General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Is the Democratic Party as divided nationally as DU? [View all]karynnj
(59,501 posts)I think that there is nowhere in the country where the split is as it is on DU. Not to mention that DU includes a large portion of people who have indicated they are progressives, left, or liberal - but not Democrats.
I think two things:
1) There is a big divide on National Security/privacy at the moment. Part of the problem is that the government was caught unprepared to give a good - unclassified - but detailed enough description of the program - including any constraints to preserve privacy. This is because Greenwald and Snowden had a head start and framed the issue in a very sensationalized and negative way. In addition, the government's response has been lame.
2) I do not think this is a huge voting issue. For two reasons. The first is that this issue splits both parties. Second, I don't think it will be the top issue for many. Not to mention, it is likely in most races that the positions of the two candidates in the general election in most races will not be far apart.
3) This happened recently - with the added problem that Bush did it illegally without Congressional approval. I remember the speeches and the posts here in December 2006 when Chris Dodd said he would lead a filibuster on the bill. You might note that good DailyKos support and nice posts on DU never moved his numbers in the 2008 pre primary. It was a huge issue again in August 2007 - when the Republican bill passed after the Democratic bill failed, but people here really would not have been much happier with it.