General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: What do Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Al Gore and Bill Clinton have in common? [View all]Tom Rinaldo
(22,912 posts)I assume you mean the former but I think the latter group is the most significant when it comes to winning elections, given that less than a third of the public identifies themselves as Democrats. I would say that the Green Party, for example, has the luxury of not having to reach out for support beyond its membership (or if they do they really suck at it) so they can reach an internal consensus on a platform and then expect strong internal cohesion from their members. The Democratic Party, however, attempts to build a governing coalition and to do so also relies on voters who do not self identify as Democrats.
Speaking personally as a Democrat approaching his 50th anniversary within the Party, over the last three decades in particular I have not infrequently wondered if the Democratic Party always holds to core values or whether it has shown too much "flexibility" regarding them. My doubts coincided with the rise of "New Democrats" and the DLC. They manifest on matters such as "welfare reform" and "mandatory minimum sentencing" and "the war on drugs". They popped up in regards to our tepid at best support for Organized Labor, and our willingness to embrace international trade pacts that championed "globalization" and "free trade" with insufficient regard to environmental and labor rights as our largest corporations exploited a subsequent "race to the bottom" effect that pitted the most desperate workers world wide against those only slightly less desperate somewhere else.
I do understand how when some of "Sanders comments on tour are reported in media, even on NPR news reports" they can feed some demoralization among some Democrats. Can you understand how some of them can also contribute to a sense of new hope for the Democratic Party's future identity among some other current Democrats? Both phenomena are real. he bottom line though is that Bernie Sanders is an important part of the Democratic Party Coalition, though he is not a Democratic Party member. He is not only speaking to registered Democrats, and neither is the DNC by the way. The Democratic Party continually reaches out to voters who are not registered Democrats in order to win the votes necessary to elect Democrats to positions of power in America. We can not afford to stop doing so.