Vince Lombardi Democrats

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

Hold your flames, you Vikings fans. This is an interesting concept that gets us beyond the internal bickering over what's "really" wrong with the Democratic Party and what's "really" going to fix it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/politics/10emanuel.html?oref=login&oref=login

See also:

http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/

Teixeira is always a good read.

[Inland]

1. Right on, Rahm! Time to work at gaining power through WINNING! nt

[IrateCitizen]

2. Hmmm... interesting coming from a Dem like Emmanuel...

IIRC, Rahm Emmanuel rose in the Clinton administration by working on and advancing "free" trade policies. He also ran his initial Congressional bid, once again IIRC, by taking significant contributions from outside groups that were all about the "free" trade agenda.

Sorry, but I have a very real problem with someone like Rahm Emmanuel running the show like this. Entrenching support of "free" trade and the market fundamentalism that accompanies it is a losing proposition for the Democrats.

Finally, Vince Lombardi never said that "winning is everything" -- a quote widely misattributed to him. He actually said, "Winning isn't everything. The will to win is the only thing." When looking at the actual quote, perhaps there could be a different lesson taken -- a lesson that tells us that "playing not to lose" is not the way to go, and that Democrats want to win then they should not be averse to taking some risks and being unapologetic about what they stand for.

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

4. Thank you for being the case-in-point...

I don't like this guy.
I don't like that guy.
I don't like Dean.
I don't like Kerry.
I don't like Nader.
I don't like the DLC.

That guy isn't pro-choice.
That guy isn't pro-environment.
That guy isn't pro-labor.
That guy isn't pro-gun.

This guy is too liberal.
This guy is too conservative.
This guy is too middle-of-the-road.
This guy wears funny ties.

Do you enjoy losing elections? Keep carving our constituency into smaller and smaller pieces and you'll get all you want.

[IrateCitizen]

5. That's quite a stretch you're making there, Jeff!

Personally, I believe that one of the major reasons that the working class has deserted the Democratic Party over the past 25 years is due to its acceptance of market fundamentalism -- a significant departure from the spirit of the party through the New Deal and the Great Liberal Hour (as John Kenneth Galbraith called it).

This acceptance has removed a core constituency in two ways. First, it has vastly reduced the influence of organized labor. Second, it has not given working class voters whose manufacturing jobs are being sent to China a real economic reason to vote for the Democrats -- because both the Republicans and Democrats support the "free" trade policies that result in shipping of jobs to low-wage outposts.

I fail to see how my concern with Rahm Emmanuel surrounding this issue -- IMHO, a central issue to economic and social justice -- is the equivalent of "carving our constituency into smaller and smaller pieces". If anything, it's an attempt to recapture the constituency of the working class, historically (at least prior to 1980) one of the core constituencies of the Democratic Party.

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

6. Knee-Jerk Reaction

Yours and mine.

To say, "I don't trust that guy because of his past support for (fill in blank) is to disqualify every one of current Congressional Democrats and nearly all other potential leaders. I don't have a link to the thread, but somebody offered a satirical post as to why we should all hate Barbara Boxer, right after she stood up in the Senate and challenged the results of the 2004 Election. The not-at-all funny part of the satire was that it would probably be accepted by more than a small number of DU'ers as gospel.

I don't like NAFTA either -- living here in Ohio, I get to hear that "vast sucking sound" louder than possibly any other state aside from Michigan and North Carolina. Rahm was a Clinton staffer at the time NAFTA was ratified, and while he's a culpable as any of the Democrats who voted for it (and the Democratic President who signed it), I'm not willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater on this one.

Until we're in the majority and can control the agenda, we can't be splitting ideological hairs because this individual or that one doesn't meet our particular litmus test. Rahm may turn out to be a dud -- so far his most distinguishing characteristic is a prodigious ability to raise money. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt at least through the 2006 midterms.

[Dinger]

3. Oh Yeah, Vince Was A Dem

I've posted about this on Packer message boards, and repigs try to tell me he'd be a repug now. I said no way.

P.S. The Lambeau Lounge on Packer Wire is the baord I'm referring to. Check it out if you're so inclined.