Can we win a national election in 2008 and how?

[private_ryan]

The Christian right flexed its muscle and won. Now it's payback time from Chimp Inc. and they'll like and get used to the results. Seems like all the repubs needs is a religious kook who says that god appointed him and he's in. Population changes but they have kids too...

Most of the young voters are too stupid to even realize the importance of elections so we can't rely on them for balance. It's true that 150,000 more votes in Ohio and we would have the electoral vote but we lost by 3.5 million in the popular vote.

what do you think?


ps: This is not a thread for those who think John Kerry won and should've fought to ..... WE LOST!

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Here is how

-----------------------------------------------------------
FIGHT! Take this country back one town and state at a time!
http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/electionreform.htm

[VivaKerry]

Lord, in 2008? What the hell will be left of this country?

By the time bush gets through with his next 4 years, we would merely have to put a bobble head doll on the ballot to win! I believe that, but what the hell would we be fixing at that point? And therein lies the problem, in my mind.

[meti57b]

2. I suggest a "take back the House in 2006" campaign, first.

We find republican House members who might be vulnerable and concentrate our efforts on them.

This whole thing is so bad because they have all branches of government, now ... Senate, House, Supreme Court.

[private_ryan]

3. I'm almost hoping that

they reverse Roe vs Wade, privatize Social Security etc. to wake the people up. They voted for all of that.

[Strawman]

5. And a hold the line in the Senate in 06 campaign

The Republicans are very close to grabbing that ring (60 votes) and if they put it on their finger we'll be fucked. They will be spending like crazy on races for marginal seats currently held by Democrats to get there. If they succeed it won't take too long to largely dismantle the federal gov't with a filibuster-proof majority. House, Filibuster proof Senate, Presidency, Supreme Court. That's ball game. If you have a Democratic Senator up for re-election in 06 start thinking about what you're going to do to help him/her now.

[meti57b]

8. You are absolutely right! Do you know anyone who is organizing anything ..

sort of a focal point for brainstorming and financial contribution?

[Strawman]

21. Well there is the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

http://www.dscc.org/

But if you just looked at that page you'd almost think we were the ones closing in on 60 votes. It's great that Salazar and Obama won but the Democratic leader lost for christsakes. It's time to be scared shitless and use that as a motivator.

Other than that, I don't know of anything. There was an article that spoke to this on Mother Jones's blog yesterday so I think people are starting to think about this:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/blog/2004/11/MB_2004_44.html#33

[snippy]

11. I agree about focusing on 2006, but the House will be tough because

of all the safe gerrymandered districts for members of both parties. The GOP put a huge amount of money and effort into state legislative races in 1996, 1998, and 2000 so that they would control more of the redistricting plans in more states. The democratic party needs to do the same for 2006, 2008, and 2010. On top of that the democratic party also should argue for a reform of the redistricting process.

[byronm]

4. Participation

1. make voting machines & companies non profit, open and auditable - we need to participate in this and not let the repugs run with the progranms and "black boxes" - implement some of the progressive ideas of open source/linux advocates, make sure non profit and non partisan companies are managing this and come up with an ISO Standardization.

2. Keep up the unity :)

3. Don't just stop at the voting machines - setup think tanks and advocacy groups that provide facts and proof on the issues we want to take at hand.

[The Chronicler]

6. No we can't, but it's important we run someone from middle america

who isn't so anti-gun and pro-abortion. The key for '08 is to try and start a paradigm shift among the electorate.

[Pacifist Patriot]

12. Little quibble

Stop using conservative language. There is no such thing as "pro-abortion." Have you met a single pro-choice advocate who was also a proponent of abortion? By proponent I mean someone who puts the procedure forth as the only or best option.

Take back the language. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being in favor of a constitutional right to privacy and individual decision making. Democrats need to reclaim the language that has been hijacked for way too long. We don't need candidates that will dance around the issue we need people who will stand up and proudly say, "Of course I'm in favor of choice. You should be too!"

Democrats have got to pull the defensive linemen off the field and send in the offense for a change.

[The Chronicler]

15. Kerry's opposition to partial birth abortion hurt us.

[Pacifist Patriot]

17. Yet another example of democrats allowing someone else

to command the language. There is no such thing as a partial birth abortion. It's a medical procedure called a D & X. I'm livid that this extraordinarily rare procedure was allowed to become a huge morality issue when it was draped in misinformation and inflammatory language. LOL! Sorry, you got me venting again. ;-)

[private_ryan]

38. I think you are the one playing word games

both sides want to use words to their favor. You know what they meant so no need to teach us what words to use.

[Pacifist Patriot]

39. Words are incredibly important

Precision in speech as well as maintaining control over connotation and interpretation give one side of an argument the upper hand. By referring to a D&X as an abortion you evoke images of elective termination of a potentially successful pregnancy and viable baby. You convey the impression that this is a common occurrance rather than a rare last resort. Use whatever terms you prefer, just don't be surprised if you play into someone else's hands when you agree to their terms and definitions. Bottom line, late term abortion is a political term and D&X is a medical one. You decide which you want to use.

So yes. Of course I am playing word games. I never said otherwise.

[snippy]

16. Agreed. There also is no such thing as "pro-life." No anti-abortion

group argues that the life of a poor person needing medical care should be saved through increased Medicaid spending.

[Pacifist Patriot]

18. And consider that a great number of "pro-life" advocates

don't give a second thought to a jolt of electricity or a chemical being injected into a convicted criminal. Convicted or not, it's still a life. How conveniently they forget.

[snippy]

7. Absolutely. The first thing the democratic party must do is develop and

implement a plan for defining the republican party. For over 20 years the democrats have allowed the GOP to define the democratic party. That has to stop. But the democrats need to show Americans the true face of the republican party. That face is the Reich Wing fundamentalists.

An example of what the democrats must do is provided by the incidents of schoolteachers telling seven year old kids in their classrooms that Kerry is a baby killer. Democrats need to show that this is the GOP in action, not one or two isolated incidents of disturbed teachers. Every democrat who appears on any television show for the next several months should mention these incidents as an example of what the GOP stands for. Not just that the GOP is anti-abortion, but that the GOP believes that teachers must talk about baby killers to seven year old children. Every incident of extremism needs to be painted as showing the true heart and soul of the republican party.

The second thing the democrats need to do is nationalize the 2006 election, so that it is a referendum on one party control and the extremism of the GOP. The best way to do that I think is to campaign for reform of the government. This will cause people to focus on one party control by the GOP.

I think election reform is the first issue democrats should focus on. This is fresh in everyones' minds and the GOP is vulnerable on this issue since there are so many stories of long lines, unreliable machines, inconsistent rules, and republicans attempting to suppress minority voters. Republicans hate having the truth be told about the rampant bigotry and racism in the GOP and would have a hard time defending trying to continue to disenfranchise minorities. They will look bad if they oppose election reform. There is no reason that an election reform bill can not be the very first thing passed by the next Congress. But the democrats have to make it an important issue.

After that democrats should raise the issue of reforming Congress and the rest of the federal government. They should focus on nepotism and the revolving door of government employees leaving and becoming lobbyists. The democrats should freely admit that this will hurt some democrats as well as republicans, but they should argue that it needs to be done. Put the onus on the GOP to defend nepotism and revolving doors to corrupt wealth. (I do not necessarily believe that reforming the federal government is the most important issue facing the country but I do believe that it is one which would resonate with some people who voted republican who might switch their vote.)

One other thing the democrats should talk about is the deficits and the debt. But they need to show the historical record on this. Of the 14 times since 1960 that the annual deficit has exceeded 3% of GDP, every single time was under a republican president. In that time republicans have added around $3.8 trillion to the publicly held national debt. Bush is projecting that the total national debt will exceed $10 trillion at the end of his second term. Democrats can not continue to let this go largely unnoticed.

The democrats need to run a national campaign in 2006 which focuses on a coordinated and consistent message. I think that message should be that the GOP is too extreme and that the federal government needs to be improved and since republicans control the government any failure to reform government is a willful failure of the republicans to do something about the corrupt staus quo.

The democrats need to focus on extremism and reform, but they can not ignore the failures of Bush and the GOP. Those need to be addressed, but in the context of extremism, reform, and one party control whenever possible.

[The Chronicler]

9. I think we should adopt a Lou Dobbs-like stance on immigration (nm)

[snippy]

10. That would certainly resonate with a lot of voters. It is another area

the democrats can address as needing reform. I'm not sure what the right stance is on immigration reform, but democrats can certainly use the issue to hurt the GOP, regardless of what position the democratic party takes.

[The Chronicler]

13. I think we need to stop pandering to potential hispanic voters

who by the way aren't really even voting with us like we want. Illegal immigration needs to be turned into a positive issue with us. It resonates in the heartland.

[snippy]

19. Bush has successfully pandered to them, against the wishes of many

in the GOP especially among the base. Hispanics will continue to be a larger and larger part of the population and the electorate. Ignoring or antagonizing them is a prescription for long term electoral problems.

[Burn The Bushes]

42. Hispanic Voters Aren't With Us? Says Who?

That's just a total mangling of the facts. I'm sure you didn't mean to do it, but the fact is that the majority of Hispanic voters gave their allegiance to Kerry.

The reality is that, if we had been able to push through citizenship for the many immigrants not able to vote, we would have had a good shot at winning Colorado, Arizona, Florida and New Mexico. In fact, that population is growing by leaps and bounds. It's now the largest minority group. According to a CNN exit poll that was posted in the Elector-Vote.com site, we got nearly 80 percent of the black vote, but we narrowly beat Bush on the Hispanic vote. We need to increase our edge in that area.

One way to do this is to criticize the war in Iraq and point to the number of Hispanics supporting the so-called war on terror.

[Pacifist Patriot]

14. I agree. In my opinion, the major weakness of the Democratic

Party is their willingness to let everyone else make the rules, set the terms and establish the definitions. Get it together already!

http://www.unitarianminister.org/correspondence.htm

[msongs]

20. a fellow UU?

well greetings to you if you are....and if you are not as well :-0

Msongs
Riverside CA

2005 Beatles calendars
www.msongs.com/gallery_three.htm

[Pacifist Patriot]

22. Yes, I am indeed a fellow UU

Thanks for the greetings.

[Laelth]

23. No. Just no.

We ran a strong candidate this year against one of the weakest and worst candidates the Republicans have ever offered. John Kerry actually speaks in complete sentences. Bush, quite obviously, does not. John Kerry is a decorated war hero who has served the people in public office for most of his adult life. Bush is a draft-dodger who has destroyed every business he's ever run and who seems to serve only himself and his rich friends. According to the American people, in scientific polls taken immediately afterward, John Kerry won all three debates. The Democrats had more money than usual this time--nearly as much as the Republicans. They fought toe-to-toe in television advertising across the nation. By one count, the Democrats registered three times as many new voters as the Republicans did for this election.

And you know what? None of this mattered! The Democrats still lost. There's nothing wrong with the Democratic party. There's something very wrong with America. If Kerry can't beat Bush, then I don't think the Democrats can win at all. I think we're in for about 20 years of one-party rule. Welcome to Jesusland!

Revolt now! Either we win this one, or it's all over.

-Laelth

[Strawman]

24. Fundie Credit Claiming will backfire

The more out in front these people get and the more credit they take for putting Republicans in office and the more IOU's they sucessfully cash in, the better our chances are. The more synomous that the word Republican becomes with them, the better off we are. Let them fool themsleves into believing that they have a mandate to implement right wing social policy because if they really do, they're walking into their own political graveyard. No matter what any spin doctors try to tell you, most Americans are not comfortable with these extremists. That's why they were kept out of the picture at the Republican convention.

[Guava Jelly]

25. I hate to be so negative

But we will lose seats in 2006 a republican will be selected in 2008 and we will lose more seats until we arent a factor..WHY because we cant control the message or the echo chamber We used to have an honest media that would inform the masses but thats gone.
There isn't 1 person on this planet that could have beat Bush this time with the weapons he had.A servent media an ignorant population and an echo chamber of hate.not to mention machines that lose and add votes and partisan voting officials .
Truth and fairness is dead and america is lessoned by it

I need a beer

[Neecy]

26. our ideas are good - our message sucks

I'm a life-long blue stater (California) who moved to one of the reddest states in the country (Kansas) a year and a half ago. For my fellow blue staters who are confounded by the election, here's my take.

The problem is pretty simple, really, but we don't know about it because we're not tuned into it. The right-wing has a massive propaganda arm that would put Dr. Goebbels to shame.

I cite one of my neighbors - a nice guy, retired school teacher (remember this - it's important), Vietnam veteran. When we talk about anything other than politics he's utterly normal.

He's a rabid, and I mean RABID Bush supporter. Over the last eight or nine months we've chatted quite a bit about the election, and his entire source of information comes from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Christian radio. What he's "learned" from these sources is frightening - he believes, wholly and completely, that Iraq was behind 9/11, that Iraq had huge WMD stockpiles that were trucked to Syria before the invasion, and most frightening of all for a former schoolteacher, he thinks that Darwinism is only a 'theory' and that creationism should be taught in our public schools. He loved the Swift Boat smears - remember, he's a Vietnam vet - and didn't seem to mind that Bush and his minions have made a second career out of smearing Vietnam vets. Kerry was a traitor and an ally of Jane Fonda, blah blah blah.

Whenever I mildly would try to rebut any of his mistaken impressions, he'd demand that I reveal my source of information. Since I read the NYT and the WP on a daily basis online, I'd usually cite these as a source. His only reply was that big-city urban papers "lie" because they hate George Bush. Every fact is a 'lie', every lie is a 'fact'. It's utterly twisted, but it's real, and 61% of my fellow citizens in this state feel exactly as he does.

Bush kept calling Kerry a liberal because in this programming, particularly Christian radio, intense hatred is kept burning to a white-hot degree against liberalism, despite the fact that liberalism died in this country in 1968, and was buried in 1972.

We have no similar propaganda arm. Air America is in very few markets, and since it's been touted as 'liberal' it's doubtful anyone from outside of our base listens to it. What we need - desperately - is liberal Christian programming. Sounds weird, but there's a moral case to be made for liberal Christianity (helping the poor, opposing immoral wars and torture, healing the sick though accessable health care) but nobody's making it. The argument is now framed entirely on abortion and gay rights, and we'll never get the hard-core nuts on that, but we might peel away some of the more moderate mainstream congregations (like the Catholics) that we're losing by the bucketful.

I know it's hard, and impossible now, but in the next month or two pick a day and watch Fox in the morning, tune into Rush and Hannity during the day, then listen to Christian radio at night. You'll see - very fast - why we lost this election and more importantly, what we need to do to counter it before 2008. This war isn't about votes, it's about getting out our message, and we're losing.

[Laelth]

36. You're absolutely right.

I say the electronic voting machines may have also had something to do with it, but you're right to say that the right-wing propaganda machine is what keeps the faithful in line.

But, seriously, what can we do about that? Our message, even if we could get it out, would be marginalized as just-so-much liberal clap-trap, and it would have no impact. Throwing good money after bad, if you ask me.

;(

-Laelth

[qwlauren35]

27. We need to run a Strong CHRISTIAN Southern White Male Candidate!

And we need to inject a clear CHRISTIAN message in our platform.

78% of America is Christian. But we Democrats seem to lose sight of this repeatedly. Instead of touting OUR brand of CHRISTIAN values, we are mum on the concept.

Many of us, of ALL religions, and even atheists have values which fit the Christian doctrine. We just have to claim them! Because we ARE the party that nurtures the poor, fights for the weak, feeds the hungry, and offers tolerance instead of judgment.

The REPUBLICAN party is the Old Testament firebrand party with the fighting spirit of David & Daniel, plus a touch of Paul's prudery and John's Revelations thrown in to scare the masses.

I don't want to be like them. I don't want to be one of them. But distancing ourselves from Christianity is costing us, and I think it's time we stopped.

We don't have to adopt EVERYTHING the Bible says! But there's a lot in there of value, and the more we ignore it, the more we lose votes.

[Laelth]

37. I won't sacrifice separation of church and state just to win.

We need to make the case that separation of church and state is a good idea. If we have to become the fundie party just to win, then this nation has already been lost.

-Laelth

[Dinger]

28. Cheat and Lie, That's How

[NNguyenMD]

29. We can, and here's how...

Ok don't kill me for making this analogy, but I just realized something that I thought was infinitely interesting.

I was thinking about why we have an electoral college to elect the president versus a straight popular vote, and remembering what my college Civil War History professor told me. I remembered that the conjuring of the electoral college had little to do with equalizing the representation of small states compared to little states in congress, as much as it was a tool designed to protect slavery.

Just a refresher for those of you who have already heard this to death from teh 200 election. In 1789 when they were shoring up support to ratify the constitution, the slave states said "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!! You're not going to let the Yankees walk all over us!" They reacted that way b/c back then the Free States out numbered the Slave states enough so that a presidential election based solely on the popular vote would favor the North almost every time, remember more people and bigger states. And since the slave owners knew that there were many in the North, at least among its "elitist" leadership, who were so adamant about abolishing slavery, they got scared shitless and so they offered the Free States a deal.

They'll elect the president through the electoral college of the states, who's representation would be determined by a state's white populations AND 3/5THs OF ITS SLAVE POPULATION as determined by its previous census. And since slaves dont' vote, the a white southern voter got more representation in congress per capita individual than his counterpart in the North. This effectively protected slavery as no president could have been elected without the galvanized support of all its Free State, and at least a few Slave States based on this system.

This worked all the way until 1860, when Lincoln become the first president to win the election without a single slave state. The South got scared Shitless and realized that they couldn't pull the same shit any more and thus began the civil war. The REPUBLICANS effectively were able to shut out the southern DEMOCRATS. Although before you all crucify me for the W vs Lincoln comparison, I am fully aware that the roles of both parties back then took a reversal with the Kennedy revolution, and today the Dems are the party of Lincoln, and the Repubs the party of racism and oppression.

Anyways, I'll get to the point, We are in almost exactly the same position as we were in 1860. The slave issue galvanized the national electorate by defined geographical lines. When the Free State Republicans mustered a broad coalition of anti-slavery parties, they realized what incredible power they wielded, and that they didn't have to pander anymore to the Slave powers of the South, and could ignore them while STILL winning elections.

WHAT WE NEED TO DO IS TURN ONE OR TWO MORE STATES BLUE BY 2008. And I think those two states we're still in the game in will be OHIO and NEVADA, maybe Missouri and West Virgina and we should still try for Florida too. We need to make inroads in states with HUGE major metropolitan cities to win this next one, and we're DEAD CLOSE to doing it. Realize this guys, if we got anything out of this election then it was realizing how much closer we are to reclaiming the country and pulling it from the hands of the fundies than everyone thinks.

The Southern Democrats of 1860 waged a polarizing CULTURAL WAR based on preserving Southern values. The Lincoln Republicans only started winning when they finally defined themselves as the abolitionist party that would NOT back down to slavery even if it meant war. Guys, we don't need to move to the center, we need to make our message loud and clear that we are against the religious fundamentalist. WE ARE THE PARTY OF TOLERANCE AND ACCEPTANCE OF EVERYONE, and are thus the true party of the people. Anyways, that was my two cents.

[74dodgedart]

30. You can't build the youth vote by working on it once every four years.

The "get out the vote" effort has to take place for every election- federal, state and local. We need to get people involved in the process, build the local party\grassroot structures and flip some red states to blue states.

The Republicans didn't get where they are overnight.

[milkyway]

31. By getting the votes counted correctly.

[dpakman91]

32. it's definitely possible

but i don't think we can win with hillary as the most likely candidate..especially against mccain, who is the most likely republican candidate as of now, check it out:

www.heartheissues.com

[Comicstripper]

33. OF COURSE WE CAN.....

This is very simple. The GOP doesn't have a stranglehold on the White House. Remember
This is the first presidential election since 1988 where the Republican candidate got more votes than the Democratic candidate.

[Emboldened Chimp]

34. We need to worry about 2006 first...

We can reclaim the House if we concentrate money on weak republicans and GOTV. All we need is a 20-seat swing, which, if history is our guide, is not impossible. We swung the House in our favor with 26 seats in '82 by attacking the shit out of Reagan--and that's after the assassination attempt. Pukes did it to us in '94 and swung it back in their favor. We HAVE to reclaim the House in '06; then we can start talking impeachment.

[74dodgedart]

35. I think that the deficit is a national issue that can be used to swing

these races. The deficit isn't going away anytime soon and alot of these Repubs voted for increased spending.

[private_ryan]

40. agree

deficit means nothing. Bush added 2 trillion and no one cares. At least I wish he had used them to privatize part social security. Now he'll add another 3-4 trillion

[Burn The Bushes]

41. The Deck Is Stacked Against Us.

I was doing some searching around the other day, and I decided to look at the definition of totalitarianism. Guess what? The United States now fits into that category. There are still some democrats in the House and Senate, but they're now almost completely powerless. All of the bureaucracy is now going to be into its eighth year of Bushwacking. The Supreme Court will lean to the far right. Many governorships have moved that way.

What this means is that Bush sets the agenda. He determines what students learn in high school, which determines how well they're informed when it comes time to vote. He opens up FCC rules to allow a single entity to own multiple news sources, thereby limiting opportunities for public discourse.

Folks, things are getting damned scary at this point. I have first-hand experience of the Republican Party's efforts to silence the media through direct censorship. Bush has attended fewer press conferences than any president in recent history. He's behaving as if we dont' have a right to know the details of what are country is involved in. This is our country, and we must take it back. It's imperative. We never thought 9/11 would happen, but it did. And now there's something else taking place that we never imagined possible. One-party rule is gripping America based upon fear-mongering. After 9/11, everyone said that we had to get back to our normal lives or the terrorists would win. Ironically, Bush has harped on his war on terrorism and has used the same kind of fear to force people to make decisions they would not ordinarily make. If we pick presidents based upon some unsubstantiated notion of which will president us with the most safety, we've lost in our effort to live beyond the shadows of fear that began to fall upon us after 9/11.

So how do we win?

It's really not that difficult. First, we must obtain power. We have two choices. We can either move to the right and gain votes or move to the left and be silenced. My vote is for moving the right to get the votes and then moving back left once the election is over. I think this is why Kerry gave us a better shot than some other candidates. His support for the war in Iraq brought him some unlikely votes. Unfortunately, he proved unable to hold a solid pattern. He writhed back and forth like a snake, and it scared some of the moderate voters off.

To move to the right, we need to distance the party from the fringe left. These folks shouldn't even be in this party. They should be Green supporters and Libertarians and Socialists. In fact, I probably shouldn't be in the democratic party because I'm pretty far to the left. In any case, this must take place. We don't have to change our core values, but we do have to refrain from adopting every poor, hungry radical left on our door step. How many moderates are going to be for gay marriage, for abortion, for pulling out of Iraq, for minorities and non-registered immigrants, for every position that the democratic party adopts in its efforts to be inclusive. By being inclusive to the far left, we're being non-inclusive to those at the center, and it's the folks at the center we need most. This time, we got the vote of those who previously voted for Nader, but we lost the vote of those at the center in doing so. There are far more people at the center than there are on the far left, and that's the math part of this. We need those votes to win. We can't do it without them.