jerseyhoya wrote:"The fact that Harold Ford says he’s running as an outsider is not only laughable, it’s a fraud. This guy literally grew up in Washington D.C. as his father was a Congressman, took the bar exam and failed and so then he waltzed into his father’s Congressional seat and now he’s the leader of the DLC, the most insider Democratic policy group there is in Washington." - Kirsten Gillibrand

VoxOrion wrote:

dajafi wrote:I wouldn't be shocked to see an independent win the White House sometime soon-ish, or a surge in non-affiliated Congresspeople. No idea whether any of this would be good or bad, but it's interesting.

I was looking at the Pew research poll that came out this week, and was thinking about how much commonality there is in what Americans want. I don't see a "Bull Moose" candidate becoming president, though I can imagine what you describe in non-affiliated congressfolks (though not in the northeast, party machines are too strong IMO). I think the more likely thing to occur is that one party or the other experiences a significant internal shift, significant enough to be substantively different. The core representations of the two parties are unlikely to change on the hot-button issues. For example, I can't imagine that there won't always be a pro-abortion and an anti-abortion party.

There is a 10% or less R-D-I gap on the following issues: Improving jobs (#2), reducing crime (#13), securing socsec (#4), strengthening economy (#1), global trade (#21), reducing middle-class taxees (no difference between parties - #17)), reducing deficit (#7), dealing with moral breakdown (#14), and defending U.S. against terrorism (#3).

[the number in parens describes the location of the issue on the Top Priorities for 2010 list)

If you review those, they strike me as more typically Republican issues that Democrats can and occasionally do win on. Obama (at year one) doesn't appear to be doing much on those issues to convince Americans that he's a new kind of Democrat (fair or not).

Odds are, a more stable GOP candidate (or candidates) focus on those things and enhances his or her platform to either tone down some issues that independents value more than self identified Republicans on key issues (more concern about securing medicare, healthcare for the ininsured, poverty issues - less concern about strengthening the military and illegal immigration).

The fact that there is no Reagan type out there knocking around hoping to threaten (that's not me being all "Saint Ronald" - I'm just referring to the whole Goldwater/Reagan ethos in the 70's) is good for the Democrats chances. We know that the Republican Party has to change to stay viable, however I think the Democrat party does too, and they don't recognize it at all.

drsmooth wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:There is a 10% or less R-D-I gap on the following issues: Improving jobs (#2), reducing crime (#13), securing socsec (#4), strengthening economy (#1), global trade (#21), reducing middle-class taxees (no difference between parties - #17)), reducing deficit (#7), dealing with moral breakdown (#14), and defending U.S. against terrorism (#3).

Step back from those items and tell me you immediately see a unifying thread, a story to tell.

Philly the Kid wrote:By change do you mean move even more to the right and sieze the Republican issues from the Republicans? All the discussion I follow is how there is an absolute failure of the Dem party to acknowledge the progressive voices in the party (this is a continuation of Clinton DNC shifts). A new foment for independent parties is brewing as the Obama euphoria has worn off in a hurry. Rhetoric alone and a Nobel prize based on branding isn't enough. On the other hand, I heard one interveiwee discuss how Dems on the ground need to fight for their party and pressure from grassroots on things.

I'm not hopeful of much change that I want to see happen with either party.

Philly the Kid wrote:Corporate agendas and strong ideological stuff has the day. From congress to white house and Supreme Court. There is no progressive agenda in play anywhere save a minor issue or concession here or there.

VoxOrion wrote:When a conservative or a tea bagger says "return to core conservative values" a leftish person hears "start hanging (I'm a stupid racist), jailing gays, and create a Church of America", I hear "take fiscal responsibility seriously, don't spend more than you take in, and do everything you can to take in only what you need, support the family, encourage individual responsibility, etc.".

dajafi wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:When a conservative or a tea bagger says "return to core conservative values" a leftish person hears "start hanging (I'm a stupid racist), jailing gays, and create a Church of America", I hear "take fiscal responsibility seriously, don't spend more than you take in, and do everything you can to take in only what you need, support the family, encourage individual responsibility, etc.".

I can buy that, but the problem is that there's no clear course of action on how you do any of these things.

Consider fiscal responsibility: if you take the Congressional Budget Office at its word, the proposed health care reform package reduces the deficit--while extending coverage to 30 million more Americans (which seems like a morally positive thing to do). Or "supporting the family": to me, that implies (among other things) more generous sick leave policies so parents in low-wage jobs don't have to make choices between taking care of children/elderly relatives and getting canned. (I don't remember specifically, but my guess is this is a proposal the "Grand New Party" guys would find amenable, so it's not strictly/necessarily a left/right thing.) "Individual responsibility" is another one where definitions of how to advance that set of values can and will diverge along partisan lines.

I don't want a "lurch to the left" either, though part of me thinks that the moderate course Obama has set out in his first year has (to this point) failed precisely because its very moderateness has turned off the "liberal base," while the absence of action (in the face of Democratic ineptitude and Republican lock-step opposition) has reconfirmed the suspicions of independents that government simply can't do jack $#@!. It's at least arguable that if he had been something closer to the left-wing bogeyman his more excitable political opponents paint him to be, he'd have more of a record of accomplishment and have kept his base energized. And if consensus is now impossible--see the link I posted yesterday about the divergence in partisan approval, which is the continuation of the Clinton/Bush43 trend--maybe that's the only way to do anything.

(That said, part of me hopes that if guys like Mike Castle swell the ranks of Senate Republicans, maybe a useful center will bubble up again. But that feels pollyana-ish right now, in the age of the virtual echo chambers.)

Philly the Kid wrote:Show me what useful center looks like and how the people's work will get done, and not just a bunch of nuance? Where is the trend in your lifetime Dajafi? Are we better off now politically and socially than the day you joined the people of Earth? What will be int he next 10 years? Slow progress toward the center? Huh?

I don't follow.

VoxOrion wrote:

Philly the Kid wrote:Show me what useful center looks like and how the people's work will get done, and not just a bunch of nuance? Where is the trend in your lifetime Dajafi? Are we better off now politically and socially than the day you joined the people of Earth? What will be int he next 10 years? Slow progress toward the center? Huh?

I don't follow.

Step back and look at what you're doing here - you are proclaim all is wrong and unfixable, the easiest position there is, and then challenge someone to bring... what?... About a billion times more to the table than you have in terms of this discussion so far?

This is pretty much why threads like these don't work and all you get is glib responses and snobby one-upmanship.

Philly the Kid wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:

Philly the Kid wrote:Show me what useful center looks like and how the people's work will get done, and not just a bunch of nuance? Where is the trend in your lifetime Dajafi? Are we better off now politically and socially than the day you joined the people of Earth? What will be int he next 10 years? Slow progress toward the center? Huh?

I don't follow.

Step back and look at what you're doing here - you are proclaim all is wrong and unfixable, the easiest position there is, and then challenge someone to bring... what?... About a billion times more to the table than you have in terms of this discussion so far?

This is pretty much why threads like these don't work and all you get is glib responses and snobby one-upmanship.

I proclaim the system is a fraud. That there is no democracy. And those who haggle over nuance and an incremental approach that is 'realistic', are the frog in the pot not realizing its boiling. Not until disaster happens I guess will some wake up.

Listen to the links I posted and tell me if that is hysterical talk? A lot of assertions in this thread presume certain facts and legitimacy of certain voices over others. I don't accept those assertions.

Rev_Beezer wrote:So I heard on the news this morning that Obama said he'd rather be a one-term president and stick by his guns than be a two-term president.

I don't like the fact that he's not even halfway through his term and he's already using the phrase "one-term president". I mean, doesn't that kind of defeat any kind of movement he's trying to make? And I don't even say that as someone who is liberal and supports the guy (though is sick of him just taking it on the cheek). Any president who would even HINT at only serving one term automatically sounds as if they are throwing the towel in.

pacino wrote:Lt Governor of South Carolina sez:

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed," Bauer said, according to the Greenville News. "You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better."

A new poll from Franklin and Marshall College confirms Specter’s precarious situation. He trails Republican Pat Toomey by 14 points, 45 to 31 percent. Only 34 percent of Pennsylvanians gave Specter favorable job marks, with a whopping 58 percent saying he was doing a “fair” or “poor” job as senator.

Just 29 percent of Pennsylvanians said Specter deserves re-election, with 60 percent responding that it’s time for a change.

Specter still holds an advantage in the Democratic primary, but only polls at 30 percent against his lesser-known challenger, Rep. Joe Sestak, who tallies 13 percent of the vote.