A little, quiet plea for some party unity .....

[Stinky The Clown]

We're going to be facing a number of primaries between now and the heart of the campaign season. Today was Virginia's day. Two men faced off in a Democratic primary for the shot at being the Democratic challenger to a nationally known and locally popular sitting Republican Senator and Republican presidential hopeful.

Today's race was decided by only a couple of hundred thousand Virginians - a 7% statewide turnout. Not too impressive. And the vote was pretty close. Just a few points apart.

But the fact is, one guy won and one guy lost.

One guy was a lifelong Dem and probably more tolerable for that fact, if for nothing else. The other guy has been, and is again, a Dem. But he voted Republican in the past, he's endorsed both Republicans and Dems, served in a Republican Administration, and was, for a time, a Republican.

But at the end of it, the people of Virginia made their choice. Some voted on principle. Some voted for strategy. And some who did one or the other, voted for the same guy - either Miller or Webb, depending on how they view things.

This is but one Senate race, and our chances of winning it in 06 went up by only a small percentage.

If we want to win back the Senate, we'll now need to pull together. And after the next primary, and the one after that .... and the next one and the next .... we need to do the same.

This can no longer be about cheerleading or about licking wounds. Shit happens. But if we aren't pulling together, worse shit will happen.

We're in the fight of our lives, here. It can only be won by having our team work as just that. A team. Support whoever you want in the primaries and may the best one win. But when that's decided .....

[rosesaylavee]

1. Right there with you. We can't win this fall

if we allow ourselves to indulge in who's DEM is better than some other DEM. Get a grip folks - it will only get rockier and we need to decide now that we are in this together.

[welshTerrier2]

2. the best way to build unity ...

is to do all we can as a party to be inclusive of all Democrats ... it takes a whole lot more than winning a primary to achieve that ...

in fact, primaries often have just the opposite effect ...

if the party really wants to build unity, they better damned well start making it a priority ... time is growing very short ...

[Stinky The Clown]

3. You know .... I have a feeling that with some of the newly minted

polititians who are running - people like Webb - we may well have a better chance for that to happen. They're hungry and inexperienced, at least, and in this day and time, maybe more willing to hear and be heard. I have, over the last year, met a few who are running for their first-ever elective office. To the person I've found them approachable and willing to not just talk, but to actually discuss. Anecdotes are not hard indicators of larger trends, but I'm hopeful.

Anyway, let me ask you something .... I've been ruminating on this YearlyKos thing ..... and that led me do some other thinking ....

You and I have often discussed the idea of how bad it is that our elected reps only talk *to* us ('at us' is more accurate in far too many cases) when they want something .... like a vote or a donation.

Given the press of time and the difficulty of getting in front of audiences in convenient locations, would an only session be a suitable alternative? I've participated in a number of such sessions and even was a presenter in two of them. They allow for live questions to be taken and immediate answers to be provided. It isn't a live audience experience, to be sure, but it might be a reasonable substitute .... and one that could even be reasonably done .... I dunno ..... once a month, like maybe on a Saturday morning?

It would be nice if each pol took the initiative to set it up, but maybe we could use the infrastructure of the net that already exists and ask those who don't have the will/capacity/ability to do it on their own to use .... I dunno ... DU? .... something like that ...... to set up and operate the forums.

What do you think?

[welshTerrier2]

5. absolutely!!

i assume you're asking about "online" interactions with our representatives? if so, i think every possible forum to provide exchanges between our elected reps and their constituents is very worth exploring ...

on the other hand, i wouldn't agree that "it's too difficult or inconvenient or whatever" for our reps to "do their jobs" and meet with voters on a regular basis ... in my state, Massachusetts, the state could easily be divided up into say 5 or 10 different geographical areas ... then, say one Saturday morning a month from 9 am to noon, the rep would hold a free, public forum in a given area ... one morning a month to promote better democracy and meet face-to-face with voters seems like a small price to pay for a little "i'm-too-busy inconvenience" ...

some of my latest themes around this issue included a very unpopular post about Howard Dean for not pushing more "face time" as an essential ingredient to build the party and another post (in the Mass forum) to push local TV stations to cover an issue a week and give one candidate a night a few minutes to explain their views ... an ill-informed electorate is no way to run a democracy ...

to me, this is kind of the "minimum requirement" of good democracy ... if we don't make better representation a priority, how can it possibly occur?

if you're pushing for candidates appearing in online forums, sign me up ... i'm all for it ... a while back, i was able to have an exchange with Wes Clark in the Talking Points Memo forum ... you're right; it's not as good as "face time" but every little bit helps ...

[Stinky The Clown]

6. Geeeez .... I just read what I wrote

I think I need that damned Mavis Bacon refresher! Thanks for trying to translate what I said into English! You mostly were successful and yes, you got my essential point - I was suggesting online forums as a substitute for face time forums. For all its faults, at least it gets the thing started.

The forums (non political) in which I participated and also presented used some pretty cool software. One was a hybrid wherein one logged into an online site for the sole purpose of submitting questions to a moderator. All participants were also connected by voice (old fashioned telephone set up as a supersize conference call). The moderator and presenter were always heard. The audeince was set for 'listen only'. The mod could allow any listener to be heard also (so questions or discussions could be heard, complete and live, since the website's control panel, seen by the mod and presenter(s) identified each caller by phone number and all questions submitted were id'ed by phone number). Alternatively, questions posed by typing into the web site were read by the mod and answered by the presenter. This was the system employed when I was a presenter. I was at home, the mod in another city, and the participants were, literally, from all over the world. We never allowed listeners to be heard live, but that was because of language; some of our people's spoken English was so tentative they did not want to be heard by others so we chose, for fairness, not to use the voice option.

In the other forums, they used different software. The presenter and mod construct was also employed, but both were carried by video in windows on the hosting website. If others had web cams, they could be added to the feed, but there was some limit (I don't know what) to the number of video windows. Questions could be taken either by video feed or by a questioner typing in the questions for later selection by the mod. In my experiences, they only allowed typed questions, which the mod read and the presenter answered. In one such session, there was actually a panel of presenters, each in different locations and each in a separate window, but all connected and all real-time live.

Anyway, there's some very cool software out there. I am only aware of it ever being used for non-political stuff, but I see no reason for a candidate or an elected official not to try it.

When I spoke about 'being too busy', above, I was actually (and very inartfully) referring not just to the pols, but also to the potential audience members. Might there not be a better chnace for greater participation if the audience's only effort was to log onto a website?

[Ringo84]

4. Re:

Right! Do you think that the Republicans took over by fighting amongst themselves? No.

I'm glad you brought this up. I didn't vote today! I'm so ashamed. I wasn't aware it was a voting day. Sorry, fellow DUers. I dropped the ball. :hide:
Ringo