Well, I’d say because those particular celebs have considerable heft behind them, and are not silly figures.
If the dems ran someone like Paul Newman for office, that’d probably be okay. He’s universally admired on both sides.
Puttting Michael Moore in the prized seat beside Jimmy Carter at the Democratic National Convention, on the other hand, was just stupid. He’s a polarizing figure. Anyone who likes him is already voting for Democrats.
Here’s the problem: Hollywood is overwhelmingly liberal. Therefore, the Democrats have no shortage of hollywood stars to pick from. But also, many Hollywood people are far more liberal than the median even in the Democratic party. They’re polarizing figures. They don’t help.
Schwarzanegger? Ditka? Even conservatives were admitting people voted for Schwarzanegger because he’s the “Terminator” and not because they knew any of his platform.
Granted. Polarizing figures polarize. But Springsteen? He’s not polarizing. He made it very clear he likes to steer clear of politics, but this election was just too important to stand idly by.
You’re right, I’d have to see the statistics of the amount invested to really choose on this one, but I think I would amend this to say that we shouldn’t rely on the youth vote. I do think that getting out the youth vote is an ideal outlet for idealogues that want to volunteer their time but under no circumstances should be allowed to get near anyone moderate.
I think we can even blunt the morality aspect of things. Ensure a fair amount of fiscal responsibility, and always be on the lookout for federal programs or handouts with a poor cost-benefits ratio, and pounce on them whenever we can, plastering airwaves with criticism about misspent federal funding, etc. As an example, I think most farm subsidies are a case of paying money to hurt ourselves, and eliminating them would benefit the Democrats enormously in the long run.
I think so too. Again, I think this is an absolutely golden opportunity to get rid of the issue, and in fact, foist it onto the Republicans due to their occasional outbursts of venom against people whom are “anti-American” or even moreso, “anti-Israel”. Unfortunately, I do think it will be difficult to keep ourselves from being tarred with the same brush as independent groups making a fuss about such things in the war for hearts and minds.
I do think that we’ve abandoned this part of our platform to a certain extent since 9/11, and really need to reclaim it. Again though, it needs to be pragmatic. Focus on the library snooping and student visas rather than deranged predictions about social security numbers. Also, make to demand a cost-benefit analysis for just about everything. Make sure backers of a measure to decrease privacy or erode freedom can come up with a dang good justification for it, or it isn’t flying.
Believe me, it was a very difficult and recent development to want to embrace this, but I think we might have to do it out of necessity. For instance, I think that if (probably when) Roe vs Wade is overturned, we will want abortion to be redirected to the state level, rather than simply legislated at the federal level. Same goes for gay marriage – we need to fight for states rights if we want it to exist at all. For instance, my state, Oregon, recently added one of those idiotic amendments to our constitution, but the margin was much smaller here than it was in other places. I feel that given the opportunity, states like Oregon and California might come closer to changing it at that level, without provoking a suicidal nationwide battle.
I do believe that this can be a way to justify horrible things, but I also believe that it’s the best chance we have right now to preserve any semblence of these things while we’re so spectacularly in the opposition. (I’m almost tempted to say that if and when we have a firm hold on power, all bets are off here).
I agree that severe penalties need to be in place, and that they need to be enforced as much and as fairly possible. The huge problem here we’re facing is that in swing states where the leadership is one party or the other, they’ll be less likely to really investigate fraud on their side. Do you really think we’d see an investigation in Florida of electoral fraud on the part of the Republicans, or an investiagion in New York of Democratic misbehavior (yes, I’m sure we do it too). This is a painful nut to crack.
Moreover, I think you’re overestimating the party discipline of Republicans on this issue. While Delay et. al will likely be against it, or at least against it in any enforcable fashion, I think that more moderate Senators, such as McCain, Gordon Smith from Oregon, that RI senator that might break ranks anyway, and such likeminded people would be reasonably likely to work on it anyway.
Same goes for anti-gerrymandering laws. The problem with doing it at the State level is that while I think it’s an admirable goal, it’s only really going to be possible in places where the Democrats will inevitably be the losers, such as California. So in effect, we’ll make a bunch of Democratic seats competitive, while leaving most of the Republican-controlled states nicely redistricted to ensure their hegemony. If we did it at the federal level, we might at least have a good fight on our hands, with the Republicans desire to make inroads into Democratic states pitted against their desire to marginalize Democrats in largely Republican states.
Perhaps we should fight this battle largely with statewide initiatives?
I don’t know. I’ve talked to several strong liberals that, while still Kerry supporters, themselves got sick of the endless Bush-bashing. I think it tends to polarize people more about their candidate if he’s facing relentless demonization, which makes it much harder to convert people away from him. For instance, I think that if the Democrats had toned down the public hatred of the person himself, and instead aimed it at certain policies, it’d help stop people that were emotionally invested in the candidate from going into a “right or wrong” stance.
I think so too. I just think he should have spent more time differentiating himself from Bush. For instance, in a speech about Iraq, highlight different botched efforts. Then, go into detail about what he’d do differently, and why his overarching plan is better. I watched Kerry speak a lot, and I feel he had excellent and pragmatic ideas that just didn’t get enough air time.
We have our own idiot constituency of course. For instance, I bet if I ran, I could really enrage my own party with my opinions on alternative medicine, something I think we overwhelmingly support. Moreover, I don’t think we need to really focus on the idiot voters, just the moderate Christian voters, whom may not like Iraq, but dislike a candidate’s stance on abortion. The Democrats cannot, under any circumstances, become the “secular” party, no matter how nice that would be for me. The numbers are definately on their side.
One interesting idea is playing up opposition to the death penalty. While the majority of America supports it, I do not think that the pro-death penalty crowd is all that inclined to choose a candidate based upon it. On the otherhand, I bet the issue could galvanize a lot of Catholics, a crucial set of swing voters, to the Democrats.
I agree entirely. One thing we might work on is at least getting sodomy laws off the books if/when Lawrence vs Texas is overturned. We might get painted as the “for sin” party, but on the other hand, I bet there are a lot of conservative rural Christian voters that would be rather uncomfortable with the idea of the government keeping an eye on their bedroom.
Note to Sam Stone – I think that while that might be a tactic worth attempting, those celebrities are a non-trivial source of funding. If we can grab fiscal responsibility from the Republicans, it might be possible to find alternate sources of funding (such as the “Economist” crowd that might be somewhat fiscally conservative, but couldn’t care less about so called culture wars, and has no attachment to Bush when it comes to foreign policy) marginalize them more, but until then it’s going to make our money disadvantage that much more acute. Perhaps start with focusing them on get-out-the-vote efforts among one’s base, while distancing the candidate himself?
Here’s a thought to consider: the Democrats spent a lot of time and legal effort in keeping Mr. Nader off the ballot (a rather remarkable stance for the party of inclusiveness and tolerance). In contrast, the GOP aided Mr. Nader’s people in collecting signatures to get him on the ballot. (Of course, the GOP did this not out of a disinterested love of the democratic process, but out of the pragmatic view that Nader would siphon votes from Kerry, and the Democrats fought this for the same reason. Had Pat Buchanan been running, perhaps the reverse process would have been seen.
But given the respective images of the parties, it is much more a betrayal of the Democrat’s ideals to fight to keep a candidate off the ballot than it is a betrayal of the Republicans’ ideals.
When this subject arose before the election, I only recall one Democratic-leaning poster, Shayna, who had the wherewithal to criticize the Democrats for this action. (Tip of the Intellectual Honesty Hat to Shayna.) Now that things are over and done, is there any reflection about trying to use the legal process to force a candidate off the ballot by any means necessary?
This is a difficult question, and I think that it should be addressed, but I haven’t seen a whole lot of evidence that it changed the course of the election. I do think it’d be a good idea for the Democrats to work to change to a different voting system, such as Condorcet or Instant Run-Off to nullify this sort of thing, but that’s going to be dead in the watter. I’m almost tempted for the Democrats to start secretly building up their own pet third-party candidate designed to siphon off votes in swing states from the Republicans (a high-profile ultra-fundamentalist Christian might be a good choice), if only to force more real discussion on the issue.
I feel that there are certain tactics, some of which have been employed by the Democrats, that are indeed wrong and I condemn them. Any voter intimidation, fraud, and most baseless legal challenges should not have been used. On the other hand, I recognize that the gains of doing so right now outweight the costs, and that means that they’ll probably be done anyway. It would seem that the best way of dealing with this is to fix the system that creates incentives to engages in these behaviors anyway.
I’m not sure. My perception is that the Catholics who are seriously anti-death penalty as a matter of principle are also equally seriously anti-abortion. Not to put words in his mouth, but Bricker might know more about that than I do.
And any hint of a lessening of support for abortion on demand will lose you the radical feminist constituency. Big time - the MS.-bitches would go thru the roof.
On the other hand, you might be able to swing it, even in the long run, if this were part of an overall push towards moderation by the Democratic party. Oppose (for instance) partial-birth abortion, and you may drive the single-issue pro-abortion votes over to Nader or one of the more radical parties, but you may pick up enough support from the center to make up for it. Risky, though. You are giving up a solid bloc for a potentially much larger bloc.
Another popular issue might be school vouchers. Teacher’s unions hate them, but they are pretty popular with everyone else, even core Democratic constituencies like blacks.
As for the rest of your proposals, hell, if you could run a candidate who credibly took the stands you have described, I would consider voting for him. Or her. Particularly on fiscal responsibility, but then you always run up against the huge issue of health care. It is so damned expensive, and the single-payer idea the Dems have pinned their hopes to won’t work. Unless the Dems can establish themselves as a party with the guts to say “No” to voters when they want more freebies, and I have no idea how you can show yourselves as that.
NAder was kept off the ballot in Virginia because he failed to file his petitions ordered by precinct by 12:00 noon the day of the deadline. His people arrived before noon, with petitions completely filled out. But it turns out there was a little-known (at least to Nader’s people) requirement that petitions be filed in precinct order. Nader’s people quickly spread out over the office and hallway floor and placed the petitions into the required order, and submitted them again, this time by 12:45 - forty-five minutes past the deadline time.
We had a thread about it.
What’s your comment on that, bup? I’m especially looking for any change you might wish to make in your characterization of my original question as “inherently dishonest,” if you are so moved.
I agree. Many Catholics are traditionally Democrats, dating from the time in which the Democrats’ social justice programs were in line with the Catholic Church’s teachings and efforts. But abortion is a bitter spill to swallow for hard-line Catholics, and starting from the early 1970s, this issue has been eroding Catholic support. I doubt many would switch from a pro-death-penalty candidate to a pro-choice candidate.
I personally keep hoping (in vain, I know) for a pro-life candidate who understands that this means both abortion and the death penalty. If I find someone who’s pro-life and anti-death penalty, I can’t imagine NOT voting for that candidate.
You may have posted this in other threads, but if you have the inclination, what are the deal-breaker issues for you in choosing a candidate, especially for President?
If you think this will turn into a flame-fest, feel free to disregard, of course.
Actually, Shodan, any lessening of support for a woman’s freedom of choice would lose hundreds of thousands, more likely millions, of mainstream women who, while they are not feminists, like many of the things feminism has done for them. It would be a disastrous mistake for the Dems. Unlike gun control, abortion is a front-burner issue for Dems.
I rather doubt that abortion rights are as much of a third rail in the American electorate as a whole as it seems to be in the Democratic party. Things like partial-birth abortion and parental notification are, in my opinion, issues on which the Dems fundamentally disagree with a majority of Americans.
I can dig up cites for you if you like.
I suppose I can admire that the Dems stick to this position on principle, but not their political acumen in doing so. The merest suggestion of even the tiniest compromise - even on PBA or parental notifications - seems to send the extremists into a tizzy.
And I am sure I need hardly remind you which party has had an anti-abortion plank in its platform in the late elections - and won. Why do you expect that some reasonable compromise to bring the Democrats into line with the majority of voters, who seem to feel a certain unease with a culture of abortion-on-demand, is going to cause women to flock somewhere else?
I think we need to keep in mind that the liberal/Democratic position is not starting from a position of zero. Remember that “majority” here means a majority of about 3 percent. The position you characterize as extreme got 48 percent of the vote.
There’s a very good reason for that, Shodan. So far, we of the life-hating left have managed to prevent the anti-abortion forces from asserting their will. A safe, legal abortion is still available, so the consequences are not apparent, because the consequences have not materialized.
And, as usual, the consequences will be visited upon the poor in disproportionate shares. A woman of means will simply go somewhere else, an economic inconvenience, nothing more. A woman without such resources will have to fall back upon an underground, illegal, and unregulated abortion resource.
Legal abortion has been a part of America for so long, Americans have forgotten how it used to be. I haven’t, I was here, I remember. Terrified young women turning to unqualified and unhygenic providers out of sheer desperation.
Like most things political, Shodan, it’s a matter of comparitive advantages. A lot of women undoubtedly go Dem because of their strong position on abortion. Dems would likely lose them wholesale to a third party candidacy or to apathy if they backed off from a woman’s right to choose. Would we pick up a lot of anti-choice folks by making compromises? Probably. As many as we’d lose by staying on point? Hardly.
I think there MIGHT be some room for maneuver on some of these points if anti-choice folks would adequately answer some of the concerns women have about things like parental notification: like what do you do when the child who is pregnant has abusive parents? Seems to me to be a formula for disaster, and I’ve never read an anti-choice response to this dilemma that seemed sincere or actually capable of dealing with the issues.
And let’s face it: just as gun control opponents consider ANY form of control to be camel’s nose under the tent that will soon lead to outright gun bans, so pro-choice advocates consider ANY form of restriction on abortion as a camel’s nose that will soon lead to an outright and general ban. I think both groups have legitimate causes for concern along these lines. You’ll never get anywhere with a compromise on abortion so long as yuou have all those evangelists happily yelping for a return to the days of back-alley coathanger abortions.
I rather doubt that, if women feel as strongly as all that about abortion, that they will simply become apathetic if the Dems allowed themselves to consider some compromises.
And, if you will pardon me, you are demonstrating some of the problem with the Democrats on abortion. Suggesting even a minor compromise, to bring the party into line with majority positions on partial-birth abortion, is seen as a major threat to “a woman’s right to choose”.
Most people see PBA as a horror, and many cases of it as being essentially five inches away from infanticide. If the Dems refuse even to consider a compromise on that, I submit the extremists have the Democratic party co-opted, and your chances of appealing to the moderate middle that much less.
You’re not going to appeal to the single-issue anti-abortion voters. They wouldn’t believe your protestations anyway, in all likelihood. The ones you want to draw in are (in my view) the ones who think abortion is a more significant act than getting a tattoo or a new hair-do.
Well, if you are happy with the way things are going with your party, I have no objection to your staying “on point”.
Then I can be the first to enlighten you - a minor with abusive parents applies to a judge, who can grant permission if it seems to be in the best interests of the minor.
Problem solved, and I look forward to “parental notification” and a call to ban partial-birth abortion as major planks in the Democratic 2008 platform.
And, in passing, I might mention that another problem some see in the Democratic position is what might be underlying your immediate objection to the notion of parental notification. No, it wasn’t your embedded habit of trying to skew the debate by referring to the other side as “anti-choice”. I covered that in part by pointing out that voters are not particularly inclined to either vote for, or compromise with, those who sneer at them.
I was thinking about the apparent default assumption that the average parent is abusive, and that a government bureaucrat is always a better choice to consult on matters of a child’s well-being. That doesn’t fly a whole lot better.
FWIW.
Nor with the false dilemma of either abortion is no more morally significant than getting your ears pierced, or having to pick your way to work among thousands of corpses of women bleeding to death as a result of being denied abortion for any reason.