Procedural Revolution: Klein Responds

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Earlier this week, our own Nick Baumann pointed out the “revolutionary cynicism” espoused by lefty bloggers Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein. Their radical views, he wrote,  indicate “a near-total loss of faith in the system.” Yglesias was quick to respond that his cynicism is nothing new because he “always knew that Barack Obama wouldn’t be able to get anything done.”

Ezra Klein weighed in on the issue this afternoon. Here’s an excerpt (with a sweet graph!):

To make a related point to the previous post, I’m not sure I’d term calls for procedural reform “radical,” much less “revolutionary.” The history of Congress is, in part, a history of procedural reforms. Newt Gingrich made a bunch of changes in 1994. Democrats made a bunch of changes in 1975. John F. Kennedy made some big changes in the early 1960s. FDR changed the way Congress worked, and so too did Woodrow Wilson. This isn’t something invented by a bunch of bloggers in the early 21st century.

There’s nothing abnormal about changing the rules of a governing body in response to changes in the country. It’s pretty common, for instance, for political scientists to remark on the incredible rise in party polarization in recent decades. According to Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthale, political polarization is at its highest point since Reconstruction:

partypolarization.jpg

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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