Should our next Dem President, who takes office in 2005, do this?

[JanMichael]

Poll question: Should our next Dem President, who takes office in 2005, do this?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=127&ncid=742&e=7&u=/uclicktext/20031106/cm_ucru/theartofthefaitaccompli

What I'm asking is if you agree with Rall's "Quit Enabling The Idiot Republicans and Do What's Right" theory?

"It's high time that victorious Democrats stop being suckered by reckless Republicans into cleaning up their messes. Walking behind the elephant with a pail and a smelly broom might be the right thing to do, but it doesn't earn you any respect after the parade. All Democrats worthy of the name ought to sign a pledge to ignore problems caused by Republican administrations and leave them to their Republican successors. Let the GOP deficit ride, and pass socialized medicine while you're at it. Keep the bloated HomeSec bureaucracy on the payroll, and change its mission to something useful, like making a serious attempt to guard our borders. Run up the deficit like there's no tomorrow. Withdraw our troops; when the Iraqi civil war spreads throughout the region, some smart future Republican president will figure it out."

[livinontheedge]

1. Gotta deal with the deficit.

Can't ignore it.

[Skittles]

10. ONLY DEMOCRATS DEAL WITH THE DEFICIT

or have you not noticed that???

[Padraig18]

2. No!

We must show America how mature political leaders act, and that means cleaning up after the elephant, at times.

[LoZoccolo]

3. No. This is ridiculously partisan.

Every now and then they have to think about doing their job rather than making the Republicans look bad.

[JanMichael]

4. I'm a Partisan.

:shrug:

[LoZoccolo]

16. But I hope you're not a 'ridiculous partisan'.

And by that I mean not doing the right thing to make your party gain.

An example of this was how the Republicans didn't want to count the votes in the 2000 election despite them knowing it was the right thing to do, to let George Bush assume the position of POTUS.

If the Iraqis had a civil war, I'm pretty sure much of their attention wouldn't be focused on our health care system.

[JanMichael]

6. What make you think that picking up the Elephant shit is their job?

I thought their job was providing for the Health, Safety and Welfare, of the American Citizen.

If it makes the Republican "Look Bad" that's their problem, not ours.

[LoZoccolo]

17. Because it is.

If they cause a problem, ignoring it and working on another one won't make it go away.

We could work on both if we work as hard as the Republicans do on getting their agenda through.

[elperromagico]

18. Yes, it's their problem, but it's ours too

Very few Presidents get reelected by blaming their predecessors for problems and then refusing to do anything about those problems.

If a Republican sells you a boat with a hole in it, you'd better damned-well fix it unless you want to sink. You can't just wait to sell it to another Republican and hope that he'll fix it. He'll just make the hole bigger.

[snoochie]

5. I agree to a point.

While Centrist Clinton was right to clean up their messes, he was DEAD WRONG to do it with a smile and a 'spirit of bipartisanship' stab in the back to the base.

Sure, take care of business, but make DAMN sure you do it while loudly making clear whose mess it is, and who's taking care of the mess, and DON'T cooperate on disasters like 'don't ask don't tell', welfare reform, the telocommunications act, etc. etc. etc.

Then again, I don't think he cooperated out of a spirit of bipartisanship.

I think centrists like him are part of the problem.

[Scott Lee]

7. Better idea.....

Clean up their mess (as usual) and do a much better job at constantly reminding the American people that the Dems fix the GOP messes. One of the worst things the Dems ever did to themselves was to let go of their mission statement and allow the GOP to hijack it, and historically revise what the Dems actually did.

Don't let it happen again.

[NewJeffCT]

19. so true

We definitely need to do a better job getting the message out... but, we also don't have an army of goose-stepping talk show hosts (radio & TV) to pound home the message day after day.

[forgethell]

8. What's the point

of getting our guys elected, if they are only going to make it worse. If you buy a house with dry rot, you need to fix it, doesn't matter who let it get that way, does it?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

9. At first I thought it was just a joke

But then ... going on the offensive and just doing what needs to be done might be the best strategy short term as well and long term. We can't spend our time dodging their landmines, go in our own direction.

Or else, he's just being ironic. A Modest Proposal.

[Wapsie B]

11. You sold me.

It's just amazing that repugs can cut taxes at the federal and state levels, deficit spend like there's no tomorrow and then leave a time-bomb for the Democrat taking over. It's time to turn the tables.

[leyton]

12. That's incredibly irresponsible.

If that were the approach that a Democrat took, why bother being partisan at all?

What was said above about making it clear who created the mess is absolutely correct. I'm a little sick of the one-way bipartisanship, but by no means should we ignore the problems Republicans created.

And especially with the deficit. If it was down to a Democrat who wanted to ignore the situation and a responsible Republican who, for example, was dedicated to eliminating the deficit, I'd vote for the Republican in a heartbeat.

[elperromagico]

13. And give Republicans another campaign issue?

Not a chance.

[knight_of_the_star]

14. Give ourselves a campaign issue

Talk about how WE always clean up THEIR messes.

[elperromagico]

15. Agreed

Republicans are great complainers. They complain about problems caused by Democratic presidents, yet when they are elected, they never do anything to fix those problems. They're talkers, not walkers.

On the other hand, we have a pretty good record of walking the walk. We get in and set things right again, and so it goes time and time again... They create problems, a Democrat comes in and fixes those problems, the Republicans come in and blame us for all the problems they've caused, a Democrat comes in and fixes those problems again...