You know, as long as the elected officials, hopefuls, and many of the party regulars distrust the government rather than distrust members of the other party they are going to be just as artificial in their sincerity as the 'Publicans.

What 'Publicans have done is found a better way to fake sincerity. Democrats don't need to learn this trick, they need to be sincere.

So, the story isn't just about public policy, it is also about how the policy turns into action. Everyone in America wants better health care ('cept those who already have golden benefits), but some people are afraid if the government gets involved any change will be for the worse. Since a good portion of Democrats aren't so sure that that isn't true, they can't come across as sincere when they propose public health care programs and they make such complicated programs that look a lot like they were written to satisfy paying interest groups.

The first thing the Dems need to do is find people who believe in public policy delivered by the public. Otherwise, Dems are just 'Publicans with slightly better motives.

It would help if all the Democrats (elected and otherwise) would stop repeating Republican/Bill Frist talking points about how Democrats don't have a message, an agenda, ideas, etc etc. The Democrats in Congress are a lot tougher than they have been in well over 15 years, but they get little or no credit for it because everyone especially on the amateur and professional Democratic pundit side is jumping on the "Democrats Suck" bandwagon.

Perhaps the problem is that we already have ”a government as good as its people." The sad truth is that the American people have become so debased, so corrupted, and so shortsighted that ANY government we get will look more or less like the one we have -- GOP-dominated or not. Have you been out among the people? I mean really OUT among the people. Not party rallies or college/university get-togethers, or symposia attended by like-minded liberal intellectuals. It is simply ghastly.

Americans claim to love freedom, but yolk themselves to corporate power. They love the Bill of Rights, but can’t see it through to get upset about warrantless wire tapping because it’s really all against the evil ones who mean us harm. They cherish their individualism, but purchase off-the-rack rebellion. They rant and rail against big gubmint, vote Republican, then cash in on subsidies and pork. They hold politicians in low esteem and want something done about the corruption in congress, except when it comes to their rep., who is really just out there getting good stuff for the district or state. They self-identify as environmentalists, yet continue to guzzle gas. They declare themselves humanitarians, yet can’t seem to get out there in the streets and have Rumsfeld’s head for Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. They claim to be some of the most religious people in the world -- and condemn the Europeans for the alleged lack of belief in anything, yet their own pieties rarely extend beyond a fish decal and a support-the-troops car magnet. Maybe the DNC should recruit John Prine to sing (or at least buy the rights to) his song, “Your Flag Decal” (“won’t get you into heaven anymore. It’s already overcrowded from your dirty little war.”) How about that for a campaign slogan? Maybe Dean should find some G rapper to sample it, add some thumping bass, and a verse or two about capping someone's ass. Or maybe, just as Prine did it, some play on CMT.

Anyway, my obvious, bleak, and unproductive point is that the government we have is just about at the same level of “goodness” as the American people. What we need is one that is much BETTER than we are. I’ll hold my nose and vote Democrat, as I have my entire adult life, but with little hope for anything beyond Republican-lite redux and vicious partisanship that will make what we now have look like the proverbial child’s play. The GOP strategists are masters at attacking Dem strengths. They will continue to do it. The Dems will continue, in all likelihood, to quiver like jello and proceed to lose.

New slogans and a snappy marketing campaign will not do it. Only enormous suffering and setbacks for a wide swath of the US public will discredit the Repubs in a big way. That's why FDR's blurred message in the '32 campaign was still a winner. But redistricting, the politics of fear and resentment, lobbyist money, and passing costs of war/tax cuts to as-yet-to-be-born voters is likely to provide sufficient protection for incumbents. These folks are clever, corrupt, ambitious, greedy, cynical, and disingenuous. They know how to get what they want in the short-run and they are not afraid to have their hired thugs bust some heads. It seems like a pretty good match for a very large chunk of the American public.

Professor Gitlin, I hope you are right and that I am way too pessimistic on the Dean quotation and other items in your post. Actually, what I hope is that a switch from robusta light roast to arabica medium will make everything okay come November.
Pantheon

Good luck finding that nation. If you find one, let me know.

Look, what we need is a leader, someone to pcik a direction and lead us toward it. The problems the Democrats have are in picking a direction, they have too many conflicting interest groups under their wing.

Randy: You and your mouse need to go on a little journey through past posts on these subjects in TPM Cafe. There have been some very good, very thoughtful and thorough explications of Democratic policy.

One of the most fascinating characters of the past decade is Karl Rove, a man who's been able to get away with some pretty seriously criminal activity. He's a man who knows the American people very well and who has manipulated us brilliantly. We could learn much about our vulnerabilities from his successes. But I don't think we want to know ourselves that well.

• John Stauber, Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy. Along with Sheldon Rampton, he edits the publication PR Watch based in Madison, Wisconsin. Stauber and Rampton have written a number of books including "Weapons of Mass Deception" and their latest "Banana Republicans."
• Sheldon Rampton, Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy. Along with John Stauber, he edits the publication PR Watch based in Madison, Wisconsin. Stauber and Rampton have written a number of books including "Weapons of Mass Deception" and their latest "Banana Republicans."

AMY GOODMAN:You start in "Banana Republicans" talking about the war at home. Sheldon Rampton, can you talk about the approach that the Republican Party has most recently taken in these few years and who are the intellectual -- who are providing the intellectual, underpinning for this?

 SHELDON RAMPTON: Sure. We begin the book by quoting from a pamphlet that was circulated by the republican leadership to every member -- every Republican member of the U.S. Congress during the 2000 elections. The title was "The Art Of Political War: How Republicans Can Fight To Win," authored by David Horowitz. And the thesis of that pamphlet is that politics is a continuation of war by other means and that in war the way to win is to be an aggressor. That is, in a nutshell, the philosophy that has underpinned the Republican Party and the Right Wing's rise to see power in the United States. 

 AMY GOODMAN:You also talk about Grover Norquest, another prominent leader in the conservative movement's political war. Quoting Horace Cooper, a former aide to House Majority Leader Dick Armey saying "I would call him our field marshall." Take it from there, John Stauber.

JOHN STAUBER:I would say he is probably the most important right-wing political organizer in the country and I think one thing that people on the left, progressives, liberals need to understand is that when Hillary Clinton called the right a vast Right-Wing conspiracy, she really hit the nail on the head. And what we do in this book is detail how Grover Norquest, since 1992, for instance, the last 12 years, every single Wednesday, week in, week out has convened the most powerful elements of the Right-Wing from the Far-Right Christian Coalition to the Big Business lobbyists, to the think tanks, to the Right-Wing media. Every Wednesday they close the doors, they strategize, they plan, they decide what they're doing that week, the next month and they're back every Wednesday and that is why the whole right wing seems constantly on message. Basically I think the most easy way to understand what is going on with our government right now is that it has been taken over by anti-government zealots, such as Grover Norquest who is very plain-spoken and blunt and says things like his goal for the federal government is to half it over the next 25 years so you can get it down to the size where you can drown it in a bathtub. And he views the possibility that someday the United States might actually have a guarantee of health care for all our citizens as an extreme threat and, in fact, says that if that ever happens, all hope is lost. We're moved to a Social Democracy. So I think the important thing to understand about Grover Norquest and the rest of the strategists in charge of the right wing republican party is that these are really heirs to the John Birch Society. They're still fighting the Cold War. When they say, as Ann Coulter does, that Liberals are engaged in treason for thinking Liberal thoughts or acting in Liberal ways, that is not just some macho metaphor. They really believe that and they really are, as David Horowitz would say, out to quoting Lenin, "Destroy all political opposition."

AMY GOODMAN:Mm-hmm. The states. What about the shift of not only the Federal government, but at the State level, the shift of the party? Control.

JOHN STAUBER:The shift is very disconcerting and, you know a lot of what we write about in the book is how the Right-Wing media dominates media now and one of the most interesting things, I think, to both Sheldon's chapter "Block The Vote" how gerrymandering is being used by the republican party. We report on states like Pennsylvania, for instance, where once the Republicans gain control of the governorship and both houses of the legislature in 2002, they were able to force through a radical gerrymandering that literally stole Congressional seats, apparently legally, away from people who don't vote Republican. And this is an aggressive strategy. Gerrymandering has gone on by both parties for 200 years. But what the republicans have figured out is that when you completely control a state's governorship and legislatures, there is nothing stopping you from forcing through a radical gerrymandering that literally steals seats and this disenfranchises not only the people in Pennsylvania who don't vote for these Far-Right Republican policies, but it disenfranchises people across the nation because now states like Pennsylvania, where this extreme gerrymandering has been rammed through, are sending to our National Congress a party that has more republicans and it disenfranchises everyone nation-wise when that congress votes on critical issues.

GOODMAN:. What about the Echo Chamber?

SHELDOM RAMPTON:The Right-Wing has managed to dominate the media in the United States to a three-part strategy. The first part sr. They have very systematically and effectively bill their own unabashedly ideological media, by which we mean, of course, talk radio and things like fox news channel, that make no bones, really, although FOX calls itself fair and balanced. It is clearly closely allied with the Republican Party and the Right-Wing. So, on the one hand, they build their own ideological media. On the other hand, they systematically advanced the careers of right-wing journalists within the mainstream and there are organizations in place that do that, that train them, that nurture them from their days as college campus journalists, get them internships at leading media outlets, ranging from the "New York Times" to "USA Today" and then finally the third element in this strategy is to constantly bash the mainstream media for its alleged liberal bias, which is basically a way of working the refs. On the one hand, they are constantly complaining about bice, while at the same time, they are constantly building their own unabashedly ideological media as a very effective strategy.

AMY GOODMAN:Can you talk about the foundations that subsidize the media?

JOHN STAUBER:Sure. You know, when we look at the rise of the right, it's happened over the last 30 to 40 years and it's been very disciplined and wealthy philanthropists on the right identified with specific foundations like Scathe, Mellon, Bradley, Coors, have been very dedicated funders. Let's give these people a little bit of credit because they've gone about taking over the government, moving the country to the extreme Right and have accomplished it. One of their first steps decades ago was to create this network of propaganda mills that are commonly called the Right-Wing Think Tanks. Today we see heritage, AEI, CEI, CATO, and these are really all due to the funding of these Far-Right Foundations.

www.democracynow.org 

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

The only hope the Democrats have of taking control of one or both houses is to nationalize the election. But having GWB on the ballot in every race perforce demands that the Democratic Party present its national position in this national election, doesn't it?

Item Number 1 on the agenda - Bush Wars

Frankly, the far left is as disconnected and disinterested from average Americans, both poor and middle class as the far right is. As for Amy Goodman, she's out there whistling in the wind, she doesn't want democrats to win any more than Karl Rove does. The democrats don't have a plan is just another theme the far left and far right have been spouting for too long. Anyone paying attenion, knows democrats have had a plan, even those who didn't agree with said plan the last time round, are supporting dems over republicans.

I enjoyed the blog cast by Amy Sullivan and Matt Yglesias last week, they were far more relevent than Goodman and the usual cast of characters on (anti-)democracynow...

I reject the notion that Karl Rove is brilliant. Karl Rove enthusiastically runs towards the lowest demoninator on any particular issue, throwing aside any iot of decency, and paints his opponents with the worst possible brush.

He has made a career out slinging mud and has made a joke out of national elections. He believe the Americans are pgis at the electoral trough and feeds them the most base, disgusting crap available.

That doesn't make him brilliant. It makes him a bad person. Any Republicans who have benefitted from his shenanigans should be ashamed.

That doesn't make him brilliant. It makes him a bad person. Any Republicans who have benefitted from his shenanigans should be ashamed.

The GOP is winning.  Clearly you agree that they are not winning because they are providing Americans with sound policy and governance.  Which means they have to be doing it with political smoke and mirrors - and the head illusionist is Rove.

The Dems have been playing croquet while the GOP is playing pro wrestling.  Its about time that we stop complaining about the chair in the back in the head and learn to counter it.  But lets not kid ourselves that the chair isn't effective. 

Dems should start by asking the easier question of what are we against.  There is probably a consensus that we are against:

(1) "Starve the Beast" Economic Policy; (2) Using the Government as part of a Sectarian Religious Agenda; and (3) Jacksonian "Shoot Frist, Ask Questions Never" Foreign Policy. 

I would put forward the following issues at those which unite the Dem core with swing voters against the GOP core. These are issue the GOP cannot co-opt (despite Romney's efforts) as a national party - they cut too close to core constituencies.   

(1) Universal Health Care/Repeal of Estate Tax Cut/Energy Indepedence (2) Stem Cell Research; and (3) Special Investigation into Misconduct of Rumsfeld.

I would stress that Dems need to figure out what the GOP has done for years - how to pick issues to signify unpopular ideas that you are against and paint the other party as out of the mainstream . 

.

As to the failures of the Democratic Party, it's like I'm talking here to a brick wall.

Once again, we need to understand the nature of the problem, rather than simply continuing to spew out one or another strand of the conventional wisdom.  Again and again we see the same patterns.

First, the issue is most certainly NOT to return to the slogans about 'working hard and playing by the rules' from the 90s, as if that won over any signficant number of voters.  Fact is, first, Bush I was extremely unpopular by 92, and Dole was a doomed, sour candidate.  Meanwhile, under Bill the Shill it was no coincidence that the Repugs not only captured both Houses of Congress for the first time in a half-century, but held it for longer than any time since before the New Deal.  Now we have Repugs in control of all three branches of government as the legacy of that kind of politics.

And what kind of politics is that?  Yes, it's the politics not only of the Al Froms but of the Todd Gitlins, of 'getting with the program and justifying the lying', of focusing up and kicking down (and left) and of glossing over all the real intra-party issues in favor of the conventional wisdom of one strand or another.  Gitlin in this is worse, as I pointed out in a discussion of his response to Off Center, than many mainstream Democratic observers of the scene.

In fact, what we have is not merely a tame and subservient Democratic Party that has yet to even seriously respond to the systematic deployment of the epithet 'Democrat Party' for decades (Dole used it in the 1976 debates, and was attacked on other grounds when he did).  The problem is that all the leading elements of the Democratic Party oriented institutions and public figures have been tamed to the getting with the program to such a degree that they are all rolling over together.

Once again, the same illustrations will need to be trotted out again:  the failure not only of the Kerry campaign and the DNC, but also the 'independent' 527s and the media and its supposed 'critics' to point out the flimsiness of the flipflop spin for FIVE months after it was first raised by Bush in the Spring of 04; the similarly obedient failure to challenge the catch-22 venuing (all the disadvantages of the new but none of the advantages) during Votergate 2000 -- eg no class action lawsuit on behalf of all the disenfranchised black voters in Fla 2000 -- and 2004 Ohio (similar class action on behalf of voters discouraged from voting by the systematic denial of adequate voting machines to Democratic districts); the failure of the mainstream media to cover Votergate 2004, obediently kowtowing to a media lockdown (that's what "serving" means in the US today), and the failure of supposed media critics like Gitlin even to discuss that as central; the failure of leading antiwar Democrats to even get together to systematically mount a serious primary challenge to EVERY Congressional prowar or fudgyhawk Democrat up for re-election; single examples like the one described by Scott Mehno about the Democrats in NY State running away from (God forbid!) the possibility of picking up a Long Island House seat, etc etc etc.

These are the realities of US party politics, including the reality that the proverbial elephant in the room, whatever that is, is never even seriously discussed in any way that might make a timely difference.  This kind of politics is a charade -- and is designed for the 'higher wisdom' of making sure that power is in hands that are 'as right as possible' to quote Arthur Conan Doyle from his classic, "The Red-Headed League".

So, to win, the Democrats need to reconstitute themselves, at least by the 2008 elections, as an antiwar party and run on GET REAL AND GET OUT as a central platform.  A focus on the environment, especially independence is a trifecta -- environmentalism gains without significantly costing votes for Democrats (one of the reasons it is skirted as an election issue by candidates AND THE PRESS every election year), AND raising the key economic issue of energy prices, as well as jobs generated by massive public sector financed programs to push alternative energy and conserve, AND promoting US security.  No wonder alternative energy has been AVOIDED as a central issue over the past thirty years.  It points in the wrong direction!  The tax cuts on the superrich and reversing them, the overall characterization of Reps and counterattacking (that point of Gitlin's is right), and the awful misfiring Medicare scam that was called 'reform' would likely, with the other two issues, form the core of a more successful Democratic Party campaign.  BUT THE DEMOCRATS HAVE TO DEFY THE PROGRAM AND FIGHT TO WIN, AND THE PRO-PEACE MAJORITY OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, IN PARTICULAR THE RICH AND FAMOUS NEED TO FOCUS ON WINNING WITHIN THE PARTY RATHER THAN (as usual) ON THOSE GOLDEN PARACHUTES FOR THEMSELVES.

I'm not holding my breath.  My prediction -- in an election where by rights the Repugs should lose both Houses bigtime, they will hold at least one and probably, even if narrowly, both.

There is some good discussion at times about the Democratic Party at Huffington Post.  (This site is better for its breadth of NOLA coverage from many voices, and its policy analyses of things like Social Security and Health Care plans, as well as the level of commentor discourse, at least some.  The OLD format was very good too, and lots of other things still in the new)

Here's two interesting bits at Huffpo:

"The Only Campaign Ad the Democrats Should Need" by Greg Saunders

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-saunders/the-only-campaign-ad-the-_b_19582.html

and

"Shut Up and Just Win" by Scott Mehno

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-mehno/shut-up-and-just-win_b_12452.html

I agree with you. I think that's part of the progressive/Democratic weakness. We're happy to debate the merits of any policy, mostly because we believe in the courage of our conviction. The other side builds up phony walls and knows they won't stand to scrutiny. Therefore, they're forced to attack and obscure the issue.

We would like issues to be debated instead of character assassinated. We believe in leading by example. Therefore, while we're talking about the negative implications of unending war, they're calling us terror-loving communists.

Again, I don't see what's so brilliant about being a jerk.

Terrorism is key. Every Democrat has to emphacize that Bush's policies have made us LESS safe from terrorists.

I agree with you, but you can't run on what Bush has done wrong. I'm taking a leaf from Reagan's "morning in America" book here. At this point in our history, we are filled with anxiety as deep as during the Civil War and the Great Depression. We NEED hope. Democrats have to provide it. The Republicans have sold us fear. We bought it, and with Republicans in charge of the 3 branches of government we now have: an illegitimate war, gas prices going through the roof, a healthcare system falling apart, and a broken social contract between employers and employees. It's time for hope. Energy independence within 10 years is do-able, but more importantly, it's an optimistic vision of the future. That's what it's going to take - a coherent theme of hope for the future. Energy independence not only addresses the environment, but it also addresses the foreign policy problem s we face when we depend on foreign oil.

We are now 15 years away from the Clinton healthcare debacle, and it has only grown worse.
Within the framework of corruption and lobbying by big insurance companies, we can sell people the idea that this is in our best interest. "Tax and spend" is a laugh. We spend more money on our broken healthcare than any other country in the industrialized world. Going single payer would save money - that's the way to sell it.