Posted on 12/08/2004 6:49:32 PM PST by Libloather
Democrats look for message, messenger to win back power and influence policy
BY STEVEN THOMMA
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Posted on Wed, Dec. 08, 2004
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Which should come first for Democrats as they retool for the future, message or messenger?
In their first meeting since their dark Election Day, Democrats will gather in Florida this weekend desperate to find a way back to power. Their focus will be on a search for a new messenger in the form of a national party chairman to voice the party's ideals on such issues as national defense, Social Security and tax restructuring.
But some Democratic insiders say the search for a chairman puts too much emphasis on the wrong end of the equation. Instead, they say, the party should settle on a core message, much as Republicans did a generation ago when they became the party of smaller government, lower taxes and strong national defense.
"Who is chair won't make much difference," said Rep. Brad Carson, D-Okla., who last month lost a bid for the Senate. "The problems the Democratic Party has are so profound they require a strategic change."
To many like Carson, the party must look at much more than who will appear on Sunday morning talk shows and how much money the party can raise, though both those jobs are important.
Democrats need to settle bigger questions first: Is their party for a strong national defense or is it deeply antiwar? Is it a party of the two coasts or will it compete for the South and the heartland? Does it stand chiefly for preserving the status quo, such as leaving Social Security unchanged, or does it offer new ideas?
"We had a message problem," said Jim Jordan, a strategist who served briefly as Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign manager. "We are too coastal, too urban and most of all too dovish. ... The public simply didn't trust us to keep them safe."
Though he would never again be welcome at a Democratic gathering - he endorsed President Bush and spoke at the Republican National Convention - retiring Democratic Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia recently wrote a book titled "A National Party No More." He argued that Democrats effectively wrote off conservative parts of the country by embracing an ever more liberal agenda on defense and social issues.
Carson echoed that point. He noted, for example, that he had a conservative voting record on issues such as gay marriage, but he still was a Democrat, and that made him suspect in his state.
"People said, `You'd be a better senator ... but you'd deliver the Senate to Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton,'" Carson said. "We would be wise to turn to less-polarizing people."
That's not to say that many Democrats want their party to echo Republicans.
"We're a pro-choice party. We're a civil rights party. We're proud of that. That's not going to change," said Mark Brewer, the state chairman in Michigan and chair of the Association of State Democratic Chairs, which is hosting the Friday-Saturday meeting in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
But absent a simple, cohesive message, the party is prone to jumping around in search of issues. In the final weeks of the 2004 campaign, for example, Kerry adopted a "ripped from the headlines" approach that sought to use bad news - from setbacks in Iraq to the death of actor and stem-cell activist Christopher Reeve - against Bush.
"We're seen as the party of contrivance," Democratic pollster Harrison Hickman said at a recent conference sponsored by the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "We should stand up for the people who don't normally have a voice" on bread-and-butter issues such as education and health care, "but people don't sit around the kitchen table and talk about stem cells."
Steve Jarding, who ran Democrat Mark Warner's successful 2001 gubernatorial campaign in Virginia, noted Warner's success in stifling some of his party's stands as he courted conservative rural voters, a target considered key to future national prospects.
"He maintained distance from the polarizing issues our base wanted us to talk about," Jarding said. "It's not that Mark Warner wasn't pro-choice, he was. He just didn't want to talk about it."
What should Democrats talk about?
Simply opposing the Republican agenda isn't enough, suggested Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill.
"In 2002 and 2004, Democrats were the party out of power and by definition should have been the party of change," he said in an essay published Wednesday. "Yet they failed to provide credible alternatives to Republican policies. . . . We, the party of landmark reforms like Social Security, Medicare, Pell Grants and a balanced budget, allowed ourselves to be positioned as the party of the status quo."
He suggested that Democrats offer a pro-family alternative to Bush's expected proposals to overhaul the tax code.
In a speech Wednesday that previewed his possible candidacy for party chairman, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean urged Democrats to fight for change.
"We have to learn to punch our way off the ropes," Dean said. "We have to set the agenda. We should not hesitate to call for reform: reform in elections, reform in health care, reform in education, reforms that promote ethical business practices."
Ultimately, several Democrats think the party needs a simple but sweeping set of principles to guide it.
"Shared responsibility, shared opportunity," suggested Donna Brazile, who ran Al Gore's 2000 campaign. "We have to return to some set of values."
Embrace abortion, Hollywood, the impeached *Crintons and the race bating Jesse Jackson. It won't matter who the messenger is - the message spells loser every time...
Pick Howard Dean, please.
Lose the Blame America Liberals.
Lose the DNC Chairman.
'"Who is chair won't make much difference," said Rep. Brad Carson, D-Okla.'
Very true, also very obvious. No matter whose derriere is filling the chair, the chair is always filled by a derriere.
Just wait until Marse Hillary runs...
One of the interesting problems is that the Republican party believes so many different, and in some cases contradictory, things, that there is nothing sensible left for the Democrats to take up.
People would laugh if they said they would cut budgets, even thought Bush is spending heavily.
That's the way to go!!
Never change your ideology just because the American people don't like it.
Stick to what you know best: Gay marriage, racial divides, redistribution of income, higher taxes, class warfare, pitting group against group, etc, etc.
You're too proud to change!!
Howard Dean should chair the DNC. He would be like Captain Howdy sailing the Titanic.
"It's not that Mark Warner wasn't pro-choice, he was. He just didn't want to talk about it."
So, your guy hid his true beliefs from the public to win power. Well, that'll work, but it will only work once.
Steve Jarding, who ran Democrat Mark Warner's successful 2001 gubernatorial campaign in Virginia, noted Warner's success in stifling some of his party's stands as he courted conservative rural voters, a target considered key to future national prospects.
"He maintained distance from the polarizing issues our base wanted us to talk about," Jarding said. "It's not that Mark Warner wasn't pro-choice, he was. He just didn't want to talk about it."
What should Democrats talk about?
Everybody knows what demoncrapts stand for, even if they don't talk about it. The reason mark warner won is because of all the dumb-arse liberals moving into Northern Virginia, but the real Virginians from the rest of the state need to step up and vote, they did in the Presidential election. Get rid of MARK! Vote for the real Warner.
Yep. They've got it all lined up! Now all they need is a message, and a messenger, and they'll be on their way!
It will be slimy Harold Ickes, the Klinton Kandidate.
The Dimms have moved so far to the left they have gone over the edge of the cliff. Their finger nail hold on credibility with the American people who hold True Values has slipped away. They cannot hide their Socialist Agenda.
The actions of the Democratic Party in defense of Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky affair had been tolerated by the American People and we were forced to accept the President's inappropriate behavior, his lying to the American People, and finally his Perjury. All this while Prominante Democrats were placed in the Emabarrising Position of defending him. Clinton continued with the Pardoning of felons that no one with any competancey would have considered pardoning. Bill Clinton was NOT GOOD for the Democratic Party.
Their Claims of voter fraud in the 2004 election has fallen on deaf ears because of their lack of Principles as seen in the 2000 Florida Vote Fiasco. They blamed the Republicans for trying to steal the 2000, election when anyone with common sense could see that it was the Democrats themselves who were trying to steal the election.
From that point on, the actions of the Democratic Party, and the Clinton Administration were horrendous and extremly embarrising to the American People as a whole.
Everyone knew their Modis Operandi and how they would attack and act. They did not leave us down. They are still crying foul in Ohio, with watery complaints that it was to hot in the polling places and this disenfranchised voters.
If it is to hot to vote, wait till the next rounds of elections, when they feel the bitterness from being out in the cold.
The Values that the American People have been ingrained with from Generation to Generation are being attacked by the Democrats. The Democrats have decided to side with the Homosexuals and the Anti God faction. Unfortunately the American people have had the scales removed from their eyes by the deaths of Three Thousand of their fellow Citizens and foreign workers who died in the Terrosit Attacks of the World Trade Center on 9/11. These dastardly attacks described by their recent offering for President, Senator John Kerry, himself a person of questionable Patriotism, described the attack on the WTC and Terrorist Attacks in General as a Nusiance.
They have changed their label to Liberal and now to Progressive. The label may change by the Marxist Socialist agenda and the destruction of the Constitutional Republic of the United States is still their goal, and this is the same old slop that is still in the can.
It will be interesting to see how they TRY to Sell this to a people who have been warned of their intentions.
How about Jimmah Carter?
Look democrats look.
See them run.
Run run run.
Suuuuuuuuuuuure. Let's have more abortion on demand and more race poverty pimping. That'll win over the folks in Flyover Country. I'm glad to see the Democrats do get it! <grin
THE LIBERAL CREDO
1. Capitalism creates oppression; government creates opportunity.
2. Traditional gender roles are artificial but feminism and homosexuality are government-protected lifestyles.
3. Self-esteem is paramount; government must undertake to
guarantee each citizen-victim self-esteem no matter the cost.
4. The ACLU is good, because destroying religion and silencing believers are protected by the Constitution and the First Amendment; The NRA is bad because it defends the Constitution.
5. Standardized IQ tests are racist; racial quotas and affirmative action are not. Conservatives are racists; everybody knows that Black people can't make it on their own without big-buck government assistance programs and
Hollyweirdos to proselytize the message 24/7.
6. Abortion is a natural right. The Founders just forgot to put it in the Constitution.
7. Normal sex is perverted. Threesomes, bestiality, necrophilia, homosexuality are just new ways to get a thrill.
8. Moral indignation is a liberal's standard strategy for endowing our output with superiority.
9. Victimization is our basic belief by which we blame and find others responsible for our own personal failures, then expect taxpayers, deep-pocketed individuals, or the courts to bail us out. It feels good to be in the throes of "victimization" and either A) causing victims, B) concocting victims, C) playing victim, D) commiserating over victims, or E) creating another class of victims to bleed over.
10. It's a liberal's duty to treat Middle America in the manner of raising mushrooms, that is to say, keep them in the dark and feed them lots of horse manure (Democrats' specialty).
"We're seen as the party of contrivance," Democratic pollster Harrison Hickman said...
The Party of Contrivance. We have our slogan, ladies and gentlemen.
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