Honest question.. How do we change our House and Senate Leaders??

[Morereason]

Seems like pretty much everyone thinks that our Democratic Leaders in the house and senate are not quite up to snuff. Surely it is not unreasonable to change leadership when existing leadership is not proving successful? How do we go about changing it?

[Ghost in the Machine]

1. With a march, 1 MILLION patriots strong, right up to the doors of Congress

and the White House... then drag those fucking scumbags out by their hair, or whatever else you can grab on them, and take back OUR Government of the People, by the People, FOR the People.

It's that time, folks, our Country is broken.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. We can't. In theory, we could make all sorts of demands...

and try recalling, but in fact there is no way we can ever organize to effectively change things in a hurry. The last time anyone tried was in 1861, and we know how that turned out.

More to the point is dealing with what we have now, since no change seems imminent. the first thing to do is realize that things are not as bad as the hysteria makes them out to be. Bad, yes, but anything to compare to the McCarthy days? Hoovervilles? Haymarket Square? Bonus soldiers? Even a cursory reading of our history shows we've been seething at each other ever since the beginning, and little positive ever gets done until we're in crisis mode.

And little ever gets done in Congress without the White House pushing it. Think back a while to all those FDR initiatives. We think they're great now, but it was a White House as ruthless as this one that got them, not Congress. Shrub and the Imperial Presidency have to be curbed, just as Presidents in the past had to be curbed, but we have to be careful about those curbs lest we hobble the next good one.

In the next year and a half, could the President-like object cause nuclear armageddon, total worldwide economic collapse or something even worse? Sure he could, but chances of that are actually pretty slim and hope springs eternal that this too shall pass.

[MannyGoldstein]

3. Cast Your Vote Based On Their Record

We have to start voting based on record, not rhetoric. Look - two of the three Democratic frontrunners for President voted to start a war with Iraq, and voted for or cheerled permanent "free" trade status for China. And voted for a terrible bankruptcy bell. And so on. Obviously, there are no consequences whatsoever for awful votes - if there were, thses folks wouldn't have a serious chance at becoming president.

[deacon]

4. Ted Lamont them. n/t

[billyoc]

5. The Senate majority leader and Speaker of the House are chosen

at the beginning of a new congress, along with all of the committee chairs, and they serve until the next
Congress. That's why nobody with any sense was ever worried about Lieberman becoming a republican, because
even though it would remove the Democratic majority, it wouldn't have changed any of the committee
assignments. They had already been made in Jan. '07 and would stay until Jan. '09.