So...if the majority of americans oppose this war, and disapprove

of the direction we're heading, and disapprove of the current administration, then
WHY are many people telling us to become more "centrist" and supportive of the war in order to win elections?

going beyond which dog you have in the fight, what would be the point in diferentiating our candidate's position as the complete opposite of what most people want?

unless a minority position is the goal?

have lost their compass.

or right wing democrat, shouldn't even those people read the writing on the wall?
Why do they refuse to see it? It will only spell defeat if they do not heed.

why actively work towards defeat?

I write and support candidates who are progressive whenever I can, but there seems to be an attitude that you can't "win" unless you go after the whacko fundy vote or something. Like those people would ever vote for a "centrist" anyway.

moral and gut compass. We who disagree with this administration apparently are in an overwhelming majority now. It is time to change the agenda to one that has a point that our citizens can see--not an unwinnable war against--who was that enemy? We have a lot of crap to clean up and it isn't just the detritus of several hurricanes. We also need to start being truthful--even though it is difficult at times. We do not own the secret moral high ground.

see, in big national politics the stakes are very high. just as modern big time trial cases are manipulated by jury consultants, etc so it is that voting consultants know our patterns of behavior just as well as the product marketing geniuses that get Americans to buy so much shit.

Would be interesting to see the work product for some of these firms about what turns more voters on to being active vs. what turns them off.

I say there are THREE parties in our country that pull potential voters. DEMOCRAT, REPUBLICAN, and NO VOTE.

What causes people NOT to vote? If you can reduce the voting pool down to a manageable subset of Americans, you have a chance to shape things to hit only the interests and views of most adament voters.

The politics of this country is so jaded. Now it's about not only how to bring a percentage of people to your side but also how to turn off a significant percentage that would otherwise be a potent ally of your opponents.

Frankly, I think they're just another tool of the right-wing.

I'm not assuming they are really trying to help us, necessarily.
I think many ARE, at least believe they are...but in order to believe that, they have to completely ignore the will of the people.

I have yet to see it demonstrated as a winning strategy in real life. A lot of people watch CNN and take what they say is political wisdom at face value.

it's not always a matter of majority/minority support on each and every issue. in fact, politicians always look for opportunities to support a targetted issue that appeals to a particular minority, especially if the rest of the population doesn't much care one way or the other. sometimes this is called 'pork' or 'pandering', but in either case, it works.

in the case of hillary supporting the iraq war, despite the fact that the majority supports an exit, she nevertheless is figuring that supporting the war might pick up more votes than it costs.

how so? because many of the anti-war people will vote for her anyway because she has built up enough left-wing cred. she's trading in some of that lefty cred to pick up a few right-wing votes.

part of the calculus may include figuring that the iraq situation may be a non-issue by 2008, or she may be planning to support a withdrawal at a later date.

i'm not saying she's necessarily correct in her calculation, but i'm just pointing out that there is often political merit to taking the occassional minority position.

ok, what you are saying, essentially, is that she may be willing to blow off the majority in order to placate the minority, in hopes the majority will forgive her for doing so.

that implies extreme confidence in the ignorance of others...you know, those "leftys".

I predict the forgiveness is not going to be there if she continues down this path.

let's say, in a hillary vs. republican scenario, 30% of the population supports hillary strongly, and 10% support her mildly. the rest are undecided or against her.

she can trade in some of that enthusiastic support for more votes.

let's say 15% of the "strong" supporters move to "mild" support and 5% of the "mild" support move to undecided. BUT, she picks up 10% moving from undecided or against to "mild" support.

then she winds up with 15% strong support and 30% mild support.

so she's moved from 40% total support to 45% total support. the bulk of that support isn't as enthusiastic, but it's more in numbers, and that's how you want things to play out on election day.

the trick is in the timing, you usually want that enthusiasm in the core as long as possible, then flatten out (broaden) your support in the general campaign.



you are correct in that, if this is done too much, or incorrectly, then you lose you base and you're finished. but i have to assume that hillary is, at a minimum, getting some excellent strategic advice from bill....

balanced to-words the right. The American people clearly do not want to be sheep to be herded by Fascist leaders. The "Leadership" is a little less clear in its' intent.

The American people want:
Universal Health Care.
Quality Public Education
Full Employment at a living wage
Respect for the environment

The "Leadership" wants
to fawn over the corporate interests and get re elected.

We need to let them know they answer to us.

...you know, those who actually benefit from death and chaos, and they are afraid of biting that hands that feed them.

no matter who it is.
people seldom spend large sums on candidates if they aren't expecting something in return. The more the democratic party becomes beholden to corporations, the less difference there will be in how they vote on certain issues.

the so-called "centrists" want us to believe that without enough corporate funds, without enough pandering to fundamentalists, without enough bending of the knee to the current administration, there cannot be victory at the polls.

but I would suggest, that if that is what it takes to secure "victory", then we've already lost.

any lefty politician who wants to become a viable presidential contender needs to break out beyond the core of left wing support. politicians who can win solely with their core are a rarity (shrub being a notable exception, but this is not an option for the left at this time).

there are several ways to pick up votes from the swing voters and/or the republicans and also to depress the opposition's enthusiasm (thereby lowering their donations and turnout).

one technique is negative advertising, but it's rather early in the process for that (unless you have relentless control of the media, which again, the left does not).

another technique is adopting the occassional center or right-wing position. there is always a (hopefully) careful calculation that you've built up enough cred with your base so that they'll be annoyed but still support you. in other words, you hope you'll pick up more votes from the middle/right than you'll lose from your base.

all presidential candidates do this. the question is, how good are they at doing that calculation?

in hillary's case, i think she's right to pick the flag-burning thing and the iraq war as her right-wing stances. i think, given her situation, these are important topics to placate and assuage the red-state, patriotic middle. if she came out on the left side of both of these, she'd just solidify her image as hopelessly liberal. this would be fine for her position as senator of new york, but not for any presidential run.


personally, all the democrats are my dogs in this hunt. i may develop a preference in the course of time, but i think it's quite premature to be anything other than a strong supporter of whichever democrat becomes our nominee.

interesting word choice.

at any rate, I can see why your are saying what you are saying, but like I said in the OP, to CONTINUE to believe as you do, when all polls are showing a massive shift in voter attitudes towards the war, this administration, etc. Either means you discount or ignore what the voters want. In the long run, that's an untenable position.

You might also note that in these polls, currect democratic congresscritters fare EVEN worse than the republicans, mainly because they are implementing the very tactics "centrists' espouse.

democratic congresscritters fare worse (or barely better) than republicans for the simple reason that they're in the minority party and therefore are rather impotent. this has more to do with the way the banana republicans have shut out the democrats than anything else.

these same congresscritters, doing exactly the same thing, would have markedly higher numbers were they in the majority.

hey, personally, i'd love to see our democratic congresscritters tilting at windmills, but then, i'm way out there on the left and am not very representative of the country at large. i only tolerate the occasional centrist/right-wing position because i understand politics to be the art of compromise.

if i had my strategic druthers, i'd have democrats focusing on rallying the base at this stage and worrying about the move to the center after the nomination. in the meanwhile, they should only cater to the center/right in the name of avoiding mistakes that would haunt them in a general election.

the iraq war and the flag-burning thing both reasonably fall into that category, at least for hillary. she's been tarred as so liberal (not to mention evil) for so long, she's really got her work cut out for her appealing to the center/right. this argument doesn't hold as much for other candidates, particularly those who are less national figures and need to continue to build their respective bases. hillary already has an established base so she's in a bit of a different situation.

conservative.... Whether you realize it or not, you are perpetuating the bashing of liberals and the liberal agenda; with that kind of statement.

you will note from my post that i pointed out this this was the image hillary needs to fight.

face facts, it is.

i'm not perpetuating anything, i'm confronting it.

she can counter it in any number of ways, including a rousing defense of liberalism or repositioning herself as a moderate. she's apparently opting for the latter, and while it move her further from my own positions, i'm fine with her choice.

if you prefer to advocate a strategy of burying our heads in the sand, well, good luck with that.

Why draw a line down the middle and say "everyone over there is evil?"

Most people are against the war? Great! Draw your line between those who do and don't oppose. Do NOT draw it down the center, because if you do, you are slicing away some of your own SUPPORT.

Most disapprove of our nations direction? Slice away those who DO approve.

Most disapprove of this administration? Slice away the approvers.

In this way, your defined base is 55%, 61%, 67%, 83%.

Draw a line down the center and you'll never have more than 50%. NEVER.

the quote marks are to show that is an alleged term.
I really consider them right wing.

n/t usually = no text.

Took me a long time to figure that out. I thought for the longest time it meant "not" as in from Waynes World.

So, I guess this post is not n/t. :) Oh well.