Poll: Dems/liberals if you could vote for some other Dem besides Obama would you?

[BoomerD]

Yes. I'm a life-long Democrat who didn't vote for the Democratic candidate for President for the first time since I first started voting nearly 40 years ago.
(I CAN still say I've never voted for a candidate with (R) behind the name.)

BOTH parties have been taken over by the extremists in the party...to the detriment of America and Americans.

 

[Craig234]

Yes. I'm a life-long Democrat who didn't vote for the Democratic candidate for President for the first time since I first started voting nearly 40 years ago.
(I CAN still say I've never voted for a candidate with (R) behind the name.)

BOTH parties have been taken over by the extremists in the party...to the detriment of America and Americans.

That sounds like a 'blue dog' democrat view, that is a divide in the Democratic Party.

Those who think today's Democratic Party is 'taken over by extremists', rather than being sold out to big money interests, well, it seems delusional to me.

It's one more indication of how hard it is for the one faction that represents the public interest - the progressives - to get power, when they're at war with other Democrats. One thing both parties do face are these splits - Republicans have both the tea party and tea party haters - but Republicans seem better able to hold their nose and support the nominee.

I wonder how FDR, who represents a lot of the party's values, must sound to these people as he ranted against the excesses of the rich? Was he an 'extremist' too?

Was JFK an 'extremist' as he quietly pursued then-radical peace initiatives against the opinion of his own administration and the public?

If the Republican corporatist Obama is an 'extremist Democrat', we're in trouble.

And to some, he is. No wonder there were so many 'Reagan Democrats'. It's really an indication of how much the public has changed since the FDR-LBJ era.

But what it gives us, when 'Obama is a radical leftist' is coming from 'Democrats', is a nominee like Perry from Republicans.

This is a far cry from the day when the Republicans put up a nominee like a Taft or an Eisenhower, and the Democrats put up an 'extremist' like FDR.

 

[BoomerD]

That sounds like a 'blue dog' democrat view, that is a divide in the Democratic Party.

Those who think today's Democratic Party is 'taken over by extremists', rather than being sold out to big money interests, well, it seems delusional to me.

It's one more indication of how hard it is for the one faction that represents the public interest - the progressives - to get power, when they're at war with other Democrats. One thing both parties do face are these splits - Republicans have both the tea party and tea party haters - but Republicans seem better able to hold their nose and support the nominee.

I wonder how FDR, who represents a lot of the party's values, must sound to these people as he ranted against the excesses of the rich? Was he an 'extremist' too?

Was JFK an 'extremist' as he quietly pursued then-radical peace initiatives against the opinion of his own administration and the public?

If the Republican corporatist Obama is an 'extremist Democrat', we're in trouble.

And to some, he is. No wonder there were so many 'Reagan Democrats'. It's really an indication of how much the public has changed since the FDR-LBJ era.

But what it gives us, when 'Obama is a radical leftist' is coming from 'Democrats', is a nominee like Perry from Republicans.

This is a far cry from the day when the Republicans put up a nominee like a Taft or an Eisenhower, and the Democrats put up an 'extremist' like FDR.

Hell Craig, BOTH parties have sold out to the corporate monied interests. They no longer represent "We the People," but instead, they represent those who can best afford to "pay for play."

To me, it wasn't that Obama was a "radical leftist" that kept me from voting for him...it's that he's a Chicago politician...and IMO, Chicago politicians have almost always been corrupt...and in the pocket of big money players.

I may be a Democrat, but I'm far from being a "liberal."

 

[nonlnear]

Since there are almost an unlimited number of potential candidates from either party, I would assume that most Presidents would lose this type of poll, or at least have only a small majority. It's hard for any one person to be the real first choice of an entire party. I actually voted for Bush in 2004, and certainly there were Republicans I would have preferred.

As DaveSimmons says, for most of us it comes down to whom we perceive as the lesser evil. Or saying a pox on both their houses and voting Libertarian, the party with the advantages and disadvantages of both major parties.

Voting for the lesser evil just gives us a longer, more painful demise. Vote for the greater evil and get it over with. Or more optimistically, when the party you favor puts up a bad candidate who is slightly less evil than the other party's candidate, punish them for their horrible nomination process by voting for the greater evil. They might figure it out eventually.

 

[Rainsford]

Voting for the lesser evil just gives us a longer, more painful demise. Vote for the greater evil and get it over with. Or more optimistically, when the party you favor puts up a bad candidate who is slightly less evil than the other party's candidate, punish them for their horrible nomination process by voting for the greater evil. They might figure it out eventually.

Or alternatively you could realize that improving a situation in real life often involves a lot of incremental improvements. Voting for the lesser of two evils isn't that great taken by itself, but maybe next time you'll get a choice that's a little less evil than that. And so on, until you get a choice that's actually GOOD.

 

[nonlnear]

Or alternatively you could realize that improving a situation in real life often involves a lot of incremental improvements. Voting for the lesser of two evils isn't that great taken by itself, but maybe next time you'll get a choice that's a little less evil than that. And so on, until you get a choice that's actually GOOD.

No, the lesser of two evils doesn't actually make anything better. And a good nominee isn't going to emerge from a process that is geared to produce the maximum level of evil that is palatable.

 

[BoomerD]

Or alternatively you could realize that improving a situation in real life often involves a lot of incremental improvements. Voting for the lesser of two evils isn't that great taken by itself, but maybe next time you'll get a choice that's a little less evil than that. And so on, until you get a choice that's actually GOOD.

In a perfect world...maybe that would happen...but it seems like it's just the opposite.

"These voters keep voting against their own best interests...let's keep giving them candidates that are worse and worse for them...and better and better for us. Pretty soon, we'll own the whole planet, and there won't be a thing they can do about it."

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Democrats are not liberals. Stop confusing the two.

 

[Craig234]

No, the lesser of two evils doesn't actually make anything better. And a good nominee isn't going to emerge from a process that is geared to produce the maximum level of evil that is palatable.

You need to support fixing the broken system AND vote for the lesser of evils. All that voting for the 'greater of evils' does is cause more evil.

Take it from liberals, since you aren't one, liberals learned this lesson as they said "ok, with Bush the country will have a big backlash and turn to the left!"

Didn't happen in 2004, and wasn't worth it in 2008. Doesn't work.

What DOES work better is electing better people - incremental change does work better. It's worked for the radical right.

Goldwater was the 'radical right', then Reagan moved it further, then George W. Bush moved it further, now we have Perry. Next, who knows?

 

[nonlnear]

You need to support fixing the broken system AND vote for the lesser of evils. All that voting for the 'greater of evils' does is cause more evil.

The evil is systemic and will continue growing barring some pretty radical changes. It is beyond my power to change - or rather to guarantee change. I'm just hoping to live long enough to see the other side of the collapse. I am able to live a happy life even under the worst imaginable Republicrat government. For that I am grateful, but I don't feel indebted to others - especially those who truly believe in working within the system to effect change - for my sustenance. They can do their thing and I'll do mine.

Take it from liberals, since you aren't one, liberals learned this lesson as they said "ok, with Bush the country will have a big backlash and turn to the left!"

Didn't happen in 2004, and wasn't worth it in 2008. Doesn't work.

I'm not sure what you think you are proving here. The Dems put forward a corporatist kleptocrat just like the GOP. It's not like they had finally managed to nominate Kucinich for 2008 or something. If they had then you might have had a point.

What DOES work better is electing better people - incremental change does work better. It's worked for the radical right.

Goldwater was the 'radical right', then Reagan moved it further, then George W. Bush moved it further, now we have Perry. Next, who knows?

Oh for another Barry Goldwater. You're getting me all teary eyed. I'm not sure how you put Goldwater, Reagan, and Bush as varying magnitudes of the same "rightness" (here meaning an end of the spectrum, not "being correct"). Nothing could be farther from the truth. Reagan and Bush are a completely different breed of Republican from Goldwater.

 

[Siddhartha]

The lesson from the 1980 and 2000 POTUS elections is if you split the Democratic vote the Republicans win. Considering who the Republicans are going to choose for their 2012 POTUS nominee their winning next year will be a worse disaster for the country than Mr Reagan or Mr Bush were.

 

[zsdersw]

It appears for the moment that the 2012 election will be just like the 2008 election for me; not "completing the arrow" for any POTUS candidate and "completing the arrow" only for state/local races.

 

[werepossum]

who are the other Democrat candidates running besides Obama? Randall Terry and Warren Mosler. lol Bush would have a better chance to get nominated by the democrat party than those two nobody's.

I took your question to be if you had a desirable choice, not which of the three you'd vote for.