What you get (the 9 points that every Democrat should commit to)
Last edited Thu Mar 27, 2014, 02:42 PM - Edit history (1)
In a thread earlier this week, I argued that this year, people are not inclined to vote our way and we cannot just blow this off as bad luck or bad timing. We cannot expect anybody to vote for a Democrat in 2014 (or any other year) if we don't tell them what they can expect for their vote.
This came out of the discussion of the excellent Kos rebuttal to Third Way. There was a question whether we are trying to kick the Third Way out of our traditional big tent. My point is that the tent must stand for something or else there is no point in having the tent. At best, the Third Way doesn't agree with core Democratic principles. At worst, Third Way types actively work to undermine our efforts to achieve progress.
Obama offered practically no specifics in either of his campaigns and therefore entered office without any recognizable mandate and seems bound to leave office with a very low approval rating. But worse than that, while Kos correctly pointed out that we have made big strides in getting rid of many of the Third Way snakes calling themselves Democrats in the Senate, there are still too many in the Senate who do not believe in our core values. And there is nothing unifying House members around these values.
In short the Democratic Party is every person for himself or herself.
That will not work. We need to take a clear stand on the most important issues in front of us and we must insist that anybody seeking our votes makes the same commitment to these principles. The good news is that polls indicate that huge majorities of the American public actually agree with us on these issues. It is time that we act like Grover Norquist and require that national Democrats take OUR PLEDGE.
This should not be hard. After all, the Democratic platform speaks to most of these issues, although that is largely ignored. And the State-of-the-Union address also speaks to these issues every year and is then promptly ignored -- even by the President. We cannot count on the Beltway to change itself. We must drive the change. With that in mind, I humbly submit for your consideration a list of the 9 most central values that every Democrat should support and use as the centerpiece of their campaign, just as Republicans did in their great victory built upon the Contract with America. I realize these principles don't stake out the most liberal position in every case. I have attempted to state each of these points as simply as possible so that the average American can understand them. If stated correctly, almost any average working American should be able to support most of these principles.
Thank you for your consideration. If you think this approach has merits, I would appreciate suggestions of what steps could take this forward, putting us in a position to get pledges of support form every nationally elected Democrat. We need to get all of them on record behind these things. This is how we win and this is how we take office with a real mandate.
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