Election 2006

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That is pretty well the status of any minority party.

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It's been my understanding that since George W. Bush has been president with a NeoCon Republican majority in Congress, the extent to which the minority party had been very nearly completely marginalized was unprecedented.Not just marginialized, even. Vilified, demonized.There used to be a tradition of bipartisanship in congress being seen as "good".The NeoCons threw all of that out. Edited by schrafinator, : No reason given.

http://www.jibjab.com/originals/originals/jibjab/movieid/66

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That may have been your point, but it certainly wasn't mine.

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It was in addition to yours not contra nor modifying.

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My bad.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

I would agree with the assessment that (IIRC) no single party has ever enjoyed such unilateral power within the nation as the reps just enjoyed.I'm not so comfortable speaking about a minority party being so demonized, but let me accept that for sake of argument.That doesn't change my point. Once shut out of real power, it really doesn't matter how much more one is shut out. And regardless of the degree, including demonization, how does that argue for having fallen to pieces like they did?The founding fathers were arguably shut out of power and villified. They banded together in cause. I'm not suggesting that the dems should have started a revolution, but they could have stuck together and made their presence known in a solid opposition.Instead you had constant backstabbing and doublethinking trying to figure out who was to blame for failure, and public deliberations of how to move back into power by embracing rep stances... or not rocking their boat.The neocons succeeded in placing themselves in power and undercutting dems to begin with. The dems had a hand in keeping themselves right where they landed.

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holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

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The founding fathers were arguably shut out of power and villified. They banded together in cause. I'm not suggesting that the dems should have started a revolution, but they could have stuck together and made their presence known in a solid opposition.

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Well, they (Harry Reid) shut down the government on Nov 1st, 2005 until the Intelligence Committee followed through on it's promise to investigate the Pre-Iraq intelligence.They did what they could to keep Bolton out of the UN, and he only got in through an end-run around the confirmation process.They prevented Social Security from being privatized, which was the centerpiece of Bush's domestic policy.

Reid didn't shut down the gov't, he made it close its doors to the public. That didn't result in anything much, though it did bring attention. Conversely, while he at first stood up for filibustering Bush nominations, he caved once the "gang of fourteen" made their agreement.I am glad that Bolton was kept out, but that was a divisive appointment even among reps. IIRC Bush's social security priorities also had rep detractors.Where there was staunch rep power, dems tended to scatter and even backstab. Even if I granted those incidents above as indicating some dem success at doing something, that doesn't undercut my argument. For the most part they were scattered, and even backstabbing.Given that you appear to watch the Daily Show I'm not sure how you missed Jon's references to how scattered and divided the dem party was. Tom Tomorrow and other "left" political cartoonists, as well as serious "left" authors have pointed to that same problem.They were much less effectual as a minority party than they could have been if they had simply tried to be a strong, unified minority party with a purpose.Edited by holmes, : simply

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holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)