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[guillaumeb]

This message was self-deleted by its author (guillaumeb) on Thu Mar 9, 2017, 06:20 PM. When the original post in a discussion thread is self-deleted, the entire discussion thread is automatically locked so new replies cannot be posted.

[PatrickforO]

1. Which is why we need to be supporting Bernie Sanders.

[guillaumeb]

2. Paul Wellstone was an example of a candidate who won elections

without depending on rich donors.

But can the Wellstone method be applied successfully on a national scale? What level of citizen involvement would be required to duplicate such campaigns as Wellstone conducted on a national level?

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Mr. Wellstone worked the College Campus

circuit with a positive message and stayed on message. Bernie Sanders is doing pretty much the same,stay on message and don't let the competition define you. Every time someone or something negative popped up,take care of business and counter it with a positive and definitive response. Paul's number attribute was he talked to his audience and not at them which most of the Pols due.

[guillaumeb]

4. Agreed for both people.

The challenge nationally is that, if Sanders is seen as a credible challenge, enormous amounts of money will be spent to define Sanders as a terrible, evil socialist whose election would mean "the end of America as we know it".

A Sanders nomination could set records for negative advertising by the people who make their living catering to the 1%. Can Sanders reach enough people with a positive, populist message of how the US can be changed?

As the article points out, money is one of the defining factors when predicting and explaining election results. That is why the rich spend so much of it buying politicians.

[Wellstone ruled]

20. Citzens United appears to be

at least one generation away from being tossed. Plain and simple,it is not going away soon,to much power to be purchased. In the short it will be tough for a Sanders type candidate to survive the Right Wing Slim Machine as well as many so called Democrats who just don't like the man. Still remember a rally with Mr. Wellstone when he was heckled,stopped his remarks and asked the heckler to come up to the stage and talk to him. When Paul finished with this fellow,he brought him on the stage and introduced him to the crowd. Never seen or heard another loud mouth at any rally's after,usually if some one was going to protest some thing they would bail before some one could acknowledge them.

[hfojvt]

5. our elections last a long time partly because of Carter and Reagan

at least in my view. For one thing, unlike Canadian elections - the date is already set.

As far as Carter goes. It seems to me that he sorta came out of nowhere and won the primary in 1976. Why? Partly because he got an early start. So other candidates were like "aha, it pays to start early" (duh). Reagan, on the other hand, after he lost the 1976 primary, and Ford lost the general election - at that point, Reagan pretty much started campaigning for the 1980 election. From there, the election season has gotten longer and longer. 24/7 "news" channels are probably part of it too.

Back in the old days, we basically had Walter for half an hour a day - that was it, and he took weekends off. Now the M$M never sleeps, and the $$$$$ in media have gotten much bigger. Part of that may be because of the tax code too, since large salaries are no longer taxed at 70%, the sky is the limit!!!

[guillaumeb]

9. The Canadian system is a parliamentary one, so elections are called

based on a failure to sustain a vote generally, and sometimes because the party in power, the Conservatives in this case, calls for an election in an attempt to win a bigger number of MPs.

But the US system of endless elections means that many politicians are basically full time fundraisers and part time politicians. How can any politician pretend to study the issues when so much money must be raised to be competitive?

Nice points about 24/7 "news" and the need to fill air time. So the media that benefits from the advertising revenue also drives the debate and the need to fill air time also requires content.

[djean111]

6. In a nutshell - The US political system is driven by money, not ideology.

That is so obvious that it is sickening.

[guillaumeb]

7. True. But it is ideology that fires up and energizes the base of each party.

Necessary for the "get out the vote" component of elections.

The solution? Prohibit political donations by any non-human entities and prohibit paid political advertising. That would be a good start, but given how much paid political advertising there is, I doubt that the media would appreciate the idea.

Another partial solution might be to eliminate the two party system in favor of a parliamentary type system.

[djean111]

10. I agree. In fact, something that has really struck me, this time, is that young people like my

grandson are getting fired up about politics because of Bernie's ideology. They are not remotely interested in playing the "let's pretend the Democratic Party gives a crap about ideology and vote for not-Bernie, because we are better than the GOP" game.

That dog is not going to hunt so much, this time around, methinks. I am starting to feel that way myself. The money and faked ideology is being rubbed in our faces. The system, hopefully, is starting to crumble.

[guillaumeb]

12. I agree about the younger crowd.

As a union person, I know that even though the Democratic Party is better than the GOP, better in this case is not good. I would prefer a Democratic Party and President who actually stood up for unions and working people.

I like your signature line, by the way.

[BlueStateLib]

8. Used to be

political campaigns didn't start till after labor day and took a two month hiatus after the conventions

[hifiguy]

13. There is one party - the Money Party

I can think of two nationally prominent officeholders who have been free from even a hint of financial corruption and genuinely honest with the people - the late Paul Wellstone and Bernie Sanders.

[guillaumeb]

14. Was the plane crash that killed Wellstone an accident?

Wellstone represented a different approach, based on actually connecting with people and standing for something. Money did not defeat him, death did.

That might be why the media is so desperate to brand Sanders as unelectable. Frame the issue that way and the message will be ignored because who wants to 'waste" a vote on an unelectable candidate.

[hifiguy]

16. Grab a beer, I have a story to tell.

As it so happens, a friend and former colleague of mine was in the area, in the air. I'd worked with her as a lawyer but she caught the flying bug and quickly got all the credentials she needed to be a commercial pilot. She was the co-pilot in the plane that was flying Norm Coleman to the same destination Wellstone was headed for at a debate.

At the time Wellstone's plane went down she was within 10 air miles of the plane. Acccording to her the weather was kind of drizzly and the clouds were low, but there was nothing unusual or abnormally hazardous about the weather. Her flight was completely uneventful.

After the crash she was pretty shaken. She told me there was no reason on earth for that plane to crash unless the pilot dove it in intentionally or as she said "it was swatted out of the sky by something." She tended to favor the latter explanation. BTW, she was not terribly political nor was she inclined to conspiracy theories.

That was one of the most sobering conversations I ever had in my life.

[guillaumeb]

17. And THAT story was exactly what I was referring to.

A number of left publications did some coverage of the accident but absent a cooperative witness or convincing proof the story is speculation.

[Octafish]

22. Wolf Blitzer repeatedly contradicted reporter who said weather was not a factor...

From the way Wolf zeroed in on the weather, it sounded like Wolf wanted to make certain CNN was on the side of "accidents happen" from the first day.

http://www.coastalpost.com/03/05/06.htm

[moondust]

15. Interestingly,

one of Jon Stewart's last Daily Shows had historian Doris Kearns Goodwin on as a guest. At one point she grumbled that she'd just as soon go back to nominating somebody at a summer convention and then a campaign that lasts two months in the fall.

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/6kdckp/doris-kearns-goodwin

How I wish.

[guillaumeb]

18. A short campaign would severely impact political advertising revenue.

US politics is increasingly indistinguishable from a reality television program.

[tblue37]

19. To clarify which parts are YOUR comments and which parts are quotes, it is more effective to simply

highlight the part you are quoting and click the "excerpt" button right under the subject line. That will put the quoted material in a light gray box. Then you can comment on it right under the excerpt box, and then highlight and excerpt the next quote right below your comment.

That way, your quote will look like this.

And your comment underneath will look like this. (At first I accidentally hit the "return" bar after my excerpt box, ending up with unnecessary space, so I came back and deleted the extra space under the excerpt box.)

[guillaumeb]

26. Thanks for the tip. I had seen it before but promptly forgot the technique.

highlight the part you are quoting and click the "excerpt" button right under the subject ine. That will put the quoted material in a light gray box. Then you can comment on it right under the excerpt box, and then highlight and excerpt the next quote right below your comment.

[bemildred]

21. Our "leaders" much prefer campaigning to governing.

All the money is in campaigning, and nobody expects you to do anything yet.

[guillaumeb]

24. An excellent point.

The current governor in Illinois is STILL campaigning 9 months after his inauguration. Plus endless campaigning allows for endless fundraising.

[DirkGently]

23. Money works, but it's not the only thing that does.

This whole, "instant worldwide communication" thing we have going cuts in a lot of different directions at once. Some for better; some for worse.

One of the potential upsides is that people / candidates / ideas are not utterly invisible without millions in advertising dollars.

It's going to be interesting as the flood of dark money CU unleashed fails to transform the entire political landscape into a series of billionaire-backed shills. The panic and rage in their eyes when President Scott Walker doesn't happen.

All those dollars down the drain.

But the perception that money is the only thing that counts is part of the problem, too. Part of what we see going on in our own party is the drumbeat that only well-ensconced beneficiaries of the wealthy in-groups are viable candidates, so we may as well roll over and turn the whole party into a slightly less offensive version of the corporate subsidiary the Republican Party has been for years.

We need to beat those empty suits, and their backers and their networks of insiders. Beat them well and beat them often.

We can't start soon enough.

[guillaumeb]

25. All excellent points.

Organization and mobilization are effective tools to counteract the influence of money. Unions and other forms of collective action are very effective at mobilizing. THAT is why the right hates unions and is doing all that they can to destroy unions.

Considering that union households generally vote Democratic by significant margins, the failure of Democrats generally to defend and promote unions is discouraging. Our current President has done nothing to promote unionization, utterly abandoning his campaign promises to promote things like the Employee Free Choice Act. Empty words about lacing up walking shoes and joining workers in Madison Wisconsin cannot atone for his failure to even talk about unions.

Now, when you said:
"But the perception that money is the only thing that counts is part of the problem, too. Part of what we see going on in our own party is the drumbeat that only well-ensconced beneficiaries of the wealthy in-groups are viable candidates, so we may as well roll over and turn the whole party into a slightly less offensive version of the corporate subsidiary the Republican Party has been for years."
were you speaking of any particular candidates? Because, considering his pathetic poll numbers vs the heavy money investment in him by the Koch brothers, this definitely also applies to Scott Walker.