The middle class is full of “dumb” too… they were included… especially the lower middle class. Of the “no-high school” 10% more voted for Bush. Latinos were 7% more for Bush than in 2000. That was what handed Bush the election. Still your right… Dems have a lot of votes in these groups.
The Republicans didn’t just win by luck or by chance or by the swings and roundabouts. The Republican victory has been in the planning stages for 35 years and they’re going to keep winning so long as the Democrats don’t wise up.
The Democrats have to start doing what the Republicans decided to do in 1964 – build an organized, disciplined, and pervasive propaganda machine that delivers and reinforces simple talking points on a daily basis.
Part of that is, of course, distilling Democratic values into simple talking points that appeal to the mainstream. The Republicans have done this with “values” and “it’s your money; you should keep it.” Yes, these messages are essentially dishonest, but it’s simply what has to be done.
Part of that is effectively silencing dissent and dischord within the party by shutting out people who air their grievances in public. Look at people like John McCain and Colin Powell. They clearly despise the group that has taken control of the policy apparatus of their , but they toe the line, because, they know that if they don’t, they’ll be out on their ears.
Part of that is filling key positions in the party with true believers and getting rid of the professional campaign and political managers.
Part of that is using fund-raising ability to establish a complex network of non-profits, think tanks, and media outlets who will provide the true believers a living while they going about getting things done.
Part of that is being ruthless towards the opposition and repeating talking points shamelessly even if they are patently absurd.
Part of that is (once you’ve established a majority) being ruthless with regard to democratic institutions, such as elections, constitutions, the regulatory system, and the legislative process. Force a recall if you have to. Get the constitution changed if you have to.
The Republicans are not playing “Let’s Debate Policy like Nice People.” They haven’t for 35 years. It’s a new world and the Democratic party has to wake up to it.
Thank you. The military does some things right, and one of them is the way they study engagement afterwards to discover what they could have done better, and what they did well, so they can apply those lessons to future engagements. It’s really what Dems generally should be doing once they get the wailing and the gnashing of teeth out of their system. Not that I begrudge them that, it’s just that you need to plan if you want to win next time.
I agree that it will take a very strong stand by the Dems to get out from under the stigma of being the “Gay Marriage” party, and that the Pubbies will do everything in their power to label them as such and make it stick. And if they CAN make it stick, and attitudes don’t change, the Dems are fucking DOOMED, they might as well just rename themselves the Gay Party and resign themselves to pulilng in maybe 10 percent of the vote in every election from here on out.
So maybe a plank just opposing gay marriage, but saying nothing about civil unions, and let the Dem pols make their own statements as individual on the topic.
Problem is, I can see the gays sitting out the next election or going to a third party candidate who’ll supprot them en masse – what would they have to lose in doing so?
Doesn’t seem that tough to me. Just compartmentalize. Have a pro-choice plank, but keep it entirely separate from the values plank. When it’s brought up, just respond to abortion as a civil rights issue. Whole different animal.
Yeah, given the results of the last election, this is also the most important things Dems need to do if they’re going to grab a bigger chunk of that mainstream vote and avoid being marginalized senseless.
I do think there’s an opportunity here for the Dems to hurt the Pubs while making some gains for themselves. There are a lot of mainstream American churches that do not share the values of the fundamentalists who are leading the Repub values movement. We should grab the mainstream and then embark on a systematic campaign to marginalize the fundies … call their church leaders "mullahs’ and otherwise establish a link between American Christian fundamentalists and Moslem fundamentalists – two strains of the same evil.
This strikes me as something a fluent public speaker could pick up pretty quickly if they had to.
Oh, and one more thing – a disagreement over policy is not just a disagreement over policy. One position is American; the other is un-American. One position is good; the other is evil. Metaphorically speaking, Democrats and liberals have to start learning to eat raw meat and drink the blood of their opponents.
Not so, if you believe the exit polls, and numerous studies. People will vote against their own economic advantage if there are perceived “moral issues” at stake.
I purposely put moral issues in quotes. I’m assuming you know why (remembering that you are a self-identified neo-con).
I disagree. If you look at what the Pubbies did to Clinton during his Presidency and all the negative ads, hate speech works very, very very well whether you like it or not. I think the Dems need to move heavily into hate speech – we need to do the same thing to Bush that the Pubbies did to Clinton. We need to publicly call him a reformed coke addict, a cowardly sneak who glories in sending the children of poor people off to be killed and maimed in a war he would have run from like a cowardly cur as a young man.
I don’t think the current crop of Dem leaders have the rocks to do anything like this, another reason we need new leadership.
Hate works, we have to use it if we intend to win.
That’s it right there. The media is saturated with right-wing talk shows, while the left basically has only Howard Stern and Al Franken, and Franken has only been able to get his show on the air in a few markets. There aren’t any left wing political shows on TV, unless you count the Daily Show, which is a toss-up as to whether you’d consider it serious political commentary or simply comedy. But how would the party go about getting more shows on the air? That’s under the control of the media conglomerates that own the stations.
Didn’t seem to be a problem for the Pubbies when they were criticizing Clinton for everything from his haircut to his bloodthirstily putting Americans at risk just to get revenge on an obscure towelhead named Osama bin Laden.
Don’t see why it’s going to be a problem for the Dems.
Well, for what it’s worth, here are some of the lessons I’ve learned:
In America, it is more politically effective to employ lies, smears, and innuendo than to have an honest debate about the actual issues. Hateful, negative campaign politics have, with this election, come into their own.
Democracy is highly overrated. To function properly, a democracy requires a critical, informed public. When the public is predominantly ignorant and lazy, democracy is no better a form of government than dictatorship, and can be just as repressive, arbitrary, and brutal.
The majority of Americans don’t really understand the concepts of democracy or freedom.
Although there is a certain amount of synergy between the leading elite and the masses (in that the elite do, to some extent, influence the views of the masses), no one can now deny that the Bush administration reflects the actual will (and values) of the American public. This realization, which has come to me over the course of a couple of days, sickens me.
While the rest of the western world continues to move forward, the US is developing backwards.
The right wing in American has a stranglehold on the reins of power, and its influence is continuing to grow. At this point, I fear nothing short of a major catastrophe will be able to stop it. As much as I admire the attempt to nurture a progressive grassroots network by the left, I suspect that it is doomed to failure until such a catastrophe occurs, and maybe even afterwards. The left has never successfully established a beachhead in America, and probably never will.
These are a few things that I’ve been mulling over since Kerry conceded. But I disagree with him when he claims that the US needs to “heal.” And I say to any of you on the left that are still out there: fuck that. I will not extend a hand to that lying son of a bitch who squeaked his way into a second term, nor to the flunkies that continue to support him. He is not my president, and the country he represents is not my country.
I tell you, I find the thought of another four years with that lunkhead as president insufferable.
As to the OP:
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Yes.
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No. What did Kerry’s campaign do or say to rally the left of center base?
3)No. Why are you so sure it was an “honest” loss?
Think about the skewed exit polls for Ohio and Florida, and the no-paper-trail e-voting in use there. Think about how quickly Kerry conceded with no mention of the voting irregularities, even after people in those states waited up to 8 hours in line to cast their vote.
Perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered - I admit the right seems to have rallied their vote more successfully. Even so, shouldn’t all Americans be interested in a transparent, audit-able, and accessable voting process?
Kerry/Edwards chose not to litigate the results. For whatever reasons. Problem is, we can’t be certain they were not self-serving reasons. I don’t like a supposedly democratic process with that much room for suspicion and error. We can do better.
Fuck “counter-strategies”. Your values are your values, irrespective of what’s out there. or what the cost is of standing by them.
The big question asked of any idea is: What kind of an idea are you?
Do you bend in the wind, do you compromise, are you willing to be shattered by the forces against you?
If you don’t have “values” that can stand up to that test, you will never win (or win for long).
999,000,000 times out of 1,000,000, you will be shattered. But the idea that stands that test wins. Always.
It’s gotta be the real deal or all is for naught. It’s a tightrope.
Sigh. The problem I have with this approach is that we want to have a functioning, civil society. If we go the route you are suggesting we end up with a paralyzed Congress regardless of who is in power. We have to somehow nullify the permanent outrage the GOP feeds off of, not get into an arms race of hatred. I don’t hate Bush voters. I think that deep down our values aren’t antithetical (abstractly speaking).
This is a great point. Democrat presidents have a better record of fiscal responsibility than Republican ones. It’s a statistical fact, so why isn’t it getting out there?
If I were unconstrained by facts than I could simply say “no they aren’t” or “fuzzy math” every time you tried to illustrate your point with numbers or graphics.
Ain’t that the truth.
Make that 999,000 out of 1,000,000.*
*Ironically, I was only last week certified to teach math and science. We’re all doomed, I tell you. Doomed. :smack:
Here is an issue that would get me off the political fence: illegal immigration.
I voted for Bush (ducks rotten tomatoes), but I know that he will never ever do anything about closing our Mexican border. That is the last thing Texas corporate farmers want, and I doubt Bush would do any thing to upset them.
85% of Americans and a significant percentage of Hispancs believe that illegal immigration is a serious problem.
It would be a way for Democrats to present a strong defence stance without competing with Republicans (avoiding “I’d do the same thing, only better”- type statements) AND they would be exposing a huge hole in the Republican platform.
I’m sure that there are other issues that will similarly mobilize voters who feel screwed by the Republicans but confused by the Dems.
999,999 out of 1,000,000.*
*Hey, at least I was right about the “doomed” part. 
Really? Didn’t Clinton WIN TWICE? Clinton was very good at wooing the moderates.
However go ahead, hate away - but don’t expect to swing my vote. And don’t be surprised when you lose again.
Hmmmm, how did that work out for you?
This issue really confused me, because when it originally came up in San Francisco, all the polls I saw had America pretty neutral on the whole topic. Something else must have been going on. Maybe Bricker was right, and the judicial action scared people into voting for the amendments to keep control of their state. I’m kind of surprised to think that people are that hardcore about state’s rights.
–p