At the same time that Montana Democrats are going after Republicans for a lack of unity, Democrats are dealing with a split personality of their own resulting from a long, drawn out primary between two powerful candidates.
As their presumptive nominee shifts into General Election mode, he’s also going to be moving to the political center, which will alienate a lot of the wing-nuts who gave him the edge over Clinton. That’s going to create even more rifts within the Democrat Party.
Now, I’m not one to claim that McCain is a perfect conservative candidate either. In fact, I think there are plenty of Conservatives in Montana who frankly don’t like him. So I find myself agreeing with something that Wulfgar wrote:
It is my opinion that it is well passed the time for Democrats to wake up to few realities. No candidate will embody everything you want and more. The realities of politics are not such that each person gets what they want. Seemingly since Ronald Reagan, Americans have carried a national delusion that our President needs to be just like us, and give us everything that we ask for, or that person is unworthy of our support. Our sense of individualism appears to overridden our reason, at which point all we have to hang onto is our idealism. That is a national zeitgeist custom made for Republican victory and service to those most well heeled to manipulate that idealism. The reality is that we are not special little snowflakes. We won’t get everything we want, and our desires for ourselves cannot trump the good of the country as carried out by the candidates we elect. Speaking personally, I don’t want politicians who ‘feel my pain’. I want politicians who will do something about it … for all of us. Those are the people to whom I will give my whole hearted support.
Wulfgar hits the nail on the head, but he describes a bipartisan problem. Republicans are just as guilty of expecting their candidates to agree with everything they believe and unforgiving when necessary differentiation occurs.
The trouble is, the reality that we are not all beautiful or unique snowflakes (thank you Tyler Durdan) flies directly in the face of the GOTV efforts that are aimed at convincing every single voter that their vote and their vote alone is the most important in a given election. That’s one of the great fetishes of Democracy - the delusional belief that each vote matters against the sheer mathematics of a large-scale election.
The lesson to learn is that if one’s political ideologies are outside of the main stream, one must accept the fact that short of shifting the populous as a whole, no candidate can match those ideologies and get elected at the same time. That’s advice that I can use, and it’s also advice that Wulfgar should heed himself.
Posted in Blogging, Democrats, Republicans | | Write a Letter to the Editor
You’ve created a false dichotomy by saying that we demand that a candidate agree with us on everything or we won’t support him. That’s not true, I’ve pointed it out to Wulfgar, a stickler for proper logic. Here is what we say, one “wing nut” to another: We ask that candidates stick with us on the very important issues, two of those being NAFTA and FISA, aka the fourth amendment to the constitution.
I am fully aware that from your extreme point of view, Bill and Hillary Clinton look like wild-eyed liberals. In fact they are divisive characters, each supported by the Democratic Leadership Council, a corporation-funded wing of the Democratic Party that continually advocates retreat and concession in the face of the Bush agenda. Progressives (as distinguished form liberals) advocate a healthy fight for the things that polls tell us Americans support - get out of Iraq, single-payer health care, clean campaign laws, and a clean environment, among other things. We need to fight for those things but we continually find that Democrats won’t fight, but instead beat a constant retreat.
The debate going on right now is whether or not Obama, in his retreats on NAFTA and FISA, is beating a DLC retreat, whether he is really one of us, or whether he is at heart a Clintonite.
You don’t get out much, you’re not aware of the nuances of the infighting among Democrats. I forgive you, but caution you to think a bit harder next time before putting up a post like this. The view from the far right is necessarily limited - you see what you see very clearly. You just don’t see very much.
Sure Mark, but everyone has a different set of “very important issues.” There is no Royal “Us” for either party.
The view from the far right is necessarily limited - you see what you see very clearly. You just don’t see very much.
Calling the kettle black are we?
I daresay a reasonable person can hold certain issues in high importance, and see others less so. The fourth amendment is an important issue for almost all of us, I would warrant. NAFTA was critical in Ohio, where both Obama and Clinton apparently lied about their positions. Generally, Americans see jobs going overseas, and that troubles most of them. They may not fully understand the mechanism, but they know the result.
~speaking slowly as if to a two year old~ You’re right Wiley. I should heed the very advice I gave; you know, the very advice I have been heeding, and that’s why I wrote about it? ~wink~
~says the man who absolutely refuses to vote for Democrat Max Baucus because he’s not liberal enough for him… ~wink~
Excuse me, Wiley. Am I to read that as an endorsement of Max Baucus? It certainly appears to be.
No, no no. You no read so good. There is nothing “liberal” about my refusal to support Max. I refuse to vote for Max Baucus because he refuses to lead. He refuses to support Montana. He refuses to stand against the man whose policies are favored by 23% of the country and reviled by 75% of the country. You maintain your fantasies, there, cupcake. I’ll vote for honest reasons, and you can vote for …
