Okay, Dems, What Went Wrong? And How Can We Fix It?

Poor Johnnies, the strain were more than they could bear.

They're no daisies.

jeez, there must be at least one...

okay. i have a dinner tonight, but i'll try to get a thread, possibly with poll questions together. could be interesting, eh ?

dtom

I think it would be a great experiment. I'd love to see if people instinctively divide along political lines---not because they know where their party would be on an issue--but just because of the way they think--or if there is a great dialogue, because people aren't worried about scoring points.

It'll be a nice break from business as usual.

I think a poll would be a great place to start--or a brainstorming thread for ideas to go in the poll. I'll be watching. <smiles>

It isn't a question of do we have answers for trolls or can we take heat. It's a matter of the thread being hijacked and the aim thwarted by those who want badly to see it fail.

How does a thread fail?

when a button comes lose and then falls off ??

okay, i've been thinking about this and will be getting this started today. i'll put a link on this thread to the new topic.

happy valentines day !

Ok for a start let's go for the whole enchilida:
is the citizen subservient to the state or is the state subservient to the citizen.
discuss.

duhhhh, let's see..................

both?

Thanks for the Valentine's Day wish DTom. This is my hubby and my wedding anniversary too--lotsa years now.

And now back to the thread hijacking.

Should I actually depart from this thread and take up a more cordial discourse in Dtom's new thread, I will again point out to those who seem to think some here are high jacking the thread that the theme is to figure out and fix whatever went wrong in the last election. Some months ago, the GOP was invited to also participate. I thought we were doing a damn good job, too, but for now will leave you with the following that Gunga posted on another thread. It is a reminder of the problem the Dems have.

There's an old saying: "He who goes to bed with dogs will wake up with fleas."

Citing Gungasnake brings that adage to mind...

Ever study definitions for various kinds of ad hominem argument D? Usually heading any such listings are those who attack or demean the person instead of the argument. It loses people debates.

For my bit o' hijackin' ....

It's comforting to me to have Howard Dean elected head of the DNC, as I believe it is his studied opinion that the only thing the Dem's need to do for the next Presidential election is do a better job of getting their message across .... Not change the message, mind you ... just the manner of delivery.

Whew!
______


As I recall, my suggestions to PDiddie that he was spamming the Bush Supporters' thread were ignored by him ..... but now he wishes exclusivity here?


In any event, back the the many hundreds of gloating threads I inhabit!

Mea culpa.

Touche D. Gotta love ya.

If that was meant as a serious contribution to the discussion here, Fox has definitively disqualified herself from serious consideration. The already-dead vote, psychotic vote and lying traitors vote, yeppers, thats the problem we face with the Dems now. All they got was the 48% of American voters who are psychotics or lying traitors, yep. (You gotta wonder about someone who calls himself a patriot yet insists that close to half of his fellow-Americans are lying idiots, dont ya?)

Anyway, what I came here for was to post this, from an otherwise bland article by one Kenneth Baer in TNR, who does summarise concisely enough:


There's the problem. I for one have been positively perplexed by how invisible and unsubstantial the Democratic position has been since the elections. Impotent is the word that comes to mind.

Making note. Nimh has NO sense of humor and NO sense of satire or he is just intentionally being snotty. Otherwise, the post is pretty much on target and what we have been saying all along. The Dems are now the obstructionist party with no new ideas and nothing to offer but complaints, criticism, and whining. I honestly hope Howard Dean will begin developing reasonable alternatives to GOP initiatives so that we can have a real national debate. Unfortunately, I have so far seen no indication that he doesn't intend to just put a new face on the old tactics.

I heard the outgoing Dem chairman, Terry M, on NPR the other day. He said that the mistake his party made in 2004 was not fighting back when attacked. The Dem convention strategy was not to attack Bush, while the Rep convention let loose with everything they had. When the Swift Vote thugs attacked Kerry's war record, no effective rebuttal was attempted. Meanwhile, Bush's sorry war record became a plus for him because of the Rather issue. As though if it weren't for Rather, no one would ever question what the hell Bush was doing during those years.

So, for sure, the Dems better start fighting back, because the GOP knows how to play that game rather well...

I posted this on JW's Fox News thread earlier today. It pretty much blows McAuliffe's statement to hell. Bear in mind the Dems on capital hill and party bosses, including McAuliffe, were all spouting this stuff in front of any microphone or camera they could get in front of:

The Ten Worst Media Distortions of Campaign 2004

Dan Rather's Forgery Fiasco

Ignoring, Then Attacking, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

Pounding the Bush National Guard Story

Spinning a Good Economy into Bad News

The Networks' Outrageous Convention Double-Standard

Swooning Over Edwards' Image, Ignoring His Liberalism

CBS's Byron Pitts Promotional Kerry Coverage

CBS Promotes Fears of a New Military Draft

Misrepresenting the 9/11 Commission on Iraq/al-Qaeda Links

Equating New Terrorism Warning to LBJ's "Gulf of Tonkin"

Rathergate … CBS News had to appoint an outside two-member investigating committee to find out how and why a) Dan Rather aired a hatchet job on President Bush based on forged documents that CBS was warned about and b) CBS Producer Mary Mapes coordinated with senior Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart concerning the discredited source of those documents.

The Attack On The Swift Boat Vets … Last spring, over 250 Vietnam War contemporaries, including veterans who served with him when he was a Swift Boat commander and his entire chain of command, came forward to publicly challenge Kerry's version of Vietnam and his anti-war activities. After being ignored for several weeks the media turned on these honorable men with a vengeance, rather than give them a shred of credibility.

Good Economic Numbers = Bad News? … When Bill Clinton ran for re-election in 1996, unemployment was at 5.2 percent, inflation 3 percent, and economic growth 2.2 percent. Today, as Bush stands for re-election, unemployment is at 5.4 percent, inflation 2.7 percent and economists' consensus forecast for economic growth this quarter is 3.7 percent. Coverage of the Clinton economic data was overwhelmingly favorable (35 positive, 6 negative stories). Under Bush, it's literally reversed to 6 positive, 38 negative. Numbers don't lie. Bias is the only explanation.

The Networks' Convention Double-Standard … Democratic speakers who savaged Republicans in Boston were touted by network journalists as "rock stars." But journalists turned sour when covering the Republicans in New York. CNN's Bill Schneider on the GOP: "This is a very angry convention, it's a very belligerent convention." TIME's Joe Klein, a CNN contributor: "I've been doing this for a fair number of years and I don't think I've seen anything as angry or as ugly as [Sen. Zell] Miller's speech."

CBS's Byron Pitts, in a Pro-Kerry Class of His Own … Pitts, on the day Kerry accepted the Democratic nomination: "Tonight's acceptance of the Democratic nomination is more than merely a day, it's [Kerry's] destiny." Pitts, attacking the leader of the Swift Boat Veterans instead of addressing their charges: "Their leader, John O'Neill, was also Richard Nixon's point man in attacks on John Kerry's protest of the Vietnam War 30 years ago." Pitts, on Teresa Heinz Kerry: "Both rich and reachable."

CBS Cooks Up Fictitious Draft Story … CBS correspondent Richard Schlesinger focused this story around Beverly Cocco, portraying her as a mom "petrified about a military draft." He never mentioned she is the activist leader of a group called "People Against the Draft." He never mentioned that the Pentagon, the Republican Party, and the Bush campaign all oppose a new draft. Dan Rather introduced the segment this way: "A mother worries her son will be drafted. Does she have good reason?" Both Schlesinger and Producer Linda Karas cited erroneous email chatter about the draft as justification for doing an Evening News segment. Karas incredulously intoned: "The truth of the e-mails were absolutely irrelevant to the piece."

http://www.mrc.org/press/2004/press20041028.asp

I'm not familiar with the Media Research Center, Foxfyre, but I'm guessing from their totally one-sided list of distortions that they skew to the right by a fair amount.

Hardly convincing, nor a refutation of what McAuliffe said that holds any water.