Posted on 01/21/2009 12:56:27 PM PST by BGHater
Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, installed Wednesday as the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), vowed to aggressively campaign in all 50 states and promised to rely on ideas and not ideology.
“The 50-state strategy is now and forever what Democrats do,” Kaine told DNC members at the party’s winter meeting in Washington, D.C. The plan to seek to compete in all states was put in place by Kaine’s successor, Howard Dean.
“The results speak for themselves. I’ll oversimplify: everybody matters. Every state, every region, every community matters,” Kaine said. However, he also warned Democrats to not simply trust that strategies that worked last year would also work in the future.
Dean had earlier defended the strategy in a valedictory speech before Kaine’s election as chairman.
“We cannot appear complacent,” Dean told party members. “We need to keep showing up, keep asking people for their vote, or we can lose their votes just as quickly as we gained them.”
Kaine set high expectations in the speech by repeatedly referencing the electoral successes enjoyed by the DNC under Dean, though he promised to continue the efforts credited with helping Democrats reclaim the presidency and both houses of Congress. Kaine said following Dean made him “nervous.”
The Virginia governor also argued that a less ideological approach would help the DNC continue its winning streak.
“Our elections in 2008 proved that Americans want leaders that are about solutions, not ideology,” he said. “We’re the problem solvers, not the ideologues ... In Virginia, our political success has been directly related to the success we’ve made in governance.”
Kaine sought to reach out to Hispanic voters in particular. He said, speaking in Spanish, that he learned important lessons while working as a young missionary in Honduras, and that the DNC would work to build strong relationships with the Hispanic community under his tenure.
Kaine was appointed by President Obama to succeed Dean at the DNC.
Quote of the day!!!
Let’s see how well your support of gay marriage and the attempted repeal of DOMA plays in all 50 states.
True-but if we do nothing then we know what the result will be. We have to come together and develop a strategy...no matter how lofty our principles are...we must win to implement them.
but mostly, if the idiotic and arrogant "conservatives" keep handing wins to Rats because they vote third party, then nothing matters....
it started in earnest with Perot, and it continues...it is the only reason we have two leftist senators in Washington state, and that we have any question about who got elected in Minnesota....
I suspect that the arrogant third party people who say they are conservative have elected tons of Rats just in the last 20 yrs....good going....
you're just electing more socialists.....
voting third party is not going to make the Pubs more conservative, its actually going to make them more leftist, since they will be forced to compete for more votes from the Rats.....
your attitude is making things WORSE!
Debates on the constitutionality of the Act
In the 1930s, the Supreme Court struck down many pieces of Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation, including the Railroad Retirement Act. In May, the Court threw out a centerpiece of the New Deal, the National Industrial Recovery Act, the Agricultural Adjustment Act, and New York State’s minimum-wage law.
President Roosevelt responded with an attempt to pack the court via the Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937. On February 5, 1937, he sent a special message to Congress proposing legislation granting the President new powers to add additional judges to all federal courts whenever there were sitting judges age 70 or older who refused to retire.[27] The practical effect of this proposal was that the President would get to appoint six new Justices to the Supreme Court (and 44 judges to lower federal courts), thus instantly tipping the political balance on the Court dramatically in his favor.
The debate on this proposal was heated and widespread, and lasted over six months. Beginning with a set of decisions in March, April, and May, 1937 (including the Social Security Act cases), the Court would sustain a series of New Deal legislation.
Two Supreme Court rulings affirmed the constitutionality of the Social Security Act.
* Steward Machine Company v. Davis, 301 U.S, 548[28] (1937) held, in a 5–4 decision, that, given the exigencies of the Great Depression, “[It] is too late today for the argument to be heard with tolerance that in a crisis so extreme the use of the moneys of the nation to relieve the unemployed and their dependents is a use for any purpose narrower than the promotion of the general welfare”.
The arguments opposed to the Social Security Act (articulated by justices Butler, McReynolds, and Sutherland in their opinions) were that the social security act went beyond the powers that were granted to the federal government in the Constitution. They argued that, by imposing a tax on employers that could be avoided only by contributing to a state unemployment-compensation fund, the federal government was essentially forcing each state to establish an unemployment-compensation fund that would meet its criteria, and that the federal government had no power to enact such a program.
* Helvering v. Davis, 301 U.S. 619 (1937), decided on the same day as Steward, upheld the program because “The proceeds of both [employee and employer] taxes are to be paid into the Treasury like internal-revenue taxes generally, and are not earmarked in any way”. That is, the Social Security Tax was constitutional as a mere exercise of Congress’s general taxation powers.
There needs to be a march against socialism in DC.
The people who organize and lead the march are the ones to carry our banner.
there is no natural bonding between blacks, Hispanics, and white rats....none....
infact, Hispanics and blacks are at each others throats in many areas.....
poor whites who have voted rat in the past can easily be shown the error of their ways.....especially after the white bashing by that idiot minister at the immaculation....
people, the greatest swindle by the MSM and the illegal money contributions that this past election witnessed gave the barryista a victory not much better than Bush's.....
a slighlty better candidate, or a better McCain...more money...more fairness in media.....barryista would be back in Chicago with the mob...
Maybe the GOP should run some hispanic candidates?
Identity politics aren't necessarily a bad thing as long as the message is anti-socialist.
Death to socialism.
An immigration/deportation strategy alone will not work anymore. Build the fence, yes. Deport, yes. But, we cannot continue living in the fantasy world that "they shouldn't be here in the first place" and have to start living in the real world.
For concrete strategy, I'd suggest charismatic Hispanic conservatives work in the border areas in TX, NM, and AZ, and that this work (first phase) is best done by Hispanics helping others in their community, bringing them into the American fold. Look at how blue the southern borders of those three states were this last go-around. Need to fix that, folks!!!
ChicagoLady, I know you're very busy, but you probably have some extremely valuable ideas/insights in this area.
“...vowed to aggressively campaign in all 50 states and promised to rely on ideas and not ideology.”
In other words, say whatever it takes to get elected, and then vote as a democrat.
We have no official language.
the GOP infrastructure was non existent.
the leadership just did not get it and thought they had core support. McCain attracted NOTHING. no support and no money.
The left has now gone light years ahead of the GOP and the only thing the GOP offers us is platitudes pointless moderates and bipartisan bending over forward for obama.
You obviously missed my point. The point is that, in the current decade, in government budgets, Republicans TRIED to outspend Democrats, and fooled themselves in thinking that they actually COULD outspend Democrats, and that if they were to succeed, it would help them to get re-elected. They were obviously wrong. I wonder if they’ve figured that out yet.
And GOP must do the same.
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