I mean they were going to scoff and brush those away anyway, but it's always nice to have an excuse handy.

(Or would that be moving left by now?) Mrkuh's a center-right nation, you know. The Professional Leftists got nowhere else to go. Maybe if the Dems say the right things Rush won't be so hard on them.

If the Dems lose it'll be because of all those Progressives that didn't get their ponies, unicorns & rainbows. It'll be their fault if they're not loyal enough to vote for more war and heightened surveillance of the dangerous masses and tax cuts for the Deserving Rich.

The Dems can't win if Wall Street gives all their money to the Republicans. Pro-business is the only way to go. It's maybe OK to talk raising Minimum Wage, but you better make damn sure the Waltons don't take you seriously.

This isn't exactly my first post around here. I thought I had a rep by now.

People are led by example. Ed Schultz, Molly Ivins, Michael Moore, etc. float the idea of 'teaching Democrats a lesson' and the 'progressive' masses are influenced.

Greg Orman was given the big boost of the Democrats withdrawing. So this would be a big win, to get Pat Roberts and the Republicans out of the office right?

So what does Greg Orman say about which party he will caucus with?

So the Democratic Party has arranged that Democrats have little chance to vote for anyone but a Republican, or a Republican if they take control of the Senate, in the race for the Senator from Kansas. Damn those fringe folks in the leadership of the Democratic Party advocating a third party candidate.

Molly Ivins and Michael Moore endorsing Ralph Nader (and then Ivins saying under no circumstances would she support Hillary). Robert Parry warning progressive that following through on their threats to sit out elections will lead to disaster. Ed Schultz announcing he would not vote in the 2010 mid terms.

Words have consequences - especially when they come from respected people.

Great example.

Contrary to what some here want us to believe doom and gloom threads, bashing the president and the democratic party, and the "both sides are the same" crap does NOT encourage people to vote.

Did liberals really stay home and cause the 2010 rout?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/06/1003805/-Did-liberals-really-stay-home-and-cause-the-2010-rout
“So I went back to the exit polls and the picture I see shows nothing like that. If you are a proponent of this claim, I challenge you for empirical proof that some set of activist liberals "took their ball and went home" or whatever metaphor you prefer to make Obama's leftward critics appear childish and immature. Inside, the evidence I found that shows this just ain't so.”

http://blogforarizona.net/do-progressives-even-sit-out-elections-the-numbers-say-no/
“As you can see, Democrats did slightly better with liberals in 2010 than in 2006. Had there really been a collective we’re-sitting-out-the-election-to-spite-Obama pout going on, then there should have been a sharp drop in the liberal participation percentage. Yet notice the 9% in moderate voter participation and the concomitant 10% increase in conservative turnout. Republicans were pumped for that election but their turnout tends to be higher in midterms anyway. Millions of moderate voters either flipped to conservative or stayed home in 2010.”

“As you can see, all the Democratic groups dropped, but the liberal Democrats dropped least of all”

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/progressive-movement/news/2012/11/08/44348/the-return-of-the-obama-coalition/
Ideology. Liberals were 25 percent of voters in 2012, up from 22 percent in 2008. Since 1992 the percent of liberals among presidential voters has varied in a narrow band between 20 percent and 22 percent, so the figure for this year is quite unusual. Conservatives, at 35 percent, were up one point from the 2008 level, but down a massive 7 points since 2010.
Ideology. Obama received less support in 2012 from all ideology groups, though the drop-offs were not particularly sharp in any group. He received 86 percent support from liberals (89 percent in 2008), 56 percent from moderates (60 percent in 2008), and 17 percent from conservatives (20 percent in 2008).

I was just thinking of searching for, and posting, a link to the Daily Kos piece when I read your message!

They can't respond because it puts their narrative of blaming progressives to the lie.

When was the last time Nader ran?

And your now wheeling out the 'progressives stayed home in 2010' canard again?

You do realize that Ivans died years ago, correct?

Yeah, so?

When was the last time Nader ran?

What does that matter?

And your now wheeling out the 'progressives stayed home in 2010' canard again?

No.

None of the 'points' you brought up are remotely relevant to...well anything.

THAT is the point of these threads - whether that has happened or not.

Your reply seemed like you simply forgot what the discussion was about.

Yours however, remain questionable.
See post 20 for why.

So I doubt she has much influence on this particular election cycle...

So tell us the shelf life of someone's words and actions.

If you really want to see it. Of course we all know that the constant bashing of the president, the democratic party, the doom and gloom posts and of course the "both parties are the same" BS is so encouraging for getting out the vote!

All you have to do is press your temples really really hard and squint and wish and wish and wish and you'll see it!

I am sure you are and expert on that.

Begging the Democratic party to campaign on the issues, and adopt some of the populist ideals that hold high polling positions. Begging for the party to win the votes, but giving the people something to vote for, instead of asking them to vote against.

I didn't think then, nor do I think now, that it was just bashing the party. I thought it was my heartfelt and well considered hope that we would return to the successful strategies and actions of our history.

Defeatism is a good part of what harmed us in 2010, too, btw.

outside of the DU bubble.

Sid

They have Obamacare, taxes, and abortion. Very simple, and keywords say it all. They add crime and immigration as they see fit.

We have the economy, women's rights, the environment, and a whole bunch of other things that are not that easy to explain in a sound bite.
Sure, if one of our people has the time to explain something without interruption and an audience willing to listen, we have much better ideas about how things should be. But, we rarely get such a platform.

I don't see how the American public can get a balanced view of any issue. Start taking money out of politics, watch the war declared by the conservative Republicans

when the connection is backwards

but it's actually a very big thing that's happening: remember back in 2006 there were dozens of DUers warning the left that they were "on to" the party purge the left was planning once we won the House? what actually happened after that was that Cegelis, Lamont, McKinney, Halter, Romanoff, Sestak, Grayson, Kucinich, Buono, and Rev. Manuel Sykes were gerrymandered out of office, given primary challengers with disproportionate Central Committee funding, or just dropped altogether by Obama

after the 3Wayers kept telling us "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" and that lefties would lose an election, they've proven beyond all doubt that they'd rather have a Republican win than a Dem too far left of Francisco Franco

it's the ONLY way they can win elections !

I should have never opened this thread.....

It's only perpetuating a meme that I see is a myth until after Nov. 14th. If doubt does exist, why plant anymore doubt anywhere?

I don't fucking care what the NY times says or what Huff Post predicts and regurgitating it as real, followed by what sounds like a post November loss summary re-cap is crap. What, we're fucking giving up already, we've already lost? What the Hell!

The first thing I think of when I read this post and every response that perpetuates it's content is..."Vast Right Wing Conspiracy using their large well funded operation to put trolls galore on the internet in an effort to suppress voter turn out." I'm immediately suspicious of it, because it's defeatist and if we wish for any hope in winning, should be disregarded poste haste. No?

I don't know. If you're trying to piss people off like myself and get us fired up, it's working and hat's off to you....otherwise save it for after the election!

he's saying the excuses are being prepared for whatever losses we might have, or to proclaim that whatever wins occur happened IN SPITE OF whatever folks on the left did.

The reality, of course, is that lefties will, as they always do, vote in greater percentages than those who are less political and more wishy washy in the middle.

Corporatists depend on closely divided government, because "gridlock" is their excuse for being perpetually unable to respond to the will of voters. They can only keep enacting a vicious predatory corporate agenda if they can disguise it as "compromise" made necessary by the gridlock.

The irony is that the two corporate parties are in agreement about an agenda that neither side out in the country wants. They lie to both sides and tell each side that the others are the ones getting everything they want.

Both corporate parties and their propaganda machines will work hard to *ensure* continued closely divided government. If that means trying to dampen turnout by leveling unfounded smears against their own base, that's what they'll do.

They know that any party with strong majorities cannot continue to claim to be unable to respond to the will of the People.

The con game is very familiar by now:

Perhaps the administration is not really all that into having progressive majorities in Congress.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=337938

For so long we mysteriously fell short of Democratic votes for filibuster reform.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021809132

The Democratic Party’s deceitful game
http://www.salon.com/2010/02/23/democrats_34/

Washington DC is a racket

Our only hope is to get money out of politics so the Corporatists don't run the government.

For the life of me, in today's time, I don't see how it can be done.

If the politicians with the "D" after their name used the expression "middle class" or working class as often as they trot out their support for equal pay for women etc, then maybe more people would be turning out in November.

I plan on voting in November, but only because of a local issue that has not been endorsed by either party. My Blue Dawgie Congress critter makes me ill. I hate throwing my vote away to a third party person who cannot win, but then in my book, a Democrat should be and should talk and act like a Democrat if they want my vote. This person's attacks on Social Security definitely turned me off to him, and I have the feeling that as the Big Time Frackers wet their whistle on California farm land, we are in big trouble if either a Democrat or a Republican occupy the House - at least if it is a guy as Blue Dawg as the one that is running.

And of course, a lot of what the elections in California are about are how well connected you are to one Diane Feinstein. About the only person in the state's recent history who has never had to pay her any attention is Jerry Brown, but most people who would like to run for office do not come from the likes of his Big Time Political Family.

rhetorical tool in the toolbox. Republicans have been working overtime to overturn Roe v Wade via the back door, making it nearly impossible for most women to get legal abortions, and, at the same time, removing funding for all sorts of other women's healthcare provided by Planned Parenthood. There IS a Republican War on Women.

But it shouldn't be the only arrow in the Democratic quiver. Economic issues have been given a little lip service, but not pressed nearly hard enough.

Alison Grimes is ahead in Kentucky now, for one:

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/elections/kentucky/2014/10/06/mcconnell-grimes-bluegrass-poll-due-tonight/16798721/

And yes, believe me, the GOP is *desperate* to suppress Democratic turnout; one only needs to look at these stupid-ass Voter ID laws many Repugs have been pushing over these past couple of years.

Not just that one, but all of them.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2014/senate/ky/kentucky_senate_mcconnell_vs_grimes-3485.html

I've seen the polls, and I note that the poll previous by the same organization had McConnell up by two, before that, up by four. I look at all the polls just about every day. So does the NY Times, and Huffington Post, and Daily Kos. They all rate the odds of McConnell holding Kentucky as better than our chances of taking it away.

Or the Soppy Conservative Huffington Post?

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/elections/indiana/2014/09/14/grimes-might-need-campaign-reset-observers-say/15539285/

Huh. Strange. Well, at least it's from a newspaper instead of a soppy Daily Kos the apparently well known mouthpiece of RW propaganda.

Interestingly enough, Senator Landrieu is shaking up her campaign to try and eke out a win. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/08/mary-landrieu-bill-cassidy_n_5956078.html

Sorry, I don't have another link. Otherwise I would not use the Soppy Huffington Post.

As of now, Alison Grimes is pulling ahead of McConnell.....

If I ignore all the other polls. If I ignore sites like 538.

If I ignore the polls before, and after. If I ignore the other states in which Democratic Incumbents have already lost for all intents and purposes or are at serious risk of losing. If I try and celebrate the Democrats in the lead in New Hampshire, like Mike Brown was going to be a tough beat after crossing state lines to try and find somewhere he could get elected.

Look at those polls. Iowa is a big at risk state. While you're focused on one race, one state, and using it to extrapolate the entire control of the Senate, poorly as a matter of fact, there are a lot of Senate races we're in danger of losing. So what happens if we lose the others, and somehow through the auspices of a miracle, manage to win in Kentucky? We still lose the Senate. So someone else will be the Senate Majority Leader besides McConnell. Well, that will be great for us won't it?

All the money flowing to Grimes would be better served going to shore up the seats of Udall in Colorado, and Braley in Iowa. Because with those two we manage to keep control of the Senate, with Vice President Biden as the tie breaker presuming that Orman from Kansas doesn't jump to the Republican camp, a threat he's made before. How much would the Republicans give him to get control of the Senate? I'm betting they would give him a chairmanship of some committee or another, perhaps only vice chairmanship, but something really good where donations to his re-election campaign would be flooding in. I guess we could start a bidding war for the fine fellow from Kansas. What do you suggest we offer him to caucus with the Democrats?

If you want a third that I think we could win, then I'll throw that out there for the clear majority. Georgia, Michelle Nunn is way closer to winning than I think Grimes is. Especially since Grimes spends half her interviews refusing to say she's a Democrat who voted Democratic.

I suppose you could say that she's hoping to get the Racist vote, but do you think they're going to vote Democrat?

Her attempt to out-McConnell McConnell are not faring well here.
Her recent adds are anti-emigration, pro coal, anti Obama, and pro guns.
All appeals to voters that won't vote for her anyway.

Grimes is doing a great job alienating Blacks, Hispanics, and progressives in this state.
She isn't saying what she is for, a distinct problem with her election strategy.
Whoever her advisers are, suck, and should get into another line of work.

"Average families" include women as wage earners, often exclusively so. Equal pay is of course is a pocketbook issue- when you're underpaid by 30 fucking percent it's a big damn deal. So is reproductive health- having kids you can't afford or paying twice (with your labor and then again with your paycheck) for basic health care is a big fucking economic problem.

Kiss my progressive feminist ass if you think that's a niche issue, because it's not and you can't possibly think it is unless you're not entirely convinced that women are people who matter.

I have a problem with that being the one single issue we are campaigning on. I read an article which asserted that sixty percent of the ad buys by the Democratic Party involved the War on Women meme. That would be about appropriate, if it was the one issue facing this nation.

I categorized it as a Niche issue and clearly said that I didn't consider it unimportant, but that polling indicated it was not the most important issue according to respondents.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.aspx

I'm not making these things up. This is what people say is the most important issues facing the nation when they are asked.

Wage issues could cover a lot of territory, but even if we toss in minimum wage and unequal pay, 4% of the people said that it was the most important issue.

If you want to be elected, you have to embrace some issues that the public at large thinks is the most important. You have to embrace some of the populist idealism that resonates out there. By focusing on one issue, just one, all the others feel like they are being ignored. Now, how do you ask them to turn out and vote for the politician who is ignoring them?

Let me give you another niche example. Let's say I am a politician, and I'm running for office. Polling indicates that majorities support legalizing Marijuana. This wouldn't affect me, because I'm allergic to Marijuana. But I recognize that the majority would support it. So I support it to show them that I agree with the majority on the issue. It cost me nothing, gains me some tacit support and show the majority that I am in tune with their thinking on other issues. Gains, more support. Negative, the Conservatives who were not going to vote for me anyway, won't vote for me.

But if that is all I am running on, I'm screwed. Because the economy is being ignored, and that collectively is the largest single issue in the poll I posted above. I'm also not addressing other issues. I'm a single issue niche politician with my legalize weed platform. I'm going to lose the election. When the Democratic Party focus' on only one issue, they make themselves a single issue party, and that loses them votes. Additionally, the constant reiteration of the War on Women phrase causes the phrase to lose it's impact.

I'm not saying it's an issue we should ignore. I am saying it is an issue we should incorporate into a broader message. We aren't doing that, and we're suffering because of that. I hope that I have explained it better this time.

Nobody's running on the economy because the economy isn't good enough to run on. That's obvious.

We handed the economic issues to the Republicans. Over the last session of congress they have proudly announced they were opposing the "Job Killing Obamacare" and the "Job Killing Minimum wage hike". The Republicans noticed the polling, the same polling I provided, and coached their arguments to fit that concern of the people.

All the Democratic Party has done is trumpet the great economy, which it isn't, and publish articles talking about how awesome the economy is. It isn't awesome. The state of Homelessness in America has changed little from 2011 to 2013. http://www.endhomelessness.org/library/entry/the-state-of-homelessness-2013 That is with people living in storm sewers and a place called "the Jungle" in the heart of Silicone Valley. http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/08/11/san-jose-devises-plan-to-clean-up-sprawling-homeless-camp-in-silicon-valley/

As I mentioned above. Do you think that families struggling, even those with working women in them, believe the economy is doing fantastically record breakingly well? Because that's the the only economic statements the party is making. Instead of addressing the issues and the record 92 million people not in the workforce, all we do say is how awesome Wall Street is doing. Well, if the regular folks were invested in the stock market, that might matter.

My point is, and remains, that we need to address all the issues, not just one when we are asking for people to vote for us. If we can't address them all, and who can, we need to at least address several. Education, economy, health care, drug policy, police militarization, income gap, and the list goes on, and on, and on. If you want to run for office, pick five and come up with plans, and then propose the plans. What can the Republicans say then? Oh well, they want to do horrible things and take the tanks away from our police. A move that is supported by most of the people in other polling I might add. But we ignore the issue, like we ignore all the other issues, because we are afraid.

We're afraid that if we propose to end the militarization of police, we'll be labeled soft on crime. We're afraid if we propose to end the spying on the citizens by the collective lack of intelligence agencies, we'll be labeled soft on terror. We're afraid to believe the polling that shows that the majority want those changes, because they go against the conventional wisdom and experience. So we go with what we have left, and that just feels safer rather than addressing the incredibly high prison population.

We aren't willing to lead on the issues, so how can we honestly expect people to follow us to the polls and give us their support along with their vote?

Very few politicians on the national scene are willing to speak honestly about economic issues and how screwed the average American is. Pointing out that Dems are largely sidestepping an enormous issue is "bashing". Every time I see that, I think of dysfunctional families: the problem isn't that Dad's an alcoholic, the problem is that you told people that Dad's an alcoholic. Fuck that noise.

When Dems aren't even willing to speak honestly about a pressing issue--much less try to address it--they should be criticized, and failing to do so makes us look out of touch when we try to sell Dem candidates to our nonpolitical friends. If you give someone happy shiny talk when the world is blatantly not happy-shiny, you get written off as a propagandist and/or a fool.

Or call them. Why come on a discussion board, like many here do, and complain about them day in and day out? Do you think that kind of bashing the some do here really helps people?

The attitude that Dems are fragile flowers that can't withstand criticism is ludicrous and inherently disrespectful. Politicians aren't waifs who need to be sheltered.

In order to cover its tracks for potential future electoin loses?

I was under the impression that Conspiracy Theories like this were against the TOS.

A few people here laid the groundwork for a tough election night by saying liberal criticism would make Democratic voters stay home.

Today, we're facing another tough election. Having a ready made post disaster scapegoat is much easier than grappling with the idea our party needs to give voters actual motivation to support us.

And we kept Colorado blue. One of the few states to do so. We lost a lot of good progressives, Grayson, Feingold, but I don't recall the supposed "liberal critics" accepting the blame for those loses.

If people keep perpetuating the lie that there is nothing worth voting for, then people won't vote. Even the OP makes up nonsense about how the Democrats did nothing to bolster the economy. Oh wait, the Democrats lost the Congress in 2010 and have literally been unable to do anything since... strange how that works out.

What plan has been proposed to improve the economy? From Democrats own website.

The last update was on May 9th. MAY 9TH of this year.



That's the entire post for the entire month of May.

April, we celebrated equal pay day, and had another great slide for minimum wage.

That's it.

Well, let's look at the House Democrats, because perhaps they've done more than phone it in.

Er. Yeah.

So the House Democrats plan is to crank up the lower taxes on major manufacturing, read that to mean big business, so they might hire more people. I've heard that plan before, can anyone tell me what Republican offered that plan because his name (Romney) escapes me.

We got our asses kicked on Minimum wage because the CBO came back and put a spotlight on the Republican argument of the "job killing minimum wage" when the CBO said yes, 500,000 jobs would be lost. We just folded right then. That's the only economic proposal we've made all year. ALL BLOODY YEAR.

So help me out. What economic plans have Democrats put out that I haven't heard about. Because I'd love to read them. Providing that they are written somewhere other than the Republican Caucus meeting.

You need to remember this one salient fact. I'm not getting this from Rethug sites. This is literally the Democratic plans, or lack there of.

If you want to highlight Republican obstruction, you don't schedule a few token votes. If you want people to elect you, here's the key, you have to promise to keep working, even if you stand zero chance of getting it through the House. Because if you're not working, then all you can promise is more gridlock with nothing getting done. But if you're submitting proposals, drafting laws, and discussing those proposals when you go on the Sunday Talking Head shows, you're going to make them respond when they are asked what their plan is. Then they can either say we don't have one, or they can try and pull some crap out of their asses, while you have a binder full of proposals that you are happy to discuss.

But by doing nothing except complaining about the Republicans, you accomplish nothing. Not only do you get nothing done, which would have happened anyway, but you also lose the moral victory of making the Republicans oppose it. But it has to be a serious plan, and it has to be able to work. Which obviously goes without saying that tax cuts for big business obviously won't work, unless your economic stimulus plan is to help the bosses buy more expensive cars and houses.

Are you serious? All of that criticism for a party that must have the other side to pass anything of portent.

The Democrats have been trying to pass the American Jobs Act since 2012. It only goes forward significantly in committee, policy wonks trying to figure out what to do.

http://www.democraticwhip.gov/issues/make-it-america-113th-congress

The Democrats have been offering solutions, the Republicans have been blocking it at every turn. To absolve the Republicans is to carry water for right wing policies. Indeed, that's all they have, demographics are one way, progress is one way, to keep themselves relevant they must keep this idea of "government as a failure" in the mix and then come in with their wild eyed crazed Austrian economics that even Alan Greenspan admitted was wrong.

Now, I could do what you did, and post a wall of text, but I will refrain from posting the American Jobs Act in full. If you want to can read all about it.

But don't pretend for one damn instance it's all on the Democrats, it's purely due to Republican obstructionism: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/09/07/812251/republicans-blocked-jobs-act-one-year/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/opinion/krugman-obstruct-and-exploit.html

BTW, lower corporate taxes is a necessary solution, but it must come with closing the loopholes. This is not controversial at all, as the US has a higher rate than Germany, but we have far more loopholes, so even with the high rate, most large corporations don't pay anything or very little and can hoard their money overseas. Reduce it to Germany's rate, close the loopholes, that's not a gimmie to corporations. But buzzwords and talking points win over rational political discourse.

I linked to it, perhaps you missed the link. The first thing is a tax cut for big business. Big business already has a political party. We call them Republicans.

Nothing about tax credits for small business. Nothing about a lot of things that have been mentioned in the past.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/08/fact-sheet-american-jobs-act

It in fact targets only small businesses, unless you think $5 million payroll is a "big business" (that'd employ about 300 people at minimum wage, and that's not how business works either).