Posted on 11/08/2004 6:55:26 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
A week before I left Odessa, Texas to begin my first year at Stanford, I was walking down my street when a sweet, elderly neighbor and family friend noticed me and gave me this parting, final piece of advice, “I know Stanford’s up around San Francisco, but remember your values and don’t become like one of them.” I know many of you might be surprised, but this is the way millions of Americans think. They are not bad people; the people in my hometown are actually as nice as they come. But they’ve been exposed to different things, and Republicans have molded their view of liberals as flag-burning, God-blaspheming, peace-flag-waving hippies.
That’s why red state Democrats need to speak up. Many of us campaigned and poured our hearts out into the last few months, and we now wake up feeling like hell.
So as a Southerner, this is what Democrats have to do to win back America.
1) Have joy. Sounds simple, but in other words, cheer up. Don’t walk around bitter that conservatives are running this country.
History is on our side. From race issues to feminism to gay rights, liberals have always stood on the forefront of social and moral advance. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.”
2) Fight for every race. The next presidential election might be four years away, but we have our work cut out for us before then. Each race helps frame political attitudes nationwide and affects the whole landscape.
If the Democrats lose four more Senate seats in the 2006 elections, they’ll lose their ability to filibuster Bush’s judicial nominations, and we can all say good-bye to affirmative action, a woman’s right to choose and the separation between church and state.
3) Define God and “moral values.” Red-state voters want to be able to identify with candidates by knowing how religion calculate into their thinking. Liberals win on the issues, but we have serious PR problems. We just have to connect the Democratic agenda to notions of morality, family and God, as shameless as that might feel.
4) Get over yourself. I’ve been so annoyed by those who critique Tom Daschle, say Michael Moore’s a radical and try to sound smart by saying they’re fiscal conservatives. Republicans have something we need: party discipline. Ronald Reagan’s famous 11th amendment was, “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” It’s time we quit criticizing our own in public.
5) Dumb it down and get dirty. That means running negative campaign ads that parallel the type of vicious demagoguery launched against patriots like Max Cleland, Bill Clinton and John Edwards.
The Kerry campaign missed its chance to tear at Bush’s character and honor, and instead ran Brady Bunch ads that had less resonance in voters’ minds. Run campaigns as much on character as on the issues.
6) Play offense. The Republicans took our legitimate disdain for Bush and convinced the American public that we were all just hateful people.
As a result, Kerry never made direct criticisms of the incumbent president during his nomination acceptance speech, and he never nipped the “flip-flopper” charges at the bud.
Democrats need to stand up early and passionately, as well as stake out issues before the Republicans beat them to it.
7) Be proud of being a liberal. I’ll never forget listening to an audience member at a Democratic National Convention event choking back tears and asking former Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile, “When did being liberal become so bad?”
Brazile explained how we lost the word years ago during the Great Society reforms, when conservatives appealed to voters’ most sinister hatreds toward the poor and minorities. Don’t run away from the liberal title like Kerry did; be unapologetic and flaunt it.
8) Become more hawkish. Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy were more hawkish than their opponents. Liberals will continue to lose if they look weak on defense and have members that keep sporting those silly “war is not the answer” bumper stickers.
“If you punch me, I’ll punch you harder.” That’s the saying posted in Terry McAuliffe’s office. And it applies to our generation more than anything. For America to progress, it needs us to fight, fight, and fight. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
This is our generation’s cause. Let’s make sure it outlasts us.
Amit Patel is a senior majoring in international relations with a secondary major in history. E-mail him at ... [snip]
Remind me again, what was the party affiliation of those southern governors who blocked school integration? Seems to me that Wallace, Maddux, and perhaps others were all dimocRATs.
Remind me again, what was the party of the senators who filibustered the Civil Rights Act? Al Gore, Sr. and company were all dimocRATs.
And what's the party of the only known former(?) member of the KKK currently serving in the U.S. Senate? Oh yeah, Byrd's a dimocRAT too.
That's sure a strange "forefront of advance".
I actually thought the first one was pretty good:
1) Have joy. Sounds simple, but in other words, cheer up. Don’t walk around bitter that conservatives are running this country.
But yeah, most of them were pretty lame.
History is on our side.
Don't forget the Bubba's man Orville Faubus, who called in the National Guard to help the African Americans back to their side of the tracks. Another dimocRAT.
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