I wrote the above before I saw Harold Ford was still running. You can watch his speech here (look for "New Conference on Democratic Leadership with Rep. Harold Ford (D-TN)"), I haven't yet. If you want the Democratic Party to choose sane leadership, you must support this guy.
Personally, I would rather watch the Democratic Party shoot itself in foot head. I hope Ford loses, he probably will (they talk a good affirmative action game, but old white Democrats still have seniority, they win every time).
No matter how it turns out, it's going to be fun to watch. It's a real shame DU closed off its forums, but if I were a slimeball like David Lytel I wouldn't want people to see what Democrats really think right now. And if were running DU, I wouldn't want people to see the massive amount of banning that's probably going on right now.
P.S.: Fellow FReeper Jayef came up with the nickname "Suicide Queen."
That says it all. After 9/11, the "you are either with us, or with the terrorists" statement is still ringing in Americans ears.
If those who "feel differently" about standing for a strong America, make that case as a campaign tactic, the Republicans better get used to being in the majority.
Even cracker voters have common sense...
This is the city which, in the recent gubernatorial election, went 66% for Red Davis, about 20% for the Green candidate (a notorious straight-line communist of the old school) and the Repubo, Bill Simon only got 16%.
These morons are so drug-addled that they are completely out of touch with national political reality. They still think its 1968. If the Progressive Caucus puts Pelosi in the driver's seat, they might as well start brewing up the Kool-Aid.
The Socialists In Congress
The Socialists In Congress Executive Commitee, Staff
Coordinator. Peter DeFazio, D-OR Ron Dellums ...
www.rfcnet.org/archives/socialists.htm - 7k - Cached - Similar pages
. The next minority leader of the Democratic Party claims to "understand America" but she supports every far left philosophy known...
for more on what is sure to be a "Nasty Nancy" for conservatives...
Useful imbicile.
The Left, "like the poor" (because the left is the most responsible for poverty) will always be with us.
She's a nasty, abusive, abrasive, unpleasant person. She might have made a good Minority Whip [insert whip-cracking noise here], but she will be a terrible leader. Conservative Democrats will flee from her in droves.
Ford has the courage to stand up to the Democratic Party Leadership--the same people who got Democrats into this mess. He's not part of the established order, he's young, energetic, and willing to take on the idiots at the top. Democrats would be foolish not to make him their most important Representative. He's everything the Democratic Party needs right now.
That strategy has worked fairly well for them in the past, but it breaks down when they run into an opponent against whom the smears don't stick. The target has to be believable as a badguy. It worked against Gingrich and Bork, but the public just doesn't buy the idea that a guy like Bush is Darth Vader.
Thus, left without the tried-and-true PC smear tactic, they were left without anything to say. They couldn't put forth any rational arguments for themselves.
Aside from this, the Democrats made three huge mistakes that lost them this election in a tactical sense:
1) The crap they puled in NJ: Switching candidates in NJ showed not only a contempt for the law (and that the sleaze of the Clintonized Rat party extended even to the Supreme Court of NJ), but also violated the electorate's sense of "fair play". Its just not right to bring in a fresh fighter in the middle of the 15th round. While they still won in NJ, it brought back images of the "everything is relative" Clintonized image of their party.
2) Bonior & CO's trip to Baghdad: While the boomer lefties may not give any weight to such quaint notions as national solidarity and patriotism, middle america fumed when a group of Dem party leaders turned up in Baghdad, met with Saddam's cabinet, and badmouthed our President on TV. It smacked of Hanoi Jane posing on the antiaircraft gun.
3) The memorial service turned Nuremburg Rally: It was supposed to be a heartfelt memorial for a tragic death, and the Clintonized Dem party turned it into a partisan mudslinging festival. They bused in a union mob, booed Republican mourners, and behaved in a generally disgraceful manner. Once again, while such quaint notions as respect for the dead and propriety at funerals may not mean much to the boomer lefties, it means a lot to middle america.
I once heard a quip that "consevatives go to bed at night fearing that the people won't understand them, and liberals go to bed at night fearing that the people will understand them"
All three of these episodes represent the libs letting their mask slip. The people saw them for what they are....and they lost bigtime.
Hey, come visit us some time, and be polite and whatnot.
And to the people at FR who like to disrupt them: quit it already. Some things are funny once, and then not funny twice.
So, I'm an evilDUer (I can say that, you can't )
Your thread at DU was titled "Don't be a Nancy-Boy (or "Why is the Democratic Party trying to commit Suicide?")" and I thought I might try to answer that for you, along with a couple of points in your post.
A lot of us have decided after Tuesday (and some of us, BEFORE Tuesday) that trying to be imitation Republicans hasn't worked all that well (translation: the result sucked big time). So, there are those of us who think, ok, fine, let's give the American people a REAL choice. Yes, Pelosi is liberal AND progressive, and although I didn't know about the Democratic Socialist Party membership, I wouldn't be suprised if she is.
She's also ... ahem... agressive about it. Some of us *like* that. You may think progressives are wrong - but how often lately, have you seen a progressive laying out his or her policy ideas clearly and unapologetically? Answer? You haven't. You mentioned the mushy center... a lot of us don't like the mush. We have beliefs about the role of government in a civil society - and yes, we think it should be bigger than you think it should be. But there is no debate of those philosphies when people just say "me too, only better and more" to the pablum that passes for "centrist" policy.
So, let's have a REAL debate, and see what the American people think. They might disagree. Then again, they might agree. We won't know till we try, right?
(Note, I should add that most of us DON'T think that it's "suicide," as you put it. We think that, given a REAL, unambiguous choice, the American people WILL choose our vision over yours. We could be wrong, but I, for one, would rather find out than cower in the shadows, deathly afraid somebody might discover we have *oh horrors!* liberal ideas. And truly, given the Republican control of all three branches of the government, what have we got to lose?)
"All these years later, I didn't realize there was an election this week until the Sunday before. On election day, I was in neighborhoods where they should have been calling out Carl McCall's name. There was no sound. Then I realized that this silence was right, that there was no election. McCall was the candidate, but he did not ruin the politics here.
It was shameless Bill Clinton who used the Democratic Party and left it with a hyphen. Not because of his trailer camp sex, nor his lying under oath to a grand jury. Rather, he merged the Democratic Party with the Republican Party.
The Democratic-Republican Party. He left the Democrats with no issues, no purpose, no aim, no desire for anything except keeping the job.
Do whatever the Republicans do. They want a tax cut that can break us? Good. Vote for it. They want a war? Of course. "