Let me know when the Circular Death Panel ends

[Perky]

It's pointless folks.
Utterly self destructive and hardly cathartic

What we are seeing and feeling today will last until the SOTU snd it is just so nauseating and familiar


If you want a permanent majority, you have to tack a little to the middle. True progressives, Those acceptable to many of you, cannot win insurgent primary campaigns against entrenched blue dogs and expect to win in November. And no one but a moderate to conservative Dem can win in purple districts. one third of Dem Incumbebts are blue dogs and DLCer. You may hate it, but they are part of the party and its their votes you have to capture to move an agenda. Not your Agenda but the President's Agenda, the party's agenda.

Incrementalism is the price you pay for having the big tent and a pemenant majority.


To those of you who want to throw anyone who dare to think differently than you under the bus, if you actually think we need a purity test, I would politely suggest that, you misunderstand the nature of the american electorate, How coalition politics work and the history of the Democratic Party since Reconstruction.

I am not suggesting that what you believe is wrong, but I am suggesting that your anger, your lack of tolerance of other coalition views, your lack of patience, and your lack of an ability to see the whole board is far more damaging to the health of party and to your own agenda than you apparently are able to comprehend.


Yeah it sucks that we lost Ted Kennedy's seat. But I am not gonna sit on my ass, bitching about what we could have done differently, yelling about purifying principals like a tea partyer and still lose more seats in the Fall, We have an opportunity to pick up three seats in the Senate in Ohio, Missouri and New Hampshire and I don't give a damn if they are a moderate or not.

You want the Democratic party to run an undivided government? Take a deep breath, suck it up and start working for your party and not against it.

[NJmaverick]

1. Very well said! Very well done!

:applause:

[Ken Burch]

2. Incrementalism CAUSED the loss last night.

Coakley was NOT a leftist, and neither was Obama. And nobody there was voting against us activists.

[cliffordu]

29. Coakley thought she had the thing sewn up

She didn't campaign, she let her people misspell the name of the state she wanted to represent in an ad for christ's sake, and she didn't know who that Sox player was and accused him of being a yankees fan.

She deserved to lose. That kind of hubris and attitude of entitlement needs to be quashed.

How can you be trusted to represent a state that your staff cannot spell??

[Splinter Cell]

35. ...

Bullshit

[Zenlitened]

3. Maybe Pres. Obama's acknowledgement of the problem will help:

...The president also said the same voter anger that swept him into office in 2008 carried Brown into office on a stunning upset victory Tuesday night over heavily favored Democrat Martha Coakley.

"Here's my assessment of not just the vote in Massachusetts, but the mood around the country: the same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office," the president said in an exclusive interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos. "People are angry and they are frustrated. Not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years."

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Politics/president-obama-scott-brown-massachusetts-victory/story?id=9611222

[nashville_brook]

5. angry voters demand more incrementalism.

:rofl:

[Armstead]

4. There is a diofference between "incrementalism" and moving in the opposite direction

Incrementalism means that all are moving in the same direction even though the ideologues and moderates differ over the appropriate speed and extent.

That's fine. Thosee kind of differences can be worked out.

However, too many in the "Big tent" are working at cross purposes. Ben Nelson, for example, is working to protect his buddies in the insurance industry, while progressives (and most true moderates) are trying to loosen the strangleghold of private insurers.

The DLC is working to protect the basic power of corporate America, while actual liberals and progressives (including moderates) are trying to reassert the notion of public interest and responsibility into the equation.

Those differences are harder to reconcile.

[robinlynne]

6. I do suggest that what you believe is wrong. I believe that moving to the

right, which you call moving towards the center, is working full on against our party. I.E. I disagree 100% with your theory.
Not just me, but history, says you are wrong.

[Perky]

8. Can you provide any historical anecdote to support your contention?

[robinlynne]

15. FDR.

[robinlynne]

16. the New Deal.

[Perky]

20. Go back to 1932 and see what kinf of majorties we had

Go back an look at the pre-television, pre-internet world. Roosevelt ran the country with fireside chats and the GOP had no voice. We do not have nearly the majority, and things were far worse. AND FDR did not touch Health care.

[robinlynne]

32. so FDr "governed from the center?" NO, he went for REAL change.

[Dr.Phool]

7. They always say that, right before we lose the next election.

Screw artificial Republicans.

[Perky]

9. And who loses the election?

[county worker]

10. No. We've tried everything but tacking left since Clinton.

One more "we have to appease those who have it made already" and I'll puke up a battle ship!

I wonder how the unemployed and the foreclosed on in "moderate" states feel about us not doing anything to help them?

I wonder what all those who voted for Obama felt he was going to do? I really don't believe they thought they were electing a moderate!@

[laughingliberal]

27. +1000 nt

[Cha]

11. And, in the immortal words of John Kerry..

"Tonight’s results will be analyzed and overanalyzed by the punditry. I hope as a Party we don't succumb to the temptation to form a circular firing squad. It does no one any good. One lesson Ted Kennedy and I both learned from defeat is, you just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, chart a course forward, and get back in the fight."

I salute you, :patriot::toast:

[treestar]

12. Well said.

Amazing the lack of tolerance for other views, which is usually the hallmark of the left.

[politicasista]

13. Kick

:kick:

[Fire1]

14. "And that's the way it is." n/t

[NYC_SKP]

17. A refreshingly productive post that I can rec. A rarity, lately. n/t

:kick:

[krabigirl]

18. I don't see how Obama can go more to the middle. also..

teabaggers are far, far right. To go to this "middle" would be going into right-wing territory.

[laughingliberal]

28. He passed the middle a while back. A few shifts left might get him back to the middle. nt

[depakid]

19. Yet another person seeminglty incapable of learning

Where does all the outright stupidity come from?

Why is it so difficult to see what a bunch of losers- OUTRIGHT LOSERS your pandering, complicity and weakness produces?

How many times do you have to be beaten over the head before you get a clue that failing to stand up and fight for traditional Democratic values- turning popular bills into unpopular ones- or putting forth ineffective half measures and refusing to hold corporate criminals, torturers and the Republican party to account isn't going to result in anything but derision and a loss of your nascent majority?

Why is it that you cannot (or will not) look to the Republican's playbook and emulate how they get it done- even when their candidates are nutters- and their policies irrational (and sometimes even despised by sizable majorities?).

[Perky]

21. Tiy want to use the Republican Playbook?

THE GOP hold 41 seats in the Sanate and had gotten Pummeled the last wow election cycles.

[depakid]

23. Republicans manage to win- even when they have the smallest of minorities

Look at what Bob Dole managed in 1993-94.

Culminating in....

Now, look at what Harry Reid manages- with 60 ostensible votes!

Case closed (although there are myriad examples over the past 20+ years to draw from).

Bottom line- Dems lose repeatedly in both policy fights and elections.

Even with the a bigger mandate and opportunity to alter the landscape than Reagan had!

[Perky]

24. We kicked theiar ass in the last two general elections

and we did it not by adding a whole slew of liberals to both houses we did it by attracting moderate Dems who could win in the Fall.... Why. Because either the state or the district Democrat chose a moderate standard bearer. that was strong enough to win the heart and minds and enthusiasm of people who might have otherwise rubberstamped the GOP again.

Like it on not, It works We got both houses back.

The problem them becomes a matter of herding such politically diverse lot. Moving an agenda forward requires incrementism and patience, because it is so highly unlikely that a tru progressive could replace any of these moderate Dems. You have to wind and hold moderate constituencies and districts. The only way to gain more is win pink districts.

[depakid]

25. How and why did that happen?

Clue: not by following any of the "advice" that you're setting forth.

Nope- you're setting out the loser theme- the very same set of deals that caused Dems to be out of power and lose election after election- and now policy battle after policy battle.

I know I've hammered you pretty hard- and that emotions are on edge, so let me just add that I get why people still seems to cling to the "conventional wisdom." It;s been ingrained and reinforced so long that it's hard to break out of.

And in the rank and file level- quite impossible for Republicans to do unless and untill they experience both a major personal tragedy AND some input that ties their own tragedy into policies and actions by those who they've supprted.

Sometimes even then the rationalizations continue.

Seen it up close and personal in the states more times than I care to count.

[Perky]

26. I understand tghat everyone is emotional but

I would plainly suggest that you as you might not like the reality I set forth, your criticism lack any substantive support. Ig you want to explain how we gain a progressive majority as opposed to a Democratic majority I'l be happy to discuss the merits. But I would argue that if 1/3 or the House Districts will always be Deep red and 1/3rd alway deep blue, that in order to gain a working majority you have to get at least 60^ of the middle 145 districts that swing. and that still only gets to about 230 or so overall. Now you tell me how you get to 250 in the house or 63 in the Senate without tacking to the middle on policy and allowing Blue dogs to be a part of the coalition, when it has never happened in either party, I will be glad to listen.

Capturing and maintaining that level of control is the Holy Grail of politics and some would say it is more myth than reality. The Party has to have DINOs to hold a majority it is that simple,

[Smashcut]

22. Follow this failed logic and continue to lose.

[quaker bill]

30. People fail to understand

that there is no "the democrats" as a definable entity in the line "the democrats should....". When you say this, you are swinging at air.

What appears as "the democrats" is and always was a group of individually elected representatives, each responsible to their own constituents. Because of the diverse composition of our party, now even greater than in the past, each representative will have a different agenda in a number of respects.

Bottom line, when you say "Harry Reid should..." or "President Obama should..." the statement can potentially make some sense. However, whenever you start with "the Democrats should..." whatever you attach to it can make no sense because there is no "the Democrats" entity to address and never was.

[SanchoPanza]

31. Stop thinking of Congressional politics as a national phenomenon.

That applies to everyone here. And turn off Cable News, because they're the biggest culprit in fostering this lie.

Congressional politics is almost entirely local. Local interests, local ideologies, local trends. You're not going to get a Bernie Sanders in Mississippi anymore than you'll get a Trent Lott in Vermont, unless the political culture within those states changes. And that is not going to happen overnight unless the more partisan elements within those states, if they exist, take over the infrastructure of their respective parties and force a shift from below.

There's no such thing as a national, uniform, American ideology. Neither liberal, centrist, or conservative. Each of these positions will manifest themselves differently depending upon the political culture in which they are found. For New Yorkers, Peter King is a conservative. Probably as conservative as you can get in NY and still win an election. But if Peter King ran for a Congressional district in Alabama, he'd be considered a moderate or liberal.

So if Ben Nelson isn't liberal enough for you, then move to goddamn Nebraska and make the state more liberal. If you live in Nebraska, then get involved in the state party. It's either that or negotiate on common principles and goals.

[centristgrandpa]

33. could not agree mour, kudos...

your quote: "Each of these positions will manifest themselves differently depending upon the political culture in which they are found." Exactly and to the point, well written...

[Spazito]

36. Well said!!

:applause:

[Splinter Cell]

34. K&R

:toast: