Lieberman OUT!

zstillings wrote:

Running as an anti-war candidate, he was also listing himself as a "progressive activist" which was to run to the left of Lieberman. Looking through his issues, I don't know whether he copied and pasted his stances from "Progressive Politics for Dummies" or whether he believes them but he seems to be a left winger.

Not all elections have to be between the right wing party and the moderate party but it will be a bigger hindrance to the Democrats nationally if they continue to move further to the left.

I wonder if this race would have been closer if someone didn't shut down an important aspect of Lieberman's GOTV plan.

So he is a lefty? Cool. Now I guess I can root for him.

I'm not denying the possibility that this may hinder the Democrats in the short term. However, in the long term it may actually help the party. People keep complaining that the Democratic Party has no goals, plans, direction, whatever. In my opinion, that's because America consists of two parties - Republic and Democrat - and two kinds of voters - Republicans and People Who Hate Republicans. That second kind of voter is harder to corral - and majorities like we have with the first kind of voter are hard to keep together. I forsee us flipping from a right wing to a left wing country in the future.

Remember when the Republicans were the minority (by quite a margin) and solidified the Christian Right under their banner? Well, it's 25-30 years later, and now they're running the show.

RainDog wrote:

So he is a lefty? Cool. Now I guess I can root for him.

I'm not denying the possibility that this may hinder the Democrats in the short term. However, in the long term it may actually help the party. People keep complaining that the Democratic Party has no goals, plans, direction, whatever. In my opinion, that's because America consists of two parties - Republic and Democrat - and two kinds of voters - Republicans and People Who Hate Republicans. That second kind of voter is harder to corral - and majorities like we have with the first kind of voter are hard to keep together. I forsee us flipping from a right wing to a left wing country in the future.

Remember when the Republicans were the minority (by quite a margin) and solidified the Christian Right under their banner? Well, it's 25-30 years later, and now they're running the show.

I see this as a different strategy than uniting the Christian right (who were not what finally put the Republicans in the majority). The reason that it is different is because the bible belt had always been a strong force at the polls. The ongoing issues that the Christians were uniting behind were family values and abortion (I am not debating the validity of their stances here, just acknowledging that these issues exist). What the progressives seem to be uniting behind now is an anti-war stance. This anti-war stance does not keep voters in the fold for the long term like those other issues do since one war can be constantly changing or can end.

zstillings wrote:

He is further left than many in this country. There is another thread on here about Michael Moore saying it's all about who you sleep with. Lamont can count Al Sharpton in his bed with him. The country as a whole does not look at him with much esteem either.

as far as i can tell - he is running anti-war ... which sadly has been attributed to the political left ... its too bad we ALL can't be anti-war ...

anyways - not sure what his stances are on other issues that matter ...

but to think people actually think kerry or any of those democratic hosers are far left is mind boggling ...

Milhouse VanHouten wrote:

I'm guessing we'll have to disagree on the negative connotation you have for the term "progressive activist". If we'd had more "left wingers" in congress a few years ago, we might not be in Iraq right now, and 60% of the American public is against the war, according to the most recent polls.

Being a "left winger" doesn't preclude him from winning. We've got plenty of far-left and far-right congressmen and congresswomen. Granted, the most "extreme" members tend to be in the House as opposed to the Senate, but there are a few.

I was, once again, not judging the validity here. Progressive activists do not play well on the national stage for the party. If this is going to be the national face of the Democrats in November then they are going to have a tough time picking up some of the seats that they think are in play.

zstillings wrote:

I was, once again, not judging the validity here. Progressive activists do not play well on the national stage for the party. If this is going to be the national face of the Democrats in November then they are going to have a tough time picking up some of the seats that they think are in play.

They're not going to run a Ned Lamont in every race, obviously. As far as the national message, I'd hope that we'll be able to move the center a little to the left this time around. After a decade of this GOP congress and 6 years of the current administration, maybe the country is ready to take a slight move to the left. One part of that will be to better define the words "progressive" and "liberal"; take away the negative connotation that conservatives have attached to them.

Milhouse VanHouten wrote:

One part of that will be to better define the words "progressive" and "liberal"; take away the negative connotation that conservatives have attached to them.

In order to do that, people need to define themselves regardless of those labels. The progressives right now are the anti-Bush. In Lamont's case he was the anti-Lieberman. All people seem to know about Lamont around here is that he is anti-war and anti-Bush. The guy had Al Sharpton saying that stuff for him during the campaign. I looked up his issues and they seem pretty standard. There are no surprises in there and he seems to have copied and pasted them from the progressive handbook.