Let's see if I've got this right. Conventional wisdom says that the country has gone progressively to the center/right. The last two Democratic presidents were centrists. The Democrats desparately want to regain control of Congress in 2006, and the White House in 2008. Joe Lieberman was the Democratic standard-bearer just six years ago, along with Al Gore. the DSCC and the Democratic establishment [aside from President Clinton] provided little or no help to Lieberman in his campaign, which is the same as opposing him. And many left-leaning Democrats are now gleeful over his defeat by a "trust fund baby" in the Connecticut primary, which makes the party as a whole look like total freaking disloyal idiots to the rest of the country.
What's wrong with this picture?
Not for nothing, but it does strike me that this deepening division in the Democratic party benefits -- wait for it -- the Republicans. Why? When push comes to shove the Repubs can hold their base, as they did in the last two presidentials, as well as in the mid-terms. The Dems, however, are so divided that only chaos will result. Result [and prediction]: Repubs will hold onto their congrssional majorities in 2006. If the Dems continue this exercise in mass denial, we'll have another "northeastern liberal" [or some such] running in 2008, and the White House will be lost again. The Republicans couldn't have done better if they had planned it. Hmmm, did they plan it?
Who knows, but I, for one, am sick to death of going down in flames, but feeling good about myself in the process. If I don't win, I can't govern. I can't win unless I am a centrist candidate. Polarizing the party plays directly into Repub hands.
The left wing of the Democratic party better get its collective head out of, er, the clouds, or they'll have it handed to them come election day.
By the way, I wouldn't be the least surprised if Lieberman runs as an Independent, kicks Lamont's ass in the general, and then sticks it to the Democratic party forever. I wouldn't blame him. And I say that as a loyal Democrat.
14 comments:
TO: Doug Weinstein
RE: Mad Dogs & [Kos]Democrats
I'm reminded of the business of how mad dogs will snap at themselves.
This seems to be what the Democrats, as lead by Kos, are doing. I was beginning to notice it a couple of years ago when the radical feminists and radical animal rights people began 'biting' at each other at some rally in Tennessee or Kentucky or some place thereabouts.
I figured that in due time, given its head, the party would do such to itself.
Now we see it coming to fruition.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Each one of us, ultimately, chooses the high or the low road -- that is, we rise above the madness of our particular culture and discover our true identity and destiny, or else we identify with our insane culture and revel in it. -- David Kupelian]
Doug
Nice analysis. I'm not sure why the consequences of the Democratic divide has not been brought up more in the media. To me it's huge. It could dramatically transorm (undermine?) the Democratic party. Here's the formula 30% Dems, 25% Reps, 45% Indies. Run as a socially moderate Independent who's tough on defense and fiscally moderate and split the dems, grab 1/4 of the Reps and most of the Indies (well over 50%!). I have never been able to figure out why the Dems do not know who Indies are or how they vote. Anyway if this works for Joe - lookout - more will follow. The formula only gets better as 1) Dems go farther from mainstream, 2) voters become more disenchanted with both parties.
Doug writes: "When are American liberal/Democrat-voting Jews going to get the picture?"
That'd be a start. Show them the door. After all, they've caused nothing but confusion and disarray in the party. They get us into defending their commercial interests or worse offending muslims with their zionist false nation.
Cindy Sheehan is right that they've done nothing but get the US in trouble. We've had to fight three wars over them. The future of this party is smart progressive professionals and hard working hispanic and islamic families, not old rich jews and their troublemaking ways.
Good riddence Joe!
That last comment had to have been written by Karl Rove.
Um, if the Democrats are throwing out their centrists, isn't that making the party less, rather than more, divided?
You may want to ask why it is that, if the fringe anti-war left is purging the party, none of the other Democrats in the Senate who supported the Iraq war are facing primary challenges. (Hint: did any of them kiss President Bush or repeatedly go on Fox News to praise him and attack other Democrats?)
Blackfacing anyone who is deemed as corrupting the pureness of the ideology isn't going to help the Democrats purge their party of the National Socialists.
Something odd about uber-rich white 'liberals' who will vote for a candiate whose supporters 'blackface' all dissenters. It was nasty when it the National Socialists treated Secretary of State Rice as a Aunt Jemima but blackfacing Lieberman within their own party speaks volumes as to the length rich white Liberals will go to to retain power. Some Progressive thought is the purity of their ideology.
And to think, Joe was a working-class man too.
A previous poster asks:
Um, if the Democrats are throwing out their centrists, isn't that making the party less, rather than more, divided?
Less divided, more marginalized.
You may want to ask why it is that, if the fringe anti-war left is purging the party, none of the other Democrats in the Senate who supported the Iraq war are facing primary challenges.
How do you eat an.... er, donkey? One bite at a time. The Kos Krowd was 0-fer up until now (still are, when pitted against Republicans in actual elections)... if they start succeeding, their standard of ideological "purity" will rise.
The big question is: who will write that standard? The evidence indicates that it will be an old chicken coming home to roost: racism. This species of collectivism has always been Leftist in philosophical origin; when the horrors of WWII became too well documented, the Left redefined terms in order to paint Hitler and other racists as "right-wing". That old lie has been unravelling for some time (in the form of affirmative action, race quotas etc.) and it looks like the final and nastiest bird is returning to the coop: anti-Semitism.
I hope moderate Democrats can keep the party out of such hands... but in the long run, that will take no less than the repudiation of the Left at its ideological core.
Good luck with that.
I think they _are_ reducing divisions in the party, and at the same time they are going to chase more trad Dems groups out of the fold as the Dem consensus starts to mirror the Moore/MoveOn/Kos whiphand that punishes dissenters. Wait until they really go after Hillary, that's the purge they are slavering for, and when they enter that fight they are likely to cause a REAL schism when the big-money establishment grown-ups bump heads with the insane moonbats that post on Kos and their ilk.
Look for the Dem party to end up like Spinal Tap, in the scene where the manager says "I don't see our appeal as shrinking, I see it as being more selective". This will be the Dems- more unity, less appeal to the average voter. At least everyone will know what they are all about instead of the Clinton 'stealth liberal' tactic.
Ask McGovern, Mondale and Dukakis how that worked out.
"...and the White House will be lost again."
Uhh, I think you mean STOLEN again. Heh!
There are 14 at least vaguely flippable Senate races this year -- eight Democratic, six Republican. The Democrats need to win every single one to get a single-seat majority in the Senate.
Kos wants to make it one election tougher, by having Lieberman stripped of his caucus rights and committee assignments for "disloyalty", leaving him nowhere to go but the Republican caucus.
Whose side is Kos on, really?
If 60% of the country is against the war, how is voting against a pro-war politician the work of a marginalized fringe?
The "60% of Americans are against the war" comes from the same statistical font of wisdom that informs us that more women are abused on Superbowl Sunday than any other day. It only takes one person to say it at the right time and enough people hearing it to so desparately want it to be true for a "statistic" like this to become "truth."
Actually the "60%" probably started with some poll that showed the 60% of Americans would like the troops to come home or don't approve of Bush's handling or think it was wrong to invade. This doesn't, however, mean that 60% believe all all these things. Likewise, I honestly want the troops to come home tomorrow, but I also understand that it is impossible. What's the old sayign about wishing in one hand and doing something else in the other to see which one fills up first?
If there had been polling during the Civl War there would have been about a dozen times where Lincoln's handling of the war might very well have received 70 or even 80% dissapproval. That doesn't mean that most of those people would have demanded an end to the war. Any prolonged conflict will see support erode but that can be a very superficial thing.
To Whom It May Concern:
We don't have a monopoly on wisdom: anyone who says they want to be a Democrat should be allowed to be a Democrat. That means pro-lifers; pro-school choicers; blue-collar Catholics; people who support Israel; Southern Baptists; our countrymen in uniform. Anybody.
Former Democrat
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