So, one of the arguments pushed by the Clinton camp is that only she can attract "Reagan Democrats".

Right?

Anyway, I heard it again tonight, and it got me to thinking...

What the hell good did "Reagan Democrats" ever do for our country? Why the hell should I want THEM to determine THIS election? Look at what they already did in the 80s! And the groundwork that was laid for gwb!

No way. Plus, they are NOT a majority!

What really needs to happen is for these people to be presented with a worldview based in reality. I have no interest in perpetuating their ignorance, I'd much prefer that they be challenged and educated so that they might eventually have some hope of learning how to vote based on rational judgements rather than emotional appeals.

It's the difference between enlightenment and pandering.

Obligatory disclaimer: I am, in only the very vaguest sense of the notion, a "supporter" of Obama -- and only by default. I am dead set against Clinton, and have been since 2002. Obama remains -- much to the sorrow of my true progressive, radical heart -- the sole means of foiling Clinton.

sw

With everything said.

They either have some sense and have converted to Obamacanism or they are Rush Limbaugh freaks involved in operation chaos. The consensus is that Reagan Democrats are really not Hillary's base. That's just what she wants to think. Plus, I thought we all were supposed to hate Reagan anyways? Didn't she have like a heart attack when Obama spoke on Reagan's strategy in wooing all of those Democrats to begin with? :shrug:

The whole fallacy of "Reagan Democrats" is that they are still somehow Democrats. NO, they have been Repubs for
a long time. That's why we lose a lot...because the country moved RIGHT.

We have an opportunity to move left again, since most folks are pretty disilliusioned with what we've gotten from
all these years of right and "centrist" policy.

They have the ideals of a ferret on crack, in other words.

I mean, why should attracting the votes of "Reagan Democrats" be seen as a GOOD thing?

sw

If we put half the effort into appealing to the left as we do the right we wouldn't need them, and we'd be staying true to our ideals at the same time.

never were truer words spoken. and we're good for those reagan dems/republicans, economically, even if they've had too much Limbaugh spewaid to know it.

attract right wingers. Why not work on simply outnumbering them, instead?

If the Left has a better argument, then the Left needs to keep making it, instead of acquiescing to the arguments of the Right.

sw

The question is whether she can win them in a race against Senator McCain. I suspect she can't. Is the voter who wants a "seasoned," "experienced" candidate really going to vote for Senator Clinton over Senator McCain? What about someone who doesn't think that the nation is ready for a black president? Is such a voter likely to think that the nation is ready for a woman president? And what about voters who don't think Obama's "patriotic" enough? Maybe they'll vote for Clinton in the primary, but would they really vote for her over McCain the "war hero"?

People vote with what they're given. In a race between Obama and Clinton, those voters might vote for Clinton. But in a race between Clinton and McCain, a lot of them will probably vote for McCain. That's why the "Obama can't win WV" and "Obama can't win KY" memes are such BS: in a head-to-head race against McCain, Clinton can't win them either.

And that's also why I think pandering to the closed-minded would not be a winning strategy for Senator Clinton anyway. She may be happy now that there are people out there who will not support a black man for president, but she may be disappointed to learn that, in a head-to-head matchup against McCain, those same voters will not support a woman for president either. Pandering to people's prejudices is never a winning strategy for a true progressive. The way the progressive wins is not by coddling the prejudiced voter but by confronting his prejudice openly and trying to change his mind and heart. We're all in this together in the end.

"Pandering to people's prejudices is never a winning strategy for a true progressive."

Thank you for saying this so succinctly! :thumbsup:

sw

doubt it.

They've either gone to the dark side and become Repukes, or else come to their senses and decided that neither Bush politics or Bush-lite (=Clinton) politics is helping the nation.

"Reagan Democrats" was born of one event: we nominated a geek named Walter Mondale, who couldn't get elected dog catcher. Those Democrats who voted for Reagan were rejecting Mondale, who simply came across as this wimpy, goofy, spineless guy of negligible talent.

The election is won and lost on getting out the vote. That, and getting some group of middle voters to lean your way.

My home state of Minnesota was the only state he carried in the 1984 election, and I've always been proud of that. Minnesota voted for Mondale because he was our native son and we knew him as the honorable and honest man that he has always been.

It's not Mondale's fault that we live in a country full of assholes and idiots.

sw

I'm sorry that hurts your feelings, but maybe your feelings are too easily offended.

He was a terrible candidate, and his good qualities did not change that.

than the voters deserved. The Mondale campaign didn't understand that they would have to appeal to the voters' lizard brains, rather than to their frontal lobes.

While I will grant that the Mondale campaign was badly done, I won't stand for Mondale himself being ignorantly characterized as being a "wimpy, goofy, spineless guy of negligible talent".

That's just bullshit. He is a highly intelligent and accomplished human being, honest and forthright. It ought to tell you something that his home state -- those who knew him best -- turned out at the polls to give him his one state win.

sw

(edited to fix html tags)

But spineless? No.

You may worship him freely, but stop trying to convince me he was more than he was. I worked in his campaign and traveled with him. He was a wimpy, goofy guy of negligible talent.

He's an old school kind of guy who believes in honesty over spin.

: )

Who needs "friends" like those assholes?

Do you want to encourage voters to feel justified about being ignorant and prejudiced? Or do you want to expose voters to new information and new ways of perceiving their place in the world?

sw

I want a vibrant, expanded and for once, a progressive party.

I must hasten to add that I do NOT see Obama as a "progressive".

But what I DO see is the possibility that his candidacy is, by its emphasis on "change", creating an opening for actual progressives to move the Dem Party leftward. (unlike the Clinton campaign, which is relying on the entrenchment of the status quo)

My fondest hope, in any case...

sw

in the middle. It's not about Reagan's policies.

The candidate who can best attract those voters is the candidate who can win. Simple enough.

Why not try to nudge them in the other direction?

sw

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Thank you for kicking my thread!

:loveya:

Now, I will agree that Democrats need not EVER appeal to bias, prejudice or evil intent on the part of a group of voters just to woo and win their support.

However, I disagree that the sole means of influence is to "educate" someone out of their prejudice views. Some of these red states cling to more than just guns, hate, or religion to make their way through life. They deal with the harsh glare of reality at work, at home, and when they go to the bar and get a beer before they go home. Most of their life is what they can see and figure out based on their circumstances. For them, it is us and them.


Do you attract this group of people by telling them you are smarter and know better?
No.
It is insultingly cavalier.


You do what Obama has had to do in each state, shake their hand, tell them what you are about and let them take your measure. They know by seeing. If they've had no experience with thinking about race as it relates to having diversity in their own individual lives, they are set in a pattern of prejudices.

Is it scary for a person they perceive as other/them?
You are damned right it is very scary coming into contact with these people. But I don't look at them and say if I just lecture you, I will win you over. Nope, I'd rather steer clear of them until I need to interact with them at work or in some civic/religious capacity because I am vulnerable to their perceptions about eggheads and African Americans.

My comfort level (and by extension progressive folks) has nothing to do with what it takes to convince them there is more in this world than what they know or what they can see or even what they interact with. They do know their money has gotten kind of funny in the last 30 years. They know the song and dance the Republicans have been singing to them has not led to the kinds of greatness Reagan promised. In fact, Bush and Newt have been an embarrassment to the country and to the world, but also has claimed the lives of their proud to serve in the military family members.


Trying to convert a person to a new and different/strange/exotic reality is not something easily undertaken or done. It is better to stick with what you can actually agree on and if they get exposed to things that challenge their worldview, then maybe they will seek out an answer that goes beyond what they think they know about the world.


I would argue the successful result of integration was increasing the level of exposure in different settings so that children of integration thought it was perfectly normal to interact in a variety of social settings. I would say activists created that level of social change, the politicians---it would have included Obama if he had been old enough to know what was going on---go with the mood of the people.

It is for the local person interacting with these Reagan democrats/Republican people with an income of under $50K to continue to talk about interests. Some of you see them at work. They had Hillary Clinton with a passion. I doubt the last few reversal in Republican compliments have changed the hate they feel when they think about her self righteousness. I also doubt they looked favorably upon this uppity chick becoming a beer drinkin', gun totin' one of them overnight.


Why not leave our candidate open to their perusal?
He has shown the ability to take massive criticism and push through it.

In fact, I'd say he's better prepared than most to be the other/one of them and make a way for himself in this country. I am sure that he has learned to accept the outrage of it all.

to be presented with a worldview based in reality".

I also said, "I'd much prefer that they be challenged and educated so that they might eventually have some hope of learning how to vote based on rational judgements rather than emotional appeals."

There's nothing "arrogant" about getting down with someone and offering them a new means to understand their personal condition. It's an act of compassion, not arrogance. They are free to either accept or reject the view being offered.

Ignorance does no one any good.

sw

The most notorious of the "Reagan democrats" are the neoconservatives. Most were registered democrats in 1979, and merged with the dark side the following year.

I honestly hadn't thought of that.

I knew that many of the neocons were former Democrats; my impression has been that they were always part of the "national security/neoliberal" wing in any case. Which is also where I have long seen both Clintons and the DLC as being.

I want none of it. I want it rooted out of the Democratic party and replaced with something less dominance-oriented. Why should millions and millions of people suffer all over the planet because some paltry few sociopaths at the top think the world is their personal game of "King of the Mountain"?

The battle that's going on now is the battle between the national security/neoliberal wing represented by Clinton, and a chance to remake the Democratic party into something else.

I am under no illusions that Obama is a progressive as *I* define it. His greatest utility is as an "avant garde" (in the original sense of the term) -- a means to break through the barricades that the Establishment politicos will always take great pains to keep intact.

I wish I could trust Obama to catch the wave, as it were. I generally think that he will fall short, the pressures from the Establishment being what they are.

But I can live with that. No matter who wins the nomination, no matter who wins the presidency; it STILL means that progressives have to get serious about dedicating themselves to long years of hard work -- Obama just sets us a little further ahead than Clinton does.

sw

You know, like those pricks that drive a date way out of town and then tell her to get in the back seat with them or walk home..

What we need to do is WALK home, we don't NEED to kowtow to that kind of person or attitude, "My way or the Highway.." is well worn by now and I think so many people Yearn for Some Kind of Honesty, true straight talk, etc.. And that includes ACTUAL Conservatives too, they are sick to death of these RADICALS like Bush/Cheney/Rove screwing us All to the Wall..

Indepedents too, sure thing..

These people supporting This strange Clinton we've seen running, are all responding to the hard core Right Wing platitudes she's been espousing, therefore they are NOT Democrats any more than Lieberman is..

They need to be told straight up that they have NO Power over us because WE Rebuke them.. They can take a long walk off a short Pier :)

That is the Education they require at this point, we have much work to do, taking back our country and repairing it, and have no time while rebuilding it to take care of some Whiners sitting on the cracked foundation throwing hammers at us :)

This is NOT a Hostage Situation, WE are in charge now, people of vision looking to the future, not getting our Disco clothing out of mothballs..

them or walk home.."

Wow! What a powerful analogy! :yourock:

I totally agree with your assertion about the kind of education that would best serve these people.

My own thought, when I wrote my OP, was/is that it's of no benefit to ANYONE to pander to dysfunctionality.

sw

Or the Dial-Phone Democrats? The Disco Democrats?