Tim Kaine: ''Socialist Taunts Hurt Tea Party More Than Obama''

[DeSwiss]

Kaine: Socialist Taunts Hurt Tea Party More Than Obama


Sam Stein | Huffington Post | Updated: 05-19-10 04:00 PM



DNC Chairman Tim Kaine took to the National Press Club on Wednesday to gloat about the showing of Democrats in primary contests the night before. In the process he offered the usual platitudes: the party was rewarded for offering solutions to the economic malaise; enthusiasm is up as evidence of turnout in the Kentucky Democratic primary; Republicans find themselves in an ideological civil war, with Tea Party candidates knocking out establishment candidates, and so on.

The most interesting (least spun) tidbit of wisdom, however, came when Kaine was asked to address the common conservative complaint that the Obama administration represents socialism in disguise. Had the label hurt the party or the president, a questioner wanted to know.

"People love to throw label around and I think for most thinking Americans, throwing that label around actually doesn't hurt us," Kaine replied. "It suggests an extremism and an ideological rigidity that isn't where most Americans are. We are problem solvers."

"A party that just relies on throwing labels around and refusing to cooperate, they might get a headline but they won't get support of people," he added. "We are going to promote smart solutions to these problems and If the other guys want to rely on labels rather than roll up their sleeves and actually help us govern a nation at a time when governance is needed -- it is an abdication of responsibility but they are not going to help their case by doing that."

This seems to get at a rather telling definition of politics in the first term of the Obama administration. The president clearly campaigned on the notion of bringing civility and comity to the political process. He got neither. But for all the damage that this failure would seem to engender, in many respects it's helped Democrats as much as it's hurt them. For starters, the wild name-calling and rhetoric has compelled the party to stop legislating with bipartisanship as the goal. Politically, as Kaine suggests, it's had the effect of stripping an element of seriousness from the Tea Party veneer.

It's a proposition that some sober-minded conservatives have noted as well -- and one that the movement's godfather, Rep. Ron Paul, has basically endorsed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/19/kaine-socialist-taunts-hu_n_582245.html">LINK

- While I'll eschew all of that DNC-bullshit about being the party who "was rewarded for offering solutions to the economic malaise," Tim's actually pointed out something important here: The Obvious. What's better, there ain't nothing the Repukelians can do about their "abdication of responsibility" without seeming to be apostates to conservtardism and conspiring with that Muslin enemy living illegally (without benefit of a long-form birth certificate) in the White House.

It's an apostate charge that I'm sure sends chills of dread up the spines of the Good 'Ol Boy Repukelian Networks. Because they've just seen others of their ilk like Trey Grayson and Alan Specter spurned as socialist collaborators by these Social Security opposite-shock troops. Even if it were theoretically and biologically possible, this Teabagger base of theirs won't let 'em accept responsibility -- because government is Bad, Bad, Bad. Except for the Social Security checks and the Medicare.

But most of all, Teabaggers are in-love with that "socialist" label that they spout all the time because it's the only word they can still use to describe how they feel about Obama, and try to appear as "un-racist" as possible (using Faux Snooze standards) -- so they can get on the teevee.......
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DeSwiss


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Take away the right to say "fuck" and you take away the right to say "fuck the government." ~ Lenny Bruce

[FrenchieCat]

1. I saw Kaine taking a boatload of questions; the kind that DUers would ask him,

and I think he had good/great answers.

In fact, it seems that he might read DU, to be honest.

[DeSwiss]

2. "In fact, it seems that he might read DU, to be honest."

- I sure hope so! I know the Freepers do......

[socialist_n_TN]

3. IMO, the "socialist" taunt has HELPED us..................

overall and over the years.

If you're called a "socialist" enough, it loses it's sting as an insult. ESPECIALLY when you vote and, at least, 50% (or close to it) of the people vote with you. That's a LOT of "socialists". Then you win an election with 53% of the electorate while still being called "socialist". That's a MAJORITY of the country being "socialists".

In addition, being called a "socialist" leads a LOT of people to research the ACTUAL definition of "socialist". And a lot of THOSE people find that definition not really so bad. Maybe people even find out that that definition FITS their politics better than other labels.

Like my daughter. When she was 14 or so, she took an on line political poll. After it was over she asked me, "Da, what's a socialist?" I explained it to her and asked her why she asked. She told me the poll had told her SHE was a socialist just because of what she believed.

Nope. I'd say that overall and over the long term the taunt hasn't been bad at all.

[sea four]

4. I hope the republicans keep doing it

because they probably improve the image of socialism by being so vehemently against it. I mean, they are wrong about everything else, and against every other good idea...

Their opposition might actually lead people to support it.