# Memo to Democrats: You Can't Beat Something With Nothing **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 6, 2002, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528 "2002-11-06T11:11:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2002, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/41 "2002-11-06T20:20:42Z")
But we did have those issues once upon a time. The _Democrats_ were the ones who established the policy of fighting the spread of communism overseas. Kennedy and Johnson made the military a high priority. And budget defecits were never a significant problem until Reagan discovered that the U.S. had no pre-set limits on its credit card. He didn’t give a shit what the Democrats in Congress spent money on, as long as he got all the spending he asked for too. The Republican tax cut of last year was wildly reckless, and the rolling cuts are just going to make the budget worse and worse because the Republicans want to spend every bit as much money as the Democrats do. The deficit will quickly balloon, especially since there’s no sign of a recovery that would expand the tax base. The Democrats need to get out in front on this one, because there _will_ be repercussions. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2002, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/42 "2002-11-06T20:52:03Z")
—The Republican tax cut of last year was wildly reckless, and the rolling cuts are just going to make the budget worse and worse because the Republicans want to spend every bit as much money as the Democrats do.— Only the second part, if true, is a problem. The government is not like an individual. It isn’t earning income, and for every dollar it borrows to cover shoftfalls, it is implicitly lending to taxpayers at the same rate. When and how it taxes people is a matter of far far less concern than the money it spends in the first place. Can you explain why huge tax cuts are anymore “reckless” than huge taxes to pay off a deficit? What it means that the government’s budget is “worse” vs. “better” and why the public schould care? After all, if all anyone cared about was making the government budget “better,” then why not simply tax everyone at extreme rates and pay off all the debt right now? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2002, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/43 "2002-11-06T21:12:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by xenophon41 \* > \*\ ***Shodan** : perhaps it’s a bit less important how a party platform sounds to ideological opponents than how it sounds to ideologically close undecideds? The Dems would be foolish to structure their platform to be more palatable to Repubs than to their own (and arguably they _have_ been that foolish to a large extent). \*\* Oh, I don’t know - going after the Reagan Democrats seems to have been a winning strategy back in the 80s. And it would be elementary political strategy to try to structure your platform to appeal to the most voters. If the Republicans appeal to more voters, as seems to have been the case yesterday, the Dems are free to go on being ideologically pure - and lose, or adapt and have a chance. Perhaps my view is biased by living in Minnesota, but when Wellstone died, the best the Minnesota Democrats could come up with on short notice was Mondale - who was on the short end of one of the greatest landslides in American political history. Nobody with any new ideas, nobody with anything to offer but warmed over liberalism. And his attempt to look forceful in the debate with Coleman by shaking his finger and going on the attack just made him look silly. Coleman and Reagan both used to be Democrats. You can express it cynically by saying that they switched for political advantage, or you can say that the left-ward swing of the Dems left them behind. Either way, they adapted, and won. Face it, conservative ideas are mainstream now. The Dems can yell and scream and stamp their feet to their hearts’ content. If they don’t move towards the center, they will lose. From my point of view, a best-case scenario. Just like yesterday. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2002, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/44 "2002-11-06T21:26:26Z")
With respect to **milo** ’s post and polling: the real question isn’t, do you poll people on issues, but, what do you do with the polls once you have them? At some point, the Dems have to play for the long haul. That means deciding what positions they’re going to identify with, through thick and thin. They need to ask themselves, what belongs in the blanks of “If we’re not for \_\_\_\_\_\_, why bother being a Democrat?” and “If we’re not for \_\_\_\_\_\_, why would any sane person let us run the country?” And then they use polls to eliminate the absolute losers of issues from their list. But the stuff that reflects the core values of the party, they’ve simply got to figure out how to sell. The Republican agenda of today wasn’t an obvious winner 25 years ago. But they kept on pressing their agenda _because they believed in it_. (Gotta give credit where credit is due.) They didn’t need to look at a poll to decide they were going to be for lower taxes or fewer regulations; that was what they were, and are, for. At some point, the Democrats are going to have to stop changing their tune in response to the latest election, and come to grips with what they’re prepared to stand for, for the long haul. Then go and sell that to the American people. If they can’t, then that’s the way it goes. What’s worse is if they never try, but keep on choosing and dropping issues from one year to the next, based on temporary flickers in the polls. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2002, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/45 "2002-11-06T21:28:25Z")
IzzyR wrote: > [@](#): > > Over time, the southern conservative branch of the Democrats has faded as historical bonds loosened (Zell Miller would be one throwback) but this may be a factor in the way the party organized itself. I pretty much agree with Spoke on this matter. And I would add that the Democrats are only fooling themselves to think that they are the party of inclusion. They are as exclusive as any other. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2002, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/46 "2002-11-06T21:40:58Z")
Certainly, **Apos**. Budget deficits and the national debt are a huge drag on the economy, because they insure that a future percentage of GDP gets sucked off into an economic black hole to pay for expenditures made years ago. We’re _still_ paying off the Reagan-Bush enthusiasm for deficit spending. For fiscal year 2002, Congress spent $333 billion on debt payments, around ten percent of the federal budget. The total national debt [right now](http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm) is closing in on $6.3 trillion, and we’ve got to pay off every damn penny–plus interest, of course. It’s like swimming with a 20-lb. weight around your neck, and then somebody wants to come along and add another 5 pounds. While it makes a certain amount of economic sense to go into deficit spending from time to time, it is stupid in the extreme to keep running up debt like you never have to pay it off. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2002, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/47 "2002-11-06T21:42:16Z")
**IzzyR** wrote: > [@](#): > > Are you saying that [Southern] Democrats were not also very conservative on social issues, crime, & foreign policy? How does one apply the term “conservative” to the issues of crime and foreign policy? Is there anyone who is pro-crime? It’s not a partisan issue. Ditto foreign policy. It is not, or _should not_ be a partisan matter. Perhaps you could clarify your question. And what “social issues” are you talking about? You have heard of Lyndon Johnson and his Great Society, no? And even George Wallace, though he toed the line on matters of race, could be a fiery progressive in fighting for the interests of the poor against big business. > [@](#): > > As I understand it, besides for the South in general being a very conservative place (a situation that still prevails today), the level of antipathy towards the Republican Party was such that no matter what your polical views you supported, you would still identify with the Democratic Party, which meant that the Democratic Party was the party of everyone down south. Now, this issue has faded, so that the more liberal Southerners tend to be Democrats (though they might still be conservative by Northern standards) and the more conservative are Republicans. _Some_ of that is true. In the South, whether you were liberal or conservative, you were a Democrat. The Democratic Party primaries were in effect the general election. So in the primaries, you had conservative Democrats duking it out with liberal Democrats. However, I think you underestimate the historic power of progressive, populist politics in the South. Since the close of Reconstruction, there was a long tradition of Southern politicians standing up for “the little guy.” This was partly a legacy of Reconstruction, when Northern money built factories in the South. (You can imagine that poor Southerners working for Northern employers in the aftermath of the Civil War might have created some resentment. The factories were often seen as symbols of a sort of colonization of the South by the North.) At the same time, small farmers in the South were being charged exorbitant storage and shipping rates by railroads. That also created a lot of populist outrage. Southern politicians fought for the worker and the small farmer, and raged against banks, railroads and big business. (Remember the “Cross of Gold” speech by Williams Jenning Bryan? Though not a Southerner himself, his speech co-opted ideas from the Southern and Midwestern politicians of the People’s Party.) (Suggested reading: [The Populist Moment](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195024176/qid=1036617813/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-8244856-8464765?v=glance&s=books) by Lawrence Goodwyn, and [Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195007077/qid=1036618134/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-8244856-8464765?v=glance&s=books) by C. Vann Woodward.) In fact, I would argue that, except for matters of race and religion, the South is more conservative now than it has been at any time since the Civil War. As the South has become more urbanized and suburbanized, and less rural, more white-collar and less working-class, it has become more conservative. So the recent Republican surge in the South is not just a question of Southern Democrats “showing their true colors,” but is the result (at least in part) of a genuine demographic shift. ---
**Author:** ![Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chance_the_Gardener)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2002, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/48 "2002-11-06T21:57:45Z")
**RTFirefly** —I never cared for the Republican “Lower taxes, less government” mantra (or however it goes.) It’s catchy, I admit, but as a Democrat, it sounds somewhat dishonest to me. Taxes shouldn’t always be lowered, government shouldn’t always be reduced—but sometimes that’s the case. So why not address the issue with a more pragmatic mantra of _Fair taxes, fair government_? Kinda catchy, no? Write your senators. I have. I’ve written others’ senators, too. I don’t fool around. ---
**Author:** ![Threadkiller](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aca169/32.png) [@Threadkiller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Threadkiller)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2002, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/49 "2002-11-06T21:59:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by minty green \* > What RTF said. Bloody disgraceful. **They** let **themselves** be defined by **their** opponents, and **they** paid the price. The question now is who’s going to lead **them** out of the quagmire. It’s certainly not going to be Daschle or Gephardt. All bolding mine. Isn’t it a part of the problem when an avowed Democrat uses an impersonal pronoun to (apparently) place himself outside the party? Sorry to pick on **minty** , there were others. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2002, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/50 "2002-11-06T22:09:27Z")
**spoke-** Nobody is “pro-crime”, but liberals are more identified with protecting the rights of criminals than are conservatives. In general, liberals tend to be more into rehabilitation and “root causes” of crime, and conservatives are more of the “lock 'em up and throw away the key or better yet execute them” sort. I would call social issues matters pertaining to religious or moral issues, e.g. separation of church and state. Also, freedom of speech. Foreign policy would apply to matters like opposition to communism, and support for a strong military. Of course, this is not to say that _all_ liberals or all non-Southern Democrats had the “liberal” position on all of these issues. Still, there is a tendency for these positions to align themselves along liberal/conservative lines. It would appear that you are merely saying that there is a strong Southern tradition of economic populism. Still, that leaves plenty of room for other issues. And since you acknowledge that Southern Democrats - including everybody - spanned the spectrum from far right to (Southern) liberal, you would presumably agree to my larger point that the Democratic Party had to include a relatively broad spectrum of viewpoints. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2002, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/51 "2002-11-06T22:10:41Z")
I was talking about the party leaders and the candidates, not the voters. It’s not like the Democratic Party is some sort of club and I’m carrying around a membership card. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2002, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/52 "2002-11-06T22:37:27Z")
**RTFirefly** , great OP. I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with the Dems for exactly this reason for the last several years. The only position the party as a whole seems to currently hold is “we’ll believe whatever you want us to believe, just elect us”. It’s really sad. However, I think another reason they have lost so much ground in the last few years is their unwillingness to stand their ground in conflicts. They could learn a lot from the Republicans – when stories about Bush’s drunk driving or his daughter’s underage drinking come out, he simply said “none of your business” and moved on. Clinton should have done the exact same thing with the blowjob and the pot-smoking. The Republicans spent eight years criticizing Clinton for everything he did, good or bad. The Democrats couldn’ t bring themselves to criticize Bush even after he pushed for unpopular unilateral action in Iraq, had close ties with Enron and other corporate scandals, was president while the economy went from boom to the toilet, and about whom a majority of Americans say needs to do more on domestic issues. Pathetic. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2002, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/53 "2002-11-06T22:38:41Z")
> [@](#): > > _originally posted by **Shodan** :_ > > Coleman and Reagan both used to be Democrats. You can express it cynically by saying that they switched for political advantage, or you can say that **the left-ward swing of the Dems** left them behind. Either way, they adapted, and won. > > Face it, conservative ideas are mainstream now. The Dems can yell and scream and stamp their feet to their hearts’ content. **If they don’t move towards the center** , they will lose. > (bolding added by xeno) Well, I would argue that quite the reverse is true; that the Dems _have_ moved to the center, and the Republicans have moved quite far to the right. -Are you sure you have the horizontal hold adjusted correctly on your political screen? 😉 It’s not that the Democrats have stubbornly remained “ideologically pure” instead of compromising. Again, the reverse has happened, to the detriment of the party. The Republicans, on the other hand, as **RT** says have found strength through ideological consistency over the last two decades. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2002, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/54 "2002-11-06T22:45:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Shodan \* > And it would be elementary political strategy to try to structure your platform to appeal to the most voters. If the Republicans appeal to more voters, as seems to have been the case yesterday, the Dems are free to go on being ideologically pure - and lose, or adapt and have a chance. This is not how the Republicans got to where they are today. The Republicans were the minority party in the 1970s, and became what they are now _by actually moving further to the right_ as they unified around their message. Then they sold it to the American people. It took awhile, sure, but did it work? Sure looks like it. > [@](#): > > Perhaps my view is biased by living in Minnesota, but when Wellstone died, the best the Minnesota Democrats could come up with on short notice was Mondale I’m not sure what that has to do with anything. > [@](#): > > who was on the short end of one of the greatest landslides in American political history. When? If you’re talking about 1984, seven Presidential elections in the 20th century alone (1904, 20, 24, 32, 36, 64, 72) had a greater margin of victory in the popular vote, and one more (1928) fell short by only a quarter of a percentage point. It’s absurd to call _nine_ of the 25 Presidential elections in the 20th Century, “one of the greatest landslides in American political history.” > [@](#): > > Nobody with any new ideas, nobody with anything to offer but warmed over liberalism. And his attempt to look forceful in the debate with Coleman by shaking his finger and going on the attack just made him look silly. If it should happen that the same disaster ever befalls a Republican only ten days before a major election, we’ll see how good your bench strength is on such short notice. Hopefully it’ll never happen, but even if it does, it’s a damned silly basis for judging a party. > [@](#): > > Coleman and Reagan both used to be Democrats. You can express it cynically by saying that they switched for political advantage, or you can say that the left-ward swing of the Dems left them behind. Either way, they adapted, and won. I don’t know about Coleman. But if Reagan was left behind by the leftward swing of the Dems, it happened while they were still the party of Roosevelt and Truman: he campaigned for Goldwater in 1964. > [@](#): > > Face it, conservative ideas are mainstream now. The Dems can yell and scream and stamp their feet to their hearts’ content. If they don’t move towards the center, they will lose. In 1975, it looked like the Republican party was a relic of history. Aren’t you glad they didn’t heed the same advice then (with party names reversed, of course)? Really, **Shodan** , you ought to apply to WorldNetDaily. Both your facts and your logic meet their standards. You can win in the short run in politics, maybe, by adapting to what people want. In the long run, you’ve got to try to sell the people on your vision of how the country should work. Otherwise, politics is nothing more than another job opportunity. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2002, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/55 "2002-11-06T23:01:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Apos \* > —The Republican tax cut of last year was wildly reckless, and the rolling cuts are just going to make the budget worse and worse because the Republicans want to spend every bit as much money as the Democrats do.— > > Only the second part, if true, is a problem. The government is not like an individual. It isn’t earning income, and for every dollar it borrows to cover shoftfalls, it is implicitly lending to taxpayers at the same rate. It’s lending to anyone who’ll buy bonds - taxpayers, institutional investors, foreign individuals and governments, whoever. So it’s not a wash transaction in any meaningful sense. > [@](#): > > When and how it taxes people is a matter of far far less concern than the money it spends in the first place. That’s a whole, much larger debate. But the when and how of taxation change many things. > [@](#): > > Can you explain why huge tax cuts are anymore “reckless” than huge taxes to pay off a deficit? What it means that the government’s budget is “worse” vs. “better” and why the public schould care? After all, if all anyone cared about was making the government budget “better,” then why not simply tax everyone at extreme rates and pay off all the debt right now? For the same reason you don’t pay off your mortgage in one year: it would be extremely painful. We could pay off the national debt this year, if we were willing to devote slightly more than half the GDP to that end. You volunteering your share? Neither am I. Government can borrow _seemingly_ without end. But like you and me, governments have to pay interest on their borrowing, in order to get people to loan them the money. The effect of the Reagan-Bush deficits topped out at about 14% of every tax dollar going to pay interest on the debt, IIRC; this happened late in the Clinton administration, I think. Obviously, if the interest goes away, you can either pay for more goods (highways, bombers) or programs (INS agents checking potential immigrants), or cut taxes. So having less of an interest bill is good, and having more of one is bad, because it’s money that you have to spend, that doesn’t do you any good _right now_. If the interest bill reaches 100% of income, then you have nothing to live on, right now. That’s _really_ bad. There’s no need to balance the budget every year. But if you borrow faster than your income grows, you wind up digging yourself deeper into debt, and paying out more of your income in interest. That’s true if you’re a householder or a government. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/56 "2002-11-07T00:06:14Z")
Gephardt’s out. That’s a start. I’m not impressed by the first name mentioned as a contender for minority leader, however. Martin Frost has been my representative at various times, and while he’s very competent, he’s in no way inspiring. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/57 "2002-11-07T00:53:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by xenophon41 \* > **…the Dems have moved to the center, and the Republicans have moved quite far to the right.** > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RTFirefly \* > \*\*This is not how the Republicans got to where they are today. The Republicans were the minority party in the 1970s, and became what they are now _by actually moving further to the right_ as they unified around their message. Then they sold it to the American people. It took awhile, sure, but did it work? Sure looks like it. > \*\* I’m thinking mostly of the days when the Democrats were the party of McGovern. Or Clinton’s health care plan, also a swing back to the days of the Great Society. Big government, big spending, that sort of thing. Nixon managed to push them back towards the center with his victories, but there remains a hard core of liberalism, which is mostly fallen by the American political wayside. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RTFirefly \* > \*\*_Speaking of my mention of Mondale_ > I’m not sure what that has to do with anything. > \*\* I mention him because he represents the best the Dems can do. Granted it was short notice, but again, warmed over leftovers rather than new ideas. The exciting thing about being a conservative is that we are the party of new ideas. Republicans talk about school vouchers, Dems about increased taxes and higher spending. Republicans talk about a missile defense shield, Dems about the UN. Republicans talk about tax cuts and stimulating the economy, Dems about increased spending. Republicans talk about medical spending accounts, Dems about another big government program. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RTFirefly \* > \*\* > When? If you’re talking about 1984, seven Presidential elections in the 20th century alone (1904, 20, 24, 32, 36, 64, 72) had a greater margin of victory in the popular vote, and one more (1928) fell short by only a quarter of a percentage point. > \*\* Mondale carried only two states in the Electoral College. By my standards, (and everyone else at the time) that was a landslide. Even Dole did better than that. Not that Wellstone would have done any better in the Senate race if he lived - he was another warmed over sixties radical. Whoops, gotta go. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/58 "2002-11-07T02:42:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Shodan \* > I’m thinking mostly of the days when the Democrats were the party of McGovern. Funny, you were pretty clearly suggesting that the Dems should move to the center _now_. 1972 was a long time ago. Backpedal much? > [@](#): > > The exciting thing about being a conservative is that we are the party of new ideas. I’d claim the Dems have plenty of new ideas, but if you want to debate that, please start another thread. This thread is about what the Dems should have done this fall, and what they might do now. > [@](#): > > Mondale carried only two states in the Electoral College. By my standards, (and everyone else at the time) that was a landslide. Who said it wasn’t? But you claimed it was _“one of the greatest landslides in American political history.”_ Not hardly. It was the eighth biggest landslide in the past 25 Presidential elections. Backpedal much? Oh, I’m sorry, I already asked that. Whoops. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/59 "2002-11-07T03:14:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DSYoungEsq \* > Ok, let’s look at the concepts proposed by **RTFirefly** as lynchpins of Democratic politics: “L **y** nchpins”? I know we’ve partly been discussing Dixiecrats, but c’mon. 😉 > [@](#): > > 1. “We believe in a balanced budget.” Quite apart from the fact that this is historically nonsense (Democrats have been no better at keeping income and outflow in check, and the concept of a balanced budget was first floated by the Republicans as an attack on the then Democratically controlled Congress), Through the 1970s, you were certainly right. But since the Reagan tax cuts, the Dems have been the more fiscally responsible party, demonstrated by their taking the deficit from $300B to zero in under a decade. > [@](#): > > does middle America really CARE about balanced budgets? No. Hell, they loved the Republicans for driving spending in the 80’s through the roof, and at the same time cutting the tax rate making it harder to achieve the income necessary to pay for breaking the Soviet empire. I’d disagree with that. It helps, in a perverse way, that young people aren’t voting much, so the electorate is indeed much more composed of age groups that worry about this stuff. I think a lot of people were relieved when Clinton demonstrated that huge deficits indeed didn’t have to pile up forever; people know that the piper would have to be paid someday. > [@](#): > > And they haven’t said “boo” about the fact that the current rush to solve our terrorism issues with a military effort during a time of decreased revenues is likely to blow the budget totally out of whack, worse than it already is. Well, they ain’t so dumb that they’re going to put budget-balancing ahead of combatting the people who took out the WTC towers. > [@](#): > > Further, I submit to you that it isn’t always a good thing to HAVE a balanced budget, let alone run a surplus. There are economic results from that that ripple out and cause difficulties. And it hamstrings your response to critical issues. Not a chance. What kills you isn’t a devotion to sound fiscal policy, but an _obsession_ just might. Like that idiotic “balanced budget amendment” of the 1980s that the Dems quite rightly scuttled because it would have taken away flexibility to run deficits when appropriate. > [@](#): > > Basing a political philosophy on this concept is certain death for any party; it is simply a method for attacking whoever is perceived by the public as having control of spending in a given election cycle. I don’t follow this; could you restate? > [@](#): > > 1. “We will fight for corporate reform.” Again, historically incorrect; That really isn’t the question here; the issue is whether it would be a good thing to include in a hypothetical Democratic “Contract with America”. But still: [quote] Clinton’s administration was no more interested in reigning in the abuses running rampant in the bull market of the 90’s than the Bush administration was. Indeed, Republicans are much less responsible for the current percieved problems than Democrats are, because Democrats were in charge of either the White House or the Congress during most of the last 25 years, when our attempt to modernize our financial and business institutions has led us once again to forget the lesson that stockholders buy stock on what is perceived, not what is real, and you have to use government to make sure that what is sold is not puffery or illusion. Further, frankly, other than when it hits them in the damn wallet really hard, the public in general doesn’t care what the CEO of REALLYBIGCORP, Inc. does or doesn’t do. Nobody in Peoria is paying any attention to what happens to Mr. Pitt, e.g. [quote] Except a lot of people in Peoria-equivalents worked for WorldCom, Enron, and so forth. And it hit them in the wallet. And now a lot of other Americans are worried that it could happen to them too at some point. It’s true that there’s plenty of responsibility to go around on this one. One of the Democrats who got us into this was the recent Veep candidate, Joe Leiberman. On the GOP side, Phil and Wendy Gramm did their share, and then some. But this **is** a Democratic issue, if they want it: Americans know the GOP isn’t going to even _try_ to rein in their corporate chums. > [@](#): > > 1. “We are worker friendly.” Um, while true, to what point? For the most part, the Democrats have stuck with blue collar workers through thick and thin. Currently, VERY thin. America is changing; it is quickly becoming a service and white collar economy…Democrats had best find out a way to say, “We are the friend of the software engineer.” The husband of one of my closest friends is a software geek. At the height of the boom back in 1999, he was in the job market. Got several offers. But since they had a small kid, he wanted to be able to get home at a reasonable hour. The best he could do was to negotiate a 60-hour workweek. IOW, I don’t think the change from blue-collar to white-collar has ushered in an era of humane employers who never exploit workers. There’s plenty of Democratic issues in Cubicle-Land. It’s getting late; I’ll try to respond to the rest of your post tomorrow, **DSY**. ---
**Author:** ![Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chance_the_Gardener)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2002, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528/60 "2002-11-07T03:47:02Z")
> [@](#): > > Clinton’s administration was no more interested in reigning in the abuses running rampant in the bull market of the 90’s than the Bush administration was. > — **dsyoungesq** Poppycock. Most notable was the Securities Litigation Reform Act, a bill Congress passed in 1995 that made it harder for investors to sue a corporation for poor performance of a stock or for having provided misleading information to its stockholders. President Clinton vetoed it, but the 104th Congress overrode his veto—one of the only two Clinton vetos ever overridden. Standing up to this legislation took political capital, and Clinton was willing to spend it. This bill paved the way for Enron and WorldCom to have a much easier time of it, once all the shit came down. God bless Bill Clinton for having vetoed it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memo-to-democrats-you-cant-beat-something-with-nothing/135528.md?page=4)