This is how our body politic gets moved to the right time and again.

[MadHound]

Last night I clicked over to Lawrence O'Donnel's show, the Last Word. The top story was about the Coons/O'Donnel. debate and Senate race. It is clear, has been since the primary, that O'Donnell was going to lose in CT, her insanity was on display for all to see.

Lawrence O'Donnell asked Coons what his plan for reducing unemployment was. Coon's replied with an answer straight out of Reagan's playbook, more tax cuts, more tax credits for R&D and "small" businesses. Really? Coons thinks that the solutions that helped get us into this mess to begin with, tax cuts and tax credits, are the most effective means of battling unemployment. Coons believes that using the least effective forms of economic stimulus will get us out of this mess.

C'mon Chris, your election is sewn up, you're going to win unless at some point during the next three weeks a YouTube video showing you eating babies in a Mao cap and jacket shows up. So why not take a bit more of a progressive, liberal, truly Democratic position, like advocating for one of the most effective forms of economic stimulus, a WPA style jobs creation program. Why the swing to the right, into Reagan territory?

This is how our political discourse, our political climate gets moved to the right. When a Democratic candidate has a clear, easy win, instead of moving even a bit to the left, these candidates, for whatever reason, feel the need to continue to move to the right. It isn't in response to constituent pressures, and it isn't because they are fighting for their political life. Frankly I don't know why they move to the right in these cases, but they do.

This has happened time and again over the past four decades. The 'Pugs dive to the right, and the Dems follow right along, in just a slightly less steep of a dive. Thus, we wind up with a Democratic candidate, in a safe election, advocating for more Reaganomics. The voters are left with a choice between batshit crazy and a Reagan Democrat. There is no counterbalancing force on the left to pull these candidates back to the left, and until that happens, both parties will continue to move to the right. And we the people will continue to suffer under policies that were the staple of Reagan's regime thirty years ago, and are now the staple of the Democratic platform today.

[leveymg]

1. I agree, 100%. But, why assume that Coons is really "even a bit to the left"?

Most mainstream Democratic politicians are to the Right of Richard Nixon in their domestic political orientation. How do you think a real progressive could even get to position where (s)he is nominated by the existing Democratic Party, which is controlled by Center-Right leadership and big corporate donors?

The Left has been systematically excluded, except at election time when they need our spare change and time knocking doors and making GOTV calls - otherwise, they wouldn't even pander to the progressive base.

If we want genuine progressive candidates, we'll need to do the same thing as the Teabaggers. Rise up and take over the nominating process (here and there), but to do so, we need a funding base that pays for organizing talent.

[Octafish]

9. +1 otherwise why not just have everyone be a republikkkon?

The righties have done nothing to help the Party or the country, let alone demonstrate why the Democratic Party is the way forward.

They have succeeded in alienating real Democrats and driving the agenda of "what we can do" toward a vulgar oxycontin-addicted pigboy gasbag.

[leveymg]

10. Part of Straussian strategy is to create and coopt your own potential enemies

Leo Strauss adopted Machiavelli's advice that rulers should create their own domestic oppositions in order to preempt and coopt the naturally-occurring type, which are potentially far more difficult to control.

Since part of any good aristocratic education is to read Machiavelli along with the rest of the classic canon of authoritarian rule -- Marcus Aurelius through Thomas Aquinas -- why wouldn't they have caught onto that lesson long ago, and still be doing so? When you look at the roster of the biggest corporate campaign givers for Bush in '04 and Obama in '08, there is an awful lot of overlap.

As I said yesterday, the focus since he took office has been Continuity and Stability rather than Hope and Change. There are forces more powerful and better planned than mere triangulation and gridlock affecting outcomes at work here.

[HughMoran]

2. Kick 'em while they're up, kick 'em while they're down

Just keep stabbing Dems. :eyes:

[MadHound]

5. Pointing out reality is now kicking Dems?

Frankly I think that if Dems took this advice, threw out some serious progressive positions in safe states, and started moving the party back towards left of center, you would find that your voting problems with the left would disappear and Dems could win time and time again.

But then again, you don't like any criticism of Dems, no matter how true or helpful.

[HughMoran]

6. Reality my arse

Your opinion is noted and rejected - as usual.

[MadHound]

7. LOL! You are too funny, and too predictable.

What is wrong with employing the strongest of economic stimuli to our economy, rather than the weakest? What, you don't think that the legions of people who are suffering in this economy would support it?

[HughMoran]

8. Et tu, my negativity pedaler, et tu.

:thumbsdown:

[msongs]

3. along with obama's appeal of the recent DADT court decision...ever rightward lol nt

[Blue_Tires]

4. exactly...

it's been driving me crazy as well...

[LynneSin]

11. Um, that's Blumethal/McMahon in CT

just saying

[billlll]

12. bribes are my guess

Personal ones not camPaign donations.