I was checking out the Post-Gazette webpage today, keeping tabs on my old hometown, when I came across the obituary for a legendary Pittsburgh judge, William Cercone.
Cercone’s passing means yet another Truman and Kennedy Democrat has vanished from the political scene. An examination of his life shows how much the Democrats have changed in his lifetime.
Cercone was anti-Communist, and anti-totalitarian in general, from the time he prosecuted an American communist for sedition to the trip he made to the Soviet Union to aid the refuseniks. He was a deeply moral and religious man, and wasn’t shy at all about letting his moral convictions influence his public positions. He was strongly anti-crime, known as a tough judge but one who showed compassion at all times to those who stood before him.
When Judge Cercone was a younger man, he was squarely in the centrist part of the Democratic Party. Not coincidentally, this was the time of the party’s greatest electoral power. As the Democrats moved away from these positions, and Cercone’s viewpoints became a minority one in the party, they consequently suffered a loss of influence. As he passes on, the Democrats find themselves in a bad state indeed. Nobody expects the previous Democratic dominance to return anytime soon, and the low point for the party may not yet have hit.
Truman, Kennedy, and Cercone represent the best the Democratic party had to offer, and they’re all gone now. The party, IMHO, needs to centrist leadership like this once more, lest they slide further into irrelevancy.
It’s funny how the advice rightwingers give is to have the party move further to the right. How convenient.
The trouble the Democratic party is having right now is the same trouble the Republicans had a few decades ago. Nobody knows what the heck they stand for. The way for the Democrats to get back on top is pretty easy:
Grow a backbone. Start calling the Republican party on its lies and hypocrisies. Stand up for yourselves and stop letting the Republicans decide what you do and don’t believe. But do it in a calm and rational way.
1a) As a corollary, have a firm and clear philosophical direction and express it in terms that people can understand. This will give people a clear alternative to the Republican party, rather than just seeing the Democrats as Republican Lite.
Stop reacting to everything and start anticipating and framing the issues. Do this early and often.
Translation: Whine. A lot. Now that you aren’t in power and the republicans are be negative and pessimistic about everything that happens. No matter what the facts are, complain that things are worse than they used to be and always always say that the economy stinks. From what I see this is indeed a cornerstone of the new democratic strategy. It’s not going to do anything but lose them more votes.
Now this is good advice. We’ll see if the left takes it.
The party does have a clear philosophical direction. The people do understand it. They just disagree with it. The party has been hijacked by the far left and even an unpopular war hasn’t been enough to convince people to vote for a party that represents this viewpiont that they don’t agree with.
Since the old media networks and big papers like the NY Times still lean very much leftwards, the left still does have control over what is “news” and how the news is presented. This allows the left to frame the issues and is still a significant advantage, even though it’s diminishing over time.
I think most would consider Clinton a centrist and that his presidency was quite successful. I even consider Kerry a centrist despite the claim that he is the “most liberal US Senator”. True liberals like Hillary are just not going to be nominated.
The Dems need to stand up and be counted. There are things that the Pubbies are doing that they need to be called on, such as torture of prisoners and busting of budgets, or Bush’s plan to cut SS benefits.
The Dems need a Karl Rove. Someone to get dirty and ruthless and the next nominee needs to get negative at the convention rather than waiting for the Republicans to sling the first mud. Negativity works, the Dems need to either accept this or accept losing. The message needs to be simple and needs to be consistent. The people would rather have a simple plan that they understand than a better plan that they don’t. “Flip-flop”, though wildly inaccuate, was effective because it was simple.
The Dems also need to look at the positive. They did not lose either of the last two presidential elections honestly. An incumbent wartime president has never come close to losing before. The Bush coattails were small indeed, several red states still have blue governors and senators. Who the Pubs portrayed as the “most liberal senator” got nearly 50% of the vote. Other than tactics, the Dems do not need to change much at all. Four more years of Iraqalypse plus Bush’s obsession with touching the third rail of politics, Social Security, will leave the GOP in 2008 exactly where the Dems are now.
I do consider Clinton a centrist. But the Democrats aren’t rushing to follow his successful example lately.
BobLibDem, I know you’re not as familiar with the man as I was as a Pittsburgh native, but what do you think of Judge Cercone? Would you welcome more Democrats in his mold, and elect or appoint them to high office?
Moving to the center would be a move to the left. The problem is that the Dems have moved too far right and there aren’t any liberals left. There isn’t any real opposition any more. The Dems need to get more radical, populist and socialist, not become zombie Republican theocrats.
Yes, they are, World. We’re going to make them better. Against resistance, against reaction, against blind bigotry, we will make them better. Because every time they read our eulogy and gloat over our corpse, we get back up. And because they overplay their hand, every time.
Any fool can see that the country is split. Except those fools, they persist in believing that a split is an overwhelming majority, an absolute crushing landslide of a mandate. Gee, what happened to that constitutional amendment about gay marriage? Weren’t they going to rush right into that, because America demanded that they protect the sanctity of marriage? Wasn’t that just a few weeks ago? Haven’t heard The Leader say much about that lately, what, did it slip his mind?
All the Dems have to do is not be Republicans. The wheel turns. The shark is jumped. And today’s pig is tomorrow’s bacon.
I never heard of the man until your cite. Reading the obit, my answer would be no. From what I read in the obit, he prosecuted people for their political beliefs. Why membership in a political party constitutes sedition isn’t clear to me. I also differ with the judge on pornography. Except for child porn and the like, I think adults should be free to buy whatever they wish. So on the whole, I don’t find that the man represents my views well at all.
I agree that Clinton was a centrist. I also think that was the largest single reason for the populularity of his presidency. Clinton, IMHO, could have been slightly more to the right and been a republican president and he would have been just as popular. Centrists simply will always have more support than those on either fringe. (All other things being equal.) Of course, the fact that Clinton was lucky enough to have the economy booming due to the tech boom was another huge factor is his popularity.
Right now the Dems need another centrist like Bill Clinton. Hillary is trying desperately to move to the right and be a hawk in preparation for her presidental run. But she is still largely viewed as an extreme liberal. (An accurate label, IMO.) The minority leader Nancy Pelosi is a far left liberal who is way out of the mainstream. Ted Kennedy, although not officially, is in fact one of the leaders of the party. He’s way out to the left. Radical anti-war leftist Howard Dean is the leading contender to be the DNC chairman.
I’d say that these four people are the leaders of the democrat party right now. They are all way outside the mainstream and not people who’s ideas are in line with what the majority of American’s beleive.
See, this is what makes me suspicious, when Republicans act miffed that we won’t take their advice, when there is no good reason that they should have our best interests in mind. You should be happy that we are so disorganized, and elated that we reject your counsel. Yet you sound oddly irritated that we won’t throw you into the briar patch; I wonder why?
Debaser, could you provide a cite that HRC has any plans to run for president. This whole idea of Hillary for prez has never been anything more than a fantasy of conservatives who dream of trouncing her in a general election. Hillary herself has never in her life said she wanted to be prez and has consistently said she has no plans to run. The Dems know that she’s been demonized too much by the right to be a viable candidate. They’re not going to nominate a pinata, no matter how much the Republicans want them too.
Good point. Many on the right were very vocal about hating Clinton. This cost the Republicans votes and hurt the party. However, the current hatred of Bush is much stronger than any Clinton bashing IMO.
I think I’ll take a page out of the Bricker playbook and make some money off you on this. You want to make a wager?
I’d bet that Hillary will run for the Democrat nomination in 2008. I don’t know that she’ll win it. But, I’d be willing to make a wager that she’ll try. You want to take me up on it?
Well, liberals are constantly accusing those of us of a more conservative bent of only caring about our base. Yet express an interest in a stronger Democratic Party, and you’ll as quickly accuse us of skullduggery.
I believe a healthy two-party system has generally served America well, moderating our politics and stabilizing our political system greatly.
Right now the Democrats are in bad shape, a state largely self-inflicted. I’m not so blindly partisan that I see Republican electoral strength as a given, nor do I welcome Democratic weakness. And being from the Pittsburgh area, I’m well acquainted with lots of honorable Democrats, many of whom are to some degree alienated from the national party.
William Cercone was a Democrat I respected and admired, both for his personal integrity and his well-considered political views. I wish there were more people like him in both parties.
