Reply #10: kick and... [View All]

[DaedelusNemo]

I noticed that of the issues above, it's largely the sexual morality issues - abortion, homosexuality - that are the most controversial. While America leans more to accepting rather than discouraging homosexuality, it's awful close - and doesn't yet achieve a clear majority in favor. That's why Rove pushed those buttons as much as he could while trying to limit carefully any overt statements.

When it comes to economic policy, though, the sentiment in the country is solidly liberal - the Democrats win that argument if they can get it going.

My suggestion, then, (given that the Democrats have to effectively compete on security issues), would be that they should ride the economic issues hard and all the way - minimum wage, labor standards, guaranteed access to everything necessary for life, land of opportunity, the works - and on the social issues, stand firmly on the side of individual rights, but acknowedge the difficulty presented by the lack of a national consensus on the issue.

With abortion, that may mean agreeing to a general goal of reducing abortions while holding firm to rights, as Hillary Clinton did in a recent speech. A way to present it to red states could be that abortion is like guns - even if you don't like it, it's worse when it's illegal. And the fact is, historically, Democratic policies reduce abortion while Republican policies have increased them.

On gay marriage, perhaps the answer is simply that there isn't a Democratic consensus on it either - go ahead and have the debate, publicly, about the relative merits of civil unions and gay marriage. Most people are for one or the other, and i'm sure that's even more so for Democrats. Let it become an assumption that one or the other is going to happen, the question is which. Defuse the 'activist judge' element in republican rhetoric by pointing out that they have to decide if the legislature won't - that is fundamentlaly their job - and if a general consensus is eventually reached, the legislature can write any constitutional law they like, and the judges will work on that basis. If people don't want judges legislating, then they should do it themselves - now is it going to be civil unions or gay marriages?