Do Democrats Just Want To Win, Or Do They Want REAL Change?

[Placebo]

I think that's the real question we need to be asking ourselves in this post-election period.

Sure we as a party could nominate a southern democrat and win the White House; but winning isn't everything. What is the point of holding office if you're not going to offer real change?

Real change might take longer, and we might lose a few elections on the way, but would it also reap more benefits?

[dorktv]

1. You are right and that is one of the reasons I think that

Howard Dean scares the hell out of people here and in the DLC. Because he is about changing the party back to what it was: Party of the People.
*on edit*
People are so tired of losing that they forget that to win and win a lot you NEED to have a clear goal, with good strategies, and tactics.

The Republicans have a clear goal and they have the other stuff. We need to get our clear goal and work out how to do it.

[Joe the Revelator]

2. Whats the point of offering real change...

if you have no power.

Please understand that politics is a world of baby steps. We have to take baby steps back to the left, and the best way to start that process is to nominate a democrat that everyone can feel good voting for. Then small steps to the left. Change doesn't happen overnight.

[SharonAnn]

5. With Real Change you can GET Power! With no change, you get NOTHING>

[Joe the Revelator]

9. Thats a very naive way of looking at it....

and I'm sorry to say one that doesn't accept the reality as it is ( this is not a personal jab at you, just the sad fact of the matter.) You can offer real change until your blue in the face, but you have to give the Midwest and the south a reason to vote for a democrat.

Take Mark Warner for example. He came into a very red Virginia, ran as a moderate and has now set up a true liberal, Tim Kaine, to take over the office. If it hadn't been for Mark Warner taking the stigma of voting for a democrat off of Virginia voters then Tim Kaine would have no chance next year. As it stands, he's the early favorite.

[Mike L]

14. "With no change, you get NOTHING"

But you avoid losing EVERYTHING.

[sangh0]

3. Only idiots think they have to choose between the two

We can win, and then implement real change.

Or we can lose, and get nothing done.

SO keep banging that "you're either with us or against us" drum

[DaveinMD]

4. you can't affect any change

if you don't win you can't affect any change. And if you keep losing, we'll see a lot of change backwards.

[jonnyblitz]

6. they just want to win. to bring up or request REAL change is to be

labelled a "purist".

[AnnInLa]

7. Personally, I'll not abandon my ideals and principles

for political expediency. The means do not justify the end, if the end is only a version of the America I would like to see. Just my opinion.

[LTRS]

8. You gotta win FIRST!

Nothing happens until that is done.

[sonicx]

10. If a Southern Dem can win, rev em up and let's get to it.

[Mike L]

11. Win

We can't afford another election like this. If we lose 3 or 4, or maybe even 2 Senate seats in 2006, we're done. The repukes will be able to get the 60 votes necessary for a cloture vote, and then they can do WHATEVER they want to the country. A "cloture" vote means that a filibuster can't be waged to stop a vote on legislation. If we lose 2 more seats we will have 42 Dem Senators. If the repukes get 2 turncoat Dems and the 1 Independent to vote with them for cloture, their legislation passes.

I hope everyone realizes this.

[Mike L]

12. Do you promise?

"Sure we as a party could nominate a southern democrat and win the White House"

[Selatius]

13. History as a guide

It's obvious the Democratic Party in its present state is falling to pieces. Perhaps real change is going to come from outside the system. The history of the Democratic Party is a history of trying to catch up to the people who, after feeling dissatisfied and rejected by the system, decided to rise up and demand change.

Just look back at the Populist Movement, the Labor Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Anti-War Movement. All of these mass opposition groups emerged from outside the Democratic Party and applied pressure on that party in order to enact legislation. It came from the grassroots, not the party bosses.

LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but that was after black people had been fighting for years. The minimum wage laws passed in the 1930s were only passed because the workers themselves were out in the streets demanding change. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was passed only after years of people demanding an answer to the corruption and monopolization in the markets seen in the country at the end of the 19th century. Back then, the people who exposed this corruption were not called "muckrakers" for nothing. They worked hard to reveal it for all to see.

This is the REAL history of progressive America. It is a history we should be proud of, and if things continue to get worse, then perhaps we should return to that tradition, that proud tradition they left behind for us, of mobilizing our numbers and taking our grievances in front of government and demanding it address them. All those careerists in the Democratic Party who don't want to rock the boat because they want a steady paycheck and power instead of wanting to help people be damned.

We need to rebuild a viable grassroots movement that has the votes necessary to force change.

[Mike L]

15. Hummmm...........

"and if things continue to get worse, then perhaps we should return to that tradition, that proud tradition they left behind for us, of mobilizing our numbers and taking our grievances in front of government and demanding it address them."

Thanks, Ralph!