Is this true? RE: What the DLC has cost us

[Jolene]

Sam Smith: The Party's Over
Thursday, 7 November 2002, 1:31 pm
Opinion: Undernews

The Party's Over

Undernews Commentary – By Sam Smith
http://www.prorev.com

snip

Of course, you can argue about such things, but there was something else - also unreported - that you couldn't argue about: the disintegration of the Democratic Party itself. An analysis I did in 1998 found that during Clinton's administration, the Democrats had lost:

- 48 seats in the House

- 8 seats in the Senate

- 11 governorships

- 1,254 state legislative seats

- Control of 9 legislatures

In addition 439 elected Democrats had joined the Republican Party while only three Republican officeholders had gone the other way.

While Democrats had been losing state legislative seats on the state level for 25 years, the loss during the Clinton years was striking. In 1992, the Democrats controlled 17 more state legislatures than the Republicans. After November 2000, the Republicans controlled one more than the Democrats. It was the first time since 1954 that the GOP had controlled more state legislatures than the Democrats (they tied in 1968).

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0211/S00042.htm

This doesn't even count the governorship of CA, and any losses since the article was written.

For a review of the powergrab undertaken by the DLC and how it renders the primaries pretty much useless, read the following and ask yourself whether the People are represented when 'SuperDelegate' status has been expanded at least once:

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/conventions/chicago/facts/rules/index.shtml

[gemini_liberal]

1. I find these reports annoying

I mean sure, they make a good wake up call, but more than often they just give freepers the opportunity to drool over the prospect of a virtual one party state.

[izzie]

2. It all goes in wavys, and we will be back.

Do not fear.

[JHB]

6. It only LOOKS like it goes in waves, but it doesn't...

The pendulum doesn't swing on its own. It must be pushed.

[izzie]

16. Right and it will be. Hope we do not have to wait for the poor farms

Every town had one when I grew up and I can still see the place now. I recall my mother dropping off eggs and chicken because we had them to spare.Had to be pre 45 as that is when my mother died. So about 50 years ago things got better I guess.I think alot had to do with the GI bill my self. My father had been to a business college that he worked his way through and that was pretty good in 1930 when he did that. The '40 produced all those college people we would never had had but for the GI bill.We need one once more.

[PATRICK]

80. America is only two centuries old!

This is the kind of nitpicking bean counting theoiries only a young brash nation too powerful for its youth would take comfort with. Cycles? Parties have disappeared, flipped constituencies or merged into non-partisan glop. Tweedledee and Tweedledum remembere is a surreal and absurd idea. the wieght of reason is against its continuance in some kind of dualistic universe of Eternal Balance. Presumption that something is going to repeat is a guaantee of "unexpected" total collapse.

The only thing you can presume is that if the GOP cheating continues unchecked and the DLC pettifoggery holds hands in its focus groups the Democratic Party- the only viable people's party to check totalitarian one-party rule no other can pierce will expose its people to disenfranchisement and virtual slavery.

And not only does the DLC not get it in the slightest(I mean some of its central weaklink organizational leadership) but I doubt the best presidential candidates or managers do much better.

A crippling doubt and less upfront REAL leadership than is required.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

7. After the Watergate Debacle

the Rs had approximately 130 House seats, less than thirty senate seats, and aroud a dozen governors....

[ShaneGR]

3. You're forgetting about what the DLC did give us

Bill Clinton. And we were losing seats in Congress way back in the early 80's, before the DLC even existed. Our losses have more to do with a general shift in the electorate towards the middle. A shift that a lot of people absolutely refuse to see no matter how many times we lose elections.

NOTE: I think we'll be fine next year as long as the ultra-libs stay on board and don't start screaming about ideological purity.

[JaneQPublic]

8. Ross Perot gave us Clinton; the DLC just took credit (n/t)

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. Can't We Put That Old Chestnut To Rest....

Exit polls from 92 demonstrate that Perot took votes equally from Bush and Clinton....


As an aside, I don't have a dog in the fight over the DLC....

[jobycom]

11. Yes, let's. It's completely false, and was created by the Repubs to

so they could whine and claim Clinton wasn't legitimate. The Repubs used to literally run around whining that Clinton wasn't legit because he didn't get over fifty percent of the votes. They've stopped that now, since their Resident didn't even get more votes than his opponent. But the claim the Perot helped Clinton is flat wrong.

In fact, when Perot got in the race at first, it was Clinton's numbers that took a dive, not Bush's. Moderates were flocking to him because of the scandals against Clinton. Clinton was in third place, and all the media stories and commentaries discussed whether the Democrats were done, just like the whigs.

When Perot's numbers started to fall, many of those supporters went back to Clinton, and he began to surge in the polls, and so the fantasy that Perot helped Clinton emerged.

But as you say, the exit polls showed that Clinton was not helped by Perot, that he drew from Repubs and Dems equally.

[JaneQPublic]

17. The Perot vote didn't split equally in every state

From The Center for Voting and Democracy:

http://www.fairvote.org/plurality/perot.htm

...Furthermore, the Perot vote didn't split equally in every state. Perot’s impact in particular states was clear – and almost certain to have been to the detriment of George Bush. In the 1976 presidential race, for example, another weakened Republican incumbent, Gerald Ford, nearly came back to defeat another Democratic governor of a southern state. Without Perot, it seems likely that the 1992 race would also have been closer.

A state-by-state analysis that compares the 1992 results with those from 1988 and 1996 provides support to this analysis. Clinton won 22 states that Bush had carried in 1988. Among these were some states that Clinton probably won only because of the Perot candidacy. With a total of 40 electoral votes, these states are:

[DemocratSinceBirth]

23. The Conclusion

of the v-e-r-y study you cited suggests Clinton would have won with or without Perot...

The same study clearly states that Perot voters would have voted for Bush and Clinton in the same numbers if Perot wasn't in the race....

Those are hard facts....


Everything else in that study is inference....

[AP]

31. Condorcet voting analysis: Clinton would have won without Perot.

The data's available on this race so that this conclusion can be drawn.

However, it's hard to guess who would and wouldn't have been draw in to vote for their candidats if you take Perot out (ie, were people encouraged to vote for Clinton whow wouldn't have shown up if Perot weren't in it? Would Perot voters not show up to vote, even if they said they would have voted for Clinton if Perot hadn't been in the race?

Nonetheless, in head to head matchups, Clinton beat Perot and Bush. So, without Perot in the race, he, almost definitely would have won.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

47. Conventional Political Science

says reelection campaigns are referendums on the incumbent. Perot caused Clinton to share the anti-incumbent vote...

Theory compliments the evidence in this case.....

[cosmicdot]

71. that's spot on == Bill played the DLC

to HIS tune ... not theirs ...

and, as a result, Mr. Frum thinks he is "influential" and "important" ... my words, my quotation marks for emphasis

he's a schmoozer, not a leader

a "CEO" no less ... of a political entity?

puh-leeze

[el_gato]

32. the clinton years

also gave us the highest consolidation of corporate power and
the further advance of anti-democratic anti-environment anti-labor
"free" trade establishments like the WTO

yea i know he was fighting battles with rethug slime but he was
just as much a part of the globlized fascism process as they were

as far as i'm concerned clinton did alot of damage to the real democratic party just like blair is doing to the labor party in the UK right now

new-labor dlc bullshit is a scam sellout to corporate power and nothing more

[hedda_foil]

85. What every DU'er and every Dem needs to know about the DLC

The essential research thread from the old DU by the essential DU'er Eloriel. If you have not read this thread (and its links) previously, I sincerely hope you do so now.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=4443&forum=DCForumID22&archive=

[eileen_d]

95. Read this too

Linked from the bottom of the above
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=3168&forum=DCForumID12

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Why blame it on the DLC?

The country has been getting further away from leftwing postions for years. A rightwinger can easily get elected most places, but there are few areas where a leftwinger can. Running moderates is reacting to the voters. It's called democracy.

Another problem has been the shift of Dixiecrats to the Republican party. They always were Republicans, but couldn't run on that line. Now they can, and we lost seats to them. I'm not sure we really care, though, since they got in the way more often than not.

More and more people are seeing Republicrats-- no difference between the parties, and, if they vote at all, can't be appealed to by traditional positions or platforms. They might be attracted to a particular candidate, or might find one party somewhat more odious than the other. The spinmeisters have managed to hit Democrats with the "blame" for welfare queens, lousy defense and security, coddling criminals, government interference, wasted foreign aid, other generic waste, etc, so guess who becomes the slightly more odious party?

The pendulum will eventually swing back, but I think the general rule of thumb is still that Republicans rule in times of plenty, and Democrats rule in times of pain.

Somehow, we have to get the message out that Democrats can actually run things, and Republicans are not the saviors of American money and values.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. "Republicans are not the saviors of American money and values"

Exactly....

All the quality of life indicators were rising under Clinton and now they are declining under *....

American's got tired of peace and prosperity....

[jobycom]

10. That's not the DLC

When Clinton first took office there was a massive backlash against him, not because he was too conservative as several idiots around here claim, but because he was too liberal. He tried to sign an executive order allowing gays in the military, and it was opposed by Congress, including the southern Democrats (Sam Nunn should burn in hell). He wanted a national health care system, and was opposed by moderates and conservatives. He tried to push through his works package all at once, and was opposed by the same groups. He got shot down continuously his first two years, only managing to get anything accomplished when he began compromising with Repubs. He gave them some of what they wanted and managed to push his jobs package through piece by piece. He altered his stance on gays in the military when the Repubs and southern Democrats started trying to pass a law against it and even talked of an amendment against it. Clinton compromised with "Don't ask don't tell," which was better than what came before, and was a miracle compared to what Sam Nunn was trying to get done.

This libral stance is what allowed Gingrich to orchestrate his Republican Revolution in 1994. Rather than following the old dictum that all politics is local, Gingrich used his GOPAC money to run a national campaign to elect Repubs over Dems, and he attacked Clinton and his liberalism visciously. At the same time, Clinton began to cut loose the Democrats who had refused to side with him. So in 1994 a lot of Republicans won at the national level because of Gingrich's efforts to rally the Repubs, and because Clinton refused to back Dems who wouldn't back him. Most of the Dems who lost ran against Clinton, claiming they were "Democrats but not Clinton Democrats." Many of the Democrats who were in trouble in the polls who embraced Clinton, like Kennedy and Charles Robb, won close elections, though the polls had shown them in trouble.

Gingrich continued to campaign against CLinton all the while the Richard Melon Scaife crowd was launching their continuous media blitz against him, and the media was backing it, smelling blood in the water. The nation, which had been drifting right since Reagan's admin, now began voting Repub in earnest, believing all the nonsense about Clinton. Even when Clinton was re-elected in 96, he was not very popular, though his economy was. Dole ran a horrible campaign, and should have beaten him, but the Repubs wouldn't rally behind him, and he couldn't really convince anyone that he had a plan or strategy to make America better. (That should be a lesson to those who think that Bush's unpopularity will mean a Democratic victory for someone who continually attacks Bush. Davis's loss should be another lesson. People don't vote for a negative message.)

So Clinton lost the Democrats a lot of support because middle America thought he was too liberal, and a lot of Democrats hurt themselves by distancing themselves from Clinton and thus losing some of their Democratic base without picking up any of the moderate to conservative base. Clinton had an increasingly Republican administration to deal with, and had to counter an increasingly corporate media who was shifting from their old method of hounding him because of controversy to hounding him because it was good for their parent corporation's profits. Thus he began to court corporations more, and was forced to compromise more with the Repubs to get anything done. That he moved us to the left even a little is a statement to his ability. That he couldn't move us very far to the left is a testament to how far right we were and how strong the Repubs were becoming.

Don't blame the DLC. They had a winning strategy from the beginning. WIthout them, Bush would have been reelected, the Reagan era would have continued, and we'd all send out kids to Rush Limbaugh high school to be taught that whites are superior to blacks and that ketchup is a vegetable and that clean air is overrated-- which would be good, because none of us would ever see any, anyway.

The DLC stopped the Reagan Era. They aren't perfect, and I think they have moved too far right now, mostly in a misguided effort to make Democrats more mainstream, but they are not secretely in league with the Repubs, as some seem to claim. They are just stymied by what's happening now, as are the rest of us, and their solution is to move more to the right on corporate issues. Wrong choice, but so far all of our choices have been wrong, lately.

I get so angry at liberals who turned on Clinton, forgetting where he brought us from, and where we'd be without him. I get that blood-pounding rush behind my eyes. Clinton and the DLC made us relevant, and they complain because it couldn't give them everything they wanted. They fail to see what the alternative was.

Gingrich's GOPAC once announed it was going to start a campaign to split the Democratic Party from within the way the Repubs were split-- between wingers and moderates. I suspect a lot of the "grass roots" groups who think Clinton wasn't liberal enough are unwitting pawns. For those who don't know, GOPAC is a PAC founded by the Dupont family and backed by their billions, and run (I'm not sure if it still is but I think so) by Newt Gingrich. They use it not only to back ultra-conservative candidates, but also to try to move schools and universities more to the right and to find other ways to control the media. They had connections to some of the VRWC against Clinton. Nasty group.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. Your Analysis Is Spot On....

One small vanity point....


Ted Kennedy beat Mitt Romney 58% - 42%... Not too shabby... But a little shabby for a Kennedy running in Massachussetts...

[jobycom]

27. Didn't realize

That's a big margin. I guess I was thinking it was close since early on he was trailing. But once he started actively campaigning, I guess he made up round quickly.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

30. I Don't Think He Ever Trailed Romney...

I think one poll in Sept had them tied....

Ted Kennedy losing in Mass would be the only thing I can think of worse than the Cali debacle....


However, I think the chances of that are remote...

[bushclipper]

13. Nice. I've never bought into this DLC stuff..

...mainly because I don't understand it too well.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. They Believe That Elections Are Won In The Center

and everything emanates from that belief...

[birdman]

40. It's true

Both parties have a base of about equal size.

Elections are won by appealing to independents
and people who are apolitical and will only pay
attention to shallow sound bites and clever commercials.

It's simple reality.

[Q]

20. Good stuff...revisionism...but good stuff nonetheless...

- Clinton was never a liberal. And Liberals didn't 'turn on him'...he turned on the liberals with his appeasement of the RWingers....just as the DLC has done.

- Your screed simply skims over much of what happened in the 60s onward. America never rejected liberalism. Liberalism was assassinated by the 'republican revolution' and Dem politicians that were tired of representing the poor and wanted a bigger piece of the pie.

- You talk about the DLC's 'winning strategy'...but gloss over how the party went from a strong, vocal majority to one beholden to special interests that had no use for the poor and working class. You also didn't address why our party has lost so much ground over the last couple decades. It wasn't a 'rejection' of anything...it was an all out assault against our people and government WITH the help of conservative Democrats.

- The DLCers are as big of liars as the neocons. They continue to lie about the need to move right...using Gore's 'loss' in the 2000 election as the most recent rationale. They can't admit that Gore actually won with a populist campaign. Admitting this would show that their whole strategy is based on a foundations of lies.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

26. The Dems Have Been In Bed With Big Business Way Before

the advent of the DLC.....


I remember reading Towards A Democratic Left by Michael Harrington where he describes how wedded the Great Society was to big business....

Also, Arthur Schlessinger in his seminal work on the New Deal persuasively argues that the New Deal was a conservative program in that it conserved capitalism by ridding it of it's excesses..

Once again, I don't have a dog in the DLC fight.... I just want to elect Dems.....

It reminds me of when they asked the current Chinese president if he thought China's economic reforms were a departure from communism... He said I don't care what you call the cat as long as it catchs the mouse....

I am a liberal, a pragmatist, and a realist....

[AP]

33. Clinton was a liberal, and this is why.

I think Clinton had to compromise, which you always have to do. That's how the system is intentionally designed. It's very easy to be a liberal in opposition to government. But once you're governing, you have a responsibility to your constiutents to deliver policy, and to deliver policy you have to compromise. So you can't characterize your president by his compromises.

But this is how Clinton is a liberal: when he became governor of Ark, Ark was allowing Stephens, Inc a monopoly on issuing bonds for government projects. This was just plain cronyism. Stephens, Inc was making millions and millions of dollars, and taxpayer money that Ark COULD have been spending on projects making more Ark'ans lives happier and wealthier was going into the bank accounts of Stephens, Inc shareholders.

Clinton established a state bond-issuing company which reversed that shift of government wealth from the poor to the rich to a shift in wealth from the taxpayers of Ark to the taxpayers of Ark, with value added (which is the entire purpose of gov't).

To me, you can talk all day about social liberalism, but what Clinton did is the CORE of liberalism -- spreading and growing wealth among the (black and white , gay and straight, male and female) middle and working class. That's how you build democracy -- it's ALL about political and economic power to the middle and working class.

And you know what, the Republicans knew what was happening, even if most Democrats didn't get it. Because Clinton did this, the Republican party put him in its cross-hairs. Republicans like Democratic politicians who think liberalism is all about the social issues, and they let them do their shit because they know they can use those issues as wedge issuses (eg, Dean). But they hate a Democrat who cuts through all the crap, and gets down to the core liberal principle: economic, and therefore, political power to the people. (This is also why the wingers have it out for Blair, by the way).

And Clinton (and Blair) are actually very courageous, because they are addressing issues that most people don't perceive. If you're only $100 richer because your governor made sure Stephens, Inc didn't rip you off, you, as a voter, might not feel that wealthy. However, Clinton didn't do that so just one person could be $100 richer. He did it to save 4 million people $100 each, and so that $400 million that didn't go to making Stephens, Inc. more politically power did go to making the entire middle and working class $400 mill stronger.

So, when you fight these battles, your voters don't really get what you're doing (which is why Clinton lost an election, and had to get even smarter about politics to get reelected to get back to helping the middle and working class).

And, my friends, that's what liberalism is all about. And Clinton was a liberal.

[spindoctor]

43. liberalism

"And, my friends, that's what liberalism is all about. And Clinton was a liberal."

You might want to take a closer look at what liberalism is all about. Your example above is definitely not a good one.

I really don't care if you want to call Clinton a liberal, but don't do it just because he did his job every now and then.

[AP]

46. shifting power and money to the middle and working class is the CORE of

liberalism. You can't have anything else, if you don't have that.

This is why Republicans put the shift of wealth upwards as their core principle.

[jobycom]

36. Sigh.

You just restated the common opinion I was arguing against.

Look, no doubt the net result of Clinton's administration was not a liberal as any of us would have liked. But it was a lot more to the left than where we came from. I could get into a technical historical discussion of continuity through discontinuity and vice versa but it would bore everyone and be even more wordy than I normally am, but the short of it is that circumstances were different under Reagan than under Eisenhower so CLinton's solutions and techniques were different than Kennedy's (whose pure liberalism is rather polished over time, anyway-- he fought civil rights and helped escalate Viet Nam even while telling some people he wanted out of it. Very Clintonian.)

Clinton campaigned on a jobs program, universal healthcare, increased educational spending, a decreased role for the military, abortion rights, women's rights (which was a bigger issue then than now because we won that battle), civil rights, and gay rights. Amid calls and public momentum to flat out end social spending, he campaigned on getting rid of what bothered the public the most and keeping what he could. Coming off Reagan, that's more liberal than anyone had a right to expect.

Clinton was a moderate in the same way Bush is a moderate-- not at all, except in what it takes to get elected. A lot of liberals seemed to miss the wink, and seemed to not grasp the reasons many things could not be done. Don't Ask Don't Tell is a perfect example. Clinton, keeping one of his campaign promises, tried to sign an executive order forbidding the military from excluding gays. Technically, the ban on gays was not a law, it was a military policy. Clinton's executive order would have overturned that. However, Sam Nunn and many southern Democrats (who were always conservative, so don't go the route that the Democratic Party was liberal in the 60s and changed-- it's more liberal now) opposed this executive order, and were introducing legislation to make it a criminal law that would not only ban gays in the military but make it a crime to even pass. The law clearly had enough Democrat support and Republican support to pass with two thirds of the vote, making it veto=proof.

That means that rather than being policy that could one day be overturned by an executive order when the time was right, it would become a solid law that would require that Congress pass a counter law and get a president's approval-- much harder to do, since then individual congresspeople would have had to put their neck on the line. This bill was going to pass, and was going to be law. Until Clinton revised his plan. He worked out the DADT policy, which was sufficient to break the two-thirds majority in Congress, barely, and keep the ban public policy. It also softened the military's stance. Before, you were asked when you went in under oath if you were gay. If you were later found to be gay, you had committed perjury, and could be Court Martialled and imprisoned. Now, enlistees aren't asked, no one is allowed to ask, and if they don't reveal that they are gay, they can serve. Not a good solution, but better than what came before, and far better than what Sam Nunn was about to pass.

So naturally some liberals, rather than looking at what was achieved, looked at what wasn't, and claim Clinton was a homophobe. (Yes, I know about the Domestic Partners thing). Clinton took a huge hit in popularity with his gays in the military stance. That stance is still hitting the Democrats, and may have caused us one senator, in fact. Here in Texas Ron Kirk was running close to and ahead of John Cornyn in the 2002 senatorial race. Two days before the election a massive phone message campaign began in Texas claiming that Ron Kirk was going to allow gays in the military and gay marriage. (Kirk had never even commented on the issue). He was slaughtered in East Texas, where people voted for every Democrat on the ballot except Kirk (East Texas was where this startegy was strongest). So echoes of the animosity Clinton engendered with his stance are still affecting us.

So CLinton got slammed by the right for being too liberal, and got slammed by the left when he had to compromise to get anything done. He's still being slammed. That's not revisionism-- go to your library and read the newspapers of that day to see how the issue played out.

Whether the public rejected liberalism or not depends on your definitions and litmus tests, I guess, but the conservatives campaign against our key issues all the time and they keep winning in increasing numbers. I've been rejected before, and it sure feels the same. As for the party going from a strong vocal majority to a small special interest group-- Mondale lost in the biggest landslide in history, and that's not even connected to the DLC. We were dying before. Face reality. The DLC represents a smaller faction now because their are fewer liberals around.

I don't like the DLC's current message, either, but to me it looks more like centrism than conservatism. They are wrong by not taking on the right, by not standing up for any of the Democrats' key issues. They think we should try to sneak a candidate in, and by doing so they cost us the chance to regain public approval. Wrong strategy. But elections are won in the center. Democrats have always won in the center. We got JFK elected by chosing a conservative Democrat from Texas as his running mate (who turned out to be less conservative than was thought), by pushing Nixon out of the center, and by pretending that he was in favor of Viet Nam and not completely behind the Civil Rights movement. That seems to be forgotten in the rosy reflections of historical memory. Keep in mind that Repubs can use JFK's legacy to claim he was really a Repub. He wasn't, neither was CLinton. Both just understood how to win. No Democrat now does. Not the DLC, either.

But the DLC isn't the bad guy. The Repubs are. And the media, which to me is saying the same thing.

[lifelong_Dem]

79. Nice fact-free rant

You know, when you want to refute someone, it helps to provide some facts to back up your position. Just saying "You're wrong!" doesn't impress anyone except those who already agree with you.

Clinton was very liberal in his early years. Gays in the military, universal health care, tax increases on the wealthy, family & medical leave, cuts in military spending, increases in education spending, etc. He was so liberal that it caused a massive backlash and a conservative takeover of Congress in 1994. And he STILL caught flak from the lefty-left because they didn't think he was liberal ENOUGH.

Here's a free clue: If the voters had thought that Clinton was too conservative, they would not have elected a Congress that was VASTLY more conservative than he was.

[lifelong_Dem]

88. Still waiting to see those facts, Q

n/t

[ReadTomPaine]

22. Great post

I wrote a piece that seems germane to this discussion a while back regarding the issues surrounding the DLC - link below.

The DLC, Beating and Being Beaten.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=87138&mesg_id=87138&page=10

[el_gato]

34. you prove yourself wrong jobycom

you see it was orchestrated just as you say by Scaife etc.

the backlash was manufactured by the right wing establishment

not from the ground up

a massive difference

[jobycom]

41. Hey, guy, long time no see

I think you are talking about the GOPAC claim? I'm not trying to say that GOPAC started or is the only driving force behind grass roots progressivism-- something I have a strong affection for even though I don't always agree on techniques. In fact, you've seen me get involved in that from time to time (well, once, at least).

But there is no doubt, to quote one example, that the RNC was funding efforts to promote the Greens in marginal states. The Green movement was real, but they were being promoted by others whom their message helped.

I'm accusing GOPAC, not the grassroots progressives. Though if some of the GPs don't start learning to compromise, they will continue to defeat themselves. Take Rolling Thunder. That generated a lot of energy for grassroots causes, but none of that energy was directed anywhere. I was also involved with the Travis COunty Democrats at that time, a very progressive branch of the Democratic Party, as you know. I know what they were saying. They wanted RT to succeed, and wanted to help push it further. But the RT crowd didn't do anything else with it, and they didn't trust the TCDP. None of the RT crowd tried to join up with the party or its numerous clubs (like mine) even though we invited many, and even though Michael Moore stood in front of all of us and encouraged us to. In the end it turned into a large feel-good rally that helped nothing or no one. That won't win elections. Or anything.

Again, I'm not trying to say it's all worthless, or trash progressives. I'm just tired of moral victories, where we all get to feel good about how we voted and watch the other guy start wars, kill hundreds of thousands of people, and push everything I believe in further to the background. Clinton moved things leftward, for the first time in my lifetime that I could remember (I remember the tail end of Carter). That's better than what I see now. Gore would have been better than what I see. Hell, even Lieberman would be (a little) better than what I see. None of our grassroots efforts have won us a damned thing. There aren't enough of us to win on our own.

[el_gato]

57. good to see ya here and

my view on all this is that we don't live in a democracy anymore
if we ever did

the whole thing is gonna collapse
the pollution of the american mind is almost complete


a small percentage of us know whats going on with the WTO, IMF, FTAA, etc.
and are fighting back but as for this country I don't think it's gonna last much longer with even the pretense of civil society
you can see it in the growing infrastructure of the coming police state
up to now it's been a form of soft fascism but that is going to change soon.

let's just hope it all burns itself out

[jobycom]

81. Unfortunately

I agree with more of that than I wish I did. However, as a nation we've always been slaves to the media bias, no matter what caused it, and democracy has never been that pure. Lincoln warned us of corporate rule in his day. I know what's going on with IMF and WTO. It doesn't scare me, though I've heard the horror stories. It needs fixing. I've been hearing all my life how the UN is going to conquer us, or NATO, or Jesus. Now it's the IMF.

Tell me more, though. Why is this different than what the conservatives were saying about Nato in the early 90s?

[MadHound]

48. I get angry at Clinton sycophants who are blind to the damage. . .

That Clinton did. Let's see, NAFTA, FTAA, WTO, H-1B visas, a whole alphabet of "free" trade agreements that are continuing to drain well paying manufacturing, and now high tech, jobs out of this country. Not just a continuance, but a ratcheting up, of the racist, classist drug war. He allowed the major consolidation of media with the '96 Telecommunication Act, thus shutting out voices of liberals and moderates from the major media. Welfare "reform", what an oxymoronic misnomer that was. Various measures stripping away enviromental protections that we all hold dear, including allowing off shore drilling in eviromentally sensative areas. Brought us that wonderful, legally dicey concept of soft money donations, thus allowing corporations even more undue influence in our government. And on, and on, ad nauseum. Its not a matter of liberals saying that Clinton wasn't liberal enough, we're saying that he wasn't liberal at all! C'mon, forty years ago this man would have been running for office as a moderate 'Pug!

You point out that Clinton tried to allow gays in the military, that he tried to sign an executive order. Well, what stopped him? An invisible shield between his pen and the paper? He should have signed the damn thing and taken the heat! Hell, that's what Harry Truman did when he integrated the military, and he got re-elected. You say Clinton tried to bring us single payer, universal health care. Well, if you really look at his propsal you will find it was fairly weak and watered down. And quite frankly, with 68% of the population favoring such a health care plan, he could have taken his case to the people and used that club to beat the 'Pugs into submission! But at least he "tried". In fact, it seems that Clinton "tried" to do many things, but just didn't have the will or the fire to push them through. He was charasmatic and talked a good game, but his follow through was horrible.

No, Clinton was no liberal, not even close. I like to think of him as the best Republican president we've had. And apparently so did the Republicans. That is one of the big reasons they wanted him out of office and continually attacked him, he was stealing from their playbook. Don't believe me? Go read some literature of the times, Mother Jones, even Time picked up on this trend. Its easy to spot, just compare his record to a moderate 'Pug like Ike. You'll find that they are similar in a number of ways.

So spare me your hair-rending and teeth-gnashing. The truth can hurt sometimes, and the truth of the matter is that Clinton was a Repug lite president who was more talk than substance. He was aided and abetted by that known corporate whore, the DLC, who continues to plague our existence today by continuing to make ours a two party/one corporate master system of politics. That is the honest truth, and it is high time that you stopped buying into the DLC BS, and start working on making a real difference in our country again. We are living in the new Gilded Age where just like the old one, D or R behind your name doesn't matter, for they all answer to the same corporate whistle. We have a long hard road ahead of us to change this situation, and we need all of help we can muster. So my question to you is do you wish to continue to be part of the problem, or do you wish to be part of the solution?

[jobycom]

77. Did you read anything I wrote?

Clinton didn't sign the executive order allowing gays in the military because if he had Congress was going to pass a law forbidding it, which would have made the situation worse. As it was Clinton made it better, a little. What stopped him was the desire to do some good rather than no good.

As for NAFTA, good for him. I've always considered opposition to it to be the worst kind of conservatism-- the desire to keep American jobs no matter how unfairly won in America. Just another form of racism, to me. Yes, there are some serious problems with NAFTA, GATT, the WTO, and yes they currently give corporations too much power even over governments, but that's no different than before NAFTA. They need work, but they are the right (or left) idea.

Welfare "reform" saved any form of social spending. It was a compromise to kill Gingrich's plan to roll back the government to pre-FDR levels. Or did you sleep through the whole government shutdown episode?

Could go on, but I've done that enough. Some liberals need to realize that we aren't going to win everything no matter who's in office. Clinton got a lot done, but had to make drastic concessions to achieve anything. He did not have a government that would work with him. He had one willing to shut down the government rather than work with him. What he accomplished is EXACTLY what liberals should strive to achieve. If we don't wake up to that, we can all learn to goosestep and say Hail to the Rush, because we won't have any impact whatsoever.

Yes, Clinton did some things I didn't like. But that's not what the question was about, so I didn't bring them up. Overall, he was a miracle for liberals. Some are just to immature to understand it.

[MadHound]

82. And some apoligists don't want to face the truth, no matter what

While scolding me for not reading what you wrote(though somehow I managed to answer your post unread:shrug:), my post may have slipped by you.

Clinton could have stood on his hind legs and gone ahead and signed the exec order to allow gays in the military. It is a notion that is called leadership. Truman had this quality when he integrated the military, and that was in the face of much stiffer opposition than Clinton was looking at(the popular opinion on this was running well over half for letting gays in the military, 59% for among men, 75% for amongst women). Truman was actually enacting a policy that the majority of people didn't wish to see happen. Yet he took his case to the people and made it. He stood on principle and showed leadership. Clinton wilted at the 'Pug's first bark, and we wind up with "don't ask, don't tell". So much for leadership.

I don't know how many people you know in the military, but I actually know quite a few. And all across the board the opinion is that "don't ask, don't tell" is the worst piece of compromised horse hockey given to the military since Custer decided to go to Little Bighorn. Gay service men still continue to live in secretive limbo, constantly paranoid of being outed, commanders constantly have to deal with rumor and innuendo. It winds up being more devisive than useful.

And thank you for that nice hinting of racism on my part. Smooth move, considering you don't know who I am, nor apparently what the fuck you're talking about. And since you support NAFTA, I suppose that you also support the horrors that NAFTA and other current globalisation schemes brings. Things like third world sweatshops, the complete crash of the Mexican agriculture sector, child labor, the subversion of the developing world to multinational corporations, the lack of potable drinking water in many third world countries due to the high prices brought about by globalisation, the rank pollution that such companies are poisoning not just Latin America, but countries around the world(guess you haven't been down to the Tex-Mex border lately), well paying blue collar jobs being replaced by shit paying McJobs in this country, the loss of US soveriegnty to a free trade court(check out chapter 11 of NAFTA), the extra tax burdens you and I have to endure, since the multinationals are now legally off shore and don't have to pay, and on and on ad nauseuem. Damn, with Democrats like you, this party doesn't need enemies!

Look, I'm all for a form of globalisation. The world is getting smaller, and more populated. But NAFTA, GATT and other such "free trade" agreements are nothing more than giveaways to large corporations, giving them free reign to rape and pillage, not only in this country, but especially in those developing countries that are most vunerable to exploitation. Rather than concocting trade agreements that bring the whole world down to the level of corporate serfs, instead let us craft one that would raise the rest of the world up to our standard.

Judging by your posts apparently you get your information straight from the DLC and it's media enablers. Instead of that why don't you try reading some Hightower, or Palast, or better yet go pick up Kevin Phillip's Wealth and Democracy. Get an education, then come back and tell me and millions of others worldwide how wonderful NAFTA is.

Clinton was always more talk than action. His lasting positive contributions to this world are very few and far between. For the most part he was a corporate enabler who talked a good game. His one and only concern was to please his corporate masters, so that he could continue to recieve his thirty pieces of silver. All of the rest was a smoke screen to keep fools like you happy and compliant. Congratulations, you make a fine sheep. Baaaa! Baaaa!

[Cheswick2.0]

84. bite me Greenie

this is Democraticunderground, most of us just are not interested in your "from the left" brand of hate. Go somewhere else to bitch about the last legally elected president and the last democratic president since 1976.
If you have issues with Clinton fine but calling people apologists and Clinton Syncophants is uncalled for here. So, kiss off.

[jobycom]

123. Geesh

Leadership is getting things done. Clinton got something done, against overwhelming odds. If you don't learn to recognize your allies, you're doomed.

As for NAFTA et al, none of the problems you associate with it were created by it. There were sweatshops before NAFTA. Corporations have always abused developing nations, destroyed the environment, etc. So your blaming NAFTA for something that existed long before, and would have existed without it. You said globalization is good. So this is the first step. Like anything else, it will allow those with the most money to have the most power. That's not NAFTA or Clinton, that's just reality.

As for Hightower-- don't get me started. That moron was Railroad Commssioner here in Texas, but got all pissy with the Demcoratic Party because it wouldn't give him everything it wanted, and so he ran a half-assed campaign and lost, then dropped out. He lost to Rick Perry by a handful of votes. A little effort, a little maturity, a little anything other than his slash-and-burn ego, and our current governor would be on the farm somewhere, and who knows, maybe we would have had Governor Hightower instead of Governor Bush. I've read him and listened to him, I just find him juvenile. Not in his ideals, but in his attempts to do anything. I hate moral victories that make "liberals" feel good but put people like Bush in office to rape and kill as he sees fit. I've got the same use for that type of "liberal" as I do for Bush.

[DemCam]

49. One of the best analyses

I've seen lately. I've printed it out.

I was stunned to learn that so many Democrats literally hated Clinton as much as the right...for different reasons, of course. I didn't pay attention to that until election 2000. Even with the impreachment I had gotten very complacent because I knew I could rely on Clinton to come through on the big issues.

[RandomUser]

60. Well-said. Very astute rebuttal of all the anti-DLC stuff.

It's good to see some sensible analysis instead of knee-jerk reaction. I believe there are flaws in the DLC, serious flaws and potentially fatal ones, but it's not the great monster of satan as some would have us believe. There's a lot of good in the DLC as well as bad. Thank you for taking the time to write this.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

64. Clinton was NOT "too liberal"

(and I wish that all the people who refer to certain Democrats as "too liberal" would define precisely what that means, as opposed to just repeating DLC talking points.)

Clinton was too wishy-washy. He had the legal power to ban discrimination against GLBT military personnel with an order as Commander-in-Chief, just as Truman banned racial discrimination. If he had done that, the Repiggies would have grumbled, but they would have had to accept it. Instead, when he heard the first squeak of protests from the fundies, he backpedaled and came up with "don't ask, dont' tell," which pleased no one and didn't prevent GLBT military personnel from getting dishonorable discharges.

The same is true of his health care plan. If he had proposed a single-payer plan that could be described in three sentences (Just as an example: "We will extend Medicaid to all Americans. You will pay a tiny percentage of your monthly income that is less than what you are paying to insurance companies how. You can tell the insurance companies to go to hell."), and THEN directed all Dem House and Senate members to go back to their home districts and appear in all local media to repeat the three sentences (especially "You can tell the insurance companies to go to hell") the plan would not have been so vulnerable.

Instead, Clinton got wishy-washy and tried to play nicey-nicey with the insurance companies and accommodate their desires. The result was a "managed care" plan, which was what the insurance companies were planning to do anyway in the private sector. The plan was so complicated that it could not be explained easily but contained some vulnerabilities that the anti-health care forces were able to exploit in the infamous "Harry and Louise" ads.

As one of my politically astute friends said at the time, "Clinton's desire to be liked and accepted by the big boys is stronger than his core principles."

Clinton was not "too liberal." He allowed himself to be pegged as "too liberal," and unfortunately, he shared the DLC's horror of the liberal label. Imagine if he had come out swinging and said, "If it is liberal to allow patriotic Americans to serve in the Armed Forces regardless of their sexual orientation, then I'm a liberal. If it is liberal to make sure that everyone can afford to see a doctor, then I'm a liberal--and I won't let anyone tell me that I should be ashamed of it."

If he had done that, the Republicans would have realized that they had a tough-minded, principled president on their hands. Instead, they saw a man who was willing to compromise at the slightest hint of criticism. By backpedaling so spectacularly so early in his term, Clinton did the equivalent of jumping into a pool of sharks with a bleeding wound.

The voters like politicians who stick to their principles. This is why you sometimes find the same person admiring both Paul Wellstone and John McCain, even though they were ideological opposites.

Anybody who is wishy-washy comes off as "just another politician."

[jobycom]

78. He did NOT

He could NOT just allow GLBT in the military with a stroke of a pen. That was the whole point. He tried. When he did, Congress said it would pass a law banning them altogether. An executive order does not override a Congressional Law. When Truman integrated the troops, there was not enough opposition to override a veto to pass a law reversing it.

The rest of your post is just the same stuff I rebutted in the first place.

As for the "too liberal" words I used, I meant that his liberalism is what cost his popularity, and explained what I meant. It would be hard to be "too liberal" in my opinion, but I've tried to get them to let me simply appoint the leader I would prefer (or take over myself) and no one goes for it. Thus, we have to win a majority of votes, and there just ain't enough of us.

[Silverhair]

136. Why he didn't sign

He didn't have the legal authority to issue the order. The Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is a federal law passed in the 1950's, outlaws homosexuals from military service. The military has always been, "Don't ask - Don't tell" in practice, unless they had a reason for going after someone. It seems that Clinton didn't know about the UCMJ, although any service member could have told him aobut it and about that provision. He was embarassed to learn that he needed an act of congress to do what he wanted to do.

We could have had a national health care system but Hillary blew it. She was way too arrogant. She wanted such a system and she also wanted ALL the credit. She tried to villanize the drug companies and the doctors, and the insurance companies. She and her advisers drew up the plan in secret, and then tried to ram it through congress, after she had made unneeded enemies. I she had really been so smart she would have invited the others and the Reps to give her input, addressed some of their fears in the legislation, and allowed them to share in the credit. Then it would have passed. But Hillary wanted to be seen as a savior rescueing the nation from the evil medical complex and we ended up with nothing.

[cosmicdot]

72. "He wanted a national health care system" and when history is written...

...and a national health care system is written as a reality ... history will show that such a system had roots in a Clinton administration ... leaving a positive feather in Bill's historical cap ...


... and, those who opposed and fought it will be portrayed in the eyes of history as the bad Americans (per ususal, the Rethuglicans) ...

[StopThief]

15. Add to your list the fact that Clinton. . . .

singlehandedly took the issue of treating women disrespectfully off the table in a campaign, resulting in the ABSURD situation that Schwarzenegger could be elected despite the accusations.

Another question for those of you who think Clinton is/was good for the party. How many of the close elections that Clinton has tried to help by campaigning for the Democrat have actually been won? Very few by my count. It's long past time for the Big Dog to be put in a kennel somewhere.

[bushclipper]

19. each time clinton was brought in win the race seemed out of reach...

...he brought Davis's poll numbers up and recall numbers down.

So he had an effect. I believe had the 9th circuit stood firm and put the recount off until March, the election would have gone the other way.

Not saying that Clinton would have made the difference, but then A LOT of DNC heavyweights went to California on behalf of Davis and we see the results.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. All Nine Presidential Candidates Campaigned For Gray Davis

Should they be put in a kennel?


And please provide me with the name of one candidate who lost because of Clinton actively campaigning for him....

I'm waiting excitingly for your list....

[birdman]

28. All the candidates plus Clinton and Gore

and Davis was still unsalvagable. The problem was
Davis and the party's inability to find a viable candidate
of its own.

[birdman]

18. Political realignment- not one group or another

This has nothing to do with the DLC.

The 30 year migration of the South to the Pubbies began
in the late sixties but reached it's culmination in 1994.
In reality the Democratic Party during the FDR years and
the Kennedy/LBJ years was a schizoid combination of Nothern
liberals and the most reactionary element in US politics - the
Southern Dixiecrats. In the Southern US the Republican Party
existed marginally if at all. Beginning in the 60's the
right wingers began to leave the Dems for the GOP. Unless you
believe that you could run lefties in the old confederacy and win
then you can't claim that the DLC caused the realignment.

The 50-50 split that existed in 2000 election was in fact an
ideolgical reality for quite some time but the political alignment
masked it.


The Democratic Party cannot win without both wings of the
party. If the lefties drive out the DLC's or vice versa the party
will be a marginalized political nonentity for at least a generation.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

25. I Think You Are Referring To Political Dealignment

Most political scientists would say we are in a period of political dealignment... Neither party is transcendent with the parties being at rough parity...


However, a few more debacles like Cali and I think the dealignment becomes a realignment...

We'll know by 2004 or 2008 for sure....

[OneTwentyoNine]

24. Well,we got at least one Governor back last year in Kansas

Did the report mention that? Repig Gov Bill Graves finished his last term--after he ran the State debt up to 800 million. Out he went and and Dem Governor is now in power trying to clean up his mess.

How much during this period does hate TV,hate radio ect.. play in this? My guess would be one HELL of alot though many would reject that idea. Oh yeah?? Then why do 60 or 70% of these idiots still believe that SH was responsible for 9/11.

FOX,Limbaugh and these other three dozen media whores are spoon feeding the masses--and there isn't any Liberal ideas being praised.

David

[bobthedrummer]

50. Wisconsin too.

n/t

[AP]

29. This article seems to blame the DLC for what could also be attributed to..

..dirty pool.

I remember reading a breakdown of the 2000 election which suggested to me that, had Gore won, 2000 would have looked like a huge sweep for Democrats. The only reason Gore wasn't president was because Republicans cheated. 2002 probably never would have happened -- a bad year for Dems -- if Bush hadn't won.

Also, I remember reading a study that said house seats (and, I'm going to guess state legislatures) have lost any resemblance to demographics and are now the product of gerrymandering.

I.e., is it the DLC's fault if Republicans are so anxious about their declining base that they have to (allow 9/11s and) do things LIKE THE CA RECALL, and THE TEXAS REDISTRICTING.

In fact, the reason the Republicans are doing better is probably because of a money advantage and a willingess to play dirty.At least the DLC is addressing the money thing. Now, I wish the Democrats would just learn how to campaign better.

[birdman]

35. House seats have always been a product of gerrymandering

Eldridge Gerry, The MA governor for whom the redistricting
technique is named is said to have drawn a district that looked
like a salamander for political advantage.

Gerry died in 1814.

[AP]

39. Yes, I know. But I read an article that

broke down congressional races by measures like competitiveness, whether both parties run candidates, MOV, etc. And it concluded that there has been a dramatic drop oof in all indications of competitiveness of house seats, and the author blamed gerrymandering. The author concluded that the Congress has created a body that guarantees employment to the incumbant and has given each party their fiefdom.

Therefore, it has moved towards a legislated equilibrium which shifts slightly away from center not based on which party has more voters, but according to which party has the political power (see TX redistriticting).

[Iverson]

37. not much, just its soul

When you programmatically turn away from your base and toward monied interests, there's not much more to say.

[birdman]

38. Successful parties are coalitions

You can't win (and there's no reason to have a party
unless you intend to win) with just the lefties or just
the moderates. You have to have both. All this fratricidal
bomb throwing is counterproductive.

[jobycom]

42. Then we have no soul for a long time

JFK sold it, if not FDR.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

44. this is repuke talking horseshit...why are you speading it future afield

[Jolene]

54. You'll notice that I restricted it to the losses

I did not include what some call 'revisionism,' because I agree that parts of it are.

I simply asked if the numbers are correct. Are they? Have we lost all this since the DLC grabbed all their power? We're still losing. Shall we wait until the party is non-existent to ask 'why?'

[ElsewheresDaughter]

55. they've been put on notice...and on their way back home...they suck and

have done much damage...but they aren't stupid either

[John_H]

45. Why the DLC exists, and why one percenters hate them

In the chicken-and-egg problem of politics the solution is clear: Interest groups' power is hatched from the number of voters they represent and the ammount of money they raise.

Since the beginning of the democratic party, a sizable number of "moderates" and even "conservatives" have been among us, in the south, the suburbs, the mountain states, and in corporations. And the way our legislative/electoral system is set up they have lots of juice.

--16% of Americans elect 51 percent of the senators. And most of that 16% are in very GOP states.

--Dems can't win the presidency dems to win without a respectable showing in the south.

--Elections are expensive, and the DLC raises a good bit of money (but nowhere near the amount raised by "the base")

It's time to face the facts: If the above three facts were unfacts, there would be no DLC. In fact, given thoe above situation, I'm surprised the DLC doen't have more power. Why don't they?

Easy. Base groups raise more money and mobilize more voters.

Why is the DLC the great dark evil around DU. Even easier. The far far left need to convince you that the Dem party has swung way to the right. The DLC is a very convenient bogeyman to rally against.

The fact is that the "base" (not whacked out people who want to cap incomes and take centralized control of everything, but traditional liberals and progressives) dictates much more of the agenda of the party. Guess what, a lot of far left groups were behind the disasterous "shoulder-to-shoulder" strategy right along with the DLC.

The DLC is a moderate force and always will be, but only for the reason thehes a lot of moderates in the party.

[Jolene]

51. The DLC is there to overturn the will of the people

If they think it's necessary.

This is a group of people who have been given uncommitted 'SuperDelegate' status, so that holding primaries in the first place is a waste of time, since the party operatives can completely block a candidate for nomination, regardless of how State Delegates (who are bound to vote based on primary results) vote.

These people aren't going around campaigning for your vote. They're trying to appeal to party operatives, because without their votes, the candidates cannot be nominated.

This is not democratic. This does not reflect the will of the people. It's also why they sit in their elitist offices, not answering our emails, and not taking our calls. They don't have to. They have the power to select the nominee all on their own. The only thing they need us for, is to go vote so they can get that ceremonial remainder of the required delegate tally. They don't care what that tally is, mind you, because they have the power to overturn it. They just need it, because that's how it's set up.

This is from a cached source:

The irony of ‘super-delegate’ rule

Democrats use a system heavy with elites to pick nominee

By Tom Curry
MSNBC

snip

THE BOTTOM LINE

The importance of super-delegates is far more than a matter of lending their prestige and popularity to a contender; their 800 votes could determine the nominee.

There has not been a truly contested Democratic presidential convention since 1960. But with a field that appears fairly evenly balanced at this early stage, it is conceivable that none of the Democratic contenders will emerge from the primary season with the 2,161 delegates needed to clinch the nomination.

Although Gephardt will get the headlines on Wednesday with Pelosi’s endorsement, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut is also doing pretty well in the super-delegate hunt at this early stage. Lieberman has public endorsements from 12 members of the House and Senate.

Sabato figures that Gephardt will likely end up with more super-delegates than any of the other contenders.

EXPECTATIONS RULE

Despite his likely super-delegate advantage, Gephardt will be no less subject to the “expectations” game than the other Democratic hopefuls.

If Gephardt doesn’t win the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 19 and does poorly in the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 27, it is hard to imagine how he could stay in contention.

Conversely, if Gephardt does well in both Iowa and New Hampshire, a large super-delegate trove may be the ultimate “convincer” that persuades party activists that he is going to win and that they should jump on board his victory train.

Sabato sees one scenario in which party leaders try to marshal the super-delegate forces to fend off a nominee they see as risky.

“Let’s say the party is moving toward Howard Dean, and most party elders are petrified by him being the nominee. It’s possible a substantial number of super-delegates could try to stop him with someone else.”

But Sabato added that if Dean wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, the party elders probably would not be able to stop him.

http://tinyurl.com/qabn

Would someone please tell me how this organization is any better than the republicans who wouldn't allow democratic votes to be counted in Florida?

[Iverson]

52. protect your children!!!!

The far left is coming!!! They say that the party has swung to the right. Therefore, that must be false!!!

Those wacky evil types call us BOGEYMEN! AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

edited for typo and also to hide from the far left

[Jolene]

53. I AM a moderate

and some whiny little snot elitist has redefined me as being 'far left' to somehow validate what they're doing.

What IS 'far left?' It's communism. So...the DLC is referring to communists, and saying that's what we are. Nice. Airheaded, but nice.

[Terwilliger]

56. Dammit! Stop advocating freedom of the slaves...IT'S LEFTIST CLAPTRAP!

You people sicken me

[Iverson]

59. question

Concerning those wacko one-percenters who want an end to slavery: are they intrasigent demagogues who want complete purity on their terms, or are they merely naive idealists who don't understand the tough political realities of the modern world?

[JVS]

58. All power to the Soviets!

[diplomats]

61. This is misleading

Just about all those losses happened in one election, 1994, when everything that could go wrong for the Dems did go wrong.

[Jolene]

66. Um, we're STILL losing

We lost in '02, and we just lost the governorship of CA, because the DLC governor couldn't keep his seat.

This is a group which has claimed it's the knight on the white horse, keeping the democratic party afloat--but I just don't see it.

I see that Clinton won, but I see that the DLC's myth is imploding around them. The grassroots movements of the Dean/Clark campaign should tell them that.

The DLC needs to go. It's discriminatory. It runs off minorities, and it silences dissent, making our party sound just like the opposition.

[birdman]

69. Are you contending that Davis would have kept his seat if

he had been more left-wing ? If so then why isn't Arianna
the Governor-elect ?

Dean/Clark grassroots ? Maybe, but both seem like moderates
more than populists to me.

The DLC is like the touch-screen voting machine, an all-pupose
bogeyman to blame when something goes wrong.

[Jolene]

75. Arianna is an Independent

What I'm saying is that DLC candidates can't even hold their seats, anymore.

I'm saying that with the DLC, we have been losing, and with the DLC, we're still losing.

When a DLC governor can't retain his seat, it's rather obvious that the DLC is not the power it thinks it is.

[AntiCoup2K4]

62. At the risk of repeating myself

Dump McAuliffe's ass NOW, and let's rebuild the REAL Democratic party.

We have no other choice. The Bush Criminal Empire will lie, cheat , and steal in any way possible in 2004. They may have just stolen California's 54 electoral votes. The only way to combat those filthy fucking nazi bastards is with sheer numbers. The Busheep and FAUX zombies will be at the polls to vote for the Idiot Son of an Asshole. Everyone who opposes this regime's destruction of America had better show up as well. And no DLC DINOsaur is going to get them there. :grr:

[LoneStarLiberal]

63. As Someone Else Said, Misleading

This whole anaysis is driven by one massive disturbance: The 1994 elections.

1994 was a political "Perfect Storm" for the Republicans. They had Clinton, the second election since their unholy redistricting deal in the South, and the first wave of young conservative Reaganites hitting that first office-holding ripeness.

And where did it get them? No where. The Contract with America was a joke. Gingrich was and is a joke. Yes it established their legislative dominance but did they yoke the rest of the government? No.

While there is definitely enough to be disquieted about in what the Bush administration has done to try and change the insitutions and rules that govern us, the fundamental problem with thinking the Republicans are going to overwhelm us is that they have always tried and they have NEVER succeeded.

They've never succeeded because they can't handle their own success, not because we're somehow really good at checkmating them. Look at the two most recent examples: The Republican Revolution of 1994 and the post September 11 environment. In both cases the Republican establishment simply could not take advantage of their situation. In 1994 they got too drunk on their own power and showed their collective asses. After September 11, the current administration couldn't capitalize on the rally effect that seized the nation.

Thanks to this tendency that Republicans have to fumble success, we now have a great opportunity to take Congress AND the White House back to the Republicans in 2004...if we can learn from our past mistakes.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

68. The South

FDR won the South with economic liberalism, something that the DLC fears.

When dittoheads talk about the Dems as being "too liberal," it's usually the hot button issues like abortion and gun control that they're talking about.

That's why the Dems' Southern strategy should play down the social issues and go straight for the economic issues, which is where the Repiggies are most vulnerable. We cannot and should not, no matter how desperate we get, play to the "Christian" Reconstructionists or the televangelists.

But we need politicians who can talk in a non-patronizing, commonsense way about how the Repiggies economic and foreign policies have hurt THEM. We need someone who can not only criticize the Repiggies but also put forth easily understandable solutions.

Remember Huey Long. Although his career ended with his assassination in an atmosphere of corruption and scandal, he initially won the governorship of Louisiana because he understood what his state needed. He campaigned throughout the state emphasizing two campaign promises: to start a road and bridge building program (the state had only 400 miles of paved roads at the time) and to provide free textbooks for public school children (children were staying out of school because their parents were unable to afford textbooks, which of course meant that Louisiana had a high rate of illiteracy).

These promises were based on people's genuine needs, not their prejudices (he never appealed to racial bigotry), and when people heard him speak, their natural reaction was, "I never thought of it that way, but he's right."

We will not break through the fundamentalist and/or racist conditioning of many Southern voters, but we can make an end run around it. The fundies have nothing to say about job losses and decaying physical and social infrastructure and unaffordable housing and unaffordable medical care. That's what we should address in the South. That's what we should address in the North.

Who needs a "Southern strategy" when you can create a national strategy that will also resonate in the South?

[birdman]

74. FDR won the South because of the civil war

There was no Republican Party in many of the Southern states
until the 1960's. The Pubbies were the party of Lincoln and
abolition and Reconstruction and it didn't matter if the GOP
was more in tune with their point of view from the 20's onward
they were still Republicans.

FDR was careful not to be too much of an advocate for civil rights
so as not to alienate the white southerners (the black ones didn't
vote).

Believe me; they weren't voting for the New Deal. They were voting against Honest Abe.

[QC]

130. Evidence?

I remember my very Southern grandparents going on and on about how they loved Roosevelt because he cared about common people like them and made their lives bearable during a very difficult time.

The subject of Lincoln never came up.

[Capn Sunshine]

65. It's NOT the DLC to blame

its the D....N....C.

They are the one who run campaigns, the DLC is an interest group.

That's like blaming the driver of the getaway car for the robbery. There's complicity, but it was carried out by someone else.

[Jolene]

67. Why do we need the DLC?

If we need the DLC, we need an equally powerful arm to represent progressives. Anything else is discrimination.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

70. We already have the Progressive Caucus in Congress, but...

they have no funding.

I would love to see some of the liberal millionaire types (especially in Hollywood) give the Progressive Caucus some money to start a foundation to counter the DLC.

(The DLC already has a foundation deceptively called The Progressive Policy Institute. That's another reason to dislike them.)

[Jolene]

73. I'd like to see them get Super Delegate

powers. It's only fair. Also, I don't think the DLC is a caucus. They're an arm of the party. The progressives need the same arm.

[Capn Sunshine]

76. As a Party, I don't think we NEED any group

The DLC is together to put forth the view of the world as the DLC sees things. The third way philosophy. The debate beyond left vs. right.

The DLC DOES need the Democratic party by definition, but certainly not the other way 'round.

[jiacinto]

83. That is not the whole story

First of all, in the late 1980s and in the early 1990s, many Southern Democrats who had held office for decades started to retire. These were Democrats elected in the 1940s and in the 1950s whose careers came to end via retirement or death. Incumbents like Jamie Whitten, Sonny Montgomery, Charles Bennett, and Claude Pepper finally left Congress. Although their seats had been electing Democrats for years, in other statewide and national contests, they had been voting Republican for years. What had kept them Democratic was the long term incumbents. When these seats became open they inevitably turned to the Repbulicans.

The next part is the 1990 redistricting. Well-intentioned state legislators drew minority-majority districts. Remember the House districts that looked like parasites and amoebes? Those seats hurt the Democrats badly, especially in the South. Where you once had three or four competetive seats you now had one heavily Democratic constituency surrounded by three heavily Republican districts and one that was marginal. As a result you had Congressional districts that were heavily minority and Democratic surrounded by heavily Republican districts.

Those two factors played a signficant role in bringing the GOP back to power.

[dpbrown]

86. It's worth thinking about what we lost since we went "right"

Like it or not, the Republicans have got their people lined up on the faaaaaaar right. Unfortunately, the Democrats are telling their people to line up "somewhere in the middle."

Meanwhile, the parties made up of disaffected former Democrats continue to grow.

I think if the Democrats want liberals to "line up" they'd be better off asking them to line up "on the left."

Why is only one candidate advocating what should be bread-and-butter no-brainer Democratic positions like these:

1. Universal Single-Payer Health Care

2. A more efficient Pentagon cut 15% now that the Cold War's over, the demilitarization of space and an end to Star Wars.

3. An end to the Death Penalty.

4. Ending multinational boondoggles like NAFTA and the WTO that have proven themselves against workers' and environmental progress.

It's not enough to "take back America" if you don't have an idea of what to do with it once you get it back.

Dan Brown
Saint Paul, Minnesota

[jiacinto]

87. You don't take the other factors into account

1. The Retirement of Long Term Southern Democrats: In the late 1980s and in the early 1990s the last remaining Southern Democrats from the 1950s and the 1960s either retired or died. Incumbents like Sonny Montgomery, Charles Bennett, Dante Fascell, Claude Pepper, Jamie Whitten, and William Natcher finally either retired or died. Even though their seats had been supporting Republicans for national and for statewide offices what kept them Democratic was the popularity of those incumbents. When they finally vacated their seats the Republicans won these districts--districts that should have been theirs decades ago. What kept them Democratic was the popularity of the incumbents.

2. The 1990 redistricting: Well-intentioned state legislatures drew seats that were heavily minority to elect African-Americans, Asians, and Hispanics to Congress. The goal was noble; but, in the process, it helped Republicans. Across the country state legislatures drew seats that looked like bizzare drawinings and amobeas to elect minorities. These districts made no sense if you looked at them on a map. And the results were very negative for Democrats.

By creating these seats the legislatures unintentionally--or in some cases intentionally--threw all the Democrats into a few safe seats. In the process, by throwing all the minorities into a few safe districts, the Republicans gained. Where you once had maybe three or four competetive to Democratic leaning seats, you now had one or two heavily Democratic seats surrounded by four or more heavily Republican seats and maybe one competetive district. Some of these Democrats barely survived in 1992. Of the ones who were left few, if any, survived the 1994 landslide.

So before you blame "modreate" Democrats for the losses maybe you should look into those factors too. As for ending the death penalty the Democrats shouldn't go back to the years of Michael Dukakis and to the years of being "soft on crime". And if "Universal Health Care" was so popular then why did Hillary's plan fail?

[Terwilliger]

89. Why is this person allowed to push Repuke talking points with impunity?

I can't get no love, no impunity...
What kind of love, they've got for me...

[Iverson]

91. gentle correction

You mean "with impunity" or possibly "with no compunction."

[Terwilliger]

105. gently taken

you must be one o' them quasi-Marxist sympathizers ;-)

[eileen_d]

94. Who made you king shit of turd island?

[Terwilliger]

106. nobody

Have you seen Carlos in the last couple-a days? I think his intentions are blatantly obvious.

[Iverson]

90. Here's the equation.

Any move to the right, accept or excuse, but it's always legitimate.

Any move to the left, challenge or denounce, since it's always illegitimate. In the death penalty, for example, totally ignore the research and scholarship on the issue, and instead define it in right-wing terms (e.g.- not executing people is "soft on crime").

This is called liberalism.

:nuke:



edited typo

[jiacinto]

96. There are problems with the death penalty

But certain murders--such as killing a cop, child, or acting like Jeffrey Dahmer--do call for it. There are just some muders that are so bad that the death penalty must be used. I think it should be used sparingly but we shouldn't get rid of it.

[dpbrown]

99. I disagree - change the mindset

Once someone's dead you can't punish them. Keeping someone in prison is not only keeping them from freedom forever, studies show it's cheaper than putting someone to death.

The mindset that the death penalty is the "worst" we can do to the "worst" criminals is part of the problem.

Most other industrialized nations have either scaled back or eliminated the death penalty.

And it causes problems in extradition as well. When a country has a criminal that we'd like to prosecute, sometimes that country won't extradite that suspect if they don't have the death penalty and we do.

There's really no justification for the death penalty in modern society.

Dan Brown
Saint Paul, Minnesota

[jiacinto]

101. I disagree

I think the DP should be used in some cases, but rarely. Killing a Police Officer or a Child warrnts. Also serial killers like Ted Bundy deserve it.

Now someone who kills a spouse in a fit of rage or in self-defense due to abuse--that's another story.

Some cases are just so egregious that the punishment calls for it.

So I probably support a "limited death penalty", only to be used in the most reprehensible of cases.

[dpbrown]

103. And I think that mindset is part of the problem

Killing someone is not the worst punishment, and I think that people need to wake up to that concept.

[jiacinto]

109. But people aren't going to think that way

And I do think the DP is appropriate in the circumstances I mentioned above.

[Iverson]

116. The problems with the death penalty are permanent.

Take whatever position on the death penalty that you will, but I advise against associating reasoned opposition to the death penalty with softness on crime and the Dukakis campaign. That is the posture of the right wing.

I am not sure that you understood my posting, but if you understand that reasoned opposition to the death penalty is possible, then we're making progress.

It used to be that liberals were the ones who automatically argued against the death penalty.

[jiacinto]

117. I think it should be used in certain circumstances

Killing a Police Officer
Killing a Child
Killing people like serial killers

Reasonable people can disagree with the death penalty. But I think it is appropriate for certain types of murders.

I think it should be used on the worst cases.

[Iverson]

119. follow-up question

Let us assume your preferred death penalty categories.
When the wrong person is executed by the state, what remedy do you suggest?

[jiacinto]

121. Tough Question

I don't know if there casn be one. And perhaps what I would suggest is a financial settlement of some sort. It wouldn't bring back the dead relative but it would at least be some, although admittedly not perfect, some sort of compensaton.

But I do think there should be DNA testing and other forensic proof to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Still, when someone kills a cop, a child, or more than several people, the call for the death penalty is appropriate.

The one thing you fail to admit is that the vast majority of people arrested are guilty of the crimes with which the DA charges them.

[Iverson]

124. more follow-up

"The one thing you fail to admit is that the vast majority of people arrested are guilty of the crimes with which the DA charges them."

I "fail to admit" several billion things. That particular omission bothers me not at all, since a high batting average has a different meaning when the subject is execution.

Your conditions are fine as far as they go. The trouble is that they don't go very far. Not only can errors not be undone, but also they cannot be altogether eliminated, and in the real world (about which some discussants are so fond of lecturing to me) the administration of the death penalty is not equitable. No technical solution will fix that, since that is essentially a social and political problem.

Therefore, even if one is not some tree hugging extremist with wacky notions about civilization, it is not appropriate to argue for a death penalty that is riddled with errors and inequities.

To return to part of my original point, framing support for the death penalty in terms of fear of portrayal as being "soft on crime" plays right into the hands of social reactionaries. It accepts a debate on their terms. That is not good.

[Iverson]

126. I can be patient.

n/t

[jiacinto]

127. I have a life besides DU

I think that by limiting the conditions in which the death penalty is given, coupled with DNA testing, you reduce the risks that someone innocent will die. I agree that the death penatly, as it has been administered has problems, but that doesn't mean it should be eliminated completely. Killing a police officer, a child, or several people as a serial killer does warrant it. Those murders are so bad that they offend the most basic of American values.

As for how "social reactionaries frame the debate" this issue, along with the I/P one, is one where you just can't have a rational discussion with most people.

[ulysses]

132. a question, then.

I agree that the death penatly, as it has been administered has problems, but that doesn't mean it should be eliminated completely.

Why not?

It can't be rid of its problems. It's not a deterrent. Our justice system is not based on vengeance or "closure". Why *shouldn't* it be eliminated completely?

[ulysses]

135. kick n/t

[Iverson]

137. Amazingly, I also have a life.

I think maybe you were quick to see nagging where none was intended.

There will always be topics that people cannot discuss reasonably, and there will always be people disinclined toward reason. This in no way is a rationale to avoid analyzing how important questions of the day are constituted.

If you accept a debate as framed by right-wing reactionaries, then you will achieve a result on their terms. This is my point on the death penalty that you avoid, and it is the greater point that ties into the purpose of this thread, which you are avoiding as you would a poisonous asp.

Awaken from that argumentative sleep to bravely face the simple point of logic.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

93. Answer to your question

"And if "Universal Health Care" was so popular then why did Hillary's plan fail?"

Because it wasn't really universal health care but an ungainly, overly-complex monstrosity that was tacked together to avoid offending the insurance companies.

Oregon's universal health care initiative failed because the anti-tax zealots spent millions convincing people that all the "welfare cases" would flock to Oregon if it was passed.

My solution--even though nobody's asking-- would be:

1) Make Medicaid available to everyone who isn't currently covered on a sliding scale based on income. Make sure that the fee charged is noticeably less than what that person would pay to a private insurer for comparable coverage.

2) Watch the private insurers lower their rates to make sure they don't lose all thier customers

[mandyky]

92. While a lot of Dems want to blaim Nader and

the Green party, the DLC and the Bush Lite attitude is what drive people to be Green or vote 3rd party. And if Clark wins the nomination it will be because of machinations of the DLC.

The DLC supports corporations and wars just like the GOP does. Candidates like Kucinich and Dean scare the heck out of the DLC, as well they should.

[jiacinto]

97. Yes we should listen to the left wing radicals all the time

and then return back to the landslide losses of the 1970s and the 1980s. I like Dean, but a lot of what the left wing fringe activists want at DU will send the party to massive defeat.

[mandyky]

98. Dean is not a left wing radical

Obviously you are listening to the DLC's version of who Dean is. Dean's only liberal streak is gay rights and anti-Iraq war. He is not pro corporation, is probably what the DLC likes the least.

[jiacinto]

100. I support Dean

I was making a comment, though, about others DUers. A significant share of people here do come from they very far left of the party.

[mandyky]

107. Oh OK, but

While we can nominate folks who are more moderate, we do need to give the progressives in the party something too. Personally, I am closer to Kucinich in beliefs, but I am a pragmatist, and always knew Dean could attract crossover voters from Libertarians, Pubs, Greens, etc.

(I voted Nader in 2000, so I understand progressive issues, but this election we have to be pragmatic. I just hope Dean gets the nomination. He is bringing in so many new voters.)

[jiacinto]

114. Well here is the situation

You can't get everything at all once. And, since we don't live in a proportional representation system, you have to compromise.

[Terwilliger]

108. Only reason everybody is such a left-winger is because...

Carlos is right-winger

[dpbrown]

104. And he signed a bill the Supreme Ct. of Vermont forced on him

To accept gay unions in Vermont, anyway.

And among the candidates, he doesn't have the strongest gay rights position. So even on the gay rights thing, Dean's not the most liberal candidate.

[jiacinto]

110. But he probably is the most electable left-leaning candidate

DK isn't electable. I support Dean because he has stood up to Bush.

But frankly Dean is the probably the most liberal candidate that you can get that is actually electable.

[diamondsoul]

112. I disagree with the statement, but even more

I want to know just how long Dean would remain "left-leaning" were he to be elected. I honestly do NOT see him as even close to Liberal.

The inconsistencies he's put out are going to bite him in the rear and soon. I've already seen it happen with several people as it stands. Kucinich is stepping forward as consistant, honest, sincere and determined. And I STILL don't think very many people realize just how much support he has.

[jiacinto]

113. What support does DK have?

He continues to poll in the single digits. I know that the hard core left wing activists love him, but most of America doesn't.

[dpbrown]

102. I think you're missing the point

The original post shows that the losses have arguably been greater since the DLC "won" the Presidency. And the Republicans are having great success forcing their people (even the moderates) to line up on the waaaaaaaaaay far right.

That argues against the return to populism signalling any greater losses for the Democrats. The losses are at least as likely to have resulted from not giving people enough of a reason to choose Democrats over Republicans.

I just think this assumption that embracing populism and bread-and-butter liberal Democrat issues like universal single-payer, an end to the death penalty, and making the Pentagon more efficient while rolling back funding, is going to lead to some sort of erosion more significant than the spawning of third parties that's going on now, just unsupportable.

Dan Brown
Saint Paul, Minnesota

[jiacinto]

111. Dan--most Americans support the death penalty

Health Care can be a winning issue as long as people don't think that they are going to be taxed to death to support what they perceive to be an inefficient bureaucracy. Read the book: America's Forgotten Majority, Why the White Working Class Still Matters.

Voters expect a lot from government for the taxes they pay. But they see anything on the scope of Universal Health, and this is what they think:

They are going to raise our taxes to support a large, ineffective bureaucracy that is inept and incompetent.

Ending the death penalty will not bring more voters to the Democratic Party. If anything it will bring back the Willie Horton ads.

As for third parties, if you look at Nader's 2.74% in 2000, and compare it to TR, LaFollette, Wallace, Anderson, and Perot, you will see that he hardly drew the same amount of support those men drew in their races.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

115. The reason Americans are

conditioned to hate any and all taxes and why they think they're "taxed to death" (thanks for once more repeating right-wing memes) even though they pay the second-lowest taxes in the industrialized world (a fact that the right wing radio screamers never mention): the average middle American pays taxes, and still has lousy public services by international standards.

Where does the money go? The largest share of the general fund money, the place where our income taxes go, is signed over to the sacred, holy temple of the Pentagon, the Pentagon which may not be criticized in any way shape or form, lest the questioner be called unpatriotic. The Pentagon can do no wrong. The Pentagon was ordained by God to be just as it is, and it always needs a raise. No one is allowed to tell the truth about the Pentagon, which is a veritable cesspool of corruption and kickbacks, the Pentagon that cannot account for $1.3 trillion (not a misprint) of the money it supposedly received.

Defense, hah! Protecting the country against terrorism, hah! It's the biggest welfare program in the country, a welfare program for the aerospace and weapons industries, a welfare program that exists only because the Republicans continually lie about the nation's real defense needs and most Democrats are cowed into accepting the fairy tale.

The Dems could get by with cutting the Pentagon budget if they made the missing $1.3 trillion a campaign issue by stating the obvious: there are only two ways to lose that much money. One is monumental incompetence, and the other is monumental corruption.

In either case, the Pentagon needs to "find" the money (get it back from certain Swiss bank accounts?) or face an amortized budget cut, let's say a cut of 65 billion per year for twenty years to make it up. Cutting Star Wars and freaky looking new bombers and nuclear weapons testing (after 58 years, we should know that they work) and tanks that are too cumbersome to actually function would just about do it, with no harm to the actual needs of the troops.

And it would NOT make the Dems look "soft on defense." It would make them look tough on corruption and dedicated to saving the taxpayers' money.

Carlos, you act as if the public's opinions are frozen for all time. Actually, they are as they are because the Democrats allowed the Republicans to monopolize the media and to set the agenda.

Too many Dems over the years, beginning in the Reagan administration, either kept quiet as the Republicans raped the country or stood around cheering them on. (Sam Nunn, a Southerner, was one of the enablers. So, sadly, was Al Gore, who is now regarded as something of a saint on this board. Claude Pepper, another Southerner, was one of the fighters.) Remember that Reagan pushed his agenda through a Congress in which both houses were controlled by Democrats!

The Republicans took control of the agenda because they had a consistent message and kept their party members in line. They were aggressive and persistent, and didn't take no for an answer. They never rolled over and played dead without a fight when the Democrats wanted something.

The Dems need to stand for something, not just be the unRepublicans. They need to not only fight back and hold the line when the Repiggies pull their dirty tricks but step forward with initiatives of their own.

So what if the Republicans try a Willie Horton? What's to prevent the Dems from coming back with stories of innocent people executed and interviews of their heartbroken families? So what if the Republicans call the Dems "soft on defense"? What's to prevent the Dems from calling the Republicans "soft on corporate welfare" and to keep repeating "the Pentagon has lost track of $1.3 trillion of your money" every time the Republicans say "soft one defense"?

I'm getting really tired of waiting for a united counter-offensive and a coherent alternative vision from the Democratic Party. And I'm sick of being told that offering alternatives to the Republican dystopian vision is "far left."

[Iverson]

118. Do you realize what this means?

You are a far left radical.
You do not understand compromise.
You are naive.
You are intransigent, wanting to have everything in your own narrow way.
You wish to alienate the mainstream.

I sure am glad you're here!
:thumbsup: :pals: :toast:

[jiacinto]

120. I respond in bold

conditioned to hate any and all taxes and why they think they're "taxed to death" (thanks for once more repeating right-wing memes) even though they pay the second-lowest taxes in the industrialized world (a fact that the right wing radio screamers never mention): the average middle American pays taxes, and still has lousy public services by international standards.

But the average voter is not going to see it that way. Most voters don't care that they pay the "second lowest taxes in the industrialized world". The problem is, Lydia, people want services without paying for them. They expect Government to provide them everything, including the Kitchen sink, without having to sacrifice or pay for it.

The problem is that people think that their tax money is not going to be spent wisely. They also think that the programs won't benefit them. They have high expectations. How to change that conditioning--conditioning that these voters have felt for almost 40 years--I don't know.

Where does the money go? The largest share of the general fund money, the place where our income taxes go, is signed over to the sacred, holy temple of the Pentagon, the Pentagon which may not be criticized in any way shape or form, lest the questioner be called unpatriotic. The Pentagon can do no wrong. The Pentagon was ordained by God to be just as it is, and it always needs a raise. No one is allowed to tell the truth about the Pentagon, which is a veritable cesspool of corruption and kickbacks, the Pentagon that cannot account for $1.3 trillion (not a misprint) of the money it supposedly received.

Defense, hah! Protecting the country against terrorism, hah! It's the biggest welfare program in the country, a welfare program for the aerospace and weapons industries, a welfare program that exists only because the Republicans continually lie about the nation's real defense needs and most Democrats are cowed into accepting the fairy tale.

The Dems could get by with cutting the Pentagon budget if they made the missing $1.3 trillion a campaign issue by stating the obvious: there are only two ways to lose that much money. One is monumental incompetence, and the other is monumental corruption.

Let me state the issues like the $600 toilet, Star Wars, and Missile Defense--all of which scientists have long shown--are valid ones. But look at the era in which we live. If 9/11 had not happened you would have a point.

But see Americans are nost hostile to the idea of national defense and the Pentagon. They aren't. Most Americans are supportive of the military. And to be anti-military will not sell in this era.

In either case, the Pentagon needs to "find" the money (get it back from certain Swiss bank accounts?) or face an amortized budget cut, let's say a cut of 65 billion per year for twenty years to make it up. Cutting Star Wars and freaky looking new bombers and nuclear weapons testing (after 58 years, we should know that they work) and tanks that are too cumbersome to actually function would just about do it, with no harm to the actual needs of the troops.

And it would NOT make the Dems look "soft on defense." It would make them look tough on corruption and dedicated to saving the taxpayers' money.

Pre 9/11 you would be right. Post 9/11 I think you are wrong.

Carlos, you act as if the public's opinions are frozen for all time. Actually, they are as they are because the Democrats allowed the Republicans to monopolize the media and to set the agenda.

They aren't "frozen". I do agree with you about the media. The left needs to get a media presence, which they lack so much. The CA Recall teaches us that lesson.


Too many Dems over the years, beginning in the Reagan administration, either kept quiet as the Republicans raped the country or stood around cheering them on. (Sam Nunn, a Southerner, was one of the enablers. So, sadly, was Al Gore, who is now regarded as something of a saint on this board. Claude Pepper, another Southerner, was one of the fighters.) Remember that Reagan pushed his agenda through a Congress in which both houses were controlled by Democrats!

The Republicans took control of the agenda because they had a consistent message and kept their party members in line. They were aggressive and persistent, and didn't take no for an answer. They never rolled over and played dead without a fight when the Democrats wanted something.

I do think the Democrats need to be more assertive.

The Dems need to stand for something, not just be the unRepublicans. They need to not only fight back and hold the line when the Repiggies pull their dirty tricks but step forward with initiatives of their own.

So what if the Republicans try a Willie Horton? What's to prevent the Dems from coming back with stories of innocent people executed and interviews of their heartbroken families? So what if the Republicans call the Dems "soft on defense"? What's to prevent the Dems from calling the Republicans "soft on corporate welfare" and to keep repeating "the Pentagon has lost track of $1.3 trillion of your money" every time the Republicans say "soft one defense"?

I'm getting really tired of waiting for a united counter-offensive and a coherent alternative vision from the Democratic Party. And I'm sick of being told that offering alternatives to the Republican dystopian vision is "far left."

[Lydia Leftcoast]

122. 9/11 may be a huge issue to you,

someone who was living in the DC area when it happened, but I honestly have not heard one person mention it since moving to Minneapolis two months ago, and after the initial shock wore off, it quickly fell off the radar in Portland.

To the extent that 9/11 is an issue, it's because the Busheviks keep raking it up with their bogus "war on terror."

Why didn't the Dems stand up and point out that you can't win a "war on terror" any more than you can win a "war on crime"?

You can catch individual terrorists, and you can catch individual criminals, but it is simply not possible to wipe out "terror" or "crime." The Dems should have called Bush on it so that he wouldn't be able to use it as the excuse for the Patriot Act, the war on Iraq, and a host of other things.

[jiacinto]

128. Americans wouldn't have cared

Lydia--that's the hard truth. Americans wanted the Patriot Act. Otherwise it wouldn't have passed both Houses by the margins that it did. Even Wellstone voted for it. The only ones who cared about the Patriot Act were a bunch of extreme left-wing activists and far right Libertarians. If the Patriot Act were so "unpopular" where were all the "Patriot Act riots and demonstartions"?

You write: You can catch individual terrorists, and you can catch individual criminals, but it is simply not possible to wipe out "terror" or "crime." The Dems should have called Bush on it so that he wouldn't be able to use it as the excuse for the Patriot Act, the war on Iraq, and a host of other things.

But most Americans, Lydia, just don't see it that way.

[Terwilliger]

129. Democrats were afraid, and Repukes had the upper hand

that's why the Patriot Act passed...not because people were calling their reps and senators saying "pass it! pass it! pass it!"

[Lydia Leftcoast]

131. Most Americans don't see it that way

because nobody in the entire Democratic party stood up and told them differently.

There you go again acting as if there's nothing we can do about U.S. public opinion.

I maintain that the Dems haven't even half tried.

[ulysses]

133. exactly so.

because nobody in the entire Democratic party stood up and told them differently.

Public sentiment on the invasion of Iraq worked in the same way, of course...

[Q]

125. It's really quite simple...

- More than half of the population doesn't bother to vote. A good portion of those who don't vote belong to the working class and the poor. A casual look at this data suggests that MOST of those who don't vote are Democrats.

- That is...the 'traditional' voter base of the Democratic party consists of those not represented by the corporate-owned Republican party. The working class and the poor have been hit the hardest since the 80s...when both the right AND the left abandoned them to appeal to the 'middle' class.

- Those who feel the government no longer represents them simply don't vote. Thanks to the DLC and the 'New' Dems.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

134. And reaching them does not mean "becoming a left-wing radical"

It means indicating that we know what their problems are and have easily explainable solutions.

Housing, health care, and workers' rights are three areas where the Dems could get the attention of the non-voters.

Their apathy comes from decades of listening to politicians who say nothing that is relevant to their lives. They see the fundamentalist wackos and apologists for the robber barons on one hand, and the limousine liberals with their contempt for the working class and their advocacy of corporate "free" trade on the other, and there's nothing in it for them.

[Q]

138. I'm not sure there are that many 'limousine liberals'...

...and the contempt for the working class seems to be coming from the 'conservative' elements of the Democratic party. They seem to feel the poor and working class just can't help them get what they need: cash to run a perpetual campaign and a lifelong career in politics.

- The US acts like a third world country...where the working class poor have no one to represent them or to fight for their rights.