What's Next for Democrats? (New Dem Dispatch)

[LoZoccolo]

Democrats must avoid the temptation to follow up the electoral repudiation of the Bush-Rove polarization strategy with their own version of the same thing. The 2006 results not only showed an energized Democratic base but a decisive victory among independent and moderate voters who want real-world results from their government and from both parties, not just a choice between two noise machines.

http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=131&subid=192&contentid=254107

[bluestateguy]

1. Oh, it's the "New" Democrats...

Hmmmmmmm...

Um, NO.

[LoZoccolo]

2. Brilliant retort to a big long article. n/t

[Vincardog]

3. Dat is LOCO. The voters want to reverse the FASCIST slide the country has been in

[katsy]

4. "want real-world results from their government and from both parties"

Yeah?

Well, let's just give the gop enough seats in the house and senate to balance the power 50/50 then why don't we?

No? Then shut the fuck up because voters had many issues and ALL of them contrary to the policies of your gop buddies.

Your necks are next on the chopping block.

Get out of Iraq

SS & healthcare

FAIR TRADE NOW

education

AMT tax

get moving on those.

[LoZoccolo]

5. You're reading way too much into that.

You could be looking for it.

[katsy]

6. Listen...

I'm a populist and a Democrat. In a general election, I vote straight ticket.

In a primary, I vote for the most progressive, most populist candidate.

When I have to vote for DLC candidates... I'm holding my nose the whole time.

There's little common ground between me and the dlc except PARTY... which I revere.

IMO, it's the dlc which lost congress years ago. They stopped working with and for the common man.

I don't support free trade, I support FAIR trade.

I am shocked at the damage the bankruptcy act has had on the middle class and 12 of the dlc supported it... it would have failed without their support.

This is not an arguable point for me. I do not support the dlc at all.

[lapfog_1]

7. I first thought as I read the included paragraph here

"what f'ing freeper wrote this piece of shit?

Whole bunch of assumptions about why voters voted the way they did...

I mean really... choice between two noise machines? Get real... the Democratic message, until recently, doesn't even get the time of day on the MSM. Not only that, but almost ALL Dems that I've heard are not spewing noise, but speaking truth...

Then I saw the link to the DLC... holy crap, now I'm a believer... the DLC is actively working against the liberal/progressive movement.

[LoZoccolo]

8. I don't think that they're accusing all Dems of being a part of a noise machine. n/t

[lapfog_1]

9. So... how do YOU parse this

"...a decisive victory among independent and moderate voters who want real-world results from their government and from both parties, not just a choice between two noise machines."

What OTHER two noise machines is the author referring to? Faux and MSNBC? KO and Orally? Roadrunner and Coyote? Pray tell us please.

I think the voters rejected the war in Iraq. And they want it ended... BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. And I THINK they also want a rollback of the powers assumed by a unitary executive. The want their constitution back, and the bill of rights.

[LoZoccolo]

10. Read this sentence.

Democrats must avoid the temptation to follow up the electoral repudiation of the Bush-Rove polarization strategy with their own version of the same thing.

If it was alleging that there are just two similar noise machines, it wouldn't be warning us not to make one because there already would be one.

I apologize, but I can't go through every sentence with you. You'll just have to work hard to keep taking them out of context.

30% of people want immediate withdrawal, hardly a majority (I used a poll rather than the inclinations of my own mind to arrive at this conclusion):
http://www.timesunion.com/ASPStories/Story.asp?StoryID=532925&Category=NATIONAL&LinkFrom=RSS

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LoZoccolo]

12. I have never been a member of the DLC.

I do support some of their ideas, as well as some of their concerns.

[rocktivity]

14. DING DING DING! Lapfog_1, you're our grand prize winner!

I think the voters rejected the war in Iraq. And they want it ended...BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. And I THINK they also want a rollback of the powers assumed by a unitary executive. The want their constitution back, and the bill of rights.

And if the Repubs don't want to play along, we acheieve these goals without them. You work for us, DLC, not them. Concentrate on ruling from THE PEOPLE WHO WERE VOTED IN and THE PEOPLE WHO VOTED THEM IN--not your think-tank generated "vital center"--and you'll remain the ruling party forever. And may I remind you that the "liberal end" of the party that you find so threatening has accomplished more in two years than you have in TWELVE???

:headbang:
rocknation

[Jack Rabbit]

13. It's kinder and gentler nonsense than we get from Rove and Mehlman

But it's still a lot of nonsense.

A party that doesn't have room for both Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman probably doesn't have room for a majority of the American people.

That is probably true, no matter how uncomfortable it is for both many here and for Al From and Bruce Reed, who have spen most of the last several years trying to read anybody left of center out the Democratic Party. For a while, I took the hint and registerd Green. Of course, it wasn't From or Reed who got me back. Credit for that belongs to George W. Bush, who turned out to be not just another conservative like most of us thought he was 2000, but a genuine threat to American democracy unlike any we have seen since Benedict Arnold.

The election was a repudiation of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay and Speaker Hastert, who decided it was better dozens of congressional pages work in terror than that one perverted Republican Congressman should suffer humiliation. It was a repudiation of modern Republican ethics, of an unnecessary and poorly planned imperialist war poorly disguised as the central front in the war against Osama bin Laden and of the way the Republican leadership ran Congress.

Things simply got so bad that the DLC's wimpy election strategy finally worked: Vote Democratic because we're not Bush. It helped to apply that to all 50 states rather than write any off from the beginning.

There is much to agree with in the piece. We should not be vindictive just for the sake of being vindictive or getting even with the Republicans. Let there be investigations and even impeachment and removal if it is warranted. But it is my that Speaker Pelosi will follow through with her pledge to run Congress openly and include the minority party. The piece sets forward six "challenges" so broadly stated that anybody on any point of the political spectrum can agree with them.

However, if the authors of this piece mean by "keeping America safe in the midst of a war with jihadist terrorism, using every tool: diplomatic, economic, and ideological, as well as military" that I have to buy into the Iraq War, forget it; I didn't buy into it when Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were selling it and I'm not going to buy into it when Joe Lieberman and Will Marshall try to sell it. If they mean by every tool to allow the NSA to listen to our phone conversations, forget it; I will not sacrifice the Bill of Rights over Mr. Bush's inept handling of the so-called on terror. And if they mean by every tool available torture suspected (or even known) terrorists, forget it; I will not approve of police state sadism that has no practical purpose other than to let politicians pretend they're doing something about terrorism.