Why do so many Democrats want to shoot their party in the foot?

[monomach]

It's pretty confusing to me. There's a post from a Republican veteran voting for Obama in both the primary and the GE. He's being attacked by some DUers for not being a Democrat. As a fellow veteran (no, I've never been to Iraq), this gets me pretty pissed off.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4775536&mesg_id=4775536

I'm not a Democrat, either. I used to be a Republican. Now I'm an independant. I voted for George Bush in 2000 (Kerry in 2004). I voted for a Democrat in my state's primary. I'll vote for him in the GE, too. Should my primary and GE votes not count, either?

NEWS FLASH: I think we established pretty well in 2000 and 2004 that there aren't enough Democrats to put a Democrat into the White House right now. It may be a good time to stop being assholes and start embracing swing voters, no matter repugnant we may be to you.

[MercutioATC]

1. Maybe they don't do things this way on the right, but we test our candidates by fire...

No, it's not always the best way of doing it strategically, and our candidates are often anointed my the party and the media long before the average voter has even made a choice, but we tend to torture our candidates in the primaries to see who can stand up to the abuse rather than coddle them.

[monomach]

4. I don't think you read my post.

It's about DU attacking a swing voter, not about the usual "Waah waaah I hate Obama" stuff.

[Skittles]

2. seeing the light now that America has been thoughly trashed

perhaps it's not a good thing to attack people who finally pulled their head out of their ass but I won't be worshiping the ground they walk on, either

[casus belli]

3. Those posters are a minority in that thread

Most of our community welcomed him graciously. There will always be a few a-holes who can't get over whether the person has an R or D next to their name, even if they are supporting a progressive candidate. There's not much we can do about that. That's best left to the mods.

[redstate_democrat]

5. I just don't want McCain to win

Plenty of Democrats switched over to Bush in the 2000 AND 2004 elections! Why, I have NOT A CLUE! Why can't we also welcome them over to our side? This ONLY helps us. With a Democratic majority in the house, a real working majority, AND a Democratic president, what MORE could you ask for? If it takes a few defected republicans and some independents to get there, I see nothing wrong with it. It does us NO GOOD to simply win the same people we did in 2004. We have to not only win the popular vote, but ELECTORAL VOTES. WE need to swing states over to our side. What good is winning the same states Bush lost last time? Of course we will ALWAYS get CA, NY, IL, MA, and traditionally blue states. But we won those last time and ended up with Bush again. If we can get just a few of those republicans and Independents to go Democratic this time in those purple states, we can swing them. Hell, wouldn't it be nice to swing Tennessee, Georgia, and some other Southern states too? It couldn't hurt. THIS IS SMART. WHY SHOOT YOURSELF IN THE FOOT?

[lligrd]

6. Welcome To The Thinking Party

We don't always agree because we generally think for ourselves. And yes, I agree that we should welcome others (and for the most part the posts did) but we are also passionate in our beliefs and find it hard to believe that anyone would that supported Bush actually holds our core beliefs.

We also hold our own to accountability and give them hell for wrong votes and freely admit that our own party has been taken over by elitists with corporate backing. We frequently fight amongst each other over whether a candidate can win or represents our core beliefs realizing the two are not necessarily compatible.

In sort, I guess you could say we are highly patriotic and idealistic while at the same time being worldly and realistic leading to a conundrum not only within the party but sometimes within ourselves.