http://www.alternet.org/election04/20592/ "What you have to understand first is what motivates the culture wars – in each of these issues, and the broader cultural civil war that has gone since the late 60’s. At the bottom of it all is this way of thinking and talking about social class. Instead of it being blue collar against white collar, or workers against the Fortune 500, it is average Americans – or "authentic" Americans – versus an affected liberal elite. They use this language of class all the time and it is there in every single one of these issues. It’s just below the surface – usually not even below the surface. It’s right there. This [class issue] was not a problem for Democrats fifty years ago. Calling Democrats an elite group back then would have been laughable. The idea of liberals being elite was ridiculous because liberals were autoworkers in Detroit, sharecroppers in Alabama. And that’s who they still are, to some degree. But they have to rediscover that identity. The Democrats have to reach out to those groups again. So you deal with that kind of upside down class vision of the culture wars is by confronting it with the real deal – with real economic populism." I agree with everything he says in this interview. Unfortunately, the party will only go in this direction if someone with a spine (paging Dr. Dean) gets to chair the DNC. The Dem DC insiders are way too in bed with, and beholden to big business.
I’ve only seen that guy (McAuliffe ?) speak a couple of times on TV and it was enough to see why democrats are losing elections. Annoying as drops of urine that hang on your penis after having a piss without toilet paper around.
Dean was a lot more pro-business than several other Presidential candidates such as Gephardt. When Dems vote on ideas we won't be having this conversation.
I don't believe Gephardt is being considered to chair the DNC. Being pro-business is one thing. Dean is, of course pro-business (especially small business) however, as he has spoken and written repeatedly about the importance of rolling back corporate tax breaks, regulating media etc, he is hardly a member of the corporatocracy. McAuliffe, on the other hand is a Corporate fundraising whore - their b*tch.
Joe Trippi in the WSJ Since the Democratic Leadership Council, with its mantra of "moderate, moderate, moderate," took hold in D.C., the party has been in decline at just about every level of government. Forget the Kerry loss. Today the number of Democrats in the House is the lowest it's been since 1948. Democrats are on the brink of becoming a permanent minority party. Can the oldest democratic institution on earth wake from its stupor? Here are some steps to pull out of the nose-dive: • Democrats can't keep ignoring their base. Running to the middle and then asking our base to make sure to vote isn't a plan. And to those who say talking to your base doesn't work--Read the Rove 2004 playbook! • Democrats must reconnect with the energy of our grass roots. One of the failures of the DLC was that its ideas never helped us build a grass-roots donor base. As a result, Democrats held a lead over Republicans in only one fundraising category before this election cycle: contributions over one million dollars. That shows how far the party had strayed from grassroots fundraising before the Dean campaign. We must build a base of at least seven million small donors by 2006. With the Internet it's possible. But it can't just be about the money, it also has to be about ideas http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005960