KRC

Right now, he has said that he has no intentions of backing off. We shall see...

Eddie.

I just love the hypocrisy of condeming personal attacks while personally attacking people.

Wow. Someone has an unduly high opinion of herself.

But, at what point is the grass-roots effort harmed by prominent figures within the DNC stating: Biden: "He does not speak for the Party" and "the rhetoric is counterproductive." Bill Richardson: He does not speak for the party. Edwards: "He does not speak for the Party." He will eventually get to the point of diminishing returns, where this type of rhetoric causes Dean to be so distanced from the Party that he is overwhelmingly dismissed. Things are moving in that direction and Dean shows no signs of slowing down. In the long run, it will be a problem for the Democrats, IMO.

Facts are irrelevant when you have an agenda.

Gotta love the hypocrisy, huh?

Again, it gets back to breeding and the caring of the animal. I have a Shepherd that was abused by the breeder. We have rescued him from the breeder and he is wonderful around us. He has no trouble with my brother or mother. Sometimes, he loves my father and is great around him and sometimes he barks at him. Nobody else would be able to enter our house, even with us there. He is very comfortable with my wife and I, but he has become very protective. We have made great strides in trying to reverse this behavior, but we accept that we will never be able to leave him off his leash when others come into our house regardless of his progress.

Ya think?

It is amazing how far our political system has sunk, when we need to resort to grades received about 30 years ago to discuss who is the better candidate.

I should have stated things a little better. I meant third party/Independent candidates, not just Indy's. I have put my money where my mouth is. First, I ran my Presidential campaign. The message was that people need to look outside of the Rep and Dem parties. It was effective in the fact that I was able to convince people to not only look outside the Big Two, but to actually vote outside the Big Two. They may not have voted for me, but they were able to find a candidate they wanted. I have also started working with the Libertarians. I am an officer in the Party not only on the county level, but also the state level. I am also the chairman of the Legislative Action Committee for the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania. Right now, we are working on ballot access. We have joined together with the other third parties in PA to form a coalition called, shockingly, the Pennsylvania Ballot Access Coalition. We are working with Governor Rendell's Election Reform Task Force. The goal is to write legislation and get it passed, changing the laws in PA regarding ballot access. Currently, we need 66,000 signatures to get a candidate on the ballot. Currently, we have a lot of support within the PA General Assembly (the committee voted 11-0-1 in or favor for reform legislation). Our current task is to start writing the legislation, so that we can propose it to the committee. Governor Rendell wants things changed. He sees a huge battle between Santorum and Casey for the Senate seat next year. If he gets a Libertarian on the ballot, they will steal votes from Santorum (helping Casey). Of course, he did everything in his power to keep Nader off the ballot in PA last year, because Nader would have stolen votes from Kerry. We are working hard to get more third party candidates on the ballot.

Gotta link, Sparkey?

Again, why SHOULD they? They didn't want the war in the first place. If I were there, the last thing I would want would be someone who is pissed off at the war guarding my back.

If they don't believe in it, why would they go over there to fight in it?

Looks like Dean is ticking off some Dems (Biden and Edwards). Linky Thingy

They can change it to solely private accounts and that will solve this problem. 1 worker - 1 collector. The additional benefit is that you can start to create wealth for your family. Your money can then be passed down when you pass away. Think of the benefits to the lower-income families. Waiting will only make it worse.

The primaries are important. There is no question about it. Of course, if there were more independent candidates on the ballot, that would help, too.

...and if we wait, it will cost even more. Costs to revamp the system will continue to skyrocket and sitting on your hands is only making the problem worse. There is no question that the system is going to fail. It is only a matter of when. The numbers currently are 2041/2, but those are only current projections. The only way, IMO, that you can save it is to scrap the system. Hell, even FDR, when he proposed this system, said that it needed to be at least supplimented with private accounts. Waiting is increasing the cost to fix things. I wish the Dems could see that.

Which is why I am not a member of either party. I agree. Just because it is not an official proposal, doesn't mean it can't be debated. The problem is that it is not a debate. It is "Bush's plan will starve old people." In order to have a debate, you need to have both sides proposing plans. All I saw was one side proposing, while the other side was bitching. Tough to find a compromise in that environment. Of course, the Dems would probably just filibuster it anyway, so debate is a waste of time.

Funny, the polls I saw did not show that the Republicns were damaging because they wanted to actually have a vote. The President didn't actually present an official plan for SS. That is the problem. The Democrats have been saying "the President's plan will starve people over 70," "the President's plan will steal money from xyz." The problem is that is is all lies, since the President didn't actually present a plan. Is that the way you want people to solve problems? It sounds like the Democrats are the ones dividing the country regarding SS. Opposing a plan before it is even submitted. Way to solve a problem.

People know that SS is failing. They want something done. Taking no action means that they are happy with a program destined to fail. The polls I have seen show that people want something done. The disagreement is in how it is to be done. People see that the Democrats want to do nothing on SS (all attack but no plan of their own). They want to obstruct up or down votes on judicial nominees (but when their nominee was up, they demanded up or down votes). They attack DeLay for his travel stuff, but as soon as it came out that people like Pelosi did the same thing, the attacks suddenly became more quiet. The Democrats need to stop obstructing things and attacking people for doing the same thing that they are doing, and start to actually propose solutions to problems. I disagree with you about them providing solutions. There is no question I am right of center. My beliefs are between conservative (old school conservative, not the crap they have now) and Libertarian. Chances are that I would not vote for a Democrat, because of the difference of opinion on social issues. They can still win me over with the right candidate, but I have not seen anyone on the national level that even comes close. Local level is a different story, and I have voted for Dems on that level because they were the best candidate.

According to CNN, the DETAINEES were the one who flushed the Quran down the toilet, not the guards. Detainees...guards. Let's not split hairs here. Let's just blame the military. Fair enough?

Funny, you are pretty quick to get all over someone when they misspeak, but can't take the criticism when it happens to you. Oh, the hypocrisy.

But , yet you stated: Way to practice what you preach.

Thanks for the serious post, but I am not buying that Dean is banking on these trends. Just listening to his speeches is evidence of that. After the 2004 election, the Democrats thought that that reason why they lost is because they were not bitter and hateful enough. They also felt that the public was too stupid (their words). Quotes from Democrats after the election support this. Dean is working on the first part, with increasing the bitter, hateful rhetoric in an attempt to "energize his base." The problem is that it is not working. The base has lost momentum and Dean is incapable of raising the money that his predecessor has been able to raise. Some of this is the result of the Democratic Party being split. Currently, there are different factions within the party and some of them are working to marginalize Dean (Pelosi and Reid come to mind). It all comes back to the real reason why the Democrats have been losing, IMO. That is the fact that they really stand for nothing but "Bush Bad" and "Bush stole the 2000 election." This will not get seats in Congress. This makes you lose seats in Congress and that has been proven at the polls. Until the Democratic Party learns this valuable lesson, they will continue to lose seats in Congress in 2006. Honestly, the Democrats have shown me nothing to prove that they are going to pick up seats in Congress in 2006. As I said, they need to stand for something and right now, they do not stand for anything. The extremists are running the Party and all they are trying to do is take the opposite opinion from whatever the Republicans propose. The public may not like what the Republicans propose, but they are still getting more out of them than they are the Democrats. The Democrats need to propose solutions, not just "the Republicans proposed this, so therefore it is bad" stuff. They need to get their azzes in gear before it is too late for 2006. Right now, they are spiraling out of control and show no signs of trying to fix the problem.