From Gawande's mouth to Obama's ear: the unlegislation

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/06/obama-says-read-atul-gawande.php

"high levels of health care spending are not associated
with high levels of health care quality.
The system is screwed up."

I swore I'd give this up. I don't have the time for it, and it is probably the biggest effort in futility in which I have ever engaged.

We voted for Obama. We voted for Change. We voted for Hope. We all did this with our eyes more or less open. Many said, "You're being a little too progressive there. I'm not supporting Obama because he's a progressive, but because he's a pragmatist." I think they meant that he'd get things done, not that he'd trade away the barn.

People are getting nervous, though. On August 8, Frank Rich asked, "Is Obama punking us?" and by August 11 Maureen Dowd was asking where's the "young grass-roots army that swept Obama into office", saying it "has yet to mobilize now that the fight is about something complicated rather than a charismatic hope-monger" and Drew Westin, writing in The Huffington Post, was telling us what the other parents in his neighborhood, the ones who voted for that "charismatic hope-monger", were starting to let lose in criticism of the hope-monger now that he is POTUS.

And the MyBO listservs, as quiet as a mausoleum since the inauguration, were coming alive with murmurings of "This is what I received...", "What do you think..." and "Doesn't this sound like a concession to you all?"

And the foreshadowing of history's judgement:

What Obama and Democrats don't get is that not only are they betraying all of us by not advocating for and passing Improved Medicare for all, but they also are betraying themselves. They are giving away this huge cash cow to powerful corporate interests when instead they could use it to solve the health care crisis for generations to come, save Social Security for generations to come, solve the budget deficit for generations to come, and make themselves out to look like (and be) moral heroes and fiscal geniuses for the history books.

But they are trading all of that (money, mercy and saving lives) for a relatively few lousy campaign donations. The long view of history will judge them harshly, and they will end up looking bought-and-sold-out stupid.

And then, in response to Sibelius' remarks on the public option being "unessential" on CNN's "State of the Union":

I think we are on the verge of either real reform OR a revolution.

And this morning:

Is there any point to [the OFA rally for health care reform in Times Square, NYC August 29] now that the White House has given up the ghost to the pharmaceutical industry and is looking to drop the public option? As far as I can tell, real reform is dead.

This is what we get for voting a centrist into office.

All this, while The Huffington Post leads today with the following 10" banner headline under "Breaking News":

WHITE HOUSE'S
MIXED MESSAGES
Sebelius: Public Option Not "Essential"... Gibbs: WH Supports Public Option... Douglass: Obama Prefers Public Option... WH Official: Sebelius "Misspoke"

One is tempted to ask who the head chef is.

I have a suggestion. It's Dr. Atul Gawande, but the word's not officially out in the administration.

It's Atul Gawande's June 1 New Yorker article

The Cost Conundrum

What a Texas town can teach us about health care.

that President Obama has been handing out to our senators to read. It's Atul Gawande who has the President's ear, and he has never been for single-payer or a public option. Neither has the President. Not seriously. He's still debating the pros and cons in his head, while everyone's screaming and feeling betrayed.

Presidents used to get time to reflect in private, listening to their own angels and demons, before making a public announcement of intent, having lined up their arguments and support beforehand, and ready to defend their position. Now, the intellectual dithering is all out there for everyone to witness and splinter before it comes to maturity.

This is the part of Obama that wasn't apparent before now. It's the messy part of figuring things out. The part that's better done before you start talking and giving interviews.

Sure, those who said, "I'm not voting for him because he'll defend the progressive ideal but because, on the contrary, he's a pragmatist" had something of this in mind. They knew what many others wished weren't true: that he'd never support single-payer, no matter how many of us were willing to lie down our lives for it, and that he'd drop a "public option" like a hot potato if he felt that it wouldn't get him a bill to sign in the Rose Garden.

They would be satisfied with a little progress.

The fact is that Barack Obama is a centrist. Always has been, always will be. It's how he came to terms with his own identity, for heaven's sake. He wants legislation, almost any legislation, whatever he can get out of congress and make a claim for, like "Hey, it isn't everything we wanted, but we always knew [nod, wink] that we wouldn't be able to get it all, and we got this." [Applause.] He could make Bill Clinton turn green with envy.

Actually, he did already.

And here comes Atul Gawande, already "unfriended" by the single-payer movement and committed progressives, with the perfect solution: just do like some successful areas in the United States are already doing all on their own, and we'll be fine, and we've totally missed it. Dr. Gawande tells us in "1o Steps to Better Health Care" in the NYT August 13 OpEd pages:

We have really discussed only two options: raising taxes or rationing care. The public is understandably alarmed.

[Understandably? Did you explain to them how single-payer works and why? No? What are you afraid of exactly?]

There is a far more desirable alternative: to change how care is delivered so that it is both less expensive and more effective. But there is widespread skepticism about whether that is possible.

Yes, many European health systems have done it,

[Yes! Yes! Europe! Here it comes...]

but we are not Europe.

[Oh. The let-down: get over it. I have been trying, from my vantage point here in Europe, where I know how right we've got it.]

If the rest of America could achieve the performances of regions like these, our health care cost crisis would be over. Their quality scores are well above average. Yet they spend more than $1,500 (16 percent) less per Medicare patient than the national average and have a slower real annual growth rate (3 percent versus 3.5 percent nationwide).

[Now this sounds like Nirvana... but he does mention a caveat: "Because we relied on Medicare data for our selections, it is possible that some of these regions are not so low-cost from the viewpoint of non-Medicare patients. But overall data strongly suggest that most of these regions are providing excellent care for all patients while being far more successful than others at not overusing or misusing health care resources." They couldn't do a little checking of that strong suggestion of the data?]

... better, safer, lower-cost care is within reach. Many high-cost regions are just a few hours’ drive from a lower-cost, higher-quality region. And in the more efficient areas, neither the physicians nor the citizens reported feeling that care is “rationed.” Indeed, it’s rational.

Many in Congress and the Obama administration seem to recognize this. The various reform bills making their way through the process have included provisions to protect successful medical communities by incorporating payment approaches that reward those that slow spending growth while improving patient outcomes. This is the right direction for reform.

See? Obama agrees with him. This is what Obama wants, but how are they going to do this?

I'm not saying that it won't work. The three key ingrediants for success (not the 10 promised by the OpEd's authors) form a part of the fabric of the European, Canadian and Japanese single-payer systems:

1. The "Mayo model, with salaried doctors employed by a unified local system focused on quality of care".
2. "with several medical groups whose physicians are paid on a traditional fee-for-service basis" incorporating "ways to protect patients against the damaging incentives of a system that encourages fragmentation of care and the pursuit of revenues over patient needs."
3. "a collaboration of doctors, state officials, insurers and community leaders to improve care. For more than four years, physicians have been tracking some 60 measures of quality, like medication error rates for their patients, and meeting voluntary cost-reduction goals."

So, Dr. Gawande and President Obama, is this a voluntary system and our representatives on Capitol Hill can just heave a sigh of relief and turn to another issue you'll be able to find a way not to legislate to improve, or will this involve legislation the AMA can accept to make heath care so inexpensive and successful that insuring it will be like calling Geico for your old wreck?

We're dying to hear the details.

And you'd better hurry before you have to do more of the damage control we saw in today's HuffPo and you look even more like a band of amateurs.

Meanwhile, what discussion of nearly anything would be complete without Paul Krugman's input?

So where does Obamacare fit into all this? Basically, it’s a plan to Swissify America, using regulation and subsidies to ensure universal coverage.

If we were starting from scratch we probably wouldn’t have chosen this route. True “socialized medicine” would undoubtedly cost less, and a straightforward extension of Medicare-type coverage to all Americans would probably be cheaper than a Swiss-style system. That’s why I and others believe that a true public option competing with private insurers is extremely important: otherwise, rising costs could all too easily undermine the whole effort.

But a Swiss-style system of universal coverage would be a vast improvement on what we have now. And we already know that such systems work.

So we can do this. At this point, all that stands in the way of universal health care in America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinion/17krugman.html?src=twt&twt=nytimesopinion

Thank you, Mr. Krugman. Italics mine.

You don't get this done, and there's reason to be worried, very worried, for 2010. Ask Nate Silver.
....

The age of aquarius: he remembered

I awoke at 7:30 this morning, the littler cat in my arms, Audouin's hand on my chest where it had come to rest in his sleep, and the sun shining beyond the sheet hung in the window to keep the eyes of the workers from penetrating the privacy of our room, and when I came down after Audouin had gone to the hospital, I found the note above and the following in my email in-box:

At dawn on 14th February the day dedicated to St. Valentine, the patron saint of Love, the Moon in Libra enters the seventh house of relationships. And Jupiter and Mars are aligned in Aquarius in the twelfth house of spiritual transformation.

Forty years ago, the intuitive words of a song called Aquarius brought the dawning of the new age into our collective awareness:

When the Moon is in the seventh house
and Jupiter aligns with Mars.
Then love will rule the planets
and peace will steer the stars

At dawn on 14th February the Cosmos actually embodies this perfect alignment to support our collective manifestation of love and peace and dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

The Aquarian chart of 14th February reveals an incredible concentration of cosmic influences blending with the energies of Aquarius in the twelfth house. Expansive Jupiter and energetic Mars are aligned with the higher purpose of the North Node. The presence of Chiron the wounded healer offers us the opportunity to heal the schisms that have separated us for so long. Neptune emphasizes collective humanitarian movements and the co-creation of social justice. And the presence of the radiant Sun enlightens the entire alignment.

Mercury also in the twelfth house but just beyond the cusp in Capricorn, allies with transformational Pluto to communicate and anchor the Shift throughout our global structures and institutions.

The Moon in Libra in the seventh house emphasizes harmonious relationships.

Venus in Aries in the first house energizes and empowers dynamic co-creativity.

And whilst Saturn the great task master in opposition to Uranus the unexpected awakener is suggesting an ongoing confrontation as the dregs of the unsustainable old paradigm reluctantly give way to the untested hope of the new, their placements in Virgo and Pisces brings practical altruism and visionary inspiration to the transition.

At 7.25am on 14th February - and f or the 18 minutes of the alignment, I invite you, in the universal heart, to add your own intention f or love and peace and to co-create the dawning of the Age of Aquarius to that of the Cosmos.

Hair, the film -- 1979

Maybe the Age of Aquarius was really dawning when we sang along in Susan Lowitz's split-level ranch playroom in 1968, second-graders liberated by song. We graduated high school in 1979, and the musical will be revived in March in this Age of Aquarius, in the year a man with a black father and a white mother took the oath of office as president of the United States, 2009.

I am a Libra. My husband is Aries, ruled by the planet Mars. Maybe we are entering, despite the conflicting signs in the pyrotechnics of our relationship, a time of harmony and understanding,
sympathy and trust abounding.

Then, there is the reconnection to our half-sister, our father's third daughter, bringing a brother-in-law and three nephews (I chatted with 4-year-old Colin, my little twin, on Facebook, "efskjdah fsifsoeh ehsoien"). Elizabeth will see her Monday, after 43 years. I will see her in May, when the peonies are in bloom in the beds at the edge of the top terrace. This was never considered possible, but she says she has been smiling this past week, and that "it has made [her] very happy". I don't use words like "happy", although I do smile. Maybe I will.

How can one doubt now that we are in the Age of Aquarius? Call the astronomers.

I'd like to take the other thing I found when I came downstairs as a sign. There it is, at the top of the post. It only looks like general conditions of repair and payment for the BMW garage. It is actually a Valentine's Day card.

You can tell by the heart and the words, "Valentine's Day".

It is a love note.

You can tell from the words, "I love you".

A very subtle Valentine's Day love note. So subtle that if Wisp hadn't been sitting on it when I stopped to give her a good morning pet, I might have missed it, although I do doubt that I would have put it away without seeing the heart drawn with my O.3 drawing pen on the back of the repair bill for the repairs after the attempted theft of the poor old BMW.

Pst? Have you signed the Courage Campaign petition to invalidate Prop 8, Ken Starr's appalling attack on the gay couples who married in California between May and November 2008, divorcing them? The deadline has been extended; you have until March 2 now, but why not sign today, Valentine's Day?


"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.


I resume my story.

I didn't remind him when he left for his day and night on duty at the hospital. I only reminded him that it is his godson Hugues' birthday. 19.

"Oui, j'essayerai de l'appeler de l'hôpital, et ce fut l'anniversaire d'Aude avant hier."

"J'espère que tu as pensé de l'appeler," dis-je, a tiny bit mockingly, thinking to match very considerately his feelings for his first wife.

(Je suis désolée, Aude, mais c'est vrai. Il y a des choses que vous n'auriez pas du faire, et dire. Vous le savez, je le sais.)

"Non, je n'y ai pas pensé." He sounded too normal. There was no mocking. He'd have called his first wife to wish her a happy birthday? The story of the years following their marriage explain why that wouldn't come immediately to mind. I was confused. Aude. Hugues. Godson. Aude... Goddaughter.

"Ah, ça serait gentil de l'appeler, quand-même." I didn't miss a beat. Morning sluggishness of thought covers many things. The world made sense again.

"On ne fêtes pas son anniversaire à jamais quand on devient grand." I thought of those who love to celebrate their birthdays at 50 and gone.

"Ce n'est pas vrai. Les Floris ne fêtent pas les leurs, et ne l'ont jamais fait. Ce n'est pas la même chose." Audouin and his sister put their feet down. No birthday parties. Not even the 50th. I lost on Audouin's 50th. The friends carried the day. I hadn't been around long enough, even though I knew many of them as far back as when he was still married to Aude (the other one). The proof was when my brother-in-law put his foot down in the case of his wife's 40th last year, and the email frenzy that ressembled the French massing in the streets to demonstrate another projet de loi -- Non à pas de fête! Non à pas de fête! -- very suddenly ceased. He'd been around long enough, fathered their four children, tended the seasonal pruning needs of his parent's-in-law's two properties' gardens (and I'm stretching the word for the one in the southwest) to put his foot down and not receive collective punishment of our many friends and large family.

But, that's not really true from the one family photo album I finally saw at my in-law's house at New Year's. My mother-in-law has rarely had a camera, battery and film in the same place at the same time for the important occasions, so this album seemed something like a miracle. A series of baby photos and first birthdays, with a growing number of older siblings surrounding the baby in front of the cake. I had looked for give-away traits in the one-yea- old faces to see if I could tell which baby it was from the adult I know, without reading the caption, or identifying the siblings present, either. I couldn't.

And, my husband does not celebrate Valentine's Day. I am not sure he has ever left a "mot" [note] to mark the occasion. That's so American. So Hallmark. So commercial.

Written on the back of the BMW garage receipt of payment for the car I recovered and drove yesterday for the first time in 3 months today, that is so Audouin.

I still wonder why he loves me and now he can, when you hear our arguments about child-raising and the concept of growth in the economy. My heart rages in my chest for Paul Krugman when he castigates all the economists in the world for being in bed with the forces of corporate and financial evil. I just can't feel romantic when my husband is more than suggesting that he would call his congressman to vote no on the ARRP and let the economic system that he considers to be riddled by the cancer of credit die. Not even as the clock approaches midnight, the eve of Valentine's Day.

"Et tous ces gens qui perdraient leur emplois, les millions de personnes et de familles sans les moyens de payer la maison, la voiture, le fioul pour chauffer leur maison, la nourriture pour manger, les frangs pour s'habiller. Tu laisserais le système économique s'arrêter? Ce n'est plus possible. On ne peut pas l'arrêter pour le recréer. On ne peut le redémarrer et le corriger avec les réglementations mises en place au juste apèrs la dernière grosse crise en enlevées par Phil Gramm et compagnie dans le sénat en 1999 avec l'abrogation de l'act Glass-Steagall, chose que les Republicans ont cherché à faire depuis les 1980's. Le système a toujours, toujours fonctionné avec le crédit, depuis que l'échange de commerce entre les pays et les peuples a commencé. Ce qu'il faut c'est de l'honnêteté dans la valuation et l'offre et la demande de crédit." He wasn't buying that, other than the honesty aspect, which he more than agrees is missing, replaced by a glut of avidité.

It was barter, he said. Barter in the village markets. Yes, but the barons seized what they needed, or sometimes paid against time or other services, whose value had to be determined. Not quite like a barrel of grain for a chicken. And once the boats started to arrive in the ports, loaded with silk from the East, slips of money changed hands in the port city to pay for the cargo and the risk to the boat and the contents of its hold assumed by the financier of the voyage.

"Mais ce n'était pas jusqu'au 18ème siécle!"

"Tu n'as jamais lu le Marchand de Vénise?" And on and on, until he declared that the discussion was over. I continued.

"C'est fini. On n'en discute plus."

"Mais..."

"Fini. On fait la vaiselle." I got a few more words in, and dumped the boiled water from the cheap saucepan onto the pile of dishes in the sink. I heard the glass in which I had noticed a horizontal crack crack farther. I'll use it until the milk or water served at table leaks out, or the top half of the glass falls off. I hate waste, almost as much as I hate credit interest myself.

But, you can't run a world economy on direct payment for all services. I had brought up Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel for his program of microloans in Bangladesh. How could you argue against credit when presented in those terms?

"Le Nobel ne veut rien dire pour moi."

Ce n'est pas possible. I hadn't mentioned Paul Krugman, nor his shiny new Nobel. I couldn't bear to hear it shot down.

He was asleep before I turned off my laptop and came up the stairs, the light extinguished in the larger crack under the door, where the floor boards plunge towards the end wall of the house. I brushed my teeth, examined the signs of another day on my face, and turned out the bathroom light. Wisp got caught beneath my feet and took off for the the stairs. I opened the door for her, and she turned on a dime, trotted into the room and waited to install herself in my arms, like a baby, her head on my shoulder, her body curled in the crook of my elbow for the night.

My funny Valentine.

And my funnier, nearly incomprehensible, far too prickly Valentine, off at the hospital.

Peace and love.
....

Mr., President...uh... Butt-head, uh, sir

Beavis and Butt-head go to Washington

"Butt-head, hehe, I've got, hehe, uh, an idea."

President, uh, Beavis

(That's a link, Butt-head, hehe, click. Hehehe.)

"It's your turn, Butt-head. This sucks."

President, uh...uh, hehehe, Butt-head


hehe... hehe...hehehehe

....

Help get signs on the ground in Ohio

Please make a contribution of whatever amount you can to Obama/Biden 08 to save us from the "much, much worse" consequences of a McButt-head/Palin presidency:

"And now the team that hopes to form the next administration is running a campaign that makes Bush-Cheney 2000 look like something out of a civics class. What does that say about how that team would run the country?

What it says, I’d argue, is that the Obama campaign is wrong to suggest that a McCain-Palin administration would just be a continuation of Bush-Cheney. If the way John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning is any indication, it would be much, much worse."

-- Paul Krugman, "Blizzard of Lies", The New York Times, September 11, 2008.

....

Call... swing voters.

Canvass... Neighbor to Neighbor... to talk to the un- and the weakly-decideds to tell them why Obama/Biden's policies will make their lives better, solicit volunteers and get the word out to register and verify current registration. Vote early, even, where possible.

Contribute... to make ads, get them on the air, provide campaign materials on the ground in the battleground states where they are needed, and a million other critical things to win big in November.

Communicate... as someone I admire over on Environmentalists for Obama says, "across every hill and dale, hither and yon, with all of your neighbors, colleagues, coworkers, friends and those enemies who are at the edge of the preserve (careful feeding the conservatives) about the importance of this election and why it is requisite upon us all to vote - by any means necessary.

Encourage every sentient being with whom you come into contact, to vote for Senator Barack Obama."

Barbie in Nixonland

9.4.2008

Today they came and cleaned up everything they chipped off. It makes for a lot of mess to haul away in their flatbed truck.

Monday, the scaffolding goes up along the street, and they begin that facade.

It suddenly looks a lot like progress, soon the plaster will fall.

....

The RNC 2008

Tuesday evening: prosperity

I have been forcing myself to watch the speeches from the RNC on CNNLive.com and YouTube. I have so much to say, but I have exhausted my brain and my fingers on the MYBO boards.

My favorite Republican convention mo(I can't even type anymore; my fingers are stumbling on the keyboard)ment so far was the night Sarah Palin spoke (wasn't she something? I was just so proud of Bush's speech writers and how she delivered that speech! Such poise! Such diction! Such sarcasm!). That was the prosperity theme night, the evening all the minority entrepreneurs spoke.

They brought out a brown, I mean an Hispanic man, and he told an eager convention floor filled with Republicans -- young and old, white and white (okay, there are a few blacks, like Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams), manipulator and manipulated, ignorant and ignoranter -- that his father, a migrant worker who had no education beyond the 4th grade, could teach "Obama", (whistles) with his "fancy schools" (crowd cheers), a "thing or two about economics" (crowd roars their approval) because he'd done "real work with his hands (pregnant pause... oops! No reference whatsoever to pregnant teens) in the dirt," (crowd goes crazy) and "Obama's gonna' raise our taxes!" (crows goes crazier) A proud lackey for the McCains of the world with their wealth valued in the tens of millions and more, who have never worked with their own hands in the dirt.

It's the world upside down.

I didn't know migrant workers and the poor paid taxes, but they sure might like the health care benefits they could get if the wealthiest and the corporations paid a decent share.

....

A case in point: William McGuire
HealthUnited Group's now retired CEO

Someone else used different numbers but made the following argument: 38% in taxes of the average CEO pay of $10.2 million in 2004 still leaves $6.3 million in take home pay to suffer through the year until the next $10.2 million rolls in.

But even that's chicken feed compared to the high-end of CEO salaries cited in the same article, where "The highest-paid CEO in 2004 was Yahoo's Terry Semel, who hauled in $230.6 million. That's more than $4 million a week."

The third highest paid CEO was in health care, "William McGuire, of UnitedHealth Groups, the nation's leading insurer, was the third-highest paid CEO on the Forbes list. His pay of $124.8 million could cover the average health-insurance premiums of nearly 34,000 people."

As Spoon of SiCKO Universal Health Care HR 676 (join us) on the MYBO boards replied:

That doesn't include the $1.6 billion in stock options he was given when he retired, or the hundreds of millions in options he'd already cashed in, or the rest of his retirement package. Or the fact that the head of Medicare and Medicaid administers a LOT larger and sicker group for around $200,000 per year (no stock options). The last I checked, The UnitedHealth Group stock was up over 900% since Bush took office... these guys make our oil barons and military industrial giants look like chump changers.

Nice. Welcome to the You ESS-AY!! At least we're not (gasp) socialists.

And these Republican sheep from small town YOU ESS-AY!! are only too happy to chant their national pride -- YOU ESS-AY!! YOU ESS-AY!! YOU ESS-AY!! -- ecstatically against closing the corporate tax loop-holes -- YOU ESS-AY!! --, eliminating death taxes and the alternate minimum tax -- YOU ESS-AY!! YOU ESS-AY!! -- to provide themselves and their neighbors with health care as good and with as much freedom of choice as the French enjoy, preferring to scrimp to fill the gas tank and the oil tank for the winter's heating and do without health care benefits, while their leadership rolls in obscene, but surely well-deserved, wealth.

....

And her outfit cost...

I owe a reader of Vanity Fair a debt for this information. According to their report, we now have an idea of Laura Bush and Cindy McCain's vestimentary budget for Monday evening's attire at the RNC, and as she says, "I don't know about you, but I could pay 2 months of my mortgage on Laura's alone, and that's based on the LOW estimate":

Laura Bush

Oscar de la Renta suit: $2,500
Stuart Weitzman heels: $325
Pearl stud earrings: $600 - $1,500

Total: $3,425 - $4,325


Cindy McCain

Oscar de la Renta dress (did they shop the sales together?): $3,000
Chanel J12 white ceramic watch: $4,500
Three-carat diamond earrings: $280,000 (I accidentally typed $28,000 the first time, had a hard time getting the extra zero in there and the comma in the right place)
Four-strand peral necklace: $11,000 - $25,000
Taryn Rose shoes: $475

Total: $299,100 - $313,100


I could pay off my mortgage with that.

Yeah, I'd rather worship the wealthy than live decently, too. (crowd and son of Hispanic migrant worker with 4th grade education lose all control, ecstatic)

....

One word: resentment

For the Republicans' breath-taking ability to turn the world on its head for their own gain (and more gain, and more gain) without loosing sleep, Paul Krugman provided a one-word analysis in his OpEd in the NYTimes yesterday, resentment. From the column:

Some of it, of course, is driven by cultural and religious conflict: fundamentalist Christians are sincerely dismayed by Roe v. Wade and evolution in the curriculum. What struck me as I watched the convention speeches, however, is how much of the anger on the right is based not on the claim that Democrats have done bad things, but on the perception — generally based on no evidence whatsoever — that Democrats look down their noses at regular people.

Thus Mr. Giuliani asserted that Wasilla, Alaska, isn’t “flashy enough” for Mr. Obama, who never said any such thing. And Ms. Palin asserted that Democrats “look down” on small-town mayors — again, without any evidence.

What the G.O.P. is selling, in other words, is the pure politics of resentment; you’re supposed to vote Republican to stick it to an elite that thinks it’s better than you. Or to put it another way, the G.O.P. is still the party of Nixon.

....

What you can do

(besides get mad and worry)

Have you talked to a disappointed Republican or an Independent today? Happily, they have an option, Obama/Biden 08!

Sign up on www.mybarackobama.com to make your profile and find out how to call Swing States for the campaign from home.

And from Alex Koppelman at Salon.com:

By Alex Koppelman

Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008 17:55 EDT

The Sarah Palin money bomb

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Sarah Palin's speech to the Republican convention really seems to have energized people. Including Democrats, it turns out -- Barack Obama's campaign says that since Palin's speech, it has taken in $8 million, and the Obama camp estimates that number will hit $10 million by the time John McCain addresses the convention tonight.

The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, has reportedly raised $1 million in the same time period. And a McCain source told the Drudge Report, "We could not count our donations fast enough." (The McCain campaign is now restricted from raising its own money, as McCain accepted public financing.)

Give. Give often, give regularly, give what you can -- Click here for my fundraising page on www.mybarackobama.com.

Hey! Someone made a contribution! The campaign used to let us know so we could thank the donor, but it didn't this time. Whoever you are, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Gotta' get to the supermarket before they close, or I am going to be very embarrassed this evening.
....