The Democratic Party has become too cautious to be effective...

[kentuck]

as an opposition Party to the right-wing conservatives. It can be debated when this idea started but I think it came to fruition during the Clinton years. With the "triangulation" strategies, politics became a cautious game that lowered support for Democratic policies by taking the safe approach that "most" people favored in the polls at that given time, in my opinion. It has carried over with many Democratic members in our present Congress and Senate. We lost the ability to appeal to voters with a basic Democratic message. It has become diluted so as not to anger one interest group or another, in my opinion. Even on DU, we talk about possible candidates in the context of who they might appeal to and who might not vote for them for one reason or another, when we should be looking at the ideas of the person, with the understanding that not everyone will agree with them, but we must have enough faith and belief in the ideas to be able to support them, regardless of what the critics might say. It is the ideas that we must support - not the candidate.

[forgethell]

1. Still, the Great

Triangulator won elections for the Democrats. Who else do we have that we can say that about?

[kentuck]

2. He did not win in landslides...

and we lost the House and Senate and most statehouses... What did we win when we look back?

[forgethell]

3. Well,

we had the Presidency. I don't guess that counts for much. Further more, what have we got now??

[Nite Owl]

4. I think it has too.

The right fought, they fought everything. That got their ideas out there, instead we have become defensive of ours. This won't be won by being polite or with compromise. They are seen as willing to stand up and fight which in itself is a strength and is one reason why we are seen as 'weak' and 'wimpy'. If we cannot fight for our ideals the public rightly translates that into we won't fight for their needs either.

[kenny blankenship]

5. "Subject line too cautious to be relevant..."

Some would say the Democratic Party has long ceased to be a political party with a coherent, understandable ideology.

It knows not what it wants, or where it wants the country to go. Hence, rudderless, it drifts and bobs on the currents of change, blown about by the Republican storm.

Know who you are. Make sure that in wanting what you want, you face up to what is necessary to achieve it--practically and philosophically. In other words, don't wish for socialist ends on the one hand and then pretend on the other that capitalist means and that mouthing capitalist nostrums can get us there.

Make sure you can justify from first principles, to policy proposals, to actual outcomes, what your party stands for, for whom it acts, and what it does.

[welshTerrier2]

6. Democrats are choosing politics over policy - it won't work ...

the Democrats have no position on foreign policy ...
the Democrats have no position on foreign policy ...
the Democrats have no position on foreign policy ...

got the idea???

the republicans will make sure there's a war going in 2008 ...
the republicans will make sure there's a war going in 2008 ...
the republicans will make sure there's a war going in 2008 ...

got the idea???

Americans will not vote for the Democrats' non-position during a war ...
Americans will not vote for the Democrats' non-position during a war ...
Americans will not vote for the Democrats' non-position during a war ...

got the idea???

[LeFleur1]

7. Fear

It seems the candidates have been afraid of the Lying/Smear Republican machine. Sometimes you just have to arm yourself with facts and stand up to the liars. Sure, they are a convincing bunch of falsehood manufacturers, twisters of facts. So what. Get the facts, wave them in faces, shout about it. Get the truth out, for God's sake.

Democrats are a party of the people. We fight for causes of the people.

I don't buy this crap that we 'have to do this, have to do that', that we 'must abandon our fights for rights.' We just have to cite examples and stand for something.

Shove the polls. If something is right, it is right and the polls will reflect it. Never forget that polls come after the fact, they are reactions.

Use individual examples of wrongs done because our government has not put the people first. Prove the case. It isn't hard. Stop pussyfooting, but be ready to duck and cover because the Republicans know how to throw shI#.

Never give up. We may not be in uniform, nor do we patrol streets in humvees, but we can fight just as hard for our Constitution, our freedoms, our country. Support one another.