I really had no idea you didn't want to be groped.Follow

The threshold needed to get non-aligned voters to go towards one party instead of the other is far far lower than that required to have members of a party switch sides. Given that those voters are often the deciding factor in elections, that's kinda significant.

Again, it's more important how the party deals with it than the individual failing. When the party actively disavows the person and pushes them out, it's seem as a problem with the person. When the party circles the wagons and defends him, it's seen as a systemic trait in the party itself (i.e. the "brand").

Yup. So when prominent Democrats on the city cancel refuse to call for him to resign, what message is being sent? When Democratic political organizations attempt to use tricks to prevent a recall election from succeeding (yeah, despite later ruling by the attorney), what message is being sent?


It's a message that says loud and clear: "The Democrats and their backers don't care about what's right or wrong. They care about holding power for their party. Even to the point of defending/protecting a complete scumbag like Filner". Add in the questions about why it took so long for women to come forward, with the attendant suspicion/fear of use of political power to keep people quiet (not proven, but who cares in a case like this) and it's incredibly toxic to the Dem brand here.

Considering I'm sure every single one of them has, at some point, looked into the cold, dead eyes of Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann, winced at the disgusting visage of Donald Trump as he spittles all over the camera whilst calling for a revolution, or had a vivid nightmare where Paul Ryan was raping them in a back alley...

... I'm pretty sure the Democratic Party is going to do just fine.

Let's be honest here, you are just saying things that you want to be true.

Contrary to what you believe, San Diego isn't the center of the universe, but Google still seems to work.

No. Just No.

Duuude. How busy do you get, in the field?

You misunderstood. Guys are more likely not to take "showers" in the field than women. Because of that, instead of wearing the same underwear for days at a time, they just choose to change pants and "free ball" it. It's more air. I, on the other hand, just buy more underwear, but that's something that people do.

With today's modern textiles are underwear still necessary?

You should have spent a little more time on google then. The two who haven't asked him to resign are both members of the Democratic party: Myrtle Cole and Marti Emerald.

And they're both women. Some Democrats have called for him to resign, and they get a lot of press for doing so, but there are some who have stopped short. Nancy Pelosi (you know, the House Minority leader?) didn't call for him to resign. Obama decided to not comment on this at all (which is strange because he manages to inject himself into every other "local" issue when it suits him). Democrats in general seem more interested in just keeping the whole thing at a distance rather than actually saying he should resign. Ignore it, and it'll go away I guess?

Again, this isn't really about the national party, but it does send a strong message locally about the party and how it deals with things like this. Given the inroads the Dems have made in local politics over the last couple decades, this is hurting them very badly.

No. I made the mistake of assuming you knew as much about the issue as I did. My bad, but around here everyone knows which Democrats came forward initially and called on him to resign, and lots of people are shocked that there are any on the city council who have refused to do so. My comment was in reference to that. It was not at all my intent to mislead you. I honestly didn't realize that someone might think that I was implying that no democrats were calling for him to resign. Hell. The woman who initially started this whole ball rolling (Donna Frye) is a Democrat (and was a huge Filner supporter).

I just assumed you knew that.




My bad then. It seemed like you were talking about the national party. Given that most searches about the issue prominently talk about Shultz calling on him to resign, I thought that's what you were referencing.

As to the San Diego Democratic Party? It took them a very long time to do this, and only after serious outrage that they hadn't (and frankly, it's still shocking that it wasn't unanimous). They initially voted not to call on him to resign (and this was several days after specifics about his actions had been released, which itself was several days after Frye revealed the generalities and called on him to resign) and that was a huge story here locally. Finally coming around really is too little too late in this case (like two weeks too late).

What's doubly bizarre about this is that it's not like one could argue that there was some kind of partisan fake scandal thing going on here. It was folks within the Democratic party who brought this to light in the first place. Donna Frye apparently provided him with information about what she had and gave him the opportunity to resign gracefully (presumably with some made up story about why), and he refused. As a result, she publicly announced that she had evidence of his actions and called on him to resign. He still refused. A few days after that, she released some of the data she had, including positions (but not names) of women making the allegations and again called on him to resign. He still refused. Three days after that, the local Democratic Party voted not to call on him to resign. This sparked yet more outrage. And after that, woman after woman has come forward with more allegations. Despite this, it still took the Democrats another couple weeks to finally call on him to resign. And still not unanimously.

I don't pretend to know what kind of party infighting is going on, but it's basically popcorn worthy from the other side of the fence. But this is why I say that the Dems are killing themselves with this. Whatever gains they've made in terms of public perception over the years have been massively wiped out in the last month.

Edited, Aug 7th 2013 3:43pm by gbaji