You think FDR wasn't the Establishment?

Social Security. Health Care. Economic Bill of Rights. All that benefits the 99-percent is so un-Establishment it isn't even funny.

That's why the Wall Street Coup.

What are you recommending? Or I could go 5th dimension mind games and vote for the Republican as a protest vote.

nt.

I guess we will never know. I think we could field a solid liberal dem...wait we did Al Gore. And he won. Really I would like to know what the OP thinks!

Even if we lose, it's better to have a Republican who disagrees with us 100% of the time than a Democrat who disagrees with us 25%-30% of the time, right?

is emblematic of this, but dkf certainly was.

right wingers, many may be influenced. I've noticed a lot of this around here at DU recently. Talking about farther left candidates. Sure, but first we have to get electable left candidates, then we move that way. The country has been jerked hard to the right, we can't deny it. The center is the far left for the radical right.

That worked out well.

We lost control for 30 years, but hey, at least we looked principled.

in general, what's your alternative? Put up candidates who cannot muster a majority of votes? We have very progressive legislators in many areas, where they can get a majority of votes in their own districts and jurisdictions. Outside of those places, they don't seem to do very well.

How would you remedy that situation? I don't have a clue how to do that, and I'm in a district that elects a progressive Democrat to Congress and to our state legislature. Yet, just a few miles from the northern border of my district, Michele Bachmann won, despite heavy campaigning against her.

I love Bernie Sanders, for example. He's a wonderful guy. He wins elections where he is. I think Dennis Kucinich is also a great politician. I loved him in Congress. Yet, when his district was merged with another, a different Democrat won. He's also had zero luck seeing higher office, winning none of the primaries he has entered. What to do about that?

How do you propose to get people to do what they do not do? If you have an answer, I'd love to hear it.

Primaries are a different story, and we need to NOT nominate Clinton. She's a corporatist.

Is just one of our elections, and is the only one that works that way. I consider it to be one of the less important elections. Far more important are legislative elections, which are all popular elections.

I wonder why that is? Don't Keep Fretting.

even see that it doesn't serve them.

But the OP just sounds desperate to push a straw man that Dems only elect charismatic corporatist insiders.

Barack Obama certainly wouldn't qualify for that designation when he ran in 2008.

But I find it interesting some of these threads are like fly paper.

Clapper, refusing to prosecute the previous administration's war criminals, expanding the war on marijuana dispensaries...

Yes, some elements of his social policy are progressive, and yes, Republican obstructionism has a lot to blame, but Obama is hardly the best we can hope for as progressives.

Of independents and mainstream middle of the road Dems to win the White House.

I, for one, was flabbergasted he got any health care reform passed in the corporate whoring D.C. Cesspool.

Some call it a "chess game;" I call it a football game. Be as RW as you want, but as long as you have a "D" next to your name we think you're awesome and progressive even...

"Pushing" means insulting everyone who votes for Democrats the Pusher considers unprogressive? How's that been working out?

I voted for a liberal constitutional law professor that has exceeded my expectations.

disappointed me worse than I could have imagined.

People around here need to start respecting this President more.

He is Mr. President or President Obama... stop with all of these other disrespectful adjectives.

I don't care how much anyone disagrees with his policies or as a person.

Pres. Clinton is also a charismatic corporatist - and HRC another.

It's not meant to be disrespectful, but to describe a type of Dem leader that often puts corporate wishes over the wishes of the people, and who chooses corporate contacts for administration positions.

Only those candidates who remain within the establishment consensus on fundamental issues like neoliberal economics and the perceived necessity for American led global hegemony will receive the kind of press coverage necessary and the kind of financial banking necessary to win an election in the current climate in a country of more than 300 million people. Maybe Chuck Colson's old quote, "When you have them by their balls - Their hearts and minds will follow" - is the simple reality we live with in today's body politic. Well corporate power does have the whole political system by the balls. We can choose between a socially liberal servant of that power who has at least some sense of noblesse oblige or we will end up empowering a gang of crackpot extremist and right-wing kooks. What are we to do? They have us by the balls and there simply is not much we can do about it.

We the people (tech savvy millennials leading the way) have to come up with the means to get around the corporate power structure, which, as you mention, includes the press.

The people have to choose a candidate (a liberal, populist Dem) and support him or her both financially and with regard to press (social media, etc.)

That's the kind of revolution I'd like to see.

Electing yet another corporate prez - no matter the party - will only ensure that the 1%ers take what's left.

joke only a few social studies nerds would really appreciate.

Thank you.

even when we think we aren't.

At least until the 1% have 100% of everything.

But instead of saying sure it. Let's work on putting together a real voice so that the issues of the 99% truly become the mainstream. That way those that are corporatists as you say can't be elected because those issues are no longer the mainstream. If we work hard to change the narrative we can elect those that represent the people more than the corporations

...to blindly following whoever the TV says is a Democrat!

Its SO much easier,
and the Homecoming Dance is more fun!

Wonder if the TPP or Social Security cuts will wake anybody up.

You would think that something as serious as the NSA relations and Drone Assassination program would be enough.
But NO, they just start attacking the people who tell the truth, like Snowden,
without a moment's doubt or hesitation.

I'm baffled by people who can do that.
I was born without that ability,
so I'm unable to wrap my mind around that.

Republicans join the club and identify with their kind, regardless of policy.

Looks like there are plenty of Dems like that too.

Then DU can reunite to bitch about our next R President.

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The day we set aside race, religion, and economic status is the day change actually occurs. Until that happens we'll all struggle at the bottom while the elite laugh at us.

It's on the candidate for failing if she doesn't.

cuz nobody wants to freeze to death!

dissipated long ago.

We need some genuine, pretty comprehensive policy changes in this country or nothing's going to get better.

If she's as pro-business, pro-capitalist, and pro-free trade as her husband was and has remained, then by all means I'm for it.

nt.

a Dem populist instead of a Dem corporatist to run against whatever Republican nut is on the ballot.