(Cross-posted on Daily Kos)

We California Democrats have taken a shellacking on the state budget votes today, a few minor (and perhaps ephemeral) victories aside.  The argument at hand is not whether we have helped to impose a Shock Doctrine budget on our state — we know that he have — but whether the changes that have been made will have permanent effects on our political system or whether they are, with a Democratic Governor and either changes in the 2/3 rules governing our state or the wiles to circumvent them, we can put things together after what we hope will be victory in 2010.

A lot of smart people are saying that this is it, this is permanent, we don’t recover from this.  Long term, I don’t see that it needs to be.  That will be cold comfort to the various corpses, crippled, and bankrupt and poisoned that this budget will generate, but I don’t see that we can’t put the California back in place.  That seems hyperbolic.  We can recover, I believe, but our leadership of Darrell Steinberg and Karen Bass seem to have gone about it, well, Bass-Ackwards.  And so Bass and her colleagues have led us towards a steaming pile of Ack.

What we’re seeing our state Democrats do is much like what we say national Democrats doing in 2005-06 and to a lesser extent in 2007-08: let the opposition have its way and let things get worse.  If I thought that this was an actual plan, I might admiringly call it “Leninist,” over the most famous proponent of this approach to fundamental change, but I think it’s more inspired by the defensive posture of the possum.

The logic, so far as I can tell, is that as things get worse — really, really worse — the public will wake up to the realities of the consequences of Republican rule and both elect a Democratic Governor and vote for substantial change in 2010.

This is not a totally stupid idea, even if it is a craven one.  The problem, as we here know, is that the public is anything but awake and aware of what’s going on.  That makes the brilliant (and correct!) plans that we have here a little less reliable a prospect than they should be.  Having a really bad budget might be what wakes them up, but it would seem to depend largely on certain things taking place — and those things didn’t take place, which is what is so damned confusing:

(1) The changes made in the budget would have to not be irreversible

Most of the changes weren’t — at least, again, for those who don’t die under this budget.  We can increase funding for most of the things that were cut in a couple of years, when we have a Democratic Governor (assuming so) and a better legal regime in place, and while an organization that has been ravished and rebuilt is not as bad as one that had never been ravished at all, our social services programs do not go away.  We’ll lose good personnel in the short term, sure — but we will get them back, or people just as good, after the 2010 elections if it looks like California will become a better place to live and govern.

The exceptions, of course, and things like the securitization plan that OCP has been writing about, and arguably Tranquillion Ridge (if it can’t be held up in litigation for two years, and assuming that there isn’t a spill.)  [UPDATE AND CORRECTION: of course offshore drilling didn’t pass, so good for them there.]  The idea of falling back requires no permanent changes that we can’t live with, but unless I’m mistaken this didn’t happen.

(2) You need to make sure that the other side takes the blame.

This is the thing that I absolutely do not understand about how this process has played out.  Why have we allowed a rotten, retrograde, reactionary budget to be put in place based on our votes?  This action seems to undo whatever benefit is imagined of this loss.  It only helps us if it makes us more likely to win both elections and initiatives for change.  I’d like to hear from any of the officials who voted for these parts of the budget — and I certainly hope that there will be a list made public of who voted for what atrocity — as to why they think that being the ones to pull the trigger and fire the bullet into the body politic helps us.

Remember just a few days ago, when the leading proposal here was making sure that all Republicans voted for a proposal before any Democrats did?  What the hell is wrong with these people?  Are they stupid, craven, insane, weak, insulated, inattentive, or all of the above?  Do they just assume that, somehow, voters will have short memories and the news media will somehow become favorable to us?

Conclusion

The problem is not that the changes made in this budget are necessarily irreversible.  The problem is that, given our legislative leadership, they might as well be.  My hope is that maybe John Burton can kick some ass somewhere.  God knows it needs kicking.  We need a plan to succeed and anyone who voted for this and can’t explain why this was part of it doesn’t get to write the plan.

I’m all for replacing the leadership now if there is anyone better with which to replace them, and aside from Noreen Evans I have no idea whom that might be.  Replacing leadership is not something I’ll favor in theory; I want to know who the new people will be and why they will be better.  We can’t have more Bass-Ackwards leadership.

A sadder conclusion, though, is that I think that I have to back off my support for a state Constitutional Convention.  If we had minimally capable party leaders, I’d favor going for it.  Sadly, we don’t.  If we let these people run a party convention, I’m afraid that we’ll end up selling the state to a consortium of Nevada and a reconstituted Enron.

I know that I shouldn’t be surprised by this outcome.  And yet, how can one not be?  These people are supposed to be political professionals.  I have to ask, as Casey Stengel did while managing the early New York Mets, “Can’t Anyone Here Play This Game?”