokeswoman Lori Lodes. "We're making a very strong commitment to doing this. There is significant money behind it . . . There's not a ceiling to what we're willing to do."
The unions are giving voice to progressive activists across this state who say they feel betrayed by Reps. Larry Kissell, Heath Shuler and Mike McIntyre, Democrats who sided with Republicans against the health-care bill.
In Senate and House races across the country, emboldened liberals are going after lawmakers who, as they see it, have not sufficiently championed President Obama's agenda. So far, these family feuds, which also include Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter's run for Blanche Lincoln's Senate seat, largely have been confined to Democratic primaries.
But what is happening in North Carolina is different. Establishing the new party will be difficult, however. The group must gather signatures from 85,000 registered voters by June 1 to qualify for the November ballot. Then it has one month to nominate candidates; organizers said they had not identified any.
Still, Democratic leaders are keeping watch. The effort threatens to pull money and support from Democratic incumbents who badly need both in a year without Obama atop the ballot and when the political environment is toxic.
"It's an unfortunate turn of events that they've decided this is how they want to use their energy and resources," said Andrew Whalen, executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party, who was a dues-paying SEIU member when he was a maintenance worker in college.
Republicans hope to capitalize on the rancor. Kissell, Shuler and McIntyre are in "a political no-man's land," said North Carolina Republican Party spokesman Jordan Shaw. "Their base isn't very happy. I don't think there's any excitement for Democratic candidates."
McIntyre and Shuler's votes against the health-care overhaul were expected. McIntyre has long been one of the most conservative Democratic lawmakers. (He recently joined Republicans calling for a repeal of the bill.) Shuler, after being recruited by national Democrats, was elected in 2006 in a mountainous district that had long been dominated by Republicans. He has carefully distanced himself from his party's leaders.
"You buy a dog, don't be afraid when it barks," said Gary Pearce, a longtime Democratic strategist in the state.
Kissell's vote has agitated progressives the most. Stretching from Charlotte to Fayetteville, his district is at the heart of the state's floundering textile industry and has one of the nation's highest rates of adults without health insurance.
Harrington Smith, 20, knocked on doors for Kissell in 2008. Then Kissell twice voted against the health-care bill, and Smith, a college junior, is now canvassing for the third party, telling voters in a quiet and leafy neighborhood in Raleigh: "He's not looking out for the people. . . . I just want to hold him accountable."
Kissell, a millworker who became a high school civics teacher, had never held elected office, but he impressed many Democratic activists, including Michael Lawson, vice chairman of the party's 8th District committee. Lawson says Kissell's support among party activists is evaporating.
"Larry Kissell couldn't get elected dog-catcher in the 8th District," Lawson said. "It's been an utter disaster. If anybody wanted to commit political suicide, Larry Kissell has shown them the way."
Kissell's spokeswoman declined requests for an interview with the congressman but provided a statement from him explaining his vote. Kissell said the country needs health-care reform but voted against the bill because it would have cut Medicare funding. He had made a campaign promise never to cut Medicare and said in the statement, "I am a man of my word."
That explanation only aggravated Democratic activists.
"Health reform legislation is the most important piece of legislation for the past 40 years, and when you are asked as a member of Congress to vote on something that critical and you pick little teeny excuses, that's cowardly," said Greg Rideout, spokesman for North Carolina First. "It's time for us to create a third way."—
Thu Mar 25, 2010 | Daily Kos
by billmon
For some years now, I’ve been morbidly fascinated by the political dark arts -- especially the very dark art of disinformation: the systematic creation and dissemination of false narratives designed to discredit your opponents and/or drive undecided audiences away from their cause.
The difference between disinformation and just plain lying is in the scope of the enterprise: A lie is intended to conceal a specific truth (e.g. "I did not have sex with that woman"). Disinformation, on the other hand, is aimed at constructing an entire alternative reality -- one in which the truth can find no foothold because it conflicts just not with a specific falsehood, but with the entire fabric of the false reality that has been created. It puts the "big" in big lie, in other words.
These basic disinformation techniques were first pioneered by the totalitarian movements of the 1930s, such as the [GODWIN REDACTION] and the Soviet KGB, but they’ve been brought to their full fruition by the modern advertising, public relations and political consulting industries. Proving once again that what communism can do, capitalism can do better.
One of the things that’s always impressed me about the modern conservative movement -- going back to when Newt Gringrich drew up his list of buzz words to be relentlessly associated with liberals ("corrupt," "degenerate," "depraved," etc.) -- has been the movement’s enthusiastic embrace of propaganda techniques developed by the same political regimes it claims to oppose with its life’s breath.
I guess they’re trying to proving that what totalitarians can do, modern conservatives can also do better.
Karl Rove’s White House was, in many ways, the Olympian ideal of a disinformation operation -- a propaganda achievement that will probably never be topped, at least in American politics (God willing). But it looks as if the House Republicans are giving it the old college try.
Thus the rather amazing press conference Minority Whip Eric Cantor held earlier today, in which the Virginia Republican in effect accused the Democrats of inciting violence against all those innocent teabaggers out there who are simply expressing their sacred constitutional right to spit on black people and fax pictures of hangman’s nooses to their elected representatives.
Others, such as Daily Kos’s Jed Lewison, have already noted the Rovian philosophy behind Cantor’s press conference -- i.e. "the best defense is a good offense." But what’s going on here is actually a good deal more subtle (as in, KGB-style subtle) than that.
The specific disinformation technique in play is one I call "mirror image" (or, when I’m in a Star Trek mood, "Spock with a beard"). It consists of charging the opposing side (i.e. the enemies of the people) with doing exactly what you yourself have been accused of doing, typically with a hell of a lot more justification.
"Mirror image" was Rove’s standard response on those relatively rare occasions when the Bush White House seemed to be losing control of the media narrative.
Thus, when Richard Clarke blew the whistle on the Bush White House sleepwalking past the CIA’s warnings about Al Qaeda in the summer of 2001, the White House quickly constructed a competing story line in which Clarke himself was the official responsible for flubbing the response.
Likewise, when the Democrats began making noises in early 2004 about using Bush’s somewhat, er, questionable, accounts of his National Guard service against him, the Republicans quickly rolled out counterclaims that John Kerry had lied about his war record.
But the example I recall most clearly came during the Valerie Plame investigation, when Fox News suddenly tried to argue that Rove was the aggrieved whistleblower, and Joe Wilson and his wife where the sleazy insiders who had leaked classified information:
Rove warned [a reporter] away from the idea that Wilson's trip had been authorized by CIA Director George Tenet or Vice President Dick Cheney. "He gave proper guidance to a reporter who got disinformation in a leak" meant to assign responsibility to Cheney, former Bush aide Ed Rogers told FOX News.
As I wrote at the time: "This is starting to resemble that famous Star Trek episode in which Captain Kirk winds up in a parallel universe where the Federation, not the Klingons, are the evil barbarians and Spock has a nasty beard." Thus my nickname for the technique -- and the title of this diary.
I want to take a closer look at what Rep. Cantor actually said this morning. I’ll skip the gratuitous reference to his own religion (because we already know how much HCR supporters loathe the Jews), as well as his tardy revelation that a bullet was shot through the window of his campaign office two days ago (which is a completely accurate description of the incident, other than the fact that it wasn’t his campaign office, but rather a building in which a couple of his campaign consultants have offices -- and their windows weren’t the ones that were shot -- plus the fact that bullet had a downward trajectory, which means it was either a stray shot that happened to land in that particular window, or Rep. Cantor’s consultants were targeted by a sniper in a helicopter who decided to attack at 1 a.m. in the morning, when the building was completely empty, and who still couldn’t figure which window to shoot. And, of course, the alleged window shooting happened after the Democrats had won their big HCR victory -- which I suppose goes to show that those evil communists weren’t satisfied with destroying American constitutional liberty; they also wanted BLOOD.)
Anyway, if you ignore the utter nonsense of his specific allegations (which, of course, is what disinformation campaigns are all about) Cantor’s statement was brilliantly crafted –- evil, but nonetheless brilliant. This is the passage that really caught my eye:
DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen and DNC Chairman Tim Kaine in particular are dangerously fanning the flames by suggesting that these incidents be used as a political weapon. Security threats against members of Congress is not a partisan issue, and they should never be treated that way. To use such threats as political weapons is reprehensible. I'm not naive enough to think that letters, statements, or press releases will prevent anyone disturbed enough to commit violence from acting. But I do know that such letters, statements and press releases can very easily fan the flames by ratcheting up the rhetoric. Some will only inflame these situations to dangerous levels.
Considered as a rational argument, this is, of course, absurd -- bordering on incoherent. "I’m not naïve enough to think that letters, statements, or press releases will prevent anyone disturbed enough to commit violence from acting." What the fuck was that supposed to mean?
The correct answer is that it wasn’t supposed to mean anything. This isn’t about meaning. The real message of the statement is in the specific words and phrases Cantor uses -- and then repeats: "threats used as political weapons," "ratcheting up the rhetoric," "fanning the flames," "fan the flames," "inflame."
These are the sound bites Cantor’s operatives hope will make the evening news tonight. Why? Because they turn reality upside down. In Cantor’s alternate universe, it’s the Democrats who are using "threats" as "weapons," "ratcheting up the rhetoric" to "dangerous levels," and "fanning the flames" of violence.
The idea is to string those phrases together in such a way as to verbally associate the Democrats with the very same conduct the Republicans are actually guilty of (i.e. incitement) without ever making the accusation directly.
What makes this particular example so cunning are the specific words used. Liberals complain that conservative protestors have worn guns to teabagger rallies, or waved signs warning that if "Brown can’t stop this, a Browning can"? Well, now the Democrats also have been accused of using "weapons." Has the RNC stepped over the line by showing Nancy Pelosi burning in a sea of fire? Well, the Democrats are also "fanning the flames." Did the GOP House members encourage their followers to think of themselves as a revolutionary army by waving "Don’t Tread on Me" signs from the House balcony during the HCR vote? Well, the Democrats are also "ratcheting up the rhetoric."
This is pretty sophisticated stuff -- way beyond what I would expect from your typical hack GOP congressman. Which does make me wonder who’s writing Cantor’s stuff these days (Step on out from behind the curtain, Karl: We can see you.)
The basic objective of all this, as I wrote way back when, is very simple:
The goal is to confront the public with two sides hurling identical charges at each other -- the better to convince them that it's just another partisan mudfight and who the hell knows . . . anyway.
In that sense, the "mirror image" technique is a like a bomber scattering chaff behind it to try to fool enemy radar or deflect a heat-seeking missile from the real target. As I said, it’s one of the tricks Rove would use when Team Bush lost the news cycle, which suggests the past few days of coverage of the Great Teabagger Freakout have done some real damage –- or at least, that the Rovian high command thinks it has done some damage.
Will the ploy work this time? I don’t think so, or if so, only to a limited degree. The material may have been brilliant, but the performance sucked –- even Cantor couldn’t make himself sound like he actually believed it. Sure, Fox News is ready (as always) to take the baton and run with it, but I think the mainstream corporate media deadheads, brain dead as they may be, have finally picked up on the scam.
On the other hand, the headline from that Atlantic blogpost I linked to earlier suggests I may be the one who's brain dead here:
Cantor Accuses Democrats of Using Threats, Violence to Score Points
Perhaps that was written strictly tongue in cheek, but I doubt it.
You know, for the disinformation professional who wrote Cantor’s statement, it must be tough to craft such a masterpiece of the art, only to realize you’ve thrown your very best pearls down before a pack of journalistic swine.—
Update 3/26/10, 1:45 am ET:
Me, above:
The goal is to confront the public with two sides hurling identical charges at each other -- the better to convince them that it's just another partisan mudfight and who the hell knows...anyway.
The New York Times, tonight:
Accusations Fly Between Parties Over Threats and Vandalism
Eric Cantor, in my imagination:
"Mission accomplished, baby. Mission accomplished."
--at 03:07:23 PM PDT
