I find this interesting . The Dems ran and were successful in 2006 by running a trojan horse campaign and appearing if not outright conservative ,then centrist ala Clintoon and his Democratic Leadership Council (DLC)model . That model worked well for them then ;and appeared to follow script in the 3 special elections that they won this year .

But now with the apparent nomination of Obama not only have they shed the model that is working but they have gone back to their habits of selecting from the fringe....In the case of Obama;nominating perhaps the most exteme liberal they have ever run.

Oh he pretends that he is an agent of bipartisan change... but rhetoric aside ;when performance is measured ,it is McCain who has over the years become a spur in his own party's saddle by crossing over party lines in an attempt at concensus building.

My question I guess is why would the Democrats then abandon what has worked so well for them in recent years to go back to the failed strategies of the McGovern and Mondale models ? If they thought that running on a hard liberal platform was going to succeed then why didn't they do so in 2006 ?

Credendovidis

Dear tom

If I am correct , you would earlier prefer to die before you will ever vote democrat ...
So why are you so worried for the democrats and their chances in the 2008 elections?

There were several different Democrat nominees, but the Democrat voters have selected Obama as their favourite.

Let's just see who wins this years presidential election : an old white-skinned man without ideas and lacking any charisma, or a young dark-skinned man with many new ideas and lots of charisma.

tomder55

around half or more of the Democrat voters this primary season agree with me that Obama is too radical to win. But that ,or my personal preferences were not the question.

excon

Hello tom:

His liberalism seems to be a natural reaction to having swung so far to the right - and discovered a disaster.... YES, it's the dufus in chiefs' fault.

excon

tomder55

so you think they feel they are in a position that they no longer have to hide their extreme liberalism ?

excon

Hello again, tom:

If you mean "extreme" by making sure that everybody has health insurance, that the rich don't get any more tax cuts, that the country turns a little greener, that some jobs stop going overseas, that "no child left behind" gets thrown in the trash where it belongs, that we start talking to our enemies, that we STOP torturing our prisoners, and that we FINALLY bring our soldiers home.....

If THAT'S what you mean by extreme liberalism, then I don't think they're hiding at all.

excon

tomder55

oh I see . I thought NCLB was Kennedy's big initiative .

Yes universal health insurance is extreme liberalism.

Hard to say rich are getting tax cuts when the US already charges one of the highest rates of Capital Gains in the developed world.

The tax cuts created record revenues as you know ..The top 1% paid
39.4% of all Federal income taxes and the top 5% paid more into the Federal coffers than the rest of the 95% combined . The tax cuts meant that rich people paid more taxes . That should make libs happy .But instead of admitting that the tax cuts created a more progressive system ;they expose their true goal (and you too I guess) which is punish the rich for their success.

We have continued to talk to the world . What you mean is that we talk to rogue states and actors with no preconditions . We have gone over that before.

The world does not want the US to bring our soldiers home .Instead they continue to rely on us to keep the flow of commerce going and to have our soldiers wherever crisis develops .You know that to be true. They are begging for us now to go to Darfur to intervene ;they begged us to go to the Balkans where we have no national interests at all. Let's retreat to fortress America and see how quick the world asks us to engage again.

tomder55

Hi again forgot to add that those job losses will rise expotentially when smoke stack industries are forced to comply with those new green laws like the cap and spend indulgences .

NeedKarma

In Canada we have universal healthcare AND we currently have a conservative government. They have no plans on abolishing our healthcare system. Your ideas are old and antiquated.

Actually that would be an interesting experiment.

excon

Hello again, tom:

I don't disagree with your last. However, progress demands change. New technology displaces old technology. The smoke stack jobs you refer to will be replaced with new ones offered by the challenges a limited supply of oil creates....

I don't know why you're so down on the American entrepreneur. He's going to start NEW industries that will employ even MORE people than lost their jobs. That's how it works here.

And, while we're at it, access to adequate health care is part of the guarantee of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". It also has something to do with "general welfare", which is ALSO guaranteed to each and every one of us. These words, of course, are taken directly out of our founding documents....

excon