Dems must get a "win" by 2008

[quinnox]

I don't care if it is Senate seats, House seats or the presidency. But the Dems must get some kind of win by 2008, or else I think the republican tide will be even worse than imagined.

This tide must be stemmed soon, before it runs over America permanently.

[T Roosevelt]

1. I would say we need it in 2006

There is too much damage already done, and too much left to do to give them 2 more years to do it.

[mconvente]

4. i see us doing it

Randi Rhodes has said it before - the right wing had over 30+ years to develop their stuff - we've had a few. We still have a big base, a growing young group, and the middle people of the nation seeing how insane these fundies are. We can do it, and I will make sure we will. I'm volunteering for the Dem candidate of the 40th Assembly District in New Jersey, and as I go to college next year I will make a run for College Dem membership at whatever college i go to, and by senior year (and presidential year) i hope to make a run for College Dems President at my respective school. We CAN do it, and we will!

[T Roosevelt]

7. Good luck to you!

[blogbear]

8. Well Said and I agree!

[Nostradammit]

2. Then Dems must abolish electronic voting machines by 2006

wouldn't you say?

[blogbear]

9. yes I would say..

[bearfan454]

13. THAT IS THE ONLY WAY WE CAN WIN !

I'm sorry to say but we could run Jesus Christ and still lose with electronic voting machines.

[jmcon007]

3. mine field...

For my money, whether that person is Governor Dean or whomever, we need leadership through this Karl Rove mine field.
We can never seem to learn our lesson with this bunch. It's never about discussing and debating issues like grownups who truly want to help our country. Never. It's always about how to get around the devious planning of Boy Genius, whose only job is to make George Bush look good, which, you have to admit, would take a genius.
Sorry for another football metaphor, but like the great offensive coordinator being successful precisely because he's also a defensive genius, where is our modern-day James Carville who knows when to finesse and when to lay the suckers out!
I remember Clinton commenting to his aides when once told of a Republican dirty trick, "I want teeth on the sidewalk!" And he damned sure meant it.

[Nostradammit]

10. Give me control of the U.S. media -

and I'll get Jeffrey Dahmer elected. It's about making the corporate media irrelevant - that is their achilles heel and they know it.

Kill your TV. It's that simple.

[seabeyond]

5. cant even look at 2006, 2008 with those machines

i am a believer the election was stolen. if i think gore won in 2000 and kerry won by a lot in 2004........why would i even consider we have a chance in the future with those machines.

people before this election would talk about theft, and i would say, i am going to trust, i am going to trust.........but once i dont trust anymore, i cant just make it leave my head.

fool me once, shame on you, fool me again, shame on you again? shame on, them? shmae shame............whatever. bah hahahah

[quinnox]

6. yea, hopefully some congressional action will happen

To get a paper trail. I think Kerry is working on it.

lol, funny reference to Bush's flubbed line there.

[Nostradammit]

11. Yeah -

Hopefully the republican-controlled congress will make sure that the republican-controlled congress can't steal any more elections.

[deadparrot]

12. As a first-time voter in 2006,

I can say that I'll certaintly be doing my part.

[murdoch]

14. I disagree

I think this is backwards logic.

For one thing, in one respect, in general I could care less if the "Democratic Party" wins or loses. I am concerned with the issues many DP voters are concerned with, and want to see them succeed, but I don't think changing the DP into a bunch of DINO's just to win will do this. I don't care about a Democratic win, I just want my issues to win. This is a minor point, but the point is just the Democratic Party has to stand for something. If the Democratic Party was somehow taken over by neo-nazis I'd want it to lose. This is a minor point though, and I would think is somewhat obvious to everyone anyhow. People want the DP to win because of what it stands for, not because of some empty, mechanical and bureaucratic thing having to do with the party itself. When the civil rights struggle came up, those opposed to it left the DP, as they should have. The DP is a vehicle to get what it stands for done.

The question is why is the Democratic Party losing? In this respect I think there is a lot of upward looking, and handing off of responsibility. "If the Democrats win, things will be alright". In my mind, it's like saying if a shadow moves forward, things will be alright. A shadow only moves forward if the important thing, the body which casts the shadow, moves forward.

One major force that propels the DP is the AFL-CIO. Look at who the top DP donations come from - almost always the AFL-CIO. Not to mention the manpower (person power) that the AFL-CIO brings - envelope licking, door knocking. The AFL-CIO has been shrinking for decades though, and nowadays is 8% or so of the private workforce (unionization rates were over one third of the country in the 1950's - Canada still has a one third unionization rate).

The structures that have held up the Democratic Party have collapsed, and its no surprise the party has gone from a massive hold on Congress, and on some level the presidency (and even Republican presidents were affected - the two Republican presidents between FDR and Carter, Eisenhower and Nixon, were absolute liberals compared to Reagan and Bush II), to being out in the wilderness. Then I watch Clinton sign NAFTA and this DLC economics and I start thinking the Greens and Nader are not such a bad idea.

On the other hand look at the right - think tanks, evangelical churches who have an on-the-ground organization anyone on the left can dream about and so forth.

To me the Democratic Party is the facade on the house, with the foundation crumbling. I could really care how the facade looks, I am concerned with rebuilding the foundation. Not that everything was so great anyhow, despite my, because of my support for the labor movement, I recognize people like AFL-CIO leader Lane Kirkland were horrible for workers, and some of his predecessors were not much better, going back to Samuel Gompers.

For myself, I only hope the Democrats have enough people in the Senate to filibuster anything crazy. I mean, a bunch of Democrats signed on for this credit card bankruptcy travesty, so what does it matter anyhow? The foundation is what is important, not the facade.