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The way to measure your political effectiveness is how many people have lost their jobs. We're not making real progress until Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer

by crassus 13y ago

The way to measure your political effectiveness is how many people have lost their jobs. We're not making real progress until Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are unemployed, just like we aren't making real progress on IP law until most patent attorneys are working traffic tickets. The Tea Party began by running primary challengers to GOP incumbents, and they remain a powerful force today. It turns out that politicians listen when their friends lose their jobs.

dllthomas 13y ago
Boxer is an odd target to single out. She's not been prominent or powerful in the NSA discussion, so far as I'm aware, and the most relevant thing I see on her Wikipedia page is: "In June 2008 Boxer spoke in the Senate in opposition to the FISA Amendments Act of 2008,[51] a pending bill in the United States Congress to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,[52] and later broke with her counterpart Sen. Dianne Feinstein and voted against it.[53]"
declan 13y ago
Yep. The thing is, though, that a lot of Republican primary voters support the Tea Party's message of lower taxes, limited government, and a return to constitutional norms -- to the extent that they're willing to toss out an incumbent, which loses DC seniority and risks having an even-worse Democrat elected instead. That's trading short-term costs for long-term benefits. It's not yet clear whether R and D primary voters care enough about NSA surveillance to vote out incumbents on those grounds alone. (What about abortion? Environment? The need for higher or lower taxes? Gay rights? Firearms? Etc.) I suspect that NSA revulsion among R and D primary voters is insufficiently strong to make displacement a real threat. Look at SOPA author Lamar Smith's easy cruise to primary reelection victory in Texas hill country -- after being feted by those SOPA-loving liberals in Hollywood and opposed by Reddit's TestPAC. Smith won nearly 80% of the primary vote. BTW, Feinstein, one of the most prominent NSA loyalists, isn't up until 2018. If anti-NSA activists really want to have a tremendous political impact, they should unseat Rep. Mike Rogers, who beats out even Feinstein in his defense of warrantless surveillance. But National Journal last year said Rogers is in a "safe congressional district that’s poised to keep reelecting him until he decides to retire": http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/the-reason-mike-rogers-won-t-run-for-the-senate-20130603 http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/the-reason-mike-roge... So good luck with that.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  There are a lot of Michiganders uncomfortable with surveillance. Maybe some of them can eat a longer commute and move to Lansing?

by crassus 13y ago

dllthomas 13y ago

Boxer is an odd target to single out. She's not been prominent or powerful in the NSA discussion, so far as I'm aware, and the most relevant thing I see on her Wikipedia page is: "In June 2008 Boxer spoke in the Senate in opposition to the FISA Amendments Act of 2008,[51] a pending bill in the United States Congress to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,[52] and later broke with her counterpart Sen. Dianne Feinstein and voted against it.[53]"

declan 13y ago

Yep. The thing is, though, that a lot of Republican primary voters support the Tea Party's message of lower taxes, limited government, and a return to constitutional norms -- to the extent that they're willing to toss out an incumbent, which loses DC seniority and risks having an even-worse Democrat elected instead. That's trading short-term costs for long-term benefits. It's not yet clear whether R and D primary voters care enough about NSA surveillance to vote out incumbents on those grounds alone. (What about abortion? Environment? The need for higher or lower taxes? Gay rights? Firearms? Etc.) I suspect that NSA revulsion among R and D primary voters is insufficiently strong to make displacement a real threat. Look at SOPA author Lamar Smith's easy cruise to primary reelection victory in Texas hill country -- after being feted by those SOPA-loving liberals in Hollywood and opposed by Reddit's TestPAC. Smith won nearly 80% of the primary vote. BTW, Feinstein, one of the most prominent NSA loyalists, isn't up until 2018. If anti-NSA activists really want to have a tremendous political impact, they should unseat Rep. Mike Rogers, who beats out even Feinstein in his defense of warrantless surveillance. But National Journal last year said Rogers is in a "safe congressional district that’s poised to keep reelecting him until he decides to retire": http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/the-reason-mike-rogers-won-t-run-for-the-senate-20130603 http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/the-reason-mike-roge... So good luck with that.

dllthomas 13y ago
There are a lot of Michiganders uncomfortable with surveillance. Maybe some of them can eat a longer commute and move to Lansing?