General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Party Loyalty [View all]merrily
(45,251 posts)my fellow humans. I am not sure how many other loyalties I have, but those two certainly outweigh all others.
As far as voting, that has translated, so far, into voting Democratic. However, that may not always be the case. As far as my vote is concerned, the ball is, as it has always been, in the court of the Democratic Party, not in my court.
As far as McGovern, there were many reasons he lost that election, but his loss was used as a convenient excuse to take the party right, where a contingent of Democrats (and others) has always tried to take it.
And the same can be said for Mondale's loss, perhaps even more emphatically than it can be said for McGovern's as Reagan seemed so much more appealing than did Nixon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council
In fact, almost any loss, especially at the Presidential election level, can be used with the gullible and/or disingenuous to take a political party in a different direction, be the direction toward the right, toward Super Delegates with the ability to alter the will of primary voters if the will of the latter is deemed too liberal, and/or toward no primary challenges at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrats_for_Nixon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdelegate
http://metamorphosis.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6396919