Apparently, we only want to attract a certain kind of Republican or Independent voter.

[readmoreoften]

Everyone is very excited that the Democrats are going to win some of the Independent and Republican vote. In fact, many supporters of Barack Obama are voting for him precisely because he can win so many of these coveted votes. But apparently we only want certain types of swing voters. Allow me to point out some moments I've witnessed on DU:

"Barack Obama will bring in the socially moderate fiscal conservatives."

This is apparently good because we'll capture those voters who shrug over gay and women's issues, but who want to throw the working class out of the tent.

"Barack Obama will bring in everyone who's sick of the Iraq war."

This is put forth as a wonderful thing, even though we don't know if these new Democrats will try to push women, gays, and the working class/poor out of the tent.

"Barack Obama will win the conservative African-American religious vote that we're losing to Republicans."

This is put forth as good. Who does this throw under the bus? Gays and atheists.


"Hillary Clinton will win because all those Republican women will vote for her.

This is put forth as a terrible thing. It is not seen as bipartisanship, but as 'selfish' women working together to undermine a political process. Are we concerned about the working class from Republican women who would vote for Clinton? Considering we'll accept any Iraq-repentant Republican (no matter what war they'll go along with in the future) I seriously doubt it.


"John Edwards will get pro-labor Joe Six-Pack back in the fold because of his strong working-class message."

The traditional labor vote was minimized as the "racist/sexist" vote even though it was seriously unfair to make such an assumption. Wine Democrats are no less racist or sexist, despite the fact that they really like to think they are. But we didn't really care about these voters. Why? Because we love gays so much? I don't think so. What about all those Joe Six-Packs who weren't former Bush supporters but just never bothered to vote because all the candidates seemed to be a bunch of rich guys who didn't represent their interests? This was not considered.

It's obvious who we want to reach:

We want fiscally conservative men who aren't terribly religious.
We want fiscally conservative women, so long as they're not so motivated by gender that they vote Hillary.
We want African-Americans if they are religious, but less so if they are gay or poor.
We want white male voters, but only if they are fiscally conservatives and talk politics like a wine Democrat.

To me this tells me who we want to be:

A generally sophisticated, free-market, multicultural party largely headed by men, who support choice and avoid gays, but don't persecute them. We want some basic labor protection, but just enough to win elections because most of us are supposed to align ourselves with the managerial class. We want to continue expanding the military and keep an offensive "war against terror", but we want our invasions to be more "Afghanistan-style" than "Iraq-style". If they're ineffective, that's okay, so long as they appear to make a little progress and keep the electorate happy. We want women to be involved in politics, but not too high up. If they are, they should be young, sophisticated go-getters. Sort of like a television actress. We do not want working-class women, poor women, or feminists. We want our gays to be witty, wealthy, helpful, and behind the scenes. Kind of like "Queer Eye for the Democrat Guy." In return, they will promise to stall Republicans in their attempts to seriously eradicate us for the next decade until some of the "older farts" die off. Also: we don't like the old--which may be why Social Security is "on the table" for privatization.

Just an observation of where our interests seem to lie.