Selling Out the Democratic Party.

[Dover]

Who ARE we and does the current leadership adequately reflect our collective party values?


Selling Out the Democratic Party

How many times must the public send the message before the Democratic Party decides to stop shooting the messenger? The Gore-Bush contest of 2000, the 2002 mid-term elections, the California recall, and now the astonishing near-defeat of Gavin Newsom in San Francisco's mayor's race, each contain the same crystal-clear message: choosing Republican Lite-weights to represent the Democratic Party makes a lousy political strategy.

But the Democratic establishment would rather blame Nader and the Florida freaks. Blame Arnold and the Recall Repubs. Blame last-second progressive S.F. mayoral candidate Matt Gonzalez and his hipster horde. Blame "Mean" Dean and his Internet machine. Blame 9/11, late-night GOP roll-call votes ... anybody, in fact, but itself.

The sad, mostly unacknowledged fact is that in the shadow of Bill Clinton's enormous charisma and political brilliance, the Democratic Party has been steadily receding in influence across this country for more than a decade. Congress, gubernatorial races, city elections – you name it, and they've lost it. And the reason is simple: because the Democratic Party is too busy raising money to connect with the American people.

The latest example of this misplaced sense of priorities is the mayoral victory in San Francisco on Tuesday night. The local party machine favorite, millionaire entrepreneur and boy socialite Gavin Newsom, received endorsements from every party heavyweight imaginable. The campaign of the protégé of the ultimate politician's politician and outgoing mayor Willie Brown was favored by dramatic appearances by Clinton, Al Gore and both of the state's senators.

...snip...

The Gonzalez campaign was a successful one, despite its flaws and defeat. It mobilized thousands of new and irregular voters, mostly very young, to not only get to the polls but to actively take part in the campaign. Why? Because it stood for something: keeping big money out of politics; taking care of neighborhoods over downtown; and an emphasis on compassionate social programs.


These were all once the home turf of the Democrats, but the party has lost its way. The forces the Democratic Party chooses to nurture and align itself with in San Francisco are parallel to those that Gray Davis rode to an epic defeat: wealthy individuals and corporate lobbies....cont'd
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17362


Not only is it about raising money, but it's about BIG money which amounts to a handful of corporate entities duking it out for power.

Candidates count less and less on WE THE PEOPLE for their election.
And therefore the entrenched politicians no longer have an obligation or connection with the people...even though our taxes still pay their salaries.

[napi21]

1. Boy are right!

I've thought the same thing for a long time. The criticism of Howard Dean for seeming mad, the Dems don't want the war, and on and on.

I keep asking "What's wrong with being mad?" The Pubs have been mean and nasty for years! It's about time for a little retaliation, don't you think?

[Julien Sorel]

3. The Republican attack dog media have been mad.

I challenge you to show me a successful Republican politician who goes around angry all the time. In fact, I challenge you to show me a successful politician of any party whose most salient personal characteristic is anger.

How many angry people do you know in your personal life? How many of them do you like, want to be around? Most people aren't interested in the anger of other people. Why do you think an angry politician would be any more appealing?

[Guaranteed]

6. To be fair,

I think your assessment of Dean being mad "all the time" is a little off. In fact, he jokes around a lot, and is pretty charming. He's not just angry- people like being around him.

[GalleryGod]

7. He Better start Showing it Pal. We Had a Debate Party..(25 invitees)

And Dean came off as a "Used Car Salesman", to wit,Talking WAY too =Fast...and Mumbling . This was no neophyte gathering,either....there was more than$25,000 to Gore/Leiberman sittin' in my drawing room-along with 2 sitting State Senators and a County Freeholder (or Commisioner).

The Democratic Political Boss of Southern New Jersey's Consigliere sat quietly muching mozzarella sticks.

The consensus was that the "Crossfire Post-Game Show" was a classic,propping-up job for whom the corporate media want to run against Bush. They've got "The Story"..now all they have to do is shape-the-sheep.

That's it and that's that... from Southern New Jersey.

BTW any and all plans to "takeover" the Party ,here, in the MOST Democratic of ALL states (we Leap-frogged Mass)will be met with a force that is normally implemented by the Gambino Family.

Have A Nice Day,Too


:grouphug:

[Guaranteed]

8. This last debate?

He never wins the debates, because he's always getting ganged-up on. And the last debate was crap anyway because of the Gore "controversy." The issues hardly even got discussed.

Hmmm.... and are you saying NJ is corrupt? Wow...when did THAT happen?

By the way, at this point in the campaign, Dean has the money and the grassroots support (thus Gore's endorsement). 600,000 base party loyalists supporting a used-car salesman. Do you think your assessment is any more fair than the previous post?

The party is changing, sir, and it's changing from the top down. You know it, I know it, we all know it. It's a good thing, though. We need to get the bad, weak blood out, and bring in the tough leadership. That's what this election is about, by the way- leadership. We haven't had it in its true sense in a long time. Dean and Gore are just stepping up where no one else, in particular the D*L*C, has had the guts to.

People want leadership. That's what the media is responding to, and that's what people are responding to. And any of these Republicans who think that Dean is going to be a pushover have another thing coming. We, the ones who are now taking the reins, are making SURE of that.

Dean is going to take Bush out back and beat him like a Nazi at a bar mitzvah. You can't stop that, even if you want to.

You don't really want to stop that, though, do you?

[Lexingtonian]

10. 50,000 Frenchmen can't be wrong....

That's the old label for that argument.

"Militant mediocrity" is the phrase that comes to mind when I see the Dean campaign.

[Guaranteed]

11. You see?

What you call "militancy," others call "leadership." It's as if the Dean-bashers have a disdain for party cohesion. How the hell do you expect to beat Bush without it, though?

[Lexingtonian]

12. We just

don't work to get it on the cheapest terms and ignore what the Democratic Party has been fighting, suffering, and slowly transforming itself for. If the Party had simply wanted to be The Anti-Republicans, that would have been relatively easy.

But the two major American Parties are- have never really been- opposites on a single Right-Left axis as the major European parties are. According to the academic analysis, they also work along an orthogonal liberal/progressive-reactionary/regressive axis. (The first reflects the economic and social class divisions of the dominant society. The second, the accommodation of minorities/subsocieties.) In short, we're always choosing between fighting for social progress and fighting for economic progress. And often we don't get to choose which one is going to be the arena of battle.

Cohesion happens when the necessity becomes apparent.

Leadership is when the parade goes forward rather than into the past. Tell me anything Dean advocates that would not have fit into the 1980 platform.

[Lexingtonian]

9. Hmmm....

My initial thoughts posted here on Dean in iirc July were about a marked resemblence of him to the sort of people selling used cars in dealerships along Route 1 north of Boston.

[mhr]

2. Bring The Republicans On! It's Time We Chop Some Conservative Liver!

eom

[NJCher]

4. Amen

It's about time somebody wrote an article like this; now we only need about 300 similar ones appearing in every newspaper and magazine in the U.S. for it to maybe crack the skulls at Democratic headquarters.

What an astonishing failure of leadership--all over America. The conservatives don't even have a party, having had theirs highjacked by the PNAC cabal. The Democrats still think the way to success is corporate campaign contributions, which they don't seem to realize they are only in a backup position for, consequently getting a mere fraction of what the republicans get.

Meanwhile, where is the representation for the American people, which is supposedly what our government is all about? The corruption and incredible failure of leadership truly boggles the mind.


Cher

[Lexingtonian]

5. a curiously naive take

I'm not sure whether SF has changed immensely since I was there last, but as I recall the strongest motif of living in SF _is_ money.

Yes, it is the inofficial capital of Asian America. Yes, it is heavily influenced by Silicon Valley corporationdom. Yes, a lot of it is about refugees- gay, intellectual, artistic, and otherwise- of modern day Philistia, Middle America. But nobody ever went to California, or stayed in California, in order to be poorer off than before. No gold digger, no computer programmer, no former SDS member.

And if there is one office that is almost exclusively concerned with the distribution and relative flow of money (and the services given in return) it has to be the mayorality of large cities.

So HTF can the mayorality of SF be reasonably expected not to be made subservient to the major thing that defines the ambitions and possibilities of people in the Bay Area, the thing that has almost all the real power locally, corporate money?

I'm glad Gonzalez did as he did. It was a necessary exercise in trying to save or uplift what soul the place has. But the soulless exact their due from the truly living, that's the order of Nature.