I don't think Boxer or Pelosi have been active in their support of things. But how exactly do you distance yourself away from the idea that your party in general supports something? Should Democrats have taken out "we hate f@gs too" billboards? I'm being facetious, yes. But Republicans have more than enough wingnuts of their own. Far more. However, the Republicans seem to stand for something, which is why the Democrats have been unable to tar them as the party of Coburn and DeMint. "Vote Republican and you're voting for people who hate single mothers and who want to kill doctors who perform abortions" might actually work. But the Democrats have the leadership ability of a drunk blind marmoset at the moment.
No, I think a lot of Republican voters DO care about Iraq. I certainly do, and I did not support the timing of the invasion. However, here is the crux of an idea that Republicans have taken advantage of. The story goes that Republicans believe in the idea that people are intelligent and can make up their own minds about what is best for them. Democrats follow the lines of Orwell's Animal Farm; "we love you and want only the best for you. We would like to let you make your own decisions but we know you are not smart enough to make the best decisions therefore we will make them for you." Suggesting that Democrats were smarting, or better informed, than their Republican counterparts only plays into this perception of the difference between the parties. Real or not, it is another part of why Kerry lost. Dems just must get away from this perception is the party is to become a true NATIONAL party again. And let me say this, the system needs an effective 2-party system. Just as in a soccer game, if you are playing a weak opponent, it will not bring out your best.
You're a true rarity. Extensive polling has shown that Bush supporters were more ignorant than Kerry supporters. Canute Keller hates that fact, but it's true. Kerry needed a cleaner message, but even so, the conservative bias of the news media is the biggest problem.
No, it's most assuredly NOT true, and the fact that you believe it gives me hope for the future, because it indicates that you STILL haven't learned the lesson President Stupid has been laying on you for six years. After 2000, you told yourselves that you didn't really lose, that Florida was stolen, and that the whole country, once they heard the truth, would rise up against the Republicans in righteous indignation and toss the buggers out. But it wasn't that at all. EVERYBODY knew what happened in Florida. The point YOU missed is that, however you saw as the scenario there, it was OVER. Done deal. Move along. You guys couldn't. So you went into 2002 with a chip on your shoulders about the usurpers and got your brains beat out again. Did you get thepoint? Hell no, the meme then was that the Democrats just "didn't effectively get their message across" . Bullsh!t. The problem was that they DID get your message, which was "We were robbed." No policy, no ideas no goals, just "We have a right to power". And the electorate said "baloney" So going into 2004 you guys REALLY had a good strategery: Scream LIAR! LIAR! PANTS ON FIRE!!!!! at the top of your lungs. Surely THIS is a good plan. The problem is not that the electorate doesn't hear you, or that they're stupid although it's deeply comforting to think so. The problem is that the electorate knows Bush does not sit up late at night concocting absurd lies he can put over on people. It simply ain't so. It's YOU guys who don't get it, not them. Now you're all telling yourselves that what happened is some kind of Christian jihad whereby the ignorant redneck Bible thumpers hijacked the country with a pile of right wing nonsense. Please keep telling yourself this. It will keep you from owning up to the fact that you ran a lousy campaign with a terrible candidate. You offered no real alternative, you never convinced anybody of anything except that you think they're mostly idiots. And this "55 million smart people vs. 59 million dumb people" is simply the height of arrogant ignoraqnce, children: When you're the party that spends most of it's time money and effort working to get as many millions of people who are disconnected, can't be bothered registering, don't pay attention to the issues and can be bought with a "soak the rich and give you the money" meme, then you have a lot of gall calling the other guys "dumb" Wake the hell up.
Historically Democrats had good role models. FDR and Kennedy did not tell the opposition they were stupid and they won (though Kennedy only won by a whisker). They need to go back there. Far too much of the time, Democrats looked like the Washington Generals to the Harlem Globetrotters-the perfect foil. Everytime Karl Rove set something up, the Dems fell for it. Reading Evan Thomas' report in Newsweek yesterday was very revealing. This was a campaign designed in Nuttyville. The Dems just couldn't do anything right.
That's your problem, and that was why Bush won. He recognized his base and solidified it. Kerry didn't and he lost. Bush's margin of victory was due in large part to the fact he won 90+% of the religious vote, including the Hispanic vote. Do you dispute that or did I misunderstand your post?
I agree with this. What good is a two party system if there are not differences between the two parties? When I first saw the "Stronger at Home" slogan, I actually liked it, but the potential went unrealized. How about a commercial showing a container ship getting stopped by the Dept. of Homeland Security at the mouth of NY harbor while 20 others steam past the Statue of Liberty unimpeded? How about some video of kids (or wolves ) waltzing through a big hole in the fence of a major chemical plant? Maybe a little voice over of Bush saying he would move heaven and earth to make us safer. Then one of those good, deep political commercial voices saying, "Dubya has spent $200 billion making Iraq safer, what has he done for you?" I honestly believe that our homeland defense issues could have and should have been huge, as it would have gone straight to those "security moms" that were one of the only discernable cross over voting groups (as well as some gains in hispanic and black votes that apparently go to gay and abortion issues). Anyway, I got off subject there a bit, but if the counrty has swung a bit away from our core values, I say we stick with those values and work on delivery of the message.
Way to completely miss all the points I've been making on these boards. I've repatedly said that they way to combat this isn't to scream at people to be more informed. Its to change your strategy. That people who voted for Bush were less informed is an unfortunate fact of life. The Democrats simply need to start appealing to those people on a different waivelength, because hammering them with "issues" is not working, and this election is proof. I know you don't read these boards all that often anymore, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. I've never been part of the "Bush is evil" crowd, nor am I the one that wanted the "I'm not Bush" campaign. I thought Kerry was a poor candidate, that his campaign was poorly run, and that he was completely incoherent. I also have not posted anything about a "christian jihad", although I absolutely believe that the Republicans are using the fundamentalists as a political tool. You took one quote out of context as a way of determining what I think about the election. Except its not true. You want to know what I really think? Fine. Read this. Then if you want to bitch, go for it. But until then, vent your spleen on more deserving candidates. There are plenty of them.
Wow, I just gave Mel Brennan rep points. Exactly my reaction to the topic of Dems suddenly getting religion.
Abdcating the Politics Forum when things are tough for you, then returning when things seem victorious for you, epitomizes - EPITOMIZES - a crippled maturity that deserves derision of every post you launch in this post-selection period. Every one, without fail, that I see I will rightly condemn for the opportunism it is. IOW, with you, you specifically (and maybe mozilla if s/he shows up out of the blue), I don't care what your content is. Your character has made it clear that whatever you say is worthy neither of consideration nor of a sweeping ignore. It MUST be subject to active, intimate disparagement.
why are you so quick to insert the word "stupid" in my post. did i say that? no. are you being a little overly defensive? are you afraid you are stupid?
Right. He has his staff do it. "We know where they are, around Baghdad and Tikrit." The Bushies were so mendacious that the guy behind the Note had to tell his reporters that objectivity does not consist of repeating each sides talking points, that it's ok to say one side is lying more egregiously if, in fact, they are.
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Crap like this makes me want to bash my fist thru my monitor! This is exactly why the neocons have a strengthening deathgrip on the country - they lie viciously about both themselves and their opponents, it's swallowed hook, line, and sinker with no challenging by the "liberal" media, and when the opposition stands up and says "they are lying; here are the facts" it's somehow viewed as confirming neocon ****************. How the hell do you beat this?
I stopped reading because you wrote something that's patently untrue. Why the hell should I waste my precious time engaging your lies, when I can waste my precious time playing freecell?
You've got it wrong - 12 galaxies agree on a different worst president in galactic history http://witchman.org/images/zegnatronic/altratronic.jpg
Be careful. You will get LCD all over your desk with a reaction like that. But the answer to your question is; you can't beat it. It is either true, or is perceived to be so by enough people that you wind up loser. You must promote your own ideas and stop trying to beat up the other guys. But to the idea of lying; even NBC eventually came to the conclusion that the lies Kerry was telling about the draft and Social Security were bigger than anything Bush's side was telling.