To The Democrats, If Anyone Is Listening

Will the Democrats ever get it? Tuesday’s election was not a referendum on the Obama Administration, but it was a referendum on the prevailing wisdom of the Democratic Party and it’s candidates. To me it is mind-numbingly obvious: when Democrats try to flee that “D” next to their names, when they run to the center and center right, they fail and fail big. Only 24% of Americans identify as Republicans. 24%. Americans do not want to choose between a Republican and a Republican-lite, yet the Blue Dogs and conservadems just seem incapable of understanding this plain fact.

Creigh Deeds managed to pretty much say everything for me. He failed to run as a progressive, and he failed to win Virginia. By the end of his campaign, Deeds was running ads attacking Obama’s clean energy agenda. Instead of defending his past record on the environment, and fighting back against his opponent’s lies and misrepresentation of climate legislation, Deeds joined him. Instead of campaigning on a pro-labor platform, Deeds took support form the SEIU for granted and opposed the Employee Free Choice Act. Instead of calling out his opponent on healthcare reform, he argued against the public option and voiced a preference for “opting out” were he to become governor of Virginia.

And what happened? Obama voters stayed home. Although Obama carried Virginia with 52% last fall, this year only 43% of those who showed up at the polls voted for him[1]. Faced with the prospect of having a Republican who would do his best to fight change, or a Democrat who would do almost as good a job fighting change, I am tempted to say that they actually made the right choice. If you are going to elect an obstructionist who is not on board with a progressive platform, it’s better to just let him be from the opposition party, rather than a Blue Dog who will just cause problems from within.

The Democrats don’t even seem to have ears enough to hear that prominent Republicans want them to do exactly what they are now attempting to do—move to the right and abandon the progressive agenda that America gave them the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate to enact. Hours after their victory in Virginia, the NRCC immediately stated that the election results were a warning shot fired across the bow of the Democratic Party. Republican Rep. Eric Cantor publicly concurred, commenting that moderate Democrats and Blue Dogs should take it into account when deciding what to do about health care reform.

Well obviously we should listen to the NRCC and Eric Cantor—they only have Democrats’ best interests at heart…duhhh.

But that’s exactly what Blue Dogs like Sen. Blanche Lincoln are doing—urging the party’s leaders to delay legislation on health care reform and climate change until after the 2010 midterm elections. The Democrats have always been their own worst enemy. They were not willing to have the backbone to stand up to the Bush Administration when they were in the minority, and now that they are in the majority, it appears they are still suffering from their spineless-syndrome.

Let’s look at another election, one that hasn’t happened yet. Harry Reid’s reelection in Nevada. Polling done by Research 2000 for DailyKos shows Senate Majority leader Reid trailing to two no-name candidates: Danny Tarkanian, a former college basketball player and real estate agent leads him 45-40, and Sue Lowden, head of the state GOP leads him 44-41. Surely this is a sign that health care reform is hurting Democrats’ chances on the ballot, right? Wrong. In Nevada, the creation of a “government administered health insurance option” (as it was polled) enjoys a 12-point margin of support, including 80% of Democrats and 50% of Independents. Harry Reid’s seemingly utter ineffectiveness, as a Senate Majority leader is why no-name candidates are beating him in the polls—and that stems from his unwillingness to commit to strong legislation and stop bending over backwards in the hopes of a completely meaningless vote from Olympia Snowe.

Some will fault me for advocating that the Democratic Party play to its base by citing the demise of the republican Party as a result of its doing just that. In the last year, we have seen the Republican Party increasingly marginalized into mere regional relevancy. Polling from, Research 2000/DailyKos, the only polls to break data down geographical, show this. Not only is there no Republican represenative from all of New England, but the party’s favorable/unfavorable ratings from the Northeast, South, Midwest, and West are as follows:

Northeast: Fav – 6%, Unfav – 89%

South: Fav – 48%, Unfav – 37%

Midwest: Fav – 10%, Unfav – 78%

West: Fav – 12%, Unfav – 77%

*(poll from September 18, 2009)

The Republican Party has become the party of conservatives in the Southern United States. End of story. So why, whyyyyyyy are the Democrats refusing to see this reality???

To the Democratic Party if any of you are listening: Voters elected you because you ran on a progressive platform. Obama ran much farther to the left than the conservative elements of the party would have cautioned and he won because he did. If you want to lose the 2010 elections, then go ahead and don’t do anything meaningful with your control of government. Unexcited Obama voters and progressives will stay home on election night just like they did in Virginia and change will finally come to Washington—you will be out of power and the republicans will be back in power.

The Republican Party has become the party of no. Don’t let yourselves become the party of “not yet.”

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[1] http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091104/ap_on_el_gu/us_election_obama_voters

Support Innovation and Equality of Opportunity; Maintain Net Neutrality

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all information and Web sites are created equal … That’s the basic premise of net neutrality, which echoes our Constitution and Declaration of Independence in holding that the transmission of data over the Internet should be equal, regardless of the content or origination of that data.

This is more or less the way the Internet operates today; data from Google is transmitted just as quickly as data from an obscure and infinitely less influential Web site. Call it the equality of opportunity for information to reach your computer. Or for you libertarians out there, the freedom of an individual to access whatever Web sites and information he pleases.

However, just because this is the way the Internet operates today does not necessarily mean it will be the way the Internet operates next year. At least, not if opponents of net neutrality get their way and are successful in defeating legislation before Congress, which would put this status-quo way of operating into law and establish regulations. In August, Massachusetts Representative Ed Markey introduced the “Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009,” having twice been unsuccessful at pushing net neutrality as an amendment rather than a stand-alone bill. The act would forbid Internet service providers (ISPs) to “block, interfere with, discriminate against, impair or degrade” access to lawful content from a lawful application or device.

The absence of net neutrality would be tantamount to phone companies controlling whom you can call and throttling the call quality to certain numbers at their discretion. It would mean that companies like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner would be able to actively discriminate against competitors and serve their content at faster speeds or even prevent you from accessing or viewing certain information. Sound too far-fetched? It shouldn’t, because it has already begun to happen. Earlier this year, in July, AT&T blocked the message boards of the popular site 4chan.org.

Regulation is even more important in the absence of competition, and in many areas of the United States, consumer choice is generally limited to one or two ISPs: the local cable or telephone providers. It doesn’t take a lot of work to guess that the two aforementioned industries are not the biggest fans of net neutrality, but the movement is not without powerful backers. Basically, the camps are split into service providers and content providers, with Ebay, Amazon, Vonage, Microsoft and Google all supporters of net neutrality legislation.

Google’s “Guide To Net Neutrality For Internet Users” reads, “Fundamentally, net neutrality is about equal access to the Internet. In our view, the broadband carriers should not be permitted to use their market power to discriminate against competing applications or content.” Fundamentally, net neutrality is also about innovation. In an industry where today’s most prominent Web sites and companies started out as small, nearly unknown pet projects, granting large established players the keys to a new gate in front of the Internet would stifle the next generation of content and web 3.0, whatever that turns out to be.

But as with most things in our political system, money talks, and the telecoms and cable companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast have been talking a lot with hundreds of millions of dollars. To be exact, $334 million since 2007. It’s irritating that a bunch of old guys on Capitol Hill who probably still use VCRs and think the Internet is “a series of tubes” (thank you, Ted Stevens) have power over the future of it, but it’s even more irritating when the same bunch of old guys have their hands stuck in the money jars of corporations more concerned about their own power and control of content than about innovation and consumer freedom.

Representatives and Senators from both parties have received large amounts of money from the telecom and cable companies. In fact, 70 Democrats from the House of Representatives cosigned a letter to the Federal Communications Comission (FCC) arguing against net neutrality regulation. In the Senate, 20 prominent Republicans are staunchly opposed to keeping the Internet open and equal. John McCain holds the privilege of being the number one recipient of donations from the telecom and cable industry--nearly $2 million.

However, for once, money doesn’t seem to be all that matters on Capitol Hill: Markey himself is one of the top recipients of donations from opponents of net neutrality, at $370,000. And the Obama administration, also a large recipient of donations, has lined up in support of net neutrality. Julius Genachowski, FCC Chairman, speaking with Wired magazine on Sept. 21 states his position quite clearly: “The Internet’s creators didn’t want the network architecture, or any single entity, to pick winners and losers. The principles that will protect the open Internet are an essential step to maximize investment and innovation in the network and on the edge of it by establishing rules of the road that incentivize competition, empower entrepreneurs and grow the economic pie to the benefit of all.”

For the sake of streaming video, offensive 4chan forum posting, lolcats and the creator of the next Facebook, let’s hope net neutrality scores a resounding victory with the passage of Markey’s bill. But regardless, I doubt anyone will be torrenting the CSPAN coverage.

This was originally published in the Opinion section of The Amherst Student.