Are Lieberman and the DLC right (so to speak)? Are we wrong?

[BurtWorm]

Are Americans more right-wing than we give them credit for? They clearly aren't as unwilling to vote for fascists as we hoped they were.

Just bitter food for thought.

[dolstein]

1. Americans aren't right wing. But they aren't left-wing either.

NT

[BurtWorm]

2. What are they?

Why are they willing to let the Bushists run free in DC and the Arnoldites in Sacramento?

[Classical_Liberal]

3. No

This wasn't an ideology based vote. They were voting for a center right republican, against a kind of center right dem.

[Code_Name_D]

5. I am not sure CA knew what they were voting for.

Heck, some CA may even think Arnold is realy a robot.


Aronld - "I am not realy a terminator. That is just a movey charicter. I am an actor. Get real."

[BurtWorm]

7. But isn't that what the DLC believes?

That Americans are so nonideological that they'll vote for the candidate who claims to have no ideology even when the evidence is clear they're ideological to the core? Of course they did respond to Gore's populism, but they didn't line up for two hours to show it.

[Cha]

22. I think they were voting for a freakin' movie star and a bad one

@ that!

[Code_Name_D]

4. And how would we know?

So far we only have right wing, and sort of part time right wing, canadates from which to chose. But what about all of thoes who do not vote? Don't they facter in there some where? What if they people who arn't voting, are in fact not lazy, but waiting for a librial/progresive canadate worth voting for?

Zero supply, generates zero demand.

So long as the Dems refuse to go left, they will see no need to go left.

[jpgray]

6. Our problem isn't so much ideology as media control and image

I believe given balanced coverage, Americans would elect more Democrats than Republicans. Some of the long-held biases that preclude people from our party are media-influenced.

[BurtWorm]

11. It's clear that media are not on our side

but how does that translate into the people not being on our side? I don't get it. (Not tonight anyway.)

[jpgray]

14. Sometimes it translates to Democratic planks as being "wrong"

Unions, social services and public schools are all under attack. Years ago, they were what defined our party, and allowed it to bury the Republicans soldily for a good many years.

Now, corporate influence is strong in the media. Not a death blow in itself, but combine it with the fact that many Democratic stances are less than friendly to corporate profits and you have a problem. You will notice that the villification of the above items is most vigorously carried out by the media. Take the coverage of the "Leave No Child Behind", or the Right to Work states, or welfare reform. Something is seriously amiss when it comes to coverage of these issues. They are no less essential, but someone is trying very hard to convince us that they need to go.

[BurtWorm]

16. Very good points.

Of course you're right. The propaganda against working people is relentless. One thing about California that hasn't been in evidence since the 1980s that returned with a vengeance today is that it's in the vanguard of the radical center. The sheep there get moved to bleat angrily against "powers that be" en masse every now and again, and they don't care if they shoot themselves in the hooves to shake the system up. But it can look an awful lot like just plain dumb bleating from a distance, like they aren't aware of the shepherd's hook pushing them toward the slaughterhouse.

[jpgray]

17. Sure--we're at a disadvantage when it comes to herding.

We can't compete with Republicans in corporate friendliness, and so we'll always play catch-up for packaging and image. Clinton's image scuffle was food for thought in that sense--the Republicans got tainted for looking like hyper-partisans at a witchtrial, despite plentiful pundit support. So now the trick is look like the outsider, the populist--look like who the public wants, but do exactly what you always have done. Usually the media will not provide context to disprove a big ideological lie. The Bush campaign tried to fill out the "underdog" clothes when it suited them in the debates, and the sensible populist constume for stances, to give examples.

[Must_B_Free]

8. Yeah, I guess my whole idiology was wrong...

Lieberman and Schwartzenegger have shown me that the republicans really are right and the democrats are just wrong losers.

I was a fool to care about anyone but myself. I'm going to be a winner from now on.

[BurtWorm]

9. That's not what I'm talking about, you know.

It's not whether their philosophy is right, it's whether their reading of our fellow Americans is right. Of course their philosophy is wrong!

[rooboy]

10. If Joe Lieberman and Al Fromm

want to march along with the Nazis then let 'em. Principles aren't for sale to the highest bidder.

[BurtWorm]

12. No, but votes and power are.

Wouldn't it be great to be celebrating Arianna's ascension rather than mourning over Arnold's? Why isn't she in there?

[even]

13. Bitter food?

What is that? Is it two bad candidates? Thats how you lose. God help us if howard dean wins the nomination.

[BurtWorm]

15. I'm sentimentally a Dean guy

but logically I really wouldn't mind if Clark won the nomination.

[Jim Sagle]

18. Howard Dean will run through w like crap through a goose.

It won't be even REMOTELY close.

[BurtWorm]

19. Nights like this make me wary of predictions.

I miss the days when Democratic voters surprised the shit out of every one. They just seem so over.

[even]

20. I have seen crap thru a goose.

The result is of course howard dean.

[BurtWorm]

21. Not funny.

Not of much substance or use either.

[Cha]

24. How disgusting!

Very Unclever. But then you knew that.

[Cha]

23. Oh you don't know what you're talkin' about .

Dean will make a Great President!

[Q]

25. Nah...Americans simply want an alternative...

...and absent an alternative they will vote for what they know.