{"id":19090,"date":"2010-11-03T08:31:35","date_gmt":"2010-11-03T14:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=19090"},"modified":"2010-11-03T08:31:35","modified_gmt":"2010-11-03T14:31:35","slug":"that-truman-quote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/11\/03\/that-truman-quote.html","title":{"rendered":"That Truman quote"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Margie’s mentioned this quote to me a couple of times recently, so I went and looked it up<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve seen it happen time after time. When the Democratic candidate allows himself to be put on the defensive and starts apologizing for the New Deal and the Fair Deal, and says he really doesn\u2019t believe in them, he is sure to lose. The people don\u2019t want a phony Democrat. If it\u2019s a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat, and I don\u2019t want any phony Democratic candidates in this campaign.”<\/p>\n

— Harry S Truman (1884-1972) US President (1945-1953)
\nAddress, Americans for Democratic Action Convention (17 May 1952)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s worth noting that of the 46 members of the House Democratic Blue Dog Coalition<\/a> — the ones who were constantly on the fence for many of the key debates in Congress this year, demanding compromise after compromise in order to deliver their votes — 23 <\/em>lost their seats in last night’s election. That a far higher proportion than the Democrats in general.<\/p>\n

I don’t want the Democrats to be as ideologically purist as the GOP voters have driven them to be this cycle, nor as “step out of line and we’ll cut your throat” as their leadership over the last few years. But there are consequences to being consistently “independent” of the party, and taking advantage of it to extract concessions.<\/p>\n

Or, for those of a more Biblical bent:<\/p>\n

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.<\/p>\n

— Revelations 3:15-16<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Something the remaining Dems in Congress might want to consider in the coming months. Fleeing to the center and away from the party and past positions — trying to be more like a Republican — is not going to help you practically (as a political matter).\u00a0 You might as well stand up for your avowed principles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Margie’s mentioned this quote to me a couple of times recently, so I went and looked it up. “I\u2019ve seen it happen time after time. When the Democratic candidate allows himself to be put on the defensive and starts apologizing for the New Deal and the Fair Deal, and says he really doesn\u2019t believe in … Continue reading “That Truman quote”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-elections-2010"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/democratic-donkey.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":130074,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/03\/those-who-pretend-to-forget-history-will-keep-pretending-they-havent-12.html","url_meta":{"origin":19090,"position":0},"title":"Those who pretend to forget history will keep pretending they haven't","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 3-Mar-16 4:59pm","format":false,"excerpt":"No, the KKK is not a \"leftist\" organization, or a \"progressive\" movement. I strongly suspect a survey of contemporary KKK members will not find many Democrats among their number. But we hear this argument all the time, alongside the \"Republicans were the champions of civil rights in the 60s because\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":136152,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/04\/27\/trump-gets-to-ramble-on-fox-friends.html","url_meta":{"origin":19090,"position":1},"title":"Trump gets to ramble on “Fox & Friends”","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 27-Apr-18 12:00am","format":false,"excerpt":"Wherein the President of the United States: -- Asserts that his terrific friend Emmanuel Macron has come around to his away of thinking about Iran (which Macron's speech to Congress certainly doesn't support). -- Suggests Iran isn't acting as beligerently toward America any more because otherwise he'll wipe them out.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/trump-on-fox-friends.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":17248,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/04\/30\/unblogged-bits-fri-30-apr-10-2000.html","url_meta":{"origin":19090,"position":2},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Fri. 30-Apr-10 2000)","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 30-Apr-10 6:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... Robertson's ACLJ Shaping Kenya's Constitution - Wait -- the Right is circulating rumors that Obama is from Kenya and therefore isn't a legitimate American president ... but feels free to interfere in how Kenya\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16009,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/10\/14\/great-achievements-in-republican-history.html","url_meta":{"origin":19090,"position":3},"title":"Great Achievements in Republican History!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 14-Oct-09 12:15pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The GOP's new website has a special page for GOP \"Accomplishments\" across history (interestingly, the page title is \"Political News: American Achievements: Political Achievements\"). Let's start in relatively modern history, as the fact is that neither party is what it was before, say, the Great Depression. Neither is America. 1938\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "History"","block_context":{"text":"History","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/history"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/gop.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14647,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/04\/28\/specter-goes-democrat.html","url_meta":{"origin":19090,"position":4},"title":"Specter goes Democrat","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 28-Apr-09 1:02pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Holy crap. Specter To Switch Parties - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com\u00a0 Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania said on Tuesday he would switch to the Democratic party, presenting Democrats with a possible 60th vote and the power to break Senate filibusters as they try to advance the Obama administration\u2019s new\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":45643,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/03\/the-multi-media-political-bombardment.html","url_meta":{"origin":19090,"position":5},"title":"The Multi-Media Political Bombardment","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 3-Oct-14 1:24pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm a registered Democrat, so I get emails. Lots of emails. Emails begging, threatening, then begging again for donations to the electoral cause.But I also follow along some odd Right-wing newsletters (great source material), I end up getting very, very similar emails from various Republican groups, also begging, threatening, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}