What kind of cross section of Dem voters does the DU represent?

[renie408]

I have been informed that just because a candidate is unpopular here in the 'DU bubble' that does not mean anything in the real world. Which leads me to wonder just who is represented here? What DOES the DU membership represent, then?

[Monkeyman]

1. Me I represent We The People and Vets

[liberaldemocrat7]

32. DU has several Republican plants

according to people who will remain nameless and have told me such.

I believe them.

I believe that several Republican plants here stir up trouble on occasion especially when I bring up boycotts of Republican contributors. It would scare the hell out of the Republican party if everyone on DU called the major donors to the Republican party and told them we hold you responsible for the deaths, hardship, economic disaster of people while the Republicans held congress in the last 12 years and the chimp has stolen the presidency since 2007 and that we will no longer buy your products until your CEO gets us the progressive legislation we want listed at http://www.dmocrats.org

[BeFree]

2. DU is

The future.

[Captain Hilts]

3. DU is on the more liberal end of the Democratic Party. nt

[MADem]

4. I believe the more vocal members here tend to skew to the left of the national party as a whole.

At least that's the way it seems.

I know a boatload of people who faithfully vote the Democratic ticket who would be run out of this place on a rail by some of the far-left elements.

[BeFree]

11. Boatload? As in swift boat?

Remember how Kerry was placed on that rail in 2004? Was that far-lefters or your boatload of faithfuls?

[MADem]

13. ??? What are you suggesting??? That my boatload of acquantances, all of whom VOTED for Kerry, and

I, are somehow affilated with the Swiftboaters? Why are you making such hideous, vile and contrary-to-the-DU regulations accusations?

I happen to drive a lot of seniors to the polls. They're way too conservative for most of the people here, but they vote the D ticket reliably.

So, what--these people are "unwelcome" in "your" party? Because they aren't left enough for you? You call them, and by inference, me, swiftboaters?

Take Cheney's advice to Leahy, why doncha?

Your post is offensive.

[BeFree]

16. Whoa, sport

I was talking about the people on DU. I just asked a question: was it the moderates here, that were responsible for the Kerry attacks?

And you fly off the handle..... hmmmm.

[renie408]

21. Well, in their defense, it did read like you were accusing

her friends of sinking Kerry because they believed the Swiftboat stuff.

[BeFree]

26. Sarcasm

....is often wasted. I apologize for the little blurb.

Still, I do remember DUers doing something similar, (swiftboating) right here, to Kerry, and I'm still pissed. I'll not get over it.

[renie408]

29. "I'll never get over it."???

You need to get out more. Seriously. And even if you can 'never get over it', you need to stop seeing Swiftboaters hiding behind every post. Not everybody is going to support the candidate just because they are registered Democrats and he gets the nomination. That doesn't mean they are out to get him.

[BeFree]

31. Hah

You may have a short memory, or maybe wish to remember only the things that please you, all the while flying off the handle about my words. Then you tell me I should get over it.

Pure foolishness.

[renie408]

33. OK n/t

[MADem]

39. The irony is, I worked for Kerry, and this schmuck is calling ME out????

That pissed me off, frankly, and I think I was justified in my annoyance.

[MADem]

38. Well, you really should pick your targets. I supported him substantially in the last election.

I put a LOT of time in for the guy. So cheap and uninformed shots are unappreciated.

[renie408]

14. How much did the Swiftboat people hurt Kerry and how much did Kerry hurt Kerry?

Look, I was devoted to Kerry once he won the nomination. I had all the bumperstickers and yard signs, I went to the rallies, blah blah blah. But my heart wasn't in it. Kerry is a good man and a good politician. But he didn't inspire me then and he still doesn't. Maybe that is a flaw in me, I dunno.

I do know that we have a field of candidates this time around that ARE inspiring. I think it is up to us to screw this next election up, otherwise it is ours.

[BeFree]

17. So

The idea that bush would be eliminated wasn't inspiration enough?

You ain't feeling guilty are ya?

[renie408]

22. Yes. I feel guilty. I voted for Bush. My secret is out. Did I also mention

that I directed and wrote the Swiftboat ads and implanted Dean with a buzzer so that when he was speaking to his supporters I pushed a button causing him to shriek in a strange way.


HA HA HA!!! My evil genius knows no bounds!!!


Why would I feel guilty? I voted for Kerry, I had the bumperstickers and yard signs and I lived here for MONTHS leading up to the election.

Hey, I have an idea!! How about trying to answer a post WITHOUT making bizarre, ignorant, and obnoxious implications??

[BeFree]

25. Wow

Glad your not feeling guilt. But there are a bunch of people who were on DU back then who should feel mighty guilty. Or did you not notice?

[renie408]

28. I am sorry, I have no clue what you are referring to. n/t

[MADem]

40. Oh come on now, there, sport, NAME THEM. Don't make halfassed cheap shot accusations about other DU

members in an oblique fashion. Who are these "bunch of people" who were so disloyal? You seem to be inferring that some of us here are among them.

Put up, or shut up. Better yet, apologize. Because you're way the fuck out of line.

[Clark2008]

27. I liked our field better last time.

I'm the opposite of you - I don't think our field is very inspiring at all this year.

Which, I guess, is sort of the point of the OP. We're a pretty good cross section: some of us believe that this is a great year for the Dem's chances at the presidency and others don't.

[renie408]

30. So who from the other side do you see beating us?

And is part of your disenchanted feeling that Clark isn't running?

[Hart2008]

36. It's a great year for the Dem's chances, but the candidates are lacking!

With the right candidate, there is an opportunity here for the biggest landslide since ’64. We can win in places no one thought possible, but only with THE RIGHT CANDIDATE. Nominating a Senator who voted against the Levine amendment, voted against the filibuster on the war vote, AND voted for the Bush-Lieberman war, IS THE WRONG THING TO DO. We need a candidate who can expound on WHY the war and occupation are wrong for the U.S., not a Monday morning quarterback who will limit the debate to criticizing how the President executed the invasion and occupation. The big picture theme is: Are we a Republic or an Empire? When these candidates talk about more militarism with Iran, they sound like imperialists.

The other problem is the party’s quadrennial penchant to find a new face, instead of running a well-known individual. Swing voters in general elections are more comfortable with known candidates, but party activists tend to be attracted by new faces in the primaries upon whom they project their ideal candidate. These same new faces can be quickly “defined” by Repuke attack ads and pundits before they tell the swing voters who they are and what they want to do, or gain voters' confidence. (See Dukakis 1998)

This business of picking a nominee like a bunch of Buddhist monks searching for the reincarnation of the Dali Lama has to stop.

http://www.rungaryhart.com

:kick: HART 2008! :kick:

[Madspirit]

5. Was

Was the person who said this a Republican? I find every stripe of people here, to my discomfort, actually. I wish the Group was more to the left than it is. I love it here but due to the "Underground" part of the name, I thought it would, overall, lean more left than it does. We have far right Democrats here, far left Democrats here and everyone in between. So how could that not represent the "real" world?
Lee

[renie408]

9. No, it was a Hillary supporter. I was thinking the way you are

that I see every stripe of Dem here and lots of varying opinions.

[Bjornsdotter]

15. Yep

..that pretty much how I see it also.

I'm surprised at how conservative DU can be at times, but I do think that we are a good cross section.

Cheers

[Parisle]

6. I would also be curious about average age

--- I vote democratic because it is the party of the great mass of ordinary citizens, as opposed to the GOP's representing wealth and big business.

[notadmblnd]

7. I think there's everything here

from the reformed republican to the leftist of left. I also think it is what makes DU such a great place. I don't know how many minds have been changed by coming here, whether it has caused anyone other than me to rethink some of my views.But I like it, the comradery and the discourse.

[renie408]

10. I like it because I learn something every time I get on here. n/t

[Bitwit1234]

8. Like the real democratic world...a cross section.

[saltpoint]

12. I'm a Bella Abzug/Mario Cuomo/John Kerry/RFK/RFK Jr./Frank Church/

Birch Bayh/Henry Waxman/Charlie Rangel/Barbara Boxer/Barbara Jordan/Bill Moyers/ kind of Democrat.

That's a select list. There are many others to like, too, including all of ours versus any of theirs.

I'm a Crosley Field Democrat. I'm a "In My Mind I'm Gone to Carolina" Democrat.

Give me a yellow Fred Arbogast HulaPopper, lilac candles, an Irish setter, a Yeats poem, Elton's "Where to Now, St. Peter?", the Sleeping Bear Dunes on a blue and windy day, Joan Didion's DEMOCRACY, St. Francis to look after the animals, Jack Kevorkian's titanium nuts, Franklin Pierce mudflaps, the bliss of ponies' shadows across Arizona mountains, John Stewart's news, Emmylou Harris doing "From Boulder to Birmingham," and butterscotch pie with coffee.

[DFW]

18. We got plenty in common there

Wow, Frank Church--he used to come out to our house in Virginia
in the sixties to hang with my dad. I guess that dates me pretty
well! (The local museum has fossils that are younger than I am).

[saltpoint]

23. Good ol' Frank Church. I loved that guy and volunteered for him in

one of those early primaries. Talked briefly on the phone about hosting a "Frank Church Spectacular" -- which on the given budget would have amounted to a beer-and-barbeque event in the backyard -- but that would have been ok with me. You got to meet him! That is excellent. He was a good man.

Also like your Gide' quotation in your signature space.

[TwilightGardener]

19. I'm on the right of the Dem spectrum here, which is why I like to

poke my nose into threads that start to run too far to the left, for balance!

[Pyrzqxgl]

20. My Granddad was a Wobbly & knew Joe Hill

My dad worked for Henry Wallace and was a member of the group that thought up "Hootenanny" for a group of radical folk songsters (he voted for "Wingding"). Over the years I've walked with Martin Luther King, Eugene McCarthy, Pete Seeger,
John Moses, Utah Phillips, a whole lot of pickers & grinners. I've mostly been a Democrat (had a brief fling with Peace
& Freedom during that other "dirty little war" in the 60's) and I like to think I have an open mind and some background
and thats why I'm here in DU.

[Cabcere]

24. I used to consider myself an "ABBA" Dem -

"Anybody But Bush Again," because I was just old enough to vote against him the second time around. However, the past four years have pushed me more and more to the left, and so now I consider myself quite liberal.

Edited to add: I think somebody asked about ages a few posts up...I'm 21.

[DFW]

34. We could well have more diversity than some might think

Although the most vocal among us may tend to give the impression
that the DU is composed mainly of people of one age group and
persuasion over another, I suspect that the group represents more
than that.

I have a day job (sometimes it's a night or dawn job, too--nature of
the beast) and am stationed overseas most of the time. So, I get to
post when there's down time, and can't when I'm off in parts unknown.
If you're in college, you may have long hours, but you have more constant
online access, too.

So we have diversity. This isn't a bad thing. Who wants a bunch of robotic
Republicans where the only thing that separates one from another is how much
they hate the Clintons and how much they think we need to "succeed" in Iraq,
whatever they mean by that THIS week? We're not all 20 and we're not all 60,
and for sure we don't all see eye to eye, except for one thing: the Republican
party and it's leadership have wrecked our country's foreign policy, weakened
our currency and our economy, ignored the Constitution and the environment, and
made our country the enemy of most other nations on earth, either diplomatically
or worse, when it was neither necessary nor desirable. There is also a little
unsettled matter of them seizing power by illegal means in 2000, manipulating
the vote in 2002, and possibly maintaining their hold on power by illegal means
in Ohio in 2004.

That's what makes this board interesting and the freepers (and their clones) boring.

Frank Church was indeed a good guy. We used to grill stuff our back with his son,
Forrest, who was older than I was, so we didn't have a lot in common. I mean, I was
something like 9 or 10 at the time. The memory that lasted with me is how much I liked
them as people. At that age, I barely knew the difference between the two parties.

As for the André Gide quote, I ran across it a few years ago, and was blown away by
the simple truth of it. So few words, and yet so encompassing an idea. My daughter
now uses it, too, as does The Freedom Toast.

[NormanYorkstein]

35. The main internet demographic is White and Chinese Males

As for DU is obviously more complicated than that.

[Joe Fields]

37. Maybe 20 percent.

[w4rma]

41. DU simply represents Democratic-leaning, relatively politically informed voters.

Of course, as Colbert would say, "reality has a liberal bias." So, as folks become more informed, folks, in general, become more progressive.

[Upfront]

42. Nothing personal

I do believe we would be better off if we quit labeling our selves. Where you stand on the issues is what counts. I find myself to be left on some, right on some, and seldom in the middle. I always say liberal if asked but we are on the same side here so what you all think matters.