So what if Republicans are white christians? Democrats could be the party of green martian unitarians and I'd be all for them so long as they got us out of Iraq, balanced the budget and improved health care and education for everyone.

Dr. Dean needs to reign in some of the rhetoric and stick to the issues. We can win on issues. It doesn't do anyone any good to throw out generalizations about the makeup of the opposition. (At least not in June of '05)

I think we need a bit better grounding
in reality, in this culture.  I
will grant you that the editors
write the headlines

But if his new england sensibilities still
fail to account that an hour and a half drive over his border, Catholic priests were molesting
boys large scale - some noseless pervert
is on the news every day,  and those that
call themselves christians are wrapping themselves
in a flag not unlike what was so clearly
foretold in revelations, the sign of the
beast -  oh, and did we forget that
the Swiss are wrapping their glaciers
in plastic not unlike a woman in latex?

He simply must produce a better plan.
California is running toward the GOP camp.
His tiny view of the problem is that
he can say something rad, and bring
all of california back into the camp.

I have a short list on my desk who encouraged
him to say this, and he was a 'supporter'
of Dean during his campaign who thinks
he's smart and moved high up to behind the scenes.

Theres no way Dean was meeting yesterday in SF
without meeting this guy, and if you want
to burn through 40 million dollars
in less than two months, he's your man.

Anyone else want to send in some cash?
These people were total idiots.  They
didn't have the faintest clue of how
to play this game, and in a world where
Americans desperately need a new "deep throat"
they were only concerened about the media -
because... they were employed by media
entertainment, sold media entertainment,
and they want Dean to be .. you got it.

Most of silicon valley realizes that
the latino population is
now determining the cost of
reform even if people like Boxer
would stand up and fight
for her christian, white, ATM machine
there in the valley... everyone
who plays the game knows that
Dean needs to be resonating with
this group.

They voted for Bush because they wanted
no change in leadership and they saw him
as Macho.

So I'd watch this group as the metric
to whether or not this Chairman is
doing his job.  

PS.  Another 10,000 activists can meet
somewhere else. Its all about EAST LA
now, homies.

For one, that's not "the truth".  I don't know how you could say otherwise.

This was preceded by the statement a couple of dayss ago that Republicans have never made an honest living in their lives.  Yes, I realize this was a statement made in jest, but Dean's a big boy, he knows how the media works in this day and age, and he should have learned from the scream that different types of media plays things different ways than intended.

I know that Jerome has had a connection to the Dean camp for a long time, but to try to say this is helpful is ridiculous.  I want Dean out there hammering the president's record repeatedly.  I want him out there hammering the Republican party's intolerance and greed.  I don't want him making careless, stupid ass statements that distract from his message and scare people away from the party.

Can you honestly say that yesterday's statement was at all helpful in any way at all?  Does this statement help or hurt a 50 state strategy?  Come on Jerome.  Face it, our boy needs to measure his words a lot better.  Dean can shoot straight and tell it like it is without making an ass of himself.

The obvious strategy for any sound thinking Democrat would be to critcize the RNC Chair instead of the DNC Chair. Is that strategy a little too subtle?

Just like he was right about health care.

Just like he was right about pretty much everything.

Oh, and how DARE he set fundraising records for the DNC!  

By the way, to forestall the whiners:  

Just as the Afghan riots started well before the Newsweek story saw print, the flight of corporate money was happening long before Dean became DNC chair.  In the 2004 cycle, with "Mr. Electable" Kerry as the guy picked to placate Corporate America, guess what happened?  Corporate America donated ten times as much to the GOP as they did to the Democrats.  In fact, along with the 527s and the unions, it was Dean's existing small-donor internet machinery -- machinery that was transferred to the Kerry campaign after the primaries -- that kept Kerry afloat.)

There are some folks who are still fighting the 2003 primary campaign, and they are so very, very pissed off that there's a bunch of us out there now organized to fight the DINOs.  Too bad.

Because they think that if you can capture the votes of the swinging middle you don't need a solid base.

The best way to address the issue of racism is to address the issue of racism. Howard Dean is pursuing exactly the right strategy by getting a subject out into the open that favors the Democratic party. The M$M has allowed the GOPers to put on minstrel stage shows at the conventions that don't even pass the laugh test.

It's about time someone in the Democratic party found the courage to bring the racist record of the Republican party out into the spotlight of public opinion. This is a winning issue.

The politician to keep an eye on is Barak Obama. I wonder if Barak is going to jump on the bandwagon of the cowardly Democrats who don't believe the 1st Amendment applies to the DNC Chair and are afraid to discuss the important issues of our day.

Another example is the Downing Street Memo. Has any Senate Democrat mentioned the Downing Street Memo yet? Why is John Connyers carrying the burden of talking truth to power and the M$M about the Downing Street Memo?

You'd think by now that by now they'd have noticed that standing in the middle mostly just gets you run over. But, since they haven't, perhaps the other answer to your question is that they are just plain dumb.  

Only by appeasing them and issuing statements that they've pre-approved can we fight back.

First, let's nominate a war hero, that ought to be acceptable.

I'm partial to McJesus Zombie.

Evengelical would also seem to be a good choice, since 77% of the voted Bush anyhow (the other 23% have since had dates standing in lines next to walls).

I think we need to make a distinction that allows us to separate our kind of Christian from their kind.

Criticizing the Democratic strategy is like criticizing zero for not adding up. The Democratic leadership is meekly dodging the Downing Street Memo, dodging demanding an exit strategy from Iraq and dodging any overall strategy for 2006 or 2008.

What really bothers the fossils in the Democratic party is that Howard Dean is taking a stand for Democratic values and making them look pale by comparison. Since they can't compete with him on the issues, they are trying to tear him down to their low level of issue avoidance.

The fossils in the Democratic party should be criticizing and attacking the RNC Chair instead of the DNC Chair:

The DLC and the Corporate Democrats did everything they could to stop the grassroots movement to stop Howard Dean. They lost. The grassroots won. Howard Dean is not going to shut up, and I applaud him for that. His critics are splitting the party, not his criticism of the Republican party.

Absolutely nothing Howard Dean is doing or saying is preventing any of the Democratic Presidential wannabees from putting forward an economic and social agenda. The only thing standing in their way is their own timidity and failure to take a stand on the issues.

Democrats need to get over their minority mentality. Howard Dean is demonstrating exactly how to break out of the battered wife syndome that Kerry and the DLC are locked in to. You fight back against the aggressor.

So exactly what is the issue that Richardson or any other Democrat disagrees with?

Howard Dean is exactly right again. The Republican party is the party of racism and Christian white guys. The only way to pull their cover is  . . . (drumroll) . . . to pull their cover. The Democratic party cannot allow the Republican party to pretend to be the party of racial inclusiveness when they are not.

I am looking forward to Rep. John Connyers reaction to Howard Dean. I am looking forward to the reaction of Jesse Jackson, Barak Obama and yeah, you heard me right, Rev. Al Sharpton.

It's time for the second stringers to get sent down to the farm team and for the real hardball players to take the field. Howard Dean is a real hardball player.

Biden and Kerry are both has beens and milquetoast wannabees. Edwards and Richardson have been shown a whole new kind of Democrat that they can't compete with. A fiery, no holds barred Democrat who knows how to oppose political tyranny.

Somewhere over the last few months I have become a Dean convert.  I think he is fantastic.  

I really don't understand why, knowing exactly how Gingrich and the Republicans staged their takeover of congress in the 90's, Democrats are somehow wrong for doing the same thing?

Democrats need to stand up, and call a spade a spade.  Start acting like Democrats want to be the majority again.  Instead when someone makes a strong statement that fairly accurately characterizes the current Republican party, people on the left go cower in the corner worried about what Republicans, or Republican-lite Democrats think.

The politically-correct, make nice nice, pro-corporate Democrats only succeeded in allowing the wholesale dismantling of the American middle class and allowing Republican-military-industrial, corporate/entertainment attacks on the poor, class warfare of the meanest sort.

The lackeys in the media sitting on their butts distributing White House press releases and cashing in on their 5 figure salaries aren't going to fight for us, we have to get out there and fight for ourselves, like Winston Churchill said-"We will fight them in the steets, we will fight them in the countryside, we will fight them in the air, we will never give up!!!"  (Sorry Churchill for mangling your eloquence, but my memory does not serve me well).

God Bless Howard Dean for having the guts to tell the truth about the Fascist/Hypocritical "Christian" Republicans!!  

This is from a lapsed Episcopalian who shared the generally pro-Republican mindset of his parents and many of the biases (he never liked the Kennedys very much).  However, mainstream Protestants are disgusted over the evangelical nutcases from Texas and the rest of the south who are in power in Washington.  

His opinion of the Kennedys I daresay has improved 100%.  There is a realignment going on in this country, we just have to be on the winning side of it.

The disingenuous way the SF Chronicle political assassin Carla Marinucci "framed" Dean's comments serves to add fuel  to the made-up controversy and burnish Ms. Marinucci's establishment bona fides by bashing Dean.

Consider the opening paragraph, which suggests that Dean, "unapologetic in the face of recent criticism that he has been too tough" on Republicans,  thumbed his nose at critics by saying Republicans "all behave the same, and they all look the same. ... It's pretty much a white Christian party." Now, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Pure rubbish.

Howard Dean was responding to an Asian reporter's lengthy question regarding  studies that suggest fewer Asians are supporting the Democratic Party over the Republican Party. She asked Dean to comment on that trend:

Reporter: A [unintelligible] that it shows that in the last four years, Asian voters supporting the [unintelligible], I remember maybe two or three studies that I covered recently they show that even eight or twelve years ago, so quite many Asians they support Republicans. But now, last year it shows that quite many Asians support Democrats. Do you have any comment you want to make about this, and..

Dean: I think a lot it has to do with [unintelligible]. The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people. They're a pretty monolithic party. They pretty much, they all behave the same and they all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian Party, and the Democrats have everybody you can think of in our Party. So, as this gentleman was talking about, it's a coalition of a lot of different interest groups. The problems is that we've got to make sure it turns into a Party, which means I've got to spend time in the communities and our folks have got to spend time in the communities. I think we're more welcoming to different folks, because that's the kind of people we are. Now, but, that's not enough. We do have to deliver on things, particularly on jobs, housing, and business opportunities, and college opportunities and so forth.

Dean's comment was frank, honest and, perhaps to some, painfully true.

The so-called "Christian Conservatives" are a big group of hypocrites. They say one thing and do another and they are very good a getting Americans to believe them. The most troubling thing is that they also have shown their true colors but it doesn't seem to cause them any trouble at all. Howard Dean says something as simple as "republicans are a party of white Christians" and the media is all over him.

Pat Robertson says something as shocking as "Whenever evangelization efforts meet with chronic resistance, extermination should follow." and no one takes him to task for it. He has also said: "Jesus was not a pacifist. He was not a sissy. We have enough votes to run the country. ... It's going to be a spiritual battle. There will be Satanic forces. ... We are not going to be coming up just against human beings to beat them in elections. We're going to be coming up against spiritual warfare." And, "The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians."

After 9/11 Robertson blamed "abortionists, feminists, gays, and lesbians" for the terrorist attacks, and yet he is welcomed onto "news" programs everywhere as though he is mainstream!

Christians and Republicans need to get angry that these extremists are hijacking their vernacular, and hiding behind their labels. These extremists aren't Jesus' Christians nor Abe Lincoln's Republicans. They are unChristian and unAmerican. They need to be exposed for what they are.

from the yahoo caption:

Texas Gov Rick Perry, center front, signs the abortion consent bill during a ceremony in the gym of the Calvary Christian Academy in Fort Worth, Texas, Sunday, June 5, 2005. Looking on are, from left, Molly White, Joe Pojman, Dr. Linda Flower and State Sen. Kathy Adams. The bill restricts abortion late in a pregnancy and requires minor girls to get parental consent for an abortion. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Improvement of message:  He let Matt Lauer keep comming back to Matt's talking points of Party division, Dean used that as a platform to bounce to keep talking up extremeist Repug Party.

Would have liked to seen more of the ole more agressive Dean, but  he made good points of cooperation with Boxer and Reid.  

Museing: We're just too damm nice to the SCLM when we get face time, need to call them out when they try to get on 'their' talking points and accuse them of being Rove Parrots a few times.  Problem is we won't get invited back much if we do....unless we start winning some big ones.  Oh well, back to the ground game.

I know it is considered an act of heresy to see Howard Dean as anything other than infallible, but that is the second time in a week that he has stepped on his dick.

Your party chairman should not be the only member of your party above the fold in your newspaper, for chrissakes.

Further, when over 70% of your country is white, and an even greater percentage consider themselves to be "Christians," dismissing the Republican Party as a party of white Christians is not exactly an intelligent use of...well...math.

He should change the subject and talk about one thing over and over again for the next month-DOWNING STREET MEMO.

He should tell us how Bush lied just the other day when finally a reporter got the guts to question Bush about the Downing Street memo and he lied again and said his mind was not made up about the attack on Iraq, even though the Downing Street Memo says he had.

www.democrats.com

The Dem's have had a gag on Gov. Dean, and they will jump on his ass every chance they get. Howard should have said screw all of you and run as an independent. LOVE DEAN, CONYERS, BOXER - Piss on the rest.  When they get some balls, let me know.

My sentiments exactly.  I am in Michigan, grew up in the Detroit area.  My Dad was a tool and die maker and my Grandfather was an autoworker at Ford.  My uncles all worked for one of the Big Three.  It gave us middle-class wages and a few of us even graduated from college thanks to the UAW and their fight to give our families a living wage.

Michigan is hurting.  The industrial Midwest is hurting big time.  Clinton and his damn DLC asskissing of the corporations and their damnable NAFTA has killed off the golden goose.

Screw them.  I am  not really a Democrat anymore because the party has been taken over by the corporations and the asskissers.  We need to do something fast to stop this Fascist Administration and their hateful allies in the religious right.  It is a despotic dictatorship that has stolen 3 election cycles in a row.

If we don't get out into the streets now and raise hell we are not going to have a middle class or a country soon.

http://www.freep.com/money/autonews/gm8e_20050608.htm

http://www.freep.com/money/autonews/gm8e_20050608.htm

UAW Local 594 President Suzanne Brown and Vice President Merrick Cotton get the word about the 25,000 layoffs. GM employed more than 258,000 in 1991. By 2008, the number will be closer to 85,000. GM still has 50,000 hourly workers in Michigan.

Metro reaction

Ideal of carmaker's stability disappears for employees

Several longtime workers don't know what the next day holds after layoff announcement.

By Louis Aguilar and Ronald J. Hansen / The Detroit News

John T. Greilick / The Detroit News

Bill Howard, GM worker, left, with colleague Andy Churilla.

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Most of General Motors Corp.'s autoworkers are veterans who were raised on the rock-solid belief that working for the world's largest automotive company was as safe a career choice as anyone could make.

But Tuesday's announcement was the latest blow to shake that ideal.

"We all grew up thinking that General Motors is here forever," said LeRoy LeCureux , 51, a 28-year GM veteran, as he waited in the parking lot of the Pontiac Truck Assembly plant for his shift to begin.

His GM pickup has multiple decals of American flags.

"What else can I believe at this point?"

GM employed more than 258,000 in 1991. By 2008, the number will be closer to 85,000. GM still has 50,000 hourly workers in Michigan.

Like many, LeCureux has worked at several GM plants to avoid being laid off. The electrician currently drives one hour each way from his home outside Flint, where he worked for more than a decade, to Pontiac.

"As a GM worker, you learn not to worry about things that are out of your control. And you try not to let the daily news get to you too much," LeCureux said.

"Of course, everyone at some point thinks maybe they should have gone with another company, but the truth is, overall, it's really good work."

As Veronica Walker, an assembly line worker and 27-year-veteran of GM, walked out of the Pontiac plant Tuesday, she had one question on her mind: "Are they going to lay off people here?"

"I don't feel secure at all. It used to be after 10 years (working at General Motors), you felt like you would be OK," Walker said.

"But after 27 years, I have the same insecurity and feeling that tomorrow, all of it can be shut down. Now, we have concerns about our pensions."

The Pontiac Truck Assembly plant has had its share of labor strife in the recent past. Many workers are members of United Auto Workers Local 594, which just completed a raucous campaign that spawned a recall campaign and libel lawsuit.

It ended with a landslide election that ousted the current chairman, who received 21 of 1,706 votes.

Many workers became convinced the chairman did not fight hard enough to quash GM's plans to move 900 union jobs from Pontiac to its Warren technical center. And in 1997, workers here went on strike for 87 days over GM's plans to cut jobs. Federal indictments against several Local 594 leaders later were handed down, accusing them of prolonging the strike until GM agreed to hire several of their friends and relatives. The charges later were dropped.

Nevertheless, many came to the defense of GM on Tuesday.

"General Motors has been great for America," said Rick Einhueser, 48, a 28-year veteran and White Lake resident.

"We build good products. But if Americans keep buying foreign cars instead of American, what can any of us do?"

At GM's Romulus Transmission Operations plant, two veterans reacted in anger.

"They should start at the top, and not with the guys who make the product," said Andy Churilla, a 29-year employee and Garden City resident. "We have done everything they expected of us."

Churilla and Bill Howard of Allen Park said they knew changes were likely after the company's sales slumped badly earlier this year and credit agencies downgraded GM stock to junk-bond status. Howard has worked at eight GM plants through his 27-year career at GM.

"It's just shaky ground for us right now," said Howard, who assembles transmissions. "I feel sorry for the young people at GM. I'm glad I'm at the end of the road instead of the middle of it."

"This is the tip of the iceberg," Churilla said of Monday's announcement. "If we don't sell vehicles, we're going to be in a heap of trouble."

While the company begins to outline its layoff plans, Churilla and Howard had different dramatic news Monday. They learned they are being transferred to GM's Lake Orion plant next week.

You can reach Louis Aguilar at (313) 222-2760 or laguilar@detnews.com.

But, some of Dean's recent Democratic critics aren't completely wrong when they say Dean's not being careful about what he says. It IS possible, after all, to be correct and careless at the same time. Basically, Dean probably needs to stop talking about "Republicans" and start talking about "Republican leaders," "Republicans in Congress," and "the President," as well as how they exploit "hard-working Americans" and their Party's own rank and file.

He needs to not attack heedlessly, but demoralize the enemy's troops. Instead...he's leaving himself WAY too open to misinterpretation and brutal, successful attack.

Dean's most recent less-than-careful remark--regarding the GOP as a "Christian" party--is particularly unwise, I think.

There are far too many self-identified Christians who voted for Bush while holding their noses, who hate how things are going in Iraq, who didn't like the Schiavo mess, who think the country is in general going "in the wrong direction" for Dean to be potentially isolating them and losing their swing votes (many voted for Clinton) by using the word "Christian" in such a way that it could be interpreted as an an intended insult, but suggesting that all Christians are a collective "them" not welcome in the Democratic Party.

Dems aren't likely to win many GOP Congressional seats soon or the 2008 presidential race without the Jim Wallis-type progressive Christians demonstrating to other Christians--particularly to evangelicals and non-evangelicals nonetheless identifying as "born again" (forget the Fundamentalists and Pentacostals; they're essentially lost causes) that the Democratic Party is a potential home, and thereby if not swinging over some 2004 GOP votes to Democrats, at least leaving them unsure enough about the Republican Party to stay at home.

Dean's language lately hasn't helped.

Dr. Dean: for now, attack the Republican LEADERSHIP. Attack the LEADERS and undermine THEM, and the glue holding together the GOP's coalition of New Right/Christianist/Libertarians will begin to fail.

But the sentiment is the same. Dean's job is different that Mehlman's at this point, Mehlman has to keep things the way things are and his party is fine, Dean must reform his party, and getting Democrats to stand up is part of that.

Oh, and I'm sure if Mehlman was attacked 24/7 by half of his party quotes like this would come up.

From my diary Social Security Negotiation - Just Say No!:

I linked to a post by Mark Schmitt, The Decembrist, Senators' Optimal Experiences:

From the TNR article, [Game On https://ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=w050314&s=mann031805]:

That sounds perfectly sensible to Bush, the M$M and David Broder. There's one little hitch:

So what should the Democratic strategy be?

Does anyone remember the Bowers diary Five Easy Pieces?

The only way to oppose a bully is to stand up to him. The only way to deal with a liar is to call them on their bullshit.

Howard Dean is following exactly the right strategy for the Democratic party.

What do the republicks really look like?

By now it is plain that we are not engaged in a dialogue with a parliamentary adversary here. World War IV has already started. It's r hegemonists vs the rest of humanity, and patriotic Americans are at last beginning to see it this way. This is the rs' bed that they carefully made, and now they should be forced to lay in it. And, this late in the r's takeover game, a speech's actual semantic context doesn't matter as much as the fighting words themselves: Dean may have been remiss in using the word "voters" but his emotional, untempered feeling of outrage and the continued media attention are well worth the speech.

After all, how else can a patriot break through the logjam of our scared-shitless national media? This kind of fire that Dean started should be part of countless j'accuse fires that all elected and appointed Democrats should be starting, giving the rs no peace. God knows there's enough kindling fuel they left lying around.

Or should we, say, parse Thomas Paine's every word, and summarily dismiss his pamphlet should we find one phrase that may possibly be an exaggeration or distortion?

Go Howard!