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mm1711 commented on the blog post 96-Year-Old Tennessee woman denied Voter ID: didn’t have her marriage license
Staying home last year worked out so well for all of us. You really showed those Dems and that Obama guy by letting the tea party hijack the House of Representatives and a bunch of governors mansions. They clearly got the message. Maybe next year, everyone can stay home again, so we can have GOP majorities, with significant numbers of tea partiers, in both houses, PLUS a GOP President. If you want to see Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida and Maine writ large, by all means, abstain a year from now. This isn’t a scare tactic; we have all seen what Scott Walker, Jon Kasich and Rick Scott have been able to get away with in less than 1 year.
If we all want a third party, or want to start primarying fake Dems in favor of Alan Grayson-type progressive candidates, then we need to organize now and set our sights on 2014 and 2016. In the meantime, helping the GOP take over our country again (and giving the tea party politicians even more of an opportunity to make even more of a mess than they already have) isn’t going to help anyone’s cause
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mm1711 commented on the blog post Marist Poll: 49 Percent Definitely Plan to Vote Against Obama
It seems clear to me that most of the folks that visit this site regularly are either going to vote 3rd party, write in a candidate, or abstain from voting altogether in 2012. While I can’t blame any of you and I am certainly fed up with our two-party system and deeply disappointed in Obama’s performance and in particular, the utter contempt his administration has shown for the progressive left, I am also keenly aware of what will happen to our democracy if Perry takes the White House and the teabaggers gain majorities in both houses. It won’t be 4 or 8 “lost” years like we had under Bush–it will be the end of what is left of our democracy. Perhaps this is where we’re headed regardless of who gets elected, but–and call me a fool, or naive–I still hold out some hope that our future will be better with Dems in office than if we give the truly crazy tea party-dominated GOP full run of our government. It is impossible not to take for granted many of the freedoms we still enjoy as Americans. If we turn over our government to the tea party, those freedoms will be gone in a hurry. Look how quickly the tea party governors have been able to move in WI, Michigan, Ohio and Florida. By abstaining, or voting for a candidate who has no chance whatsoever of winning, you are essentially voting for our destruction. There won’t be any coming back from 4 or 8 years of tea party rule. The Dems may be in the pockets of corporate America, but they are not socially radical like today’s GOP and won’t be moving immediately to, for example, eliminate the seventeenth amendment, the EPA, or the Department of Education. The hold that corporate America has on our country may not diminish under 4 more years of Obama and Dem majorities in Congress, but you can be quite sure that our rights and the country that we know today will diminish mightily under 4 or more years of tea party rule. With respect, I beg all of you to consider this carefully before November 2012
