Are the Dems truly soft or willy-nilly or whatever you want to call it? Do they

[gratefultobelib]

really allow the repubs to manipulate and push them around? I hear this so much and I'm just not politically astute enough to recognize it for the reality or non-reality it may be. I don't dare put this question out in GD or GD-P, but I trust this group enough to give me some honest perspective.

[angee_is_mad]

1. I think you are not giving yourself enough credit

WHAT do YOU think?

[gratefultobelib]

4. Well, great. I just called myself "sweet." I was trying to reply to you! I obviously

need to post more often!

[FrenchieCat]

2. Part of why the Pubs have been losing is because they are bullies......

folks now recognize that much better than they did before.

The media helps the Pubs, so it really wouldn't matter what the Dems would do,
cause the double standard can be adjusted as needed to continue to put the Dems in
a bad light. That's what Media conglamorates do....they make the news up and frame
it as they want it.

They even managed to make a double amputee war vet look wimpy and unpatriotic,
and make George Bush look like a real "resolute" guy.

In fact, name a real tough Democrat portrayed as such
that has been able to make a real difference since
the 1996 Telecommunications Act was signed,
and I might give you a pony.

[SeattleGirl]

6. I'd like a horse of a different color, if you please.

However, I can't think of any Dem that has been portrayed as tough since that time.

Damned M$M! And a kick to the behind to Bill Clinton. I like the guy, and but that was NOT one of the things he did that I liked.

[gratefultobelib]

11. Thank you, Frenchie. You're one of my special heroes. (heroines?) I certainly

remember the Max Cleland fiasco. I wish I shared your optimism about people beginning to recognize the Repubs for the bullies they are. I still believe the vast majority of the public is woefully uninformed. In my own family of 4 adult children and spouses, no one even knew about the HCR vote on Christmas Eve! They're all good Democrats but so consumed with day to day living that they pay little attention to politics.

Didn't mean to get carried away there. Thanks again!

[rebel with a cause]

16. I never met bush but I did meet Max Cleland.......

and I would judge Max to be three times as much a 'real man' as frat boy bush. In our meeting Max was full of life and vigor, but he didn't have to put anyone else down to make himself look better. I liked Max. I took a digital picture of him with one of Obama's people and emailed it to the OP. Well, I had my daughter email it and she then erased the photo because she didn't think I wanted it. That was five years ago and I am almost ready to forgive her. :eyes:

[Cary]

18. Not only because they are bullies. . .

and they most definitely are bullies but, as you say, that's just part of it. The bully tactics simply reached the point of diminishing returns and the pukes are too dumb to comprehend that.

They were wrong about absolutely everything, as I'm sure you understand. Invading Iraq was wrong. Lying us into the war was wrong. Outing a Non-Official Cover CIA agent, unbelievable and wrong. Tax cuts for the rich economic panacea, wrong and drove us to the brink of the Great Depression II. The whole lassaize faire, objectivist nonsense that gave us ineffective regulatory agencies, even Alan Greenspan the arch objectivist had to concede that there was a flaw in the ideology.

When I talk to these people they violently reject the idea that they need to evolve or compromise. They can't compromise with "evil," they say. Imagine the hubris in that--it's difficult to fathom the depth and breadth of the egos of ones who truly believe that they have arrived at the highest possible stage of development and that they are the sole purveyors of "good."

I could go on but we do need to understand that we too can get too full of ourselves. This is something our erstwhile allies don't seem to understand. We don't have all the answers either. We have to compromise. We have to evolve. We need to be flexible and yield to practicality. Moreover we need to understand, the way the pukes can't understand, that we will lose sometimes and some time we too will succumb to the laws of diminishing returns.

You see, we never reach that ultimate state of evolution. That's not the human condition and any ideology that professes otherwise is perverse.

[gratefultobelib]

3. You're sweet! No, I don't think they are. It's hard to ignore so much bad

press against them, tho.

[angee_is_mad]

5. Bad news is good news

for some people. Ever read the front page of a newspaper?

[gratefultobelib]

7. Oh, I absolutely know that is true. The day the HCR bill passed the Senate,

the front page headline in the KC Star trumpeted how bad this was going to be for tanning salons!! 10% increase in prices due to taxes being raised! I get very depressed at how the news is slanted on the front pages since that is all some people read.

[angee_is_mad]

8. more ppl listen to talk radio and tv

than read newspapers. That's were the problem is.

[RoyGBiv]

9. No ...

There are a lot of complicated factors that go into this perception, possibly the most difficult one to measure being one's individual expectations. How weak you think Democrats as a group are often depends on how well they are pushing your individual interests. And that's not simple to calculate. You may have some really strong appearing representative who nonetheless doesn't ever seem to get any legislation passed, but some people will think that rep is strong because he says everything a certain group wants to hear. Meanwhile, you may have another representative who gets a lot of legislation passed, but may speak softly or do his work as a politician without the bluster and fanfare, which, incidentally, is often what is required to get legislation passed. To a certain group who loves the blustery guy without question, the quiet guy is an idiot and, yes, weak.

A lot of the current perception of Democratic weakness comes from the Senate and Harry Reid. I, personally, do not think he has been as effective as he could be and that he has backed down one too many times from certain issues. But I don't think he backed down from Republicans. I think he backed down from members of his own caucus whose votes he needed on what was deemed a more important issue. Further, I think he has done an amazing job behind the scenes (not in secret, just in those places the MSM doesn't care to go) keeping the Democratic caucus solid when it really counts. He's had to give up some things to do it, but he held strong when he needed to do so.

The word "compromise" is to many a sign of weakness and so it will continue to be. But that's how you get things done in D.C. unless you have a super-majority of ideological purists, i.e. Republicans. And I don't want to turn into them just so we can appear strong.

[gratefultobelib]

10. Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I especially appreciate your assessment

of Harry Reid. I still have the picture in my mind of his beaming smile when HCR passed in the Senate. He looked proud but exhausted! You're right that his backing down has been more in his own caucus. I hadn't considered that. The media makes it seem as if he's bowing down to the Republicans. And I have to say, a lot of my perceptions as to his weakness has come from DU.

I wholeheartedly embrace your last sentence. I wouldn't be a Republican with their nasty, bullying ways for all the tea in China! (And that last phrase shows my age!)

Thanks again.

[NJmaverick]

12. I think the Dems are like any political party

they have their pluses and minuses. In my opinion their pluses strongly out weigh their negatives (especially in light of the right wing media propaganda machine).

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

13. Liberals tend to be less dogmatic...

Being open-minded requires, almost by definition, the ability to see the other person's point of view. Liberals tend to be less dismissive of other people's opinions and less judgmental of other people's life experiences, even when we disagree with them.

Because of that, we're less prone to say "THIS IS WRONG! IT IS ALWAYS WRONG!" than they other guys are. I think it's why most of us here find GD and GDP so distasteful. It almost requires us to adopt a tone and an argumentative stance that really runs counter to our nature. Our natural tendency is to qualify our statements, understanding that there are exceptions to every rule, but that comes across as weakness.

I actually had someone in the past few days accuse me of creating a "straw man" because I qualified a statement with "most of the time" or some other such language.

[rebel with a cause]

17. An interesting quote on the subject of open mindedness

"I happen to feel that the degree of a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting attitudes she can bring to bear on the same topic."

Lisa Alther from Kinflicks 1975

[old mark]

14. Repubs VOTE more regularly than Dems, vote straight GOP ticket.

Dems tend to split tickets, trying to find the "right" person, even though a republican - Publicans almost NEVER do this, and love when Dems do it. All politicians lie, by definition, but the GOP has absolutely gone into a world of illusion in which their party is guided by Jesus to save the Holy Land of America frome the evil socialists (us) and make it ready for the judgement day. You may think I'm being ridiculous, but I'm not - there are people on the far right who think Sarah Palin is the modern persona of Deborah from the old testament, a military leader who will crush the enemies of the chosen people. They think they are the chosen people of god, and that everyone else is the spawn of hell.
Democratic pols are liars and crooks, but nowhere near as insane as the Republicans.
Dem voters fight among each other and spend a lot of energy "out liberaling" other Dems, many times at the expense of the country when the GOPers take control.

I have been following politics since the '50's, and these are my observations.


mark

[DevonRex]

15. Honestly I think it's the compromises that have to be made within our party

that poses our greatest difficulty this time around. Sure the GOP bullies us when they are in the majority and they attempt to do it even when we are in the majority. But they'd have no success if we were all on the same page in our OWN party.

And sure, sometimes I rant about the Blue Dogs and with good reason. It angers me that they aren't more liberal. But I also accept the reality that in most cases a liberal democrat couldn't get elected in their states/districts. It doesn't mean I like it, not by a long shot.

What I wish is that Democrats in those states would do more to educate their electorate. Without education we have little hope of more liberal ideas gaining ground.