It doesn't matter what "signal" you think the Coakley defeat is sending.

[LoZoccolo]

It doesn't matter if you think it means the voters were to the right of Coakley (and sincerely voted for Brown) or to the left (and voted for Brown to act like spiteful jerks). It doesn't matter because no matter what the situation is now, your job is still to gain consensus amongst the voters for what you want. The Democrats - if they are to survive - will always try to represent the left half of the population, no matter how right the median opinion is. If you punish them from the left for that, why wouldn't they try to make up for it by lurching a bit further right? Especially when you give them no specific terms for your vote -what's to say that you still won't give them your vote should they give you this or that? Even if you think that that's evil or wrong, they can still get away with it.

But shift the populace leftward and they'll have no choice bit to follow, because you'll win the primaries, and the general.

But you have to make sure you can do that. You have to do the work.

You won't even have to argue on DU about what you think the party should do. You'll be making it happen. Or you can continue to make excuses for not letting it happen, and leave it in the hands of other people, who you'll complain about year after year.

Is it any wonder why princes and kings
Are clowns that caper in their sawdust rings?
Ordinary people that are like you and me
We're the keepers of their destiny.
- Oasis, "Go Let It Out"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_uWYnrDsa0

[Oregone]

1. Oasis blows

[TexasObserver]

4. donkeys

[DonCoquixote]

2. Gee, lots of unrecs

I wonder why.

Could it be some people had their vanity hurt?

[MannyGoldstein]

3. If Candidates Blatently Lie, Then This Doen't Work At All

We voted for change - but that change turned out to only be Obama's 180 on virtually everything.

We did not get what was advertised. We almost never do. The lying has to stop.

[xchrom]

5. Since the Nelson lieberman democrats

Have been having more than their fair share
of say so with cooperation from the rahm axelrod
white house -- what left part of the country are talking about?

Winning means governing and having the nerve
to do that

Otherwise be the opposition party and be happy
with it

[NeeDeep]

6. It's all about care embodied in goverment and the following thru

Politicians who elicit a care response from the voters and then fail to deliver may get the boot. At least with george bush we knew where we stood pretty quickly, he didn't give a shit about us. We can either vote, vote the other way or stay home. People will follow someone who shows "care", but if they break that trust the pitch forks come out.

[Bluebear]

7. Yes, only Oasis can heal this rift.

[LoZoccolo]

8. I'm glad you're a fan too, but this is about the readers of the post, not Oasis. n/t