Moving Rightward On the "Moral Values" Debate Is Not A Roadmap For Victory

We are not going to appeal, as a party, to the evangelical Christians, by and large. Sure, there will be a minority of them that will vote for a progressive Democrat, but a very small minority.

Wavering on core values, even trying to "seek common ground" with these people will only lose us progressives and many moderates as well.

The groups we should go after ferociously are Independents and independent and moderate Republicans.

They will be more and more alienated as Bush pursues his Talibornagain agenda over the next four years.

If we stick to our core principles of social freedoms and become the party of fiscal discipline, we can win enough moderate, economic Republicans to tip CO, NV, VA, OH, AZ, NM, MO and perhaps even LA and AK.

Going after the religious fundamentalist folks in the South is a huge mistake. They are not our constituency and never will be.

We need to get voter verified paper ballots and we need to keep working at getting out our base of liberals by maintaining the position - that there's plenty to go around for everyone to move forward and upward.

In other words - f the rightwads.

to be is. Fundies think they have it over everyone when it comes to "morality" but the facts dont bear that out. I think we need to straighten them out, about their misconceptions. Take a look at this article: "Walking the walk on family values"

Walking the walk on family values
By William V. D'Antonio | October 31, 2004

PRESIDENT Bush and Vice President Cheney make reference to "Massachusetts liberals" as if they were referring to people with some kind of disease. I decided it was time to do some research on these people, and here is what I found.
The state with the lowest divorce rate in the nation is Massachusetts. At latest count it had a divorce rate of 2.4 per 1,000 population, while the rate for Texas was 4.1.

But don't take the US government's word for it. Take a look at the findings from the George Barna Research Group. George Barna, a born-again Christian whose company is in Ventura, Calif., found that Massachusetts does indeed have the lowest divorce rate among all 50 states. More disturbing was the finding that born-again Christians have among the highest divorce rates.

The Associated Press, using data supplied by the US Census Bureau, found that the highest divorce rates are to be found in the Bible Belt. The AP report stated that "the divorce rates in these conservative states are roughly 50 percent above the national average of 4.2 per thousand people." The 10 Southern states with some of the highest divorce rates were Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. By comparison nine states in the Northeast were among those with the lowest divorce rates: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/10/31/walking_the_walk_on_family_values/

What we need to do is reframe the language.

They have done this mis-using the words "elites" and "liberals" and smearing a whole section of the nation.

They can't get away with it anymore. They have to be called on it.

They should be called "Moral Elites" and we should refer to them as that until it's a mantra that every progressive on every television uses. They should be called "Regional Snobs", because they evidently think the South is better than anywhere else and are not shy about saying so.

We need to start peeling away the moderate Republicans who have only been voting for Bush because they think he's not in the fundies pocket.

to appease anyone. We're still the party of the big umbrella, but the umbrella doesn't extend that far to the right. If you come a little further to the left you'll stay out of the rain. That's the message I have for the "moral value folks". Otherwise you'll be standing out in a downpour because Mr. Bush isn't going to do a damn thing to help you out.

Either they are ignorant of the facts or they are just plain lying, i don't know. But that Boston Globe article woke me up to alot of things I didn't know. Walking the walk on family values http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/10/31/walking_the_walk_on_family_values/

if the DNC wants to wallow in self defeat. Glad they can spare the time. They will have a lot more.

Mail them cat's cradle string.

First, human nature. You can move people to humane states of mind with leadership and timely necessity. Between the great wars people turned adamantly pacifist but isolationist. New deal they turned "liberal" and sharing. They swung to hatred and paranoia during the Cold War(with the proper GOP leadership).

Leadership that helps the people does not consider caving to or exploiting their brutal degradation even if the times seem to move people toward that. WWII and people did not cave. Nor did the leaders. In the aftermath the sour evil stole the fears of the Atomic era. Some even say a large part of the Cold War was as phony as the threat of Saddam Hussein. In any event the GOP(and some Dems) lead the people down past the decent norm and some lead up ahead of the decent norm.

Leadership, oxymoronic DLC, leadership.

If the Democrats keep supporting mindlessly policies like NAFTA and "free trade" and not "fair trade", then they won't win over too many people. I didn't vote for Bill Clinton in 1996 (I voted for Ross Perot), because frankly I had become alienated with the Democrats economic policies- dismantling New Deal programs and signing NAFTA. You've gotta give these people a real reason to vote Democrat, and at best, they won't really care about these social issues you personally feel strongly about. You've got to give them something else or they will just vote Republican.

is economic policies. There's plenty of room to establish a coherent voice in total opposition to Bush's dismal borrow and spend nightmare. We actually can stake out a coherent position to the right of him on foreign policy (opposing reckless adventurism, rebuilding the military, etc).