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US Congressional Elections 2012: Scott Brown, Diviner of Ancestry!
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Um ... DADT gone? DOMA on it's way out?
Many of these things you are mentioning are either already happening or are losers with the general voting public.
The Democratic party can attempt to make those subjects mainstream. It's not like the Republican party doesn't do it for their own.
I didn't say anything about DADT, and the Obama administration has been less than productive on the matter of same-sex marriage.
Many of the things that I mentioned that the base wants are being actively stymied by the Obama administration, Congressional Democrats, or both; if they're happening, it's in spite of the Democratic party leadership, not because of it. The administration is directly responsible for the DEA cracking down on marijuana dispensaries, for ICE stepping up deportations (and consequently hampering Democratic inroads among Hispanics), for pushing a buck-passing education policy that's patterned after Michelle Rhee's fundamentally flawed "reform" policies, and so on; none of these are popular with Democrats or even independents, and yet the administration keeps going.
Refusing to openly support pillars of the Democratic platform because they could be more popular with independents is both opportunistic and cowardly; giving up on them because Republican voters aren't in favor of them is patently nonsensical. The Republicans push hard enough on the issues that matter to their base that those issues enter the public discourse and sway public opinion; the Democrats, for whatever reason, refuse to do the same unless there's an election coming up or unless the administration is pushing the rest of the party to do so. If the Democrats aren't willing to fight for the policies they believe in, we have to assume that they simply don't believe in those policies at all.
The DLC have no interest in pursuing liberal goals. To them we're a burden to the party and the ultimate scapegoat whenever they fuck up. They hate us just as much as the Republicans do.
Because the dems would be so much more helpful if they more resembled the green party. I mean, we'd have the legal code of Uganda without any of the good parts , but the dems would have their principles!
And are you really complaining about the DEA going after people dealing psychoactive medications that lack FDA approval?
You're right, the Democrats would definitely lose even more elections if they so much as tried to push through legislation that's supported by both the majority of Democrats and a plurality of independents. Clearly, it's much wiser to enact conservative, reactionary policies that most Democrats disapprove of; that's definitely the best way to get Democrats to show up to vote. Continuing to alienate reliably Democratic voting blocs like Hispanics and union members couldn't possibly have long-term negative consequences for the party's electoral viability.
Are you really defending the current classification of marijuana and the way we're prosecuting the people who use it?
The classification isn't great, but the substance is untested and unapproved, with the dispensaries being set up like they're selling types of beer, at that. If you're putting tons of varieties with names like "rocky mountain funtimes" in the racks for people to select from, you aren't selling for medical use. I don't go down to Walgreens and ask to try the ritalin brownies. Even if pot was a schedule four drug, these places would be shut down.
This is all besides the fact that the whole issue of whether pot is "legal" in California was settled by the Civil War, if not the Nullification Crisis.
Let's take a random policy and go through the math. Polling shows that this policy is supported by, say, 75% of Democrats or people with liberal leanings (49% of the population as of 2008), 50% of independents (12% of the population), and 10% self-identifying Republicans or conservative leans (39% of the population in 2008). Assuming this is the only thing these people care about and will automatically vote for the Democrats if passed, that only gets you to 46.65% of votes. Add on to that the notorious difficulty that the Democrats have with GOTV efforts in non-presidential years, it makes it pretty clear that supporting liberal policies, unless it is something that is overwhelmingly popular, is a good way to lose elections.
The issue isn't just that the Democrats aren't pursuing policies that their base supports, the issue is that the Democrats are pursuing policies that are actively unpopular among likely Democratic voters. Neither of these trends will help at all in counteracting low voter turnout, but the latter has the potential for an even greater chilling effect in the long term. (I'm not even going to touch on your math, which would only be remotely relevant in a direct democracy, and which still manages to ignore the issue of motivating voters to actually show up in the first place.)
Like what? You're making the usual failure of assuming that Progressives are the "base" of the Democratic party as well.
Also, I think my math is somewhat useful since you have to get 51% to win election. It's obviously not a rigorous analysis, but the point is that the electoral calculus doesn't work out for Democrats if all you worry about is placating the base, especially since the Democratic base doesn't seem to show up to mid-terms.
County election boards don't have the authority to de-certify a statewide candidate.
Also, midterms are about enthusiasm. Dem voters don't go to them because liberal voters are not enthusiastic in supporting center right candidates. Who the hell could see that coming? If you said 'not me!' you might be qualified ro be the DNC chairman!
"Man, I'm sick of Democrats being pussies and working against me, might as well let the guys who want to get rid of the VRA, the 14th Amendment, women's rights, workers rights, and 235 years of jurisprudence have a shot."
Somehow I sense an issue with this sentiment. This isn't said to discount your disfranchisement, by all means make your own decisions and fight for your causes, but still.
Our issue is more when a bunch of good center left legislation is passed and then Dems don't show up for the midterms. Exactly what are the Democrats supposed to do when they have the most productive Congress if forty years and then no one shows?
I didn't say shit about the left wing of the party. I was talking about likely Democratic voters, period. When likely Democratic voters see the party refusing to take a stand on the issues they care about - the very same issues that caused them to become Democrats in the first place - or when they see the party actively fighting against those interests, they become less likely to vote. This isn't exactly rocket surgery. Clutching at our collective pearls and crying "but what about the Republicans?!" doesn't mean shit to prospective Democratic voters who are being actively excluded by both parties. These people might never vote for a Republican, but that doesn't mean that they can be relied on to vote against the Republicans if it means voting for a center-right party-line Democrat.
I'm curious. You say that progressives aren't the base of the party, then you say that the base doesn't bother voting. Who, exactly, do you think is actually voting for Democrats? Just who do you think the Democrats need to be reaching out to if they want to get elected?
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/15/author-of-south-carolinas-gop-purity-pledge-steps-down/
Yeah, that's what frustrates me about the sentiment of "Wah, the Dems are liberal enough and I'm just not going to vote for them." We get sessions where they do get things that are going to the left and a bunch of impatient, dumbass liberal cry babies fuck things up by not voting in the elections that follow because the legislation wasn't liberal enough, which results in the dems losing. Guys that sends the message to both parties that things went to far to the left, yes it's the wrong fucking message, but that's what they take from it.
If you want the country to go leftward you need to A) back candidates that go that route productively (as in they an attempt instead of bitching about how center-right the nation is while do nothing else)
People need to remember that political parties do get some funds from the government based on how they do in elections (remember the vote trading in 2004 to try to help green party get said funding?). Each time you don't vote in a election, is a time when you're actually voting to maintain the status quo because that's one less left leaning vote that increases the chance of leftist candidate winning while also decreasing the percent of the votes that the rightist candidate has at the of the day.
In order to get elected the Democrats need to do what any party needs to do in a two party system, sit in the middle of the political spectrum providing the bare minimum of meat to their own base while concerning themselves only with policies which are of concern to centrists and creating fear of the other side. So for all policies, ask yourself this question "Does a non affiliated voter care enough about this to vote for the Democrats if they do it?"
Unfortunately, on the subject of drugs and gay marriage the answer is still no, although the demographics are changing fast.
'hand of the market' driven insurance reform package the GOP would have passed in the mid-nineties.
Why the fuck am I supposed to be excited that they managed to pass a bill that addresses a small part of the problem they said they would based on a mechanism I don't think will work? Especially since they're clearly done now, it's not like they're headed back in to battle for a new public option.
The perfect progressive utopia isn't the end of the liberal good, but the liberal good should be the enemy of the half-assed mildly conservative bullshit.
That would make sense if the Democratic Party was touting the heath care bill as the first step towards comprehensive health care reform. Instead, they're touting it as health care reform in and of itself. And that messaging is working - there are otherwise reasonable people in this very forum who insist that America has universal health care now, thanks to PPACA. If the Democrats try to push actual health care reform, there will be a backlash from uninformed voters (i.e. most of the electorate) who were convinced that "Obamacare" was actually supposed to be comprehensive health care reform and not just a stopgap bill whose main thrust was a set of mandated minimum standards for health insurance coverage.
And the reaction to that was that Democrats didn't show up to vote and a ton of reps lost their seats to crazy people. If you work on the theory that all Congresspeople care about is staying in Congress, then it is pretty easy to see where policy was going to go.
Hell, the House passed a bill that had a public option in it! If you want to get mad at someone, you can go yell at Ben Nelson or something.
Yes, that's exactly how the Republicans took control of the House - oh wait, no. This is self-justifying bullshit that centrist Democrats and their party-line apologists use to convince the rest of the party to fall in line behind centrists and conservatives, and it works because the party's received wisdom is that the only way to beat the Republicans is to be slightly less conservative than the Republicans.
Considering righties are moving farther and farther to the right with every passing election, it makes a small amount of sense.
Not a lot, mind you. Just a small amount.
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/46581797#46581797
It would make a lot more sense if the Democrats weren't also moving to the right on almost every issue except minority rights.
That's the Overton Window for you.
http://balloon-juice.com/2012/03/17/and-yet-they-never-give-up/
They're pandering to what they feel is the shifting middle.
Which is also shifting to the right, sadly. Liberals haven't been very good at controlling the conversation.
We save way more money ending it for people now than we do by ending it for people in the future, so let's just get going on an alternative immediately. Plus, I don't want my generation to be the privatized Medicare guinea pig; I want the current generation to get the kinks worked out.
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/21/maines_angus_king_still_doesnt_want_to_caucus_with_anyone/
Goddamit Maine.
Can we get permission to invade the state and wipe it off the map? Pretty please?
Neither have centrist Democrats.