Three Way News
Your Source. For everything. Really.
Contributors
- Hammer
- Jambo
- Libby Mae
Current Poll
Recurring features
Hammer's Favorites
- Dobson v. Sponge-Bob
- Calvin, the nest egg
- Pat's predictions
- Bachmann spins Cupertino
- 205 atheists assume the bench
- Fox spins Oil for Food
- Fact check: highest taxed state
- Gen. Myers v. Reality
- Janice Rogers Brown
- Killing Field
- Kline hates Big Bird
- Vote Luca Brasi!
- Cornyn's Stalinist Supreme Court
- Rumsfeld's hidden metrics
Jambo's Favories
- Dolphin research updates
- We all shine on
- If you have to write...
- Columnist NY Times should have
- Truth about taxes
- Fourth of July
- Movie objects
- Lost in supermarket
- Dysfunctional Farmer Labor party
- Punks you hated
- Some preacher from east
- Winning issues
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Carville, Greenberg, Shrum: It's time to change
The new report from the Democracy Corps is available. Here's the thrust:
The Democrats have had great difficulty defining themselves now because of the inheritance of two presidential elections (2000 and 2004) and two off-year elections (1998 and 2002) when the Democrats failed to set out a clear choice and definition of their own purpose and values.
It has been a long time since the Democrats have run as a party of change. Democrats have to become the party of change in this period of deepening unrest about the country’s direction. As we shall see below, the Democrats can define the Republicans in this election and do moderately well, but they will not gain a decisive advantage unless their battles leave the Democrats defined as a party ready to clean house, empower the middle class over the big corporate interests in Washington, make the economy work for everyone, not just the privileged, and bring wholly new priorities that secure retirement and reverse the health care mess.
According to their polling, 55% of Americans want to turn the country in a "significantly different direction" while only 41% want to follow Bush's direction.
Regrettably, however, the public disaffection with the Bush agenda has translated into but lukewarm support for the Democratic party. In a generic congressional contest, the Democratic candidate leads the Republican by 5 points.
The best point in the paper is that the Democrats need not -- and ought not -- emulate today's Republican party and it's excesses of partisanship, greed, and abuse of power. Rather, the Democrats need to embrace the mantle of change. It's not time to be Republican-lite. It's time to act like Democrats, and to be proud of it.
