So I'm pretty sure this won't help but maybe a boy can hope. It's not a sad day quite yet. Let us wait and see what happens and then make our judgements. After looking back on everything, Kerry was prolly not the answer, more like a desperate attempt of upheval but regardless not the answer. I dunno if people realize that the damage has been done and Kerry coming in here would not ahve done much on a global level. The war has been initiated and wont end for a while. Kerry with his "I will hold a foreign summit" was pretty ballsy but country leaders wont deal with Kerry any more than Bush so I dunno if that would have worked. I voted for Kerry based strictly on the Same sex marriage, evolution vs religion in schools, all the "little" stuff. As much as we wanna make it about the war, that wasnt gonna change, the change in presidency wouldnt have affected Iraq, the damage has been done but perhaps if the economy continues to grow, Iraq turns around, Bin Laden is gone, EVERYONE has equal rights and religion is not a national priority...I will gladly admit my face will be red. Im not thickheaded enough to not admit defeat and I hope and pray to whatever is up there that things get better in this world and if that ahppens under George Bush so be it, I will have no complaints.

No offense, but if the Democrats had nominated someone like John F Kennedy, you would have won this election hands down, not a doubt in my mind.

At this point, today, Democrats don't appeal to people in the south and the heartland of America. John Edwards didn't even come CLOSE to bringing home his own state. The Senate has swung from from 20-6 in favor of Democrats in the south, to 22-4 for the Republicans in about 20 years time.

It's internal problem with the Democrats in that they are trying to appeal more and more to the far left, and not middle America. They haven't helped the people they claim to stand for, which is leading to the erosion of minority and Jewish support. The party is a mess, it is in dire need of organization.

Oh yeah, Hillary is not the answer. John F. Kennedy is.

I agree that the Democrats need a southern charmer. Just give me about 25 years and I'll be your new president.

P.S.-Bush is a carpet bagger.

I'll call Oliver Stone and tell him to get his shit together, we'll have a celluloid president.

Being that Republicans won in thanks largely to the "moral values" issue, I'd say this board is up for a mighty fine discussion of religion, particularly Christianity.

I have some views to express, but does anybody else want to bite first?

Here's another of my cross-posts.

If by "constructive" we mean "what the Democrats really need to do to put their house back in order," this is my preliminary proposal.

The Democratic Party has a lot of work to do to figure out how we can take back the "moral" high ground from the religious right. This does not mean pandering to the right-wing wackos. It means speaking about the issues that we care about in terms that a Christian can understand. It is actually really easy to frame health care, jobs, peace, equality, and freedom in Christian terms, and there are plenty of good hearted people in the heartland of America who are willing to be convinced that Democratic ideals are the right things to pursue. But the messangers must be palatable, and the message must in terms they can understand and respect. If we act like the Godless socialists that we are , then they won't even listen to the truth that we are speaking. Bill Clinton could do it, even Al Gore could do it. John Kerry, not so much. And Hillary will be pilloried. Most importantly, we cannot act like we are any better or smarter than the people we are trying to speak to, even if we believe we are.

Some people are going to look at the results of this election and conclude that since the Republicans won by rallying their base, the religious right-wing, that the Democrats should do the same on the left. This would be a mistake. The Democratic party may have more registered supporters, but the support in the center is soft, unlike the support of moderate Republicans which tends to be stronger. The Republicans can appeal to the right and gain more votes than they lose from the center, but the Dems will lose more from the center than they could ever hope to gain from the left. The appeal has to be to the love and empathy that good people have for their fellow man, and that the Democrats' policies promote. They also must be shown that the Republicans' policies do harm to regular people, that politicians do not have the power to affect social and cultural changes, and that for all their talk, the current leaders of the Republican party are in reality some of the most ammoral and unscrupulous people to ever run the American government.

Bill Clinton's victory in 1996. This is do-able again.


That's how you win Missouri, Ohio, and Iowa. Fuck Alabama.

--PunkDavid

I hate to say it, but this is very difficult. Preaching love for human fellowship is oftentimes seen as subscribing to a "humanist" theory and not to God's. Promoting humanism means rejecting social Darwinism, accepting homosexuality, etc...




I agree 100%. These people are blind hypocrites, trying to promote a "culture of life" when in reality they gave tax cuts to the wealthy, insist on discrimination, mass killings by bombing other countires, and supporting a continuing military industrial complex.

I have a hard time seeing that if you were actually a moderately intelligent person, and moderately informed on issues, you would have voted this type of corruption back into office. These are sad times

I'm curious how democrats are accepting of homosexuality as a political party? Does no one remember how they avoided taking a stand when Bush proposed the amendment banning gay marriages? "Oh, let the states decide". The knew this would happen, but better to avoid it than lose a vote.

I know both sides are guilty as hell of this, but honestly, how on earth can anyone sit there and act like today's democrats are of the same cloth as John F. Kennedy?

But, but, but Jesus said...

Hey I know as much as anyone that a lot of Christians don't know the tenets of their own religion, but I'd be willing to bet that most of them know that Jesus preached love and charity, so I'd be willing to give this angle a shot.




Most people are not even moderately informed of the issues. So we have to simplify the message. The world is complex, with complex questions requiring complex answers. Republicans do not bother their supporters with such complexities, they just pare it down to the basics, mush it with a fork, and spoon feed it to them. Democrats have to do the same, except we have to aspire to be as truthful as possible without making the issues so complex that the Christians fall back to the comfort of simplicity. Religious people, especially American Christians, seek simplicity in a complex world. It is a comfort, and an explanation for those things that cannot be fathomed by man. The Democrats have to learn how to make issues that ARE fathomable by man, fathomable by PEOPLE.

The anger on the left for the past four years has been constructive for building action, momentum, and support from a wider base of people. But now it has become necessary to refocus inside ourselves the conviction that we are RIGHT, and we are GOOD, and we are kind and caring, and we aspire to peace and justice, and that we share a desire for a better world for our children with people all over this country. Then we must let them see and feel the goodness that we feel in ourselves, and not just the righteous indignation they saw in us this year. They will see themselves in us and feel akin to our ideals again.

I know it sounds hokey and all, but I truly believe that good will in the end conquer evil, and that truth is the light of the world. Once we have internalized it, we can project it onto others.

--PunkDavid

No, I think it was excellent and well said. You're right, the Republicans had very simple messages (you're either with us or against us, you either for war and defending America, or for peace and inaction) and this was simply not speaking the truth. Unfortuantely, it may take another terrorist attack or a mass rejection of moral brainwashing by the right-wing. Such things happened in the 60s, and happened in the late 80s/early 90s as well. Its only a matter of time.

Also to add, the Democrats and other liberals cannot deny that their leaders just aren't very good. We need somebody leading the nation that gives us alternatives rather than a said set of supposed right and wrongs. John Kerry could not do this.

The Dems aren't going to get the people on the far right no matter what. There are simply too many (that group of white evangelical Christians) that will just vote for the anti-gay party no matter what, thinking they are doing God's will. What the Democratic party needs is someone that is (1) not just pandering and (2) will appeal to the moderate voters.

I consider myself a moderate--I never decide whom I am voting for based on the political party--and if they Democrats simply choose someone who is willing to consider every viewpoint, I would be perfectly willing to vote for him/her. In fact, Kerry almost had me.

I think the Democratic party hasn't had a real good "leader" since Clinton. Gore lacked charisma, and Kerry for some reason didn't connect with the American public. If the Democrats want to win, they need someone who can burn through the ultraconservative allegations of "immorality."

I'm really starting to like your outlook, man. It all started when you took that political poll and no candidate registered above 37% on you.

The Dems will never get the really crazy conservative Christians, but there are an awful lot of moderate Evangelicals (did I just write those two words next to each other?) who voted for Clinton and who can be swayed with the right candidate and the right message. Like I said, fuck Alabama.

As for the allegations of immorality, I though Kerry was pretty much beyond reproach. Bt I guess that a person who changes his mind is immoral as far as some people are concerned. Maybe it was his "say anything to get elected" that people thought was immoral. I don't know. I don't think that's rally the key though. There needs to be the combination of a message with broad appeal, and a candidate who people can tell truly believes in that message and can articulate it well. I hate having to keep coming back to Clinton, but he could do that, and that's why he is the greatest politician of his generation. If he could believe it, he could make you believe it. It was only when he knew he was lying that he finally got tripped up.

--PunkDavid

I'm pretty sure I know exactly why people thought he is immoral, based on the gazillions of people around me who think he is immoral.... I live in an area that is so conservative that I didn't even have a Democratic choice for state legislature, and is largely responsible for the Republicans consistently winning Maricopa County despite how urban it is, so I run into these people on a daily basis.

People think he is immoral because he "supports" abortion and "supports" gay marraige. They don't care for the mind changing, but his outlook is what causes many ultraconservatives to think Kerry, and many liberals, are immoral. I have tried explaining to some people that Kerry is probably a great guy as far as I can tell, and his philosophy is just that people should be able to make their own decision, but for some people that just doesn't click. Hence, the Democrats need to choose someone who actually has a "moral" image, which isn't necessarily anti-abortion, but simply a little more emphasis on his own personal belief that abortion is wrong. It won't get the far right, but I think they might get a much bigger share.

Well, that's kind of tough shit. I guess we're not going to get those folks anyway. Anyone who equates "pro-choice" with "supports abortion" is a lost cause as far as I'm concerned. Anyone who has actually personally known someone who has had an abortion couldn't not think that abortion is a terrible thing, but outlawing the procedure and forcing it into the shadows and back alleys is much worse than having it performed by a medical professional. I think that's as concilitory to the right as any Democrat is ever going to be on the subject.

As for gay marriage, I'm not sure exactly how to approach that. I feel very passionately that it should not only be allowed, but that it should be called marriage. I suppose I could live with a candidate who merely advocated civil unions, but I'd prefer if it were a non-issue on the political scene. I think that the best tact would be to explain politely to people that a politician's opinions on such matters is private and irrelevant because social, cultural, and moral issues can't be legislated anyway, and that they should elect their leaders based on what they CAN do for you in the realm of economics, taxes, the environment, foreign policy, etc...

But now I just sound like a Godless commie again. United States of Canada is sounding good about now...

--PunkDavid