This...This is what the election is about.

Note: I am not committed to ANY candidate, as of yet. I have plenty of time left to make up my mind.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-jobs29dec29,1,6261515.story?coll=la-home-business

While you all snipe at each other with your nasty comments and inside baseball, something just a little more important is taking place out there:

9.8% of the working-age citizens of the US are out of work. The jobs are not being created.

A war. This unemployment. The erosion of The Bill of Rights. I can go on. You know the litany.

As you go on your merry ways, eviscerating each other for sport, I sure do hope that you remember those approx. (?. Lots) million out-of-work souls who need a Democratic Candidate to win in 2K4. I really do hope you remember that fact. Because I am not entirely convinced that some of you do remember that fact. Far too many for my taste, actually.

I really fear the formation of the circular firing squad. Some of you are having far too much fun at the expense of your fellow Dems.

Straight from my heart.

this is democracy in action

a mosh pit of passionate opinion

we're deciding who's best to run right now

check back a bit later

:)

We may be squabbling but that's waht it is all about at this stage. Laugh a little.

The fight is not here yet.

Appall me. I posted this because I sense there is a prize that is not being eyed.

It has made me wonder where our focus is with all this infighting. Hopefully when one candidate shows themselves to be the "one" we will begin to gather around them and start to focus on those issues which will resonate with the population at large to defeat *.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Thanks for the welcome newyawker99. Just trying to keep you admin folk on my good side ;-). Too any of you who might be looking around here this evening HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

:beer: :hi:

I agree wholeheartedly. Debate and argument are a necessary part of the primary process, but these personal attacks are nauseating and self defeating.

Thanks for reminding everyone.

:pals:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39768-2003Dec29.html

"National security and economic security are the touchstones of the election," he said in the interview after a rally Monday in Green Bay, Wis. "I think the president has been fairly reckless in just about every area I can think of."

snip

As he traveled across the Midwest, Dean hit familiar themes but with the fresh twist that they fall under the broader rubric of a safety and security.

On domestic policy, Dean said the current $500 billion deficit and losses of nearly 3 million jobs have created widespread economic insecurity. If elected, he promised to raise the national minimum wage to $7 per hour, up from $5.15.

"Our philosophy is give the working people a little more money and they might be able to go down and spend something on Main Street," he told the audience of labor and African American activists here in Detroit.

Dean?

Only Dean?

Sharpton and Kucincich never once mentioned it?

Clark, Kerry, and Edwards have been ignoring it?

Gebhart completely lost his understanding of labor issues?

Leiberman and Braun just kind of forgot about it?

You don't get it, people-- THIS is the problem.

Someone starts a unity thread and and someone else has to turn it into a candidate thread.

Pro or con, it makes no difference.

WE KNOW DEAN HAS BEEN TALKING ABOUT THIS. THEY ALL HAVE.

The point here is that we have to get ONE of them into the White House.

Any of them are electable... we need to get one of our great candidates into office.

But you have to remember Dean Underground rules, it's not an issue until Dean talks about it.

:P

TWL

Same old same old.

which is a surefire winning issue . . . soccer moms and NASCAR dads have sons and daughters at or approaching draft age . . . my guess is they'd just as soon their offspring not become cannon fodder for Bush and his oil cronies . . . if the Democrats don't make this a HUGE issue, they're nuts . . .

Just couldn't take the lack of vision and the attacks you mention.

Oh well, such is life.

should be about issues and character.

This is just practice... wait til the fall when we all go out and get ahold of the folks we completely disagree with.

Welcome to DU! :hi:

And that includes persons no longer collecting unemployment benefits (per some government agent I saw on C-Span).

Please correct me if I'm wrong. But we Dems had better be able to address the unemployment issue correctly, if we are to win. I think that's why the candidates don't refer to the percentage of unemployed, but rather say things like, "The first President in 20 years to lose jobs during his term," and "A reduction of 3 million jobs in three years." Because the rate of unemployment was lower under Clinton, but 6% is average for the country, usually.

Like I say, please correct me if I'm wrong. But this is the info I have gleaned from various talking heads & media articles.

As she struggles to get $$ from relatives to pay her bills. Becomes disheartened to learn that there is little help from the government for someone in her situation. Is hospitalized for serious ailment, at government cost (thank goodness), but soon to be discharged and put out on the street on her own, with no way to buy medicine for the ailment (government does not help with that).

No, I do not forget. And that's why I'm a Democrat. While the Republicans say things like, "Almost everyone who wants a job has one." (really, I heard Cheney's wife on C-Span say that! Implying that the rest are goof-offs, as if a couple hundred dollars a week is any sort of substitute for a paying job, and as if a benefit that runs out in a few weeks is any help in this economy!) And, "Losing a job is no longer the end-all that it once was, like during the depression." I'm paraphrasing, but that's what the government loony bird I saw on C-Span said.

No, I do not forget.