Burnt Orange Report

Sometimes it's not substance but style.

Frost is getting killed on this.

If he can't beat Howard Dean, how's he gonna beat the right-wingers?

Andrew, if this is really how you feel about politics, that there is a spectrum that we can dominate by virtue of inhabiting the most space on the left-to-right axis, it might be more convincing to advocate for Frost as a "Conservative Democrat" rather than a moderate, which BOR has been calling him. Calling him "moderate" in light of these ads leaves a great deal of "acceptable" political space to the right, and while I think Frost is certainly a valid Democrat, to many Dems he's about as far-right a Democrat as we'd accept. (Zell Miller and even Joe Lieberman are fine examples of the "unacceptable" and "nervous" zone of our party, and Lieb is even more liberal than Frost).

Then again, if I had made those ads (though of course I didn't), I'd have called Frost an "independent", "maverick", or "bipartisan voice" for his party and for Texas. That said, I'm not at all sure of your left-to-right real estate model of partisan politics: I think the GOP will surprise us with exactly how far rightwards/backwards we can possibly go.

Matt W. took the words right out of my....fingers. Joe Lieberman is a perfect example of the "nervous" zone, and I'd say Frost is slightly right of him. I'm tired of hearing that the Democratic Party should move anywhere at all...I'm tired of pseudo-Democrats, period. It simply DOES NOT WORK to position ourselves as everything left of the right, when the right stops at Attila the Hun.

Someday, it will be a good thing to proclaim that one is a LIBERAL again, and that one represents the Democratic wing of the Democratic party.

Dean for DNC Chair, because we NEED him to stay alive.

I'll continue to call Frost a moderate, because any reasonable look at his voting record puts him in the moderate mainstream of the Democratic Party. His voting record is not uniformly conservative. Frost is more conservative than the average Democrat on some issues (i.e. national security, defense, etc.), and more liberal than many Democrats on some other issues (i.e. gay rights, abortion, civil rights, etc.). On the balance, he's a moderate.

I just talked to a good friend who has renounced the Democratic Party because we keep sucking up to the right. Alienating our base and focusing on being republican-lite, instead of articulating our values in a way that encourages swing voters to embrace them and therefore expanding our base is not the best strategy. Whomever takes over the DNC chairmanship need to recognize this, and I hope they are willing to reach out to people who know what it is to be a Democrat and are not ashamed of being one.

We should make it clear that country comes before party, and that is what distinguishes us from Republicans. That Martin Frost joined every congressional Democrat and all but 9 Republicans in supporting a bill introduced by the President doesn't disqualify him, and that he pointed out his opponent's inability to lead doesn't disqualify him.

Yes, country must come before party, and it's not Martin Frost's votes in Congress that are at issue.

It's tying himself so tightly to the prominent Republican leaders in pointing out his own qualifications. The knots are not going to loosen by themselves, and the Republicans will certainly use every opportunity to tie them tighter and paint the Democratic Party as wannabe Republicans who fail the high moral standards of the GOP.

It will publically undermine the party in a way the Dean scream never will, for example, because it erodes the very distinctions the Party must make to successfuly be an opposition party.

Those pictures were, I must assume unless someone was seriously asleep at the wheel which is a whole 'nother set of issues, chosen to link Frost to the Republican Party supported by most of his district. Understandable, and certainly no disqualification for party membership, or many positions of party leadership.

But it does disqualify him as Chair of the DNC.

My disclaimer. I'm not a Dem, because like Andrea's friend I left over the "wannabe Republican-ness" of the late nineties. I'm watching this race with interest, however, because I do have a lot at stake.

If the DNC elects a reform candidate, that will bring me closer in. Otherwise, I'll stay Independent, or give the Greens another look.