We are dealing with unspoken racial terror in the political system.

Dems have to be the party of the emerging majority. Our leaders show next to zero understanding of this elementary numerical fact, nor do they yet reflect this shift in their persons. But they’ll learn. California is ahead of the national curve on this, both in the expression of the racial tensions and on the poltical remedy. And we’re pretty reliably Democratic.

Feckless Dems.

Read: Democrats Are Stupid At Politics.

http://jonorato42.wordpress.com/2006/08/17/democrats-are-stupid-at-politics/

The posts above expand the point.

This is it, folks. 2006. An off-year election.

And I almost hope the Dems lose, for the reasons I state in my own blog. They’ve done a terrible job preparing us for the future.

OK; the point is we go after them. We make noise. We get their attention. We punish them when they’re bad and reward them when they’re good. We haven’t done nearly enough of that for many, many years, and that’s partly why they’re such wusses.

Yeah,that’s a problem. People don’t understand that in countries with lots of functioning parties, a runoff system sees to it that, for example, two progressive candidates don’t split the majority vote and allow a conservative to win who was the voters’ third choice. And that allows a strong third party to win some elections and slowly build a base.

Here it just doesn’t happen, even though since the 1840s or so many, many people have worked very hard trying to establish national third parties. It’s going to be a whole lot easier to reform the Democrats.

I still say a third party is an illusory solution, anyway. We’ve got to stop looking for the Magic Candidate to come and rescue us, and instead reform our political processes and institutions from top to bottom.

Suggestion: let’s run maha

Hm. Interesting point. However.

“Dems” — straight talking or mush-mouthed — get smaked down pretty hard all the time — by media and the Rs and a whole lot of other Dems, whether or not anyone’s got their back as it were.

As for rewards, well. It looks like Lieberman gets rewarded for his backstabbing, betrayal, and hypocrisy (to mention a few of his character traits) with gigs on FOX News, invitations to the White House, kisses from On High, and endorsements from Ann Coulter. Life is good, isn’t it? And just look how tenacious and back-boned this straight talking (ex-)Dem is! Wow!

And when straight talking (real-)Dems fight through instead of caving in the face of the shit storm that is bound to happen whatever they say or do, for that’s the way the world works, they are rewarded with, oh, the DNC chairmanship, gigs on FOX News (ie: Wes Clark) and loud praise from the roots.

It’s when they vacillate or cave in the face of the shit storm they know is coming, no matter what they say or do, or when they push each other out of the way to get on camera to denounce one of their own (as Big Dems used to love to do to Howard Dean) that they run into major problems with the folks.

The Big Solid Block of Citizens is ready and willing and able to act the minute the Dem establishment quits squabbling and unifies. But as long as Dems are fighting among themselves or triangulating themselves to death, the Big Solid Block of Citizens is gonna have to go after them with hot pokers and cattle prods.

Will never happen, tho, because it would have the effect of severely reducing the money and power available to the present two major parties, and it’s the present two major parties that would have to vote a new system in … catch-22 there if ever I saw one…

-me

Ah, yes, reminds me of the good old days and the election of 1860. It was a four-way brawl. Northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas. Southern Democrats nominated John Breckinridge. There was a new party called the Constitutional Union Party that nominated a fella named John Bell. And then there was another new group called Republicans who nominated some guy named Abe Lincoln. Yeah, that election had some aftershocks, I tell you.

The interesting thing about that election is that it was the only time since the 18th century there was only one long-established party running a candidate. The earlier “second” party, the Whigs, fell apart in the 1850s.

Seriously, it baffles me why anyone would talk about other parties. The way we hold elections, with the winner-take-all outcome instead of runoffs, makes third, fourth, fifth, or whatever parties irrelevant. And hopeless.

If we fix the political culture, the Dems ought to be able to be the party they used to be. Better, actually, because they won’t be shackled by the Dixiecrats. If we don’t fix the political culture, no other party is going to be able to do the job for us, either.

Dems will easily drift to a third party.

No, they won’t. I’ve heard that one before; they won’t.

The people who argue and will continue to argue against a multi-party democracy are the entrenched hierarchy of the two parties in power.

I’m fine with a multi-party democracy, and as soon as we change the winner-take-all system, then I’ll listen seriously to talk of third parties. Until then, it’s foolish.