When I read what Obama said, I took it the same way as the Clintons and Edwards -- that since Obama was saying Republicans were the party of ideas, and Democrats weren't, that he was implicitly saying Republicans were superior.

Markos has said he's sending in his absentee/mail ballot for Obama, but I don't think that's why he takes this view. He ties it to the themes of his and Jerome's book.

Markos seems to view Obama's comments in terms of strategy, rather than policy. While I don't, because I think their "ideas" and  woeful policy decisions are more important, it may just be an alternative lens he's viewing it from.

Another thing I disliked about Obama's comments was his distancing himself from the 60's and pointing out again he wasn't of age then. Given the size of the baby boomer generation, I think that's a dumb thing for him to do. Many (like me) will be even more wary of him, thinking not only does he lack experience, and not only has he not been tested, but  that he won't make the same effort to fight for us economically and health-care wise as he will other groups like children and crime victims.  

this was my response, in kos's first thread:

clinton made a stupid comment

I've been in the bottom 30 or 60% of family, household, and individual income my whole life (except a couple of years cooking in alaska and a few years being a microserf), AND

I've always lived around or worked around people who didn't vote cuz so little was happening to them that benefited them that voting just enabled and empowered the incompetent, OR, I've been around people who listened to the lies / ideas and swallowed the lies / ideas.

All these decades, in Boston or Seattle, I get poooh - poohed by all kinds of uber educated who deign to tell me that the

HA HA HA

thugs are lying and that there isn't any good or positive reality attached to their lies!

uh - no f$$$ing kidding !!!!

We, or Dem 'leaders', or Dem pooh-bahs, can't understand the appeal of the messages, (cuz the reality behind the lies is so bad) so we don't come up with ways to beat the lies / ideas --------------------

other than standing around in our snooty snotty ivy arrogance wagging our fingers sternly at the unwashed who fall for the pretty lies.

face it - the liars had great lies, and they called the lies 'ideas' as part of the Lie.

We've(1.) had great ideas attached to reality, and we've(1.) done such an appallingly lousy crappy incompetent job of selling those ideas, we've gotten our butts handed to us by LIARS!

(1.) I hate to say 'we' - I don't have the job of paid 'leader', I got another job that keeps me busy 50+ hours a week.

Maybe BO and kos should say that the thugs have been the party of the best sounding lies of the last 4 decades, lies labeled as 'ideas' by the liars who made the lies?

It's funny that some liberals believe that their ideas have won over America, they haven't. The only reason the House and Senate are in Democratic hands today is because of George W. Bush, and the illegal immoral war he got us into, and that the Republicans continue to support.

If the Republicans had not put a complete incompetent Constitution trashing moron in the White House, the liberals and progressives in this country would still be marginalized, and would have no hope of winning this this presidential election, certainly not with Hillary Clinton is the front runner.  As it is, it looks like even money where as six months ago it looked like a Democratic lock.

So the folks here and talk left better wake up, and get with the program, otherwise we're going to be listening to your excuses when Hillary loses the general election, and the House and Senate begin to move back into Republican hands, before the Democrats have had a chance to do anything.

Just keep playing it safe behind Hillary, and your candidate will wind up just like John Kerry and Al Gore, sitting in the mud playing with their toys, wondering where all went so terribly wrong.

I think there is a big difference between driving the agenda and having ideas.  We clearly have had ideas, but they have won the battles with their devious tactics.

"Markos writes that Democrats have had no ideas, it has been the GOP with the new ideas."

WRONG!  Never wrote it.

He did write:

In fact, Obama isn't saying anything that couldn't come straight out of Crashing the Gate -- that the GOP build a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy that used its think tanks to create ideas, a media machine to sell those ideas, and a modernized campaign operation to win elections on those ideas. Yes, the GOP was the party of ideas. They were crappy ideas. But they were "ideas".

"So what did Hillary Clinton tell the Salmon Press editorial board? Apparently, nothing different than what Obama said."