Can Progressives Unite or Will It Be the Same Old Bit-Politics Story? TPM

[Hamlette]

Michael Kinsley has an incisive opinion piece at TIME/CNN called "Divided They Fall" -- and I urge everyone to read it. Kinsley points out that Republicans are setting aside their gripes about McCain and uniting to do battle, but progressives and Democrats are up to the same old internal sniping: single issue people bashing Obama for moving to the middle or voting a certain way on FISA, when his vote made no difference at all to the outcome; Clintonites using media sexism in the primary as an excuse to threaten to stay home or vote for McCain; fat cats who backed Clinton complaining to the New York Times, along with the blustering egotists like Carville; Jesse Jackson sniping about the common-sense notion that black people might have to be good parents as well as expect help from government.

This leaves one very sad. The social and redistributive stakes in this election are enormous. McCain can easily win if this summer is wasted, if Democrats do not unite and go on the offensive, if funders withold their efforts, if gripers undermine. But that seems to be what we are all doing.

I look back over an adult lifetime of this, of identity-oriented and single-issue groups undermining any chance for a convincing message relevant to all working middle class people. This lack of discipline and inability to sort out the fundamental from the partial is what has made it so hard for Democrats to win -- and has cost the country terribly in terms of the undermining of middle class wellbeing. Why are we doing it again? Why are we playing along with all the diversions and distractions the media wants to pursue, rather than speaking loudly with one voice for Obama and in drumbeat criticism of McCain? The summer weeks are precious, as we should have learned in 2004 -- mistakes now cannot be fixed later. At a moment when a core, long-term econmic advisor to McCain, Phil Gramm, has revealed the true heartlessness and stupidity behind conservative economic doctrines, we progressives are still talking about Jackson and FISA and Clinton's debts and overwrought claims of sexism. We are not hitting McCain/Gramm/Bush again and again in ways that would force some of the media, at least, to give the Gramm revelations -- they WERE revelations, not a "gaff" -- half the attention and staying power of the Wright ravings!

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/07/11/can_progressives_unite_or_will/

More good, if depressing stuff at the link

This is exactly how I feel today. The New Yorker cover doesn't matter. FISA doesn't matter. What matters, if you want a country to believe in again, to be proud of again, that doesn't become a two tier dictatorship, you are to blame and no one else.

I think what I need is to suggest a forum for complaints so I can come someplace and listen and talk about what we're doing to win. . .

call it the losers forum.

Mabye

[Danger Mouse]

1. We ARE going to win, if we join together and FIGHT.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. Ya know, there's over 70 million...

registered Democrats in the country, and I betcha there's just a handful of 'em making all this PUMA or extreme left noise.

I'd just ignore 'em and make sure the other 69 and a half million Democrats get out there and vote, along with a goodly proportion of the remaining Rockfeller/Javits Republicans and those ever mysterious Independants. Should be a record-smashing landslide if we just ignore the crickets out there.

PUMA's and extreme lefties can make all the noise they want in their empty room.

[Speck Tater]

3. It's not without reason that we keep hearing "Democrats eat their young." NT

[depakid]

4. Fear of standing up for traditional Democratic values

-and then having so called "leaders" or their sycophants scold and blame the base for behaving as human beings always have since organized politics began...

[TexasObserver]

5. The GOP is suited up, laced up and outside while we argue about proper footwear.

It's always like this. Democrats think the most important thing in every campaign is that everyone gets to express their opinion, no matter how idiotic the person expressing them, and not offending anyone in the party is more important than winning elections. Meanwhile, the GOP kicks our ass with discipline, dirty tricks, and focus.

We're like a bunch of 5 year olds fueled by birthday cake and caffeine, running around, screaming and hollering, accomplishing little other than the noise we create.