Repubs are so mad about this port deal that when they vote...

[vi5]

...they'll still vote for repubs. But they'll be really, really not totally happy about it.

When are we going to learn. No matter how mad these people get they will always, ALWAYS take the worst, most idiotic republican over the best, most qualified democrat/liberal. Plain and simple. How many things has Bush done to piss even the right/repubs off over the past 6 years. And each time, like Charlie Brown to Lucy's football, we go running full tilt towards it and get all excited and convinced that this time, no really THIS time is going to be the thing that pisses the republicans off enough to not vote for Bush or other republicans.

My father in law is a republican leaning guy who is hardly a rabid, radical wingnut. But more than anything else he will not vote for dems or libs, and would never vote 3rd party. At every turn he's talked about how pissed off he is at Bush or what bad decisions he's made, or all this other stuff. But still he does not and will not trust dems and will always vote for republicans.

So no this isn't our magic pill that is going to cure everything, nor is it the thing that is going to make Bush toast or the drip drip drip, or whatever. It's another thing that yes it's making republicans grumble and complain but they are still never going to not vote for republicans. Their hatred of liberals and their absorbption of the notion that dems are weak on all accounts will always trump any dissatisfaction they have with the right.

I hate to be so cynical but it seems like every couple of months one of these issues comes along and I'm just so very tired of getting burned and/or my hopes up.

[Pirate Smile]

1. The hope is they stay home this November. They wont

vote for Dems. Hopefully, they just wont vote.

[vi5]

2. We hoped that in '02 and in '04...

Didn't happen either time. The Rove machine will always be able to present some shiny object to distract them from what pissed them off, and lure them like a pied piper to the polls.

[reality based]

3. This will cause some to switch, some not to vote or participate

in Democratic vote suppression/theft. It's an incremental game. Moving relatively few people can have decisive effects. The emotional impact of this issue on those once described as "Reagan" Democrats should not be underestimated.

[sam sarrha]

4. King George said he would veto any bill that keeps his friends form taking

over the ports...

[sam sarrha]

5. he is so despreate to make this deal work it is like they are blackmailing

him with pictures of him with farm animals or something worse

[Warpy]

6. There are knee jerk jerks on both sides

which is why we have a congress full of wingnuts and spineless wimps.

"No matter how mad these people get they will always, ALWAYS take the worst, most idiotic republican over the best, most qualified democrat/liberal." reminds me of Democrats who will vote for DINOs again and again, convincing themselves that maybe things will change if the DINOs have a small majority in either house. Yeah, they'd get committee chairmanships, but they'd still be spineless wimps who sell us out at every opportunity.

There's not a damned thing we can do about their party, but there is something we can do about OUR party. We can support DFA, get to meetings if we can, volunteer our time to support non DLC candidates in the primaries, unseat the DINOs any way we can. We can write letters, make phone calls, and generally be pains in the ass to the DINOs in power now, letting them know that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome is insanity.

The majority of voters stay home on election day, no matter how hot the two parties pretend the contest is. If we could energize just 10% of them with a little ray of hope for a better future, we could overcome any fraud the GOP can come up with.

That's been the problem all along. The DLC has been taking the party base for granted, and they are the ones who have stayed home, not the GOPs. Their party has a way of pulling some irrelevancy out of their asses at the last minute (like gay marriage, "partial birth abortion") and energizing the fundy base. The Democrats had better do the same for their base or we'll be stuck with Repug rule forever.

[vi5]

8. I agree for the most part...

I don't think the DLC is the great boogeyman that everyone makes them out to be, but I do think you're right in that we should be spending more time getting good, solid dems elected than we should be focusing and obsessing over issues that may or may not get repubs to not vote for repubs.

As evidence by this here messageboard, if we spent even 1/8th of the time we spend worrying about what pisses of repubs or what Tweety and O'Reilly are doing, actually working on getting dems elected and solidifiying support on the issues we cared about, we'd be unstoppable.

Unfortunately it seems like people are more concerned with finding that magic bullet that is going to single handedly take all the bad things away with no effort. And they're more concered with what Chris Matthews and O'Reilly are doing and saying than anything else.

[walldude]

7. While I agree that this isn't the issue that is going to turn the tide

I do believe there is a ray of hope here. The fact that the freeps are speaking out about this shows that there is a boiling point for them. There are places Bush will try to go that they won't follow. Maybe, if they won't vote for a Dem or a lib, we could get them to vote for a Republican who isn't a freakin moran...