William Daley warns democrats not to become too liberal

[Enrique]

Daley as I see it perfectly represents everything that is wrong about the democratic party.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/23/AR2009122302439_pf.html

(...)

Despite this raft of bad news, Democrats are not doomed to return to the wilderness. The question is whether the party is prepared to listen carefully to what the American public is saying. Voters are not re-embracing conservative ideology, nor are they falling back in love with the Republican brand. If anything, the Democrats' salvation may lie in the fact that Republicans seem even more hell-bent on allowing their radical wing to drag the party away from the center.

All that is required for the Democratic Party to recover its political footing is to acknowledge that the agenda of the party's most liberal supporters has not won the support of a majority of Americans -- and, based on that recognition, to steer a more moderate course on the key issues of the day, from health care to the economy to the environment to Afghanistan.

For liberals to accept that inescapable reality is not to concede permanent defeat. Rather, let them take it as a sign that they must continue the hard work of slowly and steadily persuading their fellow citizens to embrace their perspective. In the meantime, liberals -- and, indeed, all of us -- should have the humility to recognize that there is no monopoly on good ideas, as well as the long-term perspective to know that intraparty warfare will only relegate the Democrats to minority status, which would be disastrous for the very constituents they seek to represent.

The party's moment of choosing is drawing close. While it may be too late to avoid some losses in 2010, it is not too late to avoid the kind of rout that redraws the political map. The leaders of the Democratic Party need to move back toward the center -- and in doing so, set the stage for the many years' worth of leadership necessary to produce the sort of pragmatic change the American people actually want.

[madfloridian]

1. Here we go again. Keeping the "liberals" in their place.

I am going to look up all the times they have done this. After each election whether we win or lose.

2006 and last year especially when the lectures got bad.

Enough of that.

[roguevalley]

33. liberals are the conscience of this party. they need to scream at the

top of their lungs. what is that quote from Catherine of Sienna? Yell as if you were going to die because silence is the death of the world. (Severely paraphrased.)

[Forkboy]

2. I'd hate that to happen.

[clear eye]

3. Don't think we're in any danger of that.

Of course we may be in danger of not effectively addressing the crumbling economy and the needs arising from it. Would trying to do something that works be "too liberal"?

[scentopine]

4. Liberals are not welcome in America. We are becoming like jews in pre nazi germany

The Right wing has spent billions demonizing us, the Democrats are now on the bandwagon.

The more the nation moves to the right, the worse things get. That is a fact.

Fuck centrist (aka right wing) new democrats. They should be punished.

Although I have to agree that if the nation wants to continue to slit their own throat by beating up the liberals, the democrats and republicans can help with this.

We need a new party. We should not continue to support the democratic party with its leadership constantly berating us and talking down to us while kissing right wing asses.

[mopinko]

21. that is a truly offensive analogy. np

[angstlessk]

24. I am sure the 'mainstream jews' said the same thing in 1930 or so n/t

[Dappleganger]

26. Your analogy is ridiculous and offensive.

[scentopine]

31. How can it possibly be offensive?

I knew people would carelessly equate pre-nazi germany with Hitler's actions (they are not the same) Unfortunately, even as these people deny it, there is a palpable parallel to pre-nazi Germany.

The right wing media is saturated with hate speech against liberals. All the major right wing personalities have advocated killing liberals, locking them up, torturing them. They say they are joking. They are not. There is hardly a politician in Washington who is brave enough to call himself a liberal.

Hate crimes and extremist organizations have doubled or more in last 2 years. Liberals are hated. They are routinely blamed for every problem in America.

Over last ten years in my high-tech industry, the talk is so outrageous around the coffee pots, people talk casually and openly about killing liberals. Our media and our politicians have made it OK.

That's why even Obama won't touch us. He'll spend every waking moment tearing apart real reform necessary to fix a major crisis that is making us less and less competitive every year. Why? He is afraid of liberals and afraid of appearing liberal. He'll cuddle with, and stroke and compromise and capitulate with the very scum of the earth republicans who are tearing this country apart - but he won't work with liberals.

Have you heard him lately talking about the "left" and "liberals" he is practically choking back the bile. Scolding and lecturing us. I don't need this shit. Liberals don't need this shit.

Take a close look at Germany between the world wars and you will see what happens when people are desperately looking for a place to channel their anger.

Liberals are despised in America. That should be clear. And as centrists and other right wingers continue to tear this country up piece by piece and sell it off to various corporate entities (many now located in Asia), liberals will continue to be blamed for the declining quality of life. Centrists democrats and other right wingers have re-written the history and now many of these same conservatives are blaming FDR for the current economic disaster.

The new democrats continue to piss on FDR's grave. There is no democratic politician alive today that is even a small fraction of the man that FDR was. This, of course, includes Obama. Even Truman and Eisenhower would be considered liberal "extremists" today.

It is having an effect and it is dangerous. Liberals need to break away from the democratic party and start fighting from the outside and win back the respect that has been stripped away by democrats and republicans. We trusted democrats and that was a big mistake. We have to fight back and do it ourselves.

[debbierlus]

40. 'The only good liberal is a dead liberal'.

'Need to water the tree of liberty'....

Hate speech against 'liberals' (and the scary thing is that liberal is a label they strap on ANYONE who doesn't agree with them, I remember under Bush, old school conservatives were called 'liberal' and judges who spoke out against their abuses were 'liberal'...

These people are dangerous. They openly call for violence against our community. They have national talking heads that inflame the situation every day for hours on end.

These people are lunatics and they are filled with hate. You can't imagine a scenario they would act en masse in violence.

'All it takes for evil to prevail in the world is for good men to do nothing'....

[amborin]

5. similarly, "Demonizing Dean" from The Nation:

maybe this was already posted, if so, sorry:

"Demonizing Dean Won't Absolve the Healthcare Sham," by Robert Scheer


"How dare a progressive suggest a vote against the Senate health bill? When Howard Dean did just that last week he was roundly condemned for casting aspersions on what even many of its more ardent supporters admit is an obviously flawed bill. Instead of focusing their wrath on the few obstructionists in the Senate who blackmailed the majority into dropping a much needed public option in order to avoid a filibuster, they made Dean the villain for daring to suggest that passage of this deeply compromised legislation might make the nation's healthcare system worse.

..Dean deserves much better, and his concerns as a physician and a progressive politician are worthy of serious attention. As the former governor noted in a Washington Post Op-Ed article last week: "I have worked for health-care reform all my political life. In my home state of Vermont, we have accomplished universal healthcare for children younger than 18 and real insurance reform--which not only bans discrimination against preexisting conditions but also prevents insurers from charging outrageous sums for policies as a way of keeping out high-risk people. I know health reform when I see it, and there isn't much left in the Senate bill. I reluctantly conclude that, as it stands, this bill would do more harm than good to the future of America."

The devil is in the details, and the devil's scribe here is Joe Lieberman--and, by extension, the insurance companies he so faithfully represents. Lieberman was responsible for striking a public option and Medicare buy-in from the Senate legislation that now includes no effective restraints on the power of the big insurers that have created our healthcare monstrosity. The insurance companies know they have won big, as reflected in the dramatic increase in their stock valuations in recent weeks as the Senate bill came to exclude all forms of the public option.

The likelihood that even the anemic public option will not appear in the final bill was made clear Tuesday when President Barack Obama dismissed the option provision, which the House bill still includes, as nothing more than "a source of ideological contention between the left and right," adding in an interview with The Washington Post, "I didn't campaign on the public option." True, but he did campaign against Hillary Clinton's plan to mandate insurance coverage as the Senate bill does. As Obama put it in Wisconsin in February 2008: "I believe the reason people don't have healthcare isn't because no one's forced them to buy it. It's because no one's made it affordable."

The biggest problem is that the legislation passed by the Senate forces Americans, under penalty of law, to make a decision about an expenditure of their own funds that they may not feel is in their interest. The carrot of a publicly financed option has been eliminated, and thus tens of millions of Americans are left with the stick of an expensive insurance obligation that they may not be able to afford. In criticizing the Massachusetts law, which is close to the Senate bill in conception, Obama said on a campaign stop in Cleveland in February 2008, "We still don't know how Sen. Clinton intends to enforce a mandate, and if we don't know the level of subsidies that she's going to provide, then you can have a situation, which we are seeing right now in the state of Massachusetts, where people are being fined for not having purchased healthcare but choose to accept the fine because they still can't afford it , even with subsidies."

That's what concerns Dean about the Senate bill: "The bill was supposed to give Americans choices about what kind of system they wanted to enroll in," he said. "Instead, it fines Americans if they do not sign up with an insurance company, which may take up to 30 percent of your premium dollars and spend it on CEO salaries."

snip

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100104/scheer

[WeDidIt]

6. Daley is right

Like it or not, this nation is slightly right of center. The best you can hoope for is a bit left of center,

[Confusious]

44. Which part would that be?

The 60%+ who want national health care?

The 60%+ who want to be done with these wars?

The 60%+ who want to clamp down on wall street?

the 60%+ who want to rein in the insurance companies?

The 60%+ who want to rein in corporations?

Distorted like a true rahm emmanuel.

[scentopine]

52. The average IQ is 100. That's the best we can hope for. We need

to adapt to it. It would be easier all around if we just adjusted to mediocrity and formulate policy so that we accommodate are most reptilian instincts. It's just easier that way and then democrats can win just like republicans.

[Ken Burch]

7. And if we don't agree, he'll send his daddy's old "friends" over to talk to us?

[inna]

16. thanks for a reminder.

[OHdem10]

8. They pass a Center Right-- Center Right Bill and he is yipping

Do not go to Liberal.
What he is really saying,
Alright you Liberals especially Activists--Sit down and shut up.

Do not embarass us Center Right Dems ConservaDems.

We would prefer not to hear from you until we need your money
and your vote next election.

[amborin]

22. +1

[Ken Burch]

9. What would be a "moderate" policy on Afghanistan?

Only blowing HALF the country to bits?

[SharonAnn]

10. Perhaps the agenda of the liberals has the majority of the voters, but not the senators.

[jaysunb]

15. That's what happens when

States with roughly the population of my "STREET" can impose their will on the majority of Americans. :evilfrown:

[laughingliberal]

45. +1 nt

[Thickasabrick]

11. Holy crap - he is full of shit. The independents and the liberals want

an end to the wars. They want single payer or at least a public option.

It's the centrists and the far right who are going against the grain of most of the country.

[Hydra]

12. Rec'ing because this isn't getting us anywhere

"the humility to recognize that there is no monopoly on good ideas"

Yeah, I think he needs to look at the fact that his group seems to have a monopoly on BAD ones.

[asjr]

13. Wont you go home Bill Daley!

[Edweird]

14. As if that was actually a problem....

[leeroysphitz]

17. I wouldn't worry about it if I were him.

[Blasphemer]

18. God forbid... nt

[aquart]

19. Ah, I remember the convention of '68.

And how democratic that Daley was. Apple doesn't fall far.

[LiberalFighter]

20. Go phuck yourself Daley. You are no better than your dad.

I won't support a Convention in Chicago as long as Daley is Mayor.

[amborin]

23. it's

too bad

I think he implemented a very pro-bird policy for Chicago....lights out at night in the high rises, since millions of migratory birds die each year during annual migration, by flying into lit buildings at night (attracted by the lights, and they do much of their migratory, long-distance flying at night)

but he's sounding like a fascist now

maybe part of Rahm's "message discipline" or something, but really intolerable

[Ken Burch]

36. That's his brother "Richie". William Daley was never mayor.

n/t.

[amborin]

38. oh,

thanks for that info!

Richie is the 'good' guy, then.

[Ken Burch]

43. Well, sort of.

n/t.

[EFerrari]

25. LOL. Yeah, like the party leaders are going to run out and buy Che t shirts

and wear them on teevee.

[HoarseWhisperer]

27. They never warn about becoming too Conservative. nt

[Hello_Kitty]

28. Overton's Window, baby! eom

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

29. Considering the direction the party's heading now, he hasn't a thing to worry about. .

The proverbial dimes worth of difference has shrunk to about 2 cents.

[change_notfinetuning]

30. It doesn't get much more corporate than William Daley. He was Clinton's

guy to push through NAFTA, headed SBC, and is now an exec at JP Morgan Chase. I'd say take it with a grain of salt, except that he is part of the Chicago political mafia (incl. Rahm Emanuel) that is apparently running things at the White House. For that reason, I'd say it's time to duck and cover. Things will not get better.

[Raine]

32. Go ahead and try to get along without us ... JERK! nt

x(

[MadHound]

34. Or what, he's going to go all daddy dear on their ass next time the convention comes to town?

Fuck you Daley, and the father you rode in on.

[Ken Burch]

35. Still, even Daley would have to concede

That the vast majority of the American people are against globalization.

There's nothing "moderate" in imposing "free trade" pacts that force countries to compete to see which will make life hardest for labor and the poor.

[Hannah Bell]

37. One of Obama's peeps.

William Michael Daley (born August 9, 1948 in Chicago, Illinois)

advisory board of the Obama-Biden Transition Project

Loyola, John Marshall Law School

Daley and George, Mayer Brown (law firms)

Amalgamated Bank of Chicago, first vice chairman (1989–1990) president, chief operating officer (1990-1993)

special counsel to the President on passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

Secretary of Commerce, 2nd Clinton admin

chairman of Vice President Al Gore's presidential campaign

President of SBC Communications

Midwest Chairman of J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank One Corp

Boards of Directors of Boeing, Merck & Co., Inc, Boston Properties, Inc., and Loyola University

Council on Foreign Relations

youngest child of the late Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley and Eleanor "Sis" Daley

brother of the city's current mayor, Richard M. Daley

On March 5, 2009, The Hill reported that Daley was leaning toward running for the Senate seat President Obama once held.<3>

[Echo In Light]

49. That pretty much sums it up

[debbierlus]

39. Short answer. NO. You spit in our face, we respond ACCORDINGLY

Who the fuck do these people think they are?

[Hawkeye-X]

41. I have four words for Mr. Daley

Kiss my liberal ass!

[laughingliberal]

46. +1 nt

[tritsofme]

42. I like Bill Daley

He was considering a run for statewide office in Illinois earlier in the year, it's a shame he didn't go for it.

[mmonk]

47. Alternative reality is interesting to me.

But it is why we are in the situation we find ourselves. The perception wars are interesting and false. The battles are not about left or right. The perceptions in alternative realities leads to the interesting reverse logic such as while the party has moved continually right over the last few decades, they say the party has moved too left and must move back to center.

[TheKentuckian]

48. Notice how they can never actually point to any policy when they wag the finger in this direction

What is it we want that the people are against? And more to the point what initiative has gone forward at all that hasn't been between moderate and center/right?

I also think it is terribly hard to play to the center when I'm not sure anyone can define it at this point and if one could would policies from the minds of the center actually address the real issues facing the country?

I'm usually the "get real"/pragmatic type but I feel the need to tell the Mayor to STFU.

[Bluenorthwest]

50. Hey Daley! My family has held your family in contempt since

68. Verbal goon squads like your Daddy's real ones?

[shadesofgray]

51. Fuck him. I'm a liberal before I'm a Democrat. I won't vote for DINOs,period.

[bridgit]

53. That's probably good advise for the longterm viability *of* Liberalism...