Maybe I should start a separate thread on this, but I’ll throw this in to this thread since it is at least tangentially related to the discussion on the Democtratic strategy.
I thought Dean did a horrible job on Meet the Press yesterday. He basically admitted that the Democrats have no plan other than “We’re not Bush”, nor will they have a plan until next year. I’m a staunch Republican, but if I were a Democrat, I would be concerned that my party chairman could not articulate my party’s specific agenda, nor did he seem that interested in actually creating an agenda until next year.
I could understand resting on your laurels if you were in charge, but the Democrats aren’t in charge, so there aren’t any laurels on which to rest. This seems to bear out the Republican talking point that the Democratic party has no ideas.
I thought Dean did OK, assuming that there really is a plan to address the issue that people don’t know what the Democrats stand for.
He really only stumbled twice. Once was in the part you quoted, and once was when Russert asked him if Dems were trying to embrace religion. Dean just couldn’t bring himself to say “yes”. I don’t remember the exact exchange, but it was something like 'I think we can all embrace what most of us do embrace". Anyway, you had to see it live to get the full effect.
But othewise, he was very articulate, and generally had good answers. (Mehlman, otoh, as more like a used car salesman. I don’t envy his job.)
As I’ve said several times, waiting for the Republicans to shoot themselves in the foot isn’t a strategy, it’s an abdication of strategy. OK, the Republicans have shot themselves in the foot, and the Democrats are poised to win a few seats. What then? What are you going to do with your slim congressional majority?
“We don’t suck quite so bad as the Republicans!” might get a few representatives elected. But being a majority party is meaningless unless you want to do something. If your only goal is to prevent Republican excess, then your timeserving majority will only last until the Republicans get their act together.
But Karl Rove is a political evil genius, there’s nothing we can do to stand against him, only Rove can destroy Rove! Eh, not so much. Karl Rove isn’t exactly a genius in my estimation, if he’s a genius why are the President’s poll numbers in the cellar? He managed to barely win two presidential elections by the skin of his teeth, less than that if you don’t count 2000. Compare that to the wins of an actual political genius, Bill Clinton.
I feel compelled to point out that there are potential problems with my and Brainy’s thesis.
First off, it would take some careful handling to soften the Democratic Party line on social issues without alienating the base. There are plenty of limousine liberals who dislike social spending. There is a lot of pressure on the Dems to hold up the Left side in the culture wars.
2ndly, there is the question of money. The Dems are just as addicted to large corporate donations to run their campaigns as the GOP. A lot of that funding would evaporate if the Dems embraced economic populism. Joe Trippi showed that you can use the internet to raise money from individual donors which might make up for that loss but in order to do so you need red meat issues to dangle in front of potential supporters. I would assume the Dem donor lists are weighted in favor of social liberals as compared to fiscal liberals.
Lastly, the Dems want to be careful about moving against history. Demographics favor social liberalism. As older, more conservative, voters die off the electorate is slowly moving to the Left on cultural issues in general.
Other than “Bush Lied”? (about more than a blowjob???)
How about “Bush condones torture?”
How about “We’re no safer now than we were on 9/10/01?”
How about “Bush has no freakin’ clue what he’s doing?”
All have the virtue of being, in fact, true.
To those who observe what’s actually going on around them rather than what they wish was actually going on around them, that is. Given that Bush is sitting at 36-38%, and Cheney at 29%, we’re pretty close to where Nixon was before he left: at that hardcore 20% who wouldn’t move off the base for anything. The truth of the above statements has finally sunk in, and the effect will be long-lasting.
The right is through. Kaput. Gone.
As for a long-term strategy, I see no reason to abandon either form of liberalism. The Dems have shown, over the very long term, that all the social spending in the world can’t match a Republican in bed with the military-industrial complex. Not to mention highway contractors. Yeesh.
And as was pointed out correctly above, on social issues, time is on our side.
Pssst, pantom: Bush isn’t running in ‘08! Haven’t you heard? The Dems have got to get off the Bush bashing train as a campaign strategy. Sure, it has its uses as a short-term political tool, but it aint’ gonna win the '08 election.
The Congressional elections in '06 will be mostly a stage play. There just aren’t enough seats seriously in play any more, as both parties have carved out safe districts in an overwhelming majority of cases.
You’re missing the point. I’ts not “we’re not quite as bad as the Republicans.” It’s “We’re one HELL of a LOT better than the Republicans … because we won’t stick your dick in the pencil sharpener.”
The Republicans have fucked up ROYALLy and REPEATEDLY. The idjits have FINALLY started to notice. Time to cash in the chips. Then the Dems can replicate Clinton’s approach to governing and hopefully, the idjit voters will remember that unjust wars are worse than blowjobs over the next few election cycles. That’s all it will take.
C’mon, John, you know better than that. Linking candidates to a failed predecessor of the same party is a very old, very successful strategy, and if the voters continue to smell the stink of failure on everything Bush does, it’ll work like a charm in 06 and 08.
Assuming that the Democrats in charge take “Clinton’s approach to governing” of the 1995-2000 period when he dealt with a Republican Congress, as opposed to the “Clinton’s approach to governing” of the 1993-1994 period which so tarnished the Democrats’ reputation that they lost control of Congress for the first time in 40 years.
Sorry, that was what I meant, the opposite argument from the one I was making.
I’m figuring out that I’ve misattributed the argument that Democrats need to embrace their ‘moral values’ to win over ‘middle America’ to the centrist wing of the party - in fact, paradoxically, it’s the left wing.
