Ed Koch: Democrats Can Win, But Not By Bashing Bush
NW Burbs said I supported Roskam from the start.
You'd be hard pressed to find any words of support for him here or on my blog. I don't live in district so it's sort of irrelevant anyways. I doubt I sway any votes there. I doubt I sway anyones votes for that matter.
But I am waiting to see if Duckworth, or Bean, or whomever will replace Lane Evans, can express the same kind of sense Ed Koch writes today in Real Clear Politics with Democrats Can Win, But Not By Bashing Bush.
The November elections will soon be upon us. Democrats believe they can win a majority in both Houses of Congress, and I agree. But victory will not be won by Bush-bashing. It will be won if we rally the country to support the core issues of the Democratic party.Koch gives the test for the party and I'm not optimistic the party will pass. But I haven't judged yet NW Burbs.
On the international front, the overriding issue facing our country is whether Americans have the will to denounce, resist and vanquish the fanatic Islamists who hate democratic values, who engage in terrorism, and who want to kill us and say so. Take them at their brazen word. When Hitler wrote "Mein Kampf," we failed to take him at his word and lived to regret it. Sixty million people ultimately paid with their lives.
Update: on the other hand, Norm Geras did find someone saying bloggers shouldn't be ignored.
6 comments:
They think it's like 1994 when it is really 1998.
In 94, the opposition had a poll-tested set of ideas. 9 of 10 were enacted/put in place.
in 98, the opposition was infused with a seething hatred of the sitting President but left their ideas and accomplishments behind.
What do the Dems (nationally) have to offer? If they promote their old ideas (Taxes, Regulation, Single Payer, Bureaucracies), they lose because those ideas are unpopular.
If Democrats promote their own version of dynamic ideas (Personal Accounts, Health Savings Account, Funding Children's Education instead of funding corrupt education "systems"), Bush will happily take them up on the offer.
Koch is right, but the Dems won't give up on their "8 years Hate" (see Orwell) strategy.
Absent some stupid mistake (and we all know Republicans specialize in stupid mistakes) Republicans pick up seats in both houses in Nov.
Touche Bill.
But I ask, do you generally agree more with Roskam or Duckworth? Which candidate would you be more likely to support from the outset?
And your post demanding to know Major Duckworth's stand on impeachment was a pretty clear judgment right there (and you may care to notice how it's only the conservative leadership discussing impeachment, the liberal leadership is discussing censure).
I agree with Koch to an extent. The Dem Leadership has been pretty piss-poor about dumping their tired old consultants who keep trying to get a square wheel to roll. The GOP leadership got rid of their old consultants decades ago, to the extent that a once great party has now been hijacked by near-extremists who believe the means (fraud, lying, cover-ups) justify the ends (power, more power, even more power).
It is both an indictment of the consultants (who ignore Einstein's Theory of Insanity) and the leadership (who ignore their newly awakened giant of a base at their own peril).
Some in the leadership get it -- Dean for one. Others do not yet understand -- Pelosi and Emmanuel are examples.
The Democratic Party must reassert its philosophy, its raison d'etre, its essence ... or it will end up in the dustbin. Right now, the grassroots (witness Cegelis' supporters) understand this.
There may be stumbles and setbacks, but sooner or later, from top or bottom or both, the left will recognize it must draw a line in the sand and stop drifting rightward.
President Bush has nothing to do with it -- he'll be gone in 08 if not before (through resignation or impeachment).
And the policies he put in place that are failing us now were not "his" per se anyway, they are conservative policies -- developed in right-wing think tanks and hammered out in conservative social clubs.
What the left needs, and needed at least 30 years ago, are the equivalents: liberal and progressive institutions dedicated to finding and developing new ideas and new solutions to continually try to lift people up and constantly move our nation forward.
But before then, the left needs to realize we do our best work when we, as one America, believe not just in ourselves but believe in all of us and when we as a country don't just stop at "life's not fair" but fight on and demand that we make life *more* fair.
Clinton-bashing didn't work for Dole and it only worked once for Gingrich. Bush-bashing won't work for the left either -- but telling people exactly where we stand, and clearly explaining why, will.
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As for Extreme "Wisdom" -- Everything you describe is pretty far off-base.
For one thing, the conservative policies you describe have, for the most part, proven to be failures. Every American for themselves is not what got our Founding Fathers through the Revolutionary War nor is it what got us through the Great Depression (though it is what led, in part, to the Great Depression).
For another, your quip about Gingrich's 1994 9 out of 10 points being enacted/put in place is just plain wrong.
None of the "Contract on America's" 10 points are in place today -- none. The GOP broke every single one of its promises (the last one it broke was allowing Hastert to remain speaker longer than 6 years).
Finally, let's go down your laundry list of off bad words that you claim Democrats "promote"...
- Taxes: How do you expect to pay for little things like the strongest military in the world, the FAA that prevents almost all the planes in the sky right now from crashing into your house, the interstates we use to transfer products and vacationers, and on and on?
Consider, if you (like many conservatives) don't like it when people cut in line (ie, "illegal immigrants") then why do you like it when people don't pay their fair share of the investments we must make to keep our great nation as great as it is?
- Regulation: When the Enron's and Exelon's and Pacific Gas Co's of America figure out how to act ethically we will no longer need regulations. Right now, businesses are much more interested in their bottom lines than they are in their neighbors, consumers and employees. And thus, we need regulations to protect ordinary people from the ethically-challenged among us.
- Single Payer: While this may not be the ideal answer it has proven to work very well in most of the nations where it is in place. It will be interesting to see (after several years of it being in place) how well the Massachusetts Plan works.
- Bureaucracies: ExtWis, name one large organization (big business, civic organization, or a government body) that does not have some form of bureacracy. Yes, things should be made as efficient as possible. But guess what? That government bureacracy conservatives whine about did a great job while FEMA was under Clinton's control -- turn FEMA over to conservatives and, well, we all saw how that turned out.
Here's another prime example of a bureacracy that works. Conservatives whine about the Social Security "bureacracy"... Social Security's overhead is far, far lower than even the discount investment bank's overhead. If Social Security were sliced out of government wholesale and made private and independent tomorrow everyone would flock to it because they'd have the lowest fees and points of any retirement group out there.
...Try thinking a little more and doing an inkling of research before spouting off the baseless, hollow talking points you picked out of TownHall and FreeRepublic.
Yes...every Dem platform includes "(Taxes, Regulation, Single Payer, Bureaucracies)"
Indeed, I have just scraped the "More Bureaucracy Now!" sticker off of my car.
Tired partisan lines - that is neither extreme, nor wisdom.
"Absent some stupid mistake..."
Republican lobbyist Abramoff going to jail. Duke Cunningham going to jail. Tom DeLay resigns in shame. Conrad Burns a jail candidate as well.
And have you paid any attention to the Katherine Harris campaign?
I'm not guaranteeing anything. But the stupid mistakes are out in full force.
NW,
I lack the time at this moment to address every one of your points, but the fact remains that a party has to stand for something to win.
Right now, the Dems stand for "Bush hate" and little else.
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The Contract is here.
While it is fair to say that many of the items are not in force today, the fact is that many of the ideas have been placed into law, and all have come up for a vote in one form or another (Save Term Limits).
To argue that the Republicans are guilty of backsliding on the contract is quite pointless. That is one of the reasons so much of their base is angry with them.
Listening to you and Senoranon is like listening to kids saying "nya nya na na booboo."
I say Republicans are often "stupid," and you spit back "noooo, you're wrooonng, they're reeaaally stupid."
So much for maturity. What next? Are you going to call them "poopy heads?"
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I may take your long list of responses and answer them on my blog, since it would take quite a bit of space and time to answer them here. As usual, you have placed a few good points inside some really weak partisan blather.
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Senoranon,
If you support increased spending on a bloated and corrupt public education sector, you may as well have had a "more bureaucracy now" sticker on your car. The same goes for support of anything as absurd as single payer health care.
But I'll take you at your word that don't support fat bureaucracies.
Your examples of Republican foibles are well taken. You know as well as I do that a moment of research could produce equal quantities of foibles across the aisle.
Extreme "Wisdom" wrote, "some really weak partisan blather"
...sums up your posts quite nicely, I say (half-)jokingly. ;)
Here is what the Dems stand for, read it and learn it: Democratic Party Agenda.
"You know as well as I do that a moment of research could produce equal quantities of foibles across the aisle."
And you know as well as I do that a moment's research would bear out the fattening of the bureaucracy has been the providence of the administration of one George W. Bush.
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