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Chris was right as he compared the Kennedy political machine with the Obama political operation..

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WCGreen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-01-11 05:30 PM
Original message
Chris was right as he compared the Kennedy political machine with the Obama political operation..
Edited on Tue Nov-01-11 05:30 PM by WCGreen
You should check out the last word. He is correct in pointing out that there are no real Obama Democrats. He hasn't taken hold of the party and molded it into his political base...

He ran an aloof campaign in 2008 that reached out to the young and disillusioned and by passed the traditional democratic power base of trial lawyers and Unions.

He was running as Obama and not as a democrat.

It's kind of like a replay of the McGovern election in 1972 only this time it worked because candidate Obama did not alienate those more traditional political power bases.

Believe me, I am not saying it is bad or "evil" or even anti-Obama, but his continual attempts to build a consensus across the aisle has left his base wondering if he has their back. Remember how negative the GOP was and how angry DU with president Obamas insistence of reaching across the aisle time and time again.

Chris was right about his cabinet not out there pushing his agenda whenever they can. His cabinet has never really embraced the political part of the ob.

It's almost as if president Obama doesn't realize that there is no political season any more only a constant battle for the agenda.

Who really has president Obama' back? Who is out there passionately pushing his agenda. For that matter, who can actually point to what is the Obama agenda.

He has big sweeping ideas that have gotten lost because he left far too much on the table from the start.

The presidents apolitical persona is a good thing, it means he is really trying to reach out to the whole country instead of parsing everything into a us vs them.

But the stark reality is that being apolitical tends to alienate people who are intensely political and that spells trouble for a man who has to appeal to the hyper political to get him reelected.

What is really saving his presidency is not his soaring rhetoric or his remaking of American foreign policy. No, what is saving his presidency is Romney, Bachmann, Perry and Hermann.

I am pretty sure that president Obama will win reelection but he won't enjoy any sort of mandate unless the country throws out the republican hold on congress. That, my friends, is not going to be easy given the fact that the democratic state infrastructure dropped the ball when it came to the 2010 election. And that was a direct result of the Obama White House abandoning any real political agenda.

In simple terms, the democrats out in the states don't look toward president Obama for political cover and so they owe no allegiance to the president.

And that, my friends, is the way I see the big picture as it stands right now.
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Maccagirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-01-11 05:35 PM
Response to Original message
1. Well-written and thoughtful post
and I can't argue with your points. Obama must feel pretty lonely these days-and I frankly think there's enough blame to go around.
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CaliforniaPeggy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-01-11 05:55 PM
Response to Original message
2. Great analysis!
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kentuck Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-01-11 06:08 PM
Response to Original message
3. It's a Catch-22...
Reach out to the country but lose your Party.

Good synopsis.
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intaglio Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-01-11 07:27 PM
Response to Original message
4. So, what you are saying is that Obama reached out
to all those folks the Democratic Party should have connected with years ago.

Now what does that say about the Party?
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WCGreen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-01-11 08:08 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. It's not that he shouldn't have reached out to them...
It's that he ignored the people who run the party on a day to day basis, the power structures in the local areas.

Now you may not agree that they are important and you might even go to the point that they are what is bringing the party down and in many instances, I would agree. But you can't ignore them.

These are the community leaders who have contacts in the local media, with the local political structure who can get a ten thousand piece lit drop up and running in a couple of hours.

You can't shut out the structure and then expect them to be there.

These are the people who other community leaders look to in order to get a feel for the candidate.

You can cobble together a winning coalition without the power structure completely on your side, but you can't sustain a political force without those people having your back.

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intaglio Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-02-11 04:44 AM
Response to Reply #5
6. The question is NOT about Obama
The question is about the Democratic Party.

Why did the Democratic Party not connect with those voters, either before the election or since the election?
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quaker bill Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-02-11 05:08 AM
Response to Reply #6
8. Because the party has the minority formula down pat
Edited on Wed Nov-02-11 05:09 AM by quaker bill
We have become comfortable as a disaffected minority party. "Our ideas are great", so "why will no one listen to us?".

Obama bypassed the party strucure in my state because that would have been the formula for defeat. We have had the advantage in voter registrations for decades but can only elect a tiny minority of office holders virtually anywhere in the state. There is nothing unusual about this. The "leadership" produces defeat piled upon defeat. This is why it is well considered to largely ignore it.

People, and in particular pundits, like to think there is some magic to all this, but there isn't. There is no mystery. If the team that exists can't consistently produce a winning margin, you hire another team and run it yourself.
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WCGreen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-02-11 07:53 AM
Response to Reply #8
12. President Obama won in Florida because the GOP remained
stagnate and the democratic base expanded.

Perhaps if the voters the Obama campaign attracted were voting not just for the candidate but the party, you wouldn't have the current governor.

Look candidates come and go but the party structure, for good or bad, stays in place. It's up to the president to energize his people to work with the party in order to protect his party in the House and the Senate and at the state level.

If candidate Obama attracted voters who don't want to be bothered to go out to vote in the off year elections, what is the point.

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WCGreen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-02-11 07:42 AM
Response to Reply #6
10. They have been connecting all along...
It's the way candidate Obama reached out to young people who never voted in a presidential election.

Demographically, the Kerry vote was there for Obama, the older people who automatically vote for the GOP are dying off and the new voters drawn by the charisma of Obama were drawn into the election for the first time...
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intaglio Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-02-11 01:09 PM
Response to Reply #10
13. Again you ignore the obvious
If the Democratic Party did reach out to all those voters Obama mobilised then why are they not in, or represented by, the Democratic Party? Where are the voters who would have supported Alan Grayson and his ilk; you cannot escape responsibility by saying, "they were turned off by the actions of the President and the DINOs", when the party itself could have changed course and welcomed these new thinkers and actors.
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WCGreen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-02-11 02:20 PM
Response to Reply #13
14. Grayson won in 2008 and lost in 2010 because the people who were
motivated by president Obama couldn't be bothered to go to the polls in 2010.

That, my Friend, is not the fault of the party that is the fault of president Obama for the way he started off his administration by not engaging his own party but by trying to transcend party lines.

His approach left guys like Grayson swinging in the wind because they did not strengthen ties to the party.

The party is the president, whether you like it or not. People identify the person in office as the the head of the party.

And the party leader is the president but he left his people swinging in the wind many times during the health care debate which was what defined his presidency up until now.

All those people who wanted an overhaul of their health care, because that was a huge part of why people voted for candidate Obama, were left bewildered by the action of the president. Part of the reason was, as I stated above, president Obama seemed to be more interested in making a deal with the GOP than building a party consensus in the House and the Senate.

As far as Grayson goes, in 2008 he won 172,854 to 159,490 with a total turnout of 332,344.

In 2010. Grayson lost 84,167 to 123,586. The turnout dropped by 112,110 votes. If the party in the district would have been able to reach out to those 112,000 people who couldn't be bothered to come to vote just two years later, Grayson would still be in office. A lot of that has to do with president Obama not living up to the expectations of those who turned out in 2008.

So why did all those people who voted for Grayson in 2008 not even bother to show up in 2010?

Because the district is normally republican and the GOP, as a party, had worked to identify president Obama and the Party as this side of being commies.

Don't know if you are even bothering to read this, but Grayson really didn't have a chance. It took an historically high turnout, which was caused by Obama AND the tired view the people had of the GOP, for him to win. If president Obama had identified himself more as a democrat and not basically left the party on it's own, perhaps there could have been a chance to build a lasting coalition.

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CaliforniaPeggy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-02-11 02:25 PM
Response to Reply #14
15. That's telling him.
I hope he reads your response.

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intaglio Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-03-11 01:07 PM
Response to Reply #14
16. So the party is the President, is it?
So why are you in the party except to whine and complain?

If people like you had welcomed the newcomers and accepted the change that they would have insisted on then, as you point out, many of Grayson's missing votes would have been in the ballot box and not lost in the miasma that followed 2008. It is the job of the party to be vigilant and to hold the President to account outside the electoral cycle. It is the Party's job to incite new people to join, to welcome them and to help them help others to vote wisely.

You bitch about being identified with "commies" but you did not have enough troops to fight that nonsensical charge. Why not? Because you did not go and recruit from the new voters.
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ellisonz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-02-11 05:04 AM
Response to Original message
7. He's right. I'm still a Dean Democrat.
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CrackersMcGee Donating Member (45 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-02-11 05:23 AM
Response to Original message
9. 'Chris' voted for W.
And, although he's a sharp guy, I think he's full o' beans 90% of the time.
He just looks good compared to the fecal flotsam floating around him.




What did HJT say about the television business?
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WCGreen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-02-11 07:44 AM
Response to Reply #9
11. The only part of my post about Chris was that he was referring to the
the way the cabinet of Clinton and Johnson and Kennedy went out and had their presidents back. The rest is from my experience and observations.
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