[QUOTE=Bricker]
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./QUOTE]In that case, I think Nader should have been on the Virginia ballot. I don’t see what bearing that has on my characterization of your question as inherently dishonest - “legal means” are not “by any means necessary.”
It’s an incredibly risky strategy, and I’m torn on how to handle abortion. On one hand, I tend to support it up to a point, say second-trimester, after which very stringent conditions should be placed on its use. Unfortunately, efforts to actually comprimise on this issue are nearly impossible, the well is so poisonous. Not only do both sides suspect that any ground the other gains will be used as a wedge to completely ban/allow abortion, but I sense that there are a fair number of people whom reap enormous gains by keeping the issue alive, reducing it to a culture war, and firing up their supporters. I’ve been wondering if overturning Roe vs Wade, whatever its effects on the nation, will be a net benefit for the Democrats, as it helps to nullify the issue in several conservative states, thus giving the Democrats more of a foothold to campaign on other issues.
On altering the abortion position as a calculated manuver to see if you gain more than you lose, it’s something I’d happily do and exploit in many statewide elections and offices, but would be very reluctant to try in a nationwide election – such a candidate would probably not even get out of the primaries, and any strong shift in such a position would basically result in trading a strong democratic constiuency for a possibly more numerous constiuency, one which at the very least is going to be less interested in campaigning and getting out the base. Moreover, there are many cases where anything other than outright banning of it (something I doubt is politically palatable) would just result in Republicans moving rightwards in order to continue using it as a campaign issue, and I’m not convinced that they won’t take their core with them.
I definately think the Democrats should hammer at the idea of education, and one part of the strategy needs to be quietly reducing the power of the unions (I actually think John Kerry made a good attempt at this early on) in order to make it easier to hire (and pay!) good teachers and fire bad ones (something nigh-impossible right now), but I’d have to analyze the ability of this issue to swing undecided/conservative voters, or bring out electoral support in sufficient numbers to make up for the lack of voters (and funding) due to opposition among educators. I suspect most of them would still vote Democrat, but we might lose a lot of enthusiasm.
This is such a painful thing to be able to do and continue to do, and is something so easy for an opposition to exploit that I almost despair of doing it properly. Freebies (I think we can agree that the Bush administration hasn’t been overly opposed to giving out its own goodies either) might help a small group of voters at the expense of the populace of a whole, but those voters tend to be far more vocal about being left out of the action, and with our current system, can cause true pain for the party responsibile for it. Just try and find ways in which either party would be willing to refuse money or even worse, cut current pork to states like Ohio or Florida.
Note on celebrity spokespeople – I finally decided that our best bet would be to distance them from the actual candidates, and to work to have them keep a low profile during elections, but continue to make use of them during the off-season to get people to open up their checkbooks in order to fund specific causes, or failing that, liberal think-tanks, publications, etc.
Technically, I suppose not. But juxtaposing the two phrases gave the flavor of what I was trying to convey - it’s an attitude similar to the “voting registrations must be on 80# bond paper or they will be disqualified” trick that was tried by a Republican – and which I condemned.
That trick was a “by any means necessary” legal trick. Technically speaking, the law required 80# bond paper for voting registrations, but it was apparently unenforced, at least to the extent that many local elections boards were unaware of it, and printed up registration papers for people to use that did not conform to the rule. The Republican state elections official initially ruled that such registrations were illegal and would not be accepted. (He ultimately reversed that decision).
So, to, was the “not in by 12:00 noon in correct precinct order” a “by any means necessary” legal trick. Same mindset: exploit a minor technicality in the law to achieve your end. Now, I’m all about the law, but I readily condemned Mr. Bond Paper’s trick. And, as you can imagine, there was no shortage of outrage from Democratic supporters on these very boards for Bond, Paper Bond.
But I noticed a lack of condemnation for similar tricks being used against Nader. Even your admission, above, while supportive of Nader, is remarkably free of any outrage or condemnation against the Democrats for using these sorts of tactics against Mr. Nader.
- Rick
I think if the Dems retreat on abortion to any great extent, there will be many defections from their ranks. I can’t predict how that would work in another close race, but I bet it could EASILY lose the election. Disastrous move. Getting those undecideds for whom abortion is a big issue to move to the Dem ranks hardly seems likely to make up for the losses.
No, I see waffling on this issue as a major threat to a Democratic candidate’s ability to get elected. Whole different ball o’ wax.
I think the calculation is more along the lines of “the status quo is working for us, don’t change it.” Granted the hard-line conservatives really get energized on this issue, but regular folks recognize that getting the government involved in it – (something conservatives ordinarily HATE to do) – is an iffy idea, at best. At worst, a disaster waiting to happen.
This “solution” is just the sort of thing that makes Dems suspicous of the intent of those on the right who offer “compromises” on abortion. Let’s see, pregnant teen with abusive father … yeah, the first thing she’s gonna think of is getting a judge to hear her case and help her out. Because all teens know judges are THERE for them, man, they’re really on their side … NOT!!! C’mon, teens know appearing before judges means they’ve done something wrong and they’re in trouble. This “solution” is no solution and offered in anything but the spirit of compromise.
If you want to get some movement on this issue, you’re going to have to come up with something a LOT … and I mean orders of magnitude … better than this.
Just doing my part to avoid falling into that that labelling trap that you conservatives are so fond of. Your use of the term ‘pro-life’ is just as invidious – it implies that those who support choice are “anti-life.” Nice try, maestro. It ain’t flying here.
Where you got this, I dunno … you have to stop conflating my words with Rush Limbaugh’s. I said that parental notification creates some potentially hellish situations in cases where parents are abuse. In the cases where parents are not abusive, probably it’s not so much of a problem. But even parents who are not normally abusive have been known to BECOME abusive when they find out thier fair-haired bueaty has gotten knocked up by Punk Boy. It’s a tough problem, the whole abortion issue is a tough problem.
And y’know, every time a conservative legislator proposes an abortion law that does not take into account the life and health of the mother, it just makes things that much worse – confirming the worst fears of both liberal and moderate women about conservatives’ intents on this issue.
Nothing false about this dilemma. When abortion was illegal, women died in botched back-alley abortions. No reason to suppose it won’t happen again if abortion is outlawed again. The fact that conservatives could apparently care less about that is perhaps the single biggest obstacle to any compromise on the issue.
There’s plenty of reason to assume it wouldn’t happen in such great numbers as it did back then. One reason for the “back-alley” abortionist was the shame and societal disapproval of sexual activity before marriage, which a unmarried pregnancy proved. Today’s society does not share that condemnation, and this factor alone would stay the hand of many desperate women.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040528.html
"[T]he claim that legalization has prevented the deaths of thousands upon thousands of women doesn’t hold up. Roe v. Wade saved some lives, but the numbers were small – reported deaths due to illegal abortion declined from 39 in 1972 to 5 in 1974. The biggest factor in reducing abortion mortality was undoubtedly the overall improvement in prenatal and obstetrical care after World War II. The rate of pregnancy-related deaths from causes other than abortion dropped at roughly the same pace as the abortion death rate from 1940 through 1974 (though abortion-related deaths did decline faster after 1965, which Cates attributes largely to advances in contraception and the state-by-state relaxation or repeal of abortion laws). Self-induced and back-alley abortions were becoming a thing of the past long before Roe: sex researcher Alfred Kinsey estimated in the 1950s that around 85 percent of illegal abortions were performed by physicians, even if the physicians weren’t all in good standing. "
No, part of the problem is that you are labelling any willingness to compromise as “waffling on the issue”. Your position is marginal, and rejected by the large majority of the voters. If you are not willing to consider changing it, even slightly, you have no chance to appeal to the large majority on the issue.
:shrugs:
If you think of what happened to your party a week ago as “working for us”, then of course you would be silly to change anything.
Well, if you are going to dismiss an obvious solution out of hand, I suspect the voters may not concur as to who has the sinister motives.
But as I mentioned earlier, I and my party have no real reason to “get some movement on this issue”. We won. I thought the purpose of this thread was to discuss what lessons could be learned from the latest Democratic debacle. If you feel as strongly as you seem to that nothing need be learned, I rest content.
I have no interest at all in the Democratic party winning with its current positions. If you aren’t going to change anything, that works for me - I will continue to vote Republican and get a good deal of what I want, and you can vote Democrat (or socialist, or whatever) and get nothing.
Fine with me. Several Dopers have mentioned being put off by the sneering condescension you and others like you feel for pretty much anyone who doesn’t already vote your way.
Again, if you don’t choose to try to appeal to the middle, I have no objection at all. I am perfectly happy with the results of last week. If you are too, then by all means, keep doing what you are doing.
Regards,
Shodan
As you are so fond of saying in countless other threads: Those are the rules. The Nader supporters failed to comply with them.
The will of the people of Virginia, as expressed through their legislators, have made it a requirement that petitions be filed in precinct order. Perhaps if the Nader supporters had payed closer attention them, they would have gotten on the ballot. If they don’t like it, maybe they can write to their legislators and get them to change the rules. That’s democracy for you.
Well, that’s not an untenable position for me. But do you also agree with the elections official who wanted to reject voter registrations that were not on 80# bond paper? That too was a law of the state, the will of the people, expressed through their legislators.
If we’re imposing strict follow-the-rules across the board, I’m OK with that. But I get the feeling you’re not. Am I wrong?
Presumably the same way you know that liberals “automatically assume that they are the enlightened ones and anyone who disagrees is a backwards thinker”.
I think several things need to be changed about our election laws. It should be in the exclusive domain of election officials to enforce the election laws, allowing outside parties with an agenda to put their opponents under a microscope will lead to inequitable results. The Republican “poll watchers”, who ostensibly were there to prevent fraudelent voting from taking place, only put their watchers in democratic communities.
Elections for Secretaries of State, IMO, should be nonpartisan races and should not be able to run as any party.
As for Nader, I don’t feel a lot of sympathy for him. When the frickin Green Party bails on you, that’s gotta tell you something. 
. No political party nominated him, and without the backing of a political party it probably should be harder to get on the ballot. Otherwise we’ll have to deal with dozens or hundreds of completely frivolous candidates cluttering up our ballots just like in the California recall election.
That’s very interesting, but I can’t help but note that you did not answer my question
I guess this thread is as good as any to post this in…
Just say Evan Bayh interviewed on The O’Reilly Factor. If that wasn’t an early bid for the '08 nomination, I don’t know what is. I don’t know a hell of a lot about Bayh, but he’s always seemed like a very reasonable, moderate Democrat. That party could do MUCH worse than to nominate someone like Bayh. I think he’s counting on this last election to boost his political stock significantlly.
The one problem I see with him is that he doesn’t seem to have a lot of passion, and I really think you need a goodly amount of that personality trait to go for the top.
Before last Tuesday, people like Evan Bayh and John Breaux were being marginalized in the Democratic party.
Today, they’re the hope of the party. The Democrats are coming to the realization that they need to run someone exactly like that to win the White House.
And that’s a good development, IMO.
Bricker – What do you think the Democrats should have done with regards to Ralph Nader? Do you think the Republican behavior was entirely appropriate?
To me, “by any means necessary,” connotes Malcolm X hinting at violent retaliation. Whole different ballgame.
I don’t enrage easy.
I think the Democrats should not have tried to keep him off the ballot.
I’m not sure how I feel about the GOP’s actions…
[QUOTE=Bricker]
Still waiting for your source.
One statement that solidified my belief that Bayh wants to run in '08 is that he said “I am first and foremost a Governor…”
Heh. rjung’s source is, apparently, a Boondocks cartoon that was satirizing Limbaugh.