Paul Hogarth: If we can’t get a simple majority for raising taxes in the legislature, we can still put AB 656 on the ballot – while in the meantime get a simple majority for passing the budget. It’s those kinds of incremental (and winnable) moves we need to get us out of this mess.

Paul Hogarth: There’s no good reason why Democrats cannot win the California governorship this year. Barack Obama won the state with 61% of the vote, not a single Congressional district has a majority of registered Republicans left, and Arnold’s legacy as Governor will be driving the state to bankruptcy. In other words, the real fight should have been the Democratic primary – and as long as progressives turn out the base in November, the Republican will lose.

Paul Hogarth: Same-sex couples have largely won the battle for civil unions, but there’s something about “marriage” that makes moderates uneasy – and it’s time that we speak directly to their concerns.

Paul Hogarth: Polling in key states where hot Senate seats are in play (Illinois, Colorado and Harry Reid’s own Nevada) shows the public option is still popular, and putting it back in the health care bill would improve things. Only 34% of Nevadans liked the Senate bill that passed in December, but 56% like the public option. The gap grows to 31 points in Illinois and 37 points in Minnesota, so why not use it?

Paul Hogarth: Evan Bayh and Harold Ford Jr. have a lot in common, and not because they’re both legacies who rode into public office on their family name. Both are anti-progressive Democrats who have built their political careers on making the Left feel small and weak – egged on by a corporate media that likes to call them “centrist.”

Paul Hogarth: Every election cycle has an awful state ballot proposition, with plenty of corporate funding to fool voters. For the June primary, it’s Prop 16 – a thinly veiled power grab by PG&E to shut down competition to keeps its monopoly.

Paul Hogarth: The filibuster means that progressive legislation requires 72 Senate Democrats – but you only need 54 Republicans to ram through the most awful right-wing agenda. Why? Because “Democrats vote with Republicans significantly more often than Republicans vote with Democrats, making it much easier for Republicans to pass the kind of legislation they want.

Paul Hogarth: In the past year, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats have made major strides passing progressive legislation – only to see it die or lull in the Senate, with the President barely lifting a finger. Voters are getting restless, Obama’s approval ratings are down and Democrats are in trouble because they haven’t gotten much done. Now with the Senate acting like a House of Lords, it’s time for House Democrats to get a little respect – and give Obama a piece of their mind.

Paul Hogarth: many Blue Dogs are in trouble because of health care, and ironically what could save their hide is a public option. Instead, they are left selling a corporate-friendly bill hashed behind closed doors that forces Americans to buy private insurance – which will only make their constituents vote Republican. That’s why so many Blue Dogs are retiring – so they can bail and become lobbyists for the insurance industry.

Paul Hogarth: Now, the Democrats have managed to fumble Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat – losing to a right-wing Republican who once posed nude for Cosmopolitan. Evidence shows that Martha Coakley’s numbers went down after the Senate passed the health care bill. Shouldn’t the Party leaders listen to Howard Dean? At least, they owe him an apology.

Paul Hogarth: With Scott Brown now pledging to be the 41st vote to kill health care reform, Democrats cannot react by ramming through a bill before the Senate seats him. Republicans are not interested in governing; it’s time to pass a real bill through reconciliation.

Paul Hogarth: For years, civil rights groups had carefully kept the federal courts out of gay marriage fights – and the prominent lawyers in Perry filed the suit without consulting them. But with most of marriage’s legal benefits coming under federal law, it was only a matter of time before the federal courts weighed in on this issue.

Paul Hogarth: California desperately needs to abolish the two-thirds requirement to pass a state budget, and even an amendment that does not include taxes would be incremental progress. But unless labor unions start putting real money in this effort, and the Democratic Party makes it the priority it must be, it’s going to get lost in the shuffle – and we won’t have what it takes to run a winning campaign.

I don’t recall how or when single-payer was taken “off the table” – except that Senator Max Baucus said it was. Without single payer, progressives focused on the public option – which although a compromise, could have held insurance companies accountable. Everyone knew it was tough and compromise would happen, but we were supposed to be part of that decision.

But with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel bullying the Senate to cut a deal – any deal – just to save face, the pressure proved too much. Those who hoped Obama would use Rahm to strong-arm a liberal agenda were wrong. If the President really cares about “change,” he wouldn’t have his henchman dampen progressive spirits.

“Can we have a new Senate for Christmas,” asked blogger Joan McCarter yesterday at Daily Kos. “This one is broken.” It’s time for politicians to stop hiding behind an inaccurate, outdated and dishonest view of America. We are not conservative!

The American people who voted for “change” did not merely seek a return to the Nineties – or else they would have nominated Hillary Clinton. Obama stood to become the most progressive President in over 40 years, and yet his Administration has little to show for it.

Republican Senator Abel Maldonado is an Olympia Snowe character. He is a so-called “moderate” who is willing to cut a deal on the budget, while the rest of his party would rather see the state fall off a cliff than raise any taxes whatsoever. But the deals that Maldonado has extorted in past years for his one vote are enough to leave a sour taste in anyone’s mouth.

Any trace of the Jerry Brown who sounded like Dennis Kucinich when he ran for President is gone. At this weekend’s California Democratic Party E-Board meeting, Brown got into an argument with Party Chair John Burton about single-payer health care. Brown insisted single payer “will not happen” – even though the state legislature passed it twice, only to have Arnold Schwarzenegger veto it. The only thing stopping single payer in California from happening is a Republican Governor – yet the only Democratic candidate left in the race has insisted that it will not happen.

In Maine, we lost in ways that lay the groundwork for an eventual victory. Maine may be the oldest state in the nation, but California is 46th. It will only be a matter of time.

Despite a brutal August recess where right-wing Teabaggers disrupted Town Hall meetings, the American people generally trust Obama on health care and want to see meaningful reform.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus finally produced his own health care bill earlier this week – and it’s an absolute gift to the insurance industry.

the Obama Administration knows that the final health care bill won’t get a single Republican vote – and is preparing to make it possible to pass a public option. But it will only become a reality if progressives focus like a laser beam in order to make that happen.

In a shocking display of yellow journalism that would make William Randolph Hearst blush, the San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times both slapped on their front pages last Thursday a complete non-story in California tax law.

Conservatives are entitled to their political heroes, and if they have core principles should celebrate their leaders’ deaths the way he or she would have wanted them to do. Just don’t attack us for remembering our heroes – depriving us of our chance to grieve.

The state is ungovernable for many reasons. Republicans know that California is getting younger and browner (and therefore more liberal), so they bitterly cling to the two-thirds budget rule – starving the state into oblivion.

Right-wingers at the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Association understand that elections are transitory – and a long-term approach requires going back to the voters over and over again.

Marriage equality groups are determined to fight hard regardless of when “the movement” decides on a 2010 or 2012 date, but I’m hazy on who exactly will make that decision.

the campaign to repeal two-thirds has to be about the status quo, and whether California can afford to continue its budgets the way it’s been done. Talk about public health clinics shutting down, more teachers getting laid off, and more unemployed people.

With the state legislature on the brink of caving to Republicans on the budget (even though only 36% of voters want a “cuts-only” solution), California politics has been unbelievably depressing. But a trip down to Burlingame this weekend gave me hope for the state’s future.

But there are “pro-tenant” Democrats in California who could get elected Governor – if they bothered to run. Antonio Villaraigosa bowed out of the race, which is unfortunate – given his track.

But due to an unfair loophole in state law, only one of the viable candidates will be in that run-off – because all four are Democrats.

Governor Schwarzenegger’s May “budget revise” last week – which proposed more mass layoffs, more painful cuts and more reckless borrowing – had all the makings of the end of a Shakespearean tragedy, where the protagonist …

Before the California Democratic Convention ended yesterday, delegates bucked the Party leadership on the May 19th ballot measures – by securing a “no endorsement” on Propositions 1A, 1D and 1E. State legislators and Party operatives …

In 2007, right-wing political operatives tried to place a measure on the June 2008 ballot that – if successful – would have awarded California’s electoral votes by Congressional District. Democrats and progressives strongly opposed it, …

When a side that “plays to win” is in the political minority, they assert whatever power they can get. This is the position Republicans, after two elections of solid blue victories, are stuck in at …