Dems Take Back House and Senate in 06....what would DU'ers change?

[KoKo]

There would be a shift in the Leaders and Speaker of House...who would you pick as "Your Favorite" or would you stay with the same people who gave Dems a Victory?

Any Candidates? Do you think the Leadership should change or would change?

Is it more important to "stay the course." After all if we WIN in '06 it must mean that someone was doing SOMETHING correctly?

What changes would you make as we move on to the 2008 ELECTION...or are changes not in order. :shrug:

[KoKo]

1. WHOA.......I guess we DEMS really DON'T have a PLAN....just like the

SCUM REPUGS...say...:shrug:

No answer on this post.....What the hell do we Dems want to do to change what our own Party has been doing? Nothing?

They've been OKAY? There's nothing in "wishes and dreams" for Dems that anyone here on DU would want to see change?

:shrug: What have we become?

[jsamuel]

2. I seriously doubt that Dems will take the Senate

only 1/3 of the Senate is up for election and half of those are Dems. There just aren't that many seats for the taking. Even if we won every sigle race, we would only have like a 54 majority.

Make it closer, or tie, yes, but we will most likely not have over 51.

[Jersey Devil]

4. 51 would be just fine

but I agree with you that it would take the perfect storm to do even that. We'd have to lose no one at all (of 18 Dem seats) and take every competative election, plus there are only 15 Repub seats being defended.

[KoKo]

5. But...we will still have a majority...what would you want to change.....or

are you happy with Dems as they are?

[Jersey Devil]

8. I am too superstitious

A thread like this could be a jinx.

[leftstreet]

3. ARRRGGGHHH! This thread is painful

I think the problem is that many DUers aren't terribly confident in the current Dem leadership(s) or in any of the current Dem uh....policies....or, whatever. Or not.

When issues-oriented Dems like Jack Murtha speak out against Iraq, or Feingold speaks out for censure, confidence goes up.

When Timmy Kaine says "America can do better," confidence falls.

[KoKo]

9. yeah...I know...it's hard parsing out what "change" or if we really want

"change" how WE THE PEOPLE/DEMS could do change. We really are so focused on Bush...we might not have our "act together."

That worries me. What if the REPUGS are CORRECT???? HORRORS!!!!

We DEMS DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL WE REALLY BELIVE! I know that rights for WORKERS who don't have access to what Bill Gates does is #1, and that HEALTH CARE FOR ALL as a RIGHT...is #2, and "Living Wage" is MAYBE #3, and REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM...is maybe #4....and there are many other issues.

But, I just wonder if Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi...are really Effective Spokespersons for those "top three."

CAVEAT: I only picked my top three so other Dems might have VERY DIFFERENT VIEWS! And I only picked those "off top of my head." :shrug:

[leftstreet]

12. Yeah, wages and single payer healthcare

Right on top.

Rolling back the current "tax relief" cuts for the richest 1% would be nice.

Out of Iraq, and a revolutionary change in foreign policy.

Not to mention a solution to the immigration debacle the pols/corporations have created.

There are so many areas where the Dems have abandoned labor. Sitting back and waiting for the other side of the aisle to implode is an obsolete political strategy. Old and busted.

[DFW]

6. First of all

If we had 51 Senators, we WILL have taken the Senate!

Majority leader? My choice would be Kerry or Feingold. Reid would probably
get the post, however--at least in the beginning. Expect a challenge if we
have a majority, though.

The House? If we take the House, Pelosi will become Speaker, but not for long.
I'd love to see Charlie Rangel become Speaker. Man would THAT be a show to die for!

I know, I'm just dreaming, but it's after midnight here in Germany, and dreams are permitted at this hour.

[KoKo]

15. changes you say or propose would be interesting to me, too..

I think there would be a "shift." But what if they thought that it was just that Reid and Pelosi LED US to TAKE BACK?

Wouldn't they be owed something...longer term...isn't that what they are thinking? If we won...they would certainly see that as an affermation of their "AGENDA." No?

[DFW]

27. I look further than that.

I have not met Sen. Reid, but he was a compromise choice
when we lost Tom Daschle, and he has had a stroke. It was a minor
stroke, but then think of the fire we would have had coming from
John Conyers if he had not had a stroke.

I have been with Nancy Pelosi up close, and while she has her heart
in the right place, she does not inspire me to get up on my feet and
cheer, and I think that is exectly what we do need from both our
leaders in the House and Senate, whether we are in the majority or
not. I thought Tom Daschle was a fine minority leader--Karl Rove
must have, too, because he certainly spent a lot of effort getting
him defeated.

I could listen to Charlie Rangel talk all day, same goes for John
Kerry and Russ Feingold. That's the kind of person I want to lead
my party's faction in Congress. They blow away the right-leaning
Sunday talk-show hosts as a bonus.

I agree that we owe a degree of loyalty to those leaders that have
held the difficult post of Democratic leader in the period of right-
wing triumph (2002-2004), but now that the emperor's clothes have
been shown up to be a figment of the far right's imagination, we
owe it to ourselves to makes sure garb of our own leaders is not
only visible, but stands out from a distance.

[LSK]

7. what do you mean changes? we dont have any power to pass anything

How can you change something you cant even get done in the 1st place?

Obviously the Republicans would not be able to pass the crap they have been putting forward and there would be a ton of REAL investigations.

I dont understand your post.

:shrug:

[KoKo]

10. It's about what would you Change if we can regain House/Senate/06?

I thought I was clear...did you read my post after the "Subject Line?" :shrug:

[Ignacio Upton]

11. We won't get control of the Senate if we keep bashing our candidates

Whatever you think of Bob Casey or Sherrod Brown, if they get elected, they add to our caucus, and vote for Reid as Majority Leader. Unfortunately, expect to hear a torrent of "he's a DINO" cries.

[WilliamPitt]

13. This'll do for starters

Congressman George Miller: Chairman of Education and Workforce Committee;

Congressman Barney Frank: Chairman of Financial Services;

Congressman Henry Waxman: Chairman of Government Reform;

Congressman Bennie Thompson: Chairman of Homeland Security Committee;

Congressman Tom Lantos: Chairman of International Relations Committee;

Congressman John Conyers: Chairman of Judiciary Committee;

Congresswoman Louise Slaughter: Chairwoman of Rules Committee;

Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez: Chairwoman of Small Business Committee;

Congressman Charles Rangel: Chairman of Ways and Means Committee.

Appropriations Subcommittees: Congresswomen Rosa DeLauro and Marcy Kaptur, Congressmen John Olver, Jose Serrano, and Ed Pastor;

Armed Services Subcommittee: Congressman Neil Abercrombie;

Education and Workforce Subcommittees: Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey and Congressman Dennis Kucinich;

Energy and Commerce Subcommittees: Congressman Ed Markey and Congresswomen Jan Schakowsky and Hilda Solis;

Financial Services Subcommittee: Congresswoman Maxine Waters andCongressman Luis Gutierrez;

Government Reform Subcommittees: Congresswoman Diane Watson and Congressmen Dennis Kucinich, Elijah Cummings, Danny Davis of Illinois, and William Clay;

International Relations Subcommittee: Congressman Donald Payne;

Judiciary Subcommittees: Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee and Congressmen Jerry Nadler and Melvin Watt;

Interior Subcommittees: Congressmen Raul Grijalva and Tom Udall and Congresswoman Donna Christensen;

Rules Subcommittees: Congressman Jim McGovern;

Small Business Subcommittees: Congresswomen Madeleine Bordallo;

Transportation and Infrastructure: DeFazio, Filner, Holmes-Norton, and C. Brown;

Ways and Means Subcommittees: Congressmen Pete Stark, Jim McDermott, and John Lewis of Georgia.

[KoKo]

16. Great Stuff...but wouldn't there be challenges to that "Slate?"

:shrug: IOW'd's shouldn't we dance with those who "brought us to the party?"

There might be a challenge to the shifts. But, your "Slate" is what some of us would hope for...we would...as a "start."

But, there are others who feel that we have a "Slate of Dems" who have been fighting for us since "Selection 2000" and maybe Pelosi/Reid/Schumer/Dodd/Biden/Lieberman/Bayh...et al...might have really brought about the change by standing FIRM all these years when the arrows were flying against them. ??????

[KoKo]

14. kind of "kicking" for over the weekend to get a discussion going..but

maybe it's too early. ????

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

17. #1. Restore Checks And Balances

#2. Present and Pass legislation that actually benefits americans.

#3. Investigate the multitude of wrongdoings by this administration and finally present the facts and truth to the american people.

#4....

Wait, is this not what you meant? I better not go on and on, since the list could easily reach 100. Did you mean just administratively? Depends on who remained and who was newly elected I guess. For the most part, I like them as they are and am overall proud of our leadership. I would ask them to pass legislation barring lieberman (if he survived) from placing a D. next to his name.

[KoKo]

18. You make points I would hope for too...But...shouldn't we be worried

about an Imperial P-Residency that would allow any following P-Resident to go Amok...like a Rogue Elephant? Whether it be Repug or Dem...shouldn't we be concerned.

Much as I want EVERY BUSH ORDER/FAILED POLICY/USURPTION OF POWER...to be Overturned....shouldn't we worry about that AWESOME POWER THE BUSHIES TOOK in the hands of DEMS, too?

[KoKo]

19. Another thought about what you say: "peasant revolt against King John!"

if anyone remembers their history....:shrug:

[KoKo]

20. Here's a "basic" King John and the Magna Carta...so you see

what I'm talking about, here... This is VERY BASIC...scholars might flesh it out more...but I wasn't posting to "scholars" but to fellow DU'ers.

----------------------

King John and the Magna Carta

King John of England

When Richard the Lionhearted died in 1199 AD, his younger brother John became king. The lords (the rich men) of England hated John. This was partly because John had taxed everyone so much to pay for the Third Crusade, and partly because John seems to have just been a nasty suspicious kind of person. Compared to Philippe Augustus, who was king of France at the same time, John looked weak.

The Magna Carta

In order to take away some of John's power, Philippe Augustus chose to support the claims of another man, Arthur, to inherit Normandy instead of John. Arthur was John's nephew, the son of John's older brother Geoffrey who had died. John tried to solve this problem by capturing Arthur and having him killed, but this murder upset the lords of Normandy and Anjou. They decided they would rather be ruled by Philippe than by John, and so they agreed to fight on Phillippe's side. By 1204 John lost most of his land in France after all. (THINK OF WHAT REPUGS DID TO AL GORE)

Once the French land was lost, the English lords began to really see England as a country and to think of themselves as different from the French people. It was about this time that English first started to really take shape as a language. (Before John, the lords in England all spoke French.) Chaucer wrote about this time - in English. (FREEDOM FRIES becomes the "Buzz Word in America)

John continued to fight with everyone and lose: first with the Pope, and then when he tried to get his land in France back. By 1215 the English lords had had enough of this loser, and they got together an army and marched on London. John was forced to sign the paper they put in front of him, which is known as the Magna Carta. (Magna Carta means "Great Letter" in Latin). This letter wrote down two new ideas. The first was that the king had to obey the law, like other people. And the second idea was that if the king broke the law, the lords had the right to remove that king and choose a new one. The lords formed the council of the king, and that council could stop the king from doing things if the council thought they were wrong. In particular, the king could not collect new taxes unless the council said it was okay. (LET's JUST BULLY EVERYONE AND HOPE FOR THE BEST...GEORGE BUSH II)

King John died the next year, in 1216. (WELL...THIS AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN)

[jmowreader]

21. All right, I'll play your silly game...

First, I have no idea who I might want in the Leadership slots come 2007. It's not often done, but why can't we use freshmen in the leadership? I know, I know, you're not supposed to appoint freshmen leaders because they don't know the history and traditions of the Congress, but the long-term Democrats are in Pain Avoidance Mode, not Loyal Opposition Mode. A member of the junta comes up with some new idea that will further diminish the Democrats and what do we hear? "Thank you Sir, may I have another?"

We don't need pain-avoiding Dems. We need firebrands. Your average freshman comes to Congress with fire in his/her eyes; that fire is what we need at this time.

Therefore, what challengers look good? Montana seems to be turning blue on us; maybe there are some good ideas out there. You get the idea. Bush has taken the ship of state into uncharted waters and run it aground; we'll need unconventional thinking to put it right.

- - - - -

On to the real deal: What do we, as Democrats, need to do to fix the problems we face? (Besides getting rid of Bush, that is, and if his base-plus-one-percent approval rating is any indication we may not HAVE to worry about getting rid of him; the Republican Party may just tell him to leave like they did with Nixon. The more Republicans we can saddle with the Three Stooges--Bush, DeLay and Abramoff--as running mates, the more likely this is to happen.)

We've got to fix the tax system. Arthur Laffer said there was one "perfect" tax rate that exactly balanced the needs of the government with the needs of the people. Unfortunately for Arthur Laffer, who is a Repuke, the man who found that perfect rate was Bill Clinton. We need to reinstate Clinton's marginal rates.

We've got to shut down both of Bush's wars. Supposedly we're in Afghanistan to catch Osama bin Laden; supposedly we're in Iraq for...uhh, what's this week's reason? The facts fly in the face of these reasons: we had Osama cornered at Tora Bora and let him get away, and the reason we're in Iraq has changed eleven times because all eleven of those reasons have proven to be bald-faced lies. We can't afford the expense, we can't afford the dead soldiers, we can't afford the destroyed lives. We need to pull our combat troops out right now, and then we need to do one of two things: subdivide Iraq into three nations (granting the Sunnis a measure of historically-Shia land because Sunni territory is almost bereft of oil), or put a dictator back into power there. Otherwise, an Arabic-speaking Slobodan Milosevic is going to appear and you're gonna be really fucking sorry. In Afghanistan we're almost guaranteed to get the fucking Taliban back.

We've got to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. This will have many implications, almost all of them good. If a RW station was forced to give equal time to opposing viewpoints, Gordon Liddy, Oliver North, Michael Reagan, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly would be out of jobs. You'd probably see something like Pigboy in his normal time slot and Randi Rhodes from midnight to 3am. Then they'd talk about NASCAR engines or something like that for the other 18 hours. This would completely screw Air America, but in a Fairness Doctrine-controlled programming environment you wouldn't need it.

We've got to pass two amendments to the Constitution of the United States. The first will formally establish the separation of church and state. The second will establish the right to privacy. Obviously the Right can't understand that the First Amendment means "no state funding of churches even if it's the one you go to" and the Fourth Amendment ("The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated") isn't just talking about Gestapo-like police tactics but about privacy. Therefore, we're gonna have to spell it out for them.

We've got to find some constitutional way to write a bill of attainder stating that no person related by birth to anyone who aided or participated in genocide or atrocities can ever be elected to Federal office. This will shut down our long national nightmare of Bushes in high government jobs.

We've got to decertify Halliburton as a federal contractor.

We've got to nationalize the defense industry. This will do two things for us: eliminating the profit in weapons systems will also eliminate most of the need to go to war, and it will allow us to cut the defense budget while still getting lots of fun new weapons for the Pentagon.

We've got to throw Kenneth Lay in jail.

I'll think of more later.

[KoKo]

22. Good points and hope people will read what you say...plus agree

we are lacking "firebrands." I don't know if jr. folks can do it but we are desperate for more folks who speak their mind and aren't afraid of doing so.
Feingold has been good...even Bobby Byrd...during the Iraq Invasion pre-hearings... People with PASSION would be good. Those there are tired...and I don't blame them that they are tired...

But, your other points are good, too.

[Fawkes]

23. Regardless of the democratic leadership, the first thing I'd do

is call impeachment hearings for the crimes of treason, war crimes, and lying REPEATEDLY to the American people.

[newyawker99]

26. Hi Fawkes!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[in_cog_ni_to]

24. First up...investigate, indict, go to the Hague, have trial and IMPRISON

the entire cabal. I would support the death penalty for those assholes. They would live a life of luxury in prison.



House Leader? Jim McDermott? Maxine Waters (love her) Dave Obey? (love him) I think Pelosi should go....time for a change.

Judiciary Committee..... ranking member JOHN CONYERS. YAY!

Ways and Means Committee.....Charlie Rangel

[unkachuck]

25. I'm a Progressive first, Dem second....

....lets assume a best case senerio. Let's assume we win the Congress in '06. Will '07 and '08 yield any progressive legislation under bush?

....lets assume in '08 a Dem is elected president and we keep the Congress. Will '09 and '10, under the never-ending right-wing and media assult, of failure to win the war, failure to solve our countrys problems, failure to protect us, yield a Dem President strong enough to produce progressive legislation?

....let's even assume the moderates and the corporatists in the Party bend a little....will we have the muscle and unity to produce progressive results? Does anyone even want to produce progressive results?

.....for me, it's beyond personality. If you're a progressive, you'll probably see a Democratic Congress in '06 and a Democratic President in '08 and little else....because nothing has fundamentally changed in over 20 years to yield a fundamentally different result....