I'm changing to an Independent

[patrioticliberal]

Fuck you, Chuck Schumer, fuck you Harry Reid, fuck all you pieces of scum.

Paul Hackett, please know you still have a lot of support if you do decide to run for something.

[Divine Discontent]

1. please see my post made just when you made yours! n/t

[snowbear]

2. I'm hoping that at least one of them will respond to my question..

Of WHY.. Why wouldn't they let the voters of Ohio decide?

I'll always be a Democrat.. but I'm extremely upset with our so-called leaders right now.

I seriously think they'll live to regret their decision to oust Hackett out of the running for that senate seat. It WILL come back to haunt them!

[TacticalPeek]

3. I completely understand that sentiment.

This is a very sad moment in the history of a formerly great party.

I know it's "only one race", but it's what it represents - a future of business as usual and many 1994's and 2000's.

What a shame.

[OKDem08]

4. I agree

Paul Hackett deserved better.

[applegrove]

5. Okay. Independent is fine. Just so long that there isn't a third party.

Dems have to win the houses back. Then we can demand that they do shit. Till then - I guess we have to cope with disappointment - as best we can.

[tocqueville]

6. beats me why you to have to register as a member of a party to vote

anybody can explain the reason ? here (France) it's illegal. If you only hint your party belonging (except of course if you are an official person) you are thrown out the ballot local, the election is suspended, and you are fined. You only register your name and adress and get a voting card, which is checked against the list before you vote. Then you sign the list and get a stamp...

Why should you show in advance who you are belonging to ? it must interfere with ballot secrecy...

but I might misunderstand...

[neweurope]

7. I've been wondering about this, also. Why have "secret"

elections when you have to tell your party affiliation beforehand?

----------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[TahitiNut]

9. As an independent, I share the value perspective demonstrated ...

... by the French and others. It appalls me that citizens feel some obligation to consider themselves as "members" of a political party when not themselves seeking public office. This is, I believe, a side-effect of the decades-long "consumerism" in the U.S. ... in combination with a historical conception (fiction) of a political party as a "citizen interest group" that endorses candidates for office who are not necessarily themselves members of that group. In eastern states (New York, for example), various political parties (e.g. the Conservative Party) have endorsed candidates who're members of either the Democratic or Republican Party ... not seeing an obligation to field "their own" candidate. The thing is, that's just not the party model. Political parties aren't citizen interest groups ideologically unified according to some political philosophy, and really never were. In the U.S., they're about "market share" ... selling themselves as "all things to all people" and really acting as aspirants for 'power unto themselves' unconstrained by any anti-trust principles. As such, the two major political parties follow the contemporary corporatist model - solely driven by net revenues, ownership interests, and market share.

As a result of this consequentialist/utilitarian ethic, even the superficial labels historically established to convey one kind of ideological attitude have been corrupted. Once upon a time, the Democratic Party employed the "big tent" meme to convey a political approach that advocated governance where all people participated equitably and were treated equitably, without narrow privilege and entitlements of wealth or ethnicity. Nowadays I'm seeing this "big tent" meme as an indication of the mutability of the political ideology - essentially compromising that ideology of egalitarianism by attempting to stretch it and, to one degree or another, advocate the politics of elitism and privilege. This is, I believe, the most visible symptom of the corruption of Democratic Party. It's clear to me that the Republican Party has been corrupted as well - abandoning the integrity of its traditional ideology and acting solely in the interest of a very narrow group (the uber-wealthy) while hypocritically proclaiming "rugged individualism" and populism.

That's really the problem with labels - the name stays the same but the contents change.

[DarkmoonIkonoklast]

8. Good on ya, patrioticliberal!

and before everyone jumps all over patrioticliberal for "weakening the Party", let me remind you that it was a terminally weak party that blew huge popular leads in each of the last two Presidential races, allowing the in-scum-bent to be Commander-In-Thief, so just lighten up...

In my not-at-all-humble opinion, the key is not having a single monolithic non-responsive structure competing head-to-head with another single monolithic non-responsive structure, but rather simply having enough votes in each House of Congress to slow the death machine of the hard right Armageddonites, occasionally stop its worst depredations cold, and, in general, restore control of the Legislature (and thus, the Executive) to the Sovereign People.

If that opposition an be found in a coalition of several (or many) small, local, alternative parties, each of which is wholly beholden to its local constituency, WHEREIN LIES THE PROBLEM?

I've long advocated 3rd-, 4th-, 5th-party government especially on the local/county level which is, after all, where most of the day-to-day political horsetrading does, and should, occur. I made exception to this general policy in the last 2 Presidential campaigns, simply because of my fear of exactly what has since transpired: the Religious Reichstag. (The few who were reading my column "Observations From a Point of View" during the summer of 2000 will remember this Cassandra screaming in the night...)

The Party hasn't fought for us working stiffs in a very long time, yet we continue to give it our loyalty -- and our hard-won dollars... Why? I think it's long past time to look for people in our own neighborhoods, in our own villages, who are working to the betterment OF the neighborhood, of the village, and encourage them to serve in higher office, and then to facilitate, not only their candidacies, but also their terms of office... a thing best achieved on the local, grass-roots, level. Only then will we have a chance -- perhaps no more than a snowball's chance in the Sahara, but a chance -- of taking back our country and having it, making it, serve the Nation once again.