I think some Democratic House Members ........

[indianablue]

will switch parties before the 2006 mid terms.

[Obviousman]

1. what makes you say that?

[bobbieinok]

2. many switched after Reagan was elected...wanted to be 'winners'

[Penguin31]

3. I actually could forsee the opposite...

...the Republican party continues to drift farther and farther to the right with each and every passing day. The more moderate (read: Traditional) Republicans could VERY likely get fed up with this shift towards the neo-conservative, and switch to the Democratic Party.

[dflprincess]

4. That's my fear

I really don't want to see the Democratic party become a haven for moderate Republicans. Let them fix their own party.

[fujiyama]

5. That doesn't make any sense

That'd be the one way to gain any more seats. We should be a haven for anyone that doesn't want to be part of that criminal neo fascist party.

Their party is not salvagable or even WORTH salvaging at this point.

[Julien Sorel]

7. If history is any guide, they won't switch unless the Democrats

become the majority party. When the Republicans won Congress in 1994, several conservative Democrats switched over. Apparently the advantages of being in the majority party outweighed ideological concerns.

[LimpingLib]

9. Neo conservative foreign policy is compatible with "moderates".

The "moderates" always have been conservative on crushing civil libertys and supporting wars and harsh foreign policys.

Henry Kissinger and Nelson Rockefellar werent the least bit repungnant to Nixon and the butcher Gerald Ford (go ahead and "do what you need to do" Mr Soeharto..damn the congress for ending the butchering of the Vietnamese).

They just wish the right wing threw away the key more often on none violent offenders arrested.Now thanks to us supporting their "moderation" we have lent moral support plus started nominating "new Democrats" to seal the deal on ruining lives.

[fujiyama]

6. I wouldn't be surprised

Wasn't there some guy from Louisiana that did that a few months ago?

Whether they leave or not, we're gonna have a hell of a time keeping the incumbent seats we have in the south, especially in the senate.

As for the House, some Dems will probably switch. As we saw, Louisiana elected the first republican senator in the state's history.

[LimpingLib]

8. I wish 80% of our Senators would.

When we get so badly clobbered we then change course as we realize we have nothing to loose and nowhere to go but up.

The truth is that in the Senate the left is being clobbered like 85-15. Problem is we dont know it. We think whether the member has a "D" in their title is indicitive of ho well we are doing.

SOLUTION #1 for our nation to have a progressive revival is for our party (expecially where it is at its absolute worst like the Senate) to get smashed to pieces , so we can point fingers where they belong and they build a new house over the torn down one.

I hate to sound this way but the Kamikazi approach is badly needed. We actually started moving in the right direction slowly (with picking Kerry)now the lesson we take is that we somehow need a "southern strategy".??!!!!

People obviously cant read numbers. We improved in so many vital states that we needed to improve in plus held our ground in vital states hough we narrowly lost.We only slipped in heay Democrat states like New Jersey and New York plus the southern states we get clobbered in anyway.

The lesson is that we need to move left much faster.
Kill the DLC much faster.

Instead we want to somehow appeal to the nations conservative instinct which is a dying breed soon to be insignificant on the nationwide level. Much sooner the soone we bring out the silent progressive majority.Made up or workers, minoritys , progressive whites , and civil libertarians of all ideological persuasions.

[Lexingtonian]

10. ya got names & numbers?

I wouldn't be surprised at one or two switches. We have 15-20 Blue Dogs left iirc- some of them are truly adept and will become more liberal as their districts/state/country become so, others are becoming more conservative (be that with or against their district) with age.

They'd be wise to go Independent in the meantime or wait until 2006 to make decisions of the kind. The propitiousness to jumping off at the moment is limited. A lot of the smarter Republican politicians think the jig can't last too much longer and have handed seats off while the dough in being a Republican lobbyist is as good as it is.