The reason the Democratic Party failed so miserably in the last election and will probably in the next is multifaceted.
I think you're talking about the mid-terms elections here, not the last presidential election. I would not say that the democratic party "failed miserably". After all even though the republicans have the house, the senate, the presidency (both America's and Britain's), and the supreme court, like the republican party, the democratic party gained seats, lost seats, gained states, lost states. Here in Arizona, an extremely conservative state, also a state that hasn't had a democratic governor in 20 years, we appointed a democratic woman as governor.
As for America's political landscape, the majority of Americans really don't care either way. The voter turnout for the midterm election was the lowest for any midterm election since 1942. I did vote BTW...
What have the Democrats offered to stimulate the economy?
The economy's cyclical, there's only so much you can do to help in a time like this and many democrats are not unrealistic ito admit this. Democrats do have a better solution and that is a "hands off" approach to taking money out of the Social Security Trust Fund, money that is owed to the American people, and used it to finance tax cuts that make life worse for most Americans. The bulk of those tax cuts went to those in the top 2 percent of income earners - people like Ken Lay and other corporate plunderers of the American economy. The President's tax cuts do little to create demand. If a doctor had a patient bleeding to death, telling the patient to wait a few years for a transfusion, like the Bush plan does, wouldn't do much good.
Education - nothing except more money (not the best solution)
Democrats like Vermont's Howard Dean want to see more control placed on the local level. Vermont, BTW, was several years ahead of the federal government in improving standards and accountability in our classrooms while a new federal law will result in the mis-identification of between 30 and 65 percent of all community schools (depending on your state) as failing. The enormous cost of coming into federal compliance will fall on local property taxpayers.Keep big governmnet out of this.
War on Terror - Splintered from hawks to appeasers
Splintered? The majority of democrats support the war on terror. What's wrong with that? It just so happens that most democrats want to prioritize this issue over Iraq who, BTW, we still have no proof of having any ties to Al Qaeda...
Second, they are being seen as obstructionist for no reason. Case in point is the Latino judge that they are filibustering. They are asking him question that no judge before has been asked, impartial treatment like that will not be forgotten by the electorate.
A lot of Democrats are opposing Mr. Estrada's confirmation primarily for ideological reasons, just as I have no doubt that some of the Republicans promoting him are ideologically motivated. But many of Mr. Estrada's opponents are genuinely troubled by the same lack of information that concerns me. They're not putting blind trust in the Executive Branch's private selection criteria, or information provided by the nominee at confirmation hearings.
Third, both parties have extreme elements. The Democrats are not controlling their extreme elements they are instead being controlled by them. Too many extremely left Democrats are anti-military, blame America, and blame Jews types that are getting to much airtime creating an image for the entire party that will be a death sentence in the next election.
Are you talking about the voters or the politicans. You're always going o have extremist views in both parties...but then again, you do state that in your first sentence.
The crazy Dem from Washington the talked about the wonderful things Osama did for Arabs.
The crazy Dem from the midwest that compared Alquada to American reveloutionary fighters
The crazy Dem from the east coast that blamed the Jews
Al Gores switch from a Hawk to a dove, completly contradicting himself
Clinton's comments
Carter's comments
You are going to have to give me names and specifications here, although the democrat who made the coments about the Jews did resign he day he made that comment. All of these guys have put both of their feet in their mouths on time or another. The same with republicans like....oh, I don't know...Trent Lott, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Donald Rumsfeld (I'm amazed at his ease at putting down allies with name-calling, particularly in light of the years it took to build those relationships) Oh well, check out this link too:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/03/103.html and come back when you have a better explanation as to why the republicans want you to pay more for health care than the democrats do....
