New York City Hosts `No Labels' Political Group Countering `Partisanship'

[bemildred]

More than 1,000 Democrats, Republicans and independents are gathering today in New York City to create “No Labels,” an organization that says it’s devoted to reducing “excessive polarization and hyper- partisanship” in U.S. politics.

The group will pressure “elected officials to put the labels aside at critical times and work together,” and serve “as a counterweight to ideological extremes,” it said in a news release today.

The group’s leadership includes New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In a speech last week to business leaders in Brooklyn, the mayor said U.S. economic growth would fall behind other nations because of “partisan gridlock, political pandering and legislative influence-peddling.”

Bloomberg, 68, a one-time Democrat, switched to the Republican Party before running for mayor in 2001 and 2005, and gave up all party affiliations in 2007, when he explored an independent presidential bid. He won re-election to a third mayoral term in 2009 on the Republican and Independence Party ballots. In a Dec. 12 appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he said he would serve his full term and doesn’t have presidential aspirations.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-13/new-york-city-hosts-no-labels-political-group-countering-partisanship-.html

[brooklynite]

1. The challenge is not finding "middle of the road" solutions...

...its finding a way to get partisans on either side of the implementation debate to give consideration to something that doesn't match their political orthodoxy.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. From the interviews I just heard on the radio...this is a movement that will

attempt to move everything just a little bit more to the right.

Their equalizing the "extremes" of the left and the right is a definite put off.
The repukes are the ones who are refusing to move at all. They have been blocking every
attempt to get anything done.
The Left has been the side that has been willing to compromise...and it got us NO WHERE!!!

The comments have been anti-union, anti-activist, pro-privatization, pro-applesauce..i.e.
If you don't voice any strong opinions, no one can argue against you..

It does not sound at all like anything I would back

http://www.truth-out.org/disaster-messaging61170

Democrats are constantly resorting to disaster messaging. Here's a description of the typical situation:

* The Republicans out-message the Democrats. The Democrats, having no effective response, face disaster: They lose politically, either in electoral support or failure on crucial legislation.

* The Democrats then take polls and do focus groups. The pollsters discover that extremist Republicans control the most common ("mainstream") way of thinking and talking about the given issue.

* The pollsters recommend that Democrats move to the right: adopt conservative Republican language and a less extreme version of conservative policy, along with weakened versions of some Democratic ideas.

* The Democrats believe that, if they follow this advice, they can gain enough independent and Republican support to pass legislation that, at least, will be some improvement on the extreme Republican position.

* Otherwise, the pollsters warn, Democrats will lose popular support - and elections - to the Republicans, because mainstream thought and language resides with the Republicans.

* Believing the pollsters, the Democrats change their policy and their messaging and move to the right.

* The Republicans demand even more and refuse to support the Democrats.


<snip>

[madfloridian]

3. Look at their founding leaders. More than centrist

http://nolabels.org/about-us/founding-leaders/?page=1

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Triangulation professionals

[bemildred]

6. The old razzle-dazzle.

"Pay no attention to the little man behind the screen."

[T Wolf]

5. I would guess that there are not too many real Democrats there, if any. How can you partner with

an enemy who thinks that you do not have a right to exist?

And to those who have not been paying attention - there is no partisan gridlock.

The White House, the DINOs and the pukes all agree on what needs to be done. It is only the fucking retards (all four of them) who are ruining the lovely, kumbya mood that Obama has created with his friends in the GOP.

The BEST that can be hoped for over the last two years of Bush#3 is total gridlock so that Obama cannot do more damage to liberal causes.

[yurbud]

7. because Bloomberg has been so non-partisan in how he privatizes education...