Saturday, July 24, 2010

The Democrats Continue to Whine "But We're Better than Republicans"

It is pretty pathetic when a political party's main argument for re-electing its members is that they're not as bad as the other alternative, the GOP. Yet that ids the reality of today's Congressional Democrats. The Democratic base is pissed off and unenthusiastic and with good reason. Barack Obama and the Congressional Democrats made soaring campaign promises and have delivered on little after a year and a half in office - and that's despite holding the White House and controlling both houses of Congress. Lack of leadership by the president and lack of spine among members of Congress have been the principal hallmarks since Obama was sworn in in January, 2009. If the Congressional Democrats get decimated in the 2010 mid-terms, in my estimation, they will have no one to blame but themselves, and most specifically their utterly ineffectual "leader," Barack Obama. PBS has a piece that looks at the frustration of the Base versus the same old bullshit from Obama and his talking heads. Here are highlights:
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JUDY WOODRUFF: But it wasn't until this month that he delivered his first major address on immigration reform since becoming president. And it came amid a heated national debate, sparked by a controversial new Arizona law that proponents said was a response to the failure of the federal government to act on the issue.
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Democratic Representative Raul Grijalva of Arizona, co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus, says he expected the administration to deal with immigration sooner.
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REP. RAUL GRIJALVA, D-Ariz.: The effort put in to -- to energizing Latino voters, the effort put into getting the endorsements of significant organizations across this country, the commitments made in front of national organizations that deal with immigration reform, all those indicated to me that it was a priority, and that it was going to be a priority not just in the first term, but in the first year.
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REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: I think we have taken the progressive community for granted. I think we have been good soldiers for this administration and for our leadership, consistently taking the tough votes, even when we had to swallow. And -- and I think the progressive community has been appropriately supportive of this president and this -- this -- majorities in Congress. I -- I think they need to be worried, because it's their base. It's -- it keeps our party erect. And we need them in elections. If they don't show up, we're going to have bigger problems than people think.
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JUDY WOODRUFF: "The Advocate"'s Eleveld points out there could also be a financial impact for Democrats.
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KERRY ELEVELD: There is a fair amount of money that flows from the LGBT community to the Democratic National Committee, to the president, to Democrats in general. And I think what you're really wondering is, what's going to happen to that flow of money? Are people going to start saying, why are we giving to Democrats? Why are we giving to the Democratic National Committee? Why are we giving to the president? Maybe we should just be picking individual candidates.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Axelrod asserts, Democrats need to focus on the real choice facing them.
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DAVID AXELROD: The Republican Party hasn't been subtle at all. Congressman Sessions, the leader of the Democratic -- of the Republican Campaign Committee, said last weekend that we want to go back to doing exactly what we were doing before this president was elected.

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