••• Okay, I'm pissed. Who is to blame for our loss of Capitol Hill? Whose heads should roll? •••

[breadandwine]

I'm speaking politically of course. Politically, who deserves the blame after we lose in the Fall?


There absolutely has to be a house cleaning in our party.


Am I starting a "blame game"?


You're damn right I am.


Who deserves the blame for this debacle?


Let's start discussing this right now, before the DLCers have time to come up with their excuses.


Sorry, but I'm pissed.

[KILL THE WISE ONE]

1. has not happened yet

[breadandwine]

2. Read a paper lately?

...

[cherokeeprogressive]

5. Do you know of a paper that is already printing November elec results? Do they predict lottery #'s?

n/t

[breadandwine]

37. I know that only 23% of Democrats voted in the Connecticut primary. We are toast if that continues.

What if they gave an election and no Democrats came?

[KILL THE WISE ONE]

10. you can help stop that future ... take action

[Rosa Luxemburg]

3. We don't hear much from Congress - they are out on the front line

Dems should have a propaganda machine in place hitting the media from all angles all issues at once - confuse them. The GOP have loads of money hence they are winning. We need Howard Dean back as DNC chair for a start.

[breadandwine]

6. Oh, we can't have THAT! Dean at DNC? Horrors!!! We might win something!

And that 50 state strategy was just so professional librul!!!!!!!


And a propaganda machine on OUR side? We can't have THAT!!!!!


And lay it on the line against all the crap the GOP shovels?



Why, that would mean going off message!!!!!!!!!!!!!


We need to be:

SOMNAMBULISTIC.

[cherokeeprogressive]

4. Nary a vote has been cast. Hold your horses. n/t

[breadandwine]

34. Not true. In the Connecticut primary only 23% of Democrats bothered to vote.

This should be sending shock waves through our party.

Instead, we are comatose. Democrats are absolutely apathetic and demoralized.

The writing is already on the wall.

[MilesColtrane]

62. You'll find a lot of people whistling through the graveyard here.

Polls?

The ones that don't show the desired results are all fixed.

Horrible economy?

Doesn't matter, voters still blame the Republicans for that.

History?

Trends do not matter.

There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth here come November 3rd.

[doc03]

7. The Congress for passing a stimulus bill that put a few

high income construction workers to work rather than the people that needed work. Democrats ramming through a bastardized heath care bill against overwhelming public opposition.

[TransitJohn]

8. I'm starting to think it was the plan all along.

After the trainwreck that was the health insurance profit protection act and the abandoning of cap and trade. The Party will be content to hold the WH for Obama's two terms and let the Repubs run Congress. They've probably even got a deal that they won't mercilessly, relentlessly undermine him like they did to Clinton.

[dkf]

9. Everyone who didn't get that it was always about jobs jobs jobs.

[Common Sense Party]

14. But, but, but, we needed to spend the better part of a year and vast

sums of precious political capital to get an anemic, watered-down health care bill that is not "reform" in any sense of the word, but is, in fact, a huge kiss on the derriθre of the insurance companies.

THAT'S "change"!

[dkf]

29. Sickening isn't it?

Sigh.

[breadandwine]

41. Yup. Ever read Hemingway's "The Old Man And The Sea"?

A fisherman struggles endlessly to capture a fish and in the end it is just bones.


We had to pass a bill no matter how bad it ended up.

[breadandwine]

38. Of course now it's all about deficit, deficit, deficit and our side goes along with this mantra.

...

[laughingliberal]

48. +1000 nt

[tridim]

11. breadandwhine

and whine and whine..

Can you give me the winning powerball numbers for next week?

[Yo_Mama]

12. Huh?

Hey, if you really care about the Democratic party, why not try working for the party during the election? If the party loses the election, your housecleaning efforts will then have more credibility.

Trying to start this now is either ill-advised or malicious, IMO. There are things I believe the Democratic party has done wrong, but I don't think anyone who really cares about the party should try to make the pre-election story all about what's wrong. It should be about the future plans of the party and what's has been done right.

Elections ought to serve to help parties update their agenda based on the voters' current concerns, so I'm not claiming that no one should complain. I'm just saying that the focus ought to be about what we want and need from the government in the future, not who's to blame for the present. Elections ARE ABOUT THE FUTURE.

[breadandwine]

18. Yo mama, I have worked in Democratic campaigns all my life and on Capitol Hill.

I've had staff level positions and helped craft the message that enabled Chuck Schumer to beat the "unbeatable" Al D'Amato.

And I was the originator of the "fear monger" accusation against Bush I.

I've been in Dermocratic campaigns since I was 13 years old.


Get off your positive thinking seminar. There was a time Democrats knew how to fight and it wasn't by dreaming fantasies but by going negative.

When Goldwater said he wanted to nuke Vietnam, Johnson hit him with this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtYpnGZr6TA&feature=fvst


Seen any tough Democratic ads lately? I am NOT talking about ads on the NET that only progressives see in order to pacify the base while the party leadership continues to suck up to the GOP and Glenn Beck. I am talking about major negative ad buys in key markets where Joe Six Pack will see them in a bar while watching a sports game. There aren't any. The party is shooting with blanks, as usual.

When Clinton first ran for president I spoke with his wimpy press secretary Deedee Meyers and she said "We're fine!" That is Democratic-ese for "Last chance to head for the hills with a year's supply of canned goods."

Clinton couldn't even get 50% in that election and had to be saved by Ross Perot's 3rd party candidacy.

In the same campaign In 1992 political consultant Mandy Grunwald, working in the Clinton campaign, said it best. She said, "This campaign scares the hell out of me because there is no one who sits awake at night thinking how to f*ck the competition." Same with the Dukakis campaign. The GOP kept using him as a punching bag and Democrats BEGGED him to hit back but he just wouldn't do it and acted like fighting and hitting back was some kind of F*CKING ALIEN EXPERIENCE.

[rufus dog]

22. Wow!

That is like quitting early in the 3rd QTR with your team down by a touchdown.

[still_one]

28. I don't think he is giving up, but the point he is making is valid. The Democrats

have stopped fighting a long time ago, and unless they start to go on the attack, they will lose

They seem to have forgotten how it is done.

[breadandwine]

43. Dukakis was a perfect example.

He kept getting beat up by George H.W. Bush and never fought back and Democrats kept pleading with him to answer and he didn't even know what that meant.

So he answered them.

Dukakis was basically being accused of beating his wife.

His response boiled down to, "I deny beating my wife."

He had no idea what fighting back even meant.


Politics is a blood sport and if you don't know how to fight you shouldn't be in the game at all and let someone else carry the ball.

[breadandwine]

42. I'm merely pointing out the facts.

If you can't handle the facts, you're the one who's out to lunch.

[still_one]

50. no no no, the quote is "You can't handle the truth", at least that's what Col Jessep

would say

[still_one]

27. I couldn't agree with more. The Democrats have stopped fighting long ago

In all honesty, the campaigns of Gore and Kerry were pathetic

Tim Kaine is worthless. Even Terry McAuliffe had passion, I don't see that in Kaine

Six months into his term, Obama should have realized the republicans could NOT be compromised with. Kennedy's seat should NEVER have been lost, and that I blame directly on Kaine and the DNC for taking that election for granted

Dean of course was magnificent with his 50 state strategy

I gave and supported Obama, but looking back, even though there were issues I had with Hillary, I now believe if she could win the election, she would have fought and been tougher than the Obama administration

The only way they will have a chance to win is to with passion, and hard campaigning that touches the common person

Otherwise, we can throw all the money at them we want, but if they don't go on the attack it doesn't matter

[breadandwine]

44. Kaine is a puppy dog, a warm-fuzzy. He hasn't a clue.

He thinks he's playing romper room


Many DNC chairmen think their only job is being palsy-walsy with the rich to raise money from them.

[blindpig]

69. If that is the case then the question is 'why'.

I think I know the answer to that. The core party leadership abandoned the pretense of the New Deal long ago. It was but an expedience in any case, originally policy wise and for a while electoral. Nixon started peeling off the blue collar vote in '68 and that continued thru Raygun. Yet there were still a good few votes to be had so the pretense remained, though lessening, the boiling frog action. While the jingoism common to military veterans, and there were so many in my father's generation, and the subdued racism inherent in white America had something to do with it a very big factor is that the Democratic Party had ceased 'bringing home the bacon' to blue collar Americans. There were no economic gains for the working class, nothing to cheer about, like say health care for all. Lacking sound economic reason voters had to make due with irrelevance elevated to life and death issues, sideshows which had no effect on the ruling class's bottom line. Ya wonder why 50% don't vote... And we have now reached the point where that pretense has totally evaporated, it's 1890 all over again.

The Democrats don't fight because they have nothing to fight over with the GOP, they are pretty much on the same page. The only thing they fight for is their jobs, not exactly the stuff of an inspiring campaign.

[Common Sense Party]

13. What loss? We're going to win BIG in November.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8953654

Bank it.

[breadandwine]

45. We are going to get SLAUGHTERED.

And if by some fluke we win somewhere the GOP hackers will go to work on the servers since Obama did nothing about hacking the vote.

[Common Sense Party]

54. That can't be.

Our resident prognosticator said so. The Oracle is never wrong!

[Warpy]

15. It hasn't happened yet, but if it does

the blame falls squarely on Tim Kaine, the DLC, and the party power structure that insisted on the abandonment of Dr. Dean's 50 state strategy.

There is no other place to lay the blame except at the feet of the men who returned to a losing strategy rather than pursue one that had been a 100% winner.

And yes, we need a housecleaning at the top. The DLC is best at throwing victory away with both hands. They need to be sidelined.

[TreasonousBastard]

16. Probably YOU if you just whine about losing instead of...

getting your dead ass out there and working for the win.

Don't expect everyone else to do the work and then you complain them that they don't do it right.

[breadandwine]

23. TreasonousBastard, sounds like you're engaging in REVERSE whining or something.

See post 18.

[Cherchez la Femme]

17. Perhaps those who squandered our Political Capital?

Ya know, the "Mandate" (single word, you won't get a date with Obama, boys : ) "of the People"?


Just a wild guess... :shrug:



edit: typo

2nd edit: As for "Let's start discussing this right now, before the DLCers have time to come up with their excuses."

...too late

[breadandwine]

47. One of the ironic things about all this healthcare stuff is it started with a poll.

When Clinton began pushing healthcare right BEFORE he lost Congress, it had nothing to do with some fantasy about cutting the deficit or that the world would come to an end if it wasn't passed. It had to do with the fact that he had pollster Stan Greenberg take a poll about it and Greenberg came up with this fantasy that if Clinton passed healthcare he was guaranteed victory. He didn't have a clue when the GOP went to work on him over the issue. And he didn't fight back well.

This all started with a stupid poll.

Not what we really need. Rather, it was a poll about what Greenberg thought would be popular.


Funny that.

[Cherchez la Femme]

58. Also funny that

that poll was listened to while the poll(s) showing that over 70% of the U.S. citizenry wanted Single Payer/Public Option was ignored.

Funny, funny, funny.
So funny I :cry:

[QC]

19. Gays and liberals always get blamed for Democratic losses.

It's a tradition.

[Fumesucker]

20. One thing we know for sure..

It will *not* be the fault of any Democratic politician since they are responsible for nothing and are utterly powerless to influence events.

I think it will be the fault of the professional leftists, teh ghey and the dirty fucking hippies..

Oh and Ralph Nader too..

[Cherchez la Femme]

33. ZOMG

"the professional leftists, teh ghey and the dirty fucking hippies"

I'm actually all three!

It's all my fault... I am teh epitome of teh Blamee, damn me.
DAMN ME TO HELL!

[breadandwine]

49. Exactly. It will be the fault of the left and professional left.

Rahm Emanuel, Tim Kaine and the others had nothing to do with it.


They are sinless.

[Iggo]

21. It's almost as if a whole chunk of the electorate has already given up.

Huh.

Fuck hard work. Who do I blame?

[tridim]

35. A chunk of 'chuck, yes.

[breadandwine]

51. Only 23% of Democrats voted in the Connecticut primary. If that isn't an omen I don't know what is.

...

[Iggo]

56. Omen?

Sounds more like an excuse.

[breadandwine]

24. Let's get something straight. On top of EVERYTHING else, Gore and Kerry won & Obama won by much more

than the official numbers because of the rigged elections and hacked votes.

This party has done NOTHING to reform the rigged voting and hacked electronic voting machines.


Even if everything happened right in the Fall for us we would still lose because of hacked votes.

[still_one]

30. You have a point with the 2000 election, but not with Kerry

and both Gore and Kerry ran dismal campaigns

Obama did not allow attacks to go unanswered, however, the passion he ran in his campaign is not what it was after he was elected, and they had better start coming out on the attack, and not take anything for granted like they did on Kennedy's seat

I am not impressed with Kaine at all

[breadandwine]

52. Kerry won. The vote was hacked even then. Exit polls way out of line with the final vote.

Statistically impossible without rigging.


As any statistician knows.

[LooseWilly]

25. Democratic politicians that would re-define the party's base?

... to include "swing voters" but exclude teachers, labor, LGBT, "professional Left", netroots and feminists (I assume the double-plus capitulation on the subject of abortion rights counts as a dismissal of feminists from the "base").

Every time the party does this, it seems to be a DLC inspired strategy... so I'm thinking that's the first place to look for blame.

[CocaNova]

31. +1 n/t

[still_one]

26. SELF DELETE

[Uben]

32. I'm stuck down here in Texas....

....surrounded by red. If you have been working campaigns since you were 13 and have had staff level positions, why aren't you telling us who is to blame instead of asking us? It's okay to be pissed, just watch who you're pissin on.

[breadandwine]

53. All the DLC wimps.

But some are more wimpy than others.


Of course, Rahm is a saint. Tim Kaine is a saint. Boy do they know how to fight!

Yeah. Sure.


And Rahm was there when Clinton lost Congress too.

[Gravel Democrat]

36. Rham finds this thread less than amusing...

Watch your mail!

[breadandwine]

55. Rahm is a great man. Everyone in the base is a "F*CKING RETARD," he said.

Must be true.

[smalll]

39. ••• Breadandwine! Thanks to you for your fancypants dots! •••

I'm no techie, but even I can cut and paste -- I borrowed a few sets of them from you for an OP in GDP yesterday. They look cool! :)

(I went with six on each side, rather than three. Even more impressive!)

[McCamy Taylor]

40. Better question is how will MSM excuse vote tallies that do not match exit polls.

Election fraud is going to be rampant this election, because no one believes that Holder will have the cojones to do anything about it. I can not wait to see the Republicans do the perp walk.

2012 should be relatively clean in comparison.

[breadandwine]

59. It's group-think. Fear of the all-important ELECTRIC RIDICULE MACHINE.

Add to that the fact that goopers are troopers first while we are always worried about being "ethical" and the result is that they walk all over us.

[bigbaddan]

46. Obama's communications team is to blame.

This is the most inept White House I have ever seen in getting their message out. It starts with Robert Gibbs.

[breadandwine]

60. What message? Their whole thing is to deny that they are Democrats.

Someone might find out.

[seattleblue]

57. We haven't lost or won anything yet.

Once the election is over numbers will have to be studied. What was the turnout? What was the voting percent of different groups, etc.? Then we can celebrate or blame.

[breadandwine]

61. But in the words of Cervantes --- "Forewarned, forearmed."

And I presume you've heard this one:

"Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it."


We're making all the same mistakes we made when Dukakis lost and when we lost the Hill under Clinton.

[DevonRex]

63. ROFL. Trying to convince people that all is lost so they needn't bother

campaigning or voting? :rofl:

[dionysus]

66. BUT I'M ANGRY DAMMIT!11!! LOOK AT ME!!1!! CRUSIE MISSELS!!11!!

:rofl:

[DevonRex]

70. I'm so angry I peeeed ON my cruse missles!!!!

Oooops.

:P

[dionysus]

72. once you've damaged the launch switch, you may need to replace the entire console...

:(

[DevonRex]

73. Grumble, grumble, grumble.

Just what does one do with a damaged cruise missile console? I know. I'll paint flowers on it and send it to Charles for his recycling project and let HIM figure out what to use it for.

:evilgrin:

[breadandwine]

74. Read a paper lately?

Denial is more than just a river in Egypt.

[DevonRex]

75. Read a paper lately that is dated POST election day? I am SO laughing my ass off at you

for your transparent bullshit.

[DevonRex]

64. But your "I'm pissed" thing was cute.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[dionysus]

67. I'M PISSED! LET'S KICK EVERYONE OUT OF THE PARTY SO WE CAN WIN11!!!!!

:hi:

[DevonRex]

71. Yeah, let's all vote 18th Party!!!! They've got 5 members now and counting!!!!

Isn't that how the good guys lost the Spanish Civil War? Perhaps a little history lesson is in order.

[dionysus]

65. hmm. today's manufactured outrage i suppose.

[Iggo]

68. We didn't lose.

[breadandwine]

76. We are in a lot of trouble and we are not fighting.

....