Let's Get Real About the November Election

l Bernard Weiner, The Crisis Papers l

Precis: There's a self-defeating listlessness on the left about the upcoming midterm election, refusing to recognize the horrific consequences of a GOP victory. As frustrated as we may be at the Democrats, we must re-energize ourself to work for the defeat of the extremist Republicans. Not to do so is to commit political suicide.

I'm finding it difficult to believe that the following reminders are even needed but, given the volatile electoral situation we're facing in November, better to err on the side of common-sense. So here goes:

The Republicans are energized by their Tea Party base, which surveys have shown is composed mostly of veteran GOP ideologues of the FarRight, old John Birchers, nativists, militiamen, racists and voluntarily ignorant Know-Nothings. Thanks largely to the mainstream media's hyping of this "be-very-frightened" extreme-right coagulation -- led, as always, by the Republican network Fox, and some radio talk-show bloviators -- a small but significant number of otherwise unaffiliated but frustrated and angry citizens have been attracted to candidates backed by this Beck/Palin/Limbaugh-influenced movement.

The Tea Partiers have been able to boost a number of Republican primary candidates into victory: Rand Paul in Kentucky, Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, Sharron Angle in Nevada, Carl Paladino in New York, Joe Miller in Alaska, Marco Rubio in Florida, et al. But the real question is how those extremist candidates will do when outside the safe Republican box, facing ordinary, presumably more reflective voters in the November balloting.

The Democratic Party, per usual, is dazed and confused and overly timid. Wimpering, whining, and weak. Some Democrats are even urging their candidates to move rightward to try to capture some of the supposed Tea Party magic.

A number of key Democrats have professed glee to see the way-out-there, clearly deficient candidates put forth by the Republicans, aided by their Tea Party base. We'll walk all over them, these Dems suggest, since the traditional numbers are on our side and the voters, even if they're angry, aren't foolish enough to give George W. Bush and Dick Cheney a third term by sending the GOP back in charge of Congress. Especially not with candidates clearly afflicted with a bad case of The Crazy.

THE ENTHUSIASM GAP

Polls have suggested for many months now that the Republicans, smelling victory, are highly energized and will bring their troops to the polls in huge numbers in November. The progressive Democrats, suffering from disappointment in their party's leaders (especially in President Obama), are disspirited and may well keep their wallets in their pockets when it comes to political donations and may not even vote in November.

I share the disappointment, depression and rage at Obama and leading Democrats and the way they've wasted so many months of momentum while getting their act somewhat together. Yes, I fully realize that the previous administration handed Obama and the Democrats a stinking pile of crap to deal with as they headed out the White House door. Moreover, the Republicans have been thoroughly obstructionist from the git-go, which Obama pretended wasn't really happening for far too long. For sure, none of this made the Democrats' job any easier. But even keeping all this in mind, the Democrats, as usual, proved themselves to be easy to roll and impede, largely because they refused to stand up and fight for their principles.

So, if I'm so angry with and disappointed by the Democrats, what's the point of this little essay? Why not just sit on my hands on Election Day in November and thus help the Democratic Party leaders learn a painful lesson? Namely, that if they abandon their campaign promises, their ideals and their voting base, they will do so at their peril; write off the progressive left, as Obama and Co. have done on too many occasions, and they will suffer the consequences.

ALICE IN A POLITICAL WONDERLAND

But as much as part of me would love to see that lesson delivered, my common-sense side chimes in with a mighty chorus: When Rand Paul and Christine O'Donnell and Carl Paladino and Sharron Angle and the others are the new faces of the Republican Party, American democracy has fallen down Alice's rabbit-hole for real. For Democrats, for progressives, for anyone who cares about the viability of the centuries-old experiment that is our democratic republic, this is survival time.

If the Republicans take the House and Senate in November, or even just the House, the Dems are finished as an initiating force for the next several years, and the HardRight Republicans, who got us into much of this mess to begin with, will control the agenda. That agenda will not be pretty. Traditional conservative Republicans understand this, even BushCheney-type Republicans understand this. When Karl Rove and Alphonse d'Amato and Haley Barbour and Charles Krauthammer are the "voices of reason" here, you know we're in Alice's universe of strangeness.

Angry Democrats, moderate Republicans and independents: Please seriously consider the ramifications of what would happen if you enable the Republicans back into power. Do you want theocratic neanderthals in charge of our moral laws and school textbooks? You want unregulated greed-is-good industries and banks and insurance companies in charge of the economy and writing pollution legislation? You want nothing done on climate-change? You want creationism taught as science in schools? You want more and bigger wars? You want the New Deal and Great Society reforms eliminated? You want no more Social Security and Medicare? Etc. This would be the future for the next two or four or eight years if the Republicans were to take over Congress and, perhaps, the White House two years later. Remember, this is not the relatively "restrained" party of 2008 (I did say "relatively"!) but the extremist, reckless party of 2010.

WHAT IS AT STAKE

So, as sympathetic as I am to the anger and frustration from the left, I don't want to hear serious talk about not caring who wins in November, that there's "not a dime's worth of difference" between the Democrats and Republicans. On some meta-level about D.C. politics in general, maybe that's true, but in the real world in which most folks live every day, the metaphorical dime can make a HUGE difference in so many areas of civic life.

With Republicans in charge in Congress, you can kiss a whole lot of reforms and positive initiatives goodbye: no beginnings of an adequate, affordable health care system; no Social Security and no Medicare and a greatly reduced Medicaid; polluters in control of the nation's air and water; no firm oversight of insurance companies raising rates regularly and denying care to those who need it most; an unrestrained "free-market" economy heading us further into the pit of Depression#2, with even more millions of jobs lost; our children not getting an adequate education in the humanities and arts and sciences; more unwinnable wars of occupation, costing trillion$ that could be spent on domestic needs; a continued degradation of our nation's infrastructure and lack of adequate funds for key civic needs (water, police, firefighters, libraries, parks, etc.). And on and on.

Yes, Obama and the Democrats are a disappointment in so many ways. True, "the other guys are worse" is not a great platform for the Dems to run on, but when the Republicans have been so outfront about the damage they intend to do to the existing body politic and the mixed economy, it's not just that they are "worse than" the Democrats but that they would be a horrific catastrophe for the nation. And, because American economic and military policies so affect other countries, for the world as well.

We can't risk considering that a Republican victory "might not be so bad," that once they got back into power they'd be more amenable to compromise and civil debate. The Republicans have proven time and time again in the past 20 months that they have absolutely no interest in genuine compromise or civil discourse. Their only motivating goal is to return to power (and thus to control the economic/political System) by any means necessary.

GETTING DOWN TO WORK

Our job in the next six weeks is to hold our noses, if necessary, and work to defeat Republican candidates, especially the more extreme Senate and House candidates, by voting and working for Democrats.

Our moral imperative is to see to it that the Republicans don't get the chance to take America back to the 1890s. We need to open our wallets to the candidates running against Paul, Paladino, Angle, O'Donnell and the rest of the Know-Nothings. We need to get energized and volunteer to help good Democrats, stuff envelopes, make phone calls, walk the precincts, join a vibrant get-out-the-vote campaign, drive folks to the polls on November 2, etc. etc.

We have no realistic alternative. This year, there is no viable third party from the left. If we remain listless in our opposition to the extreme politics being practiced by the GOP, and refuse to crank up our energy and commitment to the cause, the consequences will be horrendous, and we'll kick ourselves later. By focusing on punishing the weak, centrist-leaning Democrats, we would be committing a kind of political suicide.

Right now, at this moment, we progressives and moderates are the bulwark of democracy. We have a Constitution and country to defend. We can continue working for serious reform of the Democratic Party after we keep the dangerous, reckless Republicans away from the levers of power on November 2nd.

More purity later, victory now. Onward! # -- BW

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I'll be voting for Democrats right down the line. Where I am, we have very good ones.

.........in the movie 1984.

article urging people to donate money and time to Feingold's campaign!

Read Greenwald's article and interview.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9157903

The Anti-Reagan way to do politics.

:kick:

As I told some people yesterday: I want to work for a Progressive takeover of the Democratic Party; but, the immediate goal is to retain Democratic control of Congress.

By the way, those people were the group I went out canvassing with yesterday. I'm alternating between phonebanking and canvassing for Robin Carnahan and the Democratic party.

Go ahead and bitch; that's your God-given privilege. But, get off your ass and do something to keep these looneys from gaining control of Congress.

...weak Democrats, but where are we progressives? Why aren't we in the streets and on the Washington Mall?

Why aren't we clever enough to create a narrative that would force the media to deal with us?

We too are passive and too dependent on leadership from the top or strokes from a hostile press.

What will get US off our asses?

Thanks for your article. Agreed.

And how do we make them? What will happen if once again, everyone holds their noses just to keep the lunatics on the right from winning? Same old 'we can't get the votes' arguments on major issues?

How come even in the minority, Republicans can hold up issues like DADT? THAT is the question. WE did the work. You claim it's 'easy to blame Obama and Weak Democrats'. Who SHOULD we blame? It's only two years since we handed them the WH and both houses of Congress. And what did they do with that? What will they do if we hand it to them again?

This game is getting very old. Good Democrats will get support in November. The difference this time will be that Progressives will NOT go out and hold their noses to vote for the likes of Rino, Blanche Lincoln. Somewhere along the line this party has to learn that when the people put them in power they expect them to work for THEM, not for Wall St.

Out with Blue Dogs and DLCers. A pretend Democrat is no better than a Republican. And Republicans seem to be able to wield power even in the minority. Dems have nothing but excuses even in the Majority.

If the repukes gain control in November, we can kiss this country good bye.

I have a great local Dem to vote for, 2 Dem MI Supreme Court Candidates, and an unbeatable really awful GOOPer - Dave Camp for Congress. For the first time evah, 3rd party candidates will get most of the rest of my votes. This nose was made for walkin'

We could find ourselves with a spiraling out of control housing crisis with millions in danger of losing their homes.

We could find ourselves with the top Treasury official positions stacked with Wall Street cronies.

We could find ourselves with dangerously high levels of unemployment - as bad as the Bush years.

We could find ourselves in middle east conflict with no definite end in sight and a hundred thousand troops in harms way.

We could find ourselves being mocked and disregarded by White house officials with bad attitudes.

We could find ourselves without jobs or healthcare choices.

We could find the middle class being thrown under the bus for the benefit of Banksters and Corporatists.

We could find ourselves back to an era of Big Oil Drilling - the repeal of decades old off shore drilling prohibitions and all the disaster that may come of that.

We CAN'T let people like this gain or keep control !!

That is scary.We connot let that happen.Vote for change.......

I think we're both agreed that we need to keep people who would do things like that OUT of office.

That's what going to happen if the "Jersey Shore" reject (Boehner) & Co. win in November. Oh, and by the way, you can add "endless investigations" and impeachment to that list as well.

is already a reality.

Read it again slowly. It's all reality now.

marking because I was looking at the polls today and Ineed to relook at them

BTW- we are killing them in $

Up to that point, despite Rahm's disdain for all things liberal, and Obama's love of RepubliCON ideas, I was going to hold my nose and vote Democratic. Then came Gibbs.

Then he put out a follow up to his snarky comment about how we liberals have no choice but to vote for the rude idiots who are trashing us. Never once did he apologize, but yet they apologize to the RepubliCONS regularly.

Guess what? I do have a choice. I can stay home.

Because Gibbs wouldn't have said all that if he wasn't getting support from this administration to express his disdain. They think it is the middle of the road, and independents that got them elected. Fine, then go do it without me.

You know, the bushes never let a day go by that they didn't trash a liberal. It riled me up so much that I ensure I voted against all things RepubliCON. But now that my own party is doing the same thing to me. It riles me up to make sure I don't vote for them either.

Gibbs and the Democratic party did this to themselves.

Good luck in the elections with your independent voters.

I may vote, I may not, I don't know at this point. I do know that I will not donate a penny to the DNC and it's candidates. I may send some to individual campaigns like Kucinich or Grayson, but that remains to be seen.

has done for as many people as was able to. Listen to the scum and what they believe and then how it will affect you. Stop whining and get to work helping us to keep the senate and house. It will get better.

"Democrats are even urging their candidates to move rightward to try to capture some of the supposed Tea Party magic."

So there you have it folks. You see, it really isn't about having a specific stand on issues that voters can judge them by to determine if you are worthy of vote. Apparently, to be a successful politician it is important to have views that are fluid enough as to be steered by polling. Does it look like a Republican might beat you in the general? Simple, move right...sacrifice your personal views and adopt whatever position you and the party feel is necessary to prevail. It's all about being re-elected, not about being true to your convictions. Apparently, being a politician and having solid convictions that your voters can trust and believe in are like trying to mix oil and water. To be honest, there are a small handfull of Dems, like Kucinich, who we can depend on. However, the larger part of them. The DLC New Dem part. Forget-about-it, it's all about being reelected, and continued feeding from the taxpayer trough alongside your DC brethren whose views, like yours, can be bought by the highest bidder.

It's quite easy to see why "purity" is questioned by the DLC establishment. Afterall, they have none.

as long as we vote for AnyDemTM to "keep Congress out of the crazies' hands," there will NEVER be a progressive resurgence within the Dem party

calls to "primary when possible, and then vote blindly" become mere mockery when the Establishment candidate has all the money and WH trickery on its side (just ask Romanoff, Halter, Sestak, Winograd, even Lamont). maybe the progressives aren't "aggressive" enough since 2006/08--or maybe the Wise Leadership has been blocking their every move.

we've been told that our brand of Shit Sandwich is good because you have "no realistic alternative" for four election cycles; we've been told that we can't let reactionaries take over because they'll pass reactionary policies--so we've had reactionary policies coming from a Dem Congress for 4 years and a Dem WH for 2, and all the while they mewl about how the mean ol' crazy GOP is in the way. sometimes we're told the policies are the best we can get given the situation, or are even progressive--though mandates, coddling insurers, pharma, and warmongers, Forever War, and letting torturers off the hook isn't all that progressive.

some will point out that our brand of Shit Sandwich is better because it has corn in it while the Enemy of All Mankind's brand is 100% excreta--but I notice few lauding Bush as the greatest President EVAR because he created the No-Call List and only invaded 2 countries instead of Cheney's 4-6 (after all, why harp on the negatives of 2001-08? there was progressive policy! why can't you lay off Bush!).

had there been a progressive movement 2008-10, had the WH and Congress bothered to pass--or even fight for--progressive bills, instead of making backroom deals with the granny-killer industries, Teabag anger would look sillier and even more aimless than it currently looks like, and approval ratings would be higher. as Hightower says, polls stay up because of good policy, not bad policy with good publicity (or the mere fact of being in the right party)

"this is survival time"

Fucking A, now is not the time for some sort of ideological internal battle on the left. The right is going through one right now and if we can maintain unity they will self-destruct at our feet. This article says everything I could want to say right now. I am just as pissed at Obama as the next guy but now is not the fucking time for upheaval, this is reality and if we fuck this election up we will pay for it for years. People really need to open their eyes and see the big picture here, our democracy is at stake.