Election 2008: Did the Dems Learn from 2004?

The BBQ Pit
141

[QUOTE=Weirddave]
It used to be just the fringe types, which was OK, but it seems that the party is moving further and further into loony land as a whole. Electing Dean as chairman of the DNC was a step in that direction. A prevailing attitude of “We can do no wrong and if we’re unsuccessful it’s not because of what we did but because of something someone else did to us”. Continuing to move further and further left with the attitude of “We’re always 100% right, are you too stupid to figure that out? You didn’t vote for us? Well then I guess you are” instead of adopting sensible, moderate to liberal positions and being willing to compromise on them when necessary.
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What exactly should the Dems compromise on? Examples, please.

142

Well, the whole thing about the Bushiviks being the most utterly catastrophic band of cluster-fucking pooch screwers in the entire history of Godzilla shitwits. I’m willing to compromise down to worst. president. evah.

I’m very centrist.

143

[QUOTE=Weirddave]

So where is your proof? Jesus Christ, if it’s so clear cut, you’d be able to provide something, wouldn’t you? Instead, every time one of us asks, you fall back on hearsay, innuendo and coincidence, with just a pinch of a couple people breaking the law in New Hampshire thrown in. SHOW ME THIS GRAND REPUBLICAN CONSPIRACY YOU LOVE TO WHINE ABOUT SO MUCH, or just STFU and admit you’re a know nothing loudmouth with more passion than sense.
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The frustrating thing about trying to convince someone on the other side of this subject is this: Every incident that can be brought in to support this “Republican Conspiracy” theory can easily be dismissed as an isolated occurrence. But when everything is taken together as a whole, what I see is very disturbing. It’s not so much a Giant Conspiracy as it is a partywide indifference to actions which happen to benefit their side by a tiny, but very influential, element of the party. And a lot of the voter supression is either legal or quasi-legal so a person on the other side of the argument can wave it away by saying “technically, no laws were broken.”

144

Look, Weird, its like this: the most important thing about Democrats right now is that they are not Republicans. They have been running amok for years now, and they simply must be stopped. I intend no irony, just flat facts.

I will be thrilled and happy if we should ever regain a centrist governance, of middle right against middle left. But you worry about the permanence of scars after you stop the bleeding. Hell, that’s what I thought in 2000! No big shakes, I said, a center right doofus against a center left wonk. I’ll vote wonk, but won’t sweat it that much.

Of course, if I knew then what I know now, I would have been seizing random citizens by the lapels and shrieking myself hoarse. “Satan spawn! Pestilence, war, and death! I have seen signs and portents, for the love of God, vote Boring Guy!”

So here’s what it comes down to: lead, follow, or get out of the way! The stakes are way, way too high.

145

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
When will you stop denying the reality of Republican vote fraud, vote suppression, and all-around cheating?!
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Funny how it’s only vote fraud when the Democrats lose, isn’t it?

146

Oooh, crisp, succinct, and extra snarky! You know what would improve? Here’s where you unleash all those proven examples of Dem voter suppression and fraud! That’ll put the frost on their 'nads! Go for it!

147

[QUOTE=I Love Me, Vol. I]

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.
/snip
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.
.
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NO

Thats the thinking that got us Kerry, and Mondale and I don’t know how many boring charismaticaly challenged candidates. It is the thinking that lost us Dean. Its the thinking that turned Gore into pablum and gave us Joe Fucking Lieberman as his partner. Its the thinking that got rid of anyone who was not so freeking milquetoast as to function as a hospital diet.

The only person that got past the safety net was Clinton. The inner circle of the party hated him for it, but he won. None of the nice safe candidates that the party has tried to shove down our throats in recent past has.

Each time we loose we go around holding our heads and saying “What the hell were we thinking, that guy has the charactor of an orthopedic shoe.” Then we hit a new election cycle and anyone who looks like he has any personality at all is gotten rid of because he isn’t safe.

That is what costs us elections.

We need to stop letting the other side set our aggenda, determining who we should put up for general election, and deciding our message. Until we stop playing their play book, we will continue the slide.

148

[QUOTE=furlibusea]
…Until we stop playing their play book, we will continue the slide.
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The slide? Like when the Dems took the House and the Senate? That slide?

149

[QUOTE=elucidator]
The slide? Like when the Dems took the House and the Senate? That slide?
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w/a/d/r and all, the poster was talking about a presidential election, not a large number of smaller ones. Different issues, different styles. Hopefully a different candidate.

150

[QUOTE=I Love Me, Vol. I]
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.
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Right back at you. Listen to yourself. “Gee golly, it sucks that minorities and women can’t become president, but what can I do about it?” How about you pull your head out of your ass, grow a spine, and vote for the candidate who, I don’t know, is inspiring and has a vision for the country regardless of the color of their skin or what they have or don’t have dangling between their legs?

You say America isn’t ready for a Black or female president. I say we’ll never know without trying.

Incidentally, history is full of people applying the wrong lesson to incongruent situations and just making things worse. Your heart is in the right place, but you are wrong here.

151

[QUOTE=furlibusea]
The only person that got past the safety net was Clinton. The inner circle of the party hated him for it, but he won. None of the nice safe candidates that the party has tried to shove down our throats in recent past has.

[/QUOTE]

Da-hoy?

Dude, Clinton was the safest fucking candidate that the Democrats have put up in twenty-five years. A Southern governor willing to fry retards in the electric chair to prove he was moderate. He wasn’t ‘risky’ or ‘outside’ - he was exactly the safe candidate the party has tried to shove down your throat. The Democrats aren’t afraid of charisma - they’re afraid of being seen as liberal.

152

[QUOTE=John Corrado]
Dude, Clinton was the safest fucking candidate that the Democrats have put up in twenty-five years. A Southern governor willing to fry retards in the electric chair to prove he was moderate. He wasn’t ‘risky’ or ‘outside’ - he was exactly the safe candidate the party has tried to shove down your throat. The Democrats aren’t afraid of charisma - they’re afraid of being seen as liberal.
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Bravo on your assessment, but I think furlibusea is right that Clinton is the only non-dullard they’ve picked lately. I think there’s a reason the party’s last couple of candidates (other than Clinton) have been cut from the same cloth.

153

[QUOTE=Marley23]
Bravo on your assessment, but I think furlibusea is right that Clinton is the only non-dullard they’ve picked lately. I think there’s a reason the party’s last couple of candidates (other than Clinton) have been cut from the same cloth.
[/QUOTE]

I’d be interested to hear your opinions on that, because I can’t come up with a coherent theory about it. I know it’s true; the Democrats have had a tendency in the last twenty-five years to nominate a stalwart liberal who has the charisma and excitement level of a warm Jell-O salad (Mondale, Dukakis, Kerry; hell, even Gore had serious problems seeming alive and normal in 2000).

Republicans have the same problem (Dole and Bush I, for example; and Bush isn’t nearly as charismatic as McCain was in 2000), but with them, it’s easy to see that they nominate people who have the general backing of the establishment after years of work and service (Dole after running for the nomination in 1980 and 1988 and service as Senate Majority Leader; Bush I after running in 1980 and eight years as Vice-President; Bush II after two years of major campaign work for the Republican Party); with Democrats, there’s less evidence for that, so it’s more confusing that they seem to choose their candidate out of nowhere, and still end up with the least interesting of the bunch.

154

To return to the original topic for a second, even if the Democrats lose in '08, all indications are it won’t be for the same reasons they lost in 2000 and 2004. Ignoring the cheating issue, just about everyone agrees Gore and Kerry were boring people who ran crappy campaigns. Kerry in particular was fucked after he didn’t respond to the Swift Boat ads, and you can already see that Democrats are proving they will not overlook similar attacks. So I’d say they’ve learned, or at least some of them have. I wish the party had learned more about front-loading the primary season, but the Republicans are doing that, too.

155

Christ on a cracker! Now it’s more clear why Eeyore is the Dem Party mascot, they’re the only bunch in town who would wear sackcloth and ashes to a victory celebration!

Look, the Dems are kicking ass and taking names! We’ve got a solid two years of Republican scandals to toss on to their funeral pyre. All the crap the Pubbies thought they would get away with because they were in permanent-rule mode! Ooopsy!

Dull? * Dull?* Lord God, is there a better word to describe GeeDubya? (Well, of course, pig headed, obtuse, obstinate, megalomaniacal, but anyway…) It ain’t the candidate, its the marketing of the candidate!

Quite cringing! Sic 'em! Do it for Lady Liberty, do it for your country, do it to get laid, but for the love of God, do it!

156

[QUOTE=elucidator]
Christ on a cracker! Now it’s more clear why Eeyore is the Dem Party mascot, they’re the only bunch in town who would wear sackcloth and ashes to a victory celebration!
[/quote]

Hey, I’m very upbeat about their chances next year. That’s why I keep saying that the “[blank] can’t win” or “[blank] is just what the Republicans want us to do” threads make me crazy. Maybe you remember some of my responses to threads like “Would the Democrats be better off losing in the 2006 elections?”

That’s why I said Gore and Kerry were boring people who ran crappy campaigns. Both mattered. Bush probably didn’t inspire a whole lot of people in 2000, but he was able to connect with people on some level. Democratic candidates, Bill Clinton aside, have lacked that.

[QUOTE=John Corrado]
I’d be interested to hear your opinions on that, because I can’t come up with a coherent theory about it. I know it’s true; the Democrats have had a tendency in the last twenty-five years to nominate a stalwart liberal who has the charisma and excitement level of a warm Jell-O salad (Mondale, Dukakis, Kerry; hell, even Gore had serious problems seeming alive and normal in 2000).
[/QUOTE]

I thought it was just a Democrat thing, actually. If both parties have had that problem, maybe it’s just the party structure and the voters. Democrats may be drawn to duller candidates because in the modern-day electoral climate, they want a candidate who can reassure America that he isn’t a hippy peacenik freak. You can see that fear reflected in a lot of threads here, I think. I get the sense that Republicans don’t worry the Democrats will paint the GOP candidate as a theocratic Bible-thumping gun nut. Maybe Republicans just think most people fundamentally agree with their message and Democrats think they have to convince voters to see it that way.

157

[QUOTE=elucidator]
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.
[/QUOTE]
Interesting news on that front. From a “Republican” governor no less…

Board: Restore felons’ rights

158

I noticed that with pleasure.

159

The only strategy for Democratic command of the Oval Office that has worked long-term since the Republicans appeared on the scene is a hard charge to the left, but not too far (Roosevelt-Truman, Kennedy-Johnson). So if the Dems get behind a woman or a black candidate before the Republicans do, it’s a step in the right direction.

Can Obama or Clinton win? Probably not. That’s OK with me too. As long as the Dems hang on to (and hopefully increase) their hold on Congress, so that whoever Bush, Jr., Jr. turns out to be will have a more difficult time continuing to erode our liberties.

Could a Dem stop Iraq quicker than a Republican, and if so, with a better ultimate outcome for both nations? Probably not. It’s going to be a long hard slog out of there no matter who’s in the driver’s seat. A lot more Iraqis and Americans are going to die horribly before its over, too many years from now, regardless of the affiliation of the CIC. With that depressing projection in mind, then, pragmatically, purely partisanly, I’d rather all that blood was on the hands of another Republican.

160

[QUOTE=scotandrsn]
With that depressing projection in mind, then, pragmatically, purely partisanly, I’d rather all that blood was on the hands of another Republican.
[/QUOTE]

Please note, not all liberals feel this way. There is no room for pragmatic, purely partisan preferences when the subject is lost lives. MHO and all.