I don’t think the Dems will fail in 2008. The 2006 election will give them the majority of the House, either the majority or parity in the Senate, and control of most governorships. The misconception that the Republicans are the majority party in perpetuity will vanish.
Insisting on honest elections with verifiable results is step 1. Had this been in place in 2004, we’d be looking at the second administration of John Kerry.
Step 2 is not nominating Hillary or Biden. Half the country hates Hillary and Biden had his shot and blew it years ago. Al Gore represents the heart and soul of the party.
Step 3 is to stop bringing a knife to a gun fight. We know the Republicans will use every dirty trick and there is nothing so low that those scumbuckets will not stoop to. Answer every charge as soon as possible and as forcefully as possible.
Step 4 is to have the second convention in 2008. Each party gets the bounce after its convention, let’s have it be ours in 2008 that carries through to the election.
Three words, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Unless the Republicans run Fred Phelps, Pat Robertson, or a member of the Bush family she’d lose. The Democrats need to run a conservative democrate from the South, Midwest, or West. HRC might make a viable VP candidate, but even that seems unlikely.
Maybe another way they’ll screw it up is to actually believe this stuff about how they only lost because of Republican dirty tricks, and try to fight back with dirty tricks of their own. Then it blows up in their face the way the forged 60 Minutes National Guard documents did.
The Dems had everything going for them in 2004 - a weak candidate, a big deficit, a war hero (sort of), and the unwavering support of most of the old media.
And blew it.*
A party capable of that can wring defeat from the jaws of almost any victory.
Regards,
Shodan
*Yeah, I know - it was all vote-rigging. The Dems might as well try that in 2008, just like 2004 and 2000.
I don’t remember anyone saying that was the only reason they lost. Are you saying that there weren’t any issues at all with polling places or machines?
What exactly did the 60 Minutes show have to do with the election?
Yes, as opposed to Bush winning based on lies and fear mongering and most of the people that voted for him now can’t stand him. I’d say your side blew it.
The Dems can easily screw up the 2008 election by believing the old, “Republicans only win through cheating, stealing, lying, and vicious character assassination. We need to be just like them!”
Also, running against George Bush is going to be spectacularly unhelpful in 2008. Because for the first time since Einsenhower vs. Stephenson no president of former vice president will be heading either ticket. The Republican candidate isn’t going to be a member of the Bush administration, blaming Bush’s failures on some southern Governor isn’t going to work.
Maybe someone in the Democratic party should take a look at how Bill Clinton managed to win two terms against a fanatical Republican opposition and take notes. Heck, even George Bush used Bill Clinton’s playbook in 2000. I’m just hoping the Dems are smart enough not to nominate another senator in 2008.
Yeah, I can’t imagine why anyone would believe that the Republicans are using dirty tricks to win, especially since every time Diebold machines were involved in a contested election the results always favored the Republican candidate. And I’m sure it’s merely wholesome innocent selflessness that explains why the folks clamoring the most to move over to insecure and unreliable electronic voting machines are Republicans (so much for conservatives not wanting to rush into untested waters, eh?). And when the CEO of Diebold pledged to deliver Ohio’s electoral votes for Bush, that was just him getting into the patriotic spirit of the election process.
I can’t possibly see how any of this could be misinterpreted as Republican skulldruggery at all.
Noting, but for rabid Bush apologists like Shodan, everything’s all tied into the vast left-wing-iberal-anti-American conspiracy.
Two years out and the Republicans already appear to have two viable candidates: McCain and Guiliani.
Dems have…Hilllary?
The Democratic party itself seems to be split on major issues, though the Connecticut election may have sent a big wake up call to everybofy about one of those issues.
How about step one being “Let’s get our act together.”
To the best of my knowledge, Ritter has always said that he would follow the law. I don’t think he’s ever said if he would sign or not sign a bill such as South Dakota’s. I suspect he would. Regardless, I can’t be a one issue voter. Those anti-choice Democrats who oppose Ritter are welcome to vote for Beauprez if they think they’d be better off with him as governor.
Colorado aside, it’s far too early to think about a candidate for President in 2008. What it is not too early to do is work hard at doing well in 2006. That’s part and parcel of doing well in 2008. It’s not too early to collect money, and improve the party organization, and pare down the party message to a few succinct points that everybody here can easily understand.
The Republican Revolution was not built overnight, and regardless of how dismally Republican government has failed the nation, the Democratic Revolution will not occur overnight either. It’s futile to believe that it will only take a star-calibre Presidential candidate to solve all the party’s problems.
This is a simple one. For one reason or another, the Democrats won’t nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton. Instead they’ll go with some candidate who they think is electable, but will immediately be branded by the Republicans as HRC in disguise.
Meanwhile, the activist wing of the party will be enraged that the real Hillary isn’t on the ticket. They will shut down their fund-raising, their volunteering, their blogging and all the other gruntwork that the truly committed get done. Just like the social conservatives walked away from GHWB in 1992.
Underorganized and underfunded, the Democratic candidate will limit campaigning to the largest states, in a “271 strategy” (get enough electoral votes to win and forget about the rest.) He’ll lose Pennsylvania and Ohio and go home and write a book.
And that reminds me: it might be worth just writing off the South this time. Ohio would have given Kerry the election without a single southern state. Continue to build the organization, and work at winning local offices, but - just this once - save the big presidential campaign money for the states with an actual chance of going Dem.
I am officially predicting that 2006 – that’s the election that’s just a month or two down the road – will be the dirtiest election in recorded history. That’s because 2006 will be the key to 2008. If the Dems can win a majority in either the House or the Senate – and it looks like they may have a shot in the House - they will be able to appoint and run committees, and those committees will have subpoena power.
They can then use these powers to investigate all the shit that the Pubbies have been up to for the last eight years. In addition to being personally ruinous to some Administration officials, these lengthy, prolonged hearings will constitute a two-year-long publicity bonanza for the Dems. This is the sort of thing they are good at, and it’ll be the sort of things the networks will have to cover. With any luck at all, by the time 2008 rolls around, the tales of Pubbie skullduggery will be so numerous and ripe that no one is gonna want vote Republican, including most Republicans.
So the Pubbies know they cannot afford to give up either House in 2006, because to do so leaves them incredibly vulnerable. And with Dubya’s poll numbers in the crapper and a distinct downward drag issuing from Dubya’s coattails, there’s only one way to ensure their hold on the House – some really creative electioneering, or cheating as everyone else calls it.
What the Dems need to do to fight this strategy is to have tons of lawyers, techies, poll watchers, private investigators and whatnot swarming every state where the elections are close, and where the electoral machinery is fully or partially in Pubbie hands, and watch them like hawks. Either catch them in the act or raise such a huge stink that they are forced to recount the suspicious votes/ redo the suspicious elections.
The is the ONLY way the Dems will win in 2006, and possibly the only way they can win in 2008. You can bet your ass Rove is setting up the skullduggery right this very minute.
Here’s the supreme irony of Boulder: It is home to Soldier of Fortune magazine. That’s it. Soldier of (freakin’) Fortune! I dunno, I thought it was a scream.
It’s hard for me to keep perspective, out here in the Fourth District, which has elected Marilyn Musgrave to two House terms (and two Colorado General Assembly terms before that.)The neocon virus has spread out of Colorado Springs to infect formerly moderate areas like Fort Collins, Jeffco and Douglas County (how do those yahoos keep electing Tancredo, for goodness’ sake!?)
DeGette is carrying on Pat Schroeder’s liberal tradition there in Denver, and it is encouoraging that a sprawling district as diversified as the Third can elect John Salazar, considering the big money being thrown around the western third of the state. But don’t forget, when it comes to Boulder County, the liberalism ends like a paved road on the Diagonal Highway, just about Niwot. Longmont and the St. Vrain Valley are as red as Boulder Valley is blue. Yes, statewide we’ve had a pretty good balance so far, but you gotta’ admit that Owens’ administration has been pretty much a trip into the dark ages. He was a single-issue governor – highways – and simply isn’t in the same league as Love and Vanderhoof.
But we can discuss the bleak future of our beloved Centennial State in e-mails. I fear Diogenes grows weary of us and is about to get all cynical on us.
The Democratics are most likely to screw up (btw, I hope they don’t) in two major ways, and a few minor ones:
Major Ways:
pander to the extreme left of the party by either nominating someone unelectably left-wing in a general election or by nominating an “uncontroversial” but boring political insider.
not have a plan. Come on people, we need to vote for something other than “we aren’t Bush”. Tell us what you are going to do. Iraq was a mistake, ok, we got that, but what specifically are you going to do about it. Same with domestic tranquility and security, the economy, cultural issues, etc.
Minor ways:
Move past Bush. Granted, a lot of people are pissed off at Bush, but in '08 he isn’t going to be on the ballot, and the Elephants are likely to pick someone (probably a Governor) who is not seen as really part of the current administration. Remember, Republicans were winning a large number of elections before anyone outside of Texas heard of GWB. It is fine to point out eight years of screw-ups, but tell us specifically how you are going to do better.
Distance yourselves from extremist bloggers. I know many voters who were turned off by Move-On.org and others in much the same way that Dems were turned off by the Swift Boaters and Ann Coulter. They can make their snipes and sling the mud, just appear above the fray except in extreme cases.
Remember that, in order to win, you are going to have to persuade many voters who have occasionaly voted for a Republican, or are friends with a Republican, or a family member. The message is: “We have a better plan, and voting for us will lead to a better future” not “Republicans are eeeeevil”.
Avoid talking down to or about your voters. Guess what, a large percentage of voters go to church, really care about what their kids are watching on tv, and are concerned about what they see and the language they hear at their kids’ schools. This doesn’t make them foolish or provincial, and you want their votes. Most Dems know this, but a few seem to forget.
Do well in Cal., NY, Mich., and Florida, but don’t write off the rest of us. I know a lot voters in a lot of areas that feel that both parties have just written the “fly-over” states off.
just my $0.02 - and as I am running as a Democrat in November, I have a dog in this hunt.
Mister Cinderblock could have been created from the DNA of Alexander, Roosevelt, and Gandhi, been educated at Starfleet Academy, and trained by Batman. But if he can’t convince people he’s the man for the job, make them like him, make them believe, on sight, he should be the next Leader of the Free World, it’s not going to do him a lot of good. The Presidential election is, chief among other things, a popularity contest. He has to convince the people who don’t just vote along party lines to go for him—and it takes more than a resume to do it. I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s the way it is.
Bill Gates is different—he’s a businessman. He didn’t get to where he is just by making people like him, he did it by building and selling a product. Charisma can sure as hell help, in business, but when you’ve grabbed ahold of a monopoly in a quickly emerging market, it’s not completely neccesary.
Damn, but I get tired of people trying to turn the Democrats into a regional party. That is a strategy of retreat and cowardice. Moreover, it is a strategy which will doom the party to long-term irrelevance. Take a look at this map and remember that those annoying red states may soon eclipse the blue in population.
My party had better figure out how to win in these states, rather than cowering in the North. Clinton did it. There’s no reason it can’t be done again.
And we see how well the insistence that there must be a Southerner on the ticket has worked out. The only time in my lifetime that that has actually made a difference was the Kennedy/Johnson ticket. Both Carter and Clinton won for reasons that had nothing to do with being from the South.
Yes, many southern states continue to gain in population. Much of that gain consists of people moving from Democratic states. I’m not suggesting abandoning the South forever. The party should continue to organize and spend money on local races in the South. Eventually it will be competitive again. But it’s not now!
I’m saying that rather than pour 2008 presidential campaign money into what is currently a lost cause, focus it on the Ohios and Pennsylvanias, the Colorados and New Mexicos of the nation.
No, this is based on the assumption that Democrats won’t question honest elections, which is not really the case - the stuff about stealing the election is just an excuse. If and when the Dems lose, and there is a paper trail, they will just make something else up.
Nor do I. Where did you get the idea that anyone did?
I’m saying that there is no evidence of any systematic vote fraud that favored Bush. Every time I ask for some, we trot out the same crapola about Diebold and the exit polls and all that.
There have been several threads about it in Great Debates. Here’s one of many.
