:dubious: Because he’s a trial lawyer?
If so, shame on you.
Because it seems to end up that way most of the time. We’ve had mostly Democratic Congresses and Republican Presidents in the modern era. The GOP control of Congress in 2002 - 2006 was very unusual, given Bush in the WH.
Nope, just a rich, phony dude.
The Dems didn’t learn that much from 2004 because they didn’t have that much to learn. All this piffle about unexciting candidates and elitist contempt for the commoner is just so much buttwhistle. There is nothing exciting about George W Bush, the packaging and marketing of GeeDubya the Candidate was a masterpiece of the handler’s dark art.
The Pubbies exploited 9/11 for all it was worth, blubbering about their patriotism while they deposit their checks. That, coupled with money, organization and an entirely ruthless self-righteousness, made a formidable force.
But not even the bad shit lasts forever. The progressive minded voter has a cornucopia of candidates, good, talented people. Personally, I don’t much care for Ms Clinton (though I see no reason why a lesbian Satanist cannot govern effectively…) I’d like to see Richardson get the nod, failing that Edwards. Anybody, so long as they’re running against Newt!
Jesus could be Clinton’s running partner and she still wouldn’t win.
Might as well. You never address them, or apparently even *read * them.
Does that mean we no longer have to see your piously nonsensical claims to want elective democracy to work? Or that you put country before party in any way? Not that it’s exactly news out here in the reality-based community, of course, but your own acknowledgment of your own essential amorality is at least a step forward for the board.
What are we going to do about it, you ask? Those of us who understand and appreciate the value of the system you so casually piss on? The one so many have fought so hard to create and improve and make work? Well, we’ll keep working for it. Against the likes of you, unfortunately, but that’s the way you insist upon it. It’s a damn shame to have such a sharp mind as yours wasted on someone who has no idea what a principle even is, but apparently God’s sense of humor is a little twisted.
Oh yeah, the OP topic: Remember the old saying - you can’t beat somebody with nobody. Who’s the “somebody” who’s going to beat Clinton or Obama?
What worries me most, as someone who cares passionately about our democracy and making it work, is the very fact that this election season will be so protracted, even far beyond our usual tedious scale, combined with the huge early money. Romney, for one, is running campaign ads already. All that extension really means is enough time for the electorate to get thoroughly hammered on by all the candidates and their lapdog press, looking for the Conventional Wisdom of the Day to “report” even more desperately than usually, and finding various peccadilloes and character flaws to blow into that story.
The people may be as heartily sick of all the candidates by the time any election actually happens as they will be of the war, assuming the petulant teenager in the Oval Office hasn’t been forced to pull out of it by then.
To the few dead-enders left somehow insisting that support of the GOP and conservatism is the natural, fundamental state of the American populace, with Democratic wins representing only temporary dissatisfaction with certain GOP individuals and not their philosophies, and that the universe’s harmony will soon be restoredm give this a read.
And that’s from Robert Novak.
And, more importantly, for the United States.
If you tried just a bit harder you could have missed the point of Bricker’s comment by a larger margin, but it would be tough.
His point, which I agree with, is that there is no proof of the alleged cheating, a point that both of us have made numerous times. He has apparently tired of refuting the assertions that it definitely occurred, and said so very sarcastically. You obviously missed it.
Why is this reminding me of the past seven years? Oh, right! Its’ bullshit which effects others (Muslims, minorities, etc.) backed by fear. Good choice. It has a long track record.
Man, from the posts I’ve read from you over the years I like you and agree with a lot of what you have to say but you’ve pissed me off.
No. You’re right. It’s not THAT important for Democrats to win the White House. It is far more important to throw the election in order to teach the world a moral lesson that racists and sexists are bad. Guess what? The world already knows that.
I’m not too sure about you, but I couldn’t give a fuck about who some racist cum-fuck finds acceptable. I only care about who can win for the Democrats. If a certain black or female candidate is not the Democrats’ best chance at winning EVEN IF PART OF THE REASON THEY ARE A NOT THE BEST CANDIDATE IS BECAUSE THIS COUNTRY IS IN A LARGE PART MADE UP IN OF BACKWARD TROGLODYTES then they are still not the best candidate. Yes, even it makes the Baby Tree-hugger cry.
This is the reality we find ourselves in. We can either be all hip, edgy and naively idealistic and say all the harmonious, cool lines that’ll get us laid back on campus, or we can be realistic.
You got your Liberaler-than-thou shit all up on your MTV Rock The Vote righteousness soapbox earlier and said it was “cowardly bullshit” to choose not to nominate a female or minority just because they couldn’t win. Well, my life-wisdom challenged little chap, that’s like saying it’s cowardly not to attack a infantry tank with a sword.
True, you would be making a bold statement and giving hope to young, under-privileged swordfighters everywhere, but you won’t be doing shit toward winning the war. You’ll only be tying up a couple of mortuary specialist 3rd class grunts with picking up leftover pieces of your impressionable young ass from the dirt. Then some other punk with stars in his eyes who will never learn the cruelty of wisdom picks up your sword so that he too can die pushing his own foolishness on the world.
The tank rolls on.
“Oooh he took on that tank with a SWORD! That was a brave little mother-fucker, that one. Shit-- not like those immoral cowards with that bazooka over there.”
This isn’t a popularity contest. This isn’t your MySpace Friends page. This isn’t about showing the world just how inclusive and multi-faceted you and the Democratic party are.
Contrary to what you think, you don’t nominate the candidate that people like best. You nominate the candidate that has the best chance of winning. One day, you’ll see. Well, maybe. * Most *people finally mature enough to learn painful lessons like these.
I hope you can join us in grown-up reality land. It’s painful and scary here sometimes and people sometimes do and say things that aren’t pretty, even though they’re right. I know that’s puzzling to you now, but it’s the world we live in.
Oh and on preview-- Wolfian? Fuck you and your naive, politically-correct bullshit too. The only ‘fear’ this has anything to do with is the fear of leaving the White House in the hands of Republican fear-mongers you decry. Tool.
Do you find this implausible? Do you believe that the Pubbies wouldn’t stoop to such as this? Or is it simply because it is unproven? You recall, I am sure, that a Pubbie operative in New Hampshire (?) was convicted of sabotaging Dem phone lines on election day. Is this just some high-spirited mischief from some irrepressible scamps? Or something rather more serious?
But I will agree to this extent: I think the Pubbies use actual direct voter fraud sparingly, if at all. But this is not a matter of civic virtue, but only that their ends can be reached by subtler, and unindictable, methods. Pubbies aim for voter suppression first, intimidation second. The classic example is the “cleansing” of Florida’s voter rolls before the 2000 election, which, by an extraordinary string of entirely innocent coincidence, led to many black voters being denied due to having a name similar to that of a convicted felon. Would Gore have carried Florida otherwise? A case could certainly be made.
Suppose we were to start a voting initiative, to federalize aid and guidance. To supply funds for and establish standards for voting machines, so that no citizen is compelled by economic disadvantage to accept a lesser level of access than his wealthier counterpart. The fact that one citizen must stand on line for hours to his excercise his right to vote while the convenience of his wealthier counterpart is catered to is an obscenity. I don’t mind that money talks, I mind that it votes.
But if we were to push a movement towards such an obvious goal, whom do you imagine would resist?
Now how about a rousing verse of Kumbaya? Meanwhile, over here in the real world, you know the one where just last year a black candidate was depicted as an over sexualized Mandingo to scare white voters, yeah that world is the one I’ll be casting my vote. You know I hate to throw on my Angry Black Man hat on because in the larger scheme of things I’ve done pretty well. I own my own business, I have a nice house; I’ll probably be able to retire by 50. I’ll also continue to get pulled over for DWB, at least until I sprout some grey hair and stop listening to hip hop. You want me to believe this country is ready to elect a black man president when I know that same black man would have difficulty flagging down a cab? Dream on.
Not fear; experience.
I don’t disagree that they are incapable of it. Not at all. I also think the Democrats are capable of it. Therefore, I hereby accuse the Democrats of fraud in the mid-term elections. What evidence do I have? God knows I don’t need proof, I can simply infer it and that makes it true.
Of course, you realize how absolutely silly that sounds, right? Yet I’m supposed to accept that as an excuse for why the Democrats lost in 2000 and again in 2004 because there’s just NO WAY they could have lost otherwise. In a country with so many voting precincts, the only surprise is that there weren’t more problems. But the problems are all due to Republican skulduggery somehow. Go figure.
I happen to think that Gore lost through a technicality in the election process in an election that he should have cruised to victory in because he had no personality and Bush had it in spades. Same goes for Kerry in 2004. Mortimer Snerd had more charisma even without Edgar Bergen’s hand up his ass. But hey, that can’t be it. It must be because the Republicans cheated, not because the Democrats ran a crappy campaign in 2000 and a single issue campaign (Anybody But Bush) with someone who couldn’t beat someone you could have beaten in 2004.
The Democrats need a candidate with two qualities: lack of baggage and charisma. That’s it. The only chance the Republican candidate has on the heels of this debacle is if the Democrats shoot themselves in the foot. Hillary will be the bullet that does it. The jury is still out on Obama, but the 600-pound gorilla in the room is obvious, and it remains to be seen how that will play in Peoria.
Convicted sure, but the first circuit court of appeals overturned that conviction:
Dems can’t do nothing because the law’s owned by Republicans:
Resistance is futile.
<slight hijack> While I was typing my last post, I found out MS Word doesn’t have Kumbaya in its dictionary. Not sure what to make of that</hijack>
Fred Thompson has been mentioned as a potential candidate. The Religious Right will have serious issues with some of his positions. And the Religious Right camel doesn’t just have its toe in the Republican Big Tent, it doesn’t just have a hump in the Big Tent, it’s HUMPING the Big Tent. Dobson may encourage his constituents to hold their nose and vote for Thompson if he gets the nomination, but that doesn’t mean they will. And Dobson will fight a Thompson nomination like hell behind the scenes.
The real question WRT Obama and Hillary isn’t the outright racists and sexists. They’re gonna vote Republican no matter what because the Repubicans clearly are the party of racism and sexism. The real issue is all those moderate, not all that concerned about racism and sexism folk, who will go to the polls, and in the privacy of the voting booth find that their hands just Will. Not. Pull. That. Lever. Down. for a woman or a black man. Especially those Boomers who let their freak flags fly in the 60s and 70s but have been a bunch of fucking conservative to moderate scumbags ever since. How many seemingly moderate, reasonable folks will let their fucking lizard brains vote in the privacy of the voting booth?
(Hint: George Bush got votes large enough to make stealing the vote possible in 2000 and 2004, especially in 2004 when everyone with a functioning cerebral cortex knew that President Asshole was a loser. Those votes came from SOMEWHERE babykins.)
I also think, as has already been pointed out, that the experience of gay marriage initiatives in 2006 should be a warning to all us Dems. Do you remember the fucking numbers on those things? It was a CRUSHING defeat for gay marriage in almost all states, numbers that went BEYOND landslide. And this was for a perfectly legal, moral thing, marriage for god’s sake! It’s not like gays were calling for mandatory amyl nitrate poppers and butt plugs for everyone! But gay rights advocates and a lot of Dems thought gay marriage initiatives might win or at least come encouragingly close to winning because it was right and proper and fair that gays should have marriage rights – and they got their heads handed to them on a platter, big time.
I’m not saying give up on Hillary and/or Obama, hell, I’d happily vote for either against any conceivable Republican candidate because the real threat to American democracy isn’t Osama Bin Laden, it’s Karl Fucking Rove, and if the Pubbies keep their hands on the White House for another 4 to 8 years, he’ll lock it up tighter than a drum, because he doesn’t give a shit about democracy, or for that matter the law. It’s not for nothing that he’s had federal prosecutors replaced in 9 of the 11 states he feels will be key to the 2008 election. He plans to run roughshod over the electoral process in those states and then have his minions block any attempt to prosecute.
I’m hoping some Dem operator working for Clinton or Obama will hire some researchers to look hard at all those reasonable moderates and see how much their lizard brains control them in the voting booth. Could be important, not just for their sake, but for the sake of Democracy in America.
I suppose this is the basis for another thread, but hasn't Bush disproved this conventional wisdom? I think if the Bush presidency has demonstrated nothing else, it has demonstrated the immense policy power of the executive branch. As the administrative state grows, and it seems to grow under every administration, the executive's power increases. This coupled with the increasing power of the executive over these agencies--signing statements, executive order 12866, etc.--means that the President can do *a lot* policywise. To take one small example, compare the last 8 years of legislative action on environmental policy to the last 8 years of executive action on environmental policy. The executive action has been much more profound and influential.OK, I’ll bite. Which positions?
My favorite; supposedly in one of his election runs, he was shaking people’s hands and one told him “I can’t vote for you, I’m a Republican.” Jesse thrust one palm towards the guy, another towards the sky and said “HEAL !”