Who are the Donkeysaurs? Which Dems are obstacles to reforming

[geek tragedy]

the party?

So far, I count Vilsack, Kerry, and Lieberman on the list. Who else belongs.

And, what do folks think of the term "Donkeysaur?"

[AntiCoup2K4]

1. Anybody who answers to the initials DLC, NDOL, PPI, or NDN

And they are all SHIT as far as I'm concerned

[geek tragedy]

2. That's a whole lot of Democrats.

Having different camps of Democrats is exactly what Lieberman et al want.

[jpgray]

5. I think that is too broad

A lot of DLC members are basically good folks--for example just a few years ago you would have to exorcise Dean, since he was a member. Now if you want to take out people who do leadership and policy for these groups, I'm right there with you. The "third way" has only succeeded when we had an exceptionally brilliant politician in tow. How people decided that was the skill of the policymakers rather than Clinton is a mystery to me.

[Lilli]

3. I love Donkeysaurs!

Its the entire reason I answered your post. Great term.
I'm not putting anybody in the out box just yet though.

[coloradodem2005]

4. Kerry is a donkeysaur?

Funny. I didn't think so.

[geek tragedy]

8. I didn't either until he tried to torpedo Dean as DNC chair. eom

[Zhade]

27. Musta missed that one (though it wouldn't surprise me).

When did this happen? I've been away.

[geek tragedy]

34. Reports are that he's campaigning for Vilsack.

I may be jumping to conclusions, but it sounds extremely plausible.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[geek tragedy]

7. And Kerry and Lieberman are helping them by circling the wagons.

They're running an Anybody But Dean campaign.

Because they represent the entrenched interests of the party hierarchy.

There are reformers, and then there are those who think the same broken approach will magically start working one of these elections.

[Lexingtonian]

9. And you know this first hand?

If it's from The Usual Suspects, e.g. Markos Zuniga and Jerome Armstrong, I recommend you get yourself some wiser perspective.

[geek tragedy]

10. Lieberman has gone public.

With Zell Miller gone, he is the leader of the pro-GOP wing of the Democratic party.

[Lexingtonian]

11. So?

Dean ran on a platform of knocking people like Lieberman out of the Party. Joe took that personally, and you can't blame him exactly for trying to get some payback for being badmouthed and mau-maued against for most of a year.

I'd take the claims you're taking at face value with a grain of salt. A grain about six feet by six feet by six feet.

And I'm annoyed that the Dean ideas/memes of 2003 are being resurrected as if the primaries had never put them to the test.

Look, with conservative Southern Democrats so diminished within the Party the center and emphases of the Party are necessarily going to shift to more Modern/progressive positions. The one set of voices to ignore- or rather, consider last and least- as to what to do now are the ones that were full of obloquy for both the Modern and the conservative considerations- and that's the Deanite power-to-us-at-all-costs effort.

[geek tragedy]

12. Howard Dean was anti-modern?

I just don't buy the whole "Dean is an extremist fringe lunatic" meme.

We need outspoken, articulate centrists--not accomodationists.

Lieberman carried Bush's water during the Democratic primaries, going so far as to say that anyone who disagreed with Bush on Iraq was not credible on foreign affairs. Screw him.

[Lexingtonian]

22. to some degree

What Howard Dean is is, yes, 'centrist'. And he admits it. But with Republicans ceding most of the center that's not a compelling positioning.

The problem that put him on the margins with the Party is exactly what his hard core most likes about him. He has a 'faith-based' approach of sorts, not unlike the fundie churches and the Republicans in their present incarnation, which gives a power rush. It's theologically the same method. And it is incompatible with rigorous thought.

So the important distinction between Dean and e.g. Vilsack is implicit theology to the message. (The outspokenness part is necessarily split between Pelosi, Reid, Kerry, and perhaps Clinton.) I persist in having a problem with the theology. But I think the important thing is that being CEO of the DNC is in fact a fundraising job, not an advocacy job. The DNC Chair's job is to serve the politicians that represent the Party, not be one.

I wouldn't defend Joe L. on the Iraq bit. But it is/was a somewhat naively held viewpoint shared throughout a Democratic constituency that gives the Party money in an extremely disproportionate amount relative to their numbers, pro-Israel Jewish voters- of which Joe is one. He represented an important constituency whose interests in the matter were not as coincident with Bush's as it may appear.

Ideally I'd split the DNC Chair job. Someone like Vilsack could do the structural stuff- big donor fundraisers and the registration effort and the election set-up work. Someone like Dean could be sent out to get moderate Republicans to defect, to get them to the Independent half-way house, and get folks like yourself to take initiative.

[geek tragedy]

24. Quite honestly, the Dems could stand a little theological fervor in their

message and approach. Wonkishness is fine and dandy for think-tanks, but it doesn't win elections.

What matters to a lot of voters is that the party/candidate believe what they are preaching/saying. If voters were convinced that Kerry really would be every bit as tough and nasty towards terrorists as Bush, but more effective, he would have won the election.

The bottom line for me is that the Dems need to speak more from their gut and their heart. And that they need to go out into the country to discover where the heart and gut of the Democratic party will lead it.

I can see Howard Dean taking on such an initiative. The "more of the same" crew, not so much.

[Lexingtonian]

25. Most of that I don't buy into

but yes, the central point of the vagueness of the future Democrats propose/envision for the society is a problem.

You suppose that emotional confidence is a sufficient substitute. I'm not convinced that it will prevail against a few weeks of Rightist critique at high volume, which has palpable and known concretes- Kinder, Kueche, Kirche- to propose as certainties.

I'm of the opposite school of thought- the foundation has to begin at abstraction, must be a commitment to a Modern society of pluralism/nondiscrimination and fair dealing and robust/responsible economic behavior by government, with scientific/technological prowess as a value. Democrats know, intellectually, that that's what the conclusion to the present social evolution is- but the Party thinks that open talk of it scares too many voters away to even admit it. OTOH, being partly overt about it to the electorate has the appeal that worked so well for Marx: Rise up, you have nothing to lose but your chains.

I'll distinguish between a humanistic ferver and a theological kind. The in the longer run first is compatible with the Modern, the second isn't. But it's for you to decide which approach serves your interests better and which time frame you're concerned about.

[geek tragedy]

32. We're talking in circles, but briefly

I think the Dems need to really figure out what it means to be a Democrat. This can be an emotionalistic statement of values and passions, or it can be a coherent core ideoology.

Ideally, it will be both.

I just see Dr. Dean as the best hope for developing such a vision. And whether it is fervor leading to a solid message or vice versa, I really don't care.

[Lexingtonian]

37. Good luck with that.

I tried to find out what he knew about that myself most of last year.
As you can probably tell, I didn't come up with enough to be persuaded.

You stick with your faith in Dean, I'll stick with mine in the circle around Kerry.
And the DNC 440 will do a bit do push things toward one or the other, but it won't be a decision. The real decision emerges from what each of them does during the next two years.

[Zhade]

29. "Dean ran on a platform of knocking people like Lieberman out"

For which Dean should receive a medal. Lieberman no longer really belongs in the Democratic party. He is a DINO, and should at least go independent. There's no shame in that.

[Zhade]

28. "They're running an Anybody But Dean campaign."

Isn't that what they did in the primaries?

[geek tragedy]

35. And we wound up with Mr. Electability. eom

[Julien Sorel]

13. Interesting.

Can you think of another group of people who define the word reform as, "To change in a way that benefits me or that I approve of, without taking into consideration the interests and wants of others"?

[geek tragedy]

14. The status quo isn't working and will only get worse.

Going with the status quo is simply unacceptable.

[Julien Sorel]

15. So it's your idea of "reform," or the "status quo"?

[geek tragedy]

17. For one, the party needs to focus on centrism, not

"going right."

Secondly, ending the ad hockery that goes on every election cycle. A forceful articulation of values--what it means to be a Democrat--needs to be put in place.

It also means an end to Clintonian triangulation politics.

[Zhade]

30. I'm slightly confused (easy to believe, I'm sure)...

You say Dems shouldn't go right. Check.

You said Dems should forcefully articulate what it means to be a Dem. Check.

You say we should focus on centrism. No check.

First off, do you think traditional Dem values are centrist? And secondly, what precisely does centrist mean when the mythological center keeps getting dragged to the right by the Republican extremists?

[geek tragedy]

33. I think of "centrism" as being outside of the left-right continuum

A centrist, in that regard, is different than a moderate.

Fiscal discipline is not a right or left virtue. It is a centrist virtue. Social libertarianism that specifically includes gun rights is another example of a centrist virtue that neither the right nor left can lay claim to.

[geek tragedy]

19. Not sure what you mean.

The Democratic party needs a paradigm shift--a whole new way of approaching elections, its own values and goals, and the way it reaches out to voters.

Vilsack's #1 goal is to protect Iowa's caucuses. That is the mark of someone who is looking to protect entrenched interests, not fix the problem.

[liberalpragmatist]

16. Kerry

Look, I can see why you're pissed at Lieberman, b/c he's going very public with an anti-Dean campaign for DNC.

Still, I would ease up a bit on Kerry, at least for now. We don't know what he's doing behind the scenes or what his reasons are. All we have is MYDD telling us that Kerry's running an anti-Dean campaign. We have no first-hand knowledge of that.

Moreover, I think there's an excellent reason why Kerry is probably supporting Vilsack. Kerry probably owes his nomination to the help that Vilsack and his wife gave Kerry. They're good friends, so it's clear that Kerry wants to give his friend a leg up. Now, I disagree with that - though I'm a strong Kerry supporter, I think Dean would make an excellent DNC chair. Simon Rosenberg would be great behind-the-scenes co-chair. But Kerry's allowed to lobby for his friend.

[geek tragedy]

18. Except that there is a lot more on the line than a personal friendship.

If Kerry doesn't understand that . . .

Besides, Vilsack couldn't even deliver his home state when it really counted--Nov 2.

Also, Vilsack doesn't even understand email. In the age of blogs, instantaneous fact-checking, and new media, that is simply unacceptable in a leader to map out a future for the party and the way it does business.

[liberalpragmatist]

20. I never said I wanted Vilsack

I agree with you that Vilsack would be a bad DNC chair. I want a Dean/Rosenberg pairing. That all being said, it's Kerry's right to support a candidate too, and we don't know what his motives are. All we have is speculation that his is a "stop Dean" movement. Maybe that is the reason, and if it is, although I will retain my respect and support for Sen. Kerry (who I still think would make a great President), I'll be disappointed in him on this issue. However, we don't know that to be the case, and I'd rather we not jump to conclusions about his motives.

[geek tragedy]

21. Fair enough. But Lieberman is still a GOP-loving accomodationist

who's worried that a vigorous DNC may mean talking mean to his GOP overseers, er, colleagues.

[Zhade]

31. "Lieberman is still a GOP-loving accomodationist"

We don't agree on much, but this is a statement I wholeheartedly agree with.

[lpricanprynces]

23. Robert Byrd

I'm sorry, I can not get past the KKK thing, no matter how long ago it was, or how many times he has apologized.

[Zhade]

26. Wow. You really think Kerry belongs on the list with Lieberman?

I mean, I'm no fan of Kerry, and Lieberman can go fuck his DINO self, but to put them on the same list?

But then, you surprised me with the "Greg Palast just makes shit up" line, too.

:shrug:

[geek tragedy]

36. Not in terms of being GOP-lite, but in terms of being an establishment

figure that goes by the old way of thinking and approaching campaigns, yes.