It's really hurts the Democratic party when liberal ideologues endorse Republican candidates

[Fumesucker]

It must have been the liberal ideologues who endorsed Christie in NJ because we all know that pragmatic moderate centrist Democrats would never do such a damaging thing to the party they care more about than life itself.

I mean endorsing Republicans is the logical next evil step after not voting for Democrats, isn't it?

[KG]

1. at least those NJ dems didn't endorse some goddammed liberatarians!

[NuclearDem]

3. Nah, just the guy that vetoed marriage equality and shouts down teachers.

[babylonsister]

2. Ideologues? Self-serving opportunists seems more appropriate.

Good thread here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023988674

[Fumesucker]

5. As your link shows those are clearly liberal ideologues who are endorsing Christie in a fit of pique

One could even say poutrage that the Democrats were insufficiently pure.

Pragmatic moderate centrist Democrats would never do such a thing, it wouldn't be pragmatic.

[HooptieWagon]

4. I have no idea how the NJ Dem Party works...

...nor do I know about NJ politics in general. So I can't say it was right or wrong.
I do know FL politics, and I find it offensive for DUers who haven't a clue about FL bashing this state. Thus, I'll refrain from telling NJ Dems how they should do things.

[Fumesucker]

6. Oh I wasn't bashing real Democrats

Only liberal ideologues.

[HooptieWagon]

8. What is the make-up of NJ Dem Party?

IOW, who controls the apparatus? How good a candidate was Buono?
I know in FL, Dems took a lot of flak for voting for Charlie Crist for Senate. DUers were (and still are) simply ignorant of the fact that the Dem US Senate candidate was horrible. We knew how bad Rubio was... chances of beating him were much better voting for Crist than for the Dem, and Crist as Senator would have been better than either of the others. If Dems had a better candidate to vote for, Crist never would have entered the race as an Ind.

[Fumesucker]

9. Clearly they have a lot of liberal ideologues who are pining for their missing ponies

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/10023988377#post16

[HooptieWagon]

10. Actually, thats not apparent at all.

What is apparent is that you're not seeking any sort of rational discussion, but instead are merely pouncing on any feeble excuse to bash "liberal ideologues".
Goodnight to ya...

[backwoodsbob]

32. well played

well played indeed

[hfojvt]

12. okay, what was so bad about Meek?

And if he was so bad, then why didn't he get beat in the primary?

Further, for the corruption that seems to be evident in his political life, I still do not see how Crist would have made a better Senator. Was he gonna caucus with the Democrats? Wiki does not say. If he caucused with the Republicans, then I do not see how he could be a better Senator than Meek.

[HooptieWagon]

14. Meek did almost no campaigning or fundraising.

He was completely unknown outside his Congressional District. Although his district supported him, he was undistinguished in Congress. He had serious ethics issues...yes, all three had some questions. He won in primary against a rich yahoo with no political experience whatsoever...who may not have even been a Democrat. So there was nothing to choose from in the primary.
Its not known with certainty which side Crist would have caucussed with. But, given the direction of the GOP into extremism, and their previous rejection of Crist, I think he would have caucussed with Dems. He Governed as a moderate...a pretty good one to my surprise. In his Senate race, he had the backing of the Teacher's Union (shared with Meek) and the Trial Lawyers, who are the most powerful Dem-supporting groups in FL. I don't think he would have turned his back on them.

[hfojvt]

30. none of that says Crist would be a better Senator than Meek

although I am surprised that a Congressman would not know how to raise funds and campaign.

However, I see that Meek NEVER had an opponent in his Congressional races.

And also, I am thinking that the big money donors quickly decided to get behind Crist, so Meek may have been deprived of funds and therefore unable to do much campaigning.

However good and moderate Crist was as Governor, he still presided over a state which has the 2nd most regressive tax structure in the nation. So I am not seeing his working class creds. Kinda odd too that Crist's independent candidacy did not seem to take very many votes away from Rubio, only from Meek.

It's nice to defeat people like Rubio, but electing moderate Republicans as Democrats, or instead of Democrats, just seems to me to further transform the Democratic Party from the Democratic Party into the Moderate-Republican-Party-which-is-called-The-Democratic-Party.

[HooptieWagon]

31. Okay.

First of all, Crist served in FL legislature when Dems still held power. He was moderately effective, so there's evidence he could work across the aisle. Secondly, when Governor Republicans held power, so he could have told Dems to go pound sand. Instead, he did several things Dems applauded. Now he wouldn't be my first choice as Sen...nor would he be some kind of Senate legend. But, he would have been much better than Meek or Rubio, which were the only other options at that time.

On Meek: He was essentially given that Congressional seat by his mother. She was US Rep for many years from a heavily AA district in South FL. She always got near 100% of the vote. Often she was unopposed. She decided not to seek reelection, but didn't tell anyone. At filing deadline, she didn't file, her son did, so there wasn't any opportunity for other candidates for seat. He was usually unopposed, so had little campaign experience, never had to campaign hard, and never campaigned or fund-raised outside his district. Also, while in Congress, he steered Federal dollars to a developer who was planning to build some type of rehab center. The guy "employed" Meek's mother, gave her cars and big salary for no work. After getting the Federal money, he just pocketed it. Meek claimed to not know what was going on (despite his mother "working" for the guy). Anyway, the opinion of most FL Dems was Meek was simply a grifter, and judging by his lack of a campaign, the Senate race was merely his scheme for a big payday before checking out of politics.
Yes, Crist's votes probably mostly came from Dems. Rubio got 48% of vote, normally in an off-year election (when Dem turnout runs low) a Republican gets about 52-55% of vote. Crist got 29%, and Meek got 20%. So Crist's votes were roughly 3:1 Dem/Rep. Probably more Dems voted for Crist than Meek. Of course, if Meek's voter's had thrown in with Crist, Rubio would have lost.
As I said up-thread, the whole scene was set up by an incredibly poor Dem primary field. State Party thought Crist would win in a cake-walk, so put ZERO effort into fielding a strong Dem candidate. Rubio surfed past Crist on the Teabagger wave, and a very weak Dem candidate left the door open for Crist to mount a third-party campaign aimed at stopping Rubio. So blame doesn't belong to Dems who voted for Crist, the blame falls on the State Party for conceding the election before it began by not fielding a viable candidate.

[TreasonousBastard]

16. I do-- I lived in NJ for 15 years and agree with you that...

there's a lot of loose talk here from people who have no idea what they are talking about.

NJ is one of the last bastions of the Tammany type of corruption Democrats have been historically famous for, and while there are some good people in the party over there, they are there with the permission of the county bosses as long as they don't upset the order of things.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3988887

Yes, even in these modern times this type of corruption is still around. No murders (that I know of) and little obvious bulldozing and payoffs, but the point is still the same-- money and power and if getting it sometimes accidentally helps the state or the people, that's a small bonus.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

7. Haha.

I believe it was the same group of "liberal ideologues" who were responsible for the government shutdown.....at least that's what the pragmatic center-right portion of Democratic Underground told me.

[RC]

11. Do you mean those Conservative Liberals?

Those Right of Center, DLC supporters, who think they are real Centralist Liberals? That ideologue?

[Fumesucker]

13. Oh no, DLC supporters are all about party unity

Everyone knows it's the liberal ideologues who are so fickle that they'll vote for and even endorse Republicans, pragmatic moderate centrists would never so such a thing.

[RC]

22. DLC supporters are all about party unity, like the Republicans are about party unity?

Liberals are more like cats, hard to herd, because the can think for themselves.

[Pab Sungenis]

15. Oh, bullshit.

We had six anti-gay Democrats running against pro-gay Republicans in my county. It's the anti-gay Democrats who were hurting the party and I proudly voted against them.

[Fumesucker]

18. Six pro gay Republicans in one county?

I wonder how they got past the primaries?

[Pab Sungenis]

19. This is Jersey.

We do things different.

[Fumesucker]

20. I'm sure your Teabaggers love Obamacare

[Rosa Luxemburg]

17. Who exactly has endorsed him?

[Fumesucker]

21. Obviously it was liberal ideologues

It's the next logical step from not voting for Democrats to endorsing Republicans.

I'm not sure how I can make this argument any stupider, I'm doing the best I can with my limited resources.

You see I'm making fun of the DUers who love to blame "liberal ideologues" for every election loss the Democrats might endure, it's such a stupid argument that's it's almost impossible to parody.

[zeemike]

25. Time to drive that wedge home.

And split off those LIs from the good guys....who needs a big tent anyway...let them get their own damn tent.

[Fumesucker]

28. They are just an insignificant minority

Except when they are crucial to elections.

[KittyWampus]

23. Apparently, you have no idea what "ideologue" means.

[Fumesucker]

24. I understand it better than you understand satire n/t

[Zorra]

26. Life is hard for us ideologically pure emotarian Dems. We have no republican party to run home to

when our candidate isn't perfect, like the centrists do.

Alas, we just keep supporting Democrats, even if they are not the ideologically pure Dems that we prefer, because we actually consider republicans our opposition, rather than our kin.

[Oilwellian]

27. Thank GOD Obama didn't endorse Buono, the Democratic candidate! n/t

[Fumesucker]

29. More important to keep the powder dry n/t