StopHoping.Org is searching for a plausible candidate to run in next year's primary and they say:
The majority of U.S. citizens favor protecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; taxing the rich; cutting military spending; and protecting the environment. We don't have a candidate . . . yet. Potential candidates supported on this site will be notified and encouraged to run.I'm plugging for Russ Feingold, who's the most credible candidate on their ballot. Bernie Sanders is currently in first place and Dennis Kucinich is a 2nd. Russ is in third. Personally, as much as I like them, I don't feel that Bernie and Dennis make as marketable candidates as Feingold would.
The perfect candidate, in my way of thinking, would be Howard Dean. So I added him in as a write-in candidate. Of course Governor Dean, along with many of the others, figure to be reluctant candidates: they would have to be drafted by a groundswell of popular support, as yet un-materialized.
I also voted for the option of not running a Progressive candidate in the general election. I Feel if Progressives can't show up enough to capture the Democratic Convention, then they ought at least vote against the Weimar Republicans. And the only way to vote against these proto-fascists is to vote Democratic!
Yes! There is a difference between the parties, even if the degrees of separation are down to the single digits.
After voting, please enter your preferences in comments below. No grudges if you oppose my selections!
ReplyDeleteVoted your slate, Vigil: Feingold & Dean!
ReplyDeleteWeimar Republicans. Hmm. The Weimar Republic was replaced, beaten out by the 3rd Reich. Maybe not the gooood guys, but a lot better than what came after, even though a lot of lousy things happened on their watch with the German economic distress.
ReplyDeleteI'm not into politics but I can't help wondering if you intended to convey what the analogy suggests.
First visit to your site, though. Saw your comment on another site and clicked.
Nice blog.
Why not sit back on your hands, Jules, and watch what follows the Tea Party? It won't take much more time. When 'full faith and credit' dissolves, we'll be headed for the slippery slope down into ..... (don't make me say the word).
ReplyDeleteNon-Partisan: Thanks. I'll do that. The slippery slope's been our route through enough changes in presidents and parties in power to establish there's nothing I can do to influence things. But if someone who can influence things ever calls and asks me for marching orders I'll suggest shutting down DC, moving the seat of government to Omaha, NE, dissolving the US Constitution, then passing it again verbatim just to remind everyone what it says.
ReplyDeleteWith an amendment saying anyone attempting to occupy a political office more than one term will be officed in a hazardous waste dump.
But they haven't asked, so I figure people such as yourself can manage them with your rhetoric.
I, too, am unhappy with Obama's continuing to "give away the store" BEFORE he ever sits down to "negotiate" with the dishonest and scheming-to-defeat-Obama-at-all-costs-Republicans.
ReplyDeleteBut I am NOT in favor of aiding and abetting the vicious and mendacious GOP by challenging him from within his own party.
Obama is a caring man, who is blinded to the reality of the GOP by his own hubris - he continues to believe that he can change the culture in Washington. He seems determined to believe that the Republicans are negotiating in good faith - to believe that they truly want what is best for our country, when their actions prove that instead of doing the job they were elected to do, too many in the GOP abhor true democracy and are committed to enriching the few and disenfranchising the many.
I am not sure that Obama is able to see the GOP realistically. He needs to understand that they are duplicitous and feckless. Even if Obama understood that it is the GOP's actions that speak louder than their words, Obama cannot change Washington's culture alone.
And perhaps, it cannot be done given that the GOP is beholden not to the United States Constitution which they claim to love and which they promised to defend and protect when they took their Oath of Office, but to their "Grand Plan" to install themselves as America's Perpetual Overlords, who would install their own version of "Shira Law", aided and abetted by the Roberts Court.
The GOP doesn't care one whit to preserve and defend what they regard as "the beast" which they are doing all they can to "starve" to death.
No, the GOP is beholden to protecting and defending their oath to Grover Norquist, an unelected lobbyist who intends nothing less than to destroy our democracy from the inside, returning our country to feudalism.
I continue to hope that in his second term, Obama will finally feel free to live his words, and become the President of his campaign speeches. Call me naive. I want to help him, not join with those who want to destroy his presidency and our nation. I vote for NO CHALLENGERS from within his own party.
Emily, "Shariah Law"? You whoop ass, Girl!
ReplyDeleteBut let the record show, Emily still pitches her tent in Camp Hope!
Historical Note: In 1968 Gene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy rousted LBJ from running for a 2nd term. A Progressive candidacy then was averted only by an assassin's bullet.
ReplyDeleteI generally agree with Emily if I understand her correctly, running a progressive candidate against Obama would only result in wounds and bad feelings in the Democratic oparty. Hell, for a while, if anyone but me remembers, Hillary supporters in 2007 threatened to sit out the election once Obama's nomination looked certain.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong, I freely admit Obama is a flawed man. He has given away the store many times long before "negotiations" with the republicans even formally began. His reasons for that? Good damn question but I'm not yet ready to write about dark conspiracies and calling him a corporate puppet.
Congress is the ultimate sausage factory and I think Obama just did not have the experience and understanding of how it works to be an effective president. Another way of saying this is that his hubris did blind him but deomcrats were more than ready for some cool and hip savior after eight years of Bush and Obama fit the bill. Hell, some people including me half believed the he could walk on water at one point.
So, don't go and completely dogpile POTUS with your frustrations people, after everything is said and done we share some of the blame.
Agree with Emily. As angry as I am about this "debt deal" with the GOP -- did you notice that BO proposed extending the payroll tax holiday after 2011 and that didn't make it into the deal - so payroll taxes go up but upper income tax brackets do not - so much for "no new revenues" -- I still think BO is likely to win in 2012. Can't risk that.
ReplyDeleteI went with Robert Kennedy Jr. I loved his dad and he has distinguished himself as an environmentalist. Still a lot of cachet in the name.
ReplyDeleteVig, I am heartsick at Obama's failure to hold the line he drew in the sand - namely that there had to be some revenue included in the "compromise".
ReplyDeleteI am heartsick that he allowed the Repubs to set the agenda for all these months - heartsick at the lost opportunities - no pushback from Obama - no fireside chats to explain the Repubs tactic of changing the subject from what the nation cares about - namely JOBS JOBS JOBS - to an unnecessary distraction that has consumed our nation's leaders for months so that our economy is worse now than it was when the Repubs began this "war" against America, and we now have more obstacles to creating more jobs since the Repubs succeeded in getting Obama to agree to removing federal money which is so essential to an economic recovery.
A letter to the editor in today's LATimes nails it: "I'd love to buy a car from Obama. He advertises a car for sale for 50K. You offer 30K. He insists on selling it to you for 20K."
What gives with him? Obama was determined to get Osama, and he did! Acting with integrity and courage, he took a giant risk - and he succeeded! So, the man has "cojones" but refuses to use them when "negotiating" with Repubs.
He naively assumes that he has people of good faith willing, nay eager, to do the best for our country - when every action of the Repubs bespeaks a united unified Republican party out to regain the Presidency and control of both houses of Congress anyway they can.
Paul Krugman notes that Obama has thrice backed down when Tparty extremists have threatened to take our country over the precipice of financial disaster. Krugman writes: "...he (Obama) could and should have demanded an increase in the debt ceiling back in December. Asked why he didn't, he replied that he was sure the Republicans would act responsibly."
Oh yeah. That is today's Repubs - "responsible" and concerned to help those Americans who are suffering because of the fiscal irresponsibility of the Bush years.
Does Obama truly not "GET IT"? The only thing the Repubs care about is defeating Obama and taking back the reins of power, never to permit them to be taken away from their grasp ever again.
Vig, I hate to admit it, but I am so upset that Obama has once again caved that I am actually moving closer to agreeing with you - we may not be able to afford four more years of this.
A part of me still wants to believe that Obama is a good man who could be an amazingly effective President if he would only be the man of his campaign speeches, and use his Bully Pulpit to talk with the American people honestly about what is really going on.
Today's "compromise" is no compromise at all. It is another Obama capitulation-cave-in, delivered with his usual graciousness to the Repubs. It hurts to know that the Repubs are not deserving of Obama's generous nature. They deserve to be called out for the scheming rigid power-hungry ideologues that they are.
I am disheartened and sad that Obama cannot see the damage they have done to him and that he has colluded with them in "accomplishing" - there should be no praises for the fact that the sorry outcome of this first of many Repub-orchestrated machinations stll to come - the results of this sorry misadventure is that the Repubs successfully "played" Obama, rendering him politically ineffective and increasingly effete.
*toning it down for Vig*
ReplyDeleteI voted for Robert Kennedy Jr.
I think that having a Rethug take the White House back could be the very catalyst required to wake the apathy of America up. Disaster capitalism and corporatist profiteering are driving us into extinction. The planet is in serious jeopardy. We obviously need to clunked over the head with shock values ... so bring it. I would much rather see us taking up the cause, taking it into the streets and into DC on Oct 6th. I'm trying to work it out to be there. Every protest I can attend, I have been. Allen West's office two days ago. Yet, the majority is still waiting for the industrial stooge in the White House to rise to the occasion. Please check out October6th2011.org. We must take some kind of action. The future is dying before us. Ya know?
I don't know, Ms Barry. I think the undeclared class war waged by corporate America against the common people is the main issue; it's the dead and rotting elephant in my living room, any way. Yours?
ReplyDeleteHere's what I take away from Emily's rant:
ReplyDeleteanother Obama capitulation-cave-in, delivered with his usual graciousness to the Repubs. It hurts to know that the Repubs are not deserving of Obama's generous nature. They deserve to be called out for the scheming rigid power-hungry ideologues that they are.
You put it better than I!
At STOPHOPINGDOTCOM, the current nominees to 'primary' Obama next year are:
ReplyDelete1. Sanders
2. Kucinich
3. Feingold
4. Warren
5. Grayson
Finegold is presidential, enough. But I want Howie Dean. For him, I'll go out and fight in the street. He's not a caver.
How 'bout instead of a partisan/mirror image of the tea party, we try and draft a problem solver/total NONpartisan? I would personally like to see Mr. Bloomberg get in.............President Sanders? President Grayson? My Christ, you'd lose all "57" states with those dudes, for Christ.
ReplyDelete