If Republicans have no mandate, what do Democrats have?!
Posted on 11/09/2004 12:10:45 PM PST by Stoat
| Les AuCoin: Democratic Party remains on the right track The beige and purple vastness outside the window is a serene counterpoint to clamoring talking heads who, like CNN's normally lucid Jeff Greenfield, declared - within minutes after the presidential election was determined - that he was quite sure the Democratic Party has something fatally wrong at its core. I beg to differ. (Incidentally, Greenfield was nowhere in sight this past month as I met people from the dairy towns, manufacturing cities and fishing villages of Wisconsin. He was in the Big Apple, ensconced in CNN's hermetically sealed studios.) I say there is nothing wrong at the core of a party that registers millions of new voters to vote - and hundreds of thousands of citizens to campaign - for the first time. Nor is it a sign that something is amiss at a party's core when it transforms tens of thousands of Gen-Xers (who saw no point in voting four years ago) into tough, smart, tenacious activists who are gearing up even now for 2008. Part of the human comedy is that election victors inevitably over-interpret their victories, and losers their losses. Wiser heads know that nothing in politics lasts forever, and that among the shards of broken election night dreams can be found the elements of a resurgent political order. It's Newton's First Law of Physics at work in politics - every action creates an equally forceful counteraction. Consider this message from Emily Farris of Brooklyn. (You haven't heard of her? You will.) Four years ago, Farris was a self-described apathetic, 18-year-old nonvoter. But this year she founded Swing the States, a Web-based clearinghouse for young people who knew their state's presidential outcome was a foregone conclusion and wanted to work - for a weekend, a week, a month - in a swing state. In a post-election e-mail to her legions, she wrote: "Was your Nov. 3 like mine? Many tears and lots of Dylan. Just because John Kerry lost doesn't mean we didn't change the world. "We put our hearts, souls, time, energy and money into something we believed in and still believe in," she continued. "We are the future of this country, and if we keep up the energy and commitment that we have had this past year there will be no stopping us!" And guess what? Swing the State activists are scheduled to meet next Saturday to draw up a four-year plan to expand into all 50 states. This energy, Mr. Greenfield, is one of many signs that, at its core, the Democratic Party is unbowed, energized and prepared to fight for its principles and this nation's soul. Only the timid and the Tories in the party can spoil this. If they try to make "near-beer" out of the party, a whole generation of turned-on kids - the Democrats' future - will be tuned out and turned off. So will millions of meat-and-potatoes voters who, under the reactionary and reckless Bush economic policy, will see their families' battered economic interests aligned with Democrats in 2006 and 2008. You heard it here first. Garrison Keillor says Democrats are like deciduous trees - they fade and wane occasionally but when the season is right, their sap rises. Trust me friends, Democrats may have narrowly lost this election, but their sap is up and it's likely to keep rising as George Bush pushes the GOP's reactionary agenda even harder. My monthlong trek to and from the Midwest brooks no other conclusion. But Republican leaders say George Bush has won a "mandate." Please! Only a man who got to the White House with a majority of his countrymen opposed to him could call a 51 percent victory a mandate. Others say this election was won by deftly manipulating conservative social issues and fear of war. Yes, but that is not likely to work when Bush deficits drive up interest rates, create deflation, leave millions of additional Americans out of work and innumerable others unable to pay their bills - all while the well-off enjoy their tax breaks, Ferraris, exotic vacations and the best schools. The lesson for Democrats in this election comes from the words of Winston Churchill, which served England so well in the darkest days of World War II: "Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. "Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy." Former congressman Les AuCoin, an Ashland columnist and radio commentator, is a retired professor of political science. |
It's nice to be able to look forward to at least another generation of Republican political control. :-)
Consider this message from Emily Farris of Brooklyn. (You haven't heard of her? You will.)
I have a feeling this little mention was the first and the last time I will hear of Emily Farris.
Karl Rove just can't believe his luck. Dems are the gift that keeps on giving.
Aw right, Bozo! Keep up those pearls of wisdom.
If Republicans have no mandate, what do Democrats have?!
"Reactionary" this, "Reactionary" that, she should at least try to hide the Communist slogans.
Only a complete liberal idiot could possibly think that such a sentence makes a lick of sense.
well, at least he got the "sap" part right.
OK, I must be hitting a sugar low, but how does receiving 51% of the vote equate to "a majority of his countrymen opposed to him"?
This is the best simile this idiot can find? "Vote Democrat - we're saps at heart!"
He's referring to 2000.
Actually, it's Newton's Third Law, but what can you expect from a political "scientist".
"Only a man who got to the White House with a majority of his countrymen opposed to him could call a 51 percent victory a mandate."
***
I guess Les flunked both math and logic. Some of the majority opposed to him also voted for him?
There's another law of physics that says that the harder you hit a brick wall, the more it hurts.
One wonders to whom he could possibly be referring....
This former Congressman turned wizard, this newly-minted pundit turned prognosticator, this scion of truth, virtue and the American Way can't even spell the capitol of North Dakota.
"...every action creates an equally forceful counteraction."
Do they understand that the bile and invective they hurled, not to mention the media's game of Bush-bashing created the backlash they feel now?
I hope the blinders stay on their eyes. I rejoice at their hubris and introspective naval-gazing as they try to find out why everyone else is so stupid except them.
The Dems would be in a lot better shape if they occasionally gave into both honor and good sense.
Oh.
I would have thought that the results from the most recent election would have eliminated that talking point, but I guess I'm wrong.
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