The ITT List
Thursday Jun 2, 2005 6:08 am
Take Back America: Putting the Soul Back into the Democratic Agenda
Howard Dean opened the second day of the Take Back America conference with the point that the Democratic party is shifting their agenda and organizing from short-term and national focused to long-term and grassroots. “As we raise money, we are investing in state parties. The Democratic Party will be the grassroots party… There’s nothing the matter with Kansas that we can’t fix.”
And boy do we need it. It's not just about last year's goal of getting Republicans out of office, it's now about getting Democrats off their asses.
Both DNC chair Howard Dean and Huffington were the key notes this morning. Both called for Democrats to take a stand and not just yell about what the Bush administration is doing wrong - but put out a positive and pointed agenda of its own. Agenda items mentioned: 1) Keeping our retirement safe by protecting social security and private pensions. Dean mentoned getting private pensions out of the corrupt hands of corporations and run independently 2) Getting the corruption out of office - specifically DeLay 3) Campaign Finance reform 4) Election Reform (Dean: "Never use a voting machine unless it can be counted by hand." 4) Environmental policies - this ones been mentioned a lot as a unifer across bi-partisan lines as well as pulling in many religious groups who are very interested. 5) Huffington urged Dems to “stop triangulating on gay rights and abortion and find a way to turn economic issue into moral issues – because they are.”
Huffington added, "Indeed, now that Deep Throat has been unmasked, the greatest unsolved mystery in Washington is: what does the Democratic Party stand for?"
The mushy, “squishy” (as Rep. Jan Schakowsky said) attitude and agenda that the Democrats continue to put forth has found no love at the Take Back America Conference. In fact, it has become one of the major themes that evolved from the plenaries in the last 24 hours.
Highlights include:
“If you ask me, what people like least about us is that people think we’re squishy. They think Bush is tough,” said Rep. Schakowsky. But with the current political corrupt climate created by the right, she also sees the potential for progressives to turn the tide. “It’s starting to feel like 1994, when the Republicans took over the House and Senate, and now the tables are starting to turn with a vengeance.”
Schakowsky laid out a 3 point attitude shift for both the policymakers and the progressives.
1) As your mother said – Stand up straight (Going back to getting a spine and not being bowed by the other side.)
2) Say it again… and again… and again… It’s time to repeat our message, values and the issues we find important over and over again.
3) Taking from the Nike slogan “Just Do It.”
LA mayoral elect Antonio Villaraigosa said that its time for progressives to take back our definition of patriotism. “For too long, progressives have allowed some to wrap the flag around themselves with the message ‘love it or leave.’ I say ‘America, I love you… but I want you to be all that you promised to be.”
Donna Brazille, Democratic Political Strategist cracked up the crowd with multiple quips, including: “After the 2002 elections, Katherine Harris moved down the block, and I said ‘there goes the neighborhood.” Or “People ask me what comes first: being a black or a woman, and I tell them it depends on whether my head or my tail came out first.”
On a more serious note, Brazille said, “We have a lot of work to do in making sure we can improve on all of the successes we had…I don’t want the base to be taken for granted…every voter is a swing voter, and every state is a battleground state… The days of drive-by campaigning are over…we can’t drive by the cities. We have to target our own, expand what we have, and convince those who stood in those long lines in Ohio to come out and help us.”
She added that progressives and the grassroots are done with the days being take advantage of and their principles compromised by the politicians cutting backroom deals and very public compromises (a la filibuster.) “We’re sick and tired of being sick and tired—tired of settling for the lesser of two evils.” Use us or lose us, she warned. It’s time to use the expertise that the progressive and grassroots base has to offer.
“We know how to cut deals, we know how to budget…we have to live with nickels and dimes in our pockets. Bring us in the room; maybe we can tell you something.”
More to come very soon….
And boy do we need it. It's not just about last year's goal of getting Republicans out of office, it's now about getting Democrats off their asses.
Both DNC chair Howard Dean and Huffington were the key notes this morning. Both called for Democrats to take a stand and not just yell about what the Bush administration is doing wrong - but put out a positive and pointed agenda of its own. Agenda items mentioned: 1) Keeping our retirement safe by protecting social security and private pensions. Dean mentoned getting private pensions out of the corrupt hands of corporations and run independently 2) Getting the corruption out of office - specifically DeLay 3) Campaign Finance reform 4) Election Reform (Dean: "Never use a voting machine unless it can be counted by hand." 4) Environmental policies - this ones been mentioned a lot as a unifer across bi-partisan lines as well as pulling in many religious groups who are very interested. 5) Huffington urged Dems to “stop triangulating on gay rights and abortion and find a way to turn economic issue into moral issues – because they are.”
Huffington added, "Indeed, now that Deep Throat has been unmasked, the greatest unsolved mystery in Washington is: what does the Democratic Party stand for?"
The mushy, “squishy” (as Rep. Jan Schakowsky said) attitude and agenda that the Democrats continue to put forth has found no love at the Take Back America Conference. In fact, it has become one of the major themes that evolved from the plenaries in the last 24 hours.
Highlights include:
“If you ask me, what people like least about us is that people think we’re squishy. They think Bush is tough,” said Rep. Schakowsky. But with the current political corrupt climate created by the right, she also sees the potential for progressives to turn the tide. “It’s starting to feel like 1994, when the Republicans took over the House and Senate, and now the tables are starting to turn with a vengeance.”
Schakowsky laid out a 3 point attitude shift for both the policymakers and the progressives.
1) As your mother said – Stand up straight (Going back to getting a spine and not being bowed by the other side.)
2) Say it again… and again… and again… It’s time to repeat our message, values and the issues we find important over and over again.
3) Taking from the Nike slogan “Just Do It.”
LA mayoral elect Antonio Villaraigosa said that its time for progressives to take back our definition of patriotism. “For too long, progressives have allowed some to wrap the flag around themselves with the message ‘love it or leave.’ I say ‘America, I love you… but I want you to be all that you promised to be.”
Donna Brazille, Democratic Political Strategist cracked up the crowd with multiple quips, including: “After the 2002 elections, Katherine Harris moved down the block, and I said ‘there goes the neighborhood.” Or “People ask me what comes first: being a black or a woman, and I tell them it depends on whether my head or my tail came out first.”
On a more serious note, Brazille said, “We have a lot of work to do in making sure we can improve on all of the successes we had…I don’t want the base to be taken for granted…every voter is a swing voter, and every state is a battleground state… The days of drive-by campaigning are over…we can’t drive by the cities. We have to target our own, expand what we have, and convince those who stood in those long lines in Ohio to come out and help us.”
She added that progressives and the grassroots are done with the days being take advantage of and their principles compromised by the politicians cutting backroom deals and very public compromises (a la filibuster.) “We’re sick and tired of being sick and tired—tired of settling for the lesser of two evils.” Use us or lose us, she warned. It’s time to use the expertise that the progressive and grassroots base has to offer.
“We know how to cut deals, we know how to budget…we have to live with nickels and dimes in our pockets. Bring us in the room; maybe we can tell you something.”
More to come very soon….
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This is the kind of talk that I, for one, have been waiting to hear from the Left!
Thanks for the highlights.
Thanks for the updates from the conference!
The Democrats seem to currently be in a similar position to the Tories in the UK. 1) they lost big in the most current election, 2) they have no defining ideology, 3) they are viewed and defined by their opposition to the other party’s platform instead of their own (there really isn’t one, and 4) people (voters) think they are people who generally do not like their country.
Just like Tony Blair and New Labour stole the Tory platform three terms ago, the Democrats need to (and are positioned to) do just that to the Republicans.
Republicans (Goldwater, the man whose loss spurred the conservative infrastructure that has given the Republicans their current base and power) who felt that the government should stay out of personal lives and do as little as possible. As Grover Norquist famously quipped, “I don’t want to abolich government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
SO now that they are in power do we get less government? NO! Largest budget in history, largest budget increase in history (although coupled with tax cuts it may be a hidden Norquistian agenda), largest increase in federal mandates in history.
Dems can steal that framework. Instead of calling it “limited government,” though, it will be “respecting individual autonomy” or something of the nature. This is not acure all, of course, and the Dems woould be pressed to defend essential government programs but are not without weapons (Adam Smith thought a free public education was essential and said nothing about school choice).
It looks like the Dems are moving onward and upward, thank god!
Initially, I too found Huffington’s comments at the Take Back America Conference enthralling. During the first day of the conference, which I attended, most speakers avoided going beyond criticizing Bush’s foreign policy in Iraq and calling for America to leave Iraq. But after a bit of reflection, I realized that Huffington’s remarks were predictable and not the real solution to the needs of the nation. Essentially, Huffington shows that it is easy to talk tough but what progressives need to do is the hard organizing work to build a broad based movement that can speak to a variety of causes or issues. Several speakers, in fact, made clear what type of organizing needs to be done. Stewat Acuff, the Organizing Director of the AFL CIO brought the conferees to their feet with his call to rebuild a vibrant labor movement. William McNary and others on the panel on Social Security described the success, so far, of the grass roots movement against Bush’s Social Security Plan. And Eli Pariser made clear that by breaking loose from the traditional corporate/big donor financial base of the Democratic Party, Move.on.org is giving progressives the chance to truly transform the political scene. Unfortunately, only the usual talking heads have gotten the press’ and bloggers’ attention so far, allowing some of the most important messages of the conference to go unheard.
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