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The Democrats conduct since the midterm debacle is as sad and sorry as the campaign that caused it. The partys leaders are a big problem. A bigger one is the closed system of high-dollar fundraising, reductionist polling and vapid messaging in which it is seemingly trapped. Some say a more populist Democratic Party will soon emerge. It wont happen as long as these leaders and this system are in place.

Nancy Pelosi says it wasnt a wave election. Shes right. It was the Johnstown Flood; as catastrophic and just as preventable. One year after the shutdown Republicans scored their biggest Senate win since 1980 and their biggest House win since 1928. Turnout was the lowest since 1942, when millions of GIs had the excellent excuse of being overseas fighting for their country.

Every Democratic alibi midterm lull, sixth-year curse, red Senate map, vote suppression, gerrymandering, money rings true, but all of them together cant explain being swept by the most extreme major party in American history. Citing other statistics demography, presidential turnout, Hillarys polls they assure us that in 2016 happy days will be here again. Dont bet on it.

It took more than the usual civic sloth to produce the lowest turnout in 72 years. It took alienating vast voting blocs, including the young and the working class of both genders and all races. The young now trend Republican. Voters of all ages migrate to third parties or abandon politics altogether. Its the biggest Democratic defection since the South switched parties in the 1960s. If Democrats dont change their ways, their 2016 turnout will be a lot harder to gin up than they think.

Democrats are in denial regarding the magnitude and meaning of their defeat. It is a rejection not just of current leaders but of the very business model of the modern Democratic Party: how it uses polls and focus groups to slice and dice us; how it peddles its sly, hollow message and, worst, how it sells its soul to pay for it all. Party elites hope party activists will seek to lift their moods via the cheap adrenaline high of another campaign. For once, activists may resist the urge.

The vital task for progressives isnt reelecting Democrats but rebuilding a strong, independent progressive movement. Our history makes clear that without one, social progress in America is next to impossible. For 100 years progressive social change movements transformed relations between labor and capital, buyers and sellers, blacks and whites, men and women, our species and our planet. But in the 1970s progressives began to be coopted and progress ceased. Their virtual disappearance into the Democratic Party led to political stultification and a rollback of many of their greatest achievements.

Much is written of the rise of the right, but very little of the fall of the left. Were apt to see the lefts decline, if we do see it, as a consequence of the rights superior funding, organizing and messaging, of the corporate dominance of all politics, and of white backlash against government, liberalism or modernity itself.

Its a bad analysis. The lefts fall is as much a cause as an effect of what ails us. Middle-class anger isnt about race, taxes, social services or social change. Its mainly about middle-class decline and public corruption. Democrats talk a lot about both problems but if they were really trying to solve either one, wed all know it.

The prevailing analysis fosters passivity. Whenever people speak of forces rather than choices its a sure sign they arent about to do anything. Progressives who blame their losses on globalization, white backlash or money in politics are less apt to focus on the one thing they alone control: their own choices.

It also fosters denial. We know there cant be a strong middle class absent a strong government to help create and sustain it. Social Security, Medicare, civil rights and labor laws, public education and market regulation are middle-class foundations. In the late 70s they buckled and the middle class buckled with them.

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Lets abandon the Democrats: Stop blaming Fox News and stop hoping Elizabeth Warren will save us

Former Head of State, Gen.Muhammadu Buhari

All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) is to meet with the 22 Peoples Democratic Party aspirants, who are aggrieved over the conduct of the PDPs governorship primary in Akwa Ibom State.

An aide to one of the aspirants, who preferred to be anonymous, told our correspondent in Uyo on Monday that the aggrieved aspirants otherwise known as G22 had been under intense pressure to defect to APC.

He stated that the G22 who had earlier ignored the call to defect to the APC by the PDP governorship candidate in the state, Mr. Umana Umana, will reassess their stance following the manner in which the national leadership of the PDP handled the issues concerning December 8 PDP governorship primary in the state.

According to the aide, the planned defection to APC was being facilitated by one of the APC governors in the South-South.

The governor was said to have promised the aspirants of accommodating them as well as all other politicians in the state who are opposed to the alleged imposition by the Akwa Ibom State governor, Mr. Godswill Akpabio.

The APC presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) has expressly requested to meet with the 22 aggrieved PDP aspirants from Akwa Ibom State. The move is facilitated by one of the APC governors in the South-South.

The occasion of the planned special reception for the PDP bigwigs by the main opposition party in the country will be crowned by the formal adoption of Maj. Gen. Buhari by a cross section of Akwa Ibom people as their sole presidential candidate in next year presidential election, he said.

The aggrieved aspirants, who are expected to decamp to APC include former Akwa Ibom State Deputy governors, Obong Nsima Ekere and Patrick Otu; a senator representing Akwa Ibom-South, Helen Esuene; a former Nigerian Ambassador to Russia and Belarus, Assam Assam, (SAN); a former Attorney General of Akwa Ibom State, Ekpenyong Ntekim; a former Commissioner for Local Governments and Chieftain Affairs, Effiong Abia; Asukwo Okpo; Larry Esin; Prof. Richard King, and Chris Abasi Eyo.

Others include Okpolump Ette, Aniedi Johnny Ufot, David Okpon, Dr. Samuel Udonsak, Jerome Isangedighi, Dr. Peter Esu, Ita Udoh, Ime Ekanem, Michael Etuk, Benjamin Okoko, Ime Akpanebe and Effiong Usin.

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Buhari to meet 22 aggrieved AIbom PDP aspirants

Following the outcome of the All Progressives Congress national and state assembly primaries in Ondo State, losers have been urged to shelve their personal ambitions and support those who emerged as the partys candidates.

Chairman of the party, Mr Isaac Kekemeke, while meeting with the party leaders from the 18 local governments in the state on Monday, said it was the only way the party would be successful in the coming elections.

He said, The only way for the party to win the forthcoming general elections in the state and country as a whole in 2015, is to be united and go to the elections as a team and not as a divided house. Elections cannot be won when members of the party are aggrieved.

I plead that no matter what energy, time and material resources you have expended, we must correctly see such as our contribution to the growth, development and victory of our party.

I wish to, on behalf of the leadership of the party, assure you that the party will never forget your labour.

It is however the truth that this labour can only be rewarded if the party becomes victorious at the polls next year.

Some aspirants expressed their grievances, saying the game was not played according to the rules during the exercise.

They also demanded the candidates should carry them along in the preparation for the general election, alleging that some of the candidates that won the primaries in their various constituencies saw them as political enemies.

Kekemeke however promised to meet with all the candidates to settle the rifts and strategise on how to win the coming elections.

Originally posted here:
Ondo APC begs primaries losers to support candidates

The All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State has berated Governor Ayodele Fayose for not fulfilling his electoral promises to Ekiti people, saying his stomach infrastructure slogan was a deceit to treat the electorate like beggars.

The party said the governor had turned Ekiti people to beggars by giving them handouts in form of kwashiorkor-infested chickens not bigger in size than ailing pigeons.

But the Peoples Democratic Paty in the state has branded the APC as an hypocrite for adopting the stomach infrastructure which it had condemned the governor for.

The party claimed that a national leader of the APC distributed 2,000 bags of rice, vegetable oil, sugar and a little cash gift to people from various parts of Lagos State on Sunday, adding that,it is hypocrisy at its peak to do what you abuse someone else for doing.

The APC in a statement by its state Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun,said Ekiti people had now seen the deceit of a man who said he was a friend of the common man with his callous attitude to the people he claimed to love during the period the people are supposed to be happy.

Governor Fayose gave two congos of rice and miserable palm oil not up to 1 litre, all totaling N700 to each worker that the governor had earlier deducted N2,000 from their salary for Christmas gift.

This is in contrast to Governor Kayode Fayemi who empowered the people through agriculture, cooperative and employment and apprenticeship schemes involving over two thousand youths, which helped the people to earn a living and made them happy for four years as against Fayoses tokenism as Christmas gifts.

Olatunbosun said instead of Fayose building on these laudable schemes, he had cancelled all the programmes, rendering the youth jobless while he had also cancelled many promotions in the civil service and dismissed many workers for the offences they did not commit.

Fayemi last year paid civil servants 30% of their salary as xmas bonus. He also paid their leave bonus while their December salary was paid on December 18.

In contrast, Fayose has refused to pay civil servants their September salary even though he had collected September allocation from the Federal Government. Civil servants are yet to be paid as of December 22.

Excerpt from:
Ekiti PDP, APC trade words over stomach infrastructure

Embattled Speaker of the Ekiti State Assembly, Dr. Adewale Omirin,

The management of Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, has opposed the bid by the 19 All Progressives Congress lawmakers of the Ekiti State House of Assembly to conduct their plenary in the institution.

The management of the university said no political meetings would be allowed on the campus.

The opposition lawmakers had at their plenary presided over by the embattled Speaker, Dr. Adewale Omirin, at a secret location in Ado-Ekiti on Friday, resolved to hold their sittings and conduct normal legislative business at the Faculty of Science, Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti.

This followed a motion by the majority leader, Churchill Adedipe, to reconvene the Assembly at a public place within the state capital, outside the House of Assembly chambers for security reasons.

He said the action was supported by Section 101 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).

But in a statement issued by the Registrar of EKSU, Mr. Emmanuel Ogunyemi, the management of the university said no political meetings would be allowed on the premises.

The statement read, The attention of the Management of Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, has been drawn to news reports by print and electronic media organisations over plans by the All Progressives Congress lawmakers in the Ekiti State House of Assembly to hold plenary meetings on the university campus.

The university management wishes to inform the general public that the Ekiti State University premises is not open to political meetings and we state unequivocally that no legislative meeting was held on our campus as being speculated in some quarters and no such meetings would be allowed to hold in the university premises.

The university is a community of teachers and scholars and Ekiti State University is committed to excellence in teaching, learning and research and should not be joined with unnecessary political issues.

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Ekiti varsity stops APC lawmakers from holding session