As a staunch member of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, as Howard Dean would have it, I read post mortem election analysis with both fascination and dismay. I'm fascinated by descriptions of the inner workings of the Kerry campaign, but troubled by the possibility that calls for a reexamination of Democratic Party principles means a return to the centrist neoliberal agenda of the Democratic Leadership Council under Al From.
I don't like the prospect of the Democrats morphing into Republicrats, like Joe Lieberman. Or Simon Rosenberg of the New Democrat Network, who actually said the other day on C-SPAN that he was in favor of partially privatizing Social Security. If the Democrats won't even defend the pillar of the New Deal, I can't imagine them taking a principled stand on any issue of importance. It's lay down and roll over for the next four years, with no agenda to run on in 2008.
No. I'm with Thomas Frank and Doug Ireland. Frank says
"..... the Dems don't have to give in on the so-called 'values' questions if they reach out to those voters in some other way. Doing so at this point would be to make them into a complete replica of the Republicans."
He advocates a return to economic populism, as I've pointed out before. And Ireland, like Howard Dean, thinks that Kerry's hawkish stance on the Iraqi War was a major mistake, perhaps costing him the election before it even began.
Much of the blame game has focused on Kerry strategist Bob Shrum, who has been critized as arrogant, overbearing, overpaid, and, as a strategist, inept. Adam Werbach clearly had Shrum in mind in this fifteenth of nineteen theses he plans to tack on the door of the Democratic National Committee:
XV.
Candidates who intend to win should no longer hire consultants who repeatedly lose. Those who counsel caution when dealing with the indifferent, the disaffected, and the undecided do not understand American history. Consultants who advise their clients against offering a clear and compelling vision in fear that it will be attacked should find themselves without a home in the Democratic Party. The sooner they retire, the better.
Arrianna Huffington blames Clintonistas --Shrum, James Carville, and others-- for the defeat:
"In conversations with Kerry insiders, I've heard a recurring theme: that it was Shrum and the Clintonistas (including Greenberg, Carville and senior advisor Joe Lockhart) who dominated the campaign in the last two months and who were convinced that this election was going to be won on domestic issues, like jobs and healthcare, and not on national security."
Maybe I'm just a Green Party guy at heart, but as long as we're entrenched in the two party system, I say that the Dems should just adopt the progressive agenda of Ralph Nader (make him an honorary member) and Dennis Kucinich, who, come to think of it, already is a Democrat, even though he wasn't shown much respect in the primaries.
Having mentioned Nader and Al From, here's Nader's (scathing) take on the DLC. This paragraph sums up his disgust (and mine) nicely:
"To the DLC mind, Democrats are catering to 'special interests' when they stand up for trade unions, regulatory consumer-investor protections, a pre-emptive peace policy overseas, pruning the bloated military budget now devouring fully half of the federal government's entire discretionary expenditures, defending Social Security from Wall Street schemes, and pressing for universal health care coverage."
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