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In reply to the discussion: Party Loyalty [View all]wyldwolf
(43,865 posts)270. This will be shorter.
1. The comparison of Flowers and Stevenson was to point out the silliness of harping on the ADA. If that rally had any effect on the election at all, I'm not aware of it.
It was a cheap shot against Clinton.
AGAIN, no one is claiming it affected the election although historians agree a divisive conventions help the opposition.
Historians give Stevenson plenty of attention. Perhaps you think it's silly because you'd rather they not.
2. The Stevenson rally is mentioned in histories of the election, but I've not seen it referenced when it comes to analyzing the outcome of it.
AGAIN, no one is claiming it affected the election although historians agree a divisive conventions help the opposition.
4. I understood you fine on Dewey and I didn't quote you. You pointed out that Dewey's people stayed home. If that's the biggest reason for Truman's win, then why harp on Wallace?
No one is harping on Wallace. Plenty correctly point out the left ran a third party candidate against Truman because they couldn't accept the will of the Democratic voters.
I pointed out the states where you could conceivably claim he cost Truman electoral votes and only one of the two is likely to be a strong argument (Maryland, not NY). Given that Truman won without NY's electoral votes, most in the country at that point I think, while fending off a challenge from the right wing of the Democratic party that did win electoral votes, I have to wonder why you bother with Wallace. He didn't matter.
Again, Thurmond won electoral votes out of ballot trickery. Plenty correctly point out the left ran a third party candidate against Truman because they couldn't accept the will of the Democratic voters.
5. Al Smith was hamstrung by right-wing Democratic pastors who told their congregations not to vote for him. Yes, he did carry the south. The south is not the only place with a history of extremely influential churchmen. The south didn't break because it didn't threaten the elites. The midwest and the northeast did.
Yes he won the South, the bastion of right wing democratic voters.
6. Electoral votes matter for the process. The popular vote matters for legitimacy. If it doesn't matter, then I'd say Democrats shouldn't be bringing up 2000 and the popular vote total.
Electoral votes matter for both. That's why we have them.
7. Texas went for Ike because Stevenson agreed with the Supreme Court's decision that the offshore oil and gas belonged to the federal government, not the states where it was located. There were other reasons to be sure, especially with the margins, but that was the issue that broke the Democratic leadership for Ike.
If Texas had gone "D" - it would have given us a 113 electoral vote total vs. Ike's 418. One half of a state's party endorsed Ike, a guy many on DU consider a progressive, anyway.
8. Connally's support for Nixon in 72 and beyond is well-documented. The allegation that he supported him in 68 is not conspiratorial nonsense. Connally had been pushing to the right for years, partly because it was his natural bent and partly to get from under Johnson's shadow. Johnson brought him to DC in the late 30s to be part of Richard Kleberg's staff. Johnson is the guy who introduced him to Sid Richardson, who would make him wealthy and introduce him to the radical right. With that kind of history, there was no way in hell Connally would do anything but endorse LBJ's guy publicly in 68. I'd note that LBJ endorsed McGovern in 72, but in a very weak way (he wrote a letter to a local paper). LBJ thus did endorse McGovern, but not in any kind of substantive way that might help him. I note that to show that a public endorsement is no guarantee that a person actually means what they say.
a biographer claimed that about 1968 even though Connally endorsed Humphrey and almost become his running mate. Nothing but conspiratorial hearsay. In 1972 McGovern was a weak candidate. An argument could be made that the left broke from the party by nominating him. Though there is probably no evidence either way, I'd say Connolly had little to do Nixon winning. Nixon won because of a good economy and his handling of the war. He also appealed to Southern whites (but you know this.) However, he had a 23.2% margin of victory in the popular vote, the fourth largest margin in presidential election history. I doubt it was only Democratic right wingers that swung that election.
9. Goldwater took 5 southern states because southern Democrats voted for him.
But he didn't take the entire south and Johnson still won in a landslide.
10. Reagan re-broke the south because southern Democrats voted for him. To be fair, a lot of Democrats voted for Reagan. It's kind of hard to take 43 states in one election, then 49 in the next and not have Democrats voting for you.
The numbers don't add up that only conservative Democrats voted for Reagan - unless there are (were) many more conservative Democrats than liberal ones
11. Daddy Bush dominated the south because southern Democrats voted for him.
Again, unless the right wing in the party severely outnumbered liberals, the numbers don't add up that only Democratic right wingers defected to Bush. Of course, his margin wasn't as big as Reagan's so SOMEONE came back to the D tent.
12. George Wallace indeed did not run as a Democrat in 1968. He sure did siphon a ton of right-wing Democratic votes, though.
As well as a ton of Republican votes.
13. There's more, but I do want to this quickly, so I'll end with Nader. The issue of Florida is a sore one after all these years, as we can see pretty much daily on DU. The fact that one writer for National Journal assumes that Nader cost Gore Florida is cool and all, but it's dispositive of nothing. The assumption is that if Nader did not run, that all of those votes would have gone to Gore. There's no equivalent assumption regarding the Democrats who voted for Bush. What if McCain had won the nomination, rather than Bush? Would those 200k have voted for him? You might regard that as a silly line of inquiry, but it's no less silly than your source's writing off of those 200k voters and instead only focusing on the 100k who voted for Nader. Let's be honest, votes in a given election are fungible. There's no way to differentiate on a macro level between a vote cast in Miami and one cast in Jacksonville. So why all the focus on one particular group and the resulting judgment without an equivalent examination of the other large defecting group? It makes one wonder whether the analysis was written after the conclusion was reached.*
ONE writer for National Journal isn't assuming anything. He reported actual data.
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Plus it is another RW falsehood. The Dem vote for Bush in Florida made Nader votes meaningless.
Rex
Mar 2015
#14
Also conveniently forgotten is the approx. 80,000 probable Dem voters who were wrongfully purged.
Fuddnik
Mar 2015
#22
unrelated aside: i recently learned diebold is a very old company, started as a safe company
ND-Dem
Mar 2015
#92
And ES&S is no better. Diebold accomplished its 'mission' but had such a bad reputation
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#139
It's former glory was the 1950s & 60s. the only thing he likes about that period was segregation
ND-Dem
Mar 2015
#91
yes. i don't get why some folks are so fixated on nader while caring so little about voter
ND-Dem
Mar 2015
#55
too challenging intellectually, emotionally, psychologically to face the facts.
2banon
Mar 2015
#135
And that would help explain why so many Republicans were elected and so few Democrats this last
-none
Mar 2015
#210
+10 Saw the video & post about the Chair of the FL Dem. Party & her husband. Awful- Mess.
appalachiablue
Mar 2015
#167
He is not missing the point. It appears you have completely missed the point. GORE WON!
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#39
Must have been a conservative-Bush voting Dem no doubt. I emember Sandra O'Connors comments
2banon
Mar 2015
#137
I'm sure MIRT, assuming it was not a long time poster, took care of that obvious right wing troll?
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#181
You're the one that has "missed the point" as well as misunderstanding the facts.
2banon
Mar 2015
#118
Would you support instant runoff voting then? Ralph Nader running then wouldn't have mattered...
cascadiance
Mar 2015
#124
That's something to think about. You make some excellent points that if Dems really
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#218
"It’s strange to me, as an activist on the left, to see how we continue to be taken for granted"
ND-Dem
Mar 2015
#8
Jesus, I'm sorry the haberdasher from Independence allowed himself to be used
KingCharlemagne
Mar 2015
#245
Excellent OP. One of the issues I have with the center is that they always demand party loyalty
Rex
Mar 2015
#9
heck, the vacuous parties south of the border would at least hand out a little beef
MisterP
Mar 2015
#127
Southcom in Panama, Ft Benning, Ft Bragg, and some mysterious place in Houston TV's broadcast range
MisterP
Mar 2015
#156
I'm a bit late to this thread, but I sure as heck wish you and H20 Man woud build
KingCharlemagne
Mar 2015
#248
I read somewhere that, in 1980, the then head of the DNC wrote Democrats in Congress,
merrily
Mar 2015
#282
There's no point in winning if we act like republicans when we get in. Policy and politics aren't
craigmatic
Mar 2015
#17
We need to start thinking past just getting the SCOTUS nominees to getting progressive laws passed.
craigmatic
Mar 2015
#31
Right now, the SCOTUS nomination is the MOST IMPORTANT thing as President can do.
Adrahil
Mar 2015
#65
Who was the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee when Scalia and Thomas were confirmed?
Fuddnik
Mar 2015
#126
I tend to think of all these little word-completer and spell-check functions
Jackpine Radical
Mar 2015
#82
If you are worried about Scotus, then tell the Party Leadership to provide candidates that represent
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#40
I was going to reply to you but woo said it 576 times better than I could
LondonReign2
Mar 2015
#192
'I'm not interested in noble defeats'. Me neither. So you must be, like most Democrats I know, very
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#93
And I've personally seen our current DNC Chair endorse Repukes over progressives in congressional ra
Fuddnik
Mar 2015
#134
Amazing, isn't it? How it's okay for elected Dems to endorse Republicans, while BLAMING VOTERS
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#142
I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat. -Will Rogers
Katashi_itto
Mar 2015
#23
I stopped reading at --- "Still, Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election."
Major Hogwash
Mar 2015
#32
The truth is the truth and it's hard to contradict it. Gore won that election. And he would have
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#48
Who said Gore became President? No One. Gore Won, but wasn't ALLOWED to take his rightful place.
2banon
Mar 2015
#147
Well, personally I would not comment on something I admit I did not read. I would find it hard to
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#179
AKA: A "bloodless coup d'etat". I agree with you, but it's fascinating that the person
KingCharlemagne
Mar 2015
#249
Thank you for this excellent OP. Bookmarking for the inevitable scolders and fingerwaggers.
SaveOurDemocracy
Mar 2015
#34
Are you implying that the rest of us here haven't done the same thing? THAT is the point of this
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#43
Are you saying that the Democratic Party is NOT 'left'? Since when did the 'left' become a
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#50
All the benefit they need to know is they don't have an elk's chance in a supernova without us and
TheKentuckian
Mar 2015
#94
My anger was well earned over a number of years. I didn't start out this way by ANY stretch.
TheKentuckian
Mar 2015
#131
How sad. You are using, maybe inadvertently, the old Limbaugh, Right Wing noise machine
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#271
Yes, there isn't a Democrat around here who doesn't recognize those old talking points aimed at
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#304
You're not alone. Dem Party voter registration is down to only 32% with many now registering
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#223
Well, it's possible I'm misunderstanding you. And I do respect that you are willing to discuss
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#225
The Third Way Think Tank has enormous influence on the LEADERSHIP of the Dem Party. They
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#187
You know you keep trying to convince yourself (and others) of that ...
1StrongBlackMan
Mar 2015
#201
That poll proves what I stated. The majority of Dems are Liberals. Conservo Dems dropping
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#220
I am baffled by that chart also. It proves me and the other poster to be correct. The smallest group
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#228
+1, this logic seems like common sense low hanging fruit, the rest seems like rationalization
uponit7771
Mar 2015
#76
Mahalo 1StrongBlackMan!.. No, "party loyalty" from me whatsoever.. I couldn't care less..
Cha
Mar 2015
#229
Me, neither.. it seems stupid. Maybe somebody on here was talking about the need but I ignore
Cha
Mar 2015
#257
This is so true: "the true progressive-liberal wing rarely gets any seat at the table"
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#45
The left is taken for granted...and then blamed if things don't work out right
cyberswede
Mar 2015
#79
I think the real reason why Republicans do not treat their voters, no matter how far out they are,
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#194
Especially when it is THEIR ideas that are the most popular with Voters across the political spectru
WillTwain
Mar 2015
#146
And they've lied about that too. We are constantly told the lie that 'this is a right of center
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#198
It's odd that those calling for Party Loyalty vote for Democratic politicians who disloyally
Tierra_y_Libertad
Mar 2015
#51
the ones who applauded Lieberman after lecturing us that third parties were ruining America?
MisterP
Mar 2015
#123
And you're not the only one nor are your friends. The largest voting bloc in the country now
sabrina 1
Mar 2015
#221
Party loyalty doesn't make much sense. People should vote for the Democratic candidate in close
Chathamization
Mar 2015
#78
Loyalty to the oligarchy to win elections. OZ ...uhm ...err ...Money has spoken.
L0oniX
Mar 2015
#86
Now I just shake my head when I read negative posts here about the Democratic Party`s "left"
democrank
Mar 2015
#96
I prefer Warren and I probably won't vote for Hillary in the primary, but yes . . .
Vinca
Mar 2015
#162
I saw this starting back in the 80's when I worked in local television news operations...
cascadiance
Mar 2015
#144
Greg Palast is doing it on a shoestring. Even with the money, can we build a liberal media?
Gregorian
Mar 2015
#158
And I again see the media as playing a role in educating people to even see this.
Gregorian
Mar 2015
#166
Yes, we need to strategically do public campaign financing right. It isn't well understood yet!
cascadiance
Mar 2015
#175
Generally, the Democratic left can be taken for granted because we are compassionate, responsible,
Zorra
Mar 2015
#149
Outstanding OP and thank you for the history lesson here for the younger members.
2banon
Mar 2015
#152
Magisterial essay. Should go viral, imo. The "anybody but Jesse" campaign
KingCharlemagne
Mar 2015
#242