I’ll try and pick it back up later but I’m going to try and knock a few posts down while I got at least a little bit of time.

Give me one good reason to believe none of that is going to happen just because a DLC-backed pres gets elected.

2. They’re deaf and in deep denial. Losing and losing BIG is about all that’s going to get their attention. That or a populist party making a sizable dent in their voting base by stealing all the issues they ought to be leading on. I’d suggest, to start with, abandonment of and concerted attacks on conservative BD’s and the leadership combined with identification and support of Dems like Lynn Woolsey who are willing to call a spade a spade.

I think you’ve said this before, and I agree. We need to find, publicize, and support Democratic primary challengers who will take on BD’s and DLC incumbents and hopefully beat them. That’s the best chance to cut the grip of conservatives on the party structure.

But there’s a warning goes with that: look what the Alliance did to Ned Lamont. They’re the reason Holy Joe is CT’s Senator. Any other maverick lib/prog is likely to be treated the same way if they beat an Alliance puppet in a primary fight: they’ll be abandoned in the general if not actively opposed.

A third party may turn out, counter-intuitively, to be the only realistic strategy. Try to remember a third party doesn’t have to win, it only has to threaten to take votes away from the dominant party for its agenda to be absorbed (see the effects of populist and socialist parties on the Dems in the 30′s).

But by all means try the primary challenges first.

2. That’s the hard one. What do you propose?

That’s exactly what they’re counting on. I’d respond with 2 questions:

1. What difference does it make who wins if the same policies are going to be pursued by the leadership in both parties? What? We get a few more bones thrown our way if the Dems win? With a Democratic party as willing as the GOP to throw the Constitution down a manhole, what exactly do we gain? And is it worth kissing our democracy good-bye for? Because that’s what it means if we let them get away with this shit.

2. …so the focus, I believe, should be upon the leadership, and working on striking down the influence that the center right and all points conservative have on the Party.

How? They ignore polls, massive demonstrations, thousands of phone calls, the netroots, and their own damn activists. So how exactly do you propose to get their attention, let alone force them off their conservative line? THEY’RE NOT LISTENING.

(here we go)

My biggest fear is that we’re going to cut off our nose to spite our face, that we’re going to put Republicans in power to punish the Dems.

I”m not going to disagree with a single thing you’ve said (I’ll be moderately skeptical on how many and which democrats want the war to keep going, though buy off on the fact that the leadership is just fucked), but there has to be an endgame that is both feasible and amicable.

This should be a movement to not necessarily punish the Democratic party because no third party is even close to poised to rise to national prominence, nor will one be within at least a few generations I think, and so the focus, I believe, should be upon the leadership, and working on striking down the influence that the center right and all points conservative have on the Party.

Don’t count on it. Isn’t it obvious yet that they’re playing political games? I agree that it’s unconscionable that they’re taking time with this shit when we have troops in harm’s way for no good reason, but since they have no intention of ending the war until it gets a Democrat elected president – and probably not then – they’re filling up time with nonsense to make points with a constituency that essentially is starting to hate their guts – and for good reasons. They think getting Limbaugh will erase the bad taste the MoveOn vote left in everybody’s mouth.

Well, it won’t work. It just makes things worse. But they have little choice. They’re backing Bush’s war, and that’s pissing off the base. They rejected Webb’s amendment, and that’s pissing off the military. They denounced free speech (you’re right, of course, that’s just what the MoveOn vote was about) and that’s pissing off everybody. All they’ve got left after blowing the FISA vote, the habeus corpus vote, and getting all wet about the ridiculous Biden bill, is attacking Rush. It’s lame, it’s inappropriate, and it’s stoopid, but they have to do something. They’ve backed themselves into a corner.

This is the result of a conservative-based strategy up against a party whose activists are overwhelmingly centrist (NOT center-right as Al From insists) or even liberal. They’re trapped because they’re basically Republicans wearing Democratic masks – at least the leadership is – and meaningless political theater is the only weapon they have to try to keep the base in line as they betray it.

What the hell. It works for the Pubs.

I am a member of the United States military. There, I said it.
I’ve bitten my tongue and held this FACT inside of me for the three-plus years this blog has been in existence on the “Internets” out of fear of retribution from Presid…