Reply #39: Same old, same old Rich; and some arguments about Clark's appeal for Lydia

[tameszu]

But, please, do continue. I'm pretty happy to report that the Clark supporters seem to have cleaned up their act; that many of our adversaries haven't can only make us look better. So by all means, keeping making your skepticism look bad.

Lydia: I'm not qualified to speculate about demographics, so I won't go into various claims about whether Clark will bring home the white male vote or the married women vote or whatever.

What I do know is that there does seem to be a nontrivial part of the population that does prioritize foreign policy and security/defense concerns quite significantly. And on these issues, the public generally does not trust the democrats--the Republicans sadly have a staggering 40% lead over the Dems on these issues.

If the Democrats are going to win, they either have convince voters that the economy and domestic issues are so much more important that foreign policy and defense that the latter are pretty much irrelevant, or they are going to have to pursuade the voters on these issues.

Doing so does not mean that the Democrats need to be "militarist" or "belligerant"; it does mean, however, that the Democrats need a coherent, consistent, and plausible position on foreign policy and defense.

I submit that such a position did not exist during the 2002 elections--the Democrats were all over the place, and those people who had good ideas did not articulate them clearly enough.

We Clark supporters think that he can articulate such a message. Yes, his experience does help give him credibility, but it's his message that matters to most of us.

So that's our deal...cheers...