Can we admit that very few DUers vote solely on the issues now?

[jpgray]

Of course it was never all about ideology, it was partly about who pandered to our sensibilities the best. :D Otherwise, by our own statements, most of us on this board would be supporting DK. The best argument for this concerns the early discontent towards the war flocked to Dean, and NOT to Kucinich. DK was better on the war issue, but for a variety of reasons, was considered unelectable. That same "unelectable" malaise (partly inspired by the media) is what sunk Dean in Iowa. LOTS of intangibles enter into this stuff, and rather than demonize people hypocritically, we should acknowledge it and try to be more considerate. Look at the compass, folks--it doesn't lie:



How some other world leaders do, for comparison.



edit: Toned it down a little--sorry folks, we're ALL wired this way, like it or not. My support for Kerry (or whoever) in the GE will require me to compromise quite a lot.

2nd edit: Didn't express myself correctly. Anyone who supports a candidate, GO RIGHT AHEAD. Don't let anyone say you are wrong for doing so. But I think we should all admit that eahc major candidate requires some compromise.

3rd edit: Ack, I'm offending even myself every time I read this back. Maybe I'll get it fixed eventually.

4th edit: And you are of course free to disagree with the graph, my main point was to show how far left Kucinich and Sharpton are compared to the narrow range of the "major" candidates.

[Kanary]

1. It sure seems obvious to me

Disclaimer: Everyone has the right to vote for who they like the most.

Given that, I guess I would be not as uncomfortable if people would at least just admit they aren't interested in the issues, rather than putting up smokescreens about it.

It's soooo discouraging.

Gotta find a cave to hide in until it's all over.

Kanary

[MercutioATC]

2. That has nothing to do with "voting on the issues".

In fact, it has everything to do with NOT voting on the issues, but voting on a perceived ranking of the candidates within an artificial framework.

[jpgray]

3. Are IWR, Patriot Act, or gay rights important to you?

No candidate can best DK on those issues.

[Kanary]

6. Is there any reason why....

poverty issues NEVER make the list?

Isn't it at least as important as gay rights?

Kanary, still chopped liver

[jpgray]

10. Poverty isn't as sexy to the news media as the above issues. :-(

Don't forget when Klein asked Maureen Dowd why she didn't do an article on poverty, she said something like: "Oh, you think I should do a piece on Welfare Reform?"

:crazy:

[Kanary]

15. I wasn't aware that DU is the news media....?

I don't give a rip about the news media... I'm talking about the people right here at DU. Poverty hardly rates a mention here at all. There are very few I've seen mention it. For those of us caught in that cage, it feels pretty terrible to know we're just not visible to most of you.

Beyond DU, where are our leaders? Where are the JFKs and the Robert Kennedys and even the Lyndons who struggled for improvement in poverty, not going backwards...? Where are they? Why do we NOT have a voice at all?

I don't care about Klein, or Maureen Dowd, or .... Howdy Doody... I care about being invisible to my fellow Dems.

It sux.

(BTW, my tone is because I'm sooo tired of fighting this all the time... not directed at you.)

Kanary, tired of being chopped liver

[MercutioATC]

8. Yes, but so are fiscal responsibility, a viable healthcare plan and

a realistic exit strategy for Iraq, and I believe that Dean's views are closer to mine than Kucinich's.

You DO get the gist of what I say, however. THESE are the issues...not some ranking on a graph.

[corporatewhore]

9. you forgot freetrade

[jpgray]

12. On labor/corporate responsibility, trade, and fiscal policy

Dennis is pretty hard if not impossible to beat. People need to realize sooner rather than too late that we need to ease off on either defense spending or social spending. Considering we have a military behemoth that outspends most other top spending countries combined, I think DK has the right idea in that vein.

[corporatewhore]

18. ditto x ten million

[POed_Ex_Repub]

4. Uhmm... actually... according to that compass

Shouldn't all of us be supporting Al Sharpton?

[jpgray]

5. In my opinion, holding onto values in political office bumps Kucinich up

As he displayed in Cleveland, holding on to morals in private life is easy compared to doing so in public life. Sharpton is also a great candidate, but Kucinich gets more respect from me for holding onto his morals while being a politician.

[corporatewhore]

7. hes been tainted cause of repub money

[DrFunkenstein]

11. Whichever Candidate Is Closest To Gerhard Schroder

I'm sorry. I meant Ricky Schroder.

[DuctapeFatwa]

13. And let's take a look at those sensibilities, shall we?

Continue slaughtering Muslims and stealing oil - electable

Medical care as a commercial product - electable

Defense and energy business interests more important than whether your kids live or die - electable

The world and all its treasure are the property of a few rich Americans - electable

And this is from the progressive, educated, politically savvy sector.

[jpgray]

14. Yes--this is the system, and politicians play to win within that system

You have more oblique challenges to it such as Dean's, who flouted the DLC's aims but not those of the corporate folks, and then you have challenges like DK's.

[DrFunkenstein]

16. Should We Bother To Say These Charges Are Grossly Irresponsible?

Or will it just make us look silly for trying?

[DuctapeFatwa]

17. If you are saying that longstanding US policy is grossly irresponsible

you'll get no argument from me.

[corporatewhore]

22. you forgot outsourcing jobs to child slaves,privatising water electable

[Redneck Socialist]

19. Thanks for toning it down

I guess I will tone down my response then. I oppose the war. I voted for Dean. I will support Edwards when Dean drops out. Is that a compromise? Yes. Does that make me a hypocrite? No.

Very few people vote based on "issues." Very few of us are that calculating. We often, maybe usually vote on intangibles, on emotion. Dean spoke to me on a lot of levels, not just about the war. Mainly I saw him as speaking up for Democrats, for Americans and against the bushco regime. I didn't hear Dennis doing that. Maybe I wasn't listening, but Dean's obvious passion caught my attention. Did I disagree with his stands on some issues? You bet'cha, but I am not looking for ideological purity because I know I'm never going to find it and when I do I doubt that it will get elected.

PS I think your subject line and your bit about "pandering" are going to raise a lot of hackles, but maybe that was intentional. It sure got me wound up until I read your post more closely.

[jpgray]

20. Yeah, this post was jackassy in the beginning, no doubt---sorry

I was posting while excited, and didn't stop the flow until I hit "post". Almost ALWAYS a mistake. :)

But no, you are not a hypocrite at all. What bugs me is when the supporters of any candidate play the holier-than-thou card on someone else. The fact is, we CAN support a candidate for any reason, and since we all are making compromises, I wish people would feel a little more empathy for one another. The tit for tat around here is really mind-bending sometimes, and this was my ill-considered response. Sorry if I offended. :(

[Redneck Socialist]

25. There's a lot of that going around

I almost did the same in reply to your post until I happened to catch the last bit about toning it down. Then I went back and reread your post and realized I agreed with it. On a quick skim the language struck me as a little inflammatory and I got the flame thrower all loaded up and ready to rock and roll. My bad too for not reading you post as closely as I should of.

I don't understand WHY people support some of the candidates, but you are absolutely correct that we should not be denigrating people for why they support their candidate. Whatever their reasons they are sincere and should be respected.

[PurityOfEssence]

21. So why does the ACU put Edwards to the left of Kucinich?

This graph has been shown before, and it's as ridiculous now as it was then. By what pronouncement is John Edwards "authoritarian"? That's just poppycock.

[jpgray]

23. The criteria is on the site, you are free to disagree

The "major" candidates are on a pretty narrow ideological range. Edwards has a brief voting record, so probably during that time his votes that scored high on the Authoritarian scale gave him few votes left over to compensate, for example the Patriot Act. So you could throw out his postulated point on the grounds that there is not enough data compared to the other candidates. They do take his positions into account, however.

[KissMyAsscroft]

24. Those charts are meaningless.

I really wish people would give up on those fucking charts. They are not a good indicator of where you are politically.

[wuushew]

26. What other choices do we have?

AdAction.org, American Conservative Union, IWR litmus test? which is it?

[gottaB]

27. Yes and no

You might be overlooking the extent to which our sensibilities are actively constructed, and reflective of our views on issues. Consider a broad concern like constitutionally guaranteed rights and liberties, which is relevant insofar as the president appoints judges.

No single issue can tell you which candidate has the most respect for civil rights. Kucinich points to the PATRIOT act. But Kerry has a more liberal position on the first amendment, as evidenced by his stand on proposed amendments banning the desecration of the flag, and his steadfast position on seperation of church and state. Kerry also has a more liberal position on the right to privacy, which is backed by a long voting record. Even if you accept that Kucinich's conversion is genuine, and beleive that he would use support for Roe v. Wade as a litmus test for appointing judges, Kerry has more credibility on the issue.

So it comes down to how heavily to weigh PATRIOT vs. support for the right to free expression, the establishment clause, and the right to privacy inherent in the 14th amendment. And then if you start unpacking PATRIOT, you see that the Senate and House votes are not equivalent, that the modified version that made it out of the Senate contained provisions that were worth negotiating for, that Kerry agrees with some of Kucinich's criticisms of the law, and that John Ashcroft is indeed a problem. So in the final analysis, I think you'd be hard pressed to say that Kucinich is more liberal than Kerry on the issue of civil rights.

Then again, Kucinich's opposition to the death penalty is firmer than Kerry's, and that is a vital civil rights issue. So I think it is complicated, and I respect those who support Kucinich because of his support for civil rights.

The others? Dean, I don't believe comes close to Kerry and Kucinich, but again it depends on how you weigh various issues, and how much credence you give to one set of arguments vs. another set of arguments. Dean's support of a woman's right to choose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy is unquestionable. On other matters, I don't believe he is as clear of a supporter of civil rights as Kerry or Kucinich. He has forcefully criticized the PATRIOT act, but he has also made statements and decisions as Governor that show a lack of concern for due process. So it really comes down to how you weigh the positions, and how you assess credibility.

Sharpton? He has devoted a lifetime to fighting for civil rights, but his views remain untested in one important respect: He has never held elected office. I won't say that he's unqualified, but in a field where there are so many candidates with great qualifications, he is easily overlooked.

Ranking the candidates on civil liberties, just going with my gut here, I'd say, from left to right:

Braun
Sharpton
Kerry
Kucinich
Clark
Dean
Lieberman
Edwards
Gephardt
Graham


Huge Chasm


Bush


But there's wiggle room. I certainly don't claim to know the truth, and I respect others who see things differently or have different priorities.

Now, when you take that one nexus of issues around civil rights and liberties, and set it within the matrix of other concerns, the complexities and ambiguities grow exponentially. The end result may appear as if there's a disconnect between a candidate's image as accepted by his or her supporters, and the candidate's issue positions. But that appearance may also be an artifact of perspective, that is, that sensibility is being defined through or from a perspective, or that the process of political identification engenders a honing-in which, like perspective, pertains to the construction of multidimensional spaces and operates under similar constraints. The underlying reality of the process of identification, however, may in actuality involve a systatic integrity which remains invisible when looking at final results from any single perspective, but can be ascertained from a studied comparison of various viewpoints, while bracketing out the "noise" that attends the taking of a viewpoint.

On the other hand, there is little question that the political field does not exist in an abstract form, and that psychological and cultural modalities of identification intersect with the formation of political identities, and indeed, may be more determinative or constiutitive than we would like to pretend, even among highly educated and active communities like DU. Point taken.

Disclaimer: I'm reading your fourth edit.

[REP]

28. Count Me A One of The Few

I'm an even rarer bird - a candidate's position on just one issue is enough to disqualify them from me ever voting for that person. I could never vote for Kucinich with a clear conscience; fortunately, I will never be faced with a ballot where he is the Democratic presidential candidate. As long as keeps on doing those dating stunts (to name only one disgraceful thing he has done), very few people will ever take him seriously.

[DemBones DemBones]

29. I have supported Dennis Kucinich all along and will vote

for him on Super Tuesday. He's the best on the issues.

It has always disappointed me that more DUers have not supported DK.

[bobthedrummer]

32. I'm sorry we didn't get him some delegates yesterday

Good luck!
:hi:

[tobius]

30. "The compass doesn't lie"

from compass-

A Few Words about "The Extreme Right"

Once you accept that left and right are merely measures of economic position, the "extreme right" refers to extremely liberal economics that may be practised by social authoritarians or social libertarians.

Similarly, the "extreme left" identifies a strong degree of state economic control, which may also be accompanied by liberal or authoritarian social policies. </snip>

http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/extremeright.html
Election debates between mainstream parties are increasingly about managerial competence rather than any clash of vision and economic direction.

In the United States, the voices of dissent over unfettered market forces (ie extreme right economics) are heard from social authoritarians like Pat Buchanan as well as social liberals like Ralph Nader. ........

Maybe voters don't like authoritarian controls...just a thought

[jpgray]

31. Yes, our debates are often about 'managerial competence' over issues (nt)