Reply #16: very nice post ...

[welshTerrier2]

you touched on some excellent themes, PC ...

there was an article in today's WP that stated the Hillary was truly caught off-guard by the crossfire she walked into with her calls for unity at the DLC conference ... even with all the political experts she's surrounded by, she apparently lacked an awareness of the strength of the rebellion within the Party ... i was truly stunned by this revelation and plan to write about the possibility that many elected Dems don't necessarily oppose us; they're just so out of touch with "little unimportant Democrats" that they really don't know what the hell is going on ...

i'm not sure whether i actually believe this or not ... need to sleep on that one overnight ...

but one thing i do believe, and i think your post and most of the others i've read on DU don't go far enough, is that the intra-Party problems the Democratic Party has gone way, way beyond the conflict between the progressives and the DLC ... the real problem i see is that the Party needs a major infusion of democracy ...

i had hoped that with Dean as Chairman, we would see a push to bring the direction of the Party and its candidates in line with the beliefs of the grassroots ... by grassroots, i don't mean the left, center or any other place on a political spectrum ... i mean every single Democrat who wants to have a voice ... perhaps Hillary's being clueless about the Party's internal strife is an indication of how out of touch the "elite" Democrats really are ... if they want our support, they better support us ...

we need to have processes that allow each and every Democrat to be heard on the issues ... if we don't change the status quo very, very soon, the opportunity we have now to regain majority status for not just an election or two but, for the long-term, will be squandered ...

at a time where Democrats should be running away with national polls and preparing to return to majority status in the next election, we are getting more of the tired old move-to-the-center poison ... what the Party still doesn't understand is that they will lose everytime if they put politics ahead of policies ... the best politics come from having the best policies and having the courage to fight for them ...

anyway, i really enjoyed reading your post ... very well said !!