Surprise! Democrats are Running Against Something Again

Another day, another someone or something for Democratc to run against.

DES MOINES, Aug. 16 — Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, a likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, delivered a 15-minute, blistering attack to warm applause from Democrats and union organizers here on Wednesday. But Mr. Biden’s main target was not Republicans in Washington, or even his prospective presidential rivals.

It was Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer.

Among Democrats, Mr. Biden is not alone. Across Iowa this week and across much of the country this month, Democratic leaders have found a new rallying cry that many of them say could prove powerful in the midterm elections and into 2008: denouncing Wal-Mart for what they say are substandard wages and health care benefits.

I wonder, if we look around at the various election, if we will find any Democrats at all who are running a campaign for anything instead of against some bogeyman that doesn’t “care” enough for their liking or who is “mean” to people or some such rot.

This is, I think, why the Democrats have managed to lose the last several elections badly. They have lost the ability to run a positive campaign, to lay out an affirmative set of goals and to clearly outline to all of us how they propose to make those goals happen. All they seem to have are made-up spectres and ten-second soundbytes that don’t tell us anything except they hate someone or something for some reason.

Well that’s nice for them, but it doesn’t really give the average voter a reason to vote for them. And running against someone only works once in a great while.

Perhaps instead of demonizing one of the country’s largest employers and a company that had almost singlehandedly saved thousands of jobs in depressed areas of the country, folks like Joe Biden could get busy helping to push this already booming economy to greater heights so that more people can find work at better wages. And they could all run on that instead of the old Democratic standby of demonizing their opponent and having no plan for anything, anywhere, at any time.

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Category: Political Pontifications, President George Bush