There has to be more to Democratic politics than playing defense to stay elected and abusing the two-party system by just waiting for the GOP to fail.A week or so ago, Kos took the party to task. John seem on target that something is wrong with the Dem response.
Going even further back, the political talk shows were asking senior folks why the Democrats didn't caucus as a Party to articulate and push a coherent position on the Iraq war.
I have to admit that there are signs everywhere that the Dems ... aren't talking to each other. Earlier, it seemed to me that the old "Democratic Machine" wasn't fired up, in the sense of getting the message out there.
I don't think it does to mimic the Republicans. They fall in line un-naturally, for one thing.
There may be two problems. One is, as others have remarked, a need to "refresh" the party. If that means a purge in leadership, then ... (I always thought Steny a poor choice).
The other is to recognize that the Republicans, after years of griping about not getting their "message" past the media - despite that Reagan become Teflon and went past the media all the time, for instance - they have become good at (a) message discipline and (b) using talk shows and think tanks to 'control' the debate.
A SAMPLE CASE OF HOW TO USE MESSAGE TO CONFUSE THE ELECTORATE
Here's an example. Ponneru co-opting the message about ending the Nanny Corporation. In brand management, this might be like selling something with a similar name or packaging, in order to confuse people about what they are buying.
Does ANYONE think for a minute that Republicans want to do something about changing "the system" or that Rudy's libertarian rhetoric would ever get effectuated in a GOP administration?
But in recent years, most Republicans have come to believe that our health-care system is dysfunctional because it is employer-based and that this dysfunction has to be attacked at the root.
By the way, if Ponneru really believed that, he'd advocate ending the tax-subsidy, not adding another one, right?
