STOP IT...STOP FIGHTING EACH OTHER FIGHT AGAINST THE REPUKES

am so tired of all these "I won't support...."

I will support any and all of these guys and will NEVER EVER VOTE REUPKE

you can't tell me that you will vote otherwise if one of these people runs.


If not, we end up with JEB or Condi or Brownback or Rudi or someone else equally depressing.



and you all know voting for a 3rd party just puts another idiot in the WH

I'm all for a spirited primary election. But after that, get on the goddamn bus.

get the Chamber of Commerce ass weasels out of the Democratic Party who see war and neoliberalism as a way to fill their pockets as much as GOP does.

If you read much on the DLC or the history of the hollowing out of labor in Britain and New Zealand, business interests figured out they couldn't win with a straight up, obvious privatize and deregulate everything conservative party, so they nurtured the rise of a business oriented faction in the left party to the point that a lot in labor are as frustrated with Tony Blair as we are with pro-Bush Dems like Lieberman, and in New Zealand, progressives actually had to split off because the business branch was so entrenched and started to dismantle their social safety net and education system as is happening here.

I don't give a fuck about the labels. This isn't a football game where we should cheer for everyone with a D on their jersey.

If someone isn't looking out for me, I want them out of office.

for public financing of campaigns and even those who crafted the Clean Elections bill?

Interesting approach.

In your quest to attack Kerry, you disregard the actual facts surrounding his record - including the FACT that, contrary to what many believe he is against corporate pac money, and has advocated for public financing of campaigns since 1985 and he wrote the Clean Elections bill and submitted it along with Wellstone in 1997.

Since then, some states have adapted that Clean Elections bill for their own state elections.

You rail against corporate DLCers yet at the same time target one of the FEW lawmakers who actually tried to do something about the corporate influence on government.

I'm only voting for Liberals now.

Don't blame me, blame incumbent Dems. I'm not supporting surrender-monkeys anymore.

cause if we don't unify that is what we will get

And I will fight like hell for Gore till the bitter end.

Dems some reasons to like her and get off the fucking Joementum DLC bus.

I'm not holding my breath on Hillary

So what you are saying is that Democrats can't win unless they run like Republicans?

Screw that. What's the point of getting active in politics if your party capitulates at every opportunity?

I'm done being scared of the boogie-man. I'm only voting for Liberals now. End of story.

If a Dem candidate gets nominated that I can't support, I'm going Green. At least Greens fight back.

I'll take a break from DU for a few months, and when the DINO loses (again), I'll be here to say I told you so.

The only wasted vote is the one for a surrender-monkey.

Pray tell what results have the Green party gotten in the last six years?

At least a Green has nothing to be ashamed of right now. The current batch of Dems are struggling to even support a censure resolution.

We blocked the Bolton nomination, passed anti-torture legislation, managed to block some of Bush's judges and until recently have blocked drilling in ANWR. We've also opened debate on a timetable to get out of Iraq, which is a discussion Bush evidently doesn't want to have.

And the Greens?

Just re-read what you wrote.

It's embarrassing.

"Ermmm... we blocked Bolton... but he's still at the UN. We whined loudly about torture... but we helped pass a bill that prevents torture victims from suing the govt. Bush's judges, for the most part, got confirmed.

Oh, and we started asking about a timetable.

oooohhhhh! The daring demands of the Dems is soooooooo impressive. I got a head-rush!

If you want to keep wasting your vote for these clowns, go for it. I'm only supporting Liberals.

That's all I'm sayin'.

Brainshrub no longer votes for surrender-monkeys.

If the Democrats manage to put up one half of one accomplishment, that's still more than the Greens have contributed.

You still haven't refuted that. Besides, without being in control of either house, what do you expect the Democrats to do, eh?

By voting from a space of fear, the Greens are not given a chance. By voting for DINOS, you lock people who deserve to be in the congress out.

Greens don't get to pass legislation because of people who think it's more imporatnt to vote for appeasers than fighters.

That's all I'm saying.

this is where it is going

Is to vote from a space of fear.

As long as you are to scared for the right candidate, you are playing into the hands of the Republicans.

All I'm saying is that if the public wants to elect Jeb, my vote isn't going to make much of a difference. Therefore, I might as well throw my support behind someone who will fight when the cookies are on the table.

:cry:

:)

we also need Democrats who actually vote for our interests.

surrendered.

they did what they thought was best given the circumstance

what we need to do is fight against the culture of corruption and against diebold

it is happening slowly we can't get distracted

reps. Here in California, we have a couple in our overwhelmingly Democratic legislature who take the issue seriously, but the majority don't take it seriously enough.

They let the GOP drive our secretary of state out of office after he caught Diebold red-handed swapping in uncertified software. Then they let Arnold Schwarzenegger appoint his replacement who has been quietly looking for ways to recertify Diebold ever since--which he just recently did in spite of testing he ordered not being done yet.

It was left to activists to sue the Secretary of State and treat him like the partisan shill he is.

Democrats can say that the press isn't giving them a fair shake, but they are free to post this stuff on their websites, and I don't see it there. I usually have to call their offices to find out where they stand on issues like this.

Stronger? Smarter? More bold? More principled?

Hell yes!

Will I throw my hands up in horror because some Dem candidate is to the right of me, or shows insufficient backbone (compared to me f'rinstance, who has never had to face reelection)?

Hell no!

Do I intend to let the criminal GOP another two-year cycle to cornhole this country and the world because the opposition isn't pure enough?

Hell frakkin' no!

--And there's a pretty direct solution to the "Dems ain't good enough" problem: Run for office! Start small where you don't have to be a zillionaire (and can influence day-to-day things that are probably more immediate than the Big Issues) and work your way up.

And in the meantime -- don't let the bastards win again. Do you really want to see McCain in the White House in January 2009?

on TV, or anywhere for that matter. When you think about how worser it could get...
I will violently hurl,:puke: then move to Slovakia. (Not really, but it helps.)

Pretty country in places, nice enough people, one-on-one -- but profoundly fucked otherwise. Let's try to fix things here.

Can a V-chip filter out specific people?

I am going to pull this car over RIGHT NOW...

:)

:spray:

vote for whoever supports your message. If they don't have a message for you then don't encourage them to continue to be stupid and arrogant by saying you'll give them your vote no matter what.

Where is your voice? How will the people who are supposed to REPRESENT us know what we want? Hey I'll just give you my vote any way no matter what?

I don't think so.

I won't vote republican, but I will hold my vote if a democrat comes along who says they'd vote for the FMA. And I won't give money to a party who doesn't see anything wrong with a candidate like that.

Don't take my vote for granted. That's all.

This subject makes me nuts

And how about a message that says "I'll help prevent the destruction of this country at the hands of out-of-control Republicans"?

--Would that message be compelling enough, even if you disagreed with the candidate on other issues?

Like everyone else, I have my hot button issues, abortion being one of them, and a prime reason I'm very uneasy with Casey in Pennsylvania. But then I look at the alternative, and I say: "If I voted in Pennsylvania, I'd have to vote for Casey."

I'm afraid that things have deteriorated so far in this country that simple unadulterated power -- as in the power of congress and the executive -- trumps most policy disagreements.

I don't like it, but then again, in my wildest imagination I never expected the Bush years to be this bad.

or your family.

Mine do. That's the difference. Don't take my vote for granted.

the FMA is the Federal Marriage Amendment, and laws like it.

My family is not a legal family. I can't insure my partner. My kids can be taken from me at a traffic stop in Oklahoma. I can potentially be denied a mortgage, visitation rights, power of attorney, and the right to dispose of my own property as I see fit to a designated legal heir, because my life partner is not considered next of kin without a marriage certificate. If the republican party and some democrats have their way, I wouldn't be able to adopt my partner's children and they would be considered legal strangers.

That's what's at stake. We're fed up. We're 15% of the vote. Address our issues. It's not "hot button" - it's first and foremost.

fuck out of there? If you do, my sympathies, but if you don't, why not just leave. Not all of American is like Oklahoma. There are states that respect their gay and lesbian citizens and codify that respect in the legal system.

(oh boy this is funny, Cali, you crazy ;))

However, I will not be chased out of my home. If we don't fight, then who will? I do have resources, and that is exactly why I can afford to stay and fight.

If we left everytime we disagreed with the majority I would have been gone from DU after my second post; it's not just "fighting", but building collaboration and informed consensus that's important too, and I take away lessons as well.

my post was stupid, but when I read your post about the inequities and indignities that you and your partner and children endure, my blood boiled. I suppose I have a sort of insulated blue state mentality.

Any Dem that can't 1) successfully stand on principle in opposition or at least 2) avoid frightening the Mrs. Grundy's by eliding the issue (and let's be real -- there's lots of Mrs. Grundy's out there), is too stupid/unskilled/rightist to be considered.

For me, the issue that comes closest is abortion -- although it has a much lesser likelihood of getting in my face than the FMA gets in yours. But it forces me to considere an unpleasant conflict: Will I stay away from the polls because a Dem holds a position I oppose, knowing that doing so makes it more likely that a demonstrably evil person (who holds MANY positions I oppose/abhor) is more likely to be elected? Or since my vote is, all by itself, not that significant, what sort of support can I give when a Dem candidate holds this position?

On balance, the Republicans are SO bad -- and Bush so much worse than I could ever have expected him to be -- that I'm willing to swallow a lot just to disrupt their power base.

I've lived in Oklahoma most of my life & I've never heard of such a thing happening. Under which law can your kids be taken from you at a traffic stop?

or my adoptive rights and if they aren't required to recognize a civil union or it's concomittant rights from any other state, then they can claim that children traveling with me are not legally mine, and take them into child custody, just because they can no matter how legal it is in any other state.

Just the same way they can claim that my life partner is not a legal heir and give my estate to my second cousin three times removed because he's "next of kin".

Oklahoma is one of those weird places where it's okay to be gay, just not in a relationship, or with a contract that approximates or confers the benefits of marriage, or with kids.

One day there will be a fine for dems that decide to change their title to repuke once they have my vote. FINE THEM and cut out the bad fat.!

but we must fight to get the repukes out of office and expose their culture of corruption

that should be our focus

not dissing all the dems we think aren't living up to our full expectations...

exception Joe Lieberman...he has already shown his true repuke nature

after his or her name on the ballot.

That means no conservatives and above all, no ANTI WOMAN candidates.

Casey backers can go piss up a rope.

Sorry, my nose is plumb worn out voting for the "not as bad" candidates that are foisted on us by the "not as bad" bosses and moneybags that run the party.

And your drawers down for the forcible cornholing the Republicans are planning to administer to you.

Hmmmm. Doesn't work for me. I want to improve things here, not in Utopia next door.

When you bend over to receive it from the oligarchy.

I've been SCREAMING this for here for YEARS.

Actually it's one of the rules that once a Democratic Candidate is selected, either back them or shut up.

HOWEVER...

Getting Democrats together on one candidate makes herding cats look like cake.

Roy Rogers once said when asked if he was part of an orginized political party, "Nope, I am a Democrat"

At this point I will vote for ANY D on the ballot...

We do this shit all the time, "Well I like Bob Smith's stance on abortion, taxes, hunting, the courts, the war, social security and gay rights, but I can not support him because of his stance on pot, vote Nater!!"

This crap is getting us killed. If it is a D it's for me!

and what if Lieberman changes to GOP?

He's the clearest example of the problem of pretending all Democrats are the same.

:hi:

I can't vote for, nor support many Democrats. For example, if Zell Miller was running for office, I could not support him either financially, nor with my vote. While that may seem an asinine example, is it really all that different?

For example, let's fast forward and looking through our Crystal Ball imagine it's 2008, and we have a Presidential Election in the works. The REpugniks, whom I despise, are running Rudy, and we are running as conservative a candidate we can because we have again been fooled into picking a candidate approved by the Right Wing Media. Let's say we are running....Bill Nelson, Democratic Senator from Florida. Unlikely I agree, however that is a perfect example of a Democrat I can't support. Frankly, there would be no difference between Nelson and Rudy. Rudy has at least been consistently Pro Choice while Bill Nelson hasn't been consistently anything other than a lap dog for the Repugniks.

Our party is running to the right, no longer spotlighted by our beliefs. We are now standing in the shadow of the REpugniks, and it's hard to stand in the shadow of evil and explain how we are different.

Earlier this week, we wanted to cheer the announcement from Harry Reid that Bush's policies were "incompetent" yet our cheers were muted, because WE know how Reid voted. We KNOW that Reid voted for the PATRIOT ACT. WE Know that Reid has voted to implement those same "incompetent" policies. Now, I wonder why WE have trouble supporting Reid?

Party loyalty is indeed an important trait in those among us with Activism running in our veins. Party loyalty certainly is desired if we are to win control of those institutions that we bemoan having in the hands of the Repugniks. However what will we do if or when we win?

So far, our plan seems to be we'll out conservative the repugniks. Not exactly a battle plan we can hold up and get excited about. We are still waiting for someone to propose a Resolution or anything calling on the end of the illegal domestic spying. The only thing we have seen action wise is proposals to make the program legal. So King George overstepped his bounds, and we are going to draw now boundary lines to contain him?

It's hard to support your party when your party is actively working to abandon those beliefs and ideals you hold dear. It's harder to get excited about candidates when they are saying exactly what Bush and the Repugniks are saying. It's harder to get excited when your representatives vote WITH BUSH and his "Incompetent" policies about as regularly as the Repugniks.

Loyalty to your party is important, however the party must be loyal to something other than corporate interests and a doomed plan to try and be MORE CONSERVATIVE than the most fundamental Repugnik.

Democrats helped vote for an Abortion BAN. If our party isn't at least Pro Choice, do we have any issue we define ourselves by anymore? Is the only defining unifying issue we have left "we want to be elected"?

You'll never find a candidate anywhere good enough for everyone here.

better than what we have.


Once we get the culture of corruption out, then we can get a leg to stand on and then make real changes!!

We are going to throw the Corrupt Repugnik Corporate Whores out of office, and instead put in Corrupt DINO Corporate Whores in office to enact change?

Here is a slight variation of that idea. Throw the Corrupt Corporate Whores out of office, and instead push a large scale progressive agenda. Your technique takes 20 years to start to roll back the civil rights violations we have suffered under Bushco, and enabled by the DINO corporate whores.

defense: we aren't as bad as Saddam. He was much worse. Over time, that defense got thinner and thinner.

Saying DLCers will be better than GOP is true. But since they seem to like the same foreign policy and economic agenda, and clearly support that part of what Bush is doing, the same could happen over time. DLCers might not threaten us with terrorist attacks and call us traitors, but our income would still decline, jobs would go overseas, corporations would right our trade agreements, and when an oil company or bank calls up and asks for a military action in Iran or Haiti or Venezuela, they will say "yes, sir."

It will be death by starvation instead of the GOP bullet to the head.

get your facts straight. Disenfrachisement of the poorest and most disadvantaged which continues to this day means ONE MILLION BLACK VOTERS DIDN'T COUNT. Voting irregularities or as I would say massive and systematic electoral fraud by republicans was widespread.

They could stuff to their heart's content and it would be an OBVIOUS coup.

The problem is non-voting. If EVERY Democrat voted, the LANDSLIDE would be impossible to stuff. As it is, we get "...if THEY aren't for___then I'm not voting!"

What petulant bullshit.

I am a SOCIALIST. I have been one since I was 18. That's 35+ years. How many Socialists you seen elected?

I want Universal Healthcare
I want Pro Choice
I want Fair Wages
I want Progressive Taxation

YADAYADAYDA

I'll SETTLE for GETTING THE GOD DAMNED REPUKES OUT OF POWER. And if we ALL voted, this would be cake.

It is almost certainly the case that if Ralph Nader hadn't run in 2000, Gore would have won. There are many other factors for which the same can be said, some of which contributed more strongly, but the fact remains that if everything else had been equal and Nader had backed Gore, Bush would never have been president.

Democrats certainly need to start fighting against the Repukes, but I think a degree of infighting is not merely acceptable but desirable.

I think the dividing line is that criticising one another is fine, provided than we're (or you're, to be technically accurate - I'm Enlish, so my affiliation is Labour, not Democratic) willing to unite when faced with a common enemy and work to make the Democratic candidate win, even if they're not your first choice. Saying "I don't want X to be our candidate is fine"; saying "If X is the Democratic candidate I won't vote for them" isn't.

There's a clear line, I think, between Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller. Both disagree with many Democrats on many issues, but Lieberman is still working to get the Democrats into office, and Miller isn't. The former is acceptable, the latter isn't, I think.

However I would take issue with that.

It takes sixty votes to get Cloture on most measures in the Senate, in other words to bring it to a vote. Issues like Bankruptcy Reform for example. If LIEberman and other DINO's, four others to be exact, join the Repugniks, and vote for Cloture, and issue we could STOP and keep from becoming law is passed and we allow the evil to become reality.

Alito and Roberts were good examples of that, yet there are others. Reid says he will filibuster, and block any attempts to punish the Undocumented Immigrants through the Senate. Yet, his Filibuster is shot to hell if Five Democrats abandon ship, LIEberman, the Nelsons, and three others, we can probably guess who else, they are the usual suspects so to speak.

How is our party served when the elected officials abandon the party? How is LIEberman any different than Miller when he enables the Repugnik abuses to our civil liberties? How is Senator Reid any different than Frist when he joins calls to make the Illegal Wiretapping legal?

Vee haf vays of guaranteeing your cooperation een zis matter...

Not exactly a great campaign slogan, perhaps we should consider a different message for this election. Something like, Vote Democrat, and get Liberties. Vote Repugnik, and get Fascisim.

.....doing what it takes to get rid of the reasons for their complaints.:banghead:

STOP IT...STOP FIGHTING EACH OTHER FIGHT AGAINST THE REPUKES

I am so tired of all these "I won't support...." I will support any and all of these guys and will NEVER EVER VOTE REUPKE. you can't tell me that you will vote otherwise if one of these people runs. If not, we end up with JEB or Condi or Brownback or Rudi or someone else equally depressing. and you all know voting for a 3rd party just puts another idiot in the WH...

You know what?

I'm not worried.

Why?

Because you see this kind of noise on this forum all the time. There's no sense trying to stop it, thwart it, derail it or scold it. It has always happened, and will always happen. Three things to bear in mind:

1. This is a web forum filled with anonymous people, many of whom come here to vent. That dynamic will always lead to passionate declarations which have as much substance as smoke.

2. 99% of the people here who declare they will never vote for X or Y will, in fact, fote for X or Y when the chips are down in '06 and '08. Why? Because they have brains in their head. They will look at the GOP alternative and do the smart thing. If I had a nickel for everyone who said "I'll never vote for Kerry!" in the run-up to '04, I'd have a roomful of nickels. If I had another nickel for every person who said that, and then wound up voting Kerry in '04, I'd have half the nickels in the world. Again, see #1 above re: venting. This is not "taking the grassroots for granted." This is knowledge, based upon experience, that the grassroots will do the right thing when the chips are down, after they have fought for what they believe in during the primaries and made sure their 2 cents are part of the debate.

3. The 1% who say this kind of stuff and follow through are to be ignored. They represent the main reason why we find so many others lamenting the fact that our Dem leaders don't follow our wishes. Why don't they? Because that 1% represents the single most unreliable voting bloc in the country. One whiff of anything other than simon-purity, and that 1% will bolt. No politician or candidate with a brain in their head would depend upon the support of that 1%, because that support has been proven time and again to be capricious and unreliable. They drag the rest of us down with them. Thus it has always been. Do not worry about people who can't be reasoned with.

I think you can only run the ANYBODY but Bush once. I think next time you actually have to have a candidate that represents the Democratic Party. (and I actually think the views of the Democratic base are the MAJORITY of this country-they want the Iraq war over-they want their liberties protected-and they have no representation either) Is the Democratic party for ending this war or not? If it isn't-then I and millions and millions have NO representation in the Democratic or the Republican party. Voting third party isn't the point. Actually believing you have someone that will represent what is most important to you-say ending this war that is destroying this country financially and every other way-and actually say preserving a decent balance in the supreme court so all our liberties are wiped clean-that might be the point.

Who knew we were only 1% of the population? RADICALS that want sham wars upon which all our liberites are being used as an excuse to trash to be over. Radicals that want women's rights protected. Radicals that want more than lip service. I don't think expecting what you value the most in your leaders makes you obsessed with purity.

All the things you describe are exactly what all of us should be doing. No one, certainly not I, would argue that. The point I was trying to make was that after the fight for all these things in an election season, after backing your candidate to the hilt and working your life out for them, there is a moment for a hard decision if your candidate doesn't win through. If you find your candidate isn't the nominee, you can support whoever is the nominee, or you can walk away and save your purity.

I just saw this up close in the Illinois 6th. The grassroots went full-bore for Cegelis, against Duckworth and Rahm Emmanuel and the DCCC and virtually the entire Dem party establishment. They had a million dollars to spend, and Cegelis had a tenth of that. Know what? She lost, but by 714 votes. That translates into 1.4 votes per precinct as the margin of victory. Not bad for a shoestring ground op with no money for TV ads, radio ads or direct mailings.

That was Tuesday night. By Wednesday night, 99% of the Cegelis people were preparing to jump on with Duckworth, because it is so important for her to pick up that open seat, and so important for her to keep Peter Roskam (a truly frightening human) out of power. Putting Duckworth into the House is one step towards seeing John Conyers as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. If that isn't the worthiest goal we can reach for, we should all find something else to do.

For crying out loud, how productive is it for us to be flambasting our side? This is the kind of energy we need to expend on the crazy fascists who are now in charge.:shrug: :banghead:

is telling everyone they must think for themselves? Remember how much of an impact it had?

Unfortunately, your post will have about the same impact here.

But, thanks for saying it anyway. :thumbsup:

PS: I am no longer registered as a Democrat but I still recognize the importance of coming together around the Democratic nominee. Until we have a viable third party that can seriously challenge both parties on a national level (which isn't on the horizon at the moment), that's just political reality.