# An open letter to my Democratic friends, regarding the current political season. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 28, 2005, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349 "2005-10-28T18:56:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/61 "2005-10-29T07:41:53Z")
**Mr. Moto** , you seem to see politics as a game to be won or lost. I will confess that I was glad to see Scooter Libby indicted today. That’s because I think he’s an enemy of the American way of doing things, not because he is a Republican. _All_ of us lost out when Libby became part of the White House staff. The country was deeply shaken during Watergate and I think that this situation could get much worse. Nobody wins then. > [@](#): > > Bill Clinton’s behavior didn’t seem to stop any of you from voting Democratic, did it? Clinton’s behavior did not directly affect the country nor did it reflect poorly on Democratic policy or on Al Gore. Why should it have affected our votes? You really seem to hate about 40% of your countrymen. > [@](#): > > **SteveG1** : I think Bush will skate out, as he always has. There will always be someone else to take the heat, someone else to blame. It’s the way he’s always been. Nothing is ever his fault, he never knows anything. I heard a comment last night on one of the news shows. Someone said that Bush has been feeling a little distressed that he appears to be out of the loop! I don’t know if that was said as a joke or not. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/45deac/32.png) [@Evil\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_One)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/62 "2005-10-29T13:25:18Z")
> [@ITR champion](#): > > Here’s an outline of the situation. Roughly forty percent of the nation will vote Pub in 2006, and roughly 40% will vote Dem; those two blocks have already decided and will not be swayed by anything. So the election will be decided entirely by the middle 20%. Now what is the middle 20 thinking right now? Well, they’ve been thoroughly convinced that the Republicans are a bunch of corrupt, rich, arrogant, crony-appointing, Dobson-obeying jerks. However, they still view the Democrats as a bunch of special-interest-controlled, big-government-liking losers. To actually make the middle 20 shows up at the polls and vote Democrat, we need a clear set of policies that actually appeal to that middle twenty. Absolutely true. And which party is best equipped to appeal to that 20 percent? What the country thinks about Bush will be revealed in the 2006 midterm elections. The Democrats may actually gain some seats. But they won’t gain enough to change the balance of power in either house. After that, the Republicans turn toward 2008 while Bush wraps up term number two. Based on the point above, all they have to do is run someone without ties to Bush, have them appeal to the base and the middle and win the election. What can the Democrats do to appeal to the 20 percent in the middle? Nothing, except move to the right. And that is a concept that has been discussed extensively here. Despite the hopes and dreams of many here, an obviously left-leaning candidate is not electable. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/63 "2005-10-29T13:29:42Z")
> [@Evil One](#): > > What can the Democrats do to appeal to the 20 percent in the middle? Nothing, except move to the right. Please offer your evidence. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/64 "2005-10-29T15:21:56Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > I heard a comment last night on one of the news shows. Someone said that Bush has been feeling a little distressed that he appears to be out of the loop! I don’t know if that was said as a joke or not. I don’t know. He may be deliberately out of the loop in order to insulate him from the fallout. or to maintain plausible deniablility. He may be out of the loop so he doesn’t say the wrong thing. Or, he may be out of the loop because his key players are under investigation and they want to either save themselves or fall on their swords. Or, he may be out of the loop because he is clueless and/or useless in this situation. He is pretty much a lame duck now anyway. Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for him to keep his word and fire anyone who was involved (yeah right). ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/65 "2005-10-29T15:30:29Z")
> [@Evil One](#): > > What can the Democrats do to appeal to the 20 percent in the middle? Nothing, except move to the right. And that is a concept that has been discussed extensively here. Despite the hopes and dreams of many here, an obviously left-leaning candidate is not electable. We don’t need a second Republican party, and that’s what moving to the right would be. One way to pick up some seats would be right from Bush and Rove’s playbook. Sling dirt and attack attack attack. Keep harping on the war and how we got pulled in, the indictments, the broken promises to fire guilty people, the favoritism, the attempt to “scuttle” social security, the repeal of minimum wage laws in Louisiana, depict a USA where personal liberties or rights have been reduced or attempted to be reduced (Patriot Act/GITMO/Schiavo etc). Paint all Republicans as being in the pocket of big business and special interests and as the enemy of the little guy, and start slinging mud. We could do well IF we fight for it. Again, we don’t need to become Republican Light, we just have to be willing to meet mud with more mud. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/66 "2005-10-29T16:31:47Z")
It’s not like the Democratic Party has spent the last two Presidential election cycles getting creamed at the polls. They don’t need an additional 20%, 15%, 10% that they haven’t been getting. A fraction of a fingernail’s thickness worth of the electorate (or, the case of Florida 2000, about one apartment building’s worth of voters) switching to Democrat would have done it. The Democrats need not make any great changes to their platform. They haven’t been out of reach of winning using the one they’ve been using. They need to polish up on their tactics and a more inspiring candidate sure wouldn’t hurt. Now, for recapturing Congress, that’s probably a different story. They need to explain better what the Democratic party _as a party_ stands for. Otherwise each individual candidate in each race has to campaign independently while the Republicans paint a Straw Man Democrat on a national level that each of them has to run against as well as running against the Republican. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/67 "2005-10-29T17:17:23Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > One way to pick up some seats would be right from Bush and Rove’s playbook. Sling dirt and attack attack attack. Keep harping on the war and how we got pulled in, the indictments, the broken promises to fire guilty people, the favoritism, the attempt to “scuttle” social security, the repeal of minimum wage laws in Louisiana, depict a USA where personal liberties or rights have been reduced or attempted to be reduced (Patriot Act/GITMO/Schiavo etc). Paint all Republicans as being in the pocket of big business and special interests and as the enemy of the little guy, and start slinging mud. We could do well IF we fight for it. I don’t think this would work. For one, I think it will get more left-leaning people to vote for Third Partt candidates, someone who represents an alternative to the ugly business as usual. As far as the middle, I can only offer my own reaction. I am a Pro-Choice Independent who leans right, yet has never voted for Bush. And the tactics you describe only increase the likelihood of me voting (R). I do think there is a perfect opportunity for Dems to score a big one. And that is immigration. Beyond the recent tough talk by Bush, the Reps are to infatuated with a cheap labor pool to do what many Americans believe needs to be done and stop illegal immigration. The whole immigration system needs to be overhauled, but that is the part of it that resonates with many Americans. I’d vote for a Dem in a second if I thought that they would lock down the borders and start fining and arresting the people who hire the illegals. Hillary has made motions that she’d be tough on immigration. We’ll know more in the coming years. ---
**Author:** ![Dishfunctional](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/35a633/32.png) [@Dishfunctional](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dishfunctional)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/68 "2005-10-29T17:25:59Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I do think there is a perfect opportunity for Dems to score a big one. And that is immigration. Beyond the recent tough talk by Bush, the Reps are to infatuated with a cheap labor pool to do what many Americans believe needs to be done and stop illegal immigration. The whole immigration system needs to be overhauled, but that is the part of it that resonates with many Americans. I’d vote for a Dem in a second if I thought that they would lock down the borders and start fining and arresting the people who hire the illegals. Hillary has made motions that she’d be tough on immigration. We’ll know more in the coming years. This is a tough call. I’m not sure who’s more enamored of what - Republicans of the cheap illegal labor pool, or Democrats of the cheap illegal votes. I don’t see a strong stand on securing the border being a slam dunk for either party, other than a slim advantage to whichever gets down first. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/69 "2005-10-29T18:14:08Z")
> [@Renob](#): > > So it’s OK to lie about some things but not others? Sounds like a pretty unstable foundation upon which to send people to jail. The law, however, says if you lie to a grand jury, you should to to jail. I think this is a better way of doing things than every person picking and choosing whether or not he or she thinks the grand jury is right in asking that question. Or we could, like [Patrick Fitzgerald](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/28/politics/28text-fitz.html?pagewanted=print), address the question of _why_ perjury and obstruction are regarded as serious crimes: > [@Patrick Fitzgerald](#): > > This is a very serious matter and compromising national security information is a very serious matter. But the need to get to the bottom of what happened and whether national security was compromised by inadvertence, by recklessness, by maliciousness is extremely important. We need to know the truth. And anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie, obstruct and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime. Got it? The reason why these crimes are crimes, is because if they weren’t, there’d be no penalty for obstructing an investigation into the underlying crime. There’s a pretty strong likelihood that a crime of consequence was committed in the course of Valerie Plame’s affiliation with the CIA becoming public. But we may never have sufficient knowledge of the details to charge the perpetrators for that crime, and one of the reasons we may never know is that Libby lied to the FBI and the grand jury. So we charge Libby for the lying, since the lying is what prevents the prosecutor from determining the who, what, where, when, and why on the underlying crime. What I’m getting from you here is that Clinton’s lying about sex prevented the grand jury from finding the truth about Vernon Jordan?! > [@Renob](#): > > Actually, Clinton wasn’t brought into court solely to talk about the Monica Lewinsky thing. Starr was investigating the rash of scandals at the White House and this was one of the things he asked about. > > Let me take an extended quote from Byron York’s article at National Review online ([http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200510240847.asp](http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200510240847.asp)) > [@Bryon York](#): > > Hubbell, the prosecutors suspected, was being paid not to talk. > > Starr knew that one person who had arranged “work” for Hubbell was Clinton friend Vernon Jordan. “Prior to January 1998, the Office of Independent Counsel possessed evidence that Vernon Jordan — along with other high-level associates of the President and First Lady — helped Mr. Hubbell obtain lucrative consulting contracts while he was a potential witness and/or subject in the OIC’s ongoing investigation,” says The Starr Report. “This assistance took place, moreover, while Mr. Hubbell was a target of a separate criminal investigation into his own conduct. The OIC also possessed evidence that the President and the First Lady knew and approved of the Hubbell-focused assistance.” > > Specifically, the report says, Jordan helped Hubbell receive assistance from MacAndrews & Forbes, the holding company for Revlon, for which Jordan served as a director. “Mr. Jordan introduced Mr. Hubbell to senior executives at New York-based MacAndrews & Forbes Holding Co.,” the report says. “The introduction was successful; MacAndrews & Forbes retained Mr. Hubbell at a rate of $25,000 per quarter. Vernon Jordan informed President Clinton that he was helping Mr. Hubbell.” > > That was all known in January 1998. So when, in that month, Starr’s prosecutors received word that the president’s former girlfriend planned to lie to the judge in the Paula Jones case, and that at the same time she had received help in getting a job — at Revlon, among other places — from Vernon Jordan, there seemed to be a connection worth investigating. And as a result, the country [was treated to details like](http://www.cnn.com/starr.report/): > [@](#): > > According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had ten sexual encounters, eight while she worked at the White House and two thereafter. The sexual encounters generally occurred in or near the private study off the Oval Office – most often in the windowless hallway outside the study. During many of their sexual encounters, the President stood leaning against the doorway of the bathroom across from the study, which, he told Ms. Lewinsky, eased his sore back. > > Ms. Lewinsky testified that her physical relationship with the President included oral sex but not sexual intercourse. According to Ms. Lewinsky, she performed oral sex on the President; he never performed oral sex on her. Initially, according to Ms. Lewinsky, the President would not let her perform oral sex to completion. In Ms. Lewinsky’s understanding, his refusal was related to “trust and not knowing me well enough.” During their last two sexual encounters, both in 1997, he did ejaculate. > > According to Ms. Lewinsky, she performed oral sex on the President on nine occasions. On all nine of those occasions, the President fondled and kissed her bare breasts. He touched her genitals, both through her underwear and directly, bringing her to orgasm on two occasions. On one occasion, the President inserted a cigar into her vagina. On another occasion, she and the President had brief genital-to-genital contact. Gotta admit, we would have been deprived of many insights into the relationship between Vernon Jordan and Web Hubbell if we’d never heard these incriminating details. :rolleyes: Fuck Ken Starr and the horse he rode in on. Or maybe have the horse fuck Ken Starr. Yeah, that works best, I think. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/70 "2005-10-29T18:53:13Z")
> [@Dishfunctional](#): > > … or Democrats of the cheap illegal votes… You can, of course, prove this? Proceed. ---
**Author:** ![Dishfunctional](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/35a633/32.png) [@Dishfunctional](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dishfunctional)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/71 "2005-10-29T19:03:12Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > You can, of course, prove this? Proceed. Prove _what?_ That I’m not sure who’s more enamored of what - Republicans of the cheap illegal labor pool, or Democrats of the cheap illegal votes? Sure, I can prove it - I just said it - and that’s all the proof you should need that I’m not sure who’s more enamored of what. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/72 "2005-10-29T19:08:52Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > You can, of course, prove this? Proceed. Too damn easy. I have one word to say… DIEBOLD. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/73 "2005-10-29T19:30:49Z")
> [@Dishfunctional](#): > > Prove _what?_ That I’m not sure who’s more enamored of what - Republicans of the cheap illegal labor pool, or Democrats of the cheap illegal votes? Sure, I can prove it - I just said it - and that’s all the proof you should need that I’m not sure who’s more enamored of what. Let me see if I’ve got this right. You’re not claiming that the Dems benefit from illegal voting by unqualified immigrants, only that you’re not sure if the Dems are more enamored of such illicit electoral advantage that they may…or may not…actually be receiving? Hence, you are under no obligation to prove any such illicit advantage exists, because you are only asserting their deep emotional attachment to something that, so far as you know, may or may not even exist? You sure that’s the tack you want to take? ---
**Author:** ![Dishfunctional](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/35a633/32.png) [@Dishfunctional](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dishfunctional)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/74 "2005-10-29T20:38:48Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Let me see if I’ve got this right. You’re not claiming that the Dems benefit from illegal voting by unqualified immigrants, only that you’re not sure if the Dems are more enamored of such illicit electoral advantage that they may…or may not…actually be receiving? > > Hence, you are under no obligation to prove any such illicit advantage exists, because you are only asserting their deep emotional attachment to something that, so far as you know, may or may not even exist? > > You sure that’s the tack you want to take? Why not? I don’t see one assumption as any more outlandish than the other. If we’re going to speak in such broad generalities, then I think we should ALL be permitted to speak in broad generalities. I mean, how far into the nuts and bolts of our everyday lives does this double standard reach? ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/75 "2005-10-29T21:36:51Z")
Diebold. Hanging chad. Election by Supreme Court fiat. ---
**Author:** ![Dishfunctional](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/35a633/32.png) [@Dishfunctional](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dishfunctional)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/76 "2005-10-29T21:48:56Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Diebold. Hanging chad. Election by Supreme Court fiat. I guess the parties are not quite ready to move on yet, Mr. Moto. But, surely, it’s the thought that counts… ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/77 "2005-10-29T22:07:43Z")
> [@Dishfunctional](#): > > I guess the parties are not quite ready to move on yet, Mr. Moto. But, surely, it’s the thought that counts… Why move on? I see no reason to let bygones be bygones. Somteimes a long memory and a few grudges can serve a useful purpose. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/78 "2005-10-29T23:20:47Z")
Let’s forget the election shenanigans for now. The OP talked about divisiveness, and suggested that it is a bad thing, that we should be above all that. So, in the interest of being “fair and balanced”, here is a quick look at the great unifiers of the right, those champions of reconciliation… \*“Joe Wilson has no right to complain. And I think people like Tim Russert and the others, who gave this guy such a free ride and all the media, they’re the ones to be shot, not Karl Rove.” – Republican Congressman Peter King, on MSNBC’s “Scarborough Country” “[A]ny American that undermines that war, with our soldiers in the field, or undermines the war on terror, with 3,000 dead on 9-11, is a traitor. Everybody got it? Dissent, fine; undermining, you’re a traitor. Got it? So, all those clowns over at the liberal radio network, we could incarcerate them immediately. Will you have that done, please? Send over the FBI and just put them in chains, because they, you know, they’re undermining everything and they don’t care, couldn’t care less.” – Bill O’Reilly, June 20, 2005 “In a May 17 radio broadcast, telephilosopher Bill O’Reilly fantasized unpleasantly that terrorists might ‘grab’ the Los Angeles Times editorial and opinion editor ‘out of his little house and … cut his head off.’” - Los Angeles Times, May 24, 2005 “We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals by making them realize that they could be killed, too.” - Ann Coulter, 2002 "Chelsea is a Clinton. She bears the taint; and though not prosecutable in law, in custom and nature the taint cannot be ignored. All the great despotisms of the past - I’m not arguing for despotism as a principle, but they sure knew how to deal with potential trouble - recognized that the families of objectionable citizens were a continuing threat. In Stalin’s penal code it was a crime to be the wife or child of an ‘enemy of the people’. The Nazis used the same principle, which they called Sippenhaft, ‘clan liability’. In Imperial China, enemies of the state were punished ‘to the ninth degree’: that is, everyone in the offender’s own generation would be killed, and everyone related via four generations up, to the great-great-grandparents, and four generations down, to the great-great-grandchildren, would also be killed. (This sounds complicated, but in practice what usually happened was that a battalion of soldiers was sent to the offender’s home town, where they killed everyone they could find, on the principle neca eos omnes, deus suos agnoscet - 'let God sort ‘em out’.) - John Derbyshire, The National Review “When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors.” – Anne Coulter There are no good Democrats. – Anne Coulter “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.” -Anne Coulter “People like you caused us to lose the war.” (to a disabled Vietnam Veteran) - Anne Coulter\* Let’s not forget 1966, when Newt Gingrich and company actually shut down the entire givernment over partisan politics. Then there is The Bush. Out one side of his mouth he promised to be a uniter, not a divider. He promised to be honest and ethical, and then the lies started, that led us to war, and then more lies to cover up the lies (WMD, yellow cake, Plame). He promised to be a tolerant guy and be everyone’s president, and then started pandering to religious zealots (Schiavo, antigay etc). Aw screw it. I will hold to my grudges and be proud of them. I didn’t divide the country. ---
**Author:** ![Dishfunctional](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/35a633/32.png) [@Dishfunctional](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dishfunctional)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/79 "2005-10-29T23:45:21Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Aw screw it. I will hold to my grudges and be proud of them. I didn’t divide the country. Not all by yourself, you didn’t. But, hang in there. If this legal campaign goes anything like the one that was waged against Clinton, it’s going to get a whole lot more anxious out 'der before it gets any better… **if** it ever does. ---
**Author:** ![E.Thorp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@E.Thorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E.Thorp)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2005, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/80 "2005-10-30T00:45:58Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Let’s not forget 1966, when Newt Gingrich and company actually shut down the entire givernment over partisan politics. Wow, time flies. Seems like only 10 years ago. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349.md?page=5)