One more item is needed. Dems need to figure out how to prevent the Repubs from stealing the elections. I think both poll watching and aggressive legal action after the tallies will probably be necessary.
Posted by Right Fools at June 12, 2006 10:13 AMGreat ideas....I have a few more random thoughts off the top of my head just from a quick read of your own post. I personally think another one has to deal with fiscal sanity.....America first...we spend 3 billion a month in Iraq for disorganized chaos and permanent bases with our no bid Corporate Military Industrial complex and yet we are spending what in comparsion to addressing all these problems right here at home (grossly unfair taxation rates, middle class squeeze with poor jobs/wage growth, crumbling infrastructure and poor gov't response (hello Katrina).... and we are not any safer!! Appeal to fiscal responsibility...economic security is a part of national security.
As this rambling comment shows, I'm no good with the succinct sound bite kind of messaging, but economic security is an important voter issue. And most people aren't buying the bs that the msm and bushco keeps peddling about the booming economy....no because they live it everyday with gas prices up, health insurance costs skyrocketing, loss of job security and/or lack of quality job benefits/retirement packages, college tuitions skyrocketing...etc. No, the have nots (90% of the country) are suffering big time economically under Bushco...yet the country is bankrupt and borrowing at record levels. I bet most people are not better off now and/or are more worried about their financial situation then they were in 2000.
Posted by emal at June 12, 2006 10:47 AMYou need to motivate your core supporters. Make them enthused to vote. And you need to convince the independents that you have something to get excited about and that you believe in something.
Posted by cmpnwtr at June 12, 2006 11:00 AMWell said Steve. I'll make your point succinctly-- You can't bring a cocktail weenie to a gunfight...
Posted by tjschill at June 12, 2006 11:08 AMYou can't trust Republicans with your money --
You can't trust Republicans with national security --
You can't trust Republicans with your health insurance --
You can't trust Republicans with your job --
You can't trust Republicans with your children's future --
Posted by ck at June 12, 2006 11:18 AMDem turnout will be the single most important factor. If the Dem turnout is similar to what we saw in CA-50 there's no way the Dems will win a majority in the House this Nov.
The question is how to fire up registered Dems to go out and vote in unprecedented numbers?
Posted by ab initio at June 12, 2006 11:24 AMSteve,
I like your summary of the strategic points. It would be useful if Democratic think tanks such as the Rockridge Institute can frame the messages clearly.
Jonathan
Posted by at June 12, 2006 11:35 AMI'm with GoW and Right fools - without election reform and real verification, the GOP's gonna steal this one like they did the last one, and the one before that.
Thank god, I live in Iowa with a D Governor and Sec of State. My vote's much less likely to be stolen . . unless it's Green. :)
Posted by idiosynchronic at June 12, 2006 11:37 AM"Republicans nickel and dime the working man while they stuff the pockets of their cronies with YOUR MONEY."
How's that?
Posted by God Of War at June 12, 2006 12:08 PMAt this point, I have seen nothing from Rahm Emanuel or Chuck Schumer
And after seeing Rahm Emanuel mangle his way thru This Week with Stephanopolous, I'm not so sure either.
I'll say one thing for Bob Reynolds (the RNC guy), he was talking garbage but it was in clear easy to understand language.
Emanuel fumbled and stumbled and gave the usual dem laundry lists.
I just shook my head. Do these guys really want to win?
GoW:
EXACTLY!!!
So simple even Rahm Emanuel can say it.
Geoffrey Nunberg on the Democrats message problem (LA Times via Raw Story)
'TOGETHER, America can do better." The Democrats' awkward new slogan may not say much more than "Anybody would be an improvement on the current bunch of bozos," yet many Democrats are hoping that it will be enough to bring the party back to life this fall. And they may be right, given the widespread discontent with the administration's apparently bottomless bozosity.
But the very ungrammaticality of the Democrats' slogan reminds you that this is a party with a chronic problem of telling a coherent story about itself, right down to an inability to get its adverbs and subjects to agree. Until Democrats can spell out a more explicit and compelling vision for America, it isn't clear how the party can restore its faded luster. ...
True, most Democrats acknowledge that they have a communication problem, but only in the way that a man with the measles might perceive that he has a complexion problem. Yes, they've let themselves be out-messaged in the bumper-sticker wars. But for all the Democrats' obsession with improving their issue-framing, the Republicans' electoral successes owe relatively little to their snappy line of patter. ...
The right's real linguistic triumphs don't lie in its buzzwords and slogans, but in capturing the ground-level language of politics. When we talk about politics nowadays — and by "we," I mean just about everybody, left, right and center — we reflexively use language that embodies the worldview of the right. ... Yet when Democrats try to recapture the language of politics, it's often with a clueless literal-mindedness. ...
From Jimmy Carter and Mario Cuomo to Bill Clinton and John Edwards, most successful Democratic politicians have been instinctive storytellers. Conventional wisdom credits Clinton's 1992 victory to his insistence that "it's the economy, stupid." But it wasn't just the economy — it was the way he told it, as a story about how "people who work hard and play by the rules get the shaft." That's a miniature narrative, complete with characters and a plot, the size of a capsule movie summary. Today's Democrats, if they choose to, have equally compelling narratives of their own to tell, touching the middle class as much as the working poor. They're stories that dramatize the increasing disparities of wealth and the shift of the tax burden from the rich to the middle class; insecurities over job loss, healthcare, pensions and college education; and a government that has broken faith with the American people.
It's out of stories like those that a new political language will emerge — perhaps with newly vivid understandings of words like "decency" and "fairness," and with a restoration of the neglected Rooseveltian senses of "freedom," encompassing economic and personal security. The words aren't important for their own sake, but for their capacity to evoke stories that conjure up the sense of common mission that can make "Democrat" something more than a synonym for "none of the above."
Posted by ck at June 12, 2006 12:23 PM"Together America Can Do Better??"
FUCK!!!
They must WANT to lose.
Fuck 'em. Get some winners with some balls in there.
Posted by God Of War at June 12, 2006 01:06 PMHow about:
"These idiots are flushing away the country"
Seriously.
Posted by idiosynchronic at June 12, 2006 01:49 PMI'm sorry to have to say that if the Dems haven't figured out a clear, easy to understand, uniform message for the people by now, it's a little unrealistic to expect they will all of a sudden do a great job of it in the next few months.
Who's to blame? The Dems themselves? Their leaders? The press? The "consultants"? (who should AT LEAST be able to formulate clear talking points).
It's like rootin' for the Brooklyn Dodgers, without ever gettin' a nice hot dog as part of the bargain. Da Bums.
Posted by euzoius at June 12, 2006 02:46 PMactually euzolus, it's "Dem bums"
Posted by benjoya at June 12, 2006 04:42 PMoozo: That was a great strait line you handed Ben on a platter.
Posted by TIKI AL at June 12, 2006 05:46 PMSteve,
You might want to add another point as a means of dis-associating yourself from this group of "progressives" (especially on that whole "the election was stolen" thingy)....
http://www.zombietime.com/world_naked_bike_ride_2006/
Posted by Bagley at June 12, 2006 05:53 PMBagman,
I think those people are less of a problem than Man Coulter. You have an idiot screaming loudly and calling the 9/11 widows "whores." Better get ready to start weeping.
Ga6thDem,
Unfortunately, those folks (pretty much) define the "progressive" movement.
Good luck in the future.
R,
B
Posted by Bagley at June 12, 2006 06:10 PMFooled once again Bagman! No one in the progressive movement has called the 9/11 widows "whores." That belongs solely to the conservative movement. Embrace your love of these fundamentalist freaks. It's causing lots of Republicans to switch. Look no further than Jim Webb, someone who was Reagans Sec of Navy. He has said that your party is now the fundamentalist freak party.
Do you think that Americans really like the Good Old Peeping tom party? The one who wants to make you most private decisions for you?
Posted by Ga6thDem at June 12, 2006 06:50 PM"Fooled once again Bagman!"
Huh? My comments were with respect to the the people on bikes in San Francisco -- those folks (pretty much) define the "progressive" movement.
You seem to be having a problem with reading comprehension.
As to your belief that
"No one in the progressive movement has called the 9/11 widows 'whores.'"
You might want to check out some of the things that Ted Rall has written.
"He has said that your party is now the fundamentalist freak party."
I do not recall him saying anything regarding "freak."
"Do you think that Americans really like the Good Old Peeping tom party?"
Well, given the bike riding progressive community in San Francisco....well, I do wish that they would keep their clothes on: after all, peeping Tom chooses what to look at, he does not have it foisted upon him.
Cheers!
Better luck next time.
Posted by Bagley at June 12, 2006 07:11 PMBagman,
You are so clueless it is funny. You have decided to define progessive for yourself. You live in some kind of freakish fundamentalist chamber where S.F. defines everything in your world.
Ted Rall never called the 9/11 widows "whores." Embrace calling them whores. It's what you guys are all about.
Silly boy, there are people who are clothed who the the "Good Old Peepers" like to look in windows at. BTW, what diffence does clothing have to do when you listening to phone calls, telling people who they can marry etc.
Silly, silly. Cling to your fundamentalism. Embrace your fundamentalism bag boy. It's obviously defining your entire vision of the world based on your comments.
Posted by Ga6thDem at June 12, 2006 07:28 PMSteve, good points all, except for one: we do NOT, emphatically NOT, need to rethink nukes. They were, are, and always will be stupid. Getting electricity that way has been described as using chainsaws to cut butter. And you're left with radioactive chainsaws and butter, for tens of thousands of years. Only the very smallest plants (two? maybe three?) have ever been decommissioned. All the rest, dozens of them, are merely mothballed because nobody can afford to deal with them. It costs _billions_ per plant. That's not a source of power. It's a source of ruin. And it is NOT NECESSARY. There is more than enough sustainable energy out there, intelligently applied.
/*end of rant*/
Much as I hate to, I have to agree that if the Dems ever do take back any part of the government, it'll be in spite of themselves. Also agree with the commenter above about needing to be prepared against more election-stealing. Maybe every single Democrat should vote absentee on paper ballots....
Posted by quixote at June 12, 2006 09:57 PMI have sided with and fought for the Democratic Party on most issues since the days of JFK .
The party since Clinton has been “ to cute by a half “ , as they say ,DLCing itself to the fate of the Whig party . We should have won the Duke Cunningham seat ; this is not the small failure or moral victory , some have labeled it .
The party leaders put up a weak perceived as muddle headed candidate and tried to propel her canidancy by ignoring the fact that most Americans , Democrats included ,want strong border enforcement - first and standalone .
You can always demonstrate Democrat compassion after you first stand for tougher border control. A second fight over how to deal with who is here illegally after a sensible and
credible enforcement law is not the worst strategy in the world. More important, it’s what most citizens want .
I’m becoming more convinced , as I study our failings as a nation , that multiple party politics merits serous consideration and support . I’d had it with a moribund , inservitude to corporate master Democratic Party . Either the party gets back to its pedigree or it dies .
GOP lite hasn’t any true or natural constituency and a political party without it own support withers . Corporations that divide their money will do so only as long as they need to and the Democratic party will always be the stepchild in that race . The party will end up like a philander with a prized wonderful spouse at home , eventually the spouse moves on – permanently .
The quote below from Mr. DLC Emmanuel shows how out of touch and tone deaf the party is on
the immigration issue - and for that matter ,fighting for the middle class and the poor in general .
Narrow Victory by G.O.P. Signals Fall Problems
By ADAM NAGOURNEY NYT
Published: June 8, 2006
" Mr. Emanuel, in an interview, said: "They had to spend $5 million and the dominant message of immigration to break our message of change. It tells you how potent that message is. Not every district is going to be on the border of Mexico ."
What Democrats need is to drive home the message that they are the party of normal folks working for normal folks. Democrats work for a living, and have a strong belief in fairness.
Really, that's what drives us, why we came to this party. It's the liberal part, the belief in personal freedom. It's the social part, the "we're all in this together, so let's work together" belief.
The awkward slogan reveals just how hard it is to state this in a simple slogan, though. It's also false, as the strength of Democrats has been in the power of Americans, the people that make up the USA and not the group itself. They would have been better off with "We Americans can do better" or something similar.
"We Americans". Not "America". That tiny difference in wording is what's important. We've let the GOP tar us as worshippers of the Kennedy aristocracy long enough, and let the hereditary oligarchs pass themselves off as "plain folks" long enough.
Posted by Saint Fnordius at June 14, 2006 06:51 AM