I watched "So Goes the Nation" this week. It was heartbreaking, and I did not agree with so much of it. But I did agree with Ken Mehlman surprisingly. I will paraphrase him. He said he could not remember when an "out" party had gotten voted "in" unless they put forth ideas that the "in" party did not.
In the film George Bush kept saying over and over...that we may not agree with him but we knew where he stood. He did not care if we agreed. It did not matter. He was doing his thing to win.
I think we were not partisan enough. I think our ideas and policies were far better for the country than were those of the "in" group. But I do not think we got them across powerfully enough. We were trying to appeal to their base far too much, while they were working quietly getting out "more" of their base.
The minute the election was over in November 2006, where we began to take back our government.....there were consultants on TV on every news station saying how vital it is we all work together.
The same extremists who have driven our economy into the ground, lied us into war, and divided us on every topic....then at that moment wanted us to be nice to each other. They said we should work together so we would not be so divided. It was such obvious BS I did not think many would fall for it. But the media talking heads just keep on with it.
Now comes Bloomberg who is a good man who can't decide who or what he is. He used to be a Democrat, then he became a Republican to get elected. The candidates became what he did not like, so now he is going to run as an independent if they don't do just as he says.
I like him, but it angers me greatly. That unity stuff means one thing....we are turning it all back over to the right wing Republicans. How do I know that? Because we have not even fought since November 2006 to bring even the change we could on some vital issues. There have been some small victories permitted us by Little Boots, but on the prevailing problems that are destroying our country we have not stood firm and said no we won't take that anymore.
The ones who are pursuing this unity crap are the same ones who as far back as 1995 decided that even Bill Clinton was not "centrist" enough for them. They were ready to drop him in the next election rather than lose power because of his "liberal ways." It is their consultants who get the air time, who get to plead that we all get along.
This article from Time in 1995 shows their anger toward him.
DLCers rant in 1995 about losing powerThe White House is having an anxiety attack at the prospect of a liberal challenge from Jesse Jackson, but a potentially more dangerous threat may come from the Democratic Leadership Council, the group of moderate Democrats formed in 1985. Clinton helped found the organization, chaired it before resigning to run in 1992 and sold himself to the nation on the basis of the ideas developed by the council's think tank, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI). Clinton had defined the DLC's task as creating "a new middle ground of thinking on which someone can not only run for President but actually be elected."
That gives me the impression that they do not need other committees in the Democratic party. They rely on the DLC to get elected. Yet the DLC is a tax-exempt group not meant to support candidates. I must have read that wrong.
Having accomplished that goal, Clinton has wandered. "Since his election," says DLC president Al From, "the President's campaign agenda hasn't been his first priority." A repeat of that performance is what many centrist boosters worry about most. Clinton's latest moves to the center, like his recent balanced-budget proposal, are viewed by the DLC as mere electoral tactics that may signify nothing at all about a second term's direction.
His moves to the center? Al From, I thought that is where you wanted the party to be? In the center. Isn't that why you call yourselves "centrists." I must have misunderstood.
"In '92 our ideas captured the country but not the party," says William Galston, who resigned recently as a White House aide to help develop what From calls a "third way." Since then, adds Galston, the tension within the Administration "has involved accommodating the liberal tendencies that still dominate the party and the centrist views the President ran on." That confusion is exactly what could doom Clinton, since many Americans still wonder what the President really believes in and what he will fight for.
Did you read that?
the tension within the Administration "has involved accommodating the liberal tendencies that still dominate the party and the centrist views the President ran on."
I hope our party still has "liberal tendencies."
Their ideas "captured the country but not the party." These are the guys calling for bipartisanship now that we won.
But wait until you read this sentence from Al From at that time.
"The problem for us and him," says From, "is that Clinton promised to be different. He's been that a bit, but the whole is less than the sum of the parts. The fundamental change he pledged hasn't come. We've been consistent in articulating the ideas he won on, but he hasn't been consistent in advancing them. We were at this before Clinton, and we'll be at it after he's gone, because a long-term majority will never be created around the interests represented by Jesse and the labor unions. Most people are politically homeless now. They're our target. We'll work to get Clinton to pursue us, but we're damn sure going to make it hard for him to catch us."
They snatched the party policy from the traditional people of the party....minorities, labor unions, the average people. They made no secret of it at all. Bill Clinton was often called the best Republican president the Democrats ever had, and he was not centrist enough for them.
Since we won the election in November 2006, the spokespersons for this group have been front and center on TV. They are pushing for all of us not to be partisan, not to be angry about what Bush has done to this country, pushing for unity, pushing for bipartisanship.
That means they get to have their agenda, because
the right wing is going to keep fighting fiercely. It looks like our side is the only one getting the shaft. I love some of the bloggers today, they are really digging in their heels on this.
Digby's Bipartisan Zombies...a great readBipartisan Zombies
"Today we have none other than the centrist drivel king, David Broder, reporting that a group of useless meddlers, most of whom who were last seen repeatedly stabbing Bill Clinton in the back, are rising from their crypts to demand that the candidates all promise to appoint a "unity" government and govern from the the center --- or else they will back an independent Bloomberg bid."
..."Isn't it funny that these people were nowhere to be found when George W. Bush seized office under the most dubious terms in history, having been appointed by a partisan supreme court majority and losing the popular vote? If there was ever a time for a bunch of dried up, irrelevant windbags to demand a bipartisan government you'd think it would have been then, wouldn't you? (How about after 9/11, when Republicans were running ads saying Dems were in cahoots with Saddam and bin Laden?) But it isn't all that surprising. They always assert themselves when the Democrats become a majority; it's their duty to save the country from the DFH's who are far more dangerous than Dick Cheney could ever be."
The Horses Ass blog tells it like it is quite clearly.
Bipartisanship mean Democrats caving and crossing the aisle.When the media establishment moralistically calls for more bipartisanship, this is what they are talking about: Democrats caving and crossing the aisle to vote with the Republican block. It almost never happens the other way around on the most important issues of the day. Almost Never.
The issue here was simple. Is simulated drowning torture, and thus illegal? Mukasey, soon to be our nation’s top law enforcement official, refused to say. So this noble display of bipartisanship now confirms that the United States of America is a nation that condones torture.
F*** bipartisanship.
I remember this part from a review of a book about the DLC in 2000. We find out how they made themselves so powerful. First they tried to change things from inside. We are now trying to get our party back from them by trying from the inside. It may not work. It may have to be done from the outside as they did. They finally formed their own base from which to operate...
Reinventing Democrats: The Politics of Liberalism from Reagan to ClintonHow did a group of elite politicians and operatives transform a political party?
First, they gave themselves a little bit of distance. After several unsuccessful attempts to influence the party establishment from within, the reformers formed the DLC as an extra-party organization in 1985. This avoided what Bruce Babbitt referred to as the "Noah's Ark problem"---the need to satisfy diverse constituents by taking representative positions on behalf of each one. They could also raise their own money (which DLC honchos like Virginia's Chuck Robb were notably good at), start their own think tank (the Progressive Policy Institute), and publicize their own views without tangling with the cumbersome Party bureaucracy.
They are their own party in effect. They are the ones pushing for this unity. Many of the founders were listed among the guests at Bloomberg's upcoming Unity conference.
I read at
Green Mountain Daily that Howard Dean is already preparing the local and state party staffs for some serious changes that might be coming. Most doubt the 50 State plan will be continued.
I don't want to hear about "bipartisanship" after this administration has taken our country to such a dark and dangerous place. I don't want to hear the word "unity" right now. We can not afford it.
I want loud and sincere voices speaking honestly and clearly on every issue. We can not afford any other way.
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