Kos Is Not Going To Leave Jim Cooper Alone
Posted on September 28, 2009 at 5:16 pmMarkos “Kos” Moulitsas ain’t trying to hear all this noise about how a challenge to Jim Cooper is a fool’s errand:
Instead of trying to shut out the “interlopers”, maybe his supporters should try to get Cooper to vote the right way. Because if he does, the case against him becomes lots weaker.
But let me go back to “interloper”, because it’s a charge us national bloggers get all the time — is this author (at the Nashville Post) worried about the “interloper” insurance companies that are bankrolling Cooper and buying his votes? In his time in Congress, Cooper has gotten some serious cash.
Chip Forrester On The Effort To Primary Jim Cooper
Posted on at 5:10 pmFrom Mark Brown:
“Congressman Jim Cooper is one of the most studious and deliberative members of Congress we have in Tennessee – on either side of the aisle. It is illogical for someone or some organization to try and remove a statesman like Congressman Cooper. Democrats need to focus their attention, energy and resources on helping retake the state legislature because Republicans intend to redraw legislative districts after the 2010 Census.
“Efforts to primary Congressman Cooper are misplaced. The debate over health-care reform has stirred strong emotions. It’s important we get this legislation right, and Congressman Cooper gets that. If we don’t keep our eyes on the ball, we’ll wind up with more people like Marsha Blackburn representing Tennessee in Congress. All Democrats, I hope, understand that nightmare scenario.”
Jim Cooper Reacts To Talk Of Primary Challenge
Posted on at 4:12 pmHe ain’t scurred:
A progressive political action committee made Congressman Jim Cooper its No. 1 target for defeat in the 2010 elections as punishment for opposing liberals on health care reform, but Cooper vowed not to be swayed by threats.
“You know, some of these people just want publicity,” Cooper said. “My job isn’t to give them free publicity. They should generate their own publicity. I’m trying to solve the health care problem in America, and they are free to do whatever they want to do.”
[snip]
Asked to respond, Cooper told the City Paper, “I don’t have to respond to them if they don’t live here. I respond to my constituents. I respond to people who live here.”
“This shows they don’t know me,” he said. “I’m a nerd. What I respond to is substance [not political threats]. I’m probably too boring for them to fool with.”
Put A Name In
Posted on at 1:30 pmSean Braisted thinks a real progressive challenge to Cooper could have a legit shot taking out the Congressman — but they have to step up first:
By having a national PAC come in and try to recruit a candidate (something the DCCC or DSCC often does) and offer a base of support, financing, and possible staff, that will tempt potentially viable challengers into considering what might have once been only an after thought. Right now, its impossible to reliably poll a potential primary race because there isn’t a name to counter Cooper’s…its all theoretical and a matter of conjecture. But a real race, involving a real campaign about issues and a close examination of Rep. Cooper’s record, could lead to surprising results.
PUMAs Against Coop!
Posted on at 1:26 pmTennessee Guerrilla Women are all about taking out Jim Cooper and they think the naysayers need to shut it up:
As always the naysayers are out in full force, but isn’t it a little early for all the protestations counting Cooper’s as yet mysterious challenger out? The naysayers are ignoring all kinds of little inconvenient facts, like for instance, Cooper’s district is “a 25% minority district that would be 45% minority in a Dem primary.” The naysayers are also seriously underestimating our liberal friends at Accountability Now.
Republicans Want To Take Out Coop, Too
Posted on at 1:16 pmIf you are getting hit from both sides like Jim Cooper presently is, chances are that means you’re doing right:
TN-05 is only a D+3 district, by the way. Which is why the NRCC is now actively recruiting for that one.
Not Afraid Of Anything, Just Giving You A Heads Up
Posted on at 12:24 pmTalk Left talks down to local bloggers who have the temerity to suggest that Jim Cooper can’t be beaten in a Democratic primary:
If Cooper is as popular as these “local experts” think, then he’ll win without breaking a sweat. If he isn’t, then maybe he is doing something wrong. What are these “local experts” afraid of?
(via TCP)
Should Jim Cooper Get To Be A Congressman For Life For Winning A Primary In 2002?
Posted on at 9:05 amSean Braisted says hells to the no:
How did Cooper win that primary? Partly on the backs of many out of state political action committees; from the National Venture PAC to the American Academy of Ophthalmology PAC and a whole slew of corporate political action committees seeking national representation for their issues. Granted, Gayle Ray had a good deal of PAC contributions, but most of those were from labor unions who represent workers here in Nashville.
So I find it difficult to swallow when people get all bent out of shape that some out of state “carpetbaggers” are coming to our fair city in order to let it be known to would-be challengers that they’ll help get a campaign off the ground.
Lumped In
Posted on at 8:39 amBetsy Phillips is not as opposed to a primary challenge of Jim Cooper as she believes she is being painted to be:
Which is why I’m feeling a little upset to be lumped in with the whole people just shouting support of Cooper. I’m not blindly supportive of Cooper. But it’s not as simple as “We have a poll and a wish and outside support!” and I want to hear real ideas about how one goes about running a more liberal candidate against Cooper and winning and I want to hear that from people who live here and can speak convincingly about the contours of the district.
I don’t think it can be done. I’d be happy to be proven wrong, but I don’t think I am.
I would support and do support local efforts to primary Cooper, but I’m not that excited about being bullshitted.
At the end of the day, the national folks go home and we Democrats have to work together. They can afford to run a more scorched-earth campaign than we will be able to live with if they fail.
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Accountability Now Discusses Their Search For A Cooper Primary Challenger
Posted on at 8:31 am“The reception has been really fantastic right now,” he says. “There’s just so many people who are interested in a primary challenge. … We’re looking at strong potential candidates who can win.”
“I’m pretty confident there’s serious challenger who’s interested. There’s actually a couple. What they’re waiting for is more data to see what happens. We’ll probably do additional polling that will go into more detail of exactly who is upset with Jim Cooper and why.”
Struggling With The Idea Of A Challenge To Jim Cooper
Posted on at 7:56 amIlissa Gold wants you to read her whole post on the subject:
And now that I’ve said that, if this post gets on Post Politics, I’m pretty sure that Kleinheider will frame the rest of it as “That crazy shrill liberal Ilissa Gold is calling for a revolution on the streets of Nashville, complete with Jim Cooper’s head on a pike.” Hopefully enough people will click through to realize I’m saying the exact opposite.
Leave Jim Cooper Alone!
Posted on September 27, 2009 at 10:15 pmIt’s really amazing how much effort national progressives are putting into going after Jim Cooper. Posts by national bloggers giving Coop crap for a pushing healthcare reform bill that doesn’t provide for a public option is one thing. But actually going to the trouble of setting up an anti-Cooper website? Talking of trying to recruit a primary challenger?
It is excessive and it is misguided. More progressive minded folks than I have already weighed in on this subject. A political operative, the city’s feminist conscience in the blogosphere and a former Music City Democrat have all picked a side — against the national interlopers.
Is Coop the most progressive congressman Nashville could produce? Certainly not. But is that enough a reason to turn him out?
Elective office is and should be less secure than a regular job but what has Cooper really done to deserve a pink slip?
Rep. Cooper is a good Congressman. He speaks his mind and he serves his constituents. He deserves to keep his job unless some candidate can provide a compelling reason not to. The fact that Coop thinks outside the box and promotes healthcare reform solutions that do not include the exalted public option is really a compelling reason.
Do these progressives really think that Cooper is their enemy? This is not Lincoln Davis we are talking about after all, this is Jim Cooper. Do these interlopers really believe Cooper would vote against the public option if it came down to it?
These interlopers simple do not know Nashville if they think the city’s Democrats are going to turn out Coop on the basis of healthcare reform. Given the chance, it highly debatable that voters would vote out Jim Cooper in favor of a highly qualified progressive. But the major point is here is that they will never get that chance.
Accountability Now can talk their trash all they want. They can pretend like they are recruiting a legit candidate to challenge our congressman but no one to the right of Chris Lugo would ever seriously consider a primary challenge of Jim Cooper.
Until these national progressives can convince a Jason Holleman or Megan Barry to lose their political minds, this is all going to be wasted effort better used elsewhere.
This push isn’t even going to scare Cooper. If Accountability Now could field even a semi-legit candidate, maybe the effort could yield some fruit and scare Cooper into working harder in promoting the public option.
But let’s be honest, Jim Cooper don’t scare. He’s been around the block a few times and he has done his homework. He is politically protected and he is confident in his position on the issue. National progressives are wasting their time.
It would clear to them if they spent anytime at all with Democrats in this city. There will be a time to elect true progressive for the 5th District and that is the day Jim Cooper retires. Until then, national progressives should keep their powder dry and concentrate on battles they can win and places where they can make a difference.
If national progressives really want to help the cause, they should concentrate on the state legislature. Considering how red Tennessee has become it is an amazing feat that it’s congressional delegation is still majority Democrat.
If the Democrats cannot recapture the state legislature and Republicans hold the redistricting pen, every Democratic congressman but Cooper is gonna be vulnerable.
You want to help progressives in Tennessee? Help them take back the legislature and prevent the GOP from redistricting them back to the stone age. Then you can start building a new progressive and populist Democratic Party in Tennessee.
But messing with a true statesman who may be a smudge to the right of his district? That’s just inane.
*Hear the Accountability Now folks tomorrow morning on Liberadio(!)
The Battle Of Bristol: John McCain Has The Upper Hand
Posted on September 1, 2008 at 3:09 pmThe revelation that 17 year-old Bristol Palin is pregnant will have an impact on this race, no question. Some “politically and culturally savvy” Republicans will no doubt question the already questionable pick and Democrats will pounce on the fact that, yet again, a socially conservative pol who cautions abstinence for others did not seem to instill those values in her own teenage daughter.
Couple this with the fact that Sarah Palin herself may not have had a ring on her finger when she conceived her first child and we have the makings of an political flashpoint which will not soon die down.
Make no mistake, whatever you think of Sarah Palin and how she runs her family, the fact that we now have a Vice Presidential nominee running for the second highest office in the land with teenage daughter set to give birth right around inauguration day is a big deal.
The attacks on Sarah and Bristol Palin, whether from sanctioned surrogates or not, will continue no matter what Barack Obama says. Campaigns in the internet age have had and will continue to have trouble containing their message and that is why, in the end, the Republican Party should be glad this happened.
As a friend just told me after the news broke, the left is fully unprepared to win this debate. He may not have meant it how I heard it, but he is right nonetheless. The Left does not understand the fundamental nature of the socially conservative mind. That, and what is likely to be their over-exuberance in attacking what they perceive as hypocrisy, will be their downfall.
Bristol Palin has single-handedly dealt the Republican Party its winning hand. With an economy in decline and an unpopular war started by Republicans, Bristol Palin’s unborn baby has now made the Culture War the focal point of this election. This is one ground and, in fact, the only ground on which Republicans can win this election.
In 1992, when the Republican Party was facing a similar prospect, Pat Buchanan gave his famous speech on the Culture War. The speech was roundly criticized but what many failed to recognize and what was lost in the subsequent mythology around the speech was that the exit polls the day after he spoke, George H.W. Bush’s poll numbers went up, not down.
Buchanan explained his speech’s focus on culture not so much as personal preference, but as a tactical imperative. George Bush had broken his no new taxes pledge. America was on the precipice of a recession and the Bush victory in the Gulf War was all but forgotten. The Culture War was all the Republicans had.
Same as it ever was. Cutting to 2008, the Cultural War is again all Republicans have. What failed in 1992, however, may save John McCain because this time it is not Pat Buchanan, angry white male stoking up fear and resentment on behalf of an unwilling standard bearer. This time it is the kinder, gentler social conservative, Sarah Palin. This time it is a woman with a stake in a game, a pregnant teenage daughter. And Palin will get to fight the war, not as invading offender, but as a victim in defense of her child and family, as well as her values.
The Obama campaign may realize that their supporters are about to give John McCain the upper-hand but with the explosion of the internet they will be unable to stem the tide of a netroots community far too eager to expose the hypocrisy of one more wayward social conservative.
The Left on the internet and elsewhere will attack this mother of five for failing to live up to the code that she preaches. They will explain that this is proof that traditionalism doesn’t work. That the religious right is a fraud. That the preaching of abstinence is a fool’s errand. They will explain all this thinking they have just laid down the trump card when all they have done is hand it to the opposition.
I say again. John McCain cannot win this campaign on Iraq. He cannot win it on the economy. He is not the most charismatic man in the world and he has trouble with his base. That last one, of course, is the kicker. Bristol Palin just solved his problem.
All the talk this election has been how Barack Obama will expand the electoral pie. He will get the votes that went to Al Gore and John Kerry but he will couple them with his new voters, the young and the black and win a sweeping majority.
However, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and Bristol Palin is that reaction. Sarah Palin now has the capability of being what Hillary Clinton claimed to be — a hero of the blue collar working class.
Sarah Palin is a working mom with five kids who managed to become Governor of her state. Now Palin has been confronted with the great fear, and for many, the difficult reality of a pregnant teenage daughter. Sarah Palin lived by a code and tried to have her kids live by it as well. Did she fail?
Maybe she did. But as many parents know, you do the best you can with your children.
The Left will fight this battle as a political debate. They will argue that Bristol Palin proves their assertions about traditionalism. They will lay it out point by point. The evidence will be solid. And their case will make sense — in theory.
But this is not theory, and to a certain extent its not even politics, this is life. Steve Schmidt is not wrong when in reaction to the news he says, “Life happens.”
Life does happen. It happens again and again to people in rural America who go to church, work and pray hard. Everyday life happens. Despite their prayers, it happens.
The Left simply misunderstands the Cultural War because they believe that social and religious conservatives think they are perfect people. Rural, working class people know exactly who they are. The Left seems to think that they are somehow breaking the news to social conservatives that sometimes, even often, kids will have sex and get pregnant. Social conservatives know these things. They are not as divorced from reality as they sometimes get painted.
You see, conservatives have code by which they live that accounts for it all. Whether they are “right” or “wrong” is immaterial. It is the Left’s misunderstanding which is important here.
Conservatives know they are imperfect. Instead of embracing the imperfection and “giving up” they instead prefer to strive for something better.
Now, whether this outlook is conservative outlook is true or untrue, healthy or unhealthy is, again, not the point, politically speaking. Telling the American working class that Sarah Palin was wrong to have tried to bring up her daughters by a code in which she believed and that Bristol Palin’s unborn child is the proof that the Left’s arguments about traditional life are true will not resonate with anyone who is not already an Obama voter.
The Left cannot win this Battle of Bristol. The more they try to win it, to demonstrate they are right, the more they will lose ground with those voters they desperate need to stay home or vote for Barack Obama.
For what the Left sees as hypocrisy, most folks who are not Obama voters just see as falling short. As, of course, we, as humans, all do.
Bristol Palin’s journey is a human story. She tried to be good. She fell short. Instead of aborting the baby she will carry it to term and marry the father. To socially conservative America, there is nothing tragic about this.
You see, to many of the voters Barack Obama has not yet seemed to reach and who have thus far been ambivalent about McCain, this is exactly how these things are supposed to go. Their reality has not been shaken, the scales have not fallen from their eyes.
Sarah Palin did nothing “wrong.” And Bristol Palin did nothing other than sin, which we all do. She is now managing her sin as prescribed by tradition. To the traditionalist the situation is not ideal, no, but it is not a disaster.
This is a human story. The more the left attacks, attempts to expose “hypocrisy”, the more the personal will very much become the political. Unfortunately it will become political in a way that leads all those hard working Bubbas, all those church-going single mommas, right out to the polls to vote for that war hero and and those women they now identify with, Sarah and Bristol Palin.
To the Left, this situation looks like that big fat change-up they have been waiting for coming right across the plate. Let me assure you, friends, what is coming at you is a knuckleball, a greased pig with wings.
You are gonna want to take this pitch. You may win the “argument”, but you will lose the election.
SEE ALSO:
The Evangelical Daily Double
Jon Wright
Chris Sanders
Ilissa Gold
Moore Thoughts
Sarah Palin’s 17 Year Old Daughter, Bristol Palin, Is Pregnant
Posted on at 11:37 amReuters reports that Sarah Palin, John McCain’s choice for Veep, has made a statement on her daughter’s pregnancy in part to strike down rumors on the internet that Sarah Plain’s fifth child, Trig, was not hers but rather the son of her daughter, Bristol:
“We have been blessed with five wonderful children who we love with all our heart and mean everything to us. Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.
“Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family. We ask the media to respect our daughter and Levi’s privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates.”
John McCain was aware of the pregnancy before choosing the Alaska Governor as his running-mate. On Saturday, a diarist on the left-wing website Daily Kos accused the mother of five of faking her fifth pregnancy in order to cover-up her daughter’s first. That rumor was eventually proved false.
Bristol Palin’s out-of-wedlock conception may be a case of like mother like daughter. Sarah’s first child, Track, appears to have been conceived outside of wedlock as well. Like her mother, Bristol Palin intends to marry the father of her baby.
UPDATE: A Post Politics analysis.
SEE ALSO:
Attacks will backfire
Andrew Sullivan
Tennessee Free
The Page
First Read
Hotline
Ben Smith
Jim Antle
Billy Valentine
Grantham is Talking
The Hill
Stacy McCain
Jeremy Lott
Rich Hailey
Vox Politics
Huff Post
Kay Brooks
Dan Lehr
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