Just wondering??? when [progressive] becomes a pejorative (like liberal before it)… what will our modern liberal friends start calling themselves?
democrats need to stop threatening to stop one of Obama’s give aways to the rich and start actually stopping it
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Centrist and Conservative Democrats hide under a rock in 2014 afraid to take on the Republicans hoping they could hold on to what they already have. And look what it got them, not only losing 10 more seats in the House, but lost nine seats in the Senate and control of that chamber. Democrats have resorted back to the days of the mid 1990’s and crawling under a rock. What is needed now is new Progressive Leaders unafraid to take on the GOP if they want to get back control in 2016.
If Hillary truly cares about America, she should step out of the race and throw her full support behind Elizabeth Warren and the progressives because that’s what’s best for the country. Hillary then can move on the be the next SCOTUS justice where she could end her very accomplished career in politics. Sounds like a win-win to me.
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That’s a near perfect example of why a Clinton vs. Bush campaign would make most Americans tune out entirely. In one of your longest posts here, you discussed nothing but “skeletons in closets” from the past, without even a glance to the future.
That being said, I think that Hillary will get more of a pass from the media and the public on a lot of that stuff than Jeb will. If only because there is very little about Hilary that hasn’t already been run through the national media grindstone, but much of the Bush stuff has stayed beneath the radar. Plus, most people still feel good about the Clinton years, not so much about the W. years.
I will toss out this little tidbit for you, too. I think you can close up the shop on the Warren for President bandwagon. With all that happened over the holidays on subjects like Cuba, the collapse of oil prices, etc, we heard not peep one from Warren. If she is going to run she has to be more than a single issue candidate. The fact that she declined to speak out on other issues when the opportunity is made, is a pretty good indication that she is not in fact looking at the White House in '16. She is going to stay in the Senate and be a lioness on economic issues for the middle class.
There isn’t any particularly strong argument to be made that she can win nationally. As has been pointed out before, her performance in MA vs. Brown was lackluster, considerably under-performing the President in the same election. She is a one issue politician, economics, and with the economy slowly but steadily improving, that issue becomes less interesting to more voters.
Managing that campaign to a national victory would be a Herculean task.
[quote=“DaveyJones64, post:124, topic:14598, full:true”]
That’s a near perfect example of why a Clinton vs. Bush campaign would make most Americans tune out entirely. In one of your longest posts here, you discussed nothing but “skeletons in closets” from the past, without even a glance to the future.[/quote]
It was a long post. I had only covered the first 12 points of the Mother Jones article but I stopped because it was already overkill.
Yes, if Hillary is the nominee there will be tons of old -and not old- oppo to hit her with, same with JEB. The voter tune-out will be massive. Now, we know elections with large scale voter tune-out profoundly favor the Republican candidate.
That being said, I think that Hillary will get more of a pass from the media and the public on a lot of that stuff than Jeb will.
That’s hardly the mainstream media I’m familiar with. How many Democrats get a pass?
If only because there is very little about Hilary that hasn’t already been run through the national media grindstone, but much of the Bush stuff has stayed beneath the radar.
JEB will counter every charge with one or two nearly identical charges against Hillary. It will create a vortex of been-there-done-that tune-out the likes we’ve not seen before. The devastating dynamics will favor the Republican candidate simply because of his voters robot-like ability to reliably pull poling levers.
Plus, most people still feel good about the Clinton years, not so much about the W. years.
Not so bad either. GW’s popularity has been on a major upswing.
PRINCETON, NJ – Americans’ views of former president George W. Bush have improved, with 49% now viewing him favorably and 46% unfavorably. Gallup
The electorate is about to be treated to a sex scandal in which Bill Clinton is a key figure. The icky smarmy feelings will all be resurrected just in time to tune out more potential Clinton voters:.
I will toss out this little tidbit for you, too. I think you can close up the shop on the Warren for President bandwagon. With all that happened over the holidays on subjects like Cuba, the collapse of oil prices, etc, we heard not peep one from Warren.
Well, it has only been a couple of weeks since she rattled Washington with her stand against the bad budget bill. And she just took that trip to Israel. Still, she has been speaking out far more frequently that Hillary. As for Cuba, that won’t be an issue in the general election, the electorate isn’t concerned,
“There’s going to be an energy hearing on Wednesday, and right now, the Republicans say they’re going to move forward on the Keystone pipeline.If we’re going to move forward on something how about something that more of us can agree on? A bill that’s about energy conservation, energy efficiency, and about jobs and has strong bipartisan support. There is a place we can start.” Elizabeth Warren
Davey Jones:"As has been pointed out before, her performance in MA vs. Brown was lackluster, considerably under-performing the President in the same election. "
She beat an incumbent senator by 8 points.
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the current leadership that was involved in pushing thru the bailouts should have to resign - just because of the stupidity on how the bailouts were structured. also, the democrats have been in power for 16 out of the last 24 years, and have done nothing but rubber stamp every piece of legislation that chips away from any type of middle class living standard.
the middle class can no longer afford the Clintons, obamas, or for that matter the clintonites (what Obama turned out to be). many scheming baby boomers have driven this country into the gutter and now its time for the sane baby boomers and next generation to dig this country out
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Several years ago I had the privilege of eating lunch with Grijalva. I was astonished by how much he was just one of us, everything he said was right on, and reflected my opinions perfectly. The news media ignore him largely because they, too, notice that he is rarely wrong about anything, and is able to articulate his positions with great clarity. If they allowed him to use the media to communicate people would much too quickly learn too much about how things really are in government today. So, instead they parade the inarticulate, fuzzy thinking Democrats before us.
It isn’t so much that Democratic candidates are afraid to take on the Republicans, it is that they are afraid to lose their bribes from Wall Street, the armaments industry, and corporations in general. Without those bribes they could barely afford to be in office, let alone run for reelection. We can never compete on a level playing field with the super wealthy owners of our government.
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We can’t compete with $ so we have to clobber them with charisma.
I miss our Blue Dawgs.
The truth is usually found in the middle, through compromise. Demonization is good for whipping up a frothing mob, but not a strategy for governing.
Elect Ellison, or Warren to the top job, and listen to the screaming start as they make the necessary compromises and practical choices required to get legislation passed and run the government and country.
Political purity is best indulged by the powerless. Conveniently, indulging in habitual purity keeps that powerlessness in place as well.
Change is never pretty, pure or quick, at least on the progressive side of the aisle. We’re fighting the money, and every victory, however small, should be savored and celebrated.
Not pooped on because it didn’t meet some imaginary purity test.
Or that she can’t overcome what happened to McGovern and Ted Kennedy.
Chammy, I’m going to take a polite disagreement with you on this one… Ronald Reagan was the one who made the “L” word a form of profanity. Then all of a sudden, NO ONE wanted to be a Liberal. They were now progressives.
How does it look when one allows others to define who you are? Once the labeling damage was done, then folks became afraid to espouse what they stood for. The reason one has a backbone is to use it to stand up straight and tall. Hell, even at 5’ 0", when I keep my spine straight, people think I’m taller than I am.
Allowing someone else to define your message - Affordable Healhcare - and not calling them out for it - 2010 midterms - you get the unintended result - a change in the House composition. Running to hide in the corners does not get you want you want.
Democrats taking back their messages and not kowtowing, getting back to strong grassroots issues and organizing will show folks they have not been abandoned.
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As a note of distinction. Democrats cannot win running as a non-progressive. Obama may be Republican-lite, but he won twice running under progressive rhetoric.
So, I suppose, you don’t have to be a progressive to win, but if you are a democrat, you certainly have to look like one (at least in comparison to your competition, not too hard in 2012).
Looking back Kerry was Republican-light, and he failed to attack Bush on his lapses of judgment before 9/11, after 9/11, on the fact that he spent more time on vacation than any President in history, which T’s up the shot that he really didn’t want to be president, didn’t like to be president and that he wasn’t temperamentally suited to the job. He didn’t attack Bush on real stuff that Bush did, but then he failed to defend himself on carbon fiber that the Bush campaign made up about him.
Oh, its the same media you know. You just have to keep in mind that their favorite color is really neither red or blue…its green. And trying to sell bad things about Hilary is almost literally selling yesterday’s newspapers. I say that she will get a bit of a “pass”, simply because the its all old hash/reruns and won’t hold their viewer’s attention. Jeb’s stuff is old news too, but most Americans haven’t payed close attention, so it will be new news to them. So more interesting.
W’s numbers are still horrible, despite the whitewash that Gallup and the MSM tried/tries to give him these days. How many ex Presidents are not invited to their party’s convention? Bush was not only not invited, he was specifically told not to come. That speaks volumes to the reality…which is W. is pure poison to any republican candidate…especially his brother.
This point raises the deeper problems with a Clinton-Bush campaign. There is nothing to raise that every voter over 40 hasn’t heard before. It would really only be targeted at younger voters, and its pretty tenuous guilt by association stretch to make even then. Remember her popularly soared even higher than Bill’s did in the wake of the Lewinsky scandal.
The problem though, is the GOP isn’t particularly well versed in reaching out to younger voters, and I have to serious question Hilary’s ability to do so as effectively as Obama did. So you are talking about a smear campaign aimed at a very popular ex-President who isn’t running for office anymore, aimed at a demographic group that neither side is particularly in touch with. I don’t think bringing up where Bill parked his dick is going to be a “game changer” for anybody.
For most of the nation, that’s true. But that doesn’t hold in Florida, which is going to be a battleground state yet again in 2016. The GOP cannot build a viable strategy to the WH that doesn’t include FL…particularly if Jeb is the candidate. And any Dem’s chances of winning in the general is also going to be heavily dependent upon FL. Nor is it that most people in FL care all that much…but the ones that do care, care a GREAT deal, and have lots of power and money to make their opinions heard and felt.
Quite frankly, IMO, ignoring the Cuba thing is indicative of a small state NE Dem being out of touch with what is going on in rest of the country. The clock has already started,and if she was already in this thing, she should/would have at least issued a statement either in support or opposition of the President’s moves. Staying silent also reinforces the notion that Warren is a single issue gal. Important issue, but still only one issue.
We discussed this before. Let’s give in some context if you are going to keep tossing it out to me. Yes, she beat Brown by 8 points in the most expensive Senate race of that year. A presidential election year. In which Obama beat Romney in her state 60-37…by 23 points! In political terms, that is seriously under performing. And let’s be honest…Brown was hardly a deeply enthroned Senator. He won his first election in a special election (those always have low turn out) against arguably one of the 5 worst campaigners in the past 20 years in Coakley. Oh, and in Massachusetts, an extremely liberal state. Nothing about that indicates to me that she is going to be a great national campaigner…quite the opposite.
I believe, though, that Dems out raised the GOP in 2014, on an aggregate level. I am still deeply worried and troubled by CU, but since its passed, it has not played at well for the GOP. The side that spends the most money isn’t necessarily the winner…there are plenty of high profile examples on both sides of the aisle to point to for that. Nunn had twice as much spent on her campaign as Perdue had, yet she still lost, as just one…Romney had more money spent on his campaign and he lost.
MartinHeldt said:
That’s hardly the mainstream media I’m familiar with. How many Democrats get a pass?
[quote=“DaveyJones64, post:135, topic:14598”]Oh, its the same media you know. You just have to keep in mind that their favorite color is really neither red or blue…its green.
[/quotes]
How do you explain the disparity of Democratic guests vs Republicans on the news shows?
Do you think most people here who follow the news will feel that Democrats get a fair shake and that Republicans don’t get a pass?
So you are talking about a smear campaign aimed at a very popular ex-President who isn’t running for office anymore, aimed at a demographic group that neither side is particularly in touch with.
This is different. Bill isn’t being targeted by the GOP smear machine and , isn’t about to be unfairly impeached. Yet he is wrapped up with some sure to be covered names:Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz, with charges of sex with underage girls feeding the fire.
RE: Cuba
Quite frankly, IMO, ignoring the Cuba thing is indicative of a small state NE Dem being out of touch with what is going on in rest of the country.
The Democrats have been winning over the Cuban electorate with domestic policies. Now it appears that the Cubans are themselves supporting ending the embargo. See this Washington Post article with polling results.The politics of the increasingly Democratic Cuban vote". The embargo is a non issue outside of the GOP nomination process.
RE: She beat an incumbant Senator by 8%
Yes, she beat Brown by 8 points in the most expensive Senate race of that year. A presidential election year. In which Obama beat Romney in her state 60-37…by 23 points!
That was Elizabeth’s first political contest and she handily beat the incumbent. Hillary did no better for an open seat against one of the worst senatorial candidates imaginable, Rick Lazio. The Washington Post has him as one of the worst debate moments in history.
We’ll just have to disagree on this but these are my reasons.
Has it? Perhaps down on the ground here but not where decisions are made.
No, we will not win (we as in all of us and winning as the common good) until the full consequences are felt and peopile can no longer deny reality.
The last time LIBERALS took over from the status-quo centrists it took four decades to dislodge them.
The key to everything is getting young people involved.
There are two ways to get young people involved:
1.Start a fucking war in some god forsaken place and draft their asses.
2.Start a domestic war against failing infrastructure and hire their asses.
The LIBERAL method works wonders and leaves a shining legacy that lasts for generations.