Out of all this California flap, why are we not asking ourselves

[Mairead]

how to avoid electing OTHER Dems who offer so little to the people, and so incompetently/uncaringly, that even an inexperienced, bumbling Republican looks like a step up?

It's not about a Superbowl bet, folks, or who's going to get an Oscar. The stakes are higher than that. So why isn't anyone asking the hard questions? The 'where did we go wrong?' and 'how do we avoid that in future?' questions.

The stakes are higher than that...aren't they?

[Terwilliger]

1. I asked this about the one they had in 2000

and still ask it...how was it allowed to get to this point? Is it a failure of third-parties, the media, man-in-the-moon marigolds... No.

The Democrats play too close to the centrist vest, then centrist Repukes get to wear it.

[Mairead]

2. Isn't it interesting that nobody around here seems to care

It's as though the theater -- Rush and his ESPN and pills, who's going to take the fall for the CIA outing, etc -- is more important around here than the substance. What's up with that, do you think?

[cosmicdot]

3. I'm sure the corrupting aspect of money comes to play somewhere

... related to that the corrupting influence of corporate america on our society as a whole ... together, they promote good ol'boys and girls who don't have 'the common good' in their play books ... pseudo-leaders emerge and 'the system' serves to maintain and preserve their power ...

... another might be the media 'template' within which we are given information to base our vote and within which public relations people structure a 'campaign' ... a soundbyte here ... a you-have-one minute-for-a-rebuttal-bzzzz-sorry-your-time-is-up over there ...

... a corrupt complicit media play a role ...

[UTUSN]

15. $$$Why the Corporate Tabloids Are Keeping Hands Off

******QUOTE*****
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=454341

http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-oe-bardach2oct02.story

.... On another front, the New York Daily News reported that American Media owner and CEO David Pecker had assured Weider that the tabloids were going to "lay off" Schwarzenegger. "We're not going to pull up any dirt on him," Weider said Pecker told him. (American Media spokesman Richard Valvo calls the conversation "unfounded rumor"; Weider reconfirmed it Wednesday.)

Though some Democrats have begun whispering about the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, the motives and agenda behind the Schwarzenegger tabloid blackout appear to be more about commerce than politics.

Two sources at American Media confirmed that it was no accident that the tabloids had been Arnold-free, pointing to the Weider sale as an explanation.

"They cannot afford to Arnold because he is an icon in the muscle magazine world," one said, adding that Schwarzenegger writes a column in one of the publications. The other American Media employee explained that Schwarzenegger's influence in the bodybuilding world is such that his disapproval could nix everything from advertising to content: "If they , that huge sale is money down the drain." ....
*****UNQUOTE****

[realFedUp]

4. ahhhhhhhh

Let's see, where things went wrong (and this would have
happened to any governor of this state with the legisture
he has)

-There is recession throughout this country
-Jobs were fewer in the dot.com world
-Housing prices still went up
-Prop. 13 is still in place
-We actually got money back on our license renewal fees one year
-There was $10 billion put into the educational system and
to teachers when the state was flush with surplus money.
-Gas prices went up
-Energy middlemen gouged this state for billions
-The Terrorist alert colors sent the spending up everytime
it went into place
-Medicare costs weren't being refunded by the Feds in a
timely manner

-Republicans didn't win last November and played the Recall card.

Are you a Democrat or just one who isn't seeing the big picture?

[realFedUp]

5. Just a reminder of what California is under Dem leadership

FIRST IN THE NATION
THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA UNDER GOVERNOR DAVIS AND THE DEMOCRATS

Partial list of achievements for the State of California during Governor Davis= first term in office, along with the Democratic legislature. Most of these would not have been signed into law by a Republican governor.

Education
· Largest ever expansion of college financial assistance
· Largest four-year increase in total education funding (increase of $10 billion, or 32%)
· Largest and most aggressive teacher recruitment and retention program
· First-ever statewide accountability program and Academic Performance Index
· First-ever Four-Percent Admissions Program to UC schools
Public Safety
· Toughest and most comprehensive gun safety laws in the nation
· Most comprehensive child-proof safety lock requirement
· First state to repeal the immunity from liability granted exclusively to firearm manufacturers
· First state to gain FAA approval for ASafe Skies@ anti-terrorism initiative
Health Care
· Since Governor Davis took office, enrolled more children in federal children=s health insurance program (Healthy Families) than any state
· Strongest Patient=s Bill of Rights and highest number of patient-protection laws
· Greatest investment in cancer and HIV/AIDS research and treatment programs
· First minimum nurse-to-patient staffing ratios for acute care hospitals
Choice
· First state to enact Violence Against Women Act, allowing victims of gender violence to hold their attacker civilly liable
· Helped make California the most pro-choice State in the nation, signing into law seven pieces of legislation to strengthen a woman's right to choose, including SB 1301 (Kuehl), "The Reproductive Privacy Act”, ensuring that California women will continue to have the right to an abortion, regardless of whether the U.S. Supreme Court continues to uphold Roe v. Wade.
Transportation
· The largest ever General Fund investment in new transportation projects ($6.8 billion)
· Placed a High Speed Rail bond measure on the November 2004 ballot, which, if passed, would be the nation=s largest public works project
Environment
· The three largest-ever environmental bond measures (Propositions 12, 13 and 40)
· First law in the nation to substantively address global warming and greenhouse gases
· Greatest-ever investment in urban parks (6,200 acres)
· First comprehensive program to clean-up coastal pollution (Clean Beaches)
· First environmental justice law in the nation
· Toughest standards for toxic mold, lead, arsenic, Chromium 6 and perchlorate
· Largest ever investment in energy conservation programs
Affordable Housing
· Largest-ever General Fund investment in new housing programs
· Largest Housing Bond measure ever placed on a state ballot
Consumer Protection/Privacy
· First-ever Office of Privacy Protection dedicated to promoting and protecting individual privacy
· First in the nation to require consumer credit reporting agencies to disclose credit scoring criteria used for granting home loans
· California enacts tough financial privacy law
Civil Rights

· One of the nation=s broadest Domestic Partner laws
· Toughest housing and workplace discrimination laws
Labor/Business/Trade
· First-ever state paid holiday honoring Cesar Chavez
· First-ever labor mediation law protecting farmworkers
· Appointed the first Small Business Advocate to serve directly in the Governor=s office
· First state with paid family leave
· California became the first American state ever to rank as the fifth largest economy in the world.

[AP]

6. Clearly a big problem is the media. They're pulling for Arnold now, and

look at the difference it makes. I can't believe that they just started doing this now. I'm sure they go to extreme lengths to bury any Democrat or liberal who would really make a difference.

[IndianaGreen]

11. The media was enamored of Arnold because he was Teutonic

and they fear the "brown hordes" from taking over as much as the Anglo Establishment, which includes Terry McCauliff and his gang.

Yes, I am playing the race card because that is the crazy aunt in the attic that no one wants to talk about. Latinos are becoming a force to be reckoned with in many states besides California, and nothing short of political power commensurate with our numbers will do.

There is no doubt that the candidate best qualified to be governor is Cruz Bustamante, and it is about time that California elects a Latino to the highest office in the state.

While we are on this topic, I think that if the Democrats can hold their shit together and defeat the Bush criminal gang in next year's election, the best choice to replace the weasel Colin Powell is Bill Richardson. Were it not for his Latino roots, Richardson would be today on everyone's Presidential list. As it is, Richardson's breadth of diplomatic experience, his intellect, and his tremendous integrity, will restore the dignity and honor to the office of US Secretary of State that Powell tarnished so much during the rush to war in Iraq.

The days of sitting in the back of the bus are long over!

BTW, do you know why Bustamante is supporting Lieberman for President? Cruz said that Lieberman was the only high-profile Democrat to treat him with respect and to listen to what he had to say.

[Mairead]

12. Bustamante & Lieberman

And of course it wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that they're both conservative, right?

[RichM]

7. This question is not likely to attract the attention of most Democrats,

because Democrats are Americans, and most Americans have nothing that could possibly be called a "political analysis." Our culture gives us (not at all accidently) the impression that politics is largely the same type of thing as rooting for your favorite sports team. So most people see no more to it than an opportunity to razz the opposition, & cheer for the home team.

Suppose the DU community, for example, took the approach of working out a cogent set of positions on an array of issues, starting from PRINCIPLES first -- as opposed to starting with personalities. Then you'd develop ideas like, for example, militarism is a bad thing; the MIC is a dangerous thing; corporate power must be reined in; the distribution of wealth and power in society must be directly addressed in political discourse, etc.

If these principles were developed, you'd THEN be in a position to choose candidates whose ideas best match the analysis. You'd be working from principles, & trying to apply them to a specific situation. That's very different from using candidate persona as a starting point, and largely forgetting about principles altogether.

It's only because Democrats have no principled political analysis at all, that one could even see something like the Clark phenomenon, where a "leading candidate" is a friend of the MIC, a Reagan-Nixon voter, not even a Democrat, someone who enthusiastically bombed civilians, & who very recently sang the praises of GW Bush & all the monsters at PNAC. This phenomenon alone shows that a large percentage of Democrats see nothing more to politics than they do to football, where "signing up" Wesley Clark is seen like making a trade for a high-profile quarterback "that could take us to the Superbowl!!"

[realFedUp]

8. Principles

like the ones you mentioned cannot be put into
an either or catagory like a third party often
wants to do.

[Mairead]

9. bump

[punpirate]

10. In a very broad sense, I agree...

... that there's too much attention on the superficial, but that's got to do with the media, and how a candidate is positioned by the media. Interesting quote from an article someone posted yesterday or the day before, from Karl Rove: "You have to present a candidate as if the entire country were watching the television with the sound turned down."

To too great a degree, the emphasis is on image, and that's difficult to overcome when the media laps up the well-crafted image-making, and the person with a good point to make gets lost in the shuffle.

I don't know exactly how to fix that. Sometimes, I think the only way for it to change is for it to simply go too far--that the public will recoil in horror at what the officials they've elected have done. Given the sophistication of politics today, even that would be a stretch.

All I know is that I have to gone on reading and thinking, and hope to get the word to open-minded people before the far right becomes the center.

Cheers.

[realFedUp]

13. Local news (which has profited from Arnold ads)

has planted itself onto his butt.

[meti57b]

14. the only thing Davis didn't have to offer was so-called "charisma" .......

Arnold is a popular movie celebrity who plays superman-type roles that apparently appeal to a lot of people's imagination. Are you suggesting that if your Kuchinich were out here running against Arnold, Kucinich would win?

Also to be kept in mind is that Davis will get more votes to not be recalled than Arnold will get to be elected. It is the peculiarity of the recall that a challenger can get into office with fewer votes than the incumbent needs to defeat the recall. Add to that, Arnold is wealthy and the media just can't get enough of him.

[Mairead]

16. If Davis's only lacuna is charisma, then why are mumble percent Dems

expected to vote to dump him? I have to suppose it's something else. It's not logical to say that problems are due to Smirk's lack of substance but Davis's lack of charisma. That sounds like partisan self-delusion. People are either smart enough to pick up on both or stupid enough to miss both, but they're not stupid when our argument needs them to be stupid and smart when our argument needs them to tbe smart. That doesn't work; that's self-delusion.