Sounds Like A Message To Me

Reading this editorial that appeared in USA Today reminded me to watch our backs (preparing for what hopes to be a Democratic congressional victory on November 7th, though I seem to recall us getting excited for John Kerry around this time two years ago, so we’d better be careful).

Of course, such a victory would surely lead to the end of civilization as we know it, according to the author of this opinion.

Polls indicate that if the November elections were held today, Democratic candidates would make major gains across the board. The Democrats are within reach of the 15 seats they need to win a majority in the House of Representatives and might even capture control of the Senate. That would be quite an achievement considering the party itself is in disarray.

Oh, here we go – more of the “Democrats are divided” narrative (but nothing on how the Republicans are truly that way, of course).

Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has been feuding with key members of Congress over how to spend the party's money. Things got so bad this spring that Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the party's point person for picking up House seats, stormed out of a meeting screaming obscenities. Their respective staffs patched together a compromise last month, but only after DNC staffers toyed with demanding a "good behavior" clause requiring Emanuel to stop badmouthing Dean.

And this blowup constitutes a party “in disarray”…as if the Repugs have never had a spat or two among themselves – please.

At the same time, congressional Democrats failed to put together a platform as effective as the Contract with America was in bringing Republicans to power in 1994.

Oh, I don’t know about that; I know this doesn’t really address Iraq, but it’s a good start on the other issues.

And again, I must ask this question. Why is it that, in these editorials, more blame is assigned to the Democrats for not having some kind of a “magic bullet” for Iraq when it was primarily (but not exclusively, I know) the Republicans who orchestrated this tragic war? If the Democrats had been in charge and done this, do you honestly think the minority of Republicans who may have gone along with it would be blamed also?

In 2006, Democrats could win despite themselves. They have the good fortune of running when the war in Iraq and corruption scandals have Republicans on the defensive.

For the Democrats to be more than a one-election wonder, however - or even to take advantage of increased power - they will have to do more than position themselves as the anti-Bush, less-bad party.

I actually agree with that. They must hit the ground running and make every effort to address the issues on the six-point list vigorously and show that they can craft an agenda, subsequently forcing Dubya and the Repugs into a corner and making THEM the obstructionists (with impeachment definitely in the mix a bit later on).

Dean, with an eye to the long term, has been pouring millions of dollars into hiring staff in all 50 states in an effort to make the party more competitive nationally. Emanuel and his Senate counterpart, Charles Schumer of New York, think it's insane to put scarce resources into GOP strongholds such as Alaska; they favor pouring funds into competitive races with an eye on winning now.

Dean is absolutely right; the "battle of ideas" must be fought door-to-door, place-of-worship to place-of-workship, meeting-hall to meeting-hall, Rotary-Club to Rotary-Club, etc. The Repugs figured that out years ago, unfortunately. It's all about grass roots involvement.

Either way, the Democrats will achieve little until they can put together a vision that rallies voters. That presumably would include credible plans for addressing the quagmire in Iraq, restoring fiscal sanity and reining in Washington's corruption.

So far all are missing, and if Democrats' high hopes aren't realized come Nov. 7, the screaming between Dean and other party leaders will only grow louder.

Aside from the fact that the “all are missing” sentence is a lie, it can be both funny and stupid to read this stuff at times; the Democrats haven’t accomplished anything yet, but we’re still getting blamed for what we are expected to do wrong.

I’ll tell you what – please take a look at the text that can be accessed here and here to get some idea of how the Democrats have stood up on homeland security issues only to be totally rebuffed by the Republican congressional majority.

Here and here are more related links also.

And by the way, according to this other Kos link, the money seems to be finding its way to Democrats for the last big push in the campaigns (I know it will lead to more annoying campaign ads, but guess what? That status quo will continue until we get serious in this country about campaign finance reform.).