My fear about Take a Detour is that all our energy goes into reshuffling priorities. It's all process so nothing is left over for the hard work of actually accomplishing something.

Take a Detour is really Let's Do Nothing and Hope the Repubs Commit Suicide.

But even after the Repubs shoot themselves in the head, the Dems will still not want to take any risks. Because that'll invite the Repubs to revive/reinvent themselves. And then where will we be?

I say let's Go Big.

There is no choice. If they don't go big then they really do go home.

Where does Go Populist fit in? Dems are going to get kicked out if they don't deal with the anger that people are feeling towards Wall Street and the financial barons. A little class warfare will go a long way towards gaining support for our other priorities. Letting the banksters squeal about their unfair tax burden won't generate too much sympathy.

Americans, according to the polls, usually support our ideas. But Americans can look at our priority list and say "What's in it for me?" We usually have answers for that, but our messaging sucks.

On both emotional and policy grounds, leveling the inequalities that have concentrated wealth over the past 30 years will pay electoral dividends.

None of this--except one aspect of it--is surprising. Cowards always do nothing instead of something, and the Blue Dogs, to the last one, are cowards of the most egregious sort.

One wonders why they got into politics in the first place, unless that Senate pension looked really good to them.

The part that's surprising is that their own polling should be telling the Blue Dogs that if they don't go Big, they're toast. Very strange. The promise of some corporate sinecure in return for services rendered is probably more attractive than insuring future employment in Congress.

Unless, of course, sheer stupidity and cowardice are enough to convince the Dogs that doing nothing is always better than doing something. This would not be terribly surprising. Politicians as a class are not terribly bright, it seems.

Repeat after me. "The Republicans, when given power, invariably start a war that you have to pay for; deregulate businesses, cut taxes for the rich and empty the contents of the public treasury into the pockets of their wealthy friends, whom you then have to bail out; infest the civil service with incompetents who refuse to enforce the law (and which you have to pay for), and run the economy into a ditch, which you have to pay for. Time and time again. Why in the world would you allow such people control over your pocketbook? Haven't you seen enough by now?"

That's how you run against these (ahem) Republicans.

Repeat. Repeat it again. Repeat it again.

ell the news cycle ain't going to have no more crap about Republicans and referendums for the foreseeable future - someone just went postal at Ft Hood in Texas Killing 7

better go big and hope for some significant signs of recovery. Of course, I wanted Obama to go big on the stimulus, but he went for consensus and the stimulus is 50%+ too small. It stopped the slide but didn't create enough jobs to lower unemployment. so now we have the deficit hawks complaining about the cost (I wonder if they will approve the 130 billion supplemental without a way to pay for it) and lots of unemployed people who think the dems can't do anything right. We better go big or we will be sent home.

My Lieberdem Representative held a tele-townhall on Tuesday which focused on deficit reduction, which is going to be her pet issue (although she somehow seems to conflate job creation as going right along with deficit reduction). In an hour of babbling, the one single, actual proposal she had for decreasing the deficit was closing the "black liquor" loophole, which we were told would reap the government some tens of billions of dollars. The f-ing black liquor loophole. My representative doesn't have a position on healthcare but thinks she can demagogue the f-ing black liquor loophole to an election victory. Good Riddance.

Go Big strikes me as the smart course, but I'm not unsympathetic to the Take A Detour crowd. The problem is the specificity of this group's agenda -- the same congressional Democrats who want the party to "focus like a laser" on job creation and economic growth aren't prepared to show any real follow-through.

This is too vague. How many Democrats in coal-producing districts or districts carried by McCain in 2008 will be voted out of office if "cap and trade" passes? In the most recent VA election, voters in the coal-producing region of VA voted overwhelmingly for the Republicans (gov and state legislature.) Surely, every Democratic representative wants to represent the interests of his or her constituency, even "local" interests like coal production and the manufacture of medical supplies and devices, and of pharmaceuticals.

Blue Dogs? Blue Pussies is more like it.

They're gonna cower under their desks for a year, and hope people vote for them because they haven't done anything to offend anyone, because they haven't done anything at all.

One thing about the 'Go Big' agenda: even if we don't accomplish all of it, if we get as far as votes - even cloture votes - we have a track record of who tried to block what, and can run against them on that basis next year. Winning is best, but losing well is a good deal better than not even trying.

Of course, the Blue Pussies don't like Going Big, because for them, there's no right side of a bunch of those votes: either the voters will be mad at them, or their corporate contributors will be mad at them. But that's the bed they've made for themselves. Our job is to force them to decide whose side they're really on.

Obama carried lots of these folks in with his promise of change, and specific issues like health care. This seems pretty straight-forward.

Except they can't go big because the Brakes crowd intends to stop them.

These cautious 'centrists' as you refer to them are against more than they are for. They call for all the things voters want to hear with no clue on how to provide them and hold up legislation the majority demands.

Public works-ha. How about solar panels on all structures in America. How about wind mills every mile in the country. The less spent on energy the more we could afford to spend on such projects.. These people refuse to even explore such ideas as they may have to 'take a chance'.

There is a growing populist movement that is anti-corporate which is now being directed to anti-government due to misinformation on who is the cause of our current disaster.

These repubs like to blame dems and government for all our problems...but our huge population demands big government and it is the only thing large and powerful enough to protect us from corporate take over. Remember the scene from Godfather II as corporate and government representatives were being named sitting around a conference table in Cuba...the gift of the solid gold telephone etc...the end result of a corporatocracy. We are not fooled about who and what repubs stand for. After all their criticisms today...what plans did they offer...what workable alternatives? They offer nothing to the American people but disdain.

The first thing any party wants to do in an off-year election is get their base out; that will NOT happen if the "detour" route is taken. Too much of the legislation that the cowards (another term is more applicable?) want to avoid are exactly what brought out so many new (and old) Democratic voters in 2008.
Sorry, but handling the ups and downs of the economy are a NORMAL day-to-day part of the job of being a Representative or Senator. So is preserving the habitability of this planet (or as least doing as much as possible). So is replacing/repealing discriminatory legislation (DADT/DoMA) affecting millions of their fellow citizens. If our Congressional representatives can't work on more than one topic of legislation, they need to be replaced. And will be; probably by Republicans (couldn't be so lucky to have THAT many Greens running!).
Don't act on those pieces of legislation? Then don't expect to win in November 2010.

Because we won't.

Obama ran on hope and change. He has to delivery on that. If the Democrats do not go big, then Obama will be a one-term president.

I don't believe there is one iota of difference between the Go Home and the Detour crowd. It's simply a matter of rhetoric. So called "centrists" are just looking for the best way to avoid doing their damn jobs!

It's sad that the whole Detour schtick is even gaining credence. Perhaps that's a testament to just how stupid our political culture really is. But we need to push back vigorously against this meme.

I think we can all agree that jobs and the economy have to be a huge focus over the next ten months, but it needs to be real and not just a bunch of bullshit words from the usual suspects.

Go Big now and pass health insurance reform and - perhaps - climate change legislation (a welcome surprise committee vote with the Repig boycot similar to the Soviet Union walking out of the UN just before the Korea vote). Primary the Blue Dogs and push Lieberman off his chair.

Running up to the mid-terms, shift gears and focus on economic issues and hit the issues hard every damn day. If the economy starts to turn or is perceived to be turning in the last months before November 2010 and the Democrats keeping pushing economic legislation that produces jobs, then the Repigs will not have such a nice 2010.

I'm a Go Big fan myself, but whatever the Democrats do had better bring some relief to the middle class, that is if they want to stay in power.

If Bayh and the rest were serious about job creation, supporting another round of stimulus that puts money directly into peoples pockets instead of into Goldman-Sachs could do wonders.

The economy is mainly consumer driven. Consumers afraid for their economic stability aren't going to spend a lot of money. Extra money in peoples pockets, however, will be spent paying their mortgages, buying new clothes for themselves and their kids and in dozens of other ways that put money in the hands of businesses. Which can then hire people or at least stop laying people off. It's a win-win.

What's certain is that a failure to understand that Main Street is where help is needed, not Wall Street, will be punished come next election.

Health care and financial regulation and unemployment aid are enough to hold or gain in 2010. Health care reform will be understood as a huge strengthening of the safety net, which many more are now exposed to.

The other stuff can wait. If you can get consensus on a mini WPA, I'd add that, too. The problem, as always, is the Senate.