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Edited on Wed Feb-01-06 10:45 PM by TayTay
the fights that we have on DU are sort of emblematic of the 'civil war' going on in the Democratic Party. We have all seen that. (Boy oh boy, have we ever seen that in the last week.) Ahm, it will get worse you know. This is a great big, pie-throwing, in-your-face, no-holds barred event and we have a ringside seat. (And Dems are highly entertaining when they fight, I am somewhat chagrined to say.) What DU does is magnify those fights that are going on because there are hundreds and hundreds of people who write posts and because of the immediacy of what forums and blogs do. We get to see the fights very up close and at break neck speed.
We have a lot of Dems who believe that the image of the Party, in effect, is what matters and that above all else we have to repair the image and get back the 'great middle' of America. They believe that the way to do this is to emphasize the issues that have always been winners for Dems, economic and labor issues. People elect Dems when they are worried about bread and butter issues like jobs, housing, affordability of schools and so forth. This position fudges the differences between Dems and Repubs and counts on the voter to 'come home' to the Dem Party based on this appeal to a narrow list of issues.
There is another strain that believes that we are 'empty suits' and don't actually stand for anything but meek platitudes and that the voters see right through this. This is the argument that Dems are nothing more than 'Repub lites' and that we actually have to take strong stands that are in opposition to the Repubs. Mr. Kerry did indeed do this last week, in as strong a way as is currently possible in DC. There will be fallout. (So what. There is always fallout whenever anyone steps out of the pack. You become a target, and a hero, a boat-rocker and a 'panderer' all at the same time. Again, so what. Take the fallout and see what happens. Movement is always preferable to standing still anyways.)
So, do we dance with Cindy or throw her over board? Do we emphasize that Cindy Sheehan, mother of a soldier killed in Bush's unnecessary war was denied a seat at the SOTU because of something written on a T-Shirt or do we ignore her and hope she will go away because she represents the deep conflicts that America feels about this war and that conflict is not totally a winner for the Dems. (It's not. It's a deeply emotional and painful thing and Cindy forces people to confront things and truths that they might not want to. The war is not easy to deal with and there are complications for the Dems no matter what they do.)
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