Reply #7: You need policies that win the left and the center. Ford should go back and relearn FDR/LBJ [View All]

[Selatius]

Those two leaders knew how to push through economic programs that likely few others were willing to do for fear of shaking the boat.

For example, fair trade. I'm sure by now even ordinary folks in the middle are starting to see the decline in real wages in the vacuum left by manufacturing jobs that went buh-bye years ago because of unregulated free trade.

Playing to the center and taking the left for granted isn't the way. You must forge a policy that is popular with most people. It should be vastly easier for a Democrat to do that than for a Republican.

If you believe in universal health care, like most people, it should be easier for the Democrat to get his message out than the Republican. The Republican would like to never talk about the issue. Michael Moore's standards are rather high for our political reality, but John Edwards plan, at least according to Krugman, offers the best hope towards transitioning to single-payer in the future.

Unfortunately, with the health care debate, I doubt the Democratic leadership has the fortitude to eliminate private health insurance as the primary vehicle of care before they cave in and simply throw subsidies to these companies (Uh, this is why the term "corporate welfare" was coined) in return for covering people whom they would otherwise never cover like people with "pre-conditions" and people who are too old and thus unattractive to cover in terms of risk.

But if we listen to what people like RFK, Jr., is saying, the point of government is to serve the people, not to pay corporations to clean up their own messes on the taxpayer's dime. Ideally, the corporation pays to clean up its own messes, rather than externalizing the costs and internalizing the profits.