Bush's Mandate?

Thanks to Neoma and Proud Patriot at DU

Slouching Toward Hades

We've got to repudiate, you know, the most strident and insulting anti-American voices out there sometimes on our party's left... We can't have our party identified by Michael Moore and Hollywood as our cultural values.
Al From, CEO, Democratic Leadership Council

=====

You know, let's let Hollywood and the Cannes Film Festival fawn all over Michael Moore. We ought to make it pretty clear that he sure doesn't speak for us when it comes to standing up for our country.
Will Marshall, President of the Progressive Policy Institute, the think-tank of the DLC

=====

This Saturday in Orlando, at a meeting of state party chairs, a parade of potential candidates are going to be making the case for why they should be the next chair of the Democratic National Committee.

I don’t have a candidate. But I do have a litmus test: Anyone raising the idea that the party needs to “move to the middle” should immediately be escorted out of the building. Better yet, a trap door should open beneath them, sending them plummeting down an endless chute into electoral purgatory — which is exactly where the party will be permanently headquartered if it continues to adopt such a strategy.

Among those eyeing the position are Howard Dean, former White House aide Harold Ickes, Texas Rep. Marty Frost, former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, New Democrat Network founder Simon Rosenberg, political strategist Donnie Fowler, and telecom exec Leo Hindery.

Although less than 450 people will ultimately decide who becomes the next party chair, when the DNC votes on Feb. 12, the outcome will have a profound effect on shaping the party’s future. Will Democrats continue to toe the strategy line of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council that has brought them to the brink of permanent minority-party status? Or will they finally return to the party’s roots and recapture its lost political soul — and the White House and Congress with it?
Welcome to the Great Democratic Party Identity Crisis of 2005.

Ever since the election, Democratic leaders have been crawling over each other in a mad scramble to the middle. Indeed, this is the worst case of midriff bulge since Kirstie Alley stopped by Sizzler’s all-you-can-eat buffet.

“Things are accomplished in the middle. We have to work toward the middle. And I think that that’s clear.” That was new Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on “Meet the Press” this weekend. He didn’t elaborate on what good was “clearly accomplished” in the middle over the past four years, but perhaps he was referring to the invasion of Iraq. Almost makes you long for the spineless bleating of Tom Daschle, doesn’t it?

Last week’s meeting of the 21-strong Democratic Governors Association was similarly an orgy of centrist groping, best summed up by Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who said, “This, for us, is our moment to push an agenda . . . that is centrist and that speaks to where most people are.”

If Gov. Granholm, a rising star in the party, really thinks the center is where the majority of people were located this past election, the Democrats are in even worse trouble than we think. Have these people learned nothing from 2000, 2002 and 2004? How many more concession speeches do they have to give — from “the center” — before they realize it’s not a very fruitful place?

Putting aside for a moment the question of the party’s soul and focusing entirely on hardball politics, running to the middle has been proven to be the single stupidest strategy the Democrats can pursue.

As cognitive psychologist George Lakoff told me: “Democrats moving to the middle is a double disaster that alienates the party’s progressive base while simultaneously sending a message to swing voters that the other side is where the good ideas are.” It unconsciously locks in the notion that the other side’s positions are worth moving toward, while your side’s positions are the ones to move away from. Plus every time you move to the center, the right just moves further to the right.

And if middle-of-the-roadism is such a great vote-getter, why don’t we see Republicans moving there? In fact, framing the political debate in right-left terms is so old, so tired, and so wrong that we need to resist all temptation to do so. There is nothing left-wing about wanting corporations to pay their fair share rather than hide their profits in PO boxes in Bermuda, or in ensuring access to health care now rather than paying the bill at the emergency room later.

That’s why the DNC race is so important. The party needs a chairman able to drive a stake through the heart of its bankrupt GOP-lite strategy and champion the populist economic agenda that has already proven potent at the ballot box in many conservative parts of the country. Just how potent is revealed in “The Democrats’ Da Vinci Code,” a brilliant upcoming American Prospect cover story by David Sirota that shows how a growing number of Democrats in some of the reddest regions in America have racked up impressive, against-the-grain wins by framing a progressive economic platform in terms of values and right vs. wrong. These are not “left” ideas; they are good ideas.
(more)
Arianna Online (God, I love that woman)

=====

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Amid strong competition over who will lead the party as the next Democratic National Committee chairman, former Indiana congressman and 9/11 commission member Tim Roemer has emerged as a possible new candidate.

He has the strong backing of Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, senior party sources told CNN Tuesday.

Roemer, in a written statement, confirmed that he had been approached about the post.
CNN, 12/14/04

=====

One last quote for good measure, from MyDD:

Since I was kicked out of the Q & A "closed" meeting with the candidates, I can freely blog it (if I had stayed, I certainly would not have). In that meeting, a couple of DNC candidates had the fortitude to tell these states what they needed to do, and for that, they not only got the least number of votes in the exit poll that we did, we had respondents that singled out that they would not support Harold Ickes, just because he told them the truth.

What Ickes told the state executive directors, and the state chairs, was that they needed to get their shit together, to build up their own in-state small donor base, to put together a business plan, and quit whining about getting a hold of the DNC's money. It's the truth. Go and look at some of these state Democratic Party websites, they are pathetic. Even the good ones suck. Ickes told them to get to work, they didn't like that, so he's in my top three. A lot of these states didn't get jack for this election, but a few of them, most importantly, Florida, Missouri, Ohio, and Iowa got millions and millions, and they not only failed to win (except Michigan), not only are their rumors of financial corruption I've heard about a few of those, but they are not being held accountable.

I'm all for taking DC to task, Democrats there need it; but we need to reform the Party at the state level too. After being inside their meetings for three days, I can tell you, many of these states have directors and officers that need a good reform-minded kick in the ass out the door a lot more than we did.

The MyDD article deals with the DNC convention in Orlando this past weekend. You may have read about the controversy caused when DNC officials booted the bloggers out. Apparently, they asked all media to leave - the session was Open to the Public But Closed to the Media. Not really sure how that works, or why, but it seems pretty evenhanded - they treated the bloggers present just like the MSM.

Point is, all these items have one thing in common: they all point out, in living color, how horribly, horribly wrong the Dem leadership has gone in their quest to transform the once vital party into a watered-down, limpdicked reflection of the Republican Party.

Move towards the center? Hell, I'd love that, considering how far to the right we've drifted (drifted? sprinted!) over the past decade! Don't Ask, Don't Tell; Three Strikes; PATRIOT; IWR; chipping away at Roe / Brown / Miranda; tax cuts for the rich... the list is long and shameful. Yeah, the center sounds pretty good right about now.

But instead of trying to play an endless game of Marco Polo with the ever-shifting Center, I'd like to offer the DNC this modest proposal:

Grow.

Some.

Balls.

I'm pretty sure it was Bartcop who originally coined the term "pink tutu Dems" in disgust at the way Democratic Congressional leaders, particularly Daschle and Gephardt, cowered in the corner and pissed themselves whenever any Republican, from Gee-Dubya to the Freshman Congressman from BFE, shot a glance in their direction, then rushed to the Rose Garden to be photographed kissing Bush's ass after allowing yet another piece of Rightwing madness to become law.

Well, fuck that. Enough.

The Democratic Party gave this country Social Security, Medicare, the GI Bill, OSHA, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. This is the party of Harry Truman and Lyndon By-God Johnson. Even Jimmy Carter, possibly the gentlest man to ever sit in the Oval Office, told Congress to go Cheney themselves on occasion.

How the hell has the Democratic Party devolved to the point that Howard Dean, an avowed moderate with a strong rating by the NR-friggin-A, has the entire Establishment shitting pink twinkies?

Now, heated debate is taking place In the smoke-filled rooms, on the tube and online over which Democratic core values should be jettisoned for political expediency. Opinion leaders in the party are advocating an even more hawkish position in the Middle East and espousing views on international relations that would make Pat Buchanan blush. Watch 'em on the Talking Head shows sometime. Whenever someone suggests that the Party move left or, God forbid, return to a populist position on social/economic issues, the Dem operative du jour goes as numb as the Queer Eye gang at a NASCAR gift shop. And I never thought I'd see the day that self-identified Democrats would actually advocate dropping abortion rights and *any* form of gun control from the party's platform. It's also kind of amusing to hear members of the party which brought us Civil Rights and Women's Equality telling gay folks to pipe down and quit drawing attention to themselves. This, in the name of winning elections. My only question is, if Democrats actually were to regain control of government after discarding most of what we believe in, what's the point of winning? A slower descent into Hell?

So, towards the goal of Winning At Any Cost, and in mortal terror of the idea of Chairman Dean, the Leadership (spearheaded by Pelosi and Reid) is now pushing Tim Roemer for DNC Chair. Cool. It's about time that the DNC chooses as its spokesperson, someone who:

Is anti-choice

Supports a Constitutional Amendment outlawing Flag desecration/burning

Supports the Federal death penalty and Three Strikes

Supports permanent MFN trade relations with China - no human rights requirements.

Arianna (have I mentioned that I love that woman?) expressed the point so well that I'm going to repeat it:

Anyone raising the idea that the party needs to “move to the middle” should immediately be escorted out of the building. Better yet, a trap door should open beneath them, sending them plummeting down an endless chute into electoral purgatory — which is exactly where the party will be permanently headquartered if it continues to adopt such a strategy.

And a final note to Al From and Will Marshall - you are cordially invited to kiss my ass. Twice.

Tenet, Bremer and Franks - Oh My!

In 1945, Harry Truman created The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, to recognize notable service during World War II. In 1963, President Kennedy reintroduced it as an honor for distinguished civilian service in peacetime, and the list of recipients since then has been long, varied and often distinguished.

Statesmen, artists, athletes, a couple Popes and the occasional war criminal (or two) (or three?) have been honored by the White House over the years:

Jesse Owens, MLK, Jonas Salk, Margaret Mead, Neal Armstrong, Edward R Murrow, Bear Bryant - quite an interesting, and diverse, group.


Today, three more Great Americans have joined the august company:

Paul Bremer, General Tommy Franks and George Tenet.

Paul Bremer - PNAC-loving neocon who disbanded the same Iraqi Army that we're now trying to reconstitute, then apparently misplaced $11 Billion while serving as Regent Administrator in Iraq.

General Tommy Franks (Ret) - Chased Bin Laden all over Afghanistan and finally "cornered" him at Tora Bora... where he may or may not still be. He then lied about it while campaigning for Gee-Dubya. He also did a (you should excuse the expression) bang-up job in Iraq; from determining the level of troop strength needed to spearheading Operation Hearts and Minds.

And then there's Former DCI George "Slam Dunk" Tenet. Remind me again, wasn't there some controversy leading up to his retirement earlier this year? Something about massive, egregious intelligence failures...

Yup, truth is indeed stranger than fiction - Bremer, Franks and Tenet. Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom today by George Walker Bush. Guess it's only fair, really, since he already gave Incompetenzza the plum job at State.

Ahh, Gee-Dubya... the sorry fucker really has a gift for cheapening everything he touches, doesn't he?