The republicans are NOT moderate...

[CTLawGuy]

Why do they control the entire government then?

if the key to electability is appealing to swing voters, then why are the radical Republicans so successful?

Do they understand something we don't?

My theory, they understand that the way to win is through your base. They run on a platform pleasing to their base and then try to conivnce the middle that their ideas are good. This is successful mostly because the democrats do not do the same thing. The RW convinces people the Iraq war is good. Swing voters agree with the war because they hear no arguments against it. The democrats won't oppose the war because the swing voters support it due to the Dems failing to argue against it.

People, how do we know that swing voters would not agree with us on something like the war if we just had the guts to oppose it as a party. Swing voters are swing voters because they really don't have a preset ideology. They go with what looks practical at the moment. They are malleable. You can't go them and use them as your base. If you try to represent what they want instead of bringing them to you, you end up parroting republican policy, because the Pugs will sell them on the policy. If you do that, your base gets angry at you and stays home, those swing voters see you as wishy washy and end up voting republican anyway.

We gotta stand up for what we believe in and bring the voters to us. We must give them something other than the RW propaganda that dominates. the problem is, in nominating Kerry, we fall into the trap of trying to appeal to people with no real ideology. He voted for the war, patriot act, and supports the tax cuts in a hopeless attempt to attract swing voters. Guess what? bush is for all those things too, so why should any of them vote for Kerry?

I'm sorry, but the DLC's attempt to use the middle as the base will fail.

[eileen_d]

1. Did Dubya run as a radical Republican?

I don't recall that he did. I think that's why I found the "no difference between Bush and Gore" argument more convincing in 2000 (although I did not vote for Nader). I find it much less convincing now.

[JVS]

4. Not reall, but he made the right nods and winks to extremists in his party

They knew the score. Hell, we knew the score. I don't know a person who thought he was going to be a moderate, and that includes among people I know who supported him.

[CTLawGuy]

5. no, but he IS a radical republican

his campaign was about bringing the middle to his side. Thats why he couches his radical policies in language that appeals to moderates. thats how to win, make your policies appealing to the middle.

[eileen_d]

9. I thought your original post said the way to win

was to appeal to the base, not the middle? But you are saying "that's how to win, make your policies appealing to the middle." Am I missing something?

[CTLawGuy]

13. no, you misunderstand

you convince the middle that what your base believes in is a good idea. Reagan did this with supply side economics. He used Welfare Queens to turn the middle against welfare.

The middle is conservative because they only hear conservative viewpoints.

[poskonig]

2. The grassroots is turning out in record numbers for Kerry.

Not Dean. Kerry stands for progressive taxation, a clean environment, health care access, and so forth. If we don't get Dean's gun-toting confederate flag-waving pro-corporate platform, we'll survive.

[CTLawGuy]

3. pro corporate, thats a laugh

Kerry stands for nothing, Dean sticks his neck out and takes all the heat. All those people are turning out for kerry because of "electability". NOTHING ELSE. Not because Democrats love the war in Iraq or the Patriot Act

[poskonig]

7. Kerry doesn't stand for guns or confederates.

Kerry also doesn't stand for raising taxes on the middle class or the death penalty. Just because people aren't convinced by Dean doesn't imply they're sheep.

Dean has always been a regular politician; he certainly isn't our "Messiah."

[CTLawGuy]

11. explain why

dem primary voters agree more with Dean on the issues but vote for Kerry?

Is it because of DLC fear-mongering bullshit about electability?

Kerry is for the Death penalty for terrorists. And getting rid of tax cuts is not raising taxes, its reversing a mistake that should never have happened.

The middle class got no effective tax cut because bush shifted the costs of the tax cuts onto states by underfunding homeland security and no child left behind, forcing them to raise regressive taxes.

[poskonig]

15. Most Democrats support progressive taxation.

You can rationalize it anyway you want, but most do not believe the middle class should pay more because of Bush's mistakes. Raise taxes on millionaires instead.

With Dean's "electability," no one made him do the yeeeeeeargh thing. Nobody made him stake out his absurd tax position, praise confederates, or earn an A++ rating from Charlton Heston. Dean's campaign was predicated on turning out voters, hordes of new voters in fact. This has been falsified over and over again in over a dozen primaries.

In short, Dean isn't even that liberal. His oratory is still unpolished, and he made mistake after mistake on the campaign trail. Perhaps the simplest answer is the correct one -- voters just see Kerry as a superior candidate.

edit -- I'd also note that Gephardt and Dean both did horrible in Iowa. While everyone ran tough campaigns, what did Dean and Geppy have in common? Their tax position.

[CTLawGuy]

17. what you dont understand

is that the middle class DOES pay more becuase of Bush's mistakes, because they pay higher state taxes that results from the withholding of federal funds.

As for the Scream, the media did a complete misleading hatchet job on Dean, which they belatedly admitted.

His tax position is not "absurd". Were you against the tax cuts or not? Kerry did not even vote for the middle class tax cuts. Bush will call kerry a tax raiser for simply wanting to repeal one dime of his tax cut. So there is no difference between Dean and Kerry on this.

Dean got and A rating from the NRA because he never signed gun control legislation, because they don't need gun control legislation in Vermont.

The fact is that people agree more with Dean on the issues but the Media and the DLC has them scared that Dean is unelectable. They voted for Kerry simply because he is "electable".

[Fenris]

6. The Republicans have been on the rise since Reagan

Actually, a pretty good look at how liberalism in America "died" is the book "The Strange Death of American Liberalism," written by H.W. Brand, a professor of history at Texas A&M. Brand argues that liberalism surges in America during times of war and sinks during times of peace. World War II launched the modern liberal age, the Cold War gave it a reason for continuing, and the war in Viet Nam and the fading of communism killed it. It's hard to explain, but the book does it well.

Theoretically, the war on terrorism should bring about another surge of liberal policy. But historians are not seers. They only report patterns (at the most). Perhaps 2002 was the American equivalent of the Khaki Election. Or perhaps we're sliding into much scarier territories.

So the Republicans don't know something we don't. They are just fortunate that the public is tentatively conservative.

[CTLawGuy]

8. Yes, the republicans soared because of Reagan

and he is as far from a moderate as you can get.

the repub version of the DLC kept saying reagan was unelectable, he was unelectable, he would lose... they were discredited, and the real DLC (who should have been discredited after 2002) will be this year.

[Fenris]

10. He didn't have to be

He sold a lie and they believed him. They like(d) the lie better than the truth.

I had an economics instructor once, a fanatical conservative who voted for Reagan twice. He said Mondale was right. It didn't stop 49 states from going to Reagan. Americans have a hard time dealing with the truth, because it hurts.

[CTLawGuy]

12. reagan was good at

bringing the middle to him. We need to convince the middle that universal health care, workers rights, gay rights, and international cooperation are GOOD ideas.

[eileen_d]

14. OK, I see what you're getting at

I asked a question up above because I thought you were contradicting yourself. When you put it this way, it's clearer to me what you're trying to say.

I have to go to bed...

[Fenris]

16. Or be like Reagan

And say one thing and do another, i.e. never raise taxes, raise taxes. Deception doesn't get you into Heaven, but it does get you elected. That's how Reagan did it, and that's how Bush II did it. Pure bait-and-switch deception.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

18. What I Would Like To See

Democrats have to do a tap dance between the left, the far left, and the moderates. Why is it this year that there are no far right 3rd party candidates to force Bush to the right in order to keep that base happy, therefore causing him problems in the center? Bush has the far right in his hip pocket so far, and doesn't have to dance the dance between right and center. He has no challengers this year. There is only one far right 3rd party candidate on the horizon and she's so bizarre she may yet get attention in the press for it. I'm talking about Diane Templin of the American Independent Party.

Templin touts herself as "100% Pro-Life." She also is a strident opponent of gay rights and illegal immigration, and a vocal supporter of school vouchers and gun rights. She also likes to pepper her campaign remarks with frequent Biblical references. In fact, Templin explained it was a Biblical verse that inspired her to make runs for political office. "I thought of a verse in Isaiah, the Old Testament, and it said: 'Who will I send and who will go for me?' -- and I said, here am I, Lord, send me," explained Templin (i.e. she outBushes Bush). Further, Templin said that she would only belong to a political party that "acknowledges God as creator and the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior." She describes her campaign platform as: "I support Biblical and Constitutional Principles of Life, Liberty and Property." Templin has done some strange things in the past as a candidate. For example, at the 1996 US Taxpayers Party Presidential Convention, Templin unsuccessfully sought the nomination by dressing up as the Statue of Liberty.

Dresses up for her speeches as the Statue Of Liberty? That's better than a flight suit!!! Wants an official Evangelical Christian Religion in America? Anti any gay rights or immigration rights? Diane Templin is so entertainingly extreme right that she could possibly cause a sensation among disaffected reactionaries on Bush's right. But she has no money and is getting zero media attention. If Democrats were more Machiavelian in these matters, they would surrpetitiously support someone like this with small donations, if for nothing else than to exploit a very gaping hole in Bush's armor, that is, the tremendous dissatisfaction he is having in his own party over issues of immigration, the deficit, his character, foreign intervention, no pro-life judicial appointments, and jobs. Sorry to be bringing up such impure sounding strategies but we are living in very desperate times. If Bush wins another term, who knows what will happen to us?

[corporatewhore]

19. We could be frank on one issue that would unite cons and libs...

It is Freetrade.Heck even the texas gop wants outof nafta/wto/imf if we nominated some one with the guts to say and not tap dance around the fact that we need to get the fuck outta nafta/wto/imf because american jobs are going to china you could see greens libertarians old school conservatives and liberal dems unified as one voting against bush
by the way its Buy American or Bye Bye America resonates on both wings

[w4rma]

20. I am in full agreement. (n/t)