Democrat Strategy for future

[Scribbler1]

"This issue is very close to the third rail of politics. Seniors are outraged with the new prescription drug program. If the Democrats propose to take on the pharmaceutical industry and bring down the costs of prescription drugs, they will have a real shot at victory in November."

I think you are assuming that the Democrats don't feed from the same trough and that includes the pharmaceutical industry. The GOP got more of course but, like most other big contributors they spread it around so no matter WHO wins they owe them a favor.

WASHINGTON, July 7, 2005 — The pharmaceutical and health products industry has given nearly $150 million to federal and state candidates and parties, along with some political non-profits, in the last four election cycles, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of campaign finance records provided by the Center for Responsive Politics and the Institute on Money in State Politics. Sixty-five percent, or almost $100 million, went to Republicans.

Link


They may try to give the impression they are rocking the boat but they will not tip it over because if the Democrats ganged up on the pill pushers that industry would funnel so much money into the GOP and cut off the Democrats altogether the sheep wouldn't even know there WAS a Democratic party.

[Apeman81]

we can promise a chicken in every pot for all the good that will do. The only way to enact those promises is to root out the verminous terrorist bombers that are impeding the progess. And convince those nations contributing to the terrorist efforts.

That's the only thing slowing the progress that people deny is taking place in Iraq right now. Kill or captures these curs and move forward.

[bishop]

rooting them out presumes that there are a fixed number of terrorists and that if we simply killed them, that all the problems would just disappear. in reality, people become terrorists - so while you may kill some, there will always be more. some wise man once said that violence begets violence.

[PatrickHenry]

The current GOP Iraq strategy is producing terrorists. Faster than they can be destroyed. That's counter-productive, Apeman.

[RickSp]

Quote by: bishop rooting them out presumes that there are a fixed number of terrorists and that if we simply killed them, that all the problems would just disappear. in reality, people become terrorists - so while you may kill some, there will always be more. some wise man once said that violence begets violence.

I still find the level of denial among the Bush loyalists to be remarkable. The number of attacks on US troops has stayed roughly constant and has risen slightly after the much ballyhooed election. All Iraqi polls show a high acceptance of those who attack coalition forces. Reconstruction is a corruption riddled distaster and Iraqi elected officials have been caught funneling oil money to the insurgency. All this and yet the Bushites still talk about "progress" in Iraq. There is nothing more dangerous than believing your own lies.

[bishop]

really.. there seems to be very little thinking going on on their part.. it's just this shallow, "kill 'em all", mentality. we've been killing terrorists and civilians for years now, and like you said, no real decrease in the insurgency whatsoever. that alone proves that apeman's living in bush's fantasyland.


also, underbear has a point about iraq possibly becoming a satellite of iran. i'm not sure how likely it is, but it's definitely a possibility. that's a hell of a lot of oil production power for radical islam. and adding in the specter of a nuclear iran just adds to the worries.


definitely no easy answer to this and that's probably why nobody (regardless of ideology) seems to have a real plan to solve this quagmire. the "stay the course" policy could eventually result in some sort of status quo whereby people begin to accept their new reality.. to get that hypothetical reality, we'll have to pay much more in blood and treasure.. to up and leave would create a huge power vaccuum, which would likely result in a civil war (and iran would probably participate in such a war)..

i kind of like murtha's approach of withdrawing our troops and having them stationed in nearby states.. they'd be there "just in case"...

[US Independent]

Quote by: bishop really, the dems are just as clueless on iraq as the republicans and bush are.. sad thing is that none of them (save the few with some balls) have the courage to admit that they have no plan and that the best course of action is to withdraw.. but, as pointless as this is to say, i doubt we would be where we are today had gore won the election..

Your right about one thing, we wouldn't be here today if Gore won the election, in fact if Gore followed the same policies as Clinton did, we probably wouldn't have forced Al Qaida into gorilla tactics, brought democracy to Iraq, and defeated the Taliban. We wouldn't have had our taxes cut, we wouldn't have had the horrible election war that Gore illegaly waged against Bush, and the environmentalists would've been given control of our industrial industry.

[US Independent]

I read in the paper the other day an article saying that 65% of Americans percieve the Democrats as being angry and just angry. Democrats have no constructive ideas on how to improve or change Bush's policies, all they have is criticism. I don't think many Americans vote on criticism but then again those brilliant analysts at Democrat headquarters might think so (these are the same geniuses that think satisfying minorities win elections as well). The only stone hard issue democrats have going there way is abortion. That is the only issue Democrats get vast numbers of electors. You have the core pro-abortion activists that always vote for Democrats (the funny thing is though that fewer and fewer Americans believe abortion is legal and is not murder). The only other issue that democrats constantly bring up is gay marriage and gay rights. This issue brings homosexual voters into the Democratic party. The majority of Americans however believe that conservative and republican ideas fit American ideology much better then the liberal and democratic fantasies.

[Clarence]

Quote by: US Independent I read in the paper the other day an article saying that 65% of Americans blah blah some ol same ol.

did you read Pat Henry's link? I don't think there's a lack of strategy, which makes me wonder about some Libertarian's paranoia about red and blue really working together. Some days are red media days other days are blue. I feel as if the american people must be getting provoked. So anyways, the other day I read the paper and, like, 99% of what the current administration has tried to accomplish has been wack, in one form or another. I think you're wrong, USI. I can remember democrats having ideas all along. They just weren't beeing listened to. That's fine, they lost the elections. But, if you keep sticking to the nonsense about them not having any ideas, you're bound to look uninformed at some point. I guess the question really is whether thier ideas are any good. We're about to find out. What year do you start voting, USI?

[underbear1]

I don't think the Murtha re-deploying troops outside of Iraq would work. I'm afraid Iranians would use the vaccum to swarm in and make sure the Shiite majority has absolute control. If we then went back into Iraq, we might be involved with a war with Iran. I think worldwide allies also keeping Iraq's neighbors from sending in either Shiite, or Sunni outside support, would be the only way to stabalize Iraq. I don't think Condi or Bush are up to the rigors of diplomacy it would require to get the allies we NEED!

[bishop]

if we saw iran invading iraq, i'm fairly confident that we'd step back in.. murtha himself said that we should if that happened. contrary to the bullshit that the bushbots have been fed, murtha isn't calling for an all-in-out withdrawal where we would send everyone home and leave iraq defenseless..

[Clarence]

Quote by: bishop if we saw iran invading iraq, i'm fairly confident that we'd step back in.. .

don't we have some obligations? We need to rebuild but we can't count on another country to protect the workers. Some forces would need to stay onthe ground. How
many? who can tell? Wow, this has to be one of the biggest disasters of in american history. top 5

[Osborn F Enready]

WE should walk away. This situation, as before, can only be settled by THOSE that have the dispute.

If the people of Iraq wanted liberty to govern themselves, and their claim was that Saddam was the great oppressor, he is gone now. There was no WMD, we have already dumped billions of dollars on this mistake, and we should now leave as soon as possible.

Part of the problem in the U.S. is that our "all voluntary" force is stationed in over 135 countries, that aren't paying reasonable amounts for the protection they are getting. We do not give liberty, as it is not ours to give. We don't sell liberty, because it is something you can't "sell". We are not global policemen, nor should we assume the role of that seat. If people want liberty, they will take it, protect it, and enshroud it with a system that protects that liberty. If they prefer democracy, they will make it so, as they should. It is not our job, nor in our intrests to be the scape goat for starting them on the wrong path for their culture.

[Sonart]

Quote by: Apeman What are the democrat's plans for fighting terrorists?

As I said during the last election, Bush screwed things so badly by going into Iraq that there was absolutely nothing Kerry or the Democrats could do to unscrew us. So obviously the only thing we can do in Iraq is to carry on and try to make the best of it.

That doesn't change the fact that the the blithering incompetence of our resident Peter Principle case study, Boy George, his cabal of day dreaming Neo-Cons, and their feckless toadies in Congress have screwed this country royal. Their adventure in Iraq has been a disaster, to say nothing of the non-stop trail of incompetence that has milestoned the entire length of Dear Leader's regime, from ignoring the terrorist problem in the first place, to the Iraq war, to Social Security reform, to Katrina, to the Medicare drug reform, to the exploding deficit piled with Republican's runaway pork barrel budgets, to his refusal to deal with energy and the environment, to his hamstringing of American science, to Harriet Miers, to... etc. etc. etc.

As to the War on Terror, Bush made my point the other day in his speech, when he spoke of the foiled plot to attack Los Angeles. As much as he tried to imply that his plan is working, the fact is that plot wasn't undone by our wiretaping Americans or with military might. It was done by the very thing I've been advocating since before the war started... Internationally cooperative POLICE work!!!

Alas, that doesn't suit the conservative's John Wayne image of ourselves. It's merely effective. Double alas, Bush has made us an international pariah state and hamstrung international cooperation with us, to say nothing of giving terrorist states free reign to ignore us, since we're so bogged down in Iraq. Lebanon, the Palestinians, Egypt, Iraq and Iran have all democratically elected more radical, fundamentalist Islamic governments. Iran, who we once thought was leaning towards moderation, has become as aggressively radical as ever... with impunity... and will very likely be the guiding hand over Iraq's new Shiite Islamist government.

Way to go, Republicans.

Your premise here is fairly pathetic, Apeman, plucked straight from the GOP playbook. Make the Democrats look weak on terrorism, while completely ignoring that the current administration and their lackey's in Congress have fouled things up so badly internationally and domestically that there really isn't anything the Democrats CAN do beyond trying to mend fences internationally, remind Americans of what Bush has wrought and simply reasure the world and Americans that the Bush days will mercifully soon be over.

.

[Osborn F Enready]

Woah, howdy again Mr. Sonart.

[US Independent]

Quote by: Clarence did you read Pat Henry's link? I don't think there's a lack of strategy, which makes me wonder about some Libertarian's paranoia about red and blue really working together. Some days are red media days other days are blue. I feel as if the american people must be getting provoked. So anyways, the other day I read the paper and, like, 99% of what the current administration has tried to accomplish has been wack, in one form or another. I think you're wrong, USI. I can remember democrats having ideas all along. They just weren't beeing listened to. That's fine, they lost the elections. But, if you keep sticking to the nonsense about them not having any ideas, you're bound to look uninformed at some point. I guess the question really is whether thier ideas are any good. We're about to find out. What year do you start voting, USI?

I start voting after August 2008. "Democrats have ideas but they aren't being listened to", what kind of statement is that? If democrats have ideas then why didn't they bring them up during the presidential elections, why didn't they come up during Bush's failed Social Security plan, why didn't they etc... Democrats have no new ideas. They have gay marriage, abortion rights, "Bush Lied Kids Died", and Bush works for the rich. They are all anger. They don't bring in any constructive ideas. The only thing they do is oppose. They oppose anything Republicans and Bush attempt to do. We all know that what ideas they do come up with they won't change any major problems, they won't synchronize with the majority party, and I would estimate 25% of their "ideas" are going to make no sense whatsoever.

[RickSp]

I do find it interesting. In the past I have almost always voted Libertarian. I have, however, become increasingly dissillusioned regardinging the LP's prospects. In the upcoming election in NJ, the Republican candidate for the Senate will likely be Tom Kean, Jr. The Democrat incumbent will be Bob Menendez.

I happen to like Tom Jr. I also like Tom Snr. who fought against the Bush stonewalling on 9/11 and had the courage to say that the 9/11 attacks could have and should been prevented.

Bob Menendez is the sort of political hack one often sees in New Jersey, not terribly impressive, no more honest than he has to be. Chosing between the two I would have to pick Kean. That being said, voting to put any Republican in the Senate while Mad King George riegns seems positively unpatriotic. Will Kean be independent? Will he be independent enough? I doubt it.

It will make for an interesting race around the country. With about 60% of the voters opposing the president's policies at home and abroad, it will be intresting to see if voters hold their noses and vote for Democratic Party hacks rather than for a party that supports trashing the Constitution, spying on innocent Americans and endless war. Only time will tell.

[bishop]

being that i live in the democrat's heartland, i feel liberated to be able to vote 3rd party now and not have to worry about tipping the scales.. i'd take almost any democrat over a republican right now - just to have the gop (and bush) lose control.

problem for me is that i don't particularly like hte LP, nor do i like the greens.. a couple other LP spin-off parties are way too religious for my liking.. the choices we have are horrible imo.

i'd really like to see christie whitman run for office some day. i think she'd be excellent.

[RickSp]

Quote by: bishop i'd really like to see christie whitman run for office some day. i think she'd be excellent.

Then again Christie also told everyone that the air quality near Ground Zero was just fine and dandy. She is in court defending herself against a class action suit on behalf of workers at Ground Zero who subsequently died from toxins. Typical Bush administration incompetence and cover-up. Looks like Christie got caught in the middle of it all.

Whitman, EPA short on truth

[bishop]

i was always uncomfortable with her being sucked into bush's administration - even when i used to support bush. it seemed like everyone realized that whitman's political career was far from over and so did she - she probably assumed that playing ball would be a good move. but, shortly thereafter she did begin to buck against the administration's policies.

no excuses for her being the opportunist, but at least she had enough backbone to disassociate herself from them.