Former Air America CEO Danny Goldberg has a must-read on the demise of the radio network and what he believes it tells us about the difference between conservative movement funders and their (supposed) progressive counterparts. Here's the key excerpt:
Conservatives believe in doing whatever it takes to promote their ideas. Richard Viguerie, viewed as one of the architects of the modern conservative movement, wrote a book in 2004 called America's Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media To Take Power, in which he explains how the right wing used talk radio among other tools. Viguerie stresses that conservatives understand that ideological change does not usually occur overnight; that it takes patience and long-term thinking to build a movement...
The fatal flaw in Air America's genetic code was the pretense that liberal talk radio was a great business opportunity, that progressives could have their cake and eat it too, could do well by doing good, make big salaries and get a great return on investment while also pursuing an ideological agenda. Sure, every once in a while political media like Michael Moore's movies or Rush Limbaugh's radio show will make money, but for those interested in influencing public opinion, media in all venues is vital whether it makes money or not...
Perhaps the major liberal donors are confused because they became accustomed to focus groups and polling, which are useful tools in predicting short-term public reaction to political messages. They can tell you if a particular TV spot will turn off swing voters two weeks before an election. But long-term political ideas have a more complex and uncertain creative path. Conservatives understand the need to focus on both long- and short-term political communication...
Whatever the reasons, the theory of leaving political media to the marketplace has enabled a status quo in which one-third of the American public are never exposed to progressive ideas or even to facts that are incompatible with the right-wing narrative.
Identifying, developing and marketing talent takes a lot of experimentation with a predictable amount of failures in order to establish successes. This is part of the reason it took even an ultimately successful company like Fox News years to turn a profit. Another need for investment was to market a brand-new format with lots of personalities new to radio and to give incentives for radio station owners in smaller markets to give the new format a chance.
Although the earliest and wackiest group of Air America owners overspent on a few items like studios and initial salaries, within months the primary characteristic of Air America was a lack of cash for marketing, affiliate growth and talent development. The pressure from wealthy liberals was not to create a long-term strategy as conservatives had done, but to show a business model that would turn a profit in a year or two.
To his credit, Goldberg acknowledges that he was far from a perfect manager during his tenure at Air America. But he goes on - rightly, IMHO - to point out that regardless of management, this key difference between conservative and progressive investors have inherently tilted the scales against Air America and progressive media in general.
What explains this difference? That's a good question. I think it is a mix of starfucker-ism and ideological bankruptcy on the part of major progressive individual and institutional donors.
There are a lot of clever-sounding explanations for the declining approval ratings of President Obama, and the declining electoral fortunes of the Democratic Party. For example, Edward Luce and Steve Clemmons take aim at President Obama consulting a narrow group of Chicago-based advisors. Another example comes from Zach Exley, who proposes that the center-left isn't articulating as coherent a worldview at Glen Beck and the tea partiers (and no, he isn't being snarky). Tim Dickinson offers up a third explanation, arguing that Organizing for America should have become a more energetic outsider organization, rather than being brought under the auspices of the DNC.
These explanations are all thought-provoking. They also strive very hard to ignore the galatically obvious reason for the decline in President Obama's misfortunes: the rapid rise in unemployment. Over the past sixty years, rapid, 12-month increases in unemployment have caused five other President's to suffer rapid declines in approval rating.
Presidential approval declines during rapid 12-month unemployment increases, 1957-2010
Compared to the five previous occasions where a President suffered significant declines in approval ratings during a rapid 12-month increase in unemployment, Obama's drop is actually pretty severe. However, it is reasonably safe to assume that this is because his approval was inflated in January of 2009, when he was inaugurated. All Presidents suffer a decline in approval ratings from their peak immediately following inauguration. The combination of the natural post-inauguration decline and the rapid increase in unemployment did the trick.
Since 1957, there have been three instances where a President did not suffer a sharp drop in approval rating during a 12-month period of rapid increasing unemployment. Here they are:
Presidential approval improvements during rapid 12-month unemployment increases, 1957-2010
It is pretty easy to determine what separated these three periods from the six listed in the first chart. In every case, there was a major foreign crisis that led the country to rally around the President. The Iran hostage crisis began on November 45th, 1979. The first Persian Gulf war lasted from August of 1990 through February of 1991. And, of course, the attacks of September 11th took place in September of 2001.
All of this suggests that unless a major foreign policy crisis occurs, any President will suffer a severe decline in approval ratings during a year when unemployment increases rapidly. While nine data points is an admittedly small sample size, the rationale behind it is so intuitive that it is very hard not to believe it.
That isn't to say that there is no problem with President Obama consulting with a close circle of mainly Chicago-based advisors, with the lack of aggression in Organizing for America, or that the American center-left has failed to articulate a cohesive, compelling worldview. However, identifying those problems as the main cause of the current electoral trouble facing the Obama administration and the Democratic Party is a lot like thinking that the main problem facing travelers on the Titanic is the slippery deck.
Democrats and the Obama administration would only been in a significantly improved political position if they had implemented policies that would have resulted in a dramatically different employment picture. Is there a different set of advisors, a different organizing technique, or different messaging that would have resulted in economic policy that would have turned the employment picture around? That is the question that needs to be asked about current political and electoral difficulties for Democrats, not whether Obama's advisers are all from Chicago or not.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Congressman John P. Murtha (PA-12) passed away peacefully this afternoon at 1:18 p.m. at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, VA. At his bedside was his family.
Murtha, 77, was Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.
First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in February of 1974, Murtha dedicated his life to serving his country both in the military and in the halls of Congress. A former Marine, he became the first Vietnam War combat Veteran elected to the U.S. Congress.
This past Saturday, February 6, 2010, Murtha became Pennsylvania's longest serving Member of Congress.
Murtha will probably be best remembered for speaking out against the Iraq war in late 2005, and calling for American troop withdrawal. Doing so rocketed him into the national spotlight, made him a top campaign surrogate for Democrats running for Congress in 2006. Murtha was a major factor in galvanizing Democratic support for troop withdrawal (withdrawal which continues apace), and even resulted in a Pelosi-backed run at becoming Majority Leader in November 2006 after Democrats took control of the House. Steny Hoyer eventually won that position.
Murtha's district is the Pennsylvania 12th, with a Cook Partisan Voting Index of Republican +1. The special election to fill his seat will likely take place on May 18th, the date of the Pennsylvania primary. Republicans will likely be favored to take the seat, given the current political climate.
Apologies to those who are offended by an analysis of the political ramifications of his death. Such concerns do seem crass at a time like this, but we still need to consider them.
Despite all the talk about Scott Brown bringing an end to the Democratic Senate supermajority, the truth is that Senate Democrats never had a filibuster-proof supermajority. They weren't even close.
A look at Senate voting habits shows that it takes only 54 Republican Senators to reach 60 votes for conservative legislation, while it takes 72 Democratic Senators to reach 60 votes for progressive legislation. While the last sentence sounds like snark, it isn't). Democratic Senators vote with Republicans significantly more often than Republican Senators vote with Democrats, making it much easier for Republicans to pass the kind of legislation they want.
According to Progressive Punch, looking only at "crucial votes," the average Democratic Senator has voted with the progressive position 82.4% of the time over the course of their entire career. By contrast, looking only at crucial votes, the average Republican Senator has voted with the progressive position 3.5% of the time throughout their entire career.
Voting habits like these mean that, in order to reach 60 progressive votes on crucial votes, Democrats actually need 72 Senators ((72 * 0.824) + (28 * 0.035) = 60.3 effective votes). By contrast, Republicans only need 54 Senators to break progressive filibusters of their agenda ((46 * 0.176) + (54 * 0.965) = 60.2 effective votes).
If there was no filibuster, and only 51 votes were required to pass legislation in the Senate, Democrats require 59 votes to hold the slimmest of majorities (50.1 effective votes), and even then they only hold the majority if a Democrat is Vice-President. So, even without the filibuster, passing progressive legislation such as card check, the public option, and cramdown would have been fraught with nailbiters in 2009-2010.
These numbers present an interesting series of choices for Democrats and progressives who want to get rid of the filibuster. Let's game it out:
Under current rules, a progressive majority in the Senate is impossible. Democrats will never win 72 seats in any of our lifetimes. This means that, as long as the 60-vote filibuster is in place, there will never be a progressive majority in the Senate.
Without the filibuster, non-Progressives will have a nearly permanent Senate majority. It only takes 42 Republican Senators to form an anti-progressive majority in the Senate even if the filibuster is destroyed. So, even if the filibuster is destroyed, the Senate will have a non-progressive majority roughly every 17 out of 20 years.
With the filibuster, progressives can block legislation if there are 47 or more Democratic Senators. While the filibuster denies any hope of a progressive majority in the Senate, more often than not it allows progressives to block anti-progressive legislation as along as there are 47 or more Democratic Senators.
The main choice is thus between:
Never having a progressive majority and usually being able to block anti-progressive legislation,
Occasionally having a progressive majority and rarely being able to block anti-progressive legislation.
While #2 puts conservatives in unimpeded charge of the Senate more often than #1, it is still the better choice for progressives. This is because #2 at least offers a chance of passing progressive legislation, while #1 does not.
#1 blocks anti-progressive legislation more often than #2, but it still does not actually stop it. It is simply a slower erosion of progressive public policy, with no hope of reversal.
If you are a progressive, unless you got into politics just to slow down the corporate capture of the federal government, getting rid of the filibuster is a smart move. A progressive majority in the Senate simply impossible as long as it exists.
If you didn't see the "Green Police" Super Bowl ad yesterday, here it is:
The message that Audi is going for is "drive this car and you'll be able to avoid the hassle", but the way they go about it is terrible. As Oaktown Girl writes in the comments, the message is that the green movement is turning us into an oppressive "police state", with cops searching through our trash and roadblocks set up for non-"green" cars.
This is what sometimes gets me about corporations and "green". Some large corporations institute incentives for biking to work, recycling programs, etc. out of pure concern for the environment. Others for complete profit. I recall several years ago I started seeing everyone from Chevron and ConocoPhillips to Pepsi advertising in National Journal, an insider DC publication, trumpeting their green values. With this kind of messaging, Audi punches the green movement in the stomach, scares its customers, and then tells customers to buy a green car to avoid the "green police" for the sake of profit.
On the merits of the business side of the ad, a friend of mine commented that, well, at least it will get people to purchase this new "green" car. Perhaps, but if its at the expense of ridiculing simple things people can do like using compact flourescent lightbulbs and taking bags to the grocery store, and perhaps even scaring people into opposing green initiatives, is it worth it? I have doubts about that.
As some of you know, I'm working on a book right now about the television, movies, toys, video games and pop culture that I - and every Gen Xer - grew up on. That's all I can really say about the project right now, but I wanted to pass on my new front-page piece in the Denver Post's Sunday Perspective section about the topic, because I think it touches on a phenomenon that so many of us are struggling with these days.
The piece looks at the concept of unplanned obsolescence in Hollywood - specifically, at how many recent films we've considered timeless are being quickly fossilized thanks to ever-evolving technology that outdates their storylines. It was fun to write, but also disturbing in the sense that it focuses in on just how fast our world is now changing, and how the Toffler-ian concept of Future Shock has come to define our society.
What we look at as "outdated" is no longer stuff that's, say, 10 or 20 years old. That stuff is all but ancient history. Today, anything - gadgets, software, political ideas, etc. - can be outdated in a matter of weeks, because the pace of, well, everything has accelerated to supersonic speeds. Our fast-changing views of cultural history - as represented by the quicker aging of cinematic productions - is just one example of that acceleration.
There are obviously positives and negatives to this, of course. It's terrific that our knowledge of natural sciences is growing exponentially. It's not so terrific that, say, fact-based proposals to solve major problems can lose their enduring agency with a few salvos from the half-baked crazy people who commandeer the warp-speed 24-7 news cycle.
At a personal level, this can feel jarring - it can feel like we're all the nose-bleeding characters on Lost, bewildered by blinding flashes as we unknowingly travel through time (and I'm already wondering how quickly Lost will go from being considered a cutting-edge high-concept masterpiece to a television antique). And I think we're all struggling in our own way to make sense of this revolutionary pace of change - struggling to come to terms with a world that feels totally out of control, for better and for worse.
Before Bush took office, the CBO projections were for a decade of rising surpluses. The reality: Not so much.
Putting Bush's record together with the latest projections for the future under Obama doesn't make things look exactly cheery, but it makes a mockery of attempts to blame Obama:
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