http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20951~1901863,00.html#Los Angeles Daily News
Party lacks a message -- and guts
The most important issue to emerge from both the Demoratic presidential caucuses in Iowa and this weekend's California State Democratic Convention in San Jose was not who won but what was missing.
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Somewhere in the need to best the Republicans at any cost, the Democrats have lost their way, forgotten what they stood for other than winning the next election. Even candidates seem a bit fuzzy on what it is, exactly, that the party stands for anymore.
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Democrats bitterly blame the Green Party for costing them some elections, most notably the 2000 presidential election in which Green Party candidate Ralph Nader took votes away from Al Gore, helping George W. Bush to win the election.
But they really can't blame anyone but themselves for their failure to inspire. The Greens offered people something they weren't getting elsewhere, an unapologetic statement of what they stand for: more environmental controls on businesses and the populace, higher taxes on the wealthy to help the poor.
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