What If The Dems Lost

[discocrisco01]

I think that Republicans win big, it is going to be their doom. I just feel that enough people will see that these people once in power serve the elite and wealthy in the country will wake up to their senses and revolt aganist the party that party they vote . A Republican landside will "purify" the party of the DINOs and allow powerful people like Bernie Sanders and Allan Grayson take power. The Dinos go down and the hard left takes control.

Obama learns how to get dirty and combative with them. The school of hard knocks might be the solution that we need. In 2012, people get so feed up with this group that they vote them out of power and send them packing. The purification of the party results in a huge wage of progressives coming into the Congress and they will go down.

Am I nuts?

[WingDinger]

1. That is cutting off our face, to spite our pimple.

[JoePhilly]

2. Since you asked .... I will answer .... you are nuts.

If the GOP regains control they will shut down the government, again. They will begin insane investigations of the President, again.

The "people" will not "wake up" ... because they will be feed a steady stream of "scary others" to blame for their problems.

The right time for "people" to get fired up and kick the GOP is now, not 2012.

If they gain control, corporate money will flow into absolutely every election. Lobbyists won't just be writing the legislation, they'll be candidates, financed by huge money interests.

Next year begins another round of redistricting. The GOP majority will reconstruct the country's voting districts and ensure that the GOP maintains control.

Beat the GOP now, not at some mythical point in the future.

[hendo]

7. and you know why they will investigate the president?

Its this nice little game that our two parties have. They investigated Clinton, we investigated Bush, now they want to investigate Obama.

Politics needs to be pulled out of the much and in order to do that we need to start electing honest people who will pull us out of the cycle of endless bickering. The political situation in this country will only get worse unless we do something to change it!

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. Who investigated Bush -

I seem to have missed that.

[hendo]

10. well, no one while he was in office, but we sure did call for it enough.

The point though is that politics is sliding down a slippery slope and what we are left with is two sides throwing mud at each other.

We created the perfect breeding ground for all of this repug - teabagger BS

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. No, what we have is one side that has institutioinalized criminality

which then attacks the other on bogus issues to distract from their own crimes.

Getting a blow jog =/= government sanctioned torture. You posit false equivalency.

[hendo]

34. Ah, but it is perceptions that matter

and it doesn't hurt that many on the right see government sanctioned torture as a good thing. In fact, I know quite a few moderate right wingers who support torture. Note I said moderate, not teabaggers.

[malaise]

31. Same here n/t

[JoePhilly]

22. Who brought impeachment hearings against Bush?????????

During Clinton, the GOP spent MILLIONS of TAX PAYER MONEY on WHITEWATER, and MONICAGATE.

Please ... Please ... PLEASE ... give me any example of the Dems doing the same thing to Bush the 2nd.

You can't!! It NEVER happened.

And I love your apple pie closing statement. "Let's elect HONEST people!!" .... what TRIPE.

[Llewlladdwr]

27. "Let's elect HONEST people!!" .... what TRIPE.

Agreed. Why the hell would we want honest people in Government?

[JoePhilly]

28. Yes ... and puppies are cute ... BFD.

No one tries to elect DISHONEST politicians.

The statement is TRIPE not because the goal is not correct, but because the poster provides no suggestion on how to do it.

You might as well be screaming about "American Exceptionalism".

My point is simple ... the call to elect "honest politicians" is EMPTY because it makes ZERO attempt to describe HOW you do that.

[hendo]

35. American exceptionalism is a load of BS and you know it

This is the type of cr*p that is wrong with the system and unfortunately there is not a good way to accomplish honest politicians. In fact I'm pretty sure that the application to be a politician include a clause that states, "you must be at least this dishonest to apply".

The sad truth is, and we have known this for a long time, no one who runs for office is qualified to actually hold office. Politicians just have to sell out to too many special interests to raise enough money to attain a political office.

[JoePhilly]

37. Yes, it is BS, and that was my point.

[hendo]

38. Im sorry, so your point is

that there is no way to fix the system so we should just give up and except the SSDD?

[JoePhilly]

39. If that was my point, I would have said that.

[JoePhilly]

29. To add to this ...

Let's elect NICE people!!!!!

Can't we all agree to do that ... let's elect NICE people!!!!

Tripe.

[hendo]

36. +9999! :) NT

[sufrommich]

3. I thought that about Reagan. It doesn't work that way. nt

[Motown_Johnny]

4. the collective memory is short, it seems that 2 years is long enough to forget almost anything

[hendo]

6. Heck, 2 years? Americans forget things after 6 months! NT

[Johonny]

19. It's pretty clear these people never learn any lessons

If the Republicans win it's on a wave of low turnout and very loyal repeat voters that seriously never seem to learn.

[hendo]

5. You are nuts

The "Hard" left has never won a landslide for control of congress, and nothing is going to change that.

The problem here is that people tend to vote for the lesser of two evils. We are stuck in a position where people argue that voting for the democrat is more important than voting for the person that you agree with the most. In some cases that may be a third party candidate. So long as we cling to the belief that we need to support a democrat, ANY democrat against any other candidate in an election we will be stuck with politicians that do not support us.

That is the major problem with politics. Both sides are willing to vote for anybody so long as their party stays in power. That has led us into ruin.

Two years from now republicans will still vote for republicans and democrats will still vote for democrats regardless of who the person is who actually won the nomination.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. the hard left takes control.

What hard left would that be?

Any 'hard left' in our congress would be slightly center-left moderates anywhere else in the world.

If you posit this as a 'silver lining' to a republibagger sweep next month, it's a waste of time because it isn't going to happen. We will lose some seats in the House, maybe the Senate, but not lose control of either.

[hendo]

11. I would imagine that many here wouldn't like it

if the real "hard left" took control.

[RaleighNCDUer]

14. Which is never going to happen because we have no hard left.

Do not let the other side define us.

[hendo]

32. Yup, as you said, our left is more centrist than hard left. NT

[socialist_n_TN]

30. Present company excepted...........

I'd love a hard left control. It's got to be better than the "hard right" shit we've endured for the last 30 years.

[hendo]

33. Communism is as forgiving as facism.

In other words, not at all. You can keep that hard left, although I would imagine you would lean towards the slightly less militaristic socialism.

[blondeatlast]

12. Yes, you are.

Remember, you asked.

[leeroysphitz]

15. Obama is from Chicago. He KNOWS how to get dirty and combative. n/t

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

16. Rather than bash you, I'll just say that that's the strategy behind some Dems not voting...

They reason that with Republicans in power, things will magically change; people will realize the error of their ways and understand what the Republicans are really about.

But here's one problem with that: the Republicans were already in power for 8 years...well...even longer than that. And because Obama/Dems couldn't magically change 10 years+ of horrible economic policies, people seem to want to go back to the old Republican playbook.

I believe that if Americans haven't seen the light by now, then I don't know what else will convince them. I don't think allowing them to overtake Congress is the answer, not with many Americans hurting, literally dying.

I think this strategy that you put forth is absolutely dangerous and naive.

[Ozymanithrax]

17. Republicans won pretty big in 1994?

I see no evidence that we have learned.
Republicans won big in 2000, 2002, and 2004..
Still no evidence of learning.
Democrats won in 2006 and 2008 after Republicans crash the world economy...
When Democrats do not fix everything Republicans screwed up in 4 years...
Republicans may be on the verge of winning big to fix what they fucked.

I see no evidence for your theory that people will learn. People, as in a group, seem to follow a heard mentality. They are uncomfortable now, and even though it is widely known that Republican policies crashed the world economy, they may be on the verge of putting them back in charge.

Furthermore, Bernie Sanders and Allan Grayson will not take power. Neither has the support to become leader of House and Senate respectively. Also, most of those DINOS serve in districts that tend to be center or center right by population. In very few of those would you elect a progressive, however you define them.

If Republicans win it will be because people vote blindly to turn off the pain, even if they are voting for the guy pushing the cattle prod up their...

If Democrats lose, the message they will learn is that Republicans won because Democrats were too liberal.

[Cosmocat]

21. I am stunned, just stunned ...

I get the Rs being fired up, they are mean, tough and single minded ...

I get that, I do ...

I, for the life of me, don't get the Ds throwing in the towel, and I don't get that after the Rs were a raging disaster for 6 years in total control, that somehow, the Ds have taken the complete tab for their disaster after only two years ...

Yeah, the Rs are going to be raging, friggen lunatics, either way, win or lose the house ... But, people are just trying to put a happy face on losing the house if they think the Rs being lunatics will somehow have a negative effect on them ... I mean, look at the last two years - death panels, the tea parties being the hypocritical lugnuts they are ... Look at their candidates this election, Angle, the twit in Deleware, the nut in the NY governors race ... I mean, you can't even begin to list all of the candidates they have on the ticket this year, some who are going to win, some who will lose, by any sensible analysis should have no business being in congress, but they are going to get there ...

This party has been unhinged for going on two decades, non-stop, and they are now on the verge of at the very least pulling the senate and house to darn close margins ...

Sorry, I WANT to believe they will pay for being crazy, but they just keep doubling down on the crazy, and the media carries water for them ...

[Ozymanithrax]

24. There is a great quote from men in lack that applies.

A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.

Individuals learn, but elections work on groups, on herd mentality. People who make advertisements fine tune them to strike emotional and subconscious cords to get the population to stampede where they want them to vote. Because people (remember the quote above) are scared and hurting, enough of them can be guided to vote Republicans back in office. Not all people are easily stampeded. But there is a large group of people, independents, Republicans, and Democrats included, who don't care one whit about what happened 2, 4, or 8 years ago. They are uncomfortable now and simply don't associate fear and discomfort now with the Republican polices that put us here. Most of them will not even listen to an argument that Republicans screwed it up. Democrats are in power now so they must be at fault.

I'm not giving up. There is no permanent win or no irretrievable loss. I just don't think we should fall into a mindset that some group of people are going to suddenly remember what caused the problem they suffer now.

If we want more liberal policies, we have to GOTV, take a short breather, and then start working on 2012.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

18. It's hard to say what might happen if the Republicans win big

Like in 1994, it will probably create the impression that America has shifted (again) to the right and increase pressure on President Obama and the Democratic Party to move rightward like with what happened after 1994. That's certainly how the corporate media will present it. I think that President Obama and most of the Democrats are probably going to be smarter than just throwing in the towel and actively supporting and/or endorsing the Republican Tea Party and its *agenda*. However, I predict that any Republican "comeback" will be short-lived and the outcome of these midterm elections will be more of reflection of Democratic apathy and right-wing mobilization (which they're good at) rather than a dramatic public ideological shift to the right. Polling evidence would seem to suggest that the Republicans' popularity is not increasing in any meaningful way- just that the people whom are most motivated to vote are being so motivated by the bad economy and anger at incumbents, which mostly includes Democrats. I don't sense any seismic ideological shift to the right in this county as the Republicans are probably hoping for, however. Demographically, the Republicans seem to be fast marginalizing themselves, particularly with their "flashes" of racism and increasingly anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies since President Obama took office.

Whether or not two years of being in power will finally "purify" the Democratic Party and "rip the mask" off the naked ugliness of the Republican Tea Party, plenty of damage can still be done by the miscreants on both sides on the way down.

[spanone]

20. nuts

[scheming daemons]

23. You ARE nuts... here's why:

- The last time the Republicans "won big", it took us 12 years to eradicate them.

- Get ready for two years of endless subpoenas.... everything from policy issues (health care, etc) to personal issues (Obama's birth certificate, Michelle's college term paper, ACORN ties, etc.). It will make the 1998 and 1999 Lewinsky bullshit look tame by comparison.

- Just like in 1994, a Republican landslide will absolutely NOT "purify" the party... the party will move to the right in response to the PERCEIVED direction of the country.



It will be VERY VERY bad for the left if the GOP takes over again. Very bad.



You're out of your mind, and you are naive and clueless about politics in this country.

[wisteria]

25. The Republicans are going to have to produce and they won't.

They will take credit for some of the things the Democrats have accomplished when these things start to produce results, but many of them running are so out there and kooky, people are really start to take notice after the economy improves and I don't see the Republican wins being long term. Still, I would rather have people thing before they just go and vote for the supposedly "just like me" candidates.

[bherrera]

26. President Obama will have the veto

it may be better for the USA, because the two corrupt parties will not be able to agree on how to steal your money.

[madokie]

40. other than the part where the pukes will win this election

i agree with the rest. I think we see them today for what they are, and when I say we I mean the majority of us here in the states.