A DAILY GOTHAM WRITER (7/25/08): I don't go out of my way to trash people to my left. I don't do that, despite the occasional temptation to do so, for the simple reason that I don't consider it strategically wise, and because I'm more interested in beating republicans. This is the Overton Window.
You, by contrast, invest copious amounts of effort into tearing down people who are on your side. When I critique Democrats, it's usually from the left or on the basis of good-government arguments. You do so from the right. What you do with that is validate rightwing frames. Congratulations if this has never occurred to you before.
GATEMOUTH: …I have several responses to the general charge. One is that in party primaries one gets to debate about ideology and other more pragmatic concerns. If we do not do so, it's just name calling and mudslinging (although sometimes the personalities involved justify such activities)…we must present our case, and do so by the means which are necessary–and that sometimes means trashing.
How much this hurts the party depends upon the instance. I, for one, fail to see the harm in eviscerating a primary contender in a race for a seat which will stay Democratic in any instance. It is more of a problem in a race for a seat which is marginal, say, in Staten Island. But if I am guilty of such a crime, you will be standing right next to me, blindfolded, with your last cigarette hanging from your lips, when the party divisiveness firing squad does its work.
Remember, that trashing someone within your party who is to the right of you is also tearing down someone on your own side, and is also strategically problematic, and is done here all the time–most effectively by you.
I should also note that I am well within the range of what qualifies as liberal, and have over 30 years of work for liberal candidates to prove it. I am allowed to work for the version of liberalism I embrace without having to answer to the purity police, especially when those I attack…are often guilty of far greater breaches in dividing those on our side. Those, mostly on the left, who prefer to screen out their allies with litmus test after litmus test will end up breeding fewer and better Democrats…
…Anyway, trashing those we eventually hope to ally w/in general elections seems to be a specialty in all the wings of our party..
The dialogue above, generated in response to a an article I wrote last year defending Barack Obama (and Democrats in general) from idiotic Republican critiques of his foreign policy, is emblematic of a certain strain of the left brain police.
This week, a blogger friend who is indisputably a part of the “progressive” movement, complained about the flack he is getting among his friends for having the guts to take on the ACORN/WFP/DFS money shell game at a time when ACORN has just become the Republican Party’s latest scapegoat/straw man.
Although still courageously taking on this fight on Daily Gotham, where it will not cause a shanda fer der goyim (shame before the Republicans), he is now refusing to co-post on this topic on Room 8, perhaps cognizant that this would amount to telling tales out of school. He did, however ask me to continue doing so, probably because I’ve have no good will in “progressive” circles left to squander.
Certainly, my friend has much to fear.
The ACORN/WFP/DFS noise machine has learned much from its counterparts in the VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY about slandering its opponents. Recently, they’ve gone after Edward- Isaac Dovere, the editor of City Hall News, and the author of a brilliant and stinging series of articles documenting the extremely troubling efforts of ACORN/WFP/DFS to Riverdance upon the razor’s edge of legality concerning our local campaign finance laws.
For his troubles, Mr. Dovere has been attacked for his former activities writing for a propaganda sheet for the Forest City Ratner Corporation (FCRC), even though ACORN/WFP Leader Bertha Lewis has practically tongue-kissed Ratner in public and ACORN has itself received a large low interest loan from FCRC.
I’ve also had my share of reluctance on this matter, and not just out of fear of slander, or because it would be playing into the hands or Republicans. Frankly, that arguments amounts to a double bind; this is because ignoring real scandals, wishing them away, or defending their targets as innocent victims of Republican vendettas is also playing into Republican hands.
That is what they want us to do. It is what they want us to do in the case of Charlie Rangel, and we are accommodating their wishes.
Charlie Rangel is a great American patriot. He has been heroic in crusading for a fairer tax system and a better health system. He has told unpleasant truths time and again about the impact of fighting wars with a force made up predominately of folks who needs the money and benefits. He’s been indispensable in helping to elect a Democratic majority in Congress.
But, at the very least, Charlie Rangel’s carelessness, if that is indeed what it is, in handling his personal affairs has become a national embarrassment. Perhaps, if he chaired the committee on Foreign Affairs, it would be an embarrassment we could endure.
But, at a time when Democrats hope to greatly expand the services provided through our public sector, to have a Chair of the tax-writing committee who has a casual attitude about his own taxes is highly and dangerously problematic and a serious impediment to the enactment of the programs to which Mr. Rangel has dedicated his career.
It is an embarrassment which makes everything Rangel touches look dubious.
Every Chair of the House Committee on Ways and Means raises shameful amounts of money in a shameful manner to pass onto his party’s candidates. The shamefulness of the protection/access game which attracts this money is so bi-partisan and time-honored that the press largely ignores the very legal scandal which it is.
But there is nothing in Charlie Rangel’s manner of raising such money which should attract any special attention. In fact, by and large, Rangel’s contributors get far less for their money than they did when they gave it to his Republican predecessor.
But now such money attracts special and unwelcome attention to those Democrats to whom Rangel forwards it to, because it came though Rangel. And this is even though the “scandal” which has attached to Rangel has virtually zero to do with the real scandal attached to such money.
There is no doubt in my mind that the public exposure of Rangel’s personal problems probably derives almost entirely from the vast right-wing conspiracy, but that does not make those problems any less real.
Since holding his House seat is a right conveyed to him by the voters, calls for Rangel’s resignation from Congress are premature until voters, or a Judge and Jury, decide otherwise.
However, Congressional Committee Chairmanships are not a right, but a privilege conveyed by a party conference entitled to consider questions of political expediency. Rangel should do his Party and his President a favor and step aside as Chair until his issues are resolved.
In the case of ACORN, how much of a real scandal we are dealing with at a national level is anyone’s guess.
Last fall, Republican efforts to discredit ACORN focused upon ACORN’s activities in the area of voter registration. What they managed to documents was that ACORN’s efforts resulted in a lot of voter registration forms of dubious quality.
As I noted back then, this was not surprising; ACORN pays people working in its voter registration drives $8 an hour. This sort of work attracts two types of people: idealistic young kids and those who can find no other work.
While ACORN does not pay by the form gathered, it is quite clear that those who do not regularly make their quotas are not allowed to continue in their employment. Since the very nature of door to door voter registration efforts involves people becoming separate from supervision, there is both motive and opportunity for workers to pad their numbers. It is unsurprising that some do.
This problem was exacerbated by some of the laws enacted to prevent dubious practices. Because there is an awful temptation not to file forms filled out by potential voters who may be unsympathetic to one’s agenda (say, for example, those forms where a voter has chosen to enroll as a Republican), most states have laws which require submission of every form a group collects, and people have actually been prosecuted for not submitting such forms.
But as I noted last fall, nationwide non-partisan studies, and the vigorous efforts of politically motivated US Attorneys following the directives of Karl Rove have uncovered virtually no incidents where such bogus registrations have actually led to illegal votes being cast.
In fact, as the right-wing noise machine itself proved, in a New York Post article on October 20, 2008, if there was any victim of the “crimes” committed, it was ACORN.
According to Post story, “Pushed to meet daily quotas and bullied by bosses if they didn't, Ohio ACORN workers faked voter registrations, signed up people more than once, and even paid off registrants to keep from being fired, its canvassers told The Post.”
So, all that was proven was that ACORN’s efforts resulted in some bogus forms being gathered without the organization’s knowledge, and that since no votes resulted from these forms, the only thing that ACORN yielded from them were wasted money, and wasted time on election day, when they later tried to pull out such non-existent registrants to vote and could not locate them.
If anyone benefited from that sort of “fraud,” it was the Republicans.
Admittedly, the latest set of scandals is more troubling.
At the very least, they involve some form of misuse of taxpayer funding being squandered, rather than the resources of candidates and political parties who, despite such problems, appear to be getting their money’s worth [in fact, one of the troubling aspects of what is happening in New York is the possibility that some candidates may be getting more than their money’s worth, as shell organizations may have been used to launder and redirect campaign contributions and expenditures, to benefit certain favored candidates, and to elude both transparency and contribution limits].
The latest ACORN controversy results from a right-wing video sting operation which caught individual ACORN employees advising potential clients of a program for which ACORN received government funding, on how to smuggle undocumented aliens and get loans to open brothels. Whether all this amounts to (a) isolated incidents of employee misconduct [possibly not even justifying a cutoff of funding], (b) systemic incompetence and mismanagement [justifying a cutoff of funding, even absent criminality] or (c ) an actual criminal conspiracy [possibly justifying a RICO prosecution] remains to be seen.
Even under the best case scenario, it is, at the very least, troubling. Imagine, if Michael Moore had caught on video tape some employee from a government financed, “church-based,” not-for-profit agency administering the same program advising applicants how to obtain a government loan to open a facility to administer “therapy” to troubled teenagers displaying signs of homosexual tendencies.
Keith Olbermann’s head would explode.
But the ACORN videos are no more troubling than the immediate ass-covering efforts of politicos to, without so much as a fair hearing, or a grand jury investigation, cut off funding to not-for-profit groups based upon something posted upon YouTube.
I am not so much concerned about the actions to hold back such funding by the Governor of New York, where much of ACORN’s funding comes from virtually unaccountable legislative pork funneled directly to its recipient. But the recent Congressional action to cut off ACORN’s federal funding is a different matter.
Most of ACORN’s federal funding cannot be called pork. In fact, most of it came through normal federal contracting procedures, and was approved under a Republican administration. The agencies which allocated such funding have time-honored procedures for investigating waste, fraud and abuse, and for authorizing appropriate remedies when they find such things have been committed.
Congress’s action to cut off ACORN’s funding under these circumstances may ultimately prove justified, but right now seems a stunning abuse of due process.
That being said, what was on those videos cannot be ignored, or dismissed as merely the targeting of effective left operatives by a right-wing smear operation, even though that is undoubtedly true.
For instance, to bring the matter home to New York, the videos seemed to show what many of us have long suspected: that there is insufficient firewalls between ACORN & Company’s not-for-profit operations, and its political ones.
Without even realizing it, the right wing sting squad inadvertently shot clips which contained evidence that ACORN’s not-for-profit office in Brooklyn was being used as staging grounds for campaign operations for Public Advocate candidate Bill DeBlasio and Richard Aborn, who was, incredibly enough, a candidate for New York County DISTRICT ATTORNEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Imagine if Michael Moore had found video-taped evidence that a “church based,” government financed, not for profit was being used as a staging ground for GOTV operations by the Christian Coalition.
What we do know about the ACORN/WFP/DFS operation in New York is surely enough to mandate investigation. But, regardless of whether any conduct which rises to a criminal level has taken place or not is almost irrelevant (though should be prosecuted if it has indeed occurred).
If no criminal acts have taken place, it is still a scandal. Indeed, even if no non-criminal violations of our campaign finance laws have taken place, it is a scandal.
The scandal is not what is illegal, but what is legally permissible.
When Mike Bloomberg’s accountant can drop thirty grand in contributions to the WFP’s party housekeeping fund, and have that money directly spent on one particular candidate in another party’s primary, then that is a crime, even if no law has been violated.
When the source of a candidate’s money can be obscured, when funding limits can be violated, when public financing of elections becomes a Ponzi scheme, then we are dealing with crimes, whether of not any penal code transgression has actually taken place.
If no laws have been violated, the laws, to the constitutional extent we can change them, need to be changed.
There is nothing inherently progressive about such abuses. In fact, as I demonstrated last week, the WFP’s egregious methodology of campaign finance abuses has already been embraced by others, with the real estate sector already adopting the Independence Party as its sludge funnel of choice.
Further, in New York City primaries, the victims of ACORN/WFP/DFS abuses have often not been Republicans, but more liberal Democrats than those supported by the WFP, especially those who think bodies such as the City Planning Commission should exist as neutral arbiters of empirical standards, rather than as just another cog in the ACORN/WFP juice making machinery.
It is time to put an end to such abuses. One way of doing so is to send a message through the ballot box. The candidates whose campaigns are based upon such foul abuses of what is legal (if it is indeed legal) should be made an example of.
By far, this years worst abuser of the loopholes in our campaign finance system is Councilman Bill DeBlasio’s campaign for Public Advocate, which compounds the sin by accusing his opponent’s relatively innocent campaign of far worse.
Though I hold out little hope for victory, I ask all concerned Democrats to cast a vote to nominate Mark Green as our candidate for Public Advocate.
CORRECTION: Much to my horror, in the initial version of this article, I inadvertantly contributed to the disgraceful WFP slander campaign against Mr. Dovere by saying he ran a Ratner propaganda sheet, when he merely had contributed some articles to it. Mr. Dovere has my most sincere apologies.