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Aug. 24th, 2008
As of the last movie-watching weekend of the summer, since next weekend is all Dragon*Con, all the time:
So what've you seen this summer?
So what've you seen this summer?
An article on ThePolitico.com posits the notion, based on recent improvements, that the Democratic Party has actually been strengthened by its "wilderness years" of not having control of a single branch of US govermment between 2002 and 2006. The article is here; the money quote follows:
Lee Edwards, a historian and distinguished fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation...gives the left good marks for building a donor base and promoting its policies. He concedes that the Democratic Party “stole the margin” when it comes to using the Internet.
Still, he believes Democrats suffer from significant disadvantages: Their donor base is too small and they have yet to establish a philosophical base for their positions. “They can’t come up with five crisp statements based on the founding of this country to explain their philosophy,” he argued.
I know what I believe in with regard to public policy and current issues. I know what the party, historically at least, has promoted in its platforms and policies. But I can't come up with "five crisp statements" of these things and link them to "the founding of this country" in a way that makes sense to me. (One can argue about the detriments of trying to reduce a nuanced, thoughtful political philosophy to a handful of bumper-sticker slogans; but concise summations are usually necessary to sell the product, as any ad man can tell you.) The country was founded on a desire for freedom from tyranny, as we all know from elementary-school history; but some of the problems we face today could never have been imagined by the Founding Fathers (and Mothers) of 1776.
Any fellow Democrats/liberals out there care to take a whack at it?
Lee Edwards, a historian and distinguished fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation...gives the left good marks for building a donor base and promoting its policies. He concedes that the Democratic Party “stole the margin” when it comes to using the Internet.
Still, he believes Democrats suffer from significant disadvantages: Their donor base is too small and they have yet to establish a philosophical base for their positions. “They can’t come up with five crisp statements based on the founding of this country to explain their philosophy,” he argued.
I know what I believe in with regard to public policy and current issues. I know what the party, historically at least, has promoted in its platforms and policies. But I can't come up with "five crisp statements" of these things and link them to "the founding of this country" in a way that makes sense to me. (One can argue about the detriments of trying to reduce a nuanced, thoughtful political philosophy to a handful of bumper-sticker slogans; but concise summations are usually necessary to sell the product, as any ad man can tell you.) The country was founded on a desire for freedom from tyranny, as we all know from elementary-school history; but some of the problems we face today could never have been imagined by the Founding Fathers (and Mothers) of 1776.
Any fellow Democrats/liberals out there care to take a whack at it?
