Mired in a paralyzing tug of war between the interests and priorities of the far left and the moderate positions that would assist in getting elected.
Steve, I’d love to see it happen, but let’s take a look at 2004 and rethink that, shall we?
-Joe
Anyone who thinks that the “interests and priorities of the far left” have any real purchase in current DNC thinking is delusional.
OK, so they’re not for the Republican House members’ proposal. Great, but we already knew that. Unless they tell us what their proposal is, how do we know it’s “fair”?
But why doesn’t that happen when Republicans propose something specific? They took over Congress in 1994 with very specific proposals. If the Dems can stand up and defend their own policies from criticism, I don’t see how anyone can expect them to win. And that’s a shame. One party rule has not been good for us.
What i should have added is that Democrats are actually “Mired in a paralyzing tug of war between” fairly moderate liberal positions and pandering to conservative shibboleths.
Could you give some for-instances of issues where this tug-of-war is going on, and tell us who’s espousing the far-left position? That might clarify things. I frequently hear this claim, but it’s rarely if ever backed up with specifics.
I am a lifetime conservative who is going through a spiritual reawakening that makes me realize just how far from the teachings of Jesus the 'pub policies are…
…yet the dems offer me no where to run to…
She does come off as the Jan Brady of the Democratic Party.
Running on “We’re not George Bush!” at best gets you a caretaker congressional majority, that will last until 2008. Anybody notice that George Bush isn’t going to be running for president in 2008?
I am particularly sick of the idea that putting out specific policy proposals just opens you up for attack. Except the attacks only work if people believe the attacks.
Do you really believe that people will only vote for Democrats if they’re tricked into it? If people won’t support tax increases as a policy platform, what makes you think they’ll support it after the Democrats take power? Why bother electing a Democratic congress if the Democrats aren’t going to change anything? If increasing taxes on the rich means that the Republicans will twist the issue to their advantage, then you’re never going to be able to increase taxes on the rich and the Republicans will rule this country from beyond the grave, whether they’re in power or not.
Seems the Dems do have a policy agenda:
That sounds to me like a pretty good way to start off.
House Democrats have formulated a plan of action for their first week in control. Their leaders said a Democratic House would quickly vote to raise the minimum wage for the first time since 1997. Not a good economic idea, IMHO, but an excellent political move. Most Americans favor raising the MW.
It would roll back a provision in the Republicans’ Medicare prescription drug benefit that prohibits the Department of Health and Human Services from negotiating prices for drugs offered under the program. Sounds like a good idea (but I have a feeling there’s a catch somewhere).
It would vote to fully implement the recommendations of the bipartisan panel convened to shore up homeland security after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Democratic leaders said. Probably wise, although I don’t remember the details.
And it would reinstate lapsed rules that say any tax cuts or spending increases have to be offset by spending cuts or tax increases to prevent the federal deficit from growing. I can buy into that, although I’d prefer something tougher-- like a cap on spending or at least a cap on rate of growth of the budget.
Well, 3 out of 4 ain’t bad! I wouldn’t even mind seeing them exercise some of that subpoena power that they’d get (even though Pelosi downplayed that, you can tell she was licking her chops).
YAY!
Let me say that again:
YAYYYYY!
This is exactly what I’ve been hoping they would do for the past, oh, six years now. They’re taking specific stands! Woohoo! And they’re making them well-known, I hope!
This is just a start, of course, but I really, really hope that the Democrats formulate a cohesive, specific plan for what they’ll do when they take control.
Daniel
Just so I understand: You’re saying the Democrats need a national platform to win back the House, where the races tend to focus on local issues?
Uhh, what else besides being a congressional majority can the Dems hope for in 2006?
And lifelong (sic) conservatives are complaining that the Democratic Party doesn’t offer them much of anything?
Look, this whole “The Democrats have nothing to run on” thought, meme, whatever, is a sham. A fraud. An empty, yet damaging thought virus, just kind of drifting out there until it finds a cell it can infect with its DNA, allowing it to multiply and survive. It has been put out there by the Repubs because it follows one of their principles of re-election: Give the other guy higher standards to fulfill than your guy.
Let us reflect: one truism of politics is “If the other guy is shooting himself in the foot, don’t feel the need to interrupt him.” Folks, it is May. Let me say that again:
IT IS MAY.
Putting forth any Democratic platform at this time would serve one purpose: It would allow the GOP to distort, pick apart, second-guess, tear down, (pauses to catch a breath and check the thesaurus) and otherwise heap poo upon what could be a set of sensible policy proposals, five months before the elections. You may have noticed that the Repub spin machine is pretty good at trashing their opponents (see: SWIFTBOAT, Veterans; and TRUTH, for).
Basically, any kind of analogue to the 1994 Contract with America will give the GOP something to run against. (And does anybody remember that the CwA was released only six weeks before the election? Mid-September, not May?)
From a political standpoint, right now Democrats are best served by letting the Republicans have all the headlines. They can’t do too much about it anyway, as they’re in the minority in both Houses (not that they’re completely helpless).
In fact, let me bring up a couple of points in that Washington Monthly article I linked to:
What’s especially exasperating is how much of an uphill fight the Democrats have to take back even one of the Houses. The Senate offers the better chance, but that still means unseating GOP incumbents in three states among PA, MO, MT, VA, NV, or AZ, while holding serve among the 18 Democratic incumbent seats. The House has been gerrymandered in the GOP’s favor in Texas, Florida, and other states to the point where the hope of gaining any seats against the incumbents there is bleak.
So as bad as 2006 has been for the Pubbies, if it ends with them still in control of both chambers, it would basically indicate that Congress is structurally incapable of being regained by the Democrats. IOW, we’re a one-party republic.
But I thought they were so happy chanting about how the Dems don’t have any real ideas?
I kind of like the thought of a national debate over what needs to be done. If the Democrats show leadership now (the proposals listed in the Wash. Post article are a respectable start, but we’re going to need something concrete about a few more little tidbits, like, um Iraq and the energy mess), the GOP will be on the defensive.
It might not be so good if the Dems hold off on specific initiatives until the last minute and get trumped by a boatload of promises from Republicans.
I was thinking Steve Ballmer (of developers developers developers fame on Slashdot), mostly because I’m happy to say I’ve never seen more than about half an episode of the Brady Bunch.
I don’t know. According to some other blogs, there are a few potentially important Dems backing away from any such talk about subpoenas and impeachments. Is that a good thing or a bad thing tactically? Shit if I know.
Yes. See the end of this post.
Not that there isn’t some truth to what you say, but the Dems have done more than their part in making it possible for the GOP to sell this meme, by being their wishy-washy selves, having 250 different agendas, and being willing to back down on many of them at the drop of a hat.
Good. Let 'em Swiftboat the idea of a minimum wage increase. Or the idea of the Federal government using its negotiating power to save tens of billions a year by negotiating with the drug companies. Or protecting our homeland. Or bringing back rules enforcing fiscal responsibility.
Let 'em.
The Dems have a meme they need to shake, and they need to shake it badly. It doesn’t matter what half-dozen Dem programs they decide to make their core agenda for 2007, so long as they’ve got 'em. If they’re willing to stand for this short list of things, some people will notice what they are, and some people won’t, but now the idea that the Dems actually have a plan, a positive agenda, for next year, has six months to start sinking in to people’s minds and percolating.
And that six months will win us a lot more votes than if we’d waited until September, as long as the Dems hold steady and don’t back down on this modest but worthwhile agenda.
The GOP went into the 1994 elections with the advantage that people already felt they knew what the GOP stood for. That’s the Dems’ weakness, and it’s one that nullifies all other strengths. They need this next six months to start changing people’s minds about that.
And getting back to the ‘local’ bit, there’s nothing local about this election’s issues. Even Katrina’s a national issue, not just a Gulf Coast issue. But even if this was an “all politics is local” sort of year, nobody’s going to be convinced that the Dems stand for anything if they’ve got hundreds of disjointed agendas.
GOP Congresspersons differ, but they differ in ways that are variations off a strong common theme that everyone knows. (And they don’t differ much, but there’s no way the Dems can copy that.) The Dems need to start making sure everyone can see the common core - that and some gumption, some fight, some willingness to not back down under pressure. Those two things are Job #1 for them this year. Everything else is secondary.