How to solve the "values" problem

[jmowreader]

Recast our "family values" in terms of your family. This eliminates gay marriage as an issue.

Democrats think you deserve a decent job. Republicans will give your boss a tax break if he sends your job to China.

Democrats think you deserve to live in a safe neighborhood. Republicans will cut the number of cops on the street to give some guy you've never seen before a tax cut.

Democrats think your kids deserve to have the opportunity to go to a safe, effective public school. Republicans want your kids to go to a school where all they'll learn is what's on the high-stakes test.

Democrats think that if you lose your job, you shouldn't have to starve or lose your home until you get a new one. Republicans think the bowl of stew the local faith-based soup kitchen handed you after your job went to India will pay your mortgage.

Democrats want you to have the opportunity to make your life better than it is now--good jobs, good schools, good neighborhoods. Republicans? Their whole program is tax cuts for rich people and gay marriage. How's that going to help you?

[tedoll78]

1. BINGO.

Make it personal. Connect the dots, and make the very central dot the individual voter.

[Maple]

2. Cuz this has never been done before

right?

[jmowreader]

6. It has, but only as a "response"

We'll use the "liberal media" as an example.

John McNeill got up and said John Kerry shot himself to get one of his Purple Hearts. On the front page: "Kerry Shot Himself: McNeill." The next day, someone finds Kerry's military record and sees that he couldn't have shot himself because the wound is in a place you can't reach. On page 15 of 24: "Kerry's wound apparently not self-inflicted."

If we can come out first and tell people what we're about, and not respond to scathing attacks with "but really, we're not quite that bad" like the Republicans do, we have a pretty good shot of catching them with their pants down.

[zmdem]

3. Don't see any solution here

You are repeating an election mantra that just lost.

[jmowreader]

5. I got yer solution right here!

Look, the Republicans won this one because of the bogeyman called Gay Marriage and how it would destroy Traditional Marriage.

Let's say you're a man married to a woman and gay marriage was legal. One morning you wake up to find that gay-marriage couples had purchased the houses on either side of yours--a male couple to the left and a female couple to the right. Did your traditional marriage just collapse? Your marriage license suddenly become invalid? Of course not. The Republicans would like you to believe that it would; in fact, it's just the opposite--if you're not gay, gay marriage has no influence on your life.

Now let's say you're a man married to a woman and your job went to China. The stress caused by having no money causes you to fight with your wife and she eventually leaves you over it. Did your traditional marriage just collapse? Yes.

We didn't lose because we believe in your family; we lost because we let the Republicans steal the debate. We let the Republicans define us as the party who wants your wife to leave you for a torrid lesbian love affair while you stay at home and French kiss the cute guy who works in Accounting.

Bill Clinton would have made Bush eat his gay marriage shit. "We don't support gay marriage either, but Mr. Bush doesn't support your job. I bought this Bush-Cheney t-shirt to show it to you--I wouldn't wear it because it's ugly and the seams are coming apart. It was made in Macau. Mr. Bush, there are t-shirt factories right here in America; why do you hate the American worker?"

[Blaq Dem]

4. CONservatives never had values...

They're greedy, selfish, violent,fake, egotistic, spoiled, rotten,...anything but a child of God!

[independentpiney]

7. Won't work because Dems are big government liberals

we need to redefine as populists and make the cultural and moral issues State issues.