If they have any brains they’ll pick Roemer. He doesn’t have a chance in hell, though. He’s the Democratic Party’s Christine Todd Whitman.
I’m thinking they’ll go with Dean. In a way, they should, to make up for the deplorable way they treated him after his “RAAAAAAAAAH!” speech.
I know Whitman is considered centrist compared to the right-wingers in the Administration she left in 2003. Is that the parallel you’re drawing? Do you think the Republican Party would do better under the leadership of Whitman or somebody like her? Myself, I like being able to tell the parties apart.
People who support abortion are the bastard children of the Republican Party, it seems. Yeah, Christine is a registered Republican. She also supports partial birth abortion; not something your typical Republican is going to go for and yes it’s a big deal to most. Because of this, she’s kind of a black sheep, despite having been a Governor. Were she to run for President someday, I wouldn’t vote for her (I guess that year I’d go 3rd party). A lot of Republicans, I suspect, would, at the very least, cringe when pulling the lever for her. We can argue whether or not it’s right for her to be the party’s black sheep all day, what I’m trying to say is that pro-abortion Republicans are generally not too popular with conservatives. Whether the Republicans should make themselves out to be “the pro-life party” or not is another debate. At the moment, though, it certainly seems like most of the time, they go hand in hand. (Ahnold wouldn’t have won CA had he been pro-life, though, IMHO. He’s about as Republican as it’s gonna get for the Golden State.)
I personally know lots of Democrats who are pro-life, some are actually in office. Our new Governor here in WV, Joe Manchin, is a good example. Pro-life to the core, but he has taken a LOT of shit for it from his own party because of it. And this is in a state with a pro-life majority, too.
The Dems have long considered themselves to be champions of the right to choose. Making Roemer their chair would give them the appearance of being a bit more mainstream; that there’s room in the Democratic Party for people like him who are mostly Democrat in their convictions but, when it comes to the abortion thing, simply don’t agree. They are not smart enough to see this, though, and that’s why I think he doesn’t have a prayer. He’s pro-life. He’s out, as far as his party is concerned. It appears that abortion is the one issue that is not negotiable if you want to be a big dog Democrat. Oh, it’s slightly okay to be pro-life if you’re a Democrat in a backwards state that nobody pays attention to, but if you want to REALLY go somewhere, you’ve gotta toe the party line.
Just my perceptions, anyway. IANAPolitician, thank God.
I can follow that, but why do you say Roemer is the choice the Democrats would make “if they had any brains”? Is it really that essential for the Dems to appeal to pro-life voters? Somehow, I don’t think that issue played a very important role in the last election, nor will it in the next one. Besides, our party system is supposed to offer alternatives. It’s bad enough we’ve got two pro-war and pro-corporate parties to choose from, we don’t need two pro-life parties.
I’d really like to see Howard Dean get it. I think he could be a very good force for positive change within the party, he is very motivated and is a good motivator, I believe he’s the type to not compromise his standards and could help the Dems grow a collective backbone. I don’t think the right choice for the Dems right now is to make appeals to the “mainstream.” They’ve done that and it doesn’t work. I don’t want Republican and Republican-Lite. I think they need to offer clear alternatives, and get the message out as to WHY those alternatives are better. Their candidates have been weak and their messages foggy. They’ve allowed the Republicans to make Liberal and Progressive into dirty words.
FWIW, I consider myself an independent, there are some Republicans in the past I have greatly respected and supported but I’m finding so little I like about the party these days (they don’t even seem to stand up to their own ideals), that I usually find myself siding with Democrats just in hopes to put some restraints on the Republicans.
I don’t think choosing Roemer would make the Dems another pro-life party. I don’t think they’ll ever give up their current stand on abortion.
It’s not about appealing to pro-life voters, either. Your average pro-life voter like myself is going to look at both candidates, check out their voting records and make their decision for the most pro-life guy, regardless of their party. This is why I end up voting for Democrats quite a bit. And yes, the abortion issue was HUGE in this last election. People knew that whoever won would probably get the chance to put new judges on the Supreme Court. Kerry promised an abortion litmus test; that scared the hell out of pro-life voters and they organized. Bush owes his victory to the pro-lifers, no doubt.
But like I said, choosing Roemer wouldn’t be about making the pro-lifers happy, nor should it be because if their candidate is pro-life, Democrats needn’t worry about pro-life votes, they’ll get them (Joe Manchin, again, is a good example). Choosing Roemer WOULD make the party look a little bit more mainstream, though (most Americans are not raging pro-lifers like I am, but they certainly aren’t as approving of abortion as the party in general, either). Some may say that heading towards the center is something the Dems shouldn’t do; to those I would ask what have the Dems been doing for the past 4 or 5 years or so that is WORKING? We had 8 years of one of their guys and now the country has made a big swing back over towards the right.
Let’s face it, the Dems wanna win elections. They’re not willing to change to do it, though, and I’ve got news for them: the country is not going to change for them; they’re going to have to do the changing. It’s a new day.
Roemer as chair would soften the DNC up a bit, send a message “hey, we’re not all raging ultra liberals, just look at our chairman!” I know lots of Democrats these days who tell me that as far as their own party goes, they feel abandoned and belittled; they feel as if they don’t have anything in common anymore with the party they joined – and it’s not that THEY have changed their political views, either.
Now, do the Dems want to keep alienating voters or do they want to win in 2008? Zell Miller is right; the party has been hijacked. The way I see it they can keep doing what they’re doing and keep losing, or they can wake up and see that their top people have pretty much nothing in common politically with their average member and revamp accordingly.
And that’s exactly how I feel about the Democrats. We NEED both parties to function. I don’t think anybody wants to see this country go into a one-party state; the more parties we have, the merrier.
I’m not a swing voter, but I’m not a blind “vote the party” idiot either, and it doesn’t sound like you are. I’m alienated, you’re alienated. Both parties need to change, no doubt. Or we need to get a valid 3rd party.
So that’s what it’s like to be in the 51st percentile, huh?
“Heading towards the center” is exactly what the Dems have been doing, Abbie – not just for the past 4 or 5 years, but since 1992. You don’t think Clinton was a liberal, do you?
Changing the country is what a political party exists to do. If you give up on that, what’s the point?
I too know a lot of Dems who meet that description, and they’re all leftists.
So it has been. Hijacked by the right, not the left.
I’m hoping for Dean. We neeed someone who is closer to a liberal, rather than the “Republican Lite” candidates. We need someone who stands strong on the issues that are important to us on the left: the environment, pro-choice, taking care of the poor, fiscal responsibility, etc.
Dean is passionate, far more than I can say about anyone else we’ve seen in many, many years. I’m still upset over how the media destroyed his run for President. Wow, someone screamed, big deal. If you have never cheered on a sports team or your kids during a competition or performance, I guess you wouldn’t understand why Dean acted the way he did. Personally, I just think it shines a huge light on how hypocritical people are, like always . . . :rolleyes:
And no, we do NOT need to change our stance on the abortion issue. I feel just as strongly for a women’s right to choose as the ones who believe life begins at conception. The majority of women who have to make this decision have a difficult time with it, I know. The only difference between the right and the left on that issue is the left wants safe abortions for every woman, the right just wants safe abortions for the rich. Abortions will NEVER go away, not even if they are banned. Just the poor women will end up dying while the rich continue on with their lives.
Sad, very sad. 
I couldn’t agree with you more. I feel very abandoned by the democratic party. I feel they are trying to appease the right too much. There is just as strong of true liberals in this country as rightie-tighties. The right though has perverted many labels and made liberal seem like a bad thing.
I really don’t care what the right thinks now. I am a PROUD liberal, and I’m not ashamed. Not one bit. 51% is NOT a majority, it’s barely over half. Barely.
Nevertheless, technically, 51% is a majority and 49% is a minority.
Which does not mean the Pubs have the support of 51% of the people – there are still a lot of nonvoters. And I hold out hope that they would be more likely to vote Democrat than Republican, if the Democrats offered them a genuinely left-populist, anti-corporate agenda. Dean won’t deliver that either, but he’ll bring us closer to it.
In the liberal dictionary, what is the definition of “majority?”
A numerical advantage greater than the margin of error?
What rjung said.
I guess with all the instances of voter suppression (and I live in Ohio, so I know) it is quite likely had things been more fair in the districts that Kerry could have won. But with the mysterious 90,000 extra votes in Cleveland, the extra Bush votes in Gahanna, the machines disappearing from Democratic precincts, the electronic machines counting backwards on Kerry votes, the programmers from some of the voting machine companies coming out and mysteriously re-programming the machines that were under recounts, the list goes on and on and on. But somehow those don’t prove there are problems with voting.
At least I know one thing for certain, and that is you never know if your vote ever counts.
So Bricker , in the Neo-Con dictionary, what is the definition of “hypocrite”?
Someone who would claim that Bush didn’t have a majority in 2004, but that Gore won in 2000?
I’m prepared to accept that definition.
And what is the magin of error in this instance?
Credible cite?
Grr. Bush won this time. Bush won this time. Bush won this time. I know all about the four stages of grief, but it’s time to take off the ashcloth and move on with our lives. Can’t believe some of y’all are still stuck in denial.
I’m not very educated on these guys; personally I’d love to see Dean win. As I see it, a lot of people vote for the most inspirational candidate, the one that makes them think, “Yeah! Right on!” It is a sad comment on the Democratic party that we managed to run a candidate less inspirational than Bush.
The idea that we need to move even further to the right is pathetic. People who want to vote for a rightwing candidate will do so; they’re not going to vote for rightwing lite. We keep trying to be rightwing lite; we keep failing. Why not give the old inspirational firebreathing liberalism a good try? If it fails–if a candidate who puts forward visionary proposals for universal healthcare, for global cooperation, for sweeping environmental protections fails–then I’ll accept it. But just once, for old times’ sake, let’s quit with the dithering, cringing, pandering to the right for me.
Daniel
Let me ask, then, Daniel- would you describe any of Mondale, Dukakis, or McGovern as right-wing lite? Admittedly, none of those candidates are what I’d consider “firebreathers”- “milquetoastbreathers” is more like it- but at the time each ran, each did so on very strong liberal platforms. And each was soundly defeated.