I'm sorry, you are not a Democrat if...

[Dawgs]

vote for Bush. It's like saying I'm a Yankee fan, but I want to see the Mets win the World Series.

If you are a Democrat then you should vote for anyone but Bush. Voting for this jerk off shows that you are one of those scared p*ssies that can't believe that a Democrat can't be tough against terrorism.

[question everything]

1. No, not anyone. This would include Nader

If you are a Democrat you have to vote for Kerry, even if you have to close your nose while doing it. Voting for anyone BUT Kerry will keep Bush four more years and, horror, may even pave the way for Jeb.

[BillZBubb]

2. Absolutely.

And the Democrats need some way to remove people who call themselves Democrats only so that when they back their Repug hero it looks like the real Democrats are split.

Somebody should have long ago stood up and said "Zell Miller, you may be many things, but you are NOT a Democrat! Now get lost."

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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

[ulysses]

4. here, here.

:thumbsup:

[Eric J in MN]

6. maybe the poster was refferring to Zell Miller (nt)

nt

[sistersofmercy]

13. Just b/c the poster only has ...

30 posts it doesn't mean he/she is a troll trying to take a smack at Democrats. There are threads about Zell and Toby Keith claiming to be a Democrat but also stating he will vote for bush* in GD, I believe that is what the poster is referring to.

Peace

[LWolf]

22. Of course not.

I don't think the poster is a troll; I was referring to those that we know lurk, and sometimes post here "posing" as democrats. They may vote for GWB, but I don't think any of the rest of DU will!

[sistersofmercy]

23. Oops! Sorry..

O8)

[JohnDoe1]

5. Cough

*Cough* Red Sox *Cough

[Roy Robertson]

24. Don't you mean "Choke"????

But seriously, this is our year!
See you in September!

Roy (RedSox fan)

[expatriot]

7. Democrats for Bush = Jews for Hitler

Bush represents everything it means to be diametrically OPPOSED to Democrat.

On like every issue.

[jonnyblitz]

8. that is how I feel about gays (log cabin republicans ) for Bush.

:crazy:

[expatriot]

11. i do feel very bad for the log cabin republicans though...

it's too bad that gays who are fiscally conservative & even socially and culturally conservative have been so excluded from the conservative party here in the states. I mean I can feel their struggle, the Democratic Party is not their party because they ARE conservative on many, many issues but the Republicans are spitting on them.

[K-W]

12. Fiscal conservatives are democrats now.

And right now being socially conservative in America means hating gays.

[jonnyblitz]

14. I suppose

but I have debated with them in gay chat rooms and they get just as vicious as the rest of the right wingers. I probably don't have as much sympathy for them as you do. It's not like the DEMS are all that fiscally radical. the log cabin folks despise, with a passion, us left wing gays.

[K-W]

15. Indeed, being a repulican today has nothing to do with being conservative

its a reactionary party, plain and simple.

[Liberal Veteran]

18. I feel no pity for them.....

They are collaborators and they work not only against their own interests but against mine because they put money before civil rights.

They disgust me, offend me by their very existence and I have nothing but the loathing and contempt for them.

[greekspeak]

26. Here here!

If they think their party gives a damn about them, they are grossly mistaken. The money-grubbing sell outs deserve whatever the pukes dish out for them.

[expatriot]

9. Zel Miller needs to face a primary challenger in 2006.

A challenger that is able and well-funded. He need to kick this guy out.

[K-W]

10. He isnt running for reelection.

Thats why he can get away with this.

[Dark]

16. I am NOT a Democrat!

I am not a limp wristed, bend over backwards to please Mr. Bush Democrat!

I am not an ignore the issues facing blacks, latinos, gays, and women just so I can persuade moderates to vote for me Democrat!

I will have nothing to do with these disgusting flip-floppers whose support capriciously oscillates concerning gay marriage, abortion, and the invasion of Iraq!

I will not vote for any democrats until they prove to me that they are what I am: A liberal.

A liberal who believes that a woman does have rights over her own body and everything within it.

A liberal who believes that every human being has a right to breathe clean air, drink clean water, consume edible food, have access to life saving medicines and operations.

A liberal who believes that money is nothing more than a means to an end, not an end.

A liberal who believes that everyone can marry and love who they wish, not who a book authorizes them to.

A liberal who believes that violence begets violence, that the foreign policy cannot succeed while foreigners despise us.

A liberal who believes that debt is something to be paid off, not augmented.

A liberal who believes that books, not bombs, is what our young men and women should be using.

A liberal who believes that the country with the best military in the world should also have the best education, the best healthcare, the best environment, and the best leaders.

Until then, I AM NOT A DEMOCRAT. I am a trouble making, traitorous, evil, baby-killing, gay-pinko-commie, LIBERAL and I am DAMN proud of it. Kerry has my vote for the worst reason possible: He isn't W. I abominate that I have to select between the lesser of two evils. But let's make one thing clear: I am not voting for any democrats other than Kerry, And I hate that we are associated with the Dems, but its our best option.

[GreenPartyVoter]

17. Keep

fighting the good fight for election reform!

[QC]

19. But how does one protect and further those excellent principles

without getting elected?

This is a sincere question, by the way. I'm not being flippant here.

I also get frustrated with the compromises made to get votes, but I see no way that we can do the things we need to do if we can't get anyone elected, and a "my way or the highway" platform is lousy political strategy.

When we look at the history of progressive ideas in America, we find that they have been put into practice by progressives building coalitions with those who did not agree with them on every issue. That's why a country that has never had a leftist majority still has things like a progressive income tax, a 40-hour week, Social Security, and the like.

[ScreamingMeemie]

20. Bravo!

And I stand with you. :hi: We can take our country back. We can make our voices heard. We can give our children a chance at a better life.

[jonnyblitz]

21. damn, I could have written your post.

:thumbsup:

[leyton]

25. No.

Plenty of people register as democrats because on local issues they are relatively liberal. Lots of people in North Carolina, for example, register as Democrats because the locally elected Dems are conservative enough to appeal to voters that are centrists. But these same voters feel that national Democrats are too liberal for their tastes. In other words, don't assume that people register as Democrats because of national issues. It don't always work that way.

[Roy Robertson]

27. Unfortunately, we have a structural problem...

... and I don't know what the solution is.

I sympathise with both sides of this argument. In my day I've voted in the Democratic primaries for Gene McCarthy, Jesse Jackson (twice), and Dennis Kucinich. And I'm a RedSox fan, too. I get a little frustrated sometimes...

The Constitution doesn't say a single word about parties, much less does it enshrine the notion of only two parties. But its way of dividing up the nation into geographical districts (be they states or congressional districts) and having the results be "winner take all" within each district, pretty much guarantees the two-party stranglehold we have now, for the simple reason that nothing else can work.

Small parties like the Greens or the Libertarians might have 5 or 10% support nationwide for their philosopy, but unfortunately they don't get 5-10% of the seats in congress, and that is the root of the problem. In order to get their measly 5-10% of the seats, they have to somehow grow from 5-10% of the voters in (maybe) 100% of the districts, to (at least) 51% of the voters in 5-10% of the disricts.

And this growth never happens, because most of their potential voters in any given district realize that, in the meantime, they would be "throwing away their votes" and in effect "voting for Nader and electing Bush", year after year after year, maybe forever, until finally, maybe, somehow, 51% of their neighbors are persuaded to join in this folly. And the reward for all this, if they succede? A single rep in congress.

So the growth never happens. It can't. The reasons are structural.

Could the current structure be changed somehow? Its fun to speculate.

I'd be curious to see what would happen if, in addition to the House and the Senate, we added a third body to Congress, a Party House, run along parliamentary lines maybe, but with the following important condition: in the Parliamentary elections, we citizens would cast our votes for a Party. Period. The parties would win a number of seats in Parliament based on their percentage of the vote. Each party (not the voters) would then select the members to fill those seats. So assuming, say, 100 members total, right away we might have a parliament with 2 socialists and 5 greens and 10 farm/labors and 3 libertarians and 35 republicans and 45 democrats. Or whatever.

Point being: all political views would get some representation in the parliament, roughly proportional to how widely held those views are in the country. It would be a "strong party" system. The individual members wouldn't matter so much, and we wouldn't spend so much time worrying about their "morality". If a member screws up and administers unsolicited hickeys to a busload of nuns, the party could, and I suspect rather promptly would, replace him (no impeachment or recall or special elections needed) with a member of sounder judgment. And each party would be in a position to enforce its idea of political correctness. This is as it should be.

The various parties could form coalitions around particular issues and bills, and they would be in a position to go to the citizens every 2 years and compete for their votes based on programs and accomplishments, without all the regional and personal distractions that have brought us to our current dreary homogenized banana republican state.

Go forth in peace.

What did you think of the sermon?

[Hippo_Tron]

30. What about the Senate?

Do you propose that we choose senators in the same way?

[Roy Robertson]

31. For now I'd propose leaving the Senate and the House

...the way they are, and adding this third "party-house" as an experiment. Who knows, it might be a lousy idea. But if it works out for 10 years or so, people might want to take it further.

Personally, I think I'd like to see them toss the whole current mess (both the Legislative and the Executive branches) and go to a full parliamentary democracy system with elections strictly by party, not by district, and bunches of fringe parties, but I'm not proposing that here, mainly because I think most people would think it was too drastic a change to try all at once.

And as much as it makes me crazy, I think a lot of people actually LIKE our current system, with it's weird emphasis on the personal details of the candidates' lives. The fact that it gives us lousy government gets overlooked. So I wouldn't propose taking it all away, just yet.

Just thinking out loud here...

[smirkymonkey]

28. You're not even HUMAN if you vote for Bush*

as far as I am concerned.

[NightTrain]

29. Now, if we could just get Zell Miller to switch parties....

It's the only step he hasn't taken!