Sitting out 2010 is a vote for the Republicans.

[Jackpine Radical]

If you sit it out, the media will claim that the Democrats didn't turn out to vote because Obama is too LIBERAL for them. They will play it as a failure of PROGRESSIVISM. The net effect will be to push the country to the RIGHT. =======>This way, when we actually want it to go <=========This way.

This doesn't have to mean a vote for Obama, or for any Blue Dog. It does mean that you have to cast a vote that is discernibly on the left. Vote for progressive Democrats (ESPECIALLY in the primaries), vote for Greens--Hell, vote for Socialist Worker Party candidates if you want to, but vote left. Don't let them spin a liberal sit-out as a right-wing backlash.

Personally, I have good people to vote for in 2010: Feingold and Obey. I'll vote Democratic next fall. As for what I'll do in the Presidential race in 2012, well, let's just say that Obama still has time to convince me.

[mike_c]

1. don't sit it out, but don't vote for any DINOs either....

Vote independent if that's the only way to cast your vote for a progressive candidate. The democratic party is dead unless it can find progressives instead of republicans who like a D after their name.

[Roland99]

2. It's time to start at lower levels and work our way up

Build up strong Progressive candidates at the local levels and eventually to the Congress and then on to the White House.

Would take a generation or two maybe but could definitely be done.

Esp. after another 20-30 years of "trickle-down" economics destroys the middle class completely.

[vi5]

3. I'll never sit it out.....

..but I'm done with the lesser of 2 evils. I'm tired of the choice being between hard right and soft right.

[WeDidIt]

4. So what the fuck is the difference?

I see none.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. The point is that leftist, non-Dem votes clue them in as to why they're losing.

They're taking the base for granted. They snipe at us as "far left" but count on us on election day. We got nowhere else to go, after all.

Bullshit.

[bigwillq]

5. Oh, I will vote in 2010.

But the candidates need to earn my vote. They no longer just automatically get my vote because there is a "D" after their name. I am all about voting for true progressives. I will see who emerges in 2010 that warrants my vote.

[midnight]

6. K&R. Voting for Feingold too. But he is an independent.

[Political Heretic]

15. No he's not. Sanders is an Independent. Feingold is a Democrat.

[Webster Green]

7. Fool me once...shame on you...

Fool me twice...uh...omina...omina...ahh......won't get fooled again!

Tommy can you hear me? :smoke:

[Ratty]

9. If that's what it takes

How else do we change the democratic party? Maybe a rout in 2010 will knock some sense into them.

[Vinca]

12. They've taken us for granted, that's for sure.

[KharmaTrain]

10. Progressives Have A Sales Job To Do...

Cite all the polls you want, but it doesn't seem to be registering inside the beltway. While the Democrats have majorities, many believe its due to the failures and collapse of the rushpublican party (which in a good part it is) rather than the nation embracing liberal or progressive ideas or ideals. And sadly they have some merit to this meme.

Progressives got their clocks cleaned in getting out the message on healthcare. While Single Payer and Public Option became negatives, death panels and "socialized medicine" got the top billing...Democrats and liberal/progressives have been on the defensive ever since and thus have lost much ground. There weren't enough Alan Greysons and Keith Olbermanns out there to spread the word and negate the hate and misinformation coming from hate radio and the corporate media.

The job of moving this country in a progressive direction has just begun...or should have. It's not just winning over the Democratic party but the corporate media as well...and means working hard to find and elect more Progressives in 2010, but sadly I see many ready to throw up their hands and give up...let the bastards win. The healthcare debate fiasco should be a wake-up call of how much more work there needs to be done to truly move this nation in a more Progressive direction.

[lame54]

11. I won't sit out but i can guarantee many will...

and traditionally the repugs count on that

[Taverner]

13. I won't sit out - but I'm not busting my ass either - the dems have lost that kind of support

[Political Heretic]

14. I don't give a shit. The days were yellow dogs can bully the rest of us around are finished.

If you think you are going to threaten me or bully me about what I do with my vote, you are crazy.

We've tried it your way for decades and decades now. Guess what, it fails. Scare tactics and gloom and doom about what will happen if we actually found the courage to vote or CONSCIENCE instead of for political expedience don't work anymore.

[Jackpine Radical]

23. I think you posted before reading beyond my subject line.

I'm essentially saying to vote your conscience, but VOTE. Vote green or something, fine. Not voting allows the media and blue dogs to spin the outcome: "Obama too liberal for Dems," when the exact opposite is true. Let the Dems see "their" votes disappear into the Green column, and maybe they'll get a clue about why they're losing, and it ain't because they're too far left.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

16. Half a vote, to be exact. -nt

[MrCoffee]

17. No, it isn't

It's a non-vote.

Voting for a Republican in 2010 would be a vote for the Republicans.

It's pretty simple math.

[emilyg]

18. Thank you for common sense.

[verges]

20. Yeah, it's simple math. But you got it wrong.

Let's say there are 20 votes total. Then 11 votes are required for a majority and a win. But, if one voter stays home, that makes a total of 19 votes. And, therefore requires a majority of 10. The winner has to get one less vote.

The objrst is to get more votes than the opposition. By lowering the overall pool of votes, you lower the victory threshold. Thus making it easier for an opposing side to win.

[Political Heretic]

42. But either person can win. Thus the original math is exactly the same.

[verges]

47. Not really.

For every one Dem vote that stays home, it is one less vote the Repubs have to overcome. Their job becomes easier. It's about who gets more votes. And fewer votes are easier to get than more. The fewer votes they NEED to get to win, the easier it is for them to win.

[Luminous Animal]

50. Given that the U.S. voting public is extraordinarily apathetic...

sitting out is the American way and expected by our political "leaders". Thus, a large turnout combined with a vote for any progressive liberal candidate; whether Dem, Green, or socialist, would belie the expected status quo.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. I always vote but not voting could be considered an act of passive resistance to a corrupt system.

Just sayin'.

[verges]

21. Could be, But usually isn't.

It just makes it easier for the bad guys to win.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

22. Fortunately, my ballot usually has more than 2 options and a write-in line.

Which saves wear and tear on the nose.

[EFerrari]

27. We have so little influence, that even when our candidate wins

in what was likely a landslide, the bad guys still win the policy war.

[Luminous Animal]

51. You'd be joining half of the U.S. public...

that doesn't vote anyway. That is, you'd be joining the status quo.

[yurbud]

24. Obama needs to take his entire economic team, Rahm, and just about everybody else

in his cabinet and throw them off the roof of the White House on camera to gain back my trust.

[Political Heretic]

43. Yes, but he put them there in the first place. That's the one indictment against the man.

In all of the stuff going on in policy sense inauguration, people can argue about how hard the president is "trying" vs. how much terrible opposition there is or the needs to compromise or represent that mysterious "everybody" that's only talked about when a privileged few want something done that the overwhelming majority of working class people oppose.....

But nothing forced Obama to build a team completely full of wall street insiders and beltway veteran cronies representing, in huge brilliant neon lettering the "STATUS QUO" and "BUSINESS AS USUALLY" in Washington and Wall Street.

The fact that he chose to do this, while running on a platform of change you can believe in, is beyond disgusting. And he most certainly can be held very directly accountable for decisions on his own advisers and officials, many of which were not even subject to congressional approval from a super-majority congress.

Building your campaign around a message that politics as usual are the problem and change we can believe in is the solution and then stacking the deck with every wall street and beltway neo-liberal insider you can find is a betrayal of campaign spirit and promise.

I've got legitimate cause to be upset. And look what the results have been on the biggest domestic policy issues: trick-down economics of mass giveaways to wall street first, wall streets opinion carries the most weight in economic recovery policy, regulatory reform, health care, environmental issues, and on and on.

It's why health care reform is dead and "insurance reform" is all that remains - with insurance companies wining major victories at every step of the way while ordinary Americans, who overwhelmingly tell their representatives that they want things like a public option, are ignored.

It's why EFCA died while most people don't even know what that stands for. And it's why environmental legislation is destined to be a laughable joke, much like the insurance giveaway still being referred to as "health care reform."

[Djinn]

44. have to disagree there PH

"But nothing forced Obama to build a team completely full of wall street insiders"

In order to become the Dem candidate the man had to become beholden to a host of people. The Dems are 100% bought and sold at this point. If there is any hope in US electoral politics it is not with the Democrats and hasn't been for a good 20 years now.

Obama picked the team he did for 2 reasons, 1) despite all his waffle about Hope & Change, if one looked for his actual concrete plans it was blatantly obvious that the man was never a progressive, he would fit nicely into Menzian Liberal world views (DUers who care what happens outside the US can google that one) and 2) you gotta dance with them that brung you.

[yurbud]

57. sad but true. When people say that changing Obama's team will help, it's because they

know that if the problem is the man himself, we're screwed.

[arcadian]

25. No it isn't

[EFerrari]

26. The right wing media will pitch their story no matter what we do.

[Jackpine Radical]

30. Yes, I agree. But we can make it harder for them, and

at least leave the cookie crumbs behind as evidence of what really happened.

Honestly, for me the hardest thing is not giving in to feelings of helplessness and futility. Happens I just read the latest edition of Lenore Walker's Battered Woman Syndrome book, and I keep seeing myself as becoming a Battered Citizen.

[EFerrari]

34. Do you remember that cartoon dog in a trench coat who kept saying,

"It's the end of the world. We're all gonna die"?

I feel like that dog lately. :)

Whatever, there's always local.

[groundloop]

32. Let them pitch their pathetic propaganda.... I'm Voting

I live in a red county inside a red state. I'm still voting. Just 'cause I'm pissed about what's happening with healthcare doesn't mean I'm willing to sit at home and let everyone else determine my future for me. IMHO, if you don't vote you're giving up your right to bitch about what our elected politicians are doing.

While I'm ranting... people have to realize that the democratic process is usually a choice between two less than perfect possibilities. Raise hell with your congress-critters, raise hell with the White House, but don't just sit home on election day - that's caving in to the right wing.

[EFerrari]

35. Well, no. I get to bitch according to the First Amendment

and as long as I service the IRS.

You don't list your location. Do you know if your vote is even counted?

I'm not trying to discourage people from voting or even claiming that I won't.

But, it's not useful to pretend to have more influence than we actually have.

[Luminous Animal]

53. It would be more difficult to pitch the story

if a large segment shifted to the left of Democratic candidates.

[EFerrari]

58. Do you think so? George Bush stole two elections.

:shrug:

[JHB]

28. My advice is: If you just can't vote for someone, vote for yourself.

It's not my first choice -- by a longshot -- but rather than stay home make a write-in vote for yourself.

You won't win, but then that's not the point. Can you imagine an election with a substantial "other" vote? Prove the vote is there, and someone will chase after it.

[Individualist]

29. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

[Jackpine Radical]

31. Yes, exactly.

We need to punish the Dems for bad behavior, but staying home is not an effective punishment.

[Ganja Ninja]

33. I'm not voting for the Democrats until they clean up the mess in their party.

I'll vote for a left wing third party if I have the option.

[rudy23]

36. Tell it to the people who are daring us to sit out in 2010.

The same people who are responsible for Obama's rightward tack are the same people telling us "if we don't like it, we get President Palin down the road." That's not a consequence of us sitting out, that's a consequence of the DLC telling Democrats to go fuck themselves.

[EFerrari]

38. I don't think anyone else is responsible for Obama's rightward tack.

He's taking what "worked" out of the Clinton strategy, as far as I can tell.

[rudy23]

40. I agree. Someone needs to tell him it's 2010, not 1994. Can't triangulate w/ the internets.

And bipartisanship doesn't have the same ring to it now that Bush has crapped all over the country.

[EFerrari]

41. Bi-partisanship loses a lot of luster when you're dealing with

the American Talibs. They're in your face destructive.

It rubs off.

[readmoreoften]

37. Not if we're loud on top of it, or coordinate our protest vote.

[NJmaverick]

39. I am with you, as I am not a quitter by nature

I fight until we win, not give up and let the Rupukes ruin things.

[sendero]

45. Yawn....

... the differences in this administration and the Bush administration are nil.

I no longer give two shits about who gets elected, it makes no practical difference.

[PeaceNikki]

46. Feingold is enough to get my ass to the polls.

:thumbsup:

[Luminous Animal]

48. I agree. Do not sit the election out!

[leftstreet]

49. If the Republicans want my vote they'll have to earn it! n/t

[joeunderdog]

52. Sheeesh. I'm sorry.

I thought these guys WERE the Republicans. My bad.

[tabbycat31]

54. I'll vote in 2010

my Congressman deserves my vote again, and I'll probably work on his campaign. Not sure who will be down the ticket yet. No statewide races here.

[hollowdweller]

55. Obama's waffling and Liebermans scummyness has made me feel good about my Nader Vote in 00 again

When Gore and Lieberman ran I felt we needed somebody less bought and sold by business.

Then with the Bush admin I really beat myself up over voting for Nader.

Now with Obama continuing the war, sucking up to the banks and insurance companies and in general waging war on the middle class I feel much better about my vote.

[MissMarple]

56. That's a true statement. Apathy is death. They count on that.

[PeaceNikki]

59. Let me see if I can explain it this way:

Every year in Happy Gumdrop Fairy-Tale Land all of the sprites and elves and woodland creatures gather together to pick the Rainbow Sunshine Queen. Everyone is there: the Lollipop Guild, the Star-Twinkle Toddlers, the Sparkly Unicorns, the Cookie Baking Apple-cheeked Grandmothers, the Fluffy Bunny Bund, the Rumbly-Tumbly Pupperoos, the Snowflake Princesses, the Baby Duckies All-In-A-Row, the Laughing Babies, and the Dykes on Bikes. They have a big picnic with cupcakes and gumdrops and pudding pops, stopping only to cast their votes by throwing Magic Wishing Rocks into the Well of Laughter, Comity, and Good Intentions. Afterward they spend the rest of the night dancing and singing and waving glow sticks until dawn when they tumble sleepy-eyed into beds made of the purest and whitest goose down where they dream of angels and clouds of spun sugar.

You don’t live there.

Grow the fuck up.

I read that here today: http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2008/02/25/your-mumia-sweatshirt-wont-get-you-into-heaven-anymore/ and thought of this thread.

[BeHereNow]

60. Agreed, if anything it is an opportunity to serve the corporate dems a wake up call.

I know I'll probably get flamed for saying this, but...

I'm willing to see republicans win for a spell if it shakes the corporate
whoring dems out of our party.

Like WPitt pointed out in another thread, the "change" will probably
not happen in our lifetimes, and maybe not even in a hundred years from now-
HOWEVER, it would be a wake up call to the dem whores who pretend to act in
our interests while serving the corporations instead, knew that we
were willing to vote for ANYONE who did not serve corporate masters,
even if it meant a Republican win.


I mean at this point, is there any difference between the two parties?

I see none.
Not lately.

Flame away-
BHN