I Apologize To Tim Ryan

Back in February, I called former Ohio congressman Tim Ryan a fraud for joining a natural-gas lobbying group and promoting natural gas as a "bridge" to clean, renewable energy.  Well, that was an overreaction to what I thought at the time was a dumb career move, and I am apologizing for that comment.  The truth is, natural gas is a transitional energy source in switching toward renewables, as it's the cleanest-burning fossil fuel there is.  And though that's like being the best ice hockey player in Borneo, the truth is that we're not going to switch to renewables overnight - and if the Republicans take over Washington in 2025 we won't switch to renewables at all.  And that's probably why Ryan, who obviously gets the latter part of the truth as much as the former part, has formed a new organization to prevent that situation.

Ryan announced a new organization in July called We the People, an organization aimed at reaching out toward the exhausted majority that rejects both the bigotry and misanthropy of the Republicans and the political correctness and cultural relativism of Democrats.   He wants to focus on issues such as reviving American manufacturing, energy, health care, and similar kitchen-table topics and offer a showcase for examples of how local issues are successfully dealt with at the grass-roots level.  He wants to highlight solutions to problems that people are implementing locally, outside Washington, to rebuild our political system form the ground up in a bipartisan matter.    

"There is an exhausted majority in the country, and they feel like they don't have any political home at all," Ryan told CBS News this past summer.  "That's maddening because that gives a bigger voice to those forces of division and hate and anger, so we want to build an organization that welcomes these people to participate."

Ryan also wants to build a strong coalition of people within his organization to reject the growing MAGA movement and its hostility toward democratic principles.

"We will also take a strong and hostile position against these forces of hate and anger and fear and division in the country," he explained. "That's the only way for us, in my estimation, for us to allow all of this greatness happening in the country to be able to bloom and to grow."  (Calling his group We the People is pretty savvy, since MAGA Republicans have stolen the first three words of the Constitution's preamble to amplify their own cause.  Ryan is stealing it back.)

Ryan has not ruled out another run for public office, though many Democrats have likely ruled it out for him, since he's a three-time loser - a failed candidate for House Democratic leader against Nancy Pelosi, a failed presidential candidate in 2019 (he didn't make it to 2020) and, despite positive reviews for his campaign, a failed U.S. Senate campaign against Republican James David Vance.  (If positive reviews determined success, art-house films would draw bigger audiences than blockbuster movies based on cartoon characters like James David Vance.)  Also, Democrats never liked Ryan much because he was  not liberal enough for them and too quick to challenge leaders like Pelosi.  Also, he's a white guy from Ohio.  In case you haven't noticed, there isn't a single white man among the top three members of the House Democratic leadership, so even if ol' Tim had decided to stay in the House and pursue a leadership role, he wouldn't have gotten anywhere.

I'm sure Ryan must be bummed that he stepped on too many toes as a House member and doomed any chance he might have had to become Speaker, but at least he won't be kicking himself while seeing an Ohioan far worse than even Vance get that coveted spot - Jim Jordan was forced to give up his bid for it after three failed votes.  In the meantime, Ryan is focused on helping to get people turned off by politics involved in the political mainstream to make sure that good guys like Sherrod Brown (Ohio's Democratic U.S. Senator) win in 2024 and bad guys like all of the Republicans who are part of the MAGA movement (i.e., most of them) do not.  And then maybe he'll be in better shape by 2028 - when Vance will be up for re-election. 😉   

But if Ryan runs for the U.S. Senate again in 2028, the Ohio Democratic Party will probably still be moribund.

Fork In the Road

Just before President Biden and a group of Democratic and Republican senators (below) reached a bipartisan deal on a compromise infrastructure package, he an the Democrats announced that there would be a reconciliation bill including everything left out of the compromise that the Democrats could pass in the Senate on their own without a filibuster threat.  This is like a magician telling his audience how he does one of his tricks.  And when Biden said that he would veto the compromise deal if the reconciliation bill didn't get passed, that was like a magician showing his audience how he does one of his tricks. 

Although Biden walked back his comments, saying he's still committed to the bipartisan deal, I can't understand how Biden thinks this two-track approach to infrastructure is going to work.  Republicans who may have backed the deal may now be against it because of the reconciliation bill containing items that the GOP did not agree to, such as day care centers and climate action.  But many pundits seem to think that the deal will hold because Republicans need to go back to their constituents to show that they've gotten things done just as much as Democrats do.  The big risk in Biden's gambit is that the Republicans would be happy to torpedo the deal in the Senate and blame its failure on Biden and the Democrats for insisting on a "progressive wish list."  However, Biden's veto threat may not be so much directed against Republicans as against some of his fellow Democrats - the moderate wing, to be precise, the wing that may be reluctant to go for a European-style investment in human capital because of the costs involved.  Biden seems to think that standing firmly behind the so-called "progressive wish list" to get Democratic Senate moderates like Kyrsten Sinema (Joe Manchin is on board with Biden's plan, saying that reconciliation is inevitable) will back the reconciliation measure as a price to pay for getting the bipartisan deal passed to shore up support from their own constituents at home.

There will be more work on the infrastructure package in the weeks ahead as the details are finalized, and anything could happen.  But if Joe Biden somehow manages to get everything he wants with party unity on his side, that would mean he has a magic trick up his sleeve that he's not going to show us.  

No Labels, No Guts, No Glory

The group "No Labels" that formed this week aspires to help Democrats an Republicans find common ground to solve this country's problems. A moderate group comprised largely of independents like Michael Bloomberg and including a few Democrats and fewer Republicans (what does that tell you?) , the No Labels group wants the extremes of each major party to put their differences aside and work toward a sensible, centrist governing style.

This is the dumbest idea I've ever heard.

First of all, as E.J. Dionne wrote in a column published today, the No Labels group supposes that the American left is as extreme as the American right. In fact, the American left has moved so much toward the center, the Democrats have become as moderate as the old Rockefeller wing of the Republican party, while the Republicans have become more extremely conservative and beyond the scope of moderation. There are politicians as far to the left as Rand Paul is to the right, but they've become hopelessly marginalized over the last thirty years. As for Democrats, they're willing to compromise - like President Obama - but what's the use when Republicans aren't?

Secondly, "bipartisanship" is a fuzzy aim. If your idea is to support bipartisanship that produces legislation insuring a brighter future for America, fine. But if you support the kind of bipartisanship that gets any old bill passed, no matter how bad it is, you're better off with lines in the sand. Case in point: A telecommunications bill that passed in 1995 and was signed by President Clinton enjoyed broad bipartisan support. It also allowed large media conglomerates to own more broadcast outlets in more media markets - sometimes in the same market - and ruined the quality of programming on music radio. It also put news radio until the control of fewer companies; in New York, news stations WCBS-AM and WINS-AM, once competitors, are owned by the same company. The only major difference between them is that WINS has teletype machine sound effects.

Thirdly, No Labels doesn't seem to have any ideas or proposals of their own. This group doesn't seem to stand for anything; it's only interested in combining the best ideas of either side. It doesn't matter to them that the best ideas in Washington these days may not be good enough. Some of them are just plain bad. But bad ideas are what we Americans are best at generating. No Labels is one of them.

No Labels will go the way of so many other "moderate" groups that tried to move the country forward but proposed solutions that only kept it moving in place. It will disband without any fanfare. Another such group slated to join them would be the Democrats.

Abandon Bipartisan Ship!

President Obama invited Republican congressional leaders to a televised discussion on health care reform two weeks from this Thursday (February 25), and even though they've suggested interest in it, they insist that the President isn't going to get bipartisanship if he insists on sticking to the provisions in the current health care bills that passed the House and the Senate. Obama spoke out on the issue today, citing that the Republicans in the Senate have been using parliamentary rules to delay and obstruct bills from passing; thwarted in December in their attempt to stop a health care bill from passing in that chamber, the Republicans can now stop any legislation pieced together from the two health care bills that have passed (hello, Scott Brown!). He's made it clear that bipartisanship, as far as health care reform is concerned, does not mean the Democrats giving up everything they support to allow the Republicans to have everything they want. Indeed, that isn't bipartisanship - it's the George Walker Bush agenda!

With health care and other issues as mired in Washington politics as Washington itself now is in snow, Obama seems to have found an opening to make the Republicans offer a positive alternative to the Democratic health care plan or risk being seen as gumming up the works. It's a risky gambit; the voters see large Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress and don't know or care about parliamentary or procedural rules, and they don't understand how much legislation has actually been passed by one or both houses of Congress if the President can't get the opportunity to sign any of it. This strategy might work, though. Republicans are being forced to be proactive on an issue they would prefer not to even discuss. If they have something to offer in the health care debate and offer it in good faith, it's time to do it now. Obama may be at a nadir in his presidency, but he's capable of reversing course at any time.

Hopefully, the time is now.

Mr. Brown Goes To Washington

I was wondering how long it was going to take for noted centerfold model Scott Brown to be seated as a United States Senator from Massachusetts. Three weeks after the election, I asked myself, "Geez, the Republicans in the Senate have to delay this, too?" :-D

Actually, the Republicans had nothing to do with this. It took time for the Massachusetts Secretary of State to certify the results of the special election last month. Brown was sworn in today. Originally, he was scheduled to be sworn in on February 11, and he was willing to wait that long, but he ultimately changed his mind and asked to be seated sooner to take part on key votes. The Democrats - who haven't shown any spine since 1967 - were pleased to oblige. John Kerry and outgoing interim Massachusetts senator Paul Kirk escorted Brown to the Senate floor today, where he took the oath from Vice President Biden.

Kerry was off his crutches. I hope this is a good sign.

Without a supermajority, the Democrats have to work with Republicans in a spirit of bipartisanship to get things done. The majority party doesn't have the votes to overcome filibusters, and they expect the Republicans to offer solutions and cooperation to pass legislation, now that the GOP has a greater say in the lawmaking process. Republicans counter that they need the filibuster to block any sweeping legislation they feel the country is not ready to digest.

The conventional wisdom is that Senate Republicans can't keep saying no to everything without offering alternatives on the legislative issues of the day if they don't want to be accused of obstructionism. Yeah, right. All the public sees is a party with a large majority - 59 out of 100 is still pretty big - and if the Senate can't pass anything, that party, the Democratic party, is likely to bear the brunt of the blame. And when you consider that the Democrats have been offering opportunities to the Republicans to get behind legislation such as job programs, rather than just take the bull by the horns and pass something themselves (like health care reform), perhaps the Democrats will deserve the shellacking forecast for them in the November elections.

All eyes are on Scott Brown to see whether he can help bridge the gap between the two Senate caucuses and get things done. Until he manages to deliver - something the rest of the Senate hasn't been able to do - he's just going to be seen as a Cosmopolitan pretty boy.

To be fair, Brown was a legitimate fashion model in the 1980s, having done a good deal of print ad work through a Boston agency. In fact, here's an example from his former career, from when he was 31.

I must say, he does look senatorial. :-D