Daschle eats his words, and then some

JBrown72073 at cs.com JBrown72073 at cs.com
Mon Mar 31 21:47:02 PST 2003


Nathan Newman writes:
>It is an inescapable fact that the most productive years of liberal
>legislation, 1936-38 and 1964-66 were periods of massive Democratic party
>majorities-- more than two thirds of the House and about the same in the
>Senate were Dems in those two periods.

You forget in 1976 under Carter where both house and senate had a veto-proof Democratic majority and the labor movement couldn't even get a simple picketing reform through.


>My view is that the real answer is to elect more Democrats, since periods


>of large numbers of Democrats in office coincide with better legislation


>passed. But you don't like that answer and prefer to analyze rhetoric, as
if that's


>far more important than anything as piciyune as actual voting power.

Nathan, most people don't vote. If they had something to vote for, they might do so. The Democrats continue to make sure that that doesn't happen by being so tepid, rhetorically and actually, not because they lack moral fiber, but because they are beholden to corporate cash and because the Democratic party has less discipline than a three year-old's birthday party. Whyn'cha start selecting candidates by convention, rather than by primary? That way if the party's position is no war, they'd *all* have to vote that way.

Jenny Brown co-chair, Alachua County Labor Party



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