Can we make sure the DCCC and DSCC never recruit any more NON-progressive candidates?

[Ken Burch]

It's not too much to ask, given that the election of the non-progressive ones didn't actually help us with anything.

[KittyWampus]

1. You realize how negative your goal is? That you define desirable action by what should NOT happen?

That is not effective. It's counter productive.

Try again.

[Ken Burch]

2. What is counter-productive is recruiting people as Democrats

who don't have any respect for our party's progressive values.

What was counter-productive was Rahm's Recruits voting against the party and the administration on everything that matters.

Nobody who gets elected as a non-progressive is ever of use to this party. Why should we ever campaign for someone who acts like they're doing the party a favor by running and feels they don't owe those who elected them ANYTHING.

I'm just saying don't waste money on candidates who aren't worth anything. DO you object to that?

[KittyWampus]

4. Here, let me help you- "Can we make sure the DCCC recruits progressive candidates"

as opposed to

"Can we make sure the DCCC and DSCC never recruit any more NON-progressive candidates

Stating your desire in positive terms is productive.

Stating your desire in negative terms (what you do NOT want) is counterproductive.

[sandnsea]

3. We got 60 votes today

That's an enormous amount of help to all those people who will have expanded Medicaid or dental care at one of 14,000 clinics or long term care or even the dreaded subsidy for private insurance.

They even got Arlen Specter on board to deal with the 60 cloture vote rule.

And you'd rather get nothing done at all. :crazy:

[Ken Burch]

5. I'm glad we got 60 votes for SOMETHING

It would have been easier if we didn't have senators who hate what the Democratic Party stands for.

[sandnsea]

7. Expanding Medicaid to 150% of poverty?

Creating new agencies for women and minority health? Ending the Medicare doughnut hole? Creating a new long term care plan? Adding funding for 14,000 clinics?

Just what in there isn't what the Democratic Party stands for?

[LoZoccolo]

13. The thing with these people is that they don't know when to stop the hyperbole.

It's a strategy for getting more of what you want in some situations, but strategists all the way back to Lao Tzu know that sober assessment is crucial.

[Ken Burch]

18. It's not just about the healthcare thing,

It's also about not backing EFCA(and if you don't back that you have no right to ask workers to vote for you next time) and not opposing the whole globalist scam.

It doesn't make up for economic royalism that you are half-liberal on a few trivial side issues.

[katkat]

24. sandnsea

Expanded Medicare? When they're cutting already at cost or below cost reimbursements for treatment? Yeah, that'll work.

[sandnsea]

27. Expanded Medicaid

And if Medicare reimbursements aren't working - then why is everybody saying Medicare For All will work?

[brooklynite]

6. So you're willing to concede non-progressive states to the Republicans?

Set aside Joe Lieberman for a moment. Can you get a progressive Democrat in Nebraska / Colorado / Louisiana elected against a Republican?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. No, we need to change our emphasis

The Democratic Party has concentrated too much on behavioral issues and not enough on socio-economic issues.

If it wants to win the Red States, it needs to de-emphasize behavioral issues (not give them up, just don't put them in the forefront) and advocate things like making it hard for companies to outsource, placing backbreaking fines on companies that hire illegal immigrants, taming the financial industry, reinstating the usury laws, and increasing low-interest loans for small businesses and family farms.

The Dems did NOTHING when farmers all over the Midwest were losing farms that had been in their families for generations, thanks to a double whammy of low crop prices and intolerable interest rates. If Congress (which was in Dem control during that time) had said, "We'll give farmers who are facing foreclosure low-interest loans to pay off their debts with," the Midwestern Red States would have been eating out of their hands.

[katkat]

25. farmers

Farmers are already getting truckloads of farm subsidies, often for deleterious crops like corn for high fructose corn syrup.

[Ken Burch]

10. Gary Hart was elected in Colorado

Nebraska elected William Jennings Bryan, George Norris and Bob Kerrey. Louisiana has often voted for economic populists.

And I can do you better.

William Borah and Frank Church were elected as progressives in IDAHO. So was Glenn Taylor, who went on to be Henry Wallace's running mate.

Dale Bumpers won several terms in Arkansas as an economic progressive.

There are many other examples you can find.

You win the votes of working class people by standing up to corporate power. That's not being "politically correct", it's speaking in real, lunch-box terms that affect the lives of everyone who works for a living.

So, if the campaign is run right, yes, we can win in places like that without settling for DINO's.

Let me turn it around on you.

Was electing people like Landrieu, Baucus, Pryor, Nelson and Blanche Lincoln really of any value? What did they ever give us that was worth the arrogant way they've treated the president and the rest of us?

[LoZoccolo]

9. I'm sure that they'll do that if enough people yell at their fund raisers over the phone.

If enough people threaten to cut off funds, don't worry, it's not like they'll look for funds from donors from large corporations instead. Don't worry about them thinking you are flaky and unreliable either, or that you are erratic and prone to hyperbole, or not really a part of their base; if you tale a strong enough stand, they'll listen.

[Ken Burch]

11. Another "you progressives have no right to ask ANYTHING of this party" post

You can't really be saying you think we're obligated to just silently accept the way right-wing Dems treat the party, are you?

Do you really care so little about the things you claim to believe in?

There was never any reason for Rahm and Schumer to bring back the old-time Southern Democrats. We never had to settle for majority in name only.

[LoZoccolo]

15. If you truly believe your accusation, you are keeping yourself from understanding what I'm saying.

You are making assumptions that you don't need to.

[Ken Burch]

16. What were you saying in that post, other than

"you progressives are so insignificant that the party doesn't have to care about you"?

Please explain what else I and the rest of DU missed.

[LoZoccolo]

21. Start with this.

李代桃僵

[Ken Burch]

22. "substituting one thing for another"?

(Oh well, at least it wasn't "Bite The Wax Tadpole".

(btw, the way you write THAT is 咬住蠟蝌蚪 )

[LoZoccolo]

28. Hmmmm. It was supposed to be "Sacrifice the plum tree to preserve the peach tree".

It's actually not entirely fitting. But basically you do have to accept who you can get while you try to move the electorate more left. You have to In some situations, accept short-term defeats toward a long-term goal. It's from a list of ancient Chinese military strategies.

[Ken Burch]

31. Well, it will be progressives that will be doing the moving forward

What we need is a commitment from those "leaders" who settled for this that, the day after the signing, they'll join us in the project.

The fight has to start again NOW or it will be lost. We can't just "let it go" until 2011 or 2013 or later.

[Avalux]

12. So how do you propose to do that? And what defines a NON-progressive candidate?

:shrug:

[Ken Burch]

14. At this point, I'd go with these criteria

1)Does that person oppose a public option for healthcare?
2)Does that person oppose the Employee Free Choice Act?
3)Does that person support NAFTA, CAFTA and even more globalization?

The answer is "yes" to all three of those things, there's no reason that person should be a Democratic nominee. Everything else is a side issue.

[LastNaturalist]

17. Do you go out of your way to be a moron?

[Ken Burch]

19. Excuse me, were you talking to yourself again?

n/t.

[liskddksil]

20. We can't stop them from recruiting them, but

we can sure make sure that they lose to progressives in primaries, by putting all out efforts into them. We vote not them.

[Ken Burch]

23. There's that.

n/t.

[Cleita]

26. No.

They are already bought and paid for. What you can do is not give them any money and direct your contributions directly to progressive candidates that you like.

[scheming daemons]

29. The "D" in "DCCC" and "DSCC" stands for "Democrat" ....not "progressive"

Form your own party.... this one is for DEMOCRATS.... of all stripes.

[Ken Burch]

30. If these people aren't voting with us on the major issues, they're NOT Democrats

And having them in Congress isn't good for the party.

It's not about me, it's about the progressive working-class Rainbow majority we need to represent. Electing people who get big checks from corporate pacs doesn't serve that majority.

[scheming daemons]

32. Who's "US"? I'm a Democrat... and like 100% of the Democrats in the Senate, I'm for the bill

You keep interchanging the word "progressive" and "Democrat" in your posts.

They're NOT the same.


Progressives are at the far left end of the political spectrum... Democrats are from that end all the way to the center.


"Progressive" and "Democrat" are not interchangeable terms.

[Ken Burch]

33. By us, I meant the Democratic coalition that ELECTED all these people

And that coalition, whatever it self-identifies as, clearly voted for REAL universal healthcare and a strongly progressive agenda.

[Ken Burch]

34. Us is the overwhelming majority of the party

that is pro-universal healthcare, pro-labor(and pro-EFCA)and anti-globalist. Those are not extremist positions, they are bread-and-butter "mainstream" positions in this party.

If you take the right wing stand on those...what else could you do that really matters?

[scheming daemons]

35. If it was the "right wing stand"... why are 100% of the GOP voting AGAINST it?

Sorry... doesn't compute.


...and you are nowhere near the majority of the party. 86% of Democrats approve of Obama in the latest Gallup poll.

You're part of the 14%.

[Ken Burch]

36. They're voting against it just because Obama is for it.

With them, it's about "beating the other side", rather than anything rooted in reality.