The reason we lost the HoR and so many states to GOP is dems acting like GOP

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

The first rule of liberals: EGO - we're too awesome so it can't be our fault

So says SemenFan

seafan  (1000+ posts)       Wed Jun-22-11 10:47 AM
Original message
Here is why we lost the House in '10; why the widespread disaffection with these 'Democrats' 
 And why we got saddled in '10 with a mutated strand of new GOP governors in many states, who are now unleashing their wrecking balls on people's rights.

I don't think I've yet come across an article that is as important to digest every sentence as this one.

Read it. Absorb it. Let it galvanize you to action.

For as long as we allow duplicity to control the levers of our party, we will be constantly forced down into submission, infighting and weakening our strength, which is in our numbers.

The 3 Wings of the Republican Party: The Crazies, the Corporatists ... and Democrats

By Drew Westen
June 20, 2011

On the reasons that Democrats now occupy the 'center-right wing' of the GOP:

.....

First, apologists for the president and the Democrats rightly claim that their hands are tied: the Republicans just won't let them pass any legislation that might move the economy forward, so their only tools are ineffectual ones such as tax cuts and exhortations to the business community to invest.
But what this account leaves out is that this state of affairs is entirely of the Democrats' creation. Had the White House and the supermajorities the president started out with for two years simply done what the voters asked them to do -- and what the House actually did do with remarkable speed in 2009 -- the Democrats' hands would not be tied today.

.....

Second, by running scared and adopting Republican talking points on economics, Democrats have created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Listening to the same pollster-industrial complex that advised them in 2002 to support George W. Bush's trillion-dollar unfunded bloodbath in Iraq, Democrats have joined with Republicans in offering massive giveaways to millionaires and billionaires and then telling working and middle class Americans that the sky is falling and we (they) have to tighten our (their) belts. Democrats inside the tightened beltway (with the exception of a strong contingent in the House and a dozen or two Senators) appear to have become convinced by the new conventional wisdom in Washington, that Americans aren't really concerned as much about jobs as they are about the deficit.

If you stop and think about it for a moment, that notion is absurd on the face of it. Is it really possible that Americans who have lost their jobs or fear losing them are more worried about an abstraction -- the budget deficit in Washington -- than about the realities of their lives -- that they face a budget deficit around their own kitchen table at the end of every month when they're trying to pay their rent or make their mortgage payment on their rapidly depreciating home?

.....

That brings us to the third reason so many Democrats have created a third wing of the Republican Party: because they're competing for the same corporate money, which leads them to support the same policies. The major difference between Republicans and Democrats is that virtually all of the Republicans are quite comfortable being bought because it fits their ideology, whereas most of the Democrats who are beholden to one industry or another are conflicted about it -- but not conflicted enough to pass a fair elections bill when they had the chance last year that might have taken away some of the advantages of incumbency but restored integrity to our electoral system.

.....

Americans need a choice again between two parties, not between two strains of Hoover Republicanism.

.....

Harper's Magazine, July, 2009:

Barack Hoover Obama: The best and the brightest blow it again

.....

Franklin Roosevelt also took office imagining that he could bring all classes of Americans together in some big, mushy, cooperative scheme. Quickly disabused of this notion, he threw himself into the bumptious give-and-take of practical politics; lying, deceiving, manipulating, arraying one group after another on his side—a transit encapsulated by how, at the end of his first term, his outraged opponents were calling him a “traitor to his class” and he was gleefully inveighing against “economic royalists” and announcing, “They are unanimous in their hatred for me—and I welcome their hatred.”

Obama should not deceive himself into thinking that such interest-group politics can be banished any more than can the cycles of Wall Street. It is not too late for him to change direction and seize the radical moment at hand. But for the moment, just like another very good man, Barack Obama is moving prudently, carefully, reasonably toward disaster.

That was written in mid-2009, six months after President Obama was inaugurated.

Watching it all unfold, unchecked for the past 30 years, has demoralized and destroyed untold numbers of people.

What it comes down to is this: we, the people, are our last line of defense, as we must ask ourselves this question: What kind of country do we want to live in?

We are now at the fork in the road.

TRANSLATION: The American people hate republicans so-o-o-o-o much that as long as democrats act like them the people will protest by voting republican.

or something

leveymg  (1000+ posts)        Wed Jun-22-11 11:07 AM
Response to Reply #1
5. Better only because the progressive base didn't get out there and campaign much
 Too many boot marks on the seat of our pants. It would have been unsightly and embarrassing to show up at stranger's doors looking like an abused spouse.

The one smart thing the GOP has done is keep its base intact and engaged. That made all the difference in '10, and looks like it'll happen again in '12.

Rageneau (1000+ posts)        Wed Jun-22-11 12:03 PM
Response to Reply #1
11. If the Dems had listened to Bartcop, our majorities would be LARGER today.
 The Rethugs didn't have a "better" machine. They had a machine that worked.

All through the 2010 election, Bartcop repeatedly harped on the need for Obama to "come to work" -- to fight back against the Rethugs by promoting the ideas and accomplishments of Democrats. All we had to do was tell the truth, Bart said, lay out the facts. But to do that, we had to TRY. We had to speak up for ourselves, since we knew the corporate media wouldn't.

Month after month, Bartcop BEGGED Obama to do that, just as he had earlier begged in vain for Gore to 'use' Clinton, and for Kerry to speak simpler language and to stay out of bunny suits.

But lofty Mister Obama couldn't be bothered. Head in the clouds, he waited until the last two weeks of the campaign to notice how much trouble the Democrats were in -- but by then it was too late.

Nothing sneaked up our Democratic leaders. Nothing blind-sided them. Nothing changed the game on them. The Republicans didn't out-message us. What happened in 2010 was the Democrats (and BHO especially) didn't come to work.

Oh! Oh! Here we go! Lazy black man stereotypes!

seafan  (1000+ posts)       Wed Jun-22-11 11:42 AM
Response to Reply #8
9. You are exactly correct. This disaffection has gone on for 30+ years. 
 All the "motivational" speeches, haranguing, cajoling, wheedling and/or threatening people to get out and vote, when the choices are merely for members of the same political class and corporate ideology, will be futile.


The basic building block for an involved voting populace is when that voting populace sees that their voting power brings the changes they seek to enhance their lives.

When the candidates are already pre-chosen by the establishment is when all of this goes off the rails.

TRANSLATION: Stupid people! If they knew what was best for them they would let us tell them what's best for them!

MadHound  (1000+ posts)      Wed Jun-22-11 01:30 PM
Response to Original message
17. A lot of people were, and are, frustrated by the Dem's lack of a spine

...

A spine only works if it is attached to a brain.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1343366

[Ralph Wiggum]

What, no one is blaming Diebold or "Rethuglican voting fraud?"  You're slipping, DUmmies.

[dandi]

leveymg  (1000+ posts)        Wed Jun-22-11 11:07 AM
Response to Reply #1
5.

The one smart thing the GOP has done is keep its base intact and engaged. That made all the difference in '10, and looks like it'll happen again in '12.

Really?  How do you explain '08, DUmbass? 

Incidentally, the GOP did nothing to keep anyone engaged or intact, the regular taxpaying citizens rose up and sent all of the big government trash home that they could.  If you liked '10, wait until you see '12...

Rageneau (1000+ posts)        Wed Jun-22-11 12:03 PM
Response to Reply #1
11.

All through the 2010 election, Bartcop repeatedly harped on the need for Obama to "come to work" -- to fight back against the Rethugs by promoting the ideas and accomplishments of Democrats. All we had to do was tell the truth, Bart said, lay out the facts. But to do that, we had to TRY. We had to speak up for ourselves, since we knew the corporate media wouldn't.

Oh, believe me, we desperately wanted all democratics to run on their records.  We couldn't wait for them to lay out the "facts" and promote their "ideas" and "accomplishments".  For that matter, we were waiting with bated breath for the media to trumpet the "ideas" and "accomplishments" of your President, Congress, and Senate.

One minor problem - none of the democratics wanted to be anywhere near your President nor any of their recent "accomplishments" or "ideas" and the media wasn't about to broadcast anything that was going to give a fresh reminder to voters.

And they sure as Hell didn't want to have any of you goons associated with them.

That, DUmbass, is a fact.

seafan  (1000+ posts)       Wed Jun-22-11 11:42 AM
Response to Reply #8
9.

When the candidates are already pre-chosen by the establishment is when all of this goes off the rails.

Funny, I don't seem to remember the same laments when Republican establishment candidates (ie Dole, McCain) were thrown into the mix....

 

[Rebel]

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[jukin]

1+1=POTATO

[delilahmused]

So the people elected conservatives overwhelmingly because the left wasn't liberal enough! Irony, it's not just used to get wrinkles out of clothes anymore.

Cindie

[BlueStateSaint]

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I'm sitting at this computer in the "Business Center" of this hotel I'm in (work-related travel), and people are looking at me funny . . . I'm doing this . . .

PS--H5!

Cindie, I've got to use that line on some people!