Posted on 10/10/2004 8:18:14 AM PDT by Mike Fieschko
Fights over a political party's future are common after the party loses a big election. But John Kerry figures to face a fight over control of the party from fellow Democrats even if he beats George W. Bush on Nov. 2.Influential figures on the party's left wing are planning a long-term campaign to move the Democrats to the left, just as right-wing activists took over the Republican Party and moved it to the right over the past 30 years.
[snip]
If Kerry defeats Bush on Nov. 2, the left will probably demand significant roles and influence in the new Kerry administration -- a Cabinet position for Dean, for example, or Kerry's acceptance of the left's position on trade, health care and other issues.
[snip]
Ironically, the left's strategy is consciously modeled on the campaign that right-wing activists mounted to take over the Republican Party, explained Robert Borosage, the director of the Campaign for America's Future, at the "What We Stand For" conference.
Beginning in 1964, said Borosage, after conservative Republican Barry Goldwater's landslide loss to Democrat Lyndon Johnson, key right-wing figures decided to rebuild the conservative movement from the ground up.
[snip]
Soon, the combination of Reagan's charisma and the right's continued activism -- and especially its subsequent creation of a right-wing media infrastructure dominated by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh -- had shifted the entire nation's political center of gravity to the right, in ways that remain obvious today.
The left now hopes to copy the right wing's success.
If Bush wins on Nov. 2, the battle for control of the Democratic Party will probably come quickly. Leftists will argue that Kerry and the centrists forfeit any right to leadership if they cannot defeat the most vulnerable incumbent since Jimmy Carter.
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I am confused...as I often am...but
How much further left can they really GO without flying a Communist flag?
They can soooooo far left that they can come around meet themselves! Ha!
What is he smokin'? Rush and Fox account for about .005634% of the media. NBC/CBS/ABC/PBS/NPR/NYtimes/WashPost/LATimes/SFChron/yaddayadda are still the media and they are still liberal.
Fox seems to be following them on their journey.
I bet they already have Communist flags and slogans tattooed on their chests. I have long called my Democrat sister "my angry commie sister"
The far left's grasp of the levers of government power may be extremely weak at this point, but they still have the organization. Especially in their party. The "loyal opposition" wing of the Democrat party is in danger. I wonder if they're kind of like President Buchanan's cabinet after Lincoln was first elected.
Kerry is a centrist?
What a bunch of idiots the intellectual elite are. Right wing activists moved the Republican party to the right...over the past 30 years? Well goll durn, that's the first I've hear that one. And a rightward shift is a good thing, IMO. It seperates us from the left - but maybe I'm not being nuanced enough in my analytical approach.
How far left can the Democrat party move? Don't they know there are only 360 degrees in a circle? Haven't they ever heard the old adage that if you go far enough you might meet yourself coming? On the other hand, Hillary will no longer have to work at appearing moderate, even though she's as far left as John Kerry.
He has it wrong.
Kerry has to lose so Hillary can win in 2008.
Hillary is a rabid leftist, but is more power hungry than ideological. So she will morph into a strong pro defense leader who will be to the right of Kerry's position. That's why she gave up her seat on the ways and means committee (which would give her power over how money is spent) to spend time on a defense/arms committee. Unlike Kerry, she'll go to the meetings, and make a name for herself as an expert on the military.
Four years from now, she'll run as a "centerist" and win.
Now, I don't like it any more than you do. I'm just predicting where the democrats will go...
They've been flying communist flags since the '70's
I'd say that communist flag is their ultimate goal.
President Bush is the most vulnerable incumbent since Jimmy Carter?
The author's a definite Kool Aid drinker.
I am not so sure Hillary can win in 2008. She has a lot of baggage following her. Who will be the Republican nominee? Frist? Santorum? Tancredo? Cornyn? Difficult to see is the future.
The hard left would not have retaliated at all in response to 9/11. This is what brought Christopher Hitchens and others over to our side. Hitchens is still a socialist at heart, but he recognizes that unfortunately (from his viewpoint) socialism has failed.
The hard left wants a Canadian-style healthcare system. Kerry wants compulsory employer-based purchasing cooperatives to (allegedly) lower insurance rates.
So yes, there are significant differences between Kerry and the left. That being said, these are just Kerry's most recent published positions. We really don't know what he thinks, or what he will do as President, and this means he's highly vunerable to this attack from the Left.
In other words, thanks to Kerry's weak ideological grounding, he's quite likely to accept the left's agenda as his own. The left senses this, which is why they are so willing to wholeheartedly support him. They know they can bend him like a weed, because he really doesn't care what happens as long as he gets to play decisionmaker and fly on the 747. The only real check on his power is his re-election chances, which would be lousy if he did everything the Left wants. But I definitely think he'll be much further to the left as President than we've been lead to believe by his statements.
D
OCTOBER SURPRISE AD:
Political Operative Veterans Against George W. Bush (POVAGWB) Meeting: Mr. Kerry Reports (Serious Parody):
“When I attended a POVAGWB meeting recently, I heard testimony from Campaign Operative Veterans that they had:
• Cut off the locks and bashed in doors of regional Republic Campaign Headquarters
• Raped and defiled various Republican office machines
• Randomly shot weapons into Republican Campaign Headquarters
• Defiled US Mail delivered to the Republican Regional Campaign Headquarters
• Razed Republican campaign offices across the country in the manner reminiscent of Genghis Kahn
• Had bleeding gums reminiscent of gingivitis
• Destroyed foodstuffs found in campaign office refrigerators
• Raised the dead and forced them into voting booths
• Kicked their dogs
• Urinated on Republican campaign signs
• Used large union thugs to destroy GWB campaign signs held by three-year-old girls
• Told story after story of falsely accusing Republicans the gruesome act of denying minorities the right to vote
• Committed other violent campaign atrocities under the tacit control and support of the DNC commanders”
Mr. Kerry denies being at a DNC meeting where these tactics were discussed and planned, but witness say he was there. Others are accusing him of meeting with Carl Rove in an attempt to end the campaign early and declare GWB the winner.
Paid for by a Swift-Thinking Freeper in America
"We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." - Hillary Rodham Clinton June 2004
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/06/28/politics2238EDT0845.DTL
Bill Clinton was a world-class manipulator of men. His wife couldn't get health care passed since she was so arrogant, despite her party controlling both houses of Congress, and despite a consensus among the chattering classes that healthcare was a serious issue that deserved change.
She's allegedly less arrogant in the senate, but she still doesn't feel like a winner to me. Her introduction of Clinton in the Democratic convention was wooden and dull
The only way she could become President, in my opinion, is if Bill gave her speeches, and I think that's legally dubious. I don't think she could win on her own with all the negative associations people have of her.
D
Yoda echo syndrome.
5.56mm
Yes...:-)
Yep, clouded, it is. Kerrywards ran for president when not ready for the burden were they...win they still might, but the Force is STRONG in President Bush.
Isn't that what Bush and Cheney said during the debates?
Yes. Kerry changed his position on Iraq due to party politics.
I agree. GW doesn't have to make things up. He has a track record of 3 and half years as CINC. Some will like it and some won't. Human nature. I think the American people can figure out what their interests are and who will best meet those interests on November 2.
Democratic Party heart is broken and the soul has been sold to the Devil.
The coming Democrat meltdown will be a sight to behold...
Prepare for some entertaining months ahead.
I disagree on some of this.
If Hillary runs in the primaries as a centrist, she will lose. Real moderates rate her negatively. No one trusts her. The far left thinks she is a hawk.
If she can control the Party so as to win the primaries, she will lose. She may be able to run on security, but no one knows what the situation will be in 4 years. She is a Senator with a record. She is going to have to answer to the Peter Paul/Aaron Tonkin campaign fraud charges in court. Her social program preferences will be scrutinized.
IMO, her best shot is to get Kerry in office and take an appointment as AG. From that post, she can further purge the records and use the FBI to her advantage. There is no way she can get a SCOTUS appointment if Kerry wins as long as we control Congress.
The next big fight will be in the midterms. Our side will have reconcile to the electorate's preference for moderates and not split off to 3rd parties in 2008 to retain control.
JMO
"In 2004, we have to elect anyone but Bush," said a veteran labor strategist working to link unions with other progressive groups. "But if we keep working and build on the lessons learned and the partnerships we're forging during this fight against Bush, we can elect somebody we really like four or eight years from now."
We can elect [in four years] "somebody we really like"! Like Hillary, maybe? And if (God forbid!) Kerry IS elected, what if HE doesn't WANT to step aside for Hillary in 4 years?
What's left of Kerry's campaign is already being run by the Klintonistas, as was Gore's. Let's face it, the RAT party is already just a plaything of Bill and Hitlery, and their FBI database.
I am sure many of those people have red banners stashed in their attics and await the day when they don't have to hide their colors any more.
A centrist is a Crat who is on the far left edge of politics but is able to talk as if he is only moderately left. If he is actually moderately left then he is a Reactionary.
I consider my political opinions the same as Zell Millers. But, unlike him, I returned the tinfoil hat and left the party. Too tragic to bare witness their decline into Communism and fascism and all the other 'ISM'.
Not only is the media not twined, neither is GWB or the Republican party very rightist. From ritual yearly homage to Martin Luther King Jr., to non-control of the borders and amnesty programs, to domestic spending, the "compassionate conservative" Bush administration has adopted the values of the leftist cultural and media elite on most issues, as every politician must if he wants to be elected in the age of television. An examination of the total record of this administration would show it to be, at most, center right.
Exactly. Mainstream America understands what President Bush means when he talks and does when he acts. He has a record as CIC that he can point to. Kerrywards have been assimilated for so long that neither of them have a record which they can point to - except those rare references to Kerry's Vietnam experience. Their platform seems to be that they promise to assimilate the rest of us, too. "We have a Plan. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated." No wonder they give even the party faithful the creeps...not that that'll stop many from voting for them ANYWAY.
I hope they do move to the Left... it would doom them quickly to minority status for decades. BRING IT ON!!!
The only problem with this is that the hard Left in this country is much smaller than the hard Right.
It will be a matter of time until the Democratic Party go out like the Whigs.
Until we get the socialists out of the schools, or close down the public schools in favor of private schools, the Dim party will remain much as it is for the next few decades.
Look at the dimweeds Sean Hannity exposes all the time. Kids who cannot name any article or amendment of the Constitution, can't name the VP of the US, call Bush a liar but cannot name any facts backing up that assertion, can't name 3 Justices on the Supreme Court or in fact the relationship between the three branches of government.
Most if not all of the main sources of information people actually use in this country are left-liberal - school curriculums and teachers, newspapers, TV stations, cable stations including MTV and CNN, even Fox doesn't ferret out the truth in many cases, web news sites, and on and on - you have to go out of your way to find alternative opinions and expositions of fact. Most people are too busy or too lazy or just not interested enough to do it. The dissemination of the real heart of the Dim party must be brought to main information sources in every way conceivable to discredit them. THAT's the only way the Dim party will become as irrelevant as Ralph Nader.
"I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm and hard work." Harry S. Truman
"When asked what I am most proud of, I stick out my chest, hold my head high and state proudly, 'I served in the United States Navy!'"John F. Kennedy
"I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made."Franklin D. Roosevelt
This is the Democratic Party I voted for. I miss it, but I think that today's Republican party encapsulates these ideals better than the party of Michael Moore, Al Sharpton and Howard Dean
ah, but the press LOVES hillary...you think they spin in favour of Kerry, wait til Hillary runs.
My sincere hope is that Guilliani will run against her in 2006 and win...
Latest figures I have seen is that 60% think the MSM is NOT credible. That little ace-in-the-hole is damaged, thanx to the pajamahadeen.
The number of good bios on Hillary is staggering. She is damaged goods, facelifts and Botox notwithstanding. She is so September 10th.
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