Asymmetrical Information

The Boeing metaphor was actually a little of both meeting n immediate market need and "if you build it, they will come". Pan Am wanted something to double the capacity of the 707. Boeing had something on the drawing board from bidding for a large military transport. The now trademark hump on the 747 came from Boeing placing a bet that if passenger sales went flat, they could use the same design for a cargo transport, fitting cargo underneath the cockpit clear to the front of the plane. There are varying stories as to whether this repurposing potential was how they sold Pan Am on the deal or whether it was Boeing's backup plan if the passenger version flopped. They had a customer lined up in Pan Am, but had to work overtime and bet the company to see the 747 through.

The wierd thing about this is that its asking Democrats to look at business models. They have become pretty hostile to business. A better business model for them to follow to reestablish their hegemony would be WalMart. But that would truly be ironic.

Classically, party-system realignments happen when the core ideas of one of the parties (generally the majority party) are played out. The Roosevelt-Truman-Johnson coalition collapsed because its big idea--that the Federal government should not just be the provider of last resort, but the provider of first resort, for the essentials of life--simply proved to be unworkable. There were many reasons this happened, some of them within the control of the Democrats, but largely the issue was structural. It's possible that the Republicans will "overreach" on social issues and cause this, but I have my doubts.

Another thing that causes the disaggregation of party systems is the emergence of an issue that cuts more strongly across the parties than between them. The issue of slavery was such an issue: it caused the complete disintegration of the Whigs, and the near-collapse of the Democrats, in the late 1850s. My personal suspicion is that immigration policy could become such an issue: not as such, but combined with the larger "national question": we already see the strain that the body politic is under from combining relatively open borders with "multiculturalism" (i.e. non-assimilation of immigrants).

I need hardly add that there is no guarantee that a party-system realignment means that the "outs" now get to be "in": the post-Civil War party system ran out of steam in the 1880s, but the Republicans dominated its successor, from 1892 to 1932.

In order to have a shot at a long-term ascendancy, the Democrats need to do a couple of things: (1) get serious about foreign and security policy (show that they are a "safe pair of hands"); (2) figure out what the next Big Issue is going to be; and (3) create and expound what I call an "alternative vision of the Good" as a unifying theme.

Jane: I think Matt Yglesias addressed some of your concerns with the metaphor in his post on the subject. He compared it more to Starbucks—you find something that people want, but don't know they want. There weren't thousands of people clamoring for a chain that would sell espresso-type drinks fast and relatively cheap, but more expensive than regular coffee; but someone realized that people wanted them, and he was right. Yglesias suggests that the Democrats need to find subjects that people care about deeply, but don't yet think of as political issues (he suggests the difficulty of juggling work and family life), and find political solutions.

It also occurs to me that this has something to do with the way libertarians tend to think: we see lots of problems as fundamentally political problems, caused by government intervention. Other people complain about how stuff doesn't work right; we complain that it doesn't work right, then offer political solutions (like cutting price-distorting subsidies).

One of the problems with the idea that government can help "juggle work and family life" is that Government is practically synonymous with 'red tape'. It would be quite a marketing trick to create the idea in the public mind that government involvement would make something easier. Very few 'progressives' even suggest that when talking about their own lives.

I suppose the Europeans have blazed the only possible trail here: mandatory vacations and extended family leave. But I don't see a 'fundamental re-alignment' coming over that sort of issue here.

David Hecht is correct. First and foremost, particularly on the presidential level, the Democrats have to build some credibility on national security. The war in Iraq could go completely south in the next three three years, but if the Democrats see fit to nominate somebody who spent a good portion of his career voting against defense spending, they'll still lose. You can't write off that much of the male vote and make it up elsewhere.

Clinton jumped through a brief window of oportunity in 1992; he would have had zero chance in 1988, and little chance in 2000 (as a Governor with a less than good past relationship with the military), to say nothing of 2004. Sen. Clinton's record is actually better than her husband's, at similar stages of their political careers.

A lot of us don't want to go where the "progressives" will take us.

Exactly what are we "progressing" to?

The EUSSR?

It doesn't work.

Not only immigration, but Kelo, too.

Sandy P. has hit it on the head. Economic populism is a dead letter because of the EU example. John Kerry made specific comments during the campaign about not being a "redistributionist" Democrat. Why? Because there are Democrats who know their economics and realize that redistribution of wealth and income doesn't work. They may be uncomfortable with the religious right, they may dislike pre-emptive war. But they are not hankering for economic populism because they can see the yawning GDP per capita gap between the US and Europe.

Indeed, in many ways the CT post strikes me as little better than the old "lost tribe" theory in which leftists insist that the reason the Democrats lose is because they don't espouse Marxist solutions and therefore the hardcore left doesn't vote.

my first problem is something no one has mentioned: it was a crap analogy!

Airbus is finding that a great deal of its "sales" of the A380 are vapourous and its customers are finding that the product isn't baked. 6 month delay more than a year before delivery... wait till we get closer to the new "delivery date"... Typical of democrats to love some big economic vision and bemoan that american business isn't pursuing it. I see the 8-s playing all over again about our need for industrial policy!

That's one of the things wrong with Democrats: too many policies! We all know why they have policies (they all want 5! Year! Plans!) and that they have the same quality of results as those of GOSPLAN. Most people want less policy (in areas that actually touch them, though wanting a law to gore someone else's ox).

Democrats could win if they had a Kennedyesque candidate. JFK ran on the missile gap, saying that those cowardly republicans hadn't built enough ICBMs and that you could only trust the Dems to stand up to the Soviets! If JFKerry had talked about how W wasn't taking on the sources of terrorism and was pussyfutting with Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran and how we weren't retaliating enough against terrorist fundraisers, there would have been an interesting campaign. He would have lost his base, but taken a huge chunk out of W and had a good chance. You're not going to win by being jimmy the wimp carter. But the problem is, you can only get the nomination by being more pacifistic than even post president jimmy. That's one of their big problems, along with the inability of someone like lieberman to run on his real record of good economic policies.

Hopefully the Dems self destruct and the Reps split between anti-government and moral majority people... but i'm not holding my breath.

Good catch, Hey. I did notice (in Perlstein's article) that during this period of supposed decline of Boeing that its stock went from $7 to $44 (no mention if there were any splits in between). He obviously is no astute observer of the stock market (as was obvious when he refers to Boeing's "net worth", by which I assume he means book value).

Note also Perlstein's determined refusal to learn anything from his elders. He remarks that he was born with only a few months left in the 1960s, but apparently considers himself an expert on politics for the last 25 years. Doing the math reveals that he thinks he has absorbed everything from when he was 10 years old, despite his stated and steadfast refusal to consider the experience of earlier campaigns like 1972. One seldom finds a more direct argument that for liberals everything has to belearned anew with each generation.

"Yglesias suggests that the Democrats need to find subjects that people care about deeply, but don't yet think of as political issues (he suggests the difficulty of juggling work and family life), and find political solutions." The biggest reason I generally vote against the Democrats is that they consistently look for political solutions to private issues like this. The only reason I sometimes vote Democrat is that there are Republicans that are even worse in this way.

“If JFKerry had talked about how W wasn't taking on the sources of terrorism “

Are you unwittingly advocating lying? I do not question your sincerity---but logically your suggestion is an example of pure craziness. In no way, shape, or form, do John Kerry and the national Democrats believe in a more aggressive military stance. A dishonest pacifism pervades today’s Democratic Party. Folks like Joe Lieberman have already been marginalized.

JFK ran on the missile gap, saying that those cowardly republicans hadn't built enough ICBMs and that you could only trust the Dems to stand up to the Soviets!
Didn't we find out though that the "missile gap" was a myth? That, in fact, there was no credible missile gap? Are you saying Democrats should just lie in order to get elected?

On the other hand it worked so well for the GOP. [grin, snicker]

And there you have the problem in a nutshell. The Democratic base doesn't think that they lost and doesn't think that the voters rejected their policies. They think that the Republicans lied and stole the election. No need for the Democrats to change their positions, they just need to shout louder.

Lots of companies have decided that their products are fine; it's the consumers who are wrong. General Motors is taking that position as we speak. I think that it's fair to say that the Democratic Party is the GM of politics.

“JFK ran on the missile gap”

JFK was able to scam the American public because the liberal establishment was behind his candidacy. Nonetheless, he was was sincere about the need to defend ourselves from Soviet aggression. Kennedy was not bovine excrementing us on this point! Democrats in 1960 genuinely believed in a strong American military. That’s simply not true today. The progeny of George McGovern are in control.

I hope that everyone prefers voting for Republicans. You have no other realistic choice. This is the only major party willing to defend the country. Democrats are pacifist wimps and a danger to all living things.

Just ask Senators Sanders, Jeffords, or Clinton ...

If you are referring to Congressman Bernie Sanders, he's not a Senator yet. The Democrats in Vermont won't even field a candidate to run against him. I understand the reasoning, they don't want to split the vote and cede the seat to a Republican. Still, it annoys me that the Democrats cannot articulate how their approach to governance differs from that of a Progressive/Socialist candidate.

I agree with a lot of what you say. However, this statement:

This is unlikely--the mathematics of winning an election without a motivated base are unappealing, which is why 3rd party candidates do so poorly.

"Third" parties tend to be almost nothing BUT a motivated base. They never are able to broaden their support. Nor, as many assume, is this inability to broaden support necessarily because third parties are like the Monty Python Silly Party. The fundamental reason third parties are an exercise in futility is the voting system. I discuss this in Why I left the Libertarian Party and joined the Republicans. In the three sections beginning here, I talk about social choice theory/voting science, with links.

Voting reform is the only real way to improve the U.S. political system, yet it's largely unknown. All of the approaches that have been tried thus far (e.g., term limits, campaign finance regulation) have either operated at the margins, or have been destructive of the process and/or unconstitutional.

I know two kinds of Democrats:

1. The first group says, "Bush is dumb." That's all they can offer to the debate and to further their agenda.

2. The second group wants a college class debate where they take the position that "America is bad" and "Islamofascist societies are good."

I live just outside the beltway in northern Virginia, so these folks are probably not the best representatives of mainstream Democrat Party thinking, but who knows? They offer me nothing.

Mindles Dreck is right. Is it not a continual joke that "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you"? Where do you get better service, at McDonald's or the Department of Motor Vehicles? Where are the lines longer, at UPS or the Post Office? In a country where 12% of families send their children to private school, 25% of public schoolteachers do. Which is easier, filing an insurance claim or filing your federal income tax return? And yet, for all the inferiority of government functions, the federal civil service almost universally rates its own bureaucrats as providing outstanding service. The Democrats could make an issue of this, better government services through a more disciplined civil service, but a party so devoted to government employee unions doesn't dare attempt that. Picture Nancy Pelosi suggesting that the federal government sell off Amtrak instead of subsidizing it forever. Imagine Hillary Clinton recommending that the Postal Service lose its monopoly on first class mail. Try to picture Reid proposing school vouchers. It'll never happen.

As far as voting reform goes, I personally don't believe there is much call for a libertarian party, or even a small-government one: I once thought there might be, but I am increasingly convinced that people are too wedded to their entitlements (upper-class and middle-class ones included). So I'm personally quite unconvinced that libertarians would suddenly become a major political force, "if only..."

Leaving that aside, I often wonder why no one outside of New York either advocates or has adopted a system that works pretty well there: fusion tickets. Insofar as I can tell, a fusion ticket (allowing a candidate to run as the the candidate of more than one party) combines the best features of plurality-win, first-past-the-post, and proportional representation. On the one hand, you still only vote for one candidate: no multiple votes, no rank-ordering, no complications. On the other hand, you get to see before the fact which candidates are endorsed by which parties: and--if necessary--you can vote against a given candidate while still voting for someone with whom you are politically compatible.

live just outside the beltway in northern Virginia, so these folks are probably not the best representatives of mainstream Democrat Party thinking, but who knows? They offer me nothing.

If you are in the habit of refering to the Democratic Party as the "Democrat Party", you probably aren't even receptive to anything it could ever offer and don't want to hear anything that any Democrat has to say.

Reagan era Republicans seemed to be pretty consistant on the claim that they believed "gov't is not the solution, gov't is the problem", and "get the gov't out of the way and the people will find their own solution." So much industry deregulation happened -- good or ill.

Shrub era Republicans have backed off. The TSA and NCLB being only two major examples. But it's going to be hard for the Democrats to argue the solution to the highly visible problems created by these Republican-authorized agencies is to tax more to spend more to hire more and better inspectors and testers and snoops and auditors. Example, who voted for John Kerry because he promised to impose more delays and sniff around longer on containers coming thru major US seaports? That's something that almost certainly OUGHT to be done, but it's not exactly an appealing prospect. "VOTE DEMOCRATS, for More Snoops in Better Places." Yeah, right.

The untapped potential is where gov't direction would simplify already over-snooped areas of consumer/voter's lives. The notion of a single medical database in one standardized coding system tapped by all providers, insurers, and researchers could be sold. "Your doctors' office now employes one full time expert who never sees a patient and never cures an illness, but who spends long hard hours key-coding paperwork into 27 different data systems for pharamicists, insurance companies, and other medical experts. Let us simplify and make medical care cheaper and faster..." Here's where Hillary and Newt come together, quite sensibly.

It's not hard to envision a Democratic "Contract with America" assembled from a dozen such opportunities -- where the gov't could actually standardize some chaotic markets. Then the Republicans would have to defend the notion (which might sometimes be true, but it's hard to defend) that chaos is superior to a well-ordered planned expertly-designed solution.

Are you unwittingly advocating lying? I do not question your sincerity---but logically your suggestion is an example of pure craziness. In no way, shape, or form, do John Kerry and the national Democrats believe in a more aggressive military stance. A dishonest pacifism pervades today’s Democratic Party. Folks like Joe Lieberman have already been marginalized.

I think the point here is not for the Democrats to advocate a more agressive military stance, but a more honest and more focused one, with more effort being put into hunting Bin Ladin and Co. and less on looking for alleged WMDS and worrying about "mushroom clouds" in Iraq. That would be more realistic and Kerry MIGHT have been able to pull it off. As for pacifism pervading the Democratic party, I am not so convinced of this. Clearly, there is a pacifist wing of the party and it is loud, but the Dems did nominate a presidential ticket where both candidates voted for force in Iraq and the resolution did manage to clear a Democraticaly controled Senate. The resolution to use force in Afghanistan had only one vote against it. If pacificism were so pervasive, I doubt these things could have happened.

excellent post, great comments, here are a few of my own:

the gop doesn't appeal to me, but the democrats appeal to me less... they appear to be a motley crew of poor minorities, labor unions, and single-issue voters (environmentalists, secularists, pro-abortionists, etc.) and hysterical liberals. of the people i know who fall into these categories, they wouldn't really get along in person. they need to have a very charismatic leader like Clinton to pull all these disjointed groups together.

the gop is full of business leaders, (which is convenient that they understand economics as well as how to run a big operation) veterans, and farmers.

David H. is right-on in his assessment that dem.s should target immigration as a big issue. the poor minorities are the most affected by the influx of more poor minorities when there's ever-shrinking numbers of good jobs for the uneducated. do it as part of an america-first approach that is also more pacifist.

I think the dems also need to to connect with the religious right more... i mean these people are Christians - that ought to align more closely with the compassionate ideals of dems, but dems need to be more sensitive to issues like abortion, especially since this issue really isn't in the hands of elected officials. use lines like "give unto Caesar ..." - Jesus's line for separation of church and state.

Fusion is illegal in most states (New York being one of the ten exceptions), and the major parties are committed to keeping it that way. The New Party took a case to the US Supreme Court, but the court ruled that there is no right to a fusion system. The New Party (and others) haven't given up, though.

I suspect the key to a switich to fusion voting would be the same as the one Jimmy Carter says is the key to managing the switich from one-party to multi-party elections: people in power have to believe it will serve their interests. Perhaps the Democrats will seize on it as a means to win national elections, and use their local influence to implement it in some of the 40 states where it is now illegal.

What is missed is that the Republicans have occupied the middle to right ground effectively. The Democrats have abandoned the middle ground and headed hard left. Since Americans really don't like true liberal policies they are getting rejected. This will continue until either the middle shifts (unlikely) or the Democrats tack back to the middle. If the Democrats continue on this course they will become a third party and some other party will take it's place. Eventually the Republicans will turn into true big government people and they then will get rejected.
The cycle continues!

Jane Galt writes:

If the Democrats are going to attract new consumers, they need "product" which is:

a) Firmly differentiated--no "3% more for computers in the classroom"

b) As simple to explain as school vouchers (no ultra-wonkish new methods of financing comprehensive government-provided health care need apply)

c) Not so expensive that it runs afoul of our citizenry's basic aversion to paying high taxes to send money to people they don't know and probably wouldn't like if they did.

      Jane, you left out d) Expected to work by the voters.

      The problem is the voters don't expect the Democrats solutions will work.  People don't reject "socialized medicine"/"universal health care" because they don't understand the details.  They reject it because they think the people who can't even run the post office very well shouldn't be trusted with health care.

      As for new "products," the Dems can't stand the thought.  Look at Henry Farrell's post.  His big program is “addressing working families, along with strong redistributionist policies and a beefing up of union power.”

      Soak the Rich! and Up the Unions! may or may not be good ideas, but they are OLD ideas.  The voters have rejected them, by and large.  Heck, even the Donks have rejected them -- no matter what they say, they have no intention of taking the Kennedy family's money away, or George Soros's.

      I'll have more shortly on my blog, but until the Democrats stop trying to tell the voters "This time for sure!," they're toast.

THE SAUDS MUST BE DESTROYED!

Call me cynical but historically each major party's politicians use ideas simply as a way to achieve what they really want ---- power. So they cobble together whatever set of ideas wins them a majority of votes. (In fact, due to gerrymandering, there are many many safe seats where incumbent congressmen don't have to care that their party wins because they will rake in their perks, comp and pensions regardless.)
Seeking power, they prey on the cognitive dissonance of the American people: belief in Santa Claus will visit them, belief they can find a way for someone else to pay Santa's bills, jingoism, and firm belief that when the elite is chosen to boss others around they will be a member of that elite.

Megan, the post was a response to Rick Perlstein's pamphlet (there was a link to an earlier version of the pamphlet in the post) and even more importantly to his book on the Barry Goldwater campaign, the reasons for its failure, and how many of the Goldwaterites ended up prevailing in the end, by destroying a previously existing consensus on how America worked. I get the impression (am I wrong?) that you haven't read either of these - which means, I think that you misunderstand Perlstein's argument (and mine, as I'm really only channelling what Perlstein is saying). I'd especially recommend reading the book - it's a first rate contribution to political history - and lays out a rather different case than the case you believe that you're addressing here.

they think of markets as something very like the ones described in John Kenneth Galbraith books, where consumers are but the hapless, unknowing cattle herded by ad-wielding corporations to the slaughter

I think this point is right on target. And, it's embedded in their world view so it's difficult for them to avoid. (Just so it's clear: I don't know whether "they" includes centrist Democrats or not, but with the prominence of Howard Dean, MoveOn, etc., the center is illusive.)

Eventually the Republicans will turn into true big government people

If that hasn't happened yet, I shudder to think what it'll be like. I think the Democrats have a strong claim to being the party of fiscal responsibility and general adherence to reality. A relatively modest rollback of President Bush's ruinous tax cuts would have a highly salutary effect on our future fiscal health. But the administration and Congress seem almost to be behaving as though the world were shortly going to end; that's the only explanation for their short-sighted actions that makes much sense.

Wouldn't it be great if leftists jettisoned the word "liberal" during their rebranding? It's a grand old word that had many positive conotations before its Orwellian corruption.

They can have "progressive." It smacks of central planning and historicism.

I disagee that the public correctly understands the Republicans. That may have been true in the past, but in the last decade or so the Repubicans have converted themselves into a machine for selling legislation to corporations and other special interests in exchange for immense campaign contributions. They say they care about the common man, but really it is only the rich they are working for.

Proof of this is their response to the recent articles revealing that income for the average family has gone up only 22% in the last 30 years (slower than in the EU!), while it has doubled for the top 1% and tripled for the top .1%. Conservatives have responded to this news by saying it is just fine, revealing where their true sympathizes lie.

The Republican's problem is that the country never really bought the conservative agenda, and only wanted a correction that would undo the liberals worst mistakes. That is why the conservatives have to use all sort of heavy-handed tactics like the K Street Project. It is because they don't have a natural majority, and so have to use every method, fair or dirty, to win.

There is a big opportunity here for the Democrats here, and I think the wage growth problem would be the best sell. The middle class is not happy with how economically insecure it has become, all the while that Bush is telling the country it should take on more risks by privatizing Social Security.

Jane: You made many good points, but didn't comment on one howler in the piece:

It’s the product of an extraordinarily successful long-run initiative by right wing Republicans to reorient the political debate around a set of ideas that once seemed bizarre and unnatural to most Americans.

What bugs me about this is that it completely ignores American history. For the first 3/4s of our existence, many basic Republican ideas ("the federal government can't do everything," etc.) were considered common sense and held by all political parties. The Democrats, by moving so far left since FDR and LBJ, abandoned those principles. The political debate was "reoriented" not by Republican propaganda but when large numbers of voters realized that the Democratic ideology wasn't working, and handed the Reps a series of big victories starting in 1980.

John..." I think the Democrats have a strong claim to being the party of fiscal responsibility and general adherence to reality. A relatively modest rollback of President Bush's ruinous tax cuts would have a highly salutary effect on our future fiscal health. "

Were you being facetious? The Republicans have done a poor job reining in spending, but I am not sure anyone who sees the policy agendas of the Democrats honestly believes they wouldn't have spent any tax cut rollback as soon as they could get their grubby hands on the money. Remember John Kerry's little $700 billion health care plan? You have to have a lot more trust in politicians than I do to sincerely believe they would do any more than the current stock of Republicans to shore up the country's debt.

I'm way too lazy to participate in this discussion conscientiously, but, channeling William F. Buckley, why are we listening to Harvard philosophy majors who think "therapeudic" is a word?

Let's consider, for example, this paragraph:

The modern economy was built under the assumption that all of its high-level participants would be men, and that all of them would be backed up by wives who served as full-time housekeepers and child-rearers. We've semi-dismantled the social presumptions underlying that structure because it came to be seen as discriminatory and oppressive. People aren't accustomed to thinking of it this way, but we can alter the economy in various ways to better fit the new set of social presumptions. Not only can we, but we should.

What the frak does that mean? I can kinda infer fuzzy penumbras and emanations, but anything I say would really just be a guess. Beyond that, where the hell are there any facts to support whatever it is he assumes we assume are his presumptions? Maybe I'm just a dumb history and economics type who can't keep up with the philosophy crowd, but I think we like it when people say what they mean and mean what they say. That's something the modern conservative movement understood when it was creating the intellectual and policy background for its agenda, at least up until the 1990s. Hand-waving proclamations about nothing aren't the basis for a political revival.

The Democratic Party has no coherency. That problem is insoluble at this time. Most Democrats sound incoherent for this reason. The issues are not based on principle but rather on petty special interest politics and special preference policy. Democrats prejudicially discriminate on the basis of sex and race and wonder why people think badly of them for it.

A relatively modest rollback of President Bush's ruinous tax cuts would have a highly salutary effect on our future fiscal health.

First of all, how do you define "ruinous?" I think tax cuts that reduce federal governemnt revenue by less than 1% of GDP can hardly be called "ruinous." I also assume you would consider the government "fiscally healthy" if it spent 95% of GDP, as long as it took in at least 95% of GDP in revenue?

If the all votes were actually counted in Florida 2000, particularly those of disenfranchised African Americans, Democrat Al Gore would've been elected President.

If there were no voting shennanigans in Ohio 2004, (12 hour lines in Democratic districts, provisional ballots, Diebold Bush-pledges, "vote challengers" in black precincts) the state may have gone to John Kerry, which would've given him the nomination.

I would state that if the voting apparatus in either state weren't controlled by Republicans, or Republican favored corporations, the outcomes would be significantly different.

The real test is going to begin as the nation slowly, inevitably becomes less white, less Christian, and less male, the reliable base of the GOP. But for now, the nation gets to drink in the RESULTS of TOTAL REPUBLICAN CONTROL for 8 years.
They aren't happy results so far.

--Cobra

--Cobra

Cobra,

While voting shenanigans in the presidential race may be a useful life preserver for Democrats to cling to, they don't explain the Republicans' increasing control over both houses of Congress plus the state governorships. Something is going on that is making Democrats lose soundly, and it isn't just vote challengers in black precincts.

I hope the US population doesn't become less male -- as I understand it, we're 52% women already.

"Third" parties tend to be almost nothing BUT a motivated base.

Actually, third parties tend to have almost nothing, period. For example, the overwhelming majority of self-identified libertarians vote Republican or don't vote at all. It is hard to dignify the Libertarians' standard half-percent showing with the term "a motivated base" when most of the people who agree with their politics are either voting for other parties or staying home entirely.

Diebold Bush-pledges

Cobra, that sort of tinfoil-hat foolishness is exactly why the Democratic party is in serious trouble.

No rational person can seriously believe that Walden O'Dell ordered Diebold to tweak its voting software to get Bush elected. Even if Dell himself had been willing to rig the software, he wasn't the one writing or installing it. He would have had to include in his conspiracy, at a minimum, every engineer and QA person in his company, plus state-level testers. Every single one of those people would be in a position to blackmail him for the rest of his life. Every single one of those people would be in a position to go to, say, George Soros, and say "how much would you pay me for irrefutable proof that a Bush supporter is engaged in the most overt and widespread act of vote fraud in US History".

I'm sorry, but no rational person can really believe something like that happened. In spite of that fact, many Democrats do believe it -- just as many Republicans believed the Clintons bumped off Vince Foster. They see "the other side" as an unstoppable, Borg-like evil force of slavishly obedient evildoers. Voters react negatively to that sort of frothing irrationality.

Haha, nice flame, Cobra. Democrats think they should get a +3 handicap in presidential elections, just for being Democrats. They really do, don't they.

Cobra-

12 hour lines in Democratic districts

I call Bullsh!t. I was a precinct official who worked two different precincts(was assigned one, then transferred to an adjoining precinct at 4:00 p.m. due to another worker's emergency situation) in Franklin County(Columbus) in 2004, both of which were "Democratic" and "minority-heavy" compared to Columbus overall.

--- Our lines at both precincts were a consistent 2 to 2 1/2 hrs. all day long- but if you were in line before 7:30 p.m.- you voted.

provisional ballots

More bullshit. Ohio handled their provisional ballots exactly as they have in every other election for the last twenty years(I got an "express letter" from Ken Blackwell 4 days before the election explaining the court ruling and it's effects)- and we counted more of them percentage-wise than either Penn. or Wisc.- both of which were quite close contests themselves.

Diebold Bush-pledges

The trifecta of bullsh!t! Please educate yourself about how many ballots in Ohio were cast on machines manufactured by Diebold- and the politcian who was responsible for that decision).

Hints: "0" and "Ken Blackwell"

"vote challengers" in black precincts

I was wrong... you hit the "superfecta".

I worked two different "minority" precincts. We had a single Republican "observor" at one of them- I did not see him challenge or even speak to a single voter the entire time he was there- indeed, I spoke to him twice:

1)He asked me to clarify that he was permitted to stand in a certain spot while he was observing, and the limits of what his rights and responsibilites were(at 5:50 a.m. for gawd's sake- I was barely conscious! :o)).

2)He asked if we could come to an arrangement with the school officials whose building the voting was taking place in to open the adjacent auditorium(we were in the "stage area") so that voters standing in line could get out of the rain.(The final count in this precinct was 72% Kerry- with over 85% of registered voters in the precinct casting a ballot-the other precinct I worked had Kerry at 68% w/ a 90+% turnout)- his stated reason was "to prevent any objections or challenges afterwards..."

We managed to accomodate his request(that's when our "line waiting to vote" increased from 1 hr. to 2 1/2 hrs.)

Perhaps something illegal did happen in another precinct(search for "Ohio vote fraud" with "ACT", "ACORN", "NAACP" and/or "crack cocaine"-oops! those are all Democratic-leaning groups)... but you are insulting a lot of extremely ethical people (Republican, Democratic, and others like myself) who choose to ignore their partisan leanings to assist in the functioning of our electoral processes... and have done nothing to deserve such unfounded and unsourced accusations from an ignorant fool like yourself.

'I think tax cuts that reduce federal governemnt revenue by less than 1% of GDP can hardly be called "ruinous."'

Huh? The relation of the tax cuts to GDP is meaningless. It is only meaningful if it is compared to what it does to government revenues and the relation of those revenues to what is spent. Admittedly most of the conservatives posting here would love to see the social programs eliminated but that would do nothing for our huge defense expenditures. Of course all of the evil Commie pinko socialist liberals were lying when they tried to claim that the Iraq war would cost $200 billion. They were underestimating the cost.

Dan writes:

>>>No rational person can seriously believe that Walden O'Dell ordered Diebold to tweak its voting software to get Bush elected."

Are you talking about the SAME Diebold Voting system that was named "worst technology of the year" by Fortune Magazine in 2003?
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/subs/article/0,15114,558787,00.html

Are you talking about the SAME Diebold Voting system chronicled in this report?

>>>In response to the Nevada Gaming Control
Board's review of Diebold and Sequoia voting machines, Heller has decided to
deploy Sequoia systems statewide. Sequoia systems are already being used in
Clark County, which has 70% of the population. The summary of the report
from the Board includes this statement: "...the Diebold electronic voting
machine, operating on the software analyzed in a John Hopkins report and the
SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation) Risk Assessment
Report, represents a legitimate threat to the integrity of the election
process."
http://verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=977

Are you talking about the SAME Diebold whose intensive background checks on its employees allowed this to occur?

>>>"SAN FRANCISCO -- At least five convicted felons secured management positions at a manufacturer of electronic voting machines, according to critics demanding more stringent background checks for people responsible for voting machine software...
...Voter advocate Bev Harris alleged Tuesday that managers of a subsidiary of Diebold, one of the country's largest voting equipment vendors, included a cocaine trafficker, a man who conducted fraudulent stock transactions and a programmer jailed for falsifying computer records.
...The programmer, Jeffrey Dean, wrote and maintained proprietary code used to count hundreds of thousands of votes as senior vice president of Global Election Systems, or GES. Diebold purchased GES in January 2002....
...According to a public court document released before GES hired him, Dean served time in a Washington state correctional facility for stealing money and tampering with computer files in a scheme that "involved a high degree of sophistication and planning."
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html?tw=wn_polihead_1

The owner of Diebold, whom you seem to hold in such high esteem?

>>>Walden O'Dell, the head of Diebold Inc., has raised large sums for President George W. Bush and pledged in a campaign fund-raising letter that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president" in 2004."
http://www.ballotpaper.org/archives/000027.html

I'm not trying to hijack the thread to electronic voting machines, but Dan...we have an administration that "fixed facts" and misled this country into an unneccessary war at the cost of thousands of lives and $300 billion in taxpayers dollars with no end in sight. Couple that with paperless, hackable computerized voting technology in a climate where NOBODY'S computerized personal information is SAFE (can you say "identity theft?" "banking accounts?".
http://www.forbes.com/business/services/feeds/ap/2005/06/28/ap2113252.html
In this light, my questions to you are:

Why you would put this gluttonous administration above ANY suspicion regarding voting when it shows such a dubious record with HONESTY regarding war, war profiteering, energy policy, and fiscal responsibility...AND--
Why on EARTH would you blindly trust the results of a paperless electronic voting system with so little safeguards as Diebold?

--Cobra

Scott,

I'm not saying YOU'RE PERSONALLY responsible for the nefarious activities that occur on election in America. I'm sure you're an upstanding citizen, and society needs people like you willing to volunteer their time and services at the polls.
Your calling a "fool" doesn't bother me, either. I've been called worse names before, on many occasions. That's part of the minority benefit package in America. ;-). But what concerns me is the fact that you can use a line like this:

>>> but you are insulting a lot of extremely ethical people (Republican, Democratic, and others like myself) who choose to ignore their partisan leanings to assist in the functioning of our electoral processes... and have done nothing to deserve such unfounded and unsourced accusations from an ignorant fool like yourself."

There is an ENORMOUS pool of information on the the Ohio Vote of 2004 regarding voter fraud. Not just about Diebold, but also Triad, and subsequent investigations and affidavits. A Goo&le search will pull up 680,000 links on voting fraud in Ohio, so calling my questions "unfounded and unsourced" really doesn't reflect well on you.

--Cobra

Google results

Ohio voting fraud: 308,000
moon landing hoax: 73,100
round earth hoax: 145,000
bigfoot: 1,600,000
Loch Ness monster: 713,000
alien abduction: 578,000
anal probe: 839,000
Elvis death hoax: 40,900
intelligent design: 24,700,000
Napoleon short: 1,210,000
aliens pyramids: 109,000

Res ipsa loquitur.

I have voted for many Democrats in my life, but none since 1998. And Cobra, people like you make me far, far less inclined to vote for them again. I have a lot of philosphical differences with the Dems right now. That's hard enough to get past. But moonbats like you, Michael Moore and the rest of your ilk move your party from unsupportable to downright detestable. I long for the day the Dems offer a real option with sane arguments because I can't stand the whole the Republicans are spending us into.

Damn it! That's "hole" not "whole". Whoops! ;)

Are you talking about the SAME Diebold Voting system that was named "worst technology of the year" by Fortune Magazine in 2003?

The owner of Diebold, whom you seem to hold in such high esteem?

I never said that I held O'Dell in high esteem. I never said that Diebold made high-quality products. I didn't even claim that George Bush would have been unwilling to steal the election, since his willingness to steal the election is irrelevant to my point.

What I did say was that it was irrational to believe that Diebold took part in a conspiracy to rig the Ohio election, as you had claimed it did. Nothing you've said since then has made your belief seem any more sane.

Sorry but the regurgitated DU talking points just aren't making it.

'particularly those of disenfranchised African Americans,'

During Mary Frances Berry's phony Commission for Civil Rights hearings they were unable to produce one witness who had been denied the right to vote. Donna Brazile's imaginary 'guns and dogs' apparently were unable to prevent anybody from voting.

Cobra:
If African-American or Democratic votes disproportionately didn't get counted in Florida, it's because the Democrats running the big-city election systems used punch-card equipment known to be inaccurate, designed confusing ballots, failed to educate voters in how to fill in the ballots, and didn't arrange enough voting stations to handle the turn-out.

Diebold and Ohio: I know Diebold engineers who worked on that project. They were having enough trouble getting the hardware and Windows-based software to work right - they certainly didn't have time to add ways to deliberately foul up the count. Nor would they have. But until you show us evidence that Diebold machines were ever used in Ohio, it's irrelevant anyhow.

I notice no one's complaining about the count in Georgia in 2000, which used Diebold machines across the board.

And finally, you haven't mentioned the real election scandals:

1) Washington State in 04, where Democrats conducted a f'd up election, lost the gubernatorial race, then recounted and recounted until suddenly enough extra votes appeared to just barely put their candidate in.

2) Chicago, where the Democratic vote-stealing has been scandalous my entire life. And I'm over 50.

3) Democratic initiatives all over the country to prevent election officials from checking ID's and addresses, or doing anything else to prevent people from voting multiple times, voting in precincts they don't live in, and voting when they aren't even citizens.

Yes, I think our election systems are a mess and need a major overhaul and much better security and verifiability. But it's the Democrats who've insisted on introducing huge holes in the process.

I find it interesting that in a nation that utilized poll taxes, grandfather clauses, literacy tests and all manner of voter suppression techniques in the 20th Century we have people who believe that any reference to possible voter fraud and disenfranchisement is "moonbat."
The chickens come home to roost with companies like Choice Point, the company that scrubbed thousands of legal black voters in Florida off the rolls in 2000 at the behest of Republicans.
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:ONoDMVqXY5cJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Central_Voter_File+%22Choice+Point%22,+black+voters&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
All of a sudden, they're an "issue", because 145,000 Americans had their private information leaked.
>>>ChoicePoint, the data broker that leaked the personal information of 145,000 Americans, has gone off schedule in its efforts to prevent such a breach happening again.
In early March, the company announced it would exit some parts of the personal data business and that it would sell information only in situations where specific criteria are met. The transition would be "substantially completed" within 90 days, ChoicePoint said at the time. That schedule would mean the effort would be done about early June."
http://news.com.com/ChoicePoint+overhaul+falls+behind/2100-1029_3-5761503.html

"Moonbat" indeed. But that's ok. Just keep blindly trusting Republican backed corporations, folks. We know they have YOUR BEST INTERESTS in mind, right?

--Cobra

An even better example from Illinois is East St Louis, IL where five *Democrat* party leaders were just convicted of vote fraud.

Gateway Pundit story

SO absent election fraud the GOP wouldn't control the White House, the House and the Senate. Therefore therefore the Democrats don't need to work to attract more voters. Just shout "DIEBOLD, Downing, Deferral, Disenfranchised and Deception".

Sounds like a plan, C!

Let me summarize the arguments so far, shall I:

The people from [insert your political party]did [some action] while [insert opposing political party] did not do [identical action].

Now lets do some name calling!

Are we done?

Let me add that I think anyone who evokes any of the names michael moore, ann coulter, rush limbaugh or al frankin (or similar) in what is supposed to be an interesting political debate on the issues has just lost.

That all being said, I find all of these "I haven't voted democrat since.... because of ...." really interesting.

I vote for candidates and I vote for issues. I do not vote for parties. I am a registered democrate because a) I live in NYC and, until recently, if you wanted to vote in the primary of they guy who was going to eventually get elected then you wanted to vote for dem. and b) because as much as I dislike the dems on a variety of issues, I tend to dislike the repubs. more.

I am sure I will be called a one issue voter by saying this but I tend to shy away from any candidate who views their religion as a main part of their political ideology. This means abortion, prayer in schools, anti-sodomy laws, etc. Probably because I am not a christian. I generally like a divided government. I tend to be socially libertarian, fiscally conservative (but not ultra so).

I think the democrats failure is based entirely on the fact that Republican's offer the dream and democrats deal with the reality. (which is the opposite of the way it used to be). People like repealing the estate tax, because someday that tax might apply to them and they won't want to be taxed. They want to give tax breaks to the wealthy, because they might need those breaks someday. They won't need welfare, they won't need handouts (except for the ones they already have). Republicans offer limitless possiblities of what could be.

Democrats, (who used to be the party of limitless, utopian possiblity with no more crime, everyone educated, everyone equal) in turn, are now depressing. They say that things aren't fair or right. They oppose these things and then tell you that you probably won't be rich enough to benefit from the Republican plans. Who the heck wants to hear that.

That's the real problem with democrats. They're such a downer today.

While it is tragically true that W spends too much, cynically in my view, he and most Republicans really do believe in defending the country. Iraq is nothing but downside for Bush et al, but they don't make a major course correction every time another bomb goes off or because the other side won't roll over and play dead. In the end, a majority of Americans will go with the candidate they believe will defend them.

The Democrats cannot compete in this environment. They believe, really, that the best defense is conversation, engagement and mutual understanding. This is called projection. They believe that our enemies aren't that much different from us and that with a patient search for common ground, all major issues can be worked out. Not only does this sound good, but it makes defense spending truly a waste of money and diversion of resources, also a Democratic constant.

Another Democratic fantasy is that, if they could just get their message out, they would win. In point of fact, they, i.e. Clinton, only win nationally when the message is intentionally obscured. Dick Morris' job was to find a way to sell a liberal message to a moderate/conservative audience. The product was not intellectual honesty.

The Democratic posters above, Cobra and Jim S, very likely believe themselves to be 'moderates' and in the mainstream. My most liberal friends believe the same thing about themselves. They think Howard Dean is good for the party. They believe that most Republicans are Bible-thumping censors who want to outlaw birth control pills--some are, most aren't. They think that the majority of Americans who vote Republican are either bad or stupid--some are, most aren't, the same being true for Democrats. Insult and invective are what passes for civil discourse among these moderates.

After 9-11, the Democratic Party had a chance to seriously review its views on national security. Some--Lieberman and Gephardt--did so and remained steadfast. Lieberman is the loneliest Democrat in the country and Gephardt is out of office. When they got hammered in the 2002 elections, the Democrats learned the wrong lesson and made it their central policy. In 2002, still lacking a clear voice on defense but unable to go pacifist with the polls being 70% or more in the hawk mode, the election went to the candidates with the clear voice. Completely missing this point, the Democrats determined to 'be Democrats again' and returned to their roots. The result was Howard Dean forcing John Kerry to declare himself the anti-war candidate in the Democratic primary. The rest is history.

McKinney,

W and most of the Gop probably do believe in defending the country. But most Democrats believe this too. Where we differ is on how to do it best and how much to spend. In the current political context, the war in Iraq is somehow equated with "defending our country", even though Iraq posed zero threat to us and the action in Iraq have actually made us less secure, by pinning down a sizeable portion of our military fighting an unwinnable war that was totally unnecessary and creating a large number of new jihadists with experience fighting the US. Of course, Bush doesn't waver. That would require him to admit a mistake, something he doesn't appear to be in the habit of doing. He CAN'T back down on this war, or the entire GOP will probably be pummelled for it and Bush and Rove know this. As for Iraq being "nothing but downside" for Bush, I disagree. This war is very popular with his base and allows him to assume the mantle of "war president". Liberals and Democrats criticize him, of course, but there's nothing new about that and little risk for him in that regard.

Scott wrote:

The trifecta of bullsh!t! Please educate yourself about how many ballots in Ohio were cast on machines manufactured by Diebold- and the politcian who was responsible for that decision).

Hints: "0" and "Ken Blackwell"

Scott, just so we’re clear, who did manufacture the voting machines used in Ohio during the 2004 elections if not Diebold?

Fascinating

Mckinneytexas and Willie B Goode just gave an example of what the problems are with the current debate. Mckinneytexas tells us what democrats think and Willie gets defensive and starts explaining.

Mckinney. You are wrong. That is not what democrats think. That is what liberals think. There is a difference.

Willie. He won't hear you. Don't even bother.

I think the democrats failure is based entirely on the fact that Republican's offer the dream and democrats deal with the reality.

It would be exhausting to list all the ways in which that claim is wrong, so I'll settle for listing just two:

(1): Republicans acknowledge that Social Security is bankrupt. Democrats claim that the system is fine as-is. Democrats also claim that private investing is more risky than Ponzi schemes such as Social Security, despite the fact that Ponzi schemes are mathematically guaranteed to fail.

(2): Democrats want a massive system of socialized medicine, to be "paid" for by repealing a tax cut that "cost" a tiny fraction of what their system would.

Furthermore, look at the things you cite as Republican "dreaming" -- their attacks on welfare, the death tax, and government handouts. How is it "dreaming" to believe that the average American has no need for these things? It is a simple fact that the average American pays the government more than he ever gets back from it. The average American never collects welfare, aside from Social Security (which, again, Republicans want to replace with a non-welfare system of investments).

It seems to me that you are claiming that Democrats deal with "reality" because they pander to irrational and unfounded fears, while Republicans are "dreamers" because they advocate policies that are proven successes, such as private investment and tax cuts. That doesn't make any sense.

Kate Wrote:

That all being said, I find all of these "I haven't voted democrat since.... because of ...." really interesting.
I vote for candidates and I vote for issues. I do not vote for parties. I am a registered democrate because a) I live in NYC and, until recently, if you wanted to vote in the primary of they guy who was going to eventually get elected then you wanted to vote for dem. and b) because as much as I dislike the dems on a variety of issues, I tend to dislike the repubs. more.

I guess that's aimed at me and the implication I take from it is that I must vote party line Republican since I haven't voted Dem since 1998. Of course, this would be a false assumption since there are 3rd party candidates on ballots in most major elections and I have been known to pull a Libertarian lever or two. But don't let that get in the way of your assumptions.

Seriously, I could get into why I haven't voted for a Dem in 7 years and even go candidate by candidate if you'd like, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to go into that detail, and I think I'd bore the crap out of the readers here as well.

And as for "losing" if I invoke the name Michael Moore, if someone (like Cobra) is going to inject the rantings of the freaky far left into the discussion, then naming the Poster Boy of the Freaky Far Left is more than apppropriate. The Democratic Party has more than one wing to it. One wing is the Lieberman wing (very small these days I fear), another is the Clinton wing, another is the freaky far left MoveOn.org foaming at the mouth wing. Just like the Republicans have their albatross to bear (Christian right) so do the Dems have theirs. I just happen to hate the MoveOns more than the Evangelicals. At least the Evangelicals believe in a strong defense and capitalism.

Dan and Paul:

Why does the Republican agenda seem to me to appeal to an optimist and the Democratic agenda seem to me to appeal to a pessimistic agenda? Because the tax cuts for the wealthy or the removal of a "death tax" appeals to people who don't get the benefit because there is a possibility they might. That seems to me a very good reason why someone who might not otherwise benefit from much of what the republicans offer would vote for them.

Conversely, the Democrats keep telling individuals who will not benefit from republican policies that they are not going to benefit from republican policies.

Would you rather believe the guy who is telling you that you could benefit from some policies someday in the future or the guy who is telling you that you won't receive any benefit now? Seems pretty obvious to me.

Similarly, would you rather believe the guy who says there was ample justification to go to Iraq, that the war is going well and we are winning. Or would you rather believe the guy who is telling you the whole going into Iraq thing was a bad idea for a variety of reasons, that we've actually increased Al Queda's presence in the region and that the government lied about the information they had on the region. I'd rather believe the first guy.

Actually social security is a pretty good example of this whole thing. Would you rather be told that SS is fine and you are going to have pleanty of money for your retirement? Or would you rather have someone tell you that SS is about to fall into bankruptsy? I know which one I would rather believe. Perhaps that is why Bush can't muster support for his SS plan.

Kate,

I know he won't hear me, but I do get defensive when people claim to know what entire groups of people "think." Realistically, you can't know what any other person thinks, let alone a whole political party.

Dan,

Social Security is not bankrupt!

Personally Kate, I'd rather think for myself and come to my own conclusions than believe anything they say. But that's just me. For instance, as a CPA, I know that private accounts for Social Security would greatly increase my chances for a comfortable retirement. I would much rather invest my money in private investments than leave it in the hands of Congress. I would make a better return too, and I wouldn't even have to invest in "risky" schemes. You want to tell me converting to private accounts is massively expensive, OK I'll buy that. But don't try to patronize me by telling me investing my own money is too "risky". That's just insulting my intelligence. Lucky for me I can afford to invest in "risky" 401(k)'s that will prevent me from relying on government programs like SS. Just think if I had an extra 13% of my income that gets sunk into SS to put in those accounts. Wow.

Given my education and skill set, I have a pretty good idea of what programs may or may not affect me in the future. I don't need politicians to tell me what will or won't help me.

I vote Republican (mostly) because the Democrats have nothing to offer someone like me. While Bush may not have been completely upfront about what he's trying to do in Iraq (the democratization of Middle East governments-starting with Iraq and hopefully creating a domino effect) I understand why he's trying to do it. The Dems have no coherent answer to "What would you do about the Islamofascist problem"? Or maybe it's just that they have no answer that has satisfied me.

I find it hard to believe you're not a party liner given your posts, but I'll take your word for it. I have voted for Clinton (twice), Libermann, Chris Dodd and Roy Barnes in the past.

But not anymore. Why? As I said I'm a CPA and my wife is a pharmacist. We make a very good income. But we're working stiffs, just like everyone else. We have bosses, limited vacation, etc. We make good money, but we're not wealthy (yet). We are not religious at all, yet we vote Republican (and some Libertarian). Why? Seriously, what does the Democratic Party have to offer people like us? I'm pro-capitalism and pro-strong defense. I want restrained government spending and smaller (or no) deficits, but there is no party offering that. Maybe if you guys offered to clamp down on illegal immigration and reform the whole system, I'd be all ears, but I don't get that from either party, either.

Come up with something, anything to offer people like us, and we'll listen. Right now, you've got nothing.

Kate and Willie:

I think you are making my points. I admit to using Democrat as synonymous liberal. If there is a meaningful difference, I would like to hear it.

Willie illustrates perfectly the Democratic mentality on national defense and security. Democrats believe in defending the country, too; they just have a different view on how to go about doing it and how much to spend. Indeed. Unfortunately, beyond that very general statement, most of us have no idea what the specific Democratic national security agenda consists of. Given recent history, the more pertinent question is whether there even is one.

In 1991, after the UN authorized the removal by force of Saddam's army from Kuwait, the vast majority of congressional and senate Democrats opposed US participation. In doing so, they were in complete conformity with standard Democratic thinking. Fast forward to 2002 with a lookback to the nine years prior to 9-11 during which the US sustained 6 separate Al Quaeda attacks and an Iraqi attempt to assasinate a former US president. In standard liberal/Democratic thinking , the Al Quaeda attacks were a law enforcement matter, not a matter of national defense. The attempt on Bush the Elder earned Saddam a missile attack. The foregoing were completely consistent with the Democratic minimalist approach to national security.

Post 9-11, Democratic senators and congress members, breaking with their pacifist base, supported going into Afghanistan and also supported disarming, by force, Saddam if he didn't comply with various UN resolutions. This was the afore-mentioned opportunity for the party to reorient itself on national defense.

In the run-up to the war resolution on Iraq and the war itself, the near-universal view was that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. He was not an imminent threat, but viewed as a potential long term threat. Although,he had Al Quaeda connections, there is no evidence that he had anything to do with the 9-11 attack. Also, in the run-up, the Administration made the point that a free Iraq would not threaten its neighbors, the US or anyone else and would be, hopefully, the beginning of a democratic movement in the Arab Middle East. Finally, then, if not now, many Democrats, most independents and the vast majority of Republicans favored pre-emption. War against Iraq was viewed as largely pre-emptive.

Then came the 2002 elections followed by the invasion followed by the absence of an existing WMD arsenal which combined to let the Democrats revert to type, not without significant inconsistency. Post 2002 and certainly in the 2004 election, Democrats were beside themselves that the US 'unilaterally' invaded Iraq without UN support. This outrage remains tinged with opportunism. Flashback to 1991, when we did have UN support: Where were the Democrats then? As well, having voted for the war, with troops on the ground, but having lost soundly in 2002, it became time to 'be real Democrats' again and oppose the war. The absence of WMD couple with the absence of UN approval provided much of the cover for this reversal nothwithstanding that the WMD absence was entirely after the fact and unexpected in every quarter and lack of UN approval was known at the time these many Democrats voted for war.

Where the more aggressive Democrats see the War on Terror as the War in Afghanistan Against Al Queda, Republicans see the War as a multi-front, difficult, long term affair. Willie sums it up perfectly: the war is unwinnable and unnecessary, we are less secure, we have troops tied down, Iraq was not a threat. Four out of five of these complaints--unwinnable, unnecessary, troops tied down and no threat--were fully debated prior to these many Democrats voting for war. To believe them to be true today, you have to accept only the worst news that comes out of Iraq, disregard entirely the nature of who we are fighting there (Al Quaeda, the Taliban and Saddam's Sunni die-hard remnants)as opposed to here or elsewhere in the world and fantasize that anyone thought invading Iraw would 'win' anything. The war was and remains a pre-emptive endeavor--by eliminating a potential threat, we don't have to face the threat.

When you get past the sound bites on both sides, the Republican thinking on the War on Terror, as best I can put it together, goes something like this: Our country was attacked here and abroad 7 times between 1993 and 2001 always without provocation. We have not been attacked outside of Iraq since then. No one believes this will last. No rational person believes that the mindset in that quarter of the Muslim world that led to the first 7 attacks was satisfied at that point and ready to lay down its arms. We will be attacked again, there is near universal consensus on this point and it predates invading Iraq. An open society is impossible to defend passively, i.e. waiting to be attacked and hoping to fend off the attacks as they come. The only way to meaningfully reduce, but not eliminate, terrorist attacks is to carry the war, overtly, covertly and ruthlessly, to wherever these people call home. This kind of war, in many ways, is totally without precedent. It is war against a fanatical and barbaric religous movement that is within and without national borders. It is not a clash of armies, nor a conflict with a nation state that can formally surrender. Measuring success against failure is and always will be ambiguous. What we know about war, from our history and experience, is this: nearly every one that this country has fought has been difficult, bloody, characterized by multiple and signficant early reverses, produced casualties that, given the population at the time, make what we see today in Iraq positively pale by comparison, and, perhaps most importantly,featured any number of battles and campaigns that, after the fact, could be seen to have been much more important, or less, than thought at the time. Organized war against a nation state with a standing army is an imperfect business, replete with missed opportunities, needless casualties and the deaths of many innocents. War in the shadows, fought against an enemy that strikes mostly at civilians, an enemy whose ruthlessness is as extreme as any we've ever faced, is even more difficult. Lacking a template and prior experience to work of off, we have no choice but to improvise, take risks, anticipate setbacks and reverses and, most of all, not fail, falter or relent.

This is my take on what I think the driving force behind this administration is. I sign on to it recognizing that it and I could well be wrong. But right now, I don't have a tangible alternative. I don't see and havn't seen a consensus among Democrats of what they think this war consists of, what they think the nature of our enemy is and how, in some detail, they propose to prosecute it. Would the Democrats leave Iraq today? In six months? In a year? Would they send in more troops or reduce our presence? Do we need a larger standing army? Should we be more aggressive with countries such as Syria and Iran? In each of these cases, what is the underlying strategic and tactical thinking?

It is also my sense that liberals/Democrats, informed as they are by an underlying pacifist tendency and more than a little uncomfortable with the notion of asserting a sense of nationalism, minimize and overlook the nature of the threats we face, are reluctant to identify our enemy in clear and stark terms and are too quick to view their own country as the root cause of why the Islamofacists hate us.

In short, Democrats' longstanding aversion to all things military, to the notion of war, to its nature, to the thought of actually preparing to fight a war, ill equips them, when war comes calling uninvited, to deal effectively with harsh reality. The last best chance to reorient, as manyseemed to be doing, was in the aftermath of 9-11 and the invasion of Iraq. Unfortunately, when things got difficult, too many who voted to go in lost their nerve.

I can't believe, that wanting everybody elligible to have their vote LEGITIMATELY counted makes somebody a "leftist", "activist", "Michael Moore" type.
Anyway, I think far too much credit is being given to the Republican agenda. Most of the credit should go to the Republican strategists and their allies in the media. I don't believe there has ever been a time where so many people so eagerly vote against their own best interests.
Look at the America's Economic Demographics.

>>>Since Bush took office, the middle-income group has declined by 1.2 percentage points , and now constitutes less than 45% of all households...
At the same time, households with less than $25,000 in income have grown by 1.5 percentage points, and now make up 29% of all households. So a large number of households have slipped out of the middle group and into the lower-income range over the past three years...
Furthermore, that process did not stop in 2003 despite the resumption of job growth in September and 4.4% growth in the economy as measured by Gross Domestic Product. The middle-income group lost 0.4 percentage points in 2003...
The upper-income group -- those with income over $75,000 a year -- has also suffered since Bush took office, declining by 0.4 percentage points over three years. However, upper-income households bounced back a bit last year, by two-tenths of a percentage point, and now are back at just over 26% of all households...
So by this measure, the "middle class" continued to shrink in 2003 , and while some "middle class" households moved to the upper-income group, a larger proportion moved down."
http://www.factcheck.org/article249.html

I've heard some posters make statements about defense issues, and how Republicans are strong there. I just want to know what information leads them to believe this? While defense CONTRACTORS are reaping American tax payer dollars in the Billions, how can even PRO-WAR, GUNG-HO, tie-that-ribbon-wave-that-flag Republicans even STOMACH reading reports like this one:

>>>Marine units found to lack equipment
Corps estimates of needs in Iraq are called faulty
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | June 21, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Marine Corps units fighting in some of the most dangerous terrain in Iraq don't have enough weapons, communications gear, or properly outfitted vehicles, according to an investigation by the Marine Corps' inspector general provided to Congress yesterday.
The report, obtained by the Globe, says the estimated 30,000 Marines in Iraq need twice as many heavy machine guns, more fully protected armored vehicles, and more communications equipment to operate in a region the size of Utah.
The Marine Corps leadership has ''understated" the amount and types of ground equipment it needs, according to the investigation, concluding that all of its fighting units in Iraq ''require ground equipment that exceeds" their current supplies, ''particularly in mobility, engineering, communications, and heavy weapons."
Complaints of equipment shortages in Iraq, including lack of adequate vehicle armor, have plagued the Pentagon for months, but most of the reported shortages have been found in the Army, which makes up the bulk of the American occupation force.
The analysis of the Marines' battle readiness, however, shows that the Corps is lacking key equipment needed to stabilize Al Anbar province in western Iraq. The province is where some of the bloodiest fighting has occurred in recent months between American-led coalition forces and Iraqi insurgents aided by foreign fighters who have slipped across the border. >>>http://www.congress.org/congressorg/issues/alert/?

Neither Howard Dean, Michael Moore, MoveOn.org, Air America or a little cartoonist/singer/blogposter like Cobra is in charge right now. This is a REPUBLICAN controlled Presidency, House, Senate, and SCOTUS.
Many posters ask if what is the Democrats alternative? Well, the problem is that despite whatever pundits say, liberals don't control the media. CORPORATIONS control the media, and therefore, control the message, especially in light of deregulation on media ownership. Howard Dean is absolutely right in concentrating on a grass roots movement in states, and utilizing the internet--gaining support $20 at a time from individuals, and not bowing down to the corporate shrine.
The bottom line, as I heard expressed quite clearly on a recent radio program, is that today's Republicans apparently believe in "corporate liberty, and the regulation of individuals", whereas today's Democrats believe in "corporate regulation, and individual liberty."

--Cobra

Why does the Republican agenda seem to me to appeal to an optimist and the Democratic agenda seem to me to appeal to a pessimistic agenda?

You didn't use the terms "optimist" and "pessimist". You said:

Republican's offer the dream and democrats deal with the reality

Pessimism is not the same as "dealing with the reality", particularly given that the general trend in America during the past half-century has been, for average Americans, one of ever-increasing personal wealth, freedom, health, longevity, and opportunity. A person who looks at American history and adopts a position of pessimism with regard to the ability of average Americans to thrive without government assistance is a person who has lost touch with reality. It isn't "dreaming" to optimistically believe that what has been true for all of American history -- i.e., that the overwhelming majority of Americans do not require government assistance in order to thrive -- will continue to be true so long as the government doesn't screw things up.

Because the tax cuts for the wealthy or the removal of a "death tax" appeals to people who don't get the benefit because there is a possibility they might.

That's the socialist spin on things, sure. The reality is that I benefit when a rich person gets to retain his money instead of forfeiting it to the US Government, even if I myself don't get a direct cut of the money. Unless your goal in life is to live on the dole or work for the federal government, the same is true for you as well. "Rich" investors create new wealth and jobs for everybody. The government destroys wealth by hiring people for jobs, and paying for goods and services, that the market doesn't want. Every dollar in taxes the government collects reduces the wealth of America as a whole by a fraction of that dollar.

By the way, you're also discounting those Americans who feel that it is immoral to take someone's money by force simply because they have more of it than you, and those Americans who (like many human beings in general) believe in an unlimited right to give of themselves to their own children.

"The government destroys wealth by hiring people for jobs, and paying for goods and services, that the market doesn't want. Every dollar in taxes the government collects reduces the wealth of America as a whole by a fraction of that dollar."

That's the dumbest thing I've read on any blog today, bar none.

Just thought you'd want to know Cobra, I stopped reading after about a paragraph. That's what I think of Democratic Underground types. I've heard it all, don't buy it. Move on, as you all like to say.

I love your site - great posts and comments!

I just started blogging (http://coasm.blogspot.com/). How do you get the cute picture next to the "From the desk of" words?

Thanks
Beth
Confessions of a Soccer Mom

I think Kate and Willie forfeited any right to be coutned as productive contributors to the debate right about the time they started talking past everyone to each other with comments about how "they won't listen to that." It's like watching cognitive dissonance resonate.

No, "they" probably won't listen to that -- neither will 5x-odd percent of the American voting populace, if the past few years of political history are any guide. If your best answer to the issues raised is to cling to a party line and dismiss opposed points of view as willfully ignorant, then I hope that chair in the political wilderness is comfy, because you're going to be spending a lot of time in it. Specifically, from now until the time the Republicans finally cleave in two over social issues.

If the democratic party were a stage production;

And, by definition actors always have lives of their own, besides what they're doing on stage. So that off stage they're not tuned into the audience's suspension of belief; as they watch the stories unfold ...

You're telling me that behind the scenes there aren't worries? Jimmy Carter? Bill Clinton's sex life? Kerry? Algore? Durbin? Pelosi? All of this stuff doesn't cause indigestion? REALLY?

That's the dumbest thing I've read on any blog today, bar none

I take it that you are a member of the school of left-wing economics that holds that the economy can be improved by hiring people to dig ditches and fill them in again?

Because among economically literate people, it is a well-known fact that using extorted money to pay for useless labor destroys wealth. That is what the government does with a disturbingly large chunk of its revenue -- hence, my comment that a fraction of every dollar of wealth the government collects gets destroyed.

Cobra has been hitting the coffee pretty hard lately, I'd say. Several posts back, C tees off on pro-Iraq Republicans using a report that Marine units need more armor and more heavy machine guns, apparently his/her point being that Bush et al knowingly sent our boys and girls out without adequate equipment, all to line the pockets of defense contractors. Cobra, here is a thought: defense contractors make money by selling MORE equipment, not LESS.

While many sins can and should be laid at Bush's personal doorstep, deficiencies in pentagon procurement practices is not one of them. Inadequate funding of defense needs might be a fair criticism, but that is not a place that dovish Democrats really want to go.

McKinney,

I believe you are misrepresenting what I stated. Specifically, I said the war with Iraq is what which unwinnable and unnecessary and has made us less secure. I stand by this and feel that the facts (no WMDS, no Iraq 9/11 connection, more jihadists) support me I did NOT state that the war on terror itself was (although, curiously enough, Bush did say it was not something we could ever win during the campaign)was unwinnable. I support the war on terror, think it is necessary. What I don't think is that preemptively invading Iraq is necessary or even beneficial to fighting the larger WOT. One can support a war in general, but disagree about which battles need to be fought. Feel feel to disagree with me, but please don't misrepresent what I say.

McKinney writes:

>>>Cobra has been hitting the coffee pretty hard lately, I'd say. Several posts back, C tees off on pro-Iraq Republicans using a report that Marine units need more armor and more heavy machine guns, apparently his/her point being that Bush et al knowingly sent our boys and girls out without adequate equipment, all to line the pockets of defense contractors. Cobra, here is a thought: defense contractors make money by selling MORE equipment, not LESS."

No, actually...they make money because of the contract with the US Government. For example:

>>>"WASHINGTON — A top Army Corps of Engineers official charged Monday that Halliburton Co. was able to receive no-bid contracts for work in Iraq because of repeated assistance by the office of the secretary of Defense....
Bunnatine Greenhouse, a longtime senior procurement executive for the Army Corps of Engineers, made the accusation to Democratic lawmakers looking into allegations of war profiteering by the Texas oil services company...
She called the multiple interventions "the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career."

What kind of things did this auditor discover?

>>>Democrats also released a report that added up findings from previously undisclosed Defense Department audits. Together, they show more than $1 billion in possible overcharges and $422 million in billing that lacked the kind of documentation the auditors needed to determine whether the charges were proper...
The vast scale goes well beyond previously released figures. In earlier public reports, auditors had identified about $400 million in questioned costs..."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-na-halliburton28jun28,1,1109831.story?coll=la-iraq-complete

That's just dollar figures, right? What do the findings mean to our troops on the ground?

>>>Possible excessive charges for the oil services contract have been released previously. But Monday's report described possible overcharges of $800 million on "logistical" services, such as food service and trash hauling, conducted in Iraq by KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary formerly known as Kellogg, Brown & Root...
Rory Mayberry, a former KBR food service manager, discussed some of the overcharges in a videotaped statement. He said the company SERVED TROOPS FOOD that had been EXPIRED FOR AS LONG AS A YEAR, provided Turkish and Filipino workers with LEFTOVERS in TRASH BAGS rather than culturally appropriate food, and OVERCHARGED for 10,000 MEALS PER DAY in order to make up for a financial sanction imposed by the Pentagon."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-na-halliburton28jun28,1,1109831.story?coll=la-iraq-complete

So here is a blatant example of a millitary contractor "making more money by selling less."

I suppose that now, as logic dictates, Ms. Greenhouse, the Army Corps of Engineers Procurement Executive, and KBR Food Service Mgr. Rory Mayberry will be accused of "liberalism", "pacifism", or something.
These aren't the only accounts of corporate fraud under Republican leadership in this war, but it doesn't get the airplay it should because the corporate media is the gatekeeper. That fits right into the "everything is better when it's privatized" agenda espoused by many here, because profiteering is the soul of the corporate religion.

--Cobra

Specifically, I said the war with Iraq is what which unwinnable and unnecessary and has made us less secure

I'm not interested in debating the necessity of the war. What's strange to me is that you would claim it is "unwinnable". What is the basis for that claim? The people we're fighting in Iraq are people the majority of Iraqis dislike too. There isn't an infinite supply of those people. Eventually they'll all be dead, and the war will be over.

Dan, you just don't understand leftist logic. The war in Vietnam was unwinnable (at least in the half-assed way Kennedy and Johnson fought it), and therefore all wars are unwinnable.

I think that people need to view more of the facts when evaluating this Republican war effort in Iraq.
First of all, any talk of "pulling the troops out" rings hollow because right now, our tax dollars, (which many posters begrudge going to the poor and needy) is going to build 14 "enduring" (permanent) US military bases in Iraq...
>>>From the ashes of abandoned Iraqi army bases, U.S. military engineers are overseeing the building of an enhanced system of American bases designed to last for years...
Last year, as troops poured over the Kuwait border to invade Iraq, the U.S. military set up at least 120 forward operating bases. Then came hundreds of expeditionary and temporary bases that were to last between six months and a year for tactical operations while providing soldiers with such comforts as e-mail and Internet access.
Now U.S. engineers are focusing on constructing 14 "enduring bases," long-term encampments for the thousands of American troops expected to serve in Iraq for at least two years. The bases also would be key outposts for Bush administration policy advisers."
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:BCURpIN6r70J:www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2004/040323-enduring-bases.htm+14+military+bases,+Iraq&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

OUR US Tax dollars are also being spent on building this curiosity:

>>>The Bush Administration is in the process of establishing a new embassy in Baghdad with regional offices throughout Iraq. The President has requested more than $1.3 BILLION in its FY2005 supplemental request for the logistical, security and construction costs associated with the embassy. In 2005, even before it is built and fullystaffed, this embassyis the largest worldwide in both staff size and budget."
http://www.usembassy.it/pdf/other/RS21867.pdf.

This "embassy" is going to cost the American people slightly less than the recently cancelled 75,000 retractable domed Olympic/New York Jets Stadium on the West Side of Manhattan, some of the most expensive real estate in America.

Where else are OUR US Tax dollars going, you ask?

>>>The Iraq Project and Contracting Office (PCO), formerly called the Program Management Office, manages the $18.4 billion GIFT from the American people to the Iraqi people to support the reconstruction of Iraq's infrastructure...
The $18.4 billion fund is divided into the following parts:
*$5.0 billion awarded in March for program management and construction.
*$5.8 billion being awarded over time as "non-construction" contracts.
*$1.8 billion awarded by U.S. Agency for International Development for various capacity building and infrastructure projects.
*$0.8 billion awarded by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for oil infrastructure contracts.
*$1.0 billion for various construction, security and other contracts
*$4.0 billion in reserve for later usage"
http://iraq.usembassy.gov/iraq/iraq_pco.html

Gee, with all that money allocated, you would believe this Republican Administration would have Iraqi infrastructure up and running like clockwork by now, right?

Ummm...

>>>Baghdad's mayor threatened to resign on Thursday if the government fails to provide the funds and support needed to implement development projects in the capital, complaining Baghdadis were suffering from water shortages...
"It's useless for any official to stay in office without having the means to accomplish his job," Alaa Mahmoud al-Timimi said in a press conference. "I am still committed to my promise that I will quit and leave my position if I don't get the instruments that allow me to carry out the plan I put for Baghdad..."
"...Baghdad, a city of an estimated six million people, has more than 160 billion litres of potable water in reservoirs, the US military has said.
Sixty five water treat