(November 30, 2014 at 7:30 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Less than 37% voted in the last mid-terms. And I blame the dems for their own failure to get off their asses.
It is a fucking disgrace.
There's a lot of blame to go around. Yes, the voters were lazy and couldn't be bothered to vote. Meanwhile, the leaders and politicians ran pathetic campaigns with the usual "GOP-lite" strategy that's proven to fail, topped off with lots of public whimpering about how bad the coming election was going to be.
Any wonder why they failed to fire up the base? Campaign Strategy 101 should use the Democrat's campaign strategy as a text book example of how NOT to run a campaign.
As usual, Democrat leaders will learn the wrong lessons from their defeat. They'll assume the problem was they were too assertive, too bold and too far "to the left". We can expect more GOP-lite strategy flavored with their patented spine-free milquetoasty goodness. Already we've seen lots of wussbag performance during their lame duck session.
But its worse than that because the Democrat leadership, isolated in the DC bubble and as out of touch as their Republican opponents, have sold themselves the narrative that liberals were supposed to enjoy their shit sandwiches they provided. When liberals didn't fawn all over them and show up in droves in 2010, it was because they're a bunch of spoiled, ungrateful brats who didn't get everything they wanted so obviously, "they're not dependable". This leads to more GOP-lite strategy, kicking the liberal base and throwing them under the bus. This causes liberals to get more demoralized and show up at the polls less. This causes the Democrat leaders to kick them more and throw them under the bus even more...
Democrat politicians continue to run GOP-lite hoping to pick up a more "dependable" voting bloc than those liberal brats who won't eat their shit sandwiches. They seem to hope to pick up "centrist" voters. The problem is that (1) centrists don't vote (2) when they do, they tend to be low-information voters who'll go with whoever is in control of the debate. By definition, if your strategy is "I'm like my opponent but not quite so extreme" than your in reaction to your opponent, defining yourself as being much like him/her and thus he's/she's in control of the debate and (3) centrists, like most other voters, go with political courage, which your spine-free milquetoasty goodness doesn't appeal to.
How many times does the GOP-lite strategy have to fail before Dem leaders get the message? Try being progressive. Just try it. Take a stand on some popular issue and be forceful about it. You might be surprised how much the liberal base will roar. We really aren't that hard to please. We've been excluded, kicked to the curb and thrown under the bus so much, we'll be thrilled with any effort to take up our cause. Just try it once.
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist