Democrats and the vision thing
A lot of ink has been spilled over the incredible collapse of the “hopey, changey thing” that Democrats rallied around two years ago.
It’s one of the most remarkable turn-abouts in American political history, one that I certainly didn’t foresee.
The humbling of Barack Obama’s movement is the more stunning because it comes at the hands of a Republican political party that is itself deeply unpopular.
It’s not terribly original to suggest that a major weakness of the Democratic approach over the last nineteen months has been a lack of big-picture vision.
But as Democrats work to rebuild ahead of the big 2012 vote, there is no more crucial mission for their leadership.
Here are the big agenda items they’ll have to tackle:
1. Paint a clearer picture of how our lives get better. Polls show that individual Democratic policies are popular, but it’s unclear what it’s all supposed to add up to.
Republicans are offering a very attractive vision: more individual freedom, more entrepreneurship, a path to prosperity.
In frightening times, that’s very attractive — even if the details remain pretty fuzzy.
Unless the Dems can rally around a similar agenda, it’s hard to see how they can recapture the momentum.
2. Find more charismatic and confident leaders. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are accomplished legislators.
A generation ago, that would have been enough. Pushing through big bills was the single-minded goal of House Speakers and Majority Leaders.
But in the post-Gingrich era, in an age of 24/7 cable, top lawmakers also have to be the public face of their parties.
Whatever their other qualities might be, Reid and Pelosi have been disastrous standard-bearers.
Part of the problem here, of course, is that the Democrats are an old-fashioned big tent party.
The various wings of the movement — from the East Coast MoveOn.orgers to the northern Plains Blue Dogs — don’t agree on much.
But Democrats have to stand for something going forward, or 2010 will only be a foreshadowing of more dark days in 2012.
Tags: election10
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I disagree in your count, you are mixing up nation building and world police duties with military victory.
We defeated N. Korea and prevented them from taking the South. without our intervention all of Korea would look like the freak kingdom of the North. Iraq 1 was a victory, we pushed Iraq out of Kuwait and they wanted us to do so it was clear we won. Afghanistan I was a military victory without a doubt we drove the Taliban out and gave the country to the warlords. Iraq II was a victory we defeated in a month the most powerful military in the Middle East and drove out Saddam.
What we stink at is occupation and nation building. We should have just given Afghanistan to the warlords and Iraq to the next dictator.
Looks like we are getting into a definition problem here.
On the one hand it seems pretty logical that when you send your military to fight on foreign soil it is a war. On the other hand we never declare wars anymore because if you declare a war you have to follow rules–as crazy as that may sound. Of course you have to follow some rules all the time (can’t be having people running around fighting without some set of rules governing their behavior) but the rules of an actual declared war give political ammunition to the opposing party in Congress.
The underlying problem is that many times we try to use military force to effect change that should be carried out through diplomatic and political means. Why do we do that? Because a President’s policy can only be guaranteed for the length of whatever time remains in his term of office.
The sad truth is that it is simply more expedient to have a war than to have a consistent foreign policy. So you can both win and lose the same war.
Isn’t it great that both sides can be right?
I would disagree with the idea gov’t “produces” anything, even law enforcement. There is no “product”, no value added to a raw material, no taking something and turning it into a finished product. The closest gov’t comes would be the public school system and how well finished a product is produced is debatable. Highways are another example brought up. Well, we had lots of roads before gov’t got into the highway business, many were toll roads owned by what to day would be a corporation.
Gov’t provides services. Gov’t establishes rules and regulations and then enforces them. The services gov’t provides would often be better served by private industry. Gov’t sometimes competes with private industry and with an endless pool of money to draw from how can they lose?
Gov’t doesn’t “produce” anything in the sense that I’ve mentioned. Gov’t merely taxes those who do produce, takes it’s cut and uses the money (redistribution) to further it’s political schemes.
Knucklehead,
Agreed. The military we have is excellent (it should be for what we pay for it), I think they would win most if not all military challenges put forth today by any country in the world. However we don’t declare war anymore, we have indeed blown off the constitution in this very very important area, to me it is strange how easily that was accomplished with hardly an objection raised.
Secondly our military is not an occupation force we don’t colonize very well no one does for that matter with the possible exception of the French and British who seem to actually leave some positive things behind when they leave. But anyway we are losing the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Sooner or later like the Soviets in Afghanistan and the British in Iraq, we will slink on out and leave them to their own devices. We should just admit that we wanted Saddam out and we wanted the Taliban out, and when those were done in about 6 months each, we should have left.
Bret,
Services are a good. In fact services are a large part of our economy. I agree government should not be in the business of producing private goods; cars, homes, computers, software, etc, that is best left for the private sector. In addition giving money to private firms IS redistribution no doubt. Giving billions to GM for example was taking money from one group and simply giving it to another, the same goes for the banks. That is redistribution and I totally agree it is not good for the country.
But some things are not produced by the private sector, some very basic very very important things and government must provide these or we will descend into a chaos that hurts everyone.
Merv, some services aren’t offered by the private sector simply because gov’t already does it, or does it at a huge loss. That’s not necessarily a good deal for anyone except the recipient of that service and even that is debatable depending on exactly what the service is.
The plain fact is we live in a socialist society at the moment. Not a socialist economy or gov’t, but a socialist society. We have a Federal gov’t that has gone far, far beyond it’s Constitutional limits is inserting itself into our lives. An example- the Federal Gov’t has no grounds to require people to purchase a product. A State could do that in theory, but not the Federal Gov’t. But they have and it’s sold under the idea of social welfare. I’m not advocating for revolution or anything, but just as NY State is in direct competition with the private ski industry, there are limits to what we should allow. All I ask is that people consider this and where it will all end.
I was wrong, Gov’t does “produce” something- ever larger Gov’t!
Bret,
Government produced the Internet. (See: DARPA) I would never have been able to spend time responding to your assertions were that not the case.
Now whether that’s an actual “good” or not is another discussion.
No, Gov’t funded the production of the internet. Defense agency contractors “produced” it. You’re confusing production with billing. Same with NASA, medicine, textiles like polyester and Kevlar. There is no Federal Government owned and operated plant producing ANYTHING. The closest I can think of to that are the various Armories and rebuild centers that repair defense agency equipment like the NARF at MCAS Cherry Point. But those are all private contractors doing the work.
The only thing gov’t produces is regulation and endless reams of paper.
Last comment here, I hope.
The problem with the Health Care Reform Act is about the same problem we have with Medicare. It’s neither fish nor fowl. It’s a compromise to keep the insurance and drug companies happy.
There is no good reason for there to be a Part A, Part B etc. with Medicare. It should be all or nothing.
It often seems the art of politics is throwing bones at a problem. Make it look like something is being done when nothing is being done.
We see it with DOT who patches roads and cuts grass along roads rather than actually fixing roads. We go to war and we do it in a half you know what fashion. Let’s pretend we are actually solving a problem. Let’s keep everyone happy and offend no one.
But in the end, with this half you know what approach, no one is happy.