Reply #61: How many times do I have to repost this? [View All]

[jgraz]

Let's face it: exhorting a disillusioned base to "stick with the team" has NEVER worked.

Posted by jgraz in General Discussion
Tue Jan 19th 2010, 07:43 PM


1980...1984...1988...1994...2000...2004. We never seem to learn.

Every time a weak, center-right Democrat loses an election we hear the same things over and over: "lesser of two evils", "purity police", "you're probably happy we lost", etc, etc, etc. And every time, we go right back to the same losing strategy.

Take 2000 for example. Sure, you can blame the Florida felon's list or the butterfly ballot. You can even continue to blame Ralph Nader and the few people who voted their conscience. But none of those things cost us as many votes as an anemic, middle-of-the-road candidate and his sanctimonious tool of a running mate. Gore's come a long way in 9 years, but in 2000 he wasn't exactly a progressive crusader. Failure to learn this lesson led directly to the Kerry candidacy of 2004 and another close, steal-able election against the worst president in history.

I thought after 2006 and 2008 we had finally figured it out: you run attractive candidates that excite the base and you win elections. You don't even have to excite them that much -- Democrats and Democratic values have always held the true majority in this country -- you just need to give them a reason to come out and vote.

But here we are again. We've lost two races with unpopular candidates: one, a corporate pirate and another who tried to out-teabag his opponent. And here come the posts begging us to "not lose heart" or to "hold our nose and vote" -- just as if the last 30 years of national politics never happened.

It's not going to work. It's never worked. If we keep nominating weak candidates, if our national leaders keep running to the right under some vague smokescreen of "bipartisanship", then Democrats will lose. And if, somehow, Republicans manage to field even crappier candidates than we do (see 1992), *we* -- as in "We The People" -- still lose.

I'm not sure what the right solution is, but I do know that this continual reliance on weak, incremental change and candidates just a little less appalling than their opponents is a proven failure. Even if we manage to eek out a few victories, we've already seen how one committed, radical Republican can undo decades of Democratic incrementalism.

It's time we stopped settling for less.