Are the Dems making the same mistake Edison did?

[Mairead]

Thomas Edison and his staff essentially created the film industry. In order to keep it under his control, he took a number of steps. Some of them turned out to be serious mistakes, as in this case, and he lost out:

Edison's mistake was that he felt that it did not matter who the performers were. It was the movie, the finished product, that was important, not the people in it. The general public was unfortunately not aware of this importance, preferring to follow their favorite stars. Edison underestimated the value of his performers and they abandoned him.

Does that sound like the Dems? The DLC? The ABBers? All of the above?

[papau]

1. Vote the Man - not the party - was how Nader screwed up and gave Bush to

us.

Being Dem vote that goes ABB seems like a fine concept to me.

[xJlM]

2. Sound a lot like what we're looking at

Give the people a choice between two repugs, and they'll choose the repug every time. Or choose to stay home, disgusted with the whole process.

[papau]

3. I agree - a Dem is not GOP-lite, and as the Times complained - the

policy positions of the 9 - including Lieberman - are not that far apart, and folks have dropped the "me-too like Bush except for this change" approach, and have all begun to act like Dems - in most speeches and on most issues. Lieberman turns off too many folks to get elected, so while I'd vote for him, I'd prefer any of the other 8 - and the race appears to be shaping up to be any of the other 8 except Sharpton and Braun - and possibly Dennis -

So I will be very happy with any of the remaining five.

But then I am ABB!

:-)

[genius]

4. I'm a lifelong Democrat and I couldn't even vote for a Dean

Both because of the irreparable damage he'll do to the country and to the party. His supporters are very unnerving. They think the Democratic Party must now stand up for the death penalty, for malpractice limits and against anything that hurts big business and that the Democratic Party should not do anything the least bit controversial. Where I live, the Deanies are trying to make the party unrecognizable. I want an alternative to the Republicans and, before we can take back our country, we need to take back our party.

[LuminousX]

5. Interesting

So if Dean gets the nomination, you will vote for whom?

None of our candidates are villains. This process guarantees only someone worthwhile gets through. We do not coronate our nominated candidate like the Republicans do. Bush had the GOP nomination sewn up before he started campaigning.

[genius]

8. Most people I know plan to write in "Al Gore" if Dean gets the

nomination. Fortunately I don't think it will come to that.

[JohnKleeb]

6. genius please dont do that, I feel iffy on Dean myself but

if you do that they are gonna do what Ive seen some of them do to Kerry and vice versa, do we want that? no we dont. Please dont do that genius, hey I disagree with Dean on a lot too. Look keep a positive mindset about Dennis me and you both know how far and how great he will be if people take notice. Ive seen what Dean supporters do to Kerry and vice versa and I dont like it. They are gonna start to jump on Kucinich if you do that. I dont fucking want that, I want to spread the best damned message ever in Kucinich, and you know what you have spread it very good just dont attack Dean when doing it, promote the man not diss the opponent well if its Bush then hell yea. I want the party that I read and was told about as a kid, Dennis represents that vision so well.

[genius]

7. Kerry's people aren't trying to change my party

In fact most of the campaigns don't seem to be trying to change the party or re-define "Democrat."

[JohnKleeb]

9. shrug man

look we dont need to bring up Dean everytime we bring up Kucinich ok, its obvious to me that Dennis is superior on the issues and worthly of my respect and support. We should be positive. Change the party? I wanna do that, and I wanna redefine democrat with Kucinich.

[ProfessorPlum]

10. genius

I don't think you've met the right Dean supporters. I'm not saying your experience is not valid, but it certainly doesn't represent anything I've found in my dealings with other people who support Dean. There has certainly been no push for the death penalty in any of the meetings or discussions I've been to.

And I've noticed a distinct lack of people who want to defend big business.

So, if you are worried about Dean supporters changing the Democratic party, you may be in for a pleasant surprise.

On that note of hope, which I'm sure will be ignored, I'm outta here.