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Former President Barack Obama, right, speaks as Virginia's Democratic gubernatorial candidate Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam listens during a rally in Richmond

This article originally appeared at The Huffington Post. Subscribe here.

The Democratic Party, Democratic voters, and grassroots progressive activists should be in a state of high agitation, focused on one thingcontaining Trump, his fake populism, and his Republican allies.

Instead, the party of the people is withering. Energy on the ground is low, infighting is high. The run-up to the Virginia gubernatorial election is feeling sickeningly like the last days of Hillary Clintons campaign.

The most recent reliable poll, The New York Times/Siena poll, shows the Democrat, Ralph Northam, up by just three points, 43 to 40, with 17 percent undecided. There is the same sort of chasm by race and class as in the Clinton-Trump race, with non-college educated whites favoring Republican Ed Gillespie by 40 points.

These are people, based on social class, who should be Democrats. If the lackluster, accident-prone, and risk-averse Democrat, Lieutenant Governor Northam, does pull out a narrow win, it will only be because his Republican rival Gillespie, is a longtime party hack and lobbyist, and even less convincing than Donald Trump as a populist.

That, however, has not stopped Gillespie from using the Trump playbook of stirring up racial and anti-immigrant hatreds. And in the absence of a compelling economic-populist alternative, it works.

Gillespie baited Northam into saying hed sign legislation banning sanctuary cities, even though there are none in Virginia and this is a non-issue. That was sufficient to cause Democrats for America (DFA), the group founded by Howard Dean, to announce it was no longer supporting Northam.

Its hard to know which action was more perverseNorthams stance or DFAs.

Gillespie is also running an ad with the tagline, Youd never take a kneeso take a stand on Election Day: Vote Gillespie. Nice touch.

Voters will only fall for this stuff if the other side is not offering anything real.

But if you asked a computer to design a Democrat who is the opposite of an economic populist, it would devise a creature like Northam. The other day, pollster Stan Greenberg, who has advised the Clintons for three decades, and who recently wrote a scathing critique of the sheer incompetence of Hillary Clintons presidential campaign, told The New Yorker magazine:

Look at Virginia right now. We have a candidate running as Hillary Clinton. He is running on the same kind of issues, and has the same kind of view of the world. Its the Republicans who talk about the economy, not the Democrats.

Though Trumps popularity ratings are at record lows, Northam has declined even to attack Trump.

Meanwhile over in New Jersey, the Democratic nominee, Phil Murphy, is comfortably ahead, thanks to the gift that keeps on giving, incumbent governor Chris Christie. Murphys opponent is Christies lieutenant governor, Kim Guadagno, who is lagging well behind.

But waitHillary Clinton got tarred for taking some speaking fees from Goldman Sachs. The Democrat in the New Jersey race, Murphy, comes from Goldman Sachs. So did the last New Jersey Democratic governor, Jon Corzine. These guys are actually relative liberals, but cant we look elsewhere for Democratic candidates? Corzine, as the incumbent, was beaten by Chris Christie.

In the past couple of weeks, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Tom Perez, has executed a purge of leading Sanders supporters. Donna Brazile, who served as interim DNC chair after Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, the Obama-era chair, was forced out, published book excerpts supporting Bernie Sanderss view that the nomination was effectively stolen by the DNC, which was supposed to be neutral, but instead supported Clinton. Maybe Brazile could have waited until after Tuesdays elections?

Oh, and one of the wealthiest and best connected Democratic lobbyists, Tony Podesta, brother of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, managed to get caught in special counsel Robert Muellers dragnet. Tony Podesta evidently was working with Paul Manafort on behalf of a front group for the pro-Moscow Ukrainian government in power at the time. Its stories like this that display a bipartisan special interest swamp, and turn working people against both parties.

Meanwhile, recriminations among the diverse elements of what should be the Democrats broad coalition are at a rolling boil. There is bitterness among feminists that deeply seeded misogyny cost Hillary Clinton the presidency.

I have had arguments with numerous feminist friends to the effect that a more compelling woman candidate such as Elizabeth Warren could have defeated Donald Trump in 2016, and could win in 2020. But some of my feminist friends counter that it would be more prudent to nominate a Midwestern white guy, say Ohio Democratic senator Sherrod Brown. There has to be something perverse about feminists arguing that misogyny is so pervasive that its better not to nominate a female.

Meanwhile, on the racial front, there is understandable bitterness among many African American Democrats that whites, even progressive whites, failed to protect blacks from deepening racism. Conversations about the need to talk about class as well as race tends to produce vituperation about white privilege.

In short, the progressive side of the political spectrum is a cauldron of grievances, each understandable and legitimate in its own right. But if Democrats cant find areas of common ground, then Trump and his imitators will keep winning.

Somehow, Democrats need to nominate more compelling candidates, who can narrate the grievances of ordinary Americans in a convincing way and propose drastic remedies. Democrats need to remember the larger stakes and try to limit the infighting.

Out of this mess, a leader will emerge as the Democratic standard bearer for the 2020 election. Before that nominee can take on Donald Trump, or Mike Pence, or whoever the Republicans put up, he or she will need to restore some semblance of Democratic purpose and unity. Right now, that challenge seems more daunting than the election itself.

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Wither the Democrats?

On average, middle class families earning less than $86,000 would see a tax increase under the Republican tax reform plan. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), in a tweet, Oct. 27

The average tax increase on families nationwide earning up to $86,100 would be $794.00 Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), in a tweet, Oct. 24

Under GOP plan, U.S. families making ~$86k see avg tax increase of $794. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), in a tweet, Oct. 24

A reader asked whether Harriss tweet was accurate. But when we looked into it, it turns out that many Democrats were tweeting the same talking point that middle-class families would face an average tax increase under the GOP plan. The three tweets below are just a sampling.

It turns out this Twitterblizzard is the result of a bad game of telephone.

We traced the talking point to a document put out by the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, essentially the communications arm of Senate Democrats. That document laid out a series of statistics, tailored for each individual state, that purported to show how damaging the evolving Republican tax plan would be for middle-class Americans.

That document had this line on each state page: The average tax increase on families nationwide earning up to $86,100 would be $794, a significant burden for middle-class families.

This factoid in turn was sourced to a report by Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee. So we tracked that down.

That report had this line: If enacted, the Republican tax reform proposal would saddle 8 million households that earn up to $86,100 with an average tax increase of $794 a substantial expense for working families.

Note the difference. The original report referred to 8 million households receiving a $794 tax increase. Somehow, when it got communicated down the line, that nuance was lost and it was translated into a talking point referring to all working-class families.

Latoya Veal, spokeswoman for the JEC Democrats, explained how the number was calculated. The staff took an estimate by the Tax Policy Center, based on the GOPs Unified Framework released in September.The staff then focused on the households (technically tax units in the TPC document) making under $86,100 the bottom three quintiles of taxpayers that would face a tax increase. Weighting the tax increase by the number of people in each quintile, the staff came up with an averagetax hike of $794 for the people receiving a tax increase.

But notice the funny thing about this calculation: Only a small percentage (6.5 percent) of the nearly 122 million households in the bottom three quintiles will actually face a tax increase.

Meanwhile, more than 97 million (80 percent) will receive a tax cut. Doing the math the same way the JEC staff did, we come up with an average tax cut of about $450 for those 97 million households.

Indeed, at the far end of the chart, you will see that every quintile on average receives a tax cut not a tax increase.

In any tax bill, there are going to be winners and losers. The top quintile receives the biggest average tax cut, both in dollars and change in after-tax income but also has the largest percentage (32.3 percent) of households that will face a tax increase.

There are different ways to approach the TPC estimates, Veal said. Key Republicans have been asked whether they could guarantee that no middle-class family will get a tax increase under their plan. Our calculation shows that some households 8 million making under $86,100 will receive an increase based on TPCs estimates.

By the time we contacted the DPCC about the error, The Fact Checkers questions must have circulated.

Once we realized that the original report could have been clearer, we updated it immediately, a spokesman said. Now the updated report makes clearer that 8 million households could face a tax increase though again it fails to acknowledge that most people would have a tax cut.

The inaccurate tweets remain.

In their haste to condemn the GOP tax plan, Democrats have spread far and wide the false claim that families making less than $86,100 on average will face a hefty tax hike. Actually, its the opposite. Most families in that income range would get a tax cut.Any Democrat who spread this claim should delete their tweets and make clear they were in error.

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Share the Facts

2017-11-02 11:10:18 UTC

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On average, middle class families earning less than $86,000 would see a tax increase under the Republican tax reform plan.

Kamala Harris

Senator (D-Calif.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris

in a tweet

Friday, October 27, 2017

2017-10-27

Share the Facts

2017-11-02 11:13:03 UTC

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Under GOP plan, U.S. families making ~$86k see avg tax increase of $794.

Jeff Merkley

Senator (D-Ore.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Merkley

in a tweet

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

2017-10-24

Share the Facts

2017-11-02 11:16:09 UTC

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The average tax increase on families nationwide earning up to $86,100 would be $794.00

Bob Casey

Senator (D-Pa.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Casey_Jr.

in a tweet

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

2017-10-24

Read the original:
Senate Democrats falsely claim GOP tax plan will raise taxes ...

I havent seen much evidence that the party and its crop of potential presidential candidates are up for it. I was disappointed, for example, that after the far-right rally in Charlottesville, Va., while Democrats duly denounced President Trumps reaction and the rallys white supremacism and the rights defense of Confederate statuary (tough calls!), no one who purports to want to lead the party and country out of this darkness stepped forward to offer broader reflections on that grim episode.

Bah! Its too early for that, some will say. The Democrats are an opposition party right now, and their main job is to oppose. And under the leadership of Senator Charles Schumer and Representative Nancy Pelosi, theyre doing that quite well. But I dont think Democratic reluctance here is just a matter of timing.

The Democrats are undergoing a historic transformation, from being the party that embraced neoliberalism in the early 1990s to one that is rejecting that centrist posture and moving left. Theres plenty about this to cheer the neoliberal Democratic Party didnt do nearly enough to try to arrest growing income inequality, among other shortcomings.

There will be necessary internecine fights, and they boil down to loyalty tests on particular positions demanded by the vanguard. Consider the debate within the party on Senator Bernie Sanderss Medicare for All bill, which most (though not all) 2020 contenders rushed to attach themselves to. To fail to sign on to that legislation is to open oneself to criticism, even abuse, although its less a piece of legislation than a goal.

Forget about whos right and wrong in these debates. Time will sort that out. My point is that they tend to consume a party experiencing a shift. The Democratic Party, because it is an amalgam of interest groups in a way the Republican Party is not, has always had a tendency to elevate the candidate who can check the most boxes. The current internal dynamics exacerbate that. Its also worth remembering that no one besides party activists cares.

So when the partys leaders tussle over this or that policy, they also need to take a step back, to see the direction the country the West itself is heading, and take a stand on it. This isnt just a matter of high-minded idealism; its what separates great politicians from merely good ones.

History tells us that the transformative politicians, the ones who can change the countrys direction and will really matter in the history books, are the ones who can do both. I think there have been four of them in the past century: Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Why Roosevelt and Reagan should be obvious. I know some would dispute my choice of Mr. Clinton, but he rescued a party that had lost three presidential elections in a row and was being read last rites by some pundits in 1991 (the extent to which he changed the countrys fundamental direction is debatable). Mr. Obama made history and redrew the electoral map. All four were able to speak both to their base and beyond it by identifying the challenge of the moment and persuading majorities that they had some answers.

The future of the Western democratic project is the fundamental issue of our era. Its under attack from Vladimir Putin and Steve Bannon and many people in between (and to the extent that he backs Mr. Bannons purge of the Republican Party, from the president himself; think about that).

Democrats cant duck this question and expect the broader electorate to see them as prepared to lead. To his credit, Mr. Sanders did talk a bit about all this in a foreign-policy speech in late September at the same Missouri college where Winston Churchill gave his Iron Curtain speech, noting an international order that is under great strain.

The Democrats were the party that created this order after World War II. They must now be the party that fixes and saves it.

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The Silence of the Democrats - The New York Times

In 1939, Winston Churchill famously described Russia as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, which is proving an apt description of the scandal playing out nearly eight decades later about Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.

As it turns out, our very own Democratic Party was doing some meddling of its own using some of the Russians own tactics while using Russians as a foil. Thats the latest twist in a plot line that makes a John le Carr novel look like a kids coloring book.

The story started, as you recall, in late July of 2016, during the Republican nominating convention in Cleveland, when the international whistleblowing outfit WikiLeaks published thousands of purloined emails from the Democratic National Committee. Their content was somewhat embarrassing to the Democratic establishment, inasmuch as it bolstered the suspicions of the Bernie Sanders faithful, who believed that under party Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz the DNC had engaged in various subterfuges to help Hillary Clinton quell the Sanders insurrection.

These efforts included dispatching moles to his campaign events, and paying Hillary supporters to troll Bernie on social media. Although Wasserman Schultz was forced out, the DNC hierarchy and the Clinton campaign needed to respond. They could have simply told the truth and apologized, the truth being that of course party regulars favored Clinton over Sanders: Bernie hadnt even called himself a Democrat until he began running for the partys nomination while Hillary Clinton was Mrs. Democrat. That admission could have been accompanied by expression of regret for their excesses.

But repentance is not in the Clintons playbook. In this case, neither was candor. Instead, the campaigns top officials formulated their lines of attack. First, they cast aspersions on the veracity of the WikiLeaks emails. Second, they insisted this was all a Russian plot to help Donald Trump. It was a calculated one-two punch. By calling into question the authenticity of the emails, Clinton didnt have to respond to their contents the sabotaging of Sanders campaign. In boxing vernacular, that was the left jab setting up the right cross, which was the Russia angle. The jab was a lie: They knew the emails were accurate. Playing the Russia card was, at best, disingenuous. Thanks to the Washington Post, we now know that the Clinton organization had been plotting a preemptive strike against Trump for months when it hired an anti-Republican opposition research outfit called Fusion GPS to go to Russia and dig up dirt on him.

What emerged from those efforts was the salacious anti-Trump dossier produced by ex-British spy Christopher Steele and shopped around to liberal media outlets until BuzzFeed, an online site so hostile to Donald Trump that it refused to accept Republican ads in 2016, took the bait. Virtually everything Clinton and her surrogates have said about Russia and Trump from that day to this has been either a direct falsehood, or a lie of omission. Following up on a tip that Clinton and the DNC were paying Fusion GPS, New York Times reporters were told vigorously by Marc Elias, counsel to both the DNC and the Clinton campaign, that there was nothing to it. Yet, according to the Post expose, there was a lot to it Elias was the one who hired Fusion GPS.

Elias, now representing former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, also reportedly sat mute beside his client while Podesta told a Senate committee that he didnt know who financed Steeles efforts. Then theres Clinton herself. Shes played up the Steele dossier while on the book tour for What Happened, her post-election finger-pointing. In the book itself, she wrote:

In the summer of 2016, according to the Washington Post, the FBI began investigating a dossier prepared by a well-respected former British spy that contained explosive and salacious allegations about compromising information the Russians had on Trump. The intelligence community took the dossier seriously enough that it briefed both President Obama and President-elect Trump on its contents before the inauguration.

Heres whats missing from that account: Clintons campaign paid this well-respected former British spy, setting in the motion the entire affair. Lets stop and consider what that means for a moment. Nobody has revealed how much money was involved but Elias law firm was paid $12.4 million by the DNC and the campaign during the election. How much of that went to Steele? How much did Steele pay his former Russian contacts to spin their spicy tale of Trump cavorting with Russian prostitutes, masking real estate deals as bribes, and generally setting himself up to be blackmailed?

I dont want to cast aspersions on Michael Steele, whom many besides Hillary describe as respected, but theres something about spreading so much cash around as part of an investigation that makes the information suspect. Its why checkbook journalism is rarely considered investigative reporting at all: The money creates an incentive to make things up. Viewed through this prism, it all looks less like a genuine investigation and more like a sting operation orchestrated by the Democrats to win an election.

To this day, the only regret expressed by Clinton or her supporters is that they couldnt place the Steele dossier in the media before the election, though it wasnt for lack of trying. Even without it, nearly every prominent Democrat, including Clinton and President Obama warned of Russian meddling during the last two weeks of the campaign. In the end, it wasnt enough, so after the election, Team Clinton decided to keep using the Russian angle, both to excuse their failure and undermine the candidate who actually won.

Less than 24 hours after Hillarys concession speech, Podesta and Campaign Manager Robby Mook convened a staff meeting at Clintons Brooklyn headquarters to formalize this attack. The effort was described by authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes in a book that explains what happened more insightfully than Mrs. Clintons memoir.

For a couple of hours, with Shake Shack containers littering the room, they went over the script they would pitch to the press and the public, they wrote. Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument.

But heres the problem. The Russian government was interfering in the U.S. election. Among other scams, Russian internet trolls spread anti-Hillary rumors and fake news. Yes, the DNC trolled Bernie Sanders, but this was a vastly more sophisticated effort. And while Russians are no more monolithic than Americans, if any part of the Steele dossier is accurate, Russia was playing both sides of the fence. But why?

It was while trying to discern Russias motives and future course of action that Winston Churchill invoked his riddle wrapped in mystery inside an enigma line. Thats the famous part of the quote. There was more, however. But perhaps there is a key, Churchill added. That key is Russian national interest.

In the end we may learn that Vladimir Putins goal is simply setting Americans at one anothers throats. If so, he seems to have succeeded. Yet, one wonders: to what aim? Is Russia such a basket case that Putin and his minions can only feel superior by watching us hammer away at each other? If so, perhaps Republicans and Democrats can be induced not to cooperate.

Correction:Christopher Steele is theex-British spy thatproduced theanti-Trump dossier.

Carl M. Cannon is executive editor and Washington Bureau chief of RealClearPolitics.

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How Hillary and the Democrats played Russia card

It took nearly a week, but leading Democrats hope theyve done enough to wash their hands of politically uncomfortable ties to Harvey Weinstein. But Republicans arent letting go just yet.

The Democratic Partys recent days have been punctuated by a flurry of statements condemning the Hollywood fixture for years a high-profile fundraiser for leading Democrats and a flood of promises to send years worth of donations to charity from nearly every prominent lawmaker to receive Weinsteins backing in the past. By Wednesday, each high-profile Democrat to receive money from Weinstein had made plans to direct it elsewhere, aside from recent retirees like former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who still denounced him.

Story Continued Below

But even as top Democratic lawmakers pledged to donate the cash theyd gotten from Weinstein, the Democratic National Committee itself stopped short of promising a full giveaway. The committee pledged "over $30,000" of Weinstein donations to political groups that work to elect women.

The only problem? The DNC had raised over $300,000 from Weinstein, a fact Republicans have been quick to exploit.

"They're keeping 90 percent of his donations; I don't understand, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel told CNN. "If you stand for treating women well and you stand for the respect of women, you shouldn't take money from somebody who treated women with the absolute highest level of disrespect.

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The DNC, which has struggled to raise money recently, has not responded to a request for comment.

Still, after a few days of excruciating silence in response to the initial New York Times report and subsequent investigations from the Times and The New Yorker detailing countless accusations of sexual assaults or advances, the frustrated outpouring from elected Democrats reflected the partys discomfort. It was a situation to which Democrats have not recently been accustomed, after all: They found themselves under unrelenting fire from Republicans for ties to Weinstein that were deep and undeniable.

Michelle and I have been disgusted by the recent reports about Harvey Weinstein. Any man who demeans and degrades women in such fashion needs to be condemned and held accountable, regardless of wealth or status, Obama said Tuesday, after five days of pressure to condemn Weinstein, who had bundled over $600,000 for him in 2012, according to federal campaign reports.

I was shocked and appalled by the revelations about Harvey Weinstein. The behavior described by women coming forward cannot be tolerated, Clinton added in a statement of her own, distancing herself from the man who brought her 2016 presidential campaign over $1.4 million. On Wednesday, Clinton appeared on CNN and pledged to donate the money received from Weinstein to charity.

At a time that Democrats were hoping to be pushing back against President Donald Trumps tax push and enflaming tensions between Republican senators and the White House, the partys leaders instead were forced to fend off repeated questions about their relationships with the man each was quick to condemn.

While the retired Clinton and Obama took until Tuesday to weigh in, it didnt take as long for active Democrats to speak out against Weinstein. Leading Republicans were nonetheless even quicker to tie the onetime California power broker to the partys leading lawmakers.

During three decades worth of sexual harassment allegations, Harvey Weinstein lined the pockets of Democrats to the tune of three-quarters of a million dollars, the RNCs McDaniel said in a statement last week. If Democrats and the DNC truly stand up for women like they say they do, then returning this dirty money should be a no brainer.

Donald Trump Jr. tweeted repeatedly about Weinstein after the first story broke, urging Democrats to disavow their donor.

It took Hillary abt 5 minutes to blame NRA for madmans rampage, but 5 days to sorta-kinda blame Harvey Weinstein 4 his sexually [sic] assaults, chimed in White House adviser Kellyanne Conway on Twitter on Tuesday.

The questions didnt let up for Democrats after the holiday weekend.

Any leader should condemn this, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, Clintons 2016 running mate, told CNN on Tuesday morning in response to questions about Weinstein. These allegations are low-life behavior."

All the while, many in the party privately fumed as GOP officials amped up the pressure on them to return campaign cash from the former studio head, furious that Republicans would make this an issue considering the multiple sexual harassment allegations against Trump himself.

By the middle of this week, however, leading Democrats and party groups said they would donate as much money as they had received from Weinstein to charities, many dealing with sexual and domestic violence. That included senators such as Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Sens. Al Franken of Minnesota, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.

But the Democratic National Committee itself said it would give a portion of the money it had received to political groups that work to elect women, raising further GOP eyebrows and hardly putting the story to rest.

Weinstein had positioned himself as close to a number of party leaders Malia Obama interned at The Weinstein Co. in 2016 and at least six of the recipients of his money are potential 2020 presidential candidates.

But by Wednesday each member of that group But by Wednesday five members of that group Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kamala Harris of California, and Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia had pledged to send the money to charity. The campaign of the sixth, Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, said it would donate $50,000 to an unspecified womens charity. Cuomo, who had raised $110,400 from Weinstein or his company since 1999, will hang on to the remainder of the money, a decision criticized by Republicans.

Cristiano Lima contributed to this report.

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Democrats dogged by Weinstein cash - POLITICO