We're obviously starting from two different points of departure here. My argument is that, and brace yourself for the heresy, saying the war is both wrong and bad policy is not the only thing that matters in the world. Yours is that, as I laid out in my post, the only thing that matters is publicly stating the approved position on the war. In short, mouth music.

I have yet to hear from any anti-war campaign, as again I lay out, just how the success of their campaign would actually bring about an end to the war. The reason is that they can't, and if they think otherwise, they're deluding themselves.

So the next logical step is the question of how, in fact, this war can be stopped, other than by sheer righteousness, as you seem to believe is possible.

So tell me how Senator Tasini is going to stop the war. While being in the minority, which you seem dead-set on preserving. Go ahead. I'm waiting.

have drained more than $300 billion from the US economy. By so doing the war warps our country and makes domestic priorites impossible to fund.

Therefore (notwithstanding the straw-man part of your position) you understate the consquences of the war when you say:

"My argument is that, and brace yourself for the heresy, saying the war is both wrong and bad policy is not the only thing that matters in the world."

There is not a social program, community development plan, transportation project that has not been looted by Bush and his pro-war allies in Congress. Are you in favor of the Second Avenue Subway, the Cross-harbor Tunnel, appropriate funding for public schools, housing or medical insurance for poor and moderate income people? The Bush war has spent the money already.

To review the figures check out the work of the nationl priorities project which has calculated the cost of the war by state and city: http://www.nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view...

All true and no argument from me. But what are Senator Tasini and Congresswoman Flagg going to do about it?

In a way, your argument makes mine: because you don't seriously propose that all the desirable things you state would be paid for by the repug budget if the war weren't happening, do you? The only way to get everything you mentioned legislated is to elect a Democratic congress. And to do that, we need to think just a little bit more strategically than you seem to be comfortable with.

I find many Democrats disappointing. But I am wary of too much division in the ranks. Simply put, I feel our lives depend on unity. War is a big, big issue. But so is choice. Most (not all) Then evironment. Dems are very good on choice. The Dems have held off Arctic drilling for years. You know the litany. The war is a single issue. It is very important, but honestly, there are many other issues at least as important to me.

As long as the Dems are out of power, we, all of America and most of the rest of the world are fucked. It is true that to varying degrees some Dems are overly collaborationist. But their voting records are almost across the board better than any Republicans.

My view is, challenges are fine. I am all for them. And I have worked hard backing challengers from time to time (e.g. Paul Wooten, Norm Siegel) But only if they do not aid Republicans. THAT is where I differ from some of my compatriots. I would far, FAR rather Hillary than any Republican.

I supported Siegel, too; seemed like a very worthwhile and winnable effort that would have made a real difference - not like some single-issue, 'I know we're going to lose but I feel so good about myself' crusade that doesn't help with the larger picture.

Good lord, I can't believe I'm defending Hillary.

...but you're missing my central point. I am not saying that all primaries are bad, quite the contrary. What I am saying is that a single-issue primary challenge is going to fail, and that in 2006, with a uniquely favorable environment for ousting the real problem - repugs - it makes no sense to go after otherwise reliable legislators because they're not as stridently anti-war as you'd like. Vito Lopez has nothing to do with that - at all.

Fair enough, I just find that the lead to this is strong on putting down internal questioning of Democratic candidates, and that it broadly suggests that Democratic rule is going to solve things. Make them better perhaps, but how much is well up to debate. I'm personally not into party allegiance just because it is wrapped in a quasi utopian fantasy. We had a row about this before over that useless sycophant Markowitz.

At the end of your post you look forward to the reign of Spitzer suggesting we will finally have real progresive representation in Albany. I think we need to be far more skeptical, especially when it comes to electing Dems. We can too easily let them off the hook for feeding us the same crap, just with a different sauce. Is Spitzer going to be reliable? I don't know know about that. (http://eliotspitzer.blogspot.com/2005/05/eliots-eminent-domain-position....)

If the challengers are just going to be the same in general, except opportunistically seizing on one hot button issue, then yeah I totally agree, it's all academic and a waste of time. But I don't believe we are headed for some golden age because we are going to get Spitzer in the Mansion, or that we might get to boot Joe Bruno, or another round of Clintons at the helm. I think we have to be more vigilant.

peace

It's my understanding that the site is set have comments manually reviewed. Not my idea, but there you go.

Yeah - figured. Now I am surprised that it's not up...it's been hours. Well, hopefully Liza will see this example and reconsider the situation. Kind of a bummer for people to post and then the comment not show up for a long long time. And if it's concern over anonymous comments, then you might as well just turn them off completely and tell people people straight up to register.

Ok, anyway, I don't mean to hijack the thread! My post was good - it disagreed with you, but it was thoughtful.

Later
Will

still not posted - well, i give up.

...as a practical matter in the minds of the electorate.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with keeping politicians in fear. But running campaigns that stand not a snowball's chance in hell and that have little if any real support is arguably not the best way to do it.

And besides, again, this is the year to take on repugs.

but to be part of the community you have to register. You don't register, you're comments will be moderated. Period.

Hey Liza -

Maybe you want to look at modifying the template for comments. When posting anonymously there is no notice that it is going to be moderated until after you have submitted the post; and I did not see a message that you can get your comment to post immediately if you do register. So, it's not really clear.

Will

Give us a break here! You think you can run this better than Liza? Fine, join the team and get busy. Or at least be polite when you make suggestions.

Comments like "Some grass-roots community ya got going here" are usually a sign of a troll. Don't know who you are, but that kind of comment doesn't really do anyone any good.