Summations Only

That's really not true, Coyote."The left" has been fractured for decades. Even when Democrats had a majority in both houses on Congress and the Presidency, they still couldn't pass truly liberal healthcare reform, just as one example."The left" in the US is a fragmented mess. The Republicans will stand together and vote en mass; the Democrats can't even manage that much. That's why Democrats have needed to seek compromise and buy-in from Republicans, even when their numbers meant they shouldn't have had to.Obama was the first real Democratic candidate I ever saw make use of a "grass roots" movement...and then he just let it all go as soon as he was inaugurated. The closest "the left" had to a Tea Party-esque movement to date has been small groups of "progressives" or the Green Party, none of which has managed to force their representatives to answer to their base in the way the Teabaggers have.

Then their organization sucks. They could barely get a health INSURANCE reform bill through Congress. They completely failed at the progressive push for health care reform.As to the Tea Party, I don't dislike them because they are organized. I dislike them because of what they stand for. There really isn't any competition since very few progressives will find anything to like in the TP movement. I think it could also be argued that neither movement is competing for centrist votes. It is really the centrist voters that need to start leaning one way or the other in order for either agenda to gain momentum.

What was he supposed to do with it, exactly? Please be specific. Could you identify the provision of the constitution that allows the executive to pass legislation purely on the basis of having a "grass roots" movement?The Tea Party extracts concessions because they have a proven track record of successful primary challenges. Not only do Democratic primaries not work like that, but Democratic voters haven't ever proven that they can deliver a candidate. In fact, what they've proven time and time again is that you absolutely cannot count on the Democratic base to deliver votes for anything but a Presidental election. Special election? Dems won't go. Mid-terms? Dems won't go.Republicans can nominate a conservative ham sandwich and be able to count on a massive plurality of energized Republican voters, because they turn out for their own. Democrats eat their own. Everybody portrays the election of Scott Brown as some major repudiation by the voters of Massachussets of a health care system they resoundingly support, but the truth - which makes a lot more sense - is that Republicans turn out for elections and Democrats only turn out for Presidents. Even with the Senate's supermajority - and therefore the future of health care reform - on the line, Democrats couldn't be bothered to turn up at the polls.Obama's just one guy, and he kind of already has a job - running the country. Demanding that Obama somehow magically energize an un-energizable base is nothing but "I want a pony" thinking. Obama didn't create the "grass roots" campaign that put him into office; the roots picked him. It was the root's responsibility to keep the momentum going, but as soon as they won the election Democrats did what they always do - folded like card tables and forgot about every single election until 2012.

You should listen to Thom Hartman. If traditional radio isn't your thing, I think he has a podcast but IIRC that is subscription. Well worth it though.He has Bernie Sanders on every friday which is awesome. He talks a lot about the national popular vote pact. IMO that is our best path forward.

Very few people like the Tea Party these days.

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According to a recent New York Times/CBS survey, tea party members are less popular than atheists, Muslims, Republicans, Democrats, and 21 other groups. The movement has lost 20 percent of its supporters and gained 40 percent more opponents, according to the poll. Another NYT/CBS poll published earlier this month revealed that the tea party’s unfavorable rating had increased 29 percent since April.

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According to the Times, the tea party is catching up to the Christian Right’s low popularity. Times writers David E. Campbell and Robert D. Putnam present possible justifications for this, stating that the tea party’s mixing of politics and religion simply doesn’t appeal to the majority of Americans. Citing Texas Governor Rick Perry’s prayer rally and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s lengthy prayers at campaign stops, the story claims pro-tea party folks are becoming increasingly out of step with most Americans, even many Republicans.

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Poll: Tea party less popular than Muslims, atheists | The Daily CallerBefore you reject the poll results because they come from a "lib" newspaper, note that these results have been replicated by others.The Tea Party is essentially an instrument of the religious right, insisting they are "Taxed Enough Already" when taxes are lower than they've been in most of their lifetimes. They deride Obama as a tax and spend liberal when he has cut taxes; they stockpile ammo and buy guns by the crate because Obama will take their guns away, while he has explicitly rejected any thought of doing so.The Tea Party has pushed past unreasonableness, through irrationality and far into self-delusion.Most TPers reject evolution, supporting prayer, creationism and religious instruction in public schools. They want "government hands off my Medicare" while they support candidates who support gutting both Social Security and Medicare.I'm surprised to find someone capable of the rationality you show in this forum in their company.I'm curious: Did you think the Civil Right marches and anti-Vietnam war protests were far left-wing efforts?Edited by Omnivorous, : 2nd irrationality->self-delusion

Perhaps, although organized, the far left is much smaller than they would have you believe?

I don't think there even is a left in the US these days.

It depends upon where you are looking from.Someone on the far left would see others on the far left as mainstream.

Here I is!

Oh, you're so naive. As the VP of the NRA has explained, not taking away their guns is part of a "massive Obama conspiracy" to take away their guns: See?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

It's not the far left who describe everyone who isn't actually a registered Republican as being on the far left.

Taq writes: I've often held the view the every office on the Ballot should have an option to select "None Of The Above". And if None Of The Above wins, then everyone that was on the Ballot for that office is booted off the ballot and a new slate of candidates is drawn up and the voting is tried again.My Democrat father was on a vote-counting team with a Republican woman and, as they worked through the stack to corroborate the selections with each other, they were perplexed at the sheer number of completely blank ballots - it was as if these voters took the ballot, went behind the curtain, counted up to 50, came out and sent the ballot into the box blank, and left, thinking "There - I've voted. I've done my duty."

I probably qualify as far left. Liberals make me impatient, and conservatives--real conservatives--passed away a long time ago.It's pretty lonely out here. The mainstream in the US today is lost in a near-fascist fog.Nearly every 20th century Republican president would be unacceptable to the right now, including Nixon, Ford and Reagan. I know Reagan is the patron saint of the GOP, but no one who would raise taxes a dozen times, dismiss evangelicals as kooks and refuse to wage abortion wars, and compromise with Democrats for the good of the country, could pass Republican muster, however misty-eyed they get about "The Gipper."I suppose to those who think unions are socialist thugs, teachers are parasites and Obama is a liberal, the left looks big.

I agree with the sentiment, but I don't think it would be practical. Run-off elections for local offices in my part of the country always draw a much, much smaller crowd than the initial election. It is hard enough to get people to show up for the first election, much less a second, or perhaps a third.A better solution would be to rework the primary process, IMHO. I am not sure how it could be done, but we need a better way to get top candidates onto the ballot, perhaps even outside of party lines. Wow. Didn't know it was that common.

He could have used the massive popular support to put pressure on his fellow Democrats to actually be responsive to their base. Just off the top of my head. Obama won the 2008 election with a huge public mandate against Bush-era policies on a message of change, and then he squandered the political force he gained as a candidate and began capitulating from day one. Strawman. I never claimed any such thing, or even implied it. I claimed that Obama "let go" of his popular support once he became President. Really crash, there's no need for this. If you want to debate whether or not a large grassroots movement is actually useful to a sitting President, we can do that, but there's no need to lower yourself to the equivalent of demanding I produce evidence of a crocoduck to support speciation. I'd go further - you can't even guarantee that Dems will even show up for a Presidential election. Let's not forget 2000 and particularly 2004. I believe my previous post detailed my views on the "unity" or lack thereof in the American "left." Republicans have multiple advantages in energizing their base. Religious endorsements, while technically illegal (as in, clergy cannot endorse or otherwise support or decry a political candidate as a representative of his religious organization while that religious organization remains tax-exempt), tend to strongly favor the candidate furthest to the "right." This is essentially free publicity and strong social pressure on a weekly basis. Fox News\Clearchannel are a blatant mouthpiece for the Republican Party, rehashing their talking points on multiple programs.The Democrats don't have a comparable media presence, partially because the voting base of the "left" tends to view such blatantly biased media to be undesireable on principle. And the "left" is traditionally on the "pro-choice," pro-equality side of the religious debate, meaning the large evangelical population would never support a "left" candidate for anything. No argument. As I said, Obama is the only candidate on the "left" (and I really consider him more "center" myself) that I've ever seen whip up such an energized base of popular support, which promptly disappeared after the election itself. Just as a quick thought, I would wonder at the demographics of the "left" and how that contributes. My general speculation is that voters on the "left" are far more likely to be apathetic, younger, and view themselves as "independent" than voters on the "right," who tend to be older, and more closely tied to community groups like religious institutions that provide the fuel of social pressure. Mild disagreement, crash. Obama did use effective marketing strategies in his campaign. Essentially we were looking at management of the "Obama brand," and it was done extremely well. The problem is that, after the election, the base expected to see some "hope and change," some "yes we can;" and instead of continuing to rally his support, instead of hosting massive events with tens of thousands of attendees like during his election campaign to sell his proposals and pressure Congress with his massive public mandate...Obama went and started asking the minority Republicans for permission and giving up on campaign promises as "impossible to push through Congress" right from the beginning.Why do you think the base lost steam? Because Obama had two years to start giving hope and initiating change...and Guantanamo remained open, healthcare reform turned out to be the biggest disappointment in the history of the word, banks continued to get bailouts while people lost jobs...When you tell your base "this is what I'm going to do, this is why you're electing me, lets do this!" and then you proceed to bend over and take it from the opposition, your base becomes discouraged. Where he should have been continuing to energize the public and selling his proposals and using the public mandate to pressure them through Congress, he instead demoralized the base by showing that he wasn't really going to follow through on basically anything he had promised.