Harold Ford Jr was just on Morning Joe and he sounds just like a Republican

[proud2BlibKansan]

He talked about responsibility and he supports charter schools.

He is also head of the DLC.

Connect the dots people.

[DemVet]

1. Watch out Harry, a few don't agree with you so...

...you're persona non grata.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. So you support the DLC?

They really aren't progressive. Did you realize that?

[NJSecularist]

10. I don't support the DLC's views, but I support what the DLC is doing.

You don't win elections without the moderate wing of the party. The DLC is a necessary evil.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. Anti-choice

Against gay marriage

For the war on Iraq

Pro charter schools and vouchers

Anti public education

(And my favorite) pro bipartisanship with the Republicans - you know, the party that gave us George Bush?

You support that crap?

:scared:

[NJSecularist]

18. Obviously, I would like for his views to lean more to the left.

I would like the DLC to lean more to the left also. Even a moderate Democratic organization shouldn't be pro choice or against gay marriage.

But most people just want to throw away the moderate wing of this party. We won't win elections if we do that.

[Me.]

31. Don't Forget

What huge supporters of NAFTA they were

How much they've supported the intrusion of corporations into the government

That they wanted Ford to replace Dean

[formernaderite]

68. why do people always criticize charter schools?

you do realize that many of these are "teacher" run schools, in urban areas they often do more to integrate an afrocentric curriculum than regular schools. Charter schools are NOT the same as vouchers or private schools...they're publicly funded schools, that happen to have a specialized curriculum...many depending on the state or county also are staffed by the same unionized teachers as regular public schools.

[proud2BlibKansan]

74. And funding them comes out of the same bucket of money

that public schools are funded out of. We don't get enough money as it is, then we have to turn around and share it with schools that don't have to follow the same rules we do.

Most of the charters here are absolute disasters. Yet they are not held accountable. And no, our union is not allowed near any of them.

[formernaderite]

82. that is an issue in your state

I don't think you can broadbrush them...each state and sometimes counties within those states have vastly different rules and criteria.

[proud2BlibKansan]

83. Actually it is true nation wide

I am not aware of any states that come up with additional revenue to fund charter schools. If you are, please share.

[olkaz]

37. They are a necessary evil that will marginalize progressivism at EVERY F'ING TURN

I'm sorry, but these guys just consistently mess up everything.

To me, they're soulless opportunists that could care less about the working class, education, or the social safety net.

[Malikshah]

39. The DLC is anything but moderate.

[Cha]

91. Exactly..they're neo-con lite if

neo-cons can be lite..maybe they're just more stealth. And anyone who doesn't know what the dlc is needs to brush up.

[redqueen]

46. Pardon me?

Do you remember how Carville's (DLC) analysis of Dean's strategy worked out?

DLC = lose... Dems = win.

That "But the DLC are winnners!" myth is busted. Long time back.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

47. Moderate my ass. They're the corporate wing of the party. nt

[NJSecularist]

51. Yes, they are.

But there needs to be a moderate wing of this party. I do not like the DLC, but I understand that the DLC does help us bring in votes. Obviously I would prefer for the DLC to be disbanded and be replaced with a more left leaning moderate group.

[backscatter712]

54. You're confusing being moderate with selling out.

It's one thing to reach across the aisle and find common ground - things that we agree with the Republicans on - that's what Obama does, and he's accomplished some damned good things by reaching out, like that nuclear proliferation bill with Sen. Hagel.

It's an entirely different thing to sell out your principles and progressive principles for brownie points, which is what Harold Ford does, and what Joe Lieberman does. Absolutely disgusting.

[NJSecularist]

56. When have I ever defended Joe Lieberman?

Joe Lieberman is pond scum.

[DemVet]

30. I don't consider myself "progressive" either. I consider myself a Democrat.

Define "progressive"

Remember, Democrats of all stripes frequent this board.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

48. Your avatar tells me all I need to know. nt

[proud2BlibKansan]

75. At least you are true to your avatar

Hillary isn't progressive either.

The best way I can define progressive is to tell you what a progressive does NOT support:

We don't support the war on Iraq

We don't support mandated health insurance, but favor truly universal health care

We don't support vouchers or charter schools and believe our public schools should be fairly funded

We don't want SS privatized

We don't drink the 'personal responsibility' koolaid

[dionysus]

42. The DLC are scumsucking repukes in dems clothing...

[bobthedrummer]

71. "Inconvenient truths about the New Democrats, the Third Way, Democratic leadership Council, etc."

DLC=the BFEE's moles in the Democratic Party, they are not moderate, centrists or a necessary evil-they are BFEE
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2973191

[Cooley Hurd]

2. He's a Lieberman Dem...

:thumbsdown:

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. Pretty soon Lieberman will be praised here once again

Mark my words. :)

[angie_love]

3. exactly. He said Obama needs to pick someone whos apart of the NRA

like he is as a VP yesterday.

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. What do you want to bet Hillary would pick him as VP?

[joshcryer]

28. $500

[proud2BlibKansan]

29. LOL!

I will double that. :)

[Skidmore]

4. R-lite...

It is kinda funny watching him twist himself in knots trying to look neutral.

[olkaz]

38. It's not even R-Lite, he goes with pretty much everything they say

A completely Republican DINO.

[cooolandrew]

5. Yep, mostly why he didn't get a senate seat and we're better for it...

As we keep saying not about gender or color of skin. If Obama talked like Harold Ford he'd be out the door too.

[Psephos]

6. "Harold Ford Jr. was just on Morning Joe and he sounds just like a Jew" (or fill in the blank)

Sounds a little different when you use a different epithet.

Sometimes the way we talk of repugs sounds identical to the way crackers used to abuse Southern blacks, or New Yorkers used to abuse Irish immigrants.

Obama is suggesting a different way of thinking and he may be on to something.

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. . . .

This place stuns me more and more every day.

Republican is now an epithet. Gotcha.

Good grief. :puke:

[Psephos]

16. You honestly maintain calling someone a repug here isn't meant or taken as an insult?

lol

[PA Democrat]

20. The OP was saying that he sounds like a "Republican" based upon the positions he espouses on issues.

If the shoe fits, put it on. And how is that comparable to saying he "sounds like a Jew"?

[proud2BlibKansan]

21. Surely you realize there is a difference between calling someone a Republican

and calling them a Jew.

But maybe not . . .

[Psephos]

23. I've heard Jews called "Jew" in the same tone as some call repugs repugs

Maybe you recognize the difference when a term is used as intentional derogation and when it is used as neutral description. The phrase "woman driver" comes to mind as a handy example.

But then, maybe not...

[proud2BlibKansan]

25. Well gee, some of us here think Republicans are evil

Imagine that. On DEMOCRATIC Underground.

[Psephos]

33. As I said in my first post...

"Obama is suggesting a different way of thinking and he may be on to something."

I don't see where this whole evil thing has been working out. These days I prefer to think of them as wrong and leave it at that.

Demonization of those who differ from us is the source of most actual evil.

[redqueen]

50. I see what you're saying

but really... the OP didn't say "evil scumsucking repuke"... they just said "Republican"... which if you are familiar with the guy's policy positions, you know it's pretty appropriate. If they had actually insulted someone with an actual epithet, you'd have a point.

As it is, you did give me a good laugh with the whole 'Republican as an epithet' idea, so thanks. :)

[JerseygirlCT]

12. I think there's quite a difference between a political party, which

one freely joins when its beliefs match up with ones own, and the examples you gave.

Ford would probably prefer "centrist"; to me, he's pretty far right.

That said, I agree Obama is onto something.

[Moochy]

63. Ford is a Corporate Whore

Who else likes to bring race into the discussion about corporate whores?

Go figure ... Let me guess.....do you support Hillary?

[Psephos]

89. No, I support Obama

I could go the rest of my life without hearing Hillary's voice ever again.

Your fixation on race is a red herring. Next time try reading my posts before you try reading my mind. It's clear you didn't in this case.

[MagickMuffin]

9. He's a real piece of work

On October 10, 2002, Harold Ford was among the 81 House Democrats who voted in favor of authorizing the invasion of Iraq.

In Congress, Ford had an ideologically varied voting record. He supported a ban on benefits for same-sex couples, as well as the Federal Marriage Amendment (which would ban same-sex marriage). He told Democrats they should be more supportive of the Iraq War and criticized Senate Democrats who attempted to filibuster the nomination of Samuel Alito. He was one of the few Democrats who voted for the Bankruptcy Bill, and he supported some restrictions on abortion, defining himself as a pro-life candidate, including supporting a ban on intact dilation and extraction (called by its opponents, partial-birth abortion). He supported the Republican effort to intercede in the Terri Schiavo case.

Also, Ford has joined the Merrill Lynch financial services firm as a vice chairman and senior policy advisor.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. And Joe Scarborough just loves him

That's all I ever needed to know about him.

:puke:

[MagickMuffin]

19. Scarborough is a rude putz

Every time I see or hear him I want to whack him.

He thinks his opinion is the only one that counts. He will talk or shout over people to drown out the other person. Like I said Rude Putz.

[proud2BlibKansan]

27. MM,

Thanks for giving me a reason to come back here. :hug:

[Cosmocat]

32. Try being an african american pol in Tennessee ...

I know full out the guy leans right, but he couldn't be a township superviser in Tennessee if he was much more left than he is ...

It burns my butt that Scarboro gets that loving little snark smile of his when he is on with Ford, but ... You have to do what you have to do, and you also have to represent your consituency ...

I live in Central Pa ... I ran for a freakin ROW office, and the first question half the people I talked to was, as a D, what was my position on "gun control" ...

[dkf]

17. Since when is talking about responsibility a Republican thing?

Are Dems irresponsible? I don't like where you are going.

I heard Harold Ford Jr and I like what he had to say. If we individually do not strive to be better, how is that good for our country?

And I wish I could give a thumbs up to the public schools in our country, but a 50% failure rate in the inner cities is unacceptable. I want to do what works and if Charter schools work so be it. Lastly, schools exist so that kids can be educated, not to provide jobs for the sake of providing jobs. Of course you are free to disagree with me.

[proud2BlibKansan]

24. Those dropout figures are utter bullshit

Do your homework. They count 9th graders and three years later they count seniors. They don't take into consideration the kids who have transferred to other schools or moved to other areas. So no we aren't failing 50% of our kids. 50% change schools between 9th grade and senior year. BFD.

Don't you get it? They lie to us to create a problem. And they make problems bigger than they actually are. This bullshit dropout report is only one recent example. The Republican party has already gone on the record with an agenda of destroying public education. And Harold Ford repeated their talking points this morning. Is that okay with you?

This same kind of thinking got us a war on Iraq and 4000 dead soldiers.

DO YOUR HOMEWORK!!

[dkf]

35. Well if these kids are simply moving then the other schools should have

more seniors than 9th graders if nobody is dropping out. I don't seem to be hearing about this.

Frankly, I think it is completely plausible that NCLB encourages kids to drop out. That is why it needs to be x'd out.

[redqueen]

55. Maybe there's a reason you're not hearing about it?

Maybe it's another of those things that if you don't seek it out for yourself, you won't know it?

That tidbit is news to me, too. Ooh... just found this. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/education/01child.html

[proud2BlibKansan]

77. Very interesting

Under that formula, graduation rates are calculated by dividing the number of students who receive a traditional high school diploma in any given year by the number of first-time ninth graders that entered four years earlier. The governors’ agreement lacks the force of law, and a few states have moved to enact the governors’ formula more vigorously than others.

And kids who have moved to a DIFFERENT school are counted as dropouts.

Many states still use dozens of other graduation rate formulas that vary in reliability.

New Mexico, for example, has defined its graduation rate as the percentage of enrolled 12th graders who receive a diploma, a method that grossly undercounts dropouts by ignoring all students who leave school before 12th grade. North Carolina until last year used another formula that so exaggerated graduates that when the state adopted a more accurate method last year, its rate plummeted to 68 from 95 percent.

New York has reported a 77 percent graduation rate to comply with the No Child law. But the federal department uses a formula that closely approximates the governors’ formula to estimate a graduation rate for all 50 states, and using that method, New York’s graduation rate is 65 percent.

Pretty obvious the adults can't do the math and find out how extensive the dropout problem actually is.

[redqueen]

80. Yup... what a huge mess.

I'd like some statistics experts to have some input on the method the fed is implementing.

[proud2BlibKansan]

76. Some do drop out

Any teacher can tell you that.

The reason this is important is we DO have a problem but it is hard to address it if we don't define it correctly. Blowing it out of proportion just gets the public's attention. And the worse we can make our public schools look, the more support we have for vouchers and charter schools.

And I agree completely about NCLB.

[redqueen]

58. Do you know of any alternate methodolgy

that shows more accurate figures?

From what I'm seeing so far during my admittedly short time looking, it seems if anything states have been falsely inflating graudation rates using some (seemingly) intentionally misleading calculation methods.

[proud2BlibKansan]

79. Yes that's true too

All we know for sure is we can't trust the data they give us. To my knowledge, there is no state that collects honest data regarding their dropout rate. I could be mistaken, though.

[That Guy 888]

67. It depends on what is meant by responsibility...

When politicians talk about "responsibility" it usually is slanted toward slashing the social safety net. When Republicans talk about poverty for instance, "responsibility" stands for: "Why don't those fat lazy slobs stop spending their money on candy bars, fast food and potato chips while sitting on their asses watching tv and waiting to cash their government handout checks."

The version of "responsibility" for schools is that students are irresponsible, teachers are incompetent liberal ideologues and the administrators are corrupt; so lets let the "private sector" wave their magic wands, run the schools for profit and make everything better.

In short for Republicans and some in the DLC, responsibility stops at the individual middle-class-income-and-under level, and everyone should be entirely self-sufficient in everything so that the wealthy top 15% or so can have massive tax cuts.

As far as education goes, our schools need improvement. While throwing money at them won't necessarily make them better, starving them of cash does make them worse. A lot of schools around the country are the legacy of property tax only funding. They are a mess, but I don't think the private sector will make things better.

[book_worm]

22. he's very bitter because he wanted to be where Obama is now.

[proud2BlibKansan]

26. Thank God he isn't

:scared:

[crankychatter]

34. He's a character

I'm just glad they gave him work after the fry-job in Tennessee.

[powergirl]

36. He's on the DLC

and Carville pushed for Ford to take over Howard Dean's position, etc. He is a HUGE Clinton supporter. So, that's why he sounds like a Republican.

[harun]

57. Exactly, he's the DLC's poster boy, R in a D suit (n/t)

[EffieBlack]

40. Responsibility is not an exclusively Republican virtue

Although they want everyone to think it is.

[Bullet1987]

41. The DLC is trash and Ford is a big stooge of theirs

I'm still shaking my head of the comment he made on Race to the White House where I think Rachel Maddow said something about Obama's campaign being a movement and Ford said "Americans don't follow movements, they follow candidates." The DLC is so damn scared of Movement Democrats it's amazing...they despise activism and activist initiatives.

[madfloridian]

43. He is most likely the next DNC chair.

Carville was sending a message when he called for Dean's head in 2006 after we won the election. Ford was soon head of the DLC, since the DNC was taken temporarily.

[Bullet1987]

44. WTF has Ford done to make him the head of the entire damn Party?

[madfloridian]

45. Raise big money? I guess.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/838

[redqueen]

62. Don't leading dems get to vote on who the next chair is?

Isn't the DLC brand fading pretty consistently?

[madfloridian]

65. Supposedly the DNC members, 450 plus of them, get to do so.

But traditionally they have honored what the nominee wants. Dean got in because there was no nominee, and he campaigned for their votes throughout the states.

Technically one thing, traditionally another.

[redqueen]

66. Gotcha... thanks.

Heh... so then he won't be. Thanks for the reassurance. ;)

[backscatter712]

49. He's DLC. For all intents and purposes, he is a Republican.

The DLC is the GOP infiltration into the Democrats.

I'll go ahead and say it. The DLC damned well should be purged.

[Horse with no Name]

52. He is a republican

why the surprise?

[jgraz]

53. He was also one of the Democrats attending Moon's "coronation"

The guy is pure trash.

[sonias]

59. Head of the DLC

Enough said.

Sonia

[TeamJordan23]

60. He was on MSNBC yesterday and said the nominee needs a VP who is a member of the NRA, like him. nm

[Freedom Train]

61. Yeah well what do you expect...

He practically IS a Republican.

[Moochy]

64. Harold Ford is a corporate whore.

[proud2BlibKansan]

78. Randi? Is that you?

lol

[Moochy]

84. Bounce yer Boobies!

:bounce: :bounce:

Heck I have nothing better to do than post on DU and plan my move to Nova M! :evilgrin:

[proud2BlibKansan]

85. Can I come over?

:evilgrin:

[RememberWellstone]

69. Responsibility is bad?

I thought it was good.:freak:

[truebrit71]

70. It's because he IS a republican...

...just another fucking useless DINO...

[LowerManhattanite]

72. Sounds like? n/t

[Califooyah Operative]

73. I was watching.

That's the DLC.

[WilyWondr]

81. The DLC Leadership Team

http://www.dlc.org



From left to right: Harold Ford, Jr. is chairman of the DLC. U.S. Sen. Tom Carper is vice chair of the DLC; U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is chair of the DLC's American Dream Initiative; Al From is founder and CEO of the DLC.

[locker13]

86. huh

what's wrong with responsibility and charter schools?

[proud2BlibKansan]

88. Plenty

The Responsibility meme is the rw's way to avoid funding social programs. Let the poor be responsible for themselves! It's the 'I got mine, I don't care if you got yours' plan.

Charter schools are funded at the expense of traditional public schools.

[locker13]

90. yeah but

thats irrelevant IMO, discussing responsibility is important period and obama hasnt advocated less funding

i guess we just disagree, it doesnt matter whether kids get educated at traditional schools or charter schools, as long as they are learning, if certain public schools have failed then they should be closed and the community should be given a chance to start their own schools under the charter system

[proud2BlibKansan]

92. So do you think it's okay to reduce funding to public schools

to fund charters, many of which are NOT neighborhood schools? What about the parents who want their kids to receive a traditional public school education? Are those kids just out of luck because SOME schools have failed?

I love the idea of charter schools. I used to teach in a magnet school and it was wonderful. But we lost our neighborhood. The vast majority of parents want their kids to go to school near their home. We watched the crime rate go up and the sense of community go away when we abandoned neighborhood schools in our community.

If we want to give parents a choice, that's great. But we shouldn't reduce funding to traditional public schools (the vast majority are NOT failing) to open charter schools. I say we equitably fund both traditional and charter schools. But so far, that's not how it is working in most school districts.

[DevonRex]

87. I used to like him.

What a shame he turned out to be just another DLCer.

[dogday]

93. Harold Ford was done dirty by the republicans

And everyone who backs Obama should remember how the "White Women" phone calls were made right before election time... It is never right when one uses race to win the race, never....