Ditch Dixie

[monkspider]

Rufus is spot on.

[Ted Striker]

Carville

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
See, this is why I think you're wrong. In the last election, Dems did talk about health care and education, ad nauseum. They didn't talk about gays unless the Republicans brought it up. They never attacked religion (I defy you to produce an example of a Democratic candidate attacking religion).

Rufus: Most of the religious people in America see the ACLU running around sueing every city which has a Christmas display and then they blame the Democrats for "attacking" their religion. These guys on the extreme left wing are harming the whole party. Now we need to reign them in or we won't win. Period.

Kerry did try to move back to the middle in the actual election but if you remember the primaries the far left wing of the party had a huge say (likely a deciding say) in who the nominee was and that meant we lost several candidates who didn't have a sufficently liberal record. Thus in the real election we got hammered for being to liberal.

We do need to reframe the debate but no matter how much reframing we do in four years 1/3 of America will still think liberal is a dirty word. We can't win if 1/3 of the people start out against us and the rest are split. Yes, the Republicans have a great destortion machine and we need to get something to counter it but that is a long term goal and until that is accomplished how do we get elected?

The anwser is we stop talking about losing issues like gay marriage. BTW the far left of the party absolutely kept trying to bring up gay marriage and it only gave ammo to the Republicans so once again the far left hurt our party. We need to muzzle the extreme left or else we won't win big elections for sometime.

Gephardt didn't have 'em; Daschelle didn't have 'em; moderates just don't have 'em. Liberals like Russ Feingold and Nancy Pelosi do.

Dashelle was never a moderate he was far, far left of center and the same goes for Gephardt. The Clintonites and the blue dogs are pretty center while the Feingolds and Pelosis are left. Pelosi is strictly a bay area candidate and if we try to put a Nacy Pelosi up for national office then she'd be destroyed in a total landslide.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Carville

Carville is a classic Clinton man. He's not left wing he's a New Democrat (i.e. a centrist).

[Ted Striker]

Plus his delivery is total old school and full of energy.

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
Right now, they Dems have had reasonable positions -- like their position on gay rights -- taken away from them and distorted by GOP scare-mongers. The Dems used to do the same thing to conservatives -- Johnson's daisy commercial is probably the most famous example -- but they've either forgotten how to do it or they've lost the will. The Dems don't need a new ideology; they need either new brains or new balls. Gephardt didn't have 'em; Daschelle didn't have 'em; moderates just don't have 'em. Liberals like Russ Feingold and Nancy Pelosi do.

The Dems need to run a series of ads showcasing the Republican platform. Republicans are sure not doing anything about their supporters not knowing the Republican platform, so the Democrats must get the Republican message out and about.

It worked for Martin up here.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Rufus: Most of the religious people in America see the ACLU running around sueing every city which has a Christmas display and then they blame the Democrats for "attacking" their religion. These guys on the extreme left wing are harming the whole party. Now we need to reign them in or we won't win. Period.

You know what? Most people have never had any contact with the ACLU; they've never had their kids in a school sued by the ACLU; they've never lived in a town whose Xmas display was declared unconstitutional. So why do "most" "religious" people feel this way? Easy: the GOP propaganda machine is brilliant at taking isolated moments and blowing them up, claiming that they are emblematic of liberalism. They are very good at this, and I admire them.

The Dems don't need to reign in the ACLU; they need to fight fire with fire, and do it better. They need to take every instance of a school board banning Harry Potter and use it to claim that the GOP hates children and opposes reading. Really, that's what they should be doing.

Kerry did try to move back to the middle in the actual election but if you remember the primaries the far left wing of the party had a huge say (likely a deciding say) in who the nominee was and that meant we lost several candidates who didn't have a sufficently liberal record. Thus in the real election we got hammered for being to liberal.

If the far left of the party had had a deciding vote, the nominee wouldn't have been kerry; Dean was way more popular with most progressives, and Gephardt had a strong base in Big Labor. If anything, the party aparatchiks had the deciding say; that's the problem.

We do need to reframe the debate but no matter how much reframing we do in four years 1/3 of America will still think liberal is a dirty word. We can't win if 1/3 of the people start out against us and the rest are split. Yes, the Republicans have a great destortion machine and we need to get something to counter it but that is a long term goal and until that is accomplished how do we get elected?

Maybe we don't get elected in 2008. The page we need to take from the conservative movement is that it's better to build a movement that takes 20 years to get elected -- but then stays elected -- than it is to flit about scrounging for swing votes every four years.

The anwser is we stop talking about losing issues like gay marriage. BTW the far left of the party absolutely kept trying to bring up gay marriage and it only gave ammo to the Republicans so once again the far left hurt our party. We need to muzzle the extreme left or else we won't win big elections for sometime.

Again, we already don't talk about these issues; the answer is to stop letting the conservatioves define liberalism, and start getting liberals to effectively define conservativism. The answer is to stop always playing defense.

Dashelle was never a moderate he was far, far left of center and the same goes for Gephardt. The Clintonites and the blue dogs are pretty center while the Feingolds and Pelosis are left. Pelosi is strictly a bay area candidate and if we try to put a Nacy Pelosi up for national office then she'd be destroyed in a total landslide.

Pelosi would be destroyed in a national election. teh same could be said of Gingrich or DeLay, but that doesn't mean they haven't built a successful movement. Dascelle, like Bob Dole, had a great resume and the respect of his colleagues, but built little and watched history pass him by.

[Jon Miller]

no

who had a deciding say was a combination of special intrests and corporations

Kerry had a liberal enough voting record for the special interests, and was right in with the corporations

Jon Miller

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


No, he thinks the Dems need to change ideology, not move it -- and he's wrong. The GOP didn't change their ideology -- if they did, Reagan would be an amusing footnote and we'd all fondly remember President Rockefeller. Instead they built coalitions that connected their formerly-marginal ideology to people beyond the narrow realm of the true believers. That's the tactic that liberals need to emulate. Don't abandon the ideology, and don't apologize for it; instead, do the hard work of showing people why it's right for them. Conservatives did this very, very well, and their example can be followed.

Actually they did change their ideology with Goldwater and forged a new majority over time. In the short term they lost part of the Republican party who didn't fit in to the new order. In the long run they took even more voters from the Democrats. This took almost twenty years to accomplish, but it only occurred after the Republican had been firmly ensconced in the minority for decades, with only a two year break during the popular Eisenhower administration.

I don't see the Democrats in as nearly as dire a situation as the Republicans were. It's only been a decade since they were in control of both houses and the presidency. The 2000 election saw them winning the popular vote for president with a moderate candidate, and if Gore had an ounce of charisma or had run a better campaign he would have won the presidency by a firm margin in the electoral college.

Kerry was simply too liberal to win in the electoral college. He had unprecedented funding (particularly for someone challenging an incumbent) and an opponent who was deeply unpopular. He won the debates. But he lost the general election because he was simply too liberal for a vast majority of the states, a majority of the population, and a slim majority of the EC.

This isn't likely to change very soon. The red states are growing in population faster than the blue states. By holding the same line the Democrats are leaving the initiative in the hands of the Republicans. They have to hope that the Republicans continue their disastorous policy drift from realism to neo-conservativism in foreign policy and from fiscal conservsatism to pork barrel politics. They have to hope that these policies lose more support than the demographic shift gains the Republicans, and they have to also fight momentum that Republican electoral victories give them.

Right now both parties seem to be enthralled by their outer wings. This is to the advantage of whichever party manages to take one step to the center first. There are an immense number of votes in that center. Not only are a majority of the independents there, there are quite a few inner wing members of both parties who are up for grabs when an outer wing member of their own party is running against an inner wing member of the other party.

The problem here is that the primary process favors those who are more extremist over those who have the ability to draw from independents. Witness Bush's victory over McCain in 2000, or Kerry's selection as the Democrat who had the best chance to defeat Bush. If that's their best, then they are in real trouble. The real problem is that the Democrat primary voter is ignorant of what will and will not play in the general election. The Republican primary voters are just as ignorant, their only advantage here is that the great political swing has put their party into the majority. Both parties are spurning the center, and for the Democrats it is fatal.

[Imran Siddiqui]

These guys on the extreme left wing are harming the whole party.

And it is the Republican attack machine that has people convinced that an organization dedicated to civil liberties is on 'the extreme left'.

Carville is a classic Clinton man. He's not left wing he's a New Democrat (i.e. a centrist).

Totally false! Listen to him talk about welfare reform. He was pissed that Clinton caved in to them (being Republicans). He's also for a Canada style healthcare system. And Carville consistently derides the Republicans as 'evil'.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Carville is a classic Clinton man. He's not left wing he's a New Democrat (i.e. a centrist).

Totally false! Listen to him talk about welfare reform. He was pissed that Clinton caved in to them (being Republicans). He's also for a Canada style healthcare system. And Carville consistently derides the Republicans as 'evil'.

Spot on! Everytime I hear Carville speak it makes me wanna puke.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
why wasnt jesus born an american?


cuz they couldnt find three wise men or a virgin.

Modern marvels of science look to help out

Jesus Christ: Democrat Candidate for 2008?
Liberal Scientists Hope to Have Bisexual, Left-Leaning Christ Fully Lab-Grown for Next Election

With hot button moral value issues continuing to make headlines and presidents, the Democrat party needs a bold new strategy to win Bible Belt votes if it is to remain viable in the 2008 election.With such a growing decency divide, how can the left put a candidate forward who appeals to both sides of these heated issues? Today's progressive liberal scientists say they have the answer.

"Thanks to advancements in cloning and stem cell research, we extracted DNA samples from what what we hope is the shroud of Turin," explains Liberal researcher Dr. Howard Faber, a genetic scientist at Cornell and longtime proponent of cloning fetuses for abortion. "By advancing the growth stage through gene manipulation and fetal tissue injections, we're confident a new and improved Jesus Christ could be a viable Democratic candidate for 2008."


Will the Democrats' dream candidate bridge the gap in the red states?

This solution to bridging the red-blue gap comes at a time when the nation has never been more divided. Liberal criticism has reached a fever pitch, with Dems alleging Bush invaded Iraq for oil when more cost-effective methods are available, such as using ground-up fetuses from unwanted pregnancies for fuel or powering automobiles from the friction created by homosexual love-making. The red states, typically, objected to both, claiming that these natural alternative were somehow unnatural.

"A 2008 Dem candidate must appeal to the morals of fundamentalist Christian Conservatives," explains Democrat advisor Carl Paulson, "but at the same time, not alienate any blue states, who have chosen to turn their backs on God. Jesus is probably the only solution to that. With Christ as a Democrat candidate, we can put forward the entire liberal agenda and know the red states will have to back it or deny the will of their God."

We here at MoveOnPlease were overjoyed at the idea of running a simulation of the son of God under the Dem ticket in 2008. However, the process has not been without obstacles. For instance, though we're pretty sure Jesus was a Liberal, what if this particular breed of Lord and Savior doesn't lean left?

"It's too soon to tell, but God willing," said Faber, winking,"we think we've managed to make Jesus bisexual."

link

How unspeakable!!!

[GePap]

RUFUS '08

Oerdin, I am sorry, but you are an example of what democrats need to fight- you have accepted the other side's arguements as being true, and thus have already lost the fight-the enemy chose the battlefield and you won't be able to really combat that.

[Odin]

The "New Democrats" in the DLC are a bunch of republican-lites. I want the Great Society Democrats back in power.

Carville for President!!!

[DanS]

The truth is that conservatives comprised about 35% of voters in this election while liberals comprised about 20%. Oerdin is right in that the political terrain is very unfavorable for a party that caters to the left unduly.

Clinton was successful by building a coalition in the center. I don't know whether he would be successful in today's political climate (especially considering that he was pretty much a defanged caretaker president for 6 years), but you can't discount the fact that he put together a winning strategy. The Democrats could do worse than to follow his advice.