Using poll results to predict an election more than nineteen months from now is a waste of time.

The blue team and the red team work for the same corporate sponsors, so it’s not like it matters who wins anyway – we’ve got indefinite detention, assassination of citizens, unauthorized war and the nationalization of Romneycare all on the blue team, which is about what I’d expect from the red team.

NO MORE DINOS

Oh, joy…. The Republicans will be out and the Vichycrats will be in. And the whole world will be both hunky and dory again.

Jon, is this supposed to be some some very dry snark? The Dems had a huge majority in 09 to 11 and did not do shit.

AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Jon Walker:

My recent and on-goin’ experience in Wisconsin reinforces the Democracy Corps poll projection of possible significant increases accross the board in other states and regions. In fact, I believe that we can possibly get a twofer, both more AND better (read “real”) Democrats. What I have seen happenin’ here in my Western Wisconsin district as a result of our recall efforts and the looming Supreme Court election is simply that the hollowed out shell of the party that Obama left after January 2009 is rapidly bein’ filled by energized and motivated people, many of them female. The recall efforts focus attention on state races and buildin’ local infrastructure that was pretty much dismantled when Obama disbanded the DNC 50 state operation and pink-slipped the state organizers.

I can tell ya this: if we get Kloppenbeurg elected to the SCOTW and succeeed in at least 5 0f the 8 senate recalls, then Governor Shitforbrains is doomed to recall next January and the new Governor (probably Feingold) will command a state party operation already geared up for 2012. The state convention and presidential primary could get VERY interestin’ and I believe that resistence to Obama over the wars and jobs could go viral in the key states of the rust belt and pressure ‘im to move away from his right-wing comfor zone and get a DNC that at the very least is controlled by Howard Dean or his brother.

Thanks for publishin’ this good news for those of us who have been tryin to create some kinda progressive insurgency inside the Democratic Party.

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, LET’S PARTY LIKE IT’S 1968!!

I simply don’t know which team to root for anymore.
I hate the Democrats, but the GOP hates me.

I didn’t see where Jon attempted to evaluate what the Democrats might do if they get back control of the House, just that current polling shows they are more likely than they once were to regain control. Did we read the same post?

I hate the Democrats, but the GOP hates me.

Excellently put.

The monster obama voted out. democrats take over congress. Maybe then the democrats will act like democrats.

Yayyy!!

FINALLY!!!

The Democrats will have majorities in both houses so they can finally pass significant legislation to help the “lesser people.” Oh wait…

I doubt it. They’ll still be corporate controlled Vichycrats, treachers to everything they say they stand for.

LMAO OFG! Sometimes the simple comments are the best ones!

Citizen Teddy Partridge:

I never took you for a “hater”, Brother Teddy, and I am saddened but certainly respect your right to those feelings especially given your experience as a gay folk in this prison farm. However, I’m wonderin’ if you might not take a look and see if your anger might not be displaced or maybe you might ta be generalizin’ on a group label (Democrats) instead of focusin’ that anger on the institutional fear and ignorance that has cost all of us in this country. If you remove yourself from behind the barracaids of anger and start reachin out to those who are just now openin’ their eyes, I wonder if you might not be even more effective than you are…Peace Citizen Tedster.

We need a third party.

Dems are not our friends.

Don’t root for either of them. Find another team. As long as the same corporate sponsors control the game, the game will be fixed.

For progressives, 2012 really is going to be a side show.

The election that progressives need to focus on in 2014. And it should not write off currently strong majority Republican districts even in the South and West, even in Texas and Oklahoma. It is a time of opportunity because the public will be still wanting change and will distrust Republicans after the Tea Party fiasco. And the primary issue is the same as the progressive issue from a hundred years ago — corruption. The poster child is the revolving door between government, lobbying, and corporations.

There then is two years for progressives to line up candidates and create an infrastructure to turn out the vote and a media strategy that flies under the radar and avoids the large expenditures required for subsidizing the Republican and corporate media. Tactically, progressives could use 2012 and 2013 (even this year) to put up local and state candidates. In 2014, progressives could field candidates, endorse major party candidates of either party, or run independent candidates. 170,000 votes x 218 districts in the right states gets you control of Congress. That requires some 37 million voters voting progressive.

Let’s be clear, there are still some Democrats who are good progressives. I’m thinking of Lloydd Doggett for example. Most have become corporate tools and those are the ones I call “Vichycrats”. I think it’s important to keep those groups separate. Doggett deserves to be re-elected, Steve Israel does not.

Teeter totter politics. Both sides despicable.

Citizen TarheelDem:

Forcus on today, Citizen, don’t write ANY district or locality off between now and 2012…build the infrastructure and cultivate candidates in positions of responsibility and political visability. Start inside the Democratic Party and take ‘em with you if you hafta leave but stay in the field and create some heat for the corporate Obamabots.

It would seem Democrats might be gaining thanks to the fact that Congressional Republicans haven’t done a good job of winning over the public,

So it’s the battle to decide which party sucks less. In 2006, the Democrats promised to suck way less than Republicans. By 2009-2010, it was clear that the Democrats suck just as much as Republicans. Now the Democrats are gaining ground because, well, maybe they suck a little less after all.

This is effing pathetic.

Through it all, the phrase “corporate America” is taking on a whole new meaning. And the American people/workers/consumers are getting screwed.

Someone needs to tell Pelosi to stop sending out DCCC emails asking for contributions with assertions that the Republicans are the problem.

Instead, she needs to admit that there’s a problem in the Democratic Party and promise to take the Democratic Party to victory by weeding out the DINOs and other pos sellouts in her ranks.

It’s a long time until 2012 election but the poll is interesting. Shows that it doesn’t take long for the Repubs to piss off large segments of the population.

Oh wait…

Doh!

Fool me once…

That requires some 37 million voters voting progressive.

We already had an election where over 50 million voted progressive and got the status quo.

Make no mistake, Obama and the Democratic Party ran a progressive populist campaign. The Republicans even knew, that’s why they were so scared about health care reform and immediately got to calling him a socialist.

We all heard his campaign saying he was going to bring back the rule of law to the White House, he was going to reform health care and mandates were the wrong way to go, that he was going to end the war in Iraq by 2009, and we all KNEW what all of those messages meant. They were progressive messages of real change from the status quo. And the voters gave him and Democrats the biggest landslide in a very long time with huge majorities in both Houses, only to see????

I can pardon the voters if they feel like been there, done that, so why bother anymore. I can’t advocate for not voting, but I can understand the logic of those who don’t. When you go out and do something big, and don’t see any results from it whatsoever, getting those folks to commit to the same thing ain’t easy.

And all of this is the DEMOCRATIC PARTY’s fault. At the national level they CHOSE each of these outcomes.

Yep. Not even two sides of the same coin anymore…unless it’s a double headed quarter.

The Rs have been working on pissing off everyone except the very rich for decades. Now they’re getting really good at it.

In 2006, the Democrats promised to suck way less than Republicans. By 2009-2010, it was clear that the Democrats suck just as much as Republicans.

Although I expect volatility of the electorate to continue, I don’t expect “we suck less” to work any better for the Dems in 2012 than it did in 2010.

I would argue that they just don’t give a shit about pissing the people off because they now know the Democrats do their corporate bidding just as well if they do lose.

But at the end of the day, why they’re so brazen about treating lesser people like turds is irrelevant.

Yep. Just get lobbying jobs when pol career ends. After CU, I expect it won’t be very long bef being U.S. prez and being on corp boards at same time will be SOP.

The Democrats don’t hate you Teddy. But they WILL fuck you. And not in a good way. Maybe you don’t really have to choose either one.

Revolving door or conveyor belt? It’s pretty sickening. The ruling caste and their lapdog media are all just in it for themselves. “Public service” is about the biggest misnomer around these days.

But how will the Democrats motivate their base ? How about punching some hippies, recruiting Blue Dogs, cutting Social Security and cutting taxes for the rich some more ?

Right on… Let’s pray… (not serious pray)

How much would anyone bet that the Democratic Party leadership (including Obama) sees these poll results and scared??

“Oh noes, we’ll have the majority in both Houses again??? But then we can’t blame the Republicans anymore and the public will expect us to DO something!! Nooooooooooooooo.”

No doubt that’s the plan. Steve Israel is in charge at the DCCC. Van Hollen didn’t hate hippies enough apparently.

yes. truly.

And, let’s not forget that “any old Democrat” isn’t good enough. Candidates need to be progressive to turn things around.

Yep. Party affiliation is meaningless to me. Everybody in office is so far to the right of me, almost all of them are out of my field of view.

Unfortunately Obama and the Democrats are channeling Ronald Reagan.

Perhaps advance notice of this poll is what gave Nancy her fainting spell.

They should be so liberal…

It is a progressive conceit that all 50 million of the voters in 2008 voted for progressive reasons. A lot of people did not think John McCain and Sarah Palin qualified. A lot of people voted purely to “make history”.

As long as we continue this conceit, we will not do what needs to be done to win. We will think that we do not need to persuade, to have a progressive infrastructure, to have to build a non-corporate media strategy. We will continue to be angry at Democrats instead of acting to elect progressives even in some counter-intuitive areas. For example, the election of a Woody Guthrie progressive in Oklahoma would send shock waves through the political establishment. Or a pro-union candidate in the Carolinas. Or to take the Congressional seat in Wyoming.

People right now are in a red team/blue team frame. How do progressives break that frame and talk about kitchen table issues and the need to deal internationally with the world as it is instead of some regurgitated form of the Cold War. There is a lot of disenthrallment work that progressives must do on both “conservatives” and “centrists”. A lot of the facts that they understand about the nation, the world, and the economy is false.

Even if the Dems somehow regained the party’s former soul, fear not, because they’d fuck up another majority just as bad as they fucked up their last one.

I agree, but realize that 2012 is rehearsal for 2014 and 2016.

Oh yes, and start looking for younger politicians. Have you noticed how ancient most of the progressive politicians have gotten. And yes, a farm team.

In 2010, Dems had the House. “We suck less” will work better for the Dems in 2012 because the Repubs now have the House.

change you can believe in

Democrats? Who do they think they’re gonna get to vote for them? As far as I’m concerned, any liberal or leftist who votes for a democrat again is an idiot. Sorry.

Like my dear old departed Dad used to say, “You might shit, too. If you eat enough.”

Put shit in one hand and hope in the other and see which one fills up faster.

Iconic populist George Corley Wallace said it best: “There’s not a dimes worth of difference between the Democrats and the Republicans.” What we need is less diversity of ideas and more party discipline.

The fact is Republican consolidation in places like Arizona, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Florida (and elsewhere) has changed nothing. The policies of the Koch brothers are the policies of both the Republican and the Democratic parties and their leaders everywhere.

Federal law that emerges from the Boehner-lead House of Representatives is no different than federal law that emerged from the Pelosi-lead House of Representatives. The irrelevance of party control is laregely a function of the DINO phenomena, most frequently and accurately identified with the Congressional Blue Dog Caucus. So to understand why party control is irrelevant, it is necessary to telescope all the way from the Speaker’s chair to individual faces in the House crowd.

Probably the best illustration of the cog-for-cog interchangeability of the more conservative Democrats in Congress with Republicans is found in the 8th Congressional District of Illinois. Reviled, imperfect Blue Dog Melissa Bean was defeated in November by 2011 Congressional Tea Party Caucus Member Joe Walsh.

Bean opposed drilling for oil in Lake Michigan (a large source of drinking water for her district), opposed the Bush “surge” in Iraq, and voted pro-choice. But she voted for the reviled, imperfect health care reform now referred to as Obamacare. In 2006 she voted to extend about $66 billion in tax cuts. She voted to permanently reduce the estate tax. Without question, Bean kept her door open to both Republicans and Democrats, and sometimes she even voted in favor of a generally Republican-supported position.

Walsh says the science behind global warming is “not definitive,” and that U.S. economic interests should come first in any discussion of climate agreements. He is for cuts in Social Security and Medicare. He has opposed extending unemployment benefits, even after telling reporters that there is nearly 11 percent unemployment in his district and that “people are hurting.” He favored extending the $3.9 trillion in Bush tax cuts, abolishing the estate tax and cutting both the capital gains and corporate tax rates.

But Walsh, at least, will vote to repeal Obamacare.

I remember older, wiser 60’s radicals voting for Reagan to hasten the revolution. Heck, Gene McCarthy endorsed Reagan in 1980. We can do no less.

Many cynical people here. As disappointed as I am with the Dems, they’re still head and shoulders better than the Repubs. Given the last few months, I’m surprised that more people aren’t recognizing that. The shallowness of the “both parties are exactly alike” belief has become apparent in recent weeks.

Democrats have ignored the needs of those in the middle/working classes, and have disrespected those who worked for their election in the last three national elections. They’ve been weak and indecisive, too prone to compromise in a futile search for a “bipartisanship” that’s neither attainable nor desirable. They fumbled their opportunity to bring about real changes that the majority of Americans want and need.

All that aside, we know the Repubs will be worse. People may have to hold their collective nose, but putting the Dems in power wherever possible is still the better alternative.

If democrats take control again with the DLC crowd again, they’ll just turn around and lose again without fixing anything, and our national tailspin will be worse than ever. I used to read the DLC’s magazine they literally propose a tax credit to solve every problem. We have to focus on purging this idiocy from the party. Progressives have time on our side, the demographic shift ensures progressive majorities in the future, se must spent the time running centerists out of the party or the democrat brand or more broadly liberalism won’t have any credibilty.

Purge. Yes.

A mosaic of bright red, square, same-sized pieces. Now that’s art!

There’s strength in small numbers, if all the numbers are the same.

Debt Prison – http://money.msn.com/debt-management/article.aspx?post=bf5c3932-1d21-436f-b20f-093e0da61b6c too

Dem party is too big we need a purge I said that at least three times on this blog. When is Black America going to hold the Dems accountable? That is the real question. When a nice chunk of your voting block doesn’t vote guess what? Dems don’t get elected. I agree with the need to fortify the House and Senate with Progressive so even the corp bought dems can’t even screw it up.

At this point its a NUMBERS game. We just need more Progressives and to control the party at the party level, who cares who’s in the WH! To take back the House we need to replace every seat with a confirmed Progressive with a proven track record. States like mine, California can lock and reload, not concerned though some of the areas of the state are quite Conservative and produce idiots like Issa, that can’t be helped. All you can do is minimize their influence.

I agree with many that it would be easier, cheaper, quicker, etc. to just commandeer the existing shell of the Democratic Party. Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, etc. will reveal new and real progressive Democrats. We need to purge the party of DINOs and frauds like BHO.

Demand That These Bold, Progressiv­e Policies Be Included In The Democratic Party Platform – 2012! Sign petition below…

1. Never renew the Bush tax cuts

2. End the foreclosur­e crisis – give bankruptcy judges the power to order reductions in mortgage principal owed

3. National Infrastruc­­­ture Bank – run by engineers, not politician­­­s. Federal government invest $2 trillion over 10 years to create jobs now and increase productivi­­­ty later. Put millions back to work. Fund with a millionair­­­e’s tax

4. Reform Budget – balance the budget by raising taxes on the super-rich­­­, contain the explosion of health-car­­­e costs, end agricultur­­­al subsidies, stop corporate welfare, cut the defense budget, end the wars (another form of corporate welfare)

5. Reform Health Care – add the public option. Allow Medicare to purchase drugs. Give MEDPAC wider authority. Allow drug re-importa­­­tion

6. Create A Carbon Tax – to reduce consumptio­n, increase energy efficiency and make alternativ­e energy more cost-compe­titive. Revenues generated should go to reducing payroll taxes to stimulate employment

7. Reform Education – make higher education free to families that can’t afford it to encourage upward mobility in society. Fund with a financial transactio­­­ns and bank tax

8. Reform Wall St. – break up the big banks and strengthen the Volker Rule

9. Reform Federal Elections – enact the Fair Elections Now Act. Strictly voluntary. Matching funds. $100.00 maximum donation.

10. Reform Social Security – raise the ceiling on income subject to the Social Security tax to $180,000. Congress can gradually slow the growth of benefits for middle and high earners while still allowing these benefits to rise in terms of absolute dollars and purchasing power. Lower-wage earners would receive everything they are now promised. Eliminate deficit

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/18/demand-that-these-bold-progressive-policies-are-included-in-the-democratic-party-platform—2012/

If the Dems manage to take back the House the speaker and her majority need to have a sit-down with Obama if he is re-elected and tell him who’s running the show. Having a compliant group of “yes sirs” to Obama will simply do no good. You would think the lesson was learned in 2010. Obama lost the House for the Dems in 2010. He cannot be allowed to run the show any longer. Progressives will support any Dems who take an independent progressive stand – which will mean leaving Obama behind in the dust.

3rd party please! We don’t need to same old Donkey Crap after the GOP Pachyderm Crap we have been shoveling!!!!!!!!!!!,,they both stink!!!