Interesting how the ballkickers in the GOP, abetted by their enablers in the corporate media, have embarked on a campaign to condemn Howard Dean for his recent, rather intemperate, remarks about what sort of culture the Republican party cultivates, as well as just who the solid majority of its leaders are.
When Dick Cheney tells Pat Leahy to go fuck himself, or Rick Santorum compares filibustering Democrats to Nazis, apparently it's both hunky and dory. The twittering prairie dogs of the media scarcely bothered to get up on their hind legs and pop out of their holes when those things happened.
Even more interesting is how the usual suspects in the Democratic Party fell all over themselves to agree with the Republicans that Dean has been out of line. Apparently Joe Biden's corporate masters at MBNA yanked on his leash, or maybe he and John Edwards each seriously think they have a shot in '08 if they just show all those NASCAR dads and swing voters how "moderate" and "centrist" they are.
Well, bullshit. There's nothing keeping them from retaining their high-handed moderation and centrism and endorsing Dean's remarks. Dean is merely pointing out the obvious, once again calling a spade a spade. I am quite sure this is why he was elected DNC chairman; he has not exactly hidden this side of his personality. Do Biden and Edwards need to be knocked upside the head by a spade to get it through their thick skulls that this is a culture war, and only those prepared to fight will be left standing?
Right or wrong, right now American voters want to align themselves with a party that approaches their issues from a position of strength and confidence. Have Biden and Edwards heard of the Eleventh Commandment? Do they want to kick off the upcoming '06 midterm campaign season from a position of solidity and forcefulness, or not?
This is an opportunity for the Democratic Party to cast off its milquetoast image and get back into a leadership role. Opposition parties oppose by definition.
Someone tell Biden and Edwards that a whore can fuck everyone in sight, yet still never gain respect from anyone. Either stand for something, or fuck off already.
2 comments:
The thing is, you want Dean to attack Bush, DeLay, and other Republican leaders, but not voters. Especially not voters who are potential Democratic voters. To me, that is just poor tactics.
Wouldn't it be better to convert those white, Christian Republicans than it would be to villify them? They have common ground with Democrats and Dean should be working to exploit that rather than alienate them. That is a sure way to win Berkley and lose Iowa, Ohio, etc.
I don't disagree that Dean should be tough on, but this is rather like McDonald's insulting Wendy's customers and then wondering why they can't win any of them over.
No, Dean was pretty clearly attacking the leaders of the Republican Party with that remark.
It would be safe to say he was also attacking cheap tactics like the ones in West Virginia and Arkansas last year, where thousands of people received mailers telling them that a Democratic victory would lead to a banning of the Bible.
I'm still not quite sure which is worse -- the tactic, or that someone's actually dumb enough to believe it.
Sure, it would be better to "convert" the Christian vote, but most of the evangelicals don't seem to be swing voters, and the overtures that would be necessary to genuflect to them just wouldn't be worth it. The base would be justifiably alienated. I sure as hell don't want to be aligned with people who seriously are more worried about being safe from gay married terrorists, while the nation and the world crumbles around their ears.
I agree that cultivating the crunchy-left Berkeley vote is a losing strategy, but that's not what Dean's doing, not at all. He's putting the Republicans on notice, in language that he knows they understand because they use it all the time, that the Democratic Party is not going to take their shit anymore.
He's making sure the American people understand this as well. I believe this is crucial to getting the real swing voters back, and to generate interest among the otherwise apathetic couch potato. And it's been pretty consistently reported that Dean is emphasizing grass roots, and common ground between Democratic values and moderate religious values. You just don't hear about it because it doesn't have the shelf life that this manufactured conflict product does for the hacks in the media.
Most of all, Dean is right. He's right about the jerks that have hijacked the party from truly principled conservatives, and handed it over to snake handlers and grifters. He's right that they're leading us down the road to ruin, that they're lining their pockets and their donors' pockets along the way, that most of them have never worked an honest day in their spoiled little lives.
I realize it's politics, and you have to play ball to win sometimes, but the time is long overdue for people to stop apologizing for telling the goddamned truth. The first priority for the Democrats to start winning again is to show some backbone.
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