I could not agree more with your assessment. It is nice to read someone who understands that there are winners and losers in life and while we may not agree with the party or principles of those now in power we should give credit where credit is due.

We are the first to condemn those who stand on the sidelines and criticize and while this loss hurts I hope we take away lessons learned and come back stronger in 08.

Thanks to you and AKM for all of your hard work throughout the election cycle and I look forward to your assessments of the next National race.

I think Howard Dean deserves some recognition for his 50 state strategy. He realized there is no such thing as a Red or Blue state and sought to educate all of America on the Democratic positions.

It is Emmanuel who was the winner here. In typical Clintonian triangulation he chose his candidates to fit the region where incumbents were vulnerable or there were open seats. He pushed aside liberal ideology and pragmatically worked to win. (Contrast that with Lamont in Connecticut where liberalism lost). It was a successful strategy. If the ideologues on the right continue to demand purity from the Republicans, Democrats will reign supreme for many election cycles to come.

muirgeo: "He [Dean] realized there is no such thing as a Red or Blue state and sought to educate all of America on the Democratic positions."

muirgeo...you're actually (gasp) right about ONE THING: there IS no such thing as a "Red or Blue" State.

But you're DEAD WRONG on the part I bolded. The Democrats went waaaaaaay out of their way to AVOID (at all costs) HAVING any "positions".

The Democart mantra of a "New Direction" was just that...a MANTRA. With ZERO SUBSTANCE behind it. Had they dared to S-P-E-L-L out ANY details about their "New Direction" they would have either been defeated or would truly have something to crow about.

As it is they will have to shed their "sheep's clothing" at some point!!

Justrand,

The Republican (particulary the Neo-con) agenda, just really doesn't sit well with Americans. That's why even though Republicans dramaticaly outspend Democrats, they only held 50% of the vote in the 2000 and 2004 presidental election. To put it another way, Republicans have to spend much more just to keep even.

If you ask the American people about the things that are important to them... If you ask about their values... You'll find that they tend to be more progressive and Democratic than the neo-cons give them credit for.

Social fairness, job security, dignity of all people, responsive government, cheaper health care, social safety net, education, campaign reform, international cooperation, balanced federal budgets, etc..

When you poll Americans on those issues, you'll find that the majority of Americans are basicaly.... Well, Democrats.

The process of education was both to illustrate how American values line up with Democrat policies, and to demonstrate how the Republican neo-con policies they acted on had little in common with the "compassionate conservatism" they pledged to uphold.

John

Spot on analysis Jim. Believe me, I take no joy in having to admit it, but they beat us like a drum. Give the devils their due and try to learn from their example and our mistakes.

Ken

I can't see how Howard Dean gets ANY credit at all. Which seats did he target? NONE. He just wanted to spread money around to state and local parties in Republican-leaning states, which isn't a bad idea in itself, but had nothing to do with the election results this year. Dean himself NEVER said it would - he called it seed money for the future.

John, as usual, babbles on. Being on the winning side in an election once every decade or so doesn't make him any less of an idiot.

The Dem political leadership simply outclassed the GOP political leadership. Rahm and Schumer were highly intelligent, amazingly hard-working, brillant strategists. The GOP, in constrast, decided to elect showboat Liddy "Clueless" Dole --over a smart, hard-worker like Senator Coleman! -- to run its Senate Campaign Committee.

Game. Set. Match.

If the GOP wants to get back into the game, they better pick some competent people to run their campaign committees in 2008. Thank heavens that Rahm won't be running the DCCC next cycle.

Jim, as usual, is a little lite on facts to back up his statements.

John

Jim,

Howard Dean's success?? Let's start with increased vote totals for Dems and local participation/energy in VERY RED states. You can't build a state party in one cycle. In addition, came very close (i.e. building for the future) in NE, WY, ID, and others. Moreover, he did manage to win a few like KS-2 and MN-1 and IA-2 that were on no one's radar. Incumbant Dems in red states thought to be vulnerable won in landslides (Sebelius, Bredesen, Freudenthal, Ben Nelson, etc). And Dems like Tester, Webb, and McCaskill won in previously center-right states.

Dean's done a great job w/everything but money. We had Schumer and Rahm for that. I'll admit I was scared Dean would drag us to the left as chairman, but he's been great. Give him some credit.

BTW, if any of you read my post on the "official Dem gloat thread," you know that I'm not much for bragging...

But I do have a special "I told you so" for nehemiah. Not because we won. But because the races were close.

You kept saying things like "MO isn't even a race--why do people think it'll be close!!"

And while never being even confident of victory, I always told you it was irresponsible to be so positive. So HAHA on your stupidity and overconfidence--not for losing, but for being so stubborn about your correctness.

John: "To put it another way, Republicans have to spend much more just to keep even."

John,

With CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, CNN, and all but a small fraction of the "news"papers and "news" magazines being nothing more than the propaganda wing of the Secular Regressive Socialist (euphemistically referred to as "democrat") Party, you get for free about 100 times what the Republicans spend. The only way the SRS lefties win elections is by keeping Average Joe informationally retarded.

I'm sure you're proud of that.

With the card stacked so overwhelmingly agaist them, the only reason the Republicans ever win is because the Republicans very closely represent the views of most Americans.

Only about 18% of Americans support your leftist agenda. The wealthy and those of the dirt poor who are unwilling to do anything to improve their situations are the only people who truly support you're agenda. The rest of the people who vote for you SRS's are informationally retarded thanks to your propaganda wing.

P. Bunyan,

18% of Americans support our leftist agenda, huh?

If we had this conversation, last Friday, I guess I could have said, "well, we'll see".

Today, when you say that, it just makes you seem a bit out of touch with, um..... Facts.

That tends to make me believe the other points in your post are also similarly "fact challenged".

John

John,

Did you miss the point of what I wrote? Or are you just ignoring it?

This past election did not prove that the majority of Americans support the secular regressive socialist movement, it just proved that many, many Americans are informationally retarded thanks to secular regressives like yourself in the media.

If you look at all the conservative ballot proposals that passed, plus the fact that the majority of the SRS's who won were pretending to be conservatives, you have to see my point even though you will never acknoledge it.

BTW I got the 18% figure from the polls after the 2004 election. I don't remember the exact figures, but I'd done some calculations and determined that only about 18% of the vote cast were actully FOR Comrade Kerry. The rest of Kerry's votes were cast as votes against Bush (by people who were informationally retarded thanks to propagandists like you who pretend to be newspersons).

I figure that anyone who actually was FOR Kerry, the most openly communist major candidate for President in the history of the United States, has to be a secular regressive socialist. Hell, the American Communist party didn't even put a candidate in the election that year because they couldn't find anyone in this country who was a more loyal communist than Kerry.

A perfect example of the point I'm trying to make John, would be Harold Ford (even though he lost, thank God!).

He called himself pro-life. Did one person in the media ever ask him, "You claim to be pro-life, yet you have an 86 lifetime rating from NARAL, how do you explain that?"

Of course not. That would be an "inconvenient truth" that you SRS propagandists do not want Average Joe to know.

John--when we win, it's because of the "media bias" (as opposed to opposition to one party rule or a theocratic state), but when they win, it's because of a "conservative nation" (as opposed to a slime campaign machine, a big money advantage, and an occasional stealing of an election here or there.

Don't you see?!

And btw Paul, one of the greatest efforts the founders made was to keep religion and politics separate--so calling someone who upholds that view "secular" isn't necessarily true...they're actually Constitutionalist!

Bullshit Jeremy.

At the time the constitution was written people in many places around the world were forced to follow a particular religion. The founding fathers did not want that to be the case here in the U.S. so when the Bill of Rights was written thay very simply and clearly stated that "the Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or preventing the free exercise thereof". It's very plain and simple. You can believe in and openly practice any religion you wish and the government can have no say in it one way or the other (except in the extreme, like if your religion involved canabalism for example).

They did not mean this to mandate state sponsored athiesm. They did not mean this to be a ban on moral values and theism in government and all public institutions as you SRS's demand and your fascist jurists force upon us by diktat. They did not mean that only atheism should be allowed to be practiced and preached in public institutions, common places, and government.

Now, when I use the term "secular" I'm not really using the traditional definition which I believe is "not particulary religious". It's actually pretty hypocritical for me to do that because I hate when the meaning of words get so twisted and distorted (like "liberal" and "mullet" for example). "Secular" is the wrong word for you lefties but it is commonly used to describe people who have leftiest values as opposed to moral values. It's the wrong word because your values are very, very religious just like moral values so they're not really secular at all. Athism is no less a religion than any other, and there are theists amoung you to some extent also.

You're worldview is ass backwards from my perspective, as I bet mine is from your's. When you say "one of the greatest efforts the founders made was to keep religion and politics separate--so calling someone who upholds that view 'secular' isn't necessarily true...they're actually Constitutionalist!" that is almost the exact opposite of what I believe.

I'll try and come up with a better more accure word than "secular", but for now unfortunately it will have to do.

I would have no trouble giving Howard Dean credit, IF I thought he deserved any.

I have watched Schumer and Emmanuel run perhaps the most efficient and effective midterm campaign of my lifetime of political observation. I haven't seen Dean do anything to directly contribute to either of these results. In fact, he had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, by Emmanuel and Schumer to get the DNC to participate as much as they did.

Some seem to see Howard's hand in the unusual districts won this time, but they must be sensing his karma with their auras, or some other New Age hippy crap. Kansas, for example, had more to do with state politics and Sebelius' leadership which has attracted some Republicans to switch parties, than any of the more national issues. Dean's influence was approximately zero, as I suspect it was in the others - races that were swept up in a Democratic year, and should rightly be credited to the wavemakers, not the cheerleaders.

If anyone has links that would indicate an actual role for Dean in any of these wins, post 'em if ya got 'em.

Hi, P. Bunyan.

I can live with secular as a label for me. I'm a Buddhist, and many of us will accept the label Secular Humanist.

I'm also an ordained clergy person as a Spiritual Humanist, so I'm happy to discuss eiether side of the issue.

Anyhow...

So the second term in Secular Regressive Socialist is Regressive. We (Democrats/Liberals) consider ourselves Progressives. When you use that term, what do you mean?

Finaly, when you use the term Socialist, what do you mean by that? Democrats certainly are not communists. We do have some socialist programs that we (and most Americans) favor like public schools, social security, medicare, medicaid, school lunches, etc...

What do you think are the good attributes of those programs? What do you think are the bad attributes of those programs? When you say and think about "Socialism" how is that different than what I've said about the socialist programs that Democrats advance?

Thanks

John

Mr. Bunyan,

I'm not an atheist (I'm Jewish). Wanting a separation of church and state does not make someone an atheist. And saying "separation of church and state" does not imply that everything in the Bible is to be taken out of law (meaning that killing, stealing, etc would be legal).

It simply means that we shouldn't have prayer in public school. We shouldn't keep our teenagers ignorant on the hopes that not teaching them about safe sex will make them less likely to have sex (on the contrary--it'll actually just make them more likely to have un-safe sex).

Also, as pointed out above, our society has some inherent socialist qualities--do you think there should be no public schools? Those who can't afford private schools should simply remain uneducated?

Supporting public schools and social security doesn't make one a socialist. Socialists believe in a much more widespread re-distribution of wealth than currently exists (or should exist) in our country.