When there are only 20 Republicans left in Congress...

Gee Set, when did you become such a cynic?

It's not cynicism, E_Brown, it's realism. Initially there were no political parties, just special interest groups of greater or lesser extents. But parties gradually formed as people saw them as a means of organizing and getting out the vote. By the 1820s, the Democratic-Republican Party was the only one still standing. Then Andrew Jackson lost the election to John Quincy Adams, despite winning the popular vote, and despite the fact that they were both Democratic-Republicans. Many people in the D-R were unhappy, and many people felt that that party didn't represent them, especially people on the frontiers (which were then in Alabama and Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky, Illinois and Wisconsin). So he organized what became the modern Democratic Party, and he organized it from the ground up. Having been the popular military figure in the Creek War, and about the only army man to come out of the War of 1812 with his reputation intact, he was able to find places for alls his friends and associates in the Tennessee militia, which was organized by counties. When he came to create his new political organization, he went to those men, and the party was organized from the county upward, with precinct committeemen appointed within the counties to get out the vote.

After J. Q. Adams was defeated by Jackson in 1828, he tried to organize a National Republican Party to oppose the Democrats. It didn't work, and the rise of the Whig Party diffused opposition to the Democrats. But the idea of a party of the mercantile interest, supporting strong central government didn't go away, and eventually, the Republican Party was organized. They lost the 1856 bid for the White House (i mean, come on, John C. Frémont? they were beggin' for an ass-whippin'), but the experience helped them to organize along the same lines as the Democrats. In 1860, the Democrats split, and the Whigs died of natural causes. After the war, the Democrats were the party of refuge for those who opposed the Republicans (and there a great many of those, and haters of Lincoln, far many more than popular history would lead you to believe), and especially among racists, who were numerous North and South, and who saw the Republicans as the party of the slaves. Blacks remained Republicans for a long time, but increasingly, the Republicans saw that as a liability, and would not associate themselves with an idea of civil rights for blacks. Eventually, the Democrats held out a hand to the blacks, and you had the incredible spectacle of the Democrats being supported by Southern whites and blacks North and South.

All the decisions of the Democrats and Republicans in their history have been conditioned by a perceived need to organize to get out the vote, and get the voters out in their favor. The parties were organized to win elections, and winning elections became the focus, not ideology. The Democrats and Republicans only represent broad and rather vague ideologies, and aren't very dissimilar in their ideologies, although they would like you to believe they are, and their supporters are willing to argue, often hysterically, that a great gulf divides them. As far as the powers that be in the parties are concerned, their jobs are all about getting people elected, and that has precious little to do with ideological purity.

Which only highlights how the GOP needs to jettison their ideological purists if they want to be a viable party again.

The idiots that scream RINO if allowed to control the Republican party will lead to 20 in Congress. As much as they like to claim the reason for the loss is the lack of conservative purity, I doubt it was.

Wait a second. What's wrong with winning elections?

Politicians who don't win elections are of very little consequence regardless of their ideology. Winning elections is the whole point in a democracy.

I am a Democrat. This is because the Democratic party is the best way to get politicians who support the policies I agree to win elections.

This is exactly what I want... Democrats to win elections.



Democracy works because parties who can not express an ideology that has support in the general public. It makes sense that parties change their ideology in response to changes in American opinion. This is exactly why the system works.

It seems to me that "ideological purity" is a bad thing... or at least it is something that is punished in an election.



This is an old argument and is impossible to settle unless there is some way to quantify ideological differences.

I contend that history would have been quite a bit different had Gore won over George W. I also content that things would be been different had Kerry won.

The ideological differences between Obama and McCain (and now Obama and the Republicans) seem particularly important.

This is an attempt to explain the policies of politicians. Politicians are by and large from the legal profession. Their policies are derived from what they believe are the generic solutions to various national problems. As they are lawyers they are careful in their language to cover their own butts so we end up with the phenomenon of generalities. Also, lawyers have vague ideas of what highly technical issues and can be seen in their language. They hedge themselves with words that have safe exits. It is understandable as the modern society is complex and highly technical. The politicians must rely on expert advice.

I didn't say that there's anything wrong with winning elections. That's the best reason to form a well organized political party, from a politician's point of view. I said that political parties are all about winning elections and not about ideology, and you accused me of being cynical. I am responding that, no, i'm just being realistic.



This is a sentence fragment, and i'm not sure what it is supposed to mean. I'm not picking on it in particular, i'm just quoting the first sentence in each section of your response, and then responding, rather than doing that tedious parsing of an entire post. Just as a reminder, Scaramouche wrote: "Are people really that simple minded that they need a party platform to actually have a set of beliefs?" So i have been pointing out that political parties aren't organized (necessarily) for anything but the broadest ideological reasons, that their raison d'être is to win elections.



From where i stand, there is little difference, and in fact, i've seen a complete turn around in my life time (and i'm not yet 60). The political "wisdom" of the 1960s, from a conservative point of view was that Democrats start wars which Republicans are then obliged to end them. Like most such shibboleths, it wasn't even true, but one can see how it arose. World War I, Wilson; World War II, Roosevelt; Korea, Truman; and Vietnam, either Kennedy or Johnson, take your pick. Of course, Wilson was still in office when the Great War ended, and Truman (a Democrat) was in office when World War Two ended--but the basic argument ran that Democrats start wars and Republicans end them, and the left (then known as "the New Left") didn't argue much against it.

Well, Reagan, Pappy Bush and Baby Bush certainly changed that shibboleth.

Another popular shibboleth, so enduring that it's still being repeated by some conservatives despite a good deal of evidence against it the last two decades, is that Democrats "tax and spend" with wild abandon, and that Republicans are fiscally responsible and conservative. About the only thing one can offer in defense of the Republicans is that they are likely to cut taxes and then spend anyway, but they can hardly be considered fiscally responsible--while for the last several years of Clinton's presidency, the Congress was actually producing a surplus (that was a Republican Congress--but if you'll recall, they butted heads with Clinton, who was so unwilling to run a deficit that he twice allowed the government to run out of funding rather than sign what he considered fiscally irresponsible budgets).

Getting into a pissing match about Iraq is an argument of specifics, it's hardly an argument about ideology, especially as it appears that Obama is prepared to continue the war in Afghanistan (and i consider that reasonable). About the only sign so far of a significant ideological difference between Obama and his late opponent and his predecessor is a willingness to increase the income tax, and the details of that have yet to be worked out.

I still don't see many significant ideological differences between the two major parties.

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But just so you don't forget, allow me to repeat that i was responding to the comment by Scaramouche about people not needing a political party to teach them what to believe.

I have noticed, especially beginning with and since Clinton, many Democrats act more and more like Republicans. They may deny it, but the representatives we elect vote essentially Republican while sometimes speaking Democrat.

That goes for their supporters too edgar... I've noticed that there are many issues now where if Bush had done the exact same thing, the left on this board would have complained about it, but if Obama does it, it goes unnoticed.

Jesus, the right wingers are gonna peddle this bullshit for the next eight years, aren't they? Got some specific examples, or is this just another one of your typical whiney episodes?

In real life, as opposed to the fevered imagination of libtards such as yourself (ebrown), there are exactly two ways that could happen: Either a second civil war has taken place and most of the pubbies have been killed off which is overwhelmingly unlikely or, having installed the very leftmost person in the US senate in the whitehouse (roughly equivalent to pubbies putting Joe McCarthy in the whitehouse), you have proceeded to make the lives of the countries normal people increasingly harder and more wretched until they finally took their marbles and went home, and your "congress" now is a congress of New England, Southern California, the East coast North of Maryland, and a couple of rust belt states.

At that point, the question of bipartisanship will be the least of your worries. A much bigger problem will be what to do with the erstwhile kept voting blocks, i.e. the 20 - 30 million people at the bottom of the demoKKKrat system whose only salable skills (after being dumbed down by your NEA minions for 20 years) are voting. Those folks are only needed for voting against us evil/ugly pubbies; you certainly won't need them to vote against YOURSELVES.... They will have reached the exalted status of being absolutely and 100% worthless.

Watcha gonna do with em?

I'm not a right winger Set, I voted for Obama.

Specific examples? Sure.

Deficit spending. Bad when Bush, OK when Obama.
Iraq War withdrawl. 18 months too long when Bush, OK when Obama.
Warrentless Wiretapping. Bad when Bush, OK when Obama.
Bank Bailout. Bad when Bush, OK when Obama.
Earmarks. Bad when Bush, OK when Obama.
Bipartisianship. OK when Bush, Bad when Obama.

I know there's more, but I have to get ready for work.

Deficit spending - bad when in a good economy, necessary when in recession.
Iraq War withdrawal - I don't know when I ever complained about Bush not withdrawing in less than 18 months. His refusal to set any kind of a timeline is different from an 18 month withdrawal.
Warrentless Wiretapping - No, it isn't good when Obama does it and he is reviewing the policy. Why don't we wait until he decides to continue it before we complain
Bank Bailout - Necessary because of economy, (I never complained about it under Bush)
Earmarks - ????
Bipartisanship - Obama is trying for bipartisanship - what is your whine about?

All of these have pros and cons.

Deficit spending: necessary to stimulate a down economy. In an up economy, you should not have deficit spending. You should never cut taxes to take a surplus to a deficit. Bush should have stopped at one tax cut.

Iraq war withdrawal: When Bush announced a plan to end the war towards the end of his term, I was very pleased. I was completely happy with Bush's 18 months and still am with Obama's.

Warrentless Wiretapping. Bad when Bush, Bad when Obama, Bad

Bank Bailout. OK for Bush, OK for Obama, but not good for anyone.

Bipartisianship. Bush completely eschewed bipartisanship for almost his entire presidency. It would have been good had he ever tried it. I've been pleased with Obama's willingness to appr0ach the Republicans and a bit nonplussed by the Republican response. I really thought the Republicans would jump in and try to get some of their priorities in the package. This seems like a bad time to play politics.

Are you prepared to show that people here criticized Bush's deficit spending (recently) but are full of praise for Obama planning to do so? What about Bush and a withdrawal from Iraq? (Personally, i opposed the invasion, but said once it was an accomplished fact that we should not leave until we had lived up to a "we broke it, we should fix it" standard, and for that, 18 months seems reasonable enough, since Iraq will need to provide it's own security.) What examples of warrantless wiretapping on the scale of Bush to you allege Obama has practiced or intends to practice? What examples do you have here of opposition to the Shrub's bank bail-out plan in which those complaining have sung the praises of Obama doing so?

In any of these cases, are you prepared to show that people here whom you have labelled liberal have condemned the Shrub but are now praising Obama? I'd be interested to see your evidence.

I didn't say the left was signing praises for Obama doing what they would have critisized Bush for doing. Strawman.

I said that the left on this board have largely been silent about things that Obama is doing that they WOULD have critisized Bush for doing.

Let me get this right? You are complaining that you have no evidence of liberals doing something compared to no evidence of liberals doing something?

They aren't doing something but they WOULD have done it in the past. That's pretty much a nonsense argument.

Well, i can't improve on the response Parados made.

I don't think you got that right.

Well, Maporsche, alleged not right-winger, how do you define liberal? Who do you allege is a liberal? Upon what basis do you allege that "liberals" would have objected to these measures in the past? I see you back-peddling furiously . . .

I don't know where I said "liberal" anywhere. I could be wrong though.

And please stop with the "alleged non-right winger" crap.