Democratic Party BBQ

The BBQ Pit
1

Where to begin? Maybe with a bit of devils advocating…

George W. Bush is the stupidest president ever.
But the Democratic Party couldn’t get someone to beat him for the 2nd term (1st term election BS call allowed)?

Yes, the contemporary Democratic Party is not capable of beating the stupidest president ever.
Or, (put it any way you want), they couldn’t beat Karl Rove, or Dick Cheney, or Daddy, or the Fundies, etc, etc.
Whatever. Doesn’t make Dems look like strong leaders.

Well, the Democratic Party made some mistakes, I guess.
So, why aren’t there more Democrats busting their own for these mistakes?

It sure as hell isn’t to preserve solidarity. Unless you count the “anyone but Bush” solidarity.

I remember right after 2004, Dems were exploring the possibilities of moving to Canada, or New Zealand. They simply gave up on America because of an election that didn’t go their way.

Of course, most did not leave America. Probably NONE. To be fair, I don’t think these ‘reactionaries’ ever amounted to more than a handful.

Now, the Mid-Term elections are looking promising for the left. Why?
Because of Mark Foley??

Is the Democratic party in the future going to define itself as a strictly reactive party?

2008… Obama vs. Clinton… are you serious? Neither is electable.
There will not be a black man, or a woman winning in 2008. Either could be veep, opening up things down the road. But not President in '08. No way.

Democrats need to wipe the sleep out of their eyes.

They need a strong, clear direction.

Do I think this strong, clear direction will happen? Sure. It will, eventually.

How long will it take? Who knows?

There is too much time, money, emotion, and history to dismiss the Democratic Party. It will rise again.

But right now, it’s filled with dum dums.

Dumber than George W. Bush, that’s for sure.

2

The fact that the Democratic Party isn’t organized doesn’t bother me. The fact that the Republican Party is organized bothers me.

3

ARGH!

If your opponent is organized, YOU must be better organized!

Simple hatred of the right is not going to be effective.

By the way, I’m a centrist. But I do believe there is value in both major parties.

4

A silly point then, because even though there were some saying that back then, the fact is that they are here participating in the elections and they are now being close to winning some power back.

Psst, there is a silly war going in a place called Iraq, check it out. The also serious cases, like the Abramoff one, shows that Republicans can not be trusted in investigating the corruption that comes from being in power with virtually no checks and balances.

Since the Republican fear is that the Democrats are ready to seriously investigate what did go wrong, I see your point as an attempt to prevent what is necessary. As history shows, new leaders many times emerge from the investigations and hearings.

Mixed here, agree on Clinton, disagree with Obama, specially when I see some early polls showing him just 2 points behind the best Republican match, with many undecided.

Of course, give them subpoena power.

You lost me there, you have no evidence here.

5

About the only thing dumber than GeeDubya is whoever was dumb enough to vote for him. That, a box of rocks and a barrel of hair. About it.

6

Well, sure… be reactive.

But, don’t define your whole being as ‘reactive’.

Be “proactive”.

The Democratic Party cannot put all their eggs in the ‘Obama/Hillary’ basket.
Sure, it’s proactive. But it’s destined for failure.

7

Hell, let’s run Barney Frank for President! He’d do a good enough job, considering the, ah, somewhat lowered state of expectations of late. Bar is set so low, he could stub his toe on it and fall over it. And besides, the country wide rumble of tighty righty heads exploding would make America sound like a giant microwave popcorn…poppity poppity BANG bang pop pop pop…

8

Barney Frank for President!

Clinton for President!

Obama for President!

That guy from one of the Dakotas for President!

Man. Would you run this time? It’s a no-win situation.

9

I disagree here. I don’t think Clinton is electable, but Obama’s downfall is not his race, but his lack of executive experience. That said, a year ago I would have said he doesn’t have a shot in hell in 2008, and should wait until 2012 at the earliest, if not 2016 before making a run for it. Now? I think he’s got a realistic possibility. But it’s still quite early, so who knows. The best solution probably would have him running as a VP, but if he were by some miracle to get the Democratic nomination, I would not be brave enough to stake money either way on that election. Hillary? No way. Obama? I can see it.

10

crinz83, why don’t you tell us what policies would make this country better and why?

11

Mild hijack, but a point to be addressed. It was deeper than a silly election, IMHO. It was a sense that if so many people are voting the walking clusterfuck named GeeDubya back into office (and voting to keep denying marriage rights for gays/lesbians), perhaps these two Democrats (Partner Slip and I) are in the wrong country.

I and the Partner Slip were in Toronto when the election results came through. We thought of staying there - just ship the cats, please :smiley:

Unfortunately, it is damned difficult to emigrate to another country, as we came to discover. So we’re still here. And still voting Democrat or Progressive.

/hijack

12

Not so. That honor, at least to Presidents within my lifetime, goes to Jimmy Carter.

However, having said that…I agree with you. The Republicans at least have a game plan. You may not agree with it completely (I sure don’t), but come election day, I’ll vote for someone who has a plan as opposed to someone whose sole campaign tactic is “Hey, vote for me - I’m not Republican!”.

13

I’m sick and tired of people buying into the right wing talking points that the Democrats offer no agenda and all they do is hate Bush. Although kudos to the Republican machine for getting that meme such wide acceptance.

Here’s some of their agenda:

Reduce government subsidizing of drug companies.
Invest in medical research for the curing of diseases.
Rework the presciption drug plan to save money and lower prices.
Develop alternate energy to reduce dependance on foreign oil.
Stop subsidies to big oil.
Raise the minimum wage.
Balance the budget, if it eliminates the tax breaks, so be it.
Make college tuition deductable from taxs to encourage higher education for all Americans.
Expand Pell grants.
Cut student loan costs.
Increase incentives on private savings to decrease reliance on social security.
Stop cuts to veterans’ payments.
No pay raises for Congresspeople until minimum wage increased.
Undo the mangling of the EPA to protect the environment.
Invest in research and develop of biofuels.
Increase requirements for larger vehicles MPG and reduce emissions.
Double the special forces to get Bin Laden.

And the 100 hours plan:

Day One: Put new rules in place to “break the link between lobbyists and legislation.”

Day Two: Enact all the recommendations made by the commission that investigated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Time remaining until 100 hours: Raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, maybe in one step. Cut the interest rate on student loans in half. Allow the government to negotiate directly with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices for Medicare patients.

Broaden the types of stem cell research allowed with federal funds _ “I hope with a veto-proof majority,” she added in an Associated Press interview Thursday.

All the days after that: “Pay as you go,” meaning no increasing the deficit, whether the issue is middle class tax relief, health care or some other priority.

It takes 20 minutes to find their agenda and educate yourself. But it’s much easier to brainlessly repeat what Rush said.

14

I missed this post on preview, but it is so nice to have my point shown.

15

The Democratic Party is always going to be the on the back foot. Because it is the other guy that is the Party of Big Money and Media Owners, with no scruples about using them in the dirtiest of ways.

Like fast food, it’s cheap, easy and convenient to dine on what the big money’s selling you. And it bloats and kills you just as surely.

It is going to be amusing to measure the gall, as Fox news etc go on the defensive about how the new congress should cease its new scrutiny of the President. There’s a war on don’t you know.

16

Ha. As Dubya might say, “Jimmy was a nukuler engineer.” “Stupidest” does not mean “least favorite,” and “dumb” isn’t generally a word used to describe people who completed graduate studies in physics and nuclear reactor technology.

On the other hand, Dubya has owned a baseball team. Oh, and he’s also run an oil company and a country into the ground.

The reality is that Democrats can win elections without becoming a Borg-like hive mind of “THIS IS OUR PLATFORM – ALL CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSIMILATED.” Just look at Pennsylvania and Virginia this year, for example. Do you think Dems would be ahead of Santorum if a Hillary Clinton clone were on the ticket? Do you think someone more liberal than Webb would have done better in besting Allen? No.

I get tired of all this hand-wringing in my party. Just remember back in 1991 when it appeared that Dems would get crushed by an overwhelmingly popular president, and think of it: the only realistic candidates at that point were ho-hums like Paul Tsongas, Jerry Brown, and some governor nobody knew that got booed at the previous convention. We all know how that turned out.

17

I agree with you that there’s a pretty cool agenda out there. What pisses me off is that they’re spending no money publicizing it. They ought to be blasting the airwaves with commercials touting their plans, explaining what they’re going to do instead of teling us how evil the Republicans are.

Everyone knows how evil the Republicans are: look at the poll numbers for approval ratings of Congress. What people DON’T know is what the Democrats will do.

They’re wasting a golden opportunity.

Daniel

18

Me too. People mocked me for voting for Doctor Doom, but he had a clearly set out plan for Latveria. His plans for defeating the Fantastic Four, for example, were very detailed. Much better than that pathetic Reed guy, with his “peace” crap.

19

How the world do you expect to get all that into a 30 second political ad. The best 15 second sound bite they have is “we’re not George Bush, heck even if we were all actually squirrels wearing people costumes, we would be better than George Bush”

20

Damn, that irritates me.

Republicans are constantly saying stuff like that- “Democrats don’t have a plan for X, so by golly, I’m votin’ Republican!”

It’s true. I haven’t seen a plan come out of the Democrats. Of course, I haven’t seen a plan come out the Republican party, either- well, one which doesn’t involve lies and fearmongering in an effort to continue to stay in power.

The reason that Republicans appear to have more of a plan than the Democrats is because the Republicans are in power right now. There’s no other reason.