I am not one to open or participate in many Pit threads but Chuck pissed me off.
I was watching the Daily Show and Chuck was the guest. Not a bad interview until he started to talk about Tom Daschle. Chuck feels that Tom was the best guy in the senate and an “All-American” guy. Fine he is entitled to his opinion. I don’t know Senator Daschle very well so Chuck may be right. Then he said if someone like Daschle could lose “There must be something wrong with the system.”
Something wrong with the system
This is not a debate about the electoral college, this was a straight up popular vote. You have a problem with that system Senator? Which system do you like? Do you think the “good guys” in the senate shouldn’t have to run for reelection? Maybe democrats should get two votes each. Maybe the candidates should draw straws. Please tell me what is your choice for a better system Senator. There was an election, your guy got fewer votes, he lost, stop whining.
So a partisan Democrat goes on a slanted show and says a partisan line.
…and you’re shocked by this?
I’m sure it wouldn’t have been any different if the GOP had lost and was up there. Or he could have been referring to “the system” not in terms of voter fraud, but saying “Americans aren’t looking at policy anymore.”
You don’t have to agree with what’s being sad, but I don’t see this as particularly evil or shocking in any scenario.
It’s not a partisan line, its a stupid fucked up statement. A partisan line would be “the best man did not win.” I would not have a problem with that, its an opinion. To say there is something wrong with the system simply because the guy with the most votes won is idiotic and shouldn’t be said by a US Senator.
Considering Schumer got reelected with about 70% of the vote this year, using the same system, maybe there IS something wrong with it. Apparently, Daschle wasn’t representing the will of the people in SD, if he was, he would have won, simple as that. It’s no small thing to dump a party leader, one of the most powerful people in government, for a freshman, the people of SD have spoken, loudly.
I remember watching TDS last night when he said that and I thought to myself, there’s no way he said what I think he said. Then I look around the boards and see no reference to it, so figured I was indeed wrong. Now this.
I’ve never had much respect for Chuckie, but…just…wow. :wally
I’m going on the record as agreeing with what Chuck said. If a man can do everything in his power to screw up the country, send thousands of young men and women to an unjust war, fight AGAINST human rights, and still get elected, there is something very wrong.
I’ll reiterate what I said about the possibility of him meaning something’s wrong with American’s not looking at policies and only trying to see how folksy someone is.
I understood it that way, but perhaps because it was in our super-secret partisan Democrat code that we developed.
OK Lets have a new system. NotWithoutRage gets to pick our leaders. We don’t need a vote. Or maybe a monarchy. Yep something wrong with the system just because the majority doesn’t agree with you. Of course there was nothing wrong with the system in 96 or 92. Apparantly there is nothing wrong with the system in New York because Schumer won. Oh wait, that right the system broke down and let Pataki win. I guess no system is perfect.
I agree. But not like you think. Something is wrong with a Democratic Party that could not prevent a man who did “everything in his power to screw up the country, send thousands of young men and women to an unjust war, fight AGAINST human rights”
The Democratic Party was not capable of overcoming these faults in the minds of the majority. Don’t point fingers at the Republicans. Point them at yourselves, especially Democrats in swing states. Point it at the Democratic Party leadership who could not motivate people who lost family in Iraq, who lost jobs, who are paying twice as much per barrel of oil (not Republican-caused, but since when has causality mattered…a Republican was in the Oval Office when it happened), who failed to prevent the largest terrorist attack on US soil (I’m of the opinion that President Bush et al couldn’t have prevented it, but if the Republicans can get people to believe a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, why not fight back with this?).
As for Schumer, he’s horrible. I almost wanted to vote for D’Amato the crook over him (instead, I abstained). This time, he was running virtually unopposed, but my vote still went to Mills, who ran no campaign. He, simply, was not Senator Schumer.
Heard the guy who beat him talking about how he will be working for the people of South Dakota, not doing all that national stuff Daschle did. It’s a nice way to look at it but he’s the junior senator from South-fucking-Dakota. There’s not a lot more he CAN be doing. But OTOH, my own newly-elected junior senator told reporters yesterday that he’s just a state senator and hasn’t even been on the floor of the US Senate yet and he’ll probably spend his first couple months learning where the bathrooms are and how to use the phone, much less think about running for higher office, but I think people are expecting more from Barack Obama than John Thune.
FWIW, i interpreted Schumer’s comment to mean that if a guy like Daschle can’t get elected, there’s something wrong with the general state of politics in America, something wrong with the way that Americans think politically. I especially thought this because he made the comment in the context of a conversation about whether it is the Democrats or the Republicans whose policies most closely reflect the real hopes and fears of the majority of Americans. His overall argument on the show was that, despite the election result, he really feels that the Democrats do, but that they aren’t getting their message out well enough.
Whether i agree with Schumer’s assesment or not isn’t really the issue. But i never thought that his comment was meant to be a critique of the electoral college system, or that he meant to imply anything underhand about the result of the popular vote. His comment, it seemed to me, was more a general observation about what he feels is wrong in American political culture and discourse right now. I have the show on tape. When i get a bit of time later, i’ll watch it again and post a transcript of the relevant section. Of course, you may not agree with me even then, but i really don’t think he was criticizing the “system” in the way that the OP suggested, even though i agree that his choice of phrasing was pretty poor.
And, just for the record Senator, i think you were speaking out your ass. Tom Daschle is a perfect example of what has been wrong with the Democratic Party lo these many recent years. His “moderate” accomodationism to almost everything the Republicans wanted is one of the reasons why so many people in this country don’t really see any need to vote for the Democrats. Why vote Republican Lite when you can get the real thing?
