Martin Luther King's Day

Yesterday President Obama spoke at the Vermont Baptist Church where King preached the day after the court had ruled in favor of the people of the Montgomery bus boycott in 1954. Obama talked about the harsh winter of today's America and how tough people have it and how spring never looks like it will come. Obama spoke of the early civil rights generation as the Moses generation and his own as the Joshua generation. He pointed out that the civil rights victories were incremental and that one had to take the victories as imperfect as they were and continue on. His message was clear: his agenda will be implemented by small victories after small victories and that people should accept that because that's how our system works.

But he did deviate from his standard line about bringing unity to red states and blue states and conservatives and liberals. Instead, for the first time I've listened to him he called for a broad confederation or alliance of all those who have been left out or left behind in our society--from the minorities and poor to the struggling middle-class. I think you will see this become a theme in the 2010 elections. Obama himself is going to take the lead in populist rage, which the Republicans are ill-equipped to do, despite the teabaggers.

And Obama repeated his favorite line from Dr. King. I always wonder whether it is really true. "The arc of history bends toward justice."

Later Obama in Boston punched up his lines on Wall Street in defense of Martha Coakley, saying that Brown had a truck but he parked it on Wall Street. He hit the Wall Street and bankers theme hard. He pointed out that Coakley was from North Adams, a working-class town, and had gone into law as a public service. A letter from her Williams classmate was posted on line, which made the same points about her public service and working class background. The author was a Republican, who served in the William Weld administration. But look for Obama the campaigner the next year to get down and go populist.

The Mass. race is fascinating from a number of points. Coakley has an approval rating of 65% and Obama has one of 60% in the state. Recent polls which show Brown winning have likely voters only approving of Obama by 44%. The gap has to be voters who want to stay at home. I just can't square them. Nate Silver and his great regression method does an analysis of all the polling data and comes out with Coakley with a 1.5% margin over Brown. In other words, too close to call. The Boston Herald expects the turnout to reach 70% as people have begun to take an interest in the race. High turnout benefits whom? I would suspect Democrats.

Commentators say Coakley is behind because she has been stressing health care in a state that already has health care reform and Brown is stressing bread-and-butter issues. My mind bends to consider Republicans actually speaking about bread-and-butter issues. Is it the promise of jobs if you cut corporate taxes? It doesn't make sense. Blogs from phone canvassing for Coakley report considerable support for her and that the democratic base is finally getting energized. Too late? Money is pouring in on both sides.

Democrats are scrambling around Washington figuring how to pass health reform if Brown is elected. Think about it--the Democrats would only have 59 votes in the Senate--which jeopardizes health reform. That's simply insane--an issue Democrats should hammer on. Republicans are trying to whine about Democrats planning to use reconciliation to produce a bill. Judd Gregg, who used to support reconciliation, protests this is Chicago-style politics.

Actually, a better way to screw Republicans is to simply have the House pass the Senate bill verbatim. Done deal. Then Obama signs. Unfortunately, there is alot of junk in the Senate bill which could be improved by the House. But a streamlined end to the game would put everyone in better position to adjust it in future sessions. It would also keep the Democrats ahead of the Republicans in terms of momentum. Make them play catch up all year long.

And we end this post with the Tin Ear Award. In response to Obama's plan to tax Wall Street and the Banks as they give out huge bonuses, Wall Street has hired some D.C. litigators to sue the President if he goes through with the promise. How do we spell Chutzpah?