Democrats-A Move to the Center?

[NDN]

Agreed. We need to whistle past Dixie. Were not going to win Tennessee, the Carolina, Indiana, Kentucky or Louisiana. We can win Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, and in time, Arizona and Montana. We should go after Alaska before we go after South Carolina.

Agreed as well. Although Alaska is tougher, there seems to have been a bit of a right-wing migration there. Sort of like how a lot of liberals moved to Vermont.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

...because being hardcore leftists hurt them soooo much in 2006.

The CW was that John Yarmuth, Carol Shea-Porter, and John Hall were liberal sacrificial lambs who were going to go down in flames in the general election, if not the primary.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

...because being hardcore leftists hurt them soooo much in 2006.

The CW was that John Yarmuth, Carol Shea-Porter, and John Hall were liberal sacrificial lambs who were going to go down in flames in the general election, if not the primary.

Very few people even knew who the f**k Carol Shea-Porter was, little less what she stood for.  They were just pissed enough to hit the "D" lever and go home.

The last poll I saw out of New Hampshire shows Jeb Bradley with higher approval ratings than Shea-Porter has.  Even though Jeb's out of office and Shea-Porter is in Washington.

[Person Man]

Agreed. We need to whistle past Dixie. Were not going to win Tennessee, the Carolina, Indiana, Kentucky or Louisiana. We can win Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, and in time, Arizona and Montana. We should go after Alaska before we go after South Carolina.

Agreed as well. Although Alaska is tougher, there seems to have been a bit of a right-wing migration there. Sort of like how a lot of liberals moved to Vermont.

People are bringing their banjos up north? LOL ...when I go to Alaska, I will be sure to keep my anus tight.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

...because being hardcore leftists hurt them soooo much in 2006.

The CW was that John Yarmuth, Carol Shea-Porter, and John Hall were liberal sacrificial lambs who were going to go down in flames in the general election, if not the primary.

Very few people even knew who the f**k Carol Shea-Porter was, little less what she stood for.  They were just pissed enough to hit the "D" lever and go home.

The last poll I saw out of New Hampshire shows Jeb Bradley with higher approval ratings than Shea-Porter has.  Even though Jeb's out of office and Shea-Porter is in Washington.

dOsNt MattEr; tHiS iS blUe hAmpSHirE, rEthUgLiKaNn!!!11111

[Lief 🗽]

The Democrats need to start appealing to the libertarian elements of the Mountain West if they want to win elections in the near future.  One thing all potential '08 candidates need to be looking at is the distribution of Electoral Votes in the 2012 landscape.  If the Democrats simply focus on winning their 2004 states+Ohio they may win in 2008 but will lose in 2012 by winning those same states.  If current trends hold, winning the 2004 states+Ohio will only get the Democrats 261 EVs in 2012.  The population is shifting South and West and any political party that wants to be relevant from 2012-2022 needs to do the same.

Because caving on abortion rights and religious freedom (gay marriage) doesn't appeal to me, I'd much rather see Democrats look westward than southward.  If the Democrats can successfully drive a wedge between the Republican coalition of Western Libertarians and Southern Social Conservatives they will break the Republicans for many years to come.  This is exactly what Nixon did when he saw that the two factions of the Democratic party (Dixiecrats and Northern Unions) could be broken apart by cultural issues like abortion and civil rights.

This is EXACTLY what I've been advocating for months. Why should the Democrats sell out the desires and ideals of much of the modern party to attempt to gain a sliver of states that we've lost because the Republicans exploited fears about evil minorities and the Evil Secular Left ^TM? It would be much easier to just drop a few losing issues like Gun Control, welcome Fiscal Conservatives even more than now and run as the party of personal freedom. The Democrats could easily become the party of liberals, moderates, and secular conservatives/libertarian-leaning people if they just made a few changes.

The Democratic party is not going to win votes if the only difference between Republicans and Democrats is George W. Bush, abortion and gays. People will vote for a center to center-left (economically) Democratic party, because the country is center-left economically.

[Person Man]

The Democrats need to start appealing to the libertarian elements of the Mountain West if they want to win elections in the near future.  One thing all potential '08 candidates need to be looking at is the distribution of Electoral Votes in the 2012 landscape.  If the Democrats simply focus on winning their 2004 states+Ohio they may win in 2008 but will lose in 2012 by winning those same states.  If current trends hold, winning the 2004 states+Ohio will only get the Democrats 261 EVs in 2012.  The population is shifting South and West and any political party that wants to be relevant from 2012-2022 needs to do the same.

Because caving on abortion rights and religious freedom (gay marriage) doesn't appeal to me, I'd much rather see Democrats look westward than southward.  If the Democrats can successfully drive a wedge between the Republican coalition of Western Libertarians and Southern Social Conservatives they will break the Republicans for many years to come.  This is exactly what Nixon did when he saw that the two factions of the Democratic party (Dixiecrats and Northern Unions) could be broken apart by cultural issues like abortion and civil rights.

This is EXACTLY what I've been advocating for months. Why should the Democrats sell out the desires and ideals of much of the modern party to attempt to gain a sliver of states that we've lost because the Republicans exploited fears about evil minorities and the Evil Secular Left ^TM? It would be much easier to just drop a few losing issues like Gun Control, welcome Fiscal Conservatives even more than now and run as the party of personal freedom. The Democrats could easily become the party of liberals, moderates, and secular conservatives/libertarian-leaning people if they just made a few changes.

The Democratic party is not going to win votes if the only difference between Republicans and Democrats is George W. Bush, abortion and gays. People will vote for a center to center-left (economically) Democratic party, because the country is center-left economically.

Then again, th Democratic part is not going to win votes if t he only difference between Republicans and Democrats is George W. Bush, taxes and unions. People will vote for a center to center-left (civilaly) Democratic party, because the country is center-left civilly with small but stable majorities considering themselves pro-choice and in favor of ebryonic stem cell research.
[/quote]

[NDN]

The Democrats need to start appealing to the libertarian elements of the Mountain West if they want to win elections in the near future.  One thing all potential '08 candidates need to be looking at is the distribution of Electoral Votes in the 2012 landscape.  If the Democrats simply focus on winning their 2004 states+Ohio they may win in 2008 but will lose in 2012 by winning those same states.  If current trends hold, winning the 2004 states+Ohio will only get the Democrats 261 EVs in 2012.  The population is shifting South and West and any political party that wants to be relevant from 2012-2022 needs to do the same.

Because caving on abortion rights and religious freedom (gay marriage) doesn't appeal to me, I'd much rather see Democrats look westward than southward.  If the Democrats can successfully drive a wedge between the Republican coalition of Western Libertarians and Southern Social Conservatives they will break the Republicans for many years to come.  This is exactly what Nixon did when he saw that the two factions of the Democratic party (Dixiecrats and Northern Unions) could be broken apart by cultural issues like abortion and civil rights.

This is EXACTLY what I've been advocating for months. Why should the Democrats sell out the desires and ideals of much of the modern party to attempt to gain a sliver of states that we've lost because the Republicans exploited fears about evil minorities and the Evil Secular Left ^TM? It would be much easier to just drop a few losing issues like Gun Control, welcome Fiscal Conservatives even more than now and run as the party of personal freedom. The Democrats could easily become the party of liberals, moderates, and secular conservatives/libertarian-leaning people if they just made a few changes.

The Democratic party is not going to win votes if the only difference between Republicans and Democrats is George W. Bush, abortion and gays. People will vote for a center to center-left (economically) Democratic party, because the country is center-left economically.

Right now, there are a lot of discontent moderate Republicans, Libertarians and Independents. Many of these people would vote Democratic, were they to pander less to certain special interests on various issues like social security reform (not necessarily privatization), education, gun control, and immigration. If they took more moderate to conservative positions on those issues, campaigned even more as fiscally conservative "Deficit Hawks" and challenged the GOP more on civil rights/liberties they could capture many of those people in addition to Liberals. It wouldn't be "the GOP minus Bush, abortion and gays" at all, and it would not offend the majority of Democrats who voted for the party because of those sorts of things either.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Indeed. Also moving to a fiscal conservative stance means we can split off various business interests and thus get the economic leverage/resulting media boost from big business. After all big business used Gods, guns and gays as platforms for the GOP to beat the dems with with. I could see a more libertarian/bourbom dem style democrat party using guns, border control and personal freedom to beat the GOP in.

[Person Man]

Yeah, perhaps we could strengthen our ties with unions while weakening our ties to entitlement groups. This would hold our ties with liberals while making us look less big government and more for freedom. We be the party of resolving problems with the interverence of government power. We should also take a stance against tort reform to show we want you, not the government, to solve your problems.

[NDN]

I could see the Democrats potentially winding up with a map like this if they adopted the NDN/Padfoot strategy:

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

I can buy everything besides Arkansas on this map.

[NDN]

I can buy everything besides Arkansas on this map.

It would be on a regional basis. I could see the NDN/PF's Democratic Party's stances on Gun Control, Education, Immigration and a bunch of other issues playing well to them. Maybe even in the upper south too, though I see those areas remaining generally Republican.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Fair enough. I'd see Virginia and or MAYBE NC as bieng morel ikely than Arkansas.