Posted on 09/17/2004 6:21:53 AM PDT by crushkerry
We are hardcore partisans here at crushkerry.com. There’s no denying it. But at the same time, we understand that political tension between equally strong parties makes for better government. So for that reason alone, we hope the Democrats one day reclaim a little of their old glory and begin to advocate some serious ideas within the public square. It not only will make for a better US of A, but it’ll also help keep the GOP honest.
But this is not the year.
Instead, this year finds the Democrats fueled by rage and hate. Their big idea this election season is not a major healthcare plan or a big tax reform, but rather “Anybody but Bush.” And they don’t care whose throat they step on along the way.
Take the Take the stories of Kerry supporters actually spitting on GOP delegates in New York during the convention.
A less drastic example comes from John Kerry himself. His recent “Excuse Presidency” speech can only be called a harangue. Virtually every sentence in the rant began with the pronoun “He” or “His.” Of course, Kerry was talking about George W. Bush. And while Kerry shouldn’t be expected to say kind things about his opponent, the speech represented all that is wrong about the current American political dialogue. Kerry blames George W. Bush for everything, which is odd because most of the characterizations he foists on America are either greatly exaggerate or are ongoing challenges Bush inherited from his long list of predecessors. If Bush put cream in his coffee, Kerry would accuse him of pandering to the dairy industry.
We have ridiculed the “bitterly divided” analysis so popular in American punditry today. The truth is America has had frequent periods of bitter division and there is nothing unique about the current split in American opinion. But the emotionalism behind that division, particularly on the Left, is something to behold indeed.
This level of emotionalism will not die down until this abusive wing of the modern Democrat Party is discredited and the more serious folks in that once august faction reclaim their rightful role in what they used to call the Party of the People.
I recently had a conversation with a loved one who happens also to be a Bush hater. She claimed that if Bush won, she was going to move to British Columbia. I called such a notion “absurd,” which it is. That’s all I said. I called it “absurd.” Well, you would have thought I just choked a kitten to death. We ended up in a knock down, drag out shouting match. All because I called her plan to expatriate “absurd.” This is not a healthy environment.
One of us original Kerry Crushers is an Italian-American, the other an Irish-American. So you can rest assured there’s lots of Democrat blood in our lineages. But there’s not one of our grandfathers who would have marched against World War II or carried a sign that said "Get Your Rosaries Out of My Ovaries!"
So where are the normal Democrats? They used to be the party of Jefferson, FDR and John Kennedy. Cool, intelligent customers who controlled (or at least tried to control) events. The current party is the party of MoveOn.org and Michael Moore reactionary nuts.
Joe Lieberman tried to run as a sane Democrat and they laughed him off the stage. Evan Bayh shows some promise. We even believe there is a place for an articulate thoughtful anti-war Democrat to grab the microphone from ranters like Howard Dean and tergiversants like John Kerry and say look, we oppose the war. Here’s why. We respectfully disagree with the President and we’re going to fight like hell. But we’ll always support the will of the people, no matter the outcome.
Instead we get “No War for Oil!” and “Bush Lied!”
We believe ole’ Shrummy is onto something. He has every one of his clients promote a “populist” message … power to the people, peasants with pitchforks, that kind of thing. But there are two fundamental problems with this message.
First, trying to squeeze those messages out of a Massachusetts liberal like John Kerry is a futile effort. Not only does the message not come across, but the guy actually looks ridiculous. And if voters laugh at you, they’re probably not going to vote for you. Kerry’s motto “The Real Deal,” designed to invoke Rooseveltian fairness does not describe a policy or a platform or a reform, but rather Kerry himself. Not very populist … but very self-involved. The Kerry campaign actually sent Jesse Jackson out to tell Appalachians that they screwed up in 2000. “You got your guns, but you lost your jobs and your healthcare,” he said. There’s so much wrong with this, we can’t even begin to help the Democrats.
Shrummy had no better luck with Al Gore, whose message ultimately was - "This is the best economy in American history and I ain’t gonna take it anymore!"
Shrummy and the Dems need a real Mid-Western moderate who can sell this message with sincerity.
The second problem is the modern Left’s fundamental lack of understanding of Populism. The great populist politicians in history mixed economic radicalism (socialism, really) with hardcore Evangelical righteousness. The greatest Populist of them all William Jennings Bryan is known for two things … his Socialist/Christian “Cross of Gold Speech” and for defending creationism in the Scopes Monkey Trial. Today’s “populists” have all the socialism and none of the Christian indignation.
And so that Christian indignation, which is a very real element in the American character, is sated by President George W. Bush’s “Compassionate Conservatism.” And don’t let any Lefty tell you no such thing exists. Groups like Shared Hope International fight sexual slavery in the Third World through government grants provided by George W. Bush’s Republican Party.
These used to be Democrat issues! The Dems used to be the party to turn to when America was feeling especially generous and neighborly. No longer. The modern Democrat Party not only refused to support an effort to remove a bloody tyrant from power in a Fourth World sand pile, they then slandered the American president who made it happen. How many millions breathe free now because the US of A took a stand? And still the Democrats don’t get it. FDR understood it. Shoot, Clinton understood it!
And so the Democrat Party is adrift. And while we aren’t popping our corks yet in this 2004 election, we are getting ready for the party. There is little hope in the near future for the party of Jefferson, Jackson, FDR, and John Kennedy. They will almost certainly nominate Hillary Clinton for President in 2008; not exactly the model of Middle America populist values. So we’re unlikely to see a “good” Democrat (think Zell Miller) emerge until at least 2012. And by then the GOP may have a permanent hold on the institutions of government.
You joke, but many of architects of Bush's foreign policy, mainly Paul Wolfowitz, worked for Scoop Jackson.
We realized that we were(in fact)REPUBLICANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I guess you saw the light, and it was Brilliant.
I once called myself a conservative democrat. I think some called them "blue dogs". Now, I just a conservative, mad as Zell.
Thanks to my niece's husband, and Rush.
Did you remember the late Lawrence McDonald, a Democrat from Georgia? He was also another great American who was killed by the Soviets when they shot down the KAL flight in 1983. I only wish there were more like him.
They went the way of IMB Selectric typewriters.
He gave a speach at the Republican Convention in New York.
To my way of thinking, the Democratic party has lost the fragile alliances crufted during the New Deal era of ethnic minorities, labor, disaffected unemployed, Agriculture, etc.
What FDR called the "Malefactors of Great Wealth" are still around, but the common enemy of totalitarian socialism - Nazzism/Communism tended to unite republican and democrat at least on the foreign policy level. In the 1960's, radical activism took over the Democratic party - Scoop Jackson morphed into Tom Hayden - consider the vitriol directed against Lyndon Johnson! The far left that drives the issues is inherently anti-family, and it shows. Perhaps "they" mean well, but replacing local control with a secular, global group-think doesn't play well outside of academia. Also, in a lot of ways, the US hasn't really recovered from the Kennedy assasination, a pivotal event in US history.
The Vietnam war and social spending literally bankrupt the country, continuing loss of cultural behavioral standards (not that i was immune either) the decline of manufacturing and an increasingly selfish, un-educated electorate. The US will endure as it always has, but it takes work, we can't coast along on our legacy.
Sane democrats have not gone anywhere. They are winning elections right and left. They have just changed their names. Now they call themselves republicans.
The people calling themselves democrats are actually commies.
Todays reps are yesterdays dems and todays dems are yesterdays commie's.
DemoncRATS hatred is because the Pres represents 180 degrees opposite of all that they offer. Typical example of the plate the demoncRATS serve is the morally corrupt, ethically challenged clintoons (who are really cartoons) and the likes of a cowardly, treasonous mannequin who thinks he's a hero because he won some medals and then threw them away, otherwise known as the ketchupman. Sheesh! I sure would like to buy ketchupman for what he's worth and then sell him for what he thinks he's worth. I'd make billions.
I don't know if anyone else is sensing this, but I have never been more concerned for President Bush's safety. Certainly, there are any number terrorist organizations that would like to assassinate the president, but what concerns me most is the over-the-top hate that liberals are expressing for the president. In their little "end justifies the means" world, I would not discount an attempt by some crazed liberal lunatic on the president's life. God help us! Pray for the president!
Yes, you're right, there were sane Democrats in previous times, including Sam Nunn. I was thinking of current members, so I was stuck with Zell Miller, Joe Leiberman, and Evan Bayh.
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