angry florida primitive can't make sense of it

[USA4ME]

madfloridian

Democratics in DC must not distance from "the left", their base, their constituents. 

There does still seem to be a distancing of congressional Dems from the regular everyday outside of DC Democrats as a policy to send a message to the right that the Democrats are amenable to sharing power with those extremists. They are even distancing from leaders who gave some of that power back to the power. They are shutting out the very ones who put them in power...in many ways.

We are working to elect more Democrats. Yet the votes on some serious issues are not changing. We are needed and important during the elections, then sent to the back of the proverbial bus so they won't be seen cozying up to "the left."

Markos had a post up last year when I posted part of this that shows his concern as well. He talks about the fact that we the grassroots just can't match the lobbyists in power and money.

We don't have much power. In fact, we have very little.

As we've learned this year, Democrats in DC are more afraid of David Broder, Joe Klein, and Mr. 24%, than they are of their constituents. They are more concerned with Beltway opinion than they are with the national consensus. They are happier dealing with lobbyists than they are dealing with real people. They are more concerned with avoiding criticism than they are of delivering campaign promises.

So what can we do about it?

We've bitched and moan and pleaded and begged and threatened and cried -- and none of that mattered. We really can't hold up money, since quite frankly we don't have that much, and the lobbyists will always have more.

...."So what does that leave us? Well, we have one tool at our disposal, our only way to influence the behavior of our elected officials:

We can primary them.

I am not even sure we can primary them...it takes money. Money is something the congressional Democrats will have for a while now, plenty of it. Yet the progressive groups are going begging. My inbox and mailbox are filled with requests for money. Progressive groups are suffering. Lakoff's Rockridge Institute closed down after a book by Rahm and Bruce Reed spent a chapter tearing him down.

Markos may be right. In spite of all the calls about getting out of Iraq, in spite of all the activities against the telco immunity in the Fisa bill....there were more Democratic votes than ever to fund the war. And Harry Reid deliberately put the immunity bill forward when he had a choice. It was a slap in our faces.

There appears to be a pre-set agenda in the Democratic congress. It worries me a lot, because many of us feel passionately about the way we invaded Iraq and may do so in Iran. I hear fear of Iran in the voices of Democrats all the time, and few take time to lessen that fear.

We have heard that we must elect more Democrats. I want to agree. I really do. Then I saw the vote for the Iraq funding bill without any conditions of withdrawal. An overwhelming number of Democrats voted for it in the House and the Senate. It showed me there is no intention at all on the part of the Democrats to use their constitutional power of the purse to end the Iraq debacle.

Here is the list posted here by DU poster Pro Sense. It includes the Yes votes from both House and Senate.

(list follows)

When you keep funding a debacle with no end in sight, it soons becomes your own debacle. You own it. No matter how often you call it Bush's war, the fact remains that the majority party is funding it.

On another front.....there is the effort to protect corporations who have the nerve to claim that they did not know any better. I can just imagine an average citizen standing before a judge and pleading ignorance of the law.

So many Democrats voted for cloture for the FISA bill last week....the one with immunity for the telecoms...that it is so much easier to post the ones who did not vote for it to pass out of committee. Harry Reid had a choice of another bill, one without immunity. He knew that was the one preferred by Democratic activists. He chose the one WITH immunity.

To me this is serious vote...those who voted YES knew that the majority of their party were totally against excusing the telcos on this issue. They showed their lack of concern for our views. So, thanks to the NAYs.

Senate Roll Call on Fisa bill with immunity

(list follows)

Only ten Democrats heard the grassroots and the hundreds of thousands of calls, numerous emails and letters. Only ten of them.

78 Democrats voted to continue this war without conditions attached.

I thought we could make a difference, but they say we have nowhere else to go. I thought that being active in the party would get them to take stands, but now I am having some doubts.

It's not really a wise thing to do, as this presidential race was won because of the enthusiastic, excited, and trusting Democrats. It was not won by the few elite in DC who set policy. They can make the policy without us, but they need us when elections come around.

It really doesn't make much sense at all.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4700040

I can't help but laugh at these threads.  The one consistent theme at the DUmp for the 5 years I've watched it has been "We're important.  In fact, we're the most important of those who are important.  Why do they take our money and then ignore us?"

madfloridian has been on this schtick ever since I first started reading her posts.  She a looney Deaniac which doesn't help her situation  But she's such a loon that she's incapable of seeing that even if Dean were to be elected prez that he, too, would turn his back on her and all the other whackos like her.

.

[Lord Undies]

The Crazy Floridian has the same mental defect as 98% of the other Little Goons and that Markos idiot.  They all think they speak for the masses while listening to so few.

Liberals are always loud and obnoxious.  Each one makes enough noise for ten people.  That's why a hundred noisy liberals can be reported to have been a thousand.  Conservatives and other normal people tend to be active yet quiet.

How does Markos know that the democrats ignored the "will of the people".  Maybe it was a case of the democrats hearing from twice as many normal people as they did from the loony liberal left, and then they voted accordingly.

Just because you are loud and obnoxious doesn't mean you are going to get your way.  Every child eventually learns this rule of life.  Why can't liberals? 

[InfamousAndy]

You are making the assumption that liberals are more mature than those children.

[FlaGator]

What fringe left has not figured out is that although they can give enough votes to which ever democratic candidate is running to change the outcome of a close election, they do not present a big enough voting block to elect someone who is as nuts as they are. When the person they chose wins then they get the false notion that they are more mainstream than they really are. Once elected the candidate attempts to distance himself from the fringe because the rest of the country (mainstream democrats included) knows just how over the top the fringe left is. People who are drowning (in a sea of hatred) tend to take others with them. Obama isn’t stupid.

[jinxmchue]

From the Kos quote:

We can primary them.

Proving once again how big an idiot Kos is.  "Primary" is not a verb.

[jukin]

Did anyone else notice that the donk led congress went into SINGLE DIGIT approval ratings again?

[BlueStateSaint]

Did anyone else notice that the donk led congress went into SINGLE DIGIT approval ratings again?

Actually, yes.

Also, Dick Morris said over the weekend that Obama's approval ratings, byt this time next year, will be almost as high as President Bush's.  This I wanna see!

[comradebillyboy]

Actually, yes.

Also, Dick Morris said over the weekend that Obama's approval ratings, byt this time next year, will be almost as high as President Bush's.  This I wanna see!

The spinelessness of the Washington Democratic establishment is nauseating, and that's a fact. Problem is almost all Dick Morris predictions are wrong, which is why he is a TV political pundit on 'news/entertainment' shows.

[delilahmused]

Actually, yes.

Also, Dick Morris said over the weekend that Obama's approval ratings, byt this time next year, will be almost as high as President Bush's.  This I wanna see!

Well when you bill yourself as the Messiah and then can't deliver the loaves, fishes, and hybrids, it's gotta be pretty scary. Granted, I don't think he's humbled by finding out he can't fix the world with pretty words because he has such a massive ego I don't think "humble" is something he's capable of feeling. But, despite Obama and the press trying to lower expectations, he's pumped this change and hope stuff into the American psyche for so long now it's gone from political rhetoric to reverent mantra. My guess, reality has hit Obama like a ton of bricks. It'll take the people longer to come down to earth (hope seems to have a lot of helium in its chemical make-up) but when they do figure out he's not the second coming he'll fall like every other false prophet throughout history. Life's a bitch.

Cindie

[Chris_]

Well when you bill yourself as the Messiah and then can't deliver the loaves, fishes, and hybrids, it's gotta be pretty scary. Granted, I don't think he's humbled by finding out he can't fix the world with pretty words because he has such a massive ego I don't think "humble" is something he's capable of feeling. But, despite Obama and the press trying to lower expectations, he's pumped this change and hope stuff into the American psyche for so long now it's gone from political rhetoric to reverent mantra. My guess, reality has hit Obama like a ton of bricks. It'll take the people longer to come down to earth (hope seems to have a lot of helium in its chemical make-up) but when they do figure out he's not the second coming he'll fall like every other false prophet throughout history. Life's a bitch.

Cindie

Those charming "uh uh uh"s when he is not reading his handlers thoughts on the teleprompter will start to really wear on people when they see he is a painfully stupid and vapid man.