Sylvan Esso - Coffee

H/t PK.

Krugman on Movement Conservatism and its Discontents

Interesting that an economist has to do this bit of political analysis, that it seems to be beyond the ability of the average political pundit. Of course, when you're invested in the system, you can't really look at it too closely...

The combination of a successful electoral strategy and the safety net made being a conservative loyalist a seemingly low-risk professional path. The cause was radical, but the people it recruited tended increasingly to be apparatchiks, motivated more by careerism than by conviction.

That’s certainly the impression Mr. Cantor conveyed. I’ve never heard him described as inspiring. His political rhetoric was nasty but low-energy, and often amazingly tone-deaf. You may recall, for example, that in 2012 he chose to celebrate Labor Day with a Twitter post honoring business owners. But he was evidently very good at playing the inside game.

Harry Nilsson - Salmon Falls

Another one of the tracks from the Nilsson box set that's caught my attention. A slow and rather strange song, co-written by Nilsson and Klaus Voorman.

Krugman on the Meaning of Cantor's Loss

Krugman points out something I hadn't seen elsewhere.

Being a movement conservative in good standing meant considerable career safety: even if you or the politician you worked for lost an election, there were jobs to be had at think tanks (e.g. Rick Santorum heading up the “America’s enemies” program at a Scaife-backed think tank), media gigs (two Bush speechwriters writing columns for the Washington Post, not to mention the gaggle at the WSJ and Fox News), and so on.

In other words, being a hard line conservative, which to be fair involved some career risks back in the 60s and into the 70s, became a safe choice; you could count on powerful backing, and if not favored by fortune, you could fall back on wingnut welfare.

And Eric Cantor...came across very much as a movement conservative apparatchik. He took very hard line stances, but never seemed especially passionate; he was, arguably, basically a careerist, and as such was fairly typical.

Maybe that’s what the primary voters sensed.

Digby on Democratic Presidential Politics

As the saying goes, what Digby said.

In essence, the result of that 2008 near tie vote was that Obama got to go first with the understanding that Clinton would automatically get the nomination 8 years later. What this means is that (barring unforeseen circumstances)there will have been no left wing challenge in presidential races for 16 years and I think that suits the Party and its rich donors just fine.

Harry Nilsson - Save The Last Dance For Me (Demo)

Not crazy about the fact that we get to see nothing but his tombstone while listening to this track, but there you go. There was a full-blown version of STLDFM on Pussy Cats, the John Lennon-produced 1974 album, but this more intimate version really appeals to me.

Johnny Rivers - Memphis Tennessee

JR's version of "Memphis" is good, but for me part of the value of this clip is the interview at the end. It's a real time capsule of the era.