The Liberal Patriot

Getting It and Getting It Right

J.G. Schwam - November 26, 2004

It took the GOP twenty years to get it right. There is one thing all Americans believe. That is that all politicians make promises they know they cannot or simply know they will not keep once we are fool enough to elect them. Perhaps to say the GOP got this is to give them too much credit. But this time they did not run to the masses based on empty promises. They ran on faith, faith in God and faith in the faith to have faith. It worked. Bush promised the millions of working and middle class Christians that calls his base politically speaking, nothing. He did however successfully demonstrate his faith. That is plain and simple, why he won. They got the message and they bought it, in droves.

The majority of the Democrats that turned out to vote did so not because they bought Kerry’s message but because they loath Bush enough to vote to get him out, that’s all. Most Democrats would not have chosen Kerry. If the Democratic Leadership Council and the Democratic National Committee talked to anybody out of the beltway they would have known that. While most believe Kerry is an upstanding earnest man with good intentions it is hard to find one Democrat on the street that supported him wholeheartedly early in the campaign,

There is another thing Americans know, that is that their government is more vested in serving its own needs above the needs of those that elect it. Washington corrupts most of the best we send there. It has been that way since Vietnam. We may not be the most politically educated electorate but think about it. There has not been a president elected that served in Congress since Nixon. Ford doesn’t count. He would never have had a chance if Nixon didn’t effectively appoint him to the presidency.

This comes back to the question about getting it right. What must the Democrats do to get it right and get their base out or recreate one like the GOP did? First they have to get that Americans know they are all full of crap. This doesn’t matter because we have to elect someone. We know that. The GOP got that. They did not run on political promises. Second they have to get out and think of the beltway. A new fundamental must take hold in the DLC and the DNC.

Take Al From. From was the head of Kerry’s campaign and founder and CEO of the DLC. He has lost many more races than he has run successfully. While some of From’s thinking is sound it is his entrenchment in the beltway and its lack of touch with America dooms him to believe in the righteous arrogance that defines Washington today. That is why Kerry lost. Neither he nor From got it. No one likes arrogance and a scant few trust Congress.

A favorite question of the punditocracy of late is what can the Democrats learn from the GOP? They must learn to do exactly what the GOP did, run a candidate that is from outside the beltway, forget the big money vacant promises and discuss policy change in terms of values, truth and fundamental issues. Running on wholesale change and big money programs scares most people, because they don’t understand these things. As you can bet Karl Rove will tell you, you can do anything you want, positive or negative, populist or self serving once you are in and have control.

In the last election one candidate did more to energize and more important awaken the Democratic electorate to become reengaged and active in their political futures than any in memory. He is Howard Dean. While Dean was not the first choice of some for the top slot, his plain speak and lack of already corrupted credentials served to invigorate the entire campaign process. On the street many moderate Republican voters, displeased by the extremity of Bush’s first term leaned toward Dean. Al From and Terry McAuliffe however wouldn’t know that. Their ear is more attuned to the purse strings of the electorate than their lives and true concerns.

While I questioned the viability of Dean as a nominee for president, in retrospect he may have won over Kerry whose decades of political baggage was used against him to great effect. Kerry represented the big money party politics that the vast majority of voters lack the depth of pocket to participate in and are disgusted by.

The leaders of Democratic Party have a chance to remake their party the way the GOP did after many years of being marginalized. They must get their heads out of the beltway and back into the blue highways, city streets and county roads, where votes come from. If they want to win they need to have faith in their electorate and abandon their arrogant self preservationist attitude.

Al From is the worst possible choice for DNC chairman. He is old school and represents nothing more than big money, failed strategies and policy. Have faith DNC. If you build it they will come. Howard Dean filled the stadium. Dean’s strategy was just centrist enough to appeal to moderates and just left enough to invigorate liberals. Howard Dean is the right choice for chairman of the Democratic Nation Committee.

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