"Many of Obama's supporters decided they were, in fact, NOT the ones they had been waiting for..."

[Clio the Leo]

"Many of Obama's supporters decided they were, in fact, NOT the ones they had been waiting for ... and, instead, decided to sit down and let Obama do it all himself." ~ Jonathan Alter, "The Promise."


Discuss..........

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=molWTfv8TYw




Now, the teabaggers on the other hand......

[depakid]

1. Whatever credibility Alter had just went out the window

with that statement.

[stray cat]

7. What have we done to change things?

[vaberella]

68. Meek in Florida is a perfect example. We let him die b/c of polls. n/t

[Radical Activist]

16. Why do you say that?

Did you take it personally?

[depakid]

28. It's a laughably inane and ridiculous statement

Nobody "let Obama down" (except perhaps some Democrats in the Senate and House- including those he later campaigned for).

Indeed, when progressive groups targeted those folks to put the pressure on- back when it was still thought the administration wanted a public option- they were called fucking retarded and told to back off.

Rinse and repeat.

It's almost as if Alter is trying to outdo Woodward with his sycophantry.

[Clio the Leo]

33. ... and THEN they sat down.....

"back when it was still thought the administration wanted a public option- they were called fucking retarded and told to back off." .... and THEN they sat down.

Teabaggers saw one of the most progressive bills in history passed on them and they are STILL calling and marching on Congress. If enough people had demanded a public option ... and KEPT demanding it and KEPT demanding and marched into the Capitol and looked their reps in the face ... and TALKED to the press so loudly it drowned out the noise about the death panels ... well then guess what we'd have?

70 million people got a black man with a named that sounded like two of our nation's most hated enemies elected President ... and then the OVERWHELMING majority of those 70 million people sat down and waited for Superman to fix it all ... now, you may not have been one of them .. but did you REALLY do ALL that you could do?

I know I didn't.

[depakid]

36. LOL- "superman" didn't even bother to put a health care proposal to Congress

Instead, he tuned it over to insurance lobbyists in Baucus' committee and let them do the predictable thing- which was to protect their interests in a time of unprecedented political capital and populist resentment!

Thus, what emerged was a farcical dance with Blanche, Olympia, Lieberman and Nelson whereby the more effective, popular and populist portions of the legislation were stripped out for unpopular and ineffective ones!

And btw: having lived through it myself- people and interest groups DID demand a public option- and people did demand single payer (the latter of course had to threaten to stage a protest just to get in the white house door for a perfunctory meeting!

Sorry Clio- it wasn't the troops, but the leader who bears responsibility for this fiasco- and the consequent plummet in the polls.

[Clio the Leo]

39. And then when all they got was a little face time then what?

.... is that when they sat down?

Love ya depak but their are a few irrefutable facts.....

1. the admin has dropped the ball on messaging

2. the war ... even though they knew it was going to be escalated .... has pissed some of the left off (as have the lack of going after the Bushies for their war crimes, etc.)

3. the whole DADT thing is a bit hard to understand

4. WE VOTERS HAVE SAT ON OUR BACKSIDES AND EXPECTED 'THE LEADER' TO DO IT ALL FOR US!

[depakid]

45. Point 4 is utterly absurd

Our constituencies submit their proposals for legislation or regulations all the time. I know- I helped design and submit several for an no profit health organization myself last year!

It's up to the President (or the governor) to use their bully pulpit and influence of the agenda to marshall proposals through or at the very least give emphatic guidelines as to what's acceptable and what's not (both in terms of actions- and failure to act).

That's how the process works- and that's the job they're elected by their constituencies to do.

[Clio the Leo]

54. Is that what the Freedom Riders did?

.... offer guidelines to elected officials and then rely on Kennedy/Johnson to use their bully pulpits to pass legislation?

Why was the Civil Rights Bill passed? Because Johnson strong armed Congress? Or because children were marching .... and subsequently being beaten ... in the streets for the nightly news to see?

[laughingliberal]

62. As if the nightly news today would even report it. nt

[suzie]

72. Aren't you the same poster that's always telling us how well the Greens have

organized in Australia? Making Australian politics far better than those in the U.S.?

Why is organizing commendable in Australia and not in the U.S.?

[depakid]

83. Labor is far better organized than the Greens

but they lost a lot of confidence of support in the electorate- most of which swung to the Greens because they didn't stand up and fight for policies that they purportedly believed in- and also because they repeatedly pandered to the right in the run up to the election. (They also managed to alienate one of their important constituencies- teachers through an unpopular "accountability" scheme).

Thus, their usual well oiled machine wasn't enough to hold their majority, even though their economic policies were astonishingly successful in keeping the country out of recession altogether.

[laughingliberal]

60. Uh huh. We drove support for a public option to 60%. Sorry, at some point it is inherent on those

we elect to respond to the will of the people and NOT call us names for fighting for policies which help people.

Yeah, that brick wall my head keeps meeting is a bit of a problem for me.

[Radical Activist]

35. I think about all the time spent attacking Obama online.

Sometimes I wonder what might have happened if just half of that time and energy had instead been spent pressuring the Senate roadblock to support progressive bills. Would we have the public option? Would DADT have been repealed last week? Would the Senate have passed a cap and trade bill?

Who knows? Instead of organizing and helping, we have a netroots that whines because big brother Obama didn't do it all for them. The only thing that disappoints me more than the Senate is the failure of the progressive netroots and left pundits to be as productive in helping push a progressive agenda as they could have been. It's a horrible failure.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

38. Randi Rhodes says it all the time, but I'm beginning to think she's wrong. She always says

that the difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans need a "Daddy." They need an authoritative figure to tell them what to do. They need someone to follow, to give structure to their lives.

The Democrats, by comparison, don't need that. We think for ourselves. We don't need someone to lead us, to tell us what to do.

I'm beginning to think her theory is utterly wrong. Well, in the case of Barack Obama.

I'm starting to believe that when it comes to him, we just project everything we want to happen onto him, so much so that when he fails to live up to our expectations--AFTER ONLY TWO YEARS--we get upset, ready to take our ball and go home.

No!

The difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Republicans don't just need a "Daddy" figure. They follow through. They somehow are energize by any and everything their leaders say and do, no matter how disappointed they are with them.

Democrats are impatient. Unreasonable. Impractical. Too emotional. Impetuous! They want everything to happen TODAY! NOW!!

And, to my utter amazement, many of us must surely failed Civics 101 because we cling to this falsehood that there is only the Executive Branch in which the constitution bestows awesome powers upon the president to overstep his boundaries and tell Congress what to do.

They think that the President passes laws. And they totally don't know that the president actually did provide a blueprint for health care reform. They missed that one.

[Clio the Leo]

41. It's all summed up in this cute little video...

.... sure, it's satire, but is it really that far off from what everyone thinks?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVFdAJRVm94


I will NEVER forget the look on his face as he watched it .... it said "crap, I am so screwed."

[Radical Activist]

46. There's a segment of the left that wants a father figure.

We had this discussion during the primary. Hillary offered to be the powerful LBJ-like father figure that would push things through Congress for us on our behalf. She offered to protect us during tumultuous times. Remember the ads with images of Pearl Harbor and 9/11? And the 3am call? She was the parental figure there to save us and she bragged that only she had the experience to hand down to us whatever we wanted.
Obama said change comes from a mass movement. He said we should look to MLK, not LBJ. There's a segment of the more authoritarian leaning left that will never understand or be happy with Obama's governing style. They're looking for something else.

There's another segment of the left that needs a father figure to rebel against. After 30 years of rebelling against conservative Presidents, the only form of activism they know is to dissent against the guy in charge. They haven't learned new tactics.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

50. That's very fascinating. I had not thought of that before. One of the very things that turned me off

from Hillary was her "YES, SHE WILL" mantra. It was all about her and how she will change the world, and yet, she ran ads about how Obama was the one who was behaving like "the Savior." Remember the McCain/Republican "Messiah" ads, when in reality, that's how the Republicans were treating Sarah Palin...as a Messiah. Projection works when you're desperate.

When people are desperate, they search for a leader. When they are afraid, they crave leadership. It's understandable. It's human nature.

The reason why Sister Sarah is the leader of the Republican Party is because there is really no leader. There's no more George Bush. No iconic, Messiah-like figure to cling to.

I never thought this was true of the Left, as I'm a part of that block. However, I am beginning to see it. All we do is sit behind a computer and bitch and complain. The difference between us and them is that they actually get up and do something. They *actively* hold their leaders accountable. We don't, other than have silly protests and heckle at the president at town hall meetings. Very counterproductive!!

I attended a cookout this evening and all of the lefties went on and on about how horrible Obama is. They complained the entire night about how he is arrogant. (There's some racial undertones in that for me.) They complained about how he has badly betrayed the LGBT community. They complained just about everything.

In two years! TWO YEARS!!!

When people are desperate, angry, afraid, frustrated, they yearn for a leader.

Very interesting indeed!!

[Radical Activist]

52. Our Brand is Crisis.

You should find this documentary if you haven't seen it before. It follows the consulting firm run by Bob Shrum and James Carville as they work for a Presidential candidate in Bolivia. This was before the '08 election and it was easy to see when Hillary was using the same tactics. It's easier to understand how the American public is being manipulated when you see it done to another country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Brand_Is_Crisis

[Radical Activist]

55. More on that point.

I sometimes see people who voted for Obama but supported someone else in the primary deliver a lot of "I told you so" about the fact that he didn't turn out to be the savior we thought he would be. The problem is that the critics never understood that Obama wasn't offering to be a savior. They don't understand that those of us who "got" Obama aren't disappointed because we knew all along that it was going to be more difficult than waiting for him to do it for us. Those critics are disappointed because they were the ones looking for a savior who will never come.

[Clio the Leo]

58. Yep but if ONLY he'd told us change would take more than one year...

.... oh wait.......

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. ~ Barack Obama, 11/4/08

[Arkansas Granny]

95. The voters who did not support Obama in the primaries didn't expect him

to be a savior. If they had expected that, they would have supported him then. Frankly, I didn't expect any of the candidates to be a savior.

I had some reservations about Obama during the primaries and they didn't suddenly disappear when he won the nomination. I voted for him because the alternative was unthinkable. My feelings about his accomplishments so far have been mixed. Some I've been pleased with and some I've been disappointed about. I expected no more and no less.

[Clio the Leo]

57. lol and it hasn't even BEEN two years!

... but I know what you mean. ;)

It's as he said in "Audacity" .... he served as a blank slate onto which everyone projected their hopes and dreams .... he was bound to disappoint someone.

[Clio the Leo]

56. very good point. nt

[Clio the Leo]

40. exactly nt

[depakid]

47. Once again, the apologist whinge followed by an insult to the people in constituencies

who work they asses off trying to enact or improve public policy.

And people wonder why we're staring down the barrel at another 1994.

[Radical Activist]

49. People who organize aren't being insulted.

Just people who think that whining about Obama is organizing.

[depakid]

51. Of course all of this broad brush condescension is insulting to people

in Democratic constituencies- and the moment, that's about THE single stupidest thing Democratic leaders -or their surrogates or supporters can do (I'd sad politically inept- but it's worse than that).

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

70. I don't mean to insult anyone. And, frankly, you don't know my personal circumstances,

so you're doing the very thing that you're accusing me of doing.

I'm simply stating the fact that there are some unreasonable people within the Democratic Party LEFT.

A reminder: I AM A PROUD MEMBER OF THE DEMOCRATIC LEFT!!

And if you can read, you will see that I am not referring to ALL those on the left. I am not even referring to a majority. But there are indeed some on the left, within the Democratic Party, who want change NOW!! They are impatient and they are angry. I'm not suggesting that they don't have a right to be angry. I'm suggesting that they are being unreasonable to want change so soon and quickly!

Bottom line: they projected onto Barack Obama what they wanted. They wanted to believe that he's a liberal. (This was the problem with Bill Maher and a small minority of the left.) They didn't do their homework. All they did was project onto him what they wanted him to be. The point is that he was never a liberal. He never said that he's a liberal. And nothing in his voting record, neither in the IL State Senate nor in the U.S. Senate, gave evidence of him being a liberal.

You can attack me all you want, but you can't just make shit up and expect people not to take you on.

For the record, most people here who are familiar with my past posts know that I was a proud Kucinich supporter. It took me a long time to come to Obama because I KNEW that he wasn't the liberal that I wanted. But I also knew that there was no way on earth that I could ever support Hillary. It was a tough decision for me personally. But I also knew that Kucinich had no chance in hell of winning. Sometimes you are right, but not correct.

I am very disappointed in this administration. But I'm smart enough to know that the alternative is simply unacceptable. And I also realize that there have been some great accomplishments in such a very short time.

But continue to whine and scream and attack your fellow Democrats. It is an utterly futile exercise.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ibegurpard]

32. big words don't necessarily make sense...

[JeffR]

59. But when they do, they work just fine.

They help us refine what we mean, to be as clear an expression of our thoughts as can be attained, given the medium in which we're, theoretically, discussing things. So unless you have a suggestion better than using words, I guess we're sort of stuck with words, right?

[ClarkUSA]

25. Hit a nerve, did he?

:rofl:

[flyarm]

61. + 1000!!!

[JamesA1102]

66. Alter is 100% correct. nt

[phleshdef]

74. And yet even if that were true, he would still have more than yourself.

[BlueIdaho]

2. Our future is in our hands.

Always has been, always will be.

[liberalmuse]

3. Alter is 100% correct.

Unless doing something means sitting on your ass criticizing Obama all over the liberal blogosphere. Oh, and if I'm wrong, please list all the things you've done to help Obama make change. I've volunteered and have gone door to door as well as called my reps, voted and wrote letters and emails.

On a positive note, I did speak with two Democratic volunteers going door to door making sure Democrats vote this fall. They seem to think the Dems will come out. I'm terrified of the prospect they will be just like the sour liberals who, again, sit on their asses and slam Obama rather than lifting a finger to help make change happen. President Obama has done a fantastic job of beginning to steer the boat around. It's going to take time. 30 years of stupidity and apathy that came with Reagan is not easy to turn around. And I'm not even talking about the last 8 years of Bush steamrolling over everything good about this country. President Obama is the best electable person we are going to get, and those members of Congress who support and fight for our values are worth showing up at the polls for.

[firedupdem]

6. Perfect! n/t

[Cha]

11. Bless your heart for going door to door, liberalmuse &

GOTV! :fistbump:

[quiet.american]

15. Well said. nt

[treestar]

4. that sums it up

Right after the election, I read posts where people said they'd done their part - just by voting!

[firedupdem]

5. Ain't that the truth?!

To hell with the House and Senate....he better get it done by himself! :eyes:

[Tarheel_Dem]

8. Jonathan knows from whence he speaks! Rec, (nt)

[Cha]

9. Jonathan Alter hits it right on Target!

He can't do it alone and am right there with him.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

10. I will never tire of repeating this: Clinton deserved 8 years. Bush got 8 years. But The Brother

can't even get the benefit of the doubt? He cannot even get 2 years to clean up 8+ years of bullshit.

Again, I ask: WHY?? Why the double standards?

And to those who falsely assert that Obama had the majority in the Congress, that's absolutely bullshit! Obama NEVER had a majority. He has had to deal with the Blue Dogs and the Corporatists in the Democratic Party who joined with the Republicans on a host of major pieces of legislation. He also had a cowardly Majority Leader in the Senate who would not force the Republicans to filibuster.

Obama himself does deserve some blame for cow-towing to Republicans and trying to be Mr. Nice Guys. Nice Guys finish last. I hope he has learned a valuable lesson and that lesson hasn't come too late.

[butterfly77]

18. +1

[indy legend]

27. +2

[mikekohr]

63. +3

[vaberella]

69. +4

As I always said...it's tough to be Black. Jesus was a Black man....that is a horrible analogy but he never got a break either and by his own, nor did he get their support when they felt he was far. It's telling isn't.

[suzie]

73. +5

[CBR]

77. +6

[mkultra]

80. there are still many deep rooted bigots in the Dem party.

their irrational anger is the sign just like it is with Teabaggers.

[Hekate]

90. +7 And lest we forget, FDR was given 12 years; he died in his 4th term.

[bkozumplik]

92. well. because he's hardly even trying

you act like he's making great leaps and bounds. he's following the bush bailout, and the bush war plan, with a little escalation in afghanistan to top it off.. and his health care execution was poor to say the least. Financial reform has been a joke, and he appointed rubin trickle downers to run our finances.

He cavorts with repubs and ignores his base.

thats why.

[Hekate]

96. Not True

[bkozumplik]

97. want to elaborate? which part, my sigline?

It is quite true. I am bkozumplik. You can look it up.


comments like "not true" dont really add much to the conversation do they?

[Number23]

12. Hell YES. Happy to rec

Thanks for posting, Clio

[ZombieHorde]

13. Ha!

rec

[quiet.american]

14. Indeed. nt

[butterfly77]

17. Kicked&Recommended!

[jenmito]

19. K&R for the TRUTH. n/t

[SoxFan]

20. Kick!

[jaxx]

22. Not only did they let him do it by himself, they bitched about it

not being good enough.

K&R

[Raine1967]

34. +1 in addition to a healthy K&R to the OP

[hulka38]

23. Oh, I need someone to make me do this or that...

ACT LIKE A PRESIDENT!

[ClarkUSA]

24. To those who want to stop whining & start working, sign up to GOTV for Democrats in your local area.

Just click on my sig.


"Many of Obama's supporters decided they were, in fact, NOT the ones they had been waiting for ... and, instead, decided to sit down and let Obama do it all himself." ~ Jonathan Alter, "The Promise."

How true.

[ProSense]

26. James Caroll makes a great point

here

[Juche]

29. Uh huh

Many of us helped get Obama elected. We called reps about health reform, have volunteered, are planning to attend the 10-2 rally, etc.

I don't know what Alter is talking about. It would be nice if liberals were as organized as the tea party. The GOP fears the tea party, the DNC ignores/disdain liberals. But I don't know how to help create a movement as powerful as the tea party.

[Clio the Leo]

31. Well, from what I can tell ....

.... the teabaggers never threw their hands up and said, "the RNC disdains conservatives." (which is not to pick on you as you are obviously not the only person to ever say that) but they INSISTED that their Reps/Senators vote how THEY wanted to because they KNEW they worked for them and not the other way around.

Now, they had a bit of an advantage in that their opposition to the President made a better story (ie got more coverage) than support of the President would have. They talked to their friends .... made sure their local media covered them and just generally went around being the squeaky wheel.

I've been guilty myself ... saying "ah well, I live in the reddest of red of the Bible belt, my voice doesn't matter anyway....." But you know what? I can CALL Kentucky cant I? I can SEND money cant I?

We helped elect a black man to the Presidency of the United States of America .... and not just a black man ... a black man named Barack Hussein Obama!!! If you sent that story to Hollywood, they'd send it back saying it wasn't believable .... but it happened ... I got the t-shirt to prove it!

After that, we SHOULD be able to do ANYTHING we TRY.

[Juche]

82. Politicans seem to only respect 2 things: power and money

More or less. And the tea party knows how to influence power. Because of their ability to influence primaries, they can take away the power of a senator or representative. So politicians fear and respect them.

At the grassroots level I doubt we will be able to compete with the money coming from corporations and wealthy individuals. One multi-billionaire can cancel out 1 million small donors.

But affecting a politicians ability to gain and keep power is a meaningful avenue to influence. And I admire the tea party for using it. They use primaries extremely well to take power away from some politicians and give it to others.

Things like marches, phone calls, letters, etc. I doubt they matter myself unless a politicians fears they will lose power or money as a result. Usually they don't seem to think so.

[Clio the Leo]

30. I'm only 20 mins into Alter's book...

.... I say "20 mins" because it's the audio book version ... and he has already run down a litany of the President's accomplishments, even things that *I* had not paid attention to like expanding Americorps .... everything he lists is not a matter of opinion but irrefutable fact ... and then to come home and listen to the day's Sunday News shows and hear the pundits talk about how he's failed .... well, it's very amusing to say the least.

[Radical Activist]

37. Where would someone hear about anything positive Obama's done?

We won't hear it from the corporate press. And most of the netroots wants to do nothing but attack Obama to push him left. That's a set-up to fail for both Obama and anything progressive he proposes.

[jeanpalmer]

91. Hard to see expanding Americorp

as an accomplishment. For a country that has a $trillion+ deficit and is considering cuts to SS and Medicare? That's insanity. It's the sign of a government that has run completely off the track.

[Mass]

42. Are you talking of those who were telling that we should wait and that it was a genial chess

party?

Because most progressives did not stop and wait. They asked for progressive measures. They understood that there needed to be a counterweight to the far right. Some, however, misunderstood what Obama was asking and said that we had to wait, and wait, and wait.

I am no problem with Obama's sentence. I agree with Alter's analysis, but I am not sure who you aim at? Yourself or those that Rahm calls professional left.

[Clio the Leo]

53. all of us....

.... we all dropped the ball.

Some asked for progressive measures .... but they couldn't be heard for the teabaggers DEMANDING THAT OBAMA STOP KILLING GRANDMA!!!! AHHHHH!!!!!

If you agree with Alter's analysis, then we're on the same page. ;)

The pro. left are the WWF Smackdown! celebrities of the political news genre ... they have a job to do and they do it.

They're not who I'm talking about.

[Pirate Smile]

43. K & R

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[applegrove]

48. Obama's administration should have been hyping this for the last 2 years.

[the other one]

64. Alter is a douche.

A movement of historical proportions expends itself to elect someone who turns out to be less than they expected. And it's our fault for being disappointed.

Movements need leaders. Obama is merely a symbol, at least to those who have sat down.

[Cha]

76. No Jonathan Alter isn't the "douche" as you so uninterestingly put it.

He's made a very astute observation.

[jeanpalmer]

65. Exactly

as he says, "Change will not come if we wait for some other person..." What's he waiting for? Is he waiting for us, to do what? E-mail him? We are not the change that we seek, he is. Or, we thought he was. The change we sought was an end to endless war, not escalation, an end to the wiretapping, the rendition, Guantanamo, an end to spending almost all of our income taxes on the military and war, an end to shipping our jobs overseas, an end to militarizing the world with weapons sales, a cessation to the ignorant bashing of unions and teachers. Those are some of the changes we sought and he hasn't done a damn thing about them. When he says "we" he means you and me, trying to shift responsibility for what he should be doing onto us. How fucking cynical, when he knows that he is the one who has the power to begin these changes, and that we expected him to do it, or at least start to do it.

Alter is just another establishment tool.

[treestar]

94. Support him, so that he has the political power to get Congress

to go along, and the popularity strong enough that the media can't bring him down?

You have a shallow understanding of the presidency. You seem to think all you have to do is vote for someone, and they'll get you all you want. Impossible. Look at the system the Constitution describes and its history. It's way harder than you think.

[JamesA1102]

67. Don't confuse the demagogues with the truth. nt

[The Uncola]

71. Wrong

Sorry friend, but don't try to shirk responsibility for your failures off on to those of us that worked our asses off to give you the opportunity to prove "Yes we can." We watched as people like you gave away most everything YOU promised us you would fight for BEFORE the "negotiations" even began. Negotiating as though you are weak, when in fact, you just had an overwhelming victory in the elections of '08, and finding excuse after excuse after excuse after excuse, as to why you couldn't possibly follow thru on what YOU were elected to do, and then have the unmitigated gall, to BLAME us, the people who worked so hard both before AND AFTER your election, for YOUR FAIL TO ACT, is perhaps one of the most asinine acts of political suicide in modern times.

You, just like the Republicans, held all the cards to shaping a new vision for this Nation. But just like the Republicans, you arrogantly decided that your personal fortunes should come before those of the People of this Nation. YOU empowered the Teabaggers. It's likely YOU handed Congress back to the Repubs. It's also likely YOU will be a one term POTUS unless YOU live up to YOUR end of this deal and LEAD. YOU and your fellow supposed "leaders" in Congress are in a position to make changes, NOT US. I'm fresh out of "hope" and the only "change" I've seen, is that it's even harder to find work and my Unemployment Benefits have been gone since February. That's "change I have to believe in"" even if it's killing me.

[Name removed]

89. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Spazito]

75. Yep, Mr. Alter nails it...

Recommended.

[young but wise]

78. I guess alot of people in this thread think we are NOT the ones we have been

waiting for.:rofl:

[Aramchek]

79. I sure haven't been waiting for the whining crew of Obama haters that frequents this place

but I guess they are nothing new.

[CBR]

81. K&R nt

[angee_is_mad]

84. HALLELUJAH!

we have a winner!!!!

[Cowpunk]

85. I don't think he's talking about any of us DUers.

There's not much context there to work with, it seems to me he's talking about the people who tuned out after the election, who went back to their lives and waited for the change that was promised to arrive. I don't think that really applies to any of us here. Obviously some DUers are more politically active than others, but there is no doubt that we are all paying attention. We are all engaged to some degree.

[Clio the Leo]

87. Sorry ....

..... engaging in a circular firing squad on an internet message board (and I'm as guilty as anyone) doesn't count as being engaged.

[Cowpunk]

93. I guess, if that's the only thing you do.

I doubt that that is the case for the vast majority here, but maybe I'm just projecting. I would like to think that almost all of us here also discuss politics with our friends, relatives or coworkers. It does make a difference. I think it's also likely that a majority of DUers are also involved in some form of activism.

[andym]

86. Something is seriously wrong that progressives have not mobilized

to effect greater change. If we could muster the same energy and numbers that the tea party has, it would be possible to have serious influence as the media narrative would be about progressivism, not ultra conservatism.

I'm not sure why, but there has been malaise among everyday liberals/progressives since the election. Not on DU or Kos, whose members are far more progressive than the average self-described progressive, but that hasn't translated into concerted action beyond writing congress or the President.

Anyone with understanding of the current moderate Democratic Party knows that there needs to be a great push from the left to get stronger legislation. Otherwise, we get the lowest common denominator of the party, and that is fairly conservative relative to 30 years ago.

[Beacool]

88. He was not the one many of us were waiting for, nor the change we sought.

Didn't buy it then, still don't buy it now.

:shrug: