Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Delaware, Democrats and the three-fold bet

By Dave Anderson:

Last December, I wrote that the Democratic Party was making a three-fold bet on minimizing their losses:

  • Discredited
    Republican Party will make swing voters hold their noses before voting
    GOP or voting at all.

  • Teabagger v. Establishment Republican civil war

  • Democrats would maintain the money edge


The Democrats have maintained a hard-coordinated money edge but the Democrats are losing out on the soft-money Citizen United authorized corporate money battle.  Swing voters have either tuned out of this election cycle or they are holding their noses for Republicans whom they really, really, really hate as a means of telling the Democrats that the economy still really sucks. 

However, the second component of the bet, the Teabagger vs. Establishment Republican civil war has been in full-swing this year.  We have already seen teabaggers rescue Senator Reid's chances in Nevada, and they have made Kentucky and Florida competitive for either a Democrat or a non-Republican instead of slam-dunk Republican holds.  Alaska has a chance of being a surprise competitive seat for the Democrats due to a teabagging upset.  Now we have final confirmation that the Democrats will hold the Senate, as one of the top three Republican pick-up chances in Delaware if they nominated a moderate Republican is gone.

Anti-masturbation advocate and generic conservative pundit Christine O'Donnell won and according to Kos the national GOP is pulling out of Delaware as of tomorrow morning:

Christine O'Donnell wins her nomination in Delaware. Fox News reports
that the NRSC has taken Delaware off the map and will not help O'Donnell
in November. A lot of grumbling about "Palin and the Tea Party can
support her." Getting the full reaction tomorrow is going to be F-U-N.

Ron might be right that holding a Democratic majority in the Senate in 2011 is counterproductive for 2012, but the strategy of counting on teabaggers choking the Republicans seems be paying off in the Senate:

  Nothing constructive is going to happen the next two years no matter
who controls the House and the Senate.  But that really doesn't matter
because there is really nothing lawmakers can do to fix the too broken to fix economy.  So looking ahead to
2012 the best thing for the Democrats is to share the blame.  The best
possible scenario for the Democrats is a House full of Teatards spending
all of their time as lawmakers trying to impeach Obama for being a
Kenyon born anti colonialist Marxist while the economy burns.  The
republicans taking control of the House would be a Democratic victory. 
The Republicans taking control of the Senate as well would be a double
victory. 

I agree with Ron that the major determinant of electoral success in 2012 will be economic and paycheck growth, or the lack there-of.  I also agree that for reasons of timidity, corporate whoredom, donor and interest capture, ideological myopia, and stupdity (choose whatever combination of attributes in whatever proportion you like), the economy will at best limp along.  However, from a map point of view, the 2012 and 2014 cycles are going to be generically tough for Democrats as they will be defending a lot of freshmen Senators, so starting from a higher base is better than starting from a lower base. 



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