The Democrats' Real Problem

[kurth]

The Democrats' Real Problem
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, March 7, 2006; A17

It is now an ingrained journalistic habit: After a period of bad news for President Bush, media outlets invariably devote time and space to "balancing" stories that all say more or less: "Yes, the Republicans are in trouble, but the Democrats have no alternatives, no plans," etc. The pattern began to fall in place this weekend in the wake of two truly miserable weeks for Bush.

< snip >

The Democrats' real problem is that they have failed to show how their critique of the Republican status quo is the essential first step toward the alternative program they will owe the voters in the presidential year of 2008. This failure has made it easier for Republicans to cast anti-Bush feeling (aka, "Bush hatred") as a psychological disorder. The GOP shrewdly makes the president's critics look crazed and suggests that opposition to Bush is of no more significance than, say, the loathing that many watchers of "American Idol" love to express toward Simon Cowell, the meanest of the show's judges.

< snip >

Democrats have no good answer to Iraq. True. And neither does Bush, who started the war and should be held accountable for where we are now. The philosophical man who owns our neighborhood Chinese restaurant recently shared with me a brilliant aphorism to describe how to build a good business. "You have to do the right thing," he said, "and you have to do the thing right." That summarizes what unites Bush's Iraq critics. Many Americans opposed the war in the first place, but many who supported it are aghast that the administration did the thing so badly... The voters should let the president know that he can no longer keep repeating his rah-rah mantras about standing down when the Iraqis stand up. Presidents deserve to be punished for insulting our intelligence.

Thus the shortcoming of Democratic leaders is not that they don't have a program but that they have not yet convinced opinion makers that fighting bad policies is actually constructive -- and that, between presidential elections, keeping matters from getting worse is sometimes the most positive alternative on offer.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/06/AR2006030601613.html

[Sadie5]

1. I think Dems are beginning

to show a lot More spine than before. If a few more Pukes were to join Conyers we could get the job done and throw out the whole miserable lot of them.

[AndyTiedye]

2. The Problem is that "Opinion Makers" Are All Republican Media Outlets

[BeerIsClear]

3. I disagree

We can fight bad policies all we want, but if we don't offer a viable alternative, how can we convince anyone that our way is the way to go?

[Awsi Dooger]

4. I'll continue to insist we should ignore the GOP

Assert our own proposals every hour of every day.

Unless our favorables are way up in November, you're relying on something extremely fragile: a specific period of outside-influence GOP implosion immediately preceeding the election. Something similar to where we are right now, or at the point of last November's handful of elections.

Absolutely no way a sane party can depend on that. Our gains will be modest to non-existent unless the word Democrat(Democratic, whatever) has a much higher value in eight months. Nothing we say has any influence on Bush's approval rating, or that of Republican standing with the populus. It's about damn time someone smacked us with a collective tire iron and jolted that truth into a few important brain cells. Right now our fortunes are 100% dependent on things like a missing Katrina video or self-destructive port policy, actually some October version of those.

[standup]

5. Dem leaders need to put forth some kind of platform for Nov. candidates

So everyone running for election under the Democratic brand has the same message to voters. It's a painful truth that there is no "plan". If the plan is to resist Bush, then say so: Our "plan" is to restore checks and balances to government.