Democratic hopefuls misread California- Interesting Article

[TakebackAmerica]

This is a must read.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/10/12/democratic_hopefuls_misread_california/

[StephNW4Clark]

1. So what's your opinion?

I read it - and obviously as a Clark supporter - was pleasantly surprised. Do you think it'll have an impact on other people committed to other campaigns, or do you think the candidates will continue their diatribes against Clark?

[TakebackAmerica]

3. Good Question.

As long as CLark is a therat they will hammer him.
I hope it will have In impBTW,StephNW4Clark are you going to a meetup tonight?

[StephNW4Clark]

8. Yes, I am

and if you can't make it, head over to www.clark04.com, and you can watch the MeetUp messages from General Clark, John Hlinko (of the Draft movement) and Eli Segal.

[Kahuna]

37. "Diatribes?" Good description. They will continue..

attacking Clark at their own peril.

[bpilgrim]

2. "a big business wolf in populist hero's clothing" - ding, ding, ding

"I suspect Schwarzenegger's campaign may have been a fraud, disguising a big business wolf in populist hero's clothing and masking a deeply flawed character."

that is why whoever promotes a POPULOUS, POSITIVE, 'OUTSIDER' agenda will win.

bush is the perfect canidate that you don't really need to attack much just express pity now and then but other than that focus on your message and how you are for the PEOPLE ;->

worked for george as well :shrug:

peace

[Larkspur]

4. Oliphant doesn't get it

The fact that Clark has yet to express an opinion about a single issue as a candidate, including Iraq, that puts him outside the party's mainstream did not impress Howard Dean, John Kerry, or Joe Lieberman. The message they sought to convey is that the guy is not legit.

This is nuts. That attitude narrows the appeal of the party instead of broadening it. It amounts to rejecting a convert as well as a recruit. It's as if the big-name candidates want to win voters who are taking the precise journey Clark has taken, but insist on their own superiority because they supposedly have been right all along.

The Dem Prez nominee is the standardbearer of his Party and it is not a path that most voters who may switch to Democrat would take. The Dem Party Prez nominee should have been one who has a verifiable record as a Democrat. Clark does not even have a record as an elected civilian politician, let alone as a Democrat. Arnold was at least a bonafide Republican running as a Republican. He contributed to his Party's coffers and supported it in any way he could. Clark is a flim-flam man who saw Bush's poll numbers diving so a VP slot on the Republican ticket was not appealing to him, and Clark thought he could swoon in and steal the Dem nomination by waving his 4 stars to hypnotise Dem voters. Well, at least in Iowa and New Hampshire, Clark is finding out that Dem voters are shrewder than Repuke ones.

[StephNW4Clark]

6. If you're going to state something, at least back it up

As horribly repugnant the idea may be to you, General Clark did respond to the over 40,000+ people who wrote in asking him to run.

And as far as Clark not contributing to the Democratic Party, is it just willful ignorance of facts that compels that statement. He campaigned for 3 Democratic candidates, and personally donated to Erskine Bowles campaign run. For that Republican fund-raiser, it raised less than $5,000. He then went onto to a Democratic Party fundraiser to give the same speech within the following 2 weeks.

And "swooning"? Do you really think all Clark supporters are a bunch of brain-washed idiots? You fail to recognize that for 8-9 months, the current batch (w/o Clark) were out campaigning. We listened to what they had to say, and for whatever our personal reasons, they didn't resonate with us.

[Larkspur]

15. If your facts are true then it sounds like Clark is a political mercenary

or hired gun and not a man of Democratic principles.

I don't think all Clark supporters are brain dead. Some are and others, I think, con men wannabes.

[StephNW4Clark]

19. Fine.

I'm not sure how you managed to spin that concoction, but clearly logic holds little value.

[Capn Sunshine]

17. Do you really think all Clark supporters are a bunch of brain-washed idiot

only some of them.

[StephNW4Clark]

20. Thanks so much.

Apparently, persuasive political discourse has been thrown out of the window in favor of schoolyard taunts. Aren't you serving the Democratic Party well by insulting some of its members? Why, I wonder, is the Democratic Party membership slowly contracting? What could it possibly be?

[Larkspur]

22. Actually, I was one who left the Dem Party 10 years ago and returned last

year, before I joined the Dean campaign and before Clark decided to play Dem Prez candidate. I returned to help the party grow from the grassroots up, but unlike Clark, I am not running for the party's standardbearer role.

Last year, after a discussion on this board, I signed on to help my local Democratic candidates in the 2002 election doing the grunt work of phone banking and lit drop delivery a couple nights a week. My Dem Town Chair was there one night with me and invited me to join the DTC. Anyone who was willing to volunteer on their own initiative to help out twice a week with the grunt work of campaigning, she wanted on her team. I accepted and am now a full fledge DTC member. Unlike Clark, I'm paying my dues both in voluntary monthly contributions to my local DTC and my willingness to help my Party with the gruntwork. I'm not seeking the limelight after being out of the Party for so long. I'm earning my trust by being humble enough to work from the bottom up, but I have no ambitions of running for state office; however, Dean's message of reforming the Party from the grassroots up fits with my vision for the Party, and I would like to rise up the Party ranks. Unlike Clark, I will earn the trust needed to do so.

From my perspective in the grassroots, Clark offers no real change for the Democratic Party. Clark's supporters represent male chauvanism and the status quo that is strangling the Democratic Party. "The Emerging Democratic Majority" concluded that the majority of Americans support the Democratic progressive platform, but those that support Clark will pay lip service to it but not be assertive about promoting it. It's more important to these people to get corporate cash into the Dem coffers than reform the Democratic Party into the People-powered Party that it should be.

[GainesT1958]

5. Oliphant's right about this one, all the way...

And, as he noted, let us remember that Gen. Clark DID vote for Al Gore in 2000...exactly how "disloyal" as a Democrat does THAT vote make him?:eyes:

I'd say those attacking him may in fact be doing so while being secretly...dare I say...wistful? :eyes:

B-)

[chimpymustgo]

7. Attackers...wistful? And running scared.

I say, welcome to the party, Gen. Clark. And may the best man or woman win.

[Larkspur]

10. We have no proof that Clark voted for Gore other than his word

which some of us do not trust.

Trust has to be earned and Clark has done nothing that can be verified to win his critics' trust. If he had a public service record as a Democrat to support his lip syncing of Democratic platitudes, then he'd have something to build trust on.

[StephNW4Clark]

11. So you then take his word that he voted for Nixon and Reagan?

Because if you believe that (which given your past posts I'm inclined to say "yes") then how can you not believe he voted for Gore?

Double-standards can get to be a real pain, huh?

[Larkspur]

13. He seemed proud of those Republican votes

and defensive about voting for Gore, since he suddenly realized that if he was running for the Dem Prez nomination, he should at least feign an attempt that he supports Democrats. He must have also remembered speaking at the GOP fundraiser where he praised Bush & the PNAC gang a year after the 2000 election fiasco.

[StephNW4Clark]

14. Your interpretive skills are a marvel.

Just how far do you go to force circular arguments into square pegs?

[Larkspur]

16. I'm a home renovator and know how to use power tools

so I can make square pegs fit into circles.

[Eloriel]

30. It makes him a SWING VOTER

Period.

Eloriel

[Hamlette]

9. We need to win over the voters

how can we do that if we say "you can't be one of us unless you have ALWAYS been one of us."

It's insane and it makes me crazy. Find another issue to attack Clark on. Like his hair. Looks greasy to me. Isn't that a good reason he shouldn't be prez?

Thanks for the post. He is spot on and if Dean and Kerry don't give it up, they will lose me...maybe many others too.

[Larkspur]

12. I welcome new voters into the Party, but Clark didn't enter the Dem Party

to be just a voter. He's running for the Democratic nomination for President and the Party's standardbearer. That is a BIG difference than just welcoming new people into the party. Clark is asking us to dismiss his history of supporting and praising Republicans that were an anathema to many Democrats and now be the Democratic leader.

This Democrat will not support Clark as the Party's standardbearer. He doesn't deserve the trust required of it.

[TakebackAmerica]

21. Larkspur,

Clark is a visionary, a big thinker. He looks outsied the box.
This was not his idea to run for president. He could have made "REAL" money for the first ime.in his llife. Your correct he is not a politician . He is a liberal thinker. That is what aAmerica is starving for.

[Larkspur]

24. I don't share his vision

I'm not a fan of the military industrial complex and Clark was representing that industry up to 2 weeks after declaring his candidacy.

Clark's vision is a con game and I will always see it that way until he proves it otherwise.

[Julien Sorel]

23. Who cares whom he voted for 20 years ago?

Why is it relevant to what he is doing now, and what he has the opportunity to do in the future? It's a question that goes forever unanswered, as you will probably retreat into the 'standard bearer' loop: what Clark did 20 years ago disqualifies him from being the standard bearer of the party, and it disqualifies him from being the standard bearer of the party because ....

[Larkspur]

26. But Clark had an opportunity to alleviate distrust of his Democratic

credentials about 3 years ago when the Dem Party in Arkansas invited Clark to run for governor in his state on the Dem ticket. He declined and missed a good opportunity to establish himself as a Democrat, get experience running a civilian political campaign, winning his campaign, and managing the affairs of that office well. The only thing he would lack is that by now he would not have had the chance to prove that he could win re-election, which is important to show that the politician has earned the confidence of his citizenry to be put back into office.

Clark's failure to seize that opportunity, followed by helping at a GOP fundraiser the next hear and praising Bush and the PNAC gang confirms to me that Clark is a political mercenary.

[Julien Sorel]

29. You totally failed to answer the question.

Why am I not surprised.

He didn't run for governor because he didn't want to be governor. It has nothing to do with 'establishing Democratic credentials' -- you are trying to slip back into your circular reasoning loop. At least try to make a reasoned argument.

[Larkspur]

32. When I apply for a job, I have to prove that I can do the job

and part of that means showing my prospective employer my job and education history.

Running for the Democratic Presidential nomination should require a candidate to show Democratic Party credentials because that person is going to be the new Democratic Party leader. Establishing credentials as a Democrat before running for Dem President nominee is called "building trust" with Party members. Clark has not done that, so he should not expect a warm welcome from those of us who distrust him because of his nonexistant record as a Democrat.

You can call my logic circular, but my position on Clark has not changed and it will not change until Clark meets it. Trust in the civilian world has to be earned, not expected as in the military realm.
My position on Clark's Dem Prez nominee eligibility: Clark should have run for a lower civilian political office, like governor, US Senator, US Rep, as a Democrat to prove his credentials as a Democrat, to gain experience campaigning in the civilian political realm, to prove that he could win election, to prove that he could manage the affairs of his office within the Democratic platform, and to prove that he has the confidence of the people of his district to win re-election at least once.

[Julien Sorel]

33. I call your logic circular, because that is what it is.

I suppose you should get some kind of credit for admitting it; however, once you figure out there's a problem, it seems to me you should want to fix it. :shrug:

[Pastiche423]

27. Shouldn't that be

What clark did two years ago?

He is not as Democratic leader. He can not lead a party he only joined fourteen days ago. He has not lived and breathed the Democratic ideology for a month, much less a year.

He is a Trojan Horse, pushed into the Democratic arena by the DLC. He has lived his life for the MIC, not for civilians.

He does not represent my party.

[Code_Name_D]

35. Aprintly, the Pro-Clark folks care.

Give how his vote for Gore is packedged as a selling point and presented as evdince of his party loiytly.

[Julien Sorel]

36. I didn't realize Gore ran for president 20 years ago. My bad.

[GOPBasher]

18. Very good point

Clark can take the image of someone who is not generally partisan one way or another, just reasonable moderate who just happens to be disgusted with the Right Wing nutcases in office. It carries more weight coming from someone like that, rather than being from ideologues like us on this board. I mean, people already know that longtime democrats hate Bush; they need to know that reasonable people in the middle hate him too.

[Snellius]

25. Disturbing stat: Only 9% of new voters in CA said Democratic

But the statistics showing new voter registrations can give us clues. After each general election, California purges its voter rolls of those who are known to have moved or died. So statewide registration declined from 15,303,000 in October 2002 to 14,866,000 in May 2003. In the two months from the end of May to July, registration rose 122,000, to 14,988,000. Those new registrants did not change the balance of registered Democrats and Republicans: It's still 45 percent Democratic and 35 percent Republican, rounded off to the nearest integer. But the party choice of new registrants was astonishing. Usually in California, new registrants choose parties by margins similar to those of already registered voters. Not this time. Of the 122,000 new registrants, only 9 percent registered as Democrats, 47 percent registered as Republicans, and 44 percent registered as Independents.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/baroneweb/mb_030829.htm

[quaker bill]

28. Good article

While some of this is unavoidable, presenting a quarreling batch of aplha males as the Democratic image will wear thin over time.

[Eloriel]

31. Completely wrongheaded

Think about it. A great many Americans thought Congress was correct in bringing Iraq's roguish behavior to a head a year ago, wise in nudging Bush to the United Nations for a resolution, but worried about the decision to invade with only Britain as a real ally and increasingly angry as the post-invasion chaos and costs have escalated.

Tom, Tom, Tom.

You can't take the opinions of grossly ill-informed and tragically uninformed populace to mean SHIT. It's worse than no data, it's BAD data.

Similarly, anyone relying on what the "California Recall vote" meant are going way out on a limb. I am not alone in not having ANY confidence that those election results accurately reflected the will of the voters of California who participated. Some of the screwy election results in "Diebold counties" serve to confirm that these results need to be gone over with a fine tooth comb before anyone speculates about the "meaning" of that particular election.

Eloriel

[diplomats]

34. Thought-provoking article

thanks for posting it.