"Today, We Are All Walter Mondale". Democrats learned the wrong lesson from 1984.

[madfloridian]

America’s anti-liberal myth: Why Dems learned the wrong lesson from 1984

Your calendar says it’s 2015, but it’s always 1984 in mind of the New Dems. These are the economically conservative Democrats that include centrists like the old Democratic Leadership Council, Third Way and financial sector-centric elected Democrats (plus Robert Rubin, the Rubin-launched Hamilton Project and associated advisers on the policy side). As always, they are again invoking 1984 to conjure images of a grave danger to Democrats’ ability to win elections in the form of ascendant progressive populism.

The New Dems’ scare story goes something like this: In 1984 Walter Mondale lost 49 states because he ran as a Super Liberal. Democrats would have kept losing if the New Dems had not formed to take control of and steer the party. In 1992 Bill Clinton ran as Centrist Man and Democrats started winning elections again. Now, economic progressives who prioritize other things before Wall Street’s approval are causing trouble. If these progressives Democrats represent the party it will again be banished to the political wilderness and forced to relearn the lesson of the ’80s and ’90s.

This premise is not only wrongheaded, in important ways it’s backwards.

Al From and friends got to push ahead with their conclusion that it was all the fault of liberals. They had the money and the circle of influence to do it.

Today, We Are All Walter Mondale

The hits keep coming. In more recent years New Dems have tried to apply the 1984 “lesson” to whatever political moment they’re in. Before declaring itself the New DLC (because in their mind the word “new” is some kind of magic incantation) and then ultimately folding and giving way to Third Way, the DLC tarred Democrats with the pejorative “member of the unelectable Mondale wing.” The trait that earned a Democrat this label circa 2003 was opposition to the Iraq war, a sin no Democrat with serious future national aspirations could commit lest they consign themselves to irrevocable Not President status. Anyone who would have suggested to the DLC that the next Democrat to win the White House would be a Hyde Park State Senator named Barack Obama elected in large part because of his opposition to the Iraq war would have been met with all sorts of political spectrum positioning-based derision.

They put that negative label on liberals not because liberals and progressives were wrong...but because they wanted the big money.

... What they have done is, on a number of instances, shamelessly changed their rationale for why elected Democrats need to do what Third Way’s donors wanted Democrats to do. They do this because New Dems organizations like Third Way are not on a mission to get Democrats to win elections. They’re on a mission to lock Democrats into serving high finance, even at the expense of winning elections. The New Dems are not acting out of concern that progressive populist Democrats will lose. They don’t want liberals to win.

Once money and funding became the goal of those who were pulling the party's strings....winning and losing was just a side issue.

Thus all their calls for "bipartisanship", and this one..."post partisanship". That last one means beyond the level of a 2 party system.

I don't think a nation can function well without the checks and balances of at least two parties.

[n2doc]

1. I remember him running a very uninspiring campaign

Seemed mostly predicated on the 'My turn" theory of politics. He also got absolutely nothing positive out of the MSM, who were all behind Ronnie and his "morning in America" crap.

[madfloridian]

5. Ronnie was a big movie hero...

And you may be right about the boring. Reagan was all show...all hat..

The media loved him.

[PowerToThePeople]

15. 2015, old media is all but dead

Their influence is negligible. All they have is piles of war proceeds to spend on losing.

They are done.

Al Gore's internet has killed them.

[tosh]

27. The beginning of the demise...

preceded Al Gore's internet.

The corporate buy-out of all the daily rags had already begun.

What we have today, in both print and broadcast media, was being predicted and feared among media professionals as early as 1980.

It has come to pass.

[tecelote]

97. Exactly

Regulations were axed and the liberal media was bought up and consolidated.

Now we have corporate propaganda.

Journalism is dead. It's all performance art now. The scripts are written, distributed and performed according to the dictates of our corporate overlords.

[SusanaMontana41]

124. I'm an editor at a newspaper, and you're right.

We're supposed to comfort the poor. We're supposed to afflict the comfortable.

Rank-and-file journalists want to do that, at least where I work.

But The Fourth Estate isn't a watchdog anymore. It's a lapdog.

We are corporate whores.

This is not what we signed on for.

[SusanaMontana41]

122. This didn't change the election, but

during the Oct. 17, 1984, debate, Mondale did get off a zinger against King Ronnie:

Mr. Barnes. Mr. President, let me try this on you. Do you think middle-income Americans are overtaxed or undertaxed?

The President. You know, I wasn't going to say this at all, but I can't help it. There you go again. [Laughter] I don't have a plan to tax—or increase taxes.

Ms. Walters Mr. Mondale, here we go again. It's time for rebuttal.

Mondale:Now, Mr. President, you said, "There you go again," right?

The President. Yes.

Mr. Mondale. You remember the last time you said that?

The President. Mm-hmm.

Mr. Mondale. You said it when President Carter said that you were going to cut Medicare, and you said, "Oh, no, there you go again, Mr. President." And what did you do right after the election? You went out and tried to cut $20 billion out of Medicare.

I enjoyed that very much. fwiw

[madfloridian]

125. lol that's great. Had forgotten that.

"Mr. Mondale. You said it when President Carter said that you were going to cut Medicare, and you said, "Oh, no, there you go again, Mr. President." And what did you do right after the election? You went out and tried to cut $20 billion out of Medicare."

[SusanaMontana41]

133. Great stuff, huh?

I knew the month and tag lines by heart but had to look up the rest.

Glad you enjoyed it!

[hfojvt]

16. I thought his campaign was inspiring enough

and I was a young Republican.

I never like Mondale. Watched him in the 1976 debate against Dole. Didn't like him then. It was visceral. He was unpleasant looking and had an annoying speaking style (in my opinions at the time).

I don't remember the 1980 debate against Bush. Who knows, maybe I was in band camp and didn't get to see it.

1984, and I still didn't like him. It didn't help, in my eyes, that he was part of the Carter administration. First, because I am from South Dakota, and Carter was not kind to South Dakota. In his first budget he cut funding for about a dozen water projects in SD. Somebody in his administration was quoted as saying "who cares about South Dakota, nobody lives there anyway."

That, right there, probably cost McGovern the Senate seat he had held for 3 terms. Plus the media spent four years bashing Carter, and I bought in to that (hey, I was just seventeen).

Second, he was from Minnesota, a place where I was going to college.

And I met a whole bunch of Minnesotans.

And a whole bunch of them seemed to look down their noses at South Dakota. As a rather prominent example, there was Rudy Perpich, who had been re-elected Governor in 1983. Responding to the fact that more Minnesotans were going to college in South Dakota than South Dakotans were going to college in Minnesota (kinda logical considering the population disparity, and tuition disparity) he said something like "Who wants to live in South Dakota? They are fiftieth in everything."

Third, I had been a huge Reagan supporter in 1980. Getting more liberal as I went to college, but not there yet. Still a registered Republican.

So I had all those reasons to not like Mondale, and a history of not liking him.

Yet there I was, watching the second debate (I think it was the second one) and Reagan was fumbling around after about an hour of bad performance and I suddenly wondered "why do I like this guy again?" I remember reading an article later in the Star-Trib (which I read every day, thanks to the dorm subscription) saying something like "it was like we were watching our grandfather lose his facilities".

I think with Mondale though, he kind of expected to lose, and thus picked Ferraro as sort of a Hail Mary. A whole lot of voters saw that as an obvious ploy and I think it backfired. Plus there were apparently two years of contentious primaries - 1980 Carter vs. Kennedy and 1984 Mondale vs. Hart. Otherwise, damn, Kennedy should have been able to deliver Massachusetts for Mondale.

But Democrats had a history of doing poorly against incumbent Republicans. Ike vs. Adlai, Nixon vs. McGovern and Reagan vs. Mondale were all very solid popular and electoral vote thumpings.

[Roy Rolling]

108. Must respectfully disagree

I remember Mondale as boring and uninspiring. That may certainly be my own perceptions and not what he is all about at all.

But the Mondale-Ferraro ticket seemed like a politically-correct ticket created in the smoky back rooms of the Democratic Party.

If Mondale was exciting and progressive, his campaign failed at getting that message across even to people like me who were receptive in 1984.

[jwirr]

52. Yes, that is the way I remember it also.

[Enthusiast]

59. You remember it well because that is the way I remember it too.

The media was in the tank for the Republicans clear back then.

[Electric Monk]

2. Get thee to the Greatest page, posthaste (k&r)

[annabanana]

3. kick . . .n/t

[jalan48]

4. When they chose Mondale my immediate thought was that it was a set-up for Reagan.

Mondale? After the 70's and Nixon and the Church Committee findings. I wrote in Bozo the Clown when I voted I was so pissed.

[dae]

6. K&R

[Snobblevitch]

7. Mondale is the only candidate to have lost in all 50 states.

[jeff47]

9. When did you demote Minnesota to "not a state"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1984

[Snobblevitch]

10. I was born and raised in Minnesota

and have lived here most of my life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_history_of_Walter_Mondale

[jeff47]

12. Ok, if you want to open it up to all elections

then Reagan also lost in all 50 states.

Wow. Meaningful.

[Snobblevitch]

14. When did Reagan lose elecctions in all 50 state.

Open what up? I made a comment about Mondale being the only U. S. candidate to have lost in all 50 states. While Mondale won Minnesota in 1984, he lost statewide in Minnesota as well.

[jeff47]

18. Reagan ran before 1980.

You add up every election Reagan ever participated in, and he lost all 50 states.

"Mondale lost in all 50 states" is an idiotic metric meant to reinforce the "Liberals can't win" meme mentioned in the OP. Good job repeating it.

[Snobblevitch]

21. Not all states have presidential primaries.

[jeff47]

25. So...you're now going to add that irrelevant metric

to keep the "loser liberals" meme going?

So you're going to claim it's not appropriate to count losing caucuses, yet it is appropriate to count every other election a person has ever run?

Next, do you want to exclude Lincoln because there weren't 50 states yet?

[Enthusiast]

60. +100%!

[book_worm]

28. well since this is about 1984

I think your comment could cause most people to assume you meant 1984.

[kenfrequed]

106. Oh gods...

Just say, "oops, sorry I was wrong, Mondale won Minnesota in 1984."

When you try to play unequal comparative games about a post that was mostly focused on presidential elections it just comes off looking like an absurd quibble.

Also I feel I should tell you: No one knows what your bloody point is!

[Snobblevitch]

130. See post #29.

I have already admitted that I should not have brought it up. I did not have a political point to make. Just a piece of election trivia. I never claimed Mondale lost Minnesota in 1984.

[book_worm]

22. Mondale won Minnestoa--he and McGovern both lost 49 states.

Both Mondale and McGovern won DC, and Mondale won his homestate. McGovern lost his homestate but won Massachusetts.

[Snobblevitch]

29. I'm sorry I brought it up.

It was intended to be a Final Jeopardy
-type piece of trivia. Mondale lost a last minute election in Minnesota in 2002. I didn't have any political point when I wrote that post.

[merrily]

107. 49, not 50

[TeamPooka]

113. WTF? One of the single most disingenuous staements I've heard in a long time.

your defense of it even makes you worth blocking so I don't have to hear this crap anymore.

[Demeter]

8. Party Democrats were losing their minds in 1984

Reagan was ascendant, Poppy Bush was pulling the levers of power, Karl Rove was the mad dog at the gate....and Democratic policy-makers were shaking in fear and frequently changing their minds with their britches. The Silent Majority got a karaoke machine at full volume, and Phyllis Schlafly was tearing up the women.

They thought they were kings of the world, getting Nixon out, and then dissing Carter. The swelled heads shrank rapidly, though, along with other body parts.

[madfloridian]

11. Your description...

takes me back in time.

[LiberalArkie]

17. To me that was when they sold out to the same people who owned the Republican party.

[haikugal]

43. Keep talking, you're bringing it all back.

[Demeter]

47. I don't want to bring it back--I want us to get over it into something more socially functional

I loathed the 80's. All my girlish life plans crumbled. Friends and family proved themselves false or fair weather. I have yet to recover, and at this point in life, hope is a mockery.

Thirty years of suffering, trying to survive on the minimal level...living isn't for sissies. I think Bernie is my last hope for some kind of victory in this life: the Ultimate "I told you so". And a hope for my children's futures. All children's futures.

[haikugal]

57. I'm with you on not wanting it back..reading you was bringing back the memory so clearly

I could feel, smell and taste it...not a bad thing, helping me remember.

Oh, Demeter...I was right behind you..'92...surviving, friends and all, and I have the same hope.

We all could use a real victory in our lives.

Bernie is real.

You write beautifully and that's what I was responding to..Thanks!

[Demeter]

82. yw

[Recursion]

90. I thought Atwater was the 1984 Karl Rove? (nt)

[chervilant]

13. k&r

It's always about money...

[Spitfire of ATJ]

19. Actually, the reason Bill Clinton won was because the Republicans went too far to the Right....

The official Republican platform called for outlawing homosexuality and banning abortion. The convention had a bunch of fanatics booing down moderates. A lot of people who voted Republican all their lives crossed over to and voted for Clinton to send their own party a message that it had gone too far.

Since Clinton won in a plurality the Republicans decided to trot out the tactic of claiming he wasn't legit. They knew their base respected the office so this gave them permission to hate him by claiming he didn't really earn it.

[hifiguy]

39. Letting Krazy Unkkkle Pat Buchanan speak at the convention

was epic stupidity. He went full-tilt batshit in front of the entire country and was cheered to the heights. As Molly Ivins acidly said of that speech "it probably sounded better in the original German."

[haikugal]

44. Oh gawd I miss her....

[madfloridian]

53. Ha! Speaking of Molly Ivins....her words about Bill Clinton in 1998 interview.

The whole interview is just wonderful, this part stood out. Think it is from C-Span.

http://www.booknotes.org/Watch/102566-1/Molly+Ivins.aspx

LAMB: You refer to Bill Clinton as maybe Chauncy Gardner. Who wa...
Ms. IVINS: Yeah.
LAMB: Who was Chauncy Gardner?
Ms. IVINS: He's a figure in a film called "Being There," who is an opaque person into whom other people read whatever they want. In this figure, the Chauncy Gardner guy, conservatives think he's conservative, liberals think he's a liberal. You know, people read into him whatever they wanna see there. And there is a touch of that about Bill Clinton.
LAMB: What do you read into him?
Ms. IVINS: I think he's a politician, and I say that--I'm maybe one of the last people left in America who does not use that word as a pejorative.
LAMB: Actually, you--let me quote...
Ms. IVINS: Yeah.
LAMB: ...what you say about him. You say, "He's the most skilled politician I've ever watched work."
Ms. IVINS: I like to watch politicians work. Remember when I was talking earlier about the art of politics being able to find this little, thin sliver that allows you to get something done? Well, it gets harder and harder to get anything done about anything because our politics have gotten to be so headbutty and--and people just going against one another out of knee-jerk reaction rather than concentrate on fi--fixing a problem.

And Clinton is good, and by that I mean he can find a way to get things done. It's not necessarily the solution he'll finally get through, may not be the best way to fix the problem, may not be the most efficient or least costly, but it is the politically doable way. And that's--that's a great skill. That's actually a great art.
LAMB: Anything about him you don't like?
Ms. IVINS: Sure. He's a politician. You know, like all politicians, he's a compromiser, and in my opinion he compromises far to easily and far too often. He'll often give away 9/10ths of the loaf just to get one slice. Seems to me he ought to hold out for at least half.

[hifiguy]

54. She was absolutely right.

And she'd have been just as right if you substitute "Obama" for "Clinton."

"You know, like all politicians, he's a compromiser, and in my opinion he compromises far to easily and far too often. He'll often give away 9/10ths of the loaf just to get one slice. Seems to me he ought to hold out for at least half."

That says it all.

[madfloridian]

55. The video is still up.

http://www.booknotes.org/Watch/102566-1/Molly+Ivins.aspx

[JDPriestly]

87. Bush used to say that the president is the "decider.'

He was wrong. The president gets to decide very little compared to how much Congress and maybe even the Supreme Court decide.

The president is the "persuader." LBJ was really good persuader, arm-twister at times. Nixon -- compromised a lot but wasn't all that persuasive. Probably wouldn't have been impeached had he been more persuasive.

FDR was a great persuader. And persuading at the level of the White House always involves some arm-twisting and threatening. Obama got better, but it was too late.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

84. Yup. And then MSNBC hired him to be himself.

[JDPriestly]

63. And now we have the Planned Parenthood fight.

Most Americans want and use birth control. The Republicans are way out of touch on that issue.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

72. They're still in 1984 mode too....

Only for them it's the "Reagan Revolution" where they STILL claim to be the reformers who are fighting a massive bureaucracy composed of unelected incompetent civil servants that do nothing but create mountains of red tape to justify their bloated salaries.

It was the phantom enemy back then that got them to win in a landslide.

They've been trying to recreate that success ever since.

[Eleanors38]

126. "They won't make abortion illegal; we've always had that right."

A very young woman at an Austin coffee house.



And to think I knew and helped Sarah Weddington (Roe v. Wade) get elected to the Texas House in 1972, a yr before the SCOTUS handed down its decision on the case she argued.

I just now introduced another young woman to Weddington and Roe v Wade. Makes you wonder if it was all worth it.

[SheilaT]

20. Keep in mind that in 1984

an unaccountably popular President, Ronald Reagan, was running for re-election. Usually, although not always, sitting Presidents get re-elected.

That year, the media was completely ga-ga over Ronnie, and no matter who the Democrats might have nominated, that person was probably going to lose. And lose big time. Mondale's liberalism, the kind of campaign he ran, his own personal appeal, nothing at all was going to make a difference. It's possible a different candidate would not have lost so badly, but that's not even important. What is important is that Ronnie's re-election was inevitable. Especially since nearly everyone thought that everything he did, especially his union-busting, was wonderful. Me? I have never forgiven Lane Kirkland, then head of the AFL-CIO for doing NOTHING to prevent the firing of the air traffic controllers. I mark that as the real beginning of the end for unions in this country. It's why thirty years later Scott Walker could so easily destroy the unions in Wisconsin.

The fact that occasionally a sitting President loses re-election (Jimmy Carter in 1980, George HW Bush in 1992) doesn't alter the almost universal re-election of the sitting President. I think it's unfortunate that political parties tend to treat each presidential campaign as if it's happening more or less in a vacuum, and that they always start out with a very good chance of winning the general election. Not true, but that's why political consultants get rich.

[jeff47]

32. Also, the country was climbing out of the 1982 recession

And an upward economic trajectory greatly helps incumbents.

[SheilaT]

37. We were just barely climbing out of it.

I seem to recall that the unemployment rate in this country in 1982 was the highest it had been since the Great Depression.

I also remember reading in Time or Newsweek, interviews with various people about who they were planning on voting for, and the magazine pointing out to what extent many of them who were planning to vote for Ronnie, were voting against their own self interests. I kind of think that was the first time that so many people did so, and that had stayed with us ever since.

[jeff47]

45. The trajectory is more important than the absolute numbers

when it comes to how it makes voters feel about incumbents.

If things "are getting better", voters feel better about the incumbent, no matter how bad the situation currently is.

If things "are getting worse", voters feel worse about the incumbent, no matter how good the situation currently is.

[haikugal]

46. I also recall mortgage interest rates climbing into the teens right about then.

[madfloridian]

89. Oh yes, terribly high interest rates.

We took out a home improvement loan about then, and the interest rate was about 18% at our credit union. That's with A+ credit. That was about the norm for a while, not sure how long. One of the teachers at my school got a 20% rate. We refinanced as soon as they went down.

[madfloridian]

40. Yep. "unaccountably popular President, Ronald Reagan"

And even today folks think he was so great.

Never mattered what he did, he was good old Ronnie.

[Hydra]

23. President Obama is part of the DLC/Third way/New Dem program

And the fact that Poppy Bush's policies have gotten 35 years of unimpeded play shows how brilliantly they work for the 1%...and no one else.

[Lorien]

116. True, which is why so many of us who are left of center

have only been able to vote for the "lesser of evils" for decades until now.

[TygrBright]

24. Could someone please translate this sentence for me?

This one:

"The Legion of Hedge Fund Mangers tends to be socially liberal and elected Republicans who see the debt ceiling as an inviting hostage and government shutdowns are a fun thing to do make them nervous so maximizing their influence in the party that is not home to Louie Gohmert is an obvious play for them to make but that’s all it really is."

Please, someone.... what does it mean?

And this one: "On the national level, Bill Daley, possibly the quintessential JPM Dem, who has gone from from JPMorgan to Third Way (if that can be considered a journey at all — it really shouldn’t be), to a disastrous stint as Obama’s Chief of Staff, to dropping out of a Democratic primary in Illinois to pre-empt losing, wrote a typical warning in the Washington Post citing the defection of Alabama conservaDem Parker Griffith as a sign that the party was moving away from a position from which it could win." makes me want to cry.

So does this one: "The New Dems’ main angle, the one they’re working now by speaking in ominous tones about the specter of a redux of 1984 that exists only in their heads, is vastly overstating the role political spectrum positioning plays in deciding elections — and then getting where voters actually are on issues that resonate with them wrong, once again, even to the point of getting it backwards."



(Salon, sheeesh, if you can't afford an editor, why not crowdsource it?)

Particularly tragic as this article long-windedly vindicates what I and many others actually SAID in 1984, which was to the effect that if voters were offered a choice between Conservative and pseudo-Conservative, they'd go for the genuine article every time.

wearily,
Bright

[jeff47]

35. Those are not particularly difficult to follow paragraphs.

I'm not sre why you're having such difficulty following them.

For example, the first one: Socially liberal, but extremely wealthy people want politicians to give them tax cuts while not fucking up the economy over jailing homosexuals and "abortionists".

It's really not that hard to read through the rhetorical flourishes.

[book_worm]

26. Mondale was/is a good liberal democrat in the New Deal/Great Society mode

No Democrat was going to beat Reagan in 1984. People forget that he actually won the first debate against Reagan and the polls closed, but Reagan (with the media's help) and a good quip won the second debate and never had to look back.

[Dawson Leery]

30. Another candidate that was not tied to Carter

could have made is close race (5-8%). It did not have to a blowout, nor did the other candidate have to be a third way candidate.

[jeff47]

36. Doubtful. Economics alone would give a decisive victory.

The country was coming out of the 1982 recession and growing strongly. That always is a massive boost to the incumbent. Just like the reverse close to an election is a massive hindrance to the incumbent.

A very large reason why Carter lost re-election is because he had a good economy in the first half of his term, and a bad economy in the second.

A very large reason why Reagan won re-election is because he had a bad economy in the first half of his term, and a good economy in the second.

[jmowreader]

51. A HUGE reason why Carter lost re-election is Operation Eagle Claw

More appropriately known as the worst goat fuck the US Government has ever tried, Eagle Claw was the disastrous mission to rescue the American hostages being held in Iran.

[hedgehog]

34. I voted in that election, and i thought Mondale was pulling back from the New Deal

already talking about limits, sort of a proto-DLC.

[Demeter]

50. Mondale was playing basic politics, the GOP was playing for keeps

Not the same game.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

31. I'm afraid I think they're mostly right and you're mostly wrong.

Plot a scatter graph of the Democratic presidential candidates from 2012 back to a date in the 80s or 90s of your choice.

On one axis, mark how far left or how centrist the candidate was.

On the other axis, mark a measure of the outcome of your choice - electoral college votes being the obvious one, but you could do it with others.

Obvious, the outcome will depend on which candidates you think were to the left/right of which others, but I would go with

(Dukakis, Mondale) - Kerry - (Obama,Gore*) - Clinton

and by that ranking there's a fairly clear correlation between running centrist candidates and winning elections.


*I would say that Gore was probably to the left of Obama, but he chose Lieberman as a running mate, who was probably the least leftwing Democratic presidential or vice-presidential candidate in my lifetime, so it's not clear how to sort them.

[stevenleser]

69. That it doesn't make sense when analyzed logically doesn't matter to those who want

To justify Bernies candidacy.

That's all this is about, and can be succinctly written:

"We don't want to accept what is pretty obvious fact because it doesn't dovetail with what we want to believe"

Full stop.

[JDPriestly]

95. Times change.

Teddy Roosevelt or FDR could not have been elected just a few years earlier than they were.

Same for Reagan. He could not have been elected in 1952. Eisenhower, who was conservative on foreign policy to some extent but liberal on domestic policy in most respects (our interstate highways prove it) would have been elected had he run as a Democrat or a republican. Stevenson was sort of a placeholder candidate for Democrats. (I remember because I was a child then and wearing a Stevenson button.)

If this time is right for Bernie, he will win the primaries. If not, we shall see. I think Hillary is a boring candidate and could easily lose to a more interesting Republican. Also, Republicans will not hesitate to do everything they can to blacken Hillary's reputation. We already see that. It will get worse. The accusations are insane and not related to reality, but people believe them. I have an otherwise liberal friend who actually believes the craziest conspiracy theories about Hillary, absolutely absurd things I would not repeat here. So Hillary has a steep hill to climb (pardon my bad pun) to become president.

I have been campaigning for Bernie. I have lots of experience in grassroots campaigning and never experienced a candidate so popular. This is especially true among young people. They can recite all his stances on the issues. They love him.

So, I think the voters will decide this one. Not the DLC or the DNC>

[stevenleser]

98. Not so quickly, no. The polls about this were just done a few months ago.

The opinion 50%-60% of the country has of Socialism is more than it would take to be fatal to his candidacy.

This is why every conservative pundit tries to talk him up everytime a Democrat goes onto their shows. They know they can beat him and easily. They want him to be the nominee. They know if Bernie gets the nomination they have not only won the Presidency, they will extend gains in the House and Senate and will probably control redistricting again in 2020.

When you talk to them in private they admit this. One even admitted it on air with me.

I'm surprised some fellow Democrats don't get it.

[madfloridian]

121. One of the biggest mistakes made by centrist Dems through the years....

is talking down to the rest of us or making it sound as though they were talking about us not to us.

It has been a really big mistake.

[Hydra]

131. The whole "Adults" thing has been particularly egregious

They've managed to destroy our world by pushing Repub policies, then hide behind the excuse of "Who else were you going to vote for?"

[pnwmom]

33. And don't forget progressive George McGovern, who also lost 49 states.

[hifiguy]

41. With a lot of help from Nixon's dirty tricksters

and his own failure to vet Thomas Eagleton. And don't forget Nixon announced "peace" in Vietnam just before the election - exactly the same deal LBJ could have had four years earlier had not Nixon, Kissinger and Anna Chennault monkeywrenched the deal before the '68 election.

[1939]

61. Dirty tricks might matter in a close election

but a hundred thousand Roves couldn't have created a 49-2 election like 1972. McGovern lost big time but it wasn't a seminal election because the needle hardly moved in the Senate and House. The Democratic Party didn't lose big, just McGovern and his crazies.

[Art_from_Ark]

86. It wasn't just "dirty tricks"

But it can hardly be denied that breaking into the Democratic National Headquarters to steal Democratic documents gave Nixon a distinct advantage. And the Eagleton fiasco certainly didn't help. But the final nail in McGovern's coffin was Nixon's peace announcement in October 1972, which took away McGovern's main issue.

"Although the McGovern campaign believed that its candidate had a better chance of defeating Nixon because of the new Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution that lowered the national voting age to 18 from 21, a majority of those under 21 voted for Nixon."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1972

A huge reason for that was the announcement of the peace deal just before the election.

[JDPriestly]

96. Yes. And the hostage crisis plus an oil crisis caused by the Republican allies in the Middle

East during Carter's term were big problems for Democrats. Those factors had nothing to do with the DLC or conservative or liberal Democratic candidates.

People who did not live through that time or who were very young may not know what really happened from the perspective of the events unfolding at the time.

[1939]

102. There was also an oil crisis in 1974 during the Nixon-Ford years which doubled the price of gas

I lived through those years as well. The 1970-1980 was the worst decade of my life. While not a fan of Ronald Reagan, 1980-1990 was pretty good to me (not as good as 1990-2000). 1970-1980 was pretty bad according to the Misery Index which Carter's campaign staffers devised and used against Ford in 1976 and which bit them in the ass in 1980 when it was even higher. The Misery Index was the unemployment rate plus the fed interest rate plus the inflation rate.

[JDPriestly]

38. So if DLC politics is why we won in 1992, 1996, 2008 and 2012, what happened in 2000, 2004

and especially in 2014?

With the exceptions of McGovern and Mondale we all backed the DLC's favorite candidates, didn't we?

Is the game rigged so that a Republican will win this time, because think about it: LBJ (D), Nixon (R), Carter (right in turn for a D but deemed too liberal), Reagan (R), Bush I (a special guy with special connections who met a really bad economy and a down-home kind of opponent in 1992) (R), Clinton(D), Bush II (R) and Obama (D).

I don't think of Dukakis as a real liberal. Do you?

In any event, there is a kind of rhythm to it.

And the DLC/Third Way did miserably in 2014.

I think the country has gone beyond the DLC/Third Way.

The 2008 recession lingers and the young, especially, who are trying to start their lives are feeling the Bern because they are tired of being burned by Wall Street. Huge student loans for colleges that cost a fortune, my eye.

[Enthusiast]

64. The country has gone beyond the DLC/Third Way.

[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

[Recursion]

91. First off, we won in 2000

Second off, the DLC playback works better nationally than per-district. (I think it is no coincidence that our grip on Congress slipped away right when we started doing better in the White House.)

In 2014 the DLC idea seems vindicated: the only Democrats to beat sitting Republicans were Graham and Ashford, both conservatives. Liberal incumbents lost as heavily as conservatives did.

[JDPriestly]

94. Who won and who lost in 2014.

Here is the list of Democratic senators who won in 2014:

Del. Cooney
Hawaii Schatz
Ill. Durbin
Mass. Markey
Mich. Peters
Minn. Franken
New Hampshire Sheehan
New Jersey Brooks
New Mexico Udall
Oregon Merkel
Rhode island Reed

Conservatives like Landrieu in Louisiana lost

In Kentucky, Grimes ran relatively conservatively distancing herself a bit even from Obama and lost. Of course she had a very difficult challenge to unseat a well established member of Congress.

http://www.politico.com/2014-election/results/map/senate

Here are the states in which Republicans won the Senate races:

Alabama, Alsaska, Arkansas, Colorado (we could have won that seems to me), Georgia, Idaho, Iowa (lost a Dem. seat there), Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana (lost a Dem. Seat -- conservative Landrieu), Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

We lost in conservative states, but we lost a very liberal Senate seat in Iowa, however, we mostly lost conservative seats like in Louisiana.

The issue is whether we get our voters out better when we run very liberal or very conservative candidates. Al Franken in Minnesota is an example of our running a strong liberal and winning. Same in Oregon.

We need to regain the Senate and House. And I think running more liberal candidates motivates voters to come out. We lose when we run middle-of-the-road, boring candidates or conservatives like Landrieu.

I remember a time when Southerners voted Democratic on economic issues. That was before LBJ signed the Civil Rights laws. As soon as LBJ did that, the Republicans started their southern strategy. I hope that our country is now beyond that kind of bigotry. Maybe we can start to make inroads in the South emphasizing both racial equality and economic fairness.

But without a message of economic fairness, I don't think we can do well in conservative states. That is because those who don't care about economic fairness will vote Republican anyway.

The Third Way philosophy is not working well.

I agree that Gore won in 2000. I think I posted that somewhere here. Officially Bush won, but I think Gore won. Still, there was no general strike or huge fight over the fact that Bush was awarded the White House although he lost. I don't know whether people would accept that now.

I believe that Kerry won in 2004. I did election protection in Southern Ohio in 2008. I was in a polling place in which two precincts voted, one African-American to a great extent and the other white or mostly white. The machines for one of the precincts broke down, and the voters had to wait quite a long time to vote. Guess which precinct it was? If you don't have voter protection volunteers on the ground encouraging voters to stay, they will leave to go to work, take care of their children or just lose patience.

Kerry needed better voter protection organization in 2004. I really think he won, but I could never prove it. I was not in Ohio in 2004.

Just accepting the hypothesis that the DLC way wins is foolish.

I'm campaigning for Bernie and the enthusiasm for him is just something I have never seen for any candidate. Of course, I am in liberal California, but still this is something I have never experienced. And I first started registering voters in the McGovern campaign. I was out of the country some years and came back and worked walking my precinct starting with Clinton's campaigns. So I have a lot of experience and have never seen anything like the Bernie Bern.

[madfloridian]

111. Doesn't matter if we won in 2000 Bush still went to the White House.

The party did NOT stand behind Gore and push HARD for the recount and do all they should have done.

I know, I lived in Florida then as well, and the party failed Gore.

So he may have technically won, but he still lost because the GOP folks played nasty; our party played nice so as not to make waves. And they kept right on doing it through the years.

With the DLC/Third Way hands firmly on the purse strings.

[hifiguy]

42. Excellent piece.

Required reading.

It's always 1984 in the minds of the Turd Way.

[Milliesmom]

48. A little Tune 1984

1984 Lyrics

from Diamond Dogs


David Bowie - lyrics Diamond Dogs Other Album Songs


"1984" is track #9 on the album Diamond Dogs. It was written by Bowie, David /.


Someday they won't let you, now you must agree
The times they are a-telling, and the changing isn't free
You've read it in the tea leaves and the tracks are on TV
Beware, the savage jaw of 1984

They'll split your pretty cranium and fill it full of air
And tell that you're eighty but brother you won't care
You'll be shooting up anything like tomorrow's wasn't there
Beware, the savage jaw of 1984

(Come see, come see, remember me?)
We played out an all night movie role
You said it would last but I guess we've grown in 1984
(Who could ask for more?)
In 1984
(Who could ask for more, more?)

I'm looking for a vehicle, I'm looking for a ride
I'm looking for a party, I'm looking for a side
I'm looking for the treason that I knew in '65
Beware, the savage jaw of 1984

(Come see, come see, remember me?)
We played out an all night movie role
You said it would last but I guess we enrolled in 1984
(Who could ask for more?)
In 1984
(Who could ask for more, more?)

1984
1984
1984
(More)
1984
1984
(More)
1984

[hifiguy]

56. One of Bowie's best songs of that era.

[Enthusiast]

65. +1

[jwirr]

49. Thank you for another great post. They were wrong then and

they are wrong now.

[Enthusiast]

66. They are wrong now.

[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

[Enthusiast]

58. Kicked and recommended!

I believe every word of it.

[moondust]

62. Cold War mentality.

I think some considered Mondale too nice a guy to "stand up to the Evil Empire." Nice guys may be common in Minnesota but not so much in other parts of the country. Cowboy Reagan had the macho vote in the bag.

[Beartracks]

67. "Post-partisanship": Does that just mean oligarchy?

When they all have/serve the same corporate or billionaire class of elites, I guess party labels are just that: labels.

=======================

[madfloridian]

119. .......

Yes, it seems to mean that.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

68. 'New Democrats' sounds refreshing

We are seeing a surge in New Democrats on social media. Kids don't look at TV anymore. New Democrats are progressives who want change for the good of the people not for the few.

[cprise]

92. IIRC, the "New Democrats" were the DLC in the

late eighties / early nineties. They represented the same kind of shift as New Labour in the UK.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

132. Then it will have to have another name

[cui bono]

70. I don't think Bill Clinton ran as a centrist. In order to win he ran as a progressive

then went full centrist once in office... welfare reform, DOMA, NAFTA, Glass-Steagall...

Progressive policies DO win. That's what the people agree with and like.

[RiverLover]

76. That's right. Here's his "typical" campaign speech from 1992~

HE 1992 CAMPAIGN
THE 1992 CAMPAIGN; Clinton's Standard Campaign Speech: A Call for Responsibility

Following is the text of the campaign speech, excluding a brief introductory passage, that Gov. Bill Clinton delivered at the University of Pittsburgh branch at Johnstown, Pa., on April 22, as transcribed by The New York Times. . . .

I want to make just a few sort of basic points about this election. And I'd like begin with two little statistics, one of which was published a day or two ago in America's newspapers and one of which will be out tomorrow. Statistic No. 1: According to the Federal Reserve Board, 1 percent of America's people at the top of the totem pole now have more wealth than the bottom 90 percent, the biggest imbalance in wealth in America since the 1920's right before the Great Depression.

Statistic No. 2, out tomorrow: For the first time in a decade personal income in our country as a whole fell last year. That says we've got problems. And I want to tell you that behind that, I live in a state that is one of the worst states in America, where we were abandoned with farm income going down, factories closing and moving away. The Federal Government cutting back on money for economic development, education, environmental protection. We've got a lot of counties that went through just what you went through in this county.

And in the last 11 years, I had to try to put together an economic strategy to deal with it. I don't like to bore people with statistics, but let me tell you, what's happened here might be worse than what's happened in some other places in Pennsylvania, but it's not all that different from what's happened in America.

For more than two years now, the average middle-class family has worked harder for less money to pay more for health care, for housing, for education, for taxes. Poverty has exploded, especially among working people.

I just got out of a rather bruising campaign in New York State. You might have read about it. But one of the things that really moved me about that was that I met so many courageous people, people you never see on television, who live in the Bronx and Brooklyn, who live in high-crime neighborhoods and get up every day and literally risk their physical security, going to and from jobs that still pay them less than top-level wages, to support children in difficult circumstances, playing by the rules.

For millions and millions of Americans, the dream with which I grew up has been shattered. The ideal that if you work hard and play by the rules you'll be rewarded, you'll do a little better next year than you did last year, your kids will do better than you. But that idea has been devastated for millions of Americans.

How did this happen? I would argue it happened for two reasons. No. 1: We lost our economic leadership. Other nations began to do some things better than we do, and their economies started growing faster and faster as ours slowed down. Big, Simple Ideas

No. 2, and this is why I'm running for President: We elected people to high office who had the wrong response to the problem. And that's what this election is all about. Three or four big, simple ideas, even though the problems are complex.

What is President Bush's theory about what's good about the economy? That the Government would mess up a one-car parade, and you can't trust anybody in politics or Government. So the answer to our economic problems is to make taxes lower on corporations and high-income individuals, and get out of the way and let the market do the rest.

That's their idea. The other day, the President vetoed a bill passed by the Congress that a pro-business Democrat, Lloyd Bentsen from Texas, got through, a tax bill that would have made it easier for plants to modernize their equipment, for people to start small businesses, for people to buy houses, for people to invest in housing in low-income areas. All these things would have been done and George Bush vetoed the bill. Why? Because those incentives were going to be paid for by raising taxes on upper-income people. And he didn't want to do that, because his theory is keep the taxes low on the rich and the corporations and everything will be fine.

Well everything is not fine. We have had it their way for 11 years. And we're going downhill as a nation. The middle class is collapsing. Poverty is exploding. ....

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/26/us/the-1992-campaign-clinton-s-standard-campaign-speech-a-call-for-responsibility.html?pagewanted=all

Then he became our president for the next 8 years, our centrist president who inducted China into the WTO, NAFTA, bankers went crazy creating a housing bubble, the tech bubble was created, he wiped out Glass-Steagall ushering in 2008, he hurt blacks & single parents with his "welfare reform"...and so much more.

And we're going to get the same damn thing again, unless we WAKE UP as a country....

[MindfulOne]

85. Amazing, isn't it?

Never again, we won't survive another bait and switch.

[cui bono]

71. And yes, even here on DU we see the same people who put down economic justice

disparaging progressives and liberals. Who do they think is fighting for social justice? Centrists and conservatives?

[bluestateguy]

73. Democrats should have gone with Gary Hart in 1984

Hart would have won 2 or 3 states.

[WillyT]

74. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[JDPriestly]

75. Personality plays a big role in who wins.

Reagan had a smiling personality. That's why he was successful as a movie star. It certainly wasn't his dramatic acting talent. He was more the guy next door that you love to see in the morning when he walks to his car to go to work.

George H.W. Bush was elected the first time based on Reagan's charm.

Bill Clinton also had a warm, embracing personality. That's why people voted for him.

In contrast, George H. W. Bush had a rather weak, complaining manner, a poor personality. His speech was very odd. People voted for Clinton.

Gore came across as a cold fish, but had the right platform. George W. Bush although really not very intelligent, rather a nasty, crude, hateful and snobbish guy, came across as "someone to have a beer with." The life of the party -- nasty, crude, hateful and snobbish, but nevertheless someone you might want to hang out with at a bar. Bush -- perceived as an approachable guy, took the election. Now, if you remember, the newspaper consortium that counted all the votes allowed internet users to decide which counting method they would have used. They announced their results on September 11, 2001. I remember very well that Gore would have won by the methods I thought were appropriate for counting the votes. Of course, that vote count did not get much attention because of the terror attack. Interesting coincidence. Without question, Gore actually won the popular vote that year.

As a candidate, McCain was a bit of a joke. He came across as weak (like George H.W.Bush but in a different way) and Sarah Palin did him in. She was a joke, strongly disliked by most Americans.

Romney was a Mormon and was a bit of an oddball in the perceptions of a lot of Americans. Also, he was filthy rich at a time and in an era in which filthy rich is not liked that much. Rich is good. Filthy rich -- like buying plants, taking out all the equipment, moving it to China, firing the employees and leaving town, filthy rich, is not popular in America.

Besides, Obama was the perfect campaigner, the perfect candidate for the time. In a multi-racial country, he was not only a candidate who gave hope to all who identified with him based on their race, he was young and laid back and really brilliant. Obama won the love and admiration of America and the world. A Nobel Peace Prize right off the bat? No president will ever top that.

So, in terms of personality, between the two Democratic candidates who are in the lead, I think Sanders is the winner. He comes across as very sincere, intelligent and caring. He's a guy who makes you feel safe because he really cares about you. Hey. He cares about mothers and their babies, seniors on Social Security, union members, students. HE CARES.

And that is what Americans need right now.

As for their platforms, the differences between what Sanders and Clinton say is not really all that great. To us the platforms are very different. But to average Americans who aren't paying the kind of attention to the minutiae of policy, not that much. So it is a matter of personality but also -- the big issue in our primary is trust. And Bernie wins hands down on that. No matter what he is accused of, people are going to trust him more than they do Clinton or any of the Republicans. That is because he presents himself as just human, a person who could make mistakes, so mistakes are not going to take their toll on him.

Sanders focuses on issues, the issues that matter to Americans like taking care of their children, like a really livable wage, like not shipping Americans' jobs overseas, like protecting our democracy from the leveraged buy-out Wall Street types, like making sure that no qualified student misses college because of money, like making sure we all have healthcare even if we just lost our jobs, like trying to reach peace before just marching our troops into some country halfway across the world with no plan for what comes after we march in.

Sanders comes across as very intent on helping others and very disinterested in himself. It isn't some store-bought, phony persona. It's real. It's visceral. People feel it, and they forgive him a lot because they recognize his authenticity and his caring.

There is no candidate running in 2016 who can match Sanders with regard to personality, ideas, presentation, focus and connection with the American people.

With Sanders, it is not a question of being liberal or conservative, socialist or capitalist, it is about being a person who has cared for the American people all his life.

Each presidential campaign in my lifetime has been different.

Adlai Stevenson was the quintessential Third Way, DLC candidate before those terms were invented. He tried to make himself into an FDR Democrat because that was what had sold in previous elections. But the fact was he was a big firm lawyer in with all that New York and relative conservative Democrats stand for. He was a nice guy, totally DLC, mild-mannered and more involved in nasty business like in the Congo than people would like to remember.

Stevenson lost twice. Eisenhower was an extremely strong candidate. A leader. A winner. A pleasant man. Nothing phony except that he was far more powerful and far more interested in intelligence shenanigans than Americans realized.

The perception that only DLC candidates can win???? It depends. Personality, the mood of the country, whose running on the other side.

And there is one last issue: racism. That was the big card that cleared the field for Republicans following LBJ's signing of the various Civil Rights laws.

Surely by now, we have elected our first African-American president. Surely now, racism is not a factor in determining for most Americans what party they vote for.

There was a time when the South voted for Democrats because Southerners liked the populist ideas of the Democrats. That was in FDR's and the post-FDR period.

Bernie may be able to show that a strong populist message can win enough Southern votes to put Democrats over the top again.

We shall see.

That's what this primary is about.

[ms liberty]

78. I wish I could rec this...

A really good analysis JDP, and I agree.

[madfloridian]

88. This part:

"Sanders comes across as very intent on helping others and very disinterested in himself. It isn't some store-bought, phony persona. It's real. It's visceral. People feel it, and they forgive him a lot because they recognize his authenticity and his caring.

There is no candidate running in 2016 who can match Sanders with regard to personality, ideas, presentation, focus and connection with the American people.

With Sanders, it is not a question of being liberal or conservative, socialist or capitalist, it is about being a person who has cared for the American people all his life."

Well said. He is not into trying to impress with fancy words or personality...he is just who he is.

[JDPriestly]

114. That is why young people treasure him so much.

He is who they aspire to be. Authentic. Real. In touch with his own emotions and with the needs of others. A person to emulate, a hero of sorts, not just a politician.

Young people felt that way about Kennedy, but not about any other politician since that time.

[saidsimplesimon]

101. Yes, Bernie draws the crowds because he has

both a winning personality, and a message that will draw the majority of Americans to the polls.

Thank you for the walk down memory lane.

[Lorien]

115. Clinton and Sanders platforms couldn't be more different

Now if you were to say that the differences between Clinton and Bush weren't that great I would agree with you.

[whereisjustice]

77. Listening to Hillary respond to questions, it sure feels like 1984

"war is peace"

"freedom is slavery"

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

"If you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones.”

“It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.”

George Orwell, 1984

[ibegurpard]

79. been posting a lot of great stuff lately Mad

And thank you for your continued focus on Democrats going along with corporate education "reform" as well.

[treestar]

80. The distant past is meaningless if it looks bad for Bernie

But of great importance and likely to happen again if it looks good for Bernie.

[madfloridian]

81. Not "meaningless" at all. Changed the nature of our party.

I don't think that was healthy for anyone in the long run.

[stevenleser]

118. Anytime you re-evaluate something and it changes reality to dove-tail with exactly what you want...

...it's time to be skeptical of your new analysis as there is a strong chance it may be nothing more than wishful-thinking.

Those jumping up and down to cheer this analysis would do well to take that in.

[Springslips]

83. Yes, yes It is still 1984

We have to unite the Southern Dens, who have been Democrates since Thomas Jefferson and would never vote Republican, with the more liberal Northern Dems; heal the divisions that have been there since the disaster of a convention we had in Chicago just 16-years before; act tough against the USSR our still mortal enemy; demand the Berlin wall be torn down; help and support Iraq and their fearlessleader against evil Iran; fund and support those brave and godly Arabs fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan; and heal the nation from the still effects of Veitnam.

Because nothing ever changes, the world is obviously timeless and is never in flux. You always step in the same river twice. As history shows, as Goldwater's 1964 champaign had the same result as Reagan's 1980, so will Bernie's 2016 to Mondale's 1984.

Idiots!

[Surya Gayatri]

93. Indeed. We applaud the imminent demise of the GOP at the peril of our whole political structure.

"I don't think a nation can function well without the checks and balances of at least two parties."

[Uncle Joe]

99. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, madfloridian.

[merrily]

100. Politicians promote the wrong lessons from the elections of 1972, 1980 and 1984 and also from

the primary of 1980. And, they know they are promoting the wrong lessons.

I recently started to say to an older woman, "They say Mondale lost because he was a liberal, but". That was as far as I got because she laughed right over me and said, "Mondale was not a liberal." Wiki describes him as centrist. His policies were centrist. Carter was certainly centrist.

Those elections were not lost because any of candidates were liberals. Before McGovern was even nominated, Democrats knew whoever ran against Nixon was going to lose. Reagan was a phenom of a candidate; the Carter-Mondale administration was troubled. Anyway, it's not 1972 or 1980 or 1984, but 2015.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=post&forum=1002&pid=3950141 (woo me with science: It's not 1972 anymore.)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12778825 (demwing: This ain't 1972).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12778872 ("What about Mondale?" indeed: Candidate Reagan)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12778873 ("What about Mondale?" indeed: 1976-1980)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12779277 ("What about Mondale?" indeed: Walter Mondale)

Oh, and Carter did not lose the election because Kennedy challenged him. Kennedy challenged Carter because Carter was going to lose the election. Had Kennedy won that primary, with the way that the Kennedys were revered then, the chances of a Democratic win would have been much greater.



The memes we are fed take the country right because that is what they are designed to do. And they are undemocratic, because the more say we the people have, the less the country will go right. Reject these plutocratic, undemocratic memes at every turn.

[Herman4747]

103. 1972 Election is Even More Relevant...

...I think McGovern won like a single state. And the honorable George McGovern was almost as far left as Bernie.
In order to win the 2016 election, Democrats are going to have to gather a considerable amount of votes from nonDemocrats, that is, from Independents. Independents -- often people so in the Middle that they can't make up their minds as to whether they're Democrats or Republicans. So they remain "Independent."
Some people seem to think that the best way to capture the votes of Independents is to come up with a candidate as far left as possible. As a result, after the 1972 election, we had to deal with four more years of Nixon-Ford.
THINK ABOUT IT!!!

[TM99]

104. So wrong!

Only 27% of Americans are Democrats or Republicans as of last week's Gallup Poll. 43% are independents. If you follow the trends over the last decade or so, in the mid to high 40's is a very high amount of independents. And both of the major parties are at some of their lowest numbers yet.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx

Now out of those 40 to 47 percent independents, you will also notice the clear trend that they are not moderates in the fictitious 'middle' of American politics. In fact 40+ % of the independents either lean towards Republicans or Democratic. The myth that somehow independents are unsure of whether they are conservatives or liberals is just that a myth. Independents clearly lean one way or the other but refuse to be party affiliated for whatever reasons.

So actually looking at reality then, Democrats need as many of their own party to vote, all the left leaning independents they can get, and as many cross-over right leaning independents to win.

So if Clinton is the nod, she is so polarizing that I guarantee she will not get the full weight of the registered Democrats behind her. Many of the left leaning independents will vote third party or sit it out. And right leaning independents will definitely vote against her by voting GOP.

If Sanders is the nod, sure a few Dems will go all PUMA again, but by and large most will rally to the nominee. The left leaning independents will come out in droves. Hell we already are! And because of who Sanders is and his experience in VT, yes, there will be cross-overs from right leaning independents.

This is not 1972, 1984, 1988, etc. This is today, and while the past can inform us, it never dictates exactly what the future will be.

Failing to recognize the actual reality of the independent vote in this country will be the Democratic Party's downfall this election if it continues to push for Clinton, the establishment & status quo New Dem, over Sanders, the traditional Dem & populist.

Bank on it!

[Herman4747]

109. Your Own Post Refutes Your Argument...

"In fact 40+ % of the independents either lean towards Republicans or Democratic."
-- Your own statement.
THAT MEANS 60% OF THE INDEPENDENTS DO NOT LEAN TOWARD REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT!!!
And especially in a close election, that could make all the difference.
You want something more recent? Okay, how about the 2006 Senate Election in Virginia. The centrist Democrat won by the slimmest of margins in what is nowadays a just-barely Blue state. Do you truly think that if the Democrats had nominated a socialist that that socialist would have won?
And Virginia is quite similar to the nation as a whole, which is likewise just barely blue. Recall that in the 2014 election, Republicans won a majority of votes in the House of Representatives.
It would be good in 2016 for the Democrats to win the major battleground state of Florida, a state that has elected a Republican governor and a Republican Senator. Bill Clinton won by almost 6 percentage points in 1996. Further to the left, Obama also won the state twice, but by notably smaller percentage-point differences. So much further-to-the-left Bernie shall win there too?
Perhaps instead of thinking about how great it would be to have a socialist as President, do consider the risk involved in having a Republican president, AND HOW MUCH DAMAGE THAT REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT WITH A REPUBLICAN CONGRESS CAN DO.

[TM99]

110. No. Read the link.

The breakdown of independents is currently 44% left leaning and 45% right leaning which means there are only 11% not 60% who do not lean towards either.

My sentence structure might have been a bit confusing on that, but the data is at the link. And it refutes your response.

If it was 60%, you might be correct, but it is 11% which will not an election make. My original reply still stands as accurate.

[Herman4747]

134. YOU ADMIT THAT YOUR SENTENCE STRUCTURE WAS...

..."A BIT CONFUSING"!!! I would say it was completely messed up. And when I declared that your post refutes what you claimed, I was right. You had to go to link for correction of what you foolishly wrote.
Obama won his last election by about 4 percentage points. Do tell me again that "11% which will not an election make." Go on, I dare you.

[TM99]

135. Are you for real?

No you were flat wrong. The link in my damned post shows the breakdown and only 11% of independents leaned neither left (Democrat) or right (GOP).

I am sick of trying to discuss things rationalize with people who act like you are acting.

"Go on, I dare you" derp derp

Go away. To Ignore you go!

[Babel_17]

105. So too did the Republicans learn poorly

And this is why Trump is embarrassing them, and on several levels.

The establishment is being told "The peasants are revolting!" and their reply is "Yes, they are in need of a spa day."

Our party can get ahead of this, or it can lose across the board to a party that gives some perverted lip service to a public that is outraged at how their economic condition has eroded. Our party leaders are scared of offending those who control the coffers that their life style will depend on.

Republicans, on the other hand, will be offering lots of scapegoats. We have an opportunity to offer the right narrative to the electorate, if we can force our party to do so.

[rhett o rick]

112. It's understandable if you don't get stuck on the division of the two Parties. That's a distraction.

The Republicon Party has been manipulated into the disaster it is today by the Oligarchy. The Oligarchy has co opted control of the Democratic Party. As long as we let them have that control, the progressive wing will struggle and the corporations will continue to get their way. Trump is a great example of the distraction that the current Republicon Party affords. While everyone is laughing and thankful they have a Democrat to support, bingo-bango the Oligarchy pushes in their candidate.

H. Clinton is the perfect Third Way candidate. She doesn't even make any bones about taking money to enrich herself from corporations like Goldman-Sachs. She seems to support some social justice issues, but even those she mainly spouts rhetoric. But she has not made any indication of wanting to change the biggest problems facing us, the ever growing wealth gap. All social issue gains will be lost if we continue to give away our wealth and democratic power.

[Babel_17]

127. And control of the media pays off as debates are sold as entertainment (nt)

[rhett o rick]

129. Absolutely. nm

[madfloridian]

117. They tried to change the party from the top down. That is not real change.

I like what Bernie Sanders said today in Chicago:

"Change never takes place from the top down, it always takes place from the bottom on up," Sanders said.

[RoccoR5955]

120. I saw that handwriting on the wall back then

So I decided to vote for Gus Hall / Angela Davis. That was after Jessie Jackson was not the candidate, who would have been a much more energetic candidate than Mondale.

[Unknown Beatle]

123. It's strange that people voted for Saint Ronnie

because he was a (B-List) movie star. Same goes for Arnold Schwarzenegger for governor.

[demosincebirth]

128. the same senario for Dems in 1972.