Posted on 11/18/2002 3:25:05 PM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Why We Lost No record, no vision: Why should anyone vote Democratic?
BY ZELL MILLER
Sunday, November 17, 2002 12:01 a.m. EST
Why did the Democratic Party lose so badly?
It's simple. We didn't give people any real reason to vote for us and we gave them far too many reasons to vote against us. We set ourselves up to be taken down by a popular president who figured out a way to exploit both of those weaknesses.
Look at what the campaign became in its last week, played out live on the evening news. First, we saw President Bush, flying from state to state urging Congress to make his tax cut permanent and to create his homeland security department, and accusing Democrats of foot-dragging or outright opposition to both. Then we saw Bill Clinton and Al Gore, flying from state to state, urging the old Democratic base to get out and vote against Mr. Bush . . . or in the case of Florida, against two Bushes.
At a time when people are hurting, we Democrats some how managed to turn an election that should have been about making people's lives better into a grudge match between our aimless opposition and Mr. Bush's vision.
We lost the Senate, big. Why? To start with, we didn't get anything done. After all the noise in the 2000 presidential election, we still don't have a prescription-drug plan. More than a year after the terror of Sept. 11, we still don't have a Department of Homeland Security. Nearly two years into an economic downturn, we still don't have a clear economic agenda, and even when we're not opposing tax cuts outright, our party still doesn't have a clear position on tax relief.
It's hard to run on your record when you don't have a record. And it's hard to run on your vision when you don't have a vision.
All we got in the end was the blame.
The Democratic Party--party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, the party that gave us Social Security, the G.I. Bill and Medicare--has become a party that stands for nothing and does nothing. Our party is stagnant, and if we don't do something new--in a better and bolder way--the Democratic Party could follow that other inflexible party of groups, the Whigs, into the dustbin of history.
By new, I do not mean becoming the antiwar party at a time when our nation's security is threatened in a way that it has never been before.
• Why couldn't our party push for a national lottery with the proceeds going to help pay the cost of college for deserving students in America?
• Why couldn't our party push to restructure the sacrosanct Head Start program into a universal prekindergarten program, with more emphasis on learning instead of just day care?
• Why couldn't we Democrats push to spread the massive government bureaucracy now concentrated in Washington out around the whole nation, saving money and bringing jobs to America at the same time?
• Why couldn't we national Democrats be as tough on crime as the Republicans? Most of our successful Democratic governors already are.
• And why in heaven's name can't our party be for real tax cuts? In the middle of a recession, the Democrats once had a president who passed a massive tax-cut package. His name was John F. Kennedy. Today, in the middle of a recession, we should be a party advocating for more tax cuts, not less. But we aren't.
America is the most tax-averse country on earth. Our own revolution started with people tossing tea off boats in Boston Harbor because of high taxes! Being a party that opposes tax cuts is not good politics, anywhere, any time. Like it or not, that's what we've become.
Instead of arguing that Mr. Bush's tax cut goes too far, we Democrats should be arguing that it doesn't go far enough. Middle-class families need more tax relief now as America faces an economic threat we haven't seen since the 1930s--the threat of deflation.
The Federal Reserve has already cut interest rates to the lowest levels in 40 years, and there's not much more it can do. This country needs a massive economic stimulus now, before we head down the road of falling prices, falling wages and falling home values. There is a way out and it works. Let's cut taxes for individuals and business even more, right now.
Now, there's a message Democrats could have run on. It is good policy and it is good politics.
And when you combine good policy and good politics, that's when you win.
Mr. Miller is a Democratic U.S. senator from Georgia.
Now with a lurch to the left giving Pelosi and Hillary leadership positions, your party will be even further from mainstream America.
As a 50 year Republican and a long time resident of the Washington, DC area, I agree wholeheartedly with Miller.
Lottery? The producers have been supporting the underclass for decades. The underclass is the primary buyer of lotteries. It's simply payback.
As currently configured, Head Start is basically a baby-sitting program, and an expensive one at that. Of course it should be changed. If we are going to have a Head Start program to make up for parents who won't "teach" their youngsters, why should we pay bureaucrats to just continue the process?
As for moving some of the bureaucrats out of Washington, have you ever tried to drive around D.C.? Should we keep pumping tax dollars to pave over a lot of Maryland and Virginia? Or should we spread it out across the country? Don't forget, for every government employee in D.C., there are a number of others employed - lobbyists, suppliers, etc.. Spread it out!
Zell Miller is right. And I wish some of our Republican brothers would listen to him.
Red Rover, Red Rover, send Zell right over!
Come on, Zell. You can do it. Dive in. The water's fine.
* Sure, turn it from a government tax into a voluntary 'charitable' contribution.
* Republicans have been saying this all along.
* Why is Zell Miller stil a Democrat?
The country moved away from the democrats this cycle in terms not seen since 1938. However the media and even the Republican Party isn't letting this be well known.......
ClickRepublicans matched their gains in Congress with a historic showing Tuesday in the nation's statehouses, capturing more state legislative seats than Democrats did for the first time in half a century.
The GOP had a net gain of about 200 legislative seats, defying historic trends in which the president's party has lost an average of 350 seats in every midterm election cycle since 1938.
When everyone is sworn in, Republicans will hold more than half the nation's 7,382 state legislative seats for the first time since 1952. And their gains catapulted the party into control of the House or Senate in five states, including Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Texas and Wisconsin.
The Republicans will now control both houses of the state legislatures in 21 states up from 17.....
He is a lot better then many RINOs. They appear to fester near the North East. The reason that we want Zell Miller is that he is better then any of the Rinos in New England.
Wow! You are in the top 99% too!
Small world, isn't it!
My own view is that, with the Bush influence on the Republican Party what it is, you can forget about government being defined by the Republican Party as the problem and not the solution.
Ugh, don't remind me.
At first they came for the smokers...and I did nothing because I wasn't a smoker...sound familiar?
The last time the Dems. brought up the promise of a tax cut in a campaign; after the election was over Slick told us that he worked harder than he ever had before but could not find a way to cut taxes.
In short, we don't believe you.
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