This is why we don't get anything accomplished anymore.

[Drunken Irishman]

This is why poverty continues to rise throughout the country.
This is why healthcare continues to be a major issue throughout the country.
This is why more and more jobs are moving overseas.
This is why Americans are dying in Iraq.
This is why America's education system continues to crumble.
This is why America is at its most divisive point since the Civil War.
This is why less and less people vote in elections.
This is why more and more people tire of the Democratic and Republican Party.
This is why we can't get anything accomplished in this country anymore.

Instead of focusing on the issues, we have petty, pointless fights about the most trivial issues. We scream at the top of our lungs that Obama loves Reagan and that Clinton is a racist, yet ignore the continued plight of middle and lower class America. We criticize Obama's vagueness and Clinton's likeability. And instead of discussing the issues, which believe it or not, most Democratic candidates are in agreement on, we spend all this time ripping down one another's candidate on issues that almost certainly won't impact the way they lead this country.

How do we expect to change Washington if we're not willing to talk about what needs to be changed in the first place? It's scary that over the past week the most dominant debate on this board has been entirely about character issues and hardly about policy issues. Character is important, but we're not electing a candidate to just morally lead this nation. We're electing a candidate to socially lead and even though I have my differences with each and every candidate, I do realize one thing. Clinton, Obama, Edwards and Kucinich would all make a far better president than Romney, McCain, Huckabee and Giuliani. Yet if we continue this painful, hate-filled fighting of little substance, it will be one of the latter candidates leading this nation. Not a Democrat and I don't know about you, but that is far more worrisome than whether Obama invoked Reagan, Clinton was a Goldwater Girl or John Edwards is made of money.

[Horse with no Name]

1. One candidate is talking about real change

while the others are creating wedge issues in their own party.
Why is that?

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. And of course, that one candidate has been branded as "unelectable"

Go figure. :eyes:

[Horse with no Name]

3. By the supporters of the other two that are creating the wedge

issues. :eyes:

[redqueen]

6. It's a puzzler, all right. (nt)

[democrat2thecore]

4. Thank you - you are absolutely right

This is where the echo-chamber aspect of the Internet has hurt our ability to come together. We can line up on all sides, divide into camps - in real time - and then get all emotional, angry and flaming over something that matters so little in the overall scheme of things. It's a shame.

[hfojvt]

5. apparently they are not petty or pointless

for example, they seem to have convinced Saracat to support Clinton over Obama. We cannot, of course, argue vigorously about the things we agree on.

[Triana]

7. If we wanted to talk about the issues...and about really doing something about them...

...we'd all be talking about electing John Edwards.

AT THE CORE of every single one of the issues you list is ONE thing:

The Corporate domination of and the corporate stranglehold -- on our government AND our media.

Profit-driven and self-interested "solutions" to all those issues - devised by the plutocracy to only benefit the few, already rich corporate elite and special interests at the expense of the rest of us, and at the expense of our international standing and reputation, and at the expense of our environment and health, DO NOT WORK.

JOHN EDWARDS is the only candidate who is addressing this one CORE ISSUE to any extent at all -- this ONE ISSUE upon which progress on all the rest of the issues depend (though they SHOULDN'T).

I AM talking about the issues. I'm talking about THE issue that is at the core of the rest of them and THE issue that, without remedy, the rest will remain issues. I'm talking about ONE man who will DO SOMETHING about it ALL - instead of being just another part of the problem and another part of the status quo that props up the elite who prevent progress on any of those issues.

I'm talking about John Edwards.

That's what I'm talkin' bout.

[MasonJar]

8. I heartily agree with your premise; it is clearly demonstrated by the immediate

denigration of our own candidates by fellow DUers. Come on, y'all! I am now telling everybody who asks that I do not care which of our superior and supreme candidates the dems choose. I will back the choice, and I sincerely mean I DO NOT CARE! They are all outstanding citizens of the USA and the world community, who are working very hard to be our leader. I admire them and I acknowledge their committment and I thank them each for their dedication and stamina! They must be ready to collapse. Kudos galore from Masonjar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[EffieBlack]

9. Thank you Thank you Thank you!!! nt

[stravu9]

10. Edwards is the ONLY ONE who has focused on those things CONTINUALLY!

during this campaign and I renounce the Party if he is not their nominee.

[TechBear_Seattle]

11. Indeed. Kucinich has NEVER been consistent in focusing on these issues and more

:eyes:

[eridani]

12. Jeebus fecking keerist! WE are all over issues like white on rice

It's the fawking MSM and their horserace fluff and drivel that is making it all about "gotcha" moments and Hillary's cackle and John's hair and whether or not Barack inhaled too much.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. Far too many people are into the "horse race" mentality

or the "My candidate can beat up your candidate" mentality.

We should be talking about what each candidate proposes to DO about the problems the OP mentions, about who has the guts to stand up to the Republicanites and tell them what impossible sexual act they should perform when they start whining about "bipartisanship."

Polls are meaningless, horse races are meaningless, winning just for the sake of seeing someone with your team colors in the White House is meaningless.

What does your candidate propose to DO once in the White House?

[depakid]

14. The reason why nothing positive gets accomplished is the failure to grasp

that rational people cannot legitimize and enable the far right... and their policies and then expect concilliation or any sort of responsible compromise.

Extremists don't work that way- and never have, throughout history.

The way to get things done is to stand up to them- call a spade a spade in no uncertain terms. Expose them for what they are enomasses, and relegate their failures of ideology back to the fringe, where THE EVIDENCE SHOWS that it belongs.