A strategy to take over government by 2008: debranding the Dems.

[Can o Beans]

***moved to politics board

[Atman]

1. I think it's a brilliant idea.

In fact, I've written similar stuff before, only more focused on Republicans sneaking into Dem ranks just to confuse the issues. But that is quite different from the "de-branding" you're suggesting. I like the idea. A good friend of mine was a lifelong republican until 2004. He admitted that he never paid the slightest bit of attention to the candidates or their message, simply the party affiliation. His father had always voted Republican, told his mother to vote Republican, and he always felt is was just part of being a member of his family, just like religion or any other tradition.

But he's also a veteran, and Bush woke him up when his policies really started hitting his wallet. He isn't blind to the Iraq fiasco, either; he's actively trying to get his daughter's boyfriend NOT to join up instead of heading to college, and talks a lot about the whys and wherefores...Bush's @%&*-ups and lies.

But he is the exception, I think. We need to force people back into the process! And "de-branding" is a good, practical approach.

[zeemike]

2. How would you do that?

It seems to me as long as the media and big business is on the side of the repukes that they control the agenda and the conversation.

[AlGore-08.com]

3. I'm not sure I understand what you're suggesting.

Are you talking about:

1.) Grassroots Dems reregistering as Republicans, to swing the GOP's internal polling to the left
2.) Getting Dems to run as Republicans in Republican primaries
3.) Both

The main problem with either idea is that it would take away manpower from the Dem party. Where are you going to get 4 million Dems to change registration just to move the GOP to the left except from the hardcore, grassroots Dems? In order to effectively infiltrate the GOP enough to change it - - not just mess up their polls, but really get them to nominate non-right wing candidates and have non-right wing platforms - - these four million would have to be heavily involved in their local GOP party. This would mean they wouldn't have the time (or money) to support Dems in these areas, and the factions in the Dem party who think that reaching out to red state voters is a waste of time and resources will be vindicated.

4 million registered Dems switching registration to Republican is not going to look like a swing to the left. It's going to look like a swing to the right, and the media will report it as such. It will discourage already discouraged grassroots Dems, many of whom will cut back or stop volunteering and donating to the party.

4 million registered Dems leaving the party would "prove" Dean is a failure as DNC chair, and which will be used to "prove" that grassroots driven, non-beltway oriented politics can't work in the Democratic party. The factions in the party that want to shift the party farther to the right (and/or focus only on corporate donors) will use these facts to try and kill the reform movement.

Running Dems as Republicans will increase the Republican majority in Congress, the states and local governments - - or swing some from Dem to Republican. Since these new DemAsRepublican office holders will be newbies, they will have little to no influence over the Republican caucus. They will have to be in office for ten or twenty years before they're in a position of power in the party.

The election of DemsAsRepublicans to office will "prove" that the only way to win elections is to run to the right, not to the left.

[applegrove]

4. Remember how effective GOP was at debranding Dems by taking

the big tent word LIBERAL away from us.

We need to rebrand ourselves. All Liberals. All together. Fiscal conservative liberals and leftist Liberals.