Dean to Dems: Stay Right Where You Are?
Hey, this has to be great news for Republicans. Howard Dean wants the Democratic Party not to move to the right.
“There is only one thing the Republican power brokers want more than for us to lurch to the left, and that’s for us to lurch to the right,” Dean said in a speech at George Washington University. “Because what they fear most is that we may really begin fighting for what we believe: fiscal responsibility, socially progressive values for which Democrats have always stood and fought.”
Well, he’s half right. The “Republican power brokers” definitely don’t want the Democrats to move to the right because as long as they stay where they are, Republicans will win every election. That ought to be obvious from the last couple elections. Dean is wrong about what they fear, though. What they fear is that by moving to the right, they’ll have to actually complete in the realm of ideas instead of what they essentially did in the last election, up and down the ballot – point at you and laugh.
On the other hand, I believe that most Americans want Democrats to move toward the right, or at least find some issues on which they will stand firm. You may disagree with Republicans, but what you can’t say about them is that they’re not steadfast in their core principles as a party. There’s a lot of disagreement over a great many things in the Republican party right now but there are a few things on which the party shows great stability and that stability is what’s been resonating with the American voters.
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Category: General, Political Pontifications
Well seeing that on policy issues (Iraq, Social Security, the deficit, economy, etc.) the majority of the American people and voters seem to support Democratic policy positions when placed in blind bio comparisons with GOP positions by neutral pollsters, this is a damm good piece of evidence to indicate that there is no need for a policy position change. Bush and his policies have never been popular in this country when he is not lying about them (see the Dec. 2002 Gallup poll about the Iraq war for instance, or the recent poll about the country wanting a Roe V. Wade supporting court, or Social Security etc.) but he has always had better personal quality approval ratings than his policy ratings. Therefore it is reasonable to argue that branding/messaging and setting up frames while running good candidates is a strong alternative to caving on policy positions.
And yeah, those radical lefty liberal ideas of only going to war for good cause (Afganistan qualifies, Iraq does not), going to war with relatively honest reasons (27 different reasons offered by Bush and his senior administration for Iraq — much like in football where if you have three starting quarterbacks, you really have none), balancing budgets to prepare for long run problems (Medicare), and ensuring non-discrimination for all, along with a very federalistic position on gun control… That almost sounds like Communism to me.