You know, insulting the voters isn’t going to help you either.
I saw this election as a major opportunity for the Democratic Party to win me over. I’ve become more and more disillusioned with the GOP over the years, and I was all ready to vote Dubya out of office.
And then the Dems nominated John Kerry. A guy whose only claim to fame was announcing to the world that all American soldiers in VietNam were babykillers.
My dad is proud VietNam vet who served not only as a combat soldier (Green Beret), but also as a prosecutor, putting soldiers in the stockade when they got out of line. He, for one, had a pretty good perspective of what went on behind the lines, and didn’t appreciate the broad brushstoke babykiller label.
One of my dad’s friends spent five years in a VC tiger cage, and could have told you a thing or two about brutality. Since he had a background in engineering, he managed to convince his captors that he was a civil engineer, and had been sent to VietNam to build hospitals and schools. After five years, some member of the anti-war movement (who shall remain nameless) provided the VC with said soldier’s complete file, including the fact that he was a Green Beret. The guy was being transported to Saigon for a show trail and public execution when he was rescued by sheer chance.
My family has very strong feelings on this subject. In my household, John Kerry’s name is not held in high regard.
I am not a fan of George W. Bush. I think he screwed up the war, which I initially supported. I vehemently disagree with his anti-gay policies. I found a lot of his rhetoric nauseating. But damn me if I’m going to vote for a man I consider to be a fucking traitor.
Continue to blame everyone but yourself and the Democratic party will continue to sink.
The problem was with the candidate you put forth and with your inability to accept even the slightest conservative viewpoint.
Show me a quote from Kerry saying that all Vietnam vets were baby killers.
At the end of the campaign, both Bush and Kerry were against same-sex marriage, but thought same-sex civil unions were OK. Bush was for amending the U.S. constitution to prevent same-sex marriages, Kerry was for amending state constitutions to prevent same-sex marriages. Wow. No wonder the gay vote for Bush in 2004 (21-23%) was scarcely different from 2000 (25%).
Clinton never got a majority of the vote in any Presidential election, let alone a huge majority.
Regards,
Shodan
I didn’t mean to imply that I felt threatened, or that I am afraid that religious voters are being marginalized. Quite the contrary, religious conservatives just won the election, didn’t they? I do see a tendency on this board – but not in your post – to dismiss religious voters as bigoted ignoramuses. My point was that it isn’t the Democrat’s economic policies, or war strategies, or health plans, or gun control efforts, that lost this election. In my case, I support the Dems in all those things. They lost because of these other issues – gay marriage, abortion, embryonic stem cells – in which they are increasingly out-of-step with mainstream Americans, especially in the South and Midwest.
Aren’t those policies that I agree with the Democrats on ‘moral’ issues too? Yes, at least in part. That’s why I was an undecided voter until right up to the end. But I finally decided that with Bush, I knew what I was going to get, what I would agree with, and what I would be disappointed with. With Kerry, it was just to damn hard to tell what he might do.
C’mon Bob. Kerry may not have said all soldiers were baby killers, but he strongly implied in his testimony that atrocities were endemic to the military in Vietnam.
It’s a nit, and you can certainly pick it to your heart’s content, but the beef of his post is spot on to millions of veterans.
Hell, it was one of my beefs with Kerry, and I’m not a Vietnam Vet.
On a separate note: Kizarvexius, may I use your post, reproduce it and distribute it?
In my humble opinion, the Democrats in general, and especially the ones on this board, need to:
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Stop being so damned condescending. Understand that people can disagree with you without being bigots, rednecks, ignorant, or stupid. Until you learn that, you won’t understand us. And as long as you don’t understand us, you’ll continue to make strategic blunders.
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Learn to moderate your positions along with your rhetoric. Supporting abortion rights does not mean you have to support partial birth abortion. Supporting gay rights does not mean that you have to support radical changes to a fundamental structure in society going back thousands of years.
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Do not treat religious people as pariahs. There are a lot of 'em, and they vote.
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Smile. Be of good cheer. You guys get completely vicious when you talk with or about conservatives. It puts people off. Be optimistic, and project that optimism. The world isn’t ending, the Republicans don’t want to enslave people and kill gays, and people can get along without your enlightened leadership.
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Stop hanging out in echo chambers. I’ve stuck it out on this board despite constant insults and attacks, because I think it’s useless to hang around with fellow conservatives preaching to the choir. They won’t learn anything, and neither will I. Try hanging out on some conservative web sites, and not just to throw rhetorical bombs and insults. Try to learn a little something about what makes your opponents tick. You don’t have to agree with them, but try to understand their point of view.
Conservatives are not stupid. In fact, the ‘movement conservatives’ are mostly academics and intellectuals. The neo-cons are certainly intellectuals. They may disagree with you, and they may even be wrong. But they aren’t stupid, and they aren’t evil. Until you guys learn that and start treating your opponents with respect, you’ll keep losing races and then saying, “How in the hell did THAT happen? Those guys are idiots, and besides, I don’t know ANYONE who voted for the Republican!”
Sam, a couple of points for you:
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A narrower brush is good. Your post as written could imply that every post from the “opposition” violates your suggestions. Which I hope was not your intent. I think some people have been less than proper, but I disagree that all of them have behaved this way.
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Some specific examples are also good. This is crucial – please cite examples of what you see as good v. bad behaviour. Just 2 examples can suffice per point, perhaps 4-6 to for really good illustration of a debating point:
- A little less sanctimony is a good thing. You’re not ranting by any means, but you are rhetorically standing sternly and wagging your finger. Which is what you seem to be accusing your opponents of doing. If you want people to listen – as opposed to delivering a narrative, which is what I’m guessing you’re doing – is this helpful?
If you hadn’t guessed, I am indeed calling you on some strawmen in your post, but I’m inviting you to take the straw out and discuss specific examples. Let’s see some nuts and bolts, and work on it. I’d like to hear more, if these are really suggestions and not talking points.
I certainly don’t speak for Sam (on Thursdays), but you are completely missing the point. He offered up his opinions on what could make the demmies more succuessfull in the next elections, and you (predictably enough) ignore those points and just attack him.
Our view won. Resoundingly. Cite. It is you guys who should (but thankfully, won’t) be looking at where you went wrong.
Gosh, with a lovely bridge-building comment like that… :rolleyes:
Yes, but the inverse is also true – there are folks who disagree with us because they are bigots, rednecks, ignorant, and/or stupid. Just look at last month’s PIPA study for an example:
And frankly, I can’t imagine any way to interpret gay marriage bans as anything but bigotry and/or redneck-ism. “Separate but equal” is so 19th century…
Since when does 2% equal “resoundingly”? :dubious:
Some three and one-half million voters are nothing to sneeze at, sparky.
I think rjung’s last cite shows that “your view” was comprised of a majority of mislead people. What a great thing to brag about; people were duped into agreeing with you.
If you get ‘every post from the opposition’ out of what I said, then perhaps you need to step back and take a deep breath. I was speaking of Democrats in general. Y’all give off an air of, “Look, we are very smart, and you are stupid. Listen to us, let us take care of you, and you’ll be okay. Otherwise, go screw yourself, you bigoted scumbag”. And before you get your panties in a bunch, that’s the general ‘you’, not you specifically.
Oh, come on. If you want examples of obnoxious behaviour from liberals on this board, just close your eyes and click on a link at random.
You’re not getting it. It’s not the sanctimonious pose that’s the real problem, it’s the deep-down belief you guys seem to have that you are better than your opposition. Smarter, more caring, more educated, more open minded. Look at the comments on this board tonight - CIVILIZATION IS OVER! GAYS BETTER RUN, THE REPUBLICANS ARE GOING TO KILL YOU! WOMEN’S RIGHTS ARE FINISHED! THERE WILL BE 200 NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS IN OUR CITIES! THE ENVIRONMENT IS DOOMED! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE! Those kinds of histrionics are the result of a belief that Republicans are evil and stupid and can not be trusted to run the government.
The sad part is that some of the wilder members of your side really believe this crap. They believe that Republicans don’t care about anything but helping the rich and screwing the poor and invading countries. We conservatives sit on our porches all day sipping mint juleps and yelling at the help to work harder.
I guarantee you that if Kerry had won, you would not have seen 1/10 of the hysteria from the right that you’re seeing from the left. The comments would have been more like, “Shit, I hope he doesn’t cut and run from Iraq”, or "The economy’s going to suffer if he raises taxes, " or at worst, “The military’s morale is going to collapse because they don’t want to be led by a traitor.” But we wouldn’t have been screaming about the end of the world, because in the end we realize that while we may differ on policy, Democrats are not the devil incarnate. You’d push through some bad laws, appoint some annoying judges, and the world would move on. We can disagree about policy while recognizing that you all aren’t incompetant or evil.
We understand liberals a hell of a lot better than liberals understand conservatives. That’s the real point here. As long as you keep fighting a caricature of your own invention while we fight based on real understanding, you’re going to keep losing, and you’re going to keep going, “huh? How’d THAT happen?”
See what I mean? This little fiction that you lost because people were ‘duped’ means you won’t learn a damned thing, other than that next time you need to shout a little louder and police those evil Republicans a little better so they can’t ‘dupe’ people.
But what if, just for the sake of argument, the people weren’t ‘duped’? What if they studied both sides, and despite having a good understanding of the issues that matter to them STILL chose the Republicans? I know that’s tough to believe, because requires you to admit that perhaps your liberal beliefs are not divined truths from on high, and that other smart, caring, informed people actually disagree with you, and will continue to vote against you as long as you keep pushing the policies they disagree with.
Accept that, and you can start making rational decisions about the direction of the party and what it needs to do to become competitive again. Retreat into the fictitious world where everything is the fault of Diebold, that bastard Karl Rove, and a ‘duped’ public, and you will keep losing elections.
The fact is that you understand liberals better than so-called liberals understand liberals. The Daily Show did a funny but very politically incorrect sketch in which they culled a forum of delegates from the Democratic Convention. They assembled such characters as the Tree Hugger, the Gay Guy, the Angry Black Bitch, the Fire Breathing Atheist, the Entitlement Whiner, and so on. After playing on the caricatures for a bit, the interviewer asked them as a group, “What is the Democratic Party all about?” There ensued a cacophony — an incoherent, unintelligible din of noise as they all talked over each other, each demanding the satisfaction of only his own interest. You know and I know that there is no liberalism in any of it.
Ah, Dopers.
For me, a large part of the problem Kerry had convincing me of his message and convictions was that while he was castigating Shrub for his environmental policies, Kerry promised the voters of Nevada that if he were elected president he’d block any efforts to continue with the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste storage facility. Because having that nuclear waste near people was bad for the environment and strategically a bad idea.
I cannot fathom how one could defend this stance on either a environmental basis, or a security basis. It is not a matter of having the waste in safe, secure, and environmentally sound storage where it is, now. Rather, most of the spent fuel this facility will be handling is still sitting in long-term storage pools that were designed for 30 years of occupancy. Back in the 60’s. There are plants that have closed down, been decomissioned, after full operational lifetimes, that still have spent fuel sitting in storage pools in or around metropolitan areas. (Sorry, no cite here. I’d bookmarked a Yahoo news story about a California plant which has misplaced a piece of fuel rod and can’t say exactly where it is, now. The story pointed out the plant is near the LA area, and that it’s been shut down and decommed for years. Except the storage pool.)
With this one decision, meant to woo voters in one close state, Kerry made it clear to me that expediency was his weathervane on environmental issues - and possibly security issues, too. No, it didn’t make him any different from Shrub, in that regard, but it also made it clear he was no better, either.