Give 'Em Hill, Dean.

So I've been watching FoxNews tonight (I'm bored and there's nothing good on tv) and I've noticed they been talking a lot about Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean, particularly O'Reilly and Hannity & Colmes. And what I've noticed is that the right keeps saying thing like "Dean is wrong for the DNC," and "Hillary is running to the right."

I guess what I'm really getting at is, if Dean is such bad news for the Dems, then why does the right keep bring it up? I mean really, they should be thanking Dean for trying to pull the Dems to the left. Right? After all it can only help them win more elections, right?

As far as Hillary Clinton is concerned, I've always tought of the Clintons as centrist anyway. So who cares if she's running "to the right." Oh, and can we please stop talking about the 2008 election until 2007?

Sorry about the rantiness of this post. Just something I needed to get off my chest. And by all means, feel free to discuss these issues. Hell, feel free to use this thread if there's something political you feel like ranting about,

[Edited on Feb 10, 2005 by skinwalker]

If Hannity and the rest of Fox News hate somebody, that's an endorsement in my book.

They're afraid of him. They want Hillary and the DLC and the rest of the wuss-o-crats. They know Dean is going to fight.

Because it's interesting (and often hilarious) to see how the Democrats are reacting to the political realignment of America.

We'll see. Dean in and of himself isn't the trouble. It's the fact that the party loyalists, the hardcore Democrats, love him. He's pretty much the only person who could rally the troops to fight again.

And from what I've seen, Dean understands what the Republicans have been doing right and the Democrats have been doing wrong, and how to fix it.

If we listened to what the Republicans wanted, we would pick assholes like Lieberman.

[Edited on Feb 10, 2005 by Keith]

Seriously, I like a man as insane and hot headed as Dean... you have to be that way... seriously, if you saw your democracy sold and whored like ours has been, wouldn't you be THAT affected... it's patenty, human of him!

I seem to remember before 2004 election someone actually counting how often Kerry and the phrase "out of the mainstream" were uttered in a single 24-hour period on Fox News, and it was something like 200 times.

I think this is what conservatives are afraid of. If the Dems are as united in the coming elections as the Reps were in the previous few, it would be a major threat to thier power. And i for one would love to see how the right handles being out of power.

edit: damn dyslexia

[Edited on Feb 10, 2005 by skinwalker]

Personally, I want PISSED OFFED democrats... seriously, we need to kick ass and take names, not take names and demure.

But Bush wears a cowboy hat and pays someone to photograph him on his RANCH! That's so totally mainstream.

word.




I hope that somebody (Dean, anybody) reminds the Democrats to have a spine in the next election. At least he was consistent in his views (no, I didn't vote for him in the primary, but I didn't vote for Kerry, either). This last election showed that holding fast to your convictions works - even if people don't necessarily agree.

Something I noticed when they were talking about Hillary was her lack of conviction, and how Americans love conviction. For some reason there was no mention of Dean's conviction.

No. I said lack of conviction.

Dean is the perfect person to run the DNC, because finally the party will not be so ashamed of its liberalism and try to pretend that its centrist. Nothing particualrly wrong with centrists, but when you get a liberal candidate who is told that he has to act centrist to win then he or she will always come off as disingenuine and insincere. Look at Kerry last fall to see what I mean. That will always lose to a candidate like Bush, who while being so out there on the neo con fringe and moronic to boot, at least he is sincere in his stupidity. I mean, who'd act like the idiot man child if they had a choice?
So Dean will have the DNC stick to their issues, take their case to the country, and win that way instead of the insincere patronizing failure you get when the head of the DNC doesn't actually believe in the real DNC. I think they have a chance to take back the house and Senate under Dean after this whole social security fiasco that's going down.
Dean also probably guarantees Hillary will not get the nomination, because the Dean would not back an oppurtunist and carpetbagger who's doing nothing more than living off national name recognition over a real Democrat. Not that I actually thought she'd have a real chance at the nomination before Dean got the DNC chair. Personally, I'm thinking it'll be Russ Feingold from Wisconsin.

If you'd picked Lieberman, there would be a Democrat in the White house.

The Dems were as united as they have ever been, with the highest number of Democratic votes ever cast, and it wasn't enough. Elections are won by uniting more than your base, you have to unite people outside of your own party to win.

As for how the right handles being out of power, pick up some books on Congress, specifically 1944-94.

Forget the spine, how about a plan? Something concrete that provides real answers to todays problems, a clear and simple direction for the future, and the desire to do some good for the whole country, maybe?

Reading this thread make me wonder if anyone actually learned anything about politics this last election.

Sure: be less tolerant of others.

Liberman is fucked when it comes to the war, but he's no Democrat-in-name-only.

No, he would have won with 70%, because he has credibility and as much moral fortitude as Bush claimed. Kerry pulled in 59 million votes because he wasn't Bush, imagine what someone who could match Bush on the moral questions could have done.

I don't think we disagree on what so much as how, but I think if you and I represented our sides, we could reach an equitable solution over a salad and some tea. Were others on this site put in the same position, it would be a blood bath.

Dean gives the opposition a polarizing target, which the Republicans have learned to use to their advantage in past elections. That polarization allows them to galvanize their own base, and swing more towards the middle in an effort to capture a majority, leaving the Dems with exactly where they started. As Dean isn't actually running for office he has to run by proxy, meaning his own message won't be as prominent as that of the candidates. He might match McAuliffe's fundraising, but the flipside is that he'll repel more people than he will attract.

let's keep in mind here that we're talking about the chairmanship of the party, not a candidate for office. in 06 and 08 the voters will be casting votes for faces that haven't yet been stigmatized by the grumpy old men on network and cable news. in off years the only folks paying attention are policy dorks and crazy idealogues, and the former know that dean's not a crazy liberal (he's ok with guns, wants a balanced budget and favors civil unions over gay marriage) while the latter will vote party line regardless of who's running. so, at least while he's in the background, dean's not liberal enough to attract a powerful 'anti-vote', but he's far enough left that he will:

keep enough of his passionate young supporters involved in the party to be a force in the future. (instead of emmigrating or tuning out)

prevent another soulless candidate from getting out of his or her front door in primary season 08.

and, as people have already alluded to, he'll keep Hillary so far out of the mix that she won't even give the GOP the spin benefit of a failed primary effort next time.

if we're lucky, he'll pull strings and sooth egos and give us a new, unsullied, genuine candidate for 08, a barak obama or a bill richardson, who, rather than campaigning on 'i'm marginally better than my braindead opponent' will be able to say truthfully: 'i'm a wonderful statesman and decent human being.'

apologies for inevitable spelling and grammar errors. I'm drinking

In either case, a candidate the electorate wanted would have won. Trust me, America doesn't want the Deaniacs. Going to the original topic, and wondering why Republicans are letting the cat out of the bag about the disaster the Democratic party is making by veering Left? Republicans can publicly do this because they know the Democrats will either think it's reverse psychology, or just wont listen. They have a very bad read on American politics, and you get the sense that they're not in it to win, but to feel good about themselves and their little Liberal souls.

Look at all the war protests and whatnot. Surely none of the protestors actually thought their marches would stop the war, did they? The marches were more a public proclaimation about themselves and where they stand on things. This, I've seen, is really important to Liberals and Democrats. Much more important than say, actual policies that work. Gestures and intentions are more important than results. They get an intrinsic self-righteous kick out of their politics.

[Edited on Feb 11, 2005 by stockula]

Dean really isn't that radical politically, he was an early entry into the Democratic primary and he was the first real 'anti-Iraq' canidate, he managed to bring the youth out, that's all.

If the choice was between Lieberman and Bush, I would have voted for Joe. I think there are neough people like me that he could gotten a clear mandate.

The right isn't afraid of Dean because they saw how he handled the run-up and then the first two primaries. He had a huge lead, was outmaneuvered in Iowa by a Senator, and couldn't recover in New Hampshire. But who knows, maybe he's the next Haley Barbour.

Because they had what alcoholics refer to as a "moment of clarity". Not that it helped much, because their idea of a centrist hawkish candidate was the most liberal member of the Senate.

Like I said, Democrats have an awful read on the American public, which is astonishing given that politics are their business. And when faced with that reality, they'll respond with things like "Oh, the American people agree with us. They just don't know it." Or they'll express outright contempt for Jesusland having the temerity not vote for their enlightened betters. Or that the public was terrorized by Bush's fearmongering and Fox News's propaganda. In all cases, the public is regarded as a dumb herd that needs the Democrats to shepherd them, since they know best. The public couldn't possibly agree with conservatives, hawks, and Bush due to their own judgement and reasoning could they?



[Edited on Feb 11, 2005 by stockula]

Lieberman, being Jewish, would not have been elected President, no way no how.