Do You Have Any Brilliant Ideas for '06 and '08????

[DemocracyInaction]

They didn't go to the polls in this election and vote on Iraq, the economy, the horrible debt, outsourcing, healthcare, stem cell research or a cure for their goddamn hemorrhoids. They voted gays and abortion. Now get a grip and a reality check..........

What should we do? They say we don't relate to their morality nor speak their language. Goddamn right we don't!! (and it was what I always suspected with the whining of the assholes in the south). Should we get to them by proposing not only to ban abortion but to put to death any woman who has one?? Should we propose that gays be rounded up at gunpoint (on the whisper of any neighbor that a neighbor might have gay leanings) and put them on an island with armed guards all around?? Well, if we don't, exactly what do we offer these ignorant, repulsive, hate mongering bigots who pervert the Christian religion to a point where as a life-long Christian, I spit when I walk in front of a Christian church??

I've spent 40 years fighting republicans (and they were milk toast then) and fighting for the causes of civil rights, unions, women's equal rights, the handicapped, etc. Then the effected stood with us. Now if you gave them permission to kill us, they would. I have given up on the whole ugly lot of those who came after us. I'll enjoy my remaining years. And, sad to say, I will enjoy watching the masses be reduced to what I now realize is where they belong. I was not one of the "Big Chill"--people who in the 70's made a bunch of money and spit on the people they fought for. I fought (and especially so--to the detriment of my family--these last four years)all this time. Now it's time for me to CHILL. I won't fight for those who will not fight for themselves. Before when I fought, I fought alongside those fighting for themselves. Now they need to suffer. If they finally decide to fight, they goddamn better hope they can rekindle the 1960's because we old warriors will not be there for them any longer.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. Yes..we need to do freedom rides through all the red states

with gay people on the busses instead of black people and expose them for their bigotry and intolerance. We need to do sit-ins in their fundamentalist churches. We need to get in their faces and expose these so called faith based voters for the hateful people that they are.

It may lead to some deaths of us that do it but it will turn reasonable people against them when they are outed for their hatred. It works everytime.

[Mountainman]

2. I guess according to Joe Trippi we are going to lose big time in 06

He says many Dems are going to retire and leave vacant seats which will be filled by more repuks.

For me, I'm waiting till people start starving in the streets and then maybe they won't feel so bad about a couple of guys getting married.

[msongs]

7. Joe oughta know, has he EVER won an election for a candidate?

[DieboldMustDie]

3. Get rid of Diebold et al.

That's definitely step one. :shrug:

[DemocracyInaction]

4. Java=---here's the problem

In blue states like mine (total Dem control) they would can a Deibold in ten seconds flat. But there is no way these repubs either in the Congress or in these red states are going to get rid of the golden goose that keeps on giving. When the goddamn losers of this nation start hurting badly and want change, they are going to have to vote for it on one of these machines and find out that, by a miracle, all their suffering citizens really wanted MORE republicans. This country has become a hopeless joke. May it laugh itself to death........

[library_max]

15. Here's even more fun.

What stops Congress from "reforming" the electoral process by requiring BBV in every state, every district? It would follow the principle and precedent of Bush v. Gore, the SCOTUS decision that denied its own precedent because it had no principles. But that was in the old days when we still pretended that democracy mattered.

[rockymountaindem]

5. Actually, more people voted on those issues than on "morals".

Morals were supposedly 22% of people's most important issue. That means that if you add up Iraq, the economy et. al. those were more important.

[AgadorSparticus]

6. no. screw 06 and 08. we are still in 04 and i'm not giving up on 04 yet.

[jsw_81]

14. I admire your fighting spirit

But there comes a point when you have to face reality. And the reality, unfortunately, is that the 2004 election is history.

[AgadorSparticus]

19. tell that to the people recounting ohio, NH, and florida. other states

pending. and what is reality? the one dictated by the news media? we make our own "reality". that is how revolutions are begun. eventually, the media will not be able to ignore us. despite the insidious agenda of the media to demoralize us, we fight on. and that is a miracle in and of itself.

there is a nice ghandi quote that goes something to the extent of: first they ignore you. then they laugh at you. then you win.

well 2 out of 3 out of the way. they have ignored us regarding the election fraud. but they have moved to stage 2 of trying to discredit us now (i.e. "conspiracy theorists" "absurd online conspiracies" "sore losers").

we are getting closer. too close for their comfort. we know it. they know it. it's the people in between that don't know it...yet.

[library_max]

8. Dupe, sorry

[library_max]

9. Dupe, sorry.

[library_max]

10. Dupe, sorry.

[library_max]

11. Folks, the last free and fair national election was in 1998.

And I don't mean the most recent one. I mean the last one, at least for the foreseeable future. The Republicans own the electoral process and they control all the means for policing or reforming that process.

So, with the idea firmly in mind that there's no way in hell we can win in 2006 or 2008 (outside of a handful of blue states and districts), our best move is to run protest candidates and protest messages. There are several bright sides here. First, we no longer have to take the media or the swing voters or ourselves seriously. We no longer have to have responsible plans. We no longer have to dignify "gotcha" questions with an answer. Second, we no longer require unity. Wedge issues hold no further terrors for us. We can attack the government party, the institutional party, the establishment, whatever you want to call the Republicans now that they are the government, from as many different angles as we like. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

Our role is now true opposition. Mercilessly scold and mock and cheap-shot every Republican misstep, misstatement, and failure. Keep clear of the levers of power so that we can hang everything that goes wrong on them. Those of serious bent can point out how utterly un-Christian their policies are, while others can ridicule their holy-Joe pretensions. We can blame them for the exploding debt and then turn around and blame them for the inevitable tax increase when it comes, no matter how it's disguised.

We just need to keep hammering the message that we are not the ones in charge. Don't let the Republicans offer us a choice, don't be their partners, and don't be their rivals or opponents. Just get out of the way and then laugh at them and attack them whatever they do.

Don't get me wrong. This isn't a sneaky way to win in 2006 and 2008. There is no way to win in 2006 and 2008. This is a way for us to keep ourselves sane and to keep the American public aware of the evil stupid fraud that is Republicanism.

[PurityOfEssence]

12. concentrate all efforts on taking the House in '06

Identify vulnerable Republicans, and fight with shrillness: they're anti-poor, pro-rich, pro-torture, pro-war, anti-environment and greedy, corrupt stooges of the ruling class.

We only need to flip less than twenty seats, and we control it. Take away the shift in Texas caused by DeLay's gerrymandering, and we actually gained seats in '04. We gained seats in '96, '98, '00, and only lost 7 in '02.

[library_max]

13. As long as you're taking away the Republican gains in Texas,

why don't you just go the whole hog and imagine that we already control the House of Representatives?

News flash. The gerrymandered districts in Texas are not going to go away. They will be the model for every state that is controlled by a Republican governor and a Republican legislature, which I think is well over half. The Republican courts will uphold them, and guess what the Republican media will have to say about the subject? Not a damn thing.

They stole the last two, they stole this one, and they're going to steal the next however-the-hell-many-they-want.

[PurityOfEssence]

18. Well, that was cute, but try to follow the logic

Yes, reality is reality, and they made a nice and substantial gain in Texas with this stunt. You either miss my point or are in a mood to ridicule.

The point is this: in what was touted as a substantial gain for the Republicans, without that gerrymandering, they actually LOST GROUND elsewhere. It's like Daffy Duck's magic trick: sure, it wows the crowd, but you can only do it once.

The "mandate" of the Republicans continues to be very broad and very thin. They didn't win a whopping shift of allegiances this election; they picked up 4% in the Senate (which IS a big deal) but they didn't even pull a stinking 1% in the House, even with full-on thievery in the second-largest state. That's weak. It's weak weak weak, and in our whipped moment of despair, we shouldn't lose track of the fact that the country's still very even.

[library_max]

26. "You can only do that once"?

Perhaps you mean that they can only do it once in Texas. Even that is open to dispute, but the real point is that they can do it in all the other states with Republican governors and Republican legislatures.

Look, I'm not trying to be funny. I'm forty-six years old. Democracy is over in this country, probably for the rest of my life. Think I'm laughing about that? But we still have to wake up and smell the reality, whether we like it or not.

[AgadorSparticus]

20. i disagree. they want you to focus everything on 06 and 08. they stole

this election and want to move on as quickly as possible. it is our duty to not let them beat us psychologically as well.

this election is NOT sewn up yet. and if we do not have election reform (paper trail), then all future elections will be a farce. if they are doing this on a national scale, what make you think they are not doing it on a state and local level too?

diebold machines are a mere sham to make people THINK they are voting. nice little pats on the head for all the good little americans.

[dogman]

16. Invest in stocks and sell when their SS money is dumped into the market.

That's what the Rethugs are going to do.

[sampsonblk]

17. Yes, find a candidate willing to say what you said...

and mean it, and stick to it every day of the campaign.

Simple.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

21. Eat only canned goods because of the radioactive fallout......n/t

[Mugsy]

22. Ad: Point out other "one-party" nations in history.

Just the suggestion that the U.S. could be following the same path as communist China or the Soviet Union might raise enough alarm bells in the minds of deep-South voters that they might break ranks just to bolster the balance in our two-party government.

[AP]

23. Read The Twilight of Equality and learn its lessons.

[GH0ST]

24. Any brilliant ideas? Yeah I got one

Pincer attack. Libertarians and Dems vs. Republicans in 2008. A lot of R's have L leanings. Co-opt those and they will not have a majority in 2008. If the Dem party won't budge or grow, advance the Libertarian party so the Dems HAVE to respond.
Hey it worked before. Perot. Remember? :shrug:

[dawg]

25. Here are some ideas, although perhaps not "brilliant" -

The deep south is probably a lost cause for the next few presidential cycles, but we can make significant inroads on the state and local level. Southern states continue to show a willingness to elect Democratic governors. Southern Democrats should go all out to elect Democrats to statewide offices - even if they are a little conservative for our tastes on some of the social issues.

Georgia, and especially Florida, are in desparate need of a Democratic Governor.

Colorado, New Mexico & Nevada represent real opportunities for Democrats. We need to build our infrastructure in these states and ceaselessly work to turn them blue in 2008. I think these states could form the foothold in what could be a major expansion of our party's influence in the western states. These states are not in the thrall of fundamentalist religion, and although the residents are a conservative bunch - they remain very capable of independent thought and will switch allegiances when presented with a compelling case for doing so.

I think gun control is a losing issue for us. I think we should not only abandon it, we should attempt to "out-gun" the Republicans. It's time people heard the phrase "second-amendment liberal".

I think we need to totally reframe the way we talk about abortion. We should say that we respect all principled opinions regarding the beginning of human life, but that we reject any proposed changes in the current laws that would make women or their doctor's answerable to criminal charges or loss of license to practice. This forces them to either admit that they do want women and/or doctors up for criminal charges or loss of license or else they might mealy mouth - which will demonstrate to their base that they are not serious about the issue.

Lastly, I think trade issues are a vital way to tap into a white working-class demographic that is currently part of the Republican base. This is one issue where the conservative position is hard to explain and ours is simple - protecting American jobs. This issue would resonate in states like Ohio and Michigan, as well as in the southern states.