It looks as like the left is ready to fight, well at least the "progressive" left. No, Air Amerika isn’t forming an Army, though I’m not sure about that kook Randi Rhodes. But the “progressive” left is gearing up and getting ready to take on the right and they are calling for the people to rise up! Well, not so fast.
In a article in the Nation, Katrina Vanden Heuvel writes:
“Even in the ashes of this defeat, progressives can take pride in the remarkable role we played, both in arousing opposition to Bush and in building the independent progressive machinery necessary to communicate, educate, register and get out the vote.
Howard Dean gave Democrats their voice. The Dean campaign and MoveOn.org broke the grip of big donors in the Democratic primaries and helped Democrats utilize the Internet. Kerry ended with a 7-to-1 Internet fundraising advantage over Bush. Democrats became competitive with Republicans in raising hard money.”
The rest of the article rehashes the same old Michael Moorish crap like “After Bush stole the election in 2000”, blah, blah.
Barf Bag anyone? Katrina doesn't "get it".
Her statement “Howard Dean gave Democrats their voice”, stopped me in my tracks. Is she kidding? I’ve got news for you Katrina, Democrats, at least the large majority of them, and even senior members of the leadership can’t get away from him fast enough. If you want to know why the Democrats lost it was precisely because your party chose to align itself with that nut and the rest of the lunatic fringe.
The point is that you and your progressive friends think that you can start some kind of revolution and that Kerry would help you bring it to pass. You thought "whistle enough hatred the masses will follow. They didn’t.
Katrina’s call to the Democratic base to “join us in our fight”, is going to largely fall on deft ears. They want no part of a "progressive/socialist" agenda. In fact all the things that went wrong with the Democratic Party's efforts in 2004 are summed up in her article.
If Katrina thinks Michael Moore and Moveon.org are the future at least this senior Democrat disagrees. This from an article posted on MSNBC :
“Democratic strategist at Tuesday’s DLC panel discussion, Will Marshall, personified the party’s woes in a name: Michael Moore.
No love for film maker Michael Moore
“Let’s let Hollywood and the Cannes Film Festival fawn all over Michael Moore. We ought to make it clear he sure doesn’t speak for us when it comes to standing up for our country,” Marshall said.
“Democrats have to make it very clear to the electorate that we believe that America is essentially a force for good in the world,” he argued.
“Sometimes in our zeal to condemn Bush policy, we can go overboard in ways that really make them wonder whose side we’re on,” he said. “It is one thing to say the war in Iraq was a mistake; that’s a legitimate position held by many thoughtful people. It’s another thing to say it’s an expression of some grasping new American imperialism, some kind of plot to grab Middle East oil or, even more ludicrously, all just about putting more money into Halliburton.”
Marshall added, “We’ve got to make it real clear to folks that while we believe true patriotism means acknowledging our country’s mistakes and being willing to change course when things are going wrong, as they are in Iraq, we’ve got to repudiate the most strident and insulting anti-American voices out there, sometimes on our party’s left.”
Marshall ’s warning calls to mind similar cautions sounded by two DLC-allied Democratic senators, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana.
“The Democratic Party is at risk of being taken over by the far left,” Bayh warned in July of 2003, as Howard Dean rose to popularity on the strength of his denunciations of the Iraq war."
Katrina? I don’t think they are going to listen to you.
The Democrats only shining moment in the last 40 years has been Bill Clinton and that only because even though a liberal, he ran and governed as a Centrist. In fact as the dust settles on this election even those who voted for John Kerry, only did so because they had no where else to go, will alarmingly (at least for the progressives) move more to the center as well. Which is why I feel a Hillary candidacy is doomed from the start - even if she does apply for a Wal-Mart credit card to get more RED into her blood. Hate doesn't win elections. There are many of the Democratic Party who stand now where Zell Miller is and say, “Oh my Party, where goest thou?”
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