Howard Dean's Party

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Warham
It's been three fucking weeks. Let's have this conversation about two years from now, after the Republicans win some more seats in the House.

Or another thousand or two die in Iraq for no WMD's and to make a failed state? Who knows?

[FORD]

Re: Howard Dean's Party

[QUOTE]Originally posted by John Ashcroft
By TED VAN DYK, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

If you've seen "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," you'll know how I feel about the state of the current Democratic Party. The film, as you'll recall, depicted the bodies of decent, normal citizens being taken over while they slept by alien entities marching in conformist and destructive lockstep.

A perfect description of the DLC moles, I'll have to admit.

In its original 1950s version, the film was meant to portray the McCarthyism of the time. But it strikes all too close to home for Democrats who once fought everything McCarthyism represented but who now are stuck in a reactionary groupthink of their own.

True. Far too many have bought into the neocon traitor agenda

The culminating act of this sad transformation will come today when Howard Dean is elected national party chairman. This is the same Dean whose presidential campaign spent millions of dollars, failed to win a primary, and flamed out in episodes of reckless Bush rage.

Mediawhore myth. Next......

Mr. Dean pledges that he is interested only in serving his party and has no plan for a 2008 candidacy. Whether he does or does not, he will become the party's principal spokesman for the next three years. Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the party's congressional leaders, will be eclipsed by the more colorful, uninhibited Mr. Dean. Television news channel and network talk show producers will provide the former governor every minute of exposure he craves.

Thank God! It will be good to hear something other than PNAC talking points coming from "Democrats" for a change. Reid seems to have found at least one of his balls recently, but Pelosi is worse than useless.

A national party's chairman is particularly important when his party is out of power.

Which is precisely why we needed Howard Dean on the job

Until 30 years ago, the Democrats' official spokesman and titular leader, after a losing presidential campaign, was their defeated candidate in the prior election. Hence Adlai Stevenson and Hubert Humphrey took center stage for the party and personally selected the party's chairman (Stevenson chose Paul Butler, Humphrey chose Fred Harris and Larry O'Brien). That tradition ended, however, after the 1972 campaign, when George McGovern was pushed aside after his landslide loss. Subsequent losing candidates, including Al Gore and John Kerry, have similarly been sidetracked to make way for the new.

Judas is a sitting senator, so presumably he wouldn't be eligible for DNC chair anyway.

Mr. Dean's ascendancy to the chairmanship could have parallels with Mr. Harris's. After his 1968 defeat, Humphrey pondered a choice between Mr. Harris and former North Carolina governor Terry Sanford as party chairman. Mr. Harris, along with Sen. Walter Mondale, had co-chaired Humphrey's nominating campaign. Sanford had chaired his general-election campaign. Mr. Harris badly wanted the chairmanship after having been passed over for Sen. Ed Muskie as Humphrey's running mate. A soft-hearted Humphrey gave him the job. Mr. Harris, who had his own presidential ambitions, then cast his lot as chairman with the party's most activist constituencies. In so doing he ruined his own presidential chances, lost his Oklahoma Senate seat, and narrowed the party's base. Sanford would have broadened it.

Republican control of the White House, both houses of Congress, and state houses gives the GOP its strongest national position since at least the Eisenhower period of the 1950s. As Democrats ponder their role in opposition, they might consider how their predecessors conducted themselves during that time.
Democratic congressional leaders Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson pursued a strategy in opposition which, down the road, paid long-term dividends for their party. They supported the Eisenhower administration on national security issues during a dangerous time--intervening with the White House when necessary to stop mistakes such as Vice President Richard Nixon's proposal to use nuclear weapons to bail out French forces at Dienbienphu. They observed the general rule that a president deserved to have the nominees he wanted for key administration and judicial appointments and questioned them only selectively.

Congressional Democrats of that period did, however, use their investigative authority to highlight episodes of public and private corruption. Most importantly, they began preparing the ground for landmark domestic legislation--which ultimately became the Great Society--even though they lacked majorities at the time to pass it. In 1965, after President Johnson's huge victory over Barry Goldwater, Democrats promptly passed the agenda they had nurtured during the Eisenhower years.

This proves that Mr VanDLC is completely ignorant as to what Howard Dean campaigned on in his bid for DNC chair. In every speech and interview he gave on the subject, he referenced the strategies that Republicans used to assume power. He is very much aware of what our party needs to do to win back the votes of people who are not now, nor will never be, truly reprsented by the party of rich corporatists, the GOP.

The party's visible leaders and voices are pursuing an entirely different strategy today. It generally amounts to angry opposition on all issues all the time.

Really now?

A war criminal is confirmed as Attorney General and an incompetent liar as Secretary of State. Where's the angry opposition?

President Bush's Iraq intervention was problematic. But had Mr. Kerry been elected president, he would be following essentially the same path today in Iraq as Mr. Bush--that is, to build an elected Iraqi government's capacity to maintain sufficient security that American forces could leave. Yet most Democrats' reaction to the first essential step in that strategy, the successful completion of elections, has been to dismiss the elections' importance, to charge Mr. Bush with "having no exit strategy," or to demand he set a hard timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal.

It's common sense that if you invade a country and occupy it, that you make a way to get out. Of course the PNAC agenda makes it obvious that there never was an intention of getting out at all. As for the election, the "winner" seems to be a convicted felon and alleged Iranian spy, who until recently, was PNAC's best buddy.

Tell me something doesn't stink there?

For many years Democrats, more than Republicans, pointed to the need to reform Social Security for the long term. Social Security, after all, was a Democratic invention and a cornerstone of the party's commitment to economic security. Yet, in the face of the Bush reform initiative, many senior Democrats have chosen simply to deny the need for change. That is not a viable policy or political position. Democrats are quite right to challenge the notion of partial privatization of the system. But they have an equal obligation to offer an alternative reform plan, the components of which are self-evident and which would require little public sacrifice. Why not seize the opportunity the Bush initiative presents and move public opinion toward a Democratic alternative on Social Security?

Junior doesn't want to save Social Security, he wants to destroy it, and turn it into another tool to make fat cats on Wall Street even richer. How do you "save" something by turning it over to another potential Enron??

As for the Democrats coming up with an alternative, maybe they should. Maybe they also should have reasonable time to do so, since Junior's plan is barely 2 weeks old.

The Democrats' present disorientation has been in the making for decades. When President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, he acknowledged that its political downside was the end of the Solid (Democratic) South. In 1968, Humphrey lost to Nixon because traditional blue-collar Democratic voters in New Jersey, Ohio and Illinois cast ballots for George Wallace's third-party candidacy. Postelection surveys indicated they did so because they felt alienated from what they saw as Democrats' values and orientations. The disaffections became wholesale in 1972 when Mr. McGovern's peace candidacy was overwhelmed by the "acid, amnesty and abortion" agenda of some of his supporters. As Mr. McGovern's 1972 platform coordinator, I can attest that most of his national convention delegates had less interest in his candidacy than in their own narrow social-agenda objectives.

Geezus, if this guy's a Democrat, I'm Ronald Fucking Reagan


Jimmy Carter reclaimed moderate Democratic voters, including some Christian conservatives, in 1976. But the erosion in the party's middle-culture base resumed in 1980 as millions of Democrats, including a high percentage of union members, cast Republican votes. President Clinton, as President Carter before him, reclaimed some of those votes. But when "HillaryCare" imploded in 1994, it not only sank health-care reform indefinitely, but also helped Republicans regain a House majority for the first time in 40 years. They have not relinquished it.

Only because Ted's buddies in the DLC keep throwing the game with suckass appeasement pussy candidates.


Something else happened during the Clinton years. President Clinton's eight-year emphasis on short-term tactical politics--focused on his own political survival--left the party without any coherent intellectual foundation.

With the advent of the Dean chairmanship, the Body Snatchers' takeover will be complete and the party of ideas will have been fully transformed to one of reflexive and strident opposition.

Mr. Dean's passion and partisanship no doubt will deepen Democratic support in enclaves they already dominate. My home city of Seattle will remain a blue stronghold. But it will be only one of a few. If you examine the 2004 electoral map closely, you will see that several states, including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and New Jersey, voted for Mr. Kerry but could trend longer-term toward the GOP. President Bush made gains over 2000 nationally among female, black, Latino and Catholic voters. If they cannot break free of Deanism--i.e., strident opposition to all things Bush--Democrats could find themselves by 2008 the party of Hollywood, Manhattan, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Al Sharpton, Michael Moore, George Soros and high-culture media--but not of most Americans.

Bullshit. First of all, to say that a party chairman shouldn't be "partisan" is absolutely ridiculous. It's a PARTISAN JOB, for fuck's sake!! BTW, I don't see anybody telling Kenny Mehlman that he's too "partisan"

Democrats in all 50 states voted for Howard Dean because they know that he is committed to a Democratic party in all 50 states.

In last year's campaign, the Pukes, the whores and the DLC slammed him (out of context) with his statement about campaigning to the "guys in the pickup trucks with the Confederate flags), but they didn't bother to listen to what he was actually saying. The Republicans have hijacked the "Red state" vote by promoting irrational fears of "gun confiscatin' libruls" or "sodomites recrutin' your younguns" and more recently "terraists". Fuck that shit. elections shouldn't be decided on fear mongering, they should be decided on issues. What about jobs?? Who's gonna bring them back to your "red" state? Who's going to see to it that your schools have the funding to stay open. Not George Bush Jr.

That should be the message. The Democratic party is, and always has been the party of the working class. The REAL Americans and true patriots who built this fucking country, and who keep it going. So why in God's name would anybody want to vote for corporatist elitists, especially an empty headed imbecile born with a silver spoon up his nose??

George Bush has NO CLUE how someone in Mississippi, or Arkansas, or West Virginia, or even Texas has to struggle to make ends meet. He's never had to do it. Nor has anybody he personally knows, given the bubble-boy existence that the PNAC'ers keep him in.

And Ford would have you believe we Conservatives are scared of Howard Dean...

Only the DLC traitors in our own party fear him more.

Second-term blunders by President Bush, or international or economic setbacks, could make voters want change and give Democrats a political reprieve. But what if events go Mr. Bush's way?

What if Hell installs a ski jump? Doesn't mean a snow storm is likely.

Unremitting, undifferentiated rage is not an appropriate platform for an opposition party. Voters will reject continuing negativism and obstruction.

Worked for Dole & Gingrich in the 90's didn't it?

Don't worry, I'm sure Reid and Pelosi will continue to sell out. And I hope they get their asses handed to them in the primaries.

Memo to Democrats: It is time to return to the old-fashioned way. Ask the questions: What are the needs of our country? What are our constructive proposals to meet them? How can we best push those proposals forward? If Democratic leaders and candidates ask those questions, and try seriously to answer them, voters may once again be prepared to let them govern.

Which is EXACTLY what Howard Dean will accomplish as DNC chairman

[John Ashcroft]

War Criminal as Attorney General????

Thank God the American people recognize the sense-defying agenda of people like you and Dean when they vote. I mean, this stance puts you on the same footing as most of the Third-World tyrants that hold "human-rights" commissionerships in the U.N. It's staggering to comprehend, but it's also exactly why your party will fade into irrelevancy with every "Dean-like" appointment. Newsflash: YOU'VE LOST JUST ABOUT EVERY NATIONAL ELECTION THAT YOU'VE RUN SINCE 1994!!!!

But hey, keep up the good work!

[Cathedral]

So much hate, mistrust and division among us...We're fucked if that doesn't change.

Mark my words on that.

[Satan]

Originally posted by Cathedral
So much hate, mistrust and division among us...We're fucked if that doesn't change.

Mark my words on that.

Maybe after these criminal bastards are impeached and they make like their former business partner Dick Nixon....and get the Hell out.

It's coming...... The one thing right wingers can't excuse will be the very thing that will bring the BCE down.

[Cathedral]

Hey, If all the allegations i have read in the last 4 years are true, and can be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt...I'm all for justice being served.

I consider myself a true compassionate conservative because i respect the opinions of those who do not agree with me as well as those who do.
What gets my crawl is the lack of respect i get in return solely based on my political views.

I do however consider this division to be a very destructive force in our society and it will be our downfall if we all don't take a refresher course in Bi-partisanship and get back to the business of serving ALL Americans.

[FORD]

Originally posted by Cathedral
Hey, If all the allegations i have read in the last 4 years are true, and can be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt...I'm all for justice being served.

I consider myself a true compassionate conservative because i respect the opinions of those who do not agree with me as well as those who do.
What gets my crawl is the lack of respect i get in return solely based on my political views.

I do however consider this division to be a very destructive force in our society and it will be our downfall if we all don't take a refresher course in Bi-partisanship and get back to the business of serving ALL Americans.

That will be much easier when we are rid of these criminals who serve NO Americans.

For it is they, and their mediawhores who push the division in the first place.

The reason the neocons attack Michael Moore as viciously as they do is because his last two movies have completely exposed their agenda of manipulating the American people.

For my own part, I can deal with true conservatives any day. A lot of what Pat Buchanan has said over the years has turned my stomach, but the guy is looking downright sensible compared to the neocons.

I will not compromise with those traitors. I will not agree to even 1% of their agenda, and I will not excuse any of it. That goes for the BCE, the PNAC'ers and their sympathizers like Biden and Hillary who claim to be "Democrats".

True conservatives should reject these unAmerican bastards in the same fashion.

[Cathedral]

I'd reject them if i was convinced that all the crazy conspiracy theories were true.
And if they are true then prosecuting them for their crimes should be easy, don't ya think?

Clinton was taken through the ringer over a freakin blow-job, man. To think that any liberal in that loop in Washington couldn't or wouldn't bring the roof down on Bush for all the things he's accused of, is very hard for me to believe.

That must mean there isn't anything to prosecute and explains why the far left "backseat politicians" are louder than those who are in the loop.
Why isn't Nancy Pelosi calling for Bush's impeachment and prosecution?
Or Teddy Kennedy for that matter?

It doesn't wash with me that if all of it is true then he wouldn't be called on it.

Clinton was taken to task for a lot less than that and i know there are Dems that just wish they had solid evidence that wasn't manufactured to nail Bush with.

So, why no ralley to see justice done?
Are the common Joe Schmoe Democrats smarter and have access to classified documents that those working in Washington everyday do not?

It just strikes me odd that the loudest people screaming that Bush is a crook are those who have no power to take action.

Where's the damn action?
If he were guilty of anything charged, the witch hunt would have ensued a long time ago.

But again i repeat, Prove to me he is guilty of the charges and i'll put the cuffs on him personally.

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by FORD
For it is they, and their mediawhores who push the division in the first place.

I disagree because the hate speeches began before his first day in office.
It all boils down to this, Ford.
The modern liberal, and i don't mean all Democrats, is not interested in compromise. they want to run this country on their own agenda and create a socialist society where nothing is sacred.

I don't want to see any single american disenfranchised, I believe in fair and equal representation for all citizens.

Damn, I sound more like an independant here, don't i?

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by John Ashcroft
War Criminal as Attorney General????

Thank God the American people recognize the sense-defying agenda of people like you and Dean when they vote. I mean, this stance puts you on the same footing as most of the Third-World tyrants that hold "human-rights" commissionerships in the U.N. It's staggering to comprehend, but it's also exactly why your party will fade into irrelevancy with every "Dean-like" appointment. Newsflash: YOU'VE LOST JUST ABOUT EVERY NATIONAL ELECTION THAT YOU'VE RUN SINCE 1994!!!!

But hey, keep up the good work!

Yup! The same tyrants we send our al-Qaida suspects to as we "out-source" our torture. You know like Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and the list goes on...Why if i didn't know better, i'd say Bush was full of shit on his "Spreading of Democracy" message.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Cathedral
I disagree because the hate speeches began before his first day in office.
It all boils down to this, Ford.
The modern liberal, and i don't mean all Democrats, is not interested in compromise. they want to run this country on their own agenda and create a socialist society where nothing is sacred.

I don't want to see any single american disenfranchised, I believe in fair and equal representation for all citizens.

Damn, I sound more like an independant here, don't i?

You seem like a sensible Republican Cat, what do you think about Bush's hate speech regarding fellow Republican (an actual War Hero) John McCain? You know, his "wife's a drug addict," his service in Vietnam made him prone to angry outbursts, he has a black child (actually an adopted asian kid). That sort of shit.

[Cathedral]

I don't like dirty politics, but there isn't much to say about it when both sides of the isle are guilty of engaging in improper if not down right mean tactics.

McCain seems to be fine with him now, I don't see any grudges being held there.

However, I would rather not see dirty politics being practiced at all.

We the voters are the ones that have the power to control this though. All we need to do is send a clear message that those who participate in dirty politics will not get the votes needed to win.

It's pretty damn sad how truth and facts don't seem to matter much when campaigning. Far too much goes un-challenged on both sides.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Cathedral
I don't like dirty politics, but there isn't much to say about it when both sides of the isle are guilty of engaging in improper if not down right mean tactics.

McCain seems to be fine with him now, I don't see any grudges being held there.

However, I would rather not see dirty politics being practiced at all.

We the voters are the ones that have the power to control this though. All we need to do is send a clear message that those who participate in dirty politics will not get the votes needed to win.

It's pretty damn sad how truth and facts don't seem to matter much when campaigning. Far too much goes un-challenged on both sides.

McCain is biting his tongue and is rumored to despise Dubya. For 08?' (SNL had a funny animated segment on that before the election).

[YAWN]

Doubt it. We may see him in the primaries, but a lot of folks were saying McCain may be a little mentally out of it by the time Decision '08 rolls around, and if Jeb decides to throw his hat in the ring, then he's sadly probably a GOP lock. Sucks, too; I voted for McCain in the 2000 primary. He woulda kicked ass.

[aesop]

Originally posted by Cathedral
Or Teddy Kennedy for that matter?

He'd have to put down his bottle of Scope he sneaks by the bottleful in the Hall's restrooms. But hey, at least we know his breath is clean

And why his face looks like a red crayon...