Another hurtful reality....

[kentuck]

But the person most to blame (or credit) for the direction the Party took in this election was none other than Howard Dean. He gave false hopes to many people that what he could do in Vermont could be done across America. It was an illusion and is still an illusion. Many people hear what they want to hear and they jumped on the Dean bandwagon and many are still there waiting for his return in 2008. No one contributed more to the present political environment than Gov Howard Dean.

[JI7]

1. what do you mean by "false hopes" ?

just because we can't get things done now doesn't mean it can't be done some day.

[kentuck]

2. Oh, I agree...

it doesn't mean it can't be done some day.

However, by "false hopes", I think a lot of people thought it could be done now. This mobilized the anti-gay forces across most of America. As witnessed by the 11 states, including Ohio, that voted the amendments down by large margins in every case. Do we need more proof than that?

[Goldmund]

27. We do need more proof than that

The anti-gay forces were mobilized, you're right.

But the pro-gay -- or, rather, pro-equality forces -- were not.

The bigotted, the reactionary, were mobilized by the Republicans.

The Democrats did not mobilize the progressive.

And that's speaking purely in terms of the "values" debate. Every fucking single bible-thumping, snake-handling morAn came out for the Chimp. And many of those who believe in human rights and equality and liberal values did not come out for Kerry. Why would they have, after all, unless they were enough politically in tune to realize the vast differences between the two candidates? Bush was unabashedly and proudly culturally conservative. You could not hear a single soundbite from Bush's mouth without a gratifying code or sentiment for the cultural conservatives. Kerry? "Are you a liberal, Mr. Senator?" "Well, I don't want to talk labels." "Do you believe abortion should be legal?" "Well, Jim, I as a catholic am not a fan of abortion. But on the other hand, Jim, I believe a woman should have the right to choose.". Gay marriage? "I believe marriage should be between a man and a woman. But, I believe that gay people should be able to form unions, blablalba". Gun control? Bush lets the assault weapons ban pass. Kerry gives Bush a pass. Every time any cultural issue was brought up, Kerry was vague, apologetic, and on the defensive.

Yes, there was fire in the campaign. But if you restrict the discussion in terms of cultural issues alone, the fire was exclusively of the "not Bush" kind. I don't know of any liberal who got fired up by Kerry because they felt Kerry was articulating their cultural values clearly and strongly, that he was a champion of liberal cultural values.

I think we're falling into the trap of thinking that a majority of the country is irreversibly culturally in the middle ages. That's what the Bushites want us to think.

I'm not bying it. They were energized and came out. The liberals were not. And without national direction from the Democratic party, the cultural climate in general is bound to become more conservative. If that happens, and the only way to win national elections is to be a bible-thumper, then I see no point in remaining a Democrat. But as it is now, it's not too late.

[ProfessorPlum]

29. You are SO right

I mean, the GOP would never have thought of having anti-gay positions if it weren't for Howard Dean? How could I have not seen that before?

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

3. Wrong

This just isn't so. Bush was going to win this election no matter who we nominated. A lot of people said that this election was a referendum on Iraq. I don't believe it was. The people who pulled the lever for Bush did so because they were sufficiently traumatized by 9-11 to disqualify any hope for critical thinking, and they voted out of fear.

I'm not sure I really understand the logic in trying to pin this election loss on a primary candidate. We had 8 months after the primaries ended to get our shit straight, and nine months after Dean conceded. He also quite gracefully and admirably swallowed his pride and advocated for Kerry very aggressively. I think he did more to help than hurt, and I think blaming him for the loss of this election is simply not correct.

[kentuck]

4. If that were true, NYC would have voted for Bush...

Please explain why they did not. Let's be rational and real.

[meti57b]

6. EXACTLY! States most likely to get hit by terrorists all voted Kerry

"most likely" meaning with the most likely targets.

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

17. That's because that's where all the smart people are

Just kidding.

[KoKo]

13. Don't forget the Media, Kentuck. Lots of the Red Staters watch football

and CNN. The people who lost the most with 9/11 probably informed themselves better as to why.

I won't even talk about the difference in the school systems that don't push kids to excell more. In the "red states" the culture for "discussion" or reading only exists around the university towns and with some of us who live in those states.

Having lived in both NYC/Conn/NJ and SC and NC, I can tell you that having an intellectual discussion in the latter two out in the mainstream is like trying to talk to George Bush.

There's a conformity issue there, too between the Bushie cultures and the rest...but I'm not going to get into that...

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

15. Because we had to actually deal with it

I live in NYC and had the privilege of watching the World Trade Center collapse up close and personal. For those of us who live here, we had not alternative but to cope with our grief and then get on with our lives. The rest of the country saw it on TV, and as such it always remained a shadowy threat to them about which they knew nothing but what they were told by President Stupid.

The people who oppose gay marriage never live in San Francisco. The people who are prejudiced against blacks never live in black neighborhoods. These people get their "opinions," at it were, formed by TV. Since 9-11 was the most televised event in history, it was very simple for it to become a manufactured, paranoid reality to people whose sole contact was through the cathode ray tube.

Those of us living here had to actually cope with it, in reality. I think we've gotten past it better than the rest of the country has, and that's why we were able to return to our senses in time to deliver 65% of our vote to Kerry. We also for the most part didn't care for the fact that Bush, who made 9-11 his central campaign theme, used the rubble that lay on top of our dead as a platform for re-election.

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

20. Kentuck, I'd love your thoughts on this. (eom)

[Goldmund]

28. If you restrict it to NYC...

...it's 82% of the vote.

[NYCGirl]

5. Isn't this like the right-wing argument against stem cell research?

"Stop talking about that. It's giving people false hope!"

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

16. Exactly.

We can also divine from this that Al Sharpton and Carol Mosley Braun shouldn't have run, since we're just not ready as a nation to accept a black presidential candidate.

In fact, by this logic, why bother running Democrats at all? The country's obviously not ready. We can only run retarded Texan sons of former United States presidents who used to be drunks.

[jacksonian]

7. WTF?

He gave false hopes to many people that what he could do in Vermont could be done across America.

What he did in Vermont WE CAN DO ACROSS AMERICA, this hope is not false, just hard to attain. Different issue. Your reach should always exceed your grasp.

Wondering what "present political environment" are you talking about, and how it's *his* fault.

[IrateCitizen]

8. Bullshit, kentuck.

While it is accurate to say that the "Dean phenomenon" was not meant to translate into immediate electoral success, I'd like to ask you to choose between the following two options.

1. We develop and invigorated grassroots movement that, while temporarily not producing NATIONAL electoral wins, does produce LOCAL and STATE ones. This movement, while taking time to build, results in Democrats going on the offensive and furthering a progressive agenda for America.

2. We fall back on the old tactics, possibly winning a few national elections, but providing nothing in the "war of ideas" and resulting in a strategic retreat in which Republican ideas are implemented, albeit a little more slowly and less ruthlessly.

You can ONLY choose ONE. Which one do you choose?

[KoKo]

10. Irate...you say it well and manage to maintain your "cool." Read my rant

below. Unfortunately, I have a short fuse about this.

[ibegurpard]

12. Absolutely

Regardless of what one thinks of Dean, this strategy is absolutely essential. The national Democratic Party has isolated itself in its metropolitan bastions and does not know how to communicate its message to the the rest of the country. The local party, infrastructure and relationship building is going to play an essential part in our future.

[KoKo]

9. What! You cannot be serious! You have no idea what Dean did for

us here in NC! We wouldn't have even had up to date voter rolls for canvassing if it hadn't been for the Dean workers who put them on computer files.

We got two Democratic House Reps re-elected here, and they both voted AGAINST Iraq Invastion. So even though NC went for Bush...we still managed to retain our House Reps and vote down an Amendment which would have allowed Big Business to manipulate our bonds for their own purposes.

We lost our Dem Senator because Edwards had to resign so Bowles could run and he ran a disasterous second bid for Senator. We re-elected a Dem Govenor even when his opponent was a RW Vicious Scum. And, that's because we got out on the streets and contacted our Dems and put up signs and went to Dean Houseparties where we put together a network who would go on and beat the bushes to get the Bushies out.

Without Dean and to an extent Kucinich our Democratic Wimpies would have done nothing. Believe me...I had to deal with the mainstream Democratic party throughout all this and it was like "pulling teeth."

All of us on the ground and who ran as Precinct Officers were former Dean/Kucinich and we even had a couple of former Nader supporters. We were the engine for change. I feel good about that...and will not see Dean/Kuchinich's supporters and network be trashed without yelling about it...

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

11. Hell no, I think Dean did exactly what we needed

We needed to make bashing Bush vogue again, and he did. I don't think he would've been the best candidate though.

[unfrigginreal]

14. Unfrigginreal

[demokatgurrl]

18. We all owe a debt to Howard Dean!

He made it OK to speak out, he made it OK to bluntly criticize Bush, he made it ok to be a goddam DEMOCRAT!!!!

If he hadn't run, the Democratic candidate, whoever that was, would have pulled about 25% of the vote because they would have been too timid to run against Bush. As it was, Kerry pulled punches. Dean probably wouldn't have. Dean would have been killed by the media eventually but he would have put up a hell of a fight.

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

19. Also:

I know of a lot of people who wouldn't even have bothered to vote this year if they hadn't been inspired by the hope that Dean gave them, and which was in no way false.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, but it seems like you're saying that Dean was a detriment to our general election hopes because he brought an issue, gay civil unions, into the dialog during the primaries. Is that in fact what you're saying? If it is, then I don't understand how we're supposed to expect our leaders to push for progress and change.

[mdmc]

21. Bush took Dean's stance on gay rights

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

22. Sort of

In a last-ditch plea for moderate votes he said he thought it should be a states' rights issue. I'm not psychic, but something tells me that when he pulls that one out of his ass in the last week of the campaign, it's somewhat disingenuous.

[MissMarple]

23. Now that just doesn't make any sense.

I think Howard Dean recognizes that we have a lot of work to do and we can't accomplish it overnight.

I fault the people in the Democratic Party who KNEW how organized and prepared the Republicans are and did nothing to counteract that. The Republican machine includes the think tanks with their host of pundits and columnists, their magazines and media domination, and their cultivated relationships with the radical Christian right.

This didn't happen overnight, I think people like Terry McCauliff and James Carville knew quite well what we were up against and they said nothing. The people in the Democratic Party deserve better.
And if they didn't know, they are either incompetent or representing other interests.

Howard Dean is one of the best things to happen to the Democratic Party since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

24. I agree, to an extent

but beyond that, I can't blame this on anyone, really except for the people who voted for George W. Bush.

There is probably a lot of blame to go around in a lot of different quarters within the Democratic party, but I really believe that ultimately, this comes down to the voters. That's the true nasty reality as I see it.

There's also the simple issue of timing. I think if the election had taken place six months or a year from now it might have been possible for us to win it, but right now I just don't think enough people were ready to allow their view of Jesus Bush to be tarnished in any way. The revelation that there were no WMD's in Iraq had NO EFFECT, as far as I could tell. That should have been huge. Unfortunately, I think that something can be screamed at eardrum-shattering volume from a thousand rooftops, and if it's not convenient to hear, people just tune it out. That's not to say we shouldn't get the truth out there, just that we should expect fighting and resistance to it as part of the deal.

It also would have been nice if the news media would have done their fucking job prior to six weeks ago, but that's another issue.

[leesa]

25. I don't see why you say this. This has all just been too little too late.

America is just barely beginning to wake up. We are not poor enough yet and we are not grieving enough yet. We need to keep doing what we have been doing, including Dean. It is happening, it's just that Americans have been too fat and lazy for a loooooong time and it takes a while to come out of that.


I have one of my 5 Fundie brothers that has been awakened to the ride he has been on and is he pissed! We need to keep pressing on the innocent lives being destroyed by the fake gop christians and the greedy right.

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

26. Correct

As President Stupid would say, it's hard work!

[NewYorkerfromMass]

30. Hey kentuck - Way to stoke the Fighting and Acrimony!!!

LOL! Way to go! :thumbsup: