Activists favoring Neal for Senate (NC senate race vs. Dole)

[Kelvin Mace]

http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080224/NRSTAFF/128477932/-1/NEWSRECRSSARKIVE

Activists favoring Neal for Senate
Greensboro News & Record

Ask 10 voters who identify themselves as "progressive" Democrats what their wing of the party believes in, and you might very well get 10 different answers.

Passionate and motivated, progressives — particularly the activists among them — are not given to lockstep thinking.

Still, those who identify themselves as progressives seem to be rallying more to Chapel Hill financial adviser Jim Neal than to Greensboro state Sen. Kay Hagan .

The voting bloc is far from decisive. But if the trend holds, it could be good news for Neal, whose campaign relies on the grass-roots one-on-one politicking that progressive activists favor.

I am not a fan of the word "progressive". The word was taken up by folks on our side when conservatives successfully demonized the word "liberal". By using "progressive" instead of "liberal" we help conservatives destroy the discourse by redefining words.

Of course, gaining the support of progressives is not necessarily a path to victory. Although the progressive wing of the party includes activists who will staff phone banks and knock on doors, it does not control the traditional levers of power. Moderate Democrats, who are more sympathetic to businesses, have more fundraising clout, and they comprise a larger portion of sitting legislators.

People who buy into this line of reasoning do so at their peril. You can't win elections without ground troops, which is not a task the "traditional levers of power" sully their hands with. They are looking to BUY politicians, we are looking to elect LEADERS.

Hagan is not giving up on the progressive vote. In an interview Friday, she declined to place herself in any one philosophical camp, but said her campaign's emphases on providing health care to all and ending the war in Iraq should appeal to all voters, including progressives.

"I think they want to get rid of (incumbent Republican) Elizabeth Dole as much as I do," Hagan said.

Neal, too, was reluctant to pigeonhole himself.

"I've never given a great deal of thought to whether I'm a conservative Democrat or a progressive," he said. "I'd like to describe myself as an open-minded Democrat."

This is a VERY disappointing comment from Neal. By rejecting the word liberal, he gives unspoken credence to the conservative tactic of making it a derogatory term, thus he has done half of the Republican's job for them.

There are three groups in the Democratic party at the moment:

1) People helping Bush destroy the Constitution (Vichy Democrats like Lieberman, and ANY Dem who voted for the FISA bill)

2) People who worship at the altar of "bi-partisanship" and "compromise", and by their stupidity and cupidity, help Bush destroy the Constitution.

3) People who actively and aggressive oppose the destruction of the Constitution and are fighting to restore the parts eroded away in the last seven years.

The last group are Liberals, and that is the group that Hagan expresses disdain for, and Neal appears to be expressing shame for.

Expressing an opinion that the country has become a de-facto police state, is met by folks like Hagan and the NC Democratic Machine with either condescension or sneering contempt. Apparently the truth is too too uncouth, too shocking for them to stomach and they get a case of the vapours when anyone is rude enough to make this point.

How the Hell would these folks deal with comments like this?

Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Patrick Henry

Golly, gee willikers, Batman, it sounds like this fellow is actually saying that we should be ready to die for liberty.

I can here folks like Hagan now.

"Yes, Mr. Henry, that was a nice speech, but if your really want to win elections you have to take a more diplomatic tone. We must reach across the aisle to our Tory colleagues and work together in the spirit of bi-partisanship to insure the security of the colonies. Such a divisive tone will make it impossible for us to accomplish comity with the King."

Sheesh.

Meanwhile Neal, who is running as an outsider, would be the first openly gay U.S. Senate nominee in the state's history.

"I really don't think Jim Neal has much of a chance," said Lee Baker , a UNCG professor who describes himself as torn between the two candidates. "I have no difficulties with that orientation at all, but we live in North Carolina, which is a very conservative state."

Baker said while he philosophically finds himself sympathetic to Neal, he wants someone who can defeat Republican Elizabeth Dole.

But others reject that logic, saying that old political bulwarks no longer apply.

This is a very tired meme. Not long ago, Obama was unelectable because he was black. People really need to stop living in the Jesse Helms' era. Obama is bringing out a LOT of young voters, people who have NO problem with being gay. In fact, if the contest for the Dem nomination is still undecided, Neal stands a good chance of winning the nomination, AND defeating Dole. What the Hell is Dole going to run on? Her service to NC? When has that damned carpetbagger ever been in the state, never mind helped any North Carolinian beyond the upper 1% who bought her?

Kay Hagan's worship of bi-partisanship and compromise represent the same policies that have failed us and lost us elections for the at least 16 years.

I was very aggravated that the reporter failed to mention that Hagan had said she would have voted FOR the FISA bill, specifically she would have voted FOR immunity for Telecomms that committed multiple felonies (hundreds, if not thousands of violations, in fact), by permitting Bush warrantless wiretaps. This was a critical omission by the reporter (or his editor), since it is at the core of the opposition now building against Hagan.

In this, Ms. Hagan found lots of companionship. People who claim that in the interests of fairness (multi-billion dollar corporations are such an oppressed minority in this country), compromise, and national "security", many of them voted in favor of the bill This is EXACTLY the kind of thinking that got us into Iraq, squandered countless American and Iraqis lives, burned through a half-trillion dollars, and utterly debased our Constitution.

To those individuals, I close with a picture of that crystallizes the actions of "bi-partisan" fetishists like Hagan, and a snippet of Patrick Henry which should stand as a stark caution of where that type of thinking has led us, and will lead us if pursued.

Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love?