Think a minute here BG.
It may become hard to distinguish you from the one you’re arguing with.
Well, I know I said that the Dems, to win the red states, need to shift to economic populism and social conservatism – but not that conservative! Miller is a fossil from the days of the racist Southern Democrats, and Lieberman . . . I can’t really see what distinguishes him from a Republican at all. Not that that kind of pol is necessarily what lekatt meant by “a candidate the people can trust,” I was just speculating. He/she seems to be complaining about the party’s social liberalism.
What I am really saying is what I posted. The candidate the Dems put up next time? Who knows? I don’t believe that individual is available at present.
Couple of thoughts:
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There’s bound to be an election soon where some candidate just plain screwsup or a historical event makes a major difference. At least, I hope…I can’t stand seeing close elections like this…esp when the candidates are so far apart…blame the election system…support “approval voting” (google it or search on here).
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Bush II won in 2004 due, it seems, to the change in the married women vote…or at least they were the bellweather. I can’t see security issues still dominating in the same way in 2008. Besides, 2008 might be Clinton vs Dole. Cat fight!
Man, not sure where to start on this.
- 70%? Go look at the ballot initiatives…and ask Cheney on gay marriage-lite.
- All polls I saw on Gallup showed people against the Repubs on this one. Everyone you talked to doesn’t seem to be mainstream America.
- Clones? Stem cells? Relation to this thread?
- The election was close, no reason they need to change much…except the quality and validity of the electoral process.
Well back to the OP
Republicans won with the Religious Right agenda on their side… now that the elections are done… there is no need to have them aboard. The GOP valued being in power more than what alliances they were making.
Danforth is just starting the fight for the GOP… eventually they will make some kind of peace in new terms. They won’t split because no one wants to be in the “loser” party. Its an adjustment of who is in control… and who calls the shots for the next wanna be president.
Both parties are going through their periodic periods of post-electoral introspection. Nothing surprising - this happens all of the time.
I respect John Danforth, and will give him a thoughtful listen anytime he wants to speak up. I won’t always agree with him, but that’s a natural thing.
Meantime, there is a strenuous debate on the other side of the fence, and I think the crisis is far deeper there. The Democrats are losing elections, not winning them like the Republicans. They’re also losing members by comparison.
Their moderate voices, analogous to Danforth, would be Al From and Bruce Reed, who just bitch-slapped their party’s left wing.
That entire document can be summed up as “we’re losing on ideological grounds”. Well duh. I would argue the solution isn’t to become Pubbie Light (as the document seems to suggest, thought there’s such a paucity of specifics I don’t think it ranks as a “bitchslap”), but to convince people that tax cuts won’t necessarily usher in a New Golden Age overnight, and that allowing personal choice to rule on social issues like gay rights and abortion won’t precipitate the utter collapse of Western Culture. Also, it might help to convey to people the notion that dropping lot of bombs, while impressive, does not guarantee American security, or our success in a world economy. If the Democrats can’t even hold on to such a basic ideological stance, there’s little point in distinguishing themselves as a separate party. No, I disagree with that document entirely. They’ve got to stand firm on those issues, clearly articulate those viewpoints, and be prepared to lose fighting the good fight. Poll-driven compromise doesn’t exactly translate to visionary clarity, as John Kerry demonstrated with pathetic applomb. The fact remains, it was a pretty close election, with a record turnout. What if people actually knew what the Democrats stood for? Would they have triumphed, or suffered even greater defeat? I don’t know myself, but becoming even more indistinguishable surely can’t be a formula for future progress. To me it seems like a quest for irrelevance.
Dead horse alert!
Without going into detail, I see From and Reed do two things: (1) (correctly, IMHO) identify the party’s biggest problem as being that voters don’t know what Dems stand for, and (2) hold up Carter and Clinton as examples.
I would submit that neither man, as President, left office having clarified, for the benefit of his succesors, the question of just what Democrats were for.
I’m still pissed at Clinton over that. It’s the one big thing he could have done with his second term, both before and after The Year Of Monica: to use his bully pulpit to sharpen a vision of his party, its core ideals, and how they should translate into specific action.
The above looked like the Demeocrats are losing partly on ideological grounds, partly on lack of message/platform, partly not conservative enough or Republican enough. (?)
But what you said in post 55 doesn’t jibe at all with what you said in post 58.
I am so available! I’ll drop everything! 
Lots of people are thinking along these lines right now.
Check out this column by David Brooks in today’s NYT.
Echoes of this were seen in the brilliant convention speech given by The Terminator, where he gave a laundry list of reasons people could identify with the Republican Party. The Democrats, meanwhile, seem to want at times to chase away the unorthodox.
A lot of people look at the stresses and strains in the Republican Party and wait or hope for a collapse, not understanding that they are the natural result of a political movement that has quickly grown in popularity and power inside of a generation. Similar fault lines were seen in a Democratic coalition in the mid-20th century that dominated American political life pretty much completely.
All in all, these are problems I want to have. Orthodoxy only works in small groups, and small groups tend to be marginal players in this system. I want no part of that.
Why on earth would I want to read David Brooks? Been there, done that, the man’s an idiot.
While I’m vaguely curious as to which of those magazines were upset that GWB won renomination last year, or which opposed Bush’s tax cuts, I would argue that the divisions - such as they are - that they represent amongst the conservative intelligentsia are largely invisible to the country at large.
When the Democrats were in the majority, it was rare for them to be united about anything - in Congress, where it counts. That’s why Clinton wasn’t able to pass his health care proposal, and why Carter didn’t leave much of a footprint at all. Compare that with the GOP’s essentially united front on pretty much anything important that’s been voted on in Congress - most recently, the bankruptcy bill in the Senate (0 GOP defectors out of 55).
And even though Social Security may never make it to a floor vote, what’s happened when any GOP figure in Congress has said a discouraging word? They’ve been taken aside, and within a few days, retracted their comments completely. (Hastert most recently.) It’s almost Maoist; you’d expect the offenders to have to spend some time at a May 4 farm before resuming their Congressional terms.
People like The Governator are allowed only in places where the conservatism of DeLay and Trent Lott hasn’t a prayer of winning. Allowance of such deviationism is purely a tactical device for the GOP.
Well, the DLC types want to chase away Michael Moore and MoveOn, so you do have a point here.
It’s worked for the Congressional majority for a decade now. They may be a small group, but they represent a very large one.
I think you want to comfort yourself with the illusion of GOP diversity that disappears completely when the rubber meets the road.