The Democrats seem to be counting on the "let's give the other guys a chance" factor this November. They don't do or say anything to merit majority party status, but, because of the ineptness of George W. Bush and the Congressional Republicans, they expect to win by default. But government isn't like a batting order, in which everyone gets a turn. It's more like a boxing match, in which the challenger really has to beat the champion to take his belt. After a horrible, horrible outlook for the GOP in Election '06, things have started to turn around in a big way. George W. Bush's approval rating stands at 44 percent (it had been in the low '30s), and a USA Today poll shows that in a generic Democrat/Republican Congressional ballot, voters are split. From racial preferences to a punish-the-successful income tax, Democrats seek to erode merit and enhance leveling. Elections don't work that way. Every adult gets an opportunity to vote. Not every adult gets an opportunity to govern. If the Democrats want to govern, and not just pick up some seats here and there as they inevitably will, then more is needed than simply being against George W. Bush.

John Kerry reporting for duty!

And, oh yeah, I voted for the war before I voted against it.

I think Carville is right when he says that a failure by Democrats to take back at least one house of Congress would result in a major rethinking of the party's basic principles. Simply put, if they can't win under these circumstances, they simply can't win.

How does one rethink basic principles?

"How does one rethink basic principles?"

Presumably by considering the possibility that one's basic principles are false.

I’ll repeat: The new Democratic Party attracts predominantly left wing socialists as candidates and voters who stand less for what they’re for than what they're against.

In fact, they are currently so far out of whack, that they even eat their own if they don't demonstrate the requisite radical behavior (see Joe Lieberman).

Avast! Why be Talk like a Pirate Day not gettin' any love?
September 19 - International Talk Like a Pirate Day

What's the point?

The Bush administration is runing this country into the ground.

How is it not enough to say "We'll stop them" ?

You missed the point of the post, HeHe.

"You missed the point of the post, HeHe."

a = a

Ralph, I think OJ's point was, to rethink basic principles one would have to already have another set of basic principles.

Anyhow, one's basic principles can't be a negative, a rejection. And that is their problem.

"Ralph, I think OJ's point was, to rethink basic principles one would have to already have another set of basic principles."

Ah. Quite right. I didn't mean principles that basic, but rather "the party's" basic principles, i.e., planks in the platform.

thats why i cant stand libs. they always say bush is wrong and bla bla bla. but they never say what they'll do. we all know they will do the same thing, they just wont admit it. so they just whine and cry.

While I certainly understand the point, I'm not certain one can truly and successfully "rethink basic principles", as such are the core of an individual's beliefs and world view. It would seem rather easier to reconfigure one's sales pitch in the hopes that buyers would overlook or forget the past, and on making the sale, simply reveal they've been sold the same, tired old product in a different wrapper!

Maybe Howard Dean,representing the Democratic party, attending the conference of European socialist parties in Spain next weekend will help the Democrat party. Nothing like attracting voters from the heartland,by representing your party at a socialist conference being held in Madrid.
When will Dean,Pelosi,Boxer,Kerry,Kennedy,Kucinich,JesseJr,
Stark,Waxman,Lee the entire progressive caucus etc. come out of the closet and finally admit the obvious, they are nothing but western European socialists who happen to be U.S. citizens?
The Dean and Kennedy wing of the Democratic party need to run as Democratic socialists of America(if it is good enough for John Sweeney,leader of AFL-CIO,its probably good enough for them) They have completely destroyed the Democratic party and their values are much closer to the EU than the American heartland. That is indefensible.

I was thinking something more along the lines of what Tom said. Basic principles aren't something that can be rethought any more than physical laws of nature. They either are, or they are not. What Carville said isn't really what he means, the party will need to abandon basic principles, not rethink them. The question to them is, are they abandoning them because they are wrong, or because they do not have popular support? Carville seems to be in opposition to Dean's view of things where the Democrats are supposedly mirroring the rise of the conservative movement, with this time right now being somewhat in sync with Goldwater’s loss.

OJ,

We are not in disagreement, I think, or if we are, it is not fundamental. Let me admit to an unsophisticated use of "basic principles," and revise my inital comments. If we restrict "basic principles" to those that cannot be rethought, as you say, in my opinion, liberals and conservatives do not differ in their basic principles. Rather, then differ in the means they have chosen to those ends.

The way I understood Carville's comment (which I paraphrased; I do not believe he used the phrase "basic principles"), was that Democrats would have to rethink the core policies of the party, i.e., planks in the platform.

At this point only the Democrats can but a stop to Lyndon Johnson II's Big Government SPLURGE.

Todd,
You ask "When will Dean,Pelosi,Boxer,Kerry,Kennedy,Kucinich,JesseJr,
Stark,Waxman,Lee the entire progressive caucus etc. come out of the closet and finally admit the obvious, they are nothing but western European socialists who happen to be U.S. citizens?"

The answer: Never. These nutjobs actually think they are representing the majority of Americans. And the sad thing is there are a lot of people who support them. Lost, misguided souls.

BTW, Has anyone seen Dave Chappelle's spoof of Howard Dean? Choice!

AM its pretty clear that Democratic leaders in Congress have more moderate views on everything that matters than George W. Bush.

To put it another way, I don't think Americans will care if Pelosi is a pro-abortion, orgainic food eating, yoga practitioning, latte-drinking yuppie.

As long as she's not NUTS enough to think that "Staying the Course" in Iraq is a good plan, she's saner, more moderate, and more mainstream than George W. Bush.

And thats why the Democrats are going to, once again, actually manage to not carry the house.

If the GOP actually does pull this off, and it looks like they will, I am going to laugh long and hard.

Ben-T, I'm not saying Democrats wouldn't fare better if they had more coherent plans.

I'm just saying that this year, that may not even be nessacary to win the 15 seats they need in the House.

BTW Ben-T, don't mistake Republican majorities in the House and Senate with a true mandate from the people.

Much of the Republican majority rests upon anti-democratic gerrymandering which has no place in a free society.

And the 2002 and 2004 electios were largely won upon fear and manipulation of the election which I personally consider abhorrant, but which are consistant with the democratic process.

HeHe you must not dislike fear as much as you claim,because you and your ilk wrote the book on playing the fear card. When welfare reform was being debated all the closet socialists,like yourself,were screaming that poor children would be starving and homeless and they wanted to "stay the course" with the disaster, you refered to as a "war on poverty"
When Bush spoke about Social Security all the "progressives" screamed that poor people would have to start eating dog food,etc. The left wanted to "stay the course" with a bankrupt system.

Who were the ones who play the fear card during SCOTUS justice hearings? Last time I checked Senator Kennedy bloviates nonsense about back alley abortions and segregated lunch counters. Why didn't the left speak about playing the "fear card"

HeHe you and your ilk are the originators of playing the "fear card" Please, no more hypocritical B.S. about your supposed outrage at playing the "fear card"

BTW, what the left is making an attempt to accomplish by acting "outraged" by Bush playing an imaginary fear card,is an old trick that I have witnessed the French do for years, that is,downplay ANY security threat and then it makes the dishonorable act of appeasement seem somewhat honorable. I have also seen the American left play this game,especially when Kennedy,Kerry,etc. were all crying about Reagan confronting the USSR. The limp wristed left whined and complained that Reagan was making the world a dangerous place. The USA needed to follow their policy of being nice and implementing a nuclear freeze. The left was wrong then and they are wrong again today.

"BTW Ben-T, don't mistake Republican majorities in the House and Senate with a true mandate from the people." -HeHe

Don't know what that could possibly mean. I'm not a Republican.

"And the 2002 and 2004 electios were largely won upon fear and manipulation of the election which I personally consider abhorrant, but which are consistant with the democratic process." -HeHe

Read: I lost and I don't like that. It would be much better if I won.

Well Todd, welfare reform was signed into law by a Democratic president and has (mostly) been very good for America's poor.

On Social Security, there was a fair amount of unfair critizim of the President's plan, particaully the idea that personal accounts would somehow endanger the checks of people near retirement.

But the fact that Bush was trying to reform a system that won't go broke for thirty years while sitting on a fiscal crisis that could crash the American economy in 5 (the famous twin deficits) was laughable. Social Security does need fixing, but Democrats were right to oppose it until they get into power and can do it right.

There may have been some inapprorate fear-mongering at the confirmation hearings, but the nominees themselves made it difficult to fight Democratic charges by being so coy about their legal beliefs. Both men could have put fears to rest by simply saying they would not overturn Roe v. Wade. They didn't say that.

Todd, you are wrong to assert that the left opposed the American stance in the Cold War. Foreign Policy was much more bipartisan, collborative, and moderate then than it is now.

And BTW its ludacris to compare the threat of the Soviet Union and the current threat from terrorist groups.

The USSR was a much bigger threat to American interests around the globe, and today's war is a much different war.

And the "nuclear freeze" you speak of was actually agreed to and has significantly reduced the amount of unsecure fissle nuclear material in the world available to terrorist groups.

And Todd, don't blame the Left becuase they aren't cowards who are easily scared by the fear-mongerer's lies.

Didn't you notice how the color-coded terror warnings disappeared after the election?

Don't you think its strange that we were atacked by Saudi nationals and responded by attacking Iraq?

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself"

THAT's a leader.

Keeping the American people in fear won't help us win this war. It just turns the people into sheepish cowards.

The strongest people in this country are those who recognize the threat of Islamic terrorism but don't cower before it and live our lives in fear.

The position that only the leader that screams the loudest about terrorism is acceptable to lead the nation- no matter what his actions are- is the position of a coward. He is a person who allows the terrorists to change the very essense of his being, to change the routines of his life, and the mark of his ballot.

Supporting a President who has so obviously failed on terrorism just because he talks tough on terror, just because he dresses up in a flight suit from time to time, is as cowardly an act as one can imagine. The Left may disagree with the President's methods, but never do we insinuate that he isn't TRYING to do is best. That he doesn't care about terrorism.

But look at what Tood just said about Democrats!

A true patriot doesn't let Al-Quada tell him who to vote for. A true American doesn't let fear follow him into the ballot box.

It's not the left who is cowardly, its anyone who honestly believed that John Kerry wouldn't have done everything he could to stop terror. If you really believed that, then you let the terrorists win. You let them divide this country into two. You let them weaken us. You let yourself be manipulated by a cynical political operative. You put your politics ahead of your country.

And you're a coward for it.

Bill Clinton takes a poll after a terrorist attack so he can decide what action,if any needs to be taken. That is real leadership!

You might want to reconsider your attempt at rewriting history,especially in regard to the party of Kennedy,Kerry,Carter,Church,etc, being tough on the communists. These were the same individuals who stated that if the US were to withdraw from Vietnam, there might be up to 2,000 people who would be threatened by a communist take over, oops, they only were wrong by about 2 million. That was the approximate number of people who were slaughtered by the communist "humanatarians". The Kerry's,Kennedy's,Clinton's,etc. love to brag about standing up to Nixon's war,but they are silent about human casualties caused by their ignorance in regard to communist intentions and goals.

HeHe you can spin all you want,about the Democrats and lefts committment to national security,but the fact remains,that the left will only take action on the Sunday morning talk shows.
The left has a long,undistinguished history (since McGovern) of brave words and cowardly inaction.
We all know that if the left regains power,they will be capable of getting the Islamic facists to like us and we will all live happily ever after.