Ed Garvey: As Democratic Party loses its soul, it loses its voice

[BJ]

By Ed Garvey
October 14, 2003

"Two Dean Rivals Unite Against Mutual Threat" was the Sunday headline in the New York Times that grabbed my attention.

What could the threat be, I wondered. Anthrax? Republicans? The answer came quickly. Kerry and Gephardt have formed an alliance to stop not Bush, but the "threat" of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.
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Instead of having faith in the ideas and values that have historically proven to be winners for the party of Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy, too many Democrats at the national level willingly abandon those ideas and values - and even their fellow Democrats - in a mad rush to destroy one another and, ultimately, any sense that being a Democrat might mean something.
(-snip-)
Link to full column

(I trust this isn't too old. But if it is, mods, you know what to do.)

[wryter2000]

1. Exactly

Today? Well, today the Democrats are no longer the hotbed of ideas, and have no big plans. Worse, they accept poverty as part of the human condition. Democrats have become reactionaries, a title once reserved for the Republican Party. They react to the program initiatives put forward by the right-wing ideologues from the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and our own Bradley Foundation fellow, Charlie Sykes.

Instead of taking them on in debate, we try to nip at the edges, modify the program, hint that we are better managers but just as mean.

Republican-lite. This is why we've lost in recent years. There's no reason to be a Democrat if all we are is more efficient Republicans.

[mike from ri]

2. a third way

there is a third way between becoming bush-lite and a margininalized angry fringe. that third way is wes clark. tough on bush but appealing to the middle.