September 4, 2003
Party politics puts me to sleep. I've been trying to keep up with what the Democrats are up to, since the upcoming election is such an important one, and I'm really yawning. An op-ed piece in today's NY Times by Matthew Miller shed some light on the inability of the Democratic effort to hold my attention:
[snip]
What American politics urgently needs, in other words, is not a new left, but a new center. Democrats need to refocus domestic debate around a handful of fundamental goals on which all Americans can agree — goals that in turn become the new basis for setting fiscal priorities and tradeoffs.
Yes, there will be fights over details. But if we first ask what equal opportunity and a decent life in America mean, can't we agree that anyone who works full time should be able to provide for his or her family? That every citizen should have basic health coverage? And that special efforts should be made to make sure that poor children have good schools?
Fixing these problems will take federal dollars, an amount of cash that is mistakenly viewed as "unaffordably liberal" under existing terms of debate. In fact, an agenda that covered the uninsured, subsidized a new living wage of $9 an hour and adequately compensated teachers would cost less than two cents on the national dollar, or 2 percent of the nation's gross domestic product.
Such new angles of vision are necessary if we're to get serious about America's biggest domestic problems. But the first step is for Democrats to climb out of their decade-long crouch. Republicans have been allowed to frame the conversation for so long that the terms of public debate have become surreal. After all, Margaret Thatcher would have been tossed from office if she'd proposed anything as radically conservative as Bill Clinton's health plan — which still would have left several million people uncovered and had the private sector deliver the medicine.
As Democrats start sprinting toward their primaries, the candidate who can take what the Republican Party denigrates as "wild-eyed liberal dreams" and reframe them properly as simple common sense will have the best chance to beat President Bush — and of deserving to.
Wake up, my fellow Americans!
Comments now powered by HaloScan. Click here to read this entry's comments (if any), or to post one of your own.
Old Comments (4)
Bruce on 04 Sep 2003
"As Democrats start sprinting toward their primaries, the candidate who can take what the Republican Party denigrates as "wild-eyed liberal dreams" and reframe them properly as simple common sense will have the best chance to beat President Bush — and of deserving to."
That would be Dennis Kucinich.
Tom Shugart on 04 Sep 2003
Isn't this the same editorial which pointed out that Nixon's health plan proposed circa 1970 was far too radical for the Clintons to contemplate in 1993? My, how times have changed. As I once pointed out in my blog, Barry Goldwater couldn't even get elected as a delegate to the GOP convention in today's climate. Chilling.
Postscript: Much as I admire and respect "Bruce," anyone who thinks Kucinich could possibly win the general election, let alone the nomination, is a dreamer. But, then, maybe it's Bruce's dreaming that draws us to him.
Paul Newman on 24 Oct 2003
bllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh!!!
y do u hate gwb so much???????????
dzwonki polifoniczne nokia on 14 Jun 2004
Hmmmmm interesting !!!