On bringing knives to gun fights..

[Are_grits_groceries]

I have read the screeds about Nader and the 2000 election. I am not fond of him because I believe he is now motivated more by the need to build his own ego than bring about real change.

However, I believe we lost in 2000 because of the penchant of bringing knives to gunfights. When the chips were down and being thrown, we sent Warren Christopher???? to represent Gore while the Rethugs sent James Baker. That was tantamount to sending a plastic picnic knife to do battle with a SAM missle. Baker is and was a person who would cut you in a heartbeat no matter what civilized veneer he had obtained over the years. Underneath it all, he could give Atwater a run for his money.

In the years since 2000, it is apparent that we have Learned very little. The GOPhers do something we consider outrageous and unfair and what is our response? We shriek about ethics and point out what vile people they are. That is all well and good, but at the same time, one would think we woul have learned by now that politics is a blood sport. It isn't for the faint of heart. While taking the high road, we have ignored the inroads the GOP has made scuttling around on their cloven hooves on the low path.

They appeal to people's baser instincts and push toward them using fear and hate. We appeal to ' the better angel of our nature' trying to stop the stampede. Guess what? In the mishegas they create, nobody can hear that argument.

Do I believe we need to be as vile? No. However, I do believe we should be more than ready to fight on that low road by pushing back hard with clear and loud positions. Grayson would do this. Elizabeth Warren has a message that I think is uniquely suited to the high and low roads. She states simply but forcefully a basic message of fairness that can cut through the cant at all levels. Use her message and approach because she has street cred and people can identify with her. They feel the fight that Warren posseses and understand that she will be with them 'until the last dog dies.'

So, the Dems better be developing and using some powerful and direct methods. Screaming about rules and whatever after the fact epecially when you know what is coming is not only stupid but a betrayal of the people you profess to speak for.

Warren may not have a gun, but she is a ninja that should scare the PTB to death. She can show up anywhere and effectively neutralize those on the other side. Forget the equivalent of Seal Team Six on the campaign trail. Warren is just as effective and much more deadly against other beliefs because she has passion and fire as well as first class mind. Her appearance belies her mettle. She is no political naif.

[KG]

1. your article is based on the premise the the dems are an opposition party.

they are not. losing elections really has no adverse consequences for the careerist politicos.

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. I am talking about the

entire Dem party and anybody else opposing the GOPhers. The careerists are bad enough, but the rank and file need to wake up and break ranks and not file in by some predetermined order.

The rank and file are actually those who can spread the message in many places. They are much closer to reality than a lot of people in DC. I think they already know more about the nature of the opposition, but they need to refuse to be lulled by reassurances from anybody that it's ok. They are better off forming tight local and then state groups.

[KG]

7. as they are reminded often enough on DU, who else they gonna vote for?

the 2 party system is failing. no amount of working inside the system is going to change it.

[Are_grits_groceries]

9. I never said inside the system exclusively.

No matter where they operate from, my point is that they better be aware of who they are fighting and their tactics. If they go outside the system, they will probably face fiercer resistance from their putative allies.

[baldguy]

3. Your premise is false: Al Gore did not lose the election in 2000.

The election didn't matter; Bush was appointed President after a coup d'etat by 5 members of the USSC.

[Are_grits_groceries]

6. He did lose the election but

not in the normal sense. By sending Christopher, he didn't realize how nasty it would or at least that was the appearance. I don't know if a better advocate would have succeeded, but a much harder and different fight could have been put up.

The major problem as I was trying to point out is the continued tactic of ignoring the fact of how nasty the process can be. We know they are up to no good, but who is countering their shenanigans now? After the election is way too late.

[DrunkenBoat]

4. Baker is a gangster, & his family have been gangster for generations.

Working for the same people, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Baker,_Sr.


His two grandfathers were James Addison Baker, (also known as Capt. James A. Baker), a partner in the Baker Botts law firm, and Edgar Odell Lovett, Princeton Mathematics Department chairman who in 1912 became Rice University's first president.

Lovett Baker grew up in Houston's Museum District, just north of the Rice campus, near his cousin James Baker, who was born the same year. Born Sept. 21, 1930, to Adelaide Lovett Baker and Walter Browne Baker, Lovett Baker graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H., in 1948 and earned a bachelor's degree in economics in 1952 from Princeton University in Princeton, N.J.

He served in the U.S. Navy from 1952 to 1954, when he married Joanne Prescott of Cleveland, Ohio.

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-deaths/article/Banker-teacher-Lovett-Baker-dies-at-79-1599241.php

[Selatius]

5. We simply didn't have an answer to Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush being in Florida.

Jeb Bush pushed through the order, and Katherine Harris put it into action: She purged over 50,000 voters from the rolls, and most of them were black people.

The ace in the hole, though, was the Supreme Court intervening before a statewide recount could be done. Had a recount covered the whole state, Gore would have handily won.

[Are_grits_groceries]

8. They were ready to roll though.

Why do people think the Bushes have set up bases in Texas and Florida? It sure wasn't going to be Wyoming or Rhode Island. They know he electoral system.

Where do you think the Rethugs will concentrate in 2012? It will be in those states that Obama flipped and are still vulnerable. Any state that might be in play with a decent amount of electoral votes will be eyed too. They won't ignore any state. They will cause mischief wherever they can.

Their efforts will not just be on the polls and voters per se. They will look at the entire system from top to bottom to find weaknesses. They have it down to a science.