I didn't write this either, really!
Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 12:47 pm
Where do the Democrats go from here?
November 14, 2004
Editor's note: After Sen. John Kerry's loss last week in the presidential election, The Capital Times received a number of thoughtful letters and opinion columns assessing the defeat. Many of the writers suggested ways for the Democrats to rethink, retool and retrench in order to strengthen their hand in the next election. We offer here excerpts from four writers.
I am a 'liberal': rehabilitating a word
By Mayor Dave Cieslewicz Madison
One of the reasons liberals continue to lose ground in electoral politics is that too often we run from who we are. Too many liberals, when accused of being just that, respond by calling themselves "progressives" or by launching into long discussions about the danger of labeling. Meanwhile, conservatives shout about being conservatives from the rooftops.
It wasn't always that way. The shoes used to be on the other feet. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson went up to New York and helped Bobby Kennedy get elected to the U.S. Senate by reassuring voters that Kennedy was a strong "liberal."
It took people like Bill Buckley to start rehabilitating the word "conservative." He helped define it as something positive. Liberals are in just about the same place as Buckley and the conservatives were in the 1960s. No matter how hard we try to run from it, the other guys will define the word liberal and then tar us with it. So it's time to stand and fight.
A better strategy is just to be who we are because Americans have already embraced the policies if not the label. Much of the bedrock of American domestic policy, things that we take for granted today, would not have happened if liberals hadn't fought for them. Most people like Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and Head Start, all liberal ideas. Most people like a strong public school system and a clean environment, things that liberals have always fought for. Most people like the free enterprise system but don't want it unfettered to allow things like child labor and air and water pollution. That's a liberal idea.
Here in Madison we have had liberal government for a good 30 years. Investments in the public realm coupled with sensible regulation that protects workers and the environment have helped create the best business environment and the lowest unemployment in the nation. Far from being an island, Madison is a laboratory of liberal policies that work.
So the next time somebody calls you a liberal, thank them for the compliment. We shouldn't spend the next four years trying to be more like the conservatives. If we insist on fighting the next elections on our ground - on whose policies are best for health care and jobs and education and ending the war - we will start to win again.
Democrats have failed to sell their message
By Prof. Keith Findley
UW Law School co-director Wisconsin Innocence Project?
The answer for Democrats is not to mimic the Republicans message, but to embrace their own agenda while learning how to sell their message in Middle America. Democrats must help voters see reality more clearly, and stop letting Republicans co-opt the terms of the debate or lay special claim to American values or morality.
One example is the Republicans' claim to be the guardians against big government. The size of the federal government has grown dramatically under each recent Republican president, culminating with George W. Bush's massive federal budget and gaping deficits.
The reality is, Republicans love big government, just not the same kind of big government Democrats favor. For Republicans, good government is government that dictates personal morality and keeps an intrusive eye on private affairs. For Republicans, good government is big brother when it comes to personal liberties, but hands-off when it comes to wealth accumulation. As Bush's record confirms, all of this is expensive - it is indeed big government.
For Democrats, good government is protector and equalizer. Good government protects the rights of disfavored or vulnerable groups, like gays and lesbians, workers, and racial minorities. Good government helps ensure access to life's necessities, like jobs and health care. And good government most assuredly respects individual liberty and privacy. The Democratic vision of government is also expensive, but no more so than the Republican vision of government.
While Republicans have effectively captured the mantra of small government, Democrats have failed to tell a competing story, drawing on countering themes that depict the Democratic vision as "good government" and the Republican model as "big brother" government.
Democratic Party needs more people involved
By Bob Menamin
former Assembly candidate, Verona
Donkeys by nature are obstinate. They stubbornly adhere to certain opinions and courses of action that are counterproductive.
In Dane County and elsewhere in Wisconsin, the Democratic organizations are run by isolated officials who are more interested in their social status within the party than building effective grass-roots organizations that self-renew and are sustainable.
Add to this mix special interest groups pursuing their agenda with bribes for the party. The result is the failure to encourage debate and discourse within these units.
I don't want to blame just the party officials, who work very hard at what they do, but the rest of us delegate by default, because we are "too busy" to hold accountable the party for its beliefs and actions. We create vacuums by asking a few people to be responsible for much, while the rest of us pursue the American dream of constantly being entertained along with pursuing material possessions.
We have been found wanting. A preoccupation with winning has become the overriding standard for both major parties. In Wisconsin, this was personified by Sen. Chuck Chvala's pursuit of power and control at the expense of ethics and alleged criminal offenses in the caucus scandal.
Throughout Wisconsin, Democrats feel strongly that Chvala was victimized by the criminal justice system because most members of the Legislature were engaged in similar activities. Does this stand the test of Democratic principles or is this the face of corruption? Is this the freedom and democracy we are exporting to Iraq?
Dems' 1st lesson: Who we are, where we stand
By Daniel F. Kanninen
senior aide to state Sen. Bob Jauch
The results of this election seemed to codify for me a notion that goes far beyond the success the Republicans have had in framing the argument. It's that Republicans are defining the issues themselves. The very debate we are having is set entirely on their terms.
It's time we picked up our ball, moved to a new court, and started a new game.
Does this mean we scrap the values and positions that make us Democrats? Absolutely not. It means we figure out (and in a hurry) what those values are. We need to redefine, in our own terms, what it means to be a Democrat, and what it means to be a progressive. We need to state simply and directly what values we hold dear, and how those values relate to the average American who should be voting blue, but instead votes red.
So allow me to put it to you directly:
Why are you a Democrat?
It's time we all considered this question and produced some answers that the American people will relate to. We need to take those values and engage in a discussion that puts our priorities front and center. Like the GOP already does, we need to initiate a debate that we win simply by starting. And we need to begin today.
Please, take this simple question seriously, and share your response with other Democrats. There are at least 50 million of us right now, banging our head against a wall, trying to figure all of this out. And I'm willing to bet that there are a great deal more who will join us if we are actually able to articulate what it is that they'd be joining.
November 14, 2004
Editor's note: After Sen. John Kerry's loss last week in the presidential election, The Capital Times received a number of thoughtful letters and opinion columns assessing the defeat. Many of the writers suggested ways for the Democrats to rethink, retool and retrench in order to strengthen their hand in the next election. We offer here excerpts from four writers.
I am a 'liberal': rehabilitating a word
By Mayor Dave Cieslewicz Madison
One of the reasons liberals continue to lose ground in electoral politics is that too often we run from who we are. Too many liberals, when accused of being just that, respond by calling themselves "progressives" or by launching into long discussions about the danger of labeling. Meanwhile, conservatives shout about being conservatives from the rooftops.
It wasn't always that way. The shoes used to be on the other feet. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson went up to New York and helped Bobby Kennedy get elected to the U.S. Senate by reassuring voters that Kennedy was a strong "liberal."
It took people like Bill Buckley to start rehabilitating the word "conservative." He helped define it as something positive. Liberals are in just about the same place as Buckley and the conservatives were in the 1960s. No matter how hard we try to run from it, the other guys will define the word liberal and then tar us with it. So it's time to stand and fight.
A better strategy is just to be who we are because Americans have already embraced the policies if not the label. Much of the bedrock of American domestic policy, things that we take for granted today, would not have happened if liberals hadn't fought for them. Most people like Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and Head Start, all liberal ideas. Most people like a strong public school system and a clean environment, things that liberals have always fought for. Most people like the free enterprise system but don't want it unfettered to allow things like child labor and air and water pollution. That's a liberal idea.
Here in Madison we have had liberal government for a good 30 years. Investments in the public realm coupled with sensible regulation that protects workers and the environment have helped create the best business environment and the lowest unemployment in the nation. Far from being an island, Madison is a laboratory of liberal policies that work.
So the next time somebody calls you a liberal, thank them for the compliment. We shouldn't spend the next four years trying to be more like the conservatives. If we insist on fighting the next elections on our ground - on whose policies are best for health care and jobs and education and ending the war - we will start to win again.
Democrats have failed to sell their message
By Prof. Keith Findley
UW Law School co-director Wisconsin Innocence Project?
The answer for Democrats is not to mimic the Republicans message, but to embrace their own agenda while learning how to sell their message in Middle America. Democrats must help voters see reality more clearly, and stop letting Republicans co-opt the terms of the debate or lay special claim to American values or morality.
One example is the Republicans' claim to be the guardians against big government. The size of the federal government has grown dramatically under each recent Republican president, culminating with George W. Bush's massive federal budget and gaping deficits.
The reality is, Republicans love big government, just not the same kind of big government Democrats favor. For Republicans, good government is government that dictates personal morality and keeps an intrusive eye on private affairs. For Republicans, good government is big brother when it comes to personal liberties, but hands-off when it comes to wealth accumulation. As Bush's record confirms, all of this is expensive - it is indeed big government.
For Democrats, good government is protector and equalizer. Good government protects the rights of disfavored or vulnerable groups, like gays and lesbians, workers, and racial minorities. Good government helps ensure access to life's necessities, like jobs and health care. And good government most assuredly respects individual liberty and privacy. The Democratic vision of government is also expensive, but no more so than the Republican vision of government.
While Republicans have effectively captured the mantra of small government, Democrats have failed to tell a competing story, drawing on countering themes that depict the Democratic vision as "good government" and the Republican model as "big brother" government.
Democratic Party needs more people involved
By Bob Menamin
former Assembly candidate, Verona
Donkeys by nature are obstinate. They stubbornly adhere to certain opinions and courses of action that are counterproductive.
In Dane County and elsewhere in Wisconsin, the Democratic organizations are run by isolated officials who are more interested in their social status within the party than building effective grass-roots organizations that self-renew and are sustainable.
Add to this mix special interest groups pursuing their agenda with bribes for the party. The result is the failure to encourage debate and discourse within these units.
I don't want to blame just the party officials, who work very hard at what they do, but the rest of us delegate by default, because we are "too busy" to hold accountable the party for its beliefs and actions. We create vacuums by asking a few people to be responsible for much, while the rest of us pursue the American dream of constantly being entertained along with pursuing material possessions.
We have been found wanting. A preoccupation with winning has become the overriding standard for both major parties. In Wisconsin, this was personified by Sen. Chuck Chvala's pursuit of power and control at the expense of ethics and alleged criminal offenses in the caucus scandal.
Throughout Wisconsin, Democrats feel strongly that Chvala was victimized by the criminal justice system because most members of the Legislature were engaged in similar activities. Does this stand the test of Democratic principles or is this the face of corruption? Is this the freedom and democracy we are exporting to Iraq?
Dems' 1st lesson: Who we are, where we stand
By Daniel F. Kanninen
senior aide to state Sen. Bob Jauch
The results of this election seemed to codify for me a notion that goes far beyond the success the Republicans have had in framing the argument. It's that Republicans are defining the issues themselves. The very debate we are having is set entirely on their terms.
It's time we picked up our ball, moved to a new court, and started a new game.
Does this mean we scrap the values and positions that make us Democrats? Absolutely not. It means we figure out (and in a hurry) what those values are. We need to redefine, in our own terms, what it means to be a Democrat, and what it means to be a progressive. We need to state simply and directly what values we hold dear, and how those values relate to the average American who should be voting blue, but instead votes red.
So allow me to put it to you directly:
Why are you a Democrat?
It's time we all considered this question and produced some answers that the American people will relate to. We need to take those values and engage in a discussion that puts our priorities front and center. Like the GOP already does, we need to initiate a debate that we win simply by starting. And we need to begin today.
Please, take this simple question seriously, and share your response with other Democrats. There are at least 50 million of us right now, banging our head against a wall, trying to figure all of this out. And I'm willing to bet that there are a great deal more who will join us if we are actually able to articulate what it is that they'd be joining.