Kristoff advice for Democrats :Time to Get Religion

[JI7]

<If Democrats want to know how to win again, they have a model. It's the British Labor Party.

When I studied in England in the early 1980's, the British Labor Party seemed as quaint and eccentric as Oxford itself, where we wore gowns for exams and some dons addressed the rare female student as "sir." Labor was caught in its own echo chamber of militant unions and anti-American activists, and it so repulsed voters that it seemed it might wither away entirely.

Then Tony Blair and another M.P., Gordon Brown, dragged the party away from socialism, unions, nuclear disarmament and anti-Americanism. Together they created "New Labor," which aimed for the center and aggressively courted Middle Britain instead of trying to scare it. The result is that since 1997, Mr. Blair and Labor have utterly dominated Britain.

So Democrats need to give a more prominent voice to Middle American, wheat-hugging, gun-shooting, Spanish-speaking, beer-guzzling, Bible-toting centrists. (They can tote The Times, too, in a plain brown wrapper.) For a nominee who could lead the Democrats to victory, think of John Edwards, Bill Richardson or Evan Bayh, or anyone who knows the difference between straw and hay.

I wish that winning were just a matter of presentation. But it's not. It involves compromising on principles. Bill Clinton won his credibility in the heartland partly by going home to Little Rock during the 1992 campaign to preside over the execution of a mentally disabled convict named Ricky Ray Rector.

There was a moral ambiguity about Mr. Clinton's clambering to power over Mr. Rector's corpse. But unless Democrats compromise, they'll be proud and true and losers.>

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/06/opinion/06kristof.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fNicholas%20D%20Kristof

[matcom]

1. "Bible-toting centrists"

can kiss my Liberal Ass.

if my party wants to court them via backing away from gay rights, Roe v. Wade, etc...

I'll find a better party thank you

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. Some Votes Are Beyond Our Reach

And I don't ever want a vote from a bigot but we can talk to do these folks in a language they understand and reach some kind of consensus on why it's importsnt to protect everybody's rights...

[ulysses]

3. no thanks.

It's not as if the DLC hasn't been tried already.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. what's your suggestion?

[ulysses]

7. instead of more compromise,

we need to be reframing the issue debates in our favor (by way of example, gay marriage should be a civil liberties issue, not a religion issue) and we need to be reclaiming the very language in which those issues are discussed. And we need to be doing it yesterday.

[blondeatlast]

19. Excatly. We need to look behind us, to our roots.

Not left or right.

[bread_and_roses]

5. Like this is new advice?

Like this isn't what we keep hearing? Like this isn't why Kerry never mentioned the poor, labor rights, or the slaughter of civilians in Iraq? Talk about a one party State. We can't out-God, out-Gun, out-Bigot the Republicans without becoming Republicans. What would be the point? To win for someone with a "D" behind their name who will actively promote the Theocratic Oligarchy? Why bother? And btw, Mr.Kristoff, if the Dems actually spoke to the poor, to labor, to African American and Hispanic voters more than more than once every four years (or at all, in the case of several of those groups in this election) we might get enough of them to the polls to win.

[JI7]

6. Kerry did mention those things

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. If More People Thought Like You Papa Bush Would Have Won

and Hardwick v Georgia would still be the law of the land..

I'll take incremental progress over the cold and hard hand of reaction anyday..

[ulysses]

10. Papa Bush would have won anyway

without Perot.

[davhill]

13. Where was Ross When we really needed him

The "sucking sound" has become a hurricane of job loss. The deficit is threatening to bankrupt us and we are on the way to becoming a banana republic.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. where's the proof?

i'll be waiting for a link to a scholarly analysis of the 92 and 96 races not somebody's opinion on an internet board

[ulysses]

15. ok.

I'll be awaiting the independent analysis proving your opinion in #8.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

23. That's Easy

Hardwick v Georgia was overturned by a 6-3 vote...


Clinton appointed two judges Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer who were part of the Lawrence v Texas majority who voted to overturn the the Georgia v Hardwick decsion that relegated gay folks to a second class minority...


Without Breyer and Ginsburg Hardwick v Georgia likely stands on a five - four decision as the three evil judges who voted to uphold Harwick were Thomas, Scalia, and Rehnquist...



And don't forget Bush* said Scalia and Thomas were his benchmarks for appointing justices...

We are truly entering the dark ages....

[ulysses]

24. and yet, here we are again.

Gay folks are again relegated to second-class status, just not via sodomy laws. Lord knows, it hasn't been the party centrists or the compromise wing coming out this year in favor of defending gay rights.

Besides which, I was looking for an independent analysis, not the opinion of some poster on an internet board, which I believe was your own benchmark.

[xequals]

9. The Democratic Party has a much bigger challenge ahead

than a simple left or right shift. The party has tried that in the past, and both methods have failed. Dems, please think big this time. Very big.

Look at all ideological and strategic possiblilities. Stop following the Republican model, and create your own. Be bold. The American people like bold.

[blondeatlast]

18. We need to get back to our labor roots. don't look left or right,

look BEHIND.

[xequals]

25. I disagree. Look forward.

Labor is important but we simply can't jump into our time machine and think that will be the magic solution. It won't. Too many things have changed in American since the New Deal era.

[Bread and Circus]

11. How myopic. Dems lack of play in rural areas is not just "religion"

[ikojo]

12. The left DOES have religion...

Check out Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Jewish Voices for Peace

The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

No, the Dems do not need to go after the narrow minded religious bigots found in rural areas and in St Charles County Missouri. The right hardly has a lock on morality.

The Dems DO need to cultivate relationships with liberal religious groups who embody the words of their traditions.

I don't know of any liberal Christian groups so they were not listed...

[blondeatlast]

16. I'm a proud Christian and I say:

NO BLOODY THANKS.

Keep your stinking politics out of my worship.

[robbedvoter]

17. Norquist compared democrats to castrated animals on NOW

Says as soon as they get used to their permanent minority status they'll start behaving themselves and not go around peeing on the furniture and acting up.


Seems some of them leap with joy at the prospectus.

[blondeatlast]

20. He didn't.

Tell me he didn't say that.

Just how many groups did he insult with that quip?

[robbedvoter]

21. Feel the love. Feel the values. Then watch this:

http://www.boingboing.net/2004/11/06/electionday_footage_.html

[blondeatlast]

26. Wow. No words.

I'm posting this in a separate thread, hope you don't mind.

I'm in tears.

[dbt]

22. I'm about to get the WICCAN religion.

It's time for groups to start casting spells to enable the truth to come out, to be known by everyone far and wide.

If Democracy don't work,
If prayin' don't work,
If Justice don't work,
It's time for Magicks.

:hippie:
dbt