Democrats Must Decide Whether They'd Rather Play Principals Or Win

[John Barrett]

OK my critical post on Ted Kennedy earlier today was wrong...at least partially.

But the principals are still there. The left of Democratic Party must decide if they want to win or if they want to play politics and stand up for their pet issues that only alienate many Americans. To win means bringing middle America into the Democratic fold. It doesn't mean compromising on Democratic issues.

It means neutralizing the GOP on these issues. If they are candidate issues versus Party issues it makes all the difference in the world as then the Party can't be painted with a broad brush by right wing.

It means toning down left wing issues at least at the party level.

It means not giving Rush Limbaugh and his dittoheads ammunition to use.

It means taking the broad issue of defending the US middle class and their economic position against corporatism run amuck as one of the single most important planks of the Party. The pro-corporatism pendulum has swung way too far to the right and America at large is being screwed.

It means taking a position on security issues that is more common sensible, and to the right of Bush like opposing the port and airline sale.

It means smart,sensitive and diplomatic positions on defense rather than the bull in china closet, the hell with the world defense that the shrub has used.

It means taking things that most middle class Americans see as harmful to the country and hammering them in macho style down the GOP's throat at every opportunity.

[AtomicKitten]

if we don't win, our principles are moot

[BillZBubb]

1. In other words, lets be good Republicans and we can win!!!

:sarcasm:

[MissWaverly]

2. Okay, but I am still for censure

I believe George W. Bush is quite capable of starting a nuclear confrontation, he wouldn't
care about the number of cities devestated or the soldiers we would lose in Iraq, HE
would be safe in the bunker with Cheney, et al. That would be ALL they would care about,
he has been beating the war drum against Iran for sometime, I think he needs a reality check
because his finger is on the button and he knows no boundaries and he has no respect
for the Constitution, the UN or anything else that is quite plain to see.

[kentuck]

3. I agree and disagree...

It is more difficult to criticize larger Party issues than individual positions on issues. However, I do not see Middle America as having any thought-out positions on many issues. In my opinion, they are mostly followers of whomever the media says is winning or whatever is popular at the moment. They want to be on the winning side mostly. They follow - they don't lead.

[Teaser]

4. Statements aren't arguments. Prove it.

You posted a bunch of statements. You haven't squeezed out a single argument for these statements.


So clench a little harder, and we'll see what kind of argument you can plop down in front of us.

[PBass]

5. 39 posts under your belt, and you're starting threads here already,

about how Ted Kennedy hates the working class, and how the Democrats need to tone things down?

Ugghh...

[lumpy]

8. and how Randi Rhodes was wrong in showing

the a video of Rush Limbaugh before an unsimpathic audience.

[Generic Brad]

6. Play Principals and Win

Sometimes doing the right thing is the right thing to do. Jokes have been made about the lack of balls Democrat politicians have. Well, here's their chance to show some cajones and display some sorely needed leadership.

Americans are yearning for someone to take a principled stand against the rampant corruption that is epitomized by the Republican party. If a Democrat fails to be that leader, then someone else will fill the void.

[welshTerrier2]

7. if we don't fight for our principles, our principles are moot

this "we better not give them ammunition stuff" is just "fear talk" ... we need to stand up loud and proud and tell America about our vision ... it's positive that will win; not negative ...

and the "tone down the left wing" is all twisted ... what "left wing" is that? do you mean the one that wants to "smash the capitalist state and install a Marxist system?" ... you mean that left wing? or the left wing that doesn't want to have a military at all? or the left wing that wants to let everyone out of prison because all prisoners are victims of the capitalist regime? ... maybe that's the left wing you want to hide away in the attic like crazy old Uncle Albert ...

the truth is, my thoughtful friend, the left wing of the Democratic Party is nothing to be feared ... god forbid one of us party lefties should mention ending the war ... wow, now there's some way out there extremism for you ... or maybe we don't think democracy works well when special interests are able to dictate terms to the Congress ... or perhaps we're not too keen on seeing the poor unable to afford the basic necessities of life no matter how hard they work ... or perhaps we think we need to reform our healthcare institutions so that "pro life" means making damned sure that each and every American can get good healthcare whether they can afford it or not ... kind of radical, eh?

or maybe you see the party's left wing calling for out of control spending (you know, kind of like the right-wing controlled Congress has been doing for the last 5+ years) ... the truth is, left, right or center, bad fiscal policy is bad fiscal policy ...

it's time we put an end to this "those wacky lefty extremists" talk ... the truth is, that the left is offering a perfectly sound vision of where the country should be heading ... it's time to look beyond the labels that seek only to silence those with some damned good ideas ...

and yes, it's time to put an end to the myth that we have to choose between principles and winning ... that's a total load of crap ... those "on the left" want to win too ... many of us see a world that aspires to higher ideals ... many of us are "idealists" ... some around here have come to see idealism as a dirty word ... i don't ...

what we need are leaders who are idealists ... that's the mistake many make when they buy into the myths about the left ... just because we aspire to an ideal does not preclude us from pragmatic compromise ... the view, however, and our disappointment with many centrists in the party, is that we should be fighting for the ideal, or at least articulating the ideal ... the pragmatism comes from the understanding that not everything we seek can be achieved in a day ... not everything we want is politically viable ... yet ... but that does NOT mean we, and our leaders, should run from articulating the dream and the vision ...

narrowminded smallness that plays things politically "safe" is the perfect recipe for losing ... we've seen more than enough of that ... we need bold reforms, bold vision and bold candidates ... the country needs it and the American people will respond to it when we finally realize that bold vision is the path to victory ...

[John Barrett]

10. I'm On Your Side

My choice of words, principals vs winning, may not have been the best. Heck I agree with much of what you say in principal. But principals aren't going to win elections when we are up against guys like Rove, Fox News, talk radio, Brent Bozell and Swift Boaties who will warp any issue and turn it against you. The point is to take away the ammo on these issues and stick to clear cut points that MOST Americans want to talk about and deal with. Issues like the Iraq war, security from terrorism, outsourcing, failed healthcare, grossly overpaid CEOs, companies shedding their pensions for convenience, corporate government corruption, Katrina incompetence, pork spending, trade and budget deficits. There's a plethora of things that the public is angry about and wants fixed. That's what needs to be spotlighted to win.

Here's a couple of examples of statements and positions that could or did cost votes. Take for example the San Francisco councilman who on O'Reilly said we should abolish our military. I agree it could probably be cut in half or by a third, but that statement was far outside the beliefs of most Americans and it is the kind of statement that the GOP hacks love to use against Democrats.

Take the San Francisco mayor who just in front of the 2004 Presidential election stirred up the pot and legalized gay marriage. I'd guess that his stirring up the right wingers, like hornets that have had their nest kicked, might have cost Kerry the election.

Hey I'm just giving my views that are fairly mainstream which according to many is where the country wants to be right now. I'm very socially liberal and fiscally conservative, and believe the chimp has to rank up there as one of the worst Presidents in history. I'm on your side and want to see the Democrats win.

[TayTay]

11. The issues you highlight ARE the issues the Dems ran on

last time. (Remember, they had too many plans and were too brainy and complicated to interest the American people?) These are also the issues that the vast majority of the American people agree with the Democrats on already.

You cite examples of single events and then pretend that they happened all across the country. They did not. The Right Wing megaphone simply amplified these events and made it seem as if Gay Marriage was everywhere, when it was not. This is usually called lying, and used to be held in low esteem. I guess now, the fact that the other side lies is somehow the fault of the Dems as well. Too bad, as we have zero ability to control what they say, we can only control what we say.

Please give some examples of where, for instance, Gay Marriage was introduced in a pro-active way in any of the red states. I would like to know what the ballot questions were and how the legislation played out. Likewise, I would also like to know how many bills were introduced in 'Middle America' that specifically dealt with pro-choice issues. Again, could I please have a link to these ballot initiatives in the red states. Then we can examine the march of the left wing causes on a factual basis instead of debating Right Wing talking points and accusing Dems of doing what they are not doing.

[welshTerrier2]

12. Rove and Fox News and Swiftboats, oh my ...

the problem with your OP was that you "broad brushed" the left ... in this post, you provided a fine list of what many on the left are fighting for ... and many in the center too ...

i think your point is better made saying that a couple of local San Francisco Democrats recently made a couple of points that you thought went too far beyond what Americans are comfortable with ... i think we have a bloated military budget because of excessive dependence on unnecessary weapons systems ... i'd like to see more money going to the troops ... and, while i suppose i support legalizing pot, i guess it may not be the right time to promote it ...

on issues like gay marriage, however, politically popular or not, i disagree ... Democrats and the Democratic Party should stand up for all movements of human liberation ... it doesn't matter whether any individual candidate supports gay marriage or not; but it's still important to establish the principle that the government should not tell Americans how to live their lives ...

i think the "great American bell curve" is a "follower's myth" ... i think it's a loser's myth too ... Americans aren't looking for people who think exactly the way they do on a laundry list of issues ... our candidates should NOT be trying to figure out where the middle is so they know what positions to take ... Americans are looking for leadership; they're looking for people with bold, clear vision about where to take the country; they're looking for people who believe in themselves and demonstrate they have the confidence to fight for their beliefs ...

that's what the Democratic Party hasn't figured out yet ... they're still shell-shocked from so many losses that they don't realize the republicans have self-destructed ... the time to seize the initiative with strong, clear ideas is NOW ... it's time to stop worrying about the right-wing whiners on the radio ... it's time to crush them into dust ...

think big, my friend ... if we do, we'll win BIG ... and if we set a course and fight for it, our victories this November will be of unimagined proportions ... and 2008 will be the final end of the darkness ... if we cower and can't shed the fears of our recent troubles, our troubles will continue ...

[AtomicKitten]

14. I live in SF and support Mayor Newsom's brave stand

... and I'm not gay. Funny how some people's issues are nonnegotiable and others wreck elections.

None of this is easy to decipher.

One thing is certain, if we don't win, all we can do is wear our principles as a badge of how fabulous and uncompromising and morally superior we are. But I'd rather use our principles in governing instead of dusting them on a shelf and snivelling on DU.

[TayTay]

17. I live in Massachusetts and Gay Marriage is the accepted law

of the State. My 77 year old mother thinks it's the right thing to do, ferchrissakes. There is a petition drive to get the law repealed. I think it will get on the ballot and then be defeated. The earliest it can go on the ballot now is, I think, 2008, but I'm not sure. Polls show that the people just want the issue to be considered settled and move on to other, more immediate and pressing concerns. I agree with that. It should be the law and we should move on.

[John Barrett]

20. Agreed

My belief is that GOP hacks used this to their benefit to get their right wing base stirred up and donating money. I'm a social lib and support it....although my own view is that the gay community would have been wise to go for a gay union and keep the "marriage" term out of it.

The backlash that I believed would occur did in fact happen. You're better off with two steps forward, than three steps forward and then two steps back. Society and culture takes some time to change and we've come a fairly long way on this in a generation. It might take another generation. You push a little on these cultural things and then let it settle. Just my opinion but I believe that there is much more pressing stuff in the USA that needs attention than gay marriage. Some might disagree.

[Capn Sunshine]

9. It means calling a spade a spade, pal

THAT is what it takes to win. Not "toning down" not playing nice, not fearing about the mythical middle of the road voter.

You think that bunch of right wing bozos running things cares a whit about the middle of the road voter? THEY certainly don't shrink from THEIR principles.

Look, I'm against torture.GOT IT? ABU GHRAIB and GUANTANAMO are UN-AMERICAN. Got IT?

I think WAR is a BAD thing. Understand?

I think giving up our rights like sniveling cowards makes us LESS AMERICAN. You feeling me?

I think taking away veterans benefits, and not providing our troops sufficient armor, is un-american. It's criminal.

I think allowing a president, ANY president, to break the law, is the ultimate un-american activity.

YOU HEARING ME?

I think allowing our social structure to deteriorate, and standing by while the environment is plundered and ravaged is BAD.

There are so many things wrong with your take , I don't know where to start friend. Welcome to DU and my advice is stop reading so much of the glurge put out by those DC inside the beltway insulated clowns, and look at what the American people are saying.

Only 32.8% of them think Bush is doing OK.

You think THIS is the time to "be quiet and nice"?

[alarimer]

13. Democrats have lost by NOT sticking to their principles

And by moving rightward. The party as a whole continues to lose because they have not stood up for the principles that are the foundation of the Democratic Party: civil rights (including first and foremost the right to privacy and, thus, the right to choose), economic issues (including support for unions and which they have scuttled in favor of some corporatist, free trade agenda), the environment (although I generally think the Democrats have been okay here).

The left, as you call it, is merely advocating a return to the Democratic Party of old, not this centrist, corporatist, anti-worker one that seems to be in vogue right now.

[John Barrett]

18. Bring Back The Democrats of 60 Years Ago

I agree totally that the Democratic Party needs to turn the clock back 60 years or so when they were a populist majority party in most of the country including the red states.

What did they stand for? They stood for improving worker's economic position. There was nothing wishy washy about it. If you were a working person you were a Democrat...whether a steelworker or a teacher or even a white collar engineer. They looked out for your rights on safety, benefits, job security, working conditions, workers rights, etc. That's what was the main party plank and what made the party powerful.

There were no shades of gray where on one hand the Party works for workers but on the other they have to bend over for the corporate interests as there are now. Several examples....Clinton approving NAFTA for the corporations, and then bringing China into the fold so they can unfairly compete with us, but allow the multi-nationals to build factories there, and encouraging immigration (legal and otherwise) to undercut US workers.

The Party lost its way and US workers got screwed. Many of these traditional Democrats left the Party because the Party forgot its roots. It's only been in the last 25-30 years that the Repubs got their hooks into the religious right. That was a new political demographic that developed when the Party left its base. I could go on about this but I'm not.

[jsamuel]

15. Your entire argument is based on one EXTREMELY fatal proposal

You say:
Dems win by being less liberal and standing up only for issues that Republicans like.

Reality:
Dems win by standing up for issues that show how good it is to be a liberal and people love to vote for that.


They tried what you said, it failed. It is time to wake up and move to where we should be.

[sandnsea]

16. Corrupt corporatism is a core left wing issue

Has been for years. As has SMART Security, the SAFE Act, and creating a global equitable economy.

While I tend to disagree with the tactics and approach of the far left, the goals are almost always right on target. Maybe you want to sit back and do a little objective reading before you make presumptions about the left wing.

[yurbud]

28. ironically, the farther left, the more accurate pre-war analysis on Iraq

Same is true with Vietnam.

I watched the Chomsky v. Wm. F. Buckley debate during Vietnam a while back, and Buckley's arguments were clearly shopworn marketing slogans while Chomsky's were later confirmed by the Pentagon Papers.

[Mountainman]

19. So you bring in more repukes and turn off more Dems

You seem to think that progressives will stay with you while you turn the party to the right. You are very very mistaken. You are willing to turn your back on the left to gain the right while the right is already taken by the repukes! A man who stands in the middle of the road gets hit by trucks going both ways.

[John Barrett]

21. Are The Election Machines Accurate?

So would you prefer to win elections and move some issues to the populist center or stay to the left and lose elections? Staying to the left and moving to the center are nebulous statements and need defined to actually mean anything. My bet is that most would agree on the positions but maybe not the priority. That was the intent of the original post. The game is getting voters out of that big portion of the bell shaped curve like it or not.

Most independent voters are so fed up with Republicans that they will vote against them in 2006 as long as there is a viable candidate running. These independents don't donate though, they just vote...which is OK.

The big question is are the election machines accurate and votes reported correctly.

[guidod]

22. What are you talking about?!

"The left of the democratic party", "Middle America", "Toning down left wing issues", "Bull is a china closet", heh? There's either republican or democrat, I've never heard of the middle party. If you're not a democrat then you're a republican, people can read and find out for themselves what they want to be, I don't plan on being nicey nicey to anybody. If you like social programs, clean air, clean water, retirement, social security, safety in the work place and a whole plethora of other things then you're a democrat. If you like war and killing then you're a republican. The only kind of ammunition Limpbush and the dittoheads have is bullets. If you're on the fence, then you don't belong here. Get a clue!

[yurbud]

26. the right will ridicule Dems no matter what anyway.

[yurbud]

23. Principles do win--lack of them looks like vacillation and cowardice

not just to who you imagine are extremists, but to moderates and certainly conservatives.

The most effective argument the Bushies have against Iraq War critics is asking how Democrats voted on the Iraq War Resolution. What look like a politically expedient vote at the time came back to bite them on the ass.

Voting on principle would have hurt in the short run but paid dividends in the long run.

[yurbud]

24. while the GOP has beat down Dems who have stood up, they leave the

silent alone because they are already defeated.

What the fuck is winning if they do nothing, or worse side with the GOP when they get in?

I don't care about whether someone has a D or an R after there name, but what they actually do with that position.

[yurbud]

25. Our use of the military overseas has nothing to do with defense since

the fall of the Soviet Union and everything to do with pursuing profits for a handful of corporations.

Iraq itself is the epitome of "socializing risks and privatizing profits." That's a tough sell, but if we really want to reduce terrorism, we have to stop using our foreign policy to enrich a few through the neoliberal economic scam that screws the people in other countries.

[John Barrett]

27. Agreed--NM

[yurbud]

29. In the last couple of decades "center" has moved so far right that...

Bill Clinton was probably to the right of Richard Nixon.

Center doesn't mean reasonable if one side puts a gun to your head and demands all your money.

In essence, that is what the GOP is doing to our democracy--they are demanding we give it up or they will let the boogey man out of the bag.

[OneBlueSky]

30. your premise is completely flawed . . .

poll after poll after poll show that Americans support so-called "liberal" positions on most everything . . .

what they DON'T like is the word "liberal" -- because the right has spent the last 30 years demonizing it . . .

[TankLV]

31. Principals. Every time. No Brainer.

I'd rather be prepared to fight for our PRINCIPALS and LOSE than to compromise.

That's the only way.

Only trouble for you neocon dinos is - that OUR way - to fight on PRINCIPALS that have SUCCESSFULLY guided the party to VICTORY in the past - would be the ticket to VICTORY - AGAIN!

Your premise is FAULTY.

Your choices are FALSE.

But we know what/who you are and are not buying your shit.

[sendero]

32. Democrats don't need to change their principles...

... they need to change their rhetoric.

A Democratic Leader needs to get on TV and say:

"You ever notice how every time Bush and the GOP are in trouble, you can tune to 5 different political pundits on TV and hear the exact same excuses in the exact same words?"

And then go on to explain why that is.

"You ever wonder why George Bush was happy to connect Saddam Hussein with 9-11, even though there was simply no connection, but then be perfectly willing to sell our ports to the UAE, who had at least a tangential connection to 9-11."

And then go on to explain that the Iraq war was not about terrorism and the UAE deal proves it.

"Ever wonder how the party of "fiscal responsibility" can preside over the largest rise in Federal debt over the shortest period of time in our history?"

And then go on to explain that the Iraq war only accounts for about 10% of that 2-trillion plus rise in debt.

The problem is our (Dem) politicians either:

1) are not capable of formulating the simple rhetoric needed to tell the simple truth, or
2) are afraid of telling the simple truth or
3) are part of the problem and cannot be part of the solution.

Ya'll figure it out, I've pretty much given up.