"Kick me, I'm a Democrat" by Michael Kinsley

[ConservativeDemocrat]

It seems to be time once again to play Kick the Democrats. Everyone can play, including Democrats. The rules are simple. When Republicans lose elections, it is because they didn't get enough votes. When Democrats lose elections, it is because they have lost their principles and lost their way. Or they have kept their principles, which is an even worse mistake.

Democrats represent no one who is not actually waiting in line for a latte at a Starbucks within 150 yards of the east or west coastline. They are mired in trivial lifestyle issues like, oh, abortion and gay rights and Americans killing and dying in Iraq, while the Republicans serve up meat and potatoes for real Americans, like privatizing Social Security and making damned sure the government knows who is Googling whom in this great country. Just repeat these formulas until a Democrat has been sent into frenzies of self-flagellation, or reduced to tears.

There is always a pick-up game of Kick the Democrats going on somewhere. But something about the Alito confirmation—the pathetic and apparently surprising inability of 45 Democratic senators to stop 55 Republicans from approving anyone they want—seems to have made the game suddenly a lot more popular.

The full article can be found here.
---

I personally wish this tendency to beat up on our would stop, but it just seems to define Democrats. Lieberman on FOX, D.U.ers and other activists on the Internet, we all just can't seem to get along. It's especially depressing because I've come to believe that most of the differences are in campaign strategy, not electoral substance. And while both sides have good points about the other side's excesses, the real truth is that the infighting does more damage than either side of the party ever does.

Anyway, down from my electronic soapbox. Wish we'd had more Senators on our side of the aisle.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[phantom power]

1. strategies for success

[ConservativeDemocrat]

5. This cartoon is exactly what I'm talking about...

It's the hard left equivalent of Lieberman bashing Democrats on Fox. Not just stupid, but plain wrong.

Instead of focusing on winning races so that Democrats are in the majority, or building bigger wins for Democratic office holders so they feel safer to take stronger positions, or heck - maybe attacking the real bad guys, Republicans - we'll just to the right wing's job for them by attacking our own from the left as well as the right. And then leftists wonder why Democratic office holders don't listen to them when they win anyway.

The Republicans have an "11th Commandment" - thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican. Until we Democrats learn the same discipline, we'll be losing races.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[Wind Dancer]

6. Hard left?

Compared to this administration, Nixon was a liberal.

Thinking and open-minded progressives are NOT going to blindly follow strict conservative Democrats, it's an oxymoron.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

9. The "Hard" in Hard Left are the anti-Democratic party bashers

There are plenty of reasons to vote for cloture:

1] Tactical: We'll be painted as undemocratic by not allowing the majority to rule, and this will hurt us in the upcoming elections.

2] Moral: The filibuster really is an abuse of the rules that should be abolished. It was used in the '60s to stop efforts at desegregation in the South.

3] Philosophical: The public voted for these a-holes, so they have to live with them. That's the way the system is supposed to work.

Now I happen, in this particular case, not to agree with these reasons. If I was in the Senate, I would have voted against cloture. However, when the Democratic party is split relatively evenly on a topic, I'm going to agree to disagree with the representatives who held a different view, without frothing at the mouth about it.

Anyone who actively campaigns against Democrats in a spoiler candidacy is working exactly contrary to their stated intent. And that is what defines "Hard" left. We wouldn't have even had to consider the filibuster if we held a majority.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[depakid]

7. I'll tell you what's just plain stupid

appeasing the far right and legitimizing their policies.

THAT'S why the Dems have become irrelevant in national politics.

How are you supposed to nationalize an election when half a dozen or a dozen of your party's members keep crossing over and voting with the far right?

Do you see Republicans doing that? Nope. That's why they're the majority party and will probably stay that way for the foreseeable future.

- D_K: actual, rather than nominal member of the reality based community....

[Demeter]

2. Can't Get Along?

As in lambs cannot get along with lions? Or scorpions with anyone?

Republicans don't believe in "getting along". Surely this would have dawned on the author by now.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

4. I'm talking about Democrats getting along with each other

...which should be obvious, but apparently isn't to some.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[yurbud]

3. If we hadn't pushed them, would we have gotten even pro forma

opposition to Alito?

The tendency in politics is toward corruption and the squeaky wheel. If we are neither, we will be ignored.

[Cha]

8. Who was reduced to tears?

I think that was alito's wife and jackoff's daughter.