Democratic Party

As top union leaders gather in Florida on Tuesday to determine labor's political strategy this year, the influential AFL-CIO appears poised to endorse President Obama's reelection - despite some lingering dissatisfaction with his record. But the way in which unions back him and other Democrats this year is likely to take a very different form than in past campaigns. Concluding they need to be more independent of the Democratic Party, many unions are increasingly financing their own efforts instead of writing large checks to candidates and the party.

Have you heard of John Wolfe? Chances are, voters in Arkansas haven't heard of him either. And yet, tens of thousands of Democrats cast a vote for him Tuesday's presidential primary in the state instead of the incumbent, President Obama. Wolfe, a Tennessee lawyer, won 42% of the vote statewide, and a majority of the vote in 36 of the 73 counties that had reported totals as of early Wednesday. Meanwhile, in Kentucky, just as big a percentage of Democrats voted for "Uncommitted" rather than Obama.

Gloria Romero is a Democrat. She was elected to the California Assembly as a Democrat and later to the state Senate. She served as Democratic leader of the Senate, the first woman to do so. Ben Austin is a Democrat too. He worked in the White House under President Clinton and was an ardent supporter of Barack Obama. Both Austin and Romero support reform of the nation's education system, and when Romero helped found an organization to push that effort, she and her co-founders (fellow Democrats)

Gloria Romero is a Democrat. She was elected to the California Assembly as a Democrat and later to the state Senate. She served as Democratic leader of the Senate, the first woman to do so. Ben Austin is a Democrat too. He worked in the White House under President Clinton and was an ardent supporter of Barack Obama. Both Austin and Romero support reform of the nation's education system, and when Romero helped found an organization to push that effort, she and her co-founders (fellow Democrats)

Every morning when UC San Diego physicist Herbert Levine laces up his running shoes and chugs alongside Mission Bay, his earphones crackle with radio ads opposing a proposed $1-per-pack cigarette tax to raise money for cancer research. The ads are funded by the tobacco industry. They call Proposition 29, the tobacco tax that state voters will consider on the June 5 ballot, a bureaucratic boondoggle, an initiative that would raise mountains of cash for research but not a penny for treatment.

Some days you have to ask yourself, my God, what if these people were Republicans? Democrats took back Congress in 2006 and the presidency in 2008 in no small part because of their ability to bang their spoons on their high chairs about what they called the Republican "culture of corruption." Their choreographed outrage was coordinated with the precision of a North Korean missile launch pageant. And, to be fair, they had a point. The GOP did have its legitimate embarrassments. California Rep.

Where did the party go? Re "Democrats are compromised to death," Opinion, Dec. 26 Neal Gabler is right: The Democratic Party represents "interests" and is no longer committed to the principles that favor the powerless. To gain a majority, it must appeal to as many progressive groups as it can without being labeled "liberal. " It is this retreat that recently led it to measures favoring the wealthy: eliminating Glass-Steagall under President Clinton, and supporting the banks and corporations under President Obama.

As he is quick to point out, President Obama is presiding over two wars, a sour economy and an epic fight to rework the nation's healthcare system. Now tack on a trio of state and local political races. With an off-year election fast approaching, Obama is stepping up his commitment to Democratic candidates in hopes that an infusion of campaign charisma might pump up turnout. What the party is finding, though, is that the electricity of 2008 is tough to recapture. Some Democratic candidates running for local office around the country call the phenomenon the "Obama Hangover."

Re "The 'Democrat majority' is still the talk of the town," Jan. 30 Only "Republicons" refer to the Democratic Party as the "Democrat" Party. These are the hard-right-wing party hacks who do not have the courtesy to refer to a major American political party by its correct name -- the Democratic Party. When President Bush stoops to that sophomoric level, he comes across as just one more "Republicon." GENE BURKARD San Diego I don't like "democratic" as an adjective when describing the Democrat Party because it infers that the Republican Party isn't democratic.

The letter (Nov. 11) by Patricia A. Gazin criticizing the Democratic Party for involvement in the Hermosa Beach municipal election ignored the fact that political parties, as well as other groups, have a right to offer and work for candidates in a nonpartisan race. Her vague and broad complaint was an insult not only to the Democratic Party but to the democratic process. Both the Democratic and Republican parties worked for a candidate in the Hermosa Beach campaign. This is not "meddling"; it's part of the American democratic tradition.

A wise man learns from his foe. Democrats have carefully studied Republicans, and now Gov. Jerry Brown may be benefiting. Or maybe not. "Talk to me in a month," says Democratic guru Gale Kaufman, who recommended that Brown emulate the longtime GOP strategy of mailing ballot-measure petitions directly to voters for their signatures. More than 1 million California voters — mainly reliable Democrats — received a Brown blurb at home last week, preceded by a robocall from the governor announcing it was in the mail.

If you believe Rep. Alan West (R-Fla.), there are upwards of 78 to 81 members of the Communist Party sitting in Congress within the Democratic Party, an accusation that riled his colleagues and has drawn criticism from the accused. During a town hall event in Jensen Beach, Fla., on Tuesday night, West addressed a member of the audience who asked about how many members of the Democratic Party are “card-carrying Marxist Socialists,” and made a bold claim about his coworkers in the Capitol.

WASHINGTON - President Obama, who has fended off questions about his position on same-sex marriage for nearly a year and a half by saying his views are "evolving," faces increasing pressure within his party as momentum builds to declare support for marriage equality in the party's official platform. Often derided as windy (frequently) and nonbinding (always), platforms nonetheless can play a crucial role in shaping a political party. Republican and Democratic platform debates in the 1980s crystallized the partisan divide over abortion.

Are political centrists in America without a political home? Do we need a third-party presidential candidate to represent those socially progressive, fiscally austere voters who find our two parties too extreme? There's no disputing that the Republican Party continues to move rightward at warp speed. Virtually every GOP elected official who's been in office for more than a couple of years has had to repudiate previously mainstream Republican positions (such as creating a health insurance system with an individual mandate, an idea cooked up by a right-wing think tank)

For the first time in 20 years, a Republican running for Congress in Riverside needs help. John Tavaglione huddled with supporters in the mirrored back room of a local Coco's on a recent rainy evening, laying out a ground game for his first crack at federal office. As a Republican and political heir of a powerful Riverside family, the longtime county supervisor would have breezed into Washington, D.C., in past elections. The Inland Empire was heralded as California's new conservative frontier — the "new Orange County" — just 10 years ago. But political districts have been remade.

As top union leaders gather in Florida on Tuesday to determine labor's political strategy this year, the influential AFL-CIO appears poised to endorse President Obama's reelection - despite some lingering dissatisfaction with his record. But the way in which unions back him and other Democrats this year is likely to take a very different form than in past campaigns. Concluding they need to be more independent of the Democratic Party, many unions are increasingly financing their own efforts instead of writing large checks to candidates and the party.

So Rosa Brooks has joined the bandwagon in deciding the reason Americans got stuck with President Bush for a second term is because the dastardly Democratic Party and, specifically, Sen. John Kerry, didn't come up with a sufficiently catchy slogan (Opinion, March 10). There was absolutely nothing wrong with Kerry as a presidential candidate in terms of a message, diplomatic skills, fiscal responsibility, understanding issues or military credentials. The only reason we're stuck with Bush today is because there were just enough Americans who wanted to follow Bush down the path he has taken us. Much as we may now wish for world history to go easy on us by understanding how the "other guy" just didn't have the right slogan, history is not going to blame Kerry or the Democratic Party for what we have done to ourselves and the rest of the world.

"A Loyal Constituency Is Restless" (Opinion, Jan. 6), dealing with the Catholics of California, could not have been more on the mark. Those in the Democratic Party have become so dogmatic when it comes to their radical social agenda that it boggles the mind that any self-aware Catholic could support them today. After achieving complete power in 1998, it was only a matter of time before, once again, they ran home to their far-left universe, thereby successfully alienating the populace.