Phil Windley makes some sense about the election, and then falls off the deep end with a couple points...
I'm not sorry that Michael Moore was denied a victory. He doesn't need a bigger ego.Yeah, boy. Good thing Moore's ego is in check. Don't worry about all those voters who believe a vote for Bush was a vote for Jesus.
Good thing that Michael Mooore's ego is in check. That's the real worry this time around.
And then...
The point is that the Democratic party platform is driven by issues that most people who are voting on moral issues simply can't support. That fact that eleven states voted to ban gay marriage yesterday is a case in point.Yes, that is certainly the moral issue we should be concerned about. People dedicating their lives to each other. Of course, people will still dedicate their lives to each other, whether they are gay or straight. And states will proceed to spend millions of dollars amending these amendments with civil rights for commited couples.
But thank someone's god these moral folks had a chance to show that a vote against gays is a vote for Jesus. I guess Jesus wins double this time!
4 comments:
Patrick, I think you're missing my point. I'm not commenting on whether these amendments are good things or not, I'm making a point about politics. I fear that the Democratic party is in real danger of becoming a more or less permenant minority party if they don't find a way to appeal to people in a more centrist way.
For example, if the Democrats had nominated Joe Lieberman, I think he would be President elect right now. He would have clearly been the choice of almost everyone who voted for Kerry and the choice of many of those who voted for Bush. Clinton is a good example of a Democrat centrist and he won because of it. When the Democrats have nominated liberals they lose. When they nominate centrists they win. There's a pattern here.
I think the Democrats need to look at how they nominate and figure out how they can nominate candidates who can win (which will mean not nominating rich uberliberals from Mass.) If on the other hand, Democrats stick their head in the sand and say "these aren't real issues" and "Republicans have tricked voters into taking their eye off the ball" (I heard that on CNN this morning) they'll continue to lose because they're deluding themselves about reality.
--phil--
www.windley.com
The problem with Liebermann is that nobody likes him. Such so-called "centrist" argument was being framed in a Republican box.
This election is about greed, fearmongering, distortion, religion, and ultimately Rovism.
Well you can keep telling yourself that and the you will lose in 2008 too. The bottom line, like I said in the original piece is that Democrats have to find ways to pick off some of the states in the middle and until they do, they'll keep losing. Kerry was the wrong guy to pick off any of the red states. Even with massive unemployment and dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq, he couldn't do it.
--phil--
If you pushed a Bushlite like Lieberman, these red state voters would rather have got the real thing.
The so-called "Sounthern strategy" devised since Goldwater defeat never compromised itself to get the victory. Look how they are now: majority in all three branches. Unfortunately, this strategy, albeit briliant, is a masterly exploitation of the old racist south with the new mask of "moral values" than puts all constitutional rights except the second amendment to backseat.
The thing liberal (or progressive whatever) people need to do is to get organized to populate the values they take to heart. Pandering the ugly slavery racism and business-military-industrial-religious root of the old south is the ultimate betrayal of what they have fought for. Never fall to the framed subjects set up by the regressive thinktanks and we will have a chance.
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