When Keith Olbermann asks what Democrats can do when their representatives in Congress gratuitously vote in support of the President, the correct answer is that they are going to go to the polls in the next Democratic primary and VOTE THOSE SUCKERS OUT OF OFFICE.
I'm sorry, but the Democrats in the House and the Senate have not been up to the challenge. They need a shake-up and the way to shake them up is to take your money elsewhere and then replace most of them in the next Democratic primaries. We have to put our time, money and votes where our mouth is. We do that by replacing these lame excuses for politicians with ones that actually have spine.
We have to put extreme pressure on Congress. We can only do that by threatening every wavering Democrat in Congress with a replacement in the next primary. Join me in my Liberal 50-State Strategy to run someone noticeably more liberal than the current office holder--be they Republican or be they Democrat--in every Congressional primary next year. This is the only way we will eventually win our elections. Make exceptions for the real Democrats who are in office, if you will, but keep up the pressure. It's good for the party and it's good for the country. Please find and support challengers to all members of Congress that don't line up with our values, regardless of their party. You can help them by entering them in the Contenders Registry.
We can't expect these people to have any spine unless we wave our magic wand (the ballot) and scare them into doing what we need. We have to herd Congress into the breech by signing up and supporting replacements for any of them that balk.
And, please give directly to the candidates of your choice. Forget the DCCC and the DSCC. Write in clear block letters on their solicitations that you won't give to them until they stop the war and impeach Bush and Cheney. Tell them that if they give amnesty to the telecomms for violating our rights, then we will read them the riot act. Then send it back to them in their SASE.
We have to send a message to these people that they are not upholding our interests. They have blown two votes where they didn't need to vote. No more chances. Bypass them and give to the candidate of your choice. Your money will still go to the Democratic cause, it will just go directly to deserving Democratic candidates, not to the party apparatus.
Unless you approve of the job they've been doing, don't give them your money! Direct your money to the candidates and not to the party apparatus. Remember:
- ActBlue: Good
- DCCC, DSCC: Bad
We have the power to make a change. Use your power.
Of course, we should target Republicans and hit them with everything we've got. Getting them out of office should be Objective 1 for all Democrats. But that should not preclude firing the non-Democratic Democrats. If they can't at least get on board with the key concepts of the party (and they are liberal concepts, by the way), then we should get rid of them and replace them with real Democrats.