Democratic Underground - mapping a Democratic strategy

i received the following in an email today ... its focus was on mapping a strategy to win back the governorship in Massachusetts ... but i thought its themes were applicable nationally:

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Another problem for the Democrats lies in their inability to provide voters with a clear definition of who they are, the report says. There are two factions of the Democratic Party: those who believe the party should move closer to the center, and those who believe in more "progressive" values. Those two ideas are not necessarily conflicting, if leaders can tackle the challenge of defining and communicating the party's core values.

"My belief as one of the authors of this report is that Democrats must do a better job linking values to the issues so we can define ourselves, and not be defined by our Republican opposition," said co-author Sen. Jarrett Barrios. "Our values right now are not understood by or communicated to voters."

To give voters a clear sense of what it means to be or vote for a Democrat, the party must "brand" itself, declaring what it believes in, whom it represents, and what it is fighting for. "The problem," according to the report, "is not that Democrats lack a coherent moral framework - it is that Democrats tend to communicate in terms of specific policies rather than core values and visionary goals."

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"The failure of some Democrats to define themselves as economic populists who care about the economic conditions of the middle class has hurt us," he said. "We can learn a lot from Democrats who have succeeded going back to Franklin Roosevelt. The voters were very clear that he was on their side, the side of the little guy."

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mapping a Democratic strategy [View All]