we are a LIBERAL party

[Stop_the_War]

let's pick a LIBERAL candidate for '08.

[German worker]

1. What about the moderates?

We cannot win without the moderates: that is a mathematical fact.

[JimmyJazz]

3. I completely disagree. Certain people think that the party

can only win by moving further center, but if we sound more and more like Republicans, how are we convincing people not to vote Republican?

I think the answer is to move even further left and stand our ground with regard to gay rights and reproductive rights.

I think Joe Lieberman is the worse thing to happen to this party since Zell Miller.

[German worker]

4. This type of election year shrewdness ...........

has cost us the House, the Senate, and the Presidency.

The math is there: we cannot win without the moderates. Now that the Republicans are getting double digit black votes and a heck of a lot of the Hispanic vote, there is no way moving farther left is going to bring us more votes.

No way in Hell.

[Bridget Burke]

6. We're not talking about moving "farther left"---

Just about not abandoning traditional Democratic values. And we need people who can explain that "values" mean more than a few hot-button sex topics.

Speaking out will win us more votes than kissing Bush's ass.

[German worker]

8. I am not so sure our "speaking out" message you speak of

is the message those blacks, hispanics, and moderates want to hear from us.

[Bridget Burke]

11. I'm not sure that "us" means what you seem to think it means.

My own Representative is Sheila Jackson Lee. She firmly believes in speaking out.

Neither are most "hispanics" won over by cowardice.

And the "moderates" need to be reached, whether or not they "want" it.

Please: What Democratic issues do you find especially offensive?

[JimmyJazz]

12. Kerry lost the election because he couldn't/wouldn't

distiguish his positions on the economy and on the war from Bush's - If he had taken a hard line anti-war stance, he'd be in the White House, IMHO. However, if you think this party should agree more with the White House on social security, bankruptcy, reproductive rights, gay/lesbian marriage - how does that distinguish you from being a republican?

[JimmyJazz]

9. We cannot concede on the important issues -

health care for everyone, rights for gays, reproductive rights. What do you suggest we "give" the moderates in exchange for this?

On edit: I wanna see more Barbara Boxers and fewer Joes.

[frictionlessO]

15. blah blah blah... we tried your way the last several cycles

we lost... and lost...and lost some more. Including having it stolen three times (the first time was almost excusable, 2 and 3 also happened on your DLC, Bush-lite watch!! they failed us entirely!!).

No.

If we want to win without giving more ground to the right (and like every good Dem/Prog you want that don't you?) there is only one option. Court the apathetic 40% that didnt even bother to vote because for most of them they saw little or no difference. Out of the five people I know who didnt vote this is the sole reasoning.

The moderates from both sides make up a fairly good minority as a whole. The apathetic 40% is an untouched wealth of votes that would easily sway the next two election cycles to our way. Even if most of the moderates swung further right in an asinine reaction to us swinging left, we could easily pick up enough countering votes in that apathetic 40%. Don't believe me? You do the math.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

27. Moderates?

What the hell is a Moderate anyhow? We are either Democrats and by default liberal, especially as compared to Republicans, or we are Republicans. There is no Moderate political party.......

[Toots]

5. Fuzzy Math...

You and Bush* both use the same math..

[Protagoras]

7. Still unclear on what a Moderate is.

That the person who believes in half a war in Iraq, or Half a woman's right to choose? Or just standing up for half of what is right?

[Lerkfish]

16. we're not winning WITH the moderates, are we?

[vi5]

2. Moderates don't have any problem voting for a hardcor conservative..

who framed/marketed himself the right way...so if you pick the correct candidate and he frames himself the correct way then they theoretically shouldn't have a problem voting for a hardcore liberal either.

[Lerkfish]

20. THANK YOU for this post...I've been trying to say the same thing

in another thread, but I've not stated it as succinctly and eloquently as you.

I was making the point that as long as we offer up rightwing dems to battle republicans, we will never win, even when we win.

[fibonacci]

10. liberals and libertarians unite!

Liberals should include libertarians.

Considering the Bush administration has abandoned true conservatives we should embrace those who want limited government. No federal government should have the right to infringe on a woman's right to choose. Social security should exist as a supplement (the richest country surely can support its weakest) yet I should have the right to opt out of it and manage my own money (socialism by choice only!). The answer is NOT to borrow trillions of dollars more to invest in an overvalued stock market.

Realize we are a Republic with a liberal democracy. If you look back in history you'll see that Democrats were first called Republicans, then Democrat-Republican before finally just Democrats. The GOP seems to have evolved from the Whig Party and the Anti-Masonic Party (ironic?).

[JimmyJazz]

13. Nice post.

Welcome to DU. :hi:

[hfojvt]

21. libertarians are usually the far-right wing of the Republican Party

My Uncle Dave ran as a libertarian before he started funding things like Citizens for a Sound Economy. The insidious Alan Greenspan is a libertarian.
Libertarians are not very liberal, and I hope liberals do not try to become more libertarian. In terms of framing, it is contradictory to our mainframe of nurture. Instead of using a village to raise a child, libertarians would not have any parents for children if they were true to their ideology.
But welcome to DU? and feel free to vote Democratic anyway, we are better defenders of civil rights than the new American Fascist Party (formerly GOP).

[adwon]

14. A question

When you say liberal, what does that mean exactly?

As an example of my confusion...

Knowing that there is not a national consensus on 'gay marriage' but that most people have no problem with 'civil unions,' is it liberal to fight to call the contract marriage or to accept it being called a 'civil union' though it is indistinguishable from marriage in all but name?

Of course, I'd like more examples, but this is one that has been on my mind for a while now, so it popped up first.

As a side note, I think that calling all non-religious marriages 'civil unions' might be a fun way to twist the debate and steal some of the GOP's thunder on this issue by confusing them as to what they endorse and what they don't.

[fibonacci]

17. liberalism = freedom = smaller government

adwon - your question should be rhetorical, because that is the point exactly. There is no definition, just ever evolving connotations.

Republicans are good at setting memes where people automatically associate their party with reasonable concepts such as save the children, save marriage, lower taxes, less regulation, smaller government, etc. The problem is, it's all an illusion and motivated purely by the politics of motivating the religious.

Gay people should have the right to join in a contract which is equivalent to the legal benefits of marriage. If they want to certify this contract in a church, then so be it as long as the church approves.

Again, a federal government who dictates who can enter into a contract is actually anti-republican and more associated with the false idea of 'big government, tell you how to live, liberalism'.

We need to remind the world that liberalism means freedom and freedom means limited government. The religious should relish in the fact that they have the freedom to worship how they want rather than try to dictate a moral code based on one religion to the rest of the country.

P.S. - Thanks JimmyJazz.

[KharmaTrain]

18. What About Progressives?

Let's throw all the labels around while we're at it.

I echo the moderate sentiments above that there's not much further some factions of the Democratic party can go without alienating even more moderates and killing any chances not just gaining House seats (if this isn't a priority, then you better wake up) and could lose Democrats more.

Throwing labels around have never made sense as a truly national, majority party has to accomodate a lot of different people from different places with different needs and backgrounds. There's no cookie cutter or "core issues" when it comes to winning elections, it's on seeing, district by district, what the prime issues of those people are and address them. In a predominately white middle-class "purple" area, gay marriage means little compared to jobs or this war or health care or a dozen other issues...Democrats can't answer those questions with rhetoric, it must be done with simple, direct answers...and for Democrats to focus on those main issues and not get distracted by the GOOP dirty tricks and side shows.

While I will side with liberals on most social issues and liberatarians on their view on the role of a Federal government, I also subscribe to conservative economic concepts. So what does that make me? I'll bet there are many more who feel the way I do...and many who could be voting for Democrats but got sucked into the GOOP party by Democrats who couldn't relate to their lives and issues and expected them to understand theirs.

Right now 2006 has to be a major priority, I could care less about any speculation about 2008.

[Amfortas]

19. Sorry for being cynic.......

but what is needed is a goodlooking southern boy with a goofy face , and good oratory skills. The mainstream sound bite culture isn't sophisticated enough for anything more.

if he was actually smart (like Clinton) but doesn't show it that's better.

Give them nuisance and sophistication and not black and white thinking and .... we saw what happened with Kerry.

This is depressing .

[robcon]

22. The math is simple.

In round numbers...

-a third of the electorate are Democrats, and can be depended to vote for almost any Democrat.

-a third are Republicans, and can be depended to vote for almost any Republican.

-a third is neither, and is largely up for grabs.

Why do we need to go left? Isn't it obvious that the voters who have eluded us are in the center?

[Stop_the_War]

23. What do you mean by "center"?

If by center you mean "undecided" those people can be reached without us changing our principles.

If by center you mean "homophobic fundamentalist idiots" those people are not going to vote for ANY democrat.

[robcon]

25. I think you missed it.

The "homophobic fundamentalist idiots" are the base of the Republican party. The center is largely the non-ideological middle, who are not committed to either party.

We need to move to the center if we want to win.

[Stop_the_War]

26. So, we are going to un-commit ourselves to the Democratic Party, eh?

I don't want to do that. Again I'm saying these people are the "undecided" thus they can be swayed. Moving to the center will not sway the center. Developing a clear and aggressive strategy will. I have heard many people didn't even vote because they thought there was no real difference between the two parties. We need to change that, let's NOT move to the right. Let's be a liberal party.

[robcon]

28. We have to invigorate our commitment to the Democratic Party

You state some very questionable assertions in your post:

-You say "moving to the center will not sway the center." When we lose 51-48, it doesn't take much, IMO. We could win...

If we had a real national defense policy - not just Bush is wrong.
If we had a candidate who hadn't insulted his comrades who earned their ribbons/medals (and other veterans like me) by throwing away his ribbons/medals.

-The Democratic Party was never defined as the LIBERAL party only. The Democrats always included a lot of centrists as well as liberals - Daniel Patrick Moynihan as well as Bobby Kennedy; Bill Clinton as well as John Kerry (in his first two terms in the Senate), Joe Lieberman as well as Barney Frank. The idea that we must be a liberal party is a loser, IMO. The Democratic Party should not be defined only as a liberal party today - it never has been in its history.

If national defense and the war on terror had been addressed appropriately - probably with a different candidate - we would have won, IMO.

edit: spell

[davidinalameda]

24. LOL

you're so funny!

the Democrats haven't been a liberal party since the early 70s