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6:58 PM | link
The Democratic Party needs to inspire its base supporters in order to win elections. As it was, most people weren't fired up about Kerry because it was obvious that he was trying to pander to the center. So I know a lot of people who stayed home because they weren't really inspired by him and his ideas. Along with this, our candidates need to speak in the language of ideals, not policies. There was a great piece about this on NOW with Bill Moyers.
Who did everyone love during the Democratic Convention? Barack Obama. Everyone's still talking about him and about how they wish HE had run for President. Why? Because he talked about ideals and grand ideas. This is the language that inspires people to vote and get involved at a higher level. Bland pandering does not.
Give us a Democratic chairman who speaks in the language of ideals. It doesn't matter how much money you raise if you can't inspire your base to get out and vote for your candidate.
6:42 PM | link
Ever since 22 percent of the country's voters said on Nov. 2 that they cared most about "moral values," opportunistic ayatollahs on the right have been working overtime to inflate this nonmandate into a landslide by ginning up cultural controversies that might induce censorship by a compliant F.C.C. and, failing that, self-censorship by TV networks. Seizing on a single overhyped poll result, they exaggerate their clout, hoping to grab power over the culture.
The mainstream press, itself in love with the "moral values" story line and traumatized by the visual exaggerations of the red-blue map, is too cowed to challenge the likes of the American Family Association. So are politicians of both parties. It took a British publication, The Economist, to point out that the percentage of American voters citing moral and ethical values as their prime concern is actually down from 2000 (35 percent) and 1996 (40 percent).
7:06 PM | link
