In an article in the Chattanooga Times Free Press, Governor Phil Bredesen is quoted about the current healthcare debate in Congress and President Obama’s reported decision to shift priorities to job creation:

“I think it had gotten a little off track, with the public being very, very concerned about the economy and jobs and the prospect of losing jobs, and the Congress off designing health reform to take place in the latter part of the next decade,”

This is relatively unsurprising considering the Governor’s past as a health insurance executive and his previous statements regarding the bills currently before Congress.

What is surprising is that the Governor, a Democrat, would find something positive in the Senate’s recent loss of a Democratic super-majority. I don’t care how “liberal” a Republican Scott Brown claims to be, it’s not a “good thing” for the party or the millions of people who are both currently without healthcare, or those who are in danger of losing their healthcare.

What I don’t get is why Governor Bredesen doesn’t see the imapct that Healthcare has on the job market or the economy at large. GM’s bankruptcy was due, in large part, to the weight of decisions about providing healthcare for it’s employees that were made decades ago, when insurance was a much smaller part of the economy.

In 2006, heathcare consumed 16% of the nation’s economic output. That’s a huge segment of the economy, and the costs effect the availability of jobs negatively. Even though employers have been shifting much of the burden on employees, most can ill afford the rising costs that are outpacing inflation at an alarming rate.

By focusing on healthcare, the Congress and President Obama WERE focusing on the economy and jobs. In fact, they were focusing on one of the most out of control parts of the economy.

Think about it like this. Few would argue that we live in a global economy. Most industrialized nations have some sort of national healthcare strategy. If we are to COMPETE on a global scale, we cannot expect our businesses to carry the load of out of control healthcare costs.

Both the House and Senate bills have a means to control costs, though in very different ways.

To be honest, I don’t give a DAMN which one gets passed, but it is critical that something get passed to slow down the rising cost of healthcare now. Not only for the health and welfare of our people, but also for the health and welfare of our economy.

That Phil Bredesen doesn’t see this just baffles me.

As Rep. Jeanne Richardson (D-89, Memphis) noted:

“I think the Democrats need to do whatever they need to get health care reform passed. Period. The end,” she said.

Rep. Richardson said having the U.S. House pass the U.S. Senate bill is “the right thing to do. I mean, look, this state is cutting quadriplegics out of TennCare.”

Maybe it’s not so baffling. Any administration that can propose to cut quadriplegics off TennCare, and any legislative body that thinks that’s ok, obviously has some kind of serious problem.

I guess they just don’t get it. From the looks of it, they never will.

… but I am glad that this year is finally almost over.

In all seriousness, this year has been just plain crappy for just about everyone I know. The economy has sucked, the political dialogue has been shrill, and everyone, whether they recognize it or not, is worse off for the wear. I’m not positive that 2010 will be any better, but I pray that it’s no worse. Here are some of the things that made me want to stab myself in the eye this year.

Republicans – I know for a fact that there are some sincere Republicans in this world. Some of them I am proud to call my friends. Unfortunately for them, and the GOP brand, they are not the ones that get phone calls from the media for interview requests. The result, is a national and state party that has positioned itself somewhere between the Know Nothing Party and a team of trained monkeys being fed a steady diet of Crystal Meth.

The GOP has been foaming at the mouth, and doing just about everything in their limited power to obstruct solutions brought by the President and Congressional leadership, while offering NO ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION, period. Yet somehow, through all the ridiculous rabidity of the GOP, the media has taken their non-position seriously, and reported it on a continuous loop as if it’s some kind of real alternative.

I hope they get what they deserve in 2010, heavy losses, but I fear that while their strategy won’t really “work”, it will appear to in the face of the next thing that makes me want to stab myself in the eye…

Democrats – If I were to write a book about the past year in Democratic politics, I think I would call it The Weakest Majority or Rudderless Politics. From the actions of many in Congress, and to a lesser degree, the President himself, one would think that Democrats have a fundamental misunderstanding of furthering their agenda or even the most basic tenets of majority maintenance.

From the ever-shifting rationales for opposing Health Care Reform to the unpopular sweetheart deals used to buy some legislators off, both houses of Congress, but particularly the Senate, seem mired in a “what’s in it for me” type attitude. It’s the kind of ridiculous self-hating stupidity that makes posts like this resonate with me, and pray for someone, anyone in the Democratic Party to show up with a pair of balls they haven’t borrowed from a lab rodent.

Some National Bloggers – I’m not really sure when it happened, but sometime during the last year I began slowly weaning myself from certain national blogs and/or bloggers. The cause, a persistent and annoying line of reasoning that went something like this: Any kind of negotiation regarding the long and grueling Healthcare debate is the complete and total abandonment of the progressives that got you elected.

Ugh.

Invoking the names of former and current “progressives” including the recently deceased Senator for Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy, these individuals filled my inbox, and countered the national GOP’s steady stream of

NO!

with threats against fellow progressive Members of Congress if they didn’t deliver. Brilliant!

The issue for me is not that I necessarily disagree with the policy positions of these people, but that their tactics are nucking futs. Virtually every plea, every call for support, every post that flooded my inbox like year-long projectile vomit came from an adversarial position, littered with threats and this and that and the other, while ignoring that the legislative process is not a dictatorship, but a negotiation. With the subtlety and tact of a bull in a china shop, these individuals spent the entire year yelling “The sky is falling” instead of putting together a consistent positive message that the majority of the population, that doesn’t keep a running tally of every legislative burp, could get behind. In short, they Tea Bagged their way into irrelevance.

There most certainly is a place for issue advocacy in the political discourse. If I didn’t believe in it, I wouldn’t be writing this right now, but for the love of God, build a message beyond a series of threats that you can’t deliver on! Keep doing the petitions, and the letter writing campaigns and the phone calling, all of that stuff is good, but don’t marginalize yourself with rhetoric that puts you further out on the crazy side of politics than the REAL CRAZIES out there. You’re not only hurting your credibility, but also your cause.

Tennessee Democratic Institutions – Coma and Aunt B have a couple of good posts up about some of the issues surrounding Democratic institutions in Tennessee, but I want to go a little further.

Anyone who thinks the issue with Democratic Institutions in Tennessee, from the TNDP down to the lowliest of lowly county parties falls on the shoulders of one man or woman is trying to deflect blame from someone who probably REALLY deserves it, that someone either being them, or someone they support. The truth of the matter is that they all have issues that have been around longer than I’ve been paying attention.

I could go on and on about all the crap that shoulda, coulda, woulda, but I’d just be rehashing posts from last November through February, so if you want to know what’s wrong, go back to those posts and apply it to just about everything that has a “Democratic” anything to it in this state, including myself.

In all seriousness, there have been some baby steps in the right direction, but from the TNDP and the Caucus organizations down to the county parties it’s just not happening fast enough.

I hope that by Jan 4th, when petitions are available for state races, there’s some kind of plan in place, at least that’s known by the leadership, that contests the 11 first term and the 10 second term House Republicans in November, in addition to dealing with the incumbents and any retirements/open seats that may come up, but I’m not all that hopeful. I haven’t seen a concerted effort from all the stakeholders to work together on anything but the House 62 special election and that was a nightmare. I hope like hell that November isn’t a replay of that.

–

Here’s to hoping for a better year ahead, and for some of my “targets” to get their collective shit together. I don’t think I can stand a 2009 part 2: Electric Boogaloo.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m packing my shit and bustin’ up outta this state before Brian Kelsey, Stacey Campfield & an angry mob of the 2% majority that makes up the Tea Partiers come to town on white stallions, raids my house and puts me and my Democratic friends into some Red Dawn-esque re-education camp, or worse!

Hell, now that Long Tall Johhny T. and Big Bad Bart are callin’ it quits, not to mention Phil and his Phunky bunch getting’ term limited out, we just might have to compete for an election! God knows, if there’s one thing Democrats hate more than anything it’s competition!

Yessir, it’s a lookin’ pretty grim out there for folks like us. I guess we just oughta fold up shop here and start lookin’ for another state that’s more in tune with Tennessee Democratic values… I don’t know what state that is, but we need to be lookin’ and lookin’ hard. You can only pee in a busted radiator so many times before your truck starts smellin’ funky & I’m sure the effete liberal palettes of most Tennessee Democrats just couldn’t stand the thought of peeing standing up.

/snark

So last night was both disappointing and eventful.

First, I would like to echo the sentiments of Tennessee Senate Democratic Caucus Chairman Lowe Finney, about the Adrienne Pakis-Gillon campaign. She worked her butt off without much visible support from the establishment powers outside of Shelby Co. and deserves kudos for running a clean campaign against an opponent whose actions and legislative record literally begs for mudslinging.

Speaking of State Senator Finney, there was some interesting news in his neck of the woods last night that has taken the state by storm.

As if you didn’t already know, Rep. John Tanner (D-TN08), a founder of the Blue Dog Coalition announced his retirement after several media outlets reported his impending retirement based on an anonymous source.

This led to a weird series of events that started out with a whole lot of speculation on who would run for the seat and ended up with Democratic Gubernatorial candidate, Roy Herron, dropping out of the Governor’s race to run for TN-08.

Herron’s decision to run isn’t all that surprising. While he has been successful at winning straw polls all over the state, and is to be commended for out organizing his primary opponents at said straw polls, REAL polls suggest that his candidacy wasn’t really getting the reach required to overcome the presumed front runner in the race, Mike McWherter, who hails from the same area. For Herron, the political math made sense, and he did his math quickly dropping out of the race less than four hours after the first report hit Tennessee media.

Despite Herron’s early jump into the TN-08 race, several other elected and former officials have expressed interest in the seat or at least been mentioned, including; Phillip Pinion of Union City (burnout?), Mark Maddox (He’s more likely to run for Roy’s State Senate seat), and Lowe Finney (who is up for re-election in the State Senate in 2010).

In the mean time, Republicans have wasted no time in attacking Herron as an Obama lovin’ gay sympathizing socialist, which is funny on several levels. Herron has a pretty solid moderate to conservative voting record. Painting him as a wide eyed liberal is not just a stretch, but pure bullshit. As I said on twitter earlier today

If the GOP thinks Roy Herron is a “libural”, then I guess those (R) state legislators that voted for an unconstitutional gun law are too!

We’ll see how this pans out in the coming weeks, but unless Herron really screws up, he’s in pretty good shape to win the primary in August despite not being able to use the funds he’s already collected for his Gubernatorial bid, as noted by Goldni and Braisted.

So, what was I doing while all this was going on? Loading in a show in San Antonio that is featuring W. as a speaker. Yeah, it’s that one.

#FML

There are lots of other good posts about this out there, but I have a show to load out. Back in Memphis tomorrow. Thank God!

If you live in SD31, today is Election Day. You have before you, the choice between Brian Kelsey (R ) and Adrienne Pakis-Gillon (D).

Kelsey has made a name for himself in his five years in the State House as a serial self-promoter. This self-promotion has manifested itself in him taking credit for things where no credit is due. The Commercial Appeal detailed some of Kelsey’s more blatant truth stretching exercises in a November 22nd article, prompting City Councilman Bill Morrison to say, “You don’t take credit for somebody’s stuff. That’s not cool.”

Kelsey has also declined to appear in ANY forum with his opponent, as I detailed here, calling the League of Women Voters the League of Liberal Women Voters and skipping a forum sponsored by the Memphis Area Women’s Council for a birthday party. Obviously, he’s more invested in his social calendar than representing the people of SD31.

Today the voters of SD31 have an opportunity to rid our state government of Brian Kelsey. While armchair pundits and some members of the political class have written off this campaign as a gimmie for Kelsey, Adrienne Pakis-Gillon has been working tirelessly to earn the right to represent the people of SD 31. Along the way she has gained an impressive list of endorsements.

It’s time. Just over 4900 people voted early. For Adrienne to win she’ll need as many supporters as she can get to show up to the polls and cast a vote for sensible, honest representation.

If you’re not sure that you live in SD31, or where to vote, check out the precinct locator. Most importantly, go vote.