Why Must All the Candidates Be So Fucking Neoliberal?

[To the tune of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”]

Oh….

Clinton voted for the war

And Timothy Kaine is such a bore.

Cory Booker loves Wall Street

And VP Warren spells defeat.

None of them’s acceptable

For my precious vote electoral

Why must all the candidates be so fucking neoliberal?

I think we’ve had enough of the White House

being a Whitehouse

And Tom Perez as Labor’s top

Didn’t restore the union shop

Tom Vilsack is in the sack for

Big Agricultural

Why must all the candidates be so fucking neoliberal?

O’Malley’s a coastal technocrat

Another pawn of the fat cats

Schumer opposed the Iran Deal.

Castro’s young—is he for real?

Of Biden I’ve had my fill

Since he wrote the ’94 Crime Bill

Why must all the candidates be so fucking neoliberal?

           

Cummings seemed to think

Black Lives Mattered more than TPP

And Becarra didn’t swear

I’d go to Yale tuition-free.

As Congressmen I think they’re swell

But if they’re picked it’s “betrayal!”

Why must all the candidates be so fucking neoliberal?

I was for Bernie until I learned he’d

Endorsed the dreaded Hillary

Now I see that he’s sold out

Of that there is no doubt.

Could the problem be with me?

My vain demands of purity?

Nah.

Why must all the candidates be so fucking neoliberal!

Requiem for O'Malley

Former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley has dropped his campaign to become the Democratic presidential nominee.

I am the living embodiment of O'Malley's problem: I am a native Marylander, who thought he was a good Governor and before that a good mayor of Baltimore, and never once seriously considered voting for him. Nothing about my opinion has changed; his presidential campaign never grabbed me is all.

That being said, I don't think anybody in the Democratic electorate has come to harbor any bad feelings towards O'Malley. A lot might have thought "what's the point of O'Malley?", but no ill will. And so if he uses this campaign to become a higher-profile figure in Democratic politics -- maybe a cabinet position (he says he's not interested, but, well, they always say that) -- good for him. He's young. He's got time.

More Than One Star

Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) has been doing a nationwide swing to promote the virtues of his policies in the Lone Star state. Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley (D) reminds him that being 49th in high school graduation rates and 50th in health insurance coverage is nothing to brag about.

[W]hile Perry likes to promote the job creation in Texas during his time in office, he leaves out a critical point: The jobs “miracle” he touts is driven by low-paying, non-sustainable jobs. This year, Texas — tied with Mississippi — leads the nation for the percentage of hourly paid workers earning equal to or less than the minimum wage. More than one in 10 workers nationwide earning at or below the minimum wage works in Texas.

The fallacies of his argument don’t end there. Even on Perry’s preferred metric for comparison — taxes — businesses fare quite well in Maryland. According to the Anderson Economic Group, Maryland’s businesses have the seventh-lowest business tax burden, while Texas ranks 17th. Additionally, both established firms and new investments do well in Maryland. The conservative Tax Foundation ranks Maryland as having the eighth-lowest tax burden on mature firms, while Texas ranks 12th. Ernst and Young ranks Maryland as having the 12th-lowest tax burden on new investment; Texas has the 20th-lowest burden.

My administration has made Maryland a better place to do business by focusing on middle-class and sustainable jobs. In addition to being No. 1 in median income, the median wage for hourly workers in Maryland is $14.17 vs. $12.00 in Texas, which lags the national median of $12.80. And while Texas leads the nation in minimum-wage workers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ranks Maryland first in the nation in innovation and entrepreneurship, second in concentration of science, technology, engineering and math jobs and third for its “talent pipeline.”

How did we make this possible? By investing in our schools, which Education Week has ranked No. 1 in the nation since 2007. Maryland did more than any other state to hold down rising college tuition costs. We modernized infrastructure and invested in growing sectors such as biotechnology and life science, green technology and clean energy, aerospace and advanced manufacturing.

These investments didn’t come without a price. First, my administration cut more in state spending than any governor in Maryland history. We also had to ask the wealthiest Marylanders to pay a bit more by making income taxes progressive for the first time in state history.

Even though I now live in Virginia, I'm still a Marylander at heart (and a product of those top-ranked public schools, to boot). Governor Perry might not want to be so eager to put his state side-by-side with mine. Some states deserve more than a single, lone star.

Not This Again....

Alec MacGillis does not think Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley is a real candidate for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. Part of his rationale is simply that O'Malley is too "staid" and is a boring public speaker. The resurrection of "do you want to have a beer with him" logic, which drove me into fits of insanity when it was applied to Al Gore, is enough on its own to make me want ot drop MacGillis into a vat of acid.

Now, I might -- might -- be able to forgive MacGillis here simply because what he's saying might be descriptively accurate (he is not the only source I've read that has negative things to say about O'Malley's ability to connect with audiences). What's more baffling is the argument that O'Malley won't "excite" the Democratic base because he focuses too much on the utilitarian efficacy of his proposals. In essence, MacGillis seems to think that emphasizing how one's plans make the world better is incompatible with normative liberalism. It's very weird -- over and over again MacGillis concedes that O'Malley's managerial instincts have made Maryland a much better place, but he almost says it with a sneer, as if performance was not a valid metric to measure Democratic politicians. I really don't get it at all.

The Rematch

A bill legalizing same-sex marriage has narrowly passed in Maryland's House of Delegates. It moves to the State Senate, and if it passes there, Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) (who's really come out swinging for gay marriage -- and good for him!) will sign. This, as you may recall, is a rematch of last year, where a gay marriage bill narrowly failed in the House of Delegates after passing the Senate -- so getting through the former body is a very, very good sign.

Opponents may still muster signatures to force the issue to the ballot box come 2012.

O'Malley Renews the Push

After Maryland came tantalizing close to instituting marriage equality this past year, Governor Martin O'Malley (D) is gearing up for a renewed push.

It's unclear how, if at all, the political dynamic has changed in Annapolis. O'Malley has some boilerplate about how the trendlines are in our favor (and they are), but there's no word on movement by any particular state legislator. Of course, the bill really just failed to pass last time, so even assuming no change we're still in toss-up territory.

I have to add my kudos to Governor O'Malley, who is starting to demonstrate real leadership on the issue. It isn't just "if it passes, I'm willing to sign it" -- he's made it known that he completely and unambiguously supports the legislation, and thinks it should pass. So good for him. And hopefully, this time Maryland will indeed do the right thing.

I Love Maryland, Part 37

This time, it's E.J. Dionne who explains why.

Imagine a place where the leading politician pokes fun at those who "regard all taxes as a pestilence, a plague or a disease."

Imagine the same politician saying: "Not one of us wants to pay more in taxes. But you know what we want even less? What we want even less is to leave our country to our kids in a worsened condition."

And imagine a place where other politicians are grown-ups and decide that closing budget deficits requires a mix of tax increases and spending cuts.

The place in question is clearly not Washington. Facing a $1.7 billion budget deficit, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley -- who offered the above observations in an interview -- led the legislature this week to approve $1.4 billion in taxes and $550 million in spending cuts. It's been a long time since we've seen that kind of balance from the federal government.

Maryland doesn't do everything perfectly, and its legal system, particularly, has disappointed me recently. But by and large, things work here. The schools are good. The economy hums. There isn't a massive amount of racial tension (probably the best racial climate in an ex-slave state). There are many truly talented public servants -- I'm far more likely to agonize over several excellent choices than I am to waffle between the lesser of however many evils. There is social cohesion, with the state's significant wealthy contingent recognizing its duty to the less fortunate.

The state works. And it's really something to be a part of that.