There will be no NEED for a third party, if people will stop imbuing Clinton with characteristics and convictions which she clearly does not have.

Either Edwards or Obama will hang Iraq around Giulianis neck like the bloody, rotten, chicken it is, and democrats and independents and even some conservatives will turn this election into a total rout.

I’ll go everyone one better.

Those of you (us) who would like to see Cheyney and Bush (It will, of course, have to be in that order) driven from office in humiliation, all we have to do is pick either one of the two above-named candidates, and then we can sit back and have an excellent chance of watching the republicans set up the barbecue pit on the white house lawn for Darth and Goatboy.
The moment either Edwards or Obama is nominated, we will be astounded at how tractible and accomodating the “patriots” can be. The democrats will be able to tell the entire contingent of congressional repubs:

“Shit here!”

“Okay; now shit over there!” (No foot-dragging; or we’ll start reading all of those rosy predictions about the “cakewalk” into the congressional record.)

“Okay, now clean them both up, and when you’re done, check with us and we’ll give you your next mission to accomplish.”

I’m having a little fun here, of course, but it is true, that picking a candidate who is as deeply outraged about the murderous fuckup which bush and the GOP have inflicted on Iraq, us, and the world, as are we at FDL (do her supporters seriously think Clinton meets that criteria?) and who can and will go after them full-bore for doing it (Boy does she evermore NOT meet THAT criteria) will mean 25 percentage points in the election. And the GOP knows it.

Le’s get ‘em. :o)

i don’t think it is fair or accurate to judge a dem like donna edwards because of a dem like nancy pelosi.

and that’s just the point – the party is not a monolith… and i’d like to see it be more like donna edwards and less like steny hoyer. this thread is about doing that. – a very, very good thing imo.

P.S. Now I really don’t like Nancy Pelosi anymore.

AngryAmerican @ 84

Why more and better Dems? Really, why? Don’t you want to break the deadlock in DC? How about giving some time to something truly newsworthy such as Cynthia McKinney filing to run for president in ‘08 as a Green!

http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?P80004930

She may or may not represent you and your views, but I think it is way past time Dems start thinking beyond the Democratic Party to solve their problems, and that’s why I left the Democratic party to become a Green a decade ago.

good for mckinney, thanks for letting me know. in general, on the national level, i’m not interested in supporting third parties – yet. but i understand why many are, and i’m glad to know you are doing something you think is right… the worst thing we can do, imo, is to give up.

Agreed, and thank you.

Christy Hardin Smith @ 92

Angry at 85 — In a word…no.

*nods* :)

When the Republicans were just about absurd self-interest, third parties were a viable option for me. Now that they’re completely off the deep end, I’m a lot more interested in improving the Democratic party at this point.

What makes any of you think that the Dems are any better than the Reps at this point? Seriously. You don’t think dems like Pelosi are completely off the deep end? (Impeachment is off the table!?) I’m looking for an honest answer, and something more than “no”, which leaves me wondering what the no is about. Is it “no, it’s not Democrat/Republican related, so we’re not going to talk about it”?

Do you think things are going to get better perpetuating the two party system? I don’t. I think there are two things that can fix it; multi-party elections, and government funded elections like they have in Canada. But before we get there, we need to restore democracy in this country. This means (to me) holding this administration accountable through impeachment, then repealing the Patriot Act(s) and Military Commissions Act, restoring habeas corpus, etc.

Obviously I can’t vote for a Dem in the primary election, but I will not being throwing my vote away on any Dem who is not currently doing all they can to hold this administration accountable, and the only one doing it id Kucinich, and his chances at the nomination are very slim (love him though).

I must have missed something when I started visiting this site. I thought it was a place where people that leaned left politically and even philosophically could meet to discuss ways in which to restore democracy and make this country, heck the world, a better place. I guess I missed the Dems only sign on the door.

Jim Clausen @ 71

Great article.We are all one paycheck or doctor’s visit from poverty. End the stigma
As Marx said, one needs to recognize class as an economic dynamic. Why I support Edwards. I see two Americas and a new gilded age.

I work as a “contractor” (fancy name for agency temp) and got the yearly “this is how much it’s gonna cost you if you are crazy enough to buy health insurance through the agency” email. Family coverage is $245 a week. No Rx, no vision, no dental. The median wage for the temps in this place is in the $9-$10 range. You do the math.
No one can afford health coverage. We have at least 6 single moms in this group. I don’t know where their wage puts them in terms of coverage (Medicaid or SCHIP), but I know none of them can afford it. We have people here who can’t even afford the freight on the single side.

Of course, Giuliani’s Plan is to do away with both company-sponsored and government supported health care plans and replace that with a $15,000 tax deduction that can only be applied to health care costs.

Sounds good? Well maybe if you make over $100,000 a year. For the rest of us we couldn’t afford the palns in the first place and the reduction of our taxes would be so minimal that it would barely make purchasing such plans worthwhile.

It’s a prescription for a no insurance society for the poor and middle class.

And his principal argument…is that s*ci*lised medicine has higher mortality rates than private insurance plans. He calimed he’d be a corpse if he had tobseek treatment for prostate cancer in Britain.

Ahem! Turns out that the numbers he used were bogus according to the British Ministry of Health…who are very upset…in fact the Labour Government is quite pissed off at Giuliani because the survival rates are actually quite similar.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/l…..-20051062/

Similarly, in “soc*al*st” Canada actual research shows that mortality is slightly lower for when scaled for ethnicity (Canada has fewer black males who are, for a variety of reasons-but mainly belated diagnosis, more likely to die of prostate cancer in the US) than the US. When Age Graded te mortality rates are statistically similar (although all Canadian cohorts are lower) with the exception of the 56-66 age group where mortality is higher in the United States.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.g…..obtype=pdf [see figure 7]

Quite simply, Giuliani is misinformed or lying about the 44% higher mortality rates in England….and he has ignored a wealth of other evidence that would show his attacks are similarly wrong. But be assured that he’ll have someone pour through the vast statistical surveys on disease rates and recovery and find ONE disease where SOME country that he can argue has “soc*al*sed” medicine does worse than the US.

Hey wasn’t Albania soc*al*st?????

btw, I replied on the crack thread.

John Edwards

Donna Edwards

Hmm… (Yes, I support these two candidates, who not only share a last name but who also look like each other…*g*)

(In homage to 44.)

NZ Expat, now in KS @ 66

Here is the letter I’m thinking of sending:

There is no need to waste time and print debating whether or not waterboarding is torture (“Torture and the Attorneys General”). A few minutes of time will quickly answer the question.

Our military is able to provide a safe method of testing this and can do so for a vacillating nominee for Attorney General or any Senator who doubts it. They did so for my husband, who was waterboarded as part of the Navy SERE (Survival, Escape, Resistance, and Evasion) program. He knew that they would stop and his voice still shudders decades later.

His verdict? Clearly torture. Those who claim otherwise might back their declarations with a personal encounter with the technique, if they have the courage of their convictions.

These guys who want to cast shadows on the Constitution, as if there were any gray area in the matter of cruel and unusual punishment, adherence to treaties on the treatment of prisoners, or the balance of executive, legislative and judicial power, for that matter, are crooks.

They want people to believe them that there is some reasonable doubt or justifiable case to be made for officially sanctioning torture, abuse of power, and uncooperative international behavior. They profit from those things. Their personal power is enlarged and so are their and their friends’ bank accounts.

Any AG nominee who is unclear about the Constitutionality of interrogations procedures, or confused about the extent of Executive Power under all circumstances–especially a bogus “war,” is not qualified to be AG. In fact, they should be investigated for deliberately attempting to use the government to deprive people of our Constitutional rights.

John Edwards

Donna Edwards

Hmm… (Yes, I support these two candidates, who not only share a last name but who also look like each other…*g*)

(In homage to 44.)

I can see some mysterious phone calls going around the white precincts of Maryland during the General Election by a group that will say “Hey, this worked in the Republican North Carolina primaries against John McCain. Maybe it’ll work here, too.”

I have just a wee bit more hope than it sounds like you do but if even Hillary can’t win after the last 6 years, we are truly screwed as a nation.