Why the right wing beat us and how to prevent it from happeninng again

[NJmaverick]

Like many of you I have been doing a lot of soul searching since our defeat in November. It comes down to one of two things. Either our country is full of evil and stupid people or:

1) They control the media and we need to answer that. We need to start a liberal news station that caters to the masses. We need to open papers, radio stations and TV stations that do the same thing. Mike Moore showed us that there is a market for things that are liberal.

2) The right wing successfully allied themselves with religious groups. We all need to address this. We need to look at our church's religious activities and do something about it.

3) We need to reclaim the word liberal. Look at the debates that dirt bag bush used left wing as a dirty word. Even though he is a far right wing evil doer. The public and the media gave him a pass on this crime. We need to start defining liberal in a positive way and define conservative in a negative way.

4) We need to become better organized. The right wing, developed a short list of attack points on Kerry and the Dems and stuck with them. We were all over the place in our attacks. Plus the repubs were more organized and effective in their get out the vote and voter registration.

5) We need to address the money issue. We need to deal with this. We need guides of republican businesses and democratic business so we can try to direct our money in the right (or left) direction.

[clintonlover]

1. IT'S THE MEDIA EOM

[candy]

2. The media? The right is always bitching about the MSM being-

too liberal.


I read The Boston Globe and it is hardly right wing.

[Royal Observer]

6. Nobody

likes the media. Everybody loves to hate them.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

3. How about the rightwing also owns the voting machines? n/t

[Royal Observer]

5. Why don't we...

own voting machines?

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

9. I wish i knew

but it seems all electronic voting machines are owned by people with only republican ties and only give republican donations.

[The Doctor.]

4. QUESTION-

Would you even be suggesting this if Kerry and more Democrats won?

No. No one would be talking about "What we did wrong" or "What we need to do better"

The Repugs fixed an election Better - THAT's what they did 'better'.

All this other talk is BS.

The Democrats are only questioning themselves because of the loss when they should be questioning the election.

[Royal Observer]

8. The problem is

questioning elections doesn't win elections.

[The Doctor.]

13. Wrong...

Should we determine the faults with the system and correct them - then we can know whether any side legitimately won.

Going on the assumption that the loss was for any other reason while there are still serious questions about the validity of these elections is fallacy.

[Royal Observer]

14. Yes we should determine the faults with the system

and then correct them. But getting 3.5 million votes less, if that is the true count, may not be considered a valid reason to question the validity of the election. Even a million less would not be. Don't you agree?

[The Doctor.]

17. I agree that such a margin should spur debate

over issues regarding what the Democrats need to do more of.

-BUT-

If you look at the margins the exit polls varied by in all of the places wheree these machines were used - you can see that SEVERAL millions votes could have been generated alone.

In just Ohio - there's evidence that Kerry was stripped of at least 257,000.
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4571

And that's where everyone is LOOKING. Imagine the nickle and diming in all the other states that could have easily given Bush** his "man-date".

If you add up the BLATANT exit poll discrepancies - you'll find well over a 3 million vote margin.

[m berst]

11. I still would myself

I think you may be right about some people Dr_eldritch, that is to say that they would not be questioning themselves had their candidate won.

Not always, though. My fear was that if Kerry won people would stop examining and questioning things and decide that things were fine. I think the right wing movement made a lot of progress during the Clinton administration, so having a Democrat in the White House changes the nature of the struggle but doesn't necessarily advance the struggle against the right wing forces. A Kerry win may have bought us time, but would that time have been well spent? Or would people have gone back to their lives and become complacent?

It is difficult to analyze what we did wrong when the other side is cheating in so many ways. That is the reason that I hesitate to make any assumptions as to why we lost. The most compelling answer to the question for me is that we lost because we are up against bullies and cheaters. That means that aside from the outcome if the recent election, and aside from what errors the Democratic party has made, if the cheating and bullying are not acknowledged and countered the right wing will continue to win. Of course, they aren't really winning, they are destroying the game so that everyone will lose.

[bamacrat]

7. there probably wont be another election bush's minions will name him king

King W

[Old Mouse]

10. WE HAVEN'T LOST THIS ONE YET

Please hold off on writing Ohio's epitaph just yet.

[geniph]

12. They had a 30-year strategy

which is now coming to fruition. This all started with the creation of the conservative think tanks after Nixon's resignation. What they did is simple:

1) they bought up media outlets or created conglomerates which can exert pressure on the media through advertising dollars

2) they started at the grassroots, running candidates for local offices - school board, city council, fire commissioner - to make them familiar names, and worked the most successful ones up through the system to state legislatures, gubernatorial mansions, and Congress. Overall, Governors have a much higher success rate being elected to the Presidency than members of Congress.

We need to focus on those two things ourselves. Start getting our candidates elected locally. Pick the best ones of those candidates to run for higher offices. Make them familiar names, and keep working the best ones upward. Get strong Democrats elected to governorships.

Remember, ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL. Ultimately, most people will vote for the most familiar name. That's why incumbency is such a huge advantage.

The other thing we need urgently to do is to divest ourselves of corporate money ties. Work - hard! - for public financing of all political campaigns, and work to bring back the public airwaves for publicly-financed political advertisements for ALL candidates. You gots to dance with them whut brung ya - so if the corporations finance your campaign, you owe them favors. That doesn't impress the voters, who don't have the money to buy themselves candidates.

Oh, and on edit - none of the above will matter if we don't get Democrats elected to offices as local elections officials and Secretaries of State. He who counts the votes decides everything.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[m berst]

16. oh yeah?

Then explain this. Your view here is not based so much, if at all, on a different ideology or philosophy from the people at DU, rather on a radically different view of reality. Aside from who is right, how do you explain this enormous gap in perception, does it worry you, and how would you propose to bridge it?

[Rex Ferine]

18. All good thoughts.

We need more action oriented introspection like that.:yourock: