Whole text below; go to link for notes: http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2008/09/17/p28751
“The Dems...are weaklings who blow where the wind takes them while frittering away our...lifeblood.” - Cindy Sheehan
It’s painful for me to watch the Dems, the political party of my youth, self-destruct. I’m sure this is how members of the Whig Party must have felt as they witnessed their organization fade from the national scene. The Whigs were the heirs of the Federalist Party, originally led by George Washington. A split over the issue of Slavery, however, just before the Civil War, marked the death knell of that once influential entity. The Dems, on the other hand, are going down because they no longer stand for anything. They are morphing into a Duopoly--the DemRepublicrats. The Peace Mom, Cindy Sheehan, correctly wrote that the Dems are only good for “careful fence sitting and pandering.” (1)
The 2006 mid-term election was the tipping point for the demise of the Dems. Their decline followed from that election--and it was a challenge--ironically, that they had won. The Dems solemnly promised the voters that if they carried the day, in 2006, they would end the Iraq War. The activists in the Peace Movement, such as Ms. Sheehan, a Gold Star Mother for Peace, took them at their word. They worked their guts out to get a majority of the Dems elected in congressional races across the country.
What was the result of all of that sweat? The Dems gave the activists the back of their hand. In fact, some of their allies, like at the HuffPost web site, a bastion of the Hollywood Elite, added insult to injury. They wrongly claimed that the Dems won, in 2006, mostly because of the efforts of Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), and his ilk. (2) In the past, this same HuffPost web site has gone out of its way to marginalize the efforts of the Peace Movement.
To make matters worse, in 2007, the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), proclaimed: “Impeachment is off the table!” What a dumb thing to say. By not seeking the impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney, the Dems were giving away the seminal issue for forging a Democratic victory in 2008: The serial wrongdoings of the Bush-Cheney Gang over the last eight years! (3) Instead, the Dems are now running as the “Party of Change.” But, where are their “new” ideas?
At the Democratic Convention did you hear a word of serious criticism about the Bush-Cheney Gang’s domestic spying operation, or its torture polices, or its massive out sourcing of jobs, via its trade agreements? The Bush-Cheney Gang also gave us secret prisons, the draconian USA Patriot Act and gutted the ancient Writ of Habeas Corpus. Yet, the Dems were silent on all of the above.
To show that the Dems have no real intention of bringing the troops safely home from Iraq, they anointed the hawkish Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, a confessed Zionist, as Barack Obama’s VP running mate. Now, the flaky Biden is saying Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), would have been a better VP choice for the ticket than himself. Things are so bad with the Dems, you can’t make this crap up! Then, when John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his VP candidate, the Dems, and their Propaganda Machine, badly overreacted. Their vicious attacks on Palin have turned Middle America off. (4)
Just look at this latest poll. In North Carolina, the McCain-Palin ticket is ahead by by a staggering “20 points!” This is the same state that the disgraced ex-Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) calls home.
During the 2000 presidential election debates, I vividly recall Al Gore’s on-camera TV persona. He came off as a smart ass college professor talking down to his students. George W. Bush, a disgrace to humanity, nevertheless, was much better prepped by his handlers. He looked into the camera and talked directly to the voters as if he were standing in their living rooms. Bush came off as sincere and authentic; Gore as wooden and pompous. Gore also made a huge mistake in choosing that raving Likudnut, Joe Lieberman, then a Dem from Connecticut, as his VP running mate.
In the 2004 election, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), too, should have easily run Dubya out of the ball park. He didn’t. Kerry put on a don’t-rock-the-boat-presidential campaign. A Vietnam War Vet, he campaigned as a Pro-Iraq War Lite. He inspired no one! As a result, he blew an election that could have been his for the taking.
Enter Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL). He came roaring into the state of Maryland in the early primary season. He beat the dickens out of Hillary, and the local Political Machine headed by that hot dog of a governor, Martin O’Malley, and windbag U.S. Senator, Barbara Mikulski (D-MD). I thought: Sen. Obama has the right stuff! He appeared a master at converting his audience to his candidacy. (5) Then, unfortunately, he began letting “others” define him. (6)
When that royal-pain-in-the ass, Richard Cohen, a ranter for the “Washington Post,” criticized Sen. Obama’s then pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the senator quickly caved into the pressure. He tossed his pastor overboard and abandoned a church which had been his spiritual home for over 20 years! For the folks who reflected deeply at this affair: Sen. Obama came off, in his knee jerk response, as weak and disloyal. These are character flaws which are alien to Sen. John McCain’s projected persona. He comes off, whether you like him or not, as reliable and strong. Can anyone imagine JFK, in 1960, leaving his RC church, in Boston, because of what some half-baked pundit said about his priest?
Sen. Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” crack didn’t help him either. It reinforced an image of himself that isn’t very presidential. The line, however, that really offended tens of millions of potential voters for the Dems, especially with rural America, was the one from Sen. Obama, which came while he was campaigning out in California. He remarked about the residents of the “small towns in Pennsylvania,” which have been seriously damaged by out sourcing. He disparaged them as “bitter” gun owners, clinging to “religion or antipathy to people” who are unlike themselves. This is the language of an elitist that you expect to hear from somebody who is a card carrying member of the Council on Foreign Relations or the Trilateral Commission: the New World Order boy-ohs. Even though Sen. Obama didn’t mean his comment exactly the way that it came out, it has put him on the defensive with many voters.
I spent some time in Pennsylvania this summer, mostly in the rural areas, up around Centre County. It is primarily farm country. There are also plenty of those “small towns” in the region that Sen. Obama was referring to in his remarks. The resentment there from gun owners against Sen. Obama runs very deep. If you ask them about it, they will let you know quickly, and in no uncertain terms, that Sen. Obama isn’t their candidate. Period! You will also see plenty of lawn signs in central Pennsylvania, and beyond, that read: “I’m a ‘bitter’ gun owner, and I vote.” The NRA is now funding a $40 million Fall blitz targeting Sen. Obama for defeat. (7) He can only blame himself for this sorry mess.
There are others things which are hurting Sen. Obama’s chances. For example, the idea that Barbara Streisand had a fundraiser for him, on Sept. 16, 2008, in glitzy Beverly Hills, CA, where one ticket cost $28,500, had to turn off a lot of working class folks. Americans are losing their jobs and their homes to foreclosures, by the millions. The economy, thanks to Alan Greenspan’s gross incompetence at “The Fed,” is in a virtual meltdown. (8) Many see the Streisand-Hollywood-related-megabucks stunt, as way over the top. They also see Sen. Obama as being out of touch for permitting it. His endorsement, too, of sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, may be the final straw for many who saw him as their knight in shining armor. (9)
Getting back to Ms. Sheehan. She put it concisely in her “Open Letter to the Democratic Congress,” when she explained why she was leaving the Democratic Party. She wrote, on May 28, 2007, “You have completely failed those who put you in power to ‘change’ the direction our country is heading. We did not elect you to help sink our ship of state but to guide it to a safe harbor.” (1)
Finally, in 2000, Gore lost an election that he should have won. Then, Kerry, in 2004, followed suit. And, now, Sen. Obama, incredibly, in 2008, is on that same losing path. When he goes down, the Dems, like the Whigs before them, will fall hard with him. Look for the result to be Third Parties rising Phoenix-like! (10)
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