In 1994 Democrats lost over fifty seats in Congress....Why?

[Toots]

What did Democrats do that pissed so many off in America so they got thrown out on their buts. I know what Republicans did to piss me off in the last decade. It was the Corruption and War Profiteering and total disregard for the American people. What did the Democrats do to piss America off so badly and how can we keep from doing it again.. I am still not over the '94 elections. I don't get it..:shrug: I think there are many Democrats in power today that feel like me and that is one reason they are so timid. They don't understand why they as a Party were so overwhelmingly thrown out of power. What did we do to lose America's confidence?

[Lautremont]

1. They were all getting WAY too many BJs.

People were jealous, and a jealous electorate can be as much trouble to an incumbent party as an outraged one.

(edit for typo)

[HappyWeasel]

2. I'm guessing that people were just tired of a one-party government.

for forty years, no heard from GOPers in congress...people wanted to restore democracy. That's what happened in 2006. Therefore, we should claim that 2008 is a referendum on whether the United States should stay a democracy. The republicans claimed that in 1994,1996 and 1998. However, that won't work past that. We must start bringing out the base and though we are holding on to the center, we are losing the base. If the war is won by next year, we would have lost the center as well. What do you call and party with no center and no base? A permanent minority; people will just see us as they did in 2004(John Kerry lost the center and the base), a group of people just getting together once in a while to elect people. I talked to another student in undergraduate school and that's why he said he converted from being a liberal to a conservative.

If we lose in 2008 (I wouldn't even consider giving Dubya a "third term" losing even though that would have to be some kind of a record for the triumph right-wing though.- what would be lossing would be losing the senate)....we have two choices:

- Totally fire everyone in the party and rethink a new message
- Disband the party (Im serious, if we lost again in 2006, Charlie Cook said it would be likely to happen)

[skipos]

28. "losing the base"

I don't know about that. Voter turnout in Nixon vs. McGovern was as bad as it was in Kerry vs. Bush (55%). If those races don't inspire you to vote, nothing will.

If you want to look at why we won in 2006, it was often because we won indendents.

For example, in VA
94% of Repubs voted for Allen
93% of Dems voted for Webb
56% of Indys voted for Webb

In MO
91% of Repubs voted for Talent
92% of Dems voted for McCaskill
51% of Indys voted for McCaskill

[Gidney N Cloyd]

3. Dems sat around with their thumbs up their asses while Newt & the GOP >

grandstanded and appealed to voters' baser instincts.

[lyonn]

61. Yup, newt was hyping his New America, AND

the minute Clinton took over the accusations started. First it was how disorganized his admin. was; then women were coming out of the woodwork accusing Clinton of having an affair with them; Hillary had control of the Health Care Issue which blew the medias minds with the help of the repubs; Travel Gate BS; FBI files BS. His first year was a constant barrage of accusation by the repubs. It was as if they couldn't stand that idea that a "nobody" from Hope, Arkansas would beat out Bush.

There was the constant chant in the media and from repubs about Clinton's lies. They never said what the lies were, but that "he lies about everything". Just a week or so ago the guy that is backing Obama that once was a Clinton backers repeated the lie issue! There was chatter that that guy didn't get a pardon for one of his friends? Who knows?

All I know is while Clinton was in office he got us out of debt and everyone seemed to be smiling. Clinton made it look too easy. Hell, the rest of the world liked him. He tried to make nice with Palestine and Israel. He could negotiate and was and is a true Diplomat.

[KittyWampus]

4. Corruption in a political party that had control for too long. But it took Dems many decades

to get corrupt.

The GOP managed it overnight and to a degree never seen before.

[blogslut]

5. Because I didn't vote

Let that be a lesson. :(

[stirlingsliver]

6. Lies. Distortion. Deceit

The Rethug lie, distortion, and deceit machine was in full throttle during the 1994 elections.

There was a series of commericals that showed a suburban white couple fretting over what would happen if national health care were enacted.

[Toots]

14. You do know that the Democratic Majority voted against that National Health Bill?

:shrug:

[stirlingsliver]

16. Of Course.

However, my point was that the Repthug lie, distort, and deceive machine did just that -- they lied, distorted, and deceived so that many people thought that a vote against the Democrats was a vote against national health care.

[HappyWeasel]

19. Yea....

because we didn't stick to our guns and pushed to hard, we lost the center and the base. We became objectively more moderate, but subjectively more radical.

[Rosemary2205]

7. Americans put up with a lot of bloviating and pork from Congress

but when a certain party proves the "regular" bloat isn't good enough for them and they turn to flinging the law under the bus then eventually America wakes up and throws your butt out of Washington.

Eventually.........

[napi21]

8. Corruption! It happens to all of them when they are in power too long.

I can't remember all the different cases, but there were many. Now, we also have to remember, it took the Dems 40 years of House control to reach corruption so bad that the people threw them out! It only took the Pubs 12 years, and the Pubs reached a level of corruption much higher than the Dems ever thought of!

[HappyWeasel]

20. Yeah...talk about the Sodom on the Potomac.

We know where Sodom-y comes from and what it is...but what is Gammorhr-y?

[Eric J in MN]

9. Delayed effect of gerrymandering.

Which the Republican gerrymanderers called "Operation: Ratfuck."

They regard us as rats.

[2Design]

18. exactly - redistricting n/t

[HappyWeasel]

21. I see....

In order to do that without being sued or arrested, you would have to gain grass root support in state and local government positions. The GOP revolution was already long underway by the time it actually took place.

We need to redouble our efforts in Michigan, Florida, Colorado, Ohio and other states that have potential or are badly gerrymandered and important. We need to win as many state house seats as we can, even if we field a buncha Republican-lites so that we can be competitive long into the future. That's what the GOP did, some of those local GOPers are still pro-civil rights and are upset about the base.

[Radical Activist]

60. Something to remember for activists who

volunteer for Congressional campaigns all the time but think state senate and state representative races are too small time. The legislatures we elect in 2010 will decide what the next congress looks like.

[liberalpragmatist]

10. They were in power a LONG time

A. Clinton botched his big domestic agenda what with the controversy over gays in the military, failure to undertake welfare reform (which could have been done under more favorable terms with the Dems in power in Congress), failure of HillaryCare, etc.

B. The old Democratic Congress had always been very fractious and had been very independent of presidential leadership. They didn't cooperate with Carter, either. And they were a rag-tag coalition of old-school liberals, New Democrats, and Southern Conservatives. In fact, the GOP's big gains came in conservative, GOP-voting districts that for the first time voted Republican for Congress. And they were the majority party for FORTY years.

C. Corruption - nothing anywhere near as bad as what happened with the GOP in the past few years, but there were corruption scandals that undid a lot of their popularity.

Because of the second factor, some shift was likely at some point in the '90s. It came all at once instead of gradually.

[slackmaster]

11. I know several people who quit the party over the 1994 "assault weapons" ban

One of many reasons we lost seats IMO.

...What did the Democrats do to piss America off so badly and how can we keep from doing it again.....

Calling or writing your representative and asking him or her to oppose HR 1022 can help avoid a repeat performance of that particular mistake, actually an even bigger one. Please check this out even if you generally advocate stricter gun control. This bill would hurt a lot of people in the middle. It's a sure vote loser for the Democratic Party.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x135622

[NickB79]

47. Ditto

My shameful past is that I voted for Bush in 2000, almost entirely because of the gun issue. I still kick myself for that vote to this day because in every other aspect I was and still am a strict Democrat. Unfortunately, I know several people that still voted Republican in 2004 even though their politics is almost the same as mine, based on the gun issue.

[TheMightyFavog]

50. Tha AWB was a really dumb move on our part.

It allowed groups like the NRA to amp up the "gun grabber" paranoia and get a lot of people to vote repuke.

[Ignacio Upton]

I just hope that Pelosi and Reid don't allow for another AWB to pass through Congress

That bill was a dumb.

[dkofos]

12. Pretty much the same reasons.

[benddem]

13. the statistics show

that 10 more democratic votes per precinct would have changed the election. Democrats simply did a poor job of getting out the vote...or the republicans did a better job. There was a big push by the NRA to get people out. There were also some magnified non-scandals. The republicans did a big job of convincing everyone that the over drafts at the house bank was a HUGE problem. When you or I bounce a check, we have to pay, the place we passed the check has to pay and that is why bouncing a check is bad. NO ONE was hurt when congressmen over drew their accounts. Rostenkoski also used his stamps wrong. According to Gingrich, Delay et al it was SCANDAL, SCANDAL, SCANDAL. Just look at what they have done.
They are nasty people.

[AX10]

17. In the six elections in which the Republicans won...

a majority of the seats in the house, they never once won a majority of the popular vote. They got 49% to the Dems 45% in 1994. Hell, they narrowly lost the popular vote in 1996. In the following four elections they got 48-49%. In 2006, the Democrats got 53% of the popular vote to the GOP's 45%. Now, that's a mandate!

[HappyWeasel]

36. the gerrymander...

what we need is a way to take back the roots or face the fact that we are the non-government party in America.

[Greyhound]

29. Your's is the best answer, IMO. The gerrymandering had a lot to do with it

as well and was the result of a long-term, well financed, concerted effort by what would become the neo-cons to take over the lower governments.

We also have to remember that we had no clear message, and the perception outside of DC was that of a bunch of greedy, power-mad, arrogant, SOBs that felt they were entitled to their seats.

The question is, have we learned anything from it?

[HappyWeasel]

37. I think we have but...

unless we can build a big tent based on a set of basic values, we will be seen as corrupt.

[HappyWeasel]

35. Also...what got us in the 2000 and the 2004 election...

were that the GOP was able to link our social libertarianinsm with our sex scandals. They argued that social liberals were social liberals because they had weak values and therefore would lie in office and have affairs which would make the government less effective.

What happened in 2006 is that argument was made moot by the idea that social conservatives are at least as morally lax and corrupt. This didn't lower the turn out of conservatives, but allowed us to pick off some conservative districts.

[Cosmocat]

74. YEP ...

The PETTY A crape they made into MASSIVE issues back then, and now these freaks soft sell the SERIOUS crape their guys do ... This as much as anything lights a serious fire under my butt ...

[UTUSN]

15. Gingrich (as something "new") & LIMBOsevic n/t

[Octafish]

46. BINGO!

Exactly correct, UTUSN.

Turds Gingro and Limpnut, aided and abetted by Corporate McPravda, made "Liberal" a dirty word.

[INdemo]

22. The Democrats did nothing wrong..Its just that Republicans launched one

hell of a public relations campaign and with the aid of the MSM, Republicans were able to pull this off.

[Old and In the Way]

23. "Term Limit's", "Contract for America", "Check kiting "scandal"

That and a relentless anti-Democrat message from the MSM.

[Make7]

24. I suspect Ralph Nader had something to do with it. ( n/t )

[deutsey]

25. It was the "angry white male" reaction to Clinton's healthcare, gays in the military

and other progressive initiatives.

It was also a larger reaction against the Great Society and New Deal programs.

That's the nutshell version of what I remember happening in '94.

[sandnsea]

31. And a lot of bloviating from Rush Limbaugh

There's a reason he was a guest on Murphy Brown after the election. 1994 was his first win. It's amazing how many people continue to buy into the spin. The big "scandal" was the House having a place for Congress to cash checks, and some people becoming overdrawn. Isn't that soooo scary! Compare it to Cunningham and Abramoff and Ney and the rest of what's going on today. Republicans expanded their smear tactics from the Presidential races to Congress as a whole. That's all that happened in 1994.

[deutsey]

33. Yeah, there was that too. n/t

[HappyWeasel]

38. yeah...the "angry farmer waving his pitchfork" image and the rage against "city slickers"

regressive populists need to be called out....the quicker the better....they need to be shown for what they really are- paranoid psychotic uneducated sociopathic retards and assholes.

[Bandit]

67. It was also a larger reaction against the Great Society and New Deal programs.

So do you think that a majority of Americans do not like "The Great Society" or "the New Deal"? I thought Americans loved the GI Bill and Social Security and Civil Rights and Clean Air and Water....I guess I don't really know much about the likes and dislikes of Americans if indeed they hate thopse programs...

[deutsey]

71. Limbaugh, Gingrich, et al., demonized these programs to such an

extent (abetted by the corporate media) that the impression was created that they were wasteful and unnecessary.

I remember seeing an episode of "Sunday Morning" at the time in which GOP Congressional candidates were featured. One of them (can't remember who) said something about how the War on Poverty failed. I argued then (although no one obviously listened to me) that it's not a matter of "winning" the so-called War on Poverty...it's about maintaining a balance that gives impoverished people opportunity and economic resources to better themselves.

I knew then that the GOP's rhetoric of "restoring fiscal responsibility" was just a smokescreen for redistributing the wealth in this country back to the haves and have mores. Unfortunately, not many other voters saw it then (or see it now).

[Nite Owl]

26. As I recall it there was a very

loud and unified effort on the part of the GOP to make everything the dems did into a huge scandal. They had that Contract for (on) America like they had a real plan. They stirred up a lot of hate and got people out to vote. People were tired of the dems at that point also.

[Bandit]

68. People were tired of the dems at that point also

Why were people tired of the Dems at that point also? I thought people liked programs like Head Start and Social Security and GI Bill and Clean Air and Water and Civil Rights Act. :shrug:

[Nite Owl]

70. They were made to feel that the

dems only wasted money and that the programs weren't being managed that well. They were tired of hearing about the (so called) corruption. As I recall this got a lot of play in the media, sort of like the Foley scandal but on steroids. The GOP presented themselves as the cure for 'bad government'. People fell for it like the sheeple usually do. The GOP is good at what they do: being divisive and playing on the hate people feel but ususally suppress due to cultural moralities, they are made to feel that these feelings must be ok after all if we have leaders speaking out about it (goes back to the gays in the military, welfare 'reform' etc.)

[rinsd]

75. Yup, The Congressional Bank scandal and the Post Office scandal

Both were blown up way beyond what they were really about. That was done in conjunction with the Republicans running the best slate of candidates they may have ever had, unified behind one plan.

[hootinholler]

27. Google ABSCAM n/t

[sandnsea]

32. That was 1980

Had nothing to do with 1994. There was a House banking "scandal", as I referenced above. And one Congressman and some postage stamp thing that I never understood. That was the "corrupt" Congress. It was all bullshit. The real problem was people were broke and tired of being broke and blamed Democrats when it was Reagan's fault. Between 1968 and 1992 we had 20 years of Republican Presidents. Yet the Democrats were consistently blamed for all the problems.

[HappyWeasel]

40. hmmm..

between 1968 and 2008, the conservatives will have controlled the WH for 70% of the time. I think people are beginning to get the message.

[hootinholler]

49. It all kinda blends together from back then...

I was going from memory. I remember the postal franking issue too.

-Hoot

[leftofthedial]

30. the real start of the 2000 coup

election results should be examined closely

that, and a huge percentage of Americans are congenitally stupid, gullible and ignorant.

[annabanana]

34. Media consolidation. . . . . . . n/t

[JNelson6563]

39. Part of it is what the DIDN'T do

Like take the right-wing movement seriously. They didn't believe some asshole rantin gon the radio would actually draw an audience, much less "speak" to millions of Americans. Nope, so goddam clueless and isolated they just kinda rolled their eyes.

And we've been playing catch up ever since. Assholes. Arrogant assholes.

Julie

[sandnsea]

52. Precisely n/t

[bbgrunt]

41. wasn't this about the time that rush windbag began to have

a big influence in creating a voting bloc out of all idiots who love to hate?

[CANDO]

42. House banking scandal and right-wing radio.

For certain, the Dems had gotten too complacent. They had long before forgotten that the common man brought them to the dance. The DLC moved them into being corporate whores. The common folks were then ripe for the picking by the right-wing noise machine with it's culture war division. Many other issues were in play but I think over all the Democratic party had just stopped being an in your face fighter for the little people.

[against all enemies]

43. Clinton's 1993 Tax Increase

It was passed without any Republican votes and the Democrats in swing states paid dearly for their support. The Republicans beat them up badly and caused the House to fall to the Republicans.

The balanced budget created by the tax increase fueled the economic growth during the 1990's, which the Republicans said were created by Regan's economics.

[sandnsea]

51. Most people paid less

Another Rush Limbaugh noise machine success.

Income Level /1992 Taxes /1993 Taxes /Difference

$36,000-36,050 /$5,433 /$5,404 /$ 29 LESS

$46,000-46,050 /$8,233 /$8,090 /$143 LESS

$56,000-56,050 /$11,033 /$10,890 /$143 LESS

$66,000-66,050 /$13,833 /$13,690 /$143 LESS

$76,000-76,050 /$16,633 /$16,490 /$143 LESS

$86,000-86,050 /$19,433 /$19,290 /$143 LESS

$99,950-100,000 /$23,743 /$23,521 /$222 LESS


More on the truth on Clinton's tax strategy:
http://www.youdebate.com/DEBATES/clintons_tax_increase.HTM

[against all enemies]

55. I agree, but the Pukes sold it as a tax increase for everyone.

And Americans believed it.

[loudsue]

44. Repervlikins planned ahead: dismantled the Fairness Doctrine, redistricted,

and started supporting the likes of rush limpballs hatred. Their agenda was insidious, well planned-out, well coordinated (think about the NRA and bringing churches on board), and they started in dividing the country -- drawing lines in the sand.

For those who aren't familiar with what they did, check out the Powell Manifesto. The whole thing was put down on paper LONG before we started seeing Newt Gingrich on teevee.


http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=21

<snip>

The Greatest Power Grab


Beginning in the early 1970s, a new conservative establishment set a counter-movement in motion to replace the institutions and expunge the ideas of American liberalism, which had dominated public thought and social policy since the New Deal. A new breed of conservatives sought to roll back a set of social gains going back to FDR, Truman, Johnson, and Kennedy.

They shifted the nation rightward; tilted the distribution of the nation's assets away from the middle class and the poor, the elderly, and the young; they red-penciled laws and legal precedents at the heart of American justice. They aimed to corporatize Medicare and Social Security. They marketed class values while accusing their opponents of "class warfare." They loosened or repealed the rights and protections of organized labor and the poor, voters, and minorities. They slashed the taxes of corporations and the rich, and rolled back the economic gains of the rest. They came to dominate or heavily influence centers of scholarship, law, and politics, education, and governance - or put new ones in their place. Their litigation teams nearly overthrew an elected President. And, to maintain power, proclaimed Constitutionalists on the right, to this day, wage a concerted counter- revolution against such Constitutional guarantees as free speech and separation of church and state.

Movement conservatism was a power tool formulated by scholars such as Irving Kristol, political organizers like the late Treasury Secretary William Simon, opinion molders and popularizers such as William F. Buckley, and a phalanx of think-tank operatives including Edwin Feulner and Paul Weyrich. A highly integrated front of activist organizations has been generously funded by the banking and oil money of the Mellon-Scaifes of Pittsburgh, the manufacturing fortunes of Lynde and Harry Bradley of Milwaukee, the energy revenues of the Koch family of Kansas, the chemical profits of John M. Olin of New York, the Vicks patent-medicine empire of the Smith Richardson family of Greensboro, N.C., and the brewing assets of the Coors dynasty of Colorado, and others.

Their grants have paid for a veritable constellation of think tanks, pressure groups, special-interest foundations, litigation centers, scholarly research and funding endowments, publishing and TV production houses, media attack operations, political consultancies, polling mills, and public-relations operations. The concerted campaigns they run, also underwritten by such self-interested corporations as those in healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and finance, have weakened the AARP, the Food and Drug Administration, Head Start, Medicare, and welfare programs.

There is a whole lot in there. But Justice Powell (just about the time Nixon nominated him for the supreme court) is the one that started it by writing letters to the monied chieftains, and, in essence telling the people, who now make up "bush's base", that they could control the media and the colleges, through donations and ownership, and thus control the minds of the masses. And they set out to do just that.

<snip>


Few are aware of the critical role played in the political power shift rightward by a prominent Richmond attorney and community leader, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., at the very threshold of a distinguished career on Lewis F. Powell, Jr.the U.S. Supreme Court. Powell was to be a leading catalyst in politicizing key sectors of the business establishment; and, he would make a major, if perhaps inadvertent, contribution to the strategy and tactics of the emerging new right.

Powell, a prominent corporation lawyer, had found the social turmoil and anti-business mood of the country abhorrent and alarming. He had achieved national prominence as president of the American Bar Association. A Democrat of southern conservative stripe, he was a member of the boards of 11 corporations, and clearly viewed the world as that culture did.

On September 13, 1971, a month before President Nixon was to nominate him to the Supreme Court to fill the seat vacated by Hugo Black, Powell wrote a letter to a law-school friend, Ross L. Malone, general counsel of the General Motors Corporation. Powell wanted Malone's help -- to alert "top management" of the company to the "contentious time in which we live" and the "plight of the enterprise system." A massive propaganda campaign, he wrote, was being waged against business. "anagement has been unwilling to make a massive effort to protect itself and the system it represents." Unless the business community acted, Powell warned, the capitalist system was "not likely to survive."

That 1971 letter, now stored in the Powell archives at Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia, carried two enclosures. One was a copy of a memorandum that Powell had written at the invitation of Eugene Sydnor, Jr., a Richmond friend and department store owner, as well as chairman of the education committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. Senior officials of the Chamber, including Arch Booth, its executive vice-president, decided to circulate it to privately to members. It was less a memo than a militant manifesto of political action, outlining in detail Powell's ideas on how business should go about responding to the assault against it. He urged the Chamber, which represented America's major businesses and trade associations, to take the lead in an aggressive "education" campaign in defense of free enterprise.

<snip>

There's much more, and well worth the read.

:kick::kick::kick:

[HappyWeasel]

45. so...

there is a plot against america?

[lyonn]

62. That was quite an article. Blinded by the Right, by David Brock

names the same people that has been behind the Extreme Right that is controlling this country now. It is scary. They stick together like nothing a person could imagine. People like Lawrence Silberman that was D.C. Circuit Court Judge (during Daddy George's era) and has been given prominent jobs in W's admin.; Grover Norquist; Ted Olson who represented Bush in Bush v. Gore and later when he was nominated for solicitor general denied having anything to do with the American Spectator's Arkansas Project which was busy trying to dig up dirt on Clinton which Brock made clear that Olson was involved, after all, Brock was in on a good part of the Clinton mud slinging. Brock's book is still worth reading if you haven't.

Politics in 2007-2008 is nothing like 1994. It appears the repub dirty dealings have become so flagrant that even some old time repubs are disgusted with what has happen to this country. We can only hope the media doesn't completely suck up to the corp powers and if and when they try it there is always the Internet for some protection.

[mudesi]

48. Nothing. The GOP used abortion to influence people's emotions(nt)

[Skinner]

53. I'm kinda surprised that my answer is different from everyone else's.

My impression is that it is two things:

1. The Republicans were extremely successful in using almost the entire Clinton agenda to paint the Democrats as tax-and-spend big-government liberals out-of-touch with the values of average Americans. You name it, they spun it to their advantage: The tax hike, universal health care, gays in the military, gun control.

2. NAFTA caused large numbers of working people -- especially union members -- to sit the election out because they felt betrayed. (This was exacerbated by the fact that many blue-collar workers tend to be socially conservative -- see "gays in the military" and "gun control" above.)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

56. My take on it is closer to Skinner's than anyone else's

1. The Democrats failed to protect their traditional constituencies against the depradations of the Reagan-Bush administrations. Instead, their public image was that of a party that favored women, racial minorities, and sexual minorities ONLY. It was partly an unfair image, since there were still some populists in the party, but the public face was a bunch of yuppies talking about behavioral liberalism, not the economic liberalism that had held the New Deal coalition together. With their apparent unconcern for the hardships that working class and rural people were facing, they came across more as libertarians than as traditional Democrats.

2. NAFTA was a huge turn-off to working class voters. For all the talk about the joys of "free" trade, their experiences were telling them that this "freedom" was only for their bosses, not for them. It was the freedom to be kicked out of a high-paying manufacturing job and into a cashier's job at 7-11. Time has proved them right. The gap between rich and poor continued to widen, even during the Clinton years, and living standards are falling in Mexico, as well, impelling a surge in illegal immigration, which in turn puts further pressure on working class people.

Even though the Republicans were even worse on economic issues than the Democrats, they understood that voters were beginnning to see the Democrats as out-of-touch yuppies, so they put on their "just plain folks" outfits and campaigned on behavioral issues that were offensive to socially conservative voters.

Working class voters thought, "They may be corrupt bastards, just like the Democrats, but at least they respect me and my personal values."

[Celeborn Skywalker]

69. Excellent answer

I think you summed up exactly what happened in 94 and what will happen again if the Democrats aren't careful.

[sandnsea]

57. "they spun it"

I don't think any of us remember it all that differently. I think there are those of us who know that the majority of it was spin - and those who don't.

[Kelly Rupert]

58. Well, your answer requires thought beyond "The Repukes Lied."

I'd say you're dead-on, by the way.

[TahitiNut]

64. That certainly describes the Macomb County voters.

:shrug: They seem to be almost a "test tube" for shifting political winds.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

66. As an addition to #1...

I tend to think of Clinton as sort of an anomaly. The country had been trending Republican for a long time. (The Democrats lost about ten seats in '92, I believe.) Clinton and his agenda seemed to have the effect of crystalizing all of the diverse aspects of the population's political leanings that favored Republicans, much the same way that Bush is now doing this for the Democrats. He was a very good foil for them.

[dsc]

54. I was at one of the ground zeros of the 1994 debacle

In my area we lost 3 Democrats. Mary Rose Ockar, Eric Fingerhut, and Ed Feighan. Two of the three were big check bouncers. Mary was the target of the Plain Dealer, she later won a lawsuit against them. Fingerhut was one of the last ones to vote for Clinton's budget. He also had run on cleaning up Congress and that wasn't done. The GOP spent huge bucks on our races and we were buried. Redistricting was pretty brutal. Georgia was an example. We actually did it to ourselves. We got too cute and lost many seats we could have won.

[Radical Activist]

59. Nothing.

They didn't really do anything. No universal health care passed. No welfare reform as promised. No changes to NAFTA as was promised. Really just bickering and infighting because Democrats couldn't agree enough with eachother enough to get anything done.

Most people stayed home because they had nothing to vote for and the result was a Republican landslide.

I hate to say it but it looks like they didn't learn from their mistakes.

[loudsue]

63. I also have to add that the republicans stacked the Dem party w/ DLCers.

DLCers, who, by the way, are still in congress. Infiltration of the Dem party is something I witnessed first hand, by coming to know one of Clinton's major benefactors from Arkansas, and having discussions about this. These are republicans in the Dem party, paying BIG money (still, to Hillary's campaign) to get corporatist Dems elected....those who will vote AGAINST a populist message. That's why "single payer" health insurance is still designed to benefit, not the PEOPLE, as much as the insurance industry, in most of the plans that have been thrown out there.

:kick::kick::kick:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

65. Yes, and they're the people who talk about "realism" and "pragmatism"

whenever someone left of center tries to talk about actually meeting the needs of the country.

[blm]

73. Yep -some Dems provide the FRIENDLY mask of Fascism.

.

[Marie26]

72. Angry White Males.

Pissed off at affirmative action, women's rising power and "bleeding-heart liberals", stomped into the voting booths to kick off the Republican revolution.