Moving the Democratic Party to the Left

[erpowers]

How can the Democratic Party be moved to the left? It seems that people are so scared to lose that they are willing to vote for candidates that are more to the right. What is going to happen? Are Democrats going to take a chance and vote for candidates that lean toward the left?

[BrklynLiberal]

1. One can only hope and pray and vote for the candidates that take us

to the left. Howard Dean is a good start.

[lancdem]

2. Our problem is not ideology

I think there's plenty that unites Dems. We need to make clearer what that is and stop letting the Repukes put us on the defensive.

[OrlandoGator]

3. Liberal socially, conservative fiscally...

Dean is pushing this more attractive alternative to the neocons' agenda of "fascist socially and reckless fiscally".

I think it falls into line with what most Americans believe. Most people don't care what people do in private, so long as it doesn't harm anyone else. And most people don't like the ideas of Enron accounting with their tax money.

We just have to bombard people with the message. This is where the Republicans have won handily.

[ClassWarrior]

4. The only answer is to infiltrate.

I'm running to become a delegate to my State Party Convention this summer. A small step, sure, but a first step. The more of us who become involved in the Dem Party aparatus, the more we can start pulling it in a "leftwardly" direction.

Join your County Dem Party!!!

NGU.

[davidinalameda]

5. screw moving the party to the left

it's not going to work

I left the party and registered Green

no matter who holds the DNC chair position, you still have politicians with a D after their name doing everything they can to be as Repuke lite as they possibly can

Nancy Pelosi supported anti-choice Tim Roemer as DNC chair? What kind of message does that send. Dianne Feinstein comes out the date after the November election and trashes gays for Bush's election.

You had 14 Democratic Senators side with the Repukes yesterday on the closure vote for the new bankruptcy law.

The Democratic Party is dying and anything I can help to move that death along, I'll do.

[ClassWarrior]

6. Oh sure, divide us. That's the Radical RW's strategy for us too.

NGU.

[davidinalameda]

17. the Democrats are doing a damn good job at dividing us on their own

what does the Democratic Party stand for?

can you tell me that?

is it against the war in Iraq?
is it for a woman's right to choose
is for equal rights for GLBTs
is it for protecting the average person against big business

Howard Dean isn't going to unite the party--he's going to be the one who watches it die

he wants to move the party to the right as well

[ClassWarrior]

20. Then I guess WE're the ones who need to keep us together.

As long as we don't bail out when we're needed most.

NGU.

[davidinalameda]

53. so you just want to get relegated to the back of the bus

pretty soon, liberals and lefties won't even be allowed on the bus

you're going to have more corporate types that don't really care who they screw over to get votes

with Dean at the helm, the party is moving even faster to becoming Repuke lite

[asjr]

12. What bothers me about the Dems that voted for

the bankrupcy law is I don't know if they consulted with their constituents or not. Are these particular Dems beholden to certain corporate beings? I know why Joe Biden voted. He owes his soul to the credit card store. But the others? Harold Ford, Jr. surprises me. When will they actually listen to us? It is obscene to me that a nominee has to pander to big money to get in office.

[davidinalameda]

19. Harold Ford is a DINO

he is a "blue dog Democrat"--which basically means to me that you still need a "D" in his district to get elected but the people don't pay attention to how you vote as long as you can bring home the bacon

sort of like Senator Byrd

[asjr]

23. Sadly, I feel you are correct.

[me b zola]

36. Yes, and that dino is barking for a Senate seat

Just say NO to all dinos who want a Senate seat, whether a repeat offender or new to the Senate.

JUST SAY NO!





POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

[LittleClarkie]

44. So long. Don't forget to write

Good luck storming the castle.

[electropop]

7. We will continue to lose

...as long as Dem voters and politicians are more worried about losing than about doing the right thing. Sure the 'Pukes will call us mean names (like 'party of NO') if we have the audacity to suggest rational alternatives to the War On Poor People. So freakin' what? Are we going to let that stop us? What the hell have we become? Should't we be proud to say NO to attacks on the middle class and the poor? Shouldn't we kick the 'class warfare' epithet right back at the 'Pukes? Sure it's class warfare, they started it, and it's our job to defend the classes which include 98% of the population!

[ClassWarrior]

9. Amen. At the same time, we can't have a bull-in-a-china-shop approach.

We SHOULD go out and kick the kind of ass you're suggesting, but if we can be smart and strategic about it - that is, minimize our losses in the process - all the better.

NGU.

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. Good luck with that. You _might_ see it happen if

there is major election reform so that people can rank the candidates according to their preference. Then we might find out who really supports the Dennis Ks of the party vs. the Joe Liebermans.

[ktowntennesseedem]

10. A little more to the left... a little more to the left...

If we do it all at once, it will freak everyone one, because no one likes change, even change for the better. But instead of clinging to the middle so as not to upset centrists and moderates, by gradually shifting to the left we can get where we need to be and might even bring those centrists and moderates with us.

[flamin lib]

11. I don't think it is a matter of moving left or right. It's a matter

edit for spelling

of framing the debate. He who frames the debate wins the debate. Howard Dean told Richard Perle that in no uncertain terms and the took then defense issue away from him.

Dems aren't weak on defense, we just don't like throwing money at the Pentagon. Strong borders are strong on defense. Protecting our ports is strong on defense. Better intelligence is strong on defense. Spending money on Star Wars part II is NOT strong on defense.

[ClassWarrior]

22. Excellent point. For anyone who HASN'T read it yet...

...get George Lakoff's "Don't Think of an Elephant." Just $10... an easy read... and it will LITERALLY change your life.

NGU.

[forgethell]

41. Framing the debate

WILL NOT WORK. It's the policies that people vote for or against. Not the words used to describe them. Getting committed to the "frame the debate" meme means we shall lose again in 2006, 2008, and the foreseeable future.

We need to examine what we stand for. We need to abandon, temporarily, at least, the positions that are losers for us, and emphasize the winners. Finally, no one from the Northeast should head the next ticket. This specifically includes Hillary, who will lead us to a disaster if she runs.

Damn it, I hate losing.

[zulchzulu]

13. We need to move left while appearing to move to "the center"

First of all, all this political lingo-based perception is media driven. And we know who the media is.

The major networks are obviously driven by global corporatists' interests, who firmly have their jackboots on the throats of the media management, who in turn hold the power to keep or delete their media message communicators (also known as news staff) if they stray off-message to the global corporatists' interests.

So, if we say that we need to be more "left", we already lost. To say that one is "on the left" plays right into the playbook definition defined by global corporatists' talking points to disparage and destroy those "on the left".

We lose the spin game immediately. And with that, we are seen as evil cartoon characters that are nibbling at the ever-tender (and false) notions of the "American dream".

We need to not say we are "moving to the left". We need to say we are fighting for the American citizen against the ruthless plans of the corporatists' interests.

Let's say we are "moving to the center", which means we are continuing to help support those that have been left out of the Bush plans for the priveleged who are given a free pass to destroy our environment, start wars, ignore pandemic diseases, not pay their fair share of taxes, and sending our jobs to third world slave camps.

If asked if being for the environment is a "left" position, assume that the person has been incredibly duped and say that being for the environment is what any American who cares about his/her country and future generations of Americans to come.

Fighting for our freedoms would actually be seen as "left" and it needs to be rebranded to be seen as pro-American in the deepest sense.

[Beacho]

14. Since when is moving the party closer to the people, 'going left'

I call bullshit on labeling the actions of the grassroots 'moving left'.

We've bought into the notion that actually pushing for the concerns of the majority of citizens as 'shifting left'.

Fighting for the rights of working and middle class people hardly makes one a trotskyite.

Fighting for clean air and water hardly makes one a member of the RCYB

Fighting for a sane foreign policy hardly makes one a spartacist.

Just remember that compared to the assholes in charge now practically EVERYONE is to the left

[rman]

30. still it is to the left of Dem party mainstream

The party has been moving towards the center, which is the same direction where the Right is. Now people propose to move back in the direction where we came from: to the Left.

Apparently it happens to be so that "the people" actually are rather Left. Any kind of tax-funded public program is in fact socialist in nature, that's why Bush and the neocon gang try all they can to destroy these things.
Being Left doesn't make one an extremist. Basically it's just pro-labor, which stands to reason since most people are laborers of one kind or another.

We'd be silly to want to give handouts and soft regulations to a minority group of very wealthy individuals who are scheming behind the facades of their corporations, organizations, think-tanks etc.
It happens anyway, because we've been deceived and now the fox is watching the hen house.

[lostinacause]

15. Moving further to the extremes means more likely to loose.

It's a simple concept People will vote for who ever has the closest views to their own. While not consciously, people who are trying to push the party to the left are pushing it toward failure. Bush has given room for a more centrist party to take control. It would be foolish not to.

[messiah]

16. That's a funny question most people on here

would probably say "it's not about moving left it's about winning" in other words. People here are not to the left really there just centrist moderates fighting other centrists moderates most dont care for the issues it's just a game.

[ClassWarrior]

18. Wow, there's a sweeping stereotype if ever I saw one.

NGU.

[lostinacause]

24. People realize that if they don't win the issues

that they fight for become irrelevant. If people elect someone with a more moderate belief and that person wins, the person who wins will make more of the changes that are desired then someone who matches their ideology but looses.

[Is It Fascism Yet]

21. Personally, I am so far to the left if I go any further I will move past

it! It doesn't matter who we vote for! All that matters is who counts the votes, and nobody with a shred of honor, decency or trustworthiness has counted the votes in this millenium. Vote for whomever you please, Mickey Mouse will do just fine, it doesn't matter, because, only Diebold counts, and Diebold can't count. The problem is not the way the Democrats run their elections, nor their policies, the problem is simply that repukes cheat. There is no more to the problem, that's all there is.

[iconoclastNYC]

25. Help promote the LEFT WING message machine

WE need a group that does nothing but promote outlets for our point of view. Once the media sees Air America radio and Keith Olbermann's, or other shows ratings growing, there will be a gold rush hopefully, that is if you hold out any hope that the media companies are run as profit centers and not just propoganda spewing PR arms of the corporate parent.

We need some donor to give us money to print up 1000s of Air America best of CDs and distribute them on the streets of newly added markets.

We need more house parties when liberal movies come out.

EDUCATION and indoctrination is a key to victory, the whole country has been brainwashed to hate liberals and been fed so much right wing crap.

WE have to liberate people from it.

[dolstein]

26. Newsflash -- The Party has been lurching to the left since at least 1968

You can't simply look at the presidential level. The fact is, as the Democratic Party continues to die a slow (and sometimes fast) death in the South and Rocky Mountain West, the voter base of the party has steadily shrunk as a percentage of the electorate. What we're left with is a much more uniformly liberal, not to mention much smaller, party.

[TankLV]

43. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! That was a good one!

Oh you mean you are serious?

Boy, I've read bullshit before, but you really take the cake.

What's really sad, is you really believe your own bullshit.

[demokatgurrl]

27. Don't you mean move it BACK from the RIGHT where it's been

drifting? Perhaps Howard Dean will help.

[ClassWarrior]

28. Yup... we got some catching up to do.

NGU.

[Sapphire Blue]

29. Stay on message

Redefine the 'right' as the radical fundamentalists that they are.

Redefine the 'left' as mainstream America.

[Skidmore]

31. Hand them big wads of cash, cold hard cash--that appears to be the only

thing they respond to. Pavlovian even--see wads of cash, watch pol drool.

[ClassWarrior]

32. Nice smear job. The Radical RWers also like to trash all pols...

...that way the voters trust none of them - not the criminal Republicon ones nor the honest Democrats. Handy, innit?

NGU.

[Skidmore]

34. Who's smearing anybody? Been paying attention to the votes on

the bankruptcy bill the last couple of days? Did you read the thread on campaign contributions to our principled leaders? I'm really crabby today and this whole debacle is really irking me.

[ClassWarrior]

35. Wow!! That's big news!! They ALL voted for the bankruptcy bill!!!

Thanks. I didn't know that.

NGU.

[ClassWarrior]

40. And I’m sure Russ Feingold will be glad to know...

...that he only responds to "big wads of cash, cold hard cash." He, the one who forbids himself and his staffers from accepting even so much as A SOFT DRINK at a lobbyist event.

I hear you saying, “But Class Warrior, even Russ Feingold raises big wads of cash, cold hard cash!”

Yes, even Russ has to raise money. HAS to raise money. That’s not Russ’ fault, children – it’s the SYSTEM’s fault. The corrupt, corporatist system that Russ is battling.

Now, you could spin that unfortunate situation to justify calling Russ and all of his colleagues a bunch of money-grubbing sell-outs. But that wouldn’t be very Progressive of you. I’d rather get down on my knees and thank the good Lord that we have people like Russ who’ll hold their noses and grub for bucks because they realize it’s the ONLY way we can get the power we need to fix the system and defeat the Radical RW.

NGU.

[Cuban_Liberal]

33. No, what we need to do is frame the debate properly.

We have allowed the religious right wing of the Republican party and the monied oligarchs who find them to be useful idiots to frame the political debate in this country for 3 decades; THAT, not being more/less 'left' is our problem.

[ClassWarrior]

37. You got that right, CL...

Again - everyone should read George Lakoff's "Don't Think of an Elephant." Just $10... an easy read... and it will LITERALLY change your life.

NGU.

[BlueInRed]

38. I just wish they'd stop moving RIGHT

We've got people voting in ways that are much further right than just 4 years ago. I'd be really happy if we could just get back to the "middle" position we were in when Clinton left office. So much has changed, the USA is hardly recognizable anymore.

[Name removed]

39. Deleted message

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

[markus]

45. Moving the center to the left, not the party

Our task is to move the center to the left. We let the GOP rule the AM airwaves and effectively infiltrate and take over the burgeoning cable talk industry over the last 20 years.

They have, through this pulpit, tried to move the center well to the right. Clinton rode into office on this (think welfare reform), but also was not afraid of open economic populision (think health policy).

The problem is that health policy failed because the Democrats as a group did not stand up and fight. As we did not in 2000.

Moving the center back to the left means exposing and capitalizing on the essentialy dishonesty and open theft by the GOP and by business. No one has suggested and end to welfare as we know if for corporations, or small business people. Most of the small business people I know are in grey/pink/white collar busineses, and the accelerated deprecation is going to Lexuses (Lexi?) and Hummers. Why are we spending millions of dollars to promote American fast food franchise restaurants overseas?

What we lack is the Big Simple Theme that ties together all of the mendacity of the right, in an economic context (the GOP, and your employer, are living high off your money. Are you?).

[Bridget Burke]

47. Please don't call someone else a "freeper"

And thanks for correcting your own use of pronouns. No more "we" Democrats, but "you" Democrats.

[More Than A Feeling]

42. Ok, framing has been suggested several times

and so has moving left.

I'd like to suggest that the party is suffering from an appalling lack of infrastructure. The right began building theirs in the wake of the Goldwater debacle, and have been at it for 40 years. The Dems have been at it for 4 years, and we have made a good start. You, me, the liberal bloggers, Harry Reid and Howard Dean, the think tanks, they are all a part of the solution.

[ck4829]

46. If we move Right, then the Right has won

[fujiyama]

48. Moving it to the left?

How about moving it to the center first...

Then, and ONLY then, can we even imagine moving things lefward.

[Tippy]

49. Move to the Left...Move to the Right

And so who planted the first seeds about moving....Republicans if my memory serves me correct...Then the voters jumped on the band wagon and decided if we moved, we could get more done in Congress....Bull crap... Is America and Americans better off today then they were when Democrats were Democrats and voted their conscience....We have always had the best platform "for the majority of the people"

Greed moved us to the middle...Corporate America moved us to the middle. Now look where we are at...Our jobs have been sent over seas...I could go on and on...but I have my bags packed and I am moving back home...I want an America who takes care of it's own....

[ClassWarrior]

50. Stand Up... Sit Down... FIGHT-FIGHT-FIGHT!!!

For Progressive values, that is...

NGU.

[Massacure]

51. Worry about moving the party to the left later.

Republican-lite is better than Rightwing Fascist.

In the meantime you install grassroots for the more progressive canidates.

[AP]

52. Support the most liberal candidate with a chance to win the primaries...

...then support the most liberal candidate with a chance to win the general election.

That's how you pull everyone to the left.

Also, be smart about what makes a liberal candidate. A liberal candidate is one who believes that political, cultural, and economic power should flow down to the people, and not be concentrated at the top of an increasingly steep power pyramid.

Other qualities might have defined 'liberal' in the past, but today, this is what it's all about.

It's not about just being anti-war, or pro-feminism, or pro-environment. It's all about which direction power is flowing: to a few people at the top, or to a lot of people everywhere else. And how do you flow power: jobs, tax code, deficit spending in times of trouble to make investments that will pay off for people who work for a living -- those are the big ones. And end to imperialism abroad is going to help the US worker too.