WJ: Do Democrats need to move to the Center?

[malaise]

Dem calls only
Warrantless wiretapping
and the state of bridges later on.

[malaise]

1. First call

Hell no.

[radfringe]

2. they don't have the votes to move

[KoKo]

3. The Guy saying all Repugs want to do is FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!!!

He was great!

[KoKo]

5. The article is written by DLC Harold Ford and new Maryland Govenor.

[B Calm]

4. Locking

[malaise]

6. Huh? n/t

[KoKo]

11. B. Calm you just had me Alert A MOD for Locking....sheesh I thought it was serious!

I was ready to post and saw Locking...so didn't see that it wasn't...

[bridgit]

7. caller right now laying it out, "Dems don't go for the win. Republicans go for the win."

it's really very simple, even i've said it before, "Republicans don't show up to play the game. They show up to WIN!!. Believe it."

[Tesla]

8. Repugs don't care who they hurt to win

Money rules them!

[bridgit]

14. i wanted to light a fire under Kerry's ass myself during all that swift-boat shit...

politics is a grand game, 3 weeks worth of floundering is an eternity in a 24 news cycle...and republicans know that. Cheney just said the other day on Larry King,

"All a politician needs is 50%+1 to win." then that twisted, eternal, smart-ass smirk of his cause he knows he's right, he knows how easy it is/was to snooker this whole damn country

they only have to "not care who they hurt" long enough to attain that .05 ~ 1% edge, the rest they can bullshit & shave off round the edges like a crooked basketball game...but that is where the game has been played for the last three cycles

it's not about being mean to people :cry: it's making the decision that these things, such as America Herself, are important enough for you to understand the nature of *both* the game, and your opponent...oh,

and having the guts to see it through to completion imo

[malaise]

9. Who won in November?

Dems.

[bridgit]

15. caller was referring imo to the larger picture dems are unable to effect...

i have money in my purse, but i'm not rich

[B Calm]

16. Making fun of all the locked threads... Seems like lately anybody who

might post anything critical of the democratic party, ends up with a locked thread. Now I think posting something about the democrats moving more to the center, is being way too critical, but that is my view, apparently not for the mods.

[bridgit]

18. although better served from the center, i'm less than convinced the center is the place...

for dems to be; and before people step off the deep end, i am not referring to the DLC-center, but the center-center/state-of-balance-center, all this left/right, up/down, back/forth, in/out, on/off, salt/pepper smack-down shit is tearing this nation apart

[B Calm]

22. Jim Hightower: the only thing in the center of the road is yellow stripes

and dead armadillos!

[bridgit]

26. cute, makes a nice bumper sticker, but don't forget Texas colloquialisms either...

they're somewhere in the middle, unassailable, easily demonstrable (though we don't have armadillos in my neighborhood) not quite Twain, while the rest of the world is being torn asunder by Big Oil we are subject to their zen-like poise & grace

you do know why they had to take Texas TP off the shelves? wait for it...wait for it...

Cause it wouldn't take shit off'ah no one!! :rofl:

[malaise]

20. LOL

:D

[Vinca]

10. Only 1 so far for "center." Dems calling are r-e-e-a-a-l-l-y mad. nt

[malaise]

13. I'd like to hear a caller discuss

policies like infrastructure and how the center's position affects bridges, etc.

[rodeodance]

12. a caller saying the Repug walkout was planned (House last Thrus).

[RandiFan1290]

17. Has C-SPAN ever asked

if the Public-con party should move to the center? Seems to me that every year the so called "center" moves further to the right, and I remember hearing the Heritage Foundation bragging about it on C-SPAN.

[Warren Stupidity]

19. That would be a march to the left. nt.

[JanMichael]

21. From the Right to a mythical Center?

That's likely...

[malaise]

23. Glenn Greenwald up now n/t

[MadHound]

24. Um, no

The Dems have compromised and caved far too many times. The 'Pugs have become adept at the trick of moving to the right and dragging the Dems with them out of fear and cowardnice. The Dems have gone so far to the right that at this point a move to the center would actually make the Dems more liberal again.

It is time to stop paying attention to and playing to the 'Pugs and the right. Rather we should go to the left and pick up those we've left behind.

[A wise Man]

25. The dems are being laughed at by the rethugs and Bush

[KharmaTrain]

27. Senior Center? United Center? Guitar Center?

In the meantime, WJ asks Repugnicans "is the GOOP too centrist". Another strawman question based on the "conventional wisdom" (:puke:) that somehow this country is "Conservative" and thus anything truly moderate is left and anything that's "center" is "moderate right".

I'm sooooooooo tired of being in the majority on most issues and somehow i'm some "radical". This narrative has to change.

[VWolf]

28. Of course they do!

Because they're already right of center.

[marions ghost]

29. I'm not sure all those callers

calling for Dems to move to the center have the Dems best interests at heart :eyes:

You'd think there was a HUGE groundswell for moving to the "center" (in order to win and all that).

If so, voter perceptions really are stuck in the old days....

We do seem to have two main arms in the Dem party--the centrists/triangulators* vs. the progressives/innovators. Is that a true picture?

So what--can't we coexist?

The centrists seem overly concerned about images rather than policy.



<*more like strangulators>

[porphyrian]

30. From the right? Yes, but only to continue on to the left. - n/t

[OHdem10]

31. This has been a CenterRight Government for so long

we would probably think it has gone left if they
ever go to the center.

Tom DeLay was successful in one thing and has proudly
described how he accomplished it.
First and foremost he was a tough minded partisan who thought
nothing "breaking legs" to keep his members in tow. He would
deny members assistance in their campaigns and threaten
to run someelelse in their place.(If they did not vote with
party on certain issues.)

Most of all, Delay says the way they did legislation made Center
Right Government.
When a bill was being written, it was written from the most far
right perspective. Once ready for presentation, the bill would
be taken to each Republican. Started with most conservative
Republicans, moving up gradation of conservatives. Changes to
bill would be made only if a Conservative thought his consituents
would not accept it. Moved along to Moderats.
When they reached 218 votes, the bill was done and ready for
vote by full house. This guaranteed all legislation would
be center right.

What is obvious--Never heard much from Democrats fighting this.

Eventually this brought the GOP down

We have not seen Center in years.

[L. Coyote]

32. NO. Stay where you are. The Center has abandoned the Corrupt Right. n/t

[spanone]

33. Constitutionally speaking the dems have moved way to the right. IMHO