What’s with the Democratic Party:
With about 5 weeks till the mid term elections, the Democratic Party for the first time in more then a decade has a shot at winning back at least the House of Representatives. At first glance this seems to be a good thing. However, if the Democrats win the House and maybe even the Senate, it will not be because of a strong and cohesive Democratic Party. It will actually be quite the contrary; it will be because of a weak and incompetent Republican Party.
If there was no Iraq war, the Democratic Party would not pick up a single seat this November. This is because the Democratic Party still has no key message, and any message that it does produce is diluted by conservative Democrats. What the Democratic Party needs today, is a latter day Barry Goldwater or William F Buckley. Democrats need to move their Party to the left first, and then worry about winning elections. Democrats today are Republican light; they constantly hedge their bets, by compromising on things like tax cuts, the Patriot Act, and until recently the war in Iraq.
The Democratic Party needs a unified voice. Too often the liberal voices of the Democratic Party come from the coasts, and are too hung up on hot button social issues (i.e. abortion, and gay rights). Now I am pro-choice and for gay rights but it is not necessary to push liberal social issues in the Mid West. To often Democrats seem only to be liberal on social issues and actually quite conservative on economic ones.
What we need is a populist movement in this county. A party that talks about jobs and quality of life, not a party that pussyfoots around free-trade and tax cuts. If we could get a candidate who was not lock and step with free trade and actually cared about American unions, Democrats could create strong base in the mid-west. The only reason the rust belt still votes Democratic is because of the history of the Democratic Party.
There needs to be real change inside the Democratic Party, if they ever hope to be on top again. That change needs to start by going back to the middle class and working class roots of the Party. So let’s stop reading New York Times, a foe liberal paper and create a national Party once again.
I know none of this is new, I just thought someone should say it again, before everyone gets all excited about November.
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Not a unified party
Submitted by mole333 on 2 October 2006 - 8:07pm.
Our greatest weakness and greatest strength is that we really are the party of the people. Which means we appeal to groups that don't appeal to eachother. That means it is damned hard for Dems to be unified on a national level. Locally we can kick ass, but nationally, it is much harder.
I have seen this for 25 years.
Republicans appeal to a core of the very rich and fanatically opprssive Christians and that's about it. Demcorats appeal to environmentalists and labor, who often don't agree; Catholics and Jews and blacks, and a whole slew of other divergent groups. We can never have a unified national voice because we embrace diversity.
Howard Dean's 50 state strategy recognizes the need for a state-by-state strategy. Montana populists are different than the Brooklyn machine which is different from San Francisco progressives...all of whom are loyal Democrats. A state-by-state approach gives people a local connection from which we hope a national leader will emerge. But it is difficult!
For the record, Progressive Majority seems to do the best. They focus on the very local races, finding strong progressive voices for those races, and win about 70% of the races they strive for. These are the next leaders of the party that they are guiding into office. I think Progressive Majority, combined with Dean's 50-state approach, will in the LONG run win big. But DCCC and DSCC are still holding on to outdated methods. So you won't see a unified approach yet.
Russ Feingold and other
Russ Feingold and other strong Democrats are doing their best to steer the Democratic party in the right direction. It is just very hard to move a national party. I Think things are starting to shape up, Joe Lieberman is gone and finally Democrats are showing their true colors.